I didn’t know discussions were about ‘winning’. Nor have I used words like ‘appeaser’. Mizhara and I may be on roughly the same side of the issue of ‘patience vs action’, but we’re hardly thinking in lockstep. As I said, I understand a lot of the reasoning behind counselling patience.
For example: Small-scale, highly visible aggression like the Elder Fleet (and really, by current standards it’s incredibly small-scale) may work against our interests. The only sure way to achieve freedom for all Matari is to convince the Empire to give up on slavery. That’s a diplomatic solution, and it’s one many people aim for. But attacks like the Elder Fleet make the Empire dig in, become reactive, and reactive never means cooperative. So violence will only make achieving the diplomatic solution more and more difficult.
At the same time, wider violence runs the risk of catastrophic failure. The Federation likely wouldn’t assist us in a war of aggression, and if it’s just us, the State likely wouldn’t even need to assist the Empire. We’d probably lose. We’d probably lose, and those who survived would likely be snapped up and enslaved, because without us, the Federation doesn’t have enough power (military or political) to stop it, and the State wouldn’t have any reason to care. It could well mean our utter destruction as a people.
I get that. I understand it, I do. It’s a matter of ‘least bad choice among a buffet of terrible options’.
And if I still thought a diplomatic solution could work, I’d likely still be on that side of things, myself. But I don’t. I don’t think it can work because I don’t think there’s anywhere near enough pressure available to us to convince the Empire to abandon slavery. The pressure we can bring to bear, we already are, and it hasn’t even stopped the Empire from conducting slave raids.
So what we can do, diplomatically? It’s not working. In part, it’s not working because there’s no stick to complement the carrot of ‘lasting peace’. We have no leverage. That’s why I advocate a massive military buildup, with all of the industrial and commercial infrastructure expansion that entails. It’s why I advocate moving to a war footing, and letting the Empire see that we’re moving in that direction.
There is no way the Republic doesn’t have a full TO&E for the Imperial Navy. It’s not like organizational charts are a difficult thing for spies to wrangle, at the very least. So look at their rate of expansion, set a time-frame for parity, and then make the investments needed to make that happen.
While that’s happening… mercenaries. Hire capsuleer mercs to go after Imperial assets. CONCORD won’t stop us. Only the Navies will challenge us for blowing up Navy ships. I don’t mean in Republic space. I don’t mean ‘interdict the slaver raids’. I mean use a cutout or six if you need to, but send them in. And while they’re doing that, send in other, more covert mercs to get slaves out. Do it on a massive scale, the kind of scale the Empire has to respond to…
… and when they do, they have to deal with the capsuleer mercs.
It’s not a recipe for instant success… it’s a plan for long-term destabilization and chaos while we position ourselves to be able to fight the real war on even footing. It’s not even likely to actually get done. But pushing it forces people to examine it, to think of why it won’t work, and argue against it. Which means presenting the problems… so the plan can be improved.
And if enough people start talking about it, then the Empire has to weigh ‘is the potential of this worth enough to consider literally changing nothing but whether or not our Matari labor can quit their jobs?’[1]
After all, they already have to have their needs met, or they can’t keep working. Shifting from ‘I’ll buy you stuff and give it to you’ to ‘here’s money, buy your own stuff’ isn’t really as large an economic shift as people think.
- Yes, I’m well aware that this is a vast and grossly excessive oversimplification. My point is that at the level of Imperial consideration, as opposed to House or individual Holders’ policies, it really is a yes/no decision for them: are these slaves or subjects? (I mean, we’ll just ignore the fact that doctrinally, to be in compliance with the Imperial Rite is to functionally be a slave to the Throne.)