A Confed Topic: Building together

[Jason_Ryock]

I'm going to appologize for my own part in this mess in which I misinterpreted Ryock as having said that the "kilrathi midway" was the same as the battlecruisers, which isn't what he said. I think it was in part from the original poster having heard that we see the "kilrathi midway" in arena, which we don't. There's just the star*soldier reference.

Whoops - I'm sorry too, never meant to imply that, just that it was similar to the Confederation Midway. Guess we all could have explained ourselves a bit better.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Gargh.

Here's the behind the screens story: the source for the 'Kilrathi Midway' reference in Star*Soldier was a discussion about the Tu-4, Russia's exact copy of the B-29 Superfortress. The Soviets shocked the US in 1947 by revealing their duplicate bombers in a military parade, which is what the 'jarring' reference was meant to suggest.

Both AD and I were confused because Overload mentioned Arena rather than S*S in his opener; we both (I assume) thought he was referencing the darker-colored Port Broughton map and thinking it was a Kilrathi ship.

What about the possability of the Kilrathi simply joining the Confederation? Or is that too far fetched?

My point was that 'Kilrathi' is a species while 'Confederation' is a political body. The terminology isn't compatible. The former Empire is divided into quite a few different political groups/nation equivalents, so there's not one single entity that might petition to join the Confederation.

What surprises me is that evan after decades of war the Kilrathi still hold basically the same systems.
All the reperations made after WW1 and WW2 I really find it hard to believe that we are so enlightened after billions of deaths we simply said...ok we're going home now. Especially after the history we have.

False Colors does deal with this particular arrangement - with the Confederation worrying about exactly this issue at the start of the peace. That said, I don't think this is an entire accurate line of thinking. Based on the 2681 star map, it looks like the clans retained most Kilrathi-settled star systems... but that they gave up anything conquered during the war.

The Confederation didn't especially *have* Kilrathi real estate to give back - remember that the war was won with a back-door strike rather than a campaign of conquest that marched through the Kilrathi home systems. Rather, Thrakhath's forces were subjigating human settled worlds like Torgo when the armistice was declared... so the terms for peace involved returning human systems and not retaining Kilrathi ones.

(As for 'taking' unconquered planets in the peace settlement, you run into lots of problems that make you wonder whether or not it's worth it. Obviously governing an indigenous that isn't especially happy to see you is always tough... and planets are much, much bigger than anyone properly understands. Take the insurgency in the Philipines or Iraq and multiply it by ten thousand for the larger area... and then factor in giant killer war cats rather than dorks with homemade bombs. Is whatever resource the Confederation is going to gain by taking B'shriss *really* worth that expenditure of forces after thirty years of war?)

We all know about Tolwyn and how he was prosicuted on war crimes. Did we also hold tribunals for Kilrathi who commited atrocities? Yes, Thrakath and gramps were dead but there were still high ranking Kilrathi who gave/followed orders to use bio weapons and such. Or was it a case of give us the tech and well let it slide.

Well, it's problematic for all sorts of reasons. There wouldn't really be any understanding on the part of the Kilrathi that "war crimes" had occured. The Empire signed no treaties, wasn't part of the Geneva convention, had a completely alien morality, etc. One assumes that the new treaty would bar the Kilrathi from doing such things... but a just legal system couldn't try Kilrathi officers ex post facto. You come down to putting a desire for revenge (after destroying Kilrah!) up against the necessity of rule of law.

(As for bioweapons, as far as we can tell they were entirely Thrakhath's doing - he ordered their testing in the last days of the war... and that was that.)

 

[Jason_Ryock]

Here's the behind the screens story: the source for the 'Kilrathi Midway' reference in Star*Soldier was a discussion about the Tu-4, Russia's exact copy of the B-29 Superfortress. The Soviets shocked the US in 1947 by revealing their duplicate bombers in a military parade, which is what the 'jarring' reference was meant to suggest.

That's both interesting and odd at the same time - it's interesting, certainly, but at the same time the TU-4 was a surprise to the Allies where the tech agreement signed during the treaty seems to imply that the plans would have been shared with the Kilrathi (or at least some of the tech).

(As for 'taking' unconquered planets in the peace settlement, you run into lots of problems that make you wonder whether or not it's worth it. Obviously governing an indigenous that isn't especially happy to see you is always tough... and planets are much, much bigger than anyone properly understands. Take the insurgency in the Philipines or Iraq and multiply it by ten thousand for the larger area... and then factor in giant killer war cats rather than dorks with homemade bombs. Is whatever resource the Confederation is going to gain by taking B'shriss *really* worth that expenditure of forces after thirty years of war?)

I laughed out loud at the Dorks with with homemade bombs reference. BEST Iraqi war reference on these forums EVER.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

That's both interesting and odd at the same time - it's interesting, certainly, but at the same time the TU-4 was a surprise to the Allies where the tech agreement signed during the treaty seems to imply that the plans would have been shared with the Kilrathi (or at least some of the tech).

I think the Confed-Assembly of Clans alliance in the Nephilim war is supposed to be similar to the US-Soviet alliance during World War 2 -- necessary for the time but with both nations understanding what will come later.