Been meaning to ask for a while, and always get distracted. Any thoughts on the Prophecy, but more particularly the SO focus on the office of Govenor. Was it a post war-time reaction in the Confed to disperse power? I know there was our old RF firend, the former Govenor Menesch, so Govenor's were around, but it surprised me in the game the govenor played a bigger role. I would have thought for the roll-out of the Cerberus and when Sol was threatened, the President would have benn the logical choice. They did mention the assembly quite a bit as well, but I noticed a lack of the executive branch of the Confed as a whole. Any thoughts, or am I just deluded?
WC Politics
- Thread starter Shane
- Start date
My impression was that the Terran Confederation
owed more to the UN, NATO, and the Articles of
Confederation than the US constitution;
To wit, the confederation appears to be an alliance
of sovereign states, rather than a single compact
nation (that's why the Border Worlds were permitted
to secede; Note that their right to proclaim
independence was never publicly questioned by Admiral
Tolwyn in his interview in WC4, only the presence of
armed non-Confed forces in Confederation space).
Like the three entities I mentioned above the Confederation
appears to have no single executive branch -- the Assembly
is supreme. Beneath the Assembly there appear to be
governors of the various sectors, as well as the local
ruling bodies.
Perhaps the "governors" are Confed's answer to an
executive branch? Perhaps the original architects of
the Confederation feared a single, all-powerful executive,
and therefore devolved it into a regional construct, so
that there could be no one person who could direct the
entire confederation?
If so, I wonder how Admiral Tolwyn would have subverted
that structure, if Blair had not intervened. Perhaps
the post of "Space Marshal" would have eventually morphed
into "Emperor"? I can imagine Tolwyn gathering all power
to himself until he alone was the absolute ruler, the
Tyrant of Confed, or Empire as it might now be called. And
maybe it would last until Blair discovered that Seether
was his father and went to face him on the Death Star,
oops I mean the TCS Vesuvius.
Darn. Now I've gotten my universes mixed up. Oh well,
until next time.
-- Brian P.
owed more to the UN, NATO, and the Articles of
Confederation than the US constitution;
To wit, the confederation appears to be an alliance
of sovereign states, rather than a single compact
nation (that's why the Border Worlds were permitted
to secede; Note that their right to proclaim
independence was never publicly questioned by Admiral
Tolwyn in his interview in WC4, only the presence of
armed non-Confed forces in Confederation space).
Like the three entities I mentioned above the Confederation
appears to have no single executive branch -- the Assembly
is supreme. Beneath the Assembly there appear to be
governors of the various sectors, as well as the local
ruling bodies.
Perhaps the "governors" are Confed's answer to an
executive branch? Perhaps the original architects of
the Confederation feared a single, all-powerful executive,
and therefore devolved it into a regional construct, so
that there could be no one person who could direct the
entire confederation?
If so, I wonder how Admiral Tolwyn would have subverted
that structure, if Blair had not intervened. Perhaps
the post of "Space Marshal" would have eventually morphed
into "Emperor"? I can imagine Tolwyn gathering all power
to himself until he alone was the absolute ruler, the
Tyrant of Confed, or Empire as it might now be called. And
maybe it would last until Blair discovered that Seether
was his father and went to face him on the Death Star,
oops I mean the TCS Vesuvius.
Darn. Now I've gotten my universes mixed up. Oh well,
until next time.
-- Brian P.
Dark Tower
Rear Admiral
Just a guess
It could be each sector in Confed has a govener and that they are in charge of that sector unless there is a war than the military takes over hence Tolwyn may have wanted a war so as to suspend the goveners and then the assembely thus taking over.
Or is that something eles???
It could be each sector in Confed has a govener and that they are in charge of that sector unless there is a war than the military takes over hence Tolwyn may have wanted a war so as to suspend the goveners and then the assembely thus taking over.
Or is that something eles???
Re: Just a guess
Hmmm .. but military people can sometimes act as governors.
In Privateer and Righteous Fire the governor of
the Gemini sector was Admiral William Terrell.
I would surmise that a Tolwyn-directed Confed would consist
of Tolwyn at the top, with the Sector Governors reporting
to him. This would be much like the Imperial Roman
system of Augustus' time, where Caeser ruled the empire,
and beneath him were the Proconsuls who ruled the individual
provinces. Beneath them were the client kings and petty
nobility which ruled the nations within a single province.
The Roman Empire had a Senate (equivalent of Confed
Assembly), which technically was the
ruling body whom Augustus ostensibly owed allegiance to.
The body, however, was a rubber stamp, and remained so for
almost the rest of Roman history.
I can imagine Tolwyn forcing the Assembly into rubber-stamp
status, then replacing the sector governors with his own
cronies, civil and military. Men like
Paulson would have been ideal for such slots, don't you
think?
Just my .02. You might be able to buy a pack of Bazooka
bubble gum with it if you hurry.
-- Brian P.
Hmmm .. but military people can sometimes act as governors.
In Privateer and Righteous Fire the governor of
the Gemini sector was Admiral William Terrell.
I would surmise that a Tolwyn-directed Confed would consist
of Tolwyn at the top, with the Sector Governors reporting
to him. This would be much like the Imperial Roman
system of Augustus' time, where Caeser ruled the empire,
and beneath him were the Proconsuls who ruled the individual
provinces. Beneath them were the client kings and petty
nobility which ruled the nations within a single province.
The Roman Empire had a Senate (equivalent of Confed
Assembly), which technically was the
ruling body whom Augustus ostensibly owed allegiance to.
The body, however, was a rubber stamp, and remained so for
almost the rest of Roman history.
I can imagine Tolwyn forcing the Assembly into rubber-stamp
status, then replacing the sector governors with his own
cronies, civil and military. Men like
Paulson would have been ideal for such slots, don't you
think?
Just my .02. You might be able to buy a pack of Bazooka
bubble gum with it if you hurry.
-- Brian P.
No, I don't think so. While Terrell is Gemini's top military officer, he does not appear to exercise any civil authority in the way of a "governor". We know that by the time of "Privateer" martial law in the Sector has been lifted and that some form of civil government is centrally located, or at least principally represented, at New Constantinople, the Sector's capital. By comparison, we are told that Terrell "runs his corner of the war" from Perry. (For what it's worth, even in Origin's original press release for the game, Terrell is described only as being "in charge of all military vessels in the . . . Sector".)
The make-up of Gemini's government as of 2669 remains an open question, though the existence and nature of the trade in contraband and slaves (among other curious circumstances) suggest that political power is diffuse, in sharp contrast to the apparent degree of control "enjoyed" by former Governor Menesche and his Administration some years earlier.
(BTW, I'd be curious to know your source for Terrell's first name.)
I stand corrected. You are right, he was only the head
of military operations in Gemini and was not the
sector governor.
I could have sworn that he told us his name in Privateer,
at the second to last scene during his interview with
-- Burrows, wasn't it? -- . The scene where he offers
the hero the choice of either helping them lead the
Drone into an ambush, or spend the rest of his life
running from the thing. I could have sworn it was about the
second line of his monologue right after "We don't have
a lot of time, privateer, so let's cut through the niceties".
-- Brian P.
Yes, there's no question that during and following the War various forms of what in essence is (or otherwise can be loosely termed) martial law are imposed or exercised within the Confederation. In Gemini Sector, for example, the Navy certainly enjoys a broad police power to pursue smugglers or combat the Retros.
Still, we are told in "Privateer's" manual that martial law has been lifted (though precisely when is not clear) and that as a result Gemini's economy is now on the "upswing". We can only speculate about what that "martial law" was, but there are at least two possibilities--first, governmental control of the Confederation economy that was ordered by the President in 2668 just prior to the Battle of Terra, and second, the "political vacuum" that (we are also told) existed in Gemini after the fall of the Menesche Administration.
As to the latter, given that political power in the Sector had apparently been highly centralized up to that time, Menesche's undoing could well have engendered the sort of civil crisis ripe for martial law in the classic sense--the temporary rule of a civilian population by the military where there is no statutory or other express legal authority to do so but emergent circumstances require it.