I didn't have Victorian Sympathizers, but fair enough on Empty Spaces.
Wait, crud. I see. Because unlike most plans you directly included the bonuses and penalties that come from the Ron Burns start, so you wrote "Victorian Attention" into your plan, and I saw "Victorian" and just thought "Sympathizers" because I wasn't used to seeing "Victorian Attention" in plans.
The Austrian Nazis were the ruling party at the time of the Anschluss, and had been since 1933. That's not really a comparable situation in the slightest.
Was it the fact that the Austrian Nazis were
powerful that caused them to sell out their country? Or was it the fact that they were more loyal to ideology and (what they saw as) the unity of the greater German people, than they were to Austria specifically?
Or don't look at Austria. Look at numerous other European countries. Fifth columnists may not be quite as huge a threat as some in the era made them out to be, but it's not as simple as "eh, no one would ever sell out their country." It's entirely possible that some of our Victorian sympathizers will decide, when the chips are down, that they'd rather join with Victoria to 'put Chicago in order' (and maybe then create a quasi-Victoria-wearing-American-flag-as-cape "revivalist" polity of their own) than fight the people on the continent whose ideology they admire most and who (they believe) will probably just overrun Chicago anyway and cause needless bloodshed. Things like that happen, people do make that decision.
And yes, I'm sure many of the Victorian sympathizers
won't make that decision. But it only takes a small number of traitors to cause a lot of damage when the enemy's spies are competent. Which we have to assume they are...
There's only so far you can go with that, though. Like, sure, try to use it as a guideline, but it doesn't work at that either because even after taking two giant leaps towards the reasonable in the form of Poptart's timeline edits and your reasoning....
Because- stop right there- a
guideline is all I'm using it as.
What I'm trying to alert you to is that we should not just
casually assume the Victorians don't do infiltration, sabotage, and sneaky tactics. The novel has them do it (unrealistically effectively).
Poptart has them do it (they still, for instance, sneak a nuke into Atlanta. And Shanghai). The novel has them develop (unrealistically effective) tactics for it. Poptart has them train from highly competent secret services (the Okhrana).
We have less than zero reason to go "eh the Victorians don't do things like that."
If anything we should be
specifically worrying about the prospect of Victorian spies, infiltrators, saboteurs, and raiders. That's not the only thing they may try to do to us, but it would be far better for us to prepare in advance for an espionage threat, than to deliberately leave ourselves wide open, then get kicked mightily in the shorts when it turns out that they're actually vaguely competent at espionage and like to use it.
It is very possible for the Victorians to try to infiltrate our society, gather intelligence on our layout and capabilities months in advance, send commando teams to be pre-inserted in Chicago territory, or raid guided by locals who know the area. At that time, having a ready-made splinter group of Victorian sympathizers whose loyalties will inevitably become divided when the living embodiment of the ideology they love
This part is a complete nonsequitor. What the heck does this have to do with you trying to use a ear to the ground as an anti smuggling tool?
It was intended as a response to "sabotage is hard, the Victorian sympathizers aren't a sabotage threat." My response is that they totally are, both in terms of sheltering actual Victorian saboteurs and in terms of them possibly developing plots of their own. And that furthermore, with our industrial capabilities being limited, our defensive depth being thin, and much of our military strength coming from a single elite military unit that could be badly harmed by one well-placed big vial of poison dumped in a field kitchen... We're
unusually vulnerable to sabotage compared to most national militaries.
Import/Export Professionals does increase the infiltration threat, but realistically not by as much as
Victorian Sympathizers. Firstly because it's a smaller malus. Secondly because it has an overtly declared effect that's already in play (higher crime, disrupted commerce) that makes it less likely that this is
specifically a time bomb likely to blow up when the Victorians arrive.
...
Okay, basically, in conclusion, I think you are greatly underestimating the potential for harm that is implicit in having, say, 5% of our population (at a casual estimate) be sympathetic to the ideology of the conquering enemy who is going to attack us in a few years. You are treating it as not being a real intelligence problem at all, when in fact it is explicitly labeled as such. You are treating it as chiefly a political problem, when it's far from obvious how such a small minority can have major direct political impact and when political problems are specifically labeled under 'diplomacy.'
Your plan takes no precaution against the intelligence weaknesses created by
Victorian Sympathizers, which will be amplified by
Compromised. As such, it creates a serious weakness, and then does not seek out the corresponding bonuses that could reduce its effects. For this reason, it is not similar to
Entrepot and people who vote for that plan may not want to vote for yours even though it has desirable bonuses
Entrepot doesn't.
Maybe it got copy-pasted to the wrong response or something?
