298,000, actually (I applied the Explorer Corps hit earlier), but thanks for pointing this out!
You're welcome.
I think I'd like to keep the location of military bases under our control for the near future,
Why? We only have 2 Military Planets on the list; after this choice, that leaves only 1 Military Planet.
I wouldn't assume it's so ridiculous. It may be unwinnable in the long run, but you can make good arguments for the evolution of party politics being one of the major failure modes of democracy.
We're a multi-species polity. Anything that fosters peaceful, productive trans-species organization, political or otherwise, is something that it's in our best interests to foster, given the natural fracture points that already exist in our society.
A situation where an entire species was mostly voting a volus supremacist candidate as a joke is not good for society.
Mira needs to be thinking in the longer term beyond her rule, and establishing norms of behavior for political organizations, rather than futilely attempting to stamp them out; all that does is drive them underground. Channel the flow, don't stand in front of the tide.
Furthermore, Kirae mentioned having been part of the effort who engineered the bloc asari vote for the batarian former PM.
Ergo, they already exist, only with the arrangements being made in quiet backrooms. Better to bring those things out where transparency acts as a check on certain types of dealmaking.
EDIT
Besides, more generally, parties enfranchise the poor and civilian to have a voice in the selection of political candidates before they even get to the polls.
The rich and powerful do not need parties to distort the political process, and are advantaged by the lack of any existing political centers to impede them.
In the long term I think our goal should be to liberate as much space as we can once the Rachni are clearly losing, in order to lay claim to it after the war.
Not really seeing why? Last thing we want to do is overstretch.
And I will point out that the Salarians hold only two clusters, and are a Tier 1 polity regardless.
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The Republic of Rannoch
Executive Briefing
Firstly, kudos on coming up with something that looks like a plausible ancestor of the Admiralty Board setup we see in canon.
Well done.
I'm getting a very Roman Republic feel from this writeup, with almost a 1:1 correspondence between the quarian Senators here and the Roman senatorial families of OTL. And tons of nepotism in play, because regardless of how meritocratic they
say their system is, I note the lack of any actual political power shared with the plebes, and there is no indication that the quarians are magically immune to corruption and complacency.
Given it's lack of an executive, this governmental design lends itself very much to policy paralysis and infighting, and is inherently unstable given how it disenfranchises its plebes. And the fact that they abandoned the galactic stage to the asari and salarians rather than risk cultural contamination is a pretty good indicator they realize how fragile their system is. Their cultural immune system is weak, so to speak.
This is especially noticeable when you consider that the asari's best buds are salarians, who are basically a neofeudal society whose politics are managed by dalatrasses. And yet their government feels no threat of Asari cultural subversion.
Rannoch is overdue for a Caesar-type to harness the disenfranchised and throw everything into chaos.
I foresee Rannoch being a big headache for us post-war; too big to ignore the way we ignore the lystheni.
The politicians are unlikely to be thrilled at the return of hundreds of thousands of veterans exposed to alien ways of doing things, regardless of what's said in public. Not once they begin to talk.
On the brightside?
We may see quarian immigration post-war, depending on what their migration policies are like.
Assuming we figure out quarian medical requirements.
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Wouldn't the mere fact of Mira T'Vael and Lissa S'Voi successfully leading Virmire for decades upset Asari Republics' internal policies? After all, they're maidens, and in asari culture maidens aren't held as particularly capable - to the point of entire theories and fields of study being disregarded due to youth of the researcher.
That's after about 2800 years of canon.
This is much earlier in the timeline. Do not assume that things are anywhere as ossified as they are in canon, and the ferment of the years of war are putting even more things in flux.
Note how while Mira is a Maiden, her best friend, who followed her to Virmire, is a Matron.
Kirai has actually been very up-front with you about this.
Kirai has been unstintingly professional during her tenure. She has been critical of your handling of the financial crackdown, but never disrespectful. By all indications, she works tirelessly to the benefit of both the government and you personally.
This works for me.
We expect people to have their personal biases; as long as they're up front about them, do not subvert final decisions, and are competent? No problem.
Exposure to a variety of opinions is a good thing; it prevents groupthink, and reduces the likelihood of something blindsiding us out of the blue.
But then, she *would* be that way in any event.
The lady is effectively our chief of staff, which is one of the most powerful positions in a political administration.
Think a cross between Karl Rove, Rahm Emmanuel and John Podesta. Only much better looking.
Of course she'd be this way regardless of her opinions.
It's very, very hard to be sure she's not playing a double game.
She's still only Intrigue 20 vs Shurna's Intrigue 23, and Shurna has an entire Ministry behind her.
Not to mention that she's been cut off from Citadel space for at least sixteen years. And only approached us seven or eight years into our tenure.
If she was an active agent of the Citadel, I think she would have been much more proactive about doing something about Corruption McFucker
I suspect Kirae is just what she seems: A connected asari matriarch with Opinions and Concerns, but no actual employer.
Probably has an Interesting backstory; I would not be surprised to find she retired here after working for Asari Republic Intelligence, or something similar.
As an aside about Krogans.
ME is a RPG-shooter. The races were tailored with that in mind, hence the krogan.
Because honestly, if it was a space game, the salarians would be a better bet for a galactic threat than the krogan, whose only relevant trait was their ability to breed fast.
Maybe they were just better at taking that infrastructure intact from others and somehow steamrollered that way. Endless Krogan boarding parties.
Antimatter does not care how good you are at boarding other people's property; it will destroy it regardless. And antimatter was in wide use by the time of the Rachni wars.
Also, robust biology => skimping on environmental protection, discipline of labour force and the like.
But the krogan portrayed in the series are terrible workers. Undisciplined. Prone to berserking in a bloodrage.
Too stubborn to take instruction or orders, even among old soldiers who should know better.
Maybe they were different pre-war, but nobody says so.
Industrial war is way more reliant on logistics and supply than how gnarly your footsoldiers are. More depends on teamwork and cooperation than personal prowess.How good your nations is at mining, and turning that mined material into ships and guns matters more than how many bullets your infantry can survive.
Bullets are cheap, after all; if the soldier can survive 1 bullet, shoot him with 19 more.
The krogan, no matter how good they've been portrayed as on the ground, have no particular edge in space, which is where war would be decided. Or in producing the materials that fuel a war machine. Nor do they have the political organization necessary for total war.
It makes no sense to anyone who takes a hard look at them.
