The Capellan Confederation, as it exists right now, probably has less than half the industry or military of the Taurian Concordat. They have zero ability to backstab us. I don't think people are getting that we don't need to worry about Capellan influence ops, the Capellans have to worry about ORDI influence ops. Tormano Liao is not an idiot. I do not buy that there is some uniquely sneaky and underhanded quality to the Capellan people barring the rampant yellow peril of the source material. And I sure hope that no one is going to argue on this site that there is something to do with a bloodlines or cultures that makes them inherently tainted, evil, and in need of expungement as I usually see people talk about Capellans. Pre-4SW Capellan political culture was deeply unhealthy, in the same way the political culture of every successor state is unhealthy in that they were ruled by powerhungry mechwarrior nobles. The 4SW effectively destroyed the prewar Capellan Confederation. We have the chance to shape a CapCon that can potentially turn into the least disfunctional Inner Sphere state. There is no fundamental law of physics that states the Capellan Confederation must always be backstabbingly Chaotic Stupid.
People are treating Capellan involvement as some boogeyman when none of the angles the CC can use to bully the periphery are intact. The CCAF is gone, their industry is broken and will be dependent on ORDI supply chains, the Maskirovka is a husk now that Justin Xiang-Allard has gone through it. I'm not saying caution is warranted, but some of the caution I'm seeing here seems more rooted in the really stupid Fu Manchu-tier scheming that the CC got into canon, something that doesn't reflect the state of affairs in the quest and likely will not occur because a bunch of hack BT writers don't need to bend storytelling logic into hoops to ensure the scheming orientals that the creators of Fu Manchu would regard as unsubtle stay that way.
And your projecting out of context arguments to justify your position so that we can just up and change the setting regardless of logic or reason to make you feel better. I never once said anything about expungement, yellow peril, or anything of the sort, and trying to insinuate i have is extremely insulting. I have not once discussed anything that wasn't already there in the setting, because if you haven't noticed the entirely of Battletech is one giant pot of stereotypes and there isn't any point in trying to pretend it isn't. I do not couch my arguments or positions based on external factors or personal beliefs, I base them on what the setting is, rather than what I wish it was.
And the reality is that the Capellan Confederation, while not
nearly as bad as people like to conflate, has serious cultural issues that have been baked in over the course of centuries that are not going to magically go away overnight because we want them to. They have historically relied on espionage and dirty politics in order to achieve or try and achieve their goals because of their weak position compared to their rivals. Worst still this approach also applies internally as the confederation was formed from a number of proto-states, hence the name, that basically fought to the last one standing. There is a reason the
Capellan Confederation is ruled from Sian not Capella, and its not a nice one. The fact that the traditional rulers of the Confederation seem to not be right in the head on average, but not always, doesn't help things. The Caste system just made this worse, and i suspect it still haunts the Confederation even though its now gone. People don't change overnight, and when they are forced to change in ways that come at their detriment, or even paradoxically to their benefit, they resist. While it might be nice to dream about I do not see the Confederation changing quickly and what changes that do happen are going to be slow, tenuous, and vulnerable to being reversed down the line. Making decisions without taking that into account is stupid, asking to be taken advantage of, and can very easily backfire on us.
And even if they don't get reversed its important to remember that the Confederation still sees itself as a Great House with the self proclaimed goal of becoming first among equals and the first lord of Star League and effective ruler over everyone, the Periphery States included. Tormano
did not rescind that goal when becoming an associate, and i haven't found any requirement that he has to in order to become an associate/member; if it exists feel free to cite it. And even if he did/does, treaties and agreements get broken/bent all the time, so its not a guarantee of good intentions as one might wish. I do not think i need to say this, but this end goal directly opposes the interest of the ORDI and automatically makes the Confederation subject to healthy suspicion.
As such my position on the Confederation is to only Engauge with them in ways the directly benefit us or the ORDI but do not grant them leverage or position them in a place to be a threat/control the ORDI down the line, and act on the belief that the Confederation is by and large doing the same. If there is an actual chance to shift them into our sphere then we should take it, but its important to recognize how unlikely that is. Looking at the Confederation actions through that lens;
[] Long-Term Rare Material Purchase Contracts:
[-200,000,000 C-Bills, +1 AP for 2 turns, +1 Progress to Capellan Industrial Development]
Best option and actually useful if we need it. Expensive
[] High-Precision Machinery Trade Deal:
[+50,000,000 C-Bills, +1 Progress to Capellan Industrial Development]
Bad in the sense that it gives them machinery and improves their factories, Good in the sense that if we can do it 4 times it gives us enough money to do option one. They might still be able to get this from the commerical market if permitted though.
[] Subsidised Horus Purchases:
[+5,000,000 C-Bills, +1 Progress to Capellan Industrial Development]
Better in that it doesn't improve factories, bad in the sense that it hands over examples of mega-construction for very little and provides the same boost as the machinery trade deal but we would have to do this a dozens times to get enough money for mineral purchase. Also might be able to get from the commercial market.
[] Jumpstart Capellan automata proliferation:
[+1 Progress to Capellan Industrial Development]
Absolute Garbage, we get nothing out of it while the Capellans get something.
[] Infiltrate Capellan Society: Sending intelligence operatives to infiltrate Capellan society will allow us to carry out subversive activities.
We are going to need to do this, not to sabotage the confederation but to get eyes on the ground to make sure stuff doesn't go to shit.
