Also Iris is the cutest AI I have ever read about, just thought that needed saying.
Believe me, she
knows.
*twitch, twitch, scream*
Moving on.
- They are using a tributary system like they are the ancient Mesopotamians or the Aztecs, system that were implemented precisely because the hegomon could not project force well enough to control the vassals. Add better force projection and you get an empire let's say Persia
- One could of course posit that the reason they are using such a loose system is because they can afford it,because their advantage is so overwhelming that they do not need the benefits of empire (or the complete destruction of their enemies) The issue with that is that humanity is currently living inside a blank space left in their design.From the reactions of the Tribune Fleet and its commander one can deduce Practice is something they really, really do not want to see around
- They send escalating responses like they are a trying to get the enemy a chance to beat them (more on that in speculation below)
Something to note here, as
@MTB mentioned is that the Tribute Fleets are specifically designed to be eventually beaten. They
want races to win free of the Tributary system and join what might as well be called the galactic community - YMMV if you think it's actually worth calling that. By all appearances, the Tribute Fleets are seen as among the highest form of duty that Shiplords can aspire to, even though the crews know that they might die as a result of the deliberate inefficiencies in the designs. Yet even after a Tributary wins free of that status, they aren't left alone. The Shiplords continue a steady campaign of subversion, as can be seen in Interludes like Strand of Engima and various other comments by the Contact Fleet representatives - and some I've made myself, and do so from behind an oppressive curtain of complete military dominance in the form of the War Fleets.
Another thing that you will not have seen due to it being stated (I believe) only in the thread and not in-story is that the War Fleets were very much not built for what they're currently used for. They've fought contemporaries, though, or close enough in the past and the results have been devastating. Regulars, well, there's not a great deal known about them at present that Amanda has access to, but Insight data is (as said in last turn's News post) beginning to filter down on that. As one of the commanders of the 223, she's pretty high up that chain - I'll do a post on the matter closer to the time of Third Sol.
Practice is very obviously something that induced strong emotional response in the Shiplords, something that was outright
bizarre to the Contact Fleet species, and when it transitioned into something other than rage, it escalated massively beyond that point. Obviously, I can't get into the reasoning of why the response was so strong, or so bipolar, but I can tell you that it caused a near total reevaluation of humanity's stake in the war that will likely begin in earnest with the Third Battle of Sol. It's easy to see why Practice is such a threat, though. Purify in itself wiped a starship from existence, and now that Amanda understands more of what she did, it could do far more. It's allowed humanity to produce a scanner which should be capable of detecting Shiplord nanosubversions, and is also capable of reversing those effects. The former is impressive, the latter...well, the Nileans have spent millennia trying to find a way to do it. Amanda just, well,
did it. She Spoke a Word, and it was done. Kendl's reaction to that is very much in keeping with the wider one that those in the know among the Community would give.
They have better tech than anyone else in the galaxy (as far as we know IC)
The Neras
might have as good or better FTL, given it's something that they can just
do without the need for a drive - and they've apparently been around for a very long time as well. I'm pretty sure that meeting a Neras is actually quite high on the thread's wishlist, simply due to what they hope they could learn from them. If you'll ever get to do so, well, is another matter
