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What if Earth was to be annexed into the Abh Empire?

A

Accelerator

Banned Forever
Banned
Location
Singapore
So basically, this.

We take the place of a place of a hapless planet. One day, the Abh empire finds us.

And takes over.

The Abh empire's demands are simple.

1. No ftl allowed. Only the Abh are allowed to lease ftl ships.
2. No stopping the recruiting for the Star Force (Basically the military)

There are no tributes. No demands. The planet is left to its own devices. The governments can rule however they want.

Just this. No ftl allowed. And everyone who wants to join the army, joins. Also, you can ask them to do stuff like build infrastructure on the planet and in the system.

Any questions you want me to answer, I'll answer gladly. I just want to know how the governments would react to such.... benelovent overlords.
 
Accelerator said:
Just this. No ftl allowed. And everyone who wants to join the army, joins. Also, you can ask them to do stuff like build infrastructure on the planet and in the system.
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Which, of course, depends a lot on the quality of our noble, who'd be a Count.


I just want to know how the governments would react to such.... benelovent overlords.
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Frankly, while there'd be some grumbling and resentment, at our tech level it's like 95%+ plus. Access to space trade partners and travel but limited through others >>> no access/FTL.
 
dhasenan said:
The Humankind Empire of Abh appears to be from The World of Seikai. Is this the case, or were you referring to a different work?
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That's the one he's referring to, yeah.

The Abh are not nearly as ... positive as the author likes to present, and a lot of the conflict presented in the novels is pretty much just strawman stuff. However, there's basically literally nothing we can actually do to the Abh, so we'd mostly just deal with it. The will, after all, basically just leave us to our own devices.
 
Leila Hann said:
So, why did they bother conquering us at all if they don't want anything from us?
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The Abh want to take over the entire galaxy to avoid the continuation of galaxy-spanning wars. To do this, they take over planetary systems, and ban the usage of ftl ships, with the exception of leasing from the crown. Which is, admittedly rather lax and generous. Nonetheless, they do not allow anybody to use ftl ships, except for abh.

The Abh are basically a social class. Most of them are basically genetically engineered blue haired elves. Without the pointed ears. With adaptations for space. Anybody can become an abh by joining the Space Navy, with the condition that upon completion of service, they are now a full-feldged abh, with any children they have inheriting the title.

They are willing to provide space infrastructure. Up to a point. Their empire is large, with populations of trillions.
 
Accelerator said:
So basically, this.

We take the place of a place of a hapless planet. One day, the Abh empire finds us.

And takes over.

The Abh empire's demands are simple.

1. No ftl allowed. Only the Abh are allowed to lease ftl ships.
2. No stopping the recruiting for the Star Force (Basically the military)

There are no tributes. No demands. The planet is left to its own devices. The governments can rule however they want.

Just this. No ftl allowed. And everyone who wants to join the army, joins. Also, you can ask them to do stuff like build infrastructure on the planet and in the system.

Any questions you want me to answer, I'll answer gladly. I just want to know how the governments would react to such.... benelovent overlords.
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Basically we become space Nepal with our best going off to join the space force. Massive slump in defence industries. Abh aren't going to let anyone nuke the planet or have a war that damages their property. They won't interfere as long as your a safe productive little planet
Start advocating genocide or think slavery is a good idea bad things happen.
 
Ford Prefect said:
That's the one he's referring to, yeah.

The Abh are not nearly as ... positive as the author likes to present, and a lot of the conflict presented in the novels is pretty much just strawman stuff. However, there's basically literally nothing we can actually do to the Abh, so we'd mostly just deal with it. The will, after all, basically just leave us to our own devices.
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I'd disagree with that, the series very much presents them as ambiguous and characters willing to admit it. They're imperialist and take control, just in a relatively non-offensive and limited way, so they come off as a better option against the imperialist and much more invasive rival, but honestly not as good as the "We're only in this because it's obvious one of you two is conquering everyone," Hania.

People critiquing the Abh gets a very significant chunk of screentime in the series. The middle part of the first arc involves an Abh villain who abuses his position and shows flaws in the system. We get the opinion of various people from cultures under their control, some of which is pretty much 'resigned deal with it' stuff, and other times is much more active opposition. Etc..


Leila Hann said:
So, why did they bother conquering us at all if they don't want anything from us?
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They do. They want our space. They want a guarantee we'll never be a rival in that sphere. They also would like us to be business for their traders, and having more volunteers/recruits doesn't hurt.

Nepal is not a bad analogy.

Mook said:
They're basically just one in a long line Imperial Japan nostalgia/apologia.
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Gotta disagree hard on that. If you look at the WW2 strategy analogy, who tries to cut off the other's expansion, who's sneak-attacked, who's the bigger industrial power, who dominates via trade vs who conquers... they're the US, the United Mankind is Japan. That is until certain plot developments throw it way off the WW2 rails all together.

Culturally, they're fairly constructed, IMO one of the better fleshed out fictional cultures. Jinto is culturally Japanese, and clashes with the Abh way a lot. The Abh are a very blunt, direct culture, who's basic manners are a good deal different than Japanese, have little issue with eccentricity as long as one does one's job (the hammer that sticks up does not get hammered down, most likely she gets her own fleet and a staff officer who has to deal with it), have their own family structure (any kid is considered to have one parent only- you will have brothers or sisters, but you'll have either a father or mother, not both, and invariably get a lot of personal raising), and are fairly definitely the author's attempt to construct a new culture.


There's a lot of space-Japan and replaying WW2 in Japanese space opera so I can get jumping to that mold, but the Abh aren't one of them. Even where Seikai fits, it fits in different roles.
 
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Re-posts from SB
No ftl and effectively unlimited prep time due to Ahb protection? They could be doing us a favor honestly, uploads and stl VN swarms ftw

Earth should use Cheap orbital lift capacity to build out space industry and advance upload and or other life extension tech, avoid FTL for useful system STL to high relativistic, and VN ships/drones progress to Dyson swarms, use the Abh to speed up our learning, eventually we might make something they want, and if we don't we can always slow boat our way across interstellar void.

Basically what we were going to do anyway until the Abh showed us FTL
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Ford Prefect said:
I think Q99 is wrong on the author's attitudes to his creation, but that's a real stretch too, Mook.
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Like, I do think the author likes the Abh, but they don't really have much hesitation showing the warts and having sympathetic characters call them out either, more than most stories. Banner III especially is kinda a, "Wait, don't these people have a point that Jinto's gotten kinda buddy-buddy with the people who conquered his world...?" and the repeated emphasis on how a Count less sympathetic to Martine could easily make things go so very-very worse for the people of the planet. Jinto being somewhat awkward in defending his pro-Abh stance too, and the Abh cop to a fair amount of the downsides.

Plus, since they are entirely fictitious, their acts are gonna be, well, exactly what the author portrays.
 
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Rabe said:
Re-posts from SB
No ftl and effectively unlimited prep time due to Ahb protection? They could be doing us a favor honestly, uploads and stl VN swarms ftw

Earth should use Cheap orbital lift capacity to build out space industry and advance upload and or other life extension tech, avoid FTL for useful system STL to high relativistic, and VN ships/drones progress to Dyson swarms, use the Abh to speed up our learning, eventually we might make something they want, and if we don't we can always slow boat our way across interstellar void.

Basically what we were going to do anyway until the Abh showed us FTL
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Problem with slowboating, by the time we get there someone with FTL will have been living there for centuries. If Earth wants to colonise, it would be much more efficient to rent FTL ships from the Abh in order to do so.
 
Jaertin said:
Problem with slowboating, by the time we get there someone with FTL will have been living there for centuries. If Earth wants to colonise, it would be much more efficient to rent FTL ships from the Abh in order to do so.
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Yea, like, we can just hire transports.

Also the Abh'd set up shop at any system we slowboat to, I'm pretty sure.
 
Jaertin said:
Problem with slowboating, by the time we get there someone with FTL will have been living there for centuries. If Earth wants to colonise, it would be much more efficient to rent FTL ships from the Abh in order to do so.
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A bit brain fried from work so please bare with me, paragraphs are beyond me at present

1) Sords,(spatial anomaly) the key to their FTL are not common, objects. most star systems don't seem to have them
2) The abh are likely to find someone out there to war with, and that war will be fought around sords.
3)Slowboating keeps plenty of earth life safe in the void,
4) Given the time frames involved civilization might die off between contacts
5)Planets are dirty dull and dangerous, stay in space
 
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Rabe said:
A bit brain fried from work so please bare with me, paragraphs are beyond me at present

1) Sords,(spatial anomaly) the key to their FTL are not common, objects. most star systems don't seem to have them
2) The abh are likely to find someone out there to war with, and that war will be fought around sords.
3)Slowboating keeps plenty of earth life safe in the void,
4) Given the time frames involved civilization might die off between contacts
5)Planets are dirty dull and dangerous, stay in space
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A rundown on Abh political policy on war- the Abh policy is if a nation has achieved FTL, then they are safe from being absorbed out of hand unlike a STL world. They may try and entice someone to join, but that's it, they see value in the precedence of never starting a war between interstellar empires. Though 'entice to join' can include tactics like 'expand and place assets in all surrounding systems to cut them off from expansion,' so you can see the imperialistic assumptions even with their no-first-shot policy. That and they don't really do peace treaties, if someone wants a written guarantee they just point to their 'we've never shot first' policy, so there's a definite unspoken assumption that conflict is likely to happen eventually and they don't want to break their word when it happens. "It's ok, we'll wait for you to kick off your own conquest, we're patient," basically. You can also see why their attitude pisses people off, in and out of universe.

Also, while they have a policy against starting war with others who have FTL, their general policy is additionally 'once it's begun, finish with absorption.' If they can win, they won't stop at a limited conflict, and once they've had one conflict, then the no shoot first policy has obviously gone out the window even if there's no active fighting, they don't aim for peace treaties or such -it might be they could be forced into one, but they don't offer them to others nor expect them from their current foes so it's not the type of thing that's likely to come up in the series. They are open to other sorts of deals and are quite firm in sticking to them, so one can ask for stuff in exchange for letting a takeover and the Abh will follow through- if they accept the offer/find it reasonable. Martine's prime minister made a 'turn off the defense grid in exchange for becoming a noble' deal, and something like 'we'll surrender if you build us a cool ground based spaceport!' may be negotiable in many cases, I'd expect.

The main conflict in the series touched off because the Alliance tried to start a little incident to gain a minor advantage preceding a larger conflict that both sides saw coming in another decade or so. The Abh went, "Alright then, let's kick this interstellar war off now!" and thus the first huge campaigns happened when nether side was quite ready so both side's fleets got pretty darn badly mauled.
 
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