#astropolitics

[biblioflyer]

The Cardassian War was worse than you probably think.

I wrote a lot about the Maquis with every intention of posting quite a bit more about it, but then I got cold feet. Its actually been a while since I watched some of the critical Maquis episodes. In some instances, I haven't seen them since they aired. So I decided to go back and rewatch some of them. I started with TNG 7x20 "Journey's End." Where I expected a very strident lecture on the evils of forced relocation, I found something deeply nuanced and something that also reframed how I understood the Federation's conflict with the Cardassians.

If you're in a hurry, the big revelation was that, per Picard, millions of people died in the Cardassian - Federation War.

If you haven't been part of debates about what the scale of the Star Trek setting is or are more attuned to more recent series, millions may not actually seem that many people. Star Wars and 40k fans are probably squinting and wondering what all the fuss is about.

So let me provide some additional context. This is going to be mostly Doylist in nature, i.e. "meta" commentary.

Millions of people equals thousands of Galaxy-class starships. At a time when we'd seen not more than two Galaxy-class starships on screen at the same time and per the Next Generation Technical Manual (which was quasi-canon at the time, essentially given high regard by creatives working on Trek but always subject to being overruled if the needs of the story dictated) there could be as few as five Galaxy-class starships active at the time, but perhaps eleven including the initial batch of six and assuming the six framed out but not completed hulls were built to completion and subtracting poor Yamato.

Just a few seasons before, the loss of 39 ships and 11,000 personnel at Wolf 359 was considered a pretty devastating loss.

If it were strictly Starfleet and Cardassian military personnel, millions would be staggering losses representing the equivalent of thousands of starships or some mix of ships and major stations or ground forces. My gut tells me that given the way TNG seems to be a smaller scale setting than Trek would later be depicted, this wasn't intended to be solely military losses but also inclusive of and maybe even disproportionately falling upon civilians. Given that the Federation doesn't directly target civilians as a general rule, I do have some theories on how this might come about: namely by making space warfare messier than its generally presented: Star Wars and The Expanse have both done great representation of how conflicts that play out in space can still result in collateral damage to civilian stations and planetary settlements.

Notably, later series like DS9 and Discovery will do a "soft" retcon of Starfleet to include as many as 7,000 ships in the 23rd century and perhaps around 30,000 in the 24th century (citation: Ron Moore & extrapolation based on fleet size quotes) but while this isn't a hard retcon in that it doesn't override firmly declared facts and figures, it also doesn't seem like these larger numbers were ones TNG was operating with when it threw a mere 40 ships at the Borg or had Starfleet yet again being unable to avoid pulling ships out of dock mid-refit and stuffing Enterprise crew on them to catch the Romulans smuggling arms to House Duras.

Regardless of how the numbers breakdown, this was anything but analogous to a protracted series of border skirmishes and raids ala the colonial theaters of various European imperial wars, which full disclosure, was my working mental model for understanding this conflict.

So why does this matter for understanding the Maquis?

I think it matters for understanding the Federation's motives in signing what most fans and many in universe characters feel is a "bad" peace with the Cardassians. This wasn't a vanity war that super powers sometimes find themselves in where they'll fight for years in some corner of the globe that is strategically irrelevant to the imperial heartland but has somehow gained incredible psychological significance in the minds of defense planners, politicians, and yellow journalists. This is a conflict that cost the Federation quite a bit of blood for planets that are described as having been settled for at most a few decades and, at the very least, we've never really heard anyone from the Federation complain about a lack of satisfactory M-class planets.

Of course as represented by the North American Indians (TNG's term, not mine) that had settled on Dorvan V, from the perspective of the colonists, they had roots and distinctive cultural identities that they desired to have respected and felt warranted their own planets. From the Federation's perspective, these are people who have barely settled their worlds and one world should be as good as another. If you run the numbers through "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" then this starts looking even more tilted towards the Federation's perspective.

Now the counter argument is the bog standard opposition to authoritarianism and violent revisionists argument. This is the argument that the moral responsibility for avoiding catastrophic loss of life is on the one who is the first to use violence to try to advance their interests, at least at the level of astropolitics. In this framing it is not the responsibility of the Federation to mollify the Cardassians by conceding on irrational fears or immoral demands.

A cynical reading of this argument might find within it the notion that the Federation should just do what it wants, as long as its consistent with the Federation's values, and if the Cardassians have a problem with it up to the point of attacking, then the Federation should fight back and not stop until it reaches Cardassia and overthrows the military junta in charge or at the very least, removes any Cardassian presence from Federation borders and denudes Cardassian capacity to strike across the border.

The idea here being that conceding to the Cardassians rewards them for their willingness to use violence to achieve their goals, which further incentivizes them to use violence, and arguably did incentivize them to use violence as evidenced by accusations of poisoning wells and damaging infrastructure to drive ex-Federation citizens off the worlds that were ceded to the Cardassian Union.

But this argument has always contained within it the implicit assumption that the Federation had the capacity to rollback Cardassian warmaking capability and to keep up pressure on the Cardassians until the Cardassians cry uncle. A war in which millions died and where the Federation is trading away planets is not one that seems to imply the Federation had the capacity to hammer the Cardassians until they relented or there was a deficit of will to fight this war to the hilt, recognizing that pushing the war all the way to the orbit of Cardassia Prime would result in Union space being ungoverned and insecure until the infrastructure and ships were replaced.

Anyone who has watched the outcomes of the Global War on Terror or the various civil wars and revolutions that have happened in recent years should be very cognizant that a lack of order and security often results in problems being exported to adjacent regions. Problems meaning traumatized and impoverished refugees seeking safety and sustenance in places ill equipped to provide for them materially and often with some or a lot of mutual incoherence and mistrust happening at the cultural level as norms clash. Problems also meaning unaccounted for military equipment finding its way into the hands of revolutionaries, terrorists, and pirates who pursue their own goals and survival needs through the use of weapons on anyone who has something worth taking.

The United States did not kill a million or more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other MENA region countries through the use of weapons from 2001 to date. Iraq from 1991 to 2001 didn't have a million excess deaths* because of bombs detonating in people's homes, those deaths resulted from damage to infrastructure and internal supply chains because civilization is actually rather fragile and even people we regard as "less developed" are not meaningfully closer to nature and more resilient than we in the WEIRD category. If anything they exist in a more delicate state because they are often living on more marginal and stressed land with infrastructure that lacks redundancies or substantial state capacity to move people and resources around quickly to address sudden need.

*It should be noted that while these figures are widely quoted, the methodology has been questioned. I would encourage readers who want to get their historical facts correct to examine the evidence and decide whether Iraq sanctions are something one wants to use in a context other than describing the potential consequences of a fictional war.

When considering how to deal with Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, there are moral debates about how hard to press the civilian economy. Namely because so much of the infrastructure and daily necessities of life in modern countries count as "dual use." As in there are legitimate civilian uses that it doesn't seem productive to deny people: transistors are essential for access to information - both state controlled but also outside channels, and operate everything from thermostats to live saving medical equipment. The distinction between a transistor appropriate for running an insulin pump and one for a hypersonic missile is increasingly blurry.

An analogy could easily be drawn to isolinear chips and replicators. We in the fandom often assume that the Federation's ability to be precise in its application of lethal violence is practically omniscient and omnipotent, and that with its august technology, it has been liberated from having to make hard decisions. Yet if the Federation wants to destroy the warmaking capability of the Cardassians, how "deep" into the Cardassian infrastructure does it need to go?

Can you imagine Captain Picard sleeping well at night after calling a senior staff meeting to debate the legitimacy of striking a fusion reactor in a dense urban area that has been unplugged from the civilian grid and hooked up to an industrial replicator pumping out photon torpedo thrusters?

Further, the moral and political science assumptions of the Federation seem to rule out the idea that Cardassian civilians suffering and dying is an appropriate form of justice for Federation lives nor does suffering seem to predictably and reliably lead to revolution. Historical evidence is at best mixed and perhaps even damning. Try wrapping your head around the idea that Russian forces continued to fight their foreign enemies in WW1 at the same time as different Russian formations were fighting each other during the civil war that broke out as a direct consequence of World War 1. In short, while the war had certainly radicalized much of the public, there was still a lot of anger and blame directed to those who had been killing Russians before Russians were killing Russians.

So what is the Federation to do?

Keep fighting a war it probably wasn't technically losing but definitely didn't seem to be winning?

And perhaps the Federation couldn't win without paying a cost in both Federation and Cardassian lives, many of whom might be noncombatants, that was unpalatable?

What was it supposed to do after Wolf 359?

Postscript:

A bit more about the plot of the episode itself. "Journey's End" is probably one of the best TNG moral dilemma episodes. There are critiques to be made obviously. That the Indigenous people depicted seem to be a bit generic to the uneducated eye and do not claim a specific tribal / national identity feels weird at the end of 2024, but it also provokes an interesting discussion about the degree to which there isn't already a lot of syncretism among peoples who have experienced massive depopulation and loss of political agency, whether through intentional genocides, loss of territory, or disease. Its not hard to imagine this "North American Indian" identity found on Dorvan V being a syncretic identity that emerged in the 2100s once interstellar colonization really took off. Its strongly implied to be a "fresh start" movement that was itself controversial and many indigenous North Americas opted not to join them; but its membership could be plausibly drawn from many cultural identities.

However, the moral dilemma at the heart of the episode is handled with exquisite care and steadfastly refuses to make anyone objectively the bad guy. Every Federation character, even hardline consequentialist Admiral Nechayev, is respectful to the people of Dorvan V and mindful of their historical trauma even as it recognizes that the Federation's own interests are largely incompatible with respecting their demands.

Even Gul Evek, the named Cardassian leader of the show, relents after an impassioned plea from Picard. Evek admits to losing two out of three sons in the war and speculates that if the Dorvan V inhabitants leave the Cardassians alone, they will be left alone. Evek was convincing at least to this member of the audience. The framing felt hopeful rather than like everyone was being asked to swallow a Targ dung sandwich.

In checking to make sure I spelled his name correctly, I've become aware that Evek becomes a recurring character and I'm intrigued to see if there are clues to be found as to whether you could argue that he was lying or that events took on a life of their own and Evek was simply proven wrong. Its possible that Dorvan V was largely spared but the Obsidian Order or other elements of the Cardassian government decided to act in places it thought the Federation wouldn't be paying as close attention and the radicalization of the Maquis in turn radicalized Evek.

After all, since that the Cardassian Union was in effect waging a proxy war in the Demilitarized Zone, it would take little to convince some Cardassians that a guerilla movement with ex-Starfleet in almost all command roles and using Federation hardware represented a Federation proxy war with top level support. Which would in turn require the Federation to at least make some efforts at combating the Maquis in order to sell the Cardassians on the idea that the Maquis are not a plausibly deniable arm of Starfleet Intelligence.

But the Maquis are obviously are going to do what they need to do to defend their worlds, whether its their actual colonies or because they object to Starfleet sitting on its hands in the face of reports of atrocities.

In retrospect, for an era that was just testing the waters for multi-season arcs, this is such smart and tragic world building. Unlike say, the plot to destroy Qonos in Discovery or the anti-Changeling bioweapon being the Chekov's gun necessary to resolve the Dominion War, very little about the Maquis arc feels contrived and much more well supported by the world building around it.

[blackoutfeverdream]

I can't help but wonder just how the battlemech's development and its attendant industrial systems and doctrine endured in the first place during the Age of War and then survived the resumption of total warfare during the Amaris Rebellion and Succession Wars.

I can accept maybe it's a great deal like the MBT in a modern military lens but the problem is they seem to be a great deal more vulnerable to impact and especially the possibility of being blasted over by massive explosions. That's to say nothing of how in economic terms there is no comparison.

A Locust, the cheapest and cheeriest of the cheap and cheerful 'mechs, is half the price of a Demolisher superheavy tank able to lay waste to just about anything in its reach- and the battlemech's monstrous collateral costs are nothing like the MBT, after all. I really don't think we'd still have tanks in modern war if they were as expensive as jet fighters, no matter how wowcool they are for soldier boys and procurement offices.

And again- if they were as vulnerable as aircraft and took the same kind of specialized training, logistics, and sustainment investment, it would be unfathomable.

Even setting aside the genocidal character of a thermonuclear PSR, if an Arrow IV- a short-range tactical cruise missile with a conventional high-yield unitary or cluster warhead- can wreck an entire 'mech formation's future, why wouldn't any of the major powers use nukes on them prima facie? And especially what I suspect would be much better and more powerful and functionally cleaner weapons when controlled fusion reactions are universal for energy generation.

It seems semi-inconceivable the battlemech was seen as anything but a non-starter when ubiquitous light accurate nuclear ordnance would make economic insanity of concentrating them for major engagements- to say nothing of their vulnerable logistics train.

I feel it would've been much better in narrative terms had the battlemech and its chivalric individualist culture been pushed as an alternative to the indiscriminate devastation of mass strategic-nuclear war across the cosmos.

And I understand the Ares Conventions sort of achieve this but they involved no systematic disarmament nor any particular concern for adherence to their norms until the Succession Wars themselves made such mass destruction first untenable and then essentially impossible.

If anything, it seems more plausible it should have been the Inner Sphere to develop a zellbrigen culture and the Clans to be more legalistic and inflexible around the protection of scarce infrastructure.

[frownyalfred]

still thinking about the two folks who got into a heated discussion of canon astropolitics between Daxam and Krypton in the comments of borderline. I remember writing that scene and almost using a throwaway planet there, but then decided it should at least be relevant to the JL canonically. hope y’all are doing well.

[rei-ismyname]

Storm's 2nd dinner with DOOM

Doctor DOOM and Ororo have a weird relationship and seem to genuinely enjoy each other's company, kinda. They have had 1 on 1 dinner together thrice, and since DOOM just took over the world it feels topical to look into them.

For context, Mars has very recently been terraformed into Planet Arakko and the entire Arakki island and people rehomed there. As part of the Sol system joining galactic society a planet with unified leadership was required. Earth isn't that, so Ororo ended up Regent of the solar system.

As such, when DOOM requested a meeting it was a matter of astropolitics. Diplomatic forms were observed and dinner was served with a testament to mutant achievement and unity in the background. DOOM started prodding away, as he does, so Ororo reminded him of their first dinner where he behaved very poorly. He pivoted to negging her about her relationship with T'challa and Storm delicately pointed out his own recent marital humiliation.

DOOM is clearly over that, heh. His real reason for being here is because he's consolidating power for his takeover, even this far back. He set up the events of The Last Annihilation to buy goodwill, steal Dormammu's power, and either blame the mutants or bring them onside.

Obviously he loves a good flex, letting her know he knows what only they should know - where Mysterium came from and what it can do. Like any good magician he practices misdirection and snappy patter. There's a certain audacity in DOOM telling anyone to be careful with cosmic forces - there's nobody who's fucked with them for his own benefit more than DOOM.

DOOM offers with one hand while taking with the other. I daresay he would have been happy with an alliance if Ororo was interested, but mutants already have enough of a rogue state image without publicly aligning with Latveria. DOOM delivers vague warnings about a crisis he set up and will very publicly solve though there's another simpler reason for doing this - he likes it. He loves power, loves feeling smart, loves vendettas and playing games with people. There's enough truth in his warnings that they should be heeded, but mutants have more trustworthy magical allies they can rely on. They didn't, but that's beside the point. The game is enough for DOOM.

Storm doesn't feel like playing anymore, and feels no obligation to play along with DOOM's game or DOOM's rules. She doesn't harm him, but she does bruise his ego.

She basically tells him to fuck off. Not so crudely, of course, but the no and the reason for it are emphatic. DOOM has no regrets, totes ;). Interestingly, DOOM and his X-Men did pitch in against ORCHIS, though that plot thread wasn't linked to this. When Krakoa was about to leave this dimension forever, DOOM had Volta steal a seed, which I'd say is related to the patient accumulation of power that led to One World Under DOOM. He also called Krakoa 'the most unserious superpower on this world or any other.' Hilarious and accurate.

I'll cover their first dinner next time, all the way back in the 70s.

[ri47]

does Divine Solis have a pope equivalent, or is the theology more decentralized?

lore subject to change and all that

generally, edicts are handed down directly from spiritual heads and their offices, and schisms are an impermissible sin that results in the absolute annihilation of the soul. on paper, this means that there is only one church, one faith, one holy religion, so on. that's not entirely true, but it's held

The Divine Solis is officially without a leader for its state, given that the role of high imperator was based upon a sacred contract given to the bloodline of the First Saint, which is known to be extant though not in flesh, and so the chair must remain empty

though the state of the Divine Solis (upon which all military and legal power theoretically spins) is technically headless, it follows the step of the Holy See, which is split broadly along two party lines, each containing several dozen sects which propose that their covenants grant them access to the reins of the church, each led by a father who is elected from the party's ranks (and in truth serves much like any other politician)

the role of the fathers is to represent the interests of each sect that pays allegiance to them, and to that degree, there are theological parliaments that shift over time. several of these sects originally had their own fathers and methods of selecting them, but ceased doing so to consolidate their power

because, strictly speaking, the high clergy is dead (a symbolic gesture in which one immortalises their soul to the service of the church while leaving behind their body to serve its mortal interests, in effect just cutting all family ties and obligations) they are not subject to traditional laws, and high clergy cannot truly be "murdered" because this would require their soul to be nonpresent. in effect, assassinations are permissible, though may be met with retribution through the unofficial channels of revenge pacts maintained among members of the higher church

the exact way by which a father from either faction takes lead is not entirely clear. sometimes the other faction willingly grants them permission to guide the Holy See, while other times they simply subjugate the weaker faction through binds of faith or political interest. in truth, there isn't actually a formalised premier outside of hindsight. there can be no antipope because both fathers are seen as having somewhat legitimate claims

because of this, it's somewhat within the church's interests to maintain a state of holy war, because the killing of a father during a time of war would doubtlessly reflect poorly on the faction which did it. accordingly, factions have assassinated their own fathers to this end in the past

further, the lines between factions tend to be drawn more along astropolitical boundaries than ones of doctrine. trade agreements and interests in territories among sects, which often function as somewhat independent blocs and provinces, draw them into the fold of the faction they believe is most aligned to their interests, and monks of the schema are sent in roles similar to dignitaries representing their economic and social interests

as a rule, the Divine Solis' theocratic government is fiercely xenophobic and these agreements are not possible outside of the faith, so barring cases where the faith of Empyrean nobility allows them to mingle more directly in the Divine Solis' political matters, they tend to be perceived as a far more homogenous entity than they actually are

the KHU's government is largely modeled off of the system used by the Holy See, though they see it in more secular terms and deny this connection. the office of the Seneschal Board is remarkably similar to the institution of the High Church

[rocket-enjoyer]

Quick Astropolitics Rundown: The Asteroid Belt Federation

The Asteroid Belt Federation. Certainly one of the more interesting powers in the solar system. Simultaneously a combined effort for both security, prosperity and power, yet divided in many, many aspects.

Alright, let's start off with

History:

I'll try to keep this section brief. The asteroid belt was colonized by martian conglomerates for mining metals, fissiles and volatiles. At the beginning of the Martian Civil War (Mind you, never call it that if you are anywhere near someone from the Belt; they will proceed to kick your ass. Just call it the revolution or anti-conglomerate war.) the asteroids' leadership were quickly overthrown without much trouble. People from different asteroids had entirely different views on what socialism or communism or whatever actually is and how it's achieved, however, which led to different asteroid families (at the time not capitalized) being run entirely differently. Every attempt from the conglomerates to take back asteroids failed. Firstly their constellations were not armed and armored for the task at hand: some invasions were entirely prevented through creative application of mass drivers, while others ended in the discovery that troops trained mostly for intimidating workers and shooting unarmed people had not signed up to be the ones being shot at. In the belt, the formation of the Martian Republic was seen as a loss, not a victory or an end to pointless fighting. After communication between asteroid families was set up, the Federation was set up in 2141.

Politics:

For all of its existence, the politics of the Asteroid Belt Federation has been a total mess. The Families of the asteroid belt are entirely different in internal politics, perspectives and needs, and the interactions between them and federal decisions are fascinating to watch. Here's some notable Families:

Ceres: the crown jewel of the Federation. It has the largest economy and population of any Family and the most political weight when it comes to federal stuff. Their perspective is often very different and more liberal to that of other Families, which makes them relatively hated - people often joke about them vetoing or otherwise single-handedly taking down proposals other Families are unanimous about. Though, at least as an outsider, I consider this actually beneficial to the Federation. Their politicians seem far more competent than the other Families' and they have not yet succumbed to populism or dictatorship even once. Perhaps this is by miracle, but by now I think it's not a coincidence.

Vesta, the jealous little sister of Ceres. Second at everything, from the size of their economy to upholding of democratic values. By now they're practically entirely controlled by a single family. Of people. I know, it's a little confusing. That dynasty has crumbled their economy and led to little development in a while, but through sheer industry and export they are still very significant. There are lots of good, competent people working between the cracks of their broken system, helping people and overall making everything work. If they all somehow organized, they could overthrow the leadership, but it seems they think that's somehow impossible. My best wishes to Vesta. I'm sure they'll climb out of this rut eventually.

Eos has a significant spy and information warfare network across the entire Federation and even the rest of the solar system. They clearly think of themselves as the OO of the Asteroid Belt Federation, but really, they aren't all that impressive. Or, at least, the other Families seem to think so. I suppose it gives them lots of jobs that aren't just mining. They're under a one-party system, but it's kind of funny to watch their incompetence.

Hilda is a particularly pacifistic Family that often just slows down military discussion, which has caused some frustration since the JMR invasion of the Trojans. They're a direct democracy.

There's a bunch more, like the Trojans and Greeks, poor old ignored Koronis, universally loved Schubart, but we're out of time here.

Since the Federation's decisions are made on multiple levels, with the most important parts done by councils filled with people from the politics of different Families, every Family is very important to the entire Asteroid Belt Federation. Big decisions also therefore take very long times to make, except in urgent situations where the High Federal Council, formed of only a few people, can take full control.

Astropolitics:

Currently, the Asteroid Belt Federation is in a particularly strange spot. They, especially the Trojans and Greeks, previously allied with the JMR due to the JMR's fairly stable democracy, need for metals, large economy and commitment to non-capitalist economics. However, with the 2270 sweep election of the Jovian Might Party and subsequent invasion of the Trojans, the Federation has entirely turned against the JMR and their main trading partners are now Earth nations and Mars - something previously considered entirely ridiculous due to their capitalist economies.

Ever since the end of the Martian Civil War, they've had problems with the Martian Republic mining uninhabited asteroids in the asteroid belt. With their recent increase in eagerness to sell Mars metals, they're likely to face less border scuffles with the Martian Republic.

Conclusion

The Families disagree with each other on damn near everything. They are most united by a common enemy, be it Mars or Jupiter. However, in any case, they must stay united; without the Federation, their astropolitical position would be far, far worse. The Federation's treaties forcing the member Families to defend each other no matter how they may disagree with one another has kept them a relevant piece on the solar system's great chess board so far, but it's a volatile position. If they succumb to infighting, they'll likely be seen as a mere source of cheap metals instead of the dysfunctional but overall lovely collection of people with a stranglehold on the solar system's metals.

Also, for all of you typing up your comments about how it's aCtUaLLy the Confederate Union of Asteroid Families: YOU ARE WRONG. Sure, they called themselves that for most of the 2100s, but that was last damn century! If they still called themselves that, you'd think their politicians would use that name, if no one else, right? The name change was part of a late-2100s movement to make the federal government more powerful and unite the Families more, and if you were really as smart as you pretended to be, you would already know that! It's TECHNICALLY still more a confederation than a federation, but that's not what its NAME is. People should get this right more.

[elancholia]

There are a number of ways writers go when making up Space Geopolitics, astropolitics, whatever:

United States of Earth vs. Various Alien Race-Empires (Star Trek in practice, 40k, Halo)

United human expansion or hegemony followed by collapse into various states that have no overt relationship to contemporary politics (Battletech, the Foundation books)

Divergent colonies counterposed to Earth (the Expanse, the early Azimoverse with the Spacers and Earth); these settings are more likely to focus on the contrast of culture and character between the frontier people (strong and dynamic) and the core (overpopulated pussies). The vibes are "the American revolution" rather than "the fall of Rome".

Earth nations and coalitions thereof extend themselves into space, creating an interstellar pie chart with scaled-up versions of Earth stuff (Infinity, the godawful Alien extended universe, which inspired this post when I looked up a background detail of the Alien: Isolation story); this is the rarest and most awkward.

[starwars-confessions-yay]

would the star wars equivalent of geopolitics be astropolitics

Now that’s a good question

[sapphic-design-is-my-passion]

Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission (MRBC) Persons of Interest Dossier

Section 3.1.2: Unregistered Contractors (Periphery States)

Part 41, Federica Knox ("Knox's Knaves")

[1.0] Unit Overview

Knox's Knaves (see attached file for heraldry) are a small-medium mercenary unit operating in the rimward inner sphere and periphery. Intelligence shared by the Federated Suns suggests it can field two BattleMech lances, supported by a DropShip and an unconfirmed formation of Inner Sphere Standard battle armor. Conflicting reports claim that the Knaves possess at least one point of Elemental battle armor, but this is unlikely due to lack of historical Clan presence in the region.

[2.0] History

Knox’s Knaves were founded and are led by Captain Federica Knox, a MechWarrior and former soldier in the I Corps of the Taurian Defense Force. Her family history is unclear, though it is known that previous generations emigrated to the Taurian Concordat from elsewhere in the Periphery. Notably, Knox claims relation to a Clan Mongoose, styling herself as “The Last Khan of Clan Mongoose.” (see section 2.1)

[2.1] Claimancy

Clan historical records refer to a Clan Mongoose that was destroyed and absorbed by Clan Smoke Jaguar circa 2868. The likelihood of Knox holding blood relation to these Clanners is very low, and it is much more probable that her title was invented to impress denizens of the rimward Periphery who are unfamiliar with the clans. There is no record of Knox herself having ever been in contact with members of the Clans.

[3.0] Combat Record

Knox pilots the Orion ON1-MB Jackalope. She has proven to be a capable BattleMech commander and pilot, surviving at least five combat actions including two “hot drops” into enemy fire.

[4.0] Known Employers

Knox's Knaves are known to have been hired by public and private interests in both the Taurian Concordat and the Magistracy of Canopus. The unit is also known to take clients deeper in the Periphery, but no records indicate that it has ever been hired within the Inner Sphere, though evidence exists that the unit has been hired to act against the Federated Suns at least twice (see after action report: New Shriner)

[5.0] Current Status

The current operating theater of Knox's Knaves is currently unknown. It is not unusual for smaller unregistered mercenary units to occasionally operate outside of the MRBC information gathering sphere, however, so this is not cause for alarm.

[6.0] Conclusion

The MRBC Information Division recommends loose observation of the situation to stay aware of any changes in astropolitical events involving Knox's Knaves. Aside from possible ties to the Clans, the unit is fairly standard as a Periphery mercenary company. Federica Knox may be a useful asset in actions against House Davion. Personnel have been dispatched to gauge usefulness to the Commission.

[biblioflyer]

Star Trek and the Maquis: A Contest of Metaphors

This was inspired by an Ask many moons ago. I had the majority of this written within a week but then two hurricanes and a lot of wrangling over how to edit it coherently later, I'm just going to publish it as a series of rather messy and meandering essays.

The Maquis are a bit of an inkblot test for fans. While the narrative certainly goes to great efforts to skew us towards being sympathetic to them and aghast at the Federation's complicity in trying to squelch their uprising, I maintain there is room for valid disagreement on just how "in the wrong" the Federation was.

The inkblot test aspect of it comes down to how different members of the audience think about state level warfare and irregular warfare, aka insurgency, and maybe even terrorism.

For instance the Maquis, or at least Michael Eddington's faction, will wind up crossing the line that most people seem to think is the line between insurgency and terrorism: namely the indiscriminate targeting of civilians and noncombatants. Although a disturbing feature of debates about fictional and non-fictional peoples and movements can include some litigation of who is really a non-combatant and whether the moral protection that status confers can be stripped away by mitigating circumstances like being the beneficiary of state violence or being an accessory to atrocious acts without actually directly carrying them out.

At the same time, we also know that the Federation's attempt at a lasting peace with the Cardassians was doomed from the start: brazenly insincere on the part of the Cardassians, purchased by the Federation with a high price in moral credibility, and ends in the Cardassians welcoming the Dominion into the Alpha Quadrant. This line of thinking often ends in a presumption that since efforts to secure peace ultimately failed, those efforts were wholly a waste, preemptive violence should have been undertaken, and anyone who acted as if the failure of peace wasn't preordained was a blind fool.

Knowing where the story ends doesn't mean we can't still debate the Federation's degree of culpability for not intervening sooner to ensure that things don't reach a point where indiscriminate targeting of noncombatants by ex-Federation civilians is imminent.

A big part of what makes this an inkblot test is because it almost assuredly is a reflection on which analogies loom largest in the mind of the viewer. As it turns out, your preferred reference point for understanding war may strongly influence who you are sympathetic to and how you interpret the risks and ethics involved in any course of action chosen by the Federation and Maquis.

Understanding the Maquis

What I am going to do is, look at three main ideas that I think are most critical for seeing different sides of arguments around the Maquis, the Federation, the Cardassians and how each is understood by fans in terms of sympathy or malice, and in some instances, how they might be understood differently depending on how said fans process stories of state and irregular violence.

The social context of how different fans (and Trek writers) think of state level warfare and irregular warfare.

What was actually happening in the Trek universe around this time and to what degree the Maquis narrative encourages treating its storyline as existing outside of any other broader context.

The competing interests of the state to protect the many vs the rights of the few to defend their homes and way of life.

These are going to get elaborated on in subsequent posts, but very quickly here's a summary of the main points:

Social Context

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this has become a dominant metaphor for understanding the Federation - Cardassian relationship. Suffice to say, those for whom this metaphor has the most power understand this as an unambiguous contest of moral systems wherein the Federation is guilty of abdicating responsibility for victims of an expansionist autocracy with numerous atrocities on its record and no extenuating circumstances that reduce the magnitude of the Federation's guilt.

Prior to 2022, it is my observation that several other metaphors might have applied: the Kurdish resistance to ISIL (another metaphor that strongly favors the Maquis and condemns the Federation), the Afghan Mujahideen (a cautionary tale in which the nurturing of a sympathetic resistance movement facing oppression has unintended consequences, i.e. 9/11), and finally Cold War dovishness. Cold War dovishness I would describe as not so pacifistic as to be unwilling to engage in any amount of armed conflict but a deep wariness of it. This is an idea that conflicts between a great power and a lesser may be much more challenging than expected, pose escalation risks that could become existential, and even if carefully managed the conflict may have second and tertiary consequences that neutralize, even harm the agenda of the greater power: i.e. "blowback."

I bring this guy up a lot, but I do think there was an episode or two where Tomalak might have been the Romulan Vasily Arkhipov. The Soviet officer who arguably saved the world by defying standing orders to use nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile Crisis when certain conditions were met. I bring up Arkhipov a lot, along with Stanislav Petrov (a second Russian who may have saved the world) because I think he's incredibly important to understanding how Pre-Dominion War Trek understood state level conflict and why a power like the Federation that constantly signals about how important it thinks universal sentient rights are might sign away some inhabited planets to move down a few steps on the escalation ladder.

Astropolitical Context

The careful viewer recognizes that the Cardassians are far from the only problem the Federation has and thus, while we are not explicitly reminded of these issues, they are important context for the Federation choosing a bad peace over waging what many fans perceive to be a virtuous and largely consequence free war. After signing the peace treaty with the Cardassians, these problems are also likely explanations for why the Federation seems to dither and pursue largely diplomatic solutions to the Maquis crisis with the Cardassians rather than throwing its weight around or even directly siding with the Maquis.

The Borg are a known unknown: they are an existential threat if they choose to be, the Federation lost more ships in one battle than had ever been previously mentioned as being in one place at one time in Trek history. We can massage this to fit with later canon by assuming the Borg were, to borrow an Ian Banks term, an "Outside Context Problem." It had been a while since some inscrutable, unstoppable weird alien thing had bypassed every patrol and defensive position to menace Sol directly (although there was that time where it happened twice in the span of a decade) and the Federation had grown so dramatically that it really couldn't afford to have more than forty ships within 48 hours notice to cover Sol, including ships just fitting out, under refit, or in ready reserve.

The Klingons fought a civil war that ultimately exposed ties between the Romulans and the now disgraced, but previously deeply influential Duras Family. Schisms like that don't necessarily heal cleanly or swiftly. The allies of the Duras were shamed and likely had to pay lip service to unity, but they almost certainly had ideological and pragmatic reasons for aligning with the Duras, a disdain for the Khitomer Accords being among them.

The Romulans are another known unknown. They certainly want the Federation to think that they're willing to risk an existential conflict over particular disputes but play their actual motives close to the vest. The fact that these conflicts don't actually spiral into war at least seems to strongly suggest that the Romulans are paranoid, not suicidal, and that their imperialism is tempered by pragmatism. We're never privy to any info dumps on Starfleet's intelligence assessments about their relative power compared to the Federation, but logically even a weak Romulan Star Empire is capable of a lot of mischief up to and including inflicting massive civilian casualties if it desires.

I'm open to correction on this if someone with a more recent engagement with the Maquis arc thinks I'm wrong, but it's my contention that very little of what I just wrote found its way into the foreground as part of the Federation's rationale for accepting a peace with the Cardassians. By foreground I mean cited as reasons for the peace or for siding against the Maquis by Federation characters.

I don't think making peace with an authoritarian regime is the sole reason why the Federation gets held up as an example of why the Federation is a more cynical and "US-coded" actor than it likes to pretend, but even I was surprised at just how exculpatory the broader context is. I expected to wage a rhetorical fight to defend peace on its own merits and wound up being shocked at how during the same period the Federation is trying to maintain the peace with the Cardassians, how many near misses the Federation has with open war with powers that had the potential to decisively win against the Federation, and in the case of the Borg, not just subjugate but utterly annihilate the Federation.

Which many, whose needs?

The argument you very rarely see these days, especially in a post 9/11, post Russian invasion of Ukraine world is that the Federation should have just removed the settlers and called it a day. The irony here is that from a strictly utilitarian, harm reduction standpoint this might actually be the right move.

However, two extremely valid critiques are that this is rooted in presentism: we can argue that there are reasons to suspect the peace with the Cardassians isn't worth the isolinear chips its encoded on but the principle actors can't know for sure in the moment it's all going to be pointless.

It also flies in the face of Trek's ethos that, while consequentialism is highly important, it's tempered by the notion that virtue ethics has its role to play as well. That is to say that some actions are just or unjust, good or bad simply because they are. Thus I cannot think of a lot that would be less Star Trek than a forced relocation of people from their homes. Of course one might also say that it's not especially noble to risk interstellar war and billions of lives over attachment to said homes.

Whether the same Star Trek ethos demands that these people be protected is a nastier business that circles back to what metaphor we use to think about state and irregular warfare in Star Trek but also whether we as fans lean more towards the virtue ethics side of the equation or the consequentialist side.

What makes the Maquis interesting is that, like so much of DS9, the writers refused to provide the sort of easy, positive sum solution that Trek, or at least TNG, was/is known for. There is no scenario in which risks are not undertaken. No scenario in which an empathetic being is going to walk away with a clean conscience. One way or another, either the safety of the settlers is being used as a commodity, their rights revoked entirely, or the other trillion odd beings in the Federation are asked to be in solidarity with the few and risk everything.

Up next: Storytelling insurgency in Star Trek

[constantlyquestioningg]

slicked hair man came into the shot to drink some of his tea and wasn't apologetic at all

the family is watching a streamed seminar about astrochemical engineering and it was supposed to start 29 minutes ago and they have not started talking yet

on another note there's a guy with slick backed hair and a leather jacket and i hope he's the speaker

[toskarin]

I’m a little new here, what’s Vesselblood if you don’t mind me asking? Because it sounds neat from the title.

VesalBlood is a sci-fi setting focusing primarily on fleshcrafted demigod vampire insect mecha called pygmalions and the mortal vessels who are bound to pilot them. it's also about a really bad astropolitical situation and how the average person deals with the fact they've gotta keep living normally through interesting times

it's a bit of a super robot premise, but I like to write it more like real robot. they're still machines governed by rules, they're just also made out of meat, bone, and grafted metal

overall, it's a pretty big setting that encompasses a lot of things, but I like to use it as a way to derive psychological and body horror from the much more abstract horror of the real world civilian-to-soldier pipeline

it started when I did some insectoid mecha designs and jokingly attached gijinka to them as a way of laundering the actual intent behind it (drawing insectoid mecha), but the idea was interesting enough to develop out into the hellsing-inspired state of things we have now

here's the site I use as a hub for all things related to it

[alexkablob]

On Xaaya and Terra: what jobs did they have/ what were they doing before they became a space adventuring team?

Xaaya's been doing this for years longer than Terra but before this she was getting funneled into space aristocratic bullshit by her space aristocratic bullshit parents—she's technically 86th in line to the throne of Asterope (a constituent kingdom of the Union of the Seven Sisters, a very complicated astropolitical entity that Xaaya will not explain to you in detail because she hates it)—but noped the fuck out of there as soon as she could because frankly she'd rather launch herself into the sun than put up with any of that bullshit.

Terra was a waitress at a Denny's!

[woodswolf]

25, 36, and 47!

writing ask game

25.  Favourite part of writing

oh man, honestly kinda hard to say. i really like digging deep into esoteric bullshit on the worldbuilding side that i almost certainly will never get around to. (i have so many near-useless headcanons about the interplanetary/astropolitical dynamics of the pikmin universe now. whoops)

but yeah just in general i would say i am very much an Idea Guy™. i love coming up with perfect dialogue and scenes and so on in my head but only ever when i have more important shit to be figuring out in the present moment lmao

36.  Last sentence you wrote

this is part of a much longer funny exchange for the end of chapter 3 of my current wip:

“There we go,” the ship says, and he has to strangle that terribly petty part of himself into submission before he can walk back out to the main room.

the absolute tonal whiplash between the stupid shenanigans on the neutral end side versus Olimar's Existential Nightmare is just so good 10/10

47.  Best way to procrastinate

my partner convinced me to get back into Palia a few weeks ago, best mistake i ever made. but also it's genuinely refreshing to get on and play that whenever writer's block sets in, much better than mindlessly scrolling tumblr or watching youtube. and also, theoretically, i can stop at any time (:

[margbarcisforever]

i understand why a lot of hardcore trekkies don’t like the later seasons of ds9 (it’s not really what star trek is about, so much as it is a war story in the same setting as those adventure shows) but god damn am i having fun with it. “astropolitics” as i’ve started calling it (like geopolitics but in space) is genuinely one of my favorite things for scifi to explore and i feel like you don’t get that nearly as much these days. babylon 5 was also fucking fantastic for that, but tbf that’s ENTIRELY what that show is about

[thestarserpent]

COLD DAWN WORLDBUILDING MASTERPOST

Welcome to the year 2400! The dawn of this new century has been accompanied by a cold chill down every halls of power in Colonized Space. To navigate this precarious world is to know both the players and the chess pieces of this game of astropolitics.

Cold Dawn is a science-fiction worldbuilding project based on the Congress of Vienna, Interwar, and Cold War periods that I've been working on and off for frankly quite a long while. Only now have I started to try to write all of it down. There will be many places, nations, organizations, and events to cover. Also, there are flags.

This masterpost will compile all link to posts related to this worldbuild. The main tag is #cold dawn verse. I may begin adding more tags as I post more.

Enjoy! <3 <3 <3

Overview (includes the map of Colonized Space which is really relevant)

Alliances

Stellar Confederate Union

Central Hamsan Union

Nations

Vansa

Jalvatia

Lithiola

Cyfel

Events

Great Blackout