G-Tech Corporation wrote:I hardly see how quadrupling in size is not the position you advanced- that was your map you put up, you presume? If it was supposed to come with a side of major instability, please say so, because that completely invalidates the rest of this discussion. But that was not my impression.
You put up a map that quadrupled (if not more, honestly) the size of the Confederation of Helios over the timeskip. I responded that that was rather large, for a period of ten years, and that it would be best if it was curtailed, over the course of the discussion bringing up Ego's example, wherein in ten years they too had expanded, but to a lesser degree, and with instability. I extrapolated that to a quadrupling of land carrying truly immense instability. It seems logical to me, if two minds cannot meet, to establish a compromise between the positions- insofar as there are two factors at play a) scale of expansion and b) instability of expansion, it would be wisest to split the difference.
So yes, a compromise would be little instability with a doubling of land area (accounting for your Author's ability with governance to avoid Ulls' major instability). One premise from my option, the doubling of land, one premise from your option, little instability. Alternatively, one premise from your option, the quadrupling of land, and one premise from my option, major instability.
The initial premise about invalidation holds true.
Surely you see how accomplishing that expansionism over the period of ten years as opposed to sixty, though, would lead to problems? The situations are not exactly one-to-one comparable. A space-filling empire could be logical, if that space-filling empire slowly forms and deals with things like banditry/secession/rebellion (problems resulting from its space-filling nature) as they come, but a space-filling empire like, say, Alexander's, that rapidly expands without taking the natural problems as they come over time risks serious problems in the future. It is a matter of the time-management of crises, the same for empires as economic unions.
That's patently wrong, Unions and empires aren't the same thing, they don't have the same goals, or the same outcomes. Just as expansion over 10 years isn't comparable to expansion over 60, the purpose of the League isn't to overtly annex and integrate lands to its banner like the Imperium, it's to provide benefits to each other and entrench iteration. At no point in the future do I see the League integrating its member-states to the point where they are a centralised polity, and as such the only stakeholders the League government would have to deal with internally are member-states, drastically lowering the administrative costs of confederating. A space-filling empire would be logical, if this were an empire, which it is not.
I fully intend to deal with things like banditry, secession, and rebellion, but simultaneously I have no plans to carve out a never-ceasing expansionist blob, meaning that Alexander's example is void. You have consistently failed to realise the difference between intergovernmental organisations and empires, especially in an environment where issues are dealt with co-operatively rather than repressively.
