Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

[Ken Hall <khall39@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tony Wilkinson <twilko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Also environment. On hostile worlds were people are depended on
particular infastructure (power station, atmosphere processors etc) then
by controlling those few structures you effectively, if not completely,
compel the population to do as you want. Dare I say the John rasied this
point when refuting the US vs Canada example.

> That could bring a kind of ritualized, limited warfare in which
> powers exchange planets and population with very little bloodshed...
> until an alien, oblivious to the rules, hits the human sphere and
> start a real massacre against the human forces, organized and
> deployed for a different kind of war.
>

There's historical precedent for what Enzo suggested, in the post to which Tony replied -- think about the "condottieri" era in Renaissance Italy (even more so than the wars of maneuver of 18th Century Europe, an apple cart upset only when first Marlborough, then Frederick the Great came along and actually wanted to fight battles with those painstakingly assembled armies).

 

The peculiar features of the condottieri era (and I confess I have not studied it in detail) likely had something to do with a desire to avoid ravaging the countryside, along with the fact that it was conducted with professionals on both sides who calculated they got paid for showing up, and didn't get paid any extra for dying (and no investment in a Greater Cause).

 

Best,

Ken

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