Re: Outrim Coalition

From: "Glenn M Wilson" <triphibious@juno.com>

> >Regarding the OutRim Coalition,no-one has done any blurb for it.
> 
> I like it! 

OK, that makes 3 that do. OO's given some excellent constructive
criticism (I really must journey northwards to meet the man in
person. I owe him a lot.) A bit of fine-tuning, and it should be
OK to go.

Re-reading what I'd come up with, there must have been unconscious
plagiarism from H.Beam Piper's "Space Viking" as well as a whole host
of other, similar sources, from A.Betram Chandler's Rim-Runners to
Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, a touch of Jerry Pournelle's Sauron
Supermen, a smidgin of Asimov's Foundation series and even a soupcicon
of Game$ Work$hop. "Curse those who've said my words before me!" as 
someone once said. Before me.

> Can you make it 'Pedia type official (as opposed to canon
> official)?  (easy for me, you would be doing all the work?)  Humans
with
> an attitude!

Will do. Of course Canon Official requires St Jon's imprimatur: he may
have his own ideas. I've already taken the liberty of fleshing out both
the OU and IC, both Canon powers, with nothing but my Colgate ring of
Confidence to back me up. If he says different, all that work will be
sadly consigned to the "good idea, but..." pile. Jon, are you listening?
Can we please add the Alarishi and IAS to the canon?  And either veto,
modify, or say d'accord to some of the guff about the Canon powers on
the GZGpedia?

Digression:
At various times in my past, I've had to do some threat analysis on
various military subjects. Afficionados of Indonesian Affairs will
notice
that I've borrowed VERY heavily from Reality when doing the IC
background.
Current Indonesian affairs are inexplicable unless you realise that the
country doesn't have a central government as such, bits of the
government
are controlled by various competing groups. So the President might
sincerely want one outcome, send in the army, and find the exact
opposite
occurring.
 
And the OUDF - a 3rd rate power with 1st rate responsibilities - is
practicing what those in the Intelligence Community call "Assymetric
Warfare". Bin Laden is doing the same thing, but was STUPID enough to
hit spectacular, low-value high-pain targets instead of unspectacular,
high-value low-pain ones. The OUDF doesn't do massacres out of purely
practical reasons, namely, a highly developed sense of
self-preservation.

The WTC wasn't exactly low-value - but a good Cyber Attack on the NYSE
would have been far worse, dollar-wise. And unpublicised threats to
repeat the attack would have a greater chance of getting the USA to
modify its foreign policy. By wholesale massacre of the innocent, the
people involved assured that the US was never, ever going to do anything
other than wage a war of extermination against them and their ilk. 
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. They can't have read my unclass e-mail chat with
someone in the DIA back in the early 90's, before even the Sarin
attack on the Tokyo subways. But I digress.

I had to use a Deus Ex Machina with a "Universal Vaccine" to enable
the IC to hit the OU without fear of BioWar. It added a dose of irony
too,
that what was a boon to all mankind meant War was possible. Sort of fits
in with the "there are no good guys in the Tuffleyverse" bit.
(I must flesh out this bit - the "universal Vaccine" isn't a vaccine,
it's a protocol involving communicating implants that relay data
about the victim to similar devices nearby - so a few victims die, but
a pandemic or epidemic is prevented. It's needed because SG and DS2 are
about small-scale, conventional actions, few people in BioHazard
suits.).

I've really wandered off-topic. Sorry, I'm tired, and all this
background
stuff is all connected.

> Of course what's next - ELF (Extraterrestrial League of Freaks?) and
> DWARF (Dysfunctional, Wary And Rugged Fellows?) nations? <VBG>

Sorry, both describe the Alarishi. <g>