Jihannath and Sector Alpha Crucis
The Empire must send the bulk of its fleets and many of its Intelligence operatives to one Imperial border to persuade the Merseians that they should not attempt to take over Jihannath. Meanwhile, Emperor Josip III has made his favourite, Aaron Snelund, a viscount and appointed him governor of Sector Alpha Crucis on the opposite side of the Empire. Snelund's oppression provokes mutiny which is possible because the Navy is tied up around Jihannath.
When Dominic Flandry defeats the rebels in Sector Alpha Crucis, the Merseians make peace at Jihannath. The Terran delegation to the peace negotiations is led by Lord Advisor Chardon and includes Chunderban Desai. When the Policy Board appoints officials to reconstruct Sector Alpha Crucis, Chardon recommends Desai who thus becomes High Commissioner of the Virgilian System where the mutiny had been centred. Disaffection remains and Desai faces a new resistance movement, this one fostered by the Merseian agent, Aycharaych.
Sectors Alpha Crucis and Arcturus are close to the Domain of Ythri. The rebels had hoped for help from Ythri as do disaffected Diomedeans in Sector Arcturus.
Dennitza and Diomedes
The Gospodar of Dennitza becomes the governor of Sector Taurus on the border of the Wilderness between the Terran Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate. Aycharaych tries to detach Taurus from the Empire partly by faking Dennitzan help to Diomedean rebels.
2 comments:
Speed of communication affects the viability of large polities.
Note that in the 18th century, when a round trip to India took up to a year, the East India Company's governors were quite concerned that if they allowed their officers to "settle in" in India they'd eventually take control and declare their own, Indian-based imperium.
Before that period, it had been quite common for Company servants -- who were there for life, effectively -- to take up local customs and dress, eat Indian food, and marry or openly live in long-term relationships with local women.
(Rather as had happened with a number of previous invaders.)
This was a major reason the Company began to discourage its British servants from marrying local women, forbade them to own land in India, and started refusing to employ their local children in responsible positions.
Later, when travel became faster and English women started arriving in numbers, these trends were taken further -- for example, the authorities in India encouraged the practice of sending children of British parents back to Britain at quite early ages.
This was ostensibly done for health reasons, and for education, but there were plenty of local health-spots (like Simla, Kashmir, the Nigrili Hills, Darjeeling, etc.) and it would have been possible to set up first-rate schools in those localities.
In reality it was to keep the Raj's British servants British. That comes out quite clearly in Kipling's fiction -- incidentally he was sent "home", and detested it. He mentions casually that he actually learned Hindi before he mastered English, and -that- shows what the authorities were really afraid of.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
IMO, it was a mistake for the East India Company and then the Raj to so strongly discourage some degree of Indianization by its UK born servants. Tolerating that would have allowed the growth of a class of persons familiar with both India and Britain. As for how to encourage such persons to remain loyal to the Crown--send them "Home" in their mid teens for more advanced education at Oxford, Cambridge, or another university. And far less likely to be traumatizing at that age than in childhood!
Ad astra! Sean
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