Talk:Dominion of Fezzan

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Sovereign debt

Thinking about the Alliance and its huge sovereign debt, wouldn't the people of Fezzan (and any corporations) have taken massive losses with the dissolution of the Alliance? In all likelihood, Reinhard's Empire would have declared null and void any Alliance bonds, which has been the historical precedent for a defeated conquered power. If private institutions and individuals have to write off big losses, then wouldn't that risk precipitating a recession or even depression? Iracundus 13:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, as much as I enjoy the series, and as much as I like some aspects of the Imperial side - and I do - the story was clearly meant to give the imperials under Reinhard such advantages as to demand a suspension of disbelief. This is just one inconsistency among many, sadly. Again, I love the show immensely, but the fact that Reinhard's imperials were clearly set up with everything they needed to win... kinda grated at several points. I wouldn't have minded Reinhard getting the best out of Yang or the Alliance by the end, but aside from Vermillion - which ended in another suspension of disbelief (Yang stopped the potential crippling move to the invasion to read a message? In the middle of a do-or-die battle? Ugh.) - he didn't really have much trouble. I'd have preferred that he be in as many tight spots as Yang, and used his genius to get out of them. That made Yang interesting. Smooth sailing made Reinhard a bit stale at times. -FPA Forever

Thus your user name, i suppose :)  ♥ kine @ 20:34, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I would imagine the message at Vermilion to have been using the highest urgency and security protocols so as to require immediate reading. However ultimately after Amritsar, the only thing that could have saved the Alliance would have been refusing to take in the Goldenbaum noble refugees and negotiating a peace treaty, or Yang finishing off Reinhard at Vermilion. That would only really have prolonged the old corrupt status quo of the Alliance and Empire though. Reinhard's subordinates would have competed among themselves and the remnants of the Goldenbaum nobility would have likely risen up again. The Alliance would still be in its dire economic and military state with a self-serving corrupt government. Yang might have bought another generation of time for the Alliance, or at worst prolonged the long war even longer through prolonging the Goldenbaum Empire as well. Iracundus 21:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I don't disagree with anything said here per se. But this also serves to prove that the deck was stacked very heavily in Reinhard's favor. After all, it might not have been so easy for Reinhard had Yang been a republican reformer. But the story has him self-effacing himself, and only coming into the spotlight when everything else has completely failed. Yang in the story, had he managed to push back the Imperials at Vermillion and after, might have served a few years more, but would have simply retired away from all the political and military problems, and certainly wouldn't have gone back to it. George Washington, this guy wasn't. Yang, in fact, actually gushed at how great Reinhard was, and how autocracy is better than democracy in many ways (having seen autocracy firsthand, I will bluntly say Yang had a very abstract idea of what he was talking about). In fact Yang rarely enumerated how democracy was better than autocracy. So everything seemed set up to bring Reinhard in the best possible light. That is what made it grating to me. Not Reinhard, Reinhard himself is great. Its how near-perfect his path was, how even his opposite all but vouched for him.

Heh. Yeah. Hence my name. Democracy forever! :)FPA Forever

We see the downsides of autocracy in the beginning with the Goldenbaum Empire and the later history recap episodes. Aside from the court intrigues, entrenched privilege, nepotism, and vast wealth disparities, we have the swings of performance depending on the ability and motivation of the individual person on the throne. Yang's key point was that a republican or democratic form of government has people ultimately bearing the responsibility for the good or the bad that happens to them as they chose the people in power, whereas the population is essentially passive in an autocracy and all praise or blame is placed in the hands of the autocrat.

Now hypothetically if Yang had chosen to campaign for political office after actually finishing off Reinhard at Vermilion, then he might have swept to power as the "Savior of the Alliance", but that is the sort of hero worship that swept Rudolf von Goldenbaum to power in the first place. Given that precedent, such a course of action was repugnant to Yang and would have likely raised great concern among other civilian politicians especially given the past military coup. One could almost say Rudolf's case may have traumatized humanity to be extremely wary of any political figure with a military background. The level of reforms needed to revive the Alliance would also have entailed much pain and hardship and might not have been feasible without some heavy handed measures like what the National Salvation Military Council were attempting. The Alliance could not rebuild its military to the same extent any time soon as it needed to rein in its deficit spending and/or greatly grow its economy to deal with its debt issues, as well as regenerate its human resources. It needed time more than anything and it is debateable how much Yang could really have gained for the Alliance. Any resurrected Goldenbaum Empire would likely have continued the war with the Alliance on ideological grounds, and the Alliance would have remained a tempting target given its vastly depleted military strength, which would risk the Alliance resuming the old cycle of ruinous levels of military spending. Furthermore, Rubinsky would have remained a factor as he was aiming to break the balance of power. The Terraists would have had to decide to return to the old balance of power plan and get rid of Rubinsky, otherwise Fezzan would have continued to be a corrosive effect on any attempt at reviving the Alliance. Iracundus 01:04, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, the series never made it explicitly clear as to what system the intergalactic economy is based on, so it is hard to speculate on the impact of the overall economy with Fezzan's losses. In addition, it was also mentioned that Fezzani assets in the Alliance are largely tangible, ie, properties, mines, etc, so as long as their rights are guaranteed, the dissolution of the Alliance would mean little to them. I have always had the impression the Alliance sovereign debt is largely shouldered by the Fezzani government, and we all know very well the machinations of Rubinsky, so the massive losses by Fezzan isn't as ridiculous as I would have thought, though we know on hindsight how Rubinsky's schemes failed.

Another issue is that the Empire is always portrayed as the stronger of the two - early in the series, Rubinsky even demonstrated the overall power balance between the Empire, the Alliance and Fezzan as roughly 5 to 4 to 1 - and that was even before Reinhard wrested complete control. Demographically, the Empire's population of 25 billion greatly outnumbers the Alliance's population of 13 billion, which already placed the Alliance in a huge disadvantage, if not for the woefully corrupt state of affairs during the late Goldenbaum era. The presence of Reinhard enabled the Empire to fully benefit from the rapidity an autocratic system offers, and so the stakes are always stacked in favour of Reinhard. As Yang mentioned before, Reinhard was already winning before the battle even started, and that it was only Yang's genius and Reinhard's romanticism that Yang could hold Reinhard at bay. In fact, I am of the opinion that the author deliberately set a smooth-sailing path (as smooth as it could be anyway) for Reinhard to allow readers to focus on Yang and listen (or read) his opinion (and thus the author's) about human politics and society. Glacierfairy 09:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually we know the Alliance is capitalist with a fiat currency as the High Council considers expanding the money supply as a means of funding continuation of the war and invasion of the Empire. Yang's father was a small ship captain but with a heavy mortgage on his ship, so there is private property ownership, entrepeneurship, and a banking system.

The Empire in contrast we know relatively less about. Clearly there is still some merchant and civilian ship traffic since the Lippstadt nobles hide among civilian ships. The nobles themselvse seem to be the rich landholding class living off of rental income from their fief holdings. We see Mittermeyer enter a small shop to buy flowers and look at rings through a store window so again there is small business present. Is the Empire a fiat currency? Not sure. However Reinhard's confiscation of the vast holdings of the high nobles appears to have allowed him to fund the Empire and the war at least partly through these spoils of war and "plunder", as well as through cutting expenditures in maintaining the I.

We see the Empire and Alliance both have bases with resource extraction facilities on Kapche-Lanka, resembling mining or refinery facilities, so we know there is still reliance on raw materials of some form extracted from the ground. We know also that Fezzan has what appears to be a retail, service, and shipping economy based on Julian's experiences on Fezzan. From the Necklace of Artemis sales, it appears Fezzan at least has some limited high-tech manufacturing. All in all, the economic systems are all things we would recognize from today. Iracundus 10:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

The show (or author?) liked to put things to Yang's advantage at several points in the show as well. Two examples:- at Eighth Iserlohn, it is never explained just how it is that the Yang Fleet was able to launch from Iserlohn, get past Geiersburg, and attack Kempff and Müller in the rear. It just ... happens. One can speculate that the Thor Hammer prevented the use of the Vulture's Claw at any point, but the lack of an explanation (say, jamming) for Geiersburg warning Kempff that Merkatz was coming is an unsatisfying part out of an otherwise great battle. A more significant and obvious way to give Yang a chance is seen in the Battle of the Corridor. Not only is Mecklinger's decision to sit in at the Imperial entrance of the corridor based on his (erroneous) belief that Yang has a much larger force inexplicable given the sheer amount of time that passed (the battle stretched from the end of April to mid May!) - but Mecklinger's refusal to risk an invasion by Yang into Imperial space was a situation that only existed because of Reinhard's odd decision to order Wahlen to join the main fleet via Fezzan, rather than a: guard Imperial space or b: join Mecklinger at the Imperial entrance to the corridor. This is all the more strange given that of all of Reinhard's admirals, Wahlen never even makes a visible contribution to the Battle of the Corridor. Vympel 11:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Never understood why Mecklinger was so worried really about Yang invading the Empire. If the Alliance's multiple fleets couldn't do it, what hope does Yang's Fleet with its limited supply infrastructure of doing anything to the Empire beyond hit and run or wanton destruction? If Yang went charging into the Empire, it would also have left Iserlohn Fortress without a mobile response force, and without that speed bump, I am not sure whether even the Thor Hammer would have been enough to stop Reinhard's armada of over 100,000 ships. Iracundus 12:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the only plausible explanation is wanton destruction embarassing Reinhard and undermining his authority. Vympel 13:10, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with most of this at the core, but I don't personally believe that the Goldenbaum would have returned to power that easily, not with people like Mittermyer and Reuentahl actively despising them for various reasons - and having support from large, experienced fleets. Moreover, Reinhard was beginning to win the people over. As such, unless they made many liberal concessions and had Merkatz leading their forces (and Merkatz had grown a deep fondness for Yang and his people), I don't see them returning to power. I don't see the Empire returning to stability without intense losses which would make it impossible to wage a real war for at least a short time. As for the Alliance, there are some people who would be willing to help reform the insitutions slowly, in the government and in the military. Periods of corruption and economic problems have been overturned in the past, after all. :)FPA Forever