User talk:Strayor

From Gineipaedia, the Legend of Galactic Heroes wiki

Links

Hi there! By links I presume you are referring to hyperlinks? If so, it is quite simple. To create a link to another page in this wiki, all you need to do is to enclose your desired article title with double square brackets [[ ]]. For example, if you want to link to the Treaty of Barlat, you just need to input this: [[Treaty of Barlat]]. If you want to make an indirect reference, say Alliance peace treaty with the Empire, then input in this manner: [[Treaty of Barlat|Alliance peace treaty with the Empire]]. If you do not want to input the square brackets manually, you can always click the third button in the top left corner of every page you are editing and it will automatically generate the brackets for you. Hope this helps! =) Glacierfairy 14:48, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes it does thank you very much. Strayor 02:05, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

One friendly reminder: When writing new paragraphs in the edit page, please don't start with a space unless you want your text to appear in a separate box. Also, sign off your comments in any talk pages like this: ~~~~. Otherwise, keep up with the edits! Glacierfairy 02:50, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok I'll do my best to remember Strayor 15:54, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Past Discussions

To the admins, again... Sorry to keep bothering you guys but when I try to post an edit I am told that the spam filter will not let me save a page because of a link I have. Problem is, I'm only using links from this site. Could someone maybe help me out with this issue? Thank you.

Hi, which link were you trying to add and which page were you editing? Glacierfairy 02:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC) http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Bernhard_von_Schneider

And I know how to link to another page on this wiki, but it is telling me that I am linking to a blacklisted page or something external. I'm wondering if I had some kind of restriction placed on me because I sporadically edit, so maybe it thought I was a spammer or something like that. I'd also like to say thank you Glacierfairy. If I post a problem I am having, within a few hours you reply and that is incredibly helpful to a noob to wikis like me. Thanks Strayor 13:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't control the blacklists so you will probably have to wait for Kine to look into it. For the moment, try editing the page without the links. I'll add them in later if necessary. Sorry if I can't be of much help there. Glacierfairy 14:20, 26 June 2013 (UTC) Your account is fully confirmed, so there is nothing wrong with your permissions. Could you please provide the exact text you're trying to add? I did make some changes to the black-list recently, and it's possible that i fucked it up, but i'll need to know precisely what's tripping it. Cheers, and sorry about the inconvenience ♥ kine @ 00:32, 27 June 2013 (UTC) The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site. Please try again. Return to Bernhard von Schneider. This is the text I get no matter what I try to edit or how little I write, doesn't matter if I have links in it or not. For example this text was copied after I attempted to take away one of the dots out of the "..." so I'm pretty certain it's something to do with my account. Was there, by any chance, a permissions alteration or something like that when you messed with the blacklists Kine? The reason I ask is that I am still able to post to my own page and talk to you guys so I'm not sure how technical my problem really is. Again thanks for sticking with me admins. If you get me back to being able to edit then I will be sure to contribute to this wiki a sizable amount of articles and edits. I am sorry for being such a pain in your ass though. Strayor 06:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC) I don't handle the technical aspects but if you are really keen and desperate to edit, you could post it here since you seem to not have problems here and someone can put in your edit. Assuming it isn't an essay sized edit of course. Iracundus 09:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC) No, someone could not. They would have had the same problem. :p It was in fact my fault, i'm sorry. Please try again, i think it should work. ♥ kine @ 13:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC) It seems to be working now. Thank you for taking the time to stick it out with me Kine and getting me going again. Glacierfairy, thanks for always replying quickly. Iracundus, thanks for the encouragement to desperately edit and thanks for the idea, but having you personally copy and paste all of my edits would be tedious and I unfortunately almost edit exclusively in essay sized fragments and I believe you would find it troublesome to copy and paste the small edits I do write and follow my instructions as to where they should be placed in the existing text, but thanks. Thanks guys.Strayor 15:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC) You're welcome and keep up with the good work! Glacierfairy 20:19, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Just wondering...

Why did you sound so irritated the other day about the discussion about the Empire? It was a simple discussion, why the reaction? FPA Forever

I'm assuming this is FPA Forever. Sorry for my belatedness but I ran out of time typing my reply after this was posted and I forgot to come back and finish it until I randomly looked at my page today. For that you have my apologies.

I apologize if I sounded irritated. I just had a lot to say to catch up because my recent edits page didn't refresh for a few days so I came in late. The reason I "defended" the Imperials, especially Mittermeyer, is because I didn't want you to think of them as thuggish brutes without a shred of humanity, which I know you don't, and to try and give some rationality to their actions by going on a tangent about the customs that have presided over most of our history. When viewing it from that perspective, the actions of the Imperials seem less, I guess the word would be, evil. A just man like Mittemeyer would willingly bear the shame of killing an unarmed man to remove Lang from their society's fresh start because death and execution are used much more extensively than in today's civilized world and as I said this has been the case for most of our history, and it is not unreasonable to think standards have drastically changed in the 1,500 years from our time to the OVAs. We have many people we idolize in history as heroes that would have seen little wrong with the world of the Neue Reich, except many of them would have viewed it as giving the people too much leeway. Sure, a small minority of them would have wanted democracy at all costs, but as history mostly favors the more uncivil civilized nations that execute at will or at least far more often than what you or I would deem acceptable it is still not for us to hold the time the person was living in against them when they take actions deemed appropriate for the time period or nation they live in, even if they are wrong by our present day standards.

Granted this line of thinking has its limits but in general that is the best way to approach history. When I first watched the series, I remember being shocked when I saw a character I loved acting in such despicable ways. The examples off the top of my head were the aforementioned Mittermeyer allowing Bayerlein to threaten Odets and Reinhard casually stating that all males over ten years of age in the Littenheim family were to be put to death. This initially tarnished the views I had of those characters but when I came back to it and was viewing the series much more analytically, I treated what I was watching more as a historical recreation than an animated adaptation of the science-fiction/space epic novels that started it all. When I did that I believed that we cannot hold them responsible for the society they live in, especially in the case of the Imperials under Reinhard who are just now taking their first steps back into the light after 500 years of darkness. When compared to the really diabolical incidents in Imperial history, Mittermeyer attempting to murder Lang looks like an act of charity. The whole Odets thing is still awful and I’m not sure how that was allowed to happen considering the honor that the rest of the series shows Mittermeyer to possess, but apart from that and another incident or two, most of the main Imperial characters held themselves rather well and were men of character, at least in the Neue Reich.

Again, sorry for my delayed response. I hope that these two bundles of run-on sentences will help to clarify why I acted the way I did and how I feel about the Imperials and the series as a whole. At no point did I wish to have you think I was trying to make it personal. That is the absolute last thing I would seek and I apologize if my earlier response came across in such a way. Again, best wishes to you and your health. Strayor 17:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I think it is, however, for us to judge their actions, or else we don't learn anything. Its like saying that we shouldn't hold slavers in contempt because of the time they lived in. I disagree. We should loathe them utterly, hold them in supreme contempt, always go out of our way to point out how awful their practices were, how backwards they were.

I hold the Imperials' moral mistakes against them, and refuse to excuse them at any point, at any level, for anything. To me, it seems morally unacceptable to do any less, but thats my personal way of looking back on history.

I think Mittermyer was in the wrong on both cases, and what got to me was largely the fact that the first incident (Lang's near-murder) was pretty much showed to be an almost-just thing, while the second scene was played in such a way that it seemed, to me, that the viewers were supposed to think that Odets should feel shamed that people in the Alliance wouldn't shoot someone in the face just for saying a slightly unwelcome truth about their leader. While the scene seemed to express that one should feel pride in a society where men are willing to do such a thing. And Odets does, seemingly truly contritedly, agree with Mittermyer. And then Mittermyer unusually pompously says that loyalty such as that is truly precious,and notes that Yang's people would do the same if one insulted THEIR leader. FPA Forever

Well then I guess that's why I reacted the way I did. I guess you have a very dark view of history. It is more realistic for our time, I agree, but I don't think the society someone grows up in should be held against them, so I respectfully disagree for I believe we should not hold everyone in contempt because of the time they lived in. To your specific example of slavers, by your logic almost all important historical figures from the pre classical era are now exempt from praise because they did not fight slavery. I must state that what you are saying goes against everything I've been taught by multiple professors. Many of them use this very topic as their example. Yes, slavery is horrible. Yes, we should keep in our minds that they upheld and utilized a dark and terrible practice. But to have that wash over everything else they did is too much. Many of the founding fathers are completely awful by this way of thinking. There are countless records from the colonial slave era that show the people of the time, even including slave traders and owners themselves, were all too aware of how horrific the practice was, but the society of their time was structured in such a way that in many occupations slavery was the only way to remain competitive. There's also many other examples of laws being made to enforce the "ethical", please notice the quotes there, treatment of slaves and in some cases entire codes or legislation completely dedicated to regulating slavery. This has been the case since the bronze age, when civilization as we know it really began, according to the mainstream. My point with all this is that humans are human, we have been everything from the worst of demons to the most caring of angles. Generally speaking, we all share common moral values, think of the crying child in public experiment. So on those levels, most of us, across all ages, are usually in agreement with some basic moral principles. So coming from there I do not think people from other eras that were apart of what are now viewed as societies with questionable values should be all viewed as evil. Too many figures could be bound up in that type of logic, and with that many different types being all grouped together it just becomes a pick and choose type situation, where one's actions outweigh another's identical actions. I'm sorry but that is just how I feel, and I hope we can be respectful even though our differing opinions are plain to see. I understand your position and although I may disagree with it, I see the merit in holding a high moral standard.

For what it's worth, I totally agree with the absurdity of the whole Odets thing. I have no idea what the writers were thinking to portray that incident in such a way. No matter how loyal you are to someone, going after the diplomat attempting to negotiate peace for such a slight insult is absolutely unacceptable in any day and age. I really don't know why that was even included in the story as it had little purpose other than to show the Alliance attempted to negotiate, which was already made clear, so it really doesn't make much sense. I also can't see any of Yang's guys, apart from Poplan, doing something similar if an Imperial were to insult, and I mean really insult, Yang. And just to be clear, I view slavery as one of the cruelest and heinous institutions ever thought of by man. I cannot fathom how someone living in a slave society would allow it to persist. I have simply been taught to accept these types of things as just being the ways of the time and that unless it's in the realm of genocide, it was just the custom of the age, no matter how absolutely terrible I personally view it to be. Strayor 20:15, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you misunderstood me. I am in no way saying that all historical figures are devoid of praiseworthy acts. I also don't think that their societies were 'evil'. Barbaric by current standards, yes, but evil is too broad a term, as is good. Aristotle, Galileo, Descartes, Shakespeare and many others are worthy of great praise, because they advanced humanity.

But here's the thing, most of the figures who did change things were often unhappy with 'the way things were'. Most of them decided to change things, and many of them paid dearly for it. I think what bothers me is that saying 'that's the way it is' means its useless to try and change things, which runs opposite to men and women who are today praised. By the way, a high moral standard was shared by many of these figures, and I do believe it played a role in getting them to, pretty much, fight that piece of ignorance or ill that they faced.

I guess that's why I have trouble taking things from the Imperial side. Its much more glamourous, pleasing to look at in some ways. But honestly, even the Neu Reich appeared stifling. Even Mittermyer and Reuentahl always seemed to have greater barriers, conversational taboos, that neither was willing, or perhaps able, to breach. For instance, Reuentahl, at several points, pretty much started to talk to Mittermyer about his power-hungry urges, only to be summarily shut down by his friend. Had Mittermyer listened then, maybe they could have dealt with it enough so that Reuenthal wouldn't have had his rebellion. As nice as the Neu Reich was, I wouldn't like a place without banter, where most things are strictly protocol. The Iserlohn Republic, however? I'd go there in a heartbeat. FPA Forever

Ok, I must have misunderstood. I still am confused though. Didn't the Imperials of the Neue Reich do just what you said was praiseworthy? I'm referring to that part you wrote: "But here's the thing, most of the figures who did change things were often unhappy with 'the way things were'. Most of them decided to change things, and many of them paid dearly for it." That pretty much just summed up the entire plot from the Imperial side of things and to a lesser extent from the Alliance. That is exactly how I view the Neue Reich. It still needs some work, sure, but it is leagues ahead of the Old Empire.

And as far as your other point, only a few "great" historical figures solved, or attempt to solve most of society's ills. Most of the time, when they "decided to change things" it was just one or few things or one drive for glory that so happened to be championed by some cause we would also champion today. If you understand that the societies aren't all evil, they just practiced barbaric practices like you said, then my main point is already understood by you. I interpreted your initial posts to represent another type of view. I would merely ask you to extend this same view to the Imperials, to try and place yourself in the shoes of Siegmeister or any other Imperial that held your views, if you just so happened to be unfortunate, or fortunate depending on ambition, enough be born into such a society where a return to autocracy has spiraled out of control. Would you charge right into the melee to most likely be captured and tortured by the DSD into confession before your entire family is rounded up for a similar fate? Or would you bide your time, watching, learning, planning, and slowly building up your own resistance from within? Or perhaps that is too great a risk as it would be to 95% of the dissenting Imperials. Wouldn't you try and defect to the Alliance then? That seems to be the best option. A stable "free" government where all are welcome and a nation willing to defend you from your former oppressors. Perhaps this is a main reason why Imperial Society didn't change before Reinhard. The OVAs tell of at least three, what I would call major, occurances of an attempt to reform the Empire or create an organized resistance to it. So the Imperials aren't all bad. Those that stay to fight are the heroes, and those that lead them are the incredibly talented legends that are able to change history. So all corniness aside, the point is that these legends are the ones who change history, often for their own reasons. The ones who accompany and fight with them are also viewed in high regard, for the most part, and are the product of a society and set of customs that provide the setting for it all. Just that, a setting. As I've made clear I do not condemn those who were only acting within the bounds of their society if it was the common and well established way of the day. For whatever it's worth Reinhard would disagree with me on that.

Because many people will share the same moral standards across all ages, who are we to judge how we would have reacted if we were raised in that society with those customs? From my point of view, I would have fought the injustice and would have done everything possible to end the horrific practices around me, but that is my view from being raised in my time with values from our "enlightened" age. Certain atrocities can never be forgiven in any era by anyone, but for the most part I objectively view historical societies, and in the case of LOGH I bring that same objectivity, well at least after my first watch-through, to it when I view the more questionable aspects of Imperial Society. And like I've said before, some of the Imperial actions are still downright unacceptable and I remember that when watching them, but for it's part, so are some of the Alliance's. But we've never been witness to a pan-human nation before. It is difficult to predict what such massive amounts of power in the hands of men would result in. Everything is scaled up to such a level that traditional society as we know them, and as is presented by the OVAs, may be impossible to maintain with everything being so massive. So if we judge them from here, how can we accurately reach a verdict about what kind of men they were?Strayor 15:36, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

One thing I do Wonder is whether I'm playing the Reinhard angle right. In my current story, Reinhard has inflicted significant - if not fatal - damage to the Alliance. Of the 110,000 Warships of the Combined Fleet, the Alliance lost about 40,000 (the 90,000 other ships are support ships, and there were large losses there, too). Two admirals were lost - Lebebvre of the 3rd Fleet, and Al-Salem of the 9th. Reinhard, for himself, lost 23,000 ships and one of his admirals, Bittenfeld. Still, the Alliance Invasion has been successfully repulsed, and Reinhard has no way of knowing that, in another timeline, his blows would have been even more telling. So, with the Kaiser dead, and having repulsed the enemy and gained much popular recognition, I still have him playing the same game against the High Nobles as in the OTL. Does it make sense? FPA Forever

Yes, and here's why. Reinhard no longer had the protection of the Kaiser, not that it was ever all that effective, but nonetheless it prevented the High Nobles from acting openly against Reinhard. Imperial society was structured in such a way that when you reached a certain level of power and prestige the nobility would notice you and you would either be of use to them or eliminated as a threat. Reinhard started earning the High Nobles' ire, other than Beaumonde, when he was being promoted at such a fast rate and young age for seemingly no other reason than being the brother of the Kaiser's consort. This view was so prevalent that it took Mückenberger multiple examples of Reinhard's brilliance before he came around, and in the end, he was the only High Noble that actually saw Reinhard fight to do so. So, that being said, there is no way a peace would have existed between Reinhard and the High Nobles once Friedrich IV dies as the barrier between Reinhard and the Nobles has been removed. Even if Sabine or Elizabeth became Kaiserin and Lichtenlade did not come to ask Reinhard for support, which it was made clear was the only option he had to retain office, Reinhard would have still had to fight a Nobles vs. Reinhard's Admiralty type conflict. Furthermore, unless Reinhard is successfully assassinated by Ferner on the first night of everything, I don't see how a civil war could be stopped from breaking out. Generally speaking if you changed the story more from the Alliance side nothing you have described would change the fate of the Empire. You'd have to go further back and change some Gaiden stuff around too to have Reinhard not war with the nobility. So, more to the point, the civil war would break out and Reinhard would act the same way even when minus an admiral and 20,000 ships. With those losses I believe he would still be confident in attacking the Lipstadt League. In fact, after suffering larger losses, that would be exactly what he would do. He couldn't hold Odin if the Lipstadt forces consolidated all of their strength and sailed en masse to the capital. His best option would be to attack the isolated fleets and worlds of the nobles to goad them out to fight. Westerland would be even more likely and the war would be prolonged by some measure but I do not think it would be more than a month or two as the nobles showed themselves to be very effective at self-destruction.

Still, the best-case scenario would be that the Alliance would have at least 40,000 more ships than in the OTL, as well as several more experienced admirals than in the OTL. Would that change anything to Reinhard's plans of conquest?

If Reinhard takes more time and takes more losses in winning the Imperial civil war, then it further reduces the margin of numerical superiority as compared to the OTL. What that means would be greater possibility of the Alliance mounting a successful defense of the opening of the Fezzan Corridor, something which was not even attempted in the OTL due to the sheer disparity in numbers. Any delay in the sequence of events also means Reinhard's disease proceeds and he has less time. The problem is that no matter what happens to Reinhard, the Alliance's issue is the fact it is a materially exhausted society that needs a period of peace to recover. If Reinhard were to die without clear successor, the risk of the Goldenbaums (or rather a new noble faction propping up a Goldenbaum puppet) rears its head again, and if such a faction adopts the old Imperial foreign policy of not recognizing the existence of the Alliance, then the Alliance is still locked in an endless war it cannot endure. Even if the Goldenbaums are discredited and the Empire falls into warlordism, the risk of renewed Imperial aggression has been a bogeyman for so long in the Alliance that the Alliance culture has been fundamentally changed. The military had become so vital to the survival of the state that it had become a virtual state within a state and to argue against it seemed unpatriotic. The risk is the Alliance may continue ruinous levels of militarization in the name of national security and continued de facto fascism in the name of national unity. Even otherwise well meaning individuals, like Dwight Greenhill, had fallen into this trap in the OTL of "the ends justifying the means" and "the military above all else" when it came to fighting the Empire, which had been cast as the epitome of evil in Alliance propaganda for so long. If the Empire were in disarray or fragments, that would give the Alliance time to get its house in order, or it would be a temptation for the hawks to engage in more military adventurism. Iracundus 12:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm assuming that although Reinhard would be unable to conquer the Alliance - thanks to the greater amount of Alliance military forces remaining - I do see him becoming the Kaiser and managing to create something that would last after his death. What I'm wondering is about Yang. in this timeline, the assassination doesn't take place, or it does but fails, so he's still around when Reinhard dies. What I'm wondering is what happens to him after Reinhard is gone. He'd want to quit, as the immediate threat to at least HIS generation is over, but would he be allowed to?

Yang's assassination was orchestrated by the Terraists because they saw him as the one big obstacle to Reinhard unifying all of humanity, and the plan was to then overthrow Reinhard or control him or his successor. If Reinhard does not end up conquering the Alliance, then the issue is what the Terraists do. Do they still support Rubinsky and his plan of overturning the status quo? In which case, there may still be an assassination attempt. Or do they go back to the old maintaining the balance of power strategy? If so then there may be no assassination attempt at all, but they might equally also sabotage any attempts at peace because they want the war to grind on. As for Yang and retirement, I think the Alliance politicians only keep him around because he is useful, and would be glad to be rid of him if they could as they see him as a threat (even though he is not). The Alliance political establishment viewed Bruce Ashbey in the same way. Perhaps it is a leftover psychological trauma from Rudolf's rise to power, but it seems there was always the fear that any sufficiently popular military figure might launch a similar takeover of government. Lin Pao and Yusuf Topparol escaped this only by retiring and staying well clear of politics, rendering them "safe" heroes for the Alliance to put on a pedestal. Bruce Ashbey similarly only became safe to idolize after dying. The problem however is if Yang retires, and there is still an Empire and Alliance in detente, then whether there is any lasting peace or just a temporary peace for a generation or two. It would really depend on where you plan to go with the final situation on both sides at the end. There are many many potentials simply because there are still so many potential branch points where decisions can have a butterfly effect down the line. 10:17, 22 February 2015 (UTC)