It's "autonomy"...and why must we assume the Umiak would let us keep interstellar travel? How does this "law of averages" say the Umiak must allow us the capability to overthrow their rule? They don't need to and they have excellent reasons not to do so. If a ship can be built it can be built for an Umiak crew, and Umiak control of the shipyards can ensure that no other ships are built. There's no shortage of Umiak personnel to run transport ships...they mass produce personnel as required. Their view of other species generally tends toward "potential threat if not under Umiak control". So why would they let us have star travel? They don't care how we govern ourselves on our planets, but that doesn't mean they'll let us build ships we can use against them...because we might use those ships against them!Michael wrote:basically in my opinion i don't think we can always assume the Umiak always have the upper hand, there must be leeway in places, the Umiak must let us have some automation over our selves and we must be able to move in and out of our solar system to do work for the umiak, since no system is perfect and the law of averages says it'll go wrong for the Umiak somewhere, we'll get a chance to something.
The hypothetical situation is "humanity is a subject species of the Umiak".Michael wrote:im not sure what form that could take since we have no hypothetical situation here, we also don't know how the umiaks slaves interact with them, in fact all we do know is this: anyone with the Umiak are slaves. (correct me if im wrong there pleas)
The lack of information about what goes on inside Umiak space should be a clue about how much control the Umiak maintain over interstellar travel...what we've got are refugees who ran before their worlds were conquered, who themselves heard little from inside Umiak space before that. Outside of the comic there's not much more information...from past discussions, they don't care much how we govern ourselves, as long as we're ultimately under Umiak control and not a potential threat. This would be quite easy to guarantee by control of space travel...a tiny space force could completely dominate a planet that lacks independent space travel. Nobody's ever going to commandeer a ship in orbit if they can't get off the ground. And even if they could somehow get a modern, heavily armed ship...the Umiak are capable of wiping out the planet's industry and decimating its population if they cause trouble. If given the choice between a resettlement operation with Umiak colonists and letting a world break away as a hostile state, what do you really think the Umiak will choose?