psychological warefare on the Umiak.

[Trantor]

The average Umiak can´t be too intelligent, otherwise he would question the system, or at least his position in it.
Good chance that this makes them prone for this sort of brain-glue.

Don't underestimate of the power of the charismatic leader.

Yeah, but overstretch the game, and your system will implode. See Nazi-Germany ´45. See Soviet-Union ´91.

As i stated before, there´s always a weak spot or two. Find them, and find a way to use them.

[bunnyboy]

Don't underestimate of the power of the charismatic leader.

Yeah, but overstretch the game, and your system will implode. See Nazi-Germany ´45. See Soviet-Union ´91.

What about China '76, Cuba '06/08 or North Korea '(??) ?

[LegioCI]

I think you're misunderstanding my timeline of when and how I'd use diplomatic force.

1) Attack the system in question, either destroying the Umiak defense fleet outright or forcing a retreat further into Umiak space. Either way, the population in question must be relatively safe from immediate Umiak counter-attack.
2) Negotiations begin at the stage when the Loroi would be glassing major population centers to destroy any potential threats on the ground- Umiak or Native. Loroi would likely follow this up with a ground invasion to eliminate any dug-in Umiak ground forces and subjugate any remaining locals. (I'm assuming that habitable worlds are valuable- if you can take one relatively intact you do so.) This is where the diplomatic strategy differs: Instead of immediately bombing the crap out of everything, you instead use targeted strikes against Umiak military targets with the goal of minimizing collateral damage.
3) After the Umiak threat has been ended on the ground, you send couriers to major population centers, along with food, supplies and medical help if necessary. The message here is that the Loroi and/or Human forces are liberators, here to free them from Umiak tyranny. From what I've read about how the Umiak treats it's client-races, they will most likely not disagree.
4) At this point the focus shifts to militarily protecting the world, this can be accomplished in two ways: The more expensive solution is to garrison the system, station a defense fleet and be ready to kill the Umiak as soon as they pop back in to try to retake the system. My preference would be to continue onwards with the fleet you had, (Leaving some amount of support craft to help rebuild infrastructure on the planet.) pushing deeper and deeper into Umiak territory as a part of a larger offensive push across their territory, thus giving the Umiak bigger problems to deal with than any single client-world.

LegioCI, How exactly do you expect this to work out? Say the TCA comes in with an overwhelming force...the Umiak do their scorched earth thing to deny the enemy what they can.

Planetary biomes are actually ridiculously tough things. It would likely take days to do a good, thorough planetary glassing, and that's assuming that they'll have the ships left after a battle to do the glassing, and that the ships left will be in such a position that they don't have to choose between killing the planet and getting away with the ships they have left in order to hopefully stop the incursion at the next system.

Additionally, I think the Umiak would not have planetary defenses set up over a planet aside from a fleet. They very have a very big "consume and discard" mentality- a big, mostly-immobile space defense system may be very good at defending a planet, but in the long run they don't care about that planet, so why build a long-term defense when you could use those resources to build more ships that can be easily moved to a new planet when this one has been used up? I think the threat of the Umiak using such a system to destroy the planet its protecting isn't a likely one, unless the planet in question is one of their low-gravity colony worlds.

[Mjolnir]

1) Attack the system in question, either destroying the Umiak defense fleet outright or forcing a retreat further into Umiak space. Either way, the population in question must be relatively safe from immediate Umiak counter-attack.

And how can any planet under Umiak control be safe from immediate Umiak counterattack?

Planetary biomes are actually ridiculously tough things. It would likely take days to do a good, thorough planetary glassing, and that's assuming that they'll have the ships left after a battle to do the glassing, and that the ships left will be in such a position that they don't have to choose between killing the planet and getting away with the ships they have left in order to hopefully stop the incursion at the next system.

Who cares about the biome? You're not asking for the planet's ecosystems to surrender. It isn't necessary to eradicate all life, and I already described one setup that would destroy any semblance of a civilization at the push of a button, for minimal investment and great gains in security from the Umiak perspective. If they don't do it that way, it still wouldn't take more than a handful of ships to do in a hurry while transiting the system. There'd likely be scattered survivors who'd welcome an evacuation to a more habitable planet, but good luck finding anybody capable of offering a meaningful surrender, with anything but their lives left to surrender. And we have the Steppes as evidence that they are entirely willing to do this.

As I see it, the Umiak have two reasons to leave a world intact...a world on their side of the Steppes which they can recapture and hold at little cost, in which case the Loroi/TCA have little to offer in the way of protection for a surrendering populace, or a world on the far side of the Steppes that they want to eventually recapture as a foothold to support invasion further into Loroi space, in which case the natives are likely Loroi and Loroi allies who don't have to be convinced to surrender.

If the world is on their side of the Steppes, it's more valuable to the enemy as a foothold than to the Umiak as a productive center, and if they don't expect to recapture and hold it, or even if it's just annoyingly vulnerable to attack, they have little reason not to destroy it.

[LegioCI]

And how can any planet under Umiak control be safe from immediate Umiak counterattack?

First we have to assume three things:

1) The Loroi, independent of how they would treat the local population, would likely treat taking habitable planets with their infrastructure as intact as possible as a strategic priority.
2) Defending Umiak would not risk an entire system's defense fleet to burn a world, especially if they know that this particular attack is part of a larger offensive. At best they would send a strike force with the bare minimum of ships (And likely the oldest and least effective ships.) to both glass the world and provide a disposable rear-guard, while what survives of the main force would fall back to a more central system to rally a better defense of their more important core worlds.
3) The main space battle will in all likelihood take place very far from the habitable worlds. (Jump in points would likely be further out from the star's gravity well, while rocky planets would more than likely be much further in. There is also the problem that space battles are very messy, and you don't want megatons of debris floating around in orbit.

(Going to assume that these operations are largely Loroi-led, and that human forces are auxilleries or even just observers, able to communicate with an advise the Loroi forces, and that Loroi would be willing to humor our odd requests so long as they don't interfere with the strategy at large.)
We can assume that Loroi would likely attack a system if they had a force large enough to guarantee success and minimize Loroi casualties, in which case using a detachment of their faster destroyers to intercept and eliminate the Umiak strike-force moving to burn the world would not significantly effect the course of battle. (Especially since, assuming the Umiak have a competent commander, such a force would not be dispatched until they knew that they could not successfully defend the system and have no chance of retaking the planets there in the foreseeable future.) This gives an attacking force plenty of time to orient itself in a way that prevents the Umiak from being able to attack the planet without exposing themselves to attack.

Who cares about the biome? You're not asking for the planet's ecosystems to surrender. It isn't necessary to eradicate all life, and I already described one setup that would destroy any semblance of a civilization at the push of a button, for minimal investment and great gains in security from the Umiak perspective. If they don't do it that way, it still wouldn't take more than a handful of ships to do in a hurry while transiting the system.

We can make a few assumptions here as well. First off, even highly industrialized and urbanized world is going to have a significant portion of it's population outside the urban centers, to provide food and materials for those urban centers. I would imagine if the urban centers are building anything of importance, they would be hardened to some extent, to prevent Loroi raids from causing undue harm if they're able to slip inside the defensive perimeter. (Something that I think is well within the Loroi's capability to do.) Additionally, the Umiak would spread these urban centers out so that a decisive strike against a single area limits the damage done.

While this sort of hardening of infrastructure would be excellent for resisting raids and short attacks from the Loroi aimed at infrastructure, this makes a planet very hard to quickly and effectively depopulate a planet. They might be able to destroy some of their infrastructure ahead of the Loroi, but in order to really burn a planet they'd likely need to know ahead of time that the Loroi would be coming and that this attack would not be able to be efficiently defended. (Strategic/Economic worth of the system vs. the forces required to defend it.)

[Trantor]

Don't underestimate of the power of the charismatic leader.

Yeah, but overstretch the game, and your system will implode. See Nazi-Germany ´45. See Soviet-Union ´91.

What about China '76, Cuba '06/08 or North Korea '(??) ?

Just a coat-change.

But these days we´ll maybe witnessing the downfall of capitalism. Or at least the beginning of that. (btw i´m still p*ssed that papandreou flinched. This plebiscit would have been a nice shock to the system...)

[LegioCI]

But these days we´ll maybe witnessing the downfall of capitalism.

At risk of being political, I don't think it's the downfall of capitalism, it's mostly just shifting to a more comfortable position; we've witnessed that a purely socialist system isn't sustainable, now we're seeing that a purely capitalist system isn't sustainable. I think we're moving into an era where we're somewhere between the two.

[Trantor]

But these days we´ll maybe witnessing the downfall of capitalism.

At risk of being political, I don't think it's the downfall of capitalism, it's mostly just shifting to a more comfortable position; we've witnessed that a purely socialist system isn't sustainable, now we're seeing that a purely capitalist system isn't sustainable. I think we're moving into an era where we're somewhere between the two.

IMHO it´s everything else than that. There´s too much redistribution of wealth. See 99% etc.

But that raises a more ontopic question: What economic system do the Umiak have?

[LegioCI]

But these days we´ll maybe witnessing the downfall of capitalism.

At risk of being political, I don't think it's the downfall of capitalism, it's mostly just shifting to a more comfortable position; we've witnessed that a purely socialist system isn't sustainable, now we're seeing that a purely capitalist system isn't sustainable. I think we're moving into an era where we're somewhere between the two.

IMHO it´s everything else than that. There´s too much redistribution of wealth. See 99% etc.

But that raises a more ontopic question: What economic system do the Umiak have?

My guess is that it's so communistical that Chair Mao sheds a tear to even thing of it.

[Trantor]

But that raises a more ontopic question: What economic system do the Umiak have?

My guess is that it's so communistical that Chair Mao sheds a tear to even thing of it.

So in terms of progress as slow as the Loroi with their caste system. Piece of cake in the long run for us.
Let´s "just" survive. Then steamroller them.

[Overkill Engine]

I would posit that the current US economic system has been anything but purely capitalist for some time.

[Absalom]

Yes, but we've been becoming more capitalist (specifically, less regulated). In some ways good, in other ways bad (for the bad: the deregulation of the wheat markets has gone too far, as demonstrated by the fact that speculators can as a group now dominate the markets, leading to artificial scarcity: it was previously kept in check by keeping all buyers below a certain amount of business).

As for the Umiak, I'm thinking the primary portion of their economy is a command economy. The Umiak themselves probably have some actual business, but even that's likely to follow the fascist economic model (business is a subsidiary of the government). The economic models of the clients probably vary a bit (though everywhere there will be some non-command business, even if it's either minor or subsidiary to the local government), but obviously the Umiak command-economy extends into the clients.

[Trantor]

As for the Umiak, I'm thinking the primary portion of their economy is a command economy. The Umiak themselves probably have some actual business, but even that's likely to follow the fascist economic model (business is a subsidiary of the government). The economic models of the clients probably vary a bit (though everywhere there will be some non-command business, even if it's either minor or subsidiary to the local government), but obviously the Umiak command-economy extends into the clients.

That´s what i assume, too.
Our main problem is, we do not have agents there. No contact to a possible opposition or anybody else. So infiltration or propaganda and related methods don´t work (except maybe J-pop).
They´re SO alien that, at this point, i can only see peace through superior firepower. (Not a concept i as pacifist naturally like very much...)

[javcs]

As for killing off a planet's population (or even most of it) ... the Umiak would not need to glass the planet, or even enter orbit.

All they'd really need to do would be to launch a salvo of missiles on an intersection course with the planet's orbit. The missiles get up to a noticeable velocity before expending all their fuel, and are ballistic entities (and damned hard to see coming).

In order to do a messy kill on a planet, you don't need to get anywhere near it as long as you know the orbital mechanics of the system, can do the math, and can launch projectiles of sufficient mass to get through the target's atmosphere at useful velocities.

[bunnyboy]

you don't need to get anywhere near it as long as you know the orbital mechanics of the system, can do the math, and can launch projectiles of sufficient mass

Like from there.

[Nathan_]

(for the bad: the deregulation of the wheat markets has gone too far, as demonstrated by the fact that speculators can as a group now dominate the markets, leading to artificial scarcity: it was previously kept in check by keeping all buyers below a certain amount of business).

The wheat markets are hosed no matter what. population growth isn't slowing down any time soon, we've hit the limit in what our farmland can do, and new stemrot varieties are stepping up to fill the half a century gap in stemrot free wheat yields.

[Zakharra]

(for the bad: the deregulation of the wheat markets has gone too far, as demonstrated by the fact that speculators can as a group now dominate the markets, leading to artificial scarcity: it was previously kept in check by keeping all buyers below a certain amount of business).

The wheat markets are hosed no matter what. population growth isn't slowing down any time soon, we've hit the limit in what our farmland can do, and new stemrot varieties are stepping up to fill the half a century gap in stemrot free wheat yields.

No we haven't. There's a lot more land that could be farmed here in the US and the rest of the world. We haven't hit the limit by any means.

[discord]

zak: quite true, but we are using most of the GOOD farm land, combine that with the whole fertilizer/fuel problem that is likely to crop up soon, there is reason to be worried, not panicked, true, but worried.

population growth + decrease in food production = increase in food costs.

[bunnyboy]

zak: quite true, but we are using most of the GOOD farm land

And most of GOOD farm land is under buildings, roads etc.
Also, we are using globally 9 lbs oil for fertilizing, transporting, warming/freezing of 1 lb food.

[Nathan_]

zak: quite true, but we are using most of the GOOD farm land, combine that with the whole fertilizer/fuel problem that is likely to crop up soon, there is reason to be worried, not panicked, true, but worried.

population growth + decrease in food production = increase in food costs.

Don't forget the coming fresh water shortage, which is likewise important for farming. Desalinization is unfortunately both too energy expensive, and too environmentally destructive to work so it won't save us any time soon.

And most of GOOD farm land is under buildings, roads etc.

then as the price of food goes up, people will buy up(and would be buying up) those assets and use them to grow food.