Jericho wrote:You're entire reasoning is based on three falsehoods
First: you assume that we'll tell them what we're up to.
Second: You assume we can't keep it hidden.
Thirldy: You assume that we'll commit our full force too the war effort.
I assume no such thing. I assume that if we tried to do what you're saying we would try to hide it, but the Loroi won't be leaving us alone, they're going to have people poring over everything we do to see if there's more ways we can help the war effort. Hiding the enormous expenditure of resources on building even a moderate fleet will be impossible without a concerted effort and the more people involved the more points of failure there are. You're talking about keeping the Manhattan Project a secret from our allies when everyone involved knows exactly what's going on and what's going on has a high chance of being directly in conflict with our best interests. It's extremely likely to backfire.
If we don't commit ourselves to the war effort the Loroi will make us. The only reason they aren't pushing the Historians is because the Historians have the power to push back, we don't, at all. Slacking will get us nothing but more strict oversight and while some people would be perfectly fine with being whipped by a Loroi slavemaster it's not going to be conducive to your goals.
And of course that's not even touching on the most important part, if we build a fleet of the ships we have the Loroi will laugh as they use us for target practice. A single Loroi destroyer could wipe the floor with the entire TCA as it stands. With 10 times as many ships we might annoy a cruiser, with 100 times as many they might need to send a small detachment to put us down. We won't be able to build anything worthwhile until they've taught us a LOT of technology by which point we'll already be learning to live with the situation.
Trantor wrote:But here in the Outsiderverse we will presumably have a huge pile of dead bugs, a financially ruined Loroi society (Britain after WW2 anyone?), a scarred Humanity, and some pretty unscarred Historians. And some other supporting actors on the scene (Barsam etc).
The Loroi will be more likely to be the Soviets post war than Britain. Massive military, militaristic culture, economy battered but functioning and riding high on the morale boost of victory. The only reason they're in dire straits right now is because they're losing, if the tide turns, the morale comes back and the pressure eases, they'll probably be fine.
fredgiblet wrote:Do you have another option?
Historians?
What makes you think they will be better? What makes you think they will ally with us against he Loroi in the first place? What makes you think we will be allowed to have any significant communication with them?
We have to be careful (a task for our top diplomats) and hope that the developement of the war will leave more room to manouver.
The treaties will need to be signed now, not in 5 years when we get to watch how things play out. If we hold back and spend too much time mucking around we'll end up being found by the Umiak and having the choice taken from us. Playing the sides against each other doesn't work when they're both willing and able to take you out.
Later in the war we might be able to show our value in a way that makes us able to get better terms from the Loroi, but the longer we're in their sphere of influence the less likely it will be that we'll have a reason to fight them, unless they're stupid and try to iron fist us. In 10 years we'll have near total economic interdependence to a degree that rebelling would be ruinous and we'll probably have more influence on the Loroi than any other client race.
The Historians have more firepower and they play a vicious game.
I'll agree that the Historians are likely be a nasty bunch behind the GM screen, but I doubt they would be giving the Loroi support if they could handle themselves. There's obviously plenty of room for other things to happen, but betting your species on a total unknown that MIGHT have a slightly better result in the end is pretty dumb. It's like drawing to an inside straight in poker when your life is on the line and you can fold for a good result as well.
Can you please explain?
The Historians have shown no sign of being interested outside their territory, even when they were attacked the retreated rather than defending. The Loroi are here, they are coming towards us whether we want them to or not, they have the territory between us and the Historians. They are running things, regardless of what weapons the Historians might be hiding behind their borders.
Why so?
I'm assuming that no one involved is stupid. The Mizol will probably jump into our media culture to ingratiate the Loroi and our businesses will jump at the chance to export to the Loroi creating economic dependencies. We'll send people over there to aid them at whatever they ask for, they'll have bases built on our worlds that are still largely staffed by our people. Unless they go full-on xenophobe and do everything they can to prevent our integration there's going to be a lot of mixing and unless they're stupid I think we will end up without much to complain about.
fredgiblet wrote:Give us some assistance and a decade or two and we'll be the Outsider version of Japan.
A heartily "boo" from Germany!
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Do you WANT to be known as a place that makes cool stuff and has EXTREMELY strange sexual media?