I think Harold's later reply is a good analysis. There's a lot going on,
and all of those things taken together slow you down to inertia. And that
was really the whole point behind the way the "Rebellion" broke up the 3I
("Rebellion against the notion of centralized authority" is probably as
good a description as any). None of them had the critical mass to take it
all back if the rest didn't want to be taken back, but most of them had
leaders who couldn't do that math, so killed billions demonstrating it.
One of the things about the 3I is that you're really talking about Mao's
and Giap's People's War, but instead of the people's army swimming as fish
among the population, you've got the people's spaceships swimming among
space. As big as China and a billion people are, in-system and
interstellar space is even bigger with even more places to hide. Traveller
knew that via SDBs, so it really all comes down to "consent of the
governed." Winkling them all out is a fool's errand, the real issue is
getting people to say, "oh, all right."
> What I see is that their population possibly weren't as invested in the
> outcome as that of the Imperium. Imperial citizens/subjects couldn't avoid
> the war, whereas the Solomani were seeing their children being fed into a
> 13 year long meatgrinder with little obvious benefit. That's plenty of
> time for war-weariness to take hold.
>
> Furthermore, a lot of the fighting they were doing took place on and
> around lots of high population worlds. That's a rather different thing
> from the giant space battles that were the main event elsewhere.
>
> To make it worse, right at the beginning they swallowed the poison pill of
> Old Expanses, where they took in an entire sector's worth of an
> essentially unreconstructed part of the Imperium. That was a major shift
> in the balance of power in the Confederation, which, after all, was
> previously only about four sectors in size.
>
> And, of course, the Confederation was, despite SolSec's efforts, a
> confederation of what were in many ways rather loosely associated
> regions.
>
> Essentially, they bit off more than they could chew.
>
> At least that's my take on it. No, it doesn't really make sense.
and all of those things taken together slow you down to inertia. And that
was really the whole point behind the way the "Rebellion" broke up the 3I
("Rebellion against the notion of centralized authority" is probably as
good a description as any). None of them had the critical mass to take it
all back if the rest didn't want to be taken back, but most of them had
leaders who couldn't do that math, so killed billions demonstrating it.
One of the things about the 3I is that you're really talking about Mao's
and Giap's People's War, but instead of the people's army swimming as fish
among the population, you've got the people's spaceships swimming among
space. As big as China and a billion people are, in-system and
interstellar space is even bigger with even more places to hide. Traveller
knew that via SDBs, so it really all comes down to "consent of the
governed." Winkling them all out is a fool's errand, the real issue is
getting people to say, "oh, all right."
> What I see is that their population possibly weren't as invested in the
> outcome as that of the Imperium. Imperial citizens/subjects couldn't avoid
> the war, whereas the Solomani were seeing their children being fed into a
> 13 year long meatgrinder with little obvious benefit. That's plenty of
> time for war-weariness to take hold.
>
> Furthermore, a lot of the fighting they were doing took place on and
> around lots of high population worlds. That's a rather different thing
> from the giant space battles that were the main event elsewhere.
>
> To make it worse, right at the beginning they swallowed the poison pill of
> Old Expanses, where they took in an entire sector's worth of an
> essentially unreconstructed part of the Imperium. That was a major shift
> in the balance of power in the Confederation, which, after all, was
> previously only about four sectors in size.
>
> And, of course, the Confederation was, despite SolSec's efforts, a
> confederation of what were in many ways rather loosely associated
> regions.
>
> Essentially, they bit off more than they could chew.
>
> At least that's my take on it. No, it doesn't really make sense.