Why won't people join the rebels?

[Zack]

An interesting contrast, but neither is a situation I would want to find myself in.

 

[Cora]

You're in the Stary Army? You're apart of the Black and White World Uso.

 

[Tom]

Playing the role of a small group of energetic rebels fighting against a giant enemy seems fun.

A lot of opportunity for drama as well, as any loss is so great to the group.

Sorta like that show Brothers in Arms.

 

[Zack]

Well, if the SA system is dependent on having a bad guy in order to justify its exsistance than either a new war will start up or there will be a lot more rebels.

 

[Nyton]

There's also a matter regarding to the amount of resources necessary to stage a successful rebellion. Okay say somehow, as unlikely as it is, that a group of rebels takes over a planet in the Empire's space. How do you defend the planet? There is no guerrilla warfare when large planetary objects are involved. Unless you can make the planet move. So basically you lose your base because it won't take long for a fleet squad to arrive and bombard/invade said planet. And that's if you even get that far. The aforementioned squad would have arrived long before the planet was even half conquered. This isn't like the days of peasant rebellion where farmer bob and his neighbors kill the local constable, rally the rest of the province, and march on the crown. Sorry, I just don't have any ideas on how to properly rebel from the Empire without another equal level Empire's support. Then you've got a sort of Cold War comparison there. Maybe if you had key individuals placed at critical points but you'd need a zillion hackers to get past the MEGAMI AI systems which no doubt propagate the vast control systems set in place.

Its just that much harder to do when you've got such high levels of technology. There isn't even a modern day comparison because if the US had the tech levels of the YSA the mountains of Afghanistan wouldn't be such a hassle.

 

[Zack]

That is when you make your base on a planet that they can't attack. Nep for example, or Yamatai, or another inhabited planet that they can't simply wipe out alltogether. You can also use a world that they have yet to discover or go as far as to station your resistance outside of this universe entirely and base yourself in Ayenee where Yamatai will have a MUCH harder time comming to get you. If you manage to scrape the resources together you could also move your entire base planet elsewhere. You also don't have to use planets for a base, you could build mobile facilities and jump from resource to resource as needed. There is also the option of using Star Army ships and resources for the rebellion as Rune has demonstrated. Remember, you aren't small, you are mobile. You may not be able to win in an open battle but then again you don't need to win ANY battles that you fight in order to win the war.

And there are other empires you can ask for support.

 

[Nyton]

A mobile command base is possible but still costs money if you're going to be jumping through space evading Imperial patrols. Or like you said, jumping to Ayenee, that still costs something. But again even if you own a few ships and jump around to avoid detection, stage a few guerrilla hit and run strikes on Imperial ships, then what? What's your purpose? What's your ideal? What is the goal here? The current powers that be aren't about to abdicate and there's over a billion loyally engineered subjects willing to keep them in power. Even if you somehow by any strange twists of luck you wipe out the ruling family they have several ST backups and you just keep falling back to square one if 'assasination in order to change the regime' is the goal.

Breaking away from the Empire? If the Empire agrees well then you're on your own. Even if your planet has the resources to support these independance lovers what's to stop the Empire from changing it's mind and retaking it? Nepleslia is doing a decent job of it but then again they already had an infrastructure, army, etc.

Found a new planet? Okay, there you go, you founded a colony, people joined, you live how you want and you're done. No rebellion necessary if you got the proper permissions. How far will you prosper? Hard to say but even without Imperial encroachment, by the time you get anywhere you're already surrounded even if not by hostile forces. Or if your intention is to use an undiscovered planet as a base for rebel activities you still have to contend with being the smaller kid hiding in his tree house while the bigger bully rules the block. Again though, what is your overall goal here?

Military coup like the one going on now? That darned MEGAMI AI system is forever an issue in regards to this and even if you did manage to override it and steal a few dozen ships or even a fleet, there's still the issue of over a billion nekos engineered to loyally preserve the current regime.

I guess really it depends on what your overall goal is here. You can achieve independance in various different forms. If you're just fighting the power just to fight the power then you'll just end up spinning your wheels for a while. If your goal is convincing the citizens to throw off the tyranny of the Empire for something better then you might make some headway and break up the Empire a bit.

 

[Zack]

With mobility the goal is to eventually wear your opponents down, you can't really do that against SA until you have taken out HNI so generally the goal is whatever you want it to be. Staging an attack by itself is pointless if you don't have the resources to control the area so you have to use it as a peice of propoganda to futher either war wearyness or to pull people over to your side. If your ships can't use FTL then they are just sitting ducks.

Breaking away from the empire is hard to do... mainly because they like to blow up people who try that. Nep was a very special case....

If you are going to colonise a world to get away from Yamatai Imperialisum why would you go and tell them which world you are going to? The goal is to just get away far enough to where they won't find you.

 

[Tom]

The advantage of having a smaller group is that you can be very secretive and blend with the populace. Blow up a train. All it takes is one guy with a bomb.

Make things very very difficult. Create a sense of paranoia. Perhaps kill merchants or some other thing that causes a paralytic response. People in general, no matter how loyal they are to a country can become victim to fear. And if a government consistently fails to defend its populace, this fear will turn into distrust for those in control.

Make everything you do visual and viceral, and use that to promote your propaganda.

 

[Zack]

Distrust in a goverment will only come about when there is something to distrust. Constant attacks that the goverment failed to prevent won't make the goverment seem less credible unless they say one thing and the public precives something else as truth.

 

[Tom]

Continued and unimpeded incompetence (in this case, failure to stop multiple terrorist attacks) WILL make the government less credible.

The body which you depend on for your safety is failing you at the most basic level (in this case, keeping you alive and safe from harm).

 

[Zack]

Britain failed to stop repeated attacks during the battle of Britain in WWII however this did not discourage the people from believing in their government. In Vietnam the US government was highly successful in combat, winning all major engagements including the Tet offensive which virtually destroyed the NVA and Vietcong as an effective fighting force. This victory however was DISASTEROUS to the US and this military victory effectively caused the US to loose the war. The same thing occurred in Afghanistan with the soviets, the Afghanis lost virtually every engagement yet they were able to win the war. Winning and loosing battles is not going to change government credibility however things like the Tet offensive where the government said that the war was winding down only to have the entire country be quickly enveloped in a massive offensive will change the credibility of the government. Even though the Tet offensive destroyed the NVA and Vietcong it made the US leaders look like A: they didn't know what was going on or that B: they were lying to the American Public. This combined with Watergate ended the trust in government that people had built up from WWII.

Another Example, the 9/11 attacks didn't make the US seem less credible but instead galvanized the US against terrorism. Israel is another example, every day they fail to prevent attacks and yet the people firmly believe in their government to a degree that can be considered stubborn.

Attacks by themselves will not have any effect.

 

[Tom]

I see what you're saying, however I still disagree.

Let's say some terrorists blow up the Yamatai government building.

The government rebuilds it, with the full support of the people and all that patriotic rage that follows. They increase security, obviously.

It gets blown up again.

The government rebuilds it again, increases security ONCE again and makes a bold statement about how terrorism will die in their country, etc.

It gets blown up again.

I mean, could you not say that people would start to feel scared if they saw their own government unable to protect itself?

Let's translate the same situation to Bob's tool shack or any other merchant. These people are defenseless. I can see them forgiving the first attack as a terrible, terrible crime. But if those attacks keep succeeding despite the government's best efforts...

 

[Zack]

There is a big difference between continued attacks and that. That would work because the goverment made a statement that it didn't work. If they chose to downplay it the continued attacks would mean little. If anything why should people care that a goverment building continues to get blown up? Confidence won't be undermined unless the goverment says one thing and the public precives another happening. If they said that terrorisum is a rising problem and we all must be more vigilant the terrorist attacks wouldn't really be undermining the crediblity of the goverment.

 

[Zakalwe]

Britain failed to stop repeated attacks during the battle of Britain in WWII

Zack. I kinda take that as an insult.

Have you never heard of the Battle of Britain? Where our smaller airforce completely destroyed the Nazi one? If you are alluding to the Blitz, that was different from the Battle of Britain. The Battle of Britain was a great success.

Admitadly we where bombed, there was no way to stop that, although we made being a German Bomber very dangerous, and we lost lives to those bombs, thousands. But there was no way of preventing it, and the people knew that. It was not a failure.

In addition that is completely different from this situation where we are discussing terrorist forces. In WWII we were faced against an economic supergiant, with an enormous army, and a fundamentally enormous resevoir of resources and bombs. We where fitted against an enemy that had superior missile technology, that allowed the creation of the V1 and V2 missiles. We where against a nation of greater population. Yamatai, an empire of Billlions is fitted against Nairan, a organisation of 1000's. If anything you could compare Nairan to Britain, although I'd resent that as well.

I'd really like to know how you consider it a failure. And also what failures occured in the Battle of Britain, which we did win (Around 31st October 1940).

 

[Cora]

*sigh*

Uso... Why are you doing this? Do you like trying to make people hate you again?

 

[Zack]

The point isn't if the British destroyed the Luffwaffa or not just that the German air force was able to drop bombs and the British people didn't let it get to them.

 

[Cora]

Uso, they're not talking about large scale military strikes, they're talking about gurella warfare and terrorist attacks.

 

[Zakalwe]

Able!?! We destroyed their airforces, and then made it so dangerous to be a bomber that they had to stop bombing us. The fact is that they are fundamentally different things, and all we had was brooding hatred for the Nazi's. We knew that the government was doing everything it could, and that the bombs, which killed over 43,000 people, where the work of the enemy.

They really are incomparable situations. And there isn't any Winston Churchill's here, and that makes all the difference.