KLM wrote:
As a side note: if someone devotes time and effort
for a likeminded extrapolation of the TGE, CCW, Sploogies,
UWW, FWC, CA, altess Dynasty, you name it...
Palladium gave this kind of attention to the CS, see
WB11: Coalition War Campaign, which reulted in
one of my favourite World Book.
this was a comment by KLM in his quite wonderful look at the Golgan military.
now, i have not done as extensive a job, but i do have a few thoughts on the Trans-Galatic Empire that might serve as the spark of a larger discussion. they were ideas i had awhile back when i was trying to figure out what kinds of metaplot i wanted to use should i ever do a phaseworld game. as it turns out, i could figure out metaplot easily enough. it was normal adventure plot i had trouble writing..
keep in mind, these might be counter to canon, i wasn't paying too much attention to the canon at the time, what little there is.
i see the TGE as having multiple great Kreeghor houses, of which the imperial house is only one of. and within each House, there are multiple family lines. loyalty is to Family, house, and empire. in roughly that order. thus TGE politics is a mess of secret deals, house alliances, Nepotism, and backstabbing. all the houses and families are required to pledge fealty to the imperial family (specifically the position of the emperor [but not the individual]), which is the only way the imperial family manages to keep the rest under control. a member of a family going against the interests of the imperial family (IE: the intrests of the TGE) will bring down extensive harm on his family, including censure, loss of title, loss of lands, ect.
while only the Imperial house has power over the fleet (in theory), most of the commanders of the fleet come from non-imperial families (done to keep the other families happy). this of course is why the TGE will not trust any one commander with too much of the fleet. if a single officer gains direct command over enough of the military, he could stage a coup against the imperial family. so the imperial family makes sure that there is no clear cut command structure (except on a time by time basis) and that no one house has a majority of officers when a larger fleet has to be called. of course, each family usually has a corps of "house guard" which is a military in all but name. but generally they are kept in check by various imperial decrees to limit the size of bodyguard units and such, so the houses are not a direct threat to the fleet. (in theory the TTGE fleet is the "Imperial House Guard", but leadership issues make that less than certain...)
each house is generally interested in expanding it's power. either by getting its members into important positions, obtaining consessions and debts from other houses, or aquiring new holdings in which to demand tribute, adding to it's wealth and thus allowing it to do the former two items. of course, the imperial family cannot let any one house gain too many holding so they use imperial decrees every so often to give certain long held and loyal family holdings as "favored partners", members of the TGE and able to join it's military and civil service organizations, and governed by Kreeghor appointed by the imperial family (and whose taxes go to the imperial family). thus the imperial family prevents any single house or family from gaining too much economic power (also opens up plenty of minor government official positions for the houses to compete over..)
of course this make the TGE a very unstable political enviroment, part of the reason it is so dangerous. it has to constantly expand to keep it's houses from starting up a multi-faction civil war, and it can't trust it's members to not violate any agreements made (which is why all Kreeghor diplomates are of the imperial family...thus all treaties are of the emperor, and thus if broken will bring ruin onto the family of the person breaking it.)
in terms of military strategy...the kreeghor still prefer their "swarm" mentality. the majority of the TGE fleet is destroyer and Cruiser sized vessels. Battleships and Dreadnaughts are rare. the TGE has no dedicated Carriers, using their fighters in a more defensive way, as interceptors and escorts of the warships, tasked with protecting the warships from the attack fighers of the CCW and most other adjacent star-nations. non-kreeghor aren't trusted in fighters, and for Kreeghor pilots, the desire to keep a close watch on members of rival families creates an atmosphere where individual heroism is considered suspicious. thus fighter pilots are kept to a limited and mostly undesirable role. (on the otherhand, commanders of a ship can usually get away with such. it's only the desire of ship commanders to control subordinates that keeps the TGE fighter corps from really coming into it's own.)
tactics wise the TGE tends to be a mess. with no clear chain of command, the TGE's fleets tend to operate as a collection of semi-independant sub-fleets. which is why the TGE's policy is of overwhelming force in all conflicts. if they cannot get at least a 4 to 1 advantage in strength, they will likely not attempt a direct conflict. in terms of covert actions, usually the representative of the imperial family (the closest thing to a leader most fleets have) assigns specific targets and tasks, and lets the commanders of those fleets figure out how to accomplish it. this is actually the houses preferred means of conflict. it is the imperial family that divvies up the spoils. a straight up fight usually sees less per family, since so many will be involved. but in small unit actions, there will be only a handful of families involved in the capture of targets, and thus the rewards will be greater.
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orbiting