Zhodani Naval Doctrine

[ottarrus]

Utopia is a goal, not a myth. Also, it is the journey towards the destination that is important, not the destination itself.

Utopia will never EVER happen.
Every single society from ants to Homo Stupidicus has disposable members, the poor, the disenfranchised, the disaffected. One social strata leads, several social strata follow, and the bottom two are left behind. And it has been this way since Lucy came down from the trees.
Harmony is not a human trait and cannot be sustained in the long term among large populations. It has a hard enough time being sustained in Hippie communes and large percentage of that directly involves the consumption of peyote buttons or some other hallucinogenic.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

In the early eighty-second century of the Unrecalibrated Common Era it became obvious to temporal physicists that neither the Permian nor K-T extinction events where entirely natural. The temporal record was full of unexplained energy spikes.

After 27 years of effort, the Temporal Research Institute build the first machine capable of multi-million year time travel. Unfortunately, they did not take into account limitations in the year-span reach of the Temporal Non-Interference Circuit (TNIT) and their research expeditions, which were simultaneous because the new world government had cut their funding for fiscal year 8137 and they had to go 'now' - or risk temporal interference by going to the past in the past, but that's another dead-end subplot - set out from the year 8136 UCE.

The long and the short of it is, the drilling sampling process from the Permian Expedition caused a Lorentz-event-driven set of occurrences cumulating in world-wide mega-eruptions. The Cretaceous Expedition's drilling was not as bad; it only caused the Deccan Traps, but the flyby of a moderate sized comet was enough to induce a slight changing in its trajectory that lead, a few short tens of thousands of years later, to the Chicxulub impact. Funding was restored in 8138, but after the mass arrest of senior scientists and administrators, follow-up expeditions to fix the problem were cancelled.

-Reconstructed straight timeline history of the Temporal Research Institute, Year 6, Free Time Era

Okay, it wasn't us *yet*. Maybe it will have been us.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Sigtrygg]

If you do not think nature is not in harmony or balance, you have not studied science beyond the High School level.

I have a science degree thank you very much .

Volcanic soil? Richest on Earth for growing plants. Forest Fires? Again, rich soil afterwards. All life requires change in order to survive.

Except when that change kills them or they can not adapt to the conditions after the change - hence mass extinctions events and the continuous extinction and evolution of species.

Change is driven by environment. Extreme changes to the environment, cause species to adapt, to improve.

No, it cause the ones that can adapt to survive, the rest die.

The more adaptable a species is, the greater its survivability on a geological scale.

True, but the evolutionary pressure is to adapt to the environment you range through, and once outside your zone...

Humans only exist because of the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs.

Not necessarily, mammals existed before the dinosaur extinction event, and the Earth's climate change and continental drift would have caused evolutionary change in the dinos too if they hadn't been wiped out.

They couldn't adapt rapidly enough.

You still don't get it - you can either adapt to the new conditions or you die. You may have a mutation that allows you to survive the new conditions better than your relatives, they die, you breed.

Humans and other species could and did.

Humans didn't come along until well after dinogeddon, the mammalian species that survived the cataclysm could now find environments where they could compete successfully, and evolutionary pressure lead to a divergence of species.

This is the balance I am talking about. Everything in nature has its balance.

On a knife edge...

Burning the whole world with nuclear fire would kind of prevent any of that. As would destroying the earth's ability to produce oxygen. None of the things that you have mentioned that occur naturally operate on that scale.

Super-volcanoes, asteroid impact, mega-tsunamis, epidemics, reducing the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere so that plants die off...

When you get to the celestial-level of time, then you have things like supernovas and blackholes, which redistribute their matter and create new stars, new life, etc. The process begins again. All of it is in balance. All of it works together in harmony.

In a few hundred million years time the sun's energy output will be so high that life on Earth becomes very difficult, three quarters of a billion to a billion years and the Earth will be so hot the oceans boil away and a run away greenhouse effect will make Venus envious.

 

[ottarrus]

Folks, can we get back on point?
This thing derailed at 'No, the Consulate and the Imperium don't trust each other for valid reasons as each other sees it.'

 

[Sigtrygg]

They both face the existential threat of the wave...

 

[ottarrus]

But the Imperium doesn't know about it yet.
Longbow II is till under construction and whatever they do know is being closely held at the highest levels of government.
For that matter, it's currently unclear whether or not the Wave is one of the Zho's major casus bellii.

 

[MasterGwydion]

In the early eighty-second century of the Unrecalibrated Common Era it became obvious to temporal physicists that neither the Permian nor K-T extinction events where entirely natural. The temporal record was full of unexplained energy spikes.

After 27 years of effort, the Temporal Research Institute build the first machine capable of multi-million year time travel. Unfortunately, they did not take into account limitations in the year-span reach of the Temporal Non-Interference Circuit (TNIT) and their research expeditions, which were simultaneous because the new world government had cut their funding for fiscal year 8137 and they had to go 'now' - or risk temporal interference by going to the past in the past, but that's another dead-end subplot - set out from the year 8136 UCE.

The long and the short of it is, the drilling sampling process from the Permian Expedition caused a Lorentz-event-driven set of occurrences cumulating in world-wide mega-eruptions. The Cretaceous Expedition's drilling was not as bad; it only caused the Deccan Traps, but the flyby of a moderate sized comet was enough to induce a slight changing in its trajectory that lead, a few short tens of thousands of years later, to the Chicxulub impact. Funding was restored in 8138, but after the mass arrest of senior scientists and administrators, follow-up expeditions to fix the problem were cancelled.

-Reconstructed straight timeline history of the Temporal Research Institute, Year 6, Free Time Era

Geir, you are amazing as always. Nice bit of writing.

 

[collins355]

But the Imperium doesn't know about it yet.
Longbow II is till under construction and whatever they do know is being closely held at the highest levels of government.
For that matter, it's currently unclear whether or not the Wave is one of the Zho's major casus bellii.

Haven't they played MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients!

 

[Sigtrygg]

But the Imperium doesn't know about it yet.
Longbow II is till under construction and whatever they do know is being closely held at the highest levels of government.
For that matter, it's currently unclear whether or not the Wave is one of the Zho's major casus bellii.

So the Imperium has no intelligence assets in the Consulate? The scenario in the original CT Zhodani Alien Module showed something was up, hence the mission spurred by the psionic scryer.

The Empress Wave signal was received by the Longbow system (constructed in the 800s), not the Longbow II, and the stations to coreward of the Vargr extents had been going silent for some time before Strphon's visit.

If a Zhodani delegation make a diplomatic approach to Norris, showed him the evidence, Norris (along with his psionic intel assets) would know the truth of it.

Or send a team of PCs to Rhylanor.

Or forget about eh FFW grand strategy of the Zhodani grand fleet engaging in grand battles, you assemble the entire fleet and push to Rhylanor, take it and hold it until you have done what you came to do, then withdraw. A few diversionary raids by the Vargr, Sword Worlds, and dedicated raiding squadrons would disguise the offensive long enough .

 

[Condottiere]

Covert operations are kinda tough when their counter intelligence have telepaths.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The Imperium have psionic assets too.
I'm sure that if the Imperium sent a team of psionically trained PCs into the Consulate they would find stuff out.

 

[ottarrus]

The Imperium have psionic assets too.
I'm sure that if the Imperium sent a team of psionically trained PCs into the Consulate they would find stuff out.

Very true, but the Consulate is likely holding knowledge of the Wave very close to the vest. They don't want the Proles to panic, after all.
Should the Imperium send a psi team into the Consulate, anyone with this information that a telepath could read casually would be shielded. Intell assets in the Consulate would have to be VERY careful. They believe that the Zho's are leaps and bounds ahead of them in psionic skill [remember, they don't know the Psionic Powers chapter of the rule book ] and they know for sure that everyone has a breaking point.

Now, I'm assuming that all the Cold War stuff between the West and the Soviets isn't in play. All the John le'Carre and Len Deighton novels are artifacts of their time, so while physical techniques would likely still be used [dead-drops, brush passes, etc.], much of the atmosphere and... oh, I guess 'conditions of service'... for intelligence officers aren't.
All that tells me that, while Zhodani society is more open and honest, information [especially 'doomsday' stuff] is tightly controlled. It's easy to get the easy information... finding out that a Consular Navy ship is getting ready to leave by talking to dockworkers, economic intelligence, etc.... a lot of the government and military information is gonna be MUCH harder because almost all that info is managed by Intendants and Nobles.

Something else to remember is that Imperium doesn't have a CIA or MI-6. All their 'professional spooks' are Naval Intelligence, IISS Intelligence, and United Armies J-2 officers. ALL these services have a vary parochial view to the intell they gather. INI sees things through a Navy lens and applies Navy solutions, Army J-2 does the same thing with Army solutions, IISS-I is an almost passive gatherer of intelligence [using the Detached Duty program as they do]. But IF there is a 'King Spook' in the Imperium, it's probably a bland, ignorable viscount with a small staff that collates information for the Emperor... a 'Walsingham' type figure, 'His Imperial Majesty's Doer of Very Bad Things'.
But there is no dedicated ministry that gets intell from all sources with agents everywhere, wiretaps on everything, and a titanic budget. No, not even the Office of Calendar Compliance is that big. There is no Imperial counterpart to the Tozjabr.
At least, not in canon anyway.

 

[ottarrus]

As a side note, we got into a lot of this stuff when some of us were talking about my Psionic Jarhead...

 

[Condottiere]

I thought the Imperium did have a dedicated intelligence agency.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I can find canon references to Imperial Army Intelligence, Imperial Naval Intelligence. and IISS Intelligence but no intelligence agency outside of those three (until MT that is)

 

[ottarrus]

I thought the Imperium did have a dedicated intelligence agency.

There was an old Challenge article [issue 33] by Charles Gannon about IRIS, the Imperial Regency of Intelligence and Security, whose job it was to ensure a smooth succession of the Emperor/ess. It was Rebellion-era and the article is considered to 'fanon', although Gannon did publish official GDW Traveller content.

 

[ottarrus]

Back then there was a buzzword in the news and it translated into Traveller... 'the cult of intelligence'. The idea being that everyone believes that there is some mystical infallible agency in the government that sees all, knows all, and manipulates events to suit its hidden agenda. Essentially, the Illuminati in the Alphabet Soup [a term used to bunch all the US government agencies together].
Intelligence is just like any other business or service. It's run by human beings and has human errors. People get tired, get pressured, are careerists, are drinking too much, have a lousy marriage, all the foibles of the human animal... unfortunately, some of these people are credentialed intelligence officers with access to sensitive information. EVERY intell agency screws the pooch at some point, even the vaunted KGP.
INI dropped the ball in predicting the 5th FW. Whoever was in charge of Imperial Household intelligence eff'd up big time by not having somebody in Dulinor's staff. Even the Tozjabr, for all their psionic superiority, tanks it [see 'Twilight's Peak'].

 

[Condottiere]

It's likely most (interstellar) ministries will have a department that is tasked with intelligence gathering, whether judiciary, foreign relations, or whatever.

Chances are there does exist a Centralized Imperial Intelligence Agency, and does cultivate intelligence assets outside the Imperium.

 

[MonsterX]

I assume the Emperor has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of bureaucrats in his direct personal service. In that bunch there would be a vast analytical section charged with analyzing the compartmentalized information that comes in through the various intelligence services and other means, in order to provide him with classified analysis on which to base his decisions. Of course, it might not be that at all, it might just be several intelligence pipelines to the top, all providing different and maybe conflicting advice because they are aware of different facts on the ground.

Anyways, if I were Emperor, I'd have them all report to a single bureaucracy so they can cross check and collate their findings. It would be reliable but slow, however, because of the speed of information arriving in the core. There would be an advantage to also having analytical centers also more local to events - in sectors, subsectors and planetary systems. That level of decentralization would be very useful for fast reactions to events, but on the other hand, it decentralizes power and for keeping internal control the Emperor might want to maximize his information advantage, and promote a certain level of rivalry among his bureaucracies.

I think there is an assumption that human intelligence against the Zhodani inside the Consulate basically doesn't work. While the Imperium no doubt employs telepath spies too, their talent pool is much much smaller. Human intelligence mostly relies on suborning the citizens of your adversary, such as cultivating embassy or military personnel, or even just merchants, and ship repair mechanics, and others who might see things. Zhodani citizens will be hard to corrupt like this, and easy for the police to discover if they are corrupted. Imperial citizens are just the opposite.
However, the Imperium could do a lot of observation at a distance, and signals intelligence by having spy ship maintain spy satellites inside Zhodani systems. This could be small and stealthed, and use passive sensors. There would need to be a spy ship visiting to collect the data. The challenge would be to penetrate deep into Zhodani space, and then to maintain these - maybe with secret interstellar fuel depots, or Kuiper belt comets to refuel. It would be expensive though, and if the Zhodani found out the satellites locations- maybe by reading a spy ship pilot's mind? they could play a double-bluff by feeding fake info to the satellites. Of course, the Zhodani can also do signals intelligence but their advantage would be smaller - and the tech disadvantage would make a difference.