I also find the whole theory of Pan-O being caught up in public opinion about the hardships of the Japanese people to be a bit... dubious at best. I could link a large number of news articles regarding quite a few nations where the international community - just - doesn't - care - what happens to people. From people burning themselves alive in protest to occupation (and being called terrorists because of it) to people in EU consistently having their EU grants for education and development being stolen from them by their own government to the point where second class citizen doesn't even cut it. Not to mention that the US actually has both second class and third class citizens who aren't all that bad off (as long as you don't compare them with the rights held by mainland US citizens), making the term "second class citizen" kind of dubious as to its actual value. In the real life news, you've got a regime that has been confirmed, by reliable human rights organizations, for having bombed its own civilians indiscriminately using both fuel bombs and chemical bombs and the international community grumbles angrily while a member of the Security Council helps said regime out. You've got another regime where the pre-PanO (because face it, Pan-O is the inheritors of US and EU policy) had to make up evidence of nukes (i.e. "Iraq is threatening the UK") in order to sway public opinion before people started caring enough. Bottom line is, the treatment of the Japanese as described isn't really anywhere near harsh enough to merit people on other planets caring for them sufficiently as long as Yu Jing don't start actively threatening Pan-O territory. Which they don't - they are actually helping defend it. This piece doesn't make sense, and that's without raising the ghost of how easy it'd be for Yu Jing to emanate propaganda regarding justifiable security measures due to Tatenokai and Kempei terrorism.
Convenient for the PanO strategic approach. "We did it because of humanitarian reasons, our populace couldn't endure the plight of the japanese citizens!!!", so not really unbelievable, it can bite them in shared positions with YJ, but for this situation is ideal to psych their populace as willing to go to war with YJ because of this. Yes, but no government is actively trying to send its population into a mindset regarding that. It has been tried with "poor refugees", but it works mostly with "they are the bad guys! We are the good guys! We can't allow this to continue!!". Oh, wait, those are trumpish lines... The situation in which it might work, frankly, is that PanO already has a passive "anti-YJ" campaign going on, and then it makes it go full throttle trying to make it a matter of Just Anger (kinda "Deus Vult!!!!"), and it would be much easier among the comlogged people. After all, we already see this kind of thing, with the algorithms that select the content that google and facebook suggest to us, generating a self-reinforcing feedback in which the more you see a kind of news, the more it shows those news to you.
@xagroth I'm reacting to the line of thought that PanO is trapped by public opinion. That PanO engineered such public opinion is more likely than them being forced to act because of it.
Arg, given my opinions on the general handling of the JSA split I don't want to delve into apologia. And yet, while the facts on the ground here are immutable, one can see how they they can be made to work. Even the decision of Yu Jing not to go to war over what is patently an act of war CAN be salvaged... on basic geopolitical principle caving in here will have a domino effect, but what if PanO institutes active blockades in Yu Jing airspace and these aren't challenged not because Yu Jing is inept or weak or has decided inexplicably to abandon all notion of national sovereignty? Assume @psychoticstorm 's line about Japanese importance is correct, this is a pride issue not a big economic or territorial blow to Yu Jing (the Uprising book content about the significance of Japanese industry in the StateEmpire being complete propaganda for boosting Japanese pride now they've seceded). Assume all nations, as they absolutely must, understand the principles of sovereignty and the cascade to destruction of a state if it is not defended. Perhaps it could be argued, if we take all that as true, that Yu Jing ceding sovereign power over its territory was accompanied by a political push at O-12, working with everyone BUT PanO, to isolate the Hyperpower in the Sphere's governing body... essentially, Yu Jing painting PanO as belligerent and willing to openly violate the rights of other nations, itself as a party which placed the good of all humanity above its own interests in not escalating to war. You can't sell that line to Japanese citizens, or to PanO citizens, but to seasoned politicians in the corridors of power it could ring true. And, for the cost of a blow to pride and letting some ingrates go, Yu Jing advances its case of being the rightful leader of the Sphere one more step, and next time the Oberhaus or the Security Council meet on an issue where PanO's interests are concerned the Hyperpower will find itself outvoted. Here, Yu Jing hasn't been outmaneuvered and left in an obviously weak state, but rather made a trade-off, sacrificing Japan in order to pursue its longer term ideological and strategic aims.
Of course. And they certainly wouldn't have if a bizarrely powerful international supergovernment didn't side with the Uprising. This is why I argue that we shouldn't make parallels (historical or otherwise). Bits and pieces of the situation have allegories that fit, but the whole context does not exist in human history. We have no frame of reference for understanding a political situation where superpowers interact under the authority of a higher world government. Understanding/believing O-12 is the biggest conceptual leap we have to make in this story.
So here's the problem. If JSA are an inconsequential power and only pride is at stake then they have very little to offer other factions. Maybe enough to spark the interest of Nomads or Ariadna but anything on offer that is not important to YJ is also of a scale to be of no use to PanO. So PanO are in it for that hit to JY pride and material gains may help persuade other factions. Of course that arrangement has to have been so convincing to those other governments that they don't immediately go to YJ saying they have info available for a price (slightly more than the inconsequential amount JSA had and split between every faction) and immediately cripple the entire uprising. For PanO the only gains are pride and for that they commuted an act of war against another hyperpower? If they had the direct o12 sanction that's a massive risk. If that sanction was pending but not in place that's an insane course of action due to the risk of the whole thing being a YJ ploy. All that risk for hurting the pride of YJ? It makes no sense at all. Those other nations would all need to verify the claims made by the JSA rep (possibly with each other if claims were made of other factions helping) and none of that was noticed by the ISS. This brings us to the uprising itself. There is no possible way an event on this scale could be orchestrated by the general populace, especially if a single point of failure brings down the entire endeavor. So they need ways of getting info out to people on the ground during the Uprising. This means not only do they have to have units target any ISS present they also need to take control of all the media. If they don't then very swiftly there will be the (JSA) Emperor on every screen claiming that PanO are mounting an invasion (see those PanO craft in the skies shooting down loyal YJ troops) and have troops on the ground masquerading as loyal JSA forces but the IA are already en-route to assist. Now that Emperor may be a Kanren or other holo but enough people will stay loyal to "their Emperor". Then that coverage switches to some downed PanO craft and explosions ripping across YJ territories and you've got PanO caught in a position where they are clearly starting a war. Even assuming PanO high command thought this was a good plan still (and I'd argue they were snatching the idiot ball out of YJ hands by this point) this just leads to YJ withdrawing troops from the front lines fighting CA and leaving PanO badly outnumbered so that they can "secure their borders from this recent foreign aggression" or take the political ammunition @Shiwen mentioned above if the opportunity presents itself. Or it could be a way of planting spies more firmly into every other faction with the JSA (or some of them at least) as double agents. Ultimately this current version of events only makes sense if YJ knew about it and (to a greater or lesser extent) orchestrated it. In which case PanO high command need the silk scarves for walking into the obvious trap. Or its being orchestrated at an even higher level by Aleph (or CA?) in which case all bets are off. So there are ways it can be made to make sense but it really does require something more as the grand reveal rather than taking it at face value where things simply don't stack up.
So just a thought: First, as someone pointed out in the other thread, any player discussion of this is hugely unproductive because our personal understandings of what are 'good' or 'bad' actions of a person/state/empire are all going to be different. So here's my thought. Maybe Uprising is speciifcally written to present 'neutral' views of both JSA and YJ and we're the ones misreading it as being either good or bad. IE, maybe Gutier is secretly a genius and trying to say 'hey, both of these guys do things you don't like, and both do things you do!'? But I think what's more likely is flanderization.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or just being sarcastic? lol My wording was perhaps poor but meant to be sarcastic. OBVIOUSLY that's how it was intended. The problem is nobody likes that idea because everyone reads it through their personal lens (including me). And of course the reality is also that Gutier is not some ascended being above human ways of thinking: he's got his own lens that comes out from time to time inevitably. The problem is that the 'neutral' depictions of the factions are getting flanderized over time, and thus, getting stale. It leads to the perception of factions as 'good or bad'. Which to me, indicates lazy writing.
I don't like the line of reasoning that JSA territories/assets are worthless. They very much aren't. The Kuge offered PanO the chance to sucker punch YJ in a very public fashion, but they also offered lucrative contracts (mining on Dawn I think). Infinity has always treated realpolitik as a guiding principle of the narrative. So many of these concerns about the story not respecting complex international politics and intrigue astounds me. That's basically the *only* theme of the narrative.
Yeah he's been trying to downplay the criticality of the rebellion to Yu Jing. Maybe their holdings represent 5% of Yu Jing's wealth, maybe 2 percent or 10 percent. I don't know, but it's enough to make deals with and found a fledgeling nation. A Hypopower, if you will.
His position gives his opinion more weight than yours I'm afraid. But as I noted above that amount (we can take your 5% for what its worth) is split between all the factions asked to help. Let's say Ariadna get 1% of that pie. Do you really think they wouldn't just sell the info back to YJ in exchange for 2% instead? They make twice as much. YJ saves more than half the money/value and don't lose face. Win/win. Unless you were one of the other factions who just had the diplomatic fallout but see none of the money. So best make sure you're the first to approach YJ with the deal ;) PanO getting asked to intervene at least makes sense in that they can't reveal the plot back to YJ but commuting an act of war on the word of nondescript middleman no one has heard of about money that will be paid by a nation that currently has no capacity to pay seems like a ludicrously high risk move for a slice of 5% and a chance to belittle YJ given that if anything goes wrong you end up with a worse political fallout than you are set to gain. Bear in mind this plan requires the orchestration of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people who are already under observation by arguably the Sphere's top intelligence agency and a single point of failure will bring the whole plan down. Its taking a bet where you make £10 or you lose £5 but at million to one odds (and assuming the whole thing isn't already rigged for you to lose on top).
Given o-12's willingness to intervene in this way, there isn't really a Yu Jing, and possibly not a PanO, as they aren't nations with sovereignty. The setting seems extremely poorly thought out on this issue. At least the Lady of Pain in Planescape was a mostly neutral omnipotent overlord - if you have one who is interventionist, as o-12 clearly is, the story should be about them, and not their serf/client states who are like children in a playground compared to them.
Well, his initial claim that it was only a hit to Yu Jing's pride came after people claimed that the state-empire was getting hit too hard. So in that sense, it comes off more as defending CB more than being honest about the setting.
