Not the best example, given they are allies. Replace the EU with China or Russia and you are closer to the real PanOceania/Yu Jing situation.
It's been more than a decade, I should be OK saying this. If not, well, I'm sure someone at the FBI will be having an interesting conversation with me in a couple weeks. I think I've mentioned how I was in the Navy on 9-11-01. When the first plane hit, it was no big deal, planes crash. The rest of the planes all getting hijacked at the same time made it a coordinated attack. We knew this by the time the second plane hit. Military bases went to total fucking lockdown. Nobody in or out. And that's every US installation on the entire planet, by the time the second plane hit (less than 20 minutes later). There were warships circling outside the major harbors tracking every damn airplane in the sky within 3 hours. My base was at the "search every damn car that is coming on" stage for a week (and I think only stepped down from that due to the State Police complaining about 30-mile traffic backups on the only north-south route on the entire Peninsula). We damn near shot down a US Coast Guard helo that came hauling ass past the docks on our base. Only thing that saved that helo crew was that they were flying balls-out, nobody could get a rifle on them before they were out of range. So, there's no fucking excuse for the StateEmpire suffering more than a single attack that took out an Imperial Service precinct-house. Any others should have been stopped out at the perimeter, just like attacks on US forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. The only way it *might* be possible is if every attack went down at the same time (within ~30 seconds of each other). Can someone with the book tell me if all the attacks on Imperial Service offices were on the same day? Your fortified perimeter doesn't have to look fortified, concrete planter boxes can weigh enough to stop a semi-truck if you put a big enough tree in them, and don't look threatening. No. Someone would have noticed increasing anti-Federal sentiment there long before it got to the point of shooting. While I don't know which agency is tasked with that job, I know someone is. It's probably the FBI, but I suspect that if I knew for sure I wouldn't be able to tell y'all. Even if you said Russia or China instead of EU, Puerto Rico is a long way from the US. There are several other entire nations (Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Bermuda...) between the two. So it's international waters. Technically, the Russians station several ships between the US and Puerto Rico, they're ported in Cuba. Russians don't bring nukes to Cuba, we don't bring trouble. Russians bring vodka, we bring porn, arrange a nice trade, maybe a barbecue on the flight deck.
This level of coordination isn't necessary. Communication in Infinity isn't instant between systems, most info packets have to be sent through the wormholes physically on ships. Even using the Metatron or Darao systems (which allow some instantaneous interstellar communication, through what is believed to be quantum entangling) and not ubiquitous or easily accessed. Most of the initial attacks which are described wouldn't have required access to literally the most secret and advanced military technology which is exclusive to the two Hyperpowers (the Metatron and Darao systems) and likely got notified the "old fashioned" way. The attacks thus happening in isolation is thus more easily explainable than similar with the modern US Military.
"The story is stupid because *insert assumption here* and *insert further assumption here* and because x unit should have performed because *insert assumption about unit performance here*. The whole plot isn't plausible because *insert comparison of yu jing japanese (who have a standing military and actively part of yu jing command) with earth country geographically and (in many ways) politically separate to other earth country". Yep, no you're right guys. Its all there in the uprising book. Black and white. The analogy might be more apt if we're talking about a rebellion within US where some of your congress members, some of your largest businesses and key members within your FBI are actually complicit in it and you have a large chunk of population actively incensed by recent events showing systematic acts of letting those people getting killed unnecessarily. Throw in a number of external powers, including your biggest rival actively supporting this event. Now uprising is not a masterpiece of subterfuge writing. PanO's influence does seem a little too "obvious" and other things niggle in how they play out. But the attempt to paint this as some abysmal picture relies on many preconceptions that you are creating yourselves.
Only the Hexahedron and ALEPH have access to Metatron, and Darao is still spooling up. Even then Metatron is only used for the most important of messages and ALEPH updates.
@Section9 if I remember correctly major iss stations and officers were all hit on the same day in the book. Also I don't think using the United states is a great example. With all of our technology, intelligence services, international reach, and so on 9/11 still happened. We weren't able to stop it and we are the most powerful nation in the world. Also after 9/11 we were out for revenge and we didn't really care against who as long as they were brown and from a country that looked hard to pronounce. No one batted an eye at going into Afghanistan. We were told there were bad guys connected to 9/11 in Iraq so almost everyone was on board for dishing out some payback while invading their country and handing out democracy and freedom. Earlier you spoke on how the us has written the manual on counter insurgency (coin) and how other countrys use it and model what they do off of it. I 100% believe that and truly believe we are the best at fighting insurgencies and guerillas we have a lot of experience doing it. While we are the best we are also absolutely awful at it. It's like being the prettiest turd in the bowl, at the end of the day you're still shit. We absolutely 100% will fuck anyone up when they're fighting a conventional war and wearing uniforms and flags. Its game over before they even so go. But when we are fighting someone who doesn't fight conventionally and wears exactly what the civilians wear we struggle. Don't get me wrong we won't lose but we aren't winning anytime fast. Dudes living in caves and huts with ak47's have been putting up a pretty damn good fight against the most powerful military force in the world. Sad thing is that we are still the best at it. I don't think the EU would do any better. I don't think the PRC would do any better. I don't think Russia would do any better lol granted we'd probably make sure and arm/train locals like we did with the mujahadeen. So how can you use the us military as an example as amazing counter insurgency and say that the iss would never do something dumb? The us military is amazing at creating insurgents and radicals. Every time we fuck up and kill kids, innocents, blow up a school or hospital we create more insurgents and radicals. If I lived in a country and a family member died in a drone strike by another country who were hunting bad guys staying in my country I'd pick up a rifle and want blood. We are bad when it comes to collateral damage and bad Intel. But again we care about optics more than alot of other countries and even though we kill innocents and kids every now and then I still think we'd handle it better than Russia or China. @Hecaton you gave some scenarios about the EU and Puerto Rico. Allow me to present my own. Let's say its here in the United states. Let's say that here in the states we treat the Japanese awfully. Think like Jim crow pre civil rights but for Japanese. People would say they're second class citizens. I'm using Japanese just to keep it easy and connected to infinity. Now let's say a faction of those Japanese hated what was happening and wanted change or to completely free themselves from the oppression and they pull off 9/11. Now before you say well we would have caught them and stopped them some dudes in the middle east planned it and pulled it off. Let's say there's more of them and they continue to attack and blow up buildings. How are people's feelings going to be towards the Japanese? What about the people who can't tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese? These extremists will be able to blend in incredibly well to the population. Who is supposed to get them? The police? They sure have a great track record. The FBI? Ask the guys from Waco and ruby ridge how that went. The military? So I assume we declare martial law which ought to be popular? How many innocents would be killed in a these kinds of ops? How many people would join them if we mistakenly kill the wrong people? How many Americans would be ready to throw away principles and decency if it was their friends and family who were killed?
I'm not arguing that the Secessionists couldn't have pulled off at least one attack on the scale of 9-11. I'm arguing that wherever that first attack was, the Secessionists had maybe 30 minutes to hit any other targets. By that time, every Imperial Service installation on the entire planet should have been at full security. Note that notification of attacks is a very likely use of quantum-entangled/FTL comms, regardless of other readiness measures.
My guess is that the attacks would have had a set time to go - and that they would've probably all gone off at roughly similar times. That being said, even if a station started getting ready for some attack, if it didn't have a full military presence on station, might not be properly locked down to deal with a military attack - they were stations for a militant police, not actual military bases.
I'm sure that the intention was to hit all the targets at the same time. But communicating that becomes another possible leak for the Yanjing to chase down.
It all makes sense to me that the JSA forces were generally beating ISS in most conflict zones (the ISS in fluff being presented more as police than combat units), but then the JSA would all get their collectives asses kicked (and die to the last man) any time a Banner Army or the Invincibles entered the fight. What I'd like to see now is some reforms, some restructuring. Great reasons for this in fluff (lots of failures all around), and great reasons for this in game crunch (shifting units around to best take advantage of new "design space").
I feel its a lot like an action flick where there are several risky points where if the bad guy had done X the whole thing falls apart. But really, the story is about the chain of events that didn't get foiled. Through both skill and a huge amount of luck. A perfect storm. That never reads well to the person who didn't want the "protagonist" to succeed, but not every story will please everyone. The tatenokai just rolled a crit at the start of uprising.
They rolled an improbable number of crits, IMO, but yes. Uhhh.... Let's see here... I know, let's tell a story. Back in 2003, there was a "little oopsie" while removing a Trident 1 missile from it's launch tube on the submarine. According to the newspaper reports in 2004 (there are many, look them up yourself, IIRC the NYTimes had the best coverage), seems some dumbass didn't remove the ladder from the inside of the tube before hoisting the missile into it's travel enclosure. The nosecone of the missile got smashed in, but didn't get to the important pieces, let's call them. Less than 30 minutes after that "little oopsie", someone woke up the President (because that's how fast messages that critical get routed). That's also how fast notices of attack get passed around, if not faster (that particular "oopsie" got routed through a longer chain than some). For what it's worth, someone hijacking an airplane is also one of those "wake up the President" items. Given the timing, the President was already awake when the 9-11 attackers took the planes. But he was still notified as fast as possible. Oh, and I should add that attack warnings go to everyone. I was seeing notifications of attacks within 10 minutes of them happening in 'buttcrackistan', and I was in Seattle. That's about as far on the other side of the planet as you can get, and I wasn't even in the same Major Command for routing. So notices of attacks in the Yu Jing home system (both inhabited planets, since they co-orbit kinda like Earth and the Moon or like Pluto and Charon) would have been everywhere on both rocks within 30 minutes of the first one happening. I refuse to believe that someone wouldn't be able to move important news at least that fast with 175 years of computer advances and an AI to give priority, even if they are "Godless Commies". Being "Godless Commies" makes them misguided, not stupid. Assuming your opponents are stupid is how you get really nasty surprises, like Pearl Harbor. Or 9-11-01. This gets us to solar system comms delays. Which, admittedly, can add hours. It's about an hour and a half for radio to get from Earth to Saturn (location of the first wormhole, the one to Ariadna), and then (assuming) another hour and a half back in on the other end. Neptune is about 4 hours from Earth by radio, and then that much more back in. I'm assuming equal travel times because I'm assuming that the wormholes are as close to the star as they can get. And besides, it's not like we have anything else to work from. Hrm. Longer than I thought. So that could explain why Kuraimori, Shentang didn't succeed compared to the other places. The Imperial Service was reacting faster than the different groups attacking were coordinated. But other places had enough delay that they could mostly succeed. Note that this requires the Imperial Service troops and their families to live in the Barracks, which increases the size of the place from a single large office building (example: 1 Police Plaza in NYC) to the Marine Barracks at 8th&I in DC. A full city block or more. Actually, probably 4 city blocks, to allow for some walls and additional defensible space, ancient Chinese style, with a gate at the center of each wall in each cardinal direction. Now, if even Ariadna has FTL comms, that makes them cheap enough to at least have one in each Precinct House. So the entirety of Yu Jing or at least the entirety of the Imperial Service could have been notified within... probably 3 minutes of the first attack, as long as the FTL Comms box was intact. Given events like we're talking about, initial voice reports need to be made within 3 minutes (that's the US standard, I don't believe anyone else is slower). Basically, that's enough time to start your local emergency responses, then it's time to tell everyone else the sewage has hit the air impeller. So we're back to the Tatenokai rolling an absolutely improbable number of crits to get the successes they did, if each Imperial Service Precinct House had an FTL comms box.
More correct question: would someone be able to stir up separatist movement among a very specific and large ethnic population within a nation without people taking pre-mature action forcing martial law? Stiring up separatist sentiments? Sure. Keeping people coordinated? Hell no, even the most under-funded intelligence service would find out that it's going on, even if they might not be able to nail down who does it.
One thing I feel are getting glossed over is that the the entire JSA went over. That means that from day one the "rebels" had a working mobilized army. Remember the JSA had an entirely separate army structure from the State Army up to and including its own High Command. The ISS and State Army would not face a militia but a professional army so it was not really a guerrilla warfare scenario. Yes some places it started with a terror attack but other places it was a Attack/detention of ISS forces by the JSA made easy as they shared bases. (It would be like the Marine Corps decided to succeed from the union and those detain the FBI personel in Quantico) but everywhere the JSA deployed later that same day. Another problem is that the book tries to describe something on the complexity scale of Syria/Vietnam war in about 50 pages. So there is a lot of room for interpretation.
Funny you mention Vietnam. Vietnam was still counter-insurgency, even though it was US Army versus the North Vietnamese Army as early as 1965 (the Battle of Ia Drang in We Were Soldiers was primarily against NVA regulars). Yes, I game Vietnam. Think it was in a different thread where I mentioned that my primary gaming interest is counter-insurgency warfare (and colonial warfare, pre-1900). Counter-insurgency isn't about what kind of opponent you are fighting, it's what kind of tactics they're using. When the enemy hides among the civilians, daring you to attack them knowing it puts civilians at risk (which is also a War Crime, BTW), that's an Insurgency. When the enemy tries to make the civilians hate you and love them, that's an insurgency. Roughly speaking, the Japanese Secession is rather close to Vietnam in a lot of ways. The Insurgents were strongly nationalist The Insurgents were fighting against a rather corrupt government that tended to treat the villagers outside the big cities like shit, so the Insurgents tended to have a lot of popular support The Insurgents were supported by another major power, which made it difficult for the Counter-Insurgent power to use it's full force. There was immense political pressure against the Counter-Insurgent.
At work, right now so i don't have my book to check. But as I remember it that kind of figthing only happend on Kurimori (sp?) and in the various orbitals. On Paradiso, Dawn and Earth the State Army did not reach any major civilian centers. Incidentlly shift in tacticts on Kurimori happend halfway through the uprising, and that is when the reports of warcrimes by the Iss is mentioned untill that point I think that the tacticts used by the JSA was more regular army tactics
Where did "even Ariadna have FTL coms" come from? Explicitly only the Hexahedron has FTL communication via the Metatron system (which ALEPH shares) and Yu Jing have less thorough deployment of their response. These are still very secret and highly restricted. Nobody else has anything other than sub-light passing hard copy through the wormhole network (which can require several jumps, and hours long transits in some links between gates in unoccupied transit systems). So, yeah. The communication challenges of the Infinity setting go a LONG way to explaining how well things went everywhere outside the dual-system.
