Youngblood, on 28 May 2012 - 09:18 AM, said:
The Swedenese of the FRR brought a vastly different culture with them to their worlds compared to the bushido culture that was putting them down.
Not so with the St. Ives Commonality. Please do not refer to the commonality as a singular person. Also, please do not refer to the people in it as some sort of separate minority group that deserves so much attention focused on it. The differences that brought about Compact were about leadership, not culture.
And most of all, to the rest of the posters on this thread, please do not think of the people of the St. Ives Commonality as the "good Capellans". People of the St. Ives Commonality do not inherently have higher moral standards just because they are more accepting of the Federated Commonwealth *cough*anglophiles*ahem* and/or their policies regarding government, protocol, and culture.
Oh, and one more humble request. Please stop reading BattleTech novels that Michael Stackpole has written. His Star Wars writing is decent, but he has no clue of what it feels like to live in a collectivism-oriented culture.
Still doesn't change the fact that St. Ives
is independent, and the reasons for that independence are still in place. Candice left because of Maximilian's psychological collapse during the 4th Succession War. That legacy of madness continues as Romano Liao has ascended the jade throne and is even worse than her father! A return to the confederation would surely mean widespread suffering for the people of St. Ives. Consider the Cataphract development team which was savaged by Romano's agents during the crash program to set up an assembly line at Betelgeuse at the end of the 4th Succession War. Romano gave us a taste of what reunification under her leadership would entail with her endless raids against civilian targets in St. Ives. With that kind of aggression, the
citizens of St. Ives would understandably be loathe to embrace her "leadership".
Furthermore, there exists by this point an entire generation of St. Ives
citizens who have been born and grown up away from the collectivist cult of personality that surrounds the Chancellor. They have not been indoctrinated as their parents were, and a return to the Confederation would signal a massive loss of rights through no fault of their own.
To see what the future holds, I quote an exchange (From the House Liao Handbook) between Horace Farnsworth (a businessman from Jonathan) and his newly-appointed Planetary Refactor, Absalom Bung-Wei.
Bung-Wei: I fail to see the harm, gentlemen.
Farnsworth: That's exactly our point, sir. You don't understand that the people of Jonathan expect to be a part of any response to such an event-
B-W: Forgive me- The People of Jonathan or the Citizens?
F: What?
B-W: Are you speaking of the servitors or the citizens?
F: We're all citizens of Jonathan, sir, and I resent-
B-W: I don't particularly care what you resent, Mr. Farnsworth. According to my office's records, you have yet to earn your Capellan Citizenship. Until you are ready to become a productive member of Jonathan's society, I don't see why I should waste my time.
F: Just you wait a minute! I've been a member of the Chamber of Commerce for thirty years!
B-W: And that entitles you to what, exactly? Jonathan is a Capellan world, Mr. Farnsworth. Until you're a citizen, until you're ready to offer some service to the state to earn the state's consideration, I will continue to operate the local constabulary response to natural disasters as I have in the past. Along with the local Home Guard, the operation of schools, and the ******* bus route. Good day, sir!
You are correct in the sense that St. Ives is culturally similar to the Capellan Confederation, especially in superficial senses. In 3031 The St. Ives military was mobilized to counter Davion forces seeking to invade the remainder of the Capellan Confederation which was under siege by Canopus and Andurien. It is, ironically, likely St. Ives who saved the Capellan rump-state by flexing it's military and diplomatic muscle, buying off the war-mongering Davions and allowing the Confederation to concentrate it's forces against Canopus and Andurien.
But no, I have never referred to St. Ives as being composed of any kind of ethnically unique population that is apart from the rest of the Confederation, or as any kind of minority group. They are, in 3050, De jure independent in the eyes of most of the inner sphere, and at the very least possessed of De facto independence from the Capellan Confederation. I will cop to the fact that St. Ives is not inherently "good." But I will persist in my insistence that Candice is a much more stable leader than Romano.
On a personal note, I don't read the novels. They make my eyes bleed. I do, however, have a large stack of TROs and source books.
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