Subject: Comment to the Civil War Memorandum
Hi!
Yesterday, I re-visited your webpage and browsed through some documents,  
including Don Gallager's Civil War Memorandum.

OK, most of it is really neat stuff, changing the universe to a good  
extend. I like most of it.

Ce que je n'aime pas DU TOUT, c'est la fin. It IS a nice idea to have the  
nice boy from Giedi Prime desert to the Renegades - and taking most of his  
fleet with it. It may also be that Caesar Iulianus dies without being able  
to name a successor. (In this case, however, I would say he got a meta- 
virus of the snow plague that set his body to rapid decomposition. Had he  
known that his time had come long beforehand, I think he would have coped  
with his succession.)

What I cannot bring me to accept is the end of TOG. I think that is a  
story element that made up the feeling of the universe.
So, why going from one extreme to the other? My proposal:

>SOURCEBOOK 3: THE CIVIL WAR
>to fight rather than pursue a Fabian strategy.  Several giant
>fleet battles result, with Marcellus being defeated at last ala'
>Pompey at Pharsalus. Final outcome: De Vries "restores" the
>Republic, but naturally more authoritarian than before for
>practical reasons. Unrest grumbles on in a few places, and the
>K-Rs begin to act in a threatening manner again...
Several giant fleet battles result, with De Vries surrendering to  
Marcellus at last. Meanwhile, Renegade agents capture the newly built  
Mannius-class battleship out of the shipyards, in the vicinity of Trans- 
Pluto, naming it the RNS Constantin. In order to reach a quick cease-fire  
between the remaining of De Vries' fleet and his loyalists to restore ius  
imperialis et disciplina (law and order), Marcellus signs a peace treaty  
with De Vries and releases him to a small desert planet in the Naram  
republic after his fleet pulled out of the terran system. After that, he  
returns to Terra in his own Mannius-class ship, the INS Caesar Marcellus.  
He is received in such a tremendous triumph all through the empire that  
the Senators and Overlords alike kneel to his glory - or face his wrath.  
Some Overlords who pissed him off too big time desert with their forces to  
the Commonwealth or the Renegade Legions, still strengthening their  
military power. Caesar Marcellus brings forth some reforms to the Ius  
Imperialis and the TOG society, although not touching the basics of the  
TOG.
Marcellus' and De Vries' peace treaty: All fronts are subject to a five- 
yeared cease-fire, beginning at once. The fronts are fixed as they are at  
the moment. (For the CW-TOG-front, this means that the front is /inside/  
the Alaric march; in the haste, it is not written down where exactly.  
(Actually, it /was/; it was even fixed which planets inside the Counties  
and which Continents of contested planets belong to whom; unfortunately,  
this addendum was ,lost' after some re-adjustments by De Vries. Yes, the  
Renegades have their buttholes, too - that's what makes them so  
realistically likable, after all.) This results in a re-eruption of the  
fights in the Alaric March after some years - but, most of his military  
power bound elsewhere in the Empire, Caesar Marcellus decides not to wage  
such an attritive war as his predecessor. TOGs are on the defence in  
Shannedam County! - After all, like George Orwell put it in 1984 in 1947,  
a little border scirmish is good for the morale. And after all, the Peace  
Treaty is not (yet) violated, as the fronts are still within Alaric March,  
so Marcellus can afford losing some ground without losing his face.)
TOG declares the cease of the ,seduction' of the Naram Republic at once  
(or sooner), allowing them to pursuit their own future now. TOG-loyalist  
Narams migrate to still-TOG held Dalvik district in the following years.  
Minor fighting between the Naram Dalvik overlord and the Naram Republic  
about some planets at the border.
TOG at once leaves the KessRith-space.
Consequences of the treaty:
-TOG is in the defensive in Shannedam County
-The Ssoran finally succeed to pull out a real Renegade underground in the  
confusion
-Five-yeared breath pause for the combatants
-The ZOG come to respect the Renegades, as the Renegade De Vries in  
Constantin's name came to Terra to restore the honour of his cause.  
(Actually, he wanted to shoot it out with Marcellus, but hey - sometimes,  
the loser writes some history, too.)

Marcellus' reforms:
 - Patria Potestas is reformed in a most fundamentalistic way. After the  
depopulations of the Snow plague, PP should have put the population levels  
back to normal scales by stripping women of duties beyond... restoring the  
population levels. So, the Nova Patria Potestas honours that:
  * Every planet gets a population level. Upon reaching that, NPP is  
abolished, giving women full citivenship.
  * Illegitime Children are given plebeian status or better. A slave woman  
giving birth to four children can opt to attain plebeian status.
  * Pregnant women receive full citicenship in their class for the  
duration of their pregnancy and one year thereafter. (This is called the  
rabbit article.)
  * Every woman giving birth to more than six (actually, between four and  
eight, depending on the planetary conditions - on Index, a truly  
paradisical planet who suffered terrible from the snow plague (which keeps  
popping up and killing some ten thousands from time to time), it is 12!)  
children or finishing her 60th year retains full citicenship.
  * If a woman is killed, this is to be considered murder, even if she was  
a slave and died at the hands of her master.

These ,reforms' are, of course, terribly cynic; for one, bettering the  
status of Slave women or plebeians, but also worsening those of patrician  
women. (PP was not truly practiced in this class. As Marcellus was  
educated partly in Potsdamm county and at New Sparta, he started a quite  
rigid practice of the NPP also in the patrician class.) This deprived the  
Underground to a certain extend of female agents within the lower classes  
- but now, some real high-up official women with lots of money and power  
joined the big bad red R.
 - It is simplified for members of one class to climb to another or fall  
back from patrician to plebeian. This degrades some lazy patricians, and  
adds much to the dynamic of the society.

Marcellus is not truly behind these reforms. But he sees it like the  
German president Hindenburg pre-1933: He does not stand behind the system,  
but as the system is good for the Imperium, which is his (prussian) duty,  
he serves it with all he has to give in order to serve the Imperium  
Immortalis.

>ADVENTURE BOOK: WORLDKILLER
>
>ala' TESSDRAKE RUN. Conclusion: Republic finishes and
>demonstrates weapon, then hands technology to K-Rs, Ssora and CW
>after producing a large stockpile of its own to establish balance
>of terror and (hopefully) lasting peace settlement thereby.
>Rationale:  with such weapons, there is no safety and no gain
>from fighting-- so why do it?
Marcellus tries to build his own death-star, but Renegades can destroy it.  
First, Renegades try to spread the technology - but soon they realize that  
it was Nobel who spread the dynamite technology for the same reasons. And  
all it did was worsening wars.

>SOURCEBOOK 4: THE "ISLAND WAR"
>
>BASIC STORYLINE: Decades after Civil War and establishment of the
>Armed Peace, war breaks out again-- but in an unexpected place:
>the "islands" linking the Magellanic Republic with the Milky Way!
>Each "island" is a collection of O'Neill colonies spaced 1 month
>at top T-Space velocity apart, used to bridge the gap between the
>Cloud and the various nations. The K-Rs, chafing at enforced
>This book to provide jump-off point for an entire new series of
>games, etc. as the data for the Magellanics doesn't exist, and
>the K-Rs still remain sketchy. Mix and match characters,
>backgrounds, hardware, etc. from different nations and factions.
A treacherous plot by a Imperial Praetorian Warlord and a Vauvousar vivil  
servant civil servant make it public that the Vauvousar all the time  
oficially equipped ,volunteer mercenary' B'ekkal Units to help the  
Renegades. Evidence is created that the disease which killed our great  
leader and imperial-chancellor(tm), Caesar Iulianus, was murdered due to a  
twisted plot by evil Vauvousar ambassadors.
Caesar Marcellus has little chance but to start a war with the Vauvousar  
because the situation in New Rome is not THAT stable now and Marcellus is  
not already sitting firmly in the saddle. KessRith come to the aid of  
Vauvousars. This opens two new fronts. Marcellus gets some publicity-rich  
victories, and as the defeats come, all eyes in the empire watch the  
Operation House-Cleaning, in which Marcellus in conjunction with some  
allies strike down on some Lictor werewolf organisations. In the end  
everyone is happy again, especially the inter-galactic junk merchants and  
the players enjoying some really whiz-bang material battles.  
Waidmannsheil! (=Good Hunting!)

OK, this is how I would alter the storyline. (OK, I know, I know, I'm over- 
achiving again.) I think this would give some new perspectives to the game  
universe, without altering too much.

Yours
  V.Ralf