From: Sandy Petersen (sandyp@idgecko.idsoftware.com)
Date: Mon 08 Jul 1996 - 21:11:13 EEST
Martin King
>Suppose rebels ambushed a Lunar patrol and then disappeared into
the hills.
>Whom do the Lunars punish? Reprisals against innocent citizens is
dangerous
>politically and morally.
>How can the correctness of the Lunar way be demonstrated on absent
perps.
The Lunars have a number of options.
1) State their purpose ahead of time. (I.e., take hostages
_before_ the crime occurs). For instance, "For every Lunar soldier
killed on a tribe's lands, one of that tribe's steads will be burned
with its inhabitants."
The result? Some of the members of that tribe will blame
the Lunars for this evil, but some will blame the freedom fighters.
"Those bastards. Knowing that our people would suffer, they ambushed
a patrol anyway. Now we pay for it." Social pressure to diminish
the raids would rise.
If rebels began to kill Lunars only on _other_ tribes'
lands, the tribes shall become more divided and less able to resist
the Lunars. A tribe might even go out of its way to start to protect
Lunars on its lands.
2) Destroy the rebels' base of support. The English earls
finally managed to conquer the Welsh by building a network of
castles into the Welsh lands. The Welsh couldn't capture these
castles, and as the castle-protected lands spread, the Welsh
economic support dwindled. This took well over a century. The
Lunars, not improbably, are looking at the same kind of long-term
changeover. First step, occupy militarily. Second step, extend the
Glowline. Third step, bring in Lunar settlers/convert locals/use the
strong magic of the Glowline to root out all rebels -- I don't know
what the third step is planned to be, but that is where they're
going to incorporate Sartar into the territory. At the moment they
are only toying with the Sartarites, and don't really care what the
locals' opinion is like.
Sandy P.
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