ASH: Derek Radner's Private Journal #7 - Conquerors

[Andrew Perron]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 20:03:39 +0000 (UTC), Dave Van Domelen wrote:

> the less powerful examples meet their level of incompetence before
> conquest enters their heads.  The Peter Principle, applied to Peter the Great
> or something.

That is a great line.

>      The best we can hope for if successfully conquered by a challenge-
> seeker is a sort of "catch and release" program, in which he hands back the
> keys to office once he's gotten everyone to say uncle.

As basically happened to Dr. Doom once or twice, I believe.

> Right now we've got four
> or five super-nations that account for most of the surviving population, but
> they're only hanging together out of inertia from the bad times of the late
> 1990s.  Once people start to forget the starving years, the Eurasian Union
> and North American Combine will start to fracture, no two ways about it.

Interesting that they most certainly didn't - of course, Derek would most
certainly argue that that's his doing.

It's also interesting that, as Triton moved forward in his goals, he
actually had to become more benevolent.  Like it says in here, conquering
isn't the same as ruling - but if one actually cares about keeping what one
has conquered, one has to defend it; not just from those who'd take it
back, but from other conquerers, from internal chaos, and from greater
threats.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, who thinks he started out with lofty
justifications, but ended up with practical self-interest.