Thanks for the campaign write-up Kurt.  Your work is always a great read 

Sounds like a very nice way to wrap everything up. Nothing like a massive schism and then a huge war to get everybody to be friends, or at least put everybody into a cooperative mood.

The future of the Cold War Campaign

First, the major powers and their situation as they see it as of month 231:

Colonial Union
The Colonial Union is certainly a significant power; however, its leaders know that it is nearly at a population-growth dead end that will put them at a serious disadvantage against all of the other races.  Worse, the humans are divided in how to deal with this problem, with about half willing to consider joining another alliance, like the CSR or Alliance, while the other half are human-chauvinists and would only consider conquering other races, not joining them.  Indeed, the Union government is determined to move forward with improving relations with the known alien races and ultimately merging with the CSR, and is therefore facing significant resistance in the Sligo District, and perhaps even attempts to leave the Union. 

The Alliance
The Alliance is at peace, and is rapidly repairing the damage caused by the recent wars and unrest.  The fleets are being refitted and reorganized, and once complete the Alliance Navy will be stronger than ever.  With the departure of the Zir, the Alliance Council is focusing on shoring up its relationships with the other associate members, especially as there is some information that the Zir have tried to convince some to leave with them.  Fortunately, it does not appear that any agreed or will agree in the future, but the incident has shown that the Alliance needs to be more responsive to the needs and opinions of the associate members.  While always watchful of the Colonial Union, given their history, the Alliance and the Union are currently enjoying good relations.  The same is true of the Alliance-CSR relationship. 

Confederated Sentient Races (CSR)
The CSR is focused on integrating Tomsk and Bjering territories and infrastructure, and improving its navy and defenses against the possibility of the Mintek advancing out of the former Bedu space.  To this end it is discussing the possibility of a military alliance against the Mintek with the Alliance, although these talks are hampered by the innate mistrust that many politicians have for the Alliance, given its behavior in the past. 

Zir Commonality
As the newest major power, the Zir are expansive and eager to make their mark on the known galaxy.  The Zir navy is the smallest of the major powers, but growing, and as a “swarm” fleet, it is fundamentally different from those of the other powers.  Largely based on corvette-carriers, the Zir fleet is designed to be fast and hard hitting, and also easy to replace.  However, the Zir would never threaten any other race with the use of force except in self-defense, but are firm believers in peace through strength.   The Zir are exploring and expanding in every direction, and are planning on contacting the races discovered through the Villiers warp nexus in the near future, once their refits are complete. 

Confederated Free Systems (CFS)
The CFS is not really a major power at all, and was created as a buffer state between the Union and the Alliance.  For the last several years the CFS has been decentralizing as its weak central government has been unable to resist the calls of the powerful system governments within the CFS to provide defensive forces for their systems, which has led to a dispersal of the CFS fleet across their territory.  The CFS government spends most of its time keeping the Alliance, the Union, and its own constituent system governments happy and has little time for anything else.  The CFS has largely reached the limits of reasonable colonization efforts and their exploration program has largely ended. 

Pan Sentient Union (PSU)
The PSU is focused on reorganizing after the merger of the Ascendancy and the Mintek, and is developing a plan to launch an assault on the Alliance through warp point connections discovered in Bedu territory.  The stats for the PSU were not included in the recent post comparing the income and fleet sizes of the major races, for various reasons.  The PSU’s income was slightly higher than the CSR’s, but lower than the CSR’s once its allies were included, so it is approximately 40% that of the Alliance and its allies.  The PSU’s fleet was larger than the Colonial Union’s or the CSR’s, but smaller than that of the Alliance.  The one area where the PSU has an advantage is that its fleet has been completely refitted to HT-10 standards, unlike the Alliance’s fleet, some of which is still at HT-8 due to the recent wars. 

The future, as I saw it:
I often see the way I want the campaign to go, usually on the short to medium term, and quite often it goes that way.  However, many times things have happened that I did not anticipate that changed the entire complexion of the campaign.  Below is how I thought things would move forward in the campaign, but a critical defeat or victory in battle, an unexpected ally popping up, or exploration ships finding a new route into your enemy’s core systems would certainly be a game changer, and are essentially unpredictable. 

Short term (6-12 months or so)
The Colonial Union
Facing internal divisions and wildly divergent goals between its two districts, the Colonial Union will split in the near future.  The split will be largely peaceful, as neither side really wants a war, although there may be some standoffs and tense moments early in the division process.  The Sol District will remain the Colonial Union, while the Sligo District becomes the Republic.  There will be some friction points.  For example, the Solar System and Earth will be solidly anti-alien and will join the new Republic, but this will require transit rights through loyal Union territory.  The Tlatelolco will insist on remaining in the Union, as they won’t trust the anti-alien Republic, and this will require transit rights through Republic territory.  The Union will be willing to grant Earth’s request if the Republic agrees to Union membership for the Tlatelolco, and transit rights through Republic territory.  This should go fairly smoothly, along with a division of the fleet.  The Colonial Union will join the CSR in the near to medium future, making humanity the dominant economic and military force in that nation, although not the most populous race. 

Terran Republic
Formed out of the Sligo District of the now defunct Colonial Union, the Terran Republic will have its ceremonial capital on Earth, but its working capital in the Sligo system.  The Republic will start out as an uneasy alliance of corporate interests and the most powerful system governments, but they will rapidly begin feuding amongst themselves trying to consolidate their power and elevate themselves within the new government.  While they fight, the Governor of the Union, who is mostly viewed as a political kook and not taken seriously, will move behind the scenes to exacerbate their fights and ensure that none of them manage to get ahead of the others.  Governor Holcombe is actually the head of the Humanity First movement, something very few know, and has used this association to rise to his current position.  Holcombe has worked very hard to cultivate his image as a safe non-entity, allowing others to think that they are in control while he moves behind the scenes.  While this is going on, Governor Holcombe will be working to secure his own position by pulling off a massive coup.  The Sligo District was home to a closed warp point linking the District to the Confederated Free Systems, something that had been kept highly secret by the Union government and Navy.  This info had been leaked to the governor some time ago, and even before the split with the Union the governor and his Humanity First movement had been funneling money and resources into the CFS.  These resources have been used to fund the rise of Humanity First parties in the CFS, and has been driving the division and dissention within the CFS that has greatly weakened their central government. 

Within a year of the split from the Colonial Union, several systems within the CFS will experience widespread unrest, which the central government will attempt to respond to with ground troops.  The Terran Republic will use its clandestine influence to ensure that the response will be both large enough to frighten the system governments and completely incompetent and ineffective.  Once several systems have seemingly descended into chaos, the Republic will reveal its link to the CFS and several system governments will appeal to the Republic for “security assistance”.  The Republic will, of course, be more than happy to provide this assistance.  The system governments coopted by the Republic will make it impossible for the CFS and its military to respond effectively, or at all, and in a short period of time several of the systems will declare that they are joining the Republic.  Within six weeks or so it will all be over and the CFS will be completely absorbed by the Terran Republic.  This will all happen fast, and will be over before any of the other nations can do anything about it.  This annexation will boost the Republic’s economy and military, but it will still leave them far behind the major powers, approximately equivalent to the Zir. 

CSR
Once the Colonial Union joins the CSR the nation will be completely focused on absorbing the Union systems, reorganizing and modernizing the fleet, and rebuilding its infrastructure to coordinate with the rest of the CSR.  This will take some time and will completely occupy the CSR’s attention for the near to medium term.  Because of their inward focus, and their innate distrust of the Alliance, the CSR will be unwilling to take issue with the Republic’s annexation of the Confederated Free Systems. 

Unfortunately, divisions between the human Tomsk-led areas and the former Colonial Union areas will mean that humanity is unable to dominate the CSR’s politics as its economic and military strength might indicate that it should.  However, the addition of approximately half of the Colonial Union’s economy and fleet will push the CSR much closer to the Alliance, although they will still be at around 60-70% of their size and strength. 

The Alliance
By month 232 The Alliance is the dominant nation in the campaign, and is poised to grow further as it amalgamates three associate races over the short to medium term.  The Aurarii, Doraz, and Torqual all will amalgamate with the Alliance as soon as they can raise their tech to the required level, and the Aurarii are already there.  Amalgamating these races will boost the Alliance’s income by 40%, putting them even further ahead of everyone else.  The amalgamation of the Aurarii will take place within the next year, however, it will be medium term before any of the other races are ready for amalgamation.

The Alliance will be very concerned about first the Colonial Union’s dissolution and then the rump Union joining the CFS, dramatically increasing that nation’s strength relative to the Alliance.  When the new Republic annexes the CFS, the Alliance will strongly protest, but the Republic will argue that it was not a signatory to the original treaty creating the CFS and ask for negotiations.  By that point the Alliance will only have light forces deployed to their border with the CFS, as their naval reorganization has concentrated their forces in a few nodal locations, so they won’t be able to intervene militarily for some time.  By the time they can intervene the annexation is over and it would mean open war, so they allow the Republic to absorb the CFS.   

The PSU (Mintek)
The PSU will be focused on integrating their territory, refitting and rebuilding their fleet, and developing its plan to attack the Alliance.  In essence, their plan will involve the use of light raiding forces hitting widely scattered systems through contact points known to them.  They believe this will draw off significant reaction forces from the core systems of the Alliance, at which time they will launch a major assault from the Mintek home system through the fortified warp point to the Alliance Phyriseq system.  The Phyriseq system is known to be fortified, and so massive numbers of SBM pods will be used to clear the fixed defenses, along with minesweepers to clear the mines and automated weapons.  This attack will take several years to prepare for. 

Zir Commonality
The Zir will finish the refit to their fleet in a few months, and then will begin a program to contact the races found through their Villiers warp nexus.  Their original exploration ships found four different races through the nexus, and they agreed to defer contact as the Alliance requested.  As they are no longer in the Alliance, that contact will now go forward.  Of the four races beyond the nexus, one is known to be the Mintek.  The Zir have agreed to avoid contacting the Mintek, after reviewing records of Alliance contact with that race, but they will go ahead with contacting the others. Two of those contacts are actually human, one in space that by that time will be controlled by the CSR and the other by the Terran Republic.  Obviously, contact will not go well with the anti-Alien Republic, although there almost certainly won’t be a war.  Contact will go very well with the multi-racial CSR, and the Zir will find much affinity with the CSR’s lack of warlike history.  The third race will be problematic.  This is one of the alien races that was absorbed by the Mintek before their merger with the Ascendancy.  So, this system is now controlled by the Mintek.  Finding themselves in contact with the Mintek, the Zir will almost certainly go ahead with efforts to establish productive and civil contact with that race, which obviously won’t work.  The Zir will almost certainly be at war with the PSU by the end of the short term.  The PSU will be much stronger than the Zir, and the Zir, with their swarm fleet, will find it impossible to assault Mintek systems even if they do manage to hold them off, so they will ask the Alliance for help, which they will give.   

End of the short-term
By the end of the year, approximately month 245, the Zir and the Republic will be approximately equivalent in strength, with the CSR around twice as large, and the Alliance still larger than everyone else.  The Mintek-led PSU will find itself at war with the Zir-Alliance group, and its plans for an attack into Alliance territory will be completely derailed. 

Longer Term
Predicting what is going to happen for this period of time is largely problematic, because so many random events or unlikely battle-resolutions can change the course of the campaign.  However, I expect that the fighting will be intense between the Alliance-Zir combo and the PSU.  The Alliance will heavily campaign with the Human-Bjering CSR to bring them into the war, and, as they are already convinced that the Mintek are a threat, the CSR will agree.  The CSR will launch an assault across its points of contact with the Mintek, dramatically widening the war, further dispersing Mintek forces.  At this point the Alliance will launch a coordinated assault into the Mintek home system from both the Villiers and Phyriseq system, and this should prove decisive.  The Alliance is large enough that it has enough fleet strength to engage the Mintek across all points of contact, and with the addition of the CSR and coordinated assaults into their home system, it should be a foregone conclusion for the Mintek-led PSU. 

In the meantime, the Terran Republic will use everyone’s distraction to expand at the expense of the aliens around it.   First, they will nuke the Tarek out of existence, and then colonize their worlds.  Then, they will try attacking two alien races discovered through their warp points by the Colonial Union.  The CU had decided not to contact those races, but the Republic will now launch invasions of one of the two, trying to expand its economy by conquest.  Unfortunately for them, neither will really work out for them.  One of the races is the Alliance Associate Member race Torqual, which is one of the strongest and most advanced associate members.  While the Alliance will be distracted by the war with the PSU, they will likely leave the Associate Race’s fleets in place, as they are backwards compared to the Alliances.  Also, if the CSR is involved in the PSU war by this point, they will view this attack as a willful attempt to take advantage of the situation, and will help the Alliance fight the Republic.   This will mean that both the Torqual and the Doraz fleets will be able to respond to an invasion, and Alliance and CSR help will be available, eventually.  And the other race is worse.  This other race is the Assimilators, the bug race I mentioned in the last post.  If the Republic tries this one first, they will unleash a plague on known space.  In either case, the Republic’s days will be numbered. 

In the end, the CSR-Alliance team will almost certainly win the wars, and at that point all of the races involved would amalgamate to face the future.