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On Mon, 8/18/14, Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] A Darker Imperium...
 To: "tml@simplelists.com" <tml@simplelists.com>
 Date: Monday, August 18, 2014, 9:37 AM

 On Aug
 18, 2014, at 8:45 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <nobody@simplelists.com>
 wrote:

 > I often look at
 historical
 > precedent here, what did the
 Romans do? Or
 > better yet the East
 Indian Company.
 >
 >
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 >
 > The way the USSR
 'managed' it's various 'clients' &
 potential ones could also be instructive.
 >
 > Of course they
 generally, relatively speaking, of course & w/ some
 exceptions (see Afghanistan, for example) wielded a lighter
 'touch' outside the Warsaw Pact, but even w/i the
 'Pact there were varying degrees of heavy-handedness.

 The old USSR was very much a
 centralized state. This just doesn’t work in an empire
 where information travels at the speed of transport. Evyn
 gets it right; the East India Company is a better model.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The 'core' of the Imperium could still be quite 'centralized' despite the the comm-lag & the more distant territories could be handled similar to the way the USSR did it;

ie: the amount of 'heavy-handedness' is inversely proportional to distance.

That's not to say that the EIC doesn't provide a good template too.
(or the 'other' 'East India Companies' that other countries set up. weren't the Dutch actually the first?)

And it should also be remembered that the EIC was NOT completely homogeneous.
I've read several sources that state that the problems w/i the Presidency of Bengal were not nearly as bad w/i the other two Presidencies (Bombay & Madras) & that's why the 'Mutiny had little or no impact upon them...
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