--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 2/8/16, Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] Persistent fellow, springboard for ideas....
 To: "tml" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Monday, February 8, 2016, 2:17 PM

 On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at
 3:53 PM, Bruce  Johnson
 <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
 wrote:
 >
 >> On Feb
 8, 2016, at 10:38 AM, Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
 wrote:
 >>
 >> By
 mid-1107, the BOE had realized it was more cost effective to
 hire
 >> small merc units to
 preemptively hunt down and "terminally dissuade IG
 >> kinetic business practices.”
 >
 > So let me get this
 straight:
 >
 > We’re
 talking about known terrorists aligned with a interstellar
 polity hostile to the Imperium, and criminal arson acts are
 being committed undermining the world economy and the 3I and
 local government leaves it to the business to hire
 "merc groups”?
 >
 > Sounds much more like the bank manager in
 question is trying to eliminate competition for his
 money-laundering/insurance fraud sideline...
 >

 Spent a lot of time digging everything I could
 out on the lead up to
 the 5th Frontier War
 on Efate.
 Lot of digging thru TNS for the
 time frame, then the Wiki, then old adventures.
 This little slice of 3I history has been where
 my players have been
 playing the last few
 months of real time, and I worked very hard to
 get them caught up in the final months leading
 up to the Siege of
 Efate.

 The destruction of the
 freaking TAS building at Efate starport was
 accepted as a "civil war" /
 "local issue" that the Imperial Marines
 were told not to mess with.

 The 3I continued denying there was any tie
 between the IG and the Zho
 right up until a
 couple hundred days before the Zho fleet arrived.
 They denied there was any Zho activity on the
 border worlds right up
 until the Zho fleets
 showed.

 Officially.

 At the same time, the
 availability of merc units drops, none of them
 accepting contracts, until the 3I drops the
 hammer on the IG on Efate,
 intervening in a
 3+ year long "civil war" / "local
 disturbance" with
 massive shock and
 awe.

 So - known terrorists
 that the 3I repeatedly denied were affiliated
 with the Zho in multiple TNS reports, working
 to undermine the
 Imperial presence on Efate,
 were officially ignored by the 3I.

 There's some non-canon text about Efate
 indicating that the local
 gov't
 wasn't highly trusting of the Imperium, and were
 particularly
 picky about "we don't
 want the 3I to have an excuse to spread troops
 out all over our planet, we'll take care of
 this ourselves"

 It
 wasn't until definitive proof of Zho involvement was
 delivered to
 both the local "parties of
 influence" that they agreed there was
 off-world influence and that they could trust
 the Imperium to deal
 with it. (IMTU, it was
 my group of players who captured a Zho spyship
 in the process of delivering munitions to the
 IG that was the final
 straw of proof)
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I remember there was enough of a schism w/i the imperial naval command, at this time, that the, subsequently proven to be incompetent, senior admiral of the 'Marches felt compelled to create an 'Office of Naval Information' as a counterbalance to the original ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence). Once hostilities commenced, Norris spent quite a bit of time & effort to acquire an Imperial Warrant in order to remove said incompetent & take control of the war effort. I also recall something about the incompetent having the support of the Duchess of Mora, self-styled 'senior duke' of the marches, & also that there was quite a bit of  friction between her & some of the, so-called, 'latecomer junior dukes' such as Norris, Duke of Regina.
In SJG's timeline, which it now seems is going to be adopted by MM as 'official', Norris, after becoming ArchDuke of Deneb, moves the capital from Deneb to Mora, after which both sides agree to a mutually amicable arrangement & 'bury-the-hatchet'.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------