So they're Space!Ferengi Mk II.
Wouldn't that corporatist loan-shark nature also lend itself well to creating hapless dupes?
"Yes, we know Ixylpak; you are in debt to our house for 1 trillion GalCreds, as are your children and their children's children...
...but, you can wipe that debt clean if you push that button."
Not really. Though they can be fairly ruthless in their internal politics, the Darhel invest most of their energy into screwing over other people.
You see, a long, long time ago, the Darhel were themselves a ruthless race of galactic conquerors. Until they threw down with the Aldenata, the same race that genetically-engineered the Posleen. Eventually the Darhel sued for peace and to enforce it, the Aldenata basically hardwired pacifism into the Darhel brains via lintatai (the whole madness-coma-death progression if they kill someone.) They can also trigger this state by talking about killing, however circumspectly, ordering killing, or even thinking too hard about killing. "At the heart of every Darhel is a frustrated warrior who longs to reach out and strike down his enemies, but dares not even speak of it, or imagine it."
So instead, they settle for ruling much of the galaxy through their political/economic domination of the Galactic Federation. They control the wealth, the banks. Anyone anywhere in the Federation (or at least the Indowy, we aren't shown much about the how the Himmit and Tcptch figure in) must take out a loan from the Darhel to purchase the tools or other property to make his living. From that moment on, he is effectively an indentured servant to the Darhel. If the Darhel call in someone's loan at any time, that's the end. There's no support, no sort of program, even their family won't give them a couch to sleep on, least they draw down the wrath of the Darhel.
The Federation is also extremely hierarchical, with the Darhel being the top of the heap. Even door locks only work for ones equals and subordinates, their social superiors and bosses can waltz in, unannounced at any time. It's one reason there was so much horse-trading over figuring out where the human military 'caste' would be in the Galactic pecking order.
In the first book, Mike speculates that the Galactics are having a population crisis themselves. Why else would anyone settle a shithole like Diess? I don't think anything ever came of that though.
Well, I'm about a quarter of the way through DwtD, and my head hurts. Here's just a couple things I need to get off my chest before my head explodes.
"The Burb is a cube. The top of the cube is one hundred feet underground with the area over it reinforced with 'honeycomb' anti-shock armor. The cube is broken into eight sectors and each sector is broken into subsectors. The primary sectors are letters, A through H. The subsectors are numbers and once you figure out the way that breaks down if I say something like 'C8-8-4' you know right where you're at. The subsectors are each four stories high and four blocks wide and deep. They start numerically at the center and work outward both from the center and from the joining line to the next sector. The sectors are eight subsectors, or eight blocks, wide and eight deep, but they are still under construction and a few of them continue out beyond eight subsectors.
"Right now you're in Sector F, Subsector 1-1-4. That means that you're right at the top of F, on the border with E and four blocks out from the center. Sector A is security, emergency services, administration and a few living quarters, mainly for administration and security. Sectors B through D are living quarters. Although some of C and D are given over to support. Sector F is hospital and environmental support and E through H are generally given over to support including a fusion reactor in H and an extensive hydroponics and waste reprocessing section in G.
"The main personnel entrance is above Sector A and joins A near the juncture of the other three living sectors. Just outside of it is a large parking garage where most of the vehicles used by the evacuees are parked. On the southwest quadrant, adjacent to Sector D, is the main resupply route. Supplies come in there and are transported down elevators to Sector H.
"There are primary movement routes running along primary sector junctures—that is, where four sectors converge—and at four points within each sector. Prime Corridors have slide-ways, walkways and cart paths. Secondary movement routes are found at every other subsector juncture point. Secondary Corridors do not have slideways and you have to be careful of carts and vice versa. The small corridors where residences are found also can be used to move around; they are referred to as tertiary corridors. Except in special cases, carts are not permitted in residential corridors.
"If you get lost," she continued, hitting a command so that a list of icons came up, and pointing to an icon that looked like a computer, "look for this symbol. That's an info-access terminal. You can query one as to your location and how to get to just about anywhere in the Urb. You also can ask for a 'sprite,' which is a Galactic supplied micrite. It's about the size of a fly and glows. It will leave and take the shortest primary route to your destination. Follow it. It will stop if you stop and leave when you reach your destination."
Sub-Urb. I think Connor said it best as a grimdark, underhive ghetto. Please note that the Sub-Urbs maintain a strict zero-tolerance policy for guns, all weapons must be checked-in at the armory just inside the main entrance, near the security office and the administration.
This ensure that in the event of an armed incursion by the Posleen, the first thing the aliens will do is seize the armory and kill the security staff and administrators. They can then take their sweet time sweeping the lower levels (designed to facilitate rapid transit of large groups, and to be as easy to navigate as humanly possible, including flying lights to lead you to a requested destination) in confidence that the remaining humans have no leaders, no fighters, no weapons, and nowhere to hide. And that they control the only exit.
What a clever design!
"Yeah," Wacleva said with a laugh, pulling out an unfiltered Pall Mall. "Keren started the Spanish Inquisition. Send in a platoon of MPs each with a sheet of questions and answers. Walk up to the senior officers and NCOs and ask them three questions off of the sheet. If they don't get two out of three right, they're relieved. Before you know it, you've lost half your dead weight and people who know what they're doing are all of a sudden in charge."
-snip-
"It's not much good with infantry and armor units, but artillery is a skilled branch. If you don't know how to shore a fucking trench, you shouldn't be in the engineers. If you don't know how to calculate the proper size of an antenna, you shouldn't be in commo. And if you don't know how to compute winds aloft, you shouldn't be an artillery battalion-fucking-commander."
Mad Mike’s preferred way of dealing with slow artillery and other unreliable elements. I’m trying to imagine a real life Army Captain trying to pull this shit, but I keep getting distracted by the ‘JAG’ theme song that starts in my head for some reason…
Hey, MkSheppard? What do think what would happen to an army captain who tried this trick?
Then again, ACS troopers are Fleet, and are thus above merely terrestrial laws like the UCMJ. Mad Mike can basically execute his subordinates whenever he gets bored. Funny how that seems to work out.
