Will a Federation v Empire war happen in the foreseeable future?

[RellTyr]

The Imps and Fed groups in Powerplay hate each other and are always fighting.

Where?

There's been months of terrorists fleeing Empire space who were then given sanctuary in Federation space. The Empire did nothing and just forgot about it, where are the consequences? I thought that they were gearing up for an interstellar conflict but it just fizzled away when the Thargoids attacked.

would love to see the galaxy (or at the very least our bubble) ablaze in all out war, not just between each other but with thargs, guardians, the lot

Yeah. I don't know why they don't just make the Thargoids the next Big Bad, but they seem to just be isolated incidents far away from care, almost like a mercenary story arc that doesn't affect the common citizen. If there was an all-out war with the Thargoids in which the Empire and the Feds join forces to wipe them out - then the Empire would be strong enough to launch an attack after the bulk of the Thargoid force is destroyed, or at least the two powers are sufficiently weakened from the war that they are more on an even keel - and the butting of heads soon leads to war.

They could stretch that out over a few years.

If you're expecting weekly superpower wars you're probably playing the wrong game, it takes years for things to move in the game politics. Kinda like IRL politics I guess

Well no, when I think of a conflict, I think of a re-defining moment in the balance of power - so bearing in mind that there are hundreds of populated star systems, a war could take the form of a battle a week over the course of a year or so, so around 50 battles (hundreds would be too long), not a new war every week.

And talking of balance, the balance of power is favourable to the Federation because all pilots start as de-facto Federation space, they have to rank up in Federation missions to see Sol, where the Alliance and Empire are pushed to the back of the queue, this is why the balance of power is why it is - the Federation is the de-facto "player" power and the Empire seems to just act as their counter-weight for community goals and not as a true adversary.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I suppose the problem will always be that if you have a war to end all wars, what do you do afterwards? Or does it keep going until everyone realises this is it, there won't be a winner?

Would it also just be a selection of current missions and CZ mechanics on a larger scale?

The more I think about it, the more I think FDev are slightly limited as Odyssey could bring much more possibilities. A destroyed and burnt out Coriolis station, for example, as the result of a large war would be pretty rubbish at the moment (maybe some salvage, but that's nothing new). Being able to walk around one would be a whole different story.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Where?

They are always fighting each other- join a Discord or two and see. The Imps and Grom made an alliance called ZYADA while the Feds the FUC.

 

[RellTyr]

They are always fighting each other- join a Discord or two and see. The Imps and Grom made an alliance called ZYADA while the Feds the FUC.

I don't mean people hanging out and playing role-play - I want a genuine war that lasts for months, taking twists and turns and affecting the game in real-time - I want to affect entire star systems and observe the shifting borders, to hear Galnet speak of my achievements - and at the end of it - to walk around a station knowing I defended it from Federation aggression - that's immersion that only Elite could provide.

I suppose the problem will always be that if you have a war to end all wars, what do you do afterwards? Or does it keep going until everyone realises this is it, there won't be a winner?

Would it also just be a selection of current missions and CZ mechanics on a larger scale?

The more I think about it, the more I think FDev are slightly limited as Odyssey could bring much more possibilities. A destroyed and burnt out Coriolis station, for example, as the result of a large war would be pretty rubbish at the moment (maybe some salvage, but that's nothing new). Being able to walk around one would be a whole different story.

Absolutely, the triumph would be insatiable!

As countries end wars and do other things, only to forge strange alliances and make many dubious decisions for "the greater good" - there would never be a shortage of things to do. For example, as Commanders pretty much act as Spec Ops agents, many proxy battles that the majority of people wouldn't ever know about would be a thing - think of the US and Russia. During the Cold War there was Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan... all proxy wars against the Soviet Union/Russia for influence and control of resources. You could add in weekly skirmishes where Empire/Fed have mini-battles ranging from Settlement Assaults to Interstellar dogfights, but which details are never told on GalNet - just updates on changes to borders and the like, if they are even mentioned at all. I imagine that's what Elite's world would be like.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I don't mean people hanging out and playing role-play - I want a genuine war that lasts for months, taking twists and turns and affecting the game in real-time - I want to affect entire star systems and observe the shifting borders, to hear Galnet speak of my achievements - and at the end of it - to walk around a station knowing I defended it from Federation aggression - that's immersion that only Elite could provide.
Absolutely, the triumph would be insatiable!

Well, there is no one part of ED that can give that- the BGS and Powerplay really have no bearing on the top level Tier one NPC interactions.

Within BGS PMF and Power Discord servers though you'll see shifting borders, drama etc. Its a parallel world, but its there if you look and take part.

 

[Factabulous]

Well no, when I think of a conflict, I think of a re-defining moment in the balance of power - so bearing in mind that there are hundreds of populated star systems, a war could take the form of a battle a week over the course of a year or so, so around 50 battles (hundreds would be too long), not a new war every week.

I think you're underestimating the size of the bubble tens of thousands of systems is more like it.

The Thargoid conflict is probably the closest - they attacked 6 systems a week for over a year. When we warned some PMFs (so they could defend) they took part and held them off. Others not so much. What happened in that case is not that existing PMFs organised and got involved, but groups like AXI and Operation Ida formed around that gameplay, and they mostly managed things themselves (with local PMFs pitching in when they chose).

I would expect a similar thing to happen if there is a superpower war - initial apathy followed by new superpower groups forming (PP factions might use the cover of the fight to further their own agendas, not sure how they roll )

The underlying issue though is that (much like the Thargoid attacks) fdev would probably keep control, make the whole thing pretty futile as people realise that it is on rails (as the current story is).

 

[Sublime]

In my view one of the biggest obstacles to really feeling the effects of a full scale war (or any other large scale event) is that the bubble is just too huge with too many controlled systems. Everything is always available in plentiful amounts everywhere.

For actual things that players need (since food, water, and general health are not requirements), there’s never a shortage of fuel, ammo, or repair parts.

On top of that the BGS is painfully slow to change, and with it changing only 1 system at a time it’s no wonder it feels like nothing actually matters. There needs to be a way for things to affect systems much more rapidly.

If there’s ever an invasion or a large scale war, systems need to start burning on a massive scale, dozens at a time, and there need to be actual consequences gameplay wise. Otherwise it’s all just background fluff.

 

[sandkid]

The Horde and the Alliance have made peace, killed each other, made peace again, killed each other again, made peace...

Anyways, you get the idea. ED has been out for, what, six years? Seven?
It's way overdue for an actual war.

Why the heck FDev makes it so hard to go after low hanging fruit is beyond me.

• Federal/Imperial War
• Passengers 2.0
• Stealth Mechanics with Silent Running
• C&P 3.0...4.0? 5.29379278? I dunno. It still sucks.
• Asp Scout.
• More Burning Stations because humans blow crap up, too
• Squadron Mechanics and Wars
• Multicrew that actually works, or NPC crew when you realize you'll never get Multicrew to work in the first place
• CQC revitalization and tie-in to real game
• Um, ship kits for all ships. More than base paint jobs for all ships. Update interiors of original ships to level of Krait Mk. II
• More than one CG at a time
• Powerplay that relies exclusively on (combat) PvP for gains so the system actually benefits and attracts the intended audience and provides a solid outlet for legitimate 'legal' PvP, thereby improving Open Play utilization. Doesn't solve ganking - ganking doesn't need to be solved
• Working on Stellar Forge to populate more phenomena in space, enhacing exploration
• Balancing the market so that more than 50% of all commodities aren't utterly worthless after playing the game for more than an hour

Not an exhaustive list, but boy, watching FDev spends years on Fleet Carriers that less than 10% of the game population will see utility in is exhausting.
A real war would at least be more exciting than flying 1000 lightyears (or more) to find interesting content.

Unless you want to do rescues. Rescue ships don't carry cabins anymore, apparently, but they carry mining refineries because that makes so much sense.

 

[RellTyr]

Start one

I would if I could...

On top of that the BGS is painfully slow to change, and with it changing only 1 system at a time it’s no wonder it feels like nothing actually matters. There needs to be a way for things to affect systems much more rapidly.

Just get the background simulation to operate at 5x normal speed

The Horde and the Alliance have made peace, killed each other, made peace again, killed each other again, made peace...

Anyways, you get the idea. ED has been out for, what, six years? Seven?
It's way overdue for an actual war.

Why the heck FDev makes it so hard to go after low hanging fruit is beyond me.

• Federal/Imperial War
• Passengers 2.0
• Stealth Mechanics with Silent Running
• C&P 3.0...4.0? 5.29379278? I dunno. It still sucks.
• Asp Scout.
• More Burning Stations because humans blow crap up, too
• Squadron Mechanics and Wars
• Multicrew that actually works, or NPC crew when you realize you'll never get Multicrew to work in the first place
• CQC revitalization and tie-in to real game
• Um, ship kits for all ships. More than base paint jobs for all ships. Update interiors of original ships to level of Krait Mk. II
• More than one CG at a time
• Powerplay that relies exclusively on (combat) PvP for gains so the system actually benefits and attracts the intended audience and provides a solid outlet for legitimate 'legal' PvP, thereby improving Open Play utilization. Doesn't solve ganking - ganking doesn't need to be solved
• Working on Stellar Forge to populate more phenomena in space, enhacing exploration
• Balancing the market so that more than 50% of all commodities aren't utterly worthless after playing the game for more than an hour

Not an exhaustive list, but boy, watching FDev spends years on Fleet Carriers that less than 10% of the game population will see utility in is exhausting.

Exactly - and if not an all-out war, at least provide proxy battles each month or something to keep it fresh.

 

[Bottom Hat]

Just get the background simulation to operate at 5x normal speed

Like rubbernuke said though amongst several others, this would also cause a huge amount of tears and rage-quitting, and from quite a significant number of players. Such that whilst I like your overall idea of all-out war, I'm not sure it will ever happen with much in the way of collateral damage (if at all) to populated systems.

I could see some ramping up and long scraps going on in unpopulated places, but I think FD would be incredibly wary of starting a destruction festival!

 

[Hoopes81]

I just want an all out 3 way war that lasts at least a year and ends with the Thargoids invading, burning the whole bubble along the way.

I want it to have real weight, if they take a system - IT'S GONE!

No more stations, no repairing, just barren lifeless systems.

I want the fight against them to really matter, ie, if we don't win the bubble's gone for good.

 

[TheSisko]

In my view one of the biggest obstacles to really feeling the effects of a full scale war (or any other large scale event) is that the bubble is just too huge with too many controlled systems. Everything is always available in plentiful amounts everywhere.

^^^ This.

In any such conflict, Hudson could capture 5 Imperial Industrial systems and my reaction would be 'so what?' , no shortage of anything in this game for any superpower or indy power. This game would need unique resources and/or assets which could turn the war in your favour, and your rivals would be willing to grab the moment you show any sign of weakness. That simply isn't the case right now.

 

[Marklar_]

The situation is a bit of a cold war, with some fighting here and there.

FD have kind of painted the game into a corner concerning a large scale war between superpowers, considering that they've allowed us to gain friendly faction and rank with both superpowers.

 

[RellTyr]

^^^ This.

In any such conflict, Hudson could capture 5 Imperial Industrial systems and my reaction would be 'so what?' , no shortage of anything in this game for any superpower or indy power. This game would need unique resources and/or assets which could turn the war in your favour, and your rivals would be willing to grab the moment you show any sign of weakness. That simply isn't the case right now.

The Grand Canyon wasn't carved in a day but over a great many years, constantly chipping and abrading, so any power that shrugs off seemingly innocuous losses would eventually feel the pinch - and I doubt that the Empire would shrug their shoulders over losing several industrial worlds!

Instead of full-blown war, there could be a great many proxy wars/battles fought under different banners and with different goals in mind, but which are funded by their respective powers like in old Community Goals. This variant of narrative weaving is potentially endless - with each disagreement and altercation, the powers' identities would be refined even greater, so people would learn more about the ongoing narrative through activities better as well (from a headcanon perspective) if these activities were more frequent, say monthly.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Edit: Even the station repair experts got a bit frustrated by the 2nd or 3rd time they repaired Celeano / Asterope etc

Yeah. The problem with wars is that even if you're winning they're mostly pretty unpleasant.

More realism (and even then not much, of course) in presentation than many games that are actually about wars manage, I guess.

Its an ironic situation- until we see systems go dark we'll never see Thargoids as a threat.

Well, there's a good quarter or so of the bubble that literally no-one would miss, and another quarter where, sure, a PMF was present but it's not like they were doing anything with it.

Setting half the bubble on fire would probably be fairly convincing in an abstract sense and also not touch anything people really cared about ... while making it clear that holding them off there might be rather necessary to stop them getting as far as things which were important. But getting that far would require some massive reworkings of the current Thargoid war mechanisms, to allow them to get that far while making the path there still allow some player agency.

In my view one of the biggest obstacles to really feeling the effects of a full scale war (or any other large scale event) is that the bubble is just too huge with too many controlled systems. Everything is always available in plentiful amounts everywhere.

For actual things that players need (since food, water, and general health are not requirements), there’s never a shortage of fuel, ammo, or repair parts.

On top of that the BGS is painfully slow to change, and with it changing only 1 system at a time it’s no wonder it feels like nothing actually matters. There needs to be a way for things to affect systems much more rapidly.

Yes. There's recently been a major BGS war finish (for now...) in Colonia, which involved about a quarter of the region, tens of individual conflicts, several key regional powers, and permanently changed both the political landscape of the region and the availability of certain services, over an eighteen month period. That was told entirely by players with no Frontier intervention required solely through the BGS ... and that could be done because Colonia has 70 inhabited systems, so a 3-4 system faction is comparable to the Alliance in the bubble in relative size. There have been (and will be again) other slightly smaller important conflicts as well.

I can't see how even Frontier with all their extra powers could get across something of similar relative scope and stakes within the bubble.

And talking of balance, the balance of power is favourable to the Federation because all pilots start as de-facto Federation space, they have to rank up in Federation missions to see Sol, where the Alliance and Empire are pushed to the back of the queue, this is why the balance of power is why it is - the Federation is the de-facto "player" power and the Empire seems to just act as their counter-weight for community goals and not as a true adversary.

I'm not sure that's really that significant a factor. Certainly a lot of beginners probably do start off with the Federation, but that's not what's affecting the CG results.

In a typical CG about half the work is done by the top 10% of players, which is about 500 people - who have generally been playing long enough that they've been encouraged by the engineers and other game elements to travel about the bubble, support all three superpowers, probably rank to maximum in Federation and Empire, and so on. (And that holds further down the CG, too - 90% of the scoring is done by the top 50% of participants, which is still only a few thousand players) By that time they'll have seen enough that any early default allegiances probably aren't sticking.

In the BGS, the Federation has lost far more territory than the Empire has since the start of the game ... while the Alliance has gained quite a bit (from a very low baseline, certainly), and Independents generally have gained quite a bit more. Of the largest individual BGS factions by systems controlled, three are Imperial (including the current largest), two are Alliance, and the rest are Independent. You have to get down to 26th place before the first Federal one appears.
In Powerplay, the most numerically supported power is Aisling Duval (Empire), the most successful in terms of Powerplay in itself is Edmund Mahon (Alliance).

On Inara - which isn't necessarily all that representative, of course - more commanders have set their allegiance as Empire than as Federation. >90% have set their allegiance as Independent, however...

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Where?

Well since one side's PPers disappeared into PG/solo I see your point. But the "where" can actually be very localised. Powerplay is a very targeted process.

But powerplay isn't very roleplay necessarily, unlike what you think. It consists of a mechanism for territorial play that follows vaguely meaningful if (as usual) crude mechanics, with no requirement to magic up an RP reason to do it, beyond picking a side. But since it can be equally affected from any mode, direct conflict can be circumvented, and despite most decent powerplay groups having an open play policy (for fairness if nothing else), if enough of one side (always the same side) gets the willies it can reduce to a more empty grind.

When meaningful conflicts do emerge in open though, the crudeness of the mechanics becomes secondary and emergent oppositional play comes to the fore and elevates to another level altogether. This is usually when there's a lot at stake (so lots of traffic), combined with a situation where a PvP kill carries more than the usual weight, such as against someone carrying a large number of undermining merits (which are lost on ship destruction and might have taken many hours to accumulate).

It remains disappointing that the effects on the game are barely tangible. Even just a more direct interplay with minor factions and their superpower allegiance would be something to join it up.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

There hasn't been a full on war since the advent of Frame-Shift Drives, and to be honest with you, I don't think there will ever be another one. Bold claims need bold proof, so I need to validate the opening sentence to this post...

...The old way of fighting wars involved territorial occupation, and featured "fronts" and "supply lines", but with Frame-Shift technology:

• Any ship that is equipped for mobility, ie decent FSD + Fuelscoop and or belly tanks, can traverse the bubble in less than an hour
• Any ship travelling only needs to be in any system for ~30 seconds, slightly more if they are fuel scooping.
• Instancing means that one group of players could be "manning the line", hanging in supercruise looking to ambush, ie catch and kill, any hostile ships... But if their opponents enter a different instance of that system the two sides will never meet.
• Because of the "leap-frog" nature of hyperjumps / FSD interstellar travel, the defending side could simply bypass the blockade.

Look at this diagram:

It depicts a hypothetical "front" in a superpower war, with the one side being blue stars, t'other being orange, and in the middle the green stars and the lines that interconnect them represent "the line" that you and your power and its pilots (your mates) are trying to hold... Regardless of whether you picked orange or blue as "your" territory, and whether you identify yourself as a fed or an imp in this hypothetical war, it will be utterly frustrating if, as they would, the enemy forces didnt jump into your green starred waypoints-on-the-line systems, and instead slipped right by you using the adjacent yellow starred systems. o how do you counter that, Patrols? So you set up patrols incorporating one green system and a couple of the alternative jump routes:

If you ddo that, you might get lucky and catch some of those pesky boagys infiltrating your territory, assuming they are in same game mode (open), and in the same system at the same time, and in the same instance as your patrol, then when all those conditions are satisfied, and it is a lot of moving parts to lign this up, you can get a fight. Or alternatively while you are prancing about on patrol, they could have slipped through your net, and be marauding your homelands.

The long range and fast movement of Fram-Shift travel don't lend themselves to chokepoints and strategic battlegrounds, the game modes leave it perfectly viable for your foes to operate in solo / pg and wreck your army in an "instance" which you cannot join and engage with your enemy to stop them in their tracks, and the P2P architecture and netcode means that the game will fall flat o its face if you tried to group significant numbers of players together to make an epic emmergent gameplay moment. Also, with Odyssey, there is going to be player passenger transport, whereby y'all can book a seat on this beluga that is in the top 1% of all liners and sail through the borders as a civilian, and then get to a starport 4 jumps into "hostile" territory and ship transfer your muder-hobo ship there, and there wouldn't be a damned thing the defending forces could to to prevent you circumventing their borders that way. Even if they ran about murder-hoboing in your territory, they only need to know of one non superpower aligned interstellar factor on your side of the border at which they would be able to expunge their criminal record.

The game, as it stands doesn't support a dynamic player driven superpower to superpower war, the best that could happen is if the CM's managed multiple concurrent CG's at "Battlefield Systems", and these could include Odyssey "sphere of combat" situations, however it would be a bit nutty for 10 vettes and SLF's and 10 Conda's and SLF's to rock up to the airspace above one of these wild west settlements.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

There hasn't been a full on war since the advent of Frame-Shift Drives, and to be honest with you, I don't think there will ever be another one. Bold claims need bold proof, so I need to validate the opening sentence to this post...

...The old way of fighting wars involved territorial occupation, and featured "fronts" and "supply lines", but with Frame-Shift technology:

• Any ship that is equipped for mobility, ie decent FSD + Fuelscoop and or belly tanks, can traverse the bubble in less than an hour
• Any ship travelling only needs to be in any system for ~30 seconds, slightly more if they are fuel scooping.
• Instancing means that one group of players could be "manning the line", hanging in supercruise looking to ambush, ie catch and kill, any hostile ships... But if their opponents enter a different instance of that system the two sides will never meet.
• Because of the "leap-frog" nature of hyperjumps / FSD interstellar travel, the defending side could simply bypass the blockade.

Look at this diagram:
View attachment 205124
It depicts a hypothetical "front" in a superpower war, with the one side being blue stars, t'other being orange, and in the middle the green stars and the lines that interconnect them represent "the line" that you and your power and its pilots (your mates) are trying to hold... Regardless of whether you picked orange or blue as "your" territory, and whether you identify yourself as a fed or an imp in this hypothetical war, it will be utterly frustrating if, as they would, the enemy forces didnt jump into your green starred waypoints-on-the-line systems, and instead slipped right by you using the adjacent yellow starred systems. o how do you counter that, Patrols? So you set up patrols incorporating one green system and a couple of the alternative jump routes:
View attachment 205126
If you ddo that, you might get lucky and catch some of those pesky boagys infiltrating your territory, assuming they are in same game mode (open), and in the same system at the same time, and in the same instance as your patrol, then when all those conditions are satisfied, and it is a lot of moving parts to lign this up, you can get a fight. Or alternatively while you are prancing about on patrol, they could have slipped through your net, and be marauding your homelands.

The long range and fast movement of Fram-Shift travel don't lend themselves to chokepoints and strategic battlegrounds, the game modes leave it perfectly viable for your foes to operate in solo / pg and wreck your army in an "instance" which you cannot join and engage with your enemy to stop them in their tracks, and the P2P architecture and netcode means that the game will fall flat o its face if you tried to group significant numbers of players together to make an epic emmergent gameplay moment. Also, with Odyssey, there is going to be player passenger transport, whereby y'all can book a seat on this beluga that is in the top 1% of all liners and sail through the borders as a civilian, and then get to a starport 4 jumps into "hostile" territory and ship transfer your muder-hobo ship there, and there wouldn't be a damned thing the defending forces could to to prevent you circumventing their borders that way. Even if they ran about murder-hoboing in your territory, they only need to know of one non superpower aligned interstellar factor on your side of the border at which they would be able to expunge their criminal record.

The game, as it stands doesn't support a dynamic player driven superpower to superpower war, the best that could happen is if the CM's managed multiple concurrent CG's at "Battlefield Systems", and these could include Odyssey "sphere of combat" situations, however it would be a bit nutty for 10 vettes and SLF's and 10 Conda's and SLF's to rock up to the airspace above one of these wild west settlements.

Currently powerplay groups attack CMDRs in each others' capitals, which are choke points for powerplay hauling, illustrating your point. But it also sort of contradicts it, in that all that's changed are the constraints - actions behind enemy lines are trivial due to the game's travel mechanics (and the flacidity of NPCs defending powerplay territory). But those choke points remain if there is a good enough reason to be there. Powerplay mechanics, and CGs, create these choke points. It would be nice if there were better reasons to be in a place though, other than "FDev said" or "this is were the powerplay printing press is located" or other weak excuses. But this is the game...

But my point is that the execution of war is different, but not necessarily gone, just the spatial localisation constraints are relaxed.

 

[Sublime]

The Grand Canyon wasn't carved in a day but over a great many years, constantly chipping and abrading, so any power that shrugs off seemingly innocuous losses would eventually feel the pinch - and I doubt that the Empire would shrug their shoulders over losing several industrial worlds!

So pretty much if we let a war happen after a few eons we’ll actually notice a change in the political landscape. Yeah that pretty much sums up the rate of change the BGS offers.

Yes. There's recently been a major BGS war finish (for now...) in Colonia, which involved about a quarter of the region, tens of individual conflicts, several key regional powers, and permanently changed both the political landscape of the region and the availability of certain services, over an eighteen month period. That was told entirely by players with no Frontier intervention required solely through the BGS ... and that could be done because Colonia has 70 inhabited systems, so a 3-4 system faction is comparable to the Alliance in the bubble in relative size. There have been (and will be again) other slightly smaller important conflicts as well.

I can't see how even Frontier with all their extra powers could get across something of similar relative scope and stakes within the bubble.

See that’s a perfect example of what I was saying. I was in Colonial a few times during that time and never once did I even notice something was even happening around me. Such a major event going on all around but to a passer-by everything seems exactly the same as everywhere else. The game has no way to represent events like this or their effects unless you notice it’s Bob from the red team handing out the missions instead of Joe from the blue team. You’d think a major war like that would have something to show for itself..

 

[MadDogMurdock]

The ability to jump Capital Ships and Fleet Carriers to any body in any system makes any notion of all out war a nonsense.

With this capability there are no fronts and no defensible positions.

The only strategy is total commitment to a devastating first strike that leaves the enemy few means to strike back.
Given the ability to keep assets 1,000s of LY away in places where there is little to no chance of anyone finding them, you’d never be sure your first strike would do the job.

Ergo, no possible strategy, no way to win, no war.

All that is left is ‘hearts and minds’ - hence propaganda war via Galnet.