Was the Blue Star Commonwealth strong? At least, most of its citizens believed so.
It was a nation with humanity as its principal ethnic group; it was seated in the front three rows of the Galactic Civilization Council; it had once achieved the glorious feat of defeating the Empire's vassal kings and client states several times on the main battlefield despite being outnumbered; it was the first polity in galactic history to gain independence from Imperial rule. For a time, it had even borne the title of "the galaxy's third-largest military power."
Was the Blue Star Commonwealth truly strong? At least, most civilized polities across the galaxy believed so as well.
It certainly had the bearing of a "third-largest military power." Its navy ranked third in total warship tonnage, third in capital ships, and fifth in dreadnoughts and registered psychics. Its active ground forces—including assault troops, marines, and planetary defense units—ranked second in total strength across the galaxy. If the Empire's vassal kings and client states were excluded, it would rank first.
Of course, it also ranked third in Titan ships, though that ranking was meaningless. Other than the two great powers—the Empire and the Alliance—no nation possessed those ultimate weapons of space, and such vessels could not be produced by shipyards alone.
In any case, with all that, it did possess the outward appearance of a great power, even if that appearance had merely been pasted on.
Yet later history proved that the Blue Star Commonwealth had long since been riddled with holes and grown feeble beyond repair. Its hard steel shell had already corroded down to a thin layer; one poke was enough for the stench of decay to gush out.
The Tulong Incident had been the first poke. In the original timeline, without Eleanor's firm response, the