[color=SteelBlue]"...Thank you for being quick about it."[/color]  She gave him one, brief, look of discontent.  [color=SteelBlue]"Usually, people wait a very long time to be honest with me.  In exchange, let me give you my own honest estimation."[/color]

[color=SteelBlue]"There is little to be gained from the acquisition of this world by any major power beyond the Canopians - beyond the badge on the chest of whatever general spearheads the conquering of it.  It's a meagre world barely fit to be a salt farming outpost, filled with costly discontent, and it lies on a border that is barely worth considering in the grand scheme of things.  In truth, perhaps having an independent world to act as a buffer from Periphery dogs would be its biggest benefit - they take the brunt of the piracy, [i]and[/i] you do not have to work to protect it.  It kicks the problem down the line a generation or two."[/color]

Such she spoke with a very firm confidence.  After all, this field was the forte of her kind.  Even if House Daschke wasn't even a speck in the eye of the galaxy's political movers and shakers, it was certain that they spent quite a lot of time theorycrafting about what could be done.  Ingrid was ultimately a professional scholar in this field of [i]realpolitik[/i].

[color=SteelBlue]"The Canopians would like any world they can get their hands on, but even then, they are being saddled with a burden they aren't ready to deal with.  House Steiner has no need for a world this many jumps out from their border - there's a very old saying that you might be familiar with, 'Selling a bridge'?  Buying something that sounds useful but ultimately can't be handed to you.  And while the [i]Mariks,[/i]"[/color] there was a certain venom when she spoke that word, [color=SteelBlue]"could conceive some use in drawing another minor polity into their number...I do not wish to aid the Free Worlds League.  I have my reasons."[/color]

[color=SteelBlue]"Now,"[/color] she put her hands on her hips and looked right at him, [color=SteelBlue]"do you figure that you're going to play empire builder, Mechwarrior Rivers?"[/color]