From what I've planned so far, Kraken stays loyal to Hyfe, but one of his second-in-commands don't, and takes a good chunk of loyal human followers with him as he joins Simon in his bid to become Emporer or whatnot. Basically I'm planning a small civil war that ends up more prominently unifying the Mid-Rim rather than splitting it apart.
Grand Admiral Desaria, older but still the same man we have all come to love to hate, is fighting the Rim somewhere and is called in throughout to take sections of the Imperial Fleet away as Hyfe suspects Kaine more and more, safeguarding a planned reserve as it were. Throughout, Desaria is in the dark, Hyfe unsure of his loaylties.
Hyfe slowly convinces him that he - Hyfe - represents the true Empire and Desarias unflinching loyalty is to the true Empire. So when Hyfe exposes Kaine's treachery, Desaria leaps at the chance to bring a traitor to justice - -even if it is his friend and one time mentor. Desaria leads a fierce campaign against those worlds that have aligned themselves with Kaine and with the Guard at its head, entire systems are smashed asunder.
Kaine realizes that Desaria poses a great threat for his virulent hatred of dishonouable actions coupled with his tactical abulity make him a fierce enemy. So Kaine kidnaps Desaria and convinces him that Hyfe represents the greatest threat to the Empire - -Desaria declares his allegiance to Hyfe, brings the Guard with him, and helps smash the assault he himself was leading.
In a later assualt, while Kaine is busy, Desaria's flagship is destroyed. His body is never found and both sides give him a hero's funeral hoping to maxmium propganda value.
Well the idea was not going to be for Kaine to take the Empire, it was Kaine working to smash the GC but Hyfe (unforgiving bastard) wants to cut out who he thinks is competition (aka: Kaine).
He feels if Kaine destroys GC, he'll suddenly have more power and the backing of the military than the Emperor and so he wants him removed.
If you've read Foundation and Empire, sort of the situation between Cleon and Rios. A strong Emperor and a strong General.
I think given your outline Empire vs. Empire is inevitable... and only a couple of TNO members have IC served under Hyfe as Grand Admiral - most of us see Kaine as the Military Mastermind, not Hyfe. So it stands to reason if Hyfe attacked Kaine, Kaine could swing a good chunk of the armed forces to his side.
*shrug*
Although we are getting rather far away from your initial posting. Perhaps the whole Hyfe vs. Kaine thing takes place on a much lower level? Kaine is not publically denounced, but instead Hyfe's private army quietly takes care of him and blames it on the Coalition?
Thus allowing Hyfe to unleash Kaine's plans and call it his own plan, consolodating even more power to himself?
The plotting, the scheming... I LOVE IT! I'm very much so looking forward to digging into this thread when it starts. I have the odd sense there'll be a lot of interesting, and fantastic RP in this whole thing. I only hope I can keep up ;)
This is a cool idea, as long as Hyfe is the paranoid power hungry bastard. I couldn't see Kaine turning on Hyfe (as a character), but Hyfe (as a character) is a little more evil.
