The RHA is what you could call the embodiment of my viewpoint of the Hessians. The leaders are well spoken, idealistic and follow a strict goal of forcing the current Rheinland government to disband once again, and pushing things on from there, as well as halting the Corsairs in the Omega systems. They view the Hessian movement as a revolution in on itself. The lowly Hessians though use any means necessary to accomplish these goals when left alone (and HT RP is meant to take this up a notch as well), including indiscriminate piracy and attacks on armed craft in Rheinland and surrounding border worlds. There are no repercussions against these incidents, as the leadership takes to the idea that "the criminals will be prosecuted after we win". This is why SCRA with their superior discipline is perfectly in RP to tell off Hessians about their piracy habits. Consider the Hessians in this respect as the "german partisans" fighting against their government. I'd say it is more than in RP for the SCRA (who obviously are not as manned as they would like to be) to support them.
On the Liberty - Rheinland war:
Considering that Liberty has Rheinland outnumbered at least 2 (maybe even 3) to 1 here, Rheinland is obviously looking at getting steamrolled. Now there are a few reasons why the Hessian leadership would not want that to happen:
- First of all, the Liberty fleet is powerful. Powerful enough to take Rheinland sooner or later, just like Kusari is doing with Bretonia. If the LN take New Berlin, they might just want to try their hand at holding Dresden, considering the Hessians won't want a Liberty controlled government there either. If the RM is taken out, there won't be much other lawful resistance in Rheinland, so the unlawfuls will be the only ones left targetting the Libertonians. If Liberty decided to bring a big portion of their fleet to Dresden, Hessians would find themselves needing to take forces away from the Omega front to battle the enemy on their own turf. Corsairs would get some breathing space in Omegas and from there it's a downward spiral. The Hessians would be interested in stopping the Liberty offensive before it threatens them.
- If the Liberty fleet is stopped by the Military, the government will be significantly weakened by the war, and it will open a window of opportunity for the Hessians to try their luck at restarting the Popular Revolution by increasing their attacks.
I'd say it benefits the Hessians to fight Liberty rather than Rheinland. This will mean there will be a inside order from RHA high command to avoid attacking RM forces for the duration of the war. Of course whether this order will be completely followed by the soldiers is another thing altogether...:P
