Editing The Periphery (section)

== The Piranha Principle of Periphery Defense ==
While there are something akin to "major" powers in the Periphery, most of them don't have even close to the amount of territory that even the [[Capellan Confederation|smallest state]] in the Inner Sphere does. While normally in this universe this would mean that the Periphery powers were in inevitable danger from being conquered wholesale or demolished, their relative positions meant that they simply could not be subjugated unless the entire Inner Sphere was united, which it very much hasn't been since the fall of the Star League, leading to the "Piranha Principle" of defense for the Periphery. 

The [[Free Worlds League]] for example, could probably eat the Magistracy of Canopus for breakfast if it wanted to. But if it did that, it would be turning a large portion of its armed forces away from it's borders to attack a series of wildly popular strip-club worlds that would rather salt the earth they were walking on than hand it over to filthy imperialist Spheroids, and as a result of all that fighting that would break out, it's immediate stellar neighbors, the Lyran Commonwealth and the Capellan Confederation, would almost certainly pounce and begin making major gains into their own territory. Thus, while the Periphery's big wigs have individually seen centuries of war, it has only ever been brought to heel twice in history.