2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Steve]

Any objections to this from E_F, Klavo, or Siege?

None here.

I imagine Siege would argue that one or more megacorps will have inroads in the Cape as well, which would be as surprising as rain coming from storm clouds.

The first thing you should know about us is... We have inroads everywhere.

This treaty you talk about would have been negotiated somewhere on one of the Downtown islands, Manor Rock would make the most sense, or else Yronwood or Lesser Kadesh.

Yeah, but I'd say the inroads have different scales to them. It's the difference between "Acheron owns a majority share in Northern Lights Mining Co., but ensures NLMC obeys all Cascadian labor laws and employs Cascadian labor at proper wages without shenanigans" and "SANDEX wants to buy X country's main port and,, when refused, buys an election to change the government and bring into office men who will make them a sweet profitable deal at the expense of their populace's economic interest". In the former case, it's just the way of global economic activity and everyone gets most of what they want, while in the latter case it's a megacorp actively interfering in the political process of a nation that isn't sufficiently strong in institutions to prevent it.

Not that they wouldn't try to buy off Cascadian politicians if at all possible, but they run into the problem that it might not work, and the risk of discovery carries with it major repercussions for business interests.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

I think that's the relationship San Dorado would logically have with most of the PC states; few of them are presented as shambolic enough that a corporation (even a very rich one) could dominate the entire country.

[Thanas]

I'm throughly unsatisfied with what I managed to write so far, will scrap it and redo today.

[Steve]

I'm throughly unsatisfied with what I managed to write so far, will scrap it and redo today.

*looks at re-written portions of Undiscovered Frontier Episode 1-07 being worked on*

Yeah, I know that feeling....

[Siege]

No shit there's 'different scales' to our influence, did I ever claim anything to the contrary?

And what is this nonsense about buying elections or buying off politicians? What is this, third world amateur hour?

[madd0ct0r]

tell that to the current UK goverment

[Steve]

No shit there's 'different scales' to our influence, did I ever claim anything to the contrary?

And what is this nonsense about buying elections or buying off politicians? What is this, third world amateur hour?

You may be more imaginative than I in how a San Dorado megacorp can wield massive influence to compel a smaller state to give it the benefit of sweet deals that enrich the megacorp but does little to nothing for the locals.

[Simon_Jester]

No shit there's 'different scales' to our influence, did I ever claim anything to the contrary?

You never did, and I doubt he thought you had.

I think one thing that makes other players touchy and prone to throw out sheet anchors when it comes to San Dorado is that the amount of power its firms have is indefinite

With a typical nation-state you can easily get a handle on just how powerful it really is. You know its population, the rough size of its economy and military, and so on. With a megacorp it's harder to say. On the one hand we could be talking full-blown secret world government conspiracy theorism. On the other hand it might 'only' be as powerful as, say, Google. Or major financial companies in real life.

So there's that element of uncertainty, which is present in a lot of minds, and makes them irrationally jittery.

People are made nervous by what they don't understand. I don't feel nervous in that respect very much myself (play ball!), but I think that's the breakdown of why others do.


It also does not help that this is a board where a lot of people harbor varying degrees of anticapitalist sentiment, and tend to identify San Dorado with their personal bugaboos. I caught myself the other day thinking along those lines and had to jerk myself up short- with a "hey, no fucking way would a firm like AxumFinans be stupid enough to get seriously burned by something like subprime mortgages."

Although I suspect they would cheerfully snap up at firesale prices the tastier bits of the remains of any banks stupid enough to do so. De La Warr's got more going on upstairs than just the pilot light, I'll vouchsafe.

And what is this nonsense about buying elections or buying off politicians? What is this, third world amateur hour?

If plunking a suitcase full of cash (i.e. pocket change) in front of a corrupt politician works... well, you go with what works. If you have more subtle, artful, and effective means of accomplishing the same goal, you go with what works better.

[madd0ct0r]

I think it's also player's can't see clear ways to protect themselves. Plus a few decades of cyberpunk, megacorp villians and George Soros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros

I'm enjoying it actually. I'm not a huge military buff, but finding ways to escape the steamroller of free trade and then hitch a ride on the back of it could be fun.

[Simon_Jester]

Eh. Anyone who can't think of ways to protect themselves isn't trying hard enough, as I outlined a while ago.

[TimothyC]

Thanas, in the interest of being completely honest, I think your stated Air Forces are broken. Right now you have six 4th generation fighters, when to be honest, 4 would do you better at significantly reduced costs. I'd personally scrap the MiG-31s, and plow that money into land-based F-14s (you'd lose some capability, but you'd save a lot of money in a reduction in the number of types of aircraft you have to support). Similarly, I'd scrap the Tornados in favor of strike version of the F-15 and F-16.

If you want to keep them, In character it is likely to be interpreted as the product of a very broken procurement system.

[Thanas]

Thanks. I'm currently redoing my orbat anyway (fin and I just finished talking) so I'll do a bit of that. Most of my old orbat was going up to 2000 (+5) years before it was decided to start with 2014 tech.

But that being said the tornadoes are scrapped anyway and the migs are only 36 in the active forces and slated to go out of service soon anyway. Keeping the last migs around until we run out of parts and then replace them with F-22s is the plan (unless the F-22 is unable to do long-range interception?).

EDIT:
The way I thought about the Tornado was that it was used in the low level high speed bombing runs the Germain airforce uses it, like not in the interception role or so. It was a niche against the commie hordes, supplanted about ten years after its introduction by the F-16. That might have been introducing too many planes like you said.

[Simon_Jester]

The catch is that having any of an aircraft still represents a decision to develop and procure that aircraft, which still imposes logistics complications. So it's interesting to reflect on the process that resulted in both the MiG-31 (a land-based, fast/high interceptor designed to obliterate enemies with extreme-range radar-guided missile shots) and the F-14 (a sea-based, fast/high interceptor designed to obliterate enemies with extreme-range radar-guided missile shots) both being procured at more or less the same time.
____________________

As to the Tornado... That's certainly a logical mission. On the other hand, the Tornado exists in large part because there were no readily available European aircraft capable of doing its job in the previous generation of aircraft, so by the 1970s a fast low-level attack aircraft was desperately needed.

The F-16 is a fighter of basically the same vintage as the Tornado, though, carries almost as much bombload, and is just about as fast at low altitude. So I'm not sure a Tornado would serve much of a role in an air force that was assured of having ready access to F-16 clones.

One might also reasonably ask what the Typhoon is for if the F-22 and F-35 are both going well.



EDIT:

Also, Beo, just looked back over your post and WHOA you guys are rat-bastards to protestors.

Umeria usually takes a somewhat different approach, which is to take the loudest protestors and interview them on what they think the problem is, then read papers on why things are that way at them until they die of boredom.

[Beowulf]

The Tornado is a significantly larger aircraft. Even if they have the same listed payload, the Tornado has much greater internal fuel capacity, so it can go further. An F-16A had a MTOW of 35,400 lbs, while a Tornado is up in the 61klbs range. Also, this means that the Tornado doesn't have to carry drop tanks, and so can carry larger payloads.

[Simon_Jester]

Oooh. Good point, then. Thank you for schooling me.

[Steve]

In Tianguo the 1% don't bother to pretend they're subverting democratic rule.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I do hope other players express outrage like they did with Orion. Damn, we may be cold-hearted bastards but we wouldn't treat protestors like that.

[Steve]

Problem is that you kinda publicly televised it while I highly doubt footage will be getting out that wasn't heavily doctored by Tianguo police. Freed protestors or sympathetic witnesses outside of the cordon may report it on the internet, but that's still not the same, and very easy to miss.

It's also entirely possible that this is a common thing, unlike the King of Orion shooting men on live TV. That will dilute the outrage if only because everyone knows it won't change, Tianguo simply won't stop these practices.

[Steve]

Let me know, Beo, if you didn't intend for "anti-democracy" to mean "Communist".

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good point.

Also, Siege: You wouldn't be planning on sending those mercs my way would you?

[Simon_Jester]

I like the story with the mercs. It is very cool.

[Beowulf]

Let me know, Beo, if you didn't intend for "anti-democracy" to mean "Communist".

I hadn't actually meant that, but... the commies make for a good scapegoat in game. Tianguo has democracy, but it's a choice between two lizardmen, and everyone looks at you weird if you suggest you don't vote for the lizardmen. They all have the vote, so most of them assume the government they have is the government they choose.

As a note: Tianguo is a tropical country. Normally it doesn't get cold enough for being sprayed with a water cannon to actually result in hypothermia. So yes, it is a common enough thing for protesters to get corralled, and water cannons used against them. The only outrageous thing is that no one thought about the effects of doing so during a cold snap.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Incidentally, I can tell there is something messed up in my head. I read the last post of Fin's and I couldn't help but mentally add drama chords to the ending.

[Siege]

Also, Siege: You wouldn't be planning on sending those mercs my way would you?

Nope. I don't typically send named characters somewhere without first checking with the owner of 'somewhere', lest they eat an AA missile on the way in, bringing their tale to an ignominious end .

[Eternal_Freedom]

WEll you'd already established that this merc doesn't like Orion, then that bit about "you're going to like this" etc.

I wouldn't mind btw, it's an interesting idea.