SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread I

[Ryan Thunder]

You should find a Latinesque word for traitor, it would sound better.

The Latin word for "Traitor" is "Proditor". But "Proditorium" isn't very... authoritorian sounding.

Ordo Hereticus.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

You should find a Latinesque word for traitor, it would sound better.

The Latin word for "Traitor" is "Proditor". But "Proditorium" isn't very... authoritorian sounding.

Ordo Hereticus.

Well yes, but heretics are only a subset of the problems they deal with. There are ... also potential other internal security threats. No one is by law required to be in the Orthodox church.

[Zor]

Stas, i assume that you would be on good terms with the commonwealth, given our mutual beleif in accelerating human evolution?

Zor

[Steve]

Stas, i assume that you would be on good terms with the commonwealth, given our mutual beleif in accelerating human evolution?

Zor

From what he's said, it depends on how your economy and market is set up. A planned economy or at least tightly regulated one may be acceptable to them; if more free market and capitalist, then they're suspicious of you even if you share transhumanist ideology.

[RogueIce]

So, on that brief number tangents (ie: is my orbital bombardment always deadly?) the easy answer is: scalable power levels! Don't ask me how you'd realistically scale xyz weapons system. If we figured out FTL, we've also figured out that. Thus, if you cause extinction-level events on planets you bombard (even if it was supposed to be tactical support) that's your own damn fault.

Essentially, the usual "it's all fluff" answer. Just tossing that in as how you might choose to write it.

[Simon_Jester]

Speaking for myself, the only reason I even want vague "kinda sorta within a factor of ten of this big" numbers for anything is visualization. It helps me picture the scope of what my technology is capable of, which in turn helps me write it. It's kind of a crutch, but I find it to be a helpful one.

[Force Lord]

Hey Stas, how would you think the Commune would view the Centrality? I think relations are going to be rather cold.

[Agent Sorchus]

Force Lord, Stas already filled out the diplomatic chart. Commune has the Centrality marked as hostile.

[Force Lord]

Force Lord, Stas already filled out the diplomatic chart. Commune has the Centrality marked as hostile.

Oh. Never realized that.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd like to hear Stas's reasoning for the marked hostile relations towards:
-Tianguo (why more hostile than towards other monarchies such as the Imperium of Man?)
-The Empire Star Republic (about which we know nothing but that it has "Empire" in the name, when this may tell us nothing about its social structure, any more than the state of New York being nicknamed the "Empire State" tells us that it is a feudal society)

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'd like to hear Stas's reasoning for the marked hostile relations towards:
-Tianguo (why more hostile than towards other monarchies such as the Imperium of Man?)
-The Empire Star Republic (about which we know nothing but that it has "Empire" in the name, when this may tell us nothing about its social structure, any more than the state of New York being nicknamed the "Empire State" tells us that it is a feudal society)

If I may guess, I would think old history.

[Steve]

I think A-Wing's making New York state IN SPACE actually. Hence "Empire Star Republic".

[Ryan Thunder]

I'm not sure why he'd be friendly towards the Technocracy of Umeria and yet suspicious of my Interstellar Union. It's been a techocratic entity from its inception...

[Simon_Jester]

There's no logical reason I can see either.

I think he just didn't know anything about you and slotted you in as a default "suspicious," without checking to see what form of government you have.

I tried to default to "neutral" in most cases, though I could argue that we need a relationship setting for "we don't like you on general principles, but you're so damn far away that we neither know nor care what you are doing."

Also, on the economic table I've got a lot of nations listed as "very limited trade" mostly because of sheer distance, not because of any basic hostility.

[Steve]

There's no logical reason I can see either.

I think he just didn't know anything about you and slotted you in as a default "suspicious," without checking to see what form of government you have.

I tried to default to "neutral" in most cases, though I could argue that we need a relationship setting for "we don't like you on general principles, but you're so damn far away that we neither know nor care what you are doing."

That's what "Suspicious" and "Dislike" are for, as opposed to "Hostile", which is for when someone is near you and you consider them a likely enemy, though no state of war actually exists.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, I know. I was being silly.

I mean, Umeria doesn't really care what the Pfhor do unless they manage some colossal "shock the conscience" horror that brings down the whole galaxy on their heads. At which point Umerian relations with the Pfhor will soon cease to matter entirely...

[K. A. Pital]

I just set "Suspicious" by default and then started learning about other nations. All or most Empires will soon see my relation changed to "hostile", I've just managed to read about a few (Tianguo, Centrality, etc.), but rest assured no monarchy can have good relations with the Commune. Commune's elite considers monarchies (even constitutional) in the interstellar age nothing but abominations.

EDIT: Modified the relations a bit. Technocracies are classified as friendly. More empires set to "dislike" and only really bad ones like the Centrality and, well, the Orks, set to "hostile". Blam blam, also no trade with Empires, feudals, theocrats

[Bluewolf]

Oi, Ryan, why are you hostile towards the UFC?

[KlavoHunter]

So, mind telling us a little about the United Corporate Front?

[Bluewolf]

I will be soon enough. I am just a little busy atm but I will be right on.

[Ryan Thunder]

Oi, Ryan, why are you hostile towards the UFC?

Because they're exploitative corporatist scumbags.

Nothing personal, of course.

[PeZook]

Ah, excellent...everyone is suspicious of Collectors

[Simon_Jester]

Once again, Stas, I'd be interested to hear more about how the Commune might interact with Umeria; I'm trying to get more material on social structure and government policy out there to help inform the decision-making process.

Umeria's biggest social weakness can be diagnosed either in territorial or class terms; arguably, those are both facets of the same problem. In terms of territory, the central government tends to disregard colonial issues except for defense and production of whatever resources a given colony is valued for. Sort of like:

"You are Planet of the Titanium Miners, and titanium production is 104% of what our simulations predicted last decade, so everything is hunky-dory, right?"
"NO, it's NOT! We've got disaffected youth gangs running around the mining towns setting grandmothers on fire!"
[looks at production figures]
"A local matter. Eeeverything is hunky-dory!"

Not that extreme, but you could easily stick that into a Umerian political comedy and colonials would laugh their asses off, because it's painfully close to the truth. So the colonial economies wind up being valued and tended to only insofar as they serve to feed the industrial machinery of the core worlds; the social and legal support structure to make sure they develop self-sustaining, diversified economies just isn't there, or isn't paying enough attention even when it is.

In class terms, the issue is that the technocrat 'class' (non-hereditary but very real) has much the same relationship to the general public that the core worlds do to the colonies. They're socially insular, paying a lot more attention to each other than to random people on the street, and the legal requirement for a doctoral degree places an extremely high barrier to entry for random people who want to interact meaningfully with the technocrat class. When you have to be in the equivalent of graduate studies just to get the technocrats' attention, it's hard to air your grievances effectively. That creates a major disconnect between public opinion and the policy of the government- the intelligentsia may poll the masses to see what would go over well, but they're liable to misunderstand what they're seeing or dismiss it too lightly.

That's made worse by Umeria's problems in the social sciences, which play a major role in feeding new recruits to the government... but which have become painfully self-referential as the "revolving door" between government and academia leads each new generation of leaders to be trained almost entirely by members of the previous two generations. To a critical eye, the whole system has become dangerously self-congratulatory. It still works; no one is getting killed by bandits or starving to death. But... well, if the Umerian public could vote to change the constitution without massive support from the technocrat class, they would do so.

[loomer]

Just a note, folks - there really is no single 'Outlander Commission', so while it's safe to put suspicious or friendly towards them all as a whole, I'd like to encourage people to look at the Commissions themselves and then decide on the individual ones. I'm going to flesh out the political structures of all Ten later tonight.

For instance, I can't really see Socialist states or the Commune being suspicious towards the Socialist Commission - if anything, I'd expect them to be hostile to the other Commissions for quite happily oppressing them by force and offering support, overt or covert, to that one. Same for the Republicans or the Interventionists or... You get the picture.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Apparently, Bluewolf managed to get himself banned for 6mths.

The weeding continues.