Tropes and AC

[Trenacker]

Anybody have any ideas for other interesting factions, or tropes that might be the basis for factions, in a future Alpha Centauri game? I think that the decision to depart from the faction/trope model for BE was a mistake on Firaxis's part.

[BlaneckW]

No, I probably haven't even used imagination in months since I don't fantasize.  I'd suggest something along the lines of collective conciousness if it wasn't an endgame (transcendence).  It's a common theme.

[Yitzi]

No, I probably haven't even used imagination in months since I don't fantasize.  I'd suggest something along the lines of collective conciousness if it wasn't an endgame (transcendence).  It's a common theme.

Transcendence isn't just collective consciousness, though, but specifically joining (and leading) the Planetary mind.  A group that has attained a collective consciousness before that point might be interesting...

[BlaneckW]

how about a faction emphasizing administration

[Buster's Uncle]

How interesting would THAT be?

[BlaneckW]

How interesting would THAT be?

Well, all the factions emphasized the lack of any professional administration and what they replaced it with.  Santiago made up for it with a junta, Peacekeepers with welfare benefits, Yang with serfdom, Believes with psychology, Morgan with capitalism, the Gaians were just agronomists, and the University just had drones.  Only Yang even takes colonization seriously, as a primary focus, the other factions are mucking around.  None have any kind of professional government, even Yang only succeeds in focusing on physical application than any kind of real consolidation of administrative capacity.  So I guess it shouldn't be a faction but just a consideration.

[Othniel]

What body of law would they follow? A UN colony charter?

[BlaneckW]

What body of law would they follow? A UN colony charter?

Of course not, the U.N. is a U.S. puppet.

[Trenacker]

Wasn't Pravin Lal's faction a riff on the potential pitfalls of technocracy? The Peacekeepers were essentially a faction of the professional administrators assigned to the Unity mission.

The background for my Alpha Centauri 2 game presupposes that excessive deference to cultural and religious mores ultimately resulted in huge setbacks for public health campaigns, not to mention encroachment of the literal "nanny state," leading not only to pandemics, but also to the emergence of a militia movement that literally would not turn children over to state authorities for education.

I still believe that the Estado Novo concept of latter-day feudalism, in which some colonists would have consented to participation in a restrictive caste system as the price of security (and, with it, assured access to basic essentials), was the "purest" hearkening to the old AC tropes.

What about a faction based on the character of Kurtz in Josef Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Kind of a second-wave faction forming around a charismatic leader in the outlying settlements of one faction or another?

Still in the Old West vein, one could also see a faction based on the ideal of masculinity posited by Western novelist Louis L'Amour. That is, the cowboy who stands for himself, and backs down trouble with a gun, on a lawless frontier. L'Amour occasionally lapsed into moral ambiguity, philosophizing on the difficulty of casting moral aspersion on some of the early cattlemen who used devious means to gain and expand their ranches, arguing that these were the forerunners of "order" and "civilization."

[BlaneckW]

Wasn't Pravin Lal's faction a riff on the potential pitfalls of technocracy? The Peacekeepers were essentially a faction of the professional administrators assigned to the Unity mission.

They receive a -1 efficiency for ineptitude.

[Trenacker]

They were an example (caricature) of bureaucratic hyper-rationalism: the search for "perfect" social justice caused economic inefficiency.

I suppose it all gets back to how one defines administration. For the Peacekeepers, the calibration of policy seems to have impeded its execution.

What would a perfect administration look like, in your opinion?

[BlaneckW]

What would a perfect administration look like, in your opinion?

If you want to consider it in relation to real life, then the corporate and political oligarchies are obviously not constituted meritocraticly.  Democratic and Bolshevist ideology ignore or sideline the question of who actually qualifies for office, while capitalist ideology tries to claim it.  Any look at corporate reviews by it's employees will tell you that most of them aren't buying it though.  The Capitalist-Republic idea that anyone who can muster the capital and idiots should be able to obtain political or economic office is social darwinism for opportunists, and only makes for sharper sociopaths compared with the more inefficient and more purely hereditary systems of the past.

[Yitzi]

What would a perfect administration look like, in your opinion?

If you want to consider it in relation to real life, then the corporate and political oligarchies are obviously not constituted meritocraticly.  Democratic and Bolshevist ideology ignore or sideline the question of who actually qualifies for office, while capitalist ideology tries to claim it.  Any look at corporate reviews by it's employees will tell you that most of them aren't buying it though.  The Capitalist-Republic idea that anyone who can muster the capital and idiots should be able to obtain political or economic office is social darwinism for opportunists, and only makes for sharper sociopaths compared with the more inefficient and more purely hereditary systems of the past.

So a true meritocracy?  Interesting.  I'd imagine they'd get substantial boosts to talents (as Lal, but maybe even more) and efficiency, but take penalties to Probe and maybe Police.  Probably with a planned affinity+impunity and an aversion to democracy (and maybe even impunity to Police State as well).

[NewAgeOfPower]

A true meritocracy sounds great, but how would one go around establishing it? I eagerly await Blaneck's answer.

[Yitzi]

A true meritocracy sounds great, but how would one go around establishing it?

Same way all the other factions got established: Find like-minded people in the wake of the Unity's breakup, and hope that it doesn't all come crashing down.