SMAC/X and affinities

[Yitzi]

I raised a question in another thread: What would the affinities of each faction be?

Obviously we'd have  harmony and  supremacy; I think we'd have  supremacy as well, and and  purity.    and  are more of a question;  would most likely be harmony (adaptation to the environment is the most economically sensible choice), albeit with a less consistently friendly-to-the-natives policy than  , and  purity.

Of the SMACX factions, I think we would have  being none (caused by the fact that unlike all the other factions, their long-term goals do not involve staying on Planet indefinitely, and so don't need to decide how to long-term respond to the alien environment; once they summon the fleet, they go home and leave Planet to its own devices).    is obviously harmony, and  obviously supremacy.    would be purity (aversion to Green means it's not harmony, and they hate when you go cybernetic so it's not supremacy), and  supremacy.    would of course be harmony, and  is really tough but would likely be purity (making the seas more like home).

So that gives us:
Harmony:       
Supremacy:       
Purity:         
None: 

Finally, one more thought: While most obviously Harmony-affiliated, the Ascent to Transcendence is actually associated with all three.  Harmony is obvious, but it also grows out of computerized Transcends (associated with Supremacy), and involves human values (most associated with Purity) becoming far more important.

(It also results in a far more powerful being than any of the BE endings; SMAC in general has a far larger scale than BE, one of the main reasons that I don't consider BE a true sequel to SMAC.)

[BlaneckW]

I'd switch Yang and Santiago (Yang purity, Santiago supremacy).  Santiago's got free prototypes.  Yang will happily do the job with a mass of (highly trained, if you've got Command Nexus) AK-47's if he can pull it off, and he's got the whole fortress thing going.  Shang Yang emphasizes force even over organization.  Successful blunt effort today is better than refinement tomorrow.  Supremacy emphasizes tools, which Chinese terrain was never suited for (at least with regards agriculture).

You have Marr and H'minee mixed up.  H'minee is harmony (but only because it's a green), Marr is supremacy.  I haven't the faintest idea why you've made Morgan a green...

[Yitzi]

I'd switch Yang and Santiago (Yang purity, Santiago supremacy).  Santiago's got free prototypes.  Yang will happily do the job with a mass of (highly trained, if you've got Command Nexus) AK-47's if he can pull it off, and he's got the whole fortress thing going.  Shang Yang emphasizes force even over organization.  Successful blunt effort today is better than refinement tomorrow.  Supremacy emphasizes tools, which Chinese terrain was never suited for (at least with regards agriculture).

That's an interesting take, but I think that  's focus on "mind over matter" and "Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone" very much lend themselves to a Supremacy way of thinking, even if his tactics are more reminiscent of purity.   , on the other hand, is a survivalist, very much focused on the survival of humanity, and so fits Purity much better in outlook.

You have Marr and H'minee mixed up.

Not at all.    is all about Transcendence (either getting it himself with a Transcendence victory, or calling in superiors who will do it with a Progenitor victory, or clearing obstacles and then figuring out what to do with a Conquest victory).  Transcendence is fundamentally harmony-based (especially the Progenitor take on it).

 , on the other hand, hates the idea of joining with Planet (as Harmony is all about); that way (she thinks) lies another Tau Ceti disaster.  Purity and Supremacy, on the other hand, are about changing the planet to fit yourself (possibly changing yourself as well), which also does not fit her mission.  Essentially, her ideal state, until the fleet is summoned, is that of neither adapting to the new world nor changing it, but simply coping with the differences, i.e. the pre-affinity state.  Hence, I gave her the affinity of "none".  (Also, she favors Planned, not Green, and will actually object if you run Green, despite the PLANET preference.)

I haven't the faintest idea why you've made Morgan a green...

I didn't make him a green, I made him a harmony.  Harmony is somewhat similar to green, but has differences; it's about adapting to fit the new world, rather than about living peacefully with it.  And  , with his practical and deal-making outlook, seems more likely to do that than to try to change the world to fit himself.

[BlaneckW]

No, BE Harmony is just Green, and Morgan's mainline propoganda was just that he would provide purity-style creature comforts to his followers.

[BlaneckW]

That's an interesting take, but I think that  's focus on "mind over matter" and "Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone" very much lend themselves to a Supremacy way of thinking, even if his tactics are more reminiscent of purity.

So what your are saying is that he is purity in practice.  You're arguing bloody viewpoints for christ sake.  Yes, in ideological propoganda Bill Gates is a humanist.  In practice he's a lunatic.  Sure, Yang would like to end up in Supremacy, but he's not got Zhak's free network nodes and he's more focused on immediately building up a low-grade purity-style infrastructure than making Santiago's top-line weaponry or tinkering with tools.  You take the high road and I'll take the low road, and I'll get there before you.

  , on the other hand, is a survivalist, very much focused on the survival of humanity, and so fits Purity much better in outlook.

She's another technological supremacy faction, focused on the application of top-line weaponry and training.  Yang will make a bunch of farms and attack you with a horde of cheaper units (or even better, just build a fortress in your territory and let you waste your time on it) while Santiago tries to attain a militarily supremacist standpoint from the get-go.  Legalists were very much innovative, but it was an orthodoxy in practice emphasizing the sure-path over experiments.  Supremacy is more like faith in American/technological entrepreneurial nonsense, that technological entrepreneurship will solve everything, which is very much not Yang.

Not at all.    is all about Transcendence (either getting it himself with a Transcendence victory, or calling in superiors who will do it with a Progenitor victory, or clearing obstacles and then figuring out what to do with a Conquest victory).  Transcendence is fundamentally harmony-based (especially the Progenitor take on it).

He get's -planet.  He's only interested in using planet as a technological invention for godhood.  That's supremacy.  He doesn't care about harmony with anything, his title is Marr the Conqueror.

[Yitzi]

No, BE Harmony is just Green

Source?  Admittedly I'm not the biggest BE expert, but I understand Harmony to be more about adapting to the new world than about not polluting it.  (You can, for instance, play Harmony but go xenocidal against alien nests, or play Purity or Supremacy and live in peace with them.)

and Morgan's mainline propoganda was just that he would provide purity-style creature comforts to his followers.

No, it was that he would provide comfort and wealth.  Whether that is purity-style comforts (i.e. just like home) or harmony-style or supremacy-style (i.e. becoming something else and then getting what's comfortable to that form) is left open, but Morgan's highly adaptable and universalist approach to wealth suggests that he would not be overly attached to the "not changing" ideal of purity.

[BlaneckW]

Admittedly I'm not the biggest BE expert, but I understand Harmony to be more about adapting to the new world than about not polluting it.

That's green.... Deidre even mentions adapting to the environment and not running off old earth models in contrasting herself with Morgan.  and Harmony would rather avoid even replacing native plants with home plants, an option I saw in one of the few videos I bothered watching.  The bloody theme is green.  This isn't hard.

and Morgan's mainline propoganda was just that he would provide purity-style creature comforts to his followers.

No, it was that he would provide comfort and wealth.

I was quoting the material.  Morgan's propoganda is creature comforts.  Morgan might be "adaptable and universalist", but that's not his sales pitch.  For many people wealth just translates into creature comforts anyway, albeit possibly excessively.  You couldn't have a faction based on just financial capitalism and money accumulation, not enough people would have joined it.  Such a faction could only develop mid-game as a split-off.

[Yitzi]

That's green.... Deidre even mentions adapting to the environment and not running off old earth models in contrasting herself with Morgan.

No,  mentions not polluting the environment; the only mentions of actually adapting to it are the Pholus Mutagen (merely in what it is implied to consist of) and the Transcendence sequence.  She's very big about not running off old earth models, but "not running off old earth biology" is quite a bit different.

and Harmony would rather avoid even replacing native plants with home plants, an option I saw in one of the few videos I bothered watching.

Yes, Harmony is about not changing the world to fit yourself, but rather changing yourself to fit the world.  This is not the same as Green, which is about not damaging the world.  The "green path" has a minor Harmony element, but it is not at all the same.

I was quoting the material.  Morgan's propoganda is creature comforts.

And "creature comforts" is compatible with any of the affinities, so that proves nothing.

[BlaneckW]

No,  mentions not polluting the environment

She talks about adapting to it in the fiction "Journey to Centauri."  Gaians get extra fungus food.  Re: weather paradigm gaian religion about adaptation and all that.  This is really a weak argument, I don't know why you're splitting hairs to try to find a difference between harmony and green.

Green, which is about not damaging the world.  The "green path" has a minor Harmony element, but it is not at all the same.

Greens with a genetic modification shtick.  wow, big difference.  And you have the nerve to suggest that Harmony doesn't care about not polluting.

And "creature comforts" is compatible with any of the affinities, so that proves nothing.

A supremacy robot isn't even a creature.

[Yitzi]

She talks about adapting to it in the fiction "Journey to Centauri."  Gaians get extra fungus food.  Re: weather paradigm gaian religion about adaptation and all that.

And therefore she is harmony.  But that isn't in contrast to Morgan, so he can be harmony as well.

This is really a weak argument, I don't know why you're splitting hairs to try to find a difference between harmony and green.

Because they are different.

Greens with a genetic modification shtick.  wow, big difference.  And you have the nerve to suggest that Harmony doesn't care about not polluting.

Harmony doesn't necessarily care about not offending the natives.  I think Morgan's approach would be very different than normal Harmony, and certainly for some of the quests he would probably not take the "harmony" approach, but overall I think he'd fit harmony better than purity (which implies a conservatism that does not fit him at all) or supremacy (which may be a possibility, but being uploaded to a robot body doesn't really seem his thing.)

Although now that I look at it, supremacy seems to include a lot of "high tech to improve living conditions as humans" as well, which definitely is his thing, so I'm changing it to  would probably be supremacy, albeit one without uploading.  So then we have:

Harmony:     
Supremacy:         
Purity:         
None: 

A supremacy robot isn't even a creature.

In a sense it is.  Although I think that you can have supremacy without uploading (euthenics is a supremacy tech.)

[BlaneckW]

You could argue that the corporations are supremacist, but most of his faction is wealthy couch potatoes. 

[Yitzi]

You could argue that the corporations are supremacist, but most of his faction is wealthy couch potatoes.

Which has no connected affinity, and therefore isn't really relevant to the discussion.

[BlaneckW]

Which has no connected affinity, and therefore isn't really relevant to the discussion.

I bet many the purity people are purity because they want to be couch potatoes instead or robots of agronomists.  They can't all be Amish.  I still can't believe you try to argue that Morgan the capitalist is a green.  Might adopt it late game, though.  Eventually it makes good money.

[Yitzi]

Which has no connected affinity, and therefore isn't really relevant to the discussion.

I bet many the purity people are purity because they want to be couch potatoes instead or robots of agronomists.

I don't think so.  I think that it's because they want to be humans instead of cyborgs or aliens.  (And while I can't see  choosing to be a robot, I can very much see him choosing to be a cyborg.)

I still can't believe you try to argue that Morgan the capitalist is a green.

I don't; I argue that Harmony and Green have some correlation but are far from identical.

[BlaneckW]

I think that it's because they want to be humans instead of cyborgs or aliens.

Humans are couch potatoes.  I only excercise, meditate, study dead religions, translate Chinese text on top of the unocassional anime/korean drama and starcraft murder because of my sublime will.  I assume that everyone else is a couch potato...  or an artist.

I argue that Harmony and Green have some correlation but are far from identical.

You're wrong.