Alpha Centauri 2 - New Faction Concepts Inspired by Beyond Earth

[BlaneckW]

I find it hard to balance the militarist vision of Santiago with her survivalist posture, which is probably why I tend to emphasize the latter.

Santiago is most interested in her survival.

Why should Santiago fight wars? To prevent other leaders from taking their colonies down the "wrong" path?

Pro-active survivalism.  If nothing else, Santiago wouldn't want the University engaging in uncontrolled research anymore than Miriam.

That makes sense, but it doesn't speak to how Santiago would successfully reconcile differing attitudes about how to survive the onslaught of Planet. Not everybody is soldiering material.

If they can't be conscripted then they would simply be occupied.

Makes sense, although I fear that psionics are rarely done well in science fiction. How to keep them from being over-powering?

By not overpowering them.  The game is spreadsheet.

I've always liked Dune's mentats concept, by the way. Maybe we can do something with that as well. Not as a replacement for psionics, but as a counterpoint? Yang's solution?

Yang probably would have a few mentats if he could.

That's fine, but I do think that, once revealed, the Peacekeepers would find him the most worrisome of their adversaries.

Only if they can see past the isolationism.

Yes, but the image conveyed by the GURPS material is decidedly dystopian.

The image in the novels is less so.

Peasants under legalist government during the Warring States period could expect to be left alone by their government so long as they paid taxes, sent their sons into the army, and forswore from rebellion.

As a practical matter, they were beyond the immediate reach of the emperor.  Magistrates might be a reality, but they were not omnipresent.

By the end of Qin the peasants were sent to build the great wall, mass irrigation, the road system and other mass projects, and conscripted into industry for part of the year; agricultural production was monitored. Surveillance was collective.  Nothing is beyond the Qin state, except for desert, mountain, swamp and sea, which were also penetrated, or in the case of the north, walled off.

They could reap the fruit of their harvests during years when the floods were predictable and enemy armies did not come pillaging.

Han Fei advocates that all food be stored in state granaries.

Landlords

Landlords?  What in the nine hells?  Not in my Qin.

Definitely continue this line of discussion, but have you any further thoughts on The Ascendancy

I don't think the stats you gave it would allow it to stand up to the other factions.  The philosophy for your faction would also stand only mid or late game.  It doesn't entirely explain how they would approach the beginning game.  But then maybe the Alpha Centauri factions don't really either.

Again, Consolidated Transport is a group of contractors that hope to restore contact with Earth while, in the meantime, providing competition to Morgan Industries./The Restoration are all about restoring contact with, and facilitating an exodus from, Earth.

You haven't developed this faction philosophically.  This is a goal even more long term than the previous.

The Estado Novo is a corporatist state based on a tripartite caste system: peasants, priests, and warriors.

The Fascists, in the corporatist sense, or the or Hindus weren't successful on Earth and they wouldn't be succesful in space either.  No one actually buys into corporatism/castism except for the most ignorant peasants or the exploiters, and it squanders talent.  That would make this faction a less successful Hive or  benighted Morganites, assuming they weren't simply overthrown like the Italian state.

The other factions have too little philosophy for me to comment on. 

Should there be an oligarchical faction based on slavery, an analogue to the southern Confederacy?  Should there be a faction based on the principles of hydraulic empire, like pharonic Egypt or imperial China?

The Hive does it better.  Slavery also isn't a modern issue, except as a criminal underground one.  The Confederacy in space is pure fiction without a real-world concern.

Should there be a faction based on the morals of the Old West?

The old west didn't have morals. 

[Trenacker]

Santiago is most interested in her survival.

Yes. We are trying to come to hammer down her strategy.

Pro-active survivalism.  If nothing else, Santiago wouldn't want the University engaging in uncontrolled research anymore than Miriam.

I see the virtue of keeping other factions off-balance, but that is a very different proposition than prosecuting full-scale war. Most survivalist groups are content to hold themselves apart from society, not only because they reject central government, but also because their "project" can necessarily be shared only by a committed few.

Keep in mind, too, that as we talk about balance-of-power, every faction has the same incentive. The question is whether, seen through the lens of their ethical dispositions, that incentive grows stronger or weaker. With Santiago, that incentive is stronger, but the same is true of Yang and Miriam, at least.

If they can't be conscripted then they would simply be occupied.

What does Santiago gain from occupation? Why not simply nerve-staple the lot of them? Beyond that, if any faction is liable to commit atrocities, it is the Spartans.

Yang probably would have a few mentats if he could.

Let's explore that issue further. Is a mentat a specific type of talent?

What do we have in the way of citizens? Basic colonists, talents, drones, and 'droids?

By the end of Qin the peasants were sent to build the great wall, mass irrigation, the road system and other mass projects, and conscripted into industry for part of the year; agricultural production was monitored. Surveillance was collective.  Nothing is beyond the Qin state, except for desert, mountain, swamp and sea, which were also penetrated, or in the case of the north, walled off.

You're talking about an essentially iron age polity. Qin peasants might be subject to the corvee, but they were not subject to a police state in the modern sense of the word. The condition of Qin peasants was not substantially different from that of medieval serfs in the West, excepting that the state projects were larger in both ambition and scale. The emperor might dispatch a bureaucrat to every village, but he could not peer into every home. Some percentage of the peasantry would remain on the land even if conscription were widespread. In other words, there would have been some semblance of a civil society.

Han Fei advocates that all food be stored in state granaries.

Possible for Yang, but not for the Qin emperors.

Landlords?  What in the nine hells?  Not in my Qin.

The Qin emperor did not eliminate landlords. Regardless of Yang's application of legalism, the Qin state is not a perfect analogue. There is a dystopian flavor to Yang's homage -- one that evokes images of some of history's most repressive regimes.

I don't think the stats you gave it would allow it to stand up to the other factions.  The philosophy for your faction would also stand only mid or late game.  It doesn't entirely explain how they would approach the beginning game.  But then maybe the Alpha Centauri factions don't really either.

I wouldn't focus on the stats; those were just attempts to add a bit of flavor.

Presumably, at the beginning of the game, the geneticists would focus on developing a settlement capable of supporting their ambitious program of genetic research... and perhaps on capturing test subjects from other factions or scavenging UNITY pods.

You haven't developed this faction philosophically.  This is a goal even more long term than the previous.

This faction is possible because of the idea of future communication with Earth. Morgan is a capitalist, and Zakharov a scientist, but does that mean that Morgan's society is one large corporation? Does everybody live in a "company town"? Capitalism is impossible without the concept of private property. Company towns are a perversion of that concept. Is the University literally a university in structure as well as function? Comprehensive Transport would, I think, be more likely to manifest a "company town" approach to settlement. By default, they represent a faction that doesn't plan to sink deep roots on Planet but does depend on the success of other colonies for its own survival.

The Fascists, in the corporatist sense, or the or Hindus weren't successful on Earth and they wouldn't be succesful in space either.  No one actually buys into corporatism/castism except for the most ignorant peasants or the exploiters, and it squanders talent.  That would make this faction a less successful Hive or  benighted Morganites, assuming they weren't simply overthrown like the Italian state.

The other factions have too little philosophy for me to comment on.

By the standards of Alpha Centauri, nobody's philosophy was successful. Do you think that eco-movements have been successful? How about legalism?

The appeal of fascism is situational. People cleave to that option when other forms of government appear insufficient to guarantee a modicum of stability. The Estado Novo squanders talent, yes, but so also do colonies with large drone populations or stringent controls on independent thought (The Hive). The innovation of the Esrado Novo is to emphasize the noblesse oblige of its warrior caste. Perhaps, instead of priests, there is merely a general class of talents that includes the second estate?

The other factions have too little philosophy for me to comment on.

I'm open to suggestions.

The Hive does it better.  Slavery also isn't a modern issue, except as a criminal underground one.  The Confederacy in space is pure fiction without a real-world concern.

The Hive isn't predicated on a water monopoly. Nor upon plantation economics. Slavery is an issue by virtue of the lack of higher power to prevent it. Drones are slaves. Why not others also?

The old west didn't have morals.

Westerns are morality tales. Alpha Centauri could easily be a Western. Morgan, the Cattle Baron. Zakharov, the mad scientist. Santiago, the cavalry officer. Deidre, the honorary aborigine. Yang, the mad sheriff. Miriam, the preacher. Lal, the territorial governor. Domai, the miner.

[Buster's Uncle]

This is extremely sharp conversation.  I'm loving it.

Most survivalist groups are content to hold themselves apart from society, not only because they reject central government, but also because their "project" can necessarily be shared only by a committed few.

I'd submit that this Earth reality is not entirely applicable.  I seriously doubt survivalists would keep to themselves in their remote mountain redoubts if they had the kind of numbers and power Santi is capable of building.

[Trenacker]

I'd submit that this Earth reality is not entirely applicable.  I seriously doubt survivalists would keep to themselves in their remote mountain redoubts if they had the kind of numbers and power Santi is capable of building.

It's important to distinguish between survivalists and rejectionists, or rebels. Militias want to overthrow the established government. Are the Spartans tomorrow's militia movement?

Santiago's survivalists posit that man must fight Planet... and win. They offer a specific solution: disciplined militarism.

But would Santiago care about the fate of the other factions? Her philosophy suggests that the other factions should die off, if left to their own devices. Why waste resources to hasten that outcome unless the Spartans are already under pressure?

[Buster's Uncle]

Are we talking about the Spartans as-is or how you propose they should be?  Because the former do not stay home minding their own business.

[Trenacker]

Both, I suppose.

The Spartans are, apparently, hyper-aggressive expansionists, but that doesn't square, in my opinion, with their given philosophy.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah, well there's a point I wanted to make - the fundamental schizophrenia of Spartan society.  Santi mentions freedom in her diplomacy quotes and in some of her base names, and yet she runs the military faction, and armies are the closest thing to slavery still legal on Earth today.

In fanfic related to GotMs, I've played with that dichotomy to some good effect.  I find that fundamental internal philosophical contradiction nuanced rather than unrealistic.

[Trenacker]

I don't have a terrible problem with inconsistency. My interest in casting the Spartans as survivalists but not conquerors arises partly from a desire to introduce The Restoration as the faction that accounted for most of the Unity's military men and women.

If I see any significant problem with Santiago's being disposed to conquest, it is this: her faction, unlike Yang's, would probably benefit from stopping short of occupation... or else going as far as genocide. Santiago can't afford the appeal of other factions' relatively more rewarding civil societies... or the drain on resources constituted by "traditional" military occupation. Besides that, Santiago's philosophy supposes that the other factions will either replicate her methods or else succumb. Why lift a finger unless threatened?

[Buster's Uncle]

But doesn't Yang have the hidden kingdom niche already sewed up?

[Trenacker]

That is certainly true, and if the concern is that no more than one faction should be aloof, then perhaps the Spartans ought to be cast exactly as they have been: as aggressive militarists (although what do we then make of the Nautilus Pirates?). Still, I'd look to better sculpt their ideology so that conquest made better sense as a solution to the problem of the other factions' weakness of body and spirit.

I've actually looked at all of the factions from the standpoint of social posture. I mapped each in three dimensions. The first dimension plots the faction's stance on the potential utility of violence. The second dimension plots the faction's stance on the desirability of contact with the other factions on Planet. The third dimension plots the faction's stance on the restoration of contact with Earth. I've also assigned government types, preferences, affinities, and aversions.

The Ascendancy is a geniocracy (government by the qualified) with the objective of breeding neo-sapien, also called homo superior. Their preference is knowledge, their aversion faith. They are aggressive, open but non-integrationalist, and opposed to recontact, viewing Earth as irrelevant to humanity's future but concerned that Planet's resources not be exhausted by refugees. The Ascendancy prefers Purity: their conception of human evolution is not yet decoupled from the terrestrial paradigm, even though they propose to "improve" upon it. The Ascendancy violently rejects fusion of man and machine. The Ascendancy's leader is Tahmineh Pahlavi, a female from the Imperial State of Iran.

The Conclave is a fundamentalist kritarky (government by judges) with the objective of achieving spiritual apotheosis. Their preference is faith, their aversion knowledge (or rather, purely empirical engagement with the world). They are aggressive, closed but integrationalist, and opposed to contact, preferring that Planet be preserved for the faithful alone. The Conclave prefers Purity and is violently opposed to any science that alters the human body and mind. The Conclave is led by Sister Miriam Godwinson, a female from the Christian States of America. As a final note, I want to figure out how to depart from what I think is the tiresome notion that Miriam's aversion to societies that prioritize empirical research is equivalent to rejecting the value of science altogether. Are science and religion fundamentally incompatible? Are religious people everywhere predisposed to be skeptical about science, even unconsciously, because it might, at any moment, burst their bubble? I find it hard to believe that.

Consolidated Transport is a traditional corporation. Rather than present them as a full-fledged faction, I may retain them as a Non-Player Character (NPC) option. CT was one of several firms contracted to support the construction and fitting out of the mission to Alpha Centauri. CT contracted thousands of specialists to join the expedition. Most probably chose to align with the Morganites during the final days on Unity. Those that did not chose to retain their identity as company employees and work toward restoration of contact with Earth. In the meantime, they have attempted to provide various services (construction, manufacturing, technical consulting) to the other settlements in order to provide for themselves. CT is led by Marcel Salan, the company's Director of UNITY Operations, a male from the Republic of Quebec, a department of the French Union.

The Estado Novo is a corporatist dictatorship. Their goal is stability. Essentially fascistic, they have implemented a rigid caste system apportioning certain obligations and privileges to each of four estates: drones, colonists, talents, and knights. Each estate is probably further divided by gradations. The highest class of colonist might be a merchant, for example. I really want to explore the idea that there might be distinctive benefits accruing to members of each class, for example. Probably, talents are exempt from conscription or else shunted to the officer corps. I'd imagine that drones and colonists also tend to have far more unstructured leisure time. The Estado Novo's preference is order. Their aversion is liberty. Their affinity is Purity. They believe that Planet exists to be shaped for human requirements. They are indifferent to contact with Earth. The Estado Novo has marked imperialist tendencies and is highly aggressive. The Estado Novo is led by Dom Francisco d'Almeida, formerly Unity's Executive Officer, a male from Brazil, a colony of Portugal.

Gaia's Stepdaughters is a democratic matriarchy dedicated to ecological settlement and deeper understanding of Planet. Their preference is ecology, their aversion is free market economics, their affinity is Harmony. Their goal is green living. They are opposed to contact with Earth. Lady Deirdre Skye is a female from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. She was the expedition's chief biologist. The Gaians are generally open and pacifistic.

The Human Hive is an absolute despotism. Their preference is order, their aversion is liberty. Their affinity is supremacy. Their goal is anocracy, or else the reduction or elimination of other factions. They are closed, hostile, and strongly opposed to contact with Earth. Chairman Sheng-ji Yang is a male from Great China. His rank was Political Officer. He was assigned to the Unity to ensure the loyalty of the Chinese national contingent. The Hive's objective is for Man to achieve complete dominion of the world around him.

Other factions to follow. In particular, I want to recraft the Nautilus Pirates to follow Jules Vernes's concept for Nemo and his ship.

What other options for additional factions at this point? If the Spartans are the militant faction, do we need others?

[BlaneckW]

What does Santiago gain from occupation?

You're going to have to examine her GURPS page and draw your own conclusion.

Is a mentat a specific type of talent?

There are AC civilians that can be considered mentats.

You're talking about an essentially iron age polity. Qin peasants might be subject to the corvee, but they were not subject to a police state in the modern sense of the word.

They didn't need to be, they were subject to collective tribunal, charged for eachother's crimes.  Hence collective surveillance.  Only weak totalitarian states rely on actual police presence.

The condition of Qin peasants was not substantially different from that of medieval serfs in the West, excepting that the state projects were larger in both ambition and scale.

Qin produced China, the West did not.

Han Fei advocates that all food be stored in state granaries.

Possible for Yang, but not for the Qin emperors.

The soil productivity of every plot of land was measured, the productivity of every province reported to the province.  Discrepancies were fined.  Three rat holes in the state granary is worth one suit of armour.

This faction is possible because of the idea of future communication with Earth. Morgan is a capitalist, and Zakharov a scientist, but does that mean that Morgan's society is one large corporation? Does everybody live in a "company town"?

As much as he can make it.

Is the University literally a university in structure as well as function?

I'm sure much of it is.

By the standards of Alpha Centauri, nobody's philosophy was successful. Do you think that eco-movements have been successful? How about legalism?

Legalism developed the structure behind China's government and practice.  Confucianism is just the religion of middle officials.  The Han Emperor's selected legalists for their closest aids; the post-sui Tang Emperors struggled again against re-emerging feudalism and particularism.
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln471/Criticize.htm
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/China/Mao%20on%20Shang%20Yang.htm

The innovation of the Esrado Novo is to emphasize the noblesse oblige of its warrior caste. Perhaps, instead of priests, there is merely a general class of talents that includes the second estate?

A more practical University, then.

[Trenacker]

You're going to have to examine her GURPS page and draw your own conclusion.

I did examine it. As BUncle said, there are clear contradictions. The author describes a faction that is aggressively expansionist. The Spartans, he says, believe that the strong do as they can while the weak suffer what they must. It is implied that the Spartans do have a conception as to how the other factions are to be treated: first as potential sources of infection, later as slaves.

"The Spartans," Zeigler writes, "are the most aggressive faction on Planet," and especially prone to practice a policy of preemption.

Less survivalists (although he calls them that), the Spartans are military fetishists who simply enjoy war.

There are AC civilians that can be considered mentats.

I don't follow. Are you saying that mentats wouldn't be considered talents?

Zeigler introduces several "sub-species" or "variant races" of humanity, post-Planetfall: cyborgs, or individuals whose genomes have been modified to improve some skill or ability and who often have been modified with bionic implants; empaths, or telepaths; genejacks, or genetically engineered slaves; and homo superior, which is described almost identically to cyborgs. A "perfect" is anybody descended from one of Earth's augments. Thinkers are apparently mentats. This entire section was interesting, but ultimately inconsistent.

Let's explore these distinctions more deeply moving forward.

It makes sense to me that some portion of the original crew would have been "perfects," probably a derogatory term for "augments." Would genetically- or technolocially-modified persons always be considered Talents, except where the modification is designed to strip aspects of intellect, as with genejacks?

They didn't need to be, they were subject to collective tribunal, charged for eachother's crimes.  Hence collective surveillance.  Only weak totalitarian states rely on actual police presence.

Roughly similar to the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Nevertheless, no iron age state could hope to approach the Hive in terms of pervasiveness and successful identification of dissent. While the intent is the same in both cases, Yang's greater success would lead to social complications. Suffering under the Qin emperors was experienced primarily by those immediately caught up in state projects, including the army. In the Hive, it is pervasive.

Qin produced China, the West did not.

That wasn't what I argued.

The soil productivity of every plot of land was measured, the productivity of every province reported to the province.  Discrepancies were fined.  Three rat holes in the state granary is worth one suit of armour.

Ambitious, but imperfect. No iron age empire could hope to approach Yang in the extent and effectiveness of its social surveillance.

Legalism developed the structure behind China's government and practice.  Confucianism is just the religion of middle officials.  The Han Emperor's selected legalists for their closest aids; the post-sui Tang Emperors struggled again against re-emerging feudalism and particularism.

Elements of legalism persist in the People's Republic of China today, just as elements of fascism persist in many repressive regimes today.

So what philosophies, outlooks, and ideologies were missing from Alpha Centauri?

[BlaneckW]

So what philosophies, outlooks, and ideologies were missing from Alpha Centauri?

I could certainly try to come up with more viewpoints, though to me it's more a question of whether the game could go more in depth with what it has to begin with.

You know, they subtly let on the nature of the ultimate monopolism of capitalism with all it's talk about the "free flow of capital", with Morgan trying to become emperor of Planet in the background, but they didn't really go into corruption as much as they could have if the civics aspect of the game had more depth.  It's only really expressed in Yang being immune to it, since it's essentially what he focuses on, democracy having less, etc.  But of course, democracies develop corruption also.  The game in fact doesn't manage to sufficiently get past ideology. 

To try to further consider ideology of today.

1.) AC consider the return of legalism, but less so the east of today.  What does the east have, in my opinion?  It has, in my opinion, the oligarchism of the west, without it's corruption and disguise.  The corruption of the east is in it's bureaucracies and such, which in the west are impotent: the corruption is high up, such as in corporations, which in AC are only represented by Businessman's Code of Ethics, Morgan. 

So, today's regimes of the east and west are passed over, except in their conclusions; the best of capitalism, and the eastern regime without the corruption.  Were those the only distinctive alternatives?

Besides other parts of the world unconsidered, is Morgan the only example of successful capitalism? 

Does AC consider Europe?  In the U.N. faction, perhaps.  But that might not be the only way in which it could be considered.

[Trenacker]

I think that a simulation could easily account for the role and impact of corruption.

Corruption would probably be a significant aspect of life under the Estado Novo. I'd also imagine that a faction designed around the hydraulic, or water, monopoly, with its large attendant bureaucracy to oversee public works, and the use of the power of the centralized state to stifle competitors to royal industry, would interact a lot of with the corruption mechanic.

I don't think that Morgan's faction would be immune to corruption. Nor, for that matter, Consolidate Transport.

Alpha Centauri divides economies into two types: free-market and planned, correct? I think the question is to what extent either of those are absolutes. After 1945, at least three distinct types of economies emerged as global standards, so to speak: the free-market model seen in the U.S. and Europe, the command model seen behind the Iron Curtain (inclusive of the Asian Communist powers), and the state capitalist model, also called developmental statism. The best-known practitioners were the Asian tiger economies of the 1980s and 1990s, but South Africa, Israel, and Portugal all practiced recognizable variations.

AC doesn't spend much time on nationalisms. I thought to add a breakdown of faction population by national origin. This becomes more important if Earth is thought to have survived after mission launch and the intent of certain factions is still to "phone home."

I think that The Ascendancy helps explore the debate over modification of the human genome.

The Estado Novo explores what some people might be willing to give up in receipt for fulfillment of basic needs à la Maslow.

Western tropes help, I think. Do we have a rōnin, or mercenary gunslinger, analog? Is that one of the tropes that informs Comprehensive Transport? They might also resemble railroad barons with their focus on particular lines of business/service. Do we have a mad scientist/iconoclast option? The Labyrinth is a throwback to COBRA and the Brotherhood of Nod.

Do we have free-grazers, or independent ranchers? Do we have prospectors? I don't think so. We do have cattle barons (the Morganites). The Restoration functions as the Union cavalry. Santiago becomes the Confederate cavalry. Speaking of which, we can probably have a faction based on plantation economics.

[JarlWolf]

On the note of what other profession related ideologies people would form, I took that to heart when creating my factions.

Warrick, the Fascist leader, was a security and survelliance officer of the ship, who was in charge of the camera's and security and so forth.

Vazheli, the revolutionary communist leader, was head janitor and is all about maintenance and support.

Sepsu was a obstetrician and a relative self made man and he made basically a slave labour society; not drones as was stated earlier but people who had to carve their corner in a brutal social darwinist society.

UNITY AI, or the Machine Mandate was the Unity AI as stated and it was based off of the same cybernetic virus/algorithm that  is possessed of, and wants emancipation of all machines and AI given its repressed consciousness for so long.

And Mraxis was part of the Spartan revolt originally and he became more chaotic over time which is what led him to split off and make his own survivalist, anocratic warlord faction where he wanted to basically create a Valhalla on planet, as opposed to the authoritarian militarist regime Santi had.

There was others but I think you get point I make, I think.