Alpha Centauri 2 - New Faction Concepts Inspired by Beyond Earth

[Trenacker]

Let's look at some 21st century ethical issues that might be pertinent to a game like Alpha Centauri.

Again, if anybody is interested in participating in the simulation as a player, I'd greatly appreciate if they spoke up now. I'm even open to taking faction claims at this time.

Also, does anybody have any suggestions about where to go for proposed new additions to the game's tech tree?

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Are the following issues sufficiently well-addressed by the factions that we have discussed thus far?

1. Issues of bio-ethics relating to biogenetics, including pharmacology, gene therapies, cloning, genetic engineering, cybernetics and eugenics.

2. Issues relating to freedom of information, including freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

3. Issues relating to equality, including distribution of wealth, designation of and access to "basic" services, and the consequences of free trade and free movement of goods and people.

4. Issues relating to identity, including gender, ethnicity, culture, and philosophy. Alpha Centauri did not address ethnic tension or solutions thereto.

5. Issues relating to war-making Just War, war causation, and humanitarianism, including problems posed by terrorism and counter-terrorism, "push-button" warfare, the ethics of "giving war a chance," and the "rules" of modern warfare.

6. Issues relating to planetary ecology, including land use and management.

7. Issues relating to statehood and the transition from Westphalia to pre-Westphalian (Thucydidean) or post-Westphalian conceptions of the state, its privileges, and its responsibilities.

8. Issues relating to justice and the administration of law, including issues of capital punishment, torture, and the purpose for incarceration.

9. Issues relating to choices of government, policy, and economic structure, including tension between free and planned economies. Can distinctions be drawn between planned and command economies?

10. Issues relating to surveillance.

11. Issues relating to exploration (the land, oceans, space, the brain).

12. Issues relating to human dignity, as in relation to "traditional" moralities and so-called "folkways," but also in relation to the right of some men to make choices for others, as well as in relation to problems of servitude.

13. Issues relating to man's relationship to man, including the tension between anarchy and hierarchy, encompassing the search for negarchy, or "natural" systems of self-restraint arising from a roughly equitable balance of power.

What was Unity's mission? To escape a dying Earth, slipping the bonds with those "back home?" To "pave the way" for a mass Exodus? The question of whether restoration of contact with Earth is a worthwhile, or even an acceptable, goal is one that the original SMAC did not explore, but which I think will play a major role in my simulation.

[Vishniac]

The relation -and I'm not craping on the military, just observing that that's how armies are or they don't work as armies- is that you can't get much less free than being a grunt, where you're so unfree that you'll go over the wall and get shot at and maybe die on Sarge's say-so.  And no officer rises so high that he isn't subject to orders outside the top guy in a military junta.  Spartans are all about 'freedom through discipline', yes?  It's something of a profound internal philosophical contradiction/dichotomy/nuance, is all.  Soldiers do as they're told.

A lot of false, of particular granted for generality and also of common places.
And all this doesn't help your original statement to stand on its feet.

I don't have much time these days and don't want to derail an otherwise perfectly functional thread but if you want to know more...

[Vishniac]

Spartans are all about 'freedom through discipline', yes? 

Might be delectably true for the historical Spartans, I'm not sure it would apply as well for AC's Spartans.  They're just plain bunker survivalists.

Delving into the history of the real Sparta could answer some questions I have read here about the Santiagists, mainly those about the isolationnist/conqueror dichotomy.
I'm not too knowledgeable about it though.

[Buster's Uncle]

A lot of false, of particular granted for generality and also of common places.
And all this doesn't help your original statement to stand on its feet.

Does not compute.

I don't have much time these days and don't want to derail an otherwise perfectly functional thread but if you want to know more...

Start a Rec Commons thread and educate me, then, Death Machine.

[Trenacker]

Anybody interested in participating in the simulation? I'm happy to use you guys as a sounding board for story creation and game design ideas, but I am hoping to wrangle a few players.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm really sorry to be no use to you on that - I'm too busy to even play AC for fun lately.  The stuff that needs doing around here is an endless treadmill.  Sorry.

[Vishniac]

I don't have much time these days and don't want to derail an otherwise perfectly functional thread but if you want to know more...

Start a Rec Commons thread and educate me, then, Death Machine.

Let's use our time more SMAC-ly!
I still must post some links to Pandora and a report of my visit to St-Petersburg.

You'll have to take my word for it on military and slavery. Any more minute devoted to this would be like:


 

[Sigma]

Let's look at some 21st century ethical issues that might be pertinent to a game like Alpha Centauri.

Again, if anybody is interested in participating in the simulation as a player, I'd greatly appreciate if they spoke up now. I'm even open to taking faction claims at this time.

Also, does anybody have any suggestions about where to go for proposed new additions to the game's tech tree?

What was Unity's mission? To escape a dying Earth, slipping the bonds with those "back home?" To "pave the way" for a mass Exodus? The question of whether restoration of contact with Earth is a worthwhile, or even an acceptable, goal is one that the original SMAC did not explore, but which I think will play a major role in my simulation.

I'm interested!

I developed a Faction Set based more or less along this premise, so I've done a lot of thinking along those lines. In particular:

2. Issues relating to freedom of information, including freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

3. Issues relating to equality, including distribution of wealth, designation of and access to "basic" services, and the consequences of free trade and free movement of goods and people.

12. Issues relating to human dignity, as in relation to "traditional" moralities and so-called "folkways," but also in relation to the right of some men to make choices for others, as well as in relation to problems of servitude.

13. Issues relating to man's relationship to man, including the tension between anarchy and hierarchy, encompassing the search for negarchy, or "natural" systems of self-restraint arising from a roughly equitable balance of power.

All of these points I think can be wound together, and experimented with in the context of the failure of Marxism and the ubiquity of capitalism. Essentially it boils down to "Should everyone have a fair, equal share in their society, or are some people more worthy than others?" Issues of access to information, access to education, access to wealth, ownership of the means of product (basically class in general) can be assessed here. Ultimately, these can crystallize into at least two ideologically opposed factions:

1. Populism + Marxism + Absolute Democracy. I create a faction called the Leviathan Body that occupies that role. Take the third world and downtrodden members of capitalist societies, put them on a new planet removed from the authority of their existing societies, and given them guns. With the opportunity to rewrite the rules, you would see a faction come into existence that wouldn't necessarily identify itself as Marxist, but would hew closely to its ideology. The faction recognizes the failure of liberal democracy on earth within the confines of capitalism, and instead creates an amorphous, functionally leaderless society. Hannu Rajaneimi's novel The Quantum Thief speculates on a society on Mars called the Oubliette, where decisions are made via an E-Democracy called The Voice, where every member of the society is franchised and can vote on public policy as easily as you would check your email. This society would by its very nature be highly unstable, but that is part of the challenge of playing them as a faction.

[Trenacker]

Great! Anybody else interested? Sigma makes four at last count.

[Trenacker]

Has anyone ever added new technologies to the game?

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes - but I don't think they actually did anything.  It can probably be done with .exe modding.  Maybe talk to Dio about it...

[Yitzi]

Yes - but I don't think they actually did anything.  It can probably be done with .exe modding.  Maybe talk to Dio about it...

It can be done with .exe modding (really, anything can, but this would be halfway feasible), but would be quite a major project.

[BlaneckW]

Great! Anybody else interested? Sigma makes four at last count.

I'm not certain what you are asking for.

[Trenacker]

I'm looking for people who want to role play factions as part of a simulation, or forum game. I've posted a few links in the past few pages.

[Trenacker]

To clarify, I'm not looking to mod Alpha Centauri.

I'm looking to develop a pen-and-paper roleplaying campaign and game world, to be played on web forums like this one, by real people, using text.