The Trial: Comments

[pappy_reen]

A lots of the best campaigns on here have comments threads for general discussions and ideas, so I’ve started one here. I’ll take this opportunity to also explore how my ideal version of this will go.

In a sentence, I think some of the best campaigns and let’s plays through the years work more like Dungeons and Dragons and less like a story told by one person. Collaboratively telling a story, through suggestions and ideas, through limitations and tensions, big and small, are what I think games, forums, and the internet are for!

So from now on, I’ll put voting, where relevant, at the end of every report. Many reports will have interludes / interstitial bits to flesh out what is going on in the empire, from a particular perspective.

I’d really like people to suggest whatever they feel, and for us to develop the story and trajectory together.

Thanks!

Campaign here

[S810_Jr]

How about an appendix?

Like listing a colony, its real life body name, main factions and characters based there etc.

Would help keep track of things we forget about down the road.

[pappy_reen]

Will do!

I think the format might be one reply per colony / person, but I worry that will get confusing.

If I have an index at the start, it should make it easier.

My fault for choosing strange names!

[Walter]

The society you describe has a very US-American Wild-West vibe to it:

allowing for financial speculation, investment and trading on an unprecedented scale.

Millionaires are made, fortunes are lost. Without the economic activity of this small elite, the budget would be in serious deficit - a truth they use to their political advantage.

Funded by the overflowing coffers of a consortium of billionaires,

Some of that description may be the old unreliable storyteller at work again.

Only time will tell if the growing unemployed population, comprising 50% of working age individuals, will endure the cost of these ideals.

Mandate: Halve proportional and absolute unemployment
Taboos: Construct no additional automation [auto mines] until full employment achieved.

I distinctly remember Steve writing that “available workers” does not equal “unemployed”.What it means is “available to be employed in ways that are meaningful to the empire”.
Of course that may have been on the old forum.
If somebody remembers where to find that article, a link would be much appreciated.

Taboo: Military ship count can never exceed civilian ship count

Cynics were quick to point out, that this says nothing about actual ship tonnage and it says nothing about what counts as a “ship” either.

Taboo: At least 50% of research output must be applied to military technologes

Has anyone ever violated that rule? My feeling is “no”

Mandate: Found new colony every 3 years.

Easy. Click “Create population” and ignore.

Taboo: No industrial capacity (e.g. construction facilities) can be outsourced to any collonies.

I don’t see how this is going to end well with the Morrigi or indeed any of the offworld populations. For inspiration read any of Cherryh’s “Company Wars” novels.

Mandate: Double racial wealth. Always use private sector capacity [freight, colony] over public sector
Taboos: Never raise shipping taxes above 0%, never run budget deficit, never tax civilian mining

Reaganomics has survived.

According to my reading the Future, Morrigi and (if you allow for “available” ≠ “unemployed”) Workers parties allow for the greatest amount of flexibility in steering the Starborn Empire to (duh) the Stars, so that is the coalition I will support.
The Astras can be tolerated in a pinch, the Abundancers have my personal loathing and the Firmas are actively destroying the nation.

[pappy_reen]

Thanks for this - and for casting the deciding vote on the election!

The society I was thinking of was actually based on the bankers of the modern City of London, but there’s a great deal of similarity there!

Also a really good reminder that I should be much more restrictive and clear when it comes to the regulations and rules I try and set up - e.g. I assumed available was unemployed.

I also worry for the future of the society that I haven’t devoted any research at all to any military tech…let’s hope this election doesn’t come too late!

[pappy_reen]

I jinxed it.

[pappy_reen]

So, having just played quite an intense wack-a-mole drag-and-nuke game, it seems like we’ve bagged some aliens (or at least, their corpses?)

Was I too hasty attacking them as hostile? How do you think this should change what I do, if anything, going foward?

[S810_Jr]

[S810_Jr]

The missing thing, was it the restricted military colonies? Would they also bypass the no automation thing too as civilians would not have jobs on them due to no clearance?

[pappy_reen]

Ohhh good try! Not the one I planned for but maybe I messed up

I thought restricted meant “no private” but I send my freighters to it to supply it. Is that wrong?

[S810_Jr]

You can send your commercial ships to them, they are government built and owned, so like the logistics part of the military. It just means the civilian shipping lines have no access. So no NPC trade goods, no NPC colony ships, no contracts (pick up or drop off).

[pappy_reen]

Great makes sense - the private sector are supporting their colonies, and the workers are trying to build up the other one faster right now!

Hint: the problem is in the screenshots

[Walter]

Things become clearer.
The Futures merged with the Abus, which cost them my vote. The WoW (not to be confused with the World of Warcraft, in spite of their sillyness) have shot themselves in the foot with their ban on infrastructure (which enables more production facilities to be built and jobs to be created (duh. (double duh even)) ).
Let’s not talk about the lunatic fringe.

That leaves the Morrigi as the sole electable party.
If you want to give them something to chew on, the distinction between military and civilian technologies becomes interesting. Currently I see a lot of wiggle room with dual-use stuff.

[pappy_reen]

I did feel like the military faction have become the default faction because they seem too reasonable [and it’s a military game!]

One suggestion was to simulate the ‘jobs program for my friends’ style of military industrial complex by demanding continuously expanding ground force construction, military spaceports and more ships, more forces etc. If that was paired with a continuous drive for modernisation demanding that obsolete tech is continuously scrapped and recycled would keep our military strength low while also matching demands of continuous expansion.

[Walter]

Oh, and here is another one I almost missed:

“Unexpected maintenance” on the mass drivers

That is the sort of obvious and immediately threatening move that gets civilian colonies nationalized before you can say “economic terrorism”.

[pappy_reen]

Questions to answer

It doesn’t take an election expert to see that Morrigans Children are likely to win, and win big, at the next election.

They will probably meet all their election promises (and some of the other factions’ too!). I see no reason why they wouldn’t have a big enough vote share to be the first solo rulling party.

This raises some questions that I’d really appreciate any and all input on.

1. What cultural default will such long militarism bring?

We began with pacifists, who had been in charge so long that the exclusion of military manufacturing on the homeworld became a norm.

With such a long and enduring flip to militarism, I feel it’s now time to introduce an enduring new norm.

I have some examples, but they’re only to stimulate the imagination. Unusual or esoteric suggestions are preferred here - cultural norms are odd!

E.g. in any colonised system, a military planet must be designated which receives all minerals first, before distribution to civilians. No construction, mining, research on military planets

E.g. all terraformed planets must be terraformed to jungle because this is the most fortified environment. All ground units must have jungle expertise

2. What has been going wrong with the other parties?

Clearly after such stunning losses the parties will have to adapt. Any and all suggestions of political movements, strains, ideals, taboos etc. eagerly appreciated.

I think I have slightly fallen into Marxist “workers Vs employers” and think the future will be more diverse

E.g. a faction interested in genetically engineering humanity to be “better”

3. What are you / are you not enjoying?

This is as far as I’ve ever gotten in a game or Aurora. I’ve never done an LP before.

I feel like I’m doing a very granular writeup on the game, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, don’t want to flood the forum with posts nobody likes, so wanted to check on that.

[S810_Jr]

(and no, they are not fascists. They hold elections, military service is fully voluntary and can be ended at anytime.)

[Walter]

In the movie they absolutely are.
This scene for example is 1:1 lifted from Riefenstahls “Triumph of the Will”.
Down to the boy who, to the smiles of the men, declares to be doing his part too.

We can talk about how Verhoeven twisted the story to fit his message (and did he ever!), but when you post this picture and claim those are not fascists, you are wrong.

[Walter]

"Perhaps you can start off then by telling me—briefly, of course—just why you joined the Service," he invited.

"For several reasons, Sir," she said after only the briefest of pauses. "My father was a Navy doctor before he retired and went into private practice, so I was a 'Navy brat' until I was about eleven. And I've always been interested in naval history, clear back to pre-Diaspora Earth. But I suppose the most important reason was the People's Republic, Sir."

"Indeed?" Layson couldn't quite keep the surprise out of his tone.

"Yes, Sir." Her voice was both respectful and thoughtful, but it was also very serious. "I believe war with Haven is inevitable, Sir. Not immediately, but in time."

"And you want to be along for the glory and the adventure, do you?"

"No, Sir." Her expression didn't alter, despite the bite in his question. "I want to help defend the Star Kingdom. And I don't want to live under the Peeps."

From “Ms Midshipman Honor Harrington” by David Weber

You don’t have to be a Militarist to demand a strong military. You can be a Pacifist down to your bones. You can hound the Navy over the unprovoked (framing is everything) destruction of the first alien vessel that we met ever. And you can still fight for a strong military.
Si vis pacem para bellum - and the Romans were nothing if not practical. They also demonstrated that the reverse is not necessarily true.

Back on topic. The other parties did not deliver on that point of existential importance, and they paid with irrelevance.
I imagine many voters (myself included) are not all that keen on the thought of sending the best and brightest of our sons and daughters and grandchildren (I am that old) to die on foreign shores, so any party that concedes the importance of our own survival is set to give the Morrigi hell, if they have something better to offer than the primacy of the Military before everything else.
Consider this a warning and see you at the ballots.

[pappy_reen]

I think (italics here representing significant doubt) that book starship troopers are a Stratocracy, while the movie ones are fascists written from their own positive perspective which I think was the joke Verhoven is playing.

So the book is an author believes in Stratocracy and in the film the director thinks fascism is stupid and bad while the fascists in the film themselves think it is good - I think in the film they beat the bugs with little more than human wave tactics and madness.

As for the game:

I agreed I need to rethink how each party can have a different approach to the demands of total war first, present that, then design the gameplay impacts.