Who is the most beautiful person of Smac&AC

[Helium Pond]

It's interesting how this has moved from a discussion of who is the most physically beautiful person on SMAC to who has the most beautiful soul.

AC: you refer to a quote about Gaia overrunning a Spartan base. If I recall correctly, the quote is just about mindworms overrunning the base, not Gaians in particular. But I may be entirely wrong, I'm sure.

Actually, come to think of it, the discussion is now about who we hate the most. Funny how the negative will out.

I never got why people thought Deirdre was that hot. I'm more lustful for Aki-Zeta or Datajack Roze. And while I'm hetero and all, there's something about the little fuzz that rings Yang's pate that always makes me smile.

I agree that the SMAX personalities aren't as strong as SMAC.

I always wondered why it wasn't Deirdre who got the -1 industry. I mean, that's a natural, right: greens versus industialists?

[Hydro]

HP,

Wandering off topic (again).

Interesting question - what is green (for the Gaians) and Green? I touched on this briefly on what green might be for the Gaians and, in this case, it would not necessarily be -1 industry. Normally a green is associated with the Green parties, who are generally anti-capitalist and certainly anti-industry. But at a basic level green is not necessarily anti-development. It can be more forward thinking, looking to the long-term benefit (e.g. - investing to reduce future liability). Now Green might be very different, where the 'preserve the environment' become something akin to a fundamentalism that permeates the society. This might be closer to the Green parties in the US and Europe. In this case I would agree that the +2 efficiency is traded for the -1 industry (getting the +2 Planet for free, however that works).

Your first point is good, too. The conversation did wander off into who has a beautiful soul, at least for me. I always think of it this way: who would you like to have dinner with (the question for the Progenitors: who would you like to have for dinner)? I would find it hard to chat about algorithms with Aki (even if she does have a sultry voice), and discussing Young Earth Creationism might get old (if you'll forgive the pun) after a while with Miriam. I dislike guns (probably being the only person in the US never to have fired one), so Santiago is right out. Datajack might be interesting, now that I mention it. And Cha Dawn… oops, forgot - it isn't a gal.

Hydro

[Alinestra Covelia]

Datajack's problem is that the entire faction goal is at odds with a faction's existence. The DataTechs are very interesting as a subversion or parasitical subclass (or if you want to be more pro-DT, "information liberators"). However, I would have thought that their entire faction exists in illegality and as such could not possibly exist on its own.

How would society function if everybody broke every single law and acted in direct opposition to morality, decency, and sociability? You're right. It wouldn't. Evil is lonesome, and chaos is antisocial. That is why I can't understand the DataTechs... although I'm trying hard, for the sake of my SMAC fiction piece.

[Helium Pond]

"How would society function if everybody broke every single law and acted in direct opposition to morality, decency, and sociability?"

Sounds like what people used to say about hippies, and before that about beatniks, and like both those cases, it's a drastically wrong understanding of the situation. Not that I claim to understand the "real" Datajack ideology, that would be ridiculous. But if you're trying to get a grasp on a culture you can't understand, think about the dilemma of 50's era parents trying to understand beatniks. Beatniks aren't/weren't in direct opposition to morality, or to decency, or to sociability. Au contraire, they found the mainstream mores to convey a hollow morality, a hypocritical deceny, a soulless sociability. They found a different way to live, but it made absolutely no sense to outsiders. Likewise, even though the Data Angels are described as having a "lack of a social structure," this is obviously false; they merely have a social structure so radically different from normal societies that it's unrecognizable. Think about what kind of social structure would evolve if everyone on earth only communicated through the internet. Or, perhaps more imaginable, compare it to the kind of social structure that exists on a newsgroup. It looks like chaos, and compared to, say, a board meeting, it *is* chaos. But there are rules, and social contracts, and a kind of organization, albeit an organization so loose as to be baffling to the uninitiated.

"evil is lonesome, and chaos is antisocial"--well, maybe so, but a) the data angels wouldn't call themselves evil, any more than ancient spartans felt it was evil to let their kids go out and kill peasants, it was just getting them ready for the real world, and b) some of the most chaotic events I can think of are also the most social: concerts, parties, burning man...

If it helps, here's a quote I came across somewhere, which stuck in my head because its meaning isn't immediately obvious, but neverhteless I forgot its source:

"Fire rests by changing".


--way, way, way, like, WAY off-topic,

HP

[Hydro]

HP, the Beatniks/hippies are a subclass and did have their own values but the didn't function as their own society - they were largely parasites on the 'establishment' (just like the Datajacks). I remember visiting several of the hippy communes in the early and mid 70s in Oregon, and my young mind came a way with the distinct impression that 1) they built strange houses (geodesic domes), but never seemed to get them done, 2) they farmed "interesting things (figure it out)" but could never hope to support themselves, 3) they begged from money from all visitors (like my family), 4) had lots of dirty little kids running round (if a 10 year old thinks a kid is dirty it has to be pretty bad) and 5) lived off of welfare. This may be a biased sample, but I think it supports AC's point that too much chaos prevents the formation of a coherent, independent culture. Social structure, even if it is functional but incomprehensible to the establishment, does not mean you are a functioning society.

[Argonaut]

As someone who plays the Angels regularly (and by the way my vote goes for Roze, with Aki as a close second. By far the best looking, and the most beautiful voices), I feel the need to defend them.

The Angels aren't a bunch of hackers out to break every rule in the book, nowhere does it specify that. The Angels are a faction who believe that information should be shared freely. Within their own society, they get along fine as long as this requirement is met. Therefore, people wouldn't be breaking every rule, because information would be accessible, and they wouldn't feel that twitching in their fingers to hack into government computers to find out it's dirty secrets.

They are united in that they all can relieve any such twitching upon their enemies. If Morgan, or Zak, or whoever, isn't sharing his latest discover, well then perhaps we should go and have a look so we can share it with the masses.

I think the problem is, that everyone looks at Roze and thinks: she's a hacker. In our society, hackers are essentially people who create mischief and break laws. The Data Angel society doesn't break their own laws, they team up to break other people's laws. And they're probably the only faction on Planet who has some real FUN!

Just my two cents.

Argo

[Eurhetemec]

This is getting *deeply* ironic. If *anyone* on Planet is a "hippie", it's Dee, I mean, please. Now, onto specifics.

RedFred - On Roze. Sorry, I don't dislike her, but more on that later, when answering the people who *really* lay into her and her faction.

On Environmentalists, especially direct activists. This *is* interesting. I'm a Brit. We have some eco-nuts, most of whom are unspeakably stupid, and opposed to any and all technological progress, whilst failing to understand the rhetoric they spew (I've had arguments with them in the past. Question them on Genetic Engineering, and you find they know ZERO). Worse, many of them are members of the "bourgoise", and consider themselves educated or intelligent, which they are not. They are not, on the whole fanatic, more crazy psuedo-hippie eejits, who run at the first threat of criminalisation or danger, unless they're on camera.

In the US Pacific Northwest, things seem to be different. I say this because I was in nortern California last year, driving along the windy and incredibly dangerous-seeming coastal round, and for several hours, the only radio stations I could get were an awful 70's bad ballad-y one and a "Environmentalist" one, where they went on about their philosophy, what they'd done, and so on, and it was interesting, they made alot of good points, were clearly doing some good work, but equally clearly, were Fanatics, in the true sense of the word. You could hear that "fanatic" edge when they spoke. It was amazing and scary at the same time. They seem more the ancestors of Dee's faction than our petty-minded, if politically successful (in parts of mainland Europe) Euro-greens.

So I think you can see that *I* don't think Greens are "all good", and I fear that Sid Meier, or whoever developed SMAC's characters, might disagree. It's the portrayal I object to, like I said, mainly *because* it is a cliche, which I've seen before.

On "Goody-two-shoes" IRL. I haven't heard this about ANYONE, IRL since I was around 12, so... "Holier than thou" (you use that expression in the US, right?), I have heard. My points that she is a cliche remain, and I admit, none are necessarily "realistic and believable", but some are *alot* more than others. People do react to them strongly, but politically, I have more in common with Dee than with, say, Morgan (especially, I have more in common with Yang than Morgan!), but he's amusing, and "fun", whereas she irritates the hell out of me. He *KNOWS* he's a baddie, he doesn't *think* he's "good", just "good for himself".

Morgan is a TOTAL cliche, more so than Dee, even, but he seems real, because he has flaws. You can tell the difference between a real object and ultra-high-res CGI, because most CGI has no flaws. Dee seems that way. Non?

On Morgan's employees being called "Morgan". I assumed this was CORPORATE name, not that they were direct descendants (about a MILLION people must be, if those people are!).

Maybe this is a "British" thing. Alot of people on this board are UK, and I've been *told*, by Brits, Europeans and Americans, variously that "The British love a Villian". I know we love a faliure, and the Americans love a success, and I suspect we like Villians too, perhaps that is why we play them so well in all your movies...

Hydro - Dude, you leave youself TOTALLY open on this one:

"Well, for a non-realistic and unbelievable character Deirdre sure does generate a lot of visceral responses."

Yeah, ALL STEREOTYPES DO! Dammit! No insult, but we you even *thinking* when you wrote that! REALISTIC characters are UNDERSTANDABLE, only psychopaths hate them, because you can empathise with them. They may disgust you, but the understanding removes the edge of hate. Really, cliches and stereotypes are much stronger for this than "realistic" characters. You *know* this prefectly well, when you think about it. OTT characters, especially villains, provoke a stronger response. She is *not* realistic, believable or deep. Perhaps she *is* effective in her role, however.

Really!

Also note, her BETRAYAL was stingier, because she REALLY WAS in-tune with my society, AND *claimed* that she was honest. This fault of the GAME, and it's programming, nothing else. She just seemed to BS me at random, and I've noticed this alot, when two factions are similar, the bond seems much weaker than when they are semi-opposed. It's odd. Perhaps the combination of fear and mutual distrust is a stronger bond than shared ideals? In SMAC at least...

"Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Mahatma Gandhi" - You say these people are "good". Uh-huh. You say people see them as flawless. Those people who do are idiots with no grasp on historical realities. All were flawed. MLK was a womanizer, for example, true to certain aspects of his preaching, but no others. This is pretty well known. Do I like and respect him? Yes. DId he provide a positive contrabution to society? Yes (though black-white racism is *alot* less of an issue in the UK). MT was a extremely religious, anti-contraception (IIRC) and so on, and thus deeply flawed, especially considering she worked mostly in third -world countries, where such things are most important. Miriam without the guts, almost! No, she's okay, but, like I said, deeply flawed, IMHO. Ghandi? He was a Pacifist. He succeeded in finally getting the Brits out of India, but he was only human, espoused various philosophies, and history shows, he wasn't prefect. He wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes in SMAC, not with that attitude.

See, these people are real and FLAWED. You can be GOOD, without being perfect, without being always right, yet Dee IS always right, is perfect, or rather, is PRESENTED as such. Heck, you even get the most points for Transcendance, despite the fact that it is DOZENS of times easier than conquering on a large/huge/even bigger world at high difficulty.

Roze Haters - Sheesh, talk about a "lack of understanding". Roze is as believable as anyone else, so long as you VISUALIZE her society properly. She is NOT "chaos incarnate", in fact, she, of all of them, is probably closest to most of the people who play SMAC, ironically, certainly most of the people who seem to use the 'net from the US. They don't have to break ANY of their OWN laws, because they accomodate themselves. They don't believe that it's proper that information is secret, ever, perhaps limiting this "right" to information to citizens. Hydro shows the typical reaction of a person of his generation to "hippies". The DJs are NOT by any means "hippies". If anything, his GF Dee is. Well, perhaps not. The Planet Cult and Cha Dawn, though, they are. The DJs are information-obsessed. Information is power. The "hippies" were pot-obsessed. Pot makes you lazy, woozy, hunger and happy, not so good for taking over the world as Information, and you can't just grow information in a field, either.

A side-note on "Hippies". By the 70s, REAL, intelligent, philosophical, inspired "hippies" had grown up and got real jobs, written books, and so on (anyone remember "Wild Palms"?), it was like Rome in 450AD, in severe decline by the time you saw them, they were but a remnant of their former, um, glory. The '60s gave us alot, though your generation might perceive it differently (I'm "only" 22, so...), and really, those are not the "original" "hippies". I could go, but I'll leave it there for now.

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"You're standing on my neck."

[Eurhetemec]

And whose fault would that be? Why, whoever wrote the text for SMAC, of course! Further, if you agree to this, you agree that "as is", Dee is unrealistic and hard to believe. Thanks!

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"You're standing on my neck."

[Hydro]

Off topic again…

Eur,

Greens come in various flavors. Some are spicy, others rotten, and some bland, and how you perceive them depends on the flavors you like. The greens I was referring to are those that work within the establishment and are decidedly not bomb throwers. Most of the greens I know are not even activists, but have the overall philosophy of green in their lives. These folks are even more bland that the semi-good greens you heard over the radio in California on Highway 101.

Xuenay got it right - the point was the appearance of perfection, which plays into your suggestion of SMAC/X stereotypes. Like it or not, unless you know someone personally (and even if you do) you are likely to superimpose any number of stereotypes onto that person. For instance, I know very little about Celt culture and totally missed the Celtic stereotype of Dee (to be honest I still don't completely get what that stereotype is). However, images of the greedy capitalist abound in the Me First USA, and I suppose I transposed those over Morgan (btw - anyone catch the irony that an African prince and businessman who has the last name of a decidedly non-African 19th Century American tycoon?). Likewise, I stereotyped Miriam based on the plethora of fundamentalists in the US, even if none of them seem to be women (another contradiction, or a Firaxis slam? If so I like it!). Perceptions of perfection and stereotypes have to do with how close you are to a person, topic, or item, and the further away the more your own stereotypes fill in the holes. Real people aren't perfect, but public images and the stereotypes the images are based on can be.

I would suggest that people with extreme views are loved/hated in extreme ways. This visceral reaction is a reflection of the degree to which we agree or feel threatened by their views. Most people will not know the warts of, say, MLK, MT, or MG, but they were still loved and hated even though they are 'real' people. All you have to do is appeal to or threaten someone's core values to generate feelings of antipathy or addoration.

The judgment of whether a character is 'real' or a stereotype is determined by your own stereotypes and pre-dispositions. I still find Deirdre to be an appealing and real character, and part of that may be what I read into the characteristics of green and Dee as a person (see the Fiction threads). At his point we aren't going to convince each other, so I suggest that we agree to disagree. Shake?

Hydro

P.S. - Eur, you think the hippies were my generation? If so you are 10 to 20 years off. I do remember my mother painting free hand yellow, red, and green acrylic butterflies in the bathrooms, poetry parties, driftwood sculptures, and my father putting cedar shingles down the hall inside the house. And then there was the lime green leisure suit (I burned the pictures).

[Xuenay]

quote: See, these people are real and FLAWED.

Exactly what he was saying. They were flawed, but people could easily view them as perfect. The same with Diedre - people just dont know enough of her.


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"Now Lone Star, you will see that Evil will always triumph, because Good is Dumb!"
-- Dark Helmet

[Eurhetemec]

Hydro - On the hippies, check my post again, see, I said your generation HATED hippies, because they only saw annoying slack hippies, not any of the good stuff that happened earlier, really (all IMO, of course).
Whatever the reason, people who grew up around then seem to hate hippies, where alot of people who were somewhat older or younger don't.

Anyway, I can certainly agree to disagree, though I still disagree that it's entirely perspective. SMAC is perhaps unique in utilising politics in such a un-heavy-handed and largely neutral way, where most games have none at all, or wear boring, often brain-dead, seemingly always, right-wing, apparently neurotic or fascist politics on their sleeve (Duke Nukem anybody?).

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"You're standing on my neck."

[Helium Pond]

I knew it was trouble to mention hippies! My point was only that hippies were thought to be lawless and amoral, when they were really seeking more satisfying laws and morals.

I thought of that thing about hippies and beatniks only existing as subcultures, and left it out of my argument, hoping no one would notice. Silly me. It's a good point.

I guess the main problem is, how do you have a social structure without a social structure? The manual says the Data Angels have a "lack of a social structure," so how in heck could that work? What does it, in fact, mean? Does it mean they have no leaders? Obviously not, because Datajack Roze is their leader. Does it mean they have no authoritarian structures? I don't know. But here's an idea.

Some researchers did a study on happy families. They found that happy families tended to be very very diverse, regardless of what Tolstoy says, in their character and beliefs and practically everything. But they did have a couple things in common: one, they had a very rapid and spontaneous style of communication, consisting of lots of in-jokes and half-finished sentences, which looked very chaotic to an outsider. Their ability to understand each other led to a very free-from, rambunctious style of communication, which unless you were "in the loop," was hard to interperet. Second, the functioning of the family unit was dynamic; in good times, everyone was pretty much free to do as they liked, but they were all capable of behaving within a more rigid and authoritarian structure when crises required it. IN other words, the appearance of chaos belied an ability to form into a more focused unit when circumstances needed that. So, my guess is that Data Angel society would function something like that. The percieved lack of social structure would in fact be the ability to be spontaneously comfortable with different social structures moment-to-moment.

I guess I was just trying to help Allie conceptualize their culture. I hope all that theorizing has been of some help.

HP

[RedFred]

quote: Originally posted by Eurhetemec on 09-16-2000 11:42 PM Maybe this is a "British" thing. Alot of people on this board are UK, and I've been *told*, by Brits, Europeans and Americans, variously that "The British love a Villian". I know we love a faliure, and the Americans love a success, and I suspect we like Villians too, perhaps that is why we play them so well in all your movies...

Egads! Lumped in with the Americans yet again. More scary for me than Hydro's lime green leisure suit. It must be another "British" thing.

[Basil]

Step back for a moment and remember that SMAC is a work of fiction, not a historical document. As such, you can expect it to be "unrealistic" in some ways.

For instance, it is a fairly common device in fiction for "viewpoint" characters to be normal in direct proportion to how abnormal the setting is. So, for example, if a writer wants to draw a detailed character sketch, they will probably choose a pretty average setting for their story. Conversely, if the writer wants to talk about an unusual setting, they'll probably choose a pretty average person to act as the viewpoint character for the story. For instance, in "Lord of the Rings" the viewpoint characters are the Hobbits - people relatively like us, who are far more likely to use umbrellas and red pens than swords or coats of mail, and spending their normal lives far away from Dragons and Orcs. When they get into adventures they perceive the adventures much like we would, and because they are people (relatively) like us Tolkien doesn't have to spend much time describing them - which leaves him time to describe the world of Middle Earth, with all its Elves and Men of archaic bearing. Conversely, when Joyce wants to do a character sketch, he sets it in boring old Dublin. He doesn't have to spend time describing Dublin to his readers, so he can focus on what really interests him - the character he's developing.

How does this relate to SMAC? Alpha Centauri is a strange world, and most of the leaders are pretty strange fish, and that's what the story is about - it's not about developing the viewpoint character, after all it's a strategy game. Deirdre is the viewpoint character - when you start the game the first time it defaults to the Gaians for your faction choice; the Gaians are admirably designed for newbies - their advantages, such as +1 planet and +2 efficiency, don't take any active skill to use, they just make the game easier for the newbie; and Deirdre is basically a fairly normal, well-educated, liberal, North American or European, who perceives things in much the same way as most of us might.

A second characteristic of fiction, and especially of science fiction, is that the protagonist often knows more about the reality of the situation than the other characters. If you're going to write a story about something, chances are that a person who knows more about that something than anyone else is going to be a major character in that story, after all! Examples include "The Nine Billion Names of God", in which the monks who are writing out all the names of God *know* that the world will end when they've finished, while the Americans selling them a computer that will finish the task in two weeks think they're just superstitious old men. Both "Foundation" and "Dune" have, as central characters, characters who have superhuman understanding of the way the world behaves, and I've never heard anyone complain about how unrealistic that is. (Look at the suggested reading in Appendix 5 of the SMAC manual - Dune.) By comparison, Deirdre only has superior understanding about one thing - she realizes faster than the others that Planet is intelligent in a real sense. Of course, since that that's the central discovery of a *science fiction* story, that's a pretty big deal. But compared to the superhuman exploits of Paul Muad'Dib or the Mule, it's pretty modest stuff.

So, I'll agree that Deidre is a much less unusual character than (say) Yang, but I don't agree that that's a weakness in the storyline.

[mark13]

While I agree that character description and background description are, in a sense, mutually exclusive, I would disagree that this theory is relevant to SMAC.

Although a work of fiction, the designers of SMAC hint toward this being the future for mankind, that Earth is 'terminally ill' so to speak. So, the faction leaders set off on a mighty voyage to a new planet.

Now you would think that humanity had learned from its mistakes, but no, faction leaders seem hell-bent on abusing their new world even more so than their ancestors did Earth. Everyone, that is, except Deirdre. So she can be perceived as the only "good" character, which would make sense, seeing as the Gaians are also the "easiest" faction to play.

On this basis, I would also conflict with the perception that Deirdre realises first that Planet has some sort of semi-intelligence. I mean, if you had just left the horrors of mid-21st century Earth, would you not want to preserve the ecology of Planet, regardless of any intelligence that might be present? I know I would. If anything, this makes Deirdre more believable than the other characters. In my opinion, it is Miriam who is the least "believable" (no pun intended) faction. They believe that Planet is their "promised land", which would tend to dictate their respect for Planet's fragile eco-system. But the reality is quite the contrary; not only do they abuse Planet even more so than the other factions, but they impose their fanaticism on everyone else, often in a violent manner.

All this speculation is irrelevant, however, when the situation is put in perspective. Consider Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear, in which the galaxy is inhabited by all manner of evil alien races. The author, however, understands the aliens' motives, almost to the point of being sympathetic. In this way, the human inhabitants of Chiron must ensure their own survival above and beyond that of the eco-system of Planet itself. This raises an intriguing question: to what lengths will the human race go to consider its own survival? Have we really evolved as a species as much as we'd like to believe? How extreme does the situation have to become in order for us to become barbrians? Each of the factions, at first glance, have seemingly peaceful interests, but 150 years into the game, everyone is at war, trying to achieve a clear advantage over their foes. Just how realistic is this? No-one really knows, as no-one has ever come across such an extreme situation in recent times, and I, for one, hope and pray no-one ever will.