Living on Chiron, my Musings on Social Engineering

[Starfarer]

Does that mean I can start passing around my illicit blackmail photos of Yang, Miriam, and Foreman Domai pre-rebellion in compromising positions of "community service"?

[Makahlua]

Send 'em to Roze - she'll make sure they get out

And Blake!

Thanks for reminding me why I felt kin to Roze and her hacker crew right off

[gwillybj]

Hopeful Statement: "Yet this game occurs in the future, where all those lessons have already been learned!" (The Mad Monk)

Thoughful Retort: "They may have been learnt, but have they been taken to heart?" (Blake)

Unfortunate Truth: "Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana, 1863-1952)

I see nothing in any of the in-game text to convince me that even one of the faction leaders will do anything but repeat already-experienced failures. Each attempts to create a microcosm under an old worn-out umbrella brought from Earth when they should instead jointly foster an entirely new open-armed, open-minded, one-world society for the greater good and the enduring future of humankind. None of the society models presented could, in any combination, ever be that, because each will always degenerate into some derivative of "the haves and have-nots," whatever it may be that is to be "had".
I shall, then, leave such unfortunate cold truth where it belongs, under a large heavy rock, and play instead in the context of Science Fiction - with the emphasis on Fiction!
And I will continue to read - sometimes bemused, sometimes enangered, sometimes neither - the essays posted here at Apolyton.

[Guest]

Do one on the Cyborgs.

[Mr. Harley]

I'll take a shot at the Gaians, as a conservationist (not conservative) who has watched a green/Peta mindset slowly make inroads into the environmetal movement.

The Gaians represent a continuous tension in the area of politics, but with relatively predictable variation in the choices made in economics and values. The reason politics are such an issue for them is that their followers find all three choices in politics acceptable, and thus there is a continuous back and forth as their society grows and changes.

The Democratic paradigm naturally comes to many Gaians. This both comes from their grounding in western culture, and a deep belief in the individual. However, history has taught them that individuals, left to their own persuasion, can be very short-sighted and unwilling to consider future generations.

If necessary Gaians are willing to impose a police state. They most often do this when faced with war, if it requires the total mobilization of society and the upkeep of a large standing army, very similiar to the western democracies in WW2. When faced with an exterior threat, disagreement is cut short and often dissenters are interned. The inefficiency of supplying the large standing army is offset by the inherent efficiency of their own society.

The Gaians also tend towards a police state in the aftermath of the war, when faced with large scale integration of other social groups not so enlightened as they are (read either preemptive conquests to protect the planet or their rather common defensive wars). Their society's basic efficiency means that they can afford the inefficiency of the police state until they have fully integrated the new citizens.

The danger is that the Police State can become very attractive to the Gaian leadership, with the increased standing army and terraforming forces. In fact in certain circumstances ( i.e. the Cloning Vats) in can become so seductive that it becomes the accepted as the norm. This can lead to a very unpleasant Power/Though Control based Police State that is a threat to it's neighbors and that never manages to let go of the centralized power. Once they manage to gain the technology necessary for Thought Control, they will often let a semblance of Democracy to return, because at that point nobody will even consider voting for "evil groups" like capitalists.

The smallest but most interesting group found in any Gaian society are the Fundamentalists, those who are very militant in spreading a Green gospel accross planet. Sometimes, if they gain the upper hand, you have an agressive proselytizing among other groups (probe team operations) plus volunteers for a small but elite military dedicated to whatever is necessary to spread the Green gospel, including dying for it. This group also can find the Power/Thought Control paradigm extrememly seductive, with the same final result of a "guided democracy" where people vote, but the actual choices are already pre-made down to the Creche level where children are indoctrinated with a Green credo.

The Fundamentalists seldom maintain power simply because they have problems finding researchers, because the paradigm they espouse is closed and brooks no discourse except along approved lines, think Sharia in many of today's Muslim countries. Usually enough people realize their society is becoming a backwater and this simply represents a militant phase in their development.

Gains Economics are pretty straight foward. During periods of extensive infrastructure development, a Planned economy, often with a Wealth orientation, let's them complete projects quickly and with an acceptable hit to their society's vaunted efficiency. The only time this doesn't work is during periods of war, when the double hit of inefficiency of both a Planned economy and a Police State become too much even for the Gaian society to counteract.

Otherwise as soon as practical the Gaians tend towards a Green Knowledge based society, usually Democratic. It lets them continue to explore planet and thus obtain additional knowledge and resources while creating a standing army consisting a few individuals bonded to their native lifeform swarms. Very inexpensive, and it usually gives them the buffer necessary to protect them against any sudden attack by other human factions.

They can harvest energy from native lifeforms, and set most of their society's efforts towards knowledge, becoming a research powerhouse that can compete even with the University, and can definitely outstrip all other factions except possibly the Cyborgs. In fact if they develop far and fast enough (thus getting Network Backbone built) they even begin to resemble the Cyborgs, creating a ultra-efficient Green Paradise, that ultimately transcends. This is the total opposite of the society the extremists among the Gaians create, the so-called Democratic - Green - Power - Thought Control state, which shows you how the politics of the early Gaian society influence it's development over the first several centuries on Planet.

[Skanky Burns]