How long since a "What faction would you join" thread???

[Hydro]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
Are you trying to be cute or just unaware of what ''arms'' are?

Trying...and obviously failing...to be cute.

Hydro

[onehomerj]

Originally posted by Hydro


Trying...and obviously failing...to be cute.

Hydro

I thought it was moderately funny.

Me, I want to do it zombie style, or the right to have my sleeves rolled up.

I think the right to bear arms is worth parodying any day of the week.

[Dis]

I don't see the Spartans being like 1800's america. More like the actual Spartans. Without the slaves perhaps.

Or like ww2 germany. without the holocaust stuff. or ww2 japan.

[WotanAnubis]

Human Hive and the Spartan Federation because I really, really don't like the idea of living in a militaristic police state.

The Lord's Believers and the Planet Cult because religious fundamentalism is just creepy.

The Free Drones because, frankly, I'm just not much of a physical labourer.

The Nautilus Pirates because I easily get seasick.

Oddly, though, I like the Spartans better than the University or the Morganites. I just wouldn't want to live there.

[Nabvrimn]

Yes, Rome has its warts. Every ancient society I can think of has them. Partly it's a matter of technology. You simply couldn't have enough leisure to build a civilization without slavery until the agricultural revolution. At least nobody did. That doesn't mean civilization isn't better than barbarism. In the face of severe external threats it's better to accept a certain level of autocracy than to succumb to those threats, particularly on Chiron where those threats are inhuman. When Rome fell it was the end of civilization in western Europe for centuries. If your society falls on Chiron it could be the end of humanity. Forever. High on my list of priorities in choosing a faction is not being eaten by mindworms. Also fairly high on my list is not being conquered by a faction on my unacceptable list.

[Frankychan]

Lord's Believers. Hands down. Their fundamentalism is my aversion.

Morgan Industries because I always see them as paying everyone really low wages and people in their faction having to work multiple jobs just to survive.

CyCon because hey, I'm left-brain not right.

Free Drones just because I wouldn't like to wake up in the morning and smelling like fog.
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Now, who's to say glorious Chairman Yang's Human Hive is not a meritocracy? Where the work you do does not elevate you in social status?

Barring that, I wouldn't mind joining yes, the illustrious Human Hive, PK's, and even the Gaians.

I wouldn't want to be in a faction where everyday I'm waking up to the threat of invasion.

[Hydro]

Frankychan,

Yikes! Talk about (almost) diametrically opposed! PKs? Hive? And the Gaians thrown in to boot!

BTW, I can see the Hive a quasi meritocracy, with a good bit of authoritarian mind stomping thrown in, of course. After all, a society that eliminates all its Talents won’t last very long (see your invasion comment!).

Hydro

[Nabvrimn]

I think Morgan is based more on Bill Gates, not the robber barons of the early iundustrial era. More of the modern shaft the consumer attitude than the old shaft the worker attitude. There's a limit, after all, to how badly you can treat highly skilled and educated employees. On the other hand he did manage to drive off enough technology workers to start the Data Angels.

The problem with Morgan is that you can't have a government act like a corporation and still call it a free market. The game mechanics and the fluff text don't mesh for him. By the texts his affinity should be planned/wealth not free market/wealth. I don't think the game designers really understood the difference between laissez faire capitalism and plutocracy. The latter is a degenerate form that loses all the benefits that come from capitalism.

[Hydro]

Interesting point. Government and corporate interests are intertwined, and how that is structured (the SE) defines the culture. Morgan could be more free market, but if government is directly involved with corporations then that falls apart since it will want to pick the winner, namely itself. To me that is more planned.

An interesting take on economics is the SMAniaC mod, which divides economics into Subsistence, Private/Free Trade, Planned (as in normal gaem), and Private/Protectionist. It also has a faction that sounds just like what you describe: Centauri Republic. This is pro Private/Protectionist and has an aversion toward Private/Free Market. In this mod Private/Free Trade is -1 talent, +3 eco, -1 support, and -2 industry, the idea being that market efficiency is more lucrative than local or faction industrial interests. Private/Protectionist is also -1 Talent with +2 eco, -1 support, and -1 industry, so it tempers faction corporate interests with less market efficiency. Note that both are anti-people (-1 Talent), with the likely credo of: let the little people eat cake. That sounds like pure Morgan to me!

Hydro

[Darrell01]

The way I see Morgan is that he is a die hard capitalist, that is true. However being a capitalist doesn't mean you are out to screw the workers and consumers. The thing about the capitalists who win and win in the long term look to please the customer, the consumer, turn perhaps a marginal profit, and most importantly have a lifetime customer that turns them a profit day after day, month after month, year after year. The worker is not going to work for the company if he isn't duly compensated for trading his time for Morgan's energy credits. The customer is not going to purchase the item/service if he feels the product is over priced. Also Morgan needs to keep prices low as possible as well as continuing to improve his products/services to ensure there is no other competition. The idea is right in The Network Backbone.

Of course we'll bundle our MorganNet software with the new Network Nodes. Our customers expect no less of us. We've never sought to become a monopoly. Our products are simply so good, no one feels the need to compete with us.

Now people will hammer the "We've never sought to become a monopoly," part. Morgan is a Free Market capitalist. That means he lets his competition try and compete with him. When they come out with a new innovation, he will immediately incorperate it into his stuff. There is no patent office on Chiron. If he is a Free Market capitalist, he is going to try and get the consumer to purchase from him of their own free will. That is why Free Market has -5 Police rating. The Citizens are choosing to live peacably in the Morgan bases. So then too many drones riot and he has to placate them and make a recreation commons. He is actually serving the people if you really think about it. Now if there is anything he is exploiting it is Planet, and Planet will get mad and send its mind worms. That's why he builds centari preserves either second or third because he needs to make sure his system of bases runs smoothly.

Anyway, the way I see it Morgan is one of the last factions that exploits the workers and the consumers. To me, Morgan is one of the first to ensure the rights of the Citizens. Now people might bring up the Research Hospital text. If he is Morgan, and he is, the patients were either dying and needed cutting edge experimental surgery or they were duly compensated, most likely in the form of energy credits to their families and mention when MorganHealth comes out with the cure for W.O.R.M. syndrome. The nerve stapling part is perhaps because he was running in survival mode at the time and is the only time he can really nerve staple. If you listen, he did not want to nerve staple them at all and now he has a huge problem. Most likely he is going to fix the problem to ensure it never happens again.

Morgan will exploit the Planet, sure. In the end, however, he might be the first to figure out how to solve the problems he created by exploiting the Planet because his labs are fully funded and have much more extra energy running through them.

......

Yeah... Someone mentioned this would happen... *cry* Its devolving into a discussion about philosophy. Maybe the problem is I am seeing all the bad about the factions and not much of the good about the factions.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Nabvrimn
Partly it's a matter of technology. You simply couldn't have enough leisure to build a civilization without slavery until the agricultural revolution.

Well, yeah... no. Anthropology has pretty much conclusively shown that most of the cultures that Rome conquered were MORE egalitarian, where their people had more of their free time and kept more of the fruits of their labor for themselves. Cultures like those of the Franks, Germania, and Celtic England had their share of barbarism, but it was Rome's superior technology that permitted their conquest and the subsequent centralization of power under an authoritarian yoke.

What you could NOT do without slavery is maintain a large standing professional army that could drill all year and take the field during planting and harvest time, to say nothing of maintaining the large overhead of a powerful aristocratic warrior caste who did no work at all. Most of these society's soldiers were also their farmers, as indeed were the first armies of the Roman republic. What changed is that with military conquest came the enslaved workforce of your neighbors.

It's also a misconception that this practice was any less ignoble, disruptive and ultimately erosive to the society using it. The Servile wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Servile_Wars) and the displacement of freedmen by the growth of latifundia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latifundia) both are evidence of that.

In fact, it could be argued that the fall of Rome was the inevitable result of such practices. When Rome's aristocratic class began to drift from their equestrian roots, they had the money and power to avoid military service (sound familiar?). To maintain the legion's numbers, recruits from the neighboring peoples were brought in to perform the tedious marching, conquering and road building that the legions were accustomed to do during their 20 year tours.

The trouble was, Rome was an oppressive monarchy whose existence depended on the military might of the legions. The practice of recruiting foederati placed the actual power of the legions in the hands of tribal chiefs who had no vested interest in the continued existence of the Roman nobility. The irony was that the roman Emperors chose to place power in the hands of these tribal chiefs because they feared that a general of roman extraction would result in their being deposed. Of course, they wound up being deposed by the barbarians instead.

[Hydro]

Yeah... Someone mentioned this would happen... *cry* Its devolving into a discussion about philosophy. Maybe the problem is I am seeing all the bad about the factions and not much of the good about the factions.

No, it hasn't devolved at all. The question 'what faction would you join/not join' is ultimately a philosophical question. The fact that folks are digging in a bit deeper is, in my opinion, a good thing.

We'll have to agree to disagree on capitalism. My observation is that capital is neutral in all things. It cares not one whit about workers, consumers, innovation – only money. That’s it. The flow of capital will inevitably gravitate quickly toward a few nodes (people, corporations) unless that tendency is moderated by rules put in place by the government. When those rules are highly intrusive we have a Planned economy, or perhaps a Green economy. When the government lets the chits fall where they may in deference to market efficiency – regardless of the potentially unsavory consequences - we have FM.

Hydro

[Darrell01]

I must remember that all these factions are based on an ideal. Each faction ideology is run by someone who wants the best for their people. Yes, even Yang in the Hive. Using Yang as an example, perhaps he has posters of himself all over the tunnels and such. However, today, leaders who do this are old fat men who want to be portrayed as some heroic figure. Yang *is* a heroic figure if you read the story line. Yang is trying to accomplish a Hive paradise where through the early struggles and hard work, there is delayed gratification about 200 to 300 years down the line where he is able to take the Hive to trancendence. All the early suffering and such will pay off in the end. He's not actually torturing his subjects, he is focusing their efforts to the big goal. He does not know how to generate and manage new energy, but he does know how to take what is there and not lose it in typically extremely wasteful government structures. Because he doesn't have new energy, he has to resort to the sword to keep drones in line where Morgan will entertain them with some shiny screen, a waste of time and energy in Yang's eyes. Each faction is represented in an ideal form where the people agree with how it is working. People will say that ang is a brutal dictator, but that is because of the history from what happened on Earth. On Planet, all Yang's followers tend to agree wiith him, as all of Diedre's followers believe in her. And perhaps the drones in Yang's Hive are not causing a ruckus because they do not like being there. They may be causing a ruckus because they want there to be more impact laser rover parades to give them a sense of security from outside threats. So to Yang's drones, they like having extra units in the base as opposed to not being foolishly entertained or harshly quelled like everywhere else. Sometimes it can be hard to put myself into another person's shoes who actually believes in the (in my view, bad) government over them. However all the factions are run in their ideal form and they all strive for how things ought to be, not how things are.

[Nabvrimn]

Only the first generation is self selected. That's a kiloperson. How many kilopersons does an early-mid game empire have? Only one of those at most chose to be there. Some are their descendants. Some are the victims of conquest or their descendants.

Being founded on an ideology doesn't make a nation more stable. America was founded on an ideology. We had a civil war within a century and it wasn't "original colonists and their descendants vs the territory we got from Spain and Mexico". It was "people mostly from England who banded together over a tax dispute vs eachother" People are people and envornenment isn't everything. Depending on whether you ask Miriam or Zakharov they were either created by the same God according to the same design or evolved from the same ancestors under the same influences. By the time most of the action happens in the game the initial selection biases will fade away and people would be pretty much the same everywhere. The kids who died at Tieneman Square aren't that different from the folks who marched on Washington to protest segregation or the people who stormed the Bastille and Yang's drone problem isn't any different from Morgan's or Lal's.

[Blake]

The fact that the factions start with only a kiloperson makes the ideology even stronger. Because it's relatively easier for 1 person to influence 999 more. An average sized hall will easily fit a kiloperson, a charismatic leader can thus address his entire faction, in person.

Another ideologicalizing factor is that on planet each faction has an isolated and secured information network, and it's small enough to be controlled. This allows for "approved information only" type control.

Then there's the "You can't leave factor". On earth, people typically can leave, even if it's hard. But on Chiron, they literally wouldn't be able to. Unbreathable atmosphere, dubious ability to live off the land, hostile and extremely dangerous native life (or... you can leave and die... but the only future is with your faction). You accept the ideology and you bring your children up to accept the ideology because you have no choice.

If you want to get even scarier, the Children Creche concept and the fact that the population needs to breed rapidly and work hard, giving little time for family bonding. Essentially children would be raised by the state which gives a tremendous scope for indoctrination. I would fully expect that a bunch of factions, especially Hive, would not bother with families at all, possibly even to the point where children are planned to maximize genetic diversity (artificial insemination, surrogacy for the state, unknown fathers).

There's really nothing at all implausible about the strength of ideology in SMAC. A charismatic megalomaniac could certainly form such a future society in relative isolation.

The ideologies would only start to break down once the borders between factions become porous (to flow of information), and it would be within the power of a faction leader to ensure that never happens.