STGOD 2k8 background thread

[Crossroads Inc.]

Perhaps on The Collapse issue, we can have a sort of jadedness to those in the Galaxy... a "The Imperium has collapsed before, and its always come back"

Except this time, no one goes out of thier way to restor it, and it DOES collapse fully.

[consequences]

Personally, I'm throwing in my vote for Earth going boom thirty minutes ago. Maybe a month, max. You can have all of the previously suppressed blood feeds you want breaking out as a result of recalled and destroyed Imperium peacekeeping forces, it isn't like there's no history to everyone before the Cataclysm.

[Rogue 9]

Nuts to 100 years. This should be fresh, current. A hundred years is enough time for a whole new empire to form, for things to stabilize. Anything more than ten years is too much. We should start in the chaos of the fall with a bare modicum of time to build up existing forces.

How the hell do you get a whole array of organized nations in less than ten years from the collapse of an imperial hegemony? I could see the odd one forming here or there, but by and large the whole mess would be too politically unstable to keep a nation-state going.

And I say right now, if a bunch of sword-wielding catgirls start bouncing across the battlefield at a squad of my troops, they will laugh and proceed to make Swiss cheese out of them. Because that's what happens when you charge a line of guys with guns while having only melee weapons.

[Darkevilme]

That's the idea behind the forcefields, means it'd take heavier than average weapons to kill one as plain old rifle fire will just plain bounce off unless massed. Think of it this way, Protoss zealots, leaping and bounding.

edit:
Although i'm not expecting them to succeed in an open engagement at long or medium range unless the enemy are being suppressed by something else such as powered armour with miniguns. In close or where there's cover and broken terrain however they'll be effective despite the sillyness.

[Academia Nut]

As has been mentioned previously, these successor states already exist at the time of the Fall. The Empire was already a highly fractious organization, maintaining control over a number of internal vassal states via force and fear. The player controlled nations would for the most part be the vassal states that had something of an independent culture and governing body before everything went to hell, thus they would be in the best position to make a soft(er) landing when Terra goes kaboom.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I think people are getting the wrong idea about forming Nations during/after the Imperium.

The whole "there needs to be a long time so people build thier own nations" is bogus. To use an example, if the US suddenly collapsed, one could say that suddener , there would be 50 "mini nations"

An Empeir is going to be made up of hundreds of small Proviances that could be thier own little spacenation (jjust as how some states could easily exist on thier own) But under the unified Imperium, theres no need to break away.

With a collapse, they are forced to be on thier own

[Dark Hellion]

Except for, unless we are totally mini-nations that are fully self-supporting, with our own governments, fleets, etc. post collapse everyone is going to be running around trying to find their asses again, no one is going to have stable social or military situations except for those outside the imperium proper. Do we really want to spend the first few Years of game time just reestablishing colonies, worrying about feeding our populace, and trying to form a new governmental system now that the imperial yoke is gone and the people really might revolt.

We got to give enough time to get through the first chaotic period after the Empire goes boom so that we don't have people who's nations might just fall apart on them without the enemy doing anything. We need nations that napalming a planet won't collapse the whole thing, they need trade, foodstuffs, etc, to be secure. Unless the Imperium was such a spectre that it's collapse is generally unnoticeable (the barbarian invasions are probably going to be a sign that it's not) people are going to freak, and we need time to stabilize. We don't need more than a decade probably. But we need time.

[Covenant]

God how I love lists. I couldn't resist responding to this:

1) How 'dark and gritty' are we going to go with this?

I see this in a very "A Few Good Men" sort of light at the moment. Seems like some people want to be a 'light in the darkness' and some people want to be the raping space vikings. I think we can have both--depending on how insulated those Lightside nations were before the Empire collapsed. If there's a few Tom Cruises, and the rest of us are Jack Nicholsons, then we can have an incredibly gritty, awful world that just a few lucky souls haven't been exposed to yet. That gives them a nice chance to be re-aquainted with reality, since no matter how gritty or fluffy the world is, the gritty ones amongst us are going to drag the fluffy ones into the mud too.

2) How corrupt was the Empire before its fall? Related is how religious they were, as both these factors will affect the successor states considerably. Either as they try and continue with the old or have a strong reaction to abuses of the empire, percieved or real.

I figure that any Empire of such immense size is inherently corrupt, but I don't think it's important enough to make a big deal of. I think it's a factor that could be widely credited to some of the weakening, but I always preferred to make it feel like the Empire--while insane--was torn apart less by it's corruption than by the fratricidal impulses of it's constituents. Otherwise it'll be too easy for people to go "Freeedom! Happiness! Liberty! War is for squares, man!" and stop fighting. We need strife--and I see the 'corruption' as a sort of Prison-state, where suddenly the wardens disappeared and we're all out of our cells.

As for Religion, I have a hardon for Paladins, but I'm going to say that any massively religious monotheistic superempire of cyborgs is going to end up looking 40k-ish. If that's fine, then I say we just go with it, because we all know what that kind of religion looks like. If we have some people hoping for Secular Imperials, or Opiate of the Masses style religion instead of true belief, or Pantheons or Elemental Worship or Ancestor Veneration instead, speak on up!

3) How long ago did the Empire fall? 100 years seems to be the current winner.

Well, now that the debate has bene opened, I'm still cool for a 100 days instead of 100 years thing. Honestly, I'd like the dust to just be settling now, since it gives us a world where everyone is still reeling from the short war, and faced with the reality of being unprotected from eveyone else.

Except for, unless we are totally mini-nations that are fully self-supporting, with our own governments, fleets, etc, post collapse everyone is going to be running around trying to find their asses again, no one is going to have stable social or military situations except for those outside the imperium proper. Do we really want to spend the first few Years of game time just reestablishing colonies, worrying about feeding our populace, and trying to form a new governmental system now that the imperial yoke is gone and the people really might revolt.

I'd say yes, we really do want that. I think that's the perfect way to describe the best possible game start. The weak get invaded, obliterated or enslaved in a matter of weeks by us bunch, and then we turn on each other. Anyone who wants to pick flowers and sue for peace will get murdered by their less discriminating bretheren and anyone who hits the ground running with aggressive expansion ends up being a big scary power.

The gloves are off. Stable empires be fucked, these people need something to jolt them off their asses. Yes, they'll run out of food. For fuck's sake, that's prefect, why do you think I said that they weren't self-sufficent? ;D

Hunger, lack of water, lack of supplies... these are all fantastic motivations for warfare. And it'll turn even the goodguys into savages in enough time. There's no physical way to avoid the fighting now. It's that or starve.

[Dark Hellion]

It's going to be very bloody then. And am I not mistaken to think there is going to be a lot of free space in the Empire at first to expand, but once that elbow room is gone, either you are going to have to work with your neighbor, crush him, or work with him while secretly planning to crush him, correct? And we need the real estate, because the Empire cushioned us, and now that it is pulled out from under us, the overpopulation and poor logistics of our nations start to show?

Nice. Some of us will need to revise our preliminary backgrounds, but it is starting to look like we will be able to get v1 OoB social backgrounds out within the next 2 weeks.

[Covenant]

It's going to be very bloody then. And am I not mistaken to think there is going to be a lot of free space in the Empire at first to expand, but once that elbow room is gone, either you are going to have to work with your neighbor, crush him, or work with him while secretly planning to crush him, correct? And we need the real estate, because the Empire cushioned us, and now that it is pulled out from under us, the overpopulation and poor logistics of our nations start to show?

That sounds like a good sort of setup, the more blood the better. It's certainly less artificial than just asking people nicely if they'd like to attack people--if we have some Barbarians and some Nice Guys, and nobody needs to fight for anything, then the game is too sedentary again. I would rather give people a reasonable and justifiable motivation for combat than shoehorn a legitimately non-violent sort of culture into the role of aggressive warmonger. This way people can play a culture that would really prefer not to war, but is doing it nearly as a matter of self preservation.

This isn't to crush anyone's dreams of being a goodguy, or independant, or anything. But being an independant self-sufficent self-liberated goodguy in the middle of a massive Empire where everyone else is basically supported by the Empire not only makes you a bit of an unlikely Mary Sue Empire, but also a really juicy target. One wonders why a civilization capable of obliterating entire systems would let a little jewel like that defy their rule.

As for placement, I dunno, that'll be randomized. We WILL know where each-other are from the get-go though, so it's not like anyone will be hiding in an empty patch of sky. I assume they'll be lots of dead space between successor states, but they'll all probably have drawn their borders as far as they can, even if they don't control all the crud in 'their space' yet. Every barbarian/non-imperial force is about 1-2 weeks out or so, which makes things kinda sucky for them.

[Rogue 9]

Actually, for a far-flung empire, it's not only a good idea for the provinces to be able to feed themselves; it's almost certainly the case. Colonies exist to provide revenue for the mother country; if they perpetually have to be fed and supplied, they aren't worth the effort. Outlying regions would almost certainly be net exporters to the central empire, not the other way around.

[Noble Ire]

Actually, for a far-flung empire, it's not only a good idea for the provinces to be able to feed themselves; it's almost certainly the case. Colonies exist to provide revenue for the mother country; if they perpetually have to be fed and supplied, they aren't worth the effort. Outlying regions would almost certainly be net exporters to the central empire, not the other way around.

Then again, if one allows colonies to become fully self-sufficient, they are far more likely to rebel. Massive world-crushing fleets or no, a client state is much more likely to resist its master if the master isn't the one putting the bread on the table, so to speak. Besides, Covenant has a point; we might want to sacrifice a bit of realism for improved gameplay.

Anyways, I've revised my OOB introduction, in accordance with the "100 day" setting:


The Eighth Enclave

Founded during the Terran Empire’s second major period of expansion, the Eighth Enclave was initially an assemblage of bureaucratic convenience. The region was composed of several prosperous, relatively young agricultural colonies, arrayed around a section of one of the major trade routes that connected the Empire’s heart with the ever-receding frontier. The collapse of the Drassian imperial line and the subsequent civil strife, though brief, stemmed the tide of expansion and shunted the Eighth Enclave into relative obscurity, just one of many tributaries of the core. There it remained for centuries, until the Empire dissolved into chaos and war began to sweep Known Space like a firestorm. Generals and admirals became plundering warlords and pirate kings, and the bountiful worlds of the Enclave began to wither under the onslaught of their former protectors.

Unlike so many, the Imperial governor of the region at the time of the great collapse, Lynus Adrati, has refused to abandon his people to the rising chaos. With the allegiance of the 52nd Legion, composed mainly of soldiers and sailors native to the Enclave, Adrati has driven off the initial waves of opportunists and pirates and given pause to the warlords ravaging nearby sectors, but he realizes that his fight has just barely begun. As the last organs of Imperial infrastructure, commerce, and security crumble, two specters threaten the Enclave and its people. First, the intact, relatively prosperous worlds of Adrati’s domain are prime targets for a dozen ambitious despots and encroaching barbarian tribes, and his initial successes will not keep them at bay forever. Second, his fuel stores and munitions are dwindling. Made up of agricultural colonies with little heavy industry, the Eighth Enclave has always depended upon trade with the core, and with the major trade routes compromised by constant fighting, the utility of commerce has dwindled away. Adrati is a man of the Empire, and values the best of the order and culture that it had to offer, but faced with ravenous hordes and draining coffers, he may soon have to choose between his conscience and extinction.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Re: magic, here's how Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura did it-

Magic and technology do not mix, at the most basic level. Magic works by bending physical law, allowing an effect to occur that would otherwise be impossible. For example, when a spellcaster produces a lightning bolt, he is causing (through an act of will) electrons to flow from one spot to another, despite the fact that the electric potential of the destination may be equal or higher than the source. This is in clear violation of physical law, but the caster has temporarily suppressed that law in their local environment. Thus, magic is a way to tell the universe "Do what I want!" It is very powerful but very personal.

Technology is the exact opposite. Technology relies on physical law to operate, and the use of a technological item or skill serves to reinforce the physical law on which it operates. When a technologist shoots a gun, he is relying on the chemical properties of the gunpowder to create a controlled explosion in the gun's chamber and propel the bullet forward. By using this gun repeatedly, he is actually strengthening those chemical properties, making them harder to subvert through magic.

Therefore, magic and technology oppose each other. Magic is constantly bending or suppressing physical law, while technology is reinforcing those same laws. Obviously, both cannot succeed when directed at the same physical law. Hence, there is conflict.

So some ideas. Alternatively, we can just say magic is some very powerful nanowank whose true secrets have been lost to time, jealously guarded only by exclusive magocratic elites in technologically-retarded and stifled societies.

[Hawkwings]

If we go with "100 days" then wouldn't we all still be using the ships built for the Imperial Navy? I doubt any of us client states would have been allowed to design and build our own warships, or even have the resources and technical knowledge to do so.

If so, we need to rethink the whole "Imperial ships are super-uber" idea, because we'd still have stocks of spare parts, supplies, etc. Especially if we're border worlds with patrol outposts and similar.

[Nephtys]

Let's just put this to a vote. I want a generation to pass, and all those fancy imperial ships to have broken down without fleet support.. or much like Battletech, they were all destroyed in the first (and most bloody) wave of 25-way civil war. Now is after a period of rest while everyone consolidated the weaker entities they've beaten and rebuilt homegrown weapons.. as well as becoming more politically and economically established.

[Academia Nut]

No, there are the ships the vassal states built to provide as military tithe to the Empire, and then there are the Imperial ships, built in shipyards like in the Sol system that use technology the vassals are not allowed to even see except for when said technology is raining fire down on an unsuspecting populace. This would be part of the corruption and decadence motiff, the hoarding of advanced technology leading to its loss after the primary production and distribution point goes poof.

[Hotfoot]

If we go with "100 days" then wouldn't we all still be using the ships built for the Imperial Navy? I doubt any of us client states would have been allowed to design and build our own warships, or even have the resources and technical knowledge to do so.

If so, we need to rethink the whole "Imperial ships are super-uber" idea, because we'd still have stocks of spare parts, supplies, etc. Especially if we're border worlds with patrol outposts and similar.

No, you wouldn't have Imperial Warships. They were all recalled to fight the Enclave. You were left to fend for yourselves.

Seriously, it's not that hard to imagine this happening real damn recently. You're all self-sufficient nations that were under the rule of the empire. You paid taxes, you gave tribute, your excess kept the Imperial Gears in motion. Now that the empire is gone, you have all of your resources to yourself. You spent a few months building up a fleet "for defense", and now that you've gotten your bearings, you look outside and see that everything's gone to shit. People are going batshit, wars are raging, and it occurs to you that you might just be able to bring stability back to the galaxy, through the diplomacy or domination. Oh, and those crazy aliens that wrecked up the Empire are still around and trying to collect everyone's strategic weapons.

Meanwhile, some people still have control of the small Imperial parts factories and such that were inside their borders. The chaotic core contains many treasures, including the bulk of the Imperial factories, caches, and databanks. Since Imperial Technology was so far ahead of your own, you'd love to get your hands on some. Imperial Remnants are doing what they can to hang on to them, but everyone wants them. What remains of the massive Imperial Fleet is roaming around, waiting to strike, to rebuild the Empire.

[Covenant]

The idea I had of this came from a Water Empire. By controlling the resources deliberately, and building faults into the small nations, getting them essentially addicted to 1st World existance but be unable to supply it for themselves (like someone from New Hampsire would be unable to drill for oil in his backyard) the Empire can deal with trouble by simply withdrawing their support. If rebels don't like the Empire, the Empire just won't trade with them--and if that doesn't pressure people to ask for back in, then you can always send in some warships. Honestly guys, it's not hard to imagine, and it has been a well-established method of keeping groups under control. If you doubt how viable this is, click the link. It's not like car factories in Ohio also make all the other parts.

Each nation would be required to have a militia of a specific strength for their own policing--the Imperial Fleet is meant to keep regional powers in check, not chase down armed smugglers and such. If you asked the Empire to step in to stop a few pirates, they'd dispatch a fleet, make you foot the entire bill, and probably demolish some planetoids. All in all, not worth the trouble or expense. People prefer to do things themselves, by and large, it's the cost of moderate autonomy.

And when we're talking about smugglers equipped with antimatter drives and megaton-range weaponry, you can see how even a National Guard battalion would require some heavy firepower. So while you have garrisons of tanks and Imperial stuff that don't work, you have also had a longstanding obligation to police and defend your own territory from yourself and other minor troubles.

Thus, in the collapse of Empire, you do have your own shipping and trade fleets (not always equal in quality of course) your own preferred manner of policing yourself and defending your borders from piracy, and a moderate industry. Just not self sufficency and armadas.

[Dark Hellion]

I like where this is going. It is very coherent, and gives a very good motivation for action, while allowing us the freedom of choice of the extent of that action. My fears that we would be bullied into fighting have been completely quelled. Awesome.

[Rogue 9]

Actually, for a far-flung empire, it's not only a good idea for the provinces to be able to feed themselves; it's almost certainly the case. Colonies exist to provide revenue for the mother country; if they perpetually have to be fed and supplied, they aren't worth the effort. Outlying regions would almost certainly be net exporters to the central empire, not the other way around.

Then again, if one allows colonies to become fully self-sufficient, they are far more likely to rebel. Massive world-crushing fleets or no, a client state is much more likely to resist its master if the master isn't the one putting the bread on the table, so to speak. Besides, Covenant has a point; we might want to sacrifice a bit of realism for improved gameplay.

Unless people have city-planets, a planet should be able to feed itself. The colonies of course wouldn't be militarily self-sufficient, but if you have entire worlds dependent upon regular food shipments from the core, then you have a situation where a rash of piracy or any other cause of delayed shipments results in mass starvation. And since the core worlds would logically be more built up and developed anyway, it logically follows that outer colonies would ship food back in, seeing how they're in a better position to be agrarian. Your very own nation concept bears that out.

For myself, I'm angling for an outer colony, or maybe an "inner rim" type deal if anything. My nation concept requires that my local government have quietly not oppressed the local aliens as hard as the Empire would have liked, so anywhere too close to Imperial attention squashes that right out.

[Covenant]

Some worlds are probably going to make an overabundance of food, since it seems convenient to ship food in from the outlying regions instead of trying to keep up with demand on the core worlds, but while the outer worlds may have a lot of the resources, they may not have the infrastructure capable of turning out other things. A world full of nothing but farmers, and no heavy industry, would be fucked just as well. If it was politically advantageous to create such a situation, it may have outweighed the mildly lossy economy it created.

Afterall, having a shortage of computing parts could be quite damaging to a planet's economy and stability as well, especially if the phyiscal material makeup of the world creates problems. The Moon, for example, might have serious iron shortages and a Gas Giant colony would definately need to look outward for resources. Food, water, and a variety of in-demand goods are all good controls, but each world would need it's own version.

It's somewhat amusing, afterall, that Luke's foster parents were--what--Moisture Farmers on a desert world, when elsewhere there were entire ocean planets? Even in Star Wars, the idea that one world's bounty and another world's lack did not always meet eye-to-eye. So while every world probably has some mines and some farmers and some water, it's the unfair distribution of the resources that could cause even good men to do terrible things.

[Academia Nut]

You know, we could probably have a semi-order to how our nations are positioned based on how much Imperial tech we take. The more attribute points we use to buy Imperial tech, the closer we are to the core of the Empire, while if we buy the Barbarian attribute then we get positioned just beyond the outskirts of the empire. Actually positioning would be mod controlled, but that way we could at least have some sort of order to how we're positioned.

[Nephtys]

You know, we could probably have a semi-order to how our nations are positioned based on how much Imperial tech we take. The more attribute points we use to buy Imperial tech, the closer we are to the core of the Empire, while if we buy the Barbarian attribute then we get positioned just beyond the outskirts of the empire. Actually positioning would be mod controlled, but that way we could at least have some sort of order to how we're positioned.

I don't know how that'd work. I mean, I plan on playing a more core power with an advanced techbase, that lacks size and some levels of full-bore industry. I figure this balances out. Complacency and advanced technology is offset by diverting more resources to maintaining a lifestyle.

Meanwhile Xarquon the Barbarian's Vaygr forces out at the edge of the empire has polluted planets covered in smelteries and industries dedicated to churning out crude metal battleships daily.

In the end, one of my polished white rocket cruiser squadrons still equals it's pointage in an enemy fleet of bolted metal ork attack barges.

[Academia Nut]

Uh, no it doesn't. Perhaps we should veer the crunch thread back to quantifying the effects of Imperial Tech, but if you have access to the tech caches your ships are better than those who do not have access to such goodies. That's why they're so widely sought after.

And I figure the best stuff should all be in the centre, so that's where all the people with the best stuff should be placed. That of course means that they're surrounded on all sides by people that want to kill them and take their stuff, but that's life.

[Battlehymn Republic]

What were the 25 factions of BattleTech- were they all clans?