Coalition of Colonies Politics & Frontier Rangers

[Lucaken]

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Faction.

Short Description: An expansion on the political enviroment of the CoC, and a more concrete concept for the 'Coalition Rangers'.

How will this be reflected on-station?: Pretty much any character who originates from the Coalition will have more political nuance to engage with, both on and off station. Care has been taken to involve as many planets as possible. The two main political parties serve to incite further conflict, and make the entire faction a bit less nebulous.

Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: Yeah.

Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways that you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team?: Betting on it.

Long Description: Click here.

Additional Notes: While I understand the document's size may be a bit daunting, I believe that an entity as large and as varied as the Coalition should have a solid political background to it. I would also like to think of it as a stepping stone for numerous additions to the entire faction, which I think it desperately needs - one example being a more complete History section.

None of this would have been possible without Schwann's industrious editing and consistent suggestions. They brought invaluable help all throughout the three weeks that this was written, and I couldn't thank them enough for it.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Lucaken

[ImmortalRedshirt]

To start us off with a little fun fact, this document is about as long as the entire page on the Coalition. But we're not here to talk about length, let's talk about what's behind those words.

• The two main parties are pretty much the natural result of the government that's been set up. Planets are given much leeway in how they govern, but there's a division on the federal level over how much they should be able to govern themselves, no big surprises here. Interestingly enough, while reading this I noticed several parallels to a post-Revolution United States, when the Articles of Confederation were the law of the land. Back then, there was a lot of discussion over whether the federal government should be strengthened or whether the country should remain a loose alliance of states, something that reflects fittingly on the Coalition, even down to replicating the same attitude of the "frontiersman" that people today often regard those early years as possessing.
• Great job on bringing the disparate corners of the Coalition together for a brief moment to discuss their individual views on the national scale, as well as further dividing some of them just to keep things from being too one-note.
• One thing that feels to be an important detail that was left out, though, is a conflict between planetary and individual freedoms. The latter could prove another legitimate reason for say, the Xanu Caucus to support greater interference in planetary affairs. It'd also add an extra layer of making things personal for on-station characters. Do they believe a strong local government is the best thing, or should someone outside step in to ensure the individual lives a life how they see fit?
• I have no strong feelings one way or the other on the CPB. It gets the job done. Tying in some lesser-featured groups like Himean Taj shows how much work had to be done combing over every page to get an idea of what they would do.
• This might be outside the scope of the document, but how does the League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems, that one Solarian warlord state, factor into modern Coalition politics? Both camps have aligned themselves to their respective parties, but with the Caucus having the goal of more worlds in the Coalition, even if it means CFP-aligned ones, how has this affected the leaning of some members? 

Overall, other than a few holes, you have my interest in this expansion.

[Lucaken]

Firstly, thank you for the kind words. It is a special kind of happiness to see people read and understand the lore you write! And indeed, a lot of your feedback is spot on about what I wanted to achieve.

14 hours ago, ImmortalRedshirt said:

The two main parties are pretty much the natural result of the government that's been set up. Planets are given much leeway in how they govern, but there's a division on the federal level over how much they should be able to govern themselves, no big surprises here. Interestingly enough, while reading this I noticed several parallels to a post-Revolution United States, when the Articles of Confederation were the law of the land. Back then, there was a lot of discussion over whether the federal government should be strengthened or whether the country should remain a loose alliance of states, something that reflects fittingly on the Coalition, even down to replicating the same attitude of the "frontiersman" that people today often regard those early years as possessing.

The North American influence is indeed very much there, and I found it almost unavoidable during the writing of this, due to the sheer amount of parallels already present. I tried not to be too on the nose about it. I think real-life influences like that help make it familiar enough as long as it's done tastefully.

14 hours ago, ImmortalRedshirt said:

One thing that feels to be an important detail that was left out, though, is a conflict between planetary and individual freedoms. The latter could prove another legitimate reason for say, the Xanu Caucus to support greater interference in planetary affairs. It'd also add an extra layer of making things personal for on-station characters. Do they believe a strong local government is the best thing, or should someone outside step in to ensure the individual lives a life how they see fit?

I was a bit confused about this part because this is essentially the core conflict between the Caucus and the CFP. Do you think it should be made even clearer? I think you can see it already in:

"More practically, the party is interested in seeing the House of Members gain more legislative power to achieve this, and even more controversially, interfere with systems on a local level."
"As an ideology, the CFP has continued to support the right of individual system-states to act according to their local governments, seeking to eschew almost any trace of a greater administration."
As well as the previous attempts at Coalition-wide standards, and the politicization of the Rangers.

15 hours ago, ImmortalRedshirt said:

This might be outside the scope of the document, but how does the League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems, that one Solarian warlord state, factor into modern Coalition politics? Both camps have aligned themselves to their respective parties, but with the Caucus having the goal of more worlds in the Coalition, even if it means CFP-aligned ones, how has this affected the leaning of some members? 

This was actually a great shout, as I previously only skimmed the Human Wildlans page, and missed that part. In retrospect, I'm very surprised how well it fits in with what is written here, at least from the perspective of the League. It seems to me that they would be firmly within the circle of the CPF, largely due to the link to Himeo and Gadpathur (the two key players of the party), and because of the more corporate-friendly stance of the Caucus. I also don't think the Caucus would be interested in getting them into the fold, because they are more worried about keeping member-systems, rather than acquiring even more territory (for now). That said, I think the League with be a great tidbit to include in the final version - perhaps as one of the many lobbying parties in the House of Observers.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

19 minutes ago, Lucaken said:

I was a bit confused about this part because this is essentially the core conflict between the Caucus and the CFP. Do you think it should be made even clearer? I think you can see it already in:

"More practically, the party is interested in seeing the House of Members gain more legislative power to achieve this, and even more controversially, interfere with systems on a local level."
"As an ideology, the CFP has continued to support the right of individual system-states to act according to their local governments, seeking to eschew almost any trace of a greater administration."
As well as the previous attempts at Coalition-wide standards, and the politicization of the Rangers.

Ah, yes. I can see it now. Thanks.

[Lucaken]

Some edits and additions, based on feedback that I got here and on Discord. All of them are highlighted in orange in the document, but for ease of reading, I've included them below as well.

Chief Attorney of the House of Observers
"It is headed by the Chief Attorney, who is tasked with organizing and enforcing the myriad of interests pushed by the chamber and all of its speakers. Though the position holds considerably less power than its contemporary in the upper House, the current Chief Attorney, First Speaker Marja-Leena Helminen of Himeo, has broken the mold of her title by virtue of her careful political maneuvering and a tight grip on the House of Observers."

Hakamism
"One of the first Assunzioni to actively venture out into the galaxy after the planet’s stabilization, he and many others from his planet held the Solarian government accountable for the colony’s struggles, outraged in the way they were abandoned. Quick to join the Frontier revolutionaries, al-Hakim and his followers would present some of the greatest resistance against the Solarians, sowing a legend both at home and in the new Coalition."

League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems
"While the CPF’s stance on most of the Wildlands is generally disdainful, a notable exception is the League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems, who enjoy a special relationship with the party and by extension, with the Coalition as a whole. Through the sponsorship of Himeo, the formerly Solarian planets have held a position in the House of Observers ever since their creation, and have even pushed for integration into the wider Coalition. While planets such as Gadpathur support this movement in the interest of creating a ‘buffer zone’, the general instability and anti-corporate status of the League has drawn avid opposition from the Caucus. For now, the chambers remain deadlocked on the issue."

[Kintsugi]

While originally this thought was wholly unrelated to this application and was just something that came to mind while people were talking about Coalition politics, you did mention this application in response to me saying it, so I figured I would repeat it here - I feel that generally speaking, the Coalition's internal politics should be based less around amorphous political caucuses and parties and instead be based largely off of planet-lead factions. For example, the Himean faction would be anti-corporate, etc. I feel like this would underscore that the Coalition is not a true nation in the sense of the word, and instead a group of many competing nations with differing interests. Parties that transcend planetary divisions give the false impression that there is a sense of Coalition unity, when really the Coalition should only be unified on one subject: They don't want to be part of Sol.

[Marlon P.]

I agree with DanseMacabre.

[Lucaken]

58 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

While originally this thought was wholly unrelated to this application and was just something that came to mind while people were talking about Coalition politics, you did mention this application in response to me saying it, so I figured I would repeat it here - I feel that generally speaking, the Coalition's internal politics should be based less around amorphous political caucuses and parties and instead be based largely off of planet-lead factions. For example, the Himean faction would be anti-corporate, etc. I feel like this would underscore that the Coalition is not a true nation in the sense of the word, and instead a group of many competing nations with differing interests. Parties that transcend planetary divisions give the false impression that there is a sense of Coalition unity, when really the Coalition should only be unified on one subject: They don't want to be part of Sol.

To clarify, I did specifically ask Danse to share this thought because I felt it was prudent to the discussion and these things get easily lost in discord conversations. I also wasn't getting much feedback, and I wanted a reason to add a (hopefully final) tidbit on this document.

Danse is largely correct - the only issue is, this is pretty much what I wrote in the document. The two central parties are explicitly stated to be headed by Xanu and Gadpathur, both examplars of their respective ideologies. However, I think that keeping the planets tied completely and wholly to themselves is a wrong idea, as you would both have way too much work trying to wrestle each and every single faction's ideals - thus, a two-party system (or more like three, see below). It is a compromise, and it does somewhat encroach on the concept of the Coalition from a writing perspective, but I write about that too. To me, it does not make sense for the Coalition to stay completely and utterly still, with no one making any moves to unite it all after so many years of staleness. This is what the Caucus is there for - it shows an avanue the faction could take as a whole in the future, much like any human faction's political parties do. While in the present, they really are only unified by their aversion to Sol. To that end, the CFP presents a back-lash and a return to the original concept of the Coalition. This way, characters get to participate in a more dynamic political environment, rather than just sticking to their planet's lore and calling it a day - an attitude that wastes the potential of the Coalition as an entity, in my opinion.

That said, since it has been two months since the last addition, my thoughts have changed about the application. Owing to both Schwann's early complaints to me about two-sided conflicts, as well as Danse's comment, my current view is that there should be three parties - The Caucus, lead by Xanu (more forward-thinking, pro-centralization, favouring corporations and positive interstellar diplomacy) - The Coalition Freedom party, lead by Himeo (Anti-corporate, somewhat isolationist and generally focused on keeping the Coalition safe) - and finally an upscaled version of Hakamism as a party, headed by Gadpathur (interventionist, anti-centralization and militaristic). I would still saddle each planet into the corner of at least one of these factions, though perhaps more cleanly than I have. I won't edit the document to reflect this, as it's already monstrous and we are nearing the deadline where this has to be reviewed. Nevertheless, those are my thoughts.

I would also like to thank everyone that did actually take the time to read all of it, and to also comment. While I originally shrugged off the length of it (I would still find it hard to shorten it), I think it has been to the detriment of getting actual feedback. It has been a useful lesson for the future.

[The7thLain]

Hello. After intense thought and discussion over the past few months, we have decided to accept this application in part. Some things about it will be distinctively changed and edited, however the general idea is one that we believe to be workable and applicable to our standards. The plans for implementation are as follows:
1. The FPB will be implemented in full with minimal edits for content, punctuation, grammar, and syntax.
2. The politics section will be used by us to a minimal degree, we may use some ideas from this area going forwards for the landscape of CoC politics, however they will heavily edited if not incorporated into pieces of lore unmentioned in the contents of the proposed lore in this application.

Congratulations on your accepted submission. If you have any questions as to the details of the plans listed above, please feel free to contact me and/or my deputies via discord.

Edited February 13, 2022 by TheBurninSherman
clarification