Republic of Biesel Politics | Feedback Thread

[Faye <3]

 

please excuse the use of screenshotted text. i can't, for the life of me, get the thread to post without an 'internal server error' when using plaintext.

to elaborate on my misgivings for the Egalitarian Coalition- they cast a very broad net, but that broadness manages to loose any personality or identity within the party. i think that this could be best mended by shoring up some synthetic influence in the party, and establishing it as being popular with other poorer, more marginalized people of the spur. i also think that the elyran party could maybe reference IPC citizenship?

Edited November 19, 2021 by Faye <3

[Marlon P.]

Were the 4 parties from before retconned or did they dissolve into the new ones? I imagined the KOTW threw tau ceti into another in-universe political rewrite but alb mentioned the old parties may have been retconned out.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Butterrobber202]

(note I am commenting with my opinions and observations, not those of the lore team)

I believe the small backlash from an "Organics First" policy is realistic, considering IPCs, while numerous, still do not have equal rights and protections within Biesel. Just look at NT's Corporate Regulations, Automacide is 20 minutes in the brig and a knock down the corporate ladder, while murder is a HuT at best and cyborgification at worst. All of that to say, IPCs simply are not allowed the political power other organic species are afforded. And those Synthetics in the TCFL have their own citizenship to worry about, not something to be risked by actively opposing a major political party with sway in the government. 

[Peppermint]

My major trouble with this (the lore, not Faye's suggestion) is that it doesn't feel like it really adds much unique flavour. Nothing about this screams 'cool Aurora lore' to me instead of being just general political parties where if you changed around a few names, it could be from pretty much anywhere. It's a shame other lore writers didn't add their own species too I suppose, but it makes the Hadii one stand out as being very strange - through no fault of those that wrote it. 

More 'positive' parties would be nice, as those that are more liberally inclined do not seem to have many examples of what they're actively trying to do rather than just 'treat everyone equally'. 

[Marlon P.]

My question was answered on discord! 

they were not

[Lucaken]

I spoke a lot around this topic on the discord, and really the first thing I wanted to make clear is that while my view on this update is critical, I do not hold any one writer or team accountable, as the actual process of the update was later explained to me. I apologize if I came off as scathing during my little tirade - I respect every writer's work and commitment, and while I may critize the work as any responsible reader would, I do genuinely wish to contribute, not detract.

Overall, the update felt somewhat unfinished, in the same way I felt about the CRZ update and the PMCG rollout. That is not to say it was bad writing, I just didn't feel like the potential of each project was fully realized, much like this one. I'll list my issues below, followed by some (admittedly light) suggestions for improvement.

• The ideologies seem to accomplish little but be stand-ins for their respective parties, barring the Egalitarian Coalition, which is a mix of more than half of them. This achieves very little, as the parties and their respective schools of thought are so tied together that you may as well merge the blurbs and provide a much clearer read of the factions. I really do not see the point in keeping it so rigidly seperated if this is how we're using them.
• The parties collectively cast too wide a net, and an also weirdly niche one. The elephant in the room is the Hadiist party, which on its own is not an inexplicable or unneeded faction, but certainly a strange one considering the other five are not nearly as minor in scope. I understand this is partially because not all of the teams wanted to make similar parties for their respective races, but there is still a horrible lack of representation of other species, while the Tajara get a comparatively large amount of attention here. I don't think that name-dropping a party leader being X species is enough, either. And to be very clear (because some people had read only parts of the conversation, and got the wrong idea), I don't think this is a problem with Tajara or of their team. The actual process of the lore team was made much clearer to me later, and I understand that no one person or team can be 'blamed' for this. That, however, still leaves us with the issue of species representation, or rather the lack of it. If the Hadiist group exists, a minority faction as it is, then it stands to reason that other factions like the Eternal Church and Traverse Skrell see similarly focused additions. Much of my contributions below will be focused on this point.
• There is generally not enough 'meat' to the entire thing, despite it being the sole representation of Biesel's (likely very complex) political environment. I assume part of this is because it was a team project, and things were cut down or simply held back to not bloat the document. I also understand that being concise is important to our lore, but I do think there is a point where you are leaving 99% of the details up to the player's imagination.  Just some of the very big questions that came up during reading were - why/how does the United Congress of the People manage to secure a spot in a clearly monopoly-dominated environment? Why is it seperate from the Biesellite Protectionism Union, if their goals are so close? How does the Independent Freedom Party even manage to exist with it's anti-immigrant views, when not only is most of the Republic's population from all over the Spur, but the Elyrans who created and run it are migrants themselves? I have no doubt a lore writer could answer all these questions and more if I asked them, but there is a point where player intuition has to end, and actual written lore needs to start. And if the answer to this is 'they are new factions, chill, they'll be expanded on later', I'll raise the same point I did when the CZR updates came around - why release things that are pretty much unfinished, and lack so much detail? I do not see this pattern in anywhere else but with 'lore team' projects, and I don't know why the approach is so different than usual updates for other teams.

With that out of the way, here are some suggestions that I personally think would help the situation. As I have in the past, I am fully willing to work with any writer that takes these up, if they want more of my input.

• Merge the United Congress of the People and the Biesellite Protectionism Union into one party that shares both the anti-synthetic sentiments of the first, the 'nationalistic' view of the second, and the general anti-monopoly stance of both. This party, coincidentally, could have major Jargon influences due to the similarities and Skrell-dominated environment of the new faction. Perhaps the idea of a universal income policy could be inspired by the social credit system. The goal here is not to create a 'Skrell faction', but one that is influenced by it, just as with the Hadiist group. Key ways of differentiating it could be it's stance on state monitering, the use of the TCFL, and the treatment of immigrants. This way, it ends up being a more anti-corporate, but still truly Biesellian party with elements of Skrell politics. A foil to the Republican Universalism Party, in some ways.
• Rebrand the Egalitarian Coalition to be centered around the Eternal Church, while keeping to the roots of the original concept. Essentially, both the main outward influence of the Church, and an avanue for all manner of outsider factions - dregs, Guwan, Traverse Skrell and anything else that is not caught by the other factions. It could be made very clear that while the Church is it's main driver, the party exists to represent all the minority factions within it to the best of its abilities. Extra focus could be put on their charities/actions in the more impoverished districts, as well as their stance on megacorporations, which is notably missing in the original blurb. My suggestion would be advocacy for employee rights, not nesseccerily anti-corporate or anti-monopoly, merely an interest in Megacorporations using their wealth to create more opportunities for their workers. Tying in the IAC might not hurt, either. This could all work without the involvement of the Eternal, but I think it provides nice context and an actual reason as to who is helping these minority populations be represented on the bigger stage.
• Change the Independent Freedom Party to be less centered on the Elyran influence, but still isolationist and focused on a more nationalistic angle, thus acting as a catch for factions such as Dominia, the Hegemony etc. Expanding on their stance on the CZR, megacorporations in general and perhaps a Unathi angle would give them a more full feeling without losing the original purpose - to create a more centralized Biesel. This is the one I have the least amount of input on, however, as there really is a lot of ways to take it based on the team's vision. I only felt the Elyran influence was unnecessarily large, especially considering the incoming rework which might switch things around.

[Caelphon]

Thank you. Everyone's feedback is appreciated. We will be looking to see whether it is necessary to incorporate these, or keep it as it is.