New Gibson Feedback Thread

[Peppermint]

Just somewhere to correlate thoughts for the changes outside of the lore discord so things don't get lost as easily.

My thoughts on it personally is that the environmental stuff in the first section? Great. Wonderful. Adds some cool questions and interesting lore for characters to deal with, as well as some stories they can share, conversations to be had, ect.

Unfortunately that's about all I can add that gives me any real character hooks. The rest of the text reads like a politics Wikipedia page which whilst fine, is not something I feel is going to matter when actually making and roleplaying a character - we have socialism in the lore much more fleshed out that'll impact people's daily lives much more severely via Pluto. Things like cuisine are interesting for small details characters can have, but if there's no foundation - such as dominia, or Tajara food preferences - it just doesn't matter. 

Likewise I feel you could entirely remove the fact it has Scandinavian and Philippine origins (the second especially seems kind of tacked on) and replace it with anything else and nothing would functionally change. A much better route imo would have been to strip back the Norse religious stuff from Scarabs and give it to New Gibson instead, and then double down on the ethnic and culture origin for some much needed flavour. Reading about governments is fine and all, but it's just not going to make it into station interaction in the vast majority of places - if we were visiting New Gibson for a DnD campaign, it'd be fine and fitting. But we're in an entirely different environment where a lot of these things are simply not going to matter. 

We have so many human-skrell interactions too, and whilst that's a prevalent overarching theme in the lore, I feel other races could have had a better justification for being there. Tajara could appreciate the cold climate, and offer expertise in how they survived back home. Vaurca could live under the surface. Dionae could be useful given they don't really care about temperature so much. Ect. Seems a lot of missed opportunity. 

It's a shame, as opening few sections start off so strong.

[Son_of_Crom]

Gonna be honest. Picked New Gibson for my latest character concept largely because it had room for improvisation. Seemed like an industrial working class melting pot, which is what I was looking for, where I would be free to define my character's ethnic/cultural background how I wanted -- something akin to the Belters from the expanse. Different ethnic groups forced into an inhospitable melting pot, with each arcology having its own ethnic/cultural background that turns into a cultural slurry as travel from dome to dome, arcology to arcology, gets easier.

I didn't want to get shoehorned into a particular cultural background as so many other planets are in lore.  Since the population of New Gibson lives in disconnected hermetically sealed domes separated by miles of untraversable ice sheets, it does not make sense for them to be culturally and ethnically homogeneous as they have now been rewritten to be.

This isn't anyone's fault, but I'm a little miffed because my concept has been retconned for me and now I'm in the position of either trashing the character and/or doing a severe retcon to make them come from a different planet. In short, pretty disappointed with the changes. I feel like nuance could have been added to the existing lore without retconning pretty much the entire cultural and historical landscape of the planet.

Regardless of all that, the lore as it is now written has issues. Before it was a bit sparse, but internally consistent.

Now we now have an almost entirely Scandinavian/Swedish/Filipino planet which has an inexplicably English name, and its capital city has an inexplicably Chinese name.

The information in the introductory paragraph clashes with the information added under the "Founding" section. The introductory paragraph seems to clearly suggest that the effort to colonize New Gibson was lead by Biesel who made it a colony, in order to consolidate economic and industrial power within the Tau Ceti system. If that's true, how is it that refugee populations from Earth ended up being the ones to settle it as per the stuff that was added? That doesn't make sense. The new stuff is not logically consistent with the old stuff.

So, all in all, I think it made it messier than it was before and I feel like the Scandinavian/Swedish/Filipino stuff seems shoehorned in when compared to the stuff that was already there.

 

 

I think you really have three options:

1. Retcon basically all the earlier lore (capital city, the first speaker's name, Biesel being the one to colonize it, etc etc). Make it actually fit the cultural background that was recently shoehorned in. New Gibson can become New Gothenburg. Speaker Xin Hengsha can become Speaker Bjørn Bjørnson. For the record, I think this is the least interesting option. Stapling a real-world ethnicity onto the planet doesn't really make it more interesting.
2. Make it the melting pot that, in my opinion, it should have been -- with different ethnic/cultural groups immigrating at different points in its history after Biesel settled it and founding their own domes/arcologies. Then the planet starts to become a cultural melting pot as a subterranean rail system is constructed to connect all of these previously disconnected, culturally distinct populations. Kind of like a galapagos islands of human cultures... in space.
3. Leave the stuff you added, but walk it back a bit. Keep Scandinavian/Swedish/Filipino refugee arrival as a historical event that raised the planet's population, but make it less central to the planet's founding, which, after all, the introductory paragraph very clearly suggests was initiated by existing populations in the Tau Ceti system.

I really hope something is done to bring the new stuff into alignment with the old stuff, because as-is this is less canon and more confetti canon.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Son_of_Crom

[Marlon P.]

9 hours ago, Son_of_Crom said:

Make it the melting pot that, in my opinion, it should have been -- with different ethnic/cultural groups immigrating at different points in its history after Biesel settled it and founding their own domes/arcologies. Then the planet starts to become a cultural melting pot as a subterranean rail system is constructed to connect all of these previously disconnected, culturally distinct populations. Kind of like a galapagos islands of human cultures... in space.

Can it be a melting pot and also not include a mixture of names and things for cultures? I might be interpreting what you said in a way you dont mean.

For the second, our human lore transplants existing cultures and identities onto the 2460's planets. I wonder if creating a wholly unique identity blended from the two groups would be a fun way to do it. What do you think about that approach? The colonists over 200 years changing from filipino and mandarin to some new mandarin-filipino culture that is familiar and different. Naming them would be fun. Filiarin. Filihan. Mandipino. Heheh.

Responding directly to the writing, I think it is a great place to start. I echo some comments earlier that a lot of focus is put on the political. Politics is both under- and over-emphasized for planets. Over due to the political history and deep knowledge of the political systems of a planet can feel detached and unimpactful to a character unless it's got a hook for on-station. Under-emphasized due to so many planets being atomized, so there's little 'community' to draw people together.

Improving New Gibson's politics' ability to feel urgent to character's backgrounds would be to tie it to a greater movement to allow a sense of community between it and the others. Or something with its own identity fun enough for people to run around and talk about. Maybe an aggressive union movement or something.

Otherwise I always am a fan of new clothes and new food to represent new cultures and planets. Things that have an immediate presence on station.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Marlon P.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Can't say that I'm on board with suddenly slapping a cultural "box" around what was written to be a melting pot, especially for a planet in Tau Ceti, and especially for a planet who's very structure is built around distinct settlements connected by threads of commerce. If I had to go with one of the possibilities Crom has laid out, I think 2 would work wonderfully and is how I would interpret Old Gibson. Individual arcologies may hold a diverse human population or may be dominated by one or two groups, but all of them share a collective identity that transcends ethnicity, such as the industrial stylings and legends like The Snow That is Most Definitely Alive.

[Son_of_Crom]

4 hours ago, Marlon P. said:

Can it be a melting pot and also not include a mixture of names and things for cultures? I might be interpreting what you said in a way you dont mean.

For the second, our human lore transplants existing cultures and identities onto the 2460's planets. I wonder if creating a wholly unique identity blended from the two groups would be a fun way to do it. What do you think about that approach? The colonists over 200 years changing from filipino and mandarin to some new mandarin-filipino culture that is familiar and different. Naming them would be fun. Filiarin. Filihan. Mandipino. Heheh.

Responding directly to the writing, I think it is a great place to start. I echo some comments earlier that a lot of focus is put on the political. Politics is both under- and over-emphasized for planets. Over due to the political history and deep knowledge of the political systems of a planet can feel detached and unimpactful to a character unless it's got a hook for on-station. Under-emphasized due to so many planets being atomized, so there's little 'community' to draw people together.

Improving New Gibson's politics' ability to feel urgent to character's backgrounds would be to tie it to a greater movement to allow a sense of community between it and the others. Or something with its own identity fun enough for people to run around and talk about. Maybe an aggressive union movement or something.

Otherwise I always am a fan of new clothes and new food to represent new cultures and planets. Things that have an immediate presence on station.

There's nothing wrong with the fact that there are place names from a variety of cultures, except in the context of the new lore. I'm bringing up the mixture of place names as evidence that I believe New Gibson was originally intended (in the original writing) to be a melting pot of different ethnicities and cultures.

I believe that the rewrite, in effect, has retconned that and replaced it with a largely culturally homogeneous population that doesn't really make sense in the context of the bits of the old lore that still remain.

 

 

In my ideal scenario the section on the founding would be rewritten to be consistent with the introduction, with New Gibson being initially colonized by Biesel.

In their effort to attract a workforce and turn it into the industrial powerhouse that it is today, Biesel offers financial incentives to working class people across the galaxy to come settle there. You end up with something akin to the California gold rush, with successive waves of working class immigrant populations from literally everywhere relocating to New Gibson in order to found their own colonies and make their fortunes.

 

You could then have sections on various arcologies founded by different cultural and ethnic groups, their beliefs, traditions, etc. This could include Swedish and Filipino arcologies, but also others drawn from both in-lore cultures and real-world cultures. This would also mean that people would have the freedom to make their own arcology/backstory/culture without contradicting the lore.

 

The majority of New Gibson lore, in my opinion, should be a section on emergent syncretic  beliefs and culture arising from these disparate groups coming into increased contact as transportation networks are built between arcologies.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Son_of_Crom

[Marlon P.]

2 hours ago, Son_of_Crom said:

Post

Oh then i got the wrong idea from your OP.  I agree with and echo with your posts now.

[Son_of_Crom]

Quote

"The New Gibsoner accent is very close to the accent of Tau Ceti proper, due to the nature of the planet's colonization. However, New Gibsoners are known for talking with a faster and more clipped accent than those from Biesel and, at times, sound as if they are tripping over their words due to the rapid pace at which they speak."

 

More evidence that New Gibson was meant to be originally colonized by existing Tau Ceti inhabitants, this time taken from in-game text.

 

I'm guessing that this retcon is simply going to stick, and that the various inconsistencies it has caused are just gonna be. I don't understand the point of having established lore if the lore team is going to just ignore it. I hope it's okay for me to simply change the planet of origin of my existing character after months of play, because I feel like there's no other choice. I can't retcon her to be swedish and/or filipino. And I'm not sure what it adds to force anyone to.

 

I really believe this is the worst of both worlds -- a major retcon with little to no added value over what was there before.

 

Also, for the record, I believe in being constructive and trying to be helpful, so I'd be willing to offer to edit a version of the article which includes the new elements that were added but is also faithful to established lore/in game text and doesn't leave a bunch of inconsistencies such as place names that don't match the language or culture of the planet's inhabitants, etc. Use it if you want? Otherwise not really sure what to do here except pick a different planet.

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Son_of_Crom