Frission Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 The threads on NT and the SYndicate have had me decide that Nanotrasen's control of Biesel will be semi-autonomous. And Biesel is for all intents and purposes mostly a puppet of Nantrasen, because its leadership will be in the pocket of the mega-corp, and basically everything from immigration, customs, police forces and hospitals are all leased to NT. Sol Alliance law will be cited when necessary, but as the system is not Sol Alliance space after "[X] Treaty on MegaCorporations", Nanotrasen's directives and regulations are the law of the station and Nanotrasen space. How's that sound? EDIT: I got into a good debate with Skull over this, and the biggest argument against it was "This isn't sustainable/not how corporations work." I'll put my retort here, to be preemptive. See, the system doesn't have to be ideal of exist indefinitely. Nanotrasen can be a corrupt, huge behemoth that's going to become irrelevant in 20 years. But we don't live 20 years from now, in 2477. We live in 2457. Our setting takes place when it is relevant. You couldn't stand there in ~1752, when the british east india company was at its height of power or whenever, and say "This isn't viable. It'll never survive." You'd be laughed off the street. Frankly this is perfect, that's how it -should- be in this game. It's very reminiscent of how megacorps in shadowrun work, and that's how I've always sort of seen this company in this setting. NT is like, Space Saeder-Krupp. All it's missing is a dragon as the CEO, hehe. Honestly, to me what's been awful about the lore here is the whole idea of this Sol Alliance replacing NT as the main backdrop and driving force behind the story. It's completely silly. SS-13 and Nanotrasen go hand in hand, not some AU Federation.
Dea Tacita Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 I'm just going to write here what I think I'm mostly in agreement with Inverted at this point. N.T. doesn't need to become some super-powerful "We own fucking planets" Megacorp from Shadowrun. N.T. is astoundingly wealthy, they're technologically advanced and they are influential. N.T. (as I said earlier) should be neutral in their outlook, they're an amazing company that's given hundreds of thousands of people a second chance when other people wouldn't dare to, they're entrepreneurs, innovators and businessmen. But they're also ruthless, cold and calculating. They're not evil, they're not good. They do what they have to in-order to make a profit, if it makes them look good then that's awesome, if not then woo, propaganda. Look how much money they gave to that orphanage! Basically don't give N.T. ANY fucking planets, give them influence in the Colonies, a Joint-Administration of Biesel (ONE THAT IS IN THE SOL ALLIANCE/Not fucking undermined by corruption), and a lot of money, resources and personnel. I also think that the Sol Alliance has been turned from what I designed it as (a morally ambiguous government that claims dominion over the colonies). They've been turned into Mary sue "Good Guys" that rush in at any hint of a fuck-up and fix all the problems. The Sol Alliance is a government, one that fucks up from time to time, and one that does good some of the time. Most of the time, they just govern. Don't just make them into bad-guys, don't make them into good-guys, and for god's sake don't have them running to the rescue whenever someone breeches the hull. A patrol ship can, and should pop up every once in awhile but they WON'T meddle in NT's internal politics. Give people room to be morally shady, give room for fun experiments that might not exactly be legal.
Skull132 Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 I don't think NT should be neutral per say. I think they should just want money. Which, you can't really do by fucking everyone over. Nor can you do by being super happy fun-guy towards everyone. You need to find the perfect blend of screwing over and baby shaking.
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 The Sol Alliance/human space can be described how it is now with very little being changed outside catagorization stuff. The core worlds. The inner system. The outer system. The fringe systems. In the core and inner systems, SA law reigns supreme. NT is subservient to them; any corruption or illegalness is low key things like bribery, extortion; political shenanigans. In the outer system, SA law diminishes because of the lower presence of SA authorities. It's like the wild west; there are sherrifs and US marshals, but realistically you can get away with plenty of things if you stay out of the populated areas. The fringe colonies would be fair game. Far from SA authorities, NT could realistically do whichever action they felt profitable. IE the really shady stuff with Moghes and Ahdomai. And then... Well, to set a scene of the fringe systems. "Our colony of 25,000 has only one shuttle port and power plant, and both are owned by NT. They send a representative and paid Jimmy Clown's election campaign fund, so we all see Jimmy on the holoscreens now. He seems pretty cool, we all voted him in. Sometimes pirates raid the place and we send a call for help, and the Sol Alliance sends like one destroyer and two dudes that tell us how sorry they are that the response time is so slow. Buttlords don't care about us, but at least NT gives us work."
Doomberg Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 Let me preface this by saying that this is my opinion as a player and I have a sort of bias towards corporate power and influence. With that aside: I really, really, REALLY hate it when I hear someone essentially saying "you can't do that, the SA knows everything, you'll have to answer to them". Corporations in the real world already get away with a whole bunch of nonsense - they're not in space, nor are they as gigantic as NT supposedly is. I'll make some concessions and endorse what Inverted suggested, despite me really wanting to go a bit further with NT's influence.
Frission Posted April 13, 2015 Posted April 13, 2015 I have to agree with you, and Starfish's post hits the nail on the head absolutely perfectly.
Guest Posted April 13, 2015 Posted April 13, 2015 Right. Concerning what Starfish pointed out, my position on this is clear: NT should care about two things, money and reputation. Every choice they make should be a balance of two. If they money is big enough, they will allow something very evil and attempt to cover it up under so much media power that it would make Bilderberg Group seem like kiddies. On the other hand, they won't be absolute dicks by lowering people's already meager vages for sake of posterity, as loyalty is a way to improve production. Their every choice is not guided by some moral standard of greater good or pure evil, but by calculated loss and gain. That said, owning Biasel would throw a brick in their reputation, as you can't just cover up practically owning one of the most highly populated planets in the SA space. I also agree we should drop SA's 'force for good' mentality. It's highly unrealistic and destructive to gameplay. Every time someone from the top tries to do something morally gray, smart asses from security go "Alliance will fucking hang NT for this!", as if the governments of the world do jack shit for people corporations fuck over IRL. People think of it like idealized Space America, while they neglect to admit all of the morally ambiguous actions that USA has done in the our universe. I think it should be more like EU, a conglomerate of countries that are so afraid of their dark past, that they will go to any lengths to cover it and provent any future conflicts. It would also try and project stability, despite how bad the stuff really is. And let's not even talk about the bureaucracy a space empire would require, it would be a clusterfuck of corruption and byzantine political standards (which is, if I remember correctly, established in lore as true). Such a government is inherantly weak, and could be relatively easily manipulated by corporations. I know first hand what it's like when you wake up one morning, newspapers read 'Biscuit factory is being closed!' and nation's favorite morning sweets are suddenly gone from the shelves, despite it being a favorite. Next thing you know, same (but less tasty) foreign biscuits are hitting shelves under higher prices. You can say it's just say the market doing its thing or you can blame it on corporate games, either way, you can't really know, it's up to you to form an opinion. That's not even mentioning corps like Monsanto. Either way, the things that get out effect the corporations greatly, but they are able to get away with a lot considering, especially considering how good they are getting at hiding it. TLDR; Corporations IRL do bad shit for profit which they hide well, because having high profile infractions out is bad PR. They do good stuff for PR, respect loyalty and reward it. NT should follow suit to produce RP, as I'm pretty sure most playerbase would like that decisions are made on debate rather than a clear set of rules of what's right and wrong, as this is not how real world works. I agree with most people here, tone down on SA are the good guys sentiment, as they are used to as a deus ex machina too much and players aren't allowed to ICly question it. Not evil, just not dependable. Addendum: I'm really bad at making points.
Vittorio Giurifiglio Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Am I the only one who doesn't get the "Force for Good" Sol thing? I mean they're hardly Luxembourg, from what what I know they have a Irrentist Executive head, and wide scale problems on the home worlds, I mean they are letting corporations rule jointly planets, Not even Berlusconi would do that, and status of "Sol will hang you for this!" Is at most naïve, and a common hope people have for their country's government.
Guest Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Capital punishment really isn't something a government wants to be known for. Especially one that stretches out for parsecs at a time.
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Capital punishment really isn't something a government wants to be known for. Especially one that stretches out for parsecs at a time. There are US states that are literally building gas chambers because people don't want to sell them lethal injections as much as they once did I don't think growth in power = growing liberal ideas inherently
Guest Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Capital punishment really isn't something a government wants to be known for. Especially one that stretches out for parsecs at a time. Doesn't mean they don't do it anyway.
Vittorio Giurifiglio Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Capital punishment really isn't something a government wants to be known for. Especially one that stretches out for parsecs at a time. Doesn't mean they don't do it anyway. Implying that Sol uses Capital punishment, which is banned in almost every civilized nation on Earth,
Dea Tacita Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Capital punisment is banned by like...Europe and some of north America. It's still very widespread
Jamini Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Implying that Sol uses Capital punishment, which is banned in almost every civilized nation on Earth, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States.svg/959px-Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States.svg.png Not really.
Vittorio Giurifiglio Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Implying that Sol uses Capital punishment, which is banned in almost every civilized nation on Earth, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States.svg/959px-Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States.svg.png Not really. Note where I said Civilized, Please note how Europe is Blue as well as Canada, Most of South America, Almost all of Africa has not used it for 10 years, And Quite a few have abolished it for all but warcrimes. Even then 82% of the World has not carried out an Execution in 10 years or have abolished it.
Erik Tiber Posted April 25, 2015 Posted April 25, 2015 I personally don't think that Nanotrasen should be a political organization and should just say a megacorp. One which tries to at least put a figleaf on its actions. For example, such as in the round I was just in, you wouldn't have an ERT just shoot a prisoner in the face when they're not a threat and in front of so many witnesses. You would have them at least try to, well, hide the fact that they're murdering someone and at least institute some plausible deniability. I also seriously do not get why a megaocorporation would even be considered to jointly govern anything. It seems just extremely silly to me, I much prefer when they simply, well, use way more plausible methods like subverting the existing government or something like that. I like it when NT is subtly evil. Evil is fine. Just, I don't want it to be so blatant. I like cyberpunk. But even then people still put up appearances.
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