Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 19 20 [21] 22 23 ... 27

Author Topic: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2  (Read 37921 times)

Antelope Syrup

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 24
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #300 on: May 18, 2022, 10:37:19 AM »


I knew that he was a despotic jerk with blood on his hands, but it never made much of an impression since so was everyone else.

 The blogpost wasn't really framing Andrada as more of a bastard then anyone else, but as a tinpot, bog standard, incompetent, and bafoonish character. Because Andrada is unchallenged in any decisions making process, he is allowed to make foolish decisions constantly, but somehow clings onto power.

It's just that, this seems kinda stupid. Why doesnt the hegemony suffer from the same issues? Tri-tachyon looks like it would be very susceptible to this as well? Not to mention Andrada defied the hegemony, and was considered a talented admiral. The game at least to me and many others, allways characterized Andrada as Space Napoleon rather than cosmic tropico.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2022, 12:02:42 PM by Antelope Syrup »
Logged
:)

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #301 on: May 18, 2022, 12:38:52 PM »

The Hegemony doesn't suffer from those issues because it has the veneer of democracy and also dozens of admirals and other military leaders.

They they 'kind of' have to all work together and can't effectively monopolise power. (Oligarchies abound in the sector as much as Autocracies.) And Andrada was a Hegemony officer who went rouge, so there is that.

The Hegemony is one of those, could be much better or much worse, factions. They aren't good by any stretch, but they are probably better then everyone else because they are all some degree of aweful.

At least you don't have to feel bad about torpedoing their ships 8)
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Antelope Syrup

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 24
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #302 on: May 18, 2022, 02:08:15 PM »

Hegoid spotted
/s

Real world oligarchies are enormously corrupt, and have to deal with a different type of tomfoolery. The hegemony should've probably split into a dozen diktats by now if power is "shared between military officials" as you say.
Logged
:)

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #303 on: May 18, 2022, 02:18:32 PM »

To quote general duke from starcraft: "Y'all need some good old fashioned discipline!"

I mean sure corruption is inherent in the system, but the Hege do have some ability to delegate to civilian officials down on the planets. Guess at the very least they have their military structure to keep each other in line and a general belief in what they are doing is for some 'greater good' as opposed to everyone else largely doing it for themselves.

I suppose Church ain't doing the worst either in that regard, as all their radicals went off and joined the Path.

And honestly the Diktat IS a flaw of the Hegemony after all.
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

tomatopaste

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 306
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #304 on: May 18, 2022, 07:24:02 PM »

I think the Hegemony functions a bit like a roman republic in regard to military command, since it has a hierarchy that is supposedly based on meritocracy, like how the High Hegemon is elected from their peers, but as has been seen it's common for particular individuals to grab power and disrupt things a little.
Logged

Brainwright

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 595
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #305 on: May 18, 2022, 10:36:56 PM »

They literally named the religious people Luddites.

Don't expect much depth in this narrative.  Everyone's going to be impossibly stupid and incompetent except the protagonist.  It's just the curse of modern writing.
Logged

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #306 on: May 19, 2022, 01:39:26 AM »

"Everyone's going to be impossibly stupid and incompetent"

Lmao no such thing  8)
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Big Bee

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 153
  • bugs are cool
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #307 on: May 19, 2022, 04:41:10 AM »

They literally named the religious people Luddites.

Don't expect much depth in this narrative.  Everyone's going to be impossibly stupid and incompetent except the protagonist.  It's just the curse of modern writing.

More like made the religious people Luddites, I think. Being Luddites is more important for their base concept and identity than religion. TriTach is high-tech and likes AI, the Hegemony is low-tech and outlaws AI and the Luddites take that further and oppose technology in general.
Logged

Histidine

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4661
    • View Profile
    • GitHub profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #308 on: May 19, 2022, 05:39:30 AM »

Why doesnt the hegemony suffer from the same issues? Tri-tachyon looks like it would be very susceptible to this as well?
The difference between the Hegemony and Diktat is institutions and (implied) rule of law, and I trust everyone understands why and how these things matter.

They literally named the religious people Luddites.

Don't expect much depth in this narrative.  Everyone's going to be impossibly stupid and incompetent except the protagonist.  It's just the curse of modern writing.
Three things:

1) The historical reference is obvious, but they're not actually called "Luddites" in the game (Ctrl+F in rules.csv and descriptions.csv if you don't believe me).

2) I am unsure which part of the general lore or the Academy quest chain leads one to claim that everyone is/will be "impossibly stupid and incompetent".

3) This is a bit tangential, but I'd also say essential to understanding the Luddic Church's point of view: The Luddites were right in a real and important way.
Here's two articles on the subject.
Logged

Atlasreturns

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #309 on: May 19, 2022, 08:59:57 AM »

so Andrada probably blowing up a planet wasn't all that special.
Is this definitive lore now? Because I always felt like Andrada blowing up Opis made no sense unless genocide is is hobby.
The Hegemony build such a huge cult of personality around him that a good chunk of his fleet decided to mutiny on his orders and he's described as an intelligent, yet megalomaniac narcissist. Before the Opis crisis he had huge influence and respect in the Hegemony.
I mean all the signs were on him actually having a pretty good chance to become the high Hegemon. So why would he sacrifice all this to rule a barren rock that's constantly getting roasted by a star? And even then why not just rebel and keep Opis instead of blowing it?

But look at it from the perspective of the Hegemony. Andrada is getting more and more influential, threatening the balance of power between the different powers in the Hegemony. And simply arresting him could go as far as causing a civil in the Hegemony, as a good part of the military is insanely to loyal to him.
And then there's the Askonia System which is basically a metropolis in the Sector. It's the most likely population densest system, has the highest fuel production, a corrupted nanoforge, produces a unique luxury resource and is if united completely autark. How would you be able to easily pacify and integrate this? Also the guy about to take Opis is Andrada.

But you can fix two problems at one here. If you blow up Opis and blame it on Andrada you have a very legitimate reason to trial him as a war criminal therefore getting him cleanly out of the picture. Furthermore losing it's most populated world would weaken the Askonia system as political entity, making it more governable. All while keeping the important fuel refineries and lobster production on Askonia and Volturn.

Except that Andrada seeing the planet blowing up would see the writing on the wall. And in order to not end up in front of a firing squad on Chicomoztoc tries to mutiny. Now being insanely paranoid and kleptocratic after being betrayed by his former associates.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #310 on: May 19, 2022, 09:28:32 AM »

I don't think the Lion's Guard ships having a D mod is a reflection on Andrada being competent/incompetent. Rather its a reflection of the incentives present in a dictatorship founded by a narcissist: if he says to do something, it gets done and no one is going to argue, either through fear or through legitimate belief that because their leader told them something that it was true. This is a well known phenomena where people will ignore evidence/their own findings when it contradicts authority, especially when that authority is central to their identity. Considering that the D mod's effects are pretty darn small, it would be very very easy for noisy data to get massaged to show the exact opposite conclusion. We as the players have a magic mouseover that tells us the truth.

Andrada has successfully gained and kept control of a star system for a long time and has a massive military under his direct control: people who are incompetent don't do that. But the type of skills that lend itself to stellar domination are not really the minutia of corridor plating design: the man made a small mistake (a few % points impact is pretty minor all things considered) in an area outside of his expertise and no one is brave/lucid enough to correct it openly.
Logged

Simulated Knave

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #311 on: May 19, 2022, 08:07:12 PM »

Yeah, but as mentioned by others that's not the tone the blog post takes. 

I did pay a fair bit of attention to the in-game lore, and I had the impression that Andrada was a semi-decent and very talented if massively full of himself man, probably an improvement over the previous system government initially (which says more about them than about him), but was moving along the scale from cult of personality to totalitarian dictator with impressive speed. The complexity came from the bit where he WAS actually pretty competent and a good military and civil leader etc.  He's just...a totalitarian dictator, and trending downward. 

The proposed presentation, as others have mentioned, lacks nuance compared to the other factions and also isn't particularly interesting.  It also raises the question of how the hell Sindria has been able to survive.  If nothing else, you'd think the Luddic Path and Pirates would be causing them some serious problems if their military is less effective than everyone else's. Also, if crew casualties are going up overall, that WILL be noticeable, and will be the sort of thing the dictatorial high admiral wants something done about. If it caused some other problem (or even just made maintenance more expensive) I could see it.  Having it actually do the opposite of what he planned makes him look like an idiot who doesn't understand the job that made him a dictator in the first place. 

If he was going to make some kind of major military oversight, I'd expect him to insist on using and outfitting the existing ships the way the Hegemony ships they replaced were outfitted.  That seems like it'd give the Sindrian military character, and is making it less efficient, without it being the kind of less efficient that makes him look like an idiot or seems out of character for a Hegemony military genius. Alternately, he goes TOO all-in on energy weapons etc, which works fine near Sindria because the sun takes out people's shields, but can cause problems when they leave the system.  I dunno.  Something that involves him over-emphasizing his strengths, rather than making stupid mistakes. 
Logged

HiddenPorpoise

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 20
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #312 on: May 19, 2022, 08:14:09 PM »

I mean all the signs were on him actually having a pretty good chance to become the high Hegemon. So why would he sacrifice all this to rule a barren rock that's constantly getting roasted by a star? And even then why not just rebel and keep Opis instead of blowing it?
The whole thing is intentionally written so that reasonably any party could be responsible. You've got the course of events for a Hegemony mainline falseflag.

The series of events where Andrada is the one who pulls the trigger are that like you said he is on the cusp of high Hegemon while leading a fleet action in Askonia during its civil war. Things do not go well, the League is posed to take control of the system which is exactly what Andrada was deployed to prevent. Failure to bring the situation to a quick close would halt his political career at the worst possible time so he acts rashly and publicly blames rebels in the system thinking that this would halt the conflict and ruin all thoughts of League membership. Hegemony high command immediately assume he is not mentally well and is lying about the PK's source and recall him. He is able to rally most of his armada behind his rejection of the order and ends up a pseudo-member of the League.

They literally named the religious people Luddites.
It goes deeper in that Ludd named himself that intentionally.
Logged

Twilight Sentinel

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 334
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #313 on: May 20, 2022, 01:06:24 PM »

The proposed presentation, as others have mentioned, lacks nuance compared to the other factions and also isn't particularly interesting.  It also raises the question of how the hell Sindria has been able to survive.  If nothing else, you'd think the Luddic Path and Pirates would be causing them some serious problems if their military is less effective than everyone else's. Also, if crew casualties are going up overall, that WILL be noticeable, and will be the sort of thing the dictatorial high admiral wants something done about. If it caused some other problem (or even just made maintenance more expensive) I could see it.  Having it actually do the opposite of what he planned makes him look like an idiot who doesn't understand the job that made him a dictator in the first place. 
Except that the Lion's Guard isn't the regular Dictate military.  It's an extra 'elite' army that floats around the system to intimidate and impress, not do actual fighting or work.  The Dictate still has as large of fleets as everyone else does which patrol around the system to defend it from pirates and harass black market users.  The Lion's Guard is, and has always been, extra fleets on top of the normal fleets in the system.
Logged

PizzaInSpace

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 101
    • View Profile
Re: Uniquifying the Factions, Part 2
« Reply #314 on: May 21, 2022, 07:19:38 PM »

I wonder when the next update will be released?
Logged
Seeing a paragon with gigacannons and kinetic blasters scaring a radiant was very unexpected.
Pages: 1 ... 19 20 [21] 22 23 ... 27