Premise of Parallel Universe Civil War?

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Premise of Parallel Universe Civil War?

Post by Melonhead »

Okay, I'm confused. I'm putting this question in a separate topic in order to keep the Parallel Universe thread focused on development, and the GNN Today thread pure for reports, but, here goes... :?

I don't understand the premise of the "civil war" brewing, especially as it's playing out in the GNN posts. My read of WC canon is that the "militia" is essentially the equivalent of the System Police/National Guard/Coast Guard/Home Guard (fill in your choice of era/nation equivalent). So, why would the Confederation Navy attack their own auxiliary, just because the auxiliary decided that the Navy's hired mercenary "hunters" were turning "pirate" at every opportunity and took some steps to protect the supply ships?

And why, in the middle of a war raging against the Kilrathi, would the Navy start attacking their own merchant ships? That seems like a sure way to lose. (And I don't speak Kitty, so that will be a problem for me. :wink: )

It sort of seems that we're redefining the merchants and militia into the Star Wars Trade Federation. I've always wondered how I could join the militia, and maybe help out a little. (More of a Han Solo type, to continue the analogy.)

Thoughts?
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

When you see all the things that are going on behind the scenes and the conflict a civil war is on the horizen. Talking to sandovol lands you in the middle of a sort of mob war.
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Post by Melonhead »

I understand that a civil war is about to start; I just don't understand the sides. I'm not sure I follow the Sandoval issue--I may have missed that earlier in the Parallel Universe thread.

The part that got my attention were the GNN news threads calling on people to "Shoot a Merchie," and then that the Navy had wiped out the militia headquarters because of what sounded like jealousy. Anyone attacking a legitimate merchant is committing piracy, period. (Different story if I'm hauling Brilliance, and it's a game, so you can choose to be a pirate!) And, if Admiral Terrell is worrying about anything other than the Kilrathi threat, then he should be court-martialed. It seems like the Navy ought to be neutral in this fight.
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

Think of it this way.

There is Bronte and Rondell. Each controll one side of the universe. Also there are TWO Militia. The one that searches you for drugs is the paid militia (govt controlled) and the one that attack pirate are the local self funded ones. The govt ones are paid by lynch and others so they can't shoot pirates or thay would break the contract. Have you noticed, when you've got drugs, and there is two Militia around only one will attack you? It's has happened to me ( thanks to my Girlfreind for pointing that out) that's because one is being paid to NOT shoot people like me.
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Post by Dilloh »

Really? Are you sure that there were no other ships around, like pirates which distracted the other militia? I remember running Ultimate through Pyrenees (which is a militia spawning point) when I got scanned and trapped. Suddenly, all militias attacked me, also those from other flightgroups.
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Post by Zool »

I agree with Dilloh, I have played through the campaign several times now and kicked about for longer. I have noticed no differences in any of the militia ships. If you have contraband on board they WILL come after you if they scan you. Your rep does not seem to matter when you have contraband on board. I think the secret compartment doesn't work either as I have been scanned and busted with pilots I have picked up when just flying around. WCU actually has a buyable and installable "hidden compartment cargo enhancer" thought I never got to find out if it worked as WCU kept locking up so I gave up.
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Post by Dilloh »

Good to know Zool... that compartment will be easy to implement into PR. Everything from WCU is usable in PR, at least with some csv conversion work.
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Post by Melonhead »

Wait...militia paid by Lynch? I thought he was a crime boss.

Or, are you suggesting this is how we're going to set up the civil war? Wouldn't that mean we'd have to have two militia-like factions?
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Post by Dilloh »

There will be, at least Gosshawk and z30 plan to do so.
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Post by Melonhead »

Okay, that makes more sense now. I had just never seen anything in the original game that suggested the militia was anything other than the Navy auxiliary/police.

Is the idea that the player won't really be able to tell "which" militia they're dealing with? Or have we just not settled on new names for the factions?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Sure Lynch has some militias in his pocket. At the beginning of Privateer part 1, at least... Well, later he loses everything.
If not him, then Bronte Corp, which he owns or controls. Same difference.

But yeah, I mean, his cousin, Regis, got caught with a smoking gun in his hand, after killing Sandoval; right or wrong? ... And yet immediately they (the militias) plaster your (Burows') face all over town as suspect?!
Isn't that a little bit strange? I think it's obvious they are on Lynch's payroll.

But later in the game, the militias aren't looking for you any more... Did they just forget? No, of course not; it's just that the Confed militias got involved... Why? Because this Sandoval guy was someone important; probably a Rondell executive... Right or wrong?

(Okay, well, think: Who has the other side of the Steltek map, if not Rondell? Or at least a copy of it... That's why Rondell kidnapped Dr Lemuel Monkhouse and brought him all the way from Sol to Palan, in the first place. Now Sandoval comes from Palan to New Det and steals Lynch's half of the map, from Bronte's HQ, and eventually gets caught by Lynch's people. Regis was later asking him questions, with that gun in his hand, and accidentally pulled the trigger, I suppose... But yeah, Sandoval was definitely a bigwig from Rondell; he lived in Palan, in fact. Noticed that Monkhouse mentions him when you speak to him in Basra? He says that Sandoval "held that artifact dearer than his own life"; remember? Where did Dr. Monkhouse know Sandoval from? Obviously Sandoval was a bigwig: He wasn't one of the Rondell interrogators, as those got killed when the kats bombed the compound from space (well, who did you think did it?); he was probably the interrogators' boss.)

((Ahem... Did anybody here actually swallow the pill that the Bronte-Rondell war was all about "food exports"? Geez!))

So the Federal militias got involved, by next day, and overruled the local militias serving Lynch.

This event probably marks the beginning of the end of that relationship between Lynch and militias, though: A week later you're fighting Bronte's rent a gun's (paid for by Lynch), and you have two militia escorts with you... That would have been unthinkable only a week earlier. And those are local militias, obviously, paid for by Lynn Murphy, who is ex-militia, and now a Merchants Guild executive; in other words, corporate financed militias. (And you might ask, why she doesn't hire hunters instead? Obviously the Mercenaries Guild wouldn't pit its members against one another, would they? Bronte (Lynch) was first. Besides, the Mercenaries Guild don't do business with the Merchant's Guild in the first place... Remember Murphy hires "privateers", which is another word for "pirates". Look it up. Merchants Guild has deals with the pirates. Long story... And you might ask what are two food corporations doing fighting over Steltek maps? But it's not the corporations; it's the mobsters: Lang, who controls Rondell, and Lynch, who controls Bronte. And you might ask why are crime bosses so interested in Steltek technology? Well, because they know more than you and I about what's going on. They probably have their network of informants and know that their illegal trade in Fed decomissioned ships is in jeopardy. Lang and Lynch have a common enemy coming to town: Menesch. But Lynch used to have business with him, so he can't decide. Tayla came to new Det to help him decide; and so did Monte. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that... But I digress...)

What's this civil war all about? Who's planning it, and for what?
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

Thanks Chuck_starchaser. I was not sure about how to word it, but that was what i was trying to say.
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Post by Dilloh »

I have at least an explanation for the "hired militia" wingmen at palan4: The original privateer had limited factions, so it couldn't have hunters attacking hunters. Also, if it really was a food blockade, the militia surely had to intervene - what's that on the US police cars? "To Protect and to Serve"?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Dilloh wrote:I have at least an explanation for the "hired militia" wingmen at palan4: The original privateer had limited factions, so it couldn't have hunters attacking hunters.
You attribute that to a technical limitation? To me it's by design; it would make little sense for the Mercenaries Guild to contract to both sides in a dispute, in the first place. You think that if I went to MG with a pile of cash asking for a job against Azuma Weapons I'd get anywhere? Or that I should get anywhere? And where they have no client loyalty considerations in a dispute, they'll take whoever comes fist. If the other side comes next.. "sorry". Makes sense?
Also, if it really was a food blockade, the militia surely had to intervene - what's that on the US police cars? "To Protect and to Serve"?
That's absurd, as well as factually wrong. Absurd because Rondell and Bronte are big corporations; --not even Confeds would want to take sides. And Bronte is hiring MG Hunters by the dozens. Militias and Hunters are allies; they cooperate. You often see them together at jump points. And when you become enemies with hunters, automatically you become enemies with militias. So militias would never go and swap fire with hunters. And the wingmen that come with you in the last Palan mission, in fact, do nothing except smile for the cameras when it's all over.

And it's factually wrong, because Lynn Murphy says "I can provide you with two militia escorts." Notice the "I". This is not the militias getting officially involved; it's just two of them underpaid local militias reluctantly accepting to participate in a politically sensitive situation, and only because they need the money, and Lynn has the means to come up with a lot of cash.
It's made plain and obvious in the plot that Lynn Murphy is in a heap of trouble. She's trying to "organize a resistance", she says, but neither hunters nor militias will work for her, and you end up doing all the work.
Why is that?

Hint: It's not a lack of cash, or lack of advertisement. In fact, Dr. Monkhouse, who is a fugitive from Rondell in Palan, knows about Lynn and her efforts, and trusts her. That's because he knows, or thinks, that she has the ability and the means to do it.

The only reason she has so little success hiring is the political sensibilities of the situation.
Plain and obvious.
Hunters killing hunters?
Militias going against hunters?
*** Unthinkable. ***
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Post by Dilloh »

Well, in the end it is just a story. Maybe Chris Roberts thought that Hunters fighting Hunters is more absurd than Hunters fighting Militias... Hunters are nothing else than Mercs, killing for money. You can't speak of a real faction, the guild just organizes the missions and spreads the money. I don't know why they originally took Milita wingmen, but any other faction except of the hunters themselves wouldn't have made sense.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

That was my whole point, in fact: For you, perhaps, a story is "just a story". But there are many for whom the story is more important than ship and gun stats. And one thing that characterizes a good story, is levels of depth, and consistency. Privateer was a rare gem, as storylines go, in that what you experience at the surface is just the tip of the iceberg, and you can figure out tremendous amounts of interesting stuff below the surface, with a bit of analysis and thought.
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... rivRFstory

It would be a pity, IMO, to put so much work on ships and whatnot, and then put a story on it that is "just a story", that doesn't measure up to Privateer and RF in terms of depth and consistency; and whose only purpose is to provide an excuse for arcade shooting. I can't seem to find the posts explaining this "civil war" stuff, but I'm worried... Historically, civil wars are financed and instigated by parties that seek to benefit from them. They don't just "happen"... Even the Cold War's spread of Communism was heavily orchestrated and financed jointly by superpowers that pretended to be enemies. It got most of the Third World into unpayable foreign debt, and that was the whole point. But never mind that.
In Gemini we have a serious illegal arms trade going on. Most Confed decommisioned ships end up in Gemini, and siphoned to the black market. During Privateer Part 1, we have Menesch as the liason between the Confeds and Lynch. But then Menesch decides to bypass the middle-man and sell ships directly, to retros, rather than to pirates. The Confeds cut him off, because it upsets everything. So then he goes to the kats.
Lynch, in the meantime, engages in a war with Lang and Rondell; pays for a huge force of mercenaries out of his savings, in the hope of getting the other half of the Steltek map. But he loses that, as well as the ships market, and then Menesch blockades New Detroit (remember your food delivery to New Det, for Lynn Murphy?), driving Bronte to bankruptcy. Lynch ends up escaping to the West, and hiding in a mine; and even tries to sell his hacking services to Burrows, for a bit of money to pay for his Brilliance fix. He no longer wields any power, at the end of RF; he's a broken man. But you kill Menesch and Jones. Where do we go from here? Who are now the main powers? Who takes over the black market? Those are the kinds of questions to ask; --and not just to throw in a civil war without a good reason.

And the opportunity is not to be missed: After RF, the end of the war ought to be around the corner. That means a huge influx of ships into Gemini for decommisioning. It means lower official salaries for military personnel, and lots of hotshot pilots out of work. And it overlaps the time of the rise of the Belisarius Group and Y12. These secretive organizations within the Confed have been the main beneficiaries of the off the books income from illegal sales of ships through mobs and to the pirates and whatnot, naturally. They absolutely need that outlet, and that income.

There are many loose ends to tie up, also:

The most obvious one is the retro informant, and what happens to the steltek gun.

Not so obvious is, for example, a possible connection between the Retros and Border Worlds. Remember that one of the bar rumors in RF is that the retros finally got Hunter Toth, by somehow paralyzing or powering down his ship. The only nations having leech technology, at this time, are the Terran Confederation and Border Worlds. Which of them gave leech technology to the retros? And why?

Monte and Masterson obviously have a close relationship. What's Monte's alignment, or purpose? What's Masterson's? Mastersons knows a lot of stuff, and a lot of people. He knows Dr. Monkhouse personally. Monkhouse studied in Oxford, remember? Says so at the library. And how come Masterson and Monte get references from such widely different characters as Goodin and Tayla?
Or, are they so different? Is Tayla a Confed undercover? Or is Goodin a spy within Confed, but serving the interests of whatever faction Masterson, Monte, Tayla and Monkhouse belong to, or constitute?

Another is that probably Monkhouse has been taken prisoner to Kilrah. He didn't want to take a ride with Burrows, but trusted the safety of a luxury yatch?! But the kats didn't want to kill him; they wanted him alive. They used surgical precision when they bombed the Rondell compound where Monkhouse was being interrogated. And when they intercept you carrying Monkhouse to Basra, they don't just attack you; they first ask you to surrender Monkhouse to them, remember? Well, I give the chances Monkouse made it back to Sol about 0.1%. He might be in Hari, for all we know.

And so on, and so forth...
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

I suppose i will have to give my premise away for GNN Today.

It starts with random attacks on civilian ships, then goes into a civil war, and while that is on a secret police emerges.

The civil war for me was a good way of getting a secret faction in.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I don't see the connection. Our real world is chock full of secret factions. They don't need civil wars to exist. They thrive in peaceful societies. Sometimes they cause civil wars; not the other way around.

Besides, there's already plenty of secret factions in the Priv/WC world:
Belisarius and Y12, for example. And without going that far, Masterson and Monte are certainly members of a secret society, and probably Monkhouse is in it, too.

The Privateer/RF plot is quite rich with stuff, and loose ends, and lead-in's. There's no need to stir the pot with depth charges to get something new to come out of it. It's already trying to.
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Post by Melonhead »

This is quite a bit to digest in one day.

The one item I'll specifically comment on initially is the definition of "privateer" versus "pirate." They aren't the same. A privateer is authorized by some government to attack and capture enemy shipping, including pirates. So, if I'm on a mission for the Confed Navy to attack pirates or retros (or Kilrathi), I'm acting as a privateer. If I just decide to go wack merchants, I'm a pirate. If I take a mission at a pirate base to go attack shipping, I'm also a pirate--private groups don't have the right to license privateers. It would get a little squishy if a militia hired me--it would really depend on whether the sovereign state had authorized the militia to license privateers. If not, you might be in trouble...which could make for interesting plot twists.

If I just decide to go attack pirates on my own (which I do, a lot), that would be a question for Confederation law in 2669. On Earth in 2007, non-military vessels are not allowed to be armed by their companies; only sovereign states can do that. (Britain commonly armed its merchants in WWII.) Note that this is not the same as a ship carrying small arms for self defense against pirates. But, it looks pretty clear that the Confederation has no problem with its citizens arming their ships, as long as they do it for the common defense. Most science fiction universes seem to follow that rule, and it makes sense, since a 9mm pistol doesn't help much when a pirate ship shows up to blast you with his missiles, and you aren't likely to survive until help arrives.
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

I don't see the connection. Our real world is chock full of secret factions. They don't need civil wars to exist. They thrive in peaceful societies. Sometimes they cause civil wars; not the other way around.
I meant to bring them in with out to meny people knowing about them.
The one item I'll specifically comment on initially is the definition of "privateer" versus "pirate." They aren't the same. A privateer is authorized by some government to attack and capture enemy shipping, including pirates. So, if I'm on a mission for the Confed Navy to attack pirates or retros (or Kilrathi), I'm acting as a privateer. If I just decide to go wack merchants, I'm a pirate. If I take a mission at a pirate base to go attack shipping, I'm also a pirate--private groups don't have the right to license privateers. It would get a little squishy if a militia hired me--it would really depend on whether the sovereign state had authorized the militia to license privateers. If not, you might be in trouble...which could make for interesting plot twists.
This is what the Oxford dictionary told me:
privateer >noun chiefly historical an armed ship owned by private individuals, holding a government commission and authorized for use in war.
I have a game called Seadogs. You are a Privateer for one of four factions. On the paper thay give you it say anlong the that you are to trade with the colonys, attack the ships of rival factions, and defend your factions ships. I looked this up a little while ago. A privateer was basicly a legal pirate.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Melonhead, I grant you that point. However, the game Privateer doesn't seem to me to honor that distinction. I might be wrong, just based on circumstantial evidence... There's no Privateer's Guild; and no faction called 'privateers'. I believe in PR there is, but that's something new.
And Taryn Cross once makes a comment about Burrows wearing a "pirate hat".
In any case, the context in which I said what I said,
I wrote:Remember Murphy hires "privateers", which is another word for "pirates". Look it up. Merchants Guild has deals with the pirates. Long story...
is something I stand by. Merchants Guild pay blanket sums to pirate groups to be left alone. That doesn't mean they don't get attacked by independent pirates. Where do I get this? Well, you'll NEVER find a Mercenaries Guild mission that names the Merchants Guild as the client, for one thing. And the Merchants Guild boasts that it hires its own members for bounty missions. Would seem to me they ONLY hire their own members for bounty missions. But the Merchants Guild could not afford to pay for too many bounty missions relative to the number of their money making cargo missions, or they'd have no profit at all. Which implies that they don't get attacked too much. Not by pirates, anyways; retros is a different story.

That's why Lynn Murphy says that Menesch is "a thorn on her side".
I'm not saying that the Merchants Guild are "friends" with pirates; but I do think they have a deal or two with them.

So do the Confeds, in a way. Confeds are selling their ships slated for decommisioning, through Menesch, and through Lynch, to whom? To the pirates. They know that. When Confeds and Confed Militias are at a jump point, all they do is check for contraband, for apearances sake. Meanwhile, pirates or retros are attacking shippers at the next jump point. It's obvious they aren't trying too hard to find real pirates. Why would they want to put away their own clients? But they welcome somebody else fighting the pirates, because that will cause the pirates to need more decomissioned ships. Elementary...

And who's actually fighting pirates? Well, the mercenaries. Not only do they get bounties, but you often find them hanging around jump points, doing the work that militias should be doing. Free market Capitalism: The corporations that control the planets and bases hire their own security.
Where does that leave the local militias? Well, local militias are paid for by local governments on shoestring budgets. They are nominal, symbolic gestures.

Anyways, lost the train of though. Oh yeah, the MG and the pirates...

The MG *have to* have deals with the pirates. It's best for them to be pragmatic. They know that the pirates won't go away, because the Confeds want them there. It's like when the Argentinian Armed Forces crushed the Communist guerrillas in Tucuman. The week after, Jimmy Carter cut them off military aid. They had overshot their mandate of "fighting Communism ... (but NOT winning)". Same idea, different universe. The Confeds make a ton of off-the-books money selling ships to the pirates, so the pirates are there to stay.

Notice that in RF the Confeds send a fleet out to around Sherbrook to fight Menesch and the Retros. Why? Because Menesch is buying ships from the Kats. NOT for any other reason. Anything else they might say is just excuses. They could have sent fleets like that to deal with the pirates or with Lynch, long before that; but did they? Of course not!

And the MG knows it, and does what it's in its best interest: Deal. That's why, before the retros started getting stronger, Lynn Murphy's job was a comfy job. Now, with Menesch around, she has to work her ass off. Which is why he's "a thorn on her side".

I'll wait for your comments on the rest of the posts.
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Post by Dilloh »

Hey chuck, don't get me wrong. I didn't want to say that I don't care for the story. I was about 12yo when I played this baby for the first time, and still today I'm a fan of dense stories, think of Monkey Island I, Master of Magic and this game. I just wanted to say, when the original was created, somebody sat on the storyline and thought "okay, now the character needs two wingmen, let's make them militia" - without knowing that we'd have this discussion in 2007. Same effect with Star Trek - thousands of trekkies have disputes about canon and non-canon elements, like the visual change of the klingons. Sometimes I think Star Trek: Enterprise has only be created to fill those gaps.

I agree to add plots that make sense, but a civil war is not that strange. What about the Borderworlds and Landreich? There were bloody struggles in advance. I must be honest that the awacs campaign isn't too dense or logic at all, still I am thankful that you devs made yourself the work to add a bonus campaign.

We had a lot of ideas for PU in the past, the most favourized is currently the Militia Guild campaign. My personal favorite is sticking to the current trouble within Gemini, and this is Kilrathi. I think a good sidestory (not a sequel) is helping kilrathi rebels, maybe from Ghoran Khar, to find an exile.

For so long, Burrows is a killer. Privateers had, as Melonhead said, a license to kill, like Sir Francis Drake had. Still, in 2669, it maybe just a nice expression with sugar on top for a guy who kills, steals and smuggles for money. And he has a lot of hats in his cabin.

IMHO, I think the retros should split up into several factions fighting each other for decades until they vanish, because you don't hear anything about them in WC3, WC4, WC5. The kilrathi war will face its zenite with the border moving close and far (blockade point systems will break, cats and confeds everywhere), until Kilrah blows up - A time of peace for Gemini and Sol (yes, a spacesim can also have no or few foes to blow up). Bad time for privateers btw, virtually any merc missions and only few, easy, low-paying cargo runs.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Dilloh wrote:Hey chuck, don't get me wrong. I didn't want to say that I don't care for the story. I was about 12yo when I played this baby for the first time, and still today I'm a fan of dense stories, think of Monkey Island I, Master of Magic and this game. I just wanted to say, when the original was created, somebody sat on the storyline and thought "okay, now the character needs two wingmen, let's make them militia"
I *believe* they had a much deeper understanding of what was going on than you give them credit for; but we will never know this. But in the final analysis, that's neither here nor there. Whether the deeper stuff one finds by analysis got there by planning or by accident doesn't change the fact that it needs to be analyzed and incorporated into any sequels, for the latter to be consistent with the original story.
I agree to add plots that make sense, but a civil war is not that strange.
I'm not saying civil wars are strange; all I'm saying is that they don't just happen. Even when there's mounting public discontent, people tend to remain inactive, and feeling powerless, until someone shows up that inflates them; and this someone is usually someone appointed and backed by some party that can see a way to use a revolution to achieve their own purposes. What I'm saying is that one can't casually say "hey, let's throw in a civil war".
What about the Borderworlds and Landreich? There were bloody struggles in advance.
Yes, and their struggles are explained. That's all I'm asking. If there's civil war in Gemini, I, as a player, would want to understand why it is happening. People don't usually engage in civil war while there's a war going on, unless it's a totally unpopular war, like Vietnam. The terran/kat war is not too unpopular. Nor do people tend to start a civil war at the very end of a war and for no reason. If we say that perhaps the public had an expectation for lower taxes after the war, and that they are disapointed, that would be a start for justifying some popular movement. It would still take a while for such a popular movement to gain strength to the point of becoming a civil war. And there's nothing in WC canon about a civil war.
I must be honest that the awacs campaign isn't too dense or logic at all, still I am thankful that you devs made yourself the work to add a bonus campaign.
I had fun plying that campaign, to be honest; but I'm not so thankful as you are; I think the AWACS campaign is totally out of place. It's frankly absurd. It doesn't fit into the WC universe; and it wouldn't fit into the real universe either. Communism, in the real world, took a lot of money to stage. This is a long story, but the Bolshevik revolution was not a revolution of peasants wielding farm implements; it was a military coup de etat. Many of the military officers that got on the rebel side at the beginning had been recently released from POW camps in Japan. It was in Japan, in the camps, that they were given copies of Marx's Manifesto, which copies had been printed in New York. The Bolshevik Revolution was planned, well in advance, and finally rehearsed in Mexico 1 year exactly before the actual revolution in Russia. And during the years of the Cold War, Communist guerrillas were not idealists taking up guns; they were mostly morons getting heavy paychecks. I'm from a 3rd world country myself, and knew a couple of them. That whole phenomenon of spreading Communism was jointly planned, carried out, and orchestrated *jointly* by the two superpowers. And the guys who wrote the AWACS campaign were having fun writing it, and I had my bit of fun playing it, but it's inconsistent with history: Communism naturally drives away business, and without business there's no economy, no infrastructure, no technology; so Communism could not, and did not, exist without external help. It was a staged historical chapter. Furthermore, it was a very peculiar thing that will never come back. Tax revolts will happen in the future like they've happened in the past; they are a "natural" phenomenon in Sociology; but Communism was a heavily fabricated ideology, not a natural phenomenon.
And, last but not least, there's no mention of Communism or of AWACS in all of WC canon. That campaign simply doesn't belong there at all.

Nor does the other campaign, about busting a pirate base. It ignores many of the subtleties of the Privateer backdrop: Pirate bases are there, unmolested by Confeds or militias, precisely because secret Confed organizations like Belisarius and Y12 depend on illegal arms sales to finance their secretive plans, of which Blalck Lance is only the tip of the iceberg. Busting a pirate base is something that would never happen in Gemini. It is a totally naive premise to even assume that the militias want to bust a pirate base.
This campaign could be fixed, however, if we just add missions for pirates that preceed it, where you help them move their stuff to another base, before the bust happens. You can leave the question open for the player to ponder: "How come they were moving out just before the bust; did they get advanced notice, somehow?". Because then a bust would be a put on, for public consumption, without denting the pirate faction's operations.
We had a lot of ideas for PU in the past, the most favourized is currently the Militia Guild campaign. My personal favorite is sticking to the current trouble within Gemini, and this is Kilrathi. I think a good sidestory (not a sequel) is helping kilrathi rebels, maybe from Ghoran Khar, to find an exile.
Sure; I see no problem with that. Might be an opportunity to provide insight/expand into the mindset and politics of militias, as well as the kat rebels.
IMHO, I think the retros should split up into several factions fighting each other for decades until they vanish, because you don't hear anything about them in WC3, WC4, WC5.
Agreed. However, there's still a few loose ends waiting to be tied: Where's Hunter Toth? How did the retros get their hands on leech technology? What happens with the retro informant? What happens to the steltek gun? What about their their alleged contact in the ES? And most importantly, gain some insights into the origins of the church of man religion. So, I think it would be a waste of precious plot opportunities to have them just evaporate.
The kilrathi war will face its zenite with the border moving close and far (blockade point systems will break, cats and confeds everywhere), until Kilrah blows up
If we discount the "A Year Later" sign at the start of RF as a canon error on the part of Origin; and replace it with "A Week Later", as IMO needs to be done, according to my timing calculations there's about two months between the end of RF and the end of the war (temblor bomb), and one more month to Torgo.
http://www.deeplayer.com/doku/doku.php/ ... s_combined
Gemini is pretty weakly defended at the time of RF, and unless something is done about it in the sequel, it would be ran over clean by the kats. That's why the sequel story I was working on begins with Burrows getting forcibly drafted into the Confed and going aboard a carrier into Kilrah. My 3-carrier fleet has just arrived to Perry, and is part of Hancock's moving his base of operations to Perry. Just a short stint (cut short, in fact, by the end of the war); then he goes back to privateering.
- A time of peace for Gemini and Sol (yes, a spacesim can also have no or few foes to blow up).
Glad you think so. In my plot, I have things undergo quite a shift. There's still retros and pirates after the war, plus kat pirates, but the biggest problems brewing are:
  • * a) A privateer that takes over the Gemini illegal arms trade from the now out of the picture Lynch, and defunct Menesch; and
    * b) the Belisarius Group + Y12 + (a new faction) the Secret Police. (Don't worry, you'd hardly ever see them, they fly dark green, very fast ships; you can't even follow them. They are the ones that do the dirty work for Y12.)
Bad time for privateers btw, virtually any merc missions and only few, easy, low-paying cargo runs.
Plenty of opportunities around Border Worlds, Landreich, Firekka and what not; all these are maneuvering to gain the best post-war status. They need technologies and weapons to add a bit of symbolic punch to their bargaining positions, etceteras.
Last edited by chuck_starchaser on Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dilloh
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Post by Dilloh »

Really, I can't wait to play this!

I've overflown the complete timeline a few months ago. I must admit that I didn't play WC1+2 too extensively, but I remember 4 and 5 very well. I always wondered how quick the war outcome would change with the Bomb. I understand that there are only few fighters, fewer corvettes and no carriers around Gemini from both cats and feds: Massive armadas are being accumulated around Sol and Kilrah to prepare for the final battle. Admiral Terell, probably the only Admiral in Gemini without ever talking about the situation on earth, seems to be quite busy with retros and the few cats in Tingerhoff. Both parties have understood that the key to victory is the defeat of the opposite's homeworld, other issues are of minor tactical advantage. The cats have demonstrated this quite soon (WC-movie), and in WC3 even humans get a feeling for this. This is IMO the best explanation why the feds have conquered a vast sector like Gemini (I read somewhere that they took it from the cats just a short time before).

A sequel would therefor urgently need to have an economy system depending on where you are, where you go, what you do, who you gonna kill, etc. If you haul food from Sol to Junction, you shouldn't make the same bucks like Landreich-Firekka. I'm not gonna tell you what storyline content I'd like to have due to my lack of WC timeline knowledge, but I think you should aim on creating the technical requirements to allow the political and economic changes to come true.

And yes, I really agree. PLEASE not another civil war. Okay, the Border Worlds are disappointed. Yes, Max Kruger is a charismatic guy. But hell, 662 years since now, and the people are still too dumb to live democracy properly? I can't believe that they run in the open arms of retros, awacs or split up from the mighty and successful confederation? That they again discriminate groups like the pilgrims, which have a huge genetical advantage while cruising through the universe? Think 662 years back from now and you live in a time you simply can't imagine any longer. So there should be a real progress in the minds and hearts of mankind.

Erm... what was the original question btw?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

In my story, the few Pilgrims that manage to escape the Pilgrim war have gone off the map, North of Gemini, into what a hundred years later will be known as the TriSystem (That's Privateer 2, for those who haven't played it ;-)) Burrows finds them settlers in Part 4 of my storyline; won't say any more for now...

The majority of Pilgrims that remain in the map have mingled and merged and cross-bred with non-pilgrims, and their cultural and ethnic identity is what makes the Border Worlds want to remain separate from the Terran Confederation. This makes for interesting, exploitable opportunities: Border Worlds' politics are split along the lines of Pragmatism versus Radicalism. Radicalists want a return to full Pilgrim identity.

The secret Confed organizations like Belisarius are full of Pilgrim-hating racists. That's why Black Lance picks Border Worlds for their smearing campaign, and try to anihilate them with bio weapons. That's why Geoffrey Tolwyn hates Blair at first sight, from the beginning of WC; --Blair being half-Pilgrim by descent. It is also why Blair so readily defects to Border Worlds, before he even knew for sure they were being framed.

Taryn Cross' name is, to me, unrelated to Christian crosses; but a reference to the Pilgrim Cross. Being in the ES, I'm sure she knows a thing or two about where the Pilgrims have gone. She's probably also "cross-bred", just like Blair, and probably Burrows. And she'd make a good wife. :) (After doing something heroic for Burrows, of course...)

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For another loose end waiting to be tied:
What was the second message on the disk that Burrows got at Sheol Research Station before the start of Privateer? He assumed it would be about the succession papers, but never actually read it before the station gets attacked by retros and he flees with Khane on the Scarab. I think he was wrong, and that the second message was from another member of his family. How about visiting the derelict station, retrieving the disk and finding out?

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Ehm... Yes, the economy needs a lot of work. Even just from the point of view that after the war, kilrathi currency will be around and we'll need a variable exchange rate.
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