That's hard to say, because general concepts would keep getting convoluted
or hijacked or co-opted by other things, such as production schedules,
other product lines, and things like Frank saying, "Oh, look, Solee,
they're going to kill the RC." At a certain point I'm sure we would have
had to fast-forward a few years rather than allowing it to play out in
"real time." To me, the "Star Vikings" were not so much a single polity
like the RC as a continuously reinforcing movement of like-minded groups
who were all looking outward, filling in the vacuum left by the collapse.
I think of the RC/SVs like a star evolving into a supernova: burning up
its fuel, having to burn ever heavier elements but unable to keep up core
pressure against gravitational collapse, and eventually exploding (and
imploding at the same time) and flinging all of this energy and material
out. The RC is never going to be able to sit back and build up a solid
industrial-population-economic base, it's just surrounded by too many
threats. It's constantly pushing outward, and in pushing outward just
keeps finding more threats that it has to overcome, but it can't lay back,
because there's not enough time to build up enough strength to withstand
everything and those threats will come kill it, so its only way to survive
is to just keep pushing out, finding one more resource or ally to keep
going to find one more threat and find another way past it. The RC is all
about deficit spending and living on credit. The same way that the most
important thing about a supernova is all of the metals that it creates and
spreads and how they become the stars and planets of the future, the most
important thing about the RC/SVs is their effect. Yeah, there will be a
core mass of some kind left behind, but it won't be the RC anymore. It
will be a white dwarf or a neutron star or a black hole. That's why all of
the little italicized things talk about the SVs in the past tense and a
mythological sense, because whatever it was, it changed the universe
(Charted Space), but it was never just one thing that could be put in a
box and categorized.
Certainly in 10 or 20 years their leading edge would span several sectors,
but behind that leading edge would not be a highly organized, stable
society, but a lot of varied stuff, like island hopping in the South
Pacific. You bypass Rabaul and Truk and beyond them find lots of people
and resources and remnants of things that can be cobbled together to get
to the next thing. You find Sandman and that helps you survive Solee, you
harvest the capabilities of the co-opted or liberated Solee to get the
next thing, and so on.
But we would have been much more driven by, "Next year we take you behind
the Black Curtain," "At GenCon you'll see the Regency meet the Star
Vikings" and so on. All of those cool promises were going to have to be
delivered on rather sooner than later. The Centrist and Federalist stuff
was great, and we could have spent a lot of time dealing with that stuff,
but I just don't think we would have ever been able to linger there for
long. And what happened to us demonstrates exactly the sort of thing I'm
talking about, we weren't able to.
And that's not to say that RC politics was just meaningless wallpaper or
set dressing, but that Lord of the Rings was only one (minor) story in
Middle Earth, it's just the one that Tolkien's publishers pushed him to
write and finish. Since Tolkien had a day job, he could have tinkered with
the Silmarilion for the rest of his life. But if he had a company to run,
he would have had to find a way to meet payroll every month. Like comic
books. You used to be able to go 10 or 20 years between a Crisis on
Infinite Earths, but now they have to happen every year. And games and
comic books were sold by the same people. And that goes back to the whole
"Old School Gamer" thing that says anything plot-driven is evil, but I
don't think you're ever going to build an audience that can keep you in
business if you're not telling a story, or else you have to have a day
job. There are only so many people who want to buy FF&S 2, FF&S 3, FF&S 4
and nothing else. If it were easy, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would
be working for Marc.
But to get back nearer your question, Centrists and Federalists and ship
bills would have been overshadowed by much larger events, as much as it
would have been fun to devote concentrated attention to them. It doesn't
matter if you're a Redskins or a Cowboys fan once the aliens invade. I
like your idea about admitting worlds in pairs. But then the US from
1814-1864 (hell, 1950 if you think about it) was living in a pretty benign
environment.
I'm sure I've said all this before, and I wandered around plenty. I repeat
myself a lot, and think everything relates to everything else.
> What sort of time frame were you thinking and/out would you think now?
>
> I had 2 more members in 1203 (Teldora and Nex) with passage of Ship Bill
and a couple in the AO moving that way for 1204 (I also had a couple back
> face entries planned with Stepping Stone worlds, but that was all
homebrew
> and nothing overly hinted in official material). All smacks of US
Antebellum new statehoods: always in pairs so as not to upset the
balance.... Which of course can't last forever.
>
> Though I imagine Black Curtain and Regency put the coming Coalition
civil
> war aside. It looks set up to tells the Centrists & Federalists they're
both right to some degree and to concentrate on common enemy....
Economically and policy wise, if not settling the F-tech business... ___
> From my T989
> On Jan 18, 2013 8:46 PM, > wrote:
>
>> **
>> But remember that the RC is not primarily an economic or commercial
entity
>> (unless you're one who makes the point that all human behavior is
ultimately economic, which is valid within its own frame of reference), it
>> is a historical/behavioral/evolutionary force working to jumpstart
humanity, and is itself a Hiver manipulation. Maybe. If you believe what
>> they tell you not to believe a little too enthusiastically so you can't
help but believe it.
>> But I'm not saying that the RC is based on specie, they ain't got none,
unless your specie is uninfected tech, in which case they are, and would
>> be vulnerable to such, but they would take it and use it to expand
further
>> faster. The RC is not a stable economy, it is a short-lived transition
state, all underwritten on unsecured credit they can't repay, a launch
pad. It is not an end in itself, but the new beginning. Now the Regency
might get their panties in a twist over hyper-inflation and fiscal cliffs
>> and debt ceilings, but that's because they're former greed-head
Imperials.
>> The RC has sectors to conquer and scores to settle. By the time the
collection agency knocks on the door they'll be morphed into something else.
>> > On 18 Jan 2013 at 13:29, wrote:
>> >
>> >> That's the whole point behind specie: the (arbitrary) premise that
>> some
>> >> material is inherently valuable. Who cares if it imbalances the
>> economy,
>> >> someone gets rich. And the economic effect of everyone else running
>> out
>> >> to
>> >> find stuff, and failing, but still needing to buy bullets, beans,
and
>> >> bazookas still expands the economy. El Dorado does not damage the
economy,
>> >> El Dorada is a flooding tide that raises all boats.
>> >
>> > Ruining the economy is a lot more real than you may think. Look at
the long term effects of alll the gold from the New World on the
Spanish economy. It messed up Spain for centuries.
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
>> > shadow at shadowgard dot com
>> >
>> >
>> >
>
or hijacked or co-opted by other things, such as production schedules,
other product lines, and things like Frank saying, "Oh, look, Solee,
they're going to kill the RC." At a certain point I'm sure we would have
had to fast-forward a few years rather than allowing it to play out in
"real time." To me, the "Star Vikings" were not so much a single polity
like the RC as a continuously reinforcing movement of like-minded groups
who were all looking outward, filling in the vacuum left by the collapse.
I think of the RC/SVs like a star evolving into a supernova: burning up
its fuel, having to burn ever heavier elements but unable to keep up core
pressure against gravitational collapse, and eventually exploding (and
imploding at the same time) and flinging all of this energy and material
out. The RC is never going to be able to sit back and build up a solid
industrial-population-economic base, it's just surrounded by too many
threats. It's constantly pushing outward, and in pushing outward just
keeps finding more threats that it has to overcome, but it can't lay back,
because there's not enough time to build up enough strength to withstand
everything and those threats will come kill it, so its only way to survive
is to just keep pushing out, finding one more resource or ally to keep
going to find one more threat and find another way past it. The RC is all
about deficit spending and living on credit. The same way that the most
important thing about a supernova is all of the metals that it creates and
spreads and how they become the stars and planets of the future, the most
important thing about the RC/SVs is their effect. Yeah, there will be a
core mass of some kind left behind, but it won't be the RC anymore. It
will be a white dwarf or a neutron star or a black hole. That's why all of
the little italicized things talk about the SVs in the past tense and a
mythological sense, because whatever it was, it changed the universe
(Charted Space), but it was never just one thing that could be put in a
box and categorized.
Certainly in 10 or 20 years their leading edge would span several sectors,
but behind that leading edge would not be a highly organized, stable
society, but a lot of varied stuff, like island hopping in the South
Pacific. You bypass Rabaul and Truk and beyond them find lots of people
and resources and remnants of things that can be cobbled together to get
to the next thing. You find Sandman and that helps you survive Solee, you
harvest the capabilities of the co-opted or liberated Solee to get the
next thing, and so on.
But we would have been much more driven by, "Next year we take you behind
the Black Curtain," "At GenCon you'll see the Regency meet the Star
Vikings" and so on. All of those cool promises were going to have to be
delivered on rather sooner than later. The Centrist and Federalist stuff
was great, and we could have spent a lot of time dealing with that stuff,
but I just don't think we would have ever been able to linger there for
long. And what happened to us demonstrates exactly the sort of thing I'm
talking about, we weren't able to.
And that's not to say that RC politics was just meaningless wallpaper or
set dressing, but that Lord of the Rings was only one (minor) story in
Middle Earth, it's just the one that Tolkien's publishers pushed him to
write and finish. Since Tolkien had a day job, he could have tinkered with
the Silmarilion for the rest of his life. But if he had a company to run,
he would have had to find a way to meet payroll every month. Like comic
books. You used to be able to go 10 or 20 years between a Crisis on
Infinite Earths, but now they have to happen every year. And games and
comic books were sold by the same people. And that goes back to the whole
"Old School Gamer" thing that says anything plot-driven is evil, but I
don't think you're ever going to build an audience that can keep you in
business if you're not telling a story, or else you have to have a day
job. There are only so many people who want to buy FF&S 2, FF&S 3, FF&S 4
and nothing else. If it were easy, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would
be working for Marc.
But to get back nearer your question, Centrists and Federalists and ship
bills would have been overshadowed by much larger events, as much as it
would have been fun to devote concentrated attention to them. It doesn't
matter if you're a Redskins or a Cowboys fan once the aliens invade. I
like your idea about admitting worlds in pairs. But then the US from
1814-1864 (hell, 1950 if you think about it) was living in a pretty benign
environment.
I'm sure I've said all this before, and I wandered around plenty. I repeat
myself a lot, and think everything relates to everything else.
> What sort of time frame were you thinking and/out would you think now?
>
> I had 2 more members in 1203 (Teldora and Nex) with passage of Ship Bill
and a couple in the AO moving that way for 1204 (I also had a couple back
> face entries planned with Stepping Stone worlds, but that was all
homebrew
> and nothing overly hinted in official material). All smacks of US
Antebellum new statehoods: always in pairs so as not to upset the
balance.... Which of course can't last forever.
>
> Though I imagine Black Curtain and Regency put the coming Coalition
civil
> war aside. It looks set up to tells the Centrists & Federalists they're
both right to some degree and to concentrate on common enemy....
Economically and policy wise, if not settling the F-tech business... ___
> From my T989
> On Jan 18, 2013 8:46 PM, > wrote:
>
>> **
>> But remember that the RC is not primarily an economic or commercial
entity
>> (unless you're one who makes the point that all human behavior is
ultimately economic, which is valid within its own frame of reference), it
>> is a historical/behavioral/evolutionary force working to jumpstart
humanity, and is itself a Hiver manipulation. Maybe. If you believe what
>> they tell you not to believe a little too enthusiastically so you can't
help but believe it.
>> But I'm not saying that the RC is based on specie, they ain't got none,
unless your specie is uninfected tech, in which case they are, and would
>> be vulnerable to such, but they would take it and use it to expand
further
>> faster. The RC is not a stable economy, it is a short-lived transition
state, all underwritten on unsecured credit they can't repay, a launch
pad. It is not an end in itself, but the new beginning. Now the Regency
might get their panties in a twist over hyper-inflation and fiscal cliffs
>> and debt ceilings, but that's because they're former greed-head
Imperials.
>> The RC has sectors to conquer and scores to settle. By the time the
collection agency knocks on the door they'll be morphed into something else.
>> > On 18 Jan 2013 at 13:29, wrote:
>> >
>> >> That's the whole point behind specie: the (arbitrary) premise that
>> some
>> >> material is inherently valuable. Who cares if it imbalances the
>> economy,
>> >> someone gets rich. And the economic effect of everyone else running
>> out
>> >> to
>> >> find stuff, and failing, but still needing to buy bullets, beans,
and
>> >> bazookas still expands the economy. El Dorado does not damage the
economy,
>> >> El Dorada is a flooding tide that raises all boats.
>> >
>> > Ruining the economy is a lot more real than you may think. Look at
the long term effects of alll the gold from the New World on the
Spanish economy. It messed up Spain for centuries.
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
>> > shadow at shadowgard dot com
>> >
>> >
>> >
>