Re: New America & Process

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: : BIGV is, overall, an impressive setting. Congratulations, Mr. Sandberg! : Thank you! : : However, there's one part of it that bothers me: New America. In the : : "official" timeline, NA's actions are consistently... well.. stupid. : Yes and no. I must admit that taken together NA has not behaved in a brilliant : fashion, and I feel a certain amount of gamemastering embarassment of making : them so. But there were also many reasons for their actions, some of which were : not obvious from the timeline (after all, there was a lot going on behind the : scenes, secret or not). : Maybe the main reason NA did not get the chance to become what it desired in my : campaign was simply that a lot of focus was directed at Nova and Atlantis, simply : because that was where the PCs spent most of their time and organised things : the most. Had some of them been Americans, things might have been different. : I still feel that NA wasn't *that* stupid, it just had some big problems : when dealing with the events of the campaign. Its culture and politics would : predispose it towards solutions that were not always the best (just as some : other colonies also did). : : Take, for instance, the whole conception of the Columbus Project; once : : the FTL technique is public knowledge, there is simply no way that NA can : : make itself into an interstellar trade and data hub, and the NA government : : should have realized that. : Getting a head start can mean everything - there are many companies that become : market leaders simply by being the first with a product. NA was planning on : something similar: by setting up a good system people would use and invest in, : it would become entrenched. Competing colonies or free trade would still exist, : but would be less profitable (remember that setting up a trade between planets : A, B, C and D would be more expensive than just using the Columbus Project). : : I suggest that this realization was why the : : NASA coordinator was summarily ousted -- the thought of the opportunity : : lost would lead naturally to vengenance against the man responsible. But : : if that's the case, the Columbus Project as described doesn't make sense. : : What would make sense is a project similar to the "Process"; why doesn't : : the NA government work along those lines? : I actually thought of the Columbus Project as a response to the McCairns affair, : not the reverse (although the idea was likely already floating around). It could : probably have been managed in a more flexible way; the main problem was the : competing interest inside the organisation too. : : Then there's the interaction between NA and the Process. One of the major : : obstacles the Process faces in its startup phase is getting FTL ships; NA's : : Columbus Project as described would handily supply that need. What is : : there to prevent Project Columbus from joining the Process board? : I think it was mainly a question of culture. Remember that the original process : board was highly biased in the direction of the libertarian Atlanteans and : Dionysians, as well as radical Nova interests. They were not that keen on : government projects (and in the case of the Atlanteans, actually believed them : to be somewhat evil), and to the Columbus Project the Process would at first : just look like a weird trading company - one which could have nasty political : repercussions ("Could our esteemed senator explain why American taxpayer money : has been invested in a company selling drugs, pornography and weapons?"). : : Or : : alternately, what is there to prevent the Columbus Project from copying the : : Process's model, should the Process board refuse them? In the latter case, : : the Columbus Project even has a short-term advantage, because it has more : : FTL ships and access to the NA embassies as contacts. For the suggested : : campaign, where the PCs are VIPs in the Process, the Columbus Project is : : clearly an immediate antagonist -- it's the most direct competitor for the : : Process's intended niche. But then it has to act as the Process does. : Exactly. Or it has to win - the CP is actually a quite powerful competitor and : I think it could have become so dominant that it could have dictated terms to : the Process. But making the CP into something like the Process would have been : against the politics of New America - everybody could agree on the nationalist : angle, but if you try to make it some kind of dynamic postmodern organisation : many of the fractions would have had incompatible interests. : : And finally, there's the reaction to the Li. Surely the NA government : : would have heard about the mysterious coup on Penglai before their own : : ship returned from there? : No. Remember that at this time, the number of starships is on the order of : ten or twenty, many of which are under repair or otherwise unavailable. Since : travel takes weeks, information spreads slowly. This is what the "Meeting" : text describes (my players were actually doing the graphing and plotting : described) - as the news got out, the schedules and routes of individual : ships could change the destiny of whole planets. I had not really planned on : NA (or Dionysos) getting hit so hard, but the situation at that point : indicated it. : : But no: apparently : : the ship's crew was allowed to scatter untracked (and spread the nanite) : : without a qualm. : Hmm, I see that I have not added one text, "the fall of New America", which is : a in depth description of the events on NA, to the website. I better do that, : it makes things a bit clearer. In short, the key factor was that the infected : NADS-I people on board could use their clearances to scatter well - especially : to infect their superiors during debriefing. Given my assumption of no prior : knowledge of the Li and merely ordinary quarantine, the infected could get out : undetected. : All in all, I think that in other GMs games, New America may very well become : a dominant power or avoid the stupidities you dislike. In fact, if I ran another : campaign in BIGV from the beginning, I guess the outcome would be completely : different.

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