posted 04-01-99 01:45 PM ET        

...But I hate the way they treated the Spartans ("I won't let your economic ambitions interfere with our right to bear arms"). Please! The 2nd amendment is a LIBERTY ISSUE. Surely Brian is not a gun control nut. (One hopes) The spartans should have been modeled after the federalists in Starship Troopers or other strong sf military regimes (Falkenburg, etc) not based on a SINGLE leg of libertarianism. A true libertarian state would have trouble even _raising_ an army, since conscription is problematic from a libertarian perspective. (and is why a pure libertarian state can only ever be theoretical IMO) Libertarians are NOT militarists, by definition. A true militarist society wouldn't _allow_ the right, it would likely encourage, or even demand every one have and know the use of weapons to be able to defend the state. "Every one should do their part" etc. Any way it seems the capitalists and the humanitarians definitely got the best treatment cosmetically. The greens and the militarists the worst. Even the friendlies fared better. Speaking of friendlies, actually the factions do really almost fall down to the ones from the Childe Cycle. Except for the greens. (ecological issues become shown to be far less important in an interstellar society)

Spartans ~ Dorsai
University ~ Newton
Church ~ Friendlies
Humanists ~ Exotics
Moganists ~ I forget... somebody remind me capitalist worlds

Hive ~ The Others ... a stretch but they treated baseline humans this way had they
whenever they got in control

Now the Dorsai would have been a very good model for the militarists too.

I wonder if it would be possible to paint SMAC up to look like the Childe Cycle just changing text files?