Seeking Development Team and Players

[Buster's Uncle]

Well Kurtz is a religious movement, for one thing.  Everybody's seen the movie, if not read their Conrad.  Make it something like God's Honored Dead among themselves, and you've got something - it sure ain't the God Miriam is after, it's Kurtz, or at least Kurtz is the prophet.  A mad, mad, barking mad warrior religion, barking mad being key.

The horror; the horror!

Probably elements of Mithraic thinking only with lots more blood sacrifice - of the human kind.  They just eat the bulls.  Maybe even some cultic ritual cannibalism, eating the enemies' hearts to take their strength.  Betcha they may have been doing it in the movie offscreen.

This is going very dark, which isn't my customary style.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I think cannibalism is probably a stronger hook than slavery, too...

[Trenacker]

Well Kurtz is a religious movement, for one thing.  Everybody's seen the movie, if not read their Conrad.  Make it something like God's Honored Dead among themselves, and you've got something - it sure ain't the God Miriam is after, it's Kurtz, or at least Kurtz is the prophet.  A mad, mad, barking mad warrior religion, barking mad being key.

While I agree that this concept fits the character as he was originally written by Conrad, I'm uncomfortable with that direction, at least with respect to the faction's original adherents (that is, the "stay-behinds"). I have thought of there being indigenous, primitive human life on Chiron, and perhaps for them, this Kurtz-type figure is indeed a deity.

I think that Kurtz is shell-shocked and stubborn to the point that he could be credible accused of irrationality, but I intended for his story to be a meditation on preservation of a doomed way of life. If we go the warrior religion route, the faction becomes more a Viking analog, and I think we get there with the Holnists.

Probably elements of Mithraic thinking only with lots more blood sacrifice - of the human kind.  They just eat the bulls.  Maybe even some cultic ritual cannibalism, eating the enemies' hearts to take their strength.  Betcha they may have been doing it in the movie offscreen.

This is going very dark, which isn't my customary style.

I think it would be interesting if Kurtz's troops engaged in cannibalism not for ritual's sake, but as a psychological warfare tactic.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's an initiation ritual, then, as well.  The kind of hazing a special forces unit puts a new fish through.

I can't see indigenous human anything without doing too much violence to the background.  Maybe a shipload of mostly not-modern people from somewhere like Papua New Guinea scooped up during a genocide by a fanatic activist who'd stolen a ship?

The warrior religion stuff can be quasi-religious group warrior ethos rather than cultic, if you don't want to play with the religion stuff, with still a cult of personality leader...

[Trenacker]

The initiation ritual sounds fine.

I don't think we need to explain the presence of primitive homo sapiens on Chiron in the backstory. It's intended to be one of the mysteries encountered by the survivors of both expeditions.

Again, I'm not entirely comfortable with religion. Even cultic ritual goes too far. I do, however, think that Kurtz may well become increasingly convinced of his own genius and infallibility, but then, that's true of all the faction leaders, narcissists that they are.

[Buster's Uncle]

quasi-religious group warrior ethos rather than cultic

The special forces unit, again - those guys can and do go way beyond the customary infantry band of brothers stuff.

Actually wasn't Kurtz Green Beret gone bad in the first place?  Surely, even if the movie didn't actually say, what but a ranger/special forces unit to have the autonomy to go off the reservation for so long before they thought it would take a intelligence spook assasin?

[Trenacker]

I'm all for eating the beating hearts of enemy prisoners. I'm not for venerating Kurtz as a god in religious terms. I'm OK with "hero worship" as a general concept.

[Buster's Uncle]

Siigh.

[Trenacker]

So, after following up privately, it seems we are in loud agreement.

As a point of information, I've generally found that players need very little help to find their way into factions that are (A) Communist, (B) fundamentalist, and (C) cybernetically inclined. I don't know precisely why that is, but it seems consistent enough.

I can see Kurtz engaging rather delightedly in psychological warfare. I'm sure that his enemies are happy to refer to him as a cannibal and that the bases and outposts of the Honored Dead are adorned with the gory remnants of the enemy dead (and perhaps not-quite-so-dead). I can also see Kurtz inducting new recruits by having them munch on still-bearing hearts, but as a demonstration of bloodlust rather than in honor of any gods.

Perhaps the irony of Kurtz is that while he believes in a God of sorts -- probably absent most of the trappings of formal religion -- his followers simply see Kurtz as the font of objective truth. I'll bet there are also a fair number of folks in his faction who hate him, but know they don't have any better alternative. They may sneer at his crassness but realize that his tactical mind is irreplaceable. He props up their bid to perpetuate an aristocracy of sorts.

If this were 1880s Africa, Kurtz would have members of one tribe working for him, while members of others were enslaved by his people. if this were Vietnam, Kurtz would be employing indigenous soldiers while implicitly endorsing a social hierarchy that excluded them. How does that dynamic work in the Alpha Centauri setting?

[Buster's Uncle]

Mindworms through (brutal) training, not psychic link?

Well-reasoned stuff.  I think you've got something.  Did I mention warriors who have forgotten how to stop fighting?

[Trenacker]

I don't see them being especially nature-savvy. That's Marsh's territory, isn't it?

Yes. Warriors who have forgotten how to stop fighting is precisely what we're going for here.

[Trenacker]

Yitzi, can you help me out with figuring out some bonuses and modifiers for the various factions that I've created?

Looks like we're going to make them SMAC-playable.

[Buster's Uncle]

Please Yitzi.

I don't see them being especially nature-savvy. That's Marsh's territory, isn't it?

Yes. Warriors who have forgotten how to stop fighting is precisely what we're going for here.

Not savvy - just fighters capturing and using basic Pavlov.  Doing it the hard way is part of the point...

[Trenacker]

Electro-prodding, as it were?

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh yes - and woopin's with sticks and who knows what-all.

Perhaps simulated w/ earlyish brood pits, if that can be done, not +Planet capture...  Brood pits as a beginning tech if it can be made expensive enough to prevent 25th turn worm rushes.