Seeking Development Team and Players

[Eadee]

Looks good, Eadee. A combination of mysticism and feudalism. Can you tell me more about what it means to ascend? It sounds to me as if your faction is a bunch of people who are basically being gulled into contributing toward Pahalē’s personal vision of the future. Feel free to tell me that I’ve got it wrong, of course.

I'm already working on a proper writeup, but since its taking more time than expected I'll answer your questions in adance:

What does it mean to ascend? (on a level of the community)
Ascension is a continous process that happens on a physical level and a spiritual level at the same time. It is not supposed to have a final stage of perfection but rather to guarantee that humankind does get better every generation rather than to stagnate at one level of existence. Ascension is driven by things like evolution and virtuousness. The higher castes are rumored to know how to further ascension of humankind as a whole, so the whole society works on supporting those individuals in all of their goals.

What does it mean to ascend? (on a personal level)
One is born into a caste and will (almost) never change the caste during a lifetime. If you do especially well it is seen as a prove that you are in the case you belong to. If you're not doing badly you made wrong decisions you might compensate again later in this lifetime. Only if you screw up really hard you might get expelled from any caste to join the caste of the outcasts. A change between castes is supposed to be achieved through reincarnation. So if someone did exceptionally well in his life he can expect to be reborn in a higher caste and therefore he can expect to live a better life in this reincarnation.

Are people being gulled into working on Pahalē’s personal vision?
Pahalē wasn't the original leader of this faction. The influental psychologist and guru Kirshan Divari gathered quite some followers on earth and took them all the way to Chiron. The whole paradigm is based upon his vision and his teachings. However he died during Planetfall.
The right hand of Kirshan is named Adrian Elstock. He pretends to be a religous man, but he's just interested in the power this whole religion provides. He leads the faction shortly after planetfall since Pahalē who is said to be the reincarnation of Kirshan Divari still has to grow up. Adrian was in control of Pahalē's upbringing and he is quite a manipulator, therefore she trusts him, and especially early on she follow all of his advice even after she grew old enough to lead the faction on her own. But she has her own mind and is much more emotional than the meticulous planner Elstock. She does believe in the teachings of Kirshan Divari since she grew up with them.
So people are manipulated from time to time, but the manipulator is Adrian Elstock, using the visions and teachings of Kirshan Divari as a tool of control. Pahalē is manipulated as well here and there, but all in all the greed of Adrian Elstock did hold the faction together for many years. Its in his best interest to let it prosper since he belongs to the highest caste and gets all the benefits possible on Planet.

[ComradeCrimson]

Do you need voice acting for this at all?

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

Hermi, I think your faction idea is sound. I like the fact that you’ve linked them to a part of the crew that is not yet represented. I think that your faction will clash well with the others, which is the point.

"Sound" ?  I should get a medal for the colony names alone.   

I'll be checking around again September.

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

New faction idea, inspired by the thoughts of mathematics, music, and the making of a fine meal:

The Symposium

1. Why did human civilization fail on Earth?

Humankind forgot their true feelings, lost in a sea of bland malaise.  Deprived of joy and horror, frost nor fugue, nihilism ultimately came, leading to the Great Collapse and forever postponing even any meaningful war.

2. What are the fundamental constants of human nature or the universe at large? What are the practical implications of your answer?

Human beings have sentiments.  Things just -feel- real.  And when these sentiments or impressions are suppressed, countered against, or bamboozled with the idiocy of "logic" or norms of "rationality", people lose themselves.  And it's horrible.  And it should never even start, let alone the need to stop.

3. What will be necessary to ensure humanity’s survival on Chiron?

Boldness.  Braveness.  The creative passions, and a celebration of feeling.  Tastes.  Smells.  Making memories both grand and painful.  A place and a respect for every part of life, and a communion of feelings in these edifices.
The world is a moving canvas, not blank.  Our colors and tears spill onto the page; our heat tears strands across it in furious strokes.

The answer to this is just a definition of Humanity.  Humankind is a feeling creature, and a creature that can comprehend the outer world and inner world.  An animal is naked.  A Human fears to be naked, but can choose deliberately to show itself.  Our hesitance makes the Deliverance of destiny simultaneously fulfilling, and meant-to-be, transcending the preponderance of "Free will".

4. Should an attempt be made to re-establish contact with Earth?

Yes.  100%.  The call to home is part of every individual, and most especially seen in those lacking the 'nuclear' arrangement held as typical.

5. What is the major end-game, or “project,” of this faction?

Liberation and expression.  Tomorrow is not given.  People have satisfying lives by being encouraged (en-courage-d) to perform, profess, sing, dance, and spell out the zest of life.  This harmony is exemplified in the artists of the oldest elements of settled Human life:  the cook (chemist), the musician (rhythm), and the painter (impression).

6. What is the faction’s proper name?

Symposium

7. What is the proper adjective for your faction?

Symp

8. What is the popular slang for your faction?

Simps

9. What is your faction’s symbol?

A series of line segments figured in a stop-motion photo of a collapse to the right.

10. What are your faction’s colors? (Choose two.)

white, bright violet

11. What are your faction’s words?

"The choice is freedom or death." (Magic the Gathering: Words of War, Onslaught printing)

12. What is your faction leader’s name?
?

13. What is the leader’s gender?
??

14. What concept or trope does the leader embody?
Music connoisseur, polymath, distracted but profound

15. What was the leader’s position, if any, on the command staff? How did they end up aboard Unity?
Xenoscience, ecological chemistry?

16. From where on Earth are this faction’s followers most likely to originate?
Search me.

17. What were the pre-planetfall political and religious convictions of a typical member of your faction?
?

18. From what walks of life are the faction’s followers most likely to emerge?
Liberal Arts majors

19. What does a typical follower look like?
??

20. What does your faction prioritize?
Earthy Human lifestyles.  Simplicity.  Unions of the various walks of life and avocations - for community purposes, not economic purposes (not principally).

21. What is your faction’s agenda?

A society with no crime - no appetite for crime, with the bounty of things being available and the means by which to take such elements to a fulfilling life quite ready at hand.  To disclose, unveil, unmask the wonder of the inner spirit.  The outer world shifts with a strong heartbeat on its own time; this need not trifle a -Liberated- soul one instant.

22. What is the personality of your leader?
Music connoisseur, polymath, distracted but profound

23. What is your faction’s default behavior?
Territorial, schizoid, isolationist, self-concerned (not competitive), expansive (passive).

24. To what does your faction have strong aversions?
Class structure, technocracy

25. What is your faction’s moral paradigm?
Judge not.  Synergize.

26. What is your faction’s attitude toward ecology?
Personal preference.  Do nothing to the Commons that would raise Hell, otherwise, it's free for all.  Some may be nature maniacs, others may hide out from it.  "Whatever, man."

27. What is your faction’s attitude toward artificial intelligence?
Taboo.  It's perverse.  Strange, and frightening, but ultimately it doesn't make sense.  So it's inhuman (to work at it).

28. What is your faction’s attitude toward the use of genetic engineering and cybernetics?
Genetic engineering is for life to decide, not science.  Cybernetics is as individual as the ecology approach.  You raise distrust at your own peril, but sure, maybe you'd find something parrot-worthy.


29. What is its stance toward the modification of non-human organisms for human benefit?
Thumbs up!  Humankind has the Good Stuff.  Let everything join in.


30. What is your faction’s attitude toward religion? What is its stance on humanity’s chief religious text, the Orange-Catholic Bible?
Um.


31. What is your faction’s attitude toward Terran ideologies?
Obvious.


32. What is your faction’s affinity?

The Civ BE affinities are incoherent nonsense.

33. What is your factions mode of political organization?
anocracy.  Implicit unions, possibly guilds would occur.  Big decisions are committed at convocations from every "walk of life", which would drive the impetus for formalized unions.

34. What is your preferred economy type?
Market economy

35. What is the general configuration of your society? How do people get ahead?
Be interesting.  Be a good host.  Sing the song of Humanity, paint it in pimento.  Fellows follow.

36. What is your faction’s posture towards interaction with refugees, merchants, and travelers?
Extraverted.

37. What is your faction’s attitude towards participation in genuine multinational organizations?
Eh.

1. Why should somebody in desperate circumstances join that faction? What's the "pitch"?
....

Simplify.  Ain't nothin' so hard out there to worry about.

2. What does your faction believe is the reason that human civilization failed on Earth?

Too much hullabaloo.  No feeling.

3. What does your faction believe are the fundamental truths of the universe?
No such thing.  It is what it is.

4. What does your faction believe is necessary for humanity to succeed on Chiron?

Don't forget your roots.  Live loud.  Or smile subtle.  Novelists, poets, and the chemister in the kitchen; be simple, make sense.  What you need is right in front of you.

5. How might an ungenerous critic or skeptic describe your faction?
Rabble
Plebeians
Incoherent mass
Contradictory self-organization

6. What were your inspirations?
The subject matter of chemistry and music themselves.

--
The fact that Symposium actually has "Simp" in there is hilarious, isn't it?  Also a nod to Douglas Hofstadter cannot be escaped.  Nor the Magic The Gathering card game and its proposal of the red mana.

Coming soon:  The Draconomicon, keepers of draconian edicts!

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

I remain interested in developing this fiction; but you could say, that my PENCHANT for delay persists    haha, puns.

Does anyone here remember the face of Randall Shoop from Simcity2000?  He's sort of what I imagined for the leader of the Crystal Ladder (which is still incompletely explained, in my view).

[Horseshoe_Hermit]

You know, I think that constructivism misrepresents the Ladder, and I'm sorry for relenting the point earlier.

It is not pure education which I meant to get at , originally, but instead leadership and networking.  The constant broadcasting of one's own virtues and processes, principles.  There would be no such thing as a trade secret.  All people would be equally able to imitate 'the good life', whoever had the best idea of such.  Social mores would require you to keep a log of your successes.

That is how I thought to avert factionalism.  (Of course, the real cause of factionalism is insecurity, which is simply a Human foible.)

My interest in expanding the draconian Kant lawyers depends on surviving kindle for this project.  Hello? Anyone there?

[Trenacker]

I don't really have time for game development lately due to a more intensive schedule at work. However, with the release of Fallout 4, I am sure to have new meditations on the human condition post-apocalypse. I have not abandoned this project, but expect the hiatus to extend until at least the winter holidays.

[Eadee]

I just felt like doing something with my clumsy hands:

[Trenacker]

Okay. Back at it.

Right now, I don't have a timeline to blast-off (ha ha) for the second iteration of this game, but there is a blueprint for getting ready.

We'll begin by finalizing the list of playable factions. This game will include both major and minor factions.

During the last go-around, I let players design their own factions. With one notable exception, however, ideology fell by the wayside almost at once. This was partially because the work of colonization is the same whether you are Deirdre or Morgan. Nonetheless, the deficit was also caused by the fact that most people wanted to play factions of roughly the same outlook. To prevent this happening a second time, all the factions will be fully realized at game start. Players will step into, rather than design them.

Here are the factions so far. More to follow. I'd love some feedback.

The Dreamers of Chiron - A faction led by Roshann Cobb, a pharmaceutical executive and colonial charter-holder, and Alegia Cohen, Head of Neurosurgery for the CIP. They are basically drug-pushers who are interested in exploring various aspects of the human mind on Chiron, having discovered that the unique biome has haleucinogenic properties.

Gaia's Stepdaughters - An experiment in green feminist self-government. Gaians believe that Earth was destroyed because humans failed to steward the natural environment. The paradigm I am going for is eco-radicals. The Gaians are led by Speaker Deidre Skye. Their government type is direct democracy. The operative paradigm here is eco-radicalism.

Holnists - An homage to the hyper-survivalist, anti-government radicals of David Brin's post-apocalyptic masterwork, The Postman. Holnists represent the human Id. The Holnists are a kratocracy of violent misfits. Think General Bethlehem's army in the film version of The Postman, or, for those of you that haven't seen that movie, Lord Humungus's gang of marauders in Road Warrior. The Holnists are led by Jeremiah Holn, son of the famed author and radio personality, Kellogg Holn. This is a minor faction. Most of their members will insist that human civilization failed because the weak demanded too much of the strong and ultimately used government to steal from the wealthy until productivity dried up and progress became impossible, but to say that they have a coherent philosophy would be too generous. Really, they employ a series of justifications for patently anti-social behavior.

The Honored Dead - An embattled group of colonists holding out against the Holnists in an isolated outpost somewhere on Chiron. Inspired by the de Maraias family (French rubber plantation) in the director's cut of Apocalypse Now. This is a minor faction. They have basically fetishized death.

The Human Hive - Chairman Yang's bunch. A faction that combines the hermit kingship of North Korea with a patina of Chinese legalism. Yang is the ultimate survivor. He will never allow himself to be subject to others, and the idea here is that he figures that the construct of a hive is best-suited to creating a power base to preserve his ability to act. Officially, he claims that functional human organizations can only be built upon selfless labor directed by leaders who have achieved a degree of enlightenment. A major faction. Yang governs per a despotism, although there is a caste system. Nerve stapling is commonplace.

The Hunters of Chiron - Led by Jeremy Tanner Marsh, a former SAS man. Basically, a collection of hunters, roughnecks, and long-range scouts. These are the people who operated outside the perimeter of the colony first set up by the Chiron Interstellar Probe. Marsh believes that to survive on Chiron, man must live in dialogue with the land. That doesn't necessarily mean that he wants to practice the asceticism of a Gaian, but it does mean that Marsh believes that human beings must have a physical component to their lifestyles and that they would be well-advised to respect their natural surroundings. The Hunters have established a republican form of government in which various bands elect a representative to a larger council. Quasi-Luddites. A minor faction.

The Human Ascendancy - A major faction, led by the Chiron Interstellar Probe's chief geneticist, Dr. Tamineh Pahlavi. The Ascendancy is all about breeding a human super-soldier in a test tube. The idea is to engineer the perfect settler, Homo Sapien Superior. The government type is geniocratic. Interestingly, Pahlavi rejects cybernetics because she fears that integrating machinery into the evolutionary path would introduce unpredictable variables that would complicate her efforts. A major faction.

The Conclave - A kritarky (government by judges) led by Primarch Miriam Godwinson. Fundamentalists violently opposed to robotics and genetic medicine. Miriam plans to establish a planetwide theorcracy. They believe that factions choosing to engage with the world around them on purely empirical grounds are isolating themselves from the body of God's elect and spurning His message. The Conclave opposes restoration of contact with Earth. They interpret Unity's launch as the start of the post-diluvian era. According to Miriam's teachings, the Unity crew are all members of the elect, conditional upon their acceptance of her teachings before the Apocalypse. The Conclave's affinity is Purity: it is violently opposed to any practice that alters the human body and mind. Miriam tends to operate a planned or full command economy based on the primitive societies described in Scripture. A major faction.

The New State - A faction combining elements of hierarchy and traditionalism in an essentially medieval timocracy. In plan English, the New State is a fascist oligarchy that has implemented a rigid caste system spanning four Estates: drones, colonists, knights, and Talents. Each estate is apportioned certain privileges and corresponding obligations. Thus, for example, talents are exempt from conscription while drones and colonists have the greatest amount of unstructured leisure time and the fewest stipulations regarding their rights to procreate. The Estado Novo's appeal arises from its guarantee of material security in exchange for obedience. They believe that Earth was destroyed because the traditional relationships between socio-economic classes were allowed to come apart. A major faction.

The New Two Thousand - A faction based on a private charter colony. Led by an entreprenuer and private citizen, Oscar Van de Graaf. This faction is basically an experiment in civic planning. A minor faction. They are at odds with the other factions, inasmuch as they were under obligation to contribute to the main colony for a number of years before striking out on their own. Because much of the equipment earmarked for them was appropriated by other at Planetfall, they believe they have scores to settle. Van de Graaf was also CEO of the American Reclamation Corporation, a federal instrumentality chartered to lead reconstruction after The Anarchy.

Those Beneath - The ocean-going faction, led by a French Contre-Amiralé, Raoul André St. Germaine. They believe that salvation lies in Chiron's hitherto unexplored depths. A minor faction.

The Tribe - Adherents of the American cult figure Jean-Baptiste Keller. The Tribe is an experiment in rebuilding societies based primarily on bonds of blood and proximity rather than shared values per-se. This is the direct answer to an atomizing world in which civic engagement is almost nil and people have increasingly withdrawn from immediate, face-to-face relationships. The Tribe fought both the U.S. Government and the Holnists at various points in its century-long history. A major faction.

The University of Planet - Ethically-challenged scientists led by Soviet engineer Academician Prokhor Saratov. In their considered opinion, archaic superstition, masquerading as deferrence to ethical imperatives, prevented the human race from applying all of the problem-solving tools at its disposal. A major faction. All about the pursuit of knowledge at any cost.

[Trenacker]

Each faction will have 3 unique abilities/characteristics that will help shape its play style. For example, the Hunters gain a bonus to combat with native lifeforms, reflecting the experiences gained on survey and road crews immediately after the Chiron Intersteller Probe made Planetfall.

As one might expect, each faction leader focused on recruiting specific members of their respective expeditions, either focusing on the personnel already in their chains of command, or else targeting those who might be expected to sympathize with a certain ideology based on their function.

The Dreamers are basically a pair of exploitative, narcissistic geniuses. Cobb is a former intelligence agent while Cohen is a mad scientist type. She differs from Pahlavi in that she focuses on neuro-science applications. While she shares disdain for ethical boundaries with Zakharov, she is far less philosophical about it. Her attitude reflects mere impatience rather than a deeply-held belief that people with objections to progress are objectively wrong. The Dreamers are a motley combination of the small coterie of retainers that joined Cobb under charter, Cohen's immediate staff (a collection of hand-picked medical personnel whose moral flexibility outpaces their technical expertise), and various convicts and robots "liberated" from the collapsing CIP colony to actually perform the work of colonization (as slaves) while their masters abuse chemicals.

The Gaians took most of the biologists, horticulturalists, and foresters on the expedition.

The Holnists seeded their people across the mission's security and emergency management functions. The more ideologically-inclined later broke away to form the Spartan Federation, which is measurably less psychotic. Later, the Holnists picked up those road crews and long-range patrols that had formerly served Marsh but had basically devolved into brigandage.

The Honored Dead comprise a hard core of military men under the CIP. They unsuccessfully resisted the mutiny against CIP mission leadership, then did their best to stand up against the Holnists and other adversaries. They suffer from a kind of mass psychosis. A general defeatism, if you will. This faction needs more work.

The Labrynth undoubtedly had his own plants in the Unity's security force, but also probably claimed a lot of the more idealistic personnel -- people who were prone to being led astray by Yang's message of collectivism and shared struggle in the cause of the greater good. Like the Dreamers during the downfall of the CIP, Yang would also have thought to raid the Unity's population of prisoners for "reserve labor."

The Hunters are basically all of the people who had functions that took them outside the CIP colony on a regular basis, especially the security patrols who first encountered Mind Worms, road crews conducting initial surveys or clear-cutting fungus for agriculture, and wilderness firefighters who tried to do controlled burns and participated in mobile firefighting. Probably there were also many emergency management personnel who sympathized with Marsh's outlook, most of whom would have lost their lives during the plague as they attempted to tend the sick. I figure that a small core of military would also have signed on.

The Ascendancy is basically the scientists of the genetics lab, with a smattering of Darwinists who happened to be exposed to Pahlavi's rhetoric before the CIP went the way of the dodo. Possibly the Unity carried a population of Augment-types during the second wave of colonization. If so, this group would naturally have made it to Pahlavi's base.

The Conclave accounts for crew members driven primarily by their faith.

The New State likely took much of the surviving command staff, religious types put out by the Conclave's teachings, military who didn't want to break the chain of command, and anybody who was especially well-disposed to hierarchical leadership, especially crew members who were looking only for a guarantee of protection. One of the few factions willing to accept the family members of mission specialists (i.e., people with no special skills to contribute).

The New Two Thousand, being a large charter enterprise, would probably have a very good balance of different skill types among its adherents. That will probably leave them with a good bonus in gameplay terms. Their leader, Van de Graaf, would have paid for the best in a wide range of fields, and could expect loyalty from people who have every intention of returning to Earth one day.

Those Beneath swallowed virtually the whole of the CIP's naval contingent. This is a very martial faction in its organization and outlook.

The Tribe, like the Holnists, are stowaways. They may also have absorbed the sub-set of crew members with families on account of their willingness to take on supernumerary persons as a sop to their social agenda.

The University of Planet likely appealed most to scholars and engineers.

A new faction, The Archimedes Group, is all about central planning, and accounts for engineers who wouldn't much like Zakharov's research focus. This faction would also have taken on the various mission planners -- in other words, those who believe in technocracy.