Semi-OT: The Icaran Empire Preview (the book one)

[Starhawk]

Well El_Phil ain't no system that makes you happy is there? Not US (obviously as you bashed that quite a bit a few times) Not Britain (you say they're better then us I doubt that) no anyone.

So basically arguing any point of government with you seems at best futile at worst a complete waste of effort.

You forget that for most of our history people have had little to say in what their government does, because if the government listened to everyones opinion NOTHING would ever get done.

Face it Icarans do probobly feel they have a say in their government because they can become nobles if they are smart enough ambitious enough and loyal enough (and if they are willing to start out in a new province that may have no infrastructure but what a colony ship brought with it).

But for the most part most people genuinly don't care about their "voice in government" or else we'd have revolutions left right and center. If the government treats you well, if you are content and live a generally free life where no one bugs your house and or drags you into the streets kicking and screaming. Then most people genuinly don't seem to care much about what THEY say in government.

SURE people like *****ing and protesting but do they try and get into proper streams of govenrment and change things? NO why because for the most part these people just like making a show of it.

Yes Icara does not have some of the freedoms we do, but what you can't seem to get through your head is that they NEVER had them and since they NEVER had them they dont MISS them.

And for the most part El_Phil (say the vast majority of the middile ages/colonial era) history shows us that people who get to live well and are treated well are content with just about any form of government.

And the Magna Carta again bad example of "The people" as it's "The Elite upper class" that had a voice not even close to "The People" so your still grasping at straws with using this argument against the Icaran Monarchy/Praetorian line vs British Monarchy.

And this "Cult of personality" you keep harping on is little different then that of British kings, except instead of "Divine Right" the Praetor is a "Living Saint". Also for cryin' out loud CELEBRITIES have a "Cult of Personality" and you don't see anyone going "Oh my god the inhumanity of it all?" with them do you.

Oh and note I never called you American I said "Westerner" I simply think that America=Democracy Britain= Sort of Democracy granted I made an overly narrow statement with "Unamerican" perhaps I should have said "UnWestern" so I conceede that point.

You are continually ignoring the fact that some of the "Freedoms" we take for granted wouldn't be missed by a culture that never HAD them and never DREAMED of them.

Now let me approach some of your arguments for a moment instead of simply responding to them.

You also dodge around the point of why simply because individuals are raised to believe in a greater good over themselves is horrible? Ohh because they're not selfish enough for our standards? As I said unless called upon to serve the government for the most part Icarans are just as individualistic as you or I, it is simply that they aren't raised to question every little thing the government does and or exploit their neighbors to get a buck.

You continually ignore the fact that they are from a non "Western European" heritage and thus don't have the same ideals of "freedom" we do. Note that these "Freedoms" are new even to our world much less one that was pretty much divided up between two Very Powerful Empires that were in a near-constant state of cold war and who barely took notice of independent nations most of whom also did not have democratic governments.

You point out "Athens, Rome, Magna Carta" as points on YOUR side, if anything they prove MY points here's the reason:

Athens Senate: Only older wealthy MEN were given any voice here the young, poor and female were all ignored.

Rome: Same deal as athens accept on a grander scale where the RICH chose who became Consul (Sp?) and who led their people. The poor, young, and women again ignored for the most part (and yet no mass revolts here)

Magna Carta: Uh-hum rich white lando owners given power to become nobles and have a say in the affairs of government, no commoners voted or had a say in anything that went on. (again no mass riots no open revolts with a few notable acceptions, and no "We want freedom of the press!" why because it didn't exist.)

Italy: REALLY bad example as this was divided up between nobles, and crime bosses for the most part of the 17th-18th century.

The colonial revolts had not so much to do with "people wanting their opinions" they had more in part because of abuse and excesses by Imperial Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary and others who saw anyone not of their stock as inferior and blatantly treated them as such. And World War I opened a doorway for these colonies to make a bid for independance because the Empires of Europe were too weak to keep them anymore. And you notice these Empires lasted for centuries before this happened?

World War II pretty much finished the job for the British Empire though you notice the UK still holds together quite well even though most Irish dont' like England?

You point to the flaws in THEIR freedoms and yet we ourselves (And even Europeans) are losing freedoms our forfathers took for granted and no revolts are happening yet are they? Unless I missed something in the news this morning.


Now on their behalf Icarans never had these freedoms to moan over as they vanished, nor did most of the territories they've conquered, in fact some would be down right horrendous compared to Icara.


You point out "constant observation" I already said of "IMPORTANT INDIVIDUALS" as in those running for political careers or major industrial leaders and the like. Not the every day joe on the street. And I hate to break it to yah if you live in England your under Constant Observation as well as London is the most camera packed city in the world. (You scratch your butt in a subway and the government knows it literally lol)

"Secret Police" yeah that describes Shadow Daggers it also in a way describes any modern intelligence agency from CIA to MI-5 (or is MI-6 intel I forget?) because both of these intelligence agencies watch major individuals as well.

Oh and the Shadow daggers are far from "huge" they are actually an elite minority. If your referring to the Federal Security Division then yeah that's huge but it has to police an entire Empire. And they find one BIG police force with one BIG database and one MASSIVE budget to be far more efficient then thousands of local police forces and at least 4 different Federal agencies all responsible for law enforcement.

They have battle armor and assault rifles? Ooooh the horror so does US SWAT, HRT and the British special police units (I don't know what they call their SWAT types) (and uh let's not get into debating errors made by these two as a rather recent FUBAR by British Special police comes to mind)
That hardly makes the FSD "milatarized" it simply makes them equipped to deal with the weapons criminals of their day are likely to have. I mean when you know a "rifle" of the day can blow an unarmored car apart you'd drive an APC and wear heavy body armor as well wouldn't you?

Now on to Icaran Government and your blaring assumptions givin the current lack of data (Stuff I'm still thawing out so to speak).

You assume the religion was created by the state when in fact it would be more accurate to say the Religion helped create the state.

You assumed simply because Icarans think of the Praetor as a living saint they must worship him like a god (wrong).

You continue to refer to a "cult of personality" as a bad thing simply because now a days most of us Westerners get a sick pleasure out of constantly bagging our government officials (and yet notice they are still in power). You refer to Mao Tse Tung and Stalin as examples of "cult of personality" Mao earned the love of the Chinese thanks to his actions on their behalf as they saw it.
Stalin FORCED this on his people quite blatantly with constant purges and literally REQUIRED his picture to be in every house in Russia.

Alexander the Great forged an Empire on "cult of personality" his men didn't worship him they loved and respected him him because he was their rightful ruler and he led them to glory. (granted he wasn't smart in the end but that's beside the point)

Julius Ceasar and the earlier Ceasars that followed all ruled on Cult of Personality and they forged one of the greatest Empires mankind has ever seen. (granted Ceasar was only a general and later a noble in Icaran society but that's a different matter entirely).

"Cult of Personality" is what made the founders of America great men who rallied followers and support to overcome the British and in 1812 "Cult of Personality" is pretty much all that heald the US together against the Brits and again they won and sent the Brits home packing.

Now for that matter on to British history "Cult of personality" with unquestioned rulers is what led Britain to Empire in the first place, afterall while Spain was still powerful Britain was little more then a backwater third rate nation.


My point is "cult of personality" is such a broad generalization (If I had simply called the Praetor a king and not a living saint you'd have less problem here wouldn't you) and rather targeted toward the fact that Icarans are of almost homogenous faith that it's kind of a moot point the way you use it. It's not like the Roman "Cult of the Emperor" in any way shape or form.

And considering I've said the occasional Praetor has been not only demonized but eliminated by Icaran hands you swinging this around like they would follow any cruel selfish/evil SOB that came on the block without question and that is simply incorrect. They are a people raised to BELIEVE and trust in their government that doesn't mean they can't tell the difference between cruel and just governments.

"To have reached a stage were no citizens wants to influence how their country is run is no easy feat, yet Icara apparently has. At what cost to free will is the question?"

Where do you think the nobles come from? For that matter military officers, police officials, service workers, industrial leaders?

You think they magically pop out of the Praetors head? They have "Free will" but free will does not automatically mean people are going to want to overthrow a government simply because YOU say it's wrong when they've known nothing else for their entire history.

You even tried using the way they viewed Xenos as a sign of a "bad people with no free will" well I hate to break it to you but look at Hollywood, how often do you see a friendly enlightened alien race?

Humans who first go to space and encounter a hositle race are doubtless going to start viewing all aliens as potential threats to humanity. Icara just happens to actively hunt these threats down and conquer them BEFORE they reach a point to threaten the Empire.

I often wonder if we (humans of this Earth) are going to be as welcoming of aliens as we think, especially if they are not the "ridge head" aliens of Star Trek but are instead say oh, "Alien" looking aliens (as in the ones from the movie Alien).

I mean I can see it now "alien" steps off the ramp of it's ship thinking "Wow look at these funny looking creatures, aww well I suppose I can adjust."

Humans 'Oh my f*ing LORD KILL IT KILL IT!"

Heh or for that matter why do you think Aliens would view humans as anything other then "Xenos" and untrustworthy?

[Starhawk]

Oh and believe it or not I'm not angry just interested and enjoying a good debate

[Hunpecked]

Very interesting discussion! Time constraints prevent me from replying to many issues I'd like to address, so I'll just comment on a couple historical points Starhawk made:

Athens "Senate"

In the 5th Century BC it was the "Assembly", which consisted of all male Athenian citizens 18+, rich or poor. In practice, of course, it was rare for more than a few thousand to show up, but any adult male citizen could attend, speak, propose legislation, and vote. This "pure" democracy also had a representative element, i.e. the Council of 500 which set the agenda for Assembly meetings. Council members served for a year. Membership was divided equally among the city-state's districts, which presented candidates from whom council members were chosen by lot. The term limit and random selection tended to reduce political corruption and intrigue. Of course rich and capable men could become "more equal" than their fellow citizens through lavish spending, conspicuous civic virtue, fancy rhetoric, and spectacular accomplishments (e.g. Pericles), but the Athenian system probably gave the "common man" more political power than any other in history.

References:

http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/...democracy.html
http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture6b.html

Roman Senate

Contrary to popular belief (including mine), the Roman Senate was primarly an advisory body, not a legislature. During the middle period of the Roman Republic (e.g. the Punic Wars), power resided in several popular assemblies: the "Comitia Curiata", "Comitia Centuriata", "Comitia Tributa", and the "Concilium Plebis". According to Wikipedia, these councils all had legislative, judicial, and electoral powers. Both patricians and plebeians made up these bodies, except the Concilium Plebis which allowed only plebeians. While it seems overly complicated, the Roman system of checks and balances prevented dictatorship and aristocratic rule for several centuries.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_assemblies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Senate

There was also this point from El_Phil:

"Finally history shows people want their opinion listened to..."

I think history shows that people want to be heard mostly when they have a grievance, e.g. when they're overtaxed, evicted, exploited, incarcerated, etc. While John Q Icaran may not have the right to parade down the street with a sign reading "THE PRAETOR SUCKS!", if he's reasonably well off and generally left alone, why would he want to?

[Starhawk]

Hey Hunpecked thanks I guess I had really misunderstood the Roman senate I knew it was made up of the Rich and powerfuls only I just didn't know it was not the "government" so to speak.

[Atrocities]

Thanks for an enjoyable read Starhawk.

[Atrocities]

A follow up to my earlier post about UTOPIA and the Federation.

It is my firm belief that everyone within the Federation lives under the threat that if they do not conform to the ideals of the Federation then they will be somehow shunned or even worse, excommunicated in some fashion thus leaving them oustersized and or on their own without the benefit of replicators, holosuites, and the daily dose of the Federation is your Utopia hog wash that I am sure the propaganda monkey's force feed people each day. I am utterly convinced that the food replicators also administer a substance similar to Prozac to all those who use them. A well-regulated emotionally stable society is a healthy, happy, productive, and easily controlled society. A utopia for the elitists wolfs among the flocks of sheep.

dogyams

[Starhawk]

Yes well a flock of sheep led by a Lion can overcome a wolf but a pack of Lions led by a sheep will get eaten .

Seriously though yeah and have you ever noticed no one listens to Rock? It's always freakin jazz or classical music, and notice how post TOS everyone will just sort of be sitting there in their quarters?

Not doing anything just sitting with perfect posture in a perfectly clean room aboard a perfectly furnished ship. How freakin BORING! I mean Picard was the only one that ever read and Sisko was the only one who liked sports.

And WTF did earth do to Martial arts OMG did you see that episode rith Riker and his dad where his dad says "The Ultimate merger of Martial arts." What wacking a blind guy with a foam stick! OMG being in Kung Fu (and martial arts my whole life) if THAT was the future it would hurt. Though at least I know I could be the uber school bully since no one could carry around a foam stick


And WHAT IS IT with all their ships having bloody windows everywhere omFg who DOES that? No armor there just a big glass/forcefield window ooooh I feel safe lol
No environmental suites for anyone.

Man the federation sucks raw (insert appropraite four letter word) they really butchered Rodenberry's dream and then raped the corpse lol

Damn B&B they should be shot for what they did to star trek

Oh and there's now a Prequal movie coming out (After Enterprise since they already screwed the last decent trek ever made because VOY lasted SEVEN years but sucked for the last 2 and the first 2 1/2) anyway it sounds like it's going to be TREK GROUND WARS! during the Romulan war (which is totally wrong considering according to TOS and TNG the feddies never met the Romulans face to face) but that's B&B for you.


Sorry end rant lol (I like Icara they're gritty xenophobic and have no problem of admitting it )

[dogscoff]

I agree with all the anti-trek stuff posted. It's all just too... clean. Sanitized. Nice.

Go around any workplace, be it an office, a factory, a cleanroom, hell, I bet even a warship or a space-shuttle. You won't find everything clean and tidy and stowed. You won't find every item in perfect working order and exactly where it ought to be kept.

In a real-world Enterprise you'd find little scraps of handwritten (or better yet, typed in arial 20-point and printed out on a4) sticky-taped to walls saying "Would engineering staff PLEASE" (Please is underlined 3 times in biro) "refrain from 'borrowing' medbay scanners for their home-cyborg projects" and "Would all colleagues kindly remember to stabilise the dilithium matrix before going off shift. Thankyou."

And so on.

That said, I had to say something about Starhawk's "window" comment. Actually, i won't say anything, I'll just link to this schlock strip and let Howard say it. The point is that you might as well make the whole ship out of glass- hell, make it out of papier-mache- since the only thing that can provide meaningful protection against the kind of energies being thrown around by those ships is more energy (ie shields). Of course Trek tends not to respect simple physics like that (I'm sure someone will now some up with a dozen examples in Trek where an unshielded bulkhead has withstood direct torpedo fire or something) but that's Trek for you. Pick the science you like, ignore the rest.

Damn... i said something after all.

[Starhawk]

LOL actually anything so much as sneezes at an unsheilded trek ship and you get massive casualties and a big mother of a hole wherever the shot hit.

Windows still are stupid what about micro-meteors? There's an idea let the window take the hit instead of unobtanium armor heh.

Or heck a glancing shot makes your window blow out and you with it lol a pressure wave for cryin out loud, it could suck that piddly little glass right out

And the whole forcefield window is just suicide and stupid in the extreme I mean one small blackout on the ship and your sucking vaccum out your bedroom "window" lol

Although that also brings me to the huge quarters and the fact that everyone gets their own, have these people ever heard of packing in more hull? Shield generators? weapons? larger magazine capacity?

[dogscoff]

Starhawk said:
LOL actually anything so much as sneezes at an unsheilded trek ship and you get massive casualties and a big mother of a hole wherever the shot hit.

Exactly. There are physical limits to the possibile strength of any armour, since matter and molecular bonds can only do so much.

Trek ships have energy available in such obscene quantities that no physical barrier short of a small moon will stop their weapons. Armour is useless, you are utterly reliant on your shields whether you like it or not. Therefore you might as well not bother with armour at all.

Windows still are stupid what about micro-meteors? There's an idea let the window take the hit instead of unobtanium armor heh.

Trek waves micrometeors away with deflector dishes I think, but again you might as well just use shields if the technology is available. After all, the amount of shielding you'd need to protect against even space dust impacts is prohibitive when travelling at relativistic speeds. Radiation shielding, too. What do you want, a couple metres of concrete and/or lead wraped around your hull or a nice tidy little energy field, versatile, configurable, and running on just a tiny fraction of the hideous, mind-bending quantities of energy being constantly generated by your powerplant to hurl your multi-kiloton starship up to the speed of light and beyond.

It's like when they "divert power from life support" to get more juice for the engines. Switching off the lights and the aircon is going to free up the kazillions of joules required to bend space-time around your starship is it? I don't think so.

And the whole forcefield window is just suicide and stupid in the extreme I mean one small blackout on the ship and your sucking vaccum out your bedroom "window" lol

So have a few backups in place. It would be nice to imagine that by the 23rd century the phrase "power blackout" will have faded into obscurity, but you'd surely have a few independent and redundant backups just in case of attack. Besides, when you live in space, your physical survival depends entirely on technology. Without power, you will die sooner or later anyway: you can expect to be cooked, frozen, choked on co2, starved or otherwise dealt some nasty demise inside a few days for sure. With that in mind it's not too much of a stretch (but still risky, I'll grant you that) to be dependent on power for your ship's physical integrity as well. Read Iain M Banks' Culture novels- many of their ships would actually fall apart if not actively and constantly reinforced by fields.

Although that also brings me to the huge quarters and the fact that everyone gets their own, have these people ever heard of packing in more hull? Shield generators? weapons? larger magazine capacity?

Again, mass and volume stop becoming an issue when your ship has sufficent power output to make your average main sequence star look like a 60watt light bulb. The power needed to shift a starship of X cubic metres at warp speed really isn't going to be that much different to the power required to shift X+100 cubic metres. Scrimping a few cubic metres for extra missiles or whatever would be like improving the fuel efficiency of your car by cleaning the dust off the back seat. Granted, there might be other advantages to reduced volume- docking and targetting come to mind- but with the apparent abilities of Trek's transporters (don't even get me started on transporters...) and computer/sensor systems these are negated anyway, especially in light of the improved crew morale that comes from larger living areas.

A better question would be, what does the enterprise actually need all that crew for? On more than one occasion the entire thing has been run by one person on the bridge talking to the computer...