Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Gesakaarin on 05 Dec 2012, 02:23
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So, I've been reading the latest news about Evaulon and Rilnais and it got me to thinking... does CCP actually present the Federation using any initiative at all? I mean, when you consider:
- The destruction of Reschard
- The destruction of Seyllin
- The State invasion and destruction of the Fed fleet in Algogille and Luminaire
- The occupation of Luminaire
- The invasion of Solitude by Kador
- The bombardment of Rilnais
Does CCP have some sort perverse interest in presenting the only news to occur in the Federation to be an ongoing series of tragedies and calamities where everyone has to drop everything at the news of the next cosmic or man-made disaster and the expectation is to scream out, "Oh the humanity! Will no one ever think of the children?!"
It's almost reaching the point of just being a cliche about now, because whilst other factions have had their own disasters etc. there was also often a solid social or political subtext to it which when written for the Fed seems to be lacking.
I sometimes wish there was some more depth to the news that happens in the Fed both foreign and domestic than wondering what's the next Fed planet or system to suddenly explode or get invaded requiring humanitarian aid. :psyccp:
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I noticed this. There is a distinct lack of actual political or cultural intrigue for Fed lore right now.
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I have to say, now that the State has had a good looking at, I am very much in favour of things like this being dealt with. The Factions in eve are far from cardboard cut outs now (though the Tribes need some wiki love), but I still want more meat on the bones of the Federation.
After all, every bit of info we can get on the topic is character building for the Federation and every rper who interacts with it (almost all of us, and all of us through someone we interact with). Disasters are all well and good, but to have them all happening to the bastion of freedom and liberty in the cluster does seem over done - though there may be a good, as of yet undisclosed reason for this.
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There's some rationalizations provided in the FedGov article but...
I dunno, got an uncanny feeling it's because we all live in democracies IRL, so it's the easiest to sympathize with. Can you imagine if it was the Amarr Empire? People would be like "lol slavers dying". Even the Caldari State is sufficiently alien enough...combined with hardcoreness/badassness which means nothing bad could possibly happen to them ever. Even if Fed is written to be third world (according to the new article at least) in how much it keeps its shit together, one would expect the Minmatar Republic to be far worse.
I think it's that whole familiarity thing.
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There's some rationalizations provided in the FedGov article but...
I dunno, got an uncanny feeling it's because we all live in democracies IRL, so it's the easiest to sympathize with. Can you imagine if it was the Amarr Empire? People would be like "lol slavers dying". Even the Caldari State is sufficiently alien enough...combined with hardcoreness/badassness which means nothing bad could possibly happen to them ever. Even if Fed is written to be third world (according to the new article at least) in how much it keeps its shit together, one would expect the Minmatar Republic to be far worse.
I think it's that whole familiarity thing.
The thing I don't get is when there's probably so much more to write about the Fed in its politics and society the almost recurring theme now with it is the "Epic disaster" arcs whether its foreign invasion, Sansha abductions (Oddly, most of them seemed to happen in the Fed given news articles), millions dying in rogue planetary attacks or just good old fashioned random celestial destruction. It's reached the point where it's happened so often the glassing of Rilnais made me just say to myself, "Oh wow, yet again the Fed is a victim of unsolicited tragedy."
I mean... the insorum attacks at Mabnen by Blood Raiders is about the only time it's happened outside outside of the Fed, where it seems to suffer about the same sort of thing every few months. I sometimes wonder if there's conversations along the lines of, "Hey guys we need an epic concept to get people interested in what's happening in the storyline how about we have some event that kills millions of people in the Fed like all those other times millions of Feds died during [insert event here]."
I bring it up only because like it or not the Fed and State need each other in order to drive each others stories through conflict and confrontation, but when all that seems to happen in the Fed from CCP is tragic event after tragic event about the only response to it is just, "Condolences, here have some humanitarian aid," and that's about it. There's absolutely no tension or anything to grab on to with it to promote some cross-faction RP of any variety nor does it add any depth to the Fed.
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Yeah, guess you're right. Don't think I really have any explanations for it...I did say in the past, funnily enough, that for the Empyrean Age expansion in summer 2008, Fed lost an entire planet for the DT event (Caldari Prime). For the summer expansion next year, Fed lost an entire planet again for the DT event.
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To be fair, the Fed Navy gave House Kador fleet a good kicking all the way back to their home region, and Empress Jamyl confiscated their forces and laid a good smacking on him for going solo without approval.
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To be fair, the Fed Navy gave House Kador fleet a good kicking all the way back to their home region, and Empress Jamyl confiscated their forces and laid a good smacking on him for going solo without approval.
I was about to mention this myself.
The only sad part about it is that it was to date the only time the Federation went out and got agressive about something without letting their capsuleers do all the work for them.
I *still* want to be among the vanguard of Serpentis' destruction and the invasion of Fountain to burn down the pestilence, the Fed has not done anything agressive and totally badass until something like this happens, IMHO.
And they should. Zag is right, so far the Fed holds the dedicated victimball and serve as the cluster's punching bag. This needs to fucking stop.
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Well you could look at it another way, mainly, IC. The thing you're seeing in the news are being presented by the news. The term "disaster porn" comes to mind. From an IC standpoint the fact that its seemingly just a string of disaster after disaster could be explained away as media bias or manipulation. It is after all entirely possible that various agencies and people within the Fed might be doing things that would make wonderful or terrible news, and perhaps some of those agencies and people are ensuring the media focuses on these disasters. I know, lots of speculation and assumption, but it is plausible.
An OOC point to consider, tragedy is one of the oldest and is supposed to be one of the most moving themes in literature. On some level we all know that, regardless of if you agree with it, and that means the devs know it as well. Also it could simply be a matter of taste coming into play. I think it would be safe to say most people can appreciate a good fictional explosion, while less people will appreciate political machinations and social intrigue.
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In the past they focused a little less on instant drama porn and a little more on gritty stuff like in the Jovian Wet Grave and the likes. Ofc we still had disasters here and there but it was less systematic imho.
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Well you could look at it another way, mainly, IC. The thing you're seeing in the news are being presented by the news. The term "disaster porn" comes to mind. From an IC standpoint the fact that its seemingly just a string of disaster after disaster could be explained away as media bias or manipulation. It is after all entirely possible that various agencies and people within the Fed might be doing things that would make wonderful or terrible news, and perhaps some of those agencies and people are ensuring the media focuses on these disasters. I know, lots of speculation and assumption, but it is plausible.
That might be the case but then again just taking a look at the different recent pirate live events it does seem to be a CCP thing to make the Fed on the receiving end of human disaster. In comparison:
Angel attacks: A limited strike on bio vaults which creates speculation about, "Why attack them?"
Gurista attacks: Get trapped in a Nugoeihuvi station which creates speculation about, "Are NOH and the Gurista working together?"
Blood Raider attacks: Peek around the Bleak Lands which creates speculation about, "What do the Raiders want and what are they looking for?"
Serpentis attacks: Bomb an entire city with millions dead - "Oh the humanity!"
All that I'm seeing is that the other factions get a degree of intrigue and mystery to their news which the Federation often does not due to all the disasters. I mean, the crisis and disasters that occur elsewhere like the Caldari mining collapse or the riots over the Starkmanir practicing the Amarrian faith also pointed to interesting social and political factors at play due to them - and those crisis/disasters didn't occur at the same scale when its done in the Fed where if it is was, it would no doubt involve millions dying or entire planetary destruction.
I mean when there's so much else to write about happening in the Fed like:
- Are there any Supreme Court challenges conducted by activists against the SDII or Roden?
- What's the Senate doing these days?
- Is there any news from those different planetary governments or issues involving the Jin-Mei, Intaki, Mannar etc.?
- The relationship between the Federation and Minmatar whether they're in the Republic or Federation.
- Is there anything involving Federal corporations recently?
That's just a few short points, but in the end the Federation is supposed to be this politically active and charged place encompassing hundreds if not thousands of different planetary governments in addition to trillions of citizens of differing ideological, cultural and ethnic viewpoints and the best CCP can do with the Fed in news items is: "Today, yet another disaster of unimaginable scale has occured."?
It's somewhat disappointing and underwhelming.
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In the past they had quite a lot of Foiritain vs Blaque intrigue iirc.
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Much of this can be directly tied to the emphasis on 'events' instead of 'plot.'
When you have sporadic 'events' it lends itself to more dramatic things happening.
When there is an ongoing plot with variety, we get more in-depth approaches.
It's a small team rotating through the events so I give them plenty of slack, but would love for more simple text / news advancement on these fronts.
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Somewhat on an aside, I'd love the return of semi-regular IC news items. They don't have to foreshadow any major event or anything. They don't have to be tied together, or even be very entertaining or interesting all the time.
They just have to be there, twice a week, weekly or even bi-weekly news that says 'things happen and the universe keeps spinning, sometimes it's interesting'. Would give you a sense the universe you play in is alive. The events may still be enacted on top of this and minor 'events' could still happen.
Well given CCP's track record I honestly think we could one day see this happen, it would take some resources I'm sure and demand some work, but if they find enough interest in doing it and a few people to keep it happening, I believe it would seriously enrich people's experience in EVE, might even prompt more people to try RP out.
Until then I am however, glad to see events back, it's a huge plus. Shame I'm not around to take part, but that's my problem :| Now it would be great if many of the overly negative ones took place in more sections of the cluster than just one specific quarter of it.
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I think its just a case of CCP being able to write anything that isnt endless grimdark. Its getting old, really.
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I think its just a case of CCP being unable to write anything that isnt endless grimdark. Its getting old, really.
I am guessing the underlined italicized word there is what you meant to type. If so, I agree to some extent.
I understood going into EVE RP that New Eden is not just mere 'grimdark'. It's actually written and depicted as a dystopia, and for that reason I can't fault CCP too much for staying true to that. I don't think it was ever meant to be 'realistic', but rather unrealistically bad. That's the nature of a dystopia. Just like a utopia is a society that cannot exist because it is too perfect, a dystopia is a society that cannot exist because it is too terrible.
A good example of this is the mind boggling loss of life caused by Capsuleer ship crew losses alone. Not even counting NPC ship kills or structure kills, who have much much higher crew sizes. Add in planetary warfare from FW, Sansha incursions, and various natural disasters... you come to realize that the daily loss of life in the EVE universe is a bit ridiculous. This is okay, because EVE is not written to be realistic. It's written as a dystopia.
That being said, I agree that CCP needs to focus more on the mundane instead of the spectacular. For Fed RP, this could be so much. Celebrity gossip news, Federal court rulings for some cultural controversy like marriage law in the U.S., class action lawsuits against Quafe for making Federal citizens fat, or news of a market bubble boom or bust. Actual news headlines that don't include the spectacular and dramatic for once.
The problem with this is that if they start covering the mundane, they would be expected to do so often.. otherwise we'd question why we only see certain headlines every once in a while.
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The problem with this is that if they start covering the mundane, they would be expected to do so often.. otherwise we'd question why we only see certain headlines every once in a while.
This seems to be a major point to me. We are hearing of catastrophic events because they are treated as the big ones worth telling. If a wider variety of events happened that included the simple and mundane, it would require a pretty active news system. Not that it can't be done, but it would be a much more intensive system.
That being said, I think they are going to have things swing back in favor of the Fed against the State fairly soon.
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it would require a pretty active news system. Not that it can't be done, but it would be a much more intensive system.
Like in the past before they stopped lore oriented news ?
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I admit it's pretty tiresome having to support and RP a faction that seems incapable of keeping its shit together. It's almost the Satire/Parody faction in EVE, constantly being shown as having irredeemable flaws without looking at any potential strengths. I'm fine with problems being shown, but at least balance it out with what sets it ahead of other factions. So many of us take democracy for granted IRL that we don't realize how it is not subject to the flaws of other systems, for example.
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Add to the above that most players/characters IC are incapable of discussing GalFed politics without going "lolol democracy is so stooopid", and can't distinguish theory/ideal from propaganda. Right. This is the second-largest empire we're talking about here.
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Add to the above that most players/characters IC are incapable of discussing GalFed politics without going "lolol democracy is so stooopid", and can't distinguish theory/ideal from propaganda. Right. This is the second-largest empire we're talking about here.
I think it doesn't help that for the longest time players on both sides assumed it was some grand interstellar democracy and not the federation of various nations, their colonies, and indigenous people. This may be the greatest asset of the recent PF deluge, if played to appropriately.
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I think it doesn't help that for the longest time players on both sides assumed it was some grand interstellar democracy and not the federation of various nations, their colonies, and indigenous people. This may be the greatest asset of the recent PF deluge, if played to appropriately.
Exactly. In fact, pushing that envelope might even make the State look like that one problem child that just couldn't be a team player.
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Add to the above that most players/characters IC are incapable of discussing GalFed politics without going "lolol democracy is so stooopid", and can't distinguish theory/ideal from propaganda. Right. This is the second-largest empire we're talking about here.
I would say that for Caldari and the State at least it makes sense to be undemocratic because it's a deeply nationalist, corporatist and illiberal society. The issue is that it's one thing to throw stones at democracy and liberalism but another to construct the intellectual lines of thought that form its basis.
The politics between the State and Fed is an old one and it's the conflict between the ideologies of nationalism/fascism versus liberalism/democracy.
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I admit it's pretty tiresome having to support and RP a faction that seems incapable of keeping its shit together. It's almost the Satire/Parody faction in EVE, constantly being shown as having irredeemable flaws without looking at any potential strengths. I'm fine with problems being shown, but at least balance it out with what sets it ahead of other factions. So many of us take democracy for granted IRL that we don't realize how it is not subject to the flaws of other systems, for example.
Well, in the novels the Feds were like the nice guys to counterbalance... :psyccp:
And at the contrary, the Amarr were the bad scapegoat slavers but without being the usual victim the Federation is.
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The politics between the State and Fed is an old one and it's the conflict between the ideologies of nationalism/fascism versus liberalism/democracy.
I am not sure that is entirely accurate, but those very ideas are wrapped up in the internal conflict of the Federation itself as well.
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I admit it's pretty tiresome having to support and RP a faction that seems incapable of keeping its shit together. It's almost the Satire/Parody faction in EVE, constantly being shown as having irredeemable flaws without looking at any potential strengths.
Well, the Federation is really the only society any of us would actually want to live in. So maybe to keep with the grimdark dystopia vision of New Eden... maybe the Federation's flaw is that for all it's good intentions, it simply doesn't work.
I guess what I'm saying is that maybe that's the intended idea. Maybe the Federation's grimdark trope is that it's inept?
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Add to the above that most players/characters IC are incapable of discussing GalFed politics without going "lolol democracy is so stooopid", and can't distinguish theory/ideal from propaganda. Right. This is the second-largest empire we're talking about here.
I think it doesn't help that for the longest time players on both sides assumed it was some grand interstellar democracy and not the federation of various nations, their colonies, and indigenous people. This may be the greatest asset of the recent PF deluge, if played to appropriately.
I think it doesn't help that for the longest time players on both sides assumed it was some grand interstellar democracy and not the federation of various nations, their colonies, and indigenous people. This may be the greatest asset of the recent PF deluge, if played to appropriately.
Exactly. In fact, pushing that envelope might even make the State look like that one problem child that just couldn't be a team player.
I like these responses.
Also that might be the 'grimdark trope' versus Amarr slavery, Caldari coldness (esp. to non-Caldari, disenfranchised, disabled), Minmatar amorality (can't do anything worse than slavery). That being Gallente ineptitude. Some might say that means the Federation is 'working as intended'. Eurosceptic countries IRL, for example, would much prefer a weak EU than a strong one.
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I admit it's pretty tiresome having to support and RP a faction that seems incapable of keeping its shit together. It's almost the Satire/Parody faction in EVE, constantly being shown as having irredeemable flaws without looking at any potential strengths.
Well, the Federation is really the only society any of us would actually want to live in. So maybe to keep with the grimdark dystopia vision of New Eden... maybe the Federation's flaw is that for all it's good intentions, it simply doesn't work.
I guess what I'm saying is that maybe that's the intended idea. Maybe the Federation's grimdark trope is that it's inept?
You're really only speaking for yourself there. I know a lot of people who'd be very happy to live in the State, and even a couple who would be happy living in a theocracy like the empire.
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The politics between the State and Fed is an old one and it's the conflict between the ideologies of nationalism/fascism versus liberalism/democracy.
I am not sure that is entirely accurate, but those very ideas are wrapped up in the internal conflict of the Federation itself as well.
It's not entirely accurate because it's a very brief summation that popped into my head :)
What I was referring to is that the corporatism, nationalism, collectivism, authoritarianism, militarism, as well as the cultural and ethnic homogeneity that underpin the fabric of the Caldari State does not integrate well with the libertarian, liberal and democratic ideals of the Federation. They're polar opposites in mindsets (at least in my view) to the extent that they will always remain in conflict to one degree or another.
There's also a reason why my own Caldari characters hold a grudging respect for Gallenteans like Roden and Blaque as well as the SDII and it's because they share certain values in common.
Addendum: Just a note though, I'd probably say I'm a pretty damn liberal and libertarian guy in reality, but Eve to me is a fictional and dystopian sci-fi vision, so I tend not to have any issues divorcing my own politics in order to delve more fully into dark world CCP has created in New Eden.
No, I don't wear jackboots in RL. :lol:
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I'm not confident CCP can write about the GalFed without some sense of irony, satire, or parody.
Go in-game and just read "Edimmu Warfighters" corp desc, and compare the ship descriptions of "Corax" (badass etc) versus "Algos" (gotta be able to retreat!)
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Add to the above that most players/characters IC are incapable of discussing GalFed politics without going "lolol democracy is so stooopid", and can't distinguish theory/ideal from propaganda. Right. This is the second-largest empire we're talking about here.
To be fair, when Tib says that or variations of it, it is an entirely in character sentiment. As far as he is concerned, Democracy is the most idiotic form of government, and he's not shy about voicing that opinion.
I, on the other hand, tend to really like democracies of all shapes and sizes.
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Oh, sure Tib. Actually, one is quite able to discern the OOC democracy hate against the IC ones surprisingly well, it's not difficult. Any mentions of 'campaign donations', for example...you know they're just reflecting OOC vibes there.
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http://community.eveonline.com/news/newsFromEve.asp?of=true&newsTitle=federal-senate-petitions-concord-in-the-wake-of-evaulon-incident (http://community.eveonline.com/news/newsFromEve.asp?of=true&newsTitle=federal-senate-petitions-concord-in-the-wake-of-evaulon-incident)
News report about a Federal petition to CONCORD, with mention of Julianus Soter!
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Add to the above that most players/characters IC are incapable of discussing GalFed politics without going "lolol democracy is so stooopid", and can't distinguish theory/ideal from propaganda. Right. This is the second-largest empire we're talking about here.
To be fair, a good share of players don't rise too far above "lolol [insert political system] is so stooopid" when talking about any of the four empire's political systems, safe maybe the one thy choose to support. If capsuleer 'culture' is indicative of how Gallentean culture looks like, then I expect it to be quite anti-intellectual.
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Oh, sure Tib. Actually, one is quite able to discern the OOC democracy hate against the IC ones surprisingly well, it's not difficult. Any mentions of 'campaign donations', for example...you know they're just reflecting OOC vibes there.
At the same time, part of roleplaying and the setting should allow us to explore our real world discontent as well. Bringing up the importance of campaign financing in the Federation and how Roden won because he had more monetary resources should be an acceptable angle for RP.
I'm not confident CCP can write about the GalFed without some sense of irony, satire, or parody.
Go in-game and just read "Edimmu Warfighters" corp desc, and compare the ship descriptions of "Corax" (badass etc) versus "Algos" (gotta be able to retreat!)
Well, consider the how the Gallente military was shaped over the past 100 to 200 years. The ability to keep the human alive and rely on drones is readily apparent. "Being able to retreat" is another way of saying "values the lives of its soldiers." It doesn't mean it will retreat, but rather that they will not sacrifice themselves unnecessarily.
That discussion in-and-of-itself is an interesting one, the Federation should allow us to explore very modern issues - like Drones in combat - in a way that we could not otherwise. Does the Federation Navy have drone fleets that operate largely on their own in certain areas under minimum human guidance for example? Do these drones carry out orders from afar, ensuring frontier communities are protected/kept in the Federation?
These ripped from the headlines areas of potential RP should allow for interesting play.
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I'm not confident CCP can write about the GalFed without some sense of irony, satire, or parody.
Go in-game and just read "Edimmu Warfighters" corp desc, and compare the ship descriptions of "Corax" (badass etc) versus "Algos" (gotta be able to retreat!)
I noticed that as well... thanks CCP, thank you so much. :roll: :psyccp:
This is effectively the FW rank descriptions all over again. Everyone else get to have their badass creeds and like it, we get to live with several quotes from the darkest period in Federation history, among other things - straight from the mouth of the most hated president in Fed history. THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH. :bash: Whould it have killed them outright to, I dunno, maybe quoting any of the presidents that followed? Perhaps the one that imediately followed Luc Davalier, you know, the female president that hailed from that city the Caldari happen to have carrier-dropped? I'd love to have a line of defiance from her regarding that situation and other following the war's progression, or one from the president before Luc, about the situation beofre the U-Nag's got into power. But no, why should we? We get U-Nat garbage so that we can lord over everyone in FW what the leadership was thinking in the last war. Becasue that will REALLY inspire.
Really, it will. Really.
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It doesn't mean it will retreat, but rather that they will not sacrifice themselves unnecessarily.
That discussion in-and-of-itself is an interesting one, the Federation should allow us to explore very modern issues - like Drones in combat - in a way that we could not otherwise. Does the Federation Navy have drone fleets that operate largely on their own in certain areas under minimum human guidance for example? Do these drones carry out orders from afar, ensuring frontier communities are protected/kept in the Federation?
These ripped from the headlines areas of potential RP should allow for interesting play.
This could be a very interesting topic, in another time and place, ofc.
Small note; as I understood the PF regarding it, 'drone fleets' don't just describe drone-boats, but entierly automated warships operating from afar with little to no Human crew onboard. Supposedly thanks to rather low recruitment numbers the Federation had several of their fleets entierly droned because they needed the force projection to guard the Union, but did not have enough manpower to crew every ship in every fleet needed. And over time, this became a rather limited method - AI-run warships have their limits, after all, and today the majority of the fleets (if not all) are crewed.
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Well, consider the how the Gallente military was shaped over the past 100 to 200 years. The ability to keep the human alive and rely on drones is readily apparent. "Being able to retreat" is another way of saying "values the lives of its soldiers." It doesn't mean it will retreat, but rather that they will not sacrifice themselves unnecessarily.
Interesting you should say that actually. http://www.dust514.com/news/blog/2012/07/dropsuit-dev-blog-part-two/
"Gallente military doctrine places a premium on human life, favoring technological solutions that augment or even entirely replace human combatants in a conflict as part of an on-going effort to minimize loss of life on the battlefield. To this end, Gallente forces have access to some of the most advanced armor systems in the cluster."
This is what I want to hear more of. Stuff we take for granted IRL rationalized in a universe where democracy/liberalism is not the standard. EVE just assumes we know what democracy is about, but what does democracy mean to the Gallenteans? Even if it's a carbon copy of RL definitions, many of us overlook the core tenets of democracy and forget that (again) we take it for granted.
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Well the Federation as a society really can't be portrayed as being "badass" to the same extent as the State or Empire or it would end up having to abandon the pretense of being a liberal democracy. The reason why places like the State or Empire don't put their research dollars into AI Drones is because their societies are constructed in such a way that emphasizes patriotism and religion by glorifying the work of their military. That makes recruitment for their armed forces easy. They just don't have to face the same problems the Federation has with recruitment because overt militarism goes against a lot of fundamental tenets of liberal democracies and there's probably strong social pressure in the Fed to keep their own military in check and weakened unless they really need it.
Of course, there's the solution to put all those Caille hipsters up against the wall. :twisted:
That, and CCP seem to have already branded the Caldari as the cold, ruthless and professional military that is able to fight outgunned and outnumbered against a larger Federation while still being able to inflict high casualties with little losses. Whereas the Federation is only able to save itself due to their AI Drone Fleets and larger industrial and population base. Even when the Federation has a victory they're just never as spectacular or as "against the odds" as the Caldari are and were able to accomplish.
That's the option I suppose, do you want to be able to achieve maximum military efficiency but live in a ruthless, and somewhat repressive corporate State or do you accept military inefficiencies to live in a liberal democratic Federation with all that offers?
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So in short, the Federation can't be portrayed as being a competent military power that don't get pissed or so much and can actually defend their own space, because it's a democracy and those just can't be portrayed as competent?
I am not sure I follow here...
And the part about what CCP has done with how Factions are portrayed and how they fare in battle is just... I never liked it much.
I mean, the Federation has a larger Fleet overall, much of it is droned and has little to no crew, the crewed ships they have, rely more on automatation as well. Against the State who has less ships, practically no automation compared to the Federation, and has a higher number of crew on their ships, by far.
This should give the Federation a great edge - they have far more people than the State overall, so a smaller percentage of their overall numbers crew ships than their State counterparts, even if the crew numbers were equal. They have far more ships, many of those are entierly expendable, their larger industry base let's them replace lost ships faster. Overall technology is comparable between them...
Ofc, being the outnumbered 'rebels' the Caldari get's the "because they are badass" treatment. It could help explain the tendency for the Fed to get done in despite several smart inovations and comparable ability overall - if they start to get competent and highly able, the illusion of State uber-ness becomes diminished, and we can't have that.
...
Bah, I'm not sure where I was going with this and I've no interest in making it any more whiny. I'll clear my head and return to this topic later.
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The federation has also a much larger portion of space to protect and look after.
The caldari on the other hand can committ their entire navy to offensive actions while the corporate security fleets cover their much smaller territory in the meantime.
You're also discounting that the caldari have developed technologies to aleviate the gallentean numerical superiority, e-war spec'd hulls being a prime example here.
It's the same reason why the amarr empire can not destroy the minmatar republic outright without taking significant damage themselves.
The side with smaller numbers will use concentration of force tactics to acchieve local superiority in key systems and destroy enough space and earthbound assets to weaken the larger empire to such an extent that it'd be easy pickings for the diametrically opposed large empire.
This was demonstrated during the brief war before FW started. Both Caldari and Minmatar were able to acchieve their specific goals - but would have been crushed had it not been for CCP to pull a :psyccp: and have CONCORD intervene.
Which is bullshit, because the empires are CONCORD and I am still waiting for a live event during which the amarr get to capture millions of mini's and murder ten times as many in retaliation for the uncalled for agression of the elder+thukker fleet. :bash:
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So in short, the Federation can't be portrayed as being a competent military power that don't get pissed or so much and can actually defend their own space, because it's a democracy and those just can't be portrayed as competent?
No, what I'm saying is that effective, modern, industrial military powers are those who construct their society in such a fashion and whom devote a significant portion of their industry to the sole purpose of fighting wars. This causes a lot of social issues in a democratic and liberal society who might take issue to being drafted or conscripted or question why such government funds and their taxes are going towards the military.
I mean, Roden, Blaque and the SDII are all attempting to gear the Federation to be an effective military power and they're doing it by seeking to expand the Federal military-industries and stifle contrary opinion and disagreement about fighting the war through things like censorship, mass propaganda and control of the media. Would that be said to be a particularly liberal and democratic stance? Probably not, but it's what needs to be done to win the war, right?
The difference with the State is that it's almost always on a war footing. It doesn't face the same sort of budgetary cuts that the Fed military faces during peacetime and the loss of talented, experienced and capable officers to other sectors and the detrimental impact of the loss of institutional knowledge and memory among its organizational, leadership and staff branches that it causes.
The State military arms and in particular its Navy is practically revered among the Caldari due to the role the military played in the history of the State. It isn't an issue for the State military to get recruits and keep them because patriotic duty is a big part of the Caldari mindset and being in the Navy uniform grants a lot of pride, recognition, and respect due to wide support of the military in Caldari society. Its institutional and organizational memory and knowledge has been unbroken for two centuries and it is able to keep a large portion of its talented, competent and intelligent Officer Corps because of that deep tradition of duty and obligation to the State.
Besides, if it's considered that many Caldari consider their position as a small State surrounded on all sides by potential enemies that outnumber them then isn't understandable they would devote a great deal of their national energies in the pursuit of war and frankly, be extremely proficient in its conduct?
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Well the Federation as a society really can't be portrayed as being "badass" to the same extent as the State or Empire or it would end up having to abandon the pretense of being a liberal democracy. The reason why places like the State or Empire don't put their research dollars into AI Drones is because their societies are constructed in such a way that emphasizes patriotism and religion by glorifying the work of their military. That makes recruitment for their armed forces easy. They just don't have to face the same problems the Federation has with recruitment because overt militarism goes against a lot of fundamental tenets of liberal democracies and there's probably strong social pressure in the Fed to keep their own military in check and weakened unless they really need it.
Of course, there's the solution to put all those Caille hipsters up against the wall. :twisted:
That, and CCP seem to have already branded the Caldari as the cold, ruthless and professional military that is able to fight outgunned and outnumbered against a larger Federation while still being able to inflict high casualties with little losses. Whereas the Federation is only able to save itself due to their AI Drone Fleets and larger industrial and population base. Even when the Federation has a victory they're just never as spectacular or as "against the odds" as the Caldari are and were able to accomplish.
That's the option I suppose, do you want to be able to achieve maximum military efficiency but live in a ruthless, and somewhat repressive corporate State or do you accept military inefficiencies to live in a liberal democratic Federation with all that offers?
I don't like that view. It's overtly biased and not my interpretation at all.
And I do not see why a liberal democratic military necessarily have to be unefficient or less efficient. History and cold war has even proved the opposite, actually.
The federation has also a much larger portion of space to protect and look after.
The caldari on the other hand can committ their entire navy to offensive actions while the corporate security fleets cover their much smaller territory in the meantime.
I do not see what is the difference, since a lot of the gallente states have their own security contractors, or private military forces.
And they have megacorporations with quite large armies too, even if less than caldari megas obviously.
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Well, the US is a "liberal democracy" (ignoring temporal politics) with the world's foremost military.
The "hippie" bias towards the Gallente is paradoxical with the fact the US has Jersey Shore and Snooki versus its armed forces.
Even if the Gallente don't have as capable a military as the Caldari (or rather, they do, just in different areas), the FIO is the best intelligence/covert ops force in New Eden for a reason. Perhaps Gesa is right. The GalFed can NOT maintain a superior military because of its liberal democratic values. Nothing is stopping it from maintaining what all PF sources count as the most "badass" intel agency though.
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Whether the US has the world's foremost military is up to debate. The thing Veik is talking about is e.g. what happened to the US with the Vietnam War: Their own citizens protesting against the war and advocating unilateral withdrawl of US troops. South Vietnam had in the end fight for itself when the US military withdrew.
Things like these didn't happen to Stalin and where it might have had happened, the movement was squashed before it could get momentum. Certainly that's been because Stalin had little sympathies for libertarian ideas.
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Whilst everything in fantasy unconsciously mirrors Real Life it's important to remember that New Eden isn't Earth.
The Cold War is a very bad parallel, because it endured so long entirely because of MAD deterrent. New Eden has no such super-weapon that could be used to devastate Luminaire and New Caldari Prime if the proxy Faction War slipped out of control.
In New Eden there is also no equivalent of the technology gap that exists on Earth. The Gallente Federation does not have a forty or fifty year technology gap over the Caldari that would allow them to prosecute unrestricted war against an enemy fighting to control local space. The Matari, despite their handicaps upon the rebellion, almost immediately had a tech base that equalled the Amarrian one, flavour text aside.
Modern Earth is a very bad place to go looking for New Eden inspiration.
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Im rather baffled that everyone thinks the Caldari military would automatically be more efficient.
8 separate megacorps, all with their own paramilitaries, all of them nominally separate, competitive and distrustful of the others, with recognizable factions between them?
That would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Redundant organizations, political and budgetary jockeying, organizational turf wars, megacorps unwilling to share high-end tech with their factional enemies, just off the top of my head.
And Im not sure its a given that the best officer would find his way through the ranks of the Cal Navy. Im sure KK would object if the best new officers happened to be made up of a majority of say Ishukone junior officers. Such things would no doubt matter in the promotion process.
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Militaries often select more for redundancy than efficiency. With 8 Corporate militaries providing local security, each with their own intelligence agency, the State has a lot of overlap. This means that whilst they wind up spending a higher proportion of their resources on any given task, you don't get these embarrasing oversights where something is assumed to be somebody elses responsibility.
One Big Agency is not always the best answer.
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Militaries often select more for redundancy than efficiency. With 8 Corporate militaries providing local security, each with their own intelligence agency, the State has a lot of overlap. This means that whilst they wind up spending a higher proportion of their resources on any given task, you don't get these embarrasing oversights where something is assumed to be somebody elses responsibility.
One Big Agency is not always the best answer.
Im not sure youre seeing the big picture. Its not just that theyre multiple organizations, its that theyre multiple organizations working for different, competing factions and agendas.
You think if SuVee's intelligence organization found a bit of intel that could give it a market advantage against its fellow megacorps, that its automatically going to share it with its fellows? In the books (yeah i know...sigh) Heth actively uses such things as military conscription and order of battle placement to selectively wipe out his political opposition. Likely this isnt the first time this kind of thing has happened. Indeed, the various competitive nature of the Megacorps in general almost demands it.
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I do see your point, Gotti, but you only have to look at the inter-agency rivalries between the CIA, FBI and the DIA... Heck ANY of the alphabet agencies... to see that this happens anyway - unless you have the one big agency, which suffers worse problems due to complexities of scale.
It's even MORE balkanised within the Republic, where many of the Tribes are actively hostile to one another and the very idea of a strong central authority is openly laughed at. The Tribes are openly planning to OFFICIALLY move further from a central authority.
I can't believe the huge morass of individual statelets within the Federation efficiently mesh into the FedNavy either. And everyone born within the Empire owes fealty to a Liege Lord! I can't imagine that any Empire within Eve is free from the problems that you think plague the State.
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And it is worth mentioning that the Demographics article does explicitly say that every Caldari citizen must undergo a basic training period in the military through a conscription method, regardless of corporate responsibilities. And it also says that this is so that a large military force can be mobilized very quickly. So it does seem to point toward the State as putting a high value on a quick and efficient military, especially with executive control of the military surpassing the authority of the megas.
That being said, I'm sure the State would have it's own logistical problems just like any other empire.
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grumble grumble retcons...
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The State does have a centralized military, at least in the form of the Caldari Navy, which, I would assume, would gain operational control over the megacorporate security branches in time of need.
It is without question that there'll be internal conflicts between the big eight although these are mostly fought in the shadows and I would assume that a credible outside threat - such as the current state of war - has a unifying influence. It did so in the past and there is still the same at stake: Economical and political control over territories (viewed from the angle of the corporation as an organisation) as well as the independence of the caldari (viewed from the cultural angle of the people).
This basically means that internal bickering would be bigger in peacetime than in times of war, corroborating the sentiment that the State, as a highly militarized entity, strives more ( or suffers less ) during times of war as Gesakaarin has written earlier.
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Whilst everything in fantasy unconsciously mirrors Real Life it's important to remember that New Eden isn't Earth.
The Cold War is a very bad parallel, because it endured so long entirely because of MAD deterrent. New Eden has no such super-weapon that could be used to devastate Luminaire and New Caldari Prime if the proxy Faction War slipped out of control.
In New Eden there is also no equivalent of the technology gap that exists on Earth. The Gallente Federation does not have a forty or fifty year technology gap over the Caldari that would allow them to prosecute unrestricted war against an enemy fighting to control local space. The Matari, despite their handicaps upon the rebellion, almost immediately had a tech base that equalled the Amarrian one, flavour text aside.
Modern Earth is a very bad place to go looking for New Eden inspiration.
You misunderstand me.
It's a bad place to go looking for inspiration.
It is, however, a good place to check your facts and see what's realistic or not. Or at least, it can give a good measure of it, since as you may have noticed, all of New Eden and all the news related events are directly inspired from Earth.
Also, I beg to disagree but the PF arsenal is plenty sufficient to wipe out an entire planet surface (cf Starkmanir Prime). MAD is definitly a reality here either, but yes, mitigated by the fact that humanity is spreaded across many planets instead of only one.
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I do see your point, Gotti, but you only have to look at the inter-agency rivalries between the CIA, FBI and the DIA... Heck ANY of the alphabet agencies... to see that this happens anyway - unless you have the one big agency, which suffers worse problems due to complexities of scale.
It's even MORE balkanised within the Republic, where many of the Tribes are actively hostile to one another and the very idea of a strong central authority is openly laughed at. The Tribes are openly planning to OFFICIALLY move further from a central authority.
I can't believe the huge morass of individual statelets within the Federation efficiently mesh into the FedNavy either. And everyone born within the Empire owes fealty to a Liege Lord! I can't imagine that any Empire within Eve is free from the problems that you think plague the State.
Now I don't understand. You tell me in your previous post that IRL parallels are bad, and you do one of them yourself with intel agencies.
Well, all your intel agencies here all work for the same State, which is not the case in the Caldari State. And yes, each megacorp is a competiting state in itself, totally unlike the states of the USA.
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And it is worth mentioning that the Demographics article does explicitly say that every Caldari citizen must undergo a basic training period in the military through a conscription method, regardless of corporate responsibilities. And it also says that this is so that a large military force can be mobilized very quickly. So it does seem to point toward the State as putting a high value on a quick and efficient military, especially with executive control of the military surpassing the authority of the megas.
That being said, I'm sure the State would have it's own logistical problems just like any other empire.
I am not sure that someone said that the State military efficiency is bad or not their strong point / selling point.
Edit : sorry for the multiple posts, I should not have posted from work.
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I do see your point, Gotti, but you only have to look at the inter-agency rivalries between the CIA, FBI and the DIA... Heck ANY of the alphabet agencies... to see that this happens anyway - unless you have the one big agency, which suffers worse problems due to complexities of scale.
It's even MORE balkanised within the Republic, where many of the Tribes are actively hostile to one another and the very idea of a strong central authority is openly laughed at. The Tribes are openly planning to OFFICIALLY move further from a central authority.
I can't believe the huge morass of individual statelets within the Federation efficiently mesh into the FedNavy either. And everyone born within the Empire owes fealty to a Liege Lord! I can't imagine that any Empire within Eve is free from the problems that you think plague the State.
Now I don't understand. You tell me in your previous post that IRL parallels are bad, and you do one of them yourself with intel agencies.
Well, all your intel agencies here all work for the same State, which is not the case in the Caldari State. And yes, each megacorp is a competiting state in itself, totally unlike the states of the USA.
Ugh. Yes, I quite see your confusion, let me be a bit more clear. Directly comparing the Cold War here during the 50's to the late 90's with the Gallente Caldari Cold War when there are so many dissimilarities is a bad idea.
Using our world as a yard stick for human nature and reality is unavoidable - otherwise we couldn't fairly say that we even know why the sun comes up and sets on Pator and whether a fruit you drop whilst stood on Gallentia will hit the ground because of gravity.
Expanding on your point regarding the comparisons between US Alphabet agencies and the Corporate Intelligence gathering agencies, I would say that if you feel there are too many dissimilarities, then compare the way that the CIA, MI6 and Mossad work, in that case. Different States, mostly aligned aims, differing methods and protocols and occaisionally tangential objectives.
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Whether the US has the world's foremost military is up to debate. The thing Veik is talking about is e.g. what happened to the US with the Vietnam War: Their own citizens protesting against the war and advocating unilateral withdrawl of US troops. South Vietnam had in the end fight for itself when the US military withdrew.
Things like these didn't happen to Stalin and where it might have had happened, the movement was squashed before it could get momentum. Certainly that's been because Stalin had little sympathies for libertarian ideas.
Actually, let me correct that slightly: "Certainly that's because Stalin hat little sypathies for ideas that he did not agree with." I think we can say with quite some certainty that Stalin had little sympathies for all kinds of ideas with little regard to their political background. I'll refrain from delving any deeper, but Stalin (and for that matter Lenin also) had little qualms about casting aside the theoretical purity of the communist ideology when it served his personal goals.