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[Ghost Hunter]

Throwing this out there as a comparison to look at maybe, on the topic of rights for Artificial Intelligences.

Given the incident between the Gallente and what spawned the Rogue Drones, a parallel to mass effect is drawable. Quarians and Geth, respectively.

The Gallenteans try to improve their automated laborers, inadvertently give them some type of sentient or self-evolving thinking, said laborers rebel and fuck off.

The Federation may be highly anti-AI based on that experience, and programs defined by strict limitations may be the only kind allowed in Federation space. I cannot think of much to indicate a counter point, except the presence of things like AIMEDs, which may be quite limited in thinking.

[Chowda]

Throwing this out there as a comparison to look at maybe, on the topic of rights for Artificial Intelligences.

Given the incident between the Gallente and what spawned the Rogue Drones, a parallel to mass effect is drawable. Quarians and Geth, respectively.

The Gallenteans try to improve their automated laborers, inadvertently give them some type of sentient or self-evolving thinking, said laborers rebel and fuck off.

The Federation may be highly anti-AI based on that experience, and programs defined by strict limitations may be the only kind allowed in Federation space. I cannot think of much to indicate a counter point, except the presence of things like AIMEDs, which may be quite limited in thinking.

That's how the setting for the original Dune universe went down, banning outright all "thinking machines".  Well done.

I think this is where the Federal-Populists would come into play, maybe being a central issue to them.  The constant struggle between the "common worker" and corporations pushing the ethical boundaries and developing their replacements.

[Casiella]

...now I want to play a Gallente mentat.

[Ken]

I want to play a Gallente mentat.

That sounds like a musical instrument.

[spoiler]How about a Gallente mentat who communicates only through song!  [/spoiler]

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

It's good time to share opinions on this topic. I'm disagreeing with some of you but feel free to pour cold water on me.

The god-modding issue that Julianus has bought up is something that made me also worried a while ago. From the eve wiki: "The two largest parties are the Progressive Party and the Sociocrat Party, but there are numerous others across the broad sweep of the Federation." To me this sounds like a hint to players to form their own corporations but of course it is possible to interpret it as a promise by the fiction writers to come up with a complete list of the Federal political groups at some point in the future. Whatever the case, I personally have chosen to view the player political parties as some kind of self-acclaimed support groups in the best tradition of New Eden loyalism.

The topics proposed for New Eden-specific discussions are interesting, but somehow I find it difficult to see a major confrontation building around many of these issues. Most people don't care about subtle questions. Many of the topics also refer to facts which are poorly known among the players but would be quite useful in an in-depth discussion between characters. I hope that the EVE fiction writers find this list and start filling the gaps.

In real life, and also in the chronicles and news items, the politics seems to be always rotating around economics and war, and I find it difficult to see how this could ever change, even in 30000 years. EVE is a special game because both the economy and warfare have their consequences, with a good flavour of realism in many ways. Players are building stuff, trading with it and the markets react in perfect agreement with the economic theory. The systems are changing ownership, corporations are calling men in arms and loosing major investments. In my opinion the game politics should use these tools as an inspiration.

I have envisioned the divisions between the parties to be something like militaristic vs. non-militaristic and economic freedom vs. economic control, following the trade and wars theme. There are social reasons why the major parties have to be close to the majority opinion, and I don't see why this should be different in New Eden than in real life.

From this background, with regard to militarism, I tend to think that the two major parties would probably not be excessively militaristic, but it's hard to guess where the unionists might stand in this respect.

The party descriptions are quite clear that the two largest parties have very different opinions on the level of proper control over the economy, but I think the writers have tried to avoid portraying it as a good vs. evil battle. Following the principle that everyone has potential to be an antagonist, it might be plausible that Quafe and others would use the sociocrats to create laws which suppress competition, and the progressors to minimize government intervention in their business practices.

The U-Nats and Unionists seem like movements centred around their pet issues, "death to Caldari" and "the Matari, one third of the population, is not officially recognized and are severely underrepresented in governance, high-paying professions etc." They would probably choose their talking points to best advance their goals.

I agree that it's an important question, how close to the real life equivalents the Federal politics can be taken. In my opinion the usual conservative/liberal or left/right divisions are not necessary. In the economic sense the sociocratism/progressivism division should deliver the message, and in terms of values the Gallenteans seem to be fairly united, and the big gap lies between them and the other races.

The Amarr players probably have more expertise on how to handle a contentious issue in the game world, but from the outside it seems that the best way to go is to take it over the top. Religion is one of the no-go topics in many places, but in New Eden quite a few of the believers seem to be extremely flamboyant scripture tome wielders, which I can imagine is a very attractive position to play.

[Chowda]

Good stuff, Ammentio.  Here's where I would respectfully disagree:

* The two largest parties likely got where they are by including some social issue groups under their tent.  They probably play lip service to them while maintaining their distance. 

* I wouldn't say social issues do not drive a wedge between Gallenteans.  There has to be hot topic issues, we just don't know about due to the way most of the PF is doled out to us.  Are there issues like assisted suicide, abortion, etc... ?  I would imagine, by why the heck go there?  The scifi setting nicely allows cooler social issues like rogue drones, ai treatment, cloning for industrial benfit, etc...  I'd much rather sit and think about how the various parties, described in familiar western world ways, stand on issues like that.

 

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

* The two largest parties likely got where they are by including some social issue groups under their tent. They probably play lip service to them while maintaining their distance. 

I agree, social issues are important and the parties are likely to have some spread in their approach to handle them. Probably there's no lack of game mechanics and pieces of backstory which can be viewed from this angle.

* I wouldn't say social issues do not drive a wedge between Gallenteans. There has to be hot topic issues, we just don't know about due to the way most of the PF is doled out to us.  Are there issues like assisted suicide, abortion, etc... ?  I would imagine, by why the heck go there?  The scifi setting nicely allows cooler social issues like rogue drones, ai treatment, cloning for industrial benfit, etc...  I'd much rather sit and think about how the various parties, described in familiar western world ways, stand on issues like that.  

It feels fairly plausible that stem cells, abortion and many of the ethical puzzles which are debated nowadays would quite likely be non-issues in the Gallente Federation. What has been proposed would totally fly in this setting much better.

I still maintain that in questions which do not violate the bottom line, it might actually be preferable for the largest parties to go with very vague and similar standpoints, to avoid alienating the voters. On the other hand, just a narrow range of talking points gets easily tiresome, and for instance near the elections there might be an opposing need to agitate the people emotionally. I don't think there's a real disagreement here either and clearly this can be taken to a number of directions.

[Chowda]

I wound up on the Mentas Blaque Evelopedia page and it was the bio from 2004 in the present tense.  So, I did my best to make a quality page:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/wikiEN/index.php?title=Mentas_Blaque&stable=0

That guy is quite the bastard.  Critiques are appreciate, BTW.

Anyway, as I was going through the articles, there's scant mention of parties.  I'm guessing because the CCP writers just didn't want to get bogged down.  I'll go out on a limb and say the national parties have offices everywhere, but their reach is limited when there isn't an election going on.  When there is, they have the expertise and manpower to organize the masses.  That would jive with the lack of mention in articles where they would in the real world equivalent.

Looking through Evelopedia, I now want to make a Gallent Senate page.  Not the npc corp, the actual Senate.  I found the number of voting districts, which is 528.  Does that make sense for the number of senators?  I think it does with Federation voters numbering in the trillions.  If anyone has any knowledge or ideas in regards to Senate makeup, procedures, etc... I'd love to hear it.

[Ken]

Chowda, you and Seriphyn should collaborate on that.  He did write the book on it... 

[Chowda]

Chowda, you and Seriphyn should collaborate on that.  He did write the book on it...  

I forgot to go look at that.  I'll have to ask him about some of the references on the Senate if its to be an Evewiki page, but it looks pretty darn close to what I would have thought.  Great stuff.

EDIT:  Found the Chronicles on it.  And I also read the part on how its all PF.

[Chowda]

I've been thinking about this for awhile.  Here's what I think the Unionists are:

* There is a sizable amount of Minmatar immigrants/refugees in the Federation.  They aren't known for participating in the government, or the system by and large, except for joining the military.

* With the Federal government's tradition of laissez-faire, it is entirely possible and plausible they have set up societies and subcultures outside of the normal Federation economy.  Being surrounded by other Minmatar, but on safe planets with abundant resources, they revert back to their tribal ways at a higher standard of living than in the Republic.  Large portions of them ignore census counts to be left alone.  This would explain their lack of political representation.

* Some local parliaments ignore the situation, some lobby the Senate to force their taxation.  And some other politicians simply dislike them.

* The National Unionist Party could be one of a few things.  Here's some possibilities:

• The subculture thrives on the planetary level, but some want to trade with such people on other planets.  The purpose of the party is to pass legislation allowing special dispensation for trade between tribal communities without Federation tax levies.  The "union" would be the special economic zone they want to create.  Of course, every other major political party is against this.
• The community has grown by leaps and bounds, creating a system that takes care of everyone, with the successful giving up most of their profits to take care of the unsuccessful.  The Unionist Party wants to bring this "miracle system" to the Federation at large.
• The party could be there just to protect their culture from the evils of racist politicians, greedy corporations, and nosey bureaucrats
• Contrary to all I have just said, the party could aim to integrate Minmatar into Gallente culture.  Maybe very similar to the Sociocrats without all that Gallantean supremacy.  They would be in favor of affirmative action and quotas in government and the corporate world.  The "union" would indicate their desire to finally assimilate with the Federation.

 

[Chowda]

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say the voting blocs in YC110 were a direct result of the confusion after the outbreak of law and the subsequent loss of control of contested systems a year or so later.  The political parties were likely at their height (along with Senatorial power) until Foiritan was elected and pretty much went to political war to gain power for the executive branch. 

Since Foiritan move away from his party, they tried to subvert him, but it only served to shoot the Progressors in the feet when he fell, as the public still associated them with him.  Blaque has very nationalistic and Gallente supremacy views which likely alienated the Sociocrats from the very people their policies were aimed to help.

Now that the outsider Roden is in office and the warzone is relatively stable, the parties are rebuilding their power and image, trying to get back to the ideals they held until everything went crazy. 

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

Here's what I think the Unionists are: ...

This is an excellent idea and would add to some depth to the Unionist movement. Because there is a Sociocrat party, it has indeed been slightly unclear why would anyone need the Unionists? It's quite plausible that one big reason for the poor success of the latter is the resistance by the other parties. Progressives and Nationalists are clearly not very compatible with them, and Sociocrats probably don't give extremely high value to competition, especially when it's costing them voters.

It's also curious what is the relationship of Sociocrats to immigrant employment issues? I could imagine that their main voter base comes from the recognized four big races of the Federation, but do they even pretend to represent the Matari labourers? Are they focused on the Intaki "minority," or have they been infiltrated by some anti-government operatives? Is there tension between the Matari immigrants and the average voters of the Sociocrats?

In some parts of the world the tribal system with clans, local kings, blood rituals, shamans and messengers coexist with "democracy" and to get things done, the government officials actually have to negotiate with the clan leadership. There is some amount of friction between the modern and old ways and the success of public projects depends on the approval of the local pacesetters. The Jin-Mei backstory and the actions of the Intaki Assembly show that it can happen in the Federation. And to have new immigrants joining the existing networks and kind of drift away from the average lifestyle would also be quite plausible.

I'm personally a bit apprehensive about giving an explicit meaning to the Union, because if the GM's ever decide to start writing more PF, which I hope they'll do, it might cause some inconvenient conflicts with their ideas. Originally the writers have probably just simply been thinking something like worker unions. Nevertheless, promoting benefits and seeking to establish tribal systems to some selected parts of the Federation sounds wonderful and I guess using "Union," "Communion," "Cohesion" or whatever to describe these endeavours is right on the button.

The suggestion that the Unionists would use subsidies and tax penalties as tools also makes sense, because by being methodologically close to Sociocrats they can better compete over the same voters.

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say the voting blocs in YC110 were a direct result of the confusion after the outbreak of law and the subsequent loss of control of contested systems a year or so later.  The political parties were likely at their height (along with Senatorial power) until Foiritan was elected and pretty much went to political war to gain power for the executive branch.

I see the voter blocs as index groups or stereotypes, created by the media to describe certain kind of behaviours. The classification makes many references to war but I guess the same people might extend their voting patterns to other issues without much hesitation.

Since Foiritan move away from his party, they tried to subvert him, but it only served to shoot the Progressors in the feet when he fell, as the public still associated them with him.

In my opinion Foiritan's story is a very shrewdly and carefully planned political manoeuvre, extending over a number of years, and still continuing (OOC, IC I don't know enough to see it that way). I find it hard to see, why the directorate of the progressors would be against him, except in public of course. It's possible of course that even they don't know all the details. The average voters would probably see Foiritan as a villain, but that's exactly how he wanted it to be. I can't see that he would have really shot himself in the feet even once.

Blaque has very nationalistic and Gallente supremacy views which likely alienated the Sociocrats from the very people their policies were aimed to help.

True, and he is also power hungry and totalitarian. I'm believing IC and OOC that the criticisms of Julian Hevard towards Blaque are quite accurate.

Now that the outsider Roden is in office and the warzone is relatively stable, the parties are rebuilding their power and image, trying to get back to the ideals they held until everything went crazy.

Yeah, Roden is like someone who can unify the Federation. I think Foiritan put him in power because Roden is an outsider and both Progressives and Nationalists can rely on his policies. The support of the Sociocrats was bought by letting them have the Directorship of FIO and the Senate at the same time. Only the Unionist party was left out of the arrangement, but they are a minor player in the politics anyways.

[Akrasjel Lanate]

Looking through Evelopedia, I now want to make a Gallent Senate page.  Not the npc corp, the actual Senate.  I found the number of voting districts, which is 528.  Does that make sense for the number of senators?  I think it does with Federation voters numbering in the trillions.  If anyone has any knowledge or ideas in regards to Senate makeup, procedures, etc... I'd love to hear it.

Federation Goverment

And :

The Federal Senate holds 881 members, with elections held every 5 years.