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[Tiberious Thessalonia]

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.

[Seriphyn]

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.

[Aldrith Shutaq]

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!

[Nicoletta Mithra]

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.

[orange]

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.

[BloodBird]

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.

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. 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.

[BloodBird]

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.

[Seriphyn]

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.

[Gesakaarin]

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. 

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?

[BloodBird]

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.

[Laerise [PIE]]

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  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. 

[Gesakaarin]

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?

[Lyn Farel]

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. 

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.

[Seriphyn]

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.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

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.