All right. I've got a few minutes before bed.
On Language:
I always felt like the Cartel probably didn't have it's own language, but that there were very likely one or more patois or pidgin type languages. Probably a whole mess of them. I would tend to think that some specific phrases or slang terms might creep into most Cartel members' normal usage too.
Entirely possible. Then again, the Cartel is an interstellar quasi-civilization spanning a good many systems. I agree with your analysis overall, but there's always the possibility of surviving islands of old culture that haven't been quashed-- and with some old languages surviving with them.
Oh, certainly. I would also extend what I said and say that in some number of years or decades, a very common mixed language might emerge that might be called the Cartel's own.
On Organization:
I wonder if rather than military dictatorship, warlords might not be closer to the 'middle level' structure of the Cartel. I would think that at the top, there is probably a lot of vicious, likely often bloody political maneuvering, but I'm not sure to what degree the Dominations would feel the need to show a united front to the rest of the organization outside that.
This one, I'd have to differ with: without a strong central leadership, the Cartel would be even more apt to fracture than it already is. You wouldn't have "The Cartel," but a lot of little warring cartels-- the last snake in the barrel birthing, or even just collapsing into, a writhing pile of baby snakes.
I think there is likely a strong central leadership, though I think there is probably internal stuff which probably does run bloody sometimes. They would just be careful to show a united front to everyone else.
I think that more than a central leadership - although that is an important component - external pressure keeps the Cartel together. They are as large as they can be, so that CONCORD, or Sansha, or The Republic, or... don't destroy them. Fracturing would make the survivors easy pickings.
An analogue might be Mexican drug cartels. They are as large as they are not only because some few individuals made them that way, but because smaller groups have been destroyed or absorbed. They fight among themselves and against the national government. That external pressure - along with their central authorities - keeps them together and defines their limits.
There is a fairly clear chain of command, but that isn't the same as tight organization. Having a hierarchy isn't the same as having a
plan.
In the lower echelons, I do really like the idea that the Cartel works through proxies and associates at the ground level. I think, though, that given how widely the Cartel recruits, they probably could find people to stick in place pretty much anywhere in the cluster without being recognized. Even more-so in the very busy places where they might want a more direct presence - trade hubs and the like.
I was thinking mostly of the risks inherent in putting a Curse native into someplace like the Empire, or, worse, the State (but also, to a lesser degree, the more "open" empires). Without some pretty extensive training, you'd run the risk of inadvertently reenacting that scene from Star Trek IV where Chekhov is asking "where the nuclear wessels are kept."
Using empire natives as lower-level agents would probably be the simplest, easiest course, even if you end up shuffling them from one empire to another: at worst, a Caldari expatriate in Matari space looks like a Caldari, not an Angel.
How many in the Cartel are natives to Curse to such a degree that they couldn't blend in other places, and how many are recruited from the Empires?
I never saw the Angels as a cartel run by people native to Curse. I always saw them as an organization that had drawn it's people at pretty much every level from far and wide.
True, it's old enough that there might have been a few generations born in Curse now, but is there a special accent? Some other defining feature that separates them enough that they would stand out so blatantly?
There well might be for some, but my suspicion would be that there are enough people in the organization - even 2nd, 3rd generation, that could pass in the Empires that it might not be much of a problem for the Cartel as a whole.
I mean, it is a vast organization that recruits all over the cluster for roles directly with the Cartel. Locals are probably fine when you want to shift risk for selling drugs or running illegal gambling or whatever, but it is likely to be situational. Big cluster, etc. There are places where you would want your own people, and there would also likely be Cartel people eager to try and run things themselves to prove themselves, and get their starts up the ladder.
Well, naturally. I suspect the ones eager to prove themselves get shuffled towards the Archangels or low-level administrative work, though; when it comes to espionage or drug shipment, over-eager hot shots would be a bad element to add to the mix.
On Beliefs:
I touched on the made up religion I came up with earlier, but I suspect that religiously the Cartel has a wild spectrum of stuff going on. It's a big organization, people from all over, basically the points from earlier.
*nodnod*
As far as philosophy, a couple of thoughts:
As far as morals etc: I think it depends on who you are talking about. The person born in Curse, for whom there was never anything wrong with any of what they do? The person recruited or captured when they were still a teenager or younger, whose ideas were still in the midst of being formed, and there easily molded to the Cartel's culture? Or the person who is an adult, probably already with some degree of power, who decided to join or work with the cartel, and whose framework for right and wrong might have fit the Cartel's all along, and now they have happily found eachother?
Well, naturally. If everybody's the same to begin with, what's the point of enforcing tight discipline?
Of course, all of those are subject to a 'to one degree or another'. People can have doubts, or conversely, take it too far. Backstabbing of a kind might be rewarded, but I think even for the Cartel there might be (various) culturally acceptable ways of doing it.
My guess would be that there are two. Either:
1. Don't get caught
or
2. Pull it off in such a spectacular manner that you instantly establish your credentials as a brilliant, ruthless son of a bitch who can walk into the harsh light of scrutiny and likely discipline with a wicked grin.
The first is less demanding. The latter is a quick way to either leap up the ladder or face merciless retribution, depending on your performance.
I think #2 would be walking a fine line: Who you pissed off, exactly what you did, etc. Spectacular is all well and good, but if it is, for example, at the expense of someone much further up the ladder than you, and you don't eliminate them,
and anyone they might have been allied with, or who might now feel threatened by you, you are potentially in it up to your neck.
I can't see such a large organization having tendencies that would encourage bold, blatant moves against higher ranking members. Part of the point of being higher up the ladder is securing yourself against that sort of thing. Not to say it doesn't happen, it just seems to me that a bold move against someone outside the Cartel would be a more likely route to quick advancement with less chance of it backfiring. Take territory from someone. Find and execute a CONCORD informant. Those kind of things.
In fact, I think for the Cartel, there might be a sort of enforced 'cult of loyalty', like you see in a lot of organized crime now and in the recent past. Not like they are so virtuous that they wouldn't think about betrayal, ofc. But for instance if you are going to throw your superior to CONCORD in order to advance, you best make sure noone finds out you're a rat. If you have someone killed, make sure that you have a good pretext, or that it can't be traced. That kind of thing.
Retribution wouldn't be so much about outrage, or based in love for the injured party, but it would be based around the fact you were incompetent enough to get caught, not to mention the threat you pose if you are known to use those tactics.
I'd agree-- that's sort of what I was getting at with my "basic precepts you teach to any street punk you want to use."
One thing, though: retribution for a breach of a loyalty cult is absolutely about outrage, at least in the lower echelons. If you broke faith, if you ratted on your friends, you broke the rules, you broke your word, you broke trust. You did all of that in a context where trust in one's compatriots is about the only thing that allows such criminals to work together, thus rendering you not only utterly unreliable but also a treacherous snake.
The bullet you'd get in your head (possibly after several long, unpleasant hours) would be both a practical and a moral judgment.
I think that, ofc, in the lower echelons it would be a *belief* rather than a rational 'this is what's good for the organization, us doing it this way'. However, I think whether it is a belief or not isn't the important thing. People who believe it would be equipped to operate in the Cartel, and peopel who don't believe it, but understand what it's for would be equipped to work in the Cartel. People who don't believe it, and don't either understand it or act like they believed it would be in trouble.
Author
Topic: Cartel Culture: Epic Brainstorming Session (Read 18327 times)