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Coalition of Independent Sirius Feedback - Printable Version

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Coalition of Independent Sirius Feedback - CIS - 11-01-2023

[Image: Cis_1.png]

This thread will serve as a feedback for the Coalition of Independent Sirius
Constructive criticism is accepted and we look forward for the feedback.


RE: Coalition of Independent Sirius Feedback - LunaticOnTheGrass - 11-02-2023

Disclaimer: All of my feedback is from the POV of only having read the CIS writeup/comms posts, as well as using the Coalition Gov's Legal writeups and my own Terminally Online knowledge of Political Theory as cross-references.


Name: CIS, Coalition of Independent Systems. I'm not a big fan of the name.

Aside from sounding uncomfortably close to another prominent " - of Independent Systems" political entity in a certain other prominent Space Series, there are other aspects to it that I'll elaborate upon; that leave the name as sort of a preamble to an idea that doesn't quite know what it wants to be.


Political Fluff: Nothing in the writeup is particularly offensive or anything of the sort, and if the underlying goal of the faction is to have fun logging caps and snubs in a solidly powerful ID with near-global ZoI, Coalition is definitely one of the better ones to base this concept in.

For me specifically, I have to deconstruct all the political minutae of whatever setting I'm in, so I'll begin with the iRP mission statement on your infopage, near the bottom:

CIS Wrote:The CIS is an autonomous alliance formed by like-minded individuals within the Coalition who share a belief that isolation would lead to the Coalition's downfall. In response, they have chosen to extend their reach and work towards overthrowing corrupt governments, enabling self-governance by the people.

Compare this to the well-written though possibly outdated Coalition Political System's post from its State Duma, specifically the first two sentences:

State Duma Wrote:The Sirius Coalition is a federal socialist republic, under the control of the Communist Party of the Coalition. No other parties are permitted to operate in the Coalition.

The crux here is that Marxist-Leninist or "Communist Party States" (such as the ones that the Coalition attempts to imitate the real-life examples of to the point of parody), don't tend to look kindly upon any kind of deviation from enshrined policy. From the writeup as-is, this is already a problem, because existence of "autonomous alliances" or groups of any kind would be anathema to the core of Marxism-Leninism ideologically--At least in the grand scheme.

And that's me talking about groups existing autonomously outside the Coalition. For there to be an autonomous group WITHIN the Coalition is something that the ideology it's based off of would have handed out summary executions over, and did.


Admittedly this is in part a problem with the Coalition's government being possibly a little out-of-date with how the rules/norms of Discovery have changed; the ideology was set in stone back when Officials could more directly influence Unofficials into toeing the "Party Line" or equivalent, and dissuaded there from being too much separatism in goals/ideologies among factions sharing the same ID. I think the relaxation of this former regulation is in many cases good, but distinctly bad for the Coalition because any "anomaly" faction (such as the CIS) raises a lot of questions about the efficacy of its government. Questions like:

Questions Wrote:"Is the USSRCoalition losing its formerly ironclad grip on its population and the "autonomous" CIS exists as a sign and/or symptom of this?"

"Does the CIS exist as an armed wing of COALINTERN or some other branch of the Party Apparatus?"

"What 'Cabinet' does the CIS refer to in its ranking system? Is it within the already-established (and as aforementioned, single-party) State Duma, or its own attempted separatist government within the single-party state?"


Now mind you, while some of the de-regulation of the SCRA's former monopoly on the Coalition ID is (in my eyes) responsible for these questions, I do feel that there are a number of them that go back to my opinion that the CIS doesn't seem to know what it specifically stands for.
  • The CIS has a militarized ranking/hierarchy system more in-line with SCRA/Military faction standards, which is somewhat at-odds with, again, the "self-governance" standpoint it claims.
  • The second iRP goals paragraph -
    CIS Wrote:Their primary objective is to secure Omega-48, a critical step in establishing full control over the Omega systems. Their ultimate vision is to create a house-like environment within the Omega systems, complete with an independent police force, where governance is decentralized, and the people are empowered to rule themselves.
    - just doesn't make sense, especially with the questions about the CIS' place in the Coalition itself unanswered. One-Party States don't tolerate independence of any kind, as many real-life examples can attest to. The same can be said for the notion of "decentralized governance"; a certain Makhnovshschina (which is also, confusingly, a name the CIS has appropriated in CIS|Makhnovshchyna) tried that, and was quashed by its former allies.
  • The mission statement also doesn't seem to be universally adhered to, though admittedly this post is a month old and the ideas might have still been in draft.


I apologize if the tone of my critique veered too much into a lecture and there's nothing wrong with wanting to shoot the Coalition bloc's many enemies and using their unique advantages; but if it were up to me personally, I would consider one of the following:
  • Faction Rewrite to better fit the Coalition's Political background, eschewing some of the attempted "anti-authoritarianism" in the process
  • Faction Rewrite to better fit the "anti-authoritarianism", eschewing the Coalition ID, tech, and Caps (not necessarily background; maybe they're survivors/exiles from an attempt at political change?)

There's also the possibility that the Coalition Government "democratizes" to change with the times and allow (some?) dissenting opinions in its political system; I know the recent rollcall ironically had a vibe of reform.

Obviously most players aren't going to dissect a faction's politics like this and it may be less of an actual "issue" than I make it out to be, but if you would like to go back to the drawing board, I'd be more than willing to offer more feedback and advice.

RE: Coalition of Independent Sirius Feedback - Sally - 11-02-2023

(11-02-2023, 04:55 AM)LunaticOnTheGrass Wrote: Words, words, words, social science, philosophy, words.

Couldn't agree more, the writing of this faction seemed always off-putting from both the writeup and the encounters ingame, both suggesting somehow that the Coalition has multiple parties and that CIS was under command of one that tried to change the status quo (suggesting even, that in-fighting and political struggle was a thing).

I think that what these shenanigans do ingame is nice and I have no qualms against it, but the writing is not meaningful, then again, the Coalition write-up as a whole, with the Hispania spies forming the Coalition and having mostly an eastern population that never existed in Freelancer is equally bad.

That being said, I think that the state-capitalism with huge Marxist-Leninist coating fits well as a satire of the East and Middle East (much like the Houses are an exaggerated satire of the West), if something is worth keeping is this background.

You guys should perhaps try to change the approach, and the focus, one idea could be to portray CIS as a battlegroup or intel-focused split that has gained certain level of autonomy and seeks to improve relations and diplomacy (talk about public relations) with local factions by assisting them to gather their trust and expect to influence them long-term with the true plans the Coalition has, which is Sirius-wide assimilation a la Trotsky but not really. That's just one of the possible approaches, though.

RE: Coalition of Independent Sirius Feedback - Groshyr - 11-02-2023

(11-02-2023, 01:46 PM)Sally Wrote: I think that what these shenanigans do ingame is nice and I have no qualms against it, but the writing is not meaningful, then again, the Coalition write-up as a whole, with the Hispania spies forming the Coalition and having mostly an eastern population that never existed in Freelancer is equally bad.

Nobody ever stated that those are exactly real eastern pops and not some of the Alliance descendants that joined the Sirius Coalition and took names from the Sol Coalition,