Thats why we have a dictatorship.
The People are Dictators. And the government are oppressed things.
And THATS a Real Democracy.
Tiberius Walker, putting flames out and being awesome since Apr 13 2008 ™
[8/17/2008 5:56:46 PM] Aaron (Boss/Jurgen) says: Can't bring myself to say it... Looks like you get the LABC, I've seen what you can do in one
Walker (Albert Wint): I can has win? --- Epyon the Bored: You can haz win. --- [1:18:00 PM] Chris (Niezck) says: I love you <3
[5:55:53 PM] Raisu says: Walker pwned both Battleships(LNS-Texas LNS-Arizona) - [5:55:57 PM] Raisu says: in a cruiser Tiberius Walker, spreading mayhem, destruction, and Spamming Flood since Oct 22 2008 ™
[9:08:25 AM] Gurjiv (Frozen) says: I hope someone gives you AIDs.
[7:15:17 PM] Dylan (Ximen) says: Walker... you have no idea how much fail you bring into this world...
[8:05:08 AM] Ross (SevereTrinity) says: Screw you for making me install FL again
[10:51IE AM] Epyon the Bored says: My god if I ever meet you I am going to strangle you. Tiberius Walker, being better then you since April 30, 2009 â¢
We will remember - We do not Forget - We do not Forgive
[quote name='Hyung Soong' date='Jul 30 2008, 03:12 PM' post='317058'
Real life democracy is a farce. There's always a select group in control.
[/quote]
That goes for any and every government at any time in history. Government systems are like economic models, they are all flawed in some way. All humans are at times ignorant and illogical, as long as we are in control anything we do as a group will incorporate that ignorance. We can only strive and work to be better as individuals. The only way a perfect government system will arise is if all the humans involved in it's creation and perpetuation are perfect. As such the odds of a perfect government system arising and lasting are about equal to the odds of winning the lottery....every week.
Edit: In addition, we should all be aware of that. As such making negative statements about a government model is a bit pointless. It is akin to a person with no arms making fun of a person with no legs for not having legs and then the person with no legs makes fun of the person with no arms for not having arms.
Well, in a setting like Freelancer things will always work alot differently than they do in the real world.
Yes, you have a president. You probably have a Senate aswell, which consists of various representatives from each planet within Liberty space.
.. But, it's not like the real world. Even in the real world a president does not govern the 'entire' world, but instead only a chunk of it. Even then, you have various factions like the United Nations who really control things (on the whole, anyway; they've more power than any single president in many aspects). When it comes to space though, it's just too large a task for politicians, so alot of things are completely militarized. It has to be this way for many reasons, the biggest of which being that only a House Military will have the resources to patrol/control/protect any given region of space. In this setting, unless you're a particularly charismatic leader (like Rheinland's president in the singleplayer campaign), your Military is going to be your government rather than your actual Congress/Parliament or whatnot. In almost all cases the Military has the weight to toss around to secure this role, so regardless of how a political entity feels it isn't going to change much at all.
A president likely focuses on the well-being of his people on a day-to-day scale, leaving the actual difficult work up to his Military. In a system like Liberty, I wouldn't be surprised if (given it's allegedly democratic backbone) the president had power to decide who is and who isn't Admiral and such, but aside from that he's basically just a pawn because in all likelihood his Military knows "best" in a way that he will never understand. Most of these Houses have been up to their noses in conflict for hundreds of years now, and until that ends any given government will mostly consist of Military roots. Much like Sparta or Rome you could say, almost all of these civilizations are locked in atleast one or two bloodfeuds, and as a result society has become rather militant itself. It's the reason you see civilian factions like the Xenos lashing out and leading their own war and so on.
Besides, there really isn't much room for politics in Freelancer. Sure, you could fly around and negotiate with other parties and do various political things, but at the end of the day the server will remain the same as it was before you arrived. Freelancer itself isn't very dynamic in any sense, and that pretty much ruins any political plans.
' Wrote:Well, in a setting like Freelancer things will always work alot differently than they do in the real world.
Yes, you have a president. You probably have a Senate aswell, which consists of various representatives from each planet within Liberty space.
.. But, it's not like the real world. Even in the real world a president does not govern the 'entire' world, but instead only a chunk of it. Even then, you have various factions like the United Nations who really control things (on the whole, anyway; they've more power than any single president in many aspects). When it comes to space though, it's just too large a task for politicians, so alot of things are completely militarized. It has to be this way for many reasons, the biggest of which being that only a House Military will have the resources to patrol/control/protect any given region of space. In this setting, unless you're a particularly charismatic leader (like Rheinland's president in the singleplayer campaign), your Military is going to be your government rather than your actual Congress/Parliament or whatnot. In almost all cases the Military has the weight to toss around to secure this role, so regardless of how a political entity feels it isn't going to change much at all.
A president likely focuses on the well-being of his people on a day-to-day scale, leaving the actual difficult work up to his Military. In a system like Liberty, I wouldn't be surprised if (given it's allegedly democratic backbone) the president had power to decide who is and who isn't Admiral and such, but aside from that he's basically just a pawn because in all likelihood his Military knows "best" in a way that he will never understand. Most of these Houses have been up to their noses in conflict for hundreds of years now, and until that ends any given government will mostly consist of Military roots. Much like Sparta or Rome you could say, almost all of these civilizations are locked in atleast one or two bloodfeuds, and as a result society has become rather militant itself. It's the reason you see civilian factions like the Xenos lashing out and leading their own war and so on.
Besides, there really isn't much room for politics in Freelancer. Sure, you could fly around and negotiate with other parties and do various political things, but at the end of the day the server will remain the same as it was before you arrived. Freelancer itself isn't very dynamic in any sense, and that pretty much ruins any political plans.
:mellow:
I disagree with.........pretty much everything in this post.
RickJames Wrote:Edit: In addition, we should all be aware of that. As such making negative statements about a government model is a bit pointless. It is akin to a person with no arms making fun of a person with no legs for not having legs and then the person with no legs makes fun of the person with no arms for not having arms.
Yes I'm aware of this. What I was trying to say to Zigeris is this.
I think trying to run an actual democratic Government in the non-dynamics of how Freelancer
operates and is set up, when the government would only put out laws, but has no actual involvement
in the game is a bit pointless. There are benefits to setting up the Gov. but from where I'm sitting the
hard work and potential stress to come from setting up the Gov. far outweigh any possible benefits.
What I asked the Z-man was "what is his actual issue with the current setup", seeing as it does work fine
currently. I think - and this is just speculation, without proof - that Zigeris has come acropper of something,
didn't like the result and wants to have a say in how things are run. Which is jealousy, and if that is his
motive for wanting to set up the Gov. then that is the wrong motive.
Again, I dont see the point in setting up Senators, Mayors, and provincial leaders, when those positions
would only be a forum RP "nicety," with no real ingame value. Freelancer is geared towards PVP. It isn't
geared towards even the simplistic RP that we do, however we manage and we get by with the frustrations.
Setting up a political body of people to act as the Government of Liberty, would only be a waste peoples
time, unless those people actually can do the job and act as the Government. And frankly, with the time
that the people would have to put into being the Government, and with the disagreements already displayed
on the forums, I just don't see it happening, unless people learn to loosen up and allow other styles of
Roleplay to come into the game.
In a sense, we the forum people are already doing this job. If we have a problem then we squawk
on the forums until things change. So why bring another set of redundant offices into being?
In closing, I think it's a good idea and would like to see it happen, but in the current forum
environment and for the sake of time involvement, I don't see it happening.
Sovereign Wrote:Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.
' Wrote:Yes I'm aware of this. What I was trying to say to Zigeris is this.
I think trying to run an actual democratic Government in the non-dynamics of how Freelancer
operates and is set up, when the government would only put out laws, but has no actual involvement
in the game is a bit pointless. There are benefits to setting up the Gov. but from where I'm sitting the
hard work and potential stress to come from setting up the Gov. far outweigh any possible benefits.
What I asked the Z-man was "what is his actual issue with the current setup", seeing as it does work fine
currently. I think - and this is just speculation, without proof - that Zigeris has come acropper of something,
didn't like the result and wants to have a say in how things are run. Which is jealousy, and if that is his
motive for wanting to set up the Gov. then that is the wrong motive.
Again, I dont see the point in setting up Senators, Mayors, and provincial leaders, when those positions
would only be a forum RP "nicety," with no real ingame value. Freelancer is geared towards PVP. It isn't
geared towards even the simplistic RP that we do, however we manage and we get by with the frustrations.
Setting up a political body of people to act as the Government of Liberty, would only be a waste peoples
time, unless those people actually can do the job and act as the Government. And frankly, with the time
that the people would have to put into being the Government, and with the disagreements already displayed
on the forums, I just don't see it happening, unless people learn to loosen up and allow other styles of
Roleplay to come into the game.
In a sense, we the forum people are already doing this job. If we have a problem then we squawk
on the forums until things change. So why bring another set of redundant offices into being?
In closing, I think it's a good idea and would like to see it happen, but in the current forum
environment and for the sake of time involvement, I don't see it happening.
:D
I completely agree with everything in this post. It's pretty much what I have been trying to get across. It is a habit of mine to at times take a roundabout approach to things in order to actually show the various issues that would or would not make something practical. My major posts here were to show the insane complexity of a government and how even trimming it down to bare bones would be a massive challenge and project for people. Even finding enough of the right people that everyone could agree are the right people to take on such a project would be next to impossible.
Quote:I disagree with.........pretty much everything in this post.
.. Was only pointing out how I've personally interpreted governments to work in the Freelancer setting. *Shrug*
It makes sense that a galaxy that's been plagued with mindless bloodshed for hundreds of years would be mostly governed/controlled by militant bodies. It's the idea that "might equals right" that every sort of society succumbs to inevitably when confronted with seemingly endless misery. To me, that's exactly how it is from a roleplaying perspective in this setting. There isn't a single house that isn't engaged in some sort of civil war, and civil wars are almost always the end result of too much Military control.
But yeah, factions like LSF/LN, RM, etc are the ones who're in charge of those systems in the gameworld, which makes sense as those factions have invested alot into their roles and such to get to where they are. It's simply assumed that these factions are acting on behalf of their respective leading bodies and so on, and personally I can't really see how adding a player-politician element to that would ever make things any better or more immersive. If you're looking for some sort of spotlight, or some way to effect the atmosphere around you, the best way to do that is to join one of those factions and work your way up their ranks. Adding another system on top of the one that already works isn't the answer.
Err.. Sirius isn't a galaxy nor is Freelancer set in an entire galaxy. It's the name of several stars in the Milky Way galaxy, the most prominent being Canis Majoris, 8.6 light years away from Sol. The meaning of "sector" is unclear, but could potentially mean a certain area of 3D space for ease of galactic cartography. Each house has 5-6 major systems, and holds about 4-7 planets, generally only 3-4 of which are population centers, and considering Manhattan's population numbers (as of 800 AS, growth rate is beyond me) 220,000,000, we can probably assume other planets number in the hundreds of millions.
I wouldn't say it's impossible to have civil government, given the known (to Sirius' general public) House populations (each, not every House combined) comprise a billion or two and the advancement of communications technology in Sirius. But in all honesty, much of the stuff factions run are more maritime or import/export things, or things that the Navy needs to deal with in the first place (stolen technology and papers, spies etc). Civil government would largely be ground based.''.
Also, don't want to quibble too much, but historically, America has not been a democracy. As the 2000 election shows, popular vote isn't everything, and the American founding fathers certainly weren't fans of democracy (where do you think the "Two wolves and a sheep" quote comes from?). Liberty is most likely a republic (rule of constitutional law), which should not be confused with a democracy (majority rule). At the very least, it is a democratic republic, because a secondary definition of republic is any nation lead by a President, which Liberty is.
One thing that would be cool to see (which, I've seen this with BAF and SA before long ago) would be more political-based roleplay.
I don't mean elections, taxing crusades, or things of that nature, but instead maybe some conspiracy-theory, dramatic stuff. That sort of stuff would be intriguing and interesting, I think. I remember awhile ago there was some stuff going on between Liberty and Rheinland that was also pretty intriguing. It'd be cool to see things like that again, and it wouldn't be too hard to make it happen. Liberty and Rheinland should step on each other's toes every once in awhile, perhaps maybe there'd be some small fueding/rivalry building up amidst the two sides. It wouldn't have to break out into a large scale war or anything, just something intriguing with a little depth for other players to act on in-game. Realistic conflict with meaningful depth would be a very welcome addition to the server (for me, anyway).
It just gets old quickly seeing the same Navy guys chasing after the same Xenos/smugglers/whatever else day in and day out.
IE AM] Epyon the Bored says: My god if I ever meet you I am going to strangle you.
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