Gaians are not 'Bretonian' anymore

[CCI45-px/Probe149]

I believe that Gaians can come from all the different people within or outside of Sirius, may it be a Corsair, or even an IDF employee, especially as the Gaians are the only group pretending to fight for nature.
However, it is rumoured that the Gaians are somewhat degenerating to a pure piratcy group, so that may change.
It could of course also be that this information piece is outdated...again.

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In a brilliant tactical movement, i charged backwards.

[Aoyagi]

Well, you can guess what do I think about that. Gaians are the one of the least described factions, lore-wise. Nothing except the rep chart says that they are somewhat allied to Corsairs. Nothing says they are a closed Bretonian community (although they probably should be mostly Brets since I read some where that the movement started in Cambridge, Green Front, etc etc). Nothing even says what the hell are they. Terrorists? Pirates? Peaceful activists? Drugged morons preaching about nature? The lore mentions all of these variations, you just need to pick one or two. Or three.
Same thing is the side picking. Some may want to choose Kusari because they are kinda more eco-friendly. Others may choose Bretonia because of patriotism, or whatever reasons.

[Dab]

Gaians originated from disgruntled Bretonian researchers, and established themselves to protect the Planet Gaia, which is in Bretonia. People from elsewhere might agree with the eco-friendly ideals, but I doubt many care about a single planet in Bretonia. They also get the majority of their recruits from Bretonia. Bretonia, unlike Kusari and Rheinland, is creating a lot of waste (See London Debris fields, Leeds). This is what causes those eco-activists to be terrorists, and not just a political movement for more eco-friendly industry. Liberty has a good portion of waste as well in Texas and New York, so some Gaians having been Libertonians makes sense as well.

However, Rheinland and Kusari are both fairly clean in comparison to the other houses. Kusari especially. There is little reason for Kusarians to be itching to go join the Gaians, since they haven't had to experience the kind of harmful environment the Liberty/Bretonia industry creates. The only ones who would would be extremists, which is an extremely small number of people. Contrary to popular belief, Gaians aren't all extremists. Few are actually. They became terrorists because their political battles were getting nowhere. Making the Gaians was a desperate act, not an extremist one.

So yes, there are probably Gaians from the other three houses as well, mostly Liberty. But the majority of Gaians are still Bretonians.


EDIT: @Ritsuka; The Corsair-Gaian alliance is only shown on the repsheet, because it was not supported by any lore in the game, vanilla or mod. This is why so many people had issues about the Corsair-Gaian alliance, because it was unsupported and made very little sense. There is as much reason for Gaians to be enemies of Corsairs as there are for them to be friends.

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[mwerte]

I think they can be Bretonians without being Bretonians. The same way I can be white without liking the <strike>KKK</strike> institutionalized racism in South Africa (since we're talking about governments).

*shrugs*

$0.01

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[sovereign]

The GMG are no longer Kusari nationals, though they originated there and have strong cultural ties to Kusari. The GMG "ethnicity" is also very similar to that of Kusari, but they are not exactly Kusarians.

The above has been true for decades at bare minimum- likely much longer. It took some time, but it happened. The Mollys are similar, though their transition was enforced by violence. Mollys have their own stable population, and are no longer ethnically Bretonian, nor considered Bretonian by anyone in the region.


I think there's two ideas in this thread, and I want to make sure I know which one Marburg had in mind- are the Gaians recruiting from other houses than Bretonia, or has their population been distinct enough from that of mainstream Bretonia that they are no longer Bretonian in ethnicity? Or, perhaps a third take on it, are the Gaians no longer viewed as Bretonian in nationality, but instead as their own independent non-House entity like the Mollys are? None of these options are mutually exclusive, it could be any combination of them.


Also, important question. How big, population-wise, are the Gaians? Can we get an order of magnitude?

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[Marburg]

Personally, I play my gaians as characters that were born on Gaian stations & have never been anything but enemies of the state and have never been able to legally call themselves bretonian.

I understand that most people restrict their logic to thinking that all gaians have to be from somewhere else & join the faction at some point later in life, but I don't suffer from that limitation & see them as a multi-generational culture that brings in a number of outsiders to the cause

...& @ Sov: as far as population goes...who knows? pretty small in the grand scheme of things though

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[sovereign]

Non-trivial population is sufficient. If there have been several generations of people born into the Gaians- and there are more born into the Gaians than recruited into the Gaians- then while the Gaians will still share a cultural group with Bretonia, they- as a group- are no longer Bretonian in nationality or ethnicity.

In the original post, you did mention "looking and acting like Bretonians"- while no longer "Bretonian" in culture, ethnicity, or nationality, the Gaians have not spent so much time apart from Bretonia that they have formed an entirely separate cultural grouping. They will look, act, and think similarly to Bretonians, but not identically. The difference will not be so large as the gulf between Bretonians and Rheinlanders, and someone unfamiliar with either group might not pick up on the differences immediately, but yes, I agree that there would be subtle differences.

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[Marburg]

Actually, by 'look' I was referring to many peoples belief that their ships should follow a bretonian aesthetic...sorry for not making that clear. but as far as 'acting' bretonian I believe that the longer a person lives as a gaian the more they would divorce themselves from a bretonian culture they have no real access to outside of flying around in space.

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[Colonel.Tigh]

Lets see, Gaians, against exploitation of nature.

Started in Bretonia, against BMM, but now there are Synthfoods and Orbital Spa and Cruise as well, and in the other houses, Dauman, DSE and Samura rape and pillage the naturals resources as well.
A green movement sure does exist in all the houses, and inspired by the Gaians of bretonia, they might just turn to violence, and start to make the win/loose calulations of their local heavy industies corporation a bit more difficult.

Id love to see them on a sirius wide zone of operations, there are ecological sins all over the place, blow them up, make them suffer, make them pay.

There is really no reason to restrict a movement like this to one house.

[kramer]

I agree with Marburg.

The Gaians my have roots in Bretonia but they are not Bretonians nor do they - obviously - agree with the Bretonian way of life.

With the connections to the Corsair nation and the Hogosha, thus the Kusarian society, and their own way of life they evolve in an own group perhaps even a society (in the future).

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Armin van Buuren