To the Discovery Developers

[Zapp]

I just saw this thread. Hack showed me his post before he made it and I approved of it. Has it really come to this? Seriously? We can't change our RP because you all don't approve? That's stupid. Now, as I read through this thread, here's some thoughts I've had on various posts.

Yeah, I will let the Developers decide, because they will regardless. xD

But that dosen't mean I can't voice my opinion, and here I will say it again just for your viewing pleasure:

You are making a decision with the back-up from a certain group that affects the RP of everyone.

In other words, what gives you the right?

What gives us the right? Well, it's our station. We're the only official LPI faction. I'd say we get a good say over what we want on it. And I don't think it effects the RP of everyone. What do Nomads care if we sell people on a station or not? What does anyone care? You can just as easily buy slaves on Niverton or in Puerto Rico.

I was going to post a long review of the proud tradition involved with curb stomping lore to fit into an ideal vision.

The trend of adjusting an entire faction rather than operating as a group apart.

The idea of the Untouchables becomes the idea of Chicago's police force removing all corruption. Hurrah.

I was going to challenge the claim of removing corruption in an organization which is, by its very nature, corrupt. Catch and release policies. Rounding up vagrants to serve in prison factories. A for profit judicial system which rewards policies which places the undesirable classes of Liberty into a position where they -will- be coming back for shift after shift after shift of making toy dolls for little Kusari turds.

I guess these have all been cleaned up. It's a new future. A sterile future where things are excellent. I suppose I should inform Tanker that he can shut down the XA, Liberty's crime has been reduced to a few vagrant Rogues and Hackers floating about California. The factories are paying a fair days' wage for a fair day's work and we're entering a new golden age where the common man wants for nothing, the cop on the corner hasn't a care beyond his cup of coffee and helping a little girl find her way and, maybe, smiling at a rainbow.

So in a post, because the official faction declared it, the entire nature of a centuries old organization has changed in a blink. Not changed through any measure of realism or effort, but with the writing of a new reality on a wiki page.

But not entirely.

Just mostly.

Here's the new LPI challenge: Don't be boring.

That being said, yeah, it's silly to sell slaves on Sugarland. They should be sold on Houston.

I know you're joking Dusty. But the point doesn't change. When we say we're not corrupt, we don't mean that we're not a machine that recycles criminals. Let's face it, that's what they do even today and I really doubt people call the current justice system corrupt as much as they call the LPI corrupt. When we say we're not corrupt, we mean if you take a bribe and you're caught, there's no blind-eye turned. You're fired. Houston is to be discussed in a bit.

Listen pal. You can have your specific Faction RP. That's all fine with me.

But you can't just change stuff that's in-game because your Faction perceives the whole goddamn LPI NPC group as not-being corrupt. Because essentially that's what you are doing with removing this valuable piece of commodity, and frankly I don't agree.
Sorry, shall I rephrase the word "You" to "The specific group that discussed this idea and you who represented them by creating this thread?" That's more comfortable for you?

Sure we can change the stuff that's in-game. Why? Because we can perceive the "whole goddamn LPI NPC group" as being generally not-corrupt. The only person I feel that can dictate how the LPI RPs would be the Igiss. Do you have any idea what level of corruption is necessary to turn 5,000 prisoners into slaves bound for Malta on a prison station owned and operated by the LPI? The entire station would have to be taking dirty money and turning a blind eye as it would be impossible to notice thousands of inmates going 'missing' on a regular basis like that.

You do make good points, and infact this would not be an issue if people didn't metagame so much. "slaves" on the prison, are meant to be prisoners I assume. Fueling vanilla rp. However, everyone sees slaves and freaks out. Name it something else perhaps but leave the "implication" that this is forced labour in the info card. Nobody can say for sure we sell slaves, infact it would merely be the opinion of those people who toured our prison facility. This way while perhaps we do sell "slaves" since they are named differently we can easily deny any accusations.

Another issue is having every smuggler dock on a prison station to load up. There is no way nobody would notice 5000 prisoners going missing. No corrupt officer could manage to sneak that by the higher ups. My suggestion? change the station to a guard station. This way only LPI can dock and if said LPI is corrupt he can sell only what his ship can carry to the smugglers. (And risk being caught) I don't doubt some corrupt officers may "lose" their prisoners while transferring, but such behavior would be bad if caught by the command staff.

This was the point I was thinking of as I read through this thread. Well, the part about people noticing prisoners disappearing. The guard station one is an interesting concept which I tentatively support, but I'm not sure how much it would do. You'd be surprised how many people are neutral with the LPI Guard. Apparently it's the easiest guard faction to cozy up to...

You are diverging from the Canon RP of your NPC faction. That is not up for discussion, you have stated so yourself and Dusty's rather excellent post outlines how you've done it. Do you intend to continue to RP as the overall leadership of the LPI? How do you intend for Liberty to carry on making sense if you're not rounding up every minor infraction and loading them into a prison station to make license plates? Before you ask for something so drastic you need to ensure what you are asking for doesn't screw the RP of a whole House. Your change would.

The very nature of LPI RP implies corruption. Are you referring to personal corruption, or is the LPI now the very model of a good police force working for the common good? If the former disregard the first paragraph. if the latter do respond to it.

This, I feel, is what needs addressing most. We have not significantly diverged from canon RP. Why? Because I don't think canon RP covers us selling people on Sugarland, nor do I see canon RP being that we are a bunch of corrupt b*stards who will do anything for a few credits. The corruption in the system, which is not changing as long as the LPI is indeed the LPI is that of the prison stations, in effect, being slave-factories. However, these are by-and-large criminals doing the work and are not being sold to smugglers. Yes, we RP as the overall head of the LPI. The only people above me that I don't really wanna touch in-RP is the CEO and/or Board of Directors that the LPI must have as a corporation.

Player idealism can't change the very nature of a faction's roleplay.

It can when that "player idealism" comes from not only me, but the entire LPI faction (which by-and-large agrees with me).

We are trying to remove it, slowly. Obviously we cannot get everything right away, however.. it was never cannon RP to sell slaves on our stations. (Perhaps we used forced labour and still do, but we'd never sell em...)

So are all factions to be tied down to Vanilla forever?

Another good point made by Marcel that I'd like to reaffirm (and I have previously). And obviously factions aren't tied down to vanilla, we've seen notable changes. The Molly's making peace with Bretonia, the Order and BHG making war in the Omicrons, etc.

That being said Sugarland is a bad sale point for slaves.

Please. Losing a brace of people from a space station over and over and over and over and over and over again?

Not so much.

Losing a bunch of people over and over and over and over and over again from Houston? Happens every day.

Furthermore when you've people being shipped from Houston, well, who's to say where they came from and who boxed them up for sale?

Everyone wins.

I agree with this. Very much.

I think you do need to differentiate between cutting down on bribe taking, and cutting down on the inherent corruption that is the LPI as an organisation. However as you said that is a note fro another thread.

Hosuton would be a much better sale point. If it's a change rather than a removal i am all for it.

Indeed. People seem to construe corruption as meaning us all being friggin knights in shining armor or something. That's utter bull. The system remains in place, we're just not taking bribes from every criminal with half a credit and a slick smile.

It would be LP if it wasn't corrupt... not LPI.

Actually, it would be the LPD (Liberty Police Department). And we have discussed possibly making that change, both amongst the LPI leadership and the leadership of the Liberty lawful factions as a whole. However, not likely to happen ever (and definitely not anytime soon).

Also, corporations aren't inherently corrupt.

Also, nationalized police departments aren't inherently not-corrupt.

Bad logic there.

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