Disembodied wrote: ↑Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:16 pm
The Galactic Co-Operative means very little to the serfs tilling the fields of a Poor Agricultural Feudal planet, or the mind-numbed drones of an Industrial Dictatorship, or the Corporate wage-slaves. We, the pilots, are the lucky ones. We're out, and free: and, shameful to admit, we don't really care about the suffering billions toiling away at the bottom of all those gravity wells. A two-line description tells us all we want to know about them, their planets and their lives.
Selezen wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2024 12:57 am
Some thoughts on the above.
The initial quote from Disembodied is crucial to what I feel is the core of the Ooniverse. That massive gap between the planetary societies and the spacefaring community. I think most worlds are probably unaware that there is a functional space society milling about above their heads. I think GalCop has used their systems for strategic and economic reasons to allow interstellar trade to flourish but hasn't bothered to let the more technoologically challenged worlds even know they are there. That's why GalCop lists members by world name rather than system name. TL10+ worlds are probably aware that GalCop exists and there are likely treaties between them that grease the wheels. Which brings me to...
1) Should graduates of Lave Academy be given a visa for Lave? No. Canon fiction (Dark Wheel, I think) states that it's very rare for spacefarers to be allowed planetside. And this makes sense to me given the economic and biological impact. Quarantine would be a necessity, and any potential biogens would need to be strongly filtered out. I imagine the process of trying to get access to a planet you weren't born on being 20 times worse than Australian Border Control.
2) Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy - jeeez, those guys. This opens up a few theories I've had for probably about thirty years on the structure of GalCop and the member worlds. First, GalCop basically has no jurisdiction planetside - worlds govern themselves and are left to their own devices. That's why there's a label for each political type of world and not a blanket "GalCop Planetary Governance" status. As such, and with the first point in mind, HIMSN and the galactic navy are two entirely separate entities. I don't think HIMSN would be based on a GalCop station - I doubt they would have a presence due to the aforementioned potential risk of contagion. Also, Lave is a "dictatorship" run by "the tyrant" and if that name is earned rather than granted then I think there would be a strong independent vein running through LaveGov. As such I think any HIMSN presence in Lave orbitspace would be in a separate and secure facility. I have a LOT more of this stuff bouncing around in my brain...
Anyway, just some thoughts. It's been a while since I let me mind wander through Elite/Oolite lore so thanks for indulging me.
Some thoughts on the above. I'm sorry, I don't seem to have properly read this at the time.
If I understand your contentions correctly, you are departing from (what seems to me to be) the consensus on the relationship between GalCop and the political systems. To whit:
1) Ignorance of GalCop. The systems (apart from anarchies)
pay GalCop for the policing services of the "GalCops" ... and for the GalCop stations orbiting the main planet.
Anarchies can't raise any dosh, and so
their GalCop-provided services are minimal... the cheapest stations (Corioli unless you have Z-GrOovY Small System Stations OXP) and a minimal "GalCops" squad doing little other than protecting the station. These will be paid for from over-stretched central funds and also by charges in the station (I can see an argument for increasing the equipment TL for these stations
combined with massively ratcheting up the prices!
And for increasing the 4-10% buy-sell price spread in Commodity Markets OXP for anarchies). Anarchies OXP's sentinel stations are presumably paid for by wealthy systems/trading corporations whose trade routes are impacted by the anarchy's pirates.
As one moves up towards the Corporates there is more and more dosh paid into GalCop for fancier stations (Icos/Dodos & OXP stations), and also for more "GalCops" patrols.
With OXPs, Dictatorships and Commies also provide their own military forces as police, too (Phkb has offered the option in the newest version of Dictatorships to not have any GalCops at all). I would hope that a future Corporate States OXP might do something similar with private Corporate Company police ships (decal heaven!).
Ideally (in my eyes) there should be more and more of the expensive Viper Interceptors as one moves to the wealthier systems, but I don't think that that happens in the vanilla game code.
But GalCop does little or nothing on the ground. However, the system
governments all pay them money and thus know that they exist. That does not contradict your quote from Disembodied. It just puts a different interpretation on it!
2) Quarantine. I like the idea of restricting travel planetside. If
LitF is ever finished (it puts a medical centre on each station), we could insist on a proper dose of vaccinations before landing (or a much more expensive dose
on landing together with a quarantine period of indeterminate length!). At the moment my understanding of disease/quarantine is that it is an unholy mess - it is invoked by a number of OXPS with no co-ordination and either no or partial in-game effects (see
Quarantine).
3) HIMSN was created by a group (Pleb, Gimi, Disembodied, EV/Cody, Smivs,
etc.) who found Galactic Navy too intrusive. The
lore behind it is quite something, but they are
only interested in the Thargoids and apart from a handful of secret hidden bases do not exist outside interstellar space. Their relationship with GalCop is strained (they are privately funded by a few systems) and they have no public presence at GalCop stations.