#ToProsperIsToFall

#ToProsperIsToFall  

Minor update to my last post about the PBP I’m starting up. We made Factions! Since there are four of us, with 3 PCs, we decided to go with 4 Factions total, giving some wiggle room and some options for the characters about how to handle the uneasy alliances in space.

As a reminder, the PCs are:

> Zeph Athena Parthenon, an Ambassador (Galactic/Personality/Starfarer)

> Jiro “Marat” Kankkunen, a Turncoat Spy (Regimented/Clandestine/Scoundrel)

> Dr. Merit Pantaleimon, an Academy Missionary (Productive/Academic/Explorer)

A set of summaries, relatively simplistic, for our Factions follow:

• The Academy is a star-spanning “vocational orthodoxy” that has enshrined study and the communication of knowledge as quasi-religious tenets. Their Might comes in the form of cultural inertia surrounding the sanctity of The Academy, the political clout of Academy-educated individuals throughout space, the economic relief they can offer needy worlds, and (on some level) the kind of technology they will level against you if they must. Their Reach manifests as Missionaries sent into the galaxy to spread the good word and in the form of Universities set up to educate the masses. Their Structure is that of several specialized “colleges” that elect representatives to a Council that thereafter elects its own Head; terms are for-life unless a Counselor is ousted. Their Ideology is the simple and immortal creed: “Knowledge Wants To Be Free.”

(Merit was born and raised on The Academy homeworld of Alexandria, educated in their Universities, and a Missionary in their name. She has been sent to the Colony of our game to educate the settlers on medicine and chemistry and offer her services tending to the needy. She, as you would expect, is Allied with The Academy and has 3-Debt/1-Favor with this Faction).

• Acheron Securities LTD. is a slimy and duplicitous ouroboros of private military industry selling its services not to the highest bidder — but to every bidder. Their Might comes in the form of political inscrutability (there are so many shell and holding companies separating every facet and facade of Acheron that it is nigh impossible to prove their direct involvement), in addition to the sheer volume of soldiers and war-machines at their disposal, and the economic ham-handedness one might expect from such business. Their Reach includes numerous corporate headquarters and retreats, training facilities, support networks of offices and hospitals, and proprietary factories/laboratories run in-house to develop and construct new ways of killing people. Their Structure is convoluted, isolating every front company from every other, allowing the people at the top to throw the bodies of their employees against one another until bloody money falls out. Numerous middle-managers try to go unnoticed, following the orders from a shady Board of Directors answering to a CEO. Their Ideology is the pragmatic and self-fulfilling: “There Will Always Be A War To Profit From.”

(Jiro was born and raised on the world of Indra, a world so tightly and maddeningly entwined with Acheron’s industry that for all intents and purposes Acheron might as well BE the world government. He was trained and modified by them before getting the hell out… he has their stuff, their knowledge, their skills, and their interest. That’s 1-Debt.)

• Hermes Corporation is the guild that has managed, against all odds, to monopolize and privatize travel between the stars. Their Might exists in the form of a complete legal stranglehold over their ship and ship-material patents, their fleet’s “trade secret” knowledge of the best Jump Lane headings, the sheer number of ships in their fleet capable of normalizing their control of mass transit, and the technical knowledge they exploit to make their services a necessity in constructing and operating your own Hermes Corp starship. Their Reach extends to space stations, shipyards, their numerous fleets themselves, the associated service/support structures that maintain the above, and the very void itself between worlds over which they have positioned themselves as “experts.” Their Structure is hybrid of corporate bureaucracy maintaining the fleets and guildlike exclusion to turn the fleets into a shield that protects the company; a fleet’s board of captains and commanders settle internal disputes, passing larger concerns up to the Corporation’s Council, overseen by an Admiral who possesses veto power to forbid any particular course of action. Their Ideology is the reclusive and manipulative: “Our Way, or No Way.”

(Zeph was born on Parthenon Station and raised in the Athena Fleet of the Hermes Corporation; he lived he loved he married and raised a daughter in the cold future-steel embrace of their transport vessels. Course, he’s since been framed for stealing Jump Lane trade secrets and his wife has disappeared into the stars. He was lucky enough to sent away with a ship and his daughter, and not brought to trial or vented into space. Zeph is still Allied with Hermes Corp but the ship used up his last Favor — 3-Debt).

(Jiro managed to escape Indra and Acheron only by begging and bartering for passage on Hermes Corp transports. They got him to freedom — that’s 1-Debt).

• The Void Confederation has been the properly authorized and broadly respected unifying governmental body of nearly all settled space for thousands of years, and it is showing its age. Their Might exists in the form of popular cultural inertia – the people respect the Confederation’s ways, and the hundreds of adherent-worlds to its Treaty know that to contravene the Confederation is opening the door to retaliation from others; furthermore, they act through numerous lesser corporate bodies that hold contracts to fulfill many governmental roles; the Confederation’s main strength comes from the Treaty’s agreed upon currency, making this august body an incidental banking powerhouse. Their Reach extends into every Treasury Office and every Mint on every world important enough to hold one, and into every bureaucratic office tasked with maintaining the economy. Their Structure starts at the Premier and flows down into their cabinet and subordinate cabinet staffs tasked with maintaining interstellar relations and trade; parallel to this are numerous Confederated offices for policing, defense, and more — many of whom are so bogged down in millenia of redtape that they farm out work to minor private companies. Their Ideology is the provocative: “Control the Credit, Control the Void.”

(As the legitimate unifying government in space, the Void Confederation is responsible for Jiro’s new identity, credit, and life in the Colony. Meanwhile, they’re very interested in his history with Acheron — that’s 1-Debt).

A very clear focus on economics developed when our first two Factions were an interstellar NGO and the most villainous war-profiteers ever. The third player decided that all space travel was monopolized by evil uber in space and it was clear to me that I needed to create a Faction representing the fiscal interests of the Powers-that-Be.