I liked the old fluff. It was cool and made me laugh. It seems minor but I think people would be understandably annoyed if the Cutter was not to appear in Varuna sectorial this year, and then turned up in Svalarhiema sectorial 10 years later, because of new fluff.
So lets say "going forward" CB decided they had made a terrible mistake and tried to fix this. What the hell would that look like? From game mechanics perspectives the answers are easy enough, either recombine Yu Jing and JSA, or flesh them out independently with more units, mechanics, characters and sectorials. The first is somewhat unpalatable because after spending that much community goodwill on the split in the first place reversing it is largely only going to throw more away. And the second thing while an easy answer... also involves CB doing something (releasing lots of profiles and models) that they kinda have a history of being way to slow at. But from a fluff perspective "fixing it going forward" is as edgey grimdark wannabe 40k in its prospects as the mistakes they've made. Their writing has dug them into a deep pit and I'm pretty sure any attempt to dig their way out only ends up digging the pit deeper. Oh the genocidal rube goldberg machine was actually just part of a bigger (sadly still genocidal) rube goldberg machine of Yu Jing and JSA cooperating for a super amazing secret goal? NO, FAIL, DEEPER PIT. It was all just propaganda lies, blamed on... er... fine, the JSA?, but just the JSA, Yu Jing were actually pretty nice about it. NO, FAIL, DEEPER PIT. Fluff your hair up, gesture with your hands and say "Aliens". NO, FAIL, DEEPER PIT. etc... What possible fluff direction gets out of this with both Yu Jing and JSA looking less terrible? "Ah well they did bad things in the past but now they are both totally resetting by engaging in massive systemic reform across both their societies, Neo-Yu Jing and Neo-JSA are not the comical badguys their predecessors were!" Is kind of problematic what with basically flushing all your old fluff down the toilet and possibly a bunch of game mechanics and models at the same time, and worse, having to do it for what is now two factions at once. Is there any better fluff strategy going forward other than just not doing it again and pretending it didn't happen?
Wouldn't it be pretty easy to just do what pano does and either not talk about the bad shit or only mention it really sparingly. Or switch it up a bit, the bao troops brutally neckbooted a bunch of [faction/group] terrorists in the process of nanobombing neon lotus. Make yu king the not nice guy with great pr and media control.
Sensible would be Yu Jing resuming shrewd, competent win-some lose-some business as usual and maybe cast a little more attention on their regular forces fighting with the CA. I don't want them to suddenly and conspicuously win every power struggle to pay me back for making my team hold the idiot ball for so long, it'd be just as bad. I just want them to stop doing stupid things and losing every contest as a result.
the classic trope would be the whole unite-vs-a-common-enemy malarkey but i doubt they'd do that. YJ could probably regain some cred via alien-defying heroics but I don't think JSA has any such option - they're basically going to end up hiring themselves out to support the larger factions in exchange for paying off their giant national debts (the kuge spent a lot buying favous) and/or getting some surplus starships (since theyre screwed without more ships).
Point of order: The JSA is not a mercenary force, they are a minor state army. The various debts accrued by Japan because of the insurrection fall on the shoulders of the Kuge leadership.
This is actually an interesting angle to take the faction. If they're going to be bastards once in a while, at least make them humanity's bastards.
OT response in spoiler (hopefully) Spoiler You are factually incorrect. Further, a blockade involves preventing access by boarding, turning back and/or sinking vessels approaching the interdicted country. This is patently not happening, so once again, you are mischaracterising the reality of the situation. Pilger is only an excellent source of anti western propaganda. Only people who think that the ABC is a hotbed of alt-right activists quote him as any kind of credible source.
You seem to be having difficulties understanding the difference between threatening exercises and an actual blockade. As much as both are serious the difference is important. But then that kinda confusion might explain why you think disagreeing with a highly accomplished journalist means you can redefine them as whatever you feel like.
You are the person who claimed there was a blockade. Oh, I see, you said “practicing a blockade”, meaning rehearsal. Practicing a blockade is putting a blockade into effect, not rehearsing for blockade operations. Pilger is an anti-American (and hence anti-British and anti-Australian) bigot. His body of work consistently supports this point of view. You are welcome to believe that he is a credible journalist but I stand by my assessment that he is a propagandist and activist with no regard for the truth where that disagrees with his narrative. At any rate, we’ve been asked to not derail the thread by other posters. I’m happy to drop it or to take it to another thread if you want to start one.
Just try watching the documentary. Your apparent worship of a flawless America that could never possibly be validly criticized is fine, I don't care, it's a miniature wargames community you get guys like that hanging around it's ok. But for the purposes of relevance to this thread you don't even have to accept anything he says as fact, I mean it all is, but you don't have to accept it, you only have to accept it as valid narrative that could be incorporated into fiction. If you can't even do that... why even participate in discussion?
Spoiler You get a slavish devotion to a perfect America from criticism of John Pilger? You just denied the documented fabrications in his work by saying it’s all fact, yet I’m the alleged worshipper of a flawless idol. I think that we have too little in common to usefully engage. Thanks for the insult by the way, but you obviously do care, else you wouldn’t have strawmanned me.
Spoiler: OT response spoilered by request I know damn well the US isn't anywhere near perfect, or even blameless. We have just flat fucked up more things than I care to actively look up right now. Eldritch, I was in the US Navy, from 2000 until 2006. I use the word blockade in it's military definition. Not in the way that someone with no military experience uses the word. Like how those same people with no military experience call anything with tracks a tank. A naval blockade blocks traffic, like the blockade the US put around Cuba during the Missile Crisis. And even then, that was a limited blockade, as we only stopped Russian-flagged ships, and we only stopped them to make sure they weren't carrying missiles. If a Russian-flagged ship was not carrying missiles, we let it pass. Anyone else's ships, we let pass. Nonetheless, that limited naval blockade damn near kicked off a nuclear war. We were about 30 minutes away from missiles flying. You don't want to be any closer than that, and I'd quite frankly be a lot farther away. If Chinese warships were to cross the Pacific and drive in circles outside US territorial waters, I'm absolutely sure some of the media frackwits we have would be going fucking nuts. The actual US military would simply shrug, ask if it was Tuesday, and have a ship or two relatively close. Probably 20 miles or so away, between the Chinese ships and the US coast. Close enough to be seen by eye, not close enough to be within gun range, unless the Chinese ships were right up on territorial waters. No radars or anything else in missile guidance mode, just tracking mode, because it is embarrassing as all hell to run into someone else's ship. Tends to end careers of almost everyone involved, actually. Probably have some conversations over radio, maybe even arrange for a trade of supplies. When a Russian intelligence trawler got caught in a US carrier group in the middle of the Cold War, the discussion was, "Hey, Ivan, got any vodka?" "Hey, Joe, got any porn?" followed by a trade. If Chinese military vessels attempt to enter US territorial waters (keep in mind, that's 12 nautical miles, not quite 25km, from the shoreline), well, things are going to get "interesting" (in the Chinese-curse sense of the word, at that). I really don't know what would happen at that point. Maybe some bumper boats, maybe even warning shots. Because like I said earlier, the only time a Navy enters another country's recognized territorial waters unannounced is when there is a war on. At all other times, you tell people what you're up to ahead of time, to prevent unfortunate misunderstandings. In the case of these Freedom of Navigation exercises, they're announced a week or more ahead of time, to the world press (and probably a couple days before then to the countries in the area). They don't stop any traffic (blockades stop traffic). They just sail through. China doesn't own those waters in the SCS. China signed the UN agreement on the laws of the sea, and are bound by that signature to abide by the Court of Arbitration's ruling. Yet China didn't even show up to defend their 9-dashed line claim in court. So it should be no surprise to anyone that the Court of Arbitration ruled against China's claim. China's actions are driving every nation bordering the SCS into the arms of the US. The Philippines? They threw an enormous party when the US returned Subic Bay to the PI. Now they're offering to sell that entire base back to the US, as a hedge against China. Vietnam is having high-level discussions with the US, as a hedge against China. Some of the Vietnamese diplomats are veterans of the American War! I showed you the map of China's claim, and where the EEZs are. Because China's claim is going to take half the Philippines fishing grounds away, all the fishing grounds for nations on the east side of the SCS, and more than half of Vietnam and Cambodia's fishing grounds. China's actions are going to literally starve half the damn Association of South-East Asian Nations to death. With China pouring concrete over the reefs that provide most of the fish habitat, they may have already done so. Yeah, 'sensies' would be a terrifying propaganda tool. But I'm pretty sure that the corporations ARE the PanO government, so the Kuge's deals with various corporations were effectively with the PanO government. Functionally the nuke of propaganda weapons, I'd say. See my reply to Eldritch's post below. Again, see my reply to Eldritch's post below. Well, I'd want to see a mention of the Emperor reigning during the Uprising suffering a terrible "fall down the stairs while drunk" or similar "accident" (that kind of thing is in the fluff already), and the newly-elected Emperor doing massive housecleaning of the Imperial Service. Ideally starting by putting psychoCrane's head on a pike, possibly including explicit mention of breaking psychoCrane's Cube. Then we could start to think about what heroic YJ troops we could bring up. I mean, obviously the entire Invincible Army is open to 'good guy' characters, as is the White Banner. There's also some possibility, particularly with IA troops deployed to the Uprising, to show them actively sheltering civilians by putting their armored bodies between the artillery explosions and/or snipers and the civilians. Lots of pictures of US troops doing this in Iraq and Astan, and even a few pictures of Israeli border guards sheltering (Arab, IIRC) children the same way.
@Dragonstriker , In the relevant work I'm referring to what isn't fact? Because all I'm seeing is you calling names as an excuse to ignore uncomfortable content.
Spoiler Okay, if it makes you happier to believe that. I really need no excuse to ignore uncomfortable content however. @Eldritch Leni Riefenstahl was a “highly accomplished journalist” too.
I feel like that even if the criticisms being raised - particularly the Flanderization of YJ - are being heard, they aren’t being understood by CB or the Uprising white knights. I want to see YJ displaying grey or white in this shades of grey universe, not inevitably sliding towards black. Ruthless is fine. Incompetent and stupid is not. YJ needs to have heroes as well as villains; where are the vignettes showing defence of civilians, self sacrifice to achieve an objective or victory against a superior foe? What we actually got is murder of civilians, defeat by inferior foes and judicial coverups of indiscriminate war crimes.
Last I check, Yu Jing is an authoritarian regime. What happened in uprising isn't shocking. This is space china after all. I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't expect Yu Jing to shoot first and ask questions latter (or never) in regards to even the possibility of rebels/terrorists. I can understand being upset about losing all the models in the JSA split. But not liking the fluff for your faction is an entirely different matter. CB really does not have an obligation to treat all factions fairly in the fluff. Of course, you can choose to stop play the game or switch to a different faction if you want. But I have a hard time seeing CB changing the fluff because fans are upset Yu Jing isn't being shown in a positive light.
Because shooting first and asking questions later was a stupid policy that cost the nation greatly, and the faction has never been portrayed as this stupid. Besides, China is legendary at subjugating minorities and crushing dissent. There's no point rocking up on page 43 to drop a banal line like this when @Section9's already spent hours of his life typing up essays about counterinsurgency with a specific reference to China in this very thread.
@the huanglong Your argument won't work, because, fundamentally, as a PanO fan, @Death will be happiest with the morally bankrupt portrayal of Yu Jing.
@Eldritch - Oh, you mean "practicing a blockade" in the civilian sense of "practicing a guitar." The military doesn't use that word that way, no wonder we were partially talking past each other. Spoiler: OT discussion spoilered by request I'm going to tell you a secret: Every day you are underway on a ship, you are practicing for a blockade. *every* time my sub came to the surface, we did it as if we were at war, we practiced torpedo attacks on every ship we saw, merchant or military (and we were a missile sub, so the last thing we were supposed to be doing was shooting a surface ship!). Every time you see another ship, you are practicing what to do if you have to stop them. Whether that's "stop" as in "board and search" or "stop" as in "sink", it doesn't matter. Usually, different parts of the ship can be practicing for different things, particularly surface ships. Because the last place to discover that you don't know how to do something is when you have to do it for real, with lives on the line. It's why we ran 'Man Overboard' drills every time we were on the surface. Drilling (the military word for practice, like in 'Fire Drill') like you're doing it for real every single day, day in day out, is how you prevent an accident from turning into the spark for a war. In all honesty, I want the Chinese Navy to get more time at sea. Doing so will make them better sailors, which makes them less likely to have a sailor die from inexperience. It's one thing to be shooting each other because our countries are fighting. It's another to watch someone die when our countries are not fighting. Because shooting first and asking questions later plays directly into the Insurgent's playbook, which was written by Mao Tse Tung (essentially, the founder of Yu Jing). When you shoot first and ask questions later, it gives the insurgent a ready-made argument for why a civilian who hasn't made up their mind which side to support needs to be an insurgent, not a loyalist: "Look at what happened! The Imperial Service shot and killed the Ishikawa family because they just thought they were Freedom Fighters! The Imperial Service will kill you just because you are Japanese! Your only chance of surviving this is to be on our side!"
