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I am pretty bummed about the change in the Corregidor background

Discussion in 'Nomads' started by prophet of doom, Oct 13, 2020.

  1. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    I have the rpg book! Yay! Still need to get the Nomad expansion.

    I think one of the issues is that Infinity fluff does not always make too much sense. We have to accept that it is imperfect and focusses on the criminals. Eg. It doesn t make any sense to me that Corregidor allows something as horrible as maras to exist on their ship when at the same time there is no space for lazy bums.

    I don t think I paint the whole society with one brush. I am also more interested in the Corregidor poltical system. And there would only be one. Are they anarcho-syndicalists? Have they largely betrayed such ideals out of necessity? Are they capitalist? Is it a dictatorship?
    I accept that there is a lot going on with a few million people.


    I think you are being overly negative. Many hardened criminals got deposed in the red auction. Unlike Tunguska, Corregidor is not depicted as a society of criminals. That s the past. There are unexpicably some maras allowed to exist. I guess you can never eradicate all crime and no society will ever be perfect.

    Where does this idea of a dictatorship come from? I don t see this at all in the fluff. No dictator being described. Instead, there is votes, egaitarianism and comradeship in the background. Yes, people have to work to make the ship survive. Whats wrong with that? That is totally in line with anarchism of the latin american mindset.

    n.

    I think Australia is more like Ariadna. Involuntarily stranded in a strange place and murdering the original inhabitants.
     
    #81 prophet of doom, Oct 15, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2020
  2. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    They form a government just like the one from where they came, and spend centuries not cutting the apron strings to the Mommy Land? (QEII is still their titular head of state. C'mon Aussies grow a pair and tell the Brits to shove off. Declare independence already. currently, You're no better than Canadians.)

    Oh, and Long time no see. Good to see some of the old forum guard returning. Welcome back.
     
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  3. loricus

    loricus Satellite Druid

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    Australia is doin fine.
     
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  4. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    Give it a few more months and we'll be on fire again.
     
  5. loricus

    loricus Satellite Druid

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    Every year the queen sails in with a giant magnifying glass. Not again! Cut ties already!
     
  6. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    I don't think Corregidor is very capitalist at all.

    It's pretty explicitly worker owned, and centrally planned. Everyone is allocated jobs, everyone is allocated resources. You can own personal property on Corregidor but you can't own private property, there isn't any. Like you can't buy a house on Corregidor even if you wanted to.

    It's a form of centralised anarcho-socialism with harsh social enforcement of the norms. It's also heavily flawed, as one would expect of anywhere with fuck all resources born of it's conditions and origins.
     
  7. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    That is exactly how I see it. And that is why I am disturbed by the new background which messes with that idea. Not necessarily contradicts, but seriously messes it up for me.
     
  8. L2590

    L2590 Active Member

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    Ah, as others have pointed out, I believe that’s closer to how Corregidor was in the beginning compared to how it is now. My bad for using an overly simplistic analogy - I think @Solar nails it with this:

    Corregidor now has a lot more room for what is considered useful to the ship - if you are too puny to work as a merc or a meteorhead, there's still chefs and nurses, researchers, teachers, event organizers (gotta have some fun), architects, tattoo artists, sex workers and a whole variety of other "useful" people on Corregidor. Indeed one of my favourite RP characters was a Corregidan scientist who worked on developing radiation shielding for the ship to try and make it last longer. She was puny, physically inept but had a great mind for physics and from her PhD, succeeded in developing a treatment for the outer that could be used to improve radiation resistance by 5%, reducing the need to replace parts of the ships prow in particular by up to 7%... now that doesn't sound like a lot but when you consider how many parts there are in the front of something as big as Corregdior and the labour required to do all that, suddenly that’s a lot of time and manpower (and potentially lives) saved. She's now continuing her work - funded by Corregidor - to try and make it cheap... because her methods worked but like all new tech it's eye-wateringly expensive! Too expensive to apply to the ship proper yet. She also takes O-12 jobs to try and get her hands on materials and tech from other nations too...

    100%. Indeed, I take that view for the whole Nomad nation because that is their ultimate strength - unity. There's a great bit in the Nomad splatbook about how Nomads may quarrel like a family but they will stand up for each other like a family too. A Corregidan may not understand a Bakuninans gender identity but you're going to get a fist in your face if you use the wrong pronoun when addressing them (not an exact quote but an exact example from the book). They are free to be who they want as an individual and you WILL respect that because a threat to their individualism is a threat to all our individualism (something people in the real world would do well to remember).

    But even if you still don't fit in there's Krugs and no doubt Tunguska keeps a generous fund to help people move to ships that better suit them. I imagine many Jaguars were once on their way to becoming Morlocks, more than one Interventor was a mischievous Corregidan runt who kept hacking into ailing terminals and plenty of Moderators were once Tunguskan mobsters who got tired of the materialism and tension... For all their imperfections, between the three ships, the commercial fleet and even the small outposts of Nomad lubbers, there's somewhere for almost everyone in the Nomad Nation. And I can't see how that can be anything but hope for humanity.
     
    #88 L2590, Oct 15, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2020
  9. Elric of Grans

    Elric of Grans Well-Known Member

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    We tried that in the 90s. Most of the country voted against this.
     
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  10. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    See I don't think it does. I think it says, Corregidor doesn't always live up to it's ideals, and from an outside perspective can be inconsistent, and isn't necessarily always particularly good at behaving in a reasoned way.

    Which is true of basically everywhere.
     
  11. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    I hope that it is all it is saying. It is described as pretty harsh in the book, and then I got dumbfounded by all the people here who see Corregidor as a dictatorship.

    Maybe I am just affected by recent dissatisfaction with Australian unions.
     
  12. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    It was probably written to make PanO players feel better. After listening to the bitchfest on White Noise about Varuna I gather their playerbase is upset.
     
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  13. Ugin

    Ugin Well-Known Member
    Warcor

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    Well, considering that you are saying 'Haqq is better than YJ', and your preference over 'good guys, something to represent hope', I can say you are somewhat involuntarily trying to paint Corregidor(or Nomads overall) good.

    Many points you've mentioned ARE true, but also they are just part of the fluff. For me, Nomads has always been displaying significantly polarized characteristics than any other factions.
    But also the best thing about Nomads was you can choose to be better by try harding(on tabletop, or fluffwise, etc.).

    Immersion is good, but your own experience about your political surroundings might have affected your pov. Please excuse me for my limitation of sympathy, since it is hard for me to put myself in your shoes.
     
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  14. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    That vote question was the equivalent of "Have you stopped beating your partner, yet?". It was a question loaded to guarantee a failed vote.
    The population majority wanted to get rid of the monarchistic toady and replace them with a popularly elected head of state, not one chosen by the government of the day.
     
  15. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    Oh they were upset because PanO exploits the Helots? I thought it made sense somehow given that they are capitalists, but then I wondered why PanO would do that if they have so much space and resources. Or they could have offered the helots a good deal. Most people in PanO seem to have a nice life. Why not offer it to the helots as well?

    I guess players have to accept that no faction is without moral flaws in Infinity. I like that. It's ok if the faction I favour cannot always live up to their ideals, but I'd hate to see them giving up on their ideals.
     
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  16. Imladrik

    Imladrik Member

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    I think you are reading to much into that piece. UTRACO might need to bash some heads sometimes because it desperately needs to look in control. Thus it needs to have some sort of "democratic centralism" : once a decision is democratically taken it needs to be enforced so the union look like a uniform block externally even if there are still internal debates.

    Being the warden of corregidor is probably the toughest job in the human sphere as it need to look after the well being of Corregidorans and to make money the only way they can : by exploiting the workforce of Corregidorans. It is basically two contradictory goals, but the tough workers of Corregidor know they have to suffer some hardship to preserve the collective, knowing that if shit goes overboard, their union is backed by actual firepower. Corporations buying the services of Corregidor know what they are buying (the best workers in the human sphere) but they need guarantee that it won't go sideways if some random meteorhead decide it's time for the revolution. And Corregidor as a whole also need that guarantee because it is what keeps the ship running. Imho, given the sense of community in corregidor, Intruders and others are far more used to protect the workers than to bash their skulls as Corregidorans know what they can and cannot do.

    As for those who think corregidor is a capitalist dictatorship, they are completely of base, as the previous fluff book litteraly said that Corregidor is one person one vote (contrary to Bakunin, one module one vote and tunguska, one share one vote). Thus it is democratic. And it can't exploit workers, because they are it's only wealth, and given the shitty living conditions on the ship, if they are badly treated the other nations in the sphere would be more than happy to welcome asylum seekers formerly oppressed by the evil nomads.

    As for criminality : there is criminality basically everywhere. Corregidor haven't establish fully automated luxury gay space communism, so petty criminality is a given, especially in a very crowded ship. Also you can also see the groups that the jaguars recruit from as similar to modern day bosozoku gangs : basically young people cosplaying as badass thugs whose main occupation is being annoying and doing petty theft and vandalism, not hardcore MS-13 guys. Hardcore criminals are more likely to be killed by bandits or to have to take a walk without a suit outside (know I have this image of an equivalent of being keelhauled in the future, basically street justice where offenders are vented through an airlock toward another open airlock, whether you live or die is let up to luck).

    As others said, corregidor is an example of survivalist socialism, ressources are shared and you HAVE to pull your weight if you can, but they will find you a way you can help if you are willing to even if you have disabilities. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs, would probably be the most apt motto for Corregidor. But most of it's economico-political organisation is a result of it's situation : being stranded on a crowded ship. Being on a spaceship means private property and privacy doesn't exist, because there might be a leak that needs to be fixed 5 minutes ago in your room, so no get off of my backyard. Being numerous and resourceless means that people become the ressource (the only place in the sphere where the term human ressources isn't cynical and deshumanizing), so you need to take care of them. Also you can't keep your ressource exploited and oppressed because your main business is outsourcing them, meaning they can easily leave, and megacorps would be more than happy to poach them.
     
  17. Lampyridae

    Lampyridae Well-Known Member

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    Corregidor reminds me a lot of postwar Japan, except with South American and East African (not sub-Saharan Africans, different crowd) "can do" instead of Japanese "ganbatte". Everyone pitches in and does their share - and stuff happens very quickly. Children raised with practical technical educations are incredible skilled workers later on in life. All of this happened through social Darwinism - a crowded ship full of millions of scared, starving refugees bolted onto a prison ship, they had no choice but to adapt or die.

    Ironically, they were put there by the bland, well-meaning stupidity of the developed world, which is probably by far the most biting bit of social commentary in the whole of Infinity.
     
  18. Brother Smoke

    Brother Smoke Bureau Trimurti Representative

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    The RPG book makes it clear Corregidor is capitalistic. "Nothing is free" You work to get paid and you pay to breathe
     
  19. loricus

    loricus Satellite Druid

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    Surely there is a middle ground between letting people exploit your labor by living off your work without contributing (oxygen being free) and capitalism. The world had money before capitalism was invented.
     
  20. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    Capitalism is pretty easily defined, "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state"

    Corregidor does not have this. In Corregidor the trade and industry are controlled by the state to ensure the survival of the community
     
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