A couple of questions to the CB staff about fluff direction and the Infinity fandom

Yeah, the American one had fewer dead (on both sides). And followed a playbook written to counter a Maoist Uprising, instead of just killing everyone against you.

Yes, there were some large and unsettling bumps, like where a single American soldier went off the deep end and pretty much killed off two entire Afghan villages, singlehandedly (not that the Afghans want to believe it). When you chuck the laws of war out the window, that's what you get. Death. In wholesale job lots. Troops trained the way the US does are exceptionally good at it.

You see, that's how good ALL the factions soldiers are in my headcanon, because the Russians and Chinese are trying to move to the US Professional Soldier model right now, it's so effective. Straight up Death Incarnate. Even the PanO troops (who are handicapped by a very soft life growing up compared to everyone else, hence WIP12).

So yeah, I'm attributing US-style responses to all the troops in the fluff, it's what I know. Maybe CB didn't intend that, though if they did I wish they'd say so. We have changed CB's mind on using imagery before (Confederate flag on the Desperado bikers), because that wasn't the association they wanted.

This bears repeating. The US has not seen something like this in the last hundred-plus years. The gangs in Chicago weren't this bad, and they were so out of hand that the US government created the FBI to deal with them.

Is there a timeline somewhere that shows the date of creation of the ISS? The FBI was playing fast and loose up until the 1960s, and even sent an infiltrator into the Society for Creative Anachronism in the 1980s because some idiot didn't know the difference between anachronism and anarchism. I believe that agent still plays in the SCA, he came back after the investigation closed because it was fun (and admitted he'd been sent by the FBI, all the people got a laugh out of it).

That's where we run into my earlier comment about how better people than I will argue about someone's soul and the need for them to repent. They hold that it's immoral to kill someone before they have a chance to repent, even if that repentance is on their deathbed as they die of old age.

While I disagree, I'm nowhere near an eloquent enough speaker to dissuade them of this.

I'm not sure I agree, I was reading the leaked events (since my fucking book still hasn't caught up with me!!!) as being close to what's happening. Probably not the chemical attacks (except possibly by the Japanese), but everything else seems to lead that way.

I'm OK with that, I have a lot of 15mm scifi minis already and CB was one of the best 15mm Historical Minis makers before they got so tied up making Infinity.

I just don't want it to even mention things like "pacification" or genocide.

 

@Section9 that's why I have "if they honestly can't exist" clause. I'll let other people sort that out. But I believe the removal of free will is a greater violation to the soul than death.

 

Well, I believe "rebirth" is the same as death except you leave someone behind to bang your wife, so I agree.

 

Point.

But that wasn't to break a member of their gang free (so there's a question of just how ... motivated the guards were)

 

Yeah, similar for me, Kuang Shi and brainwashing prisoner stuff that`s too good to not be field in game is one of things that turned me off Yu Jing in first place. That`s why I`m happy about all this JSA departure.

Also I can understand degree of personal distaste because of fluff. For example when I still played FoW I haven`t managed to force myself play Soviet side at all and avoided SS regiments of German side like a fire. I had to invent Captain America Cobra headcanon to even start collect FoW Germans and even after that no SS lists and no SS regalia.

Here I see that if I would be in place of Yu Jing player I won`t play any of these CBLs after reading this topic. Because now it sounds too SS to me.

 

Would you mind going into more detail on that?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't mind that the Japanese left. What I am objecting to is how it was done (on both sides).

 

I just don't see how just because a small part of yj that does some awful atrocities makes the whole faction culpable. I might be way off based but it just seems like people don't want to have any part of a faction that has some bad parts. I mean honestly what could CB say or do anyway? They can't please everyone but ultimately it is their story to tell. I don't think there is anything they could say or do expect maybe undo the uprising to make some people happy. I'm just glad I'm secure enough in my ability to know between fact and fiction that I don't need to maintain a morally high position and that I can even play the villain sometimes and even the worst of them.

 

I don't think this is particularly insulting idea, and I do think it's in keeping with our general experience of the company, so is this really a thing?

 

It's only 1 story. There is still a ton of room for the stories where yj is at the top. All the factions are morally questionable, except maybe ariadna. Pano has the hexas, ateks, and the helots. Haqqislam employs assassins and works with ruthless pirates and mercenaries. The nomads have tunguska and the black hand. Maybe there dark sides haven't been fleshed out as much but that doesn't mean it won't be. Also the factions have to have failures, it helps progress the story. Uprising would have been real nice if it went like the yanjing found out about the luge and their plans and foiled them and lived happily ever after.

 

Ah yeah, I think I see the problem here, and can even relate a little.

Myself, I found the Pan Oceania's extremist Christian fluff a huge turn-off and couldn't play my Ice Storm army at all. But I started using the Father Knight for painting experiments and the more I painted and stripped it again, the more I fell in love with the sculpture...

Once I'd finally finished a half-decent paint job I put it on the table, and then discovered I liked the way it played (Assault ftw!) despite still really struggling with the back story. So over time, I was overcoming my objections with my enthusiasm for the good stuff.

Eventually, I wrote a a minor fan fiction thing about a Father Knight who was a true believer, and who'd seen the reincarnation of Joan as proof of Pan Oceanias' divine mission, but then through terrible experiences, lost his faith and was struggling to fight on.

Lemme say that this definitely wasn't in the same league as @DaRedOne's Morat tales (someone get him a publisher!) but it amused me and I think I was working out a way I could relate to the characters so I could be comfortable playing them.

People are spending so much time writing here on the forum about how unhappy they are with this backstory, but couldn't you guys get together and write some fan fiction about Yu Jing soldiers finding redemption from the atrocities? I'd certainly read something like that.

 

The ISS is the sole remaining Sectorial, almost all of the pre-Uprising fluff is written about them.

Also, the entire YJ legal system apparently approves of air-quotes "pacifying" the entire Japanese population.

Waiting for my copy of the book to get here, so I know what to address in my stories.

Back to your Military Orders: Have you read De Fersen's fluff? How he's assigned to the Order of Mercy, which is basically the Church version of Combat Rescue? Like you, I'm not fond of PanO, but Combat Rescue guys I will buy drinks for, regardless of what flag they salute. So that's what I'm slowly working on, a Military Orders Combat Rescue unit. No TAG, because I can't fit a TAG and a Hospitalier 5-man link team into the list.

That too.

 

Do you mean that you want to know what their intentions for the story development might be, and does that include some shades of grey (like redemption stories) rather than just the black you're seeing now?

 

Yes.