Yu Jing Fluff - Perception, Reality, Desire

This is s cool post and an interesting insight, would be cool to see some fluff instances of the entirity of the state empire being brought to bear on a problem like a calculated avalanche.

 

Thats not what I said. I was referring to comments that some people would choose to live outside corporations and others are born poor and that likely means their ateks. But those two points are separate. Living outside corporation in Pano society, not sure how that would work since the corps are where the jobs are at. I guess you could go live a hermit lifestyle but thats not the same as being Atek.

 

This is the way I understood Infinity the Game and its Lore (and the reason why Roleplay the way I do during the Campaigns):

We are all Opposing Factions

To the Civilians of the Human Sphere, we are the equivalent of Nations in Planetary scale, and we trade with each other for resources and consumer goods. Not a single Faction is truly Self-Suficient, in terms that as long as the others exist, they will pose a threat as well as opportunities to grow.

But we are NOT the civilians. We are the people on each other's throats, fighting for whoever is signing our paychecks and not asking questions we don't want answers to. To us, everyone is an enemy or an ally depending on the circumstances. So when I say the Yu Jing Empire is Evil, I say it from the point of vew of my Haqqislam Humanist Background. But like I told all new players in both Campaigns, when our Intelligence Agency has "Hassassin" in its name, you can bet your ass we are not white doves ourselves; but like my mother always said: "Never dig your own grave." I won't decry my Faction's Intelligence Agency, why should I?

So, to me it all comes down to the Yu Jing players themselves. How do THEY view their Faction? When Bostria says "Because Yu Jing is evil" I can 99.9% garantee, that was a JOKE, product of precisely Yu Jing players complaining they are not the bad guys, while everyone else say they are, because they are the most reprresive of the Government forms.

In the Infinity Fluff, Haqqislam, The Nomad Nation and Ariadna are the little fish. Sure, they are Piranhas, Barracudas and Electric Eels, but they are not the sharks; that role belongs to Aleph (who controls the HS Economy), PanOceania (The Hyperpower) and Yu Jing (The LAST true Empire). So obviously, those three will most of times tend to gravitate towards one another, because they are the Davids to the Hyperpowers' Goliaths. And unfortunately, PanOceania is for all intent an purposes, a Capitalist Model of Planetary proportions, which makes it easier to identify with in a subconscious level for most players.

Like @psychoticstorm has reiterated, there is no outright mention of Yu Jing being Saturday Morning Cartoon evil in the fluff. Whatever can be pinpointed on Yu Jing, can be said about all the other Human Factions, with the exception of Ariadna, who are just victims of the greed of the Human Sphere.

 

I do find it interesting that a lot of Yu Jing players seem to view Pano as the bad guys and Yu Jing as heroic underdogs. But this isn't really from the fluff of the game. In the rulebook, both Pano and Yu Jing are given a positive light in their own sections. The fluff also contains propaganda pieces which said factions are seen in a negative light. Both Pano and Yu Jing can be arrogant and imperialistic.

If anything, I'm more incline to believe the Nomad spin that both superpowers are evil than Pano are evil corporations and somehow Yu Jing is heroic. Replace corporations with "the party" and you'll see the the two superpowers can often look like two sides of the same coin.

 

Ariadna aren't just victims of greed. They are far from saints. Everything from Antipode slaves to the segregation of their society based on national origin, Ariadna has its own problems.

 

I'm sure it doesn't help that Yu Jing is quite literally the (greater) People's Republic of China, in Spaaaaaaaace! and that many people are conditioned to see Communism as evil. (Keep in mind that the guy writing this is a US Navy missile submarine veteran, so 'enemy' isn't too far from how I saw the PRC. "target" might be closer, though.)

Military service grants full citizenship, would you like to know more?

Not quite.

Power armor troops have had a lot of training. Their suits are not cheap, and are quite possibly custom-fitted to the wearer. You do NOT just kick that person out of the military (or execute them) because they apparently missed some important parts of Military discipline back during boot camp. You send them someplace to beat military discipline back into them.

In the US military, someone valuable enough to make the effort to beat military discipline back into is sent to what is called Correctional Custody Unit. It's 30 days of military prison, multiplied by boot camp cubed. It is your LAST chance to pull your head out of your ass before getting a Dishonorable Discharge (considered a felony conviction on your record, so no more voting, government jobs, veteran's benefits, or even owning a firearm, ever again).

I recommended that a Sailor be sent there once. He got the joy of a full body cavity search and then 3 Marine Drill Instructors (and 2 Sailors) started going off on him like it was "Drill Instructors, Take Charge of your Platoon" all over again. Sadly, he was determined to fuck up that chance we gave him. We court-martialed him about 6 months later.

The Wu Ming are the YJ version of CCU. Got a building to assault? Well, we know that there are typically 50% casualties clearing buildings. It's nasty. So instead of sending highly-trained (in other than combat) Cranes or Hsien, you send in the Wu Ming.

It's a rather back-handed compliment, really. The Army/Party/Imperial Service thinks enough of your skills to give you a chance to pull your head out of your ass and fight, instead of writing your worthless ass off and taking you out back to shoot.

I need to quibble here, and I am very unhappy with the new Kempeitai fluff. Before, the Kempeitai were an organization dedicated to fragging military officers who needlessly wasted Japanese troops lives. A Chinese officer who treated his enlisted like gold too precious to waste, never had to worry about a Kempeitai visiting him. A Japanese officer treating Keisotsu like a 1500s samurai treated anyone below him socially would get a visit.

I've trained a lot of officers while I was in the Navy. Every one of them got the "You need to make sure you treat your enlisted well enough that your enlisted will stop the disgruntled psycho from rolling a grenade into your tent" line.

But now the Kempeitai are exactly like their Class-A War Criminal namesakes. (where's the "I'm going to puke" emoji?)

I'll go look for it, may take a day or two.

Go read Valerya Gromoz fluff. She was an Atek because the part of PanO she was born in had no factories, no schools teaching skills to get factory jobs. The primary employer was the PanO military, and they only had a satellite uplink/downlink station, the town existed on the pay the soldiers spent there, between the restaurants and the prostitutes.

 

People are also ignoring that Yu Jing no doubt has its own underclass. Besides the Japanese and I'll grant that Yu Jing had plenty of reason to wary of their Japanese citizens. Of course, even the JSA isn't guilt less. It seems very much the case of the social elite of Japanese society pushing for separation from Yu Jing. But then again, even in the American Revolution, it was the social elite that were the strongest proponents of the revolution. Thats just the nature of rebellion. Peasant rebellions tend to get squashed.

 

So no discrimination, no government imposition, just a lack of opportunity except for the opportunities brought about by a free market and that's supposed to be... grey? Sounds like she should have been mad her parents didn't have useful skills or use a rubber, not that PanO couldn't get her handouts from Neoterra to Alfuckingbania.

 

Was about to quote a bunch of misinformed stuff people are spouting about PanOceania and correct it, but this isn't the thread for that.

Instead I'll just remind everyone that this is supposed to be a conversation about Yu Jing.

Perhaps we could suggest some more ways that Yu Jing could be reflected positively in ways that don't come off as propaganda.

I'd LOVE to read about a spacefleet action at the Acheron Gate, which could be done from a Yu Jing perspective.

 

@Death Yu Jing are at least honest about what they want to do. The shots in PanO are called by Harvey Weinstein types, who want to take your money and your livelihood, rape your daughters, and enslave your sons, all for their own self-aggrandizement, and avoid all responsibility for their predatory behavior with "It's just the free market, bruh." (That bit about the sons and daughters may be switchable if we're talking about the Catholic lobby, natch).

@the huanglong In America, education has been described as "the great equalizer." Take that for what it's worth, but free market operating on its own without at least an institutionalized way of developing skills of the populace creates an exploited, unskilled underclass, who have all the obligations of living in their society but lack many of the freedoms.

 

@AdmiralJCJF How about a squad of Wu Mings having to deal with their force being hit by a Sepsitor attack on Paradiso?

Cubes are awesome, but I don't understand why everyone sent to the warzone in Paradiso doesn't have them removed. And if that won't fly, just send in every damn Z̶i̶g̶ Hassassin, Ariadnan, and Su Jian.

 

And everyone from Ariadna, they are very expendable capable.

 

Love this so much, I've been asking for this for at least a year, for precisely that reason ^^

Well, there is "mind control" on Varuna's native sapient species, the Ilotes I think it's written in english? They fit them with pressure suits, because that guys' mood depend on water pressure... so PanO keeps them at optimal pressure to make them complacent.

Also, PanO is the Cyberpunk dystopia, but nicer: corporations ARE the government, only we don't get to see the struggle at the street level.

That's not really the Church "meddling in the state". Aleph controls the resurrection process (I assume because it's the only source of enough computing power to asemble a mind from a cube, because the other prerrequisite is Haqquislam's Silk), assigning a certain amount of resses to each major power, then it goes to an auction (or it gets auctioned to every major power directly by Aleph, I don't remember right now). The church doesn't meddle as much as pays cash for the ressurrections.

Pretty standard situation among spy genres. Also, Emily "defected" because she refused a direct order to leave the rest of her team to die.

If you meant the Dakinis, Sophotects and Garudas, they are there because YJ provides extra funding to Aleph (like PanO does to get units on Neoterra). If you meant something else, I am at a loss there.

All factions aside possibly Aleph and the CA have this (and the CA's must have them in their civilian positions).

That's capitalism unbound, wihtout any kind of regulatory measure placed there by the government.

 

@xagroth. . .

I disagree with You about Emily Handelmann's mismanagement by Her handlers / overseers; prior the Mission there was the warning that ONLY HER would have been recovered in case of Snafu. . .

But the "Outrage Fuckup" was so bad that even HER was written as "Better Dead":

Spoiler: Outrage Script

When JUST She, Knauf and Uhau were the survivors (or at least "Free Survivors" as I believe the fallen Beba, Nakadai and Domovoy are AT LEAST chilling in a "Judiciary Cube Depot" in some Yujing Security Fortress !!) She believed to be able to save the mission assetts. . .

Then, on a Circular from Svarhalheima to somewherelse, as soon She was commandereed to leave Knauf and Uhau at the "Tender Mercies" of a very angry Santiago Magister Knight, Her supposed "Hexa Pals" that SHOULD have rescured Her wanted to shoot Her in the back of the head (where the Cube resides) with a Pan-O "Banana Pistol" and then riddle the corpse with H.E. Slugs from a Boarding Shotgun. . .

Luckily for Her, Emily was more than a match for two "Run-Of-The-Mill" Close Combat Specialists of the Hexaedron. . .

When the bronze-faced Admiral said "You should have come back with the Infos" Her sarcasm in aswer was quite evident. . .

Instead the Yujing Party Officer was really sincere when offering Her to "Jump Barricades" and find meaningful employement in the State Empire, where Her considerable Skills would not have been wasted. . . . .!!!

Emily, unfortunately, was quite fed up with Hyperpowers' Treachery. . .!!

But now the Nomads' Black Hand have a lot of nice work proposals, and, based on the Ikari / Starco "Army Lists" the job proposals for Her does not lacks. . . . .

Like I said if Pan-O is "Mega-Corps U.S.A." the Hexaedron os "C.I.A. gone BAD !!"; after all any Hexa operative candidly admit that they have NO traceable assett funding. . .

After a successful Operation they take away whatever is valuable and is not nailed down to fund the next. . .

They are rather "State Sanctioned" (but NOT "State Sponsored") kind of Space Privateers with an undisclosed "Letter Of Marque". . .

. . . . .

Instead I believe that a sufficiently bureaucracy-savvy Yujing I.S.S. Offcier could obtain ALMOST everything if presenting the Tactical Demands in a properly framed etiquette. . .

. . . . .

And now I have the funny image in My head of a Hsien / Crane / Pheasant that is busy negotiating with a Cyber-Mandarin High Functionary, with Triplicate Form written in flowery Chinese Poetry, statting "We have ENOUGH Combirifles and Boarding Shotguns; also My Pannguling Drones are unsuited to the Mission Objectives; I really, Really, REALLY need some Red Fury Guns an a Guijia. . . . . Not Enough Clearance ?? . . .Could at least have some Multi-Sniperguns and a Su Jian. . . . .???"

 

While I do not think we have any reference I think the Yu Jing state empire will go out of their way to make sure any law abiding loyal subject will have a job and basic income, those that are not is another story.

Ateks on the other hand are Ateks, you could crawl yourself out of the Atek hole you were born in with great lack and determination, but for most people been born Atek is a dead end, it is not a "you did not try hard enouph" it is a "we need X qualifications and to get X qualifications you need to have had the money to be educated for them and you did not" or some similar example.

The Church manipulates the resurrection because Aleph has given them the access to choose who is resurrected, they in turn have turned this to a points system and doing the things they want earns you points.

 

Alright, @AdmiralJCJF is correct, so I'll end mention of PanO with this: the Hyperpower is cyberpunk, it is Brave New World, and I think some get wrapped up in the rose-coloured glasses of mistaking consumer freedoms for personal liberty. But back onto the topic of Yu Jing.


One thing that Yu Jing has in a lot of its material (and was covered in the RPG book by someone who I think recognized the link with Hegel and Marx), is the dialectic: thesis and antithesis. Yu Jing, institutionally, politically, socially , isn't just a land of contrasts, its a land of TWO contrasts (with, of course, many variations on either side). Party vs Imperial System, Old Guard vs New Wave, Ming vs Qing, collective good vs individual perfection, ethnonational culture vs pan-Yujing culture, Chinese vs. Japanese.

In the context of dialectics, a core issue with the JSA split is revealed: it was synthesis, it has taken a dialectic conflict and resolved it, and even if a Yu Jing player didnt consciously know that the fact it was going to strike on some level. If the identity of a faction is dichotomies, losing one side is going to resonate deeper than it would for any other faction.

I'll assert that one flaw in the split and in some of the more recent Yu Jing setting material has been that the key role of this hasn't been recognized, which is I think what the hopes of many in this thread boil down to: present more positives next to negatives. Yu Jing is built on the context and complexity between two contradictory positions. JSA has been resolved, but I would say going forward it would be best to do two things: first, NOT to resolve any more of these questions, every dialectic conflict which reaches synthesis lessens the depth of Yu Jing; second, ensure that material presented is done in a way that recognizes and exploits these dialectics, rather than ignoring them. Yu Jing hasnt actually LOST depth yet, if you lay out all the setting material back-to-back it is sttill deep and grey and not a cartoon villain. But it FEELS like a cartoon villain because when you present new content which fits totalitarianism/failure/etc, and not material from the other side of those dialectic relations, to the reader who is expecting two conflicting positions they are not going to 'fill in the blank' of the antithesis themselves, they are going to see the material as synthesis.

Adding stories of dutiful ISS investigators, brave Invincible soldiers, Thai and Chinese citizens happily celebrating a Songkran festival together, I'm not sure the specifics even matter so much as the contrast, the conflict with the story of a genocidal Crane or High Commands abandoning troops on an orbital consulate or oppressed Japanese citizen rising up for independence. The essence of Yu Jing is in the middle.

 

The Kempeitai of "before" was not as bright.
They were a secret Japanese military police totally devoted to the "liberation of Japan".
Their (ancient) fluff states them as "fierce nationalists and loyal fanatics of the Japanese Emperor".
They were targeting "both non-Japanese soldiers and officers, as well as Japanese military officers suspected of collaborating, to whom they are especially cruel."
For the Uprising, in order to have all the JSA following the movement, the Kempeitai monitored or eliminated Japaneses officiers showing loyalty to Yu Jing.

Their "savior of the brave soldiers" job, as heroic as it seems, can even be seen as a tool to gain the average japanese soldier support, a manipulation of the Japanese military masses (they are a subvertive unit after all) to facilitate the fulfilment of their other mission previously stated (the one consisting at killing people that don't think like them in order to achieve the liberation of Japan).
Because, considering how some Japaneses troops where used as canon fodder during the Uprising, if the Kempeitai really cared about them, several of Japaneses commanders should be dead now.

I think the Kempeitai of "now" is just the same as the Kempeitai of "before", but showing its real face in plain light.

 

Funnily enough, the manga positions the Cube in the side of the neck (Altered Carbon and Eclipse Phase have those inside/between a high vertebrae). You also seem to forget that there was a mole high up in the Hexaedron... So "cleaning" Emily might have been orderer by that dude... something a little more than likely since Emily's boss wasn't surprised about her showing up (and no mention of "you are alive!" was done... which is kinda the stablished clue for "the handler was the one who ordered the hit".
I would have used an E/M gun... those fry the cubes, after all. And are more definite than shooting to the head, something that can happen if you are not sure the target is wearing body armor.

Well, if I were any kind of private business, admitting I fund Hexa's blacker than black ops... bad publicity, kinda bad for the business.

No. You can do that with some things, in some settings (like D&D). The more advanced the setting? The bigger a hassle it is to "clean" the things you took.
Professionals dispose of the weapons and anything that can be traced to the deed as soon as they are leaving (succesful or not, even if they have more steps to take). There is a reason so many "CSI-like" shows always trace bullets and guns...
Of course, some things are easier to clean than others. But certainly, behaving like Player Characters in a dungeon run... not very likely. That is, aside from unused assets the agent can file as "used" and get away with it, because spies are like squirrels: disposable caches everywhere.

Remember the Hassassin are legally sanctioned by Haqquislam. You can't go much further than "we have state-sanctioned assassinations. And we don't care in which planet you are, or who is protecting you".

That would sound much more impressive, if almost any officer with profile we have in the Army wasn't able to do the same XD (oh, and the Sophotects carry around something called "nanoforges"... that smells like "I can assemble anything with enough time and base materials" :p).

The Hsien literally carry the will of the Emperor. Saying "no" to one of those... well, the Kuang Shi have a nice spot for people like that XD.

 

I will note that the Church is not the only authority in PanO with control over Resurrections. The other religions have resurrection authority of their own members, for example, and I believe there is a governmental agency that controls resurrections for atheists.

Fair enough!

Again, read Valerya Gromoz fluff for an example.

While that's not the sole source of my ire, I think that is a very solid explanation for a lot of other people's ire.

OK, that is a point of view I had not considered.

And now the Kempeitai name really makes sense.

 

It also makes a post-Uprising purge of Japanese officers and officials in the StateEmpire have two different perspectives, it isnt just "We are purging you because some people with your ethnicity betrayed us" but could also be "we're purging you because the Kempeitai pulled this off by putting a knife in the back of every Japanese person with power who was loyal to the StateEmpire... so why are you still alive?"