2300AD Organizations

> My question for other 2300 refs is:  What sorts of organizations do you use?
> My group does not have a real military bent, so an Army or whatnot is out.
> I'd rather not say what I am using, since Brucer (aka Zben Blaine) is a list
> member, but I'd be interested to see if other refs do use organizations as
> suggested in the text, and what types.

I'm a player, not a ref, so I don't have all the details :-).

In our campaign, the entire party is the alterday crew of a startship owned
and operated by Trilon Inc. Trilon is a very large American company that
operates mostly in the French arm. They have their own planet (Kie-Yuma)
which, while nominally under American law, is really completely run by
Trilon.

You see, Trilon is taking the long view. They figure that Humanity is going
to be around for a long time, so they've started a terraforming project on
Kie Yuma (Planet looks alot like the one in Aliens :-). They are planning to
completely own/operate the resulting planet, completely severing any ties to
a national government.

Now for our adventuring: Our starship is one of Trilon's troubleshooter
platforms; if there's a Trilon problem somewhere they send us to investigate
and resolve the situation. This can be everything from labour disputes to
evil corrupt governments to capturing Kafer technology to saving New York
City from nuclear terrorists to...

This makes for a fun, useful venue for almost any adventure you can think of.

- - --
C. Harald Koch  VE3TLA                Alias Research, Inc., Toronto ON Canada
Internet:    [email removed]    [email removed]               [email removed]

I'm currently running a 2300 campaign (although w/school starting up
again, who knows how much time we'll have?) in which the driving
organization is the Texas Rangers (and, by extension, the Texan
gov't).  The other "organization" in the picture is the UAR -- guess
which adventure I'm running. :) I'm about to introduce a new player
who is a native of a Life Foundation colony and who is a journalist
(whether she's free-lance and if so, to what degree, has yet to be
decided).  I'd sort of like to get them involved w/the Trilon Corp. at
some point, since I have a couple of far-frontier adventures in mind.
Bob, if you get away from military-type adventuring, I'd be interested
in knowing what you do; 2300AD seems to almost force you into some
form of cowboys-and-indians type adventure.  (BTW, if you want to
discuss this off the list, my email address is [email removed].)

I discussed the foundations-vs-nat'l-gov't question on CompuServe, and
reached some conclusions: with the exception of extra-legal
organizations (IRA, PLO, Provolution), organizations don't even
pretend to compete w/nat'l gov'ts.  Organization members still have
national identities, and pay taxes to their respective national
governments (less any applicable exemptions).  They also have strong
"organizational" identities.  For example, a troubleshooter (whatever
THAT is) working for NARL might have grown up in Germany or on a
German colony.  He would think of himself as German, but he has a
greater affinity for ideals that transcend national boundaries.  He
pays German taxes, but he's really subject to the laws of whatever
locality he's in.

I guess it's all fairly obvious, but some of the statements in the
Adventurer's and Director's Guides really threw me for a loop.  The
organization's goals become the player's goals (unless they're TRULY
independent), and for just about every goal, there's an organization.

Now I'll go out on a limb and firmly state my own opinions: It seems
to me that, even today, national governments are more or less the
same.  They provide the same basic services to their citizens, impose
the same more-or-less commonsense laws, and hit 'em w/taxes.  The more
services, the more taxes.  Differences show up mostly as cultural
differences, which should be role-played.  I don't really see
organizations like the Pesh Murga or the PLO going into space,
although groups using the same tactics may arise on colonies
struggling for independence.  Really outlandish situations, like the
civil war in Ethiopia with all its attendant complexities, or the
suppression of the Indian population of Guatemala, or the requirement
that the government of Lebanon be made of differing religious groups
(Christian PM, Islamic President, etc) won't be directly transplanted
to the colonies, but might be duplicated, somehow.  According to the
official history, only a few colonies have rebelled, so it really
sounds like business as usual out there.

Good grief, if I'm not careful, I'll just write incoherently for
hours!

John.