Subject: An idea with a bug...
I was reading Piers Anthony's _Triple_Detente_ today, and thought
it would be a neat idea for a pocket polity. I started to
"translate" it, and quickly realized that if it's ever actually
_used_ in a campaign, there are some severe problems.
For those of you who haven't read the book, it starts off with a
space battle about to come off. The commander of the Human fleet
discovers an alien spy in his crew, and without letting on that
he knows, makes it known to the spy that he is amenable to
working out their differences. We don't see the actual
resolution of the battle, but the next scene occurs on Earth,
where the alien fleet has landed. The aliens establish a regime
that is on the surface cruel and genocidal, but turns out to be
beneficial to the planet later on - in comparatively short order.
At this point, an apparent rebel movement starts its small
annoyance, which quickly flops. In the process, one of the
revolutionaries, the son of the commander of the destroyed Human
fleet, is approached by the chief of the alien overlords, and
asked to show an alien female around. At about the time that the
revolutionary realizes that the revolution has flopped, he is
recruited by the aliens to govern _their_ world. It is
explained to him that fifteen years ago, at the time of the
defeat of the Human fleet, the two fleets instead declared
peace on each other, met, and came to an agreement that
resulted in the Human fleet governing the alien world, and
vice-versa. Outside of the two "occupation governments",
nobody knows the truth - not even the native bureaucracy.
The book does not end there, but that's not important. The dual
occupations was the idea that intrigued me. I had pictured
putting these worlds in the Great Wilds, one parsec apart, in an
area that was off the pre-Collapse trade routes because of being
at least jump-2 from the nearest other stars. Both worlds
clawed their ways out of the ruins that they were left in due to
the Rebellion and the subsequent attacks by Virus, and have
made it back to jump-1 capability, with jump-2 visible on the
horizon. Shortly after they achieved jump-1 (in an amazing
coincidence, almost simultaneously), they met and went to war. A
farsighted captain from one planet managed to open up a
discussion that resulted in the kind of secret arrangement
described above, and the result has been peace and prosperity for
both planets. The occupation governments have not allowed
development of interstellar flight beyond the jump-1 level,
because they only too clearly perceived my problem. Other than
that, this polity is at a solid tech-11 to tech-12.
The problem: The PC's ship is capable of jump-3. This pair of
planets sits across a great shortcut for their travels. They're
bound to come in for fuel, and see much in-system activity.
Contact is almost inevitable. No matter which planet they come
into, they will come into contact with members of both races. If
they choose to visit the second planet, or if one of the
occupation soldiers lets something slip, the PCs will quickly
figure out just what the situation is.
The polity's problem: How to prevent the secret from being
blown? How do we salvage the situation if the secret does get
blown anyway? Can we afford the risk of not blowing away
outsiders? Can we guarantee that we _can_ blow away any
outsiders? If we can't guarantee that we can blow away any
outsiders, what can we do to make it in the outsiders' best
interests to keep quiet?
Other problems for the Referee to consider: What happens when
the RCES come calling? Is this a government that they will like,
or will it be "necessary" to overthrow it? If this world is
placed in, say, Coreward Corridor, what will be the reaction (on
both sides) when the Regency comes calling? Or the Ziru Sirkaa,
if it manages to resurrect itself?
Certainly a lot of grist for the campaign, but I need ideas on
how to handle it. If anyone wants the "Encyclopedia Galactica"
entries for these, let me know, and I'll finish fleshing them
out, and post them here.
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Jeff Zeitlin [email removed]
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~ QMPro 1.52 ~ The road to to success is always under construction..