Warning, there are spoilers about Path of Tears below, please
skip to the next article, if you have not read the book yet
and are concerned about that type of thing.
First off, I have not been a fan of the TNE era and have
made my share of snotty remarks about GDW.(I suggested a
wake for the Imperium last april and made references to maniacal
butcher knife attacks on TNE authors among other things).
That all being said, I liked the Path of Tears. I thought
it was of the best products I have seen come out of GDW
in years. Some of the best planetary detail yet. (Though
that could have just been as easily done as a "Client States of the Imperium"
book without the murder of the Third Imperium being necessary ;-). )
My mental picture of the Reformation Coalition is a lot more
flattering that I thought it would be. GDW actually makes
"killing the locals and taking home the neat stuff that don't belong
to us"(the SAG mission) seem like a noble and self sacrificing
endeavour! Forgetting the bombed cities, dead civilians and
crying babies and all that stuff that goes with clobbering the opposition.
At least the original Space Viking(Prince Trask) in the H.Beam Piper
novel used to get nightmares about dead childeren. It don't seem
to bother the RCES.
The political structure and currents of the RC are
quite well described as well as RC motivation.
That being all the good things, I have a few observations
about this RCES gaming universe for GDW's consumption.
1. I like the Guild, but haven't they been set up
as a straw man opponent? From what is described
they appear to be both too strong in actions and
too weak in supporting capabilities. We're told
that they are not a government, but in PoT, their
agents appear to be everywhere. The Guild seems
to have designed and manufactured tanks and
all sorts of weaponry. Where are the factories
and designers?(I can't believe its all done
by ships crew during jump transit) Either the
guild is a group of derelict ship captains in
a sub sector or two, who couldn't possibly
support this infrastructure, or its a force
thats at least as strong as the RC.(wheres
the worlds it controls then?)
2. If the Guild is going to be the big bad guy.
I suggest the GDW come out with a a source book
for them. I wouldn't mind playing guild characters.
Give the support to be a guild agent, guild ship
captain or slaver. Explain the economics of
slavery in this environment.
3. I kinda like the idea of the Guild being the
anarchists of space.(makes you wonder if they
fly the black flag of anarchy). But in all
seriousness, I don't know if their attitude
towards multi-planet government is likely.
Sure, gov't caused the mess, but I bet that
any one of those merchant captains would
prefer to have a big navy cruiser commin' to the
rescue with lasers and particle accelerators
a flashing, when a pirate starts chasing the cargo.
Remember, the merchant's ships big problems
arose when the gov't ceased to exist.
4. The wild's strangely enough is more civilized
than I think it should be. There seems to be
mostly Tech level 5-9 worlds out there. There
seems to be a lot of ships(free trader and guild)
still plying the space ways.(where are the pirates?)
Some of the these worlds, don't make sense. Worlds
have "data priests" that are in the tech 5-9 eras.
Given that we are talking 20th Century technology,
it takes a rather sophisticated population to support
such a technology(just take a good look around you).
A population that can support tech 5-9 just doesn't
seem the type to go in for supersitious data priests.
I consider the data priest in that tech level as
dumbfounding as the Virus itself. I quite believe
that data priests could be found in 2-3, but in
tech 5-9, too much of the population has
to support the technology, for a data priest syndrome
to really set in.(IMHO)
5. TED model seems to be too simplistic for the worlds
described. (Mass balkanization seems to have occurred).
The general impression that GDW gives is every TED is
a bum whom the population could care less about. Anybody
who is leading a nation >=4 in tech level and with
at least hundreds of thousands and greater population,
is actually setting on a fairly sophisticated and
bureaucratic state(have to be it wouldn't run otherwise).
These nations got created somehow, where is the force
of nationalism? Maybe in the description of the
gov'ts GDW should give a loyalty of the population
indicator(from openly seditous, to indifferent,
to your basic throw yourself in the line of fire to
protect our sainted TED). Let me use a real world example,
Iraqi's(the lower tech zips) have been merrily overthrowing
their TEDS for years, now the US(re RCES) and others come
around and try to force the current TED out, and
between the TED's terror and the locals rallying
around the TED(because he's OUR bloody TED and
no outsider is going to tell us what to do), the
TED gets stronger and stays in power for a record
length of time(i.e stronger state apparatus than
apparent and force of nationalism than TED model
implies).
Well, enough ranting, I actually did enjoy the product.
Brian J. Makens [email removed]
Digital Sound Corporation
Carpinteria, Ca