Gentlesophonts:
From Monday night, Jim Vassilakos [email removed] writes about
previous TML discussions on world generation variants:
> I've just put a
> transcript of the old discussion up for ftp.
I've only gotten through part of Jim's discussion but if you're going
to participate in our current world generation discussion then I
strongly urge you to check this out first. It will save us a *great*
deal of duplication.
Andy Lilly [email removed] asks with regard to the Earth Colonies
world generation variant I posted:
> I did note that the Govt gen
> bit doesn't allow have religious extremists or dictators - or am I
> misinterpreting the oligarchies, etc.?
It's not that you're not reading the tables correctly it's just that I
didn't bother to explain them. The description of government types C+
as 'democratic oligarchies' merely describes the nature of authority and
consent under these governments. The 'democratic' means that ultimately
the government enjoys some level of consent (even if that's merely a
consent to oppression in the face of an alternative of death - which is
what permits the oppression to continue) from the populace. Since high
government levels result from large populations some sort of consent
*has* to exist.
The 'oligarchy' in the government type description merely describes the
agent that exercises authority. In this case, a group of individuals
(as a opposed to the single individual of an autarchy). At C+ we get
an oligarchy again because population levels are high which strains
the ability of a single individual to exercise authority.
The specific characteristics of this 'democratic oligarchy' are left
to the referee. If you prefer a theocracy go right ahead. The rules
are simply constructed to permit an extremely oppressive government
type without requiring that it be characterized as theocratic. (A view
expressed in the canonical rules that, IMHO, reflects the Western humanist
bias of the original developers rather than an objective take on
government types - there was nothing 'religious' about the rule of Sauron
in Mordor!)
Happy Travelling,
David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA