Screwing Up a Garden World

[Mithras]

So ... I have a garden planet, but I need to make it less so. I need to turn it not into some kind of hellhole, but at least make the inhabitants really work for a living. Currently it is:

Phlume/Vilis C887624-8 Agricultural, Non-Industrial

OK size-wise, dense atmosphere , 70% oceans, they've got anice direct democracy going on with unoppessive law level and a healthy TL 9. They grow more food than they can use. But Phlume is a C class port, and is a little off the trade routes.

How do I give this little Eden a kick in the teeth, all my worlds in Vilis so far have this kicker the type that Larry Niven gave to his Known Space worlds. I want Vilis to feel like the 'edge of empire'.

I'm at a loss at the moment. Things look very rosy for the Phlumians, and a rosy utopia is a boring place to game IMHO.

 

[Chronus]

I'm at a loss at the moment. Things look very rosy for the Phlumians, and a rosy utopia is a boring place to game IMHO.

I'm honestly not trying to be insulting in stating the obvious but . . . why not just pick a different planet? :?

An occasional boring planet might be a good thing as well.

 

[Mithras]

Well, Phlume is the very last planet I have to describe. Plus, in my upcoming solo-game covering a Naval supply ship, Phlume is on its 4 world-route.

To be honest, I don't haveto wreck the world. But I just want to make it incredibly and visually memorable ... :?:

 

[daryen]

Well, a couple of things.

First, with a dense atmosphere, you get more extreme weather. That alone can make life more miserable for the hardscrabble inhabitants. Just run with that, if you want.

Second, the participatory democracy is just asking for abuse. A full democracy like that only works well if the people don't do something stupid. So, make them stupid somehow. Maybe it is organized crime. Maybe it is dynastic families. Maybe it is a large section of the population that are not "citizens" and therefore have no voice. Maybe it is stupid laws that the majority backs. Maybe it is a stupid religion that the majority backs. I don't know. Go look at the real world for stupid societies and run with it.

The world can't be a utopia: it's got people on it. Let your people be people, and the utopia quickly transforms into distopia.

 

[Mithras]

daryen - nice! "The world can't be a utopia: it's got people on it." NIce!

I will work on that angle! For now, I hadan image of the Nile at sunset and come up with this. Phlume orbits on old red star. Its main continent is known for its World River, avast river which rises in the Shield Mountains and virtually circles the world. Much of the landmass is cloaked in a tough , fibrous, intertwined mass of vegetation called (imaginatively) the Tanglemat. 2m tall, and hard, it is incredibly hard to shift and not worth the expense if you can help it. With the red giants light, it all looks black and purple.

The great river cuts a swath through it, and empties into an island studded bay from a VAST delta. The colonists are farming the delta, like the Egyptians, they have found it is incredibly rich soil, even though it floods annually. Houses float, everyone travels through the deltaic swamps by hover craft or airboats. For travel to the island paradises, the Phlumians use ekranoplanes. Cool (komrade!).

The C class is an export root for the crops out to desperate Roup, rich Regina, and overpopulated Ruie.

The climate can be incredibly hostile, with tremendous storms that lash the delta region. The tanglemat has evolved to cope with this regular hammering. 200 mph winds and sideways rain

Now. How are the locals going to be stupid? :?

 

[rust]

For a start, they have a somewhat strange Code Duello to settle serious
arguments: The parties involved use paragliders, and the one who stays
aloft longer than the other is declared the winner. Due to the very heavy
storms, it is not uncommon that both parties are killed ...

Oh, and it is of course a matter of honour to use only paragliders built by
the parties themselves, so paraglider construction and paraglider testing
(a number of people get killed each year during test flights ...) are the
national obsessions.

 

[Golan2072]

Hmmm... It has an atmosphere of 7, which is tainted... Just make the taint particularly dangerous and/or annoying and you'll all be set up. Extremely fine particulates (capable of getting into ANYTHING and causing trouble unless its is specially sealed) or nasty biotoxins (fungi?) would work well.

Regarding the political side, the locals don't have to be stupid per se, they just have to be lazy (as direct democracies require active citizens) and thus leave actual power in the hands of the computer/administrators/the few who do spend time voting. Alternatively, they could have a small-town provincial mindset and, while being a true direct democracy for the locals, would be annoying for newcomers (as everything is done semi-informally and has a lot of cliques/family ties/bothersome habits involved.

 

[daryen]

Lazy works as well as stupid.

BTW, that "7" is the hydrographics, not the atmosphere. The atmosphere is the second "8". So, it has a dense, untainted atmosphere with 70-79% water coverage.

 

[daryen]

daryen - nice! "The world can't be a utopia: it's got people on it." NIce!

Thanks!

Now. How are the locals going to be stupid? :?

Well, with as nasty a weather as you are giving them, they don't need to be all that stupid, honestly.

But, let's play on it.

There is the code duello mentioned by rust.

Perhaps they have a "rite of passage"? They have to perform a hanglide like rust mentions, but just have to do it "prove" they are an adult and can then vote.

Or something. Remember that most "participatory democracies" really aren't. What you really have are the exclusive set of citizens who can vote (and are part of the democracy), but many are just subjects with no vote. Maybe they have to own land (a classic test). Or they have to perform a rite of passage (as mentioned above). Or have to be married. Whatever the requirement, it is important to disenfranchise a broad swath of the population. (It doesn't have to be the majority. It just has to be a lot.)

Or, go entirely in the other direction. Everyone does vote. Everyone really is a citizen. But, due to some custom or law, much of the voting is (for all intents and purposes) blind. The ordinances being voted on are written in dense "legalese". Or most people are just too busy to research the issue, but believe it is more important to vote uninformed that not vote. Or, maybe most voters are "single issue" voters who only vote for people who back their pet issue, irrespective any other issues they hold.

Or, maybe the whole democracy thing is really a lie. Any government must have a bureaucracy of some kind to run it. Maybe all the voting is a veneer to cover the antics of the bureaucracy. Since voting is done secretly, they just manipulate the numbers to make it work out the way they want. (Or it is a small group running the bureaucracy doing this, so the government is really an oligarchy, not an impersonal bureaucracy or democracy.)

Hopefully, there is something useful in all this rambling ...

 

[Golan2072]

Lazy works as well as stupid.

BTW, that "7" is the hydrographics, not the atmosphere. The atmosphere is the second "8". So, it has a dense, untainted atmosphere with 70-79% water coverage.

*Sigh* sleep deprivation...

 

[Mithras]

Hmm, I think I will have the population quite dispersed, extended families working semi-automated farms, and the participatory democracy an online feature that recognises their independance and love of free will. (Or unwillingness to trust anyone else with the decisions that keep the grain flowing into the starport and the port ticking over).

Certainly will use the 'rite of passage', although I'm not sure it will be hang-gliding. Probably something to do with the World River or the Tanglemat.

 

[Jeff Hopper]

Hmm, I think I will have the population quite dispersed, extended families working semi-automated farms, and the participatory democracy an online feature that recognises their independance and love of free will. (Or unwillingness to trust anyone else with the decisions that keep the grain flowing into the starport and the port ticking over).

Hmm, if the government is an online feature and you must have a single administrator for day-to-day work, then you have two immediate possibilities right there. First you could have problems with the network, either sabotage or incompetance causes it to fail during votes. Second you could have problems with the people, someof who have set up a political voting bloc that wishes to vote on too many day-to-day decisions and thus having the elected administrators get micro-managed by the entire world. Thirdly, you could have scandals (either real or imagined or even done as pranks) erupting from independant users on the network trying to disrupt and depose the current administrators.

Hmm, I should be trying to steal some of these ideas for my own game....

 

[Golan2072]

Hmm, I think I will have the population quite dispersed, extended families working semi-automated farms, and the participatory democracy an online feature that recognises their independance and love of free will. (Or unwillingness to trust anyone else with the decisions that keep the grain flowing into the starport and the port ticking over).

That would be perfect for a "small-town mentality" kind of problem - generations-long feuds between various families; informal alliances creating de-facto voting blocks; one family voting down another's (quite useful, objectively speaking) proposal because of disliking the proposing family; communication problems between families due to old feuds (and direct democracy requires good communications between voters to work well).

 

[Supergamera]

The place could very well be a Utopia, but only for the current residents. They could be so set on keeping the world to themselves that they take pride in making things difficult for off-worlders. If you want to go more in the silly-absurd direction, make all deals with off-worlders depend on a public vote, with the people demanding publicly broadcast amusements before logging on and giving their approval. Anyone who wants to immigrate has to go through a series of public trials and voter approval, where unpopular immigrants are rejected.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Only the First In colonists (and their decendents) are Citizens. All later colonists are non-citizens with no right of voting.

The Government Code was established by the IISS several centuries ago, when the world became an Imperial Member world and hasn't been updated since.

Every time the IISS comes by to update their records, the Citizens spend a lot of time and effort showing them how participatory their government is and hiding the fact that 80% of the people on the planet have no direct vote.

Enviromentally, you could make all the native life on the planet have a different DNA sequence, so it is completely 100% incompatible with Terran life. Every hectare of land has to be scourged and sterilized and restocked with Terran-based bacteria etc before crops can be planted. While not deadly to humans (well maybe they are), all native life is inert to humans and just sits in the body and cannot be digested (think metal or plastic that you might eat). This would greatly slow expansion and give farmers something to constantly be fighting (weeds are BAD).

 

[grymlocke]

chamax..

that'll do it.

 

[daryen]

chamax..

that'll do it.

He said "screw up" a garden world. He wasn't asking how to destroy it completely.

 

[Xoph]

It can't be a Utopia people are in it; is perfect, but you don't have to get all crazy with the society. You could just make the planet very boring and society very nosey. Have them all very interested in participating in every aspect of government at every level like a condo strata with the "What would the neighbors think." attitude to everything. An online government with incessant blog debates over every little thing before any decision, including trade, can be made.

Or if you really want the world to be more interesting the rolling hills and pretty seas just have an odd chemical in all the plant life that is completely harmless but turns all plant life ridiculously bright colours, so bright and clashing that it causes headaches. Therefore most colonists are colour blind and everyone else wears colour dulling glasses.

 

[Mithras]

Psychedelic! Take a 'trip' to Phlume!

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

After eating the local food for a couple of weeks, your hair turns blue? BRIGHT blue.