Secret society keyword confusion

[Meldinoor]

Hey guys,
I just got my boxed set of Paranoia Red Clearance Edition, and I'm looking forward to getting a group of friends together and trying it out soon.
I love the secret societies, and for the most part, the rules governing them and their descriptions were very straight-forward. However, on page 39. of the Gamemaster's Handbook there is a diagram (an 8-pointed star) showing which of the society keywords are sympathetic and antipathetic. The diagram clearly shows "diversify" and "progress" as antipathetic to each other.

My questions are:
1. How can "Free Enterprise" embrace both "diversify" and "progress"? Are they antipathetic to themselves? To nobody?
2. Why are "diversify" and "progress" antipathetic anyway? Pro Human-Pro Tech, Order-Disorder, and Isolate-Explore all make sense as each-others' opposites, but I don't see why "diversify" should be the opposite of "progress".

Would be nice to know how to interpret these keywords in order to roleplay the different secret societies well.

Thanks!

 

[Shai]

From what I understand (from reading the specific cards and UV level clones that have Progress or Diversify as keywords), Progress-Diversify are like a scale of art and expression supporters and research and development supporters. So you could have a Pro-Human Progress who would work on technological enhancements or mutations for the sake of overthrowing the computer. You could also have a Pro-Tech and Diversify who believes that every clone should be unique for the sake of helping the computer by expressing their love in their own manner (or divide and conquer, that also works).
The reason that the Free Enterprise work by being both Progress & Diversify is because they have the goal of selling anyone anything. They can change their opinions to anything as long as they see a profit out of it. (Or they might prefer Progress so that they can "patent" anything and Diversify so they can sell to as many as possible.)

 

[wjmacguffin]

1. How can "Free Enterprise" embrace both "diversify" and "progress"? Are they antipathetic to themselves? To nobody?

Free Enterprise is all about profit, so they can be dysfunctional like this. Diversify? They want less uniformity so they can build their pyramid schemes and offer exciting new services like "pay us each week or your store burns down." Progress? New scientific advances means new products to sell. Both support the core FE mission.

But these keywords also explain relationships with other secret societies. So they have a love/hate thing with the Mystics over diversify and Psion over progress. (Mystics can move drugs but are soooo flakey, whereas Psion can rent out mutant powers but the whole mutant utopia thing doesn't include FE.) The rest don't matter unless profit can be made.

2. Why are "diversify" and "progress" antipathetic anyway? Pro Human-Pro Tech, Order-Disorder, and Isolate-Explore all make sense as each-others' opposites, but I don't see why "diversify" should be the opposite of "progress". Would be nice to know how to interpret these keywords in order to roleplay the different secret societies well.

Diversify = less uniformity to create a diverse society.
Progress = use scientific advances to make society progress.

It's hard to make society progress if there's a lot of diversity. Think of it this way. The 1950s was a time of great progress, but it was also a time of uniformity. People who acted weird weren't supporting progress (which of course is defined by the powers in charge). The late 60s was a time of great diversity, but it was also a time of chaos. People who supported the previous progress were not supporting diversity.