Starship troopers rumours

[Captain Jonah]

Jumping in here lat in the chat, but hey

Much is said about the whole only citizens vote and you must serve to be a citizen thing. In peace time this was not such a problem, you have an all volunteer service rather than conscripts and they are in and out after two years with, in most cases, usefull skills.

A number of european countries have had or still have draft laws where every citizen is required to do national service. How different is it to give people the choice to serve to become citizens or not serve and stay civilians.

Today in our democracys we elect leaders on a majority of those who vote, some countries are making or have made voting a legal requirement. Others retain the choice to vote and then elect leaders voted for by 20% or less of the adult population. Election by election the number of people who vote seems to be going down (well the living ones anyway, dead people, imaginary people and pets casting votes is increasing).

An awful lot of people pay taxes and don't bother to vote at all, those who want to vote make the effort to vote, its a big step beyond that to sign up for 2 years of service but as citizenship brings other benifits as well it can be seen as being worthwhile. It is never that you cannot vote, it is that you must earn the right to vote. You pay taxes for the services you get in return.

There are many who scorn the military and would never serve and who discorage others to serve, there are many who admire the military and who are prepared to offer thier own lives to defned home and nation. Of the two groups which would you rather see picking your next leader. So many of our polititians nowdays are regarded poorly, they are self serving, corupt and generaly a pack of useless snake oil salesmen and yet they keep getting elected. :roll:

 

[rust]

There are many who scorn the military and would never serve and who discorage others to serve, there are many who admire the military and who are prepared to offer thier own lives to defned home and nation. Of the two groups which would you rather see picking your next leader.

In more than half of the world's countries I would not hesitate for
a moment to choose the first group, mainly because there the mi-
litary is not at all about "defending home and nation", it is about
suppressing the population or about aggression against the popu-
lation of other nations.

 

[Captain Jonah]

True enough. But who has set the army on that course. In a democracy the voters elect a government who then turns the military on next door nations or its a non elected leader who is maintaining power without election or just does the usual 95% of the people voted for me because they love me bit. Did the voters know this was going to happen, did they fall for a sales pitch from a charismatic leader who promised peace and had bombs falling a few months after gaining power.

Heinlein was doing a certain amount of looking through rose coloured specs but he was also talking about a professional force with very high standards.

When your military, be it conscript or volunteer, is used to keep you in power that is not the kind of democracy Heinlein was thinking of. But then that isn't a democracy even if you do hold elections every few years, vote for the leader or the secret police come round.

And yet when voting is mandated by law in the "civilised western world" if you don't vote for a leader the police can come round anyway. They just arrive in daylight and knock before breaking in.

Democracy is a strange thing, it is one thing to one person and another to the next. From the Greeks with citizens through to the more modern if you are born here you can vote it has taken many forms and will most likely take many new forms in the future.

You can force people to vote or you can make them earn a vote or you can just allow anyone to vote. Each way of doing things will shape the democracy you have. The universe of the star ship troopers was not perfect, but neither was it an oppressive police state (on the surface anyway).

You can choose to vote but you must pay for the privilege. With federal service.

For the ancient Greeks consider Sparta. Here only citizens could vote, to be a citizen you must attend the agoge which was the training of a Spartan warrior. Mostly this was restricted to Spartan men but could include others but excluded the lower classes. This training and equipping cost money, if you could not afford the training and equipment you could not qualify as a citizen or you could lose your citizenship. So only the rich could afford to vote.

The same in Rome where only those rich enough to buy a place in the senate could vote and the rest ran with or stirred up the mob to get things done.

True democracy where everyone votes on everything is possible if you have the technology to maintain such votes. Each day every day you could have a beep from your personal citizen vote alert telling you a vote is needed, the star port wants to expand another 5km away from the city to add more capacity but this means building on protected greenbelt. Details available, consider, vote, go back to what you were doing before.

 

[rust]

I guess the relation between military and democracy is mostly a cul-
tural thing, depending on the historical experiences of a nation.

In our history we had a time where the military was a supremely po-
werful institution (Prussia as "an army that owns a state"), but also
a time where the members of the military had no voting rights what-
soever (to prevent a political influence of the army). Currently our
concept is the "citizen in uniform", which sees the military as just a
public service profession like others (police, firefighters, emergency
services, etc.) and accepts few legal differences between the mem-
bers of the military and civilians. For example, there are no military
courts.

 

[Poi]

I popped in to see if anyone had any ideas abouit bring Starship Troopers to Traveller, and we end up in politics.

The old Mongoose stuff for Starship Troopers was based much more heavily on the cartoon than either the movies or the book, IIRC. It was much less strident about the politics than either the book or the films, and focused more on the action, but with a thoughtful undertone.

I own it on DVD, and drag it out once in a while. The animation wasn't great, but it kept me watching.

 

[barnest2]

I popped in to see if anyone had any ideas abouit bring Starship Troopers to Traveller, and we end up in politics.

The old Mongoose stuff for Starship Troopers was based much more heavily on the cartoon than either the movies or the book, IIRC. It was much less strident about the politics than either the book or the films, and focused more on the action, but with a thoughtful undertone.

I own it on DVD, and drag it out once in a while. The animation wasn't great, but it kept me watching.

You always will with troopers (Hey, what a topic I started)

I love the cartoon. It's fun, though as you say, the animation is kinda poor in places.

 

[Poi]

I got into it just before Mongoose lost the licence. Shame, or I would have bought into the real troopers, which looked an awful lot like the HS2 Holocaust Judges IIRC

 

[barnest2]

I got into it just before Mongoose lost the licence. Shame, or I would have bought into the real troopers, which looked an awful lot like the HS2 Holocaust Judges IIRC

I've got the entire line of books (got most of them from amazon) and I've got a few trooper models lying around somewhere. They're pretty good casts.

 

[Lincolnlog]

POI & Locarno,

I also have the animated series on DVD, and agree they were better than the movie. Since the animated series was more small unit, rather than the book 50 man platoons, would be easier to model an RPG after.

Sorry about the politics.

By the way, I'm a huge Pournelle fan, and would love to do a Janissairies based campaign. He was writing a 4th book in this series but never completed it.

Like the Falkenburg series too and the Star FIST series (Cragg & Sherman), looks like there won't be anymore of those either. Not a huge fan of the David Drake series.

Bob

 

[locarno24]

which looked an awful lot like the HS2 Holocaust Judges IIRC

That's not in any way because the HS2 is an old Starship Troopers exosuit model with some extra sculpting. Honest, Guv'nor.


That was something Mongoose did - try and bundle up all the versions of Starship Troopers people might have seen into one game:

Exosuit Troopers - 'Proper' Mobile Infantry from Henlein's book
Power Suit Troopers & Marauders - Animation
Light Infantry Troopers - Film Trilogy
Pathfinders - FPS Computer Game

 

[tneva82]

That was something Mongoose did - try and bundle up all the versions of Starship Troopers people might have seen into one game:

Not that bad idea really as one source only leaves bit to be desired in terms of variety. Games would get real boring real fast.

As it was it could have done even more variety...3 races is kinda meh for miniature game.

 

[locarno24]

That, I guess, was why they wanted to put the Forth in. Equally, there was a 'rebel colony' list which was actually quite fun to use, it's just a shame it never went anywhere beyond an S&P article.

The problem is that when you're dealing with a license that established there are limits to your ability to randomly add stuff.

Besides, it worked quite well even as a two-race game - the gunline/melee dynamics made for interesting games and the rules could be written around it. It's not dissimilar to a free-movement version of Space Hulk in that regard, and I consider the latter one of the tactical, tensest and most enjoyable strategy games ever written.

Also note that all the versions based off the Battlefield Evolution OGL are interoperable, so if you want Arachnids vs. Nazis vs. Zombies, go right ahead.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

1 'if you turned up blind, deaf and without the use of your legs, but were adamant about it, we would still have to find you some form of federal service you could do."

2Verhoven basically said he didn't want ("couldn't ever see") bugs with guns, and then, given that, he was left with the problem that jump-capable infantry with the augmented strength to tear any living creature apart couldn't realistically be threatened by a big ant with sharp claws - they couldn't be caught, and could batter any melee opponent silly, and it's hard to explain why anyone cornered didn't just jump clear. Frankly I don't get why warrior bugs with guns were such a problem, especially if you're prepared to create plasma bugs and flamethrowering tankers.

1Yeah, the non-military federal service was never very convincing, a big flaw in Heinlein's concept, which seemed to involve volunteers risking themselves and exercising power (through violence). What was quite clear was that 2 years helping out in a hospital, or cooking meals for the elderly, would not get you the vote.

2 :lol: But Verhoven was quite happy about evoled monkeys with guns!

Egil

 

[Captain Jonah]

On the subject of Starship troopers rumours what happened to the 4th movie, the fully CGI one based on the DVD series.

Not heard anything about that for a long time now.

 

[locarno24]

Yeah, the non-military federal service was never very convincing, a big flaw in Heinlein's concept, which seemed to involve volunteers risking themselves and exercising power (through violence). What was quite clear was that 2 years helping out in a hospital, or cooking meals for the elderly, would not get you the vote.

I think the acid test is that it had to realistically entail some non-trivial danger to life and limb. So whilst both might be equally worthy from a social standing police and fire service would pass the 'put your own neck on the line' test, whereas doctor would not.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Yeah, the non-military federal service was never very convincing, a big flaw in Heinlein's concept, which seemed to involve volunteers risking themselves and exercising power (through violence). What was quite clear was that 2 years helping out in a hospital, or cooking meals for the elderly, would not get you the vote.

I think the acid test is that it had to realistically entail some non-trivial danger to life and limb. So whilst both might be equally worthy from a social standing police and fire service would pass the 'put your own neck on the line' test, whereas doctor would not.

Not sure if police and firebrigade were dangerous enough to count for citizenship, the alternatives (just had a quick look at the recruiting office bit in the book) seem to be "field testing hazarous gear on Titan", and various difficult and dangerous mining operations in antartica, under the sea or in space.

To be honest there is a logic there, miners, deep sea fishermen, many types of farmers and many industial jobs have higher death rates than policemen or firemen. However, it does undermine the whole concept of obtaining the vote by carrying out dangerous service for the state. Heinlein obviously didn't want to be thought of as a militarist, but his alternative forms of service don't seem so equivelent.

Egil

 

[barnest2]

Not sure if police and firebrigade were dangerous enough to count for citizenship, the alternatives (just had a quick look at the recruiting office bit in the book) seem to be "field testing hazarous gear on Titan", and various difficult and dangerous mining operations in antartica, under the sea or in space.
l

You realise the recruiter was mainly trying to scare the crap out of juan right? Because later we hear of a camp currie drop out who was doing his term as a cook on a navy ship. He wasn't an MI, he wasn't in a dangerous position, but he was going to get his citizenship.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Something to add here. In peace time the military are likely to be killed in accidents or training, the boot camp live fire stuff for example. But they do not go up against a hostile foe all that often.

The book/film/series/RPG involves service during the Bug war when the troopers were in action against a hostile enemy with a very real chance of death.

I don't know how the figures stack up these days but how dangerous is military service compared to being a police officer or fireman somewhere with lots of guns.

Aside from "police" actions against the skinnies or separatists military service could involve two years of never hearing a shot fired in anger.

Probably the biggest point is that once you sign on as a citizen you can be recalled for service if needed. The "for two years or as long as needed in an emergency" bit allowing you to serve till you are too old to continue or till the biugs eat you. Plus the whole recalled to service bit for people who have long since done the two years.

To my mind it is far more than a two year term that may be a bit dangerous, it seems a lifetime commitment. You are a citizen, you agree to serve and to defend the body politic. That means till the day you die.

 

[barnest2]

To my mind it is far more than a two year term that may be a bit dangerous, it seems a lifetime commitment. You are a citizen, you agree to serve and to defend the body politic. That means till the day you die.

Isn't this the same with the US military. I know that when Gulf 2 started the army called up a big bunch of ex soldiers who knew Arabic, to train the grunts going in.
In the US, once you serve, you're a soldier for life (though they're less likely to want you for combat roles)

 

[Rick]

To my mind it is far more than a two year term that may be a bit dangerous, it seems a lifetime commitment. You are a citizen, you agree to serve and to defend the body politic. That means till the day you die.

Isn't this the same with the US military. I know that when Gulf 2 started the army called up a big bunch of ex soldiers who knew Arabic, to train the grunts going in.
In the US, once you serve, you're a soldier for life (though they're less likely to want you for combat roles)

Erm - not the same at all really! In the US and UK militaries (probably most others as well, but these are ones I know a little about), unless you are dishonourably discharged or discharged on mrdical grounds; you automatically are classed as on 'reserve' status for several years beyond the term of your service (not indefinately - it's only about 5 years, I believe) and can be called back into service on only a few selected grounds (necessary training/skills, for example). So it's not a blanket 'call-up' for all ex-military personnel until they retire.