LWhitehead said:
Hi I know that Mongoose Publishing doesn't publish Starship Troopers RPG anymore, but one question that's bin nagging me isn't the Terrans in that furture an anlog to Nazi Germany?.
I mean what about the groups of Humans who don't want to follow Terran Goverment like Pirates,
LW
To dare say such a thing proves your utter ignorance of the original story. PICK UP THE BOOK AND FLIP PAUL VERHOEVEN THE FINGER FOR MAKING THE M.I. INTO A BUNCH OF ARYAN PRETTY BOYS. Gah. Sorry to sound like such an ass, but even I found that offensive.
To answer your question though, I imagine Pirates would be dealt with swiftly by The Fleet, much like how the M.I. put down rebellions on Federation worlds.
Also, to shed a little light on what I meant at the top...NO. NO NO NO. The Director of the movie had a severe Nazi fetish and he RUINED Starship Troopers when he made it. So, whenever you see that movie, IGNORE the story. It's irrelevant and NOTHING like the book. Just enjoy all the bloody green ichor on the ground, dead bugs, shooting and mini-nukes being used like they're going out of style.
Here's the real way the Terran Federation worked.
The difference between a Citizen and a Civilian was exclusively the right to Franchise. No, not to own a fast food place in a nationwide chain, but the right to Vote. In the movie, they tried to say that the ONLY way to earn Franchise(Among other ridiculous things, like College funding and Licenses to have children, neither of which were existent in the true story.) was MILITARY service.
This is extremely....Utterly...disgustingly incorrect.
It's FEDERAL SERVICE. This isn't just Military service. Military service including both Infantry and Fleet were a very mere 5% of all Federal service jobs offered. Most were as simple as working in an office pushing paper from desk to desk or filing reports or even just community cleaning. The Military jobs were reserved only for people who truly qualified.
The movie depicted the Mobile Infantryman as a Soap Opera star with an unwieldy assault rifle and body armour made of what might as well have bee cardboard. (It didn't protect against their own rifle ammo as seen on several occasions in Hopper Canyon and on Whiskey Outpost, let alone Warrior's scything claws and crunching jaws.) and either male or female. The Mobile Infantry were actually much better trained and equipped and were exclusively male(While much of the Fleet was exclusively female.) A Cap Trooper received no less than almost two years worth of training, mostly in the harsh Canadian Rockies. They were shot at with live ammo during training and subjected to a physical training course that put the USMC's "Crucible" to shame.
The part on Gender may sound sexist, but the honest to god fact is that Women naturally have a better grasp of math than Men do, while Men are born to fight, while women are not. Why try to cross-train someone for a skill-type they weren't naturally born with?
Continuing on with the Government section.
The Terran government did exclusively use corporal punishment to control crime and many would, could and can call this barbaric, but it's effective. If a man is found guilty of murder, you don't kill him to show that killing is wrong, you kill him to protect society from him and instill the fear of the firing squad into any future murderers. However, if a person is guilty of stealing, you whip the crap out of them to instill the fear of the bullwhip into all potential thieves.
The other part of this however was based on personal pride. All offenders who received lashes were placed in the town center as a free spectacle for anyone who happened to pass by. To be lashed in public for a petty crime would also bring shame on one's self and one's family. It's pretty much the same lines as "Spare the rod, spoil the child."
But! At absolutely no point in time did the the society Heinlein depicted appear Nazi like(Unless the reader in question was a U.S. Liberal who just skimmed six pages, then declared the book a 100+ page recruiting poster and an updated version of "Mein Kaempf." or some other insanely ignorant statement.). People were perfectly free to do as they pleased, even speak out against the government if they felt elected officials weren't meeting the standards they were expected to be held to.
Really, it isn't much different from how Democracy is supposed to work, except for the requirement to do something deeming yourself worthy of choosing who leads your own nation's government.
Really all it boils down to is.... Go read the damn book and make your own opinion. It's 56 years old and it's still in print. Not hard to find, nor to afford.
I think I lost all the knowledge of them when I started studying the early Roman Empire. Lol.
