Jay Scott Clark said:
Now you're talking. I know this is a 'Suggestions to the Staff' thread, but should it find it's way into the Roleplay Discussion forum? I think you'd make some awesome waves with it Akio. Some serious merit here and with the abscence of the Rebellion Rules like you mentioned, yeah... Could be pretty awesome with enough people on board.
I agree with [member="Jay Scott Clark"]
This is certainly something that can be worked out in the roleplay discussion forum.
Tefka said:
Major Faction leaders could already do this by creating their own maps of their territory and providing the option themselves. But it won't be Staff governed.
Staff's not going to intentionally back any Major Faction leader because my honest opinion is, not too many people in this community should be given more authority than necessary. Mainly because I've seen a lot of A-holes come through here and somehow make it to leadership positions, and I'm not going to back those sort of people with any sort of Staff-supported authority.
Want to be a test-bed? Do it within your own faction. But do so knowing Staff will not assist in any manner whatsoever. We might watch. But we're not going to help.
[member="Tefka"]
Okay!
I don't think I said at all for staff to back me or back anyone in this.
I just said "Hey we are totally up for trying this out" and that was it.
I didn't ask for any authority or anything.
I'm just a dude writing stories, thanks for letting me hang here.
No need to be so brusk.
Any who you mention internal maps.
This is actually something I've been working on for awhile to get an actual map up and running for the Imperial Remnant.
Was most likely going to to use the grid system.
Since the territory we have amounts to somewhere between 2 full sectors of space and perhaps 1 to two more when cross referenced with the star wars essential atlas.
Now the reason I bring that up is because there are a host of canon systems available for use by minor factions. From the Corporate Alliance to even full on companies who have their own minor faction.
Now I'm willing to set up some sort of thread or tracker thingy for this as I'm already doing something along those lines any ways to best keep track of the history of contracts and diplomatic deals made IC with each individual faction/company.
This can be expanded on out of character
I think the only involvement really staff will be having with this is their already basic duties to begin with. Updating codex stuff with new submission, updating factory stuff with new submissions.
Perhaps at this point this should just be recognized as a new element with which can better guide and influence roleplaying as just being aware of such dynamism for members and providing it in a clear and concise manner.
Will it it improve things? Maybe, maybe not?
But I'm willing to try it.
Akio Kahoshi said:
With the recent discussions, and the continuing discussion of the Rebellion rules that were nixed, I had an idea for a new set of rules that would help make the map more dynamic and factions in general more interesting.
Influence.
The basis of this are two types of influence. Influence of the State, and influence of the People. Not actually named that, but just to give a distinction. What we see on the map is the Influence of the State. The One Sith may own Coruscant, but do the people of Coruscant
want them there? Probably not. On the same token, a criminal empire may buy the politicians of a planet, but they run it from the shadows. While the ADA controls Tantooine, we all know its the criminals that really run the show on that fun little planet.
So what does this mean? It means we need to start looking at things from more than one direction, not just the top down "which government claims this planet." This idea is for minor factions, factions that may have a Galaxy wide effect but never actually "own" a single planet.
Such factions include Rebel factions, merc factions, crime factions, religious factions, and more.
For it we add a new level of dominions and invasions. Influence missions of a sort. While Naboo belonged to the Galactic Republic, the Trade Federation blockaded it and established influence rule over the planet. The Republic (or rather a couple Jedi, a Queen, and some goofy aliens), did a counter and removed that influence. Okay maybe not the best example, but you get my point.
Influence would be a separately tracked sphere on the map. Minor factions can raise influence on free planets to establish themselves easily, and spread their influence. But they can also spread their influence within the territory of major factions. The further they push this influence, the stronger their influence becomes elsewhere. Eventually reaching the point where they can bypass the major faction completely on that planet.
For it to work I think we would need stages of influence:
- Little influence - The faction has a minor presence, not really known by the major faction. The faction can move their people to and form this planet without to much effort, but have little effect on what happens on the planet.
- medium influence - The faction has a serious influence on the planet. Their presence may or may not be known, depending on how secretive the faction is (a major faction may not mind a major merc operation on one of their planets for instance). The minor faction can influence politics on the planet, but ultimately control is still with the major faction.
- Heavy influence - The major faction is control in name rather than practice. If the local politicians are loyal, they may alert the major faction that they've lost control. If they've been sufficiently bribed, only direct contact will alert the owners. The minor faction has complete political influence on the planet, and can control its actions (or inaction).
- Rebellion - A minor faction that chooses to go major can use their influence to take over a planet as their new capital. At this point the original owners are kicked out, and the planet has a new owner.
Both the minor faction and major faction involved can do "invasions" to increase of decrease influence on a planet. But instead of weapons and Force powers, these battles are won through words, money, and intrigue. There is also ways this can work with major factions against each other to make things more interesting, but for now I think just focusing on minor factions is better.
This is just the simplest of ideas, but the question is if anyone finds it an idea worth developing further.
[member="Akio Kahoshi"]
Now then back to how this could be implemented in terms of a small scale trial of things.
Within the Imperial Remnant we have a small client state whom we had backed in helping end a really long civil war.
Now the Imperials are embroiled in peacekeeping operations and striving to rebuild this civilization.
Using this example and looking at your system devised we could write it up as such that said minor faction or sub faction would be presently at the second level of "Influence"
Now we may not necessarily even have to use a new tag such as "Influence" versus that of the ones in existence already.
As this would be a Faction based thread with a story typically for the faction seeking to improve its status in some way or form.
The Faction title would most likely be appropriate.
Once discussed Out of Character prior to with the major faction leadership on the outcome of such a thread and what impacts it might have.
So now there is a resistance group aided by the rebel alliance.
Their actions will could galvanize the people to rise up against the monarchy again by reaching the fourth level. Now does it necessarily mean they go major? nope it could just mean that now the major faction controls that territory in name on the map but in truth no longer holds sway
Taking a brutal real world example here would be the situation in the Mesopotamia region with swathes of northern Iraq and eastern syria now under control by the Islamic State. The governments of either respective nation may still lay claim to that territory but in essence they have lost true control of it.
Another real world example would be back in ancient egypt under Roman rule.
Despite being apart of a larger empire the romans had to constantly deal with rebellions and banditry disrupting grain to the larger region all due to the heavy reliance on grain from that region. Having to work with the local populace and people of influence.
Now on here if a pirate group performs a skirmish thread where they raid a shipping lane
or a corporation performs a faction thread where they blockade a world (such as the trade federation blockading naboo) then the repercussions of such actions should affect the major faction. Now if the major faction has to step in and do something about two minor factions or have to hunt down these pirates then a new thread or the same respective thread should also give the chance to keep a status quo or effect things.
tl:dr So after that long winded post I will expand upon my own template "in house" to facilitate the "influence" of individual minor factions and companies and their impact upon our stories!
