I guess it would depend on the colonial power. Tasnican colonies might have heavy corp dominance, but Gatian colonies not so much.
WELL
-I had assumed that more of the Web was on the more dictatorship-y end of democracy/dictatorship, and though Scande is an extreme example, Tasnica is, too. IIRC, stable democracies were very much in the minority in the Web. But IDRM, the point I was making is that in most cases GAIA/Rangers need to operate with the assistance of locals - no country is going to totally surrender their sovereign rights. Remember, GACA is still an international organization, not a government. (though, as Matt points out, the tension between Alliance jurisdiction and local government is a good vein to mine for plot!) Remember, even if GAIA/Rangers have the power to arrest people (real-life Interpol doesn’t), someone has to try and imprison the criminals – and I think building a full GACA legal system is not something the member states would go for.
-There absolutely are for-profit companies operating in Tasnican space colonies, several of them being outright owned and operated by AAA corporations. (Hey, remember these guys? http://wiki.kupopolis.club/index.php?title=Centurion_Security_Services? Basically a for-profit law-enforcement organization? Who seem to be almost exactly what Mike is talking about?)
-Actually, in my original reborn notes, the Tasnican colonies outside of Mana after White Cell begin to have very little government control at all, becoming wretched hives of scum and villainy that use Tasnica as a “flag of convenience.”
-…worth mentioning that the White Cell War involves lots of big space battles, perhaps the losses lead to a resurgence of piracy? (Something we could mention in our space race?) I dunno, I feel like we’ve had the pirates on the run ever since they were introduced, and the fallout from out big space war could make space potentially more dangerous
-…I kinda just think a more lawless, dangerous space is overall more interesting? I dunno, in the past with SAGA/SRAN/GSF/RAF/et al being portrayed as really strong made space feel almost a little too safe for me. If we’re going to have Space Rangers, it makes sense to have a more “wild west” feel to space.
-And speaking of the lawlessness of space, one assumes that a significant area for the Space Rangers to operate is in deep space, outside of the control of any one country. (…and also international waters.)
Also:
it’s pronounced gack-uh.
Selly who?
Pretty awesome to see all this world-building going on after so long guys 
Sealyaise. For at least 20 characters.
I also like a rougher, scarier Web. I think it makes sense; post-White Cell, every major military took a hit, and there are both a lot more colonies than there were ten years ago and a whole lot more disaffected people, with less to patrol.
I think the GAIA/Rangers distinction makes sense. We could do conflict with GAIA wanting to reign the Rangers in; the Rangers, conversely, feel that the “flexibility” (or, as some would call it, lack of oversight!) is what lets them be effective. I think that’s some potent, strong stuff in storytelling.
Esperian colonies are a shit show, for the record. The SRAN was decimated in White Cell; it lost over half of its forces, its command structure was obliterated (and Van Norris, who was their brilliant commander, died), and the EU Aerospacy was wiped out except for a few rogue ships… and given who it sided with, uh, the survivors are now pirates who occasionally show up, claim a colony for a week, and declare themselves heirs of the “true” Esper Union. Or not paint idealism at all.
Esperian colonies tend to be colonies in name only; they’re quasi-independent tribute states that are milked for money by the oligarchic, burgeoning mageocracy. A lot were built on the cheap – there have been catastrophic failures, there have been local warlords taking them over, government-sponsored brutality, and because a lot ran in low gravity (gravitic generators, it wound up, couldn’t really make an asteroid have more than 0.1g or worse), there is a group of several hundred thousand “Esperians” who would be crippled if they went down to Esper III’s surface.
So in short: yeah, the Space Rangers probably see a lot of work there, and are probably called nasty names.
It’s some Expanse-like shit and most of the Web doesn’t even know it’s happening. Hell, most Esperians don’t.
oh, and just so we round out the Old Four:
the Scandians never had much in the way of space colonies. There may be some defense platforms and salvage laying around, but they never built a colonial empire to the degree of the other powers. The Tycoonese were chilling in the gas giant moons for a bit, but Commie Love-fest SUGGESTS that Tycoon was restored at the conclusion of the Coalition-Merge War and the Treaty of Tule. (Presumably a sort of, “Ok, we’ll let you have Bal back, but we totally get Tycoon back!” “Fine, fine, we’ve unraveled anyway!” - this would’ve been well and done before White Cell.)
…this has the interesting consequence of making the worlds of Dragon Dimension somewhat open to colonization. Perhaps some new players try to enter the scene?
“Hey, how about we colonize that other moon you have there, Dragon III?”
“No, pay no attention to that moon.”
“What the – is that moon naturally capable of supporting LIFE??”
“There is nothing to see there, please pay no attention to that moon.”
“Fuck you Scande, you’re too weak to stop us. Let’s land and check it out – hey, what’s that flying toward u --*”
To circle back some, where did we stand on Trav’s later post points?
sell yoys?
(twenty questions)
Sell yoys is how I pronounce it, which makes it as close to canon as you’re likely to get.
I didn’t quite get to discussing Guardia/Gate, so here goes: Guardia tries the hardest to maintain its old status quo and hold onto its status as a colonial power, even as it relaunches GATO as a power-sharing alliance between the number of other countries in the Gate Dimension. It might well be pointed out that the GSF would be hard-pressed to continue servicing and protecting the vast network of Gatian colonies after the losses they took during White Cell, but Grand Admiral Thames might respond (while looking down his nose at you) that everyone took losses during White Cell, and of the Great Power fleets the GSF came out on the other side in relatively good position.
Of course, with space pirates out there like Talina and Marlowe, GSF’s weaknesses may well be ripe for exposure. Space Rangers might find themselves less welcome in GATO space than anywhere else in the Web, both because the Guardians really like their sovereignty (especially in the space around their colonies) and because the presence of a Space Ranger around a GATO colony would implicitly suggest that the GSF are not capable of protecting colonial assets. Which is, of course, simply untrue.
Possible drama down the pipe: Guardia’s traditional Fringe allies (Bal and Forthena) break out from Gate’s hegemonic shadow; lasting tension between the GSF and the Merge League’s fleet of Sathanai starships (possibly resulting in the establishment of a “neutral zone” in Merge Space? [I don’t know how this would work, because the ML doesn’t *own* terrestrial Merge or even Mergespace, but I just want a neutral zone somewhere]); Medina tries to cash-out its stakes in the colonies to make a quick buck, and the rest of the GATO allies flip their shit over it
Re: Soldierly Council:
-The Rangers should have a Chief Ranger or something represented on the Council. (anyone call dibs on this position?). I don’t think we need to flesh out the whole Council RIGHT THIS MINUTE, but since we’re chatting about the Rangers and the Space Rangers feel like a logical progression from our Space Race, maybe this is a slot that should be filled sooner rather than later?
-Even if we decide that the terrestrial Rangers and Space Rangers are separate arms, they only get one guy between them. And the rest of the Council are probably real jerks to them, not inviting them to teambuilding karoake or anything, because they’re not “real” military. (Thinking about how IRL the Coast Guard gets a lot of shit from the Navy.)
-I think any writer who wants in should be able to get in
-I like Celpo Secret War (CELPO UNIVERSE)? between the various candidates for Director.
-On further reflection, I feel fine giving the rank of Lt. General to characters with a lot of in-story background. (They are, after all, “left” with the “tenancy” of command in this case.) It’s also a rank with some history – there have only been three people with this rank in GA history (though two of them ultimately betrayed the GA and one was a putz…hmm…maybe a new rank is in order, lol…)
-All the various service Chief (Chief of Naval Operations etc.) are Rear Generals, unless we decide they’re cool enough to be a Lt. General or something else
-I stole the idea of rotating leadership from Roman Consuls, and provides some convenience. (Like, Tarr gets to make all these decisions about the Space Race because it’s “his month.”)
-I don’t think we need to fill all the positions RIGHT THIS MINUTE. In-universe, I suspect it is taking time to find suitable candidates.
-The fact that we have a bunch of disparate personalities and backgrounds trying to rebuild an organization shattered by war and transform it for a new mission under a structure where no one of them is clearly in charge has potential. Like, it’s maybe the most interesting the GA has been in ages.
I think Sovereign Executive should still be an open position – resolved in-story, if we have the will for such a Kupopolitic-heavy plotline. Since we’re having pretty significant reforms (the biggest since the New Peace), whoever the Sovereign Executive is should be someone pushing for this – and I do think it should be an existing character.
Some candidates off the top of my head:
-Doan (AU). Now, I think if original Doan were around, he would be the obvious choice. But I think AU Doan is a tougher sell – he might have many of the same experiences and knowledge as Doan, but he doesn’t have the same relationships. He may have to overcome some initial distrust. (“At first I thought this AU stuff was weird and made no sense, but now I realize you are awesome!”)
-Alice Halberg. Again, if the elder Halberg were around, he’d be a natural fit. But Aly is like the next best thing, and has a very different approach.
-Tally Quorsen. Well-established in the story as a diplomatic type, and it’d be nice to have someone from outside the traditional power blocs.
-Kenny Brackhaven. Maybe some resistance, because really, another Tasnican? On the other hand, the last Tasnican to hold the job turned out OK. (…depends on if Kenny, the tired and beaten man he is by the end of White Cell, is even up for the job.)
-Alexander Sylinas. Because, c’mon, there’s something baller about LINK being in charge of the Alliance – and perhaps he’s motivated to do it to honor the legacy of his brother-in-law.
But again, the race for Sovereign Executive should play out in-story, depending on what people think. I don’t think I want to go full Kupopolitic, but maybe it’s a background thing?
•I think having GAIA and Space Rangers as two separate arms represents a compromise between the two different visions of what GACA international law enforcement should look like: GAIA is more bureaucratic and police-like, which should satisfy people who want to write stories with some kind of FBI/Interpol analogue in them, while the Space Rangers plays better to the sci fi nerds in each of us (and we can work out which tropes we like best [Cowboy Bebop, Star Trek, Firefly [i.e. legit “cowboys in space”], etc.).
•Because they’re different and serve different jurisdictions and plot functions, they should have distinct rank structures and hierarchies. GAIA should get a Director, and possibly have a rank structure similar to Celpo (Agent, Special Agent, things of this nature), while the Space Rangers should function more like elite paramilitary (headed by a Chief Ranger? Ranger Lord? Ranger General?)
•I agree that inter-service rivalries should be A Thing, but if my vision (above) is what we end up going with, with two services with fundamentally distinct structures and functions, forcing them onto the same seat in the Soldierly Council is a bit silly. I think there’s no reason why they shouldn’t each get their own seat at the table so the other Council members can shit on them both simultaneously.
•Also, I nominate Leo Bronsky as first Director of GAIA. Because Light Dimension represent. (because then he can assign GAIA resources toward a special task force assigned to investigate paranormal phenomena around the Web)
•I think I may have said we should keep the number of seats at 7. But I am now flip-flopping. There’s no reason why each writer can’t have a Soldierly Council rep of his/her own. However…
•When we divvy out the seats, GAIA and Space Rangers shouldn’t count against the “everyone gets a rep” alotment. In fact I almost think that the leaderships of the Celpo, GAIA and the Space Rangers should be community property names-on-a-page (Leo Bronsky is Adam’s character; if Adam ever comes back, I guess he gets dibs on GAIA leadership by default, but at the moment if Bronsky makes the Directorship he’d be both community property and a tribute to cool stuff Adam used to write).
•The major titles that go with the Soldierly Council so far, by my reckoning, are:
- Chief of Land Operations
- Chief of Air Operations
- Chief of Naval Operations
- Chief of Space Operations
- Director of Celpo
- Director of GAIA
- Chief of the Space Rangers
And then, like Rimmel and Model, other members of the Council are Sub-Generals.
-I don’t think there was ever an official Chief of Land Operations – but then it was always sort-of assumed that Celiose himself had that role, and divided it between his top commanders as necessary. Without Celiose, it’s maybe a little bit different.
-The existing GA services have a pretty good track record of inter-service cooperation, because Celiose. (I mean, I updated some info about SLCM-Space the other night when I couldn’t sleep and it’s a minor plot point that SLCM-Ground won’t share Dracoforms.)
-I’m not sure about the Space Rangers and GAIA being separate. I kind of like Space Rangers as rebellious division within GAIA, perhaps earning coequal service status down the road. I could probably go either way on this, though.
-…I like Ranger-General as a title. And I was proud of Chief Ranger. But Ranger-General is better.
-Bronksy is actually I really good choice – he has a law enforcement background, experience dealing with the Dark Gods (which should be a GA specialty), and I like repping dear, departed writers when possible.
-If we’re at the naming names point, I would add:
-Halder Skalice. Just doing this thread has actually made me think a lot about how his arc in Reborn could play out, and it kind of makes me want to go back to White Cell. (I mean, the next thing I was supposed to write was the Scandian invasion of Eblan, which is all about Halder being awesome.) And if Chief of Land Operations is a Thing, he makes the most sense for it.
-Thames for Space Operations, because he’s a celebrated Space Commander. (…and the part of White Cell after the Scandian invasion is Guardia’s space counterattack, which would be all about Thames being awesome.) I also his personality would be an interesting contrast with the other Council members we have picked.
-Gage Rizett, unless someone has a great pick for Air Operations. I’m hesitant to have him leave Medina, but I like that there’s a link to the Great War past on the Council. (Perhaps being the resident “old breed wise man” is Gage’s true role.)
-…when I said “everyone should get one”, I didn’t exactly mean “one and ONLY ONE!” if a character makes sense for the story.
-Tarr is presumably one of the “members at large” a la Rimmel/Model. IIRC, they had official titles, but they were mainly there (along with Torstensson) because they were Celiose’s top field commanders who would be conducting operations while he ran the war in GAHQ. Like, in the Hivan war it was like “Model, go to Gate, Torstensson go to Baron, Rimmel go here.”
-…I kind of like the idea that the Celpo Director is just this name on a page the Alliance Congress appointed to try to sort things out, but they’re in way over their head and have no idea what’s going on. Maybe as a running gag, it’s a different person every post. (but I like a bunch of other ideas for this, too. I suspect Celpo Director will be a tough one.)
If we’re doing a Tzener for the navy, I could make that person a submarine commander. Very different attitude.
Alice won’t be pursuing politics… yet. Tally might. She sees herself as Crystal’s Rhodes, anyways.
-I don’t think there was ever an official Chief of Land Operations – but then it was always sort-of assumed that Celiose himself had that role, and divided it between his top commanders as necessary. Without Celiose, it’s maybe a little bit different.
Well, my thinking is twofold.
- Celiose himself was Chief of Land Ops, so it was and has always been a “thing”; we’re just downgrading the rank of the guy in that role because no more Generalissimo. (also, even if you take Celiose away from “Chief of Land Ops” and assert that his actual role was much, much bigger, you could argue that Torstensson was Chief of Land Ops by default; either way, in some fashion, this was a thing that was had in the Soldierly Council of Yore)
- Kind of in the same vein, but with no Generalissimo, it makes sense to have a position of this kind on an explicit basis, rather than a “well, Celiose is kind of this guy”
-I’m not sure about the Space Rangers and GAIA being separate. I kind of like Space Rangers as rebellious division within GAIA, perhaps earning coequal service status down the road. I could probably go either way on this, though.
I think their roles and methodologies are so distinct that to lump them together is artificial. GAIA very much diverges from the traditional GA militarism, but I still see Space Rangers as being more paramilitary because of the “Wild West” vibe we’re aiming for.
Well, I get your argument, Matt, but I was thinking merging them might make for more storytelling/bureacratic simplicity. But like I said, I could go either way.
Re: Chief of Land Operations - OK, it makes sense to make it more “official” in this incarnation of the Council.
I think just having fresh institutions to play with is a good thing in general, so same boat with Trav. I think is all boils down to “hey, we want to create a space paramilitary good guy group and a investigative bureaucratic due process good guy group. How established do we want them to be by the beginning of reborn?”
Well, I suspect by the start of Reborn they’re both pretty new, IF WE ASSUME they were created as a reaction to White Cell. (Which makes logical sense!)