 November 4, 2014 - 8:25pm | Okay when people immigrate today (and in the past immigrated) often names are changed... there are a lot of people with names that have nothing to do with their family history, or what their name meant in another language. These name changes can be pretty arbitrary, and some peoples spellings were changed to something close in English but sometimes not at all & for many of us it is the whim of the paper pusher it seems if your name has anything to do with your ancestor's name (or you lucked out and someone moved pre-Immigration paper pushers)... also in a culture that practically demands a last name if you come from a culture that does not do last names, guess what your getting one! Singingbird or maybe Smith. Currently there are a surprising number of children enrolled in school with these names: Gnu Lnu & Fnu Lnu which means Given Name Unknown Last Name Unknown or First Name Unknown Last Name Unknown. Probably the weirdest of the paperwork snafus created by how we do stuff in the USA, I am sure the children have real names but for some reason their legal paperwork says that... something to do with VISAs & Immigration status. Sigh. So UPF citizenship? Obviously people born on the various member Government planets of the 4 Core are citizens, but what does that mean? I am inclined to see the UPF less like the USA & maybe a bit more like the EU on passport type stuff. So people traveling with in the UPF could have one or the other I suppose. But what about races immigrating in or from aboriginal races? Has anyone considered how this would be handled? What happens if someone from the UPF has issues in the Rim or vice a versa... just think about all the immigration/diplomatic issues that can and do occur... I am so going to do terrible things to NPC names now... so players can wonder why everyone from planet x of race y have all the same first name Fnu or all the same last name Lnu!  And maybe some folks from outside the Frontier with names that just don't fit, so people can have absurd names depending on the Core 4 paper pusher  just like real life. Just imagine a Dralasite renaming someone. I am seriously considering a UPF Immigration Center. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 May 8, 2015 - 6:22pm | Pale and New Pale offer one example, yes? |
May 9, 2015 - 10:29am | Well Pale & New Pale citizenship would change over time based on the general timeline, ideas used by refs in fan literature and articles... If you have read one of the Quest Books you will have noticed New Pale is actually a PGC planet which adds to that whole conflict between PGC & Streel... So in the beginning Pale would be it's own government, and New Pale it's own as well which was really corporation run. All settlers where PGC employees, so they probably did not have a "Gov." by our standards, but maybe enough to get on Council of UPF and give PGC corporate extra pull, say on UPF buying things from them. Now after all the fighting between Streel & PGC the planet New Pale ends up part of Pales' political structure... so citizenship would change for both planets as the Government is now a System wide government. So TS Citizens or people born in the territory of TS Gov. would be the choices I would think. I would treat Pale & New Pale like states within a country, everyone is now a TS Citizen but a resident of planet X as well... just like I am a Resident of CA, pay taxes to CA, have to follow CA laws but also a citizen of the USA, pay USA taxes, follow fed USA laws as well... now maybe the space stations, asteroid mine stations in the system and any new territory (planets & places outside of TS System) that TS Gov. claims becomes "territories" as they become the Governing body... colonists latter will probably want independence in that scenario or full citizenship. I personally think the game designers never thought about these issues and everyone from a UPF planet was an UPF citizen, no worries... I however think it is a good question to ponder for a ref as it has an effect on the background you are creating. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 May 10, 2015 - 11:18am | A UPF that is more of a Star Trek Federation would also be cool but I don't think I would make quite the assumption the games designers want everybody to be citizens of a space nation. Either way (space nation or space Wild West) it would make for good games. ----------------------------------------------- |
 May 10, 2015 - 6:50pm | Everyone in Star Trek defined themselves by the planet they were from and then by The Federation. Oh and did you notice the WWII and Cold War thinking of the Federation enemies? While the Federation is an alliance of worlds, the enemies were all a single race. Think of The Allies vs the Germans the Allies vs the Japanese, NATO vs the Russians which all translated to the UPF vs the Sathar. Now apply that thinking to UPF citizenship. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 10, 2015 - 9:02pm | Very true observation on ST Galactic politics "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 May 11, 2015 - 3:45am | Everyone in Star Trek defined themselves by the planet they were from and then by The Federation. Oh and did you notice the WWII and Cold War thinking of the Federation enemies? While the Federation is an alliance of worlds, the enemies were all a single race. Think of The Allies vs the Germans the Allies vs the Japanese, NATO vs the Russians which all translated to the UPF vs the Sathar. Now apply that thinking to UPF citizenship. You overlooked the Zuraquor (or did you?) they constitute a client species, Eastern Block countries analog? or Cuba? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 11, 2015 - 6:35am | Did not exactly overlook the Zuraqqor but we are not certain of their relationship to the Sathar. (This is another topic altogether but here's a quicky). They could have the same relationship to the Sathar that the Soviet Union had with Estonia, Yugoslavia, Cuba or China (all four countires had different status with the Soviet Union). Personally I lean toward the Zuraqqor has being the Communist Chinese to the Sathar Soviet Union. Why you ask? because of the Vrusk.We are shown the Mhemme as an example of the Estonia relationship, an enslaved people. The Zuraqqor on the other hand have their own starships and military which act independently of the Sathar like the Comunist Chinese and not an enslaved or client state. What does this have to do with the Vrusk? The Vrusk we're modelled on the Japanese business culture of the 1980's. Everyone wokrs for the company and the company is everything. The Zuraqqor are the only other major insect race and act like a communist society (from the limited amount we know of them). Add to the previous statements and I do not know if this was intentional or not but it seems Asian cultures are represented by insect races in SF. OK have fun with this. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 11, 2015 - 11:22am | I agree Vrusk are modeled after an aspect of the Japanese, and I agree the status of the Zuraqqor is very different to the Mhemme as to what they do & how interact with Sathar. Could be the Asian cultural stereotypes we have as Westerners lend themselves to bug societies... just my thought on that. This brings up a racial component to how races/species define citizenship too. Some governments might be racially bigoted, so even though your ancestors have been born, lived, worked, gone to school, paid taxes, and fought for government X maybe you can never be a citizen of planet X because of your species. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 11, 2015 - 1:25pm | I like the Sathar as a "Red Menace'', sure, but historical analogies that use species to stand in for nationality seem off to me (ymmv) because the USSR was multinational. Estonia was a nation-state for twenty years or so between first winning independence and later being conquered by the Soviets, but the USSR never was that kind of state. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was indeed a union (multiple states joined under a central gov't) of soviet(councils) socialist (state ownership of means of production) republics (states that are not principalities/monarchies, but have elected or appointed rulers). But commie Sathar sound fun, so... Would the Sathar have eventually Satharzied the Mhemnhe, then? Reordered Mhemnhe society along lines similiar to that of Sathar society, allowing for species differences? Are the S'sessu (if they exist in a given SF campaign) capitalist Sathar? They have the ability analysis power, coming as they do from a competitive culture. But the "Red" (pink? what color are they, again?) Sathar have hypnotic power, befitting an ideologically unified society with strict political controls. They brainwash you with their propaganda! Tom Tuttle from Tacoma... |
May 11, 2015 - 1:34pm | And, yeah, I'm likely reading a loose analogy way too closely! ;) I , too, tend to think of Red subversion when I think of those dastardly agents and hypnotized dupes of the Sathar, at work in the Frontier. Maybe it's because I was born in '77, so the USSR is more than a historical thing to me. |
May 11, 2015 - 5:57pm | I think the Sathar would send social engineers (probably called something else) to reorder over time of course a society to their ideas up to a point. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 12, 2015 - 5:05am | I think the Sathar would send social engineers (probably called something else) to reorder over time of course a society to their ideas up to a point. I believe they are called "Sathar Agents". Despite the propaganda of Star Law and the UPF they are here to help us eventually join the enlightened Pan Galactic Satharoid Society at large if we can ever be convinced to give up our capitolistic indoctrination by the corrupt mega corporations which are the real powers behind the UPF. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 12, 2015 - 10:37am | Well, until the Dominion show up in ST:DS9... i suppose you could say they are just a multinational space nation as the result of domination by the Founders. ----------------------------------------------- |
