>> Alright. Before we start, I need to go over some general universe information. Since the game's set several years prior to the timeframe we're used to, I'm going to give you a quick and dirty rundown on the current political system. Comparing the timeframe of Firefly to the timeframe of this game is much like comparing the fifties to the sixties. Big differences. We all know that the Alliance started off in the core worlds, but what they don't mention is that the core worlds didn't start off under the Alliance. When the first settlers from Earth got off the boat, they still thought of themselves as French, Americans, Chinese, Canadian, what have you. So the original planets had autonomous governments, all of them.
They were all ruled by the internet still. The Cortex hadn't been invented yet.
>>Haha Yes, exactly. Thank you, Scott.
And neither were credits, were they?
>> There was currency, but not Alliance credits. Each planet had it's own currency.
So there's a currency exchange somewhere... to rob.
>> In fact, during the first few years of settlement on Londinium and Shinon, there were multiple governments on the same planet. Now, I'm talking about distant history, here. Your grandparents were in diapers when this system started to change.
This is post earth, pre-anything significant to firefly, right?
>> yes
Like, text book shit? Ok.
>>yes I'm getting there. Next step: Corporations start really taking root, so they send off colonies of their own so they can own entire planets. Religious groups start doing the same thing. Muslims sick of the infidels? Well, fuck you, we'll get our own planet. And so on. This was how the middle worlds and the first rim worlds go colonized.
Bet you those were Pakistanis. *ahem*
>> HA probably Planet Pakistan. I'll add it to the planet guide. Anyway. This was happening while your grandparents were in their teens or so.
K.
>> "Back in my day we had to walk to school with the Pakistanis. By the time your grandparents were middle-aged, confederations started arising.
Meanwhile, our grandparents were having babies. That's when parents were starting off on their own?
>> Planets would align together for efficiency, or protection, or profit. Eventually these alliances became shared governments. This is give or take a few years, mind you. Think on a scale of a little under a century. When your parents are teenagers, the Alliance starts up. All the core worlds, and most of the middle are under one government.
So life expectancy is longer too?
>> The average life expectancy in the Core is 95. That number is considerably lower the further out you get. Alright. Meanwhile, we've got all these worlds that are independent, and the equivalent of third world nations. And they damn well like it that way. They range from your Pakistanis to your Blue Sun farm worlds, to cowboy planets like Shadow. Things didn't change much for a long time. Until about two years ago. The Alliance elect themselves a new prime minister, who vows to unite the universe—voluntarily.
Heh Wonder what water he'd been drinking
>> Parliament passes a formal resolution, extending an invitation to all colonized worlds to join the Alliance. Here's where things get tricky. Beylix is a corporate mining and manufacturing planet on the rim. For the longest time, though, they were treating their workers like shit and paying them nothing for it, because they controlled all traffic off and on the planet. To get a visa off the planet, you needed to be a Beylix employee. But to leave the planet, you had to quit the shity-ass job they gave you.
Wow. They have issues.
>> But it's legal! Because the corporation was the government. So the natives get restless, start to unionize, and Beylix is three rat hairs away from revolution. Which is about when the corporation applies for Alliance control.
Poor people. Yeah.
>> Why? Because then they can call in the Alliance marines to deal with their own garbage with no affect to their bottom line. Here comes the test case.
Sounds like China, but worse. So basically, they can call the cops to enforce their oppression? Half-Life 2, anyone?
>> Never played it
Neither did I. I have it.
>> The Alliance's invitation has been sitting on the books for a year Until Beylix, the rim had summarily ignored it. But Beylix isn't the only company town. Other corporations with labor issues are watching to see what's going to happen.
more like control issues.
>> The Alliance doesn't love the situation either, but they're desperate for someone—anyone—to take up their offer, because so far the controlling party looks like asshats. Their grand unification plan is falling flat So they accept Beylix into the Alliance. The workers riot. The marines go in, and suppress the rebellion. What happens next largely boils down to where you heard it told.
>> In the core, the workers backed down without a fight. In the rim world, hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot down, or imprisoned. Shadow, Dodge, and their neighboring planets were the first to respond. They assembled a fleet—which is to say, they had one on hand in case this happened—and attacked Beylix. A protracted skirmish ensued, with the eventual "liberation" of Beylix. The Alliance declared this an act of war.
pompous asses
>> Which had the effect of doing something the Alliance never managed to do before. They unified the ununified worlds. Bam There you go.
Saw that coming.
>> You're with us or against us. On one side the Alliance, on the other side a loose confederation of independent planets, and corporations that would rather be left alone. That was a year ago. So far, the war is deadlocked. A battle here, a battle there, but no one's making progress. Conventional wisdom of the day from most political experts side with the Independents. They have the home court advantage, and the Alliance has to ship their supplies to the front lines.
In terms of numbers, how do the Alliance and Independents stand respectively?
>> Right now, the Independents.
ok
>> Unification isn't wildly popular in the core right now. It has majority support, but there's dissenters.
I wonder why it's not their ass on the line.
>> The Independents are motivated, though.
Yeah. They're being 'invaded'.
>> The day after the Beylix attacked, most of the able-bodied men and women of the rim volunteered for service. The Alliance instituted a draft, so their numbers are growing, but they've yet to catch up. Right now, things are up in the air. The situation could get worse, or the Alliance can give up and go home.
The core population is probably complacent. Probably looks like we look at the current war. It's not on my front lawn, I'll just bitch about it.
>> Similar, yes.
Where as the independants are all taking up arms because it is their front lawn. And who dosen't like their front lawn? rednecks that never mow it. I don't, but that's not the point.
>> Any other questions?
yes how many years did the war last again? in general
>> you don't know. It could end tomorrow or it could drag on for a decade. It's before the end of the war.
You mean Mansi doesn't, or it was never mentioned?
>> No no, I know. I know how long the war lasted. Mansi doesn't. In the same way I don't know how long we'll be in Iraq.
Ok. I'm asking for me. I'm curious. How long did the war last?
>> I'd rather not answer that question, because it will bias your perception on the game. If that's an unacceptable answer for you, it's in the RPG book.
Ok
>>Any other questions?
Yes. I just can't think of them at the moment. >> If you think of them later, just ask. Now that I've yapped at you for an hour, we can get down to the part that's not boring. Like sex and guns?
1 comment:
>> Alright. Before we start, I need to go over some general universe information. Since the game's set several years prior to the timeframe we're used to, I'm going to give you a quick and dirty rundown on the current political system. Comparing the timeframe of Firefly to the timeframe of this game is much like comparing the fifties to the sixties. Big differences. We all know that the Alliance started off in the core worlds, but what they don't mention is that the core worlds didn't start off under the Alliance. When the first settlers from Earth got off the boat, they still thought of themselves as French, Americans, Chinese, Canadian, what have you. So the original planets had autonomous governments, all of them.
They were all ruled by the internet still. The Cortex hadn't been invented yet.
>>Haha Yes, exactly. Thank you, Scott.
And neither were credits, were they?
>> There was currency, but not Alliance credits. Each planet had it's own currency.
So there's a currency exchange somewhere... to rob.
>> In fact, during the first few years of settlement on Londinium and Shinon, there were multiple governments on the same planet. Now, I'm talking about distant history, here. Your grandparents were in diapers when this system started to change.
This is post earth, pre-anything significant to firefly, right?
>> yes
Like, text book shit? Ok.
>>yes I'm getting there. Next step: Corporations start really taking root, so they send off colonies of their own so they can own entire planets. Religious groups start doing the same thing. Muslims sick of the infidels? Well, fuck you, we'll get our own planet. And so on. This was how the middle worlds and the first rim worlds go colonized.
Bet you those were Pakistanis. *ahem*
>> HA
probably
Planet Pakistan.
I'll add it to the planet guide.
Anyway. This was happening while your grandparents were in their teens or so.
K.
>> "Back in my day we had to walk to school with the Pakistanis. By the time your grandparents were middle-aged, confederations started arising.
Meanwhile, our grandparents were having babies.
That's when parents were starting off on their own?
>> Planets would align together for efficiency, or protection, or profit. Eventually these alliances became shared governments. This is give or take a few years, mind you. Think on a scale of a little under a century. When your parents are teenagers, the Alliance starts up. All the core worlds, and most of the middle are under one government.
So life expectancy is longer too?
>> The average life expectancy in the Core is 95. That number is considerably lower the further out you get. Alright. Meanwhile, we've got all these worlds that are independent, and the equivalent of third world nations. And they damn well like it that way. They range from your Pakistanis to your Blue Sun farm worlds, to cowboy planets like Shadow. Things didn't change much for a long time. Until about two years ago.
The Alliance elect themselves a new prime minister, who vows to unite the universe—voluntarily.
Heh
Wonder what water he'd been drinking
>> Parliament passes a formal resolution, extending an invitation to all colonized worlds to join the Alliance. Here's where things get tricky. Beylix is a corporate mining and manufacturing planet on the rim. For the longest time, though, they were treating their workers like shit and paying them nothing for it, because they controlled all traffic off and on the planet. To get a visa off the planet, you needed to be a Beylix employee. But to leave the planet, you had to quit the shity-ass job they gave you.
Wow. They have issues.
>> But it's legal! Because the corporation was the government. So the natives get restless, start to unionize, and Beylix is three rat hairs away from revolution. Which is about when the corporation applies for Alliance control.
Poor people.
Yeah.
>> Why? Because then they can call in the Alliance marines to deal with their own garbage with no affect to their bottom line. Here comes the test case.
Sounds like China, but worse.
So basically, they can call the cops to enforce their oppression?
Half-Life 2, anyone?
>> Never played it
Neither did I.
I have it.
>> The Alliance's invitation has been sitting on the books for a year Until Beylix, the rim had summarily ignored it. But Beylix isn't the only company town. Other corporations with labor issues are watching to see what's going to happen.
more like control issues.
>> The Alliance doesn't love the situation either, but they're desperate for someone—anyone—to take up their offer, because so far the controlling party looks like asshats. Their grand unification plan is falling flat So they accept Beylix into the Alliance. The workers riot. The marines go in, and suppress the rebellion. What happens next largely boils down to where you heard it told.
>> In the core, the workers backed down without a fight. In the rim world, hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot down, or imprisoned. Shadow, Dodge, and their neighboring planets were the first to respond. They assembled a fleet—which is to say, they had one on hand in case this happened—and attacked Beylix. A protracted skirmish ensued, with the eventual "liberation" of Beylix. The Alliance declared this an act of war.
pompous asses
>> Which had the effect of doing something the Alliance never managed to do before. They unified the ununified worlds. Bam There you go.
Saw that coming.
>> You're with us or against us. On one side the Alliance, on the other side a loose confederation of independent planets, and corporations that would rather be left alone. That was a year ago. So far, the war is deadlocked. A battle here, a battle there, but no one's making progress. Conventional wisdom of the day from most political experts side with the Independents. They have the home court advantage, and the Alliance has to ship their supplies to the front lines.
In terms of numbers, how do the Alliance and Independents stand respectively?
>> Right now, the Independents.
ok
>> Unification isn't wildly popular in the core right now. It has majority support, but there's dissenters.
I wonder why
it's not their ass on the line.
>> The Independents are motivated, though.
Yeah. They're being 'invaded'.
>> The day after the Beylix attacked, most of the able-bodied men and women of the rim volunteered for service. The Alliance instituted a draft, so their numbers are growing, but they've yet to catch up. Right now, things are up in the air. The situation could get worse, or the Alliance can give up and go home.
The core population is probably complacent.
Probably looks like we look at the current war.
It's not on my front lawn, I'll just bitch about it.
>> Similar, yes.
Where as the independants are all taking up arms because it is their front lawn.
And who dosen't like their front lawn?
rednecks that never mow it.
I don't, but that's not the point.
>> Any other questions?
yes
how many years did the war last again?
in general
>> you don't know. It could end tomorrow or it could drag on for a decade. It's before the end of the war.
You mean Mansi doesn't, or it was never mentioned?
>> No no, I know. I know how long the war lasted. Mansi doesn't. In the same way I don't know how long we'll be in Iraq.
Ok. I'm asking for me. I'm curious. How long did the war last?
>> I'd rather not answer that question, because it will bias your perception on the game. If that's an unacceptable answer for you, it's in the RPG book.
Ok
>>Any other questions?
Yes. I just can't think of them at the moment.
>> If you think of them later, just ask. Now that I've yapped at you for an hour, we can get down to the part that's not boring.
Like sex and guns?
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