02-13-2018, 05:17 PM | #191 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Relative poverty is a real thing. So the Elites could live in godlike splendor, and the Masses in comfort and even modest, but substantial, luxury. The Masses would still feel poor.
Also key resources could be held only by the rich. Picture a society were the average Joe or Josie has magnificent healthcare paid for by taxes, but only the Elites have immortality. It's not only what you have, it's also what you lack and can never have.
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02-13-2018, 06:18 PM | #192 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Absolute poverty is a real thing as well though.
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02-13-2018, 11:53 PM | #193 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Painfully real. But I was pointing out that absolute poverty was not needed for pain, degradation, or class conflict.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo Last edited by Astromancer; 02-14-2018 at 04:10 PM. |
02-14-2018, 10:18 AM | #194 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Might be interesting to play a bunch of hard-bitten rebels who have to make do with delicious food, free healthcare, superb education, full-immersion virtual reality, and free income, while the ruling class has access to superlative food, full-body replacement bio-cybernetics, direct memory skill transfer, easy space travel, and 10% higher free income.
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02-14-2018, 12:24 PM | #195 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Quote:
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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02-14-2018, 12:43 PM | #196 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Quote:
Successful revolutions need people who understand finance, supply logistics, strategy and tactics, and human persuasion. Those people tend to have educational backgrounds that serve them well, under almost any circumstances. They're also seldom poor, and not deprived of much in the way of material needs. Because such people already have the skill and motivation to lead effectively, any system that allows social mobility and a rise to authority by peaceful means will seldom experience successful revolutions, but will regularly endure economic, cultural, social and political change.
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-- MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1] "Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon. |
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02-14-2018, 01:43 PM | #197 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Quote:
That is actually relevant to sci fi and not just to the allegorical subgenre. Rob S. Pierre wasn't exactly poor and while Victor Cachet grew up in the Havenite equiv of the projects he was not there any more. Equally to the point the Havenite revolutionary government fell through force of paranoia. They overdid internal security to the point of hurting military capacity and then paradoxically provoked the very thing they were trying to prevent which was a military coup.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 02-14-2018 at 01:51 PM. |
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02-14-2018, 04:09 PM | #198 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Quote:
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
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02-14-2018, 04:23 PM | #199 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
"I want; you have." is the cause of many a violent act by individuals and groups.
Couple that with our weird tendency to attach personal identity and worth with external factors like wealth and cultural window-dressing, and war over petty sh*t is inevitable. Rallying cries rarely have much to do with all the resentment and anger that actually fuels rebellions and wars, I think.
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02-14-2018, 06:25 PM | #200 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
Quote:
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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