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Old 02-02-2014, 03:17 PM   #31
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
It's an either/or thing. Either you have contacts all through a generic social stratum of a particular municipality like "crime", "espionage", or "rich people" OR you have contacts all through a given organization that can be as big as the GM likes.
But you can't have a group of Contacts throughout a generic social stratum of anything larger than a town. The upper class of an interstellar empire is right out.

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"service" is rank.
No, it isn't. An assistant secretary in the Home Office is the equal in rank of a vice-general, but there is a marked difference in the prestige of their social circles. And a marines sergeant with fifty years of service and two awards of the Imperial Service Medal is the superior in point of service but junior in rank to a wet-behind-the-ears acting third officer on an Imperial Spaceways liner. An executive officer third class in the Public Health Services who has grown bent and grey over thirty years setting up a medical school and teaching hospital in the back blocks of Kore has served, is interesting and admired, and gets invited to dinner by senior naval officers; whereas an executive officer first class in the Home Office Department of Health who has a cushy job running the hospital in an Imperial habitat outranks him by two whole grades but is a boring civil servant who socialises with REMFs and colonials.

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"family tradition of service" is social regard or reputation.
Possibly. Some build with Social Regard and maybe Claim to Hospitality might be best.
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Old 02-02-2014, 03:29 PM   #32
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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But you can't have a group of Contacts throughout a generic social stratum of anything larger than a town. The upper class of an interstellar empire is right out.
I wasn't suggesting he'd have the upper class as a contact. Particularly since the society doesn't seem to have an upper class. I was suggesting he'd have the watchamacallit foundation as a contact.



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No, it isn't. An assistant secretary in the Home Office is the equal in rank of a vice-general, but there is a marked difference in the prestige of their social circles. And a marines sergeant with fifty years of service and two awards of the Imperial Service Medal is the superior in point of service but junior in rank to a wet-behind-the-ears acting third officer on an Imperial Spaceways liner.
Are they even on the same ladder? As for the medal festooned war hero, he doesn't have status, or rank. He has Reputation.
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Old 02-02-2014, 03:49 PM   #33
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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I wasn't suggesting he'd have the upper class as a contact. Particularly since the society doesn't seem to have an upper class.
There are these families that trace their traditions of conspicuously upholding social ideals back for many generations and sometimes centuries. They socialise with one another and with the powerful and influential. They tend to inter"marry" and to "marry" other members of their social circles (i.e. the influential and high-ranked). They fairly reliably get their children into prestigious jobs. They have influence. (I haven't mentioned this before, but they send their children to exclusive schools where they form networks of friends likewise inclined for prestigious careers.) That seems like an upper class to me.

And above this there is a small handful of families that makes its permanent home in a private orbital habitat called "The Palace", has its kids trained from infancy to be rulers, and dominates appointment to and membership of the ruling council. That seems like a ruling class to me.

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I was suggesting he'd have the watchamacallit foundation as a contact.
Can you take "The United States Government" as a Contact Group? Does it cost more than just the FBI?

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Are they even on the same ladder?
Regulations say that an Assistant Secretary ranks as a Vice-General, and they both wear the same distinction lace (one broad stripe and two narrow). They are both part of the same tree with the Chairman of the Imperial Council/Board of Trustees at the top of it.

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As for the medal festooned war hero, he doesn't have status, or rank. He has Reputation.
Reputation would get him favourable reactions, but it wouldn't determine his place in society.

And by the way: you weren't in a position to know this, but the Imperial Service Medal is for conspicuous service, not military heroics. A medal-festooned war hero would have at least one Military Cross, and maybe even an Iron Star or Imperial Cross for Gallantry.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 02-02-2014 at 04:08 PM.
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Old 02-02-2014, 03:53 PM   #34
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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Reputation would get him favourable reactions, but it wouldn't determine his place in society.
.
And what's the discernable difference between a high place and a low place in society?
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Old 02-02-2014, 03:57 PM   #35
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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"Eichberger" is the most famous name in the setting. Tomitomo Eichberger invented FTL travel, became the richest person ever, and founded an interstellar empire. The income of his estate funds the interstellar government, including the navy, the marines, and the aid programs. Probably most people don't know the state of his family, but when an Imperial naval officer shows up with "Eichberger" on her name-plate most people would at least wonder.

Whereas only the Lowells themselves, the Aths, the Vomacts, the Medforth-Millses and a dozen other families know who the Lowells are.

It seems to me that the main effect of being one of these people, as of social status as I know it, is not that other people react "well" to you and you react badly to them, but that you have access to the wealthy, the powerful, and the influential. You can get in to the clubs and parties where they are, they will come when you invite them, you can get to them to request jobs and favours and introductions….
Whoops, sorry, got the order backwards
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Old 02-02-2014, 04:19 PM   #36
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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And what's the discernable difference between a high place and a low place in society?
If your place in society is high people with power and influence socialise with you as an equal or near-equal, you sleep with their children and raise their grandchildren. Also, people with lower places agree that your place is high, even if they resent your holding it.

If your place in society is low you socialise with the powerful and celebrated on their sufferance or not at all. You sleep with people whose parents have not power, and you raise children who will rise in social status if they gain socially-approved power. Your peers recognise that their place in society is low, even if they resent the inequality of society.
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Old 02-02-2014, 04:23 PM   #37
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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If your place in society is high people with power and influence socialise with you as an equal or near-equal, you sleep with their children and raise their grandchildren. Also, people with lower places agree that your place is high, even if they resent your holding it.
OK, how do people know that your place in society is high?
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Old 02-02-2014, 04:58 PM   #38
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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OK, how do people know that your place in society is high?
Good question, since I seem to recall that the rules assume at one point that Status is something that can be certified.

In some circumstances and to some extent they can tell from your uniform, and in some they can tell from where you are and what you're doing there. Some of them can tell because they know or know of your family, or from who introduces you and in what terms. In some circumstances they can tell from the way other people behave around you and how they address you. For example:
  • You meet a person in an Imperial office uniform with rear-admiral's stripes on her cuffs but with no medals and no insignia of knighthood. Her name-plate reads "Chen". It is probably not safe to address her as "my lord": "your highness" would be more prudent. Cancel anything short of your own funeral if she invites you to dinner.
  • You meet a young man in a Public Health uniform with a caduceus on the cuff but no rank stripe; this means that his is a medical officer 1st class or medical officer 2nd class — equal in grade to a sublieutenant —, and would normally be addressed "doctor". But you are being watched by a gimlet-eyed person whose uniform is cut like a marines enlisted uniform but in Public Health colours, and with a lance-corporal's stripe: his jacket is too big and not properly fastened. Call the doctor "my lord".
  • You are at a formal reception at the High Commissioner's palace, and the GOC (a major-general Vomact) makes a point of introducing a gawky ensign to you as "my great-nephew, Rupert". The kid is upper-class, and was probably trained from infancy to have the Right Stuff.
  • You get an e-mail from your second-cousin-once-removed Gille, saying that the son of an old Academy chum and one-time bed-buddy of his has been commissioned into the Agronomy Service and posted to the colony where you are third secretary to the resident commissioner; will you see that the boy doesn't eat the soap and boot-blacking? The kid is a social peer of yours (or at least, of your cover identity's), and it behoves you to introduce him to his peers among you acquaintance. But you are not obliged under these circumstances to invite him to your shivoo, unless perhaps Gille has flourished exceedingly. But if the kid is very handsome and you want to set him up with a young friend (or get into his skivvies yourself), then you could invite him to a cocktail party, tennis-afternoon, or something like that.
  • Auburn-haired beauty in a gorgeous shot-silk ball-gown bows slightly to the Medical Director at the annual hospital sock-hop. She is plainly a colonial, and probably a junior hospital employee such as a resident MO or registrar.
And if the worst comes to the worst, the social awareness process running on your pocket phone can ping the RFID in another person's name plate, look them up in public records, calculate an index, and apply a colour-coded overlay through your visor.
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Old 02-02-2014, 05:42 PM   #39
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Default Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service

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... And if the worst comes to the worst, the social awareness process running on your pocket phone can ping the RFID in another person's name plate, look them up in public records, calculate an index, and apply a colour-coded overlay through your visor.
That's lucky, since all the material before that seemed impossibly arcane.
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Old 02-02-2014, 05:52 PM   #40
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That's lucky, since all the material before that seemed impossibly arcane.
Social cues in exotic societies often seem that way to outsiders. There are some in which you need a pretty fair knowledge of the brands of jeans and shoes to tell the somebodies from the nobodies.
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