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Old 08-03-2016, 11:40 PM   #1
Tallor
 
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Default Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

My reasearch-fu is failing me at the moment and I'd like to know--how would you describe the parachronic-capable factions? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Good things and bad things, that sort of thing.
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Old 08-04-2016, 02:41 AM   #2
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

Centrum has some technological advantage but lacks the numbers, variety, and experience with other cultures and languages the other two have.
Cabal has everything inhuman and magical, but MASSIVE loads of infighting and cross purposes.
Centrum rarely cares about the secret, while Infinity will kill to protect it, and Cabalists will do far worse to protect the secret of magic and secondarilly evidence of it like world jumping.
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Old 08-04-2016, 11:44 PM   #3
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

I remember reading that a "Light Centrum" would be a sort of socialist paradise, focusing on equality and perfecting a society that's strong enough to reach other worlds.

Or maybe I'm paraphrasing. I remember it was an interesting alternative got GMs who like an off-white v off-white morality play.
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Old 08-05-2016, 08:24 AM   #4
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

It wasn't so much socialist as it was non-democratic meritocracy.

I generally run centrum light. Or at least run centrum agents as real people.

I get the feeling that everyone runs a slightly different infinite worlds. I know my version deviates from cannon in a couple of places.
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Old 08-05-2016, 09:40 AM   #5
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
It wasn't so much socialist as it was non-democratic meritocracy.
s.
With a command economy.
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Old 08-05-2016, 11:41 AM   #6
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
With a command economy.
I must have missed that part. Where is it?
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Old 08-05-2016, 11:55 AM   #7
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I must have missed that part. Where is it?
It's a non-Capitalist economy centrally run, sounds like a "Command Economy" to me. Remember, market economics is simply superstition to Centrum.
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Old 08-05-2016, 01:27 PM   #8
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I must have missed that part. Where is it?
Politics
Centrum is a regimented meritocracy:
all citizens enter the Service for
which they have most aptitude and
inclination, to be promoted strictly by
talent and achievement. Each adult
citizen belongs to one of seven grades,
corresponding to a specific rank within
his Service. Everyone starts as a
Grade 1 citizen, and nepotism is discouraged
by common opinion (as well
as being illegal);

Given that every single citizen of Centrum is a government employee, how can be it anything other than a command economy? They have abandoned the concept of "private enterprise" entirely.

It's true that Centrum is in no way motivated by Marxist ideas or anything analogous to them. They haven't even a theoretical idea that the state could or should "wither away" or that the workers are entitled to anything beyond incentives for those who perform well. Nonetheless they are a culture that has abandoned capitalism and has a centrally planned economy.
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Old 08-05-2016, 07:30 PM   #9
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Given that every single citizen of Centrum is a government employee, how can be it anything other than a command economy? They have abandoned the concept of "private enterprise" entirely.

It's true that Centrum is in no way motivated by Marxist ideas or anything analogous to them. They haven't even a theoretical idea that the state could or should "wither away" or that the workers are entitled to anything beyond incentives for those who perform well. Nonetheless they are a culture that has abandoned capitalism and has a centrally planned economy.
If the economic planning is honest, rational and efficient it might not technically be a command economy. As usually used "command economy" implies wages, prices and supplies of workers and goods set by the fiat of the central government operating on some non-economic rational about what these should be rather than what will actually work.

Having such a thing actually work without extreme ultra-tech levels of data gathering and analysis might say od things about the underpinnings of reality on such a line. I certainly think having Gernsback's (much less intrusively) planned economy work as well as it does implies weird social science.

If you need an actual label for Centrum I think it may be more like Corporatism than anything else in our timeline. The semi-mythical "Japan Inc" might be the clearest example of that. Fascism (as a meaningful classification rather than an insult) is a sub-category of Corporatism that adds extreme natonalism and militarism.

Centrum is also of course Totalitarian as it permits no other social institutions than itself. Centrum's monolithic combination of political, economic and social power is quite extreme in most ways. Persons in search of "Centrum light" can decide that its' vices are all mitigated by the virtues of honesty and rationality.

Having it all work as well as it is supposed to s still werd.
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Old 08-06-2016, 12:28 AM   #10
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Default Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
I remember reading that a "Light Centrum" would be a sort of socialist paradise, focusing on equality and perfecting a society that's strong enough to reach other worlds.

Or maybe I'm paraphrasing. I remember it was an interesting alternative got GMs who like an off-white v off-white morality play.
In GURPS Alternate Earths 2 there is a sidebar on page 110 "Centrum Dark, Centrum Light" discussing how to make it darker or lighter. It refers to another sidebar "The Federation" in error, because that sidebar was cut from the final version.

I asked about it on sjgames.gurps back in 2004, and Craig Neumeier kindly posted it. I've got a printout of the post, but nothing electronic. Basically a Centrum that relaxed after getting rid of Secundus.

Too lazy to look for any Centrum Light stuff in 4E right now.

Edit: I'd always assumed the "Technocracy" was a better term for Centrum.

Much later edit: Found it and typed it in downthread.

Last edited by cptbutton; 11-07-2017 at 06:35 AM. Reason: note typed up version
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