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Old 01-24-2013, 12:01 PM   #11
Kromm
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

The description of the effect was "Valuable Property [-10] means you're a non-person owned by a legal person, and thus covered by property laws (though perhaps ones specially worded for living chattels) rather than by laws pertaining to human rights." That's pretty clear. The addendum was just to help visualize the situation . . . and note that "Enemy (Entire culture; Watcher; 12 or less) [-10]: in all but the most private of circumstances (equivalent to 12 or less), everything you do is dogged by people who question and keep tabs on what you're doing" has all the clarification it needs in the form of "Enemy." High-ranking officials might have people keeping track of them, but those people don't count as "Enemy."
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Old 01-24-2013, 12:01 PM   #12
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Perfectly. The point however is that being constantly watched is not necessarily a sign
Unless you consider that Subjugated populations are not in fact constantly watched. They can't be, because there are too many of them.
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Old 01-24-2013, 12:07 PM   #13
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
The description of the effect was "Valuable Property [-10] means you're a non-person owned by a legal person, and thus covered by property laws (though perhaps ones specially worded for living chattels) rather than by laws pertaining to human rights." That's pretty clear. The addendum was just to help visualize the situation . . . and note that "Enemy (Entire culture; Watcher; 12 or less) [-10]: in all but the most private of circumstances (equivalent to 12 or less), everything you do is dogged by people who question and keep tabs on what you're doing" has all the clarification it needs in the form of "Enemy." High-ranking officials might have people keeping track of them, but those people don't count as "Enemy."
Thank you. The FORM the watching took had to be clarified.

What about ritual subordination? Valueable Property should be bound to do this regularly even when they weren't working at the task that made them Valueable.
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Old 01-24-2013, 12:16 PM   #14
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

Also it should be clear that Valueable Property must have an applicable effect. In a game set in an Ancient Near Eastern style setting with everyone being the property of a God-Emperor, that would be meaningless. Except for the fact that an imperial concubine is more property then a general.
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Old 01-24-2013, 12:19 PM   #15
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Also it should be clear that Valueable Property must have an applicable effect. In a game set in an Ancient Near Eastern style setting with everyone being the property of a God-Emperor,
Most of them won't be Valuable.
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Old 01-26-2013, 09:05 AM   #16
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Yeah, the difference is that Second-Class Citizen [-5] means you're a person who's regarded with vague distaste (-1 to reactions); Valuable Property [-10] means you're a non-person owned by a legal person, and thus covered by property laws (though perhaps ones specially worded for living chattels) rather than by laws pertaining to human rights; and Subjugated [-20] means you're a non-person who's regarded with vague distaste (i.e., the bad sides of both of the above), with the added downside that you're not even valuable property protected by law, so the only laws that apply to you are ones that give all legal persons leave to do whatever they feel like to you (which is where the extra -5 comes from).
This description makes things even more confusing to me. Is there anything that would qualify as Subjugated? The example from the Basic Set (that of a member of a slave nation or race) wouldn't count, because they'd obviously be protected by property laws - you can't just kill someone else's slave - and you're saying that this isn't the case. Has there ever been an example of someone with the Subjugated trait in real-life history? It definitely doesn't apply to actual slaves in 18th Century America, putting them on the same exact field as women during that time.

It seems to me that the only thing that'd count would be if the entire 'race' is considered 'owned' by the entire culture, and thus no one person has any extra rights over any of the slaves than any other person. I'm not even sure if German Jews during WWII would count.

This also makes it so the infomorph templates in THS are clearly wrong, since no AI would ever be considered Subjugated - you can't just take, damage, or destroy someone else's NAI no matter how much you want to.
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Old 01-26-2013, 09:34 AM   #17
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
This description makes things even more confusing to me. Is there anything that would qualify as Subjugated? The example from the Basic Set (that of a member of a slave nation or race) wouldn't count, because they'd obviously be protected by property laws - you can't just kill someone else's slave - and you're saying that this isn't the case. Has there ever been an example of someone with the Subjugated trait in real-life history? It definitely doesn't apply to actual slaves in 18th Century America, putting them on the same exact field as women during that time.

It seems to me that the only thing that'd count would be if the entire 'race' is considered 'owned' by the entire culture, and thus no one person has any extra rights over any of the slaves than any other person. I'm not even sure if German Jews during WWII would count.

This also makes it so the infomorph templates in THS are clearly wrong, since no AI would ever be considered Subjugated - you can't just take, damage, or destroy someone else's NAI no matter how much you want to.
The Windup Girl seems to fall somewhere between Monster and Subjugated:
She had less-than-slave status in the bar owned by the people covering her, regularly abused with nobody giving a damn (in fact, people came in to watch the abuse, with the whole point being what she is). If the government found out about her, they would simply throw her into the organic material reuse facility, without so much as bothering to kill first.
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Old 01-26-2013, 11:13 AM   #18
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
This description makes things even more confusing to me. Is there anything that would qualify as Subjugated? The example from the Basic Set (that of a member of a slave nation or race) wouldn't count, because they'd obviously be protected by property laws - you can't just kill someone else's slave - and you're saying that this isn't the case. Has there ever been an example of someone with the Subjugated trait in real-life history? It definitely doesn't apply to actual slaves in 18th Century America, putting them on the same exact field as women during that time.

It seems to me that the only thing that'd count would be if the entire 'race' is considered 'owned' by the entire culture, and thus no one person has any extra rights over any of the slaves than any other person. I'm not even sure if German Jews during WWII would count.

This also makes it so the infomorph templates in THS are clearly wrong, since no AI would ever be considered Subjugated - you can't just take, damage, or destroy someone else's NAI no matter how much you want to.
In the book, Battlefield Earth, the human race is a prime example of a subjugated race, with a token few being property.
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Old 01-26-2013, 12:06 PM   #19
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
This description makes things even more confusing to me. Is there anything that would qualify as Subjugated? The example from the Basic Set (that of a member of a slave nation or race) wouldn't count,
Spartan helots come to mind.
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Old 01-26-2013, 12:47 PM   #20
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Default Re: Precise difference between Social Stigmas: Subjugated vs. Valuable Property?

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Spartan helots come to mind.
Even then, they wouldn't count most of the time. It was apparently only during certain times when Spartan citizens could murder Helots without cause or anything, though I will admit to not really knowing much about them, so I could be mistaken.

It still leaves the fact that all of the examples of Social Stigma (Subjugated) as used in Ultra-Tech, Changing Times, the Bio-Tech Pyramid book, and a few other GURPS books are incorrect. All of them treat highly expensive robots as 'subjugated' if they aren't 'smart' enough - IE if the society considers them just objects. That doesn't fit at all with the description of Subjugated here - even a rock wouldn't be considered 'Subjugated' in modern society, since it'd be illegal to, say, go and spray paint a bunch of graffiti on a rock in front of someone's house.
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