Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

One gameable situation is not where anybody has any idea of revolting or plotting treason or whatever. It is where the colony is so far from the mother country that it's policy interests are just different. A classic exampleno was that the Raj needed an ally against possible incursions by Russia, and negotiated with Persia in the Napoleonic Wars. Whereas Downing Street's priority was France. In the meantime the Shah did not know what the heck was going on.

Another possibility is that the government the PC represents has no interest yet in a civil blow up. The first British agents in Russia during the civil war were not assigned to help the Whites. They were assigned to defeat Germany. Then their mission changed to finding out what the civil war was about. Then it definitely changed to seeing the Whites as something like an ally or the Reds as an enemy which was not necessarily the same thing.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

The question is how fast other nations can catch up. It may well be, at least in the US, that private schools catch up faster, which can be a bad thing for those who are not part of the elite.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

After the overthrow of The Empire, the various and sundry sprigs of it's aristocracy have to settle somewhere. Minority factions of the rebels can also end up in exile. And of course the rebels themselves might have further plots in store.

Possible ideas include defeated factions and other loose ends setting up colonies of their own. Or they might all just move into someone elses Starport and repeat the feuds they had in the old country.

This is modeled on the Russian Diaspora in the 1930's. In large cities it was common to have a colony of Whites and not unknown to have a colony of Reds as well. Sometimes there were Trotskyists too. However it is not intended to make a political statement but only to set up an interesting series of possible situations. This can be a political game in the wretched hives of deceitfully luxurious cities. Or you can take the analogy of the founding of Iceland and have the losers found a new nation in the wilderness with laws of their own and make it be a fight against nature.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Truth. If the elites treat others in a snobbish manner, which is the historical norm, the masses are going to demand better education for their kids. The elites in this nation have fought against educating the masses since Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, demanded universal education to secure America"s future. It would get nasty, 19th century strike nasty.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

When thinking of why an interstellar colony might revolt against the homeworld don't ignore American history. In 1680 most of the people living in Britain's colonies on the Eastern Seaboard of North America thought of themselves as English or British. Almost everyone in Britain would have agreed. By 1700 almost no one in Britain would have agreed, it was the Brits that started using the term "Americans" to describe the people living in their North American colonies. Between 1680 and 1700 Britain formed a new self-identity, the process is generally said to have run through the 1730s or 1750s according to who you read. This new identity is the basis for many things including the British class structure of the 19th century. In many ways this new structure was inclusive, it allowed the elites living in Britain to all be part of the nation whether they were English, Scots, Welsh, Irish, etc ( as long as they were Church of England and a wealthy male) to be part of the society. In many ways, it was more egalitarian than what it replaced. But this new inclusion was achieved by new exclusions. Americans were outsiders in the new system.

It wasn't until the 1730's that the people living in Britain's Eastern Seaboard colonies started saying that they were Americans. Before that, they had described themselves as English or British. It is interesting to notice that the first pamphlets discussing American independence show up in England in the 1730s, the decade when the people of the Eastern Seaboard accept the name given them, Americans.

What this suggests is that big cultural changes, for good or ill, or more likely a mix of the two, on the Homeworld, will weaken ties to the colonies if the same changes don't happen in the colonies.

Picture what might happen between a present-day America and interstellar colonies. Assume that Roswell was real. We reverse engineer a spacecraft and start exploring the galaxy. Lets further assume the Roswell saucer was an interdimensional craft and we got mixed up and only got a FTL drive and the local interstellar neighborhood is empty.

In the 1950s through the 1970s America sends out large numbers of colonists to interstellar colonies and they thrive. However, few go out after 1980 and the cultural changes going through America in the 1980 through 2010 period aren't duplicated there. Although some progressive changes go further there. Also assume that, like 17th and 18th century America, the American space colonies get immigrants from everywhere in Europe and many from beyond. Like the immigrants to America in the 17th through 21st centuries, they bring their ideas and ideals with them.

How do you think these colonies would see the Homeworld and the homeland today?

Culture and politics can create revolt without any or much oppression.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Well, I would hope that the US government's successive Secretaries for the Colonies, or at least their civil servants, would have the lessons of history in mind. With modern technologies, a rather larger population seems to be required to have a self-sustaining colony, capable of being fully independent, than was the case in the eighteenth century. Given travel times, it seems necessary to devolve as much government as feasible to the colonies, especially once they start developing their own politics.

The biggest problem is likely to be the commonplace belief in the USA that everywhere else works in the same way, and having interstellar colonies might actually reduce the incidence of that.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Are they still in contact? Or are we talking about the long-distance colonies still?

For 1950s-70s American space colonists, I'd expect them to have a strong Cold War psyche that would linger long after it was over on Earth. They'd continue to be united against the external commie menace, with less in-fighting, I imagine.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

We're rifting off this idea Daigoro. I was simply using American history a model for what might be a possible reason for revolt. And I placed interstellar colonization in contemporary American History to illustrate a problem and likely outcomes.

The setting as written has the type of concern and attention to detail that johndallman was recommending. But as everyone wanted to talk about revolts, I was giving another less stereotyped and more realistic reason and driver for revolt.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

This is where you suggested fragmentation and I thought you were clever and said so.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Ok, that's cool. That's why I asked if it was the long-distance colonies.

There are indeed many ways revolts may or may not happen. Remember that pretty much every non-Euro country on the globe was a European colony at some point (map from here).

Considering reasons it may not happen- perhaps the colonies are still too reliant on something from their central power to consider independence. The most obvious thing is military protection from other belligerent empires. And in return, we'd need to consider why the central powers don't just cut their colonies free to fend for themselves.

Anyway, this is a ripe seed for further exploration, so over here I've put it up as a nomination for a new setting riff game, if you're agreeable.