South African Coalition - Politics, laws, structure

[ldj00]

Hello,

I am hoping you do not mind me giving my opinion?

I would say that the virus put so much burden on the governmental infrastructure, that it collapsed, and a few corporations stepped up and said they would handle a subset of the public services, if the laws and regulations where modified to help them remain profitable while keeping the city from becoming a ghost town.

Then you have a few corporations that are in charge of different aspects. I could see a security firm standing as the police/defense forces, another one or two corporations taking over healthcare (hospitals, ambulances, clinics, etc), and so on.

Of course, all regulations and restrictions were removed, which means the pharmaceutical and/or biotech companies can test new drugs, surgeries, etc on patients without any malpractice or other negatives.

I am sure to help finance this, some bank was made the preferred banking institute and all that entails.

Now you have no government, or so little government that has no power over the corporations. This allows the corporation to basically do what they want. They might have declared only corporations are citizens, while people are just dwellers there, not citizens. The corporations would offer some protections for their employees, but everyone else would be a second class citizen. That would give it a very cyberpunk feel.

In such an environment, where corporations are trying to extract all the money they can, with access fees, processing fees, and such, a rampant black market, robbery, crime, etc would grow quickly outside the corporation gated housing projects.

I could also see those coming from the Caliphate who were seeking something not readily available there, or the smuggling to the Caliphate from Dar es Salaam and the tension between the Caliphate and the SAC.

Seems like it would make a very interesting cyberpunk type setting.

I know this is several months later, and may not be helpful, but I am working on my own THS game, preparing to run, and trying to work up some details on where and what is available there.

[vicky_molokh]

Some of the things mentioned sound over the top even for Broken Dreams.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Some of the things mentioned sound over the top even for Broken Dreams.

Which, in particular?

1.4 billion people in THS canonically live in countries where the GURPS Wealth level rounds down to Dead Broke. In the real world, countries with such utterly failed economies are usually wartorn hell holes where civil war has been going on for decades or operate under some equally other terrible conditions that make it impossible for even basic economic development to occur.

I can't imagine many ways for a functioning society to remain at that level for long. If the average Wealth level somewhere is Dead Broke, it's because something is very, very wrong on many levels. When this thread was posted, I was looking for ideas on what that could be, in the specific countries which belonged to the SAC, but were still failed states, or close to it, economically.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Which, in particular?

"Only corporations are citizens, people are not citizens" does not seem like something out of post-cyberpunk genre-wise, as is much of the rest of the high-end corp-related stuff.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

"Only corporations are citizens, people are not citizens" does not seem like something out of post-cyberpunk genre-wise, as is much of the rest of the high-end corp-related stuff.

The real-world contains enough complexity for a huge number of genres. THS would feel pretty unrealistic if the entire world was still limited to one genre of stories.

[ldj00]

Hello Vicky,

This?

Originally Posted by ldj00

Now you have no government, or so little government that has no power over the corporations. This allows the corporation to basically do what they want. They might have declared only corporations are citizens, while people are just dwellers there, not citizens. The corporations would offer some protections for their employees, but everyone else would be a second class citizen. That would give it a very cyberpunk feel.

If that is what you were referring to, I gave some suggestions to Icelander to provide a cyberpunk feel to a city state near or contained by the SAC.

I think of it like this, North Korea's government starts to collapse (military coups, massive embezzlement, etc), the government, in a desperate grab to remain in charge, makes agreements with corporations that promise to stabilize and keep them in charge. Once going down that road, those in the government keep getting 'forced' to make these deals, instead of doing the hard work to fix their countries economy and socio-economic structure. Before long, the majority of the population are basically indentured servants to one of a few corporations that have all the power in the country. And why would they think this is wrong? They have now lived generations with some of the most strick governmental controls on the planet.

I could see that happening over the next 10 to 15 years IRL, so I could see something like this happening to a border country or free city on the border of the SAC, especially just south of supposedly some of the poorest countries on Earth (TS, pg 85).

Or, instead of North Korea, what if a group of corporations formed som partnership to 'save Haiti'? I could see a take-over of governmental functions by corporations there... Or many other countries that are wartorn or ravaged by massive criminal organizations.

Any of the countries listed in this article could easily collapse or be taken over... Well, at least enough for a setting like Transhuman Space.

That is my opinion, if you think it is over the top, then it obviously will not work for you and your games. Maybe Icelander likes it... or maybe they do not.