Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Density of food supply determines how many people survive in a particular hunting and gathering range. Aboriginal Australian clans would eke out an existence in a predetermined area, but when there was a localised abundance of food (migratory birds, moths, eels) clans would all congregate, eat, discuss stuff, and arrange marriages. Blood line management (ie prevention of inbreeding) is very big in Aboriginal culture even now for some people.

So, you've got two existing pressures, survival on marginal land, and interaction with people outside your range.

Final point: tribes would have agreements on things like allowing wholesale migration through each others land during times of drought, as well as the movement of traders and tribal shamans for long distances. For instance, the rock formation at what is now the town of Nimbin in NSW, was a pilgrimage site for tribal shamans for hundreds of kilometres around, but no one lived there permanently.

Similar is true of the Alaska Native tribes.

[David Johnston2]

Here's a puzzle to consider. You've got a colony with a typical elected mayor and council. However there is only one major corporation there and it owns and rents all the land as well as employing almost all the voters. What do you put down for governmental type?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Here's a puzzle to consider. You've got a colony with a typical elected mayor and council. However there is only one major corporation there and it owns and rents all the land as well as employing almost all the voters. What do you put down for governmental type?

Subjugated?

Of course that description would fit a Benedictine Monastary, or a Kibbutz.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Here's a puzzle to consider. You've got a colony with a typical elected mayor and council. However there is only one major corporation there and it owns and rents all the land as well as employing almost all the voters. What do you put down for governmental type?

If it's me as a GM or similar, it's going to depend on how much of the theoretical control the corporate body could exercise that it actually does, and how blatantly.

If it's subtle influence, if a lot of the population doesn't realize that the real power is in the Board Room, not the Council Chamber, I'd put it down as a corrupt but otherwise ordinary republican state.

"The colony is officially governed by an elected council and mayor, but in practice the council members answer to the CEO of Whatever Corp, or are replaced in the next election."

It's a variation on machine politics.

If the corporation openly dominates the state, I'd call it a corporate state.

[David Johnston2]

A military dictatorship where every adult is considered to be a member of the military

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Here's a puzzle to consider. You've got a colony with a typical elected mayor and council. However there is only one major corporation there and it owns and rents all the land as well as employing almost all the voters. What do you put down for governmental type?

A lot of details matter here.

Are there more police, or are there more security guards? And if the security guards stand up to the police can they be jailed if they ever return to their homeland? You can easily set up a situation where the local government has a large amount of control over the company, ready to "nationalize" if things get too bad.

You can easily end up with a situation similar to a union, where elected representatives police an entity that owns the livelihoods of their supporters.

In fact, in historic company towns, either the union or the company tends to dominate politics.

Of course, this is a colony, and that implies Isolation, so the degree of autonomy each party can exercise will greatly effect the balance of power.

But in the end, its still a democracy, and the company is not guaranteed to automatically run things.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Here's a puzzle to consider. You've got a colony with a typical elected mayor and council. However there is only one major corporation there and it owns and rents all the land as well as employing almost all the voters. What do you put down for governmental type?

Depends on what decisions are under the mayor's control and what decisions are up to the corporate brass.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Depends on what decisions are under the mayor's control and what decisions are up to the corporate brass.

It also depends on how the corporation is run. Who owns it? What are its goals? Where does its power come from? Can it employ force directly, or does it need to act through local government? Why does it own so much of the colony? A Corp that has a slash and burn resource extraction model is going to have different effects from one that's trying to set up an ideological commune, or a trading entrepot.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

A military dictatorship where every adult is considered to be a member of the military

THAT. WAS. SPARTAAAAA! ... more or less, wasn't it? Well, every citizen at least...

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

It also depends on how the corporation is run. Who owns it? What are its goals? Where does its power come from? Can it employ force directly, or does it need to act through local government? Why does it own so much of the colony? A Corp that has a slash and burn resource extraction model is going to have different effects from one that's trying to set up an ideological commune, or a trading entrepot.

And what the larger offworld society the corporation comes from is like, what oversight *that* government has, etc.