Shaping History (Interstellar Wars)

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I'm not talking about butterfly effects where's there's no discernable connection between what the characters did and the outcome.

Neither am I.

There is always a discernible connection between what the characters do and the outcome in my games. It may not always be obvious to the players right away, but I don't just make up random stuff.

The key for me is to see the timeline as a living breathing thing that isn't fixed. So when I started my players off in 2170, I saw Sharik Yangila as a person engaging in lots of plots. She had the support of some people and she also had to deal with the Kimashargur faction (many of whom would be the battlegrounds if a war broke out again). She wants to start another war...and that is her plan...that is also what happened in the official timeline, but she can't just start the war by fiat. She has to gather intelligence, support, and resources...and she is trying to do all of these things secretly. A million things can happen to disrupt that. Or more likely just a PC team. So once the PCs got involved in the mix, they started changing all sorts of things. They got very good a destabilizing Yangila's power bases. Then history was changed.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by MrBackman

The Vilani lacked immune system defense for many Terran diseases and some historians argue that this was the real reason the Terrans won. Have the players actively spreading Terran diseases (giving infected blankets to Vilani refugees might be too obvious but something along those lines). This might be a program by the terrans or something the players cook up themselves.

To the Vilani I doubt that would be too obvious.

Selling meson gun plans to the Vilani. The Vilani had never encountered this weapomn before and according to canon the Terrans had them before the Vilani (strange as they lagged the Vilani in TL?). The Vilani name for meson guns was 'silent death' or something along those lines so this was a weapon they was really scared of.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that they had encountered them before, in their ancient history but the stories had turned to myth and they eventually conquered that culture anyway.



The big question is whether the PCs actions involve metagame knowledge or not. I'd have no problems with the PCs taking steps that could change an established timeline, they're playing in the "present" so changing the established future isn't a big deal to me, but knowingly changing it because they know how to do it would, to me, feel like cheating. Like when you play a role playing video game for the 20th time and you skip or derail huge chunks of the main storyline because you know how.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

To the Vilani I doubt that would be too obvious.

I'm sure they'd become suspicious. I don't see how they can not understand germ theory - at least the bacterial form, i.e. microscoping animals are trying to eat you - they just aren't prepared for these germs. I've said before I think the most plausible justification is that viruses do take them by surprise, and can slip around traditional detection and quarantine procedures. One would expect Terran physicans have been trying to tell them about viruses since the first one with ethics and a sense of history learned about the First Contact, but it's not completely implausible most Vilani ignored the barbarians.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that they had encountered them before, in their ancient history but the stories had turned to myth and they eventually conquered that culture anyway.

No, they declared it a navigation hazard and ignored it. That's Sabmiqys (Antares 2117), inhabited by TL-H self repairing robots.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by MrBackman

The Vilani lacked immune system defense for many Terran diseases and some historians argue that this was the real reason the Terrans won. Have the players actively spreading Terran diseases (giving infected blankets to Vilani refugees might be too obvious but something along those lines). This might be a program by the terrans or something the players cook up themselves.

That's just plain creepy, bad propaganda, and more to the point, not really much fun. Even if the players like being evil presumably they like to see the evil they do rather then be told it happens two months from then. Why not have the Terrans be giving the medicine, which is subversive to the Zira Sirka and is therefore, from the strategic point of view just as important?

[jason taylor]

How about the building of the first Indomitable?

The Conquest of Nusku; the fact that it went over so well encouraged other Vilani to defect.

One of Lorette Strider's missions?

Negotiating the final surrender of the Zira Sirka?

Commanding a fleet sent to restabalize the Vargr frontier in the name of the new Rule of Man?

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

That's just plain creepy, bad propaganda, and more to the point, not really much fun. Even if the players like being evil presumably they like to see the evil they do rather then be told it happens two months from then. Why not have the Terrans be giving the medicine, which is subversive to the Zira Sirka and is therefore, from the strategic point of view just as important?

Even better, have the PCs uncover evidence of biological warfare conducted by their own government.

The Terran Confederation might be spreading plagues in secret while publicaly distributing medicines. Of course, full and proper treatments and immunizations would only be practical on a large scale in secure zones- Vilani worlds that have already defected or surrendered.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

The whole idea of the Terrans using biological warfare overlooks that doing so is monumentally counterproductive. The population of a conquered Vilani world are not hunter/gatherers barring your farmers from tilling the land. They're the people who run the factories that produce the wealth you want to tax, preferrably without having to pay for an occupation force so big it loses money. The Terrans want these people alive and they want to capture their hearts and minds.

As for killing them off and replacing them with immigrants from Terra, moving people across interstellar distances costs money and ties up ships. And you'd need to transport a LOT of people. Kill off 90% of Nushku's population (a possible result of a virgin field epidemic), and you still have 110 million Vilani left. Who are now implacably hostile to the Terrans. How are you going to get any use out of Nushku's infrastructure for the forseeable future?

No, the Terran government would be having kittens every time there was a breakout among their new Vilani subjects.


Hans

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

No, the Terran government would be having kittens every time there was a breakout among their new Vilani subjects.


Hans

Yup.

Because there is a chance, albeit a small one, that the damn thing could mutate and hop back onto Terrans and next thing you know, hello Interstellar Black Death.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

No, the Terran government would be having kittens every time there was a breakout among their new Vilani subjects.

That's the solution to the OP's problem. Put the PCs in charge of a strategically critical occupied system. Allow typical PC bloody-mindedness, inattention to detail (especially the boring details) and general obsession with irrelevancies ("Governor General, where were you when this crisis started?" "Uh, fighting space pirates?") to have it's logical consequences. Put the most distractable impulsive gazebo-chasing-prone player in charge. When the planet falls to revolt, and the Ziru Sirku claims it back, the war is lost for Terra forever, and "history" is changed. Yay!

[jason taylor]

Suppose Lorette Strider manages with the PCs help to prevent the first intersteller war what would happen?

Well Terra would expand to rimward, it's traders would continue to conflict with Vilani law and the Vilani government would continue to regard Terra as a vassal-and Terra would continue to be insulted by that.

In the meantime the minor instability would be aggravated by the knowledge of an independent human state. The Vilani would use Terrans as mercenaries against each other and against the Vargr. And sooner or latter the Intersteller Wars would take place anyway, perhaps delayed for a hundred years. A cynical thought but interesting.