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warsofasoiaf · 3 years ago

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Let’s start with Svensgaard, and pirates upon the High Seas of Planet.

Svensgaard is a fun faction to play, since the higher movement of sea units offers a tactical flexibility that can keep folks on their toes. Svensgaard encourages sea play, not just from its own advantages but because you get bonus minerals from ocean shelf spaces, which allows you to handle building those expensive base structures that can really get your base humming.

If Lal and the Peacekeepers are the most recognizable real-earth faction, Svensgaard is one of the most recognizable factions from fiction. Svensgaard is very clearly a stand-in for Captain Nemo, and the Nautilus Pirates are the Nautilus if an entire society abided by Nemo's conception and hatred of the land empires. Compare Svensgaard's mantra to Nemo's:

"Let the others fight their religious wars and bicker over the scraps of the Unity. At sea, you can face down the elements and win battles worth winning. At sea, you can find treasure the like of which the land-huggers will never know. At sea, you can be free, really free for the first time in your life." -GURPS supplement

"The sea doesn't belong to tyrants. On its surface they can still stake their evil claims, battle each other, devour each other, haul every earthly horror. But thirty feet below sea level, their power ceases, their influence fades, their domination vanishes! Ah, sir, live! Live in the heart of the seas! Here alone do I find independence! Here I recognize no superiors! Here I'm free!" -Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Svensgaard asserts that the seas of Planet are far more hospitable to life than the lands. He certainly has a point, the surface of Planet is covered with thick fungus that makes movement difficult, has hostile mindworms that hunt out all thinking creatures not part of the planetary hive mind to consume like an immune system response, and has native plant life that doesn't like to be eaten (Deidre mentions the planet has "juicy ripe grenadefruits" which are full of organonitrates, also known as nitrate esters which are explosive - the name grenadefruit isn't just because they look like the old-school pineapple grenade). The sea has its Isle of the Deeps and Sealurks, but there are vast stretches of sea with no fungus and there are calorie-rich Sporefish to eat, so it's just a little more hostile than the terrestrial seas already are. There's plenty of room, since the seas cover so much of Planet's surface compared to the land which is ferociously fought over.

On the ocean, with the Nautilus Pirates, a person can be radically free, and that's something with both appeal and danger. Given that on a boat, you are often with limited supply for long periods of time, a certain amount of independence on the deck of a ship is not mere flight of romantic fancy but a very real necessity borne out by logistics. Nothing stops someone of daring from exploring an uncharted section of ocean, of sailing far and discovery supply pods lost by the Unity. However, there's also nothing stopping someone from plundering shipping or coastal bases for riches and glory. At its worst, the Nautilus Pirates are every bit the backwards-looking nature of the Old Way ironborn, extolling the glories of their supremacy on the sea and taking from the landlubbers that are too timid to strike boldly into the wild frontier. Given that Svensgaard does have as his AI preference Power, it does suggest that at some level, Svensgaard support and encourages a robust navy to include raiding. Some of it certainly would be simply for deterrence, both from other factions and the ravenous native life, but teaching others to "respect the sea" via piracy isn't an illustrative teaching example as much as it coming up with a flimsy reason to rationalize armed robbery. That isn't conducive to a stable society, either it forces dependence on a productive class to raid and plunder ala Spartans and the helots, or encourages a form of social Darwinism where the society exists in constant conflict.

The Pirates social engineering modifiers reflect this lack of community at home. -1 Growth because family isn't emphasized (and plenty of family members are away on ship), -1 efficiency means wastage. But the expertise of the Pirates shows in their ability to extract minerals from the ocean to build buildings. At its most optimistic, this allows a freedom for building, and thus employment, at a degree of personal preference unmatched by any other faction. Not everyone might like being on a ship, but there's the ability to work at the Recreation Commons or hydroponics or labs or whatever (provided it's not something that you need to be selected for, like the Brood Pit), a chance to find fulfillment at work. But even at its best, the Pirates would have a chaotic society, difficult to adjust to, difficult to get a bead on, and as soon as you do, everything changes.

Perhaps owing to Svensgaard's flexibility, the Pirates are the only faction that is not forbidden any social engineering choices, and there is no hated choice that causes the AI to quickly become angry. That means the Pirates have the most options to be what they want to be.

A Democratic Pirates probably hearkens back to the old pirate codes of the Age of Sail, where the crew of a vessel saw themselves as members of a company, all of which had a stake in the success and direction of the enterprise. A Police State Pirates probably put much of the control of the society in the hands of the navy and the psychics who control the Sealurks, using the minerals extracted from Planet's oceanic shelves to support bases and a strong police presence to deter the native life. In this sense, the most daring captains (typically naval and successful raiders) would be the ones getting the privileges in the society to encourage bolder raids - here's where they most closely resemble the Old Way. A Fundamentalist Pirate state probably cleaves to Svensgaard's mantras to create strong and powerful pirate lords, and discourages investment in favor of taking technology by force and encouraging bold tactical initiative to make up for the lack of powerful weaponry.

A Free Market Pirates probably plays up the individuality to its hilt, allowing great forms of enterprise both on base and at sea in everything from piracy to selling new hull designs that could better resist the keratin-thick heads of the Sealurks to maverick inventors developing ways to cloak ships at sea. A Planned economy Pirate probably puts everything under the control of quartermasters much the way a ship maintains supply at sea, and strictly controls and reserves things in order to prepare for supply shortages, a common occurrence on the ocean and in the fragile early stages of Planetfall. A Green economy Pirates looks to maximize efficient usage of resources in order to avoid these same supply shortages, and when the ecological damage to Planet is connected to Mindworm attacks, to prevent getting daily psychic raids from Isles of the Deep.

The Values of the Pirates would probably reflect what truly marks success and status. Their AI preference of power would suggest that being a naval captain is the true path to success. Knowledge would probably manifest as pride in the strength of their vessels, while Wealth would be ostentatious displays of plunder.

For the future society, Eudaimonia would have the Pirates turn to ultimate individual expression at the cost of the transformation away from piracy to true radical freedom. Cybernetic would see increasing automation as the ships turn from dumb vehicles to autonomous self-contained mini-cities far dwarfing what even the most modern aircraft carriers of today are capable of. Thought Control would be the most radical transformation where even those back on base are barely better than landlubbers, and the individuality that the Pirates so valued became too difficult to manage and defend against the psychic terrors, and so the Pirates kill themselves in order to preserve humanity.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#sid meier's alpha centauri

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