[Luis Dias]

In addition, the GTVA wants Sol for its economic strength. That strength comes from the policies set by the Ubuntu Council of Elders. In other words, you can't get the economy without at least acknowledging the ideology that makes it work so well.

Unless you don't really buy the idea that the economic boom had anything to do with Ubuntu, but external factors. You are making too many assumptions here.

Right. Please read the supplementary materials for BP. I would recommend the "What is Ubuntu?" dossier. The economic strength of Sol is because, not in spite of, the leadership of the Council of Elders. If you want to argue stuff in the BP verse, you should stick to BP canon.

You missed the point. You might have your own theory of how Sol boomed, the "canon" theory might be another, and, the one that matters for these discussions, GTVA might have a completely different opinion of what caused the boom. These are very subtle, yet majorly important distinctions to make, rather than the confidence in the omniscience of all entities within BP.

Ok, this is utterly bollocks. If you want to say that it isn't "the same thing" coz Russia had it worse than america, then fine, trade places. How come the Russkies had to endure communism for so long when it was so goddamned clear that capitalism was so much better?

How come did Russia manage to avoid mass migration and rebellion for so many decades?

Your idea is simply not true. At all.

And you are too hung up on the wrong RL analogies.

It's not that I'm "hung up", it's because they are easily remembered.

The cold war situation between Russia and the US is not a good analogy for the difference between the UEF and the GTVA. The two systems are much closer, for starters. But where the GTVA is mostly hands-off, and doesn't involve itself in the day-to-day operation of the colonies except in areas of common interest and defense (obviously), the UEF favours a more intrusive approach to governing. If you really want to draw an analogy, US vs EU is the one you should use, not US vs USSR.

I'll byte, though in disagreement. Ok, so lets imagine that the "socialist" EU is so much better than the States. Why the hell is the typical american still convinced that the right to hold a weapon, the right not to have an health national system, and the sheer implosion of all things state is a better ideology than the one used in the EU, despite all the evidence to the contrary? It's not even as if they were living in different planets, you know?

What makes up for this cognitive dissonance? Ideology and propaganda, that's what. It makes the whole difference.

Do you even know what is considered the second most influential book in the States by a survey in the Library of Congress? Atlas Shrugged. That should tell you in a nutshell what is the force behind all this cognitive dissonance: ideology.

[Scotty]

The_E is reminding everyone of the canon theory, Luis.

As for the rest of that post:  Leave real-life politics to GD, please.

[Luis Dias]

The_E is reminding everyone of the canon theory, Luis.

Which is totally irrelevant to the GTVA's assessment of Sol's economy, unless it is stated somewhere that the GTVA was constituted by people who unanimously believed in the canon.

As for the rest of that post:  Leave real-life politics to GD, please.

Way to ****ing miss the point. I don't care if you like Ayn Rand or not. What I care is that the assumption that people in the outer colonies will judge Sol by the same omniscient eyes that the canon omniscient narrator of the BP webpage is utterly silly and does not take into account any kind of believable human psychologies.

[Scotty]

That's certainly not what it sounded like we were talking about.  Shall we take a look at the argument progression?

The_E points out you're using the wrong analogies with the U.S. and USSR to portray the GTVA and EU.
You come up with "Socialist" EU vs. U.S. proves that ideology causes cognitive dissonance.
What you just said about omniscient viewpoints.

No, still doesn't sound like what we were talking about.

[Luis Dias]

That's certainly not what it sounded like we were talking about.  Shall we take a look at the argument progression?

The_E points out you're using the wrong analogies with the U.S. and USSR to portray the GTVA and EU.
You come up with "Socialist" EU vs. U.S. proves that ideology causes cognitive dissonance.
What you just said about omniscient viewpoints.

No, still doesn't sound like what we were talking about.

Yeah, that's what probably happens when you skim rather than read.

Case in point, E states that the GTVA has to deal with the Elders and Ubuntu and **** 'coz they are fundamental to the Earth's economy and its boom.

I simply stated that this assumes that the GTVA believes in this "theory". E replies saying it's no theory it's canon, which is completely irrelevant viz a viz GTVA's opinion on the matter.

The ideology discussion is a second discussion involving the beliefs of the populace of the outer colonies, that since Sol's jump node is open, there will be a massive flood of emmigrants to it, because everyone somehow "knows" that Sol is a "paradise" with its amazing economy and ideology. But as we know by historical precedent is that if people are trained to hate or love a certain ideology, they will be predisposed to do so, irrespectively of its inherent values. Thus the only logical thing for the GTVA to do is to warn the populace of the "dangerous" "hippy" and "commy" "naive" ideology which is just incompetent at dealing with the Shivans, and they will do so not by "rational information", but by Glenn Becking them out to smithereens.

Got it now?

[Scotty]

If the fact that Ubuntu and the Elders are a major contributing factor to Sol's booming economy is valid (and canonically it is), then the GTVA has to deal with it even if they remain unaware of such.  A charcter not knowing about something does NOT remove it from consideration among people who know better (read: everyone participating in this discussion).

[General Battuta]

Unless there's something in the BP fluff that mentions something about the GTVA being primed to rebel (which is pretty stupid anyway, given the constant Shivan threat hanging over their heads), then I don't think it's reasonable to just jump to rebellion, except maybe at the ballot box.

The GTVA is primed to rebel because of the constant Shivan threat hanging over their heads. The government lost the confidence of its population at Capella - for arguably unjust reasons - and the following economic downturn turned the GTVA into a powder keg.

[The E]

Yeah, that's what probably happens when you skim rather than read.

Case in point, E states that the GTVA has to deal with the Elders and Ubuntu and **** 'coz they are fundamental to the Earth's economy and its boom.

Except, remember the canon document where this was stated? A little Dossier called "What is Ubuntu"? Which was written, in universe, as a briefing document for the GTVA security council? In other words, we can safely assume that the GTVA higher-ups are aware of the role the elders play, and are cognizant of their importance for the UEF economy.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, that's what probably happens when you skim rather than read.

Case in point, E states that the GTVA has to deal with the Elders and Ubuntu and **** 'coz they are fundamental to the Earth's economy and its boom.

Except, remember the canon document where this was stated? A little Dossier called "What is Ubuntu"? Which was written, in universe, as a briefing document for the GTVA security council? In other words, we can safely assume that the GTVA higher-ups are aware of the role the elders play, and are cognizant of their importance for the UEF economy.

Touché

[Black Wolf]

Unless there's something in the BP fluff that mentions something about the GTVA being primed to rebel (which is pretty stupid anyway, given the constant Shivan threat hanging over their heads), then I don't think it's reasonable to just jump to rebellion, except maybe at the ballot box.

The GTVA is primed to rebel because of the constant Shivan threat hanging over their heads. The government lost the confidence of its population at Capella - for arguably unjust reasons - and the following economic downturn turned the GTVA into a powder keg.

That makes zero sense to me. Nations at risk of invasion are historically unlikely to change their government, and if the populace of the GTVA didn't support the broad-strokes policiy of their government, why wouldn't they have voted them out, rather than risking military gear that might, at any moment, be needed to fight the Shivans?

[NGTM-1R]

There are precedents for it. Czechoslovakia shortly before being invaded by Hitler comes to mind.

Then again, rebellion wasn't a reasonable possibility there either. The concept that morale collapse -> rebellion doesn't really follow (for a democratic system, at least, and if the basic needs of a majority are being met, which still appears to be the case; I haven't heard anything about mass famine). There are other options, and one of them even appears to exist; the rise of a charismatic leader who restores faith in the system. (Khonsu)

[General Battuta]

That makes zero sense to me. Nations at risk of invasion are historically unlikely to change their government

Nations that start and then lose wars are historically prone to changing their governments, and that's how people saw the Second Incursion: overconfidence and hubris that led to the loss of a densely populated star system. It's not a very just assessment, but it shattered public confidence in the GTVA military/political complex.

The GTVA lost its reputation as an aegis against the Shivan menace and came to seem at best ineffectual and at worst actively dangerous in the public eye. As described in the BP background material, this was not a particularly fair assessment, but it was the prevalent one.

and if the populace of the GTVA didn't support the broad-strokes policiy of their government, why wouldn't they have voted them out, rather than risking military gear that might, at any moment, be needed to fight the Shivans?

I don't really understand what you're saying here.

Think back to FreeSpace 2. The GTVA's ability to control its population depended on the promise of protection against the Shivan threat. When the population lost confidence in that ability, the GTVA needed something to prevent a repeat of the NTF - and the return to Sol under the Petrarch Doctrine was the solution.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, I'm sold on the explanations, albeit a little too confident in its own inevitability. It's a very interesting political plot, and one that could arise a plot leak in WiH2, with the combination of Battuta's discussion on how this universe had similarities with Foundation. Of course I'm risking a bet here, but I'd say that Battuta had also in mind on how the BP war was fundamentally over with the lack of support in GTVA's outer colonies, and how similar that situation was in Foundation too (when confronting the empire with the foundation). Of course, he couldn't have discussed it without leaking such a major plot point.

[Black Wolf]

My problem is that, unless the GTVA in BP is a military dictatorship, then they're under civilian control - civilians that are, I assume, democratically elected. The first election after the 2SI would have been disastrous for the government of the time, no doubt. But following that, if the population didn't support, for example, the (assumed new) government's Terran Knossos policies, why not vote them out as well?

[Luis Dias]

Well you know they still have a 56% majority in the parliament, and unless someone inside the government provokes a crisis, you still have to wait untill the next elections occur. The UEF could be motivated by this fact. It is well known that from the events of Jupiter, the coming GTVA elections are still 13 months away, which means that if they happen not to have more significant drawbacks like Jupiter's, they may get allies in the political opposition in the GTVA parliament, who have been pressing the anti-war campaign for almost two years now, only being slightly silented by the events at Jupiter.

And of course I'm not making all this up!

[General Battuta]

Why didn't the citizens of Polaris, Regulus and Sirius just vote the government out?

The citizenry did, broadly, support the return to Sol. That was part of the importance of the project - to mollify the populace and offer a carrot to work for. But the dangers the GTVA faced weren't as simple as failure of confidence in a single government or set of leaders. It was a failure of confidence in the system as a whole  - the kind of unrest that isn't expressed through democratic channels. (Again, the kind of unrest exploited to create the NTF).

Moreover, look at the GTVA's lineage. The GTA was basically NATO - a military organization with very little power in the civilian sphere. The GTVA stands closer to a true interstellar government, but of all its branches, the General Assembly is the only one that can really be said to respond to public opinion. There are powerful civilian positions which would remain more or less untouched by elections and the like. The Security Council is, by design, stable.

Remember, this is a government that spans worlds. There are powerful positions in every democratic state on Earth which are intentionally isolated from public opinion. The GTVA has similar positions, both civilian and military - GTVI, for instance, is a powerfully influential organization.

The GTVA has existed for less than fifty years. Prior to its formation, there were multiple, independent Terran states, and those identities haven't been submerged. The GTVA bought the loyalty of the Lost Generation with the promise of security and expanded human power in the face of the Shivan menace. It couldn't sustain that promise, and that threatens its very raison d'etre in the public eye.

The issue is not that 'our leaders have failed us'. The issue is that the relatively young GTVA failed catastrophically in the first test of the very promises that created it. Or, at least, that's how people see it - a perception shaped by economic problems as much as by military realities.

The GTVA is a democratic state. So were the early United States. But the US faced enormous challenges across the first hundred years of its existence, and at no point in the first forty years of its life (which the GTVA still occupies) was anyone confident it would endure rather than splinter. It took the Civil War to really settle many of the lingering questions about the American political system.

I think that's a good analogy for why the GTVA's problems can't be solved by an election cycle.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

Why didn't the citizens of Polaris, Regulus and Sirius just vote the government out?

The Sol-GTVA war is, in my opinion, the best reason for a Neo-Neo-Terran-Front.

[Luis Dias]

But without having some kind of direct popular control via elections, its own authority relies upon the willingness of those who are elected upon. You brought up NATO, well NATO is a joint operation that groups several countries which are, in turn, governed by democratic govs. Which means that NATO does what it does despite the people's best interesses, but only for so long. If people get too irritated at NATO, they will blame their own governments and take them out of their offices next elections.

If there is no such kind of pressure that the masses can do to this big GTVA institution, then that fact automatically strips its own authority. We have good examples, such as the president of the EU, who is a buffoon that no one cares to know any better nor has he any kind of power and legitimacy, since he was appointed by the EU bureaucracy, which in itself has little democratic support. So whenever Obama "calls" Europe, he won't call this EU president. He will call Germany, France or Britain.

Similar **** happens to the UN.

[NGTM-1R]

For that matter, any potential rebellion needs tools to make it meaningful. If you have the loyalty of the fleet, you do not need that much of the populace, only the segments that support the fleet. There is no precedent I can find for organized political mutiny by unit of a naval force. Even the closest I can come up with, the Nore mutiny, was about pay and service conditions and was only loosely connected with political issues.

So for the moment, let's forget the influence of the people and focus on the tools that would be needed to make it meaningful: what does the fleet think? Are their needs being met? Have there been serious cuts to pay or benefits, lengthened terms of service, something to make the fleet rank and file angry?

[Luis Dias]

Well, they were ordered to fight against their own fellow people... that cognitive dissonance did create a rebellion at the Sol jump node.