Quote:
Originally Posted by General Pain
did you see the youtube video I posted?
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Actually no, I didn't. It seems to have been taken down.
As for mind control... via the sort of brain-washing, group-think pressure and cult-like indoctrination... well, I couldn't really come up with some rules along those lines. I figure it's going to have to be based on a resistance role against the attributes that represent Intelligence, Education and Willpower... but since I don't have the TW2K rules in front of me, I don't remember what the analogs are in the GDW rules. I write and design for Chaosium's Basic Role Playing (BRP) system where all three of those attributes are represented.
But there sure as hell is going to be a lot of "group-think" manipulation of individuals in the TW2K world... from the remnants of the pre-war governments, to the successor states, to bands of marauders... everyone is going to be trying to attract and retain talented personnel. The Soviets have their political indoctrination... most governments will resort to seriously nationalistic lines of argument about why soldiers should support their cause... new groups could be based around new or old religions... after all, look how much acreage the Muslims covered in their first years out of the gate. Being on God's side is a prime motivator for any population.
I think it would be worthwhile to read some books or see some movies that cover cults that have indoctrinated their membership to the point where they see the outside world as the enemy and are willing to kill to defend the group from that enemy.
Let's see... there's...
The People's Temple. That's Jim Jones and his Jesus-Socialist-Suicide- all stars.
David Koresh and the Branch Davidians...
The Good Ol' Manson Family...
Elizabeth Claire Profit and her underground bunkers for surviving doomsday...
(Ever notice how all these groups love isolated compounds? All the better to remove all other sources of information, my dear.)
The army of cannibals from Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's
Luficer's Hammer have yet to be improved on. Army deserters + ex-Black Panthers turned professional crime gang + crazy former televangelist = religiously motivated army that uses cannibalism as a way to forcibly indoctrinate those they've shanghaied into their ranks.
I recently read a novel from a fairly weak post-apocalyptic series called "The Afterblight Chronicles." In
School's Out one of the threats is a gang of religious crazies who think that they are protected from "the Cull" (the plague that kills everyone who doesn't have O Negative blood) because they have painted themselves (head to toe) with the blood of O Negative people. It was a bit like some African insurgent armies use of tribal magic to protect their troops. Check out "General Buck Naked" for a particularly crazy use of tribal magic from the Liberian Civil War. Certainly that's the sort of thing I'd like to drop into a scenario: taking some craziness that we westerners only think could happen in for far off land filled with sub-humans... only to find it can happen right here if the conditions are right.
Anyone have some other examples of brain washing of an entire group to accept violent or counter-factual world-views?
Besides Patty Heast, I mean. I'm not sure the Stockholm Syndrome is a strong enough effect to describe what we're talking about here.
A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing