A moral question: Does New America have it right?

[kalos72]

So I was reading Airlords of the Ozarks again and it just hit me...

NA might just have the right idea in a T2k setting. Take away the racial/cultural bigotry and the idea will rebuild a safe sound society.

Some people, unskilled, wont survive and I shouldn't spend my time and resources trying to fee you and keep you warm. Either you provide some useful skill or attribute or there are a half a million more right behind you.

Not sure I can go so far as to agree with the LC camps but if you have nothing to give the society in return then why keep you around?

The Allegheny module says there are roughly 3 million people camping out around Pittsburgh. How on earth would you expect ANY agency or government to support that size population again? Most of them need to just die off...

I dont know, maybe NA's concept would be the best way to refine and reconstruct the US back to glory days. I know neither MILGOV or CIVGOV are worth a pot to piss in...

[kato13]

For morale purposes I think once people are inside your borders you have to do what you can to save all but the weakest. Otherwise you might tear apart families and friends. If your only doctor's son loses both legs to infection are you going to just let him die. If you don't and start to establish a multiple tier system depending on one's place in society that will just foment additional dissent.

As far as letting refugees in, communities are certainly going to be restrictive and let in those they consider most useful.

[headquarters]

NA takes a view that theweak should be culled - people like Stephen Hawking ,Albert Einstein and anyone else that cant contribute to the standards that NA set will have to go .

Not to mention the racial bigotry - its eeirely similar to the 1930s-40s politics.

Save those who can be saved is all very well , but I have an opinion that the NA would rather cull anyone that doesnt fit the profile regardless of actual capacity ofthat person . ( I.e dissent is not allowed ).

We have our own take on the NA in our campaign called the NDP - no racial bigotry but certainly an exclusive system towards those who take a different view to their utilatarian authoritharian ways .

But kalos makes an interesting argument - how do you say in English - arbitrage ? Prioritizing the wounded at teh scene of an accident into green , yellow and red tags -red tags : try to minimize suffering but do not waste resources to save ,those resources can be spent actually saving someone with a better chance of making it .

To challenge the humanity of the party is always interesting .Should the value of human life be sacrificed for survival ?

Should the players meddle in the overlord NPCs scheme of dividing the few rations left that leaves some to starve and thus ensures survival of the few -splitting the rations would mean that everyone runs the risks that come with starvation .( Deseases etc ) .

What is better? Sacrificing some to save someone else or standing together to try and keep up our humanist values ?

In recent years ( as I have matured..sort of ..) I have begun to think - who would be the "evil and stupid marauders " ? I dont think they would be guaffing ruffians in latex and spikes collars on motorbikes that rape and kill without remorse in T2K . ( Although there will always be people with questionable fashion sense and bad morals ) .

I see them more as desperate people of all ages and both sexes that are driven to aggression by hunger and fear .

Killing regular folk like that might not be a fun evening for your players though..

SO in some ways I guess morals will have to bow to good oldfashion clean justified kills in game

[Abbott Shaull]

Yes in lot of the areas the marauders bands would be the type of folks that the NA wouldn't to continue to support because they don't have skills that x community needs. The sad thing is neither does any other community a-z either.

Of course in other areas they would be old gangs who no longer could feed off the population or no population or former police force or as in Eastern Europe former military units that are no longer have military discipline.

As stated before bandits/marauders/pirates would be in the prospective of the people who are being attack most of the time. Sometimes these people are just fighting for their survival of their families. Sometimes they are fighting for their home. There are several factors why an area becomes a lawless place, and the local state government can't control it. Sometimes it as simple as bad blood between tribes/clans. Other it gets much more complex.

As the NA getting it right. They would only cause more people to want to dispose their government with the tier system. All one has to do in the US look at the Companies who have used the cry they could afford benefits and forced a tier system on their unions while they pay their CEOs and other millions in salary. There is lot of resentment of those in the lower tier toward those in the upper tier who threw them under the bus, so they could keep their pay and benefits.......

Yet, that is small been compared to racism that NA established. Once the population the racism is just means to establish a tier society, then they would fight against the tier system rather than try to fight the racism that is thrown in on top of it.....

Just some thoughts.

[kalos72]

Some good points so far...

Again, assuming you disregard the racial and cultural bigotry, I think in a world where most people cant find enough food to eat. Where marauders roam the country side killing other people to take their stuff or even just for fun. Where the civilian population masses in packs of a few thousand and the "government" is lucky to field a few hundred in some places.

How is a government supposed to handle that? Even if CIVGOV/MILGOV didnt have their heads straight up their own butts most of the time, how could they possibly control that sort of population now? How do they feed them, protect them, support them?

Lets take an area like Pittsburgh from "Allegheny Uprising", with a reported population of roaming refugees numbering something like 3 million, assuming you buy that number which I have a problem with honestly. How would ANY military unit move in, setup camp, start food production or housing and such? We all know the 'mob' would over run the camp as soon as the first shipment of food arrived and that would be that.

At some point in a soceity like T2k, you have to ask yourself where does self preservation come into play.Most towns/city populations arent going to care how hungry the roaming refugees are. Most arent going to care that you have travelled from NYC all the way to Pittsburgh on foot. Unless you have something they need, as skill more so as anything material will just be taken after they beat you to death.

When do you put personal freedoms and rights aside for the betterment of the people as a whole?

NA puts garrisons in every town they take over, they remove local discontents to prevent them from causing trouble and then they let them go about their every day lives, taking a tithe of food and production for support. Would a MILGOV cantonment be that much different?

[lombardoslegion]

There is no doubt that Milgov and Civgov have their problems. But NA is not NA without the racial bigotry. That is what makes them "the bad guys." I am sure in most military cantonments there is a lot of Constitutional rights that are not being enforced to protect the survival of the community. But NA seems to take this to the next level. Their communities survive on fear, but all the modules show some group or another in opposition to NA.

When it comes down to survival, the sheep are going to find a sheep dog or get eaten by the wolf.

[Raellus]

That's like saying Naziism was a good thing, leaving aside the whole Final Solution or Lebensraum thing.

You can't separate the whole NA/ethnic cleansing thing. They go hand in glove.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Raellus

That's like saying Naziism was a good thing, leaving aside the whole Final Solution or Lebensraum thing.

You can't separate the whole NA/ethnic cleansing thing. They go hand in glove.

Kalos' question has kind of been asked before in the Star Trek episode "Patterns_of_Force_(TOS_episode)" there you had a Federation Observer who wanted only the "good" parts of National socialism (as he honestly believed that it is the most efficient system of government ever devised), but it ended up getting away from him and embracing all of the darkest elements.

[kalos72]

I think perhaps we are looking at this from a perspective based on today's society and culture.

When you think about your position as the MILGOV commander with his division of 2000 men being tasked to control, support and supply the local population of 3 million refugees, how do you respond?

Sure we would all like to say, we do whatever we need to do and find a way to get it done. But reality sets in and we realize that those people that cant be utilized in SOME way to contribute to the group, are just dead weight. Weight your troops will be sacrificed at some point to defend.

As it stands in current "canon" news, realistically neither government controls more then what a 1/10th of the country or its population. Mega city's or city states with the most talented people will form and kick the old,sick,useless out at some point.

Would it be quicker to just do it from the start or wait until we waste resources trying just to figure out its a lost cause?

[WallShadow]

Carl Hughes built his organization with people specifically chosen for their predatory, bigoted, arrogant, self-serving characteristics. New America is bigoted racially, socially, and religiously from the bones out. Its use of the black battalion in Urban Guerrilla as cannon fodder mirrors the "efficient" processing of untermensch undesirables into such useful products as soap and lampshades.

Answer: No, using NA governing concepts degrades the chance of reestablishing a democratic society once the crisis is past. You are left with an elitist revolving-door good-ol'-boy form of government.

Ummm...maybe Carl Hughes has already succeeded....