- Location
- UK
[X][TIMING] Pass. Virmire First.
[x][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[x][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
[x][BUOYS] General Distress Call
[x][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[x][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
[x][BUOYS] General Distress Call
-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest
pbluekan
Somethin's Fucky ...
- Location
- Trumpistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Poptart has given us some valuable information, but that said, just because a choice is unpopular doesn't necessarily mean it isn't the right choice. I could quote Dumbledore here, if you like, but...
We kept the veto power for a reason.
We kept the veto power for a reason.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The thing I really want to know is what popular support looks like on Virmire for, say, "independence versus associate member status." Personally I think we might be better off as associate members of the Council with an embassy on the Citadel* than as an independent polity.
Being associate members would give us more standing and leverage to NOT get casually pushed around by the Council's overwhelming soft power and influence over things like "so which way do these krogan warlords go to settle new worlds" and "do our ships get to use Council mass relays?" As a totally independent nation, we're locked out of the power structure, and the imbalance of raw strength between the Council and ourselves means we're likely to spend most of the next two thousand years fending off random acts of Council dickery.
If the popular support for independence is more motivated by "we will never be direct subjects of the Council again," associate membership would largely sate that need. The Systems Alliance weren't subjects of the Council either, after all.
If the popular support for independence is motivated more by "never Citadel again, go it alone," not so much.
____________
*(like humans in Mass Effect, in other words)
Being associate members would give us more standing and leverage to NOT get casually pushed around by the Council's overwhelming soft power and influence over things like "so which way do these krogan warlords go to settle new worlds" and "do our ships get to use Council mass relays?" As a totally independent nation, we're locked out of the power structure, and the imbalance of raw strength between the Council and ourselves means we're likely to spend most of the next two thousand years fending off random acts of Council dickery.
If the popular support for independence is more motivated by "we will never be direct subjects of the Council again," associate membership would largely sate that need. The Systems Alliance weren't subjects of the Council either, after all.
If the popular support for independence is motivated more by "never Citadel again, go it alone," not so much.
____________
*(like humans in Mass Effect, in other words)
We could equally well argue that "Virmire First!" is problematic wording given the connotations of violent nationalistic fervor when spoken by an overwhelmingly popular political figure.
- Location
- Zagreb, Croatia
I think you're reading into it too much, I feel as if the wording of the choices is more aimed at us (the players) to describe the options in the most concise way possible rather than any autocratic/nationalist tendencies of Mira herself.
- Location
- United States
[X][TIMING] Pass. Virmire First.
[X][BUOYS] General Distress Call
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[X][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
[X][BUOYS] General Distress Call
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[X][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
Magic_Pal
On long term vacations in hell
- Location
- Poland
This would be good. But I think that we would get that more easy as a independent world. In the end rolls will decide.
- Location
- Australia
@PoptartProdigy ... Sooo... If we vetoed, and publicly (or subtly) announced our intentions to use the threat of our independence to try and gain concessions from the Council when we're back in contact with them, how much of that negative response would be mitigated? Actually, would that even mitigate the negative response? Or would there be outcry of "selling out our wanted independence for Council leftovers" or other such political spins (that could be entirely accurate)? Personally, I'd rather do what the people of Virmire want in this case.
Also, guys? Is possible future bargaining power worth the negative publicity we would gather from vetoing this, as opposed to the positive publicity and even larger legend we would build for Mira? By the way... @People_voting_for_vetoing, why haven't you guys asked PoptartProdigy any questions? Don't you guys have anything you want to know? Like, I dunno, maybe "How would the people of Virmire react to such-and-such reasoning to veto the vote?" or something like that?
When I see this, it convinces me more to vote for independence. That way, we build up our own "Systems Alliance" for dozens of decades, and then bargain with the Council for associate membership if that's what we want by then. Even without associate membership, I don't see how hard it would be to negotiate a free trade agreement when we reach the amount of strength we'd have with the numerous resource rich and garden planets we have near our location. We have the capacity of a second-rate navy with just Virmire's shipyards and natural resources; a few more Virmires along with dedicated resource planets and I can easily see us with a first-rate navy. Fortunate we have those nearby garden and mining worlds, huh?
Also, guys? Is possible future bargaining power worth the negative publicity we would gather from vetoing this, as opposed to the positive publicity and even larger legend we would build for Mira? By the way... @People_voting_for_vetoing, why haven't you guys asked PoptartProdigy any questions? Don't you guys have anything you want to know? Like, I dunno, maybe "How would the people of Virmire react to such-and-such reasoning to veto the vote?" or something like that?
When I see this, it convinces me more to vote for independence. That way, we build up our own "Systems Alliance" for dozens of decades, and then bargain with the Council for associate membership if that's what we want by then. Even without associate membership, I don't see how hard it would be to negotiate a free trade agreement when we reach the amount of strength we'd have with the numerous resource rich and garden planets we have near our location. We have the capacity of a second-rate navy with just Virmire's shipyards and natural resources; a few more Virmires along with dedicated resource planets and I can easily see us with a first-rate navy. Fortunate we have those nearby garden and mining worlds, huh?
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
@PoptartProdigy
Can we write-in a reasoning for the Veto? How much is 'I want to be sure we weren't going to recieve help 2 years after we declare independence' going to mitigate the loss if we can?
Can we write-in a reasoning for the Veto? How much is 'I want to be sure we weren't going to recieve help 2 years after we declare independence' going to mitigate the loss if we can?
Associate members are Independent nations.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
That's my point.
What challenges Poptart puts in our path, and how difficult they are, Poptart will decide. The dice rolls will determine how well we do in overcoming them.
Personally, I'm expecting a lot more challenges as an independent nation that is trying to declare itself outside the Citadel's international system. Because the Citadel tends to react to independent threats by marginalizing and subverting them. The asari in particular are very good at incorporating others into their power structure, but by the same token they're not going to let go of things easily or quickly.
Ok, something that should have been noticed on both sides of the aisle on this debate. This is what we're voting on:
The Virmirean Assembly has voted by a 74% majority to authorize the drafting of an official declaration of independence from Citadel Council rule.
This bill authorizes the making of a draft to become independent of Citadel Council rule, but the bill in and of itself isn't the declaration. Very likely what that means is that we'll be the ones drafting the declaration, or at the very least we'll have very broad authority over what the draft says at the end. So if you're worried about a provision for something, then you can bring it up when we're debating what the declaration actually says.
My personal opinion is that it needs to address the following:
1. Our reasons for declaring independence from Citadel Council rule. Primarily this is due to the colony being abandoned to die, meaning the Council abdicated its responsibilities towards the colony and the people within.
2. What independence actually means. Clearly we're declaring ourselves a sovereign state of some kind, but there are different ways that could be done. For instance, it could be a full break, and we are not beholden to anything the Council declares as a law since we're not in any way a member. Or we could do something else, such as declaring that that while we're no longer administrated by the Council that we would still like to be an associate member under the Citadel Conventions (which may need some edits) provided the Council recognizes our state's territorial claims.
3. A declaration of our territorial claims. This should be in broad strokes, since we're likely to continue to expand as time goes on, but the Relays under our control should definitely be part of it.
4. Regardless of the choice in item 2, a statement that we have no hostile intent towards the Council or its members, and our state's desire to be a productive and peaceful member of the galactic community.
5. A statement that we recognize the threat posed to the galactic community by the Rachni, and our intentions of doing everything reasonably possible to work with them against the Rachni threat.
The Virmirean Assembly has voted by a 74% majority to authorize the drafting of an official declaration of independence from Citadel Council rule.
This bill authorizes the making of a draft to become independent of Citadel Council rule, but the bill in and of itself isn't the declaration. Very likely what that means is that we'll be the ones drafting the declaration, or at the very least we'll have very broad authority over what the draft says at the end. So if you're worried about a provision for something, then you can bring it up when we're debating what the declaration actually says.
My personal opinion is that it needs to address the following:
1. Our reasons for declaring independence from Citadel Council rule. Primarily this is due to the colony being abandoned to die, meaning the Council abdicated its responsibilities towards the colony and the people within.
2. What independence actually means. Clearly we're declaring ourselves a sovereign state of some kind, but there are different ways that could be done. For instance, it could be a full break, and we are not beholden to anything the Council declares as a law since we're not in any way a member. Or we could do something else, such as declaring that that while we're no longer administrated by the Council that we would still like to be an associate member under the Citadel Conventions (which may need some edits) provided the Council recognizes our state's territorial claims.
3. A declaration of our territorial claims. This should be in broad strokes, since we're likely to continue to expand as time goes on, but the Relays under our control should definitely be part of it.
4. Regardless of the choice in item 2, a statement that we have no hostile intent towards the Council or its members, and our state's desire to be a productive and peaceful member of the galactic community.
5. A statement that we recognize the threat posed to the galactic community by the Rachni, and our intentions of doing everything reasonably possible to work with them against the Rachni threat.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
The assembly isn't giving us a choice. They didn't try to involve us in the discussion to draft a declaration. They went ahead and did it with absolutely no input from us, despite knowing we hold most of the power. It's clearly a power play on their part, and they chose the most popular issue possible to force our hand.
Ideally, we would want to draft something more moderate, or delay until we recontact the citadel and see if they can help us now before declaring our independence outright. But they took this choice away from us.
I'm tentatively against their text because of the long term consequences, but I agree the short term risk by pissing off both the assembly and people could be a problem.
On the other hand, we've never pretended to be anything but an emergency government until now, and we're still in a critical situation, so doing something unpopular but necessary is exactly why we're here.
I feel like it's extremely risky to do this now, when we've just found the tools to recontact the citadel and see if they want to give a hand.
Edit: I completely missed the fact it was a statement towards independence rather than an actual declaration from them.
I like the idea of offering to be an associate member, but it's a bit unilateral, and they could just say "lol, no". And probably will because of pride and potential loss of face if they let us dictate terms.
Maybe we could suggest we write something acknowledging we want independence, but mandating for negotiation before we jump on the unilateral declaration?
Last edited:
Magic_Pal
On long term vacations in hell
- Location
- Poland
That is a good point.
HanEmpire
Delicious
Not really? They're just doing their jobs. The voters overwhelmingly want independence as per WOG and the representatives are responding appropriately. It's not the PM's job to look over MPs' shoulders for everything.
Shouldn't matter, as long as it's RIGHT.
To draw RL parallels for Americans, interracial marriage remained widely unpopular for decades after the court decision legalizing it in the 50s.
It wasn't until the 1990s that public support for interracial marriage in the US crossed 50%
Gallup Vault: Americans Slow to Back Interracial Marriage
Popularity is not necessarily a measure of a smart decision.
Especially popularity made in the absence of actual information as to what the fuck happened and is happening. It's supposed to be the job of the executive to look beyond popularity and consider implications.
If popularity was the goal, why keep the absolute Veto at all if you have no interest in using it?
It was designed precisely for occasions like this: popular decisions in the legislature that would have far-reaching effects and problems beyond the initial feelgood phase.
I have a lot more sympathy now for politicians trying to get voters to look beyond their noses at complex issues.
I'm on the verge of throwing up my hands in frustration and just shutting the hell up.
Last edited:
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes and no. They have to follow a bunch of Citadel laws and rules, and that includes abiding by Citadel decisions on issues a fully independent nation might well not agree to, things like "so which planets can you colonize." On the other hand, they have standing within the system of international law the Citadel's creating; they give up some of their autonomy, but in return other nations' freedom to act against them is decreased.
The QM has already told us we'll get a chance to explain and to go into more detail on the independence decision, either way, after this vote.
Right now we are simply making a yes/no decision: smack the bill with a veto stamp, or not.
If we say "pass the bill," we don't get to decide in this vote what the declaration of independence will look like.
If we say "veto the bill," by the same token, in this vote we don't get to decide what we're going to do about it.
Either way, we explore that later, not now. Having it be an issue now would just clutter up what is otherwise a yes/no decision process.
If you want the bill to pass, and for the legislature to draft a declaration of independence, vote pass. if you don't, vote veto.Simple.
Poptart already said no, more or less. Furthermore, based on past precedent, Poptart wouldn't honor the write-in unless it had at least a majority of all the "veto" votes, and maybe a plurality of all the 80 or so votes cast so far. The odds of any one write-in reasoning you can come up with crossing that line are effectively zero, so trying to write-in a reasoning for the veto is a waste of your time.
However, it is super likely that in a subsequent vote, we will get the opportunity to spin our decision-making, explain under what circumstances we would pass a declaration of independence, and so on.
I won't say I'd prefer to do what the people of Virmire want in that case, but I'm not sure Mira would have a realistic choice.
I think we're very likely to create more problems for ourselves than we solve with independence, and I think the Virmirean people as a whole aren't really thinking things through in that light... But then again, I know more than they do about the probable shape of the next two thousand years of galactic history, and that's probably coloring my predictions about how this will go down.
I don't expect Poptart to provide the kind of detailed information I'd need to ask for, on demand. Maybe that expectation is incorrect, but I suspect that my questions would just get met with a "you don't know, you haven't done enough polling because you were honestly surprised by this being the first thing the legislature passed."
I don't think we actually have "dozens of decades" before we have to negotiate our status with the Citadel one way or the other.
The rachni wars started a few years after 1 CE. The game started in the 30s CE, so Virmire had been under siege for 20-30 years before game start. The Citadel fought for "nearly a century" before the incorporation of krogan ground troops turned the tide of the war.
In-game, it is roughly 50 CE already. The krogan were "scheduled" to show up and start beating up rachni ground troops some time around the end of the first century CE. 300 CE was the point at which the rachni were declared extinct, but that was after a protracted period of cleanup.
The Citadel is going to start negotiating and interacting with us long before that. Probably within the next few decades- if nothing else because if we don't renew contact with them, the odds are that sooner or later the rachni will mass a fleet big enough to overrun us. If only to put an end to the trouble we're stirring up in their rear area.
So frankly, we may only have more like 20-50 years before we have to start negotiating planetary access rights and so on with the Citadel. Not hundreds of years. We will not have a thriving network of powerful 'daughter worlds' by that time. We'll have fresh, recently established colonies, whose economic and military might is tiny compared to our own.
The Systems Alliance was able to parlay that into associate member status in part because they are a species, and the Council is used to giving new FTL-capable species status within their system. I suspect we are going to have a harder time of it than the Systems Alliance did.
- Location
- Virginia
[X][TIMING] Pass. Virmire First.
HanEmpire
Delicious
So they're like EU member states.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Maaaybe. I mean, the Citadel associate members give up a lot in some ways and almost nothing in others, so it's hard to say precisely.
- Location
- Israel
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.