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A Hive for The Galaxy (Sci-Fi CK2-style Quest)

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OOC: Wills of Hive and Caste
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    • veekie said:
    [x] The Caste of the Ruler

    How does the Will of the Hive/Castes work?
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    Alright, starting with Will of the Hive. You begin without an administration, and so getting advisors is good to start with. For each category, you will have a choice, to begin with, to figure out and to implement the will of the people, basically 'Do what people want.' Choices as you unlock them (you can take personal actions to do the same as well) will be marked to indicate that they're what the people at large want. Every turn there's a chance that the people could do it themselves with your inspiration (free action), but you can also implement them. The more actions you do that accord with the 'Will of the Hive' the higher the rating and the more bonuses you get. The Will sometimes contradicts itself, of course. You also get bonuses against Intrigue-actions against you that grow larger. By figuring out what the people want you can gain popularity and the bonuses inherent, moving with and among the people, as it said. But going too far into Will of The People means that to maintain the bonuses you have to spend most of your actions as a mouthpiece, and therein lies what you have to balance if you want to not move with the whims of the man on the street.

    You also, in this same paradigm, can talk to the Castes even as a 'Will of the Hive' ruler, and start doing actions that benefit the individual Castes, though this is in some ways a betrayal and you'd have to either balance it against the Will of The Hive or begin moving your administration away from "Listening to the people" towards either (depending on whether you are positive about them or not) "Listening to the best people" or "Totally selling out to a bunch of interest groups."

    You can also, third prong of decisions, come up with ideas on your own or build a cadre of administrators (and even bureaucracy which gives their bonuses to rolls) and advisors who will have their own ideas. The risk, or the thing to balance there, is that you'll become isolated from the Will of the Hive, with guards to keep the riff-raff out, advisors to tell you that it's fine to do this and that and the other thing that piss the people of the Hive off, and that creates a lot of tensions and confusion and chance to be overthrown and the people of the Hive might grow apathetic making a lot of actions harder.

    Move with the Hive and things go well, or at least, they can, move against it and things can get harder, and yet sometimes the hard thing needs to be done.

    So it's more than just a popularity index.

    Now, if you choose 'Council of the Castes' as a government plan, rather than as an element of your government, what you have is a council representing each clan. The lawyers, the defense-forces, the magnates, the weavers, the technicians...so on and so forth. Instead of it being a 'all castes in general' mechanic, it'd be based on specific castes, with suggestions from the Police Caste representative like...oh, let's use real-life examples, "Stop prosecuting us for killing unarmed people and we'll give you cudos and trade votes for you on your new economic policy." Or whatnot. Often less negative than that, of course, but you have to balance the desires of the Castes with, well, what's actually right, while getting enough votes to Dominate the Council, since if you lose that (by, say, ignoring the Castes and pissing them off), you just become another voter member and the game changes dramatically.
     
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    • It seems the key to success is the same as any democracy.

    An enlightened population would want to do the right thing even if it sucks short term. Or at least not complain much.

    Pretty powerful to ride the Will though...
     
    I'll probably close the votes tomorrow or maybe tonight? I guess it depends on the votes. At the moment my plans are up in the air in several categories, but we'll see! I'm making the character-creation but I can't do some parts until I know what wins.
     
    [x] The Will of the Hive

    A little bit sad that the heretic theocracy of biohorrors didn't win, but the bugs were my preferred second choice so not too down.

    Also, Hive Mind for the win. This one sounds interesting.
     
    OOC: A Epic Hero for an Epic Poem
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    • So, I come back with ideas, though not important ones for this Quest. Of the first great Xvorziti Story-Poem, of the Warrior-Poet-Trader, Bazassiten, who dances and rides with all four feet, who raises his voice in song and command, who wields the blow-dart as well as the Gizakti, a sort of complex, weird-looking flute-like instrument, who "Made himself by singing out/And built himself a body of song and strength" and who trades across the small hives that dot the southern horizon, like the burial mounds of the ancient kings.

    Who appeared naked before a judgement by a tyrant-Ruler, wielding not a blow-dart but a Gizakti, defending himself with song, not with strength, and yet capable of great feats, of slaying three Xvorztiti bandits while gravely wounded. Who gives a trilling laugh when asked his/its Hive or Caste, and whether it has ever incubated, whose head-wings are the color of rainbows or the color of muck, depending on who you ask.

    Who lived and died and loved and laughed and lusted with both hands to the grindstone of life, to the great and monumental and valuable work that all Xvorziti are engaged in: Living. Who is in all ways the archetype and the ideal of a certain type of Xvorzith person. And for whom beauty and work and money and song and violence and hope and friends were all, in the end, inseparable.

    So nothing truly 'relevant' to the Quest was thought up, but I did think.
     
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    • So, all that said, I'll probably close the vote tomorrow morning? I have fifteen votes so far, which isn't bad, though isn't close to what the first round drew, which really startled me. So I'll keep it open a little longer to guage that end of things. I also still have work to do before updating because I wasn't sure (still am not) what'll win.
     
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