Onward - To New Frontiers! (Torchship Playtest Quest)

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CHARACTER SHEETS
RULES
LORE BIBLE (WIP)

Seriously y'all, this is an open_sketch/DragonCobolt quest. It's gonna get spicy.
We'll put all the NSFW stuff behind spoilers but like, for real.
Also also: There will be drug use in this quest, it's the space 60s. Many, but not all drugs will be fictional.​
 
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I feel like permanent revolution is great for the AIs upbringing.

Why yes, of course it taught the transhuman super soldiers to logically but unwaveringly pursue righteous justice regardless of personal costs. No sacrifice is too great for the greater good. Lovingly, of course.
 
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somewhatLazy said:
[X]Plan: Chill Robot Girl
-[X] It's important to respect the boundaries of other cultures, even if we think we know better. (1)
-[X] The stars must be free of violence. It may be hard, but there is always another way. (2)
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Plan Chill Robot Girl is complete! Hardcore going for peaceful resolutions seems like it'll be an interesting challenge, and as for the other value, well, it just seems IC to me.
 
[X] Plan Explorer
-[X] The stars must be free of violence. It may be hard, but there is always another way. (1)
-[X] You aren't going to be putting procedure above lives and efficiency. You aren't a machine. (1)
-[X] But not so open our brain falls out. Science works, logic matters, skepticism is a powerful tool. (1)
 
Parzival95 said:
I feel like permanent revolution is great for the AIs upbringing.
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I'm not feeling it.

Because "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." and "When we see a problem, we fix it. Don't let the norms of the unjust protect their injustice." can be used to justify some really heinous shit, starting with White Star Man's Burden and agreeing with Omelas.

Now, I don't think Sketch and DC would write the character in such a way as to actually do something like that, but we already have one Sketch protagonist deciding to violently overthrow a planetary government for their own good, I'd really rather we didn't have two.
 
samdamandias said:
Because "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." and "When we see a problem, we fix it. Don't let the norms of the unjust protect their injustice." can be used to justify some really heinous shit, starting with White Star Man's Burden and agreeing with Omelas.
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All of the options can be used to justify heinous shit.

[ ] The freedom of individuals to make their own decisions is paramount.
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This option lets you absolve yourself of the blame of all of your action and inaction, by putting the blame on the person's own choices.

[ ] It's important to respect the boundaries of other cultures, even if we think we know better.
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This option lets you go "For SpaceHitler, murdering people is an important cultural tradition".
 
Yes, the most famous exemple that comes to mind is the banning of Sati. What was the quote:

'You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And we will follow ours'

Of all the evils of British India, this one I don't argue with. Any ideology can be twisted to justify atrocity, even seemingly pacifist ones. This is just choosing our particular flavor of rationalization. Being a good person, I'd say, is more about individual character then what they profess to believe. Two people can believe the same thing and come to radically different conclusions.
 
[X] Plan: Permanent Revolution
As much as it's possible to justify shady stuff through not being willing to ignore suffering, that's the case for the opposite too and really I find this belief just fun. Like, this is a setting where half the organization is soviet and the soviets are presumably doing fine. If there ever was a time and place for vaguely communist* idealism, it's this setting.
*Vaguely communist because a pretty wide range of beliefs are described by these tenets.
 
I do feel apprehensive about picking such an interventionist set of values when we're working for a non-military organization. But it is true that almost all of the values could be used to rationalize evil.

...maybe we just put two points into skepticism and call it a day?
 
Hey, guys, remember the mood and theme of the piece so far: This is happy go go slightly goofy space future, where computers use magnetic reel, laser is a verb, and humanoid robots veg out to psychedelics rock while tripping on space LSD. Like...we're not going to make Sandy into space hitler...

Or let you guys vote her into being space hitler.

It'll be fine, just go for what sounds most fun!
 
Well, we don't have to be space Hitler. Maybe we're just committed to tirelessly righting wrongs, even when others might fear to tread. "When an elephant is standing on a mouse's tail, to declare yourself neutral will be well received by the elephant and poorly received by the mouse." - I forget the source

There's still time to vote for Plan Big Stick though ;)
 
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DragonCobolt said:
Hey, guys, remember the mood and theme of the piece so far: This is happy go go slightly goofy space future, where computers use magnetic reel, laser is a verb, and humanoid robots veg out to psychedelics rock while tripping on space LSD. Like...we're not going to make Sandy into space hitler...

Or let you guys vote her into being space hitler.

It'll be fine, just go for what sounds most fun!
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You mean laser isn't a verb?


ProfessorB said:
Well, we don't have to be space Hitler. Maybe we're just committed to tirelessly righting wrongs, even when others might fear to tread. "When an elephant is standing on a mouse's tail, to declare yourself neutral will be well received by the elephant and poorly received by the mouse." - I forget the source

There's still time to vote for Plan Big Stick though ;)
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If it somehow makes a miraculous rally I'll switch my vote back. Unless approval voting is a thing here. Is it?
 
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Vebyast said:
With these votes I think she'd be Space Stalin anyway :V
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Already ninjaed, but she'd be Space Trotsky, who was Stalin's chief rival and ultimately received an ice pick to the head in Mexico for his troubles.

Trotsky famously promoted international permanent revolution, which was the opposite of Stalin's socialism in one country isolationism.

Basically, Trotsky wanted to go to war with
everyone in an eternal communist revolution.

This was absolutely a good idea, and I vote Alexandra follow his example!
 
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ReaderJohn said:
Also, does everyone in this place use space drugs?! I mean holy crap how do they function?
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It's a combination of two factors: Firstly, they're space drugs - there are negligible downsides to the use of them, they're designed to be hard to OD on, and there are drugs designed to counteract addictive properties. You note, earlier, Sandra took a hit o "Baseline", which got her from high to functional really fast.

Secondly, their society would see drug overuse or overdependence as a social problem, not a criminal one - counseling, rather than incarceration, is what you do if someone is using more than they should
 
ReaderJohn said:
Also, does everyone in this place use space drugs?! I mean holy crap how do they function?
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Also, it's the Space 60s, so yes. And I mean, so do we, as a species, now, just with a narrow set of approved drugs depending on our culture and laws.

We're honestly just having fun playing around with some of the wilder New Age-y directions Star Trek went in their middle years with parts of this, some real TMP novelization "most humans are forming weird communal hive minds" kinda energy. Every other person is a psychic, free love, dolphins help us navigate, LSD brings you closer to the spirit of the universe, that kinda shit. Humanity is on some post-scarcity hedonsim kick and is just vibin' as they travel around space looking at things, which is in fun contrast to a universe which treats space and its mysteries as a terrifying cosmic horror to be tiptoed around gently. Further, this will get downplayed a bit (a bit) once we get out in a spaceship and more focus is needed, though it'll still come up.

The people older than Sandra, the folks who actually fought in the Big Space War, tend to regard the youth's reckless chemical abandon with a bit of frustration.
 
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