- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Out of curiosity, for what reason?
-
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Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
My view on this is pretty simple: by bullshitting about the war situation until it was too late to try and evacuate even the smallest fraction of the local population while having their own officials and military vanish like thieves in the night just before the Rachni arrived, the Council forfeited any right to or expectation of our loyalty.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We need them to survive. Pissing them of beforehand isn't very conducive to reach that goal. Nothing to do with 'loyalty'.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
No one on the "Veto" side has said anything like 'we should be loyal to the Council.' I totally agree that we have excellent reason to be frustrated with the Council and every reason to be considering independence. Whether we decide on it or not, we're within our rights to secede from Council control.
This does not mean we should vote "Pass" on this particular bill.
The arguments against voting "Pass" fall into three categories. Two are practical and actually relate to how we deal with the Council. The third is purely a matter of Virmire internal politics... but it's also a pretty important political issue!
...
1) We will encounter more medium-term problems by declaring independence. That is, during the Rachni War it increases the risk that the Council will decline to shift resources to help us, or simply "fight to the last Virmirean" as a way of grinding us down.
In my opinion, (1) is the weakest of the three classes of arguments, and I don't rely on it heavily. I mostly agree that the Council won't undermine us as long as the Rachni War is raging and the balance of power is still in doubt. Though the more incompetent the Council is, the more we should be worrying about that.
...
2) We will encounter more long term problems by declaring independence. That is, even after the war is effectively over, we will be on the outside of a galactic power structure that is accustomed to thinking of everything that we now have, as being rightfully theirs. Negotiating status with them soon, while gratitude runs relatively high and the Rachni Wars are still going on so that we're an ally to the Council and not a nuisance, makes more sense than going "meh, we'll apply for associate member status whenever."
In my opinion, (2) is a strong argument. I think people who don't accept (2) are underestimating just how much soft power harassment and interference the Council is likely to unload on a proudly independent power that happens to be sitting right on top of a key location within the Attican Traverse. But I can believe it making sense to think argument (2) is overblown, and to vote "Pass" in spite of it.
But then there's (3)...
...
3) Even if declaring independence is a good idea, and it might be, this is a terrible independence "bill." Based on Poptart's comments, this bill does an end-run around Mira's veto power. It sets a precedent that significantly undermines the power of Virmire's executive, and significantly increases the power of the Assembly to slip whatever amendments and riders and poison pills they want into a bill. Because this isn't legislation, it's "legislation to write legislation." And based on Poptart's description, it sounds as though by passing the original bill, Mira will be forced to accede to the final version of the bill, without getting a chance to influence how it is worded or exactly what it does, beyond the broad level "it declares independence."
There is no reason at all for Mira to accept independence on these terms, or for us to do so. The legislature has every reason to grab for power, but we don't have to go along with it, especially in the form of we-the-players writing a blank check for the legislature to fill out. We will have ample opportunities to declare independence very soon if we decide we want to; we do not have to pass this bill to get it. And there are strong reasons of internal politics not to pass this, in my opinion.
So... none of this really has anything to do with slapping the Council for "losing our loyalty." My question to you is, do you consider giving the Council that slap more important than the other considerations in play here?
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The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
See, I was under the impression that Mira would in fact be giving input into the final wording of the declaration. The people who wouldn't be giving input are the players.
- Location
- United States
while I originally voted for passing the bill, I changed to veto because at the time I didn't realize it was essentially a blank check.
I don't trust any politicians with a blank check.
While I still want Virmire to be independent, and eventually become an associate member of the council; right here, right now, with this bill is not how it should happen.
I don't trust any politicians with a blank check.
While I still want Virmire to be independent, and eventually become an associate member of the council; right here, right now, with this bill is not how it should happen.
VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
It is, one of Pop's later post mentioned Mira's input into the bill should it pass. Some voters doesn't like the bill being binding now and seemingly without direct player input.
I rather let the computer handle the details of the bill cause independent or not doesn't really impact my plan for Mira becoming Terminus Supreme.
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
See bolded text:
So not only will the players have no input, Mira's own input will be entirely non-binding and unenforceable - if the Assembly decides they're dead-set on something she doesn't want, she'll be powerless to stop them from implementing it. Now, that may not be an especially likely scenario right now, but I'm inclined to agree with those who don't like the precedent this sets for future bills - if the Assembly wants us to agree not to veto something, we'd damn well better get to know exactly what it is we're signing up for.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
We get input, in the sense that they'll send us a few memo's because keeping us out of the loop is pointless and stupid.
But we have no legal right to have input on the bill.
- Location
- Red Blood on Golden Shield
Lot of times players get scared of doing things,
We are going to declare independencce anyway, If the first turn we can veto something we do?
That's not going to be nice...
Plus do you think Citadel is going to come to help if we vote to stay for a bit more?
They wouldn't have left in the first place,
No matter what, the citadel isn't going to consider us anywhere near it's priorities.
So if we don't delare the independence we got the same negatives than acception but without the positive part
of being independents.
Plus with our popularity right now our suggestions wil have some weight.
We are going to declare independencce anyway, If the first turn we can veto something we do?
That's not going to be nice...
Plus do you think Citadel is going to come to help if we vote to stay for a bit more?
They wouldn't have left in the first place,
No matter what, the citadel isn't going to consider us anywhere near it's priorities.
So if we don't delare the independence we got the same negatives than acception but without the positive part
of being independents.
Plus with our popularity right now our suggestions wil have some weight.
- Location
- Aotearoa
I still don't find those arguments persuasive.
We'd be conceding considerable authority to the assembly to set foreign policy and erode our veto power (bill-to-pass-a-bill), getting nothing we need in return. Right now they exist at our sufferance, not the other way around. Give in on this and that balance starts to shift in their favour.
Sure vetoing will piss them off, and need PR. Our admin is very good at PR and have a lot of goodwill. As for the assembly, they need to know their place. There is plenty they can do domestically and we'll go 'will of the people, pass'. We, the executive, (should) make foreign policy, especially as foreign policy is military policy right now. No more booby trap bills-to-write-bills. We are in an existential war, we won't put up with that shit, particularly if it will impact the war effort.
And it will. The military situation has changed since the Citadel fled and it looked like we'd be overrun. However, we need help to win the war. It's in the Quest premise. We may need to to persuade the Citadel to help, as there could be costs elsewhere, to Citadel members. That takes leverage, we have more as a still extant polity within the Council than as an independant state.
We'd be conceding considerable authority to the assembly to set foreign policy and erode our veto power (bill-to-pass-a-bill), getting nothing we need in return. Right now they exist at our sufferance, not the other way around. Give in on this and that balance starts to shift in their favour.
Sure vetoing will piss them off, and need PR. Our admin is very good at PR and have a lot of goodwill. As for the assembly, they need to know their place. There is plenty they can do domestically and we'll go 'will of the people, pass'. We, the executive, (should) make foreign policy, especially as foreign policy is military policy right now. No more booby trap bills-to-write-bills. We are in an existential war, we won't put up with that shit, particularly if it will impact the war effort.
And it will. The military situation has changed since the Citadel fled and it looked like we'd be overrun. However, we need help to win the war. It's in the Quest premise. We may need to to persuade the Citadel to help, as there could be costs elsewhere, to Citadel members. That takes leverage, we have more as a still extant polity within the Council than as an independant state.
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VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
Yes and no? The players get zero say but Mira have real power in influencing the end result, which is more than reasonable as it was a logical development for giving actual power to the assembly.
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You ignored the earlier part of Poptart's quote: "if you pass it right now, they will only be suggestions." Mira can try to influence the outcome, but she has no hard power with which to do so.
- Location
- Aotearoa
Sure, influence, but *not the final say*. That matters. Only one of those positions has actual power. Who should make foreign policy? Mira or the Assembly?
VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
Politics is all about power and influence, sometimes both are just as effective. Losing popularity could see increased chance of challenges to Mira's authority since there isn't a party to serve as meat shield and radar.
Depends if said government is a Republic or a dictatorship. I always wanted Mira to assume the mantle.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Speaking purely IC, Mira might have an amount of input that is not literally nothing, but she's basically giving up her right to have any input if the Assembly doesn't think she should.
This is a lot more power than most of us originally decided/wanted to give the Assembly. Especially since it seems as if, by passing this bill, we may be pre-committing to pass whatever the Assembly comes up with.
So we the players may get an unpleasant surprise or three in the declaration of independence that comes out of voting "Pass" here. I don't want that surprise. And Mira, personally, is giving up a lot of her formal authority over what the Assembly decides.
If we wanted it that way, we should have voted to give the Assembly more formal power in the first place. Not created a situation where they immediately 'hack' themselves into more power because we created a system that looked well designed to limit their authority but then gave them an easy "pass a popular bill that says we're gonna pass a bill" hack that lets them get at our root password, which is set to "password."
My main counter-argument is that this represents a very rapid shift in the balance of power between Mira and the legislature, within no more than a few months of the legislature's creation.
If Mira's veto wasn't supposed to mean "she actually gets to read the bills before deciding whether or not to pass them," then she shouldn't have an absolute veto in the first place. If Mira's veto wasn't supposed to mean "yes, she still gets to veto even if three quarters of the Assembly wants to try this, if you don't like it, vote her out of office at the next election cycle," she shouldn't have an absolute veto in the first place.
Whatever balance of power was designed into Virmire's constitution under the current system, we're shifting it very quickly without a clear idea of who the power players are and how well it's going to work. I don't think that's a good idea.
I'm not even sure what any of this means.
Bluntly, I'm not one bit "scared" of Virmire declaring independence and I resent the implication that I am. I think it might not be a good idea. But saying there's no difference between "don't do it because it's a bad idea" and saying "don't do it because I'm scared" is like saying "come on, stick a fork in an electrical socket, what are you, chicken?" It's offensive and foolish.
Even if, as you say, it is inevitable that Virmire declares independence, I would like us to have some control over the terms on which we do so, and I would like us to actually have a damn clue about the interstellar situation in which we do so. Instead of just voting for it sight-unseen, as a blank check, the first time the issue even crosses our desk. I don't like making blind jumps when it would be this easy to open our eyes.
They "left" because the rachni were overrunning every military base and fleet in that part of the galaxy. The rachni were stopped one cluster short of the Citadel, D. The Council could not possibly have known whether they'd be able to stop the rachni at all, and leaving behind forces to protect Virmire might very well have just meant those forces got cut off and chewed up.
Have you ever heard of "defeat in detail?" It's what happens when you maneuver to subdivide an enemy force into smaller forces, then crush each individual force with your greater numbers. In this way, you can easily defeat quite a large army, while taking few losses yourself. In a serious war, avoiding defeat in detail is one of the top priorities of any military commander.
The Council could not know, when it abandoned Virmire, how many ships it would need to stop the rachni from overrunning Virmire. It could not know how many ships it would need to stop the rachni from overrunning the Citadel itself, or going on to overrun Thessia and Sur'Kesh and other homeworlds. The answer might well be "all the ships we have, with none left over to make a last stand at Virmire." The answer might well even be "more ships than we have, the galaxy is fucked."
While I fully agree that Virmire has every right to declare independence under these circumstances... The Council had its head caught in a vise during the early phase of the Rachni War when Virmire was abandoned. There were NO good options for the Council, and even if they had considered Virmire very important and valuable, even if they had been good people, they might well have felt forced to abandon it.
Now that we are in a far better position, and have a military that can actually HELP them instead of just being an extra load on their forces that might force them to split their defenses and lose everything... we are much more likely to get good treatment from them.
Then we're all dead because the rachni are going to eat us, because we were explicitly told "if you do not get reinforcements, you will die" in the setup for this game. So far we've had a good, lucky run of successes against relatively weak rachni forces, a goodly distance from the front lines. But by accomplishing as much as we've done, we've now become a threat the rachni are going to have to take seriously. If we don't at least try to link up with the Council at some point in the reasonably near future, they can mass a lot more force to squash us than we can mass to stop them.
And yet, we are signing away Mira's right to have weight, and we are signing away our weight entirely, because Mira's opinions do not reliably represent our opinions. How is this a good idea?
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Hmm. I suppose on the balance of it I have to change my vote.
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
Best to make it clear that we'd prefer only finished legislation to cross our desk.
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
Best to make it clear that we'd prefer only finished legislation to cross our desk.
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Canon Omake: Meanwhile, In the Systems Alliance, Part 1
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
On a lighter note, let's have...
This Year in the Systems Alliance!
Emperor Caligula raises two legions to invade Germany, turns around without a battle to deal with a conspiracy against himself, and comes home. He then orders a huge victory parade for himself. He further commands that a giant statue of himself be built in the temple in Jerusalem; mass protests among the Israelites delay construction.
"King" Herod, actually recognized as a mere tetrarch, is accused of conspiring against Caligula and is thrown into exile.
Known births include Titus Flavius, later to rule briefly as Roman emperor.
Known deaths include Seneca the Elder, father of the Roman philosopher of the same name.
Sorry I couldn't find more stuff taking place outside the Roman Empire, but this WAS when the Trung Sisters began a campaign of resistance against Han Dynasty military rule in Vietnam, so that's something!
This Year in the Systems Alliance!
Emperor Caligula raises two legions to invade Germany, turns around without a battle to deal with a conspiracy against himself, and comes home. He then orders a huge victory parade for himself. He further commands that a giant statue of himself be built in the temple in Jerusalem; mass protests among the Israelites delay construction.
"King" Herod, actually recognized as a mere tetrarch, is accused of conspiring against Caligula and is thrown into exile.
Known births include Titus Flavius, later to rule briefly as Roman emperor.
Known deaths include Seneca the Elder, father of the Roman philosopher of the same name.
Sorry I couldn't find more stuff taking place outside the Roman Empire, but this WAS when the Trung Sisters began a campaign of resistance against Han Dynasty military rule in Vietnam, so that's something!
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
The quote outright says she has no real power if she passes it now.
Mira gets to make suggestions, but no real power. Only suggestions.
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Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
Let's avoid the Westminster system's "you didn't need to use this power for a few decades because the issue didn't come up, so now you can't use it at all without causing a constitutional crisis, because your MP-equivalents and media are dicks." Issue. Also the one where parliament usurps all the powers origionally left with the monarch entirely to act as a check on Parliament's excesses, even as parliament checks the monarch's excesses. (Applies no matter what the name of the HoS position and legislature.) And other such nonsense.
It is entirely possible to be both. Republic contrasts with Monarchy, in terms of "how is the head of state chosen?", Dictatorship contrasts with (some degree of) Democracy (mostly in terms of "how are laws made?") Both monarchies and republics can be dictatorial, and both can be quite democratic.
Let's avoid the Westminster system's "you didn't need to use this power for a few decades because the issue didn't come up, so now you can't use it at all without causing a constitutional crisis, because your MP-equivalents and media are dicks." Issue. Also the one where parliament usurps all the powers origionally left with the monarch entirely to act as a check on Parliament's excesses, even as parliament checks the monarch's excesses. (Applies no matter what the name of the HoS position and legislature.) And other such nonsense.
It is entirely possible to be both. Republic contrasts with Monarchy, in terms of "how is the head of state chosen?", Dictatorship contrasts with (some degree of) Democracy (mostly in terms of "how are laws made?") Both monarchies and republics can be dictatorial, and both can be quite democratic.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, in itself that wouldn't be such a bad thing; the time average of British governance since the end of the Victorian era has been pretty good.
The main reason not to tolerate that kind of thing right now is that the Assembly is still a very, very new institution. There are no precedents, informal rules, or small-c constitutional principles governing its actions. Based on historical precedent, its list of powers is going to be "whatever it can get away with doing the next ten or twenty years." The balance of power is very delicate right now. Until things have had time to stabilize, it would be a bad idea to allow anyone to build up momentum to rapidly concentrate all power into their own camp.
Cmd. Frost
The last one standing.
- Location
- The Summer Stretch
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
Fuck it, you've swung me
Fuck it, you've swung me
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Welcome aboard! Discussion is welcome and I enjoy incentivizing it, but feel free to vote at any time and in any manner you please. If you don't wish to discuss, you needn't. Glad to have you here.
