ATTN Jon T: Free CalTex Government and Society?

Hell, Boy, In Cal-Tex EVER'BODY'S got a gun!! That way when one o'dem
there pollytishuns git uppity, we just plug 'em!!

Michael Wikan, Game Designer Accolade, Inc.

> -----Original Message-----

'Allo, 'allo, 'allo....

I've had a hankering' to compose my own little piece of GZG fiction. I'm
thinking of setting it in the Free CalTex and in order to do the universe
justice, I need to have a little background. Sure, we all know
that the FC/T succeeded from the NAC with just a minor confrontation.
However, I'd like to know just what kind of society and government they have?
What kind of politics does it have? How is it's military set up? Nothing
fancy, just the basics.

Been lurking up to now. Thought maybe we list members could take the
initiative, come up with stuff & let Jon pick & choose what he likes.

GOVERNMENT Before either California or Texas became states, they were "Free
Republics." Therefore, to give the citizens of Free CalTex a sense of
continuity in government, the former states would pick up where they left off
& again become Republics. I would imagine that even in the future, neither
Californians nor Texans would agree to be governed by people from the other
state, so they would maintain seperate 'state' governments, but would create
an
agency/organization to represent both Republics economically &
diplomatically to the universe at large.

This organization will have been instrumental in the relatively smooth
secession from the Anglian Confederation. Members of this organization will
have made it clear to the Anglian's that yes you will be losing the tax
revenues from our splendid economies, but it's not like you'll get them back
if you try to force us into the Confederation. War is not good for business.
Tell you what, accept our secession from the Confederation, and we'll cut you
a deal.

<Historical footnote: The 1st Anglian representative did not see the wisdom in
Free CalTex's position, so he was shot. Once the Confederation understood Free
CalTex's negotiating style, the talks came to a rapid & smooth conclusion. It
didn't hurt that a Free CalTex special operations team had hacked the
Confederation's financial, military & governmental networks & was ready to
wreak havoc with key deletions & misdirections.>

I would imagine that big corporations would have a great deal of influence
with Free CalTex's governing bodies since their contribution to the strong
economy is what enabled Free CalTex to gain it's independence. One hopes Free
CalTex will have learned from the Japanese of the danger of allowing the
corporations too much influence.

Urgh. Getting late. Will have more ramblings later if response indicates more
is desired.

Jim Yonemura

> Mike Wikan wrote:

I've been putting a little thought into this and I think you'd get that
opinion in in the Texas part of the FT-C.  In the California part, you'd
probably hear:

"Hey dude, you like wanna sign my petition to give the right to vote to
spotted owls, tree moss, and my dog named Boo; or did you just want to go
surfing? GNARLY!"

I figure that there would a great deal of political and social
"in-fighting" between the the extremely leftist Californians and the
extremely reactionary Texans.

I'll post something more substantive later today.

I figure that there would a great deal of political and social
"in-fighting" between the the extremely leftist Californians and the
extremely reactionary Texans.
---------------------------

I think it's a hard think to reconcile Texas and California, but that could
certainly make for interesting internal situations...please keep in mind that
the items below are extreme examples based on sterotypical perceptions
- but also remember that stereotypes usually come from somewhere!

Texas California conservative liberal
resource developing        enviro-yuppies
meat-eating wild-man       militant vegetarians
Small gov/big business     Big gov/big business

It seems the paces they work well together are
 agriculture/farming - cattle in texas / fruit in california
(OK maybe that isn't a good match)
 Big business        - nat. resources (oil...) in texas /
                       high-technology in california

Texans don't want big, distant government involved in their lives.
Californians don't want gov involved in their "higher intellectual/moral
decisions" but there is a demand for near socialist levels of government
assistance and personal protection laws that can cripple industry that may be
involved in any form of business that may cause someone to get hurt.

Texans solve their problems with a fist-fight in the local bar, or in
extreme cases with a gun. Californians solve theirs with a lawsuit (except
for the street gang members - they go back to guns - lots of 'em)

Texans enjoy the outdoors by riding horses, hunting, and looking for oil.
Californians enjoy the outdoors by surfing, worshipping the sun, and making
movies and television shows.  Texans watch those movies and shows - "New
Dallas" is the longest running soap opera in the FCT - make by
californians about texans getting rich doing everything the californians don't
like, but
sprinkled with high-brow insults making fun of the texans in a way that
only high-brow californians "get".  ;)

Californians think texans are brutish, dim-witted, uncultured
planet-rapers. Texans think californians are wierd, neurotic, elitist,
nature-loving enviro-freaks. Both are half-right. ;>   Lots of
cheap-shots
at each other.

I would imagine business is what ties the groups together, with different
industries dominated by Tex/Cal corporations. - of course most people
are fairly moderate, but the fringe elements keep debate lively. (As I imagine
many replies to this could get 'lively')

> At 21:17 15/07/98 -0600, you wrote:

> Nothing fancy, just the basics.

Mark, I guess someone had to be doing this. I've only met one Texan and one
REAL (born there) Califorian. I was not impressed with either. Oh well here
goes.
         I'm thinking that the Free Cal-Tex is a pretty loose knit
confederation of groups each controlling (dominating) and area on the two
planets that
Cal-Tex has. All these enclaves would be pretty indapendently minded and
prehaps a bit much so for their own good. (see the Confederates in the Civil
War for a model. They really restricted the power of their preseident.)
Undoubtly a democrarcy but with the more Cal areas allowing everyone to vote
and the more Tex areas only allowing those that own a certain area on land
freehold being able to vote. Population density would be pretty mixed. Some
small areas would be highly urbanised whilst large tracts would be largely
unsettled or agricultural. It could well be that the NAC allowed succession
because the food produced
by Cal-Tex actually feeds a large portion of it's earth based
population. You'd see a real "us and them" attitude between the urbanites and
the bushies. the bushies (cowboys, backwoodsmen, hillbillies, rednecks,....)
would see the cityslickers as being soft and wishy-washy while the
urbanites see the bushies as uncooth and backward (they probably call the
bushies "backwardsmen"). Companies and Coperations would have major influence
in the urban areas but none at all elsewhere. "I jes dont
trust'dem carpet baggers!" I also reckon that while Cal-Tex has official
only 2 planets that it actually has a lot of small start up colonies scattered
about which were publicly encouraged, corperate funded or
entirely independent. Cal-Tex probably relies on NAC protection of these
colonies but wont admit it and has ships show the flag at them from time to
time. Yes eveyone who wanted to would carry any gun they wanted in public. (Go
to Israel and you'll see what I mean.) I imagine they would be a lot of
alternate lifstyle groups scattered throughout the Republic that were into
non-violence and enviromentalism which would make confrontations with
the backwardsmen interesting if not down right bloody. You'd probably also get
Enviro-terroists that blow up bulldozers with the drivers chained to
them, as opposed to just chaining themselves to the bulldozer. All in all a
rather violent lot when angry but a very low crime rate. The Republic's total
military strength would be small but well equipped, trained and highly
motivated. Leadership might be a problem. The military would be more of an
area by area thing (state by state) of which sections were "loaned" to the
central authority. The only regulars would be senior officers with all others
being militia. I'd imagine that each state would
keep its own militia by conscription with a service period of 3-5 years.
People would then stay on in the militia until they were 55 say. On the
whole I think Cal-Texers (people who work in petrol stations? :) ) would
distrust any large standing military as well as seeing it as being inefficent
and a waste of resources. Platoons, companys, ships and perhaps even battlions
would elect their own officers with regulars filling the higher command roles.
As all forces are being drawn from the various states then there will be major
political wrangles over the command of a fleet or army. Serving in the
military as a regular is seen as a last resort of desperate no hopers or a
waste of talent. Some regular officers would be very good, others whoeful.
Junior levels would be much better but often unable or unwilling to follow
higher command or work with units of a different state. When defending their
homes I wouldn't want to face them. Very bad news. Finally, and I'm not sure
why, I imagine that there would a significant and influencial Indian minority
with their own enclaves. Some groups might be trying to live entirely
tradition lifestyles while others being fully part of society but keeping a
unique cultural hertiage alive. They might
also have a large impact on Cal-Tex culture, if there can be an all
embracing one for such a diverse lot, with people being generally far more
aware of Indian legends, myths and symbolism. This would most likely be the
case if the original settlers of the worlds were Indian to start with. Well
that is some ideas. I'll duck now just in case I've upset someone, particular
a Texan with a gun:)

Another touchy topic bound to offend someone. <sigh>

Here are my thoughts. Feel free to ignore any that don't make sense or are
unagreeable.

When Parham declaired martial law, California, New Mexico, Texas and other
states opposed the declairation (FT p. 42 y2049). As the passification of the
US continued, freedom fighters migrated to these states. As LLAR laid claim to
the three (FT p. 24 y2057), desension
festered in the freedom fighters. The non-latino populous did not want
to change one oppressor for another. The freedom fighters loose 30% of thier
forces to attrition (about evenly split between those going to LLAR and NAC).
The 70% fight on now using guerilla tactics. Most of the freedom fighters
surrender or "go to ground" when the LLAR betrays them by ceding all of North
America to the NAC in a peace agreement. The majority of these are forced to
immigrate to Austin and Fenris. While these worlds were not "penal" colonies,
the lack of even substandard equipment forced the immigrates to be little more
than serfs to the NAC
government. During the following 87 years, like-minded people quietly
immigrated to these two worlds. Among them were some of the wealthiest
corporations and individuals (seeing potential profit). Also, the frontier
nature and spirit of the worlds attracted some of the best smugglars. By 2157,
they had enough smuggled weapons and sympathetic
corporations/individuals that they assembled a small fleet of ships and
a large underground militia. Seeing the NAC as distracted (and weak
economically) from the Second Solar War, they made thier bid for
independance under the mutual defence confederation of Free Cal-Tex.
After much posturing (FT p.43 y2159), the NAC decided that it was not
economically benificial to pacify the two worlds. After achieving
independance, the members were loathe to surrender thier new freedom to
another oppressive government (even if it was thier own). To this end they
decided to confederate the settlements. The confederation provided that each
city would have its own governing body.
Each of these city-states would choose how to govern themselves. But, a
tax of 10% of income would be levyed to each city-state for the upkeep
of the mutual defense force. And all members must serve a 3 year term of
duty in the mutual defense force. A senate (1 from each city-state)
would decide on disputes between the city-states.
Some of the cities are democracies. These tend to be very descrimitory. These
also tend to fail under the pressure for bread and circuses. Others are an
elected republic. While these tend to last longer, they often fall into
corruption. Others fall prey to facist ideas. These tend
fail when the leader dies or is discraced. Thus, the Free Cal-Tex
society is a fluid mix of ideas, constantly pulling against itself. Only one
thing unites them: Hatred of OUTSIDE oppression.

Howdy, Brian!

Well done! When the first post or two came out, I started with just a comment
in reply:

***Just shows how different our prejudices are. My experiences are that
there are enough reactionaries in Orange County, CA/USA, alone, to make
the entire state of Texas look like a 'worker's paradise'. *shrug*

Which is generally ok as we all hate effete eastern snobs, which is anybody
east of Iowa, I think.

The_Beast, in Nebraska, where we still say Howdy!***

...but bagged it as gratuitous. Use of over-the-top stereotypes
certainly
can be used for fun. (Sniffing, foppish, blue-blood NAC officers were
exactly what I envisioned when I tried that bit of fluff about Lady, Dame
Evans.)

However, your offered future history seems plenty rich, and gives everyone who
wants to run FCT plenty of freedom of art to paint, build, just about anyway
they like. I'd envision the strong independence streak of the individual parts
of the FCT would mean small, but very independent, units fielded.

Also, the repression by NAC definitely feeds to the 'no good guys' line JT
mentioned earlier. ;->=

The_Beast, who DOESN'T wear cowboy boots, and DOES have an anorak...

Well I doubt it would be poor. I remember seeing someting on a web page about
FCT being VERY wealthy. Makes sense, assuming that California's prodigous
economic growth continues into the 22nd century. And I have a sneaky suspicion
that they get along pretty well with the
NAC -
common languages, valuable commerce, etc. Wonder if they got away with it by
massive "reparations" (bribe)?