Homework Project : First Steps

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I've been revisiting the official timeline and reviewing world historical
events for the past couple of decades to aide in thinking about
near-term
future history. I've also been trying to derive some design precepts and goals
that would guide the process. I thought I'd share some of the early thoughts
and steps I've taken.

I. Preparation i) List all canonical political entities or powers in the
GZGverse

The logic for this is that I wish to try to preserve most or all of the key or
interesting factions of the GZGverse as Jon initially wrote it. This may not
be entirely sensible or feasible, but I am treating it as a design goal.

    ii) Review recent history (mostly 1990-2011, a few longer delves

iii) Review ongoing discussion on this list (lots of interesting discussion)

iv) Realizing that this effort properly requires a main timeline that is
integrated, but also subsidiary timelines by region

There is too much going on even in one region to capture how major changes
could occur there without having some sort of continous regional perspective
on the evolution of the situation in the region. The integrated timeline will
end up growing simultaneously here, but it can't contain the detail from the
regional timelines. Regional summary notes will also help make sense of how a
particular
          region developed into the 'now' of the alt-GZGverse in a more
coherent way than just having a single integrated timeline will.

Still, the intention is to keep these sparse enough to not be constricting and
simply have them feed into the larger integrated timeline with key events.

II. Early Concepts Impacting Design

    i) Neo-colonial flavour of GZGverse

We can see that power blocks and renewed monarchies and such like are the
trappings of an updated late 1800s political structure with the Great Game of
Nations clearly afoot. Trying to preserve this flavour seems like a goal.

ii) The GZGverse is not about wars of extermination

Whether it is because such wars are very messy and unpleasant and thus not fun
to contemplate or game out or just because such material may be inappropriate
for games for younger folk or simply that such focus may detract from
marketing, the existing GZG history focuses on limited wars or broad wars that
appear to be primarily political and economic rather than being about baseline
resource requirements and extermination. The wars with the aliens may have
more of a dire existential conflict aspect, but even here it seems there are
times that alliance was sensible and thus
        some measure of diplomacy or co-existence has ensued.

To put some substance behind this observed historical fact: Once you have open
access to abundant power (necessary for large space empires to exist) and
multiple
        human-sustaining biospheres, resource shortages on a large scale
which spawn such
        genocidal conflicts should be non-events. Water should be
readily available as should sufficient food supplies. Of course, localized
shortages may exist and this may provoke various conflicts, but these do not
threaten larger human existence and prosperity or even larger political power
blocks and consequently, major wars of extermination can be considered not
prevalent. Certainly localized shortages will exist and conflict will occur,
but these are politically interesting and economically lucrative potentially
for some factions.

ii) Wars in the GZGverse revolve around land (apparently)

As can be seen in the current GZG timeline, there are plenty of large and
small conflicts that appear to revolve around control of territory. Possible
reasons for this include: a) territorial control as a route to security for a
population b) territorial control as a route to resources to be exploited c)
territorial control as a route to political power

I believe we can assume that most of the clashes will have a mix of these
aspects involved. We can throw in religious or racial or cultural aspects as a
faint 4th; Even in the history of our real world most of these are actually
simply a 'blind' for real motivations for warfare that tie to security,
resources, or political power for elites.

If we imagine most of the wars in the GZGverse ensue due to mix of these 3 or
4 motivators, we will understand why their may be both large and small wars
but that most wars are not wars of extermination while yet requiring the
control of space and planetary systems. They do not not necessary require
occupation, simply sufficient control to gaurantee the above motivations are
satiated; If you can control enough to tax, to prevent threats to your
population, and to ensure some form of loose or tight political hegemony for
your political elite, there is little need for absolute control.

iv) There are aliens in the mix

Aliens will not obey the identical logic to that which drives humans. If they
are broadly capable entities that are adaptable and have survived to occupy
the space between the stars in a broad way, one assumes they are not so
infexible as to have singular hangups that will limit them to single
motivations or stratagems. They will still be in some
       fashion tied to basic motivators (food/water, need for energy and
other resources) as are humans, but their species' logic for pursuing these
similar higher targets (even if we
       include political hegemony or the religious/cultural/racial
aspects) may differ somewhat from human logic. This man manifest itself in
what they do and how they do it and where they interact with humans,
misunderstandings and confusion as well as false attributions of motivation
may be expected to ensue. This may make relations challenging as humans and
aliens both tend to interpret the other in the context of their own mindset.

v) Corporations and economic interest have grown large enough to have
significant impact

No polity seems likely to be prosperous without some form of successful
business sector. Large corporations may be expected to rival large political
factions in power. Mostly, this will be a symbiotic (or at worst, parasitic)
relationship, as business interests tend to be
       amoral and exclusively focused on profit and self-growth, rather
than directly on political,
       religious/cultural/racial, or security motivations. This means
that they have a much more focused attention strategically to a single
motivator and their policy decisions will map to that. Most of the time, it
will be in their interest to work with political blocks of all sizes, lobbying
their political movers and shakers at all levels, to obtain their own goals
for growth and prosperity. There is little profit in direct, large scale
military intervention. There is certainly room for many smaller scale military
actions. Note however that if you fight like merchants, you are likely to lose
when you engage those who do not (case study: Carthage and Rome). So
corporations will be large, numerous, everpresent, and likely to span
political boundaries of power blocks. On the other hand, they will usually
work within those and so will not generate many large scale conflicts that
make the news. Small scale conflicts or military strongarming by shows of
force may be much more common, but will not shape the overall timeline as a
rule.

III. Nature of the Effort

The point here, to me, is not to try to create a totally realistic future.
Dear Lord, we've already got space ships, aliens, faster than light travel,
and broad warfare that does not result in wars of annihilation. And those are
the *less unlikely parts*. (RH, NAC,
ESU...
I'm looking squarely at you here).

We are simply looking to re-envision some aspects of the game to produce
a future timeline a bit more in line with the existing world's current day and
perhaps to unleash a few new an interesting twists or ideas, food perhaps for
further gaming and more fun discussions.

Obviously, the real world may well not revert to monarchies restored and power
blocks rebuilt along traditional lines (Boers in space? The Brits handing
ruling North America and laying a beat down on all of South America? The
Chinese and the Russian kleptocrats getting in bed together?). But these are
sort of central to the figure lines and the game
flavour. So rebuilding this is more of an exercise in re-interpretation
while preserving most major aspects where feasible.

That's my thoughts for today.

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The faction I imagine being created first is the UN. If Antartica was
suddently discovered to have a large deposite of unobtanium 90, perhaps the UN
is given the mandate to ensure that the resource is exploited fairly for all
the peoples of the world. (At least those that have paid their UN dues). This
would give the UN some territory and a revenue base that it could use to
develop their own economies and technology base.

A similar approach to the control of space based resources could then occur
especially when Unobtainium 90 is discovered in the asteroid belt. The UN
would be best positioned to exploit the resource as it is already familer with
handling the stuff on Earth.

I can see large corporations leading the next phase of space exploitation. I'd
include the Chinese in this as they act as much like a corporation as a
government. So space technology will be focussed on realisable corporate gain
and bottom line to feed those rapacious shareholders. So Communictions
satelites, orbital pharmacuticals and energy plants would all be next. A
reduced dependance on oil would change the economy of the world with countries
that rely on oil with a corresponding shift in influence. Again this might be
something the UN could manage under international mandate as giant space
mirrors or microwave emmitters controlled by a nation state could easily lead
to accuastions of the militarisation of space.

I'm not sure that many of the GZG factions are the equivalent of nations. I
see them more like NATO or Warsaw Pact alliances. In that
light they may make some more sense as a lot of them are regional /
racial based.