From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 02:31:46 -0400
Subject: nth Rate Powers, Ratings, and John's Weapons
1) John's Weapons (my suggested adds) I'd say the weapon carried by the NSL figure as a rapid fire plasma cannon is more like a small plasma saw than a rapid fire version of the larger bore storm canon. It looks like a gauss saw would perhaps appear (which is what I thought it was before reading the catalog page). I'd say automatic plasma canon would be a good a good name - anyone help with the German? 2) KHR comments: a) KH, I didn't take offense. You didn't mean any (your one dimensional comment was strictly accurate, not prejorative) and I didn't take any. Any appearance to that direction is just my poor communications - sorry. b) I believe logistics and other aspects like budget and technology rate into personal soldier quality because having the logistics to afford to shoot on the range regularly, to have every trooper fire live AT weapons, etc. really does make a difference to individual soldierly skills. This is a direct function of logistics, though not obvious unless you think about it or have experienced what a lack of such support can do to formation (having met people who supposedly know anti-armour weapons but have never fired a real one or even worked with an expensive simulator). c) Yes, my list of possible factors was long. You complain about it being one dimensional, then you're suprised when I hit the other extreme?:) I guess we differ in one respect: I'm interested in this as a "background piece" rather than anything practical. When I write scenarios, I select the units involved. So I don't usually need any kind of "random chart". Given that any nation can have good or bad units, and that is what SG and DS manifest, all you might reasonably do is affect the distributions a little bit. The truth is, you can argue for all veteran PAU units, or all green NAC units at that scale. So I see this mostly as a FH excercise, rather than any sort of game-interfacing activity. d) 80 years is a long time to get over a defeat (re LLAR). OTOH, none of the examples you've cited were booted out of their home territory, moved somewhere else, setup shop there, rebuilt their whole national structure, and then reached a level where they could challenge the big guy on the block. The fact the PAU have NOT been kicked off earth, and the fact that the PAU have maintained some semblance of a power block as a star spanning earth based nation suggests they might be a bit more together than the once-great LLAR. 3) More generally An averaged rating from a poll would give us an impression (especially from an anonymous poll) of what the average GZG listers opinion is. If we tracked modality, we'd also get some idea of whether the opinions are very similar or very diverse - the average representing two extremes of thought. Myself, I'm interested in such a project, but busy enough to eschew management of it. And I'm (very much like John) going to do "my own thing" in defining my version of the GZGverse. It's based on how I interpret GZG canon. I'm not trying to sell it to anyone, other than those I game with, and even then only as one possible interpretation used to develop scenarios. Someone has to suck. I could have picked the NAC, but I just don't get that impression from reading the timelines. I rank the PAU in the lower half of the "power blocks" because I see their fleet as mostly hand me downs, their supranation as having many internal division factors relating to languages, history, etc, and I figure their "fleet" is mostly in less than great repair and that their army tends towards less than effective operations. Can they maintain a space empire? If none of the big 4 decide to take them on directly when they have no other allies, then yes. Is it the same kind of the space empire as the NAC runs? Nosiree Karl-Heinz. But that's just my take on things. And because I base it on trends I see (rather than ones I make up under the "200 years is a long time" mantra), people can say I'm in error or even (if they're ignorant) bigoted. The truth is I could make the PAU a 1st rate power, but the amount I'd have to alter their current path is larger than making them lower ranked. And I prefer that things distort how I actually see the world going today less. That doesn't make it a correct view, but then so what? If it suits me, amuses me, and I develop my version of the GZGverse around it, people can disagree freely and do their own thing. Or not play in it. That's the great thing about GZG games and probably why Jon issues few clarifications - he lets people do their own thing. So, I could go around rating everyone about the same. But I choose not to. My world won't look like Beth's, nor Chris' world, nor John's. But if it did, it would (by virtue of similarity) be less interesting as an offering because it would offer much the same as Beth, Chris or John would. So I think this difference of outlook on the common Future History is actually an asset rather than a liability. 4) Laserlight, that comment about a plague of Celts in Space has you on another list.....! <There is only a plague because the Celts are interesting enough to generate many interpretations!> So, in my best Auld Scots "Hud Yer Weesht." :) Tomb Raider Not short of thoughts, nor wind;)