Adding FTL:2448 to your campaign

[LiNeNoiSe]

The more I look at it, the more FTL:2448 looks like a nice sourcebook, or even a universe to play in with the traveler rules

It would be. You could import the aliens from 2300. That would be easier than trying to fix it.

You could even make Earth a dystopia

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

It seems as if these future people have become something other than truly human (functionally immortal, telepathic, cybernetic infovores). So maybe the old human drives have become significantly modified?

I haven't really thought about it, but I don't think that's the way it works in Star Trek. The Feds aren't Transhuman. The other races use money and own private property.

 

[aramis]

Maybe I missed an episode or two. Could you refresh my memory?

The Spock TNG episodes show an equally currency-lacking society. As do the other episodes set in Romulan space. Simply put, both are post scarcity. At least, as long as you're not half-alien.

 

[BwapTED]

I haven't really thought about it, but I don't think that's the way it works in Star Trek. The Feds aren't Transhuman. The other races use money and own private property.

Right, Star Trek appears different from Freemarket.



The change in humanity in Star Trek is a fuzzy sort of moral and social evolution, by which human nature seems to have altered over time. People are still biologically pretty much identical to humans of the past. But we hear a lot about how humanity has 'evolved' beyond war, poverty, injustice, etc.

Maybe the Fed ideology is a wee bit like bastardized Hegel or Comte? But it's not based on Marxist class struggle. Evolution, not revolution.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

RE The Federation of TNG

But if one thinks that people in the future aren't likely to be ''better'' than people now or in the past, then I think the Federation begins to look quite creepy.
Medicalization of criminality, for example...

Better people like Section 31?

 

[aramis]

No, CM, Star Trek definitely had it's "revolution" - see the episodes of TNG where Q goes over the history of the court systems..

The drugged up warriors phase...

Keep in mind - there is a global war which first contact is set AFTER. it looks quite likely that the Bell Riots and the later global war might be Marx's revolution.

 

[BwapTED]

No, CM, Star Trek definitely had it's "revolution" - see the episodes of TNG where Q goes over the history of the court systems..

The drugged up warriors phase...

Keep in mind - there is a global war which first contact is set AFTER. it looks quite likely that the Bell Riots and the later global war might be Marx's revolution.

All true.

Good points.

And I recently saw the DS9 episode with the Bell Riots.

My point is that the Federation (some officers and citizens, anyway) talks a lot about how 'evolved' it is, and while it cites how humans have learned from the past mistakes of humanity, it doesn't seem to present the wars of the past as inevitable class conflict in the Marxist sense.
Fed ideology seems less bloodthirsty than Marx.


It reminds me more of Comtean Positivism than Marxism. But I'm not an expert on either ideology.

I do see how it could be read as quasi-Marxist, though.
They've achieved full communism, if you will.
All social and economic problems of note have been solved.



EDIT

Yeah, the writers gradually subverted some of that utopian stuff.

I've seen all of TOS and TNG, and the first couple seasons of DS9.

 

[aramis]

All true.

Good points.

And I recently saw the DS9 episode with the Bell Riots.

My point is that the Federation (some officers and citizens, anyway) talks a lot about how 'evolved' it is, and while it cites how humans have learned from the past mistakes of humanity, it doesn't seem to present the wars of the past as inevitable class conflict in the Marxist sense.
Fed ideology seems less bloodthirsty than Marx.


It reminds me more of Comtean Positivism than Marxism. But I'm not an expert on either ideology.

I do see how it could be read as quasi-Marxist, though.
They've achieved full communism, if you will.
All social and economic problems of note have been solved.



EDIT

Only the economic ones. As TNG 4-21 shows, social ills are alive and well including Nationalism, even to the point of Jingoism.

See, the thing is, every Utopia is someone else's dystopia.

FTL is, by what I've read, essentially prototypical of later cyberpunk in the nature of its dystopia. It's orthogonal to the Trek, not diametrically. A different kind of dystopia.

The Federation uses mental reprogramming of criminals, like the Zhodani.
(The Romulans use penal colonies.)
The Federation sees that no one wants for basics, but that leads to people like Kivas Fajo - since they have no simple needs to meet, they turn their psychopathy from aquiring more goods to acquiring things that have non-reproducibility. Including slaves...

For all the utopian hype, the federation does seem to limit possessions. Looking at the total lack of clutter in the family homes we see... only in the colonies are possessions noteworthy...

A utopia... yeah, right.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Also, the 'ponies' from Murderhoof will replace K'Kree in the next Traveller thing I run.

For those who know my posts on boards where do you think I got "My Little Ponies of Death" :smirk: from

 

[kilemall]

For all the utopian hype, the federation does seem to limit possessions. Looking at the total lack of clutter in the family homes we see... only in the colonies are possessions noteworthy...

A utopia... yeah, right.

To that point, like I said it's a dilithium-based economy, the giveaway is what they will shoot photon torpedoes for (basically dilithium and 'land', readily colonized planets).

As such, the limitations are molecular feedstocks for food and objects, and power for the replicators.

I would expect that there is a form of budget, an energy/feedstock budget, for each person, and that turning in stuff to be decompiled gets extra 'credit' for future use.

Earth kids are probably taught to not be materialistic and if you want anything you can get it made, so you don't have to hoard against lean days.

Repair is not an issue in most cases, just decompile it and replicate a new one.

Rewards for performance of valuable service are likely more like granted privilege of unique places and resources- like Kirk scores an Admiral pad near the Golden Gate Bridge, and later has a horse ranch.

 

[kilemall]

I'm not sure how well that would work in the real world. Competition seems to be innate among hu-mons.

I agree, and the Freemarket game is inherently competitive.

But it is competitive in coming up with the coolest stuff/ideas/service, and the payoff is in 'likes' and the ability to continue unique work.

Note my post to Aramis right above, I would expect enough 'likes' by people in authority or society in general gets you Fed privileges, possibly more replicator budget or unique domiciles/resources.

Like I said, a Facebook economy, where you can pursue your dreams without worrying about paying the bills- but if you want fame/extras, you have to produce value.

 

[kilemall]

I haven't really thought about it, but I don't think that's the way it works in Star Trek. The Feds aren't Transhuman. The other races use money and own private property.

I was less focused on the transhuman elements of Freemarket and more the motivations for creation in a post-scarcity enviornment.

 

[Murph]

The FTL:2448 universe is more distopian that I prefer, which is sort of why I stopped enjoying Star Trek, I got tired of the weekly "Plot against the Federation, and the Federation is really a totalitarian monster". I want wide open frontiers, high adventure, low comedy, and blasters....