Your solomani ?

[weasel fierce]

So are your solomani evil space nazi's ? Racial theorists ? Communists in space ? A smattering of various people ?


How do you handle Solomani in your games ?

 

[Psion]

I picture something like the dream/hallucination sequence out of the Red Dwarf episode "Back to Reality"... where terms like "voter" and "democracy" take on an Orwellian twist.

Perhaps not that bad, but perhaps a bit worse and more subtle/insidious/pervasive than McCarthy era U.S.

 

[Golan2072]

I follow the "wheels within wheels" approach - nothing is exactly as it seems at the first glance, and no species is a cardboard abstraction.

To the average Imperial citizen, the Solomani are fascists and racists with an oppressive state-machine and a secret-police force.

But when someone actually travels through the Confederacy, he finds that the the Solomani are not a single monolithic block; to the contrary, factionalism reigns supreme. Sure, some Solomani (the Hardliner faction) are fascists and Terran nationalists; others (centrists of various hues) are Confederacy patriots rather than Terran supremacists; others are moderates who seek only self-determination for the Solomani people; yet others are progressive liberals who support the Confederacy as it is the lesser evil when compared to the Imperium.

And after some exploration of the Solomani culture, its underlying nationalism becomes apparent, even in some of the Pan-Humanists (who see the Solomani identity as a cultural rather than a biological one, and in many cases see it as their task to spread this culture into the Imperium). Contrary to popular Imperial belief, the Solomani type of racism is more along the lines of "white man's burden" (i.e. cultural/racial patronism) and less along the lines of Nazi-style racism (i.e. murderous hatred). Sure, there are Hardliners who DO want to kill off non-Humans, but these are an extreme case, not the Solomani norm.

The most interesting fact about the Solomani Confederation is that it is somewhat less tyrannical than the Imperium. Sure, there is a single legal political movement, but that movement is so factionalized that each faction is almost a separate party; and, unlike the Imperium, Solomani leaders are elected rather than born into their position. Thus the Confederacy serves another purpose, game-wise: as a mirror for the Imperium to be reflected at and compared to. I mean, examining the SolConfed in detail raises questions about the Imperium - is it really such a free state, where, unlike the Confederacy, leaders aren't elected? Where the only way to get rid of a mad or incompetent leader is to assassinate him (which is ratified by Imperial law)? Or is the Imperium as bad as the Confederacy or even worse? Ofcourse, the Confederacy is democratic to a degree only in regards to Humans - non-Humans are, in most cases, excluded from politics or have very limited political rights.

The Solomani economy is also a complex matter to discuss - indeed, it has a higher level of direct state intervention than in the Imperium, but on the other hand, it also has strict anti-trust regulations on one hand and small-business subsidies on the other hand that keep the corporations smaller and supports the interests of the small citizen against the big corps in some cases.

In the bottom line, nobody is perfect in my version of the OTU, and neither is any major polity a cardboard villain.

 

[far-trader]

Just a comment on the title that still has me grinning. You should really spell Solomani with a capital S I keep quasi-dyslexically seeing it as "Your salami" I think you can still edit thread titles as the OP.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Hey Employee 2-4601! Glaf to see your new/old nom de plume! (And, good answer, too.)

I keep quasi-dyslexically seeing it as "Your salami"

Well, I wasn't having any trouble with it until you mentioned that! :file_28:

IMTU, there are no Solomani. And, I did it purposely to avoid Sol-centric discussions. There is a polity within MTU which combines a measure of fascism with some psionics (reminiscent of the Zho, yes, which I also don't have) to enforce their fascism. Their fascism is nationalistic, ethnocentric, and expansionist (up to a point). You go figure out who they resemble, I ain't sayin'.

 

[far-trader]

Well, if I can get the sound of a companion song to The Knack's "My Sharona" titled "Your Salami" outta my head for a minute I'll try to make up for the distraction I've caused with my cockeyed reading of the thread title

MY Solomani are more a noble (small n) classic little guys vs the BIG GUYS (aka The Imperium) through the Interstellar Wars. Definitely the good guys, even in the estimation of some Imperials.

Then of course there is the whole Rule of Man era where the Solomani are the new stewards of the Imperium, valiantly trying to breath new life into a dying empire, and failing tragically but heroically.

After the Long Night is where I more widely depart from canon. Never really liked the whole "Party" structure and such of official Solomani descriptions. It's all a Vilani propaganda mechanism to buoy up The Imperium and sweep the Rule of Man era under the carpet. Can't blame them of course, but the view from The Federation is different. They've moved on IMTU and are expanding into the free space away from The Imperium forming their own interstellar polity rivaling that of The Imperium. Of which The Imperium is largely unaware. The only sticking point for the Solomani with respect to The Imperium is Earth. They want it back, and are determined to make it happen. But they are patient, they can wait for the right moment to show The Imperium just how advanced "those Solomani barbarians" really are. They did it once before which much of The Imperium has forgotten or is willfully denying, and they'll do it again...

 

[Gnusam Netor]

Wow Golan!

I'm a huge fan of the "wheels within wheels" thing myself. Regrettably my "friends" are too caught up with children, houses and jobs and stupid stuff like that so I don't get the time to reveal my "inner wheel" for them.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Don't cry

I wish I was still Gnusam Netor... *sob*

Gnusam, just go to the Alias thread and ask Hunter to make it right.

 

[mbrinkhues]

The Solomanie IMTU:

• They don't call themselfs Solomanie (That would be Vilanie-Imperial Talk), they call themselfs Terranians
• The Terranian Confederation (TerConf) is the term for their Stellar politie
• Officially it is a Democracy with a central government. Each Planet has Representation based on:
  • Population
  • Taxes and Services he provides to the Confederation
  • Average GDP per Person
  all in a complex key that makes sure old, rich Core Worlds get more votes than the younger worlds, assuring a dominance of a few worlds
• There are four types of worlds
  • Core worlds are the old member worlds around Terra and NewHome. This is an informal grouping but each Politician knows where a world stands
  • Member-Worlds are self-sufficient planets that send delegates to the central government
  • Colonies are dependent on outside help and are represented either by the funding planet or by the Bureaucracy until they get members
  • Outposts are small service and control settlements or fleet depots
• Solomanie Governemnt does not have full home-rule
• There is no Solomanie Party or Movement. There are many parties with names like:
  • Terranian Heritage Party
  • Terranian Superiority Party
  • Party of Terranian Heritage
  • ...
  that co-operate and seem to the 3I and it's rather blind/incapabel intelligence services like one party(1).
• Party membership, the right homeworld and belonging to a pure Terranian bloodline can help your career. How much depends on the Service:
  • The Fleet does not care. On the contrary, party membership is considered a bad thing. Your homeworld and family connections are important
  • In the Army coming from the right planet is important. If you want to advance past Captain you also need the Party Membership
  • The Marines don't care about homeworld. They only care about pure blood and party membership. And the right upbring, youth-organisation wise
  • In the Diplomatic Service and the Bureaucracy it's party membership and homeworld
  • The Merchants only care about your trading skills
• IMTU only the Marines carry the SS-Themed Black Uniforms. They are the Extremists and Racists and since they are the troops most often found harrasing non-humans responsibel for a lot of the bad reputation
• The Parties operate youth organisations. This range from the Boyscouts to the Terranian Youth Movement. The latter is a must for those wanting to join the Marines
• There is a general uplift program under way. The target is to get all member worlds up to TL10-12 in the next 50 years.
• A second, minor program wants to uplift core worlds (Those that had TL12 in 990) to TL14-15 in the same timeframe
• Involunteer colonisation is a common thing. Sending dissidents to distant worlds is cheaper than imprisonment

(1)Similar to the real world CDU/CSU parties in Germany. They are two distinct parties that just cooperate very closely
and do not stand for election in the same voting district. In theory a SPD-CSU-Greenie Coalition could happen yet most
people consider them one party

 

[Ganidirsii O'Flynn]

I view the Solomani (wait...check vowels...ok, we're fine) rather like the later couple of decades of the Soviet Union.

Yes, there is a Party, but it's distant from the average citizen-on-the-slidewalk. Further, the system is beginning to break down due to the distances involved and the inefficiancies that are inherant in it. For example, while the Party lauds the 'Terran Can-Do Spirit' and 'Sense of Initiative' anyone who makes a decision that can be turned against them politically could be accused of having 'Vilani (or Imperial or Aslan or...) ideas inappropriate to a free Terran'. Accusations of this sort usually lead to a fall from grace, a one-way trip to Exile, or worse. This results in a system that is largely reluctant to make any decision without consulting superiors and letting them make it. Since there isn't a 'Subsector Party Coucil', this means that alot of decisions need to go to Home/?/Aldeberan before anything can get resolved.

Everything, EVERYTHING, is weighed and judged by the Party through a dogmatic or doctrinal lens. They've had hundreds of years to put together their reasons and justifications for their views, and a significant body of precedents has developed to 'prove' the Party stance in almost every situation. This leaves everyone from Party Neighborhood Coordinators to Fleet Admirals constantly looking over their shoulder or checking with their political advisors for guidance.

As for the Solomani (yep, vowels ok there, too) Security, they do a good job of keeping tabs on local dissent and operate an excellant Foreign Intelligence system. Again using the Soviets, I envision them more like the KGB than the Gestapo. They allow just enough criminal activity to provide a valve for those who are basically criminal in nature, and just enough dissent to allow for those unhappy with any government to state their views via underground pamphlet campaigns but these elements are never, ever allowed to have any political power.

 

[epicenter00]

The Solomani IMTU aren't (or weren't - I'm playing TNE era now) really the monolithic bloc of racists that the TI sees them as. It's a gross oversimplification as one might expect, nor are they really fascists, either. However, they're not as liberal and forward-thinking as they like to believe, either. They are also stuck in hidebound traditionalism nearly as bad as the Vilani in some areas.

The Solomani are a nation more because of a shared sense of cultural identity than anything else. The Solomani sphere is entirely too large for a true central government, so most political matters are handled on the world or cluster of worlds level.

IMTU, the Solomani Party was indeed voted into power. It wasn't really long ago (in Megatraveller terms) that the Solomani had many political parties and vigorous public debate. The Solomani Party began as a nationalist movement when the power of the Solomani nobles was broken in Capitol. The Solomani nobles felt that if the ingrates in the TI weren't going to listen to them, they would create their own nation around Sol. These nobles (wealthy businessowners and such) leveraged their power into the first multi-planet political party. By using their money for widespread political initiatives, they fostered a widespread belief that the TI had somehow "taken" something from the Solomani, then when they were done, they kicked the Solomani out and got in bed with the Vilani.

Then began the Solomani Rim War. The fractiousness of the Solomani political system was causing problems so the "one race, one party" line actually was developed as a method to foster greater unity in the Solomani sphere during the Rim War - political parties other than the Solomani Party at first voluntarily folded themselves into the party as a method of showing unity. However, the war ended in defeat (something the Solomani weren't ready for) and much of the sphere was occupied, and the "emergency wartime measures" became law, including things like near unlimited power for SolSec, the Solomani Party being the only legal one, etc. The shock and depression of losing the war made people accept things. But so long after the Solomani Rim War, there are many who clamber that the Solomani Party not only lost the war, they haven't done a thing to get Sol back again and think it's time for change. So far, fear of SolSec and peer pressure has kept these people quiet, but there's an increasing number of factions in the Solomani parliment that feel a return to plurality and curbs on SolSec's power is in order.

However, other political parties do exist. It is simply that to join the Solomani Parliment on Home as representative of your world or consortium, you must be a member of the Party. You can still be a member of some other political party on your homeworld, and indeed in the "factions" of the Solomani Party there are still other pan-Sphere political parties, they simply refer to themselves as "factions" and profess loyalty to the Solomani Ideal (which varies from person to person).

As for Solomani racism, it is justified by archaic wording in the Solomani Constitution. Even before the Rule of Man, new colony worlds were required to adopt a basic constitution as the basis of their government. Worlds could amend this constitution as they saw fit, but the basic blueprint was the same across all worlds because of this. The problem was that Solomani Constitution was written before there was extensive contact with non-human sentients. Though racial and sexual equality was long de facto on Terra, there was an oversight about non-humans. So the Constitution in regards to basic rights and so forth reads as "human" instead of "sophont." Thus, in the section about voting for instance, it reads "No human shall be denied the right of franchise based upon gender, religion, or race."

Much like debates about the "right to bear arms" in the US Constitution, this archaic wording allows racists to deny non-human sophonts the right to vote and basic legal rights as they are not "humans." Contrary to popular belief in the TI, most planets in the Solomani sphere have ratified amendments that define "human" as any sophont. Of course, not all worlds do this (and not necessarily because they are racist - many extend such rights as courtesy but simply loathe to change the constitution out of conservatism) and the TI likes to play these worlds up. It's also true that there are no guarantees for rights of non-humans as a whole in the Solomani Sphere. However, it can be safe to say that most Solomani believe that non-human sophonts should be given the same legal rights as "humans" (especially if they are humans or uplifted by humans, such as dolphins). The issue of voting is a little more sticky and complex, however.

SolSec is another matter, however. These guys are a nightmare of war paranoia that just won't go away. Most people think of these guys as like the Waffen SS. It's not a bad comparison (though using the SS model they're more like the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS), but they're not the SS IMTU, they're not even the KGB, but more like Romania's Securitate combined with Bismark's System. While the most infamous side of SolSec is that these men and women could be anywhere and anyone - most of these people aren't necessarily SolSec agents but more informers and snitches. However in the dark days after the defeat in the Rim War, the Solomani Party convinced itself it lost due to factionalism in the military and they authorized the creation of an "elite" force of party loyalists. These would be the military arm of the SolSec. These guys have their own uniformed armies (complete with actual tanks and battledress), their own air forces, their own space fleets, their own marines. They are a separate military from the actual Solomani Fleet and Solomani Army and even more galling, they have better funding than the actual Solomani military. While under the direct command of the Solomani Party (without constitutional recourse), in reality SolSec has become ever more entrenched and institutionalized, becoming a state-within-a-state. SolSec has all sorts of wiggle room, legalized war powers acts, and their bureaucrats are masters of political infighting. The only thing that has prevented SolSec from ruling the Solomani sphere de facto is that SolSec itself is riven with personal agendas/petty infighting but also that SolSec heads simply lack the vision and leadership to imagine actually ruling the Sphere.

However, it's not as bad as everyone believes with SolSec. Yes, they have bright shiny toys and they have lots of troops. But the hardcore fanatical loyalist thing is gone. They're like Jannisaries in the later day - comfortable with their power and privilege and cynical about their own political cause. SolSec are essentially bullies and convinced of their own superiority, but they're not willing to die for it. In reality, even with inferior equipment, the Solomani Army and Fleet could kick SolSec's butt. SolSec's army is mostly there to bully the common people and so on - not people who are truly trained, dedicated, and willing to accept losses. This doesn't make them any less dangerous to people like the PCs, however.