MOD:WCU:Factions

Terrans - Spacers - Settlers

That's Asimov's Foundation categories, but they are uncannily similar in WC. Earth begins to colonize other worlds, but at 50 worlds, the colonies rebel, declare independence, and even threaten Earth, should it try to expand into "their space". The colonies' people become different from terrans, get psychic powers, have more robots than themselves. They are the Spacers. In WC, the Pilgrims. Eventually Earth finds a way to expand beyond. In Foundation, by negotiating with the Spacers (and by Earth going radioactive). In WC by inventing the D-drive. Those new, outer colonies are made up of Terrans that despise the the Spacers/Pilgrims. In Foundation they are called the Settlers; in WC they have no particular name, but they are the new fronteer sectors like Gemini. I can't remember if the Spacers went to war; but the Pilgrims did and lost; with the last battle being the siege of Peron. Supposedly some Pilgrims escaped. Where did they go? Obviously not Kilrah; so the Tri-System is the obvious choice. But without going too far, we got a number of cultures here:

1) Terrans: Old Earthers, they still feel they are the center of the world; and in a way they still are: Most heavily defended system being Sol. They are the culturally oldest, and they could live off tourism alone. Big believers in Democracy and respect for other cultures; but is this pure ideology?, or is it fear of putting their military power to the test? Tolwyn seems to think the latter.

2) CrushedPilgrims (Spacers), crushed militarily by terrans and settlers, they learn in a hurry to eat humble pie. Fortunately most terrans aren't out for revenge (except a few like Tolwyn), so now they focus on reconstructing themselves economically, culturally and politically. Their Pilgrim identity brings bad memories, so they take on a new identity: Border Worlds. But lack of a long cultural heritage to be proud of calls for extra emphasis on the political identity. So they demand and get independance under alliance with the Confederation. When a problem exists, yet isn't well defined, or simply lacks a solution, that's when people band into parties that advocate opposite bad solutions. We could therefore assume that, within the Border Worlds there must be at least two undercurrents...

2a) Pilgrim Revivalists: Believe in going back to pure Pilgrim identity and cultural heritage, and consider Border Worlds as a political identity designed to divide them (Border Worlds doesn't span even half the original Pilgrim systems); and probably a conspiratorial plan put together in Sol and pushed by spies and infiltrators. They refuse to recognize Border Worlds and advocate spoiling the ballots in BW elections. 2b) NeoPilgrims: Pacifists; they don't believe in Border Worlds, but for the exact opposite reasons: They think while Pilgrim genes and psychic sensitivities are good, why should that be a reason to have wars or political rivalries? Might as well share their genes with the rest of humanity. Border World's existance is a duplication of Confed bureaucracy, and a threat of lack of unity against the Kilrathi. 2c) PragmaPilgrims: Pro-BorderWorld-ing in the sense that being a separate nation partly compensates their comparative smallness. If the kats attacked one of their systems under the Terran Confederation, it would just be the loss of a system, and considered a miltary setback. As a separate nation, however, an attack on one of their colonies is "an attack against one of our members" which forces the confederation to take immediate action. The existence of Border Worlds as a national identity also helps forget the more insiduous, Pilgrim identity, is an easy sell, and by duplicating government bureacracy provides jobs for their kids, and power for themselves. 2d) "Purist" pilgrims having resettled in the grey zone? More than feasible, they may even have gotten there centuries earlier using Morvan drives for all we know. -- spiritplumber

Note that Terrans and Pilgrims, although slightly different human subspecies, they can cross-breed, and this they do, so...

3) Terran-Pilgrim descendents: While neither terrans nor pilgrims want to remember their former enemity, and have buried their hatchets for good; the cross-breeders straddle both sides, but, by the same token, they can't so easily forget the cultural divide, as they have an identity crisis to resolve (Blair, Eissen?). For them the war is over, but not forgettable; and they are the first to be willing to see through the veils and recognize the fact that, for Tolwyn, the Terran-Pilgrim war isn't even over yet. Politically, terran-pilgrim descendents can't identify with 2a, 2b, nor 2c above: For they need a 'solution' too seriously to simply take up some stupid banner; and they don't talk about their inner struggles much, so they are not politically organized. Unfortunately, while identity crises often produce great thinkers and leaders (Blair, Eissen, Materson, Monte, Burrows?), more often they beget social outcasts: If we were to take a census of local pirates and mobsters in the central sectors, we'd probably find a lot of them are of mixed, terran-pilgrim heritage. This should also explain the distinctive lack of humor of Sol and Border World pirates, compared to the smart ass pirates in Gemini, for instance. (TBD)

4) OuterColonists (Settlers): Roughing out growth pains, and hard working, these people sleep with their guns. They think of old-terrans and their love of democracy as a little naive, and of the Confed military as stupid. But with a lot of problems of their own, and Confeds being supportive of militias, they are the least of their worries. 4a) Gemini... 4b) Landreich...

5) ResettledPilgrims (Escapers): We know nothing about them yet, except that they decided to part with the rest of humanity and create a new society, not only free of war, but free from the memory of war; and proceeded to forge a new history for themselves. 5a) Bex faithful, history revisionists, and the religious majority 5b) Bex unfaithful, anti-revisionists, persecuted, discriminated against, become pirates out of necessity. But unlike pirates in the rest of the world, they also feel more self-righteous and are more industrious, and progress more rapidly than the rest of the Tri-System's society in some respects. So big and powerful, in fact, that they become sub-factionalized, eventually; but that's yet to happen at this point.

6) Terran Confed (political) 6a) party x 6b) party y 6c) Tolwyn's political arm (Sol) 6d) Retro infiltrators (Gemini)

7) Terran Confed (military) 7a) Stright and dumb 7b) Tolwyn's military arms (Black Ops, Black Lance) 7c) 7b opponents (Blair, Eisen) 7d) Corrupt officials (Gemini) having deals with mobs, they help finance Tolwyn's Black Lance expense, Tolwyn guarantees their protection from whistle blowers through his influence in the Black Ops forces. Note that Black Ops forces do have a share of the official budget, but Tolwyn needs the money laundering industry (Smile) services that only Gemini has developed to such high professional levels, in order to finance Black Lance.

8 ) Terran Confed (civilian) 8a) Industry, corporations 8a1,2,3...) various cartels, various mob alignments. Fuels, radioactives and shipyards are the biggest industrial cartels. Mobsters exert influence by controlling most mining, supply side; and by money-laundering and selling ships and weapons to pirates, demand-side. They keep a balance between manufacturing and corrupt-Confed sourcing, so as to pit those two sides against each other and gain from their competing in price. They hate Menesch because, by bringing free kat ships, he's put a hole on their former quasi-monopoli, --or rather "trust". 8b) Merchant (haulers) 8b1) Independent 8b2) Guild

9) Mobs

10) Pirates 10a) clan x 10b) clan y 10c) ....

11) Militias 11a) Federal-supported 11b) Local-funded

12) Hunter 12a) Militia/Confed aligned (many sub-sub-factions) 12b) Mob-aligned 12c) Guild

13) Mandarins

14) Religious/Philosophic Ideologues 14a) Steltekers (Materson their leader?) 14b) Retros

15) Kilrathi Rebels

16) Kilrathis 16a) kat merchants 16b) kat insys 16c) kat military 16d) kat clans 16d1) klan x 16d2) klan y 16d....

17) Firekkans (clueless?)