kafer genocide

[kapitan]

i havent been working much on my germany sourcebook lately (work, work, work ...) but i have been toying around with some ideas on contemporary (in 2320, that is) german politics (for the game i am planning is gonna be pretty politics and secret service heavy).
when it comes to germany in 2320, there is one thing in canon, that i am definitely gonna change in my game, and i would like to test my ideas on you and ask for your opinions.

the thing i dislike most in the 2320 additions on the 2300 history (sorry, colin, should you be reading this. i dont mean to be rude) is the story of lutkes "genocide" against the kafers.
there are several reasons, why i dislike this, but before i explain them i want to say that, since i am german, i am probably biased. i am not overly patriotic, but i guess noone is immune to beeing biased at least a little towards his/her own country. but maybe some of my points are still valid:

1. to me the story is too repetitive. the book says germany had a militaristic tendency. it was genocidal. now there is "soul searching" going on about the crimes done. thats the same old story as post wwii germany, thats like germany today, so where is the sci-fi? how likely is it a nation commits the same crimes twice? as far as i know, most nations that commited genocide did so no more than once in their history, even those who had no period of self reflection or "soul searching" afterwards. "genocidal tendencies" are no genetic traits to be passed on for generations. i just find this story clicheish and not very believable.

1.a) when i tell my players "well, germany is a militaristic and genocidal socyety..." (yeah, i know, i could phrase this differently), they'll be going " oh, no, not THAT story again ...*rolling eyes*"

2. the story absolutely doesnt fit the personality of lutke in the original game. lutke was a very important figure in 2300, and was describes completely different. some of my players know the original game, and they gonna wonder.

3. the story of an admiral or general going renegade and commiting genocide agains the orders of his government and his entire army/fleet going with it, thats just so extremely unlikely. i just dont buy it. and the explanation "because all the hochbadeners were killed" is very simple and lack all the complexity usually found in human behaviour. people just dont tick like that.

4. the story contradicts all i know about human psychology and war psychology. "them bastards killed my coutrymen at hochbaden, so i am gonna kill all of them even against the will of my government and people, at all costs and no matter what" works for the movies, but not in real life.
war crimes happen, of course, but almost always a) because they were ordered (nazis, french in algeria, abu grahib etc.) or b) on an individual of small group basis (everyone, everywhere). i guess the synergetic effect in larger organisations prevents armies to go renegade.
also, when i look at history, generals usually acted differently. for example Nikolai Erastowitsch Bersarin, who conquered berlin and became the cities first soviet commander. the soviets suffered from the germans much worse than all humanity ever suffered from the kafers, still, when bersarin conquered berlin, he immediately switched from "destroy them" to "save them", and did all to protect the city from the effects of the lost war. (i am around probably to no little extend because of this man). this seems to be not uncommon behaviour amongst military folks. (well, some are greater than others, of course, but soldiers often view things differently than the movies)


well, these are just my five cents, but consequently i am gonna change the story in my game, of course.

i will replace it with a story not so off-canon:

lutke did commit "genocide" on the kafer world, because he was ordered to, since bombing the kafer worlds to stonage was the official position of germany at that time.
it was the position of the german federation to nuke the kafers out of humanitarian considerations (yep!)
the anti-kafer alliance (the french?) came up with the plan for their virus induced lobotomy-genocide (and lets be clear: what they did was genocide all the same. less messy, but non the less - now the virus has been introduced into the kafer eco-system, the kafers will almost certainly get extinct as a sentient species within the next few centuries or millenia. and be it that in 10.000 years a kafer explorer lands on some planet (ex-kafer world), catches the brain-flue and carries it thru kafer space ...
once a virus is set free, it cannot be controlled anymore!
the german government felt that it was not within the rights of humanity to play god and order the total extinction of the kafer race. since the kafer threat had to be destroyed, though, they favoured to bomb kafers back to stone age, and maybe built something new from there (one suggestion was to change kafer genome to make them permanently smart)
nuklear bombing CAN be controlled.
some nations agreed with germany, but in the end, french dominance was too strong, and the alliance decided to extinct the kafer race by thier lobotomy-virus. the german government ordered litke, in a last attempt to save the kafers, to nuke their worlds, so they wouldnt pose no more threat and other nations could be persuaded not to extinct them completely.
after that failed, lutke took the responsibility to prevent the immense diplomatic damage to the fatherland and germany let him "escape" to exile.

what do you guys think?

 

[jwcarroll60]

Sounds a little more plausible to me, Lutke as scapegoat/fall guy

 

[Gallowglacht]

Works for me.

 

[mbrinkhues]

I had absolutly no problems with the germans bombing some bugs back to the stone-age. Kolonie-2 gave them rights and reasons enough for that and Lutke, sensing that some weaklings at home would prevent it, took measures in his own hands, doing what needed to be done. Sadly the "Kafer-Kissers" had already invaded too many governments.

About the only thing I hate in the 2320AD history is the then-current german government that reminds me too much of something we got rid of only very recently. IMHO/IMU it's time for a revolution and a new form of government.

 

[su_liam]

I like the Kafer as a threat. They are one of the more alien aliens I've encountered. Also, this was a force that pushed up the French Arm far enough to threaten Earth and Tirane the only really significant human populations in 2300.

Some assumptions I make. The Kafer are more populous and less unified than the humans. Their homeworld has a lower population than Earth, Kafer don't deal well with crowds, but they have five or six planets on the order of Tirane. Their industrial technology is less efficient than that of the humans, but makes up for that with size. They also devote more of their efforts to militaristic ends. Their control of the Ylii worlds gives them another technological edge to at least neutralize any technological advantage the humans may have. With these advantages, the Kafer steamrollered up the low-pop worlds of the French Arm. The human nations didn't unify against the Kafer threat until Beta Canum Venaticorum was under threat. The naval battle to defend BCV was disastrous and the Kafer rolled all the way to Nyotekundu. The first significant human victory was a last ditch defense of Tirane. During this battle a three ship task force made its way all the way to Earth. It was destroyed before it could land troops, but not before the Kafer managed to drop a biowarfare cannister on Eart itself. Although not totally destructive, the plagues and blights from this killed over a million people and reduced food production significantly before it was brought under control in 2318. The American Arm project to open up a flanking action against the Kafer was successful largely because of the Ylii revolt. Humanity managed to recover Nyotekundu a year later and fought a holding action while building up forces back on Earth. At the same time all of the spacefaring nations worked together to build "safehouse" worlds far up the American and especially the Chinese Arms. A major human offensive led to the recovery of BCV by 2312 and most of the French Arm by 2315. This string of defeats led many of the lesser Kafer warlords to rebel against the supreme leader(I can't seem to find his name ), further weakening the Kafer coalition against humanity. The human counter offensive bogged after reaching one of the colonies on the outer part of the Kafer core. A world with nearly two billion Kafer put up a fierce resistance which was only put down after a heavy nuclear bombardment of the planet's surface, killing 90% of the Kafer population. Pentapod biowar efforts proved uncontrollable and not nearly as destructive as hoped. At this point the war bogged down to a standstill. Most human efforts turned to maintaining the gains and ground battles to recover the former human worlds from, still tenacious Kafer resistance. By 2320 Kafer were still a hazard even in the frontier regions of BCV, and on Aurore, Kafer still possessed significant strongholds and were a positive menace to surface operations.

At this point, humans and Kafer are fervidly racing to restore and improve their military capability prepatory to a hoped-for final offensive. Human efforts are seriously challenged by a massive manpower shortage and a nearly universal economic collapse on Earth requiring more an more resources to be diverted from guns to butter. The Kafer are faced with the loss of the Ylii and a coalition rapidly fragmenting into civil war. Also the Kafer economy, never well balanced is failing under the strain of a militarization even greater than usual.

As of 2300 the war has been reduced to small probing skirmishes and piratical raids by lesser Kafer warlords seeking glory to attract followers. On the human side, all efforts are being devoted to cementing and the gains already made. For the forseeable future neither side afford a major offensive without the risk of total defeat.

I wish I was playing this game.

 

[jcrocker]

I like the revision - I'll have to use it or something similar in my game.

Of course, it could be that your version is the 'true' story, but the characters don't find out about it without some digging in the course of an adventure or three.

For your point 2, the change in Lutke - that could be induced by the war itself. Very "Heart of Darkness / Apocolypse Now"ish. And for point 4, humanity has never had a real war against aliens, so getting a very hard-core 'us or them, kill them all' mentality might be easier under that situation than in our history.

But I agree overall that your version seems more interesting, and allows the players to dig up the truth, with all of the attendant peril it places their characters in.

 

[kapitan]

hey guys, thanx a lot for your replies and taking the time to go through my thoughts and test their plausibility.

@jwcarroll60 and gallowglacht.
thanx for your replies. for essential background stories, it is always good to hear other's opinions before presenting it to once players ...

@mbrinkhues
i agree in that i also had absolutely no problems with lutke bombing the kafers back to stoneage. on the contrary, i would also have strongly opposed the "mad-scientist's-plan" of introducing the lobotomy-virus into the kafer ecosphere. as for you, one of my main critics is that how 2320 views the germans strongly reminds me of "we got rid of only very recently" (see 1. and 1.a). i guess everybody writing about nations he/she doesnt know is tempted to fall for cliches (hey, nobody writing 'bout italy in 2320 will describe italians as beeing punctual, level-headed, reasonable people *grin* yet still, i have met punctual and reasonable italians). and i guess the cliches work if the player doesnt know much 'bout that country, either. but since my campaign is gonna be set in germany, it wont work for us. (and honestly, i personally are i.e. not very orderly, have been known to cross a red traffic light once in a while, and never ever commited any genocide ... havent even been tempted to)
the only point we seem to differ is the evaluation of what the two views on how to handle the kafers really meant (you describe the virological genocide fraction as "weaklings" and "kafer kissers". i see it differently. there seem to have been to opinions on how to end the kafer threat: both involved genocide. i assume the virus-genocide was more cost efficient, but i doubt that was the main consideration. the only difference of the two plans seems to me that the virus genocide was uncontrollable and probably eventually total, while the nuklear genocide was not. basically this makes lutke an advokat for the kafers. his motivations for that can only be speculative, and i doubt it was for heart-felt love of the kafers, but in the book he was describes as a sensible and very diplomatic man. maybe he was already considering what effect the total virologic eradiation of the kafer race would have on the other sentien races, on their view on humanity. how would the sung view it if humans did completely destroy an enemy?
or dont you see lobotomy as a genocide? (after all, the sentient, self aware beeing is deleted, with kafers even more so as with humans. imagine our own history going slightly differently, and the nazis claiming afterwards: "hey, we didnt kill millions of jews/sinti/roma/gay/commies/ill ... we just lobotomized them into walking vegetable and let them die out peacefully ... i still wouldnt be a huge fan of the nazis)


@sadwillow
also a nice possibility. it has the merit of leaving the kafers more intact as a race and a future threat. i completely agree that the kafers are one of the best aliens ever described. i also considered doing my own "end of the kafer war", that would be completely off 2320-canon, but then tried to come up with something that would be compatible with canon a) so it would be easyer to integrate with current and future officiel material for me (i hope colin will publish much more stuff ) and b) for exactly the reason jcrocker described after your post: i hope to inspire some good multi layered political mud ;-)

p.s.: play the game. its really good

@jcrocker

yep, something like this i was thinking about. i am not sure yet if my characters will know the truth or not (the campaign is planned a span of 20 years and the chars will be taking part in political intrigues, so it depends on their acomplishments)
i partially agree with your comments on point 2 and 4, i think it possible, but i do think decision making in large organisations like an entire fleet is too complex for these motivations. do you think it realistic that an entire german fleet (even if the individuals involved feel like you describe) will:
a) coherently share this mindset (even officers and staff. most admirals have commited crimes in war, bombed civilians and the like. lutke has been there, done that. and he knows that some kafer leaders commited genocide (hochbaden, but then, what else could the kafer have done?), some even laboured to prevent famine and ease the situation on occupied worlds (beta canum).
b) be willing to commit mutiny, disobay their orders and break with their lives they had before,
c) able to communicate this mindset without fear anybody will prevent this plan?
i may be possible, but i think it sounds just so very unlikely. and it sounds so streigt forward and linear, nothing complex.

 

[jcrocker]

hey guys, thanx a lot for your replies and taking the time to go through my thoughts and test their plausibility.

[snip]

@jcrocker

yep, something like this i was thinking about. i am not sure yet if my characters will know the truth or not (the campaign is planned a span of 20 years and the chars will be taking part in political intrigues, so it depends on their acomplishments)
i partially agree with your comments on point 2 and 4, i think it possible, but i do think decision making in large organisations like an entire fleet is too complex for these motivations. do you think it realistic that an entire german fleet (even if the individuals involved feel like you describe) will:
a) coherently share this mindset (even officers and staff. most admirals have commited crimes in war, bombed civilians and the like. lutke has been there, done that. and he knows that some kafer leaders commited genocide (hochbaden, but then, what else could the kafer have done?), some even laboured to prevent famine and ease the situation on occupied worlds (beta canum).
b) be willing to commit mutiny, disobay their orders and break with their lives they had before,
c) able to communicate this mindset without fear anybody will prevent this plan?
i may be possible, but i think it sounds just so very unlikely. and it sounds so streigt forward and linear, nothing complex.

If you add in the 'bomb them' philosophy, then it really wouldn't be a secret cabal. If Fleet leadership and rank & file all think "they launched an unprovoked war of extermination" then you don't need a 'cabal' to do what Lutke did.

I agree that simpler is better, and I do like your version.

Colin had his own reasons for writing it the way he did, and I'm not certain but some of them could have been imposed upon him. Even if he was trying to establish some sort of international political conflict, using your version it could become a very different positioning. Instead of 'introspective' Germany you have 'hard-nosed' Germany - maybe even all the way to "either you support us or you support the Kafers." France moves to a more 'byzantine' position, where they want to keep Kafers alive but 'dumb', but please pay no attention to all those megalivres going to xenobiological research facilities along the French Arm.

But your idea works for me. Thanks for posting it!

Jon

 

[mbrinkhues]

Sure, re-balancing the Universe to make it more attractive to the USA was an important part to sell 2320, after all most SciFi players seem to be Americans/British not Germans.

I doubt one could sell a "2.5 colonies" weaklink USA to the "typical" 2300AD fans today so getting them a bigger standing was necessary. And to keep that resonable, France and Germany had to loose some standing.

Does not mean that I like it. OTOH I have always used Emperor Willhelm II era clichees for most nations so Lutke acting like King Etzels(1) Huns, neither asking nor giving quarter is totally ok for and in style for me. Monocles and heel-clicking are optional.

(1) Attila to most of the world.
(2) I guess "PR-Agent for His Imperial Majesty Willhelm II of Germany" ranks among the top 10 "Job's you DON'T want to have"

 

[TWILIGHT]

I don't usually post here as I'm a fan of the canon but if it's the effects of genocide you're interested in (especially a genocide by someone who was unaware they were doing it and that's what the orders called for at the time) I can't recommend these two books highly enough:

"Ender's Game" & "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card.

They deal with an enemy absolutely implacable, their genocide, and the moral effects afterwards. Just thought you'd like to know.

 

[Gnusam Netor]

Sure, re-balancing the Universe to make it more attractive to the USA was an important part to sell 2320, after all most SciFi players seem to be Americans/British not Germans.

I doubt one could sell a "2.5 colonies" weaklink USA to the "typical" 2300AD fans today so getting them a bigger standing was necessary. And to keep that resonable, France and Germany had to loose some standing.

A lame reason, but a reason nonetheless. USA needs to be no.1 to sell those books to the american geek. *bleeh*

And on a related note, where is the "gloire" and colonial adventure of the Scandinavian Union? This scandinavian geek would appriciate that!

I like the Kafer as a threat. They are one of the more alien aliens I've encountered. Also, this was a force that pushed up the French Arm far enough to threaten Earth and Tirane the only really significant human populations in 2300.

[snip...]

As of 2300 the war has been reduced to small probing skirmishes and piratical raids by lesser Kafer warlords seeking glory to attract followers. On the human side, all efforts are being devoted to cementing and the gains already made. For the forseeable future neither side afford a major offensive without the risk of total defeat.

I wish I was playing this game.

(I assume you mean "as of 2320...")

Me too friend, me too...

Why destroy an brilliant antagonist to the protagonists? IMO, will the story suffer now, when the Kafers have been defeated and all (perhaps not destroyed, but atleast seriously "culled").

 

[mbrinkhues]

Destruction of the Kafer in 2320 is far from complete and far from totally effective so they are still good for a few suprises. And the way the problem is handled in-game set's the stage for some potential dangers that will make the Kafers look harmless.

Aside from that I always found the Kafers rather boring, basically the equivalent of the Sowjet Infantry screaming "Urääääh" at the top of their lungs and charging the german maschine guns. If the humans kept their wits and held fire long enough, they could typically kill enough Kafers before the group became smart. Same with the ships, they where T34/KV1/IS2 equivalents and humans had to lure them into the equivalent of an 88mm battery.

 

[Gnusam Netor]

A good antagonist does not get his "dark tower" destroyed until the end of the story, so perhaps the Kafer-looming-threat-to-humanity story is over though? If so, that would be a shame too, since I thought the reason and inner workings of Kafers were brilliant.

But that's me, and i seem to be an anomaly here...

 

[epicenter00]

Aside from that I always found the Kafers rather boring, basically the equivalent of the Sowjet Infantry screaming "Urääääh" at the top of their lungs and charging the german maschine guns. If the humans kept their wits and held fire long enough, they could typically kill enough Kafers before the group became smart. Same with the ships, they where T34/KV1/IS2 equivalents and humans had to lure them into the equivalent of an 88mm battery.

That's how I've always felt about Kafers. Kafers are the Orcs of 2300. Kafers are the Soviets of the Eastern Front, the Zulus of South Africa, the Persians during Thermoplayae. Despite being perfectly suited to war and once the shooting starts the Kafers each become Rambo, they fortunately are really stupid and easy to gull in ambushes before they get smart. Oh, and their ships are slow and their crews really bad so Kennedys and Sufrens can take them out without a scratch provided you don't run out of missiles (ho to those silly Germans, though! Making slow ships!).

The sections of the Kafer Sourcebook devoted to Kafer psychology and history basically saying, "Don't hate Kafers. They can't help the way they are. They're slaves of their psychology and their history. Sadly, they don't want to change, so we have to wipe them out. Terrible. Woe is us. We're such terrible people for doing this, but it's necessary." Sadly, the Sourcebooks have a lack of other depths to it, so it's basically the scientific version of "the Kafers were created by the Dark Lord Sauron to spread evil and misery so it's okay to wipe them out." I know that Colin has struggled with this - indeed, I think any GM who wants Kafers to be something other than just faceless villains honestly sort of struggles to give Kafers any kind of depth.

While I think "scientifically" encountering alien races with implacable psychology we'll never understand is probably likely, it doesn't make for good role playing.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Actually the germans are smart:

German Admiral: "We should defend as far from the planet as possible to reduce the chance of bombardment and civilian losses"

French/US/Brit Admiral: "Agreed!"

GA: "So once the Kafers come you charge out to meet them and gain glory while my poor, decrepit craft have to remain behind and act as a rear-guard against an enemy that will never come through your valiant and strong lines"

FUBA: "Agreed! Glory to us, History books, medals!"

<Batlle comemces, FUBA seriously weakens the Kafer and dies doing it>

GA: "Okay, finish of any cripples and write a report detailing our brilliant efforts in defending the colonies after FUBA dashed of and got defended in detail


It's all a long term plan!