Playing in the Ziru Sirka

[robject]

So I browsed the timeline for the Ziru Sirka out of Don's TTT, MT's Imperial Encyclopedia, and Imperium's "History of the [first] Imperium", thinking I could pick out some good entries for a game milieu.

Of course I knew down deep that this was a wide span of time. But it didn't hit me until halfway through: this is a period of over 2,000 years. That's not really a milieu; heck it's potentially several -- if there were enough data to separate them.

So taking ZS at face value, it was a common culture, and a common capital world. Well that's just like the 3rd Imperium, and we've got several milieux out of that one.

But doggedly sticking to the ZS as a cultural entity, maybe there's a single milieu, maybe it can be framed in several "snapshots", maybe. I can see two offhand:

Exploration took centuries before it stopped altogether, and was involved in contacting a large number of aliens, only some human.

Consolidation Wars obviously. A static TL (and culture) helps. Decay seems just to be Consolidation in reverse, tho it need not be.

Your thoughts?

 

[kafka47]

I would never say decay is Consolidation in reverse...I would take a cue from Candide and say the Vilani are deluded and live like Dr. Pangloss (in the best of the best of all possible worlds)...so even as their culture diffuses and changes...it does not decay as much it stagnates but each Vilani citizen cannot see past their own prejudices/caste's perspective. Each world, while different would be an adaptation of the social structure making things appear different, when in fact, they are unaltered. Things advance but at Arithmetic rather than geometric rate. Modernization without modernity.

 

[JLockett]

Exploration took centuries before it stopped altogether, and was involved in contacting a large number of aliens, only some human.

I see this period as filled with lots of Zheng-He-style missions to impress the barbarians and create tributaries, along with peaceful annexation of cultures (whether by diplomacy, as the Romans did in Asia Minor, or by economic necessity, as in Foundation), and the occasional flare-up of armed resistance or piracy.

Consolidation Wars obviously. A static TL (and culture) helps.

This period actually resembles, to me, a much more deliberate and slowed-down version of the Terran takeover of the Ziru Sirka to create the Rule of Man: moving outward only to discover how much further outward there is to go. Perhaps it's a weird crossbreed of the Spanish expansion in the Americas (Cortés in Mexico, Pizarro in Peru, etc.) and the establishment of the Dutch colonial empire? Once Consolidation began, the Ziru Sirka seems to have expanded at different speeds in different directions. I've always viewed this as an indication of where minor races existed: none or extremely sparse to spinward, thus no trade or consolidation; a few to coreward and trailing; but a huge number to rimward, close enough for easy contact and trade. Probably the Geonee and their trading partners can be blamed for a lot of the rimward expansion, and I'm sure they prompted a lot of "undue" haste on the part of the Vilani military to catch up with them.

Decay seems just to be Consolidation in reverse, tho it need not be.

There seems to be a real shift in attitude (or maybe it just becomes more noticeable and dangerous alongside other factors) as provincial governors start taking more independent power and conceiving greater personal ambitions. Obviously the period saw a lot of Byzantine-style political maneuvering at court, and many Byzantine-style losses and accommodations on the fringes with invading barbarians. But how many (Imperial) Civil-War-style coups might there have been, when the dogged Vilani bureaucracy kept functioning even as battle fleets replaced the executive leadership with a triumphant conqueror from the periphery? (And, these being Vilani, were these transfers of power due to that individual's ambition or to internal political struggles among the bureaux?)

 

[Sir Brad]

Their where a number of periods of stagnation and decay followed by Revival & Reformation, it could be argued by some that just before the Interstellar Wars the ZS was a few generations away from an other Revival, but the Solamani got in the way of the next Vilani Golden Age.

 

[jatay3]

The final stages of the ISW. The PCs can be charged with saving precious artifacts from the Imperium's collapse, can fight the Terrans on the frontier, whatever.

The PCs can be running away from the collapse into unknown space.

 

[jatay3]

One idea I thought of was that the PCs are agents of the Zira Sirka assigned to pilot a supposed Khimashargur smuggler into Terran space during the "default present" of the ISW.

If the players are inexperienced in the setting it might be amusing for them not to be aware that they are heading toward Earth. After all it wasn't for a long time that the Vilani saw the Terrans as more then a minor bother, and thus they would think of them as just another band of barbarians.

 

[robject]

I see this period as filled with lots of Zheng-He-style missions to impress the barbarians and create tributaries, along with peaceful annexation of cultures (whether by diplomacy, as the Romans did in Asia Minor, or by economic necessity, as in Foundation), and the occasional flare-up of armed resistance or piracy.

Yes!

I've always viewed this as an indication of where minor races existed: none or extremely sparse to spinward, thus no trade or consolidation; a few to coreward and trailing; but a huge number to rimward, close enough for easy contact and trade.

That's an idea worth pursuing.

 

[jatay3]

How about the First Contact with the Zhodani?

 

[rancke]

How about the First Contact with the Zhodani?

Very tenuous. Some Vilani traders met some Zhodani traders on a Vargr world midways between them.


Hans

 

[jatay3]

Very tenuous. Some Vilani traders met some Zhodani traders on a Vargr world midways between them.


Hans

Sounds great. Why not try it?

 

[kafka47]

Ok, nobody liked the Panglossian view of the Vilani Space...

But, why not look at India, as the model...perhaps the Terrans could be akin to the Mughal Empire...keeping it together but just barely...when the Vargr and Aslan others come raiding it is akin the conquest and carving up of these ancient polities into bits and pieces of Empire...whilst administratively creating whole new entities.

So, it is with the ISW, it forced the Vilani bureaux to become Megacorporations. In many parts of the former Eastern bloc, companies were very much like early capitalists...planning the entire community around the factory...similarly for the Vilani bureaux or if anyone has seen some things in Japan are very similar. The freeing of the workers in Vilani corporation should not the freeing of slaves but maybe akin to the Iron Bowl or Bureaucratic Raj disappearing to use to two current examples.

 

[ssgbryan]

One thing to keep in mind when playing in the 1st Imperium is the Tech levels.

Tech 9 - 11 makes travelling much, much more interesting.

 

[jatay3]

Ok, nobody liked the Panglossian view of the Vilani Space...

But, why not look at India, as the model...perhaps the Terrans could be akin to the Mughal Empire...keeping it together but just barely...when the Vargr and Aslan others come raiding it is akin the conquest and carving up of these ancient polities into bits and pieces of Empire...whilst administratively creating whole new entities.

So, it is with the ISW, it forced the Vilani bureaux to become Megacorporations. In many parts of the former Eastern bloc, companies were very much like early capitalists...planning the entire community around the factory...similarly for the Vilani bureaux or if anyone has seen some things in Japan are very similar. The freeing of the workers in Vilani corporation should not the freeing of slaves but maybe akin to the Iron Bowl or Bureaucratic Raj disappearing to use to two current examples.

I'm not familiar with Dr. Pangloss I'm afraid. However I believe you were suggesting the consolidation wars and those aren't a bad idea. I just happened to find other ideas interesting at the time.

I think the Vilani are more like Chinese then like Indians. Indeed the book explicitly compares them to Chinese. But if you wish to compare to India, the Vilani would be more like the Mughals, the Terrans like the John Company, and the Vargr like the Pathans. The Aslan(who haven't arrived yet in canon time) are more like Mahrattas or Sikhs. In fact I once explicitly compared them to Sikhs in another thread. However the Sikhs were fairly well established in India. However it is not hard to decree an unrecorded first contact between Vilani and Aslan that was lost in records.

One possibility, if you wish to modify canon, is to use a troupe play model in which the players are indiana jones types who find records of some event in history(the "real" first contact with aslan or Zhodani say) and then shift characters to play the characters that actually experience the event.

 

[kafka47]

No, I think the consolidation wars were a very bad idea...but it could be that each world believed that they had perfected the Vilani ideal on countless worlds and because of the rigidity of the caste system...believed it to be so. Only, when individualistic Terrans come along, they smash that idea. The Consolidation Wars could be seen an attempt by Vland to suppress some more divergent heresies and push them further to the frontier ie the Rim.

I think even it a rigid society, there is lots of people, who stand out. For even the most conformist society will have people debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...but the secret to the Vilani success was this constant kulturekampf against the bureaux from usurping the power of Vland which ironically was based upon the bureaux themselves.

 

[jatay3]

No, I think the consolidation wars were a very bad idea...but it could be that each world believed that they had perfected the Vilani ideal on countless worlds and because of the rigidity of the caste system...believed it to be so. Only, when individualistic Terrans come along, they smash that idea. The Consolidation Wars could be seen an attempt by Vland to suppress some more divergent heresies and push them further to the frontier ie the Rim.

I think even it a rigid society, there is lots of people, who stand out. For even the most conformist society will have people debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...but the secret to the Vilani success was this constant kulturekampf against the bureaux from usurping the power of Vland which ironically was based upon the bureaux themselves.

Well, maybe a bad ideological idea. Are they such a bad plot idea?

 

[robject]

One thing to keep in mind when playing in the 1st Imperium is the Tech levels.

Tech 9 - 11 makes travelling much, much more interesting.

Agreed.


And I think the Consolidation Wars make for good role-playing settings, and good wargaming ones too.

 

[kafka47]

Well, maybe a bad ideological idea. Are they such a bad plot idea?

Sorry, I was at work and did not have time to clarify...yes, only a bad ideological idea. Enforcing uniformity places one very much in Judge Dread territory...which is another way of seeing Vilani society. The Consolidation Wars would be all about fun as the Spanish Inquisition. Lots of roaming heresies that sprung up before, bureaux officials going native (a la Kinda & Snakedance from Dr. Who), real rugged individualist entrepreneurs who make things happen outside the regular bureaux channels.

 

[jatay3]

Why not play Khimushargu trying to get away from the expanding Viilani Empire?

One twist I did was that there was a faction of Khimushargu in secret contact with elements on Earth for thousands of years, and that they kept the knowledge from filtering back to the Zira Sirka. When Earth had reached a certain technological point it was thought useful as a lever in a Khimushargu war of revenge.

 

[Gray Lensman]

Why not play Khimushargu trying to get away from the expanding Viilani Empire?

One twist I did was that there was a faction of Khimushargu in secret contact with elements on Earth for thousands of years, and that they kept the knowledge from filtering back to the Zira Sirka. When Earth had reached a certain technological point it was thought useful as a lever in a Khimushargu war of revenge.

Idea pillfered, stolen, plagiarized, lifted, borrowed, folded, spindled and mutilated right into MNTU.

What an Excellent Idea!

 

[robject]

Why not play Khimushargu trying to get away from the expanding Viilani Empire?

One twist I did was that there was a faction of Khimushargu in secret contact with elements on Earth for thousands of years, and that they kept the knowledge from filtering back to the Zira Sirka. When Earth had reached a certain technological point it was thought useful as a lever in a Khimushargu war of revenge.

Wow, nice one. I like it.