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Propaganda and Dissemination in YTU

I read once that when Civilian MREs are dropped into a country, pamphlets/leaflets are included with them to tell people what to do in an emergency, etc..

And Propaganda could be included with that package.
 
Spinward Scout said:
I read once that when Civilian MREs are dropped into a country, pamphlets/leaflets are included with them to tell people what to do in an emergency, etc..

And Propaganda could be included with that package.
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So I’ve heard a story, I don’t know how true it is, but UN food aid has the name and flag of the nation that donated it on the box, along with a message saying something like “Food Aid donated by the citizens of X”.

During various points of the Cold War, Aid was sent to various communist states (including North Korea) whose dictators were telling their citizens that the US was starving. The fact the US clearly had produce to spare to feed the people of the communist states showed the fact that they weren’t starving and is part of what hastened the downfall of various communist or dictatorial regimes. Or at the least encouraged defection.

In this case the food itself is the propaganda. If your planet has a disaster and all your food comes with a sunburst and courtesy of the local noble stamped on the packaging you’re gonna start to like the 3I and it’s various wings more.
 
Condottiere said:
There have been cases where the food packets were relabelled.
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I don’t doubt it.

I see it working well better to reinforce good will in allied, sphere of influence or neutral areas more than enemy.

A navy ship responding to a disaster does a lot of good propaganda work.

This ofc is also true of the less savoury sorts. The Yamaguchi-gumi delivered aid and supplies and performed SAR more efficiently than the Japanese government during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in ‘95 (and again in 2011 for the Tohoku earthquake ). This gave them a lot of good will from the affected citizens. I can see pirates (say from Drinax) doing aid work if it means a safe haven later.
 
chipla said:
I don’t doubt it.

I see it working well better to reinforce good will in allied, sphere of influence or neutral areas more than enemy.

A navy ship responding to a disaster does a lot of good propaganda work.

This ofc is also true of the less savoury sorts. The Yamaguchi-gumi delivered aid and supplies and performed SAR more efficiently than the Japanese government during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in ‘95 (and again in 2011 for the Tohoku earthquake ). This gave them a lot of good will from the affected citizens. I can see pirates (say from Drinax) doing aid work if it means a safe haven later.
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And I think this is a key point. Especially in Traveller, propaganda depends heavily on locality/conditions on the ground. There can be no “Radio Free Terra” that SolSec can broadcast from home without the 3I able to stop it.

All propaganda a world solidly in 3I territory receives is dependent on what the 3I allows. And it is able to counter propaganda that comes in fairly easily. (if it really tries …. it depends on how good the local border nobility is at the PR/censorship/spin game)
 
Krikkitone said:
All propaganda a world solidly in 3I territory receives is dependent on what the 3I allows.
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It's not that simple. It depends on the society. The information can readily be smuggled in, then distributed through both covert and overt means.

They can continue to "shoot the messenger", but that only works so well.
 
Krikkitone said:
And I think this is a key point. Especially in Traveller, propaganda depends heavily on locality/conditions on the ground. There can be no “Radio Free Terra” that SolSec can broadcast from home without the 3I able to stop it.

All propaganda a world solidly in 3I territory receives is dependent on what the 3I allows. And it is able to counter propaganda that comes in fairly easily. (if it really tries …. it depends on how good the local border nobility is at the PR/censorship/spin game)
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I'd say all propaganda in Traveller is local. Whatever the local government deigns to put out is what gets out. Doesn't matter what comes on an X-boat, or via some merchant ship. The local government is the arbiter of that.

If the local government is some form of dictatorship or is overtly religious, then it's very likely only stuff that is positive to that government gets disseminated. Everything else goes straight into an incinerator or the like. If the law level is really high, everything against local laws gets the same treatment.

Some edict from the subsector or even higher government to put out X information holds little water. The local government can foot drag, obfuscate, and stonewall doing that. Some government higher up shows up and wonders why the locals haven't gotten the required messaging and the local government says something like, Sorry. The information you sent was in the wrong format for us to transmit it across the system. We sent messages to get a copy in the correct format, but haven't heard back on that yet...

Now an interesting one would be the equivalent of a "pirate radio" station. This takes the form of a ship with the necessary transmitter(s) that plays unauthorized messaging (propaganda of a sort) and the second the local government tries to shut them down the ship jumps. It comes back weeks later and starts up again. It'd be like trying to do 'Whack-a-mole."
 
What I like to do is use things like a newsfeed at some public location--say the players are in a bar--and something comes on that could be used as a hook into getting them on some quest sort of thing, or it relates to what they're doing in some way. If you do it regularly with them, they don't instantly see it as relevant but instead have to think about it first.
 
I like the newsfeed idea.

It can also be a way to help ground the players in the setting if they get various news alerts (of varying quality) when they land in a system - you could probably link it to a meta-plot if you wanted; or depending on how into the trade system your players are (and how in-depth you want to go with it) you could add trade news as well.
 
chipla said:
I like the newsfeed idea.

It can also be a way to help ground the players in the setting if they get various news alerts (of varying quality) when they land in a system - you could probably link it to a meta-plot if you wanted; or depending on how into the trade system your players are (and how in-depth you want to go with it) you could add trade news as well.
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I rather thought that would be a form of Rumor.

Really good to drop a Rumor the players ignore or better disparage only to have it pay off several weeks/months later on another newsfeed for someone else-best if competition or nemesis.
 
IIRC the CT JTAS had news feeds every issue about the progress of the Fifth Frontier War. That sort of thing really adds good background continuity to a campaign.
 
kilemall said:
I rather thought that would be a form of Rumor.

Really good to drop a Rumor the players ignore or better disparage only to have it pay off several weeks/months later on another newsfeed for someone else-best if competition or nemesis.
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True. I also think I’d be interesting to see players reactions to the fact that adventures might get reported to the wider world. Also flamboyant but incompetent glory hounds can make for interesting patron/minor-antagonists. Solving a murder case only for local sheriff to give a press conference to take the credit (he’s up for election this year) or for interesting survey results to be co-opted to further your careerist boss’ rise through the ranks makes for interesting frustrations for the players without presenting a simple solution.

punkrabbitt said:
IIRC the CT JTAS had news feeds every issue about the progress of the Fifth Frontier War. That sort of thing really adds good background continuity to a campaign.
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This is what I meant by the meta-narrative. It’d be work but it’d be interesting to see multiple news outlet’s coverage of meta-narrative events.

Even if your characters aren’t involved directly having, leftist, centrist and conservative news rags all report on the same event from different perspectives allows your players (and their characters) to make their own opinions of major ingame events even if they’re only in the background.
 
You can use the newsfeed in other ways too. The players do something in system X on planet Y that makes the news. It shows up in system A and when they arrived in system A they are the topic of the day and minor celebrities. The only problem is they were doing something that they wanted to keep a low profile for and now everybody on the planet knows who they are...

No good deed should go unpunished...
 
Enoki said:
You can use the newsfeed in other ways too. The players do something in system X on planet Y that makes the news. It shows up in system A and when they arrived in system A they are the topic of the day and minor celebrities. The only problem is they were doing something that they wanted to keep a low profile for and now everybody on the planet knows who they are...

No good deed should go unpunished...
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Ooh you’ve given me an evil idea for my pirates of Drinax game.

The players have done well keeping their pirate side and political side separate but I think the news hounds might be making things difficult in times to come.
 
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