Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

[Doc Tough]

Doc asks...

 

First let me come clean with my feelings about the Real UN...its become irrelevant at best, a danger to world security and peace at worst. I find its leadership to be hypocritical and its agenda to be clouded. The organization that was touted as the hope of the world is scandal wracked and ineffective.

 

Now with this being stated I have always found it difficult to portray the UN and UNTIL in the best, idealized light that the supplements to Champions indicates it should be presented.

Before I had to take a break from GMing, I was about to restart a campaign that lasted for over a decade and have the UN and UNTIL act in a less than shining light. The UN would be truly ineffective, becoming bogged down by trying to constant assuage every dicator's demands, bureaucracy ties up any decision making and actions on important, and the Security Council is filled with many minor powers as the US, UK, and China have abandoned the UN leaving Russia and France to lead replacements into the future.

UNTIL has become bullies and the only way the Secretary General to enforce anything. The US and UK simply do not allow them in their territories and have stated they will be arrested if discovered.

 

In all its the anti-UN and UNTIL. One of the goals of the campaign was for the "Free" nations to begin to from a new international organization to deal with the corrupt UN and for the heroes to become involved in the eventual overthrow of the bad UNTIL with the aid of the restructured INTERPOL forces.

 

I have wondered if anyone else has taken the UN and UNTIL in dramatically divergeant direction while still working in the structure of the CU or even in original campaign settings.

 

Doc Tough

[Kirby]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

I have wondered if anyone else has taken the UN and UNTIL in dramatically divergeant direction while still working in the structure of the CU or even in original campaign settings.

Well, I try to make UNTIL effective and with backbone when I use them, which I see as opposite of the UN, if that seems a "dramatically divergeant direction."

[James Gillen]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

I always thought that magic, aliens and superpowers were a lot easier to rationalize than an effective UN paramilitary organization.

 

JG

[gewing]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

I always thought that magic, aliens and superpowers were a lot easier to rationalize than an effective UN paramilitary organization.

 

JG

 

 

Now that you mention it...

 

 

Imagine what would have happened if the US HAD turned over all our nuclear weapons to UN control soon after its creation.

[assault]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

Imagine what would have happened if the US HAD turned over all our nuclear weapons to UN control soon after its creation.

 

Easy. The Korean War would have escalated into WWIII, and the US/UN would have nuked China and the Soviet Union, in that order, without fear of retaliation. And then, quite possibly, lost the war.

 

The Baruch Plan was never going to happen, though.

 

UNTIL doesn't make much sense as written. You could probably come up with something more plausible by making it something more like UNIT from Doctor Who, which appears to be a collection of national agencies loosely coordinated by the UN. That way, the UNTIL units operating in the US would actually be drawn from the US, while those in the former Soviet Union (if any) would have been drawn from the former Soviet Union. The composition of detachments operating in Kiribati or Tuvalu would be negotiated with the governments of Kiribati or Tuvalu.

 

Trying to make sense of Major Martinez is a bit difficult too. His background is a bit odd. He was originally described as an "ex-freedom fighter from Paraguay". He's a what now?

 

I'm not going to express my opinion of the Real World UN.

[Badger]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

Hmm, gives me an idea.

[Hermit]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

One possible way to make UNTIL work,

 

How about have its group of mentalists actually be much more powerful than folks realized, and they are a group of idealists, but pragmatic ones at that. They know that even combined they are toast against the likes of Menton. So, for generations this 'PSI for the forces of good' (Which actually predates the official psychic project) has been manipulating the UN, US and other governments. Their use of telepathy lets them found out what agents are both effective AND share their ideas. Naturally, they make sure those men and women are on the fast track for promotion, and the ones that don't meet their requirements are given no where assignments.

[OddHat]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

Real world UN bashing should go in the NGD.

 

As to UNTIL, UN paramilitary organizations were standard comic book and spy movie fare in the 60s and 70s, which is mainly where the CU got it. I don’t use UNTIL myself as written. Instead, I treat it as a UN organization responsible for coordinating the international efforts of national super-teams, including peace keeping, humanitarian and anti-terrorism efforts. I think of it as a cross between Interpol, NATO and a permanent security-council sub-committee.

 

In practice, no Supers are permanently assigned to UNTIL. When UNTIL coordinates an operation, the temporary team they assemble is always called UNITY, and is made up of representatives from the military Super-teams maintained by member states. They require the permission of any member state to operate within that state’s borders. Against Alien Invasions and purely terrorist organizations without overt national backing like Eurostar, they’re fairly effective. Their job is not to protect citizens against the abuses of their own governments. UNITY teams are often poorly organized and coordinated when major players (America, Russia, China) are not fully behind their operations.

 

The EU member nations also maintain an international Super Team (Euro-Guard).

 

GURPS IST is a potentially useful supplement if you're looking for a way to re-imagine UNTIL.

[Kirby]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

Imagine what would have happened if the US HAD turned over all our nuclear weapons to UN control soon after its creation.

Easy. The Korean War would have escalated into WWIII, and the US/UN would have nuked China and the Soviet Union, in that order, without fear of retaliation. And then, quite possibly, lost the war.

Hmm, I don't think I agree there. I would say that either it would have gone as happened (there were dozens of countries that participated, even if to lesser degrees) or that North Korea would have been allowed to dominate South Korea with the UN response of "We, the United Nations, strongly suggest that North Korea withdrawl in a timely manner."

 

However, since this is derailing from the original intent of the post (and we wouldn't want to give any precedence for that ).

In practice' date=' no Supers are permanently assigned to UNTIL. When UNTIL coordinates an operation, the temporary team they assemble is always called UNITY, and is made up of representatives from the military Super-teams maintained by member states.[/quote']

Are you sure? My understanding was that UNITY was a permanent part of UNTIL and that there were several minor supers being trained to be added to UNITY or for UNITY to then be divided into UNITY America(s) and UNITY Europe, etc.

 

Though I've been known to be wrong before. Just don't spread it around.

[Chimpira]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

I think Oddhat was saying how he treats UNTIL and UNITY. He does not use it as written.

[Chimpira]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

UNTIL in my game is very much a political animal. A system that works (for the most part) despite pressure placed on it from other sources (i.e. the Security Council, America, internal, etc...). The men at the top must constantly outmanuever those that would bog it down so much that it would be ineffectual. Some attempt to damage UNTIL because of their own misguided self interest, stupidity or the fear that UNTIL might just form into something that is not just interested in stopping Superhuman crime but something more nefarious and corrupt.

 

Sadly, it is not just VIPER and Dr. Destroyer that they have to worry about.

[OddHat]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

Are you sure? My understanding was that UNITY was a permanent part of UNTIL and that there were several minor supers being trained to be added to UNITY or for UNITY to then be divided into UNITY America(s) and UNITY Europe, etc.

 

As I said in my post, that's how I've changed UNTIL and UNITY to work in my campaigns, as per the "Alternate" bit in the thread title.

[Peregrine]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

I've had similar thoughts about the game world UN/UNTIL. I still want some of the folks in UNTIL to be heroic, that is, genuinely dedicated to fighting the good fight against the likes of VIPER, but the organization (UN) which sponsors them is, well, I don't want to veer off into NGD content... let's just say that my game is Steel Age in tone - PCs should be heroes, and some NPCs are as well, but the definition of 'hero' and 'villain' in the public's eyes depends more on your press coverage and less on the actual quality of your character (as in personality and behavior, not game stats).

[James Gillen]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

One possible way to make UNTIL work,

 

How about have its group of mentalists actually be much more powerful than folks realized, and they are a group of idealists, but pragmatic ones at that. They know that even combined they are toast against the likes of Menton. So, for generations this 'PSI for the forces of good' (Which actually predates the official psychic project) has been manipulating the UN, US and other governments. Their use of telepathy lets them found out what agents are both effective AND share their ideas. Naturally, they make sure those men and women are on the fast track for promotion, and the ones that don't meet their requirements are given no where assignments.

 

Not bad....

JG

[Kirby]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

As I said in my post' date=' that's how I've changed UNTIL and UNITY to work in my campaigns, as per the "Alternate" bit in the thread title. [/quote']

Yeah, I see the "I don’t use UNTIL myself as written. Instead, I treat it as a UN organization responsible for coordinating the international efforts of national super-teams, including peace keeping, humanitarian and anti-terrorism efforts," sentences now. I must have been very tired, considering your clarification is in your first descriptive paragraph. I do recall reading your first sentence, but must have glazed over everything after "...which is mainly where the CU got it."

 

Live and learn.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

For a long thread on a similar idea done with GURPS IST, go over to Usenet and google "Joseph Justice GURPS IST". To be honest, some of the campaign events required the NPCs to be idiots who should never have been in the jobs they were given, repeatedly and with no immediate consequences to themselves, but interesting nonetheless. (But for a real-life example of serial incompetence/stupidly acting against your own interests, I need merely point to //deleted due to political opinion//, right?)

[Hermit]

Re: Alternate United Nations & UNTIL

 

Not bad....

JG

 

Thanks.

 

I think it was a bit garbled due to the late hour myself, but the principle might work to explaining things.