Star Trek: Rebel Generation

[Clonus]

Basically the idea is that the PCs are rebels in the TNG-era Federation. However TNG itself is basically the regime's propaganda, chock full of absurd pronouncements about how they have eliminated all crime, poverty, terrorism, and materialism, statements that are adhered to as the party line even when they are obviously contradicted in specific episodes.

 

1. Money: They no longer use "money" as we know it. Legally, people no longer exchange goods and services with each other. Everyone in society has a guaranteed minimum ration of energy and living space and free access to the net. People who are considered to be doing things that are socially valuable get "social duty credits" which can be used to get things like use of transporters, off-world travel, holosuite time, personal services, natural food, increased living space (which is at a premium on Earth, still populous and with much of the world turned into environmentally protected preserves). Social duty credits are non-transferable person to person. It is possible to live "off the grid", stealing or bartering for the necessities of life in the grey market, but on developed planets it isn't easy and is considered evidence of mental illness. Many people split the difference, living on their guaranteed lifestyle allotment plus a little extra social duty credit, but dabble a little in grey market transactions.

 

2. Crime: They proudly boast that they have eliminated crime and so they have, by defining it as mental illness. Therefore there are no longer any trials as such (except in Starfleet where they have retained courts-martial). Once public security has determined that you have engaged acts injurious to society or yourself you are interviewed by a psychiatrist and then a therapeutic committee determines an appropriate course of treatment and their discretion is limitless short of executing you. It could be hour-long talk sessions once a week, a regimen of mood-stabilising drugs, indefinite confinement, hard labour on a colony world, or neural neuralization. There is no presumption of innocence because guilt is not at issue in the first place.

 

3. 3. Politics: The Federation is an ungainly patchwork of species in varying degrees of integration into the system. Very few of the member species conform sufficient to human standards of government enough to attain an actual seat on the Federation Council and access to the full technology of Earth and the other Founding members. Most simply have associate membership. The Federation is a league of homeworlds exclusively. Colonies, even colonies with hundreds of millions of inhabitants get no separate representation, nor any recognition of any right to autonomy, even if they have been lost for centuries and only recently rediscovered. There is a Council President elected by popular vote, which effectively means that Earth gets to pick them since humans are the most numerous species in the Federation. This, combined with a long-standing political alliance with the Vulcans means that Earth is unquestionably the dominant political power in the Federation.

 

4. Biotechnology. Officially, there are a lot of restrictions on what can and can't be done in the Federation. No cloning, no supersoldiers, no attempts to enhance people's brains. As far as the public at large is concerned, biotechnology goes so far as ensuring their offspring don't have a troublesome gene for muscular dystropy or an antisocial personality and no farther.

 

Of course, in secret the Federation does have covert projects trying to produce superspies, psychics to order and genius intellects but they are legitimately paranoid about genetic upgrades and hedge them around with restrictions to make sure they don't get out of hand, as well as keeping their existence very secret. Black market upgrades scare the heck out of them, since they don't have the carefully prescribed personality traits and indoctrination that that try to ensure their little supermen won't get out of hand. Even with their own projects, more than one germline has been confined and sterilized because some of them started to look a bit unreliable.

 

4. Communications and Media: Of course there are no longer newspapers or television news. In developed systems every computer is hooked into the FTL system-wide wireless net (unless it's communication has been physically disabled) which gives them access to public information feeds as well as the output of bloggers. However a blogger who spreads dissent is only advertising his psychological problems and thereby invites visits from social counselling personnel. Most of the time this is considered a symptom of minor psychological illness, but of course attempting to publish classified government information is another matter. Bloggers have no official standing as "press" and Federation politicians and officials never experience "scrums" of journalists shouting questions at them.

 

It is impossible to encrypt communications effectively. Universal Translator technology works just as well as on a cipher as it does on a language and the government can access any unused capacity on people's computers over the entire system if it needs more number-crunching oomph. Codes on the other hand are harder nuts to crack.

 

5. The Prime Directive

 

The Prime Directive is the first rule in Starfleet's book of regulations. It's vaguely phrased and how it is actually interpreted has evolved quite a bit over the last couple of centuries. At present it functionally means that pre-interstellar cultures are not to be allowed to know that aliens exist. If they already possess that knowledge but it is possible to discredit or suppress it, the Federation will do just that. If that is deemed to be impossible the culture will still be blockaded and kept from contact with aliens in the hopes that over the generations the contaminating knowledge will become myth.

 

As regards starflight-capable cultures, the Prime Directive functionally prevents the Federation from openly taking sides when non-Federation cultures have some kind of internal dispute. Assistance to the preferred side, will be given given covertly and staunchly denied while any outside assistance to the other side will be blocked on Prime Directive grounds.

 

For more than a century, starting before the Psychocrats (as the Rebel Generation calls them) even really took over the Federation government, they have been secretly been using pre-warpdrive cultures as sociological laboratories, developing and using techniques of manipulation of large populations. The Prime Directive is important for this purpose. If you want to recreate the Nazi party, or the Mafia, or Surak's rationalism on some alien world in order to study how it can succeed or fail in taking control under somewhat different conditions, it's important that outsiders don't contaminate the experiment or take word of it back to their homeworld. Eventually, though, the Federation Sociology Service intends to assure that they all have a culture as identical as possible to modern-day Earth before they discover warp drive, and if necessary they will sabotage the primitives technological advancement to buy more time. One of the things the Rebel Generation does is sabotage Federation efforts in that direction while making covert contacts and alliances with the local governments.

 

6. Religion: On human worlds religion is generally regarded as a mental illness. Any admitted follower of a faith in which worship is formalized or belief in a personal deity is advocated is stigmatized and pushed toward therapy. Deism and animism, aren't regarded as being so bad since they don't involve self-abasement or a personal god.

[McCoy]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

6. Religion: On human worlds religion is generally regarded as a mental illness. Any admitted follower of a faith in which worship is formalized or belief in a personal deity is advocated is stigmatized and pushed toward therapy. Deism and animism' date=' aren't regarded as being so bad since they don't involve self-abasement or a personal god.[/quote']

Humanism encouraged? What about religions such as Buddhism, where belief in god(s) is optional?

[FrankL]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

I have always suspected that the prime directive had more to do with arrogance and not wanting to share the wealth than it did not wanting to interfere in another culture.

 

BTW, couple of sci-fi books I really enjoyed that dealt with a galactic alliance using their PD exactly that way was Ranks of Bronze, Foreign Legions, and The Excalibur Alternative.

[dmjalund]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

The Borg are our Liberators!

[Badger]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

The Borg are our Liberators!

 

Ehh, let's not go that far.

 

 

*Badger does note since they are machine, and given his lucky with computers, that he in fact may be a perfect weapon against the Borg*

[McCoy]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

The Borg are our Liberators!

"What's the difference between the Federation and the Borg? The Borg tell you you're going to be assimilated."

ST:DS9, don't remember the episode.

[Christopher]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

"What's the difference between the Federation and the Borg? The Borg tell you you're going to be assimilated."

ST:DS9, don't remember the episode.

For the Cause

More detailed analysis at:

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Borg_philosophy under "Alleged parallels to the UFP"

[Ranxerox]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

** Raises eyebrow ** "Fascinating."

[Clonus]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

7. Starfleet. Starfleet posed the biggest problem to the Psychocrats before they secured control. Several of their experiments were discovered and disrupted by Starfleet vessels and had the resulting investigations revealed that these were the result of covert actions by a faction of the civilian bureaucracy rather than the acts of irresponsible individuals violating the Prime Directive to play god, the result would have been a scandal that would have resulted in prison terms and reforms. Even now that the Psychocrats are relatively secure in their position, they mistrust but need Starfleet. They go to considerable lengths to indoctrinate Starfleet recruits and in particular discourage thinking of Starfleet as a military service rather than an exploratory one. Despite their self-image as an exploratory service however, Starfleet vessels rarely go anywhere the Federation has not already been. Starfleet crew are allowed and encouraged to bring spouses and children and civilians are employed on board Starfleet ships to discourage the development of martial mindsets and avoid risk-taking behaviour.

 

It is for that reason that all capital ships in Starfleet have a Counsellor assigned to them. Although they are given a Starfleet rank, they are not in fact members of Starfleet and were never trained by Starfleet. As a result they can be ignorant of the most elementary facts of ship operations. Officially their task is to assist crewmembers who ask for psychological assistance and to advise ship commanders on diplomatic issues. Really their primary functions are to monitor crew, especially high ranking officers, for signs of disgruntlement and discourage course of actions that might lead to a socially disruptive conflict. The Psychocrats can communicate at speeds faster than subspace radio by using special genetically engineeered long-range telepaths to keep in touch with the Counsellors.

[FrankL]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Clonus,

 

The scary thing is how little things have to change to make your version.

 

Frank

[sinanju]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

"What's the difference between the Federation and the Borg? The Borg tell you you're going to be assimilated."

ST:DS9, don't remember the episode.

 

Quark: "Here, try this."

Alien Customer: "Gah! What is it?"

Quark: "It's a human drink. Root beer."

Alien Customer: "It's so revoltingly sweet!"

Quark: "Just like the Federation. The scary thing is? If you drink enough of it, it starts to grow on you."

Alien Customer: "Just like the Federation."

 

--The aliens in ST:DS9 got all the best lines.

[Ranxerox]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Clonus, post #9 cuts off mid sentence. A cut and paste problem?

[Clonus]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Something I'm moving to "The Rebellion" I deleted it.

[FrankL]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Wikiquote and Memory Alpha list Sinanju's quote as:

 

Quark: What do you think?

Elim Garak: It's vile.

Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying and happy.

Elim Garak: Just like the Federation.

Quark: And you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.

Elim Garak: It's insidious.

Quark: Just like the Federation.

 

From Season 4: Way of the Warrior.

[tkdguy]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Have you ever watched Blake's 7? It has a lot of good ideas for your campaign.

[Clonus]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

8. The Fringes

 

The Federation, and Earth Humanity's part of it in particular expanded explosively during the first century of its existence, considerably outstripping Starfleet's ability to secure their borders and provide emergency assistance to all the colonies and affiliated worlds. They were running into the old cube-square law. The resulting disasters and the massive ship building program to expand Starfleet to the point where it could handle all of it's obligations alarmed the original Psychocrats greatly. Not only were they distressed by the loss of life, they were worried about the militarisation of the Federation that they perceived as happening. While some expansion of Starfleet was inevitable and necessary, as they took control they preferred more "diplomatic" solutions. What that means is they traded fringe territory to neighboring states in return for defense pacts that would, at least in theory, put them in the position of protecting that part of the Federation border and if that didn't work out, the Federation would still have a more compact and solid frontier to defend. Further colonization ventures would be carried out within this frontier and the Federation diverted resources away from further Starfleet expansion in favour of terraforming programs.

 

While there was a certain logic to the plan, it still caused disgruntlement among the inhabitants of the written-off fringe colonies. Unrepresented on the Council and faced with the prospect of relocation to one of the partially terraformed interior colonies or abandonment, some of them rose up in rebellion against the Federation and their new overlords, attempting to declare their independance. In general the fringe rebels are known as "Maquis", a name that started with the rebels on the Cardassian frontier who made use to great effect of a zone of navigation hazards.

[Midas]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Clonus,

 

The scary thing is how little things have to change to make your version.

 

Frank

 

"How little?" Scary accurate, IMO. I always found TNG to be at best -unsettling-. I won't go quite so far as to say I loathed it, but I refuse to play ST RPGs post Kirk, just on principle.

 

"What's the difference between the Federation and the Borg? The Borg tell you you're going to be assimilated."

ST: DS9, don't remember the episode.

 

HA! I knew there was a reason I thought DS9 was the best of the ST franchises. I loved the:

 

"The Federation is here! You are all saved!"

 

Massive "We are SO not impressed." from all the other races in the sector. Even the Bajorans took a "Well they're better than the Cardassians - usually." Attitude.

 

Clonus, rep if the rep guard allows it.

 

Midas

[Clonus]

Re: Star Trek: Rebel Generation

 

Humanism encouraged? What about religions such as Buddhism' date=' where belief in god(s) is optional?[/quote']

 

If it's a version of Buddhism which has things like temples and priests, it's lumped with other organized religion. If you just meditate in private, not so much.

[Brainchild]

Basically the idea is that the PCs are rebels in the TNG-era Federation. However TNG itself is basically the regime's propaganda' date=' chock full of absurd pronouncements about how they have eliminated all crime, poverty, terrorism, and materialism, statements that are adhered to as the party line even when they are obviously contradicted in specific episodes.[/quote']

 

Does this mean that ST:TNG is a real propaganda show in the campaign's universe?

[Clonus]

Basically the idea is that the PCs are rebels in the TNG-era Federation. However TNG itself is basically the regime's propaganda' date=' chock full of absurd pronouncements about how they have eliminated all crime, poverty, terrorism, and materialism, statements that are adhered to as the party line even when they are obviously contradicted in specific episodes.[/quote'] Does this mean that ST:TNG is a real propaganda show in the campaign's universe?

 

Well, probably not. Certain things, like for example anything involving time travel or the secret and highly illegal genetic engineering station that the E-D visited early in the series, would be classified information. But there would certainly be holoprograms containing many episodes events.

 

[Norm]

Clonus,

 

Might I suggest that you look a little at something already for sale at the Hero Store by Jason Walters....

 

Posthegemony: Terra Nomenklatura

 

I have not read that far into it, but the setting is like you are describing, but more in the Max Headroom era. They also have a short story you can download for free:

 

A Remembrance Of Her

 

I do have to say that i really like what you have been writing.

 

Norm.

[Clonus]

9. Section 31

 

Section 31's name refers to a Star Fleet regulation allowing a loosening of regulations such as the Prime Directive when dealing with "extraordinary threats" to the Federation. This is fundamentally camouflage for an organization, most of whose members believe they are working for a secret division of Starfleet. Starfleet's high command however has no idea that Section 31 exists and neither do the Federation's nominal leadership. They are, however, likely to be the primary opponents of the Rebel Generation since they are the no-holds barred hit squads of the psychocrats. Their methods start at radical brain erasure and encompass assassination squads and even genocide. That makes them the ones the Psychocrats go to when driven to take the gloves when dealing with the Generation. But even more than that, it makes the one that Generation will prioritize stopping, and documenting for eventual exposure.

[Tasha]

9. Section 31

 

Section 31's name refers to a Star Fleet regulation allowing a loosening of regulations such as the Prime Directive when dealing with "extraordinary threats" to the Federation. This is fundamentally camouflage for an organization, most of whose members believe they are working for a secret division of Starfleet. Starfleet's high command however has no idea that Section 31 exists and neither do the Federation's nominal leadership. They are, however, likely to be the primary opponents of the Rebel Generation since they are the no-holds barred hit squads of the psychocrats. Their methods start at radical brain erasure and encompass assassination squads and even genocide. That makes them the ones the Psychocrats go to when driven to take the gloves when dealing with the Generation. But even more than that, it makes the one that Generation will prioritize stopping, and documenting for eventual exposure.

The more I read about your campaign, the more that it seems to resemble the BBC's show Blake's 7. B's7 might be a great place to mine for messed up things for the psychocrats to be doing. Also for adventure ideas. IMHO the first couple of seasons are the best, the later seasons are pretty good, but is missing the real sparks between Avon and Blake.

[starblaze]

So what about the rebellion itself? Will there be more information on them? I would love to try this game some day.