CG predictions...

[Rubbernuke]

No. MORE! At least until even the last Fedneck lover finally understood that the Federation are not "good guys"... and there are still too many left.

"This will never end 'cause I want more... more, give me more, GIVE ME MORE!"

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBAzlNJonO8

No-one is 'the good guy', the Feds have always been the 'default' from which other powers and superpowers calibrate from.

Hopefully once FD have finished with the Feds they'll do the same with the other nutters like Denton and ALD, or perhaps show Aislings real colours- root to tip.

 

[Amata Lirein]

No-one is 'the good guy', the Feds have always been the 'default' from which other powers and superpowers calibrate from.

Hopefully once FD have finished with the Feds they'll do the same with the other nutters like Denton and ALD, or perhaps show Aislings real colours- root to tip.

Not sure about ALD and Aisling, but Denton and his standard reaction of "throw some Majestics at it" to whatever problem he's faced with already established that he's not the brightest bulb of the bunch

 

[Northpin]

Those who actually read the lore knew even before all of this that the Fednecks are unlikeable... unlike our fabulous Empire basks in its glory

Yea, i find it quite baffling that people think the Federation means "the good guys" while the Empire means "the bad guys"
None of them are the good guys, but the Empire is the lesser of the two evils - and by quite some margin.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Not sure about ALD and Aisling, but Denton and his standard reaction of "throw some Majestics at it" to whatever problem he's faced with already established that he's not the brightest bulb of the bunch

Dentons quite the nutter- he essentially uses Imperial honour against Imperial subjects to bend them to his will by giving systems armaments they cannot pay for and they go bust- triggering Imperial Servitude.

ALD ordered Dentz to execute someone on the senate floor, and is a security nut job (she is the mirror of Hudson in this regard).

And Aisling....always there consoling people.....or simply getting sadistic kicks But in reality no-one knows who backs her, and that she is just a catspaw.

 

[zimms]

No. MORE! At least until even the last Fedneck lover finally understood that the Federation are not "good guys"... and there are still too many left.
[...]

Yea, i find it quite baffling that people think the Federation means "the good guys" while the Empire means "the bad guys"
None of them are the good guys, but the Empire is the lesser of the two evils - and by quite some margin.

I don't think I've ever seen someone on the forum claim the Federation are "the good guys". It's usually a straw man Empire-fans like to throw around.

 

[Vadim Kleitsin]

Insiders within his administration suggest that he is under enormous pressure to regain popularity, following the recent rebellion of several Federal systems.

 

[Amata Lirein]

I don't think I've ever seen someone on the forum claim the Federation are "the good guys". It's usually a straw man Empire-fans like to throw around.

Not necessarily on the forums, but you really need to read local chat, especially in CG systems. A lot of players still do "word association" and apply "Federation" and "Empire" to Star Trek logic: "Federation" -> Good Guys, "Empires" (especially those fighting against the Federation) -> Bad Guys.

 

[zimms]

Not necessarily on the forums, but you really need to read local chat, especially in CG systems. A lot of players still do "word association" and apply "Federation" and "Empire" to Star Trek logic: "Federation" -> Good Guys, "Empires" (especially those fighting against the Federation) -> Bad Guys.

I'll look for it next time. I've started to ignore system chat for the most part, especially in CG systems. It's... special.

 

[Amata Lirein]

I'll look for it next time. I've started to ignore system chat for the most part, especially in CG systems. It's... special.

To be fair though: A lot of those people are either new players and/or players who cannot be bothered/are too lazy to read the codex at least...

 

[Danieros]

No-one is 'the good guy', the Feds have always been the 'default' from which other powers and superpowers calibrate from.

Hopefully once FD have finished with the Feds they'll do the same with the other nutters like Denton and ALD, or perhaps show Aislings real colours- root to tip.

Winters and Aisling lore-wise come as close as possible to good people, openly humanitarian even when it gets them in trouble with other estabilished figures.

Denton was pulling his majestics at every possibility - to the point he's been repeatedly criticized by it on Galnet by other imperials, and seems to have dialed it down, at least for now.

As for ALD... she's been missing from Galnet articles for a long time, with other imperials doing the public action in her place (for the Onionhead arc it is Aisling doing the Imperial voice, for the summit it was Blaine and others in the imperial group).

 

[Rubbernuke]

Winters and Aisling lore-wise come as close as possible to good people, openly humanitarian even when it gets them in trouble with other estabilished figures.

Denton was pulling his majestics at every possibility - to the point he's been repeatedly criticized by it on Galnet by other imperials, and seems to have dialed it down, at least for now.

As for ALD... she's been missing from Galnet articles for a long time, with other imperials doing the public action in her place (for the Onionhead arc it is Aisling doing the Imperial voice, for the summit it was Blaine and others in the imperial group).

Aisling may be 'good' (although I don't believe it) but we don't know who her corporate backers are- Aisling has always been a PR figurehead. Its that doubt which is interesting, and that she's always the one bullets never catch...I'd love a CG which tickled this.

Winters is the foil to Hudson really, in the Hudson is ultra conservative while she is more along the lines of Democrats from current US politics. While Hudson favours self reliance for self improvement, Winters (IIRC) is about making sure the poor have a safety net with Fed Aid (the 'FUC lunchboxes'). The way things are going the Feds may very well splinter.

We need a CG to scan the Empire for ALD

 

[marx]

The current writer team must really hate the Federation I guess.

In my opinion, it's more than that: an experiment instead. "Let's make the Federation do Bad Things^TM and see how players react. If they stomp on the Federation, we'll blame the Bad Things^TM on Hudson." After all, in Drew Wagar's Premonition, it was made quite clear that President Hudson takes orders from the Club, which pretty much everyone hates. So, the people who actually like Hudson can shift the blame to the Club too.

 

[Danieros]

Aisling may be 'good' (although I don't believe it) but we don't know who her corporate backers are- Aisling has always been a PR figurehead. Its that doubt which is interesting, and that she's always the one bullets never catch...I'd love a CG which tickled this.

Winters is the foil to Hudson really, in the Hudson is ultra conservative while she is more along the lines of Democrats from current US politics. While Hudson favours self reliance for self improvement, Winters (IIRC) is about making sure the poor have a safety net with Fed Aid (the 'FUC lunchboxes'). The way things are going the Feds may very well splinter.

We need a CG to scan the Empire for ALD

Suspicions of Aisling don't hold much ground since her BGS ethos is to use corps to get better triggers expand into a system, and then flip them all into social govs. Then you have her childhood story of breaking the statue purposedly because it represented old traditions. So if anyone should fear her it's probably the corps that may think are puppeteering her, and feudals. Feudals notably being unfavourable to her in both expansions and control. Corps usefulness cease as soon as Aisling secures control of the space. Obvious grain of salt though to using PP ethos since you have stuff like Delaine favoring social govs and being weak to feudals... and then Frontier makes the story-related Kumo Council a feudal faction And the obvious crown-taking silliness in having no federal/imperial factions good for Hudson/Aisling... which means if you do PMF-based PP BGS you can't even align your squadron to them for taking part into the PP leaderboards...

Winters uses corps and keeps the corps in control, but she did make stuff like providing food and refuge for marlinists so it does make sense to be simply a safety net. Being the opposite of Hudson nowadays is pretty easy nowadays... after getting support for the surveillance project he went ballistic on sneaky attacks, first against Hadrial Duval and now against Grom.

I think ALD's just being very smart and staying in a completely secure location until the Theta Seven threat is dealt with, she may have phobia of green goo-related explosions and she's pretty much the main target for it...

 

[Rubbernuke]

Suspicions of Aisling don't hold much ground since her BGS ethos is to use corps to get better triggers expand into a system, and then flip them all into social govs. Then you have her childhood story of breaking the statue purposedly because it represented old traditions. So if anyone should fear her it's probably the corps that may think are puppeteering her, and feudals. Feudals notably being unfavourable to her in both expansions and control. Corps usefulness cease as soon as Aisling secures control of the space. Obvious grain of salt though to using PP ethos since you have stuff like Delaine favoring social govs and being weak to feudals... and then Frontier makes the story-related Kumo Council a feudal faction And the obvious crown-taking silliness in having no federal/imperial factions good for Hudson/Aisling... which means if you do PMF-based PP BGS you can't even align your squadron to them for taking part into the PP leaderboards...

Winters uses corps and keeps the corps in control, but she did make stuff like providing food and refuge for marlinists so it does make sense to be simply a safety net. Being the opposite of Hudson nowadays is pretty easy nowadays... after getting support for the surveillance project he went ballistic on sneaky attacks, first against Hadrial Duval and now against Grom.

I think ALD's just being very smart and staying in a completely secure location until the Theta Seven threat is dealt with, she may have phobia of green goo-related explosions and she's pretty much the main target for it...

Although veering away from the topic, Aislings prep and fort cargo is all about PR and winning hearts and minds, and blitzing populations with tales of good deeds...and corporations have interests that are most likely at odds with 'old school' Imperial values that require alternative tthinking- thats where the ambiguity lies, at least with me. Hopefully as the Imperial dynasty Part 2 kicks in (Hadrian and his son, Aisling and ALD so far having no heirs / possibly dead) we will see more of Aisling. Certainly in the books she was not as fluffy as she appears (if its still canon).

 

[Jmanis]

Yea, i find it quite baffling that people think the Federation means "the good guys" while the Empire means "the bad guys"
None of them are the good guys, but the Empire is the lesser of the two evils - and by quite some margin.

This got discussed a while back somewhere else... very short version is that nobody necessarily needs to say who is good and who is bad; if you don't read any lore whatsoever, and base your opinions purely on, well, tropes and assumptions, Feds=good, empire=bad.

Pop culture generally portrays "The Federation" as good guys, and Imperials/ Empires as bad. For example, taking two of the biggest influences of sci fi culture Star Trek's 'good guys' are the Federation[1], while Star Wars portrays "the Empire" as bad.

In stellaris, Federations are usually the remit of more egalitarian, xenophilic races, while individual "empires" are usually the remit of xenophobic, militant conquerors. This is a nomenclature that usually extends to other titles.

And then, to just scratch the surface of lore, you have Federation, a dystopian capitalist society, versus Empire, a class based society built off "Imperial Slavery". Most can't get past the term Slavery to question what it actually means in the context of the game (but let's not ignite that one again), and class based societies are (strangely[2]) unfamiliar to people.

But capitalism, everyone knows what that is and so it's relatable... and dystopian? Cool, so like fallout or cyberpunk right? That as a theme is vogue right now, you just have to cast your eyes over netflix to see how recycled the whole "Genre X, but with a dark, dystopian twist" is... because it's popular.

So, yeah i don't think anyone needs to say who is good and who is bad, subconsciously it's implicit (even if it's wrong).

Either way, I'll happily lap up the tears of Federal supporters who think bad things are uncharacteristic of the Federation.

[1] Even though the portrayal of the Federation outside the crew is, often, negative. That's kinda tropey though... you can't really make an episode out of the Federation simply doing good things for once.

[2] i guess what i mean here is an explicitly class based society. Most western societies at least are implicitly class based... so it still feels unfamiliar.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

if you don't read any lore whatsoever, and base your opinions purely on, well, tropes and assumptions, Feds=good, empire=bad.

I'm not sure how much this actually affects what happens in-game, though. (aka how many CG participants read no lore whatsoever? They presumably at least read some of the CG descriptions to know where to show up and who to shoot)

If the Empire was suffering from not being as relatable as the Federation, it should also lose to the Alliance, which is based on another modern famiiliar social structure, has a friendly-sounding name, etc. In the various 3-way CGs (Enclave, 9 Martyrs aid) the Empire has consistently come ahead of the Alliance, though.

The simplest explainer of CG results over the last year has been that the side seen as the immediate military aggressor loses - sometimes that's the Empire, sometimes that's the Federation, sometimes it's Delaine or the NMLA - and in non-competitive parallel CGs where there isn't one Fed > Emp >> Alliance.

That's still not a particularly sophisticated way of analysing who's "right" in any particular situation, but it is at least paying attention to current events.

 

[Northpin]

They presumably at least read some of the CG descriptions to know where to show up and who to shoot)

Presumably, indeed

 

[Factabulous]

So ... this week ...

• We know from the weekly schedule that there is a CG - so it won't be Salvation
• We're in the middle of a 'fed' week, so probably not another (no sign of action in the last 7 defectors yet either, though it's quite early)
• Torval just got a big cash injection for her mining company
• Investigations into the Joker's Deck are pending - though that strand has never been 'in-game' before
• Support have been saying a solution to the Peregrina permit is coming 'in a future patch'

Hmm. Until I re-read that tweet I though Torval might 'invest' in Peregrina and take over permit vending, but I guess probably not. I think maybe Torval is going to do something. Another mining CG? It's been over a month. Or something random, though we're still in the aftermath of the Saud-Kruger - which was a (nice) random addition.

 

[Rubbernuke]

So ... this week ...

• We know from the weekly schedule that there is a CG - so it won't be Salvation
• We're in the middle of a 'fed' week, so probably not another (no sign of action in the last 7 defectors yet either, though it's quite early)
• Torval just got a big cash injection for her mining company
• Investigations into the Joker's Deck are pending - though that strand has never been 'in-game' before
• Support have been saying a solution to the Peregrina permit is coming 'in a future patch'

Hmm. Until I re-read that tweet I though Torval might 'invest' in Peregrina and take over permit vending, but I guess probably not. I think maybe Torval is going to do something. Another mining CG? It's been over a month. Or something random, though we're still in the aftermath of the Saud-Kruger - which was a (nice) random addition.

Wild wild guess: some sort of treasure hunt similar to the Titan one? It would be quite fun having small mini puzzles like its a Mad Mad World with people zooming about. Sort of like Squid Game but in spaaaaaaaaaaceeee

 

[Factabulous]