The Powers and The Club

[IndigoWyrd]

I think a lot of that shows Drew's Empire bias, as pre premonition, Aisling was seen as a intelligent social media savvy individual.

Compared to the average foron, she still is.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Not quite. Project Dynasty wasn't just about mapping out the three escape routes for Earth Like worlds and terraform candidates; they also deployed the terraforming equipment so that those worlds would be ready for habitation when the time game. They may have also dropped off other infrastructure components to further seed these worlds.

And? Thousands upon thousands of ELWs inhabitable without the need for terraforming have now been found. In the 50 LY radius Colonia bubble alone we're sitting on tens of them (largely unused!). They're not - as it turns out - all that uncommon on a galactic scale. Sure, they did a bit of terraforming in deep space ... for what? They could never evacuate more people than would fit on even a single ELW if it came to it anyway - even evacuating millions would be a challenge - not with the technology they had available when they came up with this plan.

Yes, others may know the location of the special planets - e.g. the pilots who gathered the data - but only they and Universal Cartographics know. When was the last time you were able to share ANY exploration data (in-game) with another player? Those loose ends can be mopped up later or ignored. Project Dynasty only needed to be kept secret, to avoid the public panicking, while the Thargoids were still away/considered a myth.

Right. They were still trying to recover that data years after it should have been clear to them there was no real point. Did they leave any non-terraforming infrastructure? Maybe a bit ... but they went out there with a couple of megaships and a few more Anacondas, half of which were lost in transit anyway. A few tonnes of outdated tech isn't going to give any real head start on anyone else running away, not any more.

(Half the things the Club has done don't have an in-game implementation, so I think the player base can count EDSM and similar as its own public share of exploration data, too - rumours spread quickly among the Pilots' Federation)

The Club were the ones that made sure that didn't stay an Alliance exclusive. They wanted everyone to have it so all of humanity has faster travel and can more rapidly respond to the coming Thargoid threat. Bill Turner was the one angered by that not staying an Alliance exclusive, not the Club.

My point is that had the Alliance actually attempted to keep it secret, use it for political and military advantage, and the Club not intervened ... basic self interest, corporate espionage, and the difficulty in keeping technology secret if you need to make fairly widespread use of it yourself ... it might have been a bit messier but a few years later everyone else would have had it anyway.

Depends. We don't know what they found. These may have been explorers using older ships that, like Luko's, didn't have the permit locks ours do. Also, considering how little of the galaxy we still have mapped, how can you say someone didn't find something critical to the Club's plans and their subsequent clandestine death didn't keep vital information from us/the public?

Oh, sure, you can theorise that anything might be hiding on some unexplored world somewhere. The Club's secret stash of Tea remains safe.

It would have been easier to keep protected if they hadn't released a super-fast super-reliable hyperdrive to everyone and their dog so that virtually every system within 1000 LY of Sol is now charted in detail, of course.

Independent pilots fighting each other hones their skills. Also, please go check the Aliens forum for the guides on fighting the Thargoids. Engineered shields, engineered shield boosters, and engineered hull armor and reinforcements are strongly encouraged by all the successful Thargoid hunters. Non-engineered ships would be destroyed much, much faster.

Of course. Resilience helps. Speed helps. But the Thargoids carry direct counters to a lot of the specific engineering tech that was made ... and virtually none of the engineering tech directly counters the Thargoids.

Also ... if the claim is that this engineering makes civilian ships comparable to or better than military spec ones ... why not just produce and sell more military ships? Fund the engineers through the military (plenty of them have that background already anyway) Recruit more to the navies? No treaty limiting the number of non-capital ships to get round there.

Independent pilots fighting each other builds up grudges. When humanity needs to be united - and a master manipulator, were there any such, might have done so - it's instead more fractured than ever. Rather than equipping system defence ships to fight the Thargoid threat system by system, they've had to fit their best ships to take out rogue commanders in engineered fighters.

Useless so far. The real war hasn't started yet. When the major fighting starts, there will be a lot more capital ships ready to go then there would have been without a cold war ramp up of construction. Until then, the super powers have pulled their capital ships back from the front.

...because they kept losing them to a shutdown field they couldn't effectively shield a ship that size against. I'm sure this is all part of their overarching strategy to rally independent pilots by making the superpowers appear useless, right?

Please see what I said above under Project Dynasty. A good mastermind/Illuminati group doesn't just have a plan A - they have plan A through Z and contingencies to turn any potential loss into a gain.

Sure, and what I'm saying to you now is all part of preparation for Plan K.

I'm sure they like to claim to anyone who will listen that they're that good - gets them into all the best parties - but it's indistinguishable from the outside from a group that barely even has a Plan A anymore and is making it up as they go along to fit the changing situation as idea after idea backfires in flames ... which even Galnet is practically openly saying now is what their pet superpowers and joint military force are doing. (With the resources of Sirius, and the Federal President in their corporate pocket, that's still an entirely practical approach, as these things go)

Fortunately, it's easy to test. I'll sit back and watch the Thargoids fight them. If they win, well, then clearly as the master manipulators they wanted me out of the way anyway so I didn't accidentally mess things up by shooting the wrong Thargoid at the wrong time or something like that. If they lose, well, clearly they weren't as good as they claimed. The advantage of there being an all-knowing all-controlling conspiracy is that you can just let them sort it out and get on with doing less risky stuff than fighting near-unstoppable aliens.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Well in the context of ED you have about 50 high level characters, there is nothing to say that some of them are secretly controlling what you do.

I know who is secretly controlling what I do.

It's a strange, extra-dimensional being, that dwells in a place called The Analog World.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I know who is secretly controlling what I do.

It's a strange, extra-dimensional being, that dwells in a place called The Analog World.

Is it? The Pilots Federation, and by extension the Club control where you are allowed to go by controlling system permits. You hand in your exploration data to Li Yong Rui or Universal Cartographics, so in the end they control what the general human population see.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I think a lot of that shows Drew's Empire bias, as pre premonition, Aisling was seen as a intelligent social media savvy individual.

Sorry, let me replace "Aisling really is that dumb" with "Aisling really is that self-absorbed only concerned with her influence and poll numbers." I know of no depiction that shows her being intelligent, just extremely media savvy. Premonition just showed us more - as in, what she's like when not in front of the cameras, and it was far uglier than I would've guessed. She doesn't even really care about the Imperial slave situation. She's just using that as a platform to gain adoration/influence.

Want a non-Premonition example of her being naive/dumb/not truly caring/or a mix of all three? There was the CG where she had freed Imperial slaves on a station, but they had no money to get back to their homes, feed themselves, etc. so pilots had to deliver relief aid to the station to clean up her mess. Many months later there was another CG that had us making donations so they could finally get home/get employed/etc. Aisling is no mastermind. I'd hoped she was just idealistic and naive. But the way she interacts with Salome - who she is jealous of for stealing attention away from her - and the callous way she deals with her underlings (doesn't know or care what she's about to give a speech for) and lashes out them when then news of Salome still being alive breaks and pushes Aisling off the front page news - yeah, nothing redeeming there.

Whether Drew has a bias or not, that book was sanctioned/approved by the developers and is canon. Unless they want to come on here and declare it otherwise. Out of all the books, this one had the most in-game material in it and tied a lot of loose ends together.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Sorry, let me replace "Aisling really is that dumb" with "Aisling really is that self-absorbed only concerned with her influence and poll numbers." I know of no depiction that shows her being intelligent, just extremely media savvy. Premonition just showed us more - as in, what she's like when not in front of the cameras, and it was far uglier than I would've guessed. She doesn't even really care about the Imperial slave situation. She's just using that as a platform to gain adoration/influence.

There is a word for that:

Politician

Politicians needn't have any idea what's really going on in the world around them, and the past, oh, 50 years of politicians in the real world should serve as a perfect example of this. They have people to do everything including wipe and flush for them, so why should they bother to actually know or care what is going on, beyond what their latest poll numbers are? We feed them, clothe them, house them, and give them far more money than they're worth, blame them for every little thing that goes wrong, especially when they're things that WE'VE done to OURSELVES, and expect them to understand or care? Almost makes you wonder who is more delusional - the leaders we elect or the people who elect them.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

It is extremely unlikely that any members of The Club actually hold any public facing positions. The Club are Puppetmasters, pulling at very long strings, from as far behind the scenes as they can stay. Why? Because being known makes them targets, targets that could easily be removed from the equation, and that simply will not do. They are master manipulators, not unlike the modern day Bilderberg Group, but far lower-profile. These are the people who teach the people who teach the people who teach the Illuminati to hide in the shadows.

While I have no doubt The Club has its fingers deep inside the Powers, they're doing so from so far removed, that tracing anything back to them would be nearly impossible.

As others have pointed out, some of the members are instantly recognizable to everyone. That's a lot of people think Exo is action Li Rong-Yui as his frame matches Exo's description. And he is no political leader, just the head of huge corporation.

I, for one, think it makes perfect sense that some of them would be prominent, public figures. You know, the old adage about "the best place to hide is in plain sight."

But you're right about them using intermediaries. That's why I like them. Reminds me of the explanation/Illuminati ending of Deus Ex:

[video=youtube_share;3cur1uMGrxs]https://youtu.be/3cur1uMGrxs[/video]

 

[IndigoWyrd]

As others have pointed out, some of the members are instantly recognizable to everyone. That's a lot of people think Exo is action Li Rong-Yui as his frame matches Exo's description. And he is no political leader, just the head of huge corporation.

I, for one, think it makes perfect sense that some of them would be prominent, public figures. You know, the old adage about "the best place to hide is in plain sight."

But you're right about them using intermediaries. That's why I like them. Reminds me of the explanation/Illuminati ending of Deus Ex:

https://youtu.be/3cur1uMGrxs

Members, yes. Even Bill Turner is a stated admitted co-conspirator: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Bill_Turner

But here's the thing about Secret Societies - it's not at all beyond the realm of possibilities for high-profile people to be members, even members of the Outer most Outer Circle, and have no idea what's going on behind the curtain. Creating Plausible Deniability is vital for the survival of the group, as a whole. Did Mic or Bill have any idea what INRA was actually doing? Did either know what fate would befall John Jameson?
Does anybody know what happened to the ton of Whiskey he was carrying? Is that even the same Jameson?