Who here knows anything about the Federation of Magic - or what are everyone else's favorite locales and factions? Pour it on!

Quote from: tenbones on December 17, 2022, 10:05:47 AM
This ties in directly with why the CS keeps people illiterate. And while that might seem "ghastly" to you and the rest of us. Consider the reality of Rifts - where knowledge *can* actually corrupt you. They use basically Emojis to communicate which apparently works, and yet it's not precise enough to learn magic.

Except that there are numerous examples in-world that say that that's all full of shit. The NGR has a 90% education and literacy rate. Nemo's New Navy, it's 100%. The remnants of China in the Geofront are near or at universal literacy and education, also. I couldn't find statistics on Ishpeming, but from what I can gather it's about on par with late 90s/early 2000s era education and literacy in most areas. And those are just "big players", at least in their regions, and I'm discounting returned Japan because they're basically a complete anomaly at this point, and time will well.

The CS does it for control, pure and simple. An ignorant population is easy to control.

Quote from: tenbones on December 17, 2022, 10:05:47 AM
And it's not true that everyone are slaves bred to be soldiers. I just finished reading the Coalition War and Secrets of the Burbs - there is *nothing* in those books that indicates life in the CS or the Burbs is anything like that. Shockingly, the CS troops are *volunteers*. I'm not downplaying their ruthless policies in practice. But even the Burbs have *tens of thousands* of DBees that would rather live there as second-class citizens than live in the wild frontier. Regular people are inside the CS Fortresses living their lives quite nicely as citizens. Outside in the Burbs - it depends on the Burb. But people set up businesses, they trade, some Burbs are very genteel (and bigotted against Dbees like all get-out), because the carrot being dangled is citizenship.

I'm not referring to city rats and such, I'm talking about dog boys - a literal engineered slave race of fully sentient, sapient humanoids that the CS almost exclusively uses as soldiers.

Quote from: tenbones on December 17, 2022, 10:16:12 AM
Who here knows anything about the Federation of Magic - or what are everyone else's favorite locales and factions? Pour it on!

I love ARCHIE. He's sort of a faction of his own, and I adore him. I like Ishpeming, because I'm a Michigan boy, plus it's like a slightly less crapsack version of the CS.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 17, 2022, 12:37:06 AM

And so on...

Quote from: dbm on December 17, 2022, 08:17:20 AM

I think that was a reference to this excellent sketch from Mitchell and Webb

Yeah. It was a direct reference to Mitchell and Webb.

But it's not a bad comment. Sure, some groups use skull iconography, but... c'mon. The CS revels in it. A necromancer would look at the CS's aesthetics and say "Guys, tone it down a bit." It's not meant to be subtle. The CS are nuanced, yes, but they are "bad guys".

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 17, 2022, 12:54:01 AM
The discussion around the Coalition usually comes around to this, after literally decades. It's not freaking hard. The Coalition are the baddies, but they're also the baddies keeping the worse baddies at bay. Thus you get interesting drama and situations for your role playing game sessions.

People who defend the Coalition a little too much are just as annoying as those who reject the idea that not all Coalition are slobbering monsters.

Right. This. Exactly this.

Quote from: dbm on December 17, 2022, 08:17:20 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 17, 2022, 12:37:06 AM

Quote from: Bruwulf on December 16, 2022, 07:23:57 PM
Their uniforms have skulls on them. Yes, Hans, they are the baddies.

And so on...

I think that was a reference to this excellent sketch from Mitchell and Webb

I know. And it's a funny bit. But the problem with it is that plenty of the guys on "our side" have used skull iconography.

Quote from: Bruwulf on December 17, 2022, 10:56:22 AM
I love ARCHIE. He's sort of a faction of his own, and I adore him. I like Ishpeming, because I'm a Michigan boy, plus it's like a slightly less crapsack version of the CS.

I recently read the Northern Gun books, and they're great. They're not particularly political, but have to be involved in some politics. (Their non-aggression and sometimes maybe work together policy towards the CS) They're anti-magic and anti-D-Bee, but they're not fanatic or jingoisic about it. Just, don't be casting spells or making a scene in Ishpeming and they'll sell you some guns, man. It's a Goldilocks "Just right" faction. They have their badasses (Loss Prevention) that will come down on you if you f**k with them, but mostly they just want to keep what's theirs and sell you some bang-bangs.
I really like the idea of multiple Kingdoms scattered throughout the world, and NG is a nice break from Tech = Fascism that the CS gives off.

As usual, it's got some Siembieda "Wut?" in it. There's a whole page about how the average Adventurer (by that I take it to mean the PCs) won't be able to afford even a power armor, much less a robot vehicle. But this is a game where a core class starts with arguably one of the most powerful PAs in the game. (The Glitter Boy) It's true that PCs proably won't be buying power armors off the showroom floor, but they're going to be able to scavenge, steal or salvage some robot vehicle tech at some point. And a borg is usually a match for a PA or robot anyway.

The one thing that seems to temporarily unite most of the North America factions is the Splugorths. NO ONE likes the Splugorth.

I think most of the early World Books, like from 2 to 10, need a good revised update now that the game has been out for 30 years. They did revision for the Vampires but none of the others.

And they need a Colorado Baronies book.

One of the adventure hooks in the NG books is that one of the Robodome pilots is using Naruni Tech to keep his standings. Afraid he will get caught as that tech is very illegal.

I'm like your in the NG get an equivalent weapon from the supplier.

Another issue is that in the first Rifts core book the Coalition RO pilots lacked the RPA pilot skill beyond being illiterate. In the more recent Coalition sourcebooks the CS have apparently softened their stance on Pxychics which is imo a load of BS imo. For years the CS considered Pdy hivs as the enemies and second class citizens at best and now they reverse the c position due to reasons and feels.

Quote from: tenbones on December 17, 2022, 10:08:51 AMThe GENERAL populace is kept illiterate, using their sophisticated emoji-speak and audio-queues. Technical folks are educated normally.

The problem with this model of organization is that it becomes a lot harder to find the people capable of receiving that technical education and providing its services if you don't have a wide pool of generally educated people to draw from in the first place.

A realistic representation of life in the Coalition should talk a lot about how incredibly, constantly short-staffed the C-States are in terms of drafting people smart enough to play tech support, and the fact that the training programs for those people have to be even more propagandistic than usual, lest the I.T. crowd realize just how much the rest of the Coalition depends on them and pull a general strike at a critical moment.

Quote from: RebelSky on December 17, 2022, 03:29:14 PM
The one thing that seems to temporarily unite most of the North America factions is the Splugorths. NO ONE likes the Splugorth.

I think most of the early World Books, like from 2 to 10, need a good revised update now that the game has been out for 30 years. They did revision for the Vampires but none of the others.

And they need a Colorado Baronies book.

Unfortunately they way the good aligned factions are written on Rifts Earth it's not going to happen. The evil faction are united. The good factions are written as stubbornly stupid independent. Which many not trusting each other.

So unless we get a major rewrite on a united good aligned faction is not going to happen.

Tritonia does not trust the New Navy and vice versa as an example.

Quote from: Bruwulf on December 16, 2022, 07:23:57 PM
Lets not soft-sell the CS.

Who did that? I merely pointed out how PRAGMATIC the Coalition is about Rifts Earth. You make it sound like the Coalition-style of government is bizarre and unrealistic, when the reality is that is entirely too realistic...hey some Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, let's throw all the homegrown ones in interment camps. Yeah, that sort of stuff never happened, right? I'd take the Coalition as written over some horseshit Utopian nonsense far too prevalent in a lot of other games. "Oh yeah there are horrible demons roaming the world and you could be murdered at any instant, but if you live in our city you get to eat bon bons and listen to soft rock all day, unfettered by the worries of harsh manual labor."

QuoteTheir uniforms have skulls on them. Yes, Hans, they are the baddies.

You did read the books, right? They literally have a skull motif to intimidate people. I mean, you have normal dudes going up against all sorts of supernatural foes, they need whatever edge they can possibly get, even if it's only to make themselves feel a little better about getting killed.

As far as keeping the populace uneducated and illiterate goes, do you really need to know how to read to do menial jobs? They're rebuilding civilization from the ground up, not everyone gets to study Chaucer and drink brandy by candlelight, some of those people are going to be digging ditches 15 hours a day. Realistically, I think this has more to do with complete and utter lack of resources than outright comiicbook evil suppression.

Quote from: Bruwulf on December 17, 2022, 10:56:22 AM

Except that there are numerous examples in-world that say that that's all full of shit. The NGR has a 90% education and literacy rate. Nemo's New Navy, it's 100%. The remnants of China in the Geofront are near or at universal literacy and education, also. I couldn't find statistics on Ishpeming, but from what I can gather it's about on par with late 90s/early 2000s era education and literacy in most areas. And those are just "big players", at least in their regions, and I'm discounting returned Japan because they're basically a complete anomaly at this point, and time will well.

The CS does it for control, pure and simple. An ignorant population is easy to control.

I didn't say they were *right*. I said (or intimated based on their own ignorance) that's how they rationalize it. And it makes sense if you truly believe "Magic is Inherently Evil" - and Prosek *absolutely* believes this. And yes, he's wrong.

Quote from: Bruwulf on December 17, 2022, 10:56:22 AMI'm not referring to city rats and such, I'm talking about dog boys - a literal engineered slave race of fully sentient, sapient humanoids that the CS almost exclusively uses as soldiers.

Ah. Sure, I thought you mean the citizenry. Well Clone Troopers are Clone Troopers regardless of franchise.

Quote from: Bruwulf on December 17, 2022, 10:56:22 AM
I love ARCHIE. He's sort of a faction of his own, and I adore him. I like Ishpeming, because I'm a Michigan boy, plus it's like a slightly less crapsack version of the CS.

Oh yeah! All the ARCHIE stuff is super-interesting!

I'm a little surprised at how much I'm getting into the Psi-Stalker backstories, even through it's spread out across several books. I find them more intriguing than just "magical-vampires"... I didn't realize they were out in such numbers! Plus I like how their tribes have their own respective histories - gives me Mad Max vibes with barbarian tribes of Germania tossed in.

The Coalition's forced illiteracy never made sense to me. I think that it comes from the early days of the Rifts game when different thematic elements were being combined to create the setting and the Coalition in particular.

The Coalition was inspired largely by Nazis, but also other authoritarian fiction like 1984. Aspects of the Coalition suggest that it is the citizens of the Coalition who are the enemies and who need to be controlled and suppressed - like the people of 1984. In the context of the Rifts setting, this is silly, because the enemy is very clear and obvious. Its those demons that lurk just outside of Chi-Town's walls who are poised to devour or enslave defenseless humans.

The Coalition doesn't need to lie to create an enemy, they don't need to keep their population ignorant to make them loyal. Humanity is literally fighting for their very existence against aliens and demons who have invaded Earth.

So I drop the forced ignorance thing. Obviously, the Coalition doesn't believe in freedom of speech and they crack down on dissent, but they don't need people to be illiterate or generally ignorant for that.

The Coalition can still be portrayed as evil for what they do to DBs or magic users, or even the general harshness of their policies - they don't need to do even evil hand wringing for them to be villains. I like them with shades of gray.

The Coalition is pretty damn villainous, yeah.  They are basically "Aberrant" by Palladium alignment standards, right there in the evil section, aside from being pretty willing to kill innocents and unarmed foes as a matter of policy.  They may have personal levels of distaste for it, but not likely any actual remorse.

Can you imagine a Coalition that wasn't a complete bag of tyrannical inquisitors and supremacists?  Being able to secure their territory with Coalition Let Line Rangers?  Bolster defenses and infrastructure with a Corps of Arcane Engineers?  Maybe having an air force officer that is a dragon?  Having genuine allies instead of people they will probably kill later after the actual demons are put down?

Good job surviving, CS, but that is all you are doing.

I think I'd be happy to play Savage Worlds Rifts, though.  Aside from the Tomorrow Legion, just because I don't think the setting gains anything by having a Legion of Superfriends.  Orders of heroes are neat and fun and a cyberknight being in a mixed party is cool, but the T.L. feels as tacked on as it really is.

I think I would have preferred a new Free City somewhere or maybe make the Colorado Baronies a better Last Best Hope than the CS pretends to be

Quote from: Manic Modron on December 19, 2022, 12:18:08 PM

I think I would have preferred a new Free City somewhere or maybe make the Colorado Baronies a better Last Best Hope than the CS pretends to be

Given how little is known about the Colorado Baronies or anything west of the Continental Divide, that's all pretty easy to do. My brief SW:New West was set around modern Estes Park and was about restoring a town initially controlled by DeeBees that, if it had lasted, could have been the seed of a new best hope.

Salt Lake City, rebuilt under the leadership of some radical Mormons who were prepared for the End Time materially and spiritually, could be a pretty intestering setting. I've toyed with lifting a version of Hellstrom's Hive straight from the novel whose organization allowed the area to survive the Rifts but stunted the Hive enough that they are in an uneasy alliance with the "wild" humans of the area ever since.

The home of the Cyberknights is some between the Rockies in the Cascades (Idaho if memory serves).

The reality is the Great Basin and the West Coast are completely unused in Rifts. They are a great place to get away from the core books and run with your own ideas.