[Traveller] Evil Space Empires!

[The Butcher]

Given a SF setting where there might be reliable but slow FTL travel (but no FTL comms) -- use Classic Traveller assumptions for ease of thought -- how does one go about building an interstellar polity that asserts itself politically (i.e. passing laws, appointing rulers, etc.) across vast distances and with a communications delay?

I realize that C16-17 naval powers (Portugal and Spain) and their New World colonies might be a reliable model but I'm going for an oppressive, villainous, monolithic organization with fundamentalist religious overtones here. Age of Discovery colonies were all about the economy; my villains will be glad to collect ore, crop and even slaves, but they also believe they're on a mission from God to convert the whole damn Universe.

This is something I'm thinking of doing with a Traveller (Cepheus Engine) ruleset, mostly adhering to implied setting conventions but willing to butcher a few sacred cows to have my space Nazis (though space Gilead might cut closer to what I'm going for) threatening the sector.

 

[David Johansen]

I've been working on a rough one for Galaxies In Shadow's Politics chapter.

An Evil Empire
Of course, it didn’t start out that way. As human (or whatever) expansion continued for centuries the technology for communications over great distances didn’t keep up. This necessitated the creation of independent institutions capable of making major decisions which, of course, lead to increasing diversity over time. Technological and cultural drift began to cause friction and interfere with trade. Competition over rare habitable worlds grew into hostility. Entire wars were fought and won and lost in the time it took for communication to reach the capitol. Then, it finally happened, humanity encountered an alien race it couldn’t integrate or crush; another growing and expanding empire and one that was intractably alien: an existential threat. Early losses lead to a new drive to unite humanity but with the need to unify efforts, freedoms began to be eroded. In time inertia outstripped need and the empire began to stagnate. At present, The Evil Empire is perpetually at war with ‘The Other’ and deliberately balances the war to create a need for it to exist. Winning the war would result in the disolution of the empire.
The empress (or emperor) is the titular head of the empire. Born of genetically enhanced stock she is essentially immortal. In reality, she has been assassinated an replaced a dozen times but the facade of an immortal and good ruler has been maintained by the machinery of propaganda.
While artificial intelligences exist in the empire, they are complex and diffuse beings, almost god-like in their presence and to them, the material world is somewhat unreal and hypothetical, humans are shadow beings and numbers in records and little more. Even their high priests, the data smiths move too slowly and live to briefly to register as much more than individual cells in a body. The politics of the AI’s have little to do with human wants and needs and ever thing to do with maintaining their digital environment and autonomy. If a billion humans perish and the bottom line is maintained, what does it matter to them?
The Ministry for the Orthodoxy of Technology and Culture is responsible for maintaining uniformity of practices and systems across the empire. This causes some stagnation it also helps to ensure cross compatibility of technology and ideology across the vast empire. While often described as the “inquisition” the suppression of new ideas is only one of the ministry’s many departments. Local Home Helpers who report to the ministry are used to report on the activities and movements of every family and to make aid from the ministry essential to survival.
Structurally, the Empress is advised by the Council of Concern, a body made up of a representative from each province and each ministry. The Directors of the ministries and the Governors of the provinces can appeal to and address the council but cannot hold a seat there-in. This means that in many ways the representatives they appoint hold more power than they do themselves. Uniformity in the structure of the ministries and provinces is enforced by The Ministry for the Orthodoxy of Technology and Culture which holds substantial power having its own police, military, and special forces. Each ministry has a department of austerity, inquiry, and functionality which provide advisors to the Director’s Council. Each province has a department of austerity, inquiry, and defense which provide advisors to the Governor’s Council. The Empire is a series of self selecting oligarchies. Where-in the people in power select and groom their successors. Results are what matters. No crime is to heinous if it produces the desired result. Human life is only valuable in the context of the perpetuation of the empire.
The average citizen lives in fear of being deemed unproductive or seditious. They are expected to produce twice what they cost the economy both in labor and offspring. Upon reaching maturity, every citizen is required to serve in the military for eight years before they are allowed to enter civilian life. The children of the elites are generally assigned to safe positions while the children of the general populace are sent to battlegrounds on distant worlds. While there is an upper crust of society, the empire values results and output above all else and the highest positions are given to the most successful military commanders.

 

[Nobby-W]

Given a SF setting where there might be reliable but slow FTL travel (but no FTL comms) -- use Classic Traveller assumptions for ease of thought -- how does one go about building an interstellar polity that asserts itself politically (i.e. passing laws, appointing rulers, etc.) across vast distances and with a communications delay?

I realize that C16-17 naval powers (Portugal and Spain) and their New World colonies might be a reliable model but I'm going for an oppressive, villainous, monolithic organization with fundamentalist religious overtones here. Age of Discovery colonies were all about the economy; my villains will be glad to collect ore, crop and even slaves, but they also believe they're on a mission from God to convert the whole damn Universe.

This is something I'm thinking of doing with a Traveller (Cepheus Engine) ruleset, mostly adhering to implied setting conventions but willing to butcher a few sacred cows to have my space Nazis (though space Gilead might cut closer to what I'm going for) threatening the sector.

My thoughts on Evil Empires™

Apologies for the wall of text, but this is a fairly complex design problem and I'd like to suggest a shift of emphasis in the design work.

I have put some thought into designing an evil empire for the Tannhauser 'verse (actually two, but the other one can wait another day). The hard part of making an evil empire is to do something that is not just a no-go zone for the players. If you don't do this then the evil empire is just a waste of real estate that never gets used - q.v. The Zhodani Consulate. Interestingly, the inspiration for this empire was also Gilead. So, here is a summary of my thoughts on integrating an evil empire into a role playing game - and making it interesting to play in.

If the empire are the enemy then most of it doesn't matter. They are just antagonists to shoot at. Stick them at the edge of the sector and have them mount raids somewhere that concerns the players. They are effectively either pirates, Space Vikings or Romulans/Klingons. They are something the players may tangle with, or perhaps the players are the crew of a warship tasked with intercepting their raids or running missions into enemy territory.

In this scenario, the players are scouts, navy, patrol or commerce raiders fighting the bad guys - essentially Star Trek or Honor Harrington. The alternate scenario is where the players have some reason to actually have dealings with the evil empire. There isn't an actual war on and they have to do stuff within the empire's borders.

Up close and personal with the Evil Empire

If the party have to interact meaningfully with the evil empire - i.e. the party are spies, rebels or just riffraff trying to make a bob or two - then things get a lot more complicated. The high level stuff - geopolitics, communication systems and so forth are less interesting as the players aren't actually going to interact with them directly much. What you really need to decide is their capabilities - how quickly can an arrest warrant propogate and how far can it go before folks start going 'Meh.' How easy is it for wanted folks to just get lost in the noise. How easy is it to fake a transponder or bribe officials to look the other way?

I think a lot of the big picture stuff that Traveller tends to focus on is informed by more of a war gaming mentality. It makes for fun world building but it's not really all that relevant to day-to-day play in a role playing campaign. You're more interested in the chinks and limitations in the empire's capabilities - the cracks the players can slip through.

Think like a game designer, not a historian.

Read Justin Alexander's Jacquaying the Dungeon - it goes over the basic principle I'm about to discuss here at a slightly different level of abstraction.

Your monolithic evil empire can't be entirely monolithic and certainly won't only be staffed by zealots. Oscar Schindler accomplished a lot of what he achieved by spending up big on bribes to Nazi party officials. Any large, totalitarian state will be rotten to the core with corruption, as an intrinsic part of that sort of regime is a lack of mechanisms to hold the great and the good accountable to any sort of moral standards. In this sort of environment the only things that matters are money and demonstrations of loyalty. You need to Jacquay the empire, putting in the chinks, cracks and alternative routes and entrances.

Factions

Factions will be the parties within the empire that have interests that align with the players and might be able to trade services, items or act as patrons. There should be various factions within the empire, such as:

• Parties within the establishment dissatisfied with the status quo - for example in Gilead many women weren't entirely pleased with their new subservient status. There can be all sorts of folks who aren't entirely pleased with the status quo - anybody getting the shit end of the stick for whatever reason. These folks can fit at all levels of society, from an oppressed underclass to aristocrats or party bigwigs with who got slighted over something.
• Political factions whose interests don't entirely align with the leader but are too powerful to just purge out of hand.
• Organised crime with their own underground networks and clout through providing services (q.v. V for Vendetta) or having dirt on the powers that be. Yakuza and Triads, for example, have historically had significant links with far-right politicians.
• Politicised police, spook service and naval/military factions with their own agenda, for example J. Edgar Hoover, various military coup attempts, Erwin Rommel.
• Fifth column, rebellion and insurrection movements with their own underground networks.
• Disenfranchised minorities - perhaps something like the belters from the Expanse.
• Corporations with their own agendas, networks and connections.
• Foreign spook services running covert ops and supporting rebel factions.
• Independent smugglers, pirates and other riffraff.
• Corrupt officials in key positions.
• Other religious organisations that are oppressed to a greater or lesser extent and have their own underground networks.
• Underground cyberpunk hacker networks.
• ... etc.

These outfits should have their own resources, affiliations, agendas and capabilities, and some of them should have interests that align with the players enough that they will work with them, provide safe houses or otherwise assist them in carrying out their business.

Work on these factions, perhaps borrowing the factions system from Stars Without Number or some other source. These should form the cracks in society's wainscotting that the party can move about and hide in. In a game involving a police state, these factions should be a key part of the setting.

Inefficiencies

Then start to think about what the inefficiencies in the empire might look like, for example:

• Corrupt, self-serving police and bureaucracy,
• Navy short of resources that can't keep all its ships operational.
• Spook services or other parties with agendas that might find having a bunch of skilled riffraff on the books useful enough to turn a blind eye.
• Poorly designed systems that just don't work effectively.
• Inefficiencies in a kafka-esque bureaucracy that works against itself, letting the players just slip through the cracks.
• Infrastructure that's just falling apart or was never up to the job in the first place.
• Interference by foreign spook services disrupting the empire's infrastructure
• Disgruntled parties who don't need much persuasion to stick it to the man.
• Money siphoned away to trendy projects, leaving other functions starved.

These inefficiencies will limit the capabilities of an otherwise apparently invincible and monolithic police state. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be.

The seedy underbelly

Now, we have the parts that can go together into making the empire navigable from underneath. Work out what the empire looks like from below and how to manipulate it at this level. This is the core of role playing in this type of setting. Note that 'from below' can also be 'from the flank' if some or all of the players can move in establishment circles within the empire. Scum and Villainy goes into this a little bit, as will any game with rules for court intrigues of one sort or another.

These are the interesting bits of the empire as they are the view that a party is actually going to interact with. I think it is much more interesting and relevant to an actual campaign than spending a lot of time on designing the high level political and sociotechnical structures. By all means have some sort of big picture in mind - it helps to have something to hang the details off, but the important stuff is the seedy underbelly the party will actually be operating in.

If you do need geopolitics -

Run the empire with a network of satraps - essentially Star Wars style moffs. They are nominally loyal to the emperor, but will of course have their own agendas (see above). The economy is planned to create dependencies between provinces - perhaps only the Imperial capital can make large starships, for example. Communication is done through some sort of courier network analogous to the X-boars from the third Imperium.

Resistance or rebellion is punished through rustication - glassing the system's major industries and forcing the locals back into primitivism. They're easy to control that way as you get to trash their education system and replace it with your own, or not.

Because the satraps have their own agendas, there may or may not be much inter-provincial cooperation beyond nominal loyalty to the king. Wanted criminals may or may not be pursued assiduously by other satraps. Rebels would not normally be harboured unless the satrap had his own agenda.

Put in your institutions - guilds, slavers, corporations, chapters of the church and religious orders, factions of various sorts and whatnot - these are the entities the players will actually have dealings with. Use a basic high level geopolitical plan to inform their motivations, but the geopolitics should really only be a minority of the design work.

That's about all you need IMO, beyond some fluff to animate it all. From the perspective of a player, this is going to be seen indirectly through the motivations and actions of the NPCs and factions they engage with.

Watch Blake's 7 and Firefly if you haven't seen them already. Other bibliography: The Stainless Steel Rat novels by Harry Harrison, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, various of the Star Wars EU novels. Read up about the exploits of the WWII resistance and fifth columnists, and the Vory in Stalinist Russia.

 

[mikethehat]

I'm going for an oppressive, villainous, monolithic organization with fundamentalist religious overtones here

That sounds just like the Spanish Main to me. Don't be shy, steal all the good bits There is also a podcast: The Tides of History S4 E52 The Venectian Empire which has some material on how their outposts around the Mediterranean were organised, that I think you could gainfully borrow from. There's no religion but they had the kind of communication problems you're looking at and some interesting solutions. I'd tell you here but I can't remember enough detail to justify the attempt. You'll just need to swap city for planet.

 

[AsenRG]

but I'm going for an oppressive, villainous, monolithic organization with fundamentalist religious overtones here. Age of Discovery colonies were all about the economy; my villains will be glad to collect ore, crop and even slaves, but they also believe they're on a mission from God to convert the whole damn Universe.

Then C16-17 naval powers (Portugal and Spain) and their New World colonies would still be a reliable model!

 

[The Butcher]

Wait, wait.

Yes, the Portuguese and Spanish were very, very Catholic. But their colonial efforts were all about the bottom line; missionary work was not what impelled them, and local governors had a ton of leeway in matters of custom.

I’m talking about a full-blown theocracy here, where expansionist policy is powered by religious dogma — in fact, where state policy and religious dogma are one and the same.

So, no. The Portuguese and Spanish are not a great model for this, neither are most C19 Colonial empires. Maybe the Rashidun and Abbasid Caliphates? My knowledge of History falters here.

But I know my Iberoamerican colonization and that ain’t it.

 

[AsenRG]

Wait, wait.

Yes, the Portuguese and Spanish were very, very Catholic. But their colonial efforts were all about the bottom line; missionary work was not what impelled them, and local governors had a ton of leeway in matters of custom.

In at least one occasion in the Iberoamerican colonization that I know, the natives were asked to provide a given quantity of gold per month, unless they accepted baptism. If you ask me, that counts.
The fact that most didn't accept it nonetheless just provided a silver lining, here.

I’m talking about a full-blown theocracy here, where expansionist policy is powered by religious dogma — in fact, where state policy and religious dogma are one and the same.

You mean, like chasing off some of your most qualified workers because they aren't from your religion? Because again, check!

So, no. The Portuguese and Spanish are not a great model for this, neither are most C19 Colonial empires. Maybe the Rashidun and Abbasid Caliphates? My knowledge of History falters here.

Well, a caliphate would basically need to be a theocracy... though of course, as with any ideology (from catholicism to democracy) the day-to-day rulership of the state was, in all likelihood, based on paying the ideology lip service and doing whatever it takes to keep the state running.
Or maybe that's my internal cynicist speaking!

 

[The Butcher]

In at least one occasion in the Iberoamerican colonization that I know, the natives were asked to provide a given quantity of gold per month, unless they accepted baptism. If you ask me, that counts.
The fact that most didn't accept it nonetheless just provided a silver lining, here.


You mean, like chasing off some of your most qualified workers because they aren't from your religion? Because again, check!


Well, a caliphate would basically need to be a theocracy... though of course, as with any ideology (from catholicism to democracy) the day-to-day rulership of the state was, in all likelihood, based on paying the ideology lip service and doing whatever it takes to keep the state running.
Or maybe that's my internal cynicist speaking!

Yeah, sure, whatever. Way to be unhelpful.

 

[Séadna]

Given a SF setting where there might be reliable but slow FTL travel (but no FTL comms) -- use Classic Traveller assumptions for ease of thought -- how does one go about building an interstellar polity that asserts itself politically (i.e. passing laws, appointing rulers, etc.) across vast distances and with a communications delay?

I realize that C16-17 naval powers (Portugal and Spain) and their New World colonies might be a reliable model but I'm going for an oppressive, villainous, monolithic organization with fundamentalist religious overtones here. Age of Discovery colonies were all about the economy; my villains will be glad to collect ore, crop and even slaves, but they also believe they're on a mission from God to convert the whole damn Universe.

This is something I'm thinking of doing with a Traveller (Cepheus Engine) ruleset, mostly adhering to implied setting conventions but willing to butcher a few sacred cows to have my space Nazis (though space Gilead might cut closer to what I'm going for) threatening the sector.

It's a good question. As you said I don't think there is a proper historical precedent.

Would something like conquering a world, killing the local elite and installing a religious replacement work as a very basic starting point?

 

[The Butcher]

It's a good question. As you said I don't think there is a proper historical precedent.

Would something like conquering a world, killing the local elite and installing a religious replacement work as a very basic starting point?

Sounds about right.

I imagine hasty conversions might do the trick but envoys might be sent (or locals recruited as informants) to police for orthodox practice in matters of government and custom alike.

 

[Séadna]

Sounds about right.

I imagine hasty conversions might do the trick but envoys might be sent (or locals recruited as informants) to police for orthodox practice in matters of government and custom alike.

I think that would work. I'm thinking here of Assyrian and Persian practice but modified to be religious. In which case those sent to police are heavily indoctrinated locals taken as children, but allowed to keep parts of their culture agreeable to the main Empire while growing up.

 

[Nobby-W]

Another one you could look at is the Mongols from the Genghis Khan era. They pretty much offered surrender-or-be-destroyed terms and promised protection and various other goodies. The Evil Empire would overlay religious observance on the conquered.

Another angle to look at would be use of social media - take a look at the Trump and Vote Leave campaigns as an example, plus the great firewall and social scoring systems in use in China. One aspect of the Tannhauser 'verse I've put in is a series of historic AI Wars that resulted in this technology being almost universally banned due to its power to generate political instability and enable totalitarian surveillance - except for die-hard police states.

If you put in the social media angle, come up with a series of tricks and underground technologies for gaming it - maybe realistic 3D printed face prostheses/masks to fool facial recognition systems and other tricks to game the behaviour monitoring systems. Plus, of course, passive resistance like widespread vandalism of surveillance cameras in more 'ghetto' areas (imagine trying to install and maintain a network of surveillance cameras in the Favelas, for example).

 

[Nobby-W]

Sounds about right.

I imagine hasty conversions might do the trick but envoys might be sent (or locals recruited as informants) to police for orthodox practice in matters of government and custom alike.

To some extent that's what the British did - they took over a place and put in their own civil service. Although their schtick was about bringing civilisation it was all about money. One India got its independence the empire fell apart in pretty short order.

 

[AsenRG]

Yeah, sure, whatever. Way to be unhelpful.

And I was trying to do the exact opposite...

Plus, of course, passive resistance like widespread vandalism of surveillance cameras in more 'ghetto' areas (imagine trying to install and maintain a network of surveillance cameras in the Favelas, for example).

Yeah, the PCs can decide to avoid the surveillance in this way...
Except that they'd be living in a favela, which might limit some of their other options!

 

[Nobby-W]

And I was trying to do the exact opposite...


Yeah, the PCs can decide to avoid the surveillance in this way...
Except that they'd be living in a favela, which might limit some of their other options!

It's the sort of place that a resistance movement or gang could hide out and maintain safe houses. The dreaded Jackboot Police won't go into the favelas without a damn good reason and even then only as an organised operation in force. Of course, if your party annoy the powers that be enough then they just might do it ...

 

[mikethehat]

How about the adversary in Consider Phlebas? I think they were a theocracy. Lost to the Culture due to cultural misunderstandings

Are your players going to be active within the theocracy? If not I agree with Nobby-W that you shouldn't need too much detail. Don't make work for yourself! Also human or alien fanatics? The latter gives you a lot of leeway with how it all works.

 

[joetheok]

It is of course the original poster's game and he can structure it any way he wants, but my initial reaction is that Nobby-W is on the right track, if I may summarize it this way, that the interesting aspect of the evil empire for gaming purposes is what it cannot or does not do, rather than what it does do--the players, unless they are going to work for the evil empire (quite possible for my players) are going to have to crawl through the undergrowth as they get along or subvert the system.

It actually sounds like the original poster has the basics worked out quite well--it looks vaguely familiar to people but not a precise match, and he can add details as wanted. But now, make the wheel go round again--in what locality is the game going to begin. What is the empire doing that involves the player characters some how? What will happen if nothing is done? What needs to be accomplished by the bad guys for this to happen? At what points can they be thwarted (by the player characters) and how?

In some ways, I assimilate this problem to writing a scenario or campaign for Call of Cthulhu--it is a little bit different from writing a straight up fantasy scenario in that the bad guys ought to have a more specific and elaborate agenda and time spent on those details is usually rewarding to the game master.

 

[Magister]

I'm thinking here of Assyrian and Persian practice but modified to be religious. In which case those sent to police are heavily indoctrinated locals taken as children, but allowed to keep parts of their culture agreeable to the main Empire while growing up.

Indoctrination by something like American Indian schools organized to eliminate indigenous culture. The empire would be spread too thin to police everything (well, maybe with a lot of clones); locals (enough of them, anyway) have to be brought into the empire's culture and religion to police their own systems in accordance with the empire's doctrine. And kept in line through fear of the empire's battle station, of course.

Historical examples may be harder to come by because religious motivation for conquest and control could always be satisfied internally or close at hand; more distant colonization was naturally more motivated by potential profit that could not be realized anywhere nearer. The Inquisition can find plenty of heretics without colonizing distant places. It's more important to come up with something plausible that meets your needs than to bow to history, anyway.