Just to keep things simple & on track: I have a rules system, a setting, and a campaign plan. The first two are not subject to change. The third is flexible, but the campaign concept is fixed. I'm looking for logical suggestions, or suggestions that have a sufficent 'logic hook' to make it fit with the campaign concept. No Psi powers, cyberware, mutants, aliens, jedi, ninjas, katanas, or trenchcoats are included in the setting. ;)
I am using a modified FTL Now setting. The basis is that starship engines are based on a simple principle, which was uncovered during WW2 and perfected around 1947. The Cold War fueled colony efforts into first our Solar system and then about twenty other star systems. When the Cold War ended, so did colonial expansion, as national prestige was the primary focus.
Other than starships, medical treatment, and energy collection/storage, technology is much as it is today; the political situation is very much as it is today, except that 9/11 did not happen.
When the USSR collapsed, its colonies were given their independence and cut loose.
In the Refuge system, a nation emerged from about 1.5 million gulag prisoners and about a half-million 'undesireables' assigned there to administer the gulag system (gulag = brutal labor camps ala the Stalinist era). They recruited disaffected ex-Soviet military personnel, and acquired ex-USSR combat and transport ships.
They have been ignored by everyone else, and they very definitely have isolated themselves from everyone else.
Now, present day Earth gets hit with a virus somewhat similar to 28 Days Later; not exactly, but sufficient for our purposes. In the main, the infected are kept off starcraft; the exceptions will not affect this discussion. Now, the major star-faring powers have snatched up every starship in the Sol system, and are busy evac'ing people to safe zones & off-world assets. The rest of the nations are going to be toast.
However, its akin to dying of cancer: where the military remains cohesive, the infected can be held off, so with lift capacity, safe zones can be established.
Now, this takes place over a period of months. I figure the nation in Refuge is going to use its ships to raid Earth and snatch supplies, skilled people, and assets. And inflict some payback.
The questions are this:
1) What sort of government would emerge from the gulags? Obviously militant, bitter, and hostile, with some sort of autocratic or strong-man rulership, but what specifics? (Nothing akin to Firefly Reavers-I've already used them in another campaign)?
2) What would such a nation call itself (in Russian/Ukrainian/etc would be nice)?
3) What sort of targets would such a government look to loot? Military and starships are out; both are in use, and a USN task force could eliminate all life on the Refuge system in a matter of days. Given the savage nature of the brief USA-Brazil war, no one will have any doubts on that score. So they will be grabbing stuff they think they could get away with, both Third World and First.
4) What sort of actions would they take in retaliation for their perceived wrongs? Again, it will have to be terrorist style, and low-key enough against the star-fleet powers (USA, UK, Israel, South Korea, Spain, France) to prevent mass retaliation.
5) They have a low population, but it will be a high percentage of adults (children were born only after independence), so if they decided to carve out a chunk of Earth as their own, they could probably commit 8-12 battalions (11k-16k), meaning they could hold about a 100 square mile rural area of flat land, or a small city of around 60k population. Could this be an economic move?
Political creeds:
Revenge against their former oppressors would be pretty important, no matter what. Gulags had plenty of intellectuals, but also religious zealots, minority agitators, and former operatives. Remember, the Soviets had plenty of land to exile folks on in Siberia. Exiling them to another world would mean they were both:
A - Very dangerous. So dangerous they couldn't take the chance on them escaping.
B - Important enough that they might want them alive for some reason. If they are needed, they can always bring them back.
Petty gangsters could be held on Earth. These guys would be the creme de la creme of political prisoners. I would guess they would have a factional government, with the factions composed of different interest segments. Those in charge would have to be those best able to keep their factions in line - in other words, former political animals.
Some potential targets:
Aerospace manufacturing companies. Specialty machine tool shops. Import/export warehouses. University research institutes. Computer manufacturing plants. Heavy equipment dealers. Anything with tools that can build tools.
The soviets were starved for technology. That's the regular people - imagine how the gulags were! They were expected to work with the most primitive tools in the most primitive conditions.
The Refuge Army
They would need to take and hold an area long enough for it to be stripped and completely looted of anything valuable. Taking anything permanently would be a losing proposition. :D
That's how I'd structure it, anyhow. :P
BTW, welcome to the RPGSite, Darth! I remember your basic scenario. :D
-clash
The gulags would be filled with
vory v zakone, or "thieves in law," the brotherhood of thieves that formed the backbone of the the Russian Mafias. One of the core beliefs of the
vory v zakone is that one never coopreates with the authority. It's highly unlikely that their former overseers would be incorporated into their ranks, such would be killed immediately
Political dissidents with no connection to the vory but possessing useful skills would probably become "slaves" of the vory, and non-vory criminals would become the rank-and-file. The smarter dissidents may attempt to soften the edges of the vory violence, but you'd basically be looking at one of the nastiest, most fractious feudal dictatorships imaginable.
If there is a woman's prison, and the vory have access to it, they will probably turn it into a brothell/breeding center for new rank and file. Women are not admitted into the vory, and these guys run the sex slavery trade, so their attitudes towards women run from misogynistic to sociopathic. The vory greatly respect brutality and displays of conviction, and have little regard for life. Their society would be very much based on brutal violence and intimidation, with a vory's power largely dependent on the number of soldiers he commands, and the amount of goods he brings in.
The Code of the
vory v zakone would probably become the basis of the new "legal system." here's some stuff from Wikipedia:
Quote from: Wikipedia entry on vory v zakoneAccording to Aleksandr Gurov, an expert on the Vory who headed the organized crime units of the Soviet Interior Ministry and the KGB, "unlike the Cosa Nostra the Vory has 'less rules, but more severe rules' [and the] members must have no ties to the government, meaning they cannot serve in the army or cooperate with officials while in prison. They must also have served several jail sentences before they can claim the distinction. They should not marry."
Furthermore, "ethnicity has rarely determined whether someone can join the club, and today most members, even those active inside Russia, are from other post-Soviet countries and are not ethnic Russians."
Under the code of the vory, a thief must...
* Forsake his relatives -- father, brothers, sisters...
* Not have a family of his own -- no wife, no children; this does not however, preclude him from having a lover.
* Never, under any circumstances work, no matter how much difficulty this brings; live only on means gleaned from theft. Violent crimes and sex crimes are strongly frowned upon and may endanger a vor's status. Arms smuggling and drug trafficking are considered a form of commerce and are therefore incompatible with the status of a thief in law.
* Help other thieves -- both by moral and material support, utilizing the commune of thieves.
* Keep secret information about the whereabouts of accomplices (i.e. dens, districts, hideouts, safe apartments, etc.).
* In unavoidable situations (if a thief is under investigation) to take the blame for someone else's crime; this buys the other person time of freedom.
* Demand a convocation of inquiry for the purpose of resolving disputes in the event of a conflict between oneself and other thieves, or between thieves.
* If necessary, participate in such inquiries.
* Carry out the punishment of the offending thief as decided by the convocation.
* Not resist carrying out the decision of punishing the offending thief who is found guilty, with punishment determined by the convocation.
* Have good command of the thieves' jargon ("Fenya").
* Not gamble without being able to cover losses.
* Teach the trade to young beginners.
* Have, if possible, informants from the rank and file of thieves.
* Not lose your reasoning ability when using alcohol.
* Have nothing to do with the authorities (particularly with the ITU, Correctional Labor Authority), not participate in public activities, nor join any community organizations.
* Not take weapons from the hands of authorities; not serve in the military.
* Make good on promises given to other thieves.
Wow.
Quoteone of the nastiest, most fractious feudal dictatorships imaginable
That's perfect.
Quote from: OneTinSoldier;244250Just to keep things simple & on track: I have a rules system, a setting, and a campaign plan. The first two are not subject to change. The third is flexible, but the campaign concept is fixed. I'm looking for logical suggestions, or suggestions that have a sufficent 'logic hook' to make it fit with the campaign concept. No Psi powers, cyberware, mutants, aliens, jedi, ninjas, katanas, or trenchcoats are included in the setting. ;)
I am using a modified FTL Now setting. The basis is that starship engines are based on a simple principle, which was uncovered during WW2 and perfected around 1947. The Cold War fueled colony efforts into first our Solar system and then about twenty other star systems. When the Cold War ended, so did colonial expansion, as national prestige was the primary focus.
Other than starships, medical treatment, and energy collection/storage, technology is much as it is today; the political situation is very much as it is today, except that 9/11 did not happen.
When the USSR collapsed, its colonies were given their independence and cut loose.
In the Refuge system, a nation emerged from about 1.5 million gulag prisoners and about a half-million 'undesireables' assigned there to administer the gulag system (gulag = brutal labor camps ala the Stalinist era). They recruited disaffected ex-Soviet military personnel, and acquired ex-USSR combat and transport ships.
They have been ignored by everyone else, and they very definitely have isolated themselves from everyone else.
Now, present day Earth gets hit with a virus somewhat similar to 28 Days Later; not exactly, but sufficient for our purposes. In the main, the infected are kept off starcraft; the exceptions will not affect this discussion. Now, the major star-faring powers have snatched up every starship in the Sol system, and are busy evac'ing people to safe zones & off-world assets. The rest of the nations are going to be toast.
However, its akin to dying of cancer: where the military remains cohesive, the infected can be held off, so with lift capacity, safe zones can be established.
Now, this takes place over a period of months. I figure the nation in Refuge is going to use its ships to raid Earth and snatch supplies, skilled people, and assets. And inflict some payback.
The questions are this:
1) What sort of government would emerge from the gulags? Obviously militant, bitter, and hostile, with some sort of autocratic or strong-man rulership, but what specifics? (Nothing akin to Firefly Reavers-I've already used them in another campaign)?
2) What would such a nation call itself (in Russian/Ukrainian/etc would be nice)?
3) What sort of targets would such a government look to loot? Military and starships are out; both are in use, and a USN task force could eliminate all life on the Refuge system in a matter of days. Given the savage nature of the brief USA-Brazil war, no one will have any doubts on that score. So they will be grabbing stuff they think they could get away with, both Third World and First.
4) What sort of actions would they take in retaliation for their perceived wrongs? Again, it will have to be terrorist style, and low-key enough against the star-fleet powers (USA, UK, Israel, South Korea, Spain, France) to prevent mass retaliation.
5) They have a low population, but it will be a high percentage of adults (children were born only after independence), so if they decided to carve out a chunk of Earth as their own, they could probably commit 8-12 battalions (11k-16k), meaning they could hold about a 100 square mile rural area of flat land, or a small city of around 60k population. Could this be an economic move?
Just on general guidelines, a government that arose from this would be based on pandering to hate, and would blame all the problems it faced on the wrongs done them. Right up until the soviet union collapsed, it blamed everything on the last vestiges of capitalist thinking, even after 50+ years of so-called 'socialism" which in the soviet case was nothing but a military dictatorship calling itself socialist.
Such a regime would certainly maintain a 'secret police" tasked with making sure no one questioned the strategy of blaming everything on the old system, or advocated actually doing something about the problem other than blaming the old system. Anyone doing so would 'disappear" instantly.
Quote from: OneTinSoldier;244250What sort of government would emerge from the gulags? Obviously militant, bitter, and hostile, with some sort of autocratic or strong-man rulership, but what specifics? (Nothing akin to Firefly Reavers-I’ve already used them in another campaign)?
It's not obvious to me - they could just as easily be anarchists.
Political conflicts are basically conflicts about resources: who gets control of this particular asset. Ideologies are basically justifications for that decision.
If people are in a situation where they have to share what they have or they'll die, they'll come up with ideologies that justify that - likely by way of reinterpreting existing ones, in this case probably Christianity and communism.
Another issue: A lot of authoritarian regimes end up being "Cults of personality" where the leader is venerated and his image is everywhere.
Look at nazi germany, a pic of uncle 'dolf in every home, busts of him all over the place, his face on stamps, on banners, etc.
Stalinist russia had uncle joe's visage all over the place as well.
Maoist china, same.
Iraq under uncle saddam, more of the same. The old joke was that despite the embargo, everything was Ok. There were 25 million iraqis and 25 million pictures of saddam hussein, so no one was doing without the essentials. And don't forget those huge crossed swords over the road into baghdad, with the hands holding them molded from hussein's own hands. (Jesus h. christ...)
So a real dictatorship type system will almost always have some sort of head, and his image will be on everything. That's good setting for a dictatorship, according to human history.
Interesting note: In america presidents and such can't be on coins or stamps until after they're dead and have been for a while.
I'm thinking the big raid targets would be manufactured goods, guns, cars, trucks, computers, even clothing. Women would also be likely targets though it might be managed more as offerring a chance of escape, since refugees would be pretty easy to target. In fact, you could go with the viking model. Raid where you can and trade where you can't.
If they set up a foot hold on earth I think they'd pick a poor Russian client state like Moldovia and then reinforce the existing government with "aides and supervisors." Though they could also see some benefits to working with Taiwan.
Keep in mind that the government would be a nasty backstabbing feudal mess but on the surface they'd have a model democracy. To borrow a great line from Frank Millar's The Dark Knight Strikes Back "Who cares if the president's not real? He's still a great American!" Actually, the government from said comic, with Luthor and Brainiac at the top might be an awesome model for you to use.
A scary super genius madman and his alien AI cohort ruling over a nation of murderers and terrorists who are raiding the earth, what's not to like?
First, I think I'm gonna disagree with just about everyone here.
Let me clarify first of all: We lack several key pieces of information to really make a good call of it, some of which you should have. You may have implied several of the answers already but let me illustrate rather than guess.
How long have the prisoners been free to develope a culture. You seem to suggest that FTL has been around for roughly 60 years (present day earth?/very near future), which only gives us roughly two potential generations of, with the first generation of prisoners still, potentially, alive and in power. Not a long time to develop a significant culture, but enough time to evolve a subculture in interesting ways.
But we don't have any idea how these gulags were set up and run, much less when they became 'free' enough to be a society (militant, as you said...), or how they got their own FTL drives set up (not a long time to build up an infrastructure capable of supporting space industries... not that they need to necessarily develop the technologies (though, too, that implies that the gulags are even younger, or had regular infusions of fresh meat keepign them up to speed. The average man on teh street MIGHT be able to reverse engineer a primative internal combustion engine or aeroplane today from raw resources, but both those technologies are 100 years old, not two or three...)
I strongly doubt the Vory could run an entire civilization, too many elements of the code are based on NOT being the primary mover in civilization. Without an authority to be against, or a law abiding society to be theives in law against, the entire premise breaks down. Certainly they could turn those attributes against Earth, but the ever younger generations would horribly spindle that code, and the older generations being the legitimate power would have to alter it anyway. Its a classic revolutionary delimma: All rebels eventually are faced with becoming what the rebelled against, wether they want to or not.
Now, that said a young enough prison society WOULD be based on a sort of gang/tribalism. Its possible, for example, that every ship of raiders is an independent entity for political purposes, every captain is a king, his ship and crew his kingdom.. and in a very literal sense there.
But questions: Were the prisoners dropped off on a planet and left to rot/survive as they will? This is the theme of a very good book who's name escapes me and it implies a very different sort of cultural evolution compared to say a prison planet tha tis run like an actual prison, where the guards control resources necessary to survival.. the Gulag idea where often the only real 'walls' around it were the empty, inhospitable landscape, or in this case an empty world with no other habitation.
Of course, then the question becomes: What happened to the guards, and when? It does, however, answer the question of the ships. The culture will be more specifically 'prison' and its possible that entire generations of born prisoners exist now.. but then you get the question of gender ratios and sustainability of the population. Raiding for breeding females (or males, but entertaining as that notion is, males can support a larger population of females as studs with fewer numbers, making them less needed as a resource... never mind the possiblity of just you know, luring men to a world of sex starved women on that premise alone...)
So, lets do a hypothetical:
Prisoners were disposed of on a world/series of worlds that had only marginal resources/desirability.. just dropped off on a regular basis by massive cargo ships, regardless of sentance or gender or crime... and just left. Presumptively you could keep a strongly russian influence and simply say that only Russia did this, or you could allow how multiple nations might have disposed of their unwanteds in this way and get a more cosmopolitan feild. Presumptively, up until the troubles/refuge worlds as space power any nation that participated would continue to drop off prisoners whenever... so you have fresh blood arriving constantly over a long period.
Now, originally, and for a long time, random groups of survivors will fragment into gangs, often led by their traditional leaders, or just as likely, by the strongest and most vicious. New arrivals are viewed as a resource by older gangs, who would raid and engage in banditry against smaller factions. Many older tribes would have somewhat evolved social structures, even petty kings, but will still be recognizably earth culture in base... Some may even fetishize various historical cultures to one bastardized extant or another, but with extremely low fidelity.
Women will most certainly be second class citizens in the vast majority of the world, even commodities. It is feasable, even probable that a strong group of predominatly women could survive and become a force themselves, though would, in this case, undoubtedly treat men as they are treated by men elsewhere. They would probably not be much better, however, about treating women from outside their group unless they demonstrated strength/viciousness.
Depending on your point of view, this could be optimism or cynicism: eventually a group of survivors, later arrivals being preyed upon by others, would go against the grain, remaining large enough and cohesive enough in the face of adversity to form a nascent society based on more complex social interation than the strong preying upon the weak. In the absence of guards or 'oppressors' other than their fellow prisoners it is inevitable that a large enough group would, by necessity, develop some sort of legal code. It is not necessary to assume the first group to develop a legal code designed to keep a diverse group working together for survival will necessarily survive to propagate it's 'civilization', but eventually it is inevitable that one would. Optimism, as such a group suggests better elements of human nature would eventually prevail, cynicism, as such a group would undoubtedly refute many, if not most of our cultures ideas yet could prove strong enough to, within a generation create your raider culture from whole cloth. There is more too it of course, and it necessitates that they undertake a powerful level of conquest of the more fractious gangs and petty kingdoms that lack the cohesive, unified goals. The strengths of such a group depend on the prevailing codes, but if we assume a near parity of numbers/viciousness of male and female prisoners in the initial group, thus a more egalitarian legal code, we can suggest they'd have more energy to spend raiding for resources and 'revenge' on the people that left them to die on an unruled world. Not to mention they could have some seriously draconic legalist codes that make them more than blind savages..
If some of the prisoners were 'politicals' they could have formed their own group, which might be organised quite differently from 'normal' criminals.
Quote from: Age of Fable;245597If some of the prisoners were 'politicals' they could have formed their own group, which might be organised quite differently from 'normal' criminals.
I disagree. While ideals may be important, the nature of prisons and even survival would overrule that. There is also a point that in these circumstances teh strongest tend to rule first, so while the political prisoners may WANT a better organization, they may be poorly placed to actually implement that change.
Now, if you have ideologically linked militant rebel prisoners, it becomes more feasable, though in practicallicty, a smart government would do their best to fragment the group by isolating members from their fellows, breaking their ability to act cohesively.
Spike:
FTL Now is my alt.history SF game setting, and the OP is modifying it - when he says 9/11 didn't happen, he isn't talking about planes not crashing into buildings; in the canon setting, colonial separatists crash a Martian terraforming comet into New York City on 9/11, setting off a global disaster. FTL Now (http://jalan.flyingmice.com/ftlnow.html) is the sequel to Cold Space (http://jalan.flyingmice.com/coldspace.html), and the two games form an unbroken continuum from 1949-now. The first extrasolar colonies were planted in the early fifties, and continued on into the next century. In the OP's variant setting, the comet thing never happened. Instead, he's aiming to produce a similar effect - the colonies getting suddenly thrust into self-dependance along with a flood of refugees - by using this plague.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 90s, their extensive set of colonies were thrust into self-dependance earlier than the others. The new ex-Soviet nations were too broke to sustain them. So the Refuge penal colony spent 30-40 years as a prison, and has had about 10 years of independence. In the canonic game, Refuge was not a penal colony but a place for escape for the Soviet leadership if things got bad on earth, and thus had infrastructure built up to support the best and brightest. In the OP's variant, it's a penal colony - although it possibly may also have served as a place of refuge, I don't know. In the canonic setting, Refuge is the only extra-solar colony with shipbuilding potential because of this. I don't know about the OP's variant. It may be that the Soviets had stockpiled ships here, or that the prisoners had seized ships fleeing the dissolution of the USSR.
This is just to give a broader understanding of what the OP has posted.
I feel the crucial difference is if the gulag was for political prisoners and undesirables, for criminals, or for some mixture.
-clash
Spike, its as FM said. In FTL Now Canon, Refuge was reported by the USSR to be uninhabitable, but turned out it was very habitable, and the Soviets had established a colony there. In my variant, the USSR reported it was uninhabitable, and established a naval repair/forward logistics port, with the hope of establishing a naval infantry presence akin to a USMC Amphib Force.
Criminal labor was used to build the infrastructure to support such an endeavor, and it was restricted to criminal rather than political, for secureity purposes. Naturally, they did not fool intelligence services for long, but security procedures once installed gain a life of their own.
Inspired by Jackalope, I'm envisioning the gulag culture there being based on the earlier 'theives nation' that the NKVD destroyed, which was the direct predacessor of the vory. It was every bit as brutal, but more geared towards power than the 'non-labor' aspect.
When the USSR collapsed, it cut its colonies loose, and sold off peicemeal its (FTL) navy. The Refuge nation (VZM) aquired a significant number of the vessels, which had been parked in orbit in a semi-mothballed state (the actual state of the RL Soviet Navy at the end).
The VZM drew in a large number of gulag alumni & prospects from Russia in the chaotic early days, along with the technical base needed. They had strong connections with ex-Soviet Navy personnel from the days of building and maintaining the forward logistics base.
The organization of the VZM is based on a mix of the vory and several nation-wide American prison gangs: a very structured, control-based hirarchy which places great emphasis on loyalty and proven personal accomplishment. It is a male-controlled organization, where women are chattel suitable only for entertainment and breeding. Children are raised in central facilities designed to instill the proper attitudes and values. The society has five parts: the 'citizens', the gulag alumni and now the emerging new generation of their offspring; the techincal base, people recruited for their skills, who are awarded lucerative compensation but only secondary citizen status; women, who are as noted; children; and slave labor.
The VZM quickly became involved in narcotics and especially the white slave trade (to offset their shortages of women, and to pick up techincal skills they could not recruit).
When the crisis comes, they will openly raid Earth for things they need, although avoiding the areas of nations which maintain FTL fleets.
The PCs will encounter them because while they mount no major raids into the USA (the USN seizes any FTL craft they can get to faciliate evacuation, and the USA has always viewed the VZM as an outlaw state), the lure of trying to snatch a female model, actress, or TV personality as one's chattel will be too much temptation for some VZM raid leaders.
There is also a great deal of resentment towwards the USA, as USN task forces routinely violated VZM space and performed illegal stops & searches of VZM FTL craft in the years before the crisis. Undoubtedly a PC family member will get caught up in a VZM chattel round-up.
Quote from: OneTinSoldier;245673Spike, its as FM said. In FTL Now Canon, Refuge was reported by the USSR to be uninhabitable, but turned out it was very habitable, and the Soviets had established a colony there. In my variant, the USSR reported it was uninhabitable, and established a naval repair/forward logistics port, with the hope of establishing a naval infantry presence akin to a USMC Amphib Force.
Criminal labor was used to build the infrastructure to support such an endeavor, and it was restricted to criminal rather than political, for secureity purposes. Naturally, they did not fool intelligence services for long, but security procedures once installed gain a life of their own.
Inspired by Jackalope, I'm envisioning the gulag culture there being based on the earlier 'theives nation' that the NKVD destroyed, which was the direct predacessor of the vory. It was every bit as brutal, but more geared towards power than the 'non-labor' aspect.
When the USSR collapsed, it cut its colonies loose, and sold off peicemeal its (FTL) navy. The Refuge nation (VZM) aquired a significant number of the vessels, which had been parked in orbit in a semi-mothballed state (the actual state of the RL Soviet Navy at the end).
The VZM drew in a large number of gulag alumni & prospects from Russia in the chaotic early days, along with the technical base needed. They had strong connections with ex-Soviet Navy personnel from the days of building and maintaining the forward logistics base.
The organization of the VZM is based on a mix of the vory and several nation-wide American prison gangs: a very structured, control-based hirarchy which places great emphasis on loyalty and proven personal accomplishment. It is a male-controlled organization, where women are chattel suitable only for entertainment and breeding. Children are raised in central facilities designed to instill the proper attitudes and values. The society has five parts: the 'citizens', the gulag alumni and now the emerging new generation of their offspring; the techincal base, people recruited for their skills, who are awarded lucerative compensation but only secondary citizen status; women, who are as noted; children; and slave labor.
The VZM quickly became involved in narcotics and especially the white slave trade (to offset their shortages of women, and to pick up techincal skills they could not recruit).
When the crisis comes, they will openly raid Earth for things they need, although avoiding the areas of nations which maintain FTL fleets.
The PCs will encounter them because while they mount no major raids into the USA (the USN seizes any FTL craft they can get to faciliate evacuation, and the USA has always viewed the VZM as an outlaw state), the lure of trying to snatch a female model, actress, or TV personality as one's chattel will be too much temptation for some VZM raid leaders.
There is also a great deal of resentment towwards the USA, as USN task forces routinely violated VZM space and performed illegal stops & searches of VZM FTL craft in the years before the crisis. Undoubtedly a PC family member will get caught up in a VZM chattel round-up.
Pure awesome, OTS! :D
-clash
That's very cool stuff Soldier. I'm glad I could help, and it looks like you did a lot more research. I'm interested in this "thief nations" stuff.