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Inspirations: Yamatai versus Nepleslia

Firebrand

Inactive Member
So, I've always had one really major thing that bothered me about Yamatai and Nepleslia, and I realize that the major reason for these things are "Because people who aren't here anymore", but it still bugs me something fierce.

Okay, so, Nepleslia is supposed to be inspired by America, and Yamatai by 1980's Anime. Okay, Okay, I get that. But why does it seem more like Nepleslia is more inspired by the Soviet Union than anything else, and why does Yamatai have the more professional and american-like military apparatus out of the two?

Hell, Nepleslia doesn't even have anything like the Training Administration. Say a new player is like "I want to try making a Marine or Sailor who Mustang's their way to Officer." There's nothing on the Wiki about that for Nepland, but if you're in Yamatai that path is write there for you to take provided you talk to your GM about that.

Speaking of GMs, by the way, I thought that to be the FM for a faction you had to run plots for it? Though I think I should leave my questions about all of these abandoned factions for another thread.
 

Because the site elements evolve, and you are seeing things in a subjective manner yet are attempting to state it as objective fact. Both factions borrow elements, but they are selectively chosen for an overall larger picture.


Because things are done differently in the SMDIoN.
 
Well, for Yamatai, we learn as we go. When a player says, "I've got this scenario in the Star Army, how should that work?" we come up with an answer and then that answer becomes integrated into our wiki pages, so the next person that comes along with a similar scenario can find the answers they needed. And Yamatai has had more plots, GMs, and players than any other Star Army faction, so we've used this self-improvement process more often than anyone else. The Star Army's perceived "American-ness" is probably due to me being the primary creator and I'm an American Army veteran so my view of what a military is like, or should ideally be like, has an influence.

Also, Nepleslia wasn't inspired by America, it was inspired by playing with G.I. Joes as a kid. I actually talk about this in one of the recent shoutbox discussions. Look for the pictures of toys in the chat log thread. Let's also not forget that Nepleslia was once a major part of Yamatai.

Because things are done differently in the SMDIoN.
How?
 
Why does it matter what inspired each faction? Just because each was inspired by a certain thing doesn't mean they have to turn out a certain way. If Nepleslia turns out to be something quite different from what Wes originally envisioned it could be said that's a good thing because it showed Wes didn't try to force his vision on a faction he chose to allow to be run by someone else.

The reason Nepleslia doesn't seem as great as Yamatai is because it has way less people making articles and plots for it. Yamatai is the default faction when first joining SARP to a large degree as a result and if more people keep joining Yamataian plots over Nepleslian ones Nepleslia is going to continue to have less content created for it. Another reason is the theme that Nepleslia isn't perfect and doesn't always use futuristic high tech solutions like aether or mind transfers or making clone soldiers to the degree Yamatai does. People like the idea of having big, heavily armored power armor with solid ammunition instead of super maneuverable armor with great shields and energy weapons. People also don't like the idea that Yamatai has no reason to ever have food or resource shortages unless its FM says so because they have aether and can create whatever they want to a large degree and they also don't like having a society with security like PANTHEON that can monitor everything which makes it harder for corruption and gangs to exist and do well and restricts roleplay. People like the idea of a government controlled by humans instead of computers or synthetic computer/robot/cyborg people. They like their faction having flaws that can be readily be seen because those flaws are seen as strengths providing roleplay opportunities and flavor.

Look at the Nepleslian economy versus the Yamataian. The Nepleslian one is way more American to me. Nepleslia has much laxer restrictions on businesses and people have made jokes about a plot in which Nepleslians would discover the last tree on a planet and cut it down because the government has allowed so much of the environment to be paved over. Look at Yamatai's Yamatai homeworld. It has plenty of greenery. Nepleslia is supposed to have poor and destitute people because it is a positive for roleplay as being poor is an incentive to join a gang and allows you to have rags to riches stories and stories of struggle. Yamatai is a socialist massive government paradise where no one starves and no one has to work if they don't want to and everyone is under the eye of the government. Nepleslia is obviously very capitalistic.

Nepleslians can't expect super police with super awareness and super response times to always appear to help them because their faction doesn't have the same level of surveillance and authorities can be bribed which gives its people a reason to love guns and be individualistic as pleading for the government to save them is only going to go so far. A lot of people see America as exalting individualism and the entrepreneurial spirit. In Nepleslia if you can't rely on yourself who can you rely on? You have to take matters into your own hands. Crime is a big part of Nepleslia and it's about as entrepreneurial as you can get.

Another example of the differences between Nepleslia and Yamatai is when I tried to submit a company that would serve its customers food that could kill them Wes said he didn't think Yamatai would allow such a thing to be done even though I said customers would be informed and signed waivers to eat such dangerous food. Kampfer had no problem with that.

I wrote that customers would be allowed and encouraged to act conventionally inappropriately towards the staff by hitting on them/catcalling whatever and Wes said he didn't see a business in Yamatai being allowed to have sexual harassment meanwhile Kampfer laughed and said it was fine.

I think you are clearly freer in Nepleslia for better or worse.
 
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Because there is effectively no OCS-type school in the SMDIoN. Promotions to all levels are based on merit displayed appropriate to each level.

Thus, literally all officers are "mustangs" that learn the ropes from actual experience in their own specialization.

OOCly, if a player decides to create a PC that is an advanced rank, it usually involves consultation with the GMs of the plots the player is interested in, balanced out with the approval of the FM. This is highly rare, because our plots focus on the enlisted ranks rather the glorification of singular high ranking officers.

So OOCly, we choose to focus on the normal grunt getting the job done. This reflects an IC value; the SMDIoN knows that the backbone of the DIoN is always the individual with a weapon who is able and ready to do violence to protect the Imperium's interests.
 
Just chiming in on the officer traning thing, a few years ago Koku and I wrote up NSS Charter way back when he was FM for Nepleslia. Sort of a crashed spaceship/university town for naval officers. As for the actual policy on officer recruitment, I don't really have a say and left that for others to sort out as officers seem to always be GM positions in Nep plots.

You can read about it here if you care: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=nepleslia:nss_charter
 
Reactions: Wes
I know that the whole "ONLY MUSTANGS GET TO BE OFFICERS, NO MORE HOIGHTY TOIGHTY MILITARY ACADEMIES" is a popular thing thanks to Bob Anson's ode to unrestricted nuclear testing, but is it really that smart of an idea for an actual military.

I mean, let's look at it. Yes we should allow talented and experienced enlisted soldiers who have the talent for it to go through some form of OCS( Which, I might add, Nepleslia actually lacks), but we also need talented and experienced enlisted soldiers to serve as NCOs. And then there's the fact that if your only new officers are mustangs, you're missing out on the youthful and college educated crop of young officers you get from an academy such as West Point or Annapolis. Not only would such a college teach and prepare newly comissioned officers the basics of leadership and how to be a proper officer, such a facility would also have the added benefit of teach other military related sciences to these cadets and thereby making them more well rounded individuals who bring a different viewpoint to the table than just Mustangs.
 
You completely missed the point why we do not push for an OCS or military academy at a national level. While there might be private schools that wealthier members of the DIoN go to to prepare them better and give them a better shot of promotion, the SMDIoN policy is to promote within the enlisted ranks.

Let me be clear: this policy will not change, and the highly improbable discussion regarding if we want to change it will solely be between myself, Lamb as co-FM and our GMs based on player's opinions.

Your entire opening statement appears to be based off of "Why doesn't Nepleslia do things like Yamatai?" I will again reiterate my point, that will serve as a general answer: We are not Yamatai, we do things differently.
 

You are distinctly overvaluing the contribution most officers make to their unit. Imagine life in a military unit as a set of tasks that need to get done in a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Paint needs to be chipped from bulkheads. Maintenance needs to be completed (and signed off on). Equipment must be validated and inventoried. Parts have to be ordered. Unit paperwork must be completed, sometimes in duplicate, usually in triplicate. Training must be conducted. And occasionally, sometimes, a bad man threatening the country you serve has to be shot.

Military sciences, war theory, gentlemanly conduct and the smattering of collegiate-level education that an officer's academy provides does nothing to accomplish these tasks in a unit. It doesn't even come close to preparing the junior level officer for the stark, harsh reality that he is not special, that his academy ring means literally nothing, and that he has almost no power or knowledge and tons of responsibility for making sure everything I listed above (and lots, lots more) actually gets achieved.

Different viewpoints mean nothing. In the military lens, the only viewpoint you need to have and have the energy to maintain is that of accomplishment of the mission. Anything else is not doing your job. You may cite mavericks that ultimately turned out to be right in their opposing viewpoint as examples to prove me wrong, such as Billy Mitchell, or outstanding officers that came from such academies, such as General Patton, but these men are outstanding exceptions to the rule, rather than the norm, and what makes their unique contributions valuable do not need to be replicated constantly in the average unit of rock washing, parking lot vacuuming garrisoned servicemen.

As for mustangs, mustangs know the enlisted side. Mustangs are intimately familiar with the way a typical unit works, and what it requires to succeed. A junior officer is not going to know things that make life for a unit easier - like when to give his personnel liberty over a holiday period while still maintaining a rotation of people to ensure work continues to be done, or just which supply depot chief to needle (because hey, remember chief, when we were both dumb privates and I saved your hide that time? Yea, I need a favor...) in order to get an essential part that is required for the unit. Mustangs bring invaluable tactical knowledge and working experience to bear when put in leadership positions that academy officers can simply not demonstrate. Strategic level leadership can be learned on the fly. It is the day-to-day running of a unit that is the truely valuable, practically irreplaceable knowledge that gives the unit with a mustang the advantage over a unit without.

In a unit, it is the junior officers without prior experience that can be lost with the least loss of capability. In the staggering majority of cases, they can be replaced with Senior NCO's, who in real life, typically have to babysit and mentor the junior officers assigned to their unit anyways. Nepleslia has made the decision that they want their officers to support their enlisted men, not the other way around, and in this, I feel they are ultimately correct, or if not correct, than at least on the right track.
 
Spot on bob.

Yeah but the only reason I'm decidedly commenting is because I fail to see the similarity in the analogy posed comparing Nepleslia to the soviet union. How does it seem like it is more like the USSR than anything else? Is your parallel supposed to be purely in regards to the military structure or something? Because culturally I just don't see where you were going with that one Kirk.

Even if we are to purely reference the organization of their military I don't see the relevant comparison honestly, I mean really at the end of the day a guy who is going to do the job right is more or less elected into his position by a trial of fire, those kind of men aren't fighting for vain notions of freedom and weightless words like that. Mustangs are fighting for the guy standing right next to them, and the man after him. He's the guy you're going to follow because you respect him and he knows how to kick some ass; not because the dude came fresh out of some up tight academy that spits more over confident youthful exuberance than worthy officers.

I want the guy who knows what to DO when you're in the situation not the guy who learned the theory with a pencil between his fingers and a stick up his ass.
 
Keep in mind too, Kirk, that for most of Nepleslia's independent existence, they've not had veterans at the top ranks. They now have two: Bob and Lamb are former USN. They apply their knowledge accordingly, as you see above.
 
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Keep in mind too, Kirk, that for most of Nepleslia's independent existence, they've not had veterans at the top ranks. They now have two: Bob and Lamb are former USN. They apply their knowledge accordingly, as you see above.
And I'm legit cool with that. This is just me being Aristotlean and asking questions to further my knowledge about stuff that isn't on the wiki.
 
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