Why are factions restricted due to race?

[Mouthful of Pi]

Okay, so I've been delving into the background material pretty thoroughly, and there's this thing that bugs me: Why are factions restricted based on race? Why can't a Freespacer join the Star Army of Yamatai? Why can't a Nekovalkyria be built in the United Outer Colonies and assist in their peacekeeping efforts? Wouldn't it be possible for a Yamataian to immigrate to and Neplesia have kids there, and then the kids decide it'd be a good idea to join their new homeland's military? I mean, if a Freespacer has the skills, and the Yamataians have the fight, it's a win-win, so why not?

 

[Jimmy]

Seeing as there's no one else on at the moment, I'll take this one.

Different factions have different laws about immirgration, and even emirgration, so it'd difficult to pin point exactly what question you have, but I'll just try to answer your examples, and then fill you in.


Why can't a Freespacer join the Star Army of Yamadai?

Yamataian society can be rather xenophobic, for Freespacers in particular the SAOY launched a near-genocidal campaign on the 'spacers. So the real question is what would a Freespacer want to be doing near Yamatai?

Why can't a Nekovalkyria be built in the United Outer Colonies and assist in their peacekeeping efforts?

Nekovalkrja bodies are pretty much weapons in their own right, and are treated as such in foriegn affairs. Any Valkrja outside Yamatai's borders without permission is subject to a Kill-On-Sight order.

Wouldn't it be possible for a Yamataian to immigrate to and Nepleslia have kids there, and then the kids decide it'd be a good idea to join their new homeland's military?

Yamtaian's rarely immirgrate to Nepleslia, usually it's the other way around for a variety of reasons, quality of living and what not. Currently there are no laws in place preventing children born by immirgrants to join the military, although nations like Yamatai sometimes frown on taking species other than their own (including other humans) from joining th military, and I have yet to hear about any other races forming ghettos there.



I'll leave a few brief notes for you to go through if you feel like going through them, they may help clear the situation better.

Nepleslia: Pretty much the stew pot of the universe, you can expect to find any type of species here if you look close enough. It's a rough place, so there's usually a bit of emigration to other factions (YSE and UOC). I believe there is at least one Freespacer, and possibly a kohanian (don't quote me on that) in their military plots at the moment.

Yamatai: Based loosely on Japanese culture, which is notorious for xenophobia, the Yamataians tend to take an odd view of anyone not an android like themselves, until recently there was actually a law preventing any non-Yamataians/Nekovalkrja from joining the military. You might find the odd Nepleslian trying to fit in as best they can, but it much rarer. Also note that any Valkrja outside Yamatai's borders without permission is subject to a Kill On Sight order.

UOC: A splinter state from Yamatai, things have been pretty quiet here, the faction managers are both in the navy and are extremely busy. I believe they're more open with inter-species diversity, however they have a few somewhat more rogue elements to them (The Lorath Matriarchy).

Independants: A hodge-podge of species, the variety is half the fun sometimes. This is where most Freespacers I've known tend to congregate. Favourite playgrounds include Nepleslian space and the now abandoned Freespacer territories.

Smaller Factions: These are usually too small to have other species as minorities, although there are plans for some of the "outer-rim" species to open of their own foreign legions of sorts.

 

[Wes]

Freespacers: Overall, Freespacers are not fond of Yamatai due to the brief and very deadly invasion of their territory by Yamataian military forces. It is not impossible for a Freespacer to join the Star Army, but it is improbable. A Freespacer that joined the Star Army would probably have his/her consciousness transferred into a Nekovalkyrja or Yamataian body for technical and compatibility reasons including the Neko's hover abilities and the Freespacer body's radioactivity issues.

Nekos: The United Outer Colonies agreed to return all military equipment to Yamatai when it broke off from the Yamataian Empire. This included Nekovalkyrja bodies. Nepleslia has a treaty forbidding Nekovalkyrja in its territory except for Yamataian military nekos on temporary, official government business. Most models of Nekovalkyrja body are subject to return when a soldier leaves the military and joining the military is the only way to get one in most cases.

There are a handful of exceptions I can think of: Tweak Three Seven is a Nekovalkyrja NH-7 that was raised as a Freespacer and serves Nepleslia. There is also at least one Yamataian in the Nepleslian military (They're not restricted like Nekos).

 

[Scot]

To my understanding, Nepleslians have probably any race that has contact within SARP universe except those designated as weapons (Nekos for instance) or have not made contact yet (Iroma) and is more America inspired in that way. Cirrus Station specifically was probably the most diverse plot and could been considered borderline Independent (Weapons development for the Gov't I think).

Yamatai is a bit of a pickle because it seems only its own poeple can be in the military, even worse independent plots suffer since mercenaries and non-merchants in general are pushed out by the government on the "Star Army is the Our Only Army" kind of thing going on (Considering they can build an army in short order, I could see how it works). There are other possibilities however it's more up to players and their character reviewers to make precedents, and I think most follow these trends for sake of quickness (It's a tough sell to play an Neko outside of Yamatai vs in Yamatai for example).

There is also Origin, which is a company based within Yamatai that has a good amount of diversity player wise. If the company is successful IC then it could draw people in for jobs.

Abwehran always had a policy about immigration, no one really took notice of it for some reason.

 

[Fred]

I think people forget that the Yamatai Star Empire was an expanding entity which made contact with other cultures and joined them to their own Empire. The Kodians and the Phodians are two such examples. The Lorath were incepted to be a playable YSE race too, only their first contact went disastrously bad and having them on Star Army ships as viable crewmen went down the drain.

Elysian and Nepleslian characters were also once more common on Star Army ships. There even once was a Kohanian.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

One of the Minor Powers of the Universe, the Abwehran Star Empire, has recently started to allow non-Abwehrans into it's military as a method gaining citizenship.

 

[Mouthful of Pi]

So when a military lists a race it's made up of, it's really more a guideline than a hard rule? And it'd be perfectly acceptable to, say, have a freespacer join the UOC as long as the player in question gives a good reason for it?

 

[Wes]

Right.

 

[MoonMan]

So when a military lists a race it's made up of, it's really more a guideline than a hard rule? And it'd be perfectly acceptable to, say, have a freespacer join the UOC as long as the player in question gives a good reason for it?

This is very correct. Most GMs are not so written-in-stone about the Character Creation Guidelines, because they are just guidelines.

Also, as a matter of clarification, Nepleslia allows citizenship to nearly any race, save for Nekovalkrja. Nepleslian train of thought on Nekos is that they are weapons of an oppressive (although increasingly less-so in the last couple years) Yamatai, and have no real reason to be on Nepleslian worlds other than malicious intent. It is illegal for them to be on Nepleslia, although there are small illegal Nekovalkrja slave trades happening.

The only Neko currently in a Nepleslian plot is MissingNo's Tweak, who was raised by Freespacers and is working on the Cirrus Station plotship. The only reason she hasn't been detained and shipped back to Yamatai in a pine box is because the Cirrus Station isn't full-blown military, and Tweak has been keeping her secret quite well thus far.

 

[MissingNo]

Not without help : )

Tweak is a very special case. Took a bit of OOC arranging to make that crossover and, even though the Nepleslian military brass know what and where she is, there are many crewmen and soldiers who would not be happy at all to work with her. Pine box, indeed.

However, there is at least one Yamataian on Cirrus that I know of. Basically, the neko and Freespacer restrictions are the most hard-and-fast rules as far as race/faction combos go, and if you happen to make a Freespacer who's a traitor I'm guessing you'd be able to get into the Yamataian Star-something. Might not be the army, and they likely won't trust that character worth the rubber on his or her boots, but you'd be in.