For a long time that I've been seeing this forums and immersing myself in the roleplay and lore involving Kusari and it's politics, there were a few things the didn't click well with the stated narrative. Many of these stem from the badly detailed "Republican Coup" many years ago inrp time, and how and why it came to be, and under what conditions.
From that point on, several subjects regarding internal and external politics have become blurry, and I believe that there are two main reasons for it:
One, the "new reality" after the coup did not received the appropriate supporting history and documentation for players to rely on, leaving the community to depend on scant information from which to elaborate their new paths, or still rely on the old cannon, which causes many conflicting views on what is "Kusari" today. This affects internal factions of Kusari, who some lost their role, others lost focus of their objectives, or on the opposite, achieved so much that now don't have nowhere to move forward. It also affects the relation of Kusari with the outside world, as neither Kusarians or foreigners have clear views on how to proceed, relying only on their natural roles (which might try to ignore change).
Two, due to the previous reason, and due to the natural cycling of the playerbase that evolves naturally along the years, there came a crysis on the established storylines on which the new players would support themselves to grow. This not only affects new groups, who focus on the stale "restore the emperor" plotline that would bring the old cannon back, but also affects prospects for the factions on creating new objectives for themselves, as much of the post revolution plotlines are dry of initiative.
--------------------
Moving along from the mentioned issues, I would like to open the discussion on the following 3 points, which are to be discussed in several threads:
(Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for any bias that might has passed into the description of each topic, as I have wrote it all in one go, and will take some time to review it all over.)
In this thread, we address: The Kusari as seen from abroad.
The ideas that Kusari has been "subjugated", made a "puppet state" of Gallia, yet the only ones concerned about this view are... Bretonia or Liberty?
Gallia, with all his military might and expansive territory has shown little political influence in Kusari decisions in a long time, probably due to the aforementioned lack of story about the scenario of the republican coup and the subsequent "conditional surrendering" of Kusari to Gallia.
In the same way, relations with Bretonia, which were bad due to several factors, were easily amended with a trade treaty. Even with several factor possibly working against it, the corporate communities from each house easily persuaded the governments to make and sign the agreement, with no political fallout from either Gallia or Kusari Exiles relations.
In regards to Liberty, influences from Gallia seem small on each of the houses decisions, and most of the tensions originated from "border incursions", which were answered independently by either Liberty or Kusari.
Other than that, Kusari has achieved this neutral heaven status, where ships from all Houses pass and trade without worry from enemy strikes, as the Kusari Government, while still a "puppet", regards every foreigner with the same impartiality, and tolerates no harassment or disrespect to it's own laws.
-----------------
I ask the community to present their opinions and suggestions as to how have the image of Kusari been created on Sirius after the coup, and how Kusari views of the outside world have changed as well.
As for Rheinland, they view Kusari as a new ally to grow and assist.
Kusari fills the wonderful function of being both a buffer between a potential Gallic threat to the Rhine as well as a link for Gallic commerce and trade to flow into their house. Couple that with the geopolitical front formed by the alliance between Bretonia and Liberty, a new Kusari-Rheinlandic bloc now shifts the balance of power in Sirius a bit more for Rheinland then it was when Rheinland stood alone without any firm allies.
Rheinland is yet inwardly weary of their new ally; cautious about the possibility of a weak Kusari being swayed by an outside party and not standing by Rheinland if push comes to shove. Chief among these concerns is exactly how much of a "Gallic puppet" Kusari is. To assist in abating the possibility of outside influence (Outside influence that it not Rheinland's influence. The Rheinlandic sort of outside influence is fine ) Rheinland has, for some time, been building Kusari Naval Forces capital ships at Oder Shipyard in an effort to rebuild and strengthen the KNF's position within their house.
The hope is, with a strong and rebuilt Kusari, Rheinland and Kusari can form a political bloc that can withstand a majority of outside influence and that the two houses may work together for their own benefit.
Rheinland has no idea that a civil war is brewing inside of Kusari. What happens when that conflict comes to a head will be Rheinland struggling to come out of the conflict with their alliance and ally still intact. Rheinland wont have any strong reservations about being allied with either a monarchy or a republic, so long as they are allied with whoever wins.
Well, as one of the architects of the Bret-Kusari Trade Treaty, let me give you the Gateway approach:
Gateway is currently playing financial & geopolitical chess. They essentially gave up their privileged status as the sole Bretonian firm allowed to trade in Kusari in order to accomplish 2 main goals: 1) increased trade between Kusari & Bretonia strengthens both realms economically, which is important in giving Bretonia enough resources to fund the war against Gallia and helping Kusari rebuild its shattered navy in the hopes that it could pull itself out from under Gallic influence, and 2) creating greater opportunities for Gateway to "catch" Bowex convoys traveling in/out of Kusari.
I can only give my opinion being a (former)member of the nations involved in the Gallic War. Back when I was fronting the Diplomacy of The Colonial Republic, Kusari presented an opportunity - one, to mend fences that were broken a long time ago (caused by lolwut hogosha pirating IMG and Kusari sticking to their RP in defense of said lolwuts) - and the other, to try and build an economic web to support the dying state (that was CR at the time).
Truth being, I found Kusari's rp at the time to be frustrating and somewhat hard to deal with - as CR, overcoming past sins was the hardest part - but It really was surprising to encounter a Kusari government (both in and out of RP) that was rather happy to be subjugated by Gallia - even our attempts to make diplomacy with Samura (who had been ousted) was rebuffed.
In the end, it lends to the same issue - for us in CR, Kusari just became another lost cause. And while dealing with the unlawful factions could have been an RP option - two were no go's because of RP and past grievance (GC's because of Outcast Ties, and Hogosha because of old RP), one because of some reason I couldn't remember (Farmers, I think they shut down the idea of working together, because of Samura ties, can't even remember), leaving only one left, the Dragons, who were barely active at the time.
Anyway, for us, it was frustrating. But keep in mind, this was a long time ago, something like year and a half - things may have changed a lot since then.
Oh Dane, I can't speak for the Kusari government or any other faction, but Samura did not turn you down, we were being snobbish and a little hostile given our past and felt vulnerable at what the CR could disclose.
And I wanted a more slower turn of perceptions.
I admit I may have been a little too arrogant and hostile to get the point across though.
It seems to be a fault of mine that if I do not say yes strait away and get a little snooty, the talks can die.
Maybe I should work more on that but it is hard to try and play the arrogant, diet pepsi of evil, thinking I am better than everyone character when it is soo different to who I am.
It is fun though.
Well... I will describe it from my view as a player :
I am untainted by any earlier mods or accuaintances and can only speak about Kusari as a Disco area.
It is not realy empty, but there is little KUSARI in Kusari.
Somehow it sometimes seems to be a not-so thin border area between Outcasts, Taus , GMG and the Shikoku <> Coronado corridor.
And that is a pity.
I quite enjoyed the short sequences I got to forum RP with Samura ( My Freelancer Secretary still has more anger against Samura / Hogosha than even my Junker Foreman, much to my own amusement ) , and I was ready to celebrate as I managed to knit contacts with Kishiro. And then ... no response, no action... silent night in Kusari all again.
I must say I respect WPeregrine for the quality of RP and the fairness of Feedback I have seen from him, but he is but a single mortal. I have fun with Toris from KTA , too... ah, and there is more to Kusari ?
Even if I meet somebody to interact with up there, and my main trading route is the Shi<>Colo corridor, it´s mostely not a *native Kusarian*
Still : Kusari is one of the main areas in vanilla Freelancer, and it´s culture represents a big part of our earths populance and history all mixed together. I do not really understand why there is so little interaction here, so little interest. But I also do not understand the cap ship hype, or the avoidance of what some call *the grind* ...
I hesitate to be an active part in it, as I do not wish to constantly check and recheck myself for metagaming or interestmongering. But as I said : even if I have no interest in building something new up south, I am at the moment starting a new Character here : If somebody is interested in recruiting - or hunting - MariKiko , my new little rebellious chrysanthemum, pass me a message.
And I do hope that some leaders in Liberty otr Gallia would find the time, dedication and Interest to care so much about their area as the few active Kusarians show in their attempt to bring life to the old empire and it´s republican bast... err- offspring.
Tiinkers will continue to fly TO Kusari, not past or through Kusari,
and I am open for any suggestions for interesting RP.
Perhaps the problem is that Western people are not that interested into Kusari, as they are not that familiar as Gemans (Rheinland), British (Bretonia) or Americans (Liberty), or even Balkanians, Spaniards, Italians (Hispania). Even Poles or other people are usually more oriented in the Euro-American history, culture and pop-culture.
I think this is also somekind of a barrier, and "Japan is state of mind" thing. Sure, there are players who try to run Kusari, but so far, I saw only two dying Kusari Police factions [first was RKS, now it is KP...]. Kusari is just... kinda alien to them. It would as alien to me, if I wasn't interested into Japanese (and Chinese, but that's off the topic) culture and history of the period, having even more knowledge than typical historian from the primary school, secondary school or even the high school one.
(10-23-2014, 09:59 PM)Dane Summers Wrote: I can only give my opinion being a (former)member of the nations involved in the Gallic War. Back when I was fronting the Diplomacy of The Colonial Republic, Kusari presented an opportunity - one, to mend fences that were broken a long time ago (caused by lolwut hogosha pirating IMG and Kusari sticking to their RP in defense of said lolwuts) - and the other, to try and build an economic web to support the dying state (that was CR at the time).
Truth being, I found Kusari's rp at the time to be frustrating and somewhat hard to deal with - as CR, overcoming past sins was the hardest part - but It really was surprising to encounter a Kusari government (both in and out of RP) that was rather happy to be subjugated by Gallia - even our attempts to make diplomacy with Samura (who had been ousted) was rebuffed.
In the end, it lends to the same issue - for us in CR, Kusari just became another lost cause. And while dealing with the unlawful factions could have been an RP option - two were no go's because of RP and past grievance (GC's because of Outcast Ties, and Hogosha because of old RP), one because of some reason I couldn't remember (Farmers, I think they shut down the idea of working together, because of Samura ties, can't even remember), leaving only one left, the Dragons, who were barely active at the time.
Anyway, for us, it was frustrating. But keep in mind, this was a long time ago, something like year and a half - things may have changed a lot since then.
Oh hello Dane. You can't imagine how frustrating it was to deal with the CR lolwuts (not all of them) back then. But yeah. Beating a dead horse here i guess.
Thank you all for the views and opinions provided. Got a lot of pov, and even some new information regarding some aspects completely unknown to me (Cr case for example).
There seems to be a faint trend that I could read from within the writings of everyone, is that
1) there is some difficulty of exploring the secondary background lore of the house (non faction oriented cultural phenomenon, events that are not focused within a single faction circle). In short, lack of stories that involve Kusari as a whole, without having a faction/leader as the pivot.
2) Stories/plotlines are generated by few knowledgeable people in places of leadership within Kusari. The stories are competent, and interesting to those involved. However, if the leader/storyteller for any reason loses presence ingame, the whole story crumbles, and the factions involved fall silent.
Now, I'm not saying that this phenomenon are exclusive to Kusari, or that there aren't any other good leader-centric/faction centric plots going around.
However, it seems that Kusari, possibly due to lack of specific cultural knowledge, doesn't have the same occurrence of house-wide, or popular focused projects going on.
Could be because of the 2 antagonistic Corporations, could be that most factions have this "minding my own business" dogma attached to it.
I wouldn't say we should start suppressing that concept from now on, but perhaps future projects should take into consideration a wider range of interactions than just "my faction" and "my opponent faction".
I will take this thoughts into consideration on my works, as I have suffered the same fault. What do you think about this opinion?
(10-24-2014, 10:17 AM)Markus_Janus Wrote: Oh Dane, I can't speak for the Kusari government or any other faction, but Samura did not turn you down, we were being snobbish and a little hostile given our past and felt vulnerable at what the CR could disclose.
And I wanted a more slower turn of perceptions.
I admit I may have been a little too arrogant and hostile to get the point across though.
It seems to be a fault of mine that if I do not say yes strait away and get a little snooty, the talks can die.
Maybe I should work more on that but it is hard to try and play the arrogant, diet pepsi of evil, thinking I am better than everyone character when it is soo different to who I am.
It is fun though.
I think we should have probably worked out something of a game plan on Skype. My only regret is missing out on some interesting RP opportunities, and building some bridges with some factions in kusari - notably Farmers and Samura. However, it would probably have been restricted to covert trade and smuggling, considering we couldn't do anything hostile in kusari space.
Oh well, no worries.
(10-24-2014, 03:04 PM)xiphos Wrote: Oh hello Dane. You can't imagine how frustrating it was to deal with the CR lolwuts (not all of them) back then. But yeah. Beating a dead horse here i guess.
Depends on how far back your referring, since I'm a little out of touch having been gone so long. But I agree, dealing with lolwuts is hard on everyone.