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.
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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.)
Relying heavily on the two topics above, the planned future of Kusari is more of a mess than most houses. While in Bretonia and in Liberty there are one or two options for development, and it's mostly just a question of "when", in Kusari the Republican scenario opened too many possible outcomes for Kusari within and abroad.
Should the conceptual "civil war" (as in a real intra-house war, similar to the one the Council "should" be doing) occur or not? Is it a bilateral war, or a three way? Should it affect the major corporations (Samura and Kishiro), or will they be left intact and unharmed by ways of "magical plot armor"?
Will the emperor (or an emperor) return to power, civil war or not?
Will Kusari be forced to attack Gallia, or Liberty? What will be the reasons? Do they still care for the Gallia aggression war against Sirius, or will they fight for other reasons other then revenge for the previous loss (which the Republic doesn't recognize has it's own, in my opinion).
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I ask the community to present their opinions and suggestions as to what will be the future of Kusari and Kusari relations with others.
What do you think it's the best course of events for Kusari.
How would this and that faction relation with Kusari should evolve?
What are the prospects for Kusari in terms of warfare, economy, politics, development?
Please provide materials supporting your views, if possible.
About Kusari's future - if there is one, it most definitely won't be discussed on an open board. It'll be a combination of what regular devs feel appropriate, reduced by a factor of laziness or time constraints, suplemented by some hasty additions by unaligned, but motivated modders submitted with little initial hope of implementation, all that additionally affected by faction lobbying.
Actually, now that I think of it... It's how everything works.
I am against excessive balancing, and all for diversity.
Make Kusari a place for snub- , bomber - and perhaps Gunboat combat, and not through excessive remodeling of ships.
Write the law, define the ZoI , bann the other CAPS ... and let it be an eldorado of martial arts with small ships.
And if Kusari specializes in smaller caps in this process, or you feel like balancing it in another way ...
ceep an eye on some other things than techlevel balance.
Ceep an eye on RP Balance.
Not every player wants to shoot all the time,
not every player wants to powertrade all the time,
not every player wants to have BIG DEAL powers clashing all the time.
A civil war with only company and clan / mafia / headhunter involvement that is silenced by the major houses into nonexistance while powers manipulate and move slowly in murky waters would be an endorado for intrigue, small vessle combat and high quality RP.
It would let Hogosha and FA be interesting, would lead to revived blood dragon and Chrysanthemum activity, would let smuggling be a deadly dance with knives in the middle of a revolutionary conflict THAT IS OFFICIALLY NOT HAPPENING. Oh, I would love it.
As I wrote on the different, yet similiar topic (should we merge them?):
Toji-Haku Wrote:Perhaps the problem is that Western people are not that interested into Kusari, as they are not that familiar as Germans (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.
Thank you everyone for the input you provided.
I guess much of discussion right now is influenced by other discussions regarding inter-house wars, as well as other concepts of armed conflict within Kusari (some by this humble writer).
It is true that it could be said that KNF has recovered some strength in the peace years after the wars in the Tau systems. Considering that it "might" have lost little of its defense forces, and replenished a small fraction of the invasion fleet (pure speculation), you could say Kusari has the capability to launch small scale expeditionary forces without crippling it's defenses.
Now, small expeditionary forces wouldn't be enough to establish control on systems that are not linked to the borders, much less launch an invasion again on a 2 or 3 systems away house with a full defense fleet watching the borders.
Without expanding much on the possibilities of what might that imply, I must stress that a plan for the future of Kusari should not be centered exclusively on KNF actions, and should consider also the other big players of the house.
If the sigmas weren't so tightly controlled by the GMG, I would say some expeditions in some neutral sigma systems, were forward KNF elements could clash with BD on neutral ground (easier than forcing the BD to prowl the eastern Taus), a place where Kishiro and Samura could compete out of the oversight of the Ksuari government, and where GMG could become a participant too, either as an explorer or a competitor, without having to declare total war. Of course, being the sigmas, Outcasts and Corsairs would make a show too, and link up with their usual partners to keep Kusari State sovereignty out of this new sigmas.
This is an idea that just sprang up.
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Regarding the Exiles (as they are Kusari too), barring the concept of a full blown civil war, I wished them to become a well established western Kusari/Taus political and criminal movement. Increase their presence inside Kyushu (an outpost maybe), decrease a little of the KNF strength in the system, and add some extra touch to their background.
Their political goal of returning the emperor (or a certain lineage if a new one is enthroned) is commendable, but their attitude reeks of Blood Dragon rhetoric of "righteous government".
They should gain some extra flavor beyond the "former imperial navy samurai". I would like to hear your suggestions regarding this.
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Regarding the Keiretsu, there could be some changes too. Their bilateral antagonism is still good, even though it currently it has degenerated into just ignoring each other, since each of them have their own pet projects to develop in safety, far away from each other.
Corporate warfare inside Kusari, with the current laws/rules, would be heavily penalized, and it's not considered a viable option for any of the two. Even the proxies they had (GC ?, and Hogosha) have a tendency to build their own goals, and make little disturbances on the balance between the corporations.
Maybe some good ideas for the corporations would be the turf war in the "unexplored sigmas" I mentioned above. Another idea would be an economic warfare regarding some new industries/companies in a reformed Oita, which starts as neutral ground for both factions, and they compete between them and against foreigners for the economic control of the system (by building the instalations, buying out companies there *cough* Renzu *cough*, and trying to dominate new commodity markets.
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Those are some rough ideas for now. Still want to hear more about what you guys think about probable futures for Kusari, its inhabitants, and its neighbors.