Discovery Gaming Community

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.)

-The current situation within Kusari
-Kusari as seen from abroad.
-The Future of Kusari


In this thread, we address: The current situation within Kusari.

The so called "Republic of Kusari" has more supporters of the old regime inside than outside, still has an almost intact pre-coup status quo in effect, with the only differences being small changes in the narratives of each faction ( Samura saying they want the emperor back, while keeping power. BD still outlawed and fighting the government, even if there is no Emperor in power. Hogosha still holding the reins of quasi-lawful activity, even though there were many changes in ether politics and presence of outsiders.).

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I ask the community to present their opinions and suggestions as to why is Kusari is in the current situation, and how it came to it. If you have any links to old threads regarding any of the events of the past, please post them here so they can be examined by everyone participating.
Discussion regarding the relations with other houses can be taken to the Kusari as seen from abroad. Discussion as to how this will affect events yet to occur, are to be directed to the Future of Kusari topic.

Part of the problem with Kusari is the vanilla lore, the disco lore and player perceptions tend to have little in common.
So much has changed to make Kusari more playable for some faction, because vets set certain stereotypes that became ingrained, or Devs implementing changes without a proper understanding of how those changes affect other pressure points throughout Kusari and it's factions.

Another problem is the Kusari factions themselves trying to understand and play changes that have been made while trying to project the secondary effects from those changes and either over or under compensating for them.
There is also the time honored problems of too many players concentrating on aspects of RP that are not meant to be that largely played out (the Gaijin thing for instance).

When it comes to the latest change with the republic, part of the problem was that it was a small change that affected so much throughout Kusari.
This was presented with minimal word and background while implying large expectations.
The change was primarily driven by one person who was making the changes "without the best intentions" hence only the end result was addressed and not how it truly fit in with Kusari as a whole.
This has left each player and faction to try and address these issues in which ever way they can.
Some have lost all purpose, some don't think it fits their faction's description at all and some adapt in ways others might not agree with.

I shall just speak for Samura now.
Samura went through some great changes where we have lost most of what our faction stood for over the last several updates, we have tried to adapt as we think it might play out.
As a Vanilla based faction we had certain inbuilt strengths and weaknesses built into our over all story, now that a great deal of those strengths are dissolving would it not make sense that most of our weaknesses would as well while we adapt to the new environment we find our selves in?

Now we are getting into the realms of a whole new faction that may only end up sharing a name with our original faction.
We have to determine how much we change our selves to adapt to the changes made against us, and it is a difficult road to walk down.

When faced with the loss of power there is another issue to address.
Kishiro has not been taking advantage of their position with the new lore, does this limit us further in making sure we stay quiet?
We have made an effort to be seen as somewhat anti-new government and staying out of decision making positions but then that is just another faction lacking from giving Kusari any kind of drive.
Someone needs to talk for Kusari and so far the only ones doing so are from Samura or the KNF, both of these factions have made efforts to think from a Kishiro standpoint, which again will not be the same as an active Kishiro leadership would provide.

Kusari is currently set up mostly according to the desires of one person who had a lot of OoRP intentions for Kusari and then rage quit when he did not get absolute control over how everyone played there.
Don't get me wrong he was a nice if somewhat hard to get along with person, but the intentions still stand for themselves.

So we are in the situation where every faction has tried, and new factions will continue to do so.
I am sure I can speak for every Kusari faction when I say, we are open to ideas.
We wish to have fun with the other players, and them having fun with us certainly helps that happen.

Maybe the election platform can help this happen as it may give Kusari a new face.

I love how the actual political faction, who is close to win, is pro-Imperial. Surprise, coup d'etat KNF. I wonder how that would impact KNF and coup now, Kempeitai killing politicians, because their POV is unlike the one KNF wanted?

Political assassinations would be a good RP in fact for Kempeitai and reason for inner Kusari problems. I don't think all Kusari people are happy without Emperor.

The lore of Kusari has fallen into a hole and it will be hard to get it out of there without some big changes.
The coup and the current political situation have removed many of the interesting aspects of the house. It's been especially bad for the chrysanthemums and the blood dragons as their main antagonist and motivating force has been replaced by your friendly neighbourhood republic.
And the current republic seems to be .. well.. boring in comparison to the imperial Kusari. The house has lost its identity from the vanilla game.

At the same time, Kusari is completely removed from any political struggles in Sirius. It's not really important for any of the other houses and not even Gallia seems to know what to do with it.
It's very much a forgotten house in my opinion.

Then there is also the issue of the exiles who are in limbo for quite some time now. It seems like everybody who has tried to make that faction active has failed so far and it would be high time to think about their place in Kusari. They were supposed to play a big part in the storyline of the mod, but now they have also been forgotten.

In essence, the storyline of Kusari is a mess and nobody really knows what to do with it. Most probably don't care either.
I fear that any change that could be coming now might already be too late.

Nonetheless if there are some people that care it should always be possible to make Kusari a more interesting place. And the first step for that is to fix the lore and to give it a proper storyline. Give Kusari the sense of purpose and identity it currently lacks.