OT A question regarding a culture I'm working on

[Starhawk]

Will has a point. If they can reconcile two official religions within their society (I would be very interested to find out if there are power struggles/ conflicts/ tensions/ resentments between the two religious sects. It seems likely) then there is a basis for reconciling outside religions too. Those religions, though, would have to have strong overlaps with the official religions- they may even have to overlap on *specific* issues, ie the core ones that overlap between the state religions.

The "state" religion is The Path, the Neo Budhism is only practiced by a tiny percentage of the Icaran population, all of whom are descended from Asian populations. It is tolerated because it believes in "Heaven" and "purification" of the soul to reach "enlightenment". Key features that allow it to be accepted if not widely practiced in Icara.

If an outside religion can be somehow reconciled with core (and the Icarans would probably make deliberate attempts to modify a 'conquered' religion to this end - it certainly wouldn't be the first time in human history) then that religion can be absorbed and accepted. If it's tenets are too far from the 'core' to be reconciled (ie atheism, perhaps polytheist systems, any system which rejects religious involvement in politics) then it will have to be eradicated- even if this belief system has significant overlaps with the "bolt-on" parts of Icaran religion. Obviously, any belief whose supporters are too resistant to change to accept the 'modifications' the Icarans demand could expect similar treatment.

In my stories here Icarans ended up actually reconciling Jews into the Empire because Icaran Theologists could actually reconcile a handful of points that barely allowed them to be accepted by law as a legal religion.
Likewise however when the Icarans met Hindu's it was not a nice encounter because Icarans were outraged by the polytheistic nature of Hinduism as well as the fact that many Hindu's the Empire tried to convert merely assimilated parts of the Path AND Neo-budhism into their faith.

Just out of interest, has Icaran-buddhism retained the "do no harm to any living thing" principle that is central to buddhism? That could make things... complicated. How would the Icarans deal with an 'old-school' buddhist, Ghandi-style non-violent protest?

Yes the Neo-Budhists are actually forbidden to do any harm to any living thing, thus they never serve in the Forces, or Federal Security, they are also exempt from any jobs that involve the production and or upkeep of weapons or ships of war. They are sort of seen as naive by the Pathists who see the passive nature of Neo-Budhists as a weakness that invites death if it weren't for the protection of the Pathists.

Well their reaction to rebellion and "demonstrations" is rather in proportion to what is going on usually, so for an example if you have a group of monks leading a silent peaceful protest FedSec forces would simply walk in and arrest everyone as peacefully as possible. (it is a crime to protest the government in Icara and is punishable with anything from public flogging to death depending on what the situation was)

If however you had an Icaran army in say modern Iraq the place would be a mess as Icarans wouldn't mind blowing places of worship, graveyards or even TOWNS to hell if they continued seeing terrorist activity from said location. They also would have no problems crossing borders to track down and destroy terrorist cells regardless of political constraints.
They also would show no mercy to anyone willing to hide a terrorist cell and would pretty well destroy them.

Icarans justify this kind of behavior (as well as kidnapping the children and keeping them within heavily guarded schools) as securing the place for future generations to live in peace and be effective Icaran citizens.

Generally if a population that is conquered is peaceful the Icarans just take the children to schools and allow their parents to live out their lives without the Sustain process (the children are given Sustain) and if the world already HAS sustain type treatments then the adults are permitted only two children and are then steralized and their children taken to schools and then to seperate Icaran controlled cities.
Effectively creating two "worlds" in one.

But for the most part Icarans try and assimilate a society into the Empire and turn them into equal and effective Citizens.
And there are a LOT of perks to being an Imperial citizen, 100% sure you'll never be unemployed, universal medical care for all legal citizens, 100% equality with any citizen under the eyes of the law, assured of a place within the community and a sense of community.

[dogscoff]

Interesting stuff. however the more you reveal about them, the more I find your Icarans strangely inconsistent.

You say they are quite happy to kill entire communities as "collateral damage" just to wipe out a small minority of hidden enemies.

This proves that they place absolutely no intrinsic value on human life (despite their preachings about the human body as "work's [sic] of art to glorify their creator").

Also, they obviously aren't scared of stirring up dissent on a massive scale- this policy of forced sterilisation and tearing families apart would generate whole armies of highly-motivated, nothing-to-lose underground fighters/ terrorists/ insurgents that would make the PLO or IRA look like the cast of a primary school nativity play.

So if they don't see life as special, they don't care about pissing people off and nobody has a right to anything except free healthcare; why, when confronted by a peacful (but illegal) demonstration by a bunch of buddhists, would they risk their safety and waste their time and resources in an effort to "arrest everyone as peacefully as possible"? Especially when they are only they are going to flog or execute these guys later on anyway. Why not just shoot them all on the spot?

The glimpses we've seen of the Icaran criminal justice system seems focussed entirely on aversion by means of brutal punishment rather than any kind of rehabilitation. With the department of employment already struggling to find streets to sweep and dishes to wash in order to fill their "full employment" policy (presumably the government is actively repressing labour-saving technology that could do these jobs automatically) there seems little benefit to using criminals as slave labour. Bearing these points in mind, what's the point in keeping someone alive once they've been branded a criminal? It'd be cheaper and easier to just shoot the perpetrators dead in the street where an immediate and shocking example can be made of them to any onlookers.

Also, they go to extreme lengths to enforce conformity: Again, I quote the policies on kidnapping children and forced sterilisation, but to be honest the entire system seems bent on churning out an endless stream of factory-moulded citizens designed to do as they're told and not under any circumstances to think for themselves. With this in mind, why would Icaran society bother 'protecting' a sect they see as weak and naive, and who refuse to take on their share of the of the Empire's military risks and responsibilities? It would be interesting to know exactly how the special allowances in Icaran law that allow the buddhists to avoid the military were won in the first place (because they sure as hell wouldn't have gotten very far trying to win rights via peacful protest=-) and just how they manage to keep those special-case rights from being revoked. What happens to a Pathist who is afraid of going to war and tries to dodge the draft by changing his religion?

Given that military service "is considered one of the highest callings in the Empire and every Icaran shows respect to a soldier in uniform", surely those who reject such a calling on some "weak and naive" principle of pacifism would be considered a coward and held in contempt. I can easily imagine gangs of gung-ho teenage pathists sneaking into the buddhist slums at night, finding buddhists and beating them to death. The local police would of course turn a blind eye- After all, service in the police force would be as abhorrent to the buddhists as the military, given the violent excesses of the state, so the police would not look favourably on those who consider law enforcement below them.

[Starhawk]

Well let's address your points Dogscoff

You say they are quite happy to kill entire communities as "collateral damage" just to wipe out a small minority of hidden enemies

Note I said destroy TOWNS not necessarily the people living therein. Basically it depends largely on the extent of which the townsfolk are supporting the rebellious elements. If your entire community is a threat to Icara then it is neutralized.

For example Falujah Iraq (sp?) we KNOW that a whole hell of a lot of the population supports the local terrorists but we don't want to blow up the Mosque where the weapons and terrorists are hiding, we dont want to destroy the sacred places that they are using.
Icarans would have no problem dropping a MOAB on such a target and wouldnt' feel at all bad about it later.

Likewise if the entire town is hiding/supporting the terrorist elements Icarans wouldn't hesitate to open fire on an armed party of attackers regardless of the damage done to the town hiding it. If they kill a lot of innocent people it sucks but they wouldn't let it get in the way of their soldier's survival.

Basically to clear that bit up for you Icara's view is "while all human life is a work of God's art Icaran life is just a little bit more important." so in their mind it's not strange at all.

Also, they obviously aren't scared of stirring up dissent on a massive scale- this policy of forced sterilisation and tearing families apart would generate whole armies of highly-motivated, nothing-to-lose underground fighters/ terrorists/ insurgents that would make the PLO or IRA look like the cast of a primary school nativity play.

Well yeah except for that the parents would have to attack the very schools where their children are staying in order to even remotely "free" them and while it sounds strange to us the Icaran soldiers guarding the children would fight every bit as hard to protect those children as they would any of their own because by their mindset those children ARE Icaran.

For the most part a world's population is simply "left alone" as far as the Icarans are concerned, they are allowed to do whatever they want since they can't reproduce and their children are safely in Icaran care. Most of the people of a conquered world won't see an Icaran soldier again for years or even EVER unless they stir up something the government considers serious enough for FedSec or Military intervention.

So if they don't see life as special, they don't care about pissing people off and nobody has a right to anything except free healthcare; why, when confronted by a peacful (but illegal) demonstration by a bunch of buddhists, would they risk their safety and waste their time and resources in an effort to "arrest everyone as peacefully as possible"? Especially when they are only they are going to flog or execute these guys later on anyway. Why not just shoot them all on the spot?

Well like I said they consider all human life a work of art yes but they are concerned for their citizens above all others and the stability of their Empire over other concerns. So basically its one of those things that they'll do something bad to enforce the "good".

As to why they wouldn't merely gundown unarmed and peaceful protestors its because they do try to spare life as much as possible.
As far as why they would "risk" themselves, well against unarmed protestors a brigade of FedSec riotbreakers in full body armor isn't in much danger.
And why would they go through the trouble of taking them as peacefully as possible to flog them later? Well a flogging doesn't do any permanent harm and only a few cases warrent execution other then that your seen primarily as misguided and stupid.

The glimpses we've seen of the Icaran criminal justice system seems focussed entirely on aversion by means of brutal punishment rather than any kind of rehabilitation. With the department of employment already struggling to find streets to sweep and dishes to wash in order to fill their "full employment" policy (presumably the government is actively repressing labour-saving technology that could do these jobs automatically) there seems little benefit to using criminals as slave labour. Bearing these points in mind, what's the point in keeping someone alive once they've been branded a criminal? It'd be cheaper and easier to just shoot the perpetrators dead in the street where an immediate and shocking example can be made of them to any onlookers.

Their legal system is actually very harsh only if you consider a public beating and humiliation that is considered "all's forgiven" over YEARS in jail for a relatively minor offense.
To them a shoplifter deserves a beating and a public humiliation that he has to recover from, while in OUR society that shoplifter goes to jail for long periods of time.

To them a murderer/rapist/pedophile deserves death instantly upon the guilty charge being filed while to us said criminal rots in jail sucking up taxpayer money and gets to use an expensive attourney and a boat load of appeals.

Drunk drivers who haven't hurt anyone would get beaten in public and then taken to a hospital to clean up, we just throw them in the drunk tank and leave them to their alchoholic ways.

So yeah to them OUR legal system shows little mercy and is damned inneficent at that.

They pretty much consider the beating to be an "alls forgiven" and your records dont keep you from getting a job, or moving on in life.

As for the labour saving technology, yes to an extent any technology that would fully replace a human being is considered bad unless said tech can save lives. However because of this they actually develope labor ENHANCING technology that would allow a human to do MORE work more safely but not replace them.

Also, they go to extreme lengths to enforce conformity: Again, I quote the policies on kidnapping children and forced sterilisation, but to be honest the entire system seems bent on churning out an endless stream of factory-moulded citizens designed to do as they're told and not under any circumstances to think for themselves. With this in mind, why would Icaran society bother 'protecting' a sect they see as weak and naive, and who refuse to take on their share of the of the Empire's military risks and responsibilities? It would be interesting to know exactly how the special allowances in Icaran law that allow the buddhists to avoid the military were won in the first place (because they sure as hell wouldn't have gotten very far trying to win rights via peacful protest=-) and just how they manage to keep those special-case rights from being revoked. What happens to a Pathist who is afraid of going to war and tries to dodge the draft by changing his religion?

Not to throw out too much detail and spoilers but their rights were earned as an act of pennance by the Empire for an act they consider a terrible shame and blemish on their record.

It is enforced by tradition and conversion to Neo-Budhism is pretty much a no-no while conversion FROM it is considered a good event.

They are basically being allowed to die out slowly and peacefully but while still allowing the Empire to maintain it's dignity and save face and honor.


Any Icaran converting from the Path to Neo-Budhism would not have a fun time, especially if they found out it was because said person was evading the draft.


Basically the Empire has blended some Chinese sense of "honor" with it's western roots and when something becomes tradition or the Empire swears on it's honor to do something then they do it out of a sense of duty.

[dogscoff]

Note I said destroy TOWNS not necessarily the people living therein.

So in other words, someone has to take all the people out of the town, filter the bad guys from the innocents, then destroy the town. If you've filtered out the bad guys, why not deal with them and let the innocents go back to their homes?

Or did you mean the population is just moved wholesale to some other region and then the empty town destroyed? What does that achieve, other than forcing the entire population into poverty and recruiting more dissidents?

Basically it depends largely on the extent of which the townsfolk are supporting the rebellious elements. If your entire community is a threat to Icara then it is neutralized.

But there WILL be innocents in there.

Basically to clear that bit up for you Icara's view is "while all human life is a work of God's art Icaran life is just a little bit more important." so in their mind it's not strange at all.

OK, if that's their attitude, then fair enough. What they do doens't have to make sense, except to them. However it does cast doubt over their claims to respect life and so on. You will have difficulty getting the average reader to feel any kind of sympathy for a people with this attitude, however.

Well yeah except for that the parents would have to attack the very schools where their children are staying in order to even remotely "free" them

If your children have already been lost to you and you have no chance of seeing them again, and now you know they are now being brought up by someone who will try to make them forget you and turn your children into nasty little clones of your hated enemy... many parents may well be driven to kill their own children, certainly to risk the lives. Desperate people will do extraordinary things for a political principle or for revenge. Just look at suicide bombers.

Besides, they wouldn't have to attack the schools, would they? They could attack some other school containing only someone else's children. Kill as many of them as possible, in order to show the Icarans how it feels to have your family torn apart. Or target the parents. Or plant bombs in shopping centres and libraries and government buildings and so on and just kill anyone who supports, even passively, the regime that destroyed your life. Keep doing it, against all odds and opposition and oppression until some concession is made to end the violence. That's how terrorism works, and why heaping oppression upon oppression does not solve problems, it just creates more people with nothing to lose.

As to why they wouldn't merely gundown unarmed and peaceful protestors its because they do try to spare life as much as possible.

But this seems wildly out of character. They don't respect life, they seem quite willing to deprive people of it at the first turn. The sanctity of life is at best a secondary concern to the stability of the Empire (personally, I suspect it's even lower down the list than that) - and as we know, politicians are always willing to label things a threat to the stability/ security of the state in order to push their own agenda. What's more, police are always willing to make the same claims in order to justify the use of the fullest extent of their powers.

As far as why they would "risk" themselves, well against unarmed protestors a brigade of FedSec riotbreakers in full body armor isn't in much danger.

As long as they *are* unarmed peaceful protestors. As soon as people see that what appear to be peaceful protestors get soft treatment and close contact with a squad of police, one of the state's many many enemies (one of the parents mentioned above, someone who has been beaten and humiliated for some minor crime, someone who is disaffected for some other reason and has no other outlet for his political frustrations) will strap a bomb to themselves, pretend to be a peaceful protestor and then wait for the police to come sauntering up with the handcuffs.

From that moment on, the police will be far less reluctant to just open fire, believe me.

Their legal system is actually very harsh only if you consider a public beating and humiliation that is considered "all's forgiven" over YEARS in jail for a relatively minor offense.

I don't think our contemporary penal systems are particularly good- the USA being one of the worst examples- but would corporal punishment be a sufficient deterrent, especially given the amount of desperate people your system produces? Look at countries and time periods where this was the norm dn you'll porbably find that it isn't particlarly effective. It certainly doesn't address the reason the peron turned to crime in the first plce. It seesm to me that punishment would rapidly escalate to death for even monir crimes: "We keep on floggin this guy and he keeps on stealing bread. He just doesn't learn. What are we going to do with him?"

Also, if everything is forgotten and forgiven immediately, surely the "humiliation" part of the punishment is meaningless..?

You say the rights of the neo-buddhists to live a pacifist lifestyle

... were earned as an act of pennance by the Empire for an act they consider a terrible shame and blemish on their record...It is enforced by tradition

This is the biggest problem I have seen so far.

You're telling me that in a militaristic, top-heavy dictatorship with what looks like a feudal power structure, where the ordinary person doesn't have a vote and can't even protest policies they don't like, so that the ruling class is totally unaccountable to the people and can change the law as often and as radically as they like with no opposition whatsoever, the people in power are going to go out of their way to 'honour' a policy that (a) must be a headache for them, because their military could be stronger without it and (b) would be deeply unpopular with Pathists at all levels of society. (Which doesn't really matter because the people don't get a say, except I'm assuming that in this society of equals the ruling classes and their families are eligible for draft as well.)

When was the last time you saw a politician keep his word on anything? Really?

And that's in a country where politicians are (ostensibly) accountable to the public! In your system, there is absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever to stop them from going back on their word and drafting the pacifists as soon as the wind blows that way. All they have to do is cite the stability of the state which you already admitted overrides any other possible ethical or moral boundary, and it would be done. No arguments, no protests (well, there might be protests, but they would be dealt with in short order). Done.

Honour would not hold them back an instant, because clearly the powermongers in charge of this imperial machine can and will justify anything in their own minds. They wouldn't even feel they had been dishonourable- they would simply redefine honour in their own heads and- because nobody can disagree with them without being flogged- automatically be right. Remember what they say about absolute power? For example, we've already seen how their high-minded ideals about the sanctity of the human body are blown out of the water at the slightest provocation (even ignoring their casual attitudes toward killing and torturing people, the forced sterilisation policy proves that the human reproductive system- arguably the most mysterious and miraculous part of the body- is something to be casually discarded by the state, against the will of the body in question, when politically expedient) so dismissing lofty notions of "honour" would be trivial.

I'm not saying you shouldn't write about your Icarans, and believe it or not I'm not trying to pick them apart. I'm just trying to point out to you the kind of thing that will make them seem less real and less sympathetic (although the sympathy issue isn't so much of a concern- there have been plenty of worthwhile dystopian stories) to your readership.

Today's recommended reading: Animal Farm by George Orwell.

[Starhawk]

So in other words, someone has to take all the people out of the town, filter the bad guys from the innocents, then destroy the town. If you've filtered out the bad guys, why not deal with them and let the innocents go back to their homes?

Or did you mean the population is just moved wholesale to some other region and then the empty town destroyed? What does that achieve, other than forcing the entire population into poverty and recruiting more dissidents?

No actually what I meant was that basically if they are under fire from a house they destroy the house, they don't risk their own soldiers to try and get the Terrorist OUT of the house before blowing it up and they wont always risk going IN to clear said terrorist nest out.

If under fire from a house they destroy it, unless they are 100% SURE there are hostages in there.

So in the end if you let terrorists use your house as a base you lose your house, its sad but it saves Icaran lives.

Likewise they would blow up Mosque/Church/Graveyards/etc if there were terrorists using them as bases of operations, the average Icaran soldier might feel guilty but they wouldn't let it stop them. And the state as a whole wouldn't feel bad about it.

But there WILL be innocents in there.

There are always innocents caught in the line of fire sadly, its just Icarans wouldn't let a few innocents deaths change their ENTIRE warfighting policy to the extent of say the US where it wont even let them chase known enemies into certain regions.

OK, if that's their attitude, then fair enough. What they do doens't have to make sense, except to them. However it does cast doubt over their claims to respect life and so on. You will have difficulty getting the average reader to feel any kind of sympathy for a people with this attitude, however.

Actually this makes a lot of sense from even a modern political viewpoint, YOUR Citizens are more important then someone else's ESPECIALLY if that someone else is attacking your nation.

Its no more self centered then any other country they are just much more open about it and admit it fully.

Besides, they wouldn't have to attack the schools, would they? They could attack some other school containing only someone else's children. Kill as many of them as possible, in order to show the Icarans how it feels to have your family torn apart. Or target the parents. Or plant bombs in shopping centres and libraries and government buildings and so on and just kill anyone who supports, even passively, the regime that destroyed your life. Keep doing it, against all odds and opposition and oppression until some concession is made to end the violence. That's how terrorism works, and why heaping oppression upon oppression does not solve problems, it just creates more people with nothing to lose.

Well like I said Icaran responses tend to be rather proportional to the amount of resistance they get from your world when the fighting is done.

Basically if they land and take out your military (or your military surrenders) and your people are willing to submit then you get treated rather well, your kids get taken to school for six months out of the year (full course) and then for every other week for the remaining six months (half course). They get to see their family and the culture is slowly assimilated into the Empire.

If however you continue resisting THAT is when they take your kids, steralize your population and wait for you to grow old and die and your kids to take over as proper Imperial citizens.

As far as the "blowing up markets etc" goes that wouldn't work on Icarans because like I said they pretty much leave a conquered population alone aside from certain requirements, the conquered world doesn't see a massive influx of actual Icarans so they'd only be blowing up their own people instead of Icarans.

On a world that fought hard enough to earn the "punishment" I described basically all the Icaran facilities would be mini fortresses that are practically unaproachable with anyhting but a nuke or armored regiment....including the "schools" which would be ON BASE.

And Icarans are patient, they've been bred to be and trained to be so twenty years, thirty, even fifty would simply be seen as a waiting game to a population with SUSTAIN level lifespans. Eventually the dissident population will die off or be too old to be effective, and then your new generation can come in and take over.

But this seems wildly out of character. They don't respect life, they seem quite willing to deprive people of it at the first turn. The sanctity of life is at best a secondary concern to the stability of the Empire (personally, I suspect it's even lower down the list than that) - and as we know, politicians are always willing to label things a threat to the stability/ security of the state in order to push their own agenda. What's more, police are always willing to make the same claims in order to justify the use of the fullest extent of their powers.

And if you ask any Icaran born citizen then they KNOW their life is secondary to the survival of the Empire, and that the ENEMY is even lower down the list. It's not some hidden state secret or conspiracy it is simply the way it is to them.

And as I said I think you over-estimate their eagerness to take life based on the fact they don't respond the same way to threats as we would. They will destroy any armed resistance yes but then again so does any good soldier, they even take POWs when possible. But the survival of THEIR culture is paramount so if another culture has to die then it will.
But that's really no different then any country if it is threatened with its very survival, if it comes down to an "us or them" its usually "them" that get wiped out.

The Empire is a culture of assimiliation, they'd much prefer to let any rebellious elements grow old and die then to actually have to fight them. But at the same time any rebellious element that threatens Icaran lives has to be destroyed.

As long as they *are* unarmed peaceful protestors. As soon as people see that what appear to be peaceful protestors get soft treatment and close contact with a squad of police, one of the state's many many enemies (one of the parents mentioned above, someone who has been beaten and humiliated for some minor crime, someone who is disaffected for some other reason and has no other outlet for his political frustrations) will strap a bomb to themselves, pretend to be a peaceful protestor and then wait for the police to come sauntering up with the handcuffs.

From that moment on, the police will be far less reluctant to just open fire, believe me.

Aye this is true but they have less then lethal weapons, and bomb sniffers that would help with this if someone was dumb enough to blow themselves up in a crowd of their own people that are working for the same goals as them.

FedSec is a single "police" force they are controlled by the Imperial government not local governors (constables are controlled by local governors and are responsible for most petty crimes while major crimes fall under FedSec jurisdiction) so they wouldnt likely open fire just because a local governor flips out and says to.

Also, if everything is forgotten and forgiven immediately, surely the "humiliation" part of the punishment is meaningless..?

Basically as far as the GOVERNMENT is concerned all's forgiven, you still have to prove to your fellow citizens that you learned from your mistake and are willing to grow and move on.

And like I said they actually DO take you for analysis after punishment (like the drunk driver being taken to hospital so they can clean him up) and try and make you "better" if possible.

And actually btw there are cultures that DO still practice public beatings and it is quite an effective means of stopping minor crime as most people dont want to face their peers with the same sort of crime again.

As far as your statements regarding the Neo-Buddists, in a population of billions there are only a few thousand of them left so their overall numbers contribute about jack squat to the strength of the Armed forces. So honoring their "act of pennance" is not difficult.

And I think you misunderstood the government a little, yes the Praetor and High Lords are pretty much absolute but the Nobles themselves are not so much and are answerable to several authorities (the military, the High Lords and Praetor and to some extend their own populace).

So any governor seen as betraying Icaran honor would not likely end up dead.

They are ALL raised to the same standards, noble and citizen, all in the same schools together all taught the same, and for the most part you have to EARN a noble title you cant just walk up and ask for one.

And yes noble families are liable for a draft just like any other fit young Icaran, and they face the same 25 years service.

Even the Praetor's family (except for first born son) and High Lords families are liable for draft and service (in fact it is strongly encouraged for a noble child to serve their Empire).

[dogscoff]

If under fire from a house they destroy it, unless they are 100% SURE there are hostages in there.

There are always innocents caught in the line of fire sadly, its just Icarans wouldn't let a few innocents deaths change their ENTIRE warfighting policy

Ok, I see where you're coming from. However I do think you underestimate the extent to which people will resist, even in the face of utterly hopeless oppression.

Basically if they land and take out your military (or your military surrenders) and your people are willing to submit then you get treated rather well, your kids get taken to school for six months out of the year (full course) and then for every other week for the remaining six months (half course). They get to see their family and the culture is slowly assimilated into the Empire.

But no-one will submit, and any military worth its salt would fight to the very last to resist the Icarans if they knew what was in store for them. You say "people will be treated pretty well" but I have yet to see single thing in the Icaran Empire that is in any way superior to the system I am living under now. If I feel that way, why should the members of a space-age society of a comparable tech-level to the Icarans feel any different? They are probably quite happy with their lives, they don't need some squad of totalitarian fascists to come down and impose their twisted utopia. People might even, you know, resent that quite strongly.

You also have this bizarre notion that people will regard having their children sent away to be "educated" (ie indoctrinated into an offensive, alien mindset) as a good thing. Imagine your kid coming home in the evening.
Mum: "Hey Billy, how was school?"
Billy: "Great! Today we learned that the Emporer is supreme and that the blood-drenched subjugation of the galaxy is his god-given and inevitable destiny."
(Mum gives Dad a worried look.)
Dad: "Uh, right. You know Billy, that's just one point of view. Some people might say that..."
Billy: "Ha! Teacher said you might be traitors! You'll have your tongues cut out for this, rebel scum!"

have you made any effort at all to see this from the point of view of the victims?

Suppose someone conquered your country and said "Your culture and way of life are obselete. We will eradicate it and replace it with our own. You will not raise your children in your traditions, they will be raised in ours. You may not reproduce without our permission. You may no longer practise your own religion. You *will* respect our megalomaniacal supreme dictator. You will obey every order given to you because the authority of our Emporer is absolute. You may no longer vote, voice dissent, have any say in your own public life or gather in public for political purposes. You and your children will serve in our military so that we may use you to impose similar barbarity on other peoples elsewhere. Icaran life is more valuable than yours. All of this will be enforced with dispassionate violence, surgery, abduction and brainwashing administered by a bunch of cold, aloof foreigners who will live in gated communities and make no effort at all to understand you, learn about you, or make any compromise to your way of life. Resistance is futile. Have a nice day."

Would you submit and say "oh well, at least I get free heathcare and a job?" Or would you flip them the finger and devote yourself to driving the bastards out of your homeland and back to where they came from? Would you, reading all this in a story, respect anyone that simply rolled over without a fight? Would you feel anything but hatred for the invaders? By all means write the Icarans that way, but don't expect anyone to like them, and don't for a minute suppose that they would be welcomed anywhere.



But let's take a scenario where the Icarans conquer a world of people who do roll over. Maybe the Icaran system isn't so different to the one it replaces, so the Icaran propoganda merchants managed to persuade 99.9% of the population to just accept a new portrait on their currency, call themselves Icaran and get on with life. On a planetary scale, the 0.1% remaining represents a significant number of people who will resist.

So some fighting breaks out. Maybe an icaran soldier or policeman gets shot. maybe an Icaran facility or convoy is blown up. Maybe a high-profile collaborator has his family kidnapped.

The Icarans attempt to deal with the situation the only way the know how: With uncompromising oppression. Except they don't really know who to target. Maybe they catch a few people, but there are plenty more who get away.
So they start being a bit less precise in their methods: Any one of the locals could be an enemy, so let's treat them all as suspicious. Impose a blanket curfew on everybody, take out entire buildings from afar rather than risk sending someone in to take out the few targets in there. I mean we're Icarans now, and all Icarans are equal, but some are more equal than others, right?

Some of the pacified people who submitted will inevitably suffer, find their meagre remaining rights being stripped away. Maybe their children get taken away, maybe their uncle gets blown away as collateral damage in a raid on a suspected resistance hideout, maye a brother gets beaten for breaking curfew, maybe a cousin gets taken away and "has an accident" after looking at a policeman funny. It becomes gradually more and more apparent just how much local life is worth compared to Icaran life.

You might like to think that the locals will blame the resistance for stirring up trouble, but that's not how it works. People will compare how it was before the occupation and how it is now. They will blame the person pulling the trigger for the shooting of an innocent, not the activist who the Icaran gunman thought he was aiming at. Suddenly some of those passive people are no longer passive, suddenly they choose not to submit. And the more of their family members are killed, the more homes are destroyed, the more lives ruined, the less they have to lose. They take up arms. The resistance continues, the oppression is intensified, more people are disaffected, the cycle escalates.

Before long what was a relatively quiet world with a minority of troublemakers is an utter hell-hole in a state of perpetual war. Uttely ungovernable and completely incapable of producing anything in the way of useful industry.

I think I've put forward my case pretty strongly that there WILL be resistance- substantial and determined resistance- on pretty much any planet they invade.

So how do they deal with resistnace? Well...

As far as the "blowing up markets etc" goes that wouldn't work on Icarans because like I said they pretty much leave a conquered population alone aside from certain requirements, the conquered world doesn't see a massive influx of actual Icarans so they'd only be blowing up their own people instead of Icarans.

On a world that fought hard enough to earn the "punishment" I described basically all the Icaran facilities would be mini fortresses that are practically unaproachable with anyhting but a nuke or armored regiment....including the "schools" which would be ON BASE.

And Icarans are patient, they've been bred to be and trained to be so twenty years, thirty, even fifty would simply be seen as a waiting game to a population with SUSTAIN level lifespans. Eventually the dissident population will die off or be too old to be effective, and then your new generation can come in and take over.

Take a look at Iraq. Most of the people dying in suicide bombs aren't americans- they are Iraqis. Do the insurgents really think they can kill all of the thousands of well armed soldiers and tanks the US have over there? Are they even trying to do that? Hell no, and they know they don't have to. All they have to do is cause enough noise and news and expense and death and misery so that staying just isn't worth the Americans' while.

All warfare boils down to economics. The invader wants your natural resources, your industry, your infrastructure, your workforce. However, the value of those assets has to exceed not only the cost of the invasion, but also the cost of maintaining and defending the assets post-invasion. So your Icarans, having conquered a people, can't just steal the children and leave the rest to die out- or they could, but then all they've done is to snatch a load of children and lose everything else. They will emerge from their bunkers fifty years later to find an anarchic wasteland, all industry and infrastructure long ago destroyed by sabateurs determined deny it to the enemy. What is the cost of rebuilding all that? What is the cost compared to simply glassing the world in the first place and re-colonising it with native-born Icarans? Presumably they don't have any kind of reproductive crisis, and so don't actually *need* to steal babies in order to perpetuate themselves. What is the cost of glassing and recolonising an occupied world compared to simply colonising an empty one?


It's not enough to sit in a bomb-proof bunker and guard that bunker. They might as well never visit the planet in the first place. No, once they've conquered a people, they need to police them, collect taxes and resources, supervise production and prevent the locals from plotting liberation. They will have no choice but to send in troops to guard factories, offices, bridges, power plants, mines, ... they will have to send in administrators to and rub shoulders with the leading figures of local industry and production, make sure that facilities are being run properly and that their output os all accounted for...

Those troops and administrators will cost money, and will be exposed to danger. Sure, they can draft in collaborators to do much of the work on their behalf, but collaborators will be far more exposed than any 'true' Icaran, and there will also be serious issues of trust.

Even if their troops and administrators and trusted collaborators are nigh-invulnerable in super high-tech body armour, you're still left with the problem of protecting an entire planet of infrastructure from an enemy within. On budget.

My point (finally) is that I can't help think that invading a population and then attempting to deal with their violent (and justified) resentment by sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING" isn't quite such a straightforward solution as you think.

Of course, this all ignores the possibility that the Icarans don't invade for economic gain, but because they can't stand the thought of someone out there who isn't like them, and isn't under their control. That, of course, is highly irrational and as such requires no further justification, but if they are prepared to incur massive costs on unprofitable holy wars, how the hell are they not bankrupt already?

[Starhawk]

Hmmmm well I might have overstated some of the hostile responses of Icarans.

Like I said primarily they try and assimilate a culture and slowly convert it over time with the children and leaving things as intact as possible with as few "true" icarans as possible on planet.

And if you look at (of all things) Hitler's germany you can see how seducing the young people of a population can help to secure your hold over a people and bring them into line.

And for joe schmo on the street whos smart enough to realize their vote doesn't count for all that much anyway (as was proven by Bush winning for example) then losing the total vote of who is your leader doesnt make much of a difference.

Also free health care, assured of a job and livelihood, assured of equal treatment under the law yeah a lot of people would find that nice.