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Post by Doug on Jan 31, 2007 21:18:17 GMT
EDIT: After lengthy discussion, it was decided that the concept was largely redundant when the option of escaped convicts from the possible penal berg was now available
Well, they've been mentioned a couple of times now, so we might as well give them a thread of their own - in the Tribes thread, we've been discussing the idea that somewhere in the jungle, there might be hiding a group/groups of escaped slaves/refugees/liberated workmen and the like from the hive bergs and particularly the capital. These would probably be pretty much anti Imperial and possibly acting as some sort of guerilla pirate force...
Thoughts?
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Post by thenephew on Jan 31, 2007 21:42:24 GMT
A cultist recruiting ground if I ever heard of one! Brutalised and injured to suffering by long years in the engine rooms, these slaves have fled to the woods, turning mercenary, cultist, geurilla and revolutionary. A massive schism occured in the group soon after reaching the woods, as one group, led by Sid MacSacrificethechild turned swiftly to a doctrine of anti-Imperial hatred and worship of the malformed beasts they found roaming in the ancient ruins of what once must have been a mighty city. Chad O'Chivalrous led most of the remaider to live a life of relative peace and harmlessness in the deeper forest, intent on bothering noone. Mandred von Moralless took a few of those less bothered, and took to living in the forests, as foragers, part time mercenaries and casual revolutionaries. The factions are obviously exaggerated somewhat, and I would need convincing that any of the slaves managed to learn how to survive under the open sky so easily. And it does assume that all three factions came fromt eh same berg...
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Post by Doug on Jan 31, 2007 22:05:40 GMT
I imagined that all the groups would be drawn from any berg - basically, made up from anyone who escapes their berg/the capital and manages to treeach them alive - as you say, I suspect there would be a massive attrition rate among the groups.
And I've gotta love those names...place holders they may be, but they got a laugh...
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Post by thenephew on Jan 31, 2007 22:20:26 GMT
I agree that the groups would have to be sustained by a continual drip of recruits/escapees, but i thought they would need a seed group. I envisioned the splits happening very quickly between Sid and Chad, and then (several years later) Sid and Mandred. To me it seemed more likely that, if not set up in groups like this, those slave who did excape would die of exposure, or roam in very small groups, having an insignificant impact on anything. Alternatively, (Damn these necessarily separated threads) a group from Mining colony 6-Phi-9 (on the inner system planet R23-CD2PO) may be arming Mandred to aid in an uprising. Or something. I see Sid as a camp-inhabiting, daemon worshipping, badassed feudal lord. Mandred would go where the work was, while foraging and/or pillaging (with optional loot and rape). Chad would just be a straight up nomad guy, but with an unusual tribal structure. Or they could all be 'urban' legends among the tribes of escaped sailors.
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Post by Doug on Jan 31, 2007 22:26:14 GMT
I agree mostly there, though I'm unsure of the daemon worshipping bit for Sid, at least if it was open - certainly, I think open daemon worship might be a bit far even for some of his slaves - and besides, if it was a hidden thing, it might make a nice twist if PCs did enccounter him that they found out at some crucial juncture that he was a daemonologist...
I also quite like the idea of perhaps Chad being an, "urban legend,"...perhpas he and a few of his followers were driven out by the more violent Sid, and wander about in the jungle, with quite close ties to some of the native tribes...
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Post by takaetun on Feb 1, 2007 3:21:55 GMT
Slight problem: Massive big world. Hives thousands of kilometres apart (I REFUSE to use miles - bloody Poms and yanks. [You still use miles, don't you, Doug?]). How would they join up? They'd barely survive the journey, even if they knew precisely how to get there, and that these free groups existed. I think maybe it would work better with a centralised uprising - for example, a mining platform in the barrens or wherever overpowering their masters and fleeing once they realise the authorities are coming.
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Post by Doug on Feb 1, 2007 6:35:22 GMT
Yes, yes we do. As for the centralised uprising - yes, I agree it should have started that way, but do think that there might be a few slaves escaping from the capital who make it - perhaps if the escapees existed as some sort of legend type thing among the workers in the capital, whom many tried to escape to, but generally failed miserably, it would work better?
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Post by takaetun on Feb 1, 2007 9:25:31 GMT
I think that if theres an underground network that helps the escapees, and knows the routes, kind of like the Twin Lamps in Elder Scrolls III: , then that would work. I just don't see a single human, or even bunch thereof, making their way across an entire planet alive and undetected.
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vendile
Enginseer
The doodler
Posts: 234
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Post by vendile on Feb 1, 2007 16:05:39 GMT
i'd direct scorn at you for using an obscure book reference, but then again books are marvolous for inspiration. that said, i don't know that book at all, so elaborate.
i have to say though that i'm not too keen on the escaped slaves thing. for one thing i think they would be terrified of the jungle because of all the 'stories' they've heard.
It might be a nice point as a simple legend - say perhaps tied in with the ghost-berg? Perhaps a small group of survivors from whatever happened to make it ghost-berg, managed to find a usuable seacraft and set sail for the mainland, a small unknown colony on the shores of the jungle?
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Post by inquisitorarantel on Feb 1, 2007 18:34:43 GMT
I thought Elder Scrolls was a game...
Anyway, it's quite possible that all three (Sid, Chad and Mandred) have "agents" aboard the Bergs and the trawlers- and if a worker wants to escape, they help him stow away onto a smaller vessel, perhaps one heading to St Martius' Cove to drop off fuel, where they can escape to the jungle and be eaten by gribbly things.
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Post by thenephew on Feb 1, 2007 22:22:26 GMT
Vendille - The vision I have of life as an 'underdeck' slave is a whole lot worse than they would ever imagine the forest to be, stories or not. Arandel - That's pretty much perfect. Lots of smuggling, counter-cell and corruption investigations right there. If the actual figureheads don't literally exist, they could quite easily be propoganda personalties aimed at the three main demographics in the escapee range, wanting freedom, revenge, or just anything but this. Who organises these escapes could easily be one big recruiting ground for...or three actually separate groups, coexisting or in a continual secret war and competition for recruits.
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vendile
Enginseer
The doodler
Posts: 234
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Post by vendile on Feb 1, 2007 22:53:34 GMT
two ideas:- 1) all of the slave-escape organisations are in fact imperial navy press-gangers, all aproved by the aristocratic upper class - though the men on the ground who are the first point of contact if you want off the berg don't know this, they truely believe they are helping people escape to start a new life on the main-land.
2) the slace-class are almost completly un-educated because of their stats, so they won't exactly have the best ideas or the like - and so would be unable to even comprehend escaping, the interal darkness of the hive-berg is all they know - complete loyalty and belief that their position in life is their Emperor-given gift.
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Post by Doug on Feb 1, 2007 23:04:59 GMT
Nice idea...however, I don't like the idea of all of them being press gangs, ultimately...I do think some should be slave escape organisations, trying to get people out...
Depends how much the priesthood have got to them for a start - i've always imagined that in massive hives with billions of people, the brainwashing isn't always going to be so comprehensive - there simply won't be enough resources to manage it, so i suspect that in some cases, there are elements (and knowing Imperial society, it'll be the poorer ones) that don't get the full works- but ultimately that would depend on the hive world...the other point, that they've never seen the light of day, and may well have never heard of the continent on board the hive bergs would certainly be true.
However, the slaves/workers on the continent, building the new land based city and manning the original space port will have grown up being aware that there is a sky, a jungle, etc, and may well try to escape...very few would survive, but some might...thus the idea is plausible, especially if there were groups already hiding in the jungle following a mass break, as has been discussed
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vendile
Enginseer
The doodler
Posts: 234
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Post by vendile on Feb 1, 2007 23:40:57 GMT
or, considering how uniquely isolated our hive-bergs are, varie from berg-to-berg.
I would have actually thought there would be very little in the way of 'slave labour' on the mainland - people more filling out more common roles such as 'construction worker' - infact, you'd probably find that a large number of the manual labour workforce in the star and seaports is done by servitors and mass-lifters.
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Post by Doug on Feb 1, 2007 23:50:37 GMT
Thanks for pointing out the berg/world thing...i meant berg, honest ...shoudln't type when I'm tired... As for the servitors, ou're probably right, up to an extent...however, I imagine that human slave workers are involved in some numbers on the continent, certainly in the capital, where the ports need to be run...both those offloading fuel from bots, and those loading them into shuttles...
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