[Torg] controlling the jakatts (was: Re: YouTube Torg Video)

[Chad Dickhaut]

--- On Sun, 1/25/09, Kansas Jim <ksjim at sdc.org> wrote:

> My most recent approach has been to raise the realm's
> Social axiom to
> 8 (city/state) and change the gotaks from being pitied
> outcasts to being
> the war chiefs in the tribes. Kaah initiates all gotaks
> into his own
> cult/tribe (his "state") and has the Darkness
> Device give each gotak
> some P-Energy which enables him to instantly communicate
> with the gotaks
> anywhere within the cosm or realm. So he orders the gotaks
> around and
> then its up to the gotaks to get their tribes to do what
> Kaah wishes.
> Most of the time it works if he keeps things simple, but if
> he tries to
> get too coordinated then he runs the risk of his gotaks
> disconnecting
> and being unable to pull off their part of it. But by
> making sure that
> each tribe has at least one P-Rated gotak it can often be
> made to work in spite of the axiomatic limitations of the
> reality.

That's how I approach it when I run the Living Land.  It's similar to how the Akashans have built a transgalactic empire in my Space Gods revision*: the Rotan (who has reinstated the pre-Collapse Akashan Legate title in lieu of being called "Emperor" as his predecessors were) interacts directly with Archdukes (who rule over Galactic Sectors), who govern the sub-Sector Dukes, who govern Counts (who rule over solar systems), who govern Barons (who rule over planets, moons, or other such bodies/territories).  If that sounds feudal, it's intentional: that's the Social level at which interstellar government can effectively function under the present circumstances.  (And if it sounds a bit like the Traveller RPG, that's because I pulled some inspiration for my revision from Traveller :o).)


* In my revision, the once Social 27 Star Sphere has been ravaged by an insidious meme-weapon that attempts to destroy an individual's understanding of social principles.  The meme-weapon has resulted a World Law that has a similar effect to vanilla Tharkold's LoFerocity.  In the intervening millenia since the weapon's unleashing, the Star Sphere's inhabitants have regained as much as Social 22 when it comes to psionics and certain Social-related bodies of knowledge, though in many ways its effective Social axiom is around 19.  Some societal aspects function at lower levels yet.  One of these days I intend to blow the dust off my revision and share it with the list.

Chad