Help Write a Socialist Space Opera

[Jim Starluck]

My friends, I come to you asking for help.

For many, many years now I have been developing an original sci-fi space-opera setting. And yes, I'm aware that like 90% of the SB/SV/SC community has one of their own, but mine is near and dear to my heart. I have not yet done anything truly great with it, and this has gnawed at me for a long time. For a while I dreamed of turning it into a setting for a strategy game of some kind, but that idea fizzled when I gave up dreaming of a career in game design.

I recently had an idea, however.

What I want to do is update and modify my setting to employ socialist themes, ideally in a subtle fashion, to try and help radicalize otherwise unsuspecting readers. I don't exactly know how to do this, however. Which is where you guys come in.

I'd like to use this thread as a place for me to lay out what I have so far and seek suggestions, advice and ideas for making this a way to draw people in, awaken their class consciousness and radicalize them.



Where would you like me to start?

 

[Cassiel]

Well... what is your setting?

 

[Nemo]

What's the current organization of the "protag" faction, if there is one? And what kind of space opera are we talking about tone wise?

 

[invariably_stupefied]

What the other 2 said. I'll add a third question, who are the antagonists?

 

[Jim Starluck]

Well... what is your setting?

Here's a blurb intro I had written up previously:


That's the opening conflict, but once it's settled things move on from there.

What's the current organization of the "protag" faction, if there is one? And what kind of space opera are we talking about tone wise?

"Protag faction" depends at what point in time you're talking. Things change over the course of the timeline.

At the current end point, it's the second incarnation of the Terran Star Navy (the first being the multinational organization formed to stand for humanity in the above mentioned war, and getting disbanded and incorporated into larger peacetime force at the end of it).

I haven't figured out exactly all of its internal structures, but I think syndicalism might be the closest? The TSN contracts with independent colonies and worlds as a planetary defense force, with a mission statement that specifically obligates them to defend Earth and its peoples, but in practice they're willing to support any world in trouble. The "owners" of the TSN are its entire membership, which is all-volunteer. It's relatively small compared to other spacegoing military forces, but has friends and allies it can call on if needed.

Tonally, I want it to be more hopeful than grimdark. In terms of mechanics, it's a hard-ish sci-fi, but not Maximum Hardness.

What the other 2 said. I'll add a third question, who are the antagonists?

 

[Jim Starluck]

Well, for lack of anything else to do, I'll start detailing one of the alien species.

 

[Jim Starluck]

Another alien species:

 

[richardson]

I mean... I'm struggling to see how the initializing condition you set up is going to lead to a socialist system. Sure, given the initializing conditions I can see the creation of a--to bounce stellaris terms back at you--democratic crusader state, bu, I'm not really certain how the conditions are to be achieved. Maybe focusing a little bit more on some of the economic systems, borrowing some of Issac Arthur's wonderful insanity to show that the productions of scale are such that capitalistic forces were overwhelmed under enough resources to make everyone live like kings, or... *shrug* I mean, I want to see lots more, and see some more of the background races. But the setting so far doesn't suggest socialist yet.

I mean, how exactly are you wanting to indoctrinate them in socialism? Pointing out that the excesses of production can and should be turned back to assisting those in need in meeting the needs of their life? Radical Equality? Bodily autonomy over the will of the people? I'm not really sure what flavor of socialism you're after, what general breach point you're wanting to attack first. Depending on what it is, that could radically change how you approach your setting.

 

[Nyvis]

I mean... I'm struggling to see how the initializing condition you set up is going to lead to a socialist system. Sure, given the initializing conditions I can see the creation of a--to bounce stellaris terms back at you--democratic crusader state, bu, I'm not really certain how the conditions are to be achieved. Maybe focusing a little bit more on some of the economic systems, borrowing some of Issac Arthur's wonderful insanity to show that the productions of scale are such that capitalistic forces were overwhelmed under enough resources to make everyone live like kings, or... *shrug* I mean, I want to see lots more, and see some more of the background races. But the setting so far doesn't suggest socialist yet.

I mean, how exactly are you wanting to indoctrinate them in socialism? Pointing out that the excesses of production can and should be turned back to assisting those in need in meeting the needs of their life? Radical Equality? Bodily autonomy over the will of the people? I'm not really sure what flavor of socialism you're after, what general breach point you're wanting to attack first. Depending on what it is, that could radically change how you approach your setting.

Yeah going into the details of economic reaction to the changes brought by the technology needed to get into space in a large scale is going to be key. Something else you can do is describe systems of organization without giving them current ideological names right away, letting people draw their own conclusions on them, then gradually inserting the connection to past leftist ideologies.

 

[Axiomatic]

One thing I think you could do - and I'm just bringing out my hobby horse here - is compare and contrast with the most popular organization in space opera, Starfleet.

Now, for all that Star Trek's federation has abolished money and everyone is free to pursue their own self improvement and all that jazz, Starfleet itself is still at its core a classic military organization, with perfectly recognizable ranks and a chain of command and military discipline and so on and so on.

So maybe one thing you could do to mix things up is have the Star Navy NOT be that. Maybe the captain's word isn't law aboard his ship. Maybe the bridge crew are representatives of various outfits aboard the ship, and outside of immediate combat situations, he has to secure support from the Engineers and Comms and Security, and if too many people are pissed off at him someone else gets elected captain.

 

[Nyvis]

One thing I think you could do - and I'm just bringing out my hobby horse here - is compare and contrast with the most popular organization in space opera, Starfleet.

Now, for all that Star Trek's federation has abolished money and everyone is free to pursue their own self improvement and all that jazz, Starfleet itself is still at its core a classic military organization, with perfectly recognizable ranks and a chain of command and military discipline and so on and so on.

So maybe one thing you could do to mix things up is have the Star Navy NOT be that. Maybe the captain's word isn't law aboard his ship. Maybe the bridge crew are representatives of various outfits aboard the ship, and outside of immediate combat situations, he has to secure support from the Engineers and Comms and Security, and if too many people are pissed off at him someone else gets elected captain.

Also, you could really use some contrast with Star Trek's handling of hierarchy above the captain. Make it plain how different the chain of command leading to larger strategic and politically charged decisions is.

 

[Beatufiuldawn]

To add to this discussion maybe show some Slice of Life elements to show how their mundane so different from ours. For example what does their pop culture act like with an nonexistant copyright stranglehold on the IPs?

 

[Jim Starluck]

One thing I think you could do - and I'm just bringing out my hobby horse here - is compare and contrast with the most popular organization in space opera, Starfleet.

Now, for all that Star Trek's federation has abolished money and everyone is free to pursue their own self improvement and all that jazz, Starfleet itself is still at its core a classic military organization, with perfectly recognizable ranks and a chain of command and military discipline and so on and so on.

So maybe one thing you could do to mix things up is have the Star Navy NOT be that. Maybe the captain's word isn't law aboard his ship. Maybe the bridge crew are representatives of various outfits aboard the ship, and outside of immediate combat situations, he has to secure support from the Engineers and Comms and Security, and if too many people are pissed off at him someone else gets elected captain.

This is indeed the kind of thing that I want to do.

I've also been toying with the idea of not having any, or many, polities of the kind you see in so much sci-fi; that is, the terrestrial nation-state IN SPAAAAAAAAACE! Where you have many planets in many star systems, one of which is the "capital," and the "star nation" having an associated star fleet and space stations and such all under its central administration.

I want much more... variety. Planets that are independent of any larger organizations, planets that have a loosely-aligned halo of space infrastructure around them, space stations and asteroid bases that are polities of their own, federations of space stations and habitats, and some organizations -- like the TSN -- that are almost entirely starship-centered.