Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
Panzerkraken
Well-known member
[X] Agree
[X] Oppose
[X] Oppose
Ridli Scott
Well-known member
[X] Agree
[X] Support
[X] Support
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
In truth I rather like the idea of the new voting system, I'm always interested in seeing different ways of working a government rather than same-old same-old. But the proposal has some gaping holes in it and provides some serious perverse incentives.
1: People are more likely to throw down money and vote when there's a significant issue. This gives the government an incentive to generate MAXIMUM OUTRAGE in order to get more people paying taxes to vote on [important and outrageous issue].
2: The system can be gamed fairly easily. Imagine a husband and wife where the Husband pays no taxes and handles all the bills with his large income while the wife works a couple hours a week and puts 100% of her meager pay into taxes. Between them they effectively have 50 votes apiece at very low cost. Now multiply that by 5000 people in a vote-farm tenament run by a super rich person who thus can generate millions of votes for their specific wants and needs, which will of course go first to improving how efficient their vote farms are and cementing this advantage to make sure nobody else can pull it off to counter them.
1: People are more likely to throw down money and vote when there's a significant issue. This gives the government an incentive to generate MAXIMUM OUTRAGE in order to get more people paying taxes to vote on [important and outrageous issue].
2: The system can be gamed fairly easily. Imagine a husband and wife where the Husband pays no taxes and handles all the bills with his large income while the wife works a couple hours a week and puts 100% of her meager pay into taxes. Between them they effectively have 50 votes apiece at very low cost. Now multiply that by 5000 people in a vote-farm tenament run by a super rich person who thus can generate millions of votes for their specific wants and needs, which will of course go first to improving how efficient their vote farms are and cementing this advantage to make sure nobody else can pull it off to counter them.
Lightwhispers
Well-known member
[X] Agree
[X] Oppose
[X] Oppose
Here's another way to break it:
"I, Super McRichyRich, feel very strongly about Issue X. I determine that I can easily budget, say, 30% of my massive income on voting this year. This would normally get me 30 votes. But my very clever friend, Mr. Aton Ney, points out that I could instead quietly donate the same amount of money to my less rich friends who feel the same way about Issue X. Even if they have to count my gift as part of their income, splitting 30% of my income across, say, twenty like-minded people will enable each of them to donate 60% of "their" income to voting our shared cause, which means my thirty votes have suddenly become 1200 votes.
And this is just a proof of concept -- we can increase the multiplication of votes even more by finding the poorest possible voters and shoving as much of their payment as possible into intangibles and 'gifts' so it doesn't count as income. . . "
<Jane> You are a very Naughty Boy, Mr. Super McRichyRich, and Santa is giving you a head start for Christmas.
<McRichyRich> A head start over what?
<Jane> Angry grifftigers. SIC IM!
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Of course if you want to be less blatant and more easily justified, you can simply start a company, call it VoteCorp. VoteCorp cares deeply about it's employees so it provides company housing and a company car for each one. A quality cafeteria and a daycare are available for employee use so most of their income is disposable. Naturally it pre-selects employees for a desire to vote and specific political leanings which lets them put a maximum amount of income towards fielding votes. Of course they don't put it that way, VoteCorp selects their employees for values that mesh with the company culture, and uses social media analysis to determine which traits tend to correlate strongly with a desire to vote and a tendency towards voting for their prefered programs when selecting employees. Nothing illegal there, just selecting for employees that fit the corporate values because they care about their workers so much they provide all this free stuff and choose employees who happen to have the same values so that they get along better...
Turn 42 - You Like A Four Letter Words
Turn 42 - You Like A Four Letter Words
You decide to be very diplomatic in your opposition to the bill, especially since it’s made in good faith, calling the supporters in for a private meeting where you lay out your concerns and listen to their thoughts. In the end they actually withdraw the bill themselves without you having to actually veto it.
They do put forward an alternative plan that is significantly more moderate. The current tax structure itself will remain the same, however all public welfare will be shifted to acting as tax credits rather than direct payments, as such it would slightly reduce some duplicative bureaucracy (which the affected bureaucrats are already whining about). They then peg the new public welfare credits to income, with them starting to taper off when the individuals income reaches the poverty line, declining to zero at about 20% above the poverty line. They likewise structure the married filer tax credits in the same manner, but with a more generous taper starting at 5% above the poverty line and ending at 30% above the poverty line.
Child tax credits remain the same under this system, and are calculated completely independently of the public welfare credit and all tax credits are not considered ‘income’ for the purpose of taxation.
On the flip side, they do alter the voting requirements. Any recipient of the public welfare credit receives a single vote in any given election. Any person not receiving the public welfare credit receives a second vote in Imperial only elections, IE those for the Chamber of Delegates and the Senate. Nobody can have more than 2 votes, no matter how high their income.
Under this revision nobody would ever be disenfranchised, and there would be a natural counterbalance mechanism in play. If the wealthier citizens decided to reduce the public welfare tax credit, this would simply increase the number of votes available to the poorer portions of the electorate who would most likely seek to increase the credit, which in turn would eventually lose them votes.
The politicians are being unusually wise and patient on this, perhaps because they are actually listening to the Eldest, and have simply unveiled the plan and released it for public comment and consideration without introducing any related legislation.
Meanwhile Julia Severina has presented to you a shopping list of things that the NRI is interested in purchasing. Most of it, quite honestly, comes as a bit of a surprise to you. You had expected them wanting things like mech technology samples, or energy weapons, but instead they are requesting samples of LB-X autocannon, Ultra autocannon, and oddly are wondering if they could have a dropship docking collar adapter to look at.
That’s when you discover something, namely that the NRI’s jumpships are of the old pattern and make use of dropshuttles rather than dropships for moving cargo, and all are effectively primitive compact core designs. They had left before the invention of the drop collar, and had never made use of anything similar.
You need to decide what, if anything, to sell them from their shopping list. They obviously have significantly different priorities to you.
Pollux is being Pollux again. Although this time you are fighting a valiant rear-guard action against dissolving into guffaws over the ridiculous situation.
Nude beaches have been a part of Griffon culture from the beginning, and had been relatively common in the Star League as well. There hadn’t really been any stigma about them.
Looks like some Pollux types are trying to change that! A small but very vocal group on Pollux are demanding that nude beaches be banned in the name of ‘decency’. A quick glance at the protestors reveals that they are the sort of people you’d not really want to see on a nude beach in the first place as they’d probably prevent everybody else there from getting a tan by blocking the sun.
However you haven’t the foggiest idea what prompted this until you get an apologetic note from the Dean of the College of Periphery Studies about an unmonitored comm link that some of the… tenured professors… had been using to communicate with the outside world without anybody paying attention to them. Said tenured faculty members from the prestigious and illustrious institution had evidently decided that this was 17th century Europe, not Griffin’s Roost, and were preaching fire and brimstone Calvinist sermons against all of the sins of the flesh.
You inquire with the Dean to determine if there might be room in the faculty for a few dozen new appointments, since it looks like the standard screening process for… such prestigious positions as faculty in the College of Periphery Studies had missed a few prospective… faculty members.
With that being sorted, thankfully. You then head off to this year's Olympic games, thoughtfully inviting the NRI ambassador to be your guest in the Imperial box.
The games are… interesting is almost too tame of a word for it. Nowy Gdansk’s planetary government had been investing heavily in athletics as a way of showcasing the planet and attracting internal immigration and it certainly shows results with just how competitive they are in this Olympiad.
Indeed the games start off as pretty much a romp by the Nowy Gdansk team, with decisive wins in the various individual Track and Field athletics events, followed by dominating performances at men’s and women’s gymnastics. The Griffin’s Roost team manages to claw back a little in the team gymnastics event, but then the Nowy Gdansk team sweeps the swimming medals decisively.
Griffin’s Roost fights back by sweeping both the men’s and women’s decathlon in a dominating manner, before splitting the shooting honors. Several commentators do note that a number of, well, wardrobe malfunctions seemed to beset both women’s shooting teams during their competition.
The marathon’s are again split, with the men’s race being won decisively by the Nowy Gdansk team while the Griffin’s Roost women dominate their own race.
Then the quite uniquely Griffonese events begin. The Roman’s had chariot racing, you have the crucible of motorsports. And here the Griffin’s Roost team utterly dominated the competition. In Hovercraft racing it’s a podium sweep, likewise with motorcycles and stock cars.
At this point the two teams were split on medals, with 8 each, and only one event left to go. The Formula race. And a completely unknown female driver who sports the highly unlikely moniker of Kierowca Wyścigowy utterly crushes the competition. She never removes her helmet, says nothing to any of the reporters, and disappears immediately after the medal ceremony.
You are rather suspicious, especially as you realize that your darling daughter had missed the race, only to arrive with rather mussed hair five minutes after the medal ceremony looking quite smug.
The NRI ambassador seems utterly fascinated by the competition, although she does sniff rather disapprovingly at the ‘quality of competition’ during the various gymnastics meets, as well as the athletics meets. And then she rather delicately inquires over whether or not your Olympics would be open to ‘deserving athletes’ from the NRI.
You decide to be very diplomatic in your opposition to the bill, especially since it’s made in good faith, calling the supporters in for a private meeting where you lay out your concerns and listen to their thoughts. In the end they actually withdraw the bill themselves without you having to actually veto it.
They do put forward an alternative plan that is significantly more moderate. The current tax structure itself will remain the same, however all public welfare will be shifted to acting as tax credits rather than direct payments, as such it would slightly reduce some duplicative bureaucracy (which the affected bureaucrats are already whining about). They then peg the new public welfare credits to income, with them starting to taper off when the individuals income reaches the poverty line, declining to zero at about 20% above the poverty line. They likewise structure the married filer tax credits in the same manner, but with a more generous taper starting at 5% above the poverty line and ending at 30% above the poverty line.
Child tax credits remain the same under this system, and are calculated completely independently of the public welfare credit and all tax credits are not considered ‘income’ for the purpose of taxation.
On the flip side, they do alter the voting requirements. Any recipient of the public welfare credit receives a single vote in any given election. Any person not receiving the public welfare credit receives a second vote in Imperial only elections, IE those for the Chamber of Delegates and the Senate. Nobody can have more than 2 votes, no matter how high their income.
Under this revision nobody would ever be disenfranchised, and there would be a natural counterbalance mechanism in play. If the wealthier citizens decided to reduce the public welfare tax credit, this would simply increase the number of votes available to the poorer portions of the electorate who would most likely seek to increase the credit, which in turn would eventually lose them votes.
The politicians are being unusually wise and patient on this, perhaps because they are actually listening to the Eldest, and have simply unveiled the plan and released it for public comment and consideration without introducing any related legislation.
Meanwhile Julia Severina has presented to you a shopping list of things that the NRI is interested in purchasing. Most of it, quite honestly, comes as a bit of a surprise to you. You had expected them wanting things like mech technology samples, or energy weapons, but instead they are requesting samples of LB-X autocannon, Ultra autocannon, and oddly are wondering if they could have a dropship docking collar adapter to look at.
That’s when you discover something, namely that the NRI’s jumpships are of the old pattern and make use of dropshuttles rather than dropships for moving cargo, and all are effectively primitive compact core designs. They had left before the invention of the drop collar, and had never made use of anything similar.
You need to decide what, if anything, to sell them from their shopping list. They obviously have significantly different priorities to you.
| [] | LB-X Autocannon |
| [] | Ultra Autocannon |
| [] | Docking Collar Adaptor |
Pollux is being Pollux again. Although this time you are fighting a valiant rear-guard action against dissolving into guffaws over the ridiculous situation.
Nude beaches have been a part of Griffon culture from the beginning, and had been relatively common in the Star League as well. There hadn’t really been any stigma about them.
Looks like some Pollux types are trying to change that! A small but very vocal group on Pollux are demanding that nude beaches be banned in the name of ‘decency’. A quick glance at the protestors reveals that they are the sort of people you’d not really want to see on a nude beach in the first place as they’d probably prevent everybody else there from getting a tan by blocking the sun.
However you haven’t the foggiest idea what prompted this until you get an apologetic note from the Dean of the College of Periphery Studies about an unmonitored comm link that some of the… tenured professors… had been using to communicate with the outside world without anybody paying attention to them. Said tenured faculty members from the prestigious and illustrious institution had evidently decided that this was 17th century Europe, not Griffin’s Roost, and were preaching fire and brimstone Calvinist sermons against all of the sins of the flesh.
You inquire with the Dean to determine if there might be room in the faculty for a few dozen new appointments, since it looks like the standard screening process for… such prestigious positions as faculty in the College of Periphery Studies had missed a few prospective… faculty members.
With that being sorted, thankfully. You then head off to this year's Olympic games, thoughtfully inviting the NRI ambassador to be your guest in the Imperial box.
The games are… interesting is almost too tame of a word for it. Nowy Gdansk’s planetary government had been investing heavily in athletics as a way of showcasing the planet and attracting internal immigration and it certainly shows results with just how competitive they are in this Olympiad.
Indeed the games start off as pretty much a romp by the Nowy Gdansk team, with decisive wins in the various individual Track and Field athletics events, followed by dominating performances at men’s and women’s gymnastics. The Griffin’s Roost team manages to claw back a little in the team gymnastics event, but then the Nowy Gdansk team sweeps the swimming medals decisively.
Griffin’s Roost fights back by sweeping both the men’s and women’s decathlon in a dominating manner, before splitting the shooting honors. Several commentators do note that a number of, well, wardrobe malfunctions seemed to beset both women’s shooting teams during their competition.
The marathon’s are again split, with the men’s race being won decisively by the Nowy Gdansk team while the Griffin’s Roost women dominate their own race.
Then the quite uniquely Griffonese events begin. The Roman’s had chariot racing, you have the crucible of motorsports. And here the Griffin’s Roost team utterly dominated the competition. In Hovercraft racing it’s a podium sweep, likewise with motorcycles and stock cars.
At this point the two teams were split on medals, with 8 each, and only one event left to go. The Formula race. And a completely unknown female driver who sports the highly unlikely moniker of Kierowca Wyścigowy utterly crushes the competition. She never removes her helmet, says nothing to any of the reporters, and disappears immediately after the medal ceremony.
You are rather suspicious, especially as you realize that your darling daughter had missed the race, only to arrive with rather mussed hair five minutes after the medal ceremony looking quite smug.
The NRI ambassador seems utterly fascinated by the competition, although she does sniff rather disapprovingly at the ‘quality of competition’ during the various gymnastics meets, as well as the athletics meets. And then she rather delicately inquires over whether or not your Olympics would be open to ‘deserving athletes’ from the NRI.
| [] | Indeed |
|
| [] | Sorry, Griffon’s Only |
|
Jarow
Well-known member
[X] LB-X Autocannon
[X] Ultra Autocannon
The autocannons are useful on Dropper Choppers and Assault Dropships, respectively, but Gauss Rifles are pretty good, so they're probably fine for weapons even without ours. I'm comfortable sharing, especially as they aren't our clantech.
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
Dropships are really good for trade, which is what we want from a relationship with them. Especially given our dropship industry - we might be able to dominate their dropship market. Also would make their jumpships more viable for (if unlikely) possible future purchase/usage for us; we can't really take advantage of dropshuttle systems the way they probably can.
[X] Indeed
Adding a third to possibly seventh competitor (depending on if they send as a whole or per planet) to the Olympics sounds fine to me; don't think we can let them host until after we get our own jumpships though.
[X] Ultra Autocannon
The autocannons are useful on Dropper Choppers and Assault Dropships, respectively, but Gauss Rifles are pretty good, so they're probably fine for weapons even without ours. I'm comfortable sharing, especially as they aren't our clantech.
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
Dropships are really good for trade, which is what we want from a relationship with them. Especially given our dropship industry - we might be able to dominate their dropship market. Also would make their jumpships more viable for (if unlikely) possible future purchase/usage for us; we can't really take advantage of dropshuttle systems the way they probably can.
[X] Indeed
Adding a third to possibly seventh competitor (depending on if they send as a whole or per planet) to the Olympics sounds fine to me; don't think we can let them host until after we get our own jumpships though.
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] LB-X Autocannon
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
I’m a little unsure about the LB-X due to its effectiveness in an anti air role combined with our own emphasis on aerospace superiority but what the heck.
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
I’m a little unsure about the LB-X due to its effectiveness in an anti air role combined with our own emphasis on aerospace superiority but what the heck.
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] LB-X Autocannon
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
edofthesquid
Well-known member
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
Not sure about giving them all three
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
Not sure about giving them all three
[X] LB-X Autocannon
[X] Ultra Autocannon
The autocannons we will straight up sell.
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
These are a big enough deal that we should negotiate hard (but in good faith) for jump drive tech in return, not cash. It's worth pointing out to them that the docking collar itself isn't the key piece of DropShip capability; it's the Kearny-Fuchida booms and the corresponding modifications to the drive core.
[X] Indeed
[X] Ultra Autocannon
The autocannons we will straight up sell.
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
These are a big enough deal that we should negotiate hard (but in good faith) for jump drive tech in return, not cash. It's worth pointing out to them that the docking collar itself isn't the key piece of DropShip capability; it's the Kearny-Fuchida booms and the corresponding modifications to the drive core.
[X] Indeed
Lightwhispers
Well-known member
[X] LB-X Autocannon
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed
[X] Ultra Autocannon
[X] Docking Collar Adaptor
[X] Indeed