0
Please keep in mind that the information here-in is just a splinter of what makes up the Confederation Capella and focuses only on the Society aspect of the Confederation.
For those that do not have the CURRENT sourcebook House Liao here is a more complete and fair look at the Capellan Society. There is a lot more information in the Chapter Society & Culture then this. This is just a tiny exert of the whole picture that makes up the Capellan Society & Culture, its the introductory part to the chapter, but it delivers a much better and complete picture then what has so far been quoted.
This thread is purely meant as a place to inform about and discuss official (cannon) lore, it is not a place to push your own agenda what ever it might be.
The house of lowtax (which has been propagating their own version of what the Capellan Confederation should be like or should become) is welcome to join the discussion as long as we can keep it civil and on track (on track meaning please refrain from diverting from the official lore).
At the same time it is also expected from us "Loyalists" to be civil and keep on track.
You can and should voice your own opinion but without intend to flame others or forcing it upon them.
I would also like to urge anyone that is interested in any of the story and background information about the BTuniverse to consider spending a couple of bucks on some of the source books which make a ) great reading and b ) support the BT franchise by financing publishers that put effort into keeping this great SiFi story alive with their works.
In particular for those of you that are interested in more about House Liao, the exerts I quoted are from the NEW House Liao sourcebook which you can buy in pdf format for just $25 from the official publisher store: http://www.battlecor...roducts_id=2734
All rights and credits of the following text from the House Liao sourcebook belong to Catalyst Game Labs.
Quote
SOCIETY & CULTURE
Life in the Capellan Confederation is both simpler and much
more difficult than life in some other Successor States.
Capellans are a rightfully proud people, a class of citizens
who know that everyone among them has earned that appellation.
The state provides many of the basic services that citizens
of other realms so often squabble over, and the Capellan military
of 3067 provides Capellans the most secure lifestyle that any
Confederation citizen has enjoyed in a century or more.
Capellan Citizenship
Unlike many other interstellar realms, birth is not a qualification
for citizenship in the Capellan Confederation. Every Capellan
citizen—noble-born or not—must offer the state some service in
order to earn his or her citizenship. At birth, every Capellan is legally
made a ward of the state under the nominal authority of the
child’s parents or state-appointed guardians. Though not supported
in legal precedents, unwritten laws keep families together. Only
in difficult circumstances is a child removed from its parents—if
the parents were killed soon after the child was born, perhaps, or
if they are deployed on extended military missions. The family is a
venerated unit of Capellan society, and whatever the legal status
of children, no attempts to disrupt families are made without very
good reasons.
The Ministry of Social Education regulates citizenship, and the
obligation to provide some service to the state is taken seriously
during the child’s growth and education. By age fifteen, a native
Capellan must have completed his citizenship service, normally a
volunteer program designed to provide a vehicle for citizenship—
for example, working in the conservation corps or the Capellan
Star Scouts, or volunteering in a hospital or retirement hospice.
A Capellan youth who fails to meet his or her citizenship requirements
by age fifteen is put on probation and subjected to a
crash program of social and political indoctrination. Because the
MSE recognizes a lack of sufficient moral character as the only reason
a child would not be sufficiently motivated to earn citizenship,
these classes emphasize the need for a strong state and the sacrifices
an individual must be willing to make to ensure the state’s
prosperity. Most probationary students pass this second round of
examinations and earn their citizenship, but a small percentage
still refuse to be a productive part of the state, and so are relegated
to the servitor caste.
Immigration
Citizens of other realms may immigrate to the Confederation,
but non-noble immigrants must undergo a complete educational
cycle about life in the Confederation and the meaning of Capellan
citizenship. They are required to perform the same service to
the state as any Capellan schoolchild, though they often do this
through several months of unpaid labor in their chosen profession,
or assignment to a public works project, rather than the community
service-oriented programs for students.
Noble-born immigrants may avoid the indoctrination period
and service requirement by paying a sizable relocation fee to the
state treasury, and are inducted into the Sheng nobility at one rank
lower than their previous noble rank.
Populations of worlds conquered by the Confederation military
are immediately entered into the ranks of the servitor caste, making
them second-class citizens. Though this practice sometimes
costs the Confederation the productivity of skilled specialists and
technicians, it is important for each world to learn its place in the
Capellan realm. A planet whose inhabitants actively resisted the
Confederation only days before can hardly expect to become an
honored member of it overnight, not when every Capellan citizen—
whether from the backwater villages of Ward or the cultured
cities of Sian—has already sacrificed to earn his or her place in
the nation. Caste assignment is generally accomplished within a
few years, and the conquered populations can then be allowed to
qualify for Capellan citizenship. The only exceptions to this rule are
children born on a planet after its conquest, who are accorded the
same state protection as any Capellan child.
Citizens’ Obligations
As a citizen of the Confederation, every Capellan is expected to
place the good of the state before personal gain. As a testament to
that, every citizen must take an oath of loyalty to the Confederation,
to House Liao and to the Chancellor, whose decrees may not be
questioned. Though for the most part Capellans are free to pursue
whatever lifestyle they choose, in extreme situations they are subject
to the direction of a planetary diem, who may determine that
a certain industry or segment thereof must be strengthened.
Likewise, citizens are subject to colonization directives, should
the Confederation need to quickly populate a newly colonized
world to ensure its rapid exploitation. Skilled laborers may also be
retrained to address labor shortages in other industries. For example,
if a world has too many vehicle manufacturers and not enough
textile engineers, a number of vehicle-manufacturing employees
will be retrained to work in the textile industry. This retraining is
mandatory, though the cost of it is covered by the state.
Citizens not already part of the regular Capellan military are
encouraged to join their planetary Home Guards, and every
Capellan citizen must register with the local militia for duty in the
event of invasion or catastrophe. When natural disasters occur, all
Capellans—citizens or not—are expected to help with relief efforts
and follow the direction of planetary officials.
In theory, every Capellan citizen has the right to appeal directly
to the Chancellor for perceived grievances against government officials
or organizations. In practice, this is exceedingly rare, even
more so now than fifty years ago. Chancellor Romano Liao became
known for executing citizens whom she thought wasted her time
with petitions, and so most Capellans now address these concerns
to local officials such as their refrector, who can forward their petitions
to the House of Scions.
As with any earned right, citizenship can be revoked. The
Capellan courts may revoke the citizenship of criminals, and the
Chancellor may do likewise for any reason he wishes. In some
cases, citizenship is revoked to facilitate governmental seizure of
property. In the military, loss of citizenship is one of the punishments for many of the worst crimes, such as cowardice in the face of the enemy or treason. A citizen who has his citizenship revoked
is immediately relegated to servitor rank.
The Capellan Caste System
Capellans live at the mercy of their bureaucracy, and though
for the most part the state does its best not to interfere in the lives
of its citizens, it does not hesitate to do so when necessary. Franco
Liao established an incentive program for workers in the arms
industry, granting special privileges to those supporting the war
effort. Over the years, more of these incentive programs were created,
with each gradually coalescing into the social caste system
that dominates the Confederation today.
It is important to note that the caste system is largely created
and maintained by Capellan citizens themselves, not by the government.
In an effort to relieve some of the stress inherent in living
in such a regimented culture, the caste system promotes feelings
of community between social peers, and these communities have
grown to include social monetary funds, support structures and
even (in rare cases) self-governance in certain aspects of their lives.
Caste leaders, for example, are elected by popular vote of
their caste, in the only remnant of democracy still existing in
the Confederation. While caste leaders have no say over the
Confederation’s governance, they do have significant control over
the attitudes and feelings of their caste members, and leaders in
the past have taken advantage of this power to attempt to influence
policy.
The caste system is not hereditary, nor is it exclusive. A member
of one caste is free to marry a member of another, for example,
and membership in a certain caste is open to any should they wish
to move, so long as they can qualify and gain permission from the
caste leaders. Confederation society currently contains seven official
castes and one unofficial caste.
Directorship
The directorship is the caste of the bureaucrat, the caste to
which most administrators as high as the planetary level belong.
Because of their ease of movement throughout the bureaucracy,
members of the directorship display influence far outside their actual
numbers, and have an excellent relationship with the House of
Scions (which includes many directorship members).
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia are the Confederation’s thinkers. As the sector
of the population most vital to the Confederation’s growth,
they are accorded the highest regard and most flexible living
conditions of any caste. Scientists, technicians and religious leaders
make up this caste, and many of them are amply rewarded for
their contributions to the state with noble titles or large properties.
Their salaries are the highest of any caste, even the non-noble
members.
Supporters
Supporters are the non-science-oriented professionals of the
Confederation: educators, political economists, members of the
judiciary and so on. Teachers are perhaps the most widely respected
professionals in the entire Confederation—as long as they
maintain the correct political outlook—and make up a large portion
of the supporters. Business leaders and industrialists fall into
the supporters caste as well.
Artists
Art in the Confederation is a venerated profession, so long as
the art has demonstrable value for the state. Painters, sculptors,
musicians, entertainers, actors and show people of all descriptions
make up the ranks of the Artists caste. Of all castes except the servitors,
artists receive on average the lowest wages and benefits,
though numerous state-sponsored endowments exist to promote
artists who make significant contributions to Capellan life.
The Entitled
The entitled are the Confederation’s medical professionals:
doctors, nurses and other health-care workers. Given the nature of
their service, members of this caste are the only ones with a blanket
travel allowance, permitting them to travel anywhere in the
Confederation without restriction. Because of this, the Maskirovka monitors the entitled very closely for foreign agents, but surprisingly
few are discovered among them.
The Commonality
The commonality caste represents the bulk of Capellan citizens:
the huge masses of skilled and unskilled laborers who toil to
operate the state’s industries, keep its farms productive and maintain
its infrastructure. Because of this caste’s sheer size and the
power it holds over industry, commonality caste leaders on every
Confederation planet meet often with planetary diems to discuss
wages, price adjustments and holidays. While any such decision
is at the discretion of the diem, anyone can see that productivity
increases when laborers feel they have a voice with those whose
decisions affect their daily lives.
Servitors
Only officially recognized after the ascension of Sun-Tzu Liao to
the Celestial Throne, servitors are the largest segment of Capellan
society to grow out of the centuries of Succession Wars. Servitors
are second-class Capellans, not considered citizens, and are treated
as little more than slave labor. The servitors, more than any other
caste, were often cited by Hanse Davion and his propaganda machine
as the cause of the Fourth Succession War, despite the fact
that this caste had existed for hundreds of years.
Servitors perform society’s mundane tasks, those that are necessary
but that other Capellans are unwilling or disinclined to do.
Most servitors are treated as slaves, and until 3052 could be owned
by noble Capellan citizens. One of Sun-Tzu Liao’s first acts was to
abolish the ownership of servitors and establish the beginnings of
a true caste system for them. These actions paid fulsome dividends
when the Confederation embraced Xin Sheng, making the servitors
some of Sun-Tzu’s most fervent supporters.
As with other castes, servitors may earn (or attempt to re-earn)
their citizenship after ten years of service, and more and more servitors
have done so since 3052. The children of servitors are treated like
any other Capellan child, entered into state schools and given the
same citizenship requirements as the children of Capellan nobles.
Janshi
The first murmurs of a warrior (janshi) caste began after Xin
Sheng, when the resurgent Capellan military engineered victory
after victory. In the past, Capellan soldiers existed outside the
caste system for as long as they served, but the national and martial
pride brought about by Xin Sheng is leading many to suggest
forming a new caste for the military.
Life in the Capellan Confederation is both simpler and much
more difficult than life in some other Successor States.
Capellans are a rightfully proud people, a class of citizens
who know that everyone among them has earned that appellation.
The state provides many of the basic services that citizens
of other realms so often squabble over, and the Capellan military
of 3067 provides Capellans the most secure lifestyle that any
Confederation citizen has enjoyed in a century or more.
Capellan Citizenship
Unlike many other interstellar realms, birth is not a qualification
for citizenship in the Capellan Confederation. Every Capellan
citizen—noble-born or not—must offer the state some service in
order to earn his or her citizenship. At birth, every Capellan is legally
made a ward of the state under the nominal authority of the
child’s parents or state-appointed guardians. Though not supported
in legal precedents, unwritten laws keep families together. Only
in difficult circumstances is a child removed from its parents—if
the parents were killed soon after the child was born, perhaps, or
if they are deployed on extended military missions. The family is a
venerated unit of Capellan society, and whatever the legal status
of children, no attempts to disrupt families are made without very
good reasons.
The Ministry of Social Education regulates citizenship, and the
obligation to provide some service to the state is taken seriously
during the child’s growth and education. By age fifteen, a native
Capellan must have completed his citizenship service, normally a
volunteer program designed to provide a vehicle for citizenship—
for example, working in the conservation corps or the Capellan
Star Scouts, or volunteering in a hospital or retirement hospice.
A Capellan youth who fails to meet his or her citizenship requirements
by age fifteen is put on probation and subjected to a
crash program of social and political indoctrination. Because the
MSE recognizes a lack of sufficient moral character as the only reason
a child would not be sufficiently motivated to earn citizenship,
these classes emphasize the need for a strong state and the sacrifices
an individual must be willing to make to ensure the state’s
prosperity. Most probationary students pass this second round of
examinations and earn their citizenship, but a small percentage
still refuse to be a productive part of the state, and so are relegated
to the servitor caste.
Immigration
Citizens of other realms may immigrate to the Confederation,
but non-noble immigrants must undergo a complete educational
cycle about life in the Confederation and the meaning of Capellan
citizenship. They are required to perform the same service to
the state as any Capellan schoolchild, though they often do this
through several months of unpaid labor in their chosen profession,
or assignment to a public works project, rather than the community
service-oriented programs for students.
Noble-born immigrants may avoid the indoctrination period
and service requirement by paying a sizable relocation fee to the
state treasury, and are inducted into the Sheng nobility at one rank
lower than their previous noble rank.
Populations of worlds conquered by the Confederation military
are immediately entered into the ranks of the servitor caste, making
them second-class citizens. Though this practice sometimes
costs the Confederation the productivity of skilled specialists and
technicians, it is important for each world to learn its place in the
Capellan realm. A planet whose inhabitants actively resisted the
Confederation only days before can hardly expect to become an
honored member of it overnight, not when every Capellan citizen—
whether from the backwater villages of Ward or the cultured
cities of Sian—has already sacrificed to earn his or her place in
the nation. Caste assignment is generally accomplished within a
few years, and the conquered populations can then be allowed to
qualify for Capellan citizenship. The only exceptions to this rule are
children born on a planet after its conquest, who are accorded the
same state protection as any Capellan child.
Citizens’ Obligations
As a citizen of the Confederation, every Capellan is expected to
place the good of the state before personal gain. As a testament to
that, every citizen must take an oath of loyalty to the Confederation,
to House Liao and to the Chancellor, whose decrees may not be
questioned. Though for the most part Capellans are free to pursue
whatever lifestyle they choose, in extreme situations they are subject
to the direction of a planetary diem, who may determine that
a certain industry or segment thereof must be strengthened.
Likewise, citizens are subject to colonization directives, should
the Confederation need to quickly populate a newly colonized
world to ensure its rapid exploitation. Skilled laborers may also be
retrained to address labor shortages in other industries. For example,
if a world has too many vehicle manufacturers and not enough
textile engineers, a number of vehicle-manufacturing employees
will be retrained to work in the textile industry. This retraining is
mandatory, though the cost of it is covered by the state.
Citizens not already part of the regular Capellan military are
encouraged to join their planetary Home Guards, and every
Capellan citizen must register with the local militia for duty in the
event of invasion or catastrophe. When natural disasters occur, all
Capellans—citizens or not—are expected to help with relief efforts
and follow the direction of planetary officials.
In theory, every Capellan citizen has the right to appeal directly
to the Chancellor for perceived grievances against government officials
or organizations. In practice, this is exceedingly rare, even
more so now than fifty years ago. Chancellor Romano Liao became
known for executing citizens whom she thought wasted her time
with petitions, and so most Capellans now address these concerns
to local officials such as their refrector, who can forward their petitions
to the House of Scions.
As with any earned right, citizenship can be revoked. The
Capellan courts may revoke the citizenship of criminals, and the
Chancellor may do likewise for any reason he wishes. In some
cases, citizenship is revoked to facilitate governmental seizure of
property. In the military, loss of citizenship is one of the punishments for many of the worst crimes, such as cowardice in the face of the enemy or treason. A citizen who has his citizenship revoked
is immediately relegated to servitor rank.
The Capellan Caste System
Capellans live at the mercy of their bureaucracy, and though
for the most part the state does its best not to interfere in the lives
of its citizens, it does not hesitate to do so when necessary. Franco
Liao established an incentive program for workers in the arms
industry, granting special privileges to those supporting the war
effort. Over the years, more of these incentive programs were created,
with each gradually coalescing into the social caste system
that dominates the Confederation today.
It is important to note that the caste system is largely created
and maintained by Capellan citizens themselves, not by the government.
In an effort to relieve some of the stress inherent in living
in such a regimented culture, the caste system promotes feelings
of community between social peers, and these communities have
grown to include social monetary funds, support structures and
even (in rare cases) self-governance in certain aspects of their lives.
Caste leaders, for example, are elected by popular vote of
their caste, in the only remnant of democracy still existing in
the Confederation. While caste leaders have no say over the
Confederation’s governance, they do have significant control over
the attitudes and feelings of their caste members, and leaders in
the past have taken advantage of this power to attempt to influence
policy.
The caste system is not hereditary, nor is it exclusive. A member
of one caste is free to marry a member of another, for example,
and membership in a certain caste is open to any should they wish
to move, so long as they can qualify and gain permission from the
caste leaders. Confederation society currently contains seven official
castes and one unofficial caste.
Directorship
The directorship is the caste of the bureaucrat, the caste to
which most administrators as high as the planetary level belong.
Because of their ease of movement throughout the bureaucracy,
members of the directorship display influence far outside their actual
numbers, and have an excellent relationship with the House of
Scions (which includes many directorship members).
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia are the Confederation’s thinkers. As the sector
of the population most vital to the Confederation’s growth,
they are accorded the highest regard and most flexible living
conditions of any caste. Scientists, technicians and religious leaders
make up this caste, and many of them are amply rewarded for
their contributions to the state with noble titles or large properties.
Their salaries are the highest of any caste, even the non-noble
members.
Supporters
Supporters are the non-science-oriented professionals of the
Confederation: educators, political economists, members of the
judiciary and so on. Teachers are perhaps the most widely respected
professionals in the entire Confederation—as long as they
maintain the correct political outlook—and make up a large portion
of the supporters. Business leaders and industrialists fall into
the supporters caste as well.
Artists
Art in the Confederation is a venerated profession, so long as
the art has demonstrable value for the state. Painters, sculptors,
musicians, entertainers, actors and show people of all descriptions
make up the ranks of the Artists caste. Of all castes except the servitors,
artists receive on average the lowest wages and benefits,
though numerous state-sponsored endowments exist to promote
artists who make significant contributions to Capellan life.
The Entitled
The entitled are the Confederation’s medical professionals:
doctors, nurses and other health-care workers. Given the nature of
their service, members of this caste are the only ones with a blanket
travel allowance, permitting them to travel anywhere in the
Confederation without restriction. Because of this, the Maskirovka monitors the entitled very closely for foreign agents, but surprisingly
few are discovered among them.
The Commonality
The commonality caste represents the bulk of Capellan citizens:
the huge masses of skilled and unskilled laborers who toil to
operate the state’s industries, keep its farms productive and maintain
its infrastructure. Because of this caste’s sheer size and the
power it holds over industry, commonality caste leaders on every
Confederation planet meet often with planetary diems to discuss
wages, price adjustments and holidays. While any such decision
is at the discretion of the diem, anyone can see that productivity
increases when laborers feel they have a voice with those whose
decisions affect their daily lives.
Servitors
Only officially recognized after the ascension of Sun-Tzu Liao to
the Celestial Throne, servitors are the largest segment of Capellan
society to grow out of the centuries of Succession Wars. Servitors
are second-class Capellans, not considered citizens, and are treated
as little more than slave labor. The servitors, more than any other
caste, were often cited by Hanse Davion and his propaganda machine
as the cause of the Fourth Succession War, despite the fact
that this caste had existed for hundreds of years.
Servitors perform society’s mundane tasks, those that are necessary
but that other Capellans are unwilling or disinclined to do.
Most servitors are treated as slaves, and until 3052 could be owned
by noble Capellan citizens. One of Sun-Tzu Liao’s first acts was to
abolish the ownership of servitors and establish the beginnings of
a true caste system for them. These actions paid fulsome dividends
when the Confederation embraced Xin Sheng, making the servitors
some of Sun-Tzu’s most fervent supporters.
As with other castes, servitors may earn (or attempt to re-earn)
their citizenship after ten years of service, and more and more servitors
have done so since 3052. The children of servitors are treated like
any other Capellan child, entered into state schools and given the
same citizenship requirements as the children of Capellan nobles.
Janshi
The first murmurs of a warrior (janshi) caste began after Xin
Sheng, when the resurgent Capellan military engineered victory
after victory. In the past, Capellan soldiers existed outside the
caste system for as long as they served, but the national and martial
pride brought about by Xin Sheng is leading many to suggest
forming a new caste for the military.
