Wendigo Vendetta, on 19 March 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:
In essence, space Nazies with better PR... and no one likes Nazies.
Calling the Clans "Nazis" is inaccurate, as they are not members of the National Socialist Party, nor do they adhere to the ideology that defines Nazism. Their society
does exhibit all the traits associated with hard right-wing authoritarianism, also known as
Facism. (The Nazis were a fascist movement, as was Mussolini in Italy and the Japanese government in the 1930s-1940s.)
I'm sure I've posted in this topic, or one similar to it, that I don't like the Clans. Their society, caste-based and ruled by a military junta, is repulsive in its abuses and idolization of war as the pinnacle of human achievement. Such malignancy can be fully laid at the feet of the founder of their society,
Nicolas Kerensky. He put the military at the pinnacle of Clan society to cement his power base. He declared himself supreme executive for life, a position known as the
ilKhan. He lead purges of "rebels" at the behest of his father when the Clans were still the SLDF-in-Exile. He was an egomaniac, and is described by source materials as having a messiah complex.
I dislike the Clans for game-mechanic reasons as well. The Clans, as written by FASA in the 3040-3055 period, do not seem to have been designed for use as a "player faction". Their superior equipment, combined with their elite pilots and obsession with "honour" to the point of idiocy, function extremely well as supremely dangerous, but flawed antagonists for a GM looking to present his or her players with a decidedly unique challenge for the time period. Operation Bulldog reads like a campaign from some tabletop role-playing game, culminating in storming the villain's lair and dashing his plans for world domination. The Invading Clans fit the role of "GM-run antagonists" during the Clan Invasion period in much the same way theWord of Blake's Shadow Divisions fit that role during the Jihad time-frame. Ultimately, the Clans seem to have been written in an identical role to the Klingons in
Star Trek: a frequently antagonistic and alien group that is extremely skilled in combat and run by a society that is repulsive to modern sensibilities and ethics, yet still manage to retain some sympathetic elements so they don't cross the line into outright villainy. Unless the plot demands it. (See: Clan Smoke Jaguar.)
I can't say that I'm surprised that people 'like' the Clans, as it's plainly apparent that people are capable of 'liking' actual horrible regressive groups in today's world like the EDL in Britain, the Golden Dawn in Italy, the various flavors of Crypto-Nazism and white power movements, and the FRC in the United States. Fictitious flavors of fascism and other regressive social movements tend to attract fanbases, such as The Drakka, GOR, Enemies Foreign and Domestic and a whole host of other poorly-written explorations of just how close people can come to fan-boying outright racism and all but saying "white power". The Clans are just another, admittedly less vile, permutation of fascist fantasies.
edit:
Stormwolf, on 20 March 2013 - 01:52 PM, said:
No he didn't, Andery and Nicholas were pretty close after their father died.
Erm, no. Operation Klondike and the old Clan sourcebook paint a radically different picture.
double edit:
Their suspicions surrounding Andrey's death was one of the motivating factors for Clan Wolverine actively defying Nicolas and telling him to his face in the Grand Council that he was only interested in control, which lead to Nicolas throwing a hissy fit and demanding their annihilation.
Edited by Wales Grey, 20 March 2013 - 02:41 PM.
16
Do they shoot him right there on the council floor, or, do they have Elementals rip him limb-from-limb, or, do they drag him outside then kill him?
