Re: [FH] Pantropists and John Crimmins was ecofundamentalists

On Mon, 18 Nov 2002 08:11:33 -0600 (CST), DAWGFACE47@webtv.net wrote :

> 
> good morning!
> 
> i may be as thick as a stevedore's sandwich, but why not use SG II for
> these guys?  the personal armor, weaponry, and morale seem to cover
the
> entire spectrum of  possible troop types.

Stargrunt is a possibility with the right scenario, true.  Under most
circumstances,
though, any kind of standard military force will go through the
Pantropists like a hot
knife through butter.  They've got no discipline, little training, and a
rather motley 
assortment of weapons.	

The rule system is the problem; it's just that they're just not a
militarily oriented 
group.	Think of them as P.E.T.A, but significantly more obnoxious (hard
though 
that may be to believe) and at least marginally more dangerous --
P.E.T.A., so 
far as I know, does not have the means or motive to create bioengineered
viral 
plagues to wipe out entire colonies.

The more I think about the Pantropists, the more I realize that if I'm
going higher 
than skirmish level, they'll work best as background material for
scenarios rather 
than direct participants.  They're certainly willing to hire people to
blow things 
up, kidnap prominent Terraforming advocates, and engage in industrial 
espionage for them.  And it's not like most of the governments of the
Tuffleyverse 
wouldn't happily wipe them all out if they had a chance, either.

(This has gotten me thinking more about the PS, though, further fleshing
out their
background.  They come into being circa 2043 or so, after the
publication of a book
called _Gaiacide_.  The book's thesis is that A: The Earth is a living
being, and that 
B: the human race is precisely analogous to a cancerous growth that is
slowly
killing it's the entire planet.  The only answer, obviously, is to
become "benign" and 
start living in harmony with the planet.  Not surprisingly, the book is
almost entirely
ignored by the general public.	A year or two later, the Pantropist
Society forms and
starts making trouble....  There's a John Varley quote that sums up
their philosophy
*perfectly*, but I don't have the book available right now.  It's
something along the lines
of: "The human race needs to grow up, and stop defining itself by
something as arbitary
as a genetic code.", from the book _The Ophiuchi Hotline_.)

One idea that might work as an SGII scenario is a hapless force that's
landed on a
planet that's been settled by Pantropists.  Those local animals are a
lot more
intelligent -- and hostile -- than they first appear.... 

-- 
John Crimmins
johncrim@voicenet.com