I'm looking to make an administration that rules over several peoples on multiple colony worlds. I want the administration to be exploitative and harsh, but not "crazy evil" -- in fact it will be a voting member of the Republic Senate. In effect, something akin to the Corporate Sector but run by a consortium of noble houses. Here are a few of the restrictions I was considering, and I'd like to have a little feedback on how you see them impacting society.

• The inhabitants cannot privately own vehicles. Planetary vehicles on these worlds are exclusively owned by the administration and can be leased for a monthly fee. The administration maintains the vehicles and ensures that all are "environmentally friendly" and compliant with the local laws (which the administration makes). This allows the administration to track all vehicle use on their worlds and prevents private ownership of what can quickly become armed "technicals."
• The inhabitants cannot privately own droids. Droids on these worlds are exclusively owned by the administration and can be leased for a monthly fee. The administration maintains the droids and ensures that all are "environmentally friendly" and compliant with the local laws (which the administration makes). This allows the administration to track all droid use on their worlds and to use the droids to collect information (and the user agreement requires consenting to this).

I'm going for a group of worlds with fairly backward populations of rough colonists that mainly get by with beast-based transportation and has a warranted distrust of droids. Because of the Wild West nature of the worlds along with natural dangers, most personal weapons are still allowed.

I say many people whoud not only hate the government but do anything they can to harm it ie “sugar in the gas tank” if they think they can get away with it. Also companies will stay small if they form at all as the fees for the government cars or droids will make it more trouble than it’s worth to grow. Any thing that can not be grown will be extremely expensive to get as it will be shipped off world any towns will be packed in as small of a space as you can as walking will be the main mode of transport as beasts of burden will be ultra pricey unless the world is filled with them.

you may even see the people attack random droids for fear of spying (hope you have no PCs that wish to play droids) and or be in outright rebellion

My idea is to not only make droids taxable by the administrative state, but mandatory for all companies to own at least one otherwise they are non-compliant with the law and will be shut down if otherwise. Including at least one administrative droid that oversees the running of the company that technically acts as their eye into every pie. This creates an authoritarian state that is always broadly aware of what is going on in any particular company, is aware of where the companies money is going and if someone commits an offense in that company? Every company knows that you are a black listed individual and won't be able to employ you without being in defiance of the law, aside from "lower" positions run by the administration that would always be a degrading form of work. What precisely that "lower class" style of work. Company does something illegal? Then the droid will inform their superior without notifying the company which results in gigantic fines hitting them, if they are lucky.

Maybe even go full Judge Dread on it, where people who aren't productive to society are just kicked out of the city and left to the harsh wildness, populated by rich huntsmen who take great pleasure in hunting people for sport. Maybe there are beasts that are part of the planets defence grid introduced by the empire that will attack and destroy everything outside the safe boundaries of the city, which is circulated as entertainment to the gladiatorial sense; which would certainly explain a wild west vibe; outside of the production hubs is towns assembled by people who are judged to be undesirable by society, some rightfully so.

This creates a toxic but effective status quo that could divide people up into an ultra efficient surviance state that prioritises obedience first, then uses it's work force to serve the imperial war machine. The droids might even become an effective symbol of the oppression, these gigantic black droids with the sweeping red visors that seem to be at the head of every admirative front. Watching everything. Kinda reminds me of that Disney Movie Black Hole, where the gigantic hulking body guard served as an imposing, unfeeling antagonistic presence that only followed orders. I kinda imagine the administrative droids to be that kind of presence that have the power and authority to do whatever it is ordered to do and thus could make an effective early game villain.

13 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

I say many people whoud not only hate the government but do anything they can to harm it ie “sugar in the gas tank” if they think they can get away with it. Also companies will stay small if they form at all as the fees for the government cars or droids will make it more trouble than it’s worth to grow. Any thing that can not be grown will be extremely expensive to get as it will be shipped off world any towns will be packed in as small of a space as you can as walking will be the main mode of transport as beasts of burden will be ultra pricey unless the world is filled with them.

you may even see the people attack random droids for fear of spying (hope you have no PCs that wish to play droids) and or be in outright rebellion

I want it to be a place simmering with anger--anger towards the nobles and anger towards the Republic that allows such exploitation. However, many of the locals just buy in and accept the way things are so they can participate in daily life beyond the limits of their homesteads.

Most of the populations are homesteaders that are largely self-sufficient, but other goods and services can be transported and distributed by government-run organizations to population centers where most people can pick them up and take them home by cart or wagon. This again gives the government greater control over what goods are available at any given settlement and at any given time. I'm picturing small towns surrounded by several score homesteads and rail lines connecting them. Each world might have a few bigger cities that are government centers and spaceports.

Beasts of burden will be very plentiful. Homesteads will be either farms (with some secondary livestock) or ranches (with some secondary farming). Mining homesteads will not (legally) exist as all mining will be conducted through the Mining Guild which exists in partnership with the noble administration. Locals can certainly sign on with the Mining Guild and work the mines for a wage, but most are too stubbornly independent to do so.

Just now, LordBritish said:

My idea is to not only make droids taxable by the administrative state, but mandatory for all companies to own at least one otherwise they are non-compliant with the law and will be shut down if otherwise. Including at least one administrative droid that oversees the running of the company that technically acts as their eye into every pie. This creates an authoritarian state that is always broadly aware of what is going on in any particular company, is aware of where the companies money is going and if someone commits an offense in that company? Every company knows that you are a black listed individual and won't be able to employ you without being in defiance of the law, aside from "lower" positions run by the administration that would always be a degrading form of work. What precisely that "lower class" style of work. Company does something illegal? Then the droid will inform their superior without notifying the company which results in gigantic fines hitting them, if they are lucky.

Maybe even go full Judge Dread on it, where people who aren't productive to society are just kicked out of the city and left to the harsh wildness, populated by rich huntsmen who take great pleasure in hunting people for sport. Maybe there are beasts that are part of the planets defence grid introduced by the empire that will attack and destroy everything outside the safe boundaries of the city, which is circulated as entertainment to the gladiatorial sense; which would give the PC's an out if they ever got so helplessly blind sided that would usually end their involvement. Maybe there are people out in that wildness who are trying to help establish a resistance movement to retake those mega cities.

This creates a toxic but effective status quo that could divide people up into an ultra efficient surviance state that prioritises obedience first, then uses it's work force to serve the imperial war machine. The droids might even become an effective symbol of the oppression, these gigantic black droids with the sweeping red visors that seem to be at the head of every admirative front. Watching everything. Kinda reminds me of that Disney Movie Black Hole, where the gigantic hulking body guard served as an imposing, unfeeling antagonistic presence that only followed orders. I kinda imagine the administrative droids to be that kind of presence that have the power and authority to do whatever it is ordered to do and thus could make an effective early game villain.

Forcing each homestead and business to lease an administrative droid from the planetary government is brilliant. These will officially monitor census and production (or sales and expenses for businesses). Maybe they should all answer to "Alexa" too...

The Judge Dread angle is too far into Crazy Evil for what I'm going for. I want a place that is generally a safe and secure place to live and raise children... if you don't mind handing your freedom away.

5 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Forcing each homestead and business to lease an administrative droid from the planetary government is brilliant. These will officially monitor census and production (or sales and expenses for businesses). Maybe they should all answer to "Alexa" too...

The Judge Dread angle is too far into Crazy Evil for what I'm going for. I want a place that is generally a safe and secure place to live and raise children... if you don't mind handing your freedom away.

I'm glad you like that idea! Cortana will rule the ga- (gets Halo 5 flashbacks) errrr, never mind. XD

Maybe they aren't active hunted per say outside the city; but aren't recognised as people. "Outside our cities, there is no life. Look at those savages building houses, stealing from one another. Life might be hard but this way of life is better then being outside the civilised states." The main way my mind works is that if there is a symbol of oppression that the local government would feel compelled to promote an adversary way of life that is completely undesirable. Life might be hard here sometimes, but you could be an "outsider" that has none of the support influstructure you currently enjoy. Maybe people here never leave their cities, the only way to get to another city is by train that goes directly between cities to ensure that every individual has a continued clean bill of health....

*starts frantically scribbling* XD Sorry don't mind me, I think I've just come up with an interesting setting to brain storm my own campaign. XD

That and the way I think assumes that the people at the very top have none of the restrictions of the people underneath, sure the empire's wraith always looms over the administrators but as long as the population remains loyal and stable, they are satisfying their yearly business quota.

You’d probably also want to have heavy restrictions on HoloNet access.

38 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

You’d probably also want to have heavy restrictions on HoloNet access.

I'm thinking that the local administration keeps a carefully pruned set of feeds open that provide propaganda showing how horrible the rest of the galaxy is and how the inhabitants should be thankful that their leaders work so diligently to ensure their prosperity.

I'm looking at using these systems as a recruiting ground for Separatists. These will be "true believers" in the Separatist cause that have experienced firsthand that the Republic does not care about them. They hope to change this by following Dooku and having their voice in the Separatist Senate. Later they will have the horrible realization that the various backers on the Separatist Council hold the real power and they havn't really improved their situation at all.

17 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I'm looking to make an administration that rules over several peoples on multiple colony worlds. I want the administration to be exploitative and harsh, but not "crazy evil" -- in fact it will be a voting member of the Republic Senate. In effect, something akin to the Corporate Sector but run by a consortium of noble houses. Here are a few of the restrictions I was considering, and I'd like to have a little feedback on how you see them impacting society.

• The inhabitants cannot privately own vehicles. Planetary vehicles on these worlds are exclusively owned by the administration and can be leased for a monthly fee. The administration maintains the vehicles and ensures that all are "environmentally friendly" and compliant with the local laws (which the administration makes). This allows the administration to track all vehicle use on their worlds and prevents private ownership of what can quickly become armed "technicals."
• The inhabitants cannot privately own droids. Droids on these worlds are exclusively owned by the administration and can be leased for a monthly fee. The administration maintains the droids and ensures that all are "environmentally friendly" and compliant with the local laws (which the administration makes). This allows the administration to track all droid use on their worlds and to use the droids to collect information (and the user agreement requires consenting to this).

I'm going for a group of worlds with fairly backward populations of rough colonists that mainly get by with beast-based transportation and has a warranted distrust of droids. Because of the Wild West nature of the worlds along with natural dangers, most personal weapons are still allowed.

A dislocated Gotal settlement? That gives the administration some debatable moral basis on limiting technology in the first place. Being backwater makes sense for the species who is sensitive to technology

22 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I want it to be a place simmering with anger--anger towards the nobles and anger towards the Republic that allows such exploitation. However, many of the locals just buy in and accept the way things are so they can participate in daily life beyond the limits of their homesteads.

Most of the populations are homesteaders that are largely self-sufficient, but other goods and services can be transported and distributed by government-run organizations to population centers where most people can pick them up and take them home by cart or wagon. This again gives the government greater control over what goods are available at any given settlement and at any given time. I'm picturing small towns surrounded by several score homesteads and rail lines connecting them. Each world might have a few bigger cities that are government centers and spaceports.

Beasts of burden will be very plentiful. Homesteads will be either farms (with some secondary livestock) or ranches (with some secondary farming). Mining homesteads will not (legally) exist as all mining will be conducted through the Mining Guild which exists in partnership with the noble administration. Locals can certainly sign on with the Mining Guild and work the mines for a wage, but most are too stubbornly independent to do so.

This sounds a lot like Onderon, just flipped towards the Seppies. TCW has a pretty good 4 episode arc with lots of background detail to glean from.

Sounds like you are describing a company town . There are plenty of historic examples.

You can make the entire local economy revolve around company script instead of credits or any other widely accepted currency. The employees can be paid in script and all the legal transactions have to be done in script. They can convert to credits, for a transaction fee. Of course, they can't legally use the credits on planet and the script is only good at company owned facilities on the planet.

All the stores, housing and other services are owned by the administration. This basically puts the workers in an endless loop and the administration basically gets the labor for free. If you want to be really mean, you can charge market rates for housing and such, but the conversion between script and credits is out of whack, so people go into debt just by living day to day.

44 minutes ago, DonalM said:

Sounds like you are describing a company town . There are plenty of historic examples.

You can make the entire local economy revolve around company script instead of credits or any other widely accepted currency. The employees can be paid in script and all the legal transactions have to be done in script. They can convert to credits, for a transaction fee. Of course, they can't legally use the credits on planet and the script is only good at company owned facilities on the planet.

All the stores, housing and other services are owned by the administration. This basically puts the workers in an endless loop and the administration basically gets the labor for free. If you want to be really mean, you can charge market rates for housing and such, but the conversion between script and credits is out of whack, so people go into debt just by living day to day.

Exactly what I'm looking for, just scaled up to multiple worlds in several systems (because in Star Wars, everything is scaled up). The trick here is that this has been endorsed by the Republic and the people will rebel against it and into the potentially far more exploitative hands of the Separatists and eventually the crushing oppression of the Empire (meet the new boss, same as the old boss).

On 3/2/2019 at 9:21 AM, HappyDaze said:

I'm looking to make an administration that rules over several peoples on multiple colony worlds. I want the administration to be exploitative and harsh, but not "crazy evil" -- in fact it will be a voting member of the Republic Senate. In effect, something akin to the Corporate Sector but run by a consortium of noble houses. Here are a few of the restrictions I was considering, and I'd like to have a little feedback on how you see them impacting society.

• The inhabitants cannot privately own vehicles. Planetary vehicles on these worlds are exclusively owned by the administration and can be leased for a monthly fee. The administration maintains the vehicles and ensures that all are "environmentally friendly" and compliant with the local laws (which the administration makes). This allows the administration to track all vehicle use on their worlds and prevents private ownership of what can quickly become armed "technicals."
• The inhabitants cannot privately own droids. Droids on these worlds are exclusively owned by the administration and can be leased for a monthly fee. The administration maintains the droids and ensures that all are "environmentally friendly" and compliant with the local laws (which the administration makes). This allows the administration to track all droid use on their worlds and to use the droids to collect information (and the user agreement requires consenting to this).

I'm going for a group of worlds with fairly backward populations of rough colonists that mainly get by with beast-based transportation and has a warranted distrust of droids. Because of the Wild West nature of the worlds along with natural dangers, most personal weapons are still allowed.

A few likely impacts on society that come to mind:

1. The people would be very physically strong and agile as a result of not having as much mechanical labor to foist their workloads onto. NPCs would be almost exclusively in the list of careers that focus on rural/rugged/physical stuff, no cybertechnicians for example.

2. There would likely be a heavy mystic angle to their culture, or at least a lot of folk tales and legends.

3. There would be a lot of amputees running around probably, if they are so restricted to access to mechanical devices, cyberlimbs would likely be non-existent for them. This would be more of a background thing I think, but it would likely be of note to anyone from the outside, that there are people going around with missing limbs, instead of artificial ones. Given how ubiquitous cybernetics are in the rest of the Republic, that would probably help hammer home how different this place is, and how restricted the locals lives are.

4. There would likely be an underground group that said "screw the rules", regarding no technology, and would likely be a high target market for smugglers, to bring in the technology they are so desperately lacking. Heavy restrictions and scarcities = prime markets for smugglers, so I would account for that when you are building things.

5. The above mentioned techno-rebels in point 4, would likely be the few NPCs with careers in the technology fields, but they would be really good at them, given their level of obsession. If they are that into getting equipment, to become a criminal of the state, then they would likely be highly driven to thrive in that field. They could be an avenue for the PCs to upgrade their equipment, or repair damaged stuff, if they don't feel like dealing with the government.

6. Given how long this rule has been in place (just a few years versus multiple decades/generations), the people would likely have different opinions on the fairness of the rule. If anyone is alive from prior to the mandate, they would likely be very negative to the rule about the ban. People who have known nothing but the technology ban, would probably be less inclined to be bothered by it, as it's "the way it's always been". Some amount of Teenage Rebellion would likely be present in the youth (we want our datatablets! we have a right to technology!)

7. Lots of animal husbandry for lots of different things. Depending on how far you want to take this, they could have different fauna for lots of different situations. Some animals for sneaking and thieving, others for heavy labor/battle, others for travel (land, air and sea), etc. I mean, they could be as symbiotic as the Navu in Avatar, where they had an animal for basically everything. They will likely be very protective of their animals, as they are their livelihood. They would hold a key and important place in their society and economy, and that much importance would color their feelings towards them. Crimes against their animals might be treated more severely than a PC might think at first glance. To them it's just a beast of burden, to the NPCs, it's their only source of transportation, cultivation of land, dairy products, etc.

8. Kind of going Dune with this bit, and assuming this ruling has been in place for a long time, but there would likely be a level of disdain and condemnation on the part of the government people, when considering the "dirty plebs", and would likely not think much of them as a coordinated threat. They would likely under-count their population numbers, assume they are all "backwater idiots", given their lifestyles, and disregard them at every turn. If the mundanes are against this ruling, it would likely translate into an underground (perhaps literally) movement (perhaps including the techno-thieves from point 4 above), biding their time, and building their resources, to rise up against the government at some point. They would have markings they used in daily life, to denote each other in subtle ways. Phrases used in common speech, or hand gestures to communicate in public without giving away their true agenda to the government. If any of the NPCs are of a mystic/seer type career, with some access to Force powers of prophecy, they might even have had visions of the PCs showing up to try and help them overthrow the government, as that is something Force users can do in this game.

Yes this is pretty much just Dune re-skinned to Star Wars, but the more I think about the setting you've built, the more it makes me think the society would likely reflect that of Dune pretty well. Assuming this rule has been in place for a long time.

That's too far; I'm not going for primitive--they still have a lot of galactic standard tech, including medical tech. What they don't have is personal ownership/use of vehicles and droids. They also have travel restrictions and filtered information feeds. Those over them want a useful controlled workforce (and the populace for Senate votes), not spiritual primitives.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

That's too far; I'm not going for primitive--they still have a lot of galactic standard tech, including medical tech. What they don't have is personal ownership/use of vehicles and droids. They also have travel restrictions and filtered information feeds. Those over them want a useful controlled workforce (and the populace for Senate votes), not spiritual primitives.

So basicly Chinese

1 hour ago, Rimsen said:

So basicly Chinese

China is quite a bit more complex than that. The company town equivalency that was suggested previously is pretty much what I'm going for, just scaled up from a town to a score of planetary bodies within a single sector.

This sounds eerily similar to the Corporate Sector Authority.

I went darker in my Star Wars Universe, but . . . yeah.