Roger Burton West wrote:
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 05:22:48PM -0400, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
How do you figure this? Looking at the causes for terrorism today, and
in the Traveller universe, it isn't always about resources; it's about
belief, oppression - or the perception of oppression, unwanted
occupation, and a host of other issues. So long as there is organized
government or social groups there will be terrorism of one sort or another.
It's an effort vs reward thing.
Once you've got control of a spacecraft powered by a nuclear reactor,
you can rain radioactive death over really quite a large area.
It's not hard at all, in a universe where you have asteroid miners with
reactionless-drive ships, to get hold of one of those ships and set its
autopilot to take a rock on a multi-year course that ends in a planet.
Any merchant spacecraft, any little asteroid miner, is potentially as
damaging as a nuclear weapon - or even more so. And yet these things are
sold openly to civilians.
That tells me that people simply don't _want_ to commit terrorist acts.
Whether that's because of mind control, insanely intrusive law
enforcement, or everybody simply sitting down and deciding to be
peaceful and happy... is not germane to the argument. Reactionless or
nuclear-powered ships coupled with a society recognisably like our own
simply break my suspension of disbelief (and I say this even though I've
run games in which they exist).
Terrorism is rarely rational to those being terrorized. One might say
that the US could glass the middle east in thirty minutes or less...and
by that very fear and fact, terrorism should cease. Yet it doesn't.
Just because something doesn't happen, i.e. the absence of something,
doesn't mean that it doesn't, won't, or can't happen. Terrorism is not
always about using the biggest stick in the woodpile, it's about
effective shaping of debate, public fears and perceptions, and to get
the other party to react in ways which will isolate them from the governed.
In many cases the goals of the terrorists aren't genocide or an
extinction level event, but rather control or freedom. It's hard to
claim victory when the planet is ruined and everyone is dead.
--
Kurt Feltenberger
[email protected]/[email protected]
http://www.casademon.org
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not living enough." - Me
_______________________________________________
GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]>
http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
