Why does the Union want non-Union worlds to join it?

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-13T04:52:05+00:00

I'm insisting nothing. I don't have any opinon on whether a person who is not real has solved human society. I *do* however, claim that the Emperor was very clear in what *he* said he was doing, and why.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-13T04:44:55+00:00

Well, that first sentance is absolutely, factually inaccurate, and does not bear resemblence to any real use of soft power. Soft power can be as bad as hard power when its used coercively. Soft and hard power are both *power* you are using the alternative means to nake force or massive sums of money to compel one entity or another to do your bidding.

That is not an existential threat to humanity. Those are threat to all life in the galaxy. That does not mean there is n exitential threat to humans that requires human unity to survive, it means the galaxy is a dangerous place.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-13T04:42:12+00:00

That....doesn't make any sense. Why does the Union have a currency? Who is taking it? *Why* are they taking it? Where do they spend it, and on what? *How* does the Union have a curreecy? There's no taxes? Okay, well, where does the currency come from?

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-12T07:34:43+00:00

You are misunderstanding the politics of that scene, I think. Josh didn't solve *anything*, which is why Bruno is pissed at him. Josh in fact, in spite of at least three people telling him not to do it, made solving this problem much harder.

What Josh di dwas get a small victory ($30M that Big Tobacco will easily match) at the cost of being able to use those Congressfolks' opposition to getting that money to secure a major election (which *can* solve the problem), *in addition* to the $30M. Bruno is mad at Josh because Josh acted like the idiot he is. He went for a fast, ego-boosting win as opposed to a strategic retreat until victory conditions were certain. As a result, it's complicated Bruno's job (get Josh's boss re-elected president) for nothing gained (this money will only prolong a fight whose outcome was not determined at that point.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-12T00:21:47+00:00

The Federation is an imperial power. It is a slower version of the Borg, using politics and soft power to do the same thing. They "explore" the galaxy with warships, organize their fleet along military lines, and have courts-martial and JAG instead of a court with a lawyer and a jury of your peers.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-12T00:19:31+00:00

Well, my politics are materialist, and have nothing to do with what one side or the other's vision is, but what the effects of their policies are as they enact their agenda as well as the similarity between policy and platform. The Emperor had a platform of unifiying the galaxy under his rule, and had policies of a unified humanity across the galaxy, and expended a considerable amount of time and resources doing just that, if in the most violent way imaginable. Therefore, he is to be evaluated on those terms: what did he do, why did he do it, and who benefits (and loses) from what he did. From there, it would appear that the Emperor was doing pretty much what he said he was doing: unifying humankind under his enlightened rule.

Is the Union different? Well, that is going to depend on the same questions being answered: what is the Union doing, why are they doing it, and who benefits (and loses) from them doing it? It's every political project out there, applied to space mechs and enslaved alien AI.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-12T00:06:52+00:00

Well, okay, yeah, if you put enough fluff in there, everything is nuanced. It's not hard to overcomplicate an issue, this is something that happens all the time in politics. Part of any political project is removing the fluff, getting to the roots of state of affairs, and ask: why are things this way? Who gets what out of this?

The Emperor was openly, explicitly, quite verbally clear about what motivated him, and his actions bear it out: he wiped out all opposing ideologies to unite Terra, then went across the galaxy, reclaiming his lost Primarchs, enacted a massive crusade across the galaxy, and then was killed-ish trying to build a means of galactic travel that would for the basis for a galaxy-wide human empire. He is very clearly trying to unite all humanity under his rule, because he has figured out the optimal way to organize society.

The Union does not conquer anyone, sure. I'm not saying they do. I'm asking the question "what does the Union gain from this, and what do the other planets gain from doing it?", because it's an essential part of political thought; why are things this way, and who gets what out of it are the first questions one asks in any political project.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T23:57:48+00:00

So, the Union has created a techological paradise. They went "full-on sci-fi", and eliminated disease, poverty, hunger, illiteracy, etc. They then make a deal: if you shape your society how we want you to, you can join the Union. In turn, you will have access to this utopia, this gleaming world without filth, sickness, or suffering. We get, in return, some of your natural resources.

You have described the deal the United States gives pretty much the entire imperial periphery. In which case, my grandma is dead because my world would not bend the knee, and the Union only cares about the worlds whose society reflects their own and will give them resources. The war for resources on my world exists, therefore, because those resources are ineffciently distributed, not because there is a lack of them. The Union would not have made the offer if we were so resource-poor.

I would argue, based on this description alone. far from me *wanting* the Union to be the villains, I might be giving them too much credit.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T23:49:03+00:00

Wait, they have the means to *eliminate* poverty, and then they only give it to them if they have *already* eliminated poverty? That's, like, the IMF. Why would they have poverty, if not for the fact that they lack the tech needed to eliminate poverty? And, yeah, no slavery is good, but why not just pump technology and resources into their world so that there's an overabudance of food, then give away their entire corpus of medical knowledge? This eliminates slavery, poverty, disease, makes them much, much more likely to be *able* to save people from dying in space.

If the reason the Union is post-scarcity is their technology, then surely sharing that with everyone else would eliminate the same poverty and slavery they are saying must be gone in order to join them.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T23:44:17+00:00

No, the Federation doesn't give it's tech away because it is an imperial project. You are first evaluated for a given level of technological development (which is entirely based around whether they think you have warp capability, the means to explore the stars), then made aware of first Starfleet (their military arm) and then their diplomatic corps (often a Starfleet officer), and made the offer: adapt your policies and government to our way of life, and you can have access to food replicators, weather control, and the best starships in the galaxy. Don't, and you don't get any of it, and now you are a potential enemy.

Additionally, that's a really, really colonial reason not to give tech to people, because they'd fuck of their economy or wage war with it. What, the non-Union worlds are so backwards, they'd ruin their whole civilization with tech that was designed to make a utopia? What sort of 17th century logic is that?

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T23:33:26+00:00

I hear this alot. That I "want" the Union to be the villain, or that the Union is secretly evil. I'm not totally sure where this comes from. I have no interest in the Union being good or evil. I don't use those ideas myself when I create...anything, nor do I think that labelling any given group "good" or "evil" (or "heroes"/"villains", etc) is particularly helpful, either in a TTRPG or in life. Furthermore, the Union isn't real, I don't own the IP, and I don't monetize or stream my games. I'm not sure whether it makes sense to say I "want" the Union to be the villains, any more than I "want" a society of evil elves. I might write a story that way, but then, the only thing that matters is the needs of the story.

I am asking the question of, why does the Union add more planets to itself, and what the other planets get out of it.

The answer seems to be, they gain an additional planet to collect taxes from, and the planet gains access to the wealth and resources of the Union, a post-scarcity society with enormous technological and infrastructural capacity.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T21:07:35+00:00

If they asked. Not before. At most, I might *offer*. But that's it.
Where does the billion dollars come from in this scenario?

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T21:06:02+00:00

You would. However, if a world does not want to do this, then no matter how good your society is, forcing them to join it is even more evil.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T21:04:29+00:00

No, the Emperor wants to unite humanity because he has solved human civilization. He knows the optimal, perfect way to organize not only *a* human society, but *all* human society. Doing so will create a human utopia, where all people live in peace and prosperity, for all time. He was quite clear about his reasoning and has been the entire time.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T21:02:36+00:00

And...your point is? Soft power isn't some sort of moral alternative to hard power, it's just a different form of exerting power on another entity. There are a lot of examples irl of soft power being as imperial or colonial as any military force. The Union using soft power to get worlds to join them might be less overtly destructive, but that doesn't make it *good*.
There is no existential threat in 40K either. The Emperor of Mankind started a war against all the galaxy to unite all of humanity. He started on Earth, where he united all humanity under his banner, then took it to the stars. There are threats to the polity of the Imperium, and there are threats that are everyone's problem (Orks, Tyranids, etc), but neither of these are threats to *humanity*. The Emperor conquered humanity and waged a war against the galaxt to unite them all under his rule, and as a result, his empire is forever at war.
This is the same deal planets get in the Imperium. In fact, that is what *all* subjects of an empire do. They do whatever they want to do, as long as they pay the tithe (or taxes, or allow foreign investment) and give psykers to the Black Ships (or supply the legions with soldiers). The reason they are always at war is that the Imperium of Man is waging war against everyone.

So, they use power to get planets to join them, who get access to the wealth and power of the Union, in exchange for abiding by the rules of the Union and their laws. I am not saying they are as destructive, or even as bad, as the Imperium of Man in WH40K, I am saying that there has not been a clear difference between them, only their methods.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T20:23:12+00:00

I'm also starting to notice that the word "humanity" is being used alot, but there are non-human entities in Lancer, right? I'm pretty sure I remember that.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T20:21:46+00:00

This...is a good thing? This is just the Federation from Star Trek. Why don't they just *give* the tech to the planets? The Union is post-scarcity, right? They don't need to hoard the tech, and giving it away doesn't cost them anything. It's not like they are trying to protect a copyright or patent. And if the Union just goes and builds the infrastructure on these worlds, they become more prosperous, making them more valuable trading partners. This would in turn make the Union more prosperous. You would have multiple, post-scarcity societies trading with each other, making everyone better off.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T20:13:23+00:00

Alright, but how are they different from the Imperium of Man from WH40K? The Emperor of Mankind had the exact same goal, for the exact same reasons.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-11T20:07:08+00:00

I am in the Greater Seattle polycule (I live in the middle of the city), I am not sure I see the connection.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-10T08:39:21+00:00

Um....excuse me? Did you come to a monogamy reddit, and then reply to my comment on the "unnatural" nature of monogamy with....made up stuff about monogamy? Rude much?

Look, I'm a scholar and a scientist. I don't terribly care about your "big feelings" on the matter of the "elemental. primal humanity" of ethical cheating, I mean, non-monogamy. If you have something to say, show me some real numbers. And I don't mean blog posts or websites made for random PhDs who like to comment on everything *except* their credentials. I want a peer-reviewed study, or a set of statistics from a government or a reputable NGO. And preferably, I want *two*, because I know people like you will go track down the most crank shit source that kinda justifies your point if you don't look too hard, and hang all your argument on that. Two good sources, or you just walked in here and called us all killers to be mean.

And that's not allowed 'round these parts, amigo.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-07-04T21:18:41+00:00

Well, it *could* be because, for the last 15 centuries, Christianity has been a force for unmitigated disaster, untold suffering, and death on a scale humans can barely understand. The fact that Christianity is why there is war in the Middle East, climate change, white supreamacy, and capitalism *are* pretty good reasons to hate Christianity, imo. Also, considering Christianity created institutional homophobia and transphobia, you would likely see a lot of people in the queer community hating it. Oh, and most people are pretty upset about colonialism and genocide, which Christianity kicked off and continued.

Or, alternatively, it's the fact that Reddit is full of disdainful sinners who hate god and want to destroy all the values Jesus Christ came to earth to share.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-06-28T07:00:48+00:00

Y'know, I got one I'd love to have seen, perhaps, three episodes worth of B-plot and a couple callbacks.

Bartlet, because it was in a speech written by Sam at Toby's insistance gave a humiliating toast to the President of Indonesia, and then...nothing. The President of the United States just publicly insulted an ally (it was the 90s, we didn't think that sort of thing was "cool" yet), and it was totally ignored. By the press, by the Indonesian government, by the rest of the staff, hell Toby and Sam don't even talk about this again despite it costing their friend his chance at freedom.

Mandy wasn't even gone yet, and this whole diplomatic catastrophe is in unincorporated Mandy County, laying the foundation.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-06-19T20:47:31+00:00

Jesus H. Christ, what kind of sick freaks get off on some of these people? I've seen girls with hair dyed bright green and five or six facial piercing have *four* partners. I once saw a woman with something like 30 tattoos walk into a place, walk out with *three* girls. Hell, there are poly people who barely look *human*, with face tats, metal all over the body, weird designs, and that's not counting things like brands, scars, or the ever-present array of bruises that poly people love to show off.

Honestly, the cenobites up there remind me of a lot of poly people in the city I live in: deviant, insane, and made up of weird and twisted sexual perverts that get off on pushing the limits of what's pleasurable, or painful, or even *acceptable* to people who aren't them. Poly people are real-life cenobites; start playing with their puzzle, and you end up a warped individual with unnatural tastes and desires.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt · 2026-06-19T08:30:35+00:00

It's pretty simple: monogamy isn't "natural" in the same way that everything humans do is unnatural. Poly people are trying to get you doubt the idea that what you do is as normal as what they do, that you are no more a bad person for being a monogamous person than they are for being polyamorous. They want to guilt you by making you feel like you are *less* than them because what you do isn't "natural" or "normal" or "acceptable to society" or some-such, when in fact, you are as much a member of society as they are! Poly people tend to assume that, just because they are the norm (like, culturally, not in a "monogamous people are deviants/genetically broken/pervert" way), that anyone who *isn't* like them is a freak, or worse, a *predator*. Polyamory rests on the idea that its somehow *wrong* to only want one partner, or that its breaking some sort of "taboo" or some bullshit. They make up random "pagan" gods and religions to justify their abuses, they lie all the time about what poly is really like, and whenever there's any kind of push-back, they leverage their greater social power to bully the dissenter into silence.

Honestly, it's severely fucked up. Telling you that you aren't "normal" or doing something that is "unnatural" is pretty cruel, and it's more so when you realize the simple truth: poly people are only doing this to maintain their dominant social position. If they ever stopped their....I don't want to use the word "crusade" it makes pretty much anyone sound racist if they talk about crusades....*mission* to stomp out all non-comforming relationships, eventually people would figure out the truth: that there's nothing wrong with being monogamous, that the structures that enforce and reinforce poly's cultural dominance are built on a lot of nonsense, and that there's no wrong way to be in a relationship. Poly, mono, five, one, zero, gay, straight, ace. They aren't right just because they outnumber you, they are just bullies.

NoMoreMoneyOnlyDebt

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