u/jackalias

I'm well aware that the DSA's PR team is godawful, but all the major DSA candidates so far have championed policies that are far closer to social democracy than Maoism or Stalinism. So why all the vitriol for the DSA? Shouldn't we be more focused on coalition building and supporting viable candidates than purity testing potential allies? I know that the DSA's hardcore communist wing is incompatible with Social Democracy in the long run, but those factions are easily in the minority; actions speak louder than words, and so far the DSA's been remarkably sane policy wise.

What the title says, I've seen lots of recommendations for Anarchist theory but not many for fictional media. Are there any movies, games, or books that you feel do a good job depicting an anarchist society and what it would look like? Post them down below.

My personal favorites are:

1. "I Was A Teenage Exocolonist", a solarpunk life-sim game where you grow up on an alien planet. The colony you live in rejects any forms of hierarchy, discrimination, or capitalism (you can earn "Kudos" for working, but those started as an incentive system to get kids to study harder. There's a debate whether to turn them into a proper currency later). A lot of the game focuses on the community coming together to address problems stemming from the alien environment, as well as conflicts with people who don't share the colony's utopian ideals (whether because they were born elsewhere or became disillusioned with them over time.)

2. "Eclipse Phase", a transhumanist tabletop RPG set in a post apocalyptic future. The earth was rendered uninhabitable, and the people who managed to evacuate it in time have formed a variety of new (largely non-hierarchical) societies in space based on shared goals. These run the gamut from megacorporations who keep people in debt slavery (complete with bodies that are biologically dependent on proprietary drugs), to posthuman cults, and collectives dedicated to things like restoring the earth. The setting is largely post-scarcity (outside the anarcho-capitalist areas who deliberately maintain scarcity), with the closest thing to currency in most settlements being time on the shared replicators. Everyone gets enough time with the replicators to maintain a comfortable life with some basic luxuries, but printing more exotic (and time consuming) things like power armor requires groups to pool their resources and barter services with other people.

Inflamatory title I know, but when I think of informal "community level" justice systems I tend to have a pretty negative view of them. Being killed for having relations out of wedlock, being ostracized for questioning a church leader, or getting strung up for being a minority in the general vicinity of a crime; historically, these things have all happened with the full approval of the local community. What kind of system, if any, would protect people from these kinds of arbitrary punishments if the majority of people have agreed on them?

Bonus question: What sort of mechanism would keep standards for things like evidence consistent across communities? In the past, people used to escape crimes by leaving their communities and going somewhere no one recognized them. Without universal agreements to enforce laws and share information, what would keep people fleeing justice from making a recurrence?

After I made some minmaxed characters in ATOW, I felt like going retro and seeing how much I could break Mechwarrior 3e. The semi-random nature of the lifepath system and cap on how many paths you can take makes optimization difficult, but there are a few options you can take that don't conform to the usual rules. Let me know what you think down below, and feel free to chip in with any other weird character options I missed. Here's what I came up with (explanations are below each step):

Affiliation: Capellan.

The Capellan Confederation is tied for having the most unique sub-affiliations with the Draconis Combine and Lyran Commonwealth. But unlike those options, the Capellan Confederation can stack all their sub-affiliations together.

Sub-affiliations: Comstar/WOB, St. Ives, Free Capella, Free Skye, and Zhanzheng de Guang.

Getting the Comstar or WOB affiliation is easy, all you have to do is take Comstar/WOB service before ending character creation. Being from St. Ives is similarly easy, you just lose a point of Edge and raise the requirements for certain lifepaths. The last three sub affiliations are all different terrorist groups, two of which are Capellan and one that's Lyran. Since you're from St. Ives, you can take Lyran character creation options as long as you have an appropriate contact; and since Free Skye and Zhanzheng de Guang both require the same lifepaths, it's completely RAW to be part of both (their goals aren't even contradictory, although the WOB might be hard to mesh with them). Finally, Free Capella's restrictions don't impact this build.

Early Childhood: Clan War Orphan.

This one's optional, but since St. Ives characters can take FedSun or Lyran lifepaths I figured why not be weird?

Late childhood: Warrior House Aspirant.

There are several lifepath options that combine stages Late Childhood and Higher Education, with Warrior House Aspirants being the only one that Capellans can access. From what I can tell you get a few more skills than usual, at the cost of flexibility (can't go to college afterwards).

Higher Education: Special Training/Paramilitary Service.

Special Training is a continuation of being a Warrior House Aspirant and can get you a Vehicle (This is Battletech, I assume you want one of those), whereas Paramilitary Service is a unique option that can be taken simultaneously with another form of Higher Education. Depending on your reading of the rules then this combination might be able to get you an additional event roll, but the real reason to join a Paramilitary is the section that says "Next Path: Any".

Real Life: Renegade Insurgent, Guerilla Operative, Tour of Duty: Inner Sphere, Comstar Service.

Joining Free Skye, and Zhanzheng de Guang both require that you be an Insurgent for your first career, and our Paramilitary Service fulfills its previous non-military path requirement. If you're lucky you can roll the event that allows taking Guerilla Operative as your next path, but otherwise you'll need to burn a point of Edge to qualify. From there you just need to take a Tour of Duty in the Inner Sphere (Personally I'd allow regional variants like Xin Sheng, but RAW says only Inner Sphere soldiers can join Comstar or the WOB), then take Comstar/WOB Service to qualify for your final sub-affiliation. (If you don't want to burn the Edge then you could also go Insurgent, Insurgent, Civilian Job, Comstar/WOB Service; but repeating lifepaths is suboptimal and Civilian Job doesn't mesh with your skillset).

TLDR Build:

Affiliation: Capellan (St. Ives, Comstar/WOB, Free Capella, Free Skye, and Zhanzheng de Guang),

Early childhood: Clan War Orphan,

Late childhood: Warrior House Aspirant,

Higher education: Special training (Marine/Aerospace Pilot) & Paramilitary Service,

Real life: Renegade Insurgent, Guerilla Operative, Tour of Duty: Inner Sphere, Comstar/WOB Service.