63rd Borough Thoughts

[Thomas]

I’ve been thinking about the nature of the 63rd after all the forum conversations as well as some recent IC events since Fairefield fell.

I was looking back at ATS answers, and Nova said this of Lieutenant guests:

“They’re intended to just rabble rouse on grid, basically their role is to help represent the 63rd and the threat they pose, so specifically to help 63rd controlled boroughs feel like scary places being run by fascist demons.”

Additionally, we know that the 63rd respect elections: that is, when a borough votes out the 63rd, the 63rd packs up and leaves.

Finally, we know that businesses keep operating in 63rd controlled boroughs.

What does this all mean? I’m not sure. Here are some initial thoughts, though:

– Living in a 63rd controlled borough is like living in a place edging towards a totalitarian state, perhaps like pre-Berlin Wall East Germany. There’s still hope that things will get better (the next election) but the day to day life involves a considerable erosion of rights and freedoms.

– The 63rd are not enemies in the way that monsters (both mist and guest) are. They may kill vNPCs in the borough to prove some point, but they are trying to govern, not flatten.

– Even when there aren’t Lieutenant guests around to reinforce the ambience, we should treat RP in 63rd-controlled boroughs like we are visiting someplace with a powerful police state and no particular rights. There should be (I think) an air of paranoia, but less that someone is going to launch a military assault on you and more, that as a person living in the city, you are going to be seized by a paramilitary force.

– People in 63rd controlled districts voted for the 63rd, presumably for all of the reasons people vote for strongmen governments anywhere. Some of them will be motivated by fear, some by populism. New Haven’s government doesn’t seem very strong (when is the last time a New Haven Police Officer on grid stopped a werewolf from rampaging?) and so maybe the 63rd seems like a good alternative when the societies and factions aren’t policing problems.

– Opposition to the 63rd should look like the whole gamut of opposition to totalitarian forces in an urban city, from armed revolution (like rebels in Central America or South Africa) to non-violent protest to anything else.

– People may make deals with the 63rd, for the same reasons: hope to have electoral success later, understanding that they are in power and need to be dealt with, etc.

In general, it seems to me that when I read the lieutenant powers and everything else about the 63rd, they represent the extreme end of a civil society, possibly just across the line, but they do exist on the same spectrum as ordinary New Haven society does. That’s at least how I intend to play my interactions with them, absent further clarification from staff. Do other people have other thoughts?

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