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[plotbunny] The Occupy Movement
10-23-2011, 02:29 PM
Considering how soon after the divergence point (between OTL and Fenspace) the Occupy -wherever- movement started, I assume it also happened in Fenspace... but this is all I can come up with.
"We're less than 1% of the population of Earth! How can anyone up here claim to be part of the 99%?"
"That's a different 99% and you know it, Chris. Why are you so upset, anyway?"
"Because they're blocking access to parts of my station. Why are you not upset, Noah?"
"The 'Occupy Stellvia' crowd are buying my food and giving me valuable ... biosolids. I'm turning a profit on the deal. Besides, they know I can vent any part of the station to space as a crowd-control measure - not that I actually would, mind you - so they're well-behaved."
"Well, I don't have that threat on Greenwood."
Anyone have any more, or want to turn this into a short story?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Naedial: This occupation is slowly getting annoying. I like what they do on Earth, but I want them to stop occupying my docking ports...
I think it would happen later in Fenspace... Fenspace have to get large enough that the "Masses" can get fed up with the "1%"...
and most likely only after the end of the Boskone war. Difficult to protest against the "important people" when they are keeping the bad guys away. But maybe 2015/16/17 would be possible.
I bet there are a few girls running around with posters reading 'Occupy me'...
:-)
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Occupy Candy Apple Red's?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:Occupy Candy Apple Red's? Count me in.
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I think that we should leave this out of Fenspace personally. It's a potentially divisive topic that, given the open and generally pioneer element of Fenspace, wouldn't have any reason to develop. The Occupy Movement comes from a lack of opportunities to succeed, as I understand it; Fenspace makes quite clear in its premise that all you need is will and a way to get into the Black. Beyond supporting or opposing the dirtside movements, I don't see a place for it.
Ebony the Black Dragon
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And the few Daneside corporations that have a foothold in Fenspace are, in general, not the kind of outfits that are sitting on their money and doing nothing with it but hoarding, which pretty much describes the targets of the real-world movement. The ones in Fenspace are outward-looking, investing in Fenspace one way or another, and offering at least some jobs to Fen. There's little to object to.
I agree... this has no real place in Fenspace.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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That, and trying to occupy places like 36 Atalante would go over like a lead balloon.
"Hummm," murmured Ben to himself. "Ruri, please initiate crowd control measures, confiscate their ships, and have these mundanes deported. Steerage class."
"I don't believe that will make them happy, sir."
"They should have thought of that before trying to occupy a military facility. Do remind them of that."
BTW: When Ben says steerage class, he means glorified cargo containers with basic life support (yes, that includes toilets and lavatories - I got a mean streak but I'm not evil). It's worse than flying coach in that there's not even any seats or dry roasted peanuts.  (I wouldn't even see food as an issue for them as they probably brought enough for a few weeks anyhow. Besides, not like it takes that long to get to Earth-Cislunar from 36 Atalante, even when doing .06c.)
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Quote:I think that we should leave this out of Fenspace personally. It's a potentially divisive topic that, given the open and generally pioneer element of Fenspace, wouldn't have any reason to develop.
I tend to disagree. There are ways & means for Occupy or something like it (Occupy being largely an American movement) to start in Fenspace. For example, there's a strong potential for a Belt-based protest movement springing up due to Rockhounds' de facto monopoly on the heavy metals trade with Earth, shutting out independent prospectors. Environmental movements could protest based on objections to terraforming Mars, which are almost cliche since Kim Robinson but it's still a possibility. Pacifists of all stripes protesting the increased militarism of Fenspace. And so it goes.
Frontiers aren't - have never been! - politically harmonious, and I don't see why Fenspace would be different in that respect. Now, would Occupy show up in Fenspace? Probably not to a huge degree. LIS, it's an American movement so it'd be restricted to areas that are explicitly part of the American zone in Fenspace: Greenwood and Port Luna. Perhaps a little financial backing (plus sandwiches, tea and kvass) coming from undisclosed sources in the Kandor City area. And on that note...
edit: you know what fuck this I don't feel like playing one-up-the-smug this week, forget I said anything and let Rhodes' too cool for school act stand.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
I wonder if a few Fen would sponsor some Handwavium to equip the containers from Atalante with a descent engine system. They might become the perfect mass transportation system for the "Occupy something" movement.
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"OK, so you're occupying my offices here because you want me to insist something be done to break the 1%, and quickly?" The man at the head of the pack nodded. "OK, fair enough. Let me let you in on a few things here, outside of the fact that we have been working at that, albeit at a much slower pace.
"First and foremost, like it or not, we are still dependent on Earth to some degree. We still need to import food from there, even now, and even those places that are 'self' sufficient, haven't been that way long enough to take the chance on that changing if we break the 1%.
"Second, in that dependence, we are also quite, quite tied into the 'dane economies, whether we really want to be or not. Any effort to break the 1% on a timetable other than decades will... well, we will feel it all the way up here, and it will actually push back the date we can be completely independent of Earth.
"Third, as a side note, there is no way this breaking will occur in anything less than a year, and would likely take two or more to actually completely collapse the Earth economy as a whole, which is what it would take to get them out of power that quickly... and I can guarantee that the 1% will do whatever it takes to ensure that, even if they do indeed lose out, we'll lose as well in the court of public opinion.
"Any questions? OK, good. Now please, vacate my office so I can get back to work on the long-term plan."
The group, much subdued, filed out of the office, and Jeph let out the sigh that had been building up. Then he picked up the desk phone, and dialed a familiar number. "Hi Mal. Just got done with another group. Gave 'em the same explanation I gave the last one, too. I swear, we have an awful lot of Jaynes up here." A pause, and Jeph giggled darkly. "Now, now, Mal, that would be especially cruel. Please don't tempt me by mentioning it again."
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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A man in deepest, darkest island watches the news:
"Hmmm... the Occupy folks on Dame Street are causing traffic chaos. Instead of going to the off-license, I'll just drink the beer in the shed instead. It should be still good,"
And thus, along came October 27th 2011.... and Jet Jaguar woke up on the shed floor to a nasty surprise..
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I still haven't come up with anything to add to this... but I love it when one of my ideas takes off like this.
HRogge Wrote:They might become the perfect mass transportation system for the "Occupy something" movement. "All right, people, now get out there and Occupy something!"
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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"Huh," said Jess as she got a new report in from Ruri. "Boss, it would appear that Mal's sending us another wave."
Ben snrked at that. "Somehow I'm not surprised. Keep it up. If anything, it'll give the A-Team plenty of XP in crowd control. And someone remind the Squirrels that while the megaton hammer does work, people still get hurt on the second impact."
Gina groaned. She knew the pun wasn't intentional, but it still hurt.
"Eh-heh. Sorry," said Ben to her pleading face.
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Since this is after the Boskone War...
"Noah?"
"Yes, Miyuri?"
"Jake wanted me to tell you that the Roughriders just sent another batch of Occupiers to cislunar, and they appear to be heading here."
"So Ben finally realized Mal was sending them to him on purpose. Safety, who are we pissed off at the most right now? Besides the Baileys, that is."
"The Wizards still haven't replied to your offer of assistance with upgrading Hedwig, sir."
"Right. Give them a five-pound bag of Meg's cookies if they'll head straight to Hogsmeade instead of staying here."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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VCON shared this on Facebook, and I thought it appropriate: ![[Image: 310299_2579113196276_1207789153_3478242_618168026_n.jpg]](http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/310299_2579113196276_1207789153_3478242_618168026_n.jpg)
We could have a similar one with the hole solar system and the sun...
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I could easily see the "Occupy Jupiter" meme developing in Fenspace as a parody -- or outright insult to -- the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Noah-
Dude, what did the Wizards do to get your knickers in a twist? Also, heard it through the grapevine that you were wondering when I was gonna realize it was Mal all along. Truth: knew it after the first batch when we screened them for possible Boskonian plants (the war may be officially over, but that doesn't mean they're not out there). When the second wave arrived that really pissed me off. I was about to go out there with the Megaton Mallet myself. Gina put a stop to that, but not before the Squirrel Sisters got a hold of the damn thing. That was why with the injuries from the second wave. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries - we got them all patched up free of charge and sent them off with credit chits with enough money to cover any possible medical expenses... as well as signed affidavits that they were attempting to occupy a military facility even after several warnings (mob mentality - whatcha gonna do).
Anyhow, sorry if those guys were a strain for you to deal with.
On the flip-side of the coin - any idea of how these people got the idea into their heads that Us SMOFs = 'Danish Fat Cats? Is this just another case of Stupidity Mistaken for Malice or is someone actively trying to redirect some of the public's ire away from them?
-Ben
FROM: Cathy@jenga.fen
TO: open-discussion@mailinglists.fen
SUBJECT: Occupy SMOFs
Okay, you jokers, stop looking for the protester group, they arrived here at Jenga.
Who the hell told these people the SMOFs are cats? Thats crazy... of course misunderstanding 'SMOF cats' for 'smurf cats' did not help.
And telling them that Jenga would be a space station full of these (blue) cats wasn't much better!
Now we have these group of people here, who are sure they found the SMOFs secret base. Its not that bad (we are all wearing special earplugs to filter out their protest calls), some of them are beginning to get bored and were convinced to help with a few experiments. And the kids are always looking for sleeping cats to pet them, so it could be worse.
We are willing to keep them here for a few more weeks, just send some FOOD quickly, because they are occupying both out hangars and kitchen. We are not used to have four times as many visitors as residents.
Cathy
----
"Being part of the 1% who are Fen means getting your hands out of your pockets and start doing crazy things yourself!"
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blackaeronaut Wrote:Noah-
Dude, what did the Wizards do to get your knickers in a twist? Also, heard it through the grapevine that you were wondering when I was gonna realize it was Mal all along. Truth: knew it after the first batch when we screened them for possible Boskonian plants (the war may be officially over, but that doesn't mean they're not out there). When the second wave arrived that really pissed me off. I was about to go out there with the Megaton Mallet myself. Gina put a stop to that, but not before the Squirrel Sisters got a hold of the damn thing. That was why with the injuries from the second wave. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries - we got them all patched up free of charge and sent them off with credit chits with enough money to cover any possible medical expenses... as well as signed affidavits that they were attempting to occupy a military facility even after several warnings (mob mentality - whatcha gonna do).
Anyhow, sorry if those guys were a strain for you to deal with.
On the flip-side of the coin - any idea of how these people got the idea into their heads that Us SMOFs = 'Danish Fat Cats? Is this just another case of Stupidity Mistaken for Malice or is someone actively trying to redirect some of the public's ire away from them?
-Ben Ben,
The Wizards haven't done anything – which is the problem. They don't do anything except debate, debate, and debate some more. If they don't want my free tech, they should say so.
Besides, I had to send the Occupiers somewhere, most of the factions are too small to handle them, Mimas and Ganymede are too far from Earth, and I wasn't about to dump them on Bjo, Susan, or Tanith. That left the debating society on Hogsmeade... unless you wanted them back?
As for the "SMOFs = 'Danish Fat Cats" bit, I've had Takami working on that... and... er... well... that's partly my fault, sort of. Remember my interviews with Maher, Colbert and Larry King? It looks like I got pegged as one of the "fat cats" along with Chris Marsden, and since we're both SMOFs... sorry about that.
Noah
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Anonymous comment on FenChan:
SMOF's, 1% of the people, produce 99% of the Hot Gas
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FROM: aoi-chan@nikaido.fen
TO: Cathy@jenga.fen
SUBJECT: Re: Occupy SMOFs
> We are willing to keep them here for a few more weeks, just send some FOOD quickly, because they are occupying both out hangars and kitchen. We are not used to have four times as many visitors as residents.
A shipment of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration packages is on the way - this will give you and the protesters a week on 2200-calorie-per-day rations to find another source of food.
As usual, there is no charge for this help. We only ask that if you find yourself able to help someone else sometime in the future, please consider doing whatever you can.
Aoi-chan, speaking for the Nikaido Foundation
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
FROM: Cathy@jenga.fen
TO: aoi-chan@nikaido.fen
CC: open-discussion@mailinglists.fen
SUBJECT: RE: Occupy SMOFs
Thanks for the help Aoi-chan, that helped a lot to keep the things sane until we could resolve the problem for us. If you ever need technical help somewhere, just call us.
The hard core of the protesters left us two days ago with their first container, angry that we did NOT hid any SMOFs on the station (we told them that the day they arrived!). The two weeks with them were a bit stressing. So if you see a Roughrider container with a slow speedy drive heading for the inner system, give them a kick.
We managed to get the rest of them help with minor work here and are now in the process of reworking their container into a proper spaceship with windows, radio communication, airlock and some basic sensors. Most of them plan to visit Coruscant and the Jovian system to see how life is there. Without protest signs.
Eight of them like doing engineering and research and will be staying here on Jenga indefinitely.
Cathy
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