[RFC] Handwavium Law in the US

[M Fnord]

Fenspace not a dystopia? Could have fooled me, what with the unaccountable paramilitary organization with 'troubleshooters' all but given a liscense to kill, the nasty crime gangs still out there, the US somehow being blocked from space by the fen who are doing their best to keep them down along almost all the rest of earth's nations. Really could fool me.

I'm kind of impressed at the reading here. I mean, it's wrong and particularly mean-spirited but it's impressive nonetheless.

Fenspace is not a dystopia. I've said that time and time again and it's enshrined in the rules because some people have a tendency to drive the grimderp tank into the ground when confronted with new concepts. But at the same time it's not a utopia either. It might become one in the distant crystals-and-toga future of the setting, but right now it's not one.

A utopia doesn't need an international law-enforcement agency to maintain peace and slap down criminals. A utopia doesn't have criminal gangs in the first place! A utopia doesn't have a social-political tendency towards xenophobia, exceptionalism and apathy keeping nations from grabbing at the brass ring either.

But that's what we have here. Fenspace as a setting is neither dystopic nor utopic, its a place. Certainly it's a more optimistic place than many, it's not broken like so many damaged futures out there, but it's still just a place.

A group of guys working a huge project out in the Oort cloud so that it's a pleasant surprise to fenspace? Nope, Great Justice would sabatoge them and prevent it from happening, I'm told.

Are you still on about that? To clarify things, stopping for flowers for your wife on the way home from work is a pleasant surprise. Building a giant fuck-you warship in the Oort Cloud is Doctor Doom material.

And, the US suffering a massive economic collapse and falling from superpower status would be a good thing, from a storytelling point of view.

Actions have consequences. The problem with the US having a major economic collapse is that the US economy is intricately tied into the global economy. Nobody knows exactly what a default would do - since nobody until this Congress has been this pure stupid to push that little red button - but every independent analysis suggests that it would be bad for everybody. So you're not talking about crashing America with a default, you're talking about crashing the EU (moreso), China, Japan, India, Australia, Africa... and the Fen are not so insulated from the global economy that they could ride it out, either.

This is bad. This is really, really bad. So no, a default situation would, narratively, be a trip to Dystopia Town.

Obaka

Do not do this again. Keep your cutsey political insults in the Politics forum, if you must. If you cannot talk like a halfway mature individual then you will be asked to leave.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

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