The Caldari Dialogues 4: Those Left Behind
It's been almost two weeks since the last installment of the Caldari Dialogues, and I apologize for the delay. This is the last installment of the original batch I had planned, so any further installments will probably be spun off of discussions about these articles and not from that original conversation with Yoshito and Kai (by the way, if you haven't seen Kai's new site yet, The Zion Chronicles, you should check it out).
In this part, I'll be talking about the other 10-20% of the Caldari population -- the people who, either by choice or by circumstance, have found themselves on the outside of the corporate system. These are the people that have conventionally been the heroes (or antiheroes) of cyberpunk literature and RPGs. They live in the shadows of the rest of society, living on their crumbs and cast offs, or trying to scramble back into the system that has left them behind. So, without further adieu, let's get to the main event.
In this part, I'll be talking about the other 10-20% of the Caldari population -- the people who, either by choice or by circumstance, have found themselves on the outside of the corporate system. These are the people that have conventionally been the heroes (or antiheroes) of cyberpunk literature and RPGs. They live in the shadows of the rest of society, living on their crumbs and cast offs, or trying to scramble back into the system that has left them behind. So, without further adieu, let's get to the main event.
The "others" in cyberpunk societies are a staple of nearly every such setting. Shadowrun has the SINless, Max Headroom had the Blanks, Case and Molly were members of this outcast class in Neuromancer, and Blade Runner had the Replicants (even, to a lesser extent, the people simply left on Earth). These people are usually the main characters in cyberpunk stories because they are on the outside; in fact, cyberpunk dystopias are dystopic because they are usually portrayed from the point of view of this class, who have been left behind by the corporate system.
I'm going to pull out this section of the conversation again, even though I put it in my last entry too:
In a lot of ways, these people are very much like the homeless that are seen on the streets of nearly every American city today, but they are even worse off. Imagine trying to live in a world where it was nearly impossible for you to get any sort of official ID, there was no sort of government aid, charity was far less common, and simply finding a place to stay was nearly impossible. People can't give you a couple dollars on the street because there's almost nothing in the way of cash; people only have credit cards.
So where do these people live? It's unlikely they would be allowed to stay in the corporate cities, at least in large numbers; the corporate police would keep them away from the regular workers, if for no other reason than to keep them from committing robberies or scaring the good little salarymen. Some may live in the dregs of the cities though; sewers and other underground infrastructure, abandoned buildings, warehouses, and factories, probably carefully cordoned off by the security forces. It may even be dumps, contaminated areas (such as Glow City in of Shadowrun's Seattle) or other places that the rest of society avoids for obvious reasons. In Shadowrun, these sorts of areas are known as the Barrens, and we can see a similar parallel with the Bridge of Virtual Light and its sequels.
How and why do they survive, if they are in such a poor position? For one thing, these people are extremely useful to the corporations as an expendable labor pool. These people are desperate for any sort of work, and that means they can be sent to places like the mines of Kassigainen to work in the harshest conditions for relatively little pay, in the hopes that they will be brought back into the corporate system, given a place to live and a chance for a new life. That's not the only thing they are useful for though; as in Shadowrun or other cyberpunk RPGs, these people are also a pool of talent for illegal or at the very least untraceable activities that the corporations can use against each other. While most of these people are not likely to be able to match the black operations forces of the corporate armies, most of them have probably picked up something in the way of useful skills just to survive their harsh conditions.
On the other hand, some of these people simply do not want to live in the corporate system. It is an oppressive one, and despite the indoctrination and tradition of Caldari society, not everyone buys into it. They have made the choice to live off the grid, and make their living by picking through the cast-offs of Caldari society, running taps off the cities' power and telecommunications grids, hijacking corporate food shipments or growing their own food, and trying to remain unnoticed by the rest of the world. To these people, the corporate world is a nightmare, and the people who live there are zombies, rubes, or slaves. They prefer to live free and in poverty rather than in a comfortable existence in a gilded cage. Skinner in Virtual Light, Blank Reg in Max Headroom, and many other cyberpunk protagonists fall into this category.
While the dispossessed exist in every society in Eve, it's likely that they are the worst of in the State. In the Federation, there is a welfare system in place to catch the people that fall through the cracks (in fact, the underclass in the Federation seems to have it relatively well off, probably a byproduct of their current thriving economy). In the Empire, these people are slaves or escaped slaves, and at the very least probably have an extensive support system in terms of family or owners that have an interest in protecting them. In the Republic, while the average level of affluence is likely much lower than in the State, they also have Gallente-influenced social programs and a very strong tribal structure that protects the individuals. In the State, there's almost no support structure; people who are fired by the corporations have likely been cut off from their families as well (failure is not looked upon lightly in the State, obviously). As the Caldari State's description reads:
I'm going to pull out this section of the conversation again, even though I put it in my last entry too:
[12:57] <Yoshito> And aren't cyberpunk dystopias usually in the near future and part of the stories dealing with how society is crumbling because everything has moved toward the accumulation of wealth?It's that "falling through the cracks" that we're looking at here now. The outcast class lives without the guaranteed job of even the worst-off corporates, often without any sort of real housing or any knowledge of where their next meal will come from, and even, in the State, locked out of much of the corporate economies because the corporate economy operates on electronic currency largely unavailable to people with no real existence.
[12:58] <Svetlana> No.
[12:58] <Svetlana> Society isn't crumbling, it's just different. And for the vast majority of people, it's nice. Gibson has said so himself.
[12:58] <Svetlana> It's just that most of the stories are about people on the fringes who have rejected that.
[12:59] <Svetlana> Or who have been rejected by society....which is pretty much exactly what things were _supposedly_ like in the State. :)
[12:59] <Yoshito> Hmm... Interesting.
[12:59] <Svetlana> It's not necessarily a free society, or a very open one, or even a particularly pleasant one to modern society
[12:59] <Svetlana> But it is "good enough" for most people.
[13:00] <Svetlana> The problem is, when you fall through the cracks, you fall pretty painfully
[13:00] <Yoshito> A dystopia is characterized by human misery, so I would say anything where the majority of people are more or less happy or at least not miserable isn't a dystopia.
[13:00] <Svetlana> It's a dystopia because for a lot of people, to life of a drone isn't particularly an appealing one (even if you are in real life).
[13:01] <Svetlana> but you don't starve
[13:01] <Svetlana> people live longer
[13:01] <Svetlana> On the other hand, look at Blade Runner.
[13:01] <Svetlana> People on earth are those that couldn't afford to live in the offworld colonies.
[13:02] <Yoshito> Right
[13:02] <Svetlana> They aren't starving to death, but their environment's screwed up, they live in giant cities surrounded by the rubble of World War Three....
In a lot of ways, these people are very much like the homeless that are seen on the streets of nearly every American city today, but they are even worse off. Imagine trying to live in a world where it was nearly impossible for you to get any sort of official ID, there was no sort of government aid, charity was far less common, and simply finding a place to stay was nearly impossible. People can't give you a couple dollars on the street because there's almost nothing in the way of cash; people only have credit cards.
So where do these people live? It's unlikely they would be allowed to stay in the corporate cities, at least in large numbers; the corporate police would keep them away from the regular workers, if for no other reason than to keep them from committing robberies or scaring the good little salarymen. Some may live in the dregs of the cities though; sewers and other underground infrastructure, abandoned buildings, warehouses, and factories, probably carefully cordoned off by the security forces. It may even be dumps, contaminated areas (such as Glow City in of Shadowrun's Seattle) or other places that the rest of society avoids for obvious reasons. In Shadowrun, these sorts of areas are known as the Barrens, and we can see a similar parallel with the Bridge of Virtual Light and its sequels.
How and why do they survive, if they are in such a poor position? For one thing, these people are extremely useful to the corporations as an expendable labor pool. These people are desperate for any sort of work, and that means they can be sent to places like the mines of Kassigainen to work in the harshest conditions for relatively little pay, in the hopes that they will be brought back into the corporate system, given a place to live and a chance for a new life. That's not the only thing they are useful for though; as in Shadowrun or other cyberpunk RPGs, these people are also a pool of talent for illegal or at the very least untraceable activities that the corporations can use against each other. While most of these people are not likely to be able to match the black operations forces of the corporate armies, most of them have probably picked up something in the way of useful skills just to survive their harsh conditions.
On the other hand, some of these people simply do not want to live in the corporate system. It is an oppressive one, and despite the indoctrination and tradition of Caldari society, not everyone buys into it. They have made the choice to live off the grid, and make their living by picking through the cast-offs of Caldari society, running taps off the cities' power and telecommunications grids, hijacking corporate food shipments or growing their own food, and trying to remain unnoticed by the rest of the world. To these people, the corporate world is a nightmare, and the people who live there are zombies, rubes, or slaves. They prefer to live free and in poverty rather than in a comfortable existence in a gilded cage. Skinner in Virtual Light, Blank Reg in Max Headroom, and many other cyberpunk protagonists fall into this category.
While the dispossessed exist in every society in Eve, it's likely that they are the worst of in the State. In the Federation, there is a welfare system in place to catch the people that fall through the cracks (in fact, the underclass in the Federation seems to have it relatively well off, probably a byproduct of their current thriving economy). In the Empire, these people are slaves or escaped slaves, and at the very least probably have an extensive support system in terms of family or owners that have an interest in protecting them. In the Republic, while the average level of affluence is likely much lower than in the State, they also have Gallente-influenced social programs and a very strong tribal structure that protects the individuals. In the State, there's almost no support structure; people who are fired by the corporations have likely been cut off from their families as well (failure is not looked upon lightly in the State, obviously). As the Caldari State's description reads:
"The Caldari State offers its citizens the best and the worst in living conditions. As long as you keep in line, do your job, uphold the laws and so forth, life can be fairly pleasant and productive. But for those who are not cut out for this strict, disciplined regime life quickly becomes intolerable. They lose their respect, family, status, everything, and the only options left to them are suicide or exile."This is the "worst," the "exile" that people are left to. Not a geographic exile (though that is certainly also possible) but an emotional and societal exile. For people who have grown up in the corporate system and been forced out, being a member of the dispossessed is one of the worst fates they can imagine.
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