Sunday is Gamma Terra. We've got a number of plans going. Not the least of which is heading to a robot manufacturing sight to try and negotiate with the robots there. But also, to try to find the badders we had such a nasty fight with back in Session 1 and Session 2 and talk to them.
Why?
The way I see it, the badders are potential friends. Or at least potential allies. They were our foes when they were being controlled by one of the Bonapartists, But now? They're probably effectively directionless. They're be welcome members of the new state we're forging. If I can think of something to give them, I'm going to bring gifts. Momma Hillbilly said the best way to make friends is to bring pies to the housewarming.
We've got some groups around us we've messed with, and whom we'll eventually fight. We bloodied the Iron Men (mutant humans), the Bonapartists (mutant animals), and we're eyeing the Knights of Genetic Purity (pure strain humans). We have to exercise some care in who we fight and we ally with.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
The way I see it, the enemy of my enemy is my potential ally. There isn't anything here more than a shared interest in reducing an obstacle. We may or may not even have a shared interest in the ultimate outcome - I may just want my enemy's teeth drawn, my enemy's enemy may want total destruction.
I've made this mistake before - you get so wedded to allying with your allies you think you're friends. Or you think if someone hates your enemy, they must like you. Not necessarily true. You can get hypnotized by the rewards of giving them what they want and having them thank you - this is as big of a mistake as thinking you're a total badass and negotiating from incorrectly assumed strengths.
So I think we'll need to be careful. We need to figure out who our strongest enemy is, ally with their enemies, and make sure aren't weakening our own position in the process. Basically work with A to kick down B without making A stronger than us in the process.
Seek to befriend potential friends, and ally with potential allies.
Nothing deep there. We have to find out who are our actual potential friends. The badders, maybe the robots, Crow, the Triumvirate, possibly others - we need to find people who will live nicely with us. Figuring our who is an ally will be trickier, in a way - we need to know who will benefit us short or long term but who isn't going the same way as us.
Ally with those distant, fight those close by.
Just basic stuff I learned from playing way too much Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Europa Universalis II. Secure your flanks, ally with guys who you couldn't reach to fight with. If you ally with close up folks, you are just surrounding yourself with friends and cutting off your own ability to expand.
Not that we really need to expand, exactly, just make our proto-state secure. We can't do that by merely being friends with the strong and aggressive cryptic alliance states close by and hoping they don't turn left after wiping out their foes to the right.
All of that said, if we just wandered the wastes like Caine in Kung Fu, doing good, I'd be even happier. But our GM is lazy and doesn't want to detail all of North America down to the individual mutant and domars. Heh.
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