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Mark's avatar

This is awesome; I'm very excited for this series. SMAC is my favorite game and I may have quoted Deirdre Skye in my philosophy thesis. I'll be looking forward to the duel of ideas with Chairman Yang - but for the moment, it seems I've got to brush up on my D&G.

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Oleander Garden's avatar

Aw thanks!

Yang is such an weird figure; I'm still not sure how to peg him, precisely. Mahayana legalism?

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Mark's avatar

Maybe I don't know enough about Buddhism but I saw Yang as something like spirituality stripped of spirit, or almost a Hegel that gets cut down to a pure materialism.

Just as single-celled organisms come together into multicellular life, Yang wants humans to come together into a collective in which their individuality is wholly subsumed. Naturally, as head of that collective, he has the easiest time identifying with the collective. A society in which everyone is expected to say, "I am the state" is naturally easiest on whoever holds the position of chairman.

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