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while drawing up the map of north america and my proposed regions of focus for the fanbook, i started thinking about cultural elements. for example "how does the society known as Free Cattle function?"

it is really easy to just say "like X historical society", but that really doesn't do them justice. historical societies were composed of humans, while Free Cattle is not. nor have any historical societies really had to deal with the problems of the post-crash era. so instead, i tried to look at it from a "how would a society adapt to deal with what it faces?", and draw on what i have learned about societies to create a new approach.

so, here is my notes on the issue.

i see free Cattle as being a symbotic relationship between nomadic herds (tribes) and settled communities. the settled communities would have industry, in some cases the kind of industry we usually think of, factories and such, but in general i mean the concept of industry, the means of production.
the settled communities would be the main source of goods in Free cattle. in these communities, addition to growing their own food (and some valuable trade crops), would be the source of both raw materials (wood, metals, chemicals, ect) an finished goods (guns, tools, lumber, household items, chairs, beds, ect) some might be the products of technological production (electronics, for example), while others might be of more simple production (hand crafter furniture, for example)

the Nomadic herds, of bison, cattle, horses, or whatever, have no means of production beyond very basic things. instead, they provide services. the nomad herds provide protection to the settled communities (the nomads are the warriors), communications (carry messages between towns), transportation (help protect convoys of goods, as well as taking on outsiders while travelling from palce to place), as well as trade (both directly, by buying goods from settled communities, indirectly, by trading goods they have for goods they need, and abstractly, by helping transport and protect traders.)

combined these two, seemingly seperate societies, make up the powerful entity known as Free Cattle. in terms of government, i lean towards a representative approach similar in nature to most native american groups. each herd or community has a direct democracy, with each member having a direct voice in their town/herd council on issues effecting the entire community. when issues that effect multiple communities must be dealt with, each community involved selects a group of people from their community to go and talk to the groups from the other communities, where they try to acheive an understanding of each others needs and devise solutions to benefit all.

this loose government structure ensures flexibility, each community can easily adapt to meet their own needs. however, it also means there is little uniformity. each community is effectively a soverign power of it's own, who can only be influenced by other communities indirectly. to get the entire Free Cattle to adopt a specific policy, for example banning trade with wolves, the proponents of that policy must go and meet with the councils of each and every community in Free Cattle, and attempt to convince them that it would be in that communities best interest to impliment the policy.
it also means there is no "ruler" of free cattle. their government, if it can really be called that, is voluntary and transitory. when an issue comes up, people are chosen to deal with it, but they only have authority to speak for themselves (in the case of a community) or for their community (for larger issues). there are no "presidents", "prime ministers", "dictators", or even "mayors", or "senators". no one with permanent authority. often a particulary wise or well liked member of a community is chosen often to represent them in Herd councils, but those people have no lasting authority beyond that council.

all this make diplomacy with Free Cattle rather difficult. Agreements made with a particulary community will not always hold with others, and agreements made under the "authority" of a particular representative in a meeting with outsiders may not have any legitimacy unless said representative was empowered by his community to do so. and even then, it only holds for that community, not Free Cattle as a whole. likewise since each community (settled or nomadic) is essentually on its own in regards to governance, the exploration and expansion of the recognized borders of "Free Cattle" is not organized or comprehensive, but rather done on a community by community basis. thus the many small scouting parties encountered in the Appalachians, east and south of "Free Cattle" proper, are not the result of a systematic and organized exploratory arm, but rather the disorganized results of dozens of communities and herds hearing of the eastern powers and sending groups to learn what is going on, to see if any good lands or trading partners exist there.

no comments? suggestions?

Pretty good. Though I always had the impression that the Free Cattle you'd run into around the main setting area (Cardinia) were a bit more, er, standoff'ish, than a simple peaceful investigation team. Plus you're down playing the influance of Weschek. He seems like a real trouble maker for the surrounding areas to me. This percolated through my brain for a bit the other day, and I came up with an idea. The Free Cattle Conscript Army (FCCA). Not really a true army, not nearly as orgainized and way underfunded, but a way of dealing with trouble makers. Say a small village or nomadic band finds they have a thief. It's not like there's a county lock up they can toss him in. And if they just exile him then he'll just go and become a bandit. So they send him to the FCCA for a set amount of time, depending on the offence. Kind of like a prison boot camp, to hopefully get some disapline pounded into him. Now to some trouble makers, they might prefer to stay in the FCCA and become full time officers. So you have a bunch of miscreants, led by a bunch of former miscreants, who get sent to the outskirts of the kingdom as both a defensive measure against invasion, and to just get them out of everyone's hair. The Commander in Chief of the FCCA is Weschek, who points them in whatever direction he feels like sending them. The people who are really in charge are a small number of Generals, who feel like they're providing a vital service to the kingdom. As you go lower in the officers ranks the motivation becomes less for the greater good, and more for punishment and reform. A lot of the sterotypical hard ass drill sargents running around, more than they actually need.

Just a rough idea really. It would make encounters on the outskirts of the FC area quite interestingly different from those on the interior.

i never said they were peaceful. just that the bands exploring the appalachians (west of Cardania/new kennel/EoH) aren't the envoys of some monolithic government, but rather just scouts/traders for various different tribes. given that part of they come from a culture where non-herd animals are looked down on, and are generally on a mission to locate places their hometribes can exand into, i'm not surprised they're standoffish.

nor have i discounted Weschek. under this approach, he is one of the honored elders who has great pull with all the tribes, one of the guys who would go around trying to convince the various different communities to adopt a particular stance on issues. he'd be a common appointment to the party from his tribe that travels to the big multi-tribal councils, where his voice has a greater influence on Free Cattle as a whole. in this system, it's his frequent and Charismatic arguements that got Free cattle into it's current "if your not one of us we don't like you" state.

as for the FCCA, its not a bad idea, it just doesn't gel well with the vision of Free Cattle i have above. one of the tendancies in societies like the one i have outlined above is a lack of centralized law enforcement. you might see something like sherrifs and marshalls, but more likely you'll find each tribe has it's own approach to what is a crime and how to punish it. they generally run along the lines of negetive reinforcement, or spiritual reponses.

since Free Cattle doesn't seem to have the kind of long standing tradition real world native americans have, i'd guess they respond to crime in a more direct fashion. i rather like the idea of exile from the tribe. for minor crimes, the person is forced to live in a certain spot under the eyes of another trustworthy group, where they have to work off their crime and reflect on their offense (for example, a Horse convicted of theft might be forced to serve for a growing season as a plow horse for one of the farming communities the tribe is allied with, a hard job, as well as humiliating...)

for more serious offensives, you might see yourself forced to leave the boundries of Free Cattle entirely. perhaps that would include being forced to go on a scouting mission. if the party doesn't come back, the tribe has gotten rid of a disruptive element. if they do come back with something good to report, the person gets another chance.

for the "unforgivable" crimes, permanent banishment is likely to be the punishment. the person is Branded, given minimal supplies, and told never to return. the brand is a mark of shame, and a sign to other Free Cattle inhabitants that they are not to help the person, to talk to them, or even to acknowledge their exsistance anymore. the person has become dead to them. and if the person shows back up, they are killed. needless to say this is going to be a rare event.

This is all some good stuff.

I've always treated them like the bedouins you'd find in the middle east.

gordyzx9r wrote:I've always treated them like the bedouins you'd find in the middle east.

which means we're on similar wavelengths. nomadic, minimal centralized government beyond tribal ties, etc...i'm just using more of a native american influence.

I believe they are much like the native-american nations in that respect.

they are a nation due to shared heritage and culture. bookwyrm is pretty much correct.

the reason they have yet to be "suppressed" by the EoH is because the EoH, despite it's propoganda, is not a continent wide power. it can only really project signifigant power along the east coast, but the midwest, west, and overseas are all ares they have limited force projection abilities.

when you consider the number of beings that belong to free cattle would outnumber the entire EoH+New Kennel population by at least 6 to 1, you begin to see the scale of the problem the EoH would face.

duck-foot wrote:yes, but it would be hard. maybe they have a much larger border patrol with 1 male of age out of every tribe going in this "service" it would be manditory. maybe thats how they stay a "nation"

actually, no specific 'border guard'. just like there is no specific 'borders'. what you have is many tribes, broken into smaller bands. each band travels often, spending the summers in one place and the winters in another, often moving thousands of miles in these migrations. whereever they live, they send out groups of people to travel around, scout out the route they're moving, find new places to set up camps, etc. these parties tend to encounter other groups, and respond accordingly.

they have no set borders, because they perceive themselves as belonging to the entire land, and dividing up the land is a silly idea, since "it belongs to everyone". they basically can claim all land from sea to sea this way, but they only use a bit of it themselves. attempting to take that traditional land away (through colonization, mining, farming, treaties, etc) usually results in the nearest warlike tribe attacking and trying to drive off the intruders. though most would only care if the infringement took away important places, like religous sites, good wintering locations, vital water sources, etc. most would be willing to share so long as the newcomers are also willing to do so. it's when the newcomers have a "this is my land, get offa it" attitude you see the most conflict.
here, this article might help abit. as might this one

they are a 'nation' because they "share a real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origin, who typically inhabit a particular territory" at no pint does being a nation require central government, or defined regional borders.

duck-foot wrote:true, but without central government you have no defense. say if tribe x is attacked by the eoh then does that mean that tribe y is obligated to help them? no, it doenst. they may do so. but, even if they do they may not get there in time. maybe free cattle is more of an area to describe were bovines hail, and not a "nation" at all.

actually, in a tribal society the entire society is held together by obligations. the different famlies, bands, and tribes exchanging obligations towards each other as a means of unifying the society. often these come in the form of 'gifts'. a person in trbe A give something to someone in tribe B. this obligates the person in tribe B to give something of equivilent value back at some later point. or someone from Tribe D arranges to marry a daughter of someone from Tribe C, thus creating a tie between the two. non of it is a written obligaton, merely a sense of what is right. if tribe A is attacked, Tribe B wil often respond because that pcreates an Obligation for tribe A, which can result in closer ties via trade and intermarriage, or see tribe A come to the support of tribe B if tribe B is attacked. and through amily and trade ties, both Tribe Aand B could conceivably bring in tribe C and D as well, though thst might create additional obligations.

this is how soceites survived fr hundreds of thousands of years prior to the development of 'central governments'. it can eventually lead to very large militant movements if you have a charismatic leader able to employ this dense web of obligations to sway others to their side. this is basically how Crazy horse and sitting bull managed to get the souix, blackfoot, and Cheyenne to fight against the united states.

thats an interesting take. personally i planned to avoid discussion of religion in regards to most groups.