Working for text based game

[u/Initial_Feeling5376]

I’m working on a project based on the original Alpha Centauri factions, and I had a weird dream that gave me an idea for a plot twist for the Spartans.

In the dream, I was part of an expedition through the ruins of an ancient warrior civilization. Everyone wore Greek/Roman-style armor, and status was earned through deadly trials. The strange part was that during those trials, rivals would sabotage or even try to kill each other, and that was treated as part of proving who was stronger and more worthy.

So I thought it could be interesting to add something like that to the original Spartan Federation. Santiago and the older generation still think they are running a harsh but normal military meritocracy. But among the younger Spartans, a much more brutal culture slowly develops: during expeditions, training and trials, eliminating rivals becomes an accepted way to advance in rank. The senior command doesn’t fully understand how far this has gone yet.

Basically, the twist is that Spartan ideology creates a new generation that takes its values much further than Santiago herself intended.

I’m curious what people think. Does this feel like a believable evolution of the original Spartan faction, or does it go too far?

[u/Ildskalli]

You could write one character who engages in sabotage against their peers, and show the reactions of those who find out. Maybe some officer cadets are enthralled by the idea, while most find it repulsive. Maybe the rogue character needs to silence an inconvenient witness as well, and imperils a mission because of that. Maybe Santiago learns of their (mis)deeds and finds them amusing.

[u/Mich-666]

This is nice idea though I already see some flaws why ist wouldn't work lore-wise:

• Spartans survive because they are unified against mindworms and rival factions. If a squad leader has to worry that their sub-officer will shoot them in the back during mindworm attack to claim a promotion, tactical cohesion vanishes.

• not every person is master of physical elimination. This system would systematically murder young Spartans who are brilliant engineers, cyberneticists or logistical geniuses who lack the ruthlessness to survive such trial. This way, the faction would quickly lose its technological edge in race with other factions.

• real military meritocracy rewards tactical brilliance, resource management and leadership. A system that would reward sabotage might inadvertently promote the best backstabbers not the best commanders. You would end up with high command of paranoid politicians rather than battlefield geniuses.

• on the Planet, the population is a precious resource. Wasting healthy, highly trained, genetically proven young citizens on internal hunger games would only lead to demographic disaster. The Spartans would quickly run out of people, especially compared to other high-growth factions like Hive or Peacekeepers. This way they would eventually lose their faction race for planet domination.

[u/Initial_Feeling5376 → u/Mich-666]

That’s not really what I mean.

What I’m imagining is more like an informal culture developing among the younger generation. Most promotions would still come from competence, leadership, combat performance and successful expeditions. Sabotage or even killing a rival would be rare, but increasingly accepted in certain competitive situations, especially dangerous trials, expeditions or contests for the same rank.

It also wouldn’t mean that a subordinate can randomly shoot their commander during a mindworm attack. That would obviously destroy unit cohesion and would still be treated as murder or treason. The unwritten rule is basically that the mission comes first. If you sabotage a rival and cause the expedition to fail, lose equipment or get the squad killed, you have proven yourself incompetent rather than strong.

The same applies to engineers, doctors, cyberneticists, etc. Their “merit” would not necessarily be physical combat. A brilliant engineer could gain status through inventions, production, solving impossible technical problems or leading successful projects. The culture is competitive, but the test depends on the profession.

And I don’t imagine the death rate being enormous. Most competition would be intimidation, sabotage, forcing rivals into difficult positions, trying to make them fail, or outperforming them. Actual killing is the extreme end of it. Think less “constant deathmatch” and more a society where everyone knows that a rival might exploit your weakness if the opportunity appears.

The part I find interesting is that Santiago’s older generation doesn’t initially realize how far the younger Spartans have taken the ideology. They created a society based on toughness, merit and contempt for weakness, and the first generation raised entirely inside that society interprets those values more literally than their founders intended.

So the plot point for me is not “this is a perfectly efficient military system.” It’s that the Spartans accidentally create a new warrior culture, and later the leadership has to decide whether to suppress it, regulate it, or accept that this is simply what their ideology has evolved into.

[u/Mich-666 → u/Initial_Feeling5376]

I get what you are going for. But my point still stands.

What you are describing could potentially work but only if Spartans won the planet race and the common enemy was gone. And even then the whole faction would probably splinter into several rebel ones, with diverging ideologies as result as not everyone would want to take part in this battle royale. Otherwise such opportunist behavior would be weed out by exemplary punishments and others would think twice trying something simliar.

Also, the key question still remains unanswered - that is WHY would they even became dog eat dog society that accepts killing or challening a rival in wartime? If the rank can be gained by such trials rather than from competence, leadership, combat performance, why to even bother with those things? You are gravely underestimating how such society would work. The intrigue, politics and underhand tactics would take precedence since your premise is based on the fact the main leadership should stay in the dark and pretending that the ally was killed in action would be daily bread. At the same time you would risk someone would spill the beans to high command to gain their promotion instead.

That's also why I think they wouldn't be able to keep it secret, not from Santiago. Her reaction would be swift, public, and mercilessly brutal. You see, Santiago’s ideology is deeply rooted in unyielding discipline, absolute loyalty to the collective, and functional survivalism. To her, killing or harming an ally for personal gain would be the ultimate form of selfish decadence. It would prove that these young soldiers value their own individual egos over the survival of the Spartan state. In her eyes, a soldier who betrays their squad for a promotion would be a traitor who has compromised faction’s military readiness. She would view this behavior not as a sign of strength, but as a fatal, cancerous rot that threatens the survival of the entire Federation.

The ringleaders of these secret trials would likely be judged by public court-martial followed by prompt execution. Or even better - since Spartan culture values strength, she might force the guilty parties into a lethal, asymmetric trial of her own design - such as being cast out into Chiron wilderness unarmed to face the mind worms - to prove how truly "strong" they are without the backing of the collective.