How do turians make it work and Alliance politics

Hello, my name is Michael and I've posted here a few times recently, and I ask the question above because, for the first time in history, humanity is unified into a single governing body. And to be perfectly honest, I think its doomed for failure, even before the "five year plan" comes to complete fruition.

Why? Because humans, by our nature, all think that we know the right way to organize ourselves, and have been operating under different forms of government and national identity since before the beginning of recorded history. Putting us all together is like herding cats, unless the need is great, its not going to work.

But, I don't have to look far to see that what might not work for humanity can work for other species. The Hierarchy, despite being very propaganda oriented and frowning heavily on sedition, has arguably the most community oriented meritocracy in history. If it were composed of humans, there would be rebelions. I would rebel against it. But yet it still works.

So what's the secret? Are the differences between the species all there is to it? Is it simply a matter of time and effort, with humans, or other species, participating in a similar system eventually producing the same results? Or am I missing something?

Please note I don't want this to devolve into an argument about separatism, specieism, or any kind of ism. Just some informed discourse for the sake of clarification.

Oh, there's rebellions--but the point I want to make is that even among those rebel groups, there tends to be a very similiar meritocratic structure. Everyone's constantly expressing surprise to me that my clan seems to run so much like the Hierarchy. And the answer is that it does. Turian groups might have different ideals or goals or philosophy or culture or what have you, but we all evolved from the same pack hunters.

I think that's what it comes down to. As pack hunters, rather than solo hunters, the group had to work together or we'd all starve. Our ancestors weren't the biggest carnivores on Palaven, or the most numerous, or the strongest, but we were the ones who used our intelligence to work together co-operatively and punch above our weight.

I asked an associate of mine who's batarian, and she said that humans, like batarians, evolved as tool-using omnivores. They occasionally got eaten by predators, but (if I read her right, unlike batarians, humans were never the primary food source for any predator.) Still, both humans and batarians had more to fear from lateral competition--too many humans/batarians squabbling over limited resources in their ecological niche--than they did from predators and as a result they broke into tribes, the groups squabbling with one another, joining and parting, a certain freedom of movement between groups until dividing lines solidified and became, well, to the batarians, castes, I think it worked this way with humans a bit too.

So humans and batarians evolved to squabble, to get themselves ahead of their tribe and their tribe ahead of other tribes, whereas turians evolved to cooperate or die. It's not that there aren't group-minded humans or independent-minded turians, but they're not the "Default setting" as it were.

(I am learning so much from the people I meet in this job.)

I only hope that common need convinces the Humans to stick together.

The only thing that needs clarification is your IQ level.

You're herd, we're pack. There's no big secret, you're just an idiot.

Don't really think defining what works for whatever species can be resolved with a simple answer. Every single species evolved differently under different circumstances after all.

Differences in delivery aside, you both maintain that its purely a matter of biological and evolutionary traits? Informative, but disconcerting. Short of a few millions years of Darwinian redirection anyway.

Still, if I were take the metaphor further, if you're all a pack, then why are there rebellions? You could list the cultural, sociological and geopolitical reasons behind every insurrection, but there was a common cause behind them all what would it be? A challenge to the Alpha for dominance? Since we're insisting to look at it that way, I'll simply go the next step and ask.

It's a fundamental neurological difference. The Alliance's current experiment with a unified, military-led government is doomed to failure.

Okay, this may sound like, weird, but Humanity already had giant political entities. Countries like China or India or UNAS, with a few billion humans each, which by any reasonable measure is plenty humans, and not a single one of them was 100 homogenous as to race, religion, or any other defining trait. If a unified government was doomed to fall apart because different groups of humans always disagree, wouldn't that doom any human political grouping larger than say, 150 human people?

No species 'evolved' to deal with modern society.

I'm afraid thats the inevitability, yes. I wish it were possible for us to genuinely unify, but we can't seem to do it without cases of extreme urgency. We can delay however we like, but sooner or late we'll want to start dividing again.

Honestly, I think the only group thats more prone to fight against themselves is the krogan.


But, the UNAS and China have had their own brand of internal strife. Two civil wars for UNAS, and the Chinese can't go a generation without at least one severe crackdown, if not full on tides of discontent being let loose and reactively crushed.

But you have a point, those are large populations and they were stable more often than not. But this isn't just a large population, its not even just Earth, but every surviving human colony, the homeworld, and our future expansion, all under Alliance control.

Its not a question of if it will divide itself, but when and how. If shit hits the fan like I expect, we won't be seeing the entirety of Hacket's five years.

No one's saying that they did, but the circumstances of evolution do influence our behavior.

The thing you notice about successful large tribal societies is the inbuilt preparation for tribal behavior in the system. Politics. Asari, humans, batarians, ect, ect have political parties that are basically large tribes. These tribes subdivide into even smaller tribes of particular interest, and they all compete with each other to gain power. Even in monolithic, single party states that are successful, there are tribes within the party and internal conflict between factions. One tribe wins out until another tribe comes along within the clan to take first place and the prize of control. Tribal competition isn't purely limited to violent competition.

The thing you'll notice about Turian society is over all less emphasis on politics, and a much stronger executive than most species would tolerate. Just how we work.


Because the pack you belong to isn't always the Hierarchy. You'll notice many of the rebellions are just instant replays from the unification wars. Die hards who are convinced they're still their own pack, their own unique identity. The funny thing about pack society is that the whole thing about competition between separate groups really is more vicious. If there's another pack, they're competing directly for the same food as you. That's fine if they're out of your territory; the Hierarchy doesn't bother much with Turian states in the terminus, but if they are in your territory they're direct competition for resources. Unlike tribals, in pack society direct competition really, really isn't tolerated.

Tribal warfare is all about getting the other tribe to make concessions and admit subservience. Elimination of the other tribe as an option is rare and is looked down upon. Meanwhile Turian's regularly commit to what you call total warfare, but is really just pack elimination. Destroy the alphas, subject the betas, and enfold them into our pack. If the betas fail to submit, destroy them too.

Tribals quail a lot at our warfare, because it's alien to them. They mistake it for brutality, when usually Turians expect each other to play by those rules. It's just second nature. Vallum was a tragedy for instance, but it was a different tragedy to us than it was to you. You saw a civilian population murdered, we saw our brothers-in-arms slaughtered.

Don't say this to a drell. Seriously-Council Race Problems.


I'm just saying, you can't say that it'll fail because it's big and diverse. You can say the Alliance doesn't have the institutions to deal with that internal conflict, but that's different.


I don't see the distinction you're drawing. In drell history, whether we were acting pack-like or tribe-like is like, 90% dependent on how much rain there was that year. Other 10%? Leaders.

Also, your claim that humans don't "Destroy the alphas, subject the betas, and enfold them into the pack" is kind of varrenshit? Just looking at my comparative history textbook, and the UNAS completely attempted that on their continent's indigenous peoples. It's like, only been taboo recently and when the two societies have been at the same tech level.

If it may disagree with SteelUnifier, elcor and hanar are closer to herd creatures (although hanar are more 'swarming' like proto-hanar-analogues that inhabit garden worlds across the galaxy) than humans. Humans are, as Chieften Detticia pointed out, tribal creatures, like most other intelligent species.

Maybe you just need to trust those more experienced more, Horseman. Perhaps one of the more shocking things this one has seen in humans is the distrust they have for each other. Posters frequently say how they cannot trust anyone, or that trust msut be earned. From what this one was taught (that trust should be implicit "Find not a reason to trust, for the other shall be found wanting." - Musings Of The Silent Synod), it cannot help but think what lonely existance that must be.

The thing is, it wasn't as though the Alliance was powerless before the war. It already had substantial influence and governing capability as a supranational political union. To say nothing of the fact that it really isn't that old; all governments go through "teething" periods, especially ones in that style (take a look at your European Union in the early 21st century). Keep in mind, us Turians have had way more time to get the whole 'united interstellar government' thing down, and it took a fuckin' Unification War and a lot of smaller rebellions to get to where we are today. And that's nothing compared to the story of Citadel Space as a whole.

Now, being assigned where I am now, I probably shouldn't talk too much about allied governments and whether or not they're right or wrong, but it was my understanding that the military government the Alliance has now was never intended to be permanent. It's a TRANSITIONAL government; it's meant to be temporary and to just keep things running until you can re-create what you had before, or devise something new. Now, granted, when that will happen remains to be seen, but it also seems like that has been totally overlooked in this discussion thus far.

TL:DR; I thought it wasn't supposed to last forever anyway dipshits.

It's early, bear with me please.

As RTB has stated, for the Systems Alliance to survive, we'll need to change back to a civilian-run government, either with another long-term 'president' like Huerta or the traditional method. There's not much more to say. A unified military government will be stretched thin to defend against the seperatists on the other colonies, which are already starting to spring up, and uppity native governments here on Earth. With her resources all over the place, the SA begins to feel the strain, and we see what happened with Rome.

Everyone needs to remember this. The SA isn't a cackling villian plotting to create a space empire, it's a transitional administration in the aftermath of the greatest ordeal humanity has faced.

So whether it'll last like the Hierarchy is irrelevant, because it's not meant to last that long.

Horseman, in nature, every gennaire isn't in one big pack, every wolf isn't in one big pack, every ch'ikkall'it isn't in one big pack, etc. Animals form packs to protect territory, hunting grounds--resources, for lack of a better word. Stronger packs control more/better resources.

The Turian Hierarchy, I'm convinced, built itself through pack politics--two alphas fight, the winning pack swallows up the losing pack, who either accept the new order or have to make a go of it alone. Do that on a massive scale through turian history, you end up with the Hierarchy--most of the minor packs swallowed into one big pack, made possible by the ability of sentient beings to both reason politically and to provide the basic necessities of life on first a global, then a galactic empire, scale.

Now, if you consider that Sundowners are descended from turians who've chosen that "go of it alone" option several times in their history--colonials who became Terminus settlers who became separatists--you realize they've pretty much had that mentality enforced in generation after generation, so it's no wonder they don't just roll over and submit the next time the Hierarchy beats them.

I think even I've got a bit of it--I don't consider myself a "Separatist", on the other hand, I haven't gone and signed up my family for boot, either.

Now if you wanted to have humans under a hierarchy-like structure, you'd need a lot of social engineering for it. I was toying with this idea way before the whole war began and estimated that in three generations you'd have adequately acclimatised humans in a Hierarchic meritocracy, assuming they first and second generation believe in the system and are obedient, and dissenters were either convinced to shut it or were booted out from spoiling the rest.

Bro, I could sit you down over a bar's worth of drink for a whole night and not manage to explain it, you know?

Best I can do is say this. From day fucking one, every turian has one simple lesson drilled into em. Life is all about the guys around you. It's the guys next to you, the guys right above you, and the guys just below you. You don't matter, they do. Cos they're the Hierarchy, you get me? Maybe that gets dressed up in fancy words, maybe you don't use words at all, and you teach just by doing it. But that's the thing, man

That, and we've just been doing this shit longer than you. We had the whole nationalism phase, then we got a bunch of planets and fought over them instead. When that wrapped up, we started being what we are now. Give it 300 years bro, and the Alliance might do the same.

What else can we do? I mean, entire countries are gone. Nations don't even exist any more - anyone clinging to national identity in this day and age is either an idiot or an even bigger idiot.

There are no national governments left. SATAE hasn't usurped anything, it's filling the void. Seriously, the first thing the Reapers did was to hit governmental centres. Brussels? Gone. Beijing? Gone. Delhi? Gone, Washington, gone, etc., etc. The ones that didn't get obliterated were indoctrinated - try spending any time in Africa or SE Asia and asking people to trust their governments. For the majority of Earthers, the Alliance is the only thing people can trust not to lead them into the husk factories.

Capice and Nat have it right. SATAE is temporary, it's hardly unprecedented (anyone who says that their 'nation' has always been a homogeneous, unified entity that emerged back in the mists of time is an idiot) and it's the start of a great new egalitarian age of democracy - one in which everyone (colonists included) has an equal say and equal access to 22nd Century quality of life.

We'll make this work because we have to and because it's our only hope.

Eden Prime.


I'll believe it when I see it.

War between the colonies and SATAE is the more likely outcome.