Refugees

[KonradKurze202]

I can see this idea being the basis for the eventual 'Ship Lords' DLC. Refugees start off in civilian ships (an actual fleet on the map), fleeing a war, no weapons, minimal defenses. They enter another empire's territory and that empire is given the choice of accepting the refugees or turning them away. If the refugee fleet is turned away they will have two choices, accept the empire's refusal or deny it and attempt to settle a planet (either adding to the population of an uninhabited world, or colonizing a new world), at this point regardless of their choice any formal empire in whose territory the fleet is in can elect to attack the refugee fleet to attempt to prevent them from settling.
The longer a fleet is without a home the more it will undergo refits, turning civilian ships into military ships (like the Quarians). And eventually they will become a faction/empire of their own. They would gather resources differently than 'established' empires, either stealing/raiding from mining outposts or harvesting resources from 'untapped' worlds and mines. These resources would go towards upgrading the fleet further. As time goes on the population of the fleet will increase and new ships will be built, salvaged, or bought. The fleet might even hold small empires ransom. Given that the number of ships in any civilian refugee fleet would exceed any standard military fleet the potential power of a long lived, a well upgraded Migrant Fleet would be a force to be reckoned with.
If a migrant fleet didn't find a home (either peacefully or through war) within a time frame of a hundred years the ability for the population to adapt to life on a planet decreases, until eventually they are trapped in space.

This would be an amazing addition in my view.

 

[Tanlash]

+1 Love the idea and pretty much everything else everyone has said...

Pretty much just showing my support for this idea...

 

[Baldor Arbanus]

That is, in fact, a very good example of xenophobia: you are saying that you do not want additional citizens if those citizens have some cultural differences. This cannot be called anything other than xenophobia.

Well, here's the thing: these are different species migrating into alien ecosystems already colonized by another species who for all we know, has a completely different biological makeup. What if the invading species doesen't share the same diet as their newfound caretakers, plus where are the refugees going to work? What if the newcomers are even more physically repulsive than the Blorg and your citizens want to keep their distance as much as possible? How are you going to make the two coexist without it ending in a genocide? And that's before we get into cultural and psychological differences that will make the biological problems look like a walk in the park.

Yeah, I can't view that as a xenophobic position. I actually find it to be fairly rational.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Yeah, I can't view that as a xenophobic position. I actually find it to be fairly rational.

Are we discussing human refugees, Stellaris aliens or some other form of aliens here? The argument you've made needs to be considered differently in each case.

 

[FelixG]

Are we discussing human refugees, Stellaris aliens or some other form of aliens here? The argument you've made needs to be considered differently in each case.

We have been talking about stellaris aliens, at leat thats what I have been talking about from the start, I referred to it as Space Syria simply because of the situation they have there.

 

[Baldor Arbanus]

Are we discussing human refugees, Stellaris aliens or some other form of aliens here? The argument you've made needs to be considered differently in each case.

I assumed we were talking about Stellaris.

People, if you want to discuss RL, I heavily recommend finding a political forum. A gaming forum should be the last place to discuss politics.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

In the context of Stellaris aliens, we know that there are no biological differences or food incompatibilities and that newcomers will not carry crime with them (because there is as far as we know no crime in Stellaris.) We also know that pops generally settle on worlds for which they are compatible (or which have enough super-frontier-clinics that it isn't an issue) so if the refugees have come to you then ecosystem isn't a counter-argument.

We also know that while the newcomers may have different ethoi for the first few generations, so do many of the ethnic majority pops (because factions and ethos divergence are things) and therefore having people with different ethoi is a problem but by no means an insurmountable one.

We also know that there are jobs, because in Stellaris jobs means "unused planet tiles", and there is no way to emigrate to a planet that's hit population cap. A planet that has no unused tiles has no room for ethnic-majority population growth either.

Finally, we know that different species have different traits and therefore different strengths and weaknesses. This means that if we have a diverse population, we can get a more productive planet by putting the right pops on the right planet tiles.

Because we know all these things, it is reasonable to assume that these things are known by anyone who makes decisions in the Stellaris-verse.

Therefore, when a refugee pop comes to a Stellaris planet and asks for admission, the conversation isn't going to be full of the factors that Baldor Arbanus quoted. It's going to be like this one:

Refugee: "Can we come in, please? We have the Agrarian and Natural Engineer traits."
Xenophobe: "Sorry, no. Your ethoi are different from those of our majority species, meaning that you would inflict a long-term happiness penalty on the entire planet and possibly cause unrest. This outweighs the long-term bonus we'd get from having you be our farmers and engineers. There would also be a short-term cost to get you settled in, which offsets the short-term gain from getting a new pop right away rather than having to wait for natural population growth."
Xenophile: "Get in the farms and workshops! You're better at those jobs than our majority species is, and in the long term this outweighs any internal difficulties we might suffer from having a more diverse population. This lets us free up our ethnic-majority pops to do the things they're good at. The short-term population boost is nice too; it pays for the cost of settling you in."
Neutral: "Both of these arguments have weight. Let me balance them against our circumstances and needs at the current time and make a decision."

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

Same reason the Imperial gunners didn't shoot down the robot's escape pod in Star Wars IV.
Waste of ammunition.

The only reason they didn't shoot it down was because there were no life signs on it. That's why they said it would be a waste of ammunition. They were prepared to do so anyway. Had they even realised there were droids onboard never mind organics, they would have obliterated it for sure.

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

Well they might flee before the enemy actual arrive (maybe if they're getting into the system the pops have a small chance, modified by fear (They run from enemies known to use more aggressive orbital bombardment) and war weariness to flee every day?

"But wait!" you might say "won't this let me cripple my enemies economy by making all their pops flee?". The response (to this straw puppet ): I'm assuming that more extensive orbital bombardment has a chance to do infrastructure damage like destroying buildings, killing pops and even creating tile blockers (fallout or equiv). In this case, the bombardment was already going to crunch their economy; this just lets some of the pops flee, and most of those pops are going to try to flee to other, safer parts of the same empire, if there's space, only fleeing to other empires when they run out of space on non-occupied planets within the empire (though some will flee to other empires if they prefer their ethoi to their own empire, unless they're xenophobic and the other empire is a different species (read: character portrait) Also this would buff xenophobia because xenophobes would be less likely to leave. Assuming free migration, they should move back (because pops prefer less crowded planets) if there continues to be space after the war too. Amusing the original owner still owns it.

Refugee based migration might also occur if a pop is really unhappy, and there is another empire which better matches it's ethoi than yours nearby.

Yeah, like I said before though, tie it to war weariness. Discarding any and all "realism" arguments, it would just be annoying as fuck if your pops started scattering all over the place every time a measly enemy ship or two appeared above the skies.

But after years of incessant warfare, the planet already nuked before, then when the evil armada shows up, yeah a pop or two could try flee.

This whole argument could turn out to be completely redundant, because these things might already effect the migration desire of pops, causing the internal displacement (unless migration is forbidden, which is the restriction of civilian movement anyway). Also any foreign empires that would take refugees from your planets in, well they're probably the ones you already have migration pacts with.

 

[Oscot]

The only reason they didn't shoot it down was because there were no life signs on it. That's why they said it would be a waste of ammunition. They were prepared to do so anyway. Had they even realised there were droids onboard never mind organics, they would have obliterated it for sure.

OK, granted. But I was assuming (and I accept in retrospect that it was a naive assumption) that the bombarding fleet in question was engaged in a measured military exercise against planetary defensive installations. Since a ragtag refugee ship is not a planetary defensive installation, attacking it is a waste of ammunition.

But yes, if the war you're fighting is a genocidal war rather than a "Only nuke people with guns" war, then refugees are a more important target than planetary defences.

So I concede the point in theory, although in practice I would say that I am not especially determined that the mechanic be represented at that high a fidelity. It would not destroy my suspension of disbelief to just handwave "Space is big and full of junk, some refugees will always slip through the sensor nets".

 

[Ratanka]

nooo they will take our jobs !
i will build a wall and make u pay for it !

 

[BrokenSky]

You (the player) can't see it because it's not important to you. You can see all ships that are important to you, though, and you can totally forbid civilian migration (with no possibility for failure) if you choose to do so.
Nonetheless, each drib or drab must come in a ship.

Every transport coming from wartorn space Syria? You bet I can. If I'm turning away refugees, I'm clearly playing as a xenophobe.
Well, assuming they're the same species as my own, maybe. But even then, I could put a bounty on them.

What intermediate solutions would you suggest to nefarious xenos attempting to creep into my pristine worlds?

Not necessarily. I think it might depend on personality. I could see nations getting mad that you're sheltering their runaways just as I could see a nation getting mad that you're showering them with burdensome mouths to feed. A lot of Cuban refugees went to the US after all, and it didn't ease relations at all.


Gotta respect a man who sticks to his principles.

You would have to have an active blockade to do that though. I agree that you should have the option of turning away refugees, especially if you are xenophobic, though. A few might be able to slip past your static border security, but probably not enough for a pop. Like I said, the pop should then have a 90?(or more)% chance to bounce to a neighboring empire and ask them for help. If there are no neighboring empires with the correct ethoi, they might ask empires with less favorable ethoi or even start their own faction (if there is an uncolonized world in neutral space of the right type nearby). In the 10% chance that they don't bounce, the pop basically disperses between a dozen systems, giving a small modifier increasing growth, but decreasing happiness slightly.

Xenophobia is described as "intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other (places)."

In the context of stellaris I'm pretty sure that's not what is meant. Xenophobia covers everything from semi-irrational dislike (I mean there may be a completely rational reason why, for your species, xenophobia is on average going to be good for you; perhaps you domesticated animals early and people from the next country over might be carriers of plagues you are not immune too, and over time people came to realize outsiders were inherently dangerous and to be turned away if possible) to a completely rational hatred of 'Nids, to a mostly irrational hatred of aliens "because they look too much like spiders and need to die", even though they're actually non-toxic friendly herbivorous pacifists.

Xenophobia is just used because it quickly conveys "does not like aliens on principal".

(because there is as far as we know no crime in Stellaris.)

Unrelated note: we need a crime and corruption DLC.

 

[BrokenSky]

Refugee: "Can we come in, please? We have the Agrarian and Natural Engineer traits."
Xenophobe: "Sorry, no. Your ethoi are different from those of our majority species, meaning that you would inflict a long-term happiness penalty on the entire planet and possibly cause unrest. This outweighs the long-term bonus we'd get from having you be our farmers and engineers. There would also be a short-term cost to get you settled in, which offsets the short-term gain from getting a new pop right away rather than having to wait for natural population growth."
Xenophile: "Get in the farms and workshops! You're better at those jobs than our majority species is, and in the long term this outweighs any internal difficulties we might suffer from having a more diverse population. This lets us free up our ethnic-majority pops to do the things they're good at. The short-term population boost is nice too; it pays for the cost of settling you in."
Neutral: "Both of these arguments have weight. Let me balance them against our circumstances and needs at the current time and make a decision."

This is exactly the reason xenophobe and xenophile need to be balanced very carefully. Xenophobe lets you exterminate aliens without penalty, and here lets you reject refugees without penalty. Xenophile lets you integrate them. Hence, my suggestion is that xenophobes are considerably less likely to leave your empire due to migration, instead opting to go to any planet in your empire rather than leave, even that terrible ice ball were all your pops live at a miserable 20% max happiness. This would basically make up for xenophobe's inability to accept immigration (they get worse penalties from it); being more resistant to emigration, offsetting the disadvantage they would be at due to not being able to make use of this mechanic for gain.

But yeah this whole refugee mechanics would be good as part of a Xenophile DLC. (I'm thinking there might be a DLC based on each ethos; the war expansion, trade + espionage, robots, religions etc).

 

[DC123456789]

Also remember that some refugees are likely to leave before the enemy fleet reaches the planet if they realize it's imminent or under threat. Especially if they're a genocidal endgame horror.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

This is exactly the reason xenophobe and xenophile need to be balanced very carefully.

Agree entirely.

 

[Cruxador]

Dammit this is what happens when I draw a parallel to real life.

 

[Oscot]

eah, I can't view that as a xenophobic position. I actually find it to be fairly rational.

It is rational. And it is xenophobia. Xenophobia can be rational.

Welcome to thoughtcrime.

Dammit this is what happens when I draw a parallel to real life.

Fun, ain't it?

 

[Smiles_]

The more I think about this idea in some sort, the more and more I like it. I think it can shaped somehow to make it into the game.


Smiles

 

[Just a Joke]

I wonder if I can do "emergency evacuation" to a planet. Think the Battle of Capella in Freespace 2, if a planet is too important to be captured, or invader will eat anyone left behind, I'd prefer evacuate anything and anyone I can, then sabotage everything left behind.

 

[Botox]

I wonder if I can do "emergency evacuation" to a planet. Think the Battle of Capella in Freespace 2, if a planet is too important to be captured, or invader will eat anyone left behind, I'd prefer evacuate anything and anyone I can, then sabotage everything left behind.

And how would you do that with a couple billion inhabitants?
Nowadays we cant even evacuate a city the size of New York without causing miles and miles of traffic jams... not even talking about taking those people solely by ship.