[Garem]

On the front end, I'll admit that I'm a TR fan. Why? Maybe because I picked them first many years ago... or maybe (probably) it's something else. Something that makes them feel real, make sense.

I'll try to step away from that bias, however, and for a moment put on my political scientist shoes. The TR make sense for a million reasons. They are the power, they have a historically justified purpose and therefore have legitimacy in the new world. It's an era of hegemonic transition; new powers have arisen and conflict is written into the human character. It can happen peacefully, but that's extremely rare (see: British dominance to American dominance following WWII). The old powers don't tend to peacefully back down from rising threats. The TR is no different. It was the rightful and peaceful ruler for so long, why tolerate change now?

The NC make sense for several reasons, although they vary WILDLY. Some are truly freedom fighters, and that idea makes sense. Some are mercenaries, and that makes a lot of sense too. But at the end of the day, they are funded by and serve the interests of corporations... and that's kind of okay. It's just a place where a business conglomerate has equal power to a government (which happens today! see China v. Google as an example) and their interests are close enough to the people to justify a mutual relationship. Technically corporate puppets? Sure, maybe. But they can at least justify the relationship.

The VS... here's where I struggle to understand the political purpose and motivation. None of it quite flows together. How does a sizable portion of the population buy into visions of a dead society/god and cling to that instead of the TR or NC? What makes them different, and perhaps more importantly what did this group see that didn't make at least SOME sense to the rest of the population? And why exactly do these people throw themselves into harm's way constantly? They're interesting, but it needs a lot more backstory and fleshing out to make sense.

Anyways... go TR!