Experimental societies

[Quasqueton]

A new continent is discovered. People start moving there in large numbers. Some leader-types want to start new societies.

What kinds of societies, cities, nations, civilizations would be started, and by whom?

I'm thinking something along the lines of a bunch of paladins starting a city of Law and Good. At least one low-level paladin is stationed at each city gate, and anyone detecting as evil is turned away (and possibly even hunted down outside the city).

What other societal experiments would someone start? What would be the repercussions of such experiments?

Quasqueton

 

[Teflon Billy]

[Something like B]Hollowfaust [/B]from Scarred Lands.

A bunch of LE Necromancers set up a city and use their lowbie undead to do the drudge work of running a city...Farming, Sewer Cleaning, Policing etc (rather than, I guess, sending the to cave complexes and telling them to collect copper and silver coins )

People are allowed in the city based on what they contribute...the day-to-day necessity of food production and infrastructure maintenance are taken care of, so the sentients can devote themselves to scholarly, magical, technological or philosophical pursuits.

The only requirements of citizenship are that you present your works monthly to a council appointed by the necromancers, and that upon death your corpse becomes property of the city.

 

[sckeener]

Several ideas

• a bunch of ur-priests try to setup a government where religion is forbidden (aka atheocracy) (example see Scuttlecove in Dungeon #95). All holy symbols are confiscated on arrival.
• a particular race thinks this is their promised land and try to form a government by their particular ethnic group (aka ethnocracy.) They setup racial gates that only open for their ethnicity.
• Smart people want to escape those to dim to see an opportunity and try to form a government by those of a higher than average intelligence (aka geniocracy).
• Arcane casters move in and setup a government where only they are citizens. Citizenship test is simply casting an arcane spell. (aka magocracy)
• a silly governemt would be Union City...(aka meritocracy) government by those with merit..you have to tell of your great deeds before you can join the government.
• a group of constructs consider this their promised land and kill all non-constructs that come to the land
• theocracy...one or a group of like minded religions decide this is their land.

 

[fusangite]

A new continent is discovered. People start moving there in large numbers. Some leader-types want to start new societies.

A lot of this is conditioned upon how this landmass is "discovered" and what is already there.

Unless you want to create incredibly lethal plagues, it isn't really possible to create situations like those which were faced by Europeans in the New World. So I would recommend that your new landmass be empty of sentient indigenous inhabitants.

Now, the main thing that conditioned the sorts of utopian communities that were set up in the Americas was what people were upset about in their home cultures. Very few of America's utopian communities were autocthonour or creole in character; typically, the were offshoots of movements or communities in the Old World.

What kinds of societies, cities, nations, civilizations would be started, and by whom?

Here are a few characteristics that I think would be common:
1. The societies that would start them would be from densely-populated or politically repressive areas.
2. There would need to be assent on the part of the society from which the group in question was escaping either in the form of consensual migration or forced exile.
3. The societies would understand themselves to be solving/responding to a problem in their home society.

I'm thinking something along the lines of a bunch of paladins starting a city of Law and Good. At least one low-level paladin is stationed at each city gate, and anyone detecting as evil is turned away (and possibly even hunted down outside the city).

This sounds like a great idea but one thing you might want to consider: what society were the paladins coming from and why would such a plan not work there?

What other societal experiments would someone start? What would be the repercussions of such experiments?

I'll respond more fully later today. Let me say a few general things first, though:
1. Would these groups really think of these things as experiments or would they "know" their social reforms were correct and successful?
2. Would the former societies of these groups seek to export other undesirables to these communities?
3. How big a problem would escape from these utopian communities be?