2025-12-11 Status in Kinetic Energy
I think I need to write something about how I want to use Status. My Kinetic Energy game has it, just like Traveller. And I also have the empire, and techno feudalism. I want to emphasise the terrible feudal aspects of this and encourage the game to be about the struggle against it. In this context, Status is your standing and social capital within the empire. How many friends in high places you have, how much favours you can call in, like the Resources test in Burning Wheel. Now, if you are exposed as a rebel, you can still pull strings but some things must necessarily change. And clearly, if you leave the empire completely, then your Status there drops to the minimum (1): You have become a stranger, a refugee. Or we could say: There is a new Status attribute for every hegemony. The default is simply: Your status within the empire.
I think this matches what I wrote a few days ago:
Status 7 is what I would consider an honest citizen of the empire. The axis is important. Outside the empire, your status would immediately drop and it would take a lifetime to get back up. … Status-10 is close to nobility. So who is close to nobility? People useful to the empire. People working in their administration, close to the court; friends of young nobles who were talented but sadly lacked the right connections. There is that class ceiling. No matter how hard you try: you can get a good job but you can never stop working.
Treating Status as your family connections and your network of influence is also why it also doesn't make sense to "increase" your Status as you level up. I guess if you marry into the imperial family, one could say that increases your status. Or perhaps your status stays the same. After all, your partner married a provincial nobody! But your children might have a better status. Now that would be a cool Pendragon-Traveller cross-over.
That reminds me of a line in Knives where I have a section called *The Next Generation*:
When creating characters that are children of other characters, do not roll for Education or Status. Instead, children inherit Education and Status from their parents …
In Knives, I said "up to a maximum of 7" but for Kinetic Energy I think what should happen is you "usually" get the education of your parents (sadly true in Switzerland), let's do a kind of "flux" roll: your parent's Education +1d6 -1d6. And maybe the average of your parent's Status, rounded up?