Where does your group come from originally? What is the genesis of your group?

* The idea (authority) of Interstellar Communism belongs to the cmdr BEKTOP 3APEMOB. It was offered by him at 20/05/2015.

* The few of pilots was support this idea, and it was enough to keep the activity of not small players group.

* The first leader of the group was a pilot Sturm. But he leaved the group later, after disagreements with colleagues.

* Now the leader of community is cmdr Autumnf0x.

* The fact: The idea of cmdr BEKTOP 3APEMOB served as source for CI and RCI (the old name of the ICU) communities.

What is your group all about? What are your fundamental goals?

The main idea of the Interstellar Communist Union is based on the principles of interstellar communism.

Short concept of Interstellar Communism

We believe that the further evolution of the human society in the 34 century strongly inhibits the conservatism of its social structure. We are confident that the technologies available in the 34 century allow automating most of the activities related to the manual and monotonous hard work. Moreover, it will reduce the cost of production of basic goods up to the minimum level. The guaranteed unconditional income at the same time allows to avoid "man-caused unemployment", and instead release huge resources for the development of science and art, and to give everyone the opportunity for self-realization. Thus, each person may be able to realize his or her intellectual and creative potential. This will prevent such phenomena as poverty, destitution and slavery. In its turn, this will allow humanity to rise to the next stage in the evolution of the human society.

«What is the guaranteed income you are talking about? Сommunists do not use money !!!»

Not quite. Capitalists often say that "money is force". You know, Hertz was able to build the mechanics did not use the concept of force, but, as it turned out, in a sense, "the game is not worth the candle.". So it is with the economy. Money, in their original meaning, were invented as a universal medium of exchange, and as such are quite comfortable. However, concepts such as inflation, value added, loans at interest are not fundamental properties of any economy, but a means to the enslavement of the people. The best slave is one that believes himself to be free. Can you imagine the physical experience, in which " force makes extra force"? No. Why, in that case, the principle of "money makes more money" is valid and correct?

Something about equality and inequality

Increasingly, as a counterargument to "equality" becomes a statement that it does not make sense because the "It is unattainable because of human nature". It is not cause any dissonance with our statement because we do not aspire to equality of all human beings in terms of absolute equality of individuals. Such approach is very harmful and destructive in terms of the evolution of human society. (Keep in mind "The unity of dissimilar!".)

People always are born with different predispositions and abilities, which determines the potential of the person. According to this, speaking about equality, we first declare the equality of opportunities for the realization of individual potential of every human being, self-realization - in the measure of his own abilities and desires.

Certain level of skills and abilities determine such a thing as an "index of social significance", which becomes one of the basic guidelines for the identification of possible areas of responsibility of each person.

ACHIEVEMENTS

* The best achievement we proud of is the number of systems we took under our control by expanding our minor faction and making it ruling faction in those systems. Apparently that’s why our activity was not too noticeable all this time. The opportunity to create our own unique Power gives strong motivation to many of our group members.

* However, there is something else. We maintain diplomatic relations with other player groups, at least as much as our English proficiency allows us  The best diplomatic achievement is the peace agreement with Sirius Gov on the Galactic Council level. This makes a good proof that language gap can be bridged when both sides are interested in this.

** [url]https://sites.google.com/site/edgalcouncil/home[/url]

** [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteGoH/comments/4drvvv/press_release_for_sirius_icu_agreement/[/url]

** [url]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1khDWW9EqOSlYyX1N4W67cA85TZ6pwDBIJIu6UoqMPxM/edit[/url]

* Our internal achievement is the structure of the community that gives a place for all players who can afford to spend different amounts of time on playing the game and have different gameplay preferences. For example, there are special sub-units for player who prefer deeper involvement in group activity. Those are Progressors, Regressors and Protectors – each of them corresponds to different gameplay styles, needs of our group and game mechanics involved. Peaceful miners and traders are wanted as much as PvP aces.

* Also we are working on creating a new multilingual informational community resource, which let pilots to communicate in different languages and coordinate actions. At the moment, we are in state of search of the candidates for the coordinator of the English-speaking part of community (we consider all suggestions and requests).

Do you have a narrative around your group? Is it part of the in-game lore?

ICU story originates from the events of September 3300 year, that better known as "Eranin Conflict" and start as...

---------

19 September 3300

Cold War Ready to Ignite?

Eranin's 30 year anniversary of independence from the Federation is tomorrow, and their 'cold war' looks more and more like a tinderbox ready to ignite.

Eranin is flaunting its freedom in the face of Federal systems by announcing a celebratory liquor produced in Eranin and its fellow independent communist system Wyrd. In response the Federation has banned liquor in the local area and deployed many black ops teams around the systems, which has even disrupted our own Black Market data gathering this week.

Frankly things don't look good. We'd expect to see both sides reaching out to members over the coming days for assistance if things take any further turn for the worse.

---------

* More detales of Eranin Conflict you can find in GalNet Archive: It start From 19 September 3300 untill 30 September 3300

* Refference link: http://galnetarchive.blogspot.com/3300_09_01_archive.html

But what happened next?

It's really a long and tumultuous history, which is not easy so quickly translated into English! ...)))))

But you can be sure that we will do it! We promise. Whatever the outcome of Dangerous Games.

But, in brief, we can say that...

* After the "Eranin Conflict", we started looking for a new home, and it became a wolf 896.

* But the quiet life on the wolf 896 system was short-lived - there came Federation too, and we had to go on searches again.

* For some time we were on Tamor system, where we almost found ourselves between the hammer and the anvil.

There were a lot of events, characters, intrigue and revolution ... Amidst all this there is also our distant friends (CI), with whom we parted on Eranin and met again on Tamor where we again was parted ...

........

Now Nagii - our home and our hope for a revival.

A common volume of information enough for a complete fantastic story. And as soon as we get the time - we will describe all this in more detail, it is interesting and artistically.

Why should you win the Dangerous Games? Why should people help you in the games?

* If you look at Powerplay impartially you will see that it is far from being complete in terms of representing all different types of political bases, major goals and moral values. One of the most obvious gaps is for communistic power. Uprise of communistic power will improve balance between powers and bring more diversity to Powerplay. If players will see the full spectrum of possible power types, it is more likely that they will be involved in Powerplay even if they will not join ICU particularly, but we believe that our ideology can give reason to join Powerplay and/or become more of roleplaying type of gamer to many independent commanders out there. Probably supporters of Antal’s Utopia who see it as some kind of communism will find our power more suitable and close to their moral values.

* And of course all enemies of the Federation and Anarchy will rejoice.

* We also attach a link to "Cmdr Winston Jung, Emeritus Professor at the University of Kwatee, has again kindly offered to provide a critical personal perspective on the ICU and their claim for power": http://kempstonproductions.com/2016/06/13/bear-grills-icu/ - we think this is a very reasonable and objective opinion"

What would it mean to you and your group if you did win?

Besides the joy of victory, for our group, this will mean an opportunity to fully take part in the Power Play and, of course - it's a great opportunity to put the best ideas of interstellar communism (entourage, lore, mechanics, power-ups and features) in a new Power.

If you were to become a Power, what sort of power would you be? Talk through all the benefits, bonuses and everything else…

FEATURES

On the ICU stations:

* You can sell the slaves - and just sell: All slaves immediately freed and become free citizens of the ICU.

* Encreased demand of Slaves and Imperial Slaves.

* Encreased offer of Food.

* Encreased cost of mined minerals and metals for selling.

* Always in stock a top equipment for exploring and mining.

BONUSES

* For the destruction of the ships of criminals (we just think about it)

Equipments for the ships (at the moment, we have a few options):

* Multi-device (if developers are allowed)

** Advanced Scanner - Objects and surrface scanner "both in one".

** Advanced Limpet Controller - Collector and Prospector limpet controller "both in one".

* Advanced mining laser - allows to extract more resources from the asteroid.

* Limpet Controllers mkII series - can control more limpets with more working time and distance.

OTHER

* Peaceful methods of expansion.

* High tolerance for forms of government: Confederation and Cooperative.

POWER LEADER

* There was an idea but we do not have the ultimate confidence that his name is Maximus Sikorsky.

* He was born in the Empire.

* Few years Maximus was an imperial slave, and as slave, he was engaged in exploration and research in the Imperial Navy. After it he was successfully freed from slavery.

* In September 3300, the Maximus was a participant in the Eranin conflict where he was involved in the resistance as the coordinator on the Eranin Eranin Peoples Party side.

* "Humanity needs a new experience. Without trying to reorganize our society - our conservatism will drag all of us to the bottom of being." - Maximus Sikorsky.

ALSO

* Power - can not belong to any group of players. Power - first of all, is the partnership of many players and many players groups. For this reason we would like to provide the opportunity to participate in the creation (developing) of power all pilots, who will support this idea.

- If there’s anything else you want to tell the community about, now’s the time to do it… Anything?

We would like to dispel some myths about Interstellar Communism

Myth 1: "ICU is very puristic about government types".

One may think that communistic power doesn’t accept any type of government except communism. This is wrong. This is not only unacceptable in our vision of communism but also impossible because of Powerplay mechanics.

Myth 2. "ICU roleplaying totalitarian, violent and aggressive faction something like “Red Scare”.

No we don’t. We realize all faults that real life attempts to create communism had, all mistakes that were paid in blood and that apparently communism can’t be built in 21’th century with current level of technology and social maturity. We would like to build futuristic communism in fictional universe of Elite: Dangerous. To put it simple we are roleplaying good guys, not bad guys.

Myth 3. "ICU is a bunch of crazy guys who hanker after old days and glory of Soviet Union".

Exactly! We also think that next spaceship that should be added in the next expansion pack must be Soyuz 3... : )

Speaking seriously, we do respect all achievements of Soviet Union, especially it’s space program, but once again, we don’t want to be associated with any real life governments and politicians.

ICU about Empire

One of the most interesting questions is what is ICU’s attitude towards Empire.

Let’s try to give full and clear answer on that matter.

Basic points which determine our attitude towards Empire: Honor, independency, solid moral standards, stability and integrity are qualities of the Empire people that we respect. Historically, ICU and Empire had never directly confronted each other. In case there will be conflict between ICU and Empire we will keep in mind that we can solve any conflict peacefully and that we have common enemy – Federation.

Very often when we give any positive characterization to Empire they ask “What about slavery? Slavery is legalized in Empire! How can so advanced ideology as communism get along with legal slavery?” First of all, we must declare: ICU does NOT support any form of slavery. However, we see big difference between what is called slavery in Empire and other forms of slavery.

Imperial Slaves actually get paid for their labor. If someone is in the debt pit or can’t fully provide for himself, but still is capable to work, he can sell himself into slavery for certain amount of time for certain amount of money. So it looks more like long term employment. It is considered very prestigious to be a slave-holder among imperial society, but great responsibility comes with it. Holding slaves can increase your social standing, but treating them irresponsible can decrease it. If you holding slaves in Empire you must make sure they get at least minimum provision and don’t work themselves to death. That all doesn’t mean that imperial slaves never get abused. However, compliance with this order ensured by a powerful organization, and getting under its attention means trouble. You can’t be made a slave against your will under Empire jurisdiction. Even if you were captured during battle you still have a choice to become or not to become a slave, though you can make some money out of it. Slaves can form a family. Slave families can have children. In that case slaver must provide for this children until they reach adulthood. Trading slaves is legal in imperial society, but you must respect their rights and sell them only to one who can treat them well, including transporting conditions. Society is conservative by nature, and Empire has many hundreds years of history (and this is history of prosperity), and slavery is deeply rooted tradition, based on such notion as honor: it is a dishonor to live in debt, decent Empire citizen would rather sell himself into slavery if he has no other option to pay his debt.

Considering all these facts, we can see that slavery in Empire is form of social protection. What other alternatives besides military service other factions have? Of course path to prosperity chosen by ICU implies totally different ways of providing social protection for our citizens. Empire itself is searching for other path: we talking about imperial power whose views are most close to ours - Aisling Duval. We don’t know all the details about Aisling’s plans on eliminating slavery in Empire but anyway it is very brave and risky move which means (as minimum) that at least part of Empire is not on the wrong way.

In conclusion, we would like to say that ICU is a community of mature, sensible, polite and very friendly players. It’s even became a common practice to help new players to grasp the game, not obliging them to side with us, in our open Teamspeak channel for independent commanders, so everyone is welcome.

CONTACTS AND INFORMATION SOURCES

* Discord Server for English-speacking cmdr's: https://discord.gg/015AOmCMx1cDeeoN7

* Topic in Frontier Development forum: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/247928-Interstellar-Communist-Union

* Steam group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/intcomuni

* Teamspeak servers (Russian-speacking cmdr's):

** Server: green.cleanvoice.ru:9953

** Password: Fer-de-Lance

* Our old forum (Russian-speacking cmdr's): http://rci.mybb.ru (new multilanguage forum is under construction for now)

* Reddit page (we are looking for an English-speaking coordinators): https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteICU/

* ICU Email: intcomuni@gmail.com