1. Shimario

    Shimario Member

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    Rebellion, resistance or revolutionary?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Shimario, Dec 27, 2016.

    So, in my book, there is a country (not necessarily an empire) that is really corrupted and wants to take over the world. However, there are people within the country, fighting against it. My dilemma is, that idk whether i should call them the rebellion, the resistance or the revolutionaries because the rebellion and the resistance have both been done in star wars before and i don't want to copy from it. Though, i am thinking of using the resistance, because those people are resisting the king's rule. Any opinions or thoughts would be appreciated.

    Also, people have powers in this world (not magic) but psychic abilities.
     
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  2. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Strictly speaking they arent a resistance unless they are in a country that has been invaded and occupied, so they are basically either a revolt or a rebellion - rebels makes perfect sense and is generic enough not to make people think star wars so long as you don't call them 'the rebel alliance'

    The other option is to give them a name - the patriot militia, the popular peoples front (of judea...splitters :D ), the bad seed, The wolves of... etc
     
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  3. texshelters

    texshelters Active Member

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    Ha ha, I agree. I prefer "the Judaea People's Front" thank you very much.
     
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  4. texshelters

    texshelters Active Member

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    Many rebels have geographical and causes in their name: The Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia or Army of National Liberation. They also use the name of famous leaders past as in "Zapatistas" or Army of Jose Marti. That could be interesting. Peace, Tex
     
  5. Shimario

    Shimario Member

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    Does Union sound cool? Because my main character is trying to unite people together against a common cause, that cause being the corrupt government.
     
  6. texshelters

    texshelters Active Member

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    Union sounds too establishment, but the right name with union could work. Peace, Tex
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2016
  7. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    A rebel is more often or not the good guy and generally the scrappy underdog.
    A revolutionary is driven by ideas, and tends to have ideas on replacing the current establishment, often not used in literature for reasons unknown
    Yeah, resistance is against an occupying force.
    Union does sound like they've already won.
     
  8. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    It's also too Union vs Confederacy (and notable in that case that the union was the established side against the rebel confederates)

    You could have a United front for...
     
  9. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Depends on how organized it is. "Resistance," to me, is the beginning of a rebellion, maybe more political than militant at first, trying to change the course of events, no matter whether it is opposed to an external or internal power structure. "Rebellion" or "insurrection" is more militant, when hope of political resolution is lost. However, organization and communication is critical to an insurrection's success, as is unity and political leadership... see the events in Syria which evolved from resistance to rebellion, but faltered on the unity/political part and is soon to be extinguished in detail. Check also the logistics side: where does the resistance/insurrection get its weapons and ammunition? Food? Pay? Armies are expensive, and unless the resistance/insurrection is a proxy being supported by an outside power, these can be the tough point. Che Guevarra wrote that he scaled each of his early operations against Cuban military forces to gain more weapons and ammunition than he expended, including policing up the spent brass to take back for reload. Also examine how they are going to communicate, without everything being intercepted. Al Qaeda forces in Waziristan used Chechen and several other Caucasus languages as "secure voice," but this tipped the Pakistani forces to the presence of high value targets, as these were usually bodyguards for senior AQ people.

    There are several ways in which a resistance/insurrection can evolve. The easiest is for intact political entities with some pre-existing military infrastructure to secede from the center: the American colonies in the Revolution, the Confederacy in the US Civil War. Here, you don't have to build the military and political command and control architecture from scratch: one succeeded, and the other could have but for some critical battles, because both started on a reasonably competitive footing with the opposition. Starting from nothing, you almost certainly have to be someone's proxy at the outset.
     
  10. Moth

    Moth Active Member

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    What's their end-goal?

    Resistance - Resistance to a change. E.g. being conquered.
    Rebellion - Fighting against the established order, generally seeking a solid goal (independence for a specific region, replacing a ruler with someone more desirable, etc)
    Revolution - A complete overthrowing of the established order. Not so much about changing one thing, but changing everything. Less about overthrowing a single ruler, and more about overthrowing say the system of monarchy itself.

    Those probably aren't accurate definitions, but they're generally what I go with. And a movement can be more than one of them. To use your Star Wars example, I'd consider the Rebel Alliance to be the first two: Resistance against the new Empire and Rebellion against the tyranny of the Emperor. In the end, that movement does serve to overthrow the whole system (as with a Revolution) but it never seems to be the reason for the fighting, but a consequence of winning.

    But that's just my take. What the movement is called doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the story around it; how believable it is, the motives of the characters and those who follow them, etc etc.
     
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  11. Dominique Parker

    Dominique Parker Member

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    You could always just give it a name that isn't "rebellion", "resistance" or "revolutionaries". I would just make up a name that either the members of said group have created for themselves or a name that the opposing party has pinned on them. I rather like the idea of an opposing party creating a name for a certain group in an attempt to demean or belittle them and having said group brandish the title in defiance.
     
  12. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    No real contribution, just popping in to say I'm gonna take some thoughts from this thread to apply to my own novel. Thanks guys!
     
  13. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Interesting! I am working on a non-fictional book on war, with an emphasis on bridging the semantic gap between "conventional" war, where we seem to have a pretty good vocabulary thanks to Clausewitz et al., and "unconventional" war, whose name even implies that it is something different, maybe not something to be taken as seriously. To start with, I had to come up with a number of definitions, which match yours almost exactly! I guess great minds work alike. To which I might add "coup" in which the goal is to change the person or people in power, but not the system, and secession, to establish independence or greater autonomy.

    Also organized criminal activity, which has some of the attributes of war (organization, structured use of violence, and leadership), but is usually parasitic to the established state, rather than antagonistic: the Mafia doesn't want to pick up the garbage and exercise other responsibilities of the state, just shake members of the state down for profit. It generally needs the state, though the Mexican cartels for a while were morphing away from that paradigm. Where it matters is that in the transition from resistance to rebellion, the resistance often has to ally itself with those who know how to use violence against the state, work underground, and get away with it, and that is often the criminal element. Which is why I think many rebellions or revolutions get pre-empted by that element and turn out worse than what they replaced. I started this before Syria blew up, but that country is almost a case study in these transitions.
     
  14. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I was thinking about this the other day, and even if your baddies aren't an empire, which by definition is a country that rules other countries (or, well, the whole conglomeration really, but...) it would be quite plausible for you to have a "Resistance" or even "Partisans" if there is a section of your single country that doesn't feel that it is part of the larger country. Look at what's happening in Syria, or the Basque region of Spain, the Uighurs in China etc. There are even a few that are quietly simmering; for example, there is a portion of the Okinawan people who do not believe that they are Japanese, they see themselves as Ryukyu-jin. Anyway, that would give you license to call your group by a name traditionally used for those fighting outside invaders.

    Just my
    [​IMG]
     

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