Naturists

The Naturists are a rebel Producer faction which hold to a strongly environmentalist viewpoint. They wish to see the dismantling of the Capitalist and Industrial order of the Producer Technocracy and replace it with an Ecological Anarchist order.

About
Just like our own, Producer politics can be dialectical. Most ideologies have been successfully incorporated into the political system to allow for arguments between theses and their antitheses. As with any system, however, there will be differences so fundamental between some positions that they cannot exist within the same system.

Producer Pirates and Producer Networks are ideological to an extent. Pirates are driven by an anarchic individualism throwing away the ideas of the state. Networks value money over everything and represent a more structured approach to disobedience and entrepreneurialism. Neither of these stands as a theoretical critique of the Technocracy. Naturism does.

The Naturists are loose Eco-Anarchist paramilitaries which have existed in different forms since the first founded in 2223AP. The first was founded by Errok Thal Grybak, a radical anti-market campaigner from Ubyan. Grybak thought that Producer Society was developing towards a meaningless fabricated society, created for the maximisation of profit rather than the achievement of spiritual and environmental one-ness.

The original ‘Manifesto of the Naturists’, which lends its name to the movement, outlined the key theoretical opinions of the movement. Naturists, firstly, reject the state. They view it as a means for the standardisation of ideology, creativeness and of the environment. It is viewed as a mechanism for imposing the desires of the most powerful on the lifestyles and freedoms of the least. Secondly, they reject market capitalism because of its standardisation and consumerisation of Producer life. They view it as something which commodifies all parts of life; be that the way they look, the music they hear or even how they act. All true nature of creativity is seen to be lost through the need for it to become a product. The third pillar is the idea of environmentalism. Naturists view the Producer Society as overly urban and lacking in attachment to the Environment. They propose the deconstruction of cities and a return to an agrarian communal society.

This ideology was originally intended to form the basis of a political revolution. Grybak wrote the manifesto and publicised it to create an uprising which would de-legitimise the state and market causing the required collapse into a new way of life. Following its publication in 2213AP there were some protests and small scale riots as sympathisers tried to bring down the system.

As protest grew the movement split. Moderate Naturists formed political groupings which performed fairly poorly due to their attachment with rioting and deviant behaviour. These were led by Theron Utu Itina who attempted to use dissatisfaction with poor progress to promote a parliamentary approach. She was fairly successful in forming the party in the longer term, forming a group which has had a small representation for hundreds of years. Hard liners, led by an increasingly radical Grybak, formed the first small scale paramilitaries in 2223AP, ten years after the publication of the founding document. The alignment of Grybak gave this arm some legitimacy which Itina lacked.

Grybak’s next publication, called ‘On the End of Society’, outlined the new approach to Naturism. Grybak argued that if the people were so indoctrinated by Liberal Capitalism, it required a new ‘Vanguard Movement’ which could liberate the Producers themselves. The Movement would take advantage of instability to attempt to force an evolution to the Eco-Anarchism favoured by the Naturists. Symbols of destruction, capitalism and the state therefore needed to be destroyed. This included assassinations, demolitions of buildings and ‘liberation’ of towns.

This movement was generally weak as most Producers recognised the weaknesses. Firstly, the terrorist approach presented the Naturists as a threat rather than a liberating force. Opponents of Naturism argued that the idea of ‘indoctrination’ was an inability to accept that Naturism may be ideologically unsound. Secondly, many Producers feared that such a reversion would harm a way of life which many of them ultimately enjoyed. Professor U. O. Ytena lost her life arguing that the conception of the ‘good life’ could not be reduced to absolutes. Her works argue that only Liberal Capitalism allowed for the competing ideas of both wealth accumulation and environmentalism, which appeal to different groups of people.

Naturists, however, remain well armed and organised enough to present a danger to the Producer Technocracy. Natursts often live a nomadic life, raiding industrial complexes, infiltrating cities and committing acts of terror to both increase awareness of their movement and generate some form of income. Naturists have gained some support from a minority of Producer Pirates and have been known to trade with them.

Naturists are hostile to the Networks. It has been known for there to be battles between these two groups over bases, territory and resources. Naturists view the Networks as a symptom of the problems of Capitalism. In return, Networks view Naturists as crazy militant tree-huggers who represent a threat to their operations. These battles are important for the Naturists, who often lack the resources to accumulate arms on their own.

There are Paramilitaries on most planets in the Producer Technocracy. All temperate planets have had attacks, with rural Porshon the most vulnerable of these areas. Colonies on moons have been known to have more subtle groups of Naturists, who organise in secret to disrupt the ‘exploitation of new worlds’.

Brethren are accepted into the ranks of Naturists, although this is a rarity. This is because they view the Brethren as a conscious creation of the children of the environment, therefore a member in their own right. Brethren who have been radicalised, for whatever reason, have joined over the years but remain few in number due to the hostility from anti-robotic tendencies within the movement. Some arms of the Naturists are anti-Brethren and seek the destruction of all un-natural life.

Naturism tends to be at its weakest when the Producer Economy is performing well and strongest when there is most dissatisfaction. Despite its longetivity, there have been few genuine moments where the Technocracy has appeared at risk. As groups disarm and join the mainstream, more will continue to form and follow the original doctrines of Grybak. These groups will continue to assassinate, attack and blow up parts of the Technocracy so long as the ideology continues. Terrorism remains a threat even in the Technocracy.