j51
Blue Star Cadet
Before getting into the affinity argument: The splash card is awesome! Just perfect. Maybe my favorite yet.
About the alignment: I didn't play the Open Dev, but if from reading about the affinities, Expansionist does not sound like it makes sense for Contemporary America. (It would, however, fit perfectly if the US was in the Industrial era, but that's neither here nor there.)
All the arguments here make a lot of sense then for America being an Aesthete culture. That would best represent America's soft power.
Two other affinities would also work IMHO:
Some people have mentioned Scientist for America, and I think it's worth considering in more detail. In the Contemporary era the US is very much where the biggest technological landmarks have happened: The Manhattan Project, The Apollo Program, and The ARPANET all jump to my mind first. Even during COVID, in spite of all of it's foul-ups on the administrative front, the US still rushed out the most effective and ground breaking vaccines in record time. Compare the mRNA vaccines to those developed in China, Russia, or the UK. And US research institutions still dominate. Probably something close to 90% of the worlds best universities are still in the US. (Edit: that's probably an over-estimate, but it's at least 80% I'd reckon.)
The reason that US Research still dominates, however, brings me to why Agrarian is an equally good fit: America's research is so good, not because of some innate American skill, but because the best and brightest minds the world over still come to the US to do their work. Thus the "Land of Plenty" ability suits the US more than any culture in the game. Also, American agricultural science and (sigh) big agribusiness is a huge factor in the Green Revolution around the world during the last 50 years.
About the alignment: I didn't play the Open Dev, but if from reading about the affinities, Expansionist does not sound like it makes sense for Contemporary America. (It would, however, fit perfectly if the US was in the Industrial era, but that's neither here nor there.)
All the arguments here make a lot of sense then for America being an Aesthete culture. That would best represent America's soft power.
Two other affinities would also work IMHO:
Some people have mentioned Scientist for America, and I think it's worth considering in more detail. In the Contemporary era the US is very much where the biggest technological landmarks have happened: The Manhattan Project, The Apollo Program, and The ARPANET all jump to my mind first. Even during COVID, in spite of all of it's foul-ups on the administrative front, the US still rushed out the most effective and ground breaking vaccines in record time. Compare the mRNA vaccines to those developed in China, Russia, or the UK. And US research institutions still dominate. Probably something close to 90% of the worlds best universities are still in the US. (Edit: that's probably an over-estimate, but it's at least 80% I'd reckon.)
The reason that US Research still dominates, however, brings me to why Agrarian is an equally good fit: America's research is so good, not because of some innate American skill, but because the best and brightest minds the world over still come to the US to do their work. Thus the "Land of Plenty" ability suits the US more than any culture in the game. Also, American agricultural science and (sigh) big agribusiness is a huge factor in the Green Revolution around the world during the last 50 years.
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