How to create alien society that behaves more like one huge mafia

just make them the skeksis from dark crystal

complete lack of trust and honor

greed and selfishness

Sounds like most of humanity before the rise of the modern nation-state.

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>>49394977
So basically like the Morganites from Alpha Centauri?

>>49394977

Put them in an early, long-lasting situation where a code of ethics similar to omerta makes sense and build the culture around that?

>>49394977
>their line of thinking is basically ''he lives in the same disctrict as me, that's my guy but that fuckwit from the other side of town surely looks for trouble'' and unite only when some massive material gain is involved
You're literally just describing a nation

You just created it.

You literally described exactly how you want the alien society to function.

You did it.

You essentially described it. I don't know what you really want help with.

Anyway, feudal hierarchies are very much like mafia organizations. You could use that.

I would recommend that the species have some sort of kin-based pheromones that makes them extremely distrustful of those outside of their faction on a biological level.
Basically they only trust those that "smell right" and loath to associate with those that "smell wrong."
Also it is sort of strange that you think there is no patriotism within organized crime. Without some sort of biological control like what I mentioned, it'll be tough for groups to maintain loyalty to their bosses.
Basically this race would never be able to develop on a scale higher than city-states but the leaders of those city-states would be capable or forming alliances with each other.
I suggest modeling the larger civilizations on Syndicalism.

>>49394977

Patronage is everything. You live and die by who your patron is. They live and die by how many bodies they can call up when they go for a stroll. If you can't roll deep, if you don't bring weight, you're a potential victim. They have their patrons up to a small group of elite families. They have a kind of ruling body that is where they hash out disputes to try and keep them from open violence. When the balance of power gets too out of whack though, violence is more or less inevitable. Someone makes a move on someone else, and all the years of favors get called in, up and down the line. Sometimes one group just collapses, as it's revealed how weak they are. Other times there's bloodletting.

>>49394977
Lumeris from Endless Space 2 seem to be kind of what your looking for.
http://wiki.endless-space.com/factions/lumeris

>>49395015
sounds like skaven

>>49394977
Organized crime generally only works when it's criminal. Who are the thieves stealing from? Who are the blackmailers extorting? When they try to silence witnesses to their deeds, who would hear them? If one of them decides to snitch on the mob, who would they talk to? When they engage in gang warfare, who do they fight?

Like many other cultural structures, a mafia requires a certain outside context to make sense. It needs victims to prey on, it needs law enforcers to hide from, it needs enemies to fight. It's going to take quite a bit of doing for it to make sense otherwise.

>>49394977
Read 6 billion demons.

Heaven is run by competing guild/mafias.

>>49394977
Re-watch that episode of Star Trek Original Series where they go down to the planet structured according to a book about the gangs of Chicago?

>>49400453

>Because SKAVEN are a 2D dimensional species of mistrust and fear, hurr durr.

SKAVEN are more akin to a Persian empire, considering itself at the top of a very short and bloody food chain. While not all SKAVEN are born equal, they certainly consider themselves above the lesser slave-races of Man things and Stunty things. Even if a SKAVEN is born into slavery, it has the potential to kill those above it and rise through the ranks. If a captured man-thing did that, it would have a very short end.

Inb4

>but SKAVEN are like the Sith, and whenever there's more than 1 in a room they immediately try to backstab one another.

It's that kind of fucking retarded thinking that kept Verminlords from being army generals for 3 fucking editions.

Just because I'm a master of deceit, doesn't mean I can't rule through fear.

Just because your a treacherous tail-biter, doesn't mean I can't instil a fierce loyalty in you through fear and brutal punishments

>oh but there aren't any examples of that

Fuck off. Read a fucking book. Namely any of the Grey Seer thanquol books or any of the army books from the last 15 years. There are examples of SKAVEN having body guards and loyal companions. Just because it's not common knowledge, doesn't mean it's not there

>OP

The Hutts. Just make the Hutts from Star Wars. Fucking done

>>49396540

This. Through history, OP's description is basically how most human societies worked. Hell, even today it's the dominant social organization.

I think he's hung up on the look and feel of 'mafia'.

>>49396622
I had a pretty similar idea for a race based on eusocial insects. The race is divided into city-state-like hives ruled by a queen, with the rest of the population being composed almost entirely of her children. They don't have a "hive mind", but both genetic and social imperatives make individuals very loal to their queen and distrustful of individuals from other hives. The queens from different hives may co-operate, but they've never developed a unit of government larger than a hive (long-standing alliances may be formed, but ultimately each hive governs itself).
Another thing that acts as a limit to the size of a social unit is that if not exposed regularly to the queen's pheromones, the other females start tranforming into queens. Evolutionarily, this acted as a safeguard against the death of a queen, but it also means that founding colonies and such is extremely difficult (as such colonies would very easily become independent city-states).