Help! Refining a traitor idea

you are the gamemaster here, far be it from me to second guess what you see as a problem, but I think those problems work thematically.

Imagine a burgeoning utopia where everything is going great and everyone is happy, but one person is a bit cynical, selfish, unemployed, whatever... LOSER! He is ruining everything!

Contrariwise, imagine a total wild west dystopia, everyone is out for themselves, and is some kind of scoundrel or another. In walks a guy who is no saint, but ain't never killed a man. How long is he going to last in the war that's coming? He better get hardened and fast!

You still have suspense, it's just not suspense about what it's usually about. I rather like that

But if you are dead set on preventing it I suppose there are some powerful options that could be incorporated. we are going towards peace everyone is trying to purify, so I decide to bomb the consulate! Everything is going towards war, but I balance the sides just enough to create a Mexican standoff and nobody fires. Peace after all, is not a feeling.

I think Werhner has proposed a good variation in incrementing possible final endings.

To give more interest on first phases and avoid your problems you could force players to reveal their Corruption Level at regular intervals; a side effect is that players could be incited to follow the Civil War way, specially if one of the player are trying to achieve it.
You can discourage this by letting remove Corruption playing, for example, some special cards against another player: this way it is more likely to convince them to cooperate then to lonely follow the "bad" way.

How does a person become less corrput? In life, you can't retroactively change the decisions you made in the past. If you made a corrupt decision, then it dogs you for the rest of your life. If you get rid of the mechanic that lets people become less corrupt, then that takes away one of your problems: people getting rid of corruption towards the end of the game.

In terms of having people race to gain corruption in the late game, that seems like a problem that could be solved by adding some kind of drawback to racing. Make it more risky in the late game. For example, you could add a "detective" card, a risky peace-driven card that lets you determine whether or not a particular opponent is trying to become more corrupt. If that player is, and you use the card, then that player suffers. If that player isn't, and you use the card, then you suffer. Being exposed as a corrupt person could severely limit a player's capabilities.

One idea that occurs to me is that you could have an unpredictable end-game condition, like a card that comes up somewhere in the second shuffle of a draw deck, where you know "about" when the game is going to end but not exactly when, making it difficult to "race toward corruption" or "race toward peace".

Also, I really like your game idea.

Edit: I'm not sure if I explained myself clearly above. I mean to say that there could be some mechanic that ends the game at an unpredictable time such that the players don't know exactly when the game will end. The players might have some idea of approximately when the game will end, but they'll be unsure if they have, say, one more turn or three more turns. This can be accomplished in a a number of different ways. One such way is to have a "Game Over" card that gets shuffled into some deck at a certain point. Another way is to have some sort of dice roll with increasing odds as the game goes on. I'm sure there are others that you could incorporate into the mechanics of your game if you wanted.

An idea I haven't seen mentioned yet: Forgiveness.
Especially if every player is (supposedly) choosing the lesser (or greater) of two evils frequently during the game. If you suspect someone is trying to be corrupt, there could be a way for you to officially forgive, thus nullifying some of his corruption, which could either be good or bad for him.

What decides whether it is peace or war?

In that case it would be a coinflip as to or not your strategy is viable. An hour of play that ca be negated due to being unlucky, yeah that sounds like a bad idea.

A couple of possibilities that i came up with to deal with the problem

Draft:
Players choose two cards from one "pack" then discard one of the two face-down, then pass the remainder of the pack down to the next player, . After all the cards are drafted players can now play their chosen cards.
The big advantage here is that players have the chance to hide their corruption level better, They can pick a card with a high corruption level and discard one with a low level in order to keep the opponents guessing. A second advantage would be that it becomes easier to react to what othe players are doing. and pre-emptively strike by taking away those cards.

Cursed treasure:
During the course of the game players can collect gold and diamonds. These are two sided pieces on the back side of each piece it shows a positive or a negative number, this is your total corruption level during the course of the game (diamonds have more positive numbers on them than gold pieces). In the course of the game you can spend some of your treasure. Treasure is spend face down and all diamonds are worth the same regardless of what number is on the backside.

Themewise this would make sense, you can't see where a diamond comes from but players know wheter if they bought it from the black market or if it is a family herloom.

The advantage of this idea is that players can now control their own corruption level or repent their sins, as well as give everyone a general idea of the what corruption the rest is on.

While I like the overall concept, it is difficult to pull off the balance. I feel your pain, bud.

Now, some thoughts on the game:
-If all cards played aren't secret, perhaps include a penalty for playing corrupt cards/having them in hand. Make the corrupt player have to go to jail, work to cover up the conspiracy, etc. causing them to lose actions and resources. Now corruption has a cost, and perhaps the players vying for peace should get a benefit from public actions (extra cards drawn, reduced suspicion), but rewards in terms of influencing the actions of other players would not be balanced, or thematically appropriate. I suppose that my thought process could be summed up thusly: the good guys get more resources from the game, while the corrupt players get them from other players, though if they're suspected, someone could "launch an investigation", etc. hurting their mobility.
-There should be a mechanic where the peaceful players give up something to work for peace, leaving them weaker than others who might be self-interested. Make peaceful public actions cost a lot (because they do; charity is expensive!).
-Create a mechanic where players work together publicly as well. Perhaps a good guy needs help to accomplish an objective, so he asks a player to help. If they're corrupt, but fear the consequences of being found out, they might contribute, and it could give them a way to look good while secretly conspiring.

Anyways, those are all thoughts that you can toy around with in your mind. To me, the most important thing is to have ideas so that I can be more fluid with my own thinking and develop my own solution. But I need others to provide ideas to start with, you know?