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Sources for information on the Middle East

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enderci

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« on: <09-29-14/1257:30> »
Does anyone have any suggestions for sources to read that will contain information on the current situation in the Middle East? I would love good wiki links, but can get my hands on just about any book too.

Thanks!

Crimsondude

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« Reply #1 on: <09-29-14/1552:02> »
Shadows of Asia and Sixth World Almanac

enderci

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« Reply #2 on: <09-30-14/0140:13> »
Thanks, I'm reading Shadows of Asia right now. There are definitely a few details about the canonical history that I don't agree with, so I'm glad that I was pointed at an official source.

Crimsondude

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« Reply #3 on: <09-30-14/0217:51> »
That the AfA/Second Ottoman Jihad/EuroWars 2: Electric Boogaloo was incorporated — not only because it was nonsensical, but it was from the worst SR sourcebook (Germany), which took a few liberties with canon — will never cease to amaze me.

Zwischenzug

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« Reply #4 on: <09-30-14/0632:14> »
Pardon me for butting in, but I've seen this mentioned several times and since I don't have a copy of the book available and because I'm curious, why is it that SR: Germany is considered so bad? What kind of liberties did it take?

Kincaid

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« Reply #5 on: <09-30-14/0834:46> »
I love the idea of running the shadows in the Middle East, but yeah, early Shadowrun worked a little too hard on the "history repeats itself" thing and its treatment of the Middle East in general and Islam in particular was a little...well, I'll say rushed.
Killing so many sacred cows, I'm banned from India.

adamu

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« Reply #6 on: <09-30-14/1835:37> »
Goes back to 2062, so not horribly current politically, but there are four or five good pages on Sahara and Arabian deserts in Target: Wastelands, if you are interested in geography/culture.
From the same year, there are small write-ups on Egypt and Tehran in Target: Awakened Lands.

Crimsondude

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« Reply #7 on: <09-30-14/2045:59> »
Pardon me for butting in, but I've seen this mentioned several times and since I don't have a copy of the book available and because I'm curious, why is it that SR: Germany is considered so bad? What kind of liberties did it take?
Gonna step back a second and add that many of its faults rest on the liberties permitted in the London sourcebook, which isn't much better. London went to 11. Germany broke off the knob at 12.

It invented its own tradition (Idols) when there were only supposed to be two (Hermetics and Shamans). I can accept that London kicked that door open with Druids, but still ... Not cool.

There's the AfA/Second Ottoman Jihad nonsense we've discussed. Because Germany being the frontlines of a war between Russia and NATO wasn't enough.

There was the problem that infects most location books, especially those written by locals (which is why I actually dislike and distrust those that try too hard at authenticity — and this goes way beyond Shadowrun), which is the various Special Snowflake elements. Granted, some of them could have been more easily corrected than others. Germany was written during First Edition, and predated Corporate Shadowfiles. So Saeder-Krupp's competitors come off tougher and more powerful than they really ought to have been once that book was published and established the rules for how megacorps and the global economy works. But in general, it just suffered the Everything's Better Here assumption. This can be better described as ...

You want toxic zones? Northern Germany and the Baltic Sea are now toxic soup. Nuke fears? The SOX covers the entire country of Luxembourg.

And then there are the six Great Dragons living in a country the size of Wisconsin. Again, London put two (three if you count the Sea Dragon) in Wales. But Wales sort of gets a pass because it is also the land of the Red Dragon. I would say that Germany was written before it became clear that Great Dragons are going to be rare (There are fewer than two dozen), but going back to the original Shadowrun book only seven were identified (and not given gender pronouns; each is referred to as "it.") — Aden, Dunkelzahn, Hualpa, Lofwyr, Lung, Ryumyo, and Sirrurg — and are all considered deeply mysterious and, because of Aden, terrifyingly powerful (Reading the descriptions, it's almost sad that all of the mystery has been sucked away about them and the world).

There are other things in particular, but I also don't think about Germany enough to take issue with the micro-level things. I have no problem with it breaking up. I don't care if Marienbad is the size of a golf course or not (which is a real complaint I've seen about it, but I've never checked what seems to be unnecessary hyperbole). I don't necessarily see what's wrong with anarchist Berlin. There's a lot of that book that actually seems to reflect past events and the sociopolitical state at the time to Germany and central Europe, but it's the same problem that infected the whole line in the mid-2000s. Cyberpunk is based on our fears now, but you can't make this game so close to the world without it hitting the uncanny valley of storytelling.

I'm sure there are more specific areas people can take issue with, or things I just mentioned that aren't right because I haven't looked at the book in well over a year, but it's also just the whipping boy of Shadowrun. It's a product of its time. It had to be translated from German. It's just different, and no one ever did or does or will like it. Even the Germans tried their hardest to retcon or ignore that book in 2001 and in books since. (Sidenote: I'm not sure how a 344 page book just on Germany sells. For comparison, Shadows of North America is 208 pages long).

Zwischenzug

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« Reply #8 on: <09-30-14/2117:56> »
Thanks, Crimsondude, much appreciated.

Sichr

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« Reply #9 on: <10-01-14/0509:47> »
Pardon me for butting in, but I've seen this mentioned several times and since I don't have a copy of the book available and because I'm curious, why is it that SR: Germany is considered so bad? What kind of liberties did it take?
...
There was the problem that infects most location books, especially those written by locals (which is why I actually dislike and distrust those that try too hard at authenticity — and this goes way beyond Shadowrun), which is the various Special Snowflake elements. Granted, some of them could have been more easily corrected than others. Germany was written during First Edition, and predated Corporate Shadowfiles. So Saeder-Krupp's competitors come off tougher and more powerful than they really ought to have been once that book was published and established the rules for how megacorps and the global economy works. But in general, it just suffered the Everything's Better Here assumption. This can be better described as ...

You want toxic zones? Northern Germany and the Baltic Sea are now toxic soup. Nuke fears? The SOX covers the entire country of Luxembourg.
...

:)
If you look at Seattle, you have toxic zones in Puyalloup and Barrens, radioactive zone in Barrens (nuclear device also detonated in SCIRE), Dungeons and Dragons (Orc Underground, ok, just Dungeons`n`Orks), savages on the borders (NAN tribes), 10/10 most powerfull crime syndicates and 9/10 AAA HQs. Deus. No dragons (that we know about), but Egran, Harlequin, Daviar, Frosty and whole bunch of other powerplayers.
I dont blame Germans that they want their own piece of shadowrun future...in fact the place is much closer (geographicaly) to Barsaive than whole UCAS would ever be, so those dragons make sense somehow.
And IIRC more than a few historical decisions and developement of North Atlantic civilization in at least last 1500 years was influenced by a country the size of Wisconsin.
Not that you are wrong. Just apply the same measure on every snowflake you see.

Ariketh

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« Reply #10 on: <10-01-14/1356:37> »
If you look at Seattle ... No dragons (that we know about)

There is actually two adult dragons in Seattle. Both detailed in Clutch of Dragons. Kalanyr, the dragon who is trying to clean up the Redmond Barrens. (Maybe.) He's doing research into cleaning up radioactivity via magic and apparently can rid himself of radiation poisoning. (But according to the game details, probably not so much.) Then we have Urubia, who owns the Funhouse in Redmond which serves as a large party house, soup kitchen for the poor youth, and as neutral grounds for the gangs in the area.

As a native of the PNW, seeing neat things about Seattle warms my heart. But truth be told, Seattle is a bit of a special snowflake. ;)

-Ariketh

Crimsondude

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« Reply #11 on: <10-01-14/1410:03> »
And IIRC more than a few historical decisions and developement of North Atlantic civilization in at least last 1500 years was influenced by a country the size of Wisconsin.
That's so cute.

A sourcebook adding nearly as many great dragons as were introduced for the entire world all in your backyard is bullshit, regardless of the country.
« Last Edit: <10-01-14/1422:48> by Crimsondude »

Sendaz

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« Reply #12 on: <10-01-14/1419:47> »
But a single sourcebook adding nearly as many great dragons as were introduced for the entire world all in your backyard is bullshit, regardless of what country it is.
Maybe they are all hooked on the bratwurst?

Eating charred cow, sheep and the occasional backpacker day after day has to get dull.
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Crimsondude

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« Reply #13 on: <10-01-14/1423:06> »
Don't care.


Nath

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« Reply #14 on: <10-01-14/1450:10> »
That the AfA/Second Ottoman Jihad/EuroWars 2: Electric Boogaloo was incorporated — not only because it was nonsensical, but it was from the worst SR sourcebook (Germany), which took a few liberties with canon — will never cease to amaze me.
In the beginning, the US German Sourcebook actually kept the Eurowar 2 reference to a minimum, removing most of the German Deutschland in der Shatten. The original text mentions attacks from Pakistan on India, Morocco on Algiers, Iran on Turkmenistan, and Turkey on Greece and Bulgaria, and Balkan states failing to resist. The English translation only mentions an alliance that included Turkey and other unspecified countries, attacked Europe through the Balkans.

I think the German sourcebook Walzer, Punks & Schwarzes Ice was the first to specifically mention attack on Hungaria and Slovenia (which is as northwest as you can go in the Balkans). When Shadows of Europe was written, there was an attempt to reconcile both sources (as the FanPro ownership came with a half-hearted promise of joint development). And so the threatening of Vienna was included into US canon. Shadows of Asia carried on, describing the all-out attack against Israel, the alliance move into Armenia and Azerbaijan that prompted Russian to deploy forces in the Caucause, and a semi-related conflict between in India and Pakistan.

As far as I can remember, it's SoE who introduced for the first time attacks from Morocco onto Spain using speedboats and guerilla tactics. But Euro War Antiques would later turn that into full naval engagement, with Morocco destroying most of the French, Spanish and Italian navy in a single attack to dominate the surface of sea for the rest of the war.

Germany was written during First Edition, and predated Corporate Shadowfiles. So Saeder-Krupp's competitors come off tougher and more powerful than they really ought to have been once that book was published and
established the rules for how megacorps and the global economy works.
Prior to Deutschland in der Schatten, Saeder-Krupp only mention (for all of North America that has been described at this point) was as a member of the Manhattan consortium. The German Deutschland in der Schatten actually has a "Johanna de Vries" sitting in the Präsidentin office of S-K. The US Germany Sourcebook was edited to mention Lofwyr as President/CEO and S-K rank as one of the top ten corporation, in accordance to 2nd corebook edition mention of Lofwyr and the upcoming Tir Tairngire and Corporate Shadowfiles.

Actually, prior to the Germany Sourcebook edit, there wasn't even a mention of top eight or top ten. All megacorporations were considered pretty much equal (which is how the largest corporations in Seattle, who would fill up most of the Big Eight roster later, could actually be pretty much absent from the rest of North America as described in the Neo-anarchist Guide to North America and the NAN sourcebooks).

Nuke fears? The SOX covers the entire country of Luxembourg.
The city of Luxembourg is 23 kilometers north of the Cattenom nuclear power plant. About two thirds of the country population live within 30 kilometers of Cattenom, which is the size of Chernobyl exclusion zone, and about three quarters within 50 kilometers. If you compare to the size of the French and German subzone, Northern Luxembourg could have been left out, but that would have implied that the rest of the population was supposed to relocate there (to sum it up, the largest city in the area would be Diekirch, 5,000, to be compared with the city of Luxembourg 100,000). So it may not be that far-fetched to imagine that the government and banks of Luxembourg run away with the money to set up a "government-in-exile" and let the French and German governments and corporations build a wall around the zone. I'm not sure which one is the most cyberpunk, compared to Glow City six-block-wide exclusion zone in Redmond.

In real life, Cattenom was a much hotter issue at the time of Deutschland in der Schatten released, as it first went online in 1987 and the construction by the French of a nuclear plant so close to the border was considered as an "unfriendly move" by the German and Luxembourg population.

And then there are the six Great Dragons living in a country the size of Wisconsin.
Germany is much closer to the size of Montana, and more than twice the size of Wisconsin. It's still an extraordinary density.

 

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