FanPro D Newsletter Oct. 2006 Options

[Zen Shooter01]

Frank? It's going to be okay, all right?

Game developers hate LA for some reason. They're always nuking it or dropping it into the sea with an earthquake or something (in defiance of geology).

But you're right. The SR history is ridiculous.

[FlakJacket]

[hobgoblin]

of all the things to be annoyed about...

[lorechaser]

[Blue eyes]

Ty for clearing that up, I'll have a closer look at the erretas in the future b4 asking ;)

[FlakJacket]

[Draconis]

[lorechaser]

Well, 5 million people really isn't the point - the point is organization and firepower.

That being said, I haven't followed the history in CA at all, so I won't judge if that was a factor or not.

But 12 million motivated and militaristic folks could easily conquer 17 million slackers.

Heck, go watch the preview for 300, or read the history it's based on. ;)

[Ophis]

While the lack of population jump for the PCC was stupid, it was probably a mistake as some one was probably just porting old figures over. Secondly how many troops do the PCC need to hold an area that invited them in pretty much? At least that's how I read what's happned with LA.

[Slithery D]

Agreed. LA short term may have only needed several thousand riot control troops. And once the PCC committed corporate security would have likely been more eager than before to help out rather than hunker down or prepare to write their entire investment off.

Long term, of course, LA needed a hookup with someone who could help provide the usual benefits of belonging to a functioning nation state.

[FrankTrollman]

The problem here isn't really "OMG they totally did unexpected things with California!" It's the future, weird things happen. Also, it's science fiction/fantasy, we're willing to posit the emergence of Magic and a number of other unlikely events. No, the problem is that wildly world changing events happened to California and the world didn't change.

Los Angeles is one of the largest commercial ports in the world. And Long Beach is also one of the largest commercial ports in the world. Combined (and they are combined, you can walk between them without ever being outside of the combined port system) they are the fifth largest commercial port in the world. They rank behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Shaghai, and Shenzen. It's chief trading partners are China and Nippon.

What does that mean? It means that a container ship docks in LA from Hong Kong or ships off from LA to Hng Kong every fucking day. That means that trade between Hong Kong and LA is worth about 18,000,000 :nuyen: a day (in 2004 the WTCA measured trade between the two cities as being worth 6.47 billion dollars). So LA sank into the sea. It's science fiction, you can do that. Starship Troopers had aliens shoot a meteor into Buenos Aires. Shit happens.

But, if shit happens to a six and a half billion dollar trading partner such that your city stops trading 18 million dollars a day and starts trading zero dollars a day along the same trade route, I would expect economic ramifications. I would expect people in Hong Kong to be going "Holy shit, what the hell do we do now that we are sitting on roughly 9 million :nuyen: in trade goods accumulating in warehouses every fucking day?!" That's a crisis of over production that will floor your whole damn city. That means a day's wages for every man, woman and child every five weeks.

Let's put that in perspective: Hong Kong to LA trade is so important that if Hong Kong can't find a new market in five weeks every single man woman and child in the entire country is fired! That's a big deal. Does it get a mention in Runner Havens? Do they talk about the scramble to reassign shipping priorities or the tremendous layoffs? Do they talk about the fact that Hong Kong consumes a billion dollars of Californian food every year and that with the closing of Los Angeles that's 700 million dollars worth of food that isn't getting into the city? Or to put it another way, every single man woman and child in the city goes hungry for a week this year because the food that was contracted for years in advance simply cannot get to their port? No!

With the destruction of Los Angeles, the people of Hong Kong are starving and unemployed. It's a big deal, and it doesn't even get mentioned. Oh, by the way, 2.7% of our GDP was just destroyed by a stroke of the pen from Demonseed Elite. :sleepy:

Same with the PCC. Yeah, it's a powerful economy and has a lot of major magic and sweet military science and a good PR campaign. Sure, they could pull a fast one and convince enough people in Southern California that they'd be better off as part of the PCC than the CFS and get the region to flip. With the drone riots going down they got the checkbook that they could potentially send in a probe team and buy that city. But then what? There's still 3 Los Angelinos for every 2 Pueblos. It's like when Scottland "took control" of England in 1603. How did that work out?

And while we're on the subject, how do the people in Tir Tairngire eat? They have a militarized border with California, they relied on Californian food before, and now they've gone to Yeoman Subsistance Farming. What the fuck? Where does the food on their plates come from? It doesn't come from peasants because tha's stupid. It used to come from the Salinas Valley, but apparently it doesn't anymore.

---

That's the problem. If you kick California in the nuts, every other region that is currently dependent upon California also gets kicked in the nuts. That's what having a world trade economy means. California is the fifth largest argicultural producer in the world in 2006. That means that almost everyone is eating Californian food at least occassionally. A sudden cutoff of Californian trade results in world-wide famines. But Shadowrun hasn't had that. The "OMG, we just took 32 billion dollars of direct farm sales out of the equation, equivalevent to a week's dinners for every man, woman, and child on the planet, what the fuck?" that would be absolutely required were such an event to go down has not occured.

-Frank

[lorechaser]

A couple quick points:

1. 2 PCC to 3 LAzians - that assumes that they are distinct. The theory is that the PCC came in, took over, and converted folks. They aren't a hostile occupying military force. Say 1/3 of the people of LA believe in the PCC, and convert to their side.

We're now from 12 mil vs 17 mill to 18 mill vs 12 mill. That's 3/2 in PCC's favor. And of those 12 million left, 1/2 will be apathetic, and maybe half upset. So 18 to 6. 3/1 in favor, with a potential to increase if they want to.

But is LA happy on PCC?

2. I see you have a lot of research, and a lot of well thought out ideas. But really, I'm not that interested in the how Hong Kong would restructure after LA fell apart. It would have been cool to see it mentioned, and it would show a nice deep system. The fact is, I'm pretty sure HK would adjust. When you're creating whole histories out of the air, sometimes you can't examine each and every part, and sometimes you simply don't have the time to really get down and dirty with it - you go with a cool idea, and then move on. It's folks like us, with too much time on our hands during our day jobs, that can spend that much effort to analyze it. ;)

I suppose my perspective is skewed by the fact that I've done some writing (not for Shadowrun). I know how much frickin' work is involved, and I only put out a portion of a couple books! It's also why I have a lot less respect for minute wording debates nowadays. ;)

And besides: Given the chance, who *wouldn't* "kick California in the nuts" as you put it? I mean, come on - it's California!

[fistandantilus4....]

[Slithery D]

Um, Frank, most of this trade disruption would have happened fifty years ago when the US blew up. There's quite a bit of difference between 2006's (a) ship to LA, (b) transport by train/truck/whatever to interior point of the US and 2070's (a) ship to LA, (b) transport to NAN border, © pay duties/suffer additional custom inspection/comply with pissant rules requiring use of local transportation methods, (d) possibly repeat at a second NAN border, (e) repeat at destination UCAS/CAS.

Does everything shipped into LA today end up outside the 2070 CFS or PCC borders? No, but the big majority of it. Does it make sense that the North American successor states haven't worked out some sort of rules to make intercontinental trade easier? No, but "easier" doesn't mean "easier than shipping it through a canal direct to the East Coast or putting it on a sub orbital."

Even before LA fell into the sea it's importance as a port would be drastically reduced.

[Slithery D]

It's also pretty easy to handwave California's food production plunging. No more federal subsidies for certain crops from departed US contributor states; a crackdown on cheap labor due to Azzie invasion fears (but somewhat offset by machines); water costs incresaing due to breakdown in law enforcement, urban growth, etc.; and increased transportation/tariff costs when shipping to old markets in the CAS/UCAS. Pretty much all of these would have been abrupt shocks, not gradual changes that CA agribusiness would have been able to adjust to easily.

Hell, if CA and other agricultural producers still produced everything they did today, why would everyone be eating soy and vat grown crap?

[Slithery D]

[lorechaser]

[Slithery D]

Well, thinking on it some more, worldwide food production will have plunged due to (1) environmental degradation, including various irradiated areas that were previously arable, (2) land no longe farmed in the NAN and Amazonia (environmenta/political reasons) and Africa (mass chaos), (3) remaining arable land like CA is risky as a security matter - do you want to starve if the NAN rattles its sabers and closes its railroads and airspace to food shipments?

I note that Cyberpirates had the massive land area of Puerto Rico used as a big producer of vat food. Soy presumably still needs land to grow it in, although probably less than before, but it's not obvious that the vat farms and whatever fungi/bacteria/whatever they use are too picky about their biomass feedstocks.

[Slithery D]

Muahaha! This also explains why Tir Nan Og is really so geopolitically important that it got it's own sourcebook and everyon fears it - it has a dominating lead in real cows worth multimillions. All bow to the awesome economic might of real Irish agriculture.

[knasser]

[Slithery D]

Biofuel is an excellent thought.

A few SR2 era sourcebooks made glancing mention of fusion plants, I believe. I'm pretty sure Gaiatronics has one in Salish-Shidhe.

There have been a couple of mentions that S-K owns most of the "little remaining oil" (or words to that effect) in Arabia.

[MYST1C]

[fistandantilus4....]

IIRC, there was supposed to be a plant in L.A. Wasn't the airport also supposed to be on a flotilla or something like that after a major quake? I always thought that was a little wonky. Been forever since I read the CFS book.

[Draconis]

[lorechaser]