Half of texas?, how did mexico do it? Options

[hyzmarca]

[Brahm]

[Snow_Fox]

That is only part of it. The Texans had more of a valid complaint against Mexico City than The Confederates had with Washington. True they were msotly proslavers and Catholic Mexico was turning anti-slavery but the spark that set off the war was the fact that the legitimacy of Santa Anna's Government was highly questionable. It was seen that he had siezed power, had chucked the constitution and would then stomp on the upstart province, which had been obnoxiously loud, to rally the people behind him to get them to forget how he'd come into power.

Similar the the Argentine Junta that attacked the Falklands in 1982 to try and distract the people at home from the failing economy in a wave of patriotism.

remember Mexico has never really forgiven the USA for taking Texas and California from them. Look at those states and think how much wealth modern Mexico would have it it included those as provinces.

[brennanhawkwood]

[Paul]

Good summation sir.

So this thread was started by a texan looking for an exscuse to cheer for the home team? Why not write up a divergent timeline then? One where the Texans come out on top, and present it here as a sort of case study. Then we can see your logic, or at worst your story telling ability/creativity.

[mfb]

brennanhawkwood missed one fairly major point--at about the same time Texas was looking for help against Aztlan, Aztlan was looking for help against Texas. one of the reasons Aztlan only took half of Texas is that the NAN refused assistance to Aztlan's armed forces.

[runefire32]

I find this thread moderately amusing. Especialy the Texans atleast at first defending it saying it would have never happened.

But seriously, with everything going on at the time, I'm prety sure Texas didn't know what hit them, till they hit just about Austin...which became a virtual Stalingrad of sorts. Azzies tried to take it but weren't completely successfull and Texas managed to stop them there. But instead of Texas pushing them back out, its become a cold to moderately hot war.

In all honesty I'd be more happy that no one likes the Azzies and tries to twart their grabs for more power and teritory at every turn. Otherwise there probably would be no texas, only Aztlan...

[brennanhawkwood]

[mfb]

brennan, check Aztlan page 40. it's where i'm getting the NAN thing from. in the Aztlaner's version of history, at least, the NAN refused to aid them when asked.

[brennanhawkwood]

[ChuckRozool]

i must say, i'm suprised this thread has been kept alive for this long.

runefire32 - based on the little bit of "research" i did and what little i know about the shadowrun world/metaplot/whatever. i just couldn't see it happening. Now that i am more informed, it's a little more beliveable...

Paul - As far as a divergent timeline, i thought about it, but i don't GM so i didn't see the point.

Although I did brainstorm on it i for a bit. The only things i came up with were that the azzies were stopped in San Antonio, Alamo repeat (sorta) and the I-35 corridor, between Laredo and San Antonio, being a constant give and take situation. Also my story telling abilities would definitely be 'at worst', yikes! Oh, and Laredo was pretty much in ruins due to the constant fighting going on there.

[Wolfhound Jack]

/casts a resurrection spell

One thing to add to the timeline, remember Mexico breaks up in the fictional timeline and before 2012 tons of Mexicans (even more than now) flood north into the states that border Mexico, almost certainly many of those arrived in Texas and were part of the local populace when Aztlan came rollling across the border with military assets and magic.

So, we don't doubt that Aztlan was able to carve the new border it carved in the SR4 universe... "We don't have to explain it, it's magic" works so well in Marvel after all ... *cough* spiderman *cough*....

In our game (about to start) we're playing with some concepts. The first is that, well, for 20 years, south Tejas was doing better under Aztlan than it was under the Gabachos (Anglos). Then... things change.

This was the writeup:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=20826

[kzt]

Either way the whole Shadowrun world was created by a group of young geeks from Chicago who obviously didn't know very much about anything outside their small city

Actually the main game credits are to Bob Charrette and Paul Hume. They did Aftermath (thank god there is no combat flowchart in SR), Bushido and Space Opera before SR. They may have been geeks, but they weren't young geek. The insane worldbuilding was just typical crappy FASA "Sell the Sizzle" work.

[hobgoblin]

I'd be interested in hearing what norwegians think about what happened to their country (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) . In Shadowrun they're the cesspool of corruption and poverty in the Scandinavian Union. So filled with the worst possible meta-human scum, Sweden won't let them accross the border. And today it's top of the line in wellfare in the world, more or less. All that oil money. Man, today swedes move to norway to take shit jobs like cleaning fish or washing dishes because it pays better than proper jobs in sweden. Do norwegians mind us taking their jobs? No, they say; "we don't like those jobs anyway", because there's no unemployment to speak of either.

Norway's faith seems more degrading than Texa's. You should know that Sweden and Norway has a long standing rivality, and lot's of grim fighting, in history. Even though it's about 200 years ago now it still has some residue.

write it down to self irony (or whatever the term is). yes, that very chapter of shadows of europe was written by locals.
hell, i was even in on the brainstorm until the idea of getting fasa to print the book took of (then NDA's started show up and people walked their separate ways).

[WeaverMount]

So I just looked at the map in the back of the BBB. To me "THEY got half of TX" isn't quit right - 1/3 at most. Also looking at the contour of the new border it seems like they really just pushed it back across 200 miles of nothing. Let's break down what's in that 200 mile buffer. Demographically, you have El Paso and Brownsville. In those towns today the boarder really a made up line that people exploit for cheep liquor and labor. I could easily seem the population not giving a hoot about whose face was on the paper currency they use to wipe there ass. Geographically, you don't really have any geography to speak of until you hit the Balcones Escarpment (Austin) and if you look at the map that's what was reclaimed. Any mobile military that could take the NE face of the Rio Grande would basically instantly roll up to, well, where they line in the BBB is drawn. Historically speaking I forget exactly where the old line was drawn, but I know that there was a lot of hanky panky around there the actually Mexico-Texas/USA boarder would be. IIRC claims about the Rio Grande we're use as part of the justification for the Mexican-American war. I could easily imagine the Azzies thinking they we're just trimming the fat and not even invading the the old province proper.

[KCKitsune]

The great thing about the Awakening is the ability to prove or disprove the validity of certain religious claims. The Aztechnology PR department is slick enough to convince people that Christianity is simply not the correct cosmological view.

Huitzilopochtli answers prayers far more often Jesus and Jehova ever did and you can talk to a Feathered Serpent in person. If Constantine could make Catholicism the official religion while outlawing the worship of the real gods without being overthrown then Azlan certainly can rectify that mistake.

The secularization of the world in the past few decades hit a hard blow against Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church in particular. The Awakening made things even worse. Christianity is really little more than a fringe cult again. Those that have any religious inclination at all find themselves drawn to the old ways which seem to actually work now.

There are Catholic 'terrorists' in Aztlan but far too few to actually cause any trouble.
Who would want to worship a 2000 year-old shedim-possessed corpse anyway?

Why would Huitzilopochtli "answer prayers far more often Jesus and Jehova ever did"? After the Awakening, magic was real for everybody... including Christians. Also Christianity is doing quite well thank you.

----------------------------------------------------------

*OOC* We have to take the whole fluff setup of Shadowrun with a oil tanker size chunks of salt. Below are the reasons that the fluff of Shadowrun is... unlikely

-- NO nation is going to allow corporations to have their own armed forces. Government people are the ultimate "small penis dude" They have the power to blow the crap out of anybody that ticks them off. Also most corporations would NOT want a military as it's DAMN expensive.

-- People would revolt if a company did 1% of what they did in Shadowrun. And don't give me that "People are sheep." line. That only works if people think that they are being taken care of. You have corps in Shadowrun that kill people for the giggles of it.

-- The native American indian population in the US as of 2005 was only 1% of the total population (about 3 million people). The idea that they would be able to take over as much of the US as they did... poppy cock! Sure they would have initial success... until the Great Ghost Dance ran out of power... then the nukes would remove them from the face of the planet.

-- Does ANYONE here think that the people of Mexico would allow a religion that revels in ripping the hearts of HEALTHY people? People like to go to church, worship, AND GET HOME ALIVE!

Shadowrun is based on stereotypes taken to an obscene level. You couldn't have a game where Runners could do 1% of the shit they do in the game if there was a strong central government to stomp on them. Don't get me wrong, the cyber/biotech of shadowrun is one of the best I've ever seen... the fluff... well I mash the "I believe" button a whole hell of a lot when I read it.

[Spike]

Two interesting thoughts I had:

One: Current RW events that might suggest why the entire state didn't rise up en masse is the current (and by SR canon, presumptively continuing) 'Anyone from Mexico bring Mexico with them' deal that was 'revealed' during the immigration debates of last year. In short: Vincente Fox (and presumably others, but frankly I could care less) has said, in America no less, several times that immigrants, the sons and daughters, the grandchildren of immigrants from Mexico should consider themselves loyal to Mexico over, say, the United States (or wherever they consider 'home')... which smacks of deliberate tribalism. Presumably, he's planning to start taxing them or something (IMG:style_emoticons/default/proof.gif) Certainly that could be used for justification of many tejanos supporting the Aztlaners over the 'Texans'.


Second: And far less controversial/speculative: Texas is big, wide and mostly empty. Its population density is not all that high, despite the apparent fanaticism of the natives (and the would be natives... texas wannabes... yes, virginia, they exist...), for the most part the Aztlan Army (and I hate to say it, but saying 'megacorp' as if that is somehow a magic "i win" button, particularly early in setting canon, doesn't replace logic... Mega's have power from economics more than military might. Its hard to buy off fanatic Texans, and 'every citizen' is a pretty damn big militia...) could just speed across more or less 'no mans land' until they hit towns, cities and whatnot... towns might not put up that much of a fight, but as the Texans got organized, the invasion bogs down until it grinds to a halt in Austin. The Texans are now organized and defending turf, but find it hard to push back the entreched Aztlan interests and the stalemate comes into play. Neither side has the resources to budge the other, the Texans have their pride and plenty of motivated citizens with guns, the Aztlaners have the backing of all of Mexico and teh wealth/power of being a Mega, not to mention a maturing military. However, I imagine that a posting to South Texas is only slightly better than a posting to the Yucatan, with the exception of Austin (as diplomats from both sides probably keep the guerilla hell to a minimum inside the city... and the VIPs obviously gravitate there, leading to higher security, leading to less guerilla risk (while simultaniously raising the prize for an Texan who pulls off a run in South Austin...)

See?

But I'm not texan, I only have six guns... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[hobgoblin]

Actually the main game credits are to Bob Charrette and Paul Hume. They did Aftermath (thank god there is no combat flowchart in SR), Bushido and Space Opera before SR. They may have been geeks, but they weren't young geek. The insane worldbuilding was just typical crappy FASA "Sell the Sizzle" work.

there was a skill "flowchart" in SR2 (and most likely SR1) for use when defaulting.

[Jhaiisiin]

One thing I want to take issue with there... the GGD proved that magic was a real, powerful and unpredictable opponent in the modern age. The USA/UCAS didn't have any clue what they were dealing with. They had no way to know if the GGD was over, or just on the back burner at that point. They were facing a foe they *could not* fight reliably. When you fight an opponent where Nature Herself fights against you, how do you win?

As to the masses, have you seen Americans of late? They (we) are able to be corralled into doing a LOT of things that are completely contrary to common sense, given the right circumstances. You simply need powerful events to get people to drop their guard long enough for new laws or rules to take place. In the SR world, that trigger was the Lone Eagle event, more than anything else. You have to look at the specific incidents along the way. I don't like the SR4 history because it skims too much. Go back through the original histories in the previous editions. The court rulings that started granting corporate power made a lot of sense in a lot of ways because of *how* they happened. It was sudden, unexpected events that resulted in necessary decisions, and those decisions could have gone either way. In the dystopian world of SR, they went in favor of the corps. In our world, it could go either way, depending on the levels of fear or logic ruling at the time of the incidents.

[Riley37]

A few points:

Chuck, see the San Francisco thread. I also feel the pain of a fictional storyline in which my home has been invaded and occupied by imperialists.

Say that more or less every adult Texan, or at least most male and many female Texans, own and are proficient with a variety of small arms. Now, take that large number of individuals with small arms, and attack them with an integrated-forces army with light infantry, heavy infantry, armor, artillery, and air support. I think the army tends to win. Texans are fierce, no doubt, but how well do they cooperate with each other, beyond their neighbors? Well enough to coordinate flanking maneuvers, advance and fall back by leapfrog, all that good tactical stuff? And what use are any of those eight firearms against incoming mortar and howitzer shells, or tanks? German warriors in 200 BC were fierce and skilled; but the Roman legions tended to win. Yes, Texas also is the location of US military bases, but in the SR timeline, they lose some organization in the process of the CAS secession.

There might be some interesting smuggling, arms trading, extractions, and other shadowrun activites on the border.

As for religion and magic, that's worth its own thread, and has had one or two.

[hobgoblin]

hell, i suspect that there are just as many armed citizens in iraq as there are in texas...

[Jhaiisiin]

The one common thing I've seen with every person who calls themselves a Texan is pride for their state. I was born there, but I don't like the state, and consistently refer to myself as not being a Texan. But those who were born there and have that pride, or got it after moving there have that pride in spades you just really can't understand unless you feel it. It's nearly a fanaticism, really. If some group threatened their state as a whole, you can bet that true Texans would rise up all over the place to fight them. Coordinated? Not at first, no, but as soon as someone got up on a platform and started beltin' orders, they'd pay attention and start working together. Far too many are current or ex-military or paramilitary types and vs an enemy of Texas, they would fight and die together. I'd bet money on it.

[Wolfhound Jack]

I know a lot of Tejanos, I live in a semi-barrio, my family has lived on the same farm in north Texas since 1895 (the date on the deed) and both I and my wife have ancestors on the Texas Ranger rolls at the museum in Waco. I'm as proud of my state as anyone here, and I own more than 8 guns...

Even still, I actually have no problem believing that when Aztlan comes rolling across the border, the Spanish speakers of Texas (legal, illegal, new to Texas or been here a while) side with the Azzies. I can be brutally honest, we "gabos" treat Mexicans like dirt, they know it, we know it - regardless of how we try to spin it. The recent immigration debates allowed the rest of the country to see what's under the scabs here in Texas (and other border states). Yeah a lot of people were just angry at "illegals" and were able to argue intelligently staying focused on the real issue at hand...but a lot were just angry at Mexicans in general and that feeling is generations old. My wife's great grandfather was an educator, son of a German immigrant in Fredricksburg and was shot at because he dared to think that Mexicans deserved an education, just like white folks.

That said... if the Azzies came hard and fast, they'd have local support and secure interior lines without even trying hard as they roll through. An invading army, speaking Spanish, waving the tricolor of Mexico with the Aztec emblem on it.. supported by magic... and winning (even if only at first). Oh yeah, no problem. I can see them getting tons of local support and cholos signing up on the spot to fight.

But, it's 2070 and a 4th Edition. Aztechnology is bad news, the bloody spirits and gods of Tenochitlán are bad news.. after 20+ years... no way that initial amore with Aztlan can remain.

Going back to the Tejanos I personally know. Some are new Tejanos, first or second generation here in Texas. They're pretty enamored with chicano culture and are dialed in with what's going on in southern California or wherever/whatnot. They're proud to be Latino and to be part of "La Raza" (the race)... some just happen to be latinos in Texas. To them, Texas is cool, but it's just a place they live. Nothing more.

Then there are the Tejanos that I know that come from OLD families, that come from McAllen and areas in "The Valley" (Rio Grand Valley), that have sisters, wives, and daughters that are for real Debutanés and have first names like Jennifer, Michelle, Kirsten, etc. - who have parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings that graduate from schools like Harvard, Yale, UT Austin (law), SMU (business), and are doctors, lawyers, and business executives....they're the rich, the "fresas" and the hidalgos, the Dons and Doñas of their communities. I also know Tejanos that are farmers and ranchers and charro cowpunchers (and their families have always been so). They're the salt of the earth and listen to Tejano and Conjunto music and speak English very poorly... poor as dirt but Tejano to the bone... and all of those... they're just as proud of Texas as any anglo Texan.

There's just no way I can imagine these people sitting back and letting the bloodthirsty bums in Tenochitlán dictate to them forever... there's just no way. They're Texans first, same as any other, and moreso than many.

So, that's why to me.. the story isn't whether or not Aztlan takes south Texas. I have no problem believing that they do (within the framework established by FASA such as it is)... The story of taking Texas back is the real tale worth telling.

Just my thoughts anyway.

ps - I really enjoy this thread, it's givin' me lots of ideas for my campaign.

[swirler]

see, see!
this is why I demand a book about Austin, or somewhere else here in Texas. I live in southeast Houston so I need to know what's gonna be happening in my own backyard
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I also would love to run something here for our group.

[martindv]

-- NO nation is going to allow corporations to have their own armed forces. Government people are the ultimate "small penis dude" They have the power to blow the crap out of anybody that ticks them off. Also most corporations would NOT want a military as it's DAMN expensive.

Except the United States. Great Britain. Russia.

Don't kid yourself. Paramilitary corporate security has existed for decades. Wackenhut isn't a government agency, but their personnel can still kill you on DoE property.

-- Does ANYONE here think that the people of Mexico would allow a religion that revels in ripping the hearts of HEALTHY people? People like to go to church, worship, AND GET HOME ALIVE!

Healthy criminals.

You should read Aztlan before saying stupid things. Even now Catholicism is on the downturn in Mexico, which used to be one of the largest nations with a comfortably large Roman Catholic population. For what happened in SR, anything is possible.