Questions on Elf and their nation Options

[Omae]

Ok, my question is how is it for elves to build a nation, which happened in 2034 and 2035, when oldest elf at that time might be around 23 and 24 years old.
And also how do elves age? Book said they can live up to several hundred years. Are elves physically aging? or do they stop aging or very slow, like may be 10 years of elven life is equal to 1 years of human life (well physical aging only).
Any thought?

[coolgrafix]

Trick here is there are two types of elves: 1) Immortal Elves who were chosen to serve the various dragons at some point thousands of years ago and 2) Shmuck Elves who were born in the 21st century. The VAST majority of elves are just shmucks.

Read more, but not a whole lot more, here.

[Omae]

So... somehow those Immortal Elves were hidden during the 5th world and when magic returned in 6th, they showed up again? And lead those common elves to build nation? hmm.. makes sense, although how did they manage to survive 5th w/o being discovered is going to be new question...

[Moon-Hawk]

[Omae]

Actually... No i did not see Star Trak IV

[coolgrafix]

[FrankTrollman]

[Jack Kain]

[Backgammon]

[Kyoto Kid]

...makes sense.

In the UK Elves make up a significant percentage of the nobility and some had worked themselves into positions of power (at least prior to the '64 crash). Why give up everything you worked for to start all over again in some backwater start-up nation?

...unless you're some racial purist or something like that. But as in the case of the TT, we have seen where that has gone.

[Ancient History]

Don't forget Manitou, Sinsearach, Snowdonia, and Pomoyra! :P

[Adarael]

And there's another problem. Like Backgammon says, the "escape from persecution" card is very important for forging a national identity out of disparate local identities. Imagine this. You, the reader, has a child or children. You raise them in your community, they go to schools where you live, they absorb the social norms of that area and adapt.

And when they're around 20-25, someone says, "Come and join my nation! This is where you belong! This is your identity!" How likely is it that your kids will spontaneously identify with this foreign, as-yet-unformed nation INSTEAD of other americans, germans, portugese, etc? It's likely they'd be interested, but unless there are other factors that would lead said child to seriously question their identity or rebel against their parents, it's doubtful they would do anything other than experiment with it.

Look at it this way. Do american born-and-raised kids who are ethnically chinese, russian, japanese, etc identify more with Russia, China, and Japan or where they grew up? In my experience, the answer is uniformly that they are curious about their historical culture, but are completely products of the nation they grew up in, unless their parents raise them not to be. Hell, my "chinese" friend Steph is more american than most americans I know. To put it another way... Would you feel more connection to your culture, right now, or a group of people who had similar birthmarks? Similar eyecolor?

The formation of the elven nations HAD to hinge on fear of persecution, feelings of lost community, and alienation. If they'd waited, more and more elves would consider themselves (interally) to be UCAS/British/South African citizens, and not alienated or displaced people. Physical attributes do not a national identity make.

[Spike]

I know next to nothing about Zulu Azania/Rhodesia other than general geographic location but:

Oregon and Ireland as 'ass ends of nowhere/low rent places'?

Frank, I live an hour north of Portland, I assure you that Oregon is not the ass end of anywhere.

That would be... say, Oklahoma, where they put up all those Indian reservations way back in the day. Or the Dakotas... not a lot of folks moving to the Dakotas for the scenery (which is, by the way, gorgeous if a bit stark...)


Ditto Ireland. Sure, the Irish aren't well liked by some folks, and when Shadowrun came out they weren't exactly economic powerhouses... but sweet jeebus, man, everyone seems to agree that Ireland is a beautiful country, and a huge number of Americans seems to have a serious fetish for Aulde Eire....

Ass End my Ass end. :please:

[coolgrafix]

Yes, an otherwise informative post from Frank had to drop that little nugget midway through. I chose to overlook it and assume that it was poorly/quickly considered or that Frank is ill-informed. I think he was stretching it to suggest that no one really cared if those areas were seized.

[Adarael]

Someone always cares.
No matter where it is, it's always somebody's home.

[Alexandru]

To defend Frank, I think the comments were meant on a economical/industrial scale, as a comparison for Israel.

Oregon, is nice but its not a economic powerhouse like California. Ditto for Ireland(last few years they are growing tremendously). It matches the idea of Elves being like Israel, taking over a shitty area and building it into a nation.

[Spike]

I could point out that half or more of the reason Isreal has survived as a nation is the fact that their economy is almost entirely based on wealth pouring in from a bigger 'Patron' nation... namely the US.

For some strange reason I doubt the three Elvish nations Frank mentioned are recivecing billions of Nuyen from other nations to prop up their economies.

Having avoided the two Tir books like the plague, I can't speak as to what the designers said about the economics of the nations, but I suspect they are composed of handwavium. Maybe Dragons Did It.

[coolgrafix]

If the numbers he mentions are accurate, it's exceptionally likely that they do receive a great amount of aid from Elves in the diaspora. I own but haven't ready (shame on me) the Tir books. Perhaps some reading is in order.

[Adarael]

In defense of the Tirs in their initial incarnation...
1) They were financed by the finances squirreled away by both immortals and dragons. That's a whole lotta cash, especially if invested smartly.
2) Tir Tairngire's closed economy eventually collapsed for just that reason. In the 6th world, there's only so long you can isolate yourself that much and not have it bite you in uncomfortable places.

[mfb]

given the general level of animosity between IEs and GDs, dragons probably didn't do it. but elves might've. the oldest have been around for thousands and thousands of years--plenty of time to plan and save up massive amounts of cash and investments and land, not to mention making the right friends and saving up the right favors. they knew when the Awakening would come, and they probably had a good idea of how it would unfold. the Tirs and Azania are funded by wealthy patrons--themselves.

[WhiskeyMac]

Oregon and Ireland are ass-ends of the world! I'm Irish and I was born in Oregon. That explains a lot then.

Having read both Tir books and remembering a little of it, both nations were formed around fear and upheaval.

Tir na nOg was formed suddenly on Christmas Day (I think) with the reason that the elves were reclaiming their birth home or something similar to that.

Tir Tairngire was formed by Ehran the Scribe (as some other guy) and several other Immortal Elves to mimic a nation they had in the 4th world (maybe, not to sure on that). TT was formed during the time of upheaval where the good ol' US of A was being balkanized out to the Native Americans and basically appealed to everyone who was outcast and wanted a "real" nation to be a part of. Originally every race was accepted but mostly metahumans and mostly elves.

The funny part is that even though both Tirs were created by elves, they hate each other. Tir na nOg considers Tir Tairngire "misguided children" and Tir Tairngire considers Tir na nOg "elitist assholes". It's rather funny actually.

[Tiger Eyes]

I think for Oregon, at least, one reason to pick it was the higher level of magic and higher percentage of elven kids born in the area, according to sourcebooks. I think the IEs had something other than the landscape and exceptional vineyards in mind. As for economy, they did pick a country with self-sufficient hydro-electrical sources, plenty of clean water and a strong agriculture base (and great wine-country, did I mention that?), ocean access and developed port, temperate climate and few natural disasters, significant amount of telesma... perfect for their isolated ideals. Go for California and you'll be stuck begging for water, electricity and looking cross-eyed at the Japanese and Azzies.

Sheese, you'd think some people here figure we still live in covered wagons!!! :S

[Ancient History]

[FrankTrollman]

Heh. Yes, Portland is one of my favorite cities, but think about this in terms of geopolitics: how much does Oregon produce that is of strategic value?

Montana is (and I know this is going to piss some people off as well), a really unpleasant place to be. You can't throw a rock without having it hit the ground and eventually roll to a stop. But even it has some really big mines that are important to the nation as a whole. Kansas or Iowa may be dreadfully boring but there's never been a world empire that didn't have a huge production of grain - and there's a reason for that.

Oregon hosts the headquarters of some major corporations, most notably Nike, but compared to the biggest corporations in the State to the North (Microsoft), or the South (Chevron) it's chump change. Chevron seriously makes 153 times as much money as Nike does (200 billion a year in profits instead of 1.3 billion a year).

If you were going to lose a province on the West Coast, you'd lose Oregon if you had the chance. Not because Powell's Books isn't a super awesome place - but because the net income of the adjacent coastal provinces is seriously hundreds of times larger than that of Oregon.

---

That's how people make decisions about whether to fight for specific areas. Ireland has less Irish people than New York City, and if the Irish were forced to make a stand for the entire island of Ire or the island of Manhattan they would be suckers to choose the latter.

Every place, every rock, every stream has value. But the cold hard cash value of some places is much much larger than others. There are places that make so much money that conquering them will make you richer. There are places that produce so little of marketable value that actually administering them will impoverish your empire.

Conquering, administering, and pacifying Oregon ultimately impoverished the Elven Cabal who did it. This would not have been a problem had they taken over some cash cow region like the Rhine Province, but then there's no way that they could have conquered such a region with the forces that they had. Larger empires would have fought them harder for it and they would not have had anything at all.

The lesson for today is that if you invade Comgo, the world community probably condemns you but it doesn't do anything about it. If you invade Elsace, the powers of Europe start plotting your death in a very active way.

-Frank

[Spike]