Emergence and the future of the present, Food for thought, some spoiling tidbits Options

[Xenith]

Like a large majority of literature, Emergence reflects some of whats going on at the time. If you can find an interesting (or Shadowrun) book that doesn't make a political statement of some kind, I'd like to know so I can get a good chuckle out of it.

Its not that people are stupid or easily manipulated, at least in the long run. The larger the population and greater degree of organization into factions (ie parties), the slower the people are to react to reality. Fear crosses the line of factions, but it only works so long til people start getting that somethings up. Some get it real quick. And some never get it. Sadly, many have short memories.

The media can help or hinder this process. Right now it hinders to a disturbing degree. The fact that corps now benefit from this mess also helps decide for the media; a business protects its source of revenue.

For the US, we've strayed from much of our original philosophy of representative government (Unitary Executive Theory? Thats three words for dictatorship.) We easily forget that the public has power rather than the leaders, so things get shaken up badly. Many of our leaders are little (if at all) more educated, dedicated, moral, ethical, competent or wise than than the rest of us. We also forget that. Maybe someday we can work on it, so as not to frag up the rest of the world.


As a side note: In a recent pair of polls it was found that 54% of America is in favor of impeaching Chenney, with 40% opposed (He is at a 13% approval rating currently.) And 46% support impeachment for Bush, with 44% opposed (his approval rating is 20%-ish). I don't know about you but I was shocked when I heard and then confirmed it. Hell, I STILL am.

[Moon-Hawk]

[Zen Shooter01]

Arab = mad bomber is not a right wing idea. It's a left wing idea.

Neither the White House nor 10 Downing Street has ever, ever, ever said "Muslims are bad." Left wingers put those words in their mouths. In the United States we have millions of Muslims who practice their religion freely every day under the protection of the First Amendment. In fact, the government isn't even allowed to tag Muslims as being of special interest for counterintelligence. Our government conducts diplomatic relations with Muslim nations all the time. Who says Muslims are bad? Not us.

Muslim fanatics are bad. Their stated goal is the end of civilization as we know it. Their stated goal is the world Taliban government. Their favorite tactic is indiscriminate slaughter. Knasser, you should worry less about your children growing up in a V For Vendetta left wing fantasy and worry more about when your children want to catch a flight out of Glasgow, or dance the night away at the Ministry of Sound. Or go to the NHS for a runny nose.

But it's popular to say day when western governments say night, and call it freedom of speech. Disagreeing with the government is cool.

And before you dismiss the Muslim fanatics as a small number of wackos, remember that that's what the Tsar thought of the Marxists. That's what the Roman empire thought of the Christians. That's what the British empire thought of the American rebels. That's what we thought of Al Queda, before Al Queda remodeled Manhattan.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

There's just a tiny problem to your theory:

The ability to hold a country by asymmetric warfare depends on support of the people.

Oh, and as a side-note - christianity was introduced by the emperor to the romans. So as long as GWB doesn't go on the Hajj, you shouldn't have to worry.

[hobgoblin]

while GWB may not do it, who was it that got sworn in with his hand on a copy of the quran?

[Particle_Beam]

Should we really discuss realworld-politics on this board? Seems only to aggravate people more than it's really needed.

[Xenith]

It takes only a small number of really rotten people to screw things up for everyone. Its true of any fanatic. Religious, left wing, right wing, or otherwise. Its as true with idiots who fly planes into buildings as jackasses who lie or cherrypick their way into attacking the wrong country or toss the ideals and freedoms of their country to the wind (This is the real way you let terrorists like that win btw) because of (or simply using) fear.

The "mad bomber" image has been around for decades. It didn't take either side to spin it that way.

[hyzmarca]

Can we instead discuss how much cooler Cobra is than modern terrorist organizations. I mean, bin Laden has billions of dollars but he hasn't developed Synthoids, yet. Synthoids are cool and scary. Just imagine what he could do if he kidnapped a bunch of world leaders and replaced them with loyal Synthoid clones. It would be amazing.
But no, he can't spend billions of dollars paying for crazy bald orthodontist to develop synthoid technology.He doesn't even has the sense to build an army of Battle Android Troopers. Is it possible to take such a person seriously as a terrorist mastermind? I think not. Every terrorist organization needs a robot army.

And, of course, giant billboards that ask the question "Is your neighbor a Synthoid" do spark terror and patriotism in the hearts of men.

Personally, I think that the Insect menace would be a much better target for Sixth World fearmongers than Technomancers are. Technomancers can make your comlink play Livin' Lavita Loca. Insects can eat your soul out and wear your skin like an Edgar Suit, only better fitting. And literally anyone can be a solitary bug.

[MaxHunter]

Well, Zenshooter01 I see your point. I worry BOTH for my children growing in a V for Vendetta like regime AND them being murdered in a senseless terrorist attack.

This is what I thought while reading Emergence. One of the problems I see is this kind of rethoric: "Technomancers are bad" -"No, wait, only fanatic terrorist technomancers are bad. They want to destroy civilization as we know it." What are we supposed to do? Sometimes the knee-jerk reaction is "Let's be suspicious of all technomancers first, maybe torture some, just in case, later we'll sort them out."

Oh, and "V for Vendetta regimes" are nor left wing fantasies, I grew up in one.

Cheers,

Max

[Moon-Hawk]

[Talia Invierno]

I tried to re-rail it once. Maybe I should try it again, using text colours this time :)

Problem is, the original topic skates so very closely that discussion quickly becomes ideological debate: and that takes us precisely nowhere in SR terms.

The original question was whether Emergence could have been written at any other time in history.

I happen to hold "no". I can see a very strong influence of current -- United States-based -- timeline on every SR product which has been released. I doubt it could be any other way, in a product which tries to cover as much societal ground as SR does. At different times, different political and social difficulties were encountered: and some became irrelevant, not because they went away, but just because time caused the social world to see those events differently.

Before, the modern issue swept under the rug was the persistent have/have not growing rift of society, and how it related to race: SR chose to approach this by having the aboriginal community suddenly invert the power balance when magic came back -- and then kept returning to the issue through the metaphor of metahuman, and even intra-metahuman, discrimination. (Consider the history of Tir Tairngire.)

Currently, there definitely is a rise in the nebulous dread of attack -- and again SR echoes this, perhaps most strongly in Emergence (or it wouldn't evoke this level of ideological reaction). You can choose to define whatever the real threat is whichever way in your own games: but it's difficult to deny that it's completely non-existent.

Finally, I'll remind that it still takes at least two to draw this thread back into RL debate. If one starts, another does not have to acknowledge!

[Moon-Hawk]

[Talia Invierno]

Let's rephrase, then:

Is this the only time within the lifespan of SR that this book could have been written?

[Moon-Hawk]

Still no. Just change "terrorist" to "communist" and it would work fine in 1st edition.
Who's a technomancer? Could be anyone. Could be your neighbor. Oooh, oooh <spooky wiggling fingers>

[mfb]

no, not in the least.

[Talia Invierno]

[mfb]

of course not, but a nation doesn't have to be out of its mind with terror in order to produce some fine fear-mongering.

[Moon-Hawk]

I think that there has always been societal-wide fear. Change "terrorist" to whatever people are afraid of at the time. Terrorists, communists, punks, crack, disco, homosexuals, alcohol, rock and roll.
Society is ALWAYS afraid of something. If there isn't anything going on at the time, then we make something up.
Is the current climate of irrational hatred and fear somehow special because it is unlike anything that has happened before, or is it special simply because it is the irrational hatred and fear that we are currently experiencing, and as soon as it's over it'll be just like all the others?

[MaxHunter]

Ok, cheers for Talia for re-railing my own thread just in time. I agree with you , of course. -i.e. that the influence and parallel of current history is really noticeable in Emergence- That was the point of my original first post. I never said that this kind of situations are new in history, just that Emergence as it's written is clearly influenced by the present one.

I am quite content anyway that even as this thread sparked "a strong level of ideological reaction", everybody kept their cool and etiquette. I have enjoyed the exchange so far.

However, let's follow dear Talia's lead and delve more deeply into "more secure" SR depths. Maybe I make a "terrorist technomancer" threat to antagonize one of my gaming groups.

BTW, how many people here have indeed read the Emergence book?

Cheers

[Moon-Hawk]

[Talia Invierno]

And that was almost the last movie of its kind.

Of course scaremongering will always exist. It's much easier to be directed to be afraid of something other than to try once and for all to deal with domestic social issues. (I don't deny that "other" may have elements of threat about it. Any free-willed uncontrolled entity does.)

I do deny that society is ALWAYS afraid of something. Mine isn't.

In SR, at least, it's always fun to wonder why the popular opinion is being steered as it is. Is the reaction appropriate to the threat? Is the reaction even really accurate to the threat? Is the current swing in opinion spontaneous, directed, or is it deliberately drawing attention away from something else?

Back to film and entertainment media for a moment, because those always show us such interesting mirrors of ourselves. We haven't yet covered it in the setting thread, but expanding on what is available in entertainment (and news!) media is one thing I'd always wanted to make more use of in my SR campaigns, but I always run out of time!

A last note film-wise: I always get a kick out of the James Bonds. They'd mostly started to give up on Russia by then: but in their constant search for the current threat-de-jour, they end up chronicling events and alliances which sometimes become politically embarrassing later. One of the very last evil Soviet empire films was The Living Daylights -- which twisted in discovering that the real threat to be diffused was not governmental at all, but a rogue element within the government who had been practicing his own form of free enterprise in conjunction with outright criminal elements. (Prescient, that: in so many ways. Attempted coup, overt profiteering by individuals within a disintegrating government network, Vory ...) And especially ironic: those scenes showing James Bond allied with the mujahideen.

[Talia Invierno]

Whoops -- ninja'ed!

I haven't yet read it, but I've read every word about it on these boards: and now I know for sure that I'm going to get the non-PDF book. Possibly even tomorrow, if it's on the shelves when I go into town -- I didn't follow full release dates. (For now I'm rural.)

And if I hadn't re-railed, someone else would have. It's a good thread, it deserves to live.

[hyzmarca]

In my opinion, the whole post-9/11 thing has less to do with fear than it does with anger. You don't go next door and beat your neighbor to death with a baseball bat because you're afraid of him. If you were afraid of him, you'd cower in your home with your doors locked. You beat your neighbor to death because you're pissed off and he is an easy outlet for your pissed-offedness. Now, 9/11 produced Incredible Hulk levels of pissed-offitude nationwide and Incredible Hulk levels of pissed-offitued lead to Incredible Hulk levels of destruction, including self-destruction (because Hulk never hurts anymore more than he hurts himself, really, except for the people he sometimes beats to death). It is a small miracle (and gigantic oil-interest) that has led us to refrain from reducing the entire Middle East to a sheet of radioactive glass simply out of spite. Whether this enlightened self-interest driven self-restraint is a good thing or a bad thing, I will not speculate. But it is certainly the only thing that had prevented anger from turning to genocide.

Terrorist Technomancers in SR4 are a real threat due to the rather absurd matrix rules designed to make everything user-friendly. Way back in the good ol' days, there was this absurd idea that a hacker group would use information contained in a publicly available document to shut down nationwide 911 service. It was an absurd idea and it was literally impossible. In SR4, any 400 BP technomancer could pull a Wargames and destroy all life on Earth effortlessly, though the warheads night fail to detonate due to magical interference. That is kind of scary and very real, not because Technomancers are inherently dangerous, but because nuclear weapon silos have crappy electronic security, just like everyone else.

[mfb]

i'm still not buying the "ohnoes teh mind powers" aspect. i'd be more afraid of anything resembling Norse magic, or another Great Ghost Dance. maybe if SURGE hadn't played the same card with such abysmal results--Emergence does, i will say, handle it a hell of a lot better than YotC did. but it's still... cartoony, like something out of an episode of GI Joe. the anti-TM crowd has all the depth of a sidewalk puddle, you can't identify with them at all.

[Moon-Hawk]