Washington FDC, "What next?" Options

[martindv]

Just something I'd like to see in a setting book for once--the aggregate effects of all the shit dumped on the world and on a city not resulting in a liberal utopian reaction.

Welcome to Washington

Most of the people who have come to Washington from elsewhere all possess the same attribute--hope. They all want to change the UCAS, and change the world. And so when I say that they hope to change the world, I mean it. But it doesn't last. It burns inside, and turns to ambition, greed, and contempt. People who come from the rest of the UCAS have had their own shares of survival stories. And it seems that for as long as I've lived here, the UCASans who come don't see themselves as living through history--they endure it. Unfortunately, they mostly wish the world would make sense to them again--even when the world that makes sense is something that they are too young to have experienced. That is the irony of this transient class of Washingtonian. They're young. They're passionate. They're smart. And they're ambitious. But life here makes them hardened.

On the flipside, most of the people who are from the city do not lack that particular attribute, but it's been reduced and severely redirected. They know that these transient visitors see themselves as above them; better than them; and they know that those people bring biases and resentments that have helped keep them a kept city for centuries. Slavery is alive and well within the District of Columbia. Hundreds of thousands of people--SINners, mind you--live with only a fraction of the rights that vaunted identifier supposedly ensures. The SINless in the Barrens are treated as barely human. Because of its historical focus as a global capital, a great number of the significant global events of the last century have directly affected or even been centered on the DeeCee Sprawl. So while many people carry the resentment and scars from VITAS, two Matrix crashes, the Night of Rage, Compensation riots, Dunkelzahn's assassination, the Awakening, and a military coup, the locals also have outsiders to contend with. Unlike most other cities covered, Washington is not progressive; is not enlightened; is not friendly. Because the people don't live through something like a shedim army trying to conquer the sprawl using the corpses of the thousands of veterans interred in Arlington without feeling like the world is out to get them.

In other sprawls, people have said, "That negative stuff didn't happen here. They didn't lynch mages here; didn't lynch metas; didn't lynch technomancers. They didn't react with fear and hatred. Not here. That was elsewhere."

Welcome to Elsewhere.

The United States was socially conservative among the industrialized nations. The UCAS is out of its fucking mind. The standard reaction to sea-changes in the world is to react with fear and hatred. Internationally, and even domestically the UCAS has adopted a"fuck the world" attitude. Fifteen years ago, Dunkelzahn campaigned on a platform of hope and change. For a moment, people bought into it. He was elected. And then he was almost immediately murdered. And Washington exploded. Since then, people elsewhere may have loved his successor, but here--No one did. They didn't make this city one bit better. They were overthrown, and the city didn't change much. Now there are more foreign occupiers and corpcops with guns than even government cops and agents. It's literally easier to carry a badge and a gun than to become a barber in Washington as long as you're not from Washington. How else would you expect the people of Washington to react? "Fuck the world."

Now they have a President who is nakedly on their side.

[The ubbergeek]

I wish americans would relax about the use of the word 'liberals' (american use), as if it was some insult or indicator of badwrongness or something... Why not it, since it seems to be (especialy for Shadowrun) 'all but liberal vision" - an escalation in 'grittyness power', in 'let's screw the world the best' in this case.

Why not it, albeit with an hidden price? Play the nuances.


(personal pet peeve probably badly expressed)

[Ravor]

Basically because the various media outlets have managed to polarize the American people to the extint that saying Conservative or Liberal in the wrong crowd is worse than swearing in church.

[nezumi]

That's a good blurb there. Did you write it or is it from a source book? Is the author from DeeCee?

The only difference is that, in the real DeeCee, there are so many actual federal cops, it isn't even funny, and a lot of 'basic' rights are heavily restricted. Foreign governments don't really play much of a factor right now, although I could see them doing so in SR. I would put more focus on the brutality with which the government governs its own, not just that with which foreign governments 'protect' themselves.

When I ride the bus, I feel a strange dichotomy. People seem to feel the government is supposed to help them, the little guys, who ride the bus and have rough lives. They almost all support Obama, whose campaign seems perfectly crafted to them - a black man talking about hope for the future and the government helping people. But they all also seem to feel that basically everything the government actually does is waste money and interfere with their lives. The courts are unfair, the police are rude, the tax system is broken, the laws are either too restrictive or not sufficiently enforced, etc.

The truth is, DeeCee residents DO have fewer rights than other people in the country. They can't own firearms. They can't vote. They're always surrounded by cops and cameras. They have hummers and military units blockading off entire roads out of security concerns. Most buildings have metal detectors and security guards. Everyone requires you show your ID. The bureaucracy is back-breaking. The corruption is tremendous (former DC mayor Marion Barry was a known crack dealer and user). Police brutality is common. Poverty and homelessness is rampant. But they have a hope that by increasing or changing the government, they can still make things better.

[DWC]

It is somewhat tragic to see that people who have so little reason to trust the government are so willing to turn over so much control of their lives to it.

[martindv]

That's a good blurb there. Did you write it or is it from a source book? Is the author from DeeCee?

The only difference is that, in the real DeeCee, there are so many actual federal cops, it isn't even funny, and a lot of 'basic' rights are heavily restricted. Foreign governments don't really play much of a factor right now, although I could see them doing so in SR. I would put more focus on the brutality with which the government governs its own, not just that with which foreign governments 'protect' themselves.

I found it. The author clearly has taken some editorial license, such as the thing about Arlington (though SoNA did say DeeCee was one of the most active cities in North America for shedim, so it's not beyond reason) and the foreign cops which is... beats me.

[Little Johnson]

I wish americans would relax about the use of the word 'liberals' (american use), as if it was some insult or indicator of badwrongness or something...

Yah in my house liberal is a derogatory remark.

[Wesley Street]

Yah in my house liberal is a derogatory remark.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

I wear the term as a badge of honor. Funny that.

[NightmareX]

Ditto that.

[martindv]

Way to completely miss the topic.

[Wesley Street]

Welcome to Dumpshock: Where Missing the Topic is Our Forte.

[Grinder]

He'll get used to it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Sir_Psycho]

To chip in on the semantic discussion on "liberals" and "conservatives", here in Australia, our conservative party are called the Liberal Party. So here when we talk about the "bloody Liberals", we're actually talking about conservatives.

Whacky.

[Fuchs]

"Liberal" in Europe usually means "Less government, less regulations, less laws".

[FlakJacket]

Except when they go batshit crazy like the Labour Party did over here in the UK. Even within Europe there are still massive variations from one country to the next. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[hobgoblin]

"Liberal" in Europe usually means "Less government, less regulations, less laws".

as long as it deals with people pocketbooks and lifestyles.

now, if your a "distant foreigner" (african or middle eastern looks, asians are for some reason over all more tolerated) then feel free to bend over and be handled brutally by the law...