Kingdom of Hawai'i, So what's happened since Paradise Lost? Options

[Tzeentch]

-- For most purposes, the Kingdom of Hawai'i has been a non-entity in the Shadowrun universe since 1994. In a similar format to my previous threads that collate canon materials, this will provide page references and sources for all the references to Hawai'i I can find in the Shadowrun canon.

-- Why? Because I finished reading Paradise Lost again, and figured why not (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'll start with an updated timeline and go from there:

Sources of Note:

Paradise Lost [2054] - Primary source. I do not have Houses of the Sun handy but I doubt it matters much.
Shadows of Asia [2064] - It appears as if later authors simply ignored this book.
Sixth World Almanac [2073 (technically very late 2072)] - Secondary source. Most substantial mention of the location in almost two decades (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Population 2052: 4,108,229
Population 2073: 5,020,500 (unknown number from Yomi immigrants)
Real World Population 2009: 1,295,178 (makes the Shadowrun numbers pretty stunning as it implied absolutely massive food and resource importants paid for by ... tourism or something??)

Note: These population figures are directly contradicted in Shadows of Asia, p. 195, which lists a population of 1,898,000.

Timeline

• 300 - 600 A.D.: Polynesian explorers arrive in the Hawai'ian Islands.
• 1778: Captain James Cook arrives.
• 1790-1819: King Kamehameha I conquers and rules the island chain.
• 1820: Missionaries arrive.
• 1893: Coup overthrows Queen Liliuokalani.
• 1894: Sanford Dole appoints himself head of state.
• 1898: Hawai'i annexed by the United States.
• 1900: Organized as a US Territory.
• 1959: Becomes the 50th US state.
• 1980s: Space City established at the Haleakala volcano on Maui as part of the SDI "Star Wars" program. Rapidly expands.
• 1990s: Na Kama'aina (The Land Children) indepedence movement arises.
• 2009: Lone Eagle incident. Several important high-tech research projects moved to Hawai'i. "Zero zone" research site established near Kahuku Point on the northern coast of Oahu.
• 2009-2015: Na Kama'aina and splinter factions such as the militant ALOHA (Army for the Liberation Of HAwaii) step up activities.
  
  • 2011-2013: ALOHA conducts over two dozen car-bomb attacks on US military installations and government buildings.
  • 2013: Hugely unpopular even on the islands, Na Kama'aina distances itself from ALOHA.
  • 2014: Martial law declared. Marine "Civil Defense Force" brutally crushes opposition.
• 2015-2016: Danforth Ho identified as the legitimate heir to King Kamehameha I. Forges connections with outside forces, notably Yamatetsu Corporation. Later forges a deal with the yakuza, much to Na Kama'aina's disgust.
• 2017 (August 17): Great Ghost Dance. Danforth Ho begins coup.
• 2017 (August 22) Danforth Ho takes the name of King Kamehameha IV and declares Hawai'ian independence. US military response stopped by Thor orbital artillery warning shots.
• 2017-2019: Government reformed as a constitutional monarchy. Significant concessions to megacorporations.
• 2045 (June 22): King Kamehameha IV dies. Succeeded by his son Gordon (born 2020, age 25) who becomes King Kamehameha V.
• 2061: SOTA observatories on the slopes of Mauna Kea become a popular destination for comet watchers.
• 2062: Metahumans freed from Yomi Island granted refuge. Sparks significant resentment.
• 2063: King Kamehameha V turns over the rule to his son, Brandon, who becomes King Kamehameha VI.
• 2067: An accident at sea kills Kamehameha VI. Kamehameha V retakes the throne.

[LurkerOutThere]

*sighs* It's like in hind site "kill whitey" isn't a good basis for universe building. I've only been to Hawaii once spending a couple months there in 2003, the thought of Hawai with 5x the population is mind boggling. I would presume like many places where the corps pretty much get to run things without outside interferance it's a terrible place to live but at least one you can reasonably expect to job down to the stuffer shack without worrying about getting shot or eaten which is what presumably most in the sixth world want.

[hermit]

If they cover Big Island with habitats, 5 Mil might be technically doable, given Shadowrun is really big on Aquaculture. So long as you don't mind your diet being essentially krill and seaweed, that is.

Always liked that setting. Pity much of it went ignored, from the idea of Hawaii as an ork nation to the idea of a spwarl in a tropical climate.

Also, 'kill Whitey' was dead ever since Findley read up on Reservation populations and ruled the NAN had a one-drop policy, which makes a hell of a lot more Americans Indians all of a sudden, most of whom probably not really looking the part.

As for sources, House of the Sun has a lot of info cactually, on Honolulu, the King, the history, ALOHA, and the wacko demon-summoning blood magic rituals the native shamans use. IT also features Harlequin's weirdest and least irritating cameo, Netherwalking and Dirk Montgomery becoming tainted (the Montgomery family sure must be a sight on the Astral by now).

[Tzeentch]

Cunningham, Scott. Hawaiian Magic & Spirituality (Lewellyn Publications, 2001) has proven to be quite useful for fleshing out the kahuna traditions.

I'll pick up Houses of the Sun (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sabs]

You have to remember that the guys who did Population stuff in FASA's time.. uh.. were on crack.. for lack of a better term.

the Shadows of XXX guys tried to fix the really blatantly horrible population decisions.

It would be wise to retcon the populations down to say 2 million.

[Tzeentch]

c. 75% of the population lives on Oahu, in or near Honolulu (SWA, p. 180). So c. 3.7M people.

Oahu, including the uninhabitable areas, is 596 square miles. That's a population density of 6,208 people/square mile, or about 5x higher than it is right now (and that's pretty damn crowded). Exactly where are these people came from I don't know, presumably some kind of mass migration from the states to the islands after independence, and usage of arcologies.

Note the super anemic population growth since then though, even with the supposedly quite large influx of high-fertility orcs. That's less than a 1% population growth rate even with everything stacked for fertility, and high immigration.

[sabs]

It would make more sense for it to be the opposite.
It started out at basically 1.8 million, and it's been climbing on a 3 births for every death ratio for the last 20 years.

remember, they Yomi refugees for a while, and now that Yomi has been closed down, they probably got a big Orc/Troll population influx.

Hawaiian trolls just make me happy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tzeentch]

-- A growth from 1.8M in 2008 to c. 4.1M in 2054 only requires a 1.8% population growth rate. That's not particularly high (average worldwide pop growth rate is about 1.2%). Just need to explain how they exceed the island's carrying capacity by so much, pay for food imports, that sort of thing. I suspect Honololu has a rather large arcology.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

-- A growth from 1.8M in 2008 to c. 4.1M in 2054 only requires a 1.8% population growth rate. That's not particularly high (average worldwide pop growth rate is about 1.2%). Just need to explain how they exceed the island's carrying capacity by so much, pay for food imports, that sort of thing. I suspect Honololu has a rather large arcology.

Underwater archology or stuff like that, perhaps?

They also might grow soylent green soy and krill in underwater farms...

[sabs]

floating islands of pontoons with farms on them?

[Tzeentch]

-- Paradise Lost and Sixth World Almanac make a case for most of the islands being only lightly inhabited (Hilo is only a bit over 2x current size in Shadowrun). So population density around Honolulu may approach that of Manhattan. Population isn't really a huge issue, but how they are fed and supported is a mystery. Are the sizes and populations of any Shadowrun arcologies known?

[pbangarth]

I haven't read much of the SR resources on Hawai'i or other Polynesian peoples, but there can be an argument made for there being a higher ratio of metahuman (particularly troll and ork) -latent peoples in the Polynesian islands than elsewhere.

It isn't hard to note that a lot of Polynesians are very large people. An interesting exploration of this phenomenon is in People of the great ocean: aspects of human biology of the early Pacific, by Philip Houghton. He argues that the counter-intuitively cold conditions of travel in the tropical oceans favoured the survival of people with a larger than average muscle mass. Apparently, a trip of 8-12 hours in the ocean using neolithic technology, especially at night or in overcast conditions, could actually kill smaller people.

Following this premise, then, and assuming that the latent genetics of trolls and orks had some effect on body size even before 2011, one could argue that Polynesia in general, and Hawai'i in particular were blessed with a higher than normal percentage of trolls and orks. So, population figures given above may not be as far off as one might think.

[Fix-it]

all I know is that Leonard's had better still be around in 2070. real island runners won't work without malasadas.

[GrepZen]

I'd go for Liki Liki.

[Tiralee]

Pbangarth:

It was considered cannon that the Troll expression in New Zealand was waaaaaaaaay over the usual ratio (Wasn't it something like 30% Trolls? Or was it 30% Troll from those of Maori descent?) and as the first settlers of the cloudlands arrived via outrigger, it'd make some sense, genetically, that those H. formeri genes would be shared amongst a decent proportion of the islander peoples.

BTW: I think this is from Target: Awakened Lands, and was only a paragraph or two.
There was also mention of Maori Troll Adepts using their weapon foci to clean out Bug Spirit Hives, but I forget where that's from. Great mental image, though....

Tir: Unecessary Genetic Profiling Makes Me Sad.

[ravensmuse]

I'm probably a bad person for considering writing up an NPC young lady shaman with a blue, six legged ally spirit, right? Right?

...Elvis as a Mentor Spirit?

I'll get me hat.

[Cheops]

Depends...does the ally spirit still have an uncontrollable urge to destroy major metropolitan areas? Don't forget the spirit pact with the ocean spirit that controls the weather. May need a day job to afford the pb&j sandwiches.

[lokii]

Hawai'i supports itself with the sale of high-priced coffee beans. From Seattle 2072, p. 41:

Mr. Johnson smiled. "Hawaiian beans. The volcanic ash, the altitude, the rainfall, and the climate--all in all, an excellent place to grow beans. Small harvests. The farmers coddle each plant, roast the beans by hand. A single pound sells for over a thousand nuyen at auction."

"Liquid gold," I said. [..]

[hermit]

Speaking as someone who knows Kona coffee, I fully agree with Mr Johnson here.