[ShadowsOfEurope] France, each nation may as well have it's review Options

[Snow_Fox]

I liked this. Ok more than racial preferences and the fact I've been bugging Synner about this for years.

The fine line to walk is between the "we're great" that marked the unoffical SB from years ago, and picking on the French.

I liked the idea of Paris being kept clean, in it's heart, for tourists, corpers and nobles, lots of room to run there kiddies. With urban sprawl around it. The industrial wastes to the west and the special areas. Volcanic horrors in the jura- new to play in, and Brittany- possible ghost land. This is my favorite, as I've said before. These are the celts in France and it is fitting that they should be different.

I like the idea of the nobles being the power block and between that and the French cardinal gently pulling away from Rome it seems rather more like the works of Dumas than SR, but then I adore Dumas' writings so i'm a very happy girl.

The cultural comments are close to the vest but good about hiding magic and cyber and why.

OK problems:
Unions. French labor unions are infamous, and violent. They've just been sucked up?
Wine- this isn't just my passion, it is a part of french culture. In WW2 french troops in 1939 were released from service to help with the harvest, in 1944 attacking in the Rhone region planned their attacks around good vinyards. It is a part of regional pride and it's production is an important part of the economy. (the rise of beer drinkers and drop of wine drinkers in france in the last 10 years has led to presidential committees to investigate, and vinyards are given special tax protection. A few lines in the text might have covered this.

Food and fashion- again France sees herself as the centre for fine dining and fashion. A line could have been added to paris about these passions, to give ideas of runs for fashion shows and poaching fine chefs.

But this is nit picking. In general
THANK YOU. I LOVE IT.:beret:

[Ancient History]

Again, I'd like to say how much I liked Auvergne. I also appreciated how France subsumed Wallonia (no need to shed tears for the old homeland.)

Brittany is nice, though it lacks the old feel of Broceliande Forest, really. The bit about the human couple having seven elves (youngest of whom might be a dryad) is a nice touch. But I still think the Mist could have been done otherwise.

[Nath]

[Snow_Fox]

My mom freaked when she found out I liked Australian Syrah over Rhone Shiraz. Even being a lower part of the economy than cars, it is still more somethinug associated with France than autos. At least we can know it's a victim of editing rather than writing.

I was thinking about fighting between vinyards and appelations and a hoast of ideas. I guess we can still do that fitting it under the various noble houses. Yeah I saw on the map the volcanos were too far west for the jura. I typed that running on my mental map, rather than refering back to the book.

[Sepherim]

Obviously, some things couldn't be introduced in SoE for reasons already explained. But the great thing about the book is that adding more elements to the picture is quite easy. For example, I'll build a quick plot that I imagine as I read the thread, involving the elements you missed in the French chapter.

Many of Yamatetsu's vineyards in southern France are about to stop their production due to a massive strike called by their local labour union. They say that the reason is the new law regarding agriculture funds that the NEEC is about to approve. Real reason is that Meridional Agronomics has payed them to go to strike, so to cause a diversion on their rivals and attempt a move on farmlands in northern Italy that both corporations are interested in.

If you want to twist the basic plot more, throw in the French noblemen and their lobbying in the NEEC through the chosen representatives; throw in Aztechnology who is not willing to let Meridional take those lands so has launched an attack from Barcelona; throw in the different "Italian" governments who are interested in who should handle the lands both Yamatetsu and Meridional want; even more parties can be added with a little effort. And so, you've got the basic for a couple related shadowruns, covering four different countries.

And that's just one of the different possibilities, I bet you can think of many others.

[otaku mike]

When we had to cut out some parts we tried to leave the really important things to play SR, and the things that was really different than nowadays France.

We discussed the Unions, of course, but it seemed logical that in 60 years, given the general trend the world takes in SR, that even in France they would have been silenced. I'm sure it didn't go smoothly, but as NMAth said, the corpos have much more pressure on the employees. Another very important, and IMHO different than any other SR country so far, is that the State Welware is still a reality in 2063's France. This has been a very difficult balance to reach, with deals with the Corps, but that's a unique trait of the French society that we kept. In 2063, it's not in a good shape, but holding so far. This is probably the reason why unions keep a low profile, because the population must know (don't worry, the various gov made sure about that) that they are "priviledged" people compared to the rest of the world.

When we had to cut, we also went to the clichés first. That's a worldwide cliché that France is assiociated with wines, fashion and cosmetics. Most GM and players know that. They can think about that when thinking about France. We didn't see much interest in developing that further. And that would have been percieved as gloating because we have no way to be sure that France will stay a fashion center for the next 60 years. Some wines from Chile already can compete with French, and one could say that the fashion city leading position now belongs to London or New York... IMHO, it was better use the space to describe the changes rather than what didn't change.

[lspahn72]

I was alittle shocked that they included France in the New Book, You would think they would have Surrendered to Spain, Germany, or Italy by now....

[Blue eyes]

If you don't have anything useful to add to the discussion then don't...

I enjoyed the chapter concerning France, especially the part concerning the influence of the nobles, it's nice to see them making a comeback a few centuries after the bloody revolution. A bit more about Paris would have been nice....

However I find it very odd and a bit of a shame that The Laughing Man didn't have a few comments concerning the country he is living in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FlakJacket]

[lspahn72]

[shadd4d]

1) National governments tending to be federalist in nature, allowing for semipowerful states and city-states under a "national" banner, a la Mariselles, for instance or the German states.

2) Even now, there is a large trend toward continental identity, i.e. I am European first and "insert nationality here" second. Similar to how people feel when they claim to be citizens of the world.

3) The Euro wars present a very real enemy that can only be defeated through coalitions comprised of the member states.

4) A larger percent of important and viable nationalism.

5) Remember how Europe is a patchwork, even the larger nations are patchworks of cultural archipelagos. Take Britian for instance: Wales, Ireland, and England. Three cultural, almost linguistic islands that have been a nation for going on 300+ years since the crowns united. France has been a nation in the real sense for just as long (the introduction of the 1st republic and Parisian French as the national language built up but also built upon the centralization undertaken by Loius XIV about 120+ years before the Revolution). Taken like that, people feel safer. Also note that for the most part, excepting Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, Great Britian, and Ireland, each country in Europe speaks a distinctive language, partially derivative based on lingual group, but ultimately 1 language per country. How long has Sweden been unified (a better question is when was Sweden not unified)? At least 500 years at the minimum (it was unified already before the 30 years war and Luther). That's a strong unification, especially when it's kept the country unified for the better part of a millenia (and kept them fighting each other for the most part). Also remember that there aren't indigineous tribes or something for Europeans to push out and colonize; they are their own indigineous people.

Just what I can think of off the top of my head.

Don

[Blue eyes]

[lspahn72]

[lspahn72]

[Snow_Fox]

Frances borders are amoung the firmest in Europe because of her poition. The Germans are fighting amoung themselves. Germany only really was threat to France after 1870 when she was a single force, in the south Italy ans switzerland don't want to pick a fight with the bigger neighbor and the alps pretty much lock up the frontier(look at the fighting between Italy and austria in WW1 for a good example of that.)
Spain has a real problem with basques and again the mountains make a good block.to the west, south and north, the sea. and in the north east, they expanded, taking in the Walloons the way Quebec would love to be absorbed.

for the unions you're right of course and I liked how the corps have to admitt a level of social control. I'm assuming this means french gov't paperpushers roaming the halls of corp facilities-hint hint children.

Warning, wine geek lingo ahead:
As for wine, sure, California has been fighting successfully against the french since the 1970's, Champagne is famous and I expressed my traitorous fondness for some Australian wines over particular french regionals. But there is still something of an aura about the french wines, certains names, especially out of Bordeaux and the marketing campaign around Beuajolais Novuea. Chille makes some very good wines and I'd choose a chillean Merlot over a french one(because france has only recently gotten on the Merlot band wagon), I'd test a Phensylvanian or washington Chardonay against french ones and Oregon pinot noir against young burgundy's. There is wine industry in Romania (don't) Bulgaria (maybe) (england) mwahahahahah, but no nation does all the wines the way France does!

[Nath]

[Nath]

[lspahn72]

[Skeptical Clown]

I liked the decadent nobility, but I still find it entirely implausible that the French managed to maintain some level of socialism. Your average AAA megacorp has a net worth that probably exceeds the entire French nation, so if the French were being uppity about incursions on their sovereignty, as is their wont, I think the megas would just impose sanctions until the country was wallowing in poverty and gave up.

[Prospero]

I liked a lot of the French chapter, but I guess I'm in the minority because I didn't really like the nobility angle. Okay, I can see the nobility taking over. That wasn't my problem. For me, the problem is that it seems to be so secret. Nobles playing in the corridors of power I can believe, but ones that pull the wool over the eyes of a whole nation while doing it I can't. Especially because their activities seem to be so transparent to the SR authors and they seem to flaunt their power so obviously.

Other than that, I liked the French chapter. I would have liked a little more info on Brittany, but there was already a fantastic amount of stuff crammed in the chapter as it is and I realize space was a big limitation.

The underworld war was especially good in France, I thought (as opposed to having the flashpoint be somewhere else). It added a spice that the chapter was otherwise lacking. Yes, there were intrigues and high-society stuff, but little street-level action. The mob wars promises to deliver that in spades, as well as bring in lots of international connections that might otherwise be lacking.

BTW, are there really volcanoes that are even remotely active in France (IRL, I mean)?

[otaku mike]

[otaku mike]

[Nath]

To be more precise, the last eruption Auvergne was the Puy-de-Dôme circa 5,760 B.C. (or the middle of the Fourth World in ED/SR). Overall the chains' activity has been on the downfall over the last 10,000 years. That's still a very short time at the geological scale, so as for saying they will never erupt again...

[Sepherim]

[Skeptical Clown]