MaxHunter
Jul 8 2007, 02:34 PM
I am reading a Emergence and I must say I am enjoying the read. The book actually is not much use for my current campaign -though some ideas are nice- However, I like the way its written. And It made me wonder about a few things:
Hopefully you have read some discussions here about cyberpunk being the future seen from America of the 80's and the 90's with the japanacorps threatening the US's sense of security and all. If not, visit the link
hereThen I am reading the chapter of Emergence dubbed "Witchunt" and it hit me like a parallel of some of todays' feelings and concerns; i.e. Emergence as the future imagined from America today. This is why
[ Spoiler ]
-Society's sense of security shattered by an act of terror /the hong kong incident/
-an heterogeneous collective portrayed as crazy, dangerous and evil. /technomancers/
Decent people being rounded up, suspected upon and investigated just for the reason of belonging to that collective. /All technomancers are terrorists!/ A sense of paranoia and suspicion disrupting the confidence of previously integrated cities. /Just what's that freaky neighbour doing.../
-corporate and media spin to scare people in order to profit from the turmoil and to distract public opinion from shadier deals.
-Dubious security firms spawning everywhere to take advantage of the increase in security funds
-freedom restricting laws imposed to further control people under the pretend of "security"
For example: let's take one of Aufhenben posts - I hope I am not breaking any copyright law by copying this tiny part here, If I am, I apologize-
"-Bullshit. This is nothing but sensationalistic crap designed to
scare people. Scared people buy lots of products they don’t need
to “protect� themselves and their loved ones. Scared people let
the authorities take drastic measures to deal with perceived
threats. Scared people don’t ask questions when the authorities
tell them what to do. Scared people don’t complain when their
civil rights are violated in the interest of “security.� Refuse to be
scared, people.
> Aufheben"
I found the fact that Clockwork is a hobgoblin and thus probably from a Middle Eastern culture particularly ironic.
Emergence is certainly not something that could have been written anytime but today.
Max
Rotbart van Dainig
Jul 8 2007, 02:50 PM
Look, 1984 and V for Vendatta are quite old.
It's just the mainstream is finally catching on.
Marwynn
Jul 8 2007, 03:22 PM
I don't know man, such themes have been around for quite a while. I think it must've been present in the earlier years of Shadowrun too. Certainly when it was written and the background was fleshed out that the writers knew how goblinization and magical-freaking-powers would scare people and lead to abuses.
This is more akin to the cliche: "the more things change the more they stay the same".
It's another group that you can sensationalize for no apparent reason. There are dragons, there are sorcerors and spirits, there are orcs, trolls, dwarves, and elves armed with frightening technology and/or magic, and now you get people with a commlink for a brain.
Ooooh. Weren't the freaking dead rising just last decade with SURGE?
The theme of the need to feel secure instead being secure is not that new. In fact, it's been around for quite a while. Most recently in popular works, but the founding of the US was also quite tinged with that.
It just seems to be forgotten every now and then.
MaxHunter
Jul 8 2007, 03:41 PM
Well, but 1984 was more about fascism and stalinism than terrorism... Which is what I think Emergence is somehow talking about.
I mean mood and topic more than theme... it's not just the broad strokes about insecurity and the role of authority, but finer points that I am talking about.
Though I can not say I disagree with neither of you as well, just that we are focusing on different aspects of the parallel.
Cheers,
Max
P.S. I loved 1984, in a scared kind of way.
Rotbart van Dainig
Jul 8 2007, 03:54 PM
QUOTE (MaxHunter) |
Well, but 1984 was more about fascism and stalinism than terrorism... |
Look, it doesn't really matter what people are afraid of.
QUOTE (Hermann Göring) |
Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. |
tweak
Jul 8 2007, 04:34 PM
The general population follows the media like slaves.
We see the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" win an award. Yesterday, we see a concert to save the planet from global warming. The very idea of global warming is so abstract it can be compared to the war on drugs or the war on terrorism.
The world today is living in high level abstract ideas. We are trying to fix problems that are so abstract that solutions are also abstract. There was an ad about re-using bottles to reduce the use of plastic bottles for water. But no mention was made of soda products or energy drinks that use plastic. Water is abstract enough that we do not have to talk about actual products that use plastic.
If you take this problem out into the future, we create a world that controls us via ideas. You no longer need to use force. You can use scare tactics.
Here's a statistic that definitely impacts my surroundings:
* half of marriages end in divorce
That statistic has been used to reduced the number of families in America. How many people are now afraid to get married? Fear is a very powerful motivator.
You want to eliminate Shadowrunners -- call them terrorist. Then, declare a war against them. That's very abstract, but it would make Shadowrunner's lives more difficult. How do you identify a Shadowrunner? Keep that answer abstract enough and now you have street/corporate wars that the population would support outside of the shadows.
hobgoblin
Jul 10 2007, 06:23 PM
how do you get control over a large group of people, and make them cooperate? make them fear a external threat of some sort.
hell, i have long been thinking that without some external threat (communism, terrorism, whatever) good "old" USA would implode and fragment.
but i have also read some interesting stuff about EU, and how is being formed and enlarged. a similar way of gaining control was performed by bismarck when creating a greater germany by banding together the different smaller germanic states.
basically he set up a walled market, and requested that anyone wanting access to said market would have to bow to a central office.
one can even see USA as a similar walled market. its just that as of today there are not much real producting happening inside said walled market...
bibliophile20
Jul 10 2007, 06:25 PM
QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
how do you get control over a large group of people, and make them cooperate? make them fear a external threat of some sort.
hell, i have long been thinking that without some external threat (communism, terrorism, whatever) good "old" USA would implode and fragment. |
Hell, even with an external threat (such as it is) we're well on our way to imploding and fragmentation.
hobgoblin
Jul 10 2007, 06:28 PM
QUOTE (bibliophile20) |
QUOTE (hobgoblin @ Jul 10 2007, 02:23 PM) | how do you get control over a large group of people, and make them cooperate? make them fear a external threat of some sort.
hell, i have long been thinking that without some external threat (communism, terrorism, whatever) good "old" USA would implode and fragment. |
Hell, even with an external threat (such as it is) we're well on our way to imploding and fragmentation.
|
the problem there is that the threat is running stale and impossible to see.
the sovjet one was effective for so long because it was so visible. one could point to it and say "there it is".
now, if a 9/11 incident where to happen again...
Buster
Jul 10 2007, 06:53 PM
QUOTE (MaxHunter) |
Emergence is certainly not something that could have been written anytime but today. |
Ha, you must be new to planet earth. Politicians and other salesmen have been using the threat of boogeymen to push us around since the dawn of time. Read about the Cold War, MacCarthy's Red Scare, Nazi Germany, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials...I could fill several pages.
Just when you think people have read enough history to have learned from it, the masses fall for the same trick again and again.
As the head of Richard Nixon said during the 3002 election: "Computers may be twice as fast as they were in 1973, but your average voter is still as drunk and stupid as ever."
hobgoblin
Jul 10 2007, 08:31 PM
or how about churchill, i think he said something like "those that have a firm belief in the democratic system, have not talked to the avarage voter"...
Talia Invierno
Jul 10 2007, 09:04 PM
Fear and dread are two different emotions. Fear has a clear here-and-now cause, and when that cause goes away the fear ends. Dread is nebulous, and tends to be focused on what could happen in an indefinite future. Where negative emotions are manipulated, be it by politics or media, it's almost invariably dread that is invoked rather than fear: because fear is too easily ended.
Actually, SR1 started at a point in the timeline where most of the initial fear/rage/dread of magic had already been resolved, even if it lingered in memory and kept being played with by the mass media and a few politicians. I think this was not an accident.
(Interestingly, reaction to magic seems to have largely been shifted into specific nationalistic xenophobias.)
I'll re-post here part of what I wrote in the
Emergence Review:
QUOTE |
QUOTE | I hope they come up with a similar book about magophobia. All it would take is one mage to force someone to kill his family or blow up a building and it'll be Salem 2.0. |
Ah, but two elements are necessary for that degree of backlash; and detached logic has nothing to do with either.
The first is a new force that comes across as a direct, if nebulous, threat: direct enough that fingers can be pointed, nebulous enough that dread and paranoia can easily generalise without requiring continual evidential reinforcement. (Not that the average SR campaign is lacking in evidential reinforcement of threat.)
But the second has to be enough weakness in the target to be able for regular people to properly attack it. In the SR universe, magery -- both individual and as a social/political force even pre-Dunkelzahn -- has become far too powerful for that.
Interestingly enough, technomancers haven't ... yet.
The existence of technomancers happened to coincide with both Matrix crash and a shift to a wireless world where sometimes it seems that everything, even one's own senses, is dependent on commlinks. The Crash -- a terrifying thing, laying naked the societal vulnerability of people on every socioeconomic level -- is at least somewhat generally known to have something to do with wild Matrix-related talent, although specifics almost certainly will have been lost amidst a wild sea of rumour. Easy enough for a nebulous dread to arise, and for at least some of it to target on the newly discovered technomancers. (Wasn't there even a chapter-intro story in the core book about how one runner came into the shadows as a result of a corp suspecting his sister to be a technomancer, and experimenting on her?)
A technomancer still new to their abilities doesn't have a support group, and isn't really powerful enough, in and of themself, to protect themself on every level. Most, having been some variant of decker before, wouldn't really have felt the need, not in the way children Awakening have almost always felt it in the sudden uneasiness and fear of their peer group and even (at the physad level) the continual barring from traditional physical competitive pursuits. After all, decking and datajacks were common, before, almost to the point of social invisibility.
Now, suddenly, the visible datajack signifies a threat potential to the deepest connections of society in exactly the same way as has led to target profiling in other contexts.
Who could have predicted the suddenness of the change? Who knows where it will lead?
|
Buster
Jul 10 2007, 10:51 PM
I still don't see people acting that way against just technomancers. "I'm in ur commlink reading ur emailz" just doesn't have the same visceral impact as "I'm in ur head making u murder kidz." If people started freaking about paranormal activity, it would be across the board engulfing magicians as well as technomancers.
hobgoblin
Jul 10 2007, 11:01 PM
dont forget about the AR game in SR4
if something like that can make people jump down from a high bridge, think about similar stuff can do if your not aware of whats going on?
want to make someone kill kids? throw some AR sensory mods in there that make the target think said kids are some kind of demons or similar.
Talia Invierno
Jul 10 2007, 11:04 PM
Quite apart from just how much tech -- including the physically destructive kind -- technomancers (and deckers generally) now seem able to influence and even re-direct:
... how much nervousness is there, even in the world of today, over identity theft?
Buster
Jul 10 2007, 11:25 PM
I'm not saying people wouldn't be afraid of technomancers, quite the opposite. I'm saying someone who can summon demons that can bring down an airplane would invoke a whole lot more "nervousness" than someone who can steal your credit card numbers.
hobgoblin
Jul 11 2007, 12:26 AM
who needs to summon a demon? make the planes autopilot think its upside down or something
or just send in a spirte to take over the show
Particle_Beam
Jul 11 2007, 01:05 AM
However, people do mostly believe what the media tells them, and if the media tells them that Technomancers have the ability to blow up your house by manipulating the matrix, people will panick, even if it isn't true. Of course, a mage could probably also blow up your house by summoning superpowerful spirits and casting superpowerful spells, but people also think that they can recognize magicians (they all walk with fetishes, arcane symbols, glowing magical stuff and tribal jewelry around, as everybody knows. And they're either beautiful women, really ugly metahuman shamans, stylish clothed men, or a ninja.
), so they don't fear them that much anymore.
But nobody knows how a Technomancers really looks like.
hobgoblin
Jul 11 2007, 01:11 AM
yep, the unknown factor is very important.
what man dont understand he fears
what he fears he hates
what he hates he destroys
this is a repetated pattern in all of history...
Big D
Jul 11 2007, 02:38 AM
How about this, then?
"TMs are out to cause Crash 3.0. They want to destroy civilization."
Mages have been mainstreamed since early on. There are colleges that teach magic, mage heros on the trid. The public may not really understand mages, but they have an image that satisfies them. Although they're aware that some mages can do really, really evil things, they are aware of enough "good" mages that there aren't witch hunts anymore. Certainly, a similar attitude *could* have developed towards mages after the GGD, but there were so many other things going wrong the first two decades, that it didn't crystalize public opinion.
TMs, otoh, are completely new, the public doesn't know what they are or where they came from or what they want, and we just survived the near destruction of civilization--really, to the Average Joe, with the Crash and the nukes and everything, how frightened must they be that whoever was behind it all is behind the TMs, trying to wipe out civilization again?
Talia Invierno
Jul 11 2007, 04:29 AM
Plus the mage(ocrats) now have a significant political and corporate presence, along with the associated powerful lobby groups. Magic is restricted even more than the traditional top of the pyramid elite, simply by a dice roll of the genes: so even the classic rich/poor resentment is diluted. (Mages may be resented, but not in the way of enjoying the power behind daddy's money.) In the same way as modern legislation is passed by the higher strata of society to preserve their way of life, the magical political movement will be looking out for their own self interest at every level.
(Suddenly I'm wondering where that new fashion style originated from, which makes everyone want to dress up in a pseudo-magic style.)
Decking had been much more of the low-level equaliser that anyone could learn to do: which could even mean that a focus on decking and datasteal is disproportionately common among the poorer, less politically powerful classes.
Zen Shooter01
Jul 11 2007, 04:31 AM
Here's an idea that media has been pushing since the '60s - all the cool kids are anti-American.
The Red scare? Total fabrication. The USSR was a big, friendly empire with the public goal of word domination, the largest intelligence/counterintelligence outfit in the history of our species, a nuclear arsenal sufficient to wipe out all life in the solar system, and a demonstrated tendency to seize countries and not give them back. Like the ones in eastern Europe. What were we so afraid of?
Muslim fundamentalism? Big joke. Why be afraid of an international cell network the public goal of which is the destruction of western civilization and the murder of everyone who doesn't think exactly like them? Why be afraid of the people who have made Somalia and Iraq and Manhattan hells on earth? Why be afraid of people who measure the success of an operation in the number of civilian casualties?
It's all been blown out of proportion by the White House. To make you buy more Starbucks so you can be alert for the next "car bomb".
In relation to
Emergence, people have good reason to be afraid of technomancers. With nothing more than force of will, than can drive your car into a wall with you in it, clean out your bank accounts and issue a warrant for your arrest as a serial rapist, turn off the fire suppression in your home and turn on the gas, and maybe even cause the end of civilization with Crash 3.0.
Not all technomancers are evil (nor all Russians, nor all Muslims). But it's telling the good from the bad that's the real trick. And some of them are very, very bad.
Talia Invierno
Jul 11 2007, 04:34 AM
Buster
Jul 11 2007, 04:37 AM
Sheesh, they always have to blame the geeks for the nukes don't they? It isn't the politician's fault for starting a war, it's the technomancers. It's not Truman's fault Nagasaki and Hiroshima got flattened, no it's Oppenheimer's fault.
Well, the heck with politicians and mages and their fancy college degrees! We technomancers must unite to exterminate...uh, well perhaps I've said too much.
knasser
Jul 11 2007, 07:38 AM
QUOTE (Zen Shooter01) |
Here's an idea that media has been pushing since the '60s - all the cool kids are anti-American. |
There's a sleight of hand there, in which you turn the people of the USA and american foreign policy into a single entity. Same trick the Israeli government pulls when they try to represent any criticism of themselves as anti-semitic. I've visited the USA. I found the people there extremely warm and friendly. I still despise the actions of the US in the middle east going back far before the invasion of Iraq. I dislike deliberate conflation of one aspect of society with a national identity because it's been the justification for a lot of poor people dying to support a lot of rich people throughout human history.
Now...
QUOTE (ZenShooter01) |
The Red scare? Total fabrication. The USSR was a big, friendly empire with the public goal of word domination, the largest intelligence/counterintelligence outfit in the history of our species, a nuclear arsenal sufficient to wipe out all life in the solar system, and a demonstrated tendency to seize countries and not give them back. Like the ones in eastern Europe. What were we so afraid of?
Muslim fundamentalism? Big joke. Why be afraid of an international cell network the public goal of which is the destruction of western civilization and the murder of everyone who doesn't think exactly like them? Why be afraid of the people who have made Somalia and Iraq and Manhattan hells on earth? Why be afraid of people who measure the success of an operation in the number of civilian casualties?
|
Muslim terrorists exist. Are they representative of the 1.5 billion muslims in the world today? No. If they were, then the USA would not be standing. But the US is not facing millions of Usama bin Laden's. It's a handful. So is the hysterical fear of muslim extremists useful? No, it's vastly counter-productive. Look at what has happened because of this fear.
Around the time the US government was gathering troops in the Gulf, ready to invade Iraq, a survery found that more than 50% of the US people thought Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attack. Iraq had nothing to do with it and furthermore Al Quaeda was a natural enemy of Saddam's regime. But using fear of Muslim Terrorists, a fear propagated by the White House on countless occasions, a war was justified and executed. If the US wanted to place the blame anywhere, the most accurate place would be Saudi Arabia, but then the US has supported the disgusting regime there for decadees. The US kicked out the King of England centuries ago, but your government has been happy to provide military support to a royal family to keep them in power when it suits their oil needs. And how do they get away with all this military activity? Through people seeing muslims as terrorists.
The fear of muslim terrorists creates its own enemy by demonising colossal numbers of people and creating a cycle of fear. Any fear that is irrational (and any fear that led to an invasion of one country in response to support for a terrorist attack by the government of a different unconnected country is irrational), clouds judgement and leads to greater problems.
As to communism, Western Europe played a big role in shaping how the Soviet state developed. There was a terrible fear of communism spreading in the early days which led to military invasions of the fledgling USSR and this was followed by severe trade restrictions and economic warfare that crippled what might have been a very different revolution. The early soviets were very keen to trade with the rest of the world and be part of it. Of course then the US government pushed the development of nuclear weapons which, of course, spread to Russia and the cycle of violence escalated. Ultimately, once the cycle gets going, it just keeps getting bigger. And fear is the fuel that drives it.
So yes, I do take exception to your sarcastic parodying of those who try to defuse some of the fear that is choking the world today. It's not about "cool kids being anti-american." It's about praying that my kids don't have to grow up in a world where people think arab = mad bomber.
Xenith
Jul 11 2007, 01:51 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 03:11 PM
QUOTE (Buster) |
I still don't see people acting that way against just technomancers. "I'm in ur commlink reading ur emailz" just doesn't have the same visceral impact as "I'm in ur head making u murder kidz." |
I swear there is something wrong with me, in the head. That should've stopped being funny a long time ago, but damn it, I still love anything in the "I'm in ur <noun>, <verb>in ur <plural noun>" It's the best MadLib ever.
*sigh*
Zen Shooter01
Jul 11 2007, 03:17 PM
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 Dainig
Jul 11 2007, 03:34 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 04:05 PM
while GWB may not do it, who was it that got sworn in with his hand on a copy of the quran?
Particle_Beam
Jul 11 2007, 04:21 PM
Should we really discuss realworld-politics on this board? Seems only to aggravate people more than it's really needed.
Xenith
Jul 11 2007, 04:34 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 04:47 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 04:52 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 04:59 PM
QUOTE (MaxHunter) |
I worry ... for my children ... being murdered in a senseless terrorist attack. |
According to some
sources they're twice as likely to die, crushed by a freak vending machine accident. Ya gotta play the odds and prioritize what you worry about.
Me? I worry about zombie armageddon.
Talia Invierno
Jul 11 2007, 05:01 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:05 PM
QUOTE (Talia Invierno) |
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 will agree that RL influences might make some time or another better than others for certain published material.
However, I don't think that our current political climate is in any way unique, and that this is the only time in history that people have been irrationally afraid of things. It's a delightfully charming facet of humanity, but irrational fear and hatred are pretty darn timeless.
I will say that this is a particularly good time for a book like Emergence, however I disagree that it couldn't have been written at any other time in history.
Talia Invierno
Jul 11 2007, 05:09 PM
Let's rephrase, then:
Is this the only time within the lifespan of SR that this book could have been written?
Moon-Hawk
Jul 11 2007, 05:15 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:16 PM
Talia Invierno
Jul 11 2007, 05:26 PM
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) |
Still no. Just change "terrorist" to "communist" and it would work fine in 1st edition. |
Major red scare was over by then -- really, the witchhunt aspects of it ended with Watergate: and we're looking at irrational societal-wide fear, here. By 1980, the beginnings of glasnost had even started to emerge. Wasn't Reagan known as the Great Communicator in part because many firmly believe he was the cause of just that? (No contrasting debate on that, please: I said "many" and "believe" for a reason, which should cover both polarities.)
mfb -- would you accept that, while horrific, the bombing you reference didn't have anywhere near the domestic societal impact that later events did? For that matter, even the first WTC bombing seems to have been largely forgotten, though people died in that one too.
SR focuses tightly on domestic societal impact of events.
mfb
Jul 11 2007, 05:30 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:34 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:35 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:43 PM
QUOTE (MaxHunter) |
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? |
First: Huh? Wha?
Second: I've skimmed all of it. I'm only 80% through my cover-to-cover every-word read-through.
Talia Invierno
Jul 11 2007, 05:51 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:57 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 05:57 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 06:17 PM
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
Jul 11 2007, 06:24 PM
QUOTE (mfb) |
the anti-TM crowd has all the depth of a sidewalk puddle, you can't identify with them at all. |
Because while we're being told that virtuakinetics are dangerous monsters, in the same breath we're being told, "Nah, not really, those people are just hate-mongering." Maybe if they had a year/book or two to be mysterious and scary NPCs that we could all hate before a book came out showing us what they're really like and letting people play them we'd be able to identify with them.
Instead we get the core book telling us that they are just another character creation option, followed by Emergence which says, "OMG hack ur brain terrorists nah just kidding they're mostly okay. Be afraid."
It's a shame they didn't get the chance to be introduced properly, like Otaku and Drakes, first as stories, then as NPCs, with vague stats for the GM-only, then as optional character options for the daring, etc. Instead, they just got dropped on us like any other character option, and surprise surprise, they're being treated just like any other character option. There was no mystery in the original presentation. Confusion, but no mystery.