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Shadow
To all my friends here at DSF, and those who celebrate it, Happy thanksgiving!!!


And just to make it shadowrun related, what holidays do you think they still celebrate in 2064?
spotlite
I dunno. I'd be surprised if they still bothered with thanksgiving though. Do Canadians celebrate it? Being british and unable to comprehend why you all go through the bother only to have to do it all again at Christmas I don't really get thanksgiving anyway.

I'd bet they celebrate all the same religious ones (or at least the ones which started religious and have now become commericial expressions of comparitive wealth), and probably a multitude of new ones. Why? Because people spend money during holidays, chummer! I'm betting there's a few dozen made up holidays serruptitiously introduced by people like Shiawase.

Heh. Can you imagine it? All the Execs at Shiawase get together each year to celebrate the Seretech Decision: they have cakes made to look like mock supply trucks running over striking truck drivers and food rioters, and all the presents are brought by a clean cut and now legally heavily armed smiling security guard with a breifcase chained to him with the words 'CAUTION. MEDICAL WASTE' emblazoned on the side. Children are warned that if they disobey corporate instructions (for example, if they Touch The Box) that the nice guard is allowed to shoot them, so they'd better be good, or they won't get their Seretech presents...
MrSandman666
Are you serious??? eek.gif Where did you read that?
spotlite
Read what? I didn't say anything is true, I just said its not too difficult to imagine it! I was pontificating, extrapolating, exaggerating and, in fact, talking bollocks. The fact you couldn't tell simply tells me its even more possible that I first thought....
Backgammon
We Canadians celebrate it, but it's on a differant date (mid october) and for obscure reasons. No clear story to explain why we do it.
RangerJoe
Christmas in Seattle is one of my favorite run environments (Salvation Army Inc. bell-ringers, carolers with smgs, etc.). Turkey Day certainly poses some interesting options, though:

* Timmy the Street Urchin exclaiming, "Aw, shucks... tofurky again...."

* Elf families sitting around the table, offering up the toast, "We have much to be thankful for.... for example, the fact that we were not born human."

*Giblet the Turkey shaman.... going on a rampage.

*The Ares/Macy's Day parade (you can hide a lot in one of those ballons).
Austere Emancipator
I had no idea it was Thanksgiving until our (American native) English professor told us to think of something to be grateful for, since she was NOT grateful for having to work on a national holiday.

Like Spotlite, I'd be quite surprised if Thanksgiving was still around in the Shadowrun 2060s. Maybe in CAS... But I don't know squat about North American culture. [Edit]Christmas WILL be around, because of its sale boost value. Might get renamed to Cocacoladay though.[/Edit]
Fortune
QUOTE (RangerJoe)
Christmas in Seattle is one of my favorite run environments (Salvation Army Inc. bell-ringers, carolers with smgs, etc.). Turkey Day certainly poses some interesting options, though:

* Timmy the Street Urchin exclaiming, "Aw, shucks... tofurky again...."

* Elf families sitting around the table, offering up the toast, "We have much to be thankful for.... for example, the fact that we were not born human."

*Giblet the Turkey shaman.... going on a rampage.

*The Ares/Macy's Day parade (you can hide a lot in one of those ballons).

LMFAO! biggrin.gif
Backgammon
Halloween is clearly still in (Halloweeners gang)
So is Xmast and New Years (Dunkie's Rift)
Thanksgiving is unikely considering the lack of all things turkey. No one is thankful for soy.
Religious holidays of most faiths starting with C are probly gone cause no one cares about said religions anymore (Only got 1 success on my Resist Flaming Dumb Religions (TN26) test)
Merchandising holidays (mother's days and whole slew of new ones) are definatly in. Sometimes they're called "Sales", but people don't really notice the differance.
Shanshu Freeman
QUOTE (Backgammon)
Religious holidays of most faiths starting with C are probly gone cause no one cares about said religions anymore (Only got 1 success on my Resist Flaming Dumb Religions (TN26) test)

ohplease.gif
Abstruse
Hell, does anyone celebrate those holidays now? Xmas we give presents, Easter we give eggs...name one other religious holiday anyone actually celebrates though.

I'd say a lot of things would be even more consumer-targetted than they are now. Xmas would be here for presents, Easter and Valentine's Day for candy sales, same for Halloween, Thanksgiving for food sales plus otherwise how can retailers have their Black Friday without it? However, I'm sure they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the NAN...

"Let's all gather round and celebrate the day we screwed up and fed those ungrateful lying Englishmen..."

Thanksgiving is actually a pretty funny holiday when you think about it. First off, the Puritans didn't come to America to "seek religious freedom". The English booted their asses out. This lot was too freaky for even the Church of England -- remember, the church that was formed solely so Henry VIII could marry five or six women and decapitate half of them? Then the Puritans came to America with their bibles and guns and no farming equiptment and pretty much snubbed the Indians. "No, we don't want any of your bloody food thank you very much! And put some clothes on!" Then it gets a bit cold..."OH, I'm terribly sorry about the whole 'put some clothes on' thing...I absolutely love those feathers...do you happen to have any food?...Oh yes, there's more of us coming, but we always keep our promises! Could you pass the yams?"

Then thing about this. While there are people starving in other counties, we have a holiday based solely around stuffing food into other food and eating until we pass out. "Let us give thanks that our fat asses haven't broken the dining room chairs yet..."

The Abstruse One
RangerJoe
I am in the process of digesting at the moment, which gives a chance to reflect on the exact nature of a 2060s Turkey Shaman.

Turkey Shaman: Followers of Turkey are Bacchanalians of the wilderness magic tradition. Reveling in bright plumage, loud squawking, and delicious dark meat, Turkey shamans are bon-vivants, always ready with a hot plate of food and a top 40 tune. They are not known for their mental accuity, however, and have trouble determining when someone is out to get them.

Advantages: +2 dice for Create Food, Stunbolt/ball (tryptophan.... snzzzzz.......), and illusion spells.

Disadvantages: -2 dice for detection spells. Turkey shaman cannot learn Detect Enemies or detect (weapon) (they never see that ax coming....). Turkey shaman have a +2 TN for social tests against vegetarians ("But I'm made of MEAT!!!)
Fix-it
rotfl.gif
Artemis
QUOTE (RangerJoe)
Christmas in Seattle is one of my favorite run environments (Salvation Army Inc. bell-ringers, carolers with smgs, etc.). Turkey Day certainly poses some interesting options, though:

* Timmy the Street Urchin exclaiming, "Aw, shucks... tofurky again...."

* Elf families sitting around the table, offering up the toast, "We have much to be thankful for.... for example, the fact that we were not born human."

*Giblet the Turkey shaman.... going on a rampage.

*The Ares/Macy's Day parade (you can hide a lot in one of those ballons).

ROFL! I love it..



There's always a little good that can be found in these things though, Abstruse One. It's another time of giving that so many people suddenly become generous and give a little from their pockets to help lighten the plights of others in need. It's days like this that you see homeless shelters dishing out triple the normal load of food to homeless people who need it most.

The way employment is heading here in the US, some government work plans like they had in the days of FDR might not be such a bad idea. Help feed, clothe, and shelter a lot of jobless people who need the leg up.
nezumi
Religion does exist in SR (as stated in some book or other, but I can't remember which.) The authors of SR probably avoided the topic for very, very good reason, but honestly I dont' think anyone here thinks that people will start transforming into green, warty creatures and religion won't have a wicked revival. So yes, the religious holidays will still be celebrated by some people in the UCAS.

Easter and Christmas will survive because of their intrinsic sales value. Plus, traditions die hard. Now in reply to Abtruse, how many Christian holidays did Christians celebrate a year or a century ago? All we're really missing now are the days before Easter (Good Friday especially, but that's a pretty depressing day and I don't know if it even counts as a holiday...) and feasts of various saints. The feasts aren't really terribly important, except, perhaps for the Assumption for people who believe in it. Oh, and All Saints and All Souls day, which are all the feast days rolled into one, but almost always fall on weekends and don't involve dressing up or giving presents. I don't think we really lost much... I do feel sorry for the Jews, though, who have some really neat holidays they've been celebrating for much, much longer and kinda only get a passing notice.
nezumi
Oh yeah, Ash Wednesday, which is a holiday celebrated by NOT eating or giving presents. However, the day before is Mardi Gras and I think that'll keep going (especially down south) for a very, very long time and I suppose is technically religious as its based off of the start of lent.
spotlite
<pedant mode activated> I can't think of a single christian holiday except Good Friday. They're all held on traditionally pagan days anyway which was their attempt to make all the nasty heathens convert by giving a passing nod to their beleifs in christianity's calendar. <pedant mode deactivated>

However, pedantry aside, the sixth world will result in a revival of just about anything that could be classified as a religion. Wicca, Pagan beleif systems, idol worship, voudoun... its all there in the canon. I think what is more likely is that things which have become entrenched in commercialism like valentines day, mothers day, christmas et al will remain. Other celebrations will be much bigger but on a very localised scale.

In boston, for example, around wiccan or pagan holidays the various corps will likely capitalise like they do on everything else, so there would be merchandising drives, commercials, etc etc etc.
Birdy
QUOTE (Abstruse)
Hell, does anyone celebrate those holidays now?  Xmas we give presents, Easter we give eggs...name one other religious holiday anyone actually celebrates though.

I'd say a lot of things would be even more consumer-targetted than they are now.  Xmas would be here for presents, Easter and Valentine's Day for candy sales, same for Halloween, Thanksgiving for food sales plus otherwise how can retailers have their Black Friday without it?  However, I'm sure they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the NAN...

"Let's all gather round and celebrate the day we screwed up and fed those ungrateful lying Englishmen..."

Thanksgiving is actually a pretty funny holiday when you think about it.  First off, the Puritans didn't come to America to "seek religious freedom".  The English booted their asses out.  This lot was too freaky for even the Church of England -- remember, the church that was formed solely so Henry VIII could marry five or six women and decapitate half of them?  Then the Puritans came to America with their bibles and guns and no farming equiptment and pretty much snubbed the Indians.  "No, we don't want any of your bloody food thank you very much!  And put some clothes on!"  Then it gets a bit cold..."OH, I'm terribly sorry about the whole 'put some clothes on' thing...I absolutely love those feathers...do you happen to have any food?...Oh yes, there's more of us coming, but we always keep our promises!  Could you pass the yams?"

Then thing about this.  While there are people starving in other counties, we have a holiday based solely around stuffing food into other food and eating until we pass out.  "Let us give thanks that our fat asses haven't broken the dining room chairs yet..."

The Abstruse One

Naah, the Church of England was formed so that Henry could stop marring woman that turned out to

Be Traitors
Have lovers
Comit other major crimes

and instead could divorce them.

Chodav
Thanksgiving will certainly be around in the 2060's! There are two reasons -

1) Without Thanksgiving, there would be no Day After Thanksgiving, and hence no biggest shopping day of the year (the one day I refuse to go to a store). The corps need their biggest shopping day of the year!*

2) On a more serious note, scientific survey processes (no, really!) have ascertained that Thanksgiving is the single most popular holiday in the United States, being celebrated by a staggering 98% of the population. While Christmas, Easter, and many others have religious overtones, and holidays like Independence Day and Memorial Day will have lost their meaning in a fragmented former United States, the simple concept of giving thanks for what you have and gathering the family for a good meal crosses all different kinds of cultural boundaries. It's the holiday that new immigrants to the United States pick up on most quickly, after Independence Day. Stop thinking like a shadowrunner for a minute and think like a typical member of the corporate workforce who believes the hype. They have things to be thankful for, family to gather, and food to eat. And will certainly enjoy a four-day weekend as much as we do.

The real question is, what sports will be on the trideo on Turkey Day? John Madden will finally be dead by then (Thank God!), and the NFL does not seem to have as much popularity in 2060 as it does today. So, will Urban Brawl or Combat Biking have pre-empted football? Or will the corps use T-Day to kick off the first episode of each season of Desert Wars (the ultimate reality trideo show)?

* Okay, I admit it, in the continuing trend towards making the holiday season longer in a feeble attempt to get the public to spend more money, the corps will have moved the biggest shopping day of the year back to the Day After Halloween by 2060 . . . wink.gif
Fortune
Thanksgiving might look a lot like this in 2060+. biggrin.gif
Phaeton
QUOTE (Fortune)
Thanksgiving might look a lot like this in 2060+. biggrin.gif

"HAPPY EVERYTHING! NOW SHADDAP AND LEAVE ME ALONE 'TIL NEXT YEAR!"

biggrin.gif biggrin.gif biggrin.gif rotfl.gif rotfl.gif rotfl.gif grinbig.gif grinbig.gif grinbig.gif
locomotiveman
I think that Thanksgiving would still be around for the corp types, expecially those who get exposed to what being outside a corp is like for the vast majority of the SINless, though thanks might be given to the CEO or Board of Directors rather then God (or whoever most folk do now.)

I feel its only right to point out tho that Thanksgiving traces back to the separatists, not the Puritans, who had intended to go to Jamestown rather then fetching up off of Cape Cod. They were also probly the ones who treated the Natives best of the original English settlers, except perhaps Penn (Penn himself not his heirs who brought us the Walking purchase)
Digital Heroin
QUOTE (nezumi)
Religion does exist in SR (as stated in some book or other, but I can't remember which.) The authors of SR probably avoided the topic for very, very good reason...

Avoided? Threats 2 details the Pope's private army, and the recent metaplot has heavy detailing of Jihad; I hardly think they avoid religion. It's just not a central focus in the SR world. Nothing really is if you look at it though, everything is mentioned, nothing made central. Hooks, crooks, and damn good books...




On topic, I'd say the SINless could care less about Thanksgiving, except that they change the meal at shelters. The Corp types, and better of SIN holders'd would probably still "celebrate" it. Corporations are probably hugely into the holidays (thus their employees have to be), as they're cash cows.
Tanka
The metaplot before FanPro didn't have much to do with religion outside of Shamanism. The metaplot now does.
Jari_Kafghan
in what way do you figure religion has a lot to do with the metaplot now. I never really considred the RCC part of the metaplot, they were just kinda a side plot.
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