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Daddy's Little Ninja
SF has her thread on vacations and that made me think about other things people do now.

My husband and one of my brothers are historical re-enactors. Guys who dress up in old uniforms and go off for a weekend. Both of these guys re-enact the first World War and my husband also does the American Revolution.

I'm told other people re-enact the American and british civil Wars, WW2, Spanish-American war, French and Indian War, wars between Americans and Native Americans, dress like Romans and even Vietnam.

I know you can't do these in the sprawls but on the east coast they are big and there is lots of room. They do WW1 on some farm land in western Pennsylvania where they can run around with rifles and machine guns , motars, tear gas and flare guns. People fly bi-planes over them. I'm told in WW2 people do mock up tanks!

So do you think these hobbies would be around in the 2070's? Would other wars get added?
Moon-Hawk
No.
Well, I mean yes, but no. Running around in fields firing blanks impotently and flinging bean bag "grenades" at each other while bi-planes fly overhead providing atmosphere in an effort to be realistic? No.
If the goal is to create a maximally realistic recreation, it'll be a VR video game. As war games advance into full-VR they would consume the recreationist niche. They would do everything the recreations would do, only better. The recreationists can currently claim that their hobby feels more real, since they're out there doing stuff rather than sitting in a chair, but with a full VR environment, any tiny loss of fidelity or feelings of "less real" from the VR would be totally overwhelmed by the mountains of more realistic touches which could be added, like....bullets.

edit: Full-VR would probably kill all types of LARPing, not just recreations. You'd still see the occasional Dark Lord of Denny's, but it wouldn't be because he's LARPing, it's because he can't distinguish reality. Wait....nevermind. wink.gif (just teasin')
Ravor
I agree with Moon-Hawk, with the following exception, I could easily see a "Desert War: Civil War Era" or the like special being put on the trid by a corp every now and again.


Fix-it
The internet is the dark underside of human society.

Not throw in full VR, and you will have more weirdness than your mind can handle.

/historical re-enactors aren't considered weird. they are important history teachers.
imperialus
I expect that getting together in a field and re-creating Gettysburg is probably out of vogue. Virtual re-enactment on the other hand though the matrix is probably hugely popular.
Kyoto Kid
...ok, lets go to some other popular hobbies:

RC Model aircraft. Admittedly systems in 2070 would be highly sophisticated. Already in RL they have miniature turbofans and multi channel control systems that can actuate everything from landing gear, and flaps to even turn on & off the landing lights. I can just imagine how much more precise these controls will be in 2070 (and how much smaller & lighter). With the advanced composites as used for drones, scale aircraft could be made to look even more lifelike. Add in AR/VR and you could actually experience flying the aircraft from it's POV. Yeah you could say this would be taken over by flight simulator VR chips, but there still is something about building a scale replica of say an ME109 or a Sukhoi SU-30 and actually flying it.

The same would hold true for model boats/ships & ground vehicles as well.

Stahlseele
ye gods i just realized the possible horrors of things like 4-chan on full VR with Hot-Sim . .
CircuitBoyBlue
You're not supposed to talk about it, Stahlseele.

But also, it's weird that we're debating whether or not there'd be historical re-enactments in a setting where the South up and seceded.
DTFarstar
I live in the South, but most of my gaming group hates living here and we just aren't generally very fond of the average citizen in the cities around us. (Of course we are bitter people who just generally hate everything and enjoy partaking in the many fine vintages of others' shame and humiliation that life has to offer) As such, explaining that the South actually ended up successfully seceding was.... difficult... with lots of laughter and several "Bullshits" or "What the hell?!"s. I think an amusing consequence in Shadowrun is that the people with the weird weapon fetishes(me for instance, I just love weapons for some reason, I own some 10 or 15 swords, a throwing axe, am working on getting some throwing knives, and I am working on getting a really cool shotgun(double barreled 12 gauge-I believe- with a rifled barrel down the center where you can load a rifle shell. You push a switch over and the hammers fire the rifle shell instead of the shotgun shells. My dad got it from someone earlier this year, it was made in the early 1800's and looks like it actually might be somewhat unique- not in style but in who made it and when.) are now just normal prepared citizen's and/or shadowrunners.

Chris
Fortune
QUOTE (Daddy's Little Ninja)
... my husband also does the American Revolution.

The British side? smile.gif
nezumi
I'm sure model RC aircraft are all over the place considering how cheap drones are relatively speaking.

Most 'weird' hobbies are either going to get stronger in the sixth world because it's easier to get in touch with other deviants, and with such deviancy as humans breeding with orks and so on it's not as much of a big deal if say you like to dress all in foam and throw yourself at walls.

The rest are going to go primarily VR, just because it offers anonymity and a more impressive recreation. If you're into throwing mice in the air, you can enjoy it just about as much virtually as in real life with half the cost.

The only 'weird' hobbies I can see going away are those which are now mainstream - for instance, writing fantasy books about orks and elves coming back into the world.
ShadowDragon8685
Drone aircraft are going to be fun.

Especially when you use a more or less model of a real aircraft, and then put a real weapon on it. smile.gif
Fortune
With the way the Sixth World airspace is regulated, I would assume that there would be restrictions on just where and when RC aircraft enthusiasts could engage in their hobby.
Synner667
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Dec 14 2007, 05:28 PM)
...ok, lets go to some other popular hobbies:

RC Model aircraft.  Admittedly systems in 2070 would be highly sophisticated.  Already in RL they have miniature turbofans and multi channel control systems that can actuate everything  from landing gear, and flaps to even turn on & off the landing lights.  I can just imagine how much more precise these controls will be in 2070 (and how much smaller & lighter).  With the advanced composites as used for drones, scale aircraft could be made to look even more lifelike.  Add in AR/VR and you could actually experience flying the aircraft from it's POV.  Yeah you could say this would be taken over by flight simulator VR chips, but there still is something about building a scale replica of say an ME109 or a Sukhoi SU-30 and actually flying it.

The same would hold true for model boats/ships & ground vehicles as well.

Interestingly, there's a Larry Niven set in the far future story where one of the characters is immensely rich and he's part of a group of rich people who race cars.

They pay huge amounts of money to restore roads and take away the autopilot, ground radar, emergency systems, etc to drive cars using their unaugmented skill alone.

Their joy is reducing the amount of tech used, making the cars more primitive.


Using your example, and based on the current view of Virtual Worlds, and a little HoloDeck thinking, I would imagine that almost anything that requires space or specialised equipment would be done via virtual environment, or just invoked to the brain via SimSense link.


Almost anything you can imagine is a hobby for someone - why on earth would that change in the future ??
People are people, their needs will be the same, their motivations will be the same.

In real terms, the future will be just like the present and the past - few people will be rich enough to have esoteric hobbies, so the ones most people have will be the same as they are now, or just updated ones of today.
Bastard
Do kids play flag Urban Brawl?
Sir_Psycho
Imagine you want to HALO drop into a corp facility without being picked up on radar and nailed with a SAM (or whatever) and you hire a club of RC aviation enthusiasts to provide a distraction.

A hundred scale bi-planes, b-52's, helicopters and messerschmidts converge on the facility, and just over the hill there's a bunch of geeky men with sweat on their brows, thumbs working furiosly to evade the missiles and drones of the facility and swoop and dive at the sec guards. love.gif
Snow_Fox
There are clubs that let you do air to air combat in rigged planes. bet that would be facing challenges from simsernse but the re-enactors-you think CAS would give that up?

DLN's husband only does british. but from his photos they don't just use rifles but have smg's and motars. I think the WW2 guys do too so that could really add to those hobbies. Think about it, need a place to hide you mg's?
Mr. Man
My weird hobby is Shadowrun.

It would definitely not survive. frown.gif

(Although I seem to remember the VWE BattleTech pods almost being mentioned by name in 2nd edition somewhere.)
Fortune
QUOTE (Mr. Man)
My weird hobby is Shadowrun.

It would definitely not survive.

Sure it does. It's just a MMMMMMMMMMMMORPG now. wink.gif biggrin.gif
Sir_Psycho
Re-named "the game of life".
CircuitBoyBlue
The subscription fee is nuyen.gif 29.95/month.
Mercer
I once ran a game that centered on some high school kids who had been infected with HMHVV. They based their entire club on the V:TM line of books, because they thought that vampires from previous ages had passed their information down that way. (The vamps were based a lot on a Vampire Live Action group I had played with for years. So they were basically nerds, with superpowers.)

My friends who did those re-enactments called the Living History. In SR, I could see 4th world enthusiasts who get together in state parks and recreate ancient life with orks, trolls, elves and dwarves (and maybe sasquatches, if they can get any to show up). Or, exisiting organizations like the SCA might get a little revisio-historical (since forbiding metahumans would be a Civil Rights violation), and have orks and elves and such at their events. (Can you imagine how awesome it would be if you could get a dragon to show up to one of those things?)
bibliophile20
QUOTE (Mercer)
Can you imagine how awesome it would be if you could get a dragon to show up to one of those things?

Damon might show up, just for giggles (it strikes me as the sort of thing he might do just once for the experience), and if you're going to be playing "authentic" music, Perianwyr might make an appearance.
Stahlseele
and if he weren't dead, perhaps even the Big D would show up . . just because and also because it would irk the others of his kind *g*
And wasn't there a Dragon on Hawaii or something like that who actually had a normal job and let the neighbourhood-kids ride on his back for free in the air?
Snow_Fox
Since re-enactors are private groups they could ban minorities. But they have to have an interest in joining. Not many African-American for example would want to serious lay out the cash to dress as Confederate soldiers.

But the idea of LotR's re-enacting springing up could be fascinating. Groups probing into past, maybe looking for proof of earlier ages when elves and orks walked the earth. Anyone up for a run on the Atlantean Society? Then again I'm getting ideas-stop such a group of weekend hobbists before they discover the Horrors. These nerds are harmless but they could stumble on to something the powers that be want kept quiet. (not everyone will know the big D closed that door.)
Fortune
QUOTE (Snow_Fox @ Dec 17 2007, 04:37 AM)
Not many African-American for example would want to serious lay out the cash to dress as Confederate soldiers.

You're kidding, right?

There is a huge history of black soldiers volunteering and fighting for the South during the Civil War. I have personally met a fair number of 'african-americans' who are quite proud of their ancestors' involvement in that conflict, on either side.
Cadmus
I have to agree with Fortune their, granted i'm a dirty carpet bagger so what do I know.
Whipstitch
Black troops, regardless of which side they fought on, made a great contribution in combating racism simply by proving their competence and bravery, so what few black reenactors there are seem quite happy to play either side, and often pick according to family history.

Two pertinent quotes:

Frederick Douglas: ""Men of Color, to Arms! For once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters 'U.S.' Let him get an eagle on his button, a musket on his shoulder, bullets in his pocket. Make him a soldier of the nation. Let him serve. Let him sacrifice. Let him shed his blood with his white brother. Do all that, and then there is no power on Earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States of America."

Colonel Howell Cobb: "You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."
CircuitBoyBlue
I don't even understand why Americans re-enact the Civil War now. I mean, everyone involved messed up bad. The South was holding slaves, and the North was mainly interested in keeping the South in the Union at gunpoint, and Britain and France were being sympathetic to the slave-holding South just so their cotton could be cheaper. Everyone involved ended up being an evil prick. The outcome of the conflict may have been favorable (i.e., abolition), but the conflict itself was stupid, and fought for entirely the wrong reasons. And I'm not one for whitewashing history, but I can't understand wanting to re-enact one's mistakes.
Mercer
I've never been to a Civil War reenactment, but I have friends who did it for a number of years and I've seen a lot of pictures and you know what? Not a lot of black faces in those crowds. (Which is entirely understandable. Historical perspectives aside, its still hanging out in a field with a bunch of semi-armed, totally drunk rednecks dressed as Confederate soldiers. That would be a tough sell for a lot of people, whether they were black or not.)

My curiousity piqued though, I poked around on the internet to see if there were any estimates of the number of civil war reenactors there are, and how many black civil war reenactors there are. According to this page, "During the 1997 event, the two hundred black Civil War reenactors... represented about 85% of all black reenactors in the United States." Given that its an estimate, that puts the number of black Civil War reenactors at a best guess of around 235. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, but take my word I haven't inflated these numbers), "To date the largest Civil War reenactment was the 135th Gettysburg (1998), which had over 41,000 reenactors and over 45,000 spectators attending."

My guess going into this was the number of black Civil War reenactors would top out at around 3%, but if these numbers I dug up after about a half an hour of searching are remotely accurate (hey, a big "if", I know), its closer to .6%. If a little over half a percent of the people reenacting the Civil War are black, I don't think Snow Fox's comment of "not many African-Americans" is too far off the mark.

The larger question, in the Shadowrun context anyway, is what percentage of reenactors would be orks, trolls, elves, dwarves, sasquatches or dragons. I think there is a certain element to the Awakening that will make history seem a little staid.
hyzmarca
Some Background

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlo...uis/blackcs.htm

http://www.forrestsescort.org/blacks.htm

http://www.stonewallbrigade.com/articles_b...ck_confeds.html

http://www.forrestsescort.org/blacks.htm

http://www.confederateamericanpride.com/bl...nfederates.html


An article about a proud black Confederate
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/07/State/In...f_his_Con.shtml


The last is written by a black Confederate reenactor.
http://www.confederateamericanpride.com/thoughts.html


So, yes, while the propaganda that currently saturates popular culture and academia tends to demonize the South, there do exist Confederates of all races who know the truth about the War of Northern Aggression and are proud of their ancestry.



Of course, the most fun about historical reenactment societies are rivalries and feuds that lead to full-scale invasions of each-others reenactments. Imagine a reenactment of the Battle of Agincourt when, suddenly, B-29s and Mitsubishi Ki-21 appear from over the horizon, dropping Napalm on French knights and British archers alike.
Mercer
One of Mr. Shows best sketches spoofed the Ken Burns Civil War documentary by giving a similar treatment to two reenactor brothers. The highlight of the sketch comes after they realize the reenactment is being held in the same park as the Ren Fair, and the pictures of the battle (done in the same slow pan across antique photographs while mournful music plays) take place mostly in the parking lot, with a short, fat Lincoln in raybans is chasing people with a musket. If there were more reenactments like that, I'd go.
wind_in_the_stones
QUOTE (CircuitBoyBlue)
I don't even understand why Americans re-enact the Civil War now. I mean, everyone involved messed up bad. ... but I can't understand wanting to re-enact one's mistakes.

Sure, but the average reenactor isn't reenacting the mistakes of his society, or even the mistakes of his nation's leaders. He's role-playing one person. Some other things that may draw him to the hobby are the meticulous recreation of the persona's possessions, and the way he lived. And attraction to a temporary primitive lifestyle (to prove he can do it). Then there's camaraderie, and a certain amount of friendly competition.

Which are all reasons why the hobby will still be around. Though I suspect there won't be as many people doing it. They'll lose a lot of interest after VITAS, UGE/Goblinization, NAN secession, etc.
CircuitBoyBlue
QUOTE (wind_in_the_stones)
QUOTE (CircuitBoyBlue @ Dec 17 2007, 12:51 AM)
I don't even understand why Americans re-enact the Civil War now. I mean, everyone involved messed up bad. ... but I can't understand wanting to re-enact one's mistakes.

Sure, but the average reenactor isn't reenacting the mistakes of his society, or even the mistakes of his nation's leaders. He's role-playing one person. Some other things that may draw him to the hobby are the meticulous recreation of the persona's possessions, and the way he lived. And attraction to a temporary primitive lifestyle (to prove he can do it). Then there's camaraderie, and a certain amount of friendly competition.

Which are all reasons why the hobby will still be around. Though I suspect there won't be as many people doing it. They'll lose a lot of interest after VITAS, UGE/Goblinization, NAN secession, etc.

Well, sure, but roleplaying one dude is stoopid smile.gif

I guess I just get hung up on political implications a lot more than most people. I wouldn't be able to put on a uniform without at least asking what the uniform represents. And if it represents anything that I violently disagree with (like, say, the South), I'm out.
Critias
If you think of nothing but "LOL SLAVEHOLDERS ABOUND" when you think of "the South," I don't blame you. But it's not like every Confederate private's field kit was a musket, his share of a field tent, a canteen, and his very own whipping negro.

The number of people who owned slaves in the South wasn't very high. The number of people that went to war from the South (or the North, for that matter) genuinely believing the reason for the war was slavery also wasn't very high. We've been told that, but it's simply not so. Slavery was only one of the many issues on the table, concerning state's rights, that led to the conflict.

Not every Confederate soldier suited up and went to battle over slaves, any more than every individual soldier current in the Gulf is there to get cheap oil or improve his Halliburton stock.
CircuitBoyBlue
Oh, I'd agree. Actually, I'd go a step further and say that slaver was a marginal issue that was just cynically exploited by the North to legitimize its stance that the South should be forcibly kept in the Union. But the fact that the North was full of fault doesn't mean the South should just get a free pass on the fact that they tried to be a slave holding country. Whether every private in the field had a slave, or just one dude had a slave, it's still a system where slavery is allowed to exist, and that's wrong.
Fortune
QUOTE (CircuitBoyBlue @ Dec 17 2007, 07:08 PM)
But the fact that the North was full of fault doesn't mean the South should just get a free pass on the fact that they tried to be a slave holding country.

As opposed to the entirety of the United States of America (or England, or even most of the rest of the 'civilized' nations in the World), which actually was a slave holding country.
Mercer
The Civil War was 140+ years ago, WWII was 60+ years ago. Since you don't hear much about Vietnam reenactors, I'm going to assume the line for reenacting things to be around 50 years. Given that, it seems like in SR, people may very well be reenacting either of the Gulf Wars (unless you just want to go ahead and assume Desert Wars are really big reenactments with bigger budgets and live ammo).

In the NAN, particularly the Sioux, I can see reenactments. Maybe the Great Ghost Dance, maybe the (not so great) Ghost Dance, Little Big Horn, maybe a few of the more obscure battles that US History glossed over. (What's the point of retaking your ancestral home if you can't lump a little revisionist history in with it all?) Perhaps the Cherokee go on Trail of Tear pilgrimages for a week or two to remind themselves of the sacrifices their ancestors made.

Civil War reenactments might have an unconsidered political element now that the South actually did secede. NAGNA seemed to portray the CAS as very much in the "good-ole-boy" tradition, so some might see the secession as the righting of a long overdue wrong, while others might be embarrassed by the connotation. (New Slogan for the CAS: We're Not That Confederacy!" Given how much hoopla from both sides goes on in Georgia every time the state flag changes, its not entirely without precedent.)

In Aztlan, perhaps some of the Mexican-American War battles might be big, though the big corp and gov sponsored events are probably going to be older. (I'm guessing reenacting battles where the Aztecs are getting wiped out by the Spanish is frowned upon.) I can't remember if the Aztlan book made mention of this, but I do remember their big about the old-style Aztec games, so its a logical step. Or, Aztlan might be too busy fighting actual wars to worry about the playacting (unless the playacting is a viable recruitment tool). Aztlan is probably staffing the reenactments with convicts and making them fight for real. (In fact, I'm pretty sure that was mentioned in the Aztlan book.)

Then, with all the weirdness the Awakening brings, why bother restricting yourself to the stuff that actually happened? Given that the stuff of fairy tales is as real as real-world history, I can see the line between historical reenactments and live action rpg's blurring a bit. Alternate Historical Reenactments. Discover the 4th (or the 2nd, or the 0th) World.
Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (Mercer)
Since you don't hear much about Vietnam reenactors,

I'm trying to picture this. Some dudes slogging through a swamp for a few hours and then getting shot before they realize they're in a fight.
I mean, I don't mean to call any of the other wars "fun", but even if you could fight a location suitably miserable to recreate a Vietnam battle, who would want to play there?
Daddy's Little Ninja
Yes my husband is a 'red coat' and our house has, locked away from the baby, a Brown Bess musket, Lee-Enfield rifle and a Webley revolver.

I think Snow Fox was not disputing that blacks fought for the south. I think she was saying how many modern black men would want to join the ranks of an army popularly perceived as being the slavers?

Pop culture can set a lot of the perceived image that might get someone involved. Through popular literature and the movie "Glory," it is thought that blacks first fought in the US army in the Civil war in blue. you need a passion to do this sort of thing. a friend of ours who was involved in the movie "Glory" said they did not have enough black re-enactors, so they got college students and when that was not enough, they let non-violent criminals work on the film as 'work release programs.

I know that as a Japanese-Americans, for my brothers, "Go For Broke" about Japanese-americans fighting in WW2 it was gospel and we didn't know that there were Japanese-americans in all sorts of places in the US military.

I've heard him speak to crowds when dressed up in his full regalia and it is amazing the misconceptions people have. A woman claiming to be a school teacher once told him that the American Revolution was over July 4, 1776.

But to get back on topic, he said some people at WW1 have SMG's. German ones and BAR's and the grenades do explode-spraying baking powder. What made me think of this is that at a recent event he said someone had a mock up of Snow Fox' favorite bitch about weapon-the Chauchat. I was made by building onto a soviet assault rifle.It would seem a great way to hide/experiment with modern gear.
Whipstitch
Yeah, as Moon-hawk said, never forget the simple fact that it's a lot easier to learn about and reenact the Civil War than it is more modern wars. It took place on American soil so you can easily visit the battlefields and you don't need any understanding of foreign languages to learn from newspaper accounts and correspondence from the era. By the same token it is a helluva lot easier to get some reasonably snazzy looking uniforms, march out to a field, pitch some canvas tents and drink some coffee before the morning of the scripted "battle" without feeling like an idiot than it is to find a patch of "jungle" to slog through so you can get to the scripted ambush and/or wait for imaginary helicopters.

And of course, it's heavily romanticized and enough time has passed for people to feel comfortable with all this to begin with.
DireRadiant
Bah... Re enact! NO!

They will LIVE it! 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with their Reality Filter Software and Hot Sim mods!

Whatever reality you want, the battle before the walls of Troy, Hannibal, Alexander, Ramses, Darius, etc etc all the way to the latest Desert Wars release you can live it now, all the time.

In groups, alone, in groups where one persons world view is Ancient Greece, another is EVO Mars Doom mod scenario, they'll all live it all the time.
Whipstitch
My poor character is living the Evo Mars Doom mod scenario right now frown.gif
CircuitBoyBlue
Mine's living the 2007-era lonely government bureaucrat mod. Thank god THAT's almost over...
kzt
QUOTE (Whipstitch)
My poor character is living the Evo Mars Doom mod scenario right now frown.gif

Yeah, it looks like the kind of scenario that takes the rest of your life to play.... eek.gif
Whipstitch
Yeah, however long that is. dead.gif
DireRadiant
You get new lives till you run out of clones.
Kyoto Kid
ic.gif...Violet....uhhh Violet...? Drek she's hooked on that ftragging Miracle Shooter again. Where's the troll? He can just bash the door in....

(#73)
Sir_Psycho
QUOTE
Not many African-American for example would want to serious lay out the cash to dress as Confederate soldiers.


I'm sure the sixth world will have amazing advancements in boot polish technology, though.
Kyoto Kid
<=...ack! I'm one of them now...

I have met the enemy and it is me... grinbig.gif
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