Obligatory preface: This is not intended as an endorsement of racism, fascism, or violence.

But the HP philosophy (as opposed to radical members who join Alamos 20K, Human Nation, et al) does seem to have been unfairly pilloried throughout the history of Shadowrun. I as understand it, at it's core HP dogma is this: the old divisions which have plagued humanity in the past, such as reliogion and skin color, are now irrelevant. We are all brothers in humanity now. Support, protect and defend your fellow (hu)man.

Consider the momentous changes which have taken place in the world's history in Shadowrun canon: a significant percentage of the Earth's population transforms into beings straight out of a Tolkien wet dream. Magic, mages, and spirits (re)appear, wielding strange powers. HMHVV gives rise to ghouls, vampires and other monsters. Dragons and Immortal Elves , who by their own admission have manipulated humanity over the millenia, continue their machinations for global dominance. Megacorps have all but destroyed the concept of nation-state. Nasty things from the Deep Metaplanes, such as insect spirits and shedim, threaten not only life, but the very soul as well. Let's not forget the recent development of tecnomancers and the AI's, whose power and influence could damage the infrastructure on which the little guy depends.

Under these circumstances, it does not seem unreasonable for Joe Average Human to think that "his kind" are under assault, and to desire to form an organisation whose purpose is to protect both himself and his fellow man. Granted, this protective instinct has taken many steps into utter barbarism: Yomi, the napalm strike at New Visions, and the technomancer pogrom, to name but a few. However, I do not feel these actions invalidate the basic premise of the Humanis Policlub: that if humans want to survive and prosper in the Sixth World, they need to forget their petty differences and band together against their common enemies.

An aside about facism...I believe it was in the "Game Information" section of Loose Alliances which said something to the effect that if a PC wanted to play a fascist, he should have his head examined. Nothing similar was said in the Communist section, despite the fact that the world wide death toll from Communism far exceeds anything from the darkest nightmares of the Axis powers.

Here endeth the dissertation. Again, please don't take this as a sign that I support a nasty ideology. Rather, it's just something which has been simmering in my brain for a while, and I thought it might be worth some discussion.

"If I seem to have missed the mark, then please view my efforts charitably...(or something like that)...."
- Dunkelzhan's Last Will And Testament

I do believe that a lot of the big anti-humanis sentiment might stem from the fact that they were the front for a huge insect spirit hive/cult. They are also portrayed as a group that uses violence to get their point across. Of course I am sure that not all members of humanis believe that going to the same extreme but they get lumped together (kind of like Muslims post 911).

R-Caine

the HP was also formed out of the KKK, and as there are Orc only and Elf only organizations or nations a human only (HP), tends to be viewed as "white only" and garners negative connotations even if it has nothing to do with the presvious incarnations.
think about it this way, if a minority group starts a club that only allows races of that minority and a majority race makes the same club who gets in trouble?
that appears to be the same theory designed into the humanis policlub's bad image.

Yeah, R-Caine, I'm afraid you're mixing the Policlub with the Universal Brotherhood there.

HP was never a front for insects. That was the Universal Brotherhood.

You forgot to include: "And that club also gives money to other people to go intimidate, beat up, and kill members of other races, only to deny it later."

Any group which exists for the purpose a marginalizing and killing a group or groups merely for being different in a fashion they cannot control means that they are "bad".

Or to put it a different way, many in Nazi Germany grew to believe they were under attack from Zionists, so they killed the jews.
That's what's bad about that.

Fear which leads to oppression is still oppression.

I'd also say "racism" is different in shadowrun. It's just simply not the same thing as the racism we're all familiar with. The debates on these forums have been done to death about the implications of racial caps on intelligence, but that's obviously not an issue among racial groups in the real world. It's very real in Shadowrun. So to the extent that I think most of us get fed up with stupid people, I think it's natural for most people to get fed up with people that have low mental attributes, and if that tends to be orks and trolls more often than with other metatypes, lazy people are going to jump to conclusions.

And yes, I realize people are going to jump down my throat for being racist against a fictional race now. But I promise, it's ok, because I have tons of troll friends, so I can say these things.

Well, regardless of how 'stupid' trolls may or may not be - I'm not getting involved in that discussion - the fact remains that we don't endorse removing rights from people with Downs Syndrome or who score low on the SATs. And if you wanna take the route that they should, the HP figures that Elves and Dwarves in the same boat.

It's like the KKK. They've quit telling us blacks are monkeys, and are now telling us they just want white rights. But you know what? I figure it's the same brand of asshole it always has been, with the same agenda. And HP is basically just the KKK all over again. They even dress the same.

This is one of my favourite topics and I don't have time to comment right now!

But I could possibly link to a short file I wrote about Humanis: Link.

Forgive it if it's a little rough around the edges. I think it makes several of the points I would make if I had time right now.

-K.

Orks are human too! (And so are trolls, dwarves, and I guess probably even elves.)

I don't think its unreasonable for Joe Average to feel "his kind" is under assault; or actually, while it may be unreasonable, its not unlikely. Dragons and vampires and guys with horns are a lot for the average human being to accept. (So too are people with vast chunks of their body replaced with machinery, and people that can fly and kill people with their mind, but I guess that's a different argument.)

It seems to me that the Humanis Policlub are saying that the other human expressions (orks, trolls, dwarves and I guess even elves) are different because they look different. Is that any different than a white supremecist saying that other races are different because they look different?

To quote Lrrr from the planet Omicron Persei 8, if I kill this human to harvest his pathetic lower horn, am I any better than a human who would kill this gentle forest ape for its feet? The answer is Yes, but not by enough.

A lot of people really hate Heinlein and took him to task for that book and the poorly done movie screens like a bad satire of fascism, or at least that's how my friends and I took it. It doesn't change the fact that the initial bias of shadowtalkers is likely going to be against fascism. How many career criminals do you know of in favor of police states?

Humanis is not any better or worse than the Tirs, or any other group that promotes racist ideologies.

The Tirs suck too, yes.

Talk about exceptions that prove the rule.

"fear leads to anger,anger to hate.hate to suffering , suffering to the dark side" -Yoda-

Humanis is bad because it incites fear. The basis of the HP doctrine is one of controlling the masses through fear and misinformation to gain political power for an elite few. ( not unlike some other organizations I can think of.)

"Is that any different than a white supremacist saying that other races are different because they look different?" -mercer-

white supremacists such as the Christian Identity and KKK don't just say that the other races are different. they claim to be superior to the other races and insist that the other races( or even white people who don't' believe as they do) don't have any rights at all and should be killed or "re-educated" aka made into slaves. this seems to be the same agenda of the Humanis Policlubs , as they basically sprang from the same roots.





and anyways every one knows the proper way to control the masses is with brain numbing trideo shows and addiction to the spend/spend mindset.

Well in the SR universe the humanis politiclub are 'bad guys.' The club acts as a source of funds, equipment, and personnel to more extremist groups such as Alamo 2000. Whats more the sponsor and support legislation designed to keep non-humans down. They are against meta-humans having the right to vote, vote to cut of funding for the education, and so on. Since meta-humans almost always includes some player characters, and thus they are working to oppress the PCs, they are certianly bad guys (if only indirectly).

I however have much sympathy for them. Because if I was a human in 2070, and wasn't lucky enough to be born mage or technomancer, I would probably join up. I have a rabid hatred towards elves, and am not fond of dwarves either. I've got no real beef with orks, but their birth rates frighten me. Trolls also scare me (for obvious physical reasons).

So march on my human brothers!

Corporations can be fascist, communal and capitalistic.

The individual has to serve the corporation. The wageslaves work for a share of the collective gain. And most corps follow a capitalistic behaviour towards other corps.


On the humanis angle. The world is divided in two parts. Me and not-me. That is a rather lonely proposition, so I need some people closer to me than others. Lets take those who are a bit more similar to me than others. Lets assume everyone does the same, building a social network based on similarity.

Beat up the others becomes optional. All races will favour politics that favour their kind. If orcs become the dominant race, they will still favour orcs. The idea of equal opportunity will always work against better chances for some. It will certainly not help if the unequal, dumb trolls take all the lowly physical labour jobs people without smarts can take, leaving nothing for dumb and comparativly weak humans.

Smart people don´t need humanis, but they can profit from the idea that humans are better. Dumb humans are threatened, more so since racial politics keep "trogs" downtrodden and angry. The less you have, the more you can benefit from others. Either by building a support network, or by taking what is not yours. Humanis fits that bill.

The idea that equal opportunity creates a better world, a smaller part of which is better than that which could be had by excluding some, is fortunately common. Unfortunately its not the only road.

...when you grow up on the "other side", for example, a human in Salem, TT (pre-crash 2.0), you usually end up with a very low opinion of your persecutors. However would this make such a person a racist because, based on their experiences, they have developed a strong distrust of, and dislike for elves?

Ah, this is a nice topic. I want to quote 3-4 posts and make my comments and corrections, but that will take ages so instead I'll just post to everyone and noone.

First of all, Mr. Nasser's take on HP is excelent, well written and very realistic. Not only does it show HP can be persuasive, come with arguments that almost sound plausible, but also how normal people not really wanting to beat up orks for fun can still join and support an organization that is essentially racist.

I can think of interesting characters involved with HP without necessarily being "bad", or actually playing racist, assholes, facists etc. without having to see a shrink. After all, we do quite often play bad guys, and this setting lends especially well to it as Shadowrunners are indeed criminals who at times murder innocents for money. And if you go around shooting unaware security guards or even unarmed employees just because they're in the way to get the 1000k nuyen mcguffin, are you any better than people influenced by fear of the unknown to turn to hate and racism?

Communism is IMHO a much better ideology on paper than Facism though. Communism has the values of community, racial tolerance, gender equality, financial equality. The goal is to create a communist state run by the people for the people, where everyone are free, get what they need and give what they can. Now does that sound so bad?

Problem is, no state has ever reached this utopian communist state, and even Soviet didn't dare call themselves that (United Soviet SOCIALIST Republics). According the the bolcehviks they were in a temporary state of the despotism of the majority. It is probably true that the numbers of people dying from purges, starvation and reappropriation in communist states worldwide (or perhaps just USSR) is greater than the death toll of the Facist states.

Facism however is IMHO wrong even on paper. The idea here is that the strong has a right to oppress the weak, and that social darwinism is nature's way of making the human race strong. This ideology does not care about people's rights, but expects individuals to sacrifice themselves to further the people or even the State. The only sympathetic values here could be comraderie among soldiers, nationalistic pride, and elitism.

I liked Starship Troopers, and found it funny that the heroes were members of a facist worlwide superpower - sorta ironic.

With luck I will get a much longer post up in a few hours when I get home...but here is my PoV in a nutshell.

Leave racism at the door. The Humanis Policlub can serve as a foil against Orks, Trolls, and the like but that's too easy.

Take the Transhumanist angle and show how Humanis is effectively trying to save Humanity from itself--with the integral argument of humanity and its failure to compete with technological advancement in the cyberpunk genre, a group which tries to distinguish Humans vs Elves can gain a lot more depth with Cyborgs.

Which person has betrayed their humanity more, the elf-poser or the street-sam with .1 essence remaining?

Instead of playing HP as a bunch of ignorant bigots, they can be a foil against the "humans" in your PC group who get implants. Implantation and Cybernetic enhancement can be just as bad as UGE.

From my personal reading of Humanis dogma, most of the HP would be comfortable with cyber/bio implants, at least to a certain degree. What they'd be against would be cyberzombies/cyborgs (for all intents and purposes they are no longer human), "poser" implants (making yourself look like an elf, orc, changeling, etc., except maybe for espionage), transgenic alterations/bioware, and probably symbiotes. Sure, a street sam looking more like a T-800 than a human being would freak out a Humanis member, but it would also make almost everyone else uncomfortable as well.

Remember groups never refer to themselves as anti- that just to negative.
Pro-White, Pro-Black, Pro-Family Values, Pro-Human, Pro-Christian values
Its a little trick to hide the real meaning, saying your an anti-group just makes you sound negative right from the start but being pro is positive and positive is good.
Its a funny mask

The Humanis group is no different then the KKK its ripped right from history with no attempt to mask it. They mask there anti-metahuman views in the name of protecting humanity. Just as the KKK hides its racism in the idea of protecting whites.

On a similar note to this, look at X-Men?
The entire comic was conceived during the 1960's on the idea of racism, bigotry and prejudice
Humans started evolving and getting superpowers. (which can easily be compared to the awakening in shadowrun)..
So you have groups such as the Friends of Humanity which is EXACTLY like Humanis.

So are the Humanis bad, YES they hate metahumans for no other reason then they are metahumans.


The cyber angle is a bit different and interesting but a key difference is while Humanis would hate metahumans by and large. Many Transhumanist would pity the guy with .1 essence remaining and want to find ways to remove cyberware and restore lost essence. (which is impossible to restore but that doesn't stop anyone from trying to find away).

Some religious groups may reject certain medical procedures even when they are life saving.
Pig heart valves, appendix removal,
A key doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion forbids blood transfusions. A case happened in Canada in 2005 where a Judge ordered that a 14 year old recovering from cancer undergo the Transfusion.
(she likely would have died after under going all those surgeries and chemo treatments without getting a transfusion).

In this end I'd see them trying to perhaps sabotage cyberware facilities.
hijack a shipment of parts attack cyberdocs and cyberclinics. But runners aren't as likely to run into these types. I don't really see them sending a goon squad to beat up heavily cybered individuals in that type of group.

A group of three or more Humanis goons and easily overwhelm the typical Orc, Elf or Dwarf.
Though the typical Troll may cause them to attack armed or with a couple more guys then normal.

Some time ago, I was reading a book by a certain historian, but for the life of me I can't remember his name or the title. Anyway, he made an interesting point. Hitler convinced many people that blond, blue eyed aryans were the master race. These people accepted that view, despite the fact that the messenger was niether blond, nor blue eyed, nor (technicaly) even German. The SS was even more incredible. They were suposed to be the purest of the pure, but i've seen pictures of Heydrich. The man looked damn near mongoloid, and he was also part jewish.

Never discount the ability of hopeless people to swallow bullshit if it gives them an opportunity to look on the bright side again.

I have a hard time seeing Humanis as anti-cyber (although an anti-cyber group would be interesting). They are already anti-meta and anti-magical; I imagine a lot of them would embrace cyberware as a major "equalizer" against enemies that include huge hulking trolls and those evil spellslingers.


Humanis are definitely the bad guys (along with the Tir and the Sons of Sauron), but that doesn't mean they have to be the stock cardboard cutout bad guys. Bad guys have reasons for being bad, and usually have a lot of reasons and justifications they can offer up for their behavior. Not valid ones, of course, but still understandable ones.

And you can introduce ambivalence by having someone who is "good" in other ways, but still racist. Like maybe a razorgirl saves the group by shooting the ork gangers who were about to ambush them. As they are about to thank her, she kicks one of the bodies contemptuously and says something about "dirty trogs". And maybe they learn later that she was brutally attacked, and her younger sister killed, by the Sons of Sauron when she was a child. Which doesn't excuse her attitude in any way, but does give her some depth beyond a generic villain.

The end of skin color racism was very silly, particularly accompanied by the rise of Fantasy Race racism, given that practically every metahuman would have extended relatives of a different race. I must say that it makes sense that in some parts of the world white humans would treat a white troll than they would treat black human.

More importantly, the proximity of the NAN to the UCAS along with tensions from the War, the GGD, and everything, should make Seattle and other boarder areas very inhospitable to the a man with a redish hue, not to mention those places which were directly hit by the GGD. With the ethnic conflicts and ethnic nationalist movements that accompany the extreme balkanization experienced by the Sixth World, the simple dismissal of conventional racism is ludicrous.


Also remember that one of the original big leaders of the violent human supremacy movement was, in fact, a troll. Many saw UGE as a disease, including many of those who goblinized. Humanis may be distrustful of metahumans, but they aren't going to exclude metahumans who hate what they are enough to join them.

Yes, humans hold a smaller piece of the power pie than they did in 2010, *if* you divide the pie along metatype lines. But that's only one way to draw "us" and "them", and not the best way. That's my main beef with the concept of Humanis: they jump to the conclusion that nonhumans are necessarily unfriendly rivals of humans. Cf. OMFWOG, and by the way, hats off to Knasser for writing that, one of my favorite bits of SR fluff.

If I'm a major stockholder of Ares, my interests align to large extent with any other stockholder of Ares, regardless of their race. When MCT and Renraku back the campaigns of JIS politicians who favor invasion of Silicon Valley, so that they can raid Ares facilities, well, that's a whole bunch of humans whose interests now oppose mine. I'm better off defending Ares turf with allies of all metatypes, than with only fellow human allies.

Take the parable of the Good Samaritan. Cast yourself as the traveller who gets ambushed and left for dead. Who is truly your neighbor: the fellow human who walks past you, or the dwarf who gives you water and carries you to shelter? Oh noes, she's short and not like you! Get over the surface differences, and be glad that *she* doesn't limit her compassion to her own metatype.

Which has the better talent pool options: the Urban Brawl team which only recruits humans, or the one that can also choose the agile elf, the big strong troll/ork, or the indomitable dwarf? Which is the stronger nation: the one that only taps the talents of its blue-eyed blonde citizens, or the polycultural multiracial meritocracy? There's a strong theory that Black civil rights and feminism emerged in the decades after WWII, because America started letting blacks and women out of their narrowly-defined roles in order to tap their efforts in the war effort, and then had a hard time putting all the blacks back into Colored Only zones and putting all the women back into the kitchen, because so many blacks and women had tasted responsibility and accomplishment, and so many of them liked the taste. Maybe someday we'll even have a military that would accept Alexander the Great as a soldier if he were born again in our generation. (He would not pass the heterosexual-only test. Athlete, tactical genius, natural leader, but the Army cares more about the gender of his lover(s) than whether he can lead a successful mission with minimal losses. Feh. If I were a soldier, I'd rather serve in a unit led by an Alexander type, than by a heterosexual who tends to lead the unit into ambushes. But I digress.)

There are a lot of different things that have been called "communist", so usage of the term can become unclear without context. But one saying I like is that communist nations have committed atrocities in betrayal of their stated ideals... while facist nations have committed atrocities in realization of their stated ideals.

As for "Starship Troopers": can anyone cite any line anywhere in Heinlein's book indicating that the narrator's nation has single-party government, oppression of minorities by race or religion, oppression of political dissenters, or any other defining quality of facism? One of the core ideas is making darn sure that voters care about their franchise, and will fight to defend it; as a consequence, I imagine that they don't have the contemporary American dynamic of lots of voters who don't much care and just vote according to whose ads get more air time. I'd imagine that multiparty issues-based democracy is a lot stronger in that setting, than it is in contemporary America.

Finally... I'm with hyzmarca about skin color racism. It's so strong in so many people's minds, that it would not vanish in 2011, especially with the NAN *defining* their ruling caste along racial lines. SR4 BBB also says that sexuality discrimination ends in the Fourth World, and I find that implausible. I personally favor treating sexuality between consenting adults as part of one's personal life and not the business of the State, but still, a) some people disagree really strongly and that doesn't change overnight, and b) there's a difference between couples who have children easily, vs. those who need to adopt or use high tech.

A core element of the novel "Starship troopers" that was left out of the movie was that only people who served in the army could vote, but everyone, no matter their abilities, could serve - you had a right to serve in the army, and the army was obligated to find a post for you. The actual example used in the book was (paraphrasing from memory) "if you're blind, deaf and paralysed, and can only move your left hand, then we still have to find a job for you - maybe as a sponge tester".

As far as racism goes, people who shoot others for money or kicks (and how many sociopathic runners do we know?) complaining about racism sounds hypocritical to me.

Unsurprising, seriously down here, today if an ork appeared and was born in Oz and spoke the slang. We would have no probs with the cobber
But the Seppo human walking down with the high and mighty vibe? nah his blood aint worth bottlin'