Anything in the source books that give the location of the Tir Tairngire embassy is in Seattle?

Thanks

Thanos

Actually the embassy would be in Washington DC. The Tir would most likely have a consulate in Seattle. Consulates differ from embassies in several ways. First the ambassador works out of the embassy, a consulate merely has a Consular General. The consulate usually only holds consular (visa issuing) offices, and usually a commercial office (the host government helping their businesses in the local market). Usually the intelligence agencies only have minimal undercover operatives working out of a consulate because the diplomatic immunity differs substantially from that enjoyed by diplomates working out of a embassy. To give you a better idea of the inter workings of an embassy US Department of State

I'm fairly sure Seattle, being the unique place it is, and being one of the few places you can get direct access to the Tir from, has a full on Embassy.

It will be in one of four places:

Tarislar in Downtown. Its the Elven District, but is more residential and touristy than business like.

Downtown proper, in whatever district all the other Embassies are in

Council Island. The elves and the NAN don't get on that well, but they certainly used to. It may be that there are legacy arrangements that place the embassy here.

Sea-Tac airport. Their check-in area is extraterratorial, and it would seem logical given the diplomatic effort probably required to maintain such an agreement (whenever theres an incident tensions will fluctuate) that they might just put their Embassy here to save hassle.

I don't know where it is Canon-wise but theres a few ideas.

There used to be embassies--not consulates, embassies--in Seattle. In the original Seattle SB, Congress had granted the Metroplex the authority to send and receive ambassadors on its own behalf. Some of the countries with embassies were NAN, Tir, Japan, Korea, and Russia. Tir would especially be a key trading country given that for several years all their seaborne trade went through Seattle.

And whether they were still there (along with insinuations of conscription) after New Seattle (God, what a sorry name) the fact is that for a good decade or so in SR that was the way things worked. Actually, it would be rather interesting if the situation changed just for the adventure. Hell, the adventure already existed in the Seattle SB where Seattle's ambassadors and the UCAS ambassadors were butting heads and (usually the Seattle ambassador) would get cornholed by the President's buddy in the region.

Unless someone can come up with canon which says it doesn't then there's a case to be made either way. Seattle in 2060 has I beleive an NSA office there, which is also very unusual. There are lots of other things that Seattle ordinarily wouldn't have but does because of its isolated and special status. I'm was just suggesting places where embassies (and specifically Tir Embassies) might be if they were there. When i say 'where all the other embassies are' I should probably add the qualifier 'if you accept there are embassies in the first place'. That better?

Well, I just wanted to mention that for completeness sake. Frankly, I'd put it in in Bellevue because, well, downtown can be "dangerous" and the security around the Tir embassy would rival that of most Israeli embassies nowadays--and a lot of space would be preferable, as opposed to cramped into a downtown office building, which is where many of them are AFAIK. I know that when I was involved in a campaign that featured the Russian Embassy, we decided to move it out of the offices of the Consulate-General and put it in Bellevue where the official offices and the Ambassador's Residence would be on the same property--a couple of buildings, maybe about an acre. The Tir would probably be about the same size I imagine.

I figure if they can arrange Embassy Row in D.C. to be in probably the nicest neighborhood in the entire city (or one or two of them), the same should exist in Seattle.


Right now doing a quick google on seattle consulate gets me this list of Consulates and their addresses.

Id say it would be in the elven district, in a very nice building, but it would be VERY VERY well defended, but in a VERY covert way, the ornaments and decorative archways and such would hid MAD scanners, Chemsniffers and popup turrets. all the guards would be Tir Ghosts and although from the outside it would look like afriendly inviting place with lots of gardens and such, anyone who knew how well defended it was would be VERY SCARED

like, a big open "public garden" around it that is closed of a night, but open to sightseeers every day, in the garden are shrubs, flowers and decorative grasses. (nothing that could provide any real cover) the garden beds would be raised enough to be decorative but would force anyone trying to hide from the turrets to flat belly crawl. There would be the odd large decorative arch, lightpole or small stactue that was rigged as a MAD sensor or a Chemsniffer (as i said above) and the decorative facade on the building would conceal many popup turrets, manned by a CCSS rigger.

Ghosts? Aren't the border patrol guards munchie enough? The Ghosts are not a defensive force that would spend most their time sitting on their asses watching trid. The border gaurd would probably be the ones providing security, with a paramilitary-trained security element (fuck it--a SWAT team) just in case. However, the problem with them being in an elven district is that by moving them outside of (what I'll call for simplicity sake) Seattle Embassy Row is that you automatically lose an added element of security that exists with the security inherent to a bunch of embassies being nearby. Likewise, there would already be a permanent security presence right outside the gates in such a neighborhood provided by the Metroplex. While this is generally the Secret Service's job (even for some consulates outside Washington and UN missions in New York) I imagine that Congress told Seattle that if they wanted embassies, then providing security is their problem--i.e. regular Lone Star patrols. At the Tir embassy, there are probably Lone Star (CorpSec, whatever) officers patrolling outside the gates 24/7 anyway.

Likewise, getting into some embassies is harder than others. Given the circumstances, I can't imagine there being a great need for consular duties, which would restrict the need for a great deal of "foreign" entrances into the embassy. Nor do I expect the ambassador's residence to be utilized for much entertaining, so the residence is not going to look like this (i.e. not at the top of a hill in plain sight for half a mile down the road).

Tank traps, or some version of them would be expected, possibly even dual walls spaced at least 10-20m apart with a zero-zone in between. Likewise, all structures are probably between 100m to 150m away from the walls (and, oh, yes, the walls are probably a sight to behold). I'm reminded of both the description of the walls in CFS (the walled enclaves in L.A.) and a house described in NAGRL from which a runner had to extract someone (pre-CCSS, too, so it was "easier"). Magical security would be insane (natch).

The irony is, why bother? It's not the US or Israeli embassy, which justifiably require the enhanced security nowadays. But since when did anything about the Tir make sense?

Tarislar? I thought that place was a dump? And if they were able to get into the land of pointy eard milk and honey, wouldn't they have legged it to the Tir by now? I figured they'd be the people they didn't want, with possibly a smattering of people they chucked out or ran. :/

And on the Ghosts, yeah, that's a little over the top. That'd be the equivalent of having people like Delta or SAS sitting around doing guard duty. More likely to be culled from an elite unit of the Peace Corps, ala the Marine Corps Security Guard program.

I agree a team of ghosts is to much. Though i think one ghost as command or a retired ghost would be on site.

Being a former Marine Security Guard (Embassy Guard), I'd agree the Ghost idea is a bit much. Embassy security is centered around several guards maintaining technology-enhanced patrols. This would be with the intention of detecting any intrusion and initiating a rapid, coordinated response. The guards would know the building like the back of their hand and would have the benefit of being in a high security area of the city and being high on the priority list for local patrols. There would be many sensors and other technical security precautions (see SOTA 2063 pgs 79-104 for more ideas). Keep in mind a drone rigger would be very quick to respond as would astral security. Elementals would have a very quick response, could be guided by a on-call mage in the astral, and could materialize right in front of the intruding team. While ghosts would be a bit much, the guards may be members of the military that are being considered for the Ghosts so would still be very competent.

Not all embassies are located in country capitals. In fact, sometimes one country's embassy to another is located in a third country!

As to significantly armed embassy guards / possible Ghosts: surely it hasn't been that long since the (real life) machine gun fire incident in the UK? If the concept of diplomatic pouches still exists and is (mostly) honoured, I don't think it would be in any way extreme to assume that in the SR world, an insular, militaristic, and (in several circles) unpopular country would manage to move weapons into their embassies and consulates, along with the personnel appropriately capable of using them.

That's generally when the place is too piddly to really be bothered with. In that case the ambassador to a neighbouring country is usually also accredited to the third country as well as the one they're in.

And on embassies and machine guns, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Since embassies are literally a piece of the country's land- and therefore under their laws- they can quite openly bring in all the hardware they want. IIRC, US Marine guards openly carry M-16's and the like. Having something like a SAW tucked away out back as part of the fast reaction team wouldn't be that far-fetched either.

So why would Ghosts on Tir embassy ground arouse so much surprise in this thread?

But as to the country being "too piddly", I know of a few European countries with populations in the several millions, where embassies to them from other countries with populations in the several millions are located in third countries. We aren't talking Luxembourg here!

It's also a cost thing. If they can get away without one, then in todays climate of government cutbacks they'll do it to free up money for elsewhere.

And on the Ghosts, it's more a question of skills. These guys are meant to be the Tir's best troops. Having them tied up sitting about the embassy 24/7 would be a waste of resources. Marines could do almost as well in the limited circumstances and they're a lot more numerous and cheaper to train.

Why not Ghosts? Because they are supposed to be eleite Special Ops goons. They aren't very many of them, and they are too valuable to waste on a boring security guard position. I'm sure the Tir could find more *ahem* interesting tasks for them.

Well, Tel Aviv was the capital of Israel until not that long ago. Depending on who you talk to, it still is.

Re Ghosts and tank-style overkill, that would seem to depend on the perceived value of those sent to perform diplomatic duty. Are out-of-Tir postings considered hardship postings, an exile to an unwanted frontier? Are Tir diplomatic staff up-and-comers to be (on the high end of) reasonably protected against their future contribution to the country? Or are they selected from among the best in the nation, to be protected at all costs?

Individual country-by-country and even game-by-game answers to those would seem to dictate the degree of military skill on-call within the embassy.

As to embassies and alternate (third) countries, here's one example I dug up:

The Canadian Embassy to Slovenia
c/o The Canadian Embassy
Zugligeti ut. 51-53
Budapest Hungary

The population of Hungary is around 10.2 million. The population of Slovenia is around 2 million.

Of all the explanations brought up in the last few posts, what do you think would be the reason for this one? Too piddly? Just not having the diplomatic corps? Honorary consul? Aren't recognised by the host country? They do have an ambassador to Slovenia, so the "don't care" doesn't apply - especially since Canada's embassies to Croatia and Bosnia are in Croatia and Bosnia respectively, both of which became countries at approximately the same time.

Any guesses? I don't have any - but any that could potentially apply might also apply within the SR nation-fragmented world.

Slovenia is probably a too small country to justify an embassy. Though Croatia and Bosnia are slightly more populated and Croatia has a little bit stronger economy, the main reasons for Canada to have diplomatic representation there are probably the peacekeeping troops they had for some time (and maybe a Canadian participation to post-war reconstruction). Slovenia didn't require such efforts.

The typical reason for a state to maintain or not an embassy somewhere is the amount of people travelling between the two countries. The embassy delivers the visas to enter the country and take care of their fellow countrymen when needed. That's true for about every country. There are some countries that matter a little more and requires a staff no matter how much people travel to maintain a military, judiciary or economical cooperation for instance, or avoiding war (heh, US did have an embassy in Moscow). A state can have no embassy because it doesn't recognize the country : US has no embassy in Bhutan for that reason, while the "American Institute in Taiwan" play a role similar to a real embassy. Also between Gulf War and Iraq war a lot of countries kept their embassies closed in Baghdad. For instance there was no longer a French embassy, only a "French interests section" hosted by the Romanian embassy (the US had a similar office, I think it was at the Polish embassy).

I found Embassy World while googling.

BTW, for a comparison with real world Tir Tainrgire is roughly equivalent to Finland: 5 millions inhabitants and 25,000 $/¥ (assuming parity) GDP per capita. I don't think having immortals governing the country could make the Tir more powerful diplomaticaly than its economy and population would. Finland has embassies in about 70-75 countries around the world, to be compared with top countries like US or France who have embassies in all but a dozen or so of the 192 sovereign states in the world. I guess the Tir wouldn't have embassy in Aztlan, California and Tir na nOg. On the other hand, the whole "elven promised land" thing might include an extra number of embassies around the world to deliver visas to the elves willing to live there.

Seattle is a top spot for travel to and fro from Tir. Perhaps they put an embassy there to also keep an eye on the trouble makers they exiled there?

I doubt Ghosts would guard, though some might appear (and dissappear) in rotation.

Also, the Boarder Gurads cannot be too l33t, as the fraggin' Spikes hit them and live well enough.

I've got more counterarguments re the example I pulled up (among other things, economic stability is a major factor for being invited into the EU!), but that's neither here nor there. The only point I was really trying to make with it was that the situation exists, and thus might exist within SR.