What do you mean? Putting the German language books up in German on the website?

If you're going to the effort of translating them you might as well publish them; however there doesn't seem to be much point to that since the material in those books - with the exception of "Shockwaves" - will be partially covered in "SoE".

Specially when taking into account there isn't that much apparent market for material on the Troll Kingdom of the Black Forest, the Elven Duchy of Pomorya and the German Catholic Church-run state of Westephalia, the feuding principalities of Mariendbad in the first place (going by the weak demand for the "Germany" sb).

I'll disagree in some parts. As I stated before the "Us too" problem of FanPro resulted in Germany being a cheap copy of the USA. And while DidS2 is too long in certain parts, it lacks in others, leaving out a lot of nice scenario hooks either due to the "infamous" Duesseldorf arrogance (There's no germany outside D-Dorf) or due to lack of research. In general I recommend against the german sourcebooks unless you need basic ideas on city layouts (Within limits!)

What they simply forgot is the whole religious conflict stuff in Westfalia, they never realised the dimensions of the "underground network" under the Ruhr valley, problems with the rather concentrated non-german minorities...

Birdy

Duesseldorf arrogance? Do we talk about the same book?
Duesseldorf got one and a half pages, Westphalen ten.
It might sound strange to you, but most of the german freelancers are not from Duesseldorf and I never feeled "Duesseldorf arrogance" while I was there... are you from Cologne or something?


Ciao,

Eismann

Nope. I don't take this on the number of pages (or the authors themselfs), more on the (in mine eyes) lack of research done on most elements of the Ruhrgebiet and Westfalia (I believe people from other parts of germany can comment on their areas). Errors that lead to FanPro leaving (IMHO) out a lot of potential adventure hooks and metaplots.

Add the general dislike I have for idea of turning Germany into a bad clone of the US (Splintering germany, civil war, elf kingdom) instead of turning it into something of it's own and you get a person massively biased against DidS.

Some material (basic city ideas, corp info, general mapping, some cult places) is usefull. But as a whole, I found both books not to my liking.

And well, it's a duty of every Westfalian to despice Düsseldorf. Just because, well, it's ähm.... Düsseldorf! )


Birdy

Neither have we. See, it's quite simple:

When it goes against Düsseldorf, we are all Northrhein-Westfalians
When it goes against Bavaria, we are non-Bavarians
When it goes against the "new" states we are all West-Germans.

In all other cases, the next town is a potential hostile foreign country.

Birdy

... and all its inhabitants do more or less speak a different language *opposed to one spoken in the home town, which is the sole correct "German"* which is a crime by itself ...

Actually, you can swim in the Rheine today without any dangers. At least in the Cologne-Düsseldorf-Duisburg area. (It's only prohibited due to current and ship traffic)

Same for air pollution. This is considerably down since the 1960's due to the relatively strict european pollution laws. The death of the east block helped a lot for rivers like the Elbe.

The description of most nuclear disasters is, as stated, a yoke. Btw. Cattenom lies at the Mosel (has it's own dam there)

As for languages, the current (age 40 and younger) generation of germans actually speak the same (Hannoveranian/Prussian) dialect as the basic language. Local dialects are mostly dying out [even in Westfalia!]

We have good relations with France for more than fifty years now (You did watch TV during the last year?) and actually had those with Russia even during the cold war. (They still feel "close" to us germans)

The Balkans are some 1000km and two countries (Austria, Italy) away. Again, one of the three major powers (Serbia) likes us and Kroatia never was an enemy either.


Still I agree that Europe should be darker. Some hints why:

The European Community is rather small but has the same population as the USA

European nations (Brits are IIRC an exception) have far stricter laws on transient registration. And the people are used to it

The european nations integrate far closer than most assume, exspecially when it comes to crime fighting

Internal security is handled by centralised organisations that can involve themselfs whenever they deem it necessary (FBI's a whimp compared to that)

European states have central police and criminal police organisations and "Central law break local law"

Europe will never bow to the big business the same way the US did. Remember that european weapon laws are far stricter than US. No "Shiawase against..." here.

This is old europe. We do thinks in a civilised manner. No "exteritorrial corps". Not here monsieur. Instead it's bribes, interest organisations, networks and good ole blackmail.

Personally, I find the idea of a state that is out to:

+ Protect me from all harm and all potential criminals
+ Actually does give benefits to the average citizen
+ Protect the environment at all costs
+ Considers "camera observation" a method of public security
+ Even today issues more evasdropping permissions than the US
+ Is centralised and uses "one big database"

far worse than the "dozends of battling megas" approach that was used in the end. In the UCAS it takes cunning rats. In the concrete and steel world of a centralised United Europe it takes rats of stainless steel.

Birdy

So's the rest of the UCAS from Seattle - more so. And the interlying spaces are far less populated, Australia-style. No longer a common language though from coast to coast: which (before the Shadowrun universe) used to be something of a unifying factor.

Question:

What racial questions? Where did I raise racial questions?

If you refer to the various non-white / non continental-european minorities IRL, well they would have made for a nice bit of adventure hooks

As for the distance - I was refering to that as a buffer from crisis and problems. There never was a common language with Austria (they do speak a different dialekt!) or Italie (last I heard they still speak one of those funy romanian languages instead of a prober germanic one ) Still, there are two resonably strong nations to shield germany from many of the balcan troubles.

Is for the same place -> two different countries, I live in that best place on earth. (Germany that is!) Have collegues and neighbours from the former UdSSR. Was/are a regular visitor to Kroatia.
Birdy

Actually I was suggesting that you were not raising them, and that although I saw them as relevant to the question I was not going to raise them either. Obviously I did so poorly.

I did catch the history and nationalism thing, Synner - one reason why I wasn't bringing into it either ius sanguinis or some of the recent incidents involving apartment buildings housing primarily Turks, three generations born in Germany but never German. (And for that matter Algerians/Turks in Paris, and Pakistanis/Indians in Britain.) Those kinds of topics can get very heated, very quickly: not least because in most cases they are not "just" history but very much family history - the past very much alive in the present and continually shaping the future. Nor are individual (if not truly isolated) incidents typical of all who live in a given area - but as I have argued before in the context of magicians in the Shadowrun world, a relatively small percentage of people can have a disproportionate influence on their social environment.

So I chose to address the different sense of space and population density as well as mono/multilingualism instead. I thought that might prove a bit less inflamatory. (Btw I'm hoping you and yours weren't personally harmed by the forest fires or heat wave, Synner and Birdy ...?)

Thanks the question, none harmed here except for sweating a lot. Btw, you from the US or Europe? (Sounds like American in Europe IMHO)

Birdy