For various political and flavor reasons, I happen to find political Balkanization extremely loathsome in general, even more so if applied to Europe and North America. Do you think it may be possible to rework the setting so that it is averted or greately reduced in compaison to canon and if so, how the setting would be different ?

Elements that I would like to change in the setting:

UCAS, CAS, and CFS never break out and stay a single functional federal state. The whole idiotic Japanese occupation of California mess never happens.

Leaving aside how I find the whole rise of the NAN affair so ridiculous, the territorial gains of the NAN are never so extreme. The UCAS keep at the very least the whole of California, Texas, and Ontario, as well as the whole Seattle-Vancouver metroplex. Preferably, the territorial gains of the NAN are further shrinked by about 35% - 50%.

Germany, France, Italy, Benelux, and Spain remain functional unitary states, and join into a functional federal EU superstate. Germany reunifies with Austria.

Germany does what now?

I honestly don't think you can remove balkanization and retain Shadowrun in a recognizable shape. Balkanization is a key tool to rewrite the geopolitical map enough to allow for heavily armed unaffiliated mercenaries to exists and thrive.

I mean, you're welcome to ignore that and completely rework the world but you're uh... completely reworking the world. If there are still massive functional nation states than their defense apparatus must be intact and all their shadowy backstabbing is going to get done by the same people who have always done it... the intelligence agencies. They might utilize private contractors but eeeeh... those are more like company men than runners.

Of course that's only my opinion.

And... Germany does what?

What's a Germany?

Germany becomes the new Nazi Empire, that's what it seems to do in Wanderer's opinion.

Oh, to actually answer the question, no, I don't believe it would be possible. Happy, functional governments are a bit counter to the whole (post)cyberpunk thing. Reunified states are the purview of Star Trek and other quasi-utopian sci-fi settings.

I bet he's talking about the Anschluss.

That would make it legal to commit acts of violence aimed at toppling the gouvernment...

That's wrong on so many levels ... Wanderer, there is nothing to reunify there, as much as the US propably wouldn't want to be reunified with Australia and the UK.

Also, Benelux is NOT a state, Belgium is pretty much balkanising as we write this thread, and generally, I don't think some parts of countries in Europe seceding is so out of there (The German setting in it's current shape, yes, but split differently I could see that, as in a north/south/east divide). Spain is quite close to falling apart too, Italy has a strong secessionist movement, there's the Basque and Corsican secessionists in France and Spain ...

Maybe it's a bit odd with the US, but in Europe, balcanisation can indeed happen. And you had your secessions too, already, in the US, so it can happen to you too, given the right (or wrong) political and social conditions.

Not that comparatively weak federations of states wouldn't work with a CP setting - or the US taking the role of the evil Japanese in the setting (think GitS' Imperial Americana). There're unaffiliated mercenaries IRL, too, albeit not on the level they're present in SR. There'Re also corporate mercenaries. You certainly could work with that. Only, the setting would present itself much more like GitS SAC than gritty, street-style, 'cyberpunk' Shadowrun.

hey folks, if Anglo US can unify with Anglo Canada, what do you find so strange about German Bundesrepublik and German Austria deciding to do the same ?

Doc makes a strong point, but I think he's wrong on one count.

Shadowrun is built on the understanding that the current paradigm of socio-political economics would stand for another hundred years. This paradigm is based on the understanding that the nation-state is inherently stronger than just about any other political structure, and it's only when the nation-state is very small, and the corporation very big that they come to have even comparable power. Therefore, to allow the corporations to rise to the top, they had to break nations into smaller chunks.

We may see that this is in fact not the case, thanks to several relatively recent and quite major advancements, which are making decentralization more efficient and safer than the single nation-state. Compounding the rise of the effectiveness of decentralized organizations, or community-based structures, and the loss of effectiveness of the nation-state and things like compounding debt, this could allow for the corporations to become more powerful than the government. They would leave most of the government structures in place because it costs more to run them than they're worth (things like the courts, etc.), although they would keep a finger in those pots. However, they would basically force services which are profitable (such as police) to be opened up to corporate control.

In a Shadowrun world, the result would be a central government which looks big and tough, but really wields very little power. From appearances, it wouldn't be too different from the current government, actually. You'd see politicians tied to several different powerful corporations vying for power. Perhaps one from a major petrochemical conglomerate would be yielding power to one funded primarily significantly by banking corporations. The politicians themselves would basically be figureheads, who would just share the talking points given to them by the people who REALLY pay their salaries (a $250k salary is nothing when you get paid $50M a year in 'campaign donations'). The politicians carefully sell off government assets, while making doubletalk on why it's good for the taxpayer. The government itself would, eventually, become basically just a political veil to conceal what is really there; huge, corporate-owned government debt, a bunch of people each playing to their corporate handlers, and almost no services offered to the taxpayer that couldn't be done cheaper if a big cut weren't going to the government contractor 'overhead'.

Germany reunifying with Austria (or for that matter, France with Wallonia, or Flanders with Netherland) is much more akin to the USA and British Canada getting into one. Since the latter happens into the setting, I wish for something similar to happen into Europe as well.



Which might just lead to the Flanders-Netherlands unification.



90% of its following is a thinly-veiled excuse for fiscal rebellion, listen to an Italian. In practice, they are the more extreme, eccentric, cryptoracist wing of Berslusconi's right-wing authoritarian populism. Give the North the free rein at tax dodging they crave, and that secessionism quickly withers to a joke, belive ne.



GitS and SAC standing for ???

Personally I could not care less for street-level and gritty , what I really fancy in SR is the mixture of plausible non-conspiratorial urban fantasy and post-cyberpunk near-future sci-fi. So this is a non-issue for me, I fancy high-powered, cinematic RP and never play anything street-level.

the historical dimension of this proposal makes it... strange

anyway, why would both countrys want to unify? There is no need for it, not as with the US and canada.

If an SS saves a child's life from drowning, does the fact that he's an SS make the survival of the child wrong ? The fact that the Nazi were what they were, does not make everything they did, wrong, and not to be done ever again, including completing the German national unification with the Anschluss.



Was there a strict need for West Germany and East Germany to reunify ? They would reunify for much the same reasons US and Canada would do. Cultural and political affinity, economic advantage, closing ranks and building a stronger political and economic base against a world in chaos. As long as the EU stands, it's probably unnecessary, but if the former falls...

Germany is quite complete wihtout austria, as austria is complete without germany. Please be careful when you talk about a complete germany INCLUDING austria.
As you can see, the issue of a unification of germany and austria is quite disputed (especially in germany, to explain my PoV). And I don't need such topics in a roleplaying game. I don't wanna discuss the thrid reich, the nazis or their political heritage within my hobby.




There is a difference between east germany and austria though. Austria has centruies of its own history as a seperate state while the GDR was seperated from the rest of germany for "only" about 40 years (and both states always claimed that they were in fact representing the whole of germany). Germany also has cultural and political affinity to france, the netherlands, luxemburg, switzerland or denmark. but as with austria the matches are not that striking (except for the language of course).

Dividing Belgium between france and the Netherlands is a somewhat viable idea. 'Reunifying' Austria and Germany isn't. It carries a ton of historical baggage that is only so much as hinted at with the Anschluss.

America and British Canada don't really have that kind of history, believe me. More than a few millions died over that idea.


As would the Italian state, because noone int eh south pays taxes to begin with. Also, ask a Venetian what he thinks of the people of the Mezzogiorno.


Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex - a TV show that many modern (post)cyberpunk stuff is extremly influenced by.


Again, sorry, you have no idea what you're talking about here. YES, there was a very strict need for the two countries to reunify. Division and overcoming it was written in either state's constitution (it was article 8 in the West GErman constitution and fairly high on the agenda in the East too, though they were very mellow about it ever since they put the wall up - they weren't singing their anthem since then either, since unity plays a rather prominent role there). You absolutly cannot understand the emotional nature of the reunification question - economically, politically, and socially, it actually was WRONG. Germany today has many problems it wouldn't have had otherwise. Yet still, it's mainly considered a right decision. Reunification day is the national holiday. That just cannot be compared to Brit Canada + US, sorry.


Okay, just accept you're talking about very sensitive topics here you don't know anything about. Bottom line: Austria isn't German. If you're thinking they might want to merge because they happen to speak the same language, you're deluding yourself. That just won't happen, any more than the US crawling back to the UK to be accepted back into the Commonwealth, and recognize the queen as head of state.

Let's stay with splitting Belgium between France and the Netherlands, shall we?

GitS = Ghost in the Shell - Amine / Manga

SAC = Stand Alone Complex - a TV series based on GitS

it was article 23

(no offense, just to make me feel I'm not studing law for nothing )

Ah, okay. My bad. Geez, PW classes were a long time ago, apparently.

ah come on, 90% of all germans don't know that such an article existed, not to mention what number it had

technically, there was quite the opposite going on in germany not too long ago . . there was talk about things like the north state, schleswig-holstein, hamburg, Bremen and mecklenburg-vorpommern with the Föderalismus-Reform i believe . . and one south state including Rheineland-Pfalz, Saarland, Bavaria and Bade-Württemberg . . and the rest of the states were to more or less form the middle state . . but that's pretty much been nixed . . or at least, nobody ever talks about this anymore . .
as for political heritage regarding the third reich: fuck that noise . . for over four years, they hammered me and my classmates with history concerning ONLY the third reich . . one day i had gotten so fed up with that shit that i asked my teacher if he wanted me to heil him with him telling me so much about that . .
next person saying something like the collective/inherited guilt to me will get an earfull from me . .

You only say that to make me feel better.

Works, though.

But - back to topic.

Balcanisation has been happening sicne the 1950s big time already. Our world is strongly shaped by balcanisation, though it appears we may be reentering a phase of unification, what with the EU slowly consolidating and regional governments generally banding together. Hoever, the UN still has about three times the members it had when it was founded after the War.


... which would have made the Badensian liberation front of Hedwig whatsherface from DidS2 a reality for sure. Would've made sense though, small as Germany is compared to other important countries to begin with, from an economic/political point of view. Federalism is a shot in the state's knee anyway, the way it's handled in Germany ... but you cannot get past this any more the Kaiser of Holy Roman Empire times had any chance of getting past the various local souvereigns.

I'm not sure I agree with any statement about an ongoing trend towards decentralization, especially considering that the EU provides fairly 'manifest' evidence that everything is actually going towards consolidation.

Anyway, the real questions is are

A) Are you going to remove extraterritoriality, which is seriously stupid.

B) Whats going to happen in Asia? Will they still balkanize, or will they consolidate their powers and further liberalize their economies and societies?

If Asia balkanizes so, the changes in shadowrun are going to be national actors in europe and north america fighting against non national actors from the middle east, south america, africa and asia.

If Asia doesn't balkanise, its non national actors in the middle east, south america and africa screwing the pooch while everyone else gets on with life.. you know, much like today!

Generally, instead of the seperate 'native states' in north america and australia, you've going to have situations more like NZ today, where there are seats in the congress and senate for particular ethnic groupings - in Australia, these are likely to be quite a considerable power bloc, and will have a role in forming any government. In the US, they may be a bit less important, but still essential.

Changes: Balkanisation in Asia Scenario

-> Balkanisation in Asia is more cyberpunk and dystopic. Only two 'civilised' (I use that with great distaste) nations standing against the tide.

-> European players are going to be agents of the government, governments which, in europe in particular, will probably trend more authoritatiarian

-> Players in asia are living in a warzone smattered with weak states and high crime. Most of the worlds natural resources are here, so lots of shadowrun-esque espionage going on, but more on a 'blackwater' or 'total intelligence' level, with players as part of an organisation with a structure and support, rather than 4 guys I met down the pub level.

So players might be hired by BHP to blow up a Rio Tinto mining facility, or hired by the CIA as a deniable asset to go kneecap some islamic terrorists in Tehran.


Changes: Consolidation and liberalisation in Asia Scenario

Its going to be rather dull, because seriously its like today except the 'red menace' is going to have chilled out in the intervening 60 years and probably be quite chilled if fairly conservative and authoritarian still.

sad but true.
southern germans call us northerners north-lights or fish head, we northerners pretty much call everything south of the elbe bavaria and everything east of Rost(d)ock DDR or Zone/Ost-Zone and everything west of Bonn France . . but eh, we're germans, we're allowed to do that ^^


yeah, pretty much . . heard the news yet? Bavaria got a roof built over it. now it's the worlds largest mental asylum . .
and NOBODY WANTS TO BUILD A WALL! . . a nice and deep moat, that'd be something . .

Not really, more like ... invasive and regulating, in theory for the well of the people, while in reality establishing more and more regulations to take away the peoples' free will for the sake of whatever morals are in fashion.


Yeah. I'm from Berlin. I just look down on you all.

To be honest, I don't think that it would make that much difference in the grand scheme of things for 95%+ of the games out there.

Oh noez! The outskirts of Seattle are still in Washington State! It's totally not SR now! You can't do missions for corrupt corps! The cops can't be dirty! There can be no drugs or BTLs! The corps can't have more money than god! *bursts into tears*

No, its going to move to authoritarian because if their was a deep collapse in Asia there would be a huge refugee problem, which the quasi-facist anti immigration parties would use to bootstrap into power.

America wouldn't be exposed to the same problem because the magical dudes in South America apparently liquidated the entire population of South America to use as fertilizer.

*Wades through all the political flak*
@Nezumi=
That is an excellent point. If I'm understanding it correctly you are stipulating that sprawling Shadowrun nation states would in fact be uh... banana republics if you will, held in power by the corporations who hold most of the cards. Because of technologies that assist in a decentralized state no one would actually have to rewrite the map because... it really wouldn't matter where the lines get drawn. We still have massive corporations that need bad people to do dark things in long shadows... at the same time the US is still nominally the US. People still vote, the President still makes his state of the union address and the UN still meets to eat big steaks and do little if anything.

There's even room for extra territoriality in that equation, if in a reduced form from what we'd normally associate with the SR setting.

Up in my Case, at least geographically.
ah, yes, Berlin . . biggest Construction Site of whole Germany ^^

Excuse me, but we Austrians don't want to be united in any way (doesn't matter if reunited or just united) with the Germans. We may speak the same language, but the cultures are like Californian compared to a Texan.

But, reunite Austria and Hungary again. That would be awesome!

Please don't be so condescending. I'm very much aware of the historical baggage you talk about. I simply utterly disregard its validity beyond the judicial sentences that were carried on the actual perpetrators. IMO collective/inherited guilt is an idiotic, rotten, and racist idea which has no place or usefulness in the realities of 21st Century. To the (remarkable) degree such historical lesson (not baggage) retain validity, it is for all peoples of the world equally, as a warning against certain political ideas and deeds, not about burdening a specific people with collective inherited guilt for the ages or negating any particular people the right to exercise its democratic right to self-determination, including state unification with any other peoples. So please drop the "historical baggage" argument and discuss geopolitics and ideas on their own merits, without handing down taboos just because a loony murderous mustachioed guy did something similar generations ago, or do not discuss them at all, as your sensibilities go.

I freely concede that as politics go, German-Austrian reunification (yes, it's technically correct as the countries have already been one) is not terribly likely EXCEPT in the case that the EU or part of it truly evolves toward a federal superstate including them both. Which is not so unplausible, in the long term. I would point out that probably the unification of USA and (British) Canada probably ranges in the same range of likelihood as isolated German-Austrian unification, as the political willingness for it is firmly in the fringe nowadays. Albeit I concede that the lack of the historical baggage might make it slightly more likely. Anyway, the true reason that isolated G-A unification is so farfetched nowadays is not the baggage but the fact that the EU and the perspective of larger European unification makes it quite unnecessary. USA and Canada have no such avenue, an EU-like entity might emerge but in all likelihood it is more probable that some other event or process might make the Canadians and the Mexicans swing to regard North American unification with sympathy. The dramatic shocks of the SR timeline even if we butterfly away Balkanization, are just the kind of shock that can prod the North Americans toward unification, as it could to an even more likely degree for the Europeans. If it can do it for North America, I fully expect it's going ot do it for Europe, anyway, be it isolated nation clusters with cultural, linguistic, economic affinities joining or EU eventually evolving in the USE, thank the Universe. Personally I root for the latter, or even better the former happening within the latter. IMO Balkanization is a rotten desplicable thing, it has never brought anything but grief and bloodshed to mankind.

And returning to the core issue, political Balkanization is not really necessary to create a postcyberpunk setting. This discussion has reminded me to dig a fine old CP game, Underground, from my RPG library. It had pretty much all the typical items of the the genere, except for the cyberspace: extreme social polarization, superhuman personal enhancement, corporate hegemony, dystopic society, and it was gritty to boot. However, it did not have any Balkanization, simply corporate interests had taken over the political process and make the state their handmaiden. Three big trading blocks were fighting a Cold War with countless Third World proxy wars fought by superpowered mercenaries. The blocks were respectively hegemonized by three superpowers: USNA (USA, British Canada, and Cuba), the German-led EU, and the China-dominated Far Eastern block. In the game you played the alienated veterans of the proxy wars which were given plenty of bioware high-powered augmentations and given unconscious "superheroic" brainwashing with a comic-book VR to accept them, both things messing with their psyches heavily. In short, you played bio/geneware-only cyberzombie ex-mercenaries veterans. It was a fine idea and setting, too bad that the game mechanics were rotten.

This is just one example by which IMO Balkanization is utterly unnecessary to create and play a postcyberpunk setting, you can have the NAU and the EU becoming huge federal superstates dominated by the corporations and work for/fight them in the shadows of the variosu sprawls that dot the superstates.

Oh, I know, but your fate lies within the European superstate, neither you nor we can't escape it (thankfully)



Given that the latter share the same nation, I would not say the comparison is actually a good argument for separation...



Reuniting the HRE or better yet the Carolingian Empire trumps that in awesomeness

If my memory of European history serves me correct...

The HRE wasn't very holy, roman, or much of an empire so I'm not sure what you are aiming for here ;p

I don't really have to be psychic to foresee that this thread is headed for an early grave.

Precisely. The only question is where the line between the overarching nation-state and the small 'community' organizations. Your low-level organizations are going to include arcologies (communities bound by a parent corporation), gated communities (communities bound by a commonly accepted organizing body), street blocks (communities bound by geography), coops (communities bound by common interest), gangs, even matrix hot spots. Some of these will have the power to push the nation-state to make major concessions. I could see corporations in this world managing to cajole politicians into giving some limited extraterritoriality, with some significant conditions. They'd still pay taxes, etc., but they'd be allowed to hire private security forces with the full power of police, and no outside police can enter without a warrant (and that's not a big concern when you own the judges). Other communities won't have the same power, but they'll generally be more self-sufficient than what we see now, which leads to some significant, low-level 'balkanization', since the community you come from becomes a sort of allegiance of greater importance than nation.

*whew*

The caveat with this is you have to break off the Shadowrun timeline and shift to something more akin to our current timeline. High gas prices have made transportation of goods unfeasible. Environmentalism has resulted in a greater understanding of how to effectively grow stuff in urban areas. These result in a push for 'victory gardens' (in Shadowrun, they'd probably be hydroponic gardens). Environmentalism and, again, the rising cost of fuel, as well as an increase in natural disasters, terrorist strikes, etc. which damage infrastructure increase the reliance on local-level infrastructure, especially for electrical power. The dropping cost of 3D prototypers allow for the production of a lot of minor things at the cost of materials, things that currently benefit most from a global economy. The reduction of focus on importing produced goods means that the most critical economic forces are ideas (designs), which can be sent across national boundaries with few, if any issues (again, leading to decentralization) and raw materials.


So imagine a gated community which has several banks of windmills, or another form of electrical generation. It sports a biodiesel plant, reusing products all from within the community. It has several hydroponic gardens, producing the majority of their food needs. Most people have a personal 3D prototyper for small objects, and there are several large community prototypers for other stuff. You have either local people, knowsofts or matrix resources for many skills and services. They have rainwater storage and filtration. The community paves its roads by hiring outside contractors, since it's cheaper than paying through taxes. Same with trash collection and police protection.

What do you need the government to provide again? Not much. So the government loses relevance and, thereby, power. The corporations, of course, are still very important, since they produce all the complex goods (generally close by), and more importantly, designs, services and name-brand stuff. You still pay for your matrix connection, your deck, your cyberware, your cell phone & service, your medical service, etc.

And that would be a real pity. OK, let's scrap and restart. A variant SR setting where pretty much all the same social, magical, and technological developments occur, but political Balkanization never does or it is largely contained to some areas. To the contrary a trend towards federal centralization of North America and Europe occurs as a reaction to the chaos of the early SR timeline, even if the overarching superstates are to a large degree controlled by corporate interests.

Specifically Canada, the USA and large swaths of the Caribbean join in the UCAS, which at the very least controls all of the Northeast, the Midwest, the South, the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, and the West Coast. Possibly Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, and Hispaniola, too. The NAN may or may not exist and control the rest of the old USA/Canada territory. Atzlan may or may not exist in the place of Mexico (fancy to have another "evil empire" around, besides the Japanese) but if it does, it never expands beyond the Mexican border, northward (it might absorb Central America). If it does not, Mexico becomes a part of the NAN and/or the UCAS. Tir Tairngire, if it does exist, gets carved out of the NAN and/or Atzlan. In Europe a federal European state exist which at the very least controls all of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Low Countries, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Possibly Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Nordic countries too. UK most likely goes to do its usual isolationist thing and Ireland may or may not still metamorphose in Tir Na Nog.

argh, double post

Yes it would! I, for one, appreciate your recent effort to get it back on track though.

An approach I've toyed with was having Canada break up and Mexico disintegrate into another mad-dog revolution. IIRC, the last one killed about 9% of the population when most of the population were subsistence farmers. It would get much uglier this time. So the US ends up sort of half-ass controlling (with a healthy slather of Mexican sovereignty applied) northern Mexico, while the rest (and much of central America) are somewhere between Somalia and Nigeria. Nobody cared after oil imports stopped being a major need.

Essentially if you want to do open warfare the opportunity is there, but the major nation-states are actually intact and functioning, but pretty much self-focused. The US has interest in keeping the various "liberation" movements from once more shelling San Diego or El Paso, but the fact that Juarez is essentially controlled by the major gambling corps and organized crime, with pretty much anything goes laws doesn't bother many in the US, or the USG. And it's easy to get there, just a short drive or bus away.

We get to be California, mister. Yes we can.
(Disclaimer: I have been in Austria, and like it. Just no reason for unity, and I know enough people who are still against the German unification. France would at least make political sense.)

Given todays states, a series of financial problems could force all of them to outsource everything except the administration and military. Once you have private security providers, a shadowrunner scene can exist. With an increased quality of surveilance tech, even the secret service would be interested in deniability.

An interesting way to remove balkanisation is to stress the "unity movements", if you want to call them that. The European Community, a strong Russian Federation, a loose commercial Asian Alliance, next to a US+vassal states empire.
All those alliances would discover that a certain size just makes you unable to act meaningful. For runners you would have both internal conflicts, and conflicts between the interest groups. Corporations could still gain extraterritoriality by buying it during the next financial crisis.

I don't see a need for balcanisation for SR. Even if you don't see a way to play in Seattle without native american neighbours, there's enough of today's world that's worse off than the usual SR metroplex, and that may not change much in the future. Just set your game in Africa, parts of Asia or South America, and you're set - at least I don't see much of a difference between Sao Paolo and Seattle, the favelas are like the Barrens in many aspects, run by the gangs. All you need is corruption, weapons, and massive discrepancies between the haves and have-nots.
Africa supplies the mercenary opportunities, and industrial espionage is a reality today in many western countries. Some smaller states may be all but run by corps in the future, like some caribbean states today who have more adresses for corps than people, allowing "plausible deniability" and "de facto extraterritoriality".

Actually there are already full on extraterritorial corporate holdings in the Caribbean today.


You get to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage? I'm more proud of the USA than California right now. Strange days.

There is no such thing, except in the mind of the professional victim/professionally offended.



(Words in italics added by me, Tachi)

If you think that, then you've never seen what happens when you put a diehard Texan and a California Liberal in a room together. Believe me, sometimes separation is the only safe way.

Not only not a popular idea with the Germans, we Austrians want NOTHING to do with the idea either. There never was a unified Germany/Austria with Germany on top, not ever. Now, there was a short period with Austria as a German client state; but United? Not a hairy chance!


Isshia

Well, back in the 19th century, Prussia and Austria fought a war to settle if Austria would be part of Germany, or not. Prussia won, and Austria was no part of the Germany that was formed a few years later, after the war of 1870/71 with France.

I do not see Europe falling apart in any way. We are nowadays talking about intranationality as being a tool for reconciliation. As EU countries we would not and could not go back to a system of segregated countries. The Soviet Union and the West used the limitation of travel as a tool of nation building and political oppression. we would never go back to that kind of system.

Ireland a country that was segregated by the UK, the lowering of borders has helped in alleviating many of the difficulties of the division of Ireland and helping in travel across Europe.

I'm sorry but Shadowrun is running on antiquated political theories.

Communism is an antiquated/defunct political theory, yet it's alive and well.

I'd not go that far. "Balkanization" came from the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 90s, which isn't that far back. The official splitting of Kosovo from Serbia is even younger. There are separatist tendencies in Georgia as well, and Kurdistan may yet become a state. Belgium doesn't look that stable either.
Core Europe I don't see as splitting up, but at the periphery, all bets are off.

The EU seems to be like what the US was when originally created, in a lot of ways. I wouldn't call it a nation, nor an economic alliance, but propably a super-state (since it is above the normal nation-state level). I would imagine anything like the UCAS would be, officially, a super-state. It would say 'the UCAS provides military support, protection for trade and travel, some limited legislative and judicial activities, and that's about it'. Each nation would still have its federal government, which provides certain other things, such as a national police force, nation-specific laws, etc. Under them would be states which have different degrees of power based on the nation they're part of. This would be different from SR in that there is still the US, which is part of the UCAS (so there wouldn't be a 'reform the US' movement, but there would be a secessionist movement). OFFICIALLY, the nation holds more power, but in practice it doesn't, because it's agreed to follow all laws pased by the union, and we all know no nation would ever secede. The UCAS doesn't (at least not initially) levy taxes on people, but it does collect money directly from the nations that support it, and through fees and fines and, of course, corporate support. Since the corporations are the ones who ultimately benefit the most from having control over borders, internation commerce, etc., they would get on on the ground floor with this. It's their officers who get appointed (not elected. I don't believe anyone in the EU is elected into office, same with the UCAS then), or hired on as advisors or cabinet members. It's their money that buys the military. Initially perhaps the UCAS is a good idea genuinely meant to help people, but since the people have no say in it (again, they can't vote), but the corporations do, it's pretty quickly turned into a corporate-dominated organization.

Because there national boundaries are still respected, Aztech can still rise to power in Mexico. Because national boundaries are weaker, it is possible for states within the US to secede to Mexico, although that is quite unlikely. THis may also be the result of the US giving up some states (which have already voted to secede) in exchange for some other significant concessions on the part of Mexico/Aztechnology. I imagine this could actually make for quite an interesting story. Refer back to my previous post on how self-sufficient people become. Imagine it to a higher degree. All of a sudden, New Mexico and Arizona, almost as a whole, stop paying taxes to the US. The US cuts off trade, sends in federal police (but don't get authorization for using the UCAS military, because of politics or some unexpected interpretation of the UCAS code), but simply can't take control of the area. There's 24/7 coverage and the US is in the hot seat. They need to make a show about why people can't just leave the coutnry, or they might lose more states, or even just street blocks. Aztechnology does some back-room deals with them, setting them up with enough gear and men to make it look like they're authentically going to raise their own private army and declare war, when Aztechnology steps in at the last moment, offering to pay back all the owed taxes, plus a value to cover future taxes, and some other big concession, excusing themselves saying they can't abide a war in their backyard, and they have too much respect for democracy to not offer a third option. The US gratefully accepts and the transaction goes through. A number of high-profile secessionists are captured and put on big, showy trials, however, for basically committing treason, in order to show everyone that you don't do stuff like this.

A future investigative report shows that a lot of the gear, money and encouragement necessary to make these communities sufficiently self-sufficient, and to encourage the secessionist movement in the first place actually came originally from Aztechnology.




The NAN never made any sense. The native americans get back their reservations, plus a good deal more, all of choice land, but they're never big enough to be considered a nation worth mentioning.




The Tir may be an unofficial name for a region, not for an officially recognized nation, that exists within the US. Again, read back to my post earlier abotu the communities rising in prominence. This could be one of the larger communities, to the point that it does wield some political power, with its own local "regulations" (akin to how cities have the power to pass laws right now), but still officially a part of the US.

It's a political tool...
Politicians on both sides threaten with it all the time...
It never happens...
Conclusion: It'll never happen, no one wants it, they just threaten to do it...
If Belgium really was that unstable it would have fallen apart by now because it has no government...