Okay, I get that Shadowrun is primarily set in north America (and usually in Seattle) but my friend brought up some good point when I was explaining shadowrun to him for the first time.

1)What is the deal with the EU. I know the European Union is kinda like one group politically now, but how does it work? Is it kinda like the UN for Europe? or is Europe now like the U.S., with each Country having roughly equivalent power to a U.S. State?

2)What was the deal with Japan?!?!?!?! Randomly, they decided (for no reason) to become an imperialist state again? I know that they put up a cheap energy collector that stabalized third-world asia (and gave the government control over those areas) but what is the deal with the factious dictatorship? And yes, I DO know what I am talking about, I, personally, have lived in Japan for a year and those guys care nothing for empires.

3)What is the deal with Tir Na Nog? Are they as isolasionist as Tir Tangier was, or are they as open as Tangier is now?

Not sure about 1 or 3.

Please, take this in the Socratic sense it is meant, but do you really think you can figure out a whole country in a year? If so, I would like to introduce you to some anthropologists I know. They could do with that kind of perspicacity.

The game of Shadowrun developed in an era when America thought Japan was going to kick its economic ass in the near future. There was even talk of invading Japan as a preemptive strike to forestall that horrible eventuality. It was a silly fear, and the game built a silly world model to fit it.

Shadowrun was conceived in the late 80s, before Japan's lost decade and when there was a good bit of fear about Japanese economic dominance. It's a pretty common cyberpunk trope.

Tir na Nog is possibly even more isolationist than Tir Tairngire is. Especially with the current state of events, and the relative loosening of the borders that Tir Tairngire has had.

No, of course I can't figure out an entire culture in a year, what I should have said was:

"Over the course of one year that I spent in Japan, I made many friends. All of them seemed friendly and easygoing, and none of them seemed to strike me as wanting to take over the world. While they do like their own history, most of them view the Japanese Emperor as a figurehead and I got the distinct impression that they preferred democracy to the semi-imperialist state that they had during the second world war." However, that seemed long winded, so I decided to cut it down, sorry for the confusion.

The European Union broke down and got resurrected as the NEEC (dunno what that stands vor) and is what (in my opinion) it used to be: a union for economic strength and nothing more.

because of mainland Japan's small size and corresponding lack of natural resources, as well as their large population, "imperialism," actually makes a great deal of sense.

I mean, not that any REAL world power would ever use it's military forces for the sake of expanding the reach of its corporate interests in order to acquire the resources (hypothetical speaking, let's say petrochemical) it needs to sustain it's current culture. No, that would be absurd, wouldn't it.

Like someone else said, being in Japan a year means SQUAT, because I lived there for a year too, and I totally find the idea feasible. If you think that imperialism wouldn't float there, then you must spend a massive amount of time blocking out billboards, advertisements, free tissues, and the contents of people's homes, because corporate imperialism runs rampant over the lives of most Japanese (and really most first-world capitalist nations in general) even today.

New European Economic Community

The answers to your questions are detailed in the Shadows of Europe and Shadows of Asia sourcebooks.

1) As has been stated, the political-economical union that is the EU collapses under the stresses of the 21st century and the original idea behind it, that of an economic community, is resurrected in the New European Economic Community (born in 2062 iirc) in which states and megacorporations share policy-making power and foster "integration". The exact details of the new deal are explained in Shadows of Europe - you can expect to find few changes by 2070 since Lofwyr's little trick allowed Europe to fare better than other parts of the world during Crash2.0.

2) The events of the Awakening and the ascension of the Japanacorps are only two of the contributing factors to Japan's return to Imperialism. Several other elements are detailed in Shadows of Asia and Corporate Enclaves.

3) Tir na nÓg was going through some serious troubles of its own when we last visited it in Shadows of Europe, but remained rabidly insular. Catalyst hasn't gotten round to revisiting it in 2070 yet.

It should also be said that the idea of Japan establishing an economic empire in the 80's wasn't just the imaginings of paranoid Americans, but was also part of Japanese corporate culture at the time. I haven't read Corporate Enclaves yet though so I'm not sure about how SR deals with the specifics.

To #2, look at real world events. Japan has greatly increased their "Defense Force" capabilities over the last several decades, but have not had to worry too much because of the fact big bad USA was there to protect them if North Korea or China decided to get a little payback for WW2. As the US now needs to commit forces to other causes in the world, and the fact that China and our own Economic destinies become more intertwined, it would make sense that some in Japan would like to see a stronger military to defend itself. In the SR version of history, the US gets it's nose bloodied in what basically is a civil war, China starts balkanizing, and North Korea invades South Korea. Russia has it's hands full in Euro Wars as well and later its own insurgency to deal with in Siberia. Japan, as the only "real" economic and military superpower left in the area had to be aggressive to protect their own interests (especially corporate ones.)
As far as the Japanese not being militaristic enough in real life to want an Empire?
I'm an American, and I would consider most of my countrymen (and countrywomen) to not be warmongering loons that blindly follow everything our leaders tell us. Yet it would be utter folly to not think we are an Empire. Really, the only reason we can't call ourselves one is that we don't have an Emperor as a figurehead, yet we have military forces all over the globe, and have basically reshaped the political landscape of quite a few countries to be more favorable to American interests. I would say in the SR world, most Japanese don't really have a care of the notion of Empire one way or another, as long as their standard of living remains the same or better. That's why you start to see cracks in the Empire when Japan starts having it's share of chaos and the common folks start questioning why the hell the government is pouring all the Nuyen into these far flung areas of the world when the shit hits the fan at home. All modern National governments are essentially oligarchies, whether elected, born into, bought, or taken by force. A small percentage of the populace decides what course a Nation will go, and as long as the bread stays buttered the rest of the populace is more than happy to go along for the ride. Whether or not the SR world Japanese masses hated the idea of Imperialism or not, apathy will always be the unsaid vote of confidence.

Indeed, What more need be said... Well Put...

Suck up. No extra karma for you.

And I was so Hopeful Too...

I know it was only a spelling mistake of what should have been Tir Tairngire but but Tir Tangier? Now I'm getting mental images of elves of the desert and a Tir based in the Maghreb. Well it was a seperate international zone for 33 years.

Those darn pesky elves go everywhere and get into everything if you let 'em.

Damned Elves