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Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (Cray74)
Third, you don't need air strikes to crush a rebellion in the middle of a hostile population that outnumbers the rebels at least 150:1.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Dude. Please. I can think of one (strategic) western state where a majority (or at least, a very sizable pecentage approaching 50%) of the population would be on the NAN's side, and in canon... was. Not only out of historical ties to the native populations, but also for several political reasons which I don't need to get into but, frankly, would likely see them pulling for the Amerinds than the Anglos back East.

It also doesn't hurt that because Aztlan was originally a NAN nation, most Latinos and Chicanos were also effectively NANners (SoNA). Given the fact that peoples of Mexican descent make up between 70-80% of the entire Hispanic population (whihc is about 12% of the total US population), that's not a small amount of people who are going to stick around.

QUOTE (Playing Games)

As for the elves in power in the UCAS,look at Do6W.

"Many in DeeCee Believe that Daviar will be both the first woman and the first elf to become president..."

That's already wrong. Betty Jo Pritchard was the first woman President, and it has been mentioned as such in at least two SBs (Super Tuesday and POAD: DS).

QUOTE (Fortune)

Aina is an IE who is the mother to a half-Horror. She is not in the UCAS' pocket, but she does presently sit on the board of the Dunky Institute, along with a couple of other IEs.

Aina's on the DF board, Ehran's Chair of DIMR. They are, AFAIK, the only elves on either (save Ms. Daviar, of course).

QUOTE (Playinh Games)

My point is this the only semi valid reason the UCAS let the CFS go,is because they had other things to deal with,mainly the idea that the south would go to war,and it was hard to maintain any supplies, too or from there.The NAN being in the way and all.


Actually, the UCAS essentially kicked out California over a pissing contest. (From the Timeline):
QUOTE

2036 - In DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, California representatives recognize their secession Proposition 129 and begin to push for heavy economic and political concessions. President MacAlister calls California Governor Nelson Treacle and tells him that if his state votes to seceded he will hang them out to dry. (Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America)

2036 - In California, UCAS, lawmakers approve legislation dissolving California's political bond to the UCAS. Secession from the Union lacks only Governor Treacle's signature, but he is in Africa at the time. (Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America)

2036 - In the UCAS, upon hearing about California's bid for secession, President MacAlister goes before Congress and declares, under Article IV, Section 3 of the UCAS Constitution, California no longer qualifies as a member of the UCAS. (Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America)


The reclamation of California was one of the six or so major campaign issues in the 2057 election. It provided a significant backdrop in every chapter of the CFS sourcebook (published during the election), and has continued to remain an issue in several books up through at least SoNA. Having CA would give the UCAS access to the Pacific (without having to go through NAN lands like they do in Seattle), and more importantly, a country that is stupid rich with an incredible number of resources--specifically people, agriculture (The Central Valley is... wow), and natural resources in the northern crescent. They do lack water, but so does the NAN. Going through the NAN (PCC) would given them some control over the Colorado River (the lifeblood of the Imperial Valley and most of the southland), but ...

The risks aren't worth the rewards. Invading and occupying a country like PCC would mean putting up with foreign and internal threats that would make it incredibly stupid to prosecute without draggging the entire continent into war with itself. And CFS has repeatedly told the UCAS to piss off, so... eh.
FlakJacket
Plus Pueblo might have nukes of their own and that's always fun.
Nath
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0 @ Jan 22 2004, 01:05 AM)
Having CA would give the UCAS access to the Pacific (without having to go through NAN lands like they do in Seattle)

Errr... how to say that nicely... check a map rotfl.gif You can't go from UCAS to Californian coast without going through NAN lands. If you don't count Aztlan as a NAN, you can eventually make it crossing the CAS and Aztlan borders. But then you can also go to Seattle by crossing CAS, Aztlan, California and Tairngire (if you don't consider Tainrgire as a NAN as well). I'm not sure that what's you'd call an access to the Pacific anyway.
Fortune
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0)
Aina's on the DF board, Ehran's Chair of DIMR. They are, AFAIK, the only elves on either (save Ms. Daviar, of course).

Yeah, I meant to write Foundation instead of Institute. I knew Ehran was chair of DIMR, but I thought there was one other IE (besides Aina) lurking around there as well. Oh well.

As for everyone's comments on nukes: IIRC, the only nuke that has worked even partially the way it was supposed to since the awakening was the one used in Bug City.
FlakJacket
Yeah. As has been discussed on a number of occassions round here, nucleasr weapons do seem to have the annoying habit of fizzling in the Shadowrun world. Generally thought that mana is in some way connected with it. Although nuclear power stations seem to be still working fine so you never know.
Fortune
QUOTE (FlakJacket @ Jan 22 2004, 03:15 PM)
Although nuclear power stations seem to be still working fine so you never know.

At least the ones that didn't self-destruct. wink.gif
FlakJacket
Yeah, but that hasn't happened for a good twenty-thirty years or so. Or mainly outside of Europe. I still say that the authors nuked whole swathes of countryside because they just couldn't be arsed writing about it/wordcount. smile.gif
Playing Games
QUOTE (sable twilight)
Or if you think the NAN should have a greater population, then do so. I would suggest giving a reason for it though.

Let's deal with this one problem.THE area that the NAN has now more people than the NAN does.In some cases as much as 200%,All the NAN nations in Denver,have lost a large part of their population, to the rule of a dragon.(U)CAS also lost hundreds of thousands,but they both are nations in the hundreds of millions.

The PCC gained 6-13 million people from LA county,not counting orgen county, and the other towns,cities near there.Yet,they have a population less than 14 million.

ADD the fact that unless those natives, or close natives moved away/died, the NAN is only roughly 60% of their number today.This means no anglos in,at all.

And speaking of Denver,one could argue,that is the largest population of UTE citizens,outside of Salt Lake city.If not, it is danged close.
mfb
keep in mind that there are numerous enclaves within the NAN that aren't technically part of the country. these enclaves are roughly analogous to the indian reservations today--they pretty much govern themselves. it's easily possible that these enclaves are not counted in the population numbers given by the books.
sable twilight
QUOTE (Playing Games @ Jan 22 2004, 02:26 AM)
QUOTE (sable twilight @ Jan 21 2004, 06:53 PM)
Or if you think the NAN should have a greater population, then do so.  I would suggest giving a reason for it though.

Let's deal with this one problem.THE area that the NAN has now more people than the NAN does.In some cases as much as 200%,All the NAN nations in Denver,have lost a large part of their population, to the rule of a dragon.(U)CAS also lost hundreds of thousands,but they both are nations in the hundreds of millions.

The PCC gained 6-13 million people from LA county,not counting orgen county, and the other towns,cities near there.Yet,they have a population less than 14 million.

ADD the fact that unless those natives, or close natives moved away/died, the NAN is only roughly 60% of their number today.This means no anglos in,at all.

And speaking of Denver,one could argue,that is the largest population of UTE citizens,outside of Salt Lake city.If not, it is danged close.

And your issue with the population is what exactly? And it is a problem in what way? Is it you have a tough time believing the population drop? That the NAN kicked the Anglos out? That the Hispanics in the region didn't head south to the promised land of Aztlan when it formed up? Or that there was a plague that hit and wiped out a large chunk of the world's population?

You keep bring up the same thing, and only thing up, over and over, that the NAN does not have a large enough population to hold back a military attack from Aztlan, CFS, UCAS, or CAS, yet you ignore just about every other point that has been made.

Yes, you are right, if it were a one on one fight between the NAN and the UCAS, the UCAS would cream the NAN. But you repeatedly fail to consider that it would not be and never be a one on one fight between the UCAS and the NAN. It would end up being the UCAS against a coalition made of the NAN, CAS, CFS, and Aztlan. This is assuming that Europe stays completely out of the picture. Do you honestly think the UCAS, or any nation in North America for that matter, can think take on a coalition made of the other four major powers on the North American continent?

Even if the UCAS and CAS came to some sort of agreement and allied to invade the NAN, that would still be a pretty nasty fight, and not one the UCAS and CAS are guaranteed to win either.

So, that is one reason not to start a war.

A second reason, you have failed to take into consideration, what to the ones holding the purse strings, namely the Magacorporation want. If they do not want a major war going on in the region, it simply is not going to happen no matter how many "good" reasons the hawks can come up with. You think soft money and corporate corruption is bad today? It is supposed to be even worse in the 2060s.

Third reason not to go to war you have yet to counter; the NAN is the bread basket for the rest of the North American continent. You go to war with the NAN, they cut off your food supply. Pretty simple there. Once the food is cut off, how does the UCAS feed that big army of theirs? How do they feed that excessive population you keep going on about? Most of them live in that giant East Coast sprawl. The CAS has very little farmland, and the UCAS has almost none at all.

Currently, in the real world, the major metropolitan centers of the United States have maybe 3 days to a week's worth of food stored in them at any given time. This means that if food shipment stopped, all the food in all the markets would be gone within a week. That is if people act calmly and ration themselves out, which is doubtful. In the world of Shadowrun, with advances in predicting consumption, just in time delivery methods, and the like, that margin is even less. In Corporate Shadowfiles they even discussed this, but in terms of a large scale communications shutdown. It was pretty much agreed that at any given moment, society was pretty much three days away from collapse and anarchy. All they was needed was a way to cut food supplies off to the major cities. War with the NAN would do that quite nicely. Do you really think the UCAS can invade, take over all of the NAN, get food production back up and running, and shipped back to the cities along the east coast in three days? Hope the NAN don't burn the fields.

A fourth reason, the NAN, CFS, CAS, and UCAS are pretty much allies. I don’t know where you are from or what sort of games you play, but allies don’t normally go around attacking one another on a whim. Generally there has to be some pretty major reasons for an ally to even consider breaking off an alliance, let alone going to all out war.

Fifth, there is no popular support for a war with the NAN. Most people live in the sprawl and that is where most of them care to stay. The do not want vast open plains or the hassles that come with dealing with them. Most of the CFS, CAS, and UCAS population is more then happy to deal NAN deal with that region. If they really want to get out to wide open lands bad enough, they either find a way to prove they are part Native American (not that had really, considering there are more people with some amount of Native American then you can swing a stick at), or they go to some place that is looking for immigrate.

This is not a game of risk, where the only factor is the number of pieces you have on the board.. It is much more complex then that. So before going off, yet again, about how little population the NAN as and how much more the UCAS, CAS, CFS, or Aztlan have, and how easy it would be to invade, please address the other reasons that have been put forth first.
John Campbell
QUOTE (sable twilight)
Third reason not to go to war you have yet to counter; the NAN is the bread basket for the rest of the North American continent.  You go to war with the NAN, they cut off your food supply.  Pretty simple there.  Once the food is cut off, how does the UCAS feed that big army of theirs?  How do they feed that excessive population you keep going on about?  Most of them live in that giant East Coast sprawl.  The CAS has very little farmland, and the UCAS has almost none at all.


Wrong. Check the map again. UCAS territory extends well out into Montana, and includes most of the Great Plains.... most of the Midwest farm states/provinces belong to UCAS. NAN's territory is primarily the Rocky Mountains.

Shadowrun's "giant East Coast sprawl" isn't all that impressive, either. The population of the world has not actually increased, and most of the territory that NAN totally implausibly pushed whitey out of was not particularly heavily populated, either (and they couldn't have been very successful at actually pushing people out, anyway, because there's no fragging way that a starting population of two million Natives produced the population that the NA Nations are alleged to have in 2060). Basically, there shouldn't be significantly more sprawl than there is now. The "OMG real food is so rare, everyone has to eat tofu" thing is total BS, too, while we're on the subject. The population's not that high, and the North American agricultural areas were not significantly disrupted.
sable twilight
Then I stand correct on that point. I have not looked at the map in a while. Of course this still works in the NAN's favor, since if the NAN do not control the main agicultural region of North America, this gives the UCAS even less reason to invade.
spotlite
Er, there's an angle that doesn't seem to have been considered as a reason as to why they don't go to war. Quite apart from all the nuclear and magical threat, and treaties, is the very real fact that the corporations and corporate interests largely control the political decisions in most of the countries in north america by 2060-odd. By 2040-odd really. And war is bad for every business except arms, which are profitable, true. But for a mega corp the consumer market is far easier and far safer to a: dominate and b: control. When there's a war on you've got all the supply problems, assets getting damaged in cross fire.. there's a reason why they don't like corp war.

Now, wars in many areas are indeed funded by the corps. But the NA market is one of the most lucrative, because its citizens are some of the most wealthy, They need it stable and safe. Border skirmishes between NAN nations don't flare up to continent wide wars. The foreign nations (read UCAS, the Tir, CAS, Aztlan, etc) don't care cos as far as they're concerned its an internal matter and they like to see the 'injuns' fighting amongst themselves. If one of those foreign nations gets involved in ANYthing, though, things could easily escalate very quickly, depending on who's involved against who. But in those countries the corps can hold sway to prevent it happening. The only exceptions are the Tir and Aztlan, where in the case of the former, mostly everyone else will stay out of it cos no one wants to help the upstart elves, and the latter because if they go to war with anyone there's no doubt about it everyone will jump all over them cos they've got no mates. (sorry if that joke is lost on americans! Its a UK thing I think)

I think that is a much larger factor than you're giving credit for. All Ares has to do is refuse to supply ammunition and the UCAS is screwed if it tried anything and Ares didn't. If Ares did that then they'd lose all consumer support of course unless things were engineered differently, but the UCAS still can't really risk it or they'd look very silly indeed. Stalemate. Which is echoed throughout all the other dealings with the nations. Its not the only cause, but I do think its a big one.
sable twilight
I did mention the Megacorp angle. Twice even. But you explained it much better and in more detail then I did.
John Campbell
Actually, I just checked the map myself - the good fold-out one in SR2, not the one in SR3 which doesn't show modern boundaries - and it looks like the UCAS/Sioux border actually follows the Montana line there, so my estimate was a bit off. Montana belongs entirely to NAN. However, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas do belong mostly to UCAS, as does everything east of them, so my point still stands.
spotlite
QUOTE (sable twilight)
I did mention the Megacorp angle. Twice even. But you explained it much better and in more detail then I did.

I'm really sorry mate, I didn't spot it. I admit I did only skim through the last few pages, so I must've missed it. I did see Ares mentioned but nothing else, so I kind of assumed (yes, yes, I know what that makes) that it had been missed. But I do think its more important than is taken into consideration. The political angle is very important, but I think the corporate one is equally, if not more so.
sable twilight
Null sweet. I think you did a good job explaining it too.
Nath
QUOTE (sable twilight @ Jan 22 2004, 06:01 PM)
A fourth reason, the NAN, CFS, CAS, and UCAS are pretty much allies.

If you read the Sioux chapter of SoNA, things are pretty much a cold war between Washington and Cheyenne. The Sioux forces train exclusively on UCAS invasion scenario. Sure, all western armed forces trained for years on Fulda Gap scenario during the real Cold War, but actual war never happened. I just mean UCAS and Sioux are about as much allies than France and Soviet Union were (I took France rather than US because things aren't maybe that bad between the UCAS and the Sioux).
Playing Games
None of the NAN are that friendly with any of the AAA's.Any of the friendly deals that the NAN make with the big ten,aren't nearly as friendly as the deal the (U)CAS make with the big ten.

The the fallowing nations have their hands full,SSC,Aztlan,UTE,PCC,CFS,UCAS.

Aztlan gain from CAS invading PCC.PCC forcing all Aztlan's shops out,great way to make friends!

Many others gain as well,as PCC is rather tight fisted with the AA-AAA's

Many people of the same people who would gain from the PCC getting annexed by CAS would gain from them doing it to the UTE.

Seeing as every military power in North America is busy,besides CAS.CAS has a hall pass,to more power.

Oh,I think europe,is to big of mess,and or apathetic to send enough man power to change the the face of any war.THe UN,haha!The UN,can't stop Saito,or Tsimshian,both of witch are breaking the rules of war, and human rights.Both of witch have less resources than CAS.

What does CAS get out of this?Well,besides more,land,power,more backing from more of the big ten,and AA's,they get to rub this in the face of the UCAS.See, we did what you couldn't do.We are rebuilding America, and you are still sucking on you Canadian boy toy.

And by the way,ghost walker can sit and spin.As even if he kicks the CAS out of denver, big deal.The CAS would gain more from the PCC,land alone.

So if money rules nations,then the greedy would rather have money than love.
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