Stop posting in this thread. Read the ToS and stick to it.

More like the guys they would need to ship out. Many of them would still have guns, and not like being asked to move.

It's a mutually assured destruction scenario.

The SAIM demonstrated that they had the means (Great Ghost Dance) and the will to inflict mass civilian casualties (Los Alomos), if the US chose to push through their genocide law.
This kind of demonstration reminds me of the Cold War, wherein both the US and the USSR wanted to make sure the other side understood that they'd retaliate if nukes were used.

The next step for the SAIM if no peace accord could be reached, might have been to use volcanic attacks against the east coast cities. And the US government believed that they could, and would.

Yeah, doing the GGD another time would have hurt the SAIM a lot, perhaps killed them, but!
- The US didn't really know that the GGD cost them that much
- If the Genocide Bill were to be carried out, they'd be dead anyway, so they'd have nothing to lose

I think the Treaty of Denver is the most sane thing to do, from both NAN and US standpoint; it's a typical Cold War standoff.

Sure, but what would they do about it? The NAN just forced the whole US military into a stalemate, a few malcontents would not be that much of a problem.

And don't underestimate the weariness of civillians after a long war, history shows that when borders got reshuffled most people reluctantly accepted their fate, no matter how heavily they were armed and how scared they were of the invaders.

The more people attempt to explain the NAN, the more I need an electric monk. (Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency)



The NAN, like Magic, works better if you simply don't try to explain it. Most of shadowrun seems to work that way. Is a dystopia because it's a dystopia. Any attempt at explaining it though economics makes it worse, not better. People eat soy food because they eat soy food. Any attempt at explaining actual food production and distribution makes it worse, not better. It's the setting of Metropolis without the plot that comes naturally from that setting. The Illuminatus! Trilogy makes more sense. In a way using the Illuminatus! Trilogy to explain Shadowrun makes more sense than trying to make sense out of Shadowrun. (Hmmm, a Shadowrun character that can see the Fnords. That would be fun.)

I need to upgrade my commlink to run a Fnord detector and get a higher grade Electric Monk.

Yeah, the whole "nothing to eat but soy" is always a cause of great humor in our group instead of being argued realistically. There's Soy-kaf, then there's soyburgers, SOYlent green, soy-soy (an artifical food that tastes just like soy, made from soy!) and so on ad nauseum.

I totally agree with the "just roll with it" idea because what else can you really do? Arguing over the realistic ramifications of the forming of the NAN or how magic really works falls under the heading of "Shut up about the real physics of how a dragon would shoot fire and fly when your keeb is shooting the thing with their metal arm."

You know, I'm still trying to figure out what NERPS are...

I haven't read 6WA yet, but I guess the NAN part in there wasn't too satisfying?

Because I'd certainly be interested in a good new NAN sourcebook. The NAN are there, too big to really retcon. I don't particularly like them, but that's more because my European background means that Native Americans just don't figure as big in my imagination as they might to an American.

I do think the NAN are fading, perhaps because most products are focusing on global stuff. This is annoying, because the NAN are there, and it's a bit of an embarrassing blurry area. I want a writeup that describes them and gives me ideas on how to use them.

You mean the product that describes how less then 10,000 Utes managed to somehow take over a chunk of the country where over 250,000 Navajo live? Oh, right, I forgot, there are no Navajo in SR cannon. Because doing even minimal research apparently wasn't allowed when you worked at FASA.

Uh hello, the NAN 1 says that the Navajo are part of the PCC along with the Apache. And largely it could be 50/50. Just 'cause the countries are named after one specific tribe doesn't mean that they're the dominant tribe. The Ute could have just been named that because Daniel Howling Coyote was Ute and they named it after him in honor.

I think I remember the canon explanation in SoNA being that the Navajo didn't have as much political punch per capita as the Hopi and Zuni in the PCC, due to their lesser/later participation in the rebellion, much the same reason the TPA is "Aleut" and not Inuit, despite much larger Inuit numbers. The biggest issue I have (my field being linguistics) is that the Hopi and Zuni languages seem to be stronger in canon fluff than Dene (the Navajo language), despite being functionally moribund today, whereas Dene, I mean, it's not in great shape, but it's the strongest Native language in the lower 48 and has a hundred times the speakers of the former 2. I mean, I've always assumed immersion programs with linguasoft-equipped teachers would go a long way towards explaining the revival of Native languages in Shadowrun, but why wouldn't that apply as much or more to the one that's got some life left in it? So I've had Navajo culture as a bit more prominent in my depictions of Pueblo in my games.

And kzt, I figured that has as much to do with the war and the camps shuffling everybody around as everything. Hell, let's be creative. Maybe Gallup is a booming Navajo metropolis now.

What did he say that was against the ToS?

He kept bringing up outside political statements, Shin, that had nothing to do with the point of the thread.

Yeah, the point of this thread is to talk about how the NAN isn't getting the screen time it deserves and all that!

So, what AmerIndian Urban Brawl teams do you think there are? Combat Cycle? Desert Wars!

Especially Desert Wars! GO BLACK DEVILS!!!

I'd have to find my copy of Shadowbeat, I remember there were a few teams in there from different leagues in the NAN, and not just the stickball league.

Combat Biker, traditionally (read: Shadowbeat days), never had any NAN teams. Not in the WCCL, anyways.

Urban Brawl had the Lakota Arrows out of the Sioux turf and the Tsimshian Warriors. Every other team was CAS, UCAS, Carib League, Cal Free State, or corporate.

Yeah, we don't have consent decrees that require us to have Laguna interpreters on staff. We are required to have Navajo interpreters on staff, despite Laguna pueblo being a lot closer.

And you can't make a linguasoft for a language that the speakers won't discuss with outsiders. Which is my understanding of how the Laguna treat the Laguna language in reality, despite various claims they make. It's the official tribal language and is the only thing spoken in tribal leadership meetings, which means if you can't speak it, and can't learn it. ... Not sure how the other pueblos treat their language.

Well, I'm a little unsure of this because it's not entirely clear how a linguasoft works. My best "personal canon" explanation is that it's some kind of sim-like recording of a speaker's internal grammar of the language in their head, and if that's the case bringing in outside experts to create a linguasoft for your tribe might not be necessary in the first place. So then you get your linguasoft and restrict it to tribals only; sure, it can get hacked and pirated, but that's life in the Sixth World and most hackers aren't trying to learn Laguna when they could be stealing your credit card anyways.

That said, it may still be necessary to have outsiders involved if it's more like a program somebody composes based on data gathered from speakers the old fashioned way.

I've always thought of the linguasofts as translation program (would translate what is said), offer possible responses, or allow you to translate what you want and spell it phoneitcally for you.

For example a german lingua soft would hear: "Die Toilettezimmer ist da druben"
Translates in english: The bathroom is over there.
You would see this much like a movie subtitled, but in AR.

They do have issues:
Your question: Where is the bathroom? (in english)
His linguasoft says: Wo is die badeszimmer?
He responds: Wir hat kein badeszimmer heir. Wir sind ein biblioteka.
Your linguasoft says:We don't have any bathrooms. This is a library.

From the fluff, they ar good to a point, but can be quite literal. Minor differences in dialect, context (such as the german difference between toilettezimmer and badeszimmer)and such can lead to miscommunication. So much so that a real interpreter is used for serious negotiations.

PS:My apologies for the very poor german.


This translates to

In Gibson's Count Zero, there's a description of using a Knowsoft, which is really like the knowledge is just there in your brain, in a kind of invasive way. It makes sense, since Linguasofts and Knowsofts use DNI.

Part of the reason I've traditionally favored Ascal's interpretation over Warlord's is that Warlord's interpretation, where it's basically a really advanced Phrasealator, is that it doesn't explain very well how it allows you to pronounce foreign sounds, if it just tells you what to say when you think the English equivalent. Not a big deal when you're speaking German, or something with a similar sound set to English, but if you want something with a really intricate sound inventory, like Chechen, or something with really different phonotactics and allowable sound clusters, like Polish, you are going to have problems making all these different sounds.

While this makes logical sense to me, I've heard enough Japanese and Korean music to be used to the thought that as communication increases, people become crosslingual. It started out as the songs having English refrains (which most people here have probably experienced in Japanese animation) to a complete mix of English and Korean or Japanese throughout the songs.

Examples (depending on personal music preferences):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2jhApok0s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK_Az8cDQbk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYuYqgcWDWY

Handwaving people 60 years from now having a much larger vocal phonetic library because of worldwide communication, especially entertainment, works for me. Adding a new set of phonetics for Native American languages just seems like more same thing they've been doing.

Just as ActiveSofts are magic, so are LinguaSofts. It just works, and it's all directly in your mind (DNI).

More importantly, we can project knowledge into your mind, but we're not brainwashing you in the process, honest. We couldn't possibly.

The Cyerpapacy's Faith Chips - mmmm, feel that goodness...

It just overwrites the short term memory.

I use skillsofts as punishments, since they take priority over your own skill...
...Implant a low level skillsoft into a high skill character = instant dumbdown !!

We can simulate the feelings of religious experiences with drugs and magnetic fields now, so having a 'faith head' chip is certainly not impossible.

The power of the Great Ghost dance was and continues to be unmatched. As long as Daniel Howling Coyote was the leader of NAN the U.S.A. knew that he could level entire cities just by dancing with his starving mal-treated people. Even in 2072 that type of power would force any government to submit...and no one has seen that type of power since. Compound that with the fact that the world's peoples still were grappling with the reality of the Awakening. The sixth world almanac really helps in fleshing this out. It also shows how most of the land taken back by NAN was simply taken back to return it to it's pre-colonized state. Many tribes have gone back to their old ways of living off the land and thus need huge swaths of land just for small groups of tribes to survive as hunter gatherers. As to why the UCAS hasn't tried to take back the land once they obtained a sizable magical capability...I feel that part of the reason Howling Coyote just "disappeared" is that he really is keeping an eye on his people ready to punish anyone who threatens their safe-haven. One theme which reoccurs a lot in shadowrun is that the fact that there is any status quo at all hints to the fact that there are powerful forces such as dragons, spirits, etc. which allow certain things to play out and then will interfere in other events. The only reason great dragons don't just destroy everything is rather a mystery and it has to do with simply how they "work". I don't see why NAN requires a suspension of disbelief greater than any other when it comes to shadowrun. Besides, it's the whole reason I got into shadowrun. It was so sweet to see U.S. eat some pay-back....and nothing short of a miracle (magic) could ever bring something like the restoration of Native land...so that's why I play shadowrun and not cyberpunk. That's the whole reason i can swalllow things like elves and dwarves plopped down right into a William Gibson type world.

What do you mean, "Now"?

Religions have been using drugs for time uncounted. It's the opiate of the masses because, well, they have a tendency of using things like Opiates!

^^^^^^^^^^

Hey, at least I stand by my statements.

Faith Chips are a good idea, as it allows televangelists to spread their word without being on the 'Trid 24/7.

Better?

A knowsoft of "Better Living Through Christ?"
or maybe a knowsoft: "Living your life the Catholic way"

Actually, a "Humanis Policlub 4.7" chip might come in handy on some Shadowruns. Especially for those metas that can pass as human.

Well, except the PoliClub would never allow it.
And if it did exist, the only reason they would allow it, is because it worked. So you chip that in for an undercover mission, and all of a sudden you're actually a card carrying member of the PoliClub?

No, but you can speak the language of hate they do.

You know, "How many Keeblers at the bottom of the Ocean make a good day?" "As many as you can drown.", things like that.

Erm...
...Actually, to be a proper Cyberpapacy Faith Chip, you'd actually believe - you'd not be faking...
...You'd not want to take it out, because it'd be how you think.

Being able to spout a few rubbish jokes isn't really believing the doctrines...


Why do you think the Cyberpapacy invited millions into their surgical areas and gave away cyberware ??
They "forget" to tell people about the implanted Faith chips...


But back on topic...
...The whole issue of the NAN has never bothered me, because I've never wanted to play in the US, and to be honest, the whole Native American thing was the only real difference between SR and any of the other cyberpunk rpgs [and the urban fantasy elements, I guess - though others have/had them].

Why do the Faith Chips just scream Fallout to me?

"Pray to Robot Jesus! Or his Laser Eyes will fry you where you stand!"

The Cyberpapacy is part of the Torg Multiverse

I mean the 'deep spiritually fulfilling' sensation people refer to as a religious experience, not just any form of altered state associated with any generic religious custom.

It's kind of suspect that people do refer to a mere sensation as religious. Alas.

Being able to meditate in a fashion needed to generate such an experience has long been an important part of many religious traditions. I see having a chip which could help 'train' one to be able to achieve such a state as being a key piece of religious instruction in shadowrun.

Or a way to "Cheapen" religion so that it can be better used to control the masses.

Look at what Winternight did with God Chips.

Yes... perhaps you thought I was trying to make another point?

There really needs to be a sarcasm font.

Yes, it would HELP a lot not being misunderstood.

Well, if you would go to the trouble of changing the font, you could also put the little sarcasm emoticon in the text.

Not that it would help much with some people!

Hey... Why is everyone looking at me?

Yeah, it doesnt help much either... Some people still won't be able to tell you are making a joke.

1) They can create a Cold War situation, and a statemate can be a win when your country surviving is the win condition.
2) Non-magical nukes aren't nearly as impressive in the 6th world, certainly not when you consider that there are very effective ABM on magical wings (and the alarming frequency of misfires ).