India gets very little coverage in the SR world. The only real mention I've seen in 4th Ed, where the AA Corp KITT is mentioned as, basically, the customer-level tech support for consumer goods, outsourced by even AAA megas.

This got me thinking.

With the breakup of China, India is the largest nation in the Shadowrun world by population. According to the stats given at the Sixth World Wiki (which I think are derived from 3rd Ed Shadows of Asia), it is home to nearly 1 billion people. Not only that, though, but the demographic stats are interesting. While nearly half the nation has less than a high school-level education (and the poverty rate is 25%), India boasts more Advanced Degrees than even Japan (18% vs 14%). In fact, the total number of undergrad AND advanced degree holders given are 44% compared to Japan's 43% and Seattle's 34%! Basically, India has nearly 440 MILLION people with some kind of higher-level education.

What is also interesting is where Japan boasts a 97% Corporate Affiliation rate, India is only 22% This means that even if the AAA's and AA's were to employ only college educated folks, half the population would still be highly educated and not corporate affiliated.

So what do we think? What do you suppose the status of the largest nation on Earth is? Especially one who's educated populace exceeds many other nations' (or corporations) total number of citizens? One which appears to have very little corporate involvement and is unified by a national faith only made stronger and more "real" by the Awakening?

I don't know, India has similar figures today - is it a superpower now?

Many consider it to be up-and-coming. It's certainly a regional power possessing nuclear weapons and a modern, professional military backed up by a fast growing economy and a democratic government structure.

What is different between today and the SR world is a matter of relativity, though. In 2070, the US is fractured into several smaller nations, as is Russia and China. India remains more or less huge, united, and very capable nation-state without much corporate influence, as opposed to other powerful nations such as Japan and Aztlan which are augmented (or controlled) by their own domestic corporate interests. I'm not trying to ask if India is the *most* powerful entity on the planet, just if it's relative power and influence level should be looked upon as greater than it has been presented.

It might not be a superpower, but it is a power nonetheless, given the fact that the only superpowers before the 6th World (Russia and USA) lost major portion of territory, India could be considered along the only country capable of make a threat to a AAA corp (not counting Japan because their empire and the AAA japanacorps have an incestuous relationship, along with Aztlan).

It is rapidly approaching that status, both in economic terms and military terms. It has been argued that while China is building at a prodigious rate to catch up to the 20th century, India is rushing into the 21st century.

I'd question what definition of superpwer people are using, especially this one. Whilst their economy has been growing at a very impressive rate there's still an incredible economic inequality and grinding poverty both in the cities and countryside, plus a number of social factors that could impair future growth. They've got a lot of potential but I think a fair amount of press hype from a few years back was rather overplayed. As for militarily I remain to be convinced.

If memory serves, the VITAS plagues originated in india and the death toll was significant (75%+?)

Even with the large population to start with, that is a big hit to recover from...

They have a cultural heritage that gives them the tools to deal with goblinization and awakening. Having hundreds of religious sects, sub-cultures with different languages and so forth is nothing new in India.

I'm not sure if the return to prominence of the caste system would be a good thing though.

Most defnitions of superpower require that a nation has the ability to project power and influence on a global scale. The fact that India can't even convince it's neighbor to give up Kashmir (even with the threat of nuclear weapons) kinda precludes superpower status. Whether that changes in the future is the big question.

If we're talking realistically, India won't even have any ground water Aquifers by 2070.

Though they're not alone in that regard...

I think the "dystopian future" that shadowrun portrays has the megacorps as the superpowers. Nations are a far second. so India's lack of megacorp involvement is not a good thing

Well when the other side also have nuclear weapons as well that kind of negates the advantage.

Right, forgot about VITAS! Without the mention that Crash 1.0 and 2.0 could also possibly kill/criple their most capable engineers/scientists the moment the crashes occurred.

Hmmm... so the only superpower people agree is a superpower should then be able to do things India cannot. Like, democratize and pacify Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or convince Iran to stop going nuclear.

I see your point.

Well, the numbers from Shadows of Asia are post-VITAS, only Crash 2.0 happened. And that's not really described as being a people-killer on a massive scale; more an excuse to overhaul some dated infrastructure.

The US has not failed at doing these things. It is just taking a lot of time. Take the G8 nations - do you imagine any other single one doing what the US is doing now? No. Nobody can. The US as a superpower isn't perfect. It's simply more able than anyone else (or everyone else combined, in fact).

India is no superpower. It's not even G8. It is a BRIC though (brazil, russia, india, china), which means it has a lot of potential.

It doesn't specifically say that India sucks donkey balls in Shadowrun, so one is free to assume it is a strong regionnal players. It's certainly true everyone around India sucks donkey balls, especially with China imploding. But like every other fairly upright governement, it's just a market for the megacorps. That's the nature of the 6th world. The Corporate Court is the world's only Superpower. The megacorps are the only G10.

I don't think the writers of SR had really realized how big and powerful India would become. There are a lot of ways to fragment it like they've done to pretty much every other place. It might be a good idea, even, to turn it back into little kingdoms/citystates.

India has been doing very well only in the last like 10-20 years max. As SR's timeline diverges in the 90s, India doesn't have to develop into anything powerful, More importantly, it doesn't have to eveolve into anything not fun, and the most fun thing is for it to be the Indiana Jones style India where everything is just one big "WTF?" kind of place where anything can happen without repercussion.

Doesn't Shadows of Asia detail India at length?

The same argument could be applied to Method's statement, to which I had replied.

India is certainly an up-and-comer. In a lot of ways, I see it doing better then China in the long-term. China has a whole host of problems that go along with its current political and economic models - and for whatever reason, the academic world seems to be completely ignoring those. I guess it's easier to sell a $30 hardcover book on the premise of a 100% guaranteed superpower, rather then just another emerging power that is inevitably going to get boxed into the biggest military alliance the world has ever seen. India, on the other hand, has a robust education system, a more balanced economic model, and mutual interests with the United States & the West. Not to say they don't have their own hurdles to leap, but they're certainly treading more carefully then China is. Get your seats now - instead of expecting an implausible head-on confrontation between China and the West, look to China and India to lock horns over South-East Asia around 2030 - you didn't think the rumblings about Chinese aircraft carriers were directed towards the U.S. Navy, did you?

True that. They're both the first (and only) non-US/European nations to build their own Aircraft Carriers in the modern day.

ah, the carrier, the modern day equivalent of a dreadnaught.

perfect for posturing, but to expensive to really put into harms way...

Would a battle involving modern aircraft carriers on both sides not look a lot like rocket launcher tag? Carriers haven't faced an equal opponent (as in, technologically and numerically) since World War II. (Even Argentine wasn't up in GBs league during the Falkland War.)

Given ship lasers that can reach LEO satellites, it's a lot less fun for the pilots than it sounds.

I meant today. In SR carriers have to deal with thor shots, rigger-guided missiles, and said lasers reaching down to them.

The question is really how does India deal with the Megacorps, since they're the ones who will make or break them. By 2050, India is facing some major issues. VITAS wiped out most of the country, leaving some villages entirely uninhabited, and the streets of Bombay choked with corpses. Huge typhoons make the west coast all but ininhabitable for nearly half the year. Paranormal critters make the south of the subcontinent dangerous deadly, and even reach all the way to the cities in some cases. They're running low on natural resources, and agriculture becomes pretty volatile with everything going on. The caste system makes certain options difficult or untenable, and ultimately transition gets a bit more rigid.

Corporations will come in to exploit markets. If India cooperates, the corps will work to keep India just short of being able to support itself, like a bride with bound feet. If they object, the corporations will shut it out, leaving it starved for resources, foreign capital, even food and clean water.

Seems the most likely course would be to accept the corporate intrusion, then work to integrate yourself into the corporate beast (which would result in corporations fighting in India for tracts of land and power, leading to balkanization, and also large tracks of extraterritorial land). The India government is on the cusp of a budget crisis, kept from spiralling into destruction just barely by the 'generosity' of the corps currently raping the country. The people do as people will do - what they need to survive.

However, the continent offers a lot to shadowrunners. Because there's so much hostile territory, and some very valuable stuff passes through, it's a great place for bandits. Also a great place for safaris, secret underground bunkers, or just generally to disappear for a while.

Shadows of Asia seems to imply that by 2050, the situation is much less dire that you make it out to be. VITAS did major damage, but the population is still nearly one billion. It also seems to indicate that VITAS allowed the government to simply destroy whole sections of major cities and rebuild them anew. Much of the issues of clean water and food are mitigated by the Brahmin caste, as it is their dharma to use their magic to purify water, encourage agriculture, and reduce damage caused by weather. They do as they always have: Pray to Lakshmi for a bountiful harvest on behalf of their village's Vaishiyas ... only this time backed up by magic. I'd even venture to say that the nation is probably one of the most magically tolerant on Earth, as it plays a major role in their religious traditions.

The interaction between these two things would affect a lot. Reduce the population enough and introduce practices/technology that recycle water or use it more efficiently and maybe the water shortage doesn't fully materialize.

There are way too many variables in the real world, much less the 6th world, to guess about India's relative economic and military strength sixty years from now. So guess all you want, but no one is going to make a convincing case for anything specific.

If the US shared boarders with Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan your argument might hold water. As it turns out, those places are halfway around the globe and the US can still deploy massive military forces to both of them simultaneously (or anywhere else in the world) in a matter of 48-72 hours. Granted, places with endemic political and social problems (like Iraq) or stone-aged infrastructure (like large tribal areas of Afghanistan) aren't magically fixed because we deploy thousands of dudes with rifles to them. That takes time, will and billions of US taxpayer dollars...

... and lots of lives. Ditto for Canada, The Netherlands, Britain, and to a much lesser extent other nations.

I think a serious argument could be made that the US could not have handled both Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, by itself. Now, one could counter-argue that part of being a superpower is the ability to draw other nations into conflicts such as these. Which is the case right now.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that it is getting harder to maintain the state of being a superpower these days. Which plays into the worldview of Shadowrun.

The troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan constitute less than 10% of the US' total active + reserve forces. We could handle both if we really needed to but A.) we'd have to draw down forces in places like South Korea, Japan, Europe, etc. B.) it would require that more reservists be called to active duty and C.) it would be politically unpopular for our Commander in Chief whose voting base happens to be highly anti-war.

But generally speaking you're right on all points. I happen to believe the US' role as a superpower is waning (due to tax-and-spend idiocy by both major parties in our Congress, but thats neither here nor there). Plus the concept of "superpowers" is a little dated. Its unclear what role (if any) "superpowers" play in today's increasingly complex global politico-economic environment.

Which brings us back to SR and why (as whacky as it may seem) it's entirely feasible that there are no superpowers.

Method, you just had to stick that link in, didn't you? You couldn't leave well enough alone? *sighs as he sees another derailment ahead*

The graph is cool. It shows clearly that as the percentage of total spending on one aspect of the economy goes down, there is more money for the other aspects. Who'da thunk it? And the percentage on 'Defense' has gone down over the last few decades. One could argue that that is what saved the US from blowing its economic brains out the way the other superpower in our lifetime did: lots of money on toys that kill, little money on the people. Could it be that those idiots on both sides of Congress cared about their nation enough to spend money where the people who voted for them actually wanted it spent?

EDIT: Aw, hell. Never mind. We agree that Shadowrun seems to actually reflect a plausible possibility.

Not at least without going conscription. And since vietnam, thats political suicide...

And given the technical prowess of the US armed forces, most US generals would state that conscription/drafts are a bad idea in the current military.

true, the amount of gear one would need to get familiar with is growing near exponentially, or something like that...

This is an interesting idea. I wonder if anyone has actually done a study on the relative technical abilities of a conscript army versus a volunteer army. Would a random selection of the US population be less able to handle the complexities of a 21st century technology than volunteers? Volunteers may be more dedicated, but are they smarter than the average?

There's plenty of literature out there about the negative effects of conscription, but I don't think a less intelligent force is one of the problems. If anything, I'd expect a slight uptick in mean intelligence. OTOH, higher intelligence doesn't necessarily make a better soldier, especially if that soldier is mightily pissed off that they aren't working in the engineering firm that gave them a sweet offer right before they got drafted.

Actually it is (although this is US specific). With the all volunteeer force, you have a much higher skillset than in a conscript force. They are better motivated and led, and generally in much better mental and physical shape than the rest of the populace. The major downside is that the armed forces now compete with the rest of the job market (so when the ecnomy is doing well, it is harder to find volunteer, though not impossible, and when the econmy tanks they are easier to fill). Of note--China and Russia are in the process of changing to an all volunteer force. They have sen the lopsided success of the US army against the Iraqi army (twice), the Taliban (I'm talking firefight wise not politically), and other places.

Another issue is motivation, conscripted forces tend to be less motivated. Exceptions do exist-Isreal for example.

Back OT---things required to be a super power:

Global Reach---able to prject your armed forces anywhere in the world.
Global Influence---able to influence countries around the world (via commerce or diplomacy)
Stable government---Without which the top 2 won't happen.
Strong Economy---allows for the support of a large military and commerce to help influence other nations.



On the US:
All 4:Despite the recession the US is still a Superpower. The econmy is the weakest of the 4 items at the moment. This may lead to a loss of some power, but only if the economy continues to be sluggish in the long run (5 years or more).

China:Lacks the ability to project its forces, all over the worl. The can send a few troops all over, but not to a significant military degree. Primarily due to a lack of sufficient naval assets.
Stable government:Discontent over the haves and have nots and the corruption that maintains it has the potential to destabilize the government.

India:Less global reach than china. Issues with pakistan would consume them more than events halfway around the world. Politically, has been relatively neutral and lacks sufficient influence globally. Economy---good but has enough weaknesses that could prevent it from becomming strong.

Russia: Lost ability to have global reach. Lost the communist manifesto. Government has issues. Economy very dependent on the export of natural resources and arms.

And the Best Post in Thread Award goes to... LivingOxymoron!
Man, I hadn't even considered how quickly India's priest caste would grok magics. I mean, they've got a living mystic tradition that'd outstrip the AmInds by miles. Well, assuming that these brahmin were actually awakened or that magic follows a genetic path like they seem to think. I guess that's some pretty big maybes to contend with, but they've sho nuff got the makings of a society ruled over by magics. A magi-garchy as such. Very interesting. Though, I've never known India to be expansionist enough to be a true Superpower. Though I guess with the right leader at the helm, they could get their push on.





Oh, pshaw. We all know that Americans get a +2 racial Firearms bonus.

Well.... if it isn't my old friend Double Post..

My impression from doing an Indian History course was that they aren't expansionistic; they prefer intrigue and infighting. It's considered a failure of strategy to actually fight battles; it's better to bribe and corrupt the opposing army before an actual clash happens.

Of course, don't forget that about half the country is actually muslim...

I think India might be one of the few, if not the only major (fairly) stable muslim/hindu democracy on a western model, complete with English-inspired legal system and Commonwealth membership. That's a pretty good playing position, actually.

The Brahmins adopt magic users of all castes, as well as technomancers, making them Brahmin. The birth families of such children would probably gain a measure of prestige and support for this... even a Dalit (untouchable) family could see their lot in life grow slightly. I would guess that the Kshatriyas do the same for Adepts.

It wouldn't become a magiocracy, necessarily. Brahmins are priests and the highest caste, but the nobility were all Kshatriyas (warriors). Also, in the 6th world, with the influence of the Megas, the Vaishyas (merchants) would gain quite a bit of prominence as well.

As you say, with the right leader at the helm, they would be extremely powerful. Without one, and infighting would stifle their effectiveness.