Going through the Maracaibo document now.

edit: It's a good start. There will likely be more of an expansion on the history and economy of the city prior to the Awakening as I do a bit more research and flesh it out further. I'm working to emphasize the long-lived spirit of independence, the richness of the Maracaibo basin, and notable events that will give people an idea how this city developed before Aztlan took it over.

The only thing I plan on doing regarding our Shadowtalkers is update the wording a touch here and there to reflect an English-reading audience. The message will be the same, however. I also think I'll throw in Maracaibo's nickname 'La Tierra del Sol Amada' (according to Wikipedia), which would ironically be 'The Beloved Land of the Sun' considering the Azzie state religion.

Lol, the nickname didn't even occurred to me. Yeah, there could be a huge teocallis built in Maracaibo and be like a secondary pilgrimage town.

Now, another thing that occurred to me. What will be our timeline? I put the date on my documente as being 5 weeks about the declaration of war. So it gives enough room for further development for each GM...

Also, will we expand that much into each city, just like Bogotá was heavily described in 'War!'?

I doubt we could come up with a hundred pages on each city. There will be enough there to show that each city is its own entity with its own problems, own shadows, and on way of handling things. I see Maracaibo as an Azzie 'company town' where they brought in a lot of AZT workers and left the indigneous population to more or less rot in complacency. There'd be a vocal rebellious population like you've got, and finally Amazonia rolls in around the declaration of war date and opens up a northern front fight for the oil fields to be exploited/returned to nature while the people freak out and hide.

I'm AFB's at the mome, so I'm trying to dredge up timelines from memory. Primary timeline for me is what Abs and I have come up with for Caracas (nearly a year of nebulous AZT occupation before the Corporate Court tells them to shit or get off the pot, prompting war), but I really do see Venezuela as the centerpoint of this whole SouthAm conflict.

Want to expand and detail Maracaibos and Caracas so that they're useable.

Maracaibos suffers from being Azzie controlled, run, and protected. Any runs into it, are going to be up against Veteran Military Units, with Magical support. Heck even the random guys int he bar drinking could be Azzie Special Forces guys on R&R.

Remember the front is anywhere from 150 to 300 miles away depending on which part.

Unless there is major disagreement, I was thinking the 'front lines' would be

Cucuta -> Merida -> Barinas -> Calabozo -> Anaco (roughly)

With the Amazonian forward Base being Guyaya City to the North East and Puerto Ayacucho to the South West.

San Jose del Guaviare being the deep Basin base that Azzie is trying desperately to hold on to.

I like it.

Maracaibo is a 'company town' - it was taken over, rolled up, and when the AZT employees reached voting maturity they overwhelmingly voted to bring it into the Aztlan state. They set up shop on the western shore and started sucking the reserves dry. The pre-AZT population is marginalized and kept happy with cheap food and entertainment until the teocallis start coming up, and then there's a quiet (at times) resistance to it in the city and countryside until the Azzies move to take Caracas as well.

Grinder, can you seperate out the last couple of posts about Maracaibo and shove them into their own thread?

(remember, you're our shadowmod in these issues )

Yeah, but a shadowmod with no powers

To me, Maracaibo is like Occupied Paris in World War II. It's untouched by the war, except that there's soldiers everywhere. It's far enough back that the only 'war' in Maracaibo is a shadow one. Mercs and runners hired by various factions. (Including AZT factions).

The Corporate World at large does not want AZT controlling Maracaibo completely. They want the oil shipping contracts, some of them want a shot at the oil drilling sub contracts. ESPRIT, Wuxing, Shiawase, are all 3 heavily invested in having their Heavy Industrial Equipment used in that part of the world.

The amount of money to be made, after the war, in rebuilding and setting up a true Corporate Sprawl!™ is huge.

Eh, the Corporate world already lost Maracaibo when it voted its way into Aztlan due to the Treaty of Veracruz.

Hasnt' AZT gotten less "1 State 1 Corp?"

I thought the Omega Order had made them calm down a little.

And if it hasn't. Fuck that's a good reason for the Corporations to help Amazonia get to Maracaibo, and then "step in to rescue it"... so it can be an independent protectorate of the Corporate Court.

I mean, "There's Money in them there Hills."

Not so much.

The Veracruz Settlement still boggles people to this day, because AZT and Aztlan came out smelling pretty sweet. Foreign companies can have subsidiaries on Aztlan soil, but they have to be owned and operated by Aztlan citizens. Most Aztlan soldiers - if not all, depends on the book you read - are AZT security employees. If that's not hte book you read (War! natch was the one I did) then AZT readily and regularly lends its semielite Jaguar Guards to any conflict the Aztlan military steps into.

I wouldn't be surprised that the Corporate Court wants to play more readily in Maracaibo.

That deal makes no sense.. ah well.

Course, I think we should have the CC doing a 3 prong thing.

1) They push for more access in AZT territory in return for looking the other way during this conflict, and for backing AZT with the new Treaty of Denver
2) They are secretly trying to get Amazonia to turn Maracaibo into a contested city.
3) They're hoping to develop a rich South American Free Market.

Yes, that was the feeling I had when I was writing Maracaibo. But while the land war, might eventually be far away, I think naval battles will happen quite often.

Wuxing actually is more likely to be interested in shipping the oil everywhere. ESPRIT is more of a weapons producer. Other corps with notable interest in ressource exploitation are more MCT (Beguet (sic) Mining), Universal Omnitech (DeBeers), Regulus (Shell) and AG Chemie and Zeta-ImpChem, who need oil as a base produce. Also, of course, Saeder-Krupp, Ares, Global Sandstorm, and UniOil. A fun contender would be portuguese state company Lusiada, which might side with Aztech, since many brasilian refugees live in Portugal, dragging Portugal into this mess on the Azzis side.

Of course, all megas have their ressource exploitation departments, but many keep to their home turf with those or already have suffuient control over ressources, or are tied up elsewhere (ESPRIT, for instance, is going to feature heavily in SE Asia, SK has decided to invade Nepal for yet to be formulated reasons, for instance).

As for the Corp Court, it owns the UN, so basically if their hand is forced, a robust UN peacekeeping force could be deployed to Venezuela to secure a newly founded republic of Venezuela under UN control, much like the Panama Canal Zone in large. However, you can only keep beating Aztlan for so long and keep it as a viable villain, so maybe they manage to spin this so they get to keep a good deal of teir goods and shake things up in Denver (Frank's remark about the CAS and Aztlan needing to go to war over the Ghostwalker stuff has merit). This could also be a lead we could refer to if we feeel the need to write supplements for Spy Games too.

Yeah, don't forget that before Horizon, Aztechnology had the best Public relations department of the Sixth World, they will sure try to spin the thing in their favor again.

But does that PR extend to the Corporate Court, and "making more Money"

The Corporate Court is probably supremely unhappy about Aztechnology's 1 country 1 corp stance in the first place. And they're equally unhappy about that spreading into South America.

My Quebec is very similar to Aztlan in that particular way:
Your subsidiary/Branch must either be "Run" by a Quebec Citizen.
So the Regional President of Ares Quebec: He's a Quebec Citizen. But, Ares can still /own/ the branch.
I can see Aztlan working similarly. This would make the Corporate Court less unhappy.
But if everyone started doing that..
What if UCAS got the bright idea to require all corporations in their space be owned/run by UCAS citizens.
It's okay for the occasional fringe group to do. But they don't want people starting to think that's a viable long term government policy. Corporations do not like being told who they can put in charge of their various divisions/subsidiaries.

I'll sit down with the Veracruz Settlement when I have time, double-check the wording on it, and start poking some things into the Maracaibo document.

I would like to see some more exposition on the history portion regardings the push towards Caracas from the south and the simultaneous push towards Caracas from the north. Also, adding more of the 'company town' vibe that Maracaibo has now due to their oil dollars wouldn't hurt.

We are talking about a country that has 90% of its revenues come from Lake Maracaibo. I'd think that the city would've been pushed towards a lot faster than Caracas itself (which it totally was, lawl).

Part of it will be, but then again, other megas - notably SK, Horizon, and Wuxing - also keep pet nations. They probably have sympathy for the Azzies' basic idea, if not for them, and look to form their pet nations in Aztlan's image, so they will not pull the stops on this. The CC isn't a singular unity, it's like today's UN Security Council.

As for the national citizens must own it clause? Lots of SR countries have it. Aztlan, Tir na nOg, Tir Tairngire, Pueblo, Sioux, France (to a degree), Arabia ...

And I don't think Aztlan is Russia South. they need the oil and love to sell it, and love the revenue, but Aztlan's economy is less like RL Mexico's and more like RL China's - they're exporting cheap shit in vast quantities.

Saeder-Krupp previously led the show when it came to oil, per Corporate Download and Target: Wastelands. It didn't have a monopoly on oil production, as other corporations, like Pemex, United Oil Industries, Exxoco, Global Sandstorm..., are there. On the other hand, my take is that S-K replaced or absorbed companies like Kellogg Brown & Root and Technip when it comes to oil operations support.

Lusiada co-owns Fatima Petrochemicals with Saeder-Krupp. Similar pattern, just a bit more remote, with French oil company Total-Elf, which acts a proxy and partner for Saeder-Krupp according to Shadows of Europe. The thing is, Saeder-Krupp owns GIAT Industries, GIAT has a stake and a seat on the board of Esprit Industries (no need for the capitalization), and Esprit Industries owns Total-Elf.

With Corporate Guide, Evo is now playing a strong role in Mid Eastern oil.

Just a small correction in proper spanish its "Tierra del Sol Amado", as "sol" is masculine for"Land of the Beloved Sun", for "Beloved Land of the Sun" proper form would be "Tierra Amada del Sol", which is either the land that is loved by the sun or a beloved land that has sun as either translation would be correct. However the first one tends to go better with the context.