As an Israeli, I always thought Israel's shadowrun entry was incredibly ridiculous. Today an article came out predicting Tel Aviv and the surrounding towns declaring independence from the increasingly incompetent Israeli government by 2050. According to the writers, Israel becomes a series of interconnected town-states along the shore, with the rest of the (very small) country left to fend for itself.

As I said, I think that the way things are described in the SR history is ridiculous, for many reasons. Considering the current situation, a "balkanized" Israel fits the SR setting much more than an "Israeli Empire".

Anyway I realize no one here probably has anything to do with Israel or Hebrew, but what the hell, here's the link.

http://www.themarker.com/realestate/1.1693813

I might add that there is a very serious real estate pricing problem in Israel right now, and it's insane in Tel Aviv.

That seems overly bleak, at least regarding the state of the military.

I've met several veterans of the six day war, and more contemporary military folks, from my own time in the USAF. They didn't seem incompetant or zealots (in fact, most of them told me all the Jewish stuff was played up far more by the US media than their own).

In any case, IMO, a fractured Israel of town-states is going to last about as long as it takes the surrounding nations to fuel up the 50 year old tanks.

I don't see how huge parts of your post are anything but political commentary. You might want to edit big chunks of that to make it more focused on SR, and less focused on real-world bitching about the direction a country's moving in (which is all too likely to draw mod ire, or prompt a conversation that cannot help but do so).

<subtle hint>Critias is a smart dude.</subtle hint>

Hmph. Well, the six day war was 45 years ago. Look at how Israel did in what we laughingly call "The 2nd Lebanon War". A paramilitary organization vs. the mighty IDF, it was brutal. Friends got called to the front lines and had to go in without food or equipment. No air strikes because they were firing from areas full of civilians.

I also disagree somewhat with your last sentence, Tel Aviv and the coastal cities will fare much better without interference from the government IMHO.



Apologies. Hopefully hiding the rant in a spoiler tag is okay. I think it's relevant because this is how many Tel Aviv residents (Tel Avivites?) think, including me, and any campaign in Israel will probably be loaded with politics and rage anyway.

Americans have some strong opinions about Israel. Thats why this topic (as presented) is likely to draw some negative attention. I don't want to lock it outright, because you are trying to draw a parallel to SR, but the focus of your OP makes this discussion tenuous. If I were you, I'd consider editing a little to emphasize the game-like aspects of the news story and try to avert a heated political debate that will derail the thread (thats a not-so-subtle hint).

So, how are those Mossad Troll Ninjas?

Well, I have pretty strong opinions about Israel too, but that's because I'm Jewish and I lived here all my life. Anyway point taken, original post trimmed.

I think a campaign set in an independent "Megaviv" along the Mediterranean shore can be amazing, already me and some friends are considering playing in it just because of that article.



I've never seen one

Israeli reporting.

The article you posted is really interesting.

To anyone who dont like to use google translate, the article discuss an idea that cities all over the world would declare political and economical independence, and give Israel as an example for how each city will have its own area of expertise, i.e. A certain city will focus on harvesting natural Gas, while another will host military personal, generally giving everyone an opportunity to live in a surrounding for his liking while every city is working with other cities.

Perhaps Tel-aviv and its sorrounding towns could go toward political and economical independence, however I dont see how the country of Israel would give up the taxes from its biggest group of cities. This is not Eilat we are talking about.

Millitary-wise, I'm sure the entire countrly would stay united. Remember that in the shadowverse, Israel have some really potent magic and other arms. And as such, Tel-aviv would be required to pay for its protection... I could see some corps jumping on the opportunity to cover such expanses (or just provide the military hardware) for some "contracts and special terms" in the metropolex of Tel-Aviv.

I approve.

The state of Israel would have no choice but to comply, because of said corps and their considerable power over the government. I could give examples from real life but I'm in forced no-rage mode.

Sure, the costal cities could just declare independence and rely on the "rump state" as a buffer zone to cover their backs. The question is just how long Israel would last without its economic centers and a good part of the population...

And compared to SR history as a whole, I don't think Israel sticks out as particularly bad

Sounds alright so far.

So we got a corp-managed Tel-aviv. The corps succeeded to cut the middle men from squeezing the milk from the little men, which sounds about right regarding our genre. What makes Tel-Aviv different from all the other corp-cities?

Yeah, the army thing would be a problem. I think The Laughing One covered it:

First, I guess it could work if the new city state supported the army directly with money, along with the buffer state. Again, I could go on about real life here, but rage is not allowed.
Second, you could say that since Israel is home to the largest Jewish community, it's also home to a high number of awakened Jewish tradition mages. While Tel Aviv is considered pretty secular, it does have several orthodox centers such as B'nei B'rak located nearby.



Military weapons research, probably with a lot of focus on magic, Matrix hardware and software, natural gas. Golems helping police.
Also, since Hebrew letters everywhere, I'm guessing the metroplex will maintain large scale kaballah defensive magics. Funny to imagine maintenance crews being accompanied by a group of orthodox mages fixing broken street signs.

I was only in Israel a short time, but yeah some of the military are pretty umm... I'll say hooah. I visited Nevatin(spelling?), Tzuk, and a port city Ash(something) and almost got shot trying to get to my equipment. Also almost got mauled by a giant porcupine.

We don't talk about the porcupines.

The beast shown here would have a hard time mauling anything. So please do tell about the giant mammals. We need dangerous stuff for Running Wild: Israel .

Actually... Haifa is a coastal city with some areas built on the Carmel mountain. Some areas and valleys between neighborhoods are heavily forested and are considered natural reserves. When I was a student at the Technion technical institute over there I could hear jackals howling in the woods when I went outside my dorms. There was even a story going around of a pack of rabid jackals attacking a student a few years earlier. I also know there are a lot of wild boars in remote areas, and some these things (edit: warning - not safe for arachnophobes)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae

crawling around in the deserts to the south. Their favorite food is apparently young soldiers/campers in sleeping bags. Imagine waking up in the cold desert night and seeing one of these about to munch on your face.

Being an intense arachnophobe, and having expected some kind of strange desert mammal behind that link, I now have an intense dislike of Israel, Arizona, this entire thread, and in fact life in general. I'm going to go over there until I stop twitching, I'll be back later.


Edit: Also, since the wikipedia entry had too many pictures, and I'm now morbidly curious...do they really attack adult humans? Because that's terrifying.

They usually don't, but they do get into sleeping bags. People were bit while sleeping because their movements were interpreted as hostile (accidentally crushing the thing), and their bite is strong enough to leave scars. These things are terrifying on a very primal level, though, so it's not too hard to imagine an awakened, giant version. They hunt down scorpions in real life... anti terminator terminators basically.

You see, this is why curiosity is not always a good character trait. Now I'm imagining them in my bed.

Dammit.

Sometimes, the hyperactive imagination of a Gamer is a detriment.

A nearly three foot long porcupine doesn't intimidate you?


Echoing the warning from above: here's a size comparison.

Also, here's Bear Grylls eating one.

So you would have money flowing back and forth over the border, a joint defence, same culture/language/history, certainly also a free trade and free travel, basically the same country everywhere except for different defintions of what constitutes indecent exposure. Where exactly is the difference to today's united Israel except in name?

As long as it´s primary battle plan is A)Threaten B)if attacker insists: turn your back to it and attack, no.

An awakened version could be very terrifying on the other hand.

From my understanding from a couple of articles I read the problem is that the middle class cant afford to buy property. Now in SR, yeah scant attention is given to Isreal. There are some mentions of Mossad (IIRC there is a poster by that name), the fact that isreali nukes still work, they got chemically and biologically attacked in 2008, and nuked Lybia. It has also been mentioned that Ares has aquired IMI and probably a few other military suppliers. THus giving the man outpost in the middle east.

Due to the shortage of land and the 2 hostile neighbors (the Caliphate controls alot of what was once the countries on the Iseali borders) and Egypt. Note Saeder Krupp has a significant presence in the Middle east. Proxy war anyone? In any event the Isreali's have reliable nukes, so the rest of the middle east kinda just said not worth it. Suprisingly no mention of the Palistinians, or their situation. I think that is because it is just one of those very sensitive topics internationally in RL.

I will try to explain without getting too specific. Not only there's a difference in culture, which is how PR will probably spin this thing, but it's mainly about money and how the government spends it, how the army is structured, stuff like that. Right now Israel is formally unified, true, but there is a lot of resentment under the surface. Check up on the massive (on our tiny local scale) protests last summer.

I wouldn't count on free travel if this actually happens.



Yeah, too loaded. One of the reasons Tel Aviv will probably want to be free.

That's it. I now have to make a character that's the baddest Heeb this side of Tel Aviv!

...

Yes yes, I know, The Special Hell!

I think the main reason for the poor handling (or outright non-handling) of the entire region was that it wasn't the hot-button cyberpunk thing, twenty-plus years ago when The Sixth World was first being fleshed out. People were worried about gangs, they were worried about Japan, they were worried about corporate autonomy...and lots of other stuff was just kind of background noise. Extrapolate that into the Shadowrun setting creative process, and you end up with entire swathes of the world -- not just "Israel," but "the whole Middle East," and "Oh, all of Africa," and stuff like that that were just kind of...well...ignored.

And then there's a tendency for writers to build on what's come before, or to stick with the popular settings (because those are the ones administrators suspect people will be interested in enough to purchase), and the problem just kind of exacerbates itself, sourcebook after sourcebook, edition after edition. Fan favorites stay fan favorites, and low-traffic areas tend to stay low-traffic areas, too.

Those spiders...I'm not arachnophobic (or at least I wasn't until now...) but those are freaky!

True. Anyway up until I read this article Israel as a shadowrun or general cyberpunk setting never made sense.



It's okay, Wikipedia says they're more like scorpions than spiders.

Not sure what a Heeb is, but I already called dibs on a reformed orthodox Breslov magician. They're kinda pink mohawk in real life already, wikipedia doesn't show how they start dancing in the street to religious dance music while stuck in traffic jams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwDylNUKdHA...feature=related

Edit: This is actually not a common sight, but once you see it, it stays with you.

The official coverage of the Middle East is rather ridiculous. Corporate Downloads was better but most other things were rather ridiculous.

Well, to be fair, most coverage of the Middle East from here is rather ridiculous.

So Israel in SR doesn't make sense... so what? Neither does the rest of it.

Which is the reason we spend hours extrapolating, justifying and arguing. We are egregious neckbeards.

It just feels strange, harder to suspend disbelief, less fun coming up with story ideas, most of whom feel forced anyway. After so many Hollywood movies or TV series featuring America I'll easily accept the US turning bizzare, but not my own city.

Local sci-fi and fantasy genres are very under developed, and most Israeli movies or series are either about politics or just low quality. Real people don't use Hebrew the way most of our actors use it on stage or on screen, and it's just embarrassing and hard to watch without cringing. Most cases anyway, there are some exceptions but they have nothing to do with cyberpunk or the future.

The US, on the other hand, is this wonderland where Jacky Chan fights native americans in ladder factories holding a baby and he doesn't want any trouble. So I'm blaming Holywood and American TV basically. Israel is percieved by me as a gritty and non-fantastic place so in my mind it has to make sense or it's unplayable as a setting.

What, you mean you haven't had to?

@Mirilion

Well, I guess thats true. There are so much scenarios mostly focused on the US, that everything new can be just put between two existing once. (If it is really strange, you might need a 3. movie to corner it...)


@Warlordtheft

Well, I feel like I need to add, that their situation (however it might be exactly in this fantasy futur) is not really unusual for Shadowrun. All the people in the slums actually are SINless which means stateless. (Actually it goes even further but I guess you know that)

Going SR it would be another Slum with a fence around....

The Palestinians are mentioned in fluff: Both sides pulled their act together and agreed on a two-state solution. When the Eurowars 2.0 came along most Palestinians did not exactly feel like surrendering their independence again and sided with Israel.


@Mirillion:

And if Tel Aviv is independent but pays the Israeli rump state to cover their asses, they would not argue about how much to pay, how the money is used, and how much say that transfer of money grants them? And the rump state would be like "we gladly cover your backs and feel no need to use our clout as protective power"? No really, so again the same as today

This makes about as much sense as the Native American revolution. I guess you can find justifications for it if you want, though.



Yeah, that does sound off. Tel Aviv will have to have an army of its own, then. Probably a mercenary army instead of mandatory service, probably including a lot of SINless trying to improve their station. A lot of shadowrunners may be used to settle scores and gain control of hidden assets during the army split.

I find the setting hard because I have a really shallow, second-hand idea of Israel and Jewish culture in general. I used to do a bit of kosher catering for weddings, and my mother is an art therapist at a Jewish nursing home here in Sydney, but that means shit all beyond some half remembered jokes from our resident new yorker kitchen rabbi, the milk/meat thing, and occasionally hearing stories about some charming old ladies and gents.

I've wanted to create a disillusioned expat Israeli troll character for a while now, but actually roleplaying him would be touchy. The idea was to explore the horrible things you can do under the circumstances of personal loss and a culture of military nationalism (to be clear, that's a culture inferred from military/intelligence cultures in general). Again, that's based on what little I've read about the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet, some Sayeret Matkal ops, and an article about Gilad Shalit and a possible change in the nature of hostage negotiation.

It's one of the reasons I'm following this thread, it's good to have Mirilion here to give us a read on Israel as an SR setting and some ideas on how to lend a little depth and verisimilitude to our own games.

So, Mirilion, what about the general culture in Israel? What would the night life be like? What's the work ethic like? What do you think the attitudes to BTLs, BADs and other vices would be amongst the public, government, and religious adherents? How do/would people feel about compulsory military service (how are "conscientious objecters" viewed and treated?). Common sights, whether they're local plants, landmarks, subcultures, would help make this a locale we could actually describe and immerse characters in.

Tel Aviv is basically a modern western city in every way, except that it has some "eastern" elements like much of Israel, and a lot of shops close on Saturday along with most forms of public transportation. It was built a hundred years ago, before modern planning, so the older neighborhoods are a mess of alleys and narrow streets while downtown and the northern neighborhoods are much more modern. Also I'm pretty used to having the sea 10 minutes away but I'm told that it's unusual for some people.

Religion is weird, many people go to McDonalds on Saturdays but won't order cheeseburgers. Soccer fans will get angry if orthodox authorities even hint at stopping games on Saturdays, but many will seek blessings from Rabis and visit the graves of holy men on important dates. Basically you feel the presence of religion everywhere even in a supposedly secular city like Tel Aviv, but in most areas it's not much more than just a presence.

People love and hate compulsory military service. I've been through three years of absolutely depressing uselessness, and I'm both angry and proud of it. In the last few decades people don't care that much about your military record, and there seems to be a small but growing movement that calls for a fully professional army with career soldiers. Some think the service is important for making contacts, but I don't know anyone who maintains contacts with army buddies. I say hello to a couple of people I served with over facebook once in a while, that's all. A lot of people just want to forget and go on with their lives, and even though a couch potato like me knows how to dismantle an M16 it just never comes up. It's probably different for those who served in special forces units or those that chose a military career, but I personally don't know anyone like that.

Tel Aviv has drugs, goths, punks, skaters, mall kids, geeks, strip clubs, dance clubs, bars, a pick-up scene, gangsters, museums, theaters, cinemas, just a normal city. Basically religious people might act more conservative but behind closed doors everyone is human.

If you leave Tel Aviv you'll encounter a stronger religious presence and more ethnically homogenous communities, and some Tel Avivians develop a kind of superiority complex over the rest of Israel because of that.

Well, no Arab leader ever had any serious interest in improving things for the Palestinians, they are far too useful as a thorn in Israel's side and talking point for politicians who want to show their humanitarian side...I doubt Palestinians would forget that if they ever got their own state.

But regardless of how (im-) plausible the scenario might be, my main concern is that it's simply too "nice" for a dystopian world...



An army operating in another state's territory. That would entail even more politics

Exactly. The story of two former enemies working side by side against a common foe does not fit.

So many interesting comments to reply to here, dunno where to begin! I'm not even sure there are any real "questions" per se, to respond to (if there is, someone say "duh" and quote for me lol). I will say though that a Native American uprising is a very real possibility in the envisioned world of SR. When an ethnic group lives apart from the rest of the country on their own semi-autonomous pseudo-kingdom (as many NA's do) with their own police forces and exempt from most federal laws, well... I mean, suddenly having their ancestral religions spring to life and having vast magical forces at their fingertips, I can certainly see those semi-autonomous groups deciding to make the situation official and severing ties completely.

Now, I'm not sure how SR describes the Israeli/Palestinian cooperation, but I could see the two nations working together against an external, regional threat. That does not mean they are BFFs by any stretch, just that they happen to have a shared enemy that supersedes international tensions.

It makes sense to me. The Palestinians would know about Tehran being destroyed by Aden, the Islamic Renaissance Movemement, The Libyan chem attacks, and of course, years of airstrikes followed by a tentative peace. Siding with the jihad could mean total annihilation by Israel/Ares (who I imagine would be panicking), for a victory they wouldn't believe possible. I don't see them joining forces and fighting, but neutrality could make sense. Of course, I wouldn't put it past the IDF/Ares to conduct some very explosive, scorched earth retreats through Palestinian territory.

Perhaps Mirilion, in your version, this could be what causes the secession of Tel Aviv. The Palestinians give the IDF permission to cross the borders to engage the NIJ, and the IDF leadership OK's a retreat into populated areas, and thousands die as human shields, and Tel Aviv is so horrified by the decision that they secede, become another (corp sponsored) free city. If you want to ramp up the shadow tension, have the corps choose sides. I would say Ares goes with the old state, to keep the lucrative military contracts and region presence, where-as Tel Aviv is sponsored by some-one hip and meta-friendly like Yamatetsu/Evo, Horizon, or maybe even the whole Pacific Prosperity Group. Then the corps get the added bonus of acting as a profitable middle-man in buying and selling technology for the two states. For example, the old state still has all the Merkava tanks, military personnel and nukes etc. but Tel Aviv has Checkpoint Software and other research labs/think tanks. I'm wondering who would be/supply Tel Aviv's military. It reminds me of Saito and the Japanese Imperial Marines when they started calling the shots in CalFree and clashing with Ares over Silicon Valley.

So now we have a "three state solution", which adds a border to cross for shadowruns (either for the two governments or the corps), and yet another if you're running aid across the old territories into Palestine.

Israeli society will react pretty extremely to the awakening. If magic returns and the religious practices of the orthodox become real power, it means the religious establishment will gain a lot of strength and will probably take over the country. Thus turning Israel into a place that I wouldn't want to run a campaign in because of personal issues with this idea.
I'd rather say that a limited number of kaballah practitioners are seduced by offers from the Tel Aviv municipality, thus golem police, and leave it at that. According to this theory daily practices of Judaism and Islam hold no power.

That other thing could happen. However, seeing that official Shadowrun has so little to say about Israel, I'm most likely to develop my own timeline that makes more sense to me.

Well, this not really a problem, because they still won't have more mages than the rest...
(If it would be the case, this theocracy thing would be a problem all over the globe. Europe for example would be once again be ruled from Rome.)

I think it was an early approach, that religious rituals gained real power, but back then it were only the "nature religions". (Shamanism)
Which where probably meant as a counterbalance to corperate greed. (Mother nature striking back)
So magic was an hippie only kind of thing.

Not at all, you're forgetting the mystical hermetic side of things and nothing fits that better than the Kabbalah. Shadowrun has lots of it since first edition such as being able to create Golems (This comes from the Kabbalah). So rather than Shamanic you could thing of it as being the origin of a lot of refined Hermetic magic.

The sad thing about middle east coverage in Shadowrun is that when done Tangentially it is done well (i.e. Corporate Downloads and the corporate intrigue in the middle east, or Astral Egyptian cities in Target Awakened Lands). But when they've approached the subject head on (Shadows of Asia) it has been awful like they were too afraid to offend anyone or change anything to actually give the setting a fair treatment as was done to others. My solution is to throw out most of the source material and just homebrew it.

P.S. I'm an American who went to college at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, so it is kind of a pet issue for me.

So cover your eyes and turn on a strobe when you get to those parts of the fluff. Thats what I do when I get to the NAN.