Favorite Nation of 2300?

[kaladorn]

Hmmm, I give Larsen's vote my 2nd choice.

I'll have to go with Canada 1st, not just because I'm a Canuck, but because they end up having a Colony that doesn't require a huge military presence, just some relatively innocuous mounties. And they have a very high level of education and make that one of their foci. That would be a nice future to see, IMNSHO.

Though who came up with the name 'Doris'..... <Argh>

 

[rfmcdpei]

Korea strikes me as an interesting nation. Same thing about Canada as an interesting nation, given the potential of its one world of Doris and the presence of another habitable world just beyond Doris in the Canadian Finger.

I'd have to say Ukraine, though, woefully underdeveloped yet clearly a power.

 

[ElHombre]

Speaking as a multi-generation Texan, I was always drawn to Texas-born characters. Nonetheless, Aussies were a strong second.

 

[Whipsnade]

kaladorn opined:

"... just some relatively innocuous mounties."


Mr. Barclay,

With some very nifty dirt bikes too!

Canada is a great 2300AD choice, especially if you want a campaign that involves more than Bug Hunting.

The Kafers seemingly monopolize 2300AD, mostly because they're delightfully nasty and your PCs can slaughter thousands of them without compunction. The few 2300AD sessions I've seen were little more than open air 'dungeon crawls' with Kafers standing in for Orcs.

A Doris/Canada campaign would be a great change. An entire colony world, most of which has only been mapped from orbit, awaits the footprints of man. The Lewis & Clark Bicentennial begins this year. Enterprising GMs could easily lift the story of the Corps of Discovery and place it and the PCs down on Doris. It may require a bit more work than the usual 2300AD Bug Hunt, but it would definitely be worth it!


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Murph]

Texas! Once again Texas! I really am not fond of how 2300 treats Mexico either as a semi-fascist military society. I think if Mexico ever gets its act together, watch out, its going to be a power to reckoned with.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Murph:

Agreed about Mexico. In the 2300AD setting, it does seem to be doing reasonably well, with a bit over three million people on two worlds in conjunction with Argentina, roughly comparable to Canton, Ukraine, pre-unification Hannover, and Azania outside of the Core.

(And, of course, there's the question of your opinion on whether Argentina continues to have Santa Maria or not--if it does, that would easily boost INAP holdings to 50M or so.)

Larsen:

There's also Canada's presence elsewhere in the Canadian Arm--Wolverine further down the Canadian Finger, the other two Canadian outposts on the finger, and the Canadian holdings on the Sung and Xiang homeworlds. To say nothing of possible holdings elsewhere.

 

[Pompe]

Very interesting.

About 50% of the people posting indicate their apparent own (2004AD) nation also is their favorite in 2300AD. I am surprised it is that many.

My favorite? I'd go with Ukraine, Azania a close second. Or Austrovenia.

 

[Colin]

My favorite? I admit that I have a soft spot for Canada. (And the second colony is Erikson, not Wolverine. Just ignore those separtists and their ramblings ). (Joint venture with the Scandanavian Union and the Sung, if you must know). However, that's just sentimentality.
My favorite nation is Nibelungen. What, that's not a nation you say? Hmm...

Colin, 2320AD writer
Carmageddonist driver

 

[rfmcdpei]

My favorite? I admit that I have a soft spot for Canada. (And the second colony is Erikson, not Wolverine. Just ignore those separtists and their ramblings ). (Joint venture with the Scandanavian Union and the Sung, if you must know). However, that's just sentimentality.

Don't blow our cover! Great, now everyone will know about Canada's plan to use the Sung as our mercenaries to take over the Chinese Arm--

Oops.

My favorite nation is Nibelungen. What, that's not a nation you say? Hmm...

Again, what I've said about a guaranteed customer.

 

[Jamus]

USA

Just because

 

[aramis]

Texas. Attitude and pro-guns!

 

[deadlock]

Greetings and salutations,

America followed by Africa.

"Yeah, there's twenty of you against the two of us. But we're the ones with the guns!"
- Siege Rhiordan

 

[ElHombre]

welcome aboard, Deadlock. any particular african country?

 

[alanb]

Well, I might as well play, too...

My favourites are Papua and that weird ex-French colony, umm, Elysia?

I was actually the person that came up with the 51FNQR theory for north Queensland merging with PNG.

For those not familiar with it, the argument goes: when the Australian army withdrew into cantonments at the end of the Twilight War, some units were left "outside". In particular, the old Regional Force Surveillance units - Norforce, The Pilbara Regiment, and 51 Far North Queensland Regiment - were left to carry on their traditional mission of patrolling the north of Australia.

For many decades, these units formed the nucleus of "law and order" in their patrol areas, supplemented by fragments of other units, sundry cops, and local militias.

The reappearance of Japanese shipping in north Queensland waters allowed the area around Cairns (and the sparsely populated area to its north) to begin to recover from the effects of the war.

Over time, Cairns and its hinterland became a rather prosperous enclave, independent of the re-emerging Australian state to its south. Ultimately, it chose to throw in its lot with PNG, with whom it had long shared close trading links, rather than with its southern rival enclaves.

And, just for a laugh: relatively recently, historians have conclusively established the in the late 19th century, the majority of the population of northern Australia was "non-White". The White Australia policy was established to change this. Unfortunately, it succeeded. Since, however, 2300AD's setting has such a "Back to the Future" element to it, it seems kind of fitting that "the Australia that could have been" should get a look in.

So, while "Papua" is, on the face of it, rather unlikely, it is just remotely plausible. Personally, I would have pushed its borders a bit further south, to encompass a larger area that has a significant population density. The area included looks like a line drawn on a map, without consideration for whether or not anyone lives there.

In play, I would treat it as a DIY Australia. Anything you don't like about the canonical portrayal of Australia isn't true of Papua. On the other hand, the north Queensland bit of Papua is as Australian as you want it to be. And if you are really keen, you can explore the Melanesian aspects of Papua as well. In fact this is actually the majority element, but it's relatively difficult for most players to get their heads around. I know I couldn't do justice to it, and I lived in PNG for a while.

Oh yeah. That's my other reason for identifying with Papua - it's "my other country".

As for Elysia: well, I just find that kind of situation interesting.

 

[Vargas]

Probably Texas but that was largely due to the effect of the Ranger adventure book.

 

[Flynn]

For me, it'd have to be Texas. It's just a matter of national pride.

Enjoy,
Flynn

 

[abegubler]

Like most people posting and Odysseus a man's homeland always looks the best so I vote for Australian in 2300AD. Though I liked Dunkelheim (Dark-home) mostly because of Clare Hess’s adventures: World Invaded and Op. Overlord (even though the later makes little sense militarily it was still one the best adventures I ever ran, 2nd place after T:2k Black Madonna).

As to the Papua situ I don’t think 51 FNQR on its own has the power in a post Twilight War environment to take over the whole region – Malu Baizam is a great boat but it isn’t exactly capable of power projection. In some of the stuff I’ve written – an old T:2k Australian Army Vehicle Guide and all the ADF stuff on Etranger I fleshed out one of the list discussion ideas that Papua was an Apartheidest pariah state for most of its history.

At the end of the Twilight War Australia had a lot of troops in PNG, West Papua (aka Irian Jaya), East Timor, the Solomons after the war with Indonesia. These troops remained loyal to their theatre commander (the nefarious Major General Thurston– Australia’s great traitor) when he tried to take over the rest of Oz from the “Governor”-General, Lt. General Walker. Anyway he ended up with far north Queensland (north of a line from Innisfail to the Norman River including the Atherton, Cairns, Cape York, TSI) and the island of New Guinea and sundry islands. Thurston used classic divide and conquer politics setting some racial groups up in advantageous positions – East Timorese, Papuans (which is only the south east portion of New Guinea), white Australians, Torres Strait Islanders, etc. Dominating the other racial groups – New Guinea highlanders, Cape York Aboriginals. Thurston was able to keep Australia at bay by making a huge fortune selling Bauxite, Copper and other strategic minerals to the French and Japanese. By the time Australia was well on its feet again in the mid 21st Century – the Pacific Islands Federation (PIF), was too tough a nut to crack.

However when the world started to return to a state of civilisation late in the 21st century the PIF and its racist policies (but certainly not stuff, but more like the Raj in India – Martial Races superiority) were on the outer. The world didn’t need their strategic minerals as urgently as before and the state was crumbling. It all fell apart in the 2130s when civil disobedience campaigns and tiredness from the Martial Races lead to the collapse of the state. However much like India after the Raj there was a strong national indenity and even the suppressed people didn’t want to end the Federation. So they set about establishing the Papuan Federation: so named because the capital city Moresby was located in the Papua area and this was the first nation in the region to gain real de-colonised independence (pre Twilight War). However another military regime just next door in Indonesia was on its last legs as well and prepared to invade and annex the region during this period. But Australia stepped in and launched a massive pre-emptive attack (much like the six-day war) in 2140 (GDW Earth Sourcebook) that humiliated the Indonesians. A few years later they invade Bengal and annexed the Andaman Islands in an attempt to regain face.

But post Arafura War (the 2140 action) the Papuan Federation set about building itself as a multi-cultural tropical federation. Still a major source of resources in 2300 (and I guess 2320) they are also highly urbanised and middle classed like most of the world. Also a great place to go for great hospitality and the best pork and sweat potatoes in the world.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Abe Gubler in the 24th Century:
As to the Papua situ I don’t think 51 FNQR on its own has the power in a post Twilight War environment to take over the whole region – Malu Baizam is a great boat but it isn’t exactly capable of power projection.

My version of it has 51 FNQR as the area's garrison.

That is, it was left behind when Cairns and the region north were more or less abandoned. It was theoretically supposed to act as a tripwire, in case anyone managed to invade, plus maintain whatever order it could.

Power projection wasn't necessary - just the ability to defend Cairns from the occasional marauder group, provide a bit of support to other nearby communities with similar problems and eventually set up a postal service. Once the Japanese shipping started to arrive, the area became something of a trade route.

It was also supplemented by various odds and ends, such as former cops and veterans of other units.

PNG did it's own thing, and the two fused later on. This was basically due to economic interdependence, plus fear of absorption by a resurgent Australia, which had done nothing to support the now well-established independent enclave when they needed it.

The point is that the area was a vacuum, not a warzone. 51 FNQR had to deal with bandit gangs, not rival armies.

Of course, this version was designed more with 2300AD in mind, not T2K. I haven't designed Australia as a T2K setting. I suspect that I would go with something rather Mad Max like, with an overstretched government trying to maintain some semblance of order. That would give local enclaves a considerable degree of autonomy, if only because the central authority can't support them.

I would also have the central authority still being notionally civilian, rather than military. It would probably be built around one of the State governors, who succeeded to the Governor-General's position when the latter was blown up along with the elected government. There might even be an elected parliament of sorts, though it would have been elected only from those areas that were capable of holding elections, and would be in charge of nothing very much - an almost destroyed infrastructure, an almost collapsed bureaucracy, a rump military, and a collapsed economy that can't really support any of this.

 

[TJP]

OK, might as well post this now and get it over with (just can't resist anylonger). Brace yerselves...

For the real power of the Scandinavian Union, the lion of the north, the shining beacon of freedom and justice, the...the... oh well, you get the picture. Now ev'rybody, sing!

"Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I want to be,
Pony trekking or camping,
Or just watching TV.
Finland, Finland, Finland.
It's the country for me.

You're so near to Russia,
So far from Japan,
Quite a long way from Cairo,
Lots of miles from Vietnam.

Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I want to be,
Eating breakfast or dinner,
Or snack lunch in the hall.
Finland, Finland, Finland.
Finland has it all.

You're so sadly neglected
And often ignored,
A poor second to Belgium,
When going abroad.

Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland, Finland, Finland.
Finland has it all.

Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland, Finland, Finland.
Finland has it all.

Finland has it all."

(words & music by Michael Palin)

 

[redroach]

Texas, of course I LIVE there and taught Texas History for six years, but you get the picture.

(ever need help fleshing out TX let me know)

TV