Scars from the Twilight War

[Peter Schutze]

>America that would remain anti-suvelliance, pro-individualism and anti-big government. This makes sense from the context of America's long struggle against maruaders, New America and a second civil war

I would have expected the long war to reunite to lead to more survellance, conformity and government interference for the US rather than even less

 

[epicenter00]

Not to be argumentative but I just think that painting the entire world in such broad strokes makes Earth one of the least interesting planets in the entire game.

Benjamin

Not at all - I understand the idea of introducing variety. Earth is a little boring, but I think that's because GDW's writers sort of wanted it that way. They wanted an Earth that was comfortably familiar to most (western) readers: Europeans are still solidly in charge on the surface, the familiar countries are all there, with a little jiggling around to make it seem like the future. It's not how I would have made Earth in 2300, but there you have it.

I just find a continuing romanticism of the gun-toting old west that never existed historically to be a little silly. I guess that's what I am trying to avoid - I find the idea of the gun-toting anti-Federal government American to be pretty much dead on to how most Americans (especially in the west) feel some romantic attachment to some degree or another today. For me, thrusting the game 300 years in the future to make America different would involve compromising that view. Like the Holnists from Brin's "The Postman" I'd imagine in 2300 Earth, the wearing of 1980s style woodland BDUs is probably seen with distaste in most parts of the country, while in some parts it's basically the same as wearing a Klansman's white robes and pointed hood. A combined distaste of soldiers-turned-marauders, CivGov and MilGov ineptitude, and the extensive wearing of the material by New American militias have probably firmly have turned woodland BDU patterns into a politically charged message (the American military of 2300 certainly wears camo, just not that color/pattern).

Plus, I find America's long struggle against New America to be fascinating enough - the fight against New America and likely scars it's left on the American psyche, and I'm certainly not sure NA would have been much of a nanny state if you weren't a white American (I use the term "white" deliberately in this case - as "looking" European is all that is necessary to people like that) - in addition, I don't really equate nanny state as an oppressive state. It can be, especially if someone is constantly telling you what you've "lost", but in most cases people don't really use the freedom they have anyway.

The way I see is that America is still a lot more "free" than other states, but that's because the country is still patching itself together, taking far longer than others due to meddling from other countries and residual New American influence - no organization that lasts that long is going to go quietly. There's going to be people who still very much vote along New American lines and whisper that things were better "back then." Just like a lot of Confederate supporters left the US after the Civil War, I'm sure a lot of NA diehards left the US after the last enclave went away - where did they go? There's another question - was the absorption of the last NA enclaves done via conquest or via voting or treaty? Do NA sympathizers still riddle the American south? Have they moved somewhere else, say Ellis (my personal vote is that they live on America's holdings on AC where they have a sort of unspoken agreement with the government that the government won't harass them if they don't start practicing their vile New American proclivities).

Finally, I do see America's psyche is probably torn between those you describe - the individualists and so on and those in favor of a stronger central state. I suspect even the most rugged individualist actually understands a stronger Federal government is needed at least on Earth, but still doesn't like the idea, so resists it. For instance, there's a note in Earth/Cybertech that indie ranchers and such are being crowded out by corporations, and while the indies know they're going to lose, they're fighting the good fight to the bitter end. I'm sure that kind of thing causes Americans no end of anguish in 2300. Obviously there's some who see it as inevitable and that the ranchers are just throwbacks who really need to "wake up and smell the coffee" while others identify with them.

 

[Anders]

If the US has suffered cultural "scars" from the TW, then I expect China to be even more changed. As far as I understand it, it suffered both massive nuclear strikes and then total anarchy for a long while until finally getting kind of reunited into three states. The sheer amount of horror and cruelty involved in the "second warring states period" probably makes much of the western experience pale. It also makes it possible to assume nearly anything about how Manchuria and Canton work, since they have essentially reinvented themselves.

Manchuria seems to style itself as a successor of the Chinese empire and appears to use traditional nationalism to maintain legitimacy. Yet it seems to be a very complex and inhomogeneous society. It is very clearly not the same kind of nanny state we have discussed earlier, and definitely not just an extrapolation of current China (which anyway didn't happen in the 2300 timeline; the economic reforms of the mid-80's never had the time to go anywhere before chaos arrived).

As I run things, most of the well-off core nations run nanny states with heavily automated surveillance and protection, but the style varies. Some, like much of Europe, have decided that security is always better than freedom. The US has a very complex set of trade-offs (sure everything is logged, but who is allowed to subpoena what is regulated by centuries of legal cases). Azania is regarded as downright libertarian, which means that it runs a nanny state like current Sweden. Manchuria is paradoxically a freer place if you know how to play it, since the complex internal politics makes control harder (but if the local or imperial authorities want to grab you, they will).

As I often joke, in Sweden people think the government is competent and acts in your best interests. In Germany people think the government is competent but not acting in their interest. In Britain people think the government is incompetent but acting in their interest. In Italy they know that it is not acting in their interest but fortunately it is incompetent. In this system, I would argue that the European countries are competent/best interest, the US is incompetent/best interest, Azania is incompetent/not best interest and Manchuria is competent/not best interest.

I think 2320 Earth is a pretty diverse place, but it is very hard to describe. Imagine trying to describe the latest CNN headlines to a Victorian (or 1808) person. Evacuation of quake victims, OK. International ban on cluster bombs, perhaps not unthinkable. But Mosley's F1 future in balance? India's growing economy needs more power: solar panels in space could provide the solution?? Police probe ex-EADS chief for insider trading???

It is especially the social and economical structures that will include a lot of unknowns. If transnational corporations actually have become ideological choices (as an earlier thread suggested), that not doing PGD might get parents arrested for child abuse (but it never happens, since the premiums on their genetics insurance would be horrendously large anyway) or that inverse-tail event futures markets are regularly used to decide when to kick out CEOs, then much of Core life will be so odd that it is hard to role-play.

 

[Waldemar]

There are of course nations that are even more free in the 21st century sense, my impression is nations like Texas, Chile and Australia (perhaps Papua too)

Things are perhaps starting to change in 2320 AD, as shown by the events in Mexico and Indonesia.

Otherwise, as stated in the book, those who want more freedom and personal space go to the Frontier, or at least Tirane and the Earth's orbit.

Interesting impression from this thread. I remember when reading Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook back in the days that I got the impression that GDW were describing a pretty nice future, by 80's standards. A bit bland (that is why people left for the colonies), but pretty nice overall. Today, as 2320 AD captures the mood with a twist in its version, it is definitly a bit more somber.

 

[Anders]

I think change on Earth is one of the big differences between 2300AD and 2320AD. In the old setting everything was stable is bland, now the mood may be more somber, but things are dynamic.

Overall, the rate of social change seems to have been pretty low for a long time. The 2000's were a time of tremendous upheaval, and one reason we see so little of it is that it was so complex and nasty that today few people (except history buffs, TW enactors and national romantics talking about how their nation was born) care about the details. By 2100 a new global order had been established and everything settled down. Yes, there was an Alpha Centauri war and other clashes, but they all followed the forms and conventions set out in the new system. As societies became more affluent and stable internal social change also seems to have slowed - no major new ideologies, just mild nationalist pragmatism. The colonies didn't change this, it just added another arena for expanding the system.

What we are seeing now is the breakdown of the old order. Manchuria is showing signs of arming in orbit, the Kafer war has destabilized an already weakened French Empire, the new technologies are suggesting a generational break (the first for centuries!) and some of the colonies may not be playing according to the old rules. Pessimists across the worlds of course think this means an imminent second Twilight war - and that almost any actions guaranteed to stave it off might be worth the price. Most people of course think they are nutty; sure, the news are worrysome but haven't they always been that?

 

[Colin]

epicenter - Well, given the discriptions of the New America organization per several T2K moduals I think that New America was closer to a nanny state than MilGov or CivGov. Also with the collapse everyone has become "a gun-toting individualist."

Benjamin

In times of extreme disaster, the best chances for survival not in individualism, but in groups. Indeed, suborning oneself to the group would be essential for long-term survival. The absence of group identity typically leads to the marauder path. Civilization was rebuilt by communities, by people who banded together to fight the marauders. (Not unlike Kafer society, oddly enough). This attitude has carried forward into 2320. MOst of the nations that survived did so by pulling together, by creating groups and consensus. The place for the rugged individualist is, at best, on the periphery.

 

[ben51]

Colin, I know I've been busting on your view of Earth a lot in this thread, but I really think it diverges substantially from the feel of the original 2300AD game. As for my reference to "gun-toting individualists" I did not mean lone mavericks running about ala Mad Max. Of course groups and communits would come together for mutual defense. Whether as maurader hordes or community militias people would come together for survival, but it would be far different from today.

You couldn't call the police when looters come a calling...you defended yourself.
You couldn't trust the government to help... it was divided and at odds.
You didn't have FEMA or any other federal agency sending you a check to rebuild... you got together and made a new life the hard way.

I just don't buy it that of all the nations Azania would be the bastion of libertarism. Especially, since the original 2300AD made it clear that Azania had basically reversed the old apartheid and whites were now an oppressed minority. No offense but I think you put too much of your own world views, Canadian from 2008, into 2320 instead of working directly from the T2K and original 2300AD source material.

And what ever happened to Ploughshare. I really liked Ploughshare.

Benjamin

 

[jcrocker]

You couldn't call the police when looters come a calling...you defended yourself.
You couldn't trust the government to help... it was divided and at odds.
You didn't have FEMA or any other federal agency sending you a check to rebuild... you got together and made a new life the hard way.

And what ever happened to Ploughshare. I really liked Ploughshare.

Benjamin

Except for the FEMA reference, this could describe life on the American frontier before the Revolution, or in any of the territories before they were granted statehood. But 300 years later, none of the people who read the first printing of "Poor Richard's Almanac" would recognize the place, or the daily life of the people there.

There are a couple of ways to get from T2K to 2320 - it could have been that people wanted to recreate the 'lost golden age' when no one was looting, shooting at, or enslaving them.

Or the end result, an almost-hive of post-information civilization, can be reached through many intermediate steps yet still ends up looking the same, because it's about the only way you can cram that many people into the given area with the expectation of a certain minimum standard of living.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Or the end result, an almost-hive of post-information civilization, can be reached through many intermediate steps yet still ends up looking the same, because it's about the only way you can cram that many people into the given area with the expectation of a certain minimum standard of living.

GURPS Sword Worlds makes the point that on the most densely populated Sword Worlds, places like Narsil in particular, the elaborate codes of conduct that worked on less populated worlds simply failed in the context of a densely populated society where social relations tended to be quite impersonal.

Speaking about the game, Colin's approach seems quite consistent to me. The modules that concentrated on plotlines that involved--sorry to sound so dismissive or silly--interpersonal violence on a large scale were all on the Frontier.

 

[rfmcdpei]

You couldn't call the police when looters come a calling...you defended yourself.
You couldn't trust the government to help... it was divided and at odds.
You didn't have FEMA or any other federal agency sending you a check to rebuild... you got together and made a new life the hard way.

Certainly. It strikes me as likely that people around the world, including Americans, would have desperately liked to escape from that horrible period of their history.

I just don't buy it that of all the nations Azania would be the bastion of libertarism. Especially, since the original 2300AD made it clear that Azania had basically reversed the old apartheid and whites were now an oppressed minority.

Racial oppression can work well with an unintrusive government. The Deep South during Jim Crow wasn't a welfare state society, for example.

Isn't Ploughshare mentioned as a world located en route to Ylii space?

 

[Colin]

Azania isn't exactly a Libertarian paradise. They simply don't have the political will to spy on their citizens all the time. There are other Earth-bound nations that aren't surveillance states, but with one exception they are all Tier 4 countries. That exception is Texas. Iran in particular holds itself up as a bastion of free thought and action. (The irony does not escape me, and is indeed intentional.)

It's not so much that star-faring nations become surveillance states, but more that surveillance states become star-faring, in large part to provide a safety valve for their citizens who can't, or won't cope. It's not just the surveillance, but the whole accelerated lifestyle. Of course, access to off-world resources and markets is also a significant factor. For many smaller nations, the Tirane enclaves were enough to provide a release valve, but now Tirane is itself too civilized. Note that most Tiranean nations are full-fledged surveillance states as well. It just made sense to them as they matured.

Oh, and to be clear: Personally, I abhor the idea of a surveillance state. However, I see more nations tending that way, and I do understand the reasoning. I just don't agree with it. Anything more on the topic, though, and I would have to punt it to the Pit...

 

[Anders]

I just read Vernor Vinge's short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High", set in the same setting as Rainbow's End. This is a pretty plausible extrapolation of a near future high-bandwidth society. Although having a tremendous rate of change (this is after all the "inventor" of the Singularity) I think it wprks as a description of some advanced Core life pretty well, including the stress/fear of becoming obsolete. The surveillance isn't a Big Brother program, it emerges from all the smart technology everybody has everywhere - every link device, tag and sensor is doing surveillance by their nature. The surveillance states simply make use of all the available resources to protect/help the citizens, while the non-surveillance states let the data just lie around.

 

[epicenter00]

Something that has peripheral relevance to this whole situation is that a lot of people in America in 2320 probably wouldn't tell you they live in a Surveiliance/Police State.

The truth of the matter, sad or not is that most people don't really "use" the freedom they're given and won't even check to see if it's gone unless it's brought to their attention. The example I often use with this is about a curfew law.

Imagine if tomorrow, in your country, a curfew law is put into effect. This law requires that you spend nine hours out of every 24 inside your home, however, it only applies four days of the week, chosen by you. Furthermore, you're given four weeks off every year where the law doesn't apply to you at all.

Most people would rage incoherently against such a violation of their personal freedom, especially in the modern United States. However, if you really break it down, most of us would have no problems whatsoever complying with that law - the fulfillments of the law could probably be handled by those of us who don't travel on business quite easily.

I personally would think that "surveilance states" would vary in quality and how much they advertise how much surveillance they actually do. In many ways, many of us in urban areas already live in surveillance states, right now in the 21st century. Our images are caught by highway traffic flow cameras, private security cameras (tons of these), red light compliance cameras, cameras at the ATM, the dashboard cameras on a passing police car, etc. It's simply that these sources of surveillance aren't syncrochised unlike in 2320.

If daily life was molded around the idea of surveillance and so forth, I would somewhat doubt that any of us reading this thread would even care, beyond talking about how scary it is as cocktail parties or whatever. Otherwise, we'd just shrug and tolerate it as a simple cost of living in a technological society.

 

[Colin]

Which is exactly my point. The surveillance state kind of crept up, both in 2320 and in the modern world. Cameras on stop lights, cameras on stores, cameras on police cars, ATMs, all done in the name of security. GPS trackers on phones, for emergency calls. RFID implants for locks, banking, security. Link all of these together, which is what the Link network was originally designed for, and Blam! instant surveillance state. In most nations, this information is sealed until needed, by police, rescue, what have you. But enough of it filters out to inform advertising, media, and anyone else who is really interested and has the time to dig.

Even the floating cameras are there for security. "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear"

Interestingly enough, the modern US is far more of a surveillance state than most people realize. And many not only accept it, but welcome it, in the name of security.

 

[Anders]

There is one surveillance camera ever 18 meter between my home and my office. Assuming I have found them all. Of course, by documenting them I have now revealed where I live to the entire Internet too.

I think the key question in real and imagined surveillance societies is how effective the use is. Most surveillance cameras in the UK are apparently useless, because they are placed in the wrong places, at too high angles, take pictures too seldom, are not recorded properly etc - they are better at intimidation than surveillance. Even when they work they can only help after an event; software like face recognition and "unusual behavior" detection produces too many false positives to be much help. But I have no doubt one could construct robust, workable, maybe even very livable surveillance societies. With enough accountability and transparency they might even be better than partially closed societies - maybe some Core countries are actually quite close to David Brin's "transparent society". After all, the reason we tend to fear surveillance societies is that we think the people who watch behind the cameras are unaccountable and possibly nasty. But many Core societies might have extensive privacy protection laws and functioning democratic control over their surveillance systems. It is the inefficient or unaccountable states that are really dangerous.

Surveillance societies add a twist to much roleplaying: how do you run an adventure if The Powers That Be can track everything and everybody? It takes a great deal more thinking and planning than the usual "you make a distraction, you flank them and we storm them!" One way is of course to be sneaky and have ways of evading surveillance - something many Core kids learn early on, and may develop as adults. Another way is for the issue to be outside of the interest - or competence - of the Powers That Be. A third way is to hide in plain sight - the first one to do something apparently strange loses.

For some ideas along these lines, check out Halting State by Charles Stross (TCP/IP over AD&D!), The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

 

[epicenter00]

Surveillance societies add a twist to much roleplaying: how do you run an adventure if The Powers That Be can track everything and everybody? It takes a great deal more thinking and planning than the usual "you make a distraction, you flank them and we storm them!" One way is of course to be sneaky and have ways of evading surveillance - something many Core kids learn early on, and may develop as adults. Another way is for the issue to be outside of the interest - or competence - of the Powers That Be. A third way is to hide in plain sight - the first one to do something apparently strange loses.

In an old Cyberpunk 2020 game I used to have group that had a very sinister purpose. It was a social engineering group of charming borderline sociopaths who called themselves "Hiding In Plain Sight" (yes, HIPS for short - term they loved to use because of how humorous and stupid it make their group sound, and thus would distract the observer). HIPS basically made it their purpose to sift through surveillance ESs and AIs and figure out what was necessary to "down a flag." Essentially, certain kinds of behavior always raise flags with such ESs and AIs. However, observers will often conclude that certain kinds of behavior might seem suspicious but is actually harmless ("we're here to protect the public trust, not to play psychiatrist!"). When behavior that normally raises red flags is overriden by human overseers, it's referred to in HIPS as "downing the flag."

HIPS loves people like this, because once they find them, they can generate an enormous databases of them. Every gated community has a few of these people. From that old woman who is actually pretty wealthy but insists on rooting through trashcans anddumpsters for recyclables, the guy who has secret agent fantasies but never does anything but sneak around in a ninja suit by night but is powerful executive by day, so is beyond harassment, the couple who are swingers so always have a variety of fellow swingers and callgirls and such always stopping by their house "discreetly."

HIPS makes it their business to know all of these kinds of people in an area and understanding surveillance software that has "downing the flag" subroutines in them already. These behavior profiles can then be sold (at very high prices) to people who really intend mischief who'll be overlooked because their red flag already went up before, then was verified as harmless, and nobody likes to be the one who files a false report. "Okay, dress like this old woman, we have her wardrobe monitored for the last three years. Buy it and get a wig of this color too. Now, she's always rooting around dumpsters in the business district, so the back cameras there are used to her if you go by there during the day. If you keep out of this camera and this camera here, nobody is going to notice you going through that old ventilation fan into the Jameston building. From there, you can access the underground water and power conduit over to the Trilon building..."

 

[Anders]

I just saw this article: 'Herds' of wary cars could keep an eye out for thieves. Sounds like just the reason to Link-enable your car. Of course, if you could hack the system things get really fun.

In my game one the PCs worked at a car shop (this happened before the above article, I have a creative game group). She cobbled cobbled together a small Link-device that she inserted into every car that came by the shop. Normally it would be quiet, to avoid detection. After a few months she sent an activation signal that made the cars "wake up" and tell other nearby cars to "wake up". Now quite a few cars were running her own private Link network on a secret frequency across town. When a hacker PC downloaded the right scripts they could even use the car network as rowing RFID/Link detectors - this way they found out where a compatriot had been taken. So in time for the big battle the hacker uploaded a nasty script that made the cars congregate close to the villains and then go berzerk.

The moral: Physical access always beats software security. Always check your car for foreign hardware and that it is not sending messages on unknown frequencies, otherwise it might suddenly decide to run into a minefield while broadcasting revolution propaganda...