Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Syndicates & Governments

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Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Syndicates & Governments

Post by Username17 »

So we need political entities for Frank Trollman's Cyberpunk Fantasy Hartbreaker. And we need quasi-apolitical economic syndicates. And we need futuristic ideologies. The first part includes regional and multiregional governments. The second part includes multi-national corporations and organized crime. The third part have associated armed pressure groups. Because collectively, those are the three things that will have Assets and Agents.

Governments

Governments come in two flavors: Regional Governments (that are small and corrupt), and Transnational Governments (that are implacable, distant, and uncaring). The interplay between these creates work for Assets, and the general level of lawlessness that multi-jurisdictional existence entails provides people a place to hide in a suitably cyberpunk fashion.

At the top is the International Monetary Fund. They are the ones who decide whether your money is worth anything, and also issue $piders, the only universally accepted currency. Their agenda is make things better for investors who happen to have accounts with the International Monetary Fund. This means that sometimes they try to improve the economy of your region (because a growing economy raises the value of investments), and sometimes they try to bottom out your region's economy (because a prostrate economy is cheap to buy into on the "ground floor"). It all depends on how much of your region the bankers interested in your region who happen to have voting shares at the IMF already own in your region.

Regionally important for North America is the North American Union. It's a trans-governmental government agency that was agreed upon by Canada, Mexico, and the US back when they were all coherent countries. Today it extends all the way to Panama and includes most of the Caribbean. Their agenda is to bind regions in North America closer together and eventually stage a complete unification where they become a super empire that would be a real country. Thus they sponsor any and all proposed inter-regional trade whether or not it makes any economic sense, and attempt to fight separatism and external threats to the North American states.

Regional Governments include:

Aridoamérica
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It is a band across what is now Northern Mexico and including tiny parts of Arizona and New Mexico. It includes Deming, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona is a disputed border city that is largely depopulated because of regional instability. They embrace the magical traditions of traditional Chichimecan Shamanism and Nuevo Anasazi. It is largely a Mad Max wild land where the three main drug gangs (based in Tijuana, Juarez, and Reynosa) wield more real power individually than the government in Chihuahua.

Aztlan
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This is Central and parts of Southern Mexico. Ciudad de Mexico has been renamed Tenochtitlan and they lay claim to everything that used to be in Mexico. That includes California. The embrace the magical traditions of Nahuali (Aztec Magic) and Curandera (a more Spanish-Mexican form of sorcery). They are aggressive, and they play court ball.

Maya
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The Yucatan gets it right in the wang when sea levels rise 30 centimeters, and when the central government of Mexico does fuck-all about it, the Mayan people secede. Maya united Belize, Guatemala, and the Western half of Honuras. They embrace the magical traditions of

Mosquito Union
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The Mosquito Coast is unified, largely under the guidance of Miskito sorcerers, but also with the guiding interest of a group of British biotech firms. The national language in Mosquito is English. Mosquito includes Eastern Honduras and all of Nicuragua. Costa Rica is a Spanish-speaking protectorate. The Miskitians embrace the magical tradition of Miskito and Mosquito, the former being based on traditionalist tribal beliefs and the latter being based heavily in modern theories of biotech and insect-grafts.

Colorado
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Denver has the all-important economic infrastructure that allows the people who think they are still in the United States and live in the Mountain Time Zone to continue functioning. They embrace Nuevo Anasazi and Navajo ’áńt’įįzhį.

California
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As the Colorado state government is the defacto national government for Albuquerque, Kansas City, and Omaha, the state government in California provides administration and currency for Portland and Las Vegas. Those who submit to Californication embrace the magical traditions of Aquarianism and Western Technomancy, which are rooted in Hippyism and high energy physics, respectively.

---More to Come---

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Post by Username17 »

Secessionist American Provinces

Lone Star Republic
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It's pretty much Texas. They added a bit around the ArkLaTex, and they moved the capital to Dallas after generally horrible things happened to Austin and Houston. Many Texans follow Curandera, but most local Brujahs follow Fenomeno.

Conch Republic
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Miami needs dykes to keep the ocean out of its streets and there is a lot missing from the Everglades. And Jacksonville is a non-city. But being cut adrift from America, South Florida was free to do what it always wanted to do: Invade Cuba. Also what's left of the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Local magic is Santeria and Voodoo. Since the world is severely oil-short, the fact that the Conch Republic is rich in "white gold" (biofuel made from sugar cane) means that they are able to maintain relatively high employment and output, making them one of the richer countries.

The Republic of Deseret
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It's basically Utah except for a bit in the Southeast that is Navajo and is part of Greater Colorado instead. Non-Mormon magic is illegal in Deseret.

Corporations

Corporate actors are very powerful because they can take over part of another region just by paying market value for them. This isn't the 20th century though, and industry just isn't worth much. Industrial capacity utilization is incredibly poor because demand is perpetually depressed and resource shortages are a constant concern. So all the companies like Lockheed just don't even matter any more. The Megas are based on one or more of the following:
  • Resource monopolies. Resources are scarce, and if you have a stranglehold on a resource needed for production, you can command significant concessions. An example is the Rare Earth mine in Mountain Pass, California. Once it is online, it provides a majority of the world's rare earths. Almost all of the rest come from a couple mines in Mongolia (that is not a joke - mines in other countries comprise 3% of global rare earth production).
  • Medicine. Biotech speaks for itself.
  • Telecommunications. People can't go anywhere, but they still need to talk, so telecom is about as powerful as it was during the early days of telegraph.
  • High Tech With energy in short supply, people need things to be lighter and more fuel efficient all the time.
  • Energy. He who has the hydro-electric dam has the aluminum processing plant up and running shortly. People need[/] energy for everything, and companies that can provide it are required for everything else.


You also want to have companies representing every part of the world and the new economy. So something that is a recognizable Gazprom would be good. Meanwhile, the companies in the Americas need to be reshuffled. There's no anti-trust legislation that affects anything, so we can have Standard Oil back.

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Post by A Man In Black »

FrankTrollman wrote:Miami needs dykes to keep the ocean out of its streets and there is a lot missing from the Everglades.
I know this is just a typo and it's obvious what you actually meant. But the idea that Florida is protected by a all-lesbian bucket brigade is terribly amusing to me.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

There is no typo. Frank is spelling that word correctly.
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Post by A Man In Black »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is no typo. Frank is spelling that word correctly.
Well, whatever. Even if it makes me terribly immature, I'm amused.
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Post by fectin »

A Man In Black wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is no typo. Frank is spelling that word correctly.
Well, whatever. Even if it makes me terribly immature, I'm amused.
"Dike" is a wall or embankment for holding back water.
"Dyke" is a somewhat derogatory term for a masculine woman.
"Dyke" is also a somewhat obscure term for ditch. Wikipedia thinks it's related to "ditch" via the old English "dic".
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

According to my dictionary, "dyke" and "dike" are both correct spellings for the word. And both have "a wall or embankment for holding back water" as their primary meaning. I don't think that counts as obscure, especially since I've taken two years of college and have never seen anyone spell it "dike", but I will take the dictionary's word that it is indeed okay to spell it that way.
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Post by Gx1080 »

Was expecting a couple more of non-Latino goverments. There's too many of them.
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Post by fectin »

After further research, I have no clue. Wikipedia implies that the Anglo-Saxon word dic and the Dutch word dijk are different, but that both refer to a trench with the dirt mounded up to one side. I'm willing to buy that the two words came from the two roots, but that tells me very little about which is correct. I guess the English one just meant ditch, so we should use the Dutch cognate because they fill the "hold back water" function there?

For bonus fun, it's a geology term of art, and both spellings are accepted there.
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Post by zeruslord »

So, some more things we'll need in North America
  • (pompous french word) Quebec: given how many people already take the possiblity of Quebec seceding seriously, they've got to end up as their own thing post-collapse.
  • Some division of the northeastern metropolis into different chunks. (NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore? DC?)
  • Seattle. It's too big to ignore, too important to Shadowrun to keep the same, and too isolated to be part of anything else (except maybe some sort of union with Vancouver). When Shadowrun was written, signs pointed to punk and grunge. These days, signs point to hipsters and coffee shops. I'm not really sure which way we want to run with this.
  • A rump government in DC. Probably led by a President Mayor.
  • the CSA, although I think that's already in the cards.
  • Ontario and British Columbia probably end up as their own things, but I don't know them well enough to tell you what those things are like.
  • The Great North: all the empty unlivable bits of Canada get quite a bit more livable after global warming. That probably doesn't make them a big power, but it also can't be totally ignored.
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Post by kzt »

The CSA is a stupid idea. I can just see the 30% black population of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and South Carolina going for segregation, lynching and the KKK way of life.
Last edited by kzt on Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Maxus »

kzt wrote:The CSA is a stupid idea. I can just see the 30% black population of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and South Carolina going for segregation, lynching and the KKK way of life.
Speaking as someone who lives in the area in question, the latent racism just isn't that much there these days, especially in the younger generation because we've been told all out lives (via the miracle of TV and other such things) that Racism is Wrong.

You can totally get dickheads trying to go back to that, but there's going to be some stiff resistance.

Edit: And I'm totally sure you can google up news stories of racist school principals or kids or something. When I was in 10th grade, a classmate got expelled for doodling KKK shit in class and the rest of us were going "WTF was that idiot THINKING". It makes the news for the same reason that, oh, crooked politicians get in the news.

But, in general, racism seems to be getting less popular with each generation, and will probably continue to do so.
Last edited by Maxus on Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by A Man In Black »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:According to my dictionary, "dyke" and "dike" are both correct spellings for the word. And both have "a wall or embankment for holding back water" as their primary meaning. I don't think that counts as obscure, especially since I've taken two years of college and have never seen anyone spell it "dike", but I will take the dictionary's word that it is indeed okay to spell it that way.
I'm sorry I brought it up, don't let it start an argument.
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Post by Username17 »

Gx wrote:Was expecting a couple more of non-Latino goverments. There's too many of them.
That is substantially less Latino governments than exist in North America right now. But in any case, I have't gotten to Atlanta, Philly, New York, Chicago, Montreal, or Vancouver - none of which will be in the same regional government as each other.

As for a country calling itself the CSA, I think that's pretty much inevitable. When Confederate Flag polls go up in the South (and there are a lot of them), they come back with pretty consistent numbers. 40-50% of people are in favor, 20-30% are opposed, and the rest don't care. So when it comes time to put a flag over the Atlanta state house, you're going to have a basic plurality demanding that it be the Stars and Bars, a minority demanding that it be something else, and another minority who don't give a shit.

Now, Georgia's state flag is currently already the Stars and Bars with the state Coat of Arms in the middle of the stars. But the thing is: most people in the South don't actually know that. They think the "Stars and Bars" refers to the "Blood Stained Banner" or Confederate Cross - like the Mississippi state flag. So when Atlanta became the defacto capital of everything from New Orleans to Richmond, they would end up putting up a Confederate Battle Flag to replace the Confederate National Flag they already have - totally unaware of the vexicological meaning that would have (the literal meaning that they considered themselves to be less of an independent confederate state than they did before).

Now there are going to be some people who want to use the declaration of the CSA as an excuse to bring back slavery, but they are going to be heavily in the minority. In fact, having just their own country to worry about and no "Yankees" to hate on, the KKK people are going to seen by the local government as exactly what they are: a group of dangerous terrorists. So while the CSA uses a lot of Johnny Reb rhetoric in describing itself, people who actually want to segregate Black people are going to be treated as marginal, criminal extremists by the government, the media, and society at large. The CSA's big legacy of slavery is that they have a right-wing terrorism problem, and by and large the people of the region would see it as such.

The "back to the plantation" movement is stillborn. But the "bring back the flag" movement has already won, so when they won again it wouldn't really change much.

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Post by Draco_Argentum »

If Aztlan isn't Shadowrun IP its certainly so closely associated that I wouldn't use it.
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Post by Username17 »

Draco_Argentum wrote:If Aztlan isn't Shadowrun IP its certainly so closely associated that I wouldn't use it.
Aztlan is the actual name of that region. Actually, the people who want Aztlan don't really want to conquer South America like the Shadowrun nation, their dream looks like this:
Image

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Post by sabs »

Should the NE be all seperated, or should it be one giant Metroplex?

or should it be both :)
Physically one giant Metroplex, but with 4-5 different governments.
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Post by Username17 »

sabs wrote:Should the NE be all seperated, or should it be one giant Metroplex?

or should it be both :)
Physically one giant Metroplex, but with 4-5 different governments.
That is certainly an idea. Making it so that there actually isn't a fixed border between the New York, Philly, and DC currency zones, and there are gangs that support one regional government or another and will beat you up if you're using the wrong color of dollars on their turf.

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Post by talozin »

FrankTrollman wrote: Now there are going to be some people who want to use the declaration of the CSA as an excuse to bring back slavery, but they are going to be heavily in the minority. In fact, having just their own country to worry about and no "Yankees" to hate on, the KKK people are going to seen by the local government as exactly what they are: a group of dangerous terrorists.
It would be somewhat amusing and ironic to have the new "CSA" be an exceptionally open and tolerant society, rather than the hotbed of racism and segregationism that's bound to spring to people's minds at the mention of the name. Maybe they take the "states' rights" ideal extremely seriously and extend it down to the level of individuals, so your race, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth are very firmly Not The Government's Business.
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Post by mean_liar »

FrankTrollman wrote: Resource monopolies. Resources are scarce, and if you have a stranglehold on a resource needed for production, you can command significant concessions. An example is the Rare Earth mine in Mountain Pass, California. Once it is online, it provides a majority of the world's rare earths. Almost all of the rest come from a couple mines in Mongolia (that is not a joke - mines in other countries comprise 3% of global rare earth production).
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80bea ... ocean-mud/

The relative economic costs of extracting rare earths from underwater locations presumably goes down in the magitech future.
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Post by Username17 »

Cascadia
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Based out of the Royal Canadian Mint in Vancouver (currently just a store front, but in the future history they start making money there at some point), Cascadia is British Columbia, Alberta, and Washington State. It also ambiguously includes Portland, because Oregonians take Cascadian Dollars and California Dollars in exchange for goods and services. The local magics are Tlingit Totemism and Northwestern Forge Magic.

Quebec
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Free Quebec. With Iroquois Totemism and Catholic Black Magic. Because well, obviously.

Caledonia
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A vast region in Central Canada and parts of the fly over states like Montana. They have their currency minted in Winnipeg, and they cover vast areas that they cannot possibly control. They have a really low population, but they export food and oil, so they are rich as fuck. They do Lakota Shamanism and Manitoban Geomancy.

Ideology

OK, these are multi-national pressure groups that are essentially syndicates like organized crime or corporate actors. They may not have as many Spiders or Dollars to throw around as the megacorps, but people work for them for free. Because they have a vision about how things are supposed to be, and people want to follow them.

The inspiration we're going for here is Alpha Centauri. The ideological factions should not be single-issue groups or shallow stand-ins for modern political pressure groups. And since it's the magi-tech future, their ideologies can be as out-there as Cha Dawn or Aki Zeta Five.
Last edited by Username17 on Wed Jul 13, 2011 6:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by sabs »

Quebec should probably have a mix of Iriquois totemish magic, and Catholicism.

Because it's Quebec.
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Post by fectin »

talozin wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote: Now there are going to be some people who want to use the declaration of the CSA as an excuse to bring back slavery, but they are going to be heavily in the minority. In fact, having just their own country to worry about and no "Yankees" to hate on, the KKK people are going to seen by the local government as exactly what they are: a group of dangerous terrorists.
It would be somewhat amusing and ironic to have the new "CSA" be an exceptionally open and tolerant society, rather than the hotbed of racism and segregationism that's bound to spring to people's minds at the mention of the name. Maybe they take the "states' rights" ideal extremely seriously and extend it down to the level of individuals, so your race, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth are very firmly Not The Government's Business.
That is actually a very believable result. It also probably means that places like Atlanta are hellacious, and that institutions like churches (or the local Masons, or even the local KKK) are fairly powerful, their power is all direct and local, in that all the local members can agree to be mean to you. If you don't like what they are doing though, you can seriously get up and leave.

That devotion to states' right probably also turns the New South into a great place to hide out after a run. Combining a great place to hide out and a place you can eventually become unwelcome and get run out of town is actually pretty awesome for an RPG that's basically episodic.
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Post by talozin »

FrankTrollman wrote: Caledonia
A vast region in Central Canada and parts of the fly over states lie Montana.
Alberta has significant oil sands deposits, and Wyoming has oil shale formations. The Dakotas have actual oil reserves as well as massive amounts of coal, and the Great Plains are a heck of a place to generate wind power. I'm thinking that the economic viability of exploiting some or all of these resources may well have jumped dramatically in a largely post-oil world. Caledonia as the energy capital of the world (or at least North America) might be a potentially interesting twist, and somewhat different from the usual "yeah, cows, grain, more cows, more grain" theme.
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Post by fectin »

Wind power is less awesome than you think. However, it would turn much more awesome if there were a good way of storing that energy (which could turn into a currency backing also!)
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