2300AD: The Problem with Manchu

[Grievous]

The government of PRC have spent a lot of time promoting "one people". (which means that someone who is ethnically Chinese but born in Bolton in the UK) would be more Chinese than person born to European parents who has never left China for 3 generations. The differences between Han and Manchus pale into insignificance. And I guestimate that post-Twilight, that will matter even less.

The 1980s setup of 2300AD was always more about anxiety than accuracy.

Yeah, the official canon story relies on some kind of noteworthy Manchu resurgence. They've been pretty assimilated now, but it isn't within the bounds of reason that there could be a revanchist cultural revival (which also turns into imperialism). With those assumptions, the naming and story do end up making sense.

It would be interesting to learn about the original mega-game that was played to figure out what happened post-Twilight which resulted in the 2300 AD history. Maybe there was a Qing Dynasty enthuasiast in there who ran with it.

 

[lategamer]

Yeah, the official canon story relies on some kind of noteworthy Manchu resurgence.

Resurgence and migration and adoption of a term which is associated with invasion and massacre. The Manchus didn’t even call their land Manchuria.

They've been pretty assimilated now, but it isn't within the bounds of reason that there could be a revanchist cultural revival (which also turns into imperialism). With those assumptions, the naming and story do end up making sense.

With what we know now, I think these cultural revivals are even less likely

It would be interesting to learn about the original mega-game that was played to figure out what happened post-Twilight which resulted in the 2300 AD history. Maybe there was a Qing Dynasty enthuasiast in there who ran with it.

Except that when it was played it was a very different world. And depends on the whole Twilight War as a thing (which pay not be desirable).

 

[Condottiere]

Might have taken inspiration from Buck Rogers, since it would be hard to nuance the Yellow Peril in the interwar years.

 

[Vormaerin]

Tbh, this is one of the main reasons I never got into 2300 despite liking the style of ships. I was never particularly interested in 19th century redux as a setting in the first place. And these kinds of real world politics arguments kept popping up in the discussions any time I did try to look into it.

Admittedly, it didn't help that most of the people I knew who liked 2300 were big Twilight 2000 fans and that kind of mil fiction isn't my style of gameplay and they made it sound like 2300 was more of the same, but in space.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

I've never understood the accusation that 2k3 was "19th century." GDW had a sci-fi Victorian game in the shape of Space:1889, and this wasn't it.

I guess it is the fact that nations survived, and compete. Let me point out that until ca. 2280 the "French Peace" basically held. Nationalism was relatively low, and there was a lot of cooperation. On Earth, rogue nations like Argentina, Indonesia and Iran were largely contained. This was shattered by the Central Asian War which was kicked off by the Manchurian annexation of Xinjiang and soon adopted the aspects of a WW4.

France was shown to be overextended as the global hegemon, and revisionist powers arose. In America, the American Party has arisen on a platform of "Make America Great Again," and President Joe Orsaluk has used the Kafer threat to invoke war powers and is ruling by diktat. The old Bundesrepublik fell in Germany* and Schumpeter arose there. In France a military junta was formed, but it was fallen and France is reverting back towards liberalism under Ruffin.

If anything, Earth is more like the 1930's, with revisionist powers wanting to assert themselves. This has been disrupted by the Kafer threat.

* "Bavaria" is actually the old BRD's successor. In Twilight:2000 the capital was moved to Nurnberg, and Helmutt Korell (who gave his name to the German warship at 1st Alpha Centauri) secured the continuation of the BRD when he basically got all the American heavy equipment during the Going Home module but stayed loyal rather than setting up a petty fiefdom.