2300AD: The Problem with Manchu

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

D'Artagnon is a French outpost. There is no Indonesian outpost at Barnard's. The nearer parts of the Chinese Arm are:

Barnard's Star: Manchurian (2153, edit, not Mancunian) and American* (2160) planetary outpost with 0.71 G
Seurier: French/ESA (2159) outpost (0.21 G)
Broward**: American outpost (2172, 0.26 G)
DM-26 12026: Manchurian (2172), Argentine (2175), French/ESA (2175) outpost (0.97 G)
Davout: French/ESA (2184) and Japanese (2211) outposts (0.76 G)
D'Artagnon: French/ESA (2185, 0.65 G)
Cold Mountain: first Manchuian colony (2201)

In 2187 the British (not acting with ESA in this case) establish a national outpost at Clarke's Star, which is where the future American Arm forks off.

There is no star DM-46 15540. I assume this is supposed to be DM-46 11540

* American really means American-Australian. The Americans didn't have fully national ships until ca. 2190.
** Named for President Broward, who was CivGov leader in Twilight:2000

However, all this is impossible in the Colinverse. In this universe proper stutterwarp wasn't available until the 2190's. All of this development can't have happened. Jumpers, of course, cannot exist in either universe. To simply paste from the blog:

"
Jumpers and Exploration

In 2nd edition Mong 2k3 there is a new visit from the good idea fairy in the form of "jumpers." If they were in 1st edition, it wasn't in the rules book. These jumpers were separatists or cultists who left Earth for the stars 2130-2170. One should note that in 2130, in all versions, the stutterwarp drive hasn't been invented yet. In the Mongoose continuity, when the last jumpers leave, ESA perhaps hasn't even sent their first colony ships to Tirane, triggering the Alpha Centauri War (which appears to have happened in 2182 rather than than 2162 in that continuity).

The idea that religious whackjobs are building or buying starships before the great powers and heading off into the big black stretches incredulousness. That they got as far as Paulo, Doris (which Colin renamed Kanata for no good reason) and Avalon > 100 years before the professional explorers stretches it further. Doris is 81.69 real light years, and with the insystem journey components the ship would need at least 3 years to reach it. All of the crossings except one are > 3.85 ly (the early drive limit in prime canon which is alluded to in Mongoose).

Then there is the question of how they navigated?

When entering an unexplored system, the first question is where can I discharge? Some explorers can get around this by jettisoning the charged drive if necessary, because they can carry a spare. Without knowing this, you are looking for a body to discharge at, whilst the drive is charged. Now, the techniques used for exoplanet hunting generally don't work. We can only see a fraction of planets, and no increases in resolution etc. will compensate for there literally being no signal. Thus, when an explorer enters a system, they are reliant on their own sensors, or those of probes, to find a reasonable body to discharge the drive at.

Without belabouring the point, there has to be some limiting factor to explain why Man's forward exploration moved forward at about one star system per decade. The counterpoint is, of course, the Bayern module, but that can be explained away perhaps by advances in technology in the 150-odd years since the Jumper times."

 

[lategamer]

D'Artagnon is a French outpost. There is no Indonesian outpost at Barnard's. The nearer parts of the Chinese Arm are:

This conflicts with the core Rulebook 2. D'Artagnon is not listed as a colony and Barnards Star....



Is there a 2300AD errata I'm not aware of?

Barnard's Star: Mancurian (2153) and American* (2160) planetary outpost with 0.71 G
Seurier: French/ESA (2159) outpost (0.21 G)
Broward**: American outpost (2172, 0.26 G)
DM-26 12026: Manchurian (2172), Argentine (2175), French/ESA (2175) outpost (0.97 G)
Davout: French/ESA (2184) and Japanese (2211) outposts (0.76 G)
D'Artagnon: French/ESA (2185)
Cold Mountain: first Manchuian colony (2201)

In 2187 the British (not acting with ESA in this case) establish a national outpost at Clarke's Star, which is where the future American Arm forks off.

There is no star DM-46 15540. I assume this is supposed to be DM-46 11540

Again, is there errata I'm missing.

* American really means American-Australian. The Americans didn't have fully national ships until ca. 2190.
** Named for President Broward, who was CivGov leader in Twilight:2000
However, all this is impossible in the Colinverse. In this universe proper stutterwarp wasn't available until the 2190's. All of this development can't have happened. Jumpers, of course, cannot exist in either universe. To simply paste from the blog:

Hmmmm I see what you mean.

"
Jumpers and Exploration

In 2nd edition Mong 2k3 there is a new visit from the good idea fairy in the form of "jumpers." If they were in 1st edition, it wasn't in the rules book. These jumpers were separatists or cultists who left Earth for the stars 2130-2170. One should note that in 2130, in all versions, the stutterwarp drive hasn't been invented yet. In the Mongoose continuity, when the last jumpers leave, ESA perhaps hasn't even sent their first colony ships to Tirane, triggering the Alpha Centauri War (which appears to have happened in 2182 rather than than 2162 in that continuity).

The idea that religious whackjobs are building or buying starships before the great powers and heading off into the big black stretches incredulousness. That they got as far as Paulo, Doris (which Colin renamed Kanata for no good reason) and Avalon > 100 years before the professional explorers stretches it further. Doris is 81.69 real light years, and with the insystem journey components the ship would need at least 3 years to reach it. All of the crossings except one are > 3.85 ly (the early drive limit in prime canon which is alluded to in Mongoose).

Then there is the question of how they navigated?

When entering an unexplored system, the first question is where can I discharge? Some explorers can get around this by jettisoning the charged drive if necessary, because they can carry a spare. Without knowing this, you are looking for a body to discharge at, whilst the drive is charged. Now, the techniques used for exoplanet hunting generally don't work. We can only see a fraction of planets, and no increases in resolution etc. will compensate for there literally being no signal. Thus, when an explorer enters a system, they are reliant on their own sensors, or those of probes, to find a reasonable body to discharge the drive at.

Without belabouring the point, there has to be some limiting factor to explain why Man's forward exploration moved forward at about one star system per decade. The counterpoint is, of course, the Bayern module, but that can be explained away perhaps by advances in technology in the 150-odd years since the Jumper times."

 

[lategamer]

D'Artagnon is a French outpost. There is no Indonesian outpost at Barnard's. The nearer parts of the Chinese Arm are:

What's your ref in 2nd Ed?

There is no star DM-46 15540. I assume this is supposed to be DM-46 11540

I just dug out my 2300AD 2nd Ed and yeah, looks like they typo'ed. Why didn't they fix this at least in the PDFs?

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

Meetpoint station is a strange tale.

When Colin wrote 2320AD, the "Libertines" were one of the few things that were his original creation. Basically, Colin like CJ Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe, and wanted a group like the Spacers of that universe. Further, for some reason he wanted them to be, excuse the term, Gypsy's, although he conflated Romany and Irish travellers. Snatch had just been in the cinemas, and I wonder if that's where that came from. Per the encounter tables, the Libertines probably owned 1/4th of the starships in existence. How? Good question, and one which Colin kept refusing the answer on this board and others.

Colin's argument doesn't follow, as the Spacers in Cherryh's books only developed because there was ~150 years of relativistic sublight travel creating a divergence point. In 2300AD such a thing never happened. Starships were built initially exclusively by a few national governments. In the 2230's the British government could not buy starships and so had to build their own starships. The first starships operated by large national corporations appear in the 2250's or 2260's, and some middle-sized governments (like Canada) are able to purchase a few ships (Canada launched their first domestically built starship in 2291). The ability to lease a surplus starship to an operatior is relatively new. There aren't really any privately owned starships, since:

(link instead of image, rejected for size)

Pirates are likely a new phenomenon. The Central Asian and Franco-German wars featured a lot of commerce raiding, and shenanagans appear to have happened.

Anyway, what we are seeing with Meetpoint Station, Jumpers, Belters etc. is Colin's attempt to justify the nonsensical Libertines. He is twisting the universe to justify something which explicitly doesn't exist in it. Further, he's adopted from odd legal positions. He's claimed the Indonesian flag makes libertine and pirate ships immune to the law. This is wrong, and contrary to article VI of the Outer Space Treaty. All space vehicles must be registered with a properly recognised signatory nation, and that nation is responsible for that vessels behaviour. If Indonesia allows pirates to operate under its' flag then that gives carte blanche to all other nations to seize Indonesian property. The Libertines are liable to have their ships seized by anyone who wants them, and they have no recourse, because the vessels are not their legal property. For pointing this out, Colin's had a bit of a dig at me in the Colin Dunn's Invasion...

 

[lategamer]

The first starships operated by large national corporations appear in the 2250's or 2260's, and some middle-sized governments (like Canada) are able to purchase a few ships (Canada launched their first domestically built starship in 2291). The ability to lease a surplus starship to an operatior is relatively new. There aren't really any privately owned starships, since:

This is one of the things I liked about 2300AD. Of course, the Quadrillionaires of the era may also have access to them but the point remains that these things are not something we just cadge together from a few scraps.

Pirates are likely a new phenomenon. The Central Asian and Franco-German wars featured a lot of commerce raiding, and shenanagans appear to have happened.

Privateers?

Anyway, what we are seeing with Meetpoint Station, Jumpers, Belters etc. is Colin's attempt to justify the nonsensical Libertines. He is twisting the universe to justify something which explicitly doesn't exist in it. Further, he's adopted from odd legal positions. He's claimed the Indonesian flag makes libertine and pirate ships immune to the law. This is wrong, and contrary to article VI of the Outer Space Treaty. All space vehicles must be registered with a properly recognised signatory nation, and that nation is responsible for that vessels behaviour. If Indonesia allows pirates to operate under its' flag then that gives carte blanche to all other nations to seize Indonesian property. The Libertines are liable to have their ships seized by anyone who wants them, and they have no recourse, because the vessels are not their legal property. For pointing this out, Colin's had a bit of a dig at me in the Colin Dunn's Invasion...

Under maritime law, things are a little shaky based on registration. So much depends on everyone behaving politely. It's certainly more about projection of power at the time*. If two Texan cruisers have your Indonesian flagged vessel in their sights in international waters, they can do whatever the heck they want if there isn't an Indonesian-flagged cruiser willing to go toe-to-toe with them present right there and then. At some point, someone may file foul play but is Indonesia going to back up some pirate versus two actual affiliated cruisers? No, that'd be insane. I imagine something similar works in space. I also imagine there's a spacey-version of ColReg. 12 miles out and there's no reason why your government would reach out to defend you, even if you are flagged.

*there was a well publicised video a few years ago of a Danish warhsip tearing a couple of Somalian RIBs to shreds with a 50'cal in the Somali Basin. All about projection of power.

 

[Grievous]

Wow okay a pretty strong position from Endie against the effort, but I'd just like to say that I'm not a fan of policing language etc. either, but I am a fan of historical accuracy and the derivative verisimilitude that flows from that to fictional worlds. The Manchu name has felt a bit like an oddity to me as well, but to be fair it is not entirely out of the question that a polity could conceivably use it.

I'm out of reach of my books at the moment and I don't remember 2300 AD history fully as it pertains to the birth of Manchuria off hand, but if I remember right it is a northern Chinese nation. In that case, the name feels very much misplaced. If it were a polity propped up by Japan (ie. a proper example of colonialism in setting) or perhaps a dominant Japanese minority (unlikely without some major setting up), then there might be something to it, but I don't think this is the case.

So yeah, I do think this effort is worth the squeeze (esp. with a new version coming)!

 

[lategamer]

I am a fan of historical accuracy and the derivative verisimilitude that flows from that to fictional worlds. The Manchu name has felt a bit like an oddity to me as well, but to be fair it is not entirely out of the question that a polity could conceivably use it.

It bothers me as much that it's in the wrong place.
Manchuria in 2300:



Historical manchuria as a invading puppet state of the Japanese



I mean, we've pretty much ditched "Fu Manchu" as a thing, right?

I'm out of reach of my books at the moment and I don't remember 2300 AD history fully as it pertains to the birth of Manchuria off hand, but if I remember right it is a northern Chinese nation. In that case, the name feels very much misplaced. If it were a polity propped up by Japan (ie. a proper example of colonialism in setting) or perhaps a dominant Japanese minority (unlikely without some major setting up), then there might be something to it, but I don't think this is the case.

The Japan angle is well-made - but I don't think modern Japan would support that. No, ask again how post-Twilight War Japan would support that and I can't speculate.

In the absence of direction, I'm going to make it an exonym used by the Europeans and Americans, but not internally.

 

[chibiko]

It bothers me as much that it's in the wrong place.
Manchuria in 2300:

View attachment 6654

Historical manchuria as a invading puppet state of the Japanese

View attachment 6655

I mean, we've pretty much ditched "Fu Manchu" as a thing, right?



The Japan angle is well-made - but I don't think modern Japan would support that. No, ask again how post-Twilight War Japan would support that and I can't speculate.

In the absence of direction, I'm going to make it an exonym used by the Europeans and Americans, but not internally.

I'd agree with you that it should be used as an exonym, and also that the 2300AD location is historically inaccurate.

Naturally, it's complicated and conveniently, there's a wiki on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchuria

 

[lategamer]

I'd agree with you that it should be used as an exonym, and also that the 2300AD location is historically inaccurate.

Naturally, it's complicated and conveniently, there's a wiki on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchuria

A quote from that page:

Manchuria as a geographical term was first used in the 18th or 19th centuries by the Japanese before spreading to Europe. The term was promoted by the Empire of Japan in support for the existence of its puppet state, Manchukuo. Although the toponym is still used, some scholars treat the term with caution or avoid it altogether due to its association with Japanese colonialism. The term is deprecated in China due to its association with Japanese imperialism and ethnic connotations.

Now, in support of keeping it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_people

According to this there are about 10 million people nowadays who identify as Manju/Manzhou/Manzhu/Manchu

Maybe post-Twilight, they led a reconstruction effort and people rallied to their cause even far outside of their own region.

 

[Grievous]

Maybe post-Twilight, they led a reconstruction effort and people rallied to their cause even far outside of their own region.

Or the newly revitalized Manchu conquered the other regions - which I think is the point of the Central Asian War.

 

[Grievous]

So, to me it seems it is a minority-led northern Chinese imperialist nation - dare I say, dynasty - that conquered their neighbors (and some quite far away provinces, maybe trying to build some kind of neo-Silk Road/Belt & Road 2.0). So the Manchuria here is a pretty clear nod towards the Manchu ethnicity, not the Japan-linked Manchukuo (which was not a Manchu-ethnic led state), and indeed to the Qing dynasty (when the whole of China was led by the Manchus). This also explains why the rest of China didn't just fold in enthusiastically.

 

[lategamer]

So, to me it seems it is a minority-led northern Chinese imperialist nation - dare I say, dynasty - that conquered their neighbors (and some quite far away provinces, maybe trying to build some kind of neo-Silk Road/Belt & Road 2.0). So the Manchuria here is a pretty clear nod towards the Manchu ethnicity, not the Japan-linked Manchukuo (which was not a Manchu-ethnic led state), and indeed to the Qing dynasty (when the whole of China was led by the Manchus). This also explains why the rest of China didn't just fold in enthusiastically.

I can just about get behind that line of reasoning, post-Twilight.

As for the Manchurian Arm - that's going to be a bone of contention my players will encounter.

 

[Condottiere]

Has Solomanchu been tried?

The fact that the Han dislike the Manchu, would be somewhat of an understatement.

 

[lategamer]

Has Solomanchu been tried?

The fact that the Han dislike the Manchu, would be somewhat of an understatement.

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.

 

[Condottiere]

The Politburo is of the opinion that the diaspora are like pandas: they all belong to the State.

Sinonization is more a political project, to remove any possibility of a successful minority secession, rather than trying to integrate them.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

Privateers?

Maybe. This is mentioned in the original Invasion. However, the wars mean ships disappearing from registries etc., and in such chaos things slip through the cracks.

Under maritime law, things are a little shaky based on registration. So much depends on everyone behaving politely. It's certainly more about projection of power at the time*. If two Texan cruisers have your Indonesian flagged vessel in their sights in international waters, they can do whatever the heck they want if there isn't an Indonesian-flagged cruiser willing to go toe-to-toe with them present right there and then. At some point, someone may file foul play but is Indonesia going to back up some pirate versus two actual affiliated cruisers? No, that'd be insane. I imagine something similar works in space. I also imagine there's a spacey-version of ColReg. 12 miles out and there's no reason why your government would reach out to defend you, even if you are flagged.

Part of the problem seems to be a lack of understanding of the law. It's all very, per Adam Somethings video on the Satoshi, childish. Anarcho-Capitalism doesn't work well in the real world.

Even on the high seas, the right of inspection exists, and ships can be arrested. Any naval or custom ship can affect an intercept anywhere, if it has reasonable suspicion, and conduct an inspection. The ship and its crew can be inspected for papers, including the ownership of the ship and major systems, it's environmental inspection report, and the licences of the crew to operate a vessel.

For a Libertine, they're not going to have the appropriate paperwork for the vessel or the crew, since they're libertarian anarcho-capitalists, and hence the vessel is liable to immediate seizure.

If you went around attacking shipping, you'd get attacked very quickly indeed. Imagine an armed vessel flying the Indonesian flag attacking vessels. Very quickly it would be on the receiving end of a lot of ordnance. Remember, currently a certain government is blowing up vessels it doesn't like on the high seas with impunity claiming self-defence...

 

[lategamer]

If you went around attacking shipping, you'd get attacked very quickly indeed. Imagine an armed vessel flying the Indonesian flag attacking vessels. Very quickly it would be on the receiving end of a lot of ordnance.

It would be open season on all Indonesian craft.

 

[lategamer]

Even on the high seas, the right of inspection exists, and ships can be arrested. Any naval or custom ship can affect an intercept anywhere, if it has reasonable suspicion, and conduct an inspection. The ship and its crew can be inspected for papers, including the ownership of the ship and major systems, it's environmental inspection report, and the licences of the crew to operate a vessel.

In international waters, this is entirely about the projection of power. A US warship has no more right to inspect an Indonesian junk than an Indonesian junk has the right to inspect a US warship. But one of them has a lot more 'present' power.

 

[shirgall]

In international waters, this is entirely about the projection of power. A US warship has no more right to inspect an Indonesian junk than an Indonesian junk has the right to inspect a US warship. But one of them has a lot more 'present' power.

On the flip side there has been a duty to rescue human lives (even in space since 1969) if there is only reasonable risk to your own vessel.

 

[lategamer]

On the flip side there has been a duty to rescue human lives (even in space since 1969) if there is only reasonable risk to your own vessel.

Having been on the receiving end of assistance (when my boat was disabled by orcas), I value this immensely.

However when sailing around the Mediterranean, we were warned not to respond to certain Maydays; let the big boys handle them. Too many small boats arriving and being hijacked.