2300AD, thoughts and wishes

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

That could work.

BUT, if Europe is so divided after the Twilight War and before 2293, then why are they all settling the French Arm? Sure the ESA was a uniting force, but if the EU is going to break up, then why didn't the ESA?

Britain might have joined with the Americans and Australians and some of the other European countries might have joined with the Chinese/Mandarins.

 

[Dave Chase]

Such happy talk and all friedly too. I love it.

Over at CotI, I got a penatly warning for even bring up the 1776 thing while using it as one of many examples on a thread.


Way to Mongoose posters.

Love the discussion.

Dave Chase

 

[EDG]

Hmm. The EU fragments after Twilight. 2293 sees the War of European Unification, when all the small nations gang up on France. this leads to Europe being France and the new EU, dominated by Germany...

Why would they actually war over it though? This is the sort of thing that usually is done through cold war, politics, sanctions, etc. You seem to be assuming that everyone's trigger-fingers suddenly get hyper-twitchy in the future.

 

[EDG]

Another reason not to use the Twilight war - are there any legal issues, given that Twilight 20xx is now owned by someone else? (or is it just licensed by Marc to someone else?).

 

[Colin]

As far as I know, it's just licensed. QLI had the license, and the writer they had was doing good things with it. Then, well, you know. After quite a bit of that, they lost the license...

Twilight, in my mind, sets the stage for quite a bit of Core psychology, so I want to keep it around.

As for the War of European Integration (or whatever), another thing I wanted to examine was the nature of war in the Core, with the spectre of Twilight hanging over everything. Direct, army-on-army violence would be fairly rare. Small-unit stuff, info-wars, propaganda, surgical strikes, that kind of stuff would be more the order of the day. The big national armies are more of a prestige thing. Any sort of conventional war would spiral out of these actions, an accident rather than direct intentions. This would directly impact the ability of human forces to react in the face of possible Kafer aggression. (Note that as of 2300AD, only Aurore and Station Arcture have been attacked. This is another area where 2300AD and Mongoose Traveller 2300AD may diverge).

Small unit actions would have characterized the Slaver War as well, with the naval action being the defining element rather than the sporadic ground-fighting. Fighting which mostly occurred on the Xiang homeworld, rather than Stark.

 

[Sturn]

Yeah wasnt that a small skirmish that we British got board fighting and went back home to culture and refinement ?

Well you shouldn't have been fighting us with boards while we were hiding behind rocks with rifles. :lol:

I would hate to see Bavaria not be a country of its own in 2300 AD. I would hope it could be made plausible somehow. Little things can change, the more we make big changes the more it becomes something other then 2300 AD.

 

[rust]

Why would they actually war over it though?

This really is a problem. :shock:

A war with modern weapons in densely populated western Europe would
be like throwing a hand grenade into your own living room to stop two of
your family members' quarreling - a rarely done thing.

The only war that I would consider remotely likely would be some kind of
armed revolt or minor civil war, and a possible scenario could be either
an uprising of immigrants of a mistreated minority, something like an
escalation of the rather severe riots France suffered not so long ago, or
a "youth revolt" of the younger generation that feels oppressed and ex-
ploited by the "oldsters", like what recently happened in Greece.

Two or even more of such revolts at the same time in the same country
could well be sufficient to damage the political system and even the eco-
nomy badly enough to remove that nation from a leadership position, I
think.

 

[Colin]

2300AD was designed as more-or-less parallel the political situation of the late 1800s. Quite frankly, I think this sort of thing can be taken too far.

 

[Sturn]

Why would they actually war over it though?

This really is a problem. :shock:

With the current state of affairs, a religious catalyst could be a reason. But, then you run the risk of being non-PC. Heck even the word Kafer has been argued over. If a Muslim-Christian match was used to light a war in Europe the PC Police would probably scream at you.

 

[Colin]

Why would they actually war over it though?

This really is a problem. :shock:

A war with modern weapons in densely populated western Europe would
be like throwing a hand grenade into your own living room to stop two of
your family members' quarreling - a rarely done thing.

I guess that depends on how you feel about your family. Someone tossed that grenade several times in the last century (WWI, WWII, Balkans).

However, I tend to agree, and had a hard time with the idea of German tanks closing in on Paris in 2293. That being said, I don't own 2300AD, I'm merely playing (with permission) in someone else's playground. So any changes I suggest would have to be approved. Otherwise, it's the canon background.

 

[rust]

I would hate to see Bavaria not be a country of its own in 2300 AD. I would hope it could be made plausible somehow.

If I had to come up with a scenario where a state named Bavaria does
exist, my only idea would be to split the German speaking territories in
half, with one nation "Germany" in the north and another one named "Ba-
varia" and formed of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Austria in the
south.

This would still seem very odd to most Germans and other Central Euro-
peans, but the cultural and economic background might make it possi-
ble, especially since southern Germany and Austria are indeed getting
closer to each other after Austria's entry into the EU.

 

[EDG]

Twilight, in my mind, sets the stage for quite a bit of Core psychology, so I want to keep it around.

Would it really affect peoples' psychologies for 300 years? Sure, the consequences of wars we had 200-300 years ago are still there, but I don't think many people are genuinely concerned about say, Britain and France going to war again, or France trying to take over the world, or Britain and the US going to war, or there being another French Revolution. Heck, even World War I is fading into the past now (especially now that pretty much everyone who fought in it is dead).

I don't think the "spectre of Twilight" would be hanging over anything at all. It's long gone, it's ancient history. What would be hanging over everything would be whatever current politics are in play.

 

[EDG]

I guess that depends on how you feel about your family. Someone tossed that grenade several times in the last century (WWI, WWII, Balkans).

It's a different world now. I can't see WWI or II happening again in this day and age. e.g. the US could have nuked the living crap out of Afghanistan in 2001 (and maybe some people still wish it had done that), but it didn't.

Wars are still going to happen, but they're going to be localised things on the scale of the Balkans, Russia vs Georgia, Israel vs Lebanon. I think the only thing that could possibly erupt into regional conflict is the middle east, which is going to blow up sooner or later. But even then, I don't think that would spread much (as a war) beyond that region.

 

[Anonymous]

I feel the lasting legacy of the Twilight war thats still felt in 2300 is the weapons used.
This is why there has to be the large scale nuking and WW3, no one wants to have to face the horrors of those weapons used again - even against its alien enemys (space bourne weapons are OK but not targeted against planets).
And lets face it nucleur war is as bad and horrible as its going to get, the huge loss of life and lasting effects on humans will be around for generations to follow.

 

[EDG]

This is why there has to be the large scale nuking and WW3, no one wants to have to face the horrors of those weapons used again - even against its alien enemys (space bourne weapons are OK but not targeted against planets).

Over 60 years after WWII ended, nobody's used a single nuke in anger, and that was from only two (small, by modern standards) nukes being dropped on two (small, by modern standards) towns in Japan.

Given that, I'm not sure why anyone would be dumb enough to drop ANY nukes in a war taking place in the near future. But then IIRC the reason nukes were used in the Twilight War in the first place was vague and wishy-washy. At most I could see some terrorist organisation blowing up a dirty bomb in a big city, but that's not going to get people lobbing nukes around like confetti.

 

[Colin]

Why would they actually war over it though?

This really is a problem. :shock:

With the current state of affairs, a religious catalyst could be a reason. But, then you run the risk of being non-PC. Heck even the word Kafer has been argued over. If a Muslim-Christian match was used to light a war in Europe the PC Police would probably scream at you.

And I ain't gonna go there.

 

[EDG]

I think all this discussion is demonstrating that the Twilight War is too much hassle, and that it's better to skip over the thing by saying (as I think Sturn suggested) that "A big war happened, and things changed". The whys, wherefores and reasons are just not relevant to 2300AD.

 

[kafka]

The world being less fragmentary and more acting as a globalized whole. I am sending you an interesting article that you might want to consider.

Bigger role for smaller nations. Canada leads the way in peacekeeping operations in the Stars, Alberta Wheat Cooperative feeds the hungry on Tirane, Austrovenia pharmaceutics find cure for Blight, etc.

Return to the emphasis of Exploration. Early Challenge/TD vibe. Rules on hostile environments and the long haul Terraformers.

More information on the Foundations.

More detail on all the Alien Races but not with aim of making them PCs.

More Alastair Reynolds influences.

What ever became of Provolution - so maybe Space Above & Beyond vibe with the Synthethics being Provolutionists who strayed too far and lost their humanity in the process.

A greater role for the Colony worlds...as they must be establishing some sort of local worldism.

Invert some of the assumptions of today's world and make a realistic picture for the future post-Twilight. eg. Africa becoming the breadbasket and bounty of the world. As these areas were not touched by the aftermath of the Twilight wars.

Whole shifting hegemonies thing needs to be played out not as a wargame but as an exercise in RPGs...hence not only military battles but diplomatic Cold Wars, tangled alliances, transnational/transworld influences.

Religion...contraversal...but religion plays a role in the shaping of forces today why not the world of 2300AD.

More Green technologies.

A detailed look at the Solar System and the other places of adventure happening in the near earth.

The Vilani...I know, you don't want them but have them just there lurking beyond it all.

 

[Anonymous]

Agreed in our post-cold war times since the fall of the USSR the threat of nucluer war has faded.
This again as TW2000 was made during the 80's and so in the cold war the threat was there, the possibility of WW3 was there and one upmanship between USA & Russia was very real.
So it depends on how and when the settings background is set, original 80's world or 2009 world.
This has a major effect for Europe as its a more stable situation with no East/West Germany and hostile forces glaring at each other over an iron curtain.

If you use the original 80's setting then nukes can and would fly if your using 2009 then not so much (as suggested other major factors would have to happen).

 

[EDG]

If you use the original 80's setting then nukes can and would fly if your using 2009 then not so much (as suggested other major factors would have to happen).

I think it's harder for authors to pretend they're writing in a previous era that isn't the current one. It never comes across as authentic because they're not actually still experiencing the 'zeitgeist' of the time, so they can't really put that across properly in the books .