[ChewyGranola]

I'm not dismissing it because it's stupid. I just don't find that part...I dunno, believable. I'm well aware of the stupid of history. I'm not dismissing SR history at all. It's alt history and I generally have no real problems with it. When I run a game I may do something like dial up the Articles of Confederation feel of the CAS or mess around with the exact meaning of extraterritoriality and corporate citizenship, but I don't dispute the alt history. The genocide is just a personal sticking point.

I will have to disagree with you on the American Revolution point, however. The colonists had some very valid reasons to be unhappy with British rule, [contemt cut because this is not a history forum!]

And the Trojan War is so mythologized as to be nearly impossible to talk about unless one is a serious Ancient historian, which I sure as heck am not.

The big difference between the Ghost Dance War and the others mentioned is that they didn't involve genocide or even large scale conflicts. In light of the destruction of Los Alamos, the attempted start of a nuclear war and an alt history that has to incluse both additional Native American populations and additional animosity towards Native Americans, the genocide is staring to make more sense to me.

So in conclusion, yes history is stupid, but not generally Stupid, you know?

[SlowDeck]

A large part of what the British did was in response to earlier colonist stupidity; basically, the whole issue was that the colonists started a war and the British spent a lot of money ending it. All the British government was doing was asking the colonists to pay for the very conflict they caused in the first place. The monopoly issue was actually a case of the British themselves undercutting the prices of smuggling operations after dropping all attempts to tax the colonists for the war in response to colonist dissatisfaction with the taxes.

Oh, and the land issue? The restriction wasn't a restriction on where they could settle within British territory; the restriction was on them settling in French territory. The settler issue was because the colonists were illegally seizing another nation's land. That's what started the war that the colonists were asked to pay for. Note that Americans would later pull this yet again in stealing Hawaii from its people and stealing what is now Texas and a few other states from Mexico. And there's still some people who are unhappy that the American attempt to annex Canada failed.

To put it in perspective, this would be like Arizona starting a war with Mexico... and then blowing up an Army base because the U.S. government took them to task for it before backing down and offering to help Arizona with some of its crime problems.

Needless to say, when the colonists tried to surrender before hostilities started, the British were not willing to accept anything less than unconditional just due to the fact the colonists had been massive dicks up to this point.

Also, the mythology of the Trojan War had historical effects; so, dismissing it as being too mythological is actually ignoring much of its real-world impact. Mainly, in that the Trojans had a massive impact on history through their successor people: the Romans. So, this is one of those cases where mythology cannot be separated from history because mythology had a rather impressive impact on history. Plus, archaeologists are pretty convinced they found Troy.

I know you find that part unbelievable. But compare it to some real-life wars; some of them are just as unbelievable in why they started, and yet... they happened. I could point out another war where it's majorly unbelievable in how it turned out, and which famously did involve genocide, but that is typically considered bad form to directly bring up... and yet, when you get into the history of that particular war, you can see how stupidity from its predecessor caused the stupidity within it. The SR world is similar; the Executive Order is a result from ongoing stupidity and part of the final culmination of a number of idiotic decisions.

[Sendaz]

I always wondered if maybe the Executive Action was an attempt by certain parties within the government to head off the coming Ghost Dance and buy time for the US military to knock down the emerging NAN.

Societies like The Black Lodge were well embedded in the various tiers of society, including the rich and powerful of D.C.  Granted the majority of these were still just wearing robes and playing at being Powers, however some of these individuals had to be Awakening as well and who knows what ancient knowledge/persons were available, they did adapt to the return of magic fairly quickly.

Recognizing that the NAN had a strong tradition and lore of their own, they would have been viewed as competition and that if organized could bring out the big mojo.
The Lodge might not have known exactly that the Ghost Dance could be done, or maybe they did, but they certainly would have realized the potential of even just coordinating ritual groups to operate in concert.  They would have been well placed to plant the idea and encourage the necessary support to get something like this pushed through.

[Mirikon]

Chewy, I hate to break it to you, but people, by and large, are stupid. And history is made and written by people. Therefore, history is chock full of stupid. Even scarier, a lot of highly concentrated stupid gets put into government, especially when people are angry and afraid. You only need to go back to 9/11/01 to see the truth of this. How many otherwise calm and rational people, after watching the Twin Towers fall, got the fool notion in their head that it'd be a great idea to turn the entire Muslim world into a glow-in-the-dark parking lot? (That means nuking the everloving drek out of them, in case you didn't catch that.) Hell, I was one of them! I can tell you straight up that if I'd had the launch codes on that day, I'd be guilty of more than a few war crimes by now. Your arguments are nice and rational, but they ignore the fact that people who are angry and scared aren't rational. Going back even further, you only need to look at Germany in the wake of the Great Depression. Germany had gotten the hammer dropped on it after WWI, and there were people starving and angry, but not knowing what to do. You take a guy with charisma, who can give people a clear target, and say, "This is your enemy! HE is the one who made you suffer!" and you'll find that they can get people to do terrible things of their own free will, charging blindly into the abyss.

People are terrible, stupid, wretched creatures, and sometimes all it takes is one bastard with an axe to grind or a personal insane grudge against a group, and all hell breaks loose.

[ChewyGranola]

Chewy, I hate to break it to you, but people, by and large, are stupid. And history is made and written by people. Therefore, history is chock full of stupid. Even scarier, a lot of highly concentrated stupid gets put into government, especially when people are angry and afraid. You only need to go back to 9/11/01 to see the truth of this. How many otherwise calm and rational people, after watching the Twin Towers fall, got the fool notion in their head that it'd be a great idea to turn the entire Muslim world into a glow-in-the-dark parking lot? (That means nuking the everloving drek out of them, in case you didn't catch that.) Hell, I was one of them! I can tell you straight up that if I'd had the launch codes on that day, I'd be guilty of more than a few war crimes by now. Your arguments are nice and rational, but they ignore the fact that people who are angry and scared aren't rational. Going back even further, you only need to look at Germany in the wake of the Great Depression. Germany had gotten the hammer dropped on it after WWI, and there were people starving and angry, but not knowing what to do. You take a guy with charisma, who can give people a clear target, and say, "This is your enemy! HE is the one who made you suffer!" and you'll find that they can get people to do terrible things of their own free will, charging blindly into the abyss.

People are terrible, stupid, wretched creatures, and sometimes all it takes is one bastard with an axe to grind or a personal insane grudge against a group, and all hell breaks loose.

Ok, people, please stop writing as if I have said "Hey, why genocide, the world is full of sweetness and lollipops and happy people". I have a history degree, I am well versed in the American Civil War, Raconstruction and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, times that were very very full of evil and pain. My reasons for having a hard time with the genocide order are not rooted in some strange belief that good always wins or that humanity can't do bad things. My reasons are rooted in my understanding of the American attitude and politics since the end of the Second World War. I don't think that the United States, or any Western nation for that matter, would turn to a genocide that the official history seems to imply would have to be an industralized, Final Solution type murderfest. I can believe that the United States, when confronted with part of the population that has turned to terrorism, would do some incredibly stupid things. I don't think genocide would be one of the options, so I was hoping for some clairfication in the matter, not endless posts about man's inhumanity to man. My questions about the genocide order are rooted in my opinion based on real world history that the Shadowrun universe shares.


As far as the whole American Revolution thing goes, from everything I have read the conflict was not entirely the fault of the British or American colonists, it was a thing that happened because of politics and the circumstances of the time. Both sides had valid reasons for fighting. The colonists were not unbelievable dicks, and neither were the British. They were two groups of people (more really, when you count fence sitters and Loyalists) that had opposing views of their recent history and rights and responsibilities as far as imperial government went.

Troy has been found, but that doesn't mean the Trojan War went down as in myth. As I said, I don't know much about the time period, so I can't say much with certainty except that I was always rooting for the Trojans.

Anyways, this has gone fairly off topic quickly. I'm not trying to sound like a jerk here, but I sort of feel like I'm being talked down to (posted down to?), and I don't really like that.

[SlowDeck]

Chewy, you have a charismatic militant racist government that is blaming a minority group for problems related to the economy and slandering them as terrorists, all the while having public support, before ordering them rounded up into camps with the full intent of eventually exterminating them. Doesn't that sound familiar?

And I'm not talking down to you so much as confounded as to how a history major would miss a parallel that is blindingly obvious. The entire history is about the U.S. not getting over its genocidal tendencies and finally sliding down the slippery-slope into full monsterdom. The difference is, this time the minorities had enough firepower to stop it by themselves.

[ChewyGranola]

Dude, the Holocaust happening is why I have problems with it, as I have clearly stated. The attitude towards industralized genocide has changed since then, particularly in Western countries. I think the Holocaust, combined with a national sense that the Japanese Internment was a terrible thing, is why we didn't see mass internment or anything post- 9/11, in spite of nutjobs calling for it. I don't think an industralized genocide carried out by the US or any of the western allies is a realistic thing for an alt timeline without a major PoD either before or during WW2.

I'm not missing the parallels at all. It's obvious that the original writers wanted to inject a little Nazi into the US pre-breakup. I don't think the US has to slide into monsterdom to break up or make bad choices. For all the bad of the US, we have never had an industralized genocide like the Final Solution.

My main point is this: in the West, post-WW2, I feel that industralized genocide is so unlikely for the next, say, 100 years that it is nigh impossible. That's why I have had trouble with EO 17-321. I have stated that a number of times, very clearly.
There are plenty of other things going on in SR history, including the internment of Native Americans, the Ghost Dance War, the Seretech and Shiawase Decisions, the rise of Japan, Eurowars, return of magic, VITAS, Goblinization, etc that would cause the US to collapse. Genocide is not a necessary ingredient to accomplish what the original writers wanted.

Look, I got the answer to my question, SR canon-wise. That's all I was looking for. I'm not stupid and I am well aware of not only the nastiness of the United States but of humanity in general.

[Sendaz]

I do not necessarily think it was entirely nastiness but fear on many levels.

In regards to 9/11 also remember, many muslims came out against the attack, saying how it was not their way or the wrong sort of target.
Now if an overwhelming majority of muslims within America on that same day had suddenly lashed out at the rest of America, who can say how that might have turned out? 
Internment camps would have been the least of it and for those who resisted, I doubt they would have enjoyed the benefits of the Geneva convention.   

Plus consider how Magic changed the equation.  The US government was having its hat handed to them at almost every turn when they went up against magical forces and all they knew was that the Native Americans seemed to be able to control it. They had no way to detect it in advance or even tell who among the Indians could do it.

After 9/11 people were scared, but most saw it more as a lucky, if well organized, hit.  The enemy basically threw a big rock at us. 
We tightened security on the planes so they ideally shouldn't be able to do that again. 
When the shoe bomber was caught, we all learned to have our shoes checked and liquids limited on a flight.
We didn't think it could really happen to all of us.


But now with the Awakening any Native American could be a literal mini-nuke with no real way to tell which Native American was or was not a threat and with the NAN's declaration that all non-Indians should leave the Americas or face dire magical retribution, the government lost it's little corrupted mind and decided to follow the age old adage 'Kill them all, let God sort them out'.

The old fear of killing what you do not understand played a big part here. 

[ChewyGranola]

Your post, like the earlier one from Wyrm, makes the most sense out of anything I have read here.

I wasn't sure that in canon ALL Native Americans joined the Ghost Dance Rebellion. Looks like a majority did. Good to know, thanks Sendaz!

I still think that it is almost impossible for the US to embrace genocide under any circumstances, but I suppose if anything would do it, magical terrorism would.

[SlowDeck]

Dude, the Holocaust happening is why I have problems with it, as I have clearly stated. The attitude towards industralized genocide has changed since then, particularly in Western countries. I think the Holocaust, combined with a national sense that the Japanese Internment was a terrible thing, is why we didn't see mass internment or anything post- 9/11, in spite of nutjobs calling for it. I don't think an industralized genocide carried out by the US or any of the western allies is a realistic thing for an alt timeline without a major PoD either before or during WW2.

I'm not missing the parallels at all. It's obvious that the original writers wanted to inject a little Nazi into the US pre-breakup. I don't think the US has to slide into monsterdom to break up or make bad choices. For all the bad of the US, we have never had an industralized genocide like the Final Solution.

My main point is this: in the West, post-WW2, I feel that industralized genocide is so unlikely for the next, say, 100 years that it is nigh impossible. That's why I have had trouble with EO 17-321. I have stated that a number of times, very clearly.
There are plenty of other things going on in SR history, including the internment of Native Americans, the Ghost Dance War, the Seretech and Shiawase Decisions, the rise of Japan, Eurowars, return of magic, VITAS, Goblinization, etc that would cause the US to collapse. Genocide is not a necessary ingredient to accomplish what the original writers wanted.

Look, I got the answer to my question, SR canon-wise. That's all I was looking for. I'm not stupid and I am well aware of not only the nastiness of the United States but of humanity in general.

Here's the problem: You're talking about the real world in that. SR had them still using internment camps, and it wasn't limited to just the Americans. The Japanese also continued to do it. As did a lot of others. And they continued to do it after the Great Ghost Dance was over, specifically with metahumans. The SR world didn't learn the lesson from internment camps and genocide that the real world did.

That's the disconnect you're having. You're applying real-world lessons to a world that didn't learn those lessons.

[Critias]

Your post, like the earlier one from Wyrm, makes the most sense out of anything I have read here.

I wasn't sure that in canon ALL Native Americans joined the Ghost Dance Rebellion. Looks like a majority did. Good to know, thanks Sendaz!

I still think that it is almost impossible for the US to embrace genocide under any circumstances, but I suppose if anything would do it, magical terrorism would.

The trick is, also, to remember that it's not our US.  It's not our Native Americans.  Not only is stuff like the Ghost Dance (and VITAS, for that matter, which certainly added to the tension of the era) unprecedented, but it wasn't happening to us, it was happening to a mildly alt-history setting which had who knows what kind of different backstory in a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand little ways that would have changed American attitudes towards genocide, towards Native Americans, or towards both;  but that aren't quite important enough to 2075 storytelling that we've ever bothered to write them all down.

In the end, there's a pile of handwavium that needs to be applied to the setting (hell, they did the same with retcons pretty early in the game)...this is just another instance of it.

[ChewyGranola]

Yeah, handwavium. I hate handwavium. You guys are right, that's the problem. The official PoD must be either pretty far back or right during/after WW2 to change attitudes like that. Handwavium...damn it. I suppose its the same handwavium that makes corporations value employees enough to bother making them citizens or having enough Native Americans to even attempt to have big countries again...fair enough, handwavium it is.

Isin't that kind of a supernatural reason for the EO then? 

[Mirikon]

Heh. You think megacorps make wageslaves citizens because it CARES about them? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...Whew. I needed that. Seriously, megacorps make the wageslaves citizens because it is a means of control. They gain more control of their citizens, and their carrot v. stick equations take less carrot to get productivity when faced with the "Do you want to be a SINless in the Barrens?" argument. And they make the controls subtle, so wageslaves brainwash themselves into doing as the corp wants them to.

[Bull]

The other thing to note is to look how large the NAN nations were when formed, how many citizens they had.  Even if EVERY single person of Native AMerican descent, including people who could claim 1/64th Amerind blood, moved there...  It still wouldn't come close to giving you enough numbers to match what SR had.  Which means in this alt-history, there are a LOT more Native Americans kicking around, and probably much more heavily oppressed.  I imagine the Civil Rights movements of the SR world in the 60's were a little different because of this.

<shrug>

And Handwavium.  WHich I'm fine with and am a frequent user of, because I'm more concerned with getting to the good stuff that impacts our players.

[ChewyGranola]

Heh. You think megacorps make wageslaves citizens because it CARES about them? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...Whew. I needed that. Seriously, megacorps make the wageslaves citizens because it is a means of control. They gain more control of their citizens, and their carrot v. stick equations take less carrot to get productivity when faced with the "Do you want to be a SINless in the Barrens?" argument. And they make the controls subtle, so wageslaves brainwash themselves into doing as the corp wants them to.

Well considering corporations today seem to value their employees less than a mega, yeah. Corporations don't need to brainwash people to make money, and they don't need the extra costs of housing and security to interfere with their bottom line, and honestly even the whole concept of extraterritorality is unnecessary to the corporation's bottom line, after all with decisions like Citizens United corporations can just buy the government anyways...wait, I get it. That was a test. More handwavium. My bad!