[Nerroth]

Hi.


There are a couple of issues, thoughts and comments I had, concerning the printed copy of the Sixth World Almanac I picked up earlier this week.


*On page 33, the list of notable dates which is supposed to cover the year 2020 is a repeat of that for the year 2006 printed on page 15.

*On page 62, the list of dates which is supposed to be for the year 2044 is instead a repeat of that on page 58 for the year 2040.

*On page 152, it should be noted that the Irish term for Belfast is Béal Feirste, not Bael Feirst.

*On Page 152, some of the provincial names given are a little different to what they would be in our world. Ulster would be Cúige Ulaidh (as opposed to Ulaidhster), and Meath would be Cuige Mide (as a province, at least as it was in Old Irish; the current County Meath is Contáe na Mí, or simply An Mhí).

*On Page 152, the name for Galway in Irish is usually just Gaillimh, or Cathair na Gaillimhe (as opposed to Cathar na Gaillimhe).

*On both pages 152 and 153, there are a few cases where the use of the fada on vowels is included, yet missed at the same time. For example, 'Eireann-Tír' should be 'Éireann-Tír'. Similarly, the Irish name for Dublin would be Baile Átha Cliath, with a fada over the capital a, while the Irish word for province should be Cúige (with a u fada).

*One thing I don't quite follow; it says the paramilitaries in parts of what used to be Northern Ireland are referred to as Protestants... yet, since the Tír government had supplanted the Catholic Church with the Church of Ireland, wouldn't that make them, um... Protestants?

(The Protestant communities in NI are divided between Anglican, Presbyterian, and other smaller denominations.)

Would a better term not be 'Loyalist', since presumably their primary goal would be to retain (or perhaps re-establish) their link to the British Crown?

*Is the flag on page 153 supposed to be green, white and red, as opposed to the green, white and orange used for the current Irish tricolour? (And if so, what are the new colours supposed to represent?)

*On the map on page 154, it's... somewhat unlikely that a nationalist/republican administration would use the name if Londonderry, as opposed to simply Derry, when formally referring to that city (and county).

*The description says that the Slighe roads were 'ancient Roman roads'. While there are certain historians who have an idea or two about a potential Roman presence, particularly at the disputed site at Drumanagh, Ireland by and large remained outside of the Roman Empire. The historical Slighe roads (which led to Tara, not to Dublin; the latter not being founded by that name until well into the Viiking era) may not have had a whole lot of Roman involvement.

*This is not an issue per se, but I was somewhat surprised not to see places like Brú na Bóinne, the Hill of Tara, or other such sites of note mentioned; is there no particular post-Awakening significance to any of these places?

*On page 157, the current flag of the United Kingdom looks similar to the one flown since 1801, after the Act of Union which brought Ireland into that country (and retained after the formation of the Irish Free State, since Northern Ireland remained part of the UK). However, since Northern Ireland had left the United Kingdom by the year 2072, would the Union Jack not have been changed back to the earlier pre-1801 version:



since the country is back to 'merely' being a union between England, Wales and Scotland?

*On page 194, the list of states in the UCAS does not include any of the Canadian former-provinces which had helped found the country (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the remaining parts of Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan). Do these not exist as distinct UCAS states, or have they been re-organised into different territories? (To keep the number of Canadian provinces down to five, I could imagine the rump parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan being merged into one state, leaving southern Ontario and the three Atlantic 'states' to correspond to the five maple leaves on the UCAS flag...)


I'm probably missing something else, but that's what I've got for now.

[Frostriese]

Obviously Im nota n official, heh, but:

IIRC the Tir na nOg sourcebook, North Ireland has both Catholic and Protestant terrorists, which blow up Tir institutions but also each other. So there is protestant, err, resistance in Ulster. I dont have 6WA - did they omit the Catholic resistance?

As for the Union Jack, the current one was created including the red salytre for Ireland, yes, but its established now - why should the UK go back to an earlier version?

As for UCAS states, didnt Newfoundland ask Maine to annex it, entering the USA (!) this way? But yes, there should be five Canadian states for the reason you mention.

[Nerroth]

IIRC the Tir na nOg sourcebook, North Ireland has both Catholic and Protestant terrorists, which blow up Tir institutions but also each other. So there is protestant, err, resistance in Ulster. I dont have 6WA - did they omit the Catholic resistance?

There's a mention of the UCAS-based Knights of the Red Branch, but their agenda seems to be more one based on ethnicity, rather than religion.

As for the Union Jack, the current one was created including the red salytre for Ireland, yes, but its established now - why should the UK go back to an earlier version?

Because the post-1801 flag no longer represents the country it's flown by, while the pre-1801 flag does?

As for UCAS states, didnt Newfoundland ask Maine to annex it, entering the USA (!) this way? But yes, there should be five Canadian states for the reason you mention.

Given that Newfoundland and Labrador have been gobbled up by Québec, they wouldn't be part of the current UCAS either way.

[Frostriese]

Well, in the TNO sourcebook some version of the IRA was also still active. But even back then the Protestants seem to have been more militant, and also quite militantly metaphob.

As for the Union Jack, most people on the British main island would even after a secession, so to say, of NI feel more aligned with the flag they know, and its as simple as said, I would say.

And Quebec only annexed Labrador, i.e. the mainland part of Newfoundland. The island joined the USA.

[Nerroth]

In this book, Newfoundland is shown as being part of Québec; it's even listed as such (but not as Terre-neuve, heh) in Québec's region list on page 184.


So far as flags go, the Russian flag came out of the closet after decades of being supplanted by the Soviet hammer-and-sickel; ditto for Germany (which had, er... something of a gap between the first time they used the black-red-gold flag and the second). If the UK went back to the pre-1801 flag, they'd hardly be setting a precedent. (Unless they left the saltire in as a means of showing some sort of continued claim to Northern Ireland, or something.)

[Frostriese]

Newfound Quebecois? Thats either a mistake or a retcon. And one I dont like.

The Russian flag and the German flags were tied to ideology, though. The flag of the USSR was indeed that of the USSR, not of Russia, and the flag of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic was, well, all about communism. Likewise, in Germany black-white-red has always been connected to authoritarianism (also by the ones using it), the Swastika, well, eh... and Black-Red-Gold has always been the flag of democrats, even recogniced by its opponents. However, in the case of Britain there is no such ideologcial angle.

[Nerroth]

Newfound Quebecois? Thats either a mistake or a retcon. And one I dont like.

I guess it can be added to the list of things-to-be-offered-up-for-consideration, then.

The Russian flag and the German flags were tied to ideology, though. The flag of the USSR was indeed that of the USSR, not of Russia, and the flag of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic was, well, all about communism. Likewise, in Germany black-white-red has always been connected to authoritarianism (also by the ones using it), the Swastika, well, eh... and Black-Red-Gold has always been the flag of democrats, even recogniced by its opponents. However, in the case of Britain there is no such ideologcial angle.

In that case, a better comparison might be the flags of the USA and UCAS.

The historical American flag had been updated, adding stars to show each new state as it joined the Union; presumably it was altered again, to reduce the number of stars after the signing of the Treaty of Denver.

Similarly, I'm guessing the original UCAS flag had more stars on it, to represent the likes of California and the future CAS members; those would have been taken off as they each went their own way.

(Although, the flag on page 195 has 24 stars, while the list of former-USA states on page 194 has 28 entries...)


Democratic states can find cause to modify their flags, if those flags have a specific meaning which no longer applies.

[Frostriese]

Well, sure. I just say it's not an absolute necessity the British flag needs to change. There is plausible justification for both.
(As for the UCAS flag, I found the SoNA variant that is the canon now simply silly. I liked the way older one better...)

[Nerroth]

What did the old one look like?


As an aside, the CAS flag shown here looks a lot less, um, Confederate-ey than the one on page 173. Is there a particular reason why the flag was made to look the way it does now?

(I would have thought using a more overtly CSA-ish flag might have been something of a controversial choice...)

[FastJack]

Well, the Confederates are nothing if not controversial...

[Frostriese]

Yeah, the flag on that linke is also SoNA. The "Shadows over <Continent>" serie was IMO simply horrible. And yes, the CAS calling themselves "Americans" and not "Confederates" according to SoNA.. bah

However, as for the CSA flag change away from that flag, that is actually an in-game change. It gets mentioned in a single line in the JackPoint intro of one of the sourcebooks, but I dont remember which.

The old UCAS flag was basically the USA flag with a different arrangment of stars, and five white maple leafs among them (in the middle and the four corners). Ah, the Shadowhelix has a picture:

http://www.shadowhelix.de/Datei:Alte_Flagge_UCAS.png

Though i remember the leaves to be actually somewhat larger than the stars...
(the old CAS flag before SoNA, incidentally, of course was the old Confederate Battle Flag )

[Nerroth]

So, the CAS have had three in-game flags (to count the one in the Almanac), then?


(As an aside, do the CAS make much use of the Kennedy Space Center? I didn't see it mentioned in the Almanac.)



Oh, one other thing about the Tír (the one not in Oregon, I mean);

*On page 155, the contributor 2XL refers to being on 'the ER'; in Ireland, the equivalent would be the A&E (Accident and Emergency).

But then, if 2XL is meant to be someone from a country where they do call them ERs, it might be less of an issue... if it's much of an issue at all, of course.

[Frostriese]

No, the CAS had two in-game flags. The pre-SoNA flags were retconned away. And the newest CAS flag is indeed brandnew, that flag change was in, well, as said, the range of the sourcebooks, so 70, 71 or 72...

[Nerroth]

In that case, I wonder what the deal is on page 53.

(53-54 cover the years 2034-35, and the pic in question shows a group of CAS representatives posing in the midst of what looks like a UCAS government building. Not only is a current UCAS flag hanging in the background, the CASers all have stars-and-bars badges... and the guy in front even has a big Confederate flag on his armband.)


Oh, and back on page 48 (for year 2030), the guy is posing in front of the 2072-era UCAS flag, too.


More retcons?

[Frostriese]

Yes, as said, the UCAS never had any flag change, the flag I linked to never existed officially   According to retcon.

Meanwhile, the CAS flag has always been the one you linked in the Wiki article until 70, 71 or 72,

With stars and bars do you mean the Confederate Battle Flag? Well, while it was never official (according to the retcon) it is a flag symbolically tied to the Confederacy, so it could be used despite not being the official national flag. And the UCAS flag is always correct. So those are not really issues.