Krypter

can't type much, too busy writing my chick-control app...

That's pretty cool, but I wouldn't call anything that is 30 inches long and 4 kilo a "micromissile", by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh yay, maaaaattt daaaaaamon fighting for socialist equality. Sounds brilliant. At least we'll get some cool weapon & robot pics out of this mess.

You probably could have used those memory slots for more useful info, Mikael, like say knowing how to plant petunias.

Cool technology. If they used this on a person, would they pop like the guys in District 13?

Quick sketches - in an A3 drawing book if live, photoshop online.

 

Have been using Diaspora's tag system with success - superior to a grid, much faster.

 

Not using a grid means you don't get those crunchy mechanical situations where dashing leaves you a metre short of cover, simplifies the postures of the combatants. Highly recommended - speed of play is greatly increased.

Could you explain this tag system in more detail?

Since I double-posted for some reason, I'll just add two words to demonstrate how infeasible such a movie would be: "Vagina dentata". That is all.

I can't imagine Hollywood being able to compress even 1/10th of the complexity and humour of that novel into any kind of movie, even if David Fincher himself directed it. The book is a satire of cyberpunk, after all, laden with the most anti-politically-correct exaggerations imaginable, so you'd have to embed a generic cyberpunk structure into it just to the explain to the audience what it is that it's mocking. And that ain't gonna fly with any kind of producer I've ever heard of.

I studied Armizare at the AEMMA school and the wonderful thing about it was how it opened my eyes to the vast, untapped and largely forgotten western martial arts tradition, which is as in-depth as any eastern martial art, and far better documented to boot. By documented I mean western masters wrote hundreds of volumes of scholarly works, complete with illustrations, about fighting techniques that if you saw being practised today you would swear are traditional eastern arts. These texts go into exquisite detail about all aspects of fighting, but their historical distance and translation difficulty from medieval and Renaissance languages (Italian, German, French, early English) make them complex and it's not easy to understand their nuance.

The fact is, every major society in the world has had a rich martial arts tradition, but the vicissitudes of history and changing military technology altered how they were transmitted through history to our day. The beauty and dance of the swordplay in Armizare contrasted nicely with the practical, nasty techniques we were taught to deal with knife attacks and general thuggery of the kind found in bars. It's not Krav Maga but it was realistic and effective, and we did cross-train with both Jeet Kun Do and Capoeira teachers.

Then I broke my leg and was out of action for a year, and had to give it up because I just broke too easily after that. Couldn't compete or train properly.

More info here if you're interested: http://www.aemma.org/index2.php?pg=a0

This is quite clever. I love The Jester. Guy's got a massive ego, but he's a real white hat hacker, taking down hajis and anonops idiots alike. Long may it be so.

I thought Dust was dead. Didn't the company go bankrupt? Or am I thinking of AT43?

Pretty cool. Is Paolo Parente on there? His line art is still my favorite for cyberpunk games.

Yes, those are great fun. If you're willing to write one, here's my suggestion slip:

Place: Abandoned ICBM Missile Silo in Wyoming

Antagonist: Juiced-Up Drug Gang/Bent Air Force Colonel drug supplier

Goal: Get their massive stash of Black Lace before it hits the local market

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/large/fc65...374e72ae9d7.jpg

I also noted a complete lack of virtual reality, cyberspace, dataforts or "running the net" in the hacking sequences. Funny how the future surprises you, eh?

A Mid Eastern situation culturally dominated by Egypt would be rather more nationalistic than it is now. It would also be rather less traditionalistic, rather more politically and socially progressive (even under the Brotherhood, IMO) and certainly more technologically forward looking

No, not at all. Egyptians hold more with Islam than any national affiliation, again according to Pew. The Muslim Brotherhood is against western investment or western tourists even visiting Egypt, and would quickly cripple Egypt's economy.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/05/08/chapte...am-in-politics/

Most Egyptians favour death by stoning, strict interpretations of sharia, the murder of anyone who tries to leave Islam. And they look to Saudi Arabia as the model. You can't get more regressive than that.

Here's what Egypt under the MB might like look: http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=587

Hint: it's a theocracy.

The Pew poll says nothing of the sort about European cities; with two exceptions the countries it shows heading for Muslim populations over 10% are those with large Islamic populations dating back to the Ottoman Empire.

I never said Pew said it; you misread my statements. And now you're talking about countries when I was talking about cities. Amsterdam, Marseilles, Paris and Malmo are heading for Muslim-majority status in the next few decades. Newer generations of muslims in Europe are more religious than their parents, not less, and they consider themselves Muslims first rather than (insert euro country here).

To say nothing of the rising tide of atheism in European nations, which is just as likely to influence middle class Muslim people as it is middle class Christians.

The highest "tide" of atheism was in 1970, according to researchers at the Economist Intelligence Unit, who calculated the proportions of major religious/non-religious affiliation for the last 100 years in their book Megachange: The World in 2050 (an excellent read, btw). Since then religion has been on the rise, and the proportion of atheists will likely keep falling as they tend to have the lowest birth rates, while religious people have the highest. You're right that white Europeans are becoming more atheist, but then since their population growth is negative they won't have many descendants to inherit their atheist beliefs. The fact that Islam has no separation of church and state also means that it's much harder for Muslims to escape their oppressive traditions (they face death by the state) than for westerners to escape theirs (the state doesn't kill you for leaving Christianity in Europe or the USA). A lot of young Arabs may be sympathetic to basic human rights, but the few who actually stick out their necks for them are quickly murdered and the rest get into line.

There's also an increasingly vibrant feminist movement in Egypt, far more widespread than it appears in the western press. Also, the same changes in the nature of urban space that broke down the political and social seclusion of women in Europe and America over the last 150 years are happening, almost textbook style, in Egypt.

Iran had a vibrant feminist movement in the 1970s, before the Ayatollah's revolution. During the 1950s Kabul, Cairo and Mogadishu looked like New York, with women wearing miniskirts and attending mixed-gender universities and swimming pool parties. Sometimes social trends go in reverse, and they certainly will once the Muslim Brotherhood has a good grip on Egypt. You've been living in a social bubble, as happens to many ex-patriots in the mideast. You've seen the tech park, but you haven't seen the millions of small villages and souks where they vote MB or Salafist.

It was one of the most Cyberpunk things about Alexandria, really; the way that the different generations don't really understand or like each other.

That's true everywhere, really, but you're right that young Egyptians see hardcore Islamism as more of a threat, by it's still a minority view.

It would be a fun setting to have a Middle Eastern country dominated by a gerontocracy of old men kept alive by cybernetics, trying to hold down a mad, wired cyberpunk subculture.

Isn't that Iran already? Yeah, it'd be fun. Problem is, in the real world the Islamic gerontocrats always win.

That's too bad, I deleted my G+ account over their naming policy and their obvious attempt to make all G+ info and posts publicly searchable in the future.

I'll just leave this here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012...fire_when_ready

"Obama's targeted drone strikes -- even on Americans -- aren't illegal. In fact, there's a solid legal foundation and a number of checks and balances upholding his right to take out terrorists."

There's a new online virtual tabletop at roll20.net, which prides itself on its ease of use and quick setup. Might be worth a look for those of you playing games online, as it has support for various types of dice mechanics, charsheets, uploading pictures/maps, map creation tools and more.

Reminds me of the Anti-Metal Virus from Palladium's Mutants Down Under supplement. But as someone once explained to me the resource, time and energy costs of weaponizing something like that are orders of magnitude greater than just building an explosive bomb or regular contagious virus.

Contra to popular wisdom the demographic threat from Muslims in Israel has abated considerably. It's unlikely that Muslims will outnumber Jews in the next 30 years, if ever. Jews now have growth rates higher than Muslim Arabs, though this is a recent phenomena.

Israel has no need to invade its neighbours, and is in a stronger position to repel an invasion than any time since its founding. Even an Iranian nuclear missile strike might be repelled, and Israel has enough dispersed military assets to keep fighting even if Tel Aviv is nuked. In a cyberpunk world things should go sideways as much as possible, but even so the destruction of Israel would serve little purpose. Unless you wanted bands of revenge-obsessed Jewish agents laden with suitcase nukes roaming the world blowing up as many Muslims as they can.

What do people think of the secession of the Punjab (Sikh) regions of Pakistan and India creating the nation of Khalistan? Or perhaps civil war in the Punjab regions by the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) and the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF)?

Right now it's unlikely because India is a federal republic that grants quite a lot of autonomy to its states and has passed special laws to make its Sikhs happy, but with the political and economic ructions of a cyberpunk world why not? If it's a fun idea then go for it.

As for the mideast situation in Cyberpunk in general, I think they really took the boring route. The mideast is the source of a lot of the world's problems right now, and keeping it at a boil but not destroyed would make any cyberpunk setting more interesting. Here are some of my suggestions:

1. No country in the region wants a Kurdistan, so it won't happen de jure; but it will de facto, if those countries are too weak to enforce their writ in Kurd areas, as is the case with Iraq now. Fun fact: there are more Kurds living in Istanbul than in any other city.

2. Given their joint Hashemite origins, Iraq and Jordan might unite at some point.

3. The power disparity between Iraq and Iran is so great now that it's unlikely Iraq could resist invasion and annexation without an outside power's help. In a cyberpunk world with both China and the USA down for the count, Iran could gobble up Iraq and the Gulf Arab states very quickly, and become a regional superpower. But that might in turn prompt Turkish intervention in the region. A nuclear-armed Turkey and Iran might be in a Cold War situation in the mideast, propping up puppet regimes in Arabia, Oman, Egypt or elsewhere.

4. Fun fact: by 2050 Muslims will comprise 33% of the world's population, according to Pew. Muslims might be the majority in most European cities. Any cyberpunk setting should make Muslims and Arabs much, much more prominent (whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you).

5. Tribal and Clan rivalries even in allegedly unitary states like Iran and Egypt could lead to them splintering if a large-scale regional war involving WMDs were to destroy the existing governments. Tyrannies, whether secular or islamist, are very brittle and devolve quickly into factional fighting (see Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sunni-Shia splits in Saudi/UAE, etc.).

6. The history of Arab unification movements shows them to be futile. An Arab superstate, Islamic Federation or Worldwide Ummah state is very unlikely.

I'm with Triton, the terms Soviet (or Neo-Sov, which no-one would use formally) are outdated anachronisms and any revamp of the cyberpunk setting needs to remove them. Today's younger generations around the world have no idea what a soviet is.

A Eurasian Federation is probable given Putin's imperial predilections, but any such federation would require Ukraine to align with Russia, something that may happen under Yanukovich. In one of my settings I had a Slavic Union that emcompassed Slavic territories of the former Soviet Union, was strongly influenced by both scientism and the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Slavic Union
In 2037 Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and northern Kazakhstan confederated into the Slavic Union, and have created the world's first experiment in Synth-controlled administration. Synthetic Intelligences, in consultation with a scientific- political elite, together run the Slavic Union's economy and elections, writing laws and formulating policy based on strict principles of social dynamics, econometric prognostication and psycho-engineering. While the Slavic Union is a democracy, it cannot be said to be a free society. The state is strong and controls economic activity through a vast array of Institutes and Academies, each in economic competition with the others, but directed by ultra-smart computers. So far, the experiment is a great success, reviving the country and bringing great prosperity following the long years of anarchy and civil war, but whether the electorate will for long put up with being told what to do by Synths remains to be seen.

Yes, it might be more cyberpunk, since it mixes various social, economic and tech levels across the world. Increases inequality within countries while decreasing inequality between countries, making for a more volatile global culture, with more edge interaction.

Usable but ancient content can be put into a general ARCHIVES forum or section. It won't disappear, and it'll be better organized. And frankly I looked into all those places and there isn't that much coherent, usable content. It's mostly a lot of brainstorming and semi-updates. A very small amount of wheat among the piles of chaff.

>view new posts

Yes, I know it's there, but I don't browse forums like that. Just my preference, but I suspect that most people manually browse as well.

I'm just telling you guys what my impression of the site is: dusty looking. If you want to keep it as is, no problem, but I'm hoping you'll embrace the cyberpunk ethos of newer-and-faster rather than onion-on-my-belt.

Hey, you didn't have to go all-stealth in there. You can just walk into the police station and blow everyone away.

Ooooh, my bad. Sorry, Deric. TYPO.