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Starting this thread (with all due caution) after a question was asked in the main Infinity thread;

chaos0xomega wrote:
Out of curiosity, and I've been wondering this for a bit and never bothered to ask, what happened to the Jews in Space? As in, where does Israel fall in, faction wise? We have Islam in Haqqislam, Druze in Mercs, Sikhs and Catholics/Christians in Pan-O, various weird cults and lesser known pagan faiths in Nomads, and the allusion to Buddhism/Shinto in Yu-Jing, but where is Space Israel and the Jews?

First things first;


Ahem.

The impression seems to be that there is a notable absence of Jews and/or Israel in the background for Infinity. The first question is: is this correct, or is this misinformed and people simply were not looking in the right place?

Assuming it is correct, the question then might be Why?

For myself, I'm honestly not sure I would want to see how CB would interpret things... Don't get me wrong, I'm both a Jew and a Zionist, but while I am proud of my faith and my homeland, I'm a bit nervous how it would end up represented. CB does some amazing designs, but they also do tend to have a somewhat... perhaps, superficial understanding of the cultures they put in game?

To be fair, this is no great criticism: as a sci-fi trope it's entirely justified to say that certain stereotypical behaviors have become exaggerated with both time and technology. It's also worth making cultures less realistic, and may be the better part of valor when you're using actual, extant cultures in your game: it's one thing to be fighting the Cyber-Spartans, it's another to be fighting, say, the future Chinese, or the Empire of Islam.

It's also worth pointing out that in America, Israel is one of the most favorably perceived foreign nations (only Great Britain and France have a better perception among Americans), but considering, without undue emphasis, that CB is a European company with a large European market that is... well, let's just say substantially less warm towards Israel and Jews in general. So there can be a huge disconnect between what Americans think of when they think of Israel, and what Europeans think.

Please don't take this as a criticism of CB: they are, after all, a business first and foremost, and there is no market in trying to sell something that your audience may react violently to. It's entirely possible that CB simply doesn't want to open this can of worms.

Frankly, it's also entirely possible that CB doesn't think they could do justice to what their audience wold expect: the simple fact is that Israel is a very small and yet very complicated country, one that can't easily be reduced to caricatures (well, not inoffensive ones anyway).

Do you represent the country with an emphsis on the deeply religious culture of the Haredi and the Hassidim (the "black hats"), or the raucous, libertines of Tel Aviv (noted as being an international Gay travel destination)? Emphasize the Spartan-esque effect national military service has on developing a 'macho' culture, or the tech sector that produces so many internet billionaires and biotech start-ups? Focus on almost-transparently-pale Ashkenazi Jews from northern Europe, black-as-they-come Ethiopian Jews or (the actual majority in Israel) the North African and Middle Eastern Mizrahi Jews?

That's putting aside the very loyal Druze and Bedouin elements of Israel. And the Baha'i, and the Christian Arabs, etc, etc, etc...

Thoughts? Information? Speculation or Sneak peeks?

Nice intro to this Buzzsaw, I have no inside knowledge so will just be throwing my questions and thoughts into the mix. And any questions in this post are rhetorical and not pointed at you specifically.

My first question is "Where do you want to see the descendants of modern Judaism?"

Do you want them in the background or on the board?

If it is in the background then there is a very wide scope for them to be anywhere, for both good or ill.
If you start from the middle ages money lender stereotype you could have them in the Fundaq Caravan stations with a chain of banking platforms, and have the Druze as their main hired muscle.

If you were looking more to a less stereotyped interpretation I would go with a series of events lead them to taking over the majority of the middle east (especially since a large chunk of Islam went to Bourak) and now they are tending to the Holy Lands in anticipation of something. Main issues would be keeping enough financial base to keep the Earth Based Megacorps from bothering them and keeping any of the still-radical groups from causing trouble.

Or, you can have both flavours at the same time!

If you are wanting them on the board then it gets trickier.
They aren't one of the megapowers so you aren't going to get a full faction out of them in this world, at most you might get a nifty sectorial from probably Haqq or Pan-O and I will give my reasoning below:

Haqqislam - A friendlier Islam in space has no obvious beef with Jews in space, well no more than let's say their NASA techs that they buddy up with. Willingness to abandon the Earth and Jerusalem cuts out a major sticking point of current times. Perhaps there has been a tightening of bonds between the sons of Abraham in the years since the exodus to space?

Pan-Oceana - America went down like a lead balloon but that doesn't mean that Israel would have gotten dragged down with them. The Vatican/UCR bought their way in, so nothing to stop Judaism from doing the same.

Yu-Jing - Not really anything to see here.

Ariadna - Established nationalities preclude any big Jewish contigents, any Jewish Americans are locked down for USARF.

Edit: Nomads - Unless you take a sizable portion of Jewish criminals it doesn't really make sense to me. Well I guess you can justify it in an after to fact side of things and get them to buy a domain on one of the ships.

Aleph - Well you have a direct link with the name and logo. But is that enough? I don't think so, if anything we will see mythos in recreations rather than an Israeli Spec Forces sort of thing.

Tohaa & Combined Army - Yeah no.

Mercs - Well we have Druze, so definitely possible. What could you get from them? What can you spin from the current Jewish areas? Daylami covers the more rural desert fighters, Ghulam (especially with the amount of great female models) seems to take the "ready and professional" Israeli forces. For me the Druze covers the "you mess with us and we will destroy you" feel that you get from the darker side of Mossad stories.


Based on my gut feel, the easiest way currently run an Jewish feel list (even if the fluff didn't support it entirely) would be with the QK.
A bunch of Ghulam in Israeli colours, paint up an Iguana with "אמתn" drawn on the forehead of the TAG, stack in a link of Druze. I am not familiar with too many Jewish stories, but if there are any trio of women myth that could be used for an Odalisque Haris?

On one of the Nomad ships? Or Pan Oceania? That's the only two options I think, unless you went the Haqq route where Israel managed to finance its own 'Bourak' and set up its own home planet.

I don't think there is an explicit need to include either a Jewish-based faction or miniatures, otherwise it just seems like a Samsung or Apple advert where they try and shoe-horn every single race and creed into advertising for the sake of inclusivity.

Re. the background route the problem for me is that adding it would have to be handled with kid gloves, if you put in the most likely scenario (which for me would be Israel nose-diving along with the US state, as their fate in the middle east is absolutely entwined with US policy) then that you're disturbing all kinds of hornets nests..

The impression seems to be that there is a notable absence of Jews and/or Israel in the background for Infinity. The first question is: is this correct, or is this misinformed and people simply were not looking in the right place?

Well, as I said in that other thread, it certainly strikes me more as something they didn't think about than anything else. I mean, I haven't even noticed tat they might not be mentioned at all until someone pointed that out, but I'd say they are hardly the only ones not mentioned at all.

Then again, absence of proof is certainly not proof of absence, and as Vain says, there are plenty of places where they'd fit with the established fluff.

EDIT: Took a look at the "less warm" link. Erm... that seems like a somewhat weighted view, to me.

Awww geez, I didnt bring up Nomads. Back to an edit!

I'm just going to quote what I said in the other thread.

I've wondered about that as well. My assumption is that they were brought into Haqqislam, hopefully coexisting peacefully within that society. We know Haqq has a sizeable non-Muslim population, so it isn't outside the realm of possibility. Alternatively, they are likely to be part of PanO since the fluff for the Knights of the Sepulcher mention that they guard religious and historical sites in Jerusalem, so I imagine they wouldn't be able to do that unless it were a part of PanO.

So, I'd imagine Jews in general are spread out just like everyone else. For Israel itself, the overall assumption is that it's been absorbed by one of the megapowers and isn't still a small time player. The two best guesses are PanO and Haqq. I'm leaning more towards Haqq than PanO though.

I don't think CB would really need to make a big song and dance about where Israel wound up though. In the fluff, they briefly mention countries which were absorbed into the megapowers. There's no reason that they can't just namedrop Israel in with a few of the others and leave it at that.

 Albertorius wrote:

Well, as I said in that other thread, it certainly strikes me more as something they didn't think about than anything else. I mean, I haven't even noticed tat they might not be mentioned at all until someone pointed that out, but I'd say they are hardly the only ones not mentioned at all.

Then again, absence of proof is certainly not proof of absence, and as Vain says, there are plenty of places where they'd fit with the established fluff.

EDIT: Took a look at the "less warm" link. Erm... that seems like a somewhat weighted view, to me.

Yeah, read that "less warm" link too, now I've seen more biased, openly racist and bigoted interviews online, but only linked to as part of a comedic "look how absurdly stupid this person is" post on FB and the like. It's quite scary just how big a chip that guy's shoulders are holding and how angry and hateful it's making him.

As has been noted, there's no reason to suppose Judaism doesn't exist in the Infinity universe, just as there's no reason to suppose it didn't just die out, get absorbed by another or evolve into an entirely different faith (like most minor, heavily nationally-tied religions have done).

CB would probably be best served by NEVER COMMENTING ON IT, EVER and letting players, in the TTG and RPG, decide if they even want to include it in their own internal world view.

Do people still follow the Jedi path in CB's universe? Have the Jedi been persecuted to extinction by an upsurge in Sith loyalties in the middle of the 20th century? Do you even care?
(a little flippant, I know)

I remember reading something about Haqqislam being open to people from all religious, but particularly welcoming to Jews and Christians (since they all share the same God). I could see Jewish Doctors being quite successful in Haqqislam.

Memory serves you well. It is in the Haqqislam section of the background book. Jews and Christians are peoples of the book, and are welcomed on Bourak. They must pay the unbeliever tax though, the jizya. IIRC there is mention of a large Jewish quarter in one of Bourak's cities.

I would guess one would find Jews interspersed throughout the societies of the Human Sphere, just as one does today on Earth.

Personally don't see the relevance (US-Israel relationship/policy) or the necessity to give them a major spotlight at the moment. Whatever works best for the story.

First, thanks for the constructive replies everyone!

Some minor differences of opinion, followed by my thoughts on what I've read so far;

 The Infinite wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
EDIT: Took a look at the "less warm" link. Erm... that seems like a somewhat weighted view, to me.

Yeah, read that "less warm" link too, now I've seen more biased, openly racist and bigoted interviews online, but only linked to as part of a comedic "look how absurdly stupid this person is" post on FB and the like. It's quite scary just how big a chip that guy's shoulders are holding and how angry and hateful it's making him.

I don't want to go too far into this, it's a touchy topic obviously, but as it has bearing on the commercial possibilities it's worth pointing out that such survey evidence that does exists, lends credence to the claim that Europeans are substantially more likely to hold anti-Jewish (as opposed to anti-Zionist/anti-Israel) views. The ADL Global Survey is a nice starting point, though it does suffer from the obvious problem of "what exactly are anti-Semitic views", but it's of a part of polling/survey literature that pretty consistently shows Europeans with far more prevalence of negative views towards both Israel as a country and Jews as a people then the USA.

Of course, it's worth pointing out that the most virulently anti-Jewish views tend to be held by Arab and Muslim immigrants to Europe, which reflects the nations of the immigrants' origin (the Arab Middle East being the most overtly anti-Jewish place on earth).

Nevertheless, when the Atlantic Magazine ran a cover article "Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?" earlier this year (short 10-point version at the Washington Post), it wasn't motivated by simple pique, but an environment that required France to deploy 10,000 troops to (among other things) protect Jewish schools and community centers.

I'm not saying that Europe is a hotbed of anti-Jewish sentiment and/or a place completely hostile to Israel, but it's definitely something significant enough to make for a commercial consideration. More on that below.

 The Infinite wrote:
As has been noted, there's no reason to suppose Judaism doesn't exist in the Infinity universe, just as there's no reason to suppose it didn't just die out, get absorbed by another or evolve into an entirely different faith (like most minor, heavily nationally-tied religions have done).

Yes, we did barely manage that two thousand year stretch after the last time our homeland was ransacked...

 Pacific wrote:
On one of the Nomad ships? Or Pan Oceania? That's the only two options I think, unless you went the Haqq route where Israel managed to finance its own 'Bourak' and set up its own home planet.

I don't think there is an explicit need to include either a Jewish-based faction or miniatures, otherwise it just seems like a Samsung or Apple advert where they try and shoe-horn every single race and creed into advertising for the sake of inclusivity.

Re. the background route the problem for me is that adding it would have to be handled with kid gloves, if you put in the most likely scenario (which for me would be Israel nose-diving along with the US state, as their fate in the middle east is absolutely entwined with US policy) then that you're disturbing all kinds of hornets nests..

This brings up a point I mentioned in passing earlier: CB has some really weird ideas about how the future would go, which is fair enough as they aren't actually futurists at all! Putting aside the issue of entanglements between the US and Israel (which, it should be noted, also has largely unnoticed ties with the PRC), the picture of the future CB paints is just crazy... which is entirely fair, as their inspiration for the setting isn't Machiavelli's "The Prince" and the CIA world fact-book, but anime.

The real question is: do enough people care about an Israeli faction that it makes financial sense to invest resources into developing it in the first place?

Let's be realistic, CB has already squatted (sp?) a sub-faction because it didn't sell enough (unless I am misunderstanding the Cascuda incident). Is there really a big, unmet market here? It seems to me the market would breakdown roughly as follows;

-People that are indifferent and will buy or not buy based entirely on rules, sculpts and game-factors.

-People (like myself) that would be interested in the faction based on it's background as the "Jewish/Israeli faction", but who are sensitive to the execution. That is, the faction background would get us in the door, but we wouldn't buy the faction if the models didn't live up to quality standards, and would probably be very offended by an overly negative portrayal of the faction.

-People that would be willing to buy based solely on the faction background. However, these people would likely be even more sensitive to the portrayal in the background.

-People that would be hostile to the faction because of the background, but willing to buy based on in-game factors (models, rules, etc.).

-People that would be hostile to the faction because of the background, and unwilling to buy for any reason.

Just spitballing, my presumption is that the vast majority of people fit into the first category and don't care one way or the other. If we take that away, we're left with the 4 other categories, and thus a problem: one category is a complete loss, one category a complete gain, and the others both require a substantial investment of time and energy to bring the faction to 'polish'.

The more I look at it, the more I can't see a compelling reason for CB to invest time and effort into this. Remember, if they do the faction badly, they aren't going to win over anyone, and likely lose outright, because they will manage to offend both sides: the pro, because their real-world counterparts/sympathetic characters are being poorly/unfairly done, and the Anti, who will be turned off simply by the inclusion of such material in the game.

So glad my post resulted in a spinoff thread haha.

Truthfully, I think the question has already been answered.

Notice the designations for ALEPH's remotes--heck, notice the designation of the ALEPH AI to begin with.

Also notice that in the background, ALEPH has tied itself rather heavily to the two largest powers in the Human Sphere(PanOceania and Yu Jing) pretty much at the cost of its relations to the lesser powers(Haqqislam, Ariadna, and the Nomads).

There is a bit of merit to the idea that some of CB might have views that could align with the folks who spout Zionist conspiracy theory nonsense("Jews rule the world in secret!!1!" kind of nonsense). Whether it's actively hostile views of Jews or whatever, I couldn't tell you but framing ALEPH in this way some things that did not make a lot of sense before, make more sense now.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Infinite wrote:
CB would probably be best served by NEVER COMMENTING ON IT, EVER and letting players, in the TTG and RPG, decide if they even want to include it in their own internal world view.

Do people still follow the Jedi path in CB's universe? Have the Jedi been persecuted to extinction by an upsurge in Sith loyalties in the middle of the 20th century? Do you even care?
(a little flippant, I know)

Pacific wrote:On one of the Nomad ships? Or Pan Oceania? That's the only two options I think, unless you went the Haqq route where Israel managed to finance its own 'Bourak' and set up its own home planet.

I don't think there is an explicit need to include either a Jewish-based faction or miniatures, otherwise it just seems like a Samsung or Apple advert where they try and shoe-horn every single race and creed into advertising for the sake of inclusivity.

Re. the background route the problem for me is that adding it would have to be handled with kid gloves, if you put in the most likely scenario (which for me would be Israel nose-diving along with the US state, as their fate in the middle east is absolutely entwined with US policy) then that you're disturbing all kinds of hornets nests..

And yet when myself and others brought up the same point about Corvus Belli making an ethnic breakdown of the US contingent of Ariadna, we got hollered at with "IT WAS IMPORTANT TO NOTE!"...

If it was so important that we knew that the majority of the military contingent were African-American and Hispanics(which outnumbered the science contingent) while the science contingent were whites and Asians(bearing in mind that we've not seen but a single African-American represented modelwise for USARF, and most of the nonsense they're trying to represent as American "culture" is stereotypical dribble), then I think what happened to Israel is just as important for the background.

a 96th most populous country in the world (today) wouldn't be that relevant in a post-nationstate future.

I understand that having your own country represented in a game would be cool, but outside of historical/modern games, it just isn't a realistic wish.

I don't think it requires full recognition as a faction with models and whatnot. Just a brief mention in the fluff is all it takes. Not that I wouldn't mind a set like the Druze composed of Mercs with a Mossad background. At mosr, that's all they really need to do.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
I don't want to go too far into this, it's a touchy topic obviously, but as it has bearing on the commercial possibilities it's worth pointing out that such survey evidence that does exists, lends credence to the claim that Europeans are substantially more likely to hold anti-Jewish (as opposed to anti-Zionist/anti-Israel) views.

I don't want to enter into this too much either, so I'll spoiler the off-topic part and stop talking about it anymore ^_^



But yeah, I think the question has more or less been answered.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Truthfully, I think the question has already been answered.

Notice the designations for ALEPH's remotes--heck, notice the designation of the ALEPH AI to begin with.

Also notice that in the background, ALEPH has tied itself rather heavily to the two largest powers in the Human Sphere(PanOceania and Yu Jing) pretty much at the cost of its relations to the lesser powers(Haqqislam, Ariadna, and the Nomads).

There is a bit of merit to the idea that some of CB might have views that could align with the folks who spout Zionist conspiracy theory nonsense("Jews rule the world in secret!!1!" kind of nonsense). Whether it's actively hostile views of Jews or whatever, I couldn't tell you but framing ALEPH in this way some things that did not make a lot of sense before, make more sense now.

Hmmm... I'm afraid I'm not as conversant with the details of the ALEPH faction (though I have indeed wondered why it's named for the first letter of the Hebrew aleph-beit (alphabet)); what are you referring to by "designations for ALEPH's remotes"?

Frankly, if that's the truth, I'm fine with it. Better an interesting, fictional faction that explores these themes then a ham-handed attempt that infuriates both supporters and opponents alike. More on that in a second.

 Kanluwen wrote:

The Infinite wrote:
CB would probably be best served by NEVER COMMENTING ON IT, EVER and letting players, in the TTG and RPG, decide if they even want to include it in their own internal world view.

Do people still follow the Jedi path in CB's universe? Have the Jedi been persecuted to extinction by an upsurge in Sith loyalties in the middle of the 20th century? Do you even care?
(a little flippant, I know)

Pacific wrote:On one of the Nomad ships? Or Pan Oceania? That's the only two options I think, unless you went the Haqq route where Israel managed to finance its own 'Bourak' and set up its own home planet.

I don't think there is an explicit need to include either a Jewish-based faction or miniatures, otherwise it just seems like a Samsung or Apple advert where they try and shoe-horn every single race and creed into advertising for the sake of inclusivity.

Re. the background route the problem for me is that adding it would have to be handled with kid gloves, if you put in the most likely scenario (which for me would be Israel nose-diving along with the US state, as their fate in the middle east is absolutely entwined with US policy) then that you're disturbing all kinds of hornets nests..

And yet when myself and others brought up the same point about Corvus Belli making an ethnic breakdown of the US contingent of Ariadna, we got hollered at with "IT WAS IMPORTANT TO NOTE!"...

If it was so important that we knew that the majority of the military contingent were African-American and Hispanics(which outnumbered the science contingent) while the science contingent were whites and Asians(bearing in mind that we've not seen but a single African-American represented modelwise for USARF, and most of the nonsense they're trying to represent as American "culture" is stereotypical dribble), then I think what happened to Israel is just as important for the background.

Speaking of ham-handed, this is one of those moments when one is tempted to scratch the head, roll the eyes and simply conclude "well, they're Spanish...". The elite portions of the US military are now and have always been disproportionately white (also Southern and Christian).

The support elements of US armed forces are actually disproportionately black (significantly so, something like 30+% black); CB has their stats almost exactly backwards.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Truthfully, I think the question has already been answered.

Notice the designations for ALEPH's remotes--heck, notice the designation of the ALEPH AI to begin with.

Also notice that in the background, ALEPH has tied itself rather heavily to the two largest powers in the Human Sphere(PanOceania and Yu Jing) pretty much at the cost of its relations to the lesser powers(Haqqislam, Ariadna, and the Nomads).

There is a bit of merit to the idea that some of CB might have views that could align with the folks who spout Zionist conspiracy theory nonsense("Jews rule the world in secret!!1!" kind of nonsense). Whether it's actively hostile views of Jews or whatever, I couldn't tell you but framing ALEPH in this way some things that did not make a lot of sense before, make more sense now.

Hmmm... I'm afraid I'm not as conversant with the details of the ALEPH faction (though I have indeed wondered why it's named for the first letter of the Hebrew aleph-beit (alphabet)); what are you referring to by "designations for ALEPH's remotes"?

Frankly, if that's the truth, I'm fine with it. Better an interesting, fictional faction that explores these themes then a ham-handed attempt that infuriates both supporters and opponents alike. More on that in a second.

The Rebots are labeled "Daleth", "Zayin", "Lamedh", and "Samekh" and the remote helpers for the Sophotects are labeled "Yud" bots,

Speaking of ham-handed, this is one of those moments when one is tempted to scratch the head, roll the eyes and simply conclude "well, they're Spanish...". The elite portions of the US military are now and have always been disproportionately white (also Southern and Christian).

The support elements of US armed forces are actually disproportionately black (significantly so, something like 30+% black); CB has their stats almost exactly backwards.

Preaching to the choir, mate.

Realistically from the conversations I've had with CB staff? It's not "they're Spanish", it's because they have outdated impressions of American culture or they only look at pop culture for examples to support their stances.

Have you seen the Spanish Movie,Welcome, Mr. Marshall?

I agree that jumping into the Identity Politics with USAriadna was a dumb move. I woiuld generalize it to say that jumping into Identity Politics in any form is a dumb move in a tabletop miniatures game, unless that is the purpose of the game itself.

I get the impression that ALEPH has all those names as biblical references, since ALEPH is somewhat god-like, or at least aspires to be, rather than as specific jewish references.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Have you seen the Spanish Movie,Welcome, Mr. Marshall?

I agree that jumping into the Identity Politics with USAriadna was a dumb move. I woiuld generalize it to say that jumping into Identity Politics in any form is a dumb move in a tabletop miniatures game, unless that is the purpose of the game itself.

I get the impression that ALEPH has all those names as biblical references, since ALEPH is somewhat god-like, or at least aspires to be, rather than as specific jewish references.

The thing is, those aren't biblical references, per se, those are just Hebrew letters;



"Daleth", "Zayin", "Lamedh", and "Samekh" (with some pronunciation differences). (Note that when it says "final", it means that is the block form of the letter when it occurs at the end of a word.)

As an aside I haven't seen that movie, so I'm not sure what the reference is.

To a Spanish view of America. I was responding to what Kanluwen wrote. It's an amusing movie, and worth seeing. I don't bother quoting a person if the post to which I am responding immediately precedes mine. Seems unnecessary to me.

 Red Harvest wrote:
To a Spanish view of America. I was responding to what Kanluwen wrote. It's an amusing movie, and worth seeing. I don't bother quoting a person if the post to which I am responding immediately precedes mine. Seems unnecessary to me.

I... really wouldn't put much faith in that a movie from 60 years ago (and from the first years of Franco's dictatorship, to boot) would shed much light on current views of America, you know

I agree that it's an amusing movie, worth seeing, and much relevant for the date and situation (namely the Marshall Plan).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
As an aside I haven't seen that movie, so I'm not sure what the reference is.

It's a satirical movie about spanish society of the 50s. Revolves around a backwater village that's going to be visited by an american delegation during the presentation of the Marshall Plan. The whole movie revoles around the preparations the village makes to greet the americans, and how they bend over themselves because they expect they'll benefit greatly from it.

It managed to pass the censorship because... well, because the censors didn't get the movie, all told XDD.

 Kanluwen wrote:
and most of the nonsense they're trying to represent as American "culture" is stereotypical dribble),

Pffft. America isn't being singled out in that department; Ask the claymore-wielding Scotsmen, the samurai and ninjas or the seductive harem girls about that.

 Kanluwen wrote:
and most of the nonsense they're trying to represent as American "culture" is stereotypical dribble),

It's good thing that Ariadna doesn't have a German Faction, or we could have had SS truppen and well dressed officers.

But ... but ... the bad guys always have much cooler uniforms !

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
and most of the nonsense they're trying to represent as American "culture" is stereotypical dribble),

Pffft. America isn't being singled out in that department; Ask the claymore-wielding Scotsmen, the samurai and ninjas or the seductive harem girls about that.

Caledonia isn't meant to be a continuation of modern day culture. USAriadna is. Read the background on it; Caledonia is a nation that was founded and the populace voluntarily pulled from the mythologies of their home countries. With the Scottish Highlander Regiments that provided security for the UK detachment outnumbering the rest, the Scottish mythologies ended up being the ones chosen to work with.

Same thing goes for Yu Jing in general and more specifically the Japanese Sectorial Army, where the Yu Jing government has allowed the Japanese a measure of retaining their own culture to ensure their obedience.

The Odalisques are not "seductive harem girls", but rather CB has only chosen to model such. There is mention of male Odalisques--the only real thing you need to know here is that they are chosen for their looks and skill at arms to serve as bodyguards.

I'm not sure that makes anything any better. OK, so the difference is that in this setting the space Scotsmen, space Arabs (and are the Japanese in space? I can't tell; I thought they were still in actual Japan) decided to build their cultures round fairy tales. That ... doesn't seem particularly likely or flattering either. The American-Ariadnans have suffered the same sort of cultural isolation as the other three, so there's no reason why they shouldn't have had some odd cultural "inbreeding" too.

I don't think we've ever had any mention of what's going on in the USA proper; I've always assumed they were subsumed into PanOceania along with Western Europe.

Is all of this detailed in the COre book, by the way? I don't have the USARF box, so if it's all in there, then I'll have to bow out.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'm not sure that makes anything any better. OK, so the difference is that in this setting the space Scotsmen, space Arabs (and are the Japanese in space? I can't tell; I thought they were still in actual Japan) decided to build their cultures round fairy tales. That ... doesn't seem particularly likely or flattering either. The American-Ariadnans have suffered the same sort of cultural isolation as the other three, so there's no reason why they shouldn't have had some odd cultural "inbreeding" too.

In the case of the Japanese, it is not that they "built their culture around fairy tales" but rather that they brought back their own culture as a way of coping with being under the rule of Yu Jing.
The Yu Jing Empire is willing to turn a blind eye to it, provided it doesn't get to the point of outright rebellion.

And in the case of ninjas? The Yu Jing Empire has taken the name "ninjas" for their covert agents and trained them to match.

I don't think we've ever had any mention of what's going on in the USA proper; I've always assumed they were subsumed into PanOceania along with Western Europe.

The only thing we've known about the US is that it fell apart as a country. More recently we've been given some information detailing it, but a lot of it seems to be "the US destroyed itself with viral drone strikes on their own populace".

Is all of this detailed in the COre book, by the way? I don't have the USARF box, so if it's all in there, then I'll have to bow out.

It's been in the fluff since the beginning, more or less. They have stressed time and time again that USAriadna is effectively a "preserved slice of the United States".

From memory, the USA proper underwent economic meltdown and a nanotech weapon that malfunctioned catastrophically, to the extent that most of it is uninhabitable wilderness.

The nanotech weapon is brand new information, and the implication is not strictly that it "malfunctioned" but that it was being utilized and malfunctioned.