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RvBOMally — GURPS Cyberworld
Published: 2017-01-15 15:51:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 8908; Favourites: 93; Downloads: 133
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Another break from Lenin, which just has one last entry anyway. It's GURPS Cyberworld[1]. While this doesn't show up in Infinite Worlds, Infinite Worlds itself is explicit that all GURPS settings are in the Infinite Worlds. So, this counts.It's a cyberpunk dystopia written in the 1990s, so it's weird. The United States is a dictatorship under the ProGov regime, China's CCP has been overthrown by the "Third Revolution" movement, and there's a Chilean-Argentine union. What I found most charming about Cyberworld is how poorly it has aged and has become a time capsule of sorts for 90s sensibilities. Germany has gone nationalist and is leading the nationalist bloc in United Europe. The Iberian Federation is leading the anti-nationalists and is challenging Germany for #1 in the UE. Canada breaks apart. The CIS becomes the replacement for the USSR, and is highly modern and globalist. The CAF is around because you have to have an ersatz-Soviet Union. Japan is a great power again (aligned with Russia), because of course Japan's decline is temporary. Fidel Castro died in 2002, and the Americans naturally responded by invading the place. Apartheid ended in a race war. Australia was wiped out by a possibly-artificial plague. A very unique timeline. Quite a few of the annotations are direct from the sourcebook, which I recommend to anybody interested in looking further on this.
[1] This is also the same geopolitical setup as GURPS CthulhuPunk. Distinct from CthulhuTech, which is published by another company.
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Comments: 65
Oh, lets look at the middle ea.... WTF is going on there!
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How come Russia and CIS managed to survive the anarchy of Yeltsin and became a superpower?
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At the time this was written, no one in America knew how disastrous Yeltsin would be, and any problems were seen as the legacy of Communism. From a 90s perspective, surely Yeltsinism would lead to Russia's reemergence as a superpower any year now!
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No clue, the sourcebook doesn't give any information.
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what color is alaska? the stripes on it aren't the progov color
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1. Who is the current president of Russia?
2. How's Hawaii?
3. How did Chad expand?
4. How does CAF even project its power?
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1. Sourcebook doesn't say.
2. It's really nice, you should call a travel agent about it.
3. He used pills he bought online.
4. Cyberpunk science.
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3. Okay, what about the Central African Republic?
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The border are from the source book, I have no idea how they got that way.
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VP Pence looks amazingly like the drawing of ProPrez Adam Hammond in the sourcebook for this.
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I do love the names here, but I'm having trouble figuring out what a "multipartie" France would be. Does the sourcebook elaborate on that, or is it just future flavor?
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"France's central government was formally divested of power in the Tax Revolutions of 1998; the Multipartite Republic was established in 2012. Paris is home to a debating-society legislature and a figurehead premiere, while real power rests in the autonomous departmental governments."
I should modify the map to reflect that.
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This was an easy thing to do with Photoshop. Just a few clicks needed.
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X-TREME!!! ... -ly implausible, but at least it seems like a fun setting. 
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The CAF exists purely to give the setting a Cold War-style bad guy, since when this was written people didn't have a good idea of who could be the bad guy of the future. SJG all but admits this.
Norway being top dog was something I conjectured.
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There's no excuse for the Israel thing, though.
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Yeah, I guess the writers didn't want to do a second Gulf War.
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Wait, how does the CAF have a sphere of influence in North Africa, of all places?
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No clue, that's just what the sourcebook said.
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This is VIP quality and clearly one of my favorite ATLs out there -- a few years back, I 'borrowed' cyberworld as a placeholder name for a world I did. Found a new, original name but am still am a big fan of cyberworld/cthulhupunk.
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In the grim dark future of 2016... there are only taco bells.
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I know this is the 90's, and I know that the layman makes even wilder assumptions, but how would Israel swallow that much territory (the entirety of Syria and Jordan, no less)? There's only one way it can be sustained that I can think of, and it's not pretty.
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Something, something Samson...
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The sourcebook is silent on the issue, and there is no word on continuing unrest, so I suspect you're right.
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Given that the same setting is used for Gurps ChutulluPunk, any really strange thing in this world can be explained by Eldritch horrors.
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I always like this default future histories. It tells a lot about the mindset of the people of this time.
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Yep. It's great fodder for a setting like Infinite Worlds.
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Will you also do Transhuman space.
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"The government of the CAP is nominally a socialist republic, but actually it's a byzantine, self-perpetuating oligarchy, much like the central committee of the old USSR.
The racist and fascistic elements in Soviet culture, disgusted with the globalism of the CIS, have settled in the CAP. Consequently, there are constant armed struggles between various ethnic and political factions. This internal struggle tends to limit the CAF's effectiveness as a global player. Islamic fundamentalists also form a potent power bloc."
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I'm still very confused how gurps infinite worlds works. How is it played and how do you find out about worlds?
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www.general-chaos.com/rp/GURPS…
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Wikipedia has an article on it that might answer your questions.
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You'll have to get a copy of Infinite Worlds to find out.
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Other important dates:
2004 was the year South Africa collapsed into race war, and it triggered an economic collapse known as the Grand Slam.
2010 was when Canada broke up
2021 was the year when the USA was taken over by ProGov and when Israel defeated the Arabs and occupied so many of its neighbors.
Am I right is saying that ProGov are basically ultra-rightist folks, where race and wealth mean a lot?
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Yeah, ProGov are your typical corporatist cyberpunk boogeymen.
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I can't really imagine Iran and Arabia being united, especially in a religious sense. Though that's a criticism toward the original source material.
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The source material does note that the Iranians and Saudis are bickering for top spot in the Islamic League. I'm guessing the organization only exists because of that Israeli empire.
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Guess I should had taken more notice of that
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Well, take one look at Israel, and you can see why they might set aside their differences.
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This truly is a fantasy. Central Asia hosting a world power?
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I honestly don't get what's up with the sentiment of having Germany going nationalist in a pre-WWII sense since they're still traumatized to do given how the population is like equating nationalism with Nazism to this very day (though they're slightly getting over it).
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It was a concern in the 90s, evidently.
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