[Other] Cities Without Number: Volksfreistaat Berlin

[Ermine]

Corps are already very powerful, having their own united government: The Corporate Council. It'll take a lot to dismantle a corp.

(There'll be more on the Corporate Council later)

Combined with the lack of information most people have about things, corps are basically the people's government, too. Except in Berlin.

[DrowNinjaPrincess]

If it's any consolation, it's not like I would plan on having Charity openly advertise details all about herself, her family and community. I would imagine even assuming all PCs get to know each other well on a high level of trust, we may not know what each other's relatives are doing. At that point, we would no longer merely be like-minded individuals with common goals, but literally family friends.

But I am fine with Charity's father merely working at BMR and having absolutely no involvement, or even working for a different company. Either way it's totally fine. I just saw a potential opportunity, seeing as I already wrote that bit up about her background, and thought it could be interesting.

[Ermine]

Added an image for Corwyn in the first post (in tt tags) at the end of where I described her.

I'll try to get a timeline up in the next couple days.

[Ermine]

Okay, I put up the history of the world between now and the start of the game (in 2057) in the first post.

It feels like it's missing a lot, though.

[DrowNinjaPrincess]

So Cybernetics have only existed for like 20 years? Okay, longer I assume, they've probably been in development for quite some time. But for 20 years, they have been fairly commonplace and readily available? I think that is a longer period than we have had sleek iphones that could fit in one's pocket. So I guess it's a fairly new trend that has become more and more popular and advanced in recent years?

Also good to know that the world isn't a total, post-apocalyptic wasteland with roving wargangs riding around Mad Max style.

[Ermine]

Just the US is. ^~^

They were def in development before they were released to the public. I mean, we're working on them now. This is just when they became viable and widely available. So it's a new trend, and there are more advanced models coming out every day.

[DrowNinjaPrincess]

Oh, also! Berlin has only been in an anarchist state for the past 10 years or so. So at least half of our lives have lived under the old governments. Longer the older we are. Corporate Council has also been around for 20 years.

I think I'm just having trouble visualizing how our setting of Berlin will work. I would think normally the government is probably going to be how we have it today, with elections, politicians, lawyers, law enforcement.. Now we also have these corporation nations to deal with, so I'm not sure exactly what happens. How do they conflict with the old governments? I'm sure they still have their old armies right? But now the corporations do too? Or have they just seized so much control in 20 years that it doesn't really matter?

Berlin is also a very special place, seeing as it's anarchist. But if we still have corporation nations, does that mean they have all the control and there is little recourse?

[Effete]

Originally Posted by DrowNinjaPrincess

Oh, also! Berlin has only been in an anarchist state for the past 10 years or so. So at least half of our lives have lived under the old governments. Longer the older we are. Corporate Council has also been around for 20 years.

I think I'm just having trouble visualizing how our setting of Berlin will work. I would think normally the government is probably going to be how we have it today, with elections, politicians, lawyers, law enforcement.. Now we also have these corporation nations to deal with, so I'm not sure exactly what happens. How do they conflict with the old governments? I'm sure they still have their old armies right? But now the corporations do too? Or have they just seized so much control in 20 years that it doesn't really matter?

Berlin is also a very special place, seeing as it's anarchist. But if we still have corporation nations, does that mean they have all the control and there is little recourse?

It sounds like, since there has been so much drastic change globally (USA getting nuked, Russia's dissolution and absorption into Sino-Asia, rise of corpo-fascism, etc.) that conventional governments just have no idea how to handle it all. Governments in general are very slow to adjust to changes that don't require militaristic intervention. The timeline says Germany "tolerates" Berlin's decline into lawlessness, but it might be better to think of it instead as just confusion and/or indecision. Like, maybe at first they tried to send in the army, but were driven away. So now, the military just stations troops on the outskirts, preventing the worst of the crime from spilling out, hoping the gangs would eventually kill each other off so they could make another push to reclaim the city. Thematically, this could be the setting-conceit used to focus the action inward upon Berlin (i.e. getting past the army blockade is just too difficult if you don't have the backing of a corpo).

Meanwhile, the corporations with their extraterritorial powers just police themselves, existing as perfect little islands within the roiling sea of chaos.

[Gateway502]

I don't know that the army could be "driven away" if they were sent into Berlin, but I can imagine that sending the army in would be unpopular with the people in the rest of the country. I've no idea how the society will evolve over the next 50 years or so, but, because of the country's history, a lot of (most?) people in Germany would be very opposed to what could be seen as authoritarian behaviour like that from their government. I can imagine the government trying it, the people finding out, and then there are protests, maybe even riots, in other cities around the country, and so the troops are withdrawn from Berlin because the government are worried about perhaps losing control of the whole country, and then they frame the situation in Berlin as a "social experiment".

[Ermine]

You guys are putting more thought into it than I did. ^//^

But yeah, these are now all canon.

[Sefer Yetzirah]

Okay seeing that it's only been 2 years since synthetic life was created, I'll modify a bit the concept of the Megacorp to make it consistent with canon history of the world at the moment we start the game.

[DrowNinjaPrincess]

Originally Posted by Sefer Yetzirah

Okay seeing that it's only been 2 years since synthetic life was created, I'll modify a bit the concept of the Megacorp to make it consistent with canon history of the world at the moment we start the game.

Could be two years since it was publicly created?

Who knows what someone has cooked up in the restricted part of the R&D department!

[Ermine]

Yep.

[Ermine]

I've decided to disclose Corwyn's contacts: a fixer going by the name Calico.

The other is a cybersurgeon I haven't named yet.

[DrowNinjaPrincess]

Hm. Haven't really had much activity here in a while. Five people have made applications. Four days left until your deadline!

Originally Posted by Ermine

I've decided to disclose Corwyn's contacts: a fixer going by the name Calico.

The other is a cybersurgeon I haven't named yet.

Was there any other information about these characters? Or I guess, we probably wouldn't know about them yet, right?