(Infinite Worlds) Did anyone else find...

Glamourweaver · 03-27-2006, 03:04 AM

Bonaparte-4 thematically repetative with Shikaku-Mon? They're both defined by military dominance of unexpected countries (for Homeliners) leading to a cyberpunk society.

I'm just surprised that both would be given the space they were given when it could have been used to show more diverse concepts. Or am a missing some important nuance here?

flyingwombat · 03-27-2006, 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glamourweaver

Bonaparte-4 thematically repetative with Shikaku-Mon? They're both defined by military dominance of unexpected countries (for Homeliners) leading to a cyberpunk society.

I'm just surprised that both would be given the space they were given when it could have been used to show more diverse concepts. Or am a missing some important nuance here?

I wouldn't call them unexpected.

Yes, there are simularities. Each parallel got to cyberpunk era differently. Of the two it looks like Bonaparte-4 is more likely to have a nuclear war than Shikaku-Mon.

A campaign could have researchers studying both worlds with teams going from one to the oither via homeline when something happens...

tratclif · 03-27-2006, 08:11 AM

Mostly it's a consequence of the length of the writeups in IW -- just long enough to be intriguing but way too short to give details. A long writeup of Bonaparte-4 could have a much different flavor of cyberpunk than Shikaku-Mon's, if anyone ever wrote it up.

And the motivation for writing about them is different. Shikaku-Mon was written as an example of a small point-of-difference making a huge change in history, with different politics and intellectual life (I didn't really understand what Mr. Neumeier was trying to do until after reading some Pyramid or Usenet postings about Shikaku-Mon). Bonaparte-4 is more of a Usual Suspect, a commonly used idea like "What if the Nazis won WWII?" In both cases, if you bring them up to the early 21st century, you plausibly get corrupt but technically advanced societies, so you get something cyberpunkish.

03-27-2006, 03:04 AM	#1
Glamourweaver Join Date: Feb 2005	(Infinite Worlds) Did anyone else find... Bonaparte-4 thematically repetative with Shikaku-Mon? They're both defined by military dominance of unexpected countries (for Homeliners) leading to a cyberpunk society. I'm just surprised that both would be given the space they were given when it could have been used to show more diverse concepts. Or am a missing some important nuance here?

03-27-2006, 08:11 AM	#3
tratclif Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Chillicothe, OH	Re: (Infinite Worlds) Did anyone else find... Mostly it's a consequence of the length of the writeups in IW -- just long enough to be intriguing but way too short to give details. A long writeup of Bonaparte-4 could have a much different flavor of cyberpunk than Shikaku-Mon's, if anyone ever wrote it up. And the motivation for writing about them is different. Shikaku-Mon was written as an example of a small point-of-difference making a huge change in history, with different politics and intellectual life (I didn't really understand what Mr. Neumeier was trying to do until after reading some Pyramid or Usenet postings about Shikaku-Mon). Bonaparte-4 is more of a Usual Suspect, a commonly used idea like "What if the Nazis won WWII?" In both cases, if you bring them up to the early 21st century, you plausibly get corrupt but technically advanced societies, so you get something cyberpunkish.