Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/1138.SR_SOCIO.TXT

Text File | 1993-01-07 | 17KB | 311 lines

Article 4196  SRII Sociology
From: [e-mail] (Keith W Ammann)

        This is an article that I gleefully picked up from the Internet
newsgroup rec.games.frp.cyber (Shadowrun and other cyberpunk games).
The first line above is the article's title by the author, the second
line above is the original author's Internet mailing address and his
name.  I sincerely thank him for making the post that he did, and hope
that he will continue to post similarly researched Shadowrun items for
all to read and benefit from.
        All lines below marked with a "*" are his original text, unedited
by me except for perhaps the occasional spelling error that my own
terrible spelling skills enable me to spot.  All lines that have no
marking are my own comments and additions.

*This will seem like an odd tangent ... at first.

*How many of you are sick of hearing about "Generation X"?  (forest of
*hands goes up)  Okay, the interesting thing about this is, a few years
*ago two guys named William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called
*"Generations: The History of America's Future," which was all about the
*generational cycles the nation has gone, is going and will go through.
*Their research is exhaustive, and their accuracy record astonishingly
*high.

*So I got it into my head to pair up their theories with the Shadowrun
*chronology, producing a sociological micro-treatise on generational
*conflict and leadership from 1994 to "the present."  Here's what I came
*up with:

--

*Thirteenth Generation (b. 1961-1981)
*That's us.  We know all about us.  Except now we're our grandparents
*and great-grandparents.

        Interesting little item here, I'd totally forgotten about the
timeframe in use in Shadowrun.  If gamers liked, they could stick
themselves and those they know in the game as people who are in their
eighties to nineties.  Perhaps some of us have become politicians,
business owners or celebrities?

*Millennial Generation (b. 1981-2011)
*This is a very schizophrenic generation.  The reason is that the
*Awakening and other assorted social upheavals caused the generational
*cycle to "skip a beat," much as it did around the time of the civil
*war.  As a result, the identity of this generation is divided.  People
*born before the turning-point year of 1995 are gung-ho, enthusiastic
*and leaderlike.  After 1995, the kids got quiet, moody, insecure and
*self-consciously unself-conscious.  It's mainly a difference in
*ambition:  The older ones dream of taking rockets to the moon; the
*younger ones of taking the station wagon to the baseball game.  The
*one common thread is an almost obsessive desire to be a "team player."

        These are people who're in their sixties or seventies right now
(now being 2054 in Shadowrun time).  Again, most likely the politicians
and business owners; don't see many oldsters running the shadows except
as perhaps fixers and the like.

*Awakening Generation (b. 2011-2030)
*These are your modern-day Baby Boomers:  self-absorbed, extremist,
*out to change the world to their liking, wanting to try everything
*once and then wanting to ban it if they don't like it.  In the early
*2050s, they are just beginning to acquire political strength.  Doesn't
*that make you feel so optimistic?  Even worse, they're often referred
*to as "Awakeners," as if they brought the Sixth World into existence
*all by themselves.

        Now we're getting into player characters here, people who're
thirty or forty in the game.  Rare, perhaps, yes, but possible to have
as a character.  And, incidently, the stereotypical description of these
Awakeners seems to fit to a "T" the stereotypical shadowrunner.

*Beat(en) Generation (b. 2031-present)
*Call 'em "Generation X-prime."  Risk-taking, incorrigible rugrats
*without anyone to look after them or anything to look forward to.
*2048 saw the first decline in college applications in over a century
*-- and it wasn't just a decline, it was a plunge.  Those who are
*entering college now are thought by many to be the most mercenary,
*avaricious and unscrupulous cadre of corporate recruiting stock this
*century.  Lord only knows why folks are panicking -- these are the
*types who INVENTED the corps in the first place.  They will play the
*game better than any of their elders.  Those who don't go to college
*can choose among four futures:  poverty, insane heroic death,
*entrepreneurship -- or crime.

        Now we get into the majority of player characters, people who're
barely into their twenties, or are teens.  Again, incidently, the
stereotypical description for these X-primes seems to fit just about to
a "T" the stereotypical shadowrunner.  This is the explanation that
helps you figure out *why* your character is running the shadows,
subjecting himself to the danger and intrigue that he is.
        Because there's nothing else left for him to run, nothing else
for him to do, nowhere else to go.  There aren't any options, and thus
he runs the shadows in the best attempt he has to better himself and his
life.  Just stay alive and atleast it's better than slinging soy at the
local McHugh's, hai?

*No wonder there are so many Shadowrunners popping up these past few
*years.

        No kidding! :)
--

*The 1980s are often thought of as a definitively inner-driven era.
*But the psychological trend of the 1980s continued well through the
*'90s and even past the millenium.  Not only did people "party like it's
*1999," they kept ON partying 'til '02.  [For a historical comparison,
*picture the Roaring '20s.]

        This helps quite a lot explaining just how the world of 2054 is
so screwed up; because the seeming trend of present day 1993 of cleaning
up the mess that politics of the 80s made the United States and Global
economy never really did much.  People continued to charge their todays
against either their or their kids' tomorrows.
        So it's not just that there was a huge crash of the global
economy sometime before the 2050s; it's that people never really pulled
themselves together and got their house(s) in order.

*Then reality began sinking in.  The kids growing up began to see just
*how dangerous a place the world really was (thus the 1995 schism in
*the Millennial Generation).  And right up through about 2024, the
*continent was in full-fledged crisis, clumsily fighting to stay alive
*in at least some form or another.  After that year, the mood changed
*to one of determined optimism.  The late '20s were years of blood-
*and-guts problem-solving, and while not all the problems got solved
*(and many got worse), look at what did come about: simsense technology,
*harnessing of magic and fusion power, the first cyberterminals and the
*official formation of the NAN.  Without the optimism of this outer-
*driven era, we'd never have been able to clean up after the Crash of
*'29.  And although said Crash did tremendous damage to the economy,
*the late '20s were quite prosperous years, relatively speaking.
*[For a historical comparison, imagine the Reconstruction Era after the
*Civil War.]

        And this explains how we have the technology that we do despite
the horrendous technology crash of 2029, caused by the virus that Echo
Mirage eradicated.  We had a bunch of overachievers striving to create
that which was gone, or that which wasn't as close as it once had been
to being reality.  So we have cyberterminals, the Matrix, Low Altitude
Vehicles and the beginnings of some serious lasers.  Welcome back
technology!

*Then came the '30s.  Ahhh, the '30s.  Either you were there or you
*don't want to hear another fragging word about them.  Nostalgics tout
*the fruition of magic, the births of nations and righting of historical
*wrongs, the protests of the wars in Aztlan and Europe, the expansion
*of "consciousness" groups and the wave of high-tech designer drugs.
*Rational people remember policlubs, the Night of Rage, Japanese
*Imperial Marines in San Francisco, scams perpetrated by the expansion
*of "consciousness" groups and the effects on people's brains of the
*wave of high-tech designer drugs.  [For a historical comparison, need
*you even ask?  The Sixties, of course.]

*But anyone old enough to be taken seriously knows that no matter how
*bad things might have been, you can't get any worse than things are
*now.  So says the conventional wisdom.  It's probably no worse than it
*was in the 1980s, the 1910s, the 1840s or the 1750s, though they were
*all pretty crummy for the have-nots and not so hot for most of the
*haves.  If we hear one more word about "moral crisis," though, we're
*gonna be sick.  We don't have time for those.

        Here's the stereotypical cyberpunk setting; life sucks and
that's that.  And it's true, though this is an angle that I've never
considered before.  Yes, life sucks in cyberpunk, but there is such a
thing as the bottom of the barrel, the floor of the gorge.  You can only
plumet so far down, and then you smack into the harsh reality of
"there's no where left to fall", and now can see if it's possible to
boost outta here.
        I guess this would explain the cheerful and optimistic chummers
in cyberpunk; they've realised that there's a bottom and that they're
standing on it.  That the only way they can go is up, so that's where
they're going whether they like it or not.  Interesting concept.

--

*In today's era, individualism flourishes (outside the corporate
*sector, anyway), confidence in institutions is declining, society's
*problems are being deferred, and new ideals are being cultivated in
*largely separate camps.  Pessimism about the future reigns; many
*people are "living for today," seeking pleasure in the fast lane.
*Wars are ubiquitous and not very popular. There are few sex-role
*distinctions, despite the return to traditional roles during the
*crisis era.  The Awakeners won their generational war with the
*Millennials and are now picking a fight with the Beats.

        Gives for some really wonderful interactions here, having
characters that're a generation apart in age having totally incompatible
outlooks on life.  Talk about some party disunity!

*Right now, many Awakeners are backing away from their recent
*lifestyles and taking a more judgmental stance against what they see
*as a "moral vacuum" among the Beats.  They are already beginning to
*experience angry splits between traditionalists and progressives, with
*the gap likely only to widen further.  They tend toward absolutism and
*extremism in their public expressions.  In their personal lives, they
*tend almost instinctively to seek a perfected "inner life."

        Again, here too is some great interaction.  Characters who're in
their late twenties and early thirties clashing head on with those in
their early twenties and late teens.  For some inspiration here, if
you're still in that "Beats" mode (teenager to new twenty year old),
think of how you ram heads with your teachers and parents.

*The Beat(en) Generation has little self-esteem but tremendous survival
*instincts.  They are often accused of being amoral and devoid of inner
*life; they view their accusers as pompous and judgmental.  They are
*perceived as ocial and economic entrepreneurs with a tendency toward
*high-risk behavior.  They don't care much about the world but have a
*lot of personal ambition.

        Sounds like a teenager or collegian of today to me, run with it
chummers!

*The Millennials, now society's elders, are mostly trusting, liberal
*sorts, believing in second chances.  They are among the few preservers
*of social conscience, though they tend to be willing to accept almost
*any party line as long as they remain involved, and right now they're
*toeing the party line of the Awakeners.  Older Millennials -- the pre-
*1995 crowd -- are largely resentful of the Awakeners' co-opting of
*their institutions and seek to maintain hold on what institutional
*power they still have.  Of all the generations, this one is the most
*concerned with power and economic reward, though the Awakeners are
*catching up.

        Just think, the us of today becomes the elders of Shadowrun.  A
very scary thought, huh?

*There are just a few wise old 13ers left around.  Mostly they just
*keep to themselves, emerging periodically to say, "I told you so."
*They make few demands.

        Again, the us of today becomes the old wiseones of Shadowrun!

--

*Want to hear great music?  Wait until 18 years after the first year
*of a new generation and go to a dingy basement club -- or wait 20 years
*and turn on your trid.  The wave of good stuff will last about four
*or five years before giving one final hiccup and petering out.  From
*there you're doomed to seven or eight years of industry-processed drek,
*and then things start getting interesting again, though not
*revolutionary.

*The GIs created the Big Band Sound.  The so-called Silent Generation
*brought us Sinatra and Torme.  The Boomers gave us the Beatles.  The
*13ers gave us the one-two punch of New Wave and house.  For most of us,
*those are ancient history.

        This is true, if you think about it.  The music of today pretty
much sucks.  We're past the Beatles and Stones era, but not to the point
where we're gonna get the (if this is the correct type of music that we
will get) stuff that the 13ers will give.  Eighteen years past 1981 is
1999, so we still have about six or so years before we can perhaps
expect some music with soul and purpose again.  Ah, the agony of
waiting.
        Guess this is why we have CDs now, huh?

*The Millennials may be a little too nicey-nice for us hardened and
*cynical types, but there's nothing like their music to put a drek-
*eating grin on your face.  The party sound around the year 2000,
*called "turn," was unbelievable -- fast dance beats, punchy horns,
*vocal arrangements straight out of Afro gospel, synthesized hooks that
*make you want to dance naked in the streets and not a heartbreak lyric
*in the bunch.  The resurgence of 2014 was better than most.  In past
*generations, resurgences in music were mostly half-assed
*experimentation with some impressive surprises here and there (Chuck
*Berry, Pink Floyd, Barenaked Ladies).  In 2014 a new sound all its own
*came forth, even more innocent-sounding than turn, if you can believe
*that.  It's fallen by the wayside as being too mellow, though, as the
*music of adaptive generations tends to do.  (Who listened to Torme in
*the '90s?)  Today, if people think of it, they just think of it as
*"pop."

*Then the Awakeners came of age, and in 2030, things went BOOM.  Cf.
*"Shadowbeat," Concrete Dreams.  Need I say more?  [Neat thing is, the
*year they picked corresponds perfectly with Strauss & Howe's theories.
*Works for me.]  Wild experimentation and erratic genius was the rule.
*The new tech of synthlinking was comparable to Dylan "going electric."
*"Social consciousness" music came back into vogue after the cheery
*denial of the early 21st century.  The decade spawned too many new
*musical styles to count; though most have fallen out of fashion, many
*are still wildly popular, particularly among subcultures.  The term
*"rock," which had fallen slightly out of fashion during the Age of
*Turn, came forcefully back into common usage.

*And today?  Pastiche.  Anything goes.  We're still smack in the middle
*of our own musical revolution.  And the big influences are the same as
*they've always been for reactive generations: world beat, stripped-
*down simplicity, punkish attitude, social neglect and, of course,
*<< <  <   V   O   L   U   M   E   !   !   >  > >>  Goblin rock was
*unheard-of until 2049.  Even if they had been old enough to play
*instruments, the sound would just have been too raw.

        A little background for those of you looking for some specifics
about music to inject into your games.  As he mentioned, anyone more
interested in this needs to go pickup SHADOWBEAT (TM, FASA) right away.
It is a stellar book that is just packed with some very interesting data
on music, media and mayhem in Shadowrun.
--

*Well, that's it for history ... if you want prophecy, I recommend
*checking out a copy of "Generations" by Strauss and Howe.  Tell me
*what you think, especially if you'd like to expand on it or if you'd
*like me to.

        And that's it for this article, complete with my interruptions.
So, what's the feedback chummers?  Does this guy and his reference book
"Generations" make chiptruth, or just wasted silicon?