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Message no. 1
From: Les Ward <lward@*******.COM>
Subject: [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5)
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 21:54:33 -0500
Neo-Anarchists Guide To The World
Siberia (part 1 of 5)
Wordman (wordman@*****.com)

Siberia is ready for comments now. It's long. For Gurth (and anyone else
who is interested) I have posted a Word for Windows version on my ftp site:

ftp://thor.flashpt.com/pub/srun/NERPS/progress/Siberia.zip

This include the full text, with some formating (tab alignment, italics and
so on, nothing major). My assumption is that Gurth will format to his
liking. The file also includes two maps. Each map is identical, inserted as
a different format (PICT and GIF). Oddly, though Word supported EPS files
out of the box in 1993, it doesn't anymore. Gurth, we'll probably need to
talk about which graphics format you want to use.

For those that want to see a map without having to get the whole text,
there is a (much better looking) Acrobat version:

ftp://thor.flashpt.com/pub/srun/NERPS/progress/SiberiaMap.pdf

I have devided the post into peices.

--------
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The Awakened Siberian Confederation
The Sleeping Lands

Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.
-- Lord Byron, The Dream

(>) We got this report from a rather odd information gathering group.
For inclusion in this file, I've trimmed a bit of it. The entire file
will be put up elsewhere on this board a bit later.
(>) Captain Chaos

INTRODUCTION

The word "Siberia" stems from a Mongolian Altay word meaning "Sleeping
Land". Today's Siberia, however, is anything but asleep. In a quarter
century, magic, metahumans and other Awakened entities have
politically transformed the northern portion of Asia beyond almost any
recognition.

Long under unified, authoritarian control of a succession of
governments, Siberia now consists of several member nations organized
into a mutual protection organization called the Awakened Siberian
Confederation. Most countries making up the ASC are dominated by a
single metahuman race, with several nations openly governed by
non-metahuman species. Though known for centuries as an icy prison for
political undesirables, Siberia now possesses the potential of
becoming a global force in the next decade.

The ASC holds several key tools which might be used to achieve global
influence. Most importantly, Siberia is arguably the most
resource-rich land on the planet, possessing huge pockets of natural
gas, oil, coal, diamonds, precious metals, and other important
resources. The high demand for these resources gives the ASC
considerable economic clout and political bargaining power. Siberia
also boasts reasonably strong conventional defenses -- including
nuclear weapons and a small fleet of submarines -- and very strong
magical defenses. Internally, the ASC manages an efficient
transportation infrastructure and a competent communications system.
The Siberian economy, partly because of these systems, has grown
strongly over the last decade. Citizens of the ASC tend to be
extremely patriotic, protective of their new homeland, and involved in
politics. Lastly, the ASC government has recently made global
influence an important goal.

Naturally, the ASC also must overcome several severe obstacles to
achieve this goal. The population of Siberia, while patriotic, is
still small. The Siberian economy would likely expand even faster if
it could call upon a larger labor force. This problem is made worse
than it might be by laws excluding people from immigrating on the
basis of race. Another important problem is that to develop as quickly
as it has, the ASC signed agreements with several megacorporations.
Should the megacorporations wish to block the ASC's drive towards
global power, these agreements give them the power to at least slow
such a drive, if not stop it altogether. In addition, though the
member nations of the ASC present a unified face to the world, often
the member nations have widely divergent and opposing goals.
In-fighting between and even within the governments of the member
states is vicious and often covert and/or illegal, with assassinations
being uncommon, but not unheard of.

The most severe problem the ASC must face on almost any global arena,
however, is persistent rumors of enslavery and forced labor of humans
by some of its member states.

(>) Rumors, hell! It's true. I've seen the camps. Believe it.
(>) Annihilatrix


In assembling this report, the Advocate put a top priority on
determining the validity of these rumors. Though Advocate agents
reported evidence of human slave-labor camps in three of the member
states of the ASC, all attempts at documenting these camps were
foiled, destroyed or captured. In addition, we could find no evidence
that these labor camps were funded or run by the governments of the
member states. We, in fact, found no concrete proof of anyone funding
these camps. The Advocate's investigation into this matter continues.

(>) Great. Nice work, guys. Dolts.
(>) Annihilatrix

(>) The Advocate? Never heard of them.
(>) Nutvolt

(>) Even for the shadows, the Advocate is pretty mysterious.
Apparently they act a bit as an intelligence agency for the shadows.
For a fee, they will track down or verify information. They are
apparently extremely adept and finding the true identity of Johnsons.
Let the buyer beware, I guess, but I do not know anyone who has found
their information on particular people to be false. They have also
been known to test the integrity of fixers and others with bribes and
so on. I don't think I'd ever work with a fixer that I hadn't checked
out with them.
(>) Scarlet

(>) Bah! Just another way the wyrm yanks our chains.
(>) Black-Eyed Suzan

True or false, rumors of human slavery have already done considerable
damage to Siberia's international relations. Officially, the ASC
admits nothing. They claim to run no slave camps. They even claim that
they run no prison labor camps. It is unclear if the ASC will be able
to handle this situation with enough finesse to claim the seat of
global influence that it seeks.

What is clear is that, in a very short period of time, Siberia has
Awakened from a frozen wasteland into a collection of strong nations.
In spite of -- or perhaps because of -- Siberia's rapid
transformation,
very little is known in the shadow community about this region.
Therefore, we at the Advocate sent several operatives into the region
to gather information. Reports from those who survived have been
collated, analyzed and collected into this report, specifically
catered to the shadow community.

The Advocate initially hypothesized that opportunities for
shadowrunning within Siberia itself would be very limited, and that
Siberia would interest the shadows mostly for its growing political
influence. We soon learned otherwise. Shadowrunners will find many
opportunities for work in Siberia. With its natural resources,
megacorporate presence and political in-fighting, Siberia is a
breeding ground for espionage and other intrigues suited for
shadowrunners. As race relations throughout the globe continue to
disintegrate, already high levels of mistrust of metahumans invite
covert action and reaction.

(>) Some o' the Siberian locals will pay good cred to fetch certain
metas out of places like Yomi.
(>) Mistral

The Advocate believes that the Siberian theatre, though complex and
dangerous, offers lucrative opportunities for skilled and
politically-savvy shadowrunners, and will continue to do so for at
least seven more years.

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Message no. 2
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 11:30:18 +0100
Les Ward said on 21:54/ 1 Dec 97...

> Siberia is ready for comments now. It's long. For Gurth (and anyone else
> who is interested) I have posted a Word for Windows version on my ftp site:
>
> ftp://thor.flashpt.com/pub/srun/NERPS/progress/Siberia.zip
>
> This include the full text, with some formating (tab alignment, italics and
> so on, nothing major).

It looks like there's one other person in this world who understands you
don't need to hit Tab ten times to put text halfway from the left margin!
:)

> My assumption is that Gurth will format to his liking.

Yep. I've been HTML-izing some old NERPS stuff and it's appalingly
formatted and edited. I intend to avoid that at all cost...

> The file also includes two maps. Each map is identical, inserted as
> a different format (PICT and GIF). Oddly, though Word supported EPS files
> out of the box in 1993, it doesn't anymore. Gurth, we'll probably need to
> talk about which graphics format you want to use.

Almost anything goes, as long as either Word or Paint Shop Pro can read it
(and PSP can read damn near anything).

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html - 5044116
N.B. Please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

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Message no. 3
From: Les Ward <lward@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 12:10:22 -0500
Gurth said:
>It looks like there's one other person in this world who understands you
>don't need to hit Tab ten times to put text halfway from the left margin!
>:)

For those who don't get what Gurth is talking about, I suggest you check
out a book called something like "The Computer Is Not a Typewriter". It
tells you how to avoid using standard typwriter techniques which make
electronic documents look like hell and a pain to edit. The one Gurth
mentions above is to avoid using tabs and spaces to align columns of text;
use the word-processors tab system.

Another mistake that many make is that, while typing teachers say to use
two spaces between sentences, modern fonts make this look really bad on
computers. Use one space between sentences, as the font is constructed so
that the punctuation characters proper metrics to make bewteen sentences
spacing look its best.

>> Gurth, we'll probably need to
>> talk about which graphics format you want to use.

>Almost anything goes, as long as either Word or Paint Shop Pro can read it
>(and PSP can read damn near anything).

I'm still pulling for a vector format. The original map is a 177K Freehand
file. When it gets rasterized into a 8-bit BMP file at 300dpi (probably the
minimum resolution for something with small details, like a map), the file
is 2.6Mb. Since the map only uses about 40 colors, it compresses pretty
well as a GIF file though. The GIF I put into the file was at 150dpi, which
was barely legible when printed, was only about 77K. Doubling the
resolution will quadruple the number of pixels, so a 300dpi gif should be a
max of 308K. Since the map contains huge swaths of continuous color, it
should compress better than that, though. That will probably be the way to
go.

Anybody have any other suggestions?

Wordman
Message no. 4
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 10:29:56 -0700
Les Ward wrote:
)Gurth said:
)>> Gurth, we'll probably need to
)>> talk about which graphics format you want to use.
)
)>Almost anything goes, as long as either Word or Paint Shop Pro can read it
)>(and PSP can read damn near anything).
)
)I'm still pulling for a vector format. The original map is a 177K Freehand
)file. When it gets rasterized into a 8-bit BMP file at 300dpi (probably the
)minimum resolution for something with small details, like a map), the file
)is 2.6Mb. Since the map only uses about 40 colors, it compresses pretty
)well as a GIF file though. The GIF I put into the file was at 150dpi, which
)was barely legible when printed, was only about 77K. Doubling the
)resolution will quadruple the number of pixels, so a 300dpi gif should be a
)max of 308K. Since the map contains huge swaths of continuous color, it
)should compress better than that, though. That will probably be the way to
)go.
)
)Anybody have any other suggestions?

.jpg files are fairly well compressed. Even with 16 million colors.

-David
--
"The face of a child can say it all,
especially the mouth part of the face."
--
Supervisor, Data Preparation
The UnCover Company
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
Message no. 5
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5)
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 11:06:35 +0100
Les Ward said on 12:10/ 2 Dec 97...

> Another mistake that many make is that, while typing teachers say to use
> two spaces between sentences, modern fonts make this look really bad on
> computers. Use one space between sentences, as the font is constructed so
> that the punctuation characters proper metrics to make bewteen sentences
> spacing look its best.

It looks to me like it's mainly American typing teachers who do that. I've
never seen a European do that (apart from the occasional Brit, but they
don't count as Europeans by their own reasoning anyway :)

[Siberia map]
> I'm still pulling for a vector format. The original map is a 177K Freehand
> file.

A vector graphic is very good for a map, but the trouble is that Word
can't do so very much with them. The filters I've got on it handle lots
of bitmaps fine, but there aren't many for vector graphics I think.

> The GIF I put into the file was at 150dpi, which was barely legible when
> printed, was only about 77K. Doubling the resolution will quadruple the
> number of pixels, so a 300dpi gif should be a max of 308K. Since the map
> contains huge swaths of continuous color, it should compress better than
> that, though. That will probably be the way to go.

This looks acceptable, though perhaps you could go for a middle road and
try something like 200 dpi? BTW, I think it's fair to warn you that I'll
probably resize maps so that they take up the width of an entire page
(using A4 paper), in order to prevent major layout difficulties. Maps that
are so large they need more than one page will cause too much of a
headache for users of a net.sourcebook, IMHO.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html - 5044116
N.B. Please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

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Message no. 6
From: Les Ward <lward@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5)
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 13:23:20 -0500
>This looks acceptable, though perhaps you could go for a middle road and
>try something like 200 dpi? BTW, I think it's fair to warn you that I'll
>probably resize maps so that they take up the width of an entire page
>(using A4 paper), in order to prevent major layout difficulties.

I'll generate the new file in any width you like. What should it be?

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about [NAGTTW] Siberia (Introduction - 1 of 5), you may also be interested in:

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