OpenGeofiction
History of my Country, 'Cold War' Scenerio, Futuria City etc.
Posted by kingfries on 3 May 2016 in English.Hello my fellow OGF-ers, I’ve got several things to say today, so I’m just gonna work them off in a list.
1.) As some of you may have read already I’m planning to have my country be somewhat 1950s/ early 1960s retro like. Following this I received some feedback from you that it should be guided by a proper backstory . Following a lot of evenings of thinking (and diet coke) I came to conclusion to have it be like this: Up to the late 40s everything goes its normal path down. After a possible war/threat scenario, Pasalia even considers using the nuclear weapons it build. This would then lead to a ‘cold war’ situation and, even more important, a large uproar around the world. This again would lead to some countries setting up anti-pasalia rallies which would somewhat isolate it culturally from the outside. Now the 50s thing comes into play which would cause the country to stay in that certain way for longer than usual, with only slowly making progress. After the whole thing cooling down in the late 60s/70s maybe (?), it starts becoming more modernized, but meanwhile the population has found the way everything so nice they choose to keep many aspects of it. Now that is where someonee of you could get the big role: First of all like always your feedback, opinions and nagging is always appreciated :p Second: Anyone of you wanting to be a part of this as the big bad nation?
Aside from that: I’m currently also busy with creating ‘Futuria City’ which is a planned city build in the 50s,60s and possibly into the 70s even. Imagine it a bit as a mix between real Brasilia and La Defense in Paris. Any companies wanting to have a office in a cosy skycraper with added parking garage? Currently looking to fill up the downtown area.
Sooo…what do you guys think,hm?
Greetings -kingfries
Discussion
Comment from Maxwell Black on 3 May 2016 at 16:22
Dear Sir,
Carpathia sees Pasalia as a threat to its stability and trade agreements (yet undone) with other nations around the world. As such, His Majesty El-Rey Dom Affonso IV of Carpathia would like to declare ‘Old War’ (is it over?) on Pasalia.
Hostilely, The Head of the Prime-Ministerial Council of the Kingdom
Ammérico de Olliveira Salgueiro
Done!
Comment from Sarepava on 3 May 2016 at 16:54
In the scenario you describe, Pasalia would be very unlikely to have any trading partners, other than possibly other extremist regimes. And thus it will be extremely poor, and require a totalitarian government to stop the people revolting. Forget building skyscrapers and roads other than as vanity projects to impress the outside world whilst the workers are starving. At best you can hope for a Cuba-like state stuck in the past but not the most repressive. At worst, North Korea, almost completely isolated and totalitarian.
Karolia and Meridonia will certainly not be (retrospectively) trading with Pasalia, neither will the current government of Arataran. You might have some luck with their old Communist regime though, and the former dictatorship in Elhadia.
Comment from kingfries on 3 May 2016 at 17:10
'’After the whole thing cooling down in the late 60s/70s maybe (?), it starts becoming more modernized, but meanwhile the population has found the way everything so nice they choose to keep many aspects of it.’’ Thats the deciding thing. The whole us vs them situation (like usa vs sovietunion) will calm down then but the people have become so used to the way of their life that they just somewhat keep living like that. (Somewhat unlikely, but hey its ogf and I’m not planning some over crazy thing) Its a bit complicated to explain, and I’m not really good at that…
Comment from Leowezy on 3 May 2016 at 19:49
STAR (in capital letters) is a Kojolese shopping mall conglomerate, that will be more than happy to open offices and shopping malls in your country (“After the whole thing cooling down in the late 60s/70s” of course). :)
Comment from Portopolis on 4 May 2016 at 01:10
Hoppon is a isolationist government that beleives peopel from it’s region (Axian Peninsula, SE Uletha are dominant to all regions across OGF especially the Northern and Western Ulethans who are very European like. Although they will trade with Nihonish speaking peoples and they have lots of tourists going to other countries, they believe Hopponese culture is the best, and have been isolated from most of the world outside of the Axian Peninsula and nations like Paxtar, Belphenia and Kojo due to the similar languages.
Comment from Portopolis on 4 May 2016 at 01:17
To continue my comment, Hoppon will be a large nation population-wise (large enough to still be decently modern and self sustainable), Hoppon could help in Pasalia’s history as all though they believe in being isolated they will still act like an imperialist nation towards other countries and back around the 40’s they could possibly be trying to threaten Pasalia after a trade deal or something similar broke down, causing war.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 4 May 2016 at 09:27
Those are great offers, both from Carpathia and from Hoppon. You have a good opportunity to develop something believable, though exactly how it would look I don’t really know.
From your earlier diary post, you need to find a way for your country to adopt a particular movement as national culture and to have this culture fixed at a certain date in a believable way. You’ve gone with cultural islolation through the 50’s with it slowly opening up afterwards, while retaining elements that became prominent during its isolation. I like it.
But how do you make it believable in a global context? There is some useful information on the OGF:Global collaboration page. The ‘alignments’ section might be particularly helpful (and if others add countries we can build on it further).
This is my analysis:
from 1930s to 1980s most countries have been ‘centrist democracies’
there is no ‘superpower’ in OGF with a different alignment
countries with ‘different alignments’ (dictatorships/other) are almost all isolationist
So, it looks to me as if the simplest approach would be to have Pasalia as a dictatorship at the end of the period you want to ‘retro fix’. That works fine, there are real world parallels (e.g. Cuba) but how do you get modern development into it and re-integrate your country into the world economy?
I see you’re thinking about ‘googie’ stuff from US history. The question I ask myself is ‘why would they want to maintain these elements?’. What tends to happen, if there is no state control, is that anachronistic elements - by that I mean things like old cars, old building styles - get swallowed up by globalisation. There is only one example I can think of of a system with a free-market economy which has potential for some control over elements like this. That country is China - ‘the third way’. Perhaps you could model Pasalia on that. But it is only because of China’s size that it has been able to go it alone - Pasalia would probably need some partners, or else, as Sarepava said it will be ‘extremely poor’: more like cold-war Albania or North Korea. So that offer from Sarepava on Arataran or Elhadia looks good to me.
But there are plenty of other countries that could be involved in this, the offer from Hoppon could give you something to work on too. And the little islands off your coast - I haven’t decided exactly how they’ll work, but you’ve the possibility of including them as part of any scenario you develop. I don’t think you need to go as far as war - the ‘threat of war’ could be enough. But it looks as if 1947-53 are good start dates for this, possible war in Commonia etc, etc.