@oldGregg & @DFW Ike pretty much sum up my view of the thing. I finally cracked it open this weekend, but ended up tossing it aside after a few minutes of getting bored and skipping forward, getting bored and skipping forward, etc.. If you play JSA or NA2 (and possibly Yu Jing), then it's probably of interest; if you don't and you're not looking to read up on those factions, I fail to see the point. Result? CB books are no longer automatic pre-orders for me; if books are going to be more faction-specific, I imagine I won't be alone in adopting a wait-and-see approach. *shrugs*
@yojamesbo I only got it for the mini. Which I guess is their mo; you can half-ass the book if you have an exclusive mini that people are gonna find useful.
Well okay, I finally managed to get mine (with the mini included). Am I happy with it? That's not the right question. Let's check the entire thing step by step, as i went through it: The book is relatively thin, and compared to N3 and HSN3, relatively expensive. Not a huge deal in terms of price tag itself, but I feel like I've paid nearly the same price for way less content. The mini. Sure it is nice to have it, but I do consider the model uninspired. There are no stats in the book. Not at all. I get that it is easier for CB to keep stats in digital form only, but I like to have them in book form. So I can't say I like the new approach. The Uprising part. Nope, I do not like it. Puting the whole "let's split YJ and leave their players lamenting and gnashing their teeth, and have that army lose a sectorial" aside, the fluff gives a feeling like the YJ troops sent to quall the Uprising are incompetent. The politicians behind them are incompetent as well. Like, nobody on the YJ side ever took a class in political science? Seems only Sun Tze shows any damn reason over there... Alas - the only territory they managed to take back form the Japanese is on the fully-YJ contorlled planet. Like, everywhere else they got blockaded by PanO military forces deploying to screen places like the Japanese Islands on Earth from getting any more YJ troops there. Which doesn't hold water in my eyes: as far as I know, what the PanO did would count as rightful casus belli. And you don't deploy your troops into another country's territory (or whatever they do consider their territory) without asking them for permission, and you don't stop their troop movements, and do not shoot down their transports unless you are a superpower, and they are not. And last time we were told about it, YJ was the second biggest power in the Sphere just behind PanO. They were doing pretty well agaisnt each other in the NeoColonial wars, so YJ - even fighting what they consider a civil war against the Japanese - are certainly no pushover. Also, Japanese, while fighting for their freedom (a likely cause to gain sympathy), have some elments of their lore presented as pretty dark to them. However, YJ is presented as even worse, with no voice of reason beyond Sun Tze (who seems to be repeatedly ignored). YJ seems to be the power of the Human Sphere that is the most difficult to understeand from the point of view of someone raised in the Euroatlantic cultural circle - they really need some fluff explaining them (including the fact they aren't evil as a culture / state, merely different, and that there are certain good reasons to actually be a citizen of the YJ). Now, the fluff isn't as bad as some folks here made me belive it is, but it is still not the quality I've expected from CB. The Mercenary Companies. Thet's some real good fluff :) The Dire Foes. Well, I'm torn here - I understeand the missions and related fluff needed to be updated for the N3. But I feel linking it up into the Uprising fluff was, in some moments, pretty forced and unnecessary. As mentioned in the previous posts - if you are not a YJ or any of the new NA2 player, there is very little in this book that would be interesting to you, fluff-wise. Editing and layout. Not really to my liking. Still, I've heard some pretty bad things about proofreading and language quality - I haven't noticed that, actually. Possibly my English is to be blamed - I might simply be not proficient enough to catch such things...The layout left empty spce on the pages in too many places. Artwork. Too much of it consists of miniatures photos, and too many of those seem to be reused / recycled pics. So, not really to my liking. All in all, not the quality I've been expecting from the CB.
Luckily I'm borrowing because I can't say I'm terribly excited about it. It's a bit dry with the accounts of the uprising. I'm not happy at all with the way YJ and ISS in particular is portrayed. I like the Druze, Ikari, and Star Co though. I don't think this needed to be hardcover at all. I would have been fine with it as softcover. Since there's not rules, it's not going to be used much at all. At first I was disappointed there were no rules but then I realized it was pretty much like the other books. I hardly used them for rules even though they were in there. The main think I was really disappointed in was that I thought it was going to have the other sectorals like Invincible Army. They never said it wasn't going have them or not but since they said they were going to be this year, I thought this was it. I felt a little miss-led in this case.
Finally got my book. It's not as awful as I'd been led to believe, including by people who had the damn book at Adepticon. But it's still not very good. YJ is firmly holding the idiot ball with both hands: The utter blindness of the Eyes (the Yanjing) is still very jarring, way out of character for the intelligence agency that was so competent that it forced PanO to create the Hexahedron. Over the course of a few months, a single individual did all the negotiations for the Uprising to succeed. Meeting with both businesses and governments. And this, somehow, didn't raise any flags? Somehow, the Japanese people going back to militant State Shinto while still part of Yu Jing isn't noticed. Or, if it is noticed, it doesn't scare anyone. The Yu Jing high command somehow doesn't understand that dying for the Emperor is the highest honor for any Japanese. It's been about 250 years, but the Party has fought the Japanese when they thought this the last time... How is the Imperial Service screwing up counterinsurgency this bad? Yeah, one or two officers I can see (happens even in the US Army). But the entire freaking agency?!? Who the flying fuck authorized the shelling of a Yu Jing Consulate??? This wasn't someone else's Consulate/Embassy, mind you (which would be an Act of War). Yu Jing blew up their own godsdamned space station just to kill a Nomad torpedo boat, when they probably could have ordered the Domaru there to assault the damn thing and capture it! The Domaru that were considered heroes for holding a line to allow all the civilians to evacuate safely, I might add. PanO is at freaking war with Yu Jing for 20 days. The Steel Wall starts it's deployment on October 4, and on October 22 the air invasion of Honshu is suspended due to PanO's Steel Wall. Yet the Steel Wall doesn't have international approval until October 25th. What do you think would happen if the US had started shooting down Russian airplanes over Crimea? (Amusingly, there is no mention of the Steel Wall operating over Kuraimori, where it was most needed by the Japanese.) Some dumbass blows up a dam. Not to cut power to the defenses (generally considered a legitimate attack). But to flood a city, which makes it a major league War Crime, in addition to causing a massive loss of face internationally. Not to mention that it's stupid as hell to do that much water damage to a place you're trying to keep (well, regain). It apparently takes YJ more than 12 hours to "immediately" react to the assault on Imperial Service facilities in Kuraimori (attacks started on Aug 3, YJ goes to DefCon 2 on Aug 4). Like I said, the US went from DefCon 5 to DefCon 3 in less than 45 minutes on 9-11. Turns out PsychoCrane is the CO of the Yuandun Division. One less person to behead and mount on a pike. Or maybe mount on a pike while still alive, like how the Tepes family does it... Imperial Service facilities were only bombed on Kaseitoshi (Mars) and Kokkyo-3 (Paradiso). There were physical assaults on the Imperial Service buildings in Japan (Earth), Kurage (Dawn), Kouritawaa (Svalarheima), Fukaitani (Paradiso), Human Edge, and Kuraimori (Yu Jing). All from August 3-5. Reading the timeline, it sounds like a full 100,000 troops (5 divisions) were deployed to Japan before the Steel Wall went up. Unknown casualties after the Steel Wall. Yu Jing does shell cities. Whether from normal artillery, aircraft bombs, or even orbital strikes. War Crimes all, since there are few military targets in the cities. Once the JSA has been defeated in Kuraimori (note: Killed to the last, no surrender. Just like the island-hopping campaign in WW2), the Imperial Service goes pure Occupied France. Martial Law, summary executions and collective punishments. In two months, the Imperial Service has killed 721. Only 62 homicide investigations have been opened, and only 1 Agent has been charged with a crime (probably killing the one guy who had the access codes to the Ten-no-Bushi datafiles). Summary Executions and Collective Punishments are currently War Crimes. Now it's DaiNippon's turn in the broiler: by failing to declare every man, woman, and child as combatants, they committed a War Crime under current Conventions (as I've said before, the Concilium Conventions are stricter than current Laws of War). Use of the Terraformation Tower fields as shields may be a War Crime. Use of the traffic zone around the Kinkakuji Orbital in Human Edge as a shield is likely a War Crime. By falling back into the cities and hiding among the civilians, the JSA committed a War Crime. Somehow, the same people who are reneging on their last buyout are trusted to honor their word for deals that give companies rights post-Uprising. Also, apparently the Japanese are going to war with Yu Jing to attempt to get Kuraimori back after they got their asses kicked the last time (Treason ITS setting). This is where Yu Jing says, "Hey, look, they started a new fight after the cease-fire. It's game on now, and we WILL go to war with anyone and everyone who supports Japan." ========== TL;DR: The Secession itself I could see happening. But the setup around it is so highly contrived that it breaks my suspension of disbelief severely. This is NOT up to the same quality of setting as earlier fluff, I cannot recommend this book to anyone.
Though keeping in mind this is Yu Jing law enforcement acting in Yu Jing sovereign territory - it's not even occupied territory. As far as my education goes, that means war crimes don't apply and you have to look at Yu Jing law and which treaties that Yu Jing has ratified regarding human rights. At worst, there might be grounds for putting pressure on Yu Jing to try some of their agents for crimes against humanity, but with less than 1000 dead in a city of how many millions?
The legal ramifications are... a slippery slope. Do the Japanese in Kuraimori "count as" Japanese Citizens or YJ Citizens? Regardless, a country applying summary executions is not considered in following due process and would face international consequences nowadays, and we keep hearing how O-12 is much more strict regarding human rights. I'd say that Uprising has backed itself into a corner where there is no easy or "right" exit, frankly, which is what I find the most annoying part of this fiasco, closely followed by the "all involved parts lose" (some more, some less, but all lose. Zero sum game).
Most likely O-12 legislation would give Yu Jing veto over declarations of armed conflict on their own recognised planets. It's probably significantly harder for Pan-O to lobby for international recognition of state of war (or even armed conflict) in Kuriamori than it was for the international community to recognize state of war in Ukraine (and Ukraine isn't even Russian territory). So no, I don't think this is a slippery slope other than in-universe crimes against humanity. Hell, the actual conflict probably didn't last long enough for a vote on state of war to be drafted, let alone voted, in the O-12 assemblies. The ethnically Japanese absolutely count as Yu Jing citizens. No doubt what so ever. This is 100% a police vs terrorist conflict.
@Mahtamori I disagree. There is little sense on O-12 being able to boss the potencies around ONLY when it's against each other, leaving whatever happens inside them as "it's their own place". Heck, that runs counter to "O-12 supports PanO's Wall to prevent YJ's troops to reach the Japan islands", since those islands were legally YJ territory! That is precisely the slippery slope I'm talking about. you either don't give a damn about international approval, or have to work inside the system. So far, it seems YJ is schizophrenic about that too... The Japanese Emperor issues his first law: all people of Japanese ethnicity is automatically granted Japanese citizenship unless they present a refusal on a Japanese embassy. Now YJ treating those Japanese residents in Kuraimori is an act on war. On Yu Jing's initiative.
*cracks knuckles* Arm-chair UN Comissioner time! For there to be a war, there has to be two sides sufficiently capable of hurting each other. Yu Jing's security forces smashed the JSA insurrectionists in Kuraimori in short time and on a planet which they fully control. There are no external interests who wants to prevent war within shelling distance of their own territory. It's very different. Again, crimes against humanity is not the same thing as war crimes. Those are very, very, different. Civilians enjoy formal protection during war that military personnel does not - a police force like ISS or similar carabinieri style police forces are regulated by national law, which again is affected by which treaties on human rights that the nation recognises. The international community can push the issue of basic human rights, but these are not regulated in the same way as war crimes. It just so happens that the worst of the war crimes are also crimes against humanity because the latter is about scale of transgressions. I'm just not convinced that the figure Section 9 reported is even remotely close enough to be a crime against humanity, at least not on their own. That law only holds sway within internationally recognised Japanese territory and nations that recognise this law as legally binding within their nations. Put it like this; if USA dictates that all people of German origin are US citizens in order to try and tax them*, do you think that'd fly? No it wouldn't. Hell, the only reason why a person born on US soil is a US citizen is because they are beholden to US law while there. And even then, if we take such grotesque allowance that this law makes a significant Yu Jingese population have dual citizenship ('cause you bet your arse JSA can say nothing about Yu Jing citizenship), Yu Jing are still exercising law enforcement and restoring order among their own population (since they are Yu Jing citizens as well!) in their own territory - with the important exception that the Japanese Emperor has people they recognise as Japanese fighters engaging in territorial aggression on Yu Jing soil. Organised Japanese fighters, no less, which is an act of war on Yu Jing - not the other way around - which would mean a real cluster fuck of international politics and would probably lead to O-12 having tell Pan-O to back off and let Yu Jing invade Japan, Earth (or declare war on Yu Jing if they wish to keep the Iron Wall or whatever it was called up - something I can guarantee O-12 not letting Pan-O do). And all Yu Jing would have to do is present sufficient evidence that there's partisan armed forces in Kuraimori acting on behalf of the JSA Emperor. So no, the Japanese in Kuraimori might be recognised as citizens by the Emperor, but not by anyone else, 'cause they want this conflict settled and not escalated. * Using USA as an example since USA is the only country in the world (that I've heard of) that tax citizens who live and work in foreign countries.
I guess I read the steel wall differently, because it seemed to me like it wasn't implemented until the 25th, and everything before that was limited contact 'test runs' in a handful of theaters, so it wasn't really in force until the 25th (as it doesn't say YJ reinforcements/support were cut off until that time). As for Japanese in YJ being mistreated and other countries intervening... well North Korea currently has internment camps that would make a Nazi giddy with glee, and the international community hasn't invaded them to stop it yet. Myanmar recently drove out some 700k+ people and no international action... people are usually very reticent to go into actual war for citizens of another country. That's why the most the JSA got was limited air support until the O12 signed off on Steel wall.
It is still WAR if it involves Japan and YJ. Your comparison is limited to actual time real world situation. In Infinity, O-12 (the UN) has control over most of the non-military shipping lanes (Circulars), meaning that you ignore it at your own peril (mostly economic). Not what I am saying. I am saying that, suddenly, Mexico grants Mexican Citizenship to all americans of mexican ascent (let's make it more streamlined: all americans with at least one grandfather of mexican origin). Dual Citizenship is such an interesting thing... (remember also that, according to the Treason ITS tournament, Japan sent black ops teams to Kuraimori again. And it intends to conquer the continent. Which I fear a lot, since it reeks to "Japan retakes Manchu-Kuo" and welcome to WW2). While having no citizenship is not really allowed legally, as long as you have one disposing of a second one is easy, and intended to avoid precisely this mess. The maneuver here is quite simple, though: Either YJ allows a Japanese Embassy close to where it can transport all the Japanese that want to remain YJ (so the Kempeitai have a list of names...), or YJ allows them to travel, somehow, to the closest Japanese Embassy. We go again into undefined parts of the setting, though. In fact those people "left behind" in Kuraimori are freedom fighters trying to get out of a prison camp the size of a continent, and YJ would be the aggressor, a position it has taken with gusto since the beginning of the Uprising. In other words: those recently recognized Japanese citizens are being held against their will by YJ, who is killing them while try to escape. And are non-combatants, too (and a few desperate terrorists trying to save their people). I don't know how much the Japanese want this settled if they state that they will "retake" Kuraimori, which they do in the Treason tournament pdf. It can be read that way, since the paragraph says "[it] finishes deployment with international support". The problem is that logic does not allow PanO to deploy the wall without Yu Jing's knowledge, because they both have people seated on all the O-12 government organisms that can sign/ratify the deployment. Which means that a show of force would have been enough and that Yu Jing, having half a neuron devoted to strategy, would notice the futility about keeping the conflict going. So we go again to "YJ stoopid", "suspension of disbelief sudo apt-removed", or "the territories taken by Japan were, indeed, important". That I can think of on the top of my head *shrug* Seems like North Korea will make approachs to South Korea in this year! Incidentally, I'd say that until this time in human history, profit of some kind is what drives people. So... ferengi. Even the Crusades, it's just that the desired "goods" were less money (for most of the involved, that is) and more "God's good feelings" or something like that. I'd say that "unlimited air support" means "air superiority"... and that there was little reason to have the Japanese islands (or any part of Earth at that time) fortified against "modern" (Uprising-year) air battles, PanO implemented a Steehl Rain!... I mean Wall mostly thanks to mobile platforms and because it's the faction that protects Earth, if I'm remembering right.
No, @xagroth , there's a range of assumptions one could make regarding what treaties a super-power like Yu Jing would go into. Limiting international ability to decide whether it is at war in their home territory is right up there on the list. And again, Yu Jing isn't going to let people denounce their citizenship if they want to bring them before their law, nor will any nation ever allow the JSA emperor to denounce non-JSA citizenship. Ever. The people in Kuraimori are Yu Jing citizens in internationally recognised Yu Jing territory. End of. Do you know how difficult some nations make renouncing citizenship? Let's ask Section 9, his nation is famous for it and it is a democracy. JSA might try to take this territory, but they'd still risk war against a vastly superior force, meaning they can't do it overtly but have to act by proxy and attempt to use Pan-O and the O-12 as tools.
Renouncing US citizenship is easy. You appear before a consular officer, fill out a form, swear an oath and Bob's your uncle. Now, escaping any fiscal obligations incurred before renouncing citizenship and extricating your capital from tax obligations is a different kettle of fish...
Made a huge fuss back when the US started exercising pressure on EU tax agencies to help them hunt down their wayward citizens. Quite a few people found out that a) they are US citizens and b) they owe money and c) practice of renouncing citizenship wasn't as easy as how it should theoretically work, and that's not mentioning the fee involved. And again, that's a democracy with only a 10% economic interest in you. Imagine an authoritarian state with a 100% political interest in your citizenship :)
Well, I'm not going to reach to my local Red Cross chapter for opinions on a wargame fluff, but from what I've been taught, it is not "WAR". It is either a non-international armed conflict, or large-scale civil unrest, and it is an important difference (international laws of armed conflict - the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, with additional protocols. also, not all the addiotnal protocols have been ratified by all the states in the world) are not really applicable in a civil unrest situation (which is dealt with using large-scale police operation. And yes, defintions are blurry there: internaitonal law of armed confilict was written based on experiences, primarily, of the two World Wars, and doesn't really work well with non-international armed conflicts). Keep in mind: it is not an internaitonal armed conflict, because Japan is not a separate state entity (as recognized by the diplomatic community) until well into the conflict. Forgive me getting close to your home (if memory serves me, you're Spanish), but should a province of Spain declare independence, with central governemnt refusing to recognize that independence, and use force to support / quell the rebellion, it wouldn't be an international armed conflict. Also, at which moment would quelling it stop being a police operation, and start being an armed conflict? It then becomes less a matter of international law of armed conflict, and more of internaitonal politics. Naturally, going all-out, with airstirikes, artillery and heavy weapons does, generally, go beyond what would seem reasonable for peacekeeping operations. And no, the fact regular military are involved doesn't automatically mean it is a military operation: when we were working on a casus during that humnaitarian law seminar I've participated in two years ago (we were playing a governemnt trying to quell a secession) we argued to the "UN Representative" that the military troops are used strictly for guarding important installation and general peacekeeping, and the "military helicopters" we've deployed into the area are used solely for observation and airlift purposes... well, he accepted that explaination. Keep in mind Imperial Service is YJ (militarized) police force. Officially, YJ is performing massed police operation, perhaps with limited Army support, to deal with the insurgents. Why is the "police" force using mil-spec heavy weapons, including ground-atack aircraft and artillery? Well... The problem is - I don't know much about Russian MVD troops (Ministry of Internal Affairs'), but they've been involved in some pretty heavy combat operations, especially in the Caucasus, since the '90s. Somehow, despite reports of atrocities, there don't seem to be mass war crime tribunal proceedings over the Russian activities there. I'm not saying what YJ did in the Uprising makes any sense. I'm saying being a war crime doesn't, sadly, means it will be dealt with appropriately. Or at all... or anyitme soon. Though it is a good argument to throw at the international community and public opinion, and swing their support to the japanese, making the other powers of the Sphere recognize Japan as independent nation. Still, that Steel Wall of PanO... that's a clear act of war.
The idiocy of the US' worldwide tax scheme is moot. Renouncing citizenship is as simple as it's laid out. One visit to the consul to state you wish to renounce citizenship, set an appointment to come back and to the paperwork, come back to the appointment, swear your declaration, sign the forms, and pay the fee. And other countries are even more silly with folks who are theoretically citizens, including not allowing the renunciation of citizenship, imposing fines on parents who fail to register their children, etc.
