Under what sort of science fiction circumstance might Finland become moderately relevant? How would future science fiction Finland look?
If it's not clear, this is not for a very serious game. I'm not looking for Looney Toons level wackiness, but there's no point at being slavishly realistic.
Everything south of the 60th parallel is destroyed by climate change
The world becomes a hellish dystopia, causing demand for hard liquor to take the edge off to skrocket. Finland profits.
The invention of Dune-style personal shields increase demand for melee weapons. Finnish knives are among the most prized.
The apocalyptic state of the setting means most vehicles or ships or whatever need to get by on mad-max level custom repairs. Finnish redneck mechanics become renowned.
I don't know if I can handle a Finnish girl.
Most Finns can't handle a a Finnish girl. Most Finnish GIRLS can't handle a Finnish girl.
Look at SSSS. Everything south of Finland dies in apocalypse.
Or maybe the Arctic becomes navigatable and Finland benefits from the trade routes.
A mutated species of previously harmless microscopic algea infects all of humanity with chronic depression. Mass suicides plague the globe and economies grind to a halt as most everyone is too sad to work. Stupid political decisions are made by depressed leaders and economists. /r9k/ becomes eerily silent.
Nothing changes in Finland, though, suddenly putting them in a position of power.
Just look to all the great military successes, cultural contributions and great inventions the Finnish have given to the world
Oh wait.
Well at least there's that time you got the Soviet Union to wise up when they were at their weakest, so maybe you could co-opt that into some kind of 'standing against the horde' motif. Just leave out the bit where you allied with the nazis
...
Use the Finno-Korean hyperwar as your setting.
>tfw remember Korea is also a world leader in depression
>tfw realize this future could recreate the Finno-Korean Hyperwar
Where is that meme even from?
Many of the dominant drivers in non-NASCAR motor sport are Fins. So Sci-fi racing.
Because NOBODY can handle Finnish girls, they make incredible leaps in cloning technology and bioengineering.
I am willing to try. Just as soon as I can find a Finnish girl...
For the first time in history, Nokia actually delivers on half the promised features for their next generation of ultraphones, instantly turning Finland into a high tech economic superpower.
A sci-fi which acknowledges the superiority of Finnish genestock and culture.
A joke about how two of the most irrelevant-yet-still-relevant nations in the world have glorious, detailed histories that stretch back thousands of years.
That's a close but distinct genre called "fantasy".
>a meta joke on how the US Americans decided that 99% of their country's history is niggers and thus not relevant.
No need to shit this thread up, user
"Vihan Lapset", or "Children of Hate" is a Finnish RPG that has aliens coming to earth and taking over, brain parasite and "Thing" style.
Only way to make sure someone doesn't have a brain parasite is to take them to a hot sauna and make them totally drunk. The aliens cannot survive in extreme temperatures, cold or hot, and the brain parasites die from drunk brains.
Thus, Finland becomes one of the few guerrilla areas of the earth.
Don't hate on me, I'm just drawing back the curtain to show you the eternal WASP behind that joke.
>putting them in a position of power changes nothing
Any more hilarious Finnish RPGs?
Yeah, I figured you were just making fun of Americans. I think people are more on edge around "nigger" since /pol/ started spreading and using it seriously.
Well, it's not exactly about finns, but it's Finnish.
"Valley of Eternity" or "Ikuisuuden Laakso", is a spaghetti-western RPG that takes place in South Pole, and the characters are all penguins with magic powers, spears and ice skates technology.
THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE HEED THE TEACHINGS OF SPURDO SPARDE AND BECOME GLORIOUS EMPIRE OF BENISTAN :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
The rest of the world is subjugated by the Fingolian khanate. The Finns rule the world from atop their sturdy war ponies.
There was that one where you play as penguins on the Antarctic and it's written completely straight.
One of the stats is Fat. It's how much fat your body has stored.
Ever translated to English?
This is strangest Mentos ad I've ever heard about.
So THAT's where the Finnish love for energy drinks comes from...
Well, Fingol was badass.
Not a lot of science fiction required. Which nation is up and which is down tends to fluctuate over time.
Nokia is something like 20% of their economy, and it sold its best parts to Microsoft. The rest tried to think of a new way to use its existing assets but came up empty-- at least, empty of viable plans for blockbusters. But there's no reason that they couldn't become a world power over a few generations. There's more randomness to this process than most people are willing to admit.
If you want some drivers that might trigger finns as players on the world stage, here are a few:
A blockbuster company based in Finland which goes global. Make it some foundational technology that lets the company use that tech to branch out into a broad array of operations. If you want, give the company an early internal dispute that leads to a fierce competitor of similar capabilities that's also Finnish.
Example: a new battery technology creates a power cell that is highly stable, has incredible energy density, and just basically works really really well. It doesn't even have to be invented in Finland-- for kicks let's say it's originally developed in Mexico. The company that manufactures it gets exclusive rights early on, and more importantly a stable of engineers who know the technology and can advance it. They solve most of the tricky problems of production and while other companies make similar cells, nobody can match the Finns for quality, cost, and volume. The company then branches into electric cars, drones, ships, even airplanes. The money gets poured into local universities, who produce the best engineers, who naturally work at this company, which attracts the best talent to the universities, and you have the same feedback loop that Silicon Valley or Boston got.
more ideas continued...
Are you a moron? Finns offered free higher education to ALL people regardless of nationality with open arms, if you want to question contribution to global society.
They also provide maternal and paternal leave, a month of vacation, and literal baby care packages for new parents. They have some of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.Their health care is pretty nice as well.
Shut the fuck up .
t. US citizen studying Finns.
A portal gate is found in Finland.
Bitch, please. Finland's already the country that controls over 85% of the world's memes. In the future, memes will be the most important strategic resource. Wars will be fought over who has access to memes and who doesn't.
>Finland promptly conquered by monsters
Well, you know... There would need to be a fucking lot of monsters for some random gate to even start to be a thread to any community in finland in the first few months.
It's a relatively big country, with only something like 6 million people living in it. The monsters would probably have to walk few hundred kilometers before the sight of any civilization.
>monsters commit suicide after months of lingering depression
Is WASC a thing? Or do we get to slide by without anyone realizing our power.
Global Warming: Even if you don't believe humans don't cause climate change, the climate DOES change, sometimes very quickly. Look up the medieval warming period and previous warm periods that influenced Scandinavia's power. Especially if the climate changes cause disruptions in economies, agriculture, or migrations of refugees that castrate Europe, Russia, and America. Even if they don't touch china/japan/india/korea, SOME country will become the local hegemon in the European region.
Catastrophe: A nuclear exchange might not end the world, but might render the current world powers so badly hurt that countries that dodge that bullet become the new global powers. If there's a pandemic, some diseases are less cold-tolerant and so don't spread as easily as they do in warmer countries.
The list of scenarios is very long. No country wants to admit that its dominance is thanks largely to good luck and is just a brief historical moment. No historian wants to admit that the leading cause of everything is just "shit happens". But often that really is the driver. So these scenarios are more about giving excuses so that an already-plausible event FEELS plausible to your players.
>P-please...I NEED something to eat for my children, this is the rarest spurdo I have! Please, I beg you!
>After several months, the evil monster overlord gets reports of the so-called "White Death" and drugged up fins skiing through the portal while screaming maniacally
>Several months later, the monsters retreat
>monsters
That's the Fair Folk to you, asshole. Hot shield-surfing elves and their half-elf babies start rampaging across the globe.
Prepare to be occupied and colonized by your new elven overlords. If you keep talking like that, you'll be exiled out of London^H^H^H^H^H New Arcadia.
Transhumanism: China starts a human genetic engineering program, and starts getting results. Every western country outlaws it for ethics reasons. Finland decides to be the sole country that allows human genetic mods because reasons (perhaps precisely so they can be the oasis of research in the West in that field). The best minds in biotech end up there, and the most practical experience. A generation later there have been mistakes, some very ugly and tragic, but also some major advances. And a good % of the population is now teens who are healthier, stronger, and smarter than the general run of humanity. A generation after that, the country is collectively rolling 20's on everything it does and becomes the most powerful country in the West.
Even when other countries legalize genemods, Finland remains the most lucrative market and has the best genetic engineers. It's where everyone sends their best biology students to study, and the students stay because that's where the best jobs are.
I remember something about the whole world frozen and conquered by mythologial mosters with only Scandinavia still standing. They had trolls and shit. I don't remember what it was, though. Probaly a book or a comic.
Oh, look. Shitposting Finns.
The webcomic Stand Still, Stay Silent?
Stand Still, Stay Silent is the webcomic you're thinking of. The world didn't freeze, it was basically eradicated by disease.
The relative isolation and cold climate of the Scandinavian region (especially Iceland) is what kept them safe from the worst of it, and the fact that their governments closed off borders before shit got too crazy.
It's worth a read.
I won't deny that Finland is a nice place to live.
I do deny that anyone cares.
Yep, that's it.
>Scandinavian counties
>closing borders before things go to shit
Truly a fantasy comic
I guess Madagascar and Greenland would make more sense
They eat lamprey.
That's the only kind of Finn with an internet connection
It's made by a nationalist NEET; the disease and resulting state of the world is her metaphor for the genocide off all non-Nordics and the conquering of the freshly cleansed planet.
She's also hilariously such a shut in that her perception of ideal Nordic culture is completely divorced from reality, current or historic.
God bless her
Damn, that's some schizophrenia tier divorce from reality
Crazy people tend to produce good art
I thought someone was trying to make an English translation. No idea if it went through.
All of that sounds expensive in taxes. Also I hope the Finnish man isn't paying for some other shmuck to fuck around for three months, when his wife is the one who actually needs it.
Tell me fellow burger, what can the average middle class Finn pay in taxes?
>expecting Finns to accomplish things
Sounds like my kind of woman.
Is she single?
IIRC she has a boyfriend
Some men just seem to find the good ones.
Oh well.
Is the comic any good/worth a read?
I figured an American would do it, honestly.
>Is the comic any good/worth a read?
It's actually great. Comfy colors, interesting setting. I'd like plot to move a bit faster though.
You can find the translated version on DriveThruRPG under the name Valley of Eternity.
Finland trully is a magical place.
Valley of Eternity.
Gonna need a source on that
even though it makes too much sense