How do you use those parts of Africa that happen to be above the Tropic of Capricorn in your sci-fi settings, Veeky Forums?
Do you think Egyptian mythology works in a science fiction context or is it played out?
What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
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It's a sad day for Veeky Forums when can't discuss an entire continent.
>What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
Accra. Scamming and digital currency salvaging goes big league and you have rich thugs walking around with sketchy implants while the country itself is still a developing mess.
Doing pretty good thanks to some more logical border choices. Like the rest of the setting, Everything Went Better Than Expected (tm).
We used to have awesome Africa threads all the time on Veeky Forums but these days they always get hijacked by /pol/ screaming shit and redditors who can’t ignore trolls.
>Do you think Egyptian mythology works in a science fiction context or is it played out?
It might or might not be played out, but doesn't stop it from being awesome either way.
That seems to be every thread on Veeky Forums I go into these days.
>What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
Lagos. Huge population, growing steadily and Nigeria is doing pretty well for itself on the whole.
Post sci-fi black folks and/or techno-Egyptian art.
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Pretty cool, but the scarab symbol seems kind of on the nose compared to the helmet being more subtle.
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Technically steampunk, but Wyrd's new game has some awesome stuff for their Abyssinia army.
>pic
>the glasses
>the cell phone holster
>are those wallets
>and they all blend in so well
Current year Lagos is pretty cyberpunk as it is.
You can watch 'Bourne Ultimatum' to get a feeling for the city of Tangier...
>What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
As trips over here says, Lagos is a fine choice - let us not forget that one of the most well-known (if memed) bits of publicly-known about cybercrime is famously associated with Nigeria.
South Africa has a lot of the things you'd expect in cyberpunk - it's a country where anti-theft flamethrowers are a car accessory you can buy, and there's a lot of money about. Johannesburg would be the biggest example,having some truly massive suburb sprawl as well as a skyscraper city-centre.
Cairo is a huge sprawling mess that's perfect for contrasting old and new, what with the incredibly ancient pyramids there. It's also one of the biggest places in the arab world, and known as the sort of place where you can get anything.
FFG's Android setting (which is doing an African cycle right now) makes use of one fact - Africa is one of the most convenient places for a space elevator if you have the tech for that - Lake Victoria is being used as a base for floating construction, and the position of being bordered by several nations helps for massive growth.
TFW Africa is a lazily-constructed mess in Shadowrun and they'll probably never fix it because nobody cares about settings outside North America.
>and they'll probably never fix it because CGL is a shitty company and don't fix anything
FTFY
Also the headphones.
Rural Africans are really big fans of cell phones - I mean, everyone is, they're useful, but the lack of need for infrastructure other than some cheap towers really goes quite a way to connect people.
>Rural Africans are really big fans of cell phones - I mean, everyone is, they're useful, but the lack of need for infrastructure other than some cheap towers really goes quite a way to connect people
Bokors of the far future will have cellphones as fetishes - whether they're working or not. The spirits themselves agree, it's much easier to phone or text a Bokor than having to teleport to their position whenever a Bokor summons them.
That said, SMS-based curse wars when?
I don't see the Amhara influence here. Heck I has more south american vibe than anything else.
Curses as a form of (or in conjunction with - using magical backup for the technical, or the other way around) viruses or worms affecting a cyberspace network might be cool - after all, if there's an avenue for attack, why not use it?
But yeah, spirits don't need to have any aversion to modernity
Anyone can explain to me why everytime a they use africans they use the ugliest ones in the west coast instead of the superior, more civilized and a lot more interesting east? They could sue the Fula/woodabe at least, they are lot more handsome.
Heck, lookin at the other side "Abysinia" and they have inspired themsevles in west africans for the faces and Amhara/ethiopians influences are nill, they could be called Brasilian Federation or something like that and would be a lot more fitting, the prince specially with the uber muscled figure doesn't look ethiopian at all.
We could have true cuties in mini form,isn't like Ethiopia lack cute tribes.
Not got many photos, but got quite a few black people in cyberpunk
The Maghreb area has it's own unique flavour - Marrakesh, Casablanca, Tangier, Algiers etc.
OP's pic isn't obvious enough from the thumbnail.
>that yellow tint in eyes
Would not touch without safety gloves.
Nice clean teeth though.
>Do you think Egyptian mythology works in a science fiction context or is it played out?
Name one critically acclaimed science fiction book, movie, or game with an Egyptian theme
Not that user, but Stargate was the first thing I thought of.
ya got me there
Three of the four biggest countries/economies work well - Lagos, Cairo and Johannesburg all work as cyberpunk cities and their nations fit, but Ethiopia and Addis Ababa for some reason reason don't seem as fitting as Nirobe and Mombassa, even though it's bigger and as a country it's fairly powerful - in some ways even without a "for an African Nation" qualifier, though not to Nigeria levels by any means
Addis Ababa
That’s a Fulani woman from West Africa. West Africans have 4 major phenotypes with a myriad of subtypes. Pic related is East African for instance.
t. Nigerian
This is Eko Atlantic, a huge planned development project in Lagos. It's corporate-funded and built on reclaimed ocean land. Needless to say, cyberpunk as hell.
That was the intention.
>Bokors of the far future will have cellphones as fetishes - whether they're working or not. The spirits themselves agree, it's much easier to phone or text a Bokor
I love this! The idea of an African shaman sending texts to otherworldly beings on a 70-year-old Nokia 3310 is fantastic.
Question: Should Shadowrun and other cyberpunk versions of cities like Lagos and Addis Ababa keep the minibus share taxi system?
Arn't most taxis controlled via remote or even ran by cyber spirits? I recall there being a famous taxi cab that had such a creature running it? So I think it would fit having janky looking remote vehicles ran by cyber spirits with a distinct African flavor to their design
>Rural Africans are really big fans of cell phones - I mean, everyone is, they're useful, but the lack of need for infrastructure other than some cheap towers really goes quite a way to connect people.
I've also heard that in some parts of africa they use prepaid cellphone minutes as a form of currency since the official local currencies are so volatile while the value of cellphone minutes are pretty stable.
en.wikipedia.org
Check this out senpai
>egyptian
>posts a black person
lmao ok stinky what about Assassin's Creed? Stargate?
It would be cool to see a more efficient version of the share taxi system still be the main system of transportation.
There's no cars on the road at all, just thousands of identical minibuses owned by the same corporation. You walk up to the curb and one immediately picks you up. It's driverless but there's 5-6 strangers inside already, who are they? A friendly old man who makes conversation with you, a pretty young lady you hit it off with, a shady guy in the back who keeps looking at you like you have something he wants, a mysterious man in shades who somehow knows your name... narratively, it's nice to be able to meet people in transit even though everything is automated.
This is, incidentally, exactly how C-Bills work in Battletech, but in miniature.
Its an American company, they took colonial styles of the period and slapped on generic Africa to it. If its not Egyptian, Americans think its one big African culture.
>and/or
>It is no coincidence that you are all in this bus together. i would love to show you my city but you have much work ahead of you and my masters wish to speak with you as soon as possible.
>Now that you think about it, this bus did go out of its way to scoop you up instead of any other. But the transport network is highly protected. Who could arrange this? Someone skilled enough to take control without getting caught? The megacorp that controls the buses in the first place? Or perhaps a low-tech solution, someone painted a private bus in corporate livery to fool you?
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Aside from regular tech and trade hubs (I'd add Dar es Salaam to the ones mentioned), I'd also like to mention Djibouti. It's essentially a city state, vital to East African and Middle-Eastern shipping and anti-piracy efforts, and hosts military bases from nations like the US, France, and China.
>You'll have to forgive the manner in which we picked you up. There are various corporations who install all manner of listening devices and Africa has no shortage of skilled hackers. That and it's not uncommon to have a bus or two pretending to be controlled by the Central Grid to get to places "privately". Now then, onto business shall we?
Oh look, it's another thread where we try to find an interesting African culture... and inevitably resort to just stealing Egyptian culture instead.
>and they all blend in so well
You're joking, right?
Cleopatra was an inbred Greek, user.
Djibouti is a lot smaller population-wise than the other examples, but you could always handwave "they got real big" in a future setting. Being basically a city that owns a patch of land the size of Israel and sitting in an extremely advantageous spot makes it a pretty good pick.
It took me a bit to notice what those pouches were for, which only happened after I looked again at those bits of low-hanging hat and realized they were glasses.
>he doesn't know about the Yoruba kingdoms
>he doesn't know about Great Zimbabwe
>he doesn't know the Swahili Coast cities were trading with China while Germans were still squatting in the Roman cities they'd just destroyed
>he doesn't recognize which continent Kemet is on, where the medjay were hired from, what counted as Upper Egypt, or even how much intermixing there was
>he doesn't even acknowledge Ethiopia
Get higher-effort bait, user.
>mfw Americans try to discredit the culture of the people responsible for all the music they listen to and all the foods they eat
North Africa actually plays an important part in my setting. Its where the remnants of the European powers fled to after Europe, the US, and China exploded with hell portals, and its where most of the defense against the demons and reclamation attempts are made from.
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isn't that how the robot uprising GURPS setting works? europe is a fuck, south africa has an insane AI that killed everything on the surface, and north africa and parts of the US are the only places people aren't a fuck
Is modern-day African tribal shit (like Shadowrun's Native Americans) a good idea or is it too on the nose?
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No idea, never played GURPS. I was working on a Hellgate: London inspired setting, and it made the most sense after blowing up most of Europe and filling it with demons and mutants.
>Now then, onto business shall we?
What kind of plots and schemes might work uniquely to an African setting?
Thats a PC if ive ever seen one
Marrakech, Lagos and Johannesburg would fit à cyberpunk setting pretty well.
Semitic peoples count as African too,.
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Anything from this set is obligatory.
I imagine a large precentage has to do with how our sci-fi Africa pans out. I like the idea of a Space Elevator being smack dab in the middle and thus being the hub for all sorts of corporate hijinks where also outside of the city you have dudes in traditional garb with portable high tech shit and probably cyber animals as well
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>ITT: A bunch of nibbas who have no fucking idea where the Tropic of Cancer is. It's North Africa.
Anyway, in such a setting Islam is going to play a role one way or another. Honestly I can't see them getting to space. The area is as unfriendly to science as the rest of the Islamic world, without the downright ludicrous oil wealth of the Arabian peninsula to just buy the latest toys from the West.
>What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
Above the Tropic of Cancer? Can't really think of anything that stands out per se. Maybe In-Salah, mostly for how isolated it is in the middle of the desert. The city mostly existed as a sort of pit-stop for trans-Saharan trade historically. I guess in a sci-fi setting it could be an important stop on the trans-Atlantic railroad. If you want some sci-fi crime in there, aren't some Latin-American drug cartels starting to use West-Africa as a means to get their goods into Europe? A Trans-Saharan railway would be vital for that trade and create some gang warfare in the area as well. Imagine Wild West style train robberies but with desert nomads. Combine it with the cyberpunk Lagos others mentioned.
>and Nigeria is doing pretty well for itself on the whole.
Nigerians are also doing crazy well for themselves in the USA, even when you compare them to other well-off immigrant groups like East Asians. It's a shame the study of IQ is controversial because that's really something that could benefit from more study. I've often heard it said that the Nigerians that come to America are generally Yoruba, who highly value both education and family. That makes me wonder whether, compared to other West-Africans, Yoruba are like the Brahmin caste in India. Even today those in India who descended from the Brahmin caste have a much higher than average IQ for their countries, perhaps Yoruba are the same in West-Africa?
>Tropic of Cancer
*Capricorn.* It was in vague reference to the previous thread on this matter that got /pol/'d up and deleted.
>Nigerians are also doing crazy well for themselves in the USA,
Which isn't great for Nigeria. They've got the money to send their kids to the United States but not enough for them to want to come back, which leads to brain drain problems.
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I make them white
That's actually how they looked new.
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>I bought two tickets to the gun show, but I'm not giving 'em to ya
>I'm goin' with YOUR ticket
Carthage.
>above
Clearly you're just from the wrong hemisphere
I can recommend Transhuman Space: Broken Dreams as it deals with themes how the world outside the hyper-developped countries of the Fourt or Fifth Wave may look like.
Came here for this. I forget which splat it’s in but Shadowrun has some pretty cool Lagos material.
>How do you use those parts of Africa that happen to be above the Tropic of Capricorn in your sci-fi settings, Veeky Forums?
North Africa is dominated by the row of Muslim Arab nations along the Mediterranean coast. Most of these are stable and relatively prosperous, with ties to the European Union. Away from the European trade zone, a few states remain poor and backward.
>Do you think Egyptian mythology works in a science fiction context or is it played out?
Depends how hard you want it to be, don't forget Africa is big, there will never be a singular culture holding a continent-wide use.
>What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
Nairobi because in its vicinity is Terra's space elevator and of course Johannesburg and Cairo.
Delenda est.
Future African drop-troopers with fetish cellphones for spiritual support when?
>Dude why are you carrying around that old ass Nokia phone for? That might actually be worth a fortune to some hipster collector back in the states.
>It's for ...Ugh what you say "Good luck" my friend.
>Turns out it saved the paratrooper's ass when the giant death mech that was bearing down on him gets hit by the Nokia phone right in its weak spot as a last resort attack by the paratrooper, who lost all his weapons and forgot that the 'grenade' he's holding is actually the Nokia fetish he had, disabling the mech just long enough for backup to arrive
>"Thanks ancestor spirit senpai"
>What African cities would make a good cyberpunk setting?
I'll stick with north of the Tropic ones.
The Longest Journey did it interestingly with Casablanca. the trick is that it's actually nice and not fucked up by rebuilding
Cairo seems pretty much already a cyberpunk slum without even the kewl neon lights, alas. Personally I'd try something like hugeass solar plants, so huge that basically they need cities to make themselves run (which is more or less what they're trying to do in the arabian peninsula). Said cities might be nice, hellholes, probably both. I guess with cheap energy they might do some shit like agricolture of industry if they're not idiots.
As I'm actually livin' on the med, tough on the northern shore, I wouldn't mind a more hopeful approach in which what you read on the news on our sea isn't "other people died in boats, and here we bitch about that". I don't think you can pull out a "EU expands" easily, but waddayaknow. Beyond Earth hinted at something like a zone of control of France/smaller EU all the way to Morocco.
I always find that screencap cool - there's just not much depiction of the region that's not "Famine-Genocide-Rape-War-Toto-Crying Children" - ironically, for all their famous insensitivity, Top Gear did a very nice special there. And paratroopers special forces are badass.
Also Rwanda, being small and resource-poor, is absolutely playing around with Special Economic Zones and foreign investment. That said, at about 1.2 million people, it's not all that big and cyberpunk yet
As a kind of opposite you've got the pretty large, very resource-rich and quite unstable DRC (they do have a lot of money coming in from China, but much of it is from just digging shit out the ground), where the capital, Kinshasa, is fucking huge - 3rd biggest urban area on the continent, and it vies with Paris for the title of largest francophone urban area, so it's quite a good contender for a cyberpunk city by the nature of its sprawl if nothing else. It's also directly across the Congo from the capital of the other Congo, which is about 1/10th of its side. When/if there's a stabilisation it could certainly be a notable place in a cyberpunk setting
There's likely some correlation based on economic factors there as well - if you have enough money and/or education to emigrate properly or pursue education in another country, then likely you or your parents were pretty bright (or were real fucking go-getters). But yeah, culturally valuing education is also likely to have some cumulative effect on intelligence - or possibly the other way round, if your group is genetically intelligent then it's not a hard leap to value something you're already good at.
What country(countries) that had a bunch of chinese laborers come in because China was backing a lot of infrastructure projects in them? A big part of this was that some of the laborers were staying and getting married or pretending to get married at least.
So do we have half chinese half africans in our sci-fi africa?
I don't know that the Chinese are hugely big on intermarrying/mixing with the local population, but I certainly wouldn't think it'd be out the question.
For what it's worth, in Netrunner's newest cycle (as mentioned above, it's set in Africa), there's a runner called Kabonesa Wu, who presumably has some chinese ancestry
Actually, user what seems to happen on Veeky Forums is that someone says something a bit risque and then this horde of clucking redditors start excoriating and flagellating themselves while pleading for the mods to drive the infidel back to /pol/. Whatever was original being discussed is lost.
On topic: Nairobi is an insane cyberpunk dystopia already.
I can speak reasonably intelligently about large parts of sub Saharan Africa if that assists.
>I can speak reasonably intelligently about large parts of sub Saharan Africa if that assists.
Well? No one told you to stop
