Correction to Terminology

[Webstral]

I'm re-reading Howling Wilderness. The module refers to a Thanksgiving Massacre. I'm embarrassed to admit that there is no Thanksgiving Day Massacre. I believe I foisted this inaccurate term off on the community. Sorry, guys. TDM doesn't even make much sense, since the module claims that the attack on D.C. came the day after Thanksgiving.

Attention to detail, candidate. Sorry again, guys.

Webstral

[TiggerCCW UK]

Don't worry about it - I'm fairly I heard the TDM being referred to by more than just you. Personally I also think TDM sounds better than TM and when we're referring to a nuclear holocaust does a day really make much of a difference?

[Targan]

Ditto. I'm used to seeing TDM now. I say we keep it. Or change it to TGM so it still has three syllables

[Rainbow Six]

I'm with Tigger and Targan...in my opinion the Thanksgiving Massacre is part of T2K folkore and TDM is the best way to refer to it.

Cheers

[Cdnwolf]

Now all depends... was it the CANADIAN Thanksgiving or the AMERICAN Thanksgiving that the massacre occurred on... the Canadian one is in October. LOL

I am still trying to figure out what the hell y'all are even talking about?

[Legbreaker]

Thanksgiving is a strictly north American thing. It's utterly meaningless to the rest of the world.

In my opinion the date of the first, or at least arguably most devestating strategic strikes, should have a reference applicable to all nationalities.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Thanksgiving is a strictly north American thing. It's utterly meaningless to the rest of the world.

In my opinion the date of the first, or at least arguably most devestating strategic strikes, should have a reference applicable to all nationalities.

...Which is why I refer to it as Black Thursday in my UK work.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Thanksgiving is a strictly north American thing. It's utterly meaningless to the rest of the world.

In my opinion the date of the first, or at least arguably most devestating strategic strikes, should have a reference applicable to all nationalities.

Wouldn't the qualifier "most devastating" be highly subjective? The strike on New York in Armies of the Night might kill more people than a similar strike near Sydney, but Australians might very well decide that the Sydney strike means more to them.

The idea of some universal term to describe the strategic exchange is in contravention to the idea of a nuclear exchange that staggers upward. Both sides are trying to avoid having the other believe that a general nuclear exchange is happening. Therefore, for the Soviets to attack targets in the United States, Australia, the UK, Canada, etc. on the same day would invite Anglo-American interpretations of general exchange. Twilight: 2000 is predicated on the idea of an exchange that creeps upward in escalation until all parties suffer a TKO.

A good analogy is 9-11. This is a reference to a specifically American event, but it has a value as such. We can equally refer to the attacks on Madrid trains, the attack in Bali, or the London attacks as part of the general war with terror. I suggest, therefore, that each nation will have a defining threshold that is a part of the overall extended nuclear exchange.

Webstral

[Targan]

I think the TDM would stand out in Australians' minds though perhaps not as much as the first nuclear strike on an Australian target. But one of the main reasons the TDM would stand out in the minds of Australians is because from that day onwards very little new electronic media content would come out of the US. It saddens me to say it but a huge amount of TV content in Australia, especially entertainment, and nearly all cinema comes from the US. Even if TV kept broadcasting in most parts of Australia after the lights went out over most of the US, Australians would mark the TDM as the day that the endless American TV re-runs started.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Targan

Australians would mark the TDM as the day that the endless American TV re-runs started.

And that is where the horror of the nuclear war really struck home!

[natehale1971]

I like referring to the initial Continental US strikes as the TDM... it just sounds like something the media would call such an attack. Heck, in my Year of the Zombie campaign we used the term the 'Indepednece Day Massacare' to describe the intial terrorist attacks that released the reanimate virus in the USA...

I have a feeling that even after the TDM there would still be power and TV reporting going on in those areas of the country not blacked out... And we all know how the Media acts when it comes to trying to get ratings. remember the first ten minutes of 'Dawn of the Dead' when the news producers where bitching about taking down the locations of aide stations because they didn't have the updated locations, and the person explained that they where showing those locations that had already been overrun, and that if they kept showing them as they where it would cause people to walk right into chaos.

heck, if anyone wants i can post the out takes of some of the media reports that i had wrote for the players to read to get an idea of the news reports that had went out before the networks went silent.


http://cdn.ezprezzo.com/crazypics/drunk_animals10.jpg

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Thanksgiving is a strictly north American thing. It's utterly meaningless to the rest of the world.

Well a good portion of canon is written from the perspective of an American historian. This is most obviously seen in some of the vehicle guides picture captions/descriptions.

[Legbreaker]

This is true. It is a game written from an American viewpoint, predominately by Americans.

However, we are a global community. We have the opportunity as a community to rewrite and correct certain things (take the DC group as an example). Why, a quarter of a century after it was initially written, should we continue to use outdated, inaccurate and generally one sided terminologies?

Yes, individual areas would have their own names for events, this being ever more common as communications broke down (civilian communication and media networks would be hit very hard by EMP and the nukes themselves in my opinion), but does that mean we, as a global community have to use such localised terminology?

Off the top of my head "First Strategic Strike", "Balistic Missile Day", even "Hell Day" (amongst many others) would be just as relevant, and perhaps more accurate than TDM especially since, as Webstral has pointed out, the strikes didn't actually occur on that day...

If the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon had occured a day later, I rather doubt the event would be refered to as 9-12...

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

If the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon had occured a day later, I rather doubt the event would be refered to as 9-12...

I am pretty sure it would be called 912. In the US we use the terms 910 and 912 to represent pre attack and post attack mentality. Such as "he is thinking still thinking in a 9-10 world". To be honest the connection to the emergency number, 911, is rarely brought up as that is pronounced "nine one one" not "nine eleven". Does Australia use 911 for emergency numbers. I know Korea uses 119 but they have the most illogical phone number system imaginable (Some numbers have 7 digits and others 8).

[Legbreaker]

The US is the only country in the world as far as I know that uses 911. Here in Australia it's 000. The proliferance of US TV in Australia actually causes some problems with emergency calls.

910 and 912 mean absolutely nothing over here so I'm positive neither of those tags would have stuck outside the US.

[kato13]

But why did you say 912 would not have stuck since 911 did. I know in Asia they say 9-11 (for the attack). The phone number thing was the only thing I could think of.

[Webstral]

For what it’s worth, I refer to the entire period from 7/9/09 to the end of the main body of nuclear activity in December 1997 as the Exchange. This is the period in which the overwhelming majority of nuclear strikes are made, from the use of tacnukes in Eastern Europe through to the strikes on neutral countries in December. Yes, I know there is a second weak spurt of activity in 1998, but the UK and Italy are the countries predominantly affected. They can come up with their own timeline for the term Exchange. By 2000, it's all about the same.

Anyway, I think a term like Exchange, with its definable limits, should be able to include pretty much everyone and not show bias. We can talk about pre-Exchange and post-Exchange America, Canada, Australia, France, and so on without referring to anyone’s holidays.

Webstral

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by kato13

But why did you say 912 would not have stuck since 911 did.

911 is commonly known around the world as the US emergency number due to the spread of dodgy US television shows . Here in Australia, it's been perverted to 9-11 (same as Asia apparently) in reference to the date (which in Australia would usually be day/month/year or 11th September, 11/09, etc) and the telephone number.
910 and 912 just doesn't have the same worldwide exposure as 911.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Webstral

For what it’s worth, I refer to the entire period from 7/9/09 to the end of the main body of nuclear activity in December 1997 as the Exchange.

I quite like the term "The Exchange" but as you've said, it's a broad period or time which could cover from the date of the first tactical nuke over in China through to the last public reported nuke (probably in 1998).

We can all agree that there were several basic phases to the exchange - the intial tactical strikes in the east, followed by tactical strikes in the west/Europe, then intercontinental strikes, followed later in 1998 by the weaker (or more accurately less prolific) strikes.

It's these general phases that the public, driven by the media, would probably have named.

[fightingflamingo]

Since the attack occured the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Although I'm very used to using TDM to refer to this event. I could see it being referred simply as Black Friday in the US in the years following the exchange and through the reconstruction period, as the day after Thanksgiving is already called by that name for other reasons, it seems to me that the nuclear strikes would make the name more appropriate, and hey... it sorta would be Friday almost everwhere, unless it was Saturday already...