The Scandinavian Union is a state alliance of the four Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland); since its founding, Estonia, and the former Thule Protectorate Iceland has joined the Union. ScandU was designed according to the model of the European Union making each member nations individual governments secondary to the Union's regulations. The Union is a member of the New European Economic Community and the Union's headquarters are located in Gothenburg, where shadowrunners congregate every 4 years in anticipation of renegotiations of Scandinavia's altered BRA Treaty.
It was initially founded in 2031 in the aftermath of the Crash 1.0 following numerous protests and riots. The decision to unite was and remained controversial but was pushed for out of economic and military necessity. Finland joined the Union merely because of its fear for the Russian invasion at the beginning of the EuroWars, Sweden was largely stable but wished for greater influence on world affairs, Denmark and Norway sought recovery for their struggling economies.
Structure[]
The Scandinavian Union was made in the image of the European Union, which made individual governments secondary to Union regulations. Due to the Union, internal borders have been effectively dissolved but each member nation retains it's own unique characteristics and control over which AA corporations are granted extraterritoriality within their borders - a right afforded to them via ScandU's altered BRA Treaty.
The Union has three distinct entities which represent constituent nations as a single entity and are the legislative and executive functions of ScandU for international relations: the Council of Ministers, the Union Parliament, and the Scandinavian Commission.
Council of Ministers[]
The higher legislative branch of the Scandinavian Union. This Council is composed of 10 ministers from each member country, (60 ministers total, as of 2081). Highly important regulations and legislation is decided upon by the Council, with less important regulation relegated to the lower legislative branch, the Union Parliament.
(Note: the "Council of Ministers" is what the extant Council of the European Union is less formally known as and is likely the reference point for ScandU's Council of Ministers. The ministers present in the Council of the European Union aren't elected to the role in particular but instead are parts of their country's government and attend the council as a minister in the field which the question, debate or topic concerns on behalf of their nation. It is indicated that the ministerial positions within the ScandU Council of Ministers is fixed however, but if we assume that similar structure applies these 10 ministers are elected by the nation to represent the nation. No term limits are described, so they either sit until retirement/death (such as the US Supreme Court) or until ousted by a shift in national government.)
Union Parliament[]
The Union Parliament is the lower legislative branch of ScandU with 54 representatives elected every sixth year by the lawful citizens of ScandU. Union citizens can vote on any Parliament candidate, not just those representing their locality. Voting locally is still the trend, but the trend is changing due to the cultural heterogeneity from having open borders. The Social Democratic political bloc has dominated the Union Parliament for 30 years after the founding of the Union, but started to lose ground to the corporate-backed Conservatives, and the left-wing Socialists.
(Note: Commentary from the character "Poly Tick" (Shadows of Europe, pg 132) regarding what ideologies dominate the Union Parliament describe them as "parties" but since candidates can come from anywhere in ScandU, there are several Social Democratic, Conservative, and Socialist Parties which this could be referring to - Finnish Conservatives, Swedish Conservatives, et.c. This implies the existence of pan-scandinavian parties, or that parties across borders have merged despite national differences, which is unlikely. I have thus interpreted Poly Ticks comment as "of politicians within the Union, a majority belong to their nation's equivalent of the Social Democrats")
[]
The executive bureaucratic institution of ScandU. The Scandinavian Commissions leadership is assembled by the Council of Ministers, and has the responsibility of acting upon the decisions of the Unions legislative branches. The Commission's Chief in early 2060, Svante Samuelsson is a close personal associate with Anders Malmsten, CEO of Erika.
Policlubs and Culture[]
Much of the non-mainstream culture of Scandinavia has been marked by a back to nature movements in the form of Siida communities, the name and the practice is derived from the Sami concept for a small, sometimes nomadic, society. These Siida tend to be antiestablishment, anti-technology, and/or nomadic bands of scoundrels that practice low-impact means of living. While other scandinavian policlubs or groups tend to adopt similar tenets and therefore overlap greatly, Siida can still be distinct and unique such as by providing "cottage industries" that specialize in ID-manufacturing, software piracy, and enchantment.
Sami[]
The Sami (also called the Lappish) are the indigenous ethnic group of Sápmi, a region which spans Lappland in northern Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula. Sami are represented in the Union Parliament through a separate Sami Caucus with jurisdiction over Sami affairs, but with limited control over ethnic lands. This causes great friction as Norway bends to pressure from AA Megacorporations, ceding Sápmi land for exploitation; numerous voices within the Sami Caucus and other related communities call for the secession of a united Lappland.
Sami Siida have returned to their traditional forms of direct democracy, where Sami shamans known as Noaidi (Nåjder) play a central role in advising spirituality and harmonious living. Noaidi utilise a "Goavddis," a ceremonial drum, and "yoiking," a Sami chanting for their rituals. In addition, the Sami construct miniature stone labyrinths as spiritual areas, a great number of these labyrinths sit along the Swedish Coast towards the Gulf of Bothnia. These labyrinths served as symbols of death, and the inherent danger of the journey through life, and a labyrinth constructed on Kjeøya is believed to contain a gateway to the realm of death itself.
Aesir Society[]
The Aesir Society is a controversial group of isolationists that foster a back to nature lifestyle and sedentary settlements in the Scandinavian countryside. Known for interacting with various Viking Gangs and far-right extremists. Their isolation and coherence fosters cult-like groups, racism, and exclusionism which is rooted in norse supremacy moreso than anti-metahuman rhetoric. The Aesir Society and its members have long had deep associations with the cult Winternight, with Aesir Settlements acting as a recruitment ground for the cult.
Volksfront[]
An officially recognised policlub of far-right extremists, Volksfront champions ethnic segregation and ultra-nationalism through media and political activism. Based in the Scandinavian Union it is also recognised officially in the AGS, Austria, Hungary, and the United Netherlands. Volksfront opposes pan-european initiatives such as the NEEC, and have been known to rally radicals across numerous groups to further their goals, including Viking Gangs, Aesir Societies, and various unaffiliated Siida tribes.
Geography[]
The Scandinavian Union area includes the Scandinavian Peninsula, the part of the Cimbrian Peninsula occupied by Denmark, as well as the area of Finland. The Union thus also includes most of Finnoscandinavia, although the extreme east with the Kola Peninsula still belongs to Russia.
Limits[]
The Union has only two land borders, once a long border in the east with the Russian Republic and then the southern border with the Allied German States. It is bordering both the Atlantic Ocean, more precisely the sub-seas North Sea and European Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. This also makes it a direct neighbor of the Trans-polar Aleut Nation, the Baltic States, Poland, and Königsberg.
History[]
The Scandinavian Union was formed by Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in 2031 out of economic hardship after the Black Tide (2011) and the Crash 1.0 (2029), in which an omnipotent virus devastated all computer systems on the old Internet. Finland joined mainly out of fear of its bellicose Russian neighbor, which promptly proved itself in the EuroWars between 2031 and 2033.
In addition to coordinating a common security policy, the merger was primarily intended to help rebuild the economy destroyed by the Crash. However, each of the member states retains strong internal autonomy, and Finland nationalized most of its large national corporations (including Erika, which resulted from a merger of telecommunications giants Nokia and Ericsson in 2019)
In 2063, both Estonia, which was already economically closely linked to Finland and the rest of the ScandU, and supposedly Iceland wanted to join, but this was very controversial in Parliament and the Council of the Union.
After the Crash 2.0[]
After a nuclear explosive device detonated in the Walhalla base of the Winternight terrorist group in Haparanda during the course of the Crash 2.0 and the subsequent system failure, which caused the crash together with the dissonant Otaku from Ex Pacis led by Pax and an EMP bomb over Stockholm. The situation changed drastically: Stockholm - formerly a paradise compared to other plexes - also suffers from the worst background radiation and other effects over 5 years later, even if it was one of the first places where a wireless Matrix was running. Helsinki, the home of the Erika Group and with it the wireless WiFi Matrix, on the other hand, has set itself at the forefront of SOTA in a rapid development in the new, networked world with all-encompassing augmented reality.
As of 2081, Iceland and Estonia have been made part of the Scandinavian Union in a push from Erika to undercut Saeder-Krupp's influence in Europe, leveraging ScandU's modified BRA-Treaty.
Corporations[]
One of the largest extra-territorial AA mega-corporations is Erika, which was first nationalized in 2031 on the advice of Anders Malmsten and then privatized again after the Euro Wars. In the 2060s, Erika became known for starting the Wireless Matrix Initiative. After the crash of 2064, Erika first merged with Transys Neuronet to become Transys-Erika and shortly afterwards with Novatech to form NeoNET. Within NeoNET, however, Erika continued to exist as an independent unit and after NeoNET ended, Erika again went her own way.
There is also the Danish AA group Mærsk Incorporated Assets, which enjoys extraterritoriality in all EU member states except Finland. Mærsk's influence also continued to grow when they took over the Norwegian mechanical engineering group Kværner ASA in 2060 and incorporated it as the new subsidiary Kværner-Mærsk.
In Norway, an extremely large number of AA megacorporations have extraterritorial status: a total of 15 (in addition to the Big 8) - including AG Chemie and Ruhrmetall.
Tyr Incorporated, a non-extraterritorial police group which also oversees the penal system in Denmark, plays an important role in the smallest country of the Scandinavian Union, which has been most damaged by the Black Tide, and also puts prisoners under its control for disinfection work in the swamped Jutland. Tyr was also taken over by Mærsk after the technomancer crisis in the early 2070s.
The Union oversees foreign and trade policy while leaving the member states to manage their own internal affairs and has managed to keep the megacorporations on a slight leash through careful negotiations on how they accepted the Business Recognition Accords though progressive rounds of renegotiation, held every four years, constantly changes this balance. At its inception it included four major clauses:
- Extraterritoriality within ScandU was only assured for AAA corporations, while AA corporations were granted it by each ScandU member state separately.
- Extraterritorial corporations cannot be hired to perform police functions within ScandU.
- Corporate armed forces are under heavy restrictions. The acquisition and deployment of certain armed vehicles, explosives, crowd control agents are prohibited. Police Corps have more leeway, but need specific court permission to employ the use of anything beyond the requirements of standard policing duties.
- Sales of local multinational corporate shares are limited, to keep majority interest local.
Index[]
- Emergence p. 60
- Loose Alliances
Runner Havens p. 129- Runner's Companion p. 56, 57
- Running Wild p. 76
- Shadows of Asia p. 135
Shadows of Europe p. 130 - 146- Sprawl Survival Guide p. 77
- System Failure
- Target: Wastelands p. 54, 55, 120
- Vice
- Power Plays, 128