Unclear Description: Neo Africa

Well, more like the description not jiving with the name, image, and examples.

The description is actually pretty clear. If you take a developing nation in a work of fiction and give it advanced technology, it becomes a Cyberpunk dystopia.

The image, name, and examples on the other hand, all gravitate to "fictional appearances of a high-tech African nation." Which I'm not sure is a trope, but is definitely not the trope described on the page.

Examples from the page:

• Wakanda: African nation with technology (generally even considered a Mary Suetopia, not a dystopia). So actually the opposite of the trope.
• Elephantmen: "There is a huge lab in Africa" is all the context we get. So ZCE.
• Judge Dredd: ZCE
• The Ear The Eye And The Arm: ZCE
• Otherland: Specifically says the entire world is Post-Cyberpunk (Africa included), this the opposite of the trope.
• Ashraf Bey: Says it's in Africa and it's cyberpunk." Does that count for context? Either way, I'll count it as a valid example.
• Zoo City: Ditto.
• Sex Drugs And Violence In The Future: Mentions it's a hellhole, no mention of technology.
• Blue Remembered Earth: Aversion.
• Nnedi Okorafor: No mention of dystopia or Cyberpunk, just Africa in the future.
• The Fortunate Fall: Aversion.
• I Robot: Seems to be the opposite, with Africa being successful in the future.
• Charlie Jade: Good example.
• Trinity: Futuristic Africa is better off misuse.
• Transhuman Space: Correct!
• Shadowrun: Seems to be correct.
• Halo: Seems to be an example, but having played the games, it's Futuristic Africa is better off misuse.
• Empire Earth: Futuristic Africa is better off misuse.
• Dreamfall: Futuristic Africa is better off misuse.
• Civilization: Futuristic Africa is better off misuse.
• Overwatch: Futuristic Africa is better off misuse.

So yeah. That's ever example on the page. And at best five examples are good.

Changing the page to fit the misuse of "Africa unexpectedly becomes an economic superpower in the Not Too Distant Future when advanced technology" seems like a valid trope, sort of like a futuristic version of Aliens in Cardiff.

Opening.

I'm putting together a page for Afrofuturism so maybe we could replace this page with that one? Afrofuturism is much more of an established "thing", and it covers more territory. And lot of the listed examples fall under Afrofuturism anyway.

Yeah, that makes sense. A cursory Google search shows that Afrofuturism is a thing, and Neo-Africa is a TVT creation.

I think it'd make sense to fold Neo-Africa into Afrofuturism and turn NA into a redirect for AF.

All right, just carted over all the neo africa examples into the page. Anything else you think?

Sounds like someone had a specific example in mind when they originally created this, and added some arbitrary limitations which happened to meet their example. (An unfortunately common occurrence at TLP.) To make it worse, they choose a very misleading name.

This might have been a reasonable subtrope of Afrofuturism, if we could establish a pattern, but even so, we should have started with the supertrope, and we should have had a more indicative name.

For now, I support the merger, but without prejudice against a recreation if someone can demonstrate that it is a significant subtrope. (And can come up with a better name.)

I'm not as confident on the idea that Neo-Africa (as currently defined) is really a trope, rather than several tropes that happen to be in use at the same time.

I agree the concept of Afrofuturism covers the tropable aspects, so I'm also in favour of the merge.

So, now that Afrofuturism's been launched, turn Neo-Africa into a redirect, and done?

^ Ayup

Wait for a mod, of course, but between agreement here and in the YKTTW, I don't think we'll need a crowner.

Newbie question: What's a crowner?

Thanks for asking. A crowner is a formal poll to decide something. You can read more at How Crowners Work.

More often than not, resolving a TRS thread requires at least one crowner. But straightforward, unanimous ones can get by without one if a mod approves.

edited 27th Oct '17 1:31:21 PM by Larkmarn

So should we make a crowner for getting rid of Neo-Africa? I'm not sure how to go about getting mod approval.

edited 3rd Nov '17 4:12:44 AM by DrSleep

The mods usually notice on their own pretty well, and comment if necessary. In this case, I suspect they may be waiting to see if anyone else chimes in, because, while we do seem to be unanimous, there aren't very many people who have commented. If a few more folks give thumbs up to the merge, we'll be better positioned to proceed.

Contrariwise, if someone speaks up in opposition, then we'll probably need a crowner.

How many people usually comment on these? This is kind of a niche topic, so IDK its reasonable to expect more people to show up out of the blue.

There's a fair number of repair shop regulars who can usually be counted on to comment (or, at the least, vote, if a crowner is used). I'm not sure why they're staying away from this one, which seems relatively straightforward.

By my count, we have five for merging this as redundant to Afrofuturism and none opposed. We could go ahead and make a crowner, to try to force the issue, but five is nearly to enough. Just a few more folks giving us a thumbs up would probably settle this.

I hollered for a mod to come in and say whether this is enough or not. Honestly, I think there are fewer and fewer of us regulars in TRS in general.

Incidentally, I have to point out that the troper who made the trope has been banned for being a bit... overzealous.

edited 9th Nov '17 1:08:17 PM by Larkmarn

vote for merge with Afrofuturism

I'll throw my ring into the hat for the merge as well. The trope description has never really seemed all that wide-spread and many of the example seemed shoe-horned so if it can be covered under a broader, more encompassing trope it's probably a better idea.

Merge.

It's been two months and no one's offered any arguments against. I've hollered for a mod, but no word yet.

At eight votes, I think we've hit the threshold of "just do it."

I'm going to make the change and call for a mod to lock this so we can deal with other TRS threads.

That was so fast I'm not sure if I just happened to Sep or not.

Anyhoo, merge is done.

We've got 35 wicks at the moment. That's few enough that I don't think we need a dedicated project and I'll just work on them a few at a time. @Dr Sleep you should check them out to see if you can turn them into Afro Futurism wicks, too. Think we can lock up?

edited 10th Nov '17 1:50:19 PM by Larkmarn

No ninja, I responded to your post.

Locking per New Year Purge.