Actually, Rob, it supports my position. Just like IW does. East Asian covers scads of ground: from India, through China, Mongolia, Indochina, Japan, and all the Pacific Islanders. IW puts all of Homeline in one CF. You are correct, I did oversimplify it by removing Muslim, but, the Muslim world isn't terribly relevant in IST, so it seemed to be fairly safe to remove.
You're welcome to run your games however you want, but, the RAW GURPS rules are pretty specific about CFs being broad and generic. North, South and Central America, Europe, Western Asia (former Soviet Union, et. al.), most of Africa, Australia and Oceania are all "Western." The Middle East and parts of Africa with a strong Muslim influence are Muslim. The rest of the world is East Asian. GURPS is broad and generic.
Read the passage. The most specific CF in the entire Characters book is still pretty broad: Baron Janos Telkozep has "18th-Century Europe" And that's still staggeringly broad. Two of the characters--from entirely different worlds (Xing La and Sora)--both have "East Asian!" Xing La and Sora don't have theirs differentiated between their individual worlds! Vastly broad is the RAW--and that's what IST needs to be representing.
The Meeranon would have "CF: Meeranon." By your argument, Bob would have to define all the cultures for them, and, really, that's not what the game is about. the CFs are meant to be extremely broad as to give some flavor, but not slow the game down or make a morass out of that section. I know several groups that don't use them at all.
You're welcome to run your games however you want, but, the RAW GURPS rules are pretty specific about CFs being broad and generic. North, South and Central America, Europe, Western Asia (former Soviet Union, et. al.), most of Africa, Australia and Oceania are all "Western." The Middle East and parts of Africa with a strong Muslim influence are Muslim. The rest of the world is East Asian. GURPS is broad and generic.
Read the passage. The most specific CF in the entire Characters book is still pretty broad: Baron Janos Telkozep has "18th-Century Europe" And that's still staggeringly broad. Two of the characters--from entirely different worlds (Xing La and Sora)--both have "East Asian!" Xing La and Sora don't have theirs differentiated between their individual worlds! Vastly broad is the RAW--and that's what IST needs to be representing.
The Meeranon would have "CF: Meeranon." By your argument, Bob would have to define all the cultures for them, and, really, that's not what the game is about. the CFs are meant to be extremely broad as to give some flavor, but not slow the game down or make a morass out of that section. I know several groups that don't use them at all.