- Source: FASA
FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargames and board games between 1980 and 2001, after which they closed publishing operations for several years, becoming an IP holding company under the name FASA Inc. In 2012, a wholly owned subsidiary called FASA Games Inc. went into operation, using the name and logo under license from the parent company. FASA Games Inc. works alongside Ral Partha Europe, also a subsidiary of FASA Corporation, to bring out new editions of existing properties such as Earthdawn and Demonworld, and to develop new properties within the FASA cosmology.
FASA first appeared as a Traveller licensee, producing supplements for that Game Designers' Workshop role-playing game, especially the work of the Keith Brothers. The company went on to establish itself as a major gaming company with the publication of the Star Trek RPG, then several successful original games. Noteworthy lines included BattleTech and Shadowrun. Their Star Trek role-playing supplements and tactical ship game enjoyed popularity outside the wargaming community since, at the time, official descriptions of the Star Trek universe were not common, and the gaming supplements offered details fans craved.
The highly successful BattleTech line led to a series of video games, some of the first virtual reality gaming suites, called Virtual World (created by a subdivision of the company known at the time of development as ESP, an acronym for "Extremely Secret Project") and a Saturday-morning animated TV series.
Originally, the name FASA was an acronym for "Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration", a joking allusion to the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. This tongue-in-cheek attitude was carried over in humorous self-references in its games. For example, in Shadowrun, a tactical nuclear device was detonated near FASA's offices at 1026 W. Van Buren St in Chicago, Illinois.
History
FASA Corporation was founded by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III in 1980 with a starting capital of $350 ($1,200 adjusted for inflation). The two were fellow gamers at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Mort Weisman, Jordan's father, joined the company in 1985 to lead the company's operational management, having sold his book publishing business, Swallow Press.
Under the new commercial direction and with Mort's capital injection, the company diversified into books and miniature figures. After consulting their UK distributor, Chart Hobby Distributors, FASA licensed the manufacture of its BattleTech figurines to Miniature Figurines (also known as Minifigs). FASA would later acquire the U.S. figures manufacturer Ral Partha, which was the US manufacturer of Minifigs. While Mort ran the paper and metal based sides of the business, the company's founders focused on the development of computer-based games. They were particularly interested in virtual reality (particularly the BattleTech Centers / Virtual World) but also developed desktop computer games.
When Microsoft acquired the FASA Interactive subsidiary, Babcock went with that company. After the sale of Virtual World, Jordan turned his attention to the founding of a new games venture called WizKids.
Current status and intellectual property
FASA unexpectedly ceased active operations on April 30, 2001, but still exists as a corporation holding intellectual property rights, which it licenses to other publishers. Contrary to popular belief, the company did not go bankrupt. Allegedly, the owners decided to quit while the company was still financially sound in a market they perceived as going downhill. Mort Weisman had been talking of retirement for some years, and his confidence in the future of the paper-based games business was low. He considered the intellectual property of FASA to be of high value, but did not wish to continue working as he had been for the last decade or more. Unwilling to wrestle with the complexities of dividing up the going concern, the owners issued a press release on January 25, 2001, announcing the immediate closure of the business.
The BattleTech and Shadowrun properties were sold to WizKids, who in turn licensed their publication to FanPro LLC and then to Catalyst Game Labs. The Earthdawn license was sold to WizKids, and then back to FASA. Living Room Games published Earthdawn (Second Edition), RedBrick published Earthdawn (Classic and Third Editions), but the license has now returned to FASA Corporation, and FASA Games, Inc. is the current license holder for new material. Crimson Skies was originally developed by Zipper Interactive under the FASA Interactive brand in late 2000 and used under license by FASA; FASA Interactive had been purchased by Microsoft, so rights to Crimson Skies stayed with Microsoft. Rights to the miniatures game VOR: The Maelstrom reverted to the designer Mike "Skuzzy" Nielsen, but it has not been republished in any form due partly to legal difficulties. Microsoft officially closed the FASA team in the company's gaming division on September 12, 2007.
On December 6, 2007, FASA founder Jordan Weisman announced that his new venture, Smith & Tinker, had licensed the electronic gaming rights to MechWarrior, Shadowrun, and Crimson Skies from Microsoft.
On April 28, 2008, Mike "Skuzzy" Nielsen announced plans to create Vor 2.0.
At Gen Con 2012, FASA Games, Inc. was revealed, which includes FASA Corporation co-founder Ross Babcock on the board of directors. While FASA Corporation still owns and manages the FASA IP and brands, FASA Games, Inc would release new games and content. As of 2020, FASA Games has released contents for 2 games; a 4th edition for Earthdawn and the new game 1879 which aims to replace and/or create an alternate future '6th Age' in 'replacement' to Shadowrun.
Notable games
= Role-playing games
=
Star Trek: The Role Playing Game (1982)
Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator
Doctor Who (1985)
MechWarrior (1986)
Shadowrun (1989)
Legionnaire (1990)
Earthdawn (1993)
= Board games
=
BattleTech (released in 1984 as BattleDroids, titled BattleTech as of 1985)
Battledroids (1984)
Classic BattleTech (1985)
Renegade Legion (1989)
Crimson Skies (1998)
= Miniature games
=
VOR: The Maelstrom (1999)
Demonworld (second edition: 2011, miniatures by Ral Partha Europe. The first edition was released in 1999 by Hobby Products)
= Video games
=
See FASA Studio
References
External links
Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived July 13, 2001)
FASA Games official website , (FGI)- Source: Fasa
Fasa (Persian: فسا) is a city in the Central District of Fasa County, Fars province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. The city's population in 2016 was 110,825. Fasa is the fourth most populous city of the province, and dates back to the Achaemenid period.
Fasa's economy is based on agriculture and Pastoralism. Jahrom, Darab, Sarvestan, Kherameh and Estahban are neighbours of Fasa. This city is located on the road from Shiraz to Kerman, This has made Fasa a strategic and important city.
Etymology
The name Fasa is derived from the older form Pasā. Various etymologies for this name have been proposed. Local tradition holds that Fasa is named after a legendary prince named Pasa, son of Fars and grandson of Tahmuras. In Ibn al-Balkhi's retelling the legend, Fars granted the town of Fasa to Pasa; in Hamdallah Mustawfi's version, Pasa founds the city himself (in this version, he is directly the son of Tahmuras).
Harold Bailey proposed on linguistic grounds that the name is ultimately derived from Old Persian *pa-sāya, meaning "campground". This name would have referred to what was originally a Persian nomadic encampment that later evolved into a town (presumably Tall-e Zahhak, 3km south of present-day Fasa). It would have then come to refer more generally to the entire surrounding plain – i.e. the Fasa plain. The Persepolis Administrative Archives (tablets 49 and 53) mention a place in Fars called (in Elamite) ba-a-ši-ya-an, which George Glenn Cameron had already identified with Fasa; Bailey argued that this is an Elamite rendering of the Persian name *Pasāya.
This identification is not entirely uncontested – for example, Jan Tavernier reconstructs this form as Old Persian *Paišiyā-, literally meaning "before" and being a shortened form of a longer name. Tavernier instead prefers the form *Fasāta, reconstructed from Elamite Pa-iš-šá-taš, as the ancient name of Fasa. Researchers have also considered the meaning of the word Fasa "the city of the Persians". Much earlier, the 13th century writer Yaqut al-Hamawi also suggested that the name meant "the north wind".
Whatever its original meaning was, the name of Fasa later became Pasā in Middle Persian. At some point the ancient site at Tall-e Zahhak was abandoned and the name was transferred to the modern site. Finally, after the Muslim conquest of Persia, since Arabic doesn't have the sound "P", Arabic authors wrote the name as Fasā or Basā. Eventually, the Arabized form Fasā supplanted the old name Pasā locally as well.
The adjective (aka nesba or demonym) associated with Fasa today is Fasā'ī. An older form is Fasāwī, which was used by some medieval writers such as Ibn al-Sam'ani. Within Fars, a completely different demonym was used: according to Ibn al-Sam'ani and Hamza Esfahani (as quoted by Yaqut), the locals said Basāsīrī instead of Fasa'i. This shares an origin with the Persian terms garm-sīr ("hot region") and sard-sīr ("cold region"), so that in effect basāsīrī meant "the Fasa region". Hamza Esfahani also mentioned a place near Na'in called Kasnā, which used the similarly derived adjective kasnāsīrī. A prominent bearer of this nesba was Abu'l-Harith Arslan Basasiri, an 11th-century Turkic mercenary leader who led a rebellion against the caliph al-Qa'im.
History
The origins of Fasa go back to at least the Achaemenid period and probably earlier. Several prehistoric mounds, such as Tall-e Siah, indicate early human activity in the Fasa region; they mostly are from the Eneolithic period. One of these sites is Tall-e Zahhak, a 660x750 m-wide tell 3 km southeast of present-day Fasa. Tall-e Zahhak represents the old site of Fasa itself, with many archaeological strata spanning a time between the 3rd millennium BCE and the 13th century CE. At some point, the old site at Tall-e Zahhak became abandoned, and the name "Fasa" migrated to the new location that is inhabited today. If the linguistic derivation of the name from Old Persian meaning "encampment" is correct, then Fasa probably began as a nomadic encampment that later developed into a permanent settlement.
There are two prehistoric archaeological sequences at Tall-e Zahhak: the older Khayrabad ware and the more recent Zahhak ware. Both are similar to different types of the Kaftari ware of central Fars and may date from the same period, which is tentatively estimated to be 2000-1800 BCE. There is then a gap until the Achaemenid period, when "finely-burnished red ware showing characteristic everted rims" appear in the archaeological record. There is a large mud-brick platform, which probably also dates from Achaemenid times given its resemblance to similar platforms at Persepolis and Pasargadae. Another characteristically Achaemenid feature found at Tall-e Zahhak is a large fluted column base similar to the ones found at Persepolis. This column base may indicate that Achaemenid Fasa was the site of a royal palace or administrative center. In any case, Fasa was an important fortified settlement during this period. There is also evidence of occupation during Hellenistic times.
Fasa came under Muslim control peacefully in 644 (23 AH), when the Arab general Uthman ibn Abi al-As reached an agreement with the herbad of Fasa and Darabgerd. According to Ibn al-Balkhi, the herbad offered a payment of two million dirhams in return for amān (protection from harm), and promised that the locals would continue to pay the jizya tax to the Muslims. Another force was sent to Fars under Abdallah ibn Amir in 650 (29 AH).
In the 10th century, Estakhri described Fasa as the largest town in the kūra (province) of Darabgerd – it was almost as large as Shiraz, which was then the capital of Fars. Its buildings, he wrote, were "more spacious" than the ones in Shiraz, and they were made of cypress wood and mud. It had wide streets, a citadel, a moat, and a rabaz or market quarter outside the walls. Fasa was an affluent town, and its residents lived in relative comfort because their commercial activity brought in plenty of wealth. Fasa's agricultural districts produced both cold and warm weather fruits. The main religion was Sunni Islam, of the same madhhab as Baghdad.
Estakhri listed some of the items sold at Fasa's markets: silks, including so-called washy silks that were multicolored and sometimes brocaded; "good delicate costumes"; besāṭs (i.e. tablecloths and rugs); fine setrs (i.e. curtains and bedsheets); fūṭas (i.e. napkins and towels); fine carpets; tablecloths; khargāhs (i.e. fine tents); mandīls (i.e. handkerchiefs and turban-like headgear); and safflower. Moqaddasi wrote in 985 that Fasa was home to "the most righteous, pleasant, and liberal people of Fars" and noted that its marketplace was all built out of wood. He described its congregational mosque as being larger than the one in Shiraz; it was built from brick and featured two courtyards connected by a roofed passage like the one in Baghdad. The anonymous author of the Hudud al-'Alam in 982 also described Fasa as a large and prosperous town that was a center of commerce.
Fasa was devastated in 989/90 (379 AH) during a bloody Buyid civil war between Turkish mercenaries formerly employed by Sharaf al-Dawla, who had recently died, and Daylamite troops loyal to Samsam al-Dawla. Fasa had been a base of the Daylamites under Samsam al-Dawla, and the Turks, commanded by Sharaf al-Dawla's son Abu Ali, sacked Fasa and killed all the Daylamites stationed there before returning west.
Later, in 1050 (442 AH), the future Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan led a clandestine raid on Fasa, which was still under Buyid control. His forces snuck up on Fasa through the desert, killed many of the inhabitants, looted three million dinars worth of valuables, and took 3,000 captives before returning to Merv in Khorasan.
Fasa is rarely mentioned in later documents, probably because it had declined significantly by then. In the first decade of the 1100s, Ibn al-Balkhi wrote, "although Fasa is as large as Isfahan, it is in complete disarray, and the largest part thereof in ruin. Shabankara [tribesmen] had destroyed it; the atabeg Čāvlī had it rebuilt." The perception that Fasa had previously been a great city but had now fallen into decay is supported by the fact that the latest pottery fragments found at Tall-e Zahhak date from the 12th and 13th centuries.
In 1762/3 (1176 AH), Karim Khan Zand sent forces to subdue the Bakhtiari tribe in the mountains near Isfahan. Two branches, the Haft Lang and Chahar Lang, were forced to migrate; the Haft Lang were resettled near Qom and the Chahar Lang were resettled near Fasa. "As a gesture of goodwill", Karim Khan had agricultural lands provided for the Bakhtiaris. This event "might have had serious socio-economic and cultural consequences for Fasa". Later, Zayn al-Abedin Shirvani wrote that Fasa was "a pleasant townlet... Most of its inhabitants are Tajik... all of them are Shi'ite and not devoid of mardomī (civility)...Now it includes nearly two thousand houses, and its countryside nearly thirty hamlets and cultivated fields."
Urban Foundations of Fasa (Grand Mosque, Bazaar, Bath, etc.) was established during the Safavid period and expanded during the Afsharids. Epidemics, famines, political games, insecurity and looting were among the most important factors in the destruction and decline of Fasa's prosperity during the Qajar period.
Demographics
= Language, ethnicity, and religion
=
The people of Fasa speak Persian language. There is also a significant Khamseh Arab minority in Fasa. Almost all of the people are Shia Muslims.
According to a 1939 publication of the anthropologist Henry Field, 13,000 Circassians lived in Fasa.
= Population
=
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 90,251 in 22,097 households. The following census in 2011 counted 104,809 people in 28,862 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 110,825 people in 33,379 households.
Climate
Fasa has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh). Its average annual precipitation is about 290 millimetres (11 in).
Economy
Fasa is thriving in terms of agriculture, and is known as the city of wheat. Due to the favorable climate, palms, walnut trees, and citrus such as oranges, tangerines, pomegranates, pistachios, almonds, and walnuts are common in this city. Cotton cultivation has also flourished in Fasa.
Pastoralism is the second base of Fasa's economy. A variety of livestock and dairy products, wool, leather, meat, are the products of the city.
There is also an under construction petrochemical project in the city. The construction stated in 2012 and after the complete operation, It will produce Low density polyethylenes.
= Souvenirs
=
The "Fasaei bread" (Persian: نان فسایی) is the most significant and the main souvenir of Fasa city. Kilim, Gabbeh, Jajim, Lemon, Orange, Tangerine, Pomegranate, Walnut, Pistachio and handicrafts are other souvenirs of this city.
Education
= Colleges and universities
=
Fasa University
Fasa University of Medical Sciences
Fasa Payam Noor University
Islamic Azad University of Fasa Archived 2005-11-22 at the Wayback Machine
Technical and Agricultural college of Fasa
Healthcare
Fasa has two hospitals in operation and one hospital under construction.
Valie Asr Hospital
Dr. Shariati Hospital
Emam Hossein Hospital (under construction)
= Clinics
=
Valie Asr Clinic
Hamzeh Clinic
Yasaei Clinic
Transport
= Roads
=
Shiraz-Fasa highway, The highway which connects Fasa to Shiraz is in operation. Fasa-Darab and Fasa-Estahban-Neyriz highway projects are also under construction.
= Railway
=
Currently, the Shiraz-Golgohar railway is passing through Fasa with the aim of connecting Shiraz to the Golgohar mines and Kerman province. The length of this route is 346 kilometres (215 mi), which is under construction in 4 phases and connects Shiraz to Golgohar through Sarvestan, Fasa, Estahban and Neyriz.
= Airport
=
Fasa Airport is an airport near Fasa. The airport is currently inactive, but studies of the airport's development plan, improving and increasing the length of the runway with the aim of resuming commercial flights are being done. The airport has a 1,982 metres (6,503 ft) runway.
Attractions and monuments
Tale Zahak
Tale Nalaki
Imamzadeh Hasan
Imamzadeh Qasem
Imamzadeh Ismael
Mianjangal Jungle
Kharmankooh mountain
Sassanid fire temple
The Naghare-khane building
See also
Media related to Fasa at Wikimedia Commons
Fasa travel guide from Wikivoyage
Iran portal
Notes
References
External links
municipality of Fasa Archived 2020-04-06 at the Wayback Machine
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