Printable Version of Topic

Click here to view this topic in its original format

Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Times of Disruption

Posted by: Synner667 Jan 31 2008, 10:24 PM

Hi,

I've been thinking about the SR world, and wondering if it's accurately protrayed.

By which I mean that with the tsunami's, flooding, earthquakes, forest fires, bird flu's, mad cow' disease, HIV, malaria epidemics, etc that we've had over the last few years, and are likely to continue in the future..
..Would the SR world be in the shape it's described ??

Events like the above are damaging enough, but when you add them together, in relatively short periods of time, their effects add.

Add to that, computer systems dying all over the place, destroying data, records, crashing planes, locking vaults, a world recession because of disrupted money, disrupted communications, disrupted travel, disrupted trade..
..And this is before magic adds itself to the mix !!

With no records, would there have been landgrabs or resource grabs ??
Strong gangs just taking over areas of land ??
Would the Tribes have just staked out land, and defended it, against poorly organised and underequipped government agencies ??
Would Corps have survived ??
With damaged records, how would anyone prove debts, and how would they collect if they could ??
Would some Towns or Cities actually be gone for good ??

Any thought, oh Dumpshockers ??

Posted by: Herald of Verjigorm Jan 31 2008, 11:16 PM

QUOTE (Synner667)

With no records, would there have been landgrabs or resource grabs ??

Yes, mostly by corps.

QUOTE

Strong gangs just taking over areas of land ??

Sure, usually not valuable land, because that gets defended by the martial law that was called in.

QUOTE

Would the Tribes have just staked out land, and defended it, against poorly organised and underequipped government agencies ??

That would explain part of the irrationally large NAN land grab.

QUOTE

Would Corps have survived ??

Off site backups. Or, to put it another way, the ones that had some disaster planning would survive much more successfully than the ones that didn't.

QUOTE

With damaged records, how would anyone prove debts, and how would they collect if they could ??

This part actually works in the corp/bank favor. If you have owed money, and recently payed a large transaction "Oh, I'm sorry, that must have been lost in the crash. Since we can't find any evidence of you paying us off, but we think you're a nice person, we'll give you a 4 month grace period, interest free." And similarly corps 'losing' records of goods/services/money they owe to anyone with fewer lawyers than themselves.

QUOTE

Would some Towns or Cities actually be gone for good ??

If everyone moved out or fell into that giant surprise sinkhole, sure. Usually a city death isn't an overnight thing, but if the situation is unlivable, it may be abandoned within weeks (not counting that crazy guy who refuses to move, ever).

Posted by: kzt Feb 1 2008, 12:04 AM

QUOTE (Synner667)

I've been thinking about the SR world, and wondering if it's accurately protrayed.

Umm, not so much.

QUOTE (Synner667)

By which I mean that with the tsunami's, flooding, earthquakes, forest fires, bird flu's, mad cow' disease, HIV, malaria epidemics, etc that we've had over the last few years, and are likely to continue in the future..
..Would the SR world be in the shape it's described ??

This is the way it's always been. There is nothing special about the last few years. Nothing has approached the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu, which killed maybe 100 million people, about 5-8% of the world population (mostly healthy adults) and sickened about 30% of the world population. In places >20% of the population died in two weeks. You'll notice that the world didn't descend into cannibalistic chaos then.

In the 1770s it was much colder in winter than it is now. That's why the continental army could expect to be able to haul extremely heavy cannon over Hudson River's ice from Albany in January, which typically doesn't freeze in winter that solidly or that early in the modern era. We still are not as warm as it was in the 12th century as we are still emerging from the little ice age.

QUOTE (Synner667)

Events like the above are damaging enough, but when you add them together, in relatively short periods of time, their effects add.

Add to that, computer systems dying all over the place, destroying data, records, crashing planes, locking vaults, a world recession because of disrupted money, disrupted communications, disrupted travel, disrupted trade..
..And this is before magic adds itself to the mix !!

With no records, would there have been landgrabs or resource grabs ??

Unlike SR, everyone backs up their date and systems and stores the data off-line. Unlike SR when weird crap happens to internet connected system IT guys don't just go on vacation, they disconnect. Unlike SR, when wacky shit starts happening to air travel and planes crash people shut things down until they figure out why.

If, as SR assumes, everyone who works with computers is a retarded 16 year old ADD 7th grade dropout without any supervision then you can start to consider what might happen if this happened. But the fact supposedly NOBODY EVER backs up anything in SR, despite the 3rd huge worldwide computer meltdown in 50 years, is the best excuse for intelligent thought that the developers can come up is a pretty good evidence that Sr developers are art and literature majors.

It's all just too stupid for me to effectively convey. It's like a game based on the concept that they abolished the fire department, fire codes, fire sprinklers and fire extinguishers, but everyone is supposed to be shocked and amazed at how destructive building fires are.

Posted by: Ravor Feb 1 2008, 06:44 AM

In a realistic setting the Great Ghost Dance would have been a flop, maybe the tribes would be able to leverage their survival with the return of magic, but the NAN wouldn't have been allowed to form, even if they did have the help of a half-horror.

Posted by: Fuchs Feb 1 2008, 07:39 AM

I don't buy into the "lost technology from crash" idea either. (Not going to use crash 2.0, I simply retconned the wireless matrix).

Posted by: Synner667 Feb 1 2008, 08:23 AM

Herald :-
I'm not sure that during a time of national emergency, with no communication, millions starving and rioting, anyone would be claiming land - apart from the people actually there [the apartment block is empty of people = now it belong to me until someone says different].

Martial Law is a great idea [and a great comic, btw], but not enforceable in the large areas of land where there is no government presence, and by the time it gets there, it's too late.

With the computer systems down, I think most banks would be gone in the short-to-medium term - even with backups.

If SanFran got hit hit by an earthquake, would it really get rebuilt within a reasonable amount of time, with all the other things going on ?? Would it be left, with its corpses and rubble, for people to live elsewhere -after all, there's now plenty of space elsewhere.

kzt :-
You're right, in a world able to recover from singular events, those things were recovered from [we live in that world, so the proof is evident]..
..But when they happen within a short period of time, to many countries ??

What would happen with 10 hurricane Katrina's in 20 years, as well as 10 New Orleans floods within in the same 20 years..
..And then add disrupted communications, disrupted travel, disrupted banking, disrupted care and food supplies, disrupted farming and disrupted industrialisation.

Not so easy to recover from, especially for somewhere as large as the US - I imagine.

I just think there could be more in the backstory than there is - SR was written before most of these things came to pass, and I'm just extrapolating into the near future with what's happening now.

Posted by: kzt Feb 1 2008, 10:03 PM

You'll notice how there have been NO real hurricanes that hit the US for the last two seasons? You may have noticed that despite the giant headlines of "Worst Hurricane Season Ever, Experts predict" the actual hurricane seasons have been significantly less than average. It's kind of sucked if you lived in Cozumel in 2005 when two monster hurricanes hit it, but Mexico has rebuilt it.

New Orleans is the most corrupt and least functional city in the most corrupt state in the US, and it's been a disaster waiting to happen for decades. There isn't any other place in the US that has that combination of traits.

Posted by: Mercer Feb 1 2008, 11:56 PM

QUOTE (Synner667)

Although this is mentioned in the Carib League during the VITAS plague. Many of the island nations were nearly wiped out and corporations that provided aid ended up owning a lot of the islands in the aftermath. The most concrete example I can think of off the top of my head is Saeder-Krupps control of the Dutch Antilles (where I believe Lofwyr has his own private island). I think this was covered in Cyberpirates, although it may have been mentioned elsewhere as well.

QUOTE (Synner667)

What would happen with 10 hurricane Katrina's in 20 years, as well as 10 New Orleans floods within in the same 20 years...

New Orleans, the Venice of the CAS.

I mean, its asking a lot of a game text written in the late 80's to be both prescient and still relevant 20 years later, so it makes sense that topics like this come up every so often. There are always updates to be made. I prefer to keep SR history shadowy and fluid (like squid ink, let's say), particularly where the early timeline crosses over the real world timeline, both because I don't feel like constantly rewriting the SR timeline to include current events or maintaining a completely separate timeline. Its not like either option is all that relevant in play.

Posted by: schwartz Feb 2 2008, 04:49 AM

testing testing

Posted by: Riley37 Feb 2 2008, 08:34 AM

QUOTE (Synner667)

If SanFran got hit hit by an earthquake, would it really get rebuilt within a reasonable amount of time, with all the other things going on ?? Would it be left, with its corpses and rubble, for people to live elsewhere -after all, there's now plenty of space elsewhere.

Well, if anyone wants to ship goods between the Pacific Coast and Asia by boat, they'll have a strong incentive to maintain port facilities in a harbor naturally shielded from ocean storms, whether on the peninsula of SF or elsewhere along the bay. (Port of Oakland has the advantage of not being bottlenecked by land.)

Even after multiple disasters, the scenario of "no one interested in rebuilding" strikes me as unlikely. If nothing else, that pile of rubble and bodies also includes some sweet salvage loot opportunities.

Posted by: Mercer Feb 2 2008, 11:12 AM

There was a Tom Robbins book that mentioned San Francisco, I want to say it was Even Cow Girls Get The Blues, in which a tribe of Native Americans were living in the area when San Francisco was just getting started. Things were relatively peaceful, and then there was a big earthquake that flattened everything. And then the settlers moved back in and started rebuilding. The Native Americans were incredulous; I mean, here was the Earth itself saying Don't build here, but pretty much as soon as it stopped shaking, people went right back to building the city.

I think that's just human nature. And not so much in a good way. Similar to the big tsunami that hit a few years ago, how all the animals fled hours in advance and the people walked down to the beach and watched the ocean recede. It’s not so much that we're ignorant of the way the world works (although we are, in a large part), it’s just that we don't take it seriously. To quote the guy who wrote The Serpent and the Rainbow, I can no longer see Neptune.

Posted by: Herald of Verjigorm Feb 2 2008, 11:48 AM

QUOTE (Synner667)

Others have responded fairly well, but your situation is impossible. If all modern technologies are Matrix linked, and it dies, you still have HAM radio and other archaic means of communication. Once again, it all comes to disaaster planning. If you trust fully in a specific technology, you will suffer fully if it fails, but if you toss .01% of your spending in possessing and maintaining alternate backup systems, you will have a few days of severe inconvenience instead of completely losing everything.

Also, I only expect martial law in the cities, which is also where gangs tend to be, so you get things like Seattle with the AAA zones and the Z zones.

My last point, banks existed before computers. It would be annoying, but not very difficult for the bank to declare greatly reduced services and have all the tellers write what they did on paper rather than using the computer systems that are in need of repair. Syncronize the data later, and send some reclamation squads if something comes out bad for them.