No, I have no problem with The Great Ghost Dance, and I would argue that the theory for it is entirely possible within the framework of the rules, especially since Street Magic. All-in-all The Great Ghost Dance really isn't that impressive, they were able to make a few volcanoes blow their tops and change some weather patterns.

What I have a problem with is the idea that somehow the NAN Rebels were all super Mages who were able to summon entire swarms of Spirits that were powerful enough that military weaponary was helpless against them, or that they could cloak entire armies with their mojo and thus were able to bitch slap Uncle Sam.

*EDIT*

Also something that I have been forgetting to mention about The Great Ghost Dance, the ritual was so costly in lives that the NAN simply could not continue, thus tying up and draining the relatively pitiful magical might of the NAN Rebels.

I can't remember. I know it was something totally insane about Japan. I closed the book (as I was reading it in a restaurant) and never opened it again.

You know, I have mostly stayed out of this piece of the thread (I originally started), but at this point I need to put my two centinuyen in. I think that the GGD was essentially made as powerful as it was by the sheer NUMBER of participants, with a small handfull of "super" mages guiding the targeting, but thousands of dancers contributing to the "great ritual". That would address most of your objections, I think. And as to the power of some of the people, remember what it said in earlier editions: "Suddenly the old rites and rituals actually started to WORK" - many traditional peoples had faithfully passed down the exact rituals throughout time to their decendants, and that meant once the mana began to rise, the rituals had something to channel. (The flip side was that a lot of "sorcerers" were revealed as complete frauds.)

Make sense?

Right except that doesn't mean crap to anyone west of Nebraska that looses the war. 180 MILLION displaced people, say it with me, say it with feeling. Half the nation having to up and move to support the threats and demands of .009 percent of the ethnicly seperated population. 180 million people of all races, creeds, and colors that now need to give up their land, that couple with the uncharacteristicly high gun to populace ratio of the US means the government likely couldn't have quit the war even if they want to. There is nothing to gain for the US out of the treaty of denver and everythign to loose. That's why it doesn't make sense.

I think you are misunderstanding the point I am trying to make, The Great Ghost Dance was basically a magical nuke that the NAN wasted in a display of power when they made a couple of volcanoes blow their tops and created some freaky weather. The Great Ghost Dance DID NOT summon swarms of spirits that were capable of fighting military grade weapons nor did it cloak the NAN Rebels. For that you need to have "Super Shamans" whose powers are still unmatched by Mages almost a century later.

And remember, the way magic works in the Sixth World, the "rites and rituals" that tribal people have passed down from old are worthless by themselves, they started working because less than one in a hundred people had the ability to channel Mana to fuel their BELIEF in the old rites and rituals.

I think we're overlooking a fact, the countryside awakened. If you got a juggernaut going down main street, maybe relocation to more settled areas makes sense.

Not really because the Awakening was happening world wide, not just in the Western United States, there was no safe place to relocate and the magical critters really wouldn't care what someone's ethically is.

The shadowrun storyline is most emphatically NOT silly. It's fictional. There's a difference. You may like it, or you may not.

A lot of events in human history seem normal, but are actually out of place when viewed with any historical or social understaning. Jews with a state they see as their own, for example.
A lot of countries are a lot less populous than their size may indicate, being almost totally wilderness. Israel has a larger population than Finalnd, for example.

The jews "returned" to a country they considered their homeland after nineteen centuries, long after their enemy had vanished (the roman empire). They repeatedly defeated enemies much, much larger in numbers. Admittedly, they recieved help (weapons and armor from france, I think, but not men). The main reason for victory was the quality of the fighting force. Israel had better tactics and strategies, while the arab armies were very corrupt and unprepared, led by megalomanicas. Sounds familiar ?
I think the native americans of the early sixth world, cornered, armed with terrifying new powers, led by charismatic and bright leaders, can stand up to their huge, corrupt, crumbling enemy after mererly three centuries. What strains believability is the massive relocation, not the victory itself. As I understand it, all the native americans together can barely fill one medium sized metroplex.

Also, this fits perfectly into the cyberpunk theme of large governments breaking down, with megacorps filling the gaps.

About the nuclear bomb thing, the US at the time had nothing comparable to the great ghost dance. They couldn't just randomely nuke places on american soil, hoping that they'll hit the rebels, and they had no large-scale
magic to oppose the dance. Plus, the natives had excellent "public relations". Four volcanoes cataclismically exploding at once ? OH CRAP. yes.
NEVER, NEVER allow game rules to control your game's background, by the way. Game rules should be flexible enough to fit the game world, and not the other way around.

One more thing. Again, comparing the 1940's jews to sixth world native americans. Almost every israeli guy or girl can pick up an M16A2 and start shooting with little hesitation (even me, and I'm a massive geek). Girls get to shoot uzis too, even the ones who spend their service making coffee and getting harrassed by high ranking officers. When almost ALL your population are combatants to some degree (like in the great ghost dance), you have a huge advantage over mostly urban, "normal" folk who were taught non-violence from childhood.

No, you can have silly fiction. That is why being a successful fiction writer is HARD. Among a lot of other things, you need to come up with a story that doesn't make the reader go "This is silly/stupid/crazy/pointless". The NAN doesn't pass that test.

Yes it does. It's not silly. It didn't make me go "whatever". The NAN passed the test.

It's in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder is pointing it's disintegrating eye ray at you RIGHT NOW.

Is that a number you're getting from a book somewhere, or are you just grabbing the non-Native population of the US? I believe the Ute nation was the only one that really shipped pretty much every non-native out of their territory. Otherwise, I think the other NAN (especially open-minded ones like Pueblo or the Salish-Shidhe) were pretty "flexible" with the "Indians" they let live in their territory. As long as someone agreed with their philosophies and accepted their rule you could stay. Also keep in mind that the fluff also talks about a good chunk of all the early metahumans moving into NAN lands because they felt more accepted there.

I don't know. I've met a decent amount of Americans who would just start firing at the Indians if they tried to kick them out. Hell I know an american who started firing warning shots because people were on his property. To say that Americans wouldn't fight to protect "their" land is a pretty big stretch.

Also, there's a huge difference between the rise of Israel and the decline of the US in SR. The reason Palestine was ripe to fall was because the Palestinians had just had a major uprising against the British colonial masters. And had been put down. Hard to fight a war when a good portion of your leadership is gone along with most of your, you know, weapons.

Instead we have the reverse situation in SR. A small portion of the population, that had just had its weapons and leadership taken away, its people imprisoned overthrowing a largely cohesive, functional government. And not a transitional, the British are gone who's in charge, government. A well established 2.5 century old institution.

Put me in the makes no sense camp.

Israel's war of independance was not against the "palestinians" (they weren't calling themselves that back then), but against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, plus the native arab tribes. The Jordan legions were brittish-trained and equipped, and were considered the best army of the middle-east.

Anyway, your other points are valid and need addressing. Since I support the official history (I'm geeky that way, I support official histories) I will try to address them in a way that will make the rise of the NAN seem logical. I agree that very specific social and political conditions had to exist in order for the natives to succeed, in addition to the shadowrun convention of magical traditions surviving from the ancient magical times.

wait, what are horrors? I still haven't been able to figure that out and I know quite a few of the more experienced players keep making mention of that. Though at present I can't find anything in or on the shadowrun wiki about it.

Creatures that aren't very nice. Each horror is unique, with a unique form and level of existance (purely astral, dual, or purely physical). They feed on metahumanity in some fashion (feeds on flesh - gobbles you up, feeds on fear - scares you silly, feeds on eyesight - makes you blind). Each has unique powers, and some may be seriously weird (such as turning things into metallic mazes full of traps. When you get hurt by a trap. a little bit of your life is drained). In the earthdawn setting in which they were introduced, they were the cause of the fall of civilization, during a high-mana period. These are not meant to be simple monsters, but serious opponents with inhuman objectives and way of thinking. Cthulhu comes to mind.

Anyway, there's an earthdawn sourcebook devoted to them called "Horrors". In a similar way to Jackpoint and Shadowland chat, a lot of the book is a scroll written by a sage asked by his king to detail the horrors. He adds personal opinions and transcripts of discussions with horror survivors.

Gotcha! But where can I find 'Horrors' in shadowland? Obviously not 4.0. And I can't find any instance of them except for maybe threats 2.0 and System Failure with that one terrorist group. Either way it peaks my interest. Could you please share your knowledge with me on that in PM?

I would like to know why nuclear weapons would not work? I mean out of all the laws of nature that nuclear fission was one that went "Hey guys, I have decided to take a vacation!"

Also, what was to stop all the displaced people from going back in when the magic stabilized? I mean yeah, the GGD was major mojo, but it was not permanent, and if I remember correctly, didn't a large number of the Dancers die at the end? In the end, the Natams might have pushed them out, but then the anglos would have gone back in and killed them all. Every single natam would have died... it would have made the Holocaust look like a Sunday School Picnic.

Slightly OT, but why did the CSA split off from the UCAS? I mean honestly, why? What bit of frakking stupidity was that? Some of the MOST loyal Americans are from the South.

Also why did the Mexicans all decide to go back to being Aztecs... one of the greatest concentrations of Christianity is in Latin America.

--------------------------------------------

@Mirilion: the background fluff of Shadowrun is VERY stupid! The game system is nice... the fluff is stupid.

Exactly. That's why they couldn't handle the "stupidity" of DeeCee handing over the country to a bunch a' injuns, and left in a huff.
Personally, I get the feeling that the CAS storyline is much less sensical and coherent than the NAN one.
Discuss!

I agree. But this is entirely due to California being my home state.

They way I see it, fight for who? The government of the USA at the time was hopelessly corrupt, in debt, oppressive (they were rounding people up into camps) must have appeared to handle a series of disasters tremendously badly (VITAS, the Crash). And they were auctioning off land to foreign corporations! If you want the revolution to be realistic and fit it with cannon, then just decide that the general mass of people were about ready for a revolution anyway. Americans used to be good at that, I'm sure that it's still in the blood somewhere. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) So to the people, a leadership comes along that has the power and the motivation to fight back against the government and a philosophy of independence, renewal of the land and better living. Why shouldn't that strike a chord with people? So long as the leaders of the movement were willing to extend their culture and acceptance to non-Native Americans (and it doesn't make sense not to), then the whole thing can work.



This is where we differ. The population is largely disaffected and disenfranchised by a corrupt and corporate controlled government. Also, the point is that the US government couldn#t strike back at Danial's people. Magic was a game changer and for a little, critically important while, Danial's shamans got there first and were the only ones able to play it. Think what a Force 5 Fire Elemental can do to undefended military forces. Here come thirty helicopter gunships (that's a big force of helicopters, incidentally). First combat turn, spirit manifests inside one and burns the crew to death. Third combat turn, the spirit is doing it in another helicopter. Ninety combat turns later (four and a half-minutes), you have thirty helicopters scattered and smashed across the countryside. You can't outfly a spirit that travels through the Astral. The President is sitting with his Chiefs of Staff trying to co-ordinate their defense. But there is constantly some grotesque little Indian spirit sitting there listening to everything they say, they shoot it, they curse it, they swipe at it with broom handles, but it can't be shaken off the President (it's a manifested Watcher spirit). And the Defense Secretary has one too. A shaman, invisible, levitating, drifts into army HQ. The general has no counterspelling. He's assassinated. Or Mind Controlled to give bad / self-destructive orders. Coyote had Great Form spirits before most people even understood how to summon regular ones. He could cause Earth Tremors and Storms. And this isn't even considering how magic could be used in conjunction with regular technology. That same invisible, levitating mage, or else a mob of spirits could steal whatever supplies they wanted from the USA's own military. What could they do with a ready supply of military-grade explosives / weapons and the means to invisibly plant them wherever they chose? And with spirits you have suicide attackers who can commit suicide again, and again, and again and again.

The the USA today can't really fully defend itself against foreign terrorist action with mundane technology. Imagine what the situation would be against a domestic force that had a lot more support and access to magic.

But as I said before, one of the biggest differences is that unlike most wars the USA has launched, this one would be personal to the leaders and the people. When Bush and Blair sent thousands to die in Iraq, they did it knowing that it wasn't them that would be getting shot at. They could just look sad and say how freedom demands sacrifices, knowing full well that the sacrifice wouldn't be themselves or their families and friends. I don't think that the same pious bravery would be shown if it were.

So that's that for the USA's government and military as far as I'm concerned. A population that despises them for the corrupt regime that they were and a charismatic group of freedom fighters that the US government couldn't find or stop.

The migrations I agree would be silly. But I'd be interested to know what the source material actually says. There's nothing in the history section in 4th Edition that talks about mass-migrations, just a change in control. Can somebody give us our reference so we can see what we're actually looking at, before we start arguing about it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

K.

Mirilion have you ever actually been on an Indian Rez? And I don't mean the nice tourist traps next to the major roads, I'm talking about the actual rez itself. I ask because the very idea of comparing ~1980s style Indians to Israel is simply nonsense at best.

If they'd known where to point them, sniper rifles would have worked. The problem is they didn't. Nuclear weapons are only useful for threatening large, immobile foreign powers. The sort that you can say: "withdraw your army from area X or we will kill lots of your people." They're useless against the guy living in down the block that might blow up City Hall but you don't know about him. Also, the big thing about nuclear weapons is that you don't want to use them near yourself. Both for the devastation that they cause and for the reason that the populace gets to see what war is like up close. The UK and the USA have fought their recent wars by hiding the body bags flown back home. Harder to do when you can see the mass sick and dying by driving to the nearby town.

And I say bah, sure the military might not have been able to find a huge ritual circle and a gathering of dancers out in the open and send a missile to take care of it but they sure as hell could shoot the NAN Rebels, at less than 1% of Shamans with an average ( Magic 3 ) you simply could not summon enough spirits to win the war.

I just demonstrated a Force 5 Fire spirit bringing down thirty helicopter gunships in under five minutes. I just demonstrated the ability to obtain whatever military supplies are needed. I just demonstrated the ability to plant high-grade bombs anywhere in the US. I just demonstrated the ability to eavesdrop on every discussion the US leaders have. I just demonstrated the ability to take down any military unit anytime, anywhere. If Danial Howling Coyote was clever (and even if he isn't, he was assisted by Ehran wasn't he? Who is three times more devious than the most evil player any GM has ever faced across his screen), then the NAN probably had ritual samples of various notable figures in advance. If they really want to demonstrate their complete dominance, they announce loudly that they will kill the US Secretary of Defense (or whoever) by 3:00pm tomorrow. No matter where the US government hides him or how they try to protect him, he will be dead. That sends a powerful message to people: If the US government can't protect its own with all that warning and with everything in their power, then they are outmatched.

Give me the resources, expertise and knowledge that Danial Howling Coyote had, in the plague-struck, economically messed up USA of SR Cannon, and I could pull off stunts that would scare the government witless. With someone like Ehran as your PR advisor (Ehran is one of the most astute, political masterminds in the setting), then I think the NAN can be pulled off as believable.

The people saying that sudden mass-migrations are unrealistic have a point. not only because of the lack of will on the part of the people to comply, but the logistical unfeasibility of it even if they had been willing. But I don't bother with that in my game. I say that the NAN uprising actually had a fair amount of popular support. Which is why I asked if anyone had the cannon references to mass-migrations. They're not in any 4th Ed. material and I don't have all the material from previous editions. But I don't remember explicit statements of millions of non-Native Americans migrating (to where?). Maybe in first edition, in which case I agree with some subtle ret-conning. But I'd still like to see what the material actually says.

OK, what about FAE and MOABs? Small Nuke level firepower, no radiation. Also, if push came to shove, then nuke 'em and let God sort it out. Also with one of the US's nukes, the fallout isn't too bad. If the natams were making volcanoes go off, then obviously they're using a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" therefore a nuke is a viable option.

Also in your previous post... I call bovine excrement. Sure the government might have been corrupt, but we do vote and if the people were that pissed off... goodbye re-election. I mean look at the US right now. Obama, who many think can walk on water, heal the sick, and save the world now has a greater disapproval rating than a positive approval rating. In the age of the Internet, information is getting out to the people faster than the politicians would like. They don't have a chance to spin it their way.