Settings for SR: U/CAS Louisville FTZ, More settings are better Options

[fourstring_samur...]

woooooot! louisvillians u-fucking-nite!

haha! i love my hometown man, and you did it up right.
though i have to check and see if the slugger is back to being made here.

[tisoz]

[kigmatzomat]

More info on nightlife, tweaked Matrix section, minor edits to SSoT.

Word count: ~13600

[Kalvan]

Based on this fluff, does anybody here want to figure out (and break down) the cost (in build points) of a U of L ThD. (or is it a PhD. Eng with specialization in Practical Thaumaturgy)?

[kigmatzomat]

Well, what what you consider any Ph.D build to be? Keep in mind that the SSoT Ph.D of Applied Thaumaturgy does not require personal magic use any more than an Ph.D of Engineering has to know how to work a backhoe.

Being a SS grad myself, I can come up with some baseline requirements.

I'd say a total of 292 points to turn out a reasonable PhD facsimile with no outside interests. You could probably go as low as 300.


Stats: 200 pts
Int 5
Logic 5
Will 4
Edge 3
other stats:3 - engineers aren't totally incompetent at the social/physical side. Surprisingly, many of us were in pretty good shape in college as the frustration levels required physical outlet. I was 5'11, 180lbs and could bench press ~225. (Sigh. Ten years of desk jobs and long, irregular hours sure ruined that. )

I put the Edge a little low to reflect how a PhD has probably burned some luck, permanently, and to stay under the 200pt cap.

Above average intuition and logic (or immense stubborness) are required as Speed makes just about everyone learn differential equations, which are I'm pretty sure can be used to summon a shoggoth. If you don't have a decent intuitive grasp of complex systems, you'll never get to the PhD level. I'd say any BS/MEng should have int/logic of 4, PhD 5s. Will 4 is probably required to stick out the horrifying doctoral thesis process. You could lower the int/logic by bumping up Will.



Active Skills ( 82 points)
data search 3 - might be low for a doctoral student, may need a 4.
computer 3 - nearly pro computer users, though nothing earth shaking
Software 2 - anyone who writes an applied-anything doctoral thesis needs some code writing ability to provide the statistical crunch.
Thaumaturgy 5 - I'm assuming this is the skill to actually design a spell
Instruction 1 - As a grad student, the PhD was forced to teach classes but they had no training so it's all on-the-fly.
Ettiquette 2 (Academia) - required to not irritate your thesis advisor/committee
Con 2 - Like at some point they don't try to bluff past a missed deadline.
Negotiations 2 - grant applications, requests for funding, bartering for server time, all vital tasks.





Knowledge/Academic/Professional (30 free skill ranks + 10 points)

Economics 1 - SS produces functionaries, not researchers. If it isn't cost effective, it isn't worth building. Everyone has at least a basic economics course.

Profession:Engineering 1 - everyone goes through a general prep that covers industrial, electrical, civil, mechanical fundamentals. I wouldn't trust me as an electrical engineer but I can read circuit diagrams.

Knowledge:Engineering 3 - I imagine the Ph.D. Applied Thaumaturgist has a better general gist of engineering to figure out where to slot magic, but probably requires an additional researcher/engineer to confirm specific details.

Mathematics 3 - I took 24 hours of math courses starting with calculus. Those bastards only gave me 3 credit hours for Differential Equations. I'm pretty certain that magic's interaction with the mundane world will require DiffEq so no free pass.

Physics 3 - For some reason I suspect it will require a serious understanding of physics to figure out how to apply magic to the mundane world without blowing things up or irradiating peope.

Chemistry 2
Biology 2 - magic acts differently on living vs. inanimate objects, hence a decent familiarity with chemistry and biology.

Profession: Writing 3 - The Ph.D. should have written numerous papers and been published three or four times (though probably not the lead author more than once.)

Knowledge: Law (Magic) 3 - Not a lawyer but has to know whether some magical approach is automatically going to get shot down by the lawyers.

History (Awakened World) 3 - fundamental knowledge necessary for thaumaturgist.

Knowledge: Magic Theory 5
Knowledge: Thaumaturgy 5 - I don't have Street Magic so I'm assuming these are the general magic theory and spell design skills.

[kigmatzomat]

Updated section on borders to discuss entry, Downtown & sub areas were fleshed out to include nightlife and illicit good info.

Word count: 14,600

[kigmatzomat]

Added comments by fourstring_samurai about local habit of referring to all colas as "coke."

[kigmatzomat]

Added section on LEO newspaper, bit more detail on Grawmeyer Computing center, local matrix & Louisville shadows. fixed more typos and grammar,

Word Count: 15,600

[kigmatzomat]

Updated regional description, added Bullitt, Spencer, Oldham, & Fort Knox.

Lots of information on Fort Knox, some on security, new tech.

Article Size 16,600 words

[Kalvan]

Here's one you may need to add:

What ever happened to the Kentucky State Fair? Louisville, as an FTZ won't work. The next two places to put are the University of Kentucky and Kentucky State University campuses, but the former will probably be built up beyond belief, and the latter is mostly up and down.

[kigmatzomat]

Hmmm, good question. Not a lot of places have the facilities infrastructure and land needed. I did some searches for KY fairgrounds. The Boone County fairgrounds (near Cinci) are pretty good sized but may not have the room or city facilities to support the fair.

I'd say at the Horse Park, taking the place of the new Equestrian facilities now being built that wouldn't be in the SR-verse. Right off an interstate with a decent infrastructure in place near a sufficiently large city. Fits the ticket IMO and it would probably make the rest of the state happy since Lexington is the heart of Kentucky, if not the capital.

Not that the KY fairgrounds would suffer. The general agriculture side may wane but I suspect it may see more national-level livestock shows since it provides a way for both CAS and UCAS breeders to compete without dealing with the hassle of crossing a national border. The concerts and other venues will be equally accessible since the masses can drive in just as easily as before and it may draw more exotic events that might not normally be given permission to perform.

Hmmm. Need to to expand the notion that Louisville is becoming the "Vegas of the East."

[kigmatzomat]

Added material from Kalvan about Frankfort and surrounding environs. More about New Albany, and the casinos. More magic material. Did some rearrangement of layout.

18,000 Words

[Swing Kid]

Well done K. Good seeing some details on the 'ville. Did Phoenix Hill survive all of that? Hope not. :D

[kigmatzomat]

Didn't say specifically. The only place I mentioned was the Bambi Bar. The Hill will probably survive just because so many people refuse to go anywhere else. Well, I haven't been since 4th Street Live opened so people could be migrating there.

Neither's my particular cup of tea. Left to my own devices I'd hang out at the Mag Bar or the Back Door where I can chat with friends at a comfortable volume but the wife wants to dance so we go to Exile now that MSL stopped having goth/industrial night.

I've got some new material covering Bullitt County that will add some flavor. Mt. Washington's going to turn into "trog town" while Lebanon Junction is going to decline past redneck and all the way into white trash supremacists who think Alamos20k are too soft.

Oh, and if you have contributions (I've lived here my whole life but have gaps, especially Indiana, Dixie and La Grange), areas you'd like to see more detail, or "shadow comments" you'd like to add, toss them here. For shadow comments give me the section header (EG Downtown:Old louisville") so I know where to put it.

[kigmatzomat]

Many areas were fleshed out: Downtown/U of L, West End, Dixie, South End, Bullitt County, etc. Some rearrangement of sections to improve readability & coherence. Some updates in the running/shadows section.

Word Count: 19,500

[kigmatzomat]

Now up to 3 parts.

Added section on Louisville political structure. Added FTZ Astral Security Division info. More stuff on jobs for shadowrunners.

Size: 20,800 words

[Chibu]

So, I'd like to point out, that I can host it. I'm sure i can put together whatever you might need in terms of presentation if necessary, but if nothing else, I can easily just put it with everything else at http://www.chibu.net/shadowland if you want. My server has a pretty nice connection and won't run out of allocated bandwidth (well, unless you plan to server like 8 trillion copies of the thing every month :P) So yeah. I can host, being that's my current project anyway ^-^

[fourstring_samur...]

please please please host this! that would rock!

[kigmatzomat]

I'd been holding off on placing it anywhere because it was changing so much. But now it's essentially a static document until winter comes and my outdoor projects taper off. Email me at kigmatzomat on hotmail and I'll send you a .doc or .pdf of the article, whichever you prefer.

I've just bought a house & hobby farm so my spare time to spend working on this or just being on the net has dropped significantly. I've now got ~1 acre of lawn, ~6 acres of horse pasture, ~3 acres of woods, a barn, a half mile of board and wire fence, a pond, and a creek above and beyond the house.

[Kalvan]

Bump!

[eidolon]

Please do not bump posts. Thanks.

[kigmatzomat]

Since someone else bumped this back to the main page, anyone have comments, info, stuff they would like to see, etc?

I'm currently working on getting some decent maps together for a PDF (Yay publicly available GIS data). My internet access is limited to my cell phone or work until the satellite gets installed. (Boo fragging Insight for not running service to our road despite having subdivisions on either side)

[Daddy's Litt...]

How close does Louisville tie into Nashville Tn.?

[kigmatzomat]

About as closely as, say, Birmingham. Meaning not so much but it is close.

The FTZ might be a good place for away-missions, vacations, or bodyguard work on "neutral ground" meets. I did write it up to be the Mid-west version of Vegas (legal prostitution, consumer drug licenses, lots of casinos, etc). It's also a magical hot spot, with quite a few talismongers, artificers, and mystical research going on.

Security is pretty tight but not impenetrable, as long as you aren't trying to smuggle in your own weaponry. From Nashville I'd recommend chartering a private plane into one of the smaller FTZ airports. A decent fake SIN will get you in, depending on the legality of your cyber, if you declare it and if you can conceal it. Given the number of casinos, bodyguards and like, weapons aren't looked at as verboten and both CAS and UCAS weapon permits are accepted.

Alternately, if you can get past the CAS/UCAS border without much effort, you can drive in with even a crappy fake UCAS SIN assuming you make contact with a local and hit one of the under staffed minor entranceways.

[st23am]

just curious if you were planning to add anything about cincinnati? hehe I have some vested interest ( from there)