What dreams may come in the days without toy safety regulations., Atomic Energy Labs and Cap Guns Options

[hyzmarca]

The Atomic Energy Lab, the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab and the Porter Atomic Energy Kit are pure awesomeness in the form of children's educational toys. How many other toys contain radioactive materials, including Uranium? I don't know, but the ones that do probably don't advertise it so enthusiastically. These toys date back to the time when everyone knew that nuclear power was the most awesome thing ever, before the anti-proliferation people ruined it for everyone. You can't find these in stores anymore.

In the old days, one could buy a children's chemistry kit that was sufficiently complete to serve as the basis for a methamphetamine manufacturing operation. Today's chemistry sets are woefully incomplete, mostly because the government won't let companies market some of the more interesting chemicals to children. And this really messes up the education of today's kids, as evidenced by this article.

In the old days, one could buy a realistic toy pistol that didn't have any sort of gaudy safety orange paint. Then there was a huge uproar about inner city cops possibly mistaking toy guns for real ones and killing kids. And now everyone suffers. Perhaps, teaching kids to not point things that look like guns at cops might have been a better idea. But, alas, that was never considered.

Unlike government, which fears that which it does not understand, such as science and black kids with guns, corporations thrive on innovation and imagination and risk. The Megacorps need to encourage the next generation, as much as they can, so it makes sense they they, freed from the evil tyranny of the devil-spawn known as the Consumer Products Safety Commission, would reintroduce toys of awesomeness that were formerly banned.

If you want Little Johnny and Little Jenny to make full use of their Cerebral Boosters, you need to give them toys that stimulate and educate them, toys that contain explosive precursors and uranium, among other things. If they want little ork boys to grow into violence-loving fodder for their military and security forces, they need toy guns that don't suck. If your kids' Matrix games don't include some grey IC then how will they ever learn to be good at cybercombat? The answer is that they won't, and they won't grow into the seven-figure salaried corporate deckers that you know that they can be.

Will there be model rockets? Hell yes. Will there be lawn darts? Of course. Will your Red Ryder have sufficient muzzle velocity to kill a devil rat? Most certainly.


The Sixth World is a dystopia of sorts, and dystopias usually hit kids the hardest; after all, they are the least able to defend themselves. Certainly, the ones who live off of half-eaten garbage and the little bit money they get giving nickle blowjobs to tourists aren't exactly in good shape. But the ones who live in middle class suburbia are neck deep in pure awesomeness, while the lower class SINers can still enjoy jingoistic entertainment designed to mold then into good little soldiers.

And the fun a Shadowrunner can have with this stuff should be just as boundless. A child's chemistry kid, a child's model rocket, few household cleaners, and a length of PVC pipe get you an inaccurate yet effective RPG. The uranium from kids atomic energy kits can be melted into armor piercing bullet cores, though you'd need so many kits that it would be more effective just to buy either the bullets or a few blocks of pure uranium on the black market. BBguns, modified to fire at unsafe muzzle velocities and loaded with unusually dense ammo, can do a number on small rodents, both allowing barrens squatters to hunt for some food and providing runners with an innocuous weapon of dubious effectiveness. And, most importantly, yet most stupidly, if you can't find a real gun you can fake it with a cap pistol you grabbed from an impulse-buy rack at the Stuffer Shack.

There are few limits to the products that can be brought to market in a world where the corporations have nothing to fear from the CPSC, and fewer limits on the toys that can be brought to market in such an environment, and even fewer limits on the insane uses that Shadowrunners could possibly find for those toys. The government thinks that terrorists can use children's model rockets to shoot down airplanes, which is why you need a license to buy them these days. Care to give it a try? It'll be fun, I promise.