 New California Geography - Again [SPOILERS], I'm more confused than ever... |
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 Oct 9 2005, 08:23 AM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 104 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,453  |
So what exactly did turn Los Angeles into an island, according to the SR4 maps?
So far, the only explanation I came accross is that one of Winternight's fault-line nukes was responsible for this. However, I've finally printed out System Failure and am reading through it carefully, and on page 82 it says that Ares forces actually succeeded in disarming the San Andreas nuke. So if it wasn't Winternight, then who did this? And exactly when did it happen? |
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Oct 9 2005, 09:38 AM
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#2
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
God.
In 2069, IIRC. |
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Oct 9 2005, 10:40 AM
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#3
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
And my quote in SL James's sig tells you how plausible I think that is. :)
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Oct 9 2005, 12:29 PM
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#4
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,665 Joined: 26-April 03 From: Sweden Member No.: 4,516 |
Maybe it's now a bowl-shaped island? (And New Orleans could in theiry become a mountain...if enough water drained from the oceans and the surrounding land somehow deteriorated...) Nothing is impossible (or even implausible!) in Shadowrun!!! Don't like it? Call it Magic! :eek: |
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Oct 9 2005, 03:55 PM
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#5
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Once again, if you look at the map the islands in question are actually the high points around the "bowl". EDIT: The Rolling Hills for example is one point above water. But also it would seem that the map is a gross overstatement/distortion of what happened. Not that any of the description in the book is particularly probable. It certainly is a full kettle of [stinky] fish to sort out for the poor guy that gets saddled with writing about the area in detail in whatever future sourcebook. :wobble: |
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Oct 9 2005, 04:01 PM
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#6
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Well I perfer to think that it's just Fastjack not checking the facts and instead going with whatever sensationalistic media crap he can find. I mean, just look at his little iconicized blurb before his "A HISTORY LESSON FOR THE REALITY IMPAIRED". He goes on about dinosaur bones on display, and how he used to see the real thing and these days it's all AR fakery. However, if he really *had* been to the museum as a kid and remembered anything about the experience he'd know that none of those big displays are actual bones but are really plaster replicas made of bones kept in the secured back rooms. Basically I'm relying on Fastjack not having a clue. :D |
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Oct 9 2005, 04:09 PM
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#7
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
See it's nitpicking crap like that that makes me shake my head. There are some places that actually put real bones out front, even if generally those huge sculpture displays don't (they are sometimes missing some of the real bones anyway). Not only that but often as a kid you aren't nessarily told about that. So yes, that sounds exactly like what a kid would remember unless they gave a serious damn about paleontology. |
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Oct 9 2005, 04:32 PM
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#8
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Oh hush. I'm being facetious; didn't you see the smiley? :)
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Oct 26 2005, 01:12 AM
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#9
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 184 Joined: 29-August 03 Member No.: 5,553 |
It's kinda odd that Santa Barbara survived, but just north of SB, which is all mountainy, is underwater. Maybe the Santa Barbara mob ties ensured that there were flood walls? No - according to canon, SB is a pirate haven. Hmm..
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Oct 26 2005, 03:13 AM
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#10
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
There's the answer. ;) |
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Oct 26 2005, 03:25 AM
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#11
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
LA can flood, and Signal Hill could become an island if the flood plain got filled up enough. But LA is going to get a runoff flood, not a tsunami flood. A tsunami flood would just wash back into the sea again.
For LA to be "covered in water" it has to result from consistently higher rainfalls, not any single cataclysm. Of course, a 10-fold increase in yearly rainfall is quite possible for that area, so it's a plausible outcome. So you can have a Los Angeles under water if that's what you want. It could even be pretty cool. But you can't have it happen the way it was described in the book and the map you'd end up with would be substantially different from the mess at the back. -Frank |
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Oct 26 2005, 04:18 AM
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#12
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,283 Joined: 17-May 05 Member No.: 7,398 |
What's the soil like in LA? Any thixotropic stuff around there?
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Oct 26 2005, 04:29 AM
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#13
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Well, thixotropic soil is to be found anywhere where you have swamps, and Southern California has its fair share of those. A big enough earthquake is going to sink and destroy buildings all around the tarpits, for example. But that isn't going to make anything into an island. The real soil problem that the LA region has is that it has very little in the way of absorbancy. The wetlands are all dried up long ago and the forests no longer exist. The entire region is thus subject to flash flooding. -Frank |
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Oct 26 2005, 06:24 AM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 263 Joined: 18-October 03 From: Cal Free State Member No.: 5,734 |
AAaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, matey. |
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Oct 26 2005, 02:47 PM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 184 Joined: 29-August 03 Member No.: 5,553 |
I'm still mad that I missed Talk Like A Pirate Day. |
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Oct 26 2005, 03:44 PM
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#16
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
You don't need water on the surface for thixotropic subsoils. I believe Mexico City is an example of where sandy, unconsolidated (loose) soil containing a water aquafier is what jiggles during an earthquate. Repeated earthquakes can even help create thixotropic conditions overtime by breaking up the subsoil.
There is a large aquifer under LA (it's why they actually managed to build a large city there) but i don't know if it is sandstone or what. That said, it would take one hell of a lot of shaking for that much soil to to settle enough and slide out to the ocean. It has to go somewhere, no way it is loose deep enough to have enough empty space to settle into itself that far without something magically shielded from mundane detection like an enormous Earthdawn carin. Also, taking a peek at this site you can see that it is a confined aquifer. I'm not sure how common it is for an very low permeable subsoil to liquify, though i guess since some clays are thixotropic it could be (see Anchorage Alaska). Low permeability does not nessasarily mean dry. In fact clay needs at least some moisture to stop water. Brine water will move through clay much, much faster than fresh water because osmosis tends to keep the clay particles from absorbing water. |
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Oct 26 2005, 04:59 PM
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#17
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
No, they managed to build Los Angeles because William Mulholland was an engineering genius who managed to pipe enough water that the metroplex needed (needs) from the east where there is water. This is one of the reasons why in Shadowrun PCC and Ute could significantly affect Los Angeles before PCC took it over - because they could turn the water off to L.A. and southern California (e.g., Imperial Valley). This is also why L.A. had to build so many fusion/ desalinization plants along the coastline in the beach cities.
Then they had to go and "modernize" the damned L.A. river, which is now just a massive (mostly empty) concrete ditch. Remember, before people arrived Los Angeles was a desert when one river could sustain life. Now, it's almost all "foreign" water being fought over by the metroplex municipalities, farmers in the Imperial Valley, and Las Vegas. |
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Oct 26 2005, 05:39 PM
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#18
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
True that, to get it from 6 digits to several million people needed that rerouted river. You'd suck the ground dry (or in LA's case, salty) trying to keep up to that many people....which i understand is exactly what places like Arizona are doing right now. :(
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Oct 26 2005, 06:08 PM
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#19
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Er, here I thought the vast majority of the water came from North Cal, and definately not from the east, as Nevada and Arizona are even more desert-like than LA is. Certainly there's no water coming through that little finger of land that the PCC has extended between LA and Arizona; that's mostly the 29 Palms/Death Valley area, which is desert.
Ah well, it's probably my mistake; I just live here. :P |
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Oct 26 2005, 06:27 PM
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#20
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
California does indeed get most of its water from the Sierras. But LA also gets some water from the Colorado River. In the year 2000, the Colorado Rivr Board of California had this to say:
Now, since then California has been doing a number of things to reduce its dependency on the Colorado River, and so by 2070 it is entirely possible that we won't be using it at all. But the PCC does have some leverage. Not as much leverage as the CFS has over the PCC (they could institute a tax on trips to Vegas and watch the PCC lose 1/4 of its economy), but substantial nonetheless. -Frank |
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Oct 26 2005, 06:52 PM
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#21
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
God I'd hate to see the nitpicking you guys would do over what happened to California in Deadlands...
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Oct 26 2005, 06:55 PM
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#22
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Mostly I'm just pissed off at them because they announced that in canon my personal head had been cut off and put on a stick. -"Tombstone" Frank |
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Oct 26 2005, 06:56 PM
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#23
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
Yeah I could see myself being very pissed off if my head got piked too
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Oct 26 2005, 07:06 PM
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#24
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,219 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lofwyr's stomach. Member No.: 1,320 |
We nitpick on SR canon because we expect a certain amount of beleivability to the setting. We like the setting because, unlike many others, it is the world that we live in, plus the fantasy/sci-fi stuff. It's the fantasy that makes it fun to play, but to use an anaology, the real world is the canvas apon which the authors paint.
Turning LA into an Island is like ripping the canvas. Mess with the fantasy stuff all you want, but the real world parts have to remain beleivable or we lose that feeling of SR as an outgrowth of the world we are familiar with. |
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Oct 26 2005, 07:07 PM
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#25
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
You kidding? I loved what they did to California in Deadlands! That whole bit was one of the reasons I've really wanted to play that game, someday when I can actually get a RL group together.
The difference there is that the book practically outright stated that the Reckoners were out to get California, so crumbling the state into a bunch of cliffs surrounded by ocean worked just fine. SR tries to pass the whole thing off as "normal" though, when clearly the events as described could only be possible of the Horrors came out early and sandblasted the state--first economically, then politically, then millitarily, and finally physically--in which case why are the damn Tirs still there? :D |
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