Where'd the V.P. Go?, Chain of command problems? Options

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Quick question-is it explained anywhere exactly what happened to the Vice President after Kyle Haeffner bought it? In SR4 it says that order was restored by General Whats-Her-Face, but wouldn't that be a major constitutional no-no?

[mfb]

the VP is missing. disappeared during the crash.

[fistandantilus4....]

AT which point, IIRC, control should have gone to the speaker of the House, not a general. So it was a coup after all. A coup of a coup. Or something....

[Ice Hammer]

The way I interpreted things from reading both System Failure and Shadowrun 4 is that after the attacks, a President Pro-Tempore is named, who is Gene Simone (presumably the Speaker of the House or the Senate Pro Tempore), and Mr. Simone is the one who gives the orders as acting president until a new election is able to be held in 2068, and at that time, General Colloton is elected President.

[fistandantilus4....]

that makes more sense. I'll have to re-read it.

[SL James]

Quick answer: Mandyville.

Long answer: *sighs*

Apparently the timeline in the Critical Error chapter is wrong (yay...) and it wasn't Daviar, but Simone who put Colloton in charge of the counterinsurgency (which is what her role ostensibly was) because Daviar fell off the face of the earth (which is probably the greatest magic trick in history).

With regards to SR4, I raised holy hell about that myself before I missed a very critical comma. The sentence makes sense when you read the sentence as "tem, General."

As for Simone... Unless someone felt the need to change the order of succession (which isn't entirely out of the question), the President Pro Tempore is third in line of succession after the VP and Speaker of the House. VP disappeared after an attack in Seattle (I can't wait to read about that in Runner Havens) and one would presume the Speaker also died or disappeared. The Secretary of State was in Europe (4th in line), Treasury Secretary (5th) is unknwon, SecDef is dead (6th, but also may have been kidnapped [And I ascribe a great deal of credit to the author(s) even acknowledging this point] because he and the President are both the National Command Authority), AG (7th) unknown, Agriculture (8th) is incapacitated, and so the leadership of the UCAS government in a time of crisis never seen in almost 300 years happens to fall on the longest-serving member of the Senate majority party (which is what the President Pro Tempore named in the RL 25th Amendment and the Presidential Succession Act is. The "president pro tem" is the senator, usually a rookie backbencher, who is picked to sit in the Senate chamber and oversee daily business in the President's [the Vice President] or PPT's place [because, frankly, they have better things to do]. It is a thankless job, and hence why it is heaped onto the most junior, powerless senators). Whether he (?) won the rescheduled election or not (BTW, that was a neat move. King Rudy couldn't even postpone the NYC mayoral election after 9/11) is unclear and from the tone of SR4... Completely unimportant.

For all intents and purposes, imagine if, two years ago, everyone was wiped out a la the end of Debt of Honor except for Strom Thurmond. He would become the President.

I also find it insulting that a legendary decker like Fastjack doesn't smell bullshit all over this in SR4, but that's just me.

[fistandantilus4....]

thanks james, that was pretty in depth. As far as Fastjack goes, I doubt that he would, at the very least, have serious suspiciouns. With his ability to pretty much hack any system, including Z-O, he'd likely have proof as well. more like, I suspect, they didn't think that the core book was the place to dive right in to conspiracy theories. I personally disagree because I think that they make SR what it is, but that's just me.

[Nath]

[jervinator]

[Critias]

[hyzmarca]

[jervinator]

No, it isn't

[ Spoiler ]

Re-read carefully and you'll find that Colloton is talking on the trid while the major is talking to ??? on the radio. My take is that Colloton's trid speech was being used for dramatic effect by the author and despite the timing was actually unrelated to the fate of the president.
My personal guesses are that the person on the other end of the radio was a Colonel or Brigadier General (between a Major and a General) and that Nadja is too smart/savvy for that sort of error. Colloton, maybe not. And how many layers of command are between a full General (O-10) and a Major (O-4)? Who will vouch for all of them?

[Nath]

[ Spoiler ]

It is implied by the Jefferson quote that Andrea Colloton herself is part of the New Revolution, even if she arrests Braddock. Threats 2 explained that the New Revolution had three separate branches, and internal conflicts.

We can assume that the Major and whoever gives him the order are also part of the New Revolution, considering how little hesitation they have to kill the President of the UCAS instead of getting him out as planned. Plan A for the NR (as a whole) was to convince the President, plan B to kill him, sending a rescue team to free him is thus a plan C, and killing him finally, a plan D. If 'Surgeon' had planned to kill Haeffner even just a few minutes ago, he would just have given the order to 'Scalpel' to wait, while Haeffner guards do so. Simply put, 'Surgeon' changed his mind in the seconds between the team got the 'go' and the 'finish'. What fact does he get exactly at that time ? If he's watching TV, he might just be learning that Gene Simone and Angela Colloton are now in charge. And that makes him decide that killing Haeffner is now a better option that getting him back to Washington. In other words, that Simone and/or Colloton are more in tune with the NR goals than Haeffner.

Now, if they had to ask Secretary of Defense Stratta, while Simone, as President Pro-Tem of the Senate, is above in the order of sucession, it implies that Simone is not part of the NR.

[Brahm]

This assumes that NR is the only group/inivdual with asperations of power and capable of treason and murder in pursuit of them. Welcome to SR.

[Calvin Hobbes]

There's no explanation why his rescuers killed him, and it's very possible that some other group was pulling their strings even as New Revolution takes power.

Does anyone know what happened to other American countries?

[hyzmarca]

It is possible but unlikely and just plain bad writing.

[jervinator]

I think we are all entitled to our own interpretation of 'the facts', and I have my own opinions on the matter. Whether they are correct or not, or whether they are more/less right than anybody else's is not worth starting a war, though IRL countries have fought for less.

My take : Many military leaders are traditionalists so General Colloton may be either neutral or sympathetic to NR without actually being a part of NR... or part of a different but similar conspiracy. Or maybe she is just a lucky opportunist.

I mean, this is Shadowrun and we are talking high-level politics. Individually, each are nasty and brutal and convoluted. Together.... :evil:

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Then I imagine it's likely that Daviar went underground to avoid being caught in the NR cross-fire, as she might have been savvy to what was going on.

I would imagine that some of this NR plotting and such might get in the way of the plans of several megacorps, putting said megacorps in the "enemy of my enemy" position...

[SL James]

[Halabis]

[SL James]

Not entirely. The UCAS Constitution is virtually identical to the US Constitution (except the UCAS 13th Amendment endorses (corporate) slavery instead of abolishing it like the US one does). That fact alone renders the question of elections a state question.

I place the blame squarely on ignorant statist freelancers.

[stevebugge]

[Reaver]

[Brahm]

That would seem an odd bunch for the head of the Draco Foundation to throw in with.

[hyzmarca]

The fact that she isn't the President points to it. It would have been far too easy for her to take power by arranging for a group of Shadowrunners flashing her Dark Brown Nipples at Ryan "Quicksilver" Mercury and telling him to off Haeffner. If she was in on it there would have been no need for a coup.

More importantly, if she is in on it then Dunkie is in on it from beyond the grave, yet such a consolodation of power doesn't appear to have been part of his long term goals.