Walls around Seattle, Secrets of Power trilogy reference Options

[fistandantilus4....]

Just reading through these old page turners, and they keep mentioning walls built up around Seattle. I don't recall any mention of that in any of the Seattle SB's. Is this the only place that shows up or have I been completely missing something?

[Ancient History]

This is not the walls you are looking for.</jedi>

[fistandantilus4....]

wow, that was quick
not helpful ... , but quick

[Ancient History]

Heh...anyways...I dont remember much about walls in the Seattle Sourcebook, New Seattle, or Runner Havens. I know there are some walled communities - Hell, Bellevue - but as for a city wall...I don't recall. Maybe. 's been a long day.

[fistandantilus4....]

That's why I was supposed to see it. Sure the Tir has it's fence, plenty of cities, Chicago (formerly) as another examples. This was the only reference I recall seeing Seattle have a wall around the whole damn thing. Made me think of Final Fantasy VII for some reason.

[RunnerPaul]

I seem to recall seeing other references to a wall on the Seattle NAN border. I'll try to dig them up.

[Fortune]

[fistandantilus4....]

[Fortune]

It just wasn't showing up well, so I figured I'd brighten up the place a little. ;)

As for the Walls references, maybe even in something like 'So It Came To Pass' or the like, where they might mention Seattle being 'walled off from the rest of the NAN', or 'a city surrounded on all walls by enemies, or the like.

Dunno really, but I am pretty sure I have seen some non-fleshed out (I was going to say non-concrete ;) ) references somewhere.

[Frag-o Delux]

I seem to remember a reference about downtown Seattle in the first edition books. But that was so long ago. And my brother has my first edition BBB so I cant look.

I have been scanning all my SR books through an OCR program then editiong them back to look like the original books. Then making them a searchable PDF. None of the books I have done so far have brought up any hits on the words wall, walls, fences, barriers, plascrete, ferrocrete or concrete that further elaborates on a wall built around Seattle the downtown district or the city-state. I havent yet gotten to the rest of the first edition books, but so far it looks as though the wall reference that I remember and the novel reference is an apparition.

EDIT: Forgot to mention what books I looked through. I searched 2nd and 3rd edition BBB, the Seattle books, and Native American Nations Volume One. Im about to run through NeoAnarchist Guide to North America.

EDIT2: As soon as I scan the damn thing. LOL

[Ancient History]

There is a fence depicted in the map of the border station in NAN:1, 1st scenario.

[Frag-o Delux]

[Bull]

There's a lot of little stuff in the early novels (and hell, in the later novels) that didn't always mesh up all that well with the sourcebooks.

I imagine there are walls (and patrolled gates/fences) in certain sections of the borders, espeically to the Tir. It's entirely possible that this was something that was supposed to be more prominent, and that they quickly dropped as being unnecessary or silly.

A lot of "futuristic" movies, escially in the late 80's, tended to show these enormous and heavily populated cities that were walled off from barren and dangerous wilderness. Visually and thematically, it's an interesting dichotomy, but looking back now, it doesn;t feel entirely right for Seattle in Shadowrun.

Bull

[Frag-o Delux]

I agree with the walled of city thing as being a bit silly and glad they dropped it.

But would there be walls on the southern boarder? The Tir wasnt seen as a super enemy, like they were later then portrayed as. Also the SS has large spans of land there. If Seattle (UCAS) feels that worried about invasion I have a feeling it would have been more worried about the Indians, not the elves. And now witht e hostilities in that region the SS has a bunch of troops on that border fearing the Tir might try a northern exspanion. But even at the end of 3rd edition that is a almost empty fear.

I think if anyone built a wall around Seattle it would have been the Salish-sidhe. Sponsored by the Sioux. :) The indians didnt want whitey to pour into their country, especially violent barbarians that would come from the Seattle city-state.

I think there would be big walls and other containment things around the major in and outs of Seattle, but in general the border would be guarded by sensors and Condor II type drones.

[RunnerPaul]

I've scoured the usual suspects in my collection, and the closest thing I can come to this are the numerous comparisons between Seattle and West Berlin during the Cold War. I still can't shake the feeling that there was something other than the novels that referenced a fence or wall along the border, either something about how it kept the squaters in the barrens out of the tribal lands, or something about smuggling runs across the border. However, there's nothing I can find in the early edition core rulebooks, the original Seattle Sourcebook, or the NAN Vol 1. book.

It probably is just something from the novels. I was even thinking that maybe one of the old 16-bit console games may have shown a border wall in it, but I double checked those too, and couldn't find anything of the sort. I'll keep an eye out, but at this point, I'm starting to think it's just not there.

[Frag-o Delux]

[Anythingforenoug...]

The first run I ever went on as a player way back in first edition required that we sneak across the wall around Seattle to pull a data steal against Gaetronics(sp) for Shiwease(sp) [sorry, don't have my books handy here-and I can't remember how either corp.'s names are spelled]. The guy (friend of mine, not some random guy as that phrase might be read) who was running the game was hyper anal about following everything in the book (we were not even allowed to make our own characters-everyone had to pick an archetype and play that straight out of the book-we were not new to the game, he just wanted everything we started with to be directly from the main book [the core book was all that was available at that time, this was before grimoire was published]). So, I am fairly confident that there is some early game reference to the wall around Seattle. It might only be in the first Novels, but I would be very surprised if it were not in at least one of the early books (has anyone checked the section on Seattle in the first edition book to see)? I also seem to remember that the wall was required in the treaty with the NAN when the UCAS got to keep Seattle to prevent mass immigration (as back the, practically everyone who was Anglo that was living in the land surrendered to the NAN moved to Seattle), but that memory is hazy at best and I can't place where I picked that up.

Funny about perception, however (regardless of what is right according to the game cannon)-I have always pictured Seattle as a huge walled city. Probably for everyone who plays this game, there is a slightly (or greatly) different view of how Seattle (or any sixth world city) looks and feels. No great or mysterious point there, I just think shit like that is cool.

AFE :nuyen:

[Dog]

I don't recall seeing a canon reference to a wall. Generally, in our group's campaigns, we imagine that there is some sort of physical barrier marking the border. The nature of that barrier depends on the proximity to a legitimate crossing, the politics and economy of the neighborhood, the population density near it and so on. It could be a partially collapsed chain link fence and the local kids know the holes are, or it could be an armoured wall bristling with sensors.

It's very reasonable to assume that many people living in Seattle think that because there is a serious wall or fence at the major entry points, there must be a wall around the city.

[RunnerPaul]

Still haven't turned up the old-school canon reference, but on a whim, I pulled Runner Havens off the shelf. In the SR4 era, Rigger X describes the border as follows:
"Seattle is mostly fenced in with some notable gaps in certain areas (like Puyallup). The Salish have a sensor net around the Seattle border to catch anyone running the border, as well as regular patrols (both drones and Salish Rangers). On the inside, you’ll catch Metroplex Guard patrols in certain areas (especially Everett and Ft. Lewis), but others are wide open."

[Dog]

I'm not familiar with the area first-hand, but looking at Google Earth, it seems that dense forests, steep inclines and rivers make some significant natural barriers as well.

[fistandantilus4....]

Good to know I'm not the only one getting hung up about this.

RP: I know that it does meniton in several books that the Tir has an actual fence. The Seattle references never specifically say "there is a fence/wall", that I can find at least. The wording from RH sounds more like just wording, talking about sensor nets and the like. Thank you for looking. It's interesting that when re-writing sections about places like London, people dig so much old canon up, but that we're all so familiar with Seattle, no one seems to have thougth to done this. At least as far as Seattle's borders are concerned.

[mfb]

maybe there are fences and even walls in some areas, but not others. for instance, given the prevalence of go-gangs, i bet highways are pretty heavily-fortified at the border--walls, wire, overlapping fields for machinegun nests, etcetera. in the deep deep woods where no one goes, though? no point; clearing the way for a fence or wall would just make such remote areas easier to get to.