Some fluffy trideo shows you can use., Knight Star: Law & dis-Order, and CSI Options

[ShadowDragon8685]

Here's an idea I had for a nice, fun parody of real-life shows, and as a vicious, in-world jab at the security companies. It could even lead to Shadowrunny goodness for your players.

In spring of '69, Horizon corp hired on a pair of brilliant retro-culture trid directors with an idea to sell. The results aired in 2070, to astounding acclaim and applause.

Those shows are:

Knight Star: Law & dis-Order.

Knight Star: Law and dis-Order, otherwise known simply as Law and dis-Order, follows the travails of an award-winning cast of veteran Trideo actors who portray detectives, lieutenants, and highers-up in the fictitious security company Knight Star, which is a very obvious dig at both Knight-Errant and Lone Star.

The series is also a parody of the ancient 2d drama Law & Order, and in fact generally follows the same format as Law & Order; we open with the crime scene's discovery or the crime in progress, and cut away to the principal investigating cast standing over the body(s). The hour-long trid broadcast takes the viewer through the investigation and hands it off to the principal prosecuting cast, who consist of actual UCAS prosecuting staff. The broadcast then takes us through the preperation and run-up to the trial, including the wheeling, dealing, further investigation, interferance by outside forces, and so forth, until we get to the trial, where the defense and the prosecution makes their case. Sometimes the jury's verdict is heard, sometimes it's not.

Where Knight Star: Law & dis-Order breaks with it's philosophical fathers is in everything except format. The Knight Star investigation officers, Jerry Mander and Lenny Til, both caucasian human males, are corrupt beyond belief. They "interrogate" witnesses with the cameras off, shoot at the slightest provocation and don't stop until they go through at least two clips of ammo each. They manufacture evidence, hide evidence that would be damaging to a conviction, and generally treat the public rudely, and the SINless brutally.

Joining them are a supporting cast of characters, including a hermetic mage with an addiction to Deepweed, a perpetually spaced-out decker, their skirt-chasing stationhouse chief who's constantly hounding them about the need to bring in more females to "keep the pollitical quotas level", and their alcoholic lieutenant.


The prosecuting teams - there are two in this series - are a divide. One is an honest, upright team of actual prosecuting attourneys who have to fight and wrestle with the tampering and corruption of Lenny and Jerry, who very rarely manage to get things straightened out. They are often forced to take incredulous plea bargains (A hired hitman gunned down five people in the broad of day. He pleads down to one count of Man Two) just to get any conviction at all. By the time they've swept out the lies and the deciet, many Judges throw their cases out of court on lack of evidence.

The other team is quite firmly in with Jerry and Lenny, and will do whatever it takes to get a conviction - even if they have an innocent man. They threaten witnesses and tamper with juries, they intimidate obviously innocent people into pleading guilty to Murder Two.

The overall effect is something of an "intentionally unintentional comedy-drama" - the series' shooting and presentation is hard drama, in the style of Law & Order, but because of many of the deliberately outrageous situations and comical abuses, the show is often laughed at (Especially thanks to the wise-cracking leads.) The producers are aware of this, and work the theme into the show.


The second show is called CSI: Crime Scene Instigation. Being produced by the same people who are responsible for Law & dis-Order, there is a great deal of interplay between the shows, with the actors from one frequently appearing in the other in their normal roles. The show focuses on the Knight Star Crime Scene Investigation unit. While they do occasionally do some actual forensics, most of their work is based around fabricating evidence and even conspiring to set in motion events that will lead to a homocide for the detectives to investigate. The show follows the format of the 2d drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, with an edgy cast of trendy forensics officers who drive ridiculously luxurious and expensive SUVs - every time the vehicles are involved, the manufacturer's logo and model name is shown when they open the doors. The show is done in the format of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, featuring ridiculously graphic investigations and in-depth detail of exactly how they are going to fabricate their evidence. The cast is likewise trendy, consisting of young and good-looking humans and elves, and one recurring silent character - the ork janitor. CSI: Crime-Scene Instigation is not as well-loved as Knight Star: Law & dis-Order, but it nevertheless remains hugely popular.









Naturally, there are those who despise Knight Star: Law & dis-Order, and CSI: Crime Scene Instigation. Namely, Knight-Errant and Lone Star Security Services. Both corporations rail at the show, but their objections are swamped in the sea of laughter and loving that both broadcasts recieve, with their scathingly-hot, thinly-veiled ridicule of security companies and the breakdown of justice. Naturally, controvery breeds interest, and the shows feed on their condemnation.

[Sir_Psycho]

heh +1 karma.

Would there be a Law and dis-Order: Criminal Intent, involving a knight start mind-probing mage-detective?

[ShadowDragon8685]

It'll probably be Law & dis-Order: Criminal Incompitance. But we'll have to wait for the 2072 season to see that. :P

[Thain]

Oooh, I like... allow me to add: M*A*S*H*E*R

Which we learn stands for "Metro Area Surgical Hospital Emergency Response" in which we follow a mad-cap group of Doc-Cart, Inc. paramedics in a high threat response squadron. Equal parts gritty medical drama, slapstick comedy, and a not-to subtle dig at DocWagon and Crash Cart.

[cetiah]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[hyzmarca]

I liked it when it starred Alan Alda.


How about, Knight Rider: An undercover police officer named Michael Long is shot in the face but lives due to a metal plate from an old injury. The bullet bounces off of the plate and completely destroys his face on the way out. He is declared dead but, in reality, Ares rebuilds his face so that he looks exactly like Damien Knight's criminal son. Given a dikoted Pontiac Trans Am that is equipped with a SOTA AI named KITT, he travels across the continent battleing criminals who are above the law.

[Sir_Psycho]

[cetiah]

[Thane36425]

Or, a very talented rigger and helicopter pilot named Hawk who flies a a heavily armored and Dikoted chopper that looks just like an unmodified civilian machine. It carries cannon and missiles, both a which have infinite ammo, which is good because he frequently misses (for dramatic effect) but always makes the shot when it counts. Even though he spends a lot of time in the air, no one is ever able to track him back to his base.

[cetiah]

[ShadowDragon8685]

This is great. This is just what we need to flesh out the Sixth World beyond the fighting.

I mean, really. What's a 'runner going to set his trid to record for his post-run Viewing? It may only be one line on his character sheet, but it helps set the tone. It can be used as indirect flavor (You go into the bar, but instead of any sports being on, Knight Star: Law & dis-Order reruns are playing. This is one where Lenny and Jerry beat the shit out of three punks with kitchen pans), direct flavor (Your Fixer gives you a heads-up: An episode of Law & dis-Order is being filmed on-location downtown all day. If you wanted to go get images of it in action, now's the time), or even as impetus for a Shadowrun (Lone-Star Security Services is good and fed up with Knight-Star: Law & dis-Order, so they want you to go and beat the tar out of "Lenny" and "Jerry". Normally this would be all but impossible, however because of their downtown filming schedule, the actors will be chasing crooks onto Renraku property. They have permission from Renraku to be on the Extraterritorial property, but Lone Star, who have ironically been ordered by the city to protect the filming, do not. Ambush them while on Renraku property, beat the actors so their own mothers woulden't recognize them, and vanish.).

[Thane36425]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Thane36425]

One for the kiddies and kids at heart.

A story of a large, immensely strong and nigh indestructible troll adept with several levels of initiation. He's dumb as a post, but stangely charismatic in the blue body suit he never takes off. His companions are mostly technofiles with funny mechincal suits that scarcely work as a well as one or two other adepts and mages who are somewhat competant.

His enemies range from mad scientists, adepts and mages to horrible genetic monstrosities that have escaped corporate labs. None of them are particularly competant either, but are capable of confounding our befuddled Paladin for most of the show.

Preferrably animated as it does not translate well to live action.

[cetiah]

Every generation, there is a Slayer. She alone will fight the vampires, and stem the tide of their growing numbers.

Except then there was this thing with an addicted witch and a weapon focus, and now anyone could be a Slayer. You could be living right next door to one right now...

Every generation, there are Adepts. United with various hacker/witches, geeks, and librarians of the world, they wage an endless fight against the vampires, the ghouls, the free spirits, and most importantly, the vampric-rights activists, and stem the tide of their growing numbers.

Plus, it could have a spin-off show after a sordid love affair with a vampire detective who was cursed by aspected eco-shaman ritual magic so that he has Essence now, but loses it if he ever has one true moment of happiness. Promised a cure to his disease by the Powers That Be, he wages a war against evil corporations while attempting to help the helpless of Seattle.

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Jeremiah Legacy]

Ooh. Ooh. I wanna play.

A criminal - preferably a hot looking woman - is "executed", which is a cover for a forced entry into a secret government agency that acts as a counter-terrorist organization. Thier goals are noble, but they have become the very thing they are fighting against. This agency: Section 1.

[Thain]

Here's the story of a lovely lady
Who was chairman of three very successful corps.
All of them run by a MBA daughter, like their mother,
The youngest one a troll.

Here's the store, of a man named Brady,
Who was running three companies with his sons,
They were four men, working all together,
Yet they were all alone.

Till the one day when there was hostile takeover
And they knew there was nothing they could do,
That this group was now one corporate family.
That's the way we all became the Brady Zaibatsu.
The Brady Zaibatsu,

That's the way we all became the Brady Zaibatsu.
The Brady Zaibatsu.

The Brady Zaibatsu chronicles the madcap adventures of Greg Brady, the CEO of a architectural firm and its subsidiaries, each run one run by one of his three sons. And Carol Tanaka, who ran a series of hotels and related business with her daughters.

A result of a hostile take over, by an outside company (run by the occasional guest character, Sam "The Butcher" Franklin a specialist in taking over and cashing in on other companies.)

The show follows a pretty canned plot, one of the older children will come up with some scheme to make their subsidiary an instant success, which will be comically thwarted by the efforts of one of the others. (When in doubt, the youngest daughter, Cindy Brady will do something comically inept. She's one of the worst examples of stereotyped 'big dumb trolls' in modern media.) At the end of the show's 55-minute run time, Greg Brady steps in and straightens everything out... normally with an obvious plug of the show's sponsor that week.

The Brady Zaibatsu was not a highly rated program during its primetime run (it never placed in the top 25 in the five years it aired) and was cancelled in 2054. Despite its less than stellar primetime ratings, harsh critical reviews, and having won no awards, the show has become a something of a pop-cultural phenomenon, having become bizarrely popular as a syndicated download in the last two decades.

[Thain]

The AIs were created by Man.
They were created to make life easier for all of us.
And then the day came when the AIs decided to kill their masters.
After a long and bloody struggle, we thought we had won.
We were wrong.
There has been no escape from the AIs for over forty years.
Except for the [dun-dun-dun] Battlehackers Galactica!
Leading humanity from Galactica City,
Protecting the rag-tag fugitive settlements,
The brave Battlehackers are here!
And they have a plan!


Battlehacker Galactica is a scince fiction simsense franchise, set in a "dark, bleak future" tells the story of a brave team of NeoNET security experts, and their administrative managers, who work together to thwart the dangerous rogue AI's created, inadvertently, by the fictional Japanacorp "Shiron"... a very thinly veiled slam on NeoNET's Renraku rivals.

In the set up to the series, the rogue AI's have destroyed much of the eastern seaboard, and totally overrun the Matrix; Except for a sealed R&D complex known as Galactica City.

Every week, the brave combat hackers of the Galactica City Research Force encounter some type of new AI, fight it for a while and lose. They log off, and consult with their boss, Chief Programmer William Adam. His words of canned wisdom - delivered in a stirring Shakespearean monolog - inspire the Battlehackers.

Battlehacker, 1st class Lee "Apollo" Adam then leads his team back into the Matrix, where they then trounce it in over-the-top combat. The handsome "Apollo" is something of a sex symbol, and NeoNET's sponorship arraignment with Actioneer make certain he wears their latest threads when ever possible.

Battlehacker, 2nd class Carry "Starbucks" Trace, a bombastic and sarcastic firebrand is as big a sex symbol as "Apollo." As both the character and the actress hail from Seattle, she is immensely popular in the metroplex.

The two remaining characters are fairly interchangeable. In fact, because the franchise is a simsense series, they both fill the same role in the script. If the viewer is female (or makes a few simple -but warranty voiding - mods to the chip) then they play the part of Battlehacker, 2nd class Sherri "Boom-Boom" Valley. A busty and beautiful female hacker. A male viewer (or again, using a modded chip) lets you participate in the story as Battlehacker, 1st class Carl "Helios" Agatha.

Depending on the viewers settings, lines spoken by "Boom-Boom" from one point of view and spoken by "Helios" in the other. The script, events, and dialog of the rest of the episode is the same.

Needless to say, the entire show plays like a combination first-person shooter / NeoNET infomercial / soft-core porn. The viewer can basically sleep with any member of the cast, the AI's all tend to look like leggy blondes, and the cybercombat scenes are about as realistic a depiction of the real-world matix, as a game like Miracle Shooter is a depiction of actual combat.

Strangely, the show is immensly popular with wage-slave computer programmers, and even a number of actual hackers. The computers may be unrealistic, but its hard to argue with an (evil) leggy blonde.

[Snow_Fox]

I think after the Renraku problem, killeer rebele AI's are going to be incredibly unpopular in fiction.

[Snow_Fox]

In 2054 an Ares firewatch team was arrested and unfairly convicted by NYPD Inc of a crime they didn't commit. They were placed in a maximum security prison. They promptly escaped. If you're in trouble and have no one else to turn to, and if you can find them, You can hire them: the A(res)-Team.

or

MCT researcher conducting experiemnts into the metahuman geonome exposes himself to unheard of magical energies. Now, when ever he becomes angry or outraged, he goblinizes into a massive troll. He lives as lonely life trying to find a way to control the troll with in him.

or

Many strange things occured when the awakening came to the world. It was found that many old myths had basis in fact but there are many we still don't understand. Follow the adventures of a pair of investigators specially authorized by the Dunkelstanh Institute to investigate these myths- the D files, because the truth is out there!

[ShadowDragon8685]

[hyzmarca]

[Thain]

Major aside, but since someone played the "Korean War is still technically on" card, I gotta give into my inner-historian and play the trump card...

The Korean War was not an authorized use of force by the U.S. Congress, nor was a formal declaration of war ever passed. President Harry S Truman cited authority under United Nations resolutions, and the war was fought under that authority. A cease fire agreement was signed on July 27, 1953; however no formal treaty has been signed to this date.

Incidentally, the United States also fought an undeclared war in Korea in 1870... I'm not sure what the end result was, I think there was a formal treaty... :shrug: