Question about Thomas Roxborugh, From the Dragonheart Trilogy Options

[HMHVV Hunter]

I can't find my Dragonheart Trilogy novels at the moment, and I've been trying to remember a fact from them. Maybe someone here can help?

[ Spoiler ]

If I remember correctly, didn't Alice reveal that Roxy was responsible for the Crash of 2029? Was that his personal pet project or was Universal Omnitech behind it as well?

[Ancient History]

Roxy, during the course of the novel, intimated that he, Damien Knight, and possibly Dunkelzahn were all responsible for the Crash of '29. Roxy is, of course, an unreliable source and novels aren't counted as canon.

[HMHVV Hunter]

Roxy, during the course of the novel, intimated that he, Damien Knight, and possibly Dunkelzahn were all responsible for the Crash of '29. Roxy is, of course, an unreliable source and novels aren't counted as canon.

They're not? ?o_o?

[Nath]

[ Spoiler ]

According to the novels ( (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ), Thomas Roxborough was the owner of Acquisition Technologies, where Lucien Cross and David Gavilan were working, at the Investigative Research department (ie. they were corporate spies). Roxborough asked Gavilan to develop a virus that would destroy the computer system of Gossamer Threads, a competitor of Roxborough business, controlled by no other than Dunkelzahn.
The Gavilan virus went out of control, and got out of the Gossamer Threads system to affect the whole Internet. Later on, Dunkelzahn bought Acquisition Technologies, and discovered that Gavilan wrote the virus. The dragon then suggest him to return to the Air Force and join the US government efforts to fight the virus.

Roxy, during the course of the novel, intimated that he, Damien Knight, and possibly Dunkelzahn were all responsible for the Crash of '29. Roxy is, of course, an unreliable source and novels aren't counted as canon.

They're not? ?o_o?

I don't know what is Peter Taylor's policy about them. Previously, you could describe the novels as "canon unless proven otherwise." That is, if any of the freelancer, with at least the implicit agreement of the line developper, had the opportunity to contradict a novel, the novel would be ignored. It did not even require that it refered to a line said by a character with reasons to lie or whatever.
Or, from another point of view, inspiration drawn from the novels by freelancers and gamemasters had a slightly higher status than pure invention.

[HMHVV Hunter]

Well, I remember in Target: Matrix that Alice said that Roxborough had been "confronted with his crimes," and in another novel that he was guilty of "crimes against the world" or something like that.

[Ancient History]

Roxy owned part of Aztechnology. Whether or not he did have a hand in the Crash of '29, he's still probably guilty of crimes against the world.

[Stahlseele]

ah yes, good old scatterbrained thommy roxy . . he allmost succeeded in planting his own persona into a magically active body of someone else . .

[Nath]

Roxy owned part of Aztechnology. Whether or not he did have a hand in the Crash of '29, he's still probably guilty of crimes against the world.

As were Dunkelzahn and Oliver McLure. The sole fact of owning shares in a corporation doesn't make you in any way responsible for acts commited by the corporation's employees. As a member of the board, he's legally responsible foremost for protecting the shareholders' interests. Using the corporation assets in criminal activities undoubtly is endangering shareholders' interests, as is the opening of a door for monstruosities from another plane. But there are not the slightiest indication that Roxborough knew about Oscuro's plans. Moreover, it is stated that Roxborough did not trust the Aztechnology assets he could have access to, and used those of Universal Omnitech instead (IMO, there ought to be links between UO and Tamanous, but no sourcebook or novel say so).

On the other hand, looking at Blood in the Boardroom and Corporate Download, it's only after Damien Knight took the CEO position that Ares Arms and Knight Errant become the prime cashcows of Ares Macrotechnology, and it involved deliberate efforts to prevent conflicts in Africa from ending. I think the exact term used by the shouldn't be "crimes against the world" but "crimes against peace" (wooo, Goodwin Point !).

[HMHVV Hunter]

So then the bit about Roxy and Knight being involved in the Crash Virus plot isn't necessarily set in stone? After all, there's always the chance that Roxborough was lying and that he was solely responsible for the Crash Virus.

Then again, there's little if any conclusive proof that David Gavilan is Damien Knight (though it's strongly suspected), so even if that got out, there's probably no way to tie it to Knight.

[Nath]

Then again, there's little if any conclusive proof that David Gavilan is Damien Knight (though it's strongly suspected), so even if that got out, there's probably no way to tie it to Knight.

That part is set in stone by Blood in the Boardroom, p.57. And it is out-of-context, GM information

[HMHVV Hunter]

You mean the part about Gavilan being Knight, right?

Never read Blood in the Boardroom, but if it's GM-only info, I'm fairly certain virtually no one in the SR universe except for the big players would know it (especially since Knight commanded the first decker team and could have erased all the records before anyone had the wherewithal to develop IC).

[Nath]

Yes.

The official version about Gavilan and Knight never changed. The fourth edition rulebook still has "some people say that..." To the ordinary people, it's like saying some important US senator was, twenty or thirty years ago, under another name, a teamleader in, say, Operation Eagle Claw (that's the failed attempt to free the US embassy hostages in Iran). It was a big event, with lots of repercussions, he may be a hero, but he was not a big players at the time. Newsweek would want to get a page or two out about it if they could, but that's about it.

US, gamemasters and players, are just paying more attention because SR history is a lot less detailed than ours, so that an event like the 2029 Crash still stands out in the timeline much more than it should.

[Adarael]

I don't know if the loss of the entire data infrastructure of the world, along with most associated financial data could be said to 'stand out more than it should'.

And Roxborogh's crimes against the world don't necessarily have to be blood-magic related. It's quite possible he's comitted some crimes against the world by NOT handling the Yucatan better - a crime of incompetence, maybe, but one that resulted in one of the largest contiguous toxic zones in the world. Or by being party to the research Aztechnology's done that involved kidnapping and torture in exchange for fresh research subjects. Or any number of other things that you could probably pin on most board members of any AAA corp. I wouldn't say that Roxborough stands out more than any other. And probably stands out a lot less than Arthur Vogel or Sherman Huang.