Corporate Enclaves, Reviews Si Vous Plait. Options

[Demonseed Elite]

As for the speed of how fast the transition happened or the condition of buildings in the collapsed tunnels, I didn't really cover that in Street Magic. I didn't have the word count, and besides I had no idea what the plans were for Los Angeles in the future. Note that the tunnels aren't under all of L.A., nor did all of them collapse, so the only buildings at risk are those above the sections that collapsed.

[kzt]

Contrary to the opinion of the idiot who came up with the original concept, LA is quite hilly. And rock doesn't gracefully fail under bending, it breaks. So in order to end up under water, the buildings in LA free fall over 100 meters. Everyone dies. All the buildings are reduced to compact piles of rubble.

[Malachi]

Here's the relevant portion in Street Magic

...It appears that an unbelievably massive tunnel
complex just appeared under parts of California
during the earthquakes, especially in the coastal
south. With no sign of the earth and subterranean
utility works that used to occupy the space of the
tunnels, it is believed that the entire underground
honeycomb appeared in a fashion similar to the astral
phenomenon of alchera, but so far the tunnels
have shown no sign of disappearing...

[DWC]

You guys have the basic idea; for more specifics I'd have to have my copy of Street Magic on me. With the type of alchera that the Deep Lacuna is, the previous geography and the new geography exchange places. In this case, a lot of earth, sewer tunnels, etc. were swapped with an underground tunnel system. In some places, this tunnel system was not built to support what is now above it (buildings, highways, and other assorted urban infrastructure) and the tunnels collapsed. In many of these places, water rushed in from the sea, either into collapsed tunnels or even still-intact tunnels. Water wasn't being displaced, rather water was filling new voids, like when lake drilling breaches an underground salt mine.

That's the beauty of it. It doesn't matter whether water was displaced, or it moved in to fill a void created by the sudden removal of a few hundred cubic miles of earth. In either case, a huge amount of energy was imparted on a huge mass of water, and everything that tried to stop the water would be annihiliated. Then, when the water did stop, it would drive itself back to equilibrium, and that backswing would create a massive tidal wave that would probably destroy everything within a few hundred feet of the Pacific Ocean.

Edit: It's not a few hundred cubic miles. It's about 60 million cubic meters. Even if only half of that was replaced by water, that's still 30 billion kilograms of water plowing headlong into the eastern side of the basin.

[hobgoblin]

the big question then becomes how fast said energy was imparted.

a earthquake created tsunami have a timeframe of seconds, no?

[Ryu]

The water does not actually get infused with much energy. A tsunami is a local extremum of potential energy. LA "moving over to make space" is a local minimum. Once the area is filled up, the system is in balance.

[DWC]

The water does not actually get infused with much energy. A tsunami is a local extremum of potential energy. LA "moving over to make space" is a local minimum. Once the area is filled up, the system is in balance.

The system will reach balance, but the process of reaching that balance will kill everything in LA. At first, it won't be a tsunami, because the energy won't be potential. It'll be the kinetic energy of 30 million metric tons of water moving east to occupy the part of LA that is no longer above sea level. Everything that the water comes into contact with will be crushed. As the basin gets shallower at the edges, the water will shoal, converting some of the water's kinetic energy into potential energy. The rest of the kinetic energy will be transmitted into the structures at the edge of the basin, which will also be destroyed, or converted into sound and heat.

Then, when the water has nothing left except potential energy from being driven up during shoaling, it'll fall back to sea level and find its' equilibrium. That fall will create the displacement of water that will start the tsunami that will kill everyone in Guam.

[Tiger Eyes]

You know, I did consider all of that. I spent days pouring over topographic maps of LA, I've been to LA (6 times in the last 2 years), and believe me, a city with three mountain ranges running in it just shouldn't "sink." Logically, scientifically - it'd be a planetary-wide doomsday senario. (Hey, I do have a science degree.) In real life. But then again, in real life, you can't do some chanting and wave around some feathers and make the Cascades errupt, either. SR is full of improbable. Pgs 11 - 13 of Corp Guide do address the Fall, and even talk about the improbable, and present some potential hypothesis to explain it; note that there are numerous hypothesis, from "wrath of God" to "permanent alchera." Admittedly, I wasn't the one who came up with the idea to "sink" LA. (I wasn't even writing for SR at the time it was done). I was the author who was given the task of explaining it, after both SR4 and Street Magic spoke of it. If my explanation fails, I apologize, but I'd like to say that I feel that I found the most balanced answer I could at the time.

In the aft ermath of the two earthquakes in 2069, much of Los
Angeles found itself (impossibly) half-underwater; some areas by
just a fraction of a meter or only during especially high tides, with
other areas falling several stories below the surface.
For the last year, scientists have been trying to decipher
the puzzle of how the land changed elevations so abruptly.
Conventional science dictates that a seismic event catastrophic
enough to change elevations up to 150 meters in places would have
fl attened any standing structures for perhaps hundreds of miles
around and caused planetary-scale devastation. Yet, our omnipresent freeways and towering arcologies still stand—even if they are
now surrounded by water. Th e quakes themselves were severe—9.2
and 9.6 on the Richter scale. Nonetheless, in recent history (“recent�
because we’ve only been measuring earthquakes for the last
200 years; prior to that, all evidence is strictly anecdotal), even
the most devastating quakes only triggered minor geological
shift s. For example, the Alaskan Good Friday quake in 1964, one
of the most powerful quakes ever recorded—a 9.2 on the Richter
scale—caused an on-land elevation drop of 2.4 meters.
Hollywood showed it situated at approximately 100-120 meters above sea-level. Aft er
the quakes, the same area was found to be slightly below sea-level.
The initial conclusion was that sinkholes of unprecedented size
and depth had opened up and swallowed portions of the city.

Some of us believed it went far beyond sinkholes and that magic
was the only answer to this puzzle. Indeed, recent topographic
mapping has revealed that the entire city of LA has sunk, although
in some areas the elevation change was much more mild than in
others. Th is phenomenon has become known as “the Fall.�

[Bull]

And, if "It's MAGIC!" isn't a good enough answer... SR's Earth is an alternate reality. I'm perfectly fine with saying that the topography of LA was slightly different.

But then, I don't sweat the small stuff. In the end, why and how LA sank isn't really important, just the fact that it did is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[DWC]

LA was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got completely reshaped by a massive surge of residual 4th World magic that defies scientific explanation. I'll accept that, and won't hold that against Corporate Enclaves, since the project inherited the the idiocy of sinking LA without killing everyone in the Pacific Rim.

I also kind of like what P2.0 says about what you have to do to get away with breaking the law when Big Brother is always watching. The idea that you can only get away with somethig by making it more profitable for Big Brother to let you get away than to catch you is kind of cool.

[Stahlseele]

And, if "It's MAGIC!" isn't a good enough answer... SR's Earth is an alternate reality. I'm perfectly fine with saying that the topography of LA was slightly different.

But then, I don't sweat the small stuff. In the end, why and how LA sank isn't really important, just the fact that it did is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

After everything we read in this thread, no, even THAT does not seem to be all that important.

[martindv]

This is one of those times that continuity whoring needs to go. A slight retcon in Street Magic or Corporate Enclaves would have gone a long way. AFAIK no one died because a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India or the name of the CAS were retconned into the canon. It removes an act of total stupidity and would probably be about as controversial as Shadows of North America saying Danchekker was full of it/censored in explaining why they were rewriting giant chunks of the NAN. But the fact is that someone seemed to have it out for L.A. a long time ago given that the next thing written about it was PCC taking it over in Year of the Comet following a massive earthquake (oh hahaha. How original). Jesus Christ. "The Big One"-level Quakes have been used FOUR TIMES as city-shaping plot events since the Awakening. That's just lazy. Someone could have picked up a copy of Ecology of Fear and read about how just about every form of natural disaster possible has hit L.A. over the years and/or is historically endemic to the region from hurricanes to floods, wildfires and tornadoes. It'd have been more believable and novel for once if there was a magical chemical fire which destroyed half the L.A.-San Diego MSA after a ship in the San Pedro/Long Beach port exploded (In part because something like that nearly happened IRL).

Of course, the discussion about why it should have produced a Japan-killing tsunami ignores the fact that the effect wasn't limited to the basin. It extends up the coast to Santa Barbara and south to Baja.

This then goes back to the question: Why is a AAA megacorp that made itself indispensable to its host country headquartered in such a cursed location, and what has kept people from leaving in droves considering these things keep getting bigger with shorter interludes? Los Angeles exists because all of the minor disasters that the media loves to blow out of proportion don't actually cause the sprawl to cease functioning. Any one of these quakes would have destroyed at least once the aqueduct system that keeps southern California wet. That was one of the interesting things about CFS is that Ute and PCC could and almost did at times nearly shut off their water for good. At some point when all of the water supply is controlled by Santa Fe--a city which is all too familiar with drought conditions and water shortages and shares the same water source--you have to wonder when they say "Fuck it" and walk away. PCC did pretty well for itself for four decades while landlocked, so the access to an oceanic harbor that's been ruined isn't much of a selling point.

There's so much that could have been done between L.A. and the rest of the PCC that wasn't so instead we got a nice big section on a social network based on Facebook, which has actually wanted to become/buy Twitter since before this book came out and so it's now trying desperately to become a cross between Twitter and Tumblr.

[Fuchs]

Fortunately you can play SR without following most of the canon stuff.

[Stahlseele]

But where's the fun in that?

[Fuchs]

But where's the fun in that?

You pick and choose what you like (from SR and other sources), and make the game as close to your version of perfection as possible. That's a lot more fun for me than struggling with stuff the devs deal out that you hate, or have trouble handling. It just happens that there's not been much lately canon-wise that I thought was fun.

[Backgammon]

Personally, all I retain is the setting that LA is now, not how it got to that point. I think LA has it's own flavour with plenty of run material for GMs to work with. Does the explanation why it sunk suck? I don't really care, honestly.

[kzt]

But then, I don't sweat the small stuff. In the end, why and how LA sank isn't really important, just the fact that it did is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yup. The spectacular idiocy of this entire mess is pretty obvious, who came up with it isn't really that important to me. Though I have to wonder if it's the same clever person who decided that multi-thousand ton sats in Geo could reenter the atmosphere using their station keeping thrusters in a matter of minutes.

[Demonseed Elite]

This is one of those times that continuity whoring needs to go. A slight retcon in Street Magic or Corporate Enclaves would have gone a long way.

You say that like it never came up among the writers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Demonseed Elite]

stupid double post

[Malicant]

If my explanation fails, I apologize, but I'd like to say that I feel that I found the most balanced answer I could at the time.

I enjoyed what you did with LA very much. Who cares what the "ZOMFG my sciences sayz this makes no sense!" faction thinks.

[kzt]

I enjoyed what you did with LA very much. Who cares what the "ZOMFG my sciences sayz this makes no sense!" faction thinks.

Yes, next they will be telling me that my character can't commute by skateboard from San Diego to Seattle in a half hour. You just have to belivez!

[Mr. Bane]

Who cares what the "ZOMFG my sciences sayz this makes no sense!" faction thinks.

Well, if companies can just ignore complaints from one section of their market, what could possibly go wrong.


I'm sure that's a great strategy.

For those that don't know, many accounting firms who bought insurance from Enron didn't like how the numbers looked. They were ignored.

But hey, if it makes you feel better to characterize those of us that way, go right ahead. Since you're on the devs side, you won't get reprimanded for that baiting behavior.

[martindv]

You say that like it never came up among the writers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I said what I said and then cited two blatant retcons in the next sentence. Any inference is your own.

I think LA has it's own flavour with plenty of run material for GMs to work with. Does the explanation why it sunk suck? I don't really care, honestly.

Hm. Good for you.

The fact that what it retains is based so much on the original flawed source is grating enough. That The Fall annihilated cool shit not covered or that could have been rewritten is particularly grating since I'm just a little bit invested in the setting that could have existed if chunks of the southland weren't in the ocean.

[Mr. Bane]

Incidentally, please be aware that there's a difference between our casual messages to posters regarding their behavior and an Administrative Warning. Administrative warnings should always contain the quoted portion of the Dumpshock Terms of Service that we feel a poster has violated and a link to the post that represents the violation. Please notice the use of the word "should" in that statement; we're human, and sometimes we forget. Bull's message to FrankTrollman contained neither of these and, thus, was not intended to be an Administrative Warning.

Good redirection, but it doesn't matter if Bull's post was Administrative Warning or not.

He is a moderator on the moderation team who flat out lied about a Administrative Warning. Twice.

If you think lying about an Administrative Warning is casual...

Dumpshock Forums TOS

By posting to the Dumpshock Forums (DSF), you agree to and consent to follow the following rules. Failure to comply with these rules may result in a temporary or permanent suspension of your account.

Rules

1. Personal attacks, flaming, trolling, and baiting are prohibited. This includes any form of racism, sexism or religious intolerance.

Who cares what the "ZOMFG my sciences sayz this makes no sense!" faction thinks.

Has he received his Private Message warning him of baiting? Or was that just for the people who point out bad behavior in Mods?

[Fuchs]

I said what I said and then cited two blatant retcons in the next sentence. Any inference is your own.


Hm. Good for you.

The fact that what it retains is based so much on the original flawed source is grating enough. That The Fall annihilated cool shit not covered or that could have been rewritten is particularly grating since I'm just a little bit invested in the setting that could have existed if chunks of the southland weren't in the ocean.

Create that setting then. Who cares what fluff the devs write if you can do a better version (better suited to your taste) on your own?