How to create a Ghoul Apocalypse in Seattle, ...Rather Cheap... Options

[The Jopp]

How would you go along in creating a Ghoul Apocalypse and get away with it?

I would need:

Ghouls
Large Meat Grinder / Blender / Liquifier
DMSO
C12 in the slaughterhouse to remove evidence
25 to 50 CD Dalmatians
-Termination System
-Weapon Mount (Iron Bomb)
-Special Machinery (Crop Duster)

Collect Ghouls and put them in a meat grinder and liquefy their remains.
Mix the fluids with DMSO.
Fill crop dusters with fluids.
Leave town and give drones the command to start a pre-programmed route.
They crop dust the most populated areas with disease fluids
They finish by dropping iron bombs on hospitals and crisis centers and fire department
They self destruct into emergency vehicles

[Gyro]

You could contaminate the water supply. By the time the first symptoms start to show there would be a huge out break. Then start making very public announcements that you WILL blow up the med centers once people start showing up. Less work at the beginning; be cheaper to as your not wasteing drones (wouldn't you keep an eye on a drone crop dusting downtown) since they'll need to be ditched.


Edit: for added drone comment and spelling.... Yay for blackberry post

[AngelisStorm]

But hospitals are the central spawn points for the zom...*cough* ghoul plague. Everyone will run there, no one will make their disease checks, everyone has a good time.

I mean sure, not having hospitals spreads the people out more, but where is the fun in that?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

How would you go along in creating a Ghoul Apocalypse and get away with it?

It takes way too long to turn monster like that – use HMHVV-2.

The Ghoul Apokalypse is a long term scenario.

[The Jopp]

True, one could always start the disease at the hospitals. Just infect replacement blood and contaminate areas that people come in contact with often (and are less cleaned than other parts of the hospital).

And yes, less work with water supply but harder to get a good idea in how much area one covers. I'd imagine there area several different water supply areas.

I'd say combine all three.

Week 1 - Stage 1
Water supply

Week 2 - Stage 2
Infect Hospital Blood Supply

Week 3 - Stage 3
Send in the drones...

That would more or less guarantee a complete disaster.

[Artemis]

Actually for my campaign I would use both, Low profile contamination of the water supply and then some more obvious approaches like product tampering, lots of product tampering, and then turn the data and "culprits" over to a corp who had been hit the least. They will publish where the contaminants have came from"excluding their own product of course) and take care of incriminating runners.
This then pushes the populace to stay at home and avoid bottled/packaged goods and rely on tap water and stored supplies until the risk is gone.

Step this up with the crop dusting drones and then send in feral ghoul suicide bombers into, nightclubs, transit stations, low income clinics and high profile runs against the big institutions/clubs.

Once the ghoul tide is rising some demo runs against the docwagon warehouses, communication hubs and main highways/raillinks to slow down escapees and deprive them of medical aid topped off with hits to the main power providers. Some minor attacks against the water distribution - foiled attacks, failed placement of explosives to avoid the contamination being uncovered too quickly.

All of these will combine to create a populace which is even more untrusting and quickly out of touch with each other attempts to flee the city will be hampered because of the highway/rail damage which will require most metas to walk in refugee trains - easy targets for the drones and increasing number of feral ghouls. Hopefully the UCAS containment protocols will work for you at this point as they try and weed out the infected (like in resident evil 2 and I am legend) with the rapid onset of HMHVV I can see slash and burn responses to any group of Metas who might be infected. This leads to more independent action by civilians.


Hmm I might just do that for my next campaign, good thing none of my players are on here. Cheers Jopp

[The Jopp]

This could create a long-term change on Seattle if it would become a Ghoul version of Bug City for a shorter time.

It could also be a step up for intelligent ghouls who could apply for licenses and hunt down their feral brethren within the city.

There would be complete chaos where whole neighbourhoods would be cut of or cornered off against rampaging ghouls.

The Seattle population would drop quite a bit
Most of the ghouls would feed on each other
Shadowrunner clean up teams would have a lot to do

[The Jopp]

This leads to more independent action by civilians.

Ah...mob justice...

[Artemis]

Yeah probably best to take another less central city, just to ensure future compatibility, that one goes down the tubes then a couple of weeks/months/years later the Seattle Project starts. That way the runners get a chance to figure out whats happening and put an end to it before it gets too bad.

[Saint Sithney]

I wonder how quickly infected blood can contaminate regular blood.
You might only need massive stores of blood - just add ghoul juice.

[The Jopp]

That way the runners get a chance to figure out whats happening and put an end to it before it gets too bad.

Nooo...Don't let them stop a perfectly good apocalypse. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Artemis]

Th the very least they should be able to beat the rush and put a bullet in their own head.

[The Jopp]

Why? Just move to the countryside in a well fortified position and wait out the apocalypse with a few tonnes of rations, water purification tablets, bottled water and camping gear. Add a good vehicles with runflat tires and a satellite link on the house.

When cleanup is starting you have LOTS of business to do in Ghoul City…

I see a campaign here…

[AngelisStorm]

By 2070 all the old cold war nuclear survival bunkers will be around 100 years old. I bet that many of the families that have them will have maintained them, at least to a certain extent (they are good for riots, hurricanes, tornadoes, and zombie plagues, and if in the house function as safe rooms in case of home invasion).

... unless they aren't stocked. Then you slowly starve to death, and/or go insane waiting to die. (Oops.)

[The Jopp]

By 2070 all the old cold war nuclear survival bunkers will be around 100 years old.

And the forgotten ones are filled with things we dont want to bump into in the night...

[Gyro]

I like the contaminating the supplies idea. Wouldn't take much either like you said... Once it hits the air waves its over for that brand. Really like the idea of turning the hospitals after they start going. I see great things in the future for this setting. You could have your runners be the cause (unknown to them of course).

[The Jopp]

It could be a series of linked missions from a few johnsons and the runners are never given a clue about the larger picture.

You can even have two different teams of runners.

Mission 1:
Insert Containment tube into Connection 4B at the crossing of 4th and 25th in Bellvue Sewer system – use service hatch 12. Payment 5K / Runner.
Hazard: Seattle Sewer System

Mission 2:
Make a surveillance over certain areas. Basically a stakeout and count the amount of people in each area, can be done by drones/matrix/cameras. Payment: 2K/Runner

Mission 3:
Investigate Security Measures in X amount of hospitals

Mission 4:
Capture a few ghouls for containment (alive)
Payment: 10K/Runner

[Lok1 :)]

This would cause the compleat destruction of seattle, if Ares was willing to tacnuke Chicago, do you realy think they would spare seattle? The bugs might of surivived the radiation, but I doubt the ghouls could surivive it.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Unlike some Bugs (and queens, especially) Ghouls can't fly.

So the SSC would just seal off Seattle and wait until the ghouls have eaten each other.

[Lok1 :)]

That would take decades...
But I guese the fallout would take even longe, your right, sealing the city would probibly be your best bet.

[Headshot_Joe]

I don't know about you all, but I think drones with jury-rigged crop-dusters is way to conspicuous. I would load up fire-fighter drones with the zombie juice, and reprogram them to target masses of people instead of fires. They will already have high priority air clearance when you bomb the hospitals, and they won't draw much attention.

Water isn't the only mass vector, and might not even be the most survivable for the virus. I think that you could do massive damage by poisoning whole shipments of raw soy paste. Hit them from their tap water, and their SPU.

Flu vaccines are another idea. Heck, that stuff is in such high demands, they can't make enough of it...

[Artemis]

Liken the soy idea, security wouldn't be to tough, need to determine if you have to hit before or after processing though. But as for the drones being conspicuous thats part of their point spread fear and direct attention away from the real vectors, though if your idea is to cast aspersions on govt involvement and incite the populace thats excellent.

Hmm
Throw in a couple of more runs where high profile community leaders are dragged out death squad style into unmarked black marias, which have had a "just good enough" camouflage job which leads back to lonestar, then release some of them after they have been ghouled where they can be found and identified easily.

[The Jopp]

This makes me draw parallels to our world of today. Bio/Magical Terrorism in Shadowrun must be some notches higher on the danger scale compared to todays terrorism – what kind of security measures do they have in 2070?

Considering how dangerous the infected might be, what measures are taken to stop above said plans?

Are these plans feasible? Would an actual runner team be able to pull this off by themselves?

What agencies are there in each country that function to stop these things?

Things like these must have been hatched by X amount of doomsday cults in Shadowrun since the awakening and most cities (bar Chicago) has survived more or less intact.

[Artemis]

There may be too much reliance on the average Meta's distrust and unwilingness to work with ghouls, but a moderately powerful Vampire might be able to sway/control enough people to get around that. As for a mad social mage of decent stats it would be quite straightforward once the science was sorted out.

[The Jopp]

There may be too much reliance on the average Meta's distrust and unwilingness to work with ghouls

The scary thing is that you don’t even need to work ”with” them – they might just be chosen as a working bioweapon for fringe group X to punish Infidel/Heretic/Deviant/Metatype.

All you need are a few disgruntled citizens and a supply of feral ghouls and a plan.

Would the equivalent of FBI in Seattle have a mole ghoul living in Glow City spy for them in the event of threats?