and in this corner....?, Is there a power for good in the world? Options

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

That was quite a lot of insight, thanks for sharing.

[Sengir]

They may be able to use another species, but humans seem to be the dominant prey.

Somewhere (SM probably) it is mentioned that they can use other species just as well. The reason for using humans as hosts is that the bugs will try to subvert the dominant species of an ecosystem.

But given that, from what we have seen, crossing over is difficult and continues to be difficult, this isn't a serious concern.

Just like it is for the horrors right now. The question is whether one would be better than the other if both had free access to our wourld (which is what will happen if the mana level is high enough). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Of course if horrors don't need humans the situation changes, then we could indeed become extinct and not just be degraded to cattle...not that the latter is much better.

[Angelone]

No, the Big D actually WAS the good guy in Shadowrun. All of the time.
Basically, the Dragon was the shining white knight riding around on his really big steed to fight other metaphroical dragons to save us.

Hmm, wonder who would win in an Parasitic War between the invae and the Horrors? O.o

If I remember right the Invae were limited to a small section of Barsaive (sp?) the NE or NW while the horrors were all over and even feed on the Invae themselves. So if I'm right the horrors are the better parasite?

Only read to that point in the thread so if someone scooped me, too bad.

[FrankTrollman]

If you open the wayback machine to 2002 and grab a copy of Threats 2, you'll find an oft-overlooked chapter called "Betrayal" in which it speaks of an Ares conspiracy to make animals and (including paracritters) into insect hybrid merges in order to make bad-ass attack dogs. No indication exists that that project ever stopped. But the big thing to take away from that is not an answer, it's a question: Why is that a bad thing?

The reason that we hate and fear the insects is because they kidnap humans and fill them full of spirit juice until they explode in order to pull more of their brethren from The Hive to Earth. They do that because they have identified humans as the most powerful species and they need to explode something to get to Earth (which they apparently want to do super bad). But as of Betrayal, there are apparently Hives whose hosting requirements apparently can be filled by 6-20 dogs and/or boars a year - which in turn is something with an actual nuyen value that isn't very much.

Flash forward to 2006, and crack open Street Magic to page 111. There you'll find a delightful story about Ares soldiers on the Eden space station having a gate opened for them to go blow up a hostile Queen spirit in her home metaplane. And they are using the capabilities of an unnamed magician to open the portal. Here's the thing though: that magician, has to be an Insect Mage. It's very clear, only Insect mages can open those portals. There must be an insect mage on staff in order to do that.

So yeah, Ares has Insect Mages on staff. They have Flesh Form Insect spirits on staff. But seriously, why is that a bad thing? The Invae are not the Horrors. They don't want to torture everyone to the point of near death to feed their lusts for sadism. They just need to ea one whole live, healthy animal for each spirit on their team. And that's actually something that you could cut a deal with. And by 2056, Ares Macrotechnology actually had. What precisely the terms are that were cut in Complex 68G in the Algonkian-Manitou Council are as yet unrevealed. But it also seems pretty clear that both Ares and the Ares-loyal Hives are getting things they want, and there's no evidence that anything objectively bad is happening to humanity at large because of it.

-Frank

[Sengir]

Flash forward to 2006, and crack open Street Magic to page 111. There you'll find a delightful story about Ares soldiers on the Eden space station having a gate opened for them to go blow up a hostile Queen spirit in her home metaplane. And they are using the capabilities of an unnamed magician to open the portal. Here's the thing though: that magician, has to be an Insect Mage. It's very clear, only Insect mages can open those portals. There must be an insect mage on staff in order to do that.

OK, I realize it is somewhat odd to argue with one of the authors of the book, but...

The Firewatch team uses the astral link between an insect shaman and a bonded focus as a way to track down a queen spirit and blow that queen to kingdom come. But the link between a mage and his focus would certainly only lead to one queen spirit - the shaman's queen, which is the embodyment of his mentor spirit, source of his power, yadda dadda. Would any shaman help destroying this entity? It is also mentioned that the link has been rerouted several times, which sounds as if the creator of the link wanted to hide it, and not like it was intended for the purpose Firewatch has in mind.
In short, to me it sounds more like Ares captured a shaman during a raid on his hive*, and are not content with just whiping out this particular queen's earthly pawns for whatever reason...


*which IIRC also is the way they "acquired" the shamans for that guard critter project.

[Demonseed Elite]

Actually, you're both a little off on the details! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

In the story in Street Magic, the Ares team is following a re-routed astral link between a mage and a focus. Under the section about metaplanar quests in Street Magic, it mentions that one of the uses of a metaplanar quest is to conceal an astral link in a metaplane, meaning that someone tracing an astral link first has to go on a metaplanar quest to locate the redirected link and then follow it to the source. The mage with the focus used this method to create a sort of metaphysical homing beacon and hid the link in the Hive. Meaning that instead of following the focus' astral link straight back to the mage, they first need follow the redirected link to the Hive (in this case, the Ares team plans to take a little detour while they are there).

But Frank is mostly right on what this means. Since Street Magic also says that the only way to get to a Deep Metaplane is to be guided there by a native, that means that the mage who originally hid the astral link there needed to be guided to the Hive by a native spirit of the Hive. This basically means one of two things: that mage was an insect shaman who was guided to the Hive by its Queen/Mother or Ares somehow coerced an insect spirit to guide an Ares magician to its home plane.

Needless to say, Ares' relationship with the Invae is complex, to say the least. We know from the old Tom Dowd story Hunter and Prey (which can be found on the Ancient Files) that there are certainly Invae Queens that want to kill Damien Knight. And we know from the story in Street Magic that Ares appears to be sending people into the Hive to kill some Invae Queens in return.

[nezumi]

If you open the wayback machine to 2002 and grab a copy of Threats 2, you'll find an oft-overlooked chapter called "Betrayal" in which it speaks of an Ares conspiracy to make animals and (including paracritters) into insect hybrid merges in order to make bad-ass attack dogs. No indication exists that that project ever stopped. But the big thing to take away from that is not an answer, it's a question: Why is that a bad thing?

You're discussing turning a parasitoid/prey relationship into a more symbiotic relationship. We are here hampered by a few effects. Specifically - we're looking at an extremely high mutation rate (in that, over the course of a few years, we're turning these parasitoids into a semi-domesticated animal). That makes things highly variable and dangerous. We are not certain that we can prevent regression (imagine you have a 99% success rate of turning dogs into super-smart bug guard dogs - you still have that 1% who are 'not'. Imagine also, comining this with the high mutation rate, above, and you have the worse case of a 100% rate, going public with it, THEN shifting down to only a 99% success rate). Thirdly, you have the sudden reliance on an unknown set of biological processes. What if our dog/bug hybrids serve as a gateway animal for diseases we've never seen before?

The primary problem in all of these stem from knowledge. The mutation rate is predominantly thanks to us and our meddling. If we understood them better, we could control those mutations better. The risk of unknown threats is also a case of knowledge. Greater knowledge makes this process safer.

Oh yes, there's also the fact that we're dealing with a sentient species, and humans have a tendancy to dick people over, so... you know. There's that.

Now, accepting that, the idea of harnessing a totally alien creature and making them symbiotic with us is not only not bad, it's fantastically good. We've seen other cases where symbiotic relationships have made for extremely effective species. It's theorized that the sting of a wasp, which gives it one of the best defenses in the natural world, is the result of a symbiotic relationship with a particular virus or bacteria. Cows are able to digest a wide range of extremely harsh food primarily through a symbiotic relationship with a whole load of bacteria in their gut.

Imagine for a moment that we do harness this sort of magical hybrid technology. Thaumtech, if you will. We can create super-intelligent species. We can make every human magically active and twice as strong. We may be able to survive off astral energies, like a spirit, rather than food. We may be able to create specialized subspecies, like the horrors have.

Or, you know... we could create the bug apocalypse.

[Grinder]

Bugocalypse!

[Tias]

There was something that limited the effects of nuclear weaponry, buth during System Faillure and earlier exchanges (Japan/North Korea).

Biased little thing that did that, then, since it had no qualms about Israel turning most of Libya into radioactive slag! While a loaded subject, I firmly cannot believe any supernatural being helping Israel use NBC-ballistic missiles (at least if SR Israel resembles RL Israel) to be remotely good.


My two cents: Good is inside of you. It's a desire to help others without getting nothing in return, preserving the planet, practicing unprovoked kindness and generally Doing The Right Thing™. In SR, as in now, it is about good individuals acting for good, or - on a good day - many good individuals banding together to accelerate the process.

[Demonseed Elite]

Biased little thing that did that, then, since it had no qualms about Israel turning most of Libya into radioactive slag! While a loaded subject, I firmly cannot believe any supernatural being helping Israel use NBC-ballistic missiles (at least if SR Israel resembles RL Israel) to be remotely good.

I don't have any of my books or references in front of me, but the nuking of Libya happened before the Awakening, didn't it? The thought is that something happened after the Awakening that changed nukes.

Personally, I've always thought that whole line of Shadowrun canon was clumsy, weird, and unnecessary.

[Stahlseele]

Yep, Lybia and Israel were pre-awakening.
And in System-Failure, evil religious germanaziterrorist organization actually uses magiks to improve nukes so they don't have as much of a radioactive fallout and blast but more EMP than they should.
and i still think that complete whole story was a dumb idea for the change from 3rd to 4th and to wireless setting -.-

[Sengir]

In the story in Street Magic, the Ares team is following a re-routed astral link between a mage and a focus. Under the section about metaplanar quests in Street Magic, it mentions that one of the uses of a metaplanar quest is to conceal an astral link in a metaplane, meaning that someone tracing an astral link first has to go on a metaplanar quest to locate the redirected link and then follow it to the source. The mage with the focus used this method to create a sort of metaphysical homing beacon and hid the link in the Hive.

Alright, I assumed they had some way to trace a shaman's astral links back to his queen spirit, because the story says that the link would lead the team to the spirit Ares wants to exterminate.
Who wrote that story by the way?

[Demonseed Elite]

and i still think that complete whole story was a dumb idea for the change from 3rd to 4th and to wireless setting -.-

Actually, that wasn't the goal of System Failure. In fact, some of us (like myself) had most of our System Failure writing done before we even knew there was going to be a Fourth Edition! I had to rewrite one section I had already written when I learned that techomancers would now exist.

[Demonseed Elite]

Alright, I assumed they had some way to trace a shaman's astral links back to his queen spirit, because the story says that the link would lead the team to the spirit Ares wants to exterminate.
Who wrote that story by the way?

I wrote that story.

[Tias]

D'oh, you are correct, Libya was pre-awakening.

That said, there are a few, isolated cases where nukes have worked, post-awakening. That connected to a power of good, you think?

[Stahlseele]

Actually, that wasn't the goal of System Failure. In fact, some of us (like myself) had most of our System Failure writing done before we even knew there was going to be a Fourth Edition! I had to rewrite one section I had already written when I learned that techomancers would now exist.

SNAFUBAR amirite?

[FrankTrollman]

India and Pakistan managed to have a plenty effective nuclear exchange in Kashmir in 2030.

Honestly, I think the fact that nuclear weapons don't aways work that well mostly has to do with them being like 60 years old and more in many cases when detonated in the timeline.

-Frank

[fistandantilus4....]

Actually, that wasn't the goal of System Failure.

Winternight and their modified nukes was seeded a long time ago. I got the impression that the events of System Failure were a long time coming, then set up to work with the change. After all , the wireless matrix initiative really started rolling in Shadows of europe which I believe was before the real push for SR4.

Back to the debateable motivaitons of the Dunk, one of my favorite examples is Anne Penchyk, a mantis spirit who was almsot president. Dunk certainly knew what she was, and he saw fit to set her up with a memorial fund which ended up labeled the "Empowerment Coalition" (you'll not similarities to such broad names like "Universal Brotherhood"). To add to that, the fund was named in memory of his former voice (who's name escapes me at the moment).

There were "questions" about his Voice's death, since he was shot by an assassin. Rather than trying to heal his Voice, or capturing the assassin for question, Dunk promptly killed him. His Voice was replaced shortly after by Nadja Daviar, his Voice until the Big D's own death.

Dunk's always displayed a willingness to leave some hats on the floor in order to meet his goals.

The Empowerment Coalition for example makes for an excellent way to make more mantis spirits. Female mantis always express as Good Merges, meaning they look like regular metahumans. Easier to infiltrate that way. And of course, mantis hunts other bugs. So there's his motivation.

And Daviar was a bad ass voice. Simple but to the point.
(We'd theorized that Nadja was an unexpressed Drake in our games, much like Mercury, since she also had a crazy name like Mercury/Ryanthasaur(sp?), and he snatched her up not long after meeting her, as dragons are prone to do with drakes. Might also explain why she "recently" dissapeared from the public eye).

[Sengir]

And in System-Failure, evil religious germanaziterrorist organization actually uses magiks to improve nukes so they don't have as much of a radioactive fallout and blast but more EMP than they should.

But their fault-line nukes also failed to do much damage. Ever since the Lone Eagle Incident, nukes seem to suffer from strange problems...

[Stahlseele]

The Kermak Blast on the other Hand worked as intended.

[Sengir]

...also did very little damage, even for a subtactical warhead

[Stahlseele]

Well, it was shot into a building/the ruins of a building and below a kind of magical shield.

[Demonseed Elite]

Winternight and their modified nukes was seeded a long time ago. I got the impression that the events of System Failure were a long time coming, then set up to work with the change. After all , the wireless matrix initiative really started rolling in Shadows of europe which I believe was before the real push for SR4.

Yeah, the real goal for System Failure was to wrap up a number of "unfinished" metaplot storylines we had going, like Winternight and Deus.

[Stahlseele]

i'd much rather have seen a more or less all out corp war instead of OH MY GOD TERRORISTS AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
And of course, the AI's and their Otaku-Tribes fighting their own Shadow War within seems pretty dumb/silly to me too . . Sorry guys, i just don't like it at all <.<

[Demonseed Elite]

i'd much rather have seen a more or less all out corp war instead of OH MY GOD TERRORISTS AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
And of course, the AI's and their Otaku-Tribes fighting their own Shadow War within seems pretty dumb/silly to me too . . Sorry guys, i just don't like it at all <.<

No problem! We know when we develop a plot-line that not everyone is going to love it or want to use it. That's one reason why we vary the plots (aside from the obvious fact that doing the same type of plot all the time would be boring!). In the case of System Failure, we knew we had some open stories we just really wanted to wrap up instead of letting them just putter out from neglect.

All-out corp war is interesting but problematic. Blood in the Boardroom was a corporate-focused plot-line, though not a full-out corporate war. One problem with an all-out corp war is that there are systems in place to prevent that (that's largely the point of the Corporate Court and their Omega Orders). Also, there's the question of how to handle an all-out corp war without destroying the Sixth World economy.