Where did all these indians come from?, Native American Nation Options

[pbangarth]

It explains the knowledge of the ritual yes, but not how it remained perfectly intact to a culture that uses oral histories for 120 years, or how the rest of the planet was completely unaware the awakening had actually occurred.

Oral history traditions among First Nations people in Canada have been shown to have editing/check mechanisms built in to counteract changes over time to the histories. An archaeologist with whom I used to work was instrumental in that study. Such oral histories are now considered equivalent to written documents in Canadian law.

[Sengir]

It explains the knowledge of the ritual yes, but not how it remained perfectly intact to a culture that uses oral histories for 120 years, or how the rest of the planet was completely unaware the awakening had actually occurred.

For the more shamanic traditions it's the spirit and inner attunement to the power of the earth/totem/mother goddess/whatever that counts, not so much reciting a spell formula to the letter. Of course that would also give sincere believers of other traditions an edge, which didn't happen, so we're back at "the SAIM had plot armour"...who would have thought...

[CanadianWolverin...]

Ok, fine, I'll bite again, Mord. I rather like the NAN fiction, you plainly do not. Here we go again!

Let's address a few points:
1) IRL census data and how it pertains to SR census data
2) 1% magical SR population data
3) time of the awakening in relation to magic
4) nuclear war, nukes, and the lone eagle incident
5) los alamos destroyed, other "natural disaster" magical events

1) From my understanding via my SR4A, the wiki, and various posts regarding stuff about other numbered worlds (ex: 4th world, etc) and horrors/immortals, you can view SR's so called 6th World either as splitting off from ours the first time the writers made a change which would be a president named Jeffrey Lynch (wiki) instead of our world's Bill Clinton or other candidates in 1992 or as never having been our world period thanks to past numbered worlds and the horrors and only having a surprising number of similarities to our own agreed upon historical figures in written documents that survived the various victors over the intervening years. The first assumption, you still get time for population figures to fictionally explode but in the second it doesn't make any sense to assume our population figures match the SR population figures at all and could well be in excess of the oft quoted figure of 1% of total US population either way. Other things to consider in that quoted percentage is it only take into account the US, when in the fiction it is US and Canada combined, and their methods of people declaring as identifying as one particular ethnic group or another - which I have seen people of many different skin tones identify with some ancestor having been from a NA tribal nation at some point, even though they may check off the box for another ethnicity in the census (or the census taker may do without even prompting). There is a margin for error in that IRL data that doesn't seem to be considered here in relation to how it might conceivably pertain to the fiction. Heck, the margin for error in the fiction is even greater when you consider the SiNless/SiNned and how they came to be in the record keeping (Wars, VITAS, The Awakening, Crashes, etc).

2) Here we straight up consider the fiction and only rely on their numbers. The 1% figure is TOTAL recorded population. It is those who have allowed themselves to be identified as magical or suspected as being magical. Try to remember magicians used to be just as despised (oddly enough, when did that go away?) as technomancers currently are. Checking that box off on the census data used to be a big no-no if you didn't want to be lynched, even before the data was lost in this or that Crash or natural/social/economic disaster if they happened to still be keeping paper around (just think how many paper/computer records were lost to water damage IRL New Orleans let alone the fictional one). There is still plenty of metahumanity who one could argue there are not accurate numbers on in their world, which are the numbers that are related to us. Our SR history is presented to us through stories passed along through the shadows and not necessarily common public knowledge, more corporate misinformation propaganda then truth meets the eyes and only those on the fringe in the shadows have any indication that the powers that be are being less than forth coming with their data. In such an enviroment you want to trust the 1% total recorded (estimated) population figure in a world with rather large recording error called SiNless? And that is even before the realization dawns that is Total population, not total local population. How those percentages play out over the entire earth's population, there very well could be entire regions with only magic capable people and not even come close to making up their entire 1% of the world's population in SR 2070, let alone back in 2000.

3) Yes, 2000. Why do I bring up that date? From the wiki:

2000

* Scientist are surprised to discover a distinct new species of ferret in North America. Dubbed the Century Ferret due to the time of discovery, it is later concluded to be a "Spike Baby", a premature awakening.

SR "real" magic was occurring before 2011 "Year of Chaos" hit the fan. Premature awakening. Think about it, there could be SR cultures who had held on to their magic traditions through the down turn in magic and did. Wait, what is this, it is working, even if only a little bit, a small spark? Large fires have been started by sparks.

4) And here we go. Sparks be flying only they aren't starting any fires when just yesterday they did:

* 2004: Libya attacks Israel with chemical weapons.
o Nuclear meltdown at Dungeness in Kent (England) creates a localized irradiated zone.

* 2005: New York City quake
o Israel nukes Libya, destroying half its cities.

* 2005-6: Korean War
o Early 2006: DPRK launches nukes at Japan, but they do not reach their targets.

* 2009: Lone Eagle incident
o Sovereign American Indian Movement (SAIM) seizes the Shiloh launch facility in Montana. Delta Team retakes the site, but not before the terrorists launch a Lone Eagle ICBM at Russia. The missile never hits. No one knows why.

Something interesting to note about that Lone Eagle Incident, whose report are we reading? Do we have any characters that reported on site just who pushed the button? I propose (probably again) that the SAIM could have been setup as the fall guys, that they did not in fact launch that nuke and the victors got to write the history of what happened in that site when the Delta team attacked. So, would others against NAN have me believe that the SAIM sophisticated enough to bypass the safeguards and launch a ICBM but not believable that they could wage an effective magical guerrilla war on their own territory against superior numbers and tech or what? And talk about defending ones self from the aggressor:

* 2009: Lone Eagle incident
o The resource rush.
o May 5: United Oil receives rights to 25% of national parklands and 10% of Indian lands.

Huh, I wonder why they might have gotten defensive/aggressive when the little they had left of their traditional territories was being taken. And there is another total area number, those may have been an entire US reserves/treaty/traditional land being taken there. And I don't suppose whitey tree huggers or park/native neighbours would have been all that thrilled either. Well, would you look at that:

2009: Lone Eagle incident
* Re-Education and Relocation Act (Nepean Act in Canada) round up Native Americans into "reeducation centers". Native Americans are spared, ironically, the worst of VITAS because of this internment.

Guess who went for the ethnic cleansing move first. Yeah, since you can sympathize with US and Canada believably pulling out the kill entire regions and neighbouring regions with the fallout from biological/chemical/nuclear options but you are going to begrudge what was going to become the NAN looking to do something similar with what was available to them with their magical traditions?

5) Fire be ragin' and VITAS be culling. So, for 2+ years you have NAN being thrown into new camps, just like their ancestors were, magic mojo happening already in small doses and then one of them has enough of this genocidal BS and has the magical means to do so on Dec 24, 2011 SR and for the next 7 years till 2018 with the Treaty of Denver, it is on with a cold, then hot war. So, US and Canada have military forces, boots to put on the ground. Were any of them NAN? Those guys used to be welcome in the forces. Might that have given them some insider knowledge and skills they could have passed on once they were liberated from the camps? Heck, there were things they used to teach their fellow grunts when they were walking point. Oh look, here come our former buds to kill us and take everything we ever called home after we broke free from the camps, again...
Some select quotes from the past thread and SR4A says:

SR4A pg 26 under the heading NATION BUILDING:
The Native American Nations formed in 2018 with the Treaty of Denver - a conciliatory gesture by the United States and Canadian governments following a protracted guerilla war with the Native American forces led by Daniel Howling Coyote (remember him?). The US-Canadian forces tried to carry out the Resolution Act that would have exterminated all the Ameridian tribes for good, but needless to say the Natives were having none of that. The war culminated in the Great Ghost Dance, a massive magic ritual that Howling Coyote and his followers used to shake up the North American landscape by blowing the tops off several volcanoes ([specific volcanoes listed]), not to mention causing freaky weather and other disturbances at military bases and supply dumps connected with the Resolution Act.

Kerenshara:
And volcanoes don't "just errupt"; They explode. We're talking forces comparable to atomic weapons here. Don't make the mistake of writing off such things. And a pack of guided tornadoes can toss construction materials through feet of reinforced concrete, or overturn a main battle tank, and they can swat fighters and bombers from the skies like flies. The natural forces subect to the GGD are collectively and potentially more powerful than any nuclear arsenal. Most of the major North American cities are either near a fault line (even if long dormant, like the Blue Ridge on the East coast) or near the coast and vulnerable to storms. A class 5 huricane with a direct strike would obliterate the likes of New Your or D.C. as certainly as a nuclear detonation, if not as instantaneously.

Link:
SR1, the original source, lists 3 acts of the GGD. The first was burying Los Alamos with a volcanic eruption (delicious irony) killing perhaps 18000 pop. [source wikipedia] with the kigmatzomat proviso noted above. Second was utterly destroying the 6th Air Cavalry Battalion out of Fort Hood, maybe the military types can tell us what such a force would typically comprise. The last was the simultaneous volcanic eruptions where it is said that Mother Nature showed whose side she was on and even the skeptical believed. One would gather it was impressive.

kigmatzomat:
Follow that up with the NYC quake and Vitas and indians were waaaay out of the picture. When Rodondo destroyed Los Alamos, the air cav response was Gaarety's harsh actions to captue a federal escapee.

According to the SR2 history section, the Nan was the butt of jokes for claiming responsibilty for a volcano. "How many indians does it take to set off a vocano? None, but one will take credit anyway." And Garrety covered up the destroyed air cav, as well as the ensuing guerilla war. Since global weather patterns were freaky it was easy enough to ignore the air cav incident.
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When four volcanos blew in a NAN area adjacent to a major city, it stopped being a coincidence. Suddenly Los Alamos was intentional as well as all the accidents and weather activity, like what took out the air cav.

Knasser:
[The] way I see it, fight for who? The government of the USA at the time was hopelessly corrupt, in debt, oppressive (they were rounding people up into camps) must have appeared to handle a series of disasters tremendously badly (VITAS, the Crash). And they were auctioning off land to foreign corporations! If you want the revolution to be realistic and fit it with cannon, then just decide that the general mass of people were about ready for a revolution anyway. Americans used to be good at that, I'm sure that it's still in the blood somewhere. wink.gif So to the people, a leadership comes along that has the power and the motivation to fight back against the government and a philosophy of independence, renewal of the land and better living. Why shouldn't that strike a chord with people? So long as the leaders of the movement were willing to extend their culture and acceptance to non-Native Americans (and it doesn't make sense not to), then the whole thing can work.

The population is largely disaffected and disenfranchised by a corrupt and corporate controlled government. Also, the point is that the US government couldn#t strike back at Danial's people. Magic was a game changer and for a little, critically important while, Danial's shamans got there first and were the only ones able to play it. Think what a Force 5 Fire Elemental can do to undefended military forces. Here come thirty helicopter gunships (that's a big force of helicopters, incidentally). First combat turn, spirit manifests inside one and burns the crew to death. Third combat turn, the spirit is doing it in another helicopter. Ninety combat turns later (four and a half-minutes), you have thirty helicopters scattered and smashed across the countryside. You can't outfly a spirit that travels through the Astral. The President is sitting with his Chiefs of Staff trying to co-ordinate their defense. But there is constantly some grotesque little Indian spirit sitting there listening to everything they say, they shoot it, they curse it, they swipe at it with broom handles, but it can't be shaken off the President (it's a manifested Watcher spirit). And the Defense Secretary has one too. A shaman, invisible, levitating, drifts into army HQ. The general has no counterspelling. He's assassinated. Or Mind Controlled to give bad / self-destructive orders. Coyote had Great Form spirits before most people even understood how to summon regular ones. He could cause Earth Tremors and Storms. And this isn't even considering how magic could be used in conjunction with regular technology. That same invisible, levitating mage, or else a mob of spirits could steal whatever supplies they wanted from the USA's own military. What could they do with a ready supply of military-grade explosives / weapons and the means to invisibly plant them wherever they chose? And with spirits you have suicide attackers who can commit suicide again, and again, and again and again.

The the USA today can't really fully defend itself against foreign terrorist action with mundane technology. Imagine what the situation would be against a domestic force that had a lot more support and access to magic.

But as I said before, one of the biggest differences is that unlike most wars the USA has launched, this one would be personal to the leaders and the people. When Bush and Blair sent thousands to die in Iraq, they did it knowing that it wasn't them that would be getting shot at. They could just look sad and say how freedom demands sacrifices, knowing full well that the sacrifice wouldn't be themselves or their families and friends. I don't think that the same pious bravery would be shown if it were.

So that's that for the USA's government and military as far as I'm concerned. A population that despises them for the corrupt regime that they were and a charismatic group of freedom fighters that the US government couldn't find or stop.
...
I just demonstrated a Force 5 Fire spirit bringing down thirty helicopter gunships in under five minutes. I just demonstrated the ability to obtain whatever military supplies are needed. I just demonstrated the ability to plant high-grade bombs anywhere in the US. I just demonstrated the ability to eavesdrop on every discussion the US leaders have. I just demonstrated the ability to take down any military unit anytime, anywhere. If Danial Howling Coyote was clever (and even if he isn't, he was assisted by Ehran wasn't he? Who is three times more devious than the most evil player any GM has ever faced across his screen), then the NAN probably had ritual samples of various notable figures in advance. If they really want to demonstrate their complete dominance, they announce loudly that they will kill the US Secretary of Defense (or whoever) by 3:00pm tomorrow. No matter where the US government hides him or how they try to protect him, he will be dead. That sends a powerful message to people: If the US government can't protect its own with all that warning and with everything in their power, then they are outmatched.

Give me the resources, expertise and knowledge that Danial Howling Coyote had, in the plague-struck, economically messed up USA of SR Cannon, and I could pull off stunts that would scare the government witless. With someone like Ehran as your PR advisor (Ehran is one of the most astute, political masterminds in the setting), then I think the NAN can be pulled off as believable.

The people saying that sudden mass-migrations are unrealistic have a point. not only because of the lack of will on the part of the people to comply, but the logistical unfeasibility of it even if they had been willing. But I don't bother with that in my game. I say that the NAN uprising actually had a fair amount of popular support. Which is why I asked if anyone had the cannon references to mass-migrations. They're not in any 4th Ed. material and I don't have all the material from previous editions. But I don't remember explicit statements of millions of non-Native Americans migrating (to where?). Maybe in first edition, in which case I agree with some subtle ret-conning. But I'd still like to see what the material actually says.

Alexand:
Shadows of North America specifically retconned the "indians kick all the anglos out" problem because I do not doubt they realized it was silly.

According to current SR cannon (since the Shadows of books are the most recent settings published) the NAN states incorporated wholesale anyone who wanted to stay and agreed to follow the rules. NAN then went 'your all indians too' to them, and pulled in metahumans who were being oppressed (in fact Ehran and the elves specifically make use of this absorption to create Tir Tairngire, first by 'allowing' themselves to be absorbed into the Salish Council, and then
splitting off into Tir.

So the cannon (at least current) shoots down the 'they can't force em out' problem quite purposefully. Pre-SoNA, YES it was stupid. But they said in SoNA that NAN1 & NAN2 were written specifically as propaganda aids (yes the fluff debunks the earlier books as a method of retcon, rather smart way of doing I think) written by the NAN governments themselves to make themselves sound more 'pure'. Gee that doesn't sound like a futuristic dystopian government at ALL twirl.gif

Also, knasser had it completely right about NAN magic vs. Conventional military. In addition to invisible commando teams, Spirits ripping apart tank divisions without problem, and etc. It used to specifically mention that the GGD was used to summon truly massive storms. Like bigger than Katrina size. Anyone who thinks the US military is even remotely prepared to handle that has not been paying attention to the last decade, and has likely a rather weak grasp of physics. People do not take on state sized storm systems and win. It's like trying to shoot the wind out of the sky (which likely they tried at least once, but you can guess how that went)

The US had zero magic capability at the time. None. The hermetics were still screaming "hey our stuff works now!" and no one was listening cause the roof was caving in, and this big rock guy at the door won't go away.

But as covered, or at least the assertion that I & I believe knasser have been making is that the NAN doesn't need a large population.

Magic, Commandos, and Storms & Explosions allow them to quite successfully tear up the US military, so what we're arguing about now is if the NAN could hold the area they are claiming during the GGD. So far the main arguement I've heard stopping this is that somehow the much larger civilian population is somehow going to rise up and take out NAN.

I still don't buy it. You telling me that random dude, who likely just buried part of his family due not to war or magic, but to disease or poisoning of the land, is going to rush out with his completely mundane self. Arm himself with inferior weaponry in comparison to the US military and go searh the ENORMOUS wild and unsettled areas of the the western US, leaving his remaining living family possibly defenseless and staving. All to challenge spirits of fire and beasts, magic spells, and who knows what else right out every worst nightmare movie, all without losing his nerve.

And they to top it off, your assuming that the Joe Randoms of the area do this in significant enough numbers to track down, actually find, and overwhelm through force the NAN that just took apart a much larger, better armed, and better trained force of mundanes?

It just doesn't sound likely to me at all. NAN doesn't even have to fight these guys. If the US army can't find them (and they can't), then these guys have little to no chance except for a few lucky guys who will be greatly outnumbered & outgunned. NAN can simply bypass them, they are under no requirement to actually deal with the population until the whole thing is over after Denver. And then, according to the books rather then focusing on forcing people out they simply absorbed most of them, and left the 'get off my lawn' crazies alone in their own 'anglo reservations' right where they were.

Population, and difference of size of the two forces is not as great a factor as some are making out. History is littered with smaller forces beating larger ones, through superior morale, tactics, and most especially equipment. NAN wins those last 2 in spades, and has no reason to confront the actual US population at any point until it's all over with.
...
I think that the magic part of the equation makes a bigger difference then [is given] credit, especially since it's pretty much unopposed.

As for Govern? Who said anything about that? We're talking winning the GGD war, governing comes afterward. In order to win the war against the US & Canadian governements they don't need to fight the indigenous population of the area. For the most part we are talking about areas with some of the lowest population densities on the continent here. Everyone can literally go around where most of the people are pretty easily. They only point of fighting near a population center is to control those areas, which NAN doesn't need to do. They just need to wipe out enough of the Military in the area that the US is forced to withdraw in the face of staggering losses of resources. Remember the US is almost completely bankrupt at this point, and stretched way, way beyond it's limits. NAN simply has to make it so costly to stay that the Military has to cede land and retreat.

Which according to the story is how it went down. US & Canada retreated eastward, and Denver made the front lines between them and NAN into the new borders of the countries. Which is why the UCAS/Sioux border is one of the most militarized in the world, those armies are still guarding that line.

After the war, things are different anyway. As the population who wants to fight now must throw out NAN who is busy swelling their numbers with like-minded non-natives, and still has a lot of magical firepower vs what is essentially the most mook-like group in the game, un-cybered, completely mundane civilians.

Shotguns and Assault rifles or not, that is so not a fair fight for the civilians.
...
I just don't see the civilians changing the situation much either way. If NAN can beat the army, then civvies aren't a problem. The real disagreement at the heart of all this, is if NAN has a enough magic to beat the Army. I still say yes, because it's unopposed, which make it a ridiculously powerful force multiplier for the NAN forces. There is just to many tricks the Shamans can pull that mundanes can't deal with. Not to mention that some of the Commandos are Physads, in a time period before wired reflexes which is something scary on it's own.

Sorry superior numbers, you seem to have met your match when your tech isn't up to the task of facing off against the magical mojo and your training hasn't prepared you for this foe. You've lost the new high ground: Astral (and the metaplanes)

Hmm, too bad there isn't a spoiler tag that I have noticed here to get the size down into manage-able bite sized chunks or I suspect this is just going to be ignored a TL;DR.

Oh well, my point being, the source material is purposefully blank and it is up to us to fill in those blanks as we see fit. When I fill in the blanks, I see the NAN as plausible within the framework of the SR world and its magic. In its past, this was a huge shift but its future is still to be written, so if you figure that cyber, bio and bunch of other techs has caught up to or surpassed magic initiation sufficiently, have US and Canada invade and finish their genocidal Acts from before they amalgamated into what is now the UCAS and use a nuke like however it was done in bug city if that is what you are after. But that assumes NAN are not advancing in bio, cyber and other techs these many decades along with their population numbers of various tribes plainly more well off than they were before when their lands and rights were being given away to corps not of their choosing. And that the Corporate Council would even allow it to happen in 2072+.

[Jesher]

Posts with a table of contents are always fun to read. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Posts with a table of contents are always fun to read. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Indeed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Mordinvan]

Oral history traditions among First Nations people in Canada have been shown to have editing/check mechanisms built in to counteract changes over time to the histories. An archaeologist with whom I used to work was instrumental in that study. Such oral histories are now considered equivalent to written documents in Canadian law.

This is one of those "don't go there" topics, trust me.

[pbangarth]

This is one of those "don't go there" topics, trust me.

So, why did you? I do concur that we can all benefit from leaving this one alone.

[Mordinvan]

So, why did you?

Mostly because I find the idea long term retention of high precision information relying solely on the failings of human memory to be comical at the best of times, if you really wanted to know.

[Karoline]

Mostly because I find the idea long term retention of high precision information relying solely on the failings of human memory to be comical at the best of times, if you really wanted to know.

And yet there are those people that know the entire Koran, word for word, and have every single word correct. Forget what they're called. But the point is, they can't read, so they learned it from someone else who repeated it to them over and over again, and that person likely couldn't read either and so on, and they still have it correct.

Just because you can't remember what you had for lunch last week....

[Mordinvan]

If I'm understanding your key points Canadian Wolverine, I'm going to try and go through them, but as your post is a small novel, please excuse any ommisions I might have made.

First the lone eagle incident either demonstrates a) a conspiracy to paint the first nations as terrorists, or b) that IF they have a small team capable of a single attack on a single base, then they MUST have a large enough force to hold off an army of millions.

The first idea holds little merit, as the group did infact attack and seize a missile base. While I can not definitively say who's finger pushed the button, it seems unlikely that whoever was potentially responsible for wanting said supposed conspiracy would have the power to simply remove 2 (I think it was 2 anyway) ICBM's headed to Russia which it was undoubtedly tracking from the fabric of space and time.

The next point about the US army having no defense against magic is problematic for so many reasons I can only try to come up with a reasonable list. While I will fully agree that each branch can be fairly monolithic as a whole, and rather resistant to the idea of change, each individual unit will most likely attempt to adapt to the crap happening as best they can. Now for my list.
1) a substantial portion of the US military intel network is located in space. This means no magical force on earth can pose a threat to it

2) Many of these satelites are rather complicated objects, and as such would have a very high OR, likely in the 6-9 range, this means there are virtually no reliable magical ways to hide from them, except using the spirit power of concealment. This means risking rampaging spirits, and potential brain hemorrhaging levels of drain because you have to continuously summon, and possibly bind spirits to keep the trick up.

3) While the army has no 'organized' magical defenses for itself, even 1% of the armies population will have awakened on their own. These will include adepts, and you can bet, that if they are in the army, a substantial number of them will have the mindset such that their abilities will manifest more towards the "making stuff blowup" end of the spectrum, as opposed to the "speed knitting carebears" end.

4) Also the army contains many individuals who have diverse religious backgrounds and beliefs, and some of them will no doubt have some from of mysticism among them, and awaken as mages/shamans. They will be able to, even if only instinctively at first begin to provide counter spelling, and spirit summoning abilities on their own.

5)Civilians of all stripes will have started to awaken, and those capable of astral and metaplainier travel will have started to have done so themselves. Even without the armies support or in many cases knowledge or consent can, and depending on their personalities would either use astral warfare against NAN themselves, or hang out on the astral near bases to help provide defense against attacks made there. Lets face it, 1% of NAN's population is way smaller then 1% of the general US population, and given they've all been threatened with genocide, they have a fairly good reason to wish to put NAN down, and given that no laws presently exist to regulate them, and no organizations exist to track them down, vigilantism will be at an all time high.

So yes NAN will posses the capacity to send a spirit to a military base to attack people, but 1% of the base will have awakened and may be able to provide some defense. 1% of the family members of everyone living on the base will have awakened too, and 1% of the entire population NAN just threatened to drown in their own blood will have awakened as well. And if any of them have influence over spirits that 1 NAN spirit will likely be greeted with with enough hostile spirits they that will have a hard time existing long enough to even materialize.

The NAN themselves while not facing highly organized attacks from the astral will have to put up with a never ending torrent of amateur spirits sent from the newly awakened population trying to protect themselves. You can bet at least some of them won't be too selective about their targets, as they could be sent by individuals of a nearly toxic mindset. Lets face it, since awakened can recognize eachother with assencing, its possible they could from small groups 2-12, and spend all weekend long summoning squads of force 1-6 spirits, and sending them to search for, and attack groups of NAN, and depending on their magic scores, they could literally keep this up virtually nonstop, resting only to deal with drain.

So while I fully agree the U.S. military would not have had formal magical defense procedures in place by then, they would not be defenseless against magic, and the NAN would IMHO likely have been buried under a tied of spirits sent by the very people they so graciously offered to bury under a volcano.

[KarmaInferno]

Why do you assume that 1% can do anything more than shoot a few sparkles out of their fingers scaring the hell out of themselves and everyone around them? Maybe at MOST few Watchers or Force 1-2 spirits. And many of those vanishing quick because they likely have only a couple of services.

Remember, these are folks that are throwing at MOST 4-5 dice for any Magic test. They'll be lucky to not kill themselves on the Drain, assuming the people around them haven't lynched them for being damn dirty NAN spies.

Actually, no, scratch that, virtually none of that 1% will be casting or summoning a damn thing. They will NOT have any sorcery or summoning skills and you can't default on Magic skills. The amount of folks that manage to learn even a single rank in a Magic skill in the timeframe involved can probably be counted on your fingers.

Meanwhile the opposition has been summoning high force great form spirits and hurricanes and exploding volcanoes.


-k

[Mordinvan]

And yet there are those people that know the entire Koran, word for word, and have every single word correct. Forget what they're called. But the point is, they can't read, so they learned it from someone else who repeated it to them over and over again, and that person likely couldn't read either and so on, and they still have it correct.

Just because you can't remember what you had for lunch last week....

I'd really like a see a research study on that, and find out how accurate they are.

It's less about lunch, and more about HOW the brain actually forms memories, what sorts of things is remembers, and how easy it is to trick.

[Mordinvan]

Why do you assume that 1% can do anything more than shoot a few sparkles out of their fingers scaring the hell out of themselves and everyone around them? Maybe at MOST few Watchers or Force 1-2 spirits. And many of those vanishing quick because they likely have only a couple of services.

For exactly the same reasons that assumptions are made about NAN's ability to use magic.

Remember, these are folks that are throwing at MOST 4-5 dice for any Magic test. They'll be lucky to not kill themselves on the Drain, assuming the people around them haven't lynched them for being damn dirty NAN spies.

Now you're assuming they all have a fractional magic score, and single digit drain stats.

Actually, no, scratch that, virtually none of that 1% will be casting or summoning a damn thing. They will NOT have any sorcery or summoning skills and you can't default on Magic skills. The amount of folks that manage to learn even a single rank in a Magic skill in the timeframe involved can probably be counted on your fingers.

Odd, I feel EXACTLY the same way about NAN. But if they magically pull the needed skill out of some dark 'plot hole', I naturally assume the rest of the population has the same 'plot hole' open up in their souls when they awaken too.

Meanwhile the opposition has been summoning high force great form spirits and hurricanes and exploding volcanoes.

Using the same fractional magic scores, and single digit drain attributes the rest of the population has, as well as skills that seems to materialize out of the ether?

I'm sorry, but either this stuff takes exacting and meticulous knowledge, skill, and preparation, which need years of training, or you can actually do it by feel. Since NAN didn't have the time, population, or resources for the former, I assume the latter is true. IF the latter is true, then NAN aren't the only people who can 'feel'.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

For crying out loud, Mordinvan. People here is saying exactly what you don't want to accept, that for some reason, that CW explained earlier, the NAN were ahead of everyone else on the magical curve, while everyone else was summoning Watcher and force spirits of rating 1-2, the NAN were invoking High Force Spirits. If you can't accept this premise, well, than it really becomes difficult to argue about it, right?

[Mordinvan]

For crying out loud, Mordinvan. People here is saying exactly what you don't want to accept, that for some reason, that CW explained earlier, the NAN were ahead of everyone else on the magical curve, while everyone else was summoning Watcher and force spirits of rating 1-2, the NAN were invoking High Force Spirits. If you can't accept this premise, well, than it really becomes difficult to argue about it, right?

Yes, you're completely right, they've been practicing magic for the last 120 years, and have perfected all kinds of techniques, how silly of me not to realize that. And here all this time I thought the fact that they've all had magic scores of 0 until the awakening that might have posed a bit of a problem in actually learning how to cast, or summon spirits, because neither spells nor spirits could have existed until the awakening.

You've really opened my eyes, and given great hope for all those hard working olympic hopefuls who are training to be gymnasts despite the fact they're all congenital quadriplegics, that they really do have a chance to shine, and win gold immediately after getting up off the operating table. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Critias]

Odd, I feel EXACTLY the same way about NAN. But if they magically pull the needed skill out of some dark 'plot hole', I naturally assume the rest of the population has the same 'plot hole' open up in their souls when they awaken too.

And it's that assumption -- on your part -- that leads to arguments like this. You're wrong. Sorry. There's nothing in the fluff to counter the notion that, clearly stated since some of the earliest Shadowrun fluff and reinforced since then in novels and sourcebooks, the NAN were just "ahead of the curve."

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Yes, you're completely right, they've been practicing magic for the last 120 years, and have perfected all kinds of techniques, how silly of me not to realize that. And here all this time I thought the fact that they've all had magic scores of 0 until the awakening that might have posed a bit of a problem in actually learning how to cast, or summon spirits, because neither spells nor spirits could have existed until the awakening.

You've really opened my eyes, and given great hope for all those hard working olympic hopefuls who are training to be gymnasts despite the fact they're all congenital quadriplegics, that they really do have a chance to shine, and win gold immediately after getting up off the operating table. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Now you are just being a jerk.
But ok, i'll amuse you one more time. Let's say that everyone was congenital quadriplegic trying to get a gold medal in gymnasts. When the Awakening happened, they all learned how to walk and move their arms, but they had to work their atrofied muscles to a prime level. The difference was that the NAN had super-uber coaches and medical facilities to regain muscle fast, while everyone else was still trying to move their toes.
If you are not willing to suspend your disbelief just a little more given that you already suspended it enough to accept dragons, elves, trolls, etc. then there isn't much more to say.

[KarmaInferno]

For exactly the same reasons that assumptions are made about NAN's ability to use magic.

Except the fluff pretty much tells us that the NAN, for whatever reason, was NOT in the same boat, that they somehow had advanced casting and summoning abilities.

Now you're assuming they all have a fractional magic score, and single digit drain stats.

No, I'd actually forgotten at first that you can't default Magic Skills.

I was thinking Magic Scores of 5-6 with no Skill ratings, so they'd have to default.

And most folks DO have single digit drain stats, even in 2070. Remember that shadowrunners tend to be well above the average.

Odd, I feel EXACTLY the same way about NAN. But if they magically pull the needed skill out of some dark 'plot hole', I naturally assume the rest of the population has the same 'plot hole' open up in their souls when they awaken too.

Using the same fractional magic scores, and single digit drain attributes the rest of the population has, as well as skills that seems to materialize out of the ether?

I'm sorry, but either this stuff takes exacting and meticulous knowledge, skill, and preparation, which need years of training, or you can actually do it by feel. Since NAN didn't have the time, population, or resources for the former, I assume the latter is true. IF the latter is true, then NAN aren't the only people who can 'feel'.

The disconnect here is that you are refusing to acknowledge when the books say that the NAN did, in fact,have a leg up on everyone else.



-k

[CanadianWolverin...]

While the army has no 'organized' magical defenses for itself, even 1% of the armies population will have awakened on their own.
...
Lets face it, 1% of NAN's population is way smaller then 1% of the general US population, and given they've all been threatened with genocide, they have a fairly good reason to wish to put NAN down, and given that no laws presently exist to regulate them, and no organizations exist to track them down, vigilantism will be at an all time high.
...
So yes NAN will posses the capacity to send a spirit to a military base to attack people, but 1% of the base will have awakened and may be able to provide some defense. 1% of the family members of everyone living on the base will have awakened too, and 1% of the entire population NAN just threatened to drown in their own blood will have awakened as well.

I grabbed the sentences with the 1% in them from your post. From their context, I really get the impression you didn't read that particular section of my post. Understandable, I did write up a "small novel" as you put it, I spent a bit of time going over my books, the wiki, and previous threads on the subject (thus all the hidden text which counters a lot of the points you make before they are repeated). I tried to put it all together on various points I kept seeing being repeated, a compendium if you will of points that keep being brought up that are well, just wrong. Here I will attempt to focus on the 1% point where it most commonly goes wrong:

2) 1% magical SR population data

2) Here we straight up consider the fiction and only rely on their numbers. The 1% figure is TOTAL recorded population. It is those who have allowed themselves to be identified as magical or suspected as being magical. Try to remember magicians used to be just as despised (oddly enough, when did that go away?) as technomancers currently are. Checking that box off on the census data used to be a big no-no if you didn't want to be lynched, even before the data was lost in this or that Crash or natural/social/economic disaster if they happened to still be keeping paper around (just think how many paper/computer records were lost to water damage IRL New Orleans let alone the fictional one). There is still plenty of metahumanity who one could argue there are not accurate numbers on in their world, which are the numbers that are related to us. Our SR history is presented to us through stories passed along through the shadows and not necessarily common public knowledge, more corporate misinformation propaganda then truth meets the eyes and only those on the fringe in the shadows have any indication that the powers that be are being less than forth coming with their data. In such an enviroment you want to trust the 1% total recorded (estimated) population figure in a world with rather large recording error called SiNless? And that is even before the realization dawns that is Total population, not total local population. How those percentages play out over the entire earth's population, there very well could be entire regions with only magic capable people and not even come close to making up their entire 1% of the world's population in SR 2070, let alone back in 2000.

There, even bolded a short little sentence to sum up my thoughts on the matter nicely. Your 1% of NAN population or US population? Doesn't exist in the fiction. What exists is ... well, I went over that already. That one assumption on your part throws a huge wrench in your argument before it even gets going. Please review the above quote to see why.

So if any one asks, "Hey, are you saying NAN are all magic shamans and braves?" I say, perhaps not all, but certainly more than their fair share when compared to other regions in the world and with bunch of verifiable (in the fiction) magical active skills of significant Runner worthy ratings, especially their Prime Runner NPC Howling Coyote and his otherworldly help leading up to the events in the fiction. The power of the f... plot is strong with these ones (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

So, perhaps a few David Blanes or Chris Angels of the US go "Sweet, I have real mojo!" who have sought out ancient rites to improve their theatrics but given the social climate of the day as described, if they aren't hiding in the shadows they are dying in the light of the oh so friendly chaotic times of pre and post Awakening. Being openly magic in the 2000-2018 US and Canadian militaries with the Commander and Prime/Defence Minister covering up the botched missions while selling out to the growing power of the Corps? LOL! At best, I'll concede that there may be the few exceptional Prime Runner NPCs who discover some of their Adept powers but beyond that, I don't see it putting a dent in what would become the NAN. Think of it like this, how well do armies do when their support lines are cut? What do you suppose the support lines were like for someone magical who wasn't on the insider track with the NAN in SR 2000-2018 (and even beyond for decades to come)? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh and your vaunted space tech/ air superiority? While it is an interesting point to bring up, even mundanes have figured ways around that before. That same stuff that people can go under cover/ground to not have peeping over their horizon? The same stuff that can be given trouble in some spectrums with barrels of fire (remember reading about the fake tanks when NATO was taking on Yugoslavia) and with blankets/ghillie suits/tent canvas made of the correct material and regular visual spectrum camouflage and disguises? Only a Spirit power defeating that particular high ground, come on. How about the real high ground at that point in the SR time line?
Can the tech see into the Astral in SR 2000-2018? No, magi-tech still has trouble with that in SR 2072+ let alone in those chaotic times when things were just getting started.

[Mordinvan]

Now you are just being a jerk.

Just because someone's a jerk doesn't mean they're wrong.

If you are not willing to suspend your disbelief just a little more given that you already suspended it enough to accept dragons, elves, trolls, etc. then there isn't much more to say.

Suspend my disbelief that someone would wallow in blood magic tainted rituals, blowing up a city and several volcanoes all over north america, and that the great dragon who offered a million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) bounty wouldn't go looking for them?
Or that any of the wilderness spirits who actually liked the volcanoes before they exploded destroying hundreds of square miles of wilderness, and killing millions of animals of various sorts wouldn't go looking for them?
Or any of the other immortal elves who should have been able to see the truly evil mojo going on wouldn't go looking for them?
Or that even the atrophied magical muscles of every other terrified and screaming person who literally outnumber them 100 - 1 would be totally and completely impotent?
My disbelief is getting stretched a little thin at this moment.

[Mordinvan]

The disconnect here is that you are refusing to acknowledge when the books say that the NAN did, in fact,have a leg up on everyone else.

I'm not debating that the books say they did. The books could also say the moon is a giant marshmallow, and you can get pregnant from drinking too much Dr. Pepper. That however does not mean they have a good reason for doing so. How is it that when actively and willingly engaging in a war of genocide they don't somehow all become toxic? How is it when using that much blood magic, which the great dragons know can cause problems with the horrors that they didn't step in and eat all the shamans? How is it the other immortal elves didn't do the same? How is it howling coyote manged to learn to be able to summon a force 'plot' spirit in the middle of a concentration camp, and when placed under similar stress of desperation and death, all the angloes got to do was die in droves?

I only see power of plot holding any of this together, and as a generally rule "because I said so" is a really pathetic reason for things this completely unreasonable to occur.

[Mordinvan]

I grabbed the sentences with the 1% in them from your post. From their context, I really get the impression you didn't read that particular section of my post. Understandable, I did write up a "small novel" as you put it, I spent a bit of time going over my books, the wiki, and previous threads on the subject (thus all the hidden text which counters a lot of the points you make before they are repeated). I tried to put it all together on various points I kept seeing being repeated, a compendium if you will of points that keep being brought up that are well, just wrong. Here I will attempt to focus on the 1% point where it most commonly goes wrong:



There, even bolded a short little sentence to sum up my thoughts on the matter nicely. Your 1% of NAN population or US population? Doesn't exist in the fiction. What exists is ... well, I went over that already. That one assumption on your part throws a huge wrench in your argument before it even gets going. Please review the above quote to see why.

So if any one asks, "Hey, are you saying NAN are all magic shamans and braves?" I say, perhaps not all, but certainly more than their fair share when compared to other regions in the world and with bunch of verifiable (in the fiction) magical active skills of significant Runner worthy ratings, especially their Prime Runner NPC Howling Coyote and his otherworldly help leading up to the events in the fiction. The power of the f... plot is strong with these ones (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

So, perhaps a few David Blanes or Chris Angels of the US go "Sweet, I have real mojo!" who have sought out ancient rites to improve their theatrics but given the social climate of the day as described, if they aren't hiding in the shadows they are dying in the light of the oh so friendly chaotic times of pre and post Awakening. Being openly magic in the 2000-2018 US and Canadian militaries with the Commander and Prime/Defence Minister covering up the botched missions while selling out to the growing power of the Corps? LOL! At best, I'll concede that there may be the few exceptional Prime Runner NPCs who discover some of their Adept powers but beyond that, I don't see it putting a dent in what would become the NAN. Think of it like this, how well do armies do when their support lines are cut? What do you suppose the support lines were like for someone magical who wasn't on the insider track with the NAN in SR 2000-2018 (and even beyond for decades to come)? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh and your vaunted space tech/ air superiority? While it is an interesting point to bring up, even mundanes have figured ways around that before. That same stuff that people can go under cover/ground to not have peeping over their horizon? The same stuff that can be given trouble in some spectrums with barrels of fire (remember reading about the fake tanks when NATO was taking on Yugoslavia) and with blankets/ghillie suits/tent canvas made of the correct material and regular visual spectrum camouflage and disguises? Only a Spirit power defeating that particular high ground, come on. How about the real high ground at that point in the SR time line?
Can the tech see into the Astral in SR 2000-2018? No, magi-tech still has trouble with that in SR 2072+ let alone in those chaotic times when things were just getting started.

So you to have some reason to justify very nearly every NAN having awoken? Or is this just wishful thinking on your part?

[kzt]

SR1 "history" was essentially 3 guys with a pile of stereotypes and a hammer. It's really poorly thought out in just about every aspect. For example, the whole corporate extraterritoriality bit was written so that it revolved about the idea that corporations can't have armed guards without extraterritoriality. I guess, being game designers, they didn't actually go into banks or deal with Brinks trucks. ...

[Mistwalker]

Mordinvan,

Would it help your suspension of disbelief if the SR History was explained like this?

Bob, a great form free spirit, returned to earth when the mana levels got high enough. Bob took a look around, found those that were the descendants of his old allies, the natives of North America, who were being persecuted by another race. Bob was not happy about this and decided to do something about it. He found the most powerful shaman that he could, Howling Coyote, and taught him and others that were in the camp, all the while using his powers to conceal them from others while the teaching was on-going. Hence, the natives were given advanced magic, taught how to use it by a being that had been using magic for a very long time.

The ritual that was used was and is a variant of blood magic that does not call the horrors, as it is self-sacrifice, not sacrificing others. If I recollect correctly, the ritual allowed mundanes to participate, give up part (or all in some cases) of their life force. Each mundane didn't contribute as much as an awakened person, but there was a whole lot more of them. This was in one of the first SR novels, can't recall which book it was in, but it seems to me that it was the one about a dog shaman and getting rid of a few nukes, where they used a similar ritual as the GGD to neutralize the nukes, but it cost the dog shaman his magic.

If Bob also paid a visit to the Pentagon, to their deepset and safest command bunker, materialized and asked them if they really wanted an all out war? Don't you think that that would have made them stop and think, especially after it appeared that bullets could not hurt it, but it could definitely hurt them? There is a good possibility that an encounter like that would not be made public, for several reasons, including moral, fear for their lives, wanting time to find defences against this kind of "attack" before confronting those that have it the ability to do them.

I don't recall anywhere where there was a mention that the natives were pursuing a genocidal program against the rest of North America. They wanted their freedom from an oppressive government and had the power to force the issue.

[pbangarth]

Mordinvan,

Would it help your suspension of disbelief if the SR History was explained like this?

Bob, a great form free spirit, returned to earth when the mana levels got high enough. Bob took a look around, found those that were the descendants of his old allies, the natives of North America, who were being persecuted by another race. Bob was not happy about this and decided to do something about it. He found the most powerful shaman that he could, Howling Coyote, and taught him and others that were in the camp, all the while using his powers to conceal them from others while the teaching was on-going. Hence, the natives were given advanced magic, taught how to use it by a being that had been using magic for a very long time.

This sounds like that Star Trek movie (IV?) in which an overwhelmingly powerful, alien entity comes to Earth looking for its buddies the whales. Did we ever find out that alien's name? Bob, by any chance?