alt.WAR, Fixing War's problems by writing a new book Options

[hermit]

Maybe even just one. If we ignore the botched 2nd edition ED storyline, maybe Vestrivan is still there?

At least two are canon. One was mentioned in Aztlan (a feathered serpend), and one was mentioned in Shadows of Asia's Ukraine chapter, part of a story of horror of a sailor.

Also, there's Feuerschwinge, Germany's radioactive toxic dragon legend.

Most extreme example Henan has lost a third of it's territory to Sichuan and a small part to the Canton Confederation, but there is no mention of this in the Canton chapter. Also Shaanxi has lost a good chunk of its territory to Gansu of all places, but Gansu isn't even mentioned in the write-up on the country. They basically took a version of the Asian geography which sets most of the region back to the 2000 country and sub-national administrative borders.

Gah. They also made Asamondo three times it's previous size. No mention in the writeup either, though the idea of blind ghouls being diamond cutters is utterly hilarious.

Yeah, going back to SoA probably is a good idea.

That, or we write up WHY the borders changed like they did.

Erm, Manaus is smack in the middle of northern Amazonia, you can reach it via the Amazon and the Rio Negro but it's a long way from the sea. Something like 500 km at the closest distance.

By river then. But with ships and all that. Open a second front, secure the city ... but yeah, maybe not.

Why would AZT roll 'tanks' through High Mountain Passes. It's just.. crazy.

Why not? If one falls off the narrow road, they just cast slow on it, spin it so it lands on it's tracks, and then it goes up anew. :roll:

No, it makes no sense. But War! vague writing helps us there. For all we know, the war in Bogota could be fougfht entirely with armored and armed segways.

EDIT: The Amazonian locus would make for a prime military target. As I understand it, its a key element in speeding the growth of the Amazonian rainforest. I don't think its location has ever been pinpointed but if it were located in northern Amazonia, well that is one target the Azzies would really die to hit.

At the very least, it makes for an excellent rumor. However, ever sicne the loss of their own Locus, they sure are looking for a new one. That actually gives them a reason to march into the Basin.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I think we've hit a fork on the road here.

We have two options. Completely rewrite the AM-AZT war or use War! as foundation and work on top of it (polishing it and removing inconsistencies).
I prefer the latter.

[Grinder]

Completely rewrite the AM-AZT war

This.

[Grinder]

Thirded. Also, we need to do something with the photosynthetic elves. I loathe how metavariants are invented and then put on a bus. They're a bit dorky but they have such a nice na'vi vibe. Wyvern/Lesser Roc riding Xapiri Tépé (adepts that are attuned to the animal and have animal empathy with the animal handling skills from RW). Sirrug's shock troops, also used in the mountain fighting. What you say?

Seems fine to me.

[Grinder]

Why do we want to keep Bogota as a main hotspot of the book (and war - or vice versa)? If it doesn't make much sense for Atzlan to use the city as a base of operation in a war, let's drop it. We're not here to use War! as a starting ground, are we?

Actually, someone really needs to slap some of those people around and give them a bit of shadowrun history. Especially as regards Aztlan. Anyway, here's the history of Bogotá through different books:

• In Aztlan, which is set in 2056, Aztlan has the mountains all around Bogotá and a forward presence just 50 kilometers north of the city, but Amazonia still claims Bogotá itself. Columbia does not exist, and a Jaguar shapeshifter confidently predicts that Aztlan will never contest Bogotá proper.
  
• In Shadows of Latin America, which is set in 2065, Columbia is revealed to be an Aztlaner state, and Bogotá is the capital of that state. Here's the full text:
  [ Spoiler ]
  Bogotá is the largest city in the Aztlaner state of Colombia, and the staging ground for Aztlan’s military presence outside of Mesoamerica. Consequently, Bogotá is primarily a military town, catering to both Aztlaner and Aztechnology corporate military and intelligence forces. The local community has been steered toward supporting the Aztlaner military presence in terms of miltech (munitions, vehicles and drones, armor), pharmaceuticals (stimulants, antibacterial, and antiviral drugs), and sustenance (dry rations and fortified water). Aztechnology owns all of the coca fields surrounding the city to ensure the products are not misused by local criminal interests.
  
  
• Runner Havens, which is set in 2070 uses the Shadows of Latin America timetable and confirms that there is no independent Columbia.
  
• Corporate Enclaves, which is set in 2072, also uses the Shadows of Latin America timetable (explicitly, even mentioning Shadows of Latin America by name to piss off anxious fanboys), and confirms that the Columbian nationalists live inside Aztlan.
  
• Jason took over as developer and shit got crazy.

Anyway, a number of things have been said about Aztlan that are not actually true. First of all, they do not work for the Horrors. They use a lot of death magic, but they are not in fact horror puppets. The Aztlan + Horrors plotline was complicated, but it also ended. Parts of it are stupid and it involve various Xanatos Gambits that are fairly far fetched and only work because Immortal Elves and Great Dragons are always right. Here's the short version:

[ Spoiler ]

There once was a villain, who went under the name Oscuro or the even more imaginative villain name: Darke. Anyway, he was bad and showed up in the original Threats book. He was the leader of a group called The Bloodmage Gestalt. They were getting money funneled into them for "evil research" by an unnamed secret portfolio inside the Aztechnology corporation, and also had some horror allies. They showed up in various sourcebooks as villains who were doing blood magic and evil research. In Cybertechnology it was confirmed that the results of their evil research were cybermancy techniques and building a "mana bridge" to help the horrors invade our world. Oh noes! This information was collected by Dunkelzahn, who gave it to Harlequin (and several other IEs) with a big bow wrapped around it in the Aztlan sourcebook. Then Harlequin tracked down a group of plucky Shadowrunners and took them on a surrealist metaplanar dungeon crawl culminating in shooting Darke right in the face and murdering a bunch of members of the Bloodmage Gestalt, these events are the campaign book Harlequin's Back. Thereafter, the Bloodmage Gestalt lost their funding and the surviving members were mostly shot in the face by Aztechnology as some sort of loose ends clearing action; though it was later confirmed that some of the Blood Mage Gestalt members escaped and was last seen working for MCT. Dunkelzahn then did a giant blood magic ritual where he died and turned into a spirit and possessed a cyberzombie and made a magic artifact that sealed all the other potential bridge locations, thereby bringing the Horror Invasion plotline to a close for the next thousand years. That was the Dragonheart Trilogy, which is actually pretty stupid, but at least it ended the Horror Invasion plotline so we could get back to the morally gray stuff that Shadowrun is actually about. And finally, between Augmentation and Portfolio of a Dragon, we discover that the person controlling the secret monetary portfolio within Aztechnology was... Dunkelzahn the whole time.

So.... no. Aztechnology was never "pro-horror" and they aren't "pro-horror right now either. They are just fascists who are really into public execution and Mesoamerican fashion. And the entire quadruple-cross to stop the horrors happened to play out in Aztlan because that is a place where you could sacrifice a very large number of people for dubious research and still keep that a secret from the public.

As for Great Dragons in Aztechnology, yes. They have names One of them is Inti Jiwana, who is a Great Eastern Dragon who is known to have aura scars from horror claws (Aztlan, p. 68). The other is Chico Aze, who is a Great Feathered Serpent of whom almost nothing is known besides the name and the fact that he has developed an interest in cybermancy (Augmentaion) For those keeping track at home, Chico Aze is a Nahua name meaning "The Sun" (although for conspiracy theorists, it specifically refers to the sun that is overhead during the fifth world, not the current sun), and presumably comes from somewhere around Tenochtitlan, while Inti Jiwana is a Quechua name, and presumably comes from Ecuador or Peru. It means "Eclipse", but in the suitably florid language of Quechua it more specifically means "The Jaguar That Swallows The Sun".

-Frank

[hermit]

Yeah, the Dumpshockers are gradually realizing something I realized months ago: Bogotá is in the fucking mountains and is about as easy to invade or invade out of as Switzerland. The writeup in War! acts like the jungle comes right up to the doorstep of the city, but really there are the Andean Fucking Mountains in the way. It's kind of a big deal. Bogotá is a damn dead end. Even if you could somehow manage to invade into Bogotá, there's no way you'll be able to invade out of it. The same mountain ranges that make it easy to keep an army out also make it easy to keep an army in. Bogotá is a valuable enough target to want to own, but it's not the spearhead of anything.

Basically war is the conduction of diplomacy or politics by other means. This means that people fight wars because there is something they want that someone else refuses to give them. Sometimes this can be something noble like "civil rights" or something purely nationalistic like "self determination for this arbitrary group of people". But very frequently it is purely economic - one side wants something (land, resources, slaves, money, whatever) and they are willing to pay less than the other side is wiling to accept for it. Sometimes the other side won't sell it at any price (especially when it's land or slaves that are being bargained for).

So first of all, you want to cover a war zone that is about several different things. A war for market share, a war for resources, a war for empire, a war for better treatment.

And then secondly, every war is different from every other war in how it is fought. Technology, terrain, factions, doctrine, all of these are important, even defining variables. So you're going to want to cover lots of different types of war. The Amazonia-Aztlan war is actually fine as a set piece as far as that goes, because it has mountain conflict, jungle conflict, and urban warfare with formed units versus guerrillas. Obviously, you'd need to recast the objectives to ones that made any sense and draw some battle lines that made any sense at all, of course.

So really you could mix and match. You could do worse than having this be the "Jungle Book" where the set piece wars were the Amazonia-Aztlan War, the Nag Kampuchea-Republic of Cambodia-Siamese War of Succession, the Congolese Conflict Zone, and the War of Samoan Aggression. Compare and contrast different kinds of jungle and how the prosecution of a war differs when goals, doctrines, and available resources are different. Talk about the difference in supply lines when you have different connections to the water (Bogotá is 400 kilometers from the Ocean, while the unification of the Polynesian Kingdoms is happening in the Pacific Theater where everything is naval almost all the time). Alternately you could try to mix and match your terrains, with the extra ones being a clash between the Ottomans and Hungarians in the Baltic, a piece of DesertWars (brought to you by NERPS), and an expansion of Imperial Nippon into Korea and Kamchatka.

It really depends on how focused you want the book to be.

Also this. Really worth pondering.

[Grinder]

Yup.

We need to get an outline of the Aztlan-Amazonia war online soon, otherwise we'll never get this done.

[hermit]

I'd prefer a timeline for the beginning. Which means we have to sort out when the war actually begins, when stuff happens in war, descide if we want to gloss over war or use what little is usable and go with it, and then fill in the blanks with meaningful stuff.

[Grinder]

Plus add reasonable motivations for Atzlan to start a war over.

[hermit]

Plus that, but that does not belong into a timeline, but into a short writeup of what the parties in the war actuallywant (and who we want to see there).

Personally, I can kinda see Ares (though decidedly not why Amnazonia would let them, or are they THAT desperate?), but Horizon? Why does Horizon have to be everywhere? They're a media, pharmaceuticals and advertising company, and not a militech corp doing major mercenary business? Even the Singularity comlinks have been ridiculous, but just within Horizon's scope as a corp. But going to war in Amazonia? Way, way out of their sphere of influence? What the fuck.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Reasonable motivations abound. For both sides. There is the fact that the leadership of both side doesn't like each other.
Considering both countries are dictatorships (in one form or another) it doesn't need more for them to go to war.

Of course, this is not a good political reason. We need to define who attacked first. Probably Aztlan; in this case, what excuses are they giving to declare war without receiving a UN or Corporate Council embargo?

Sirrurg would be best excuse; Aztlan/Aztechnology spread the rumours about some magical experiments they are doing along the DMZ, specially if it envolves dragons and dracomorphs. Sirrurg gathers enough evidence of this and levels the city (not necessarely a major one, a medium city could work). I think this could work.

The real reason why Aztlan wants this war? Power sites hidden in the Basin? Beat the crap out of three Great Dragons? Greed, pure and simple (woods, minerals, water)? For the lulz?

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Plus that, but that does not belong into a timeline, but into a short writeup of what the parties in the war actuallywant (and who we want to see there).

Personally, I can kinda see Ares (though decidedly not why Amnazonia would let them, or are they THAT desperate?), but Horizon? Why does Horizon have to be everywhere? They're a media, pharmaceuticals and advertising company, and not a militech corp doing major mercenary business? Even the Singularity comlinks have been ridiculous, but just within Horizon's scope as a corp. But going to war in Amazonia? Way, way out of their sphere of influence? What the fuck.

When do we split from the official timeline anyway?
I would have to get home and check my 6thWA for ideas anyway.

[Grinder]

The real reason why Aztlan wants this war? Power sites hidden in the Basin? Beat the crap out of three Great Dragons? Greed, pure and simple (woods, minerals, water)? For the lulz?

All of them.

@hermit: I've made the experience that a project needs a set deadline, otherwise it will fade out easily. So give us a deadline for a first draft for both timeline and background info on the war (who went to war with whom for what reasons?). And yeah, totally agree on Horizon.

[Kot]

Plus add reasonable motivations for Atzlan to start a war over.

Getting the Skyhook to be on their(newly conquered) land?

[hermit]

I dunno. Or at least play it down (like, they sell pharmaceuticals to anyone). But I don't want to see Horizon fielding it any forces of note, because that corp is MS'd up and annoying as is.

[Grinder]

Agreed.

[Grinder]

Getting the Skyhook to be on their(newly conquered) land?

Maybe. We have a couple of others too:

Ancient Power Sites
Magical Ingredients and components for making Foci
Minerals
Power sites hidden in the Basin? Beat the crap out of three Great Dragons? Greed, pure and simple (woods, minerals, water)? For the lulz?

[Doc Chase]

I forget - who won the contract on the Star Ladder, and would there be an acceptable site for it in Amazonia?

[Kot]

Hell, why not all of these? A few serious reasons behind the war are better than just one. And when there's a lot of nuyen to be made on each and every one of them, it's even better for Aztechnology/Atzlan.

[Grinder]

Yup, think so too. We just need to keep them all in mind and collect them, before a good, rock-solide motivation slips past us.

[hermit]

For the lulz?

The evulz!

So, this is what we have so far:

Motivations:

Aztlan:
- Ancient Power Sites (capture the other South American Locus, and cut off their great rival's power base once and for all). Likely tie in with third motivation.
- Magical Ingredients and components for making Foci - because since they'Re there, why not make a profit of it.
Beat the crap out of three Great Dragons - possible. at least, kill Sirrug and lure him out by pissing him off. Hualpa and #3 optional.
- Power sites hidden in the Basin - we can make much of this - the site of the Locus, the heart of the forest, as in Avatar, hidden amazonian power centers. Amazonia still has never received a decent writeup, so there is lots and lots of free space.
- Greed, pure and simple (woods, minerals, water) is at the core of their being, but here, it should be a bit more pointed, as we have enough at our hands. It should be a secondary objective, they'Re still a corp after all.

Minerals - I dunno. It's a long term thing. Unless there's some sort of Unobtanium there somewhere, but I'll stay THE HELL AWAY from orichalcum mining. Bad enough David Hill opened that can of worms. But if they manage to secure territory, it's sure gonna be strip-mined and logged. They probably have suspected ore-rich sites earmarked as secondary targets all the time.

Ideas for the other factions:

Amazonia:
- get Aztlan the hell out of their country
- Preserve the forest
- defend themselves, pure and simple. Maybe push Aztlan out of SA entirely, going for the Panama canal as new border.
- possibly something with Primaira Varga since it seems nobody will ever follow up on that anyway. what about all those sleepers? Something could be done with them.

Ares:
- Test new toys
- Stick it to the Azzies (they are big with the CAS. Probably, a couple CAS units are working with Ares, under Ares' command and logo).

Horizon:
- Make a good name for themselves with refugee camps, call-in shows for refugees, donating medicine and crawling up Amazonia's ass in the hope they'll share the next Tempo with them.
- Scientology stuff (admit it, it just makes SENSE that the CoS has been absorbed into Horizon). MAybe they're looking for some weirdo stuff around volcanos?

[sabs]

Aztlan reasons for going to war:
1) A power play between The Great Dragons involved in AZT and Singurr and Hapaul(sp)
2) AZT is looking for a new LOCUS site, and they know there's a Major one powering the Amazonian Regrowth, they just have no fucking clue where it is.
3) Venezuellan Oil Fields
4) They want to get Singurr to 'bring it' and give them a shot at killing him
5) Control of the Coca fields of Columbia
6) Cause they're bitter about Yucatan
7) Finding and destroying the Eco Training Camps being protected by Singurr
8) True Wood
9) Magical components (Heart of a wyvern, Eye of a Pacau*, Awakened Boa Constrictor Skin, etc)
10) Minerals/rare earth elements/True Earth deposits in the Cordillera Mountains.
11) Drekkin Amazonian Trees making it impossible to strip mine the Cordillera.
12) Those Dirty Amazonians got caught red handed blowing up a factory that was producing medicine to treat some horrible disease (Maybe VITAS III?)

Amazonian Reasons for Throwing Down
1) AZT tricked us into blowing up that factory and we're pissed.
2) Hapaul isn't going to let no two bit Great Dragon and his human mini-onions take land he has claimed away from him
3) Venezuella is polluting the land with their refineries/Oil Wells. We must stop them
4) Important relics from the 4th age are on the Amazonian side of those Mountains, and they wont let them go
5) Zeal for defending the Earth from those strip mining AZT devils.
6) It's out LOCUS and you can't have it.
7) Live Free or Die!


Corporatiosn involved in the Conflict.
Ares is bank rolling experimental weapons testing in live combat through several mercenary groups
Horizon is providing unofficial monetary support to Amazonia.. because they have a LUCRATIVE awakened pharmaceuticals contract with Amazonia, and they're worried AZT will just cut them out of the market.
S&K is negotiating with Aztlan to allow S&K to open up subsidiaries in Aztlan. They're offering to help AZT with the Corp Council votes, and with some monetary support. (Lofwyr is still bitter about Dunkie's Will)

The Free City State of Caracas is trying to stay that way.
UN/Corp Council Join peace Keepign force:
French Foreign Legion
CAS Expeditionary Force
UCAS Rangers
Ares Valkyrie Force
Renraku Red Samurai
Japanese Imperial Army

a couple of dozen Merc Outfits working out of the city.

Bogota is being used as a hub for quick strikes into the Amazon.
Caracas is where all the Mercs are hired out of
The real Front Line is Maracaibo Lake Area and Southern Venezuella.
AZT has a Forward Base that can only be supported/resupplied by Air SE of Bogota (There's a couple of choices)

Guerrila fighting in the Mountains and Jungles
Straight up Slug fest in Venezuella

Thoughts?

[Stahlseele]

What's this about the skyhook? O.o

[sabs]

Skyhook doesn't work in south america, weather, if I remember correctly.

Aztlan has northern Mexico which would be a much better spot for a Skyhook.

[Grinder]

Aztlan reasons for going to war:
1) A power play between The Great Dragons involved in AZT and Singurr and Hapaul(sp)
2) AZT is looking for a new LOCUS site, and they know there's a Major one powering the Amazonian Regrowth, they just have no fucking clue where it is.
3) Venezuellan Oil Fields
4) They want to get Singurr to 'bring it' and give them a shot at killing him
5) Control of the Coca fields of Columbia
6) Cause they're bitter about Yucatan
7) Finding and destroying the Eco Training Camps being protected by Singurr
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) True Wood
9) Magical components (Heart of a wyvern, Eye of a Pacau*, Awakened Boa Constrictor Skin, etc)
10) Minerals/rare earth elements/True Earth deposits in the Cordillera Mountains.
11) Drekkin Amazonian Trees making it impossible to strip mine the Cordillera.
12) Those Dirty Amazonians got caught red handed blowing up a factory that was producing medicine to treat some horrible disease (Maybe VITAS III?)

Amazonian Reasons for Throwing Down
1) AZT tricked us into blowing up that factory and we're pissed.
2) Hapaul isn't going to let no two bit Great Dragon and his human mini-onions take land he has claimed away from him
3) Venezuella is polluting the land with their refineries/Oil Wells. We must stop them
4) Important relics from the 4th age are on the Amazonian side of those Mountains, and they wont let them go
5) Zeal for defending the Earth from those strip mining AZT devils.
6) It's out LOCUS and you can't have it.
7) Live Free or Die!


Corporatiosn involved in the Conflict.
Ares is bank rolling experimental weapons testing in live combat through several mercenary groups
Horizon is providing unofficial monetary support to Amazonia.. because they have a LUCRATIVE awakened pharmaceuticals contract with Amazonia, and they're worried AZT will just cut them out of the market.
S&K is negotiating with Aztlan to allow S&K to open up subsidiaries in Aztlan. They're offering to help AZT with the Corp Council votes, and with some monetary support. (Lofwyr is still bitter about Dunkie's Will)

The Free City State of Caracas is trying to stay that way.
UN/Corp Council Join peace Keepign force:
French Foreign Legion
CAS Expeditionary Force
UCAS Rangers
Ares Valkyrie Force
Renraku Red Samurai
Japanese Imperial Army

a couple of dozen Merc Outfits working out of the city.

Bogota is being used as a hub for quick strikes into the Amazon.
Caracas is where all the Mercs are hired out of
The real Front Line is Maracaibo Lake Area and Southern Venezuella.
AZT has a Forward Base that can only be supported/resupplied by Air SE of Bogota (There's a couple of choices)

Guerrila fighting in the Mountains and Jungles
Straight up Slug fest in Venezuella

Thoughts?

Nice one! hermit's ideas gel well with it. A couple of the motivations will have to be kept very very secret in-game (the search for the Locus), thus we should only give small hints towards it and reveal a bit more in the game information chapter.