Yakut Shuffle: questions, ideas, criticism Options

[Fatum]

Well, SoA says they don't have anything of the scale, but it's pretty speculative there. Anyway, Great Ghost Dance-level magic is much less fearsome in 2070ies than it was during the Great Ghost Dance War, since now at least they know what it is and what to do about it. So I imagine it works pretty much as modern-day nukes - scary, but nobody's using them until the very last moment. Plus, let's be fair, it's worse than nukes.

Oh, and of course, Awakened Yakut includes pretty much all of Siberia - that is, the vast majority of the modern day Russia's resources. Resource starvation looks to be the most obvious economic reason for Russia to want the Yakut lands back.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

So there you have it.
The russians can't simply nuke them.
Yakut won't go Ghost Dance on them because this would mean the russians could go to mutual destruction.
That means they must deploy troops like any conventional war.
And in this case, I think Yakut would go a guerrilla aproach, perhaps?

[Fatum]

Yeah, that's basically the problem - Russia has like ten times the troops (okay, less in the theater, plus some of the Yakut civilians will take up arms, too) and significantly better tech.
Sure, Yakut has slightly better mages (but that's still one in a hundred among the metahuman populace) and the Awakened like free spirits and shapeshifters on its side; I just don't see them in large-scale combat with SR SOTA military machines.
Right, of course if the standing army is crushed, the Yakut will be down to guerrilla tactics (and I've written up army training courses for that in the Awakened Militia); but fighting a guerrilla campaign hardly makes for an interesting book. There should be some serious action before that, I figure.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

1- Yakut rebelled taking the russians by surprise.
2- Yakut got some allies and got itself recognized as an independent nation by UN.
3- Russia complained very loudly about this and was ignored.
4- Russia finally gets its war machine to work and prepares to invade.
5- Russia invades Yakut.
6- Yakut begins guerrilla warfare and its government is transfered to an allied country as government-in-exile.

[Fatum]

1- Yakut rebelled taking the russians by surprise.
2- Yakut got some allies and got itself recognized as an independent nation by UN.
3- Russia complained very loudly about this and was ignored.
4- Russia finally gets its war machine to work and prepares to invade.
5- Russia invades Yakut.
6- Yakut begins guerrilla warfare and its government is transfered to an allied country as government-in-exile.

Well, that's more or less how it went. The Yakut rebelled in 31, when Russia had its hands full with Border Wars and the First Eurowar. The books, however, claim that the forces moved against them lost not because of magic, but because of not being prepared to wage war in Siberia (ahem, right). Russia was expelled from UN after starting the Eurowar, so I believe it cared little for international recognition (I'm planning to use that in the draft, too, since leaving UN most likely means leaving a bunch of international treaties, for example, ones detailing proper warfare usage). So, if Sixth World Almanac is to be believed, there have been border skirmishes since then; and one of the complaints metahumans have about the current Yakut government is moving them towards the borders where they're a frequent target of Russian raids (ahem, right). Sure enough a sudden strike may be beneficial for Yakut situation, but I doubt still it'd lead to any kind of prolonged war.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

So Russia is not prepared to wage war in Siberia?!?!?!
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Well, if all Yakut have is Magic and good will, it won't be enough to stop the russians unless they can assure mutual destruction. If they are not capable of that, guerrilla warfare is the way to go.

[Fatum]

I know, right? The books wуку all like "oooh the forest is so scary! It doesn't want us there! Oh god, the horror that is snowstorms!"

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I know, right? The books was all like "oooh the forest is so scary! It doesn't want us there! Oh god, the horror that is snowstorms!"

I mean, unless they have spells that create hyper-intelligent sentient cold that is out to get you I believe all vehicles, weapons and gear would be designed to work in extreme low temperatures.
Anyway...

[Nath]

So Russia is not prepared to wage war in Siberia?!?!?!

The Russian high command would sure be prepared, if that means having plans to deal with such situation somewhere. It's another thing to have the units in position, with the needed supplies, while alrady fighting a war against two-third of Europe. Also, they would probably consider the East a lot less threatened after China exploded into the Chinese states and the US closest military base moving from Alaska to Seattle.

Besides, I can't seem to find the original source for the "unprepared" argument.

[Fatum]

Plans I doubt; although I guess after that whole NAN deal the General Staff had all the reasons to prepare plans for large-scale rebellions. However, the forces stationed in Siberia (yeah, there's a whole Far Eastern military district there) are about as prepared to fight in Siberia as the locals themselves; can't see why would that change by the 30ies, given the tech advanced which make it easier if anything.

Target: Smuggler Havens it was, I believe. When questioned about the role of magic in the whole deal (with a statement that Russia lost a bunch of territory to a Great Ghost Dance for the second time) a shadowtalker who was there goes on how it wasn't about the magic, but about unpreparedness and blah-blah-blah.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

The Russian high command would sure be prepared, if that means having plans to deal with such situation somewhere. It's another thing to have the units in position, with the needed supplies, while alrady fighting a war against two-third of Europe. Also, they would probably consider the East a lot less threatened after China exploded into the Chinese states and the US closest military base moving from Alaska to Seattle.

Besides, I can't seem to find the original source for the "unprepared" argument.

They had 40 years to be prepared and still did mostly nothing except border skirmishes.

[Nath]

However, the forces stationed in Siberia (yeah, there's a whole Far Eastern military district there) are about as prepared to fight in Siberia as the locals themselves; can't see why would that change by the 30ies, given the tech advanced which make it easier if anything.

Those forces would be prepared. The problem would rather, would they still be there ? In 2030, Russia invades Poland and Czechia, moving into German territory : the largest military operations ever since WW2. I think it could involve moving some forces and equipment away from the East. The government, the high command and the intelligence services would focus on waging war in Europe, and could underestimate the threat of Yakut rebels (or even imagine there is no actual rebellion, but only a small number of Western infiltrated agents). The best troops can't do much if they don't receive any order.

[Fatum]

Well, the fact is, they fought and lost, for whatever of the multitude of more or less believable reasons; a shadowtalker just says the reason wasn't magic.
Which returns us to the initial point - how to make the Awakened Militia an interesting, solid force able to stand up to the Red Army in a direct fight at least for a while. I'm thinking of massive paranormal animal usage, but I'm not sure just how believable that would be - after all, a single dragon killing the general secretary alone on a military base really left at least the readers I know puzzled.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Unless Yakut has paracritters on the level of the species of Pandora, I don't see how they could win against the Red Army...

[Fatum]

Okay, back from vacation, working on the Yakut part, again.
Found this, gonna see if I can make something cool of it...

[Fatum]

Working on the project sporadically again...

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

College winter break? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Real life pretty much prevented me to play shadowrun for the last 7 months, my only contact with the game is here...

[Fatum]

Nah, end-semester has lower-intensity study. The lecture courses are over and all that jazz.
I've started a shared campaign setting for Shadowrun, and now everyone GMs except for me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

YAY! \o/

[Tias]

Hey (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As I PM'ed, I've read it and would like to help out if I can.

On the subject of Ghost Dance or near GGD-level rituals ending the war in Yakut's favor, it would appear that such magic can be extremely costly for those invoking it. While Daniel and NAN didn't seem to just die in droves, something could well go wrong, considering that normal, uninitiated shamans and mages can faint dead from drain if they use too much power.

I do like the idea of making the winter cold sentient on magic steroids, however <3

[Tias]

Hey Fatum, did you receive my PM with thoughts on the Armoury?

[Fatum]

Sorry for a long delay, Tias, I was afkish.
Yeah, you're right, AEK-1838 must have a typo in the stats.
Belt-fed weapons, if you look into Arsenal, don't get belt size descriptions, that's why I wrote it in the description of the weapon itself.
I tried to fit as many fun plot hooks as possible into the item descriptions as well as the text itself, yeah.
Well, the poisons are broken, but they are intended as such - those are super-secret alphabet agency weapons. After all, there's a sidebar on the lab making them a few dozes at a time, and they have high availabilities. Do you think there should be a direct GM warning?
As for the IBMEL Universum - well, yeah, the prices are for separate components, but then again, other modular weapon systems are pretty much as accessible, and you can make them MAD-undetectable at chargen, too - so I thought it'd be within reason...

[Tias]

A GM warning is only necessary if your reader is the kind of GM that allows everything out of the book without explanation and no idea on how to manage power levels - find your own depth, and all that jazz (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

I'd love to take another look at it once I'm done writing on my campaign.

[Tias]

Hey again. Did you drop this wholly? I just flipped through it again, appreciating what a great read it is. I got hold of Shadows of Asia and 6th World Almanac, but am a bit timid with regards to writing regional history. I'd try my hand at writing Yakut forces or something, but I really need to read up on the things I guess.

[Fatum]

Not that I dropped it wholly, it's just that I've been rather busy with my grad project; and will be at least until January.

In fact, it's pretty obvious that making it a whole tome of alt.War: Russo-Yakutian War in one go is not working out, so I want to try and turn it into finished pdfs, each containing a few linked chapters. Like Tome I: Russia (Overview of Russia, Russian military, Russian gear); then Tome II: Yakut (Overview of Awakened Yakut, Yakut military, Sagan-Zaba rebels, Yakut gear and spells); finally Tome III: War (Overview of actual campaign, and how to make it useful for your group). When those are ready, combine them into a single large tome.

It's taking some time, of course, but it's not like we're in a hurry.