[X] My Assistant

[LurkerOutThere]

Man i'd forgotten about that thread, I don't often miss Frank but dayum.

[Mäx]

Man i'd forgotten about that thread, I don't often miss Frank but dayum.

LOL, i especially don't miss him after reading that thread.

[Draco18s]

Haesslich (I think it was him) was quite unceremoniously killed by ONE guy in one the the Secrets of Power books...

The dragon you're thinking of (I believe it was Haesslich) wasn't a great. He was so low on the totem pole he war largely irrelevant.

He was the head of security for a tiny subsidiary of Sauder-Krupp. I.E. he was Lofwyr's bitch.

[PoliteMan]

Heck, SIrrug was fought off by *one* *guy* when he attacked a plane. He won and shot the plane down, but, he *was* held off for a while.

I think that was more of a "suprise, quick sucker punch" than a real fight.

Wonder what would happen if someone *did* manage to cack a Great Dragon? The ones that have died so far were from other Greats (Nachtmaster) or uncomfirmed (Firewings getting lit up by teh German Air Force, then crashing into the uber-radioactive SOX and still rumored to be alive) or, you know, Dunk.

Wonder what would happen if, say, the Mysterious Third Great Dragon of Amazonia just got flat-out SLEW sometime? Dragonslayer's old group still exists and are sure to have killed a few Drakes and a Lesser or two. What happens if they have a good day and actually bag a Great? How would other Dragons react? How would other countries? Or megacorps? It'd probably take a large military force, or some crazy powerful magic, but, you know, Edge being Edge, some guy could just get dang lucky and gank a Great while they were in metahuman form and, thus, vulnerable.

I don't mean a Lofwyr or Rumyo or the othe rmetaplot dragons, but ... wonder what'd happen?

I dunno, it's difficult to realistically imagine dragons as a serious threat to, say, supersonic jet fighters. Magic's the only thing that makes it even reasonable. Even then, if say Aztech wacked a dragon that came into their turf, I can't imagine anything even the Greats could do. After all, the only thing the Corps can agree on is that they should have all the power and that doesn't include dragons unless they're shareholders. If the dragons seriously started to mess with Corp execs, even discounting SK and maybe NeoNet (thanks to Celadyr) there's more than enough firepower to wipe out every great on the planet (heck, there's enough firepower to wipe out everything on the planet a couple time over.) Some of the Greats might cause problems but would in necessarily be worse than what an Azzie or Ares exec faces every day from other corps?

The most reasonable explanation I can think of is that if you want to fight a great dragon, you either need to accept a lot of collateral damage or you need a very specialized force with very specialized equipment. The kind of force that's very expensive, small, and doesn't get sent out unless they NEED to be. Besides, even then, who picks a fight with a Great?

As for Denver, I kind of imagine all the countries/corps sitting down after GW's takeover,

UCAS rep, "So Ghostwalker took over Denver. Does anybody really care?"

Azzie rep, "Yes!"

Everyone else, "Nope"

UCAS rep, "Ok"

Sengir:
Nope, even per the silliness of Magic RAW, I don't buy that 20 Magic=trillions of dollars of sci-fi tech. Heck, I don't buy that 1,000 Magic=trillions of dollars of sci-fi tech.

[Wakshaani]

Well, since we're a-driftin' ...

Aztechnology is *ticked* at Ghostwalker.
Ares is "The Mili-Corp" and is called in for all kinds of work.

Do you think either of them is working on some sort of anti-dragon gear? Normal heat-seaking missiles don't work too well on a living target and radar doesn't really love 'em, either. There's no "Magic-proof metal" that they could slap onto a tank, so that's out as well.

Wonder what they, or any other group, *coul* cook up in terms of dragonslaying tech?

(I suppose you could use a "One Less Drago spell but, you know ... good luck with that.)

[Draco18s]

(I suppose you could use a "One Less Drago spell but, you know ... good luck with that.)

Slay [Ghostwalker] (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[PoliteMan]

Meh, presuming you're talking about an Invisible, silly Camo'd dragon, you'd probably start by drenching the are with RFID tags. Not much the dragon can do about that, even destroying them will singly out it's position. There's plenty of current anti-armor weapons which'd chew through a dragon's physical defenses. Railguns come to mind. While Spirits are fast, I even astral forms are limited in how fast they can move/react. Supersonic weapons will probably render prevent them from directly stopping the missiles, unless they're loyal enough to be ablative armor. And even that won't stop some stuff.

[Ascalaphus]

Almost every GD has influence over at least one top-tier country or AAA (SK, Amazonia as the most obvious, but Dunkelzahn turned out to have significant stock in Ares, Fuchi, Renraku and Aztechnology too..)

Maybe the GDs discourage the lowly mortals from developing anti-dragon weapons? Along with warnings to heads of state that any attack on a GD will be taken very seriously by all of the GDs?

I mean, rivalry between GDs is one thing, but allowing some lesser species to pose a threat is intolerable...

[Bigity]

There was one used in the House of the Sun Novel by Nigel Findely if memory serves

Not used in the book, but detailed in the book. The shot(s) were used when the UCAS Pacific fleet was steaming back to Hawaii to reclaim the islands from the natives in revolution. The shots were used as warning shots, and worked.

[LurkerOutThere]

Almost every GD has influence over at least one top-tier country or AAA (SK, Amazonia as the most obvious, but Dunkelzahn turned out to have significant stock in Ares, Fuchi, Renraku and Aztechnology too..)

Maybe the GDs discourage the lowly mortals from developing anti-dragon weapons? Along with warnings to heads of state that any attack on a GD will be taken very seriously by all of the GDs?

I mean, rivalry between GDs is one thing, but allowing some lesser species to pose a threat is intolerable...

This post is pretty much a checklist of everything silly with dragons.

[darthmord]

This post is pretty much a checklist of everything silly with dragons.

You do realize that from a Dragon's perspective, all those things are quite reasonable.

I mean, if I were a dragon, I'd have my claws in so many pies that by the time you figured out what I was doing, I'd have already killed you last week and you just got the notice today.

[Draco18s]

You do realize that from a Dragon's perspective, all those things are quite reasonable.

I mean, if I were a dragon, I'd have my claws in so many pies that by the time you figured out what I was doing, I'd have already killed you last week and you just got the notice today.

Apparently my post got lost.

I said something about "if you were a dragon and could alter your physical appearance to be (meta)human, you'd probably not let on that you could, because it'd just get you killed."

[LurkerOutThere]

Actually I was refering to GD's owning huge stakes in triple A megas. Lofwyr pulling that trick once makes sense, D secretly having secret controlling interests in several strains credibility but is more workable for him then most, but every GD secretly having major stakes in AAA megas, the SEC and the CC should go ape when they try and move that kind of stock around in off the books for precious metals transacations.

[Ascalaphus]

Well, as soon as the Awakening hit, the GDs had time to start playing. They could use Mind Control-type spells before the mundanes had really figured out those existed. They likely had some divination ability, too.

Then there's Crash 1.0; at least Dunkelzahn profited from that; he appears to have been the silent partner in the Nanosecond Buyout afterwards.

Dragons don't just do insider training (aided by Mind Probe, Divination, astral spying and general superior mental faculties); they can certainly manipulate events so that companies they invested in get all the "lucky" breaks.

They certainly didn't play fair; once they reach a critical mass of pawns like senior politicians, it becomes easier and easier to acquire profitable government contracts, favorable agency rulings and so forth. The ability of dragons to use corruption, nepotism and so forth is bigger than that of ordinary people because they're smart, they have a head start, and superior magic.

It's more surprising that there seem to be independent humans in positions at all, really. If they really are independent.

[Draco18s]

They certainly didn't play fair; once they reach a critical mass of pawns like senior politicians, it becomes easier and easier to acquire profitable government contracts, favorable agency rulings and so forth. The ability of dragons to use corruption, nepotism and so forth is bigger than that of ordinary people because they're smart, they have a head start, and superior magic.

Don't forget their alien minds. We, as (meta)humans can't predict what they're likely to do, because they think differently than we do.

We did Big D run for president? Why'd he kill himself/allow himself to be assassinated just after his inauguration? (By that I mean "that moment" rather than "that event," we have some understanding of "why did he kill himself" but why did he do it then?) Why was he so interested in metahumanity (no other dragon has ever held that fascination)?

From a writing perspective there doesn't need to be a reason, as dragons think differently than we do and are incapable of understanding their motivations. Case and point: Why did Big D help Damien Knight in the nanosecond buyout at all?

So basically: if they want to manipulate the stock market, they'll do it in a way that makes sense to them and we, as (meta)humans won't be able to predict the outcome even if we know that the GD is manipulating the stock market.

[KarmaInferno]

So basically: if they want to manipulate the stock market, they'll do it in a way that makes sense to them and we, as (meta)humans won't be able to predict the outcome even if we know that the GD is manipulating the stock market.

Beating someone in the stock market is kinda hard when they can re-roll fate.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



-k

[PoliteMan]

Well, as soon as the Awakening hit, the GDs had time to start playing. They could use Mind Control-type spells before the mundanes had really figured out those existed. They likely had some divination ability, too.

Then there's Crash 1.0; at least Dunkelzahn profited from that; he appears to have been the silent partner in the Nanosecond Buyout afterwards.

Dragons don't just do insider training (aided by Mind Probe, Divination, astral spying and general superior mental faculties); they can certainly manipulate events so that companies they invested in get all the "lucky" breaks.

They certainly didn't play fair; once they reach a critical mass of pawns like senior politicians, it becomes easier and easier to acquire profitable government contracts, favorable agency rulings and so forth. The ability of dragons to use corruption, nepotism and so forth is bigger than that of ordinary people because they're smart, they have a head start, and superior magic.

It's more surprising that there seem to be independent humans in positions at all, really. If they really are independent.

Let's not try to pretend dragons are logical. Dragons are not but they're hardly the worst thing in SR. Dragons are in SR because shooting dragons with cybornetic grenade launchers is cool.

Some dragons should be Machiaveliuan schemers because that is cool. They should not control everything, because that is not cool.

[Draco18s]

Some dragons should be Machiaveliuan schemers because that is cool. They should not control everything, because that is not cool.

They can seem like they control everything, because that is a conspiracy theory, and those are cool.

Dragons don't control everything in ShadowRun. Damnien Knight is beyond their influence, as are some other large corporations, but the dragons do have their claws in a fair number of pies, making it only seem like they call all the shots (and even though they control most of the megacorps, that's only on a high level, the dragons certainly don't dictate what Joe Wageslave does on a daily basis).