"Rebooting" Shadowrun, What would you do? Options

[Krojar]

I know this is a doozy topic and I apologize if this has been discussed ad naseum but as this game, and it's storyline, is over 20 years ago it has shown some age. Certainly the most prominent being the Matrix and it's evolution (going from Neuromancer-based to the mobile/AR based network which seems as a natural extention of our own internet) but there are certainly some aspects that I'm sure people throw out based on their "homebrews." For example I keep the NAN nations (I know some here despise them) but I dumped the CAS as its inclusion is rather baffling. I've also significantly reduced the presence of the Japanacorps, which is also a side effect of having started up in the 1990s.

Still, my question is if, you could start from the beginning and rewrite Shadowrun's timeline from the start, what would you include or not? Or, better yet, what would you deem "essential?" HEre are mine:

VITAS
Great Ghost Dance
At least one Matrix crash
Corporate Court/ZOG
Rise of Aztechnology
Balkanization of the world
The rise and fall of the Demigod AIs
The Tirs
Goblinization/Awakening
Amazonia/Yucatan
Novatech/NeoNet/Fuchi drama

Maybe some others as they come at me but I'm interested in hearing what you guys have to say.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

This was discussed a lot of times before and it always comes down to personal tastes. Some people think some things are completely silly and drop it and others just don't bother.

I for one can live with most of the "ancient history" of Shadowrun (the stuff that happened before 2050) but some of the more recent events really leave me puzzled (War!, I'm looking at you).

[Draco18s]

I'd include Big D's whole thing (with or without the Dragonheart trilogy, I don't give a damn) as his will is freaking awesome.

[Elfenlied]

I'd erase Burnout from the timeline.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Oh, no doubt. Dunkelzahn might not have been the first dragon to wake up but surely he was the one who influenced the metahuman society the most.
And yes, his Will is made of pure win.

[suoq]

Whenever I get too frustrated I remember that it's a history book and much like Paul Revere's ride and people thinking the world was flat when Columbus left on his voyage, it's probably mostly bunk anyway.

To me, the history of Shadowrun isn't what actually happened, it's what people THINK happened.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." - Maxwell Scott, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

----------

(For an explanation of the above, try "Lies my Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen or "Assume the Position With Mr. Wuhl" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJNVgCHLR-k as a starting place.)

[Draco18s]

To me, the history of Shadowrun isn't what actually happened, it's what people THINK happened.

Which is why, I personally, don't mind the Dragonheart trilogy. If it is what really happened, only about four people* (three of whom are dead) know that it's the truth and thus not canon.
If it's fiction in its entirety, then it's not canon.

Regardless of which view you pick, none of the game's NPCs will ever make reference to it.

*In-canon people, not us the readers.

[Stahlseele]

I'd get rid of the dumb clusterfuck that was used to make the transition from sR3 to SR4 and replace it with something that fits the setting and has more consequences . .
All Out World Wide Corp War.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

What I'd drop:

Japancorp focus
Dragons
IEs
Horrors
goblinization fluff (change it to something else)
balkanization and stupid meta-countries

What I'd keep:
corps
shadows
running
gunning

What I'd add:
globalization
Nestlé the most evil megacorp in the world!!!

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

What I'd drop:

Japancorp focus They totally made sense in the 80's
Dragons Do you intend do drop magic too?
IEs my problem with them is that they were quite capable of living during the low-mana cycle instead of hibernating like the dragons
Horrors Shadowrun was used as the future of another setting, so what?
goblinization fluff (change it to something else) change it to what, exactly?
balkanization and stupid meta-countries balcanization is how the corps became so powerful

What I'd keep:
corps can't have powerful corps if there are still powerful countries
shadows
running
gunning

What I'd add:
globalization the sixth world is already globalized
Nestlé the most evil megacorp in the world!!!

[Traul]

What I'd keep:
corps
shadows
running
gunning

How about calling that Cyberpunk 2020? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

What I'd add:
(...)
Nestlé the most evil megacorp in the world!!!

Then you might want a lawyer's opinion before sending anything to print... It was already changed to Nestla for an INS scenario involving a mission in Africa and how corporations make mothers with no access to clean water dependent on milk powder.

[EKBT81]

What I'd drop:

Japancorp focus
Dragons
IEs
Horrors

I agree with these up to a limit. I'd keep the fantasy stuff since I like it (to an extent) and it's basically SR's unique selling proposition.

I rather like the japanacorps' 80's flavor, but I wouldn't make them as dominant.
Keep dragons but make them less godlike and not involved in everything.
I don't care for the Earthdawn crossover, so I'd keep IEs as more of an urban legend and dial down the conspiracy slant.
Same for the horrors, although I'd keep them as mysterious malevolent spirits without the large-scale invasion threat.

Other things I'd do:
#1 Dial down extraterritoriality. Instead I'd like a more varied approach to it with designated extraterritorial business zones (like SoNA says for Quebec), preferential treatment treaties between individual states and corps and so on...
#2 Have the megacorps focus more on specific industrial sectors instead of being all-round conglomerates.
Also: Make the AAAs less dominant. More prominent non-American/Japanese corps. Tying in with the dragon downscaling: Make SK less dominant in the Eurozone.
#3 Tying in with #1: Have a select few corps actually owned by their home countries, for ex a Russian oil/gas giant or a French defence conglomerate. Basically corp/government entanglement like in the Aztech/Aztlan case, only the other way round.
#4 Tone down balkanization. Keep a somewhat functional European Union* throughout the timeline. Probably omit CAS secession.

*I rather like CP2020's take on the EEC as an outwardly nice place.

Core elements I think I'd keep in any case:

The Awakening
First Matrix crash
Aztechnology
The Richard Villiers/Fuchi/Novatech/NeoNet storyline (simply because Villiers is IMHO the most magnificent bastard in the 6th World)
Insect spirit menace

Things I'm not too keen on:
Metavariants. I'd probably keep most of them, but drop the more outrageous ones. Especially those with animal features, like hooved satyrs and those monkey-dwarves.
The Earthdawn crossover

[HunterHerne]

Maybe the Haruman, but Satyrs have long been entwined in Roman Mythology, and if you got rid of them, why not get rid of Minotaurs, too, since they are extremely localized?

[Draco18s]

Maybe the Haruman, but Satyrs have long been entwined in Roman Mythology, and if you got rid of them, why not get rid of Minotaurs, too, since they are extremely localized?

Or oni (limited to Japan) or Yeti (limited to mountainous regious, particularly ones that are permfrozen) or the ones with shiva arms (that I forget the name of, limited to India)?

All of the metavarients are limited to a very specific location, even satyrs.

[EKBT81]

Maybe the Haruman, but Satyrs have long been entwined in Roman Mythology, and if you got rid of them, why not get rid of Minotaurs, too, since they are extremely localized?

Honestly, I don't know for sure. Perhaps because I can rationalize minotaurs as trolls with facial features that remind people of bulls instead of an actual bull's head, since they are already the metatype deviating most from the standard human shape.

I guess I also do not need every mythological being there is to come to live in my SR setting. I guess one could interpret pre-awakening legends actually being memories of the previous magical age, but some of the legends would have been distorted over time so that not every real-world legend would get a 6th World counterpart.

[HunterHerne]

Or oni (limited to Japan) or Yeti (limited to mountainous regious, particularly ones that are permfrozen) or the ones with shiva arms (that I forget the name of, limited to India)?

All of the metavarients are limited to a very specific location, even satyrs.

Yes, but most have a wider range then one small Island in the middle of the Mediteranean

[EKBT81]

All of the metavarients are limited to a very specific location, even satyrs.

Yes, but most have a wider range then one small Island in the middle of the Mediteranean

I'm not quite sure about that. Doesn't Runner's Companion state that metavariants can emerge anywhere where there's a population from the original area, like onis among Japanese-Americans or minotaurs among Greek-Americans?

[HunterHerne]

Honestly, I don't know for sure. Perhaps because I can rationalize minotaurs as trolls with facial features that remind people of bulls instead of an actual bull's head, since they are already the metatype deviating most from the standard human shape.

I guess I also do not need every mythological being there is to come to live in my SR setting. I guess one could interpret pre-awakening legends actually being memories of the previous magical age, but some of the legends would have been distorted over time so that not every real-world legend would get a 6th World counterpart.

This is true. ish. Some of the legendary beings haven't existed in legend for that long, and still get stats. Vampires (as far as I know from someone else's mention somewhere. Sorry, no quote) didn't exist in the previous age, and there was mention, on the Ancient Files, I think, of a Nosferatu from the late 1800's.

[KeyMasterOfGozer]

Technically, it was "The Minotaur", was only one dude, not a race anyway. The King of Crete was called Minos, so the word Minotaur literally means "Bull of Minos". The Minotaur was the love-child of the King and a beautiful white bull that Posiden gave to him. Really bizarre.

[Elfenlied]

The Minotaur was the love-child of the King and a beautiful white bull that Posiden gave to him.

Actually, it was the lovechild of the king's wife, who had an apparition build to enable the bull to mount her.

[hermit]

Still, my question is if, you could start from the beginning and rewrite Shadowrun's timeline from the start, what would you include or not?

Keep everything up to 2061, rewrite SURGE to be less sex kittehs and more like Wild Cards, and kill Ghostwalker in a follow-up book, keeping it ambiguous if the horrors-tainted dragon really was Dunkelzahn or not. Keep the Shutdown, Winternight and the works. Keep the WMI, downwrite the second crash to less of an apocalyptic event, leave out Horizon and make and ditch everything written in the metaplot since Emergence. Instead of the Rinelles overthrow, have them fail and maintain the Tir as a slowly decaying, increasingly paranoid and walled-instate, for a future book (maybe have them raise their own veil, more along the line of Tibet's, with only very select channels for entry and exit; sucha claustrophobic setting offers a lot of possibilities that another McCorp state simply does not). Also, have war break out within the CAS, after the President being exposed as an Aztech puppet, and have Aztlan invade the CAS (and win). Have Texas break away from the union and become a desperate battleground as it drags Ares into the war (and the focus of a book about Texas and the war there). Keep the Tempo story, maybe, but have Amazonia attack Aztlan because it feels Atztlan is sufficiently weakened by it's war with the CAS. Then have Aztlan try and gather the artifacts, and the Artifacts story be about preventing that from happening (ending with Ancient's High Magic book idea instead of Dragonballs).

And publish SoLA. And change the German setting entirely to something along the lines of CP2020's take, putting more emphasis on the Fourth Reich vibes Tom Dowd initially had in mind, with Germany dominating an otherwise broken continental Europe, Lofwyr running Germany, and the Euro Reconstruction running through the 50s, ending in the formation of an EEC-ish federation in the early 60s.

Generally change some small things in the timeline, refer to the Native uprising and the US' war on it as War on Terror, stuff like that. Sytyle-wise, though, get more in line with Deus Ex 3 than Ghost in the shell. Because Post-Cyberpunk is so 2000s. And the hell keep out all the nerdy oh-so-witty 2000s internet culture terms.

[Draco18s]

Actually, it was the lovechild of the king's wife, who had an apparition build to enable the bull to mount her.

I'm pretty sure a ghost* didn't built it, I'm pretty sure an apparatus was built. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

*apparition = appearing to be seen, i.e. a ghostly figure.

[Nath]

I rather like the japanacorps' 80's flavor, but I wouldn't make them as dominant.

Nobody has yet mentionned China, which SR has so far written off through balkanization (save the late addition of Wuxing). India is also mostly absent. Maybe making those the new future superpowers will also look dated in ten years. So I'd rather ut an emphasis on how megacorporations are global in nature and how they meddle different cultures (like, having a Japanese on Aztechnology board, or a Brit on Wuxing).

#3 Tying in with #1: Have a select few corps actually owned by their home countries, for ex a Russian oil/gas giant or a french defence conglomerate.

In Shadows of Europe, the French state owned 10% of defense conglomerate Esprit Industries (and 15% of Aérospatiale, itself another shareholder of Esprit) because we felt even in a cyberpunk universe, state meddling in corporate affairs was a requirement for typical French flavor. We also kept the percentage low enough for the people who would think governments are a thing of the past. That was before Esprit became a subsidiary of Aztechnology in Corporate Guide.

[hermit]

Nobody has yet mentionned China, which SR has so far written off through balkanization (save the late addition of Wuxing). India is also mostly absent. Maybe making those the new future superpowers will also look dated in ten years.

It will. Both countries are heading headlong into dire situations demographically and will not have the wealth to maybe weather that soemwhat, like Europe has. Which is why I would just keep Japan as the coming superpower. at least that has a certain retro cool, instead of just following the day's trend (which will look terribly dated in a few years). But it should be much better explained and examined.

In SR, VITAS broke India, and Lung broke China.

In Shadows of Europe, the French state owned 10% of defense conglomerate Esprit Industries (and 15% of Aérospatiale, itself another shareholder of Esprit) because we felt even in a cyberpunk universe, state meddling in corporate affairs was a requirement for typical French flavor. We also kept the percentage low enough for the people who would think governments are a thing of the past. That was before Esprit became a subsidiary of Aztechnology in Corporate Guide.

Yeah, that should really be retconned (as should most that Hardy inserted into the setting). But treatment of France in SR has generally been rather ignorant and from an Anglo-biased point of view.

[EKBT81]

In Shadows of Europe, the French state owned 10% of defense conglomerate Esprit Industries (and 15% of Aérospatiale, itself another shareholder of Esprit) because we felt even in a cyberpunk universe, state meddling in corporate affairs was a requirement for typical French flavor. We also kept the percentage low enough for the people who would think governments are a thing of the past. That was before Esprit became a subsidiary of Aztechnology in Corporate Guide.

Yes, the various Eurocorps in SoE were definitely a step in the right direction. Although I haven't really kept up with the European part of the SR setting. Mostly due to my aversion to FanPro Germany's AGS material, which seemed as if they wanted to cram three times the weird stuff the North American setting has into a country 1/70th the size of North America.

That brings me to another thing I'd throw out: Aristocrat rule in France. I've got nothing against nobles holding positions of power, but I'd rather have them as a traditionalist subset of a broader elite than the ruling class. A noble title might open doors, but you'd better have a grande école degree to climb the stairs. And of course there'd have to be squabbles between Orléanists, Legitimists and Bonapartists among the nobles.