Storm Front is out!, Leading to SR5! Options

[Pepsi Jedi]

Good question. The lore seems to indicate that Ares is in a tight spot because of Excalibur. But as you said, one bad product shouldn't affect an AAA that much, even when it is their core industry. Still Ares has problems and is willing to do something desperate. See the "Ares" hidden story for more details

But I wouldn't worry about them loosing the AAA status. For that they are featured too prominently on the SR5 cover.

Yeah that's actually what I was talking about. They're acting like one faulty assault rifle and Ares is suddenly desperate. Desperate enough to be messing around with bugspirits and what not. Crappy products happen and it's been hinted that the Excalibur was the target of corp sabotage anyway. I just don't understand how one gun, from a company that produces hundreds of guns and tanks and cars, and has private police across the globe, and and and and and and, could be so desperate from one crap product. Did I miss a book where that was such a big deal? Did an entire army's guns suddenly blow up killing all the troops? What?

[BishopMcQ]

There's a good story behind this. Please tell.

A few caveats: I wrote stats for Frosty to use during the entire arc. She had some weird and cool things that she could do, but was not anywhere near the level of Ehran and Harlequin. She had one other Wheel ability which didn't make it into Artifacts Unbound. (But that author captured the essence of where I tried to take her)

The events happen late in DotA: Midnight.

[ Spoiler ]

Having arrived in LA, the characters dropped off Frosty at the safehouse and were out in the city trying to get a car and a few answers from several contacts. As they were wrapping up with their legwork, Frosty calls the team in a panic. She screams "Help" just before a spray of automatic gunfire causes her to dive for cover and the call goes dead. The team immediately jumps into action, whipping through the streets of LA to try and get back to Frosty and be the Big Damn Heroes that they are.

After getting their car wedged into traffic, they leaped over the guardrail, slid down a concrete embankment and hijacked the first vehicle that came down the street -- a public bus. With some active hacking on the fly to keep Gridguide and PuebSec, the team arrives at the safehouse just in time to see Frosty thrown out the window by a Blood Spirit. Burning Angels with machine guns are converging on her location and the materialized Blood Spirit is about to finish the job.

They have a brilliant plan to save the day by running over the Angels and the Blood spirit, while angling the bus to let Frosty slide underneath it unharmed. The rigger decides this is important, and spends Edge on the roll to make the most of it. He rolled a Critical Glitch, crushing Frosty under the front tires. She used Hand of God to avoid being instantly killed, the team then scoured the earth with heavy weapons to save the day.

They put her on a DocWagon chopper then finished the job, because it was what she would have wanted... The players switched to a different team to finish the arc and are pretty much responsible for the last paragraph in the Sidebar of Darkest Hour p 8

[ShadowDragon8685]

Oh, so it actually was an accident, and they didn't take an exception to her being a named plotline character and just try to flatten her with a bus on general principles? That's what I thought it was when you said "accident."

[BishopMcQ]

The players afterwards had a whole "we killed Frosty" moment and the line between "let's run her over and stop with her between the tires" versus "let's run her over and stop with her under the tires" while drastically different is razor thin to people watching the video feeds of it.

[pbangarth]

- Aztlan and Amazonia sorta call it quits. The plot thread of Primaira Varga and the Tempo Pact remains unresolved, I guess? At least the part AzAm war of Little Birdie's story revelations doesn't hint to it being resolved.

I'm predicting (as only one who has no real facts can) that the Primeira Vaga thread is not about a current war, but the war to come against the Horrors. A Gaia-level entity is behind it all, preparing Earth to defend herself with thousands/millions of her metahuman children possessed and thereby strengthened against the physical and mental powers of the Horrors. Whatever aspects of the A-A war were invovled in the PV action were incidental to the underlying purpose.

[toturi]

[ Spoiler ]

They have a brilliant plan to save the day by running over the Angels and the Blood spirit, while angling the bus to let Frosty slide underneath it unharmed. The rigger decides this is important, and spends Edge on the roll to make the most of it. He rolled a Critical Glitch, crushing Frosty under the front tires. She used Hand of God to avoid being instantly killed, the team then scoured the earth with heavy weapons to save the day.

They put her on a DocWagon chopper then finished the job, because it was what she would have wanted... The players switched to a different team to finish the arc and are pretty much responsible for the last paragraph in the Sidebar of Darkest Hour p 8

[ Spoiler ]

Wait. They tried that without a spirit pulling Guard duty? Concealment, Guard and Magical Guard are the big 3 spirit SOPs. No offense to the players, but how professional were the runners supposed to be?

[hermit]

I'm predicting (as only one who has no real facts can) that the Primeira Vaga thread is not about a current war, but the war to come against the Horrors. A Gaia-level entity is behind it all, preparing Earth to defend herself with thousands/millions of her metahuman children possessed and thereby strengthened against the physical and mental powers of the Horrors. Whatever aspects of the A-A war were invovled in the PV action were incidental to the underlying purpose.

What.

Tempo was all about forcing spirit pacts with mean toxic plant spirits on people. They call them "Dreamers" and they will be dead in up to 400 years (if they're elves).

[Sengir]

What -IS- going on with Ares?(And where can I find it to read?) I remember they had the sabotaged gun roll out that looked bad but some of the web content and stuff seem to be hinting that they got hit so hard that they might lose triple A status? One botched product by a --Megacorp-- isn't going to cause that much of a problem. You pay your spindoctors and roll out a product in the next cycle.

Ares' biggest problem are their bug experiments, which got out of hands and ended with the bugs silently taking control of the project. The plotline about the defective rifle and how it threatens to ruin Ares on the other hand...far-fetched does not even begin to describe it

[BishopMcQ]

Toturi-- Aspected Mage.

[ShadowJackal]

I'm actually kind of hoping that Ghostwalker will kick the bucket. I've never been a big fan of him and I actually find that he detracts the story line more than he adds. I also just don't like where they were taking him in Clutch. Our regular game runs in Denver and I can't see him as more than a tyrant OOC.

I have a strong feeling that Perianwyr is going to end up kicking the bucket in all this which makes me a *very* sad little fangirl and well, I still have some sinking feeling that Hestaby's gone too. From reading the discussion now it seems like the chances of Hestaby are much smaller than I once thought, but I'd be extremely disappointed to see the only real female "leader" of the dragons to be killed, and hell, I like OQ way too much to want her to ever go anywhere.

Loffy going to dragon heaven would please me and IMHO open up a lot of neat story lines for Europe. It seems like it's been a little stunted over there because Loffy just controls everything and everyone within certain boarders.

I'm interested to see where the Atzlan/Amazonia plot goes and how that finally resolves itself, but all and all I know that I'm probably going to end up a sad dragon fangirl in the end. Then again, in my own head cannon Dunk's still alive, retired on an island somewhere.

[Lionhearted]

Big D is still doing good work, he watches our back against license infringements and turning SR to a post-apocalyptic setting

[Grinder]

I'm actually kind of hoping that Ghostwalker will kick the bucket. I've never been a big fan of him and I actually find that he detracts the story line more than he adds. I also just don't like where they were taking him in Clutch. Our regular game runs in Denver and I can't see him as more than a tyrant OOC.

That's more a fault of the writer and not the fictional character. Ghostwalker has much potential, but the last books portrayed him a strange way and gave his storyline a bad direction.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Ares' biggest problem are their bug experiments, which got out of hands and ended with the bugs silently taking control of the project. The plotline about the defective rifle and how it threatens to ruin Ares on the other hand...far-fetched does not even begin to describe it

Ok... where would I find the bug experiments and them taking control of the project? Which book/books?

[Pepsi Jedi]

That's more a fault of the writer and not the fictional character. Ghostwalker has much potential, but the last books portrayed him a strange way and gave his storyline a bad direction.

Well the thing is, there seemed to be something up with him too. When he appeared he really did just kinda fly to Denver and go "MINE!! Anyone that says other wise, DIES!!"

And kinda hung that way for a while. Then he did his dissapearing act and had some sort of Draconic epiphany. Now he's acting 'Weird'. And apparently about to get into it with the Joker. I mean Harlequin.

Frankly I've never much liked GW. I always kinda wondered why the forces in Denver didn't make a few calls and take that sucker out. Being a great and all makes it hard (( See the story about them trying to take out Sirrung.)) and if it happened in/over Denver it'd be really hard, but still. "Oh... Dragon claims a major city. Kicked out the Azzies. Rules over it with a pasty white scaled fist, and people are just chill" Always threw me for a loop. I mean I could take the razing of Tehran alot easier than THAT.

So I hope he and the Joker-errrr Harle kill one another, or at least take one another off the field.

[Wakshaani]

Ok... where would I find the bug experiments and them taking control of the project? Which book/books?

Oh man, that's ... over several.

Short form is this: Ares does bughunts in Chicago. Someone pulls a Weyland-Yutani and says, "You know, there has to be a way to turn thses guys into a profit opportunity..." Ares listens to the guy, and sets up a VERY secretive research firm. The control a few queens and experiment with merging bug spirits with animals to make guard critters that are dual-natured and DANGEROUS. Someone makes a booboo and decides to try the process, in a controlled way, on humans, creating bio-warriors who are awesome and totally aren't subsumed into the hive mind and pretending to be loyal Ares employees, oh no. Notes about the whole thing finally cross the desk of Roger Soaring Owl, who goes, "Wait, WHAT?!" and starts to shut it down. One of the queens, who'd flipped the script and started taking over members of the team, gets a heads-up, breaks out, and takes all of her toys with her.

Since then, the bugs have seemingly been infiltrating different levels of Ares, and possibly other corps, having gotten rather good at Good Merges and figuring out that the chemicals that Ares were using are bad news and need to be stopped. (Conspiracy Theories has a LOT on this part!) ... Soaring Owl left Ares, figuring that Knight had to have authorized the whole thing, and is in Sioux country doing ... something.

The Excaliber blowup is the loss of the main product and a huge black eye, but it hardly risks the corp. Renraku's still around after the Arcology, a rifle isn't killing Ares. Far more troubling is the internal struggle between the three big names... it's ugly inside the boardroom.

[hermit]

I have a strong feeling that Perianwyr is going to end up kicking the bucket in all this which makes me a *very* sad little fangirl and well, I still have some sinking feeling that Hestaby's gone too.

I hope not, Perianwyr is about my favourite dragon. As for Hestaby, the in-game Shadowrun Twitter account claims she's 'gone' from Shasta, make of that what you will.

From reading the discussion now it seems like the chances of Hestaby are much smaller than I once thought, but I'd be extremely disappointed to see the only real female "leader" of the dragons to be killed, and hell, I like OQ way too much to want her to ever go anywhere.

Then again, in my own head cannon Dunk's still alive, retired on an island somewhere.

Well, Lethe technically is Dunkelzahn. You can get a dragon back grom spirit form too, as GW demonstrates in that book with the fat baby dragon chewing on HeroClix cover. So I would not say he's gone for good. It's just people tend to hate the Dragonheart trilogy too much to pick up on that (unlike Ryan Mercury and Nadia Daviar, to my bewilderment).

Ok... where would I find the bug experiments and them taking control of the project? Which book/books?

Threats 2 saw their first mention; it progressed through SoNA, then Corporate Enclaves (a menton of Derek Montgomery's sister joining their UnlimiTech branch), Feral Cities (UnlimiTech), Street Legends/Supplemental (Roger Soaring Owl, the PCC shaman, and the final Short), Jet Set, Corporate Intrigue, and Sacrificial Limb. I'm pretty sure I left out books and PDF supplements, so people should feel free to add. It's a branched, quite old plot.

Then he did his dissapearing act and had some sort of Draconic epiphany. Now he's acting 'Weird'. And apparently about to get into it with the Joker. I mean Harlequin.

Reading Artifacts Unleashed will enlighten you to what is up with him, why he wanted Denver and why Harles hates him SO MUCH now. SO! Much! But GW has pretty consistently suffered from bad writing making him some kind of entirely unstoppable Godzilla, while his agenda was left to dangle and never be tied up. At least, the current authors did that, though whether or not it was handled elegantly is up to the reader to decide.

[Ixal]

Reading Artifacts Unleashed will enlighten you to what is up with him, why he wanted Denver and why Harles hates him SO MUCH now. SO! Much! But GW has pretty consistently suffered from bad writing making him some kind of entirely unstoppable Godzilla, while his agenda was left to dangle and never be tied up. At least, the current authors did that, though whether or not it was handled elegantly is up to the reader to decide.

Plan9 warning:
Personally I think Zebulon has a lot more control over GW than we (and he) think she has. And maybe she isn't quite what GW thinks she is...
Although the last few sentences in his Clutch story do seem to contradict this.

[biotech66]

Anyone know if this will be compatible with Shadowrun Missions?

[bannockburn]

Depends on what you mean with 'compatible'.

[Nath]

Tempo was all about forcing spirit pacts with mean toxic plant spirits on people.

Technically, shadow spirits, not plant spirits.

Reading Artifacts Unleashed will enlighten you to what is up with him, why he wanted Denver and why Harles hates him SO MUCH now. SO! Much!

Unless there actually is a SR book titled Artifacts Unleashed, I guess you're referring to Artifacts Unbound. Then it's a bad piece of advice. It is not enlightening at all on any of these issues. It does say Ghostwalker wants to gather some artifacts in Washington to reassemble Zebulon, the spirit of Denver. But it doesn't mention Ghostwalker deceased dragon mate, or how all of this relates to the site of Denver. The death of Aina is not even confirmed, only suggested by the ending of the short story Praxis, and all you get to learn about the depth of her relationship with Harlequin are the words "dear friend". To truly enlighten someone on the story, much more reading are required.

[Ixal]

Unless there actually is a SR book titled Artifacts Unleashed, I guess you're referring to Artifacts Unbound. Then it's a bad piece of advice. It is not enlightening at all on any of these issues. It does say Ghostwalker wants to gather some artifacts in Washington to reassemble Zebulon, the spirit of Denver. But it doesn't mention Ghostwalker deceased dragon mate, or how all of this relates to the site of Denver. The death of Aina is not even confirmed, only suggested by the ending of the short story Praxis, and all you get to learn about the depth of her relationship with Harlequin are the words "dear friend". To truly enlighten someone on the story, much more reading are required.

It gets explained a bit more (from Harlequins pov) in Clutch. Although that story makes GW look quite, well, human and all this is based on a huge misunderstanding anyway. Also, Harlequin is attacking GW, not the other way around.

While there certainly is a lot more in depth reading you can do this story should be enough to give a rough idea why the conflict is happening.

[Bull]

Depends on what you mean with 'compatible'.

Indeed. I need more clarification before I can answer this. I will say it takes place after SRM 04-12 and the rest of Season 4, and Season 4 is canon, so.. Yes?

[Grinder]

Unless there actually is a SR book titled Artifacts Unleashed, I guess you're referring to Artifacts Unbound. Then it's a bad piece of advice. It is not enlightening at all on any of these issues. It does say Ghostwalker wants to gather some artifacts in Washington to reassemble Zebulon, the spirit of Denver. But it doesn't mention Ghostwalker deceased dragon mate, or how all of this relates to the site of Denver. The death of Aina is not even confirmed, only suggested by the ending of the short story Praxis, and all you get to learn about the depth of her relationship with Harlequin are the words "dear friend". To truly enlighten someone on the story, much more reading are required.

It gets explained a bit more (from Harlequins pov) in Clutch. Although that story makes GW look quite, well, human and all this is based on a huge misunderstanding anyway. Also, Harlequin is attacking GW, not the other way around.

While there certainly is a lot more in depth reading you can do this story should be enough to give a rough idea why the conflict is happening.

Harlequins entry in Clutch of Dragons is one of the worst fluff chapters I've ever read; confusing and with no clear direction. Crucial information for the ongoing (crappy) metaplot is hard to understand/ has to be interpreted, while other parts simply make no sense or don't change stuff/ NPC in a bad direction.

[Sengir]

Threats 2 saw their first mention; it progressed through SoNA, then Corporate Enclaves (a menton of Derek Montgomery's sister joining their UnlimiTech branch), Feral Cities (UnlimiTech), Street Legends/Supplemental (Roger Soaring Owl, the PCC shaman, and the final Short), Jet Set, Corporate Intrigue, and Sacrificial Limb. I'm pretty sure I left out books and PDF supplements, so people should feel free to add. It's a branched, quite old plot.

Augmentation is a big one, it mentions Theresa Montgomery now being the head of Ares medtech division and that Ares has made some sudden advancements in cybermancy since that...

[sk8bcn]

When you read Dumpshock, you get the impression that Ghostwalker or Harlequin or whoever with very strong power is hated in this game. But i wonder what the silence masses thinks of it. I, at least, like what these characters can bring to the game. Oh and, if one die, I hope there will be something to play with. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)