Ares Excalibur, It. Makes. No. Sense. Unless... Options

[Crank]

Its not implausible for a weapon to have a serious design flaw, that begins to show itself more and more - over time. However, as the Excalibur situation is written, it just doesn't make any sense. I think the writer(s) were itching to show how bad it was, that they left all sense of realism at the door. It would have made more sense to show the weapons passing some thorough examinations and testing, yet in the field were failing more and more over the course of several months. Merc groups, corp security, etc were using them but were getting more and more failures that they started getting rid of them.

Even then, as its been stated, its small potatoes. How many Excalibur's would it take to add up to the cost of even one Ares tank? Or one Ares fighter jet. A failed fighter jet project could cost well into the billions. Excalibur would just be a drop in the bucket.

Stormfront has its high and low points. Excalibur is definitely one of the low points.

[binarywraith]

Ahem. Too late. Have it, haven't really read it, though. In fact, I bought it toward the end of my 4th edition run, not in my recent mad dash to buy what has been published since in preparation for the 5th.

So what is so bad about it?

Literally everything, although I think the current record-holders for worst things in the book are the suggestions of a submarine extraction from the docks of Bogota, which is 8,612 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes; and the mission hook that involves killing Jewish ghosts in Auschwitz concentration camp to steal Nazi gold at the behest of Catholic priests.

[hermit]

And loot a Scalpel of Jew Mauling +2. I am not making this up.

[SpellBinder]

Why should he burn down his own house?

Sorry, but business and politics aren't my strongest suits, though I do clearly see the deal about how one failed gun should be a drop in the bucket to a AAA.

I just got a vague scenario of Knight using this to try and bait some business enemies out more into the open so they can be dealt with. I keep thinking that Knight has a way to turn this to an advantage somehow, and the results might not be quite as obvious.

[kzt]

Literally everything, although I think the current record-holders for worst things in the book are the suggestions of a submarine extraction from the docks of Bogota, which is 8,612 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes

Hence my suggestion of holding a huge international surfing competition on the Detroit River...

[Charon]

And loot a Scalpel of Jew Mauling +2. I am not making this up.

Page number, please! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[binarywraith]

Page number, please! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

It's in the Poland section of the Global Hotspots chapter.

WORK BRINGS FREEDOM

Oswiecim was under a spiritual barrier for a number of years. Oswiecim was home to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most well known of the Nazi party’s concentration camps. During the Holocaust, 1.1 million people died within its walls. This led it to become one of the most haunted places on the planet. Ghosts of all shapes and sizes dwelled within, frightening out or murdering all residents of Oswiecim. Because of the sheer magnitude of the haunting, a great number of other things found home there.

For the inclined occult investigator, Auschwitz-Birkenau is a treasure trove. It’s also a remarkably dangerous trap. Earlier this year, an entrepreneur named Tetsuo Shuumatsu hired a cabal of sorcerers, charging them with the removal of the barrier. He’s an arms dealer, one who specializes in the weapons necessary to take down ghosts. With such an infestation of ghosts, only a silly buyer would hesitate to pay top dollar for his wares. His greed opened this treasure trove to the public, allowing those without a sense of self-preservation to have a unique opportunity to drudge for necromantic artifacts.

The town proper is effectively still a town, albeit a town inhabited by the angry and hungry dead. They don’t take kindly to the living, but aren’t necessarily hostile unless provoked. Many are simply living out echoes of their past existences as harmless villagers. The real problem comes from the concentration camps proper. The three main campuses are surrounded by about fifty smaller camps. Each of the smaller camps is a hotbed of supernatural activity, but nothing compared to the magnitude of the central collective.

In particular, Auschwitz II is remarkable. It was the source of the vast majority of deaths—it’s what most people think of when referencing Auschwitz. It’s nightmare made flesh, almost a living organism unto itself. The halls audibly scream and cry, the ghosts beg for release so much that most people couldn’t even hear themselves speak. For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Fleshfinder, below).

THE FLESHFINDER

Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own.

The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and suffers a –4 dice pool modifier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥

Note that the writer in question didn't even get basic shit like what a spirit barrier actually does in Shadowrun correct to begin with. There's no reason one would have to be taken down to let corporeal runners in, and every reason to keep it up if the place is full of rampaging spirits.

[Umidori]

That's clearly a Scalpel of Jew Mauling +3, at least. Base knife damage is (Str/2+1)P, 0 AP. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

~Umi

[Charon]

Ah. Could have been worse.

Technically, you are not killing 'jewish' ghost. Based on the lore about ghost I am aware of in SR, 'ghosts' are wild spirits that have been shaped/imprinted by the violence that occured in this location, not the actual souls of Jewish prisoners who died in Auschwitz-Birkenau and are somehow (incredibly unfairly!) still stuck in the domain of their executioners. That would be incredibly insensitive.

Still, I am pretty sure I can tell a good SR tale without going there. If I want to tell a tale that touch the subject matters of genocide, I'll pick one that occured in the SR timeline.

Edit: And yeah, taking down that barrier makes no sense. And what's stopping Polish government to put one back up in a hurry?

[Cain]

Literally everything, although I think the current record-holders for worst things in the book are the suggestions of a submarine extraction from the docks of Bogota, which is 8,612 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes; and the mission hook that involves killing Jewish ghosts in Auschwitz concentration camp to steal Nazi gold at the behest of Catholic priests.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but even the more innocuous things are bogus. I mean, do we really need rules for nukes and THOR shots? And what's more, they're ludicrously underpowered; you can't even sink a good-sized battleship with a direct hit by a smaller nuke. The ludicrously oversized dice pool rules are broken; as much as I hate the RIFTS system, aping mega-damage (or classic SR's Naval damage scale) would have been better. Rating 7 commlinks break the system in more ways than I want to think about, and damn near every piece of gear is either broken, underpowered, or has no good reason to be in a typical Shadowrun campaign.

And that's not even touching the massive number of editorial and typographic errors in the book. Someone here actually counted, and came to an average of one typo a page.

[Seriously Mike]

Literally everything, although I think the current record-holders for worst things in the book are the suggestions of a submarine extraction from the docks of Bogota, which is 8,612 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes; and the mission hook that involves killing Jewish ghosts in Auschwitz concentration camp to steal Nazi gold at the behest of Catholic priests.

I facepalmed so hard I did a backflip on impact.

[hermit]

Based on the lore about ghost I am aware of in SR, 'ghosts' are wild spirits that have been shaped/imprinted by the violence that occured in this location, not the actual souls of Jewish prisoners who died in Auschwitz-Birkenau and are somehow (incredibly unfairly!) still stuck in the domain of their executioners. That would be incredibly insensitive.

Well. That's a tricky one actually, and depends on the phases of canon. For one, there is reincarnation (of elves) in Earthdawn and, by extension, Shadowrun (see Black Madonna, ED elves book, Tir na nÓg, and for a newer hint, Street Legends). Current canon toned this down to "we don't really know", but it is there. Further, there is the eGhosts, JackBNimble and the Morbus Schletz storyline (sorry, it just sounds cooler than Sybil Virus, no offense to you Mr Schletz). So, while we don't know, it is possible those are actually the "souls" of jewish prisoners.

Also, the writer himself clearly thinks these are, in fact, trapped souls. Yes, in that wacko scenario, those are indeed the prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau stuck in the domain of their executiners. And the worst part is the almost pornographic tone of the - not in-game, but out-of-game - writeup. So yes. It is incredibly insensitive.

aping mega-damage (or classic SR's Naval damage scale) would have been better.

It is the only, though rather broken, way of dealing with this in a dice pool system.

damn near every piece of gear is either broken, underpowered, or has no good reason to be in a typical Shadowrun campaign.

Don't forget Slow, or "immunity to all kinds of kinetic/corporeal weapons" ... including thor shots and nukes. And that a bag of hand grenades wired to simultaneously explode is a poor man's nuke.

[Cain]

It is the only, though rather broken, way of dealing with this in a dice pool system.

Not really. You could have simple scaled the damage, so one Naval die = maybe 10 regular dice, or something like that.

Don't forget Slow, or "immunity to all kinds of kinetic/corporeal weapons" ... including thor shots and nukes. And that a bag of hand grenades wired to simultaneously explode is a poor man's nuke.

And now you all know why War! is banned at my tables. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[binarywraith]

Not really. You could have simple scaled the damage, so one Naval die = maybe 10 regular dice, or something like that.

I liked the West End Games way of dealing with it for their d6 Star Wars, where for each 'scale' size larger than you a target was, you got +3D to hit, -3D to damage.

So a person (human scale) shooting at, say a TIE fighter (starfighter scale) would have +6D to hit, but -6D to damage, meaning they could tag it all day, but essentially could not damage it at all.

[hermit]

Not really. You could have simple scaled the damage, so one Naval die = maybe 10 regular dice, or something like that.

But that is just Megadamage by other means? At least in SR3, Ship Damage translated to regular damage after a ridiculous formula that made anti-ship missiles perfect great dragon slayers.

One more thing:

Rating 7 commlinks break the system in more ways than I want to think about

This seems to me a direct consequence of the lack of proper advancement opportunities for hackers in SR4. You start the second best out of the box and are best in hacking, gear-wise, after your first one to three runs/fenced EC3K. Wheee. While super clumsy, it's not the worst of war. The Matrix system is extremely broken as is. And that a new, unnecessary class of Matrix mages can out-hack hackers easily a few Karma down the river didn't help either, in all likelyhood.

[Nath]

Literally everything, although I think the current record-holders for worst things in the book are the suggestions of a submarine extraction from the docks of Bogota, which is 8,612 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes; [...]

The submarine route out of Bogotá was mentioned in Deadly Waves, not War!.

[Ixal]

But it's not clear to me how such a fiasco is even possible. I can accept that whoever was in charge of developing the Excalibur is a moron who produced a complete dud. That happens all the time. But why didn't his superior scrap the project when he saw it was going nowhere during any of the dozens of progress reports he would have received? But, hey, let's assume that every single person in the chain of command of AresArms between Project Exaclibur and whoever is in charge of the division is a complete boob. Fine. But how the hell did they get AresMedia (or whatever the media division is called) to participate in a moronic and doomed coverup?

To use a real life example, in Germany there is currently there is a huge scandal going on because 500 Million € were sunk into a drone project over half a decade which has now been scrapped because someone found out, after all this time, that those drones would not be allowed to fly in German (or European) airspace by law and that retrofitting them with the needed equipment to comply with regulations would be hugely expensive. The current defense minister had no idea about how the project went until he was told that it got scrapped and there is quite some evidence that he was lied to by staff members of the project. Some speculate they did this not (only) to try to cover themselves but also to create a scandal to force the minister to resign as he wanted to reform the ministry.

So whenever you think "they can't be this stupid", think again.

[hermit]

The F-35 is a much better example. 500 mil is still relatively moderate a loss for a large second-row state like Germany (the current floods in the Northeast will coust more than double the amount in reconstruction); 395 bn is a substantial sum even for the bloated monster that is the Pentagon.

The real problem is: the Excalibur can't possibly be even in the EuroHawk's league, cost-wise. Small arms are small fry, economically. Niche product, even.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The F-35 is a much better example. 500 mil is still relatively moderate a loss for a large second-row state like Germany (the current floods in the Northeast will coust more than double the amount in reconstruction); 395 bn is a substantial sum even for the bloated monster that is the Pentagon.

The real problem is: the Excalibur can't possibly be even in the EuroHawk's league, cost-wise. Small arms are small fry, economically. Niche product, even.

Well getting milked by an outside source is a bit different than in house screwups of this level. But yeah a single gun is a small loss.

[Charon]

To use a real life example, in Germany there is currently there is a huge scandal going on because 500 Million € were sunk into a drone project over half a decade which has now been scrapped because someone found out, after all this time, that those drones would not be allowed to fly in German (or European) airspace by law and that retrofitting them with the needed equipment to comply with regulations would be hugely expensive. n.

See, it has been scrapped. Ares Excalibur was not scrapped, it was sent in production and they are trying to sell it knowing full well it's an awful product that will earn them scorn.

What you describe is only a scandal because those 500M euros are public funds. If Ares waste 500M, it's their own damn money, it's not a scandal. But if they try selling a product they know to be abominable crap instead of scrapping it, that hurts their brand, which is very costly in the long term. Especially since Ares is a corp that brands pretty much everything it sales. If Maser Industrial Electronics produce a crappy drone, few people will realize that Saeder-Krupp owns it and it will not affect their perception of the quality of the products put out by Onotari Arms (also SK). But if an Ares gun is crap, it affects the perception of the entire Ares Brand which is most of what they produce. And they are doing this only to earn petty change in the short term!

[Charon]

Also, the writer himself clearly thinks these are, in fact, trapped souls. Yes, in that wacko scenario, those are indeed the prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau stuck in the domain of their executiners. And the worst part is the almost pornographic tone of the - not in-game, but out-of-game - writeup. So yes. It is incredibly insensitive.

The more I think about it, the more inexcusable it becomes.

[Shinobi Killfist]

See, it has been scrapped. Ares Excalibur was not scrapped, it was sent in production and they are trying to sell it knowing full well it's an awful product that will earn them scorn.

What you describe is only a scandal because those 500M euros are public funds. If Ares waste 500M, it's their own damn money, it's not a scandal. But if they try selling a product they know to be abominable crap instead of scrapping it, that hurts their brand, which is very costly in the long term. Especially since Ares is a corp that brands pretty much everything it sales. If Maser Industrial Electronics produce a crappy drone, few people will realize that Saeder-Krupp owns it and it will not affect their perception of the quality of the products put out by Onotari Arms (also SK). But if an Ares gun is crap, it affects the perception of the entire Ares Brand which is most of what they produce. And they are doing this only to earn petty change in the short term!

While not spot on as an example though we could go with the pinto. Though death trap your lawyers think wont amount to enough in lawsuite is a bit different. The pinto functioned as a car, it just blew up if hit in the wrong spot. As I understand it the excalibur did not function in its desinged role.

[Charon]

The submarine route out of Bogotá was mentioned in Deadly Waves, not War!.

So, would you recommand I get Deadly Waves?

[hermit]

So, would you recommand I get Deadly Waves?

It has some good stuff, but also weirdness. I personally bought it for the house boat, but YMMV greatly on this.

While not spot on as an example though we could go with the pinto. Though death trap your lawyers think wont amount to enough in lawsuite is a bit different. The pinto functioned as a car, it just blew up if hit in the wrong spot. As I understand it the excalibur did not function in its desinged role.

Even so, Ares is an incredibly diverse company, like all megacorps are. Including investment in actual moneymaker fields - government defense contracts, consumer electronics, food, investment banking. A crap gun would be an embarassment for the 2nd Amendment corp, but nothing more. I doubt it would make people swear off Twinkies and soyburgers, toss their Apple commlinks (p. 125 CFS - Apple is listed as among Ares' largest californian subsidiaries) and ACE headphones in the bin, and close their Bank of America accounts. Neither will governments take away KE contracts, step back from buying warships, or swear off Honeywell for whatever it is Honeywell does. Ares is not just "lol Predator". Ares is the American military-industrial complex plus OCP. That's a very diverse company. Sure, Ares also has bigger problems, but the writeup concludes a faulty handgun for private owners and very showy mercenaries on the trid will bring them down. What the fuck.

[Rubic]

While it's probably just shoddy writing, I can see at least one reason for this fiasco to occur: it wasn't the GUN that was important, it was the ADVERTISING they were testing out. Psychotropics were known advertising stunts during SR4 through SR4A, and there are rumors to Ares using Nanite-based coercion in SR5.

Perhaps such a crap gun was put out on purpose as a test for HOW GOOD the nanite-based advertising could swing public opinion; a significant portion of cash was sunk on such development, would not be an OBVIOUS or noted investment on any ledger, while still being a significant loss when results were "not nearly as powerful as intended." As I said, this is not likely intentional, but such an investment and the ensuing damage control CAN become quite expensive.