So, what'd happen if I bumped off Lofwyr?, And similar questions. Options

[Johnny Reb]

Ahh, killing Lofwyr. High Dream for many a player (And, as Bull has stated, a few writers as well). JMS (Used because I can't spell Strazinski) has talked about writing before where he'll sit down and go, "You know, what happens if I kill so n so?" A basic writing brainstorm session that can be both fun and informative.

So, bringing that to Shadowrun, you can see a few times in the past where it was done. Cap the Capo of Seattle and get a nice gang war. Kill Leonardo and get rid of painful plots. Kill Dunk and ... egads! Kill Dunk?! Are you MAD?!

Some fallout is good, some not so.

I'm just curious who of teh Big Players people would like to see bite the bullet and what results might flow from this. Obviously, the *method* of death would heavily influence things, but, work with me.

So, choose a name from below, or even come up with one of your own, just to try and think about what could happen.

1) Lofwyr
2) Harlequin
3) Lugh Surehand
4) Damian Knight
5) Art Dunkwalther
6) Richard Villers
7) Aztechnology
8) The Ute Nation
9) Buttercup
10) The Pope

Don't do 'em all ... your brain'll explode. :) Just choose one, or insert your own, for brainstorming.

Some examples as referenced above: Lofwyr

A) Saeder-Krupp Prime vanishes in a sudden and unexpected Nuclear fireball.

B) An assassin hired by Surehand catches Lofwyr while vulnerable 'reading' the Memory Crystal and manages to kill teh dragon ... or at least his meat body.

C) Flying over the Atlantic, Lofwyr suddenly *vanishes* from Radar. No one knows what happened. Is he dead?

D) Challenged by the son of Nachtmaster, Lofwyr finds himself ganged up on by several younger dragons who manage to drag him down by breaking formal Dragon rules. The victor stands on Lofwyr's corpse on live TV, announcing, "New rules for a new age." His cronies (A half-dozen other young dragons) lurk behind him.

E) Dragonslayer lives up to his name, trying the impossible ... and suceeds!

F) Vampires get him.

G) Buttercup and Lofwyr have a showdown, with the spirit killing teh Great Dragon at the cost of her own essence.

H) Johnny Spinrad, on his deathbed, damns teh Wyrm with his final breath, calling down a sat-strike of some kind (Thor style, lasers, whatever)

I) Lofwyr slips in the tub, hits his head, and dies after a two day coma.

Yeah, some are silly. :) But, one or two have merit. Then again, there's bound to be ideas that y'all have as well. As you can see, there are different fallouts for different deaths (Spinrad doing a "Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee" vs "Ares Nukes Him" vs "Dragon Youths Screw The Rules" etc) but, it's interesting to see what teh world would look like with such a change.

So, since, again, I know some people want Harlequin dead, as an example, let's see what you've got.

Pick someone, kill 'em, and tells us how, why, and then what.

-- Johnny Reb

[Fortune]

Leonardo is not necessarily dead!

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Most likely event is for Damien Knight to stroke out when he's 120.

[CircuitBoyBlue]

In any game I'd ever be a part of, if Lofwyr died, there'd be some nasty infighting to see who the next head of Saeder-Krupp was, and that would be the end of it. I think the worst thing to ever happen to the game was the whole bit about Dunklezahn having such a huge effect on everything after his death.

[hobgoblin]

heh, only effect dunk had was to mess up the old order, and only for a short time. the biggest fallout was the fall of fuchi (a situation looking for a excuse) and the elevation of 2-3 more corps to AAA status. besides that, all is the same. plus ca change you may say...

i worry a bit tho about the vampire option, anyone ever seen a vampire-dragon?

[Moon-Hawk]

What makes anyone think a dragon would be susceptible to the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus?

[CircuitBoyBlue]

The name of HMHVV implies that something has to be a human or a metahuman to get it, which I'm not sure Dragons are. Of course, I think there might be canon examples of non-(meta)human beings getting it, I'm just not sure off the top of my head whether I'm only thinking of the drop bear joke.

[hobgoblin]

heh, i had forgotten about that part. still, one never knows, that stuff may well mutate in a high-mana enviroment...

[mfb]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Cochise]

[Large Mike]

Chupacabras? I was pretty sure it was explicitly stated, possibly in PNAoNA, that they only *acted* as if they had HMHVV.

But I don't currently own a copy, so I could be wrong.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Both close, but a bit off. The chupacabra DNA has segments that almost perfectly match HMHVV, but is not infectous.

[Tanka]

[Johnny Reb]

So, no one thinks there'd be much fallout over the Loaf getting snuffed?

Huh.

Interesting.

What about some of the others up there? Would Harlequin's death bother more than about a dozen people? The eradication of the UTE nation? Anything?

-- Johnny Reb

[mfb]

actually, that very question was discussed here. my view, as presented there, is that the sudden death of a GD like lofwyr would have massive and far-reaching consequences, up to and including the total destruction of S-K.

[Adarael]

Dude. On the Dragons getting HMHVV thing?

When someone says 'He's gotten by vampires', my first thought isn't 'He gets turned into one,' it's 'They tear him into meaty chunks and sup on his ancient, delicious essence.'

[FlakJacket]

The the battle over ownership of SK would be monumental. Since it's extraterritorial that means no government like the Germans can claim it which means the Corporate Courts gets and early birthday present. That's not counting wills- and there will be lots of them, draconic society- does caring for a dragon egg and raising the hatchlings count as family or do they have to be actual genetic offspring to count as children, if another dragon kills him do they get to keep the company or does the Corp Court invoke the law and make a try for it, takeover attempts, asset stripping, management buy-outs etc.

[mfb]

i don't think S-K would survive at all, honestly. it'd fall apart completely inside a week, no matter who grabbed the reigns, or how fast they grabbed them. lofwyr runs the corporation in his head; moves he makes now may only see fruition if he makes ten or twenty other precisely-timed moves over the next eight years. no one else knows what those moves will be; and if those moves aren't made, the huge investments lofwyr's made into his plans will return no money at all to the corporation. various divisions and subdivisions will lose funding, and be bought out at basement prices by S-K competitors; eventually, the corporation will have no assets and become defunct.

[FlakJacket]

More than likely. I could see SK Prime and some of his major functionaries, the ones detailed in CD I think it was, fighting a half decent rearguard action but they'd still get hammered. Hell, in Europe alone there's at least half a dozen entities that are powerful enough and pissed off enough to rip them apart. Probably end up the Novatech of Mega's in size and scope if the survived at all.

[Kagetenshi]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I agree with mfb for a couple of reasons besides those he mentioned.

First, because S-K is a private corp owned entirely by Lofwyr, there is no clear chain of succession. Lofwyr wouldn't have a will because in the last seven years he's shown, at best, an arrogant disregard for Dunk's decision to make one. The fact that he did not challenge the will in any cognizable manner (i.e., legally, or by treating the DF like any other GD in the Rite of Succession and try to take everything) implies that he was not willing to take the risk of losing a guaranteed really neat toy when, as with humans, given the opportunity lesser GDs would be likely to drag him down because he was most clearly the top GD once Dunk bit it.

Anyway, this corp is completely and thoroughly controlled by him. Given the strong presumption against him having a will, the most likely event is another fight over his stuff by the remaining GDs which would almost invariably tear S-K apart, especially when you consider the multitude of companies that are only partly owned by Lofwyr or S-K, which would lead to their own internal warfare as the metahuman shareholders and directors try to take over those corps themselves.

Likewise, every other megacorp would become engaged in attempts to poach personnel, materials, and every conceivable piece of S-K they could try to get their hands on.

Plus, extraterritoriality or not, there isn't a government on earth that wouldn't love to, and would try to, take a nice big bite out of S-K's ass with Lofwyr gone--either through estate taxes or outright control of all of his assets.

"Hey, Lofwyr's dead."
"Who's his immediate heir?" (this is assuming that the AGS or any other government will now respect the fact that as a non-(meta)human he has no effective rights.)
"Uh... no one?"
"Yay! It's ours! All ours!" (Show me a government lawyer who wouldn't try to argue that Lowfyr's estate reverts to the government since he has no heirs, and I'll show you an incompetent lawyer.)

Or, hell, someone will eventually bring up the fact that someone needs to take control of S-K's banks because, quite simply, they cannot be held in limbo while god knows how many people fight over his estate. That would drag in any country in which S-K's banks are located, plus the Z-OG bank and Corp Court. Countries do drastic things when the basic integrity of their economies is at stake.

Basically, Lofwyr's death would be monumentally destructive--and he knows it. It is also a pretty good reason why no one in a position to try actually has.

[mfb]

heh, yeah. he's SR's version of Raven.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Raven with infinitely more power.

[noneuklid]

Does that mean he gets the tat on his draconic forehead?