CH: going back to your spoiler on page 1, was that an opinion, an interpretation, or something you read? Inquiring minds wanna know.

It's never actually stated whether or not CC is deleted. The text ends just as the program has reached the decision.

So it's possible JackBNimble decided to save CC anyway. It's equally likely that it just hit delete. But we don't know.

this allows GMs to go their own way.

and i hope that the writers of future products have the good sense of leaving it that way!

Now that's not to say that CC *is* gone by the end of the story; JackBNimble indicates that he will be deleted but doesn't do it explicitly.

However: it is then stated in the paragraph immediately following Last Man Standing that:

Of course, the metatext still refers to the Big D's death as an assassination rather than the suicide it was, so...

a dead body does not mean that the "ghost" is deleted

ok, so he have not shown up after the crash. and hopefully he will never officialy do.

however i dont see the metatext eliminating the posibility that his ghost may well be floating around out there...

Which is the crux of a black swan argument I'm not going to involve myself in. Until I see metatext declaring his triumphant return, though (and don't get me wrong, I agree it'll probably happen,) I will assume he's dead until it's been declared otherwise. And although White Wolf's buying into a world without metaplot, I'm pretty sure FanPro isn't... though wouldn't that be cool if they were? If you could run games without being contradicted by later releases?

Restoring someone to life after their sacrifice cheapens it. Jesus got a by, no one else should be trying to upstage Jesus, dragon or no.

Actually Jesus upstaged a lot of people that came before him...
And I LOVE Metaplot.

in RL, only if you buy several religions are valid theory, no one upstaged jesus unless you're a heratic.

Liper: Check out the history of Simon Magus and John the Baptist. Jesus did upstage a lot of people. Whether anyone has ever upstaged Jesus...well, that's a personal opinion. The prophet Muhammed certainly accomplished a great deal, but I don't think it was ever his intention to upstage Jesus.

[/edit] And it is heretic.

Best hijack ever!

Look, even if you're a total Christian, you have to admit that Jesus was upstaged by Barabbas. It's right there in the Christian Testament.

-Frank

Longinus to another legionnaire: "So, uh, how many Xp do I get for killing him?"

I'm confused now... No one told me that Captain Chaos was Jesus... Damn freelancer crack, it affects memory too apparently.

"It's worse than that; he's dead, Jim!"

A few of the novels. The Dragonheart Trilogy, especially.

That would explain it I guess, I've never read any of the Shadowrun novels. Looking at Amazon, it looks like I'll be able to remedy that fairly soon.

I kinda thought the Cpt Chaos upstaged those religious icons, cause i read his good books more than the other good books.

I just don't understand why the writers apparently feel obligated to kill off a major character at the dawn of every edition or major release. They are getting worse than a soap opera.

Next up, Harlequin!

Waitaminute...

Captain Chaos dying was just random. I remember Dunkelzahn dying in a car bomb. Who else died to herald a new edition? And where is there a program called JackBNimble?

nahh. Alice dying? that was random. Cap was a story element.

JackBNimble was willed to Cap by Dunk, after Dunk died in that car bomb you referenced.

this is the shadows we are talking about. if people dont die it would surprise me...

"It works"

Really? Just how sure of that are you?

Are you kidding???

there's TONS of stuff that goes on in the oval office that no one knows about.

"pretty" sure.

I actually like the mortality of important PC's. Gives a stronger sense to the game that yes, you too will die. Really, how long has friggin' Mordenkainen been around!? It jsut sets the status quo and limits the ability for others to move up and take the place of the old guard. Makes the world to static. my 2

People don't like change, but to keep a game interesting and fresh, things have to change.

(to borrow lessons from magicthegathering.com's recent article)

But change doesn't need to be the same like death.

While I agree with FD3 about showing the mortality of the game world. The problem with Cap's death, (IMHO) is not that he died, but that he died "on cue."

on cue?

you may well say that any metacharater that have ever died, have died on cue...

well, in the sense that they are characters of course.

What I meant, was that the impetus to have them die came not from the plot itself, but from considerations in the real world, like a soap opera character who is killed because their actors' contract expired and they didnt' want to pay him more money.

hmm, maybe so...

That may be true. That has more to do with what you think of System Failure and SR4 than it has to do with what you think of Cap´s death, though

That he is percieved as having died "on cue" has to do with how sudden this matrix crash thing was introduced, I think. If that had been implied with a bit of tragic irony in a few more of the suplements leading up to the new edition, it wouldn´t have been cheezy at all, and Cap dying would have been part of the inevitable tragic end.

All other things aside, it would be more relevant to ask yourself if Cap´s death filled a purpous in SF. If it made that storyline better or worse. I personaly think they made the most of it.

To truely give the story all the litterary quality it could have had, they would have needed to plan for the death of the matrix several years earlier than they did. But they couldn´t do that because it was prompted by changes and technological advancements in the real world.

Well, I'll own up to being an SR3 holdout, which explains part of my feeling of Chaos' demise seeming somewhat staged. And while references were made to Wireless Matrix issues, and some of the new players in SR in books like Shadows of Europe, and perhaps even more so in Shadows of Asia, the fact that books were coming out after SR4's change was already announced gave of the feeling (to me,) that the metaplot was being shaped to meet the rules, rather than the rules being shaped to meet the game world.

BUT That is a different kettle of fish, I only point it out to agree with Mint, that one's feeling about the timing Cap's death may say more about one's thoughts on the SR4 than the plot itself. (I know it does mine.)

I know that you are right Frank. No doubt the feeling has large part to do with the human attempt to find causality in correlation.

Cap died as SR4 came out, therefore Cap died BECAUSE it came out.

It's not rational. But since when were people rational about beloved figures?