And maybe, if we continue to look at any in game information provided on the setting as Shadowtalk, then having those years be murky and get filled in backwards is Setting appropriate.

I mean, the world has really just recovered form this matrix crash thing. Even after the infrastructure was back up (Within weeks in some places) there would be a general mistrust of the internet (Sorry, matrix) for a good long time. It might take, Oh, five years for people to start using the thing on the same scale they did before the crash. And there would only be updates on various things as the people who knew got back online. Until then there ould be unsubstantiated rumors, and those few facts you could scrape together would leave large holes in the "What happened?" department.

But damn, yes, as a fan and GM I really, Really want a damn timeline for those 5 years. I can buy the bullshit I posted above only for so long. As the people get more comfortable communicating again, eventually what happened will be peiced together. A timeline of events would form, and if they really intend to leave those 5 years murky then they are fucking with my ability to suspend disbeleif, and I'll simply stop[ caring what canon is and go my own route.

the we-didn't-know approach is workable, and even realistic, but only up to a certain point. i mean, let's say they revist England in SOTA:2075 (or whatever), wherein we find that the popular revolution succeeded. i don't think a major political shift like that is going to pass unnoticed, no matter how much of a shambles the Matrix is in.

So, would you pay good money for a SOTA: 2069 book that covered the intervening years? A sort of "hey, the matrix is back up, here's what went down while you were unplugged" book?

Cause I know I would. Pay attention fanpro.

Heck, I'd fragging WRITE it for you, if you are too booked with the other releases.


He He, Booked. I kill myself.

you'd better, before somebody else gets to you.

yeah, i'd probably buy SOTA:2069.

For SOTA:69--would you buy it if it was written with SR4 rules? I'm not flame baiting, but I don't see FanPro publishing anything in SR3 rules, and I know that MFB has stated that he dislikes SR4.

Give all the SR4 haters a few years of no support for SR3, and they'll all come around. It's not like any of them are going to kick the addiction for new sourcebooks.

But a new SOTA book is mostly flavor and fluff anyway. Yes, there are obviously rules, but even die-hard SR3 fans would find 85% of the material immediately useful, and have a grand old time converting the crunchy bits from SR4 to SR3.

i'm not sure if i'm going to be picking up SR4 sourcebooks or not. i'll look them over and decide on a case-by-case basis. rules-oriented books, i'll probably skip; fluff books, i might pick up.

I didn´t like SR3 when it came out (never even got the SR3 core rules ever), but still, I got all of the sb´s, cuz you can allways retrofit the rules. eventualy I used SR2/SR3 rules 50/50 or so. Now I skiped to SR4 entirely (even before the core book was released by house rules). Anyway, I did not allways have use for the rules, but I used the setting. I´m a heavy houseruler anyway.

SOTA69 I´d rip out of the hands of my rpg-dealer as soon as it would be availabel. I allways thought the rules sections in the SOTA books secondary (except genetech in 63 maybe, which I modyfied heavily anyway).

But realy, a rough timeline of mayor events for these 5 years will do for me!

Hmm SOTA 2069. Sounds like a great Community Project idea to me.....

Am I doing a serious faux pass by saying "I agree with Critias"?

Well, I´ll do anyway. Not that I didn´t like the SOTA books. But the News section was realy only usefull after some more sbs. It was kind of cool crunching these hints but I did nothing with them in my group.

I don´t want the authors to reveal every dark secret of these 5 years on the spot. But as C sayed, I´d like to know the most ovious basics, like is Tir still a feudal neo-Aristocracy, military dictatorship, real democracy? No statement about who the new Princes, the Dictator, the President are and no need to know who is the power bihind these changes. Just the global headlines. Thats what I´m seriouslymissing!

What I want is a state of play document, maybe half a page at most giving a status report on each major nation (UCAS, CAS, Pueblo, Sioux, both Tir's, the UK, Germany, Japan) and a little about the others. maybe a web document, to give us the shape of whats going down in the world. Tir Tairngire and UK are my biggies actually at the mo. maybe do one area every couple of weeks?

I at least hope for such an overview of nearby areas for HK and Seattle in Runner havens.

Since when are the Tirs major nations? There are 3.7 Million people in Tir na nOg. The country has less economic and political importance than San Diego, AZT or Phoenix, PCC. It's gotten a whole lot of ink and fan boy attention, but it's never been an important area. Ever.

The actual effect on Shadowrunners and the world economy of the theocratic republic of Tir na nOg is as close to zero as a nation in Europe could possibly be. Less people than a moderate-sized city in North America, isolationist in the extreme, and rather short on exportable natural resources (their only resources of note are magical power sites that outsiders can't even use).

Honestly, who gives a crap what happens in the Tir? I'm much more concerned about the fact that we have actual mega cities that have never been even mentioned or placed on a Shadowrun Map. What's the dealio in Johannesburg or Lagos? Unlike the goings-on in a minor European Elven country club, that's actually important.

-Frank

Tir Tairngire is "important" for two reasons: firstly, because it's so close to Seattle it's very, very, likely to affect it's neighbor (along with being close to so much other hyperdetailed stuff up and down the West Coast). And secondly, simply because it's such a "fanboy paradise" or whatever you called it, and because it has gotten so much ink. They focus on it, and focus on it, and focus on it -- and then suddenly the one constant of the place (it's High Prince) gets ousted, and no one knows anything about how and why.

You can't give something that much attention for that long, and then suddenly clam up about it, and not expect it to impact some games.

Well, the point why it is such a fanboyspecial is, because it is different. It was very mysterious (at least before the TT sb came out) and that does allways interest players. And it´s ruled (or at least was ruled) by elves. Ther are allmost as many elveposer players out there as there are elven PC´s, I guess.

I hated it, because I mostly GM in my group and every second PC from one of my players is supposed to be form TT. (the other half coming from Tir na nÓg ). At least before I start asking, why isn´t he still there, how did he get out, why arn´t they hunting him down...

I liked to integrate it into my game is, becaus it´s so mystereous, which means you can tell the players anything about it, without a singel word being true and thay´d still belive it
It´s allso fun to teas the TT-loving players by stating how it is all a dictatorship and a police state and the economics is going down. Then presenting them a close friend NPC from the Tir, which doesn´t stop arguing that this is all evil propaganda and how TT is the greatest in the world! Or the oter way round, if the PC´s from the Tir.

I´d like to have some details about it, cuz it underwent major changes after the crash! I´d allso like to have such info about the Tsimshiane (though there is a bit more about that in SF and SR4) the Ute and California/LA and to a lesser degree about the Sioux. Because these were the hotspots of change in NA in the wake of the chash!
I´d like to know more about the UCAS, cuz thats the main setting of my champaigns.

Edit: I forgot. TT (and TNO) being so different makes it harder to improvise, it is not so hard to do that with the CAS or such..

Eh, I'm not sure I want to hear any more about California, as it'll inevitably mean someone else screwing it over. At this point we've had the UCAS, Aztalan, Tir Taringire, Japan, the PCC, God, and Physics screw over the "Free State"; I'd hate to see what else the SR writers can come up with to screw over the region. Maybe Germany will invade next, and carve out the area around San Luis Obispo?

First and foremost we´ll have to see, if the sea realy retreats or if CalFree stays New Orleans wise.

Than wasn´t MCT stated to relocate its assets from Tsimshian to CalFree?

San Francisco has one of the largest Titanium reserves in the world - under it.

-Frank

ok I don't want to make waves but what changes will the 2070's bring to the sixth world--I think it will bring the Gradual Introduction of the Earthdawn races into shadowrun and the Beginning of feasible shadowruns farther out in the solar system

What does everyone else think?

This will be my only post to this thread and it is just meant as a conversation starter

they've already started thos eseeds.

Obsidimen started making appearances in SoA, and someone out there were some mention to lizardmen, I believe in the Anghkor section of T:AL.

As for space, try T:Wastelands, and SOTA 63. Mars missions, dark side of the moon bases, all that good stuff.

Sprites aren't sentient.

Well, not yet, anyway.

there was a windling cameo in Paranormal Animals of Europe.

Also, IIRC, the percentage of magically active people in the high point of the magic cycle was around 3-5%, including adepts, where as now it's about 1%. Got some room for growth there.

Remember also that the whole magicl cycle has been screwed up because of the ghost dance. Things like the Insect spirits for example aren't supposed to show up until much later in the cycle, like they did in ED. They were thought to be a precursor to the Scourge. But the spike let them through sooner. So the whole levels of mana are screwed up (or were at least until Big D leveled things out).

Though the reptiles and the obsidimen have started popping up, they're very rare. Like Windlings/Sprites - most people don't even believe they exist, let alone know that they're people and not critters. Unless they turn out to be yet another expression of metahumanity (fairly unlikely, I think), they'll have slept through the 5th world. And, since they're not supposed to be super-smart like the Dragons (and less able to bring themselves up to speed anywhere near as quickly), they'd be largely unsuited for player-characters. The most you can probably expect out of them for a long while is popping up on the UN endangered species lists or passing mentions in a fluff book.

As for the chance for your runners to play spaceman - it strikes me as being so unlikely as to be negligible. Unless there's a massive tech-jump, extraplanetary installations would still prohibitively expensive to run on a regular basis. As a showboat project like the Mars mission, maybe, but not common enough where shadow operations would be feasible. Even in the 2060's, manned spaceflight was fairly rare and expensive. And I doubt there would have been much time to develop cheaper and more efficient spacecraft while everyone was still trying to clean themselves up after the second Crash.

Not to mention trips up the well would be suicide for "deniable assets". Magicians can't go because it makes their brains melt. And even the most fearsome street monster doesn't have anti-grav combat training, let alone familiarity with the few weapons they'd be able to use safely - and would be outclassed by the dedicated space-sec. And unless manned flight by civilians has become much more common, any aggressive operations against other space-based assets would tend to stand out - defeating the purpose of sending runners in the first place. Plus, your sponsor would have very little motivation to try to bring you back, successful or not. By setting you adrift in the big black, they won't have to pay you, and you're guaranteed not to talk. It'd be simple enough to spread the word that the re-entry craft suffered some sort of terminal malfunction on the way back - after all, everyone knows how dangerous space travel is. Disappearing someone ground-side leaves traces that dedicated people can follow - but only the corps themselves have the resources to get any interested parties into space, and they wouldn't be motivated to shoot themselves in the head like that.

the obsidimen--or, rather, the obsidiman--mentioned is, indeed, an expression of metahumanity. a SURGEd man searching for ancient stones in the jungle.

yes I'm posting again but I'll make it quick

As the 2070's progress I expect that the "Main Earthdawn Three" [Windlings/Sprites, T'Skrangs/Lizardmen, and Obsidimen] Will be like urban legends for awhile-poping up in The Tabloids/Screemsheets and maybe around 2079 or so at least one of them will be accepted by the general public as existing

as for space missions the only new ground in the 2070's will probably be asteriod mining missions---if they become profitable the corps will not want to chase away prospective workers by just leaving them out to die in the big vacuum---as for magic in space the only possibility I can think of is a manned mars mission with just an astral perception adapt going along (and in hypersleep with an onboard microbiospere) so any interested parties can find out if there is the possibility of active mana on Mars

Tonka: Read T:Wastelands. Apparently spaceflight is common enough that there is a space station not controlled by any corp. Instead, it is, I kid you not, in the hands of space smugglers. Unfortuantely, they didn't have the balls to call it Mos Eisley. It's called Haven (IIRC).

Boskop: They're not myths and legends. Like I said, one of Yamatetsu's top dogs (and a huge racist, who did a 180 flip on that issue) SURGEd into a '900lb rock man". No one's going to call them 'obsidimen' of course, because no one would know the terminology. But there is at least one of them out there, very public, and very documented.
There are also reports of spotting "Rock men" in the Lake Baykal area. Completely unrelated except for being rock men. As in, differnet guys, don't know each other unrelated in case I'm not being clear.

Also, as a note, there as an astral adept on that Mars mission. check the SOTA books (64 for that one I believe)

I'll point out that I doubt the Yamatetsu guy's transformation was due to SURGE, seeing as obsidimen are weird elemental-metahuman hybrids who spawn from giant Life Stones made of True Earth and surrounded by veins of precious metals and natural orichalcum (and, as a result, most of them have probably been mined and destroyed by now).

I would not be surprised, however, if the ones out by Lake Baikal are true Obsidimen.

hell yeah glad to see I guessed that one right about mars then

as for the "Main Earthdawn Three" I guess they will enter pulic acceptance faster then I thought in the funky 2070 with obsidimen being called Rockpeople like the Windling/Sprite, T'Skrang/Lizardperson splits

true , since everything in ED shows that Obsidimen are NOT derived from humans, where Yoshida ( I think that's the guy's name) was a human supremacist no less before SURGEing.

Honestly, I think that this may be a case of the writers not having read/cared that t'skrang and obsidimen are not derived from human stock, but are their own species.

I could be wrong however, and it could just be total coincidence that the guy SURGEd into what would be effectively the same thing as an obsidiman. After all, what would you call it if the mana level went up, and this human guy got a little taller and thinner, his hair color changed to an acutal blue color, his cheek bones went up a bit, and he got pointed ears and a pearlescent skin? Sounds like an elf to me . Except that we all know that elves aren't SURGEd , they're born, so clearly it can't be an elf. So what is it then? ...... changeling elf? Chelf?

Honestly it would be nice if the writer who wrote up that part about that guy SURGing would clarify what he/she had in mind, whether it was supposed to be an obsidiman that was created through SURGE, ot just very coincidental.

keep in mind that SR is no longer bound by what happened in ED. things might work differently.

That's what I figured was the most likely

I think the "Earthdawn 3" will never, ever be playable Shadowrun creatures. I think they will be thrown in as fluff text to make those of us in on the earthdawn connection go "OHHH!" However, adding lizardmen, rock men and fairies would detract from the current feel of SR, making it more fantasy than cyberpunk, something the current writers seem to have spent a great deal of time reversing. 10 years ago? It would have been more reasonable, since SR was weighted very heavily to the fantasy. Today, the balance is restored.

Space, on the other hand. Space is opening up for everyone, not just runners. It is possible to take a Vacation to space by 2065, if your a rich fucker with nothing better to do. Zurich orbital is where it is mostly for lording it over the world in proper evil overlord fashion; the added security of being in space is greatly offset by the added dangers, and really, it's such a money sink that only showmanship can justify it's existence. By 2070, I'm certain the corps have completed their mass driver launcher on mt. kilimanjaro. They fought a spirit war over the thing, they had better get going on it now that they've won. Though a spirit with accident could seriously fuck that thing up, so there'd be serious, serious magical protection.

Concerning Space
In T:WL there were several thousend peopel in space and ther was vice, smuggling and a lot of industrial espionage and sabotage running oportunities. All of this will probably have increased. Sure, the runs are much mor delicate than down dirtside (ther is not as much violence and no magic involved), but the need to do such jobs is there. Magic may just slowly enter space, if wuxings research on shibanokuji was successfull in lowering the manawarp and the filtering metatechnique from SOTA63 is seing more widespread use.

The smugglerstation was called Echo btw.

Concerning ED Races
The fact, that Obsidimen and co are so different from humanity does not need to mean, they were not originaly derived from menkind. Did elves and trolls interbreed in ED? Who knows if SR Metahumans are still abled to mix with humans in 2090? So the first Obsidimen, as well as Windlings and T´Skrang could well come into the sr world as humans, though later generations probably won´t. ED is well into the manacycle, the situation there would not naccessarily reflect the situation in sr.