Theory:
Imagine a world where the Megacorps didn’t exist, it was just the same ole world, the awakening still happens, but because there are no MC’s technology progress’ much slower then Shadowrun world. So you haven’t got Deckers, the matrix etcetc.
The magic gets to a point at which rifts can appear letting the horrors through, and the world is plunged into darkness. This is what I believe a lot of people foresaw and things were put into motion to create these “SHADOWRUNNERS”.

Against the horrors or whoever, standard awakened people would be butchered, however because shadowrunners were/are pushed to the extremes in all things TECH magic, etcetc earth now has a 2nd line of defence, if not first. And they can last a little longer.

Shadowrunners I believe from the cannon ive read, were a concept of some higher power to be the new heroes of earth

discuss what you reckon?

Sounds kind of like Earthdawn.

Or Rifts...

all im saying is that when the crap hits the fan, earth, has been brought to the point where Magic and Tech have given the SR universe a go shot at defending.


In 'harlequins back' you fight some demons on the other side of the bridge, are those things horrors ? or some sort of other spirit???

The basic theory being that the world has been manipulated to by powerful beings to create the conditions in which shadowrunners occur... Interesting, completely barmy but but in a clever way. Well done.

yes! thats correct you hit the nail on the head


i mean come on .... Dunkys Will made a change, when he was dead

imagine what he was doing in his life time !!


The Awakening happened it could never be stopped as its the natural cycle of things.

what the "powers that be" thourght was "these guys arent ready, time to stir things up"

That begun with the court-case leading to companys gaining Extra territorial rights (if thats what its called)

The second being maybe the invention of the SIN, in essence sundering the community into 2, people who are ..... and people who arent ..... effectively Creating the Shadows which we all Enjoy living and running in


What you guys think?

I'm not sure if it works well really. From Canon sources we have suggestions that the Immortals undermined religion in favor of science to push the tech curve into moving and probably encouraged balkanisation, which in turn encourages wars which promote weapon developement. They may have help encouraged the corps to help produce more sealed communities (less of a jump to Caers). But to create the Sinless doesn't seem right. If the plan is to save lives your causing a huge number of people to slip through the cracks and only a tiny fraction of these become Shadowrunners, who mostly aren't hero material, not a working plan.

Add in the fact that they encouraged balkanisation so that they could carve out there own domains and you start to doubt any altruistic motivation. The Only decent immortal is Dunk and he was asleep for the fifth world.

Good points there,

just seems to me Shadowrunners have near legendary powers, and that there is something comming that will need that power.

as for shadowrunners are not hero types, yeah that really doesnt matter because in the end its survival that matters, and if there is a event like horrors entering the world, you may see alot of bad people quickly take up arms against a greater foe.

and the power that runs things doesnt have to be one entity, it could be a group of people who have lived long enough to be able to mess around with events.

your points are valid and you sound like you know alot more about SR cannon then me:) soo ill take your points on board.

What do you in your opinion, if your still going with my theory were the main events for the occurance of the Shadowrunners

*please bear in mind this is a theory, just tossing around ideas, and im not at all looking to break cannon, just want a hearty disussion *

The rise of the Megas is the import thing for the creation of shadowrunners really. Though I suspect that there are even nowadays professional criminals speciallising in industrial espionage. The ExT thing just ups it a bit and possibly makes slipping between the cracks easier. The Size of the Megas means that lots of money is involved in their level of business so the stakes go up and the Criminals become Shadows to better hide from the system.

I'm pretty sure most immortals plans for the (3rd) Scourge is to be in place to go. "Oh you need protection from the evil demons, make me your eternal overlord for life and I'll let you into my fortress." Dunk was trying to start humans developing there own means of protection, as has happened before.

They are also on some level much freer thinkers than the much more dangerous military types, which means that as Kage says they are good against things like Bonecrown. They'll spot odd manipulations of people around them happening because that sort of awareness is how they survive. The Big physical threat horrors are not going to be a threat in SR, because of naval weapons, the insidious ones will be a problem and abject paranoid types like runners may spot them better than saner people.

Plus most of characters are so screwed up they'd be unpalatable to horrors in the same way Blood Elves are...

nah pain editors
No Pain no Horror

…

~J

Interesting... how to horror proof your self.

I should go read up on some ED lore, the more I hear, the more I like.

As has been said, what works against one horror certainly doesn't work against them all. Turning off physical pain would probably not rate as being as effective as constantly being in excruciating pain. In the former you're still vulnerable to all sorts of forms of psychological trauma and fear of physical threats. In the latter you're probably pretty distracted by being in constant excruciating pain, so psychological trauma loses its edge compared to the psychological trauma you're already suffering.

would a person have to be aware of their suffering on a concious level for these ideas to be effective?

Unless they've ceased to be aware of anything on a conscious level, yes.

Putting a pain editor into a thorned Elf should, by my reckoning, turn them back into tasty Horrorchow.

Edit: thought for the day: a good way to have fun is to cast Agony on someone with a pain editor, 'cause you know they won't be expecting it.

~J

Or if you just want to dive into it, Horrors. Probably the best sourcebook I have ever read, period.

~J

I get really irked every time I see someone comment that the horrors can't get us if we move into space habitats. The theory doesn't hold to scrutiny.

For one, space is a manawarp not an ebb. Magic is possible in space it just isn't easy because the mana there is aspected toward radiation and sterility. Horrors thrive in corrupted mana and they leave massive patches of it in their wake.

However, even assuming that horrors can't survive in the mana warp, a space colony certainly isn't safe. Longterm peaceful habitation reduces such background counts. This is canon. Space stations that have been around for a few decades have a BC around 8 and that'll keep dropping as time passess and as more people inhabit them. Give it a few centuries and you could have space colonies with BCs around 2 or less.

But horrors have to travel through space to get to the colonies, you say. No, they do not. Horrors have access to the metaplanes. A being that can pop into the metaplanes at will can then pop out out anywhere without passing through any intervening space or time. This is why the Rites of Passage and Protection are so important. These ubberwards prevent anything from bypassing them through the metaplanes. Without them, practically any horror can simply teleport into the habitat and cry havok.

And what about my post indicated that such an idea would follow have to follow canon SR lore? What about the OPs post follows canon lore? I was sharing an idea I've toyed with in case others might find it cool. It was an idea, a concept, nothing more or less. It certainly did not merit being jumped all over in such a confrontational manner.

IIRC, the connection between Earthdawn and SR and thus Earthdawn style horrors themselves are pretty shaky canon as well...and depending on which books a person has access to or opts to use, the idea can still work very well. I know I and a number of people I know do not have the later books (which is, IIRC, where the clarification of what is going on in space occurred), afterall, for many people those books got a little hard to find after FASA closed its doors.

Now, if people would like to discuss the ideas in this thread, their merits and weaknesses and so on, that would be cool...but lets not jump all over people because what one person thought is a cool idea is one of your personal pet peeves.

(And yes, people who think an idea for a game is dumb because it 'violates' canon or doesn't fit some published material somewhere irk me...the books are there to give us a base to build our own stories on, not to limit those ideas and imaginations.)

Sounds a little like Final Fantasy spirits within movie Sorties out into the barrens to nuke horror type creatures.

It's a combination, a lot more of that Final Fantasy movie, but a little bit also of Blue Gender also, especially if there's lots of bugs too in the ruined cities and people being crammed up in space.

Do you suppose there would be any interest in setting up a 'Seventh/Eighth World' thread in which people discuss what they imagine such a world/game to be like?

Personally I see space opera, where matrix+magic merge into something called 'will', horrors are now (semi-)tame beasts, and immortals (dragons, elves, humans, dwarves, orks, trolls, obsidimen etc all bred into one race) vie to establish their own 'final form' for the universe, failing to notice that all that high-powered competition is actually tearing the universe up and bringing about its early demise.

I like the idea that horrors (beings of hyperspace) are in these days trapped / tapped like slaves / batteries, and that a small group of rebels (read: players) work to free them, horrible as they are, because they are the only balance against the universe collapsing into oblivion.

god am I fucked up or something?

It would probably only be the rich folks that could flee to space. It ain't exactly cheap to run an orbital habitat.

Another thing about horrors in space - Hellraiser:Bloodlines.

Or alternatly, Event Horizion.

I can just see it now, SR Earth coming under invasion from the Zerg

...horrors?

I'll stick with CoC.

Works well for me even into the Modern day.

But it has no cyberware!



I recommend Etherscope for victorian cyberpunk & Horror.

All the immortals have plans to bring a large number of people threw the scourge alive. Not necessarily all but enough that meta-humanity (or maybe just elves) will still exist afterwards.

Between pain editors (making you immune to those horrors that use physical pain) and heavy weapons meta-humanity has a chance to win this time.

Hell we can retreat into our oricalcom plated arcologys and send out remotely controlled drones. To collect raw materials for our resupply, any horror that materialises to interfere eats high grade energy weapons (or good old fashioned powder and lead, ok iron)

Edward

n/p

Edward, there is a rather long thread on this very same topic already done up. Perhaps you'd like to read through it and post there before creating a second? Then, once you've settled on your opinion as to whether humanity can beat(t) the horrors, ponder then whether humanity can beat the drop bears.

You believe there is a difference?

~J

Ahem...

Go Humans! Aaaargh!

Drop Bears countdown, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Drop Bears Stare!

Not again…

Look, I'm willing to tell you why you're wrong, but not until December. Stop jumping the gun!

~J

Please, not again!

Can we beat the Horrors? - that's the thread you (Edward and Platinum) are looking for. I have to agree with Kage, the heretic. This time.

Actually, if you're going to search for it, I believe the title is 'Can we beatt the horrors'. Just search all thread titles for 'beatt' and you'll be good (or evil, as the case may be).

Just dont you DARE rezz any of those threads. Or someone will be getting the paratrooper devil rat attack squad dropped on they lame and soon to be bony ass.

Just wait till december. mmm k?

Next time, link to the thread so I can get some reference. And there is no way that I can/will wait until December. My account might have dated back to 02, but I was not here when beat(t) took place.

Your search-fu seems to be weak....
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...=2452&hl=horror

actually ... it isn't I just didn't know that I was supposed to search. There are close to 500 entries for the word horror. I didn't realize that beat(t) was a keyword until I was instructed to search for it later. I just came back to the game, and I am not privy to all of the insider info like you l33t b0yz

No problem