This year ? Eh, it was in 1996!

And btw, we will certaintly not got a Free Québec 'cause we elected a Liberal (Pro-Federal (Canada)). We have him for 4 years...

In 10-15 years we will be able to see if we will go by ourself (I'm Québecois) or we will be again with the Canada.

I did a Quick search on the Shadowrun Archive’s Timeline explorer the other day

“The Towers” going down in real life shouldn't change a thing in the Shadowrun Timeline

Hmm, I'll try from a Canadian perspective (with Quebec separating).

Hmm, in 2007, the Quebecois party PQ gets elected into power, and with massive disgruntlement among the Quebec electorate stemming from the Federal Government's ending of the "apeasement" policy with Quebec stemming form the previous PM Jean Chretian. With millions of dollars no longer funneled into the Quebec economy, a possible resurgence of the economy that was boosted by the lowering of taxes of Charest's government was crippled (another reason Charest's Liberals were voted out was his policies that halved the beauracracy and severely hampered the unions).

The Parti Quebecois immediately held a referendum on Quebec separation. It passed with an astonishing 59% "Oui" vote, but was noteble with a 76% "Non" in Montreal. Again rascism reared its ugly head as the head of the PQ party accused the "ethnic vote" of skewing the results and declared the vote of 59% to be good enough to allow Quebec to separate, because the Montreal votes were not by true Quebecers. This allowed the PQ to give the vote legitimacy around the "Clarity" Bill passed by Ottawa in the late 90's.

Ottawa, already dealing with a constitutional crisis with Western Canada (Alberta and BC were staging "tax revolts" over the recent Supreme Court decision on the 3E Senate challenge), could do little to stop the Quebec Decision. Quebec independence was reconised on June 24th, 2008.

However, all was not well with the new Republic of Quebec. Attempts the annex francophone areas of Ontario and New Brunswick was met with outright hostility, and a near declaration of war from what remained of Canada. The northern Cree also declared that they were not members of Quebec, but Canada, and held a their own referendum which passed with an astounding 89% to remain in Canada. The Churchills Falls electricity contract with Newfoundland & Labrador was declared void by the Newfoundland & Labrador goverment, because it was with a province of Quebec, not a separate nation. An attempt to take the hydro-electric rich Labrador area was stopped when the Quebec Van Doos were repulsed by the PPCLI Regiment and a small contigent of Canadian Rangers sent by the northern Quebec Natives, and a militia unit of Newfies. An appeal to France for assistance, long considered an ally of Quebec, was rebuffed, as the French government was concerned about losing fishing rights in the recovering Grand Banks fisheries (Canadian officials made no secrect that they would occupy and annex the Fench islands off the Canadian coast).

A final blow to the youthful Republic was it's attempt to close off traffic in the St Lawrence Seaway except for toll shipping. A brief incursion into Quebec and a large naval presence by the United States effectively cowed the Quebec government into submission. They did not just leave one Anglophone state to become a territory of another, and again France could not aid Quebec because of its own political problems with the US.

Despite all the setbacks, Quebec remained an independent state, although not as wealthy or anywhere near as large as the Quebecois originally dreamed. Quebec did have a bright future though. Despite the setbacks, the average Quebecois was thrilled to be indenpendant, and had an optimistic view of the future. Montreal did eventually join the Republic (after a short blockade), and the ethnic community, rather than view the rantings of some foolish politicians, decided to stay in the new country and try to build it into something their children could be proud of.

But Quebec independance was also mainly due to the fragmentation of the remainder of Canada due to the Saskatoon Accords, rather than an unwillingness to return to the Canadian fold.

More later. This post is long enough (and possibly inflammatory enough).

(Preview - the West becomes semi-autonomous - biligualism is ended, affecting more communities than expected - after the Ghost Dance, Vancouver and the Frasier Valley become an independant non-NAN state, closely allied with China, Korea - Southern and Central Alberta fight off the NAN, with the Republic of Alberta to become the feudal state of Dunkelzahn [home brew campaign])

None of that is verbotten in SR history.

However, one big awkwardness is the lack of Seretech and Shiawase decisions by the US Supreme Court, all of which should be over and done with by now (IIRC). They were made between 1999 and 2001 in SR, IIRC, and they clearly didn't happen. Corporate sovereignty is behind schedule IRL.

Even more interesting is that the Supreme Court that handed down the decisions is no where near existing.

This is what I just quickly composed from the timeline and my own guess about the composition about the Supreme Court that decided the Shiawase and Seretech cases, a list that could be considered "Archconservative." The whole thing was based on the assumption that SR divierged from RL in 1989, although the first reference being in 1993 makes me rethink retirement of the Justices in 1987, 1990, and 1991. However, I think it's best to just assume this actually diverges in 1993 with one MAJOR exception--Since Chief Justice Burger stayed on until 1994, Justice Rehnquist never became Chief Justice in 1986, and Justice Scalia didn't take the seat he effectively vacated. Combined with canon, he would have actually retired ten years ago, which is nothing short of amazing because that means that SR canon as to the state of law diverged in 1986, effectively making the Shiawase decision (the Seretech decision is a bit more palatable) very much possible in the context of the changes to the other branches (e.g., how the conservatives stayed through the 90s.) to mean that there quite possibly was law to support the Shiawase decision during the whole privatization movement of the Lynch Administration--which is the only way I can even begin to imagine how extraterritoriality became possible.

1993-the first of the Supreme Court justices appointed during the Burger court leaves office.
* Blackmun (appointed 1970)

1994-Chief Justice Burger retires.
* Died in June 1995 IRL

1994-Terence Ordell appointed Chief Justice.
* Outspoken conservative law professor from the East Coast (Bork eqv.?)

1998-Three Burger Justices retired or dead.
* Rehnquist (appointed 1972)
* Blackmun (appointed 1970)
* White (appointed 1981)

Ordell Court (1994-?)
* Stevens (Ford-appointed 1975)
* O'Connor (Reagan-appointed 1981)
* Unknown Reagan Appointment (Hell, maybe Bork would have made it this time--appointed 1988)
* Souter (Bush-appointed 1990)
* Thomas (Bush-appointed 1991)
* Ordell (Lynch; 1994 successor to CJ Burger)
* Unknown Lynch Appointment (1993 successor to Rehnquist)
* Unknown Lynch Appointment (1993(?) successor to Blackmun)
* Unknown Lynch Appointment (1993(?) successor to White)

Only a 5.8? Are you sure those numbers aren't transposed? I've lived through a 7 here on the West Coast, back in 1989, and though there was some damage (to the Embarcadero and the Bay Bridge) it wasn't what I would describe as "city-flattening".

They must mean "8.5"...

yes, butyou live on the west coast of the usa, where the buildings and construction is built to safeguards which as far as I recall simply aren't in use on the east coast, because it doesn't get earthquakes which is why it was such a devastating event. I'm pretty sure that's right. it certainly makes logical sense. Remember - california has some pretty tight laws on that sort of thing (amongst others).

Of course, I'm a Brit, so I may not know what I'm talking about!

That barely counts. The thing is a mess, and only a fool would trust their data to them.

~J

and people complain about how screwed up the prices of guns are in SR.

Every skyscraper in NYC = $20 million damage? Construction prices must have really bottomed out.

$20 trillion maybe...

fair enough! I stand corrected!

Now, think of how much Shadowrun's been changed because of runners outsmarting corp guard animals who didn't have cyberware because of Essence and rejection issues and couldn't be trained because they didn't want to be. Now think if all those runs had been that much harder... Just think of what toys we'd be playing with, in an alternate 2060, if all those years mechanical drones had actually faced some stiff competition

[Edit: And forget BTL chips... If corps could create an addiction in their personnel with just a few pulses of electricity..]

Edited for length and content and code and the creation of a new thread a few hours later.

I guess it would improve the paranoid in the people up to Shadowrun's level. And maybe augment the number of weapons on the streets also up to Shadowrun's level. So I ain't too sure it would change anything, it fits quite nicely in a Cyberpunk setting.

Not likely, not in Shadowrun's world. Remember who the candidates were in the probe race? The corps run the space effort, along with everything else. If I'm remembering my SR history correctly, Ares bought NASA... they are the US space effort.

I'd finger Ares as the most likely candidate for building a space elevator in the Shadowrun world... they've got the best aerospace of any of the AAAs, and, while the elevator would ultimately render much of that obsolete, it'd still be necessary in the construction stages. On the other hand, one of the other AAAs with a solid but weaker aerospace division might try it to see if they could do an end run around Ares's strengths...

You're preaching to the choir here.

This is in Target: Awakened Lands. Actually, it's not an elevator, it's a magnetic "gun" ("bullet" being cargo load). The mountain surrounded by a lot of flat sapce is the Kilimandjaro itself. And it's not a single corp who plan on building it but the Corporate Court / the Big Ten. They give the estimation of the launching cost when the project will be finished but I don't remember it.