Throughout history whoever has the greatest edge tends to be the winner in conflict.
Starting out with somthing as simple as stone tools man must constantly one up his foe to stay ahead in a world of constant escalation. A bow and arrow, horses, steel, gunpowder, air power, information, etc....

But in 2070 and the precedeing decades somthing else surely has dominated the field of conflict. Whoever controls the astral has superiority.

A mage or several in astral can use watchers to gather information he needs, nearly undetected unelss his foe has equal capability. No bunker or structure is safe against and earth spirit, no ground vehicle is safe against a materialized engulfing fire spirit, no air power is a match for an air elemental in the cockpit and no navel vessels are surely powerless against a concentrated or even covert assualt buy a water spirit.

Of course these examples are just scratching the surface, surely any security or military orgainization has spent countless resources and effort to gain there own astral superiority.

But when it comes to a fleet of vehicles and large numbers of facilities and personal surely even most dedicated department of mages cant ward everything and keeping liveing materials or fab bacteria covering all of your assests would not be cost effective.

So he who controls the greatest astral assets will be the superior force.

ive seen mention of magitek corps and how there research attempts to bridge the gap between tech and magic. Governments and Corps surely have dumped unimaginable cash into simply finding cost effective ways to protect there assests.

So what is next step in human conflict, a means of personal protection for self and property. Somthing that doesnt require hireing a full time mage or a serious amount of cash for upkeep.

So what can the common man / shadowrunner use to defend his home,car and self (from nothing else then simply magical peeping toms). What will be the next step in conflict evolution, surely cant go around with ourselves and our car covered in ivy....

Thats gotta be funniest spoiler I've ever seen hehe