Hello all,

I'm new to the forums (as you can probably tell) and I've been a fan of Shadowrun for years. Unfortunately, I haven't played for years and SR has one of the most quickly evolving storylines of any system I know, so I'm out of the loop, so to speak. I was wondering if I could ask a few questions to bring me up to date about the setting and the story, thanks!

The last product I read was Target: Awakened Lands, but I don't know how far back that is, and the latest novel I've read is the Terminus Experiment and I know that's an old one! So, here goes;

1/ What was the big changes that the Comet brought about? I haven't got or even seen Tales of the Comet or Year of the Comet.

2/ What's the simplified story about the Megacorps, I know the Big 8 are now the Big-god-knows-how-many, and that Fuchi (I think) had to relocate to Vladivostok because an Ork became CEO.

3/ After the Dragonheart Trilogy, was there anymore to do with the Horrors/Enemy and Immortal Elves storylines?

4/ What's going on in Chicargo now? I think I heard the Bugs have been cleared out and things are slowly getting back to normal, but I'm not sure.

5/ Is there anything else I should know that can bring me up to date?

Thanks, and sorry for the vagueness of my questions. Like I said, it's been years since I've played SR, but the arrival of 4th Ed has renewed my interest.

Thanks,

D.

0: Try to come up with a title that has some vague indication of your questions. People around here like that better.

1: Big increase in mana level, natural orichalcum for a while, SURGE, a dragon pops through the DC vortex, shedim, and a few other things.

2: They own you. (you did ask for simple)

3: The immortal elves are still pathetic whiners, but until someone tries a poorly thought out ritual, the earth is doomed only by its semi-natural inhabitants.

4: I think its just rebuilding efforts, but someone else may remember that better.

5: If you do try SR4, make sure your sneaky, athletic, firearm experts are elves. It'll get you a few extra dice that no human can match. Also, you can get by without a vehicle if you have a large enough troll adept.

Corps:

No more Fuchi, it went bye-bye long time back. Most of it, including corp court seat, was rebirthed as Novatech under "new" management (Richard Villers as sole top dog). Wuxing now has a corp court seat (some magic goodies including a coin willed to the owner by Dunk helped them over the top).

At the Crash in '65 when Lucien's plane bought the farm so did CATCo, all gone, bye-bye. Novatech also got some bad publicity from the Crash, so to shed it they did another name change. Only Villers must have been bored because to spin it as more than just a name change Novatech merged with Transys Neuronet and Erika into NeoNET (which is making big bucks on the move to wireless). So now Villers again has someone to play Boardroom Backstabbie with (and one of them is a GD).

The CATCO corp court seat was taken over by the "out of nowwhere" Horizon Group. The fluff makes it sound like a bug operation. Currently the odds on favorite for wildass guess is somehow Deus (or parts of him) survived the crash in node network form and is behind it.

Also the crash nexus was the Boston Exchange. The result was that Wall Street, in a rebuilt/rebuilding NYC, regained prominance.

EDIT: Yamatetsu renamed themselves to Evo, and moved HQ to Russia. Not a far move really, just across the water to the port city of Vladivostok.

Horrors/IE:

IE is the ongoing General Hospital soap (political shakeup in Tir by '70, but no details really, just a single line in System Failure). The Horrors, and indeed all ED connections are now moving to background status. Though the hints of crossovers are still there if you are looking.