Recently some friends and I were discussing the late president Kennedy when, inevitably, the topic of his assassination came up. And then I made the comment that Kennedy's death was the definite moment for an entire generation, much like 9/11 was for ours, by which I mean that if you ask a baby boomer what they were doing when they heard about Kennedy, they will almost certainly be able to answer you. If you ask pretty much anyone in America older than 12 what they were doing when they heard about the 9/11 attacks, they will be able to tell you.

Later, when I was packing up my dorm room and loading my SR books into a box (and thinking of character concepts, but that I'm saving for another post), I saw my copy of System Failure and was reminded of my earlier discussion and comment, which got me thinking: What were my characters doing when the system failure hit?

Personally, I think that this is a wonderful fleshing-out-the-character question, and is definitely going to be added to my list of questions for new characters.

And it can go beyond just the system failure; any significant single event is going to leave an impression (assuming that they're old enough for some of the events). So... what was your character doing when...
...the system failure hit?
...President Dunklezahn was assassinated?
...the Cermak blast was set off?
...the Sears Tower was toppled?

So, opinions, comments on the general concept? And does anyone have any answers to those questions?

I suppose it depends on char age. Also for clarity you may wanna include actual dates. Here's a thought to burn your noodle, does your char have any memorabilia from these events? Like a Big D Keychain, Campaign T-shirt, An I Dunkie Shirt. I can totally see some blackhearted corpsons producing this.

Me? well you can call me Lightning Jack my real name was lost in the crash of 64, along with all by debt but I guess thats ok.

I don't remember that time to well, maybe my memory is starting to go in my old age. No wait I'm an Elf my early 40's should not be old age. Maybe I'm just forgetful or I drank to much that year.

Oh yeah I was jacked in to the !@#*%$ matrix when it crashed,

I was in the matrix when it crashed and all I got was my )^&^(& brain fried and a lousy T-Shirt
I suppose I should be thankful for not being dead.