So, I'm in the process of creating a netbook for Shadowrun in 2803. Now, this Netbook is firmly meant to cover the return of the Horrors, so if you don't like that story arc, do me a favor and take your flamethrower to the Drop Bears thread.

The premise is, the Scourge has come and completely ravaged the planet, but thanks to various reasons, metahumanity was able to push out into space... barely. There are the various stations and colonies on the moon and Mars, as well as corporate start ups in the asteroid belt. Humans have not really gone much further however. Corporations are in almost full control of everything, yet stills fosters a strong shadow community (for obvious reasons). Needless to say, the typical corporate backstabbing is still as present as ever. There are also a few independent areas that eke out a living.

The corporations have turned somewhat fuedal in thier practices, with directors and senior managers being treated like Dukes. Such high ranks are alloted certain numbers of wage slaves and project areas from which they are required to churn out whatever product it is they are supposed to produce. Wage slaves are hardly any better than serfs, with just a more guilded cage. The corporation offer all manners of diversions to allow a wage slave to burn off stress.

On Earth, things are a total mess. Much of the planet has ben turned into a ravaged wasteland. The Horrors, however, have not acted like they did originally. Instead of just wanton and wholesale slaughter, many of the major horrors have actually taken control of major cities and control large slave populations. Metahumans are viewed far more as cattle by the horrors than ever before.

There are a few bastions of freedom on the planet, however. First there are the two Tir's, both of which seemed to know about the Scourge way ahead of time. Rumors persist that they have always known and never bothered to share that with the rest of the world. Needless to say, there is a lot of annimosity between the other metahuman factions and the Tir's. No one knows what goes on within the protected borders of the Tir's and no one ever comes out.

Then of course there are the corporations, primarily Ares and Saeder-Krupp. Both corporations starting building elaborate barrier systems that went active not long before the Scourge actually happened. That would lead most to believe they'd been warned in the nick of time. These barrier systems are a fusion of both magic and technology, and no one has figured out how they were constructed or where the designs came from. (Think similar to the barrier cities in Final Fantasy).

Earth is a big place. however, and isn't all under to ever watchful eyes of the horrors. Small communities may exist deep in the wastelands where Horrors have already long passed. Rumors persist that proteus AG survives somewhere deep within the oceans. Even on the surface, shadow runners still exist, often seemingly at the behest of the Horrors. A great shadow war has been on going for the last two decades, as the horrors have leaned that brute force is not working to remove the remaining pockets of resistance on the planet.

Then finally there's the Matrix. Oddly enough, the network has survived to some extent on Earth. Granted it depends on what area you talk about. Barrier cities have full wireless matrix nodes, while Horror maintained cities may have full nodes to no network at all. Sometimes weak access lines ar still found to be active across the wasteland, although how and why is unknown. Outside the barrier cities, the Matrix is just as ravaged and twisted as the real land. Aside from brown and black outs, it is rumored that insane AI's and even Artificer himself have presences that can kill the unwary decker.

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So, what does all this mean? Well, I've started to flesh out some ideas, but it still requires a lot of work and I know we have some really talented people in the SR community. I also know I don't have a huge ammount of spare time. So, the project would need lots of different talent. Writers, ideas, art, etc. The different corporations still need to be fleshed out, as well as the Horrors. Different areas of the Matrix. Different areas of the world. Critters, guns, gear, rules, the list goes on and on.

So, if you're interested in being part of the project, let me know. I'm working on a writer's bible to give some inside glimpses at what's behind the scenes... like why the Horrors appear to have "settled down". If you aren't serious, don't bother asking, but at the same time, if you only want to do something small, you're still welcome. If all you want to provide is a small blurb on magic working on Mars, you're more than welcome to pitch in.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Oh, and yes, when things get more into focus, there will be a call for beta testers.

A few things:

The megacorps have "turned" feudal? What are they now?

As for the current state of the Earth, I think you should probably review the descriptions of the greater Named Horrors. You're pretty much describing how they already act, in several cases.

Also, the idea that Space is safe haven is seriously questionable in editions before Fourth.

~J

I thought space was always an astral deadzone?

Anyway maybe move up your date. At the rate things are going (In SR and real life) we should be all over mars way before 2803, and you'd expect society to have changed wildly in that much time. Or is that a typo and you meant 2083?

You might want to scan this thread by Dentris from a while back. He had a few similar things in mind.

Thought it might be nice to have for reference.

2803... I'm just wondering what you're going to do about the technology gap. If you went to 1274 and asked them to write a story about 2007, I'm pretty sure they'd be missing a lot of critical stuff, even more-so since technological developments have been getting faster as time goes on. And since technology (including magical technology) is humanity's primary defense against the horrors, this is going to be a serious hitch in your plan. What is the technology of 2800 like? I can't imagine.

I'd pitch in, but the time you want to make it is bad. This is for a couple reasons. First, if tech keeps going like it is now, everything would be so advanced that we cannot even begin to speculate as to what we would have, or if tech gets destroyed, it's a copmletely new game that have to be remade.

However, if you were making it say... in 2080, (or rather, in 2070 and ignoring the published material in 4th edition =D) Then i'd probably be up for it as we run horrors and the like in campaigns all the time. In fact, we're running a crossover campaign for SR/ED right now. Also, one of the campaign books i was working on was going to have horrors in it too.

In my opinion, I think the horrors would be coming back alot sooner this time than they did in Earthdawn becuase there are so many people. Alot of people means alot of STUPID people, like Voodens who get themselves in too deep and accidently make a new bridge (see: uhm... that ED/SR crossover novel...). But yeah, there are some horrors and horror constructs here already in 2054, as per Harlequin's Back, so I don't see why they would be waiting until 2800 to get here. It just seems too long to me. Everything magical in SR is accellerated becuase of the Great Ghost Dance, and this should be the same as well.

On a similar note, I've heard people say that the SR designers want to get away from horrors and are not gonna publish any more material relating to them. But, taking a look throu8gh a copy of Street Magic tells me the exact opposite. The book is FULL of horrors and horror references.

Also, Some of the things that are talked about in YOTC, the astral beings that Ghostwalker kills, seem alot like horrors to me. That's not exactly to say that I really know all that much about horrors, but well, my group HAS also been playing an ED campeign almost every week for the past 2 years. (I <3 horror Stalkers).

But yeah, I basically don't want to write info for an entire new world is all.

Well, first off, the Scourge doesn't happen in 2803. The Netbook just starts in 2803. The scourge has already been well under way by the time 2803 comes around.

In the timeline I've set up, the Scourge "offcially" starts in 2112.

Well, that's cool. I dunno, it's probably just me, but I'm just uncomfortable, or maybe just not confident in my ability, with the idea of going so far into the future like that. I just don't think it would really still be Shadowrun is all. And i love shadowrun alot and don't want to mess it up by trying to see things that far in advance. Shadowrun was even a stretch with being 70 years ahead in time. most cyberpunk is only about 30 years in advance, which is why it's usually pretty accurate as to what might happen. Going that far though... I just don't know if anyone, especially myself, can pull it off.

Interesting.

I started to do something very similar, but decided I wanted my own history and took the project in a very different direction. I ended up just using d20 Modern, the horrors became demons and (rarely) angels, etc.. But a lot of the rest sounds very similar.