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HappyDaze
I just took a trip top San Francisco, and I loved the city. Now I'm wanting to set a SR4 game there and I'm looking to find whatever resources are out there. I know about the California Free State book that set the basics for 2056 (or so), but I've heard that other sources have more up to date info. Where can I find it?

Anyone ambitious enough to give me a brief timeline for the Bay Area from 2056-2070?
raggedhalo
Shadows of North America, Threats 2, maybe Year of the Comet, too.
Riley37
I've lived in SF almost all my life; feel free to run a few questions by me.
I imagine that SF and its neighbor cities in 2070 will still have lots of leftover tensions and damage from the JIS occupation. Uncleared mines, munitions waste product toxic spills, and accusations that so-and-so was a collaborator. JIS troopers who deserted and "went native", especially those that weren't male and ethnic Japanese (if you're an eta or Okinawan or Korean who got drafted and sent to SF, deserting to a culture that might treat you as an equal could be attractive).
I like to think that the emphasis on innovation and counterculture that's helped us become a software center, also makes 2070s SF a leader in magical innovation, and perhaps there's a local WuXing presence and/or competition, and many of the hot new spell formulae are written here.

On another hand... are there any big earthquakes in the official timeline? To some extent, faultline pressure builds up slowly and releases in quakes, so the longer it's been since an earthquake, the more possibility of a large one. (small ones are in a way good news.)
Penta
I dunno about the counterculture thing - I'd think the Japanese occupation kinda squished the counterculture dead.
kzt
After the first mass protest got machine gunned and buried in mass graves, street protests were greatly reduced. . . .
Penta
Yeah, and I can't see the Japanese being very supportive of the rest of the counterculture. Or, any counterculture-type thing, really.

The whole idea of a counterculture would probably have died gruesomely after the first few months.

(I'm not sure SF has always been the center of any sort of counterculture, anyway - I seem to remember learning that San Fran prior to the 1960s was a rather conservative, conventional sort of place, socially.)
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Penta)
The whole idea of a counterculture would probably have died gruesomely after the first few months.

...or escaped north to Humboldt County. grinbig.gif
HappyDaze
I've looked over the sources that talk about Saito coming to power, but where is his fall and the subsequent events covered?

With my luck it's probably in System Crash - one of the few books I don't have access to...
Riley37
Ah, you may be Shadowrun gurus, but your counterculture fu is weak. Massing in the streets when the JIS troopers are willing to massacre, is pitting weakness against strength, and counterculture does not always equal stupid or naive. Feminism, gay pride, race equality, youth empowerment, paganism, etc. all went *underground* in SF during the Occupation - or just over the border; the JIS were never able to take Silicon Valley, and I doubt they could effectively patrol Marin let alone Humbolt or Mendocino.
It's possible that a few JIS officers were seduced when off duty with recreational drugs, kinky sex, or other non-JIS-approved entertainment, then blackmailed into turning a blind eye to resistance activities.
Fortune
QUOTE (HappyDaze)
I've looked over the sources that talk about Saito coming to power, but where is his fall and the subsequent events covered?

With my luck it's probably in System Crash - one of the few books I don't have access to...

You got it ... and even then it's only touched on briefly.
kzt
QUOTE (Riley37)
Ah, you may be Shadowrun gurus, but your counterculture fu is weak. Massing in the streets when the JIS troopers are willing to massacre, is pitting weakness against strength, and counterculture does not always equal stupid or naive.

Yeah, like the unloaded guns at Kent state?

After years of pushing around the cops and the city there is a tendency to think that they understand the rules. There is a reason there was no Ghandi in Korea.
HappyDaze
QUOTE
You got it ... and even then it's only touched on briefly.

OK. I'll just skim that bit the next time I'm at my H-ALGS (half-assed local game store) - I don't really want to pay for a 'brief touch'... it's why I've avoided titty-bars too. wink.gif
Critias
I don't think anyone's saying all of San Francisco's counterculture movements were wholly squashed -- just that they don't quite run the city quite as much as they're reputed to do today. wink.gif You won't see any pride parades (for anything but pure Japanese bloodlines) under Saito's watch, that's for sure. They might not be gone, but they're certainly not popular or obvious about their presence.

I remember a published adventure that took place in San Francisco (or thereabouts), too, and it might have some information in it that was a little more recent than the Calfree book.

I don't remember which book it was in, but here's a brief synopsis for those who might be able to help find it...

[ Spoiler ]


I read up on the CalFree book pretty seriously, because I had a wild hair to run a former terrorist type (and decided on the Metahuman People's Alliance). Tyler's turned into one of my favorite characters, since. I've always thought it'd be a fun campaign to try and run, just being a bunch of folks fighting the Japanese invasion force (and later Saito's boys in particular), similar to some of the "everyday schmuck when the shit hits the fan in the Arcology" type of games, or something like that. Who wouldn't love trying to play Red Dawn in an urban setting instead of a rural?
Riley37
Penta and kzt seem to have some strong opinions on counterculture. (shrug) I think you're setting up and shooting down "straw man" arguments. I brought up counterculture and innovation as an industrial/economic factor; willingness to try new things has served us well in technology - there's a reason that Hewlett-Packard and Macintosh got started here! If you really, really think that Saito managed, in ten years, to make San Franciscans value conservatism (as anything other than "fake it when the occupiers are watching"), then suit yourself. Pun intended.

So, you tell us - if Saito convinced all San Franciscans that "the outstanding peg gets hammered down", and we all started ancestor worship at Shinto shrines, then what happens after he leaves?
kzt
Make a choice:

Poland, after the Soviet liberation and Communist mass murders, followed by the Nazi liberation and Nazi mass murders, followed by the Anti-Nazi uprisings and subsequent/concurrent mass murders, followed by the Soviet liberation and mass murders, followed by the anti-soviet guerrilla war that was eventually put down in the 50s with a great deal of brutality.

Or France, where the mass of the government had actively cooperated with the Nazis and ended up covering up the collaboration and got promoted with no side effects. Like Maurice Papon, later prefect of Police in Paris and Francois Mitterrand, later president of France.

It's not likely to be fun city. Too many collaborators and victims.
Simon May
QUOTE (Penta)
Yeah, and I can't see the Japanese being very supportive of the rest of the counterculture. Or, any counterculture-type thing, really.

The whole idea of a counterculture would probably have died gruesomely after the first few months.

As has been proven time and time again, the more opposition, the more a counterculture flourishes in the underground. Perhaps they ended up moving to Oakland or another suburb to avoid detection, but their activities would've continued to be active, if hidden.
Riley37
QUOTE (kzt)
Make a choice:
...
It's not likely to be fun city. Too many collaborators and victims.

Uh, I definitely don't choose Poland, unless an equally oppressive army rolled in as Saito left.

Can I choose Amsterdam? Granted, Amsterdam had somewhat Germanic culture and perhaps the Third Reich cut them more slack, except for, ya know, people sheltering Anne Frank and her family.

How about Copenhagen, where the puppet government refused to round up the Jews, and was able to hold their ground on that question throughout the entire occupation?

I agree that tension between former collaborators, whether opportunistic or authentic Nipponese supremacists, resistance leaders, underground survivors, and others, will be a tough dynamic (and wrote so in my first post). In Nihonmachi aka Japantown, the choice to collaborate or resist may have been especially divisive, and the Yakuza probably had some bloody infighting. I'm playing in a campaign set during the occupation, centered in Oakland with occasional raids into SF itself, and one plotline involves the Grunts orc gang based in SF which fled and managed to take sanctuary with a dwarven warren in Oakland's Halvertown... and the Sons of Sauron are about to attack that warren, calling the Grunts "race traitors". Meanwhile, I suspect that Policlub Humanitas members in SF who are also white supremacists are having a hard time with "Japanese on top, then Americans of Japanese descent, then other humans, then nonhumans".

Personally, I think SF will have a renewed Pride Parade on the first June after Saito leaves, with a memorial to fallen resistance fighters of all sexualities, and an attitude of "we went underground but we survived, and after this, we know we can survive ANYTHING". Not so extravagant and flashy, but still, well, proud. And more people will understand the history of the pink triangle symbol.
kzt
IIRC, the Dutch acted much like the French, except for the total denial that any Dutchman had actually collaborated. IIRC, the person who got paid by the Germans for turning in Anne Frank (and dozens of other Jews) lived happily ever after.
Penta
Riley: Where I got vehement was the idea that after...20+, 30+ years? (I forget when the JIS occupation of SanFran started) of foreign occupation, San Francisco would be anything -but- scarred and traumatized and having a societal case of PTSD, to a massive extent at least.

France and the Netherlands are not relevant examples. Period. They were occupied for 6 years at the most. The people who took leadership positions immediately after the war in many cases were involved in politics before the war, too. (De Gaulle is the obvious exception here, I grant.) At the same time, they had governments-in-exile that really maintained a lot of the institutional memory of government during the occupation.

Once you go past 10 years, 20 years at max, then your political infrastructure, the people who remember what life was like and perhaps were politically active before the occupation, starts to really degrade. Because people get old, they die, and so forth. And the number of people who even remember what life was like before the occupation gets smaller and smaller. People may get that "Japanese occupation is bad", but that says nothing about the post-occupation situation. If your political infrastructure doesn't exist, how can you say anything about life after that?
stormcrow
The gay pride movement really exploded here in the SF Bay Area. Reference the Stonewall Riot. We're talking about a population that was pretty brutally oppressed/beaten/etc. for decades, with police raids on bars, bathhouses and other subculture meeting sites. What happened when the oppression lifted (because of resistance and struggle)? If you don't know, come see Gay Pride week (brought to you by Miller and Annheiser-Busch!) At least one of the older gay bars in the East Bay (Berkeley and Oakland) has a special basement hiding spot for that very reason.

The cops here aren't particularly gentle. I got shot eight times with wooden dowels and rubber bullets and rammed twice by motorcycles for shutting down the Port of Oakland to stop shipment of war materials a couple years ago. If there'd been fewer cameras or more black kids it would have been real bullets.

On the game note:
SF isn't a city in isolation. It's fifteen minutes on BART to Oakland or Berkeley across the Bay. SF is pretty small (about 750,000 people and 47 sq miles) and the metro SF Bay Area is 7.2 million people and a much much larger sq mileage.

One thing my players have just gotten a taste of is the Life Imitating Art aspect of Japanese mechs. Some are tech, some are magic. None are the massive BattleTech 50 ton monsters. Most are simply powered armor and exoskeletons with guns. Some are ally spirits. All are bad news for lightly armed/armored resistance fighters.

Much resistance is located in the East Bay (where most folx without loads of cash had already relocated.) The Bay Bridge has scanners and mm wave radar to check every vehicle for suspicious 'ware and weapons. Treasure Island (roughly midway along the Bay Bridge between Oakland and Berkeley) is a heavily armed way station for intercepting raids. Last transBay run my players went on, a friendly mage Shapechanged three of them (sust foci) and they just flew across. That being said, the Bay is only around 6 ft deep for most of it. The shipping channel up the middle is dredged to 42 or 400 ft deep (i forget which), but is rather narrow.

A lot of hardware is funneled into the East Bay (SF is the West Bay) by other corps who lost facilities or freedom in the Occupation. (Like Rome or the US, it's cheaper to send weapons to the neighbors of your opponents than to send armies.)

San Jose and Silicon Valley are closely held by Ares and the JIS did NOT send enough Marines or gear to take on Ares.

Just my $0.02.

pax,
stormcrow



cyber.gif
Riley37
Ah, thanks Penta. I went back to SR4 BBB to check the duration of the occupation, and I'd thought it was under ten years but looks more like 30; CalFree secedes (or is booted) in 2036, tangles with TirTairngire and Aztlan, brings in the JIS, then the occupation lasts until late 2060s. Yes, on that scale, one gets effects somewhat like the Warsaw Pact nations. My mother, a journalist, went to Chechoslovakia to cover their first post-Soviet elections... it had been a long, long time and they didn't have familiarity with how elections work. As a frequent staffer of polling places, I can imagine the difficulties of running a fair and fast-moving polling place when neither staffers nor voters have any experience. Brrr. Imagining three decades of my hometown being patrolled by JIS troopers with bayonets makes Shadowrun a bit scarier for me. In the last decade, Saito is rogue, having defied the 2061 order for all JIS units to pull back to the home islands. No reinforcements, just whatever new troops he can recruit from those who have adapted to the new regime.

Post-occupation SF would have plenty of the edgy dystopic aspect of Shadowrun; the Big Brother aspect would have been recently extreme, but presumably it's a while before anyone gets social controls in place again, unless they take over whatever surveillance cameras and informants and so forth Saito had in place. Meanwhile, the dynamics of who you can trust could be very tricky, and there'd be room for gangs and shaman-based tribes and other "outsider" organizations to gain social capital.

Counterculture comes in various forms. Big festivals are one. Replacing ties with tie-dye is another form. Questioning authority is another; don't openly defy a JIS patroller, but I dunno that SF families became quite as patriarchal as Saito would have liked. I speculate that the JIS might have been quite frustrated that once they purged the Bay Area of all the wacky free-thinkers, the high-tech industry stopped being quite such a tax-base cash-cow... kinda like the way that after the Spanish Inquisition got rid of all the Jewish bankers and scholars, the Spanish economy took a big hit.

So... how long after V-E day did Amsterdam and Paris regain their aspect as cities with intellectualism, hedonism, liberalism (in any sense of the word)?
kzt
As was pointed out before, 5 years isn't 30 years. 30 years means many people there grew up with this as the way things are, and many of the older counter culture types would have died off (from one reason or another).

Ask Frank about Prague. I like his blogs name "Waitinginline".
HappyDaze
QUOTE
That being said, the Bay is only around 6 ft deep for most of it.

I'd read 12 feet, but I can't say as I've ever been in the water of the Bay to find out (on it, yes)...
DTFarstar
Frank has a blog? Do tell. I'm always interested in what he has to say. Especially when he rants, it amuses me greatly. Linky? My search fu has failed me thus far in google.

Chris
Mercer
QUOTE (Riley37)
Counterculture comes in various forms. Big festivals are one. Replacing ties with tie-dye is another form. Questioning authority is another; don't openly defy a JIS patroller, but I dunno that SF families became quite as patriarchal as Saito would have liked. I speculate that the JIS might have been quite frustrated that once they purged the Bay Area of all the wacky free-thinkers, the high-tech industry stopped being quite such a tax-base cash-cow... kinda like the way that after the Spanish Inquisition got rid of all the Jewish bankers and scholars, the Spanish economy took a big hit.

I haven't paid much attention to SF since the CalFree book came out, however in going over this thread, I think it would have been interesting to see more acculturation between the JIS and the SF'ers, particularly after Saito went rogue and had to make due with what he had and couldn't just send off for more uncorrupted soldiers.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (DTFarstar)
Frank has a blog? Do tell. I'm always interested in what he has to say. Especially when he rants, it amuses me greatly. Linky? My search fu has failed me thus far in google.

Chris

http://waitinginline.insanejournal.com/

It's about my life at Hogwarts while I go to school in Prague.

---

The story of California is tawdry and incomprehensible. Dates don't match up, descriptions of events like wars are wildly off between publications, and the numbers don't add up at all. This all culminates in over 32 million people vanishing from the face of the Earth between the CFS book and Shadows of North America. Not "moved to another country" not "were killed in a holocaust almost twice as brutal as the Nazi's war against the Soviet Union" but simply anished as if part of some administrative error.

But here's what we can piece together:

California leaves the Union in either 2036 or 2037, either shortly after or shortly before an invasion by Tir Tairngire. This separation is either voluntary or involuntary on the part of the California Republic and the government in Washington either allows them to leave without a fight or signed legislation forcing them out of the uninion. Sound confusing? It gets worse.

Either during this time or perhaps the decade after (seriously), Aztec forces take San Diego by driving up with less troops than San Diego police make traffic stops in a month. At this time the population of the CFS is listed at 50 million. After some shakedowns, the Pueblo Corporate Council is perplexingly allowed to take control of the entire Los Angeles basin after being invited in by the Los Angeles Free Enterprise Zone Authority. The population of the CFS is then reported as 18 million and the population of the PCC is unchanged, so we're out tens of millions of people with no explanation.
  • 2018: The United States cedes the entire West to the NAN except California and Seattle, which they go to the mat for.
  • 2022: Race riots hit very hard in the Bay Area, and metahuman populations are virtually banished from the Peninsula. The metahumans are further divided around San Leandro with Dwarves to the south and Orks to the north. People refer to big sections of the Oakland region as "Orkland" and big sections of Fremont as "Halferville". This grows up gradually - as of course it must because at this point there isn't a single dwarf who is more than 11 years old during these riots. Similar riots hit Los Angeles and the national guard ends up walling off sections of the city that are later dubbed "El Inferno".
  • 2028: LA gets another quake, which destroys Los Angeles International Airport. I'm not sure how this works, because LAX is over 5 kilometers across. While it's pretty easy to imagine LAX being seriously damaged, having it be destroyed is pretty over the top.
  • 2029: The Great Crash occurs. The United States created Echo Mirage - initially recruited from within but when those people were destroyed EM recruited a bunch of smart alec, fast-talking tech-savvy kids from Silicon Valley to restore order.
  • 2029: The NAN declares awakened races welcome in tribal lands and a big exodus of metahumans from California begins.
  • 2030: The UCAS is formed. California holds a referendum on secession, which is defeated.
  • 2031: Echo Mirage defeats the great crash bug. The UCAS stands down the organization and sends the first wave of Deckers out to work in the private and black market sectors.
  • 2034: The Confederate-UCAS war begins. Aztlan backs the CAS and the country is split in two.
  • 2035: Afraid of sparking "secession fever" after the the secession of the Confederacy, the UCAS refuses to recognize Tir Tairngire. The governor of California, who had secessionist leanings, signs a bill that says that the state of California recognizes Tir Tairngire's independence.
  • 2036: Some books (SR2, NAGNA, Tir Tairngire) say that the UCAS sat back and twiddled their thumbs while the Tir invaded California, causing the secessionist movement to win completely in California. Other sources (SR4, CFS) say that the UCAS actually kicked California out just before the Tir Invasion. Obviously, there's a distinct "before or after" problem here and both statements cannot be true.
  • 2036-37: The citizenry of Northern California liberate themselves from Elvish rule through guerilla tactics and insurgency. Tir Tairngire is forced to withdraw from its Iraq in Redding, leaving a border between Eureka and Yreka.
  • Late 2036: Aztlan invades San Diego, unless this happened in 2044 as stated in some sources. According to some books (for example Aztlan) this was an invasion of the UCAS and according to others (example: CFS) this was an invasion of an independent Californian state. In any case, San Diego is somehow conquered with a single Light Armored Division. I don't even know what the hell that's about since even a generously equipped division (20,000 men) represents the number of vehicle stops the San Diego Police Department makes in 2 months.
  • 2037: California declares itself a sovereign nation. Or maybe it has already been a sovereign nation for an entire fucking year, depending upon sources. The Japanese Imperial Marines land in San Francisco and offer to provide the security contract for the city free of charge. Their "zero nuyen.gif bid" easily undersells other security contractors and they become the police all the way down to Palo Alto. The Japanese Military land in 2036 or 2037 either before or after the declaration of California as an independent country that is either before or after the Aztlan invasion of San Diego.
  • 2039: The Nights of Rage Happen. Thousands die.
  • 2042: The Japanese Imperial Marines renew their own security contract and are no longer subject to California Government Oversight in the San Francisco Bay Peninsula.
  • 2044: If Aztlan didn't capture San Diego in 2036 before (or perhaps after) California declares itself independent, then Aztlan conquers San Diego at this point.
  • 2046: Hackers destroy the results of an election. CalGuard is sent in to El Inferno (the walled off slums that are filled with criminals - think "Sacrifice Zones" from Snow Crash). Riots ensue, and the CalGuard is forced to withdraw in disgrace.
  • 2046: Having lost the battle for Sadr City El Inferno, the CFS nation for some reason declares Los Angeles a Free City. Of course, the population here is only two and half million, so they literally mean "Los Angeles" and not the entire LA region that has seven times that many people. I honestly have no idea what being a "Free City" means, since it apparently still counts as part of the CFS for population statistics.
  • 2053: The Second California-Tir Tairngire war happens. After the war goes poorly for the elves, Hestaby comes down on the elves and claims the Shasta area as her own - banishing the Elves up to Yreka.
  • 2057: The California Population is specifically 50 million people.
  • 2061: Earthquakes and Volcanoes hit California pretty bad. The Emperor of Japan orders the Imperial Marines back to the homeland. Keiji Saito refuses and declares the California Protectorate. Ares tells him to get his fucking hands off of the Silicon Valley and open warfare begins between Japanese Forces and Ares Mercenaries. Battle Lines are drawn in Milpedas, Colma, or Monterey depending upon who is writing it. Maps completely disagree with the text. Colored in protectorate regions go south past Monterrey and yet Santa Cruz County gets referrenced as an area south of Protectorate control. I can't make any sense of it.
  • December 2061: Earthquakes volcanoes and Shedim! The walls around El Inferno come crashing down and mass hysteria breaks out in the LA region. The PCC sends in peacekeepers at the request of the Los Angeles City Authority. For some reason this gives control of the LA region to the PCC even though they were only invited in by the LA City Authority (who control the little free city in the middle). It's kind of like a foreign nation conquering all of Rome because they were invited to restore order in Vatican City.
  • 2062: Hestaby takes her Shasta Kingdom and joins the Tir council of Princes.
  • 2062: Saito advances his Protectorate Agenda with increasingly large opposition as his police-state agenda becomes more blatantly obvious. Seiges in the Central Valley seem to be going on, but the geography doesn't match up super well to anything.
  • 2062: Shadows of North America confirms that the PCC has conquered the entire LA region, the remaining CFS now has only 18 million people in it, but the population of the PCC has increased by only one hundred thousand since Native American Nations Volume 1 (which was 11 years in the past).
  • 2065: One or more nuclear devices may have been detonated somewhere in California, it's hard to tell. System Failure isn't really clear on that point.
  • 2069: The Protectorate is defeated, Saito is gone, and the CFS controls everything norh of the PCC divide.
  • 2069: Something bad happened to Los Angeles, doing bad things to "California" - despite the fact that LA had apparently been annexed eight years previously. The bad thing is variously described as "earthquakes" and "lacunae". Apparently one way or another a bunch of land sunk and tsunamis covered hundreds of square kilometers with ocean water. In truth, it doesn't really matter what caused those events because the raw amount of land that was put under water inside of a year represents a big enough geological event that it would seriously destroy all life on Earth. I'm not even kidding, we're talking about being able to fit several chicxulub craters into the holes left over where the map shows kilometer-high mountains that are now below sea level.


But we're concentrating on San Francisco. To be charitable, well say that between utopianism and fear, most Orks had already moved into Oakland and most Dwarves had already moved to Fremont by 2042. Heck, Elves were already singularly unwelcome in the CFS, so really San Francisco had an extremely low metahuman population naturally when Saito declares that he is making up his own rules. By the time he has "gone rogue", he has been judge and jury on the Peninsula for 19 years - meaning that the people who are of military recruitment age were actually born under his rule.

So it's entirely plausible (such as anything in the CFS timeline is "plausible") that he told the Nippon Empire to go fuck itself because the people he was recruiting into the marines in San Fran were more loyal and saw more eye to eye with him than the marines he was getting sent in from the "homeland".

So basically we're looking at him being able to get off the ground doing horrible things to metahumans because metahumans were already in vanishingly short supply. And by the time he started doing it officially, he had been doing it unofficially for years. And by the time he started an expansionist program, he had actually raised an entire generation of people on his values of racial purity and strength.

Doesn't explain all the bullshit and conflicting numbers, but it's a start.

-Frank
iron mouser
I really like reading Frank's posts on CA. They make me all warm and cozy. Maybe it is the heat radiating from his posts that do it... smile.gif

By the way, I totally agree with what he says. I have lived in the South Bay for almost all my life (5 years I was in San Diego) and what has happened to CA is a joke.

Oh, and there is no West Bay. There is the North Bay, East Bay, South Bay and the Pennisula. If you look at a map of the region, it makes sense. West Bay, yesh. Did you pick that up in Frisco? Tourist.
stormcrow
No, iron mouser, i've lived in Oakland and Berkeley for most of the last decade. Many of us living in the East Bay refer to SF as the West Bay. It's a sort of joke at SF-centric mindsets. Sheesh. Resident. ;-P

Excellent write-up on the discrepancies, Frank. In our local group (IRL living in East and West Bay, and playing in Occupation Era Bay Area) we scrapped/rewrote some of it for greater coherency and fun.


On a toxics note, the Farallones provide an excellent offshore toxic site. They lie 27 miles (43 km) outside the Golden Gate, 20 miles (32 km) south of Point Reyes. They are visible from the mainland on clear days. The islands are officially part of the City and County of San Francisco. If you don't want to read the lengthy bit below, the summation is GIANT TOXIC GREAT WHITE SHARKS vs. SELKIES.

From 1946 to 1970, the sea around the Farallones was used as a nuclear dumping site for radioactive waste under the authority of the Atomic Energy Commission at a site known as the Farallon Island Nuclear Waste Dump. According to a 1980 report by the Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 47,500 containers, 55 gallon steel drums, were dumped in the vicinity of the Farallones. The primary military agency which used the dumping site was the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, in San Francisco, which was charged with decontamination of the ships from the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in 1946 and carried out additional radiological work throughout the period. The irradiated US Navy ship USS Independence, which was used as a target at Operation Crossroads, "loaded with radioactive waste from NRDL and other generators, was towed to sea and sunk," apparently near this site. According to the United States Geological Survey, "The exact location of the containers and the potential hazard the containers pose to the environment are unknown." The 1980 EPA report argues that attempts to remove the barrels would likely produce more of a risk to humans and the environment than simply letting them remain on the bottom of the ocean.

South Farallon Islands
Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI) is the largest island, with an area of 0.31 km² or 310,406 m²) and is the only inhabited one. The island is pyramidal in shape and 109 meters high. The peak, Tower Hill (actually a double peak consisting of Lighthouse Hill and Little Lighthouse Hill), is the location of a lighthouse, the Farallon Island Light. The large flat area in the southeast of the island is called Marine Terrace. Immediately south of it is Mussel Flat, about 30 by 120 meters, which is cut off from the main island only during high tide.
Seal Rock (Saddle Rock), about 250 meters south of SEFI is, about 80 by 250 meters in size, and 25 meters high.
Maintop Island (West End) is immediately to the west of SEFI, separated by a narrow impassable gorge, The Jordan (Jordan Channel), which connects Mirounga Bay in the south to Maintop Bay in the north. It is the second largest island, and 68 meters high at Main Top hill in its eastern part. The Great West Arch, a rock formation, is in the west of the island, and Indian Head in the South.

There are a bunch of other islands, but they are small (less than 150 m across and ranging from sea level to 25 m high.)

The largest island is the wintering ground of several species of migrants, and regularly attracts vagrant birds (about 400 species of bird have been recorded on or around the island).
Five species of pinniped come to shore on the islands, and in some cases breed. These are the Northern Elephant Seal, Harbor Seal, Steller's Sea Lion, California Sea Lion, and the Northern Fur Seal (the last of which, like the Rhinoceros Auklet, began to return to the island again after protection).
The elephant seal population attracts a well-known population of Great White Sharks to the islands as well. By the year 2000, biologists were logging almost eighty attacks in a single season. No one had ever documented such behavior among great whites before.
The Farallons are unique in the size of the Great Whites that are attracted. The average length of a full-grown great white shark is 4 to 4.8 metres (13.3 to 15.8 ft), with a weight of 680 to 1,100 kilograms (1,500 to 2,450 lbs), females generally being larger than males. Farallon Great Whites range between the "smaller" males at 13 ft. to the females which generally range between 17-19 ft. (The largest accurately measured great white shark was a female caught in August 1988 at Prince Edward Island off the North Atlantic coast and measured 20.3 ft).
Humpback whales pass through this part of the Pacific Ocean on their migrations; moreover, in December 2005 one Humpback was rescued from netting entanglement east of the Farallons by staff of The Marine Mammal Center. The islands are in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which protects the feeding grounds of the wildlife of the refuge.
Riley37
Honestly to Frank: Thanks for the summary. I don't have *any* pre-SR4 books, so it's helpful to see what others are working from.

I don't share the apparent level of outrage that various writers and cartographers - and I'm guessing that they weren't well-resourced - are inconsistent with each other. I'm used to it from other multi-author fictional settings. Star Trek is perhaps an extreme example. Then again, I was a classical history major, so Thucidydes shaped my understanding of conflicting accounts of events. I can readily imagine a resident of 2070 SR San Francisco having read accounts all of the events in your summary, and noticing the incongruities, and deducing that SOMEONE must have been fudging history to fit their political agenda. In much the same way that there is STILL some disagreement about whether the Union or the Confederacy is at fault for the gunfire at Fort Sumter, or whether the government of Turkey killed any Armenians in the 1920s (Clinton and Bush both asked Congress not to use the term "genocide"). And if someone conquered all of Italy on the *pretext* of an invitation from the Vatican, well, that's precedented in history, no? Certainly there's disagreement about whether Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, or something else defines "California".

I do share annoyance at the idea of elves or dwarves forming nations only a decade after the first year of UGE births. Unless there's a good explanation out there.

Bias disclosure: I am a player in Stormcrow's group. Giant Toxic Great White Sharks? Dude, so glad I didn't know that when my PC was flying over SF Bay, shapechanged into a bird.

I was born in SF, raised in SF and Marin (the county on north side of Golden Gate Bridge), and am fully used to Oaklanders referring to SF as the West Bay. It's kinda like people describing modern "Western Europe" and "Eastern Europe" in terms of the division of the Roman Empire. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Iron Mouser, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
G.NOME
What about that nuke that detonated over the bridge, eh?

Also: can you still get a good burrito in the Mission post-Saito?
Fortune
QUOTE (Riley37 @ Oct 24 2007, 07:10 AM)
I do share annoyance at the idea of elves or dwarves forming nations only a decade after the first year of UGE births. Unless there's a good explanation out there.

Well, the Elves had the benefit of Spike Babies. Some of whom were even organized and/or gathered together by Professor Xavier Sean Laverty (I think) even before the Awakening.
hyzmarca
Tir Na nOg was founded in 2034. By then, the oldest living elves with 12,000, give or take, and they highly elistist racist mofos who practices slavery and believed that they were The Passions' gift to metamankind and, by extention, elves were superior to all other races.

Spike babies would be about 34. Manipulations of the former lead the latter to create their own countries.
iron mouser
@Riley37 and Stormcrow - Odd, I have never heard the Peninsula called that by anyone, but I could have just been hanging out with a different group.

@G.NOME - Which bridge? There are two that lead into S.F city (Golden Gate and Bay Bridge), three to the south (San Mateo, Dumbarton and the (SR-created) Butterfly Bridge) and three more leading from the East Bay to points north (Whose names escape me, though I hear them in traffic reports each day).
iron mouser
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
[*] December 2061: Earthquakes volcanoes and Shedim! The walls around El Inferno come crashing down and mass hysteria breaks out in the LA region. The PCC sends in peacekeepers at the request of the Los Angeles City Authority. For some reason this gives control of the LA region to the PCC even though they were only invited in by the LA City Authority (who control the little free city in the middle). It's kind of like a foreign nation conquering all of Rome because they were invited to restore order in Vatican City.

I figured it out! Ok, not really, but I think I found a way that would allow it to work, somewhat.
The LA region gets most (if not all) of its water from the Colorado River, which is controlled by the PCC. As part of the deal that gave the Free City of LA to the PCC, a larger amount of water was diverted to LA. The other areas, hearing about the deal (and always thirsty for more water), begin to make similar deals with the PCC. Soon the whole of the LA region is PCC controlled.

Not perfect, but better than nothing.

Oh, and the dumb answer for where all those missing people went, the census for the PCC happens every 10 years. The figures from NAN Vol.1 were from the one was done in 2050 and the number from SoNA result from the 2060 census. The new citizens of the PCC will be counted in the next census, scheduled for 2070.

After typing that out, it almost makes sense...
Simon May
The people of LA don't have full citizenship, according to SoNA. They have probationary citizenship. If the PCC only calculates it's population by counting full citizenship, it would account for the population discrepancy.
Negalith
I know very little about Shadowrun history, but I am a military and foreign affairs buff. This whole Japanese invasion of SF has always sounded like the most asinine thing I can imagine. First of all, Japan has no military. The US defends it. Even if it did have a military, there are a lot more reasonable targets for invasion in that area of the world. Invade to protect economic interests? Trust me, pissing off your biggest partner and customer is pretty damn bad for the bottom line. Third, a naval crossing with an occupying force making it across despite vast US air and naval superiority would take a miracle. Surprise attack? Are you kidding? With radar, sonar, submarines and satellite surveillance? Even if there were a naval invasion… an enduring military occupation of the US… not a prayer.

It’s my opinion that writers of Shadowrun stretch a bit much at times to achieve justification for a setting to their liking.
Fortune
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Spike babies would be about 34.

I'm curious as to why you think all (or even most ... or even any) Spike Babies were born around the year 2000. I don't recall anything in the books that limit their appearance to only around this time frame.
Simon May
Japan didn't "invade" in the traditional sense. First, you had the Azzies side with the CAS against the UCAS and California, not to mention the establishment of Tir Tairngire. Then you have the US countries disowning California. Even if Cali broke away, the UCAS didn't want them back cause they seemed a bunch of indecisive tree hugging pricks who simply caused problems. Regardless, once out from under the UCAS, that leaves Cali unprotected against Tir and the Azzies. So who do they turn to? The Japanese.

As for the Japanese, it's explained that their might isn't military, but technological at first. They developed satellites that could bring direct drone control into remote areas and invaded the Philippines and parts of Africa. To suddenly get a technological army on their side, San Fran essentially agreed to vassalage.

By the time Japan was able to take over, they were the biggest power in world and San Francisco was scared and helpless. Plus, since most of the corps in San Fran at the time were Japanese, it meant it was in their interest to support a takeover.

Sure, it's not the most likely scenario, but when you consider the depth of that timeline, it's also not much less likely than the UCAS never giving up control or the Azzies taking San Fran or Tir controlling all of the West Coast. Quite Frankly, inviting the predominant Superpower in to save you is a brilliant move in that situation.
Riley37
There are already some debates about census methods, driven partly by desire to boost count for representation in House of Representatives; civil wars and people going intentionally off the grid may complicate matters. Some census takers may apply the "3/5 of all other persons" rule to DEOTs (dwarves, elves, orcs, trolls).

Iron Mouser, I've heard SF county called West Bay; dunno the boundary of South Bay - maybe SFO, or Palo Alto? Conflicts over water would be quite appropriate for Shadowrun CalFree history.

Heh. The skillset to make a good burrito has been passed on from generation to generation... even if Saito systematically eliminates the tacquerias, parents teach children in secret. smile.gif

By the way... does Sixth World history have an explanation for the lack of rising ocean levels?

FrankTrollman
QUOTE
By the way... does Sixth World history have an explanation for the lack of rising ocean levels?


Not really. I've assumed that it tied directly into the wealth and power of the Trans Polar Aleut. They set up giant Carbon Sinks in the Arctic and charge the coastal countries exhorbitant fees for it. Than the algae gets dropped to the bottom of the sea where the slow current will keep it out of atmospheric circulation for ten thousand years, by which time it will be someone else's problem.

This might actually work, what with the apparent ability to create algal blooms pretty much anywhere by adding accessible Iron coupled with the subduction currents present in the Arctic.

-Frank
Critias
QUOTE (Riley37)
By the way... does Sixth World history have an explanation for the lack of rising ocean levels?

Magic !!
iron mouser
QUOTE (Riley37)
Iron Mouser, I've heard SF county called West Bay; dunno the boundary of South Bay - maybe SFO, or Palo Alto?

The South Bay is typically defined as Santa Clara County with the Peninsula defined as San Mateo and San Francisco County. If you are not sure where the boundary is for Santa Clara and San Mateo County, you can draw a line west following 237. Santa Clara will lose half of Mt View (home to Google) and all of Palo Alto (home to Stanford University), but it is close.

By the way, few companies now have their HQ's in San Fransisco. The price of real estate is too high. If you are large and in the Bay Area, you are not in the City. A few examples, the afore mentioned Google (Mt. View), Yahoo! ( Santa Clara), Oracle (Redwood Shores - on the Peninsula (or West Bay wink.gif )) and Apple (Cupertino).
But this is Shadowrun History we are talking about, where Japan never had a recession and Yahoo and Google never existed.
Adarael
QUOTE
First of all, Japan has no military. The US defends it. Even if it did have a military, there are a lot more reasonable targets for invasion in that area of the world.


Let me be as straightforward as I possibly can about this:
You are wrong.

The JSDF has the third largest budget in the world. The only nations that spend more on their military are the USA and China. Japan has successfully fooled itself and the rest of the world (for the most part) into buying this idea that "they don't have a military." The way they did this is that their constitution (that we wrote for them) says they can't send troops to other countries. It does not mean they have no power to kill the crap out of you. Indeed, their navy alone consists of around 50,000 people and 120 ships. That may not seem like much compared to the 250,000 US Navy troops and 280 ships, but we have about 3 times the population of Japan.

Yes, we will protect Japan if it is threatened. But never make the mistake that they don't have any guns.

That said, yes, a military invasion of California of any kind would be total suicide even if California had a fraction of the military presence it has now.
blood_kite
QUOTE (Adarael)
A military invasion of California of any kind would be total suicide even if California had a fraction of the military presence it has now.

What if all UCAS military units were pulled out and the state government had been told by the federal government, 'You're not happy about how the country is doing things? Fine, you're out. You're too far away and asking for too much stuff as it is.' My memory is hazy and my books are elsewhere, but I thought that was how California started to get to the point that Japan could invade.
Simon May
QUOTE (Riley37)
By the way... does Sixth World history have an explanation for the lack of rising ocean levels?

I've never seen a hard and fast explanation or mention of rising ocean levels. My assumption was that the Earth's revolt against the Azzies in South America and surge in spirit activity helped counteract the toxic spirits and at least bring global warming to a standstill, if not reverse it. Perhaps global warming was even part of the reason the awakening happened, with the various ancient metatypes getting pissed off at the destruction of their world.
Critias
And yet that same California could kick the Tir -- a country entire books are dedicated to telling us how badass and awesome they are and you aren't -- to the curb, twice.
iron mouser
QUOTE (blood_kite)
What if all UCAS military units were pulled out and the state government had been told by the federal government, 'You're not happy about how the country is doing things? Fine, you're out. You're too far away and asking for too much stuff as it is.' My memory is hazy and my books are elsewhere, but I thought that was how California started to get to the point that Japan could invade.

What would Cali do? Well, having one of the highest GNPs in the world, it would hire Ares (and any other Mercs) to protect it, until it could build up its own military presence.

See, that is where the inane and stupid part of the CA story come in. If you are a manager and you have someone who telecommutes and who is a bit pushy, but brings in about 30% of all the money you make in a year, do you fire them? No. Same thing with the UCAS kicking out CA. It does not make sense. It was done so there would be anoth distopic region in the world. Just like the Great Ghost Dance or the UCAS/CAS split.
Simon May
You forget that the entire US was in a recession. California probably, at that point, didn't have the money to viably finance a war without going into serious debt. And who would they go into debt to? A Japanese corp, maybe? Most of their money was federally controlled, so getting the boot would've seriously hurt their finances as well.

Regardless, with most of the San Fran corps being Japanese, it's in their interest to offer a few choice bribes and delay any private security force from saving the day. Plus the corps, Ares included, liked the Japanese deregulation of business since it allowed them immense profits thanks to little oversight.
QUOTE (Critias)
And yet that same California could kick the Tir -- a country entire books are dedicated to telling us how badass and awesome they are and you aren't -- to the curb, twice.

Even if Cali could overpower Tir, they're fighting a two front war against the Azzies as well. If they concentrated their forces on the North, the South would be left open. Not to mention the NAN sitting idly by and waiting for a prime moment to swoop in. The Japanese navy could easily have taken a small portion of Cali in the melee even if San Fran hadn't invited them in.
iron mouser
QUOTE (Simon May)
You forget that the entire US was in a recession. California probably, at that point, didn't have the money to viably finance a war without going into serious debt. And who would they go into debt to? A Japanese corp, maybe? Most of their money was federally controlled, so getting the boot would've seriously hurt their finances as well.

Regardless, with most of the San Fran corps being Japanese, it's in their interest to offer a few choice bribes and delay any private security force from saving the day. Plus the corps, Ares included, liked the Japanese deregulation of business since it allowed them immense profits thanks to little oversight.

Who cares about debt? As a nation, debt is not all that bad. And as a young nation, it can be good. Looking back in history, Alexander Hamilton understood this, that is why he recommended that the young US borrow hevily from other nations in our wars vs. England. He believed (correctly) that if the U.S. owed money to a number of people then those people would come to our defense, knowing full well that if the U.S. was defeated they would get nothing back.
So, who would the CFS have borrowed from? Any other major Corp. The ever popular PCC would have been good too. A deal with them, maybe no tariffs on goods moved between the PCC and ports on the Pacific.
Why would a corp or country take the risk, I know you will ask. And that is easy. It is an investment. And sometimes the riskiest investments have the biggest pay-offs.

But what assests in San Fransisco would there be? I guess that is my biggest issue with the reason for the JDF to land and take over the City. At most, the Japanese Corps own a building or two in the Financial District. That is it. Why send in a Division of troops to defend an office tower? Now, it would make more sense if the troops took over the Central Valley to defend Agro concerns that the Corps might control, or Silicon Valley assests (but it would be easier to simplly extract them). As for regulation, there is nothing better than having a country in your back pocket, so why would Ares not help out the CFS? Then they don't have to worry as much about the Japanese Corps. Ares could have had the whole state to itself.

Again, it was a half (generous) thought out storyline that allowed for another distopic region. The best that you can do now is try to retcon some sense into it.
Riley37
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
giant Carbon Sinks in the Arctic and charge the coastal countries exhorbitant fees

Imaginative. Works for me.

As for the "badass and awesome" Tir: Individual elves can be badass and awesome, and not only that, they also look stylish and sexy while they're dancing around you in combat, and a Tir Ghosts fireteam is rated higher than a Red Samurai fireteam, but does that mean that the Tir army can match a CalFree army? Quality of troops vs. superior numbers and weapons can go either way.

Of course, I'm biased towards any story in which NorCal wins. Go Ecotopia!

Does Hestaby take an interest in events in San Francisco? Of course, at some level; is Hestably aiding anti-JIS rebels, or aiding the JIS, or playing both sides against each other?

Does the JIS-vs-resistance struggle get so ugly that either or both sides start siccing invae, blood spirits, shedim, or other monsters on the enemy? if the JIS - any nasty Shinto kami?
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