As you might have heard Im currently starting up a 4th edition campaign, and found myself in a dilemma, I have picture what so ever of either Seattle nor Denver (where most 4th edition adventures seem to take place) however thanks to all american movies, both me and my players have atleast a slight recognition of NYC.. So my question is, what is it to know about the big apple anno 2070? only thing i found so far is a less than a page entry in Shadows of north america

It is apparently the setting for the next Missions campaign.

As far as I heard, New York is described in the Corporate Enclaves 4th edition sourcebook, so you might look there.

New York also had a write-up in The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America.

I would look at NAGNA as Fortune recommended. The section in Corporate Enclaves is fairly abbreviated. Also, though it won't help you now, I suspect that Dunner and the rest of the Missions team will put together a brief primer on Missions in NYC. I haven't personally heard anything about it yet, but we did it for Denver, so it seems to stand that we would repeat the process for NYC.

Good luck and remember your Transit Pass.

granted this wont help short term, but if you had the time and the chance you could read some of the old SR novels, some are set in NYC. That might help some.

Corporate Enclaves talks about NYC, as does NAGNA, as was mentionned.

I am currently running a game in NYC. For some reason I also have a nig interest in keeping on fleshing the place out, as the sourcebook material is a little light, or could use some rework.

Manhattan is a beautiful place where the Haves live. Life is great, TONS of stuff to blow your money on, clean streets, nice appartments and condos, awesome quality of life. Unfortunatly, you have to be a wage slave to a corporation to be able to live in Manhattan. The place is a tightly controlled police state. You can live a great life, in exchange for your freedom.

The surrounding burbs (Brooklyn, Queens, etc) are where aaaaall the Have-nots live. As all resources are concentrated in Manhattan, the surrounding unclean masses must make do best they can. Organised crime and gangs run every neighbourhood. Cops are corrupt and don't think much of civil rights. Infrastructure is shaky at best, jobs are crummy life is tough.

The Manhattan-Haves vs Burbs-Have-Nots has a huge Metropolis/Battle Angel Anita/etc feel to it. Also, Manhattan, rebuilt after the Quake, went for a strong Art Deco look (so it looks like Bioshock).

All of Manhattan is blanketed by a massive sensor net. You must broadcast your PAN ID at all times, and display proper pass IDs. People are issued passes of various level, granting them access to certain ares of the island. Some spots only require basic, inexpensive passes, such as public transit hub ares and cheap retail district. Residential neighbourhoods, corporate workplace sectors and higher-end retail sector are all off-limits to non-Manhattanites.

The Council of corporations that rule Manhattan have for sworn enemy the Neo-Anarchists that live in the fringes and rattle the cage of the corporate wage-slave citizens with pirate broadcasts and other assorted stunts. The Council villifies them and tries to arrest as many as they can. Most Neo-As know passes around Manhattan where the sensor nets are weaker. But when the Manhattan corps catch them, well, travelling without ID is a serious offence in Manhattan.

ALL syndicates have a strong presence in NYC, be it in the burbs or on the island. Competition is stiff and violent, though in Manhattan they keep their shadow war out of the spotlight, less they overstep their usefulness/annoyance factor with the Corps.

Anyway, I love it. Have fun with it, there is tons of potential.

Had some personal thoughts about the setting, I think Manhattan will almost be fortress-like, virtually inpregnatable for people who dont belong there (or atleast looks like they belong there, fake PAN broadcasts ftw) and maybe have a great rift through some parts of town, as a aftermath from the great quake, on a second note, I just realised how big NYC is, its not easy being a small town man

Manhattan is the big enclave. But the Bronx are barrens, Brooklyn is barrens, industrial and some res. Staten Island and Queens are more bedroom communities. Long Island and Westchester are subruban with small rough spots and lots of places for enclaves.

There are all sorts of ethnic typs in the NYC area. It has more jewish people than the nation of Israel. It has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. many city forms have instructions in Spanish, French(haitians), Korean and Russian.


Most people forget how much water is around NYC. Long Island. Staten Island, Manhattan Island. Brooklyn and Queens are both on Long Island. Westchester has long island sound to the sounth and its western border is the Hudson river which is passable to ships almost to Albany. Westchester county is lots of hills and ridges and green.

West of the city, into New Jersey, you have luxury homes along the Hudson, then the frozen swamps and industrial oil plants of the Meadowlands and then the barrens of Newark.

Now this is just 2008. How this changes in 60 years is up to you.

Patience, folks, there is more coming on the city of New York.

I've never been happy with the whole Manhattan isolated/need a pass bs. There's no way it would work. In a few of the books it is discribed as employees coming in from outside going through customs like they were going through customers. I've held off saying this for YEARS but clearly the nimrod who wrote that, hasn't been in a New York rush hour in Grand Central.

Manhattan alone cannot hold all the employees who work there now. they commute in from Brooklyn, Queens, westcherster, Connecticut and New Jersey by the millions every day.
By cutting off Manhattan from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens you'd make the situation worse not better. Add to that New York is badly damaged by any interuption on casual visitors. this past fall a short strike in the theatre district affected all sorts of businesses. New york is not just financial and media corps. It's museums, higher education, theatre, restaurants and shopping, lots of shopping.

COULD you cut off Manhattan? sure and it would stop being "The Big Apple." Just look at Philadelphia today. The government hit up businesses with an income tax on employees. the effect? Businesses are leaving philly and settling in a ring just outside the city limits. Most infamously was Asher's chocolates. Famous as a long term family business who does a lot for Philly, he wanred the city if they increased taxes on him, he would leave. the Mayor didnt believe him. He did just that, not only moving his factory but helping employees resettle, just outside the city limits, the effect, the city not onlyt lost his factory resulting in the businesses around the old site losing out and the city lost rents and taxes from the employees who went on.

Under SR3, without wireless matrix, I completely agree the system would never have worked. The slowdown caused by lengthy manual pass checks would have been unworkable.

Under SR4 wireless matrix, it works prefectly well. People just cross the "border" back and forth, the Pass IDs automatically and seamlessly scanned. Further, as outsider cannot drive on Manhattan, I imagine there are many commute stations that bridge the burbs and Manhattan - people drive and park in massive parking garages, and hop on buses and trains to head over into Manhattan. The commuting infrastructure must obviously be very effective for this to work, but I don't see any other option - nothing in the material says this isn't the case anyway.

I don't get the whole tangant about income tax though. Manhattan is specifically designed as a corporate playground, so it's safe to assume cost of business is damn near non-existant. Which is why so many corps go there, which is why jobs would be there and the city would continue to be viable.

Yes, the original write-up in NAGNA was pretty heavily flawed. Cutting Manhattan off from the boroughs is a ridiculous idea, especially when it was written that it was Manhattan who wanted to kick the outer boroughs out. Historically, any attempts at separating the outer boroughs from Manhattan (like the attempted Staten Island secession of the late 80s/early 90s), have come from the outer boroughs themselves. Although it didn't fit in the short Corporate Enclaves entry, the break-up of the boroughs is something I plan to reverse. If anything, the opposite is the concern now: the UCAS is concerned that the increasing influence of corporate-dominated Manhattan over the surrounding areas threatens UCAS authority.

As for the passes, the old NAGNA description was heavy-handed and unwieldy. This is also something being adapted, and just happens to work better with the wireless Matrix, PANs, and RFID. Checkpoints themselves aren't particularly an issue; after all, New Yorkers pass through constant checkpoints now whenever they swipe their MetroCard to get on the subway. As long as the system is largely invisible, there is virtually no impact on the average New Yorker.

That is if you use a metro card and do not just walk when you get off the commuter train.

That whole pass system still would not work. Over the weekend my husband was speaking at the New York Historical Society. He lives in Pennsylvania and was just up for the day. My parents live in North White Plains, they surprised him by showing up. They just got on the commuter train and road in. When I got out of school I interviewed for jobs in New York. I would ride down on a commuter train hoping to get employed. Every December from when I was in high school my friends and I would ride in to look at the holiday displays. We might not be able to shop in those high end stores but we did some shopping in the city once we were in and this added to the income of the town.

All of this would stop if you need passes and stuff. The spur of the momment stuff, and that is part of what New York thrives on. as SF said it is what makes NYC ; NEW YORK, the whole reason to have runs there. without the little things like that it is not New York, it is just another corporate hubb with as much energy and reason to go to as Madison, Wisconsin or Tallahasse.

Knowing SF my guess is that she is trying to show how meddling with a city too much can kill it off. She is right. Unlike Boston or New York or Baltimore, where people work in the city, Philadelphia is losing businesses as companies move out of the city and settle in a ring around of office parks around the city. Businesses which have all the advantages of a metropolitan hub without the tax problems driving up their costs.

I know the corps can alter the taxes in NYC as they virtually own it but her point is that too much meddling
in the flow of a city, like funky passes, is too much to be bothered with after a while.

I grew up outside New York City and so did the rest of our group. we all really tried to get a handle on that system and in the end decided it was stupid.

Well, now I need to ask if you are reacting to the original NAGNA entry on New York or the Corporate Enclaves entry. Because by 2070, all of what you presented would still be easily accomplished, because you would all have SINs. There's nothing at all preventing you from hopping on a commuter train into Manhattan, getting off the train, and wandering the city. Your SIN is being scanned constantly as you wander through the city, but the relevant passes have already been applied to your SIN and you likely won't have a problem.

Another thing to consider is that New York in Shadowrun has been changed significantly. The Quake of 2005 severely damaged the city. It spent years in virtual anarchy until the corporations came into to rebuild it, and even then it took them decades to get the city back up to speed. Yes, the pass system in NAGNA was unwieldy and I think it was poorly designed, but I'd say the pass system was one of the most minor interruptions that NYC has experienced in Shadowrun.

With the way the Matrix works, all of that would be handled seamlessly. When you bought a ticket to the train, the system would assign your Commlink with the privileges you could access. When you tell the car to head into Manhattan it would negotiate your access and transfer that to your Commlink. You would never have to actually do anything except have a legal SIN, and the stay in the areas prescribed by your AR Tour Guide, who would gently steer you to shops and areas you could afford, reserve your tables at restaurants or direct you to the nearest attractions that fit within your budgets. Your RFID is like a color coded blue light over your head that security can just glance at. The traincars and parking garages would have all the cyberware and weapon scanners passively searching commuters. The average person would never notice the layers of security checking personal information and tracking movements around the island.

[edit] too slow

Intresting ideas folk glad this thread finally got some life

NAGTNA was what gets kicked around the table. SF and a few others have read SR novels that have details as well.

We are a little spoiled living as we did outside NYC but we did stuff for example hose up their old high school, car chases cut off by toll booths, meets under the Whitestone Bridge or at the cricket grounds in the Bronx, or on the Circle line and I got to stalk someone fragger through Fort Tryon Park before running him to ground in the Cloisters. All stuff people outside of New york probably would not know about to think of.

None of us have Corporate Enclaves yet. It sure sounds better now but the old style was just broken. We played as if it never happend that way because it could not work, and a car chase up the West Side Highway is too darn fun not to do. Now you could say the corps are tightening up their control but the old pass book was so stupid that is was unworkable.

We are talking about a game in which we have troll biker gangs, elven kingdoms and corporations run by dragons, but try to control NYC in that way with passes and papers? Forget it! That is unbelievable.

By requiring people to broadcast their ID, any place with enough cameras and sensors can become tightly regulated; though trying to enforce that regulation without disturbing the usual flow of business and people is much harder. But because you're broadcasting, a security bot can just pop up in your PAN and warn you to obey the AROs before they have to fine you or send uniformed officers of NYPD, Inc to deal with you. The bots could even try to hack vehicles to keep them on the right path... You'll have to balance that for your vision of NYC (or Seattle, or LA, or wherever you want to implement such a net).

Manhattan is in Corporate Enclaves, but it really only covers the powers that be. In about six paragraphs.

My campaign is set in NYC, and I am slowly (but surely) updating my website with details about our version of the city. Right now all I've got is some stuff about the Mafia in NYC, but like I said its expanding. More stuff is covered in the actual game, and will eventually go up.

Warning though, we live in NE Texas and our actual understanding of NYC is rudimentary at best. Still some of you might like to give it a look. If so, check out This is Shadowrun.

I can see this for law abiding citizens, but I am thinknig of a crowded street of people or train station. The system will pick up the legal people but suppose I do not have a pass and ZI am just a body in the criwd. Could sensors pick me out as 'none' among a cluster of 'ok?' The same for cars. It is one thing for you to be pulling into a corp area but the west side highway at rush hour will be packed with cars. could you pick out the one that does not have the chip?

Yeah I've heard some of the runs, to bad Bubba died
hehe, we live in gothemburg sweden so our understanding would be derived from movies mostly, two of my players actually been to manhattan but other than that, its all bloody movies we got

On detecting cars: yes. Since cars are integrated into the GridGuide system, each legal vehicle acts like a sensor for the larger system. Cars around a non-broadcasting vehicle pick up the location, and feed that into GridGuide, thus during heavy traffic each GrideGuide node becomes better at detecting illegal traffic. However, their ability to actually deal with an unregistered vehicle drops. As long as it's not doing anything dangerous, they could just monitor the vehicle, noting its location and heading until police units can respond without disturbing the flow of things... Which could be rather quickly, because GridGuide controls stoplights and a large portion of the traffic directly - meaning it can keep giving you green lights until you drive yourself out into the open. (Passengers in the car? That's a lot harder - especially if you're trying to hide. You still have to get out of the car at some point, however.)

Detecting people in a crowd... The answer depends on just how much money the corps were willing to spend, and whether they used a "castle wall" approach or net approach. The books indicate that Manhattan uses a net, which generally means lower level sensors, but everywhere.

Let's say you're a short Asian dwarf (hypothetically, of course) using Infiltration to hide in the crowd. That gives you cover, plus a couple hits. Let's say the corps went cheap and installed lots of low level sensors. So the sensors are normally rolling something like 8 dice with their group bonus, netting 2 hits, usually telling them: person and type, which they match up to broadcast ID. Heavy crowds might count as distraction, but that only brings them down to 5-6 dice (still telling them: person). To spot the sneaky dwarf, however, they're down to 1-2 dice and trying to beat your Infiltration threshold... So I think you could hide in the crowd, as long as you didn't make "ripples" in the flow of people. (I need to check how sensor vs Infiltration works, to be sure, but I think I did it right. Need to play more than once a year.)

Right, that's how I see it (not necessarely by the book). It IS possible to walk around Manhattan without broadcasting your ID, and there is a possibility the NY authorities will spot you. Otherwise the locale would not allow shadowrunning. Also, there is a thirving culture of Neo-Anarchists who sneak around Manhattan without IDs for profit and pleasure. They know the routes with faulty or nonexistant sensor grids, and can guide you around.

In concrete terms, a typical runner walking around with a fake ID will have his ID checked regularly (let's not get crazy, 2-3 times per game is sufficient) by ID scanners Rating 1 to 3, higher rating possible if in very secure places. If the ID scanner wins, the character gets an ACCESS DENIED AR message. If he persists, authorities are alerted. He can, of course, turn off his ID. Now he is illegal, but up against the sensor net, and can use Infiltration and knowledge of Manhattan to get around the sensors without being detected. If he IS detected, expect drones or meat units. And Manhattan makes an example of those it catches.

"Strike?" What does bowling have to do with anything? The idea of strikes in SR, especially in a city like New York isn't even funny so much as "what game are you playing?"

Like DE said, this isn't "New York" anymore. It's Corporate Hell. Whatever is on the island exists for the people on the island. Everyone else is not welcome. And I actually like that.

There is no point in the corps wanting it if not for the shopping and culture and spirit of the place and IF they cut all that off, then they have a lot of very big, very prominant building doing nothing. You can tear down lincoln center, the Gugenheim and the Met and build a corp dormatory on the rubble but that is expensive. Better to just build the dorm on flat nothing, like the meadowlands than take New York unless you want to keep those things going which make New York special.

Big earthquake, leveling almost every building on Manhattan except the Empire state building, I believe it was

That's exactly what it was. They got handed their own island and were allowed to do whatever they wanted with an almost clean slate.

Just checking a couple of the timelines turns up these two references so Manhattan is completely gone. All that it's going to cost to buy the place and redevelop is the price of the land itself and clearing away all the rubble.

As it was, the corps got a bargain on the land as part of the reconstruction agreement. The bankrupt United States of America nationalized the property as an emergency provision and then put it all under the supervision of the corps, under the agreement that the corps would put out the investment to rebuild. In exchange, the corps get to essentially collect rent on the island of Manhattan.

If you want to get technical, the UCAS owns the island, the Manhattan Development Consortium leases it and charges rent. Similar to how many skyscrapers in Manhattan work now (for instance, the WTC was owned by the Port Authority, but Larry Silverstein had just signed a 99-year lease on it when 9/11 happened). Of course, the UCAS thinks it is about time the lease ended and the corps argue that the original signing party--the United States of America--no longer exists, and that a new arrangement needs to be reached with the UCAS.

Also, Backgammon and Kanada have the basic idea on the pass system in Manhattan (at least by 2070). It's not a foolproof system, otherwise it'd be pretty much impossible to be a freelance runner there and I would have wasted word count mentioning freelance runners in the Corporate Enclaves entry. It's an added complication that runners must consider over other sprawls, and the runner community in NYC has adapted by either investing in fake identities or cozying up to the corporations (who make fake identities for you).

And I will say that when you see the expanded information on NYC, you'll notice that Manhattan was not completely leveled. Some familiar places remain, despite the fact that NAGNA made it sound like nothing at all survived (the Farley General Post Office is mentioned in Corporate Enclaves, for example).

I remember reading somewhere, but I can't find where, that buildings over a certian height 5-10 stroies springs to mind, being destroyed but that leaves a lot of Manhattan intact.Just the chrome otwers of midtown and the end of manhattan where the WTC was-oops.

guys lets face it, Manhattan as originally presented was just wrong. why bother having it at all if you want to change it entirely? We've played it as a AAA sec area meaning subtelty was needed, not force, butwe still have to have the Big Apple as it should be. And to be blunt-after 9/11 we know how tough New York is in the face of disaster.

I never had a problem with it (I never had a problem with TT as it was presented in its book either. Oh, wah wah... it's harder to run in than Seattle.). I just never got around to running it. But I find all this talk about it being wrong or impossible just precious.

Tough? What else was supposed to happen? Nine million people curl up in their apartments and cry themselves to sleep? Jesus. Life goes on. Just like it does in every other city and country with terrorism. Frankly the U.S. has been a bunch of babies compared to the rest of the world.

I really don't think this kind of crap is necessary.

Good for you.

I don't think it's necessary for people to out of nowhere talk about how "tough" they are by puffing their chests up like 12 year olds. And it's pathetic.

True, but only one person did that (and only specifically about New Yorkers, not Americans as a whole), and you responded with a general insult to all Americans. It's the escalation and generalization that I take exception to (not to mention that such disparaging comments about nationality and the like are against the TOS).

It think SF's point, and I agree with her, is that on 9/11 you litterally did have a disaster with the sky line falling. We did not curl up and cry. We pulled together as a people. We did not turn on each other or have mass looting in an 'every man for himself' way or a "Let's take advantage of the fact the cops are busy"but reached out to each other. Even petty crime dropped in the city after 9/11. Not just in lower Manhattan but all over the place.

Can anyone verify what amount of NYC was leveled? If SF is right and it was only buildings over 10 levels or even 5 levels that will leave a huge chunk of NYC intact, tennaments AND more expensive town houses. People with lots of money on the upper west side and the charm of the lower east side and the village and most museums would survive. Most theatres too. Would the subways survive or be flooded? I know Tokyo now is burying it's lines and utilities way deep to survive a 'big one.'

That way New York would keep its charm but the corporate centers would be gone and reset at what the corps wanted.

Discussions of politics, foreign policy, etc., except as they relate to Shadowrun, are not appropriate in this forum. See Terms of Service #4.

One thing to remember about magecorporate imperialism, is that it's always trying to export itself. There's no point in building a beautiful walled garden except to charge swivelheads exorbitant prices to tour them, gleaning a look at the high life they could mortgage their souls to taste. It's not like one megacorp alone on an island, its several competing megas and the companies they lease to all vying for advantage with the CC or the Council. The same reason the Renarku Arcology had a mall and monoline station.

NAGNA does not clearly state how much of Manhattan was damaged. What it does say is a rough dollar amount on damage and there is a quote about the Empire State Building being the only skyscraper over a certain height to remain standing. The latter will end up being a bit of an exaggeration, with certain areas of Manhattan having been hit harder than others (since that's how earthquakes work).

While the NAGNA material is a basis for the NYC write-up I'm working on, I am taking the opportunity to clarify or correct parts of NAGNA's interpretation that were just bad.

If the dollar amount was only 20 mil....it doesn't seem like a large part of Manhattan was damaged. As of 2007, NYC, including the boroughs and transiets have a population of about 12 million. While 200,000 are a lot of people, if the damage was 20 million...it seems like a small part of the island was hit. 20 million isn't that much in NYC real estate terms. If the earthquake was that bad, damage should have been in the hundred millions, coming close to a billion.

yeah the numbers don't add up to substancial damage.Even $200 bil is not so much- 5bil I think. seriously htough the WTC was insurace at only 2 bil

I think. It's also good to point out there are mutliple corps. showing off and trying to get attention. Sure mid town was trashed but all the brownstones would easily survive. in the early 90's I did collection work on the loweer east side say 33rd down to 12th between 1st and 3rd ave. and there's a lot there that would easily survive

Terminal and Lower East sside have Z sec ratings, how do you link that with the idea of scanning every fragger in the apple?

Heres how I run it in my campaing.

#1. The NAGE got it wrong, the quake was MUCH more devastating. Despite being only about a 5.5 on the Richter scale, this was in a city that was totally un-prepared for it. While the total death-toll is still unknown, most estimates put it upwards of 5 million, some as high as 7 or 8. Virtual the entire Island of Manhattan was flattened, as was large sections of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The NYC subways system was also largely render unusable. Note able buildings left untouched were the Brooklyn Bridge (massively over-engineered) and the Empire State (just lucky).

#2. Not wanting to deal with the problems present by the city, and the huge (and unaffordable cost), the State of New York succeeded for the city, forming the State of Albany, leaving New York with the name. With no one else to turn to the new state turned to the corporations for financing to rebuild the shattered city. The corps were willing to do this, but even their assets were limited. The Crash and VITAS certainly didn't help things. Due to the massive extent of the damage the city went into massive recession, and essentially sat out the next 30 odd years or so, slowly regaining steam. On the plus side this meant NYC saw less of the UGE, and Goblinization backlash that hit the rest of the UCAS.

#3. By 2040 or so the city was back on its feet, but a very differen't place. Massive drop off in land values and the lowest wages in the NE turned Staten Island into a giant industrial playground. Huge factors now stood where there used to be suburban housing. Manhattan was a closed borough, the plaything of the corps. Queens was the metropolitan neighborhood it had always been, with maybe a few less foreigners, the Bronx had become a middle class neighborhood for those who couldn't live in Manhattan and Brooklyn had descended (even further) into the Slums. Long Island became (even more so) the home of the rich and powerful, and Newark became a lower-class industrial neighborhood (better then Brooklyn, but not by much). Most of the old Subway and water systems lay abandoned, and work was begun on new systems that ran above, below, and right through the old works. This led a not-insignificant portion of NYC lower class to start to move into the vast underground network.

#4, By late 2060 it became clear that the corporate approach to NYC wasn't working. While the city was doing modestly okay, it had failed to re-capture its crown as King of Cities. Much dispute was had over why this was, and what could be done about it. Finally the government of NY stepped in and began to take steps to loosen access to Manhattan island and pumped even more money into massive rebuilding efforts around the city. At this time the city also acquired Newark from New Jeresy and Long Island from Albany and incorporated them into the new city-state. The reforms had their intended effect, and New York began to gain ground on its competators, but it became apparant something more would be needed to re-capture its crown. They also allowed organized crime to florish as well, which also boosted the city oddly enough.

#5. That something happened in Crash 2.0 through luck and investment in the wireless matrix initiative NYC was the first large city to recover on the East Coast. Investment and attention flocked to the city and virtually overnight the city was transformed, once again kind of the NE.

---

As for restrictions on Manhattan, I am playing it rather subtly. Manhattan is one of those zones where an active PAN (and thus a SIN or forged SIN) is required by law. This is fairly easy to enforce and checkpoints are set up at all entrances into the city (bridges, subways, ect). Surveillance is also omni-present in Manhattan, so those without the ID are fairly quickly detected and harassed. The entire neighborhood counts as A-AAA and the NYPD has a stiff presence, backed up by Knight Errant as necessary. As such conventional gangs are scarce in the city,but Matrix gangs are quite common, fighting vicious battles over virtual turf.

I always hated those numbers. If you want massive damage that the only building of note was the empire state building that survived, flip the it to an 8.5. Maybe its because I am from California but the idea of a 5.8 wiping out anything seems ridiculous to me. 5.8 means a can of soup fell off the shelf. Yes, the taller the building the stronger the effects will be felt at the top, yes I am sure plenty of buildings were built with sub-standard materials thanks to corruption, but 5.8 is just too small for destruction of most large buildings. Also if most large buildings came down, the death toll and costs would be well over 200,000 and a few billion.


As for it not being NY, um yeah its the SR NY. Is Kansas, Kansas in SR, is the USA the USA in SR, heck you want messed up changes to a region in the USA look to California, its like the designers had a pathological hatred for it. I lived in NY for years, I like NY, but the entire SR universe is story after story of city, state, country not being anything like they are now, and being somehow warped to near unrecognizable status by the corps and or magic.

someone has to push the dirty water dogs around. Of course you should just go to Gray's Papaya anyways.

I should note that in the research for the full write-up, I used the official report from the New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation. It's probably the most exhaustive study out there on the actual effects of earthquakes on NYC.

On the Z-Zones: they are pretty much open areas free of scanners. Which is why the Neo-Anarchists and the freelance runners operate out of them, as mentioned in Corporate Enclaves. Though the Lower East Side has been gentrified a bit since NAGNA in parts, which has only made it a more bitter battleground between the Neo-As and Manhattan, Inc.

There's some sense of charm walking around brownstones in one neighborhood then bopping over to ultra chromed corp spots. And we allowed "Magical Childe" to return as the premo talismonger in north America.