I'm writing a solo adventure for a new character my friend created. He wanted to play in New York City so I said, "sure, why not?" I forgot that there was next to no information on the Big Apple (or Rotten Apple as its referred to). Here are a few questions I had that I hope some of you may know:

1. Passcards are mentioned as being used to control who belongs in certain areas of the city. This doesn't mean that there are walled areas of the city does it? Are people allowed to roam freely (honor system) and if stopped, need to produce a valid passcard to show to the security officer?

2. What is known about the big quake that levelled the city? Was this a natural occurence or was it caused by something paranormal? Are there any references to the quake besides what's mentioned in the guide to North America? I would imagine that most of the sewer systems and/or subway systems were severely damaged in this quake... but I could be wrong.

3. Is there some reason why Winter Systems has the account for security in NYC over Lonestar? What do you people know about Winter Systems?

4. Another passcard question. Are passcards difficult to duplicate... or at least as difficult as credsticks? Also, what are the penalties for being in the wrong zone at the wrong time? The book is a little unclear about this.... summary execution? (don't get me excited!)

5. Does the Statue of Liberty still exist?

6. Are there any problems relating to NYC that anyone knows of?

Your help is appreciated. Danke.

All your questions were answered int he original Neo Anarchists Guide to North America. Which I'll get to in order to give you more definative answers when I return to the house. Several hours from now.

Well, I never had access to NAGNA, so I made up most of my stuff for my recent NY campaing. I'll share with you what I came up with, maybe you'll find it interesting. But like I said, this isn't necessarely canon:

Passes can be bought for a day at booths around Manhattan. They are VERY expensive, and are meant for the corpie out to spend spend spend in glitzy Manhattan. Otherwise, more permanent passes may be aquired if you live or work in Manhattan. I decided not to make it a huge issue to get one.

Spot checks are common. Cops will pull over vehicules (taxis at night very often) and check passes/SINS. A shadowrunner's nightmare. They will also ID check 'suspicious' people walking around. They always remain damn well polite cause they can't afford to piss of the legal citizens they check, so it's always 'please' and 'thank you sir'. Unless you don't have proper ID. In which case you're very screwed.

Manhattan itself is insanely expensive to live in. Only corp citizens can afford to live there. Lucky 'regular' people can manage to grab appartments in the east and west sides at exohbitant prices, but Harlem remains a tough neighboorhood where it's best not to go.

Most people live in brooklyn and queens, where conditions fairly suck (gotta keep it cyberpunk, after all). Police brutality is the norm, and crime is everywhere. I decided to make the Bronx a Barrens type area for fun. It's a terrible neighbourhood. Some sectors are habited by the SINless and very poor, while others are ganger warzones. Also, most park areas are infested with very dangerous critters. The Bronx is particularly inhabited by magical creatures, from harmfull/less spirits to wild awakened killing monsters. So, yeah, Barrens.

just make sure you have a few gray's papaya scatered around NY. Mnnn 24 hour hotdogs on the cheap. I haven't lived in NY for a few years but back then it was 75 cents for a hot dog. And they sold juice drinks like papaya juice drinks.

Oh yeah and bagels taste better there, but despite the rumors there pizza doesn't. Oh and pickles don't just come in dill and sweet varieties. I'm partial to batampte(means tasty) 1/2 sours. And no food isnt' important to me, why do you ask.

Ummn there reslly isn't much on NY in cannon about the only thing I'd throw in on my own if I were to do somehting on the fly, is down in china town. At least currently little italy and china town cross each other. Little italy has one big road that they do a week long italian fesival on every year.(can't remember the name of it) anywho that street cuts right through china town, so I'd make some conflict arise during the festival between the triads and the italian mob, even though they all live on staten island.

Personally I really hate the passcards it feels very alien to me when I think of NY.

And I wouldn't make brooklyn a sucky condition. Each burough is big, sure down in some areas of brooklyn conditions could be sucky in the cyber punk future, I'd go heavy russian mob influence, in the sheepshead bay area for example. But you get up into brooklyn heights(where I had school housing) and we're talking a very rich area. Now sure that can changes but I think its a bad idea to make a area as large as brooklyn or any of the other boroughs controlled by one theme.

Well, some of the problem that I'm having is thinking of New York as drastically different. The quake leveled the city, from what I understand. So most of NY should be gone. I'm thinking that Chinatown and Little Italy would be dusted by 2063. Maybe something similar was built atop the ruins, maybe not. By the way, anyone know how strong that quake was supposed to have been? I'm assuming it was a record-breaker for it to do as much damage as it did.

Does it seem strange to anyone else that NY doesn't have more than 2 pages of info in the guide to NA? Especially under the circumstances... doh!

Good ideas on the pizza and bagel joints... I also liked the Russian mafia stuff. Hadn't thought of that.

Having been to Boston (no! I never visited there!), Italy, and Paris, I'll have to say that what New York pizza I've had (not much, admittedly) is unexceptional.

~J

Edit: I've been to more places, obviously, those are just the important ones pizza-wise. Ireland does not have very good pizza

Ireland has great pizza, what are you talking about...

As Far as it goes, you have to go to SoCal to get really good pizza, Klondike Cafe has got to have the best pizza I have ever had, a good second is Rod's in Arkansas of all places...

I don't remember the name of the place, but there's this little pizza place in Pienza, Italy... the pizza there is just amazing. It's near the square, can't miss it.

~J

No, they wouldn't. It'd just flat-out not be worth it.

~J

There hasn't been too much in-game stuff for this thread, so here I go (from memory). I highly suggest getting a hold of a copy of NeoAnarchist's Guide to North America. Since it's out of print, there's always ebay (but PDFs are also an option, albeit illegal)...

The Quake that leveled Manhattan was mostly natural: there's a fault-line that runs through there today, but it hardly ever moves. The leveling of manhattan meant that anyone who wanted to build new buildings there could have land for damn near free (you just had to clear it). Megas jumped at that like nothing else, and made the entire island an enclave. Some of the buildings that weren't destroyed outright were purchased to increase the footprint of the new arcologies, but there are still some original buildings that didn't get demolished either in the quake or in the subsequent 'urban renewal'. These are very pricey buildings and are full of old charm.

The resultant 'renewal' also meant that the corps could demand AAA level security on the island, and financed the installation of security shacks on all of the rebuilf bridges. Passes were issued to those residents who still lived in Manhattan, and passes were checked everytime you enter the island. Permanent passes are very rare, very difficult to forge, and usually require some form of corporate sponsorhip to acquire (legally). Temporary passes can be purchased from NYPD, Inc.(?) for an exorbitant fee, and are good for three days; corporate patronage helps immensely. Visitor passes can be obtained for the random tourist who wants to visit, but not to stay. They're only valid during the day, and only for one day; after the sun goes down, you're expected to clear out. Since Manhattan is an AAA-level security zone, you're expected to have your pass at anytime, and produce it on demand. No pass, you get arrested (if you look scruffy) and deported (even if you're not scruffy).

Winter Security, NYPD Inc. and one other group hold the security contractys for NYC in general. I believe that Winter owns the municipal contract IN manhattan, while the other two share the rest of the NY metro area (but not NJ... Newark is a different 'plex, even if it's one big sprawl).

Shadowrunning is a dangerous gig in the Rotten apple because of those damn security checks. If you manage to get yourself a fake pass, that just lets you in, it doesn't exempt you from weapons laws and the like, so even if you get pulled over and the cop buys your pass, you're still out on your hoop if your assault rifle is on the back seat (and you don't have a permit for it).

Like I said, most of this is from memory, so if I've messed up, chalk it up to some damaged wetware :roll:

First, there's a major point of nomenclature to settle: in SR-canon, Manhattan (read: the corps) obtained to push out Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island out of New York City legal entity. So technically speaking "New York" is either the whole state, or only Manhattan island. At least on the paper, the passcards, the three police system and the corporate consortium words only apply on Manhattan Island. Clear ?

To answer the first question, there are no walls. Passcards are needed to cross bridges and tunnels to access the island.

Winter Systems is only known for that contract and New York and some security drones out of Fields of Fire and Rigger 3. They got the contract instead of the Lone Star for an undetermined reason... cheaper price or bigger bribes, anti-texan racism, or just a will from Ares and other corp to prevent LSSS from getting a foothold in yet one another North American city (though IIRC, Lone Star would be anyway present everywhere in the UCAS since it get the Drug Enforcement administration contract). In spite of a common conception, there are more corps than just the traditional dozen in SR, that's called market competition.

According to the NAGNA, the Statue of Liberty is still visible from "Battery City" - the residential complex that replaced Battery Park after the earthquake.

The water where I live is great.
Too bad our house is so old it has some lead pipes...

~J

I dug up my neo anarchist guide to north america and looked up NY. The quake happened it 2005, whiped out most of manhatton and since the Gov was broke the megacorps recently made extrateritorial stepped in and fixed it. The quake the leveled most of manhatton was 5.8

Hey I'd be mildy accepting if it was an 8.0, but 5.8 doing that much damage is just silly. 5.8 is the level where maybe there's an injury or 2 at the supermarket when a can of beans falls of the shelf onto someones head, but that's about it. Maybe it was a typo and was supposed to be 8.5.

Well, it was a 5.8 that triggered all the explosives that Lex Luthor had hid beneath the city...

~J

damn him I knew I shouldn't of voted for him in the last election. I even proudly wore my vote lex button every day.

NYC isnt built to handly any sort of quake, so even what might be small in California wouldnt be in NYC, there could be a domino effect, plus a 5.8 eathquake isnt all that small, it can cause property damamge pretty easily, if it was a 4.something then yes it might knock over a can of beans, but remember that the Richter (spelling) scale is a log scale, so a 5 is ten times greater than a 4 and a 6 is ten times greater than a 5, and it was an 8(if memory serves, which it might not be) that set San Fran on fire a long time ago, and those weren't giant skyscapers which would be 1000 times more susseptable to such things. Also LA and NYC are about the same population (or at least on teh same order of magnitude) and LA is much larger in area, so immagine the same ammount of damage, but in a much more confined space, its sort of like chunky salsa

Most of california isn't built to be earthquake proof. Sure the buildings built in the recent past and from now on have better designs vs earthquakles, but most of our buildings are built the same way as the ones in NY, and we've survived a lot worse than a 5.8 on multiple occasions here in the SF bay area. The last biggie was 7.2 IIRC and one freeway section, 1 section on a bridge and a few buildings built on really unstable land near the warfs went down. I think 78 people died, so I'm having trouble believing a 5.8 did what they desribe in any city in america barring any lex luthor angles. Yeah sure NY isn't built specifically vs earthquakes, but its not built like in some old school country where they just pile rocks on top of each other and hope gravity keeps everything in one place. Yeah, yeah its a nit-pick, maybe growing up in earthquake ville just makes me a bit less impressed with earthquakes. Anyhoo if I keep to cannon if I ever run a game in NY, that earthquake was an 8.5 the 5.8 was just a typo.