Nah, I think it was Corporate Enclaves when he actually went Offline for a bit to take his Sister's Kids to Disneyworld or something.

Or maybe it was Emergence that he complained about his age... That's the Technomancers are revealed Campaign, with AIs thrown in to boot!

And Fatima dying was listed in the In-Character Chat.

Everyone sells out. Everyone.



Which book? I didn't notice it in Emergence.

In-Character Chat, not book. As in the Monthly Chat that CGL has. One month was In-Character, and it was revealed she died.

Not everyone. Its just that the people who don't tend to end up broke and marginalized.

Ah kk - thanks. I guess I'll have to start paying attention to those.



I think this depends largely on one's definition of selling out.

How did she die?

There's a difference between not selling out and not being able to find a buyer so to speak.

Again this depends on the definition of selling out.

One of the reasons I keep mohawks (and fringe-hawks with one side of the head shaved) is because it allows easy access to datajacks. You really don't want hair getting in the way of your fiber-optic plug. Every decker/hacker I've had has had their datajack below their hairline on the back of their neck, or shaves the side of their head. It's the new geek-chic.

And given that some of the most common datajack users would be corporate employees, I imagine a lot of people were rocking fringe-hawks with their drone-cleaned Synergist suits, and the full hawk would be for a bit of elegant symmetry. Counterculture absorbed for mainstream convenience.

Looking at it that way, I believe the advandcements in non-invasive DNI technology - The fact that trodes have no real performance deficiency compared to a datajack - Means that the corp-hawk has gone out of fashion by 2070.

Interesting idea.

I always stuck to the artwork where people with datajacks just had one shaved temple (usually combined with glamrock poodle hair, as seen on the SR2 BBB cover).

But when taking the artwork into consideration, the 2050s also had an enormous mohawk per capita ratio.
And i'd say as it's the 70's now, it's about time for the beginning of a 50's revival.
About time.
Even though i must say that i prefer spiked hawks over the thick and brushy, centurion-helmet ones typically found in SR.


Now that i think about it, all characters with mohawks i have ever played where (mostly trollish) street sams...just like most of the guys with mohawks in the old illustrations.
Suits the horns, i guess.

For corp deckers I usually go with selective shaving at the temple or behind the ear or have them go with a buzz, crew, or high-and-tight haircut. Someone sporting a hawk varient would be seen as going for the "maveric" style.

What about the Mullet. Buisness in the front and party in the rear.

Aside from Mohawks, let's not forget face paint. Runner Havens has a passing note about the revial of Neo-Tribal (fluorescent) tatoos. And trode paint nearly forces lots of people to put on really cool face paint.

Last year, i actually saw an accountant at my bank wearing a bright red mohawk to his button-down shirt.
In a decade where people surgically turn themselves into catgirls on a semi-regular basis, this should be even less of an issue.

Unless it's a really exaggerated mohawk (The Casualties, anyone?).

funny how that same timeframe had the comic books grow darker. especially watchmen really questioned the old good guy, bad guy split. i guess we can see it in westerns to, with the good guys using whatever means needed to take the bad guy down.

funny enough, i think i have shared the opinion of the watchmen "villain" for a number of years now.

these days we seem much more introspective...

Because introspection is easier than blowing stuff up.

Cheaper too.

Hey, I'll admit it: I play shadowrun because blowing up the corps, fragging the system, and pissing on the ashes of city hall in RL gets a little too tempting sometimes. Guess you could call that selling out.

You want more mohawks in your game? Go old and bitter. Guys who used to have a cause, and either burnt out or finally found their limit when survival became more important than idealism. We're talking ex-Terra First! and AB+ here. Better yet, be one of those guy's kids, who hasn't learned The Hard Lessons yet but picks up the banner and a Molotov cocktail in rebellion against their parent's seeming betrayal of the punk ideal.

Some good, gritty RP to be had there, omae--in between all the bullets.

nothing like being an bitter old "idealist" that now do drug or gunrunning to stay afloat...

hmm, im reminded of a story about a mom dealing drugs to keep her family together.

Sounds like Breaking Bad, great show, by the way. That's totally what I'm going to do if I ever get lung cancer. Though probably less "cook meth" and more "social vengeance with fulminate of mercury".

You better define selling out then. It's easy to say something like "everyone does X" and then define X so that your statement is true. The most obvious form of this fallacy is when people claim that all action is selfish, and then say that altruistic acts are done selfishly for the good feeling people get by doing them. It's part unprovable theorem, part circular logic, and all bad form.

Besides, I think that people are born into a "sold out" situation these days, our parents and grandparents sold us out already. Reversing this, "buying out" if you will, is the new challenge. It's not maintaining your integrety that's the hard part, it's finding some to begin with.

It would be like an eville paladin.

Any course of action or inaction that does not hold true to the individual's ideals regardless of reason, including changing ideals. Hyzmarca's individuals who he claims don't sell out and "tend to end up broke and marginalized" are IMO selling out in that they are giving into societal pressure and ceasing to try. True, it is not always practical to continue trying, but no one ever said ideals were practical.



Totally agreed.

It's tricky. At it's most accepted there has to be roughly some identifiable change in a persons behavior that amounts to "selling out" i.e. compromising something for cash.

Most people never get such an offer in a meaningful way.

But then there is the idea of starting out "sold out". The idea that John Q. Public who just wants to drive their delivery truck and have some kids is already in a sold out state. Once you go there it's pretty hard not to be "sold out".

But anyway I am liking the vibe that the mohawk set is mostly in the old and gritty demographic. Especially since it combines so well with the real world. I imagine if I got a gaming group together at random the fetuses of the group would want to play black trenchcoat possibly emo type characters. And explaining the whole cyberpunk thing to them would be difficult in the first place.

But the 40+ year old guy with the beard and a bit of a spare tire? That guy knows wtf I'm going on about, probably better than I do. And it could be interesting to play off that real world dynamic in game. While I've been in games where, of course, the elf wizard is a hundred or whatever years old, character age never came into the RP picture in any meaningful way.

Oh no, they're still trying. McVeigh, Bin Laden, all sorts of people are trying. They're still as marginalized as hell. Even the ones who don't blow stuff up are marginalized, for the most part, because they're unable to adapt to the process of lobbying and politicking. Of course, there is also the fact that people tend to look at their ideals through rose-colored windowpane LSD. Talking to a neo-hippie peace protester, for example, yields the bizarre combination of saccharine feelings and total idiocy that one might expect from the Barney Generation.

The ideals of the 60s and the 70s were backed by a strong well-organized body of young people willing to sacrifice for them. The ideals of the 80s were backed by a small but dedicated body of young people who were sort of pampered and self-centered. The ideals of the 90s were back by a few young people who weren't really dedicated and never really had to work for anything in their lives. The ideals of the 00s are backed by the people who used to be hippies and punks and whatever the hell the 90s had and simply couldn't make it in the world.

There are a few exceptions, of course; there are idealists who do effectively lobby. But, the huge movements of yesteryear simply don't exist anymore for the simple reason that the big social injustices have been taken care of and the ones that are left are the ones that most people just can't get worked up about.

Luckily not a problem in Shadowrun. Though 4th ed seems to be toning the dystopia down a notch. That from how things were portrayed in the Neo Anarchist sourcebooks vs the more modern ones. Of course that does fit in with the newer generation. You can try and get them riled about racism, but they really have trouble getting it. And I think it doesn't have the intensity of emotion for me as it would have for the people picking up SR1 when it came out.

One could make the point that these types are actually hurting their own causes through their actions, and thus selling out in that way. But you do have a point.



Which innately involves selling out.



Guilty.



Sadly true, but I think this is the result of a natural progression. People generally cease to care about things once they are no longer news.

Hmm. Anybody know what does rile the kids (who would be playing shadowrun) these days? What internal bigotries or such that they might be strugling with?

That's because things really are better. For example, Racism 100 years ago, 50 years ago the ONLY hospital in Chicago that would treat blacks was Cook County Hospital. It's hard to get people excited about protesting how ICE arrests mostly spanish speaking people when it's obvious to the casual onlooker that that most people violating immigration law are spanish speaking.

Most of these causes are not as crazy as the freaks who claim they are "allergic to radio waves" and protest installing a wireless system, but many of the causes that are marginalized are stupid, and I think there is a real correlation. Most people just don't agree with PETA that rats lives are as important as their children's lives.

Not too long ago in Flordia, some Sheriff's deputies and a nurse at a youth correctional "boot camp" tortured a young bacl teen to death on videotape. The fact that it was on videotape pretty much should have made it an open and shut case but they argued that they were just following procedure (which is true, technically, but it was a procedure that no reasonable person would follow in the circumstances) and were acquitted. There were a number of protesters outside the courthouse, mostly young black people. Some of them were interviewed after the verdict was read. They weren't angry; they weren't even annoyed. This was a verdict that would have lead to deadly riots not a decade ago and these kids kept the same cheerful happy demeanor all the time.

It's funny. You've basically got kids who, despite their skin color and liberal leanings, make Alex P. Keaton look like Ice-T by comparison. The protest is simply a game to them, a way to pass time and make themselves feel good, useful only because they don't have the guts or the inclination to get a six pack of beer and a box of condoms and put both to good use due solely to an overly-sheltered prosperous neo-liberal upbringing.

Ever heard of TJ Hickey? He was an aboriginal kid who was being followed by some cops, and took a wrong turn at the wrong speed after freaking out and impaled himself on a fence. This was in Redfern, in an area known as the Block. That night kids from the area tore the suburb apart. There's a few clips of kids tearing brickwork and iron bars off buildings to throw at riot cops, and a pretty crazy shot of the police line being bombarded with molotovs.

But what did it change? It just further marginalized the black community in Australia. It didn't get anything done. Just like the anti-war protests didn't change anything. Just like our industrial relations reform protests didn't get anything done, either. And it looks like our electricity is about to be privatized as well.

Personally I think that the apathy you're talking about has been manufactured by countless failed protests. A little resilience and patience from authority and the public gets the idea protest doesn't change anything. When industrial relations reform rolled through, I was a year or two out of being one of the freshfaced new employees that were going to lose a lot of job security, minimum wages and benefits. My friends were too, some of them even had jobs, and when the day came, most of them used the day to go to the beach. Funnily enough, France had been faced with similar industrial relations reform, and the protesters flipped a few cars and set things on fire and the government backed down.

To bring this back on topic, is the public in shadowrun more, or less apathetic to what the corps and governments do to them?

I can't remember anything about protests in SR since 2nd edition. SR1 had rules for protests as I recall (Shadowbeat I think).

So I'd say yeah, people are getting acclimated to it. Makes sense. Back in SR1 the externality of corp culture and the Barrens were things that people remembered life without. Now it's 20 years later and people who remember that are either old or elves.

As far as I can tell, civil disobedience has been divided. The minority of corporate and government citizens who don't buy the media propaganda are probably too afraid to speak out, in fear of losing their jobs to the next guy with skillwires who will work harder than them and for less pay.

Those who really feel like something needs to be done will probably radicalize, joining groups like the Anarchist Black groups, TerraFirst!, Mutter Erde, GreenWar, etc. And they'll have to turn their backs on their corporate masters completely.

I imagine that while civil protest has been diminished by oppressive authority and a paranoid surveillance society, any groups getting involved in political, social and environmental action will be forced to go underground and tighten up their operations.

An example of this is Hong Kong's 9x9. They're an anti-corporate group, but they're much more subversive than what we see today, probably because the authoritarianism of the sixth world political and economic structures make it impossible for any sort of protest to be participated in by more moderate citizens. And that's why no-one really knows much about 9x9.

The institution of corporate bodies taking over a civil service such as policing and privatising utilities (hello Shiawase/Gaetronics) also limits the accountability of police towards displays of civil unrest. The governments don't have to take as much responsibility for the actions of Lone Star, so as long as they don't create a spectacle, they don't have the constitutional responsibilities of a government police service. And given they have their own corporate interests, I imagine they'd have even less sympathy for "malcontents", especially those who protest against the utilisation of extraterritoriality and corporate accountability. So when there is a non-violent protest organized, Lone Star "advise" against it. And when the protestors go ahead, Lone star sends in the riot cops with freeze-foam and nausea gas, scoops up the protestors and they all spend a night in the tank.

In the UCAS I'd be pretty sure there are still legal protests. You know. Where you have to get authorization, have enough porta potties for everyone and all that.

I imagine the corps find them amusing at the least.

And much like runners they're probably as often as not working for "the establishment" i.e. protests against one political party that help another.

The Lone Star SB had some info on this and there are indeed still legal protests.
In fact, rent-a-mob is as popular as ever.

Interesting.

I can see protests going ahead with corporate sponsorship. Horizon wants a pro-AI protest to go ahead? They make an underhanded promise to Lone Star to portray them favourably in their next couple of broadcasts if Lone Star don't crack down on the demonstration.

And if a group doesn't have corp sponsorship, they have to rack up the money or influence themselves, or face the nightsticks.

The anti-war protests did, in fact, get stuff done. They led directly to the policy of Vietnamization, the rather disastrous decision to systematically withdraw US troops and generally kill fewer people in favor of letting the South Vietnamese military take over all of the fighting. This culminated in the Paris Peace Accords and the total withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, followed shortly by the total collapse of South Vietnam.

Followed by the "Stop the killing" people partying over their success as some two million people got shot or beaten to death by the victorious Paris educated communists in beautiful Cambodia.

It also has to do with the Vietnam War being epic and with M16A1s emitting 60s music. This probably calls for another thread...

The hell you say! The origin of liberals vs. conservatives in the United States goes directly back to people feeling butthert in various capacities over other peoples' reactions to the Vietnam War. Maybe one side or the other didn't "win" back then, but even today we can't escape from the paradigm they established.

As I see it in shadworun, a lot of the point of protesting is gone, because there are really other places to go now.

Today, the "love it or leave it" philosophy is a strawman, because there is no where to go where there isn't corporate control. In fact, the farther out in the boonies you get, the more corporate control there is, because there is less government, media, and/or popular opinion to bother with.

In shadowrun, by contrast, there are parts of major metropolitan areas in the worlds most developed nations that the Corps think twice or three times about going into. Not that the barrens are a nice place, but they prove a point. The capability for large governments and corporation to Project power is greatly diminished in SR.

If the slums aren't your thing, for example, there are NAN pinkskin tribes for your back-to-the-earth needs. There are near-singularity socialist groups in scandanavia. There are metahuman homelands, and kingdoms of magicians. There are theocractic lands for most major religions and a few weird ones.

Basically, to borrow a phrase from the anthropik tribe, "The map is open." Today, if you and your friends go start a town in the country to practice your ideas of utopia, the FBI shows up, takes your kids and burns your compound down. In Shadowrun the same group probably succeeds at seceding, probably being seen as a legitimate government after a shootout between local law enforcement and a couple of hired runners. Radicals in SR can actually leave the societies that bother them, find like minded people, and start large scale utopian projects. It's more productive to build your alternate social structures in the shadows and wait for the giant to fall than it is to directly fight it.

On the note of the above there used to be some "free cities" as it were. I'm not sure what's happened to them, but it looks like the Free City of LA fell or something.

If some of those are still standing I wouldn't be surprised if they were mohawk factories so to speak.

Nah, someone decided to move it.

Unfortunetly, that someone was the Pacific Ocean.

Berlin used to be one, but was halfway retconned because a walled-off anarchist field experiment was too pink mohawk for the blackops lamers out there.

Kaliningrad Freeport might still be around, though.

Then, there's hightech-primitivist stuff such as Echo Station or the various neo-A communities in Antarctica...but that might be a bit too far away for the love it or leave approach to actually work out.

more that everything german related was so over the top that is was just silly to read about, even for germans.

the changes done in shadows of europe was done by a german iirc.

while a huge assist by some weird magical phenomena.

For some reason, every SR player i have met outside of the internet loves the orginal Berlin setting precisely for being so over the top...but once i get on any discussion board (including several German SR sites), the nerdrage gets fired up and everybody claims how much he hates the first Germany sourcebook, especially Berlin.

I guess i just know the right people.


But yes, the setting was rewritten by some devs from FanPro Germany, or at least based on their half-assed retcon attempts.
Sissies.

*Shrug* You still get the cliques, and goths, emos, hardcores, and sXes are still around. And some of them really will still beat you up. Calling someone a n***** or a sp*** is still a really good way to get hurt, and even something like "chica" can get you punished if you're the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood. Past that, mostly it's all about the war(s) or religion. And, y'know, the good old gangs.

Then again, I do live in LA, which is very much style over substance. And nothing looks more stylish than "______ Pride" and killing someone over it.

--The resident 18-year-old just outta high school

One thing people forget too easily is that Berlin really was over the top in the 80s (and before). It wasn't long ago that you literally did have a walled off enclave of freedom in the middle of a sea of cartoonish oppression. When Reagan challenged Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" which wall do you think he was talking about? It was the big one separating West Berlin from the giant oppressive Communist country around it.

Compared to what was really going on in Germany up to the fall of European Communism makes SR's Berlin look downright sane by comparison.

So, wait, was it an actual retcon where they change history or is it just that when they made the next sourcebook things were different? I suppose it doesn't much matter, but I'm curious.

Actually I think a short lived anarchist experiment wouldn't be over the top at all. Especially with all the turmoil over there.

Depends on what changes. Not everything in SoE was the author's ideas. They had to follow Fanpro's directions on the development of it. As an editor for the Euro SB I know some of the others had to majorly change the direction they were taking their country as a result of this. Overall the European setting was greatly improved and much easier for foreigners to play thanks to the insight of people who know their own country.

Just as being a native northwester I had to add a lot of things back into the SSC and TT settings that were conspicously missing like the tribes that make up most of SSC and all the locations in TT outside of Portland essentially. The writer of those sections in SoNA had a limited amount of space to cover them and a certain number of things he was required to cover so it just couldn't be included.

Many Goths I know (including myself) are Computer Nerds. And I can't imagin any one of them beating someone. With the possible exception of something kinky.

Hurm. Do you wear horrorshow boots or sneakers? If the latter you might just be more emo.

Not that goths are inherantly violent. Just moreso than emo.