So, there... This is a subject that interest me, as a quebie. Did Cross Techs. survived the dead of CEO and the sharks comin' after the body and all that? The Sixth World talk brought that it may have somehow survived - a shadow of the past's glory, wounded, but perhaps still there.

So... Dead or not quite? I'm kinda tempted to have it still alive in my game, personaly (Comeback of the revenge!).. A-grade?

No. Gobbled up all gone.

Confirmed or speculated? The Sixth World Wiki talk seems to say a 4th ed book spoke a tiny bit on Cross products.

Sans most of the affiliates, but maybe the core?

IIRC, wasn't it Ares that gobbled them up? Thought I heard that on here, of all places.

Ares was gobbling liek mad, but, it was also during Crash 2.0 and I have a hard time believing that, as world financial markets all vanished, that anyone had time to track down all teh assorted parts and devour 'em. I'd say MOST were gobbled, and Cross, which barely ranked as a Triple, dropped to a low Double, maybe even a SINGLE A-rated corp in the aftermath.

What I have in my game (Like you care, but hey!) is that a few nuggets survived in Quebec under the Cross name, watching Ares do victory laps around the country before pulling back financially to shore itself up after the HUGE reach and Crash difficulties. More over, teh CAS-based assets of Cross weren't touched, and now have regrouped under a new name. With no more ucien Cross, there's no real NEED for Ares to chomp on the leftovers, since the return would be so low (Revenge, of course, can't have a cost-benefit analysis on it!), and Ex-Cross really doesn't see the need to poke the Ares bear with a short stick.

Cross' southern branch, IIRC, is headquartered in Atlanta and mainly did media. If you go a different route, it'd be easy to see that segment swallowed by Horizon.

Of course, that still leaves Seraphim...

I'm pretty sure Ares ate the majority of CATco. However, with the crash, they might (The Seraphim's knowledge makes this a stretch) not know where everything is. Hell, in the fights between Renraku and Novatech over "orphan corporations" that were parts of Fuchi, there were corps in contention, but also, some places were left orphaned for quite some time, if not indefinately.

Once again, I'm more inclined to think that Ares gobbled up at least sixty percent of CATco, with maybe 30 divided amongst the other corps (with most of that going to Horizon) and then another %10 percent going other ways.

The best thing about this is that ex-Seraphim Shadowrunner is a perfectly viable character background.

I started a thread about the fate of the Seraphim awhile back and some people had some really cool ideas about what might have gone down.

What happened to CATCo? It hasn't been answered other than Ares has been gobbling up its assets. Whether that means they're still around in some form or are completely non-existent hasn't been confirmed at this point.

It's official in the 4th ed book that Cross was eaten up by Ares.

Page 34 of the BBB.



It then goes on to say that Horizon used its influence in Tir Tairngirie, Pueblo and California to snatch CATco's vacated Corp Court seat.

So we know CATco lost its AAA-status and many of its subsidiaries are/were being gobbled by Ares and other megacorps but the final fate of CATco hasn't been written into canon yet. Unless I'm missing something. So at this point, CATco being completely subsumed by Ares or still holding on as a fragile shell of its former self under Jean-Marie Cross's leadership are both valid views.

...

Oh?

That's news to me, Kid. Got proof?

Go ahead, pull the other one.

Dead is a relative term.

SHEDIM! SHEDIM!

*open mouth scream like that guy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers*

Or bugs. I like bugs.

You want proof?

Where's the body?

See, even Dunkie isn't dead. Again, no body!

If there's no body, they're not dead!

Did the leg do that twitchy thing? That's how you can usually tell.

Or that's the Shedim entering the body.

<requisite Monty Python quote>It's only a flesh-wound!</requisite Monty Python quote>

While I wouldn't be horribly offended if Cross' death was actually a fake-out I'd be a little disappointed. CATco always felt like a poor-man's Quebecois Ares to me. Though the Seraphim were a pretty darned nifty idea, there was little that was unique from a story-telling standpoint about the megacorp itself.

Well, they where quite small, from a 'backward' place - and rised quite high and quickly. Also, there is the impressive feat of having a whole country eating in your hand as we say; not sure of the buisiness regulation rules would have lasted that much without Catco and if the other big ones found potential profits in Quebec. So...


And then, it's québecois like me. A strange, 'perverted" fascination that 'one of us' had 'BIG', to quote Elvis Gratton, hehehe. If as corporate 'vilain' in a setting that often sounds like it was written by the Toronto Star and Howard Galganoff.

Gotta like someone who held a big giant like Ares away.

Naturally if you're quebecois you're going to be bummed that the fictional megacorp that sat in your backyard no longer exists (or is a puny shell of its former glory). It pulls attention away from your home town and makes it feel less special. I'm sure a Motor City native would feel the same way if that's what happened to Ares.

But look at it this way, rural and small-town North America where most people live rarely receives coverage at all. I think there's all kinds of interesting near-future stories that could be told in a farmland setting. Dixie Fried Cyberpunk would make for an interesting contrast to the typical hyper-urban Shadowrun story. Crazy in-bred clans of cattle drivers who hire runners to protect their precious meat, Children of the Awakened Corn horror stories, etc.

Yeah, it's true. Been working on rural side of things now and then, I like that underused edge.

(on the Republique of Quebec... I'm mixed. Like the fact it's not a mere anonymous state or something, but.. things like the 'little France wannabee' edge (Franc? Guilottine? Somewhat parisian way of speaking?), 'racist frogs' cliché and missing things like the Quiet Revolution's effects on society (the return in power of the Catholic Church?) make me frown quite and I never really dared looking much at the official stuff.

Granted, things changes a LOT on decades, yet... Some old trends don't fade so quickly. Maybe, as jested by a poster, it's better not use your own home place - too much eyes-rolling.

Myself, I'd have done it as an UCAS wannabe with a franco edge AND paradoxaly, a "neoleft' nation, vague socio-democratic (or even socialist?) trend. A fractured and hesitant society, as we are... Backward, rusting, decaying, but more anecdoctic and always set aside than closed (well, as franticly much) outright. And maybe a foreign 'patron'/backing...

Oh well.)