Well that seems pretty straight forward.

In 2008 Califronia is the most populous, richest state in the Union BUT it suffers badly in the Awakening and wars that follow. By 2070 it has lost LA south-the richest city with many jobs and a lot of pricy real estate. San diego, the major southern port was already lost, now LA. In the Nroth the TT took a huge chunk leaving just San Fran and the Central Valley and those have suffered the ravages of the Japanese occuaption.

So can it recover? or is it just going to be very pretty, wide open section of land? or will it be further gobbled up by its neighbors? I cannot see it going back to the UCAS.

Nah, the Devs clearly hate it.

At least Saito's gone! That counts for something, right?

Isn't Hestaby at least partially interested in seeing CalFree survive as an entity? She defended it when the Tir invaded the Shasta Dam area. CalFree might turn into a hole in terms of industry and infrastructure, but as long as there's enough people with guns there to keep other people from taking over, I think it'd survive. And having a great dragon on your side helps too.

You could argue that Hestaby's goal isn't stabilization at all - nothing she has done has seemed to settle a single issue in the region. I think the leaders of TT would also argue against her being a force of order

Well, the question isn't if the region will ever be stabilized, the question is if CalFree can survive. And if Hestaby is interested in seeing CalFree survive, then that's certainly a powerful force. CalFree may never recover, but I think it'll continue to be CalFree, at least for the foreseeable future.

The CFS was a failed state from the beginning, what with no working central government, militias and pirates raiding and running much of the place ... save for the Sprawls, thsi reads a lot like Somalia. What kept the state vaguely going was Hestaby and the Japanese occupation.

Realistically? That house of cards should have come down with Saito's disappearance. Maybe Horizon and the PCC can keep it just barely afloat, but it's a royal mess on an Afghan scale, or maybe Iraq. That country used to be damn rich and orderly and developed in the early 80s, too, and look what sorry state it is in today.

Iraq actally is a decent idea of what I think CA propably looks like in SR. Poor PCC soldiers who have to serve there, though.

Can it be recovered? Sure.
Will it be? Doubtful.

Just be thankful they didn't go the ful Crazy 80's Mentality and have it sink into the ocean.

I'll second the devs must hate it philosophy. I, for one, can't wait to see what happens next.

Did I miss something? Are PCC troops in CFS or just the areas around LA they took? Likewise Horizon is in LA so not a part of CFS. The country has two major advantages over Afghanistan. It has a working major port in San Fran and lots of fertile soil for farming.

+1 I think there's a lot of potential for major storylines in the CFS. We'll just have to see what the devs plan out.

California is....California. Just working with their doctors it seems like it's full of crazy. So CalFree being this wild and wooly free state? Perfectly works for me.

Weren't they saying that they're really trying to "fix" the Cal problem the original CalFree sourcebook created? Or am I pulling that from some fever-dream?

With TT becoming a democracy, I can definitely see Hestaby turning her attention a bit more to the south. Let's not forget that instead of letting the TIr take over, she oh so graciously claimed a huge swath of land for herself, including the most potent agical site for hundreds of miles, Crater Lake potentially being comparable. What's to stop her from again so graciously spreading her border south, or convincing the Californians that the Newer Friendlier Tir is just the sort of bail out that they need? After all, Hestaby is on the Council, Lugh is gone, Ehran is gone, Aithne is gone. The only ones that are around full time are Jenna (who by all accounts might be an IE but isn't nearly as old or strong as the others), Sean Laverty (who tends to keep to himself), and Alachia, who takes more of an "advisory" position, and probably less so now with the shake up.

Hestaby could well be the power behind the "throne" Larry Zincan sits on, pulling the strings and backing him as protection against those Nasty Meddlesome Elves. Great way to expand your territoty; take over a nation. Then make it bigger by "helping" the ones you were "protecting" even more. There were allusions to Hestaby possibly backing Arthur Vogel money wise, who happens to sit on the Ares' board. Ares also happens to run most of the Silicon Valley, one of the last remaining money makers. He and she both also have ties through their eco-friends. Horizon was also brought in to help out the TIr's public image, and now they're a huge interest in SoCAl.

Remember that Hestaby won the last Rite, so she is definitely on a power/influence scale with other dragons like Ghostwalker or Lowfyr, both of whom have massive interests. Some people might not like the idea because they want to see Great Dragons and IEs have less of a direct hand in things, but Hestaby is very rarely direct. I could definitely see it going that way.

?! The meanest, maddest IE still is with the Tir? Where did you get that from?! Because I cannot see int eh slightest how especially that one could possibly work with a dragon (and vice versa; wasn't she pulling the strings for the down-cycle hunting?).


By keeping the nastiest and most meddlesome around ... soulds like a great plan!

No, my assumption would be that Alachia would be gone. Remember though that she was still around even when Lowfyr was kickin' it around the palaces, so they're not in open warfare. It really depends on how it all went down.

If Hestaby is/was behind the powerplay that got SUrehand ousted, that doesn't necessarily mean that she was able to get all of them out however. There's only so many ways that they could turn a coup against Lugh Surehand The easiest way woudl be a vote of no confidence, which means that there would have to be a lot of deal making behind the scenes. Just because HEstaby might want to bite her head off, and vice versa, doesn't mean they can't deal. But with the scant amount of info we have on the actual coup and state of affairs afterwards, it's really anyone's best guess what's going on, and more specifically, who's left.

RL I had a friend who was so left she bordered on being an actual communist. she went to California to teach and got so po'ed at the warefare and tax BS she came back a reagan Republican, why should it have changed?

Away from the corp enclaves at san Fran i think it's going to be very much old west type thing. Towns can be friendly, suspecious or down right dleiverance level weirdness but they will not really have much interaction with the other areas if they can avoid it.

Hestaby is intimated (in shadowtalk) to be a power-behind-the-orc in relation to the activities and involvement of Horizon Group's Charisma Associates division (p. 43 of Corporate Enclaves).

(I don't think anyone "hates" CFS, but IMO writers were a bit constrained by some wonky prior-canon on the one hand, and major storyline events (Saito, et al) on the other.)

Hetsaby is behind Horizon?
SK is openly run by a Great Dragon. MTC has one behind the scenes and a free spirit is on the board of Evo. This is looking very...clubby. Ok i am just being paranoid of developing plot lines.

... and they were complainig about IEs. IEs have only run two moderatly important nations. Dragons now run 2 out of 10 megacorps, three countries (California, Denver, TT) and roughly 40% of the global underworly (Yakuza, Triads).

Uh, yeah. Way to go, I guess ...

Hestaby doesn't run Horizon, she just has interests in it like many of the dragons do with other corps. If you want to complain about dragons running corps, I'd start with Celedyr (and Eliohahn) and worry more about whatever it is Hesty's up to at Mount Shasta.

I'm not quite complaining, really, I just am astonished how this "IE are all over the place, BOOO!" knee-jerk reaction is the response to anyone hinting the Tir before Lonsing and Boyle had it 'improved', and noone seems to bother actual god-like entities taking over the world's megas. And yeah, sorry, I forgot about NeoNET being (partially) run by a Great, too.

Again: I don't mind that too much, because it's simply nothing that my PC will ever get in contact with anyway (be that IE ot GD). It's just strange that IE get so much hate from certain posters, and the same posters don't complain about GDs and improssibly powerful spirits like Vernya and Buttercup, who also are quite god-like.

The quote is

So IMO, that doesn't say anywhere that Hestaby is behind (or even has interest in) the Horizon group, just that she was involved in the decision to bring Charisma Associates to the Tir to help during the government "transition".

I'm going to apologize Hermit, even if I didn't actually hurt your feelings, because when I said "you" I meant it in the general sort of way, not, "Hey Hermit, if you're really bothered...". I'm trying to like, not go completely bug crazy around here since I kind of did in the IE thread :D

I wonder sometimes, and I might have said this before, if your dislike of the IEs / GDs are from their apparently awful usage in the German SR material :)

Aaanyway, I suspect the reason people are more congenial to a Great Dragon or a spirit is because they don't have the "elf" stigma attached to them. A lot of people grew up or started with That Other Game where there's twenty breeds of elf, each of them Better Than You, and grew to dislike them because of it. (I mean seriously, who here can actually tell me the different breeds of dwarf? Gnome? Exactly.)

So they come to Shadowrun and they see that once again there's at least two different nations of elves (there's that third kingdom in Germany that I always forget about) that are Better Than You running about and what's worse, they're immortal and it triggers the Hatearade something fierce.

People expect dragons to be powerful, near-demigod-like, and machiavellian, so there isn't as much dissonance when the idea is presented. Spirits...honestly, I think they get a pass mostly on obscurity if you ask me. I could tell you who Buttercup is, but Vernya? No idea. The only free spirits I remember off-hand was the free spirit companion of the guy from the Burning Brightly novel (and I can't even remember his name) and Michael, the free spirit that hung around with Leonardo in Black Madonna.

That's just me though. For the most part I ignore the Tirs (and that German elf kingdom; Heavenherds get a bit of a pass because of their connection to cyberzombies) and focus on what I like in SR, like the GDs, corps, and technomancers :D

You have a good point, Raven.

The "elf" part helps a lot to dislike them.

I don't like elves in general neither. Usually they stand into the stronger the human, nice side. Warhammer, LotR (except Dunadans perhaps), ...

That helps not liking them.

I like the IE, and I like the GD (mainly) as they're used in ameerican canon. The dragons thing was very much overdone in the German settingn, though. But that's bad writing, not that GDs are inherently bad either. IE haven't been used much in Grman canon (save for one, and that would be in a novel and was actually rather well done).

For the most part, IE and GD stories are fun to read, and I know the background enough to giggle at little insiders/hints at the crossover and immortals in recent books.

The whole "elves suck" meme is something I really, really dislike, though. Espceially if it's based on other systems and just carried over because the players ... I don't know, like to live out their racism they cannot IRL in the game? And, of course, anyone who thinks otherwise is THE ENEMY. Then again, at least one leading hatespreader here is Swiss, so I guess he just doesn't know differently.

The elf kingdoms (actually, Tir na nOg is a fairly working democracy and would fit right in with the EU, perhaps even more than IRL's ireland) are not major international players, they're eclaves. I fail to see how they're comparable to certain settings' elfy empires of nobleness.

But yeah, so it's people who bring baggage from other games with a vastly different background and spread vitirol here. I figured as much, but it's good to see that in writing.

Anyway, I feel this is getting a tad carried away, and I really didn't intend to hijack the thread, so with every thing said ... BTT?

Nah, I don't think that's the point.

In many games, elves are just superiors, so humans are "inferiors" either in charisma, arts, agility, knowledge, magic (even fighting prowess in WH).

I guess also that "elf fanboy" comes from there too.

The idea lying behind is this one:
"Look. You're an elf fanboy because an elf is pictured so much better than a human. You'd like to be better."


I basically don't like elves neither, for these exacts reasons. It's stupid, as it is only fantasy, but I refuse to admit them as better as my own race. I'm no elf wannabe as I have quite a lot of self-esteem.


That's IMO, the origin of elf hatred.


Then after that, I have no problems with IE at all. At least, I do think that beeing able to live for eternity with full physical and mental abilities grants you quite a lot of power and time to build strong alliances. Then after that, I just ignore the unfailing part.

Like I said, I think a lot of the elf hate stems from That Other Game (I like That Other Game, especially its new edition. That's neither here nor there) and from it being everyone's first or starter game. And in that game...well, the elves do tend to be emphasized as Better Than You. Elves are prettier. They're smarter. They don't even have to sleep! Charm spells? They laugh 'em off! Magic? They've been doing it for longer then the longest human sages. Even just typing all of that out it grates on me.

But for me, I can ignore that because I've had mostly good experiences. For other people though, the elves become more and more emphasized, especially if a GM has a certain peg (N)PC that they use over and over again. So it just becomes that little sticking point in their brain, the switch, so to speak, and when they come to another game and see a similar concept...yeah, I can see the elfy hate.

Of course from there you start getting the variants and the me-too's!...I think the silliest, personally, are the xenophobic Nyss from Iron Kingdoms or the We're Not Elves! you see some games use.

I understand that I am totally continuing this derail and I apolgize for it.

hermit: who is vernya? And BTT?

But then, in fact, even in that 'other game'... They are actualy not better. Just very proud and so - and it's the point.

They are an analogy for the 'old glorious cultures' of our world, an alegory - or so as I see it no. Fading mostly, hard times, trying to hold on what they have...

Now, elves are not perfect - there is the question of Pride... and look at what Pride gave to Men in out myths... Also, as shown frequently, elves as the other races are 'humane'; each are individuals, and we can't say 'all elves are haughty jerks' or 'dwarves are sour killjoys', etc...

I'm no elf fanboy, but the haters annoy me even more. (If you ask me anyway, I dislike dwarves more - and the hypocrisy of their fandom (basicaly similar sins but as they are 'ugly' and 'manly" and 'like us', beh... they get a free pass somehow)

So in other words, Elves are Chozo (points to whomever might actually get that).

I think that's an interesting thing to think about. How much is this touched on in the two Tir books? That they're old, "glorious" cultures that are trying to hold onto what they had. Or is it just stupid Vampire:tM-esque political shennanigans? Inquisitive minds must know.

For the sake of complete disclosure, I'm a SURGE fanboy, so.

I don't really like SURGE, but don't mind it really either. You can build all ED races with it, if you want to, and if not, I like to throw in the occasional changeling NPC, especially in flashy nightclubs.

Actually, Chozo is fairly close, with elven spirits being immortal by canon and all. Less feathers and no beaks, though; that was another ED race, if I am not mistaken. You're welcome to build a Danaan efl Chozo, though, if you're so inclined.

It is hinted at. The old culture and eincarnation is touched on mainly in TNN, and (in parts) in Aztlan. Also, the immortals, being 'cursed' and cast out of the whole reincarnation process (whcih ends in elfy Nirwana) have a sort of VTM vibe, though they're much less sorry for themselves than the average VTM vampire. They're more handled like the immortals in the Watch series by Liukanienko - the older, the madder and the more polarized their personalities.

I think California Free State, sans L.A., has a lot of potential for play material if it's handled just right. Maybe even as a battleground as the devs have been hinting at an upcoming war in the Shadowrun metaplot. You have post-occupation San Francisco which, like Cold War Berlin, could be a fertile place for intrigue and power plays as governments, tribes, and corporations scramble to stake their claim. How does the Northern Crescent react now that the formerly hostile Elven princes of Tir Tairngire are no longer in play? Is the agricultural Central Valley still pushing for reunification with the UCAS? How far will those in power go? Is the extreme bigotry against non-humans still present there? Is Big Sur still a hotbed of aquaculture and piracy pushed up against one of the few unpolluted areas left on the West Coast?

I love changelings because they represent the wild card that is magic. Sometimes magic just makes things weird.

Besides, I was totally able to make a mermaid-like character for a pre-gen game I was writing. I love that.


Accept your geek point, my good sir.

I think a group of Elves like the Chozo would make a good plot. Hm.


Hm. Guess I'll have to dig through the Tir books soon then. So many books, not enough time...


That sounds awesome and aside from the whining it would be sure to bring, I think it would be awesome. It's been too long since Bug City; we need to see a major American area under seige again!

And for you Wes, take a Cool Point

If you speak of the Wheel as "reincarnation", be aware that not every elf in Earthdawn followed that belief.

That would be the Heavenherds (in Zulu).


I dunno, it was a tad too X-Men for my tastes. But I can live with it, since it isn't too in your face about that.

And I like Wild Cards.


Indeed. Hence, it's only hinted (as in, you may not believe in reincarnation, but reincarnation believes in you). It's a classic make-of-it-what-you-will kinda thing.

Where would I find more information about the Heavenherds, just for curiosity's sake?


It isn't too in your face about it, no. They kind of face the same sorts of issues that the X-men do, but that's more of a freak factor than anything else. Plus, I'm curious to see if these SURGEs continue as the mana level goes up.

I never really got or get the surge stuff. With the bodymods available through cyber, anyhting you surge into can be fixed, and anything you surge into can be copied.

I don't have surge in my game, and even if I had it, no one would treat it any different than voluntary mods to such extremes are treated.

"Oh, I surged a tail and fur!"

"Lucky you, I had to pay 10K for my mods."

"I am now a freak of nature!"

"Here's the number of a a good street doc, he'll fix it in an afternoon."

"I have no money to pay for it!"

"Well, now you know why you do shadowruns."

"I am an outsider now, hated and persecuted!"

"No, no. Here is a list of clubs where you'll be a hit."

For SR references, about the only place is the Cybertechnology book from second edition, and that's only in reference. Otherwise, check out some Earthdawn books like the Theran Empire SB. There's little direct information on the Heavenherds.

Ok I know this is a bit off... or actually more on topic then the IE thing, but to me I thought the whole L.A. sinking into the sea was either because "Escape from L.A." was made and it almost seemed bit a bit too much like what was going down in the SR world so they decided to do something about it....

Or that some GM just fiated a runner team and then they decided to use it in the source material ie:

Player 1: "So we go back to L.A. to get our stash of game breaking loot."
GM: "You can't."
Player 2: "Why not?"
GM: "Um.... it sunk into the ocean"
Player 1: "You made that up didn't you?"
GM: "No no a spirit arose and demolished the city"
Player 1/2: "What!?"
GM: "Yeah, um, some spirit rose from the depths, and was pissed off so it decided to 'take back' L.A. Something about returning it to its natural state."
Player 2: "Thats not in the source material."
*GM makes a call*
GM: "It is now."
Player 1: "Oh that is ******* ********!"

Chozo???


I took that as a reference to Metroid Prime but was the game inspired by something real or what?

Nope. Just reveling in my geekdom is all