With GM buying Chrysler... two Shadowrun brands become one.

The Chrysler - Nissan Patrol 1 will become the GM Chrysler Nissan Patrol 1?

Of course this could explain the GMC vehicles.. foresight?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081029/bs_nm/...VAVCUSSOJdv24cA

NEW YORK/DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Corp (GM.N) and Cerberus Capital Management (CBS.UL) have resolved the major issues in a proposed GM-Chrysler merger, but the final form of any deal would depend on the financing and government support available, sources familiar with the talks said on Wednesday.

Both sides have agreed that GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner would lead the combined automaker, the sources said.

A merged GM-Chrysler would be the largest automaker by global sales, but analysts have cautioned it would struggle to turn around the overlapping Detroit-based operations of two companies that have seen mounting losses tied to a global downturn in sales.

I remember some people tried to include Daimler in the Chrysler-Nissan merger in Deutschland in der Schatten 2 and Rigger 3. Not to mention that General Motors should be part of Ares Industries since 2002.

Note that if the talks with GM had failed, plan B Chrysler had was to propose a merger with Renault-Nissan, which was far more in line with SRverse.

Don't forget that events that happen post 1989 never happened in the SR world. Chrysler and GM are still separate. There was no Sept 11 WTC attack. etc, etc.

Imagine if you will a parallel but separate timeline that split back in that year the game came out. Don't retcon anything just to make it fit.

Actually, the 9-11 WTC event was retroactively written into Shadowrun history in one of the source books. Shadows of North America maybe?

That would be curious, about 9/11, since NYC was supposed to get destroyed in an earthquake in 2000. Even the best terrorist cannot fly planes into buildings that are already destroyed.

Personally, I consider 1989 the year where the timelines part, too. Makes most sense.

I seem to recall the big Quake being set in 2005.

Edit: Yep, here it is ...



I can't find the reference to the WTC event, but upon further thought it might be in Shadows of Europe. I do know that it exists, because we've had numerous discussions on Dumpshock about whether or not FanPro should have written it into canon history.

I think it was a throwaway line about planes crashing into skycrapers but I can't remember which book it was in...

It's from Deutschland in den Schatten 2 (which I don't have, and couldn't read very well even if I did).

There is a discussion here.

Well, DidS 2 never was official canon anyway.

And DidS 2 is only interesting if you want to run a game in exciting places like Brandenburg (city), Halle/Saale, Frankfurt/Oder, Braunschweig, Ulm, Leipzig or Chemnitz. It details the shadows of basically any German city of above 50K population (which is a lot), and caters mainly to German players who always wanted something official about their hometown. You wouldn't find it too useful even if you were an expert German speaker (I sure don't). It has a nice general lifestyle section, but most of what was there went into SSG and was far better worked out.

The cover was awesome, though, as was much of the artwork.

News to me. As far as I know, everything non-novel-related (and even some of those) that has been released by the German publishers is considered canon.

Uhm ... most of DidS2 and the Shockwaves (Schockwellen) campaign went into SoE, but some was dropped. I'd decide 9/11 is on the dropped side. at least the german devs always maintained that german books aren't canonical unless specifically stated otherwise.

Wouldn't be quite fair to make stuff American canon that never was released in America to begin with.

That's exaggerated. In fact the book mainly describes the Alliance's states with only very basic info about selected cities. The exeption being Hamburg and Berlin, which are city-states.
Even the AGS capital, Hannover, hasn't been described in detail in 5+ books (neither has Braunschweig, funny that you chose to mention my hometown, although the Braunschweig-Wolfsburg-Wolfenbüttel-Salzgitter plex should be one of the biggest agglomerations in the whole North German League).

Everything published from 2001 onwards, when FanPro took over the whole SR license. DidS2 is a 2001 release.

Hannover got it's share of attention, and if I'm mistaken about Braunschweig, sorry. It sure would deserve that as much as F/O or Brandenburg (city).

Also, does that make Psychics and these shadow summoners from BADL canonic?

So it is indeed considered canon. Thanks.

Whether or not FanPro considered the German language books canon or not is now meaningless. The question would be what does FASA/WizKids and/or Catalyst consider canon?

As for the point of divergence between the real world and Shadowrun history. According to The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America (FASA 7206, ©1991) The winner of the 1992 election for President of the United States was Jeffrey Lynch, who won reelection in 1996. He was followed by President Martin Hunt (2001–2004), and Philip Bester (2005–2008)

So no President Clinton or Bush Jr. amongst other things. I am pretty sure that the September 11 attacks have never been mentioned in any English language Shadowrun publication.

As for post quake construction the book only has the following to say about the WTC site:

Fuchi-Town was built on the ruins of the old World Trade Center. In its place, Fuchi raised a triad of buildings, each 200 stories tall and as black as the heart of one of the Billyboys. Technically, the buildings rise 250 stories because all grow out of a wider, 50-story high, octagonal-shaped structure that acts as a base. Radiating outward are interconnected buildings that contain residences, shopping, and such for Fuchi employees.

Catalyst is highly unlikely to actually take something out of the canon timeline once it has been officially accepted, whether by FASA or FanPro. Even all but one of the English novels (terrible and not-so-bad alike) are considered canon. I'm not sure about the status of the German novels though, but I don't recall hearing anything about them being considered canon.

As for the 'built on the ruins' part, I'm not sure, but wasn't Ground Zero still in partial limbo in 2005?

No, they're not considered Canon, as a number of high-level incidents from the novels (nukes being detonated under Muenster and in at least two Russian cities, a Horror running Nepal and the god Baal reawakening) never made it to German books, let alone American canon.

And DidS2 was considered German canon - as opposed to Chrom&Dioxin, DidS and Walzer, but it never was considered international (which refers to American) canon, for all I know. There used to be a thread on this on old FanPro forum, but it's most likely lost.

NAGNA has been retconned somewhat too, though, with the CAS not being the economic powerhouse and all. Pity though the South gets so little coverage, I'd like to know what's going on there, too.

As the Germany entry in Shadows of Europe was based on DidS2 I'd say it is canon. Also, the Lofwyr-Nachtmeister fight from DidS2 (and Nachtmeister's death) is AFAIK canon.

But the point is: from 2001 to 2006 there was no "US canon" - FanPro D was the SR licensee so canon was defined in Germany, including all German SR books. Novels BTW, except some selected American ones directly connected to sourcebooks, have AFAIK never been canon.

Now, as the AGS setting is quite polarizing (love it or hate it) there's an ongoing discussion over at the Pegasus forums involving developer and freelancers on how to change it in future releases. A complete reboot/retcon has been ruled out but some change will definitely happen as even the fans of the setting admit that the original authors were definitely smoking strange stuff when they wrote the setting's basics back in the early 90s.

This entry at the Sixth World Wiki is my compilation of all information on Hannover spread over all German sourcebooks! The population figure is a projection based on the info that Hannover is "about 50% bigger than today".
Not exactly comprehensive for a national capital...

Parts are, but not the whole thing. What's in SoE is canon. What isn't, isn't.


FDC didn't get more coverage, not to speak of Atlanta, Phoenix or Sacramento. Those are all national capitals, and in all respective states, other settings have been developed extensively (Seattle, NYC, detroit and Boston for the UCAS; New Orleans for the CAS; Los Angeles for Pueblo and SanFran for CFS). National capitals aren't always bustling metropolises, and judging from Hannover today, I see it more in line with Bonn (the capital village) than Berlin. Not much there except a weak national government - no major multinational regional or global HQ, no arcology, no nothing except that weird submarine port for a tiny lake. And that's been stated already.

Also, even at 1 Million, Hannover wouldn't be close to FDC (8 Million), Phoenix (2 million), Sacramento (2 million) or Atlanta (2 million) in size. How that would warrant more coverage is beyond me, really.

All cities above have their suburbs counted into their population, as is the norm in SR, where these usually are accumulated into the 'sprawl'.

Just for clarification, this is based on what authority?

Synner said this way back in a SoE discussion thread.

Then I'm happily looking forward for some really friggin problems appearing in the near future...

That'll be fun.