Another way of making sure that the horrors can't touch us is to give every living metahuman being ONE little piece of cyberware, a Pain Inducer.

The pain inducer gives the character constant pain by stimulating the bodys pain receptors. And for a special price you can get a PIC (Pain Induce Controller) so you can alternate between Light nagging pain to Serious searing pain that makes you want to crawl out of your skin.

The future version of Thorns sticking out of ones skin.

Why not a pun inducer to go with your navel gun?

I think the dragons have some of the same karma manipulation abilities that the horrors have, like the one that prevents you from using karma points.

Sigh.

Anyone who says "omg horrorz r teh winnar11!!!" OR "omg humanz r teh winnar!!!!111!one" is wrong. Lemme spell it out.

WE DON'T KNOW. We're baselessly speculating on just about everything except that we'll have big ass weapons one day. I think there are strong arguements to be made both ways, and really it's going to depend on how they come, how they fight us, and how much we know in advance. I don't care how many orbital lasers we have. In the end it doesn't matter how much ass Tempter or Joie can kick. It's going to come down to luck, and the precise way things work out.

Because I don't think it will ever come to a "war" per se, I don't think the uberweapons matter. I tend to believe that the Baddies will corrupt rather than fighting, stay below our radar and strengthen themselves until they have all the advantages we do, but I'm pulling that out of my ass. Maybe it won't go that way at all.

I liked it when the "debate" ended and we were just chattin' about how Cool Horrors Are. Let's get back to that one.

We could create two independent threads: "Why Horrors kick ass" and "Why Mortals kick ass" with the requirement that no argument from one breaches the other under penalty of flogging and keelhauling.

Actually, given the dystopian overtones of Shadowrun, it's entirely possible that by the time the Scourge hits the megas will have essentially Blood Wooded the entire planet. They come over, take one look, realize they're beaten at their own game and go home.

~J

Ha! Very funny!

I'm going to have to retract one of my earlier claims. I've determined, after some calculation, that we probably can't smash Earth like an egg. It'd take about 2.3×10^31 joules to do that, and Ceres, with a mass of 8.7×10^20 kg, moving at 11.2km/s (impact velocity for any object dropped into Earth's gravitational field), delivers "only" about 5.5×10^28 joules. In order to permanently shatter the Earth with it, we'd need an impact velocity of approximately 230km/s. While, given SR space capabilities, we could probably nudge Ceres into a collision orbit with Earth (it'd take a while, but it could be done), I doubt that we could build a drive that could produce enough thrust to accelerate it up to that speed in the distance available, and we wouldn't get a second pass, because that's well past solar escape velocity.

Of course, that's the energy required to totally and permanently destroy the planet, such that gravity won't ever pull the resulting spreading cloud of rubble back into a coherent body. Even a free-fall Ceres impact, delivering as it does the equivalent energy of 13 exatons of TNT, should be quite sufficiently cataclysmic to disrupt the manasphere and ensure that no Horrors are going to be coming through any time soon.

It would, of course, be a good idea to make sure that they can only come through on Earth before attempting this.

First, you must understand we have not 3000 years before the next scourge. If the cycle was "normal", the Horrors should not come before about 2500 years. However, from what we know about the last scourge, wraiths only appears about 1000 years before the scourge, so they might come earlier this cycle (it can be because of all the high magic stuff that has be done on earth: 2 Ghost dance, the Veil, Aztechno helping them...)

Whatever the reason, from what we know, the Horrors (the most of them) will more probably come in about 1000 years. But the first ones will come sooner (in the last scourge, the first burgeoning Horrors came 900 years before the scourge).

But we must understand it will not be really a war, they will come quietly for some hundreds of years, before the actual sourge begin. What do you think they will do in those years. They will try to mark the most of people, if possible rulers.
It's also possible, if they see we want to fight, that they will use their marks to force us to hide instead, cause they like when we hide: this way, their food can be protected from the other Horrors, but not from them.

It took about 350 years for the Therans to discover a way to protect against the Horrors, and they had the Book of Harrow to teach them what the horrors were. To my opinion, it will all depend on what those who know will reveal to mankind.
If they reveal nothing, prefering to hide themselves, then we will have to fight, but we will lose, because we don't know them: every mage that will fight them will become marked, ...
If they reveal it, it all depends the amount of time we have to prepare. But what will be the reaction of a threat that far away. They had the same problem in ED: "Many dismiss its conclusions outright, while others look upon it with almost religious reverence. Most, though, cannot take seriously a threat eight hundred years in the future."
As to the dragons helping us, they would have done it before: but "many dragons have no desire to share their secrets"


PS: I only have the CD version of the ED rulebook, so I can't give page numbers, but all the info is give here i into the chapter 3.

And we are watching... and developing new and interesting ways to defend ourselves. Yes, they have the initiative, Marking and other things... We can defend ourselves against them, destroying their meat. But they are not invincible and when the day comes when we can invade their metaplane they WILL die.

Also, they won't die because they have IDDQD.

I consider 5 AM to be about 4 hours too early to go to bed. Now if I could make the university people understand that. And just consider yourself lucky I didn't bring out something like IDSPISPOPD... (They obviously have that too, though. As demonstrated, they also have IDCHOPPERS and IDFA, but I doubt they have either IDDT or IDKFA.)

A little short story I wrote that was spurred by this discussion.

------------------------------------

It has become a time of great sorrow. The scourge has arrived. As best we can figure, the scourge officially started at 3:15 GMT, on October 31st, 2227. That the horrors chose Halloween to start their scourge was an irony that was not lost on us. Though the scourge officially started on that date, we are pretty sure that there were horrors working diligently far before that.

We believe it started as far back as the 2050’s. Working deep within the shadows, their agents worked diligently to pit various groups against one another. Gangs and crime organizations were the first and violence quickly spilled onto the streets. Not too soon after, full blown race riots started on all sides. Humanis, armed with corrupted magic, used clubs called ‘Slay Sticks’ to kill various metahumans. The metahumans retaliated in force. They were armed with weapons secretly infused with Artificer’s essence, at very cheap prices of course. Little did they know that these weapons were produced by agents of Artificer. Both sides would suffer horrible losses and many innocent bystanders were killed as well.

Across the world, tensions slowly grew worse. Smaller nations openly attacked each other immediately in brush war style conflicts. Larger nations, infiltrated by horror marked agents, grew paranoid with the false information they were being fed. Covert operations increased in frequency and boldness. It didn’t take long for border clashes to start. Soon, full scale wars were breaking out across multiple nations.

The corporations were not immune either. A number of CEO’s had been turned to the horrors. With the promise of greed, power and maybe even survival, they offered production centers to their new allies. Under the legal protection, these sites were able to work entirely in secret to further their goals. These corrupted corps became instrumental in hiring shadowrunners to sabotage other corporations. Soon, full corporate war broke out, with Aztlan being the target. After all, Aztlan failed in assisting the horrors. They also became the prime target because they provided the world with a major majority of the food supply. How could any of the corporations resist the temptation to carve up such a rich target? With wars breaking out on all levels, transportation services quickly broke down. Supplies of parts, medicines and food slowed and after a while almost stopped.

As the saying goes, “Every civilization is only three meals away from anarchy.” With supplies at an all time low, riots broke out in every city. Governments, already taxed to the limit couldn’t cope with the mass riots. The result would be martial law, which only fueled hatreds even more.

Behind the violence, agents of the horrors used the chaos to grab the dead and the wounded. Even the homeless quickly disappeared. Very few noticed or said anything, after all, who cares about the homeless? The dead would become the building blocks for the army of constructs. Those still alive would be fed upon before their bodies were sacrificed to the same fate. The army of constructs quickly swelled as the conflict got worse. All these disappearances were of course contributed to ghouls and other carrion.

While some agents went about creating the weapons and constructs for the oncoming scourge, other agents fouled the environment. Toxic spills and radioactive waste incidents climbed at an alarming rate. Toxic shamans were on the rise, and many of them were easily recruited to the horrors as allies. Winternight was also very active in helping the horrors, believing that their goal would finally be fulfilled.

It didn’t take long before the desperate resorted to desperate measures. Weapons of mass destruction were unleashed. Biological weapons ravaged populations while fusion, neutron and even a few older fission weapons were used. Chemical weapons were unleashed in major population centers. Even clouds of nanites were let out, reducing people to unidentifiable pools of biomatter. Who knows how many of these acts were actually perpetrated by the horrors themselves. At the time, we were led to believe that it was various governments or terrorist organizations.

By the time 2227 arrived, the world had lost almost 60% of the original population. On Halloween, the unthinkable happened. Hordes of constructs erupted from various corporate complexes and other hidden locations all over the world. Technology, thought to be our greatest tool, also became our greatest bane. The constructs that attacked would have weapons infused into their bodies, along with armored plating and magical protection. Nanolathing facilities controlled by the horrors cranked out weapons of war by the thousands.

Artificer, made more potent by the misery caused by weapons infused with his essence, created hordes of nanites and drones to wreak yet more pain and misery. Hordes of metal monsters roamed the streets, preying on anything living. Artificer’s minions also used our own advanced technology to engage and destroy our own units and drones.

Verjigorm, armed with our advanced genetic technology and his own twisted powers unleashed genetic monsters unlike anything humanity could have ever created. These monsters ranged from huge corrupted behemoths to intelligent bacteria and virus.

Taint used his minions of twisted followers to brainwash people into his cult. Taints followers used their cult and supposed “protective powers” to seduce more people into their ranks. Their followers also helped in infiltration of bases and vaults, opening them to the horrors and causing further sabotage.

Many groups attempted to fight against the unnumbered horde. With production all but destroyed, every damaged piece of equipment hampered efforts. Every lost warrior reduced their ability to fight, and often increased the Horrors armies. Every marked individual betrayed their comrades. In desperation, clouds of FAB-III bacteria were released, which the horrors corrupted into Dread Iotas and worse. The FAB clouds that were untouched reduced the wards on some vaults, opening people to the horrors. Needless to say, it did not take long for these brave groups to fall.

All was not lost, however. The Tir’s, run in part by immortal elves, were prepared for this nightmare. They built great citadels, protected by highly powerful wards. Requiring people to have artistic talents helped ferret out marked individuals. While technology in the hands of the horrors has made survival a more difficult aspect than the last scourge, they have held. Others were also prepared. The dragons planned well, in part thanks to Dunkelzhan. Many self-sustaining colonies were planted in space and on other planets. The lack of proper mana in these environments kept them relatively free of horror influence, although agents allied to the horrors were still a threat. And while they waited, the horrors continued to ravage the planet.

As for the safety of space stations, I don't think so. Sure, they can't go there. Sure, they will not be able to use their powers on us. But they can use technology too. They can use it to destroy our stations (project star wars anyone?), but also to try to bring us back on earth. More, how can you know, if you're in space, when will it be possible to go back on earth? You'll use your calendars? The curve of magic can be altered, as it was before with the pillars of orichalcum. Horrors can do it too to wait for us to come back.

@ reaver:

So, let me get this straight: You wrote a story to support your position?

Well, I got a story for you too:

"It has become a time of great joy. A new Golden Age of Man. All the peoples of the world are celebrating the Great Victory we have achieved...."

Now, I ask you: What would you say to me if I put my story up here first?

...

That's what I thought.

The Named Horrors aren't going to care one bit about your satellites. If they used massed armies then yes, the satellites would be a threat. They DON'T. They don't even manifest physically most of the time. Take Tempter, for instance. You're going to use a satellite to locate something the size of a COCKLEBURR? I think not. Even if you had it dead in your sights, the odds against being able to identify it as a threat are astronomical. Hunter of Hunters will look like someone dedicated to killing off Horrors, so no problem there. Artificer will spend most of its time in the Astral as always, and Chantrel's Horror never manifests period. The only Horrors who are threatened are the massed armies of cadaver men and Gnashers who are, in fact, too stupid to be able to shoot down a satellite. They'll be one more weapon against the Constructs, and a modern Kaer. That's it.
There's also no chance the Horrors on earth would shoot down the satellite for the sake of shooting it down. There's nothing for them to feed on doing that.
My position has changed several times during this debate, but currently I think that one of two things will happen: either humanity will defeat the Horrors, or the Horrors will go about feeding on humanity for the duration of the Scourge. I do not believe that the Horrors are capable of wiping humanity off the face of the earth like they did last time, but the ones that count don't need or even really want to.

~J

Oh yes, and before anyone points out that tech is the reason that Dragons can't hide anymore:
Verjigorm is one additional Horror that I could conceivably see using tech, but for one reason and one alone. It hates Dragons with a passion. It will use tech for the single-minded purpose of hunting down and corrupting all the Dragons. I see no reason why it would expend such effort on the lesser Namegivers, or why any of the others would save Hunter of Hunters and sorta Artificier.

~J

He said "fight" and not "defeat" because defeating them is not a certainty in the least.

~J

Cauthrunne is all about giving her chosen great new weapons and armor. In ED times she made them broadswords and living crystal platemail. Obviously those are a bit outdated - but who's to say she couldn't learn to give them something better? After all, it's slaughter she's after...

She's a Horror Construct, and a very useful one. She's effectively immortal, as if you kill her an identical copy will be created.

~J

Edit: You know, an interesting battle would be Twiceborn vs. Twice Born (Soulblighter).

Edit2: This would also provide an interesting basis for a Shadowrun/Myth crossover. You'd need to extend the timeframe of Myth's cycles and change some details, but The Leveller sounds like a perfect Horror. Cadaver Men to Thrall, Plagues to Wights... it'd take some work, but would be quite interesting.

A big thundercloud with a ship inside it. It can blow stuff up with lightning; they're insanely difficult to stop (I believe only one has ever been destroyed), and it is suggested that they be used "as a force of nature. In almost every case, they are not something that can be fought directly." The most powerful one, lead by the remains of Admiral Hartmallen, sits over Vivane and tries to wrest control of the city from Twiceborn. It is prevented by the fact that the Gharmheks can take control of the undead that the cloud creates, though it's noted that the cloud is working on types of undead beyond the ability of the Gharmheks to control.
The Gharmheks, by the by, are the force behind Twiceborn.

~J

20 pages guys, excellent job. I wonder if that's a record.

Random question. Some people have suggested nuking the world, which sounds like a lot of fun, with the unfortunate side effect of some civilian casualties. Well how hard would it be to nuke someone else's world? Someone said that the horrors go into other metaplanes, so lets leave ours nice and neat and just blow theirs up. It won't be hitting the horrors on the 'front lines' as it were, but it'll cause major casualties with minor loses on our side. And you can't tell me that earth elementals really care about their plane of existence THAT much.

The bonus is that if different planes undergo mana spikes at different times, we can begin hitting the horrors before they even pay us a visit! Then we'll know well beforehand if we should fight or run with our tails between our legs.