Yeah, yeah, the day after tomorrow was nice movie but unless you say that the rise of mana also changes even more drastically the temperature of the Earth, its sea currents and whatever, this new "Ice Age" wouldn't happen in less than 10 years, it would take at least a few decades or centuries. Also, this does not balkanize the USA.

I'm curious now, did the 6th World Almanac or any other 4th ed fiction address Kerenshara's question? Did it resurrect and update any of the material on the NAN?

Well, given that the NAN states, other than the TPA, made it in and other areas of the globe that desperately needed attention largely didn't I'd consider that an update. That said, things like tribal demographics are minimalized, and more is said about the cities and places than the cultural differences. It's a real different style of writeup.

I'd rather have the NAN in than craplapistan.

But Craplapistan is where our 'Runners get their AK-97s!

You could always just get them from the Vory though...

Where do you think the Vory got them?

Craplapistan.

By UCAS and not furin models and you will be okay.

Okay... You got a point there...

Now I want to do a write-up on Craplapistan...

As for buying UCAS, that might actually be possible now. Of course, it'd be Drone Factories rather than "Made with Union Pride" and all that... Nothing like Extraterritorial Corporations to break Unions. Then again, no workers, no customers...

Pueblo supposedly has good manufacturing, IIRC. Gaeatronics (The company that provides most of the electricity to Seattle) is an SSC corp, too, I think.

'Craplapistan' is now blazing through my synapses like a Surge'd Jag-shifter on Kali.

Also, I thought it was more 'Made by Americans' rather than 'Made by people in job X who belong to organisation Y'. I can just see viral Ares-vertising with construction drones painted in the colours giving the camera one 'furtherest-in-digit' up, with a super-imposed AmericanSam going 'UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU to buy Ares', then fading screen to one soldier shooting another, both with AK-97's, one clearly stamped Ares while the other, falling apart rifle has AZT markings. "Ares' 'Killer-97'! Order now!"

union workers are a subset of workers. No unions only means no union workers. This means the corps have smaller production costs per unit. However R&D spending would be forced up to keep pace with SOTA, so scientists, techs, and engineers would be aplenty.

As far as workers go, I think CanRay was suggesting robotics replacing workers. Hence, no workers ==> no customers.

No workers, no customers, no demand, no profit, no good for business.

Gotta keep some people employed somehow.

Well someone has to maintain the drones and watch things to make sure it isn't going haywire. And yes much of the worker class would now be skilled workers like engineers.

Correction: Much of the worker force would now be Skillwired workers like engineers. Why pay for someone and all those training costs/time when for the same price you can have X slightly-less-skilled workers that can pool rescources? (Up to 5 dice less, but can use Teamwork). Many minds spot errors that one will not, and if you give the first generation Alpha-Ware, you can just keep ripping it out and passing it down as eternal normal-Ware.
Hereditary Wires! "Your fathers Cybersuit. This is the weapon-set of a Lone Star Officer..."

But of course, there are some naturally-trained engineers/etc because they are better.

I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, because I hate skillwires when it becomes this. I like skillwires to be cool, not something everyone has.

I think you are confusing engineers and technicians. Engineers analyze and design things. Technicians solder wires and build the prototypes and fix the robots. There is no critical thinking or creativity skillwire.

Well, to a point there is. You can induce even mind-only skills like Hacking and Data Search through skillwires. And a Rating 4 Activesoft is still pretty impressive skill. It's not like creativity is really expressed in game mechanics. (You don't need Edge to do creative things, after all.)

I likely am, at least in part because skills using get talked up. "I'm not a sandwich maker, I'm a sandwich artiste." But yeah, mostly ignorance/lack of thought. I did kind of cover both situations, even if I did use the wrong terms.
As to no creative thinking skillwire, that's true however it is Rating + Stat. I figured that as the difference between how much you've been taught/retained, and how much is skill/inspiration/doggedness. I thought the fluff for 'Wires was that they were basicaly a Knowsoft (inserts data as intuitive memory) with something like hundreds of sub-routines that worked off the more general thoughts you had (basically like a player saying 'I want to shoot that guy on the left in the face at Full-Auto, and the software carrying it out).
I agree that there would be higher-ranked people without them and with higher training, I was saying that even at high levels the cost to result ration according to the rules is better in general for Skillwire'd workers in a group. It's faster to create and more secure as well - things Corps a big on. Un'Wired people would be the truly gifted and/or have other skills on top, just as CEO's seem to be.

Well, I'm certainly fine with people doing that, I do it for various other things. But it is fact that it works mechanicaly and is directly-stated fluff.
You could make it cool again by allowing Runners access to 'Black-Ops' Wires and Softs, instead of corp drones which can only activate them in certain co-ordinates (like the Nemax pistol), only load HomeCorp and job-required programs, programs based on Renraku software that has been cracked to allow targeting of Renraku Security PAN's, etc.
Admittedly all fluff to explain the normal rules for runners, but it changes things from carrying around a pen to write with to carrying a pen to write with and embed in an enemy's brain case. And if the Bourne films are right, doing so is way cool indeed.

performing math or having knowledge of physics might be skillwireable but knowing when to apply them is not. I am not saying engineers would not have skillwires; they are a nice tool and engineers like software tools. I am saying that simply having a rating 10 skillwire does not make an engineer.

Blame the Suits, chummer. It's cheaper for a set of Wires than it is an education.

Personally, I think this should be rigidly enforced: "Activesofts replicate skills that require physical activity". They shouldn't work at all for Hacking, etc. However, the RAW is that they work for *anything* except Magic/Resonance. Obviously, this is total crap.

Heck, skillwires make more sense in that application than they do as written. Part of having a skill is the knowledge and experience to do something, and not simply the mechanical reproduction of its core elements. Same with recorder cyberware. Take any firearms skill, for example. Someone could teach you the mechanics of shooting, and you could probably hit stationary paper targets just fine. But the skillwires wouldn't impart the understanding of those mechanics that comes with experience, just the mechanics themselves, so you'd be mostly worthless trying to hit a moving target, or really anything that would require improvisation (ie, combat). Now imagine how bad of an idea it would be to try and use am ActiveSoft melee skill against someone who is reacting to your movements.

Look at the kind of functionality that Wired Reflexes impart. A simple acceleration of the body's own reflexes. Without going into lengthy discussions of the theoretical science behind them, that's actually relatively simple next to the kind of functionality you'd need for skillwires to work as written. And skillwires are cheap in both essence and nuyen. But then again, considering how ridiculously cheap 4e made drones, it probably is far, far more cost effective to just use robots.

Well, it's a mistake to ever start thinking about reality or logic. Yes, for skillwires to function for gun fights, you'd need some kind of special sensor-computer-muscle control system (basically, a Pilot rigging your body). We can ignore that, because it's not the rules.

The rules are that you get Stat + Skillwires for anything that's not magic. Sigh.

Really? I thought that's what activesofts were. They interface with yer brain and if they are done right can do nasty things to you. I think someone even used the basic premis of activesofts gone bad to take control of people.

One of the reasons I've never seen any of the PCs in my group get any. They know I'd do something.

That's what I'm saying, Daylen. They *work* that way, but they're not fluffed that way. The fluff says they're little muscle controllers distributed around your body, but the crunch says that they just flat give you skill rating (with certain limits), including skills that wouldn't necessarily use your muscles at all. It's all very silly.

What we know is that body rigging doesn't exist in SR4, even though this would be how it works… sort of. Activesofts are simply 'magic', in that they work because the book says so.

Congratulations on punishing people, or at least theoretically punishing people, for daring to take cyberware. Everyone should take mages all the time.

I really despise cyberware hacking as a concept and think it's one of the worst things that 4th edition introduced as it's one more disincentive to take cyberware. Welcome to Magicrun.

No way, cyberware hacking is so cyberpunk. Giving the very limited rules on cyberware hacking, though, there's no reason to think you could control people via their skillwires. You could shut them down, just like everything else; worst case, you could unload the softs they want and *maybe* load buggy, useless/dangerous softs. Maybe.

Besides, no one said the NPCs have to do it.

As much as enjoy discussions about Skillwires and their impact on SR fluff and background, let's return to the topic at hand, shall we?

So... How 'bout them Sioux Wildcats?

Because I was bored at work today, I came up with this as a possible reason for American capitulation.

The room went quite as the National Security Advisor returned to his seat. Each member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff looked around, each man trying to gauge the response of the others. None of them were quite willing to believe that a disaster on this scale could be created through “magic”.
The President’s face drained of color, his knuckles white, as he gripped the edge of the table. The sealed air system could not filter out the smell of fear from the bunker. Suddenly the President stands upright.
“That’s it, I have had enough!” He looks to one of the Secret Service agents and beckons “Bring in that guy with The Football.” The agent speaks quietly into the microphone concealed in the cufflinks of his jacket.
A young Air Force captain enters the room carrying a secure metal briefcase, handcuffed to his arm. He places the case on the conference table before the President with the expected level of apprehension. The President pulls a key from under his shirt, it is held around his neck by a thin chain, similar to those used for dog tags.
Opening the case, he places the key into a small switch and rotates it. A long string of alpha numeric characters is displayed on a small screen. The President lifts a phones handset from within the case and pauses. “If anyone is responsible, it’s the damned Russians, I always knew they had it in for us.”
The men around the table are stunned by the sudden turn. They look bewildered. No one has suggested a connection between the volcanic eruptions and the Russians. An excited shout from an Army General “If you any information saying the Russians were involved, that should have been shared! We are doing joint disaster relief missions with them right now.”
The President’s face slackens and he collapses into his chair. He speaks with a voice that sounds distant and completely changed from mere seconds ago. “This is Howling Coyote. You now know what we can do. There is no safety. You cannot hide. Your own forces can be turned against you. Your own bodies can be turned against you.
“I could have ordered bombers to drop nuclear weapons anywhere in the world and you would have obeyed. Your commanders in the field can be turned against you just as quickly. You will give me what I want. You will meet all my demands. That or you will watch helpless, as your precious cities burn, and burn by your own hand.”
The President suddenly slumps back in his chair. His eyes flutter and then he seems to recover. A shocked silence lies heavy in the air. The National Security Advisor lights a cigarette “Gentlemen, we just lost the war.”


This scene would require a shaman with Improved Invisibility and Control Thoughts.

Secret service spends edge to resist, shoots magic 4 or so shaman. Did contorl thoughts exist in first edition? I don't think the writing teams had yet taken complete leave of their senses yet. Nevermind the fact that if they had that kind of capability there'd be no need for the ghost dance.

The roll is made in secret since he doesn't get to know that he is resisting invisibility, so he doesn't spend edge?

And I aggree, for their stated goals, the Ghost Dance was not needed.

Reh? What other options did they have left to them at that time? They were socked away into internment camps, and the Lakota's interpretation of the Ghost Dance was of an Earth with the 'wickedness washed away'. Or Anglos, if you will.

It was perfectly reasonable and within rights for them to do it since they were facing a more numerous and techonologically superior foe. In comes the Deus Ex Magica.

Well, depending on what 'reasonable' and 'rights' mean.

Except the great Ghost Dance wasn't sustanable. It has been hinted in places that it was a form of blood magic. The big question is if there was a need to do it again, could the NAN do it. I'm not sure, something tells me that Howling Coyote knew that they could not kick the Anglos completely out, so they settled to own the midwest and rocky mountains that had fewer Anglos to move. The Canandian territories ceded were even less populated.

@Yera - They still didn't have a lot of options on the table.

@Warlord: If the Verner trilogy was canon, then the Ghost Dance is blood magic as the second iteration ate more than a few people, IIRC.

This, combined with the options that they should have had available with the commonly used Invisibility and Control Thoughts spells, should strongly point to the Ghost Dance having a different purpose. Especially since it was "given" to them by an inhuman thing (I mean Elf).

Or a material link and Control Thoughts.

People wouldn't have been as careful with material links back then. A bit of hair or blood from the President, while difficult, would not be impossible to get.

I mean, honestly, what were they going to do with the president's HAIR?

Guess they found out.

My excuse has always been the people in power were like, "You want the flyover states? No problem." Having lived in New York and a few othe rbig city places I don't want to say it is the prevailing attitude of the populace, but its not far from it. Or another way to look at it, you have a bunch of blue states and the blue state president is told he has to give up the red states. It is like my hookers its a Nguyen, Nguyen situation.

My excuse for the fluff behind SR is the people at FASA took a big book of cultural stereotypes and rather than go "Yeah, we'll use this one and this one and throw the rest out", then looked at the book and went "Yes". Then they did a really big hit of LSD.

Also FASA had another really big shortcoming... they made one group Uber and the rest the fecal matter that you scrape off your shoe. Case in point BattleTech and the Clans. In Shadowrun they made the Immortal Elves and Great Dragons.

you aren't saying their writing was prone to having Mary Sue characters and wish fulfillment fantasies are you?

And it sells, and we played, so I think it works.

BlueMax
/Lyran BTW
// Eff that clan drek
/// Just a nice suit of Lyran BA like Commando

LSD, for all your writing needs!

As far as their writing, I haven't enjoyed that since middle school. Their rpg rules are some of the best I think though.

And every native in north america just ate a bullet.....

Gotta agree with that. Convince everyone Native Americans can take over people's bodies and there's going to be a lot of dead Native Americans.

Don't be so sure. Shedim are still around after all.

As for a lack of NAN stuff... Well, that would be one Sourcebook I'd buy.