So is there any good information out there about the CAS? It seems to end with Shadows of North America and I can't seem to find any fan ideas as well. Does nobody want to Shadowrun in the Confederation?

As there seems to be no good information on the CAS, are there any ideas you guys would like to share on the subject?

I am really looking for good campaign ideas and to try to expand on what is in the Shadows of North America book.

>.>; every time I ask questions like this I get told to wait on Atlas to get published.


Personally I want to write some stuff for the CAS area myself, for fooling around with, having grown up in NW Ga.

I guess I should throw in some of the important facts and hooks I have managed to find in the material there is. I will just make a list, you know, to stimulate ideas.

The CAS had went through a major shift in political power in 2062. The True American Coalition is a combination of the Republican Party and the Reform Democrats. The Republicans in the CAS are more moderate right than far right. The Reform Democrats are Democrats with a major metahuman rights message. Together the claim to strive for a return to the original United States. One of their sayings is "The South shall not rise again; rather, America shall rise again from the South."

The powers that lost, the Southern Democrats (mired in corporate special interest) and the Southern Conservatives (Old South types hoping to show metahumans their "place". Probably similar to the Conservatives of now.) really showed no chance of coming back into power soon. They still held important positions in the State and local governments of the CAS, including the governor of Atlanta, but this power was seemed to be on a time schedule.

Turner Field was turned into some sort of Bio-dome experiment that failed and is now inhabited by some sort of cult or tribe that may be associated with Insect Spirits. That could be a disaster area.

Of course there is Crash 2.0 and all of what that would do to the CAS

The CAS had also just acquired the former Aztlan territory in Denver so they would have been enjoying a increasing power base in North America leading up to the Crash 2.0

The CAS has a lot less megacorp influence because of isolationist policies that the Southern Democrats and Southern Conservatives employed. This has started to change a little but will never reach a level like the UCAS. For now, the CAS has lots of AA corps with plenty of power. Plenty of them are Matrix oriented as well. Hiasto-Turner is based here as well making them a force in media and entertainment. It seems that the CAS would also have plenty of agricorps and Virginia could be an interesting place with its history and unique situation in the CAS. Some of the surrounding suburbs of DC that were part of Virgina stayed with the UCAS. Tensions can run high.

I will find more if I can...

That'd be wiz, actually.

I live in Virginia for the moment and it just seems so weird that the CAS is so bereft of information. I am starting to write my own stuff expanding on what I can. The biggest question is Crash 2.0 and the effects it had.

Oh, another interesting fact. The Southern Conservatives did manage to push through a bill offering bounties on any awakened able to animate the dead. Houngans became every afraid. The Southern Conservatives would probably taken the spot of the Southern Democrats in the power structure by 2072. I see that bill not making to 2072 (probably not past the Crash) but I do see The True American Coalition still number one, Southern Conservatives Second and Southern Democrats third.

I have the fortune/misfortune of being new to Shadowrun, very ignorant of lots of big picture stuff, but free to do "mostly" what I want in my hometown of Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, Norfolk 'wannabe' Sprawl...

I toyed with the idea of several local major military bases in the area creating a UCAS zone because the UCAS refused to let the bases, and they would kinda be like Guantanamo Bay UCAS islands. I discarded it. As important as Langley AFB, Norfolk Naval Station, and Oceana NAS are/were to the UCAS I didn't see how they could keep control. I guess I could have just said, "Well, they did keep control...so there." The deciding factor for me is that I didn't want to deviate from the back page map of the SR4a.

I did figure that major parts of the coast are almost completely taken over by existing military bases, Shipyards, and major import/export companies involved in seagoing shipping. This gave me options of increased Japanese and Cinese rep in the area by making two said companies owned by the them. The Virginia Beach resort area, residential "North End", Back Bay Wildlife Refuge, ODU, Buckroe Beach in Hampton...all gone.

The Intracoastal Waterway running from Virginia to Florida is thriving in legal, grey, and black market activity.

Our already troubled local waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay are heavily polluted. Smaller waterways and wetlands, lacking eco-protection, have been terraformed over.

The Eastern Shore coast has some import/export action but is mostly lined massive desalinization plants, hydrogen production, It is also headquarters to Virginia's 29th Mechanized and tasked with protecting the vital strategic corridor against a UCAS attack (real or imagined) down from Maryland.

Getting a little past Williamsburg, the area is much more rural and wild. Farming, private estates, go-gangs, you name it. Populated areas pick up as one approaches the Richmond/Petersburg Sprawl.

There are two more bridge tunnels connecting Norfolk/Portsmouth to Hampton/Newport News.

Local Gangs
Largest---Street Kings New members are called 1 or 2 pointers. 3 pointers are official and get plastic bone lacing. 4 pointers are 'Lites...not Lieutenants (5 pointers) but really bad dudes. All these guys have Dermal Plating. The leader is a Troll called "6 Point".

Mas Muertes

Huangchong (Grasshoppers) At the top of the gang hierarchy are 3 to 6 Kung Fu-chopping Adepts going by Hei Longs (Black Dragons).

The Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) are the local Japanese Yakuza.

The Lee Family is the local organized crime power player. It is headed by Johnny Lee. His top troubleshooter/mage is Adam Cartwright. He has an associate named Latoya Ayanja, a formidable shaman in her own right. She is in love with Chambers, an Ork Lieutenant in the Street Kings.

All of the above humbly offered up for use by any and all...

I would think those resort areas would be nice, corp owned and rich... Since the Megas don't have alot of control in the CAS, it would be AA corps picking up the slack...

Here's some thoughts:

NASA- now owned by Ares, is still operating in Florida, Houston, and Virginia

Orachalcum- Plenty of mining towns in West Va and the Carolinas

Tennessee- With all the troubles in California, Tennessee's entertainment market has skyrocketed, enter Horizon

Hurricanes- I imagine that there have been some brutal Hurricanes that have changed the landscape. If L.A. is under water, I would assume that Louisiana is too.

I'm sure Patrick Goodman will pop in here tomorrow. He's been wanting to do more with the CAS (And Texas in specific) for a long time.

*rubs her hands together* I want to write about a smuggler's circle using mostly the less accepted metahumans, and the cave system I know exists from virgina throught the carolinas , tenn alabama, and ga, and the fact that most of the older cities here in nw ga, round the Coosa river and the Etawah have an entire story of their structures underground with tunnels connecting them- and the river system runs right -through- some major cities..


I'm still trying to figure out why Dahlonega of all places ended up a capitol, unless the old gold mines come into play somehow

I have been digging for CAS info recently, I believe there was some brief references in system failure including some intimation that the New Revolution might have had friends South of the mason dixon. I've even heard a rumor that one the convention pack mods might deal with something like this although this rumor comes from a highly trusted source.

I know it is cliche and stereotypical but I would use those caves as various Troll and Dwarf Kingdoms...

I live in the Shenandoah Valley in VA and there are more than enough mountains around here...

I know from some third edition text that the Mega's do not have a very big foothold in the CAS at all. I know that the CAS may be the only North American country that leases land to the Megas. That means that they can evict any corp off their land if they choose... The Southern Democrats and the Southern Conservatives practice an isolationist policy built to let local CAS corporations get the first crack on everything. Instead of Horizon, you have Hisato-Turner (I could make three adventures right off of that power struggle alone). Ares has a small foothold but is known as a UCAS corp so they are very wary of them. You won't see any Knight Errant cops with contracts in the CAS, this Lone Star country. Literally.

This is why I think the CAS may have come out of the Crash in better shape than most countries because they would probably have more self-contained systems and not many outside lines to get into the CAS matrix. I am sure the CAS had its share of troubles. This shouldn't be too much of an advantage because I can see the CAS being a little wary of letting NeoNet come in a fiddle with things since they are a UCAS corp as well. What would likely happen is for the work to be contracted out to Southern corps. The text does mention that the CAS had alot of matrix businesses and computer start-ups.

SO much info missing about the CAS. How did this area go so long without at least some fleshing out? We have books about Tir na Nog (Which I will probably never run a campaign in) and no book on the CAS....

Doesn't make sense though. The Political party in charge of the CAS at the time of Crash 2.0 were already reunification minded. I posted this early but they are run by the True American Coalition, a mix of the Republican party in a more moderate form, and the Reform Democratic party, which are Democrats with very similar to how they are now. They do have a bigger metahuman rights agenda that defines them.

One of their sayings is "The South will not rise again; rather, America shall rise once again from the South."

If the New Revolution had anything to do with the CAS, then they were probably working together and not against each other.

The CAS seems to be about four things mainly: Politics, trouble with Aztlan, tension with the UCAS and their resistance to Megacorporate influence.

Oh sorry, Smuggling... Lots of Smuggling. Again, how does a holder of a territory in Denver not have any detailed info about it!!

Really? No body has any ideas about the CAS or has even thought about playing in it??

Somehow that seems a bit weird...

The only time I've had any games set in the CAS, it was New Orleans. The game didn't stay there long, after the group pissed off the Mafia there.

My other games have been Chicago, Seattle, Cuba, and Cleveland.

Bull

I've only played in CAS a few times and they where only stops in New Orleans as part of a pirate campaign, which was based mostly out of Miami (Carib League). I think the reason most people don't play there is the lack of info (and southern accents ), although that does give the gm free reign to do what they want with the setting.

I have a short, fat, redneck rigger from Winston-Salem if anybody wants to start a game

I grew up in NC, why would I wanna go there? It's not exactly a garden spot in Winston Salem NOW!

shadowrun is all about slummin it. I think a little deliverance in my dystopian future could be fun (que banjo's)

I think the CAS could be a very interesting place to play. Piracy, Smuggling, Megacorps trying to worm their way in while local AA corps try to hold on to power now that the CAS isn't so isolationist. Austin, Texas is split in half with Aztlan as of SoNA as well and with Lone Star just getting kicked out of Seattle, the Lonies may be pissed off enough to make in interesting in their hometown.

The political situation laid out in SoNA is enough to fuel a campaign of laid out right. Crash 2.0 is is the only real stumbling block, IMO.

I think the problem with the CAS is that well, it's the South, and the image people have of the South simply isn't very cyberpunk. Ironically enough, this is because in many ways cyberpunk is the South's baby. The general mistrust of technology and the very '80s notion that the US had lost its place in the sun to Japan is a fairly conservative fear by nature. Further, cyberpunk has some pretty obvious nods to Southern Gothic and noir-- all three genres feature a lot of anti-heroes, grotesques and generally flawed characters. There's always a sense that society has sold some of its soul (or at least lost some innocence) and that there's no going back. Hell, William Gibson is from South Carolina and grew up in Virginia. He once described his boyhood home as a place where "modernity had arrived to some extent but was deeply distrusted." In other words, the South has had a big influence on cyberpunk precisely because it is the kind of place that fights tooth and nail from becoming cyberpunk.

Plus, there's simply so damn much tradition and history there that presenting all of it while still saying "But we're becoming one big monoculture! Fear the corps!" becomes rather absurd. I mean, really, spending some time in Louisiana or Memphis is a great way of dispelling any sense that the Japanese are taking over our culture.

I think they did a book on that, "Feral Cities"!!

I've always wondered about the really weird ideas I've run across that people have about the south.

I can tell you a couple of things about the CAS though:
There will be sweet tea.
Theres no way in hell someone took their guns away from them.
Still some damned fine shade tree mechanics round about.

I wonder if, in the CAS, the people still revere Jerry Lawler and refer to the Carolinas as "Flair country?"

WWOOooooooooo!!!!

Oh Dragon, I love you. lol

But yes. There WILL be Sweet Tea.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I miss sweet tea. I moved to the UP of MI 8 years ago and I miss Sweet tea terribly. If you order sweet tea here, they bring you unsweetened tea and two sugar packets. Which, if you've grown up in the south, know, is NOT the same thing.

I can see a redneck street sam with his sin on his belt buckle and a gun rack in his pickup truck. Home that is mobile and three cars that aren't. Don't have no smart-guns, I like my guns real dumb. Bad stereotype, I know but fun.

For what it's worth, the CAS also received more extensive coverage in Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America.

For what it's worth Arizona makes pretty good sweet tea. You should be able to find it at a gas station.

I would love to see the Duke brothers all cybered up.

It usually has lemon in it. I like my Sweet tea with out. but thank you.

They did "Calvin and Hobbes" in SR before. not "Southern" but still funny.

I've run into this problem! But I know a fix for it, get them to bring you four packets of sugar, a glass of ice -and this is important - some -hot- tea, mix the sugar into the hot tea then pour it over the ice. ^.^

-.^ Smartguns are cheating, you know. A real man shoots using his own danged skill.

(says the southern girl who prides herself on being able to hit a empty shot gun shell off a post at 300 feet)

Very true but man is that info dated!

And it is very true, sweet tea in Virginia is totally different than sweetened tea in Ohio where I am from...

yea, sweat tea here is really sugar water with maybe a twist of lemon. good though. I missed it when I moved to Washington state for a few years.

Yes, which is why I am very much with Patrick Goodman in that it needs an update. Still, for a basic and comprehensive overview of the CAS, this is the place to look. I for one would love to know more about the major CAS cities, like Atlanta or Houston.

I totally agree. The CAS is woefully detailed. I mean it provides enough info for me to make my own ten year sequence of events from 2062 (last date in Shadows of North America) to 2072 but that is about it.

Virginia needs a big piece of that update as well.. A disputed border near DC, a feeling that they should be the capital state of the CAS, smuggling on Interstates 81 and 64.

The CAS is so full of good runs and I am having to make everything up...

Virginia is split, actually? Into North and South Virginia (a couple other states split, too). The CAS once tried to stage a coup in the UCAs and get the North back (novel Just Compensation).

Not to mention the True Americans, the New Revolution, and how the Bible Belt dealt with the Awakening (with thier ecstatic and intuitive aproach towards faith, they might even have fared better than the Church, but who knows).

Who is even president there? What became of the Texas-based anti-Aztlan movements? What about Austin? How do the conquered Texans deal with Aztlan occupation? I have a hard time imagining Texans taking shit from Mexicans ...

What about the Midwest? The Midwest, bordering the NAN? That is a region where the UCAs is really, really lacking detail, too.

Oh yeah, I know. The suburbs of DC like Arlington and Manassas and Alexandria make up North Virginia, which is a UCAS state. I would imagine someone would try another coup druing crash 2.0 but since no UCAS sources say they lost that area, I would assume it would fail again.

The other states that are split in the CAS is Texas, Missouri, and Florida.

I have been researching what is out there...

Just trying to expand on that a little. I don't see the Almanac or Atlas or whatever it is going to be called coming soon.

I would assume the True American Coalition would still be in control. They had policies that were a bit nicer to Megacorps (The CAS is still kind of isolationist) and I assume that these policies would have helped economically. I am sure this also pissed off the local Southern corps that had been getting all of the favors thanks to the Southern Democrats.

There was a policlub called the Sons of the Alamo that was starting to get major pull for taking back Austin and the rest of Texas. With the Azzies all screwed up after crash 2.0 and all of their problems. Well, what if a policlub that favored military action and secession from the CAS took back parts of Austin after Crash 2.0? The CAS and the Azzies would be nigh powerless to stop them it seems...

Me neither. Which is very sad. Aside from an update on the Elf states (which I dread as much as I am hoping for it), the CAS is what I'd most like to see expanded upon. Especially since, for me as a European, this is a foreign and largely unknown country to begin with. Little to go with to make stuff up myself, I'm afraid.

Right, Missouri split, too. Thanks.

Wow, I have even found another significant gap in information about the CAS and maybe an inconsistency. For one, the political parties are a third edition creation as they have no mention of them in TNAGtNA (The Neo-Anarchist Guide to North America) but go into great detail in SoNA (Shadows of North America). That isn't really a problem but in the timeline and the point of contention back in 2050 was the Bennett murder trial. In 2048 the Secretary of State at the time was found murdered with his elven mistress. She is accused of the crime and the CAS government puts a gag order on the whole investigation. Of course, the press screams cover-up...

Anyway, the timeline ends off in typical Shadowrun fashion with a trial that has already been declared a mistrial once about to be restarted and thousands of metahumans converging on Atlanta. They also mention a militant group called MOR or Metahuman Organized Rebellion. The rest is up to the GM to decide.

This is fine and dandy except for one thing, no mention of the political parties. The Democratic Reform party supposedly split from the Southern Democrats in 2040 after the CAS's inaction during the Night of Rage. Wouldn't these guys be VERY involved in the so-called "Racial Revenge" trial? Why isn't this mentioned in SoNA?

The CAS is both a GM paradise and curse. So much space to expand on but so little clues on what way to go. Oh well, we know they will have sweet tea...

So I guess I will keep working on this CAS timeline...

For someone not living in the southern US, it's a curse.

Yes, very good point. I found the lack of mention of any political party in the NAGNA ... curious. I even toyed with the idea of a president-dictator as in Cybergeneration, but then scrapped it because it would be both to cliché'd and not really fit with the other stuff.

Pity SoNA was written without tying in the older stuff, though. I dislike such gaps.

My grandmother from Kansas could hit the eye of a chicken a 50 yards with a 22 rifle. She was one hell of a shot. I can see the CAS being a lot of fun to play in.

The general lee would be a real kickass ass car in SR4A. Specially with rigging, VR, guns and armor. Talk about having fun in the country. Bootlegging and smuggling. Then at the end of the run back at the boars nest with some nationally famous country star singing.

Yeah, Flannery O'Connor once wrote that "Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." Southern stereotypes really have one helluva hold on us outsiders, and in a lot of circles that means that if it's in the South the run has to turn into Deliverance (I'm a Northerner, although I have lived in Texas, which mostly taught me that I'm really not remotely Texan).

Anyway, I think my biggest problem with crossing the South and some of the Midwest states with cyberpunk and Shadowrun is the whole pervasive corp culture idea. I have a real damn hard time believing that Texans in particular are liable to start thinking of themselves as Mitsuhama men first and foremost. It causes me some major cognitive dissonance and even the whole "Well, it's been 60 years!" thing makes it real hard for me to do. I have a slightly easier time of it with my own home state simply because Minnesotans are so laid back that I could almost imagine us just sitting back making hotdish as our corporate overlords make the big decisions. We have a strong cultural heritage and all, but acting like our cultural identity is a big deal is almost considered kind of unseemly up here. Our civic pride is practically passive aggressive. When big market sports writers started calling the Metrodome a dump we responded by putting up a banner that said "We like it here." That's about as defiant as we get (in public).

Not MCT, but what about a native corp? Bell? Ares? Novatech? Non-American corps have little foothold in the CAS anyway, has been established from the get-go.


Where I live, 60 years ago, people considered Stalinism a splendid idea. 60 years can see a load of change.


So people in Minnesota really are that weird kind of calm and polite we see them being in Fargo?

Let me put it this way: Minnesota is a cold state primarily populated by people from really cold countries. It's like even the the climate says "No whiners." Even whining about whiners is kinda rude. We're sorta tough to read that way.


Anyway, I totally accept the notion that the South could end up quite a bit like the rest of 2070's North America-- I just don't know how you'd establish that very well while still letting the South have a distinct flavor from the UCAS sprawls, which is something I definitely think it should have or else there's really rather little point in bothering. I really believe there's parts of the South that would make great settings for Shadowrun-- New Orleans just begs for a noir tinged run crossed with an extra dash of houngans, for example. And check out Missouri! St. Louis is split in half and is described as a smuggling hub. You could probably do a source book there with enough imagination. Just please don't make it into Seattle-Lite with less Yakuza and more hicks.

I imagine the culture of the CAS would be heavily influenced by the Aztlan border and Aztechnology. Maybe a seige mentality has taken hold, the feeling that Aztlan could invade at any moment and wouldn't it be better to invade them first? I know, the relative sizes of the countries keeps that second option from happening but I can sure envision a heavy "Join the military" program in schools and a certain social advantage to being in the reserves. "What? You're not in the reserves? You wouldn't fight to defend the last bastion of the good ol' U.S. of A.? Jerk!"

Also, another question that really comes to mind: Shadowrun kinda handles skin color largely by saying "Well, it matters less than if you're a meta." Which, you know, is fine. It's easier to go weird places with race relations and prejudice when you're talking about pretend minorities, even if orks and "orxploitation" take pretty direct and obvious parallels with what's gone on in the past with African Americans. But with that said, it kinda pushes blacks onto the periphery. That makes me somewhat curious as to what the locals are like in a place like Atlanta, which is both the capitol of the CAS and home to a big chunk of the country's black population. After all the outsized impact blacks have had on American history did they just hop along for a trip on the corp monoculture as well? Are a lot of blacks involved in running the show now? Hell, we already have a black president, after all, so it's definitely possible. Like I said, I think the South would be an interesting place in the 2070s, but man, am I brimming with questions.

I think I like your grandma.

Point taken. I just meant to say that 60 years CAN see a lot of change. They don't have to.


I agree 100%


I actually think the attitude towards Aztlan in the CAs is as toxic as towards France in 1920s Germany. The South got it's asses handed to them by Mexico. I don't think there is much that would humiliate the Southerners worse. There'll be Revanchism, talk about saving those in Aztlan-occupied Texas, Schoolbooks where the old texan border is shown, with the occupied part being indicated as "currently Aztlan occupied", and Latinos would always have to underline how patriotic they are,kind of how Muslims faced general suspicion after 9/11.

And any Native might well be shot on sight in the wrong parts of the country. The KKK or like-minded organisations probably have a very anti-Native attitude. I could even see Black and White join forces to bash Red. I also could se an underlying suspicion towards Magic, exempting christian-slanted "White" magic. Of course, Hermeticism easily can be given such a slant, and most Shamans would be Idolists who'd follow a Christian interpretation of their Idol. That could even work for many animal Totems, actually.

And yes, a certain Starship Trooper-ish attitude towards armed service might also be present. I'd be careful not to make the CAS too protofascist - there's plenty of that to go. Emphathise the community sense and growing acceptance of Metahumans, too. Maybe there's a second civil rights movement?

The border with Aztlan has been canonically established to be a DMZ like the Korean border. Make of that what you will.


Or, you know, DC.

But yes, Blacks (and Hispanics) really got pushed to the side in SR. That treatment strikes me as kind of odd, since, as you said, Blacks have had an enormous, very disproportionate cultural impact in the past. Of course so have Irish in the past, and now they're just one assimilated white minority among many. Maybe Blacks just split up and assimilated themselves once mankind mutated into metahumanity, who knows.

To a point. The Azzies have been pretty beat up in the 2060's. The major defeats in the Yucatan, getting kicked out Denver and replaced with the CAS and finally Crash 2.0 would have finally weakened the Azzie threat completely for the moment. In fact, I kind of see the CAS starting to get the one up on the Azzies on the border. In fact, I have in the timeline I am drawing up that a policlub takes a swath of territory in the confusion of the Crash. In SoNA, there is a policlub that fits this use, the Sons of the Alamo.

Now just add in some corp backing and BAM! The CAS and the Azzies are caught of guard by a policlub now in control of disputed territory...

I just saw the post above mine. The True American Coalition in the CAS has a pro-metahuman slant. You have a point here.

The CAS is nowhere near a fascist state and, if you go by what established fluff there is, is coming out of the isolationist and semi-racist policies of the Southern Democrats and the Southern Conservatives. I don't see the Starship Trooper theme working here at all.

In fact, the TAC has a reunification slant to it...