You forgot the whole "Tends to drive astral and awakened beings mad or kill them outright" part. The -12 version is actually fairly watered down.

Unless its some kind of particle beam, no. That whole newton's laws sort of think mean it basically isn't going to happen.

Which is why you're casting from inside earth using a telescope as your targeting array. You're not actually exposed to the manna void, but you're spell is.

hi hi

The ZO doesn't even have to see a relativistic weapon coming, all they have to do is build some random station-keeping maneuvers into their orbital path every now and again. It is going to take a long time to accelerate something to those speeds, it is going to travel a long distance before it reaches it's target, and the energy released during the acceleration is liable to make it the brightest object in the night sky.

Also, I'm pretty sure the standard operating procedure for an object that is receiving 269,813,212 meters per second squared worth of energy is to explode in all directions, not follow a well aimed parabolic course towards it's target.

Are you certain? You don't necessarily have to slap a rocket on something to make it accelerate - heck, if it's going a decent percentage of cee you can just let the bucket of kitty liter go outside at the edge of the solar system. Or if it was kitty litter with minor thrusters for course correction - figure it wouldn't take that long to nail the station at range if it was .9c.

Once again, getting to .9C is a the problem.

If it could be done in 2070, it'd have to be from outsystem. I'm thinking the ballistic path kitty litter is the best shot unless they've got multiple Whipples, which they probably do.

You'd need the multi-cat kind of litter for those.

Add that to the list of horrible things you can do with cat litter in Shadowrun.

And here I've just been using it to trip radiation detectors.

And where might one find said list?

It is an unfortunately short list, for the time being. The only other entry thus far is using cat-litter dust to augment an explosion from multiple HE grenades in an enclosed space. And Doc Chase gets credit for that one, too.

But, I'd love this list to grow to the point where no street-sam could pass up a Costco 2-for-1 sale on kitty litter.

It's not, it's in LEO.

It doesn't matter. 50 kg of plasma moving at 50 km/sec is still 50 kg moving at 50 km/sec.

You are still manipulating the mana in the astral void to conjure the results of the spell, even if you are sitting on Earth looking at your target in the void. The same mental strain will still occur, and you'll probably die from the drain, because in order to make the spell even work, you'll have to overcast a good deal, and then add the addition DV.

No, you want to use something that isn't easily seen by radar and preferably something that will sublimate in a few hours if it's in orbit. Structural strength doesn't matter much when you are punching a hole in a piece of sheet aluminum at multiple km/sec relative velocity.

hi hi

On detection with current human technology: R = (17.8E6 * √ ( M * A * I * (1-N)))*( √ (0.04 * π ) where
R = detection range (kilometers)
M = object mass (tons)
A = object acceleration (G)
I = object specific impulse (seconds)
N = object drive efficiency (0.0 to 1.0)

If you want to take a slow multi-year trip out far enough that you can make the relativistic acceleration without being detected, you might find that ZO is no longer where you thought it was going to be when you get there.

The Lorentz Factor makes en route course correction much more difficult at high relativistic speeds.

Methinks we're overthinking the relativistic aspect. We don't need .9C, though if you wanted to do a burn from Mars under the auspices it's a return trip and launch from there...

I don't think so. Back ground count subtracts from the force of the spells which pass through it. I do not think it inherently adds to the dv of spells unless you're casting inside it.

Even if you casting 12 force higher with the free spirit example its still EASY to reach a lvl where thats doable. We are talking 1000+ karma every 28 days if need be.

.9 C?!??!?! are we still talking about Shadowrun? The setting that is ~60 years in the future? The setting where there has been no indication that .01 C can be reached by anything but plasma? If you want to assume .9 C is doable in SR please enlighten me as to what you would use to do so and please quote some sources.

Uhm... a .01c plasma engine, and a force 90 spirit with the movement power?

one that spits out the plasma at .01 C or that can get to .01 C relative to earth? And in space? And if you say relative to earth please indicate the source for I need enlightenment.

You don't get increased KE from movement.

And if you can summon a force 90 spirit you can just powerball the whole thing.

hi hi

If you left Mars and were accelerating to Earth and you wanted to reach .01c, you would need to burn at just over 82 m/s/s for about 10 hours, 8 minutes and 12 seconds which is quite a lot of time to begin dodging and returning fire. Overlapping orbital paths are pretty obvious in space, if a ship making a Brachistochrone transfer doesn't start decelerating at the halfway point, everyone is going to be quite alarmed.

I don't even get your question.

You're best off using a particle beam, which we can easily get to .9+c, and depending on the nature of the particles, you could potentially cut the station in 1/2 or just fry all the on-board electronics.

Well seeing as in 2070 apparently 90% of stuff is done optically firing electronics might be of limited use. Now blasting a good few hull breaches would work.

The deceleration point (or just before) is when you lob the bucket. Then you decelerate, and everything is fine.

Can you give me an idea how you get the air circulation fans to work without electric components? How about just running the lights? I really like the idea of optical radios.....

hi hi

They'll see you coming and even at the halfway point, they'll still have over two and a half hours to move out of the way. It is typically considered impolite to intersect your trajectory with someone else's without permission.

As much as I enjoy this exercise, what it really boils down to is that if you somehow manage to go fast enough that they can't see you coming, your run up time is going to be so long that they'll have moved due to random station-keeping by the time you arrive, and thanks to relativity, you'll have just as much advanced warning as they do. If you're not moving fast enough that they can't see you coming, they blow you out of the stars and then move out of the way.

I can't find a page reference on whether or not particle beams weapons exist in Shadowrun, but they'd be very similar in damage output to lasers and would be something ZO could defend against with armor. ZO could even deflect them with electromagnetic fields (unlike lasers) to say nothing of their short range due to electrostatic bloom.

(how exactly would you fry a circulation fan with a particle beam?)

Perhaps a more viable solution, though long term in nature, would be to detonate entirely unrelated spacecraft so that their debris pollutes low earth orbit to a degree that it is no longer feasible to maintain space stations there.

Get a line of sight going and a laser is a great communications tool.

-- Particle beams have been around in the Shadowrun timeline since the 2050s at the latest (the ANDREWS system, introduced in Cyberpirates). I briefly described this system and some (now very dated) links on my site. I haven't looked at the beam output of that system, but I suspect its definintely multi-MJ.
-- In space the weaponized particle beams are going to be more useful as a radiation beam -- frying the hapless inhabitants with lethal doses (some Shadowrun vehicles use quasi-superscience magnetic shielding that should block a lot though, assuming this is at all common). It's a hell of a lot easier to shield the electronic components than it is the habitation areas (I assume all manned craft have some form of storm shelter, but that's probably not ideal to stay in for long periods).

-- You can find useful game approximations of these technologies in GURPS Vehicles, Second Edition, CORPS VDS

-- As far as Z-O itself goes, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they keep it in LEO given that it's IMPOSSIBLE to hide, has to travel on a well-recognized orbital path (simply careening around is going to get it hit on accident), and really serves no function there -- the time-sensitive stuff can be offloaded to smaller stations and the manned habitat kicked up to MEO or GEO.

Hench the apparently may be I should have put "apparently"

This is a game in which everyone involved in writing and developing system shutdown didn't know that it takes a huge amount of energy to make a multi-thousand ton platform in Geosynchronous orbit reenter. Vastly more energy that a SPS would actually be capable of using to modify it's own orbit in a matter of a few minutes. I'm sure it's still in LEO, mostly because they haven't said otherwise and I'm sure that the SR developers all think that is Geo lower than LEO , because G comes before L in the alphabet.

-- I seem to have missed this. I assume it was part of the Comet stuff? Whereupon it can be explained by wizards SURGE technomancers corporation gravity did it.

-- Shadowrun has never gotten orbital stuff right. From the ridiculous satellite decking rules in First Edition to the ... odd ... sensor rules in SoTA64.

-- I looked at creating a conversion document so people could use GURPS Spaceships to sketch out orbital craft and stations but there's no there there to even begin to describe the orbital infrastructure and technology. I might come back to this in a separate post, I need to re-read Wastelands at some point anyways -- I've forgotten half the stuff even I wrote

It would be nice to have actual references to go to for orbital runs. At a minimum it would hopefully cut down on people assuming relativistic velocities for vehicles and projectiles.

They don't list any space based weapons as far as I know, but given how advanced all the components of a particle beam have become in 2070, the idea of them not having one is comical. Also neutral particle beams don't scatter that much, and its unlikely they'd have the kinds of shielding needed to deflect of beam of the magnitude needed to bisect the station.


blow the whole electrical power grid on the station, you don't have to break the fan, just its power supply.

so can you reference the components?

hi hi

Still not a perfect solution, but definitely more complicated a feat.
Also

In any case, the power and heat requirements of a particle beam with enough power to damage the ZO would make such a weapon a very big target for counter fire. Not to say that it couldn't happen, but it would take a megacorp level of infrastructure to pull off, and the rest of the corps would likely be upset about that. I think there are a lot of ways a megacorp could take down ZO, thats why I figured this was an exercise to figure out how a runner could do it. But it has been interesting either way.

To destroy ZO:

Break in, and steal whatever they are using as a backing for currency (orichalcum maybe?). Destroy it, and never take credit for it. As soon as everyone knows the currency backing is gone, and the newyen begins to crash, the corps will rip the station to pieces as they blame each other. They might get saved if one of the Great Dragons ponies up some loot from their horde, but other than that, the AAA's will do your destruction work for you.

Sure, breaking into ZO is vaguely impossible, but a lot less complicated than astrophysics.

There is no more backing for the CC currency that there is the US currency. If the "Full Faith and Credit of the United States Government" isn't good enough for you then don't accept dollars. If you think the CC might mysteriously vanish one night don't take whatever currency they claim to control. I have no idea what that would be off-hand as nuyen are controlled and issued by Japan iirc.

Much like the US dollar, the newyen does not have a backing, but you'd be shocked to find out how many people think Fort Knox backs the dollar. If ZO got hit by a big enough run that they couldn't cover it up, and then someone gives convincing evidence that the runners stole all the orichalchum, you'd very likely find out that many of the peeps on the street in the SR universe were pretty sure the newyen was backed by orichalchum from the Year of the Comet. Mass chaos, blood in the boardroom, and ZO becomes a symbol of corporate failure. They'd slag it.

The thunderstruck man portable rail gun. Most of the significant components of a rail gun and a particle beam are rather similar. The existence of room temperature superconductors, and the presence of high power rapid discharge capacitors.

Nnnnnno. You're talking about sending a shadowrunner taem on a suicide mission to snag something that simply doesn't exist. The public can think what they want about the backing of the nuyen (or the U.S. dollar, har) but they aren't going to up and say 'it's ZO's fault, nuke it.'

If they were to do such a thing, it would be a worldwide upheaval both coordinated and ranging to every corporate employee simultaneously throwing off their shackles of loyalty, joining with the SINless and government agents to overthrow every AAA corp on the map. The station itself is merely an extension of the Corporate Court (as well as a sweet bank). It would be far easier to send a team on a suicide mission to hijack the shuttle and crash it into the station, or barring that, plant a high-yield explosive in the life support modules or on a few stationkeeping thrusters.

Oh, I wasn't thinking the public was going to nuke ZO, I figured that would be one of the AAA's. I also didn't assume the SR world would end, just be thrown into enough upheaval that the AAA's started infighting as they blamed each other for the situation. Removing ZO is a side effect of the media campaign to "win back the public trust" and settle the economy back down.

The shadowrunner team doesn't have to go on a suicide mission, because, as you said, what they are stealing doesn't exist. All they have to do is cause enough damage to ZO that the news can't ignore it and start the rumor that all the "space gold" was stolen. In fact, they wouldn't even need to cause any damage, just do something that activates enough of ZO's defenses that it is really obvious, such as trying to crash a shuttle into it.

Maximal effect, minimal effort.

Save that the news knows full well that the nuyen is a fiat currency, as currency has been such for coming up on 100 years by the time of 4th edition. No AAA is going to slag the station because it means they're going to be the target of an Omega Order. The removal of gold and silver backing of the U.S. dollar was highly publicized when it was done - I don't deny that the public at large are idiots, but the media is required to do their homework.

The media is not required to do it's homework, but it is owned by Horizon, which sits on the Corporate Council. So my plan would fail unless the runners could find some way around the media blackout that Horizon could throw down. And no individual AAA would slag ZO, you're right, but if they decided to do it together, maybe so they could move the Corp Courts to somewhere a little less targetable, it could be done. But I've now deviated from my original plan enough that I admit defeat. It'd be a pretty cool "Oceans N" sort of run to try and pull it off though.

Oh, I disagree - the media totally is. A journalist doesn't do his or her homework, they get scooped by someone else and they lose out on a huge story. Or become complicit in it.

This is why KSAF is so powerful, after all.

KSAF is the only real hope of pulling off the con job I described. They do do their homework like you said, and that gets them power because Horizon doesn't control them. Maybe a group hired by KSAF might be able to do it. Hmm...

The solution here is clearly drop bears.