-- There's no evidence of this in canon (not much evidence of what the mass driver really does at all, in fact) and I'm not convinced that it means you just pay by the volume. I'm also not entirely clear why you would use steel vs. stronger composites and aluminum though. Is there some advantage except perceived cheapness? The structural costs of the station are going to be a pittance compared to the fittings anyways.

No evidence of which in canon, the economy of putting material in orbit?

I used RL estimates for that, assuming that what's good enough for us would be for them. As the SR team used the term 'mass driver', I went with the actual definition - an electromagnetic catapult.

Maybe I'm stuck on the ideae of people using magnetic boots to walk on the hull of the station, I dunno. I see it so often.

Maybe it works because people believe it works ??

Like croc shamen being a city thing because urban myth has crocs in the sewers ??

A personal reality bubble !!

I've seen an alligator lying in a motel parking lot near Miami. In the southern US, I'd be surprised if there are no alligators in the sewers.

I'm thinking less internal air tank, and more oxyrush nanites.

-- No evidence that getting stuff into orbit is cheap. The massdriver obviously has to have limitations, because everyone and their dog is operating rocket launch pads.

-- The more I read of Shadowrun space canon the more confused I get though It's a bit of a mess.

Just because it'd only cost $100/pound to put stuff into orbit on the elevator doesn't mean they charge $100/pound.

-- Indepedence. They can shoot up whatever crazy stuff they want if it is their rocket pad. Also, since sneaky stealth rockets that nobody sees are canon in SR, if you want to build a huge structure in space that nobody is aware of, your own launch facility if a nescessity. Yes, I am fully aware how little sense this makes. However, even disregarding this, your own launch facility greatly lessens the possibility someone will go over your sattelite and reverse engineer key components you just researched for substantial money and want to sell to everyone in the future.
-- The Mass Driver is plagued by angry spirits and locals fighting a war against it. That substantially raises operational costs and makes launching anything there a hazard, since some African might feel to take it down to make a point. I think the mass driver is a failed project and is slowly being abandoned.


More than a bit, actually. It never, ever got cohesive development, usually just some offhand mentions and most of those to sneak in stuff the authors thought kewl and lacking in SR (like wholly unnecessary ateroid mining, or Aliens from X-Files).

That's one of the main reasons I want a Space Sourcebook. Not only would it fill in holes, but where there are inconsistencies, it would be able to emphasis the version that fits best.

I.E. if some sources imply X, and others imply Y, the sourcebook would be able to clarify that one source was correct, and the other mistaken.

In Shadowrun—more so than in many games—this can be done more easily, since most information is from in-game sources, and they can be spun as wrong without past canon itself actually being wrong.

How feasible would it be to launch a few packages of nano-hives out to an asteroid or even onto the moon and have them start building your base for you. You could remotely program the hives to perform the construction. This would save you a pile of mass that would otherwise need to be freighted out of the gravity well. Even if it takes them a few years it would be a big cost saver. Heck add in a small construction drone and a nexus to run it all and you can pre-fab a whole base before the crew even gets ready to ship out.

I know that the moon has very little in the way of reasources to start with, but it does theoretically have signifigant heavy hydrogen isotopes that are useful for fusion power.

-- As of 2069 this entered the operational stage with Saeder-Krupp, but it appears there were some issues. Ares unveiled a new series of radiation-hardened space construction nanotech in late 2072.
-- So not only feasible, but being actively exploited. That said, most of the space projects are small-scale. Constructing the primary base areas with nanotech is fine, but you'll still need to import most of the fittings and support equipment and maintenance costs are the real killer.

-- There's no reason to not assume that nanotech is used very widely in space construction: less chance of Matrix shenanigans, it's crazy cheap, and having metahumans work in vacuum is very dangerous and inefficient.

-- Shadowrun fusion reactors do not, at present, use helium-3. That may be because there was no ready source before.

hi hi

I remember reading somewhere that fusion reactors in SR used the basic Deuterium + Tritium reaction. This is probably the easiest fusion reaction for people to achieve, however there are some drawbacks.

• The reaction releases a free neutron which will irradiate things. (usually the surrounding reactor)
• Tritium is radioactive with a half life of 12.3 years, so it won't be found naturally.

You can surround the reactor with Lithium which will catch some of the neutrons and perform a (6Li + neutron = 4He + Tritium) reaction. Still, this only lessens the radioactivity problem, which no doubt will anger spirits immensely.

Oh gods. The pain. But if we accept this as Handwavium powered, that actually gives us an excellent way for Shadowrunners to engage in runs to deep locations.

Possible Handwavium sources:
--I don't have my Ender's Game book in town, but Orson Scott Card used a trope of some sort of signal-eating paint.
--There are a number of excellent devices like the Camera Neutralizer (Arsenal p59), or a combination of the Ringworm and Shutterworm Worm programs (Unwired p123), that together with access to the Matrix infrastructure (ie, having access to GOD), you can just keep any information on it burned. With so much easy reference on the Matrix, anything that only exists in someone's head pretty much doesn't exist.



True, the Matrix shenanigans need to happen before launch.



I'm not sure how bad the maintenance would be. You could use Nanite Maintenance pastes to fix it up, give that it starts out in such a pristine condition (computational difficulty is greatly reduced if you only need to deal with geometrical equations and don't have to work with statistics to handle more complicated spherical topography).



Whatever happened to the SK building in Seattle? Given that it would have an organic feeling to it from the construction (speaking of which, check out this article on insect-inspired architecture [link]), wouldn't that hit people's bugout buttons? Heh. Didja see what I did there?





Really? Well now we know that SK has very likely been mining the moon for it. Here is the Wikipedia article on Helium-3, tagged to the part on lunar collection of Helium-3 [link].

-- Yup. Rigger 3.

-- Doesn't appear so. If I was forced to rationalize it, I would say that its the fission process itself that is unnatural -- but fusion is natural (the sun is natural).

hi hi

Shadowrun has thermal dampeners that don't require a heat sink, so really there's nothing stopping them from doing this on a space ship except for that pesky thermodynamics problem.

Ehm, probably not. The masking reduced the albedo (visual reflectiveness) of the object in question. It didn't eat signals.

-- Has not been built as of 2072 (see Seattle 2072, p. 164).


-- Could be.

We know they have been mining the moon for Calcium and other minerals.


Why? If Nanites can build normal-shaped spacecraft and other stuff, normal shaped clothes and whatnot, why does a nanite-built building have to employ HR Giger style?


Actually, that is among the very few things I'd gladly retcon out.

You are fully correct, I'm just referring to the fluff, which I think might be referring to that article on the termite-mound inspired building in Zambia. It's environmental control costs (heating/cooling), which are about 75% of most building's energy expenditures, were reduced by 20%. If you take that idea and leap with it you get some monetary advantages to Geiger-rises, at the expense of PR. More fodder for Bug Busters™!

-- Added Almanac references where it had the word "orbit" and was relevant. Next update will probably revamp the tech stuff.

Yes, that was it, thanks.

L3: Monsters
-- Nerva
(Wastelands, pp. 82) [2062]

• Everyone on station died during the Crash.
• Lifeless husk.
• Possible home of genetic monstrosities (huh?)
• Timeline:
  • 2029: (February Crash Virus disables station.)

This would be a great place for a bunch of rich Transhumanists to throw a glamor party. Independent media, Freak-of-the-Day, People with Names-that-scare-people, leading biotechnologists in the field of body modification, etc, etc.

Then the genetic monstrosities start to pick the guests off, one by one. Can the runners figure out what is happening? Can they stop it? They only have one chance...TO SURVIVE.
--Terrible Summer Blockbuster, starring: People You Know. Look for it: A Numerologicaly significant date.

I don't think all SR rich people are Johnny Spinrad, and getting to a space station that far away is not exactly a day trip. Still, nice scenario. Just, I dunno, a bit ... exotic? to be used more than once forany group of gamers. Not to mention the vast majority of runners would absolutly stand out amongst such a crowd ....

Exotic enough for someone who's father owns the Shibanokkuji Freefall Resort (well, not owns. Board of directors and all). Who knows, it might even be dangerous and thrilling.

I read an article about some rich guy in real life bitching that dolphins keep interrupting his getting some on his private submarine [link]. When you think about the money these people have, think bigger. Multiple storied indoor ski resorts in Dubai [link], artificial islands [link], etc, etc. Think of what you can do when a million dollars means nothing to you, and you would have to make a long series of billion dollar mistakes before it started to change anything about your life. There are whole industries that exist merely to identify and serve your needs; you, a single person. You didn't create those industries, they popped up because every once in awhile, you like something they do and drop a few million on it like a restaurant tip.

People with Old Money are not the same as other people. The only people that exist in their world are people with the same level of funds. You're off-handed decisions political plays can wreck small countries as a side-effect, and you would probably never know about it. Your Money, by the very fact that it is your Money, makes it worth more. Look at what happens when Warren Buffet moves a pile of money into a company: everyone else wants a piece of it, because Warren thought it was good.

Money is some twisted elixir that frames culture. It is a Reputation system with memory. It's so damn big that you generally don't see it, sometimes can't see it (US culture tries very hard to ignore class divides, for instance). The accumulated wealth of the world is the full history of the value-adding production of the whole human race that is continually reinvested to build more and better things. Think BIG.

What? Yuri has a son? But even if he has, that son really cannot be Johnny Spinrad. Spinrad is about twice as old as Yuri.


Those are state owned and commercial projects, not some eccentricities of the Ultrarich. They're both more nouveau riche places anyway. Real money is morelikely to be found in certain places on the Eastern Seaboard, around LA, or in the Mediterranean.


Erhm ... none of the very rich people act like this,a ctually. Gates and Buffet love to throw money around, but they're more aid/welfare-oriented. Sure, there is the whole luxury industry, but you cannot compare Beluga and Yachts to your own space ship to ferry you and your buddies to some derelict space station. That is vastly beyond a few million a trip anyway.


Warren Buffet actually is rather entrenched in politics. He likes the gambles.


That's because you guys all started out from the underclass. Takes more than a couple centuries for a true class system to grow.

And all that may be well and good, but it doesn't really explain how these people get to a station on the dark side of the moon. I mean, it certanly could be done as some Spinrad publicity stunt, because Johnny is crazy like that, but it's nothing that would occur regularily. It might be more like a mix of a party and a military operation to secure the place for Johnny to have his own Shibanokuji, with blackjack and hookers, sicne they banned him from ever setting foot on Shibanoikuji for mauling an SK representative when his crazies set in or something. There certainly is a run in there. Just wanted to point out that space in SR is not a weekend trip kind of setting. Not even for the very rich.

I don't know who has kids in the SR setting, I was going for a general category.

I am basing my view of the rich off of things like this [link] scaled up to SR levels. For people who don't want to follow the link, here is an excerpt:

QUOTE

If there is one common trait among most of Russia’s 110 billionaires and their poorer multimillionaires, it must be icy determination. Unlike their children who inherited their wealth, these are people who built their fortunes during the ruthless and deadly dangerous times of Russia’s early “biziness”, when rivals were taken care of by contract killers and only the smartest, most cunning and best connected came out on top.

You cannot generalise Russia any more than you can generlise America as a model for all people of all cultures. Most SR ultrarich are either American, European or Asian (Japanese). While there certainly will be many ultrarich kids, not all of them will be classic spoiled brats. If they were, the ultra-rich class would be done for within a generation for the lack of riches.

Russia's ultra-rich have an amazing turnover rate, too. Few die rich, fewer naturally. A good deal end up moneyless in a gulag somewhere eventually.

Isn't that what SR is supposed to be like?

Actually no, SR is more about a neofeudal society, which needs more stability than Russia.

No ultra-rich class if no family in that class ever makes it to a few generations of continued riches.

How much money do you think the top 1% in shadowrun have? Poll question, I think.

Define money. If you mean 'control of abysolute wealth, real and speculative", I'd go with 50+ percent.

-- I've updated with the few space-related War! references (mainly just the Aesir system).

The horror, the horror.

I've read through this thread (which I am glad it has made it back to the main page) and see allot of good points.

I have run space in the past in my SR games. A couple of times it was just there as flavor and backdrop, a few times there was a story arc that involved about 6 months of play there. Neither was a stretch for me or my players.

We tended (back then anyway) to pull allot of our initial inspiration for the setting from Bladerunner and the like (which did have space as part of the background story for the Replicants).

I am surprised though, that no one mentioned using information from Near Space/Deep Space from Cyberpunk. I referenced both of those supplements allot during the times that I ran space runs, and they fit rather well. Either step back the level in Deep Space, or advance the level a little in SR canon. Either way, not a big stretch and doesn't turn it into a "fat lady singing sporting chrome" (i.e. Space Opera/Cyberpunk)

Just an added thought. Just surprised me. If it WAS referenced/mentioned...my goof, missed it.

Do you have access to the SR2 Corporate Download and Missions? The former provides the first info on ZO, while the latter is the definitive reference for Project Cydonia.

Of course, The Sixth World Wiki would be a better place to manage all this information.

-- The information in Corporate Download is not very interesting, but it should be added. Basically it says "shadowrunners not allowed here do to ridiculous security" and "there are killsats all over the place around it." See Corporate Download, pp. 18-20.

-- I don't have Missions available (I have the book but its in storage). Cydonia has pretty much fallen off the grid in later books, I think a lot of people want to ignore the "dragon bones on Mars" stuff.

-- I'm not adept at converting information into Wiki format I'm afraid. If someone wants to do so that's cool though

-- CP2020's Deep Space is very cool (although the book has a big, largely useless adventure tacked on to inflate wordcount and meaningless space combat rules). I would MUCH more highly recommend GURPS Transhuman Space and GURPS Spaceships as a starting point. I'm heavily biased though