Hi,

reading Ghost Cartel last night I come by the passage where the Corporate Court vote for the action against Kong Orchid and the Tempo dealing. I noted that Horizon was the only corporation to vote AGAINST the action.

If you consider that the meta-plot behind the tempo diffusion is just shooting : HORRORS attempting to enter Earth (hell, even the free spirit described would make a very good horoï in the other game that shouldn't be named anymore) . So, in my mind, Horizon is developping a very similar plot on massive mind control and PR. So why did they choose not to interfere ? because they are on the same side.

Another thing I thought the very fist time I came back to SR and heard about Horizon : Horizon, Horoï, Horrors... it is just too big and too evident not to be true.

Isn't Horizon supposed to be google? Also the Dawkin's group seems a little polite to be jackbooted horror thugs to me. What's wrong with the Old Big A?

or they fully realised that aztechnology isn't about to just shut down a drug trade they could take over, and they opposed it on the basis of "hey, you know what would really suck? aztechnology getting even more untraceable money and dedicated smugglers to funnel more resources into being able to try and knife us in the back while looking perfectly innocent"

Horizon is a Media Outlet as well. Cranked to 11!

If they start shutting down drug cartels, then they can't get their NovaCoke and such for the Artists!

I thought the spirits behind Tempo were the Primordial Arboreals. Linked to the Primeira Vaga and with a dislike of all metahumans not following a deep green agenda. (Pg. 181 Running Wild) "More like Little Shop of Horrors."

The thing about Horizon that scares me is the "consensus", it just feels too much like a Deus AI offshoot to me.

Wait, there's a Mega that was considered a "good guy"?




-k

Everyone at horizon has to get smile white™ nanites and sparkle eye™ cyber implants.

Horizon is painting itself as the "People Friendly" Megacorporation. "We're not the Faceless Bureaucrats you're used to dealing with"-types.

Lack of racism, ability to actually move up the ranks on ability rather than politics, lack of doing dick things like dissecting people for research (Or to appease your thirsty gods), not selling weapons to all sides in a conflict (Or creating conflicts in order to sell the overstock), and so on.

I bet they still have a Desert Wars team, however.

And I bet they fund Blood Sport Arena games, and Urban Brawl, Combat Bike.

Really Horizon is run by AI's.. which is why there's a lack fo racism and the ability to move up the ranks on ability. To them we're all meat popsicles.

Are you sure they're not dissecting people though?
I would expect Horizon to dissect people, and deal in BTL specialty markets.

If Horizons is run by AI I bet they are Dissonance AI, the closest things to Shedim and Horoï.

Heck, I bet that the super-AI that dominate Horizon is Artificer in disguise, carefully planting traps in their programs and addictig runners to their emotitoys by luring them to the dark power of the force.

I bet the true Horizon slogan is "We put the Matrix in Matrix 2.0".

Ooh Artificer..
He's certainly well suited for that kind of stuff.

Not everything has to be horrors though.

Still, some of the horrors were well known for being subtle and long thinking, sometimes spending decades slowly worming their way into the hearts and minds to disable defenses, and to heighten the nourishment/enjoyment.

We have examples of Horrors caught in Caer's unable to leave because the magic levels outside were not high enough. Dragons hibernated during the low magic times. I don't find it unbelievable that some Horrors could have remained in caers trapped while the magic receded, and are now slowly waking up.

It's kaers, not Caers. Still, I don't think that Named Horrors are able to exist anywhere in the 6th World yet.

Why not?
Dragons Can.
And yeah, I haven't played in a decade or so.. and didn't have the books in front of me. Forgive me for spelling it phonetically

Dragons aren't extradimensional - Horrors are.

Toxic Spirits?
Bug Spirits?

There are meta-plane spirits already around.

Yes, I think that 99.9% of the horrors are probably unable to cross the distance to Earth's Manasphere.. yet.
But I could see some having been caught here because of blood magic rituals performed during the 4th World.

We saw that with the tzitzimine in the Dragon Heart trilogy that it required a bridge made through blood magic to get them over to the right metaplane. I'm figuring the Horrors are coming from planes beyond that of even insect spirits - Toxics are just regular spirits corrupted by the toxic background in areas. I don't really consider those that metaplanar.

Could be there's still a few kaers closed off. Heck, might even have one or two in the Deep Lacuna. I would've thought most of them snuck out in the Fourth World, and went back home during the Fifth.

{If it isn't clear from the text, the following is conjecture only}

The Arboreals in Ghost Cartels are merely one tendril in an intricate plan devised by Gaia herself to protect the Earth from the coming invasion. All of Gaia's children are beloved to her, and expendable in the greater scheme. This includes us. Gaia lives. Gaia remembers. Gaia plans.

This particular tendril has created and continues to create thousands upon thousands of vessels ready to receive Her powerful agents and become warriors in the cause. Look for other Primordial Spirits to be working for the same cause.

Possession is not the only way to control the dominant species on Earth. Their own constructs: culture, entertainment, Matrix technology, can be used to control and focus them. It doesn't matter how many of Gaia's children die. It matters that some survive the invasion to regenerate the Earth. If you want to see a human mythological construct that may represent what is to come, look no further than Ragnarok, of the Norse. Hidden within the folds of the Great Tree, a pair of humans survive to carry on after the great War destroys everything.

There are two separate adventures, and the intro story in the main Earthdawn book.

They show a horror that's trapped inside a Kaer. The Earthdawn book it's because the entire population of the Kaer did a blood ritual sacrificing /everyone/ to block the Horror from being able to leave. Now, perhaps when the 5th world kicked in and magic disappeared completely then that ritual would have died, and the horror either went home, or poofed into non-existence because the magic level was too low to support it. Or, it's still stuck in said Kaer.

The others story talk about Magic levels being higher and 'pooled' in an underground Kaer. The horror was stuck inside the Kaer because the magic level was high enough to support it in the Kaer, where as it would (not sure what happens to a Horror that is in a low magic area that can't support it) 'poof' for lack of a better word, if it went outside.

Dragon Lairs were protected with powerful magics protecting them from the horrors (mostly) and also allowing them to hibernate in even lower magic times. The Dragons of the 4th World (and before) reawakened in the 6th world. Somehow they were able to hibernate in a way that they were protected from the ebb of magic. (I admit, I completely ignore the stupid Immortal Elves who really should not have been moving around during the 5th age.)

And is that so bad? Technologically augmented mind-linking is within the realm of SR tech; you'd expect it to be explored a lot more openly. Deus pioneered one form, out of what it perceived as necessity for its survival. Now that its survival isn't threatened by methumans and its mind linked into a mass of methumans, it makes sense that it would do everything it can to aid in the long term survival or metahumanity. Which granted, might include some degree of pacification, but since education and propaganda are easier ways to do that than violence...
Chances are the link goes both ways, as well. What makes metahumans happy, might well make Deus v2.0 (or whatever is running Horizon) happy.

Horizon isn't really that different from any other corp despite their friendly image. I mean look at, I think it's p36 of the Seattle Sourcebook. A Horizon exec terminates his assistant in the middle of a tense standoff/hostage negotiation just because "your HIP score has been tanking lately." If that's not cold, I don't know what is.

I was thinking
What if Deep Resonance is a new Modernized Uphandal, and Deep Dissonance is Artificer?

As said before, the mana level is likely not high enough to support the existence of Named Horrors, despite your theory about Dragon lairs/ hibernation and pockets of high man level in some kaers (which is possible, but not the rule).

They're not dissecting peoples - Aztechnology has too much of an edge in that market segment to make competietion anywhere close to profitable. What they're dissecting is minds. Find how people think and how to influence it, that's were the real money is and where Horizon has pooled it's assets...

You know, we don't know that Horizon is run by an AI. We have hints, yes, but it could be a number of other things.

Hell, it could be the bugs again, trying a different technique after the Universal Brotherhood fell apart...

Has there been anything about Lofwyr working hard to fight against the Horrors? Because he was righteously pissed that Horizon got a seat on the Court (I don't remember where I read that but I know I did).

I think any dragon not corrupted is "working hard to fight against the Horrors"

Although some of the Dragons don't give a damn as when the time comes, they're going back to their fortress of solitude. So long as Verji doesn't come looking for them specifically they should be okay.

You know, that makes S-K seem even more interesting in a lot of different ways.

S-K is Lofwyr's way of amassing enough personal power to hold off the horrors while he gets settled in his new Dragons' Lair, complete with automated Drone defense systems?

Meanwhile, Ghostwalker makes Denver his personal fiefdom and starts training the collective countries of North America to fight together, Hestaby starts working with the Elves and the Free State resistance, Masaru's got the Huk, Ryumyo's got Japan, Lung has the Confederation...

...sounds like they're all setting up their defense systems.

It does doesn't it..

So I had an interesting idea/thought.

Lets say that you're a human rigger.
You're 'jumped into' a heavy military drone, that's a couple of hundred miles away.

You run across a horror whose power is mind control?
Does it work?
Are you immune?
Do you laugh maniacally and open up with your twin side mounted mini-guns?

I wonder if the Dragons are thinking they finally have a shot.

i would say no, you can't be controlled. so yeah, definitely something to consider. hang out in a kaer while you send out drones to battle. heck, even a cyborg should be immune to mind control, no LOS after all. and the horrors can't even feed on the drone, it's just a mindless, emotionless machine. plus, as an added benefit you don't even need an actual human... while the very best riggers will be humans, it is in fact much easier to make a pilot program that is very skilled.

for example, it's relatively easy to make a drone get a dicepool of 12 for attack and 10 for full defense. (and if you don't mind a bit of house ruling to allow 2 pilots to control different aspects of the drone, you could be doing both of those things most of the time, except when you're making sure you don't crash of course).

now, a human *can* get that dice pool fairly easily... sensor 6 + skill 2 + specialisation 2 + smartlink 2 for example (or response 6 + dodge 4 for defense, a bit more rare though) but it takes a lot longer to train the skill then to just copy a pilot program.

of course, as i said... the *best* pilots will be humans. potentially <drone atribute> 6, skill 6 (or 7), specialisation +2, control rig +2, hot sim +2, control rig booster +3, smartlink +2 = 23 dice on attack, if i'm not mistaken. plus i probably missed some stuff you can do. up to 4 IPs (5 if they ever remove the arbitrary incompatibility between control rig boosters and simsense boosters, or if they just don't use control rig boosters), and so forth. it could definitely get pretty ridiculous. but just nowhere near as cheap and easy as making a drone with a level of skill that is sufficient to get the job done in most cases.

(but actually, i don't use the twin miniguns... i would use fully-automatic HV gauss cannons if you're going to ignore all recoil, may as well make use of it )

Was it ever confirmed that Cali's massive subsidence due to a kaer collapse?

Lets hope the Horrors don't develop something that could act as Electronic Warfair.

No. They still don't know why the Lacuna appeared.

Especially given how "well" just letting the other races fend for themselves worked out last time, I have a certain amount of sympathy for Lofwyr's position of "I'll save you (and me) by any means necessary, even if it means putting you all in chains and forcing you to it".

Obviously, I like the Big D's plan better, but it's hard to make out Lofwyr as the Big Bad of the 6th world; selfish and amoral, sure, but given metahumanity's track record of fighting and being stupid even when the survival of the species is at stake, I kind of see his point^^

And yes, there are definitely some nasty surprises that we could spring on the Horrors next go-round^^ It would be interesting to see how it all played out^^

Well, your skin and souls are rasonably safe, but if said horror has abilities that can control/alter/destroy objects, it's likely the drone will be quickly destroyed or wrested from your control.

Dunkie was of the opinion that humans MIGHT have developed enough so that with guidance, in a couple hundred years, they could possibly take on the Horrors on even terms.

This reminds me, of course, of the uber "cannot be harmed by any weapon forged by man" demon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and his last question, "What is that?" before eating a rocket launcher to the face.

Horrors might be really powerful, but it's a safe guess to say they have never before been faced with Thor Shots, bunker-buster missiles, nanite weaponry, and whatever else the humans could think up by the year 2270.



-k

Horrors can sustain existence in 6th World by using blood-magic, that is a concern clearly shown in the Aztechnology Shadowtalk and that even the Big D and IE are fairly aware of.

We have canon assure that the level of mana was sufficent to have a half-horror be present on Earth for the Great Ghost Dance.

And the trilogy about Aina and Harlequin put them against a very named horror that did enter Gaiasphere and sacrifice himself to create/bolster the manaspike (very un-horrorly of him but he goes with humans far too much).

Of course, if we consider the bridge was now sealed the passage isn't there anymore... or is it ? 2064 Matrix Crash and the appeareance of the Dissonance make way to one of my personnal feeling.

The Matrix has developped into a Magical Pattern that is of several magnitude of potency being that it connect nearly every living people on Earth. It's not equal to Gaïa yet, but it is powerfull for thoses that know how to use it or at least how to try to magically activate it. It show another light on the interest of some Irish and the Big D on the Matrix.

In my opinion the Matrix 2.0 is now an activated magic device/pattern/loci of tremendous power, as a result people attuned to it can draw on his power : the Technomancer (putting back the -mancer , the same way there is Nether-mancer). As such it also become an Astral beacon and start drawing spirits (free and all) into it. Some of them ferals, some of their intelligent, some of them very Evil.

Parts of the AI are probably really living AI that work in the way falsemen and other artificially living construct exist in the ED setting.

An important side-effect of Horror Magic is that it can provide life and sentience to animated magic construct like the Falsemen in Parlainth. Isn't the brand new sentience achieved by the AI as sign that the Horrors have entered our world by the Matrix ?

Let's imagine DEUS to be an horror-possessed AI, it draw another darker shade on all the Renraku events, and all the DEUS and other AI actions.

There's a lot of stuff to go through from what your put forward. Much of it I would have to check source by source. Clearly Big D was certain the Horrors were returning. I'm unsure on the mana spike point, its been a long time.

On the matrix 2.0, its important to distinguish that TM is NOT magic. Resonance is not another fancy word for a magic score, it represents a different kind of change with the genetic code. Now on the question of deep resonance/resonance in general being some kind of Magical overlay / a method by which the horror could return. I don't think so, but the horrors are masters of adaptation and corruption, I'm certain that if they were aware and understood what it was the Horrors would try and infiltrate the Matrix. In general however technology usually isn't something they are too up on. I don't see the matrix as a magical construct. The deep resonance may well be some kind of alternative plan. But so far we have not seen anything magical jump that gap that I am aware of. No one has seen "Deep Resonance Gateway" the sprite power, Or Great Form Sprites show up yet. Just my 2 cents. I agree that there are plenty of threats in and of the matrix. Evil TM could do a lot of ruthless things, as could evil AI and spirites and so on.

To continue the discussion about Dragons, the coming Scourge and how Dragons would fight it, please use the thread titled "Can we beatt the Horrors?". Thank you very much.

Where is said post

The thread can be found here
. This thread has been started to discuss the role of Horizon and not Dragons, the Scourge and stuff like that, interesting as it may be.

Or did I get something wrong?

that post is 7 years old
That's pretty major necromancy

The last post was made May 27th, 2010. That's ok. But feel free to start a new thread for it - people will remind of that thread eventually anyways.
And seriously, most aspects of how mankind's chances are to face the next Scourge have been discussed in that thread with its 1200+ postings.

The most recent post is only about 5 months old, so it's more like jabbing a slacking zombie back into action than actual necromancy.

Sounds like it needs to get stickied!

*runs....fast*

I have to imagine a large part of why people kept posting there was because of how the thread title was spelled.






-k

So, how about them Horizon Action Heroes?

They're kinda obnoxious Can Ray..

But my kids will NOT shut up about them.
I had to buy them the VR Icons, the personality autosoft for their alarm clock.
They've got the VR action figures, the Emotitoys,

I swear to you I'm up to my neck in debt. I had to take a second advance on my salary.
Freaking Horizon. My kids download their shows, and I swear they start acting like zombies.

Yeah, but they have a great defensive line in the Desert Wars!