The game I am running is currently in the year 2085 do to the characters going "underhill" and accepting food, drink and gifts from the Fae. Among other things this resulted in the players looseing ten years in the mortal realm. In the players defence the situation was very similier to dealing with a great dragon. Once it has you in a position to offer you a job you really can't say no.

Anyway I am looking for ideas on possible advances that may have occured in technology and magic while they were away. I am also looking for ideas on what could have happened in the world while they were gone. The characters already know that their SINS, contacts, residences and pretty much anything they left behind before going to play with the Fae is gone or in serious need of upgrade. The theme I am running with is that the Sixth World has gotten darker with many more "beings" leaning against the screen door of reality.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Any devices they have that have ratings, should be down to rating 1 or 2.
All programs should basically be almost worthless.

The Hacker's 6/6 super commlink with every program at 8? it's now 1/6 with every program at 2.

I would make bioware and especially gene therapy much more common.
Lionization is also much more common.

The Horrors have begun to break through? Like, maybe they missed Sachiel's run through Neo-Tokyo or something?

Taking from analogous changes in our own lifetime, how about this:

In the early 2080’s, and mostly in Pacific Asian nations, major political turmoil caused by socio-economic upheaval induced by mysterious/unexplained magical phenomena forced many to escape the wars and chaos as refugees, which sequentially spread the socio-economic upheavals to neighboring nations throughout Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands. Those that had money and influence escaped to Europe and North America. Seattle, being on the Pacific coast and an independent city-state, has been inundated with recent immigrants from Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc…
In addition to the expected societal changes that occur anytime there is a sudden influx of “foreigners” (good and bad), the so-called mysterious/unexplained magical phenomena has also begun to spread to Seattle, although much milder than in Asia. Its symptoms would be your “darker Sixth World”.

Not being up on such things does any one know of any significant events (comets and such things) that would be occuring between the cannon date and 2085?

One of the major things that's going to pop up is the mass acquisition of nuyen that S-K has been going through. They're stockpiling a ton of cash, and only Lofwyr knows why.

True, I forgot about that. I am figuring on at least a couple more Great's showing up late to the party and a significant outbreak of insect spirits in Australia.

I'm concerned about an insect spirit outbreak in Detroit, as street rumor has Ares staring a bit too deep into the abyss.

Horizon will have fought some skirmishes with Aztechnology and S-K, and we'll know a bit more about what's really behind it?

Wuxing's ley line project will either start doing big things, or they scare other megas so much that they get blown up?

The renegotiation of the Treaty of Denver, mentioned somewhere. Aztlannology wants a Denver sector again. CAS wants the other part of Texas back.

Ute and LA shares in PCC will mature to full voter status, leading to big social changes.

CalFree may actually get on its feet. Or not.

Tir Tairngire recovered or changed into something new.

Obsidimen and T'skrang goblinized in?

Ares and Evo fight a war for control of Mars.

The Space Elevator opens up the solar system for large scale mining, leading to big changes in mineral/metal prices. Space is the new frontier, instead of say, Feral Cities.

Nanomanufactoring makes a lot of conventional industrial systems obsolete, Diamond Age style.

More in general, further moving away from Snow Crash to Diamond Age style setting.

Space Elevator finished 2076
First AAA Space Hotel opened 2077

with a Dance in Orbit
Medicineman

The mana level should have gone up. Magical research should have gone a little further. Maybe include social awareness of a couple of meta-planes. There might even be a "space race" on for some particular meta-plane, which multiple governments & corps are trying to win.

I'd imagine cyberware would be near obsolete by this point. With increases in bioware tech, it will be cheap enough to not make cyberware worthwhile for the huge essence increase. Instead it will have been replaced by nanoware, which would be to bioware what bioware currently is to cyberware. More essence friendly but expensive. You would also have geneware cropping up much more.

As others have said, any electronic gear they have is going to be near worthless. Programs are going to be R1 or not work at all, same with commlinks and such.

As for big world shaking events like crash 2.0 and YotC and such, I've no idea, I don't follow lore closely enough. I suppose Horizon will have revealed its cards, or at least some of them by that point, but that's the only thing that comes to mind to me.

More people would be fully-immersed in the matrix with much higher quality virtual realities… many would leave their flesh altogether and exist purely as highly-ordered electrical energy.
And there would be many more AI’s in the system as well… perhaps a virtual nation entirely within the Matrix that is demanding recognition for its sovereignty by other states and corps?

Why would a nation within the matrix sue for sovereignty? I mean it already isn't controlled by any state or corp or anything, and it isn't like it can really be invaded or conquered or anything like that.

I don't know about the full immersion. VR is already highly realistic, and it isn't creating that many fully-immersed people. You have to remember that you have a bit of a paradoxical problem. If you're rich enough to be able to afford full immersion, you're life is likely good enough that you likely wouldn't want to escape into VR, and if your life sucks so much that you want to escape into VR, you likely can't afford full immersion.

You still need hardware to run the programs and store memory. Suing for sovereignty ensures that those physical sites are protected, at least by international law.
Also, the virtual space inside the Matrix is infiltrated and manipulated all the time. Having total jurisdiction over a region inside the Matrix allows the “local authority” to enforce their own rules, granted to them via international law.

I totally agree with your point here.
More people would be in total virtual reality simply because it’s become cheaper!

Virtual Reality in SR is free. It is the care for your physical body that is expensive.

Don't forget that all of their lifestyles have expired, many of their contacts dried up, and possibly even had their (fake?) SINs marked "deceased" along with their bank accounts frozen.

Would be quite an adventure trying to prove that you are who you are! Not to mention making new contacts or small jobs just for enough cash to have a place to crash.

And don't forget the little things:

Favorite bar closed down. Soycaff doesn't taste like it used to. The wines they liked are now 10 years older (and 10 years more expensive).

Have their gun's recoil compensation reduced by a point (to simulate that now the new fangled tech is just a little bit better, rather than tacking on a point of RC to every weapon).

Drop spell drain by a point across the board (the rise in mana level isn't going to be super significant). Or perhaps to just the bigger spells (stun bolt doesn't really need to be even more awesome).

More AIs floating around.

Maybe even a possessed elevator (or perhaps just a lack of stairs).

If You take Earthdawn as comparison it took several Decades,even Centuries for Magic to build up.
(Especially for the Horrors to Appear )
More Background Count, Yes. Higher Manalevel No

HeyaHeyaHeya
Medicineman

Well the question is how fast would magi-tech change magic on a grand scale? Be it advanced Auto CAD programs mapping out the best sigils and circles (wonder why that never came up) to splicing new plants that will make better talisma.

That's so 1997.

AI's working as high class butlers for important families using multiple drones to run and maintain a home think the Deus but without the evil.



I can see a AI working for a family out of somewhat loyalty as they pay for its physical requirements and all it has to do is look after them in some way.

Damm it I want my Mechanical Jeeves who speaks with Stephen Frys voice

Damm it I want my Mechanical Jeeves who speaks with Stephen Frys voice

Fuzzy Logic & Personality Prog
(No need for an AI going Rampage during ist Slave Uprising )

Hough !
Medicineman

True, but with the requirements to be just like the fictional Jeeves would be beyond a mear pilot program it would have to be a quite high level AI with exceptionalty high ettiquet and and logic more fuzzy then a tribble

I have quiet a soft spot for the old show and now finding the need to say 'What Ho' to people

The Shedim regroup and the previously "averted" zombie apocalypse comes to pass, SR -> Resident Evil.

The gloves come off, dragons v immortal elves, the whole game changes.

Or worse, dragons v dragons (kinda like what happened in Dragonlance after the Chaos War).

Aliens. Of whatever sought you want, but that would be cat amongst the pigeons.

Imply that some new product has been released becoming more ubiquitous than commlinks. -2/-3 to all Social Tests cos they've never heard of it, people looking at them funny. Maybe a new legal BAD? The Astral Plane could become as sociable as the Matrix (read: less exclusive).

Shouldn't there have been some disasters? I mean if they are trying to combine magic and technology, something is bound to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Something like the magical field of earth getting unstable, which leads to varrying positive and negative background counts that can change within an hour just like the weather and can peak or drop by insane margins? Something makes some mages become mad, some "normal" people able to utilise magic during peaks although they normall can't cast and all critters & ghosts go frenzy? Mana-weather!
Or a plague that kills people and lets them continue their existence on the metaplanes? Some as something like free ghosts, others as empty, yet dangerous husks that feed on magicians?

Cyberware will still have it's place : things like specialized sensors and anything that needs structural strength and raw power will still be done with cyberware. Nanotech will make it easier to fit (possibly build in situ) and possibly offer some self-repair ability.

But that tactical niche is likely to move from cybered grunts to drones and jarheads, where you don't have squishy bits of flesh to limit the hardware. Better pilots and cheaper anthromorph drones will hurt the cyberware niche far more than bioware and nanotech.

Agreed!
Cyberware will decrease in price like most other technologies, maybe not at the same rate, but it should remain as a viable option, none the less.

No. The 6th World is still in the beginning stage of a mana cycle and ten years more or less don't change that. The Horror won't appear for the next 1,000 years or so.