Hi All;

I haven't read a lot of the SR fiction, but I did pick up that Netcat is/was pregnant. Who is the father?

Is Netcat knocked up? (and if so who did it?)

Yes... She was pregnant. They talk about TM morning sickness in Corp Guide. Smart money has been on Slamm-0 but did anyone else notice someone telling Haze that he needs to go change diapers in attitude?

Slamm-0! and Netcat, raising a 3rd Generation Shadowrunner. FastJack is so proud, I heard he sent the kid as many things to beat on that make noise as possible.

Nope, that was a comment to Slamm-0!

It was Slamm-0!, but maybe Haze could Babysit.

...

You know, I just realized how scary a child that's going to be, with all those role models growing up. "Alright kid, Uncle Kane is going to teach you how to use an AK-97!"

Maybe with a mention that Netcat is alright, because she used to look nice in a teddy, before the baby.

Oh yeah that baby is going to be HitGirl+John Connor all rolled into one, with my matrix ability than you can shake a stick at. I imagine that by 13 she'll be a 400bp runner

It's contact list will certainly be interesting... In a Fastjack is my Godfather sort of way.

Which is a very cool concept, in my opinion... Especially when Uncle Kane comes over.

I seriously feel sorry for any poor soul that decides to try and get at Netcat or Slamm-0! through their kid.

Fully and honestly. The Drekstorm that will be brought down upon them will be EPIC!

Which, of course, means I want to see it written!

Heheh... Definitely...

A few scenes are already creeping into my head. This kind of story would be best done as a trilogy to get all the characters a time to shine...

But one thing that got my heart racing is a shaped charge entrance with a group of Pirates streaming into a bunker, the leader screaming at the top of his lungs, "UNCLE KANE IS COMIN' FOR YOU!!!"

Isn't Uncle Kane a CyberZombie? Or is that someone else? Was that HatchetMan that got turned into a Cyberzombie?

That's Hatchetman, who is dead even as a Cyberzombie. Kane is the ultraviolent sociopath pirate with a blimp.

His own team had to kill him right? (Hatchetman)

Sometimes.. I pick up my SR1 and 2 Books just to read the shadowtalk

Smart money says that if you want to get at Netcat and Slamm-0 through their kid, you do it in the flesh, using magic and street sams. I don't know about Slamm-0 - I assume he can shoot a gun and such - but I'm pretty sure Netcat would get rolled by even a bare minimum of physical force, assuming they took adequate net-based precautions. And also make sure that you can't be tracked, because they'll probably be able to find you if you leave even a shred of matrix data.

I pick up as many Shadowrun books for the Shadowtalk.

I consider novels to be "Just Shadowtalk".

Which is why I'm hoping someone steals my idea and runs with it. Or a bunch of someones. A Trilogy of Anthologies, now that is an interesting idea... Probably a recipe for disaster, but...

That might get you the kid. Not getting tracked down after the fact though would be quite a feat. The rolodex o' contacts that some of the other Jackpointers must have would be insane. Hell even if you skip the country, Black Mamba and Picador both have an almost global reach.

And for some reason I picture Jackpoints collective reaction being something along the line of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FFQ_g8OoQM With Uncle Kane playing John.

Or any blood or hair, Adarael, think about it, as long as Slamm-O! has been around and as popular as Netcat is with specific segments of Jackpoint do you doubt they could find significant magical backup to find their kid? Shadowrunners may admit to being disposable assets but you go after their family and I can't help but imagine anyone they are on even neutral terms with not pitching in and those two have scary enough friends.

Not to mention, if I'm Slamm-O! and Netcat. I have agents, sprites dedicated to watch over her. We have a tissue sample, that's re-freshed every so often somewhere safe, so that one of my many Mage friends can trace.

I do a favor for a mage/shaman to have a watcher spirit keep an eye on the kid 24/7, and a protection spirit with longterm service guard power.

Even that route is fraught with peril for the would-be perps; they may be hackers and hang with hackers, but they've got an assload of friends of the street sam and magical ilk. It actually makes the "Uncle Kane is coming for you!" bit above more likely, and I don't think anybody's stupid enough to want to be on the wrong end of that...because he's got friends, too, hard as that might be for some people to believe.

I have to agree with CanRay: Woe be tp the one who tries it.

Well, the same could be said of any big-league shadowrunner, but it doesn't seem to have stopped the corps from trying in the past.

This is especially true if I'm Mike the Manager, and I don't trust Steve the Sub-Manager not to backstab me for a promotion. "Congratulations, Steve! You've been given a VERY important task! You have to catch and kill these dastardly shadowrunners that stole out NERPS prototypes last year! If you succeed, I'll make sure Mr. Huang looks very kindly on your request to start a new division!"

If Steve succeeds, Mike and Steve both look good. if Steve doesn't, he's embarassed or dead, and no longer a threat. Mike wins either way.



Eh, who the hell cares about the mooks you send to do it? So what if they get a blood link? If their biomonitors indicate their brain patters are going wacky due to mind probe or whatever, detonate their cranial bomb or carcerands, and be done with it. Better safe than sorry, after all.

Regardless, this ignores the real sticking point: How the hell do you FIND their kid in the first place?

If Steve is real Division Head material, he is going to discover proof that the act was actually done by "BizMark-E and the FunkyBunch" Shadowrun team, and not by NetCat and Slamm-O!. He'll use some teams to setup some false trails, and then he'll 'capture' and 'interrogate' a shadowrun team that's been specifically selected as the patsy. Hell, they might not even be real shadowrunners. They just might be regular people who have undergone such extensive BTL and Personafix modifications that they think they're "BizMark-E and the FunkyBunch!"®

If he's not real Division Head material, then yes he goes after the kid and dies a horrible painful death.

Well, this thought experiment *is* predicated on Steve going after Netcat and Slamm-0 rather than just figuring out a way to write off the loss and/or bait a trap where they explode horribly in a bomb-laden building.

Smart money uses street sams and magic to go after the kid. Smarter money figures out a way to pocket most of the budget allocated to the operation, and not risk your own neck. But smarter money would never get anywhere near kidnapping the child of serial murderers and spies, because that shit will follow you home from the office, cuz you done made it personal.

Is no one else worried about the kid being the second coming of Deus? Go read Netcat's Morning sickness in the Corp Guide again. There's quite a few things that scare the crap out of me in there.

-k

My favorite parts are PAINLOSSRIPBRAIN and NOSAVEMYBABY.

Whatever is coming, it ought to be better than WAR!

Not to be tracked so not so hard, if you have resources at hand and not a lot people to report to.

The point is: There is not only one Airplane at the Airport. So which one is it?
There are not cameras everywhere, so which one did they take?
And even if some pilot tells you about a some strange guys, are those the strange guys you are looking for.



This and how to get it are the real questions.
Because beeing on the run, if the guy who is after you does not know shit about you is quite easy, because there are a lot of people out there.


I guess this is something you are unable to to shit about. Unless you hide yourself in a manastorm or something or go orbital.


Bad idea, if you are dealing with hackers. They won'tcapture and interrogate, they will hack their biomonitor and intercept the signal to the cranial bomb.
(And I think there is some technomancer mojo which lets you finde the computer sending the order to detonate)

Isn't there Techno mojo that allows them to Brainhack?

I agree it would be an interesting set of adventures. The only bad thing about it is, that if it happened, they likely would reach out to the established Runners they've been chummin' around with for years. Not "Your team"

It might make a better novel because of that.

Some how I see the ending with a 70 year old man drawing an Ares Predator and blowing away the last kidnapper. Picking up the screaming baby and as the kidnapper looks up and is like "Who are you?" The old man being like "Some deckers remember the DECKS.... and some of us can shoot a gun" And blowing the guy away, and the infant's like " Grandpoppa Fastjack!!"

I dunno, if your team did well in "Dawn of the Artifacts" Frosty might bring them in somehow. Off topic, but are they going to finish that series, I heard somewhere that they were dropping it.

Not really, no... unless you consider Resonance Trodes as Brainhacking, which I do not...

What if 'Hackbaby' was kidnapped and forced into a metaplane for safekeeping while the body was possessed by a spirit? Also, what if 'Hackbaby' was kept in orbit or some other extraterrestrial location? Is there anywhere safe from Jackpoint?

Many places are safe from Jackpoint and high-level runners. It just costs a lot of time and money to be safe. After all, the reason Shadowrunners live in the shadows is because they can't take on megacorps and their resources and win.

It's just a question of "is anyone willing to spend enough time and money getting back at Netcat?" Chances are, no, not really. It's easier to force them underground or ensure they don't hit your corporation again by taking other tactics.

Cannot take a living person into the metaplanes, so prretty much out for that.
Orbit is possible, but do you really think the combined resources of Netcat/Slamm-o and Friends could not reach you there?
Jackpoint has a long reach as far as ability and influence goes...

Adarael has it right, though. It is definitely Easier and more cost effective to just force them into hiding...

I meant taking baby's spirit to the metaplanes, that's why the body's possessed.

Also, if not orbit, what about Luna or Mars?

does not work that way, as soon as the spirit enters the Astral, Baby is no longer possessed...



Not all that cost effective for the pain you will receive. Easier to just force them underground.

Working more on the idea (What can I say, I like it), I see the intro being Slamm-0! coming home to find his parents heavily injured and his Hackbaby gone. (Love that name, BTW.). Unable to call the cops (Because, well, he's a Shadowrunner!), he has DocWagon get his parents stabilized, tries to contact Netcat (Who is busy on a 'Run), and then dials up the JackPoint, and every other Black BBS he has pull with.

I doubt even Clockwork would have an issue helping out with a baby involved. Even Netcats.

Still working on a reason behind it. I'm thinking revenge either against him or his parents, a rash of child kidnapping for terrorist demands, and other such events...

As for places safe from JackPoint? I'm sorry, but getting into High and Ultra-High Security places for a Snatch-and-Grab are what these people do for a living! It's not like they have to live there, just get one Hackbaby and leave.

Of course, what they find when they get there...

BTW: FastJack as the 70-Year Old Badass Grandpa, totally epic! We haven't seen him do anything in the flesh since 1st Edition Rulebook, I think...

With all the theories flying around about Deus' real motivations any timea thread turns that way it is more effective to grab a towel and do like the book says, "Don't Panic". Looked at one way Deus is a digital jeebus and another he is E-Hitler. Who knows, maybe he'll end up Harry Keogh to the AI world. Somehow I doubt things will end up purely one, or any, of those options though, Deus was a far more canny player of the game than anyone knows. As to wether a shadowrun team could do anything about a megacorp or other interested party abducting a member's kid.... depends on the team and what level of commitment they have but... generally I think of it as something the community at large would want a hand in dealing with. Things become drastically differant when you've gone from professional to personal and taking family, the last refuge some runners have, from them just seems suicidal to me.

"Who are you?"

"Jacob McCandles."

"I thought you was dead!"

"Not hardly."

One of my favorite exchanges ever from the Duke's Big Jake...about, not coincidentally, a shadowrun of sorts to retrieve a kidnapped child.

Damnit, no linking TVTropes without the warning! I just wasted 20 minutes of my life!

Where do you think I got the start of the idea? (That, and "Sons of Anarchy".).

Then I just realized, "Add in social networking, the number of characters on the JackPoint, Dumpshock Data Haven, Denver Data Haven, ShadowSEA, Warezhouse, and whereever else Slamm-0! and Netcat have friends... Oh drek, those poor, poor bastards... They really better hope Hackbaby isn't hurt in any way shape or form..."

The rest of their heavily extended lifetime jacked into a Virtual Reality created of the most horrific things everyone can describe to FastJack... Vault 112 from Fallout 3 would be a dream compared to what they come up with!

@CanRay

Well, depends on. Paranoia is a strong advisor.


Just look at real live. If somebody just graped the baby to make Netcat and Slamm-o suffer, they stand no chance at all, if they did not leave any traces while abducting. And even if they did, the guys grapping the baby might not even know who they got. (Or their memory could even be manipulted to prevent them form even knowing what they did. If asked, they were fishing. And yes, there were two guys fishing looking just like them and using their accounts.)
So mistakes would have been made when grapping the baby or later on. And this is the hard part. Thinking of mistakes to sounding made up because in the end all mistakes in crimes sound made up, even the ones in real life. (We just tend to do stupid mistakes. Forget to burn a note. Leave stuff at the scene etc.)
The other possibility is to get the kidnapper if they announce their demands.
Magic is a possibility, if they did not made it into orbit. The point is: There is so much stuff floating around it is not easy to know where. (Well, underground would also be a good idea. An other possibility would be underwater. Do not know how fast a spirit is able to travel under the see. )

As a matter of fact the search power does not carry that far, if you hide the baby behind a barrier and have concealment active. (Well, and lets assume you are at least 10 kilometers away, when you order the spirit to search)

So how to find this one place in the middle of nowhere? (I don't thin they would stick around)
Since there are so many places in the middle of nowhere, where nobody asks question if some "shipment" arrives and is brought down to sector "green", where close to nobody may enter. Well, because it just happens.

Yeah, hiding out in an old hunting cabin in Northern Ontario is about as hard to find as possible. Especially if it's on some land that no one knows who owns. (There's a lot of places like that back home, due to old soldiers dying without kids.).

So, they grab Hackbaby for whatever reason, and go "Over the wall and out of the sprawl", and are hiding out in the middle of nowhere in SSC lands. Possibly in some area that the Great Ghost Dance has caused a mana warp so that astral tracking can't be done there.

The folks doing this are smart, they're doing it for a reason, they want not Slamm-0! and Netcat, but JackPoint doing something... That actually makes better sense to kidnap the kid. Something hard, dirty, and dangerous beyond even normal Shadowruns. Say they even pull off the blackmail. Fine, just another day in the Shadows, Omae. Job's done, "Oh, you'll get your kid back after one more thing...".

Well, Shadowrunners know how Blackmail like that works out in the end.

Someone has to contact them. The start in a chain... A long, bloody chain as a bunch of Shadowrunners go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Everyone calling in owed debts, calling in contacts, bribing anyone and anything... AIs, Free Spirits, maybe even some Dragons... Hell, even pull The Laughing Man off his MMORPG Character for a bit...

This actually makes for an even better story.

This, someone needs to take this and actually write it. It will be awesome!

OK. Now, as we're talking about In-Use Cannon characters, I think this would have to be done by CGL, rather than a Fan-Made item. (Yes yes, boo-hiss, I know.).

We have a good, basic outline for an idea here. Let's work on it a bit more, and then see if we can send it off as a Proposal when the Novel line (Which will hopefully start later this year) to CGL and do it proper.

Right now, we're in the Fan-Wanking stage, so we should be safe (Hopefully, unlike the Shadowrun MMO that got C&D'd by M$. Also, CGL isn't M$.).

How do you folks feel about that?

Go for it...

Edited: All right folks, how about we move this to the Community Projects section then?

Honestly, I think Clockwork might be the mole that sold out the baby. After all, being born to the best decker of his generation and one of THOSE people, you know that baby is going to be one of THEM. And seeing as he already tried to sell out Netcat for being a technomancer, I'm betting that the baby is #2 on his hitlist after the mother.

Fastjack probably wouldn't interfere either unless someone broke the rules of the board. At least not directly. He has to remain neutral for Jackpoint to mean anything. But he can be subtle in his anger, as with all wizards (technological or otherwise). The other Jackpointers may or may not join in specifically, but a LOT of runners would be on Netcat and Slamm-0's side. As would a few megacorps.

The balance between shadowrunners and corps is a delicate one. Corps see shadowrunners as tools. In order to keep being able to use those tools, they have to make sure those tools are willing to be used. If some corp starts targeting a shadowrunner's children or family, then no runner is going to want to take the risk of running against any corp. This cuts off a valuable resource from corporations, which means they're REALLY not going to be happy. Theoretically, they may go nuclear against anyone who tries something like this against such high-profile runners. It would be a literal shadow war. Runners who don't care and the corps who went after the baby vs. the more "moral" runners (or at least those who stick to the same sort of code the Mafia used...don't screw with someone's family) and the corps who feel their favorite playthings may take their toys and go home.

He'd be suspect number one, but it would be too easy to have it be him from a storytelling point of view. Of course, with twists and turns and such, that might make it a better choice as well. Plans within plans within plans.

But, yeah, what you're talking about here is a Shadowwar certainly. We're talking Prime Runners calling in every favor owed and every contact that will be slotted off that some coward is hiding behind a baby rather than some legit piece of business. (I mean, Slamm-0!s and Netcat's parents and siblings, if any, are probably still alive. Kidnap them!).

And it's also a case of "Their favorite playthings just took their toys out, as well as stole a lot more toys that make really big noises, and started not caring where or what they were shooting up, and making things really hard to do business."