According to fluff or SR fiction are there any current colonies of metahumans in space stations or on other planets(i.e. Mars)? If so which corp(s) funded them and any other info you guys might have on them would be helpful.

If not, do you guys know if any of the corps are looking at doing these kinds of things?

Yes.

There used to be four Torus stations atseveral LaGrange points, all but one were abandoned during the crash though. Also, there are a couple moon bases - Ares has one, Saeder-Krupp has at least two, Evo has one and others probably too. Ares also operates a station close to Mercury. And then there's Evo's secretive Mars base. Also, there are numerous orbital stations.

Most AAA corps have significant space assets. Saeder-Krupp, Evo and Ares have the largest assets, with Evo having inherited Russia'S space programme, ares America's and SK the ESA. Horizon also has large space sttions, but nothing beyond the Orbit.

Amon the second row, Proteus has the most significant space assets, including a huge orbital.

With how Shadowrun seems to have to play catch up with it's predictions of technology I wonder how the terraforming of Mars is coming along. Will it have it's own Ariesphere soon? Oh, to dream....

There are even shadowrunners in space. At least one of the regular shadowtalkers in the books is posting from orbit.




-k

IIRC, OrbitalDK is part of a data-auction house. How it survived the "Colony Drop" of Crash 2.0...

Speaking of, the Megas are rebuilding their orbital assets after Winternight and all their fun things...

And the space elevator is due in '74 or has that been postponed?!?

Since it was slated to be built in what now is where the War Over Trees is waged, I'd assume it is.


OrbitalDK is a human woman. Also, not every space station crashed with the crash. Not even every sattelite did. Not every SR space station is in orbit. The Crash is overrated anyway.

More or less. It seems like just a way to have brought in-universe reason to justify a transition to wireless. With a few "personal" exceptions being Ghosts in the Machine

-- This thread may be of use: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=31650

Because that would never happen otherwise. Say, do you still remember when that asteroid struck in the 90s? Which prompted everyone to buy cellphones and totally killed the phone booth and landline telephones?

Well, considering how hard it is to find a payphone now...

I just saw an advertisement on one payphone showing how well they work as advertising places: "Over 4,700 in the province."

I thought to myself, "Damn, there must have been over five thousand in the city alone back in the day."

Yes, exactly. And all that without a cataclysmic event.

It would have been perfectly easy to just decree the wireless Matrix without the crash. It's not lik using cellphones to go online wasn't possible since Matrix anyway.

Yeah, but System Failure was an entertaining read. And it was also supposed to be the transition between editions; that ought to be a bit cataclysmic. I think D&D nearly made the world end with the 2->3 transition adventure...

And face it: this is an RPG. Why have an inconspicuous change when you can have a worldwide cataclysm? The cataclysm is more fun!

Like it was between 1E through 3E? I just think it was mostl unnecessary. And frankly, massive data loss and the breakdown of most infrastructure do not exactly explain a massive surge in wealth, productivity and technology. It's been consensus that SR is way beyond where it should be given uninterrupted technological development because of the first crash. Now, the second crash does what, generate new technology somehow? Please. That totaly does not pan out. Same with Technomancers, who were just beamed into the setting for no apparent reason.

But much more gradual than a handful of years between 3rd and 4th.

With Crash 2.0, the rebuild of the Matrix allows it to be done from scratch (With the exception of Germany) except for the main trunk lines of broadband fiber optics. Even then, the distribution nodes would have required extensive rebuilding and replacement.

*Shrugs* There might have been a few other opinions going on at the time as well, and they had to tie up the Winternight and Dues thing as well. 'Course, the backlash of it is still being felt, and gives lots of things available to GMs as well.

Finally, a full reboot allows for the old '80s Computer Systems to be updated to at least a GUI and other fun things that's available today that were barely thought of back in the day.

Well, people as individuals and as groups to tend to accomplish more, in less time, when in crisis mode.

For example, World War 2, while horrific and devastating and awful, generated a massive amount of technological development.

... I guess that's all I have for the moment.




-k

They call it "The Greatest Generation" for a good reason.

Death and destruction has usually been the over-drive of technology. As well as the bastardization and manipulation of technology." Fireworks you say? You see pretty lights, I see lots and lots of dead people."

Some of the desperate designs of Post-Dunkirk England is particularly interesting.

Or post-Stalingrad Germany.

I never said it was realistic. If you want realism, SR is the wrong game; there's a proud tradition of "it'd be cool to have X, so we will have X, even if we have to trample all over realism to get to it" running around since the very beginning *coughNANcough*.

Gradual technological innovation is just harder to get excited about than a worldwide socio-techno-magical breakdown. And as the new firm producing SR you want people to sit up and notice that something is happening. I think they did okay with that. Like I said, I enjoyed reading System Failure.

There's also a proud tradition to get the cool done right. It wasn't there.


Nice it worked for you. It just seemed hyperbole for me.


You refering to FanPro?

Okay, no need to be grumpy, System Failure is a perfectly ok book making for some nice adventure ideas. Yeah, the Crash wasn't necessary - but was the Great Ghost Dance War?

Also, momentarily back on topic: Target:Wastelands has most of SR space info, should the details still be needed.

WRT Crash II, the developers of Shadowrun Fourth Edition wanted a game that felt like a plausible extension of the current real world (for new players) without abandoning all the old fluff (for grognards like us). Nothing stimulates change like a crisis and its response. So it is not that Crash II was done for no reason, and later led to SR4's wireless and Technos. Rather SR4 has wireless and technos because the real world has wireless, and recent sci-fi has ever more Technos; Crash II was simply the fluff explanation for a dramatic change.

Space
With editing the SWW still locked, I put together a list of Space locations at the Shadowrun Wikia.

If anyone has details that I missed or have not included, please add them (with the source noted).

Plus the Winternight was awesome, as far as apocalyptic cults go.

The thing missing are any maps of space stations.


We were watching an old b/w movie the other day and the hero could not find a phone booth. My 4 year old asked "Why doesn't he use his own phone" and pointed to my cell on the table.

we need to start reminding the youngsters that the world changed TREMENDOUSLY in terms of information/communication technology in the last 50 years <.<

Why, when I was young...

*Waves cane ranting and raving* An' git off mah lawn!!!

Flintstones! Meet the Flintstones!
they're a modern stone age family.....

Actually, there is a (quite rough) map of Treffpunkt Raumhafen for the German-only Schockwellen campaign. The map is only a rough overview, though, and not exactly useful if ou want to use it as battle map.

I've had to borrow from old TV shows like UFO and Dr. Who.

God(s) help my runners if we come across a man with a twenty foot scarf

Space 1999?

*snerk*
we know more about the layout of space stations than Bogota!

It's a lowland city surrounded by tank-friendly jungle with a bustling seaport where regular cartel submarines depart. What's not to know.

how they made it work on a stoney plateau in the andes ^^

.............................
.............................
.............................
.............................
.............................
.............................
.............................
.............................
.....................magic


Like in D&D. Magic explains every inanity.

Is there anyone who doesn't hate Germans yet?

Magic! Sixth World, remember?

Magic can do anything. Including having several magicians in the middle of the Atlantic making an island nation from scratch.

No, it can't. Because SR is NOT D&D.


What?

Wasn't that the latest Superman movie?

I'm pretty sure that was insane Lex Luthor Superscience.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

"Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology." - Larry Niven

EDIT: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced" - Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" - Ponder Stibbons

Still, one of my favorite GM hand waiving moments, using the Wealth spirit power to make 10,000 nuyen worth of minerals. Including dirt.

Uhm, yeah, because that will sufice to create an island in the Atlantic. Right.

Do you know how valuable dirt is?

Hell, I remember a buddy of mine talking about $20 bags of "Government Sand".

I wouldn't doubt it. But where I am there are always signs for "Fill Dirt Wanted". So there are some places and soil that are still actually dirt cheap.

Yeah, but this is just sand. Stuff you drop on ice to provide traction.

Moonbase Alpha was originally supposed to be the SHADO moonbase for the 2nd season of UFO but no one was willing to pony up for a 2nd season so the plan moved onto the next show. Personally I prefer the UFO base as it was more strictly defined.

The scarf was only 18 feet long, and the designers in Wastelands did work that into a La Grange point.