QUOTE (Snow_Fox @ Dec 27 2011, 01:34 AM) 
Interesting point. there haven't been many volcanoes activer BUT think of all the earth quackes in that region- Chile, New Zealand, as well as Japan
Yeah, this kind of activity fits perfectly with Ryumyu stirring shortly before waking up.
Maybe this is what made him awaken before Dunkelzahn. IIRC, Dunkie was quite surprised that he wasn't the first dragon to appear in the 6th world.
Another angle I've been toying with is the zombie/ghoul apocalypse that never happened canonically, but would be strongly implied by some readings of the current rules for Strain III and how this plays into the rise of the first megacorps.
Let's assume that a thing like that would happen at about the same time as VITAS hitting us, unnoticed at first due to its innitial appearance in some rural backwater in a region where everything is just breaking down due to the massive death toll of VITAS (Virally Infected Toxic Avian Shit-like I said, it's awakened bird flu in this setting).
The entire Western world would already be on the edge if the India/Pakistan region would sink into turmoil right now due to a pandemic that would dwarf the Spanish Flu. Coping with that would be hard enough.
Then, when it's just over, Western Africa, with its corporate involvement already being on quasi-SR levels, suddenly reports the outbreak of the "fast" type of zombie across the Gold Coast. After we have just learned about the Awakening from Dunkies first interview and slowly come to terms with the idea that Ryumyu wasn't a hoax perpetrated by anime fans with a surprisingly large SFX budget, people grudgingly accept the news as real and start to panic only moments later.
How do we deal with this?
The USA is busy enough keeping the situation in Pakistan from blowing up as tensions escalate when the Krieger Strain spreads to India and people on the subcontinent start to freak out.
France and the UK, with their limited force projection capabilities and traditionally strong interests in Africa, try to step in only to see large parts of their troops overwhelmed by infected warlords.
Shortly before the nukes start dropping on Lagos, PMCs with corporate backing step in and help to drive the infected armies out of the coastal regions and away from the mining sites, establishing an even tighter grip on the region and forming the basis for what later would become megacorps such as Ares, SK or Transys. The public is shocked about this involvement, but the situation leaves no other choice as mass hysteria about the "last year before the end of the world" boils up. Remember, it's 2012 and after what has just happened, all kinds of outlandish theories suddenly seem feasible.
This isn't even beginning to adress what is happening in the USA and Canada as shamans show up in native reservations and followers from across the country flood to these sites.
Even if the numbers are vastly below the 1% we get for Awakened in SR4, we're still at the very least talking about thousands of people across the country who receive visions from their "totems", mentor spirits who have traditionally beem active much earlier than those of other traditions, giving shamnism a significant edge as the first emerging magical tradition.
Initially, the shaman's reports about particularly strange lucid dreams weren't taken serious and they were laughed at as hippie furries, but the impact of a couple thousand magically active people congregating under the guidance of the newly formed tribal councils led by a certain Daniel Coleman is massive in a seemingly post-apocalyptic America where the upcomming electoral campaigns take on more and more alarmist undertones.
