Ok, basically I missed the politics surround the move to make the Underground a legitimate district of the 'plex. I have one question about these events, Were there any Megacorporate backers of the move? If so, who and if known why? What would be the best source of info?

The push for the OU to go legit, via Proposition 23, came about largely in some recent (well, semi-recent) Missions stuff. Bull can tell ya all about!

Storm Front will have more detail on this, but I can tell you that one corporation is *thrilled* to have the Underground going legit.

And it isn't who you'd think.

They go into the 'wrap up' in pretty good detail in Dirty Tricks. I know that doesn't directly answer your question, but there was alot goin' on.

So what does this mean for the Underground? Will it still be a (relatively) safe place for freaks to live off the grid?

When I statted up my T'skrang changeling, I kinda banked on him being able to live down there between runs, typically only coming topside for jobs. When the UO goes "legit", will it still cater to the freaks and undesireables who are too weird to live openly topside? Or will they have to find new homes elsewhere?

~Umi

Well there's a few factors.
1) They already had 'tours' and stuff through there. It's not like Bogata or anything down there.
2) What it means for the city, is that as an official district, they have to extend the same sort of stuff to the Underground as they do to other parts of the city. First and formost... police presence.
3) It's still going to cater to the freaks and undesirables.

So it's it's own neighborhood now and they are supposed to be extending patrols of the police down there and 'cleaning it up'. That being said, in Dirty Tricks it was flat out stated that while this was a huge fight and movement, that it seemed to be a huge fight and movement for people that... by and large didn't care for it.

So while they might put a gloss of shine on the edges and what not for those straights going to take the tours and such, it'll likely be a very thin wash painted over the reality.

In reality the dude in charge is a humanis member and would firebomb them in a heart beat if he could get away with it. So, anything the city DOES do, will be reluctant and just PR for the media. The reality will be that life wont' change all that much for the Underground. Other than the cops have a reason to be there ---if they want to be--- now... and might actually use it to beat down the people that live there more.

I wouldn't expect it to become a shining beacon of subterranean living or anything.

Considering how cash strapped Seattle is already, and how they've been able to get away with even further infrastructure items by glossing over it with AR... Yeah, the Ork Underground is about to become another Barrens at worst, and Low-Income Housing at best.

Also, the vote was very, very close. You can bet recounts galore are being demanded.

Dirty Tricks said something to the effect that the first recount was demanded and came up the same way.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure the Orc Underground thing is setup for something being kicked off in SR5

Knight Errant seems to be in a pretty bad spot.
They are required to police the Underground. And while technically they could police it the same way as they police the Barrens they would loose a lot of reputation when simply quitting without even trying. And that means a massive increase in manpower and equipment.

But hey, when Ares goes through with one of its suspected "PR stunts" from the hidden stories (Set up an artificial bug hive and then burn in down live on camera) they now have found the perfect place for it.

Underground? More like FUNderground, amirite?



-k

Barrens at worst?

Oh my dear CanRay, I assure you that it can get much, much worse than that.

MWU-hahahahaa...

Ahem.

As for KE, their lawyers are probably poking at the city, with accountants on both side yelling about "Trust the Heart of the Legal Briefs!" to get the win on their side. KE wants to be paid more to go patrol a new part of teh city, while the city wants KE to do the extra work for free, saying that they police "The city" and not per district. KE counters that the OU wasn't part of the city when it was signed, so, it can't be grandfathered in ... and the bean counters on either side are teeth-gnashing to see where it winds up.

True, Bracky could just order a drekload of Instacrete and fill the OU up.

That's been mentioned more than once. Well sealing it off and pumping in nerve gas or something. Thing is, now with it being an official district, he can't just 'legally' fill it up. Any more than he could just knock down all the skyrakers in down town and pave over them. Which is part of the "problem". The people in the OU now have rights.

Not that, such things would really stop "Bracky".

To be honest, I'm amazed noone in universe has funded a hit on that douchebag yet.

^I have a feeling that people have tried.

Considering nothing has been said, I presume all of those runs were...unsuccessful.

Do, or Do not.... there is no Try.

...

Now I need to go dig out my Super Tuesday module, to see when the hit attempts *started*.

When you're Kenneth Brackhaven, you don't worry every time some professional Elven hitman clambers up to a rooftop with a rifle.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3429/3840116...939ee20d7_b.jpg

You just call it Tuesday.

Wait a sec... so it is now official? Thought it was up in the air yet with the missions.

Oh well, with Bull in charge of missions and his obvious sympathies guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I still vote to pump in the nerve gas and save the city some dosh!


This message brought to you by your less gritty, more cushy, my little pony shadowrun'ism where competely non-sensical actions like orc rights make the supposed RP penalties of choosing orc even less relevant. I sincerely hope they pump the cost to be an orc up 15 points in SR5 (troll-lite) to reflect this.

Yeah the "Dirty Tricks" book, which seems to be largely glossed over because it has the rather deceptive label of being a "Book on politics" Has a rather large chapter that wraps up the storyline.

I don't buy the missions, my group likes to play their own and... well.. not putting too fine a point on it, I collect RPGs so my slacker friends cheep out and --I-- am the one that has to foot the bill for the books... so yeah. So I don't really know what happened in the missions but the wrap up chapter in Dirty Tricks is really cool on how it plays out and such.

The book is pretty nice over all with some jems in there. They came out with the book on Election day, and tried to tie it in with the election feaver we had going now. I think... .sadly... this shot them in the foot, as by that point we all were fed up with the politics for months and months and months and most of us just wanted the elections OVER WITH ALREADY!! Even if the guy we voted for lost. Ugg. It was horrible.

So a book on politics at that point, while seemingly a natural tie in, was looked at like acid on the eyeballs.

I got it a few months later. (( to be honest I'd recoiled from it during the election period and only picked it up later when I remembered there was a hole in my collection.)) It's a good book.

The vote was determined by a combination of how the adventures submitted were completed and on-site voting done at Gen Con. It was surprisingly close.

And 2 things... I know you're being snarky, which hey, thanks for that. I appreciate it! But still:

1) I didn't have any hand in tallying the votes. Those were done by Jason and others at CGL. So I had no sway on the actual vote.

2) Personally, I think becoming a district was a terrible thing for the OU. Of course, they were screwed either way. There was no "good" outcome from this. "yes" just ended up being the vote that hurt Brackhaven the most (and causes taxes to jump even more), but it also hurts runners and the many, many, MANY SINless that call it home.

Bull

Conspiracy theories Bull... Conspiracy theories!

We'll just have to fake a photo from some crackpot with an old polaroid of you stuffing the ballot box when no one was looking .

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/...BQ&dur=5638

IIRC, while I was running Shadowrun: Missions: Burn (the one I wrote), a number of people changed their vote... I think I did too good a job describing a scene or two.

I, for one, made sure all my votes pro-Underground were signed "Kenneth Brackhaven"





-k

Be careful what you (vote) for, 'cause you just might get it...

Don't worry. When it goes like the last(?) thing we could vote on it will blow up within hours.

Dirty Tricks did a good job of pointing out that after the start, that this big battle FOR the Orc Underground, wasn't really done 'BY' them... or ...really 'for them'... but more ... 'To them' by people that by and large didn't even live there.

Yup. It was a flawed initiative spearheaded by folks who don't live in the Ork Underground. Hell, even one of the people who ended up leading the initiative by the end, Bull, didn't really believe in it (and he certainly doesn't live in the Underground ). He was mostly doing it to honor his daughter, who had made it her pet cause (bored college kid) before she was killed. Plus once he figured out that members of Brackhaven's administration were ultimately behind her death, then he just wanted to make it pass to stick it to Brackhaven.

And at the end of the day, the majority of the Undergrounds residents can't even vote, because they're SINless.

Bull

I thought the entire point was to change them from sinless to sinners.


And where's the justice for the dwarves who the orks pulled a Moria on in the first place!

Justice? Whoooo... lol are you playing the WRONG GAME!

If Bull can go on about 'justice' for some bleeding heart...

... then why not bring up the always forgotten and downtrodden dwarven underclass of the game.

*haha*

Well Bull is making his own justice. So I guess the dwarves need to pull a Thorin 'n Company and go put foot to ass!

Bull wasn't out for justice. He was out for Vengeance. The Project Freedom thing was simply what he thought his daughter would have wanted him to do. It also facilitated a plot providing a lot of shadowrun opportunities, ANything we do as writers and developers for this game should provide entertaining stories and player adventure possibilties within those stories. I think we did that with the Buried Underground plotline.

And the Dwarves were booted out around 40 years earlier. At this point, I'd say it's safe to say they've moved on. And Dwarves don't suffer near the prejudice that Orks and Trolls do.

Overall though, where it goes from here now? That's up to future writers, likely. I'm turning my sights onto CHicago now.

"Justice"... "Vengeance"... all a matter of degree isn't it?

I rather liked the story though.

Chicago huh? Could be interesting. The place is kinda a hole.

Actually... unlike orks... dwarves live very long times.

Those 40-100 year old dwarves are in the primes of their life still! You're thinking of them as if they were mere humans... instead of flash in the pan short-lived orcs. Most of them will still remember being kicked out of their warrens by the jack booted ork thugs. They need their vengeance too.

I can see it now... an army of drones marches in complete with piping in the nerve gas! (embracing the single biggest dwarf stereotype in the game... the dwarven rigger)


Really Chicago? Surprising to hear that.... I figured that one had been bug citied out by now.

Dwarves make great riggers. I like that sterotype.

Somewhere around here, I have a few lines from "Man on the street" interviews I put together for the lead-in for the UO vote, but too late to be used.

In that group, tho, there's a Dwarf grumbling about how "The Tuskers" kicked him and his kin out of there years ago and how they hope that they'll get their land back, now that the place is going legit.

So, it's not forgotten.

The "Man on the street" part that did get in with the female dwarf was good. My kinda gal.

The same differntial means just about every ork and troll involved has croaked off and they'll take revenge on the sons and grandons (an grad-grand kids) of whoever they were wronged by.... Maybe they shall kick humans too, as revenge forthe Nights of Rage ?

Welcome to the 'I'll kill you because twenty generations ago some ancestor of yours stole a goat from an ancestor of mine' mindset. Perfect recipe for a just and happy world for sure...

I may or may not have just written something very similar last week, actually. So no, it's not forgotten.

Well to be fair... it's not smart, but it -is- how people tend to be. I mean look at the middle east. Look here. Look most anywhere. *shrugs* It's stupid, but it's human/Metahuman.

Heck the Dragons are wacking the ancestors of people that wronged them thousands of years ago, in game.

I'm personally surprised he didn't go full-on Punisher with his eleventy-billion PACs.

Guess that happens when you settle down to a family life, neh?

Had to go digging ... Magic card set design ... L5R stuff ... D&D campaig things ... ah HAH! Here we go. The 4th Prop 23 file I did.

***
Rapid-fire Man on the Street replies, brought to you by KONG's own Keiko Callaway

Today's question is: What do YOU think of Prop 23?

Mildred Harris, home maker
“Oh my. It sounds so expensive. Can we afford that right now?”

Gimli Krauss, electrician
“That depends... they gonna give us back the old part of the Underground? We're the ones who built it.”

“Tumble”, gang member
“They'd better … or there's gonna be trouble.”

Kimberly Styles, secretary
“The news always makes it sound so scary down there. I don't think it's a good idea.”

Greg Kilborn, student
“Yeah, sure, I guess.”

Unknown, face blurred
“Woooo! Blazers! WOOOOOOOO!!!!”

“Fargazer”, mystic seer
“The soul of the people bursts with pride, the light of day driving away the clouds of darkness. Let your voices be heard! Sing for equality!”

Tony Espinoza, unemployed
“Fraggin' Troll took my job. Thirty years on the docks, for what? For nuthin', that's what! They don't deserve nuthin'!”

Dillon Mathers, cab driver
“They's good people. I drop lots of people off there alla time. Orks, sure, but humans, Elves, you name it. Always tip good, too. Yeah, give it to 'em.”

“Bettie Rage”, Rockibilly Guitarist
“You kiddin' me? I do gigs down there! We don't want no Pawns stickin' their noses in where it don't belong. We been doin' fine for years. Keep the bums out and let us do our own thing, y'know?”
***

(The formatting doesn't come out in Dumpshock forums, but.)

Good cross section there.

The dwarf tazering the reporter was still fun, but yeah. Nice little cross section of public thought there.

For the record, my list above mirrors the actual vote.

MOAR TAZERIN' REPORTERZ!!


And yes, I did notice that. Bravo, ol' chap. Bravo.

Considering who got tazed, and what my group thought of him, yeah, more tazers!!!

That would the descendant rather than the ancestors, but I agree it's a depressingly common attitude. Probably not helped with the human mind ability todraw pattern and find similarities way better than to check wether they hold water or not. "An XXX shafted me, so all XXX are nasty shafters and should be kicked out of the country" is widespread.

If I may...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

Quite right, My bad. It was 6:30am and I hadn't been to sleep yet.