So, its looks like:

Hawk arrived a year ago. He slowly integrated into the shadow community, have not been a shadowrunner prior to his arrival. Offenbach arrived in town three months ago. He and Hawk met each other recently drinking with Fingers, but have not yet worked together. Two months ago Switch arrived. Switch & Hawk have worked together twice. IO just arrived in town and has neither worked with the others, nor even met any of them at this point.

Perhaps IO and Hawk could have a fixer in common:

Dilafruz “Dee” Meltova [C4] Female Human Fixer
Quote: I know a guy who knows a gal.. Yea, I can make a connection for you.
Uses: Work, equipment, anytime you need a new connection, she knows someone.
Description: Filipino in ancestry, Dee was born and raised in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. A local kid who beat the odds and who rose up from the SINless population, Dee is well connected with locals as well as immigrated natives who work from the shadows.

How about:

Ricky “Fingers” Jackson [C3] Male Human Fence
Quote: Let's talk bottom dollar.
Uses: Buying and selling stolen and illegal weapons, goods or gear.
Description: When he moved to town, Bobby needed someone who good hook him up with that gear that is so vital to a shadowrunner. Fingers could supply that gear. Fingers specializes in weapons, something especially challenging in a community where firearms are illegal. With several relatives working for the Star, Ricky is able to get a heads up on any official inquiries into his business. One evening, several unhappy customers were in the process of hostile negotiations towards a better deal when Bobby rained on their parade. Since then, he and Ricky have been drinking buddies in addition to their business relationship.

Agreed about we are ready for the GM - I suppose we should add the extra knowledge skill ranks?

Yea. I'm thinking of another language as part of that. Once he posts in about my languages question, I should be done there.

Languages: Primarily English, with Japanese as the most prominent secondary. Various Indonesian dialects are also fairly common.

EDIT: Good to see everyone was happy to roll with the extra knowledge skills. Good suggestion, Redjack

I have one other thing I was discussing with FuelDrop: The crazy price increase of fake SINs. For something that is supposed to be burnable, they went from 1k/rating to 2.5k/rating. Thoughts of the group?

I'm ambivalent. I'm ok with the price as-is, and I think it makes decisions about SINs a little more meaningful (especially "what rating should I buy") but it wouldn't bother me if it was reduced, either.

I expect that (along with all of the other price changes) the change was made in order to make its cost in line with its value to players. Although I tend to dislike that sort of gamist rationale for RPG rules, since there aren't any economic statistics in the fluff that give us an idea of how much stuff costs for the average wageslave, starting character nuyen and payouts for runs are pretty much the only measuring sticks against which to balance gear prices, so they're more or less arbitrary anyway.

Probably saturday/sunday. I'm kind of flat out until then and I want to make the first post suitably epic.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any preferences for the first run? I have a plan in mind, but if you guys want to do a routine datasteal or assassination just to get the feel of the group then drop me a line and I'll organize that first.