Hello guys

You might have noticed my earlier posts about my 50s style campaign I'm starting up. I've decided to start them young in 2042 so they will be adults at the time of SR 1st ed. (2050).

However, it is somewhat tricky to know exactly when certain technologies were available, and when it became normalized.

Cyberware: This exists, but Im unsure about deltaware and such - augmentations from SR1 should be SOTA in 42, and probably not available to most gangers and low-level shadowrunners, and most secrutity teams will be unaugmented.
Bioware: I don't think this exist yet. Did it appear in 2nd edition?
Weapons: Everything from 1st edition and most weapons from 2nd edition too. The splatbooks of 3rd edition often contained old tech with different brands and not just SOTA stuff. Lasers, pain inducers are off for the forseable future, this stuff is probably 2060s only. Monophilament whips are SOTA and will only be seen in the late 40s at earliest.
Ammunition: Most normal loads, Explosive ammo, Flechette and Tracers. S&S will probably not be available for some time, as I don't think they invented them until 4th edition, which is 2070, so late 60s at earliest.
Wireless functionality: Unavailable by default. Exception for drones, microrecievers and mobile phones. If it existed in 1980 as wireless it should still exist as wireless in 2040s.
Cyberdecks: Yes, they exist and has been around for about 10 years. Still larger, clumsier and not as common. cyberterminals are far more common for accessing the Matrix, and cheaper.
Matrix: Wow look, it's 3D! Obviously not completely photorealistic, and not everyone is online. Sort of like Internet in the mid 90s.
Vehicles: Pretty much the same as in SR1, except less common for rigger adaption. Not sure when this was invented, but I think it was some years ago.

Social: Policlubs are just starting to become common in France, IIRC and Humanis and UB has not yet been created, but will soon.
Corps: Using mostly SR1 megas, but there are a few players that are still not AAA, and some that are yet to fall from grace. Fuchi and Renraku are strong, and Aztech has yet to earn it's bad rep for "nationalizing" Aztlan.
Politics: Some more NANs still exist, but North America is already a big pathwork of nations. Will have to research some more, but dates should be readily available from history sections of the old books.

I will probably have to add more to the list, and any input saying I'm wrong would be appreciated too, especially with a source. It does not have to be 100% true to SR "canon", but it should be believable for the players and also set it apart from normal starting times. 2042 should feel a lot less advanced than 2050s, as people have not come completely to terms with the changes yet.

Did I miss anything important?

Keep in mind the Business Recognition Accords were signed in 2042, which is what allowed for extraterritoriality as we know it. Either start with them being negotiated, or have it right after the fallout of nations selling out to megas. Expect the shadows to be talking about that for some time.

Good point. My group are pretty far from the Shadows though, being about 12 and in school still. They might notice some stuff about corps getting powers on TV, and shrug as it don't effect them much.
Politics and shadow stuff will be mostly ignored by the group in the first sessions at least - more foreshadowing than anything else.


More issues: Realsense came in 2038, but afaik there are BTLs yet - this should come in the early 50s. Wasn't there an old module focusing on this introduction?

Another question I forgot is the nature of the SIN. It was introduced in 2036 by ironically 14th UCAS amendment, where the real US 14th was about making afroamericans citizens, this is about making everyone not with a SIN into a probationary citizen, a term poorly defined in most SR books. SINless are described somewhere between people with less rights, people who are simply not registered, and people who can be shot as outlaws by anyone without breaking a law. However, it was only one year for everyone in UCAS to get themselves a SIN.

From a wiki: "Probationary Citizens" have no legal rights and are not allowed to vote. When a criminal is caught and cannot be associated with a legal SIN, they are issued a temporary criminal SIN for processing and record keeping.
If they have no legal rights, there is no need to give them criminal SINs either, you could just get rid of them somehow, or drive them far off, thus saving a law enforcement officer a lot of paperwork. But maybe it makes more sense to register criminals.

So who would become SINless? There is no crash yet (been a while since the last one). I can assume some people just wanted to stay below the radar, but normal families and kids, even those from poor or part criminal background would probably apply for a SIN simply to get social security, food stamps, etc. Also, since the governments already have a lot of data on people, they would want to register those as well, so unless one took steps to stay out I don't see why one would be SINless. So where are the masses of SINless in the barrens in 2050 coming from? Illegal aliens? Did a lot of people not receive a SIN had had to move out of their old apartments? Also, since the extraterritoriality laws are not in place yet, corporate SIN wouldn't make sense, so I assume those are SINNers of their respective countries for now.

Bioware was part of 1st Ed. in Shadowtech. While it certainly wasn't too accessible - similar to delta grade cyberware - it had reached the shadow markets. So it's reasonable to assume that it existed prior to the (very) early 2050ies

In the 2040ies I'd say that first implants were present as the most SOTA / experimental stuff that only a select few of the megas had access to. Freelance runners probably had next to no chance of getting any bioware implants.

There's a Shadowrun 2050 4th edition book that may be very useful for what you are trying to do.

I got the impression each book after the core rulebook was set forward slightly in time, thus I'm imagining Shadowtech being maybe 1 or two years after 1st edition - at least time did go forward in major sourcebooks like the Shutdown one. In any case, bioware would still be unavailable to runners as you said. Same thing with deltaware, yet Alpha should be possible for those with the nuyen.
I looked at prices for cyberlimbs in SR1 and was surprised to see it was exceedingly expensive, yet the fluff is full of bartenders with obvious cyberarms etc. - how the heck can they afford hundreds of thousands of nuyen on as single arm that isn't even that much better than a normal arm* (was a rule against having stronger limbs than your body). While nuyen was slightly less worth in 2050 than in 2075 (deflation?), 500,000 was still half of the maximum starting nuyen a runner could have, and most had to make do with a few tens of thousands, not unlike today.

*if I understand correctly, if you naturally have Str 4 and want Str 8 it would cost you 100k+(150k*4) = 700k. Or you could just get muscle replacement 4 for 80k.




I thought it was just trying to combine SR1 setting with 4th edition rules with little added stuff, and i hear the matrix rules are not well designed. Taking a look at the preview it seems it could be some good fluff there based on lots of splat and sourcebooks. Have to keep an eye out for that one then, even if Im using 5th edition rules mainly.

Well, there are things to consider with that:

1. The Shadowtalk in Shadowtech is dated near the end of 2052, so the timeline did indeed progressed by almost 3 years when compared to SR1 core rules. However, ...
2. Shadowtalk dates cannot necessarily represent actual development points of gear within the timeline because otherwise stuff would have been (re-)invented for a second, third, fourth and fifth time with each new edition at a progressively later date.
3. As I said, Shadowtech (and the associated Shadowtalk) clearly indicate that the stuff by that point actually made it to the shadow markets of the SR universe at a larger scale => It had to be developed quite some time earlier.
4. Going deeper into Shadowtech I actually see availability values that matched 2nd and 3rd Ed values thus technically allowing some implants to be valid for starting characters to a certain degree even under SR1

But certainly a character in his early to late teens during the 2040ies would still be highly unlikely to have any such implant unless one is willing to stipulate a kind of "Batman situation": A rich and well connected background could explain access to some of those bioware implants and it would be up to the GM to select those that are and those that aren't



Prices for cyberlimbs in general and strength upgrades in particular were and still are part of the design problems in SR when contrasted to how common some stuff allegedly is (or at least was in the previous fluff). Those problems lasted until 4th Ed. and have been reintroduced in fifth to a certain degree. However, you also have to see that a SR1 character (as well as 2nd and 3rd Ed. characters) could have a resource equivalent of 1,000,000.00¥ which made things far more accessible. And yes, the obvious choice in terms of raw power certainly was the option of having muscle replacement instead of cyberlimbs because of way better opportunity costs.

The bit about techsplosion in the SR4 History Lesson for the Reality Impaired may be of some help too. The first cyberlimbs were being worked on in 2019 as was the tech for simsense. The first Commercially available simsense deck came out in 2024 (SR1 History section).

The adventure Friendofthedork is thinking of is Dreamchipper and the tech being used that was cutting edge wasn't BTLs nor skillchips but rather the mixing of the two so that the skill chips offered skills to a personality overwrite achieved through the BTL. Basically the folks using the chips thought they were actually Cleopatra or Jack the Ripper and had the skills to back it up. So neither skillchips nor BTLs were cutting edge in the 50's. Doubt they would be in the 40's either.

The first of the 3rd gen cyberdecks was available in 2036, the Fuchi CDT-1000, which is apparently a desktop size machine (SR1 History section).

For ammo, the only things that should be considered post early 50s tech is S-N-S and EX-Explosive. The game came with explosive in 1st ed and most of the other stuff has been around forever, though perhaps not in as many calibers as it is in the SR world. EX-Explosive ammo made it's appearance as a new thing in Fields of Fire with shadowtalk setting the time around 2054.

Mostly already mentioned, but bears repeating:

• Cyberware & Bioware: All the augmentations listed in the SR1/SR2 corebooks and Shadowtech are extant in 2049 - 2052/3. This includes Bioware. Shadowtech might have more details on how long that's been kicking around, but if memory serves, it's not treated as exactly cutting edge even then (at least not in all cases). Augmentation also has a timetable that states that bioware started showing up in the military in the early 2040's, and in the general populace in the late 2040's.
• Cyberware Grades: The Street Samurai Catalog mentions Alpha and Beta grade ware, and the timestamps in that book are from 2050. I *think* that Delta is first mentioned in Cybertechnology, and that book has an in-universe date of 2056.

Cyberlimb costs and mechanics have always been a bit problematic (to put it nicely), especially in earlier editions. If you're just glossing SR1 fluff on SR4 mechanics though, you can at least get around this slightly by benefitting from their more sensible pricing. You still have a to come up with a reason why people aren't buying cheaper clonal limbs since those go from non-existant to no-big-deal between 2034 and the mid 2040s if you want to retain your cyborg bartenders though.

It's a little outdated but for your timneframe Gurth's list suffices. I think Nath posted an expanded version including newer books, have a look at the forum search.

A few specifics:
- The first true cyberlimb for civilian usage was in 2019 (SR4 corebook timeline)
- "Simsense units, which could play rudimentary sense impressions, would first hit the market in the ’20s." (SR4 )
- Unwired and Matrix give the this timeline of matrix tech development:
2031: Second generation cyberterminals integrate the sensory deprivation tank and computer hardware into a desk-sized cocoon.
2036: The Fuchi CDT-1000 third generation cyberterminal eliminates the sensory deprivation tank and is reduced to a desktop box.
2037: Fuchi unveils RealSense, adding an emotive track to simsense recordings.
2043: Skillsoft technology is developed, allowing ASIST to transmit skills to a user who does not know them.
2049: Renraku "unveils" (which could mean they had the tech before...) the first S-K
2050: The first generation of cyberdecks—keyboard-sized cyberterminals—are released. Matrix calls this "seventh-generation cyberdeck", which I guess this can be combined to "seventh-generation cyberterminal, the first generation of truly portable decks"

Some very nice input from all of you. I don't have time to make long comments right now Im afraid!




Yeah, dreamchipper. Incidentally, the date for BTLs is 2037, same as emotive simsense. In 2052 some new type called 2xs which was supposedly more powerful, and also with Dreamchipper, the first personafixes.




Bioware street available only in 2052, according to SR3. That means right now its probably not even prototype stage. Alpha and Beta will be available soon, but right now Im thinking normal cyberware is still extremely limited, used either for compensation of handicaps (replacements not enhancements), and a few items such as datajacks and cybereyes. The years of the early 40s to 2050 is supposed to be a techsploition, so this fits the introduction of stuff like wired reflexes and hand razors, the last becoming fairly common on the street around 2049-50. For my purposes, the runners will not be using cyber, so the enemy won't need it either.




Nice list! Sure there were no portable cyberdecks before 2050? I assume there were some development of terminals between 2036 and 2042, at least improvements and some slightly smaller desktops. Also surprising that skillsofts are already available this early (next year). Chipjacks might get more common than datajacks because of this.

I know armor is not mentioned development wise, but I want to get that old feeling of vulnerability by making armor more rare, sort of like today. Smart criminals and cops might wear them often, but normal civilians will not need to, and most low-level street gangers won't afford it.

The exact quote from Matrix is: "2050: The seventh-generation cyberdeck is produced and released, now keyboard-sized and portable". You could interpret this as meaning that decks being portable was as unprecedented as them being the size of a keyboard, but logically there should have been transitional types between the third and 7th generation which were not as portable as a keyboard, but still portable. Think of the Compaq Portable

Keyboard size is pretty damn small, modern airbooks etc. are not much smaller, although compared to an iPad they are somewhat large, and the 80s illustrations they seemed very unwieldy.

Looking at the SR1 decker pictures - ok maybe they are not THAT unwieldy. So I assume 6th gen cyberdecks are also semi-portable, similar to the pictures in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_computer

I hope I can present some tools for accessing the Matrix for the group of poor students, since Matrix is supposed to be a thing also for everyday wageslaves, not just leet decker shadowrunners. But infiltrating secure nodes will basically be impossible without good decks.

Bear in mind that those descriptions are from an 80s perspective. The word "keyboard" does not refer to some Apple designer object, it refers to something designed for former users of typewriters, with a steel baseplate bringing the weight to >2 kilos and a soundtrack like you just walked into a shooting range without ear plugs.


My personal interpretation is that "keyboard size" was meant to be "a C64 running on batteries", because you know, the 80s

Yup, thats about right God I miss those

Well late 80s anyway. When I first read that in 1990 I didn't think of the thing being super heavy as the keyboard on my computer at the time was not super heavy. Just awkward to carry around and not something you can easily conceal under your jacket, at least not if the guy looking knew what he was looking for.

Two kilos are not "super heavy" in my book, most ordinary laptops weight more. It's just as you said, heavy (and large) enough to be noticed.