Hello all! First post here. Recently started running a Shadowrun game as a GM, we're about 4 sessions in and having a great time. Wondered if any of you creative minds could give me a hand with the plot! I´m from Sweden so my English is a bit rough. Here goes:

The runners accidentally got their hands on a com-link, which turned out to be of great value to Mitishuma, Ares and Brackhaven investments. They eventually cracked the link; it contained a huge amount of anonymously written notes, screenshots from newspapers filled with annotations and huge flowcharts connecting articles, subject and crops. Think of it as the room of a crazy investigator where the walls are filled with pictures, newspapers, post-it notes and red threads running like a spider web over the walls connecting the items. The subject of the texts and screenshots had to do with the “Waterfront Project” in the Barrens, Touristville (think the Wire, condo:s for rich people, take cheap land and make it valuable by building things for rich people on it.) The idea to construct condos along the west bank of Touristville is public knowledge.

Also on the comlink, and not public knowledge there were vague mentions of a new kind of super-drug, which, it was alluded to, was harvested from angels. The drug was, according to the link, being produced and distributed through one single individual, a self-styled “Mayor of touristville”, Mr Eric Fontaine. If the link is to be trusted, Eric exclusively peddles the drug to certain corp executives in different corps.

Eric is a local politician that leads a council that consists of influential Barren residents, all of them active in Touristville (the only part of the Barren that counts). The Council doesn't have any formal influence, but you need them on your side if you're attempting a large infrastructural project like the waterfront. Between them they control the local businesses, criminal elements, influential figures, garbage disposers, etc, a mix of the maffia and a union.

Eventually, they sell the comlink to Mitishuma (although only one runner knows who they sell it to, if that matters). The content of the link paints a pretty clear picture, but it's not proof. It´s mostly memos written by the anonymous owner of the link and new-articles covered with notes. The runners realize that the corps not only need the approval of the Council to get the job, they are also to some extent beholden to him, or at least some individuals that buy the drug are.

Mitishuma (and others, but the runners are forced into accepting Mitishumas offer) contacts the runners and offer them money if they can find irrefutable evidence linking Eric to the drug. The reason for this is that if they do, suddenly they hold the puppeteer's strings. The runners manage to piece together a rough location for the “laboratory”, somewhere deep in outskirts to barren. By now, they are very close and will in all likelihood find the laboratory next session. It's well hidden and well guarded, and inside there´s an underground complex in which several awakened children are held captive. They´re being tapped for spinal fluid under through a very painful and disturbing process that mix both technology and blood magic. Anyhow, what the runners do with the laboratory matters greatly when it comes to what will happen to the Barrens. They're explicitly told to only gather proof, but in all likelihood they´ll shut the lab down, after which they might either sell the proof or just release the information to the people, showing them what a bad person Mr. Eric is.

My question though: why the hell to the corps want the Waterfront project so badly? I guess just cash is good enough, but I wouldd really like it to be something more sinister and long-term behind it. Whatever happens this plotline will close down for a while and the runners will start doing the season 4 missions, so it can be something very dramatic that the runners currently have no way in hell of doing anything about. They don't even have to get an idea about the larger picture or the end-game of the Waterfront Project. It´s just for me to plan around.

Possible reasons
1) There is (or will be) a mana nexus / ley line / chi pool / some astral phenomenon that will appear on an appropriate date in the future, as described in some old scrolls /tablets / Mayan prophecy. They need corporate ownership to control that.
2) There is currently a weird astral thing going on there - that is the "x" factor why the spinal fluid / drug production works as it does. The corps are having to be super stealthy about acquisition to avoid tipping off the other megas about this, and maybe only suspect one other corp of knowing. This also means that if the runners throw a curve ball and try the production method for the drug elsewhere, it won't work (allowing you more control over a potential game changer)
3) Ancient pre-crash records indicate a mineral node or seam of material "x", lies underneath the territory, and gaining ownership of the land conveys the mineral rights to it too - even something non special as a particular isotope of Chromium might have a very specific purpose or save tens of thousands on manufacturing or refining.
4) It started with a drunken brawl at a corporate PR event, when someone a little far gone claimed that he was going to have the penthouse suite of the new waterfront complex. People went "huh", and it was hushed up. Personal enemies are now trying to stop the complex, or build the complex themselves to spite the original person. There have been ops, counter ops, escalations, deaths, losses, more ops etc - the whole thing has now become about corporate pride and reprisals against the other corps involved, and no one can back down without appearing weak. It's like the story of the emperors new clothes - nobody really understands *why* but everyone knows they *must* have that land and build the condos to "win"...
5) The land doesn't have value, but gives claim to something else - by building it, they can cut off access to the neighbouring block which cuts through this development, and force a corp to use only air traffic to keep it supplied, or something else that is a pain in the butt to do / manage.

Haha, love #4 =)

I had originally not thought of the waterfront being connected to the drug. I had thought of Eric as a smaller player, that had a more mundane and local aim with his actions. The laboratory where the drug is being produced is also very far away from the Waterfront area.
I really like number 4 in combination with one of the other. Like, one of the corps realize there´s a pre-crash vault somewhere in the area, or whatever, and created the Waterfront project as a cover-up reason for why they would start digging the whole damn shoreline up. They put their spin-doctors on it and they started formulating business plans. The problem, it turns out, is that they did too good a job. The other corps caught wind of this and started competing, thinking the Waterfront was a great idea, why else would corp X invest so much money in it? So one of the corps is probably just really, really pissed off at the whole situation, and whatever move they make to strengthen their position just makes the other corps invest more and making everything more expensive and complicated.
Also like #1, provided I can get a good idea for what kind of event we´re talking about.
Picking up my copy of Seattle Sprawl boxed set on Friday too, and hopefully I´ll get some good ideas from that.
Thanks for the great ideas!

There is also the possibility of gentrification. Touristville sits between the really dangerous parts of Redmond and the very high-class Bellevue. If you were to claw back more turf from 'sinless scum', Touristville seems like a decent place to start.

Another idea, perfect for your break, construction is a cover to access to some heretofore unknown artifact trove or dragon's lair from a previous age.

I like that, especially with some of Kren's ideas. A beautiful mixture of depressing and lighthearted. Egos marring an otherwise wonderful opportunity to improve our community and the people in it (assuming only people with money count as part of the community).

Really great ideas, I think I´ve decided that it´s going to be a combination of all of them. I really dig Krens #4 since, in the players manage to get the whole picture, they will realize that the corps. are not only extremly powerful and competitive, they also aren´t perfect and they make stupid, knee-jerk decisions based on fear of being left behind.

I have now started thinking about the secret laboratory that conducts the spinal-fluid tapping. Which organisation is behind it? What is the history behind the Strangelovian doctor conducting the experiments? What foul meld of blood-magic and technology is used?

If you're going with the "corps can be dumb and make knee-jerk reactions", then maybe have one of the "lighter" AAAs. The normal go-to guys for stuff like this would be Mitsuhama or Aztechnology, and no one would have an issue with this. Perhaps it needs someone like Ares, Wuxing or Shiawaise to be doing this kind of inhumane torture under a department head that is out of control, to really drive this home. Perhaps have the players able to bring the actions to the attention of the division head who is horrified about what is going on (either due to actually having some morals left, or just realising what an utter PR nightmare this could be) and they could be the ones to swoop in and shut the operation down, stamping out all traces.

Of course, the department head can have a mole in the higher up office which tips them off, and lets them escape from the net and disappear along with a bunch of materials or company assets. This could give you room to send the players on a follow up mission, or you can let this tail off for a while, and then have them come back as a future bad-guy, looking for revenge on the players for what they did?

Ah, I assumed the angel drug lab was run by a freelancer (because if a semi-official mayor can sell all of the drug, there can't be *that* much) and happened to be tied to the whole corporate gentrification and competition for the penthouse suite thing. Being petty while destroying lives can be pinned on any of the corps.