For the past couple of months, I've been working on a complete reworking of Shadowrun with friends of mine. One of the first things we did was rewrite the history to reflect the tone we wanted and solve the oddity that was the NAN.

The greatest change of all was the Great Ghoul Infection: originally designed as a way to explain for the existence of the NAN without resorting to the Great Ghost Dance, the Great Ghoul Infection grew to be a major cause of everything from corporate power to why there are shadowruns.

Many aspects of normal Shadowrun have been greatly changed by this revised history. For example, the meaning of SINs and being SINless was completely redone. In this version there are no vast hordes of SINless nor can shadowrunner use the greyness of being SINless for much advantage. Another noteworthy change is the elevation of Mircosoft to Megacorp status. (This has to do with biases on the authors' part more than anything else. We might include Walmart at a later date). Despite being set in 2060, none of the things in the metaplot have happen.

Opinions are welcome. The major question I have is should this history be more OOC or IC? If it should be IC, should it from Captain Chaos or an encyclopedia format?

The New History of Shadowrun

1990-2011: The Good o’ Days
Yes, there really was a time before magic. While recalled by many as a peaceful and prosperous time, it was much like now with its wars, pollution, and crime. During the 1990s, computers and the Internet spread all over the globe in what was referred to as Globalization. Riding the waves of the economic growth of the period, corporations began to increase their power over the government though “donations” and “guest services” for fulfill their various aims from tariff protection to reduced environment regulations. Many of the corporations know today, Microsoft, Renraku, Mitsuhama, and other megas were born and raised during this period of rapid growth.

Native Americans also improved their conditions. Using money from lawsuits against the government for its many broken treaties, Native Americans set up many businesses (later forming the core of Aztechnology), tourist attractions, and bettered their children’s education.

In the Middle East things did not go so well. After a Libyan assault on Israel in 2004, Israel invaded Libya and her allies. Despite countless stories of human rights abuses by both sides, many of the other major countries helped and played with both sides trying to secure the oil deposits of the area in what is now referred to as the Great Middle Eastern Conflict. It was not until 2029 when Rage hit the whole area like a cow from space did the fighting stop. Due to the pressure put on the oil supplies, the gas-guzzling SUV and its ilk died a quiet death as cars got smaller and engines more efficient.

Computer and electronics improved at a rapid pace along with major inroads in knowledge of the human body and cybernetics. In 2009, the first successful cybernetic implantation in a mammal, a cyberlimb into a hamster, started the field of true cybernetics. Human implantation would be developed later.

2011: The Awakening

On December 24th, the dragon Ryumyo was spotted circling Mt. Fuji. At first, it was believed to be some sort of special effect created by a publicity stunt. Later when the dragon Dunkelzhan appeared in what was then Colorado and was interviewed by media personality Holly Brighton did people begin to accept the changes that swept the world (the capture of a live Basilisk and of Bigfoot helped as well). Luckily for the dragons, they were able to lay extremely low when people decided that they didn’t really want to wrestle with the concept of intelligent non-human race and the threat it posed.

In the Great Middle Eastern Conflict, there were many tales of soldiers summoning spirits and casting spells in the middle of combat. Religious figures of various stripes claimed the end of the World was coming and used their “God-given/Earth Goddess-given/Great Spirit-given/Psychic Alien-given” powers to help out their flocks. Both of these events formed the basis of later magical theory.

The greatest long-time magical change was UGE or Unexplained Genetic Expression. Healthy “mutant” children were born to parents all over the world, the first elves and dwarves. Reactions varied thought the world. In some places, infanticide occurred. Other areas were more tolerant and gradually elves and dwarves were accepted worldwide. Humanity thus begun to split into its various sub-species.

2012-2029- Welcome to a Magical World

Uncertainty is the great bane of the investor and therefore of the market. With all the changes sweeping the World, uncertainly was an all time high. The boon times of the previous two decades finally ended as people withdrew their holdings for security along with the mass retirement of the Baby Boomer Generation. Unemployment rose and business began to go under. Among the survivors feasting on the remains of the good times were the precursors of the Megacorporations we know today.

Magical research was the hottest area of research however and actually underwent its own bubble period despite overall conditions. While most leads of the magic research never lead anywhere (I really love the story of the magical perpetual motion machine that destroyed a good chunk of forestland in Canada), the sciences of parabiology (study of magically affected life), thaumaturgy (study of magic), and incarnology (study of spirits) were born.

On April 30th, 2021, people all over the world began to change. Though a process called Goblinization, they gained a great deal of muscle mass, size, and sometimes tusks. They were referred to orks and trolls like the fantasy creatures of old. For some it was a slow and gradual process, for others a quick and painful one. Either way, the new metahuman races faced harsh discrimination even after it was discovered not to be a disease because they were not as considered as attractive as elves and dwarves. However like UGE before it, orks and trolls slowly became accepted by society but never to the degree of elves and dwarves.

In the field of technology, computing power increases steadily making for vast amounts of information stored and available. However hacker attacks increase as a revolt against what is viewed as the corporation's takeover of the Internet. When nearly all of Renraku’s systems were taken down following Renraku’s takeover of Google in 2025, Renraku released Paladin; a program designed to counterattack hackers while they were hacking a target by destroying both their software and hardware. At first, it was a major failure (aren’t all initial program releases?), but it would form the core programming for Grey and Black IC, a decker’s worst enemy.

In 2028, Damien Knight burst onto the corporate scene. A little known businessman in Sweden, Knight using a series of financial transactions preformed the infamous Nanosecond Buyout. At the end of the minute, Damien ended up with 22% of Ares, three corporations were no more, and two multimillionaires ruined while making three. After this feat, he was elected president of Ares and holds this post to this day.

2029-2034- Rage

First observed in India, Rage spurted all over the globe in what would be the greatest epidemic of humanity’s history. Rage, now believed to be a mutated and magical version of rabies, infects the host’s nervous system destroying whatever mind the victim (also known as zombies and ghouls) had. Reduced to the level of a mindless beast, the virus makes them extremely aggressive and in a near constant adrenaline surge giving the victim increased strength and speed. Oddly, Rage infected will not attack other Rage infected, but will attack nearly anything else moving. Those infected reach this furious stage roughly within 24 hours of being bitten. During this time, the infected attacks all in a mindless killing frenzy. After seven days, the ghoul enters the “dormant stage” where it goes into hiding and typically hibernates for several weeks, but cases of hibernation lasting years are known. This means even if zombie activity is eliminated in an area, outbreaks can still occur at later dates.

Appearing over the entire globe, Rage spread like wildfire. Governments faced huge costs fighting off the zombies, relocating the uninfected into refugee camps (which were as bad and filthy as you expect) and the huge damage to infrastructure. Large corporations, seeing the possible collapse of international trade if not civilization, bailed out the World’s governments. In exchange, they gained many rights and privileges that they use to this day.

In North America, Rage was extremely virulent what was then Western United States. So bad in fact, the United States to abandoned the area to save the less affected Eastern Coast during the darkest days of Rage. In an ironic twist of fate, Native Americans turned out to be immune to Rage greatly reducing their losses. Seeing themselves basically left for the ghouls, Native American leaders, well-educated and wealthy, began to gather whatever survivors they could and form militias (using all the old military gear left behind by the government) for protection and some resemblance of civilization and gained in some part its own nationalism. By the time the US was able to try to retake its Western frontier, it discovered an army in its way. Seeing that stained and debt-ridden as it was, it would have problems taking out the zombies much less the Native American led militia. With the Treaty of Denver in 2035, the US gave its Western half to fledging nations called the NAN (Native American Nations) with the exception of Denver, Seattle, and a few other areas. In the next year, the US and Canada merged to form the United Canadian and American States (UCAS) to pool their resources. To this day, it’s argued who got the best out of the deal.

In South America as Rage raged though the continent, ecowarriors, ecoterrorists, and other econuts moved in the now abandoned and heavily deforested Amazon Rainforest. Renaming the area Amazonia they were able to force their way to acceptance for the fledging nation (forest?). Since then Amazonia has largely left to itself as its goal seems to be the wildly successful growth of the rainforest or more aptly named “Green Hell on Earth.”

In Europe, Rage swept its course with its standard major devastation. However when the dust cleared, Europe faced down the New Red Army of Russia. Russia, long the kicking boy since the fall of the Soviet Union, weathered Rage quite well as few infected could reach a Russian city before hibernating (even zombies can’t win a land war in Asia it seems). Under the leadership of Pavel, Russia once again rose to power. The European nations weren’t crazy about it though. After three years of on-off fighting and boarder raids, a crease fire was created as both sides were stalemated. With the assassination of Pavel, Russia lost much of its organization but remains a moderately powerful state.

In the Middle East, Rage ended the Great Middle Eastern Conflict as both sides suffered from the disease. The city of Tehran was completely wiped out in a space of a day leaving the city a silent monument to the epidemic. With the war ended, Israel “the Victor” found itself increased many times in size, but half the newly won area battled into dust and other half, unsuitable for metahuman life due to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons at best till 2110.

Africa, already facing major problems from diseases, was extremely hard hit by Rage. Areas of Africa have been effectively left for the zombies with the metahumans there reduced to tribes.

In Asia, China was hit hard. Its communist government desperately trying to keep hold of the various movements in China was overthrown in the face of its total failure dealing with Rage. In the chaos, many were killed the resulting civil wars, leaving China spilt into various states. Japan was little affected by Rage due to being an island nation and a fair deal of luck. However many corporations especially Japanese ones had or made major inroads into the government. Japan reasserted itself as a major world leader and also following an amendment to its constitution a military one though its power is still largely economic.

The tide turned against Rage in 2032 when a vaccine was developed. Administered to those in refugee camps, a system was developed to keep track of vaccinations. Using SINs (signature identification number), one could pull up the person’s vaccination history as boosters have to be given every ten years. Like the social security number before it, SINs are the cornerstone of identification and cross-reference. Armed with a system to regulate vaccination and world-wide vaccination, Rage infections dropped. Even so, it took two more years for the epidemic to end.

While the vaccine was given free to nations around the world, hostilities towards the NANs meant they were not given the vaccine in the hope Rage would weaken them enough to allow the US to take them back. In what is considered the first true shadowrun, agents hired by the NAN were able to steal the vaccine and secure their place in the world.

2034-2040- World Rebuilds

With Rage gone, the world rebuilt. The corporations, many now in their familiar names today, were more or less in charge of the rebuilding as the governments were now firmly in their pockets. Emphasizing on stability over all, many aspects of one’s life are now heavily regulated by either the corps or governments (for the corps). People flocked to the cities once more as the countryside already depopulated due to Rage were deserted for the cities. The cities thus expanded into the megasprawls, though public transportation is better than before (one of the effects of the Great Middle Eastern Conflict).

In 2039, cyberware entered the mainstream with cyberlimbs for amputees. Later that year, the datajack was revealed, allowing one to directly connect to the computer and mentally control commands in ways never seen before. Renraku’s Paladin program was discovered to be effective to hackers using datajacks as it could not only attack the hacker’s software, programs, and hardware, it could also attack the hacker directly. The results of this are the various IC we see today.

2040-2060- Shadow Wars

In early 2043, breakdown of transportation of booster shots to the city of New York resulted in a major outbreak of Rage. UCAS forces moved in to contain the outbreak. Afterwards, cases of human rights abuses by the military such as torching entire buildings of people on the grounds they could be infected were made. In Darren Wray vs the people of the United Canadian and American States, the Supreme Court ruled that those lacking SINs or lacking appropriate booster shots can be considered armed and dangerous and lacking of many rights and privileges. Since then those lacking SINs are most likely unvaccinated, they are a possible carrier and incubator of Rage (the thought of a mutated Rage is a deep-seated fear) and a major public threat. If discovered, they are kept in quarantine, vaccinated, and given a SIN if they are lucky. They are killed if not as lucky.

As the world finally settled into stability, the corporations discovered a problem. With all the rules and regulations they came up with, they could not effectively compete with each other as they wished to in the good old cutthoart days of yore. Drawing upon the example set by the NAN’s raid for the Rage vaccine, companies began to hire “outside help” to attack their rivals. As the outside help could not be directly connected to their hirer (terrorist attacks and all that), it sidestepped the self-imposed regulations set up. Shadowrunners entering the scene, doing things both illegal and quasilegal that their employers wanted done but couldn’t otherwise. As the Megacorporations liked the competition provided by employing and using shadowrunners, a gentleman’s agreement was formed to let the shadowrunners thrive by not hunting successful ones too heavily.

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You might still want to include the Crash of '29, simply as a mechanism to explain the lack of scientific advancement in certain areas which should be even more developed in the '60s.

Fine years of fending off brain eating zombies followed by economic reconsruction sounds good enough to delay certain advances.

Not without the data loss that would accompany the crash of the bulk of the world's computer systems. The thing is that it isn't only a delay in technology, but a real setback as information is actually lost.

As weird as it is basing much of the state of the world off of '28 Days Later...' It's an interesting take on things. Given the historical importantace of the Crash of '29 and the ramifications of the Echo Mirage crew, I'd say you should either leave that in there, or put down a specific alternate history for the creation of decks and such.

Ah yes, I keep forgetting how the crash of 29 also killed all the scientists and burned all the research notes...

But in the realm of computer research and development, how many people keep a complete hard copy of all there work, or do any of it with pen and paper in the first place?

Remember that there are backup copies on CD (or wahtever) that the virus can't effect. Anything more 'recent' that the last backup will be on paper/ in head. Remember that each indiviaudal research outfit would have to deal with 'regular' viruses and hardware failures.

Depends though. If you take a look at our real life situation now, I think its rather safe to say we're getting somewhat more complacent in our perception of security. We're moving towards a more online, info-stored-on-a-server kinda setup. In the SR world, perhaps the natural progression of that mindset is an arrogance that online data stores and such are so secure with state of the art firewalls, uberversions of McAfee or whatever, that they're untouchable. Until the unthinkable happens.

Hell in my field of mental health right now, a trend among therapists and such that I work with is to do away with paper progress notes. You keep your stuff on your PDA, or your laptop, or E-file it on the agency server. Theoretically its possible to lose all that data, just super unlikely. Until someone pops an EMP or something

point I know R&D labs on the cutting edge of biotech and stem cell research that operate the same way.

uh cray we have basic datajacks TODAY they can't do much beyond emulating a mouse but... give it 20 years and we could come close to SR datajacks

And in SR, simsense appears in 2018, cyberlimb in 2019, and cyberdeck in 2026. That's it, about 20 years from now.

The reason why I don't have the crash is that scientists, programmers, etc became zombies running around causing fires, smashing computers in fights, getting gore all over the place. That or such damage was caused getting rid of the same zombies. This means, whatever on the computer was lost, any backups/notes, and the developers themselves where destroyed/killed. Also since we're totally redoing the Matrix, we haven't really worried about it.

I don't buy into the concept that a virus sweaping through all computer systems would ultimately thrash our techinical world. Any system administrator worth his weight in salt knows that backing up your systems to hardcopies IE: Tapes, disk, however you do your mass storage, is important JUST for avoiding simple hardware or software crashes. The world right now only cries about virus's because they are disruptive more then destructive due to this backing up. Personal Computers are the reverse and mostly find the damage a virus does to them as unrecoverable. Large organizations are almost unaffected by virus's if there Help Desk is ontop of things.

yeas and we got airplanes this century after millenia of testing and trying, but how quickly after that do we get concordes and space flight, it's always the first step in a tech that takes forever, refining is quick in comparison. Oh and it merely took a few weeks for the subject to go mouse on the connection (I pay attention to this stuff for personal reasons)

Perhaps SR tech is over-developed. But, then there's this type of story. I'm sure this crowd probably knows about it, but the point is that our technology curve grows at scary rates at times.

All in all, its an interesting read. I've always raised an eyebrow to how powerful the NAN is. Replacing them with Rage is a step in the right direction, although I'm so inundated with the way the canon story reads that I've just come to accept that every good thing has a bit of bad in it.

I hated 28 Days Later, but you made it work alright, as an alternative to the NAN "threat".

Question: Does the Great Ghost Dance have anything at all to do with why the UCAS can't get their land back? I mean, that was a big reason why they couldn't just blitzkrieg back in. This army that the NAN came up with, would be pretty polished it would appear. Yes?

brief thread jack, but that guy aint the first cyborg. I have had something akin to crude titanium bone lace on a leg since '92, and a friend of mine has the thinner bone on his forearm replaced with titanium (yes forearm blows from him HURT) we nopw return you to yor regularly scheduled thread

I guess the thing I found most difficult to understand was how the NAN way able to take over and hold so much territory. Not because of magic,but because of numbers. A google search on Native American population in the US seems to indicate a general population size of 2 million, about 0.8 percent of the US population. Even with diluted bloodlines and such through following generations, the numbers always struck me as odd in terms of being able to overthrow the US.

The numbers are a bit much, but you have to consider that they would include any latino or person with the least claim to native blood (however tenuous) into some, if not most native nations. That is not to say that they would receive equal treatment from their new nation, but they do count towards swelling the numbers.

It also assumes that every single one of those people *wanted* to go live in some tribal territory. Sadly, it's one of the hardest pills to swallow about the game's history, even trumping the Crash in my opinion. Doubly so when you consider that the United States just rolled over and took it like a bitch even well after they started getting their own magicians.

hey all the every Native goes to NAN logic needs is that America uses con centration camps like they did in WW2

voran, remeber that a spirit in oposision to a fully mundane platoon that have not seen magic before can be a scarey idea. some accidents, maybe some confusion. suddenly they cant find their way to the location that they are supposed to get to, even with all those fancy gps guidance systems and similar, and one by one they start to dissapear like in some classical survival horror movie you dont have to be hit by that mutch before you got a very nasty morale problem. then there is the fact that all kinds of new animals are showing up, this isnt coverd by the book but its part of the general rise in magic.

and who knows how many bigfoots helped or maybe a fighter squadron had a run in with a lesser dragon or a thunderbird. the nan isnt a isolated incident, its a creation comeing out of a lot of factors.

mutch of the territory claimed by nan is most likely hazardous to travel outside of a nicely armed and armored car or similar. nature have started to fight back on its own.

basicly you cant blitz any longer, as for one the enemy is amorphous and just slides away into nature and then strikes back where it hurts the most. just like the vietnam war. and you dont want to desimate every town and city in those areas as hey they are us and canadian one damn it, not some foreign contry. this leaves out the bug guns. and with oddball weather pattern (trowing all computer simulations that modern forcasting rely on out the window) and your starting to loose mobility to. like say a florida base or something suddenly got a snow storm, then your looking at problems similar to what the germans or napoleon faced when invadeing russia. everything grinds to a holt as equipment and personel isnt able to cope with the weather. and by the time your ready to go after the enemy its merged with nature and vanished again.

over time the leadership may have found that its not worth it and signed the denver agreement.

today we have allmost gotten the world figured out. armys can use the weather patterns as cover (maybe move your forces under the cover of a blizzard or a sandstorm). but this require that nature behaves in a predictable way. with the added factor of magic that no longer applys.

look at iraq and scale it up to cover the western half of us today and then tell me how long can the president keep it going? add into that the factor that its happening on home turf and not in some contry i suspect most people cant place on a map these days. then you add the random factor that is magic, and nature regaining its bite. it adds up.

its a question of "is it worth it?". why should they invade the nan? why should they bother? there is allso the fact that nan, when combined is big bro of the north west these days. remeber that there is something called the CAS.

the virus to is interesting, but ill cover that some other time. lets just say that even backups can be corupted and most likely the virus have been laying there hidden for a good amount of time. it most likely is hideing on backups. how normal is it to scan a backup for viruses before you put it into use after a nosedive that may well be so complete that you dont know what caused it (there was the occational hardware failure to, maybe takeing out the cdrom or tape streamer)? and what good are backups if you loose the software and/or and file type info to read them?

Even with "magical hippie volcancoes" (a term coined by one of my friends), the NAN has issues. Remember they were put into what mounted to concentration camps before the war and during said war, genocide was used.

The problem is when you realize the state the Native-Americans are for the Great Ghost Dance War. They've been taken from their homes, place in camps for a couple of years already. So this means that, they'll be poor and not well-armed. People like to point out trying to fight the US government with rifles and pistols wouldn't work. Doing it without those things would be even worse. Remember not every Native American knows fireball.

Magic will help to make up the huge difference between civilians in a camp to the US army.
But even then it's bad. There would be roughly 30,000 magicans. This is from quartering the current Native American population for VITAS and then multiplying it by .01. The number is likely to far greater due to the conditions in said camp killing even more NA.

However, the number would be far far less anyways. Firstly, not every Native American would be belonging to the "old ways" or whatever you want to call them. Considering that they are dying off now and likely to suppress in the camps, it'll be unlikely that there would be very many would be "open" to learn magic off the bat. At least, not compared to normal US citizens.

Also remember, becoming magically active isn't like, "OMG you're a magician now! Here's your Socery 6, Conjuring 6 skills, 35 points worth of spells and Willpower 6. You also know everything about magic from casting too powerful spells deal physical to that spirits can't cross domains like a street." Considering the time it'll take to learn the skills needed to summon a spirit to knowing what magic can or can't do, beginning magicians likely not to be that great and likely to kill themselves casting Force 8 Fireballs or something while attack forts and the like. Much less summoning hordes of spirit or changing the weather.

Spirits need their own section. Sure, a Force 6 spirit is immune to assualt rifles, but not rockets, 20mm machine guns, lasers, grenades, and anything else. Also spirits can't go or affect things outside their domain. So a forest spirit could easily get blasted by a plane as it's in a sky domain. Also it's really hard to affect planes, tanks, and vehicles magically. Heck, this might the reason the Assualt Cannon came into being to take out those spirits.

However there could be a decent number of magicians. Those magicians would be tough, but bullets hurt them just as much. I typically assume "Geek the stange looking one first" or "The one who is chanting and casting fireballs" would spread pretty quickly. Fighting off a group of soldiers would quickly tire a mage with insane hits with burst fire.

The analogy between Iraq and the Great Ghost Dance War doesn't work. Firstly, guerilla warriors need a population to fade back. Considering that the American people were okay with holding them up in camps and then genocide, it's extremely unlikely that the average joe would want to help them. It'll be like Nazis waging guerilla war in the US who all happen to ethically dissimiliar to the rest of the US. Also consider the fact that each volcano used was more likely worse than 9/11. Think about American reaction to that and decide if there would be support for the Native Americans. Vietnam and Iraq were hampered because both had weak reasons for going into them. The Great Ghost Dance War has half of the US at stake, not domino theory nor half-guesses of WMD, more than enough reason to fight the Native American terrorists. Also should I bring up the legalized, unchallenged genocidal resolutions passed? It'll be like US soldiers were allowed to gun down any and all Iraqis they see and no one caring. Heck, I bet juries wouldn't convict murder for civilians who decide to help out with this final solution. Considering the small number of Native Americans, it wouldn't be too hard to greatly reduce their numbers even more so. Even if by some miracle they won, they couldn't hold half the US. The resdiental population would kill them first in their own far more reasonable guerilla war.

okay point, in canon the NA being isolated PROTECTED them from VITAS 2 ever since SR1 it is hinted that people helped the SAIM rebel give one of the mentioned backers was ORO corporation (aka Aztechnology) I think they have guns

how come that concentration camps have become synonymous with genocide? forced labour camps yes. but systematic genocide similar to the nazi camps, i dont see that. this where corp run camps most of the time, basicly free labour. so yes they would die after being overworked and underfeed but they would not be gassed by the millions. allso, these camps gatherd up anyone that had any remote kind of connection to indian bloodlines. and when desperation sets in people have a habbit of going back to old belifes that they didnt see the need for before. allso, when coyote comes calling, you dont have to be a beliver. you will become one

basicly, while saim was a fringe movement before the camps, they became the leaders of the pack afterwards. why? when attacked like a group people have a habbit of putting down smaller indifferences and team up. saim's problem suddenly became the entire indian populations problems.

allso, showing that by following the old ways one can access adept and magical powers is a nice way to gather both lipservice and true beliver alike.

oh anda spirit dont need to be force 6 to have a impact. elementals are maybe primarily muscle but nature spirits have more tricks. summon up a spirit of forest or plains and start hitting the troops with confusion or accident and suddenly they are fased with soldiers getting lost on open ground or running into trouble with malfunctioning equipment and butterfinger troopers (like say a oops with a grenade that happens to land near a fueltank or, even better, a pile of ammo).

the question is, what other factors played a part? head to head in a clean enviroment they would not win but we must remeber that magic was on the rise, that includes dragons, spirits and other beasts.

basicly this was not a isolated incident, the us was under siege by other factors to. its not like they musterd and effective standstill, its more like they gave up to soon. neither was pleased at the denver agreement, but at that moment it bought all involved some time.

we have no idea how the people of that time would react to the fighting.

and i dont see the text in sr presenting the consentration camps like anything more then what the british did with the boers. ie, gather up any threatening elements in a controled enviroment. forced labour yes, genocide no. not before the president is shot and the vice steps and declare open genocide.

and about peoples reaction to magic. look at the text that presents a guards reaction to fireing at howling coyote as he and his people leaves the camp. he is confused about what happens and sure that the bullets hit home but did no damage.

allso, how long did it take mit to form a magical section?

and we smust not forget the vitas effect, both on the population numbers and allso the mental effect. things can fast and tight. one year vitas, the next magic and then follows the nan declaration and the war.

there is allso the thing that magic was so new that most generals probably didnt know how to field them or understood the impact they could have. frontline troops they are not, but some of the stuff they can bring with them are.

basicly there are to many unknown factoers to declare it either way...

Well, lets assume those who say the effect of magic was great enough to keep regular military forces from attacking the NAN insurgents in a set piece fight are correct, there is another factor: How is the NAN controlling the non Native Population suddenly under their jurisdiction? The BBB speaks of deportations, Reservations and Corp immunity under the Treaty of Denver, the problem is I can't Imagine the Indians not facing their own Vietnam trying to displace and pacify the "Tribal" areas of the USA. If you think the Tribal Highlands of the Afgan-Pakistan border are hard to pacify, get a few thousand Westerners pissed off and holed up in the Rockies and Pacific NW. And its not like there aren't a lot of private gun ownership in the USA! I can't imagine that the NAN, magic or no, would have the population density to project their power over the land and population they ended up occuping.

All this aside, plus the Fact that I'm a pretty proud American and Think the way the US is cast in the dystopian Future is Really nutty, I actually don't have any real problem with it, as it is a game and to have the sort of intrigue needed for such a setting you need to get rid of Superpowers.

im guessing that most gun packing "anglo" was just left to his own device so that he could burn of steam unless threatening the status quo. and corps had immunity so they would attrackt a lot of people into thier corp controled areas. and corps dont care what contry they are in as long as they can keep earning money so they would most likley tell their workers to shut up and get to work.

most of it boils down to moral. how effective was vitas and magic as a moral booster/destroyer? if moral is kinda low and you get the message that if you do as told then you and your family will not come to harm you may well do so. sure there would be pockets of resistance but with the corps getting immunity most people would just sign up with those and stay around.

but again there is not enough data to say either or...

Ok, Could I just ask what happened to Bug City? I mean, that should be on time-line if it happened.

Also, I really don't like the idea of a worldwide 'zombie' plague. I mean, it just doesn't really work. I mean, to does say that the RAGE victims where reverted to mindless beasts. Wouldn't you just have to lock your doors and just kick back and relax while they move away? And if it's a rabies-derived, all you'd have to do is make sure you're not bitten. Knowing how slow most undead are, this would be real easy, I'd think. And even if it isn't, just drive in your car. Yeah, I know I'm rabbiting on about Zombies, but I don't like them over done in my eyes, really. Not even scary anymore, just a gag now a days.

Another point is that the lack of major Magic or Cybernetic events would really give a slump to those to more important parts of ShadowRun. I mean, weren't decks based off the whole 'Echo Mirage' task force? With out them, would we still have decks the size of keyboards? And one last nit-pick, without the animosity that being ‘SINless’ grants, wouldn’t ShadowRunners be more visible and traceable? I mean, anything you do would leave a paper trail, and unless you had government or megacorp backing and that would be bad for people trying to set up another government or Corp.

But, like I said, that's just me nick-picking. In the whole, a good alternate history.

And to just quickly add one point to the 'US v NAN' conflict, I always though that it would be a Great Ghost Dance, with all of the earth joining the natives and revolting. Also, I don't really think that, for the most part, the magic was all the natives. I thought most of it was nature awakening and getting very f-ing pissed off at the people that were strip mining, cutting and for the most part, raping the land. And then you have Aztlan south that were quiet chummy in the beginning, so they'd come up. So, I don't think weapons would be in shortage.

Mm... Just another quick thought, but would the Yakut nation have the idea to revolt without NAN?

While there are problems with most "zombie plagues," I don't believe this version has them. The RAGE zombies (maybe I should come up with another name) are going to be far faster and stronger than your average B grade movie zombie (they'll be a cross of the fast running ghoul and the high physical stats vampire). This means that they might be able to batter down the door or chase you down. I'll make it more clear (though it does mention permament adrenaline surge). You are right that one way to survive is to buckle down and hide. This will be reflected in the politics of present time as the "right wing survivialist nutjobs" were major survivers of the outbreak (heck that's where the NAN comes from in this history). However it won't be as effective as RAGE zombies are effectively immortal and merely hibrate so you'll never know when the next phase comes. As for the rabies transmission, it's a mutant form that can have different method of transmission. I didn't give any methods of transmission because it really doesn't matter for the game as all PCs will be vaccinated anyways.

The SIN and lack of animoity issue was solved with the Gentleman's agreement at the end. Also being SINless doesn't help too much. I'm sure whoever was interested could just make a SIN or other reference number and add in any and all data known. Shadowrunners will also keep animoity by using many Fake IDs confusing trails.

As for technological advancement, I don't think the Virus is needed to explain decks. Just saying it's just how computer interfaces devolped shouldn't be too much a strench. The reasons why technology didn't advance as much as some think are many. One is the effects of RAGE mentioned earilier. Another is the major recession that took place before RAGE that reduced funding for new technologies. Magic also played a role by sucking up R&D money in large and sometimes extremely wasteful amounts (such as working on perpertual motions machines and the like).

The whole "nature revolts" thing doesn't catch me as a major factor. Many paranormals has a severe lack of immunity to normal weapons and those that do are either rare or have to be summoned. Also other effects would effect both sides equal if nature was a third party. Diseases especially would hurt the Native Americans more considering the conditions they were in. While Aztlan would help out in the arms department, it won't have too much of an army. If it did, I'm sure it'll face down the US as well.

The other problem with the whole Native American thing is rarely mentioned in the nuke launched at Soviet Union. The nuke failing while somewhat nutty could happen. The Soviet Union (remember the history was made before the Berlin Wall falling) for some reason didn't care. That's also fairly nutty.

Actually, the Failed Nuke incident was the most plausible event I thought. The actually chain of events is a bit contrived (although the Nightwing strike that nobody's responsible for is even wackier), and the nuke fails, but I've always assumed some of the bigger players got involved, if not dragons who live 1000+ yrs and didn't what that glorious past cut short by human creativeness, then the Giasphere, or magic, or the Reds really did stop it. I also thought the Soviets did care, but internal problems (stirrings of the Euro wars, and same work among their natives) kept them busy too.

All that aside, I liked it because it seemed like the only, even Remotely plausible reason for the actions the US takes against the Indians.

Daemon Hence my reference to the US use of Concentration camps (as opposed to death camps, there is a slight difference) during WW2, japanese americans were interred in such camps for security reasons... all because of a sneak attack.

hmm, now that i look at it, those zombies smell of a resident evil ripoff...

and sure something can be damaged by bullets, but what we are not takeing into account is the initial reaction from troops running into stuff like basilisks and similar in what used to be a normal forest or whatever. remeber that at the time people would not know what they where up against.

Stuff like Basilisks and other paranormals were likely to have been encountered already by hunters if they appeared in any numbers worth bothering in a military context. Either way, the good ol' scheme of firing high velocity lead tends to work pretty well.

well, they could have been gatherd when it was time for war

allso, sure the soldiers would fire, thats how they are programed (yes i did use that word and i stand by it) but there would still be a reaction when they return from patrol reporting a unknown anumal that turned thier platoon to stone. most likely moral would drop like a rock if this happend in any number.

problem is that the back story of sr dont cover when the meta-animals (if that is the right name for them) showed up, except for the dragons.

we dont know how fast they appeared, how fast the science community figured them out or how fast the common man understood what they where and axcepted them as anything other then monsters to be feared.

we realy dont haveany indication as to how most people react to encounters with these beasts. and in the time from they first appeared and until game time (about 50 years?) the way to treat them would change. remeber that wolfs and bears was at one time seen as more of a threat then they do now (alltho they are still dangerus if hungry or provoked). replace them with the sr monsters and go for base reaction when faced with something unknown.

its to easy for us to look at the stats and say that this isnt threatening, but humans have a buildt in fight or flight response to anything unknown. and when that triggers all bets are off as to how we will respond.

magic was a unknown factor, the numbers needed to pull of the great ghost dance was most likley at the time unknown. and pulling a bluff like saying it was done with the wave of a hand would put most generals and politicians into a thinking mode.

point is that we must filter what is known in 2060 and what was known in 2014-18. there is a lot of years there.

there is a lot more factors in the puzzle then just two unbalanced armed forces butting heads.

remeber that at one time the whole world stopped in awe and fear when the nukes where dropped. signaling that the us leadership had a powerfull new weapon and was not affraid of useing it. now we are so used to the idea that dont realy think about it unless we are paid to do so. the same thing was going on with magic at the time. they know how to use it, proved that they where not affraid to use it and the other side didnt have a clue as to what level of effort they where dealing with. it was a gigantic bluff most likely but it worked.

The real unanswered question is: What is (was?) the "Great Ghost Dance" and what power did it have? Considering that the force wielded and the results achieved in the NAN revolt seem beyond what can be achieved by "conventional" magic. So far as I know, no shaman can cause 5 Volcanoes to erupt simultaneously, or storms cordinated to ground the USAF. It also seems to indicated that the Great Ghost dance has come to an end (though I can't recall the exact passage), and the NAN, seemingly, cannot tap into its power to achieve anything now. So, no matter how fantastic and incredible the results, we can still chalk it up to "Magic".

Also, Kermlin, I think there are several references to exterminations at the concentration camps run by US, esp. MitS talks about the dangers summoning toxic spirits of man at places "polluted" by suffering, and then lists Auschwitz along side of the Abliene Camp.

As for your other question: No one is going to be called a bigot by coming out against concentration camps, OTOH trying to defend the difference won't get you so much positive feedback, so most people take the easy route and throw the dictionary out the window. Why argue semantics when you can be Outraged (and praised for it) instead?

The GGD was ritual sorcery on a huge scale, measurable in the large amount of lives lost during the ritual.

Too true, but my core point remains that any nation can fall far enough to use such things. after all I remember around this time three years ago the idea for detaining the middle eastern muslim people in such was being discussed.

There has been at least on other use of the Great Ghost Dance in canon. I don't see it being beyond the imagination for terrorists (like JI?) to make use of this tactic at some point.

if they can figure out how to do it

Good basis for a run or two.

if we are talking about something similar to a run to steal a nuke or kill a great dragon...

I think stealing a nuke would be heaps easier than dusting a Great ... that is to say that the nuke is at least doable.

Really, there isn't much to keep some organization like JI from seeking out knowledge of the GGD. It should at least partially be available through Astral Quest(s), and tracking down one of the participants in the last enaction shouldn't pose that much of a problem.