Ok, I know this thread won't do anything to actual developments. But try to see it as a plaything. Might spawn a few ideas.

What do you think might happen to our well known characters from the SR universe in the five years that bridge the editions?

The first that came to my mind was Captain Chaos - his years of work have gone down the sink. He either commits himself to reconstruction (and therefore stays with us as our 4th Edition sourcebook host), or plainly gives it up. A younger generation will pick up his heritage and create all-new data havens. We'll then see our share of Captain Chaos impostors. My opinion: a Captain ought to go down with his ship.

On a similar thought I remembered Fastjack - and came to the conclusion that his time was over. I don't think he'd care to start from the beginning again, considering his age. It's probably for the best if he dies sometime during the crash and it's consequences.

I see either Damien Knight or Nadia Daviar running for president of UCAS.

Lofwyr ought to get a slight setback. Maybe an assassination attempt that almost succeeds. But he has to live and still be the same arsehole - Shadowrun wouldn't be the same without him.

Harlequin... well, sitting on some beach with Frosty, having a Bud.

Art Dankwalther might succeed at ruining Richard Villiers but definitely will ruin himself in the process.

General Saito is most likely in for a whipping from two fronts, but I'd love to see him keep his hold on some territory in North America - I just don't know how he'd manage to do that, yet.

I think that's enough for a start... what are your ideas?



Ricky Ratboy will be seized by a master shedim and - as leader of a small death cult in the Seattle sewers - act as main villain in one of the adventures in On the Run. *vile grin*

Oh man, what's Dodger going to do? Meagera might very well die.

ricky ratboy's dead. died in SSG.

Just because the Matrix goes down doesn't meant that all the data is going to be lost. Systems will have to be updated and files transferred to 'modern' hosts. All of Cap's hard work will still be there, it just might not be immediately accessible.

Who was Rick Ratboy?

oops, heh. i just saw the name as i was scanning through.

Captain Chaos will never die. What I think will happen is some new guy he trusts takes on a large piece of the responsibility of running a data haven, and gradually the original Cap lets the new guy post under his name.

After all, Captain Chaos has been busily posting for well over fifteen years, right? And he was no newbie when he started. I could see a Dread Pirate Roberts thing going on.

And Aina suffers through yet another drastic change in the world, all the while inching closer to the return of the Enemy.

Dodger: Will be bitter because of Meagera's death in SC/CE.

Cap'n Chaos: Still on the bridge, this time of a new ship. Pirates don't sink with their ships, Arrr! Honestly, I'd miss him dearly if he'd go.

FastJack: Will continue being a decker and graduyally lose contact with SOTA, and will become more and more of a living fossil, one of a dying species, one of the last true deckers. Will die poor, bitter and lonely in 2103.

Lofwyr: Will lose a lot of money, as well as a lot of prestge within the dragon community. Will lose all chances of being Loremaster for the forseeable fututre (and I am speaking in dragon terms here)

Celedyr: Option 1: Will mastermind Matrix 2.0's implementation. Might well have had a hand in SC/CE. Option 2: Will be thoroughly and totally fucked and lose all of his assets, business and most of his hoard, though I cannot imagine any bank daring to carry out an evicition order against a GD.

Damien Knight, Richard Villiers, and Nadia Daviar: Will compete running for president. One of them will die.

Ghostwalker: Will tighten his grip on Denver. Might well expand Denver's borders in all the confusion during SC/CE.

Aztlan: Will go berzerk.

Japan: Will not be a superpower after SC/CE. after all, they want to update SR to current world standards, and Japan has seen a steep decline already.

China: will reunify, possibly under some Kuomintang-style dictators with Lung's backing. Will start building shiny large aircraft carriers.

Israel: Will be in dire trouble. Let's hope they have found the lost Arc in 2065. They're gonna need it.

Harlequine: Will sit back, have a drink, and watch the chaos unfold, watching with slight amusement and the jaded pleasure of someone who has seen numerous cultures crumble and die. After all, that's what makes his life interesting.

Though it originally wasn't my idea: I'm all for Pax as new sysop of shadowland

Bastard Admin From Hell taken to the extreme ...

Hermit:

Israel has something better. Nuclear weapons.

However, I really don't think they'll touch that region much. It's too easy to get dragged into the politics.

- Mr. Dankwalther, what are your plans to improve the unemployment rate in the country?

- I intend to grind into the dust the country's second largest employer.

Fastjack is alive and well. In 2074 he accepts one last job, engages in physical penetration into one of the backbone routers of the Matrix. While inside he is trapped within and becomes an inextricable part of the Matrix.

~J

That would be a nice end (and beginning) for him imo.

I haven't read the most recent Matrix books (and at this rate, I probably won't be forking out for Matrix at all, no point if there's going to be a new edition in August), but from way back I always suspected Fastjack of being an AI. At least up until 2nd ed, the guy had never been seen in the flesh. Did we ever have proof positive of his physical existence?

I'd suggest getting Target: Matrix anyway.

~J

Yeah, the Target books are a slightly different matter, since they're more oriented towards info rather than rules. But I doubt I'll drop the cash for any more rulebooks at ths juncture.

Heh

From this old-timer's point of view, back when everyone was all hotly denying the existence of AI's in 1st Ed, a "The lady doth protest too much" syndrome set in. Fastjack was a tempting suspect, since he was an absolute genius decker and had never been seen in the flesh.

Of course, our other theories included FJ being a spirit that had taken up residence in the Matrix. Or that FJ WAS the Matrix; that the Matrix had, as a unified system, crossed over into sentience and FJ was the face that sentience chose to wear.

Ah, the heady days of big hair, loud rock, staging codes and those dinky little claws that let you jack into the Matrix and run it with your brain.

CFS finally showing a back bone and at least kicking Saito's ass all the way back to Japan.

Nova Tech merging with Ares, Tranys, ZIC, or Spinard. All these companies would have good reasons to merge... To think what SK would think when they aren't the biggest corp on the world. That could happen if Nova tech merged with either ZIC or Ares. If it Merged with Ares, we are talkign about a corp with 3 votes on the CC.

Art, just dying. only causing novatech enough problems to make it merge with another corp.

Ghostwalker/ DF sowing the seeds that would rebuild North America into one nation.

Ryan getting eaten by a dragon....

Why would Ghostwalker want reunification?

~J

There's a few examples using Dodger, but I do specifically remember at least one using Fastjack outside the Matrix.

It was definitely in SR2. He was using a "science" skill or some sorts.

How about Hatchetman?

The Smiling Bandit <<strikes again! Ha! Ha! Ha!>> ?

Hatchetman got turned into a zombie. I don't think we'll be hearing from him much. He'll be busy playing with his IMS.


"oooh... look at all the pretty memories..."

Yeah, I knew Hatch got turned into a cyberzombie. Just wonderd if he would still be kicking around.

You all seem to keep better tabs on the signature characters than I ever did, so I´m tempted to ask a few questions. It has probably been up for discussion multiple times before but what the heck:

•Does the shadowtalk hold up to scrutiny?

•If you take a look at history, is there a good chance that I will be able to believe the shadowtalk posts in the new edition, if they´re supposed to be, is made by the same folks 5 years later, taking into account all that might have happened in that time?

Basicly; has there generally been a good concistancy in the shadowtalk posts? I never payed much attention to the names under the posts, so I wouldn´t know.

Yeah, but there was also a metaphorical changing of the guards. Matador was Dowd's creation from a decade ago. To keep using him would be like people still posting with characters Findley created (Chromed Accountant being a key exception). The evolution of shadowposters is inevitable, and it's interesting that in the last year or two they have, as asides, "cleaned house" and killed off or retired all sorts of shadowposters and runners from SR1 and 2 like Wedge or Spook (shame we didn't even learn about what a cool backstory she had until she disappeared).

Deckers, it seems, are the ones who seem to never go away. But I imagine it'd be a bigger deal in the shadowtalk for someone like Fastjack to disappear just because he managed to survive into every subsequent edition to date, or Smiling Bandit, who to be fair was absent from shadowtalk for a long time, when it became helpful to bring back one or two (him and KAM) posters who could speak with authority on genetech when gentech made a comeback.

Cool. While I started with the game early in the 2:nd edition era I was very young at that time and got most of the books used when I got a little older. I´ve followed the 3:d edition in more of a straight order, so in time I might learn to identify some of the reoccuring names and their development. The only ones I recognize at this point are the most famous ones and a few that always bitch about the same things, like Dragonslayer and Errant Knight.

<<<edit>>> One of my favourite Shadowtalk moments is when Prime Runner starts to brag and everyone turns on him, telling him that he´s pathetic. Wonder were they got their inspiration for writing that?

Probably from the maxim, "Braggers tend to be floaters."

You could probably make that a scientific fact by studying this forum.

AFAIK, nothing ever came of it. They've both appeared in 3e books, but never together to my knowledge.