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Umbrage
It's hard to beleive that SR is, what, 16 years old? Another 16 years will put us in 2021. Already much of the SR timeline is already moot: Nissan buying Chrysler, Supreme Court rulings regarding megacorps in '99 and '00, etc. (It's interesting when something is actually correct, e.g. Schwarzenegger's political career.)

As the game ages, how long before the timeline becomes ridiculous, and how will FanPro adapt? Will "history" be quietly rewritten into the game, or will we just be content to play in an alternate universe of sorts?
Altheas
Well, Christmas Eve 2011 does seem to have the potential for a significent divergence to arise between the Shadowrun universe and our own. biggrin.gif

Seriously though, I actually don't see much of an issue with the gradual drift apart in the time-lines. It's just a game, and events are heading that way, though not to the extremes suggested in the timeline.

Should Fanpro decide to attempt to massage Shadowrun history into line with what is in the real world, I doubt it would work very effectively. One of the appealing things of shadowrun is the coherent timeline, giving the impression of a living world. Retroactively altering events would, to me at least, violate that coherence.
Crimson Jack
Keeping the game year 60 years ahead of our current year IRL helps. I can safely say that no matter what happens IRL, I'll still like the concept of Shadowrun. If an Awakening doesn't happen, I'm still keeping my books. smile.gif
Kagetenshi
Indefinitely. There were specific choices that made the timelines diverge from before the date at which the first book was published.

~J
Pthgar
SR is/has been an alternate universe for a while. It's just as viable as any other semi-contemporary RPG.
Wounded Ronin
Heh, if it were me, I'd just take the history of the 80s, rework it into code fascimilie events, and use that as the continuing SR timeline.
Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (Umbrage @ May 19 2005, 05:41 PM)
As the game ages, how long before the timeline becomes ridiculous, and how will FanPro adapt? Will "history" be quietly rewritten into the game, or will we just be content to play in an alternate universe of sorts?

It's no more ridiculous than any other "alternate history" (aka speculative history) fiction. That is, not at all once you accept the fact that it's all fiction.

SR hasn't had enough historical revisionism in it already? It does more harm to the integrity of the game if they continue to do it, especially on a macro level. Without the events of SR's past, specifically in the 1980s and 90s, SR would be another game. So just leave it the hell alone.
Euchrid
I just think of SR as an alternate timeline which diverged from our own in 1989. I have no problem reading old sci-fi novels with moonbases in 1995 or World War III occuring in the eighties, so why should a roleplaying game be any different?
frostPDP
Well, the game's central "difference" between reality and fiction is based on a doomsday prophecy. If the prophecy doesn't come true, then its a sealed deal that SR cannot represent a "possible future." That future would more be an "Alternate past."

That doesn't mean the game gets canned. Whats to say the world DIDN'T end and our spirits could not accept this, thus continuing our life? The rest of the world awakened just as SR planned, but we're dead? Whats to say that the world isn't ending every instant - Its easy enough to argue that once you've lived through something, it's over and dead except in the memory.

Thats part of the problem with life, I guess - We live in a universe which is nigh-impossible to define. Some people will say magic can never, ever be possible. Others will maintain that in a small way, magic exists. Certainly there are enough questionable things in everyone's life to leave some doubt - Even if its a doubt of one's own sanity. Ever have Deja-Vu, the kind where you know exactly whats going to happen for the next ten seconds and forever after unless you choose to stop playing along? Ever see any of these crazy survivor stories which almost seem inhuman? Ever see on this very forum that there's a 12 year old with a baby's mind and body and elfish-type ears? I think most people would agree you can't pop a television set with your mind (and if you differ, I have a TV which needs popping, so please come do it. No, really, I have a real old TV I need to explode), but what of the small things?

So even if we enter the Sixth World and NOTHING changes, the Mayans were wrong and they join the line of cracked out soothsayers who bewared the Ides of March (and every other day on the calendar), Shadowrun will still exist. It might be a call for a lot of GMs to port parts of the world that work into a world where such things are possible (Like a D&D sort of crossover - Magic works in their world, too) but regardless SR will still be played as an alternate universe. Most people, I'm sure, aren't seriously banking on the possibility of an Awakening or a doomsday comet.

Though NASA did leak, for a moment, that a December 2012 impact of a comet was likely. It also covered it up afterwards as a mistake, and said the real possibility was 2014. But who knows, maybe this comet will just cause magic to come back. Maybe there never was or will be magic. Today Wiccans believe in Magick as reality, simply in a different form than "I cast fireball and you go boom!" Certainly millions believe in the spirit of something greater.

Of course, millions could be wrong or even crazy. Or right. You have to choose that for yourself.

~~End rant~~ [Addendum] - Wow, Crimson's right. I do sound stoned. Cool!
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Euchrid)
I just think of SR as an alternate timeline which diverged from our own in 1989. I have no problem reading old sci-fi novels with moonbases in 1995 or World War III occuring in the eighties, so why should a roleplaying game be any different?

As noted above, it diverged some years earlier.

~J
Crimsondude 2.0
Wow, Frost. Can I buy some pot from you?

I like to think it's, um.... Fiction! Bad enough they started down the road by changing references from the Soviet Union to Russia in the SR2 core book, and then we get all sorts of revisionist BS nonsense in books like SoNA (It's kind of hard to buy any of the CAS chapter when you consider that the country was so poorly off in the 1990s that a food strike occurred in NYC). Just leave it alone. We had a nice history going. Don't ruin it by contradicting things like Shadowbeat and the idea that Fear Factor-style shows wouldn't become popular for a few more decades. It's annoying, and too often capricious for nothing other than lack of imagination IMO.
Edward
I think that within 15 years history will have drifted sufshantly that new players will have difficulty accepting it. you need to have an idea of the early 90s to be able to easily back track the diverging path, I think by 2020 SR will be a dying game because new young players will have to much trouble accepting the history. Wether fanpro will rewrite the game history remains to be seen. I hope not it would need to be at least as significant a change as SR4 matrix revision across the board with historical changes. (very bad)

Edward
Crimsondude 2.0
Yes, because clearly (potential) SR players are stupid, and they can't distinguish between RL and fiction. At what point did SR stop being a game for you?
frostPDP
Never done pot, my friend. I do have a big mouth and a lot of ideas, that could be the problem I suppose. I like to be silly and yet serious, and I'm not great at wording things except in person. So deal with it. Besides, there's not a large gulf between a pothead who sits here and makes post and a non-pothead - Clearly, both have too much time on their hands.

I have to agree that SR will have major problems in 2020 when it comes to staying true and pure to the plot. That's the nature of a game which seeks to make a future-is-different model of the world - When it doesn't come to pass, the game changes in perspective a bit.

That doesn't mean SR will die. It doesn't mean it needs to be changed. I know I'd still play it if the cosmos decide to disappoint. That's why Orwell's 1984 remains popular and even important (Moreso, in my view, now than ever before.) to our society - It might never have happened, but that doesn't mean it can't or that it has no value. It means the value undergoes a slight, simple change.

And Crimson, why so hungry for a hit? smile.gif If you want a real headtrip, check out my deviantart in my sig and be prepared to have a headache.
Crimsondude 2.0
I'm going to guess and say you haven't seen "The Family Guy." You know, since "Wow.. Can I buy some pot from you?" is lifted straight from the show. Just add "Frost" for plagiarizing goodness!
Pthgar
Really, I suppose the SR "timeline" didn't divurge at all. SR is a completely different universe, parallel not divergent. The laws of physics are completly out of whack with our own. If you believe the IEs and GDs, life on earth didn't get started in a way even remotely like what we've theorized (secular and religious). The entire history of life and civilization on this planet Earth are compleltely incompatable with SR Earth. Good God, I hope SR4 isn't a "Crisis" event. ohplease.gif
nezumi
I would hate it if they were to change the timeline. In fact, what I would like them to do is push the timeline back. Tell me about 1988. Tell me about the world then.

SR1 didn't have to describe the world they lived in, and all the fears and hopes that gave rise to cyberpunk were alive and well. That's not the case any more, but we're using the same 'history' written for that 1st edition. I can't understand the fear associated with the cold war. I don't see any other country as the 'bad guys'. I'm not afraid of globalization. But maybe I should be (or at least recognize that people were).

But don't try to change the history so it matches with 2005. At best, it would make a silly mess. At worst, it would lose all the drives that made cyberpunk and shadowrun so exciting in the first place.
wagnern
I have a friend who played Maro Project (I am sorry, I don't know how to spell it) the night the Nuke war was supposed to happen according to the game's history.

The game/book/movie is still valid after the future becomes the past.

Now if GM and players want to make minor modifications to the world, like oh, I don't know saying a satellite dish doesn't have to be the size of your kitchen table, adding things that are popular today but not when the game was written (Like massively multyplayer online game - which would be really cool with the VR tech of the matrix, even at a reduced 'general consumer' level-) or other small things then well cool. But timelines history and the big stuff you don't need to and probably shouldn't change.

That being said I can't see Microsoft merging with anyone, The Evil Empire doesn't merge, they Concur!. I don't know, maybe Bill was entranced by the one thing all geeks are powerless against: breast. I guess I'll just have to live with it.
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (frostPDP)
I have to agree that SR will have major problems in 2020 when it comes to staying true and pure to the plot.

It'll still be better off than Cyberpunk 2020.
RangerJoe
The only problem with a divergant timeline is when players have trouble "getting into" the game world because it is so wildy divergant from our own familiar world. One way to remedy the problem is to focus on the "here and now" in games--introducing history as a plot point or a bit of background to flesh out an NPC, rather than as essential knowledge to survive a run. Another approach is to introduce familiar components from "our" timeline into your game world without altering the fabric of the game world itself. Sure the news reports could be about "a militant orks-rights policlub" detonating a bomb in Renton, but it's much more familiar to the players to hear "a militant orks-rights terrorist group." It doesn't hurt the game too much, and keeps the world in the realm of the familiar.
Nikoli
You're talking about a game setting where Eons ago monstrous things akin to Chtulu walked around and used (meta-)humanity as [playthings,chew toys, food, all of the above]. You accept that, but the concept that the original writers weren't actually telling you what really would happen in the next 20 years is bothering you so deeply that you think the game will become un[popular,playable] because of it? That's sad.
Normally i don't post like this, but come on, I seriously doubt that in 15 years people are going to give a devil-rats hairy ass that the world didn't awaken and we aren't actually seeing orks walking around. As they play SR8
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (Nikoli)
...people are going to give a devil-rats hairy ass...

Devil rats are hairless.
Nikoli
The artwork shows some scraggly wire-like hairs
Crimson Jack
QUOTE (RangerJoe)
The only problem with a divergant timeline is when players have trouble "getting into" the game world because it is so wildy divergant from our own familiar world.

<opinion>I've never run into this problem with any players in my game. Might be an age thing, but its fairly simple to inundate newbs into the SR timeline. In fact, its always been easier than inundating them to other systems since there is so much about how you roleplay your character that makes sense with how things are done IRL. If you want to shoot someone, sneak past a guard, negotiate for more money, search the matrix for information... all of this is grounded in real life mechanics. There's some to learn when it comes to magic, but its quite a bit easier than other systems.</opinion>
FlakJacket
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0)
SR hasn't had enough historical revisionism in it already? It does more harm to the integrity of the game if they continue to do it, especially on a macro level.

Which bits are you talking about here? I can think of a few things that have been changed in later books or just cropped up suddenly but can't come up with anything I can think of as 'macro' level as you put it.
Crimsondude 2.0
Biggest difference I can think of right off the top of my head is that all references to the USSR past 1992 in SR1 were revised to Russia in SR2.
Link
The most jarring bit of that historical revision was that the USSR became the CIS rather than Russia. Since the CIS was a short lived entity it shows the futility of trying to adjust the SR timeline throughout the editions - the ability to see how the future might unfold doesn't really improve.

QUOTE
I would hate it if they were to change the timeline. In fact, what I would like them to do is push the timeline back. Tell me about 1988. Tell me about the world then.

SR1 didn't have to describe the world they lived in, and all the fears and hopes that gave rise to cyberpunk were alive and well. That's not the case any more, but we're using the same 'history' written for that 1st edition. I can't understand the fear associated with the cold war. I don't see any other country as the 'bad guys'. I'm not afraid of globalization. But maybe I should be (or at least recognize that people were).


Good idea about the world in '88.

Globalisation's just warming up I'd think. Like China/Walmart vs USA in this documentary I just saw.
frostPDP
One things for sure - if SR suddenly makes references to the "War on Terror," I'm going to cry.
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