Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Universe changes
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Pages: 1, 2
Birdy
Okay, I am not looking for "alternate Universe" ideas but more for single changes that are major enough to make a difference and minor enough not to invalidate the printed material. I'd like them "one change per post", like the Example:

1) No exterritoriality and proxy votes
[Based on: Cyberpunk, Bubblegum Crisis, Dark Conspiracy, Falkenbergs Legion]

As stated before, even the AAA Corporations are not "beyond the law". The police can still search their installations, arrest Damien Knight, put Lucien Cross in front of a court and punish Lofwyr for murder.

At least in theory. In reality the financial power of the big companies can buy enough judges, police chiefs and politicians to make them reasonably immune to prosecution. Not totally so there are some jobs, a corp does not want to be linked to. That are the kind of jobs, you use Shadowrunners for.

A citizen will still identify with "The company" first, use company money, life in company towns etc. Existence is far closer coupled to having a job [And thereby a SIN] so "company SIN" or "Taxpayer SIN" is the term used for "Working persons SIN" as opposed to "Social SIN" or "Citizen SIN", the one you get when you life on welfare.

Proxy votes allow you to buy an other persons vote for a certain amount of money and vote in his place, again giving more power to the corporations. Typical payment is housing/feeding/drugging in a "Project", slightly better than the State-run slum next door.


Birdy
mmu1
I'm really not a big fan of the whole SR metaplot, truth be told, so I have no clue how badly running SR my way would screw things up (and I tend to play rather then GM) but...

1. Great Dragons are not gods. They're amazingly powerful - for a single being - but a 6th world equivalent of an army division (which presumably isn't naive to the existence and use of magic) will rip one to shreds without trying too hard.

2. Immortal elves were wiped out long ago by a unique awakened venereal disease.
Sharaloth
Hmm, Changes to the SR world.

1) Dragon colouration: I didn't know what colours the GD's should be, so when 4 of them appeared in my campaign, I just used how I always imagined them. Lofwyr = deep red; Celedyr = reflective white (not the pale blue of Dunkelzahn and Ghostwalker); Hestaby = Black; Ryumyo = Gold.

2) The entire reason for the cycles of magic, as well as how magic works on the metaplanar level. This one's a big one, and is actually intrinsic to the campaign, I might post the full explanation later.

3) New York. Actually, I didn't change this one outright, per se. But the players from a previous campaign DID set off a nuclear device under Union Square in late 2059, blowing a big crater in the city. My current campaign (with different players) takes off after the old campaign and uses Manhattan and the thing the nuke was supposed to destroy as major driving plot points.
Nyxll
1. World is in bad shape, weather is extreme, the air is quite dirty and the radiation levels are extremely high. You have to head out with a mask and suit.

Mutations: Many people are hunchbacked and warped. People that live inside arcologies and domes are usually fine, but small cities and raiders struggle with the effects. (you can localize this to a state or small country.)


Velocity
1) Deus squelched its ego and decided to be patient, building more subtle, long-term plans instead of taking over the arcology outright.

2) The Fuchi/Renraku corp war, with Miles Lanier doing his little dance. In my campaign, the four million shares weren't left to Lanier in Dunkie's will, they were sold to him by conniving Renraku execs. The PCs were heavily involved.

3) Haven't decided yet if the Horrors exist.
Fygg Nuuton
in the current campaign, i made up a company named umbrella. no zombies or nothing, i just like the ominous name. plus, this way i can have a run and not have the players be all like "oh, its ok, i read it in a source book"
nezumi
1) Horrors exist and they're secretly laughing at Dunkie.

2) The concept of dates haven't been invented yet. I run whatever I want whenever I please. (Alright, dates have been invented, but I change specific ones at my whim.)

3) Wireless technologies exist and have prospered (although not as much as SR4), the command line has avoided extinction. The mystery of the five ounce cell phone has been unlocked, and not all phones weigh two pounds.

4) No one has figured out how to use pretty pictures that communicate as much as the written word. Hence, when people talk, they generally have at least a vague idea how to spell the words they're using (or can at least read it). r/w skill equals the language skill.
Cray74
QUOTE (Birdy)
Okay, I am not looking for "alternate Universe" ideas but more for single changes that are major enough to make a difference and minor enough not to invalidate the printed material. I'd like them "one change per post", like the Example:

1) No exterritoriality and proxy votes
[Based on: Cyberpunk, Bubblegum Crisis, Dark Conspiracy, Falkenbergs Legion]

Gee, that's almost an alternate universe there, or at least an alternate history (depending on your semantics).

But I've gone the same route. I've got an alternate history where megacorps never get sovereign status and there's no balkanization of power groups. I call the setting, "Superpowers, Corporate Whores."

The world is divided into (not necessarily hostile) major power blocs like the EU, USA, China, and MERCOSUR. Megacorps lobby and bribe the superpowers into doing their bidding (more or less). With the huge free trade zones of the super power nations, megacorps can turn a much better profit and operate more efficiently than in Shadowrun and are thus happy to maintain the status quo - it costs less to control a few nations than many small ones.

Shadowrunners are extremely critical as deniable assets because megacorps executives can be arrested for murder, bribery, etc. if they're caught directly ordering such dirty deeds.

Quite a few long-lived non-human personalities (e.g., the Great Dragons) are unchanged, as is technology, gear, rules, etc., but the political map and history are different. Historical changes compared to canon Shadowrun...well, the history of "Superpowers, Corporate Whores" starts with real world history up to about 2005AD. As a couple of examples of the differences, the Shiawase and Seretech Decisions have been missed (no corporate extra-territoriality or militaries) and North American governments are on better terms with Native Americans (so the Great Ghost Dance won't occur).
Nikoli
Wow, that sounds like a workable cyberpunk political atmosphere.
Cynic project
California.

San Jose is the seat of what most people of corp power.

San Fran is largely a ghost town compared to what it is now. Having about 70% of the usable building "legally"used.

LA LA Land is the land of broken dreams. The billion airs live within miles of the SINless. No one cares, and the streets are patrolled either things more related to armies that cop or left to rot.

Sac town is well scary in it's own right.

The tir took some land up north, no one cares, Aztlan didn't get San Diego. San Diego is an armed camp, with most of the US pacific fleet and Cali's armed forces there.
Sahandrian
The main difference in my world is SURGE. First, it was only accelerated by the comet, not caused by it. Anyone who experienced high mana levels (living near a manaline, toxic site, or focus of ongoing emotion) through development and childhood could express SURGE traits, either at birth or later on. Second, SURGE'd parents can pass on some of their traits to their children, and their children will also be more likely to express other traits. Either way, spontaneous SURGE in adulthood only appeared during the comet.
nezumi
Now that I think about it, I change a lot depending on the particular campaign. In some cases, space travel has gotten much farther and there are even lunar bases (not 'colonies', but bases). Sometimes the Soviety bloc is still around. Sometimes there's more magic, sometimes less. I'm not too tight-fisted when it comes to canon stuff, so if I want something to happen, I don't mind letting it be so.
arcady
QUOTE (Cynic project @ Aug 5 2005, 08:49 AM)
San Fran is largely a ghost town compared to what it is now. Having about 70% of the usable building "legally"used.

Just to note - it's was at about 98% in the late 1990s.

San Francisco is only 7 miles by 7 miles in size. Everything goes up, but only in downtown. There are a lot of places where you just can't build that high, and it is impossible to build down due to the ocean and the fact that the city is basically a rock.

In the 30% of the northen half of the city that is on landfill - dig down more than 3 feet and water floods in, and often you will find things buried in the late 1800s - like ships - used to make that landfill.

In the late 90s, there was only a 2% vacany rate. As the dot-com boom went off, this got worse. The mayor began plans to raze all the low rent housing in areas like SOMA and put in offices, and then halfway through construction of those the dot-com crash happened. As a result, housing is now still at around 2% vacancy but office space is plentiful but in areas blighted by recently returned prostitution, drugs, and so on.

The future of that is easily predictable - even if these neighborhoods recover perfectly (which is likely) geography will always result in in a vacany rate that is extremely low.

The city today has only about 750,000 people, growin by upwards of a million more during business hours.

Unless what you meant was that 70% of the land is 'no longer habitable' due to some disaster / plot event. However, it reads the other way around - as if you were saying it is 70% occupied, which is lower than today. Even at 70% occupied though, the geography would still make it seem crowded.



-------------------


Been a while since I ran Shadowrun, but if I did I would probably also toss out extra-territoriality in favor of just a strong WTO. I'd also lower the power of Japan in favor of its neighbors.

I would also get rid of the whole 'employee for life' thing that was inspired by Japan of the 1980s. Instead I'd look more to the notion of Corporations have no loyalty to their workers and workers have no loyalty to the corps - like we've seen developing in the real world over the last generation.

Why worry about losing one valuable scientist when you can replace her with 30 Indians (India people, not natives) or Mexicans for half the price?

Bunch of idiots want to extract the guy in mid-level marketing? Let em - you've got 35 more in reserve with a temp agency.

Runners got your CEO? -shrug- they're a dime a dozen from the top business schools anyway. Anybody else ever notice how often CEOs move around in today's real world, despite trade secrets? Sooner or later those fools who keep outsourcing us in the working classes are gonna find out how easily they can get outsourced...
Cynic project
I know about san fran.I was refering to that 305 of the useablebuildign weren't used. Not 70%. 30% of a city being unused will cause major heads to turn.
arcady
Yes it would.

You've got then owned and unused? Or deserted from blight / other factors?
Cynic project
I tis mainly do the fact that that the land is owned by a very few people. Most the city is owned by 4 parties, and they set the rent to high that they gain mroe money by keeping the rent so damned high. Less money spent on upkeep and such. San Fran is place for rich people.
arcady
That wouldn't work actually - upkeep on the unused land would outstrip any benifits you could gain on the used land. That much property left open would blight the property around it - even if it was maintained. If you have 30% vacancy, regardless of the reasons, you will drive the region into social and economic blight. High vacancy is very bad for an investment. Present Day San Francisco is only upwardly mobile because of its density. The same is true of Manhattan, Seoul, and Tokyo - high vacancy in any of these regions for any reason would ruin their value.
Birdy
Arcady: Interesting on the personel idea but that kills not only a major part of SR but also of Cyberpunk

Cray74: That basically sums up, what I was trying to say

Nezumi: I am really looking for single ideas, not complete universes. I.e your altered space travel ideas would be interesting

Sahandrian: Staggered SURGE, hmmmm

Cynic: Sorry, I'd have to read up on the FreeCal stuff to comment on your changes.

========================

Another change:

Dragons do exists but they are far more an enigma to humans than in-game. There are rumors of "Great dragons" and such but no definit and final data.

The same goes for the PR-Dragons. Sure, a BILD/SUN/NationalInquirer style journalist named "Holly Brigton" claimed to have made interviews with a "Great Dragon" but it could never be verified indipendently. A lot of persons claim S-K is run by a dragon named Lofwyr. There is a Mr. Lofwyr but wether he is a dragon...

"President" Dunkelzahn claimed to be a Dragon and he sure was a high-initate Mage but beyond this, nothing was ever proven. And some people claim Mrs. Daviar can be linked to an "enhanced excotic dancer" in Vegas.

As of other Dragons, there are claims that they are controlled by someone, changing their Voices to their Handlers.


Birdy
SL James
"Mrs."?

Aren't there enough rumors out there already?
Panzergeist
In my shadowrun games, I have a larger penis. Beyond that, you would have to ask Grendel.
Bandwidthoracle
1) Absolutly no horrors

2) No immortal elves

3) No links to Earthdawn

4) Magic is scary/hated by the ignorant masses of the world (with exceptions like NAN and azetlan)
DuckEggBlue Omega
Adelaide, the only Australian Capital NOT covered in T:AL, and the surrounding land is the centre of aqau/agriculture and mil-spec factories for the region, resulting in a combination of high security and nothing worth stealing from a runners perspective. Basically I was coming up with something that would explain why it wasn't already covered.

The combination of some of the largest tracks of land in Australia unaffacted by mana storms with the relatively clean waters of the southern ocean mean a large quantity of the worlds best fresh produce comes out of the area. The agriculture and aqauculture is mostly controlled by the formally named 'National Foods Ltd', which was bought by local interests from San Miguel Corp whilst trying to raise money to fend off a hostile take over. The new owners changed the name, realising low public opinion about corps, to that of one of the more family freindly sounding subsiduaries, Farmers Union. The other major corporate presence is The Submarine Corporation, Australia's largest producer of military hardware.
Aside from remaining Military Factories, Residential areas (about 85% of which is corporate enclaves) and a small military base, the majority of land is used for farming and seafood processing. Most of the suburban areas of 50 years ago have been demolished and replaced with farms, not dissimilar to the 'market gardens' that occupied the area a hundred years ago. Adelaide has also managed to maintain it's title of 'the City of Churches', being the home of numerous religious orders.
Adelaide is a very clean city, full of corp citizens and military, that is plentiful in resources that are rare in this country (water and fresh food) and stockpiles of military hardware awaiting delivery. But with almost no research facilities, or targets that would be of interest to runners, and the high amount of security that accompanies the almost purely corp and military presence, and the need to safe gaurd the plentiful resources from hostile forces,
Adelaide is a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to run there.
Demonseed Elite
Hmm, trying to recall all the universe tweaks I've tended to make in my own games.

1) Otaku are not playable by players. They remain spooky and strange antagonists for the player characters.

2) The California Free State is a shaky national government propped up by a messy international nation-building effort. Think Iraq, but with the Tir, Aztlan, UCAS, and NAN all pretending to try to build a stable government there while making sure their pawns get into power. Saito used his station as the Protectorate Warlord to negotiate himself into the position of Secretary-General of Defense for the CFS and remains the de facto mayor of San Francisco.

3) Dunkelzahn did not sacrifice himself (oh, and a few Secret Service agents) in an overdramatic act involving cyberzombies and Ryan Mercury. Someone killed him. The mystery is still not solved, but the Scott Commission in DeeCee still has some very influential backers and is certainly not above hiring runners.

4) SURGE never occurred on a large-scale. It does sometimes happen in extreme concentrations of mana (like the Ganges River--see Shadows of Asia).
Birdy
QUOTE (SL James)
"Mrs."?

Aren't there enough rumors out there already?

Over here in germany the "Fräulein"(Miss) has dropped so much out of use (basically restricted to 40+ year old virgins) that I automatically wrote Mrs. Daviar, should be Miss

Birdy
Bandwidthoracle
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
3) Dunkelzahn did not sacrifice himself (oh, and a few Secret Service agents) in an overdramatic act involving cyberzombies and Ryan Mercury. Someone killed him. The mystery is still not solved, but the Scott Commission in DeeCee still has some very influential backers and is certainly not above hiring runners.

I forgot, that's a good one. Dunky is the 6th world JFK, not the messiah
arcady
QUOTE (Birdy @ Aug 6 2005, 09:13 AM)
Arcady: Interesting on the personel idea but that kills not only a major part of SR but also of Cyberpunk

Why would it kill Cyberpunk?

My changes are standard fair for modern Cyberpunk literature.


Megacorps are out, employees for life are out, Japan is out, collapsing society and tech moving too fast is all out.

Globalization is in, nanotech is in, society embracing tech is in, dystopia is in, social-politics in, memetics is in, outsourcing is in, temp-work is in, loyalty only for the length of the contract, tranhumanism, and so on.

If you stop and think, Shadowrun was transhuman in a sense - although it humanized the psychology too much in the way that gamer-fiction tends to do.

A lot of authors and readers have begun using the term 'postCyberpunk' to refer to present day writing, just to distinguish it from the absurd sillyness of 80s Cyberpunk (which was known to be a wrong view of the future even as it was being published), but other authors, publishers, and readers keep the old name out of insistance that this work still owns the genre despite being 'updated' to actual socio-political theories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcyberpunk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism


I agree that it might alter Shadowrun beyond recognition to do this, but not Cyberpunk - all it does it make it Cyberpunk and not 'DnD with guns'.

Even most 80s Cyberpunk fit better into what they're calling postCyberpunk than the themes I am dropping.
Cynic project
I find biotech to be less realalistic than cyberware. I really don't see how it is more believe to replace parts of a human body replaced by genetic replacement parts over metallic,plastic or ceramic parts. Talk to someone who had organ tran plantsand someone who has had screws in them...
Aku
to be fair cynic, you ARE talking two majorly different types of surgeries there. I can't think of something that would be the same comparably, maybe someone that's had a prosthetic knee replacement, vs some sort of natural reconstructive surgery?
frostPDP
Since we've pretty much thrown out the notion of "one per post..."

1: The Matrix is more like, well, The Matrix. You plug your head in and its like today's internet enough to describe to players as "You enter Renraku's home node, which is kind of its homepage...Here's the description." This makes Decking just a little more accessable. The Otaku, needless to say, don't quite do much - Haven't used them, since decking is basically the same notion (I think.) I also never cared much for Decking.

2: Extraterritorality (if I can spell it) exists, but it exists at the tolerance of the UCAS Military. Corps have their own "Security forces" and can get away with a lot when their interests are involved, but the UCAS army is the one which holds the country and they do not let people like Shiawese forget it. There are, for example, rules that regulate what military stuff a corp must have. (It may be allowed to have nuclear arms, but the access codes would have to be shared by the UCAS government.) E.T. Also is different from nation to nation - Tir Tangiere's laws would be more like today's rather than the UCAS, CAS, or German States. And forget about Atzlan - If you aren't Aztechnology, you might as well not be there.

3: Magic is, arguably, more prolific. If 1/100 to 2/100 people are magical, that's a good amount. That partially explains this uncanny trend for magic users to also be Shadowrunners, but it also makes for a few more things to throw around.
Velocity
QUOTE (Birdy)
QUOTE (SL James @ Aug 6 2005, 10:56 PM)
"Mrs."?

Aren't there enough rumors out there already?

Over here in germany the "Fräulein"(Miss) has dropped so much out of use (basically restricted to 40+ year old virgins) that I automatically wrote Mrs. Daviar, should be Miss

Birdy

Should be Ms. (pronounced "mizz").
Cynic project
QUOTE (Aku)
to be fair cynic, you ARE talking two majorly different types of surgeries there. I can't think of something that would be the same comparably, maybe someone that's had a prosthetic knee replacement, vs some sort of natural reconstructive surgery?

Yes and no. When you replace your meat with different type of meat you are replacing a part of yourself with meat you have work it into the body to work as if it was part of the body. Not only the immune and neural contections but also the feeding of the meat. Cyberware can adviod a lot of the problems with the types of metal in the replacements.
Aku
Well, i dont have M&M, so i dont know how they describe the bioware process in '65, i would think atleast some of those false parts issues might have been fixed by that point
Herald of Verjigorm
Yes there are difficulties with bioware. That's why you get a TN penalty to all healing tests and a decreased resistance to diseases and poisons. Cyberware doesn't have those drawbacks (it has others). Wow, the rules actually already do what you assumed they don't.
Birdy
@Arcady:

Sure, the "new breed" aka Transhumanism is interesting. But if I want to go there, I have better systems (GURPS) and much more material (Transhuman Space)

Interesting but too far away from SR / CP 2020 for my liking.


@frostPDP:

I actually go the other way, making magic less common. But as they say, YMMV (Your milage may vary)

And no nukes/Thorshots for the corps.

===========================

Another change:

Not yet used (My runners are low level currently) but I totally ignore the "Space" and "Deep Sea" chapters from "T:W" except for some rules. I'd rather use the space descriptions from CP: Deep Space (More stations, moon/mars colonies) and an undersea-infrastructure that has a lot more in common with first season "SeaQuest".

Birdy
Cray74
QUOTE (Cynic project)
I find biotech to be less realalistic than cyberware.  I really don't see how it is more believe to replace parts of a human body replaced by genetic replacement parts over metallic,plastic or ceramic parts.

I figure if doctors are now growing human tissue in petri dishes with the goal of growing organs in vitro to replace failed ones, then it's just a short hop to explaining bioware.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/...lish_966412.htm

""I think it's a long way from any organ but it's a significant step along the way for, say, a pancreas or a liver maybe 10 years down the track," an Australian authority on stem cell technology, Professor Alan Trounson of Melbourne's Monash University told ABC Science Online."

Growing new boobs:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s925309.htm

Growing ligaments, tendons, and organs:

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=9158

"The cells are "seeded" on a model, or scaffold, where they continue to grow. The next step is implanting the model in the body, where the scaffold eventually degrades as the new organ or tissue integrates with the body."

Once you can manage to grow replacement organs *and* have a working genetic engineering capability, bioware should be straightforward. Just grow an artificial organ that mimicks your tissue (so your immune system doesn't reject it) and genetically engineer the superhuman features you want to it. Then it's a straightforward transplant.

QUOTE
When you replace your meat with different type of meat you are replacing a part of yourself with meat you have work it into the body to work as if it was part of the body.


Shadowrun doctors have a century of medical experience in transplant rejection - it's not a new problem. And apparently, they've found two easy cures significantly superior to the immune suppressant drugs used today.

1) Remove or mask the protein markers on the implants so the recipient's immune system doesn't see the implants as foreign. (Generic "type-O" replacement organs and non-cultured bioware.)

2) Start with the recipient's own cells (stem cells) and insert the modified genes to turn the cells into the desired bioware. Grow the bioware in a petri dish and implant it when ready. (Cultured bioware and clonal replacement organs.)

QUOTE
Not only the immune and neural contections but also the feeding of the meat.


Feeding the new meat is accomplished by hooking up blood vessels. That's just microsurgery and is performed daily in real life with organ transplants and reattachment of severed limbs.




(A lot of the time, I wonder where the flying cars and huge space stations are, leaving me feeling that the 21st century isn't quite as futuristic as I hoped when I was a kid. But then some subtle technological wonder sneaks in and convinces me this is, in fact, the 21st Century. Last night, I called a friend on a pocket-sized radio phone in her moving car and gave her driving directions pulled from a world wide computer network. Today, I see doctors growing artificial organs in glass jars and have a reasonable expectation of having such spare parts grown for me when I get geezerly enough that replacement parts are needed. And that's cool.)
Cynic project
QUOTE (Cray74)
QUOTE (Cynic project)
I find biotech to be less realalistic than cyberware.  I really don't see how it is more believe to replace parts of a human body replaced by genetic replacement parts over metallic,plastic or ceramic parts.

I figure if doctors are now growing human tissue in petri dishes with the goal of growing organs in vitro to replace failed ones, then it's just a short hop to explaining bioware.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/...lish_966412.htm

""I think it's a long way from any organ but it's a significant step along the way for, say, a pancreas or a liver maybe 10 years down the track," an Australian authority on stem cell technology, Professor Alan Trounson of Melbourne's Monash University told ABC Science Online."

Growing new boobs:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s925309.htm

Growing ligaments, tendons, and organs:

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=9158

"The cells are "seeded" on a model, or scaffold, where they continue to grow. The next step is implanting the model in the body, where the scaffold eventually degrades as the new organ or tissue integrates with the body."

Once you can manage to grow replacement organs *and* have a working genetic engineering capability, bioware should be straightforward. Just grow an artificial organ that mimicks your tissue (so your immune system doesn't reject it) and genetically engineer the superhuman features you want to it. Then it's a straightforward transplant.

QUOTE
When you replace your meat with different type of meat you are replacing a part of yourself with meat you have work it into the body to work as if it was part of the body.


Shadowrun doctors have a century of medical experience in transplant rejection - it's not a new problem. And apparently, they've found two easy cures significantly superior to the immune suppressant drugs used today.

1) Remove or mask the protein markers on the implants so the recipient's immune system doesn't see the implants as foreign. (Generic "type-O" replacement organs and non-cultured bioware.)

2) Start with the recipient's own cells (stem cells) and insert the modified genes to turn the cells into the desired bioware. Grow the bioware in a petri dish and implant it when ready. (Cultured bioware and clonal replacement organs.)

QUOTE
Not only the immune and neural contections but also the feeding of the meat.


Feeding the new meat is accomplished by hooking up blood vessels. That's just microsurgery and is performed daily in real life with organ transplants and reattachment of severed limbs.




(A lot of the time, I wonder where the flying cars and huge space stations are, leaving me feeling that the 21st century isn't quite as futuristic as I hoped when I was a kid. But then some subtle technological wonder sneaks in and convinces me this is, in fact, the 21st Century. Last night, I called a friend on a pocket-sized radio phone in her moving car and gave her driving directions pulled from a world wide computer network. Today, I see doctors growing artificial organs in glass jars and have a reasonable expectation of having such spare parts grown for me when I get geezerly enough that replacement parts are needed. And that's cool.)

And just because you can make a cloned part doesn't mean you can make a better cloned part. Sure you can make bigger breasts and some what say those are better but they did that first with a more cyber type way.

A lot of cyberware that I see people geeting is going to be way to hook up with machines, ie radios,datalink,VCRs, and the like.

Now cloning a better hreat changes everything about the body. One would have to replace othe large of the body as well. .. My point is that both bioware and cyberware is possible I find cyberware replacement to be more believeable for improving the human body. Well at least in most ways. I also find t to be more economically fisable. Seeing how both of these things will be niche markets. With cyberware you can build the implants in a day, bioware takes what a few months?
Nyxll
You guys have hijacked the thread, could you please start another?

Thanks.
arcady
QUOTE (Cynic project)
I find biotech to be less realalistic than cyberware.

I tend to agree with you.

But...

Rejection is the only signifigant problem with transplants. If you can conquer rejection issues suddenly everyone else around you is a prospective donor. If you cannot, then transplants will always be as troubled as they are today and the whole 'organ mining' sub theme in some cyberpunk will be absent.


Cloned material is problematic for reasons of speed of growth. Tissue takes time to grow and the whole issue with stem cells is just very un-exact. Depending on what you can do there, cloned body parts may or may not ever come to pass.

Cloned whole bodies probably never will. Dolly has shown us the face of cloning, and it is troubled. Cloning will probably be used mostly to produce first steps in breeder colonies for animals and plants. Clone a generation, then breed it for healthier children.

If ethics falls by the wayside the same might be used to produce designer lines of humans - sex toys and infantry most likely. Both of which might likely see the adoptation of animal DNA and designer genes to get certain aspects to come out.
Cray74
QUOTE (Nyxll)
You guys have hijacked the thread, could you please start another?

I apologize. I get annoyed at threadjacking, too, and I went ahead and did it anyway.
nezumi
QUOTE (Birdy)
Nezumi: I am really looking for single ideas, not complete universes. I.e your altered space travel ideas would be interesting

(Hey, this sort of links to the hijack too!)

Space travel comes up a LOT in non-SR cyberpunk. In fact, SR is the only cyberpunk world I can think of where it seems to have largely gone backwards. Metrophage had some great examples of space travel in SR. Humans have a space colony, but it's been partially blown up by strange, mysterious aliens and, we find out later, it's mostly the fault of the humans. Gibson always had his space stations, which ranged, like Earth, from the super nice to the downright ratty.

The only real thing about old cyberpunk I really miss in SR is the loss of the cold war. I mean Japan taking over was scary, but the Cold War was *REALLY* scary. I might have to put that back in; conservative Russians took power after Putin's failed revolution, and set the USSR back another 50 years in regards to human rights and general paranoia. Disarmament has stopped, and they probably have some Kiev class subs a few hours outside of DeeCee.
Bandwidthoracle
QUOTE (nezumi)
The only real thing about old cyberpunk I really miss in SR is the loss of the cold war. I mean Japan taking over was scary, but the Cold War was *REALLY* scary. I might have to put that back in; conservative Russians took power after Putin's failed revolution, and set the USSR back another 50 years in regards to human rights and general paranoia. Disarmament has stopped, and they probably have some Kiev class subs a few hours outside of DeeCee.

What about the orbital thor shots the corps (Government ++) have above each other? Isn't there kinda a cold war going on between Ares and one of the other corps?
nezumi
Being an employee of neither Ares nor whatever other corp it is, it doesn't really affect me directly. Not like being an American living within twenty miles of DeeCee affects me when Cuba has a six-pack of nuclear missiles and a pissy communist dictator.
Link
QUOTE
The only real thing about old cyberpunk I really miss in SR is the loss of the cold war. I mean Japan taking over was scary, but the Cold War was *REALLY* scary. I might have to put that back in; conservative Russians took power after Putin's failed revolution, and set the USSR back another 50 years in regards to human rights and general paranoia.


I thought setting Russia back was Putin's revolution.

For those playing SR1 (there seem to be a few) the cold war never really ended.
nezumi
QUOTE (Link)
I thought setting Russia back was Putin's revolution.

If memory serves, Putin wanted to make Russia a democracy. It could be 'setting Russia back' by certain standards, however he was neither a royalist nor a communist, and I don't recollect Russia having a period of democracy between the two.
Velocity
I suppose that depends on your definiton of 'democracy.' He never envisioned a free press, for instance. Voting, yes. Capitalist market forces, yes. "Representation," yes. Free flow of information... not so much. wink.gif
Birdy
Ah come on, democracy is overrated! Just ask Daimler-Chrysler or Halliburton biggrin.gif

But back to SR:


Runners have no SIN!

To quote the Runners Runner, the thiefs thief, the assasins a, no wait, that's his wife... So to quote Jim Bolivar diGriz: "For as long as humans have build houses, there have been rats living in the walls. Our modern world is made of concrete and therefore it takes a new kind of rat - A rat of stainless steel"

The runners exist, because they do not! They have either been ereased from the databases or they never where entered. Anyone with an identity can be traced far too easy. Sure, you can get a fake SIN but those are only good for some limited stuff. For most of your life you depend on the underground, the dealers and fixers.

This also means that you can't get a DocWagon contract, live in an upscale area or do anything else that needs a solid SIN. Your health depends on the local street doc, not some airborn rescue service. You life in the desolate slum zones. You may have a decent appartment there since you are the "big fish" but you'll ever make it to the legal areas.


Birdy
shadow_scholar
Regarding SINs and not allowing your players to use DocWagon because they don't have one, I'd let them do it. Individual contracts worth tens to hundreds of thousands of nuyen per year have a way of making a corp overlook a small detail like the lack of a SIN.

As for my game, the biggest change I instituted was in Seattle only. I created a plot where Lone Star lost the municipal security contract for Seattle and Knight Errant won it. Basically it was a tool I used to push out an old GMs contacts in favor in instituting my own and to make life a little more difficult for the Runners.
lorthazar
Changes to My SR universe. (sorry but I don't feel like making a separate post for each.

1. 11th AAA corp Doc Wagon with enhanced Extraterritoriality . Anything with 20 yards of Doc Wagon Ambulances is Doc Wagon territory, but only when on a call.

2. No Horrors. They had a freak accident when they were invading a different world and 99.9999% of them died, horribly.

3: GD's and IE's are vulnerable. You just got to be really good.

4: Daniel Howling Coyote killed in magical duel with unknown Michigan boy. UCAS offers the NAN limited sovereignty if they pay taxes, vote and support the UCAS in whatever it does.

5: Second civil war waging as a series of skirmishes even with advanced tanks the South is steadily losing.
tisoz
QUOTE (Birdy)
This also means that you can't get a DocWagon contract, live in an upscale area or do anything else that needs a solid SIN. Your health depends on the local street doc, not some airborn rescue service. You life in the desolate slum zones. You may have a decent appartment there since you are the "big fish" but you'll ever make it to the legal areas.


Birdy

Maybe it has been lost from edition to edition, but I recall reading that Docwagon will enter contracts with SINless. They create an ID number for them that is like a SIN or an actual SIN, i forget which.

Any corp with extraterritoriality can issue a SIN. Though I forget if Docwagon qualifies as an issuer.
Canis
My group has made a lot of changes to the SR universe. Several have already been mentioned. The two biggest are:

1. No Extraterritoriality. Really Extraterritoriality makes no sense and is downright silly (imho), but I’ll leave that debate to another thread if anyone cares to take it up. This takes away from the core cyberpunk a bit by dramatically reducing corporate power, but my group thinks it adds a lot to our game because it emphasizes the fact that shadowruners are hired because they are deniable assets. This is very important in our game, so stealth, research and planning are much more important than shooting. I send them on a bug hunt or into a war torn 3rd world country when they feel like just letting loose and shooting everything. Also corporations are different. Conglomerates (companies with numerous unrelated businesses, i.e. SR Megacorps) make little financial sense (in RL) and died off for the most part in the late 80’s. So companies like Ares and Novatech are smaller and more specialized (war and computers respectively), but there are also several other major players in North America. We kept SK and Aztechnology largely the way they were, and gave Japan a handful (about 8 ) of Neo-Zaibatsu (megacorps) that run the country behind the scenes.

2. The UCAS didn’t break up. We have 2 Native Americans that are regular players (they live on the Soboba Reservation), and they just though that the whole thing was silly. Instead we decided that a smaller ghost dance happened but its purpose was to renew their people’s pride in their ancient culture and to gain more respect from the US. In our game the reservations act more like independent States (which is somewhat similar to how they work today); the whole NAN gets two Senators and a couple of Representatives. California and the South never split, but the Tir and Quebec did split.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012