Are you kidding me? Most runners do not have SINs. When they get caught they are just are not set free because they do not have a SIN. There are rules for prosecuting someone without a SIN.

So what you are saying is I can go to mexico and kill people, and just walk away because I am not a citizen there?

Only if he was asleep.
Great dragons aren't terrible because of their physical abilities, they're terrible because of their magical abilities. You could send a team of jets after Lofwyr if you want. Repeated force 25 barriers will take care of any missle or plane. Plus there's the fact that if he wants to, he can just stop being there. You're talking about an individual creature who can match the great ghost dance for power and has thousands of years of practice. Do you really think that if it only took a couple of missles, he'd still be alive? Or Hestaby?

You want to declare war on the dragons? You do not understand how powerful dragons are.

1) "Governements should take a firm stand". Who is this "governement" you speak of? The "governement" that had a dragon as president, or the one that has one sitting on the Council of Princes? See the problem? Dragons rule the world. That's all there is to it. No "governement" is going to declare war on them and their assets, since all those governements have dragon influence somewhere in them.

2) A single GD can level a city. Teheran no longer exists because they thought Dragons sucked. Dragons have no reason to be hostile because the populations "accepts" them in society, sorta. They get to play their power games and stuff. If the population suddently stands up and says No to dragons, there is no reason why dragons would not start massively killing everything that stands. I'm not saying they'd win, but the world would be in ashes after that particular war.

3) The other governement: Corporate Court. SK, the most powerful mega corp, is the plaything of a dragon. Aztechnology is also, sorta. They won't move against dagons, same as #1.

Need more convincing?

The thing is that Dragons don't like each other very much. If a random GD levels a SK facility will Lofwyr go out of his way to protect that dragon. Frag no. He'll go out of his way to make that dragon dead.

There is no dragon union to collectivly bragain for the race. It is every dragon for itself. When their interests coincide they may work together. When they don't, they don't care what happens to each other. When their interests oppose each other then they do not pull punches.

Whoops, Sorry.

edit: I think the point the original poster was interested in, is that the GD could go ahead and assassinate your premier (if doing so helped it somehow), and basically get away with it.

I've got something of a chip on my shoulder for this sort of thing. To me, part of SR is that there are some people who are above the law (and there's nothing you can do about it). However: Often, those who think they're above the law end up falling down and being crushed by it. For some reason this never seems to happen to the GD's and IE's unless another is involved.

Maybe it just stems from me not liking any individual of that scale of power pulling the strings in my world...It's like, why even bother anymore?

Yes and no. Most of the ones we know of have wormed their way into positions of major political power, and have used that power to skew the rules in their favour (most obvious eg, The Two Tirs... hmm... sounds like a book in there somewhere...). Those few that haven't taken that route (eg, Harlequin, at least to the best of my knowledge) live like professional ghosts, much in the same way that the top figures in organised crime or professional (as opposed to ideological) terror activities do - sure you could do stuff to them, but you have to find them first.

Considering that Ghostwalker is probably the most powerful living Dragon in terms of raw magical strength and that he had the support of the Draco Foundation and a small army of spirits, turning over Denver wasn't the most unwise decision. It is just one city. What does one city matter in the grand sceme of a nation. Diddly squat, that's what. Let him have Denver. It is less costly than an all out war would be.

Besides, the UCAS government likes abandoning cities. Just look at Chicago.

Now, if he were to start invading other cities, then there would be an all out war and Ghostwalker would lose.

Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain.

If the terrorists asked politely and promised not to let the big bad Injuns don't invade and deport all white people continent back to Europe then it would have been a wise decision, indeed.

I grossly disagree with this assessment. Currently the only superpowers in the world are the United States, Russia and China. Many people will even dispute China and Russia as having relevancy to the word 'superpower.' GD's shouldn't even be given as much consideration as say, the Netherlands, with regards to their power. Why, you ask?

Well, let's put it this way. We can assume that any reasonably developed sixth world nation has at least one mobile platform that can fire either cruise missiles, railguns, or both. A great dragon will be totally toasted by these. "But heavens!" some have said, "They have GREAT magic power!" True, but they can only react to so much at one time. An attack squadron of the 2060 equivalent of Eurofighter Typhoons or F-16s will make extremely short work of any GD, based purely on their speed, maximum strike range, and ability to launch many, many missiles/railgun shots. This is why Hualpa, Mujaji, et cetera, didn't simply waltz into the Yucatan and single-handedly wipe out entire regiments. Sure, they did a lot of damage... but they didn't do it by themselves, nor did they do it like an armored, invulnerable giant. And now for a specific rebuttal:

Not when there are between 8-20 missiles, moving between mach 0.8 and 1.5. Possibly even as high as mach 2 - 3.5, depending on if Shadowrun cruise missiles have evolved out of things like the D-21 drone originally designed for the SR-71. Remember, many great dragons *do* work within the boundaries of the rules to an extent. You can't cast a force 6M Naval barrier when you don't have an action, and you certainly can't cast it when you don't know you'll need that action to avoid getting hit. Actually, I don't think you can cast a naval-class barrier at all, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. To take down a single, solitary, powerful being you hit it fast enough that it just can't react to all the threats at once.

So why hasn't a GD ever been killed like this?

Well, that's simple. Like Great Dragons, attack squadrons of military fighter aircraft are plot devices, and if the authors don't think the plot should move that way, it won't. Which is where we encounter problem 2 with 'Wax the GD with missiles.'

Canon makes it very clear that the GDs have massive hordes of resources which they've used to build allies, contacts, influence, spy networks, et cetera, so that they're never caught unawares by ordinary people. And that any national or corporate threat that crops up they can merely buy or threaten out of existence. Denver is a prime example of how this could work. Sure, Ghostwalker bullied the city into accepting him as ruler, but anyone who did so stood to gain a massive economic and political prize. Likewise, while it may have been extremely rude of Surrurg to blow up that EuroAir flight, I'm fairly certain any international inquiries into the matter were squelched by favors and donations to those that might do the inquiring.

In short, I figure the GDs are just like any other extremely powerful figure in Shadowrun: totally mortal, once you plant the C4 on their face or achieve a lock-on with your supersonic cruise missile. The problem is getting to that point. The GDs have *wonderful* publicity working for them, especially in the 'you can't possibly ever harm us' department.

At what point in his attacks on Denver did Ghostwalker ask politely?

You don't need ID to get in trouble, you need it to avoid trouble.

Illegal aliens are arrested all the time today and processed through the criminal justice system. They face greater hardships than a citizen or resident alien as their status has forced them totake measures that make good legal representation hard to afford (if there's one thing you can't pay under the table no matter how much money you have - its the lawyer who shows up in court with you - too much tracking of their financials for them to be able to take the pay, even their time can be make part of a court record with ease - and supena's for a defense lawyers billing hours is a popular prosecution tactics to use on lawyers who represent socially deviant clients).


How do you take a dragon down? Sieze all of his financial assets - everything (s)he has tied up in investments, banks, and elsewhere. You can then put a hold on any money (s)he tried to move into or out of your jurisdiction.

Presumming the dragon is wealthy and well invested, this will hurt. They are now forced to work through the underground economy. When that happens, you arrest every non-dragon agent they use to move and otherwise manipulate that money. Presuming of course you lack the man power to go after them directly.

At this point the easiest option for the dragon is to simply take flight for a new home.

You can never sieze all of a GD's assets. Even if you take every single penny they they have collected in the Sixth World they still have gaimungous Fourth World trasure hordes to fall back on. Lawyer? I believe that the Sixth World still has public defenders. Forcing the governmen tthat is prosucuting you to pay for your legal defense while you live in luxury is the ultimate kick in the pants.

Howveer, there is something more important to consider. You can't fight the system, but you can become the system. In many cases, GD's are the system, as has been pointed out. The most afulant of GD's are simply too politically important to go after.

Also, finiancial attacks go both ways. Governments don't have limitless resources. They have a limited amount of funds to work with. It isn't difficult for a massivie finicial power to substantially reduce the funds that a government has to work with simply be hoarding savings bonds and cashing them all in at the right time.

If the bureaucrats don't get paid then the bureaucrats don't work.Without bureaucrats there is no bureaucracy

So, we are back to a Great Dragon can be taken down by an Ultimate NPC.

Exactly. Everyone would agree on that.

If all of Mr Lowfyr's funds got misaproperiated he could always fall back on the paper currency, gold bullion, real estate, priceless 4th world artifacts, objects of obscene magical power, and ect. that he has stached away in his many lairs.

However, any government will notice that Mr. Lowfyr is the head of a AAA. This means that he possesses soverign immunity and can't be charged with any crime for that reason. International law, and all.


The only way to take down a great dragon is with overwhealming military force. It is doable and it has been done in the past. I know some dragons have been killed by militaries in the 6th World. I'm not sure if any of them were great. In the 4th World, however the Theran military was able to kill the Loremaster of the time. Granted, Thera had more Mojo than the average soverign entity in the 6th world, but the lower mana levels restrict dragon magic, too.

A squadron of bombers with military grade lazers flattened a schloss but didn't scratch Alamias. The thing is most dragons wouldn't dirty their talons with murder in a public place. They would use followers to do it, who could be later disavowed.