[Crimsondude]

It was the goal in one of the adventures in Jet Set.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Nor has hacking a Thor shot ever been off the board.  Of the three you mention (Thor shots, air traffic control, nuclear power plants) possibly the only one that would realistically ever be utterly secure from hacking would be nuclear power plants.  ATC has probably been hacked dozens of times, specifically to take out various flights with a VIP on them; there are several possible examples, whether of Corporate Court Justices or of corporate moguls.  Thor shots are necessarily innately linked to ground control, and thus are hackable.

Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, I can very easily see being set up with the best tech out there while keeping it sneakernet.  No wireless internet for these places; in fact, either every single wall in the place is wireless-inhibiting or they're running a constant jamming code against wireless matrix attempts; maybe both.  However, every single one of their systems should be wired, and the only unwired thing on the grounds should be the guard's radio link with base.

The Grail of hacking has always been Z-O, though.  And we know that that's been hacked.

[Nath]

But now for reasons of "plot" the Thor shots are suddenly offline, a to my knowledge one paragraph item invented for the sole purpose of "why does someone not ruin our Earthdawn love affair with a modern age weapon." suddenly they are offline. Can anyone point me to any pre-existing mention or cause for this? Someone hacking and re-purposing space based weaponry (there was the Pulsar incident, but I thought that had more or less been swept under the rug) should pretty much be a setting changing event, because it means things that were previously more or less beyond the realm of hacking, air traffic control, nuclear reactors, thor shots, are suddenly vulnerable.

As James Meiers said, Jet Set (which in spite of the title and what it reads on the back, has little to do with the living style of the rich and the powerful) features one adventure, "Operation Blindside", which has the PC infiltrating Aztechnology world headquarters in Tenochtitlan to steal codes and then their Spindle space station to hack all the corporation's observation and attack satellites in a single day or so. It mentions the Corporate Court issuing a secret edict to turn all satellite weapons offline because of the demonstration. All we know is Johnson spent a few weeks in Africa before meeting the runners.

[Black]

But now for reasons of "plot" the Thor shots are suddenly offline, a to my knowledge one paragraph item invented for the sole purpose of "why does someone not ruin our Earthdawn love affair with a modern age weapon." suddenly they are offline. Can anyone point me to any pre-existing mention or cause for this? Someone hacking and re-purposing space based weaponry (there was the Pulsar incident, but I thought that had more or less been swept under the rug) should pretty much be a setting changing event, because it means things that were previously more or less beyond the realm of hacking, air traffic control, nuclear reactors, thor shots, are suddenly vulnerable.

As James Meiers said, Jet Set (which in spite of the title and what it reads on the back, has little to do with jet the living style of rich and the powerful) features one adventure, "Operation Blindside", which has the PC infiltrating Aztechnology world headquarters in Tenochtitlan to steal codes and then their Spindle space station to hack all the corporation's observation and attack satellites in a single day or so. It mentions the Corporate Court issuing a secret edict to turn all satellite weapons offline because of the demonstration. All we know is Johnson spent a few weeks in Africa before meeting the runners.

Now that sounds like an epic run!  It also sound like a death sentence for the runners involved...

[FastJack]

But now for reasons of "plot" the Thor shots are suddenly offline, a to my knowledge one paragraph item invented for the sole purpose of "why does someone not ruin our Earthdawn love affair with a modern age weapon." suddenly they are offline. Can anyone point me to any pre-existing mention or cause for this? Someone hacking and re-purposing space based weaponry (there was the Pulsar incident, but I thought that had more or less been swept under the rug) should pretty much be a setting changing event, because it means things that were previously more or less beyond the realm of hacking, air traffic control, nuclear reactors, thor shots, are suddenly vulnerable.

As James Meiers said, Jet Set (which in spite of the title and what it reads on the back, has little to do with jet the living style of rich and the powerful) features one adventure, "Operation Blindside", which has the PC infiltrating Aztechnology world headquarters in Tenochtitlan to steal codes and then their Spindle space station to hack all the corporation's observation and attack satellites in a single day or so. It mentions the Corporate Court issuing a secret edict to turn all satellite weapons offline because of the demonstration. All we know is Johnson spent a few weeks in Africa before meeting the runners.

Now that sounds like an epic run!  It also sound like a death sentence for the runners involved...

In other words, "Tuesday" for some shadow teams.

[shrike]

RE: Thor shots being out of play.

As of late I've been trying very hard not to comment one way or another on a lot of SR work, because frankly I'm a bit close to some of the people involved and actually as of this writing have my own couple of bits of work that I'm frantically pounding on trying to get into shape.. That's not to say that all my comments would be negative, far from it, I've very much enjoyed some of the books that have come out lately. Having said that:

I'm already kind of hating Clutch of Dragons

Now i've always been kind of ambivalent on dragons as a plot device in part because they skew the setting so horribly towards the magic side of things. Frankly only in a world where firearms, fighter jets, tanks, and other assorted military hardware so inexplicably weak does the current plot sort of work.

*snip*

I keep trying to come up with a less caustic way to write this but the thought that keeps running through my head as I'm reading the book basically boils down to this. Some of you may realize this is not a new complaint for me, but it's never been this acute.:

I'm really kind of disappointed that at some point Shadowrun stopped being it's own game with it's own identity and became just the future of Earthdawn. I'm actually saddened that the technological side of the house the chrome, the matrix, the transhumanistic elements have all just become set pieces so we can do this draconic plot and the artifacts plot.

There I got that off my chest, i feel better.

You know, its weird finding someone else who is thinking the same things I am. You said exactly what I've been trying to put to words for a while now but couldn't. I always hate criticizing the companies I buy games from because it makes it seem like I don't appreciate their work. That's far from the case. I also know that not everyone will agree with me and my likes and dislikes. Not everyone can be or will be  pleased by what Gaming Company A ads into their sourcebooks. Anyway, I just needed to add that here.

[Nath]

Thor shots are necessarily innately linked to ground control, and thus are hackable.

That's assuming you can get close enough to the ground station in the first place to learn on what band and frequency they're using to communicate with the sat, and get more than a peek at the encryption and protocol as well. It can be possibly more simple to sneak into one of the secured facility that keep the classified technical documentation. None of them are unlikely to be any less secure or wireless than a nuclear power plant. Besides, it seems some satellite weapons constellation have no ground station, and are controlled from a space station (that seems to be the case at least for Aztechnology, per the aforementioned adventure, and Ares, according to Target: Wastelands). An alternative would be to get your own listening satellite in orbit close enough to the Thor shot to eavesdrop on its incoming and outcoming communication.
Then, yes, having gathered the needed intelligence, you will be able to hack a Thor shot from anywhere. Well, anywhere with the appropriate antenna, which, depending on the frequency, can be as practical and common as a ten-meters dish.

The fun part is, any military of the Sixth World could consider this well within range for an actual opposing force, and thus set up additional layers of security into this, like one-time pads for critical instructions, pre-set sets of targeting coordinates (like nuclear weapons) and the likes.

I think it can be much easier to sneak into a nuclear plant and plant a remote control of some sort.

[Wakshaani]

For what it's worth, I like the Dragon CIvil War plot, simply because of the fallout that it's generating. By tradition, a dragon going tooth-n-claw with another means that one of 'em ain't walking away, so, they have proxy wars instead, which means that PCs get hired to do things.

And plots that involve the PCs doing things are GOOD, while plots that say, "You sit around and watch two immortals duke it out. Look at how cool they are!" is BAD.

As for magic, yeah, the artifacts leaned on that side of things, and a bunch of the plots over the past few years have as well since magic is what separates Shadowrun from other cyberpunk, but you're not the only one who's noticed that too much of on flavor spoils the meal. I'm not a big magic guy, so my stuff might invoke magic but revolves around people. It doesn't matter if someone's awesome new security system was bypassed by groovy tech, a neat spell, or somebody using chewing gum and a pocket mirror ... what matters is that the security system was defeated and that now somebody has a Thing that you've been hired to track down and bring back.

Anytime I can bring things down to Earth, I'm gonna try.

There're a ton of freelancers now (Around 40, I think?), each of which has their own vision and desires, some of which are more magically-inclined than others, ome of which are more technical than others, some hate Elves, some love Elves, and, in general, everyone's at their best when something really catches their imagination. Keep an eye out, see what books are announced and what things are on the way, and if you feel like something's missing, feel free to say so! Helps figure out where issues are to be addressed.

One of the things I dig about PDFs, and keep in mind, I'm very much a books kind of guy, is that they allow a focus on some small segment that would never stand on its own. Let's say that I wanted to do a book on the "Black Box", a Mitsuhama Computer Technologies arcology in Philadelphia. Maps, details of the floors, information about the people who run the thing and stuff it makes, how it's effected the local community, etc etc etc. It trips my trigger, and there are some arcology-lovers in the Shadowrun fandom, as well as sociology people, but let's be honest, how many copies of this book would sell in normal release? Enough to recoup printing costs? Unlikely. As a PDF, however, it can be made for a much smaller sum, allowing it to break even with a fraction of the sales, which gives it a chance for life. I'd have to write up a proposal and float it upstairs, they'd try and gauge if there's support for it and if it would fit into the product line, and we'd talk about it from there.

I'm rambling.

Hushing up now.

[CanRay]

In other words, "Tuesday" for some shadow teams.

Some?

[Crimsondude]

Captain Chaos hacked Z-O when he was tracing the source of the transcript of the two mages talking in Cybertechnology about cybermancy, he made it through Z-O twice before finally hitting an iceberg.

Anyway, never underestimate the military to maintain nothing more than a veneer of security over their toys.

[Ethan]

The Lofwyr-Hestaby mate match was proposed in the fiction piece at the end of Survival of the Fittest. FYI.

I seem to remember that book. That was where Hestaby noted that thanks to the modern world's communications systems, namely the Matrix, the dragons felt that they had lost their "personal space". Which was triggering all this aggression... may need to reread that book, thanks for bringing it up.

Hmm...

[Marzhin]

Crazy idea that came to me under the shower (cliché, I know): what if Aina's spirit had somehow merged with Zebulon? That would explain the "fractured personality" thing.

[Crimsondude]

!!

[Black]

Crazy idea that came to me under the shower (cliché, I know): what if Aina's spirit had somehow merged with Zebulon? That would explain the "fractured personality" thing.

I always thought it was because Zebulon had infant been split not a number of pieces, as outlined in the original Denver box set.  One of those fragments was a racist policlub leader known as glennis shard.  Real nasty piece of work, mostl likely a shadow spirit.   She even lead a policlub called unity. 

Now that Zebulon is reunited into one being, she my still be dealing itch the fallout of a these strong personalities merging together.

On a side note, the spirit of Denver shattered and then Denver was divided ino zones... Now that she is reunited, will Denver also reunite?

[Crimsondude]

/shrugs