November 2072
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Wed Nov 16 2071
Cheap chinese hardware and poor quality Novacoke seems to be slipping through the UCAS/Warrens border. Petty crime with HongKong Specials is trending upwards while unofficial numbers out of the Rez indicate a spike in overdose related deaths. Some say that the Vory are making a play and it seems to be upsetting the local Mafia - is a shakeout in the makings?
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Fri Nov 2 2072
KSAF News in brief. A male talking head looks into the camera» "Denver authorities have released a photo of their suspect behind last week's airport bombing, allegedly intended for Jeremy Falloon:
»Inset Picture of Connor Seale, former VP of the Tusk Liberation Front, terrorist organization
»Inset security cam loop of a small blurry group running on the tarmac towards a sitting plan
"Mr. Seale's whereabouts are unknown and is wanted for questioning, but he is considered armed and dangerous.
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Fri Nov 2072
KSAF News in brief. »A female elven talking head smiles at the camera. "Thanks, Craig. Well big news in politics. Proposition 87-B is on everyone's lips as the Council approved a motion this morning to allow a quorum for the controversial bill allowing blanket search and seizure of any metahuman suspected of hate-terrorism. This comes after a summer and fall of multiple terrorist actions. Councilman Ramirez is expected to filibuster the bill if it quote, 'moves faster than Montezuma's revenge'. In other news, are you pampering your puppy too much?"
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Wed Nov 7 2072
The UCAS election proceeded as expected. The Technocratic Party pushed through its 11th hour legislation to get widespread voting by matrix. The results were unclear as the polls opened. The screamsheets and airwaves have been abuzz with election coverage and ads, ranging from stirring patriotism to the dirtiest smears to hard-nosed pragmatism. The people took their ballots, physical and digital, and made their wishes known.
For the first hours, things went smoothly. Vote counts became easier with instant electronic tabulation, far better than even the best drone systems that previously provided the first ballot count could manage. Emotions ran high, but they always do.
Then the vote counts stopped updating. "Technical difficulties," said a senior official in Michigan. "There's a glitch we're hammering out," an expert from Cross Applied Technologies said. Unrest grew. Had CATCo dropped the ball on voting? After 21:00 Denver time everything went silent. The matrix exploded with rumors. The news analysts filled the lack of data with speculation. The candidates largely blamed Angela Colloton's Technocratic Party, she blamed hardware and software. The world waited for results.
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Wed Nov 7 2072
Washington is simmering on the edge of riots on the morning of the day after the election. Security forces, public, private, and hybrid are out in force in many cities, especially after quiet Worcester, Massachusetts erupts into violent demonstrations against "military dictatorship and vote suppression."
Slowly, bits of truth leak out. In New York servers crashed and the hard copies of votes were mysteriously misplaced. Ontario and Nova Scotia both found evidence of widespread magical tampering with voters who showed up in person. Exit polls and results don't match up well anywhere, and Novatech's ace deckers uncover evidence of widespread unauthorized access attempts in the matrix systems. Sure, most of those guys ended up with their brains dribbling out their ears after the IC got to them… but some of the tampering seemed to come from within CATCo software. Fingers are pointed. Accusations fly about who thought trusting a Quebecois company with UCAS interests was a good idea.
Haeffner, ever the elder statesman, pleads for calm. Results will be found, all will be made right. The country will not fall into the hands of those who have not been backed by the people. But the candidates, civil until now, turn on each other like rabid dogs. The Normalcy party thunders against the mages' involvement, Michelle Diego, narrowly the front-runner in the final polls, delivers a speech to her American National Party supports on the need to clean house with ominous, militant overtones. Nadja Daviar remains conspicuously silent.
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Wed Nov 7 2072
Any sign of weakness on the political stage is blood in the water among sharks. The CAS and Sioux look to their neighbor, wondering what instability might bring to their borders, while the members of the Corporate Court look to expanding their holdings. Denver, always in uneasy equilibrium, stews in worry over what it might mean to have its borders redrawn if the ANP makes good on its promise to turn over the UCAS Sector to the CAS… and how the other Treaty signatories might react to a shift in the balance of power. A petition for Seattle to secede and become an independent state gains 50,000 signatures in less than a day.
Meanwhile, the big names in Washington unsheath their claws and send out political operatives. It's obvious that the shadows have already had their fingers in this mess, but there's always room for more. Calls go out. Johnsons take up their credsticks and head to quiet, private locations. Deckers blow the dust out of their decks with compressed air, load up their programs, and get ready to hit the feeding frenzy of lost, found, and faked data. Riggers send out aerial surveillance drones that circle like vultures over trucks shipping ballots, chips, and even mainframes.
Despite the jokes, government security is competent, dedicated, and expecting trouble. These are the circumstances that make a runner's rep in the shadows forever, but this is also when a lot of kids with more balls than brains, and some pros who've used up their luck, end up dead. You don't need a SIN to cast the deciding vote in this election anymore.
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Wed Nov 7 2072
A closed council meeting ends in a shouting match. Councilman Ramirez' loud and booming objections vibrate the solid oak walls. Expert witness statements, multiple studies provided by conservative think tank and construction conglomerate Isaiah Group, are no match for the man's filibustering and delaying tactics. Too many why's for the council. A tired Jeremy Falloon and an annoyed Elizabeth Kalheim call for a recess for "further panel investigations". Proposition 87-B or the Pan-National Denver Law Enforcement Suspicious Terror Frisk….Act, is delayed another day. Change to the status-quo is difficult at best, but with enough money to be made anything is possible. Anything.
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Thu Nov 8 2072
Down in the Warrens, the evening heats up for a small section of the community. With the hotbed of activity that is the wasted residential area of Aurora right now, that might not be too surprising, but just north of the Rez neutral market automatic gunfire rips up the tranquil dusk. All across the southern half of south central, gangers are killed by other gangers.
It heats up very specifically for a small group of people around the Bare Knuckle Gym. The popular hangout where people get beat up, cut up, shot up and very rarely sometimes work out at is kinda busy. With the Warrens being such a state, any place that seems stable is like a beacon of hope. That illusion is shattered when a group of Crimson Smoke gangers burst in and start barricading the place. They yell at the Gym clientele to stay out of their way. Moments later the glass doors shatter under a hail of automatic gunfire: outside a big group of orks hide among the assorted burnt out wrecks and broken buildings, and every one of them is pointing an AK-97 at the gym.
The couple of names inside, plus all the paid up members head upstairs to keep out of trouble. The Plum and Boxer head to their lockers and arm themselves and join the security razorboy in watching the stairs. Nothing is going to come up those stairs.
Outside, Fray and Katarina pause, they're on the outskirts and it's difficult to say what they really can do at this point while Rex and Double Tap prepare themselves to aid the Horsemen in the Assault on the Bare Knuckle Gym.
Everything pauses for a moment, just a moment of pure silence, like one of those shots in a war trid when the camera pans across all the actor's faces in variously grim and set expressions and then you see the commander give the order. It erupts, loud and dangerous as nearly fifteen assault rifles open up all at once. Double Tap heads upstairs on a grapple line and infiltrates from behind while Rex, well he just seems to have fun running right through the hail of gunfire, bullets pinging off his armor-plated hide, and then using himself as an orkish battering ram to clear the front door. Mere seconds pass. It quiets down. The orks outside are reloading, the Smoke's inside? They are not.
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Sat Nov 10 2072
Down in the Warrens, the Crimson Smoke reel without a leader figure to rally them. A solid chunk of their major turf is now populated with orks that don't bear Crimson colours including the area around the Bare Knuckle.
Further north a small party of humans scrabbles through ruined buildings, trying to keep quiet…
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Sat Nov 10 2072
…until they finally get noticed. In a twitch shootout, shotguns blast and smg's rattle, and suddenly the whole area erupts. In a moment, North Central becomes a live battlefield…
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Sat Nov 10 2072
…then just as soon as it starts it… no no, we won't have any of those movie cliches. The fighting drags on for a while until it eventually starts to sputter out. Gunfire becomes more sporadic until slowly it stops. A few more precise shots toll out the end of the battle much like a big old clock tolls out the time. North Central fades back into quiet again.
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Sat Nov 10 2072
Then it all fires back up again. Pockets of Smokes hide out in buildings that the Royals just didn't have the manpower to storm. That is until some unknown third party joins in. A black GMC bulldog makes the rounds, expertly driven at high speed from one hotspot to the next, kicking up dust and debris from behind the wheels around every corner. It doesn't stop as it passes by on it's rounds, a turret just pops up and annihilates the majority of the Smoke's opposition in long, painfully accurate bursts of heavy weapon fire. In the end, what had been a victory for the Royals, becomes a complete rout for the Smokes, and North Central falls into an uneasy peace as the smaller gangs pause to figure out their new situation.
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Mon Nov 12 2072
Shadowrunners are like parasites, like viruses. That's what the authorities and security services and all protectors of peace and prosperity say, and they're not wrong. Parasites live off of others, and they do it while avoiding detection. Viruses have to get in and get out or go into hiding before the host's response destroys them. One of the keys to that is keeping the immune system down. Once the host is in high alert, the game's up.
There's an asymmetry in runner-target relationships. Any corporation has more resources than any runner team. Even their security alone is better than what any runners can muster. The trouble is that they can't maintain high alert forever, and runners only need to strike hard and quick before the security goons know what's going on and come down on the runners hard.
That's the game. Shoot straight, conserve ammo, and don't kick the hornet's nest and stick around for the hornets. And when the hornets are swarming, don't go anywhere near the nest. When you're running circles around the guards who spend years on duty without seeing trouble, when you're slipping in and out of the facilities or cutting through IC and nabbing the data without leaving any traces and laughing your way to the bank, it's easy to forget that last rule. You are only better than they are when they aren't ready for you. The megacorporations are sleeping giants. Don't ever, ever go after them when they are awake.
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Mon Nov 12 2072
Matrix Free Toronto is a respected team of runners. They're not the best of the best, but they're probably close to it. Their decker cut into a CATCo voting database just after the election, found the information, and led the team to a facility in Ottawa. It's not clear exactly what happened there, but Seraphim came to interrogate their friends and their friends' friends. Word leaked out slowly, with rumors of psychotropic black IC and disappearances. The only thing that's clear is that Matrix Free Toronto is no longer, as of today, of concern to anyone.
Last Friday a trio of riggers launched an assault on a convoy carrying voting equipment. There were no obvious escorts, but the attacking drones never made it within half a kilometer of the target. Ares stealth fighters took out the drones, tracked down the signal, and then hit the riggers' command post with a small but sufficient burst of missiles.
And those are just the competent actions against the UCAS and the megacorporations involved in the last election. A hundred of more small-time runners probe government buildings and networks, sniff around the periphery of Wuxing and Cross Applied Technologies compounds. They are captured and killed by the dozens.
Of course successes aren't public. They can't be. But the usual runner haunts have very little bragging about successes in the election game, and there are more empty seats and posts without comment than usual. Runners went into the bear's cave and discovered the bear wasn't hibernating. The UCAS was expecting the opportunists. The megas were expecting them. There is little glory for the shadow community. Survivors lick their wounds quietly and election counts proceed without interference, at least as far as anyone can tell.
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Mon Nov 12 2072
Sometimes the cynics are right and it doesn't take deliberate action to make a hash of politics. The counts are in… and indecisive. New American Era did well, but the lack of real new suggestions and hesitation at electing Daviar, a woman with a murky past, hurt their numbers. The Technocrats' military posturing got mixed results, with most voters split over how to deal with California, but General Colloton has a real record, is a real military hero, and has more specific policies outlined in her platform. The only thing that's clear is that the megacorporate parties came out on top. Ares and Novatech, the American AAA's, are riding high.
But what does that mean on the ground? The UCAS Constitution abolished the Electoral College and provided for election by popular vote, but at this point the voting margins are in the range of statistical noise, unclear ballots, and software failures. There are recounts and re-recounts ongoing, but the fate of the UCAS is uncertain. Novatech and Ares aren't enemies, but they aren't friends, and they may be heading for confrontation. Congress wrings its hands without solutions.
At this point blaming shadowrunners would be nice, but after the crowing of security successes earlier it won't fly. Colloton calls for military preparedness "just in case" and Ares responds by stepping up its private forces "in solidarity." It's all posturing, but it makes for uneasy times.
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Wed Nov 14 2072
The Warrens: Tir LLewn, 12:15 AM.
Within mere moments there was a resounding explosion and flash of light from the inside of the sniper's nest high above. The Blackboot Skins blitzkrieg a portion of the elven enclave with nary a single uttered word. An Uzi chatters off rounds, sweeping through a checkpoint. Bullets spang and spark off of burned out and rusting car hulls. Willy Pete grenades flash Hot Melting Death among the armed and unarmed alike. One particularly large and bulky Blackboot rides roughshod through the check point, a sword in one hand dragged across the ground producing sparks.
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Wed Nov 14
The Warrens: Tir Llewn, 12:22 AM.
A brief and much too late counter-attack quickly caves from the precise grenade tubing of the human supremacist gang. A man is split in half by a Blackboot sword strike. An aspected Wiccan is ignited by gunfire. And just as quickly as it began, the guerilla strike force evades capture, detonating secreted pipe bombs to cover their exit. The quiet cries and moans of the injured elves rise as information flows out. Retaliation is inevitable.
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Wed Nov 14
Aztlan Sector, Industrial sector, Soltar LLC Main Office. 3:09AM
A Hardcorps Security guard places a hand towards his throat mic as he watches a lone figure walking quickly- northbound- under the sodium street lamps. He inspects the front entrance ensuring no Maglock tampering.
»Stanton, I'm gonna need a bug job in East Sec I think—«
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!
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Wed Nov 14 2072
Aztlan Sector, Industrial sector, Soltar LLC Main Office. 3:10AM
The indoor blast is amazingly powerful and fades amazingly fast. While the building itself doesn't crumble, the front doors, however, explode outwards from the pressure wave decapitating the security guard and setting off an alarm… and also, every car alarm for three blocks.
News52 gives the story some coverage
»Blast causes local seismographs to send out an email earthquake warning of 3.5 on the Richter scale. Soltar LLC local employer, recently acquired Aztlan subsidiary.«
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Thu Nov 15 2072
News52 and KSAF fight for news cycle scraps, but what can you expect during a scandal ridden election season?
The 24 Hour Rehash-
»2072's Denver Trend??? 38 agree terrorism is in vogue!!! Magical/Racial/ Criminal/Political Terrorst Acts of all kinds. Op-Ed's get a lot of people talking. Who's right and who's wrong?«
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