From:	"Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Brave New World
Date:	Mon, 2 Mar 1998 17:54:42 -0800

According to Jeffrey Mach:
>On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Avenger wrote:
>> >>>>>[It is a puzzling situation isn't it Binder? I mean, there
are
>> resources and other essential items out there, ores and precious metals
>> on hte moon, on Mars, on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, liberally
>> littering the asteroid fields, yet as far as I am aware, nothing is
>> being done to gain access. Most disconcerting.
>
>Actually, is this more a matter of your opinion or is it part of any
>sourcebook? AFAIK, FASA has said next to nothing about space, other than
>the mention of ballistic flights and the existance of Zurich Oribital.
>And even with something as important as ZO, I don't remember seeing much
>of anything. Since they have one orbital station, I don't know if your
>statement can be made with such surity regarding other space development.
>On the other hand, I can't have any of my characters stand out to refute
>your statement since, again, I lack a source to support my claims.

I haven't seen any "official" word from FASA either, but I think it would be
somewhat short-sighted to assume that, with everything else the megacorps
and governments are doing, that they wouldn't have at least sent reasonable
numbers of mineral assaying craft to those planets. I mean, look at all the
missions to Mars going on now. Even given the overly-dramatic-and-physically-
unlikely Crash, the spacefaring capabilities of the Powers That Be in 205x
should be greatly above those of the present day, and with the economic
imperative all the more pressing, I'd think that mineral exploration (if not
exploitation) should be in full swing.

>I fear that FASA may be tight lipped about doing a space sourcebook for
>the same reason that they don't do a heavy military weapons sourcebook.
>They aren't very relevant to the game or the genre. (Better known as they
>don't want--shout it with me--"Shadowrunners...in...SPAAAAAAACE!" [all due
>apologies to Mr. Henson and Oz]) If people are running a game were their
>runners are hijacking space shuttles, or singing "Fly me to the moon"
>whilst and at the same time flying to the moon, they are probably well
>outside the realm that FASA was originally writing for.

Concur. We've already seen examples on this list of what happens with
certain kinds of space-based weaponry, it it is abundantly clear that FASA's
game mechanics were never created to deal with the physical scales involved
(just trying to deal with the Force of a projectile moving at reentry speeds
basically breaks FASA's ballistics-and-damage system).

If nothing else, launches of serious spacecraft would be very hard to hide,
though the exact purpose and capabilities of the spacecraft would be
easier. =)
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict