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Message no. 1
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 19:19:31 +0100
According to Lute, David, on Wed, 01 Nov 2000 the word on the street was...

> >There's no UCAS sourcebook, either
>
> I have to disagree. There are several UCAS books. Seatle
> Sourcebook gives you a very good history of UCAS and gives you some good
> info on UCAS as a whole even stuff outside of Seatle. Underground
> Sourcebook gives you good info on all the Mob cartels in various parts of
> UCAS but not any for CAS (I might be wrong been a while since I looked at
> it). Target UCAS that gives you all of info on the UCAS area. Almost all
> the published adventures take place in Seatle (UCAS) or another city in
> UCAS. TT give you info on the relations between UCAS and TT. The main book
> gives you some broad overview of UCAS but nothing about CAS after the split.
> And Denver also gives you some more info on the UCAS. Also NAGRL gives you
> some more good info on the UCAS.

The reason for that seems obvious to me: the game is set in Seattle, which
is part of the UCAS. Therefore, events in the UCAS affect life in Seattle a
lot more than would events in the CAS, and as a result, sourcebooks that
deal with parts of the UCAS are more "necessary" than sourcebooks about
parts of the CAS.

I admit you that Target: UCAS doesn't fit with the above, but the others
either are all either usable for Seattle, or provide alternate campaign
settings (that's what Denver and Bug City were). I also admit that there
wasn't a real reason (IMHO) for a separate California Free State sourcebook,
at least nothing more valid than reasons for a CAS sourcebook.

--
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The less of a life, the more mail you read.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 2
From: Lute, David dlute@********.com
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 13:56:00 -0500
<snip>
> I also admit that there
>wasn't a real reason (IMHO) for a separate California Free State
sourcebook,
>at least nothing more valid than reasons for a CAS sourcebook.

This was basically my point. Why did they release all the info on CFS and
Tir and NAN but nothing on CAS. The only reason I seem so adamant about it
now, is I just started a campaign and decided to have it in CAS. I got a
fresh runners that have never opened a SR book so I decided why not set the
world where we all live that way they "know" the general idea. Obviously
things have changed. So I decided to see what was Cannon with the FASA in
the SR world and well couldn't really find anything at all about CAS. I
just don't have the time to create it all so either I will wing it or just
set it in Seattle like everything else.

Well guess I am just ranting so I'll stop but that is all.


DL
Message no. 3
From: Augustus shadowrun@********.net
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 13:56:23 -0800
Actually this is a response... but I'm not quoting anything... going to go
with my own thoughts here from the scratch, but this is a good thread to
stuff this in to.

The most recent book covering sections of North America that newer players
might be able to get ahold of is Target: UCAS and the new Seattle
sourcebook.

When I read this thread it sorta made me wonder about the value of the
Target: UCAS book... I mean... was it a good replacement of NeoAnarchists
Guide to North America? (Afterall, the California Free State book was
pretty good on updating the NAGTNA sourcebook)

I looked over it again (its been awhile since I looked at it) and yegads
no... its actually a terrible book if you don't have the old books.

Some thoughts I had:

1) With all this country shuffling going on (seperation, NAN, CAS and UCAS
forming, etc)... you might ask yourself "Whats the capital of the UCAS? Is
it still Washington, DC?"

I know the answer to this question, because I have NAGTNA... but I looked it
up in Target: UCAS... Firstly the book covers Detroit, Chicago and
Boston... but no... its not one of those three. The only place in Target:
UCAS I could find this answer was actually in the brief writeup of the
CAS... where it mentions "DeeCee" as being close to the border with the CAS.
(So I'm going to assume "DeeCee" stands for "Washington, DC" and
doesn't
mean "Detroit City", a city covered in the book)

2) I think back to the olden days, and I wonder to myself "Didn't the UCAS
use dollars for currency? But I thought Seattle was part of the UCAS, and
it uses NuYen?"

I know the answer to this question again... the answer according to NAGTNA
is yes... the UCAS uses the Dollar. I look through Target: UCAS and there
is no reference to currency at all. I guess we can assume this was just
dropped.

3) Then I think to another topic... "Hmm... how odd... Seattle doesn't have
the death penalty... but I thought the rest of the UCAS did...?"

I know the answer to this question again... according to older books the
UCAS does have the death penalty... but I check up in Target: UCAS and hold
on a minute... there isn't even a "Crime and Punishment" table in the
book... something every other regional sourcebook had (they do have "Cost of
Living" tables though). End result... Target: UCAS doesn't mention a death
penalty or not.

4) This is just a nitpick... but I would also have to ask though... "What
happened to NewYork?" Its a huge sprawling metropolis today... but what
about it in Shadowrun's 2060AD timeline?

Again, lucky for me I have NAGTNA and can read up on it.

5) This would be another nitpick... but I would have to ask... "What about
the "Canadian" part of the UCAS?" No... NAGTNA didn't really cover much of
Canada either, other than to say something along the lines of "the going got
tough and they crumpled like a paper cup and ran to the USA for help"


Ah well, enough of that... pretty much I can say... No... I don't expect
Fasa to crank out sourcebooks for all the "big" cities in the UCAS (One
might wonder though... if they did a series of sourcebooks, done to the size
of the adventures (50-70 pages), with each book covering 2 cities (a big one
and a smaller one) and kept the price around the $10-12 US range...)

BUT... cities such as Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Washington, New
York should be covered for sure... and as it stands... only 3 of those 6 are
covered in current material. (Funny enough... Toronto wasn't even marked as
a city on the North America map in the back of NAGTNA)

Just some thoughts...

Augustus
Message no. 4
From: Adam J adamj@*********.com
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:02:41 -0700
At 13:56 01/11/2000 -0800, Augustus wrote:

>1) With all this country shuffling going on (seperation, NAN, CAS and UCAS
>forming, etc)... you might ask yourself "Whats the capital of the UCAS? Is
>it still Washington, DC?"

>(So I'm going to assume "DeeCee" stands for "Washington, DC" and
doesn't
>mean "Detroit City", a city covered in the book)

"DeeCee" is fairly common slang for Washington, DC, to keep confusion
between the city and Washington state to a minimum.

I think most of your concerns about Target: UCAS are simply because it was
named poorly. It wasn't really about the UCAS at all, it was about 3 UCAS
cities.

>Ah well, enough of that... pretty much I can say... No... I don't expect
>Fasa to crank out sourcebooks for all the "big" cities in the UCAS (One
>might wonder though... if they did a series of sourcebooks, done to the size
>of the adventures (50-70 pages), with each book covering 2 cities (a big one
>and a smaller one) and kept the price around the $10-12 US range...)

As place books are generally poor sellers and smaller books have a much
slimmer profit margin, I think this is pretty unlikely. I agree that it
would be really nice, though. But the fact remains that most people run SR
in Seattle with little side-trips to other places once in awhile.

I hope that once T:NA is out it will give people enough building blocks to
make future Target books for countries - "Target: Cities of CAS" a bit more
feasible.

Adam
--
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Message no. 5
From: vocenoctum@****.com vocenoctum@****.com
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 17:18:16 -0500
On Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:02:41 -0700 Adam J <adamj@*********.com> writes:
> I think most of your concerns about Target: UCAS are simply because
> it was
> named poorly. It wasn't really about the UCAS at all, it was about
> 3 UCAS
> cities.

<snip>
> I hope that once T:NA is out it will give people enough building
> blocks to
> make future Target books for countries - "Target: Cities of CAS" a
> bit more
> feasible.
>

I agree, perhaps Target: UCAS Hot Spots would have been more of the tone
setter.
(also, isn't it Shadows of North America? It's not a Target book IIRC :-)
The flip side being, that Aztlan was a great book, but what's been
happeneing?
same with Tir Tairngire...

The NAN books were the last time (well, Denver mentioned them, but not
really) that the Native American Nations were really mentioned.
Salish-Sidhe has a more direct impact on Seattle than a lot of these
other places (though, with modern transportation, not a huge impact, but
still)

I'd like a Target: European Theater or something (just covering the good
countries, not the boring ones :-) but I guess Awakened World will also
cover a general outline of the world.

Vocenoctum
<http://members.xoom.com/vocenoctum>;

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Message no. 6
From: Adam J adamj@*********.com
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 15:48:19 -0700
At 17:18 01/11/2000 -0500, vocenoctum@****.com wrote:

>(also, isn't it Shadows of North America? It's not a Target book IIRC :-)

I think you're right, but man, I so dislike having "Shadows" in the title
of a book, I'm trying to form a mental block against them.. ;-)

To justify - the reason I don't like "Shadows" in the title is because a)
it's already a Shadowrun book, so we can assume that mention of the
"Shadows" is implicit, and that b) it implies that the book is only about
the "Shadows", which if you look at just about every SR sourcebook, you'll
see it's not true. :)

Adam
--
< The Shadowrun Supplemental? ShadowFAQ? Full Count? >
< Latest news about them all: http://staff.dumpshock.com/adamj/ >
< adamj@*********.com | ICQ# 2350330 | TSS Productions >
Message no. 7
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: CAS books & UCAS books
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 12:08:54 +0100
According to Lute, David, on Wed, 01 Nov 2000 the word on the street was...

> This was basically my point. Why did they release all the info on CFS and
> Tir and NAN but nothing on CAS.

They didn't do that; there is about as much written about the CAS as about
any of the NAN countries, and Tir Tairngire never got covered anywhere
except its own sourcebook. The only place that has both a short write-up
and a full sourcebook (apart from some bits of the UCAS) is California.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
The less of a life, the more mail you read.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

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