| From: | "Fisher, Victor" <Victor-Fisher@******.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Plot idea for a Media-based Shadowrun |
| Date: | Mon, 14 Jul 1997 19:41:32 -0400 |
presented under the alternatives in the Shadowrun Companion book.
After having just sat thru a marathon with a bunch of friends,
watching Full Metal Jacket, Braveheart, and Apocalypse Now, and Forrest
Gump (hey, we needed something to keep us from killing ourselves :-), it
gave me that oh so gentle reminder of how crazy war REALLY is.
A good friend of mine was an Airboure Ranger, and some of the
SNAFUs he tell me about when he was in the service, have me almost
ROFLOL in shocked horror! (No, NOT you! <beats astral critter back with
stick>).
Anyway, since war up until now is really just a 'controlled' bunch
of insanity, how much more so would it be like where you have large
armies of corporate mercenaries, slugging it out, not over food, or
territory, or racial disputes or religion, but over RATINGS, and who can
field the better weponry, to better annilate the enemy. (<looks to side>
Don't start! <hears whimper in background>)
The media characters could be covering the war from the POV of the
soldiers who actually have to duke it out in this insanity, while their
corporate masters sit thousands of miles away, drinking mint julips,
congratulating themselves on another business coup. They'd be facing all
the danger and the excitement (?) as they travel with their asigned
platoon, trying to put a human spin on a very inhuman set of
circumstances.
It could also be used to incorporate Army or Marine type
characters, maybe evn Spec Forces, like the Ares FIre Strike Teams, or
Saader Krupps' bad boys. They'd have to bleep out any personal
identities or facts, but that's easy enough. Think of the Squad leader,
whose suddenly saddled with these telejournalists by his corporate
superiors. And the grunts themselves. How do they react to these
'non-combatants'?
And what kind of ho...terrible things would they encounter in the
course of the mission, when you have men (and women) running around,
trying to kill each other in pursuit of an illusitory goal out in the
middle of nowhere? Man isn't all that removed from total savagedry, and
it only takes a little push to knock some people over the edge. Who
knows, some of the atrocities they meet up with may even be perpetrated
by their own group!
Interrogations conducted on captured personnel, by pushing them,
one at a time, out of a flying helecopter? Drumhead trials; battlefield
justice. 'Friendly' Fire?
And what about those indigenous peoples caught up in all the
confilct. You can't convince me that in places like the Middle East,
where some of these peoples have lived for thousands of years, were ALL
evacuated so a couple of corps can have a clear playground?
Okay, enough ranting from me. It jsut always bothered me that these
'Corporate Wars' that keep popping up in game book references are never
explained fully, and seemed mostly a pointless excuse in Whose Got A
Bigger 'Credstick'. Just my spin on things. I'm audi.
Kohl
Joker: How can you shoot women and children?
Gunner: Easy...you don't lead 'em as much.
--from the movie, Full Metal Jacket
