| From: | Fade <runefo@***.UIO.NO> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The Future of Shadowrun |
| Date: | Wed, 2 Jul 1997 23:03:51 +0000 |
future, the image that springs to mind is that of a boot stomping on
a face, forever and ever and ever.
Is that correct? What does the future hold for our alter egos?
One possibility:
As long as they keep the governments powerless, the
governments will eventually collapse or be more and more symbiotic
with corporations, until the corporations become 'corporate
governments'. Countries' populations become another asset in the
corporate registry, bought and sold as the need arises. The megacorps
become larger and larger, then merge, become larger again, until
there is only one corporation with total domination.
(Fusion)
Another possibility -
The growth needed to sustain the corporations ends, and a major
worldwide stock market crash ensues. Massive layoffs results in
general hatred towards the corporations. The governments are without
the resources to alleviate the suffering of the masses as the
corporations doesn't allow the governments any spare resources; huge
differences in social standards between the corporate and
non-corporate increases hatred until there is a bloody revolution.
After the revolution corporations are abolished, everything stand
alone rather than with others. (Fission.).
Another possibilty:
The corporate council takes the eight majors off the stock market;
they are inviolate. Through the passionate work of a few
groundbreakers the corporations realizes that with their power comes
responsibility, and as the eight megacorps are safe, they can start
taking that responsibility seriously. (As long as a corporation
cannot think of anything except the dotted line unless it wants to
get eaten by other corporations, this is impossible. That's why they
have to be taken off the stock markets.). An era of widespread
wealth, no poverty, no criminality, no wars, and general prosperity
(and boredom) follows.
(Unification)
Another possibility:
Full scale corporate war. In this war, everything is a target, since
everything is, somehow, corporate. Hundreds of millions of dead as
starvation, power outages, flooding all becomes weapons, in addition
to the more direct weapons wielded by soliders. There is no victor,
everyone looses. Towards the end nuclear warheads are used; almost
all are stopped by the unstability caused by magic (or actively
stopped by magic, or whatever) but it is still enough for a nuclear
winter, which takes some billion lives. As the winter ends the world
is a twisted, dark landscape where toxic paranormals roam, scarcely
populated by despearate enclaves of (meta)humans.
(Desolation)
Another possibility:
The corporate structure of 2058 is unstable; it regresses into a
system more similar to the one today almost without anyone noticing.
(Regression)
Another possibility:
A new politico-economic model evolves as the old one becomes more or
less meaningless in the situation as it has become, which results in
a paradigm shift towards the next logical step.. which is unknown.
(If we knew, the shift would happen.).
(Evolution)
Others? What is likely? What is unlikely?
--
Fade
"It's better to burn out, than to fade away!"
