| From: | "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Vampire --> SR, part 1 |
| Date: | Thu, 4 Apr 1996 21:55:08 +0100 |
>>>>>[The next few kp might prove interesting to all parazoologists reading
this BBS (like, all three of
you). Shadowrunners may have some use for it too (know thy enemies, all that
drek).]<<<<<
-- Gurth (didn't expect me did you?)
RESTRICTED INFORMATION
Search Criteria: >Vampire, backgrounds
Search Result:::::
>>>>>[SysOp Note: This data was deleted by an unidentified decker at
03:54:08/9-13-54; it was restored
from a copy of this file kept offline.]<<<<<
-- Lt. West, SysOp (15:27:21/9-13-54)
Vampires exist.
>>>>>[Pretty fragging obvious statement. It's a disease, everybody knows
that. Does he really have to make
such a big fuss about something as clear as this?]<<<<<
-- R.I.V. (21:14:49/4-5-56)
>>>>>[If you thought with your head instead of your keyboard, you might
have read on and seen what he
was going to say.]<<<<<
-- Stayer (15:37:20/4-7-56)
In fact, you probably already knew that. Sanguisuga europa is the scientific name for
humans infected with
the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus, or HMHVV for short, with different metaspecies showing
different
reactions to the virus. Trolls become dzoo-noo-quas, dwarfs become goblins, and so on;
Paterson has done quite
a job of cataloging them.
He is wrong.
A bold statement, one for which many parazoologists won't like me in years to come, but
one I feel must be
made. What they perceive to be vampires are creatures that look and act like the vampires
of legend, but in fact
are a different species altogether. Sanguisuga are infected with a virus, there is no
doubt about that. The virus
causes changes in the body, prolongs life span, and gives the infected creature many
paranormal powers not
available to a "healthy" human.
>>>>>[Don't forget it also gives them some disadvantages you can use
against them.]<<<<<
-- Glovebox (03:41:39/4-6-56)
The infected creature now needs to drink blood to survive, another commonly known fact. My
theory is that
such "vampires," being the thinking creatures they are, compare their new
condition to the vampires they have
seen on trideo shows and sims, and notice the similarities. What then happens is that they
start to behave the
way people expect of vampires, in effect they are helping maintain the stereotype.
There are, in fact, pointers that vampires existed before the Awakening, something I think
is unexplainable
by the HMHVV-explanation. This is a paranormal creature, like so many others, and from
that follows that it
needs a positive mana level to be able to use its powers -- create vampires. Not wanting
to discount the "spike
baby" theory, one possible explanation is that the virus has a low
Awakening-threshold, a theory many of my
colleagues support, and for which they have found some evidence and many explanations.
But I'm not convinced.
>>>>>[When will he get to the fragging point?]<<<<<
-- R.I.V. (21:27:04/4-5-56)
I've unearthed evidence that vampires have existed for a very long time, certainly longer
than the
Awakening. How these creatures came to be, or where they originate from, I do not know.
What I do know is
that they have hidden from humanity for hundreds of years, and are, for all intents and
purposes, immortal.
Their reasons for this arHef21f?#54g;l27(%4oqO{
>>DATA ERROR: 0.4 Mp<<
*(@&8 q363^&$%# blical references. In addition, one of my sources refers to very
old vampires that "are
now sleeping underground," awaiting discovery I assume. Where or how these
hibernating vampires can be
found is not mentioned, but I am convinced they have been there for hundreds, if not
thousands of years. What
would happen should one or more of them awaken is a question open to debate, at the very
least they would
stand out like a sore thumb in today's world I'm sure.
>>DATA ERROR: 14.3 Mp<<
EF^2tg*(90WA-48S5 hope I made clear my findings on this matter. I will continue publishing
material on
this subject as I find more evidence for vampiric activities through the ages.
>>>>>[Guess she doesn't get the chance to do that
anymore...]<<<<<
-- Easy (16:58:17/4-15-56)
>>>>>[You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you,
Easy?]<<<<<
-- Marco (05:10:46/4-16-56)
>>Investigating officer's note: The above file is a direct copy of one found during
an investigation into an
explosion in a residential area in Auburn, Seattle Metroplex, July 5th, 2054. See file
PH-AJ-2164-TQ for
reference. --Sgt. Dexter Hamilton, Department of Homicide (13:46:05/7-7-54)<<
>>>>>[Paraphrased, PH-AJ-2164-TQ says that the file's author (Dr. Michaela
Fiona diAngelo-Mosely) was
killed in the explosion. Traces were found of an explosive that hasn't been produced in
the past 92 years,
though it doesn't unexplain why this fact is significant. Looks like whoever placed that
bomb missed this copy...
On a very much related topic, the following messages popped up on Magicknet just a little
while after the
previous file was lifted from Lone Star's datastores. Two of their nodes crashed because
the houses they were
located in burned to the ground, and at least three magicians from Magicknet mysteriously
disappeared since that took
place. Make up your own mind about this thing.]<<<<<
-- Gurth (look at the world in disbelief)
>>>>>[Hey Gurth, what are your interests in this matter anyway? You seem
very keen on making all this
public but without telling us too much. Like, why not post PH-AJ-whatever here as well and
let us make up our
own minds like you tell us?]<<<<<
-- Susie (15:18:54/4-13-56)
>>>>>[I know some people, let's keep it at that...]<<<<<
-- Gurth (expect nothing)
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<Magicknet Log04B55: topic vampires>
>>>>>[A good day my esteemed colleagues. Today I made an very interesting
discovery in a old bookstore on
21th Street. To be honest I'm a bit frightened by the revalations made in this document.
It's an undated letter, possibly
from the end of the last century, because the writer mentioned films and cinemas a few
times and the letter still is in a
remarkably good condition. The writer's as well as the recipient's indentities remain
unknown, but the writer calls
himself "V.T." and occasionally writes German and Latin phases, possibly
indicating a German background with
schooling in Latin. The recipient is a woman known only by her initials "W.H."
The reason why this letter is so intriguing is because it gives a history and description
of vampires, but it appears to
be of vampires unlike the ones infected with the HMHVV virus. These vampires existed long
before the Awakening,
the writer goes as far as to indicate that vampires are as old as humankind. According to
him their origins lie with the
Bib-%^%*stlgstlg$stlg%$%$$%@+++
>>>>DATA CORRUPT :::: PARTIAL DATA LOSS 2.65Mp<<<<
>>>>FRAGMENTS REMAINING; RECONSTRUCT FILE?<<<< (OK)
>>>>FRAGMENT 1:<<<<
>>>>...demanded from every vampire that he or she must never reveal their
existence to (meta)humankind or else
suffer dire consequences. The writer admits he is breaking the rule, but for some reason
he feels he must attone for
some kind of grief he caused the woman...<<<<
>>>>FRAGMENT 2:<<<<
>>>>...this vampire race is a pre-Awakened version of Sanguisuga europa (which
is, as you all know, not a
species) or a new, completely different, species of vampire. Because of the letter I am
inclined to think the latter is the
case, but I need more evidence before I can classify this as a new species. Some of the
specific powerserffa fgiejr
fgfj++5%%^&stlg~##>>>>FILE INFECTED; LOST REMAINING
TEXT<<<<<
-- Magister Sinister (15:06:44/4-9-56)
>>>>>[Awwh, just as it's getting interesting. Who is this geezer anyway?
Seems to have lost a few treads.]<<<<<
-- The Steel Spellslinger (15:34:40/4-9-56)
>>>>>[This 'geezer' is a former professor of MMIT with an academic record
longer than your brag sheet, Steel.
Think before you type, this is not the samurai's corner. If Sinister thinks it's a new
kind of vampire, I would take the
story above very seriously.]<<<<<
-- Lored (17:01:39/4-9-56)
>>>>>[Nonsense, I've seen this so-called letter pop up a few times. It's a
fake, and a bad one. The letter is just a
piece of a novel which was never published.]<<<<<
-- Lucian (17:46:55/4-9-56)
>>>>>[And if he really discovered a letter or a piece of a novel, or
whatever, why couldn't he just copy it and post
it right here completely? The way it seems to me, he's just making this all up to scare
people with.]<<<<<
-- Holme (05:15:38/4-10-56)
>>>>>[Sinister's not bulldrekking us. He sent me a scan of the letter he
was talking about, and it sure as hell
looked original. I've no doubt he's onto something big here.]<<<<<
-- Graying (10:47:32/4-10-56)
>>>>>[Can someone check if Sinister's alright. I have been calling him
since the error occured to learn the rest of
the message, but I cannot reach him.]<<<<<
-- Illuminus (18:20:19/4-10-56)
>>>>>[I checked astrally on my friend Sinister the moment he lost
connection. The decker in our team said the
error was an attack by a hostile decker. I fear I was to late: his body was barely
recognizable. By summoning his house
spirit I discovered that a short time after he lost connection four people with strange
auras entered his house and killed
him. The auras of the murderers were, according to the spirit, somehow connected to a
powerful creature. I'm trying to
find out what the spirit meant. I will contact you shortly.]<<<<<
-- Violator (20:48:28/4-10-56)
>>>>>[Hey, Gray, anybody can make a fake letter, especially if you've only
been shown a scan of it. Remember
how you used to make "treasure maps" back when you were a kid? Tear the edges
off of paper and soak it in soytea to
make it look old, then hand-draw a fantasy map onto it. It's very well possible that
"Sinister" did the same thing but
wrote the text in some or another Gothic font.]<<<<<
-- Goodie Bag (23:29:51/4-10-56)
>>>>>[Hold it just a second here... Nobody said anything about the letter
being hand-written or looking like it was
written on parchment. Have you said something you shouldn't have,
Bag?]<<<<<
-- Black Monday (23:35:25/4-10-56)
>>>>>[Just some assumptions, mate. Just some
assumptions.]<<<<<
-- Goodie Bag (23:41:28/4-10-56)
>>>>>[All this reminds me of a run our team made not so long ago. During
the job we discovered we were up
against a vamp. So we take the good old Patterson guide and look the beasty up. We decided
to trap her in an airtight
room and wait. The trick with the stick should do the rest. Wrongo, after two hours we
opened the door and before I
know what happened the sam in our team gets ripped open and the decker smashes with a
sickening crunch against
the opposite wall. Then the vamp just looks at me, and I frag me if I know what happened
next. The next day I wake
up in the same room with a killing headache and about two liters of blood missing from my
body. If that was the kind
of vamp Sinister was talking about, I'll have nothing to do with it.]<<<<<
-- Wex (09:21:56/4-11-56)
>>>>>[Violator, found anything yet?]<<<<<
-- Illuminus (23:55:03/4-11-56)
>>>>>[Violator?]<<<<<
-- Illuminus (21:41:19/4-12-56)
>>>>>[This is the technomancer of Violator's team. I'm afraid he's been
deleted. Some kind of spell backlash or
something wizzy. We were checking his meat when he was onto some kind of trip, next thing
we know all these claw
marks appear on his meat. Old Violator was one hell of a wizz and he had a sword which
just screamed magic, even
to me, so we looked at each other and decided, hell we needed a holiday anyway. Just want
to warn the collective wizz-
people to watch your back.]<<<<<
-- Tweety (Ig:ot:no/ti-me-4U)
>>>>>[Any comment on these developments, Lucian?]<<<<<
-- Illuminus (03:31:30/4-12-56)
>>>>>[They shouldn't have meddled in matters they don't
understand.]<<<<<
-- Lucian (23:46:05/4-14-56)
>>>>>[Oh, so now it's not a fake anymore?]<<<<<
-- Lored (01:54:44/4-15-56)
>>>>>[I didn't say that. I just meant that this letter pops up from time to
time and then prompts some people to
take drastic measures. Think of it from a vampire's point of view, some of them are
respectable people and would
harm no one to feed. Now this letter appears dubbing vampires as megalomaniac, scheming
bastards. I don't know
what I would have done if I were a vampire and this drek showed up
again.]<<<<<
-- Lucian (05:10:39/4-17-56)
>>>>>[Come on, you don't believe that yourself. People don't get killed for
a piece of a novel. Since this started
two magicians were killed, and they were both very good at what they did. There's
something true about the story and
you are trying to cover it up. Not that you will succeed, you can't kill us
all.]<<<<<
-- Lored (20:09:51/4-17-56)
>>>>>[I don't kill anyone, you should watch out who you are accusing. One
more piece of slander and I see you in
court.]<<<<<
-- Lucian (02:04:29/4-18-56)
>>>>>[Lucian has always had a weak heart, Lored. But I don't suffer from
this weakness...]<<<<<
-- Das Ungeheuer (02:04:33/4-11-56)
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>>>>>[I find this whole thing rather far-fetched. If vampires like the ones
they're talking about here really
exist, don't you think we'd have found evidence of them by now? Nothing can stay hidden
for thousands of
years.]<<<<<
-- Data Princess (22:14:29/4-6-56)
>>>>>[I wouldn't day that too loud if I were you. Remember peoples'
surprise when lots of never-seen-
before beasties were discovered from the turn of the century onward?]<<<<<
-- Groove (02:18:33/4-7-56)
>>>>>[A better example would be large critters discovered before the
Awakening, Groove. After some
digging through old books and files, I found evidence that in the mid-1990s various
previously-unknown
species of mammals were discovered, mainly in the Far East.]<<<<<
-- U-Dubber (10:36:20/4-8-56)
>>>>>[You're both barking up the wrong tree, chummers. From what we know
now, I think it's very likely
that those new species of the 1990s and 2000s were spike babies, plus all were discovered
in nearly uninhabited
areas of the world, where they could roam freely without ever being encountered by a
human, let alone one who
knew that that animal hadn't been seen before. If these animals had lived near major
population centers, I'm
100% certain we'd have known about them for ages.
Vampires would be a totally different story. If they exist, they must be thinking
creatures and not mindless
killers. For comparison, put some clothes on a dour and put it into a city. Anybody will
notice that the critter
isn't a dwarf, even though it looks like one -- its habits are all wrong for what one
expects from a dwarf, and it
doesn't adapt to its surroundings because of its lack of intelligence. Now look at a
vampire. It (he? She?) is
sentient, and so has at the very least enough smarts to try and blend in as much as
possible. This would make it
very hard indeed for other people to spot a vampire, though I'm sure there must be some
way if they truely
exist.]<<<<<
-- ZAZ (15:29:31/4-9-56)
>>>>>[God, if we're not careful everybody's going to go on a witch hunt for
vampires...]<<<<<
-- Goodie Bag (16:37:08/4-11-56)
>>>>>[Aga <.1 kp deleted by hostile incursion into
system>]<<<<<
-- Dissident (21:47:52/4-11-56)
--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
You need us to run your life.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-
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