From:	"Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject:	Re: OT: Babylon 5 news/SR TV
Date:	Mon, 4 May 1998 00:04:31 -0300

Ereskanti escreveu:
>
>
> >
> Desert wars are a kind of "Military Staging Show" IMO. Corporations and
> Governments get to field test all their toys in given areas of the world.
> They normally would use "non-lethal" action options, and points are tallied
by
> massive systems (FDDM and IVIS and BTAC would help here I'm sure). There are
> stories I've read in some of the books (most of the older sourcebooks mainly)
> where Desert Wars groups sometimes get a bit carried away and do something
> "not quite by the book"...
>

It's in the Corp Shadowfiles: It was originally a battle 2 megacorps
were going to wage to settle a matter, and they decided to broadcast it.
The thing made a huge success, and now all the Big 8 do it, in the Saara
desert, North Africa (hence the name). It's almost like a sport, with
non-lethal, semi-lethal and the ocasional real battle. Non-lethal is
only
for ratings, the others are for settling disagreements withouth an
all-out
war and for field-testing, besides being broadcasted too.

Ubiratan