| From: | John E Pederson <lobo1@****.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Interesting idea |
| Date: | Sun, 31 May 1998 15:40:03 -0500 |
<nathan.olsen@*******.MSUS.EDU> writes:
>I had an idea recently and was wondering if anyone had done anythign
>similar to this. Basically there's a massive solar flare that erupts
from
>the sun and completely disrupts all electricity and power worldwide over
>the course of 1 week. The matrix goes down, electricity-driven machines
>fail, many types of cyberware stops functioning, etc. I imagine that
the
>effects of this would be near apocalyptic in scale considering the
extent
>of technology in the SR world. There would be chaos; there would be
>bloodshed; there would be fun for the whole family. Any other thoughts
on
>this scenario?
Other than the fact that it would have to be one hell of a solar flare?
AFAIK, solar flares, even when they're particularly bad, don't do much
more than disrupt broadcasted signals, and even then they're not usually
*that* problematic. Now, maybe if you'd had a termonuke detonated in the
upper atmosphere in some fortuitous place... Even then, I don't think you
could actually kill things like electric cars. You'd certainly fry lots
of the broadcast and reception equipment in the area, but I *think* most
other electrical devices should still work (I mean, unless it fried the
power station, I don't know why an EMP would bother your toaster:)
I'd imagine that the astronomers would be quite busy watching the solar
flares and monitoring the changes in the local and global atmosphere.
OTOH, I have to say that my experience with solar flares and emp bursts
is, well, nonexistant:) Still, it seems highly unlikely that *all* those
devices would be disrupted by the emp of the solar flares. Even so, the
disruption of world communications would be enough to cause serious
problems in and of itself. Riots, looting, and God only knows what else
would happen. MC23 brought up the fact that there will be various magical
groups that will be performing special rituals during the solar flares,
I'd expect that certain magical groups (I'll mention them below so that
folks who aren't supposed to know about the stuff in Threats can avoid
reading it) would be especially big on this stuff. This would also be a
good time to conduct covert ops into areas which are normally very tight:
if their radar (or whatever similar detection technologies are in use) is
knocked out, then you can get in without being seen a little easier. And
radio silence would be much easier to enforce if your radioes just don't
work:) It would also be a good idea to look into hitting the ground
running as soon as the Matrix starts to come back online: the corporate
hosts are going to be their most vulnerable while they're still starting
up all those nifty IC programs. It might also be fun to stick the
characters off in the middle of nowhere when this happens so that they're
cut off entirely from the outside world, then throw something a little
out of their normal experience at them: a murder mystery or something.
Sounds like fun (in the EGMG sense;)
Anyway, the magical stuff:
S
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!
!
Well, that ought to be enough space, don't you think? It seems to me that
certain groups ought to be particularly interested in the goings-on
during the solar flares. Winternight would probably be interested in
trying to pull something off while the rest of the world was in the dark
(so to speak). The Azzies would probably also have fun during the flares,
since they aztec culture was big into sun-worship. It doesn't even have
to be anything involving the Gestalt or Mr. Darke, just some sort of
major mojo. The Invae would most assuredly be up to something. That's all
assuming that you want to use that kind of stuff in your game, it might
be better to explore some of the technological impact of the event
though.
--
John Pederson "Reality is a greasy beast"
aka Canthros, shapeshifter-mage --Colin P. Hill
lobo1@****.com canthros1@***.com john.e.pederson@***********.edu
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/4864 ICQ UIN 3190186
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