So the guy that made the game is clairvoyant or had inside information from the all powerful Illuminati's ten year plan and they sent the CIA in to find out how he knew? I don't get that. Is he dead yet?
Not the guy who made the game.
Nigel Findley
Nigel Findley was born in Venezuela, in 1959. Findley was raised in Spain, Nigeria, the United States, and England before his family settled in Vancouver in 1969.
He got his start as a role-playing game author in the mid 1980s during his business career. By 1990 he had become a full time writer, and had authored or coauthored over one hundred books, including twelve novels, before his death. He wrote for most game companies in the industry, including TSR, but is perhaps best known for his game products and fiction for FASA's Shadowrun game. He got his start writing for Dungeons & Dragons, and won a 1992 Origins Award for
GURPS Illuminati. In 1995 he was inducted into the Origins Awards Hall of Fame.
His body of work also included supplements for Mayfair's Roleaids line, Wizards of the Coast's The Primal Order, West End Games, and White Wolf. He is credited with parts of the design of Greyhawk Adventures and Fate of Istus, and wrote the whole of Greyspace. He wrote many Shadowrun novels as well.
Findley died suddenly on February 19, 1995, at his home in Vancouver, British Columbia. He suffered a heart attack at the age of 35. Forget that game, have you ever played shadowrun?
?
Here is the story line
Shadowrun takes place in Seattle, Washington, decades into the future (2050 when first published, currently 2074); the central setting is the Seattle city-state. In the backstory of the game, magic and mythological beings returned to the world in 2011. Additionally, some humans "Goblinize" into orks and trolls, while human children begin to be born as elves, dwarves and even more exotic creatures.
In the Shadowrun setting megacorporations control the lives of not only their employees, but command entire armies (the 10 biggest corporations in the world have extraterritoriality, such as now enjoyed by foreign heads of state). Technology is highly advanced and cyberware and bioware (cybernetically enhanced body parts or augmented parts grown in a vat then implanted in place of natural organs) are common. The computer crash of 2029 and various conflicts and plagues have reshaped the political and financial landscape of the world. Now when conflicts arise the corporations, governments, even wealthy individuals, and organized crime subcontract their dirty work to specialists, those who then perform "shadowruns" or missions undertaken by deniable assets without identities or those that wish to remain unknown. The most skilled of these specialists, called shadowrunners, have earned a reputation for getting the job done. They have developed a knack for staying alive, and prospering, in the world of Shadowrun.
The nations
A basic premise of the setting is that as the world endured the string of state-changing events and conflicts, the political landscape fragmented and reformed. In North America, for example, some nations broke apart and reformed, as was the case with the Confederated American States and the United Canadian and American States; others became havens for specific racial or ethnic groups, like the councils of the Native American Nations, the Native Americans having used their new found magical abilities to regain massive tracts of land; or the Elvish principality of Tír Tairngire, that encompasess all of the state of Oregon. Some, like the California Free State, simply declared independence, or became de facto corporate subsidiaries like Aztlan (the former Mexico) to Aztechnology Megacorp. Despite the new role of megacorporations, many nations still hold considerable sway through economic, social and military means. For some, getting by means taking advantage of whatever the corps, or the government might bring their way.
[edit]The corporations
The monolithic "enemies" of the Shadowrun world (borrowing heavily from cyberpunk mythos) are the corporations, dubbed "megacorporations", "megacorps", or simply "megas" or "corps" for short. Megacorporations in the twenty-first century are global, with all but the smallest corps owning multiple subsidiaries and divisions around the world. They are the superpowers of the Shadowrun universe, with the largest corporations having far more political, economic, and military power than even the most powerful nation-states.
In Shadowrun, corporations are effectively "ranked" by the amount of assets under their control, including material, personnel, and property, as well as profit. These ranks are A, AA, and AAA; AAA corporations are top tier. Most corporations in the AA and AAA level are immune to domestic law, responsible only to themselves, and regulated only by the Corporate Court, an assembly of the ten AAA-rated corporations. All AAA-rated and most AA-rated corporations exhibit a privilege known as “extraterritoriality”, meaning that any land owned by the corp is sovereign territory only to the corp and immune to any laws of the country within. Corporate territory is not foreign soil but corporate soil, just like its employees are corporate citizens, though dual citizenship in a corporation and a nation is common. The AAA corps, as well as numerous minor corporations, fight each other not only in the boardroom or during high-level business negotiations but also with physical destruction, clandestine operations, hostile extraction or elimination of vital personnel, and other means of sabotage. Because no corporation wants to be held liable for damages, it has to be done by deniable assets, or shadowrunners, invisible to the system where every citizen is tagged with a System Identification Number (SIN).
[edit]Technology
Despite the Crash which caused much data corruption, technology in the game is advanced. Cyberware, technical implants, and Bioware, genetically engineered implants which enhance a person's abilities, emerged. Characters can also augment their bodies with nanotechnology implants.
[edit]The Matrix
In earlier editions, direct neural interface technology enabled humans and metahumans to directly access computers and the Matrix, the ingame global computer network restructured after the 2029 Crash. Access to the Matrix was accomplished by "deckers": individuals that have "cyberdecks". These interface machines are connected to the brain through a Datajack generally located at the temple or behind the ear.
In Shadowrun 4th edition, the Matrix rules have changed, thanks to the setting's constant evolution and a drive to match real world technological developments. After the second Matrix crash in 2064, Matrix technology was moved away from the wired network and led into a wireless technology. The most noticeable difference between the Matrix in the 2070s and the earlier editions is that wireless technology has become completely ubiquitous. Communications and Matrix access is provided through wi-fi nodes placed throughout the infrastructure of just about every city on Earth, fulfilling a service similar to contemporary cell towers - but as these nodes are as numerous as telephone poles, only a tiny percentage of their range is necessary. The nodes of all electronic devices a person carries are connected in a similar manner, creating a Personal Area Network (PAN). People access their PAN with their Commlink, a combination personal computer/cell phone/PDA/wireless device available either as an implant or a head-mounted display. This access can be the total sensory immersion common to cyberpunk fiction, or a sensory enhancement by which the virtual features of one's physical surroundings can be perceived and manipulated. The Matrix of the 2070s is thus not only a virtual reality, but an augmented or mixed reality. Cyberdecks are obsolete, so "deckers" have once again become "hackers". In turn, the otaku of previous versions (deckers who did not need decks to access the Matrix) have been reworked into technomancers, who possess an innate connection to the Matrix that permits them to access the wireless network without hardware.
Ok box why did he move so much as a kid? I tend to believe his dad was military. Maybe he snooped around dads computer files and thought he would contribute to steve jacksons game.
Steve Jackson is another story.
Raid
Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service
On March 1, 1990, SJG's offices in Austin, Texas were raided by the U.S. Secret Service. The manuscript for GURPS
Cyberpunk was confiscated although this was merely coincidence and not the actual purpose of the raid at all. The raid is often thought to have been related to Operation Sundevil, a nationwide investigation of computer crime; however, Sundevil was based in Arizona and the Steve Jackson Raid was coordinated out of Chicago. More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages of $50,000 and attorneys' fees of $250,000 (amounts in USD) to SJ Games, ruling that the raid had been carelessly executed, illegal, and completely unjustified.
Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling discussed the affair in his non-fiction book The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. The case also helped to prompt the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as spawning a new game, Hacker.
Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporationsI think it seems like a conspiracy. I played shadowrun as a kid