Question Chewing Through The Straps

Part 1, or Introductory Insanity is out and about, covering the end of Summer Term 2007 and very beginning of Fall 2007, collecting together some of the micro-scenes in which Mads and Thomas first appear, along with the forum story "Some Days It's Just Not Worth Chewing Through The Straps". Thus, it literally and chronologically precedes the Parents' Day story Pictures of You .

Some background to those new to the characters: Mads and Thomas originate in a long-running (300 karma) 4th Edition Shadowrun campaign that started at "street" level and ended with pink mohawk violence in a black mirrorshades world. So, like 'Shine, Metro is one of the Class of 2011's incoming self-made millionaires, he's simply been shot at more often along the way. Hence the slight regret at becoming "retired" at 16, after only two years of work.
One can presume that:
- Chief Delarose, Headmistress Carson, and Admiral Everheart know exactly what's in Mads Gunnison's corporate records. IMO, HIVE has to be advanced enough to break the encryption on his files.
- Chief Delarose and Fubar have a firm grasp on what the boy's capable of doing, if he sees the need for it.
- Not even Fubar is sure where the deep-cover conditioning and the BTL- and personafix- imposed mindscapes end, and Mads the person begins.

With that out of the way, the floor is open.

I had to go back and check some of the references from the Shadowrun novels.

(Thank you for an excuse to re-read them. )

Well-written and very twisty.

I'd be interested in reading the campaign notes, if they are available in a public forum, and in a similar form to the story.

Looking forward to your next work.

Mister D wrote: I had to go back and check some of the references from the Shadowrun novels.

(Thank you for an excuse to re-read them. )

Well-written and very twisty.

Thank you!

Mister D wrote: I'd be interested in reading the campaign notes, if they are available in a public forum, and in a similar form to the story.

Most of my notes were collections of memorable quotes, and a whole lot of "player blowing off steam over dick moves by certain other players". As it was, the poor guy was stuck being held responsible for a strike team that would happily take a mission he told them was likely to be a suicide run, and still refuse to go anywhere he considered fun or interesting. A later addition to the group - a fairly on-the-edge razorgrrl - amended that to include never getting into a vehicle he was driving, even though *he* wasn't the one who launched a pink Cadillac (along with a 200-lb. roast pig, and a vintage surfboard) into a volcano.

AYYY congrats on WhatIF-ing this! I'm going to skim this to see if there are any diffrences

Metro Vs Jade. Also known as: How the world died.

First they took out the bastard, by accident. Then everything else.

NJM1564 wrote: Metro Vs Jade. Also known as: How the world died.

First they took out the bastard, by accident. Then everything else.

Note to Self: If Metro has to ask Generator if the team is using enough improvised fuel-air explosives for the job, the situation may already be slightly out of control.

null0trooper wrote:
Note to Self: If Metro has to ask Generator if the team is using enough improvised fuel-air explosives for the job, the situation may already be slightly out of control.

You don't say!?!
Generator is either the most sane person in the world (not saying much for the rest of us) or should be in ARC probably at some level higher than Black if such exists!

Part 2, or, "Spy Kidz Days" is out for public consumption, including the "blink, and you'll miss it" short Kimba cameo.

Part 3, or, "No Rest For The Wicked" is touched up and shipped off.

Fair warning, Part 4/Something Like Home is kind of long. Hopefully, it gets all the needed details and ideas across.

Grave-digging, but for a good cause!

How high (or low) would Metro place in the post-finals issue of Rankings among freshmen and sophomores?

Dude's insane, in the ranker's minds, so pretty high.

Cryptic wrote: Dude's insane, in the ranker's minds, so pretty high.

The normies do tend to fear the unpredictable and the unknown, don't they?

CrazyMinh wrote: Oh so THAT's how those metro stories work! They're a AU!!! Bloody hell, I was working myself round the bloody twist trying to figure that one out!

Every WhatIF story or fan fiction is an AU, otherwise the events depicted would be part of the universe the canon authors are reporting on.

As far as anyone is likely to be able to tell, Mads is originally from Svartalfheim, because it makes ZERO sense for any of the Nine Worlds to be stuck forever in the Iron Age and the place very well could have developed like the Sixth World over the past thousand years or so. In any case, the place has dragons, dwarfs, elves, and a fraction of the elves are black as the ace of spades. Also, SR4 magicians don't function or scale the way human magics do in WU. "Some sort of alfar" covers that better some of the other options considered.

I re-checked, and the campaign he's from started with "street scum" builds (300 build points, and 1,000 nuyen to buy anything within reason up to availability 6R), and ended two years in-game, five initiation grades, and 404 karma later. That's 100 karma short of Legendary status.


So, what's difficult to understand? That he's better-skilled at surveillance, shadowing, and evasion than a handful of teens who larp James Bond?