The Shadowrun Game will be started soon.  Here's the accompanying file:
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The Digital Forest Shadowrun RPG Player's Guide

		    The Digital Forest Information System
			       S H A D O W R U N

TABLE OF CONTENTS-----------------------------------------------------------0   

 NAME..........................................................SECTION
 Table Of Contents.............................................0
 Preface.......................................................1
 Introduction..................................................2
 Character's (Species and Archtypes)...........................3
 Character Sheet (fill this out and post it)...................4
 History of Universe (1990 AD to 2050 AD)......................5

 Please read the entire document if you want to play...

SHADOWRUN-PREFACE-----------------------------------------------------------1

	Shadowrun is a Role Playing Game which takes place in and after the
year 2050, and is being run on the Digital Forest Information System, and
soon, The Digital Forest Information Network (DFIN).  Grand 11 is the Game
Master.
	To join the game, read this entire document, and create a character
sheet and post it in the Shadowrun area. 
	And now, Grand 11............

INTRODUCTION----------------------------------------------------------------2

Well, it started kind of last minute, you know a "lets network ShadowRun!!!" 
But after a little thought,as to the layout and such, I've pretty much got it 
covered on how to work this.  If you are going to play, try to log on daily (I
know that's next to impossible but...) As for who's going to be what, give me 
the input on who you want to be after reading the log I made.  No, the log's 
not done yet, but I thought I should let you know how I decided to use the 
setup.  After much contemplation, even more scrounching up of cash, and then 
still more into reading, I have finally decided that the Amber diceless system
will work the best after some modifications.  It's a unique point "pooling" 
kind of thing, hard to explain so I won't until I'm sure there are those 
listening.  The board will only display general events that all players can 
see,  spicific things that only certain players may notice will be given to 
them via private reply.  Player decisions will be given back to me the same 
way, then I'll colaborate the data and add a new page of action to the board, 
allowing you to see how your desisions conflicted with everyone else.  For the
strict roleplaying portions (non combat)  we can simply use general replys to 
statements because everyone would be able to hear them anyway.  The only part 
I have the most problem conqering is the slowness the roleplaying portion will
go, do to responce by the day.  But we will see.  Also I reserve the right to 
alter this makeshift system I'm devising since it is all curently 
experimanetal.

				   * * *
			
Well, I guess it happens to every one at the last minute.  Wednesday sounds
good to me as a start but, of course, there have been dificulties along the
way.  First off I wrote the earlier message assuming everything would work out.  
Well, as it turns out, the Amber Diceless system was more expensive than I 
thought and when I went to Comic Quest I couldn't buy it.  But don't worry, I 
have this almost certainly obnoxious gift of memorizing rules so I sat down 
and read through the key parts of of the game in the store.  I've memorized 
how combat was handled and it brings good news and bad.  On the good side the 
system will merge with Shadowrun so incredibly perfectly that it may work 
better than I thought and with trully minor modifications (modifications that 
arn't even needed, just ones that I thought would help keep combat 
interesting).  In addition the system was so incredibly simple and shallow 
that I was glad not to waste my money on it (the simplicity is what made it 
overlap so easily with Shadowrun).  Bad news was that it was so incredibly 
simple, but that should be overcome with my modifications (the system 
literally said that what you did was compare fighting ability level, the one 
with the higher level won that round.  Now that was pushing the basics for a 
$40.00 hardback but hey, if it sells).  Any of you who have jumped ahaed and 
started making characters, waiting to upload:  There are  modifications to 
dice pools so don't think your done.

    Well, the history of the realm should be done either later today or 
tomorrow, depending on how active my night is.  With that in by tommorrow, you
will have a day to read over and respond to what you want to be.  Wensday we 
will actually work on construction of Characters, And the game will start 
Thursday.  It looks like this is going to work guys, and I'm real excited 
about it (you know playing god as I toy with your punny shleps for mere 
ammusement).  

P.S. There is also a "Slang of 2050" file at the end of the history.  Read it 
and use it as much as possible when on this board, as to help lend to the 
feel of the realm.

				   * * *

Well I'm done, and we can get this game under way.  The file attached has the
history of the universe up to 2050 as per the game.  Pease reply to this 
message (not e-mail, this board has it's own private reply line) as too what
races you are interested in and Archtype you want to be.  Also if you don't 
want to hassle with your character I'll make him so just say so.

				   * * *

CHARACTERS-------------------------------------------------------------------3


****SPECIES****

Elves:  These guys are everything youd expect.  They get =1 to quickness and 
charisma.  Add lowlight eyes and there you have it.  Keep in mind that in this
realm they are taller than humans (unlike D&D)

Dwarves:  Again they are very standard.  +1 to Body (endurance) and willpower,
and a +2 to strength.  -1 to quickness though.  Thermographic eyes and =2 
bonus to disease finish them off.

Orks:  Big, hairy.  They avg. 1.9 meters in height with +3 to body, +2 to 
strength, but -1 to both intelligence and charisma (dumb and ugly)  they have 
lowlight eyes.

Trolls:  bigger (2.8 meters!) and miss grown bone every where.  They get +5 to
body, +4 to strength and can use heavy weapons with out stabilizers or mounts.
 Well, -1 to quickness and willpower, and -2 to charisma and intelligence 
(dumber and uglier)

If you are asking, "Why bother being human when these guys come out ahead 
with attributes, sight, and in the trolls case, free armor?" Your answer is 
allergies.  What??? I mean like a werewolf to silver.  Each character will 
have to roll to see what affects him and how badly.  Humans don't have to do
this.

****ARCHTYPES****

Street Samurai:  Give em guns.  Lotsa guns.  These guys are essential part of 
the game.  They get huge guns and alot of cybernetic implants to beef them up.
Think of the terminator, now you got the idea.

Deckers:  Did you read the history?  This is slang for the future hackers.  
Imagine an entire computer the size of the kwyboard.  that when you use you 
plug one end into the line and one end into the back of your ear so it can 
intercept the electric pulses your brain give to your body so your comands are
speed of thought with a 5 sensory screen.  (Yes Bucket Man they still exist)

Riggers:  Take the decker and make him an auto maniac.  Thats right, plug him 
into the car so he becomes the machine.  The perfect driver.  Usually the 
least human of the group because they live life in a machines body.  

Mages:  You saw the three technomancers, now meet the three magic users.  
That's right the hermanic mages.  These guys study to control the universe.  
They were origionally the most powerfull but I'm using a few limitations I 
read about in the books to tone them down

Shamans:  Just like mages only they follow a toetem which makes them better at
certain spells and worse at others.  Kinda like specialists.  They can also 
summon the spirits to do their bidding at will making them just as bad, if not
worse, than the mages.  They too will be toned down.

Adepts:  Well they have magic, but they can't do flashy tricks with it.  So 
they invest it in their body like magical cyberware.  You know, magic enhanced
strength, or speed.  Unlike mages who cast spells, however, this enhancement 
is allways "on".

Wow, I'm done.  Send in the messages please.  We can get started now.
Enjoy, Chummers!

				       Grand 11 (in all of his grandure)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------4
SAMPLE CHARACTER SHEET

This is Chesire's Character sheet:

    Greetings chummer, name's Chesire. You need a job done? I'm you're gal. 
I've seen you lookin' around for some hard hitters, but don't bother with 
those steel-clad samurai wannabees. They serve their purpose, but I don't know
no street geek that can stand up to a good vehicle launched missle.  And I
never miss.  What's the job?  I'll get us in and out faster than they can 
blink. Of course, if it's because I've grafted their eyelids closed with a 
well placed particle beam, it's none o' my concern. Oh, one thing...I don't 
let no mages come near my rig. You need magic work? Let 'em walk.

    Name    : Chesire
    Species : Human
    Archtype: Rigger
    Sex     : Female Cheuvinist Nazi Hippocrit
    Phrases : "Heh..looks like they got intimate with my grid iron."
	      "Gun barrels turn me on too."
	      "Magic bites. So do I."

    Physical Description:   Curly brown hair about shoulder length, dark 
			    deepset seductive brown eyes, athletic, medium
			    build, wears mostly black and silver, no
			    glaringly obvious cybernetic enhancements-but
			    lots of internals.

    Personality         :   If you have to ask, stay away.

CHARACTER SHEET--------------------------------------------------------------

  Introduction & Personality:_______________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________  
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________

  BBS Name........._________________________________________________________
  Real Name........_________________________________________________________
  Character Name..._________________________________________________________

  Species : [ ] HUMAN    [ ] ELF       [ ] DWARF     [ ] ORK       [ ] TROLL

  Archtype: [ ] STREET SAMURAI         [ ] DECKER    [ ] RIGGER    
	    [ ] MAGE                   [ ] SHAMEN    [ ] ADEPT

  Sex     : [ ] MALE     [ ] FEMALE

  Phrases : ______________________________________________________
	    ______________________________________________________
	    ______________________________________________________

  Physical Description: ________________________________________________
			________________________________________________
			________________________________________________
			________________________________________________
			________________________________________________

  Personality           ________________________________________________

*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************

HISTORY FROM 1990 TO 2050----------------------------------------------------5


			   AND SO IT CAME TO PASS...

	Today, in 2050, our world is radically different from that our great 
grandfathers knew.  Where once superpower nations dominated the globe, 
threatening all with sudden nuclear annihilation, the superpowers have now
broken up into many smaller autonomous nations, and corporations have taken
over their once-immense power.  Our science and technology, too, set us apart,
with current levels making previous advances look like child's experiments
with a science kit.
	But that is not all that divides our age irrevocably from the past,
for magic has emerged again on Earth and we live in an Awakened world.

RISE OF THE MEGACORPS

	It all began in the late 1990s, as the civil unrest that marked the
end of the millennium intensified even more.  Alarmed at the state of things,
the corporations feared to trust their interests to indifferent or, in their
eyes, incompetent governments.  Begining with their holdings in the Third
World countries, they armed their security personnel with the finest available
equipment and hired professional mercenaries on both long- and short-term 
contracts.  As the tide of civil disobedience and urban violence began to
engulf every nation on the globe, the corporations began to transfer their 
paramilitary assets wherever needed.  The stage was set.
	In 1999, food riots in New York City created the flashpoint.  Angered
and frightened by a three-month truckers' strike that had stoped the flow of
fresh foods into New York, the people took to the streets.  Hundreds were 
killed and thousands injured as the violence spread through the city.
	At one point, a Seretech Med-Research truck hauling wastes, including
infectious materials, became the target of a mob.  In what became a running
gunfight, Seretech security came to the aid of the corporate truckers, 
withdrawing them to one of the firm's medical research facilties.  More
violence followed as the maddened crowd stormed the building.  By dawn, 20
research employees were dead, while 200 rioters lay lifeless on the grounds
and in the street.
	In a misguided attempt to crush the corporate armies, the city, then
the state and federal governments, charged Seretech with criminal negligence.
Seretech asserted that by defending it's truck by the mob, it prevented the
potentially lethal cargo from infecting the population at large.  In a land-
mark desicion, the Supreme Court upheld Seretech's right to maintain an armed 
force for the protection of it's own personnel and property, and commended 
the corporation for protecting innocent citizens and honoring it's trust to
dispose of contaminated materials safely.  The case set a precedent that led
to the Shiawase Decision of 2001, firmly establishing the extra-territoriality
of multinational corporations in the international law.
	More disasters followed.  In 2004, Libya unleashed a chemical weapon
against Israel.  The Israelis responded by destroying half of Libya's cities
with nuclear weapons.  Then, in 2005,a major earthquake hit New York City,
killing more than 200,000 people and leaving behind over 200 billion dollars
worth of damage.  It would be 40 years before the city was fully rebuilt.  In
the meantime, the United Nations moved to Geneva and the East Coast Stock
Exchange to Boston.

RESOURCE RUSH

	With their new freedom, the corporations of North America increased 
their exploitation of the continent's resources with a vengeance.  In what 
the media dubbed "The Resouce Rush", corporate coaliations demanded and were 
granted access to oil, mineral, and land resources on federal lands.  Again
and again, in the years 2002-8, the government invoked the right of eminent
domain to bring property under it's control, only to license it's exploitation
to a corporate sponsor.  Taking the brunt of this landgrab were the indian
reservations and federal parklands.
	Conservationists and indian-rights groups expressed their shock and
disgust, though corporate influence and paramilitary power made it dangerous
to object.  Angry and frustrated, the more radical elements founded the 
Sovereign American Indian Movement (SAIM), whose roots traced back to the
indian-rights struggles of the twentieth century.
	The growing tension and hatreds finally erupted in 2009.  On May 5,
United Oil Industries announced that it had aquired the right to exploit the
petrochemical resources in one-quarter of the remaining federal parks and
one-tenth of the indian lands, which the government had just confiscated.
SAIM reacted immediately.  A small band entered the Shiloh Lanch Facilty in
northwest Montana, capturing a missile silo.  To this day, no one knows how
the raiders managed to bypass the security patrols, but once inside the 
missile silo, they met up with John Redbourne, a USAF major and a full-blooded
Dakota Sioux.  After knocking his partner unconscious, Redbourne took the 
man's keys and codes to unlock the launch failsafes.

THE LONE EAGLE

	Issuing a demand for the return of all Indian land, the Shiloh raiders
threatened to launch the silo's missiles.  Ten days of tense negotiations 
ended when a black-garbed delta team invaded the silo.  During the struggle,
which resulted in the death of all of the occupying Indians, a Lone Eagle
missile was launched.
	NORAD command in Cheyenne Mountain watched helplessly as the missile 
headed for the Soviet Union.  All their auto destruct signals went unheeded,
and the military had no interceptors in the area to down the bird.  Though
denying responcibility for the launch, President Jesse Garrety informed 
Moscow of the targets of each of the missile's multiple warheads, hoping to 
avert a full-scale retaliation by giving the Soviets enough warning to use
their semi-secret ballistic defenses to stop the missile.
	Moscow was understandably skeptical of Washington's claims that the 
Lone Eagle was an isolated accident and not a ploy to make a surgical strike
against selected Soviet targets.  They put their forces on full alert.  As
tank divisions began preperations to invade Europe, all Soviet citizens were
ordered to shelters.  In the United States, however, the public was unaware
that it was perilously close to nuclear war.
	President Garrety waited anxiously, and as later revealed in the 
celebrated "Back-Room Tapes" alternately wept, ranted, and prayed.  Two hours
later, General Secretary Nikolai Chelenko tersely informed him that the 
warheads had been stoped.  A privately conducted stress analysis of Chelenko's
voice later indicated only a 79 percent probability that he spoke the truth,
but neither seismic nor space-based sensors recorded any nuclear explosions
at that time.  Explosion or not, there was definitelty fallout from the 
incident.

THE BLAME FALLS

	When the American public learned of the Lone Eagle crisis, the outcry
was enormous.  Goaded by corporate propagandists, the people began to blaim
SAIM, and by implication, all Native Americans.  This fit well with the larger
plan of the megacorporations,  principally United Oil Industries, which was
not satisfied with their rate of acquisition.  By 2010, they had applied 
enough pressure to pass the Re-Education and Relocation Act.  This new law
called for the confinement of anyone connected in any way to SAIM.  Abuses of
the law were rampant because of the general hatred of Indians.  Thousands of 
innocent Native Americans were sent to concentration camps, euphemistically
called "re-education centers".  Among those shiped to the Abilene camp was
Daniel Coleman, future Prophet of the Great Ghost Dance and the first war
shaman of the Native American Nations.  History knows him as Daniel Howling
Coyote.
	In a government economy measure, Congress soon contracted out
management of the re-education camps to the corporations.  As the camps 
dropped out of the media spotlight, overcrowding, poor sanitation, and 
insufficient medical care began to plague the inmates of the camps.  Was this
a deliberate plan of genocide, as Coleman would one day claim?  In one of the
great ironies of history, however, the isolation of many tribes in the re-
education camps spared them from the scourge that hit the world in 2010.

TRIBULATIONS

	Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS) broke out first in
New Delhi, but within weeks, cases were being reported all over the globe.
In the worst epidemic since the Black Plague, an estimated 25 percent of the 
worlds people were dead or dying by the end of 2010.  Most fatalities were in
outlying areas where medical care was unavailable or in high population 
centers where the supplies of medicines and interim vaccines were 
insufficient.  China, India, many African nations, and many densely populated
Third World cities suffered disproportionately because their medical delivery
systems could not provide adequate symptomatic relief.
	Tragic as the VITAS plague was, it was only the beginning of un-
precedented chaos.  Beginning with the violent dissolution of the Mexican 
government in January 2011, more governments fell than in any other five-year
span in history.  Famine stalked the world, adding to the allready-lengthy
rolls of the dead.  Massive civilian protests led to raids on Euopean nuclear
power plants, three of which suffered meltdowns.  Radiation fallout was
extensive and damaging.
	On the heels of VITAS came the frightening phenomenon later named
Unexplained Genetic Expression, or UGE.  All over the world, mutant changeling
children were being born to "normal" parents.  Newsweek dubbed these children
"elves", and it seems the horsemen of the Apocalypse had finally arrived.  
This year has become known as the Year of Chaos.
	As miracles and calamities were reported from every nation, religions
rose and died.  Prophets appeared, proclaiming the end of the world.  One of
these emerged from the despair of a concentration camp.  On December 24, at
the same moment that hundreds of Japanese witnessed the first appearance of
the great Dragon Ryumyo as they sped past Mount Fuji on a bullet train, the
Prophet of the Great Ghost Dance, Daniel Howling Coyote, led his followers
out of the Abilene Re-Education Center.

THE SIXTH WORLD

	What we know as the Year of Chaos was actually the end of the old age
and the beginning of the new, the dawn of our Awakened World.  Some mystics
point to the Mayan calendar as an authority, noting thatit predicts the start
of a new cycle of humanity on December 24, 2011.  They also say that the 
appearance of the Dragon Ryumyo is the signpost marking what the Mayans called
the Sixth World.
	Had they done better research, these dreamers would have discovered
that the Mayans also predicted a world-destroying calamity that would herald
the birth of a new, improved race of humans.  Where were these things?  It is
true that we face trials, disasters, and great change, but we do not have a 
new world.  It's still good, old Mother Earth, even if she has entered a new 
phase.
	We get a better model of the change by looking at the historical shift
from B.C. to A.D.  No one at the time knew it had happened.  Only hindsight
reveals it.  Even the calander had to be backdated to take into account the
change.

THE DANCE

	For years after Daniel Coleman led his cadre of believers out from
Abilene REC compound, he droped from public view.  Knowledge of his activities
during that period is minimal, but he was, most certainly, proselytizing.
Among Native Americans--those still free as well as those incarcinated in 
camps or restricted to the ever-shrinking reservations--word spread of a new
prophet, a great shaman to whom the spirits had taught a powerful dance.
	This inspired Native Americans to resist the tyranny of thier 
existance.  Many more escaped the camps, eluding the federal and corporate 
hunters by fleeing into the wilderness.  Like their ancestors, they began a
guerrilla war against an army that wanted to destroy them.  Unlike their
ancestors, they had access to the same technology as their enemy.
	In 2014, Daniel Coleman stepped out of the shadows.  He called 
himself Howling Coyote and declared that he was a shaman of the Great Ghost
Dance.  Backed by an elite core of fanatics, he announced the formation of
the Native American Nations, a coalition of tribes.  They laid claim to all 
of North America and demanded the immediate withdrawal of all persons of 
European, African, and Asian ancesrty, threatening dire magical retribution
if the demand was not met.  Of course, the media tried to make a laughing-
stock of Coleman and his followers.  Though magical phenomena had become
increasingly commonplace, no one believed any group of persons could enforce
such a threat.
	Insulting jokes were still making the talk-show circuit when Howling
Coyote and his Ghost Dancers demonstrated their power.  In 2014, Redondo Peak
erupted, burying Los Alamos, New Mexico under a cloud of ash.  Howling Coyote
appeared in a vid-cast from a nearby Zuni reservation.  He claimed credit for
invoking "our Mother Earth to punish the children who foresook her".
	Surviving documentation indicates that the U.S. did not take the claim
seriously, except to capitalize on an opportunity to capture the elusive 
resistance leader and smash his growing movement.  Within an hour of Howling
Coyote's broadcast, a federal reaction force, composed of the Sixth Air 
Calvary Battalion from Fort Hood, Texas, was in the air.  The helicopters and
support aircraft never reached the Zuni reservation.  All were destroyed by 
the sudden appearance of violent tornadoes.  When a second force arrived, the
self proclaimed shaman was long gone.
	The guerrilla war went on, to the great embarassment of the federal
and corporate forces, who seemed unable to see or touch their prey.  While 
frustration mounted in the government, it became harder to enforce news 
blackouts and official denials wore increasingly thin.  Finally, someone 
leaked the whole story, and it rocked the government, with President Jesse
Garrety forced to take the heat.

THE INDIAN QUESTION

	Amid the storm of criticism, Garrety was assassinated in late-2016,
followed shortly by the assassination of General Secretary Nikolai Chelenko
of the USSR, Prime Minister Lena Rodale of Great Britain, and Minister Chaim
Schon of Israel.  The assassins of Chelenko, Schon, and Rodale were 
ultimately killed in violent confrontations.  William Springer, the man
identified as Garrety's assissin, was never captured.
	William Jarman, the new President, issued the now-infamous Executive
Order 17-321 immediatley upon taking office.  One month later, Congress 
ratified it with the Resolution Act 2016.  The corupt government had 
sanctioned Jarman's plan to resolve "the Indian question": total 
extermination of all Native American tribes.  
	While the government huddled with the megacorporations to plan their
strategy, Howling Coyote's people had quietly begun their own solution to the
"Indian Question".  We know now that the Great Ghost Dance began in 2017, as
men and women of the tribes all across the continent performed the ritual that 
Howling Coyote had taught them.  They sang his song and chanted his chants.
Their power grew.
	Early in the year, when the government moved to implement the 
Resolution Act of 2016, several months of freak weather and other uncanny 
disturbances disrupted military bases and supply dumps assigned to the plan.
With each new delay, the President sacked another general, but he refused to
commit his forces piecemeal.  By August 17, the government had finally managed
to assemble it's troops, and the opperation began to roll.
	That morning, at 10:32 AM, Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount St. 
Helens, and Mount Adams all erupted in cataclysmic fury.  Mother Earth had
announced whose side she was on, and even the most skeptical became believers.

TREATY OF DENVER

	Meanwhile, Native American tribesman and non-Indian sympathizers were
occupying military bases in all three North American countries.  Chastened and
wary, the three governments sent representatives to Denver to negotiate with 
the Ghost Dancers in 2018.  Three months later, they had hammered out the 
Treaty of Denver.
	In the treaty, the federal governments of the United States, Canada,
and Mexico acknowledged the sovereignty of the Native American Nations (NAN)
over most of western North America.  The document outlined a ten-year 
population adjustment plan that would relocate all non-Indians of lands 
belonging to NAN.  Provisions included the establishment of reservations for
non-tribal people and corporations, the maintenance of certain cities (such
as Seattle) as extraterritorial extensions of the governments that had 
formerly claimed that land, and the retention of most of the state of 
California by the United States.
	No one was happy with the Treaty of Denver but no one had a better 
solution.  The magical capacity of NAN ofset the nuclear capacity of the 
three North American nations, which is why they agreed to give away large 
portions of their land and wealth.  Though the Native Americans had not 
achieved their goal of removing all others from their homelands, they had
regained control of much of it.
	Howling Coyote was named the head of the Sovereign Tribal Council,
the NAN governing body.  Though he found it dificult to mediate among the
bickering that now began to plague the various factions, Howling Coyote was
probably the only man who could still rally the loyalty of all sides.
	While the Tribal Council struggled with internecine problems, the
people of the United States experienced a new shock of horror when the space
plane America disintigrated in orbit.  The wreckage landed in Australia, 
killing 300 in the small town of Longreach.
	Also in 2018, the first-generation ASIST (Artificial, Sensory, 
Induction System) technology was created by Dr. Hosato Hikita of ESP Systems,
Inc. in Chicago.  While the entertainment industry was going wild exploiting
the commercial aspects of "simsense", other researchers saw the technology as
a key to containing the data explosion.

GOBLINIZATION

	On April 30, 2021, a totally inexplicable phenomenon began.  All over
the world, one out of every ten men and women suddenly metamorphosed into
hideous humanoid shapes.  For some, the process was short and mild.  Others
spent days or weeks in the hospital.  Some recovered, while others died 
screaming in agony.  In those horrible weeks, two new races of man were 
emerging like strange spring flowers under the Awakened sun.
	"Goblinization" was the name the media gave to this seemingly 
catastrophic process which was but another threshold point in the reemergence
of magic.  Researchers had their own names for it, mostly polysyllabic
mouthfuls or strings of consonants standing in for strings of seemingly 
unconnected words.  Whatever the name, the result was the same.  No race or
ethnic group was spared as 10 percent of the world population became what 
were soon dubbed "orks" and "trolls", projecting dark dreams of goblins onto
the unsightly modification of the victems.
	Most of these unfortunates were traumatized by the experience.  And 
if they were not, their loved ones were.  Some accepted the media's name for
them as license to act like the ghouls and goblins of legend, making incidents
of violence common.
	Had it ended there, surely psychological wounds would have healed in 
time.  But some "normal" children changed as they grew older, joining the 
ranks of so-called Orks and Trolls.  These either grouped with their own kind
or mated with great-hearted souls who could see past the physical shells.  
The offsprings of such unions were sometimes normal and sometimes produced
the new racial types.  Not all the "normal" children remained that way, 
however.  Many suddenly underwent goblinization at puberty, and the trauma
and it's associated maladjustments cycled again through the community.
	UGE, Goblinization, and the violence it spawned consumed the people
of Earth for much of the next year.  Where the color of men's skins had once
been the great barrier, the people of Earth began to hate and fear the new
"races", the emerging Elves, Dwarfs, Orks, and Trolls.  In the year 2022,
race riots wracked the globe on a scale never seen.  In the turmoil, new 
nations emerged when states split from parent countries or coalesced from
two or more units.  In the North American sphere, the most important of these
were an independant Quebec and the newly formed Caribbean League.
	The U.S. government declared martial law for several months in a 
futile attempt at control, while reports trickling out of Soviet Union told
of deaths on a mass scale.  In fear for thier lives, many of the changed 
beings went into hiding, wether underground, into the wilderness, or in 
comunities of their own kind.
	As the year drew to a close, however, another specter more gruesome
than any Ork or Troll raised it's head as a new wave of VITAS plague swept 
the planet.  While another 10 percent of the worlds population fell before the
onslaught, racial violence flickered out, leaving both human and metahuman
reunited in fear.
	It was this grim year that Data, an electronic news magazine, first
coined the term "Awakened" for the metahumans and other lifeforms recently
come into being.

MAGIC AND THE MATRIX

	Though humanity suffered through another devestating crisis, science
and technology marched on.  In 2024, the first simsense entertainment unit 
(a kind of sensory VCR) became available.  The unit offered the user 
rudimentary sense impressions, with full awareness that the experiense was
a simulation.  Also in this year, the experimental "remote-vote" system was
used in the U.S. presidential election system for the first time.  President
Jarman was reelected by landslide vicories in urban centers, though opposition
claimed fraud.  Meanwhile the NAN relocations continued relatively peacefully
dispite continued provocation by the hostile Jarman White House.
	In 2025, magic joined the ranks of science at last, when UCLA gave the
dicipline academic recognition by establishing the first undergraduate program
in occult studies.  Fine programs at the University of Southern California, 
Brown, and Yale soon followed.  Within two years, technical magic programs 
and magical research facalties were established at Texas A&M and MIT, with 
the later adding "&M" to it's name (for "and Magic").
	In 2027, science tapped another source of power, this time in the 
sunlit world.  After years of pursuing the dream of tabletop cold fusion
power, the first powerplant went on-line.  The dream of tiny generators had
not been fufilled, but the research led to breakthroughs that made possible
the construction of large power plants.
	The other breakthrough of this year was the development of cyber-
terminals.  As computer systems became increasingly complex during the late
20th century, many progams replaced lengthy strings of commands with simple
pictures, or icons, that symbolized specific commans or programs.  You picked
the icon you wanted, and the computer would do whatever the picture meant.
By the late 1990s, however, a typical user was dealing with so many thousands
of icons that data-processing systems were breaking down under their own 
complexity.
	By 2029, Sony Cybersystems, Fuchi Industrial Electronics, and RCA-
Unysis had all developed prototype cyberterminals that allowed a user to
interface with the world of data network via his nervous systems, which 
translated the data and issued the commands.  Instead of typing in commands
or clicking a mouse at an icon, operations were carried out literally at the
speed of thought.  These early cyberterminals were massive, requiring that
the user be in a sensory-deprivation tank.  Largely funded by various 
intelligence agencies, the goal of the research was to allow agents to raid 
data systems, creating strike teams of "super-hackers".
	In the United States, the CIA, NSA, and IRS pooled their resources to
exploit this development.  Under the code name of Echo Mirage, they recruited
and trained a team of "cyber-comandoes".  Fighting balky equipment and the 
psychoses induced by the overwhelming sensory signals generated by the 
primitive cyberterminals, Echo Mirage was advancing toward a workable 
technology when disaster struck.

CRASH OF '29

	On February 8, 2029, computer systems across the world were attacked,
apparently at random, by a virus program of unprecedented power.  System
crashed, their data wiped clean and even their hardware burned out by the 
effects of the virus.  As the killer program spread, governments toppled amd
the world economy neared collapse.
	During the first quarter of the year, the virus shattered the data
network that held the world together.  By presidential order, Echo Mirage was
activated to counteract the virus, but the "strait-arrow" agents of Echo 
Mirage were overwhelmed by the psychological demands of combat in cyberspace.
	Echo Mirage's masters responded by recruiting the most brilliant, if
erratic, data-processing maverics from industry and the universities.  Their
choises were drafted under a presidential emergency order and rammed through
a brutal training program.  A cadre of 32 men and women graduated with their 
insanity intact.
	It was not until August 2029, however, that the new cadre, armed with
improved cybertechnology, could mount a coordinated attack on the killer
program.
	Eighteen minutes after engaging the virus, four members of Echo Mirage
were dead.  When the data logs were analyzed, two things became apparant.  
First, the virus program could induce lethal feedback in humans accessing the
matrix.  Second, no existing computer security could even slow down someone
using a cyberterminal.
	The corporations involved in the effort were horrified at the ease at
which Echo Mirage penetrated their most secure data systems.  In reaction,
secret corporate research was begun to develop new security software that
could repel intruders in the Matrix.  This included research to duplicate
the lethal effects generated by the virus.  The resulting software was the
first generation of Intrusion Countermeasures, or IC, known world wide as
"Ice".
	Echo Mirage learned techinques to isolate and contain the virus.  
Equipped with new combat programs and beefed-up cyberterminals they began the
lengthy task ofpurging the Grid of infection.  By late 2031, they had wiped 
out the last known concentration of the virus code.
	These second-generation terminals used desk sized hardware and needed
no sensory deprivation tank.  Shortly after the final purge of the virus, four
of the suviving seven members of Echo Mirage decamped into the private sector,
taking with them the secrets of the new technology.
	In May 2034, Matrix Systems of Boston came out with the first "gray-
market" cyberterminal.  Six weeks later, Matrix Systems' main computer crashed
and it's two founders died in apparently unrelated accidents. 
	From the perspective of the military-industrial complex, the damage 
had allready been done.  Matrix technology was loose.  Fuchi Industrial was
the first major corporation to break ranks of the deckers when when, in 2036,
it marketed it's own third-generation cyberdeck, the desktop CDT-1000.
	The majority of cyberdecks sold today arelicensed machines that 
inject a unique signature into the logs of any systems they access, thus 
recording all legitimate activity in the Matrix.  For years, however, pirate
users, or deckers, have been acquiring decks and modifying them.  Deckers
suppress their system's signature and add capabilities that are of little use
to the honest cyberterminal operator.  That's the way of the world in 2050.

THE SUPERPOWERS

	The Computer Crash was the death knell of the world dominators.
Allready weakened by the catastrophes of the first three decades of the 
century and exhausted by the trials of the Awakened World, they reeled under
the new assault.
	For twelve years, beginning in 2030, the people of Europe and Asia 
underwent a series of conflicts now known as the Euro-Wars.  With their 
communication and surveillance systems disrupted, the old men in Moscow 
found their subjects making a long-overdue bid for a home-rule.  The 
separation was difficult and prolonged.  Also during this period, the Awakened 
came to dominate the Western Siberian Lowland, Yukut ASSR, and all other USSR
lands to the west of the lowlands.  Like the U.S. and Canada, the Soviets
lost their wilderness areas to the newcomers.
	The Crash was a gut punch to the United States of America.  In a 
country that was increasingly dependant on information technologies, the virus
was more devistating to the economy than VITAS had been to the population.
Canada was even worse off.  In 2030 what was left of the United States merged
with what was left of Canada, including her major industrial centers and 
important natural resource areas.  The new government was called the United
Canadian and American States, though there were protests on both sides of the
border.
	Almost four years later, a coalition of ten southern states seceded
from the union to form the Confederated American States.  The CAS was 
instantly recognized by Aztlan, itself recently separated from the NAN.  
Sentiment ran high, and fears of a second civil war were rampant.  
Nevertheless the transition was relatively orderly.  Military units, divided
in loyalties, split up and moved to their preferred countries with few
incidents of violence.
	Europe was not so lucky.  In 2031, a desperate Moscow launched an 
invasion of western Europe to secure vital industrial and agricultural
resouces.  Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces met unexpectedly tough opposition
from NATO, even though the European forces faught without their American 
allies.  In a fit of isolationism, the UCAS Congress recalled American troops
from Europe.
	Within a year, the European conflict slowed to a deadlock as attrition
took it's toll.  Though the losses in men and material had been high for both
sides, little territory had actually changed hands.  Then, in late 2031, 
forces of the Republic of Moscow renewed the war in a suprise attack on 
Hamburg.  Their mechanized forces, carefully husbanded while the other 
republics and their Warsaw allies had taken the brunt of the fighting, 
initially made great gains.  The allies were thrown into confusion, but 
managed to slow the offensive.  Previously uncommitted, Britain stepped in by
sending troops into the Low Countries "to protect British interests".  Further
escalation seemed inevitable.
	Then on the frigid day of January 23, 3033, Swedish airspace monitors
detected several flights of British aerospace FA-38 Nightwraith fighter-
bombers steaking across northern Europe.  In short order, the aircraft 
obliterated key communications and command centers belongong to both sides.
With all their offensive plans crippled beyond repair, both sides announced
a cease-fire the next day.  No one knows who was responsible for the strike.
	The end of Euro-War was not the end of problems.  Unable to stabalize
thier economies, the European Economic Community, the Warsaw Pact, and what
remained of the USSR fragmented.  The Germanies reunited, becoming one of the
stronger states in the new Europe.  Italy, some of France, and southeastern
Europe shattered into hundreds of tiny states and returned to the city-state
polotics that have plagued so much of their history.  Lost in impotent dreams
of empire, the Republic of Moscow continued to attempt self-aggrandizement,
but was repulsed on all fronts by neighboring states, corporate pressure, and
Awakened activity.

INDEPENDENCE FEVER

	As the fighting died in Europe, the specter of violence flared again
in the Americas when a force of Awakened beings and metahumans led by three
great dragons descended on the Amazon basin.  In a short but extremely bloody
conflict, the Brazilian forces had to cede most of the Amazon basin to the 
invaders.  The Brazilian government fell, and two days later, most of their
territory was claimed by the newly declared nation of Amazonia, self-acclaimed
savior of the eco-sphere.
	All was not quiet north of the equator, either.  With Aztlan, the NAN
member that had taken over the southwestern portions of Texas, now independant
and no longer under the Sovereign Tribal Council's protection, the Twxas state
legislature agitated for a military venture to recover those lost lands.  In
2035, the CAS refused, however, suspecting that NAN would protect it's former
member anyway.  No one in Atlanta wished to risk the power of the Great Ghost
Dance.  The angry Texans declared their own independance and launched an 
invasion.  Four months later, a frustrated and embarrassed Texas applied for
re-admittance to the CAS.
	CAS fears of the NAN were groundless.  The Sovereign Tribal Council
had it's own problems.  Having opened it's arms to various metahuman races, 
NAN was finding that these new children of Mother Earth had their own ideas.
A powerful group of Awakened beings and metahumans, mostly Elves, were in the
process of doing to NAN what they had done to the United States.  In an un-
precedented interuption of worldwide broadcasting, the Elves of the northwest
announced the birth of Tir Tairngire (the land of promise) and seceded from
NAN in 2037.
	Unwilling or unable to resist the move, the Native American Nations
did nothing to stop the formation of this new state in the region of former
Oregon.  Emboldened, the Tsimshian also declared their seperation from the
orginization.  In the wake of these defections and renewed internal dissent,
Howling Coyote resigned.  The shaman of the Great Ghost Dance withdrew into
isolation.
	Independance fever was contagious.  Long isolated from it's parent,
California declared itself a sovereign nation.  After immediately recognizing
the nation, the powerful Japanese Imperial State followed up by landing it's
troops to protect Imperial interests from any possible disturbances.  Within
five years, San Fransico was almost totally controlled by the Japanese
corporations.

NEW VIOLENCE

	In 2036, the napalm fire-bombing  of a small community in rural Ohio
announced the arival of the new terrorism.  Twenty people, most of them meta-
humans, died in the flames on that Sunday morning.  A group calling itself 
Alamos 20,000 claimed responsibility.  Over the next 15 years, this terrorist
group was positively linked to the deaths of more than a thousand metahumans
and publicly sympathetic normals.
	Three years later, metahuman hatred peaked in the Night of Rage.
Worldwide riots resulted in the deaths of thousands of metahumans and others
cosmetically altered to appear metahuman.  In New York City alone, 836 such
persons perished.  There were backlashes and incidents of counter-violence.
	Retaliation came in 2041, when EuroAir flight 329 was destroyed with
no survivors.  While en route from London to Atlanta, the aircraft was 
attacked over the Atlantic by a great dragon known as Sirrurg.  A garbled last
transmition from the doomed craft seems to indicate that one heroic passenger
held the beast off with sorcery for several minutes before both pasengers
and crew were destroyed by the terrorists fiery breath.
	Anther important development of 2041, was the birth of the Polyclubs
in Europe.  These youth-oriented associations were dedicated to promoting a 
particular philosophy.  Each polyclub proclaimed it's intention to impose it's
viewpoint on the general public by taking the lead in the so-called European
Restoration.
	In 2044, Aztlan nationalized all foriegn-owned buisnesses, under 
heavy preasure from Aztechnology Corporation.  Semi-open warfare broke out as
some corporations attempted to hold on to thier properties.  Using confusion
as a screen, Aztlan annexed most of what was left of Mexico.  The exception
was the Yucatan, where Awakened forces halted all take-over attempts.
	By 2046, the Policlub idea had spread to North America.  The movement
spread quickly, but violence followed in it's wake.  Humanis Policlub, in
particular, has built a major following that cuts across economic, social, 
and political divisions.  Terry Smith, a metahuman rights activist and head
of Mothers of Metahumans (MOM), has denounced Humanis as an arm of the shadowy
Alamos 20,000 in a series of advertisements in major dailies.
	In 2048, the Aztlan government negotiated the Veracruz Settlement with
several megacorps in the wake of a combined corporate military strike on
Ensanada.  In that same year, Alan Adams, former CEO of the Colbert Group,
an Illinois-based multinational corporation, was elected President of the 
UCAS.  Edna Wallace, former governor of Louisiana, was elected President of
the CAS.
	This year, 2050, has seen the development of the 7th-generation
cyberdeck, which is now keyboard size.  Though the hatred between humans and
metahumans still simmers, things are relatively quiet.  But even in an 
Awakened World, how long can that last?

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