Shadowrun in Space

[Lich-Loved]

Still, space is a useless setting for shadowrunners . .
WHY do you need to get to that dude who is in orbit WHILE he is in orbit?
Orbit is expensive, he WILL have to come down at some point, and if you can pass him off then, that's so much easier, less dangerous and cheaper as well.
It's the same problem with the under water arcologies mostly. Why would you ever need or even WANT to go there aside from running away from problems of your own?

Gah! What about this obscure piece of work?

[name_here]

Most obviously, maybe you want to kidnap the guy sometime this year. Or maybe you want to steal something from zero-G labs. Also, somewhere (I think in Street Magic) there's a bit of fiction about how Ares has stations with gardens on them to attack Insect Spirits from so that if something goes drastically wrong they can just blow the station up.

[Stahlseele]

And i repeat: why do it up there?
Most anything done up there will come down here at some point, else doing things up there would not be worth it, because you have no market for stuff up there . . Deck into the Lab from the ground, steal project data, move remote controlled equipment to have prototype destroyed. Done.

And yes, Ares has the deep space station for strange magix, i mentioned that. Why would a runner ever want to go there? You could not pay me enough to go there. If you want to destroy it, you need not go there either.
You just need to deck into some orbital weapons plattform and point it at that target.
As for actual Info on Shadowrun space, i expect you have googled this already yes?
http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Space

[Username17]

Lots of stuff in Shadowrun stays in space indefinitely, or at least until it is no longer important whether it gets stolen. Zurich Orbital never comes down and keeps peoples' bank records in a hermetically sealed vault. Aztechnology's Spindle performs materials and fabrication research in an unreachable environment and only sends results down when they are finished. Ares' Eden keeps their entire Klandathu gate apparatus in a spaceable shell and never sends any part of it down the gravity well.

If you want to fuck with financial records, steal Aztechnology chemistry research, or take sides in the Hive War, there is no way for you to meaningfully do that by waiting for people to send shit you need back to Earth. You just fucking can't.

-Username17

[Laertes]

And i repeat: why do it up there?
Most anything done up there will come down here at some point, else doing things up there would not be worth it, because you have no market for stuff up there . . Deck into the Lab from the ground, steal project data, move remote controlled equipment to have prototype destroyed. Done.

Here are three reasons why people would do things in space.

Firstly, manufacturing. There are processes in modern-day metallurgy which are greatly enhanced by a hard vaccuum, perfect thermal insulation or microgravity. It's not implausible that we're going to discover more manufacturing processes in semiconductors, metallurgy or crazy future materials science which are aided by these things. Right now nobody manufactures in space because lifting things into space is bullshit expensive. However, if the cost of lifting were to be drastically lowered, then I would expect space manufacturing to be a thing. Remember, in the modern day they already cast steel in France, ship it to Belarus to be stamped, ship it to Germany to be machined, ship it to Slovakia to be assembled, then back to Germany to be sold. Low orbit is closer to Germany than the capitals of any of those countries are. Space is only difficult because of the shipping costs.

(That page you linked me gives a mass driver cost of about 20Y per kilogram. That is not a high cost for transport.)

Secondly, mining. Earth doesn't have many rare earth metals or iridium group metals. Both are thought to be common among asteroids. Iridium group metals in particular are extremely valuable due to the fact that they're going to be very important in manufacturing hydrogen fuel cells, and most futurologists are quite fond of those. As such, asteroid mining is a thing and is going to be even more of a thing in the future when earth's mines are exhausted.

Now, in both of these cases you may well be able to deck into them remotely to do a certain amount of the stuff. But equally, you may not. For example, if you're abducting or assassinating a person then the contract may require it to be done sooner than their next shore leave, or if you're sabotaging a piece of machinery then the contract may require it to be done without destroying the station or even without leaving clear evidence of sabotage.

Thirdly, security. High orbit is more than 2s ping time from earth; Frank's EotM thus places it outside of high-density signal range. Low orbit isn't, but it's definitely got enough of a background count problem that nobody is going to be able to cast magic there. If you factor these two things together you end up with the fact that these are going to be where people put things because they're afraid of shadowrunners stealing them. Forget about data vaults on earth, this is where the real thing is going to be. This means that the really, really high value datasteals will involve going up into space.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, 20nuyen per kilogram is nothing compared to the 1k per kilogram mentioned on the same page.
but you can't get fragile things such as living beings up like that.
And yes, no matter how chromed out your samurai or rigger in a jar is, it still counts as a living being <.<

To me, all the reasons you mentioned for runners going up are reasons for runners NOT going up.
It's a place basically made to make sure no runner gets there to steal shit and get away with it . .

[Laertes]

Yeah, 20nuyen per kilogram is nothing compared to the 1k per kilogram mentioned on the same page.
but you can't get fragile things such as living beings up like that.
And yes, no matter how chromed out your samurai or rigger in a jar is, it still counts as a living being <.<

Has anything been done with the space elevator since 6WA? It should be coming online in the "present day" of Shadowrun. That's a game changer, and more importantly it's a brand new game changer which means that all the rules of disruptive technologies will be coming into play.

To me, all the reasons you mentioned for runners going up are reasons for runners NOT going up.
It's a place basically made to make sure no runner gets there to steal shit and get away with it . .

That's the way security works: people only put things that are worth stealing in places where they're pretty confident that you can't steal them. Criminals then have to either step up their game or go obsolete. If you were a megacorp which had the opportunity to put all your really, really valuable data in an orbital to keep it secure, why wouldn't you? After all, nobody's going to carry out a heist up there...

That'd actually be an interesting plot seed: nobody has yet carried out a prime run in HEO, and that means that security will be partially based on optimism. The "it can't happen here" feeling is going to be something that people can exploit if they're clever, and when it inevitably does happen there, it's going to be the media event of the century. People might do it just for that reason alone.

[silva]

Space incursions require a whole new package of training and conditioning involving from freefall microgravity maneuver to knowledge on how to survive on decompression, ballistics on micro-gravity, etc that I dont think shadowrunners arr prepared to cope with.

Damn, you dont even have militaru space corps in the setting, what to say of runners.

[Username17]

Has anything been done with the space elevator since 6WA?

I honestly have no idea. I pretty much consider 6WA and everything that came after it non-canon for a number of reasons. The Rotten Apple is definitely non-canon. So as far as I'm concerned, there probably isn't a space elevator in Shadowrun.

That being said, things can be lifted literally by magic to the edge of space and then rocket off from there. Basically your first couple of rocket stages take no weight and impose no difficulty on people being shipped up the gravity well. Not only can people be cheaply and easily sent into space, but they can be cheaply and easily sent into space from any part of the globe. All you need is an air elemental, which can be summoned anywhere.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

Well, how much can you lift with a levitation spell?
200 kilo per force point right? Force 10 would be needed for 2 tons.

The Space lift is planned for 2076 if everything goes according to keikaku.
And then it will take about a Week for squishies to get into orbit it seems <.<
Regular Cargo only a day or so.

[Username17]

Well, how much can you lift with a levitation spell?
200 kilo per force point right? Force 10 would be needed for 2 tons.

The Space lift is planned for 2076 if everything goes according to keikaku.
And then it will take about a Week for squishies to get into orbit it seems <.<
Regular Cargo only a day or so.

A Greatform Elemental can lift literally everything in a force based number of meter radius sphere. So if you have big spirits you can lift very very heavy objects.

-Username17

[name_here]

One reason to attack people in space instead of on the ground is to avoid whatever security they've got on the ground. If space poses any sort of problem for runners, it's going to be equally hard on quick reaction forces. That's a serious advantage if you're trying to take out a high-ranking member of Ares, for instance. Also, the risk of putting holes in important things is a smaller deal if they aren't your things. Hell, if you own vac suits it's not a bad plan to decompress the station on purpose. Then the defenders have to scramble for their vac suits and even if they're following safety rules not all of their suits are necessarily combat-ready.

[Laertes]

A Greatform Elemental can lift literally everything in a force based number of meter radius sphere. So if you have big spirits you can lift very very heavy objects.

-Username17

This is true, but it won't get you into orbit, no matter how high it lifts you.

This plays into a very common misconception of what orbit is, which I'll handle below. I'm currently about halfway through writing a piece on microgravity along with some initial ideas for how to handle microgravity in-system. Once I've got that, I want to talk about this not only because it's a common misconception, but also because the reality is far cooler and more evocative.

[Stahlseele]

Now we need to know wether or not the earths manasphere extends up to orbit or not. and if not, where does it end and why. If it ends x meters above the highest point on the ground, you go to mount everest or the kilimanjaro or whatever the highest mountain around may be and can lift stuff higher than if you were down at ocean level?

[Laertes]

Now we need to know wether or not the earths manasphere extends up to orbit or not. and if not, where does it end and why. If it ends x meters above the highest point on the ground, you go to mount everest or the kilimanjaro or whatever the highest mountain around may be and can lift stuff higher than if you were down at ocean level?

Canonically, the mass driver is on Kilimanjaro. It doesn't help that much though: The mountain is almost 6km above sea level, but LEO starts at about 160km so that 6km isn't really much of a gain.

My gut instinct would be to say that the manasphere extends up into the upper atmosphere (70-ish km above sea level) so that it coincides with the area that you can explore astrally without "dying or going mad."

[kzt]

And yes, Ares has the deep space station for strange magix, i mentioned that. Why would a runner ever want to go there? You could not pay me enough to go there.

Well, it's full of mages who can perform major league combat magic in a -8 mana sink, and has a tactical team or two that is able to routinely roll into a hive and get out alive after blowing the crap out of the hive. So what could possibly go wrong with a band of runners starting a firefight?

[Username17]

This is true, but it won't get you into orbit, no matter how high it lifts you.

Well yes, the levitated object does need to rocket itself up to speed from wherever it is released. But it does save you 686,000 J per kilogram of rocket work to lift it up that high. That's a lot of rocket fuel saved, which in turn is a lot of weight you don't have to bring, which you then don't have to lift.

Shadowrun magic physics puts orbital and even interplanetary rocketry into the hands of garage-based anarchists.

-Username17

[kzt]

Canonically, the mass driver is on Kilimanjaro. It doesn't help that much though: The mountain is almost 6km above sea level, but LEO starts at about 160km so that 6km isn't really much of a gain.

The advantage of the mass driver being on a mountain is that you avoid having to deal with the thickest part of the earths atmosphere and still have the track still firmly anchored to bedrock.

[Stahlseele]

@kzt
They could fail at blowing it up when the insect nation attacks. And then you can rename it to Auriga.
And you could STILL not pay me enough to go there.
Seriously, even implanted with a cortex bomb to make me go, i would instead find somebody i REALLY hate and hug him untill i went boom.

[silva]

No sane runner in the would accept such a extremely risky job, and the few who accept it wouldnt do it unless paid a small fortune.
And no corp in the world would pay a small fortune for an unreliable asset in a so risky job . The chance of failure and waste of investment is just too big.

Now transport that to Transhuman Space or Eclipse Phase and it gets totally plausible, because there are technologies and methodologies well stablished to make the endeavor not only pkausible but even trivial in some cases. Not only you have space elevators, 3D printing and ubiquituous egocasting, but entire cultures who live in microgravity normally for generations, turning the required training and materials for such job a everyday affair instead of an luxury commodity.

[deaddmwalking]

No sane runner in the would accept such a extremely risky job, and the few who accept it wouldnt do it unless paid a small fortune.
And no corp in the world would pay a small fortune for an unreliable asset in a so risky job . The chance of failure and waste of investment is just too big.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.

[Stahlseele]

Maybe highly specialized characters with lots and lots of actual in game playing experience earnd doing sill stupid dangerous stuff like that could . .
But if i even attempted anything like that, i'd make sure they knew what to expect by first sending them to the australian outback, the SOX and then into an under water arcology to accomplish certain goals first to see how they deal with extreme circumstances. The last one being especially important, as that is the closest you are going to get to actually doing a run on a space station. minus the micro gravity of course, but still with the dangers of immediate death if the hull was to be breached and still very confined space, if not quite as much as in space . .

And then there's the big no no of using a cop out.
Just fucking DO the Space Run to aquire some data, handwave all the proiblematic stuff by making up some fake reasons for your players, actually do contradict yourself on purpose to maybe make them a bit suspicious . . and if they do fuck up royally you can just go with either
a) it's a metaplanar quest, the info you are after is actually the true name of some big badass spirit, you failed, doesn't hurt too much.
b) it's a sim rig simulation, kind of like a very limited matrix mmo training mission to see if you were up to snuff and could do it.
Say:"No harm, no foul" and prepare to run . .

[Username17]

The advantage of the mass driver being on a big mountain is that it can shoot things into space with less g-force than if it was short. It's a fucking mass driver, and it can accelerate things to escape velocity easily. The longer the track is, the less rapidly it has to do that and therefore the less organic contents are going to be turned into strawberry jam. If you want to shoot things into low Earth orbit, you need to get them to 8 km/s.

So if you have an 8 kilometer long track, it takes two seconds to get to the end of it and the poor contents of those cans are subjected to 408 Gs. If you have only a 1 kilometer long track, it takes a quarter of a second to get to the end of it and the poor contents are subjected to over three thousand gravities.

The point of using a big mountain as a scaffold for the mass driver is not the height, but the length that allows. If you wanted to build a mass driver long enough that it could accelerate slowly enough that human beings could reliably survive without being packed in gel or something stupid, you'd need a mass driver that was about 160 kilometers long and took about 40 seconds to reach the end.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

And at that point, you have more or less made a space elevator anyway, if you do not build it parallel to the ground . .

[kzt]

The point of using a big mountain as a scaffold for the mass driver is not the height, but the length that allows. If you wanted to build a mass driver long enough that it could accelerate slowly enough that human beings could reliably survive without being packed in gel or something stupid, you'd need a mass driver that was about 160 kilometers long and took about 40 seconds to reach the end.

No, the height is useful too. The object has to leave the end of the mass driver moving fast enough to get to orbit after going through the atmosphere. There is significantly more air resistance at sea level than at 6000 meters, which means your terminal velocity can be significantly lower, which either allows a shorter track or lower acceleration.