Shadowrun General > The Secret History

What's the whole story of the Watergate rift?

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mcv:
From what I understand, the Watergate Rift was created by the bomb that killed Dunkelzahn, and closed by Ghostwalker in a ritual that killed a lot of people including Aina Dupree, which made Harlequin angry. Also, it seems to be letting Shedim into the world.

But this information is spread across tons of books, and it's hard to assemble the whole story. A few things I don't know:


* What is the Watergate Rift actually? What is it a rift in? What does it look like? (in astral and meat space)
* When exactly did Ghostwalker close it, and how? Who else was involved?
Where can I find more details about this? What else am I missing about the rift? And are there more rifts like that?

Beta:
I think the rift closing happened (-ish) in the end fiction of Artifacts Unbound (4th ed). 

In Dark Terrors (IIRC) a post talked about a rift down in the ocean near an underwater research facility, and I think it was implied that there may also be additional rifts.  Whether those are as 'good' for shedim to come through, and whether they are stable, etc. was not discussed.

In one of the recent books (Better than Bad, maybe?) it was suggested that Aina Dupree is not dead, but actually trapped in a metaplane.

As for the rest, yah, I'd like to know the answers to those too!

Reaver:
most info on the watergate Rift can be found in 3e books... which makes it hard to find now given the 15+ years since that edition was published. I'll try to fill in what I remember of the Rift for you.

AS for how it looked on the physical, it was described as basically a swirling light in about 6m above the street level. There was no physical disturbance in the area other then the lights. (so, no sucking wind, no real noise, etc)

On the Astral however, it was described as a swirling pattern of light with a black center.

For mundanes, the rift didn't seem to have any adverse effects, other then being a swirling pattern of lights.

However, any awakened entity (from metahuman to spirit) that came into contact with the rift lost their astral form to the rift! - Spirits would disappear and could not be resummoned, awakened metahumans would drop to the ground, their bodies still alive but absent their consciousness...


The Rift appears to be a "hole" between metaplanes, allowing whatever was on the other side a chance to come to our side, and vice versa. However, it was never explained if it allowed willing transportation for those ont he other side or not (meaning were they sucked through accidentally, or willingly came through.)
What meta-plane it connected to however, we don't know. We DO know that Shedim seem to come from this plane, or at least the Shedim have been connected to the Rift...


AS for when it was closed... I think Beta is correct that it was covered by the Artifacts adventure series that came out for 4e..

Beta:
A few more details, from digging through the french wiki (has a lot more info than the english one)

2057, 9 August: Big D's death (or 'death'?), creating the rift

2061, 24th of December: Ghostwalker's astral form comes flying out of the rift, surrounded by a haze of spirits -- including the shedim (to appear in notable numbers, at least)  (shortly after he appeared in physical form in Denver).  This is probably covered in The Year of the Comet

2073, 18 July: Ghostwalker leads a ritual, including Harlequin, Hestaby, Erhan, Frosty, Lugh Surehand, Jonathon Reed, Aden, Aina Dupree an unknown, and some very powerful artifacts whose combined presence was stressing reality.  (Artifacts Unbound).  About 600 civilians were killed, 2000 wounded, and 3000 disappeared (presumed pulled into the rift).  Aina Dupree was doing magic to protect everyone involved, but exhausted her magic and died. (Source appears to be Conspiracy Theories).  President Colloton announced that several government agencies had worked together to close the rift.

A bunker was built around the rift at some point, but I couldn't find when.  The ritual in 2073 caused extensive damage to the bunker.

Michael Chandra:
Note that according to Ghostwalker's thoughts in some short fiction, Aina Dupree didn't actually die and Harlequin was a fool for wanting revenge. (Be still my Lionheart!)

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