[Lorebane24]

Reading through the chapter in Renraku, I notice both mentions of Aneki dying around the time of the SCIRE incident, but also of him entering Tibet and never being seen again.  Can anyone shed light on this?  Is there something I'm missing here?

[belaran]

Check the 3ed Braiscan book - Aneki does go to Tibet, and retrieved by the PCs (if I recall properly) to then die in the process of destroying Deus (not for long however).

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Belaran is correct, if a bit incoherent.    To expand upon his statement:

Deus brainlocks him just before the Shutdown, so that he cannot use the kill-codes.  Later, Aneki is brought to Tibet and allowed in because he (or, more likely, his handlers) bore the Seal of the Green Gloves that he was left by Dunkelzahn.  He is brought out when the Board of Directors for Renraku decided to try to get him into the Seattle Arcology and attempt to use the kill-code; IIRC, the PCs participate in the turnover in a 'monastery' in Hong Kong, but have to try to fight off Blues sent by Deus to kidnap him.

Either way, though, he winds up in the Arcology at the climax of the 'Brainscan' adventure series.  Everyone gets plugged into the Machine, and at the 'endboss fight' Deus intentionally reverses the brainlock he'd done to Aneki and simultaneously info-dumps what he'd done on the guy.  Aneki, in a fit of self-loathing and remorse, simultaneously triggers the kill-code (thus freeing for a few moments the portions of Deus locked into the SCIRE infotecture) and commits seppuku in expiation of his failure to keep nearly a hundred thousand Renraku citizens safe.  As he dies in the Matrix, he dies in the flesh.

And guess who gets blamed for his death?  If you said 'The PCs', you'd be correct. 

[Wakshaani]

Haze is also not the most reliable narrator of an event that happened 15 years ago and whose digital records were lost in the Crash. You can also see conflicting information due to this and to other rumors. Is Aneki dead? Is he not? Where's his brain? What's that about Wuxing? And so on. You can see this again when they talk about 'Leonardo', the hacker group, and how certain people have different parts of teh puzzle, or at least think they do, even if some of these parts contradict. (Well, HE's wrong but I'M right!)

Netcat, you might note, is certain about what happened to him. She was equally certain back in 2072, for the last corporate guide.

[CitizenJoe]

It's almost as if the description is from an amalgam of runs with the most popular events being published.

[belaran]

Well, first of all, with over 20 years of publications, I'm pretty sure even Catalyst sometimes have a hard time figuring out exactly what was told on one specific topic (especially if you includes the novels).

Also, as Brainscan is a campaign that potentially your character may have played and somewhat tweak the out coming - so they probably keeping it vague to not have GM saying "shit, this is not at all how things unfold for my group...".

And we have to recall that most of the infos we have in sourcebook are purposely (for the same reason) more rumors than "hard science fact". There is often enough wiggle room for GM to tell a story both consistent with the timeline, but different from what a player who read the book might expect...

[Lorebane24]

One of my favorite things about Shadowrun, as bourgeoisie as it sounds, is the element of exclusivity in its lore.  I find I spend more time researching this stuff than I do planning lessons.

[Lorebane24]

Netcat, you might note, is certain about what happened to him. She was equally certain back in 2072, for the last corporate guide.

How long has Netcat been in the setting (and don't get sassy - you know what I mean).  I only really started playing in 4th ed (excepting like three 2nd ed games with my first D&D group's GM's dad), and have only really started getting into shit in this edition, so I lack the benefit of empirical knowledge when it comes to Shadowrun's history.

[Mirikon]

Netcat first showed up early in 4e, IIRC. She was a wannabe hacker pre-crash, mainly getting herself cheat codes to games and the like, but when she Emerged as a technomancer, she went into the shadows.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Essentially 4E - 2065+, though 4th Edition's timeline started in 2070, jumping 5 years in order to get all the annoying time-of-development out of the way.

And CitJoe, that's somewhat (but only somewhat) intentional.  In general, in regards to both the adventure seeds and full-fledged runs written out, there is a canonical ending, even if that gets decided some time down the road.  Typically what happens is that the runners that did the job aren't actually named - because of course, 'hey, that was us!'   

[belaran]

Yep, I always love to read "some runners" did that

Netcat, and most of the current Jackpointers are coming from 4ed (slamm0!, clockwork, netcat,...). I stop playing Shadowrun with 3ed and came back to it with 5ed, and they are all new to me. The only "old guy" was Fastjack, from the previous ed, but he did not make it, for obvious reason, in 5ed....

[CitizenJoe]

@Wyrm that's the joke.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... that was meant as a joke?  I'm sorry, I couldn't tell, considering its general inaccuracy - they don't take an amalgam of runs, and 'most popular result' hasn't been a concern until Season 4 - or maybe Season 5 - of Missions.

Anyhow.  Both Slamm0 and Kane are from 3e, as are a few of the guest commentators and the like, but many of the Jackpoint members are indeed 4e generated.