[Crimsondude]

hehehe

[Warmachinez]

Personaly, I hope ARES will be a big player in Chicago. I miss the good old USA Megacorp 

But I must confess that I know nothing about Chicago in 2070, I have no clue what is the history of the place. What I understand so far is that an Ares lab exploded... and now bug spirits are everywhere... is that the gist of it?

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

No.

Basically, Ares was made aware of a major potential threat from insect spirits (adventure: Queen Euphoria), and kept track of it for the next couple years (sourcebook/adventure: Universal Brotherhood/Missing Blood).  Eventually they had enough evidence that the Universal Brotherhood organization was a front for organized insect spirits to spread their hives, and took steps (adventure: Double Exposure) to shut it down.  During one such 'hit', Ares and Knight Errant hit a hive that was considerably bigger than expected, which turned a huge part of the core area of Chicago into a chaotic, bug-spirit-infested feral city; elements of KE still within the place soon discovered a massive hive about to release thousands more bug spirits and, having a briefcase-nuke Ares had in the zone, sent it down into the hive and detonated it (sourcebook: Bug City, novel: Burning Bright).

Over the years following, Ares has done some cleanup, including hitting every bug spirit they saw with FAB-III, and eventually declared Chicago 'clean' - even if it really wasn't (sourcebook: Target: UCAS).  While it is relatively better than its Bug City days, Chicago has still been a cesspit (sourcebook: Feral Cities).  Ares, in its quest to kill bugs better, started going 'hmmm, what if we could ...' and has been doing experiments on trying to make insect spirits 'useful and profitable' (various sourcebooks, including Threats 2); the bit with Roger Soaring-Owl is all about precisely that.

[Warmachinez]

Thanks for the complete answer (with references) The Wyrm, I really appreciate it. It is hard for us "Newbs" to get all of this information, as you clearly state, the information is in multiple sourcebooks.

I would +1 you if I still could... Instead, have this internet cookie

[Black]

With the lab exploding, are you referring to the he adventure, boardroom backs tabs ii ?

[Warmachinez]

No I am not referring to any published adventure, when I was talking about the Lab explosion. I beleive that was simply my imagination filling the holes in the Chicago situation.

I have decided to grab Feral cities so I can get the information I need.

[Crimsondude]

You should find Bug City. It may be older, but it's a much better book.

[Warmachinez]

Will do

Thank you!

[Bull]

Neo-Anarchists Guide to North America, Bug City, Target: UCAS, and Feral Cities all will have information on Chicago.

[Crimsondude]

As does Target: Awakened Lands and Threats.

[Xzylvador]

I think it's a bit of a pity that the core city will be a location that's already gotten a 50+ pages description in one book and several more in other books and adventures. Would have preferred to read about a new and exciting place.
May just be that I'm not a big fan of the bugs and don't really look forward to having mages constantly being concerned about FAB clouds and background counts... I enjoy dealing with corporate security and law enforcement much more. The gangs and communities will probably be fun though.

Also, no real character conversion options makes me sad, especially so soon after getting so many cool character (and even dragon and IE) stats from the Street Legends books.

[Prodigy]

I still vote it should take place in the CAS, but I am incredibly biased...

Or DeeCee.

[Crimsondude]

I would like DeeCee as well. All in due time. It took 21 years to get a decent update on the sprawl, after all.

I think it's a bit of a pity that the core city will be a location that's already gotten a 50+ pages description in one book and several more in other books and adventures. Would have preferred to read about a new and exciting place.

Yeah, but as I recall it took a while into Season 3 for the Rotten Apple ebook to be released. But given the various elements and the purpose of Season 5, I don't think it's easy to say that we know everything about what Chicago will look like.

[Bull]

Chicago has changed quite a bit since it's original write up(s), and it continues to evolve.  Seeing where the city goes next is one of the focuses of Season 5.

Honestly, playing in a "defined" city is to our advantage.  It's really tough to try and flesh out a new location (Or even one that's only had a minor amount of wordcount to it) within the Missions framework.  We were able to expand the Underground a little bit in Missions Season 4, but really only because most everyone already knew what the Ork Underground was going into it, and we didn't have to spend time describing Seattle.

Season 3, on the other hand, had a lot of stuff that was never really explored, and a lot of stuff that was confusing for players because there wasn't any dedicated pagecount.  Even the Rotten Apple sourcebook was awfully thin and light on details, and it only covered Manhattan Island and didn;t touch any of the Burroughs.

Bull

[Sichr]

Maybe sometimes soon we would get also Berlin, since it is THE Second city in SR:Returns, it would be nice to test/expand the experiende from the city...