onyx - notes/Plan Cascade

The Seattle Sourcebook mentionned a coup d'état against the Malaysian communist government in 2049 involving Boeing military councelors. That's tyically the sort of plot point only a few people like me may remember years later Seattle was the very first Shadowrun sourcebook, and the authors were barely starting to explore the world there were creating. In this case, I always thought the persone who write this sentence simply replaced "CIA" with "Boeing" to give it a corporate feel. And that's how it started.

In Shadowrun, Boeing headquarters remained in Seattle. In the meantime, in the real world, Boeing moved to Chicago a few years ago. When the real world goes a different way from Shadowrun, the first option is to consider this event never happened in Shadowrun. The second opton was Boeing moved its headquarters back later to return to Seattle. A terrorist bombing that destroyed much of Chicago business district seemed to me a valid reason for that. In this case, the Neo-anarchist Guide to North America (NAGNA) described such terrorist bombing targeting the Sears Tower so it fell onto the neighbouring towers. I took the time to check how far from the Sears Tower Boeing new headquarters in Chicago were. I didn't note where exactly, but as far as I remember, it was close enough so that the bombing results made litle doubt, considering the description given. When the NAGNA sourcebook got out, in 1990 or 1991, the responsability of a far right hate group was in line with American popular imagery at the time. Years later, the conspiracy theories involving the intelligence services in the 11 september 2001 attacks would fit as well, if not better, to the 2039 bombing.

My writing effort focused on the political context in the US/UCAS in the early 2030ies, the way Shadowrun sources described it. The southern states secession, the rise of the corporate-backed Technocrat Party and the end of two-party system, Lone Star Security Services growth through Drug Enforcement Administration and rival companies takeover, are elements I took from official Shadowrun background (the BTL smuggling between Texas and India also comes from NAGNA). I only addezd two things to do the cooking : the destruction of Boeing headquarters in Chicago, and the Monument network, which comes from Operation Tanto.

Of course, even if the CIA would be ready to kill several dozens of top executives from an American corporation, it make a lot less sense to have them destroy a neighbouring tower to destroy several blocks downtown. It would be more likely the Agency only advantage from the situation. On the other hand, the chapter One nation under God from Threats 2 gives sense to a connection between North American far right groups and a CIA unit created to deal with the US fall. So a slightly more plausible scenario would the CIA helped or covered a bombing who should have targeted only Boeing headquaters, as first planned, and realized only too late the plan changed to a much bigger operation.

If the Sears Tower bombing theory is one big plot, the two mails also state the CIA manipulated Lone Star. As Lone Star took over the Drug Enforcement Administration, employees included, it potentially allowed number of loyal federal agents to enter the corporation. At some point in real history, the DEA had the reputation of being a CIA front : prior to the DEA creation, the White House staff lead the Nixon Administration war on drugs, with several former CIA agents, knowledgeable about Latin America. Some of them, like Howard Hunt, were actually involved in the Watergate break-in, as well as some JFK theories.

I never had the opportunity to use this plot in a game. Multiplying secrets and conspiracies quickly becomes impossible to properly handle, and undecypherable for the players. But if I had to, I would probably have the PC first tracking CIA agents within the Lone Star and involved in political or financial manipulations, and as they discover who these agents are and why they are there, they also discover a similar group exist within Boeing, leading them to evidences on the CIA role in the Sears Tower bombing.

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