The Colombia War between Aztlan and Amazonia was supposed to be a major plot for Shadowrun fourth edition. It was a follow-up to the events in Ghost Cartels, starting in a sourcebook with a fitting name, War! and ending in Storm Front, which hailed the end of the fourth edition. Between the two, it was the frame for three adventures, Colombian Subterfuge, and short format Photo Ops and Operation Blindside in the Jet Set (plus some other where it was merely a background for plots that could have taken place in Seattle or Denver just as well).

War was just as good as anything else as a basis for a plot, but the way it was handled was castatrophic. War! was put together hastily, with several authors who lacked experience, without a clear division of works regarding the topics they were to address and in which order they should be. The reason for the war was either vague, or idiot (the Amazonians blaming the Aztlaners for spreading carnivorous hypnotizing trees around the city). Some locations names were tossed around in different part of the book without ever explaining where the frontline was (and because they had no illustrator to do it, there was no map). War! took place between three and four months after the beginning of the war, and almost no update followed. The war was merely described as fights between Aztlan and Amazonian troops in the jungle that surrounds Bogotà (the city being actually 2640 meters above sea level, "jungle" is technically inappropriate, it is a high-altitude rainforest). The sourcebooks that came after actuall only covered the whereabouts of great dragon Sirrurg, who did attack Cali city early in the war, but moved north shortly after to attack targets in Nicaragua and then even further in the north, near the borders of Aztlan, Pueblo and Texas. We were told about the name of every Texan towns Sirrurg attacked, while we didn't even have the name of one battlesite in Colombia. To be fair, modern warfare (like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq) based on guerilla and counter-guerilla, is less suited to build a narrative than older wars. In this case, you can clearly feel the influence of the last few years on what a modern war ought to look like (even if in six decades with different technologies and magic).
Storm Front finally dedicated a few pages to narrate different stages of war, while also ending the plot. But it did not give any more detail than telling about the frontline moving 50 kilometers one way, then the other way, still without naming any locations or battle. It was mostly an excus for the build-up to the final showdown between Aztlaners and Sirrurg, in Acapulco, once again very far from Colombia. As soon as that battle was over (still without allowing mere mortals to kill a great dragon, so as to respect some sacred order of things), the war was to end in an incoherent jumble, where the Aztlaners and the United Nations were suddenly moving in troops they had kept hidden all along (special mentions goes to the air carrier battle group and amphibious assault group that managed to sneak from the Gulf of Aztlan to the Pacific Ocean without anyone noticing). To make it even more exasperating, the author was hammering in the Free Marine Corps, introduced in the sourcebook 10 Mercs as some new embodiment of American military virtues that Shadowrun wrongly omitted for so long, but without every acknowledging the actual implication of working as mercenaries.

In spite of all these things, there were a few elements to inspire me, and I wanted to play with that story. To do so, it required to turn it into a consistent ensemble, to build a setting, with movements, characters, places. As usual, I tried to build this over what already existed, and compelling myself to stay true to it (though more than often to the letter of it rather than to the intent). It helps me cope with the blank page syndrome.
I already had played several adventures involving the Olaya cartel drug smuggling operations, and started to introduce my players and their characters to the local factions, making them encounter Aztlaner agents, members of the cartels, Amazonian guerilleros... But I first needed, or wanted a reason for the status quo to break. I also needed, to decide where the battles would be fought, to know where each side wanted to go. Putting aside tales of carnivorous trees, I considered Aztlan point of view from two different angles.

The first angle was regional stability. The area where the so-called ghost cartels operate cover the Aztlan state of Colombia, Amazonia, Venezuela, Peru... Aztlan is forced to maintain security forces, at least for law enforcement, more likely military capabilities, in this area. I drew a parallel with the Iraq War (as of 2012-2013). The US were unwilling keep to let the Middle East destabilized. Iran, because they feared they'll be the US next target, made everything they could to spread chaos in Iraq. Thus, US forces kept on fighting, preventing them from engaging into another actions against Iran. The Amazonians could follow a similar strategy in Bogotà area. In Iraq, the US finally went for the Surge strategy: instead of fighting threats one after the other as the available forces allowed them to over time, they rather increased their forces as much as possible over a short timeframe, a few months, to massively and unrelentengly attack. The results were considered convincing (and the general who came up with the idea was promoted).
So, my first idea was a war started by Aztlan to hit hard and eliminate once for all the nuisance representend by the cartels and the Colombian nationalists supported by Amazonian agents. In this scenario, all they had to do was to contain the Amazonian armed forces long enough to clean up the place. It was close to the model of a counter-insurgency war.

I was not entirely satisfied with the idea, as it implied a very static conflict, somewhat true to the sourcebooks, lacking a narrative and twists. I continued with the parallel with Iraq. Venezuela happens to be one of the largest oil producing countries. The oil deposits are mostly located in the western part of its territory, stretching beyond the border in Colombia. Aztechnology is a oil company, through its Pemex subsidiary. The Amazonian ecological national logically ought to be oppposed to the use of fossil energy. As such, there was to be consequence if the border was to move one way or enother. Even though it somewhat lacked originality by looking a lot like our 20th century wars, it made sense.
By studying local geography, I realized the Amazonian jungle is far from covering everything. The region between Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela is made of plains, similar to the African savanna, simply Los Llanos (The Plains in Spanish). Bogotà is near the southwestern tip of this region: from there, you only have to make about fifty or one hundred kilometers through the Eastern Andes Cordillera to reach them. That's how I started to put my war into motion. Searching in the area, I found Villavicencio, Quetama, Chivor Reservoir and La Esmeralda Dam, Tota Lake and the legendary monster Busiraco.

War! gave the Colombian tribes a significant role in the war. Reading it, I found it to be similar to Iraqi clans, which I think was genuine. The tribes no longer have such a role in Colombian contemporary society, but I guess it could be different in Shadowrun. I quickly identified the Muisca as the most likely to play a role, being the largest tribe in Bogota area. I also found out about the Nasa tribe, in Cali area. Their slef-defense militia has existed for years to prevent both the army and the FARC to enter their territory, a conseqence of the civil war in Colombia, and they really refuse to use any other weapons than their traditional stick. For Shadowrun, I chosed to give them some firearms just in case, so as not to make them too easy as a prey for PC.

The third tribe that got me interested in Colombia was the U'wa. They're mostly settled in the Arauca departement. The sources I found did not allow me to state if the Arauca first was the name of the departement capital city, the river or the tribe itself, the U'wa Arauca (I'm inclined to believe the word "Arauca" may actually come from a native Carribean language, and become a slang for Spanish conquistadors to refer to Amerindians, but everything is so uncertain that it could just as well be an elven word). The largest oil deposits in Colombian I was talking about above are in Arauca (which gave the tribe some media exposure when they opposed drills). But it's the name itself that got me interested. In the era of Earthdawn, the ancien times of Shadowrun, the Theran Empire (Atlantis if you prefer) had a trading post on the other side of the Ocean. They don't call the land America (obviously), buy Araucania. For a long time, I believed the only match was a region in Chile with the same name, Araucanía. That wasn't the most logical place for settlers from the Mediterranean Sea, even with flying ships. To learn that a region of Colombia had such a name, almost right in the middle of a war between Aztlan, a nation who resort to blood magic, and Amazonia, one led by dragons, was opening interesting perspectives, to say the least. Especially since a lesser-known part of Eartdawn-era history narrates how several dragons of Araucania were using blood magic to regenerate the jungle, while other dragons taught it to mortals to fight off the Horrors. Those dragons were disagreeing over the risk for blood magic to corrupt either the land or the morals, and it ended with a war. In a way, the Colombia War was continuing it. But it's a topic I only briefly touched upon, considering that one don't write about millenias-old secrets like you may write about corporations and mercenaries.

Since I regularly play with a gaming group whose characters are all based in France, I tried to introduce links between France and Colombia. I previously played with them a campaign about Esprit Industries takeover by Dassault, a subsidiary of Aztechnology (maybe I'll take the time one day to translate it in English). This event forcefully made it into official canon after a mistake in Corporate Guide. Beside the link with France, I found it made sense for the takeover of a defense company by Aztechnology to have an impact on a war started by Aztlan a few months later. I considered adding some French characters to the story, but since none appeared in the canon I was trying to follow, I didn't do it. But I kept it as an option for my games. The only exception was the Bourbon family, because I found real life inspiration too good to pass by. The actual heir of the Bourbon family, Louis de Bourbon, claimant to the throne of France, married a Venezuelian woman, Maria-Margarita Vargas Santaella, who should inherit from her father ownership of the Banco Occidental de Descuento. I used it in Shadowrun, making the Banco Occidental de Caracas the family holding, and creating a link between Caracas and Paris I used in a game.

Antonio Cordoba had a major role in several adventures I played. The character was originally introduced in Ghost Cartels, as the Olaya Cartel emissary in Africa and the Middle, and in Vice as an interim leader for the cartel. One of my palyer-characters did witness the assassination of Rita Tuero by an Aztlaner team and the arrival of Cordoba to assess the situation.
Augusto Cejas is another character I first used in my game, that I created. Originally, he made him archbishop of Caracas. But the position was taken by cardinal Eduardo Ortega-Nunez in Artifacts Unbound in July 2073. So I downranked Cejas to bishop of La Guaira. But since Ortega-Nunez gets killed in the adventure he appears in (an event I don't mention), Cejas could finally get the job back.

I'm usually warry to make my production somewhat converge. However, I did not refer at all to the sending of a peacekeeping multinational force in Caracas in early 2073, which I mentionned in my file about the 1er régiment étranger de cavalerie. The idea (and the file about the 1st REC) originally came from an independant project to write an alternative War sourcebook, which would have rewritten the Colombia War in a similar fashion to what I did here (but I think while distancing itself much more from the canon) and provide much more information about military technique in the 21st century. Since my goal here was to still stick to canon, I did not introduced that part.

I imagined the Apache warriors special force unit while working on a file about Native Amerindian Nations, where I also briefly mention the history of this tribe in Shadowrun

Among the issues in canon I had to deal with, the existing maps were showing Cali on the Aztlan side of the border in the Aztlan sourcebook, and on the Amazonian side in Sixth World Almanac. The depiction of the battle of Cali in War! made it clear Sirrurg was attacking a city where Aztlaner forces were stationned. I thus included an event with a calm takeover, using the Nasa pacifist to explain why the area doesn't turn into a second frontline.

Indeed, the Colombia War appeared to take place almost only in Bogota vinicities. There are there and there references to other battles, some of them pretty fat away. Among them are Yopal, Georgetown and Maracaïbo, mentionned in War! as places a potent shadow spirit used its compulsion power. I did what I could to have a battle as far as Georgetown without opening a secondary frontline there as well. Those three battles end up being the only three I put outside of the main fighting area.

Another issue I had to deal with was to determine which side the mercenary units were fighting, especially MET2000. War! listed for each of them all the employer that may resort to them, probably to insist on mercenaries' deceitfullness (except for the FMC of course). MET2000 thus has troops inside Bogota, but accept contracts against Aztlan... who controls the city. They don't have the slightiest beginning of a reason to let mercenaries who work against them stay in town between two missions and ship equiment (especially considering that the heavy armored vehicles they're supposed to use require significant logistics). Moverover, Ares Macrotechnology owns 17% of MET2000, but supports Aztlan. I dropped the ball; I ust tried to minimize their role at least in 2072.
On Ares' association with Aztechnology, I strong-armed a common belief. In theory, it has never been stated anywhere those two megacorporations had a level of rivalry that went beond classic corporate competition. But that's what most people believe, treating the former as the good, American guys, and the latter as the bad guys. I did it myself, which forced me into some contortion to explain it to my players.
Overall, the idea that private companies could work with the Amazonian nation sounded odd. Amazonia had always been described, or more precisely, had still not been described as a isolated nation, enforcing tenets of radical ecology in a wrodl dominated by multinational corporations. That's what made me drew parallel with Iran or Libya, bestowing Hualpa the title of Supreme Leader of the Revolution and introducing terrorist training camps in the jungle. Actually, Amazonian urban population is so large that it would likely be unthinkable to keep such market completely out of the world economy. It is stated Aztechnology is banned from operating inside the country, which a contrario suggests other corporations are allowed to, and tey are likely to conform to whatever the government require to make at least some business there. I thought about suggesting MET2000 presence on the Amazonian side was related to the links between MET2000 and the German government, who owns a third of the shares, German ecologist politicians (who hold more clout than they do in other countries) and the Amazonian government.
Storm Front also states several times it is impossible for Aztechnology forces to fight against the Amazonians, before the final battle where Amazonian troops attack the corporation's facilities. And so does it claim that would expose the connection between the Aztlan state and the corporation (one that everybody knows about). But the two sides pay private military companies! So, it is impossible for Aztlan to use its own citizens because they are employed by a private local company, but they can hire foreign mercenaries?!

I think I never was as incredulous as I was with Sirrurg attack on Puerto Rico (which the author refer to by its indigenous name of Borinquen, without bothering about the audience being aware of it or not). In a rare case of continuity, the author made an almost correct reference to an older sourcebook.
In Cyberpirates, we were told Natural Vat Technologies, a subsidiary of Aztechnology, headquartered in Puerto Rico, was producing 4/5th of Aztlan edibles. In Dirty Trick, Sirrurg was destroying Natural Vat Technologies' sole and only factory, which was producing 4/5th of the food products sold by Aztechnology worldwide, triggering food shortage and famine in North America. You'll notice the subtle difference, switching from the consumption of a country to the sales of a corporation.
Endowed with a taste for mathematics, I calculated that to simply match the current production of Mondelez International (Kraft Foods), Puerto Rico had to export between 8,000 and 10,000 metric tons per day. That would require 20 "Chinamax" ships sailing every day, which is twelve times what daily goes out of Shanghai seaport, or what goes out of all Chinese seaports. To provide 4/5th of the food to Aztlan 134 millions inhabitants, a very approximate estimate gives 100 to 200,000 metric tons per day, or 200 to 400 "Chinamax." For once, the older sourcebook wasn't any better than the newer one.
I "solved" this issue by making it a factory that produced food additives, whos shortage could disrupt food productions elsewhere in North America (I actually wonder if something like that could not already happen nowadays).

I'm not really satisfied with the circunstances that end the war, wether in the original version or in mine, because I wasn't willing to distance myself from the former. Operation Marauder is described as sucking major resources away from the frontline, but Aztlan nonetheless plan to launch operation Huntress in Bogota right after - no, two hours after. It just makes no sense at all from a military point of view. Even if you tink surprise is going to be the decisive factor (tips: it never is, and we see it as the fightings last for three weeks after), it doesn't even leave enough time for the Amazonian troops to actually lower their guard after learning Sirrurg might have been shot down.
The only interesting thing is the final part is the date : operation Marauder takes place while the Amazonian nation should be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the revolution, between August 28 and November 2, 2034 (in an earlier version, I got the date wrong, thinking operation Marauder was taking place the day after the anniversary of the Brazilian government fall). But since this coincidence has never been mentionned anywhere, I think it is a fortuitous one.

There is a topic I entirely dropped, because I found myself unable to make sensical, are the smuggling submarines. The Deadly Waters book gives stats for submarines the South American cartels use for smuggling (something they already do in real life) and mentions that you can enter and exit Bogota on one. The river that goes through Bogota, the Rio Bogota, is at its widest, 35 meters wide, and about 6 meters deep as its deepest. Even if you considered moving along it in a submarine, to reach the Rio Magdalena (barely deeper) and the Gulf of Mexico, you had to go accross the Salto del Tequendama, 132 meters high waterfalls...