Enter the Dragon (Harry Potter/Shadowrun)

[stads]

thx for the words as always great chapter.
that poor goblin do feel bad for him now
nice use of found funds by amilia
will be interesting to see what kind of failure the new year will bring for su li

 

[Chickennoodlesoup]

Could someone tell me what's up with the oil bacterium?

 

[Kitty S. Lillian]

The other group was comprised of a dozen men

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Team comprises individuals, individuals compose team.
Team is composed of individuals.

 

[Jordisk]

Isn't it too early?
The manavore cycle seems to be early, should we expect an invasion soon?

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Well, we did get a couple massive spikes in background magic level, so that could have something to do with it. Those spikes could have sped it up, or perhaps lead to an early bloom/die-off before resuming the normal cycle. Remember, the Manavores never die off completely, and they grow massively from just before the new age, up until they reach the turning point. Then, we have them dying off as the age comes to a close.

 

[Wolfboy]

RedX
Slavery, over the years has had many forms. Some were blatant as all hell, such as the chattel slavery of the pre-civil war American south. Others were not so blatant. Contract slavery still occurs, as does debt peonage as it is usually not seen as actual slavery. The sweat shops that exist in China and other nations making the various cheap, (and also knock off) goods that most americans take for granted are an example of this

 

[drvash]

"Oh, praise the Lord," the manager breathed, "they're stopping here!"

"Sir?" the hostess asked.

"No one's sure who they are or what they're doing, but that group has been all anyone over at corporate has been able to talk about recently,"

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Imagine if the Shadowland BBS picked up on Harry's dietary splurges, as "British people traveling in a Winnebago" is a very specific description (Americans make a big deal about accents).

Military aficionados could debate the impracticality of a super-soldier that needs to eat so much, insisting that such an individual would quickly starve to death if cut off from supply lines.

Example:
BBS: "The boy is obliviously a flawed prototype. He wouldn't be able to operate behind enemy lines for more than a day."

 

[RedX]

RedX
Slavery, over the years has had many forms. Some were blatant as all hell, such as the chattel slavery of the pre-civil war American south. Others were not so blatant. Contract slavery still occurs, as does debt peonage as it is usually not seen as actual slavery. The sweat shops that exist in China and other nations making the various cheap, (and also knock off) goods that most americans take for granted are an example of this

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I'm well aware of the history, and the myriad forms personal bondage can take throughout. But if you've got full-on legal government-supported chattel slavery,you don't need to go about hiding your operations as if you were working under a regime that outright banned such and actively worked to identify and prosecute slavers. If all Crabbe needed was to stick someone that the Aurors couldn't make disappear at the front door of his slave workhouse with a writ of "this is all nice an legal, see?", he wouldn't need two layers of cut-outs and a black site for it.

The political and law enforcement environments are very, very different depending on the situation. Hybridizing the two is like, say, the slaveholders of the Antebellum US South having to carefully conceal their entirely legal slaves from roving US Marshals, or the modern police of France having to carefully conceal one of their trafficking busts from the French Parliament.

You've got folks like that PI visting his mind-raped wife in a publicly available brothel to keep tracking her, and Bones having to coordinate with a foreign power to move the rescuees... but then you've got the Aurors following evidence chains like a forensics show and locating hidden depots and cut-outs in ownership links, which they then assault with full force. It's not meshing; are Aurors doing illegal and off-reservation stuff here? If so, if they've tossed legality out (and good on them for it!) why haven't already they hit the very public examples of slavery dotted around, the ones protected by legal fictions and an unjust system of repression, legal fictions be danged? On the other hand, if what they're doing is fully legal and above-board, why do they need to go skulking around like a guerilla group and carefully hiding their rescuees?

It's almost like Schrodinger's legality, going on here. Along with Schrodinger's Civil War.

(Sidenote: We must be very, very, very careful when comparing sweatshop labor and bonafide slavery. There are parallels, mostly in the area of power differentials, but there too are many differences- not the least that the people in the former are paid and can leave if they wish. The local circumstances are often such that they would not wish to, as the sweatshop being the most consistent and highest-paid job around despite the horrible conditions, but it's not slavery. Well, unless it is because the sweatshop owner is using force or force of corrupt law to hold them there- but that's a subset, not a defining feature.)

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Isn't it too early?
The manavore cycle seems to be early, should we expect an invasion soon?

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For certain values of soon.

Populations of those will be going up for several millennia yet before they hit their peak, it's just that this particular oil production method is particularly vulnerable to their presence... to anything that can seal off the rock surface for that matter. It's relatively low-margin in the first place, and a small loss in production is all that is needed to make it uneconomic, especially in the early 90's when fracking was still barely commercialized.

Could someone tell me what's up with the oil bacterium?

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See the second spoiler here. (Also added a threadmark for future reference)

Team comprises individuals, individuals compose team.
Team is composed of individuals.

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I was not aware of that usage, though I see Merriam-Webster lists both as correct. Good to know in any case.

Imagine if the Shadowland BBS picked up on Harry's dietary splurges, as "British people traveling in a Winnebago" is a very specific description (Americans make a big deal about accents).

Military aficionados could debate the impracticality of a super-soldier that needs to eat so much, insisting that such an individual would quickly starve to death if cut off from supply lines.

Example:
BBS: "The boy is obliviously a flawed prototype. He wouldn't be able to operate behind enemy lines for more than a day."

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That could be quite interesting to see.

I welcome any omake anyone wants to make in that vein...

RedX:
On the slavery subject, I will point out that the setting is still very much in transition.

Open chattel slavery was legal in the setting as recently as 1963, just thirty years before story-present. The openly known slaves were freed at that point, but the former slave owners immediately started looking for loopholes, workarounds, and obfuscation methods. They developed those methods in short order: abusing the nation's sociopolitical structure (that is, servant contracts and Houses) in ways that they were never intended, exploiting the power and availability of secrecy magics to conceal their illegal activities, and employing mind manipulation to take shameless advantage of well-intentioned legal limitations on police power when those concealments temporarily slipped. Add in the convenient timing of Voldemort's first rise, and they had plenty of time to establish themselves with relative impunity.

The Voldemort conflict filled the DMLE's plate quite nicely on its own --- possibly one of the major reasons that the man received so much support from the wealthy industrialists --- and by the time the conflict abated in 1981, freeing law enforcement to turn its attention to the covert slavery issue, the industrialist faction was already deeply and seamlessly entrenched in society and government.

Amelia has now been working the problem for a bit over a decade since she came to power, but it has been an uphill battle, to the point that she had made vanishingly little progress. She had her people ready, willing, and eager, but Hermione's kidnapping is the first major break she's gotten. The rescue opened up one of those seams for her people to try to unravel. Even that only happened because Narcissa Malfoy got greedy and violated the established protocols of the industry, effectively throwing her business associates under the DMLE bus by doing so while covering her own behind with her 'cleaner'.

As a result, that shooting war you were speculating about is taking its first few stumbling steps right now.

(2021-03-08: Edited for clarity.)

 

[Chickennoodlesoup]

See the second spoiler here. (Also added a threadmark for future reference)

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Thank you, I forgot about that.

 

[Monitor]

Now, things begin to heat up, but it will likely take a while. Is that Bacteria concept original or is it in the source?

Because that might allow some fun things. Sidenote, is there a mechanism getting rid of all the stuff we pump into the atmosphere currently? Because more extreme weather sounds like a great thing to have. Not.

 

[hyperspacewizard]

Now, things begin to heat up, but it will likely take a while. Is that Bacteria concept original or is it in the source?

Because that might allow some fun things. Sidenote, is there a mechanism getting rid of all the stuff we pump into the atmosphere currently? Because more extreme weather sounds like a great thing to have. Not.

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I'm mean when the magic comes back it doesn't matter what humans have done to the earth storms and natural disasters galore are going to happen Also mana storms everywhere being around in shadowrun during the transitional period is going to suck for everyone lol

 

[Monitor]

I'm mean when the magic comes back it doesn't matter what humans have done to the earth storms and natural disasters galore are going to happen Also mana storms everywhere being around in shadowrun during the transitional period is going to suck for everyone lol

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And after magic leaves? Will the new age need to deal with a significantly warmer planner, on a good course to a continuous greenhouse effect?

That was what I meant to ask.

 

[Simonbob]

And after magic leaves? Will the new age need to deal with a significantly warmer planner, on a good course to a continuous greenhouse effect?

That was what I meant to ask.

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Nobody knows.

Frankly, compared to massive magical power, anthomorpic climate change is trivial. After a couple of thousand years of mana storms, humans are a small thing.

 

[ABZB]

ברוך מחיה מתים - I had thought this dead.

 

[hyperspacewizard]

And after magic leaves? Will the new age need to deal with a significantly warmer planner, on a good course to a continuous greenhouse effect?

That was what I meant to ask.

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If its anything like last time ie using the earthdawn setting timeline the earth will go through a couple of cycles of ice ages after the magic goes away the thing is with mana storms and such is plants and animals start turning magic which leads to all kinds of craziness and thats not even getting into the extra dimensional crap thats coming. Like earth is heading toward a bad time if I was there and knew what was coming I would try to start up a vault tech expy its going to be that bad for like a couple of decades its one of the reasons why shadowrun is so grim and why the corporations have more power than most governments chaos is a ladder etc.

Like let me give you an example of how nuts the timeline is

the fourth age is set and endeding around circa 13,000 BC.

In the story right now we are in the fifth age. Around 2011 is when the sixth age begins unless something has drastically effected the timeline because of harry and crew messing with the stone cirles sites. The game of shadowrun doesnt really start until 2040 because between 2011 and 2040 everthing is pretty chaotic and its still pretty crazy up till 2070

 

[Doghead13]

Now, things begin to heat up, but it will likely take a while. Is that Bacteria concept original or is it in the source?

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It's taken directly from Shadowrun.

On the slavery subject, I will point out that the setting is still very much in transition.

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As a side note, this entire subplot started out via taking the cod-fanon 'head of house privileges' thing to the exceedingly nasty logical conclusion a lot of authors seems to ignore when they throw these things out. It's one of the first times I took a piece of fanon that'd turned up in a rash of fics I'd been reading and did my level best to kick its front door in.

 

[The Unicorn]

@Dunkelzahn
I did not finish reading the chapter, the goblin attempting to keep constant watch for days with no one to spell him broke my SoD so hard I could not read the rest of the chapter.

Even if the goblins had no magical way of watching for the people he was looking for, and no one in the know they could recruit, paying random store clerk or bum to watch the road for a few hours and call him if a rather unusual winabego came by would make it actually possible for him to keep watch for days.

 

[lancelot]

Around the figure, the caps of the three lacquered canisters turned slightly of their own accord, lifting up to expose shadowy gaps between lid and canister. Clouds of fine dust billowed out through those gaps, one the dull yellow of finely powdered gold, one the brilliant blue of ground lapis lazuli, and one the intense vermillion of pulverized cinnabar. Released from confinement, the billowing clouds of pigment quickly came under the influence of the altar and collapsed into a full-color three-dimensional image of everything illuminated by the light from the device's counterpart halfway around the world, just as the other altar would do for this one.

"Matriarch," Su Li bowed her head as she addressed the apparition standing on the other side of the altar, the subtle twinkling of the gold dust that comprised most of its marigold-colored robe the only indication that the chief matriarch was not actually standing in the room. "I apologize for the lateness of this call, but I have just received your shipment and am reporting as ordered."

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Any reason they couldn't use a communication mirror?

"Yeah, it's just... things were really lookin' up just a few years ago, you know?" one of the men reminisced. "We were just getting the fracking thing down, and the operators had thousands of wells queued up for the next few decades... enough to keep us working 'til long after we were all ready to retire, anyway." He sighed, "Now the work's dried up, and we're all off lookin'."

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So as someone that lived very near the Dakota fields I'll skip the well known facts of fracking waste contaminating ground water and damn near everything else for miles around killing or driving out every living thing.

Fracking makes oil but it doesn't do shit for making investors money without sky high oil prices.

 

[Spartan3909]

Any reason they couldn't use a communication mirror?

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Because the only person who knows where to find or how to make one is locked up in Azkaban.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Now, things begin to heat up, but it will likely take a while. Is that Bacteria concept original or is it in the source?

Because that might allow some fun things. Sidenote, is there a mechanism getting rid of all the stuff we pump into the atmosphere currently? Because more extreme weather sounds like a great thing to have. Not.

Click to shrink...

As was pointed out by several others, weather in the Sixth World is going to be getting ugly for reasons that have nothing at all to do with carbon dioxide levels. Though if it makes you feel any better, the massive increases in plant growth due to magic abundance might well have sequestered so much carbon that the lack of carbon dioxide would have killed all plant life on the planet (just as it came very close to doing during the recent ice ages) were it not for the massive increases in volcanism.

Though I suppose one might technically consider some of that to be anthropogenic, vis-a-vis Daniel "Howling Coyote" and his string of artificially triggered volcanic eruptions. If you did, I'm pretty sure his personal carbon footprint would be bigger than that of the entire industrial revolution.

The pollution you really need to look out for here is (at least in my version) anything that can cause mutations. In normal situations, large concentrations of mutagens mostly just kill things; any changes that persist tend to be relatively minor. Major mutations tend to be immediately deadly, and in order to linger, they need to be at least temporarily survivable. With magic in the mix, the threshold for 'survivable' gets a lot more lenient, and rather than dying off in droves, life tends to twist in very disturbing ways, very quickly.

It's taken directly from Shadowrun.

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I lifted the astral bacterial from canon, but I had thought my take on their population dynamics driving the world magic cycle was original. Did I accidentally recreate something I didn't know about there?

@Dunkelzahn
I did not finish reading the chapter, the goblin attempting to keep constant watch for days with no one to spell him broke my SoD so hard I could not read the rest of the chapter.

Even if the goblins had no magical way of watching for the people he was looking for, and no one in the know they could recruit, paying random store clerk or bum to watch the road for a few hours and call him if a rather unusual winabego came by would make it actually possible for him to keep watch for days.

Click to shrink...

Edits made. He now has a cheap bit of magical camping equipment that lets him catch some sleep from time to time (essentially a really, really chintzy, one-shot alert ward that's marketed as a bear detector).

5.5.1 Lying in wait

The familiar form of an exhausted goblin bolted up from where it had been slumped over the steering wheel, brought out of a sound sleep by the blare of a truck's horn. His beady black eyes opened wide only to widen further when they were met by the burning glare of approaching headlights shining through the windshield. He had just enough time to register what that meant and freeze in sudden terror before the stark beams swept away to the left as the tractor-trailer rig across the road safely exited the customs checkpoint and headed south.

"Wha..." he gasped, clutching at his chest.

Looking wildly about, the goblin panted as he attempted to regain his bearings. Noting the familiar confines of the sleeper van he habitually used for business trips, he began to calm. Looking outside and seeing the customs station across the way, glowing brilliantly in the pre-dawn darkness, he began to remember. And turning to see the stone cairns on either side of his parked van, their magical sentinel fires blazing in response to his presence, it all came rushing back.

"Must've fallen asleep," he muttered.

Groaning, the Gringotts representative briefly attempted to shake the sleep out of his head before grimacing at the headache that resulted. Dismissing the attempt as futile he fumbled for the large, insulated flask he'd left sitting on the passenger seat. Eventually managing to unscrew the top, he poured himself yet another cup of the bitter, truck-stop brew contained therein.

The goblin had arrived at the border station — or more accurately, at the magically concealed bypass across from the border station — two days earlier at the culmination of his mad dash from Des Moines. On arrival, he had settled in to keep careful watch for the target's distinctive custom Winnebago, employing a small one-shot ward kit — the sort that came ten-to-a-box and did little more than alert the user that something had passed a perimeter — to cover the roadway in front of him while he slept.

Such kits were more of a novelty item than anything else, marketed to children too young to cast charms of their own and providing precisely zero protection and barely any advanced warning. They needed to be replaced every time they went off, and worse they tended to go off all too frequently, whether due to an actual intrusion, the user himself breaking the perimeter , a random chipmunk passing through, or as it sometimes seemed just the wind blowing too hard. Between legitimate trigger events, false alarms, and getting the gimmicky things to work properly in the first place, he'd already gone through three packages of the flimsy things.

Despite their limitations, they were useful in certain situations, from waking a sleeping camper in time to chase an intruding bear away from his dinner — the use for which they were marketed in the small magical camping supply shop from which he'd bought them — to, more cogently, detecting vehicles as they passed along a narrow road in front of you while you took a much needed nap. In this situation, they'd been a godsend, even as limited and annoying as they were.

Making things more difficult was the fact that, as a Gringotts representative, he was required to check in with the home office twice a day, necessitating regular gaps in his surveillance. While he could probably have begged off on the necessity given current circumstances, the goblin was nonetheless reluctant to do so. There was always the off chance that the office might give him some new information on his target's whereabouts — a call, an account withdrawal… anything really — and that was far more likely to pay off than his current approach.

With the nearest payphone nearly four miles away, there was also always the worry that the Winnebago would pass through during one of those brief departures. It made for very hurried conversations, short trips, and nervous meals of snack food picked up hurriedly at the closest convenience store — situated about half a mile past the payphone — in order to minimize his time away, wondering all the while if his efforts had been rendered moot by his target slipping through while he was away. Between that, the frequent false alarms from the cheap ward setting off a magical siren in his head while he was trying to catch some rest, and the occasional infrequent yet still loud truck traffic through the nonmagical border station, the goblin been forced to keep decidedly irregular hours. This most recent interruption being a case in point.

All in all, it had been a very stressful few days.

Scrubbing briefly at his khaki-skinned face, the goblin checked the dashboard clock.

"Three in the morning," he groaned, shaking his head. "Three in the goddamned morning!"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was having difficulty adjusting, and the past few days had begun to fade into a groggy sort of haze of minor sleep deprivation and major boredom. Taking a moment to indulge himself, he loudly cursed his target for being so damned hard to find, his superiors back in London for sending the message, and the desk jockey whose screw-up had put him in this position. Afterwards, feeling moderately relieved, the goblin settled in with a weary sigh, sipping his coffee and staring intently at the now-empty road before him. He was far too wired to go back to sleep now, despite the hour, and to be honest, now that he had the time, the whole situation required a bit of a think.

He'd known from the start that this border-interception plan was a long shot at best, and with every passing minute it looked less and less likely to succeed. Unfortunately, it remained his best option.

Not for the first time, the goblin cursed himself for not asking more about their client's itinerary when he had the chance, but it hadn't seemed important at the time. Back when this had first begun, he'd been told three things: the client was going to British Columbia, he needed an audience with the Confederate government, and he wanted a tricked-out Winnebago. So he'd taken care of those three things: he'd approached the Confederate government; he'd arranged the audience; and he'd brokered the Winnebago purchase. Three requests, three deliveries, and that was that; he was done but for the drive back to his apartment in Seattle.

One, two, three, and done.

Then that phone call had come in on the drive home, and he had suddenly been saddled with finding a metaphorical needle in a haystack. British Columbia was a big place even when restricted to magical locations alone. There weren't too many people, but the communities were scattered throughout the mountains. Trying to search them out in that maze would be a nightmare, so his best bet was to catch them before they disappeared into it. He had a Plan B, to be certain, but he judged it even less likely to succeed than his current attempt...

It also promised to be far less pleasant, interrupted sleep, bad coffee, and all.

Hopefully that damned Winnebago would show up soon.

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5.5.12 Keeping watch

The sleeper van lurched to a stop in the very same tire marks that had marked its post for the last few days, and its engine shuddered to a stop. Leaving the key in the ignition, the driver leaned back in his seat with a sigh. Beady black eyes closed against the orange glare of the setting sun as the much put-upon goblin rubbed at the mud-colored skin on his temples, trying to soothe the headache that had been bothering him for the last half-day.

The past few days had been brutal, the possibility that he had managed to miss his target, either due to them passing at an inconvenient time or due to him picking the wrong crossing was beginning to weigh more and more heavily on his mind. Even traveling slowly, Potter's group surely ought to have arrived by now!

The glint of headlights pierced the gathering gloom from the south, prompting the goblin to turn sharply, his eyes locking on the bright pair of lights.

Perhaps this would be the one?

He could only hope.

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5.5.14 Uneventful nights

As a white pickup pulled a large trailer out of the checkpoint and crossed the border into Canada, beady black eyes closed as the Gringotts representative sighed in exasperation. Once again, it wasn't his target, and his watch continued. If it went too much longer…

He sighed again.

The goblin had already reported in with London for the evening from the payphone outside the tiny Walhalla Municipal Airport four miles to the south, so he had nothing else scheduled for the evening. Long bony fingers drummed on the steering wheel as he considered his options. Eventually, he came to a decision. It was too late to travel, so he'd give it one more night. If they didn't show by morning, he'd have to assume they'd either managed to slip through during one of the gaps in his watch or had gone through another bypass. Either case would mean that his border gambit had failed, and he would have to switch to Plan B.

The goblin grimaced at the thought. That would entail rushing back to Seattle and petitioning the Salish Commons government for information directly. He knew that they kept tabs on such important visitors, and they had the resources to make such a task relatively easy. On the surface, it sounded simple enough, and to be honest, it would have been his first choice were it not for one little issue…

…an issue that took the form of the Salish liaison.

The man was the classic example of a stereotypical bureaucrat, absolutely treasured a grudge, and had family in high places, which had kept him on the government payroll even he was reported for soliciting bribes in the past… though it had not prevented him from facing a censure and a pay cut.
Unfortunately, as the goblin whose name had been on the signature line of that report, the Gringotts representative was in a very poor position to be asking the man for favors.

As he stared into the darkness, the goblin shook his head, dismissing the thought. No sense borrowing trouble; hopefully that damned Winnebago would show up soon.

And so, the goblin kept watch.

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As for hiring someone, that's a little tough. One, the crossing is in the middle of rural ND, the closest town is more than four miles away, and the likely approach by road doesn't pass through that town. Two, by the time said hireling could alert him, the Winnebago would already be long gone. It's not like Snape of all people is going to pull over for a hobo if they try to flag him down.

(2021-03-13: Edited for unclear pronoun antecedent)

 

[killgore444]

Though I suppose one might technically consider some of that to be anthropogenic, vis-a-vis Daniel "Howling Coyote" and his string of artificially triggered volcanic eruptions. If you did, I'm pretty sure his personal carbon footprint would be bigger than that of the entire industrial revolution.

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Some of the stories about Daniel Howling Coyote got pretty screwed up in the early editions. There was at least one published story that had him has a burnout wino in Seattle teaching gangbangers basic magic.
Of course, since he murdered his best friend when said friend didn't want to stop the Ghost Dance until all non natives where dead might have had something to do with it.
Either that or finding out that the spirit that gave you the knowledge of the Ghost Dance was a shadow spirit and was the same one that convinced the President to kill all the Indians didn't do good things to his psyche.
And before anyone calls BS, all 3 of those were in published stories by FASA.

They also once implied he was 'Burnout' from the early gear books (who ended up becoming a CyberZombie). That night have been retconned out though since Burnout got possession of the DragonHeart and was possessed by the spirit of the BigD himself, and was mentally wiped to the age of 8 and just along for the ride in his body that is cruising around the Astral planes with a giant Focus fused to his hand fighting spirits of Human Sacrifice.
This is from one of the books. Like I said, some of the stories are screwed up royally.

I lifted the astral bacterial from canon, but I had thought my take on their population dynamics driving the world magic cycle was original. Did I accidentally recreate something I didn't know about there?

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Not from canon itself. But there is a LOT of published stories and game mechanics that reference unpublished stories from the main website. So it's entirely possible that the FAB bacteria types are in fact listed somewhere as being responsible for the cycles of magic. And if not, than you can bet someone will 'Come up with it' now.

Edits made. He now has a cheap bit of magical camping equipment that lets him catch some sleep from time to time (essentially a really, really chintzy, one-shot alert ward that's marketed as a bear detector).

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Much better.

~

 

[Simonbob]

So as someone that lived very near the Dakota fields I'll skip the well known facts of fracking waste contaminating ground water and damn near everything else for miles around killing or driving out every living thing.

Fracking makes oil but it doesn't do shit for making investors money without sky high oil prices.

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At the very begining, sure.

It's much better now. Cheaper, too. Still more expensive than a perfect oil well, but there aren't that many of them in the world.


Anyway, for the obssesed-with-heavy-machinery youngster, it's going to be interesting. I wonder what ideas he'll get from such tech?

 

[lancelot]

At the very begining, sure.

It's much better now. Cheaper, too. Still more expensive than a perfect oil well, but there aren't that many of them in the world.


Anyway, for the obssesed-with-heavy-machinery youngster, it's going to be interesting. I wonder what ideas he'll get from such tech?

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The much better still costs more then you get back, and in this setting you've got an extra step of dealing with a bacteria so it'll cost even more.

 

[Simonbob]

The much better still costs more then you get back, and in this setting you've got an extra step of dealing with a bacteria so it'll cost even more.

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No, as long as the price of oil is high enough, it's worth doing. At the moment, as long as oil is over $60 a barrel, I'm told, you can make a profit. As long as the Govenment doesn't screw you, of course.


But the bacteria, that's different. Magic bacteria could do all sorts of things, make all sorts of problems. I wonder how much it'll affect conventional oil wells?

 

[Doghead13]

I lifted the astral bacterial from canon, but I had thought my take on their population dynamics driving the world magic cycle was original. Did I accidentally recreate something I didn't know about there?

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Sorry it took me a while to respond, been caught up in RL. It's over ten years since I read any canon Shadowrun material so there's a very good chance I'm utterly misremembering.

ANYWAY almost certain it munging up oil production is canon (this being what I was referring to in that post) and awakened bacteria existing in the first place is definitely canon, almost certain the detail about it driving the magic cycle is yours. I don't think FASA ever actually explained that one.

 

[Purplepurple]

I feel that Amelia/Dumbledore were made here a bit too powerless overall, with basically no progress in rooting out slavery (before Hermione case)
.
Is it intentional to preset Dumbledore solution as nearly complete failure? I feel it would be more interesting if they had at least some successes, while still keeping Snape position "burn everything to the ground" reasonable.

Right now Dumbledore feels like a strawman a bit, and it seems fixable by scattering mentions of at least some minor successes - not with slavery nominally illegal but operating without inpunity.

I just feel that story like that is more interesting where both sides have a viable position.

 

[Anon E Mouse]

I feel that Amelia/Dumbledore were made here a bit too powerless overall, with basically no progress in rooting out slavery (before Hermione case)
.
Is it intentional to preset Dumbledore solution as nearly complete failure? I feel it would be more interesting if they had at least some successes, while still keeping Snape position "burn everything to the ground" reasonable.

Right now Dumbledore feels like a strawman a bit, and it seems fixable by scattering mentions of at least some minor successes - not with slavery nominally illegal but operating without inpunity.

I just feel that story like that is more interesting where both sides have a viable position.

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I'd honestly rather Dumbledore stay as he is, because it just makes more sense and is plausible. Not everybody values things the same, not everybody puts the same price on things. Dumbledore clearly wants things like slavery to end, but he values things like rule of law and stable societies extremely highly. So he does things that make society more stable and predictable and tries to stop singular powerful wizards from doing whatever they want. Then the roaches and non-powerful people take advantage of those systems to do illegal things while preventing themselves from being dealt with legally. And people like Dumbledore value laws and stability so much that they simply can't accept the price of tearing up the systems they put in place facilitating those behaviors.

 

[Purplepurple]

I'd honestly rather Dumbledore stay as he is, because it just makes more sense and is plausible. Not everybody values things the same, not everybody puts the same price on things. Dumbledore clearly wants things like slavery to end, but he values things like rule of law and stable societies extremely highly. So he does things that make society more stable and predictable and tries to stop singular powerful wizards from doing whatever they want. Then the roaches and non-powerful people take advantage of those systems to do illegal things while preventing themselves from being dealt with legally. And people like Dumbledore value laws and stability so much that they simply can't accept the price of tearing up the systems they put in place facilitating those behaviors.

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Oh, definitely. I think that Dumbledore and Amelia are masterfully written. Just give them some successes - so that they managed to bust at least some slavery operations before.

World would be still fucked up, maybe even even more with "Aurors take down brothel with enthralled slaves" being a unusually good news. But still something that happens, with that operation as significant not as first success ever, but as first big success and allowing to take down someone involved and actually prominent (still medium fish, but at least not small fish).

Because current situation reads as "nothing changed after making slavery illegal, everything just went underground".

Or maybe situation was extremely fucked up (all Muggleborns legally enslaved or something) to the point that current situation with say 10% Muggleborns enslaved (and illegally) is still a serious improvement and Dumbledore has good reasons to be happy, especially for someone capable of planning horizon longer than two weeks?

EDIT: though they mention freeing slaves - and from context it seems that they are still generally free and alive, so maybe I should read more between lines rather expect stated this outright?

EDIT2: I noticed that Dumbledore was successful in improving treatment of Muggles. Just surprised about slavery situation and treatment if it.

 

[VulpKit]

I'd like to say that this is an amazingly well-written piece of work. (Note that I have no prior knowledge of shadowrun. Absolutely nothing.)

The author had me hooked from the very first few lines that described Vernon's obesity without outright saying it at all. (Funny story: I had just checked and dismissed a different story where one of my complaints were how unsubtly the narrator addressed the same thing, "Harry's obese uncle", something that left a bad taste in my mouth as the narrator was supposed to be from Harry's perspective).
All the characters make sense, they are extremely detailed and most of all, they are unique.

You (the author) took characters such as the Hogwarts staff and gave them not only new characteristics, but new characteristics that match their canon characters. Revolutionary Snape is something I would've never imagined, yet it makes so much sense.
The focus of the story has been mainly in world-building and character development (even introducing perfectly new characters, that I fell in love with and started rooting for immediately after!) and the results are superb.

There are only a couple of things that bothered me while I was binge-reading this story (Note that I have not read all of the previous comments. My apologies if you've already addressed them) :

Harry's struggles with generating electricity using magic. Electricity is nothing more than electrons moving through conductors. It's generation is also conceptually simple. You just have to get the electrons moving. And the way we do that is essentially moving magnets around.
Every single type of energy you can convert into electricity, you do it the same conceptual way. You use that energy in order to get something spinning. Spin a magnet in a magnetic field, and you'll cause changes in it. Those changes will then cause certain material's electrons to start moving, producing current, electricity. Of course, this is extremely simplified, but the base concept is accurate. Get a magnet to spin in a certain way in a certain environment and you'll get electric power.
Harry actually knows this. He created a water wheel. A water wheel uses water in order to make itself spin and then uses that spin on order to produce electricity in the way I summarized above.
Why Harry doesn't do any of this, I don't know. As he is portrayed as someone that does a lot of research, I fail to see how he could miss something like this. And it really took me out of the story every time it was mentioned.
Also: Harry and friends complained about the noise the generator was making. Can they not simply use a silencing charm?

The other thing that kinda bothered me was the timing of Hermione's kidnapping (I however, greatly admire the way greater danger was prevented. The way they tagged Hermione with a tracker is a bit coincidental, but it's safely in the realm of possibility and I really liked the creative way of addressing that issue). My main problem is that the (I'm guessing) very interesting Americas plotline (which I'm guessing is much more heavily connected to shadowrun, something that I was interested in learning about) starts at the same exact time. My interest in Hermione's well-being and my curiosity (and slight worry) on how her relationship with Harry will develop far outweighed my fledgling interest in the fluff that was going on in Harry's side. I couldn't help but skip forward in order to learn what happened (skipping what must be more examples of amazing and detailed character and world-building). It simply a case of investment. Harry's trip to the Americas has no danger, no rush, no tension. Harry is, after all, a ruddy big dragon made of basically indestructible metal. As such, I do not feel particularly invested in that story-line. On the other hand, I am much more invested in seeing through the plotline involving Hermione (and I was pretty curious to see Harry's reaction to it).
As such, Harry's sections felt not as a reprieve from a tense situation, but as filler meant to artificially increase the tension by introducing extra time until the plot's resolution.

 

[Purplepurple]

Why Harry doesn't do any of this, I don't know. As he is portrayed as someone that does a lot of research, I fail to see how he could miss something like this. And it really took me out of the story every time it was mentioned.

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Is he maybe trying to convert magic straight into electricity without going through conversion into kinetic (or other) energy as an intermediate step?

I couldn't help but skip forward in order to learn what happened (skipping what must be more examples of amazing and detailed character and world-building).

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The same for me (and it is it is rather how I am invested in Hermione storyline and how I am not expecting 100% foolproof plot armor - not about weakness of USA plot).