Rad Wars 2084

The Rad Wars are one of the most awaited events of the years for fans of military tactics and equipment. For weeks, teams national and corporate alike from across the globe throw their forces at each others in this violent game taking place in the SOX, a radioactive wasteland in Northern France. The area of operation consists of 100 km² north of the town of Metz; as such, the Rad Wars offer plains, forests, swamps and urban areas for units to maneuver around. The air space of the Rad Wars is also closed as air groups follow each team - aerial combat is often pivotal.

While mercenary units are commonly found amongst national and corporate teams to fill the gap, runners are also hired to, for instance, steal a prototype on the field or to record raw footage from the Rad Wars that can go for great prices in the dark reaches of the Matrix. Extractions are also common since valuable technician could be found on the frontline to maintain the expensive equipment in use.

The Area and Its Hazards

The Rad Wars take place in the SOX, which is already a problem. While the units usually don't stay on the ground long enough to suffer longlasting effects, wearing radiation shielding at all time is mandatory.

The area chosen for the Rad Wars covers 100 km², including the town of Metz and the northern surrounding. This actually offers a lot of different terrain types to work with: polluted swamps, mutated forests, plains and, of course, the bane of modern combat, urban areas. (Even after 14 sessions of Rad Wars, Metz is still more of a pile of rubble than anything else.) The airspace over that area is also open for jet fighters and bombers to provide air support to their team, so keeping an eye out is always good on that end. Combat lasts day and night until a given phase is over. All teams are housed in the village of Montigny-les-Metz, south of the town where the exercise phase takes place.

Le Bataillon Frontalier

The SOX doesn't limit itself to the Rad Wars. Actually, the games take place in but a fragment of the zone. MET2K has a whole part of their assets tie to the SOX doing frontier business, making sure no one cross the borders. They're pretty good at it. Of course, the forces from MET2K that take part in the Rad Wars are not picked from this subunit as they are very much needed, especially since a lot of clever runners could take advantage of the situation of the Rad Wars to cross the border they guard more easily.

The Tribes

There are two grand categories of peoples living in the SOX: the natives and the corporate people. Of course, sometimes runners, smugglers and so on show up too, but the majority of who you'll find are from those groups. The native tribals actually descend from French, German or Luxembourgish citizens who decided to stay or couldn't leave the contaminated area after the Catenom Power Plant incident of 2008. Forming tribes and surviving with what they have, they began to forget a lot of concepts as the emphasis was put on survival, not on knowledge-keeping. A mere two generations living separately from the rest of the Sixth World wiped most of the knowledge of those tribals. Many things have changed. Many of them would think that a troll is just someone suffering from radiation.

An important thing to note is that whoever you talk to who is from the tribes: they will never take money as it means nothing to them. Barter trade is what you are looking for. Here are some trade offers that are "common":

• 1 medkit for 10 liters of pure water

• 1 throwback pistol for three days of food

• 1 magazine for 5 liters of gasoline

• 1 pair of boots for 1 day of food

• 1 pack of cigarettes in exchange for 1 liter alcohol

• 1 water purifying unit for 2 services from a spirit summoned by a local shaman

• 1 pack of hard candy in exchange for clean clothes

• 1 toolbox in exchange for a bedroom for 2 days

Tribes could be divided in categories that might be encountered by runners who snoop away from the exercice area of the Rad Wars.

The Inlanders: "Those from Within". This term refers to the most common tribes one could find. Created from nomadic, semi-nomadic or even sedentary groups, most of them are suspicious of outsider from over the Wall that borders the SOX. However, they sometimes have contact with smugglers. Sometimes, in some places, some tribes would gather at a grand market to help each other through barter.

Les Écorchés: "The Flayed", as they're are called, are the equivalent of gangs. Made of violent people that rely on raids to survive more than anything else. Those are groups any runners want to avoid. Some leaders would receive smugglers or runners to talk, of course, but they would also be ready to kill them and grab everything they have at the first occasion.

Toxic cults: of course, many of the peoples who Awaken in the SOX turn toxic and quickly join brotherhoods of madmen reveling in the most radioactive places that the SOX has to offer.

Factions

Rad Wars line up of 2084

Corporations and mercenary groups:

AG Chemie

Saeder-Krupp

Esprit/Dassault

Mitsuama Computer Technologies

MET2K

Renraku Computer Systems

Proteus AG

Ruhrmetall AG

National Teams:

France

Allied German States

Japanese Imperial State

United Canadian and American States

Goals

All teams share the same goal: being the winner of the Rad Wars. Winning that contest gives some prestige and often leads to some good publicity about the efficiency of a given military units or the mercenary group aligned with a team.

Another Involved Faction or Individual

Eco-Terrorists and Eco-Shamans. Pushed away from the city of Metz in 2070, there was actually a lot of effort made to clean the radiation and pollution for the city, for the sake of SOX tribals. All of this was in vain, however, since after about of decade of the Rad Wars the situation might be even worse than when the power plant has its leak. Due to this, a lot of eco-terrorist cells and eco-shamans try to hinder the Rad Wars and send their message to the world.

GM Tips

Here are a few types of contracts that could be found a lot around the Rad Wars event:

• Stealing a military prototype being field tested

• Carrying out some very dangerous recon or sabotage mission

• Helping eco-terrorists hinder the Rad Wars

In addition, Js might take advantage of the Rad Wars' situation to infiltrate runner teams into France for other objectives as well.

Runs

Name	GM
Contrôle d'Accès	Sarcarian
Hedge Your Bets	Asmodeus
La Nouvelle Cavalerie	Zerre
Methodical Approach	Zerre
Operation Poseidon	Sarcarian
Qui sème le vent... Récolte l'Atomique	Zerre
Special Delivery... for the Military!	TidanShock
Zone de Réseautage	Sarcarian