POWER PLAYERS: The Annotated Aztlan

OVERVIEW



[E]ach of you is here because of who you are and in most cases who you represent, be it a country or other interests.
- Dunkelzahn (p.12)




Comments and objections to the theory, and my answers
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This might be something of an unusual analysis, as compared against the typical quote chopping, because instead of solely going at it literally word for word, I look for what the interactions of the players can tell us: not only what was said but how; not only who said but to whom; not isolated factoid but gestalt. Truth lies in the nuances. Echoing Dunkelzahn: "Fact is not what concerns me here." (p.93)

I hold the following identifications as my hypothesis:

Update:
Seems the new release Loose Alliances has confirmed Sheila Blatvatsky as being Hecate ... and much evidence suggests Sheila Blatvatsky is one and the same as Alachia. Will provide the details of such evidence later.

I don't begin from first principles. I don't see the point. Identifications such as THE BIG 'D', THE LAUGHING MAN, and WORDSMYTH have been well established in Shadowrun lore, and I see no reason to quibble with them. Where the Aztlan annotations suggest some particularly strong support for one of these established identifications I will probably mention it, but then again I may not. Other aspects of these identifications are more controversial: for example, to the best of my knowledge no one else has seriously proposed that Harlequin might be a questor of Mynbruje, while I would be lying if I didn't say that to me it seems self-evident. Still, the self-evident in one person's eyes might be its opposite in another's. The commentary is written at least partly to explain why and how I see these connections, which another might not. It is not impossible that others might disagree. Open Internet, open speculation, everyone's prerogative to have an opinion. This one happens to be mine.

In-text wordplay, with names and otherwise, deserves its own separate page: le voilą.

One omission that some may consider to be a huge hole in this commentary: I don't include any evidence from Threats and similar speculative shadowtalk as to actual identities. What would be the point? The (fictional) writers know just as much about the true identities of these people as do we the readers: they speculate and we speculate, and they go off into somewhere strange in left field and so do we, based on exactly the same sources. Their speculation cannot be taken as evidence, let alone proof. No real insight is added.

A quick note on notation. Page numbers in isolation reference the Aztlan sourcebook. Other commonly referenced books are the Earthdawn core text (ED), the Earthdawn Companion (EDC), Horrors (EDH), the on-line book Earthdawn Dragons, Cybertechnology (CT), Worlds Without End (WWE), and the Tir Tairngire (TT) and Tir na n? (TNN) sourcebooks.



All copyrights of quoted materials belong to FASA. Or possibly Wizkids. Not to me, in any case.