The End of the Matrix

[Catharz]

1194671380[/unixtime]]
Makes for a differet game dynamic; very low-tech solutions to deal with a very high-tech situation.

These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness.

[Username17]

Actually even lead is pretty sketchy. While acting as a decent shielding agent, that just counts as extra distance - a high signal will go right through.

What you really want is a highly conductive set of wiring around your body. Which of course plugs right into the high tech methods to find a low tech solution to problems.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, I might not be on the right set of railroad tracks, but at least I'm headed into crazytown, one way or an other.

Why the highly conductive set of wiring though? To set up a 'cage' of some kind that diffuses a signal such that it's not easily seen, sort of like a Davy Lamp?

Could you combine lead sheilding with the conductive wires to have a more effective whole?

I'm guessing if I know how the wiring does its job would answer the second quesiton though.

[Catharz]

What's Faraday cages, precious?

[Judging__Eagle]

You know... I was looking a Micheal Faraday's entry while looking at Humphrey Davies entry, yet didn't look at what a Faraday Cage is or does.

[CalibronXXX]

With nano tech(I'm assuming shadowrun has at least some nanotech) it doesn't seem like it would be hard or even all that expensive to get an effective Faraday Cage built into your clothes. In fact it looks like it would be a rather common defense for someone who wasn't going to be doing any hacking or other Faraday Cage incompatible activities.

[Username17]

Nanotechnology doesn't really help with the construction of a Faraday Cage. The only things which asist a Faraday Cage are:

• Completeness.
  
• Thickness.
  
• Conductivity.

Making a more conductive suit would make it a better Faraday Cage at the same thickness. But making it smaller doesn't do a god damned thing.

Still interesting to see the discussion generated over here. On Dumpshock I seriously am now into over 300 posts arguing about whether positing that you can influence a single neuron with quantum entanglement implies that you can send out a signal which influences all neurons in the world simultaneously (some people say yes, I say what the fuck are you talking about?!).

-Username17

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

From my limited understanding, isn't the ability to do anything with quantum entanglement except talk about it still entirely in the theory stage? Wouldn't that be like one of those discussion wherein someone goes, "Well, if we could go faster-than-light, then...," and nobody says, "We dunno what would happen, so STFU"?

[CalibronXXX]

I simply meant it would be much easier and cheaper to make a suit of functional clothing with an effective Faraday Cage inside it using nano tech than without.

[Catharz]

This is starting to remind me of [counturl=116]Postsingular[/counturl].

[virgil]

Wow, that thread is still going? Last time I was on that thread, I was trying to help you understand that you can't actually send information through quantum entanglement (though it could be used for encryption keys that can't be hacked).

[Crissa]

Nanotechnology allows you to build superconductors at incredibly small scales. You could add a chain of superconductors to a fabric fiber - so you could have superconductive wool or silk or somesuch, and it wouldn't change the underlying properties of the fabric. At least, ones you could feel.

Stamp a couple of chips on it to detect charge levels, and you have a fabric that might need nanobots to repair it once in awhile - like if you get a hole in it, or the conductors burn out somewhere - and you'd even know if it was broken ^-^

-Crissa

[Joy_Division]

1194827494[/unixtime]]Wow, that thread is still going? Last time I was on that thread, I was trying to help you understand that you can't actually send information through quantum entanglement (though it could be used for encryption keys that can't be hacked).

You mean you can't send information faster than the speed of light through quantum entanglement

[Username17]

Which is debatable anyway because noone really knows.

There are lots of things which we frankly have a poor understanding of. I really don't want people kvetching at me about how a signal "has to" propagate.

Seriously, we have got someone loudly and repeatedly insisting that doing something unspecified which causes a specific neuron to fire (or not) at some nonzero range "only makes sense" if it is propagated as a non-directional signal that affects all humans the same way. I am literally at a loss and have run out of civil things to say.

It uses future physics that may or may not include quantm entanglement, waveform collapsing, electromagnetic resonance, big words, electron tunneling, or whatever else we happen to be using over two decades from now.

The laws of Thermodynamics are essentially inviolate, but as long as super tech doesn't break those I really don't care. Why people are willing to flame other people over the fact that they cannot suspend disbelief over a technology which creates a small electric charge at a specific point in space which takes merely tremendous amounts of computing power to function is beyond me.

-Username17

[Joy_Division]

I say "speed of light" because to me causality goes along with thermodynamics as one of those things that should really just be obeyed in the game world. I'm cool with breaking just about anything else.

I really like the matrix rules btw, I'll be using them if I have a chance to play SR ever.

[TavishArtair]

1194890742[/unixtime]]I say "speed of light" because to me causality goes along with thermodynamics as one of those things that should really just be obeyed in the game world. I'm cool with breaking just about anything else.

I don't really like obeying thermodynamics too closely. Otherwise you cannot have people who shapeshift in ways that defy physics, unless you contrive an excuse, in which case you're handwaving the laws of physics anyways.

On the subject of cyberbrains that Crissa mentioned, I think everyone having cyberbrains becomes quite plausible if you assume that not only do you have to get them before you can become a cyborg of much greater significance, but if they themselves are some kind of life support system for the brain. In other words, the miraculous recovery of returning you in your new cyborg body is only really possible if you have a cyberbrain, which attempts to save you from brain death until such time as you are restored. Everyone has them (except homeless men and the Amish) because people like life insurance of the sort that actually can prevent their death.

Of course, the way Essence works in Shadowrun, you can't really have Motoko Kusanagi running around, but eh, the idea still works for the most part.

[Username17]

I added an equipment section.

Also there will be some examples, what are people looking for?

-Username17

[Catharz]

Nice job on the flavor for different OSs' AR setups. That's something I didn't even realize was missing from the core book until you wrote it up.

So now I can have my half-orc Georgian hacker Ilya Zelezny running Navi on his !. Thankfully I don't have to know what the ! looks like, as it's in his skull.

One thing I'd still like to see explicity in the rules is how brain interfaces with greater signal ranges work, and the differences between types of DNIs (senselinks, simlinks, skillwires, wired reflexes, etc).
I'm interested as to whether you want to explicitly allow for fine-grained brainfucking (i.e. coherent information) of non-wired individuals, or whether that should be left to the specific game. And how much does it cost to have my comlink shoot tight beam ultrasound into my head rather than use trodes?

Also, is Xim OS pronounced 'hsin' (like 新 ) or 'zim' (as in Xim the Despot/Invader Zim)?

P.S.
In my experience "!" is usually pronounced 'bang!'.

[Username17]

I assume that Xim is pronounced "Zim" - but I didn't write the original and don't really know. I see in my eye the Erika commercials.

A French woman wearing almost nothing whispers urgently to the camera: "It's pure excitement..." Then she vanishes and you see a black field and an exclamation point flashes on and off. Then the commercial ends.

The camera flashes between a bunch of people who say essentialy "This!" in a bunch of languages. Then the commercial ends.

--

Oh, and orks are a subspecies of humanity. That means that they have no difficulty breeding with humans or dwarves. But the goblinization is all or nothing - there aren't really any "half-orks" because the child of a human and an ork will develope as a human or an ork (or much more rarely a dwarf or elf or troll or something really weird like a ghoul).

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

Who even gives a shit whether you're a 'half'-orc?

If you don't like how you look then get some plastic surgery. It's cheap as free.

[Catharz]

Thanks. I was basically just wondering if the company was Chinese or not, but I guess with extraterratoriality it almost doesn't matter.

The character in question is probably implemented as an ork with the "human-looking" perk. He happened to have a human father, ork mother. The exact biological workings of goblinization aren't usually of interest to to most people.

Most Americans view 'half black' individuals as 'black', while most Egyptians view a 'half black' person differently than either a 'white' or 'black' person. Both cultures are racist, but they view race in different ways. Metatype isn't the same thing, but I imagine that the schema is similar.

[Username17]

Update: changed Hacking on the Fly. Hacking on the Fly is no longer binary or automatic. Expect to see a lot more programs in the 1-3 range.

-Username17

[Interested2]

I've never played or read Shadowrun, but this thread is nifty enough it makes me wonder if I'm missing out.

Is it worth picking up?

[technomancer]

Shadowrun, like many game systems, can either be fan-freaking-tastic, or totally suck. It's major points are that guns kill. Street trash with a crappy guns can kill your players, if they surprise them. Runners, however, usually have enough badassery that they can pretty easily take out hordes of mooks without drawing any counter-fire. This can be accomplished through both ambushes, long range fire, or good, old fashioned going 4 times before your foe can, and being able to completely empty, reload, and empty your gun again inside of 3 seconds.

[Catharz]

So does a character with stability never glitch? 'Cause that would be pretty amazing.


Also, what are the specializations for resonance skills?