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Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 16 2017, 06:19 PM

I am a very scientific minded person and it is my believe that a things in a game universe (like Shadowrun) should make sense within in the context of this universe.

The Sixth World is based on our universe to a not small degree and while technology developed a bit different the foundations are the same, the science behind it is the same and the thoughts people have when designing something are not that different.

This said I can’t wrap my head around the new Matrix. If find the whole idea as presented in Data Trails so stupid that no amount of suspension of disbelieve currently helps me overcome this.

So I wanted to get you opinion on this and thusly turned from a long time reader into a first time poster.

I also want to add that this started with Technomancers, while Otaku made sense to me I also think Technomancers should not work in the context of the Shadowrun Universe.

But now to my point about the matrix.

Let me start with a quote from Data Trails:

Hosts are what makes the matrix and according to this quote hosts are essential for our existence. This might be hyperbole but not to far from the truth, the matrix in the Sixth World is essential for civilization.

Another quote:



THIS is the problem I have!

The matrix is technology, science, not magic and wishes. Actually it was established from the beginning that magic and technology don’t do well together.
So even with the matrix so vast, so huge that nobody can know the extent of it, the technology behind it, the science is something people should… NEED to know.

Why would the corporate world, after two devastating crashes make something and then depend on it for there very existence if they don’t even have the slightest idea about the scientific basis of it?
This goes against logic, self-preservation and basic human survival instincts in my opinion.

And how does this even happen? A system designed by (meta)humans even one so vast and based on such distributed computing (that is what the matrix is) does not suddenly change it’s scientific and technological principals to such a degree that nobody understands it.



This makes no sense as well. As is said the matrix is technology and has to run on something. In 4e my understanding was that this is basically distributed computing. The matrix runs on you commlink, nexus, toaster, t-shirt and all the other stuff.
With 5e they did not rebuild the matrix, they just rewrote the protocols and did something they don’t understand and is fundamentally idiotic?

Again…why would a corporation store their life blood, their most valuable information somewhere they not only can’t control, they also don’t even know where it is physically and scientifically.

Imho it would be more realistic if the Corporate Court looks at the matrix as it is described in Data Trails and goes “Nope… scrap that we start a new!” because nobody understands it, it is unnecessary complicated and at best dangerous as hell.
The whole idea behind the new matrix protocols was more control for them…. But they gave up all control of the technology, scientific basics… the things that actually matter for controlling the matrix? They gave up all physical control of their information?

Building a new matrix from scratch would be less risky by a factor of infinity!

Posted by: Savar Jun 16 2017, 06:32 PM

can't disagreed with you..... my sense of disbelief must be better then yours.

Posted by: JanessaVR Jun 16 2017, 08:13 PM

@Sturmlied:

I can't disagree. This whole "Foundation" business is staggeringly stupid; no one is dumb enough to build the backbone of the new matrix on something they don't understand at all! Just stay with 4e - my slogan: "It's not perfect, but it's still better than 5e."

About the technomancers, our house rule is that they're Awakened, and essentially another type of magician. Because you're quite correct, there's no way their abilities work according to the laws of physics. But, no worries, this setting has magic, so they must be magical.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 16 2017, 08:30 PM

Mine is usually pretty good but this is bothering me more than I like.




Yea my last and current group both prefer 4e but where thinking about switching to 5e... but decided against it for multiple reasons.

As for Technomancers... we decided they don't exist. Otaku do though. The "it's magic" explanation is something I would grudgingly accept as well. But I find it a bit lazy of an explanation, because for three editions it was said that magic and tech don't mix well and suddenly a kind of magic appears that is specific to tech?

I think I would rather houserule that Technomancer need some device purely for the connection... any wireless enabled device that has a dni would do.

Posted by: lokii Jun 16 2017, 10:16 PM

Pretty much the same for me too:

Posted by: Mantis Jun 17 2017, 06:47 AM

Yet another agreeing with you OP. In fact your arguments are ones I've made before when we tried to play 5th ed. Tech is not magic and must obey the laws of physics. If you are just going to ignore those laws then you may as well just be playing a fantasy game not set on Earth. When those basic rules we know are tossed it is very difficult to maintain your suspension of disbelief. It also makes it very difficult to play since you can't take those basics for granted.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 17 2017, 07:12 AM

There is also the idiocy of the "enable wireless to do (XYZ)"... a great many of them should have been BASIC abilities of the cyberware in question.

Catalyst was trying too damn hard to make Deckers vital to the game... and failed badly.

As for the technomancer thing... I always thought of them as real psionic ability (no, I think the "psionic" tradition was idiotic and insulting) because with the RAW, they were never affected by mana fluctuations, and even worked in space. Hell, I even wrote rules (and posted them here) for Psions in Shadowrun.

Posted by: SpellBinder Jun 17 2017, 10:51 AM

IIRC, a great many of them were basic in SR4, and IMO deckers were already vital to several game aspects then as well. Hell, a friend ran a brief SR5 game and the team decker never did what was intended of deckers in SR5 in combat, and that was shoot a full auto shotgun instead of trying to find something to brick.

One of the things I think that really hurt the suspension of disbelief in the transition between SR4 & SR5 is the lack of a time gap. There was a good gap between SR3 & Crash 2.0 to SR4, so it was believable about the implementation of the new wireless matrix, the disappearance of cyberdecks for commlinks, and technomancers. Between SR4 & SR5 it's like, snap your fingers, and all of a sudden there's cyberdecks all over the place, a heavily segregated matrix, and hobbled technomancers.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 17 2017, 11:42 AM

O_O I did not even think about this! I worked as a server admin for a few years and should have remembered how long it took to plan and implement major changes to just a few docent servers. Doing that on this on the matrix level would take ages!
Especially because you are absolutely right that a even semi-realistic matrix would have (like the internet) grown over time out or earlier iterations, different systems, different operation systems, on different update levels, running on different devices, where some maybe an old deck in some guys basement or a coffee maker from 2059 in an old office building, not to mention millions of rfid tags.



Here I disagree with your earlier statement:

Because metahumans are not inherently stupid and that goes for corporations as well and if something like the new matrix (technological and scientific problems set aside) would happen they would not bet everything they have on a system that they know can blow up in their faces at any moment for a illusion of control.
Starting from scratch with something they understand and can control seems more logical to me and the corporate court has the power to it... it would cost a shit load of money but far less than the new matrix would cost them if it blows up.



Oh, Dodger thinks it's going to be ok? Then I am ok with it. What could possibly go wrong?








I get that idea behind, to give deckers more options from their core skill to do in combat and this would be good thing but the implementation was stupid. My favorite example from this is a silencer that can hear other shots when wireless is on? WTF?

Q1: WHY? IN JEFFS NAME! WHY?
Q2: Why would I want to hack a silencer? Does the silencer not work anymore when I hack it? Can I after hacking disable the padding in the silencer so it suddenly does not absorb sound?

And again the general question with the whole "everything needs wifi, even my gun" thing is: Why should anyone want this if it makes a already dangerous situation far more dangerous?

My tip is that this is something every writer for Shadowrun should ask himself for everything he or she writes!

And there was already a lot to for a hacker with a smart gm and some creativity. I like the Watch_Dogs approach (while the game was flawed some ideas are great), hacking the environment to give the team an edge.
A few years back I played a bit with hacker that made it a habit to look at everything in and around the target building, from waste disposal, sprinklers, lighting systems, sound systems, etc.
In one of our first runs against some gang, he first slowly raised the volume of their music to give our team an edge sneaking in. When our streetsam could not resist killing a guy for doing things to an unwilling woman and combat broke out he turned of all the lights in the building, locked doors for the gangers and used a trid and a fridge to distrect some gangers.
He also made some of the gangers comlinks that he could hack into call their moms.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 17 2017, 01:32 PM

See this what Catalyst SHOULD have been thinking about rather than "Let's make it so hackers can brick peoples very expensive cyberware and cripple them!!!"

Also I would like to know WHY skinlinks (greatest upgrade for guns in SR4) so suddenly decided to fail?

I know the Catalyst reason ("Herp Derp!!! Got to make hackers usable!!! Herp Derp!!!"), but in universe, why did skinlinks suddenly not work?

*EDIT* Sorry for the edit, but here is a link to a 2008 article about NTT using the skin for data transmission: https://www.cnet.com/news/using-skin-to-create-a-human-area-network/.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 17 2017, 04:13 PM

One could (but should not) say that matrix tech is optical based and that is why skinlink does not work.

But....

a. tech was already based on optical data transmission when skinlink was still working
b. just because most of the data is transmitted via light does not mean that other form of transmissions don't work anymore, otherwise wireless transmission would all be laser based and would suck!

As for rl implications:

our body transmits electric signals all the time. I am not very knowledgeable in that field but the biggest hurdle that comes to my mind for this would sending signals through the body that are ignored by the body.

Posted by: lokii Jun 17 2017, 07:18 PM

The point I wanted to make is you don't built a replacement for the matrix (all of it) and switch over. If the Triple-As had built a new matrix core and then forced the smaller corporations and all other stakeholders into the new infrastructure, a gradual expansion, that would be more plausible. I would still say sorry, you missed your chance to tell that story with the Crash 2.0 when it was really plausible. The corporations had the opportunity to built a tightly controlled matrix, they don't do it but a decade later it occurs to them that they really should have? Because Danielle de la Mar is a compelling public speaker??

Anyway, they didn't built a replacement matrix: There might be some new infrastructure but in the main the old matrix was converted to new protocols and for some reason the whole of the network surrendered.

Posted by: Savar Jun 17 2017, 08:55 PM

Heh, background in computers, now I do security systems. If I could not ignore inconsistencies in shadowrun the matrix would never had worked for me. As 1st ed violated to many real world rules to begin with. And the wireless stuff starting with 4th ed makes my skin crawl of i think about it. So i just go cool story, no reality.

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jun 18 2017, 03:59 AM

The thing is that the old Matrix technically never went away. Hell, technically the internet never went away.

Echo Mirage was using full VR direct neural interfaces pre-Crash 1.0. Theoretically, Matrix 3.0 or whatever it is, is probably backwards compatible all the way to ARPANET. The problem is that the old protocols are hideously insecure, so no one uses them, or if they do it's probably represented with a low firewall rating.

As for upgrading the entire Matrix, SR4 already established software patching rules and software degradation. So most people in the setting get free automatic updates without needing to do anything. Upgrading and patching are solved problems now, and by the 2070's it's going to be even easier. While its true that upgrading an Enterprise network is basically nightmarish in our modern times, people in the Sixth World have been forced at least twice to rebuild their entire networking infrastructure due to global crashes. What on earth makes you think that people haven't solved upgrading networks when it seems to happen every 30 years?

As for people using software they don't understand, you clearly are not programmers. I can assure you when you divide something by 0 and get 0, infinity, -infinity, null, 1, and sometimes just crash; depending on the language, you realize maybe computers are not all knowing and perfect. Where do you think bugs come from? In 60 years in the future our programming paradigms will be completely obsolete and the idea that people literally have no idea how anything works is actually a pretty realistic proposition.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 18 2017, 10:29 AM

I disagree on this one. Yes a programmer might not understand anymore how the matrix works in every details. That what programming languages are for, they are abstractions so that a programmer does not have to write code like this:



But show this to someone making a living designing new cpus and I am very sure they know exactly what this means.

As for the matrix, it is realistic that Pete Programmer sitting in his Evo office and designing new programs does not know every thing about how the matrix works. But it is absolutely unrealistic that there are no scientists or engineers anywhere who know exactly, to the smallest details how the matrix works (I am talking about combined knowledge).

That is especially true seeing your first argument:



We very clearly understand how the Internet works and not until the new matrix came along no iteration of the matrix was described as this "mystical" place (ok.. the Technomancer stuff but this also makes no real sense). But suddenly people forgot everything that computer scientists, engineers, system designers, etc. learned and created over more than 100 years?

Shadowrun is heading on a way where technology is more mysticism than science.

Edit:

I forgot this:



We are not talking about a software update. We are talking about a fundamental change in how the matrix is structured, this is a more massive change than the implementation of IPv6 and it happened more or less overnight.
Actually it is like saying:

"Here is IPv6 it's awesome! You have a week to switch the whole internet over to it by next month or nothing works anymore!"

To put that in perspective... IPv6 was first introduced in 1998 and it was suggested that all severs should be able to handle it by 2012. But IPv4 is still used today.

Posted by: lokii Jun 18 2017, 01:23 PM

Actually I had less of a problem with the original matrix. It was this quirky Cyberpunk idea (from the people who brought you "cyber") of a computer network built around brains. If you think about it even inter-machine communication without any involvement of people is rendered for an observing brain as streams of datapackets. What makes it even more strange, is that the all of this virtual architecture was initially built just for specialists. The idea being if you want to get real work done you had to manipulate the matrix directly with your brain. I think it's only in the course of the 2050s that the datajack starts to become ubiquitous.

So, it was always obvious to me that such a network was really different from our technology. It had very special requirements to securely interact with a brain and the interaction was not about, say, reading and changing code but a more intuitive manipulation of high level objects relying on awesome subconscious brain computing power that did the actual work. It was easy to accept because it was so different despite that it's probably nonsense.

On reflection I could accept a semi-mystical "Foundation" in the same way. Let's say we go back to the idea of an arcane, layered network. To manage this monstrosity the corporations have turned up automation and self-learning processes and sacrificed understanding and now you have this strange matrix undercurrent that somehow works though they have no idea why -- fingers crossed it doesn't blow up in their face. I could buy that. My problem is how we actually have arrived there.

Why did the Triple-As agree to revamping the matrix in the first place? They wanted stronger control but that seems to be built on sand. I almost want to say literally on sand because one metaphor for the Foundation is the ocean floor. A different way of asking the question is: Did the Triple-As know that the new technology was poorly understood? Also it seems that the new matrix levels the playing field between the corporations. Before Renraku had a lot of control over the Asian grid. Saeder-Krupp was dominant in Europe. (Of course it was never clear what controlling a grid actually means. Though there is the example of Lofwyr switching off the European grid on Crash 2.0 which largely spared it from destruction.)

Why is everybody on board with overwatch? A corporation has a highly secure host but as a base-level function of the new matrix protocols information about activities in their host, even if only those taken by an intruder, are communicated to an outside entity.

Why are there no underground networks running the old matrix protocols? It goes back to everybody has surrendered. I guess the Foundation is the new underground network, but even before there should have been small networks that resisted migration. Let's say a highly secured AA corporate research PLTG because the company doesn't trust all the promises of GOD and the Triple-As about how this new highly classified matrix tech will make them more secure.

But your latter argument is exactly the problem. First to the software updates: Unless the matrix is built to regularly roll out new protocols as Sturmlied says we are talking about a something quite different from a software vendor with a robust update mechanism. Where do migration problems come from? Design flaws, implementation flaws, missing standardisation or missing standard compliance. I think you argue that those still exist, well then it is unlikely that migration has become a smooth process. In fact when a global crash burnt down a huge chunk of your network that might be the only time to consider fundamental changes at every other point it should be too expensive and too difficult to coordinate. And I would add that's especially true because the most important matrix stakeholders of the Sixth World are highly competitive and hostile peers.

On the other hand even if we go with the idea of a flawless update scheme for the whole of the matrix I would start to wonder how hacking is possible at all. Beyond social engineering hacking is based on exploiting the kind of flaws that should make such an endeavour difficult to achieve.

And let's not kid ourselves if we wouldn't be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion very few providers would be interested in switching over.

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jun 18 2017, 04:17 PM

That's not true though, as processors are so complex now that people don't understand how they work. https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/.




The idea isn't that people forgot how the internet works. The idea is that the Matrix has become so complex that no one understands it. It's built on high level abstractions on top of higher level abstractions. Everything has already been solved, and computer programs are writing themselves where it's basically unintelligible madness to try and reason out how it's really working. The most efficient code is the least human readable code.

I think the problem is that you have faith that computers work because we understand them, and while you might be able to understand one small facet of how a computer works; to understand the whole is something very different. The idea is by the 2050's they were approaching the singularity. By the time we hit the super AIs SR became a post singularity society. Computer programming is evolving so quickly that it's impossible to figure out how the mesh network actually works. Literally technology got so advance that it's rewriting metahumanity to add to the Matrix.

Posted by: Medicineman Jun 20 2017, 06:08 AM

Maybe it's a ....Faith thing ?
Just like lots of People have Faith in a higher Being ( no matter what's the Name ) that helps and protects them
the People in SR have "Faith" in the Matrix.
And since You can't argue with Logic against Faith, those People in SR that know what a Risc the Matrix is can't get the Decision makers ( Corp Execs ,Presidents, etc)
to change their Mind .
(so they cross their Fingers, hoping that everything keeps working, knowing what a Danger lies ahead)

HokaHey
Medicineman

Posted by: Blade Jun 20 2017, 08:47 AM

There could be some Singularity effect here: an evolutive Matrix system that self-improves to resist hacking and evolved past metahuman comprehension.
Sure, that would be a strange move for corporations that have faced the Renraku Shutdown and the Deus threat, but it's not technically impossible.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 20 2017, 10:24 AM

Yes it is technically impossible but imho highly unlikely that this would happen by accident. Technology is to a very high degree predictable. Parts can fail but they don't suddenly start to do something completely different from what they where designed for unless it is designed to evolve.

But my argument that this would not happen because the Corporations are not idiots and we come to the point Medicineman made:



After two crashes, Deus and a host of other AIs, a onslaught of hackers and even though I don't like them Technomancers.... I think it is very unlikely that enough people will have faith in a system that is 100% unpredictable, can crash at any second or even worth with all the computing power can become a sentient being MUCH more powerful than Deus.
It goes against everything corporations stand for. They inherently love and NEED predictability and stability. Faith has little room on the board of directors who want to know how much richer they and the shareholders will be in 1 year, 2 years and 5 years and where "Trust me! This will work even though nobody knows why" is not an argument for them when most if not all of their money depends on it.

Greed > Faith was, is and might always be true.

Using evolving circuitry might a cool thing to help design stuff, like it is sometimes used today, but actually using it to run the world is like giving a 5 year old access to your credit card and dropping him off at the mall saying "You go boy! I trust you!"... just a gazillion times more stupid.



The researcher in the article did not understand how and why some parts of the chip was used but that does not mean that he did not understand the chip. Even the best processor might be complex because of the many parts but works on logic gates who are not that difficult by themselves.
And there is a difference between not understand how something works and not knowing how something is used.

And there are reasons why this tech is only used to create other stuff right now. Because people are not stupid enough to use unpredictable technology where it counts.

The assumption that a system can get so complex that nobody can understand is also imho false. Quantum Mechanics is not just complex as hell it is also confusing and very very very hard to research. Yet here we are learning and understanding more things about it.

There are tons of things we humans don't understand and much much much more we might never understand, half of what we know might be wrong but the thing is that we strive to understand, to learn. Humanity at a large is the universes toddler asking a gazillion stupid question all the time in order to learn!

Give it a few more years, a few more decades and maybe we will know how evolutionary computing works.

Posted by: Sengir Jun 25 2017, 08:35 PM

But would we know if one of the components understand was in fact replaced with something that works the same from a black box perspective (just looking at inputs and outputs), but whose internal workings are absolutely unfathomable? Let's say Google has some kind of magic box in their basement, which computes their Page Rank algorithm super effectively, but if you open up that box all you see is gray gel and a few cables going seemingly nowhere.


That is basically what I would imagine the foundation like: The interaction with the rest of the matrix is specified, but how it does its thing is not. Of course the story for the general public is not "we have no idea, something emergent" but something involving proprietary trade secrets, need to know, and security through obscurity.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 25 2017, 09:13 PM

That is not how technology works, unless we assume some alien intelligence build it according to some logic we are not capable of understanding. Even the brain is something we learn more about everyday, we know a lot about the fundamental principles of how it works.

If google had a device like this, someone at google build it and has some understanding of it. Even if we assume that it is based on self evolving circuitry it would still be based on technology we understand and we would only need time to understand how it does what it does.

Posted by: Jaid Jun 26 2017, 06:03 AM

also, before putting it in charge of all the things ever, we would make sure we understood it first. especially if just last year, technology that we didn't understand which was connected to everything just broke all the things. and even more so if that's the second time poorly understood technology broke all the things in the past few years. it doesn't take long for people to start recognizing that kind of pattern.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 26 2017, 07:30 AM

My thought on this is this: If the Corps allowed some "unknown factor" to control the Matrix, what's to stop that factor from deciding "Screw you guys! I'm going home!" and crashing the Matrix in such a way to make The Crash & Crash 2.0 look like an erotic massage from Playboy bunnies?

There is WAY too much money in the Matrix to allow ANY "x factors" to exist.

Posted by: lokii Jun 26 2017, 03:09 PM

Well, a self-modifying intelligent system that develops faster than its change can be tracked could be regarded an alien intelligence.

The way I understand it the Foundation developed without being monitored by the corporations. They discovered it and thought, hey why not built on that. I guess there is the alternative it is an emergent phenomenon of the new matrix coding/technology and was discovered afterwards. But since it seems you have to "grow" all hosts from the Foundation, they had to be aware of it from the beginning, after all that's a basic feature.

Posted by: Sengir Jun 26 2017, 03:43 PM

My point was that hypothetically assuming Google had such alien tech, nobody would notice as long as that alien tech works with the same inputs and outputs the regular tech which did the job before. A more mundane example: I currently do development in a project which works with a good dozen of backend services. We have extensive documentation on how to talk to those services and how they will talk to us, but we neither know how those services work internally nor do we need to know anything about it for our work.

The moral of the story: Building upon the Foundation would be a stupid decision, but one only a small cabal needs to be aware of, not something everybody working with the matrix needs to accept...until it leaks.

Posted by: Sturmlied Jun 26 2017, 06:28 PM

The matrix is still based on technology made by humans and as I mentioned a lot in this thread, therefore there is an understanding of the underlying principals of the system.
It needs to run on something and that something is build by humans. So there is some level of understanding

Here we also come back to the point that it is unimaginable stupid to build the system that basically runs the world and that has brought the world to is knees two times before on a construct that defies logic as we know it and nobody understands.





I am not saying that everyone working with the matrix needs to know how everything works. My point is that because "our" society build it on the basis of technology that someone understands that there are people who know exactly how it works. My use of "we" in this context is the (meta)human species not an individual.

In this regard you are correct it is not important for most people to know how "something" the work with functions to the smallest detail. Most people only need to know how to work with this "something".
This is ok as long as everything works as intended but if something goes wrong than there needs to be someone who knows how this "something" works in order to fix it.

As mentioned above I agree that building the matrix on the foundation is a very stupid idea and this cabal would be the corporations and they are not stupid.

Also it is clear that it is the worst hidden secret in the sixth world that nobody knows how that stuff really works.

Posted by: lokii Jun 26 2017, 08:20 PM

Well, the self-modification could extend to custom hardware. There is (quantum) logic gate production that's either fully automated or has a production chain that can be co-opted. The self-modifying system can come up with its own designs and use existing production capabilities, logistics and maintenance routines to spread them without people actually knowing how they work and what they do. This could go as far as a different technological base. It's what happened with Deus and nanotechnology.

So for obscure hardware: Digital intelligences of all kinds could have modified the matrix, as well as plain old people. Maybe someone cut corners and reconnected Jormungand modified system instead of replacing them. In addition there is the technobiome dimension, computing done on biological "hardware" wirelessly connected to the matrix, and thus potentially not even on the radar.

But even with unmodified and fully accounted for hardware, if you have a complex software with no interfaces for monitoring, that uses strong encryption and runs highly distributed, the only way for you to understand it, might be to shut the system down and dissect it. And I think the implication is in the case of the Foundation that would mean shutting down the whole matrix.

Of course none of this means, that the underlying technology or code can in principle not be understood by metahumanity, but it's certainly conceivable that self-modifying systems hidden away in a layered and often deliberately obfuscated network infrastructure could produce something hard to fathom.

Posted by: binarywraith Jun 27 2017, 07:34 AM

At the end of the day, some poor asshole in a work shirt still has to replace failed HDDs, even if they're on optical chip instead of spinning platters. No matter what magical bullshit they want to write in, the Matrix is still grounded in the hardware layer, and figuring out what causes the Foundation to exist is as simple as cutting network connections until you break the mesh.

Frankly, I find it doesn't pass the plausibility sniff test, because something that requires that much system resources to exist should be making any number of sysadmins bitch to each other about systems not performing to spec. No matter how big the corp is, the hardware budget isn't infinite, so all that 'missing' power is going to get tracked down.

Remember, no matter how enamored you are of The Cloud, it's just someone else's computer.

Posted by: Mantis Jun 27 2017, 04:51 PM

This right here is something I think whoever wrote up the new Matrix fluff forgot. Cloud = someone else's computer. I guess maybe they just hoped the rest of didn't know that either.

Posted by: JanessaVR Jun 27 2017, 05:10 PM

Maybe they should just come out and admit "Ok, ok, the Matrix is just a big magical construct. When we said magic and technology don't mix...well, we lied. See ya!"

Perhaps all the deaths in the previous two Crashes were a massive blood sacrifice to create the Foundation.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 28 2017, 05:31 AM

Yep... hence the reason I have my own NAS (with 8 TB of storage) at home, and a 200 GB microSD chip in my phone and take-to-work laptop. I don't trust other people with MY data.


OK, quick question for everyone... how much storage space does a commlink/cyberdeck have? Was that ever defined? Also how much space does a datachip have?

Posted by: SpellBinder Jun 28 2017, 06:24 AM

Years ago, when I used to do outsourced tech support over the phone, I had a manager try explaining to me how the new call queue was going to work (for handling two or more different contracts at once) by starting off with, "The call comes from this magic cloud..." She even had a grease board and was drawing a diagram for a visual aid, and started off by drawing a cloud with magic lighting and such. Right off I knew she was full of it in the technical area.

Even now, when I hear about "the cloud" I'm imagining a server room filled with banks of storage drives and air conditioners, as opposed to the data floating up in the stratosphere somewhere.

And in answer to the storage question, IIRC the old "megapulse" data unit was roughly 350MB of current volume (one CD = 2MP). Now, there's no real defined limit as it's all a plot device (like carrying weight).

Posted by: binarywraith Jun 28 2017, 07:36 AM

A number of megapulses, with the actual data content of a megapulse in bits best defined as 'whatever seems plot relevant'.



At one point in my career I worked for pre-Google-buyout Youtube's hosting company. Let me tell you, the internet loses a lot of its glamour when you spend 10 hours a day swapping faulty hardware that's hosting someone's cat videos.

Honestly, I saw a Reddit quote the other day that pretty well covers it :

"The Matrix of Shadowrun is effectively designed by someone who is confused about how computers work and assumes that everyone else must be as well. As a result, networks, databases, and wireless communication are mysterious and poorly understood. In the real world monitoring the local network for traffic that looks like smartgun calculations is trivial. In the world of Shadowrun you need a decker explicitly watching for devices sending that data. Where the data comes from, what processes it, and how it's transmitted is all a bit nebulous and confusing... TL;DR. The Shadowrun Matrix is a magical construct created by the collective unconscious of everyone who "is computer illiterate.""

Posted by: Mantis Jun 28 2017, 01:39 PM

Perfect.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 28 2017, 03:26 PM

Yeah, I remember that. I was hoping someone knew something a little more concrete.


I never understood why you needed specialized gear to run a smartgun. I mean you can fit the HW/SW in your damn EYES... and a some of that is just the ability to display the data and to communicate with the gun. If you've got a cyber commlink/deck, you should be able to run it just like another app. Hell, with the amount of computing power in a commlink (even the SR5 version), I can see that as just another app that you run. The interface would be projected into your field of view via DNI.

*************************************

Off Topic: If you have the cybernetic commlink/cyberdeck and you want to upgrade, is it just pulling the old 'link/deck "chip" and inserting a new one, or is it a lot more involved?

Posted by: SpellBinder Jun 28 2017, 04:29 PM

Tried bopping around in the old SR3 core rule book, and found pocket sectaries (SR5's commlinks without a cold SIM) had a storage capacity of 100MP. Optical chips (described as being "thin memory storage devices, about 2 x 3 x 1 cm.") apparently had no limit beyond cost, at a rate of 2MP per 1¥. The old cyberdecks had a range based on the quality of the deck. A Fairlight Excalibur (top end in the SR3 book) had 3000MP of "RAM" and 5000MP of storage. Custom cyberdecks could exceed this, from what I found in the Matrix book.

Considering how computers actually evolved over the last thirty years, I can kinda understand why SR4 and SR5 effectively threw all this out the window.

Posted by: lokii Jun 28 2017, 08:44 PM

Again I liked the matrix mystery when it was confined to hidden corners, recesses of the network, or even -- in the case of the arcology -- a dark tower overtaken by an evil force. I also think its existence was justified by the same conditions that allow shadowrunners to exist. Competing extraterritorial jurisdictions balkanised the network leading to weak oversight. The cold war between the corporations meant a lot of secrecy: shell companies, hidden specifications and tech implementations, black budget accounts, forgotten or scrapped systems. UV pockets for strange beings to develop in the matrix.

Cloud: Though maintenance of the matrix infrastructure is probably much more automated. Less wage slaves switching hard drives, more maintenance rigger directing drones.

Posted by: Sengir Jun 28 2017, 09:02 PM

Of course, our stuff was built by someone on purpose, and there is no other sapient species around which could build something we don't understand. SR is a bit different, and that's assuming the Foundation was built at all and isn't an emergent phenomenon (which would also ruin binarywraith's plan of "dissecting" it)


Corporations can be extremely stupid, and even more greedy. So the question would be what the corps were promised in return for agreeing to that plan, "catching hackers" obviously does not suffice...




Slight correction: Somebody else's data center, running virtual machines which float freely around the actual hardware to maximize resource utilization or seamlessly bridge hardware defects. The cloud metaphor is not bad, even on the infrastructure level, as long as you keep in mind that it's a metaphor...

Posted by: binarywraith Jun 29 2017, 12:44 AM

It's terrible as a metaphor. An administrator of a cloud infrastructure cluster can tell you down to the machine and drive within a cluster where a particular program is running from, because hardware addressing is still required to manipulate data. All the cloud services do is use virtualization to make that addressing transparent for the end user, and treat multiple machines in the cluster (or multiple clusters scattered around datacenters, although that's woefully inefficient for most applications due to capping at the speed of the network) as a single logical machine.

The only 'gaps' for some emergent phenomenon to run on are those invented by a writer who does not know enough about computer systems to understand what he's writing, and thus considers them black boxes that could be doing anything without anyone the wiser.

Posted by: lokii Jun 29 2017, 07:20 PM

I think you take too little account of automation of matrix maintenance in combination with the obscurity of the network resulting from corporate secrecy. I mean shadowrunning shouldn't be possible with the kind of mass surveillance systems we are building up today and that the Sixth World supposedly also has. Apart from just ignoring the real effects of such an environment, the solution seems to be bad computer security, so that deckers can constantly sabotage the surveillance systems and thus data retention on their team. System administrators hardly seem to take note of this. So why shouldn't some entity commandeer network infrastructure or steal cycles all over the matrix.

What I would concede though with building up GOD as a central authority which controls the whole matrix (rather than squabbling with individual corporations over jurisdiction) the whole setup that eases suspension of disbelief--at least for me--has been weakened considerably.

Posted by: binarywraith Jun 30 2017, 09:53 AM

If anything, the automation should make it easier for something like the Foundation to be noticed. A single jacked in maintenance rigger can literally experience the state of the hardware as physical sensations, so massive load on systems that aren't being used by anything would be even more obvious.

Not to mention the simple accounting questions. "Ichinase-san, why is your datacenter drawing six megawatts and running a cooling bill of two hundred thousand nuyen? We do not have any projects assigned to it."

Posted by: sk8bcn Jun 30 2017, 11:55 AM

Sometimes, I Wonder CGL have a testing group and if they ask precise questions about the game-logic.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 30 2017, 05:17 PM

Is this a trick question?

/sarc

Posted by: Sengir Jul 5 2017, 09:31 PM

Sure the admin can go down to the nitty-gritty, but (usually) there is no need for it...which is basically "the cloud" in one sentence: It provides stuff as a service if your use case does not care about the underlying details.


GOD wouldn't say "nothing to be seen here, citizen", because there obviously has to be something hosts are running on. All the stuff the Foundation is running on could simply be explained as the metal the hosts are running on, or the matrix equivalent of root servers.

Posted by: Trillinon Jul 5 2017, 10:54 PM

The SR5 Matrix, at the level presented in the core rulebook, makes a fair amount of sense. It's abstract, but contains personas, devices, and hosts, the latter of which are a form of distributed network. Authentication through marks is a fun idea, but needs a little more depth to explain how the system would work at scale.

But Data Trails goes off the rails. I enjoy a little mytical matrix stuff. Being a magical world, I can accept a global mesh network developing some mystical elements. But I can't for a moment accept the idea that Hosts are grown from the Foundation in a process that nobody understands. Or that Hosts keep an archive in this Foundation.

What I could accept is that Resonance and Dissonance each have their own meta-plane-like existence alongside the matrix. In the Resonance Realms, everything connected to the matrix has an expression, and where everything that once was on the matrix has an echo, thus letting you get at archived or deleted data. But these realms aren't the Matrix. Their some other kind of manifestation born of and drawing from the Matrix.

Posted by: JanessaVR Jul 5 2017, 11:16 PM

This is essentially what we've done, and explicitly defined technomancers as a type of mage as well.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 6 2017, 08:28 AM

Yeah, I just excise all that shit and treat Data Trails as written by a hippie neo-pagan trying to assign mysticism to a technology they understand so little that it might as well be magic.

Part of what I -like- about Shadowrun is the hard contrast between magic and science, so blurring that because the writers don't understand how computer networking works isn't my jam.

Posted by: Jaid Jul 6 2017, 08:29 PM

have testing group: yes. they have playtesters and proofreaders, in addition to a number of freelancers who freely volunteer their time to provide feedback, last i heard.

actually listen to those people and act on their feedback? they're not so good about that. which makes you wonder why they have them in the first place. it's like they heard that you need those people if you want to produce a good quality RPG, but have no idea *why* you're supposed to need them.

Posted by: Mantis Jul 8 2017, 01:38 AM

See, this sort of thing makes me really frustrated. On the one hand, it's nice to know that these steps are taken. The rules are play tested. Feed back is gathered. This should all lead to a better product. But on the other hand, it seems all that effort is just tossed out the window.

I mean if the published product is the result of proofing and play testing and still so awful in so many places then it looks like the play testers and proofers are incompetent. But you're saying you do the job and it just gets ignored. Is the SR line at Catalyst really such a petty dictatorship that feedback that doesn't toe the party line gets turfed? What's more important here, a good product or someone's ego? It really just boggles the mind.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 8 2017, 04:03 AM

Actually I have a much more benign reason why play testers don't seem to work. It's the same thing with Games Workshop and 40K. They play testers that play the way the designers imagine it would be played. They don't send it out to groups who will look for ways to break the game. Games Workshop just put out their 8th Edition of WH40K... and guess what it's already breaking!

You don't play test by sending it to your buds. No. You send it to the assholes who will find EVERY way of breaking the game and then closing those loop holes.

Posted by: JanessaVR Jul 8 2017, 04:14 AM

This is the same principle behind programmers not being allowed to test their own code. They'll unconsciously shy away from anything that might cause an error, because they know how it's "supposed" to work. Real stress-testing is giving it to a group of people who have no idea what it's all about but will happily bang away at the keyboards and cause lots of errors. I had to learn this the hard way early in my programming career about two decades ago.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 8 2017, 07:19 AM

Yeah, except even the storied ivory tower at GW is breaking down because they actually got tourney players to playtest 8th edition, and are publishing it in a way to allow hotfixes faster than 'new codex in a couple years'.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 8 2017, 08:57 AM

You and I must play very different games of 40K. There is one guy who's favorite list is 3 Baneblades and just enough IG for a battalion. To put it bluntly... he ALWAYS goes first because of the rule that the first person who finishes deploying unit goes first. 3 Baneblades put a LOT of hurt on a camper.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 8 2017, 09:40 AM

Known defect. Baneblade rules were done by Forgeworld, and like CGL they do all their rules writing in a vacuum, and outside of entirely self-contained stuff like HH, are incredibly hit or miss.

The 8th ed Forgeworld stuff so far has been a big miss. Probably going to get re-statted when the actual IG codex comes out later this year, because it's bad and the publishers should feel bad for letting it into the wild.

Besides, how big of a game are you running that he can rock 3 x ~700 point tanks that qualify as Lords of War plus infantry? Better question, why are you bothering to play the game with someone who would run a list like that as opposed to doing literally anything else with your time?

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 8 2017, 11:34 AM

BaneBlade is no longer Forgeworld. It was in the Imperium 2 Index. And also the way he had it set up, it only cost 577. So in a 2000 pt game he could have three of them without any problem. As for playing him... I usually don't, but come tourney time...

Anyways, back to Shadowrun and play testers... like I said, I think that Catalyst had play testers, but they were friends with the Devs and they didn't break the game the way assholes out in the wild will.

Second, the play testers didn't take one look at the wireless rules and went... "NOPE! Stupid as drek! Rewrite them!"

Finally, Catalyst Studios and Games Workshop both suffer from the same mental disorder. That disorder is "My drek don't stink." So if some thing is not working right. It's OUR fault! Not their's!

Posted by: Mantis Jul 8 2017, 06:24 PM

They should learn to kill their babies. This was advice given to me in art school. Your first idea is never your best and you need to be ready to kill it and look at alternatives, no matter how much you may like it or think its the best thing ever. If everyone is saying it's shit don't ignore them, look at it critically and then if needed, into the dumpster and back to the drawing board. Learn to kill your babies.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 9 2017, 06:02 AM

I'm glad I'm a Med Lab tech... so much easier than to having to destroy something you love. I get specimens, run them, report the results, and then forget about them. SOOOOO much easier!

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jul 9 2017, 06:33 AM

You all realize that the Matrix has never been a realistic simulation of computer networking, right?

The core fundamental concepts for the Matrix came from William Gipson's Neuromancer.

Why on earth would you want it to be realistic anyway? It's not fun or very playable to read through lines of code looking for a place where you can cause a stackover flow so you can start reallocating bytes of data to access the data you actually want. Likewise with real network security it doesn't take minutes or hours to do a hack, but months or years to find vulnerabilities in a system, which is unplayable in the scales that Shadowruns happen.

It's easy to criticize CGL, but the real difference between a hyper abstracted game system that represents hacking, and that of a realistic simulation of hacking; is basically playability.

You guys will either create a system that betrays the core concepts of the Matrix, or you'll just make something insanely unfun. A mystical magical Matrix is the right move, because there is no reason that a fantasy computer network in 60-ish years from now should be anything like what we currently have.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 9 2017, 05:50 PM

There's a line between 'this should be perfectly realistic' and 'well, I know one of our basic setting conceits is that magic and tech don't mix, but the Matrix is magic'.

Posted by: JanessaVR Jul 9 2017, 07:04 PM

Like I said, if the Matrix is magical, they need to finally come clean and admit it. And really, it is functionally magical now, but they keep up the blatant lie that magic and technology don't mix - clearly they do, or the Matrix wouldn't function.

This is the reason we've been retconning some Matrix functionality in our house rules, to try to bring this under control (or at least dial down the more ridiculous bits). That one of our players is actually a high-level engineer for a major telecommunications provider is helping me considerably.

Posted by: Jaid Jul 9 2017, 09:49 PM

to be clear, i am neither a playtester nor a proofreader for catalyst. i have been credited for proofreading one product (after it had been released in PDF) iinm, but that was a voluntary thing where i posted such a long list of errors on the dumpshock forums that i think Adam would've felt bad for not crediting me. also, that was 4th edition, not 5th.

i just know what we've heard on these forums from people who *are* proofreaders and freelancers. and what we've heard is that there are people doing those jobs, and that the corrections they make are not incorporated into the final version.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 10 2017, 03:33 AM

Even if that is true Stobe, it would violate one of the laws of magic in Shadowrun... you need a mana sphere for magic to work. Last time I checked, the Matrix was quite alive and well in space.

Now they could have explained it that with quantum computing (or other appropriate sounding technobabble) that the ability to find a security hole in an OS is something that can be done in minutes, but that the computing technology needed to do this can't be fit into anything smaller than a Deck.

If the Devs went with something like this the I can see the return of the SR2 Essence cost for a Cranial Cyberdeck. It was not small... If I were to GM a Shadowrun game, then I would have it that a cybernetic cyberdeck would cost 2 Essence and NO CAPACITY! None of this "well it only takes 4 capacity to put it in a limb, so I'll get my hand chopped off and install it there." garbage.

Part of the reason I would have it that you HAVE to install it in your skull (if you go that route) is that a cyberdeck has to have DNI in order to function AT ALL, as it uses the human brain's ability in pattern recognition to assist it, and it has DIRECTLY wired in as even the few milliseconds it takes the signal to travel down the nerves, get processed by the deck, and transmitted back would be too much of a roadblock to on the fly hacking.




So, just to make sure we're on the same page, James Hardy is paying people to proofread other people's work and deciding that it doesn't matter he'll publish what HE wants?

If that is the case, then I fear for the future of Shadowrun.

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jul 10 2017, 05:10 AM

The Matrix being mystical doesn't mean magical. It means that its so complex that it's incomprehensible. Once again, this is a post singularity world. People don't need to understand how the under lying system works, but how to use the 3D abstractions to make it do what they want.

I pull a level and a secret door opens works both in a mansion in meat world and a host system in the Matrix.

This is a world where a computer virus destroyed the internet in 2029, and cyber commandos fought it in virtual reality across the entire internet. This is a world where the Matrix somehow became self aware and started to rewire children's brains to interface with the Matrix. This is a world where an elf decker fell in love with an advance computer program and gave it sentience. None of that can be done realistically.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 10 2017, 05:55 AM

The Matrix was just rebuilt from the ground up not five years ago in-game, for the second time in the last few years.

This isn't some lost, forgotten mystic knowledge. The new 'wireless' Matrix was designed, by metahuman experts who are still around.

You are conflating the writers being bad at explaining (and keeping in mind) how their setting works with in-world physics.

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jul 10 2017, 07:35 AM

It'd actually be almost 15 years as SR is now in 2078 or 2079.

This is also a world where all encryption became breakable in 2065, and all devices are also routers and work perfectly to create a mesh network with no lag.

This is a world where an elf was able to copy people into the Matrix, and a dragon gave a known criminal a computer program that also copied people into the Matrix.

Do you expect that someone knows how Project Imago or JackBNimble works too? Or maybe they're just emergent Matrix phenomena because the code can't be understood. Once again, after 2029, no one understands how technology works anymore. The sixth world is a post singularity society. You can literally connect to an off the Matrix device from the Great Connection in Resonance Realms. And all this weird mystical shit that I've been talking about was before CGL, back with Wizkids and FASA. The Matrix having mystical elements has been core to the setting since at least second ed.

Posted by: ThreeGee Jul 10 2017, 09:09 AM

Except the mixing of magic and technology has always been one of the features of Shadowrun and does exist, even if it's so rare people think it doesn't.

In the first few pages of the 1st Ed core rulebook it talked about the 'Double-domed techs at MIT&T', academics who had advanced degrees in both Physics and Magic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Thaumaturgy.

2nd Ed introduced Cybermancy, 3rd Ed FAB and other Manatech. It's always been there.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 11 2017, 01:44 PM

Cybermancy is specifically using blood magic, with all that entails, to get around the magic/tech limitation by essentially binding a metahuman spirit into it's own corpse.

FAB is just a novel use of a dual-natured organism.

Neither of these is remotely relevant to the entirely artificially constructed reality of the Matrix.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 11 2017, 01:44 PM

Except there is no example of technomagic in the game. There is no magic commlinks. Yes the commlink can be made into a focus, but being magic does NOT enhance the commlink at all. It doesn't make it faster, better at ANY function, or even tougher. It's just a focus in the form of a commlink... no different than a focus in the form of a ring.

The cybermancy thing was just tricking the spirit to stay in the body. There is nothing truly special about the cyberware other than being delta grade. In fact considering delta grade cyber/bioware and, in SR5, gamma grade ware, why is being a cyberzombie even matter anymore? I mean give me 10 million nuyen and I can a pretty sick street sam with ALL the augmentation you would ever need. Granted a lot of that would be bioware, but the character I would be able to build would be able to do pretty much anything a cyberzombie would be able to do, but would not have a big flashing neon sign saying "HEY GUYS! LOOK AT ME, I'M A WALING ABOMINATION!!!" Which is why a Cyberzombie fails miserably. He is as subtle as a tac nuke. And yes, while his Essence would be below 1, it is still not in the category of a Cyberzombie.

Yes, my Gamma Sam would not have built in weapons other than cyberspurs, but lets be honest a cyber gun is a cute trick, but it's NOT a game changer. It's hard to change the ammo, and it takes up too much Essence/Capacity. An external gun is much easier to use, reload, and cheaper. Yes I know a Gamma Sam is not cheap, but compared to a cyberzombie, he's positively a bargain basement steal.

Posted by: lokii Jul 11 2017, 10:05 PM

The Blood Mage Gestalt is an another example.

And of course there is The Lucifer Deck:

Usually mana-technology combinations are rather low tech or function largely separate and interact just on a mechanical or similar level. Don't remember whether Lucifer was a true counter example to that.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 12 2017, 01:23 AM

The whole.mana sink abomination part.of making a cyberzombe is, for some of those doing it, a feature rather than a bug. :/

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 12 2017, 02:45 AM

Considering it DOES make the Cyberzombie harder to nail with magic, it's not that great of a feature.

Posted by: Jaid Jul 12 2017, 05:24 AM

well, probably a number of them volunteer their own time, and "payment" for many is probably in the form of "here's a coupon for X dollars worth of stuff at the catalyst shop", where it happens at all (as an example of where compensation isn't given, i understand that the freelancers have a forum provided by CGL where they can talk to each other, bounce ideas off each other while not violating NDAs, fact check each other's work, etc, and one of the things that happens there is many of them are willing to help in proofreading stuff before it is submitted, for which to my knowledge they receive no payment).

but yes... they do actually have a track record of being told when a bunch of stuff needs to be changed (for whatever reasons) and then doing absolutely nothing with that knowledge. it's a big part of why many of us have been surprised to see that actual errata is coming out for anything, because that's not something CGL has been good at, typically (though quite frankly, that errata is more the result of a freelancer (Patrick Goodman, i think) going the extra mile than anyone permanently employed by CGL... not sure if Patrick is being paid or if so, what form the payment takes, it's probably "unprofessional" and possibly a violation of contract for Patrick to share that information in any event).

but yeah, you know it's not a sign of confidence when the fans are surprised to see errata even when someone else is doing all the work to compile it.

(oh, and the missions team is usually a decent place to look for stuff that isn't errata, but *is* a change that needs to be made for something to be playable, because while the regular CGL employees can stick their fingers in their ears and pretend there are no problems, the missions team actually has to deal with the results of the poor editing and make rulings on how it works for official missions games, so they're often a pretty good place to look).

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 12 2017, 06:25 AM

Did they fix the wireless nonsense? I mean honestly that is the one thing that bugs the crap out of me.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 12 2017, 12:17 PM

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the tabletop world, GW's already got a https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/07/09/forge-world-faq-july9gw-homepage-post-4/, two weeks after release of the Forgeworld book and comments from players as to issues with it.

Catalyst is relying on a freelancer to do this how many years after release?

Posted by: Jaid Jul 12 2017, 05:34 PM

no. that doesn't make the game unplayable, just dumb, so i presume they're not allowed to fix it.

they're also allowed to make changes that come up as a result of missions often being played with different groups every work, so for example a whole bunch of qualities (positive and negative) are not allowed in missions play.

but just as an example... in missions play you cannot spend edge on a quickened spell (which would allow you to spend 1 karma for a force 1 spell but get the benefit of the quickened spell at several hits because spending karma allows you to exceed the limit of the force rating). that isn't an official errata, but it's probably something you'd want to consider for your own games

Posted by: JanessaVR Jul 12 2017, 06:04 PM

Of course they didn't - this is why you stick with 4e and cherry-pick a few things here and there from 5e. Magical wireless bonuses are the stupidest thing in all 5e, I swear.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2017, 01:49 PM

Force 1 Quickened spells are way too easy to dispell... and are stupid susceptible to wards...
Force 8 Quickened Spells on the other hand...

Posted by: Jaid Jul 14 2017, 06:29 PM

*shrug* it's still prone to a lot of abuse. if you don't like the risk of force 1 (though dispelling attempts shouldn't be all that common, and there are ways to get a spell through a ward), try casting a spell until you get 10 hits on a slightly higher force spell, and then quicken.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 17 2017, 05:24 PM

Quickening is prone to a LOT of potential abuse, yes... But Having seen high leve/prolific Quickening going on in our campaign, it also has plenty of drawbacks...

Posted by: Sturmlied Jul 18 2017, 11:53 AM

I am aware of that and this is not the issue I have... there are "sacrifices" to realism that have to be made for play ability and that is ok. But throwing logic and realism out of the window and drowning it afterwards is my issue and I think that is what the 5e Matrix is.

There is in my opinion no problem with abstract representations of hacking and computers.

The Matrix in Neuromancer is still based on technological constructs and had in the confines of his fictional universe an inherent logic.
The Matrix in Shadowun 5e is a construct based on unicorn farts, fairy dust and the dreams and wishes of little children as far as we know and it sprang up basically over night with not one person understand why and how and everyone went "*shrug*That will work!"



I have to disagree on your statement that people don't need to understand how the underlying systems work. Like I mentioned a few times before... most people don't need to know how that stuff works yes... that is even true today.
But the Matrix was build by human hands, engineers and scientists created it... and yes even these people don't need to know every detail individually. BUT! Their combined knowledge amounts to knowing to the smallest detail on how the matrix works... at least it should... because this is how technology works.

Now in a true post Singularity world technology would not be build by humans and things are different and you could argue that Deus was the Singularity moment. But then my other argument from above comes into play... why would the corporations so easily put the fate of the world into the hands of super intelligence after the experiences with Deus, two devastating crashes and at the same time another technology doing the body snatcher thing?

Corporate greed and stupidity have their limits when it comes to maintaining their wealth and power... and the matrix is the key to this and even to a point human existence itself with everything from food production, power, transportation, financial system, military weapons and almost everything else depending on it.

If we accept that the 5e Matrix is the direct product of the technological singularity than it is potentially the biggest thread to human existence that ever existed.

Edit:

I want to add something about abstraction and computers...

Even today in our world we work with huge level of abstraction when it comes to computers. Any code programmers write is a simplified representation of how the processor works. Even the processor is an abstraction because it is (oversimplified) just a collection of logic gates.
The graphical interface we use is another level of abstraction.

The more complex computer systems will get the more we will need to reinvent the way to use them. In this regard Gipson's Matrix makes sense.

Edit 2:

We like to think we made such great strides in computer technology in the last 60-70 years... but if you really look at it the big stride was miniaturization, allowing us to pack more logic gates, more memory into smaller spaces.
Since the invention of the first integrated circuit in 1958 that is all we basically did. The technology did not change, it just got smaller.

And here I lost my train of thought... pls forgive me as I am on some pretty heavy pain meds right now... or simplified... I am high as a kite! I was planning on making a point with these two edits I swear!

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jul 19 2017, 01:51 AM

Literally, the Crash of 2029 is the Singularity moment. And you know what the corps did? They modeled Black IC after it. A virus so powerful it broke the entire Internet, and they then start using it to secure their black sites.

Corporations have insane levels of hubris. It's a tried and true cliché in the cyberpunk setting. An example in other media, in the Alien franchise, Weyland-Yutani Corporation constantly thinks they can control the Xenomorphs. It always turns out bad. Why would they invest untold amounts of wealth and constantly sacrifice colony after colony on trying to control Aliens? It's the same reason Ares plays with bugs. It's the same reason MCT plays with Dissonance TMs. Everyone thinks they're different and thinks they'll do it better and have all the problems figured out and it always bites them in the ass because when mega corp play with fire, it means it'll make a damn interesting run.

Posted by: JanessaVR Jul 19 2017, 02:19 AM

With Weyland-Yutani, I chalk a lot of that up to bad writing, and writers who have a Let's Stick It to The Man! ™ agenda.

After all, why send a dedicated team of xenologists to pick up your fancy new alien specimen when you can co-opt a small ship of space truckers, who have absolutely no experience or training with what you want them to do (and no xenobiology specimen facilities), and trick them into doing it instead? It has a way smaller chance of success, but hey, it's way more evil, so let's do that! Damn the cost, I say! And who cares if the whole affair is a colossal failure?

And who cares if you lose an entire colony of your personnel, and a highly-expensive atmosphere processor, and an entire squad of Marines (which absolutely will trigger an official military inquiry into the situation), when you can once again send in completely unqualified people to clumsily attempt to grab the same alien specimen you tried to obtain before (that hasn't gone anywhere but that you've conveniently forgotten about for last 50 years)? Again, way more evil, and no opportunity to engage in evil, no matter how much it costs the corporation, must ever be passed up.

Weyland-Yutani's behavior can only be adequately explained if every single person in the corporation with decision-making authority is continually smoking huge amounts of crack and cares absolutely nothing about making a profit or avoiding costly losses of money, facilities, equipment, and personnel. I've worked with far too many people in the corporate sector who have a balance sheet in place of a soul, and none of them behave like that. Ever.

And some Shadowrun corporations aren't far behind that, in the hands of some writers.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 19 2017, 12:32 PM

Part of that is needed to give the characters a reason to go shoot of the other company's people in the face.

With that said, companies are almost ALWAYS portrayed negatively in Hollyweird. If they're mentioned they're always the bad guy, and their only reason for existing is to show that Capitalism is bad, horrible, and icky. Besides, it's SOOOOO much easier to make the company the bad guy because they have all the money and jealously is easy to invoke.

Posted by: lokii Jul 19 2017, 09:52 PM

I wouldn't consider the 2029 crash a singularity, not even an aborted one. I don't think there is any actual claim that the crash entity was a superintelligence experiencing exponential growth of its faculties. It was mainly good at destroying things. And while I feel there is a rumour that the entity could be lurking out there in the matrix, a connection to, for example, the Deep Resonance was never made. So maybe the virus was a form of early artificial intelligence, but as the emergence of AI in the early 2050s shows even that doesn't trigger a direct pathway to a singularity moment: Morgan was fooling around with Dodger rather than reaching to unknown horizons. And metahumanity was always chasing AI rather than productively using it to trigger rapid technological development (there is kinda the exception of nanotechnology, though that proved to be another research field rather than a stepping stone to greater things). The crash of 2064 was an aborted singularity moment. But after the singularity didn't happen, history repeats itself: A few years later the matrix is swarming with AIs (digital intelligence) and there is still no indication for a true acceleration of technological growth, instead nanotechnology now had to even be abandoned because of a type of intelligent agent.

To the Black ICE comparison: I think there is a big difference between reusing a mechanism like lethal neural feedback induction learned from an emergent intelligence and using an emergent intelligence as a black box to run your whole network.

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jul 20 2017, 02:50 AM

Did you forget about Psychotrope? Mirage is an AI. Mirage can rewire metahumans to become Otaku. Mirage was active in 2029.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 20 2017, 03:47 AM

I didn't forget. The writers, on the other hand...

Posted by: lokii Jul 20 2017, 12:32 PM

Whew! For a second there, I thought I had.

Mirage was "born" at the end of the Fuchi Civil War, so the late 2050s. The dissolution of Fuchi triggered the events described in the novel Psychotrope or rather the retconned version of these events. This process created Mirage. Its core software, a highly sophisticated anti-virus program used against the crash entity, was indeed active since the first crash, but all these years the x-factor was missing.

The distinction of being the first AI goes to either Morgan or the Deep Resonance, if it is one. Un-retconned Psychotrope actually explained the Deep Resonance, but if I'm not mistaken it didn't achieve awareness in 2029 but later. I would have to read up on it. Anyway as I said that whole portion of the novel was retconned.


Update: Had a look into the book. Psychotrope p. 186:
So even without the retcon version the first crash shouldn't be considered a point of singularity at least not because AI first emerged there. Though if you ask me evidently, since after 2029 for years "nothing" happened. A technological singularity means that you don't have to go further in time to go up on the scale of technological development. "Everything" happens at this point.


By the way to add to the overall discussion, on the same page is this:

Posted by: Sengir Jul 20 2017, 10:18 PM

The role of carbon in steel was only discovered by Reaumur in the 18th century, and a detailed analysis of the various phase states and their transitions came even later. But the fact that blades can be hardened and by heating and quenching was already discovered in the iron age, or course burdened with various anecdotal and mythical procedures. Firearms were developed and improved for centuries by people who explained oxidation by some combination of the four elements or phlogiston. And wireless communications were in use when the idea of luminous aether was still given serious consideration.

Posted by: DeathStrobe Jul 21 2017, 02:09 AM

While Mirage didn't achieve self-awareness until...later. I'd say code that can self-regulate and self-code itself is what I'm talking about. Anyway, the point is that code has been writing itself and rewriting itself since 2029 at the least, if not earlier. So the modern Matrix being so complex that no one understands how it works is extremely probable. Is the Crash of 2029 THE Singularity moment...I'd argue yes, but even if it's not; code complexity is exponential once code is self-optimizing.

Posted by: lokii Jul 21 2017, 09:29 AM

In the retconned version Mirage was more of a proto-SK. Less emphasis on the self-coding, so they downgraded that too.

Just to note, we're not argueing over a solid theory of technological development. But if anything the singularity is a point in time when the curve charting this development approaches infinity. Self-modifying code (which exists) is not enough, self-modifying intelligence is posited as the key innovation.

But a lot of hidden things happened in the Shadowrun matrix, so I go with another counter argument: From the perspective of metahumanity 2029 marks a loss of knowledge rather than a rapid increase. I think you have to at least feel the singularity for it to actually be one. A superintelligence dominating the matrix in secret without really doing anything with it, is fine I guess. It's one of the options to explain the Deep Resonance, but I would argue that's just not a singularity.

The problem is we are not talking about a fifty year development. The revelation not even GOD knows how the new matrix works, implies that while the matrix was of course complex as a system the underlying technological basis and the implementation was well-understood. I certainly never got the impression that wasn't the case. Metahumanity is flying blind for four years now, not fifty.


Also a description of "pocket universes" from Virtual Realities 2.0 p. 141:
Sounds like the Foundation actually.

Posted by: Jack_Spade Jul 21 2017, 09:44 AM

The greatest problem of the new matrix concept is that it relies basically on faster than light information propagation. There is no other explanation why you can talk in real time, without delay to someone you are sharing a host with even if he is inside Zurich Orbital at the other side of the world. Not to mention the fact that you are in essence routing all this across millions of devices.

You basically need something either a magic component to break the laws of physics or there are some new as of yet unexplored physics at work.

Taking the matrix away from physical servers was imho the greatest mistake in all this.

Posted by: binarywraith Jul 22 2017, 01:31 AM

You could have stopped at 'Devices do not require being in mutual signal range of a Host'.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jul 22 2017, 11:57 PM

That's another thing I miss from SR 4. Each Commlink had a signal range. Now if you're somewhere like the Australian Outback, you still have a connection to the Matrix. Massive stupidity.

Posted by: Sengir Jul 23 2017, 09:36 PM

Hmm, very interesting find

@Jack: You could always rig a drone from the other side of the world without problems. And IMHO that's better than rules for latency, keeping track of storage and bandwidth was bad enough