I know the big names got out of the Arcology and particpated in the events surrounding Crash 2.0. But did Pax survive? Or any of the others? most of them were around 16 or 17 years old during the Renraku shutdown took place (around 2056 I believe), so they'd be roughly in their late thirties or early fourties by 2072. some of them could even be Technomancers now. Pax, if she survived, would likely be some form of dissonant technomancer. Or so I would assume anyways.

thoughts? comments?

Yes that's pretty much how it broke down. Pax created Jogermond(SP?) that led to the second crash. There's some pretty good info on the whole deal in Systems Failure. My memory also seems to twig to the fact that she has a standing bounty and omega order on her.

Actually, I'm not sure what happened to the otaku. When the SR3 -> SR4 transition was made, did the otaku just become technomancers? Or are there just no new otaku, but the old ones continued as normal? Either way, if there's no new otaku, all of Deus' otaku should have faded by now. Pax has certainly faded, unless she came up with something newer, better, and less crazy-making than whatever she was doing prior to Crash 2.0. But the canon information on Pax before Crash 2.0 was that she was undergoing fading, and was resorting to some extreme dissonant submersion to attempt to stave it off, even though that was having only mild success. I don't know anything about an Omega Order against her, but it's almost certain that every major party in the 6th World would like to see her dead.

well...I know that Puck is a character on Jackpoint, and he used to be a member of Deus's banded (a White, point in fact). He's a shit hot decker but not a technomancer as far as I know. Pax survived the second crash, or I think so anyway. Her and most of the remaining Whites who were loyal to Deus were at ground zero for the events of Crash 2.0, and from what I've read it sounds like that host was a very chaotic mix of Resonance, Dissonance and who knows what all. So Pax and some of the others *could* have come out of it as Technomancers. I really don't know.

Hmm.

since you mentioned Puck, i thought that i would quip in and mention that SOMEWHERE in the SR4 books he refers to a group of TMs being led by a "seriously cold-hearted slitch," words those of us from the SR3 days might remember explicitly being used to refer to Pax before. I wanna say it's either in Runner Havens re: the Bureau of Heaven and Earth, Feral Cities re: Legion (Geneva), or in Unwired re: dissonants or matrix rumors... I don't actually feel like hustling down the exact reference right now though (it's late)

Since I read it just yesterday, it's in the Matrix Rumors section of Unwired. Puck explicitly mentions "somebody who should be dead" and that two members of that group are former Ex Pacis members, only to disappear afterwards...


And depending on how much you consider novels which only appeared in German (Digitaler Alptraum, or Digital Nightmare) canon there's another old acquaintance in tune with the resonance/dissonance:

The end is a bit ambiguous

Are SR3 otaku now SR4 technomancers?
And if so, anyone have a theory on how the otaku overcame the age restrictions?

Yeah, I remember that bit of shadowtalk. I think it was in Emergence, but I'm not sure either. At that point, Puck was still alive but I think he'd faded and was running the Matrix just like the rest of us slobs. And I'm pretty sure that whole bit is meant to imply that Puck is dead now and Pax is still around somewhere, even more insane than ever.

Yes and no. Technomancers are something different from Otaku. However, many of the old Otaku became Technomancers in the wake of the crash and Matrix 2.0. Other Otaku simply went mundane, while many of the newly emerged Technomancers were never Otaku.

So basically, no more people with otaku abilities anymore in SR4?

Technomancers can do pretty much everything Otaku could do, except getting lots of cyber in their brains. The upside is that they don't fade with age.

No. the old Otaku are gone, and Technomancers are their...well, upgrade would be a fairly good word for it I suppose.

I'm really not sure if any of old Deus crew survived. I know that the AI modified a lot of it's banded. Greens and Blues underwent a lot of cybernetic modification, as well as severe mind bending personality restructuring. it's entirely possible that some of those folks are still floating around and in various stages of insanity. The Whites were the ones I'm most interested in however. Pax was never a confirmed kill, nor were several of the others in that crew. Winternight was almost wiped out (I believe that 2 of the 3 Norns were during the events of System Crash), but is slowly rebuilding. Ex Pacis tho...I think I remember reading that Pax fled to somewhere in Asia after Crash 2.0. Deus too - God only knows what exactly happened to it after the crash, but I think it's safe to say it was shredded.

I'm 99% sure that all of the Winternight folks are dead. One of them set off the tac-nuke in their home base in the Baltic. One of them died on their way to interrogation by the Corp Court people. And the other survived to be interrogated, but I'm sure was executed after the Crash 2.0 went down.

And I believe that many of the otaku that Deus created in the arcology only had their powers while Deus was inhabiting the system, and that as soon as he got downloaded to the Network, they lost their abilities.

the ones he created inside the arcology faded almost immediately, but he had a tribe of Otaku working for him that were Otaku prior to joining his merry crew of Whites. Pax was their leader. so it's likely that they maintained their Otaku abilities up until the events of Crash 2.0. They were probably Fading at that point though. However - I believe they were in the node that was ground zero for Deus and his little world tree Resonance/Dissonance tsunami....which means they were exposed to all sorts of funky things. I'm not saying that Pax survived and became a Technomancer, but it's a possibility.

The canon material explicitly states that Pax was experiencing fading at the time shortly before Crash 2.0, but was experimenting with some fairly extreme submersion techniques to try to fend it off. I think Puck was the only one of Deus's Otaku that was actually IN the node that was ground zero for Crash 2.0, however.

And I think Pax survived as well, but as far as I can tell from what's been published, she's been a non-issue with regards to any major events after Crash 2.0.

*cough* above *cough*

As for DEUS and everybody else at ground zero, the mixture 341 gazillion personas, several flavours of chopped AI, Dissonance, Resonance, an UV Host, and the most aggressive worm ever created could result in nearly everything.

i recall that puck was going to dig deeper into the pax rumor, then went off radar, with netcat getting worried as he was never offline for a extended period.

last i recall was a opening fluff in one of the location books having netcat and one other in italy following pucks trail...

If Pax is still alive, I wonder what she's up to....

probably living the TM high life in geneva...

she was freaking insane. I very much doubt she just gave it all up after the Crash.

well the geneva grid is basically a "haunted" system...

sounds like the perfect place for a insane TM to park her mind...

To be specific, Pax lost her loyalty to Deus after the end of the Arcology crisis (the events of the Brainscan adventures). She wasn't a Dissonant Otaku while working for Deus but became one afterward. She created her Dissonant Otaku clan afterwards, based out of Singapore. Although it's never been explicitly stated, I don't think many (if any besides Pax) were former Whites.

It has been strongly hinted that Pax did indeed survive the Crash 2.0 and is likely now a Dissonant Technomancer. The hints are in the Matrix Rumors section of Unwired (as was mentioned) and the story about Netcat chasing Puck's trail is in Feral Cities. Also, did anyone else notice that one of the Paragons in Unwired is called Pax-Nemesis? I'm also concerned that another one of the paragons, the World Tree, manifests itself as a "giant, crystalline tree." Does anyone else remember what Deus' persona looked like?

I got curious and did some digging. Unwired, pg 164 is the conversation where Puck mentions the dissonant Technomancers (Code Clan and Discordians, to be specific). he hints that at least one of their leaders could be Pax. He says he's going to do some digging around, and after that is not heard from again.

For what it's worth, my read on this is that Puck had found former members of Pax's old Otaku tribe. Maybe not Pax herself (yet), but still - the idea that some of her people could still be around is disturbing enough on it's own. Especially if they've developed Technomancer abilities.

So if I had to guess - and all i'm doing here IS guessing - then I'd have to say that, assuming Pax survived, she'd be a Dissonant Technomancer following Nemesis. Even if Pax isn't alive, members of her former Otaku tribe have little reason to allow Puck to survive. After all, he's the one who killed Deus.

maybe the whole point of CAUSING crash 2.0, and the subsequent change to a pervasive wireless matrix, was what Pax was after when she joined up with Winternight to start that whole mess. pervasive wireless allows those in tune with the resonance (/dissonance) to experience it all the time, as opposed to only when they are jacked in (as otaku were, of course). Winternight was pretty crazily anti-technology, but they still allied themselves with a bunch of otaku who just COULDN'T willingly inflict that amount of damage on the matrix without thinking it would get them something. even at their heyday, the major otaku players were still very much behind-the-scenes, and a lot of the SR4 fluff indicates that their whole existence is still not everyday knowledge, but post-crash 2.0 we have a group of dissonant TMs who managed to cripple the whole Geneva matrix...

even if the advancement of wireless tech and the subsequent emergence of TMs wasn't the whole goal of Ex-Pacis, it DID manage to manifest the Dissonants into a more influential force than they were before...

why do i get the mental image of freelancers reading this thread and making notes for future books?