Sorry if I missed this somewhere, but do AI have auras. For example, say our mage is astrally perceiving and he sees the shadow of a device on the astral. Say that device contains a node that contains an AI. could our mage see the AIs aura?

I've been having discussions about this topic with a player in my game who plays a bit of a techno-phobic hedge magician. The presence or lack of an aura will probably heavily color this character's conception of AIs.

AFAIK they don't have auras in any regard. I can't point you to a page or anything, but that seems like a large jump so I'd think that a no mention means they don't have one as opposed to them having one, as programs by default don't show up on the astral at all.

I do not have anything from the books to back up my statements regarding this but from the way I read magic, auras are tied to biological life forms. AI's are not truly alive; they can simulate metahuman emotion and can be very creative in interpreting their programming or even rewrite it on the fly to simulate subjective/objective thought. But to magic they have no soul. Perhaps when a great dragon decides to adopt one and "name" it it will acquire an aura but until then they are as dead as a commlink


Some would read that as they do have an aura because there is nothing to say they don't. They are a sentient playable race after all...

It has been discussed and it is mute point because you can't see it through the nexus housing, wire jackets or anything else that contains the AI. They are opaque in the astral.

So is clothing, but someone doesn't have to be naked to show up on the astral.

That is true, I'd forgotten about the most basic thing, only biological things seem to show up on astral, everything else is just a gray shadow.

You just opened the door for someone to quote street magic and that line about auras going through clothing... I understand what your trying to say but remember that cyborgs have an aura and that it can not be seen through the metal housing... Makes you wonder if someones aura should show through Milspec armor.

Where should such an aura come from? I mean AIs only differ from pilot programs or SKs in their behaviour, the way it runs on a device should be no different. So if non-sentient programs do not have an aura (that should have been noticed), AIs shouldn't have one.

Well, I suppose it says clothing and not armor... I'm sure at some point it has to get thick enough to cover your aura. It might show through a t-shirt, but maybe not through a lined jacket or a cold weather parka or something similar.

iirc, even military grade armor is not thick enough to block the aura...

as for the cyborgs, the only thing left living there is the gray matter...

even someone with all cyberlimb replacements have more than that...

for those in the know, full cyberlimb replacement = robocop, cyborg = robocop 2.

Is that stated anywhere? Then again, I don't expect MG armor to be as thick as a good winter parka even, so it could make sense.

maybe not in the lastest round of books, but i have not read them in cover to cover. Earlier books where very specific about the aura reaching out beyond armor.

I know, I was just using it as an example...
As a side note... Why can't you see the aura of someone leaning against a thin door or a pannel wall.



We use the same analogy at my table. However, we see the first Robocop as closer to a cyberzombie than full replacement cybernetics. He even comes complete with an Invoked Memory Stimulator. He just happens to be more stable than your "run-of-the-mill" cyberzombie. I believe Robocop 2 (movie not the cyborg) explained why he was so stable (compared to the others they tried to make after him) as he had "purpose." Like the reason that Mr. Smith didn't "die" when Neo corrupted his code.

Would give Militaries better magical protection if it did.

heh, you cant really go full replacement in any meaningful way unless your either using delta or goes zombie anyways...

this raises the questions:

1. what is an aura tied to? life or intelligence

2. what is life? the biology 101 definition or perhaps something ammended.

3. do viruses have auras? what about bacteria? what about algae? what about lawyers? what about sponges?

Bacteria and algea have an aura acording to Street Magic. At least that is what they say about ocean water. The only non-living thing that has an aura is the Earth itself. If you want to say the Earth is nonliving thing that is... You could view it as residual mana collected/concentrated around the earth from the living things on it than the Earth having an aura itself. I like the Gaia idea better though....

the idea that a mixture of molten slightly radioactive stuff with a thin crust is alive? perhaps there should be more mages worshiping volcanos.

Animals have auras...

Like I said... It is the only object that has an aura. (Also... it's "Named" lol)
But maybe thats how Druidic traditions started. Would make Hawaii a really interesting place... Not that it's not already...

na volcano's aren't alive it was just red dragons in them demanding their favorite delicatessen, female virgins.


hmm... I wonder if thats who started that area of erotica... dirty old dragons

If a person is accessing a node, does the node glow on the astral?
Not that I'm aware of.

The same must be true of an AI.

Think of it this way: The astral plane provides a view of the world as pure emotion. The matrix is instead a place of pure logic.

Full replacement works out pretty well with Alpha Grade... Have had 2 characters in our game with such technology, and it was pretty potent... no real need for better quality unless you are just trying to cram even more stuff in there...

And hell, with a Treatment of Adapsin, the Biocompatability (Cyberware) Quality, and CyberSuite options... you can get AlphaWare for .5 the Normal Essence Cost...

Keep the Faith...

I don't know if I consider the matrix a realm of pure logic, but I do really like your explanation.

Well, it's not a realm in the sense that astral is a realm. That's for sure. However, everything which takes place in the matrix does so according to extremely regimented rules which always break down into ones and zeros. It's the most logical system possible. That's not to say that people operating in the matrix are somehow limited so some kind of "Vulcan Logic" mindset. It just means that at the heart of any system, and any command or action, there is a basis of perfect crystalline logic.

I agree that the Matrix is the world of binary, but with odd things like dessonance sprites and e-ghosts, there is more to it than just logic.