Cybermancy, Still the scariest drek ever, or the logical end for any cyber-sam? Options

[TBRMInsanity]

This may be a little off topic, but is there a way in SR4 to map the mind into a computer (essentially creating an AI). That way you technically could create a total anthroform body and put the "Ghost in the machine" into the anthroform thus bypassing Cybermancy (though the person is still technically dead).
This is similar to Johnny Mnemonic.

I tend to view Cybermancy like hard time in prison. If prison is better then where you live day to day then I can see why people would go though with it. Sometimes giving up the possibility of being of every being happy ever again is acceptable if it means you don't "suffer" as baddly as you did in the past.

[Malachi]

This may be a little off topic, but is there a way in SR4 to map the mind into a computer (essentially creating an AI). That way you technically could create a total anthroform body and put the "Ghost in the machine" into the anthroform thus bypassing Cybermancy (though the person is still technically dead).
This is similar to Johnny Mnemonic.

That's what a cyborg is. They stick the brain in a jar and bolt it to a body of some kind. The brain spends the whole time in VR controlling the drone body.

Beyond the Pale in the Cybertechnology book is the best piece of fiction ever written in a Shadowrun sourcebook. If I ever see a copy of that book I'll buy it just for that fiction.

[Neraph]

It should be noted that in SR4, every month (if you fail the test [which you will be doing]) you only get 5 BP of Negative qualities. As long as you can get 10 karma/month, you can buy them off (and in so doing, "live" forever).

Someone brought this up: if you're going to do a CyberZombie, use either a Fomori (every time) or a Gnome (HA!), because of their Arcane Arrester ability. Preferably (best-case scenario), do this with an Awakened (Magician preferably), SURGE'd Fomori. SURGE will add more interesting things, and Awakened will allow him to retain spellcasting/summoning. As long as he sticks to buffs, he's got a real edge standing in the middle of his own r4 Backround Count. And if you don't think it's tailored to him, before he goes in make him Initiate once and take Geomancy.

And don't forget Posession/Inhabitation. Get a powerful enough spirit to take them over (especially one of the Tradition that the Backround Count is) and you're previously retardedly powerful character becomes even more world-breaking. Something like that could eat Cthulu for breakfast, and munch on the Horrors for snacks.

Egads, I have to make that now...

[Tanegar]

That's what a cyborg is. They stick the brain in a jar and bolt it to a body of some kind. The brain spends the whole time in VR controlling the drone body.

How is that substantively different from a cyberzombie? Isn't that basically what Fuchi did to Hatchetman, discard his wrecked meat body and stick his brain in a full-cyber body?

[Malachi]

How is that substantively different from a cyberzombie? Isn't that basically what Fuchi did to Hatchetman, discard his wrecked meat body and stick his brain in a full-cyber body?

Not exactly. They just stuck so much 'ware in him that you couldn't really recognize him as "human" anymore. I don't think it was a "full-cyber" body.

[Stahlseele]

in a cyborg, there IS no meat aside for parts of the brain.
you can go cyberzombie with still retaining about 90% natural flesh.
MBW level4 and some Head/Eye/Sense-Ware and you are done.

[Adarael]

Someone brought this up: if you're going to do a CyberZombie, use either a Fomori (every time) or a Gnome (HA!), because of their Arcane Arrester ability. Preferably (best-case scenario), do this with an Awakened (Magician preferably), SURGE'd Fomori. SURGE will add more interesting things, and Awakened will allow him to retain spellcasting/summoning. As long as he sticks to buffs, he's got a real edge standing in the middle of his own r4 Backround Count. And if you don't think it's tailored to him, before he goes in make him Initiate once and take Geomancy.

The obvious problem with this is that the Arcane Arrester quality will probably make an already-difficult magical ritual that much more difficult, if not outright (practically, not theoretically) impossible. Additionally, the process of cyberzombification instantly and irrevocably removes all magical ability once the target drops to Magic 0 (when they die) and before they return to Magic 1. I belive this is explicitly stated in Augmentation, actually.

And don't forget Posession/Inhabitation. Get a powerful enough spirit to take them over (especially one of the Tradition that the Backround Count is) and you're previously retardedly powerful character becomes even more world-breaking. Something like that could eat Cthulu for breakfast, and munch on the Horrors for snacks.

Two things on this.

One is that I don't know if it's explicitly stated or not, but given that the original spirit of the cyberzombie has been artificially bound into its own corpse, I don't think a spirit could posess the body; it's already inhabited by the spirit of the victim.
Second... Metaphysically speaking, if the spirit could kick the victim's spirit out of his body, I think the body would die right then and there due to the fact that only the binding of the orginal spirit is allowing the body to stay alive at all. Basically you'd be left with a spirit in a dead body, same as any shedim in a corpse. And that's scary, but it's not scarier than any other posession spirit.

[Stahlseele]

aside from the fact that other spirits do not inhabit more or less machine men O.o

[TBRMInsanity]

Would the Arcane Arrester quality even work after you go negative in essence? I wouldn't think so. Removing one's soul tends to remove all magical effects they had as well.

[Nath]

Cybermancy is depicted as a crime against nature. Most mages (all mages who don't practice it, really) describe it as breaking all the laws of what should be. Technically, you are killing someone, taking their soul, enslaving it, and damning it to a horrid half-exsistance where it will never be able to feel joy, happyness, freedom, creativity, or whatever else. It is, by most accounts, the most negativly karmic (In the real sense of the word, not the XP sense of the word) act possible. Worse than genocide, mass murder, nuclear strikes.

At least, that is how it is portrayed in the books.

On the other hand, finding such cyberzombie within a black ops team, disturbs me less than a high-grade Initiate, supposedly enlightened by his mentor spirit about the very fabric of the universe and the true nature of magic.

[Rasumichin]

As a -6 Essence CZ, he would have a Agility cap of 16(24)! Granted he could only get a +5 from Ware, but that is still a 16(21) Agility!

Try customized cyberlimbs.
No need to waste precious karma on physical stats, just cyber them up all the way.
Hm...damn, i just noted that you can only customize up to the natural maximum of 16, then you have to stick with the normal cyberlimb augmentations, which are capped at 7 (how pathetic! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) ), so you can only reach AGI 23 that way...but still, that's...kinda disturbing.

One is that I don't know if it's explicitly stated or not, but given that the original spirit of the cyberzombie has been artificially bound into its own corpse, I don't think a spirit could posess the body; it's already inhabited by the spirit of the victim.

Augmentation doesn't say anything about it, but i don't think that someone who is already technically posessed is still a viable vessel for further posession attempts.
At least i hope so, it's one of the very few reasons that have kept me from using a CZ as host for an insect spirit.

Would the Arcane Arrester quality even work after you go negative in essence? I wouldn't think so. Removing one's soul tends to remove all magical effects they had as well.

Cybermancy doesn't cost you any qualities besides Technomancer, you even explicitly retain magical abilities (even though you're permanently stuck with a Magic of 1).
So i don't see why one should lose the Arcane Arrester quality if you can still be a friggin' mage or adept.

The cybermantic ritual in itself wouldn't be hampered by the quality either- Arcane Arrester only affects the effects of spells and spell-like critter powers, but cybermancy is handled via Binding, there's nothing spell-like involved and so Arcane Arrester has no effect whatsoever on cybermancy.

So yes, fomori make for frightening cyberzombies indeed.
Not surprising that the top choice for tank samurai twinkage also works fine for CZs, right?
If you want the full level of cheese (we're probably talking that cheese from Sardinia which is partially eaten by maggots), use a fomori who's also a ghoul.
The stat bonusses add up to terrific levels, you're dual-natured anyway, you'll most likely have cybereyes to compensate for the blindnes and you can load up on so much ware that the lowered Essence (usually the biggest mechanical drawback for ghoul sams) doesn't matter either.

But then, no one would dare to build such a monstrosity, right?
It's not that there is any British corporation with close ties to a secret society of Infected which also has a cybermancy-capable delta clinic and the unscrupulousnes to...oh wait...better stay away from NeoNET's maximum security installations. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[crash2029]

Cyberzombie good-merge insect spirit drop bears.

[Rasumichin]

Cyberzombie good-merge insect spirit drop bears.

Did i mention that the maggots in that Sardinian cheese are still alive when you eat it?

[Stahlseele]

Well . . there IS the Wendigo toxic Insect Shaman . .

[Rasumichin]

Well . . there IS the Wendigo toxic Insect Shaman . .

Admittedly, we don't know if she's toxic.

[toturi]

So yes, fomori make for frightening cyberzombies indeed.
Not surprising that the top choice for tank samurai twinkage also works fine for CZs, right?
If you want the full level of cheese (we're probably talking that cheese from Sardinia which is partially eaten by maggots), use a fomori who's also a ghoul.
The stat bonusses add up to terrific levels, you're dual-natured anyway, you'll most likely have cybereyes to compensate for the blindnes and you can load up on so much ware that the lowered Essence (usually the biggest mechanical drawback for ghoul sams) doesn't matter either.

But then, no one would dare to build such a monstrosity, right?
It's not that there is any British corporation with close ties to a secret society of Infected which also has a cybermancy-capable delta clinic and the unscrupulousnes to...oh wait...better stay away from NeoNET's maximum security installations. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Fomoraig Fomori CZs. Magical Guard, Arcane Arrestor, and Astral Hazing. Hard on the astral, hard on the physical(through Infection and implantation). Add an AI inhabiting the CZ's PAN... GG.

Oh now I remember... I had the idea of a CZ with a Formula pact and an AI that took over the CZ's PAN as its homenode. I remember calling it Trinity.

[Tanegar]

Holy crap, I don't even know what half of these builds mean. Fomori as a playable race? Gnomes? Formula pacts? AI? I really am out of the loop.

Also, maggoty Sardinian cheese for the loss. *vomit*

[Degausser]

How is that substantively different from a cyberzombie?

A cyberzombie and a Cyborg differ on some pretty fundamental levels.

Remember, your essence drop until you replace or add to your body. So a mage who looses his arm hasn't lost any essence until he gets a cyberarm. Functioning on this logic, removing the brain (and keeping it alive) from a body doesn't reduce essense, and adding a simrig only reduces essence by a small bit for the wires you are attaching to a brain.

A cyborg is a drone. It functions as a drone. The 'Body' has to be built from the ground up, and even in 2071, the technology for making something from scrap is still vastly inferior to what mother nature can do. Drones are clunky, and not nearly as flexible as people, no matter what those crazies in the marketing department try to tell you.

A cyberzombie, on the other hand, is still based off of improving mother nature. Leave the bits that work well and enhance the bits that don't. Lace the bones with titanium, throw in a move-by-wire system, add a cranial cyberdeck, do whatever. You are still basing everything you are doing off of the biological frame, and then trying your darndest from keeping the frame from falling apart.

Here is an example: Pretend you are a guy who is good with soldering. You have a PH.D. in Computer engineering. Now, you could try to build your own motherboard from scrap, but it would be crap because you lack a whole design team to do everything, and fabrication facilities, etc. So you can literally build your own computer from scratch, or you can get an existing top-of-the-line computer and mod the crap out of it. Both have their drawbacks. A self-built machine will never be quite as good, but if you overmod your commercial computer, it might give up the ghost and die. A homebuilt job is like a cyborg, a supermodded machine is like a cyberzombie.

[InfinityzeN]

That and a Cyberzombie is, well, a zombie. Or at least a greater undead in classic D&D sense. Dead body with its own spirit bound into it and forced to rise from the dead to carry on doing... stuff. More than likely ether killing huge numbers or being the biggest brain that ever brained. [You can build a CZ with a Logic of 15(18)]

[Stahlseele]

yes, and if you go with the idea that they can keep magical abilites, now think about what kind of drain they could combat . .
or go with high charisma cz . . voila you have put the romance back in necromance . . high intellect would mean cyber-lich basically.

[Tanegar]

Remember, your essence drop until you replace or add to your body. So a mage who looses his arm hasn't lost any essence until he gets a cyberarm. Functioning on this logic, removing the brain (and keeping it alive) from a body doesn't reduce essense, and adding a simrig only reduces essence by a small bit for the wires you are attaching to a brain.

That makes no sense whatsoever. According to the Essence-Integrity Theory presented in Cybertechnology, Essence loss occurs when the body, or physical template, becomes different from the aura, or astral template. If the mage's aura has two arms but his body only has one, why doesn't that count as a difference? Why does the universe only say, "Sorry chummer, you just lost some mojo" only when the mage gets the missing arm replaced with a machine? The cyborg example is even more extreme: how can you have an aura for a whole body, but only a tiny part of the physical body, and not experience MASSIVE Essence loss?

[the_real_elwood]

Cyberzombie good-merge insect spirit drop bears.

You just had to go there and bring the drop bears into this, didn't you.

[the_real_elwood]

A cyberzombie and a Cyborg differ on some pretty fundamental levels.

Remember, your essence drop until you replace or add to your body. So a mage who looses his arm hasn't lost any essence until he gets a cyberarm. Functioning on this logic, removing the brain (and keeping it alive) from a body doesn't reduce essense, and adding a simrig only reduces essence by a small bit for the wires you are attaching to a brain.

A cyborg is a drone. It functions as a drone. The 'Body' has to be built from the ground up, and even in 2071, the technology for making something from scrap is still vastly inferior to what mother nature can do. Drones are clunky, and not nearly as flexible as people, no matter what those crazies in the marketing department try to tell you.

A cyberzombie, on the other hand, is still based off of improving mother nature. Leave the bits that work well and enhance the bits that don't. Lace the bones with titanium, throw in a move-by-wire system, add a cranial cyberdeck, do whatever. You are still basing everything you are doing off of the biological frame, and then trying your darndest from keeping the frame from falling apart.

Here is an example: Pretend you are a guy who is good with soldering. You have a PH.D. in Computer engineering. Now, you could try to build your own motherboard from scrap, but it would be crap because you lack a whole design team to do everything, and fabrication facilities, etc. So you can literally build your own computer from scratch, or you can get an existing top-of-the-line computer and mod the crap out of it. Both have their drawbacks. A self-built machine will never be quite as good, but if you overmod your commercial computer, it might give up the ghost and die. A homebuilt job is like a cyborg, a supermodded machine is like a cyberzombie.

On a more mechanical level, a cyberzombie can still use bioware. A cyborg, not really. When all that's left of your meat body is your brain, it makes something like synthacardium pretty useless.

That makes no sense whatsoever. According to the Essence-Integrity Theory presented in Cybertechnology, Essence loss occurs when the body, or physical template, becomes different from the aura, or astral template. If the mage's aura has two arms but his body only has one, why doesn't that count as a difference? Why does the universe only say, "Sorry chummer, you just lost some mojo" only when the mage gets the missing arm replaced with a machine? The cyborg example is even more extreme: how can you have an aura for a whole body, but only a tiny part of the physical body, and not experience MASSIVE Essence loss?

Is essence loss from massive damage an optional rule now, or did SR4 completely get rid of it? Because in older editions, you could possibly lose essence from something as major as losing an arm.

[Degausser]

That makes no sense whatsoever. According to the Essence-Integrity Theory presented in Cybertechnology, Essence loss occurs when the body, or physical template, becomes different from the aura, or astral template. If the mage's aura has two arms but his body only has one, why doesn't that count as a difference? Why does the universe only say, "Sorry chummer, you just lost some mojo" only when the mage gets the missing arm replaced with a machine? The cyborg example is even more extreme: how can you have an aura for a whole body, but only a tiny part of the physical body, and not experience MASSIVE Essence loss?

SR4 presents a different argument, saying (simply) that you only suffer essence loss your body operates differently than mother nature intended (in a fundamental way.) A guy who looses his arm still has the rest of his body working perfectly fine, and good ol' mother nature allows for us to survive if our arm is lopped off (assuming we can stave off death from blood loss.) On the other hand, cellular damage from a vampire attack, biochemical changes from substance abuse, or wiring your neurons to bits of metal screw the system up pretty bad. This all leads to essence loss. At least, that was always my understanding.

[Neraph]

Is essence loss from massive damage an optional rule now, or did SR4 completely get rid of it? Because in older editions, you could possibly lose essence from something as major as losing an arm.

Optional damage rules in Augmentation. It's still possible.