Datajacks with ASIST Converter, Display and Image Links obsolete? Options

[Cray74]

On page 19 of Man & Machine, there is an option for Datajacks: the ASIST converter. This lets the datajack translate raw simsense signals from the Matrix and whatnot.

Can this also supply visual (and other) simsense signals from other sources, like to replace the display portion of a Smartlink or to replay video from a slotted chip or something? i.e., can it do the job of an Image Link and subdermal speakers?

[Ancient History]

An ASIST means you can process simsense signals, not video or audio data (there's a difference).

[TheScamp]

Also, Simsense data is rather overwhelming; it doesn't simply overlay your field of view, it pretty much becomes your vield of view. You can technically see past the data and through your regular eyes, but at a major penalty, so its usefulness as a display link substitute is somewhat lacking.

[Cray74]

[Ancient History]

Simsense is NOT simply video and audio data. That's the point behind simsense: it contains full sensory and emotional data. You're not watching a movie like you would with image link and subdermal speakers, you're experiencing the movie. Very different data format, and what makes things like decking and rigging possible.

[Siege]

Yes! Someone else is thinking the same thing!

Seriously though, if simsense can manifest as visual or audio input ("as someone seeing something"), why couldn't that be distorted to represent a video screen?

As for differing formats, couldn't a standard audio/visual signal be processed into a limited form of simsense?

2) Instead of a full sensory override, how about limited sensory hallucinations that overlay existing senses?

-Siege

[BlackSmith]

ASIST hi-jacks your sense(s) while image link/dispaly link adds external data to your regural field of vision.

like when your looking at some picture hanging in the wall, you place a another pic to some corner over that other pic.
using ASIST to experiense the same picture would you make you feel, taste, hear and see only, and only that picture.

[Siege]

True, standard ASIST.

However, what if we limited that ASIST feed to exclude tacticle, olfactory signals and audio signals and _include_ only highly specific elements of the visual feed?

-Siege

[Cray74]

[BlackSmith]

[Siege]

Keeping in mind that this is all hypothetical technology...

What if the simsense feed only has one signal? Say, a visual component? And that visual component happens to be, say, the Mona Lisa.

That's it, just the Mona Lisa. We use the modified ASIST to embed the image of the Mona Lisa as a slightly translucent image floating in our field of vision. The signal or image doesn't have to be exact -- we've all seen television with bad signals or bad pictures of things we know to be different in real life.

-Siege

[Cray74]

[Siege]

There isn't -- I tinkered with the same thing using simsense and a trode rig using strictly external hardware but there was never a definitive response either way.

I'll be interested to hear what they say.

-Siege

[BitBasher]

[Kagetenshi]

[Drain Brain]

Or, to continue the metaphore, ASIST changes your TV channel from 1 (your normal senses) to 2 (whatever is being piped in), wheras an image link, smartlink, display link, retinal clock - whatever is like setting up a second TV next to the original so you can see both channel 1 and 2 at once.

hehehe

[BlackSmith]

[Siege]

B. Smith, you're assuming that ASIST must be an "all or nothing" gamble.

Either you get _everything_ from the simsense signal or you get nothing.

Cray and I think that instead of _everything_, a character can opt to receive only certain parts of the signal.

Or the signal itself may not include all possible tracks such as sound, smell, taste, etc.

Another hypothetical -- the general simsense tech can be modified in the manner described -- to weave select signals (feeds, tracks) into existing perceptions.

It seems reasonable, given what we know about this pseudo-tech. That being said, we'll wait to see what the official ruling is on the matter.

-Siege

[TinkerGnome]

[Siege]

That's the point of this -- we're taking existing (fictional) tech and experimenting with what can and can't be done.

If the official ruling says "simsense is all or nothing" then the idea is interesting but impossible. But as there hasn't been an official ruling as yet...

Yes, the retinal displays (image, display links) could do all these things.

But we're proposing another way of doing it -- one that hasn't been considered before. Why use electric refrigerators when we could still use blocks of ice?

Saying, "well, it's never been done before" doesn't rule out "it can't be done".

-Siege

[Entropy Kid]

Don't have any books with me, so some of my rule references might be off. Having said that, I've always interpretted a smartlink as making the gun part of the shooter. Goggles give a -1 TN while a full smartlink gives -2 because of this difference, the limited simsense rig enables that. I personally don't think smartlinks have an eye display (a house ruling) and that it's the simsense rig that displays the crosshair, in the shooters brain and not the eyes. If it was actually the eyes, then why the extra TN reduction in a cyber smartlink over the goggles? They're doing the same thing.

The examples given describe ASIST as all or nothing sensory-wise, and that's how I think a normal ASIST converter would work. I don't however see any reason why one couldn't be designed to display limited and less distracting information. It would cost less, if it was like the system in a smartlink, or cost more if like a cyberdeck with selective display. The 'ware would also have to be connected to it's input source (I'm guessing datajack, but who knows)

[Kagetenshi]

But they do have an eye display. Man and Machine explicitly states it.

~J

[Glyph]

Actually, Siege, I think the ASIST link is probably "all or nothing". It is a full immersion of sensory data, which prevents other actions unless you also have an RAS override. It is far different from a retinal display.

It is primarily used by otaku to operate in the Matrix without a deck, and is mainly useful for such characters. Similarly, the invoked memory stimulator is only of use to cyberzombies. Both technologies have a lot of potential for additional uses, but that, IMO, should fall under the category of technological breakthroughs that occur during the campaign, rather than at the start of play.

**EDIT**
By the way, if you look at the components of a smartlink in Man & Machine, you will see that it includes both a retinal display and a limited simrig.

[Siege]

I'd also point out there are a lot of logical extrensions of tech that aren't covered by the relatively few sourcebooks released.

Which means a character could make a case for non-standard gear that people working in the profession might take for granted on a daily basis.

-Siege

[Sonomancer]

..... ehm, scuse me if I'm wrong, but the ASIST seems to just be a conductor which makes raw data comprehensible when piped into the brain. Its the RAS override that does the sense hi-jacking.
A person can jack into a car with a datajack and they wind up with all sorts of visual overlay right? A VCR on the other hand takes the next step into total immersion.