Literacy on the astral, Can you read from the astral? Options

[nezumi]

I was glancing through SR4 and, well, I haven't been able to find the old rule that you can't read things from astral space. Granted, it's tempered with not being able to move through the earth, but what do people think about this change? Frankly, it scares the bejeezus out of me. Mages have become the ultimate cheap spy. Stick his head through any old file cabinet and he can read the papers on top (or summon his watcher in to flick between pages). Read passwords and SIN numbers, memos and the like. Yegads!

Am I missing something?

[stevebugge]

Whether it's allowed or not in Street Magic I am probably going to hold to the old interpretation that you can not read any non-enchanted written character from Astral Space. If the medium is handwritten and personal you can assense it and get the general emotional content of the writing. Printed or electronic communications are not readable from Astral Space ever.

[Witness]

[Jaid]

unless of course someone takes the time to write out something in active foci, or something like that =D

[stevebugge]

[Nim]

Hmmm. Or maybe some sort of alchemical radical used as an ink...or the blood of a dual-presence critter. You could find a way to justify it if you tried hard enough.

[Jaid]

blood of a dual natured creature would only work if it was still alive.

so then, if someone were to hook up a dual naturead creature to a pump and pass their blood through a series of tubes shaped like writing, someone could read that from the astral =D

[stevebugge]

Actually if you cast an illusion of letters on to a sheet of paper and quickened it, that probably could be read in the astral.

[coolgrafix]

Agreed that it's not crystal clear if you can read while on the Astral or not. A manifested spirit/character could, of course, read something in the real world. Relevant passages which I'm sure you've already read are below.

SR4 page 181...

"Things that exist only on the physical plane can be seen and heard from the astral, albeit with blurred features and indistinct sound—emotional content registers far more strongly than exact details."

SR4 page 184...

"Manifesting characters and spirits appear on the physical plane as ghostly, hazy images and may freely communicate with physical characters."

[X-Kalibur]

[ShadowDragon8685]

If it was meant to be read on the Astral, why not? It'd probably ave to be hand-written, but why not?

Other stuff, definately not.

[Ancient History]

[Jaid]

[wind_in_the_ston...]

Actually, you could make out the form of the tubes, regardless of whether there was dual-natured blood in them.

Anyway, I don't think you can see colors from the astral plane, so you can't read printed text. As far as I'm concerned, you can only assense emotion that has "rubbed off" on the paper, and not the emotional content of the message.

My big question is whether you can make out letters in energy give off by a display screen.

[eidolon]

Disclaimer: This post is actually born of genuine curiosity. It is not intended to be sarcastic, snide, snarky, inflaming, or incensing at all. I am not implying that one option is "right" over the others, I'm just curious to know.

That said:

Which ones of you are ignoring pre-established canon on this intentionally?

Which of you genuinely don't know? (either because you've just never had it come up, or because you came to SR after the release of 4)

Which of you are aware of pre-established canon but choose to ignore it and treat the new edition of the rules as "pure" and "all that exists" (for lack of a better way of describing it at the moment)?

[Nim]

[eidolon]

You're right, my apologies. Here you go:

The bit that explicitly states that you cannot read text or print from the astral.

SR3, page 173 under "Astral Senses"

[wind_in_the_ston...]

[Nim]

Thanks, eidolon. In general, though, I think that most of the ideas floated here (all of them in jest, I'm guessing) don't really violate the premise that non-living objects in the material world have little viewable detail in the Astral. They've focussed on loopholes - living matter, or items with an astral presence.

For example...can an Astrally projecting character observing a material character see their gestures clearly enough to understand them if they've using sign language? What about four mundanes in workmen's clothes using their bodies to spell out the name of a local youth club? :) It's all in fun, at this point. I hope...

[wind_in_the_ston...]

Nim, shapes on the physical plane are easily visible from astral space, whether they are living or nonliving. Similarly, sounds are audible. (And an astrally projecting mage can make himself seen and heard on the physical plane, if he so desires.) It's only surface markings that are/were indistinguishable, which makes/made print illegible.

[nezumi]

I ask on the assumption that SR4 was made to be independent of previous versions and self-contained. So I'm reading it with the understanding that none of the mechanics just carry over. I'm also reading with the understanding that new players won't have read SR3, and so won't be familiar with the older rules (and therefore will ask this question themselves eventually... we hope!)

[GB1]

Which of you genuinely don't know? (either because you've just never had it come up, or because you came to SR after the release of 4)

/rasies hand.

I'm made a street sam.
I'm just here to learn more about the game in general. :)

[eidolon]

nezumi: Perfectly understandable. As I said, more curiosity than anything. I like "studying" gamers and gaming.

Personally, even if I were to start using SR4, I couldn't run it as if the earlier editions didn't exist. Also, I don't see this small bit as mechanical in any way. It's fluff that has an in game effect, as it were.

Anyway, I'm about to get in on a game of Pirates, so I'll look at this tomorrow. Thanks for the answers thus far, and apologies if it seems a hijack to some extent. I didn't think it worth starting a thread over. If you'd like, I can.

[-X-]

The not being able to read on the astral seemed like a neat philosophical idea that never really made much sense to me in actual practice.

Does the Hollywood Sign show up on the astral? (Not even sure if it still exists?)

Would a message spelled out in hedges be readable from above?

What about a message spelled out by carefully placed watcher spirits?

A fresh tattoo? Special cyberware implanted specifically to spell something out?

Can you not read memos and such because everyone is extremely near and farsighted on the astral for anything that doesn't have a full on living aura, but you could read print if it was large enough.

[FanGirl]

My 0.02 nuyen:

The fact that "emotional content registers far more strongly than exact details" implies that "exact details" can be picked up on--it's just not very easy to do so. Thus, -X- is probably right: if the writing is big enough and legible enough, the text should be decipherable.