Book Club: Emergence Options

[Ancient History]

System Anomalies
This first chapter of Emergence demonstrates that not everybody knows about tehcnomancers, and tries to catch new readers up on the history of the otaku and the connection between the two groups. Most of the section is shadowtalk, which helps give a more personal feel to the whole thing-it sounds like a discussion. Little idiosyncrasies are worked in to help differentiate the characters, and this is really some of the best characteriszation to date (keep in mind that prior to Emergence, only Street Magic and Runner Havens had been released).

References to the lost AIs-Deus and Morgan/Megaera are made, and also, to help demonstrate how new technomancers are, a handful of different terms. Virtuakinetic was a favorite one as you can see.

The real impetus of this chapter is Sunshine, who gets the ball rolling and then chases after it and won't let go like a rat terrier.

Something that really sets Emergence apart from preceding books is the unusual format; extremely varied in content for a book, even a plot book: conversations, snippets from talk shows, definition-boxes, newscasts, personal anecdotes. I think it helps to really expand the ability to roleplay a technomancer when you see how other people react to the idea of them.

The game information of this chapter is a datadump by comparison.

[JBlades]

I loved all the shadow talk in this book, made it feel more like reading a story than a campaign guide. Really kept me entertained. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to say besides that on the first chapter, being already familiar with otaku and the AIs, etc. Well written, flew through it, good intro.

[NightRain]

My issue with the first chapter of emergence comes from the fact that it's almost impossible to make use of it in most running games involving a technomancer.

SR4 suggested that technomancers were linked to the 2nd crash, and hinted that they covered a wider cross section of society, but it never really suggested that they were new or unknown. Given that it's been 6 years since the crash in SR4, most people, like myself, would have assumed that technomancers were a known fact of life in the Universe, even if they're a fact that can't be explained.

This makes it hard to use the information from that chapter in any meaningful way in an existing campaign.

[Synner]

For the record System Anomalies was purposefully set in late 2069- early 2070, acknowledging the in character chronology of both SR4 and Runner Havens. Had circumstances allowed us to meet our initial goals Emergence would have been released much earlier, but plugging this particular story into ongoing campaigns that were already using technomancers was always going to be an issue. We just thought the story was worth telling anyway - so instead we avoided hard timelines and wrote stuff so that it should be relatively easy to move events chronologically forward or back.

[NightRain]

It's not the chronology that bothers me so much. That bit is easy to fix.

The technomancer in my group for example simply doesn't use a commlink most of the time. She carries one so she can broadcast an ID when moving in public, but when she doesn't need to keep up appearances, she dumps it and lets anyone who's clued in see that's she's a techno. She sold herself to the group when joining by admitting that she's a techno.

Whilst I can rework timelines, I can't rework the storyline to reveal the emergence of technomancers in my campaign, or even investigate the story arcs that involve hunting down and capturing these new and mysterious beings, because all parties have assumed that they're just another everyday part of the sixth world. It's hard to suddenly make them mysterious :)

I am however going to quite enjoy bringing on a bit of technophobia (bad pun) by unfolding the Hong Kong events, and having the corps blame the troubles on technomancers. That bit works just fine even with my current setup...

[Nightwalker450]

Just started reading Emergence this last weekend. Picked it up because I've started playing a Technomancer. All I have to say is "DAMN".. I thought technomancers were part of everyday life as well. I'm glad I'd already decided to keep my Technomancer ways secret. Carrying 2 commlinks, so I look like your standard hacker. Unless someone took a look at my "good" comm. Just an upgraded firewall, encrypt, and analyze. Nothing remotely illeagle on my character. I'm half afraid to hand this over to my GM, but I'm liking the story potential if he decides to use some of it.

I also look forward to unwired, and getting probably some Technomancer qualities. (Already want to talk my GM into "Sprite Mentor")

[Nightwalker450]

For those that haven't read the major events that might mess with your current idea of 2070 are:

May 31, 2070
Hong Kong Disaster
Technomancers escape from mental ward and wreck havok upon the city. This is the first real public knowledge and proof of technomancers existance. Before this corps had been researching and kidnapping them, but public notice was nothing but late night talk shows, and small blurbs in papers nothing believable or concrete. This launches a full scale witchhunt against this new threat fed by corporations blaming technomancers for the Crash of '64 and everything else.

August 20, 2070
AI Sojouner announces his existance
The AI is inside of a medical space station, and threatens to start dropping the bio weapons in production there into cities unless his demands are met. His demands are to let the Technomancers go, stop the witchhunt. This leads to even more speculation on Crash 2.0 + AI's + Technomancers. The witchhunt isn't changed except to incorporate AI's into the public fear.

August ~25, 2070
AI Pulsar announces existance
Pulsar basically is the Public Relations AI. He steps up as representative of a group of AI's and wants to quell the fear of AI. Works for equal rights for AI's, and Technomancers. Wants the "Digital Intelligences" to be able to live and cooperate with the organic Intelligences. He also assists in the negotiations with Sojouner to release the hostages of the space station.

September 18, 2070
Gennex's (subsidary of NeoNet) experimentation on Technomancers unmasked
A shadowrun team gets into Gennex labs and sees the extent to which Technomancers are being experimented on. People of all ages children to seniors, are cut open, body and skulls, with trodes everywhere. Not all are even technomancers, but anyone who is suspected of being one. The team is killed, but sends out video footage in a mass spam before they are brought down. This turns some of the population towards protecting the Technomancers due to memories of UGE, SURGE, and the Awakening.

Well I haven't finished reading the whole thing yet, but these events have greatly altered some of my thinking on the whole SR4 world. Many people are speculating whether Technomancers are even Metahuman, and thus many have no problem with them being tagged and bagged. Others have seen the atrocities by Gennex as something that noone, Metahuman or not, should have to go through. I'm playing a technomancer currently and the world suddenly seems alot scarier than before. I recommend people get this book to get a better understanding of the chaos and panic that is currently taking place in 2070.

[EDIT:] Added more dates, and updated my summary

[Magus]

I personally loved Emergence. Just as Nightwalker stated it does give you a more personal view of the SR world if you are playing a techno. I built one for me to play in when the BBB was released and did not get a lot out of her. But now, Emergence really opens your eyes to how bigotry and fear mixed with political maunevering can be used to bring a realism to the world setting. I was amazed and overjoyed as now I am gming for the group and I can dip my fingers into this steaming cauldron of intrigue. This should be interesting, my group is based in London.

[Ancient History]

One thing I'm curious to touch on-how does this chapter affect your interpretation of technomancers as "just another type of magician?" I realize that's a bit of a leading question, but it's a common enough idea on the board.

[Nightwalker450]

Hadn't really thought of that since reading this. But with the reading I'd say calling them just another magician is selling them short. 5% of the population is Awakened, I haven't been able to find an estimate for Technomancers anywhere, but I'm guessing it at about 3%, and 2% of that are people suffering from AIPS and are not in control of their abilities. The difference between Magician and Technomancer is their ability to affect you, and the way they gained their abilities in the first place. The Matrix is worldwide and is imbedded in everyones lives, so a technomancer could be anywhere or in anything. The Magician has great power, but not the reach that the technomancer does. The world became awakened as one, and has been that way for almost 60 years. Technomancers are the biproduct of Crash 2.0, which was brought about by powerful AI that didn't have the best in mind for mankind. The AI who had been tinkering for years in the heads of Otaku. Its easy understand the fear and the lashing out by metahumans toward them.

Magicians are able to sense a technomancer, but its not an astral signature that they are seeing, distasteful as it is Corporations have found that the mental activity and nervous system of a Technomancer are quite different from other metahumans. As far as I know a mage on a cut table will appear the same as any other metahuman, the races even follow the same set of physics, they have different strengths or capabilities in the physical sense but all biologically the same. The book doesn't answer but only apply theory after theory and none proven as to "What are Technomancers, and how'd it happen?"

[NightRain]

[martindv]

I would have preferred if the book was more about the AI and didn't go back and make TMs a secret until all of the sudden in 2070.

But it was a nice read.

[FrankTrollman]

I thought the book got stronger as it went on, but that the first chapter was pretty bad. Almost bad enough to make me just stop reading altogether. As it was I found that the first chapter was pretty useless to someone who has read all the Deus background and fairly incomprehensible to those who had not.

I don't have the book with me, so I'm going by memory. Still, the little statement by Puck that he used to run with a bad crowd realy stuck with me. Not because it is was an in-joke tossed to the people who remember the Puck storyline, but because it was an insult to them. People who haven't seen the entire Deus storyline from the beginning read that chapter and did not come away with the knowledge that Puck was a willing White, nor did they know what that would mean had they known that fact. Meanwhile, people who did know that were in no way enlightened as to what the hell happened or what Puck is doing now.

The rest of the chapter is much like that. People who knew the storyline aren't given enough meat in all the shadowtalk to really piece together much of anything, and people who don't know the storyline aren't given enough facts to have a working knowledge of any of it. New players who read that chapter seriously come away confused and just ask me "What the hell does any of this mean?" And I can't blame them.

If you had to come out with an opening of retro-history, it would have been far better to just seriously give a double page spread of a timeline in direct Game Information dry no-nonsense info dump. People who knew the information could skip it, and people who didn't could get brought up to speed quickly.

---

The second problem of course is that the game had been going for some time, and the basic book implies that Technomancers are 5 years old in most cases. But Emergence makes Technomancy secret and the term brand new, even contentious. That means that people who started 4th edition characters who were Technomancers (like say, the archetype Technomancer character on page 103) all have their basic introductions to the team retconned out of existence. That was a bad decision.

The whole "what the hell do we call these guys?" segment should have been pushed back to 2068 so that player characters who came on the scene in 2070 as technomancers could stay in canon.

---

Each chapter in the book is better than the one before it. By the time we get to the last chapter, it is actually quite good. But I almost didn't read the whole thing because the first chapter is really bad.

-Frank

[Critias]

[Blade]

I think that Technomancer shouldn't have been in SR4 BBB. Something about "strange Matrix phenomenons" maybe, but not archetypes shown and known to all players.

I mean, it's like telling players about insect spirits before the UB/Bug City Arc...

[Paradigm]

@ FrankTrollman

Can understand some of your comments about the thing about Puck, but as it is, the way it's handled doesn't feel wrong to me. (I'm aware of the storyline myself, though I never really used the arcology and only used the network once, just for completeness' sake). Things like this to me show how much of a reset of the setting there is, the basics for the entire redemption story are in canon (system reset) but enough is left open to avoid invalidating specific runs people would have made. Also, for people new to the setting in 4e, they're not bogged down with having to know the entire history, though they're given enough glimpses to know that he's most likely not fully trustworthy. The idea that he's got a place in jackpoint because of the information he has, yet in spite of the blatant hatred towards him just serves to them to make the setting seem alive and give them a better feel for it.

As for what Puck's doing now, do we even want to know? For now, I think I'll sleep better being unaware of what he's up to *grin*

I'll end my derail here, as I've not had my hands on emergence yet and shouldn't be hijacking the thread, basing the above comments on runner havens. Feel free to PM me about it though.

[Demonseed Elite]

As a writer, I still find the five-year leap awkward. I understand why they did it, but as has been touched on here, in a game like Shadowrun, it does lead to some continuity issues and sometimes puts the writers in a difficult bind.

Though I will admit that it sometimes makes my life easier as a writer too. When I wanted to change Hong Kong's government structure, the five-year gap gave me some convenient time for the changes to take place instead of it being very sudden.

[Critias]

I think it's also irritating because (prior to the edition change, of course), the "real time" environment was something Shadowrun was kind of known for (along with *cough* combat/magic pools *cough*). The ongoing metaplot, not just the unfolding metaplot, was something that was very cool to be a "part" of by playing through certain adventures, and that sort of thing. It wasn't just something you walked up to and read all about, it was stuff that was, for lack of a better term, events you felt you were there for.

But, oh well. Sorry, Book Club. Not trying to thread crap, just expanding upon my earlier sentiments that were specific to Emergence.

[Buster]

[martindv]

I seem to remember it being sold as a TM plot book. It would have been much more interesting if they focused on the AIs, although using TMs to cover them up was a good idea that should have been written into the whole "they're still 5 years old and new and scary and maybe Otaku, which were weird and scary and maybe caused what was damn near the Apocalypse in 2064."

[NightRain]

[martindv]

[FrankTrollman]

[NightRain]

[FrankTrollman]

How is that a non-point? An entire book of Shadowrun was filled up with information about a set of events and yet that information is specifically insufficient to run a game based on those events. That means that the entire chapter is a failure as anything but fiction.

And that's up to personal taste. Personally I thought it wasn't good as fiction. You may differ. But my point is and always has been that it was completely worthless as a game aid, which means that it was worthless as what it was supposed to be whether you liked the pacing of the fiction or not.

-Frank