Confused on: Bunraku, One word, multiple meanings? Options

[hyzmarca]

Hardly. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children FAQ writes this:



That's today. In a U.S. that is insanely safe to the point of utopian compared to the SR world. And yet no one cares, no one even notices, unless it's an attractive blonde, teenage white girl. Then the world comes to a halt to exploit the tragedy for all it's worth.

115 "child" kidnappings a year is truly pitiful for a country with a population of over 200 million. "Abductions" generally involve custody disputes and are often voluntary while most non-family abductions are short-term, lasting only a few minutes, and are related to other crimes (ie a mugger taking a victim across the street to an ATM).

[mfb]

well, keep in mind, that 115 includes only those crimes in which the kidnapper is known. according to those figures, there are 593,400 where there either was no kidnapper (eg kid runs away to the big city and ends up as a prostitute) or the kidnapper is unknown.

[hyzmarca]

well, keep in mind, that 115 includes only those crimes in which the kidnapper is known. according to those figures, there are 593,400 where there either was no kidnapper (eg kid runs away to the big city and ends up as a prostitute) or the kidnapper is unknown.

Actually, that statistic includes all children reported missing. It makes no no distinction as to whether or not they were actually missing or how long they remained missing. Given that most missing children are located within 48 hours, I would be skeptical about claims that large numbers of them end up as big-city prostitutes.

[mfb]

depends on your definition of 'large numbers'. if 99.9% of that figure end up either found or living a happy, independent life, that adds up to almost 600 Natalee Holloways per year. certainly a tiny number compared to the statistics you can get from, say, the Philippines, or Russia, etcetera, but... well, there's a reason the US is such a popular immigrant destination.

[thedafan]

As much as Doctor Evil loves how dark and bleak the last couple of post are making his world. I would point out something......... SR is in the sixth world, good and evil are tangable things. Some people can even see it in a person. And yes Virginia, there is a free spirit named Santa Claus. He spends 364 days out of the year dealing with the bad people on the naughty list. Doctor Evil may sometimes do bad things. But, he knows everything comes with a karmic price. That is why he spends most of his free time in drunken bliss and a really big troll babysitting him.


"Scary ain't it"
-Doctor Evil

[mfb]

SR is in the sixth world, good and evil are tangable things.

what? no they're not. the most you can say is that some people can see the intentions of other people, via astral perception, and intent is just as shades-of-grey as action. this isn't D&D, where you can cast 'detect alignment'.

[thedafan]

Blood Magic? Thats evil with a capital E. And it shows up real clear in astral

[eidolon]

Nah, still not seeing the big "E". It shows up as corrupted astral apace with a ridiculous background count. That is, that's what it looks like until a big bad blood spirit sees you looking and whoops your ass for looking at him funny. And of course, if you're a blood magician, it probably looks like a beautiful oasis in the midst of terribly corrupted and weak astral wasteland.

"Good" and "Evil" are no more tangible or real in the SR world than they are in our lives.

[mfb]

Blood Magic? Thats evil with a capital E. And it shows up real clear in astral

the Great Ghost Dance was blood magic. the worst you can say about blood magic is that it's bad for the environment.

[fistandantilus4....]

Blood Magic? Thats evil with a capital E. And it shows up real clear in astral

In SR, aborigines in SR practice blood magic regularly. They're also self appointed protectors of their environment agains the corps who are destroying the land, as well as guardians of their ancient and unique traditions that stretch back tens of thousands of years. Every time someone can say "this is evil" in shadowrun, someone can point out a gray area.

Organ legging makes available low cost organs to people that require them, but don't have to nuyen to go to a reputable hospitable. Is it really so bad to take the liver or even heart from a burned out chip head that's barely using them, in order to give someone's 6 year old another chance at life? Is it really so wrong to give the cast off s to ghouls, all of whom were either metas infected with the virus, or born that way? Should they starve because of their lot in life?

Bunraku parlors, as horrible as they may sem, may also be the only way out for some people. No schooling because you and your folks and your 6 brothers and sisters are SINless? Any really chance of advancement? If the choice is to starve, or to get some cyber and have a shunt put in, so that for eight hours a day, you're effectively napping while your body does your dirty work, and you don't look like your self, what would you choose?

[Kanada Ten]

Starve. "Liberty or death."

[mfb]

there are some people who will make that choice, but there are a whole lot of other people who won't--especially since the choice is never presented in those terms.

[martindv]

depends on your definition of 'large numbers'. if 99.9% of that figure end up either found or living a happy, independent life, that adds up to almost 600 Natalee Holloways per year. certainly a tiny number compared to the statistics you can get from, say, the Philippines, or Russia, etcetera, but... well, there's a reason the US is such a popular immigrant destination.

Indeed. You can keep a houseful of Asian girls chained in a house in Bethesda, MD right outside of Washington, DC for years without anyone noticing.

Oh, you mean for people to come to the U.S.

Because some of those girls were still better off than what could happen to them in China or Vietnam.

Actually, that statistic includes all children reported missing. It makes no no distinction as to whether or not they were actually missing or how long they remained missing. Given that most missing children are located within 48 hours, I would be skeptical about claims that large numbers of them end up as big-city prostitutes.

Most of them are taken by a parent or close relative.

But those numbers are, like I said, what occurs in the utopia that is non-SR America. SR is magnitudes worse. Comparative numbers of kids kidnapped for ransom, etc. would be closer to current levels in Colombia or Mexico, in raw numbers if not per capita.

[Ravor]

>>>>> Did I hear someone claiming that Blood Magic is evil? Tapping into the sacred power that flows through the lifeblood of all living beings isn't evil, if anything it is tapping into the divine power of our Savior. What would truely be evil is not using the power that God gave us to fight the true evils that lurk where Angels fear to tread. And don't think for a moment that there aren't things in the Astral that would gladly devour the souls of every man women and child on the fragging planet, I've seen them, yes I have. <<<<< -Bot

>>>>> Is it just me or is he getting even more loopy? <<<<< -Void

>>>>> Bot may be a fragging <<<0.5 MP Deleted>>> but he's always been rock solid in my experience. <<<<< -Little Red Riding Hood with a Gun

>>>>> You had better pray to the spirits that Bot has finally glitched, because if what little I've seen of his research is right than we'd all be better off eating a bullet. <<<<< -Glimmer

[JonathanC]

Well, all of this discussion has given me some ideas, specifically a run involving a free blood spirit who takes residence in disgruntled bunraku workers. Something like an urban legend from a Japanese horror movie, about a prostitute that devours people. Since, you know, blood spirits get stronger the more blood (well essence) they get, and from the sounds of it, these bunraku operations would have a ton of un-minded bodies around. I mean, if the body has a neural shunt, does that count as being "out to lunch" from your body for the purposes of possession?

[Whipstitch]

I wouldn't think so. And Shedim would be more likely than some free Blood Sprit.

[Rasumichin]

Keep in mind that free blood spirits become insanely powerful over a very short period of time.
Their energy drain power, in combination with their ability to increase power level via drained essence, creates a really nasty loop effect.
In fact, i would strongly advise for houseruling a cap for this, but that's another issue.

As far as the neural shunt is concerned, imho it does not mean that you're "out for lunch".
Are you more easily possesed when you're asleep or unconscious?
The rules don't say so.
So why should it be different if your sensory input is hindered from moving into long-term memory?

Still, a strong free spirit could easily inhabit a weak-minded person, so this should not pose a problem.

[DocTaotsu]

But what's to say that a Shedim couldn't use a little blood magic? I think that's an excellent plot hook though, even if you wanted to run it Blackhat by having a pissed off bunraku owner hiring runners to track down his merchandise.

[mfb]

if the street doc who installed the girls' ware used large doses of cheap cybertram, it's entirely possible that the process is slowly killing the girls, which would allow shedim to take them over one by one. another possibility (i'm not big on magic, so this may require adjustments to fit the rules) is that one of the girls is a latent magician who awakens under the trauma; her mind snaps, behind the facade of personafixes that she's subjected to, and in her madness she intuitively learns blood magic. during a rare moment when she's not completely under the influence of a personafix, she kills a john and whips up a blood spirit, which she has inhabit her.

of course, if i were going to do it, i'd have all these odd, ritual murders, freaky events, all that crap--and have it turn out that it's just some bunraku doll whose pimp accidentally slotted her a Jack the Ripper p-fix. oops.

[Whipstitch]

The biggest stretch with that is how Blood Spirits essentially require a grade 2 initiate with fairly demanding training, although the latent Awakening is certainly possible regardless.

[nezumi]

I wonder if there's something akin to a blood houdoun spirit...

A voodoo joy girl makes some degree of sense, but having it go terribly wrong is a bit more difficult.

[DocTaotsu]

Well my understanding of a shunt or privacy cut out is that it prevents a persons long term/short term memory from laying down new tracks of information or making new connections (in theory, of course it's a cyberpunk stapel for theory to go out the window, especially with magic). They aren't asleep but they aren't able to remember whatever horrible thing happened to them 20 minutes ago. I'm sure cutouts are combined with various drugs that work in concert to suppress a persons conscious mind so that they won't fight their skillwires. This being said it's a fine balance for the people who service meat puppets. Too little short term memory and they can't carry on a normal conversation (OH MY GOD WHO ARE YOU AND WHY DON'T YOU HAVE PANTS ON!?) and too much and they threaten client privacy. I'm sure meat puppets get dosed regularly with that drug that retroactively erases memories as well.

Bunraku parlors are specialists, I think we've been creeping into territory that says they're the gold standard for prostitution. I highly doubt that, there have been always been people willing to sell their body for cash and I doubt that's going to change. Plus I'm sure there are plenty of people who think that meat puppets are incredibly creepy and that sex with a normal prostitute is preferable to starring into those artificial eyes.

Skillwires are something that bunraku might have but the privacy features seems like something only the cheapest place would not have. That's half the appeal of a bunraku parlor, all the most terrible sex you can buy without any of the consequences of some person fingering you at a trial and saying "He's the one that did it." Plus you don't have to worry about disclosing corporate research secrets at the height of passion, mostly. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Rasumichin]

The free/wild spirit most likely to pop up in a bunraku parlor would, in my opinion, be a shadow of the succubus subtype.

As the description and powers of shadows are deliberately flexible and easily adepted, it would be no big deal to customize one for a scenario set in the red light district of your favored sprawl.

[Kanada Ten]

"Wha's the problem, James, you look a lil low," he said, pouring me another beer. I watched the bubbles sizzle up from the bottom, collecting and gathering into foam with their soft hiss and sigh. The lighting was bad, as bad as it gets in these bombshelter bars, but a glance told me nobody was around that early. Probably why he bothered with me at all.

"It's my girlfriend," I began, and saw him sink back into a stance - I half expect that if I looked over the bar, the floor would be worn where he shuffles into that sympathetic pose, but I went on, "She says she wants to get married, says she never met anybody like me before, says I'm the man of her dreams." He chuckled a little chortle and replied, "doesn't sound that bad to me." I half grinned, half sighed. "Yeah, but it's not me that she loves; it's the me on this chip," I said and showed him the chip, the little blue chip, worn as it was where my fingers rubbed back and forth every morning before shoving it in the slot.

"It's not me she loves, but Karl fragging Kombatmage." And he laughed. I did too, a little laugh, before running my fingers, worn fingers over the worn contours of the little blue chip. And then I shoved it back in the slot and went to my wedding.

[martindv]

That's half the appeal of a bunraku parlor, all the most terrible sex you can buy without any of the consequences of some person fingering you at a trial and saying "He's the one that did it."

There's someone to finger you of a crime. But it's the old Godfather scene in the Reno brothel. Sure she doesn't have a family. Sure she won't remember. But the parlor owner/operator knows what you did. And their hidden trid cameras know what you did as well.

So long as you can afford it, they probably don't even care about any surprises. Not that there's a need for them to be surprised. If you can't afford it then you're probably now indebted to some rather unpleasant Family men.