[X] My Assistant

[Malicant]

Sure, but its not actually near death. The book leaves no wiggle room on this matter. You are dead.

Dammit, another one, sheesh, do I have to quote?

The victim enters into a state of near-death, as the infection initiates physical, mental and spiritual transformation

Yeah, no wiggle room. You are almost dead.

You have a soul. It is your essence score. It can actually be scientifically measured and has units and everything. It is exactly as real as tables, chairs and coffee mugs.

Care to prove that? Essence is most of the time a Metagame mechanic and the rest of the time the abstract integrity of your being, which some will surely call the soul. But that does not make it so, like some claim spirits are the souls of the dead. There is just no proof. And Essence can be measured magically, which is not exactly science, since even astral space is not even proven to exist (scientifically). Science only knows when Essence drops to 0, but they don't measure it in-world on a scale from 0-6, or something. More like "OK", "not OK", "almost gone", "gone" and "beyond gone".

[Cthulhudreams]

characters can never have an Essence of 0 or less. If they do, they die.

If a character's Essence is drained to 0, the character dies.

Hell that is the essence drain description which explicitly kills you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

And of course you can measure it. Science can record the astral perceptions of a magician, and magicians have the power to exactly and precisely quantify the amount of essence an entity has. This allows you to do repeatable experiments, allow others to examine the results, and run double blind tests with multiple instruments of observation. Just think of the magician as an electron microscope.

[Malicant]

No, Infection is scissors, and your quotes are mushroom. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

And of course you can measure it. Science can record the astral perceptions of a magician, and magicians have the power to exactly and precisely quantify the amount of essence an entity has.

Er, no? Astral Perception is a psychic sense. Science does not cover physic senses. Also, it is not science if you need to be one out of hundred to be able to prove it. If every person on the planet can prove it with training, not with inborn ability, it is science.

[Fuchs]

How many people house ruled vampires in their campaigns? Not as PCs, but also as NPCs?

In my game, Vampires are NPCs, but they are not dependent on essence, but blood. Essence drain is what they do to create new Vampires, blood is what they need to survive. It makes them a bit more like some of the modern vampire novels (Anita Blake, "Dead Witch Walking", and similar series).

[Cthulhudreams]

*laughs*

Sure its a psychic sense, but I can dump all the sensory information received by a person out a datajack, chop it up, and then feed it back to other people, so everyone has access to that data. I can actually measure the psychic stimuluses the guy is receiving. It is measurable and quantifiable. Hypothesis' are also falsifiable. Not a problem. We can do controlled experiments, double blind tests, all that good stuff.

That aside, you are thinking about the magician the wrong way. He's not the scientist, he's the electron microscope or the supercollider. You use him as a lens to see the world via sensory uplinks.

However, if you want to get really picky there are semi permanent astral shallows in many areas so you the 99 out of 100 can go learn assensing if you want to push the boat out, in the same way we can all work at CERN.

[Malicant]

Psychic sense are not recorded by SimSense. Remeber how nobody beside mages can understand astral space? That is because no one else can see it. Not even with SimSense.

A psychic sense is a sense that does not exist, in a way.

To shoot down shallows too, yes, other people see astral space, but it cannot be proven, since there is no corresponding brainfunction. Science is about hard proof, not eyewitness reports.

[Cthulhudreams]

You still need to beat the astral shallows point to invalidate my theory, because it says in runner havens that mundanes in astral shallows can do exactly that.

Edit: I can see that we are not going to agree about science. Eyewitness reports ARE hard data. Just you need enough of them, you need to be able to quantify them (often hard, but can do with enough successes on an assensing test!) and you need to be able to reproduce them, both things you can do with an astral shallow no problem. Then you can statistically analyze them and frankly that is a process we apply to pretty much everything.

Got a page reference for that simsense doesn't record astral perception? I was under the impression that they could dump everything out of their brainz.

[Wanderer]

A few other notes...

Yes, it is theoretically possible that sentient magical virii might exist in the SR universe. However, there is no direct or indirect evidence which that be the case, apart from abritrarily making it so on the spot for HMHVV, so good reasoning must lead to refute the hypothesis. The most simple explanation (and therefore the preferable one) is that HMHVV works just like RL virii, only being an Awakened one (ie its DNA/RNA structure being resonant with Astral space) is able to induce chamges in the person's makeup akin to metagenes, whose working it closely mimics. Differently from the Body Snatcher hypothesis, there is ample evidence that in SR setting certain genes may induce magical changes.

Available evidence indicates that in the SR setting Essence is the holistic integration of body, mind, and consciousness. It is a finite quantiy, and when it's exausted, the person cannot survive for long, barring extreme magical and technological remedies. There is also convincing evidence that the consciousness may temporarily separate from the body in a non-material (or better astral-stuff) state. Whether, after death, consciousness may continue to exist, self-aware, independent from the body, well it's uncertain. However, there is no decent evidence that such "spirit" being separate in nature from the mind, as opposed to be an "emerging product", the spiritual record or engraving on the astral stuff of the mind.

The problem that at Essence 0 the body/mind dies, and the "spirit" departs, is easily solved by reminding that some magical foces, as proven by the cybermantic ritual, can block permanently the lethal effects of Essence exaustion, and force body, mind, and "spirit" to say together.

Available evidence

The victim enters into a state of near-death, as the infection initiates physical, mental, and spiritual transformation. Within 24 hours the newly created critter revives at 1 Essence and must immediately drain Essence from another being.

indicates that HMHVV works just like the cybermantic ritual, being able to prevent total loss of Essence. It causes a little repair of Essence integrity, during the transformation, so the subject never truly dies but enters a death-like state, it causes the Essence loss to "rebound" to a little degree. HMHVV is able to change the way Essence works to a large degree, as proven by the existence of Essence Drain. During this death-like coma, the virus reworks the biological and magical makeup of the subject to a large degree, and makes some mental changes as well (the instinctual craving for Essence). But it is always the same person that undergoes a metamorphosis.

Again, the more I look at it, the more I get convinced that HMHVV was a partially successful attempt to engineer the cybermantic ritual into something that could work automatically on an infected subject without the need for the cumbersome magical and technological procedure. The anologies are too striking.

[Malicant]

Got a page reference for that simsense doesn't record astral perception? I was under the impression that they could dump everything out of their brainz.

That is a very easy request, let's start with my latest favorite hobby, quoting BBB, since a lot of people don't bother reading it before spouting nonsense. But don't feel sad, you're not alone.

Simrig: An advanced version of the trode net, the simrig records simsense experience data (both physical and emotive) from the wearer.

Psychic is not physical nor emotive, but let's continue.

Simsense programs are created when a simrig records a person's sensory inout (all five senses) plus their emotive response.

Yes, that is five senses, like not six, the sixth being psychic.

If you wish I can go on how Astral Perception is not a physical sense, or how it is not even a signle sense at all, but let's just stop here, since I made my point.

Oh, and eyewitness reports are bogus. A lot of people saw nessie, alien spaceships, apples falling from trees etc. Proving and disproving those reports is science. You cannot prove or disprove the existance of astral space. Just a bunch of people claim it exists, and a lot of stuff points in that direction, but science is at a loss to interact with it, so it cannot prove or disprove it. Welcome to the Sixth World.

[Stahlseele]

while we're at it . . what happens if a vampire manages to find enough flesh to sink it's teeth into a cyber-zombie? does he get any essence out of them? probably not, but i still find it funny if i think of it *g*
Vampire:*goes chomp*
Zombie: *droools*
Vampire:*ptuey* "ick, yuck, dried up and foul"

[swirler]

The Wendigo (a female, if I recall correctly) in S-K's employ shows up posing as an albino Sasquatch in a novel I believe, and passes her ability to talk off as having an implanted voice modulator. I don't recall which novel though.

It was the first I believe.

[FrankTrollman]

God damn it Wanderer. The basic rules say that there is no way to not die from having an Essence of zero in the basic rules. Infection is a basic rule, Cybermancy is not a basic rule. The rule that says a character cannot not die with an Essence of 0 does not apply to Cybermancy but it does apply to Vampiric Infection.

Do try to keep up. Actually read the whole section. The fact that he enters a state of near death for some period of time in no way obviates the fact that he actually dies.

indicates that HMHVV works just like the cybermantic ritual, being able to prevent total loss of Essence. It causes a little repair of Essence integrity, during the transformation, so the subject never truly dies but enters a death-like state, it causes the Essence loss to "rebound" to a little degree.

The fuck it does.

If a character's Essence is drained to 0, the character dies.

The Infection power allows a critter with Essence Drain to infect any suitable creature it has drained to 0 Essence with the strain of the HMHVV virus it is carrying.

You aren't a little bit alive. You are dead. In fact, the Infection power isn't even usable until the target is already dead.

-Frank

[Malicant]

Are you ignoring the near-death exception thingy in the Infection powers description on purpose? Sounds like raving geek syndrome to me.

[quentra]

Got a quote for that?

[nathanross]

Aside from what the book says, what makes you (meta)human? Is it your brain? your body? your past? your motivations for the future? your genes? In a sense, what you are is a result of all of these things. Your genes are influenced in the womb and ends up with a certain base brain and body structure. It is then influenced by the social environment it develops within. Our desires/dreams/goals are also a result of all these things.

When a being is infected with HMHVV, this balance changes. Assuming the resulting being has the intellectual capacity to choose their way of life, you now require a different method of living, and your lifestyle and culture must change to fit this. Whether this change is like a new spirit possessing a body it is completely new to, or whether it is the same body/mind but with such a radically different outlook as to be considered different from the original is still up in the air.

The magical-virus HMHVV is now an integral part of this new being, this cannot be denied. For Wendigos, and others who did not retain their higher thought processing, they are now very much a new being. The virus has completely changed their mind, and their memories of the past are all but forgotten; they are truly no longer what they once were. Whether you can say that that being's "soul" no longer inhabits that body is completely dependent on your religious view of the relation between body/mind/soul.

PS - Watch/read Ghost in the Shell

EDIT - I feel there is a gap in the rules when it comes to death and it's relation to magic and the soul. This issue recently came up when we were wondering if you could still Mind Probe a recently dead body. You can technically die (heart stopping) and yet still be revived. As far as I know, SR has never taken a stance on the soul and it's relation to the body (with the exception of astral forms). Can you assense a dead body? For how long after it has died (psychometry metamagic not included)?

[Fuchs]

AFAIK, the medical definition of death death is not your heart stopping, but your mind stopping.

[FrankTrollman]

Are you ignoring the near-death exception thingy in the Infection powers description on purpose?

There is no exception. Nor can there be. Infection is a basic rule.

6. Under basic Shadowrun rules, characters can never have an Essence of 0 or less. If they do, they die.

So no, I'm not ignoring anything. The rules are quite explicit on this point.

You.
Are
DEAD.

Get over it.

-Frank

[Wanderer]

When a being is infected with HMHVV, this balance changes. Assuming the resulting being has the intellectual capacity to choose their way of life, you now require a different method of living, and your lifestyle and culture must change to fit this. Whether this change is like a new spirit possessing a body it is completely new to, or whether it is the same body/mind but with such a radically different outlook as to be considered different from the original is still up in the air.

Different, it is surely a different outlook, as per any radically different experience. The point is, it is not a new self-awareness, a new person. It certainly a life-changing experience, and it may change the personality in some ways. But it is not an alien parasite subsuming the mind of the host.

For Wendigos, and others who did not retain their higher thought processing, they are now very much a new being. The virus has completely changed their mind, and their memories of the past are all but forgotten; they are truly no longer what they once were.

BZZTT!!! Basic masitake. Wendigoes, like vampires, very much retain their sentience and their memories (they are magicians by default, remember ?). So this point is wholly invalid. You're mistaking wendigoes and dzoo-no-qua.

[Wanderer]

There is no exception. Nor can there be. Infection is a basic rule.

Sure, and it says explicitly: "The victim enters into a state of near-death, as the infection initiates physical, mental, and spiritual transformation. Within 24 hours the newly created critter revives at 1 Essence and must immediately drain Essence from another being."

It indicates that the subject never dies, it enters a "near-death" state, and it remains in suspended animation as the virus works its transformation. After a day, the process is complete, the character awakens at Essence 1. It never dies, because the Infection power does not allow the character to do.

So no, I'm not ignoring anything. The rules are quite explicit on this point.

Indeed, and it looks like someone in his dogged crusade to make HMHVV the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is willfully ignoring the rule above, which is a basic rule, and since it is specifically about the Infected, it trumps the general rule about Essence 0. Specific rules always trump general ones.

[Malicant]

There is no exception. Nor can there be. Infection is a basic rule.



So no, I'm not ignoring anything. The rules are quite explicit on this point.

You.
Are
DEAD.

Get over it.

-Frank

Really though. I hate to break it to you, but Infection makes that exception. I know, you will need a moment to find back your composure, but don't worry, games will go on.

[edit]And you know why this excpetion does not even break the rules? Because those Infected are NPCs, so you still can't play a character that went 0 Essence with basic rules.

Got a quote for that?

I actually have. Earlier in this very thread even, I think. If I wasn't a lazy jerk I would repeat it. Look it up, under the Infection power in the BBB.

[FrankTrollman]

Wanderer, what partof NEWLY CREATED CRITTER do you not understand?

You are dead. It is alive. End of discussion.

----

Malicant: While the rules do say that you spend a period "near death" the rules say that you "don't die" a grand total of zero fucking times. They say that you do die unambiguously three times. Furthermore, the basic rulebook also says specifically and exhaustively that there is no rule in the basic rulebook that would allow you to not die. It's extremely open and shut.

I honestly don't know how the rules could possibly have been written more clearly. You. Die.

-Frank

[Adarael]

Frank, I think the big sticking point here is that people don't agree with your view that the virus is somehow the sum total of what this new HMHVV infected critter is, rather than simply a force animating their corpses and giving them powers.

Part of that probably stems from the fact that people are 'infected' with HMHVV and not 'taken over by' HMHVV.

(I don't have a stock in it either way, so I don't care.)

[Malicant]

Also, they don't die in the process. Just in case anyone missed that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

And just to add something a little more serious, if Frank was remotly right, Energy Loss would be another mistake, not an exception, since it gives a critter a few hours time bevore dying when it hit's 0 Essence. Weird that. Gee, I wonder if someone interprets something in a way out of context here. Might be me, but somehow I feel safe on this one.

[nathanross]

BZZTT!!! Basic masitake. Wendigoes, like vampires, very much retain their sentience and their memories (they are magicians by default, remember ?). So this point is wholly invalid. You're mistaking wendigoes and dzoo-no-qua.

Okay, I'm trying to pave a middle ground here, but so be it. Anyways, maybe not all wendigos, but most and some ghouls/vampires/banshee loose their minds. I know the trolls (dzoo-no-qua) and whatever dwarves become also loose their mind. At that point I just say that whatever was the thinking metahuman is now just an animal. Whether some Wendigos avoid this, I don't know. If they do retain their memories, then you must wonder how much of what they were is still their after their transformation.

And Frank, please quit shouting, you are better than that.

I don't think this is a rules issue, as whether or not PCs can play the resultant critter is completely up to the GM. This is a fluff argument. And would someone please address what you define as dead, and what you define as "entirely new critter" outside of the narrow scope of the rules?

This seems to be a nature vs nurture argument, and I don't think either side is necessarily wrong. Sure a wendigo is very fucked up and would not be so if it weren't for the virus. However, its behavior is not entirely a result of the virus, as it is piggybacking off many learned experiences/reflexes. It does not get reborn as a baby, it is a changed adult with aspects of it's being coming from both the adult that was infected and the virus which changed said adult.

[Malicant]

I just can't resist to take another punch at the "It's the rules" angle.

Ok, the rules say a character dies if reduced to 0 Essence. I don't even argue that. But what do those rules don't say? Right. Does the character die instantly, or does it take minutes, hours, days until his system, soul or whatever finally kicks the bucket? No one knows. Which leaves room for Infection to work without being an exception. And the character still leaves the game, so nothing really changed.

Once again, SR is not D&D. Rules, especially something written outside the actual rules sections, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Also, Martin "I don't feel like myself, which proves my theory" deVries is still a nutjob. Just in case anyone missed that. Anything that supports that loon is to be disregarded. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)