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> "Sleep Dealers" in Shadowrun?, Something I'm sure the AAA corps would love....
erik
post Oct 10 2009, 06:20 AM
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Hi all,

Just watched the film Sleep Dealer, which was recently released on DVD/Blu-ray in the U.S. I thought it was an o.k. effort for a relatively low-budget indie sci-fi film from Mexico, even though the plot seemed a bit drawn-out/overly long and the characters didn't seem fully fleshed out to me. However, there were some ideas in the film that were interesting to me. One was the namesake "sleep dealer." This is a factory or warehouse in Tijuana where local labor would remotely pilot work drones via "nodes". These nodes are essentially multiple datajacks in various places on their bodies. The drones would be used for tasks like remote construction labor for San Diego skyscrapers or driving taxi cabs in New York. The workers are given pure oxygen to help stay alert, and they "see" what the drone sees via a type of contact lens. Basically, this is cheap, foreign "rigging" we are talking about here. There was also U.S. military rigging depicted (contracted, of course, by a private corp), which was introduced via a humorous, and kinda sad, reality-TV show. Incidentally, the show (called "Drones!") seemed like the type of entertainment a 2072 audience would love. But the concept of a first-world corporation hiring poor riggers from a third-world city (Tijuana was practically depicted as a feral city), and exploiting them seemed very Shadowrunny to me. Are there any SR AAA corps that would do something like this?
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Wolfshade
post Oct 10 2009, 06:26 AM
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Aztechnology and Ares come to mind quicklike
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Dikotana
post Oct 10 2009, 06:34 AM
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Hm. In SR3 a VCR makes rigging far too expensive for any kind of cheap labor. In SR4 it's not too far beyond the cost of good skill wires, though of course you have to pay for the drone as well. Conclusion: the megacorps will eat up drone operators as long as they're cheap. If you're a down and out would-be rigger looking for work, they have it for you, few questions asked.
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Marwynn
post Oct 10 2009, 06:38 AM
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Oh definitely.

However keep in mind that the Sixth World has to be much, much smaller than our world is thanks to the Matrix. If it's possible to have nationwide riggers operating delicate equipment as it was mentioned in the fluff then certainly international rigging opportunites would be possible.

That said, can you pay them less? If their skills are in demand and they're getting paid remotely why would it matter so much where they were anymore? You can try to pay them less but they probably have other offers.

Instead of payment perhaps other countries are even more under the sway of corporations and the foreign riggers have less legal rights. I don't see nuyen differing that wildly, but benefits, hours of operation, pension plans, etc would all be up for negotiation elsewhere. And if the rigger's skilled enough why isn't he already moving elsewhere?

You think getting technical support from India is bad now though.
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Dakka Dakka
post Oct 10 2009, 07:57 AM
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QUOTE (Marwynn @ Oct 10 2009, 08:38 AM) *
You think getting technical support from India is bad now though.
Well if around the clock rigging is needed you could also rig machines in different timezones, so that a) you can benefit from lower wages of the country the riggers are paid and b) don't have to pay extra for the "night shift".
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Karoline
post Oct 10 2009, 11:31 AM
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Is a wageslave grade rigger really likely to be better than the pilot 3 that a drone comes with? I mean chuck in a couple of relevant rating 3 autosofts and you'd need not just a rigger, but a -good- rigger to be able to make them any better. I could see having a single decent rigger running dozens or even hundreds of drones in one or multiple projects. His main purpose would be to make sure the drones didn't get into some weird infinite loop, or get stuck and be unable to figure out how to free themselves, or if a human comes onto the scene, allow the rigger to interact with the human isn't just interacting with a bunch of robots.
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Dwight
post Mar 21 2010, 09:39 PM
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I don't think that the SR Matrix wears you out enough for Sleep Dealers to work under SR rules. Remember the huge metaphor that was very explicitly mentioned in the movie. Those blue cables were eating him up and exporting through the "pipes" of cabling the same way that the water was being gathered up and sent north via pipeline. The corp-government Overlords were both draining him and draining the country of life, for a mere pittance of what the real, longterm value was.

Now tweaking the rules so that really cheap (or otherwise more profitable) rigging equipment was cutting corners that degraded the rigger's body and mind in the process, then it makes it more sense to match up with the very cyberpunk setting of Sleep Dealers.
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hobgoblin
post Mar 21 2010, 09:46 PM
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muscle atrophy?
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Hagga
post Mar 21 2010, 09:48 PM
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QUOTE (Dikotana @ Oct 10 2009, 06:34 AM) *
Hm. In SR3 a VCR makes rigging far too expensive for any kind of cheap labor. In SR4 it's not too far beyond the cost of good skill wires, though of course you have to pay for the drone as well. Conclusion: the megacorps will eat up drone operators as long as they're cheap. If you're a down and out would-be rigger looking for work, they have it for you, few questions asked.

One of those being "Have you ever worked against our corporation?" in a locked room, with a mage watching, hooked up to a polygraph.
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Dwight
post Mar 21 2010, 09:53 PM
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QUOTE (hobgoblin @ Mar 21 2010, 03:46 PM) *
muscle atrophy?


It's got to chew at the mental, too. Actually more I think. Because muscle atrophy is about something getting weaker because it's not needed. This has to burn something up, something useful, something core to being alive, even on the Matrix. Break it, metaphorically send their essence down the pipe. SR has some of that with Essence being removed for having implants put in, but it doesn't do it through use.

Really that's the thing missing. Big 'E' Essence doesn't drop from use of your 'ware. Once you leave the cyberdoc's table you are is far down as you are going to go till you come back, expect in the oddball situation of CyberZombies. It, I assume, was a game play concession tied up with how the system of 'ware and Essence interacted. Though that requires a bigger rethink of how 'ware removes your humanity. I've actually gone there and I've got something I'm comfortable with....of course mechanically it's much different than how Essence works but it does similar things. Screws with magical ability, increases as your cyberware abilities get better, increases with implants.

Only your cyberware ability rises with use, as your body becomes more in sync with it, rather than just when you get new implants.
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hobgoblin
post Mar 21 2010, 10:14 PM
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maybe spending to long jumped in will make your thought patterns become more robotic?

tho i guess thats closer to the humanity score of cp2020 then SR essence.
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kjones
post Mar 21 2010, 10:26 PM
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One reason to favor riggers over autosofts - a drone with a jumped-in rigger can't be spoofed, if I understand it correctly. (Can it be hacked? I don't remember.)
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hobgoblin
post Mar 21 2010, 10:31 PM
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the node could be hacked and the persona of the rigger be attacked and crashed, iirc.
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Dwight
post Mar 21 2010, 10:34 PM
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What I did was make a characters Cyberware ability, number of dice they have access to when using any of their implants, an Emotional Attribute in Burning Wheel. What this means is that every use of it counts towards it the EA rising. You become more and more powerful until you reach the apex of the EA, at 10. Perhaps picking up quirks along the way but always clearly more powerful. When you reach the apex it consumes you. For Cyberware I assume you become a vegetable, perhaps without a soul, or just die outright due to a lack of will to live.

The only way to slow it is to carefully manage how often you use the ability. The only to avoid going over the top is to never use any of your implants. It is cruelly insidious. EAs always define a tragic arc in the life of a character.

P.S. Then I added a second EA of Corruption, which unlike Cyberware doesn't heavily interfere with magical ability. When you get an implant put in you choose between raising the Cyberware a point or the Corruption a point. Side effects of rising Corruption is more....marked. This is the path that CyberZombies, Toxic Shamans, and such walk. Although you avoid interference with magic or are able to greatly increase the number of implants you get before you are consumed, your fate is still a tragedy, and the side effects of the EA more difficult to live with. Although that isn't really connected to a Sleep Dealers scenario.
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Dwight
post Mar 21 2010, 10:37 PM
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QUOTE (kjones @ Mar 21 2010, 04:26 PM) *
One reason to favor riggers over autosofts - a drone with a jumped-in rigger can't be spoofed, if I understand it correctly. (Can it be hacked? I don't remember.)


Writing Autosofts, AI in general, as competent and/or feasible in the setting is problematic for this I think.


EDIT: This can be somewhat fixed by having AI of any significant level as persona non grata, including heavy licensing and limitations on the use of Autosofts. After the mess Deus Ex AI leaves AI in general becomes seen as more dangerous and thus there is an active luddite type push to roll back the clock on AI development that is fairly widely supported, even within corps. It doesn't need to be universally supported and enforced with 100% success, corps can have their black ops AI (prohibition that you then circumvent yourself is a source of power). Just enough prohibition and limits that that sleep dealers become a viable economic option. It doesn't even need to be a prohibition that is particularly logical or 100% ban.
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Fatum
post Mar 22 2010, 01:03 AM
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QUOTE (erik @ Oct 10 2009, 09:20 AM) *
The workers are given pure oxygen to help stay alert


I don't want to sound nitpicking, but if you breathe pure oxygen, you do not by far stay alert. Oxygen intoxication is said to be akin to being drunk.
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wayfinder
post Mar 22 2010, 01:49 AM
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If you read Unwired this situation is handled by most corps with skillwires. Instead of paying for intensive training for semi-skilled or even skilled employees the reduced cost of skillwires allows for instant competancy. Today he's a plumber tomorrow an electrician and by wednesday he's a secretary. No need for any natural skills and way cheaper and more flexible than drones. Lots of people reference bio-drones as security measures, but the sad truth in the sixth world is that most people volunteer to be a drone just for the undervalued paycheck.
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Dwight
post Mar 22 2010, 01:52 AM
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QUOTE (wayfinder @ Mar 21 2010, 07:49 PM) *
If you read Unwired this situation is handled by most corps with skillwires. Instead of paying for intensive training for semi-skilled or even skilled employees the reduced cost of skillwires allows for instant competancy. Today he's a plumber tomorrow an electrician and by wednesday he's a secretary. No need for any natural skills and way cheaper and more flexible than drones. Lots of people reference bio-drones as security measures, but the sad truth in the sixth world is that most people volunteer to be a drone just for the undervalued paycheck.


But the premise of Sleep Dealers is that you don't need to let the stinky brown people into your country to take advantage of their cheap labour. Skill Wires don't address that at all.
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hobgoblin
post Mar 22 2010, 02:17 AM
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QUOTE (Dwight @ Mar 22 2010, 02:52 AM) *
But the premise of Sleep Dealers is that you don't need to let the stinky brown people into your country to take advantage of their cheap labour. Skill Wires don't address that at all.

but comboing skillwires and VCR may. heck, in SR4 you dont even need the VCR for basic rigging. Just a comlink and a trode set.
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wayfinder
post Mar 22 2010, 02:18 AM
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I think the big difference your missing is that a mega corp is an global nation itself. It already operates in all the third world and the first world (and with the zurich orbital out of world) places. To the mega corp of the sixth world ANYONE not a senior executive is the "stinky brown people". Hence the SINless, Barrens, etc in major first world cities.
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Dwight
post Mar 22 2010, 02:25 AM
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QUOTE (wayfinder @ Mar 21 2010, 08:18 PM) *
I think the big difference your missing is that a mega corp is an global nation itself. It already operates in all the third world and the first world (and with the zurich orbital out of world) places. To the mega corp of the sixth world ANYONE not a senior executive is the "stinky brown people". Hence the SINless, Barrens, etc in major first world cities.


Right. Whoever counts as the 'stinky brown people' in a given situation, keeping them physically somewhere else where you can safely bomb the crap out of them if they get uppity without inflicting damage to your own infrastructure or risk your own citizen's (AKA middle and upper management's) health.

QUOTE
but comboing skillwires and VCR may. heck, in SR4 you dont even need the VCR for basic rigging. Just a comlink and a trode set.


That was never the issue, was it? That is why the Skill Wires are a red herring.
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Hagga
post Mar 22 2010, 01:27 PM
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QUOTE (Fatum @ Mar 22 2010, 01:03 AM) *
I don't want to sound nitpicking, but if you breathe pure oxygen, you do not by far stay alert. Oxygen intoxication is said to be akin to being drunk.

You die. Oxygen is bloody toxic.
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Dwight
post Mar 22 2010, 01:48 PM
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QUOTE (Hagga @ Mar 22 2010, 06:27 AM) *
You die. Oxygen is bloody toxic.


For people with normally functioning lungs and blood, yes. Sometimes 100% is used but you have to be pretty hard up (like premature babies). If there was a "100%" feed that was regulated and mixed with standard air prior to entering the lungs then it's less likely to cause acute toxicity, if it was only raising the ATM pressure of the oxygen a couple points above 1. Long term exposure probably wouldn't be that good for you, though, and neurological benefits of extra oxygen aren't fully understood (it's a subject of 'leading edge', perhaps quack medicine).

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Penta
post Mar 22 2010, 02:26 PM
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Actually...speaking as a former preemie who keeps an interest in such things, I don't think they use 100% Oxygen anymore, at least not normally.

The reason is that too much oxygen to a baby can cause retinopathy of prematurity - in other words, the kid's retinas detach, causing blindness. (I should know, I have it. They saved some of my sight, but still.) It was identified in the 50s during one of the first true controlled random studies - but only lately with modern O2 monitoring equipment have they been able to really prevent it.

More on-topic, though: Like has been said - neat premise, but the fact that the Barrens are minutes away from most major cities (or are most of said city) makes the idea a lot less attractive in SR.
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Dwight
post Mar 22 2010, 02:54 PM
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QUOTE (Penta @ Mar 22 2010, 08:26 AM) *
Actually...speaking as a former preemie who keeps an interest in such things, I don't think they use 100% Oxygen anymore, at least not normally.


Like you say, modern O2 monitoring lets them keep better control on it, proper dosing as it were. So it isn't premature = %100, it just can go up to that. I believe hypoxia can also screw up the retina (I don't know if it's understood that well, I do know that O2 levels influence vascular relaxing/constriction, likely the mechanism involved). So they have to hit the right zone or risk retina injury.

QUOTE
More on-topic, though: Like has been said - neat premise, but the fact that the Barrens are minutes away from most major cities (or are most of said city) makes the idea a lot less attractive in SR.


Keeping the unwashed out though, so you don't have to pay for moving around the meat, keeping it feed, cleaning up after it, worrying it's going to turn on you in it's offtime, etc. I'm a bit puzzled there aren't more walls in Shadowrun, more like the Denver situation as the norm. Might not be emphasized to facilitate PCs moving around a lot?
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