Feral AI seals public AI site!, Implementing an adventure hook from Corporate Enclaves Options

[Megu]

I'm using the following hook from Corporate Enclaves:

"A feral AI mysteriously manages to “seal off ” a public AR site,
somehow trapping personas inside—users are unable to log out.
The owners of the site (a Horizon subsidiary) hires the runners
to pose as Matrix terrorists in a desperate PR job while they
contact the Undernet to .deal with the AI."

We're getting towards the end of Emergence, and the campaign is set in Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is having the Charles Babbage Institute's AI rights debates, hosted by Evo, so I'm thinking of changing it to an Evo shopping mall, rather than a Horizon site, as Evo's a much more prominent corp in the city and they wouldn't want bad AI press at this time for sure, but that could change if a better idea for a site comes along.

However, I'm kind of confused. How does this actually work? If they're just in AR, can't they just jack out? There's no dumpshock or anything to worry about... Also, does this only affect the people on site who are accessing it, or people remotely accessing it, or what? Are they physically locked into the building? My group hasn't done much with the Matrix before,

And how exactly does one pose as a Matrix terrorist? Do they have to be on site? Should they just fortify themselves somewhere and send out an "ultimatum"?

Pretty much any help with the implementation of this that you guys could provide would be excellent. Thanks a bunch!

[Udoshi]

Black IC can prevent users from logging out, yes. However, let's step back and look at what the regular joe average common user has.

A commlink. Duh. Required, for their SIN. Probably rating 1-3. Costs a few hundred credits. Most likely it has a VR unit on it, for another 250. VR units are -dirt cheap-, which makes them rather commonly bundled with commlinks to save prices as opposed to goggles, contacts, image links, headphones - those are all expensive. Even in AR mode, a sim unit can put things in your field of view, at a higher resolution than a pair of POS glasses can. To the sides, up down, all around - its CONVENIENT. Even if these common users don't VR's all the time, its rather useful. And cheap. And proliferous. On a low rating, easily hackable commlink. Its entirely possible to trace a user's connection to a public sight, hack their commlink, drop them into VR, and then prevent them from logging out.

Suddenly, you have users busy driving their cars, on public transportation, in meeting who happen to be on a server worldwide just slumping over and being unable to logout or move(Seriously. Almost nobody disables the RAS system. that takes a decent hardware check so you can flop about like a retard - why bother, right?) That's a problem. A user locked into VR is at risk in the real world. Except in this case, all those users can sue EVO for damages cause their website got them mugged, or their credstick stolen, or made her husband crash their car on the freeway and die. PR nightmare indeed.

But that's a the beauty of being a GM. You don't need to do have statistical justifications within the rules for everything. Sometimes you just sling a bunch of bullshit at your players, and pray they don't see that you're winging it. If you're familiar with the rules, you can have them make their rolls for all the usual stuff, and they'll never know the difference. Hit up Unwired's AI section, under Protosapient AI's. Those are the Ferals. One of them has the negative quality Corruptor, which gives Gremlins 2 to it and stuff it interacts with, also: "The gamemaster should also make use of this negative quality for dramatic effect as best suits the story."

To pull this off? Cyberterrorists should make demands. Back it up with threats. Enforce deadlines so the law enforcement people are operating on a crunch schedule. Ask your players to get creative. The stunt with the public AR site could be a smokescreen op for something -bigger- and much more hurtful to a corp's bottom line. Like, say, a bomb thread to a major building or headquarters. In fact, if EVO wants the cyberterrorism act to succeed, they might even be willing to help the runner crew sell it to the public. A meatcrew could be useful, and that's the beauty of the matrix. On the intern . Go look up some TV episode synopses on the IMDB for, like, 24, or other shows.

Hope that helps.

[Megu]

OK, thanks man. Think I got an idea where to go from here. I like the deadlines/crunch aspect to it, too, it'll put a fire under my PCs' asses, make 'em hasty, which often leads to lulz.