[X] My Assistant

[Aerospider]

"The Sublime tend to enslave and torture Matrix users with their complex forms or in dissonant virtual machines just for their own satisfaction."

What exactly is a virtual machine and how is one used?
Note that I have little to no interest in this outside of SR.

In what ways might a dissonant 'enslave' a user?
Black CFs, right?
The Resonance Trodes echo?
Any other means?

Thanks in advance.

[Loch]

Pretty much any Black IC program can be modded for Psychotropic option, which is pretty much mind-control-in-a-box with the number of negative qualities you can bestow on people.

[Rubic]

by modern parlance, a virtual machine is a program that allows a computer with one hardware set emulate another. As such, you can have a windows computer running a Mac or Linux system emulated within as a "virtual machine" (possibly both). Short version, "virtual machine" means "emulator," for all intents and purposes. Now, not all emulators are virtual machines, per se, but all virtual machines are emulations.

[Ascalaphus]

A virtual machine is a program in a computer that simulates a hardware environment, so that another OS can run inside the virtual piece of hardware, never realizing that it's not running on real hardware. That way, one computer can run multiple OS at the same time. In the real world, it's one of the most influential inventions of semi-recent computer technology.

AFAIK, that doesn't actually exist in SR4. Or at least there aren't any game systems for it. It would be something like a Node running another Node inside it; inside the interior Node, you wouldn't notice that it's not running directly on the hardware but inside an external Node.

"Trapping people in virtual machines" just sounds like bullshit. It doesn't serve any practical purpose to do it in a virtual machine instead of in a regular dissonant Node - and there aren't any game systems for virtual machines, so...

[Fatum]

>Note that I have little to no interest in this outside of SR.
>People replying about what virtual machines are outside of SR.
Good job, good job!

[ntwi]

In SR3 there were virtual machines (Matrix pg 121) that were used to hold fake paydata while hiding the real information. As far as I know, and as others have mentioned, they are not mentioned anywhere in Unwired that I can find.

[Ascalaphus]

>Note that I have little to no interest in this outside of SR.
>People replying about what virtual machines are outside of SR.
Good job, good job!

Hey, have to explain what it is, before you can show that it's missing.

[LurkerOutThere]

Here's the thing Fatum there's a liot of things in the universe, walls and doors jsut to name a few that it's never explicitly laid out what they do, your just assumed to know. So the OP saying they don't care how walls and doors work int he real world and wanting to know how they work in shadowrun would be silly.

Anyhoo, one use for a virtual machine in the real world is to run multiple enviroments on the same physical hardware, not just different OS's but many many seperate copies of the same OS that all thing their their own individual server. I'm presuming that that's what the section is refering to, the disonants in question likely set up virtual boxes on other servers to create worlds go about their nastyness in.

What that means in game terms is anyones, guess. It's another case where we got a real world semi-complicated technical bit of jargon over our abstract magitech matrix.

[hobgoblin]

Interestingly, the description of TM bionodes in Unwired also makes a reference to virtual machines. This in relation to how empty the bionode is to a hacker. It is almost as if virtual machines where supposed to be part of the security chapter but was edited out or something. Like Ntwi states, in SR3 they where used to make a node look bland and uninteresting to the attacker while the really interesting data was available once one broke out of the virtual machine.

[Ascalaphus]

It's kinda funny how in SR3 they were actually closer to RL computers than in SR4, with regards to virtual machines.

[Seriously Mike]

Hmm, that kinda gives me an idea and a purpose for this thing. First, security: if a VM is not set up for external connections and the only access is via the machine VM is running on, it's twice as hard to bust into it or bust out of it. Also, if you screw up something on the machine VM is running on, the VM may crash with everything inside, which results in data loss. If you lock someone in such a VM, any external intervention to free him is much riskier - you don't know what he's going through and getting dumpshocked may cause additional effects of some kind.

[Ascalaphus]

I could be wrong, but most of the time, dumpshock is still less painful that suffering 1-2 more attacks from black IC. Just pull the plug and hope for the best.