Aliens in shadowrun. Options

[Neraph]

Not even Earth's own inhabitants can live everywhere on the planet (in fact, we, it's technical civilisation, mostly contend outselves with 30% of it)

Less, actually. The amount of the world that is "industrialized" - as in cities and roads - is roughly 3%. 30% may be liveable but not lived upon.

The chance of life developing is up for debate, so your assertion is your own opinion, not fact. Unfortunately, everything regarding this subject is speculative, so there is no way to rule definitively one way or the other. It can be argued, that any earthlike planet will eventually develop simple life, of which, maybe 2/3 of those planets will develop into complex life. It go the other way that the chances of life developing are incredibly small...the Rare Earth concept.

Actually it's not. Not one single scientific experiment since scientists have tried to create life in a lab has succeeded, and they've been using ideal situations (or some of them that are impossible - the Miller-Urey experiment used impossible atmospheric conditions. for example). It is safe to say that it is a fact that life cannot spontaneously arise. Life can't even be artificially created in laboratories, to any extent I've seen.

By life I mean a full working cell. Scientists have had limited success creating amino acids, but their success in this field is the equivalent of creating a "P" and a "Я" and claiming to have written a complete Encyclopedia Brittanica. Amino acids are required to make life, but they are not themselves life, in much the way that letters are not books.

Alien life might not even be considered life under our definition, we can't know the likeliness as we don't know what other possible configurations that can create viable life, afterall Virae is not considered lifeforms.

This is the best way to go in this discussion.

Something to remember is that while we may only use live on 30% of of our globe, water takes up a lot of space, and where there arn't cities, and other dwellings, there is lots and lots of farmland. we are starting to run low on workable, non-protected land for agricultural production. As population increases, and dwellings take more space, we get LESS land for food production. Which means less food for that rising population. They will have to expand. Either that or continually destroy themselves with bloody wars. And sending them off to try to colonize an inhabited planet solves that problem both ways.

The aliens came to steal metahumanity's soy and krill farming techniques!

The chances for a planet developing life is calculated over a period of a billion years...I'm not aware of any controlled experiments that have had such a period of study. If you know of any, could you direct me to them?

I didn't know of any controlled experiments testing for the absolute radiological decay rates either. In other words - so what?

The problem is that besides not knowing the chances of life developing at all, we don't even know how long it will take assuming it does. Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, and early life arose some 0.5-0.7 billion years after that, and early homo sapiens around ~400-250 million years ago. That is to say, going from planet formation to intelligent life (here defining intelligent life on Earth as "humans") took over 4 billion years, and then from that, it took hundreds of millions of years for us to send messages that could potentially reach space (radio being invented somewhere around ~1880). We can't really make any qualified statement about other planets getting there faster, but we know that it took a long time for us.

The point of this thread is not to debate how long or even whether life could have evolved or not. I could easily go on about this subject for tens of thousands of words, but this is not the proper medium for it.

I know that this is not D&D, so please don't insult me Neraph.

Where did that come from?

Second, the rule set I made up for Psionics has the Psion with a limited set of abilities. Also, without the ability to boost your power with foci, the power level is much lower. I mean think about it: a Mage with Magic 6, a Rating 6 Spellcasting Foci, in a beneficial mana field (in this case +2) will have the ability to cast a effectively Rating 14 Magic.

My rule set would not allow ANY of those shenanigans. There is no Psionic power foci, and no beneficial mana field. Yes there is no drawbacks, but I accounted for them by limiting the number of abilities that a Psion could get to their Psi rating. Psi rating of 2... congrats you have TWO powers and can not learn any more until you raise your Psi rating. Unlike a mage who can spend 5 Karma to learn a new spell.

If anyone wants to take a look at the rule set I made and tell me how I can make it better and more balanced with the current SR rule set, then PM me and I'll send you a copy.

1) Spellcasting Foci and Aspected BC do not add on to a Magic Rating.

2) Psionics is still the equivalent of a gun against melee versus normal Awakened. Not to mention the lack of a need to muddle up game mechanics any more - there is literally no need of that mechanic in the game.

[Tanegar]

Unless they're considered a critter?

Critter powers are magic.

[almost normal]

Critter powers are magic.

You could argue that they're treated as magical as there's no other description for them. Compounding the issue, they can't be counterspelled.

I'm not really pushing this angle hard, I'm just saying an avenue could possibly exist.

[hermit]

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying a bunch of roman legionairs wouldn't be able to get the drop on a group of modern infantery. (despite firearms)
(Considering that the romans would probably be stronger and faster, suggested by archologists)
The point is, they wouldn't know how to fight us. Take our ability to comunicate over long distances. They wouldn't have a single clue how to stop us from doing it.

Sure, but if all we had were very limited ressourced ans Rome could throw legion after legion at us, we'd meet our end really, really fast. Not to mention Romans would be perfectly capable of capturing and torturing our soldiers, and of observing how they talk long-distance talk into their mikes.

Well, there is a robot on the mars and nasa could have send humans if they were in to spend a lot of money for less results... And not returning at all should be kind of a deal breaker...

Why would that be a deal breaker? 'No man left behind' is a Western obsession, not even general human behavior. But robots produce better results, sure. Technically, we could well send people to Pluto.

Well, lets say unlikely to visit us. What the probablitie for a civilastion is to exist in two solar systems I do not know. And it depends what you may count...
One "generation" lab in the next solar system or colonized several planets...

They'd have next to no contact and would diverge fast. If the colony survives at all. And we have had a civilisation capable of sending humans to space in theory for maybe 100 years. Of some 3.000.000.000 years.

I guess we have to set some things straight.
1. Yes, the scenario is at all unrealistic.
2. But if we assume they are comming here with spaceships, well our chances are very low.

Yes, there are other fantasy scenarios. A very aggressive species which just happened to find some way to teleport between Solar systems, directly on the planets. Now, everything is possible...

A planar portal scenario makes much mroe sense in the setting. Of course, the Horrrors is pretty much exactly that ...

And I still disagree with the Spaceships. Spaceships, contrary to American fiction, usually are NOT WELL ARMED. They keep down mass as best as they can, and weapons are dead weight nearly the entire time. A mishap colony ship? Maybe. That'd be a District 9 scenario then, though. An invasion? There is absolutely no way that would make sense for the aliens. None. Except maybe religious shenanigans, but that would horribly anthropomorphise again.

Less, actually. The amount of the world that is "industrialized" - as in cities and roads - is roughly 3%. 30% may be liveable but not lived upon.

Point taken, but most land is used for some country to some extent. We also use the seas in part, but most of it is an abyss we have little idea of. And that is still our own world.

[Lionhearted]

I never considered how alien that alien life could be until now.
I've always thought that it was very silly how pretty much every alien race in sci fi fiction is hominid to some degree, it's by no means an ideal shape.
But only now do I realise that I couldn't even begin to imagine how alien life would look like...

[Tanegar]

You could argue that they're treated as magical as there's no other description for them. Compounding the issue, they can't be counterspelled.

I'm not really pushing this angle hard, I'm just saying an avenue could possibly exist.

No, critter powers are explicitly magic, as they depend on the Magic attribute. There is no Psi attribute in Shadowrun.

[Udoshi]

So psionics, to you, is basically the ability to send radio signals through organic processes (that are so far not explained)? Also, 4 km is literally nothing in Space. Nothing at all.

I'm reminded of an old dumpshock thread, in which someone pointed out that black IC should/could be a telepathic raygun.
Because it already kind of works like that, since you can use remote sim modules to hook up to someone - it literally doesn't even need to be on their person.
The implications of this are what the thread was based around: with this revelation the 'hotness level' isn't based on the connection type your target is using. If you take that knowledge and apply it, then theoretically its possible to make remote death and brainwash(psychotripic ic) rays.

(Thread also had some interesting ideas, like technomancer counterspelling, if anyone cares to dig it up. I can't find it at the moment, and dumpshock's search is notoriously bad.)


I'd also consider technomancers close enough to psychics to count - at the very least, all technomancers can brainwash people for 5bp. Some can do it by touching you, others may even do resonance quests and research to turn PAB's into a complex form or metamagic.

And if a technomancer can learn to bring non technomancers into VR by turning into their bioelectric fields with a touch, its a fair bet that learning to do so over distance and also configuring people to BE technomancers(after all, deus did it) is within the realm of possibility. Those techno's with electrosense have even begun learning to sense the world around them without using their physical senses. That counts as ESP in my book.

In any case, I think we can all agree the 'psionic tradition' rules are pretty silly.

[Halinn]

Actually it's not. Not one single scientific experiment since scientists have tried to create life in a lab has succeeded, and they've been using ideal situations (or some of them that are impossible - the Miller-Urey experiment used impossible atmospheric conditions. for example). It is safe to say that it is a fact that life cannot spontaneously arise. Life can't even be artificially created in laboratories, to any extent I've seen.

By life I mean a full working cell. Scientists have had limited success creating amino acids, but their success in this field is the equivalent of creating a "P" and a "Я" and claiming to have written a complete Encyclopedia Brittanica. Amino acids are required to make life, but they are not themselves life, in much the way that letters are not books.

Please elaborate on how the conditions in the Miller-Urey experiment were impossible. Wikipedia says that there would be more kinds of molecules than the ones that were used, but also that similar later experiments that included that also produced amino acids.

And while it's not life, it's more like creating the entire alphabet (and a couple of extra letters on top of that), and stating that every known book could be written with those letters. We might not have figured out how to put the letters together to make words yet, but it's a lot closer than you claim it to be.

Here's one step closer that has been done: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinoids

[almost normal]

Wikipedia says that there would be more kinds of molecules than the ones that were used, but also that similar later experiments that included that also produced amino acids.

Hahahahaahahahahaha. You're great man <3

And while it's not life, it's more like creating the entire alphabet (and a couple of extra letters on top of that), and stating that every known book could be written with those letters.

Not even close. It's like ink. And then saying ink is like having letters, and letters is like having a book, and a book is like having a complete guide to building a motor vehicle, and having a motor vehicle is like having a working one in motion with gasoline, fluids, and everything.

It's one of the most basic components. It's not even close to being on the same scale of complexity of life.

[Tanegar]

In any case, I think we can all agree the 'psionic tradition' rules are pretty silly.

I don't agree at all.

[KCKitsune]

Um... that's exactly what they did do. Anyone who believes that he is psychic is actually a magician. There are no psychic powers, end of sentence.

Sorry, what I meant is that I wish that they didn't mention it at all.

[Halinn]

Not even close. It's like ink. And then saying ink is like having letters, and letters is like having a book, and a book is like having a complete guide to building a motor vehicle, and having a motor vehicle is like having a working one in motion with gasoline, fluids, and everything.

It's one of the most basic components. It's not even close to being on the same scale of complexity of life.

No. Just having ink would be the metaphorical equivalent having only the most basic ingredient, i.e. the molecules used in the experiment.
Having all the letters, if I combined them in an infinite amount of completely random ways, somewhere along the way I would have the collected works of Feynman. Same as if I combined the amino acids in the infinite amounts that they can be put together, they would form the very complex proteins needed for it to be life at some point. The trouble is that we can't do that whole infinite combining thing.

[hermit]

Having all the letters, if I combined them in an infinite amount of completely random ways, somewhere along the way I would have the collected works of Feynman.

Not necessarily. Infinity doesn't work like you think it does.

[Halinn]

Not necessarily. Infinity doesn't work like you think it does.

It does when I additionally specify completely random.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Um... that's exactly what they did do. Anyone who believes that he is psychic is actually a magician. There are no psychic powers, end of sentence.

Except for Technomancers, of course.

[KCKitsune]

Except for Technomancers, of course.

Thank you. Someone agrees with me.

[Tanegar]

Except for Technomancers, of course.

That's an awfully big assumption, and one completely unsupported by canon so far as I am aware. Resonance is a technological phenomenon; the powers of technomancers are all about interfacing with technology. I am not familiar with any depiction of psychic powers which focuses exclusively on that ability.

[phlapjack77]

Except for Technomancers, of course.

Yeah, Technomancers seem to fit the definition of psychics / psionics pretty well. Using nothing but their mind, they're able to affect the physical world. Although most of the "traditional" psychic powers would seem to come from Submerging...

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

That's an awfully big assumption, and one completely unsupported by canon so far as I am aware. Resonance is a technological phenomenon; the powers of technomancers are all about interfacing with technology. I am not familiar with any depiction of psychic powers which focuses exclusively on that ability.

Ummmm... Technomancy is NOT technological. It is the ability to interface with a Machine with no technological assistance whatsoever. The Point being that there is a mechanic that is not magic, that mimics Psionic potential. *shrug*

Really? Never heard of Cyberkinesis then, Huh? Been a Trope of Psionic Potential for at least 20 years.

[phlapjack77]

That's an awfully big assumption, and one completely unsupported by canon so far as I am aware. Resonance is a technological phenomenon; the powers of technomancers are all about interfacing with technology. I am not familiar with any depiction of psychic powers which focuses exclusively on that ability.

Resonance is about bio-technological stuff...and not all powers of Technomancers focus exclusively on tech. Many of the Submersion powers are physical (E-sensing, Trodes, Biowires, Acceleration, etc)

[Tanegar]

Ummmm... Technomancy is NOT technological. It is the ability to interface with a Machine with no technological assistance whatsoever. The Point being that there is a mechanic that is not magic, that mimics Psionic potential. *shrug*

Really? Never heard of Cyberkinesis then, Huh? Been a Trope of Psionic Potential for at least 20 years.

Resonance is a technological phenomenon in the sense that it is related to and interacts with technology. Also, please note the word "exclusively" in the sentence, "I am not familiar with any depiction of psychic powers which focuses exclusively on that ability."

Resonance is about bio-technological stuff...and not all powers of Technomancers focus exclusively on tech. Many of the Submersion powers are physical (E-sensing, Trodes, Biowires, Acceleration, etc)

Each of those powers is about emulating technology. See above.

Technomancers do not emit "psi waves," "psi particles," "neural fields," or any of the numerous other technobabble terms used for psionic/psychic energy. Their brains simply include a structure for emitting bog-standard radio waves, and for interfacing with computers via that mechanism. The in-universe explanation for this has already been established: Deus experimented on a bunch of people and turned them into living radios.

TECHNOMANCERS ARE NOT PSYCHIC.

[phlapjack77]

Each of those powers is about emulating technology. See above.

There are powers in Shadowrun, magic or otherwise, that emulate technology. Just because something emulates technology doesn't put it in one category or another, except maybe the category of "can also do with tech". There are also technomancer powers that definitely don't emulate tech. E-sensing and resonance link off the top of my head...

Technomancers do not emit "psi waves," "psi particles," "neural fields," or any of the numerous other technobabble terms used for psionic/psychic energy. Their brains simply include a structure for emitting bog-standard radio waves, and for interfacing with computers via that mechanism. The in-universe explanation for this has already been established: Deus experimented on a bunch of people and turned them into living radios.

Really? Radio waves, invisible things that travel through the air directly from your brain to control the physical world around you - you don't think those could qualify as psionics? What's in a name, would a psi-wave by any other name be as powerful...

And a standard trope of psychics is that they have a part of their brain that is more developed or radically different than normal people's...

TECHNOMANCERS ARE NOT PSYCHIC.

Shouting doesn't make your point any more valid (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tanegar]

There are powers in Shadowrun, magic or otherwise, that emulate technology. Just because something emulates technology doesn't put it in one category or another, except maybe the category of "can also do with tech". There are also technomancer powers that definitely don't emulate tech. E-sensing and resonance link off the top of my head...

Each and every one of the powers you mentioned not only falls into the category of "can also do with tech," but emulate specific, identifiable pieces of technology: E-Sensing replicates an EMF meter; Trodes replicates (shockingly enough) trodes; Biowire replicates skillwires; Acceleration replicates wired reflexes; and Resonance Link replicates a good, old-fashioned radio.

Really? Radio waves, invisible things that travel through the air directly from your brain to control the physical world around you - you don't think those could qualify as psionics? What's in a name, would a psi-wave by any other name be as powerful...

Now you're playing games with semantics, the sure sign of a weak argument. Please name one non-obscure work (obscurity to be judged by common goddamned sense; some Ruritanian author in the 1890s who sold 42 copies of Radio Brains from the Future will not count) in which psychic powers operate by neurally-generated radio waves, and/or identify one Shadowrun sourcebook wherein technomancers are explicitly referred to in the crunch as psychic.

[phlapjack77]

Each and every one of the powers you mentioned not only falls into the category of "can also do with tech," but emulate specific, identifiable pieces of technology: E-Sensing replicates an EMF meter; Trodes replicates (shockingly enough) trodes; Biowire replicates skillwires; Acceleration replicates wired reflexes; and Resonance Link replicates a good, old-fashioned radio.

It looks like you are hung up on this technology thing. The Detect Truth spell can be duplicated by a lie-detector machine. Mindlink allows mental communication, which also apparently replicates a radio. So what? This only means that technology and "something else" might have similar functions.

I will admit Technomancers have been given a "technological" slant (it's in the name even (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ), but that doesn't disqualify them from being psychic.

Now you're playing games with semantics, the sure sign of a weak argument. Please name one non-obscure work (obscurity to be judged by common goddamned sense; some Ruritanian author in the 1890s who sold 42 copies of Radio Brains from the Future will not count) in which psychic powers operate by neurally-generated radio waves, and/or identify one Shadowrun sourcebook wherein technomancers are explicitly referred to in the crunch as psychic.

It's not semantics to discuss the made-up words used to describe a made-up phenomenon. I notice you ignore my point about the brain, so since you're trying to be rigorous about this, it means you concede that point. Although I did edit that in a few moments after my original post, so apologies if it was ninja-edited for you.

You seem to be really fired up about this lighthearted discussion, for some reason. I don't think anyone is saying a SR sourcebook actually refers to technomancers as psychic, but they seem to fit the template remarkably well. I've been arguing from the duck-typing rule, where if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

[Tanegar]

It looks like you are hung up on this technology thing. The Detect Truth spell can be duplicated by a lie-detector machine. Mindlink allows mental communication, which also apparently replicates a radio. So what? This only means that technology and "something else" might have similar functions.

Detect Truth and Mindlink replicate only the effects of lie detectors and radio; Resonance Link replicates both the effect and the mechanism of a radio. The technomancer is explicitly sending information via radio waves. His nervous system, in addition to the normal properties of a metahuman nervous system, is also an organic radio, identical in its operating principles to the walkie-talkies you can buy in any electronics store. It is not magic, it is not psychic, it is a current running through a conductor and generating a modulated EM emission. The same is true of the other powers mentioned: they each replicate a piece of technology, not just the effects of that technology.

I will admit Technomancers have been given a "technological" slant (it's in the name even (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ), but that doesn't disqualify them from being psychic.

It's not just a slant; everything about technomancers, every aspect of their powers, relates to technology, either interfacing with it or emulating it.

It's not semantics to discuss the made-up words used to describe a made-up phenomenon.

Semantics is the study of meanings. Unless you're going to argue that made-up words are, by definition, meaningless, it is very much a semantic issue.

I notice you ignore my point about the brain, so since you're trying to be rigorous about this, it means you concede that point. Although I did edit that in a few moments after my original post, so apologies if it was ninja-edited for you.

In fact it was ninja-edited, but that doesn't matter because the point is immaterial. In the supers game Aberrant, all superhumans ("novas," in the game's jargon) are empowered by an organ in the brain which ordinary humans do not possess, the Mazarin-Rashoud Node. Nevertheless, the only novas who could be said to be "psychic" are those possessing powers directly related to the mind, and even that is purely fluff. Crunchwise, there are no psychics in Aberrant, any more than there are in Shadowrun.

...but they seem to fit the template remarkably well. I've been arguing from the duck-typing rule, where if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

This is a case of you stretching the template so far out of shape that it becomes unrecognizable. The single most identifiable common thread among depictions of psychic powers in fiction is that they are explicitly identified as psychics, or psions, or psionics, or some other immediately related term. The other common thread is that psychics wield "powers of the mind," or some similar phrase. Technomancers fail the sniff test on both counts: the source of their powers is explicitly the Resonance, and psychics are explicitly Jossed in Street Magic.

Bottom line: you can call technomancers psychics in your game if you want to, but you need to understand that you are flying in the face of SR canon by doing so.