[X] My Assistant

[Bull]

We desperately needed that as an archetype?


I'm going to chalk that up to CGL.

My understanding is that it's not that they "melted" all of a sudden. It's that they weren't properly "welded" at a micro level. Any stress can cause the micro-welds holding the material together to come loose, causing the item to appear to "melt" or disintegrate.

There's a couple schools of thought on Nanites. One is more realistic, one is much more sci-fi, the "gray goo" nanites. I don;t really know a lot about either of then myself (And thus avoid them for the most part), as it's outside my area of interest.

Problem is that SR4 very much was using the Gray Goo version for a lot of things. microscopic Machines that can build stuff out of, umm, stuff. It was science-magic, and while that's fine if you're doing a high sci-fi game, Shadowruns not that. And Nanites as they were presented effectively change the entire Shadowrun world, and make it, well, not Shadowrun anymore.

[Fatum]

Would you describe that as "melted to slag", though?

Come on, machines making stuff out of stuff are a no-no, but magic making stuff out of nothing is fine?

[FuelDrop]

Would you describe that as "melted to slag", though?

Come on, machines making stuff out of stuff are a no-no, but magic making stuff out of nothing is fine?

Of course! Don't you know anything about science?!?
[/linkara]

[Tzeentch]

Come on, machines making stuff out of stuff are a no-no, but magic making stuff out of nothing is fine?

Oh please. If "a wizard did it" was a catch-all excuse then you should have no problems with anything in Shadowrun.

[Bull]

Magic takes effort and magic is very rare. And Magic doesn;t just "create stuff out of nothing". there's no summon food and water spells. No "Create wall". mages are not and cannot replace manufacturing.

But super-nanites can, as used in some sci-fi. And that eliminates most of the dystopia from Shadowrun, and that's a problem. Shadowrun has a set genre and theme that most players and casual fans are familiar and comfortable with. It's what they expect when they sit down to play the game. And frankly Shadowrun Returns is just reinforcing this.

Food stops being a problem. manufacturing stops being a problem. hell, with nanoforges and 3D printing, manufacturing and commerce stops being a problem. Money is devalued, the corps lose their grip on things. And suddenly, we're playing a completely different game.

[lokii]

I think the problem is you unnecessarily subscribe to the kind of wide-eyed utopianism that promised the same ideal future with the rise of atomic energy or before that the steam engine. Either we have nanotech and hence utopia or we don't have it and can remain in our cyberpunkish mire. You want Shadowrun to stay Cyberpunk? I think that is valid position. But there is a thousand ways to do that besides completely shutting down nanotechnology by which I mean tiny robots. As you point out the corporations have the most to lose in this vision of the future. Well, they are in a good position to fight it and take all its benefits for themselves. After all Shadowrun is a world where a hit squad is regarded as a legitimate extension of DRM. Nano-utopians are developing a portion of the sprawl to be a post-scarcity haven? You send some goons to insert malicious nanites into their fabrication facilities. Or you fear-monger the populace about how every day more weapons are printed down in the barrens until city hall sends the police corp to shut down the 3D printers. This strange "disease" is good way to push nanotech into the framework of "everything has a price", where using this type of augmentation runs the risk of an "infection".

Marrying Cyberpunk to nanotechnology, even the science magic kind, is easy if you ask me. You make it into magic the corporations wield, a proof of their power, the stuff that builds their palaces in the sky and beyond. And while tiny machines clean the glittering corporate façades, way down in a dark alley some transhumanists are strangled to death beaten down by uniformed thugs.

EDIT: Adapted analogy to leave a bit of breathing space for the idealists. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Bull]

Here's something you're missing. Nanotech isn't gone. It hasn't completely stopped working. It's just very dangerous and unstable right now. This let us roll it back some so that we can rework how it gets used in the future. Plus, we get a plotline or six out of it in the meantime.

[lokii]

Here's something you're missing. Nanotech isn't gone. It hasn't completely stopped working. It's just very dangerous and unstable right now. This let us roll it back some so that we can rework how it gets used in the future. Plus, we get a plotline or six out of it in the meantime.

Well actually, that's what I suspected:

I mean I'm sure nanotech will be back. If not already in the next *ware book then down the line.

I guess I want to say augmentation could lead to a better future, the stuff you can do with magic certainly. There is even fusion power. None of this, including nanotechnology, needs to change anything about the setting. Utopia was always about society not technology as evidenced by the 16th century origin of the term.

Other than that my only problem in the handling of this plot line is given how important nanotechnology is supposed to be for cyber- and bioware (going by the last two editions), you would think that its (temporary) removal should be more disruptive than (so far) it has turned out to be. Cyberware quality grades becoming more affordable is just one example.

[Fatum]

Magic takes effort and magic is very rare.

But nanites cost nothing and are very common? Despite the costs and availabilities in Augmentation?
Besides, magic isn't all that rare. One in every hundred metahumans is Awakened on average, plus there are metasapients, free spirits and whatnot. I somewhat doubt one in every hundred metahumans is a skilled professional in production industry.

And Magic doesn;t just "create stuff out of nothing". there's no summon food and water spells.

It just creates stuff out of mana of which there is unlimited supply, which is only going to increase for the next 2500 years.
And the spell is called Nutrition, Street Magic, p.170.

No "Create wall". mages are not and cannot replace manufacturing.

Neither can nanites, realistically. Mages can at least bind a spirit of fire and order it to turn crank.

But super-nanites can, as used in some sci-fi. And that eliminates most of the dystopia from Shadowrun, and that's a problem.

And the nanites in Shadowrun have to be those cornucopia super-nanites why, exactly? There is no reason for them to be cheap, especially minding that self-replication is not yet an option.
Hell, in sci-fi, geneengineering and ocean farming eliminate hunger and inequality once and for all, too.

[FuelDrop]

Isn't there a wall [element] spell in 4th edition?

On a similar subject, what effect would the ability to summon spirits have had on the construction industry?

[Sengir]

Nanites degrade quickly when exposed to the elements. Even if you pack a rifle full of active nanites, in a couple of years it will be inert unless there's also a nanohive to replenish the numbers.

At least the failure of the fighter jets was explained by the nanite maintenance systems going haywire, those systems would certainly include a hive. The AKs are another story, though from the offhand reference it might also be possible that just freshly printed ones melted. If all nano-AKs melted, well, that would be a stupid end to a stupid item...

@Loki:

I think the problem is you unnecessarily subscribe to the kind of wide-eyed utopianism that promised the same ideal future with the rise of atomic energy or before that the steam engine.

You realize that the widespread adaption of the steam engine spurred some _minor_ socioeconomic upheaval? And that is exactly what nanites as presented in 4th Ed should by all rights do, only in reverse direction: Nanites are presented as so dirt cheap and flexible that this would be an industrial revolution which puts the means of production into everybody's hands -- and contrary to certain other experiments at that, it would work, because nanites are the super magic cure-all.

Cyberpunk has always been about the effects of technology on humans. But the treatment nanites got was like compact, safe nuclear reactors were invented in the 19th century, made affordable to everyone, and NOTHING happened.

[Elfenlied]

My understanding is that it's not that they "melted" all of a sudden. It's that they weren't properly "welded" at a micro level. Any stress can cause the micro-welds holding the material together to come loose, causing the item to appear to "melt" or disintegrate.

There's a couple schools of thought on Nanites. One is more realistic, one is much more sci-fi, the "gray goo" nanites. I don;t really know a lot about either of then myself (And thus avoid them for the most part), as it's outside my area of interest.

Problem is that SR4 very much was using the Gray Goo version for a lot of things. microscopic Machines that can build stuff out of, umm, stuff. It was science-magic, and while that's fine if you're doing a high sci-fi game, Shadowruns not that. And Nanites as they were presented effectively change the entire Shadowrun world, and make it, well, not Shadowrun anymore.

So the TL;DR is: "We didn't like nanites, so they had to go"?

[lokii]

You realize that the widespread adaption of the steam engine spurred some _minor_ socioeconomic upheaval?

Yes. Minor is underselling it, but I assume you quip. Note though my point was that it didn't bring about a utopian society, not that it didn't have any effects.

And that is exactly what nanites as presented in 4th Ed should by all rights do, only in reverse direction: Nanites are presented as so dirt cheap and flexible that this would be an industrial revolution which puts the means of production into everybody's hands -- and contrary to certain other experiments at that, it would work, because nanites are the super magic cure-all.

Cyberpunk has always been about the effects of technology on humans. But the treatment nanites got was like compact, safe nuclear reactors were invented in the 19th century, made affordable to everyone, and NOTHING happened.

I would have to really dig into Augmentation to discuss this. But let's just say your characterisation is correct. Fourth Edition in the beginning attempted to take Shadowrun more into the direction of transhumanism. Making this new technology powerful was probably deliberate so it could drive the setting towards a post-cyberpunk future. Of course these plans were abandoned, maybe when Rob Boyle left or Peter Taylor. I don't know the details. A lot was set up besides nanites for that transformation: Evo's new corporate identity, the Transhuman League, new AIs etc. Remember we lost a space elevator sourcebook somewhere along the way. I believe had the setting followed this path, we would have seen the socio-economic changes nanotechnology brings about. Instead Catalyst toyed with nanotech on the gear level but didn't further explore its effects on society and at the latest with Fifth Edition will bury the post-cyberpunk project for good.

[apple]

So the TL;DR is: "We didn't like nanites, so they had to go"?

Well, they are not steampunk-cyberware which is the preferred way in SR5.

SYL

[SpellBinder]

Here's something you're missing. Nanotech isn't gone. It hasn't completely stopped working. It's just very dangerous and unstable right now. This let us roll it back some so that we can rework how it gets used in the future. Plus, we get a plotline or six out of it in the meantime.

Like Deus becoming a hive intelligence in a body of nothing but nanomachines, ala SID 6.7 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif) .

Isn't there a wall [element] spell in 4th edition?

Yes, but it's not a permanent spell. As soon as the magician stops focusing on their [Sand] wall, it disappears without a trace.

[Sengir]

Fourth Edition in the beginning attempted to take Shadowrun more into the direction of transhumanism. Making this new technology powerful was probably deliberate so it could drive the setting towards a post-cyberpunk future.

The basics were already introduced when M&M went all Drexlerian "fuck logic" nanobots, anything else is more or less the logical consequence of the nano-magic. If a settings includes something which violates every single bit of physics and chemistry on the books, "well, uhm, god nanites did it " actually becomes totally fine explanation for everything, and so it happened...


BTW, I consider AIs and all that to be more "para-humanism": Humanity is still around with the same problems as usual, it's just that now other "species" have the same trouble. Or worse

[Sendaz]

BTW, I consider AIs and all that to be more "para-humanism": Humanity is still around with the same problems as usual, it's just that now other "species" have the same trouble. Or worse

So if two AI's fall in love and get married, moving into the same home node but later have a falling out and part ways, can one sack the other for half the node and resources? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Whipstitch]

Food stops being a problem. manufacturing stops being a problem. hell, with nanoforges and 3D printing, manufacturing and commerce stops being a problem. Money is devalued, the corps lose their grip on things. And suddenly, we're playing a completely different game.

I'm no Luddite, but it's an absolute truth that machines can and have put people out of work before, and that doesn't necessarily lead to utopia given that many people are demonstrably more opposed to "freeriders" than they are to letting people freakin' starve. So things would still be a problem because people can and do manipulate who gets what in order to maintain their relative social dominance rather than manage supply based solely on practical, humane reasons. That's a big deal since the corps still had the upper hand when it comes to controlling the means of production. I mean, FFS, the reason we're actually facing economic crises in many parts of the world right now actually has more to do with market manipulation and low aggregate demand than it does with issues of supply--we could easily ramp up the production of flatscreens and donuts, but people aren't buying them right now, so we don't, because it's a bad business move. Beyond that, Shadowrun demographics haven't really ever made sense and so the notion that food supply of all things is a problem is frankly pretty farcical from the git-go. So while it's no skin off my nose where this goes, I have to say that the whole shebang over nanites hits me as an overreaction.

[Epicedion]

The problem with self-replicating nanobots is that they can

1) build anything they have the raw materials for, and

2) build themselves.

In effect, you can get them to do anything. Want a building there? Release a nanobot. It'll self-replicate and be done in a couple days. Want to convert this block of apartments into a music hall? Release a nanobot. It'll self-replicate and be done in a couple days.

Plant a grain field? Nanobots. Harvest the grain field? Nanobots. Genetically engineer the grain to withstand the elements and disease? Nanobots.

Fix your broken leg? Nanobots. Cook you a nice steak dinner? Nanobots. Convert waste matter into a usable fuel source? Nanobots.

Why not? They build themselves, so once you have a few, the rest are free.

Kids want a treehouse? Nanobots. Car won't start? Nanobots. Chipped a tooth? Nanobots.

[SpellBinder]

Want to obliterate an infantry battalion? Nanobots (provided they don't have their own for protection).

[Sendaz]

Need a babysitter and the regular is sick?

Nannybots


wait.....

[Epicedion]

Convert a nearby country (and all its people and things) into a sweet suburb for your country? Nanobots.

[Sendaz]

Destroy a dead world and reconvert it into a lush paradise as well as revive your dead best friend who fast grows from infant to adult in record time?

Genes-... err.. Nanobots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[lokii]

The basics were already introduced when M&M went all Drexlerian "fuck logic" nanobots, anything else is more or less the logical consequence of the nano-magic. If a settings includes something which violates every single bit of physics and chemistry on the books, "well, uhm, god nanites did it " actually becomes totally fine explanation for everything, and so it happened...

That's a bit ironic though as the setting we are speaking of includes magic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But sure, nanites in their popular conception are not scientifically sound. I actually don't remember that much about nanotechnology in Shadowrun, I just reread the cyberware portion for this discussion. The rest I read quite a while back. But I believe Fatum has a point in both that self-replication is yet not achieved and that most of the nanotech stuff is still quite expensive. So, it's not as if Shadowrun has gone all the way, right?

And just to make this clear, I'm actually not a particular fan of nanotech -- I liked the whole nanohive concept as a gimmick but that's about it -- my problem is with ripping something out of the setting after it has, rightly or wrongly, been given a central role. I would prefer shifting its role to adapt it to the needs of the setting. That doesn't mean, you can't have your Sybil crisis. But the way it is portrayed with all nanotechnological applications being too unreliable for cyber- and biotech for a significant amount of time, the consequences should be more drastic. (I have given my reasoning.) And I even recognize that this would be completely impractical from the point of view of the game. That is why I don't like how it is handled.

So if two AI's fall in love and get married, moving into the same home node but later have a falling out and part ways, can one sack the other for half the node and resources? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

AI marriage? Somebody should make a law against that!

The problem with self-replicating nanobots is that they can

Well, they are not self-replicating: "[..] self-replicating nanites are still the realm of fiction." (aug.105)


EDIT: I forgot this. Something Rob Boyle said on the Eclipse Phase forums (Link):

We weren't actually discussing about rebooting Shadowrun as a more transhuman setting, but while we were working on SR4, we did also discuss a potential game/setting that took place in Shadowrun (and also Earthdawn's) future. We tentatively called this Shadowrun 2600

I know, that doesn't jibe with what I said before...

[Cheops]

I do find the design idea that nanites make SR less cyberpunk because they can lead to post-scarcity pretty funny given that magic can achieve the same thing. Nanite access allows the creator to model society the way they want (whether it is free and open like Star Trek or company shops like SR's Megacorps). Magic creates autocratic fiefdoms where the mages can rule in whatever manner they want. Thus it becomes a fight between the mages and those who utilize nanites to see who's version of society comes about.

Man versus Magic indeed.