Shadowrun: Cyberpunk and what's next? Options

[Demonseed Elite]

Not that I disagree with you, but what specifically has made you apathetic about the direction of magic?

[Critias]

If you don't like the mojo, suck it up and play CP:2020 instead. It's what I've been doing a little, recently, to get my fix of "gunbunny rules all," as a break from Shadowrun.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Critias]

Apparently the latest Cyberpunk book (which is regarded by most CP fans as utter crap) has moved away from the Cyberpunk genre, too. A lot of it's supposed to feature one-shot temporary nanoware (or whatever they call it) that's, from what I gather, a lot like the radio DE just described (which was the exact mental image that popped into my head while reading about this new CP stuff).

There might be some inspiration to be found, if anyone's interested in downloading their pdf of a rules sample, or whatnot.

[Adam]

[Ancient History]

The trick with cyberpunk is that the name is misleading. As a literary movement, it had a certain style and attitude (especially attitude) that was common to its authors. It tended to include or place special emphasis on technology, but that's mainly because of the impetus of the time: the emergence of new tech every day. But that's nothing new, traditional science fiction does as much of the same. If you really read cyberpunk, then you know the tech was just a gimmick: the stories were about people. Try reading some of the non-sci fi material written by cyberpunk authors. You can see clearly that the style and human emphasis shines through...the common elements of high tech were in many cases a sort of backdrop or shared setting, not unlike the Cthulhu mythos back in the day.

[audun]

Was the cyberpunk literature really so "cyberpunk"? I liked the cyberpunk trilogy quite much, but it already contained "slipstream" back then. Seems to me that the "cyberpunk" which SR has moved away from simply is the cyberpunk of CP2020.

[Demonseed Elite]

Well, it's a moving scale. There are early cyberpunk works which are used as the flagpoles to define what was considered cyberpunk. But really, the more recent the books by even the same authors have been, the more they drift away from those literary elements. Which is natural; writers tend to write what they know and what they experience, and experiences change.

[Craig]

Well, it appears that the barriers between magic and technology are very, very slowly eroding in the SR canon. I would express surprise, however, at how slowly they are proceeding.

At one point, just after Year of the Comet came out, one of our players got the notion in his head that he, too, could launch a probe at the comet! All by his little lonesome. I laughed at the idea. Then I saw the numbers.

His plan was to take a conventionally constructed rocket and house it in a wooden 'launching frame'. He would then have a mage levitate the rocket's frame (carrying the rocket with it) to an altitude of about 65 kilometers, before the Background Count starts to increase, but well above the majority of the atmosphere. In this way, he could neglect the huge losses in power incurred by fighting atmospheric drag and put all of his power into achieving escape velocity. It would carry a one hundred kilo payload of sensors and transmission equipment to scout out Halley's comet.

According to his numbers, he could achieve this with contemporary 2004 technology, using a rocket weighing roughly 2000 kilograms he could build in his garage. He estimated that a more efficient fuel, undoubtedly devised by Ares by this point, would allow him to lower the weight to around 1000 kilograms. This was important, but not vital, as eventually the mage could hit a TN of 24 on the levitate - but a TN of 14 was much more reasonable.

Other discussions were:
'It's going to take a few hours to levitate the rocket up there. Aren't they going to shoot your rocket down when you try to launch it?'
'Improved invisibility! Invisibility to Radar! Sustaining foci! What rocket?'
'They could have a mage spot it on the astral dispell the Levitate.'
'Seriously, how many megacorps have people scouting the astral for a mage-launched rocket made in somebody's garage?'

'Why wood?'
'Because if I use a manufactured material, the object resistance goes through the roof.'
'How's wood going to support a 1000 kg rocket?'
'It's thick wood.'
'Isn't that going to weigh a lot?'
'Just another 100 kilos or so.'

It was a highly entertaining thought, even if he did later end up scrapping the idea in favor of getting an Ally spirit with his karma instead.

[hobgoblin]

cyberpunk realy is a moveing target. and a damn hard one to nail down at that. its style is a question, who is less human? the ones that remove or rebuild their bodys or the leaders up top that order any kind of action without blinking, just to gain more power and money? at first all will call the people that mod their bodys. but think about it, its not so much our bodys that define us as humans, but our ability to feel. a machine dont have feelings, it just do as its told. therefor a person can be a machine without being modded at all (dark suit and sunglasses anyone?). while a person thats more or less a brain in a can can show emotions, artistic creativity and all the other stuff we point to as human.

as for the tech, its moveing more and more towards nano and bio. but still there is that problem with getting a small neural feedback chip to work. the most advanced they have right now is about the size of a cpu and tie into about 100-1000 nerves in the brain, but still it only allows simple mouse like interfaceing. there is no feedback outside of what you can see and hear. for it to become a true reality it needs to be able to send info back, like say a hand that tells you how much force your putting on a egg, not by sound or some other outside source but by you actualy feeling that egg in your hand and that the pressure is building along the surface.

allso, lately it have finaly dawned on me the abilitys opening with a patent that got filed not to long ago (i think it was microsoft that filed it) about useing the human bodys ability to transport a electric charge as a networking infrastructure. it can allow stuff like a pda/phone watch that use your skin to talk to a handfree behind your ear without the worry about other people connecting to your wireless system. and picture flash memory in the shape of rings. put it on your finger and be able to read and write the data on it. with an idea like that you dont need to put much in the body itself. in fact you only need to put one thing in there, a chip thats able to act as a bridge between your senses and the equipment. on external plugs or anything like that. pot your watch on and you see the time floating in the air and so on...