 Ghosts With No Shells [System Failure SPOILERS] |
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 Sep 3 2005, 07:36 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 104 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,453  |
So according to System Failure, "Down the Rabbit Hole", it is possibe for characters to become "stuck" in the Matrix under certain circumstances (such as the Crash 2.0 and exist as free-floating matrix entities. I wonder if some future SR4 book will detail playing such entities.
This has been a popular staple of SF and cyberpunk literature, although of course not a terribly realistic one. But I've gradually getting the feeling that the Matrix in Shadowrun is slowly becoming more than the sum of its parts - perhaps it is evolving into some sort of metaplane, instead of a "mere" technological construct. The appearance of the Technomancers and their strange powers certainly seems to hint at it. But I still want to know what exactly JackBNimble is. Yes, it seems to "save" people who have been online as data, but for what purpose - and what happens to this data in the end? And is it really from an alien civilization as Dunkelzahn speculated? This would have some precedence in Gibson's "Neuromancer"... Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the Matrix develops further. It certainly won't be the realm of rationality and cold mathematical logic of old times - if indeed, it ever was... |
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Sep 3 2005, 09:06 PM
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#2
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
Well, I find it hard to accept that they are anything more than simulacra of the persons based on complex mathematical algorithms and the uploading of the binary (or trinary, for all I kno) equivalent of biological memory.
They're not human, they're data. They just think they are. |
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Sep 3 2005, 09:38 PM
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#3
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Target Group: Members Posts: 25 Joined: 23-August 05 Member No.: 7,591 |
So, there is an issue with complex human created artificial intelligences in an age of super brilliant human created artificial intelligences, dragons and magic? Really, if the tech has advanced enough that a smart computer program can split into thousands of pieces and still be 'whole' while floating around in the skulls of others, why the issue with believing that they have finally come up with a way to take a human intelligence and transcribe it into the 'trix for some wildly insane amount of nuyen?
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Sep 3 2005, 09:44 PM
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#4
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Well, this hasn't happened yet. As it stands right now according to SR 2070 canon, no one knows how to make a personality construct like Alice Haeffner. There are references in System Failure that suggest that the JackBNimble program "saved" some of the deckers who flatlined into Matrix Persona constructs somehow, but there's no professional marketable product that allows you to do this yet. |
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Sep 3 2005, 10:15 PM
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#5
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
It's not that it's improbable. It's just that it's not so much "saving" someone as it is backing up their memory and psych profile. That they have self-awareness is only as novel as the fact that SKs have some form of self-awareness.
My point is simply that they are not human consciousness. They're glorified SKs who may think they're humans. I mean, from what I've read about Alice, she's pretty one-dimensional. Her psych profile and operating parameters seem focused on one goal - revenge. It's not like she was trying to reunite with Kyle or find a replacement body, etc. Even if they could be uploaded into a wetware brain (which isn't entirely impossible given the existence of personafix chips) they would be dual conscious at best, and zombies at worst. My point is also that there would be no soul, and in game terms, no Essence. They'd probably end up somewhere between zombie and cyberzombie. |
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Sep 3 2005, 10:18 PM
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#6
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 807 Joined: 9-October 04 Member No.: 6,741 |
SL James, that actually sounds like real people. There are people who really are that one dimensional alive now.
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Sep 3 2005, 10:23 PM
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#7
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
Imago
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Sep 3 2005, 10:34 PM
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#8
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 7-December 04 Member No.: 6,873 |
I express puzzlement. |
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Sep 3 2005, 10:39 PM
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#9
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Imago was a Shadowrun adventure that involved an elven decker named Quicksilver who somehow was able to imprint himself on a set of persona chips. Magic was involved. |
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Sep 3 2005, 10:51 PM
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#10
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 7-December 04 Member No.: 6,873 |
Thank you Hahnsoo, I always wondered what was in that book... (PS: The kind of magic that makes EMP nukes better? ;-))
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Sep 3 2005, 11:21 PM
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#11
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 482 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Austin, TX Member No.: 90 |
Can't wait for the dead tree edition!
So anyone think Cpt Chaos will be back as a digital ghost, since he was the original recipiant of JackBNimble. |
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Sep 3 2005, 11:29 PM
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#12
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
As far as I understand, CC and Alice were deleted.
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Sep 4 2005, 12:21 AM
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#13
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 7-December 04 Member No.: 6,873 |
What is your source for their deletion? I know the references to CC being dead, but where did you find out about Alice? Or for the specific deletion of Captain Chaos? |
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Sep 4 2005, 12:28 AM
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#14
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Well, the fact that the JackBNimble file specifically said that he was going to be deleted. :-P System Failure p93:
Seems pretty straightforward to me... the thoughts from those who think he wasn't deleted sounds a bit like wishful thinking to me. As for Alice, System Failure p94:
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Sep 4 2005, 12:32 AM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 276 Joined: 6-August 02 From: Kiel, Germany Member No.: 3,071 |
Damn I WANT THAT BOOK (as dead tree edition...)
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Sep 4 2005, 12:33 AM
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#16
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Some interesting things of note: * Captain Chaos apparently was a journalist for one of the major media networks.
* Captain Chaos, or at least the part that was saved by JackBNimble, is exactly 263,658 Mp. :) |
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Sep 4 2005, 12:49 AM
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#17
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 7-December 04 Member No.: 6,873 |
I do not own system failure yet, is why I was asking about how it is known for sure that they were dead. I am more than willing to admit I wish CC was still around and kicking. |
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Sep 4 2005, 04:04 AM
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#18
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
hahnsoo, I hate you in that damn-I'm-jealous-of-you kind of way. I want that damn book.
So what exactly is JackBNimble anyways? I'm pretty friggin' blown away that they wiped Alice. Really starting with a clean slate now, aren't they!? So that's bot hof the Haeffner's IC'd now, right (punny)? Dunkelzahn, the Haeffner's, Cross, looks like 'Damien Knight' is getting lonely at the top. Wonder how much longer he'll last |
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Sep 4 2005, 04:08 AM
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#19
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
We still have Golden Snout, Synner (IRL and in the game world), the Fuchi-boys (all of them... Yamana, Nakatomi, Villiers, Lanier), and FastJack. I'm sure many others survived, although the bodycount of bigwigs is pretty high after this one.
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Sep 4 2005, 04:20 AM
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#20
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
I'd have to say though that hitting Art with a Thor shot for being an uppity snot-lottery winner/chip head freak is my all time favorite :rotfl:
Also, COMPLETELY off topic (well, mostly): one of my characters bought a bunch of stock in Novatech (betting that they were due), and in Erika, hoping to cah in on the WMI. As I understand it, they are now one entity, correct? So how's his stock doing? Would he have lost it all in the crash? Or is he retiring now? |
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Sep 4 2005, 04:24 AM
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#21
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
Well, this is the thing... you couldn't have bought Novatech stock until the IPO, as it was a private company until then. So unless you are running a 2064 campaign set in the timeline of System Failure, it just wouldn't be possible. Still, The Chromed Accountant (yes, he survived) mentioned that he had enough Novatech stock to think about retiring to an island resort, so it must have done well. In general, I'd say stock in any of the NeoNET companies would be a good bet, but that's using hindsight, which isn't something the character would have... that's using Out of Character knowledge, or metagaming in my book. |
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Sep 4 2005, 04:32 AM
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#22
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
the character is just short of retiring, and he's had a few runs with corp stock as the payment. Novatech is privately owned, and privately traded. We ran it as the character cashing out his stocks and having some lawyer types approaching Novatech with an offer. THis was '64, of after the SOTA mention of them losing out on a :nuyen: 500 mill loan, os he figured he would go for what ever was offered. He didn't get a lot for the money, but he got some. As for Erika, same deal, saw the entry in SoE, and was interested, as the character is a decker. THis was before SR4 had been announced, so how I could have metagamed the merger, I'm not sure. He was basically trying to buy low. As of SR4 , he'll be retired anyways. Most liekly all of my currecnt characters will, since I have a hard time seeing anyone shadowrunning for 10+ years for anything short of fun/insanity
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Sep 4 2005, 12:25 PM
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#23
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
hmm, by the quotes given im guessing and SK or agent with the ability to create a dump of a users brain at the time of their death. but i dont have the book so its only a guess based on limited info. |
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Sep 4 2005, 12:41 PM
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#24
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
It is, which lets me guess:
This would also fit to what's stated in Big D's testament - yes, the thing about it being a form of alien communication: It would solve both the problems of travel and communication, a 'simple' probe program. It seems like it should runs as followed: Pase #1 being Infiltration and Adaption Phase #2 would be the conversion of suitable individuals Phase #3 then would be the collection of those and transferring them back for further research by it's originators Unluckily, it caused the first Crash, was nearly completely destroyed... Whether it hibernated and waited for a better opportunity or was triggered (or even completed, as this was its missing code) by the Dissonance is impossible to say, though. |
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Sep 4 2005, 01:51 PM
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#25
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
The Will says that Dunk 'believed it contained some communication from another world'. If you are suggesting an off-planet source i have serious issues with this:
1) freakin' aliens??? i believe the only canon off-world influence on the meat plane has been the Comet, which occured 4 years after Dunk went pop 2) Dragons lie, in fact if a Dragon tells you something you should immediately look for the motivation for them to lie. Hrmm, actually as a 'runner that is usually SOP whenever anyone tells you something. 3) The matrix is another world, most definately was for Dunk who never really got to visit properly. 4) The program does not solve interplanetary communication by itself at all. The program would have to get here first, and for an off-world to send it they would have to know how to create it. That JackBNimble -was- the program that was first crash is an interesting take. I would have thought more that whatever happened to Alice was primarily accidental, and that JackBNimble was like other things that were built from knowledge distilled from those events. Of all the deaths in Echo Mirage there was only one [known] to result in a copy to digital. It wasn't that Alice was a culmination of refining the snapshotting technique or something, she was one of the first to die. Also I don't see clearly how JackBNimble would not have been recognized as such immediately? Perhaps it is direct fragment of the First Crash virus, but that really falls into the other catagory of refining what was there. EDIT: Oh, and the reason for Dunk lieing? He seems to have an interest in figuring out how to get as many as possile through the next Horror invasion. Recording them digitally is one possible way that he is looking into it. So he passes out a Trojan to test it out. |
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