 Arrrggg, Technomancers |
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 Sep 16 2005, 06:26 PM
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#101
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 527 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,118  |
You and FrankTrollman are talking about totally different things. Compression doesn't just involve eliminating random "extra" bits. or random "extra" files. It involves passing data through a certain encoding algorithm that can later be inversed in a decoding algorithm so that the original data may be retrieved. This increases overhead for all operations involving that data, since it must be decoded, and is not uniformly efficient at compressing all types of data. To adjust this to the brain analogy, it would be like thinking half as quickly in order to be able to think of 25% more things at once. Also, bear in mind that the most efficient compression algorithms (1/12th or better end filesize, almost exclusively used in multimedia) are of a lossy variety. The original data is not perfectly reproduced, but instead a reasonable facsimile of that data, given a certain progressive decoding algorith and a compressed input stream, is what you get. Ever noticed the blurring/blotchiness in JPEG images and DVD movies, or how a 64kbit-encoded MP3 doesn't sound quite as "full" as one encoded at 128kbit or 192kbit? That's because little bits of data are being lost, small details that you can notice if you look for, but are closely-enough reproduced that they sort of blend in when you're not paying attention.
We've actually got a fairly advanced (compared to the 1980s, when the "10% of the brain is used" urban myth got started) ability to study neural activity. As far as I understand it, we pretty much use our whole brains. Every cell isn't necessary, but there is no particular part of the organ one could remove that would in no fashion impact its functioning. There's no secret telepathy/radio-brain neuron cluster sitting around wondering why we haven't started using that chunk of the brain yet. Oh, and to the person suggested that the abundance of cyberware and bioware increased available neural bioelectric current to the point of radio frequency emissions? That is quite possibly the most insane thing I've ever heard. From a rules perspective, bioware and cyberware decrease the signal strength (resonance) of the brain-radio-monster-things that were otaku. From a biological perspective... ever overpower your router to boost its wireless signal strength? Feel it. Doesn't it feel hotter than when it's running at factory default? Sniff it. Don't you get a slight whiff of ozone, not enough to make you freak out, but enough to let you know that your device is probably losing another few minutes of life for every day it's operating? Think of doing that to your brain. 115F (46C) fever? Smells like bacon? You'd flatline in seconds. |
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Sep 16 2005, 06:37 PM
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#102
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
Didn't you see the whole magic linking thing comeing in all the way back in 2nd ed?
Harlequins back. Specificaly makes mention that harlequin thought that mandkind would be able to advance enough and merge technology and magic together and be able to fight off the horrors. Dunklezan makes mention that the matrix is like a artificial metaplane. Its been building up to that point forever. Secondly. If you can accept the mundane portions of shadowrun...you should even be able to accept this. I mean Goblinization, cyberware, the ability to regrow any organ in your body, except the brain, perfectly. The idea that real meat and things will be hightly highly expensive and mainly only for the rich and the rest of us will be eating soy everything... Oh another thing...if you accept the synaptic accelerator bioware, what to say that the crash of '64 didn't cause some radical eveolutionary jump in ceratain people creating a similar effect but in a different way to enable the ability to sense feel and broadcast radiowaves? *shrugs* |
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Sep 16 2005, 06:45 PM
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#103
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 527 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,118 |
Rather than respond to the full raging inferno of insanity that was your last post, in entirety, I'm going to reiterate that despite your idea that bioware created technomancers, a technomancer with no bioware is going to be more powerful than one with the aforementioned synaptic booster. What's that? Purely (para)biological basis for the effect? Effect's strength is based upon a cyberphobic Essence-linked statistic? Sounds a lot like magic to me. Magic lets you explain away crazy things like this. The problem is that people are trying to say that it's not magic. The presence of magic in a game does not allow you to explain away supposedly mundane things that are so fantastic as to require some amount of that good old disbelief-suspending magic. If you suddenly said that a lot of humans were now 10 feet tall and had batwings, but it wasn't magic, but was instead a single-generation evolutionary shift, people would probably suggest that your mind is, as mentioned earlier, a raging inferno of insanity. Some of us don't like unsatisfying explanations and flimsy justifications that make Fantastic Four look like a scientific documentary. |
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Sep 16 2005, 06:46 PM
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#104
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
So? There is a price to be paid, thus the requirement for Submersion to align it all so the Techno doesn't slip on his own drool or forget to breath while chewy gum. :) EDIT: Oh, and my computer doesn't run 1/2 as slow, to pack in 25% more things on the HD. :P Setting aside that it is a metaphor, so scaling and such is not appropriate.
Ya, the urban myth irks me too. Well i certainly didn't suggest there was a secret neuron cluster there right now, that is down right loony. :P I also suggest that limiting it to just the brain doing the work is a mistake. P.S. I also happen to think that having them be able to transmit/receive with absolutely no hardware is dumb. Perhaps done to make it easier rules for the balancing of 'ware kills Resonance? *shrug* I think there are better ways they could have done that. I just happen to rate it somewhere at the high-end of normal SR nonsense....which you'll notice looking through this thread, isn't a view shared only by technically innept people outside the wireless telemetry field. |
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Sep 16 2005, 06:53 PM
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#105
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Well i happen to be saying they don't appear to be mages (they don't astrally assense as awakened). There have been hints in past canon that there are some sort of links to the astral.
So? Cyberware takes away essense? Is it magical? |
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Sep 16 2005, 06:54 PM
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#106
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,086 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 364 |
I dunno. Ask Hatchetman. |
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Sep 16 2005, 06:56 PM
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#107
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 807 Joined: 9-October 04 Member No.: 6,741 |
*smacks Shadow upside the head* Hey! Stop doing my job! I perfected factually-innaccurate, logically-incomprehensible, pseudo-scientific insanity theory posts and I plan to defend my job of using them! |
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Sep 16 2005, 07:02 PM
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#108
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
:( A momment of silence for poor Hatchetman. :cyber: :dead: ...... Anyway, ya. There are astral/essense tie-ins between tech and magic, and there is one with Technos. In SR4 it is an assensing Threshhold 5 to identify a Techno, much higher than it is to any other type of 'ware. Curiously, as i have previously mentioned, according to the view of a widower (fluff at the start of the chargen chapter) there is at least a belief that you can activate latent Techno ability through surgery. That most definately doesn't sound like a mage. |
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Sep 16 2005, 07:07 PM
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#109
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
Oh allright, if you insist...geeze ;) |
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Sep 16 2005, 07:34 PM
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#110
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 399 Joined: 27-May 04 Member No.: 6,361 |
Eh. Its all for fun really. A technomancer has very close to zero chance of being even possible in the real world with what I knew BEFORE I did a search. It hasn't raised in any significant manner to me. However, I feel looking for some sort of long shot explaination might be able to give GMs a different (or prefered) flavor to the technomancers. Don't want them to be magical , explain it away with (albeit flawed) "science". Its all just a game and doesn't really have to reflect the real world exactly. :)
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Sep 16 2005, 07:44 PM
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#111
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
Well how bout science creating a artificial metaplane (the matrix) thus resulting in artificial magicians (aka technomancers and otaku?). Yeah still a bit of a 'magic' theory but hey i used the word science! ;) |
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Sep 16 2005, 07:48 PM
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#112
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 399 Joined: 27-May 04 Member No.: 6,361 |
Fits well into shadowrun really. I find that particular explaination the most comfortable. From the various mini-stories it seems to suggest that AIs still have a hand in it (aside from Deus and his two AI enemies) or that these ghosts in the machine have become a sort of new kinda of free sprite/AI. Or something like that. Like many shadowrun flavor text its set up to be rather open as to who/what/why. Which is damn well how I like it. :grinbig:
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Sep 16 2005, 08:03 PM
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#113
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
a) no, that was count zero and mona lisa overdrive, the second two books of the trilogy which neuromancer began. i explain this because you apparently haven't read them. if you had, you'd probably remember that angela mitchell (the character who could surf the Matrix with no computer) had her brain wired by her father. b) if you're looking to william gibson for science facts, your education is in a truly sorry state of disrepair. stop posting and go read a real science book. gibson doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, 99% of the time. c) the reason this sort of thing matters to me--one of the reasons, anyway--is that i plan on playing SR in 2070 using a heavily-modified SR3 ruleset. lack of stupids in the setting data (which i'd prefer to take whole as much as possible) would make that task easier. |
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Sep 16 2005, 08:20 PM
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#114
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
I'm working off the Cole's Notes version, i didn't really like his writing i sampled. *shrug* However it was not just a chunk of cyber, it was integrated nanoware (correct?), and ya gotta have some room and a power source for it. It mean it for having room and meshing, not the source of how it happened.....all of which i already covered with you.
Well ya, welcome to wonderful world of pop science/fantasy fiction. :wavey: It is 'fiction' afterall.
Exactly how did you survive Otaku?....or the rest of SR? :wobble: Hell, the suspension of belief required to accept the economy of the 6th world is enough to lift Lowfyr's fat ass straight into space, and that isn't directly magic either. |
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Sep 17 2005, 03:45 AM
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#115
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
I'm almost tempted to add a little addendum to the rule about Technomancers losing Resonance (ie. Magic :P) in relation to Essence, and make a Datajack the (sole) exception to this rule. That way I can just ignore the part about them sending radio waves from their brain.
That is, if I ever include the "brain-radio-monster-things-that-were-otaku" in my games in the first place. :P |
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Sep 17 2005, 04:31 AM
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#116
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 349 Joined: 16-January 05 Member No.: 6,984 |
Were I going along those lines, I would go the route someone else mentioned on this thread, where you round down the amount of essence worth of 'ware you have, rather than up, and completely remove the signal aspect of resonance.
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Sep 17 2005, 04:40 AM
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#117
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
wow, that's almost completely tangential to the point that technomancers don't have a power source. congratulations, you are not addressing what i'm saying.
yes. that's why i'm not using it to back up my facts.
by writing about a thousand words on the subject of why otaku abilities are not implausible. as for the rest, i've gone over this before: that stuff is easily subsumed by even a weak attempt at suspension of disbelief. spitting radio waves from your brain is somewhat harder to swallow. |
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Sep 17 2005, 05:26 AM
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#118
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
Here's a fanwank.
A powerful free spirit once arrived on Earth from a fairly boring metaplane. One day it happened to possess a runner who was hacking the matrix. The spirit found the matrix absolutely fascinating. Later the spirit came to befriend Otaku and would possess them to experience the matrix in even more clarity. But then Crash 2.0 happened. The spirit vowed to help its otaku friends and searched the world for them. It used its powers to grant them adept-like powers ( of course this wouldn't work for awakened individuals ) that would allow them to transmit a commlink signal without the aid of any technology. ( It also took out any already existing cyberware and restored the essense of the already existing Otaku ) Once it had found all the Otaku it moved on to spread its gift to others in the world creating more and more technomancers. So there. It's magic. ( An alternate theory would have this spirit working for Hetsaby who as I recall had her own personal tribe of technoshamans back in SR3 and certainly seems the personality type to try this sort of thing. She then created this spirit for the sole purpose of finding all the otaku and enchanting them with this new power. ) ( Don't knock this theory too fast. It's the only explanation that I can think of that makes sense. Besides it gives me some ideas for adventures as a megacorp seeks to steal the secret of technomancers and corner the market ) |
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Sep 17 2005, 10:48 AM
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#119
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
okay gotta bite... exactly how is the economy so hard to believe? |
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Sep 17 2005, 04:30 PM
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#120
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Sure, if the techo is dead.
Of for fuck sakes it is an example of path of where you can head with it.
If you don't see how this might be an issue, i guess that explains a lot. Have fun bitching and moaning how a game about fantasy fiction just isn't real enough for you. :please: I guess in a few years when elves don't show up you'll have to go find another game to play. |
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Sep 17 2005, 05:23 PM
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#121
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
I'd be fine with the whole thing if they'd just come out and say that Technomancers are a variety of Awakened characters. It may not be the best answer, but it would be a damn sight better than portraying them as mundane radio-heads.
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Sep 17 2005, 05:36 PM
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#122
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
I prefer my above theory that technomancers are the result of a great spirit ( that may have been created by Hetsaby ) that has been going around turning Otaku into technomancers and having run out of otaku moved on to other mundanes. It explains why all otaku are apparrently now technomancers and it explains how mundanes can become technomancers. ( and an additional part of that theory is that awakened characters cannot become techomancers ) |
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Sep 17 2005, 05:37 PM
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#123
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
except it's not. for chrissake, just stop talking about angela mitchell. it's embarassing how far off base you are about her abilities. |
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Sep 17 2005, 05:48 PM
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#124
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
My only problem is that there is no precedence for regaining Essence in the manner you describe. |
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Sep 17 2005, 05:52 PM
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#125
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
actually, there is. Nosferatu. *shudder*
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