Cynic project
Dec 16 2006, 09:22 PM
QUOTE (Jaid) |
[QUOTE=Cynic project,Dec 15 2006, 04:38 PM] that's what my post was intended to address. my apologies |
Whatever. Really. Even you meant wether or not an old dracon could hire that magical bullshit NPC to do that, you still have to wonder why would he do that?And why would the sprite or whatever magical bullshit tecno spirit would do that...
Here is the thing once you get to a level of hacking that you could out hack the best hacker alive...Or the best human hacker alive..That most likely means that you could take whatever you wanted..Even more so for a thing that does not need to worry about the meat world at all, but that is a long rant.
fool
Dec 16 2006, 09:24 PM
I'm thinking of a new dragon whose magic suddenly faded to nothing and was replaced with technomatic abilities. Of course it drove him temporarily insane (but hey aren't all dragons insane?) and now he romps through the trix whereever he wants.
Actually, if jackpoint can be hacked, the same old faces (and I mean old as in ancient elves, dragons etc) should be able to get in without too much fuss, whether its orange queen riding her otaku/technomancer or golden scales paying

100,000,000 to get in, they'll be in. When npc's are described as having whatever stats the gm wants to bive them because they are so far beyond the normal metahuman ken, then I think they'd be able to get access to jackpoint one way or another. They might have to hack in every time they want to say anything.
NightmareX
Dec 17 2006, 05:46 AM
Of course, that begs the question of why Lofwyr etc would want to bother talking to a bunch of runners in the first place.
fool
Dec 17 2006, 09:55 PM
It's lonely at the top?
get info?
Share secrets with you mere mortals?
There has been a long history of these higher powered beings interacting on shadowland (which iirc, was supposed to be pretty secure.) Why did they do it then? any number of reasons.
ShadowDragon8685
Dec 17 2006, 09:57 PM
Boredom if nothing else. Plus, you can drop some dirt on the rival non-Greater Dragon-powered megacorps, and watch the shadow-insects scurry about and become inventive with what you told them.
Chandon
Dec 17 2006, 11:21 PM
QUOTE (NightmareX) |
Of course, that begs the question of why Lofwyr etc would want to bother talking to a bunch of runners in the first place. |
Shadowrunners are economically really important. Occasionally giving them loaded information or letting them know that you're listening in on one of their conversations (i.e. Lofwyr's "Thank You" post in the Germany SB) is occastionally the correct play economically. When it is, Lofwyr will.
Charon
Dec 18 2006, 01:48 AM
QUOTE (fool @ Dec 17 2006, 04:55 PM) |
There has been a long history of these higher powered beings interacting on shadowland (which iirc, was supposed to be pretty secure.) Why did they do it then? any number of reasons. |
These guys contributed squat that was useful except in the famed Aztlan download where they didn't know they were on record.
Harlequin was the most frequent immortal poster and it was usually to make cryptic comment designed to stroke his ego and also as a metaplot nod toward the people who read the novels and adventures. In conjonction only with the sourcebook in which he commented it usually meant diddlly squat.
Most of the other immortals usually only commented only to say what amounted to : "Back off" or "You puny mortal don't know squat."
Very useful. I think Big D made a handful of comment that were actually helpful but that's about it.
Lofwyr never even bothered, AFAIK. It'd be kinda against his character to do so.
The most techno savvy immortal of all, Leonardo, never even posted once in any shadowtalk AFAIK.
So it's really a matter of personality, not ability and given the kind of things they contributed I can't say I missed them.
With the more restricted space for shadowtalk I'd rather they don't waste too much on the typical Immortal comment you'd see back in SR3.
That being said, Frosty commented once and while she is young, she has the immortal elve gene and is close to Harlequin. And... her comments in RH weren't that useful except maybe for her assertion that the Princes in Tir are still running things behind the scene.
SL James
Dec 18 2006, 08:51 AM
QUOTE (fool @ Dec 16 2006, 03:24 PM) |
I'm thinking of a new dragon whose magic suddenly faded to nothing and was replaced with technomatic abilities. Of course it drove him temporarily insane (but hey aren't all dragons insane?) and now he romps through the trix whereever he wants. |
You mean like Eliohann, who was last seen under the care and maintenance of Celedyr in a Transys lab somewhere?
QUOTE |
Actually, if jackpoint can be hacked, the same old faces (and I mean old as in ancient elves, dragons etc) should be able to get in without too much fuss, whether its orange queen riding her otaku/technomancer or golden scales paying |
The question isn't whether it can be hacked. In SR, anything can be hacked (goes along the lines of "if it has stats, we can kill it"). Jackpoint's primary security feature is, quite frankly, obscurity.
When the darknets returned after the Crash, Seattle had a group of hackers already going through the effort of establishing a new Shadowland node: ShadowSea. That's where all the petty bickering and crap can (and will) continue to go on.
No one outside of the magic 58 knows about Jackpoint. Fastjack invited the other 57 himself (which was mentioned some time ago on DS about the whole concept) because they each have something to offer, which may or may not make them "the best," but they are definitely useful to him (including, obviously, Puck--who was the epitome of sadistic Otaku (hence the name) back in the day). I assume he also invites the invited guests, and controls their accounts like an iron-fisted despot.
And as has been mentioned, sometime others are invited in for one reason or another. If you look at the bottom right hand corner of the Jackpoint portal page in Runner Havens or Street Magic, there's a nice little list: Six in RH, zero in SM. mfb mentioned it before, but it's pretty obvious in RH because most of the sections in the Hong Kong chapter are written by guest users. Lei Kung and Snow Tiger I know have been around since Dunkelzahn's Secrets. I think Money Lee was on their team, too. They post only in Hong Kong. The other three post only in Cities on the Edge, and each is only in one specific city. For all they know, it's a favor to someone for an upcoming run; not a piece of a multi-city compilation for five dozen of Fastjack's handpicked folks in the shadows (as several aren't runners).
All that being said, unless you know about it (and I'm assuming Jackpoint uses Fight Club rules here), you're not getting in. It's not based on a server somewhere. It's a distributed mesh network of those 58 users running it off their commlinks. You'd have to take their commlink to even find out about it, and then access it. The invited guests can easily have their access allowed/edited/deleted without much trouble by Fastjack.
QUOTE (Charon) |
Harlequin was the most frequent immortal poster and it was usually to make cryptic comment designed to stroke his ego and also as a metaplot nod toward the people who read the novels and adventures. In conjonction only with the sourcebook in which he commented it usually meant diddlly squat. |
And sometimes you have the exchange in the Madagascar chapter of Cyberpirates, where the entirety of Harlequin's and Orange Queen's conversation and their posts was very obviously inserted into the text in the editing process without any attempt to, you know, have other posters acknowledge their presence.
QUOTE |
That being said, Frosty commented once and while she is young, she has the immortal elve gene and is close to Harlequin. And... her comments in RH weren't that useful except maybe for her assertion that the Princes in Tir are still running things behind the scene. |
And that wasn't exactly breaking news.
As for who the users are... *shrugs* Attrition happens, and maybe some of these folks didn't hang out on Shadowland Seattle, so that's why they aren't familiar (as far as the storyline goes). I'm not sure it's that cool, but there are individual users who combine the knowledge backgrounds of several old users. Most obvious to me is Kay St. Irregular, who fills the place of DC Insider, DeeCeeIOT, PoliSci, Prof, La Marquise, Legal Eagle just off the top of my head. Uh... Envoy, Ambassador, FedPol, Spook, pretty much everyone in Games of State, X-VP, et al.
mfb
Dec 18 2006, 08:56 AM
yeah. basically, they took a voicemail box and turned it inside-out!
man, that was surprisingly painful to type.
SL James
Dec 18 2006, 09:16 AM
It's pretty painful to read.
Rotbart van Dainig
Dec 18 2006, 09:33 AM
QUOTE (SL James) |
No one outside of the magic 58 knows about Jackpoint. |
Let's be real - for maybe the first months or so.
They are inviting guests, wich pretty much kills the idea of the secret cabal.
QUOTE (SL James) |
You'd have to take their commlink to even find out about it, and then access it. |
No, you just have to accidentally monitor an update connection.
That may be unlikely on the individual scale, but could happen globally over time.
Approximately, given the scheme, the existence of Jackpoint will be a rumor within a month and an open secret within six.
AFAIR, the official PoV assumes that player characters, if worthy, can be part of JackPoint and that a sufficiently skilled hacker may very well trace it down.
SL James
Dec 18 2006, 10:26 AM
Wow. Not even twenty minutes.
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
QUOTE (SL James) | No one outside of the magic 58 knows about Jackpoint. |
Let's be real - for maybe the first months or so. They are inviting guests, wich pretty much kills the idea of the secret cabal.
|
Yeah... Sure. Because no one anywhere has ever considered the idea of compartmentalized information-sharing. Seriously, did you not read the next paragraph? I'll quote it for you.
QUOTE |
They post only in Hong Kong. The other three post only in Cities on the Edge, and each is only in one specific city. For all they know, it's a favor to someone for an upcoming run; not a piece of a multi-city compilation for five dozen of Fastjack's handpicked folks in the shadows (as several aren't runners). |
The guests are only going to know what they need to know. What they need to know is that someone wants their advice about a specific area, which isn't exactly unheard of. Knowing that somehow somwhere some people are doing something does not equal knowledge of Jackpoint's existence.
And even if they were made further aware of it, it is not the same thing as, say, ShadowSea where the whole world seems to know about it. People have to be told. If's it's not a secret, it's useless as an elite substitute to ShadowSea. Moreover, like I said before, it invalidates the primary method of preventing it from being hacked: the fact that no one knows about it.
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
AFAIR, the official PoV assumes that player characters, if worthy, can be part of JackPoint and that a sufficiently skilled hacker may very well trace it down. |
How does the first part relate to the second part of that statement?
Assuming anything involving the PCs as being involved is a sucker's game, because it is purely window dressing, and nothing more. The Jackpoint login page, aside from providing some tiny shreds of metaplot info, is meaningless at providing any sort of context because the reality is that no one's PCs (well... almost no one's) are actually contributing to the discussion. It's fluff. You can't use it to suggest how the network works because within the actual storyline the PCs don't exist.
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
Approximately, given the scheme, the existence of Jackpoint will be a rumor within a month and an open secret within six. |
Or it could be like 77, which has hackers actively suppressing any mention of its existence anywhere in the Matrix. Yet somehow a select group of people know about it, and use it. Hm... Nope. Can't see any parallels to jackpoint there.
But I doubt the hackers who have access to Jackpoint are that good. If Fastjack was even remotely as good as he's supposed to be, he'd have meaures in place to maintain infosec. If he doesn't, he's an overrated loser.
Rotbart van Dainig
Dec 18 2006, 11:49 AM
QUOTE (SL James) |
Because no one anywhere has ever considered the idea of compartmentalized information-sharing. |
Yeah, that concept never failed in history.
Look, sure it works, some time. Even if it works extremely well, it is just a matter of time until one node becomes compromised. They are runners, and not all of them are that matrix-whiz.
QUOTE (SL James) |
If's it's not a secret, it's useless as an elite substitute to ShadowSea. Moreover, like I said before, it invalidates the primary method of preventing it from being hacked: the fact that no one knows about it. |
Indeed. It is noted in RH that the main reason for JP is a disagreement over the hosting structure...
QUOTE (SL James) |
How does the first part relate to the second part of that statement? |
Spelled out: a) Undefined people can be invited and b) uninvited people are able to find/access jackpoint - per official statement.
SM even featured a worm in JP.
QUOTE (SL James) |
You can't use it to suggest how the network works because within the actual storyline the PCs don't exist. |
Of course you can, because those official statement takes away strong control of the setting and thus, setup. It is even uncertain whether or not this network is used by Johnsons to contact runners.
The only thing that is defined is a subset of JP posters that one can work with when making submissions.
Sure you, if a GM, can rule that JP is closed down, even that PC's don't have access. There's nothing in the books contradicting that - there just isn't anything supporting it, too.
Basically, it's just a rationale for letting the GM maintain information control... which was pretty much the OG intent stated for making JP what it is.
Demonseed Elite
Dec 18 2006, 03:20 PM
I'd like to reply to the rest of this discussion later when I have time, but for now, just quick correction.
QUOTE (SL James) |
Lei Kung and Snow Tiger I know have been around since Dunkelzahn's Secrets. I think Money Lee was on their team, too |
You're right about the first two, but Money Lee is new. She's a character I came up with when I was originally brainstorming HK. Almost like a muse, in a way, since most of my original HK notes were written in her "voice."
SL James
Dec 18 2006, 03:53 PM
Fair enough. I guess I was thinking of someone else (their decker, I think, from another sourcebook).
Moto42 Again
Jan 17 2007, 12:01 AM
My two cents: Current shadowtalk (sans the cameos, and people that only show up in one or two books) feels a bit like Jackpoint is an invite-only grade-school style club. "Only the cool kids get to post!"
PlatonicPimp
Jan 17 2007, 03:54 AM
Yeah, or a bunch of indie rockers enjoying a concert because they are the only ones there. Elitism feels like that.
I liked the whole shadowland setup, but jackpoint makes sense. Its like a shadowland local node, instead of the entire network. remember that shadowlands collection of members and contacts took decades to build, and jackpoint is, at best, five years old. More likely less than a year. Also remember that Captain Chaos was a neo-anarchist. His policies about letting anyone in probably wont ever be repeated. But I think that each local has at least 1 jackpoint-like network, and probably several. And some people probably belong to more than one network. They probably share copies of the file posted to their networks with their other networks. Eventually I beleive this will solidify into a more widespread network similar to shadowland. However, It looks to me like shadowtalk wont be in document like it used to be, but as attached IMs from friends as they wire the text to you. More like post-it notes. Only friends of the origional author will get the old style in text posts. The "someone you know has tagged this file" sidebars are a perfect example, and I would like to see more of these in the future.
SL James
Jan 18 2007, 02:35 AM
I find it annoying as Hell. Then again, I find the whole idea of Jackpoint as the medium through which PCs are supposed to learn about the world, well... lame.
ChicagosFinest
Jan 18 2007, 07:09 PM
Yeah its lame but how are you going to learn about whats going on in the Tir's if you work in NY?
What about the containment zone if your in Cali?
It makes sense. How often do you go to a city without a city guide to tell you what to do or where most people hang out?
Jackport is just like a travel brochure to me. Go to these places and try this because Rachel Ray said it was cool.
Am I right or am I right?
SL James
Jan 19 2007, 01:30 AM
They should be like a briefing book, not Lonely fucking Planet with comments.
Let me be very explicit in saying that they should NOT look like the mental abortion that is the Seattle chapter in Runner Havens. I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE that chapter.
Moto42 Again
Jan 19 2007, 03:22 AM
I enjoyed Havens all the way though. Thankyouverymuch.
SL James
Jan 19 2007, 04:46 AM
Good.
Good for you.
Demonseed Elite
Jan 19 2007, 01:53 PM
QUOTE (SL James) |
They should be like a briefing book, not Lonely fucking Planet with comments. |
I don't disagree there, but I will say that it's sometimes very tough to do a briefing book format, especially (and I can't emphasize that enough) if it's a multi-author section. I wrote all of the Hong Kong section of Runner Havens and now I'm doing parts of Neo-Tokyo in Corporate Enclaves and I can tell you that despite the added wordcount load of the former, it was much easier. Doing the whole project lets you get into a consistent theme more naturally.
I also think that contributes to some of the strength of early Shadowrun location books, which were almost always done by a single author or a pair of authors (Dowd, Findley, etc.).
SL James
Jan 19 2007, 08:31 PM
Isn't that what editors are for?
Demonseed Elite
Jan 19 2007, 10:33 PM
An editor can make changes to sections to make them more cohesive, but there's no saying they'll unify them under the theme any of the writers intended.
SL James
Jan 19 2007, 11:32 PM
Or they can add just the worst kind of crap, like in Cyberpirates.
NightmareX
Jan 20 2007, 10:16 AM
QUOTE (SL James) |
Or they can add just the worst kind of crap, like in Cyberpirates. |
What's not to like about extra-terrestrial chupacabra dragons chatting it up with the ubiquitous immortal elves in the middle of nowhere?
SL James
Jan 20 2007, 07:25 PM
The fact that if it was any more obvious that the conversation between Harlequin and Hestaby was added later, it'd be offset and in shaded boxes with big letters that said, "MIKE THINKS THIS IS AMUSING!!!!"
NightmareX
Jan 22 2007, 10:29 AM
QUOTE (SL James) |
The fact that if it was any more obvious that the conversation between Harlequin and Hestaby was added later, it'd be offset and in shaded boxes with big letters that said, "MIKE THINKS THIS IS AMUSING!!!!" |
You didn't note the sarcasm smily, did you?
SL James
Jan 23 2007, 02:27 AM
Fuck sarcasm. That shit pisses me off.
NightmareX
Jan 23 2007, 12:12 PM
At least they dropped the exterterrestrial angle [shrug] If they hadn't, I'd be just as pissed as you. Not that I like the "space riggers" implied in the shadowtalkers list mind. If I wanted to play Star Wars, I'd by playing y'know Star Wars [rollseyes]
ChicagosFinest
Jan 23 2007, 02:59 PM
SO SR is suppossed to be limited to the confines of Earth? That seems a little mundane but I guess b/c you cant use magic in space why bother right? I could see mars be colonized like that horrible Arnold Swartanegar movie (what was that called) and thats it.
ET's would be interesting simply because humans arent ready to be invaded or even meet aliens (think of the panic of war of the worlds over the radio). I dunno you can have other "magical dimensions" with the orbital living spaces but no traveling to outter space? HMMMMM......
NightmareX
Jan 23 2007, 03:31 PM
Confined to Earth, no - focused on Earth, yes. When I see "Rigger, Space Scavenger" and "Loves space, hates earthbound life. Hiding from corp without space assets" I have visions of space riggers jetting around like Han Solo and some orbital receiving as much traffic as Denver used to - basically a Cowboy Bebop/Bladerunner style setting. Don't get me wrong, I like Bebop, like Bladerunner, but as close as they come they are not Shadowrun. Shadowrun is unique because it refuses to answer the big questions (like ET life, where Earth life came from, etc) except as rumor, speculation, and myth. I can live without magic in space, that's not the issue - in fact I wouldn't
want magic in space (on Mars,
maybe). But taking the cutting edge of the setting into space takes the focus and dynamic of the game into space (since the focus of SR action is generally on the cutting edge), and that is simply no longer Shadowrun - it would have departed to far from the original, just like Magicrun (ie the Horrors storyline) was doing. Despite the efforts to bring the game back to street level, we are still in danger of loosing that street edge to the game as it is (after having totally lost it in SR3). In Spacerun, what does street matter when smuggling runs to Waypoint station (somewhere between Earth and Mars), sabotage runs against corp orbitals, and runs to sabotage/influence/exploit Martian terraforming become the norm?
In any case, I kinda liked Total Recall
SL James
Jan 24 2007, 01:57 AM
QUOTE (NightmareX) |
Confined to Earth, no - focused on Earth, yes. When I see "Rigger, Space Scavenger" and "Loves space, hates earthbound life. Hiding from corp without space assets" I have visions of space riggers jetting around like Han Solo and some orbital receiving as much traffic as Denver used to - basically a Cowboy Bebop/Bladerunner style setting. |
Uh, sure. That's not how space has been portrayed, but if you want to drag out what has been pretty tame into some paranoid nightmare... Be my guest.
NightmareX
Jan 25 2007, 08:54 AM
QUOTE (SL James) |
Uh, sure. That's not how space has been portrayed, but if you want to drag out what has been pretty tame into some paranoid nightmare... Be my guest. |
So far, no it hasn't been portrayed like that and I'm glad of it - I can live with space as portrayed currently in the setting. What I was talking about is how it could be protrayed in the future (say 5 - 20 game years) if someone were to run with a Space! plotline. Paranoid Nightmare? Perhaps, but no one ever thought things would go Magicrun back in 1st edition either. In either case, I'm simply voicing my opinion - like someone else we know