In response to a lot of the discussion of the nature of the matrix, and what agents can and cannot do, etc., I put down my thoughts. Seeing as I was going to write all that out, it made sense to do it as an in-game piece of fiction that I could at least use in a game or to give new players to read.

I'm interested in feedback and comments. When I was done, I toyed with the idea of seeing if FanPro would like it, or part of it, for the forthcoming Unwired book. But eventually decided they probably wouldn't and stuck with the original intention of posting it here.

Fluffy stuff nearer the beginning. A few more interesting ideas towards the end.

My site here. Actual article here.

Hope people like it.

-K.

What kind of feedback/comments are you looking for?

I think it serves its purpose as an introduction, but I would be interested in an article that is more exhaustive. I am rather new to Shadowrun so I don't know how useful this next comment is, but as far as I could tell nothing conflicted with canon and was well written.

The article on racism is excellent, perhaps even sourcebook worthy.

Well? Where's the rest of the book!?



I love FastJack's comment. I'd really love it if that comment were appended to all distribution copies of the book, and nobody could scrub it clean.

((If I ever run Shadowrun, I'm so doing that.))

knasser,

Well done sir!

Thanks for the comments, all. And I'm glad you (Xenith) liked the Racism article too. I don't think it's sourcebook worthy without re-write (and is probably too long anyway), but I would love to contribute something like this to a sourcebook (FanPro listening at all?)

@Eleazar and ShadowDragon8685: I don't think I'm quite able to produce the actual book - sorry. I might revisit it after the weekend and add an out of character addendeum to it.

I don't know how in your face it was in the text, but it offers what I feel is a good fluff reason for not being able to create Agent Smith swarms of agents. Probably I should have posted it in the Agent Smith thread for that reason. The reason given in it is that the Matrix is not just the Internet with pretty pictures. It is a sophisticated, distributed system. Even today we have sophisticated techniques for dealiing with Denial of Service attacks and anti-virus software. As explained in the text, the old model of local processes and data is mostly dead. Wouldn't the designers of the Matrix have incorporated defences against such attacks into the structure of the Matrix at an integral level? After the virus attacks of 2029 in which millions died and governments fell, there would be safe guards against self-replicating software. When an agent begins running in a new node, we can assume safely that there is some means by which the new node and the last node converse to ensure that the process is terminated in the latter. Such assurance would happen at a very basic level, equivalent to TCP/IP in the Internet, perhaps, a fundamental part of the protocol. It might be possible to spawn a duplicate agent but don't forget that the data trail always leads back to you so there is the possibility of the Matrix tracking and preventing swarms. Data trails can be spoofed from other people, but from the Matrix itself which has to route the data back to you? Even if so, this requires rolls and hits. Enough to prevent the Smith army getting out of control. You can also raise the possibility that the nodes of the Matrix communicate process information with each other through some low-level protocol that helps co-ordinate against virus like behaviour (i.e. replicating agents). Multiple copies would be detected and eliminated or alerted against. You don't have to postulate some bizarre system to do this, it actually makes a lot of sense for the Matrix to do this inherently. Remember that it is not the Internet, but a sophisticated and robustly designed mesh network carefully designed by the people who survived a virus attack that toppled governments. After the Crash 2, we can expect that it had even more thought given to features that would prevent exploitation. Yes - distinct nodes comparing information on running processes could be a theoretical security risk, but that's a good thing as we need some more complexity to the Matrix in order to justify hackers being able to spoof and hack their way into secure nodes. It's hard to imagine any technology that would allow them to do that if the only interaction a node provides to outsiders is "Sorry wrong password - please try again."

In game terms, this gives us a good reason for capping the number of agents or demanding a separate purchase for each one, or something like this.

I probably should have posted into the Agent Smith thread rather than start a new one, but I wanted some feedback on my article and I didn't want to derail an existing debate. I wont replicate this post Agent Smith like over there, but I'll put in a link and people can comment back over there if they wish. Again, I'm interested in any comments on this as I think it works quite well.

Cheers,

-K.

I like it. That's the way I consider it too.

I think you need to hitch your wagon to whatever they're writing as Virtual Realities 4.0 (it's name has changed to Unwired, hasen't it?) and get in the good.

interesting read this. at least its a refreshing read compared to the my-interpretation-is-more-orthodox-then-yours discussions that have spawned thread after thread lately...