If there isn´t such already I will add a negative quality that is "useless cyber clogging up you´re system and stealing essence but doing no good" that gives a decent amount of bonus build points.

I think the question is: Where do technomancers getr their powers from. This is in my eyes the same question as where did otaku get their powers from, what is the deep resonance? The otaku question was never fully explained and was left as a mystery - a plot device. Every GM could come to his own conclusions and use it in his game. Is it a spirit in the machine? An AI? Genetically altered experiments?

The same situation is back with technomancers. I am sure there will be many in-game thought schools where those powers come from. Some will have a shamanistic totem-like view of their powers. Some will think of them dependent on a holistic body or something. We are looking forward to some in-game research about the stuff with many good opportunities for runners. But as with the deep resonance it will stay a loose end until fanpro decides to wrap it up and start new storylines.

To me it seems clear, btw., that there is at least a bit of (aspected) magic at work. Or maybe a new, 6th world force, that could start to become as powerful as magic but not less mysterious - a third aspect between physical and astral. If you think about it, the matrix has been kind of like a third aspect before! It is now ready to mix up with the physical world, just like magic could do from the beginning. It even has a name - resonance.

But the real secret behind it is up to your decision. If you don't think its biologically explainable for a body to talk radiowaves, make it magic. No problem. But to be honest, the whole DNI-stuff seems a bit far-fetched anyways. It just wouldn't work in the real world.

Unfortunately, many the same people who don't buy the "radio brain" story, because they're interested in tech and want it to be not too ridiculous, probably also don't want Technomancers to be magical, because they're interested in tech. But that's the option they'd get forced into if they wanted to keep anything like real-world electricity and magnetism.

@ellery:

Okay I see that. So what explanation do you have for the deep resonance? Is it altering brain structure?

Actually, all you need for emitting radiowaves is a source of electrical flow and a dipol. The body can count as a dipol without any problems. It has a high resistance, granted, but maybe thats one of the secrets the resonance dos: I lowers your (electrical) resistance. The source for the signal would be in the same place where it is for otaku, just connected to the body as the antenna. If the brain can speak ASIST it can speak any wireless protocol, too, I think, so thats not the problem. So everything is there: The electrical flow from the brain, talking protocols. The dipol (antenna). The remaining question is, how and when did the brain evolve to use the antenna? Was it natural, artificial or magical mutation?

Another question is, if you have no jack/wireless-"jack", how do you get in contact with the deep resonance. Simple: Since radiowaves are everywhere and it is possible for the brain and the body to evolve to use them, the deep resonance experience can happen anytime, everywhere. This could be the reason why there are many more new-world-"otaku", there is no need to live in a tribe and get the specific otaku "training".

Of course you could say "no, I don't believe the brain can use the body as an antenna". But you could also say "no, I don't believe the brain can talk ASIST" because thats biologically impossible, too!

Well, okay, you're doing better than most of the previous attempts. Unfortunately, the time constants (that govern ion channels that govern the current flows that cause dipoles) of the biological system tend to be at the fastest a fraction of a millisecond (0.5ms or so).

2kHz just isn't a very useful transmission frequency.

There are a few tricks that one can play to get things up a bit faster, but not the six orders of magnitude to put it in the 2GHz range that starts being useful for high-bandwidth data communications.

Also, for a variety of reasons, the signals are tiny to start with, damped by the body, and coupled very poorly to the air. So there's two massive fatal flaws with a biological explanation.

If you had an array of wires tuned to slightly different frequencies or which picked up different sequences, you could use the same method as in the auditory system to pick up a useful signal (and, potentially, transmit one also).

In terms of the brain understanding how to use hardware that's hooked up to it in a compatible way, it's actually quite good; monkeys can use to learn robotic arms controlled by electrodes planted with no particular skill in their brain (certainly not in the cells controlling their real arm); people can even learn to modulate the synchronous activity of large parts of their brain ("brainwaves") in order to move cursors. In both cases, after the skill is learned, it's implemented unconsciously. Pretty cool. We don't know how it works.

However, at the moment, DNI-type things don't seem that farfetched. Dreams exhibit time dilation and muscular override and so on already. We certainly don't know how to do it, and it may in the future appear absolutely ridiculous, but it doesn't now. (Somewhat implausible, sure, but that's where the fiction bit comes in. Otherwise it would just be science.)

You have some good points there... I will try my best, though

- The frequency thing is a very hard point to argue with. I was tossing some arguments around but until now they are all flawed. Maybe I can come up with something later.

- "The signals are too tiny to start with". Also correct. The technomancer would need the electrical-eel-organ or a better conductivity or both. Did anyone cut up a technomancer to look for that organ? I am sure someone will. I would say a strong signal from a biological body is possible.

- Could you explain that stuff about the array of wires futher? I'm not sure I understand it. Is it an argument how the frequency thing could be resolved?

- You got me with the stuff about dreams, too. I'm still not sure if it would really be exploitable for the timeeffects we have in the game but it's at least a start.

Hmm. So maybe it is impossible to come up with a manaless explanation about radioheads. I see why you oppose it, then. On the other hand I think it has more opportunities for good stories than it has problems. It is not THAT far away from real world physics and would be possible if I could come up with a good explanation about the frequency thing. Damn. I will!

Nanites. Lots and lots of nanites. That's what's really in Nuke-it Burgers... Nanites that transform you into a total Radiohead.

Seriously, it's easy enough to simply say "Well, they need a small amount of cyberware to get up and running, but this doesn't affect their Resonance." But hey, everyone has their own house rules.

The array of wires requires something metallic, which wouldn't be found in an unaugmented human.

The trick for receiving would be to have individual antennas each of which were preferentially sensitive to different frequencies or different chunks of data. You'd then have individual neurons reading out the activity of these antennas (using the local fields generated by the antenna to trigger the neuron).

Now you've converted a stream of data coming through one bit at a time into a bunch of chunks of data represented by neuronal firing. Unfortunately, the chunks are no longer ordered in time. You then need to compare overlapping chunks to piece together the original order, which you could do to some extent at least by playing with the connections the neurons made.

It's still a very difficult problem, but at least the core aspects of turning a stream into a large number of chunks solves the timing problem (and replaces it with a more tractable order-of-occurrence problem), and the conduction problem is solved by using metal.

Transmission would be harder still, and would really only be feasible if the communications system was designed to work in a compatible way. I can't think of a good way to generate high-bandwidth radio communications, but I also can't think of a good reason why it's necessarily impossible. Even if the transmission array of wires has a resonant frequency, it's hard for me to see how neurons would drive the wires strongly enough to get a substantial signal.

Sure, but that's still not unaugmented. You'd at least need genetic engineering. Actually getting metallic deposits wouldn't be so hard (a couple of genes should do the trick). Getting them in exactly the right patterns to serve as an antenna array, however, would be very difficult indeed.

but the tools for selective rewrites are in the body allready, they just need more control

just like how a experient showed that chips that wired themselfs up randomly across some generations could become more effective at the job then designed chips doing the same task.

so right now its not a matter of bad tools, its a matter of bad control. you have more control in a lab. but in the body the changes come into effect more or less instantly and can be "debugged" on the fly

ie, activate something in the brain that allows the brain to control the rewriting of the genes much more then at present and what do you have?

the tools are there, one only need to learn how to control them.

I was thinking that the ones without datajacks experience DR before they really get hard into the tech-savy scene. Perhaps DR goes on recruitment and makes an evaluation of raw talent or of someone who would respond well/successfully to transformation.

It seems reasonable that many people that aren't old enough or haven't been tested yet for magical abilities use the hot sim trodes until such time that they are sure they don't damage any unrealized awakened Gift. A by-product is that DR can make contact before they've had implants.

so, basically, the same way mages and adepts usually get picked up. bleagh. there are still problems, though, mainly relating to the question of where all the adult technomancers in 2070 came from.

so, you'd need to be either <22ish, or a special case. meh. just doesn't seem nearly as interesting as otaku.

well, the whole point of technomancers is that you don't have to be a kid anymore to get mysterious computer powers. except you sorta do. and... they're just not interesting. maybe the flavor text will make them cooler, but i dunno. i agree that it's a good idea to expand otaku from their limited society for the sake of better integration with standard games, but that doesn't mean you have to suck all the flavor out of them.

i will say that sprites seem pretty cool, though.

if technomancers can genetically engineer themselves, why can't they self-grow their own geneware? a couple geneware tricks could really help out someone with no magic and no cyber.

Every time I read this topic I immediatly think of feverheads spoiling my lual...it's come up often enough I thought I'd share it.

my point is that you're pretty limited in your character concept options. anybody with half a brain is going to look at you funny if you play a 45 year old technomancer with no cyber or bio. a 45 year old mage (the most comparable character type)? no problem.

for that matter, how sure is everybody that age-related Fading no longer applies? the vast, vast majority of technomancers are going to be below the Fading threshold anyway.