Idea: Make/order a simsense recording of an individual in a sensory deprivation chamber. Buy a Sony Beautiful Dreamer simsense deck for 200 each. In the event of an unwilling extraction or other situation in which you must hold someone captive, play recording back, looped.

If my understanding of simsense is correct, this would act to not only prevent a captive from seeing, hearing, or otherwise noticing anything he or she is not supposed to notice, but also act as a convenient restraining system, as the captive would not be capable of actually moving. A possible flaw would be if simsense playback can be shut off via neural input from the user (as is the case with deckers and riggers), and I dont know if this is mentioned anywhere specifically. However, this feature (if it exists) could probably be removed via a moderately difficult Electronics B/R test.

Are there any other problems with the idea?

Definately intriguing.

It would likely be useful for long term captivity, but when you plan to lug the guy out, it's hard to beat a tranq patch.

I personally don't think that Simsense by itself would have such an effect, although I don't have the books handy to cross-reference this with the necessary text. BTL chips, perhaps.

Yeah, I've never imagined Simsense as a "UV-host". IMO the RAS only remove the "physical feel" of your body, you can still move your limbs as you want to, but only because you've done it millions of times before.
I.e. you wave your arm and see it moving, but your whole body just feel water flowing around you and the sensory input from your arms tell you that they are working a swim.
On top of this, your vision is a blur of RL and the POV of a swimming person.
This "double body" experience is what gives a person +8 target to all physical actions while experiencing Simsense.
Again, this is just my understanding of the concept.

But sneaking the chip into a person who's asleep, in addition to disabling the victim's vision... Dunno, could work. Still wouldn't prevent the person from thrashing with his/her limbs; Just from realizing s/he were doing so.

Actually, the RAS override specifically exists to stop someone from sunconsciously moving or "mimicing" whats happening in the sim IIRC. Just make sure the deck used has a functional RAS override.

But unfortunately for this plan, it makes sense to allow users to shut off simsense mentally. Otherwise, chips with RAS override could never be stopped before the full play length. Of course, you could probably mod the deck to refuse the 'stop sim'/'pause sim' commands.

It should also be noted that if the sensory deprivation were successful, prolonged exposure would result in psychotic behaviour in the victim when they were brought out of it. I am not sure how permanent that is.

Also, fragmentation of personality (Eg, Multiple personality Disorder) has been known to surface in Sensory-deprived subjects.

One minute, they're trying to kill you, the other, they're blowing bubbles with their spit.

Saw a program about MPD. It's wierd shit.

There's a huge difference between this and sensory depravation. There is no Depravation here, it's replacement. They have full sensory input and they may not even know its not real. Similar things were hinted at in the Lone Star Sourcebook regarding Simsense Incarceration.

yeah, only how does someone judge the passage of time in true sensory depravation? There's nothing to measure it against...

hmm, external ras, just hit someone with a blank loop. nasty...