I'm playing a Technomancer in a game, and I was wondering..what are their limits?
Can they touch someone and get into their skininduced cyberware?
Can they upload images and sounds that they experience without having cyberware?
Can they create their own signal, thus broadcasting information over an area?
Emergance gives me a lot of new questions...Any answers?
Full Version: Technomancer Limitations
| QUOTE (Samantha) |
| Can they touch someone and get into their skininduced cyberware? |
No.
| QUOTE (Samantha) |
| Can they upload images and sounds that they experience without having cyberware? |
No.
| QUOTE (Samantha) |
| Can they create their own signal, thus broadcasting information over an area? |
Yes.
Aww, they can't turn their eyes into cameras? Oh well, I bought a commlink.
They only got the wetware equivalent of an implanted comlink with hot sim module - nothing more, nothing less.
That's more than most people get. I'll live with it.
I think Rotbart is off about the signal. TMs get a signal of resonance/2 rounded up as part of their living persona. The trick is that they can't store info so you'd be limited in what you broadcast without a comlink, and if you have a comlink it probably has just as good a signal, if not better.
As for recording stuff without cyberware you can do much of that using non cyber things. Like shades with camera and recording mic cabailities.
As for recording stuff without cyberware you can do much of that using non cyber things. Like shades with camera and recording mic cabailities.
yeah, that's why I mentioned having a commlink.
| QUOTE (sunnyside) |
| I think Rotbart is off about the signal. TMs get a signal of resonance/2 rounded up as part of their living persona. The trick is that they can't store info so you'd be limited in what you broadcast without a comlink, and if you have a comlink it probably has just as good a signal, if not better. |
Yeah, but that doens't keep them from opening Radio Technomancer, including silly moderation and bad karaoke.
You do realize I have to do that now, yes?
You're going to make ShadowDragon CRY.
You're going to make ShadowDragon CRY.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) | ||
No. |
Yes.
Puck mentions, in Runner Havens, that TMs can upload their memories and experiences (and many do) into storage where it can analyzed, crossindexed and searched easily, not to mention be protected from the natural fading and drifting that comes with memory.
The direct quote is thus:
| QUOTE (Runner Havens pg 58) |
Shakespeare said that memory was the warden of the brain, but I think the technomancers of today would disagree with him. For all the powers technomancers possess over the virtual realm, they have no organic storage memory beyond the basic memory that all metahumans have. Metahuman memory is frail and imperfect, prone to forgetfulness and not suited for storing plain data. Technomancers do not trust it. They cache data away in pockets of external storage memory, offline and online, and it has become such a routine with most technomancers that they have even taken to backing up their natural memories and experiences in external memory, where it can be preserved against the ravages of time, not to mention indexed, scanned, and searched easily. |
Hmmm... that would make playing a TM with the Amnesia flaw interesting... having to hunt down her own memories across the Matrix...
Haha, so I can! Awesome.
It'd be great to play a character that forgot things once a week, so they had to go and redump their memories back in.
It'd be great to play a character that forgot things once a week, so they had to go and redump their memories back in.
| QUOTE (Samantha) |
| Haha, so I can! Awesome. It'd be great to play a character that forgot things once a week, so they had to go and redump their memories back in. |
Well, it's not an upload--it's a backup of their memories that's apparently akin to what an implanted simrig can produce. It'd also be a hell of a security hazard if you store it on-line; it can it be stolen, and once that happens, essentially everything the TM did during that time period has been compromised--like say, the run they did last week, or the safehouse they hid out in afterwards...
If you're going to be doing that--and I would recommend it, both for practical and fluff reasons--I would suggest buying datachips by the gross.
I am. I plan on having a secret cache of them in my apartment.
| QUOTE (Samantha) |
| I am. I plan on having a secret cache of them in my apartment. |
And when your apartment is raided...?
Nothing says "My memories! MINE!" like a sealed case with maglock 5, w/biometric and anti-tamper 4 and thermite charges ready to slag the contents.
| QUOTE (bibliophile20) | ||
And when your apartment is raided...? Nothing says "My memories! MINE!" like a sealed case with maglock 5, w/biometric and anti-tamper 4 and thermite charges ready to slag the contents. |
Files hashed by sprites would help... if the file is messed with it is gone for good. If I cannot have my memories... nobody can!
I can always get chummy with Fastjack and get him to let me upload a few on there.
| QUOTE (bibliophile20 @ Jun 24 2007, 10:53 PM) |
| Yes. Puck mentions, in Runner Havens, that TMs can upload their memories and experiences (and many do) into storage where it can analyzed, crossindexed and searched easily, not to mention be protected from the natural fading and drifting that comes with memory. |
Ouch.
That is a major can of worms, as basically it upgrades the wetware hot sim module to a hot sim rig... while at the same time making Emergence quite ridiculous.
Actually I think I heard it mentioned prior to Emergance.
If Puck has been chatting happily about how TMs discuss storing their dreams prior to emergence, suddenly, this whole 'new' thing isn't.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| If Puck has been chatting happily about how TMs discuss storing their dreams prior to emergence, suddenly, this whole 'new' thing isn't. |
Well that's a problem I mentioned in my review of Emergence in the beginning. Anyone who has been playing a technomancer so far is going to be a bit surprised that people are suddenly amazed and fearful of their abilities and doubly surprised when everyone suddenly wants to lynch him.
After all, Shadowrun 4th edition came out in... October 2005?
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| If Puck has been chatting happily about how TMs discuss storing their dreams prior to emergence, suddenly, this whole 'new' thing isn't. |
I noticed the same thing; my thought on it is that this discussion took place during the course of Emergence.
Of course, then we have a few other problems, like the Hong Kong Incident (as that isn't discussed in RH), but that's the least disruptive explanation in terms of the timeline.
| QUOTE (bibliophile20) | ||
And when your apartment is raided...? Nothing says "My memories! MINE!" like a sealed case with maglock 5, w/biometric and anti-tamper 4 and thermite charges ready to slag the contents. |
Thats why you hide them in the box containing the most disguising fetishes of BLTs you can find. Or on the chips themselves. You can filter through them with ease, but your typical hacker will feel sick even touching them.
it says they 'often' store their memories online. it doesn't say they can do so without the use of a simrig (external or cyber)
Plus although I haven't gotten a chance to read my copy of Emergence yet, I thought Puck was an ex-Otaku but was now just a plain Decker and not a Technomancer, so its possible that he's just plain wrong on the habits of Technomancers.
(Of course, as I said, I ahven't read through Emergence yet so anything that I say might be complete and utter drek that is countradicted there.)
(Of course, as I said, I ahven't read through Emergence yet so anything that I say might be complete and utter drek that is countradicted there.)
He's talking about TMs he knows.
Yeah, Puck, as an ex-Otaku, would probably believe and sympathise with TM's long before others would, and would probably know a lot more than the others.
I supose the real question would be, do they know that he knows them?
*Edit*
*Edit*
| QUOTE (Samantha) |
| Yeah, Puck, as an ex-Otaku, would probably believe and sympathise with TM's long before others would, and would probably know a lot more than the others. |
Perhaps, assuming that he just isn't bitter about the lost of his powers and is on a personal mission to regain them by any means necessary.
Most likely they told him. It's hard to know someone's a technomancer without them proving it to you. They're probably already close friends or family members.
| QUOTE (bibliophile20 @ Jun 24 2007, 10:42 PM) | ||
I noticed the same thing; my thought on it is that this discussion took place during the course of Emergence. Of course, then we have a few other problems, like the Hong Kong Incident (as that isn't discussed in RH), but that's the least disruptive explanation in terms of the timeline. |
Emergence begins in 2069 and runs through 2070. Runner Havens is uploaded in early February 2070 with shadowtalk posting after that. The Hong Kong Incident occurs in late June 2070 long after Runner Havens is posted, while comments like Puck's are concurrent with events in chapter 1 and 2 of Emergence. One assumes Puck has been doing some digging of his own parallel to Netcat's and Sunshine's.
And Clockwork's own 'investigations.'
| QUOTE (Synner) | ||||
Emergence begins in 2069 and runs through 2070. Runner Havens is uploaded in early February 2070 with shadowtalk posting after that. The Hong Kong Incident occurs in late June 2070 long after Runner Havens is posted, while comments like Puck's are concurrent with events in chapter 1 and 2 of Emergence. One assumes Puck has been doing some digging of his own parallel to Netcat's and Sunshine's. |
Then you have a typo in chapter 1; Slamm-0!'s hijacked Renraku memo is dated for January of 2070.
Still, that makes sense--it clears up how the Whampoans can have the "largest concentration of technomancers in Hong Kong" in a city where they are being actively hunted down--the hunt isn't on yet.
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