I suggest you reread the Street Magic fluff regarding how magic and magicians are percieved by mundane society - people have had 60 years to get used to magic and still there is fear and suspicion. The emergence of technomancers is directly linked (by the media and its masters) to the single most catastrophic and traumatic event in recent living memory in the Sixth World. There's a significant difference.

As to technomancers being in the base book, Emergence begins in late 2069 and transpires during 2070. This is simultaneous with the BBB, which you will note includes no fiction on how technomancers interact with society other than they are very, very rare.

Furthermore technomancers aren't all that Emergence has in store.

Fear and suspicion is not the same as a full blown witch hunt holocaust. Mages, scriptkiddie hackers, and cybersams are all subject to fear and suspicion, not genocide. Emergence seems to be in it's own universe where mages, cybersams, and hackers don't exist.

In fact it is very similar in structure with System Failure which means its GI sections are also similar to MobWar and BitB.

Let me clarify, if cybersams, hackers and mages were depicted as:

• directly linked to the force behind the single most catastrophic event in recent history the cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide,
• defined as crazy, schizoid nutjobs wielding uncontrollable powers that actually contribute to make them more unstable,
• described as able to spontaneously generate computer code, speak to Matrix dwelling entities unknown to anyone else, and potentially create another Crash virus,
• inexplicably being able to do with their minds, what it costs an mundane human thousands of dollars and considerable skill to replicate,
• allegedly linked to alien artificial intelligences that hide in the Matrix.

... by every major corp owned media outlet on Earth then they'd suffer a witch hunt too.

Translation: We cooked up a hokey plot idea and forced it into being with a mallet. Accept it, peons, regardless of how implausible it all is. See, we made the media say it so it's all okay cause the media is godly! That makes it all okay. Now accept the stupidity of the premise and move on.

Gotcha.

Strange even though it seems to work to get presidents elected today, I don't see how it could possibly work in a fictional setting where the powers that be controlling the media are even more powerful and influential over public perceptions than today's are...

Yes, that's the part that's stupid about the premise. You got me.

Nevermind Bug City or the Universal Brotherhood with their actual alien invasions. Nevermind that being able to talk to a computer without having to spend 500 nuyen on a commlink is hardly BOO SCARY!!!, especially compared to throwing out fireballs, creating mana warps when presidents get magically assassinated, or being able to mind rape you on a whim. Nevermind that mages regularly talk to "alien artificial entities" on a regular basis, even conjuring them out of thin air, right smack in front of people.

Technomancers are scary! For realz! They might be talking with what are little more than advanced Agent programs on the Matrix. They, unlike hackers or megacorporations, might be able to write viral code (guess that's how the first Crash came about, too, huh?). So that clearly makes them far more scary than magicians, dragons, and all the evil boogeymonsters lurking in the dark. Brilliant premise! Absolutely flawless. How could anyone roll their eyes at that?

If anything, I'd be surprised if in a far more plausible take of the events, the majority of the public wouldn't be suspecting the Crash 2.0 was all a ploy by the megacorporations to force everyone to use their new Matrix and mass-produced Commlinks that just came out of thin air. And that the real witch hunt wouldn't be aimed at them. (And nevermind that this would have been a perfect way to write in a means of having governments regain some of their lost power base as a result.)

No. Clearly the mediocre, subpar, technomancers who's abilities anyone can pretty much mimic for a few bucks and a quick Computer 101 course are to blame. Kill 'em all. (But still make them a plausible character archetype.)

I think you would like Emergence then. I remember thinking the whole time I was reading it, "if this was in a stand alone universe instead of Shadowrun, I would love this." GURPS: Emergence would have been great.

I love X-Men, and Emergence is very X-Men. So if you can get passed the premise that the all-powerful media has stopped a genocide on mages, razorboys, and scriptkiddies but not on technomancers, then I would buy it (but keep the receipt )

The problem there being that somehow Average Joe in the Sixth World is aware of the metagame information and realizes that it's all hype and the rules for technomancers in SR4 actually make them pushovers.

Emergence develops from the premise that Average Joe doesn't know the full extent of a technomancers powers. In fact, at several points in the story technomancers are seen to do things TM characters are clearly unable to do under the rules. A handful of TMs bring down a major city grid easily (nobody knows they're sending out sprites to do the hard work nor does it matter). Their abilities are described by scientists and pundits as electrokinetic, so who knows what their limits are? (You only do because you've read the rules). They seem to descend from otaku who were behind the Second Crash (and nobody knows) and they may or may not be linked to mysterious AIs (who turn out to be equally threatening).

The point is that Average Joe doesn't know, and that's a sure way to mislead and manipulate the masses into believeing what someone wants them to believe.

Most people don't have hacking software. Most people won't be able to hack you accounts or your home system even with a computer. Most people won't even know how to get the software to do it. And most people will probably be a little scared of an individual that can, you know, conjure sentient monsters inside the ubiquitous computers systems everywhere around you (and anywhere reachable by Matrix for that matter), can knock out wireless electronics and cyberware with a flick of his fingers, or hack the brain of anyone linked to the Matrix and psychotropically program them to do his bidding or possibly even download his mind into their bodies like you've heard his AI masters were able to do.

Yup, I can see where the big difference is.

Well lets look at the timeframes... we've had scriptkiddies since the 1970's, so we've had 100 years to get used to that shit. Then there's the Cyber, which you couldlink back to even the 1980s (when paralysed men walked again because of wires in their bodies) so almost 100 years of that... plus it got good press, since the blind can see, the paralysed could walk, and the quads could get online to forum troll by controlling a mouse with their mind. All that media coverage means people have had a long time to learn what cyber can and can't do, and to romaticize it. Then there was magic. Yeah, I'll bet there were all sorts of bad things about that... oh wait, we already have the books describing events around that. There were years of hype and hystiria over all sorts of things, but people came out and were probably interviewed impartially and things got calmed down some. Plus being that magic can fit with many world/religious views, there would be a contigent of people who would help and support such effeorts as to make life easier on mages. And remember, when this was all going on, people were also far more worried about things like elves and orcs and dragons (OH MY!).. there wasn't one thing to focus on.

Technomancers are a different story. As was stated, it happens too close to the Crash 2.0. The media is against them, and its spun to the masse badly. Plus there is the straight fact that unlike things like the Bugs and Shedim, its on the big networks, not the fringe shows. There's no secrecy around this. And since most of the technos are even aware yet what al they can do with their powers, there are vast gaps that can be filled in with any rumor you'd like to place there.

I dunno though, I can't see people getting all worked up about it </sarcasm>

Most people know people can do that. Most people know the limits of what you can do on the Matrix. I mean, I'm not a hacker in real life yet I'm certainly not pissing myself at the thoughts of all those evil, malicious virii and hackers out there! OOH, SCARY! And I sure as hell don't think it takes a magician ("but not really magicians, honest!") to do that shit. Or that if, suddenly, people were able to interact with the web, all the technological limits in place instantly become useless. Just because they don't need a computer to do it, you see.

As opposed to those who can do all those things outside of the Matrix, amirite? Or the existance of software that can do the same thing, and has been able to do the same thing for decades now. (See: BTLs, moodchips, personafixes, etc.)

I'd like to take a moment to criticize that.

So you're saying that only Isaac Asimov is allowed to speak up, the rest of us should just pay our $35 and shut the hell up?

Yes we do need to speak up and risk being labeled a critic because if you buy the PDF you're SOL because they don't give you your money back if it sucks.

So you've seen personally seen loved ones die and hundreds of thousands lose their lives and livelihoods because those evil, malicious virii and hackers out there...

You've also lived with the fact exactly how that happened is still beyond the grasp of even the best computer specialists and techs - because, you know, they couldn't do it even if they tried and they certainly couldn't stop it last time.

And you know that these people, if they even are people, are unstable and crazy enough to trigger something like that. Hell, their own powers apparently drive them insane.

Nope, don't think I ever said that. The difference is that people have had 60 years to come to terms with Magic and when magic emerged things were almost as bad (though not quite as bad since the media and the corps didn't take the reigns of the situation and weren't fearful of the potential threat emerging as they are in 2070). They've also been told this isn't magic. And for all intents and purposes it isn't, a baseline technomancers is able to do things that no magician has ever been able to in all of the recorded history of thaumaturgy.

All of which is mastered by a skilled select few and costs thousands of nuyen in hardware and software to produce - where as these technomancers can do it with their minds alone, they can do it intuitively, they might be even doing it without knowing, hell their sprites might do it for them without them even knowing its being done.

To use the X-men comparison that's been bandied around its like saying people won't be scared of individuals capable of firing beams of coherent light from their eyes because the end effect is the same as firing a big gun that anyone can buy.

In context of the 2070's? Yep. Happened back in the 20's, didn't it? Back when Technomancers weren't around at all, in fact! Even after 50 years, experts still don't fully know how that crazy virus got to be so superpowerful...

As opposed to all those stable magicians and alien entities involved with the Universal Brotherhood, or who took out an entire major UCAS city, killing, torturing, experimenting on, and infecting with God knows what?

Um, didn't you just make Funk's point? Mages CAN do all that and more. And the masses don't need to be told lies, they've actually seen mages do it on TV. And yet mages are not hunted, technomancers are.

No, because as I've pointed out technomancers are doing similar things to what mages can accomplish and things that cannot be explained by magic, that in fact are completely impossible to do with magic, and that when witnessed by a magician will be certified as not being magic by any accepted definition of the term in 2070.

And to repeate myself - if mages were depicted as:

• directly linked to the force behind the single most catastrophic event in recent history the cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide,
• defined as crazy, schizoid nutjobs wielding uncontrollable powers that actually contribute to make them more unstable,
• described as able to spontaneously generate computer code, speak to Matrix dwelling entities unknown to anyone else, and potentially create another Crash virus,
• inexplicably being able to do with their minds, what it costs an mundane human thousands of dollars and considerable skill to replicate,
• allegedly linked to alien artificial intelligences that hide in the Matrix.

... then they would be hunted too.

Note mages were indeed hunted, strung up and killed, for a lot less way back in the day and they didn't have the media and a significant portion of the corporations actively working against them.

That society has come to understand magic better and live with it doesn't mean it is accepted and not viewed with suspicion. However, society has had 60 years to learn that magic has limits and consequences, that there are countermeasures and responses available to the powers that be, and that ultimately magic is understandable. Technomancers benefit from none of that. They are clearly not mages, their abilities drive them nuts, and no one knows what their true potential is and what it takes to unlock it (to a possibly world devastating effect that 60 years of information tells us no magician could hope reproduce).

As Ancient has mentioned the manner in which technomancers emerged, the specific events and the manner they were already being portrayed in the media, further fans the flames of doubt and fear.

Who in the world would care if a terrorist was using magic, "virtuakinetics", nanites, bioweapons, nukes, or opening the Arc of the Covenant? Mages can create, have created, and have the potential to once again create disasters on a huge scale. Just like technomancers. And unlike technomancers, no one has to lie to them about it, they've seen mages do it on TV. And yet technomancers are hunted and mages aren't.

It's like Emergence exists in its own universe where everyone has forgotten about ghost dances, insect spirit invasions, and every act of terrorism a mage, adept, gun bunny, or scriptkiddie has perpetrated on the world.

Except in Karl Kombatmage sims maybe, when was the last time in SR history that something bigger than say, a car, was openly and publicly blown up by magic? (The late President Dunkelzahn nonwithstanding, as he was a dragon, and those are wierd anyway and if you elect a lizard thensomething funky is just bound to happen).
For all I know, that would be around the tme of the GGD.
Since then, I'd estimate that far more people have been healed of cancer and gutshots than have been hated to death by magic.
AND don't forget that it's still stated that the general population still distrusts magic and magic users. They've just moved on from torch and pitchfork-style distrust to something a little more subtle.

Compare McCarthy era USA to post 9/11 USA. back then, being suspected of being a commie would get you in real bad trouble. Now, it's still kinda suspicious, but if something scary happens, it's the guy in the turban you go looking for first the for blame game.

And the result was a megapower brought to its knees and forced to bargain with the Natives. At the time this was the equivalent of Emergence and the consequences were equally far reaching, however, the dangerous foe was a skulking Indian shaman bent on avenging his people and hiding somewhere in the North American hinterland - not your next door neighbor or the guy in the next cubicle who are slowly being driven insane by AIPS.

Chapter's 2 and 3 Game Info covers most of it.

The media is at the service of the megacorporations and (most of) the corporations want technomancers either under their control or eliminated as a threat (they don't want another Pax emerging). Even Evo and Horizon are initially undecided and go with the flow.

The best way to accomplish this, given that technomancers can be anyone anywhere and are at large, is to scare them into submission and give them nowhere to hide. If at the same time the megacorps can scare governments and the masses into sanctioning their pogroms, they'll be able to get exactly what they want - not genocide, but experimentation camps and government sanctioned labs working on figuring out what makes technomancers tick and how to reproduce those abilities (or failing that counter or detroying them). The media campaign both backs technomancers into a corner and influences lawmakers and the public to support the corp agendas - and if it costs a few lives, it's just a few less wild cards out there.

Actually if you reread SR3 material following Bug City and the Shedim emergence you will realize that similar phenomenons and witch hunts did happen in the 50's - and the worldwide bug hunts that followed Chicago were just as impressive as the witchhunts in Emergence. In fact backlashes of this sort were why Tehran was razed.

The issue is simple. Technomancers are linked, correctly or not, to the single most traumatic event in recent memory and they roam freely and hidden amongst the population. If left unchecked their powers might, just might, potentially wreck havoc on an a scale unimaginable for any terrorist, mage, adept, script or gunbunny could ever hope to achieve.

The scale and scope of the damage of the first and second Crash far outstrips anything the Bugs have and unlike any other disaster or threat that's menaced the Sixth World this one touched almost everyone the world over.

Who is to say that the crazed schizophrenic mind of just one technomancer couldn't spawn that degree of devastation again - possibly even unwittingly? Events in Hong Kong seem like evidence that they are able to do just that...

Ratings. That, and it might suit the purposes of the megas that own the news outlets to report it in this fashion.

I like Technomancers just fine. What I don't like is how they're handling them, and what I really don't like is how they handled them in the past ("kids who burn-out at puberty! Wewt! What a great idea!").

When I was a kid, I was the one who always had to change the channel on the TV, so I grew up wishing I could change the channel without having to get up off the couch. Then they invented the remote control. My childhood fantasy has been fulfilled. Harry Potter's got nothing on me.