If my theory is correct, then the ‘trode’ of older versions would need to be in direct contact with the scalp or implanted. The low frequencies of brainwaves make it highly unlikely that trodes beam radio waves into the subject’s brain – it is much more likely that they induce voltage potentials in the brain. A reasonable guess is that effect is accomplished by setting up interference patterns – thereby increasing signal in some areas while decreasing it in others.
Pump all the data you want into a persons brain – as long as it’s through an implant (DNI) or trodes.
My 0.02

Actually, exactly the opposite is true. I have a number of reasons to be fearful of the end product of Unwired, and I didn't even submit a proposal. I genuinely believe that Unwired will, like Matrix 2.0 and Virtual Realities before it essentially divide the player base into tribes who use mutually unintelligible Matrix systems as well as causing a substantial number of groups to simply give up and get rid of the Matrix specialist altogether - relegating the position to an NPC or TraceBuster box with a "go button".

In short, as Unwired comes closer I foresee a time in which I will have to write a hard set of Matrix house rules that will be really extensive. So I'm positioning myself to do that.

Unfortunately, I think it'll be easier to write one now and then ignore most of Unwired when it arrives then look at the contents, weep, and rush job something to cover things later.

Sma, that's a pretty good list. Here's mine:

• The player characters should be the center of the story, not equipment.
• The level of abstraction of Matrix action should stay constant.
• The number of die rolls required should stay manageable enough that the game is playable while drunk.
• The Matrix specialist should be an important and playable member of the team.

Last I checked, Unwired intended to address precisely zero of my concerns, so I'm not interested in it.

---

Anyway, I'm leaving the country for a week in two days. So this project is going to backburner for a while. Sma, would you like me to send you what I have so far and add on to it while I'm gone? I've worked in collaborative writing projects before. You can see the results of my work with Keith for Dungeons and Dragons over here.

Anyways, I was thinking of using much the same format and interspersing diatribes, in-character material, and game crunch in a semi-logical essay format. The Matrix is every bit as divorced from our current understanding of reality as Magic is, and I believe that it needs the essays at least as much as D&D alignment does.

-Frank

I think you're reading too much into things Fisty.


I'll take Unwired over System Failure and especially Emergence but ya I really don't have any real interest in it either. Good luck Frank and remember, "Rectifier!".

Oh, I'm too used to that to notice anymore.

It's kinda like living in a warzone; eventually, the gunfire just becomes part of the background noise.

Ideas being stupid != people being stupid.

By canon, just turning wireless "off" equals complete invulnerability to the concept. They're trying feebly to find a loophole around that simply because the rules don't go into detailed descriptions of how every piece of gear works, or because some of them use more questionable explanations.

You have crossed the line into by working and enjoying on the Cancernomicon! You must be purged!

This was my impression as well. Frank has already said that this is an issue that he noticed in the rules. I personally don't see him advocating it as something that should be done, but throwing it out there for you to explore.

I for one, don't even see it as a possibility, or at least not so much in the way stated. The underlying issue I see is what is the difference between trodes (nanopaste or headband) and Datajacks.

The ability wire a sim module to a jack and let loose death inducing levels of ASIST has long been a possibility. And with the introduction of the wireless matrix, doing the same wirelessly (if the data jack is somehow hooked up to a wireless receiver) is now also a possibility.

The issue is when we introduce trodes to the mix, which by RAW, have the exact same effect as a wired datajack. This is wrong. No matter what the rules say, a trode net or nanopasted should never have the same effect as a datajack. How trodes work and how they are then connected to the users PAN is something else that needs to be elaborated on.

Based on RAW, if someone is outfitted with trodes, the remote sim module with Black hammer or black out is completely viable. This is a rules issue and could somewhat be a fluff issue. I would start by saying that most people don't use trodes, at least not all the time. They may be necessary for the virtual workplace just as datajacks where 10 years ago, but you clock out, you take them off and put on the glasses.

AR will be the big thing, and just as windows95 allowed old people to access the internet, so AR will allow the previous generation to experience whats new in a much easier way. Now most will say, the matrix has been around forever, well I still think your mom or grandma will feel much more at home with easily removed glasses than with disembodied virtual floating.

I really wish everyone here would watch Dennou Coil, a very good anime which gives very needed flavor to AR. It is still unlicensed (meaning legal to download) and I hope the admins will allow this link.

[Administrative Edit by Adam: While I understand that the anime community & creators generally turns a blind eye and in some cases encourages international distribution of their work before it is licensed in other countries, it is, to the best of our knowledge, still an infringement of copyright, and thus against the ToS. I've removed the link for now. Please PM me if you have questions about this policy, or have some sort of reference that proves it does not, in any way, violate copyright. And, to be clear: I know that the page itsself nor the "torrent files" do not actually contain any information covered by copyright, but obviously, the intent is clear.]

One last thing I have to say is to Franks comment about the parallels between magic and matrix. I competely agree, though there is a very important difference. I liken it to a door. Magic is like pounding in the front door. It is raw power directed in whatever way the user wishes, and most people are scarred of this and blockade heavily against it. The matrix on the other hand, is what the other 99% of humans trust and rely on to live their lives. It permeates everything we do in 2070, and those who can coax it have a back door into everyone's affairs. Most people think their back door is relatively safe, but those large glass windows break much easier than the front and are away from the neighbors prying eyes.

This is why a team must always have both to be complete.

It's actually a tag team effort between Keith (who goes on the internet by "K") and myself. So I'm an author of those books. It all started when Keith got shot and couldn't work and my grandfather (who I had been taking care of) died of spinal cancer. We wrote all four of those pieces in four months. Since then, Keith got into law school and I have been working 60 hours a week as an EMT. So we do a lot less role playing game projects. If my interview goes well, I'll be in med school in 2008 so it is highly doubtful that the Book of Gears will ever get finished.

I'm basically looking at finishing my Western and putting together a Matrix "tome" and then I don't think I'll do any more RPG writing for at least four years. But I'm glad that my writing made someone happy - that's always good to hear.

That's certainly how they are described as being used. But the key here is Nanopaste. Not only does it just transmit electrical signals (which could just as easily come from farther away), but Altskin provides a DNI and doesn't even have to be near your head to do it.

So the question is: all the wearable DNIs have a Signal rating of 0 or less; but is there any actual reason that they couldn't have more? Would a signal booster attached to one of them do what it says that it does?

-Frank

That's akin to telling me that going from a 802.11a to 802.11n would mean I'd have to have a room sized router. Which is bull, even in Shadowrun, just take a look at Device Rating table, Deltaware has a DR of 6, which means a Signal of 6, and the Device Rating paragraph details that some Devices may /be retooled to have a larger attribute/.

Fair enough, technology in SR is such that upgrading trodes from Signal 0 to, say, 3, wouldn't be tough, or make them bulky or unwieldy. It's also true that some devices can be set up with a higher Signal rating - this doesn't mean all devices, nor does it mean no limit to Signal, but that's stuff for the GM to work out. I don't object to pumping the Signal on your trodes, but I still very much object to the assertion that this would do anything at all. Because of the delicate and precise requirements of beaming fancy VR signals into someone's brain, there's no way you could simply build a gun out of high-Signal trodes and be like, "Haha, now you fall to the ground and dream of android sheep!" (I don't even know why I thought of android sheep. Was there some book or satire or something?)

that's not true at all. if it were, LS wouldn't use simsense loops to keep magical prisoners sedated. even datajacks can be implanted that do not give the prisoner DNI control over the functioning of the 'jack. otherwise, any mage with half a brain would just turn the datajack off and start working on an escape plan. at the very least, the functioning of black IC tells us that ASIST data can make it extremely difficult to jack out.

of course, you'd still need a method of inducing ASIST signals at a distance, which i'm no longer convinced is possible with the existing SR tech.

It also details that Device Rating is only used for Devices als long as they don't really matter, and the GM is to assign attributes if they do. At wich point the Signal Rating table comes in and cyberware is low signal again.

The book that the movie Bladerunner was based on was called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Sent PM

the presence of the fantastic necessitates realism in the non-fantastic elements in order to help players and GMs maintain suspension of disbelief. there's certainly a lot of wiggle-room, but anywhere realism can fit that doesn't disrupt the flow, feel, and fun of the game, it should be crammed in.

...yeah, but here we are not talking about magic here, we are talking tech. With tech, science should have a much stronger influence. If not, then the whole bloody game is nothing but "magic" & we might as well be playing the game that should not be mentioned in the 21st century.

...excuse me, gotta get back to Aeon Labs now

Have you looked at the SR computer rules lately?

And this quote applies to long-distance 'trodes very well.

..yeah, and that is what bothers me. Of course trying to predict where information technologies will be in even a couple years (much less 60) is about as certain as predicting weather in the Midwest.

I remember in the early 80s when an SF game tried to equate the computing power used for starships in RL terms. A year or so later (using their basis), a C-64 could run a battlecruiser & an Apple IIe (1984), a multi mega-tonne death star.

Yes indeed. See also Holly Lisle's "Fantasy Is Not for Sissies: Real Rules for Real Worlds"

Sadly, other then Frank, the SR writers and developers don't seem to get #6.

...that's about all KK can do with it, and even then it takes some effort. She seems to get along fine though, especially since she has a Loyalty 6 "Matrix Specialist" contact (Hacker just sounds to droll) looking after her datatrail.

Well, in some cases, people who notice are definitely gonna laugh at the guy. This is on par with someone nowadays refusing to accept the ubiquity computers, and who refuses to have anything to do with them. Including ATMs, credit cards, cell phones, etc. You can do it, you're just an idiot.

What's more, the lack of the commlink IS the penalty itself. You want something automated, diagnosed, analyzed, looked up, integrated, parsed, mailed, remailed, tracked, lost, or found? You can't do it. At all. You have to have someone else do it for you. Picture this:
Runner team of 4, infiltrating a building. 1 is staked out by the door, 2 and 3 are searching the second floor, and 4 is in the security room eyeballing the monitors after killing the security rigger. None use commlinks, to preserve their wireless invsibility.

The counter-team is a team of 4, each who have commlinks wired together. Their cyberware is networked so that each one has access to the video/audio of the others, their radar and ultrasound scanners, the spider drones they've brought along, and real-time updates from the matrix. They're out to hunt and kill the first team. 1 is waiting to cut power to the building with a charge he's laid, and is eyeing the front with his rifle. 2 and 3 are going in through the roof, at opposite ends, to better cover the second foor. 4 is going to rush the fire exit and get down the security room.

All skills, money, and stats being equal, it's trivial to see that team #2 is going to utterly mop the floor with team #1 based purely on their network.

There are times and places to maintain wireless silence, but if it's your way of life, you're operating at a gross disadvantage.