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Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Skillwires p.335)
Skillwires: Skillwires are a system of neuromuscular
controllers placed alongside the body’s natural nervous
system to override muscular movement.


If you hack someone skillwires don't you effectively gain complete control over their entire body? The Skillwires override their muscular movement so you should be able to make a person do pretty much anything, even choke themselves to death.

Now somewhere in either Augmentation or the core rule book it says that most of the megacorps put skillwires in their wageslaves and use skillsofts so they don't have to train people. This seems to imply to me that a large portion of the population can be controlled by a halfway decent hacker.

The vast majority of wageslaves have fairly substandard comlinks and are thus fairly easy to hack.

Have a wetwork job? Grab some guy with skillwires and a crap com, hack his com and take over his skillwires, have him carry out the actually killing and then off himself.

Or what about the security guard who happens to have skillwires that you make handcuff himself to the door or choke himself to death.

Or when you need a distraction at the mall?

Nothing like making the guard steal what he is supposed to be protecting and then kill himself.


Kerberos
I'd say no. If skillwires could be used to make people into biodrones it would have been mentioned. You will note that actual equibment for making biodrones is far more expensive than skillwires indicating that there is more to it. Also I think it even says that you can't make biodrones out of metahumans (yet). So it seems pretty clear cut to me that skillwires do not allow you to take actual control of a person.

If you wanted to houserule metahuman biodrones-by-skillwire, I also think that you should at least consider what programs he has. You should only let the hacker perform actions that he had programs for. No strangling himself with a hacking program. Might not be able to walk or run without a running programs, no jumping without athletics. You should IMO be very restrictive to avoid overpowering skillwire hacking.
Cthulhudreams
What about move by wire?

And what about if the hacker loads a 'pistols' activesoft and then instructs the active soft to kill that dude.

It should work, because thats what the wire user does when he wants to shoot someone via his skillwires with an activesoft.
Riley37
If it were that easy, people would stop implanting skillwires, unti they found a way to close off that loophole.

I dunno that the skillwire takes instructions from the user's commlink. If there's no connection between the commlink and the skillwire system, then no dice. My conception is that the user has to activate the skillwire, and it takes instructions only from the user's CNS, and there's an override for when the user runs into a situations that the skillsoft can't handle.

Now, if you somehow gained access to a bunch of skillwires or skillsofts *before* they were implanted, then you could prepare a surprise. This is likely to require an "inside job". Edit the skillsofts before the users load them, with, say, a reflex such as "when you hear this particular sound, close your eyes and curl up into a ball." If you could insert that exploit into the "How to Handle a Weapon" skillsofts used by security personnell, then you get to disable those personnel as soon as they trigger the skillsoft by drawing their weapon. Or you edit the maintenance worker's skillsofts so that they'll do something that shuts down the building's power, with an appropriate triggering condition. Or, more subtle, if security and maintenance staff rely on skillwires for properly walking the perimeter of a specific site, then you edit the program to create a gap in their pattern; if you're smooth enough, they'll never know they were hacked - and thus, they might not know to close that particular loophole, so maybe it's still open next time. Maybe. If they're lazy or sloppy.

Hmm... if Renraku makes skillsofts for Unarmed Combat and Infiltration and Con and so forth, perhaps they have "back door" overrides built in, and the Red Samurai have the trigger codes; don't use a Renraku skillsoft when you're penetrating a Renraku facility! Ah, paranoia.
Kerberos
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
What about move by wire?

And what about if the hacker loads a 'pistols' activesoft and then instructs the active soft to kill that dude.

It should work, because thats what the wire user does when he wants to shoot someone via his skillwires with an activesoft.

Move by wire? Again the fact that Metahumans can't be biodrones indicates that, well they can't be biodrones, not even with move by wire.

Back to skillwires. It again can't work perfectly because that would be a biodrone which is not possible by RAW. How and why does it not work perfectly? That is subject to debate. Perhaps the hacker can't use the skillwires properly because he can't see through the users eyes. Perhaps the user retains the use of other parts of his body and might resist by for example shutting his eyes (if we assume the hacker got access to the visual input from those) or using his left hand to fight the right, which would make aiming very difficult. Perhaps the man machine interface is to complicated to be handled properly by a hacking program. Perhaps the skillwires only handle some specialized movements while letting the host handle some other ones (eg. No matter how bad a shot you are, you can raise you arm into a rough firing position without the benefit of skillwires). Perhaps the skillwires don’t totally overrule normal muscle control, but relies on the fact that the user obviously won’t overrule the skillwires. Perhaps the rules just aren't perfectly consistent and thought out. The point remains that by RAW metahuman biodrones aren't possible.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
And what about if the hacker loads a 'pistols' activesoft and then instructs the active soft to kill that dude.

"Skillsofts don't kill people. People with skillsofts kill people."

Skillsofts do little more than teach you a skill, both mentally and physically (if using activesofts with skillwires). They don't control you despite poorly written fluff text and you're not a robot when using one. Without a Skillwire Expert System, the skills they teach you are somewhat inferior to natural skills, but that's about the extent of the difference.

That said, when you teach someone a skill, does that suddenly give you complete and total control over that person? No, of course it doesn't. You can try and influence them through other means, sure, but simply teaching them a skill grants you no special powers over them.

It's exactly the same thing with skillwires and skillsofts. Upload them a Pistols skill if you like, but in the end the only thing you've done is teach them how to use Pistols for a short amount of time. And hell, if it's inferior to their natural skill with Pistols it's ignored completely if memory serves.
Fortune
Someone will probably come in and complain about Doc's use of the words 'teach' and teaching' in his last post. He is not using them in the sense that they impart the knowledge to the character on a permanent basis, but rather that they grant the character's muscles the temporary knowledge of how to accomplish something.
Demonseed Elite
In addition to all that has been said already about why hacking skillwires does not allow you to control a person's actions, there's another point to keep in mind. Skillwires work through a large amount of pre-recorded ASIST, a process that takes time and lots of effort. Skillsofts are not burned on the fly. So while you can hack someone's skillwires, how are you feeding it commands? Even the simplest skill instructions would require lots of time and effort to craft, it's not as simple as revving up your Edit program.

If I were to walk into a motion capture studio today and have it at my full command, it doesn't mean I can make convincing special effects.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (otakusensei @ Aug 10 2007, 03:56 PM)
I have aquestion, since a move-by-wire's expert system control movement for your whole body, will hacking it give you total control over a person?  I understand it doesn't work like a stirrup system, you can't jump into it, but could you make a group of hacked security guards start dancing in mid combat?

Yes. This is why I strongly suggest leaving yur move-by-wire system dependent upon physical contact with instruction sets. Sure it's convenient to wirelessly share the contents of activesofts between group members, and manually changing activesofts mid-combat is bullshit - but leaving a wireless command input available for your move-by-wire is just too dangerousif the enmies include decent hackers or technomancers.

-Frank

You can do it if a person has move-by-wire systems.

As written though you should be able to do it with Skillwires. They override normal muscle controls.
Buster
But I thought you could manually change your skillsofts mid-combat. First thing I thought when I saw The Matrix was: "They totally stole that from Shadowrun!"
Ol' Scratch
Frank has weird views. Move-By-Wire is no more vulnerable to "turn you into a robot" than Skillwires are. MBW just throws your body into a seizure then controls that seizure. Sort of the reverse of how you normally behave.

And you can change 'softs in the middle of combat. What you can't do is code custom skillsofts on the fly. Skillsofts aren't pilots or agents. They're... enhanced tutorsofts. When you're using that Pistols activesoft, it's not shooting the gun for you. You just know how to use that gun, but are 100% in complete and total control of your thoughts and actions while using it. You just use it as if you had known the skill your entire life.
Buster
Frank is totally right though about puppeteering people with skillwires. The way the skillwires and especially the move by wire system are worded, they specifically say that the systems are overriding the user's normal actions...effectively turning the person into a biodrone.
QUOTE (SR4)
Skillwires are a system of neuromuscular
controllers placed alongside the body’s natural nervous
system to override muscular movement.


By the fluff, there's no reason why a hacker couldn't just input a new sequence of actions. You might not be able to control them in real time, but you could fashion a set of commands beforehand and upload it to the victim. Sort of like (well, exactly like) the limitations of the Edit command.

Biodrone systems are so expensive because they have that real time editing software and hardware systems built in. The only reason biodrone systems don't work in humanoids is because humanoids are made from magic pixie dust.
WhiskeyMac
I'd say you can't hack skillwires and MBW systems simply because it would make no sense for them to be wireless enabled, other than to report stress or malfunctions. Seriously, if you had hardware in your body that put your brain into constant seizures as well as "overrid" your muscle movement when you slotted a chip, would you honestly make that available to be hacked? Yeah, the fluff says almost everything is wireless but I just can't believe that the creators of that equipment would make it vulnerable to hacking. It would be retarded.

And when the fluff says it "overrides your muscle movement" it doesn't mean you walk around like a machine and such, its just when you do an action based off a skillsoft, you aren't fluid and natural. You look stiff and robotic but you can still think. Sure, if that person had a Pistol skillsoft, and was hackable (which is implausable), then you could make them shoot themselves, but I would definitely give them a few chances to disconnect and resist.
Emperor Tippy
Just make an Active soft that locks down all muscle movement. Real time control might not be possible but there is no reason that you couldn't paralyze a person with Skillwires. Yes he can most likely still talk but his arm's and legs don't work anymore.

As for hacking skillwires, if they are connected to a person's comlink you just need to hack the comlink first. And if they aren't connected then how exactly are you uploading a skillsoft to the system?


Move-By-Wire systems allow real time, complete control of the person. They put the person into continuous seizure and an expert system controls all movement (your brain tells the expert what to do and then the expert lets your body do it).

QUOTE (Move-by-Wire)
Move-by-Wire System: Move-by-wire-systems are the cutting-
edge in motion control and reaction augmentation. They
operate by putting the user’s body in a constant state of seizure,
so that it wishes to move in all directions simultaneously. An
implanted expert system monitors the seizure and counteracts
its effects until the user wishes to act. At that point, it channels
the effects of the seizure along the desired path of motion,
enabling the user to act with amazing speed and move with
unnatural smoothness. The move-by-wire-system is based on
similar systems used in aircraft, drone, and vehicle control and
has proven to be highly effective—if sometimes debilitating to
biological subjects. Move-by-wire users frequently suffer from
slight, but uncontrollable, muscle tremors in certain muscle
groups when they are at rest, mostly due to errors in the system’s
seizure compensation.


Just disabling the expert system would actually take out anyone with a Move-by-Wire system. They would experience a continuous seizure that doesn't end. It would most likely kill them.

Skillwires are cool but don't keep them connected to your pan, a datajack is a good idea.
Demonseed Elite
The one-line description of skillwire function in SR4 is pretty misleading. Expect more on this soon.

But, really, skillwires override muscle memory more than muscle movement. Biodrone setups, on the other hand, really do override muscle movement.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
The one-line description of skillwire function in SR4 is pretty misleading. Expect more on this soon.

But, really, skillwires override muscle memory more than muscle movement. Biodrone setups, on the other hand, really do override muscle movement.

Then can you make muscles "forget" how to move? You can't walk because your muscles don't remember how, you can't lift your arm because your muscles forgot how, etc.

Pretty much all motor function is learned, not instinctive. So just have the activesoft make their muscles "forget" how to walk and they are effectively a newborn.
Demonseed Elite
Yes, you can definitely interfere with a person's motor activity if you hack their skillwires. But that's different than puppeting them.
Emperor Tippy
So even though I can't puppet the wageslave I can paralyze him? Hmm, wonder how many guards have Skillwires.
Demonseed Elite
They'd also need to be wireless-enabled skillwires.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
They'd also need to be wireless-enabled skillwires.

Yes but if a person doesn't have a datajack then don't they have to connect to their comlink so that they can upload skillsofts to the skillwires?
Demonseed Elite
Sure, if they don't have a datajack.

I would hope that if you equip your security personnel with wireless skillwire systems, you also equip them with some pretty secure commlinks.
Eleazar
Skillwires give ability and knowledge of things unknown to the recipient. They do not override all motor function of the brain. They give talent and nothing more. The recipient then with this talent, acts accordingly to the talent he has received. The skillwires do not all of the sudden make him a machine without control and choice. He still chooses how to act, move, think, etc. Thusly, hacking skillwires will not give the hacker complete control of his victims. Skillwires work almost exactly as they do in the matrix when Trinity asks for the helicopter piloting program. Trinity receives the skills and knowledge to fly a helicopter just as if she knew all of it herself. Hacking skillwires allows no more control than if one were able to hack a victims knowledge and skills. The only thing hacking skillwires might accomplish is being able to do is render them useless. The only possible way a hacker could possibly be able to control another with hacking is through cyber limbs. Even then, we aren't talking full control of someones body. Any part of the body still directly controlled/interfaced by ones brain is not hackable. I wouldn't say cyberlimbs are directly controlled/interfaced by the brain. They have to go through a DNI for that, therefore it is by proxy.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Eleazar)
Skillwires give ability and knowledge of things unknown to the recipient. They do not override all motor function of the brain. They give talent and nothing more. The recipient then with this talent, acts accordingly to the talent he has received. The skillwires do not all of the sudden make him a machine without control and choice. He still chooses how to act, move, think, etc. Thusly, hacking skillwires will not give the hacker complete control of his victims. Skillwires work almost exactly as they do in the matrix when Trinity asks for the helicopter piloting program. Trinity receives the skills and knowledge to fly a helicopter just as if she knew all of it herself. Hacking skillwires allows no more control than if one were able to hack a victims knowledge and skills. The only thing hacking skillwires might accomplish is being able to do is render them useless. The only possible way a hacker could possibly be able to control another with hacking is through cyber limbs. Even then, we aren't talking full control of someones body. Any part of the body still directly controlled/interfaced by ones brain is not hackable. I wouldn't say cyberlimbs are directly controlled/interfaced by the brain. They have to go through a DNI for that, therefore it is by proxy.

And skillwires say that they override muscle movement. One of the developers for SR4 says that they override muscle memory.

If the text isn't a misprint then you should be able to real time drone control a target. If the developer is correct then you can't make them do whatever you want but you can paralyze them with a command.

Take control of a guys skilwires, upload the paralyze activesoft, encrypt his skillwire system, and turn off wireless.

That guy falls down and can't move and unless he is a competent hacker with a good Decrypt program he cant' tell his Skillwires to stop.
Whipstitch
QUOTE (Buster)
By the fluff, there's no reason why a hacker couldn't just input a new sequence of actions.  You might not be able to control them in real time, but you could fashion a set of commands beforehand and upload it to the victim.  Sort of like (well, exactly like) the limitations of the Edit command.

That's pretty close to how I interpret the situation. My thought is that since you cannot "jump in", you cannot really properly control them. Just because you can override their muscles doesn't mean you have the proper equipment to make the person do anything but fall over, since after all, without having access to their senses you're basically stuck with no way to properly interface with what amounts to the world's most complicated RC car (and since you don't have access to their mind itself, I would think they'd be fighting you every step of the way). So unless you have a "walk around" skillsoft handy, I just don't see it being good for much other than making someone helpless (which is pretty damn sweet, actually). To actually puppet someone, I think you'd be a lot better off trying to figure out a way to get them under the influence of a preset script, preferably in the form of a PersonaFix BTL program, since that way you use trickery to get the victim to go along with the plan by manipulating how they perceive themselves and their enviroment as well as granting them new behavior patterns; that way you get to bypass the whole messy business of having to walk the person through an action step by tedious step. Still wouldn't be -that- useful, however; I doubt the program would be able to accomplish much outside of a very limited context.
Demonseed Elite
QUOTE
And skillwires say that they override muscle movement. One of the developers for SR4 says that they override muscle memory.


It's not the first time I've had an issue with some of the wording in SR4 Core. I believe they had separate writers on the Matrix chapter and the Gear chapter, which led to some crazy confusion between the two on how things should work and how they were described. In some cases, it appears things were changed in one chapter and not completely updated in the other.

But I wasn't a writer on SR4 Core, I only came into it during playtesting.

QUOTE
Take control of a guys skilwires, upload the paralyze activesoft, encrypt his skillwire system, and turn off wireless.

That guy falls down and can't move and unless he is a competent hacker with a good Decrypt program he cant' tell his Skillwires to stop.


But yeah, that seems like a way you could incapacitate a guard. There are plenty of other ways in the game to incapacitate guards also.
Buster
True but at least it gives technomancers something to do besides lay there in their Autodoc drone. biggrin.gif
Big D
QUOTE (Whipstitch)
QUOTE (Buster)
By the fluff, there's no reason why a hacker couldn't just input a new sequence of actions.  You might not be able to control them in real time, but you could fashion a set of commands beforehand and upload it to the victim.  Sort of like (well, exactly like) the limitations of the Edit command.

That's pretty close to how I interpret the situation. My thought is that since you cannot "jump in", you cannot really properly control them. Just because you can override their muscles doesn't mean you have the proper equipment to make the person do anything but fall over, since after all, without having access to their senses you're basically stuck with no way to properly interface with what amounts to the world's most complicated RC car (and since you don't have access to their mind itself, I would think they'd be fighting you every step of the way). So unless you have a "walk around" skillsoft handy, I just don't see it being good for much other than making someone helpless (which is pretty damn sweet, actually). To actually puppet someone, I think you'd be a lot better off trying to figure out a way to get them under the influence of a preset script, preferably in the form of a PersonaFix BTL program, since that way you use trickery to get the victim to go along with the plan by manipulating how they perceive themselves and their enviroment as well as granting them new behavior patterns; that way you get to bypass the whole messy business of having to walk the person through an action step by tedious step. Still wouldn't be -that- useful, however; I doubt the program would be able to accomplish much outside of a very limited context.

Hmmm, that's a good question.

How fast does a Personafix work? And how hard is it dump one into a person? Does this fall into the same restrictions as "Blackhammer your mom"? And what are the limitations of a Personafix in the short term, that is, seconds-minutes?
Whipstitch
BTLs burn out or self-delete for economic reasons rather than by necessity; I suspect that any difficulties related to complex uses of PersonaFix technology has more to do with context than anything else. You can make a bunraku girl think that she's Queen Euphoria and that she wants to spend some quality time with the first customer that enters the suite, but scripting the BTL so that she can react dynamically while remaining in character to ANY situation would be impossible. It's impossible to account for everything, so at some point the PersonaFixed person is going to react in a way not anticipated (if in fact the "doll" reacts at all!) by the programmer if sent out in the real world. Or, at least that's how I'd suspect it would work. I'm dying for the RAW to weigh in on it, since the finer points of the PersonaFix is something I've had on my mind for ages now.
Emperor Tippy
Hmm, could you code a Personafix agent? You take your Personafix chip with what ever personality you want and combine it with an agent that has the Edit program (at least).

Tell the agent what you want the person to do and it auto corrects the personality on the fly.
Demonseed Elite
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy)
Hmm, could you code a Personafix agent? You take your Personafix chip with what ever personality you want and combine it with an agent that has the Edit program (at least).

Tell the agent what you want the person to do and it auto corrects the personality on the fly.

Not exactly, though the Core rules don't really touch on it. Expect more on this in Unwired. Unfortunately, I can't really say anymore yet!
kzt
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)
There are plenty of other ways in the game to incapacitate guards also.

The suggestion of turning on cold VR was pretty clever too. Probably won't last very long before they figure it out and turn it off, but it doesn't take very long to shoot helpless people.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Kerberos)
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Sep 22 2007, 02:42 AM)
What about move by wire?

And what about if the hacker loads a 'pistols' activesoft and then instructs the active soft to kill that dude.

It should work, because thats what the wire user does when he wants to shoot someone via his skillwires with an activesoft.

Move by wire? Again the fact that Metahumans can't be biodrones indicates that, well they can't be biodrones, not even with move by wire.

Move by wire controls the movements of your entire body in response to your mental impulses trying to do something.

Why could I, as a malicious hacker who has gained access to your move by wire system substitute the input?

Move by wire is a seperate point on the scale because it explicitly controls all muscular movement in totality, so there are really 3 points on this scale

A) Nothing gives control when you hack it

B) Move by wire gives you control when you hack it

C) Skillwires and move by wire give you control when you hack it.

I think different points are entirely viable on that scale, for example I think that with the activesoft required to do what you want to do tht you can probably swing it with either move by wire or skillwires, but the nothing gives control perspective is viable.
Emperor Tippy
I don't see how you can't hack Move-By-Wire systems and make the user an effective drone. They use an expert system to control all movement. The Person's normal nerve impulses are short circuited and go to the expert, which them moves the body.

If you take out the expert the person has a very violent, continuous seizure and dies.

If you tell the expert to make a person do X then the person does X. Now without sensor data it would be a bith to make them do many things but thats why you grab a guy off the street who has a move by wire system, hack it with your own agent/expert system, give him contacts with video cameras in them, short circuit the RAS system on a simsense module, and remove all wireless from said simsense module/comlink. Add a small speaker on his throat and you have the perfect assassin.

Nothing like the security guard walking into work, grabbing what you want, and walking out. With no idea that he did it. Or better yet for wet work. Upload the appropriate active soft or just give him a C4 vest. Post a little time delayed message from hsi com on the Matrix claiming responsibility.

Nice, easy, deniable assassins.
Cthulhudreams
It's actually a separate piece of cyberware to block out all memory. He's going to remember and *know* exactly what is happening with additional cyberware.

He's probably going to be working against you, and the flip side of all this is that any skillwire and indeed move by wire system is going to have a separate manual kill switch linked to a mental impulse (which are explicitly allowed in the book)

So you could probably hack his skillwire and make him discharge a round at the guy infront of him before he notices that the system is going crazy, but forcing him to climb everest is just going to cause him to turn the system off.

Edit: guy off the street with a move by wire system?!?! the only people with move by wire systems are going to be trained killers, and someone might notice that you just randomly abducted them. Probably their employer who is going to ask some serious questions when they show up again.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
It's actually a separate piece of cyberware to block out all memory. He's going to remember and *know* exactly what is happening with additional cyberware.

He's probably going to be working against you, and the flip side of all this is that any skillwire and indeed move by wire system is going to have a separate manual kill switch linked to a mental impulse (which are explicitly allowed in the book)

So you could probably hack his skillwire and make him discharge a round at the guy infront of him before he notices that the system is going crazy, but forcing him to climb everest is just going to cause him to turn the system off.

He is in VR and thus has no idea what his meat body is doing or experiencing.

As for kill switches, in a move by wire system the expert owns all body movement, if its turned off you die of uncontrolled seizures.

And unless he has telekinesis, how exactly is he turning off his system? I hacked it and told it to ignore all commands, even ones that come from DNI.

Fortune
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy)
He is in VR and thus has no idea what his meat body is doing or experiencing.

question.gif

Who is? The guy with MBW/Skillwires? Why would he be in VR?
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ Sep 23 2007, 08:50 PM)

As for kill switches, in a move by wire system the expert owns all body movement, if its turned off you die of uncontrolled seizures.

And unless he has telekinesis, how exactly is he turning off his system? I hacked it and told it to ignore all commands, even ones that come from DNI.

The rulebook explicitly allows for manual kill switches driven by neural impulses that turn off any cyberware you desire to have said switch(es) connected to.

This mechanism (per the rules) is completely arbitary and indepednant of the actual peice of cyberware it is connected to. I am thinking that it is just something that cuts the entire system off from the bodies bio-electricity supply. Which turns it off. With a cool 'powering down' sound. But however you play it the fact that you hacked my gear is completely irrelevant (well.. unless I want to actually use it, cause to do that I'd have to turn it back on, and you probably added yourself a backdoor first)

So you can hack my cyberlimb, skillwires, move by wire and engage red line, make my shoot my mate or cause me to break out the kung fu on his sorry ass, but if I had said neural switch installed, I can just flick it off. And I can do that even from VR. And trust me, everyone is going to have that 'optional' switch installed because of EXACTLY this reason.

(IMHO people just arn't going to connect their skillwires to squat except for 10 nanoseconds in a faraday cage to load active softs, but if you spray them down with activators they won;t have a choice and then you can bone them)
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ Sep 24 2007, 11:50 AM)
He is in VR and thus has no idea what his meat body is doing or experiencing.

question.gif

Who is? The guy with MBW/Skillwires? Why would he be in VR?

You grab guy A off the street. He has a MBW system. You plop a SimSense Module and comlink on his head (both with absolutely no wireless capability) and override the RAS override on the SimSense Module (so he can move while in VR). The Comlink is hacked to not allow him back out of VR. You give him video capable contacts, and sound capable ear buds. You take his comlink and put in a new response chip with a high level agent. This agent is connected to the MBW system and tells it where to go while carrying out whatever orders you gave it.

You now have a person who is receiving no real world sensory data, cant' contact anyone through the matrix, can't log out of the matrix, and is fully controlled by your program. He can see, hear, answer comlink calls, and is generally your puppet.

You have him drain his bank accounts to a certified cred stick, give you the money, and then do whatever heinously dangerous job you have for him.
Fortune
I see.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ Sep 23 2007, 08:50 PM)

As for kill switches, in a move by wire system the expert owns all body movement, if its turned off you die of uncontrolled seizures.

And unless he has telekinesis, how exactly is he turning off his system? I hacked it and told it to ignore all commands, even ones that come from DNI.

The rulebook explicitly allows for manual kill switches driven by neural impulses that turn off any cyberware you desire to have said switch(es) connected to.

This mechanism (per the rules) is completely arbitary and indepednant of the actual peice of cyberware it is connected to. I am thinking that it is just something that cuts the entire system off from the bodies bio-electricity supply. Which turns it off. With a cool 'powering down' sound. But however you play it the fact that you hacked my gear is completely irrelevant (well.. unless I want to actually use it, cause to do that I'd have to turn it back on, and you probably added yourself a backdoor first)

So you can hack my cyberlimb, skillwires, move by wire and engage red line, make my shoot my mate or cause me to break out the kung fu on his sorry ass, but if I had said neural switch installed, I can just flick it off. And I can do that even from VR. And trust me, everyone is going to have that 'optional' switch installed because of EXACTLY this reason.

(IMHO people just arn't going to connect their skillwires to squat except for 10 nanoseconds in a faraday cage to load active softs, but if you spray them down with activators they won;t have a choice and then you can bone them)

Page reference? Considerign VR cuts off all normal body control I seriously doubt you can engage a kill switch from VR.

And a manual kill switch driven by nerve impulses is impossible. Manual means it is a hardware cut off, not a software one. You can't flip a hardware switch with your mind.
Cthulhudreams
You can move your finger with your mind.

In fact you power all your movements with your mind alone. Of course it's not telekinetic, it's just a switch linked to an implanted muscle group or other such biological or cybernetic device.

It's in the cybe rware options - I'd give you a page number but I'm not at home. BUT if you find the thread on activators it is specifically and repeatedly referenced.
Emperor Tippy
So it's tied to one of the muscle groups that you can't move? With the MBW system installed your nerve impulses don't make your muscles do anything. They tell the expert to tell your muscles to do X. And considering that in VR your body is cut off from all your nerve impulses (otherwise you would flop around and look like your having a seizure) I don't see it working there either.
Cthulhudreams
It doesn't actually say what it's tied to, the mechanism is made of Arbitarium. It could be an entirely separate cybernetic system. It could be ANYTHING. I'm not sure it matters.

But page 32 of augmentation says I can have a switch triggered by neural impulses that turns off cyberware. (It also says I can have one I have to physically use to if I like it that way. But as I see few advantages in that, I don't). I can use neural impulses in VR (durf), so I can turn my skillwires and move by wire off if I include said (free and optional) switch.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE
Unless otherwise stated, cyberware that is capable of being
activated or deactivated can be done so with a mental impulse.
This is because the cyberware has been connected to the user’s
nervous system, so it can be used in the same way the user would
move a finger or flex a muscle.
Typically, when a cyberware device
is installed, the user must spend some time adjusting to this new
ability and will doubtlessly trigger the device accidentally a few
times. Activating or deactivating cyberware is a Free Action.


First MBW systems don't even imply that they can be turned off. And Second, they override all neural impulses to any part of your body. The yare all redirected to the expert system.

So yes, if you could move your finger you could turn off your MBW system. But you can't move your finger. Whether or not this works for Skillwires is an unknown. IF Skillwires override muscle memory then it could be argued that it wont' work because the single is countered. But that is really debatable.


The wording also does nothing to imply that you can activate or deactivate cyberware while in VR. Your nervous system is overridden while in VR (RAS override).

And the one time you dump a person into VR with the RAS override disabled is when they have a mBW system. Which als overrides their nervous system.
Nikoli
While you might not be able to control on the fly, I could see corrupting a subroutine for a skill wire program. Instead of the normal cleaning procedure, they now do something that catastrophically affects their sidearm, such as leaving out the firing pin, applying an epoxy instead of CLR to the moving parts, etc. If the guards have a low enough (1 or 2)professional rating, they might not realise the mistake, after all, they likely never fired a pistol prior to having the skillwires and software loaded.
You can also crash the program, thus removing the threat of that application until they spend a complex action to reactivate it.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy)
First MBW systems don't even imply that they can be turned off. And Second, they override all neural impulses to any part of your body. The yare all redirected to the expert system.

So yes, if you could move your finger you could turn off your MBW system. But you can't move your finger. Whether or not this works for Skillwires is an unknown. IF Skillwires override muscle memory then it could be argued that it wont' work because the single is countered. But that is really debatable.


The wording also does nothing to imply that you can activate or deactivate cyberware while in VR. Your nervous system is overridden while in VR (RAS override).

And the one time you dump a person into VR with the RAS override disabled is when they have a mBW system. Which als overrides their nervous system.

I can see your position, but I will disagree with you!

That text states 'can be turned off with a mental impulse' and then compares it to moving a finger or whatever. To me the important part is the 'with a mental impulse' and the 'move a muscle' part is a comparison for you or me to understand what it feels like.

But in SR4, it is exactly like using an implanted radar sense device. You think, and it is turned on.

A) MBW systems can be clearly turned off, doesn't the text start with 'when activated..' and then talk to you about how it throws you into a fit when activated, and MBW users have nervous ticks when the system is running?

B) See opening comments

C) Your brain is part of your nervous system. RAS override shuts down something, but it's not your nervous system otherwise you'd die/be in a coma. Which you arn't, as you are using VR.

What I'd agree is that it shuts down your ability to make gross physical movements. But you can still, for example, breath. So some physical movement is still possible.

Now it's an entirely defensible position and I can see your perspective that you couldn't use a cyberware switch to disengage while under a RAS override. But I disagree as to me a RAS override only blocks physical movement, not other muscular action, as blocking muscular action would have long term health effects (Read: Dying when you stopped breathing, or eye problems when you stopped blinking)
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ Sep 23 2007, 10:45 PM)
First MBW systems don't even imply that they can be turned off. And Second, they override all neural impulses to any part of your body. The yare all redirected to the expert system.

So yes, if you could move your finger you could turn off your MBW system. But you can't move your finger. Whether or not this works for Skillwires is an unknown. IF Skillwires override muscle memory then it could be argued that it wont' work because the single is countered. But that is really debatable.


The wording also does nothing to imply that you can activate or deactivate cyberware while in VR. Your nervous system is overridden while in VR (RAS override).

And the one time you dump a person into VR with the RAS override disabled is when they have a mBW system. Which als overrides their nervous system.

I can see your position, but I will disagree with you!

That text states 'can be turned off with a mental impulse' and then compares it to moving a finger or whatever. To me the important part is the 'with a mental impulse' and the 'move a muscle' part is a comparison for you or me to understand what it feels like.

But in SR4, it is exactly like using an implanted radar sense device. You think, and it is turned on.

A) MBW systems can be clearly turned off, doesn't the text start with 'when activated..' and then talk to you about how it throws you into a fit when activated, and MBW users have nervous ticks when the system is running?

B) See opening comments

C) Your brain is part of your nervous system. RAS override shuts down something, but it's not your nervous system otherwise you'd die/be in a coma. Which you arn't, as you are using VR.

What I'd agree is that it shuts down your ability to make gross physical movements. But you can still, for example, breath. So some physical movement is still possible.

Now it's an entirely defensible position and I can see your perspective that you couldn't use a cyberware switch to disengage while under a RAS override. But I disagree as to me a RAS override only blocks physical movement, not other muscular action, as blocking muscular action would have long term health effects (Read: Dying when you stopped breathing, or eye problems when you stopped blinking)

QUOTE
Move-by-Wire System: Move-by-wire-systems are the cutting-
edge in motion control and reaction augmentation. They
operate by putting the user’s body in a constant state of seizure,
so that it wishes to move in all directions simultaneously. An
implanted expert system monitors the seizure and counteracts
its effects until the user wishes to act.
At that point, it channels
the effects of the seizure along the desired path of motion,
enabling the user to act with amazing speed and move with
unnatural smoothness. The move-by-wire-system is based on
similar systems used in aircraft, drone, and vehicle control and
has proven to be highly effective—if sometimes debilitating to
biological subjects. Move-by-wire users frequently suffer from
slight, but uncontrollable, muscle tremors in certain muscle
groups when they are at rest, mostly due to errors in the system’s
seizure compensation.


Move-by-Wire never even implies that it is activated or can be turned off. In fact the sentence about tremors when at rest is strong evidence for the opposite view. The fact that the agent is controlling all muscles and nerves in your body also implies that you can't turn it off with a mental command, like you could with a cyberarm for instance.

You can't train a muscle to activate a hardware switch because all of your muscles are controlled by the MBW expert. If you want to be safe and secure don't get MBW's implanted in you.

Yes, the radar sense is turned on. But you aren't in a position where your entire nervous system is in the control of a computer with radar vision. Can you hack a cyberarm so that it can't be turned off? Msot likely not. But MBW systems and, arguably, Skillwire systems are different. They are actively messing with your braisn control of your muscles and nerves.

RAS Overrides override all voluntary muscle control. Wit ha RAS override engaged your entire body is limp and you can't move even if your life depended on it.

I personally find the paragraph in Augmentation bullshit. If someone hacks your chrome they should be able to force it to ignore any outside commands, even through a neural interface.

Also, if the RAS override didn't stop you from using cyberware while in VR, how come people's cyberware doesn't flash on and off, or move all over the place while in VR?
Cthulhudreams
Well, I assume that cyberlimbs depend on muscle control and are disabled, (though an implant commlink or medikit in the arm Wouldn't be disabled, so you could dispense stimulants in response to being blackhammered, but whatever nervous impulse produces the transition from themographic to low light vision is just not something you trigger 'accidentally' while you are walking around in VR.

I agree that another position can be taken on this subject. We'll just have to respectfully agree to disagree smile.gif

As for the rest:

Point taken about MBW, though the putting can be read to support me. I disagree that your entire nervous system is in control of a computer. It' not, the single most important part of your nervous system, your brain, is still functioning independently! wink.gif

However, this draws me to the thrust of my argument.

You are never going to able to hack in as no-one is going to have it connected! with the explicit allowing of removal of wireless and switches to enable/disable things, people are not going to have their MBW or skillwires connected to *anything* unless they are copying a skillsoft over or getting it serviced.

So your not going to be able to hack in, as it won't be connected biggrin.gif
Emperor Tippy
You drastically overestimate the intelligence, forethought, paranoia and planning of the average person (especially in shadowrun verse) while drastically underestimating his valuation of convince, and ease of use.

Shadowrunners are not normal in any sense of the word. Most of them are skilled enough in a specific field that they could walk up to the headquarters of a corp they ripped off last weak and ask for a job and be given it. A 3 is a professional level of a skill. A 6 means you are one of the 500 or so best in the world in your field.

Your normal, corp sponsored, hacker will have a 4 in the relevant hacking skills and your average script kiddy will have a 1 or 2. A rating 3-4 firewall will protect you from 99% of whats out there. Remember, the CC takes a dim view on hacking or spreading viruses, to the point where they will call an Omega Order down on your ass for doing it and Thor Shot your house. Your normal SINer hacker/script kiddy can't hope to avoid leaving a traceable trail. They are caught and punished harshly. No one wants another Crash.

When you actually think about the setting the ease of Hacking in the Matrix actually kind of makes sense. Will you be able to hack the Cyber of another runner? Most likely not. AAA HTRT? Doubtful. Average corporate rent-a-cop? I would say 50/50. Average man on the street? Almost guaranteed.
tyweise
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy)
You drastically overestimate the intelligence, forethought, paranoia and planning of the average person (especially in shadowrun verse) while drastically underestimating his valuation of convince, and ease of use.

What kind of 'average person' has a MBW system?

It sounds .... expensive.

And highly invasive, and putting your life in the hands of this Expert System. (C'mon, Windows never crashes, right?) I can't believe that anyone doing this would not use intelligence, forethought, and planning (paranoia is optional, but if you're using it to be any kind of lightning-fast badass, I think it's a safe bet) when getting this installed.

At least, anyone who lasts more than a week with the MBW system; idiot thrill-seekers lacking the above qualities, will probably get themselves killed pretty quick.
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