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Ravor
Sure, but you've got to admit that a good personafix makes pimping a hell of a lot easier. cyber.gif
Kanada Ten
The question is always: how real do you want her, Marc. His hand on my shoulder, his smile: kind and white, I can't stop looking at it, looking at the white-white of his teeth glistening with spit. We can make her look real; these recordings and photos show her from every angle, I won't ask how you got them. His voice is soft in my mind, relaxed, unlike me, unlike my shaking insides. We can match her voice perfectly from the conversations we collected via the net, her video blog and home movies. Her voice, her pleading-begging in my head, I try to swallow but the bundle in my throat won't budge. But how real, Marc? How real do you want her? We can take her personality from what we have and your memories of her - my memories rising up like her face rising up like her smile rising up with mischief on her lips - but that's not quiet real, Marc. Some part of you subconscious will know it's just a reflection. His white wide smile hints at a frown and I look up at his steel cold eyes where my face is reflected so small in his steel cold eyes. There's randomizers we can add - his hand off my shoulder, waving through the air in a crescendo of gestures, and I follow it with my eyes to look away from his eyes where I am so small - quirks and ticks filtering from base puppet to the surface; little touches to make her more... lifelike. More like the real thing - his hand on my shoulder again, holding me up or pushing me down, I don't know - but not quite. A pause.

He leans back - am I standing, am I falling? I don't know - leans on his desk and makes his smile thoughtful, little white teeth hiding from me, giving me no where to look but his tie, his black tie: where the silhouette of a samurai stands on a hill surveying a burning smoke choked battlefield, torn flag rippling; I've seen the sim that's from, what sim is that from? So how real, Marc?

"Just depends on what I'm willing to pay, right?" I say, trying to pull her face from my head for a minute, pull my head from memories for a moment. He shakes his head, smile almost turning to laughter, to a real smile, the smile of a crocodile with meat in his mouth. Marc, Marc - stop saying my name, I want to scream, it's not even my name, but I know that he knows and we pretend, play pretend - For the prices you're already talking about, these little touches are more about your piece of mind. Your experience. His hands cupped like my father's hands cupped when he wanted to know what we both already knew, pointing at me and accusing, but open, open and waiting for me to fill. Even the cost of each revival will rival the costs we're talking about now. The bill scrolls in the air between us, but I can't focus on any of it, just numbers and letters jumbled in the air. And then insurance, in case we can't resuscitate the product. He waves away the costs and details, clasps his hands and leans in, I want to back away, retreat inside, but my body doesn't move, my mind doesn't move.

No, Marc, this isn't about cost - a pause, a sigh, a cupping of the hands - It's about experience. His voice in my mind wrapping that word with velvet and chocolate. Your experience. Something on my tongue, something I can't quite taste. There are ways - he looks off at something else, something I can't see and I look in his eyes wanting to look where he's looking - ways of making her real, Marc. More real than you can imagine. His eyes fall to mine and I can't stop looking at his eyes where something is looking back at me, not me, no, not the small me looking back from his eyes. And a chill trickles up my spine like a spider's silk thread made alive.

"You're talking about, about voodoo, or something," I say trying to fight the urges, conflicting urges, her face rising up from a grave, grey and rotting, begging me, asking me, hating me, my hands reaching for her throat, for her hair, she's not there, it's not real. Something like voodoo, his fingers grasping at the air as if words were slipping there we cannot touch or find the voice to voice. I'm talking about... bringing her spirit back from - from wherever it is - a shake of his head and shrug of shoulders to say that wherever it is is not his concern, not his providence. But we could bring her back, her spirit, and bind it to a body, Marc; not just any body - her body lays between us, her body so perfect and still, her body with bruises around the neck, black-blue-yellow bruises around her neck - but her body. You can't get more real than that. Not yet, anyway. He stands upright, stretches a slight, and walks around the desk, taps the wood, real wood, living wood, runs a hand through his hair.

Think about it, let us know, he says, and I say that I will, though I know, how I know, I will say yes. Bring her back from hell, bring her back to strangle her again and again, her own private demon as she was to me, when she was alive. Her voice, begging-pleading, her face begging-pleading, turning blue. And I walk outside where the rain falls cold against my face, falling like stars in the streetlamps.

Bunrak Snuff Puppet: 1 Million Nuyen
Ancestor Spirit Binding: 100,000 Nuyen
Strangling your ex-wife again and again and again... Priceless.
kanislatrans
giving me chills,Omae! great angle on the subject matter. smile.gif
thedafan
The above reply hits on what I composed about BTLs. I have noticed how we naturally keep comparing the rough trade with today’s standards. I would remind everybody the minute “sims� hit the market, the rules all changed. It has always been the holy grail of the adult industry to be able to package sex. With both sims and hot sims you now have competition with the real thing. The prices on the general market would drop. You then add the cyberpunk culture of the haves and have-nots has already created a saturated labor force. Bunraku parlors would be more of an enticement for other business. Also a way for customers who find themselves indebted to pay off their debit. I think it would make an ironic urban story of the guy who owes a big debit to the yaks waking up and finding himself trapped in a female body being used and wired to like it as punishment. Illegal prostitution would be at the low end of money makers for organized crime. Real meat workers would have to resort to unique or something different, and that is where cyber/bioware comes in. The minute a person is fitted with a simrig the usefulness is limited to a few trids/sims and then there is enough material that a good software editor can make as many trids/sims as the market can bear. That is why a simstar is paid big nuyen. They have a certain “feel� that the software people just can’t chop up from the last one to replicate. Real meat workers may start doing rough trade on the street but, they would have to gravitate to augmentation, fetish or replicating the latest celebrity to stay in the business. Organized crime would make better money selling illegal augmentation or protection to the street workers than actually managing them. They still would have their in-house workers. Organized crime is like that, “anything to make a nuyen�. But it would not be that big of an operation. Slave trade is a thing of the past when you can wire somebody up for loyalty and change them to look as you would like. The cost to smuggle a person (much less a group of people) across xenophobic borders is far more than installing a data jack in the back of a van. Remember even after Big D’s heroic efforts to give sins to the non-corporate masses, there is still a large number of people the governments still do not recognize and are prey to “those who can�.
Kanada Ten
It's probably not canon anymore, but there used to be a certain feel to simsense, a missing... something, like a superimposed sensation to the whole affair, which always separated it from reality. BLTs try to compensate for that by overpeeking, and UV hosts could overcome it, but simsense in general had a certain falseness, the missing je ne sais quoi of reality, forever keeping it separate from the meatworld. It's like how someone with skillwires never quite matched the real thing. In some people this "superimposed sensation" manifests as simsense vertigo; others like the tingle because it's like a safety net, they know it's a dream they can unplug. Most just ignore it, or their minds detach to where they can no longer distinguish, or to where they feel it constantly. There's probably a way to suppress the user's knowledge of this sensation, with knowsoft/p'fix technology, but I use that (old and probably outdated) idea to explain why there's a meatworld at all.

But, then there are some really weird things one could do with AR, such as having your partner rigged, so you can experience having intercourse with yourself.
mfb
QUOTE (thedafan)
With both sims and hot sims you now have competition with the real thing.

very true, but there's also the option of playing up prostitution versus sim as another facet of the real vs virtual conflict. the general assumption, in cyberpunk, is that real things are somehow better or purer than virtual things. i think there's a lot of irony in the concept of pushing prostitution as being more wholesome because it's real--ignoring the soul-destroying, heinous practices that keep the sex industry alive, focusing on how a prostitute and her john connect in a way that some program never could.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (mfb @ Feb 6 2008, 03:16 PM) *
i think there's a lot of irony in the concept of pushing prostitution as being more wholesome because it's real--ignoring the soul-destroying, heinous practices that keep the sex industry alive, focusing on how a prostitute and her john connect in a way that some program never could.

Much like Ghost Cartels pushing novacoke, because it's more natural than beetles.
thedafan
It is a matter of marketing. Sims are for the masses. Real meat is sold as something unique. You tell the customer that you are the only one that can/has this unique implant/skill/look.
Rasumichin
QUOTE (thedafan @ Feb 6 2008, 09:33 PM) *
With both sims and hot sims you now have competition with the real thing.


I always thought of simsense as polysensual...well, movies.
Sure, you get the full sensory spectrum, multiple perspectives and whatnot, but still, they are not interactive.
Of course they aren't.
They are a recording- they cannot give you anything the actors -or their stunt doubles- have not experienced (except for FX, but still).

This is -at least in my opinion, i know that a lot of people, especially 2070, might disagree- not anything to compete with real sex.
It's porn with a sense of touch, taste and smell attached to it.
A massive improvement, admittedly, but not. like. real. sex.
You don't get to do what you want, you get to relive what some actor did.
Over and over again, unless you buy a new chip, of course.

You might, however, get qualitatively similliar experiences in VR.
There, real interaction might be possible, especially when both -or maybe i should say all- partners involved aren't just virtual fuckbots, but are directed by real persons.
mfb
there's no reason you coudn't make an interactive sim, anymore than there's a reason you can't make a video game. instead of storing sim recordings as one long block and playing them back, you can sort them out into short tracks, and then recombine them in response to user input. same way your character in a video game performs certain animations in response to certain button presses.

however, as i understand it, in SR, simsense has not evolved to the point where sim and reality are hard to tell apart. similar to how today, you can get very, very realistic CGI, but it's still easy to tell the difference between CGI and reality.

that said... today, there's a small but growing problem with porn addiction, where people get so accustomed to jerking it to pictures and movies that when they encounter the real thing, it's just not stimulating. i can easily, easily see that issue exploding into an epidemic when sim comes along.
DocTaotsu
I have to believe that someone who has been jacking (god that sounds wrong in this context) porn BTL's will have major performance issues in the bedroom. Having normal sex that doesn't leave you in a slightly comatose state just probably won't get their rocks off.

I'm with Kanada over the quality of Simsense. Unless you're a total addict and are hooked on the virtual aspect of it, simsense probably comes off as being not quiet the real thing. BTL's would come closer but it'd still be missing, a reason BTL heads would keep coming back, always trying to get to that next best "real" high. My guess is that, from the technical side, simsense usually lacks the "bandwidth" to push a full sensor net worth of information into a person with all the right timing and neurochemical cues. UV servers and so forth come closer because they have a much larger pool of information to push. I'm sure that there are simsense techs at AR "light boards" that make frankly embarrassing amounts of money massaging raw simsense into something that seems closer to reality.

Oo! Anyone watch Ghost in the Shell? Ghost dubbing! Burning an entire personality track into a recording, screws up the original but gives the recording just a hint of what could generously be called a soul. They talk about it in Innocence, ghost dubbing children so that their sex dolls seem more real and have an edge in a crowded market.
Rasumichin
Note that since sometime in the early 2050s, it became possible to record emotions via simsense.
By 2070, this seems to be the industry standard, since the basic simsense gear mentioned in the core rules is able to do this.

As far as intensity of the impressions is concerned, they are deliberately leveled down in legal simsense to decrease addictive potential.
CalHots might come closer to "the real thing", BTLs actually offer sensory overstimulation.

That simsense, even dreamchips, doesn't feel completely real is, imho, not a matter of intensity.

It would be more like...i don't know, i'd say that the recording process somehow alters the signal, in the same way as a photograph or an audio recording differs slightly from the reality it depicts due to technical factors.
In the case of dreamchips, it might be comparable to a recording played on a cheap stereo turned up a bit too loud.
Like a slight overdrive/distortion effect, maybe, especially when they just "juice up" the signal of a normal simsense chip.

BTW, i don't doubt that porn addiction is a serious problem for some people and wouldn't question that the advent of simsense technology hasn't made this any better.
I'd just question the idea that simsense could compete with real sex for a -slight?- majority of the population.
nezumi
Well I can't imagine my brain chemistry is 100% identical to yours or whoever recorded the original chip. Unless I was the one who did the original recording, it probably WOULD feel just barely off. While the chip is triggering the appropriate emotion center, it's also triggering synapses that I have but no one else has that maybe tie that precise image or feeling into something else.

However if I were to continue using them regularly, especially BTLs, I imagine overtime my brain would naturally grow closer to what it 'should' look like, either by reinforcing those connections the chip meant to trigger, or by literally burning out other synapses (in the case of BTLs). Talk about a slippery slope!
Rasumichin
QUOTE (nezumi @ Feb 7 2008, 03:02 PM) *
Well I can't imagine my brain chemistry is 100% identical to yours or whoever recorded the original chip. Unless I was the one who did the original recording, it probably WOULD feel just barely off. While the chip is triggering the appropriate emotion center, it's also triggering synapses that I have but no one else has that maybe tie that precise image or feeling into something else.

However if I were to continue using them regularly, especially BTLs, I imagine overtime my brain would naturally grow closer to what it 'should' look like, either by reinforcing those connections the chip meant to trigger, or by literally burning out other synapses (in the case of BTLs). Talk about a slippery slope!


Agreed, but since most chipheads will use BTLs recorded by various performers, each one with his own, unique brain cemistry, the brain will not be modeled after a certain person, but would more likely just become...bland.
Long-time abusers of drugs like XTC have a tendency towards depressions or even complete emotional burnout (since the drug's side effects tend to weaken or destroy endorphin receptors), being unable to feel anything at all.
Just the same might happen to your average chiphead.

Also, to make matters worse, keep in mind that you will constantly receive a perception of a body that is not yours.
The alienating effect on repeated (ab)users might be a factor, too.
Especially if you consider that your average simsense star will most likely have undergone extensive biosculpting, even performance-enhancing mods (why train extra hard for your next movie when the price of muscle toner, syntharcadium and enhanced articulation is small change for you?) making it impossible for average people to compete with the physical perfection they experience in their favourite chips, making life while not being chipped in even more unpleasant.


As far as "ghost dubbing" is concerned :
According to Shadowbeat, this has been done on a regular basis in sim productions for at least 20 years now.
There's even specially trained "emotive doubles" to record these overdubs, people whose emotive response closely matches that of famous simstars.
Technically, it's no problem to add the emotions of someone who has just fallen in love to the sensory input of emotionless high-performance sports screwing.
Or to systematically filter out unpleasant stimuli and heighten more enjoyable ones.
Experiences aren't just recorded in simsense, they're custom-made, like every product in the professional entertainment industry.
A good simsense production crew can use a library of all kinds of stimuli to completely reassemble the recording, just like modern musical productions use dozens of layers of audio signals (like, 40 tracks of backing vocals alone, or 12 guitars all playing the same motif, most of which would never be consciously heard by the average listener).

The result will undoubtedly feel synthetic, but the same can be said about most present-day mainstream movies and musical recordings, too, and people still keep buying that rehashed crap.
Heck, most people don't even know anymore what a real band on stage sounds like.
Imagine what happens to a society where more and more people feel the same kind of alienation towards most basic human conditions.
Fuchs
I can imagine that there's a big attraction to using simrigs to share emotions with the partner during the act, like described in "Strange days". Something a chip can't do.
Rasumichin
QUOTE (Fuchs @ Feb 7 2008, 03:35 PM) *
I can imagine that there's a big attraction to using simrigs to share emotions with the partner during the act, like described in "Strange days". Something a chip can't do.


Prime Runners mentioned the development of chips that enable simultaneous polyperspectivity.
Shadowtalk comment to this was "now 'screw yourself' becomes a real possibility".
I'm not quite certain how the human brain should handle such an overflow of input, though.

The difference to the chip, of course, is that it's not a live experience.
Fuchs
QUOTE (Rasumichin @ Feb 7 2008, 03:39 PM) *
Prime Runners mentioned the development of chips that enable simultaneous polyperspectivity.
Shadowtalk comment to this was "now 'screw yourself' becomes a real possibility".
I'm not quite certain how the human brain should handle such an overflow of input, though.

The difference to the chip, of course, is that it's not a live experience.


Well, it could serve (among other things) as a real-time feedback during the act, which would make it easier "to hit just the right button", so to speak. And, of course, returning to the bunraku topic, since a John usually would like it very much to have such "proof" that the prostitute likes the act as well and is not faking it, personafixes making the prostitute like the act so it shows through the Simrig might be in demand as well - and bunraku parlors are ideally set up for such, already having personafixed "workers" with cyber, so a simrig thrown in is not that much of an additional investment.

(Someone probably already did a "MCT bunraku doll cyberware package".)
thedafan
Yep, got the package. Just waiting for FDA approval. Oh, that's right. That agency does not exist anymore:)
DocTaotsu
Ras those are some excellent points.

I'm sure there are drugs and nano treatments that repair your burned out dopamine receptors and what not... but hey, if you're blowing all your money on BTL's when are you going to take care of yourself? (Unless you're high class and can afford that sort of thing as a "package deal" from a reputable seller).

Your comments about BTL abusers feeling alienated sounds spot on too. If people today feel bad that they don't look like a porn star just imagine what it would be like if they realized they don't feel like one either?

I think we already hashed out a basic bunraku package. Came to like 12k for a basic sex slave/doll.

In other creepy news I've recently been made aware that there are place in mainland (Akihabara District for those who care) where you can spend exorbitant amounts of money on RENTING a sex doll. Not even on a take home basis but like getting and room and a prostitute.
nezumi
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Feb 7 2008, 11:25 AM) *
Came to like 12k for a basic sex slave/doll.


I expect most prostitutes could expect to recoup losses somewhere in between 6 and 24 days of good work. Of course, I'm sure they themselves get charged much more for the cost of the equipment. Can't have them buying their freedom, now can we?
thedafan
You make it sound if these people are in misery. With the right chips they are happy...........Everyday, no misery, no depression, no complants. Ask a homeless street person what they would to just be happy.


"Scary ain't it"
-Doctor Evil
darthmord
QUOTE (nezumi @ Feb 7 2008, 12:00 PM) *
I expect most prostitutes could expect to recoup losses somewhere in between 6 and 24 days of good work. Of course, I'm sure they themselves get charged much more for the cost of the equipment. Can't have them buying their freedom, now can we?


That's where the restriction of having to buy from the "company" store comes in. All their groceries, clothing, toiletries, entertainment, housing, utilities, transportation, etc come from. Throw those costs in on a per day basis set to a bar of clearing $5 nuyen a day assuming one skimped to a level significantly below poverty (eating once a week, showering the same, etc) and the prostitute won't ever be able to buy her freedom. To live decently will put her in the red. Which will up her obligation to her owners.
DocTaotsu
Ha! 6 to 24 days of good work? If they were self employed maybe. I'm sure anyone pimping these sorts of girls would get years on the treads before tossing them out like spent rounds. As such I expect that after all the "room and board" fees and everyone above them getting their cut... they probably make diddly. Plus I'm sure they get charged interest and are actively encouraged to "send money home" for which they are of course charged a "handling/security" fee.

I'm also sure that tantamont or a similar org does a brisk business "recycling" the skillwires and so forth. Waste not want not right?

And thedafan has a point. If they're chipped all the time with the cutouts that these workers have, I doubt the have enough conscious hours to having anything resembling conscious thoughts of anything, let alone misery (or happiness, after all, those sessions aren't being recorded right?). This is all well and good until your 30 years old, at the edge of what your pimp wants to pay for cosmetics, and wake up one day to find these massive gashes all over your body (where they pulled out all the wires, the hard way) and a few nuyen in your pocket (if you were that lucky). yeah, real fun.

This is also assuming their pimp cares enough to make sure they get slotted for happy chips and not for "sleep or exercise until your next client" chips. There really isn't anything that says they can't be running mnemonic cutouts all day and night, trapping their conscious mind somewhere else entirely.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (thedafan @ Feb 7 2008, 11:17 AM) *
Ask a homeless street person what they would to just be happy.

I worked in a factory, when I was a teen, with a homeless guy. He lived out of his rusting, junk-filled car, ate sporadically, and when summer left, so did he. I asked him once why he didn't settle down, save some money, rent a little apartment somewhere. He said, "Then I'd have to listen to a boss when he wanted me to, not when I want to. Now, I can pack up and leave whenever I want, go somewhere else. If I had a house, I'd be trapped."
mfb
QUOTE (DocTaotsu)
I'm with Kanada over the quality of Simsense. Unless you're a total addict and are hooked on the virtual aspect of it, simsense probably comes off as being not quiet the real thing.

that's at least partly a selling point. even with just a baseline experience, you get to cut out all the fumbling, all the self-consciousness, all the imperfections in your partner. in a blind taste test, people generally prefer artificial flavors to natural ones, after all. and then you get into the possibilities of playing with sensory/emotive tracks like one might mix sound samples. there's something to be said for a ten-minute orgasm.

QUOTE (thedafan)
You make it sound if these people are in misery. With the right chips they are happy...........Everyday, no misery, no depression, no complants. Ask a homeless street person what they would to just be happy.

i think it's appropriate to think of them as being miserable, even discounting the life (or death) they're faced with once they age out of the sex industry. after all, they're not happy--the persona that has been forced onto their CNS is happy. the person is effectively brain-dead; we don't think of vegetables on life support as being happy.
DocTaotsu
...you also don't necessarily think of them as sad. But that's a point too.

I didn't want to touch on it but I'm glad that I've had a similar experience with homeless people. They're not homeless because their miserable people, they're homeless because the mainstream lifestyle makes them miserable. That's a gross generalization and ignores the nuanced reasons for homelessness but that's my personal experience.
krakjen
QUOTE (nezumi @ Feb 7 2008, 06:00 PM) *
I expect most prostitutes could expect to recoup losses somewhere in between 6 and 24 days of good work. Of course, I'm sure they themselves get charged much more for the cost of the equipment. Can't have them buying their freedom, now can we?


Yeah, but for Bunraku meat puppets how could they tell?

They are being shunt off and replaced by a personafix.
Their owners can make them work for years before even once deactivating the p-fix.
They can't complain, they can't try to revolt or escape. They are not even there.

Even a voluntary subject could wake up, many years after what should have last only a few hour/days, the implants removed, her body devastated, and thrown into the street with a ridiculous little compensation (if any)...
That, of course, if they don't become some kind of soylent green to feed the other, still active, employee.
Delicious dystopia...

Edit: Damn DocTaotsu wrote faster than me
JonathanC
QUOTE (Kanada Ten @ Feb 6 2008, 01:13 PM) *
But, then there are some really weird things one could do with AR, such as having your partner rigged, so you can experience having intercourse with yourself.

Have you seen Strange Days?
DocTaotsu
I'm developing this creepy mental image of bunraku parlor "dorms" that look more like a vehicle maintenance yard. Lines and lines of meat puppets hung from rafter waiting inspection, cleaning, and "maintenance". Long tubes flow into their various orifices feeding them and pushing healing nanotech through their veins to keep them running. A disinterested tech threads his way between them, scratching his balls and wondering when the next time he'll get to enjoy one "on the house".
JonathanC
QUOTE (nezumi @ Feb 7 2008, 09:00 AM) *
I expect most prostitutes could expect to recoup losses somewhere in between 6 and 24 days of good work. Of course, I'm sure they themselves get charged much more for the cost of the equipment. Can't have them buying their freedom, now can we?

If they're cybered up as puppet dolls, what makes you think they're getting paid at all?
krakjen
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Feb 7 2008, 07:23 PM) *
I'm developing this creepy mental image of bunraku parlor "dorms" that look more like a vehicle maintenance yard. Lines and lines of meat puppets hung from rafter waiting inspection, cleaning, and "maintenance". Long tubes flow into their various orifices feeding them and pushing healing nanotech through their veins to keep them running. A disinterested tech threads his way between them, scratching his balls and wondering when the next time he'll get to enjoy one "on the house".


They also don't need bathrooms and such.
Some good ol' hose cleaning and they are good to go...
The food would be the most tasteless cheaper soyfood available.
In fact the most costly would be the makeup/clothes (the marketing aspect)

Is a sleep regulator included in the Bunraku pack? It would greatly improves productivity...
Edit: Forget it. it's too expensive...
JonathanC
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Feb 7 2008, 10:23 AM) *
I'm developing this creepy mental image of bunraku parlor "dorms" that look more like a vehicle maintenance yard. Lines and lines of meat puppets hung from rafter waiting inspection, cleaning, and "maintenance". Long tubes flow into their various orifices feeding them and pushing healing nanotech through their veins to keep them running. A disinterested tech threads his way between them, scratching his balls and wondering when the next time he'll get to enjoy one "on the house".

Yeah, that seems to be where people in this thread are pushing the idea. But to me, this sounds like a terribly expensive, difficult to transport operation. Nanotech costs money, cyberware costs money, facilities, houses, props, clothing, all of it costs money. Not enough to keep it from being profitable, but enough that you wouldn't want to have to pay to move it around to stay ahead of the cops and/or other syndicates. This is why I was saying earlier that kidnapping random people for this doesn't make that much sense, as disappearing teenagers are sure to pique at least *some* interest. Bunraku makes perfect sense to me as a sordid, sleazy job that desperate people would go into because hey, it sounds better than regular prostitution where you actually have to remember boning that ugly S.O.B. But otherwise? Not so much.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (JonathanC @ Feb 7 2008, 12:21 PM) *
Have you seen Strange Days?

I rented it once, but didn't get around to watching it.
mfb
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Feb 7 2008, 01:23 PM) *
I'm developing this creepy mental image of bunraku parlor "dorms" that look more like a vehicle maintenance yard. Lines and lines of meat puppets hung from rafter waiting inspection, cleaning, and "maintenance". Long tubes flow into their various orifices feeding them and pushing healing nanotech through their veins to keep them running. A disinterested tech threads his way between them, scratching his balls and wondering when the next time he'll get to enjoy one "on the house".

the funny part is, that's actually more humane than the alternative--the alternative being a dirty flophouse where the girls live in filth and disease, receiving no medical treatment, dying from disease without ever waking up, having their cyber ripped out of their corpses and implanted into the next girl in line.
krakjen
Yeah, I can see why some people could see the Bunraku as a creepy part of Shadowrun...
Rasumichin
Theoretically, the "dolls" wouldn't have to age out of the industry, given the possibilities of genetic anti-aging threatment available.
The problem is, the butchery method brought up here is so much cheaper.
In fact, the worst pimps might not even take that much hassle.
Why conduct amateur surgery to remove those wires?
Headshot, organlegging, ghoul chow.
The second part of that alone would make up for the implant's cost, especially if those implants are...recycled.
There's no business like show business.

Of course, there's also the possibility of people taking up a normal loan, going to a licensed bodyshop and working it of as a prostitute at a legal establishment (heck, there's already girls paying for their college education by prostituting themselves).

If beauty, health, strenght and eternal youth are really just a matter of cost, it's not hard to imagine to what means some people will go to achieve them.

Damn, i just found out transhumanism sucks.
DocTaotsu
Well these are generalizations. I think if you go to some Yak benraku parlor that's been in business since they still called them buymedrinkme girls, you probably have something like that running in the background. You're also still paying 100 nuyen for a handjob and thousands for an evening. I'm sure those are all very industrialized and sterile.

But you're right, your run of the mill "Mom and Pop", 50 yen an hour parlor probably doesn't have any of those niceties. Just girls with some poorly written skilsofts and sketchy privacy cut out chips.

I also don't ascribe to the whole "They prey on the homeless!". I'm sure they have a great AR pitch that they give to poor burnouts about how wonderful it is to work at a parlor. They tell them that they get to keep the cosmetics after they leave and that cyber is all very clean. They also tell them that after their 5 year term of service they'll have FABULOUS amounts of money saved up (save for the fine print). And hey! We'll even put this cutout chip in you so you don't even have to remember any of it! Isn't that swell!

I'm sure there is a wide gamut of possibilities here, with all sorts of different business models and levels of in humaneness. My thought though, is that the big name parlors that publicly advertise and exist in Yak enclaves are probably nightmare machines. And that the other end of the spectrum is the flophouse crackwhore route.
DocTaotsu
Oh no my friend! Transhumanism is great. Humanity has and will probably always suck. In fact that's the big draw of transhumanism is that we might get to a place is that is different, and not more so.

nezumi
QUOTE (JonathanC @ Feb 7 2008, 01:24 PM) *
If they're cybered up as puppet dolls, what makes you think they're getting paid at all?


I didn't say "paid". I said recoup costs. Whose costs do you think I'm talking about?
DocTaotsu
Oh, good point. Sorry!
Rasumichin
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Feb 7 2008, 07:48 PM) *
Oh no my friend! Transhumanism is great. Humanity has and will probably always suck. In fact that's the big draw of transhumanism is that we might get to a place is that is different, and not more so.


The possibilities are incredible, certainly.
I'm just afraid that capitalism, or, more general, the very basic human tendency towards fear and greed, steps in and ruins it all, as usual.


As far as the deal for the homeless (or SINless in general) is concerned...how much pay would you have to offer to somebody for, say, five years of his or her life?
If you live in a place like Puyallup and have no perspective to compete with the corp folks and get out of this mess anyway?
DocTaotsu
20 grand? if we assume these people are living in a situation where they're living off a hundred yen a month, that would seem like a ridiculous amount of money. Plus most of them are probably thinking "Will I be alive in 5 years if I don't do this?". Another sales pitch that probably works concerns their children.
"Look, come work for us for 10 years, we'll only pay you half of what you normally would get but we'll enroll your kid at the local Renraku enclave school. They'll get room, board, and all that. Plus they have a real shot at a job come graduation time. If not they'll at least have learned a trade. It's a great deal anyway you look at it, trust me sweetie, your gonna be a star!"

I tend to think that corps probably even honor these agreements. What do they lose for gaining a meat puppet and a couple of lifetime wage slaves?

I think the bigger draw would be for lifer plans that include an incredible (for a squatter) retirement plan. Hell, sign away some of your children for a monthly stipend, who's going to stop you? You've probably been begging child services to take your kids away.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (Rasumichin @ Feb 7 2008, 01:03 PM) *
As far as the deal for the homeless (or SINless in general) is concerned...how much pay would you have to offer to somebody for, say, five years of his or her life? If you live in a place like Puyallup and have no perspective to compete with the corp folks and get out of this mess anyway?

There would always be more willing to say "yes" than the maket demands, but the sex trade likes to buy children for a few reasons: less diseases, longer usability, easier indoctrination, and generally cheaper to maintain. As the vast majority of puppets are not wired, just controlled through trodes and wireless personafix-knowsoft technology, purchasing children for "a better life" also endears you to a community, in that odd fashion, while you can later add ware to more promising talent.
DocTaotsu
But what do you do with the kids until their old enough to have wires installed surely you don't...

*abject horror*

I think the Faceless might be offering my Runners some new work next session. The uplifted dolphins can wait.
mfb
well of course they use children in the sex industry. partly because much of the world doesn't buy into the crazy concept that humans should only be counted as adults at 18, and partly because the rest of the world does buy into it--but only when it suits them.
nezumi
QUOTE (Rasumichin @ Feb 7 2008, 02:03 PM) *
As far as the deal for the homeless (or SINless in general) is concerned...how much pay would you have to offer to somebody for, say, five years of his or her life?


Why? How much is the competition offering?

Assuming we're talking about someone old enough to have children above the age of say 8, the Yaks can offer safety, good food, job and respect. Little Billy or Suzie won't be getting in street brawls with the other neighborhood kids, scrapping it out for nicer barrels to burn trash fires in. They'll be productive members of society with the Yaks, doing valuable services like drug-running, killing mafiosas and running brothels. That alone would be enough for some parents. But as has been mentioned, there's generally not a lot of reason to go after people who have already had their bodies all stretched out having kids. I won't even go into the optimal age given market pressures, but suffice to say, hiring them at 18 is denying some major profit-possibilities, and if you get them too young to be marketable you have them work doing other menial tasks until they become marketable.

I generally set an artificial limit of 12, just for my own mental wellbeing, but that's not a very realistic limit at all. I would not be surprised if the Yaks have their fingers in a couple orphanages, honestly.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Feb 7 2008, 01:35 PM) *
But what do you do with the kids until their old enough to have wires installed surely you don't...

"Are there no prisons? Are there no whorehouses?"

DocTaotsu
Eh?
martindv
QUOTE (JonathanC @ Feb 7 2008, 02:29 PM) *
Yeah, that seems to be where people in this thread are pushing the idea. But to me, this sounds like a terribly expensive, difficult to transport operation. Nanotech costs money, cyberware costs money, facilities, houses, props, clothing, all of it costs money. Not enough to keep it from being profitable, but enough that you wouldn't want to have to pay to move it around to stay ahead of the cops and/or other syndicates. This is why I was saying earlier that kidnapping random people for this doesn't make that much sense, as disappearing teenagers are sure to pique at least *some* interest.


Hardly. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children FAQ writes this:

QUOTE
How many missing children are there?

The U.S. Department of Justice reports:

* 797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
* 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
* 58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
* 115 children were the victims of �€œstereotypical�€� kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.

[Andrea J. Sedlak, David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Dana J. Schultz. U.S. Department of Justice. "National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview" in National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, October 2002, page 5.]


That's today. In a U.S. that is insanely safe to the point of utopian compared to the SR world. And yet no one cares, no one even notices, unless it's an attractive blonde, teenage white girl. Then the world comes to a halt to exploit the tragedy for all it's worth.

But in SR, where gangs have access to rocket launchers and rule the streets after dark, and where go-gangs have regularly taken on the Metroplex Guard and always win, no one cares.

No one.

Because what difference does it make? In SR, if you disappear. You disappear.
mfb
more to the point, nobody cares unless it's an attractive, blonde, teenage white girl from the US.
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