OK if we follow the logic that TM are a type of mage, and sprites are a type of spirit; can you see a sprite astrally?

Example: A TM decides that he wants to keep a look out for his friend Bubba at his favorite Stuffer Shack, So he hacks in and leaves a sprite in the camera with orders to alert him if some one who looks like Bubba comes in. If Frank the paranoid mage scans the astral before going to get a stuffer, can he see the sprite when he looks astrally? If not does he at least know that "that camera has SOMETHING going on with it..."

Magic does not perceive matrix things and cannot affect them...
As far as magic is concerned, it doesn't exist...

I think...

Nope. Sprites don't have a physical or astral appearance (for lack of a better word). They're just a matrix entity. If that mage was scanning they might notice something weird, but astral perception wouldn't do it.

I'd say no, sprites are like bits of code existing only in the matrix. Even though they seem akin to spirits they are still treated as something else entirely, just using similar rules. Or so thats my understanding. I know in past editions designers went out of there way to say magic could never be mixed with the matrix. Following that thought the matirx would'nt have an astral shadow.

See thats where I have a problem. That sprite is sitting in the camera. It is a creature of magic. If I can see a spirit possesing a car or person why can't I see a sprite sitting in a camera? It is stationary and active. If it is composed of magic it HAS to have an astral presence.

Hell for that matter do AI's have astral signatures? By every definition of living things in SR, if it is alive it has an astral presence. Hell it even says in the RAW.

Ah, asking a question when you should have made a statement...
But anyway...
Your entire issue is bogus...
Sprites aren't magic...
Technomancers aren't magicians...
And AI isn't alive...

Sprites are not magical.



AI's wouldn't have an astral signature as that is the "fingerprint" of a spell that's been cast. If they are alive they theorists may feel they have an Aura, but since they don't, at this time, have a Physical or Astral manifestation (for lack of a better term) there is no way for an Awakened character to prove that an Aura exists.

I guess that I have the "If it quacks like a duck problem". They way I read RAW, TM's are magicians, they use conjoring rules, they have the same limitations. It's almost like you just replace a few words. I guess that is for ease of user rather than "These are a new type of mage". I guess the first few games in 4th ed were run by an old Whitewolf ST and ran sprites like they were spirits in the digital web.



I ment astral presence, not signature. My bad.

Sure, TM's and Mages are similar with respect to the rules, but one of the goals for SR4 was to avoid a lot of different rules for different tasks. Hence, the similarity between the specifics of being a TM and a Mage. But that doesn't make TMs a type of Mage nor does it make spirtes another type of spirit. Since Sprites and AIs cannot exist outside of Virtual or Augmental reality and since Magic doesn't interact with those, then there's no way to know (yet).

I think the fact that the rules are almost identical comes from a desire to make all the rules more similar, and therefore easier to keep straight. I know a TON of people were wishing for that by the time SR3 had run its course. However, the fact that rigging, decking, hermetic magic, and shamanic magic all had different rules meant to things: first, yes, it was complicated and hard to keep straight, and led to a lot of GMs not really knowing their stuff when it came to specialists (which generally meant that the shaman got to be godly without being effectively countered, and the decker had to pick up a gun and be a street sam, because there were never any matrix systems to deck). Second, though, it made everything feel distinctly different. Shamans were different from mages in more than just name and drain stat. Given that the change toward a "unified" system came from a pragmatic desire to simplify things, rather than a thematic decision, I would say it's ok to assume the rules similarities aren't meant to imply that TMs are magical.

But wait! If you're a 4th World-ist, one could make the argument that the reason shamans and mages are so similar now, is because with the magic of the 6th world still in the process of returning, magic is getting stronger and more homogenous as it moves toward "true" magic like the dandelion eaters once knew. Using this logic would indicate that the rules similarities DO mean something, and you could reasonably extrapolate that to technomancers, as well.

Bottom line, if you want Technomancers to be a certain strain of magician, and you want sprites to have auras, go for it. It's your campaign. Just let us know how it turns out.

the TM and magician rules do have some fairly noticeable similarities. they also have some pretty significant differences. for example, mages get counterspelling. TMs get... uhhh.... nothing even remotely like counterspelling mechanically? yep, that sounds about right. mages choose what force they cast spells at. TMs have complex forms that they buy at a certain rating, and which can be threaded up to higher ratings. magicians resist drain with willpower and another attribute based on their tradition. TMs resist fading with their willpower + resonance. spirits go berserk when their caster goes unconscious. sprites do not. spirits can project themselves into the meatworld. sprites cannot (technically, even the machine sprites cannot; machine sprites can remote control, but they cannot actually rig afaict)

there are plenty of differences between TMs and magicians. you just have to get over the various similarities to notice them.

Actually, sprites can go uncontrolled like spirits and Technomancers can be detected by Assensing (with 5 hits) so I would say that they have to have some kind of Astral presence which could be visible.

say what? sometimes the websites i design go all uncontrolled, too, with divs ending up in the wrong place or the wrong background images showing up. that doesn't mean my websites are alive, it means i screwed up.

Think the ability to spot techno with assensing is more due to the subtle physical changes that allow them to be a living commlink then being magical.

I can see the point about techno's being "different" causing an effect on their aura, but Sprites can go uncontrolled like spirits (sidebar p. 236 BBB) so maybe they are kinda "alive" enough to have astral shadows (although they'd be at least as hard to see as a techno's). I think we need more info on how techno's work to make a well-informed decision. (For that matter we need to know a lot more about how the new Matrix works to settle all the arguments that keep cropping up... I actually miss the 3rd ed matrix rules, once you actually learned them there were no gaping holes in logic or execution and they moved fast enough if both the player and GM knew them.)

Leaving the sprite/alive/aura thingy aside, even if they had auras, they would not scan in the astral, since astral space is a mirror of the physical world. Now, if we go back to our smart books we find out, that sprites inhabit the nefarious virtual world. Which does not have an astral space we know of.
Or to spin this a little, if you could see a sprite in astral, you should see a fully emerged TM in astral, heck, even a hacker should be visible, since they are clearly alive.

Everything that is virtual fails at being real. Meaning, it also fails to register in astral space. A rule of thumb in SR was and still is as far as I know, that magic can not directly interact with technology and vice versa.

Btw, Otaku also could be discerned by assensing, too and they were definitly not awakened. A person with any illness could be discerned by assensing. Still, that does not mean he or the illness were awakened.