Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: The Matrix Crash
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Kyleigh Wester
After reading the timeline and seeing the Matrix Crash in 2064 I wanted to know mor einformation about it. Around 2064 game time it will be my turn to GM (Our campaign has a system where we switch every week) and after reading that several deckers got stuck in the matrix I wanted that to happen to my PC, giving incentive to the mission. Not only my current character, but my character from our last campaign (Which we kept cannon) will also be stuck in the matrix. However, to do this I need all the relevant information and I don't have the time to go book surfin before my session.

So, what I need to know is what day did the matrix crash, how long was it down, how did the deckers get stuck, and of course if there was anyway to get out after being stuck there? What was the Matrix like after being cut off from the real world and what things should I keep in mind? Thanks for the help.
Nightwalker450
[Granted I'm an SR4 person, and my knowledge of it comes from Emergence and SR4, but the other relevent books are listed in Emergence, provided below]

Renraku Arcology: Shutdown
Brainscan
System Failure
and
SR4, Emergence

are the relevent books for information..

Basically of those caught in the matrix they went into comas for a period of time. Those that did awake again had quite a few problems. AIPS or Artificially Induced Psychotropic Schizophrenia was a common side effect which as stated is a sort of Schizophrenia. Some small percentage of these became the Technomancers of SR4 (though some Technomancers didn't have AIPS). Otaku were completely wiped out (as far as has been revealed). Transys Neuronet and Erika had a wireless technology ready to release that year, and Novatech merged with them producing NeoNET which made the wireless....


Basically you're heading into a few years of... Who knows what (2064-2070 are a dark age, where anything goes, so with the matrix crash maybe everything was lost).. Then you're in the SR4 realm.
It trolls!
Many people jacked into the matrix at the time also got killed by the crash virus itself.

btw not all Otaku were wiped out. But they were useless in the new wireless matrix and by 2070 fading will have had the better of them. If you read Emergence you will see Puck as a Shadowtalker and I don't even remember anything confirming the death of Pax.
BishopMcQ
I don't remember reading a lot of comments by Puck in Arsenal or Augmentation--though given his background, I'd expect to see more posts from him in Unwired. The matrix book seems to be an area he'd comment in more than guns and cyber.

System Failure p 72 says that Pax and her lieutenants vanish in the chaos of everything else. Without covering it in Emergence, Unwired seems to be the source where we find out what happened to the old girl. Either that or she shows back up somewhere else with a new face running a competing corporation to take down the man who betrayed her in the beginning...or was that the Rose Croix story line.
Chrysalis
Funnily enough I have read the books. I personally would like Pax to exist as she is a good villain who elicits both disgust and sadness. However, I do not remember SR4 talking about Dissonance/Resonance.

I would like to see that the old Matrix still exists, behind the wireless system there is still a partially working wired Matrix system that demands on plugging into the system from a forgotten DataTerm. A place of ghostly servers and forgotten users.


-Chrysalis
hermit
Wireless transatlantic traffic would be kind of hard to manage without several hundred deidcated sattelites (whioch would cost about a thousand times as much as a cable).

Also, there still is the whole VR space stuff around, and the old cables are, too. Just the end points, the jackpoints, are wireless in SR4, for all I understand.

As for books relevant to the plot line (the list propably is incomplete):

Novels:
- Choose your enemies carefully
- Never deal with a dragon
- Find your own truth
- The Lucifer Deck
- Black Madonna
- Technobabel
- Psychotrope

Sourcebooks
- Matrix
- Target: Matrix
- Renraku Arcology: Shutdown
- New Seattle
- Threats
- Threats II
- Shadows of Europe
- Shadows of Asia
- System Failure

Adventure Modules
- Brainscan
- Imago

Personally, I am considering writing up a hunt Puck down adventure, sponsored by the Arcology rememberance society or what they were called. He's Deus' Mengele, after all.
Heath Robinson
QUOTE (Chrysalis @ Mar 22 2008, 10:32 AM) *
Funnily enough I have read the books. I personally would like Pax to exist as she is a good villain who elicits both disgust and sadness. However, I do not remember SR4 talking about Dissonance/Resonance.

I would like to see that the old Matrix still exists, behind the wireless system there is still a partially working wired Matrix system that demands on plugging into the system from a forgotten DataTerm. A place of ghostly servers and forgotten users.


The matrix section of SR4 mentions that stationary access points continue to exist and that "hardwired base stations" form part of the matrix topology. I interpreted this as meaning that not everything is wireless; that fibres are still in use for high activity purposes (higher bandwidth availability) in order to avoid over congestion and for longer distance communications (light signals in good fibre degrade far more slowly than the R-squared drop off radio signals produce), the wireless systems will route their packets through the fastest route and that often means that it'll pass through some wired links at all but the shortest distances.

It also means that you might still see some people using old decks perfectly reasonably, by jacking into the old network and being granted access to the wireless networks by dint of them having to use interoperable networking protocols. An alternative is the paranoid who uses his commlink in that same manner for any activity of more than trivial importance.
Kyleigh Wester
QUOTE (Nightwalker450 @ Mar 21 2008, 08:09 PM) *
[Granted I'm an SR4 person, and my knowledge of it comes from Emergence and SR4, but the other relevent books are listed in Emergence, provided below]

Renraku Arcology: Shutdown
Brainscan
System Failure
and
SR4, Emergence

are the relevent books for information..

Basically of those caught in the matrix they went into comas for a period of time. Those that did awake again had quite a few problems. AIPS or Artificially Induced Psychotropic Schizophrenia was a common side effect which as stated is a sort of Schizophrenia. Some small percentage of these became the Technomancers of SR4 (though some Technomancers didn't have AIPS). Otaku were completely wiped out (as far as has been revealed). Transys Neuronet and Erika had a wireless technology ready to release that year, and Novatech merged with them producing NeoNET which made the wireless....


Basically you're heading into a few years of... Who knows what (2064-2070 are a dark age, where anything goes, so with the matrix crash maybe everything was lost).. Then you're in the SR4 realm.


Thanks for the information man. Could somebody who got stuck in the matrix but not found eventually die from lack of nutrition to their meat body? Say if the team took to long to get to them? Was the Matrix even out for that long.

Anyway, your post answered a good bit of my questions, thanks. I'll have to try to find out what this AIPS is like and what the odds of my PC catching it are if he gets stuck in the Matrix.
hermit
QUOTE
Could somebody who got stuck in the matrix but not found eventually die from lack of nutrition to their meat body? Say if the team took to long to get to them? Was the Matrix even out for that long.

Certainly. They can also end up ghosts in the Matrix. The Matrix was out for at least some weeks.
Kyleigh Wester
Well, apparently most players skip from 2064 to 2070 so I can't find much relevant information on how the matrix ran inbetween those times. Here's how I see it:

After the "new" matrix began implementation thing started to go back to normal. For the time being as the new matrix was built and put in to place it actually functioned mostly like the matrix of old but with more wireless capabilities until about 2070 when it was fully changed into the fourth edition matrix and the old matrix was just a part of the history. With this theory I can continue to run the matrix with third edition rules until about 2069. Does this all seem like it would fit?


hermit
QUOTE
Well, apparently most players skip from 2064 to 2070 so I can't find much relevant information on how the matrix ran inbetween those times.

That's because that's how the authors want it, so yu can make the crash as disasterous or harmless as you want in your campaign.
Elve
A few dates dropped in the various sourcebooks: (perhaps not exactly the correct date, but at least nearby)
2065
* 15. February: second global matrix conference; creating the details of the new wifi matrix standard
* 6. April: working on Seattle Wifi starts
* 7. May: first Wifi consumer articles are presented
* 15. October: Seattle Wifi Matrix finished

other cities aren't as fast as Seattle but will follow rather sooner than later...
kzt
All I can say, having observed the IEEE and IETF, is rrrright....

I can just see this now "So we've had the 3rd, or is the 4th? worldwide computer crash because of the inability to secure the network, and you want to throw out 40 years of technology and billions of dollars worth of gear and replace it with equipment only made by YOUR company, equipment that isn't actually in production, that has much LESS security even in theory? Is that a fair assessment of your proposal?"

Or, "Part of your project plan between when you start pilot productions and where you "complete world wide network deployment" two years later seems a bit unclear. Could you elaborate on the step 'and then a miracle happens!'"
Synner667
QUOTE (kzt @ Mar 22 2008, 11:50 PM) *
All I can say, having observed the IEEE and IETF, is rrrright....

I can just see this now "So we've had the 3rd, or is the 4th? worldwide computer crash because of the inability to secure the network, and you want to throw out 40 years of technology and billions of dollars worth of gear and replace it with equipment only made by YOUR company, equipment that isn't actually in production, that has much LESS security even in theory? Is that a fair assessment of your proposal?"

Or, "Part of your project plan between when you start pilot productions and where you "complete world wide network deployment" two years later seems a bit unclear. Could you elaborate on the step 'and then a miracle happens!'"


Very true.

I'd also add that, considering that wireless network providers in the realworld will not allow anyone to set one up apart from themselves [the cities tried to implement free wireless access for their residents, the companies took them to court and prevented them]..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/26/philly_no_wireless/

..It'd probably not be free, and any concept of being able to ghost around without being pinpointed by the network owners is wishful thinking.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012