So one of my gaming buddies has turned me on to the antics of 4Chan's loveable hellspawn: Anonymous. After looking at the serious hot media poker they've become I've wondered if such organizations exist in SR and what kind of tactics they use in 2070? I wonder if there are groups that are a combination of Anonymous and wikileaks, out there to harass and confound "The Man" on a regular basis.

You know, until Horizon starts running them.

One of them was called Shadowland.

The fact that Jackpoint is much more of a 'runner BBS and less of an idealistic freedom of information SIG makes me a little sad.

To be honest, imageboard culture wouldn't really change at heart; only the exact trappings will change and they're always in pretty much constant flux. Oh, yeah; shapeshifters will be totally maligned and trolled continuously (especially with the fact that they're going to be protesting in the CAS and UCAS for rights), orcs will be the favoured metatype for their avatars as anonymous and they'll use high rating edit programs to add captions to pictures of Lofwyr with bad spelling and grammar.

Wow, does this thread make me feel old.

Heh, the only reason I know about Anonymous is that I saw a news story about a bunch of idiots prancing around in Guy Fawkes masks a month or so ago.

that bunch of idiots, as you might call us, has been protesting against the cult/sect of scientology, which is kinda up there with guantanamo and china's handling of tibet right now . .

I'm not a Scientology fan, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 1959 Lhasa uprising was a bigger deal.

The problem is that 4chan is populated by hateful, vindictive ferrets. They are good at hating on things, but they lose interest in something after about a week or two. I'm amazed that Anonymous has lasted as long as it has, but I have no illusions about it lasting the year. It won't. It would be great if it did; frankly Scientology needs to be resisted, as it's an idiotic religion that managed to become popular by the mere accident that it targeted the most gullible idiots in the world (people in the entertainment industry), and is using that money to viciously persecute anyone who points out that their religion is moronic. I don't think that the spawn of 4chan is capable of keeping up the pressure, however, and I don't think that a half-hearted effort is a good idea at all.

Well it's certainly true that they all have relatively equal importance, in that I don't much care about any of them.

Wow... wow, this is really not at all where I wanted to go with this. Uhm... jeez Shadowrun anyone? Shadowrun?

Please keep in mind that RL politics and religion are two of three hot button topics that are usually better left alone. The poster asked for topics relating to shadowrun, so please, post in that context. Keep to the topic presented as presented. No derailing.

For starters, claiming out loud to be a member of a group called "Anonymous" is pretty self-defeating.

Second, comparing a cult (who, I'll readily admit, is full of greed and shady dealings) to the Communist occupation of Tibet is kind of like comparing McDonald's screwing up your drive through order to The Holocaust, or something. Stop being melodramatic and trying to make yourself out to be some too-cool freedom fighter. Anonymous is a pack of e-thugs that happen to, lately, be targeting an unpopular religion and claiming that makes them saints.

In Shadowrun, that sort of thing will happen just as often. Whether or not it saints them is going to be up to the campaign. I'd check out Loose Alliances for various terrorist-type organizations, some of them (IIRC) Matrix-oriented.

Alrighty. As far as imageboards and things are concerned, I think they'll just be such an integrated part of daily life for many groups that they won't be considered all that special or notorious anymore once things go completely global. There's already real gangs of "Hackers on steroids" in the shadowrun world running amok and pulling crazy stunts. They just lack the novelty value they have today because the internet/matrix will long have been a key part of any international interest group, even the or maybe especially the radical ones.

Seeing that the novelty factor is gone they'd certainly have to go for progressively more spectacular stunts to accomplish their goal of getting in the news. I'd also assume that shutting down someones local matrix hub for a couple of hours is going to get even less interesting (and more dangerous to the hacker) in the year 2070. What would they be doing to compensate? Maybe hack an unpopular corps like Aztec and recode their krill chip factory into producing phallic crackers?

Yep, but at that point, they're known less as a matrix group and more as a bunch of freakin' international wackos or as just another thrill gang.

Well that's what I'm trying to get at, groups that perform direct meat side actions but are more or less directed from the Matrix. Better organized than a thrill gang but not just a bunch of hackers shutting off matrix access.

I'm sure there will be. Think about it... "flashmobs" and other nifty/bizarre/don't you have something to be doing today? kind of events seem to be largely spawning from the increased social interaction and 'group IQ' kind of ideas that someone thinks up on the internet. Give it another 60+ years, and there's no telling what kinds of stupid stunts people will be willing to take part in because their online buddies think it's a good idea.

Hell, imagine "Google Alerts" meets "Mobile PAN profile." You could be walking down the street to work one day, see a few folks gathered across the street, and your PAN would get a hit letting you know that there's a group of people gathering who all have "Anti-Evo" tagged as an interest. You didn't know there was going to be a protest, you didn't even have to plan ahead or go somewhere you weren't going to go anyways... and bang, you're part of a protest for a few minutes until you REALLY need to get to work. Spontaneous protests might become commonplace, and you might even see people hacking a bunch of other commlinks, setting that interest, and causing a bunch of folks who might actually be Anti-Evo to gravitate towards the cluster of folks wondering why their comms are acting up, and why they're suddenly in the middle of a giant screaming protest.

Oh my god that's awful and awesome all that the same time. Sounds like the civilian version of the "Exchange" I read about in one of the source books. Heck, I'm sure politicians and what not would hire someone like Horizon to generate "rent-a-crowds" by tweaking their preferences or offering them some sort of discount elsewhere (isn't that nice, they can get paid twice now...).

I see hacker hijinks+humanis PAN preferences=Priceless entertainment.

Der Nachtmachen (argh, it hurts to type this), anyone?

Or you could go all the way back to Gibson and take a look at the Panther Moderns.

The kinds of things anonymous does are solely to entertain itself. So, yes, setting peoples social profiles to be pro-humanis would get done (quite frequently, I suspect, especially to non humans) and they might even end up locked out of their own profile for a while. The phallic krill crackers would also get done. They'll also invade publicly acessable matrix areas to incite rage, form humanis symbols using avatars. Think of the equivalent of pranks for larger scales and higher technologies and that's what you'll end up.

Now they're going to need to rename themselves "Anonymous and Stahlseele"


Also some, most, or all of these groups will be organized by corporate agents provacateurs (read Shadowrunners) who may not even know the actual purpose of the group. I could very easily see a somewhat sinister group creating a ridiculous protest against themselves to garner sympathy and discourage other protest. I mean, if I were starting up some organization I would love a public protest by really obnoxious thugs like Humanis or whatever (not saying that about Anonymous; all I can say about them is that they dress up in Guy Fawkes masks and have signs that don't make sense to the typical observer so they really appear kind of cultish, which might defeat their purpose).

Do you think it's supposed to be a combination of Nachtmaren and Nachmachen? But Der ... ah well.

Large-scale dangerous "performance art" is great stuff, though, especially as nobody notices your infiltration going on at the same time.

In a media saturated place like LA do you think it'd be possible for these flash mobs to maybe even hire runners? Like 200 people get together to protest, everyone throws in 10 yen and that money gets posted on Jackpoint as a bounty? 2k might not be a lot of money but if what they're asking isn't particularly illegal or it's something a qualified hacker can do easily, that might not be a bad way to make a little extra scratch.

You've also got one of the oldest tricks in the book:...graffiti! Forget the old spray paint can, how about setting up a holo projector image of, say the president of the UCAS having "relations" with some manner of animal and place it outside of campaign headquarters? Protest that abortion clinic with the ghostly image of a floating infant screaming in front of the building. Blood oozing over the walls of the local Lone Star HQ? Or really freak people out by putting images of bug spirits attacking a Pest Control truck.

Like others have said, with the media oversaturation we face in modern times extended to what it could be in 60+years, protesters are going to have to get more graphic and overblown just to get noticed.

yay for "groupthink"...

hmm, i wonder if i should get hold of toxic meme for transhuman space. from what i understand it has this gurps quality in that it can be incorporated into just about any game. should fit nicely into this theme.

this also is up there with the stand alone complex of gits:sac fame

im telling you, the only diff between transhumanism and cyberpunk, is how dark you envision the final outcome...

I think the difference is that transhumanism states we're going somewhere. Cyberpunk means we're trapped in a ripped jeans and pink mohawk perpetual 80's . Not like there's anything wrong with that mind you.

I also like the idea of magical harassment. A couple mages get together and 20 minutes later you have watcher spirits saying terrible things at high volumes to every person in 20 feet.

i think cyberpunk is something more then just mohawks and 80's jeans...

plus cá change or however its written

I suppose it is but I've been told that most of the modern cyberpunk I read is actually "post cyberpunk" and that most of the sci-fi I really enjoy is heavily transhumanist in nature.

Being a kid who thought that Back To the Future and Aliens were the greatest sci-fi movies ever made... (and who actually enjoyed Johnny Mnemonic, because he hadn't read the short story), I still identify heavily with traditional cyberpunk. It just doesn't feed my needs for sci-fi though, at least not as well as something like The Diamond Age.

well now that i think about it, one aspect of dystopia is the sense of stagnation.

as in, no matter what you do, the same old people stays in control and nothing really changes.

i think that dystopic aspect is what separates cyberpunk from transhumanism.

they both have tech out of control. but in one, the tech dont help, hell it may even empower the old guard to new heights, while in the other it creates a kind of instant global democratic community of sorts.

therefor i find that old SR2 opening story title so damn fitting

No, it's just hideously bad grammar. Die Nachtamcher would be more appropriate, but admittedly, cases and articles seem to be every foreigner's nightmares when attempting to learn German. And the correct plural (which is an area where German gets too comlicated even for most Germans) would be Nachtmaehre. I think.


Yes, it is. Of course, I still prefer silent in, silent out, but every once in a while, that's not entirely possible.

On a side note, with little AIs around, shouldn't there also be Turing Cops of soem sort dedicated to limit AIs, so we don't get another Deus?


If there were free holographic projections in SR, that'd be a great idea. Note the If.


Uhm, ever read Gibson? Because his work, by that definition, is post-cyberpunk.


An Azkhaban type mage prison (on the Moon?) really is overdue, if you ask me.

sounds like something for the Grid Overwatch Division of the corp court to me

No, they seem more about fighting ordinary computer crime. I am talking about a watchdog agency is dedicated only to keeping AIs on a tight leash (like registering them all and stamping them with a kill code to be able to erase them should they ever become Deus-y) and works to prevent them from becoing another danger to humanity as a whole.

so its a sub-division of them then

Whoa... Gibson post-cyberpunk? Since when? I thought Gibson was widely regarded as one of the few /good/ cyberpunk authors in a vast see of bad. I suppose some of his most recent work is post cyberpunk but Burning Chrome? Neuromancer? Mona Lisa Overdrive? These are his most well known works, genre defining works really, and it's squarely... post-cyberpunk?

Wow, a job hunting rogue AI's? That must have a high turn over rate, and that's not just because the hours suck

Exactly. But: His world isn't a flat dystopia, his fiction always covered transhuman ideas (the whole does it need a brain tobe human stuff, the alternate universe the simsense chick transmits herself into at the end of MLO, et cetara; there's this nice story about a girl who's totally paralysed and only moving via exoskeleton, whose dream it is to have herself recorded and run on a supercomputer so she's rid of that body, for instance). And especially Biochips and Mona Lisa Overdrive features little urban decay and ruined world, but rather clean and pretty places.

My point being: Good cyberpunk stuff always was more like what is considered post cyberpunk nowadays (The Rollerblades Seven isn't all there was to 80s cyberpunk).


In Neuromancer, the T-cops are all killed by wintermute, yes. And yes, it would be a highly dangerous job. But that kind of agency HAS to be around. Horizon cannot possibly use enough marketing english to make everyone, especially the powers-that-be (who are in the know about Deus) trust them in handling AIs, or have AIs police each other.

Eh... I disagree that Gibson "Sprawl Series" could be called post-cyberpunk (even if there are transhumanist themes). But that's easily a personal hang up of mine, especially because I bow before the altar of Neal Stephenson.

The unit that you're looking for is the ARM of GOD. Artificial Resource Management, a subunit of the Grid Overwatch Division (Back of Emergence, don't have a page reference here).

The Corporate Court sure likes cheesy acronyms.


If there is a scifi author I bow before, it would be Stanislaw Lem, not Gibson (though he is a fine author and all). However, I just don't see a clear line between his work and what passes for post cyberpunk. Now, if there would be one, I would appreciate someone showing me.

didnt the latter part of that book all happen on a big scapyard?

as a german guy, i will say the following:
IT BURNS AND STINGS!

seriously, even we germans have a hard time to figure out just what the hell they meant with that name . .
there's the nachtmacher, which is both singular(der nachtmacher) and plural(die nachtmacher) with the german "the" would be "der" in singular for something male and "die" in singular for something female AND in plural for everything and would mean nightmaker in singular and nightmakers in plural. . .
then there's the german nachtmähre, which would be spelled nachtmaehre in english because the english language does not know the letters "ßäöü" . .
mähre(maehre) would be one more or less archaic/poetic word for horse . . kinda like the word sable for darkness more or less . .
so it would be die nachtmaehre(the nighthorse)singular or correctly die nachtmaehren(the nighthorses[or something like that, my english ain't all that good <.<])plural . .
of course, then there's the nightmares, which you all know from using it . . does look similar enough ne? O.o

ah yes, fun with linguistics . . translators . . I WANNA PUNT THEM INTO A FRIGGING WAAALLL!!!! -.-

Oh wait, "of the nightmares", the genitive case.

Or it's an extremely clever portmanteau of "nightmares" and "replicants" (Nachmachen). So clever, in fact, that none of us gets it.

the genitiv is the dativs it's death . . and yes, i forgot about replicate/nachmachen . . german language, difficult language . . naah ^^

ok, i have to ask. whats the buzz about?

what buzz?
me ranting about how english people butcher my german language? <.<

yes. or more specifically, where that butchery first happened...

There was a policlub from the original ShadowRun called "Der Nachtmachen", which sounds German but isn't really a word. I think they were opposed to re-unifying Europe or something. Anyhow this was probably from before Shadowrun was available in German.

Oh, and also the article "der" ("the") is singular and masculine (unless it's dative or genitive, in which case it's plural or feminine, and I think most German speakers hardly ever use the genitive case unless you offer them beer).

*snickers* ok, i'll let that one slide because of truthiness ^^

Well, I mean, it has to be decent beer of course.

What no coors light?

*Runs for cover from angry beer nazi's*

*holds up sign*

"Will use genitive for Mühlen Kölsch.
Will settle for Beck's."

Oh, and Nachtmachen could, if it woul not be capitalized, be a verb, translate as nightmaking and would still not make sense.