What does the public know about the cause of the Renraku Arcology situation? Who is aware it was caused by a rogue artificial intelligence named Deus?

How many people lived and were trapped inside the Arc, and how many of them made it out?

Here you go. The link to the Arc is on that as well.

Okay, originally 90,000 inhabitants. Less than 2000 survived. Now 150,000 people. Thanks.

But what does the average schlub on the street know about what really happened there?

It largely depends on what time-frame you're looking at. But, in general, not a whole lot when it comes to the details.

Following the liberation of the Arc and before Crash 2.0, the average person would probably believe whatever cover story was put forth (malfunction, terrorists, whatever). But, likely as not, they would be aware of the stories about a rogue AI and the atrocities it was supposed to have committed. Though the situation would be akin to that of the major conspiracy stories we have today - almost everyone has heard about it, but they don't really believe it. Most people at that time don't believe AIs even exist.

After the second crash, and especially following the events in Emergence, it'd be a bit different. People now know that AIs exist, and it's apparently fairly common knowledge that one named Deus was involved in the Crash. With the media's help, the old stories about the Shutdown would gain more acceptance with the general public. Though they'd probably still be disinclined to believe all of it and alot of the particulars would probably still be obscured (exactly what experiments were being conducted and why, how some of his tech has been adopted for consumer use, etc.).

The public knew quite a lot about the Arc incident, including a rampant AI that caused it all, until Emergence retconned it so they could proliferate AIs and noone would hate them, because they have fluffy icons.

At least that's true shadowrun. No matter what it could do, no matter how bad it looks, no matter how dangerous it is... People will want it as president sooner or latter

People do hate AI's. There are plenty of people who hate and fear them. And it wasn't retconned. Stop bandying that word around the forums to exercise every grievance you have with SR4. Emergence demonstrated the public's fear of AI's, and progressed the metaplot. That doesn't constitute a retcon.

However, not everyone can hate them for ever. Not everyone hated the Germans forever just because of the Nazi movement. Also, not everyone would care, because just like the holocaust, the effects of the Renraku Arcology shenanigans didn't effect everyone. Not everyone had friends or family in the Arc, and not everyone believes that it was an AI. You don't seem to make any distinction between what was known on Shadowland and by the corps and governments and what the general populace were told and what they believed. Also, AI's are still widely believed to be corporate property, so it was Renraku that absorbed a lot of the bad PR for the Arcology, not just Deus. It also wasn't just Deus responsible for the second matrix crash. People were told it was Winternight and the Otaku. This also explains the re-focusing of societal fear and hatred from AI's towards technomancers.

Your sarcasm only demonstrates how badly you simplify the concept.

Yes. The Renraku Arcology Story being secret knowledge all of a sudden does, hoewever.


They do? They love them after Pulsar convinced one not to kill off the world's population according to Emergence and Unwired. Because of their fluffy icons. It says so in Unwired.


Nope. Your statements demonstrate how little you know of the setting. Colloton publically announced Deus was defeated (Deus, not $terrorist_group) in SF, Arsenal states that because of the arcology disaster noone wanted to buy Renraku drones anymore, and SotA 63/64 both featured a Survivor type show that used the arcology environment. It can, thus, be assumed that most people were familiar with what Deus was and what it did in the Arc. Propably not concerning it's role in the 2nd Crash, but I didn't say that ...

And no, after two out of three publically known AIs were murderous and hostile towards humanity, I don't see them being accepted just like that.

But they have fluffy icons!

How can they be evil. Are you saying fluffy is the new evil?

Seriously, most of what is known about Deus by the public is near zero. A lot of conspiracy theories most of them wrong. AIs are like magic. Badly understood by the general public with a lot of fear attached to it. Deus disappeared off the face of the planet when the Arcology went down, only to re-emerge through the human Network no-one really knew about on the floor of the Stock Exchange. It then crashed. Those who were in the Stock Exchange at the time died, or became e-ghosts. And hell even e-ghosts are even not really confirmed in Unwired.

It's not a secret. It's ancient history by Sixth World standards. The SCIRE incident happened 11 years prior to the events of Emergence. Not everyone was effected. It was largely a foreign incident, due to the fact that it happened within enclosed Renraku property. Sure, it was horrific, but Renraku largely kept the media isolated from what was going on, because it hurt their image, and General Collington wasn't particularly forthcoming either, until the very end. The public would not have been told everything. Just like the news programs today aren't showing us all the bodies lying on roadsides in South Ossetia right now. The Sixth World public is simply not as omniscient as Shadowrun sourcebook readers.

But sure, they've been informed that Renraku had an AI that they failed to control and it locked down the arcology. But then Crash 2.0 happened. The death toll was huge. Lines of communication went down and you didn't know what was going on. People you knew were found plugged into their telecoms. Planes fell out of the sky. Mushroom clouds went up around the metroplexes and the lights went out. And this was all over the world.

Other massive things that happened after the arcology incident off the top of my head:
-The ring of fire erupts. Huge death tolls in Japan and the Asia-Pacific Region.
-Shedim arrive and start taking over people's bodies and eating people's faces. And this was pretty public. One of the biggest Shedim marches was in Prague. Death tolls strike again and it's just generally creepy. Ibn Eisa was scary enough before it was found out that he was a Shedim bent on destroying the world.
-SURGE.
-Mass Hysteria based on the comet.
-A new dragon appears out of the Dunkelzahn rift, flies across country and then (with the assistance of a whole load of spirits) kicks Aztechnology out of Denver and then institutes himself as ruler over the rest.
-Saito. He takes a chunk of California and tries to get the ball rolling for an occupation of ethnic cleansing.

The general populace of the Sixth World has a short memory. There's been a lot going on, and at the time that AI's come back, people are scared of them, but they do in the end take a backseat to the "technomancer threat". But it is not suggested that everyone as you have suggested just suddenly loves AI's. Those who side with Evo and Horizon might, but what about those that side with Aztechnology's media machine? What about NEOnet's efforts.

Pulsar isn't even that fluffy. Emergence doesn't even force you to believe what Pulsar says, anyway. The Universal Brotherhood was fluffy, too. And fluffiness in AIs isn't even a Fanpro/CGL invention. Rember Magaera? I assume you do seeing as you're so familiar with the setting. She wuz in wub wiv a human.

Your little campaign against everything SR4 that you drag with you into almost any thread here just falls so short, because it's so blatantly one sided. Your vitriolic rage at the handling of 4th Edition by the current devs and freelancers is weak because you straight out ignore and refute evidence to the contrary. If some people like some AI's, due to charismatic positive press, that does not mean that everyone swallows that pill. Is this concept too difficult for you?

No, but enough to consider AIs hostile by default. Also, Renraku's image-keeping didn't work out so well, considering how modest to hidde their presence in Seattle is according to RH in 2070. And you can bet Colloton had herself be presented as "the one who killed the man-eating arcology monster AI" in 2068's election.


Which is exactly HOW relevant to how the public views AIs?


Because ...? You state this as a fact. I wonder where you get that from. There's lots of things going on in the real world too, and still people remember things. 9/11 has been 7 years ago too. Does that mean it has no effect on today's politics anymore?


True. Pulsar is presented as some sort of Max Headroom/Barack Obama hybrid instead.

Megaera, like Mirage, never was a public figure.



Please read Unwired, p. 31: "Pulsar and Horizon’s major media blitz accomplished what they’d hoped: AIs are predominately seen as benign or even friendly (according to polls)." No mistrust there.


Wrong. In Emergence as published, the Techno Threat takes a backseat because a nice, friendly AI threatens to wipe out a city every hour with bioweapons because it feels badly treated (p. 100f).


Believe what you will, though I repeatedly have said otherwise. But yes, I do see blatant flaws with the way they handle the setting, and even if this won't rub the fanboys of SR4 the right way, I'm going to say that.

This just demonstrates my early point. AI's were, and to an extent, are considered property. A factor in AI's not being so universally feared is that people blamed Renraku for the AEP malfunction. They took the brunt because they are a public and ultimately human face, and the responsibility had to be pinned on some-one when Deus wasn't there (or so the public thinks) to bear punishment.


Because it puts Deus' actions into perspective. If the Arcology was 9/11, then there's been several 9/11's since the Arcology, and then another, even bigger, global 9/11, that was not blamed on "man-eating monster AI", it was blamed on Winternight and Ex Pacis.


To use the Barack Obama simile; If you see a black guy walk down the street towards you in gang colours with a menacing expression, you might be a little scared. You've heard that black people have killed and mugged people before, right?

But when a black guy appears on the tv, in a suit, telling you he's all about equality and change and that he's "just like you", and the media is telling you not to believe your preconceived notions about black people, that prejudice is unfashionable, you might believe him.

And to combine this with your 9/11 metaphor. It was middle-easterners who blew up the world trade center, right? America has been to war with Iraq twice. Ever seen Lost? Said, a character on Lost, has the background of a Republican Guard torturer, yet people don't freak out. People don't necessarily say he's Osama Bin Laden.

Both Barrack Obama and Said from Lost have fluffy icons. Why is it so hard to believe that it works on the general population?


And when he is talked down, by a certain fluffy icon, Kenneth Brackhaven passes his Technomancer Registration bill.

Technomancers scare the populace more than AI's. And without sympathetic media and a charismatic figurehead, they're advancement is substantially slower.

Sure, the polls (Which are often stacked and misrepresentative of true public opinion) say that AI's are benign. But on the other hand, the AI's still haven't gotten citizenship, and they haven't even been granted full recognition of their sapience. They're benign because they're programs. People


Basically, this is where we agree to disagree. I consider and understand that you don't agree with the setting. I empathise, because there are some parts of the setting I don't like, as well. I don't particularly like p2.0. I played it once, and found I could deal with it. But it's not really for my style of game. There were parts of emergence I also didn't like, such as how Clockwork was so blatantly marginalised and unconvincing. There were parts of Emergence that I thought weren't covered comprehensively enough, but I've had these problems with Shadowrun all the way through the editions, and I really don't have a problem tweaking things, because the metaplot doesn't phase me that much, as the grand majority doesn't effect my games in the slightest.

However Shadowrun is open to interpretation. There's no reason why you have to accept all parts of canon as law. If you want you can fudge the details in your games and change it around. I know I do, and I really don't have a problem with it, because for the most part, I like the system. I like the new mechanics, and I like a fair amount of the new fluff. It doesn't mean I don't institute Matrix houserules, that I don't tweak the edge system to more resemble the Karma pool system, that I don't use the Technomancer mechanics, because I prefer to use them as fluff and as a plot device. I'm not a "fanboy", I'm just not nearly as dissatisfied as you are with the system. My suspension of disbelief hasn't been shattered.

Concerning AIs, two incidences are relevant to the public: The Arcology catastrophe (which may be old, but I'm sure many still remember - with well over 120.000 dead, everyone with Renraku and pretty much everyone in Seattle's bound to have known someone who died there. Then the Tlaloc incident, which was basialy an AI taking humanity hostage and threatening to wipe them out if it doesn't have it's way. How Horizon could convince the public to then accept such figures as benign to friendly is beyond me. It's like assuming google could make everyone think islamic Radicals are actually benign and friendly, never mind nine out of ten terrorists are islamic Radicals.


I can't really answer this because, where I live, Blacks are very exotic and hardly ever mug anyone because there're so few of them. Transferring to an Arab though, I'd ve wary, yes. I do think I'd not vote by race, though


Actually, I've never seen Lost, myself. I've seen Sleeper Cell and 24, but I guess that won't apply.

And it's not a single AI that's "predominately seen as benign or even friendly". It's all of them (again, Unwired, p. 31). To get back to the colours-wearing gang member approaching you, would you consider him beinign to friendly because Obama is a decent candidate for president?

Oh, and the Republican guards' only business with Osama, ever, was to torture and kill his followers. Hussein and Osama briefly tried "enemy of my enemy" and found they hate each other too much for that to work, and that's that.


Uhm ... yeah. Not that I disagree with people thinking Technomancers are a grave threat - given they can hack systems that are offline and not actively powered and alter data there, recover every piece of data ever written, and can fry an ordinary user's brain with their lv. 12+ threaded black hammer without much of an effort, they certainly are.

But AIs killed at least hundreds of thousands of people. I fail to seer why they're not seen as a bigger threrat (and something like Neuromancer's Turing Police is installed).

Besides, AIs do have civil rights and may aply for citizenship in many countries, including Tir Taingire (Corp Enclaves).


Okay, then, I can live with that. But my suspense of disbelief is severely strained, what with Horizon's MiB-style media blitz spells and the unconvincing turns in the setting (primarily) Emergence brought.

And ofcourse polls never lie

Yes, they're wrong all the time, which is why they're such a popular marketing tool.

The reason I ask, is that the books aren't clear on public knowledge of Deus. As far as I recall (can't find my book at the moment), only Renraku brass knew of the AI at the close of Brainscan. But Hermit says that System Failure says Colloton announced the problem. But what did she say, and what did they even know, at that point? Jackpoint is talking about it, but do they have more knowledge than most people?

I'm guessing that shortly thereafter, the average person knew the SCIRE computer systems went haywire, and some kind of robot brain took over. Only recently, with the emergence of media personalities that are artificial intelligences, are they making the connection to Deus.

But that's the average person, and that was then. Anyone with a real interest in the subject was able to learn a lot more. And there were a lot of details to be had, as the people involved were eager to do interviews. Everyone from the troops who made it inside, to the workmen clearing the floors to build new residences and shopping malls. So I'd say the average Seattleite knows more than the average North American, but less than the average person who's interested and watches all the reports and studies.

But still, what about Deus? Who knows it's nature? Who knows that it was a "person"? One with goals? Or a goal?

Well I can say that the only people who know Deus' nature are the group that got "saved" when Renraku Arcology was liberated and the liberators. Even Pax a seventh level Otaku under Deus did not know Deus' goals at the time. The Network which sprung up from the survivors became aware of some of the goals of Deus. But Deus was a wiley bastard when it comes to backups and backup plans.

During the Arcology shutdown Deus was experimenting in making humans more resilient against environmental hazards, such as gunfire. They would later become part of the Network. Deus also set up facilities beyond the Arcology and has a shadow network which most likely still operates.

Actually, considering some of the streams (Sourcerors, the people who awakened to Technodom during the crash) and Paragons (Tree of Knowledge), I'm wondering whether technomancers aren't network 2.0 ... they're connected 24/7, and while they leep, who knows what they compile?

Clockwork would be proud.

You sound kinda mediablitzed. And doesn't that permanent smile make your cheeks petrify?

I don't know what you're talking about. I think you're having paranoid delusions.

I really think you should schedule a meeting with your Horizon synergy specialist.

Completely tangental here, because people keep putting this stuff out there -

Shedim march in Prague? Book reference?

(man I missed a lot of stuff in 3e)

p. 71 Shadows of Europe. It's under 2062 in the history table. "Shedim Plague Prague and other locations throughout the country."

Pretty obscure, but I mentioned it mainly because I expanded it within a game I'm playing to expain the strange phobia of fresh meat that my Czech expat character has.

I like obscure though

In the 20th century there was an event that occurred the 1930's and 40's that happened to a lot of people. What did people know about it in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, today? What do you know about it? There are still people who dispute it.

More recently, with the far quicker distribution of information, what happened in some Balkan states? How much did we find out as it happened? How much do we know now?

Only Deus knows what Deus knows. (Maybe....)