*mind blown* This is brilliant. I love it. This may become the centerpiece of a future campaign if I remain stuck GMing.

*History recording A539-27: 9-OCT-4010*

"Little did they know in those days the true Powers of the Evil Ones. All feared the Aztec Heretics and focussed their energies on containing that Threat. Yet they embraced the Matrix as the bringer of Freedom and Power. Within that tool lay the greatest Evil of all. Insidious, ubiquitous and fascinating, it seduced them all."

Awesome. Interestingly, this could easily lead to a Matrix(THE MOVIE) style future. Everyone in their Kerns, in full-VR, unknowingly being controlled by the Horrors.

How well did advanced technology help the 12 colonies survive the apocalypse after being infiltrated by skin jobs?

You first heard the voice two months ago. At first you thought you were just going crazy being cooped up in this giant prison/fortress with all these other people. You were able to ignore it and move on. Slowly, starting with your belly, your skin started to harden and get hairy. The voice started taunting you describing what lay ahead. It had to be cabin fever. You covered it up and carried on. Then two weeks ago you noticed extra limbs growing out of your sides. That's when the voice started telling you to destroy the power generators. Two days previously someone else in the complex had mentioned the same ailment and suggestion to his doctor and no one had seen him since. Fearing for you life you decide not to tell anyone and ignore the voice. The headaches started 4 days ago. They weren't bad at first but the more you tried to ignore the voice the stronger the headaches got until all you could do was lie in bed and whimper in agony. The voice told you what they did to the other guy when they found out his secret. It started to threaten you with changes to your body that can't be hidden. So you cut off the extra appendages. It laughed and told you that there was no way out except for you to destroy the generators. You held out until yesterday when the headaches finally became too much. That was the worst part of surrendering -- knowing that you were helpless to stop it. Now all you can do is watch as mindless hordes of Horrors tear through the inhabitants of what used to be your fortress city. They ignore you on your new master's orders. You are one of them now. These lifeless, powerless halls will now be your spider's nest and you will wait here to snare some unwary treasure hunter in your webs.

Technology won't help SR as long as people are involved in any way, shape or form. It was the Book of Tomorrow that allowed Throalic culture to survive beyond its Kaer -- so it isn't like ED didn't have the technology to maintain society either. But if there is a person, the Horrors will find a way to bend them and break humanity. Some kaers will survive, as they always do, but the Wraith will always come back for another Culling... oops, I mean the bridge will eventually reform and allow the Horrors across again.

"Roll call. Who didn't show up for work today?"
"Jenkins, sir."
"Activate his surveilance cam."
"Yes, si--is he cutting off extra arms?"
"Gas the room, send in a drone cleanup team and then sterilize the floor."

Drones and remote contol tech will be the first line of defence and despite how cool it is from a thematic standpoint there is no evidence that the Horrors have any ability to manipulate the matrix. Without that ability your entire hypothosis falls apart. We know metahumanity is advancing magical techniques and already has methods of detecting various types of spirits so it is not similarly boundless to posit magical or tech-magic means of detecting incursion in to the Kaers so a covert action by the horrors (presuming they have the sense to adapt their strategy, a dubious propositon at best) is similarly doomed to failure in anything resembling the long term. Their only option left? Slamming the wall and concentrating forces on single targets long enough to bring down the defences. Ask any military commander and they will tell you this method while effective in the short term is long term suicide since you inevitably soak huge amouns of casualties.

It is doubtless metahumanity will survive and be able to rebuild, I would go so far as to say that if they do not eliminate the Horrors this time around they will be so sufficiently advanced over a diminished enemy during the next culling that the term will be... somewhat ironic.

Well first off if the tech keeps going the way it is, Kaers would be mostly worthless. Pretty much we would have to come up with some type of building that can survive anything we throw at it. It is much easier to find a way to destroy than to build. It was mentioned using Thor shots (or whatever equivalent) on Horrors, at what are they point using them against Kaers?

Another problem with tech is that simply that it can be destroyed. If it's destroyed how do you replace it? Where are all your factories? Where are all the raw mats that you are using to "fight" the war? Why would the horrors leave any city or industrial complexes intact to support the war effort? In EP, given time (and base material) you can use nanofabricators to pretty much make anything which would solve part of this... When you consider how long the last time they where here for the simple attrition becomes a major problem. To win it wouldn't be any of the small combats we have done in the last 50 years, it would have to be treated on an order of magnitute greater scale than the World Wars.

The best solution would probably be to say screw it, play Noah, and have everyone take off in different directions and come back later. In order for there to be enough magic for them to survive there has to be vast quantities of life (at least we think, lol). If folks are in small space bound communities you would probably be fairly safe. Come back in a couple decades to see what's up, than reseed the Earth. At least that way the planet wouldn't become a smoking crater that won't support life for centuries afterwards.

Chantrelle's Horror and Artificer would both LOVE to meet your society. Notice there is still SOMEONE involved in making the decision and analyzing the data? You still have a weakness. Your description of that society only works if a computer is watching over it and see how well that worked for the Arcology. May as well be the Paranoia universe at the point you are at.

Also, at what point is the society you are describing anywhere near SR society? How awesome is your defense when you are the commanding officer who has just ordered drones to go and kill every man, woman, and child under your "protection"? You are the last one left -- who's going to send in the drones after you are gone?

Uh, 'kay.

We're talking about a society where giant arcologies are turned into kaers to defend against legions of Horrors. There is no SR society by that point, and it's been made rather clear that the main Horror incursion would occur well after where we are in the timeline.

Thanks. Enjoy. Give credit? (If applicable.)

: )



There's no evidence that they DON'T because the Matrix did not exist when they were last around. You can't argue for or against this possibility.

As far as we know, all of the Horrors have Resonance AND Magic attributes.

There's weak evidence against them having existed, because absence of evidence is a weak evidence of absence—to my knowledge, the Horrors never generated their own Matrix-like structures.

On the other hand, I'd say you can argue for their being able to emerge, insofar as Horrors exist that make use of (and in some cases feed on) things that are distinctly social constructs, and consequently are unlikely to have existed before those constructs formed.

~J

I don't think they could emerge, perhaps they can ada;t in a limited form to social constructs but saying something can be socialized and saying it can be technomantic powers are two entirely differat suppositions.

So you are saying SR can win on the presupposition that society evolves into a militaristic garrison state where individuals are complete willing to forego all their freedoms? How well did that work out in Equilibrium?

I am presupposing that humans are inherently shitty creatures that don't give a flying fuck about people they don't know. So if it comes down to standing by and letting your horror-corrupted children get smushed by drones or trying to hide them away long enough for the Horror to get a foothold I believe that a material percentage of people will protect their children. Other residents be damned. And all it takes is 1 Horror.

I was more under the impression that I was having fun with the situation, but if you're that gung-ho about the theoretical then more power to you.

Hmm...

What if Deus was trying to prepare Humanity for the horrors in his own unique way?

The Arcology would have made for a nifty Kaer. And if all human minds were under his digital control, that might eliminate the effects of a lot of mind-control based horrors.




-k

I don't see the Horror's having any good response to any AI, much less multiple ones, especially ones with access to nanotech. With enough nanotech, all you need is reprogramable grey goo to build, repair, or destroy whatever you want. Nor can I see the Horror's having much interest in AI at first.

I don't see the Horror's having a good response to ASIST technology, like personafixes. That stuff seems to be able to do everything short of lobotomy and you just can't terrify someone who's effectively had the "fear" part of their brain turned off. It wouldn't seem that difficult to simply hook one's body up with personfixes, skillwires, and autosofts while the real brain retreats into the Matrix. Plus, except for skillwire implants, most of that stuff can be distributed almost instantly across the Matrix.

I don't see Horror's having any good response to modern technological firepower. Drones with guns should wipe the floor with any physical menace, it's just a question of numbers.

In short, I would see most people retreating into the Matrix to live their lives while autonomous programs control their meat body (unless they just want to bunker down somewhere and skip the skillwires). Even if Horrors began to attack the Matrix, there are too many heavy hitters there for me to see them making much headway, especially because some of the big powerhouses (AIs) are functionally immune to them. In short, most metahumans have the option to simply flee reality to artificial reality and unless the Horror's can dominate physical space (highly unlikely against modern firepower) there simply isn't much they can do about it.

A couple of things:

1) Artificer has shown he can muck with technology and with technological spirits
2) The matrix is effected by Magic. I just don't see how you could think the Otaku and Technomancers aren't a new kind of magical tradition, and sprites just technological spirits.

The Named Horrors are incredibly powerful, intelligent, cunning, patient, and resourceful.

I would not call it a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course, if we figure out a way to upload your 'soul' into the matrix and then redownload you into another body, (or your old body) in a meaningful way.. then things get tricksier.

Everybody here seems to be thinking in terms of defense. We (The SR we, that is... I'm not that into this game... honest.) have hundreds if not thousands of years to prepare to take the fight to them.

How about we take a page from Ares SOP, and build a station or network of stations in space to send millions of drone-controlled nukes through Astral Gateways when the time comes? If there is a need for a mage at each station to summon the spirits to make the Gateways, then make sure each mage is implanted with a cranial bomb and guarded by a program or an AI or radio-linked observation from home. The safety entity will push the button if and when necessary. Current experience tells us it isn't that hard to find someone willing to blow himself up for the cause.

If there is a flaw in this plan, then we have hundreds if not thousands of years to think of problems and refine the plan. One could argue that 'we' don't know about the Horrors. But somebody does. And those somebodies seem to be really good at planning.

Effin Starship Troopers, man!

(The book.)

Technomancers, sure. The Otaku clearly aren't—they don't function in a way that resembles magic, they aren't affected by Essence loss or astral pollution, they can be created by an entity that doesn't even have an aura, so on and soforth.

~J

An oldie but a goodie. Fascism is far enough removed that no one seems to be afraid of how bad it is anymore.

I re-read that book once a year.. every year for the last 15 years.

I have noticed over the years how much it has shaped my views on civil duty and politics.

One could make a case even for Technomancers as some high-function-level neural kinetics, hell, that is precisely what scientists in SR do.

Neural Kinetics.. but it's not magic

Riiight..
How do you explain Initiating, and Resonance loss due to cyber.
Or Sprites

Submersion being the act of exposing themself to greater degrees of neural kinetic stress as filtered into coherency by the innate feedback filtering system in the neural kinetic's brain. This submersion forces the neural kinetic mind to adapt in an accelerated reactive manner. Resonance loss due to cyber and bio is the natural reaction of the highly specialized delicate structre like the neural kinetic's system towards an invasive and foriegn matter being integrated in to said system. Sprites are semi-autonomous constructs.

And I did that without cracking open unwired or emergence.

JackBNimble?

Great idea actually. Instead of actually fighting the horrors, we give just start handing over alpha forks with cloned bodies of people. Every horror could have a copy of every real person to feed on, and become completely full on "fake people". The fact that they think are completey self-aware, have emotions, and are you doesn't matter right?

That's how the Culture A.I.s "cured" the human race. When everyone has everything they ever want why make the effort to do anything except as entertainment.

Bump for Mr. Mage, so he can better understand the horrors, and why they will win.

Or rather, why we can't beatt hem.

~J

Talk about Cadaverposts.

You and I appear to have either vastly differing definitions of "win" or ideas on what the horrors will do, nezumi.

Horrors?
edit: found the thread.

I think I voted on this 3 years ago...... In the end amongst a blasted wasteland there would be Lofwyr, Harlequin, Frosty, and drop bears.....but it would be victory!

Vote yes. I've found that most enemies are surprisingly weak against a monstrous dice pool.
Then again, the Horrors may use WoW mechanics. What with we do against a level 80 horror with purple gear and 10k hit boxes?

The only purples my group ever comes across are in a pimp's car. And it certainly doesn't boost their stats any.

Oh, there are definitely purples to be afraid of. For example, what is the average sammie's defense against Nurples of the variety in question?
That's right. No one in SR has dice pools against purple nurples.

We buy Blizzard and change the rules.

Of course we can beatt them. It's just that beatting them requires first building extensive space infrastructure sufficient to house six and a half billion people, evacuate the planet, and then blow it up Death Star style.

Quoted by:

I agree, we can definitely beattt them.
Why couldn't we beatttt them?
Beattttting them is as easy as continuing a typo for the lulz.

I thought we were trying to beatt he them.

I love DSF

Really nezumi, what are the horrors going to do to dumpshockers? we're already this crazy...

Oh noes! Not again!

Define the win condition! Define the win condition!

I think that is what I screamed for about 10 pages in here.

win condition = the non extinction of Metahumanity.

Seems like we can beatt he Horrors then:
http://www.u-n-f-u-g.de/index.php/artikel/...hadows-of-earth
http://www.redbrick-limited.com/cms/index.php?categoryid=60
But earth does not survive our war i guess.

Same thing they did to the Elves of Blood Wood. They're not perfectionists.



If you're setting the bar that low, winning is highly likely. Of course, under this interpretation we "won" the last Scourge, too.

~J

I'm pretty sure that Dunkelzhan was of the opinion that humanity had a shot this time of actually WINNING, rather than just running and hiding away like the last few ages. As in, actually killing the Horrors or otherwise getting rid of them for good.

Granted, this probably would end with huge areas of the planet devastated and most of the human population dead, but for once we might be able to go into a high-magic age without locking ourselves in Kaers.

This is the whole reason behind the Dragon Heart, Dunkie was trying to give humanity another few hundred years to prepare before the Horrors arrive.




-k

Well, if we were a bit more sarcastic, we could also think that the Big D came, saw, and could not believe his eyes.
Thus blew himself up and created a magical weapon that could devastate the world.
But we are not that sarcastic, are we?

Dumpshockers, sarcastic? Heaven forbid!

Edit: Doublepost.