I am working on an AI character. I am wondering can an AI make a cluster a home node? Is the cluster considered a single node?

All the oddball character type questions are coming up lately. Free spirits, free sprites, AIs...

Anyway, I think it has to be a single device, and thus a single node clustered. Remember that the AI puts serious strain on its home node and the device that houses that node, which is why they have to pay a (Rather absurdly high) lifestyle cost to keep their home node in good repair. I'd imagine the biggest problem with clustering your home node would be that if any one of the devices in the cluster was lost/destroyed/whatever, then the home node would cease to function properly as a home node.

Or here is an interesting question....can an AI's home node, be a Technomancer's Biological Node?
The downside of an AI making a node his home is resources get hogged up...which Technomancer's aren't affected by for the most part, and even more so with the immune to Nuke option. However the upside is optimization...
Interesting situation unless I missed something intrinsic about the biological node that would disallow this right away....
I wonder at the effects....

I don't think thats possible since a TM has no interal memory that an AI could be stored on. I mean with a bit of GM fiat it could be done such as for the sake of fun/cool but otherwise by RAW I don't think so.

Hmmm, true I had overlooked the no memory space...
But at the same time, that doesn't seem necessary for one to exist within a node. Hackers can hack into, and enter a TMs biological node, so why can't an AI chill there...
Ok, I gotta go read the sections on AIs again to see what kind of things they need/want in a new home

You really can't think of an AI's home node as an actual device. It's a lifestyle. If he wants to live in a comlink, even a schmancy response 6 comlink or a cluster of them, then it's still a low level lifestyle since a comlink has a device rating of 3. The quality of the comlink only determines how often it needs to be repaired or replaced. So, if you bought and clustered 6 Hermes Ikon comlinks, it would be no different than prepaying 18,000¥ for 9 months of low lifestyle. You could use the other ratings for the comlink(s) and add the AI bonuses to it, thereby creating some massively awesome hardware, but you'd still have to replace 2000 yen/month worth of burnt out gear to maintain the processor and subscription limit.

I think something in Unwired says only other TMs can hack bio nodes. I don't have my books with me so I can't check but I am quite sure.

UW p135
While the biological node is impenetrable to hackers, it is
vulnerable to technomancers and sprites, who are “on the same
wavelength,” wirelessly speaking. Technomancers and sprites can
locate and hack other technomancers’ biological nodes per normal
rules, although one cannot probe a technomancer for weakness.
Hacking a technomancer is always considered to be a hacking in
on the fly for an “admin account” (+6 threshold modifier).

Often overlooked but fully correct. Just slave all comlinks to the bionode and 99.9% of the world can kiss your backside.


@Pat: There is something which disallows it right away:
Unlike peripherals, standard nodes, and nexi (Nodes, p. 55),
biological nodes are not “places of the Matrix” with addresses and
access ID numbers, and can neither run programs nor store data.
They are visual and virtual representations created by the technomancer
himself as subconscious aids to deal with data transfers,
“node scripts,” and subscription of wireless devices.

Think of it like a materialized spirit, it reflects light into one's eyes, excerts force on things it touches and creates soundwaves when it speaks, but it there is no real body.

A cluster is certainly treated as a single node mechanically so it should work fine as a home node for an AI.

One big advantage of this would be that, properly designed, you should be able to hot-swap individual devices in and out of the cluster without adversely affecting the AI. It would be nice to know that you are not relying on a single piece of hardware to continue functioning for extended periods of time.

Well, you can still Spoof TM connections, but yeah, Exploit is right out. Though, if the linked device is under command of a sprite, we're back at "basically invulnerable" again.