There's something that's been bugging me about Shadowrun and all its technology. Shadowrun is supposed to be a cyberpunk world where what we think of as ultra-technology has become commonplace and has integrated into everyday life in such a way that it has made possible a dystopian, Orwellian world that blends tropes from Blade Runner and Tron, then dumps elves, orks, and trolls into the mix. Mostly, this is accomplished, what with the authoritarian UCAS, the unscrupulous security agencies and corp-sec, extraterritoriality, and the constant mention of soy food, plascrete, and plasteel.

Still, by and large, the technology is all wrong. It's what we could do with what we have now, if we refined it and then made it commonplace. I've always believed that the advances of the future will be things that we can't even imagine now.

SR4 had to turn everything wireless in order to catch up with the real world, for God's sake. I also find it amusing to think that the creators of SR1 didn't realize that there would be people in the Sixth World who could remember clearly the low-tech days of laptops and keyboards.

SR4's technology seems like things that we would see 15 years from now, not 70. Most of it is already in the works-- the Matrix more or less exists, all we need is full-VR. Full-VR is in the works, all we need is simsense, which we admittedly only have a dull idea of how to do. Cybernetic limbs are practically there already.

There are plenty of things in SR4 that are beyond our grasp, such as sentient AI, for example, or Wired Reflexes, or most Bioware, and Nanoware has just about always been the domain of speculative fiction, but these things are incremental advances from technology that we have now. If the Awakening is happening in 2011 (and I've got my fingers crossed, seeing as the US is showing signs of allowing extraterritoriality eventually) then I strongly believe that the future should have more Magitech. Think about what we've done with computers in the last 50 years. What could we do with magic in 70 years? Even if science doesn't quite apply to magic, there are magicians who can invoke magical effects at will, so they can then use the scientific method to determine the exact limitations and mechanisms involved. The sourcebook's excuse for "magitech" was a wand with glowing moss in the tip and a delivery system for weaponized FABII.

70 years from now we won't have technology that's an incrementally better version of what we have now, even if it's 4 or 5 increments better. Technology will probably have veered off in an entirely different direction, which we can't imagine yet.

A poll with only negative choices proves nothing.

Oh dammit I'm sorry. Thank you for catching my screwup.

Every science fiction that puts its futuristic story too near to the present will always get things wrong, it might actually pick one or two things correct, but will be wrong about everything else.

Now, how do you want that the shadowrun developers create futuristic stuff that we can't even imagine yet? See the paradox?

Maybe not stuff that we can't imagine yet, but it should surprise me. I hate to use this as an example but when my friends started explaining WH40K to me, my mind was blown. The Space Marines might look like Space Marines but this belies the fact that they are a race of fanatic-warrior monstrosities born with redundant organs the likes of which a Krogan would be jealous of. Look at Mass Effect, which makes up fancy words like "mass effect field" and "biotics" to explain, respectively, FTL travel and telekinesis (telekinesis which can be artificially introduced to an individual, no less.) And I don't know if there exists a setting that has a MagiTech MegaMech but there should be one.

Two points to make.

1. When the game came out in 1989, home computers and laptops were not common place. Heck, the Internet wasn't even what it was today. Cell phones were large bricks. Etc etc. The designers tried to pick a middle ground and lost that bet with mobile communications and the internet.


2. Don't forget the amount of data that was just lost to the '29 Crash. Imagine how long it would take to rebuild the technology if Microsoft, Google, and Apple were suddenly erased from the world.

Not as much as you believe. The vast majority of information on the web is not held by these companies. I siad the technology didn't go far enough, but I don't think it's too far behind where I think we'll be in 2070.

But the vast majority of data are held by some corp and universities, imagine if by the '29 crash they lost 90% of their digital information? And considering that just like today a lot of people is putting more and more information in digital media instead of dead tree™ you can only imagine that the panic of the 29 virus was biger than VITAS.

*Cough*

You are claiming that sci fi game ability to predict accurately conveys some sort of value?

BTW, I believe it's because almost all players of SR can in fact relate to the advances in tech that makes it popular and playable.

Just try and RP the unpredictable and unknown. It's hard to convey.

SR technology is wrong for what? For an alternate timeline full of 80s, it's wrong only in that its hair has become too small. But that's a very different question from how accurately SR predicted what really will be available come 2050 - something they were never trying to do in the first place.

I don't like the direction they're taking with nanotech. Aside from its mechanical silliness, commonplace nanotech would have a really big social impact, and you just don't see that.

I just ignore it in my games.

Do you mean the degredation rules, or...?

In any case, I like that there is nanotech, even if its largely useless. The whole concept of having nanotats is appealing--I just wish there was an essence-free way to keep it active.

I agree to a point about the technology. I think with some of it, they've got it great, like bioware. But for the armors, and most of the weaponry...its stuff that we're already experimenting with today. The only real "sci-fi" out of this world stuff, is the monofilament stuff. I personally would've liked to see some better armor options, at least. However, you do have to take into account, this is ONLY 2070, and they've had several catastrophies to deal with...which slowed down progress, if not halted it altogether.

Did corps and universities suddenly stop making backups for whatever reason? You know, in case they have to format? I don't see a whole lot of information being lost, just delayed until it's restored back on the network which would probably be the day after the virus was dealt with.

The big trend today is disk to disk backups and off-site vitural backups, as the price of data space keeps shrinking more and more companies are dropping backup to tape all together. Now advance that 19 years and I can see were tape backups are rare and everything is on harddisk. The Crash Virus would have been able to access those harddrives and destroy the data.

You're way too stuck in 2010 headspace.

In 1989/2060, computers couldn't really be 'backed up'. You couldn't just burn a disc and put it on a new computer. A computer takes a good investment of time and money to store and configure data, and those configuration settings couldn't just be ported over. Data could be backed up, but it wasn't cheap, wasn't easy, and wasn't fast. Sure, companies would have back-ups - old discs or tapes lying around with software from four years ago, or last year's spreadsheets. But the stuff made today, or even last month, wasn't cost-effective to backup - it would be out of date almost before it was in a box. So it made more sense to just have maybe multiple networked systems and keep saving your data across them.

Yeah, the degradation rules. Doesn't make sense logically or mechanically.

Yes it does (logically, at least). Nanites are going to be seen by the body as foreign objects and clean them out, slowly. You'll also have nanites that break or lose power (especially hard nanites). Mechanically this is represented as by losing 1 rating point per week. Given that most of the systems perform some job function, and perform it better at higher ratings, as there gets to be fewer nanites in the swarm, they won't perform as optimal of a job.

That said, what is wrong with it?

Aside from the Wireless stuff it's pretty much spot on.

Regarding the nanites: From what I remember, they don't self replicate(grey goo worries), so any lost nanites don't get replaced. You get cut, you bleed some of them. You sneeze, you likely lose a couple, ...etc. The hive creates more when necessary. Makes sense to me

What doesn't make sense is the regeneration rate of a hive – it's weeks.

Even healing rules are faster than that… days work ok, mostly.

In the '60s, the speculation was that today flying cars that could drive themselves would be commonplace. There's one or two tiny flying car companies today, and while there are car features that do parallel parking, we are far from having a fully functioning autopilot for our cars. I see no fault with the Shadowrun writers putting evolutionary, not revolutionary technology in their games. If you want to introduce an experimental commlink that uses DNA sequences as storage as a GM, no one is stopping you.
If you like even more high-tech stuff, go play Eclipse Phase. It's free, and it's awesome.

Granted, weeks are a bit much. Maybe left in as a way for GMs to keep a handle on nano(if they so chosoe). Thankfully this doesn't come into play very often; I think massively bleeding out is the most common out of very few ways to lose a rating point's worth.

Some systems, like Universal Nantidote and Nanite Hunter both degrade directly…

Entirely possible. Working from memory right now.

they did ok on guessing what the future will be like. on the cyberware and replacement limbs, we almost have that nowadays in prototype form. in 2050s and later it is common enough for criminals to get it on the black market. If they get really fantastic it gets silly. some other book series and game systems get really fantastic in technology, but they are set even further in the future. since sometime in the 90's America has started to loose sight of striving for the fantastic. We seem to have replaced awesome excellence with social ideals. Why does that matter, it has made sci fi as a genre less popular and less thought and effort put into it and some technologies. If you think I'm wrong, and I hope I am, try a thought experiment. Off the top of your head name your favorite 5 or 10 sci fi movies or books. Then remember or look up when they were written produced. for me the best scifi movies were in the 80s. the best sci fi books span a longer time 40s through the 80s.

Meanwhile, in another thread, you'll find a gun buff arguing that the US army needs to go back to using a pistol designed 100 years ago...

The popularity of science fiction tracks with times of growth (especially economic growth) and, not surprisingly, interest in science Hence booms in the 1950s and 1890s. If we can get our kids educated, I would expect another rise in interest when we pull out of this recession.