So, a cybered individual, who has a stirrup system installed and an active rigger in him in high VR who can override what he wants to do and just move his body the way that the rigger wants to move it. This individual has grown up with software which has him loving it when the rigger takes over, but that really doesn't matter, we really don't care what the individual wants.

Now, a mage summons a possession spirit and tells it to possess the body and do stuff. The book says that the possessing spirit can't access the cyberware that takes commands to use, it just uses what's "naturally" there. For instance, while a possessing spirit can see through cybereyes, it cannot access vision enhancements in those cybereyes. So, the spirit can issue commands to the muscles which move.

The rigger, however, is still rigged into his stirrup interface, which can directly command the muscles. It seems to me that although the spirit can command the muscles that the rigger can command the stirrup interface to do what it normally does -- issue electric shocks to seize the muscles up in a controlled fashion. So, although the spirit is commanding the body, so is the rigger.

Normally, this works out to about a tie -- each force does its thing and each time it's countermanded by the other force. But spirits generally only have two IP's (all spirits have two IP's, except Watcher spirits who can't be above a Force 1 -- they have 3 IP). A jacked in rigger in VR has three IP. So, 2/3 of the time, both sides are issuing commands. 1/3 of the time, the spirit is momentarily exhausted and cannot issue any more commands, but the rigger still can -- 1/3 of the time the rigger has full control and is able to take one complex action (or two simple actions) completely unopposed by the spirit).

My contention is that the cyberware doesn't stop working because the spirit is there. Sure, the spirit is in control and can issue orders, but the rigger can shock the crap out of the individual and momentarily put him into a seizure or something (or just a mild enough seizure that he can't move).

Sound plausible? Should it work like that?

Well... i wouldn't do it like that.

First: Yes the rigger has more IP's but they are just a complex-to-simple conversion for combat and speed. They are working both all the time, the spirit just doesn't stops moving/doing stuff for 1 second out of 3. Same for any unmodified person who doesn't stand still in combat for over 4/5 of the available time.

Second: I would be inclined to give the spirit main control. But have the rigger be able to run massive interference. But the spirit BECOMES that person: Their own strength gets added to the strength of the person, which he also controls. Also he imbues it with higher resilience against most effects (like electrical schocks). Overall i think that is enough to take all control from the rigger. But since it is still technically a normal person, the interference should be VERY harsh. Maybe have all action hindered by the outcome of a maneuvre roll of the rigger. Or a flat number (-2 to -6) according to the involvement of the rigger, strength of the stirrup etc.

Overall i think it is just ruling of the GM... no rules for that in any book, i guess.

Maybe you could make something out of the rigger fight rules in SR3, when two riggers fight for control of one drone.

On a side note, if some possessed person never turned off the wireless signal in their cybereyes, then can someone else hack into the eyes and change the vision enhancements that the spirit can't? For instance, turning on the "welding" filter that effectively makes a person blind when they're not welding? Or can the spirit continue to see physical things without the use of the eyes or is the spirit now limited to only seeing the astral plane?

If a hacker provided a physical box to the possessed individual that was wirelessly connected with the cybereyes (and had "thermovision" and "ultrasound" buttons on it) then the spirit could have the body push the buttons and thus access the vision enhancements in the cybereyes, right?

So, the argument was brought up that a spirit can possess a corpse, so muscles can't be used. Can possessed things fly around? I thought a gun could fire, as it's capable of that, but a possessed gun couldn't point itself somewhere because it's not normally capable of that. I thought that a corpse can be made to walk, because if you shock the muscles of a corpse then the muscles still basically work like normal (as Luigi Galvani first discovered in 1780).

What're all your thoughts on this?

If a spirit possesses a skeleton, it can still walk, right? It's magic, not muscle, at least for *some* of it.

Personally, I think it's just a Big Unexpected Mess™, although there was a previous thread about this.

Could cybered muscles fight a possessing spirit's bone manipulation then?

But possession clearly *also* is muscles and things, because a merged entity gets Str+Force, right? So there's magic and meat, both under the spirit's control. I guess a question is, is that mental control, nervous control, or what?

At base, it's probably not worth fluffing around with. I'd make a ruling and stick with it; e.g., 'Spirits have mental/kinetic control of living hosts, and kinetic-only control of nonliving hosts'. In that case, a possessed biodrone is right back in the 'who wins?' mess.

Maybe they could fight for each Combat Turn? Force versus… Piloting? F vs. Response? Bleh.

Actually, I'd be inclined to go the opposite way. The possessing spirit effectively replaces "the individual" in the individual and rigger equation. So now, instead of overriding what the individual wanted, the rigger is overriding what the spirit wants. I would allow the spirit to "fight" against the actions the rigger was having the body take on those passes they were both active by allowing the spirit to apply its force against those attributes it would normally enhance, representing the part of spirit the rigger doesn't get to control.

I don't see how that's opposite at all; I think that's exactly what I said. It sounds fine to me, except (as noted above) that a pass-by-pass basis for struggling might not make sense. Maybe -F simply all the time?

Honestly, I'd prefer to simply say that possession wins, cyber goes inert. So, Possession beats Jumped-In beats Commanded beats Pilot/Person. Just for simplicity, not based on any complex fluff. What a mess.

Except that I said jumped-in beats possession, which is why I said "opposite" .

Aha, but I didn't suggest that until *after* you said yours. Gotcha!