Okay so I have been reading a some of the old source books on the matrix. I saw the bit on the otaku how their brains were different and needed to be young brains in order to handle the way the information is moved through your brain. Now I also understand that some Otaku were created by the AIs playing with their heads to make them be able to understand and interrupt code. So That tells me the Otaku in biological sense were a mutation that occurred randomly. Yet, this mutation had a a special matrix phenomenon occur along with them, Resonance and Dissonance.

Then suddenly the Matrix crashes and puff The technomancer is born from people who are senstive to radio waves which do occur in our world today. They are able to have their mind and body be able to interpret the new wireless matrix. The resonance also changes from the way it was to a new form reflecting the new matrix and its more chaotic nature.

This bring up a strange problem why is there no more otaku born? If it is an anomaly in the brain then why are there no more otaku?
Technos are able to use the matrix because they have weird nerve clusters in their body. So that brings up an interesting question on how then are they not also subject to the mass amount of fading the otaku were if their minds would need to be as adaptable as a young mind?

This also brings up the fact why was there no mention of weird interference or people being able to sense a riggers drones before. Because it bears to reason that the Technos should have always existed before the crash. The reasoning is if they had wierd nerve cluster then they should have been born with them that means technos should have had stated to appear as weird riggers.

There are alot of weird biology in this game a fully admit but this is one that I can not rap my brain around unless we simply are going to mark it up to magic did it.

So please discuss.

Thanks

Jolly Skull

You are incorrect. Otaku were created due to their fluid mindstate as children and their bond with the matrix forces of the Deep REsonance (And Dissonance). As much as we know, anyway - you may have noted that Shadowrun is not big on explanations. The new interpretation of the matrix has been explained as, very simply - Pax won. Otaku are still born; they're called Technomancers now. They interpret the matrix with their minds. They just have a small modification to their nervous system, one which can be duplicated (sort of) with Bioware, but those who pick up electrosense simply don't have the resonance affinity to emerge. The Crash was the Matrix Awakening - the Resonance reached out to it's children, bitchslapped them and bellowed "UP. NOW. GO TO SCHOOL." Some people could have had their nervous system altered and their resonance bond created while jacked in during the crash; others due to the prevailance of the WMI and their biological willingness to adapt - to become an ew branch of the species, like the Awakened or the Metahumans. Their resonance bond would develop over time; like the one who was mentioned as hiking during the crash. It's like the Awakening, unexplained.

Tl;dr, Like magic, but not.

In all the worlds and all the possible universes all things are possible nay probable

Emergent evolution can be seen as the digital to Awakening evolutions analogue (as appears to be the plan). With the mass of digital data and creations that utilise it (hard and soft) growing at a unprecedented level we could see this mass as similar to the biomass and its link with the manacycle. Maybe if the sixth world was continued into the distant future there would be more of a divergence with mages and shamans on one side weilding the powers of nature and Technos and Otaku playing with the resonance and technical worlds (poor mundanes kept as slaves by both groups mwahh mwahh ha).

As to the hows and wherefores of how the powers / abilities work in a biological way I think we would get to caught up in how it works rather then just it does. By this I mean because magic is well magic you have a get out of jail free card of simply that is how it works you cant open up the mages body and find the bit that is the magic. This is different from the Technomancer side which due to its basis being technology we expect ney demand a technical answer where in this instance I dont think there is a good one.

If you were able to find the physical representation of the Technomancers abilities the next step would be replication or augmentation above the level currently enjoyed which would get complicated in many ways and whilst make the Technomancer more different from the mage I cant see how it would be a real help in fluff or crunch.

These are just my thoughts as they come to me whilst I dodge work so please do not read to much into them.

I'm betting that the iron deposit in a TMs nose is actually their Wireless Antenna.

"If you're wondering how they hack and rig, and other science facts, just repeat to yourself: It's just a game, I should really just relax."

Like Lansdren said, if you're going to try and find a scientific explanation for how it all works you're not going to find a satisfactory answer. It just works. The abilities of TMs are analogous to what magicians do--more so now in 4th Ed than ever before--which means hard and fast rules of science go out the window.

You'll just get a headache. There are more gratifying things to think about.

I've always thought that technomancers were a result of the awakening of the matrix.

The matrix became a new meta-plane (or maybe opened up one we'd never had access to before)
And Technomancers are actually magicians.

Naw dawg. It comes from constant bombardment of wireless signals on the human brain, coupled with the innate ability to understand it. Also possibly Deus.

Resonance is the ghost in the machine, created from the sheer volume of all of the data being tossed around the matrix like a hurricane of golfballs. I think that it started as a tiny phenomena that eventually snowballed, making the resonance realms deeper and deeper.

I hear what you're selling.

But I'm just not buying.

That is a good way of looking at it and like magicians, there is a something that triggers someone with the genetic disposition to awaken to their abilities. Since we can't know if TMs and the Awakening are connected (as there is no viewable universe with TMs and no magic) we can't say 100% that TMs were created by rising mana levels and that humans were responsible for the awakening of the Matrix (thus creating TMs). We can say that TMs can never be magically active, which means that something alters them to access the same potion of their code (genetic or astral) but uses it quite differently. I would argue that the Crash caused the death of Deep Resonance/Dissidence and the resulting death knell spread out along the various communication mediums and altered certain people's astral DNA so that they would become TMs.

I can totally hang with this and this could work as the only part of the slightly awakened stuff that can leave the manasphere. Can we say trip to mars. I also really like it because it will eveolve and we will have B5's Technowizards. Tjis I can see and have funn with the concept.

Thank you also much.

It really helped me stop worrying and leanr to embrace that magic did it.

or

Technomancer Phd

Jolly Skull

Ah dang... i am too late for this discussion. Ah well anyway:

TECHNOMANCER MAKE NO SENSE. And i hate them. (Tell them i hate them).

Clearly they cannot just have a "sense for radio signals and an intuitive ability to form programs and commands". For example the "Skinlink"-echo. HE can magically (and with nanometer accuracy project and read electronic signals... and interpret them to ANY point of a machine (no matter how big) as long as he touches it? That is not just clearly magical ability.. it is damn HIGH MAGIC.

Also: SPRITES MAKE NO SENSE. They get their processing power and "mind" from a source not connected to the machine they are in. Total insanity and totally absurd. (Say you have a washing machine with no wireless and a 5 kHz processor. And you just load up a rating 10 sprite into it... it will be rating 10.)

BUT: Technomancers are no mages in any form. Their aura does not register as awakened. And i am pretty sure that the "truth-sight" isn't easy to fool.

But why is resonance and magic exclusive of each other? One would think you cannot have magic only because you are not awakened or you ALREADY HAVE it.

I mean i have nothing against some evolutionary (maybe even magic boosted) trait that emerges in some people manifesting as wireless capabilities (as a CLEAR and VISIBLE organ/mass in their body). And i have no problem that these people could emulate programs, icons etc. And also that they can create mind-fragments which can act independetly. I even like the idea of them "reprogramming" their own mind and conditioning themselves for performance or technological abilities.

And hell, sure let them have some uncounscious connection to something "in the matrix". Let them have some mystery.

BUT DON'T let them violate the RULES.

I would say: Take away the magical echoes which have no grounding in logic. Magic and Resonance isn't mutualy exclusive anymore. Sprites follow agent rules. Revise the rules of threading and innate programs and sprite compiling.

I want my otakus in tune with the world.

The thread is never over as long as people want to post.

I agree with you that is a bit ridiculous with the echoes having what seems extremely magical if they are not supposed to be a form of magic. For me personally if the system can not handle a sprite it slows or even crash as I have done to my techno player.

You see I agree that logicaly the techno does not make sense the otaku kind of did though. heck mages make sense in their confined metaphysics. The techno not nearly as much this is why I wanted to discuss.


Jolly Skull

Keep on Keeping on

Shadowrun doesn't explain techno's existence so I'm free to make my own, which is good for me.

In my world Technos are a new form of awakened and (as hinted by the books) the resonance is an emerging metaplane. Right now astral sight doesn't see technos as awakened (although you can see they are a techno with 5 successes on assensing) nor does it "see" sprites. But that is a lack of understanding and different "frequencies". One day the matrix and astral will interface and when that day comes there will be real technomancers able to hack the real worl, you won't need a live wireless connection to be "online", computers will be connected through the metaplanes across planets, there will be AR/Astral crossover, etc.

I don't expect this will happen until later in the 6th world or maybe even the 8th. But it would allow runners to play in the same world more right now if the mages go on an astral trip everyone is left out, techno/hacker goes net running the others can at least watch on AR and anyone can buy some decent programs and a little skill to participate. 4e did a good job reducing the "everyone take a break during the netrun" but stuff like that still happens (actually we are finding that our techno doesn't get to participate in much outside of the matrix because of all the forms and such needed, but the hacker just spent a bunch of money and was done).

Some would see "magic" as the reason as a cop-out, but I don't as the reason behind much of the 6th world. I personally dislike genetic reasons for magic as it leads down the midi-chlorian road - should be testable, breedable, enhancable, and destructible with biotech at that point. Blood tests to determine magic ability, retro-viruses to add or remove ability, etc. just leaves me cold (I mentally edit midi-chlorian's out of star wars as it just kicked the mysticism clean out the window... fortunately only movie 1 ever brings it up). Evolution for some organ in the brain to intercept radio waves (especially evolution later in life) makes less sense to me than another facet of awakening.

Okay but they are finding a genetic link to magic as seen in corporate book. And you point out the biggest problem I have with the biological explanation. See the science of the techno makes no sense unless they make it magic did it which is a sham. on top of it resonance still makes no sense as it just sort of happened and then when all the matrix crashed puff it is back no building up the information or anything. It makes no sense unless we say it is magic that did then if that is true the mages should be able to access the resonance as well once initiated. I would like logic in my metaphysics I am okay with metaphysics answer but i want some constancy in it.

So yes I know I am nit picking but it helps me rap around weird stuff.

Jolly skull

You've been given explanations already as to the probable cause of the Resonance, something that is yet to be expanded on. Especially if you go by the way Echo Mirage was created. The science of it does make sense, albeit not being 100% accurate - like Shadowrun, you know, where people have electric limbs with their own magic batteries and toss fireballs around for fun.

I have to agree that Technomancers (and th earlier otaku) make no sense, so my advice is to not waste too much time trying to rationalize them. You'll never be able to do it. Nothing they do is grounded in any believable science, and they aren't hand-waved off with a magical explanation. So you're left with the "They just are" explanation that seems like it was good enough for the rulebooks, heh.

Not true herr Krueger. The otaku make sense to me in that they are young minds that are able to comprehend the signals in the matrix due to them having fresh sublet minds. As they age the mind is unable to adept to the continuous changing nature of the matrix and code. They also were created by a code affecting the mind forcing it to adapt to the strange new world. It is logical in that sense that the mind is broken by them which explains their cult like dependence on parts of the matrix. This still however does not explain the resonance an item that is created out of no where unless we are to say that is of course a new emergent metaplane.

So there is logic in the game. Which can be explained in a logical manner.

simple and effective.

Jolly skull

Sure. Whatever you say. lol.

Witches did it! Now, burn them!

But really now, if they did explain it that'd kill all the fun behind it. It'll be sad when they do explain it too...

Anyway, its cyber punk to have technology become so complex that it takes on its own life and becomes something we can't possibly understand. The world between the hardware, the numbers between the 0's and 1's. Its a pretty common theme.

If you want it to make as much sense as possible, just go with it being a new meta plane and magic is slowly attuning to it. Mages have a hard enough time trying to get to the meta planes, as is, to try and get to a new even more alien one (compared to other meta planes) isn't a stretch that mages currently just can't get there/see it.

And who's to say technomancy wasn't just going to happen naturally? The metahumanity attuning to the resonance was just jump started by AI's with the Otaku but maybe it could happened naturally. Or perhaps the AI's were the catalyst that started it, and without the AI's we wouldn't have technomancy at all. Who knows, but it'd kill all the fun and story telling possibilities if we knew it all from the fluff.

So when a mage leaves earth and its orbit they do not have access to the mana and cant cast spells.

I don't recall there being a stipulation about TM's in the same situation. Can anyone correct me?

Except, as was said before, a Technomancers abilities works in Space where Mana is non-existent.

My interpretation of Technomancers is that they are Psionic* in nature. Their minds have the ability to create the wireless signal and when they create Sprites they "run" on the TM's brain and just "project" themselves to the node in question.

When I was creating my homegrown rules for Psionics in Shadowrun, I used the idea that Technomancers were the front runners of True Psions.


* == REAL Psionics, not the completely bullshit magical tradition. I mean honestly, if you're going to create Wiccan and Egyptian traditions and NOT insult them, then why insult Psionics?

That's still just magic. Psionics are always just Different Magic.

Yup... but it still does explain Technomancers.

Hehe. I guess, if that's what 'explain' means.

That is it I am calling the technomancer is the primitive form of the Technomages from Babbylon 5.

It makes the only sense because lets face it some one saw that and said yes I want that.


Anyways I just want logic in my technology not just saying it just happens because tech and science are based on logic. Just like how magic can be used like logic, Thank you hermetic mage.

So yep this is why I think the answer is that technomancer a genetic anomaly from the continuous bombardment from electrical signals.
The resonance comes from human subconscious as the echoes of it are left on the matrix the more people use decks and the cloud computing. The resonance is a weird creation made from the connection of the the imprints that collates toegther. Nothing magical merely all the data left over molding and forming melding into an area of cyberspace that exist with the matrix but is separate from it. The otaku were the first to encounter the new area made form the sentience echo of humanity and gained a new abilities that extended their new abilities to understand the matrix.

The technomancer is similar to that as the body is finally finished adapting the mass amount of electromagnetic signals which now carry higher amounts of data. The resonance survived in that as long as a small part of the nodes exist form the old matrix which held part of the echo it was able to reform but different changed form how the wireless chaos affected it. It was also able to reform much faster from the new resonance as the common man is able to access the the matrix far easier. This adds more of the echoes which make it change and grow faster.

This is my thoughts on it I hope you will all comment and tell me what you think.

The Jolly Skull

We have. You aren't listening, or are couching your claim in different language and repeating it.

No, the technomages were 100% normal technology, with silly tricks and labels. Technomancers are *magic*. Just not mana-based.

Sprites only make sense if you think of them as Matrix Spirits who get to cheat.

It's even easier: Edition change did it.

4th ed introduced a wireless matrix, so Otaku needed to become wireless, too.

To connect to Astral Space there needs to be a mana-sphere. To get to the Meta Planes, there needs to be a connection to Astral Space.

For TM's to connect to the Matrix need a wireless environment. To connect to the Ressonance, there needs to be a Matrix.

Technomancers are hurt by being in space due to a small (restrictive) matrix environment. The hurt comes in a different fashion than it does for the mages, but there is still some hurth there.

What you really should be afraid of is that apparently only Machine sprites have the inhabitation power now, wait till there is a sprite with materialization.

I'm tinkering on an explanation that goes roughly as follows:

Technomancers are people with a brain that can adapt itself and it's body psychosomatically. This manifests as an ability to interpret and interface with the matrix (all in the brain), body reconfiguration to pick up and send out radio signals, and eventually to channel digital signals into the body (biowires and such.)

In other words, nothing magical going on, and it's no surprise that this first manifested as Otaku. However, the Crash 2.0 changed the Matrix in a way that made "matching" of potential technomancers to the Matrix easier. There are no classical Otaku because those were a product of Matrix 1.0

Why is Essence loss bad for Technomancers? It screws with their own "body reprogramming".

As for the Deep Resonance: that's partially superstition; the Awakening caused people to blame anything odd on metaplanes. The Matrix is wholly in ordinary "prime material" reality, but it IS quite complex and exhibits emergent properties such as the Deep Resonance. It mostly lurks in the "deep matrix" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web)



Of course, this is just one interpretation, and it does take Technomances in a different direction than Catalyst, but I'm not so sure I like their direction.

How do you explain Biowires?

Something similar to the thing the bene gesuits from dune could do, a complete control of the nerve structure above normal human control. When linked in with a patten of responses such as a skill soft you have a very much updated reflex.

Well, like i said: Skinlink echo, the biotrodes echo (or whatever it is called) and the ability to "screw the rules, i have resonance" is what ticks me off. Maybe more echoes, don't remember them all.

Selfprogramming is ok, i guess. But i think we all agree that the technomance really need some "cutting down"

My problem is, in a group with a Technomancer, why would anyone ever play a rigger/hacker?

If everything factually impossible, illogical or "that's not how the world ticks, sorry" was struck from the matrix rules, the matrix chapter would be like ten pages long. Intro fiction included. And it would be boring as hell, "I'll just start my decrypt program and start saving for a leonization treatment".

In the long term technos can be scary partcularly in their specialised area but I think a rigger / hacker is just as viable long term. Yes they will cap their primary dice pools relatively quickly but they also can spread out their skills and be more rounded.

Plus from a fluff RP side of things being a hacker with some nice ware is less tricky then being something alot of corps want to get their hands on and pull apart to see how they work. Give it twenty years and techno's will be as normal as mages are in 2070 rareish but not so rare you havent seen them on the trid

I know this is maybe a bit off topic, but since i'm running my games in 2053 atm, but using 4th edition rules, do you think i should/could use the TM rules for Otaku ?

Yes
Just don't allow biowires, or any of the wireless stuff.

I remember reading fluf where the otaku still had datajacks in their heads.
SO, I'd allow someone wanting toplay a TM to had an datajack implant with 0 essence cost (in relation to resonance.)

OOOOOOOOOOOO I like this description of what the frak they are it works well and makes sense.


The Technomages are technomancers they use tech in unique ways that give them spell like abilties similar to haow a technomancer could do if the have enough tech around them and sprites.


Jolly Skull

The TM would have to choose between a rigger skillset and a complete set of hacking CFs. So there would be one slot left to fill.

I'm still sticking by my original statement that Deep Resonance/Dissidence was shattered and it's death knell warped certain people's astral code, using the portion that would normally cause a magical awakening, but instead cased a TM awakening instead. Once the awakening occurred, the TM acted against technology as if the changes in their body were technological (hence their ability to use their abilities in space). The question is, do they need to be in the biosphere to improve their abilities, or is being in the comsphere (the area where communication with Earth is possible) replace the biosphere that mages rely on?

Also I'm not sure the Biosphere thing is a 100% accurate.
After all Hale's comet had a huge impact on magic on Earth. And it was literally millions of miles away

A little expansion on my origin of the technomancer theory... it is an awakening but instead of biological life it is of "digital" life. Even without brining in AIs for "sentient" life, the complexity and ubiquity of electronics, computers, etc across the world reached a level of complexity close enough to that of the biosphere. All the wires, networks, computers, wireless signals, programs, minds interacting with the matrix, AIs, etc combined with the ever rising magic levels caused the matrix to begin to wake up.

Traditional mages right now are totally attuned to the magic generated by the biosphere and technomancers the magic generated by the matrix. Eventually (in my timeline) the two will grow closer and there will be bleed over and eventually become one field. This will allow magicians access to the matrix as a metaplane, technomancers to hack reality, and normal folks to look at stuff in AR. Course it will also leave the world open to a new form of horror invasion


I've never understood the need to separate psionics and magic. The only difference I've ever seen is that sci-fi novels use psionics and fantasy novels use magic. They also use different words to describe basically the same effect. Both sometimes use pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo to explain themselves or sometimes it is always mysticism.... the force and SR magic are both explained as coming from life force. Some people like to separate them... I don't see how they are.

In SR canon they clearly state that people who believe in psionics are deluded... it is all magic. But I don't see why anyone can't bring it in if they want. The danger is having them completely separate and requiring totally different defenses. I played in a D&D game where the GM had wood for psionics and had it completely separate from magic so that no saving throw would save against psionics except for a psionic save... which only psionics had. Psionics completely dominated the game and it was about as fun as getting punched in the nads.

On a side not regarding Babylon 5 Technomancers... they had no magic only science obscured with mysticism to frighten the norms (helps they had hoarded tons of advanced alien tech and shared the knowledge with nobody outside their clique). The B5 spinoff Crusade got to show a little more Technomancer action and he was just using nano-technology along with a host of other real technology.

The difference between Psionics and Magic (in my mind anyway), is that Magic is external to the mage. He taps the energy from around him. Psions tap the energy in their mind/soul.

Also, rstehwien, your DM was a fragging dick. Most, if not all, offensive Psionic powers in D&D had regular saving throws to resist them. You should have asked to read the rules so you could point it out to him and then dreadsocked* him.

* == Dreadsocking is take an old Warhammer 40K Space Marine Dreadnought (a pewter mini weighing in at about 2 to 3 lbs), putting it into a sock and then smashing it into the head of the obnoxious asshole who's pissing you off.

That goes under the concept that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Except there were some episodes in Crusade that clearly made it distinguishable. Yes, the whole point was to pretend to be 'magic', but they all knew it was just nano-thing and wireless-that.

You can mentally translate the Activesoft into signals to natural nerves instead of to skillwires? That one's easy. The unlikely one is the WiFi "antenna".

I might cut out the natural WiFi from adepts and give them digital memory instead. WiFi as an echo at [Submersion Grade] perhaps.



Yeah, I'll be working on a more temperate version of technomancers once I get done setting up neater basic matrix rules. (Could be a while yet.)



That's a way of theorizing about it. Personally I don't want technomancers to be magical, or even "supernatural" at all. What they do is physically possible, it's just weird and unlikely to evolve without AIs tinkering with people. The Resonance Realms are just a place in the deep bowels of the Matrix; if you had the proper interface programs, an ordinary hacker could also access them. However, technomancy simply hasn't been completely reverse-engineered yet.



I'm leaning towards the principle that if two styles use the same power source, their rules should be unified; cosmological constants should be coded into "class rules", but fashion sense shouldn't.

Also, I don't get why they thought psionics are deluded; in a sense, they're entirely correct. You don't need physical tools for magic. You don't need chanting or crystals. Spirits certainly could come from your subconscious or the collective unconscious. Any traditionalistic style elements are just a legacy; psionics are modern, a clean stripped-down version with a minimum of superstition.



Those were so stupid. *Shiver* Babylon 5 on the whole did a pretty good job on mixing sci-fi with mysticism, but the technomages were just silly.

Just... WOW...

Well, because you are possibly better in some areas? My hacker is generally better at things than our Technomancer... He has other abilities that I do not possess (Biowire and Skinlink for example), but I am generally at least on par Hacking Wise, and better at many Hacking options that he just has no real skill in at all, and I have WAY more subscription availability than he does...

Some may say that it is because the Technomancer is non-optimal... but I don't really agree with that... they are 2 completely different archtypes, so they will both have their own strengths and weaknesses relative to each other...

Anyways... Opinions vary, and the are very interesting to read...