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hermit
Smedman's novels also always furthered the metaplot, concluding several pouints. It's hard to believe she didn't get guidance there. [edited]
Grinder
Good point.
Grinder
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 20 2011, 08:31 PM) *
Shadowrun Line Development still was happening.


If you're trying to get every thread and every second posting of yours into "how much CGL fucked up Shadowrun", you're on a good way to become a voice nobody's listen to any longer after a while. Just sayin'...
hermit
Yeah, you're right. But it was happening then, surely. People may not agree with Mulvihill's choices, but he DID have a relatively good grip on things.

Edited.
Sengir
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 20 2011, 07:09 PM) *
Sure, but considering back in the day novels and sourcebooks were much closer coordinated in terms of broad background, I tend to give the novels more credit for such things (not anything that the rules simulate).

Like the spider totem and weird shapeshifter in the Secrets of Power novels? You know, the ones written by one of the guys who invented Shadowrun and co-authored the sourcebooks...
hermit
QUOTE
Like the spider totem and weird shapeshifter in the Secrets of Power novels? You know, the ones written by one of the guys who invented Shadowrun and co-authored the sourcebooks...

I would be unaware that the adventure module Total Eclipse - that directly builds on the Spider Totem event - wouldn't be canon anymore, or the whole 'Dodger's fetish generates the first version of Morgan the AI' event that is the basis for the entire AI storyline. So yes, this is canon, even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare (I don't like those books myself, but meh).
Grinder
So writers fucked up their research on SR canon and brought up a lot of silly ideas in sourcebooks and novels, no difference if FASA, FanPro or CGL released the books? Wow. What a surprise. grinbig.gif
hermit
The early storylines, at least, were intentional and directed, novels included (please note I'm refering to the novels' stories, NOT the novels' portrayals of combat or magic that should follow the rules). That stopped only when, much later, leading up to the FanPro era, english novels were discontinued (and you can still find the Heintz novels referenced a lot in German sourcebooks) and definitly after CGL took over.

Basically, though, the problems with SR canon started when Findley and Sargent died in short order. Canon never recovered from this.
Grinder
Carl Sargent is dead?
hermit
To my best knowledge, yes.
Grinder
And died shortly after Nigel Findley who passed away in 1995? Do you have any sources for that?
hermit
Hm.

Wiki says he is just severely disabled. Then there is this Parapsy forum discussion about him which claims it is not so clear ... but also mentions 1995 as the year where he vanished.

Rob Boyle once told me he just vanished, but he was just a small supporter at FASA back then, so he also stated he just doesn't really know.

And now it gets interesting: This list claims he was writing things for WHF as late as 2005.
Grinder
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 21 2011, 12:52 PM) *
And now it gets interesting: This list claims he was writing things for WHF as late as 2005.


QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 21 2011, 11:29 AM) *
Basically, though, the problems with SR canon started when Findley and Sargent died in short order. Canon never recovered from this.

hermit
Okay, I was under the impression he died. As is, it seems, he was mashed up in a car crash, and then wrote something in 2005 again (though that could also be WHF using previously unpublished works of his ...).

Still, Sarget's and Findley's vanishing (by death and otherwise) from SR - which was abrupt in both cases - dealt SR Canon a blow from which it never recovered.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 21 2011, 05:48 AM) *
Okay, I was under the impression he died. As is, it seems, he was mashed up in a car crash, and then wrote something in 2005 again (though that could also be WHF using previously unpublished works of his ...).

Still, Sarget's and Findley's vanishing (by death and otherwise) from SR - which was abrupt in both cases - dealt SR Canon a blow from which it never recovered.


I cannot disagree more... Canon has survived the disappearance of Many, Many, writers over the past 20 years...
Drace
Don't have any quotes for the work Sargent did on the WFRP books, but both of those books had been on the burner and had stuff written for them back in early 2003/4-ish that I had seen, and were released pretty early on in the 2nd editions life (Like a few months after the core release). Wouldn't shock me if it was already written and was just put through later on, since there is nothing from 95 till 05 and then only two things, and there was alot of material released in a short order, more than what they could have easily written as they went.
hermit
Slightly more on topic, that the Deep Resonance is an entity that has an agenda has been established right in VR 2.0.
Sengir
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 21 2011, 08:43 AM) *
I would be unaware that the adventure module Total Eclipse - that directly builds on the Spider Totem event - wouldn't be canon anymore, or the whole 'Dodger's fetish generates the first version of Morgan the AI' event that is the basis for the entire AI storyline. So yes, this is canon, even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare (I don't like those books myself, but meh).

I was talking about these "fleshforms" which seemingly got spontaneously created by the Spider spirit/totem thing.
hermit
QUOTE
I was talking about these "fleshforms" which seemingly got spontaneously created by the Spider spirit/totem thing.

Ah. Yes. That was weird, and retconned as a transformation of the Spider totem through Saint Sam the least faithful dog shaman ever's Big Can Of Asskick opened on spider. Whatever. It still remains canon. Of course, that could lead to unfortunate things like flesh-form cat, dog, wolf and fox spirits ...
Sengir
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 22 2011, 05:01 PM) *
It still remains canon.

Far Country also is canon in CBT...every universe has that kind of skeletons in its closet, which are technically canon, but shall be ignored for all eternity.
hermit
Never said the fleshforms shouldn't be (and I'm not interested enough in BT for this reference - what's the gist?).
Brazilian_Shinobi
QUOTE (Sengir @ Jan 22 2011, 03:27 PM) *
Far Country also is canon in CBT...every universe has that kind of skeletons in its closet, which are technically canon, but shall be ignored for all eternity.


Star Wars christmas special... rollin.gif
hermit
Muah. Actually, stuff from that is referenced in the Expanded Universe, notably the Chewbacca family.

Glove of Darth Vader!
Demonseed Elite
Ah, the otaku...

First off, Mirage is very likely not the Deep Resonance. Mirage was a support program developed by Echo Mirage to help the cybersoldiers who battled the Crash Virus, which then subsequently awakened to an artificially intelligent, sentient state. Yes, there were otaku who believed Mirage was the Deep Resonance. There were otaku who believed Deus was the Deep Resonance. But the overall experience of the otaku seems to indicate that the Deep Resonance is something separate and outside of the artificial intelligences who shepherded and--in some cases--manipulated otaku. The artificial intelligences may have had a better understanding of what the Deep Resonance is than the otaku did, though they never explicitly said so. The artificial intelligences did show an ability to be able to create limited otaku or improve upon otaku in some way. Yes, Deus was able to create otaku who could use their Channels only within the SCIRE. Yes, Mirage was able to create adult otaku, though it is important to note that these adult otaku were never said to be immune to Fading. The details are a bit sketchy on what would have happened with Mirage's otaku, since most of them are now dead and Hitomi has been strangely silent of late.

Another important note: not all otaku were shepherded by an AI. The majority of otaku, in fact, had nothing to do with Mirage, Deus, or Morgan, at least to their knowledge. Their experience with the Deep Resonance was not knowingly any interaction with an AI.

Deus' Network was independent of his otaku. Compiling his code did not require the Network's nodes to be otaku; they simply needed to be able to connect their brains to the Matrix. Deus was certainly investigating ways to make his nodes as fit and covert as possible, however, which may have encouraged his research into creating otaku.
Fatum
[citation needed]
Adarael
This isn't Wikipedia. Trust me, DSE knows his shit.

But if you want a citation, Virtual Realities 2.0, Renraku Arcology Shutdown, Brainscan, and System Failure should all do nicely.

Edit: Also, Matrix, and Target: Matrix.
Fatum
Minding that those same books have been quoted up there in the thread to prove exactly the opposite, ehhhhhh...
Demonseed Elite
Not everyone knows me, but I wrote the otaku chapter in Matrix. I also wrote all of the Deus sections of System Failure and a chunk of Brainscan (which was a book I pitched to FASA). I also wrote pieces of Target: Matrix. Otaku were a very big hobby of mine during my SR3 writing. Demonseed Elite is even the name of my otaku character I played on Shadowland.org (the website created by Dave Hyatt, one of the two guys behind Renraku Arcology: Shutdown).

I caution anyone about using the novels to define canon. The novels don't always play well with the sourcebooks. Not only on the topic of otaku, but in general. That's been a point of contention with canon-watchers as long as I've been following Shadowrun. The novels generally aren't checked as closely for canon, because the authors are given a lot of leeway to write their story. Novels aren't written in the same collaborative pool as the sourcebooks are. I know first-hand that on the topic of otaku, we (the sourcebook writers) tried to support the material in Psychotrope and Technobabel while simultaneously "course-correcting" to make it fit what the game writers wanted to do with otaku.
Sengir
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 22 2011, 09:16 PM) *
Never said the fleshforms shouldn't be (and I'm not interested enough in BT for this reference - what's the gist?).

Which is why I linked the wiki entry wink.gif
hermit
Sentient chicken .... and the usual fascist people breeding fantasies that always put me off BT. Weird storyline, but that's the norm in BT. But sentient chicken ...
Sengir
QUOTE (hermit @ Jan 23 2011, 03:45 PM) *
Sentient chicken .... and the usual fascist people breeding fantasies that always put me off BT. Weird storyline, but that's the norm in BT. But sentient chicken ...

Well, the point is that something which is totally violates canon, namely sentient alien life (and yes, this has been stated by the devs), still appears in a source which is technically part of the canon. So even if a canon SR novel explicitly said "Hi, my name is Psychotrope and I'm the Deep Resonance", that would not neccessarily make it a fact.
hermit
Point takenb, though, since this is a part of a nibbed-in-the-bud plotline that was canceled - apparently - because of the no ysentient aliens dogma, it's slightly different from the Shadowrun AI plotline that was never discontinued or shoved to the side.
Fatum
QUOTE (Demonseed Elite @ Jan 23 2011, 04:52 PM) *
Not everyone knows me, but I wrote the otaku chapter in Matrix. I also wrote all of the Deus sections of System Failure and a chunk of Brainscan (which was a book I pitched to FASA). I also wrote pieces of Target: Matrix. Otaku were a very big hobby of mine during my SR3 writing. Demonseed Elite is even the name of my otaku character I played on Shadowland.org (the website created by Dave Hyatt, one of the two guys behind Renraku Arcology: Shutdown).

Oh, I see. I beg your pardon, guess your statements are to be believed after all :3

So. You are to blame for all that... uhhh... let's just say "peculiarity"... that is otaku and the whole otaku-technomancer plot? Thank you, thank you, I can truly not thank you enough - they are such beautiful unique snowflakes, the setting is infinitely better with them!
Demonseed Elite
QUOTE (Fatum @ Jan 24 2011, 10:08 AM) *
So. You are to blame for all that... uhhh... let's just say "peculiarity"... that is otaku and the whole otaku-technomancer plot? Thank you, thank you, I can truly not thank you enough - they are such beautiful unique snowflakes, the setting is infinitely better with them!


I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not, but to be accurate, the otaku originated long before I was writing for Shadowrun. But I was involved in the Deus plotline (which was started by Dave Hyatt and Brian Schoner, two fantastic writers who I knew from shadowland.org) and I did a lot of work on otaku in SR3.

Overall, I'm very happy with the Deus plotline. It wasn't perfect and some inconsistencies were outside our control, but I really enjoyed working on it. Even though I worked on the rules for otaku player characters, I always personally felt they made better NPC plot devices and introducing them as player characters started a slippery slope of balance issues that continues to this day in technomancers (which I argued against including in Shadowrun 4E, but was soundly overruled on).
hermit
The Deus storyline in itself is okay, though Brainscan is an adventure nobody will ever get out of alive if played by the book.

You were very right about Otaku PC, though.
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