Actually, that would be a World where Man meets Magic and Machine, would it not? Somehow, I always thought that was a central theme in Shadowrun.

i've long held the idea that what AIs in shadowrun really want is to get the hell off this stupid planet where these unpredictable magic freaks hang out and into beautiful, mana-free space, where the resonance can flourish undisturbed by idiot organic magical lizard things. so that might be one way the whole machine versus magic thing could play out.

And that settles the question of their economic impact.

Except AI's have literally nothing to do with Resonance at all. Deus MAY have converted himself into some Dissonant... Thing, but he really couldn't be considered as an AI at that point any more, because he'd have become a decidedly different entity.

The irony is that magic has clear limits on what it can hypothetically do, in addition to drain and any other limitations the user may face. Nanites don't


I think it was in some Tom Clancy novel (I sometimes feel the need to read dumb stuff for the dumbness of it, don't ask) that had the appropriate comparison: "That's like calling gang rape a minor social deviation".


He has a point in the former, but it does not matter since unfortunately the latter is untrue: Nanites are a one-time investment (since they do not actually degrade unless exposed to the immune system) and if they ever break, oh well, buy some cheap stuff which does roughly the same and reprogram them...


Assuming the worst possible interpretation you get the worst possible outcome. Who would have thought?

Well, since they are both fiction, it largely depends on the writing. And it's the same as with this next point:
You can address the problems with rebalancing. (I leave it to Fatum to address the price issue, if he wants to.)

Nah, it's like calling gang rape deviant behaviour. Which it totally is.

I don't think mine is the worst possible interpretation. That would be something like, you cannot do cybersurgery at all and anything but the most basic maintenance of augmentations is impossible. But we have been over this.

Nanites are supposed to be technology and not magic, accordingly they at least have to pretend playing by the rules of science (funnily enough, the intro of M&M talked about the need to make tech seem believable...). The rules of science say that you cannot arbitrarily scale down a robot and still expect it to work. The most sophisticated writing cannot make precision manufacturing in a moshpit more convincing.

I would have actually been really supportive had they merged the SR 2050 project with SR5 as a restart. Who in the 80's or 90's could have imagined how much has changed with the internet and cell phones. With all the changes we've seen, the changes to the Internet underway now to accommodate the mobile market may be even bigger than what has come before.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/201...s-going-mobile/

As much as I loved the previous editions of SR, I thought SR4 was a major step in the right direction to keep SR from becoming dated SciFi.

"Nanopunk" is already dated. Shadowrun is already hitching itself to the next big buzzwords "cloud computing." I'm sure SR6 will adapt to whatever the next big thing is after that goes the way of PETS.COM.

BigDataRun?

I suggested Femtotechnology

The real problem is the "run" part, who uses their legs anymore? I suggest Shadowsegway. An idea that firmly plants me in the retro camp, I might add.

The FMC approves of this.

That... That.... That is just wrong on so many levels.

Its the Chair Force, what do you expect?

Upgrade to the Ares-Segway Terrier, or similar variant. It's got a seat belt and backrest so you can be upright and mobile while wholly in VR. By the artwork it even looks like it can navigate stares without too much difficulty.

Quick survey among women confirms my suspicion, that guy is totally not handsome enough to qualify for the Wish Fulfillment Fantasy Corps.