Oh, hey, cool. You wrote that. Maybe you can help with the thought process behind it? In what way, shape, or form do the people who built all this less than a decade ago have no idea how their own infrastructure works? Who maintains it? Who signs the checks for the power, cooling, and deployment budgets? To quote a post elsewhere, are there rogue AI agents running around Seattle, placing mesh-aware toasters in strategic locations?

Call me wrong if I'm wrong, but that whole passage reads to me as cargo-cult SF, something I'd expect out of Halo where advanced technology is a relic of some civilization who knew what to do with it, not one that built out and deployed an entire new Matrix paradigm in less time than it takes to get the next release of Windows.

Damnit, not able to buy the book yet due to budgeting until later in the month, but think I am going to have some fun with some of the concepts being introduced here when I get it.

Foundation sounds... interesting. And even if it does sort of sound kind of wonky and psuedomystical, I will have to read through it all to see how it all comes together.

It may totally crash and burn, I can already see some problems resulting from this.

Not least among them that the matrix is possibly being backboned by an electronic entity that they do not even really have any clue about.

Sure Foundation may be more analogous to being a metaplane, but we could also be seeing a larger entity and can totally see corps and governments stomping all over it ignorantly or not so ignorantly with the usual idea they have the right to do whatever they want to whoever they choose.

I dunno, it definitely sounds cool. It does raise unfortunate questions like "how the hell do they maintain the whole thing", let alone hack it (or write rules for those points), but in terms of initial evocativeness the idea of a matrix that works and nobody knows why has a certain something.

These questions are left intentionally unanswered. We have answers, we are just not sharing them, for now.You'll need to accept the mystery. We're leaving room for growth.

So you got an editorial edict to shoehorn in more The Matrix Is Magic and couldn't think of a better way to do it?

Edit : That was pretty rude, sorry. But that non-answer and petty gloating over 'we already got you to pay for it!' is pretty frustrating in the face of yet another splatbook that's got what read as some seriously questionable moments in writing and rules construction.

What's that's line about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic?

What we did NOT do is try to make sense of the matrix using modern knowledge. I'm a software engineer and Aaron is a computer science teacher, so it was very, very willful not to try to explain the technicality of it. There is internal logic to the idea, but we don't care to fully define all the details. We did not go "hey this foundation thing is awesome, players are gonna love it. Oh but wait, who maintains it? Oh you're right, let's scrap the whole thing".

This is an anology I've used before, but I write like Alien, the first one, was written. Do you realize how little is explained in that movie? You just go with it. And it's an awesome movie. And around those years, that 70s sci fi, you didn't explain, and that was fine. Somewhere around the 90s, you could no longer tell a story without explaining everything.

It's a style choice. Some Cartesian people are gonna lose their shit. I don't care. They'll either discover the beauty of the unknown, or not. I hope they close their eyes and take a leap, but I can't force them. I can prod and nudge and show the incentive to doing so, but can't hold everyone's hand.

We have more answers than Data Trails provides, that is for sure. Some we don't answer cause we're holding back, and when we release more, holy shit it's gonna be even more messed up than you can imagine. Other stuff we don't explain cause it's trivial and technicality and doesn't add anything to the game, other than constraints on future authors.

but how do you even build a system when you don't understand what the heck you're doing?

i mean, i don't just wander around, find a car engine, and go "oh hey, i'm just gonna build this into a helicopter without having any idea how it works", and i especially don't somehow magically keep the engine functioning without having the slightest clue how it works.

and for that matter, if this is the basis of the matrix (which supposedly nobody, not even the people who designed it, understands), how can the collective power of all the devices in the world exist *before* the matrix for you to build something on top of that?

Alien explains everything it needs to. It presents an alien organism, shows us it's life-cycle, and gives us the idea that there are more of them, all in the form of a suspense film. This is not that sort of situation, unless you're going to posit that the Matrix is an unknowable other that comes from outside human experience, despite being built, maintained, and used entirely by humans with human-developed technology for two generations by the 2070's. At that point, you've lost verisimilitude.

You're talking about a unprecedently massive, worldwide Ultraviolet system. As we've already established for the last fifteen years, UV systems require a massive amount of processing power and memory to function. Are you telling us that the megacorps are willingly paying for that much power, cooling, parts, maintenance labor, bandwidth, and GOD spiders beyond what they actually need and never demanding an accounting of what their money is going for? That they're throwing the equivalent of the resources of small nations into running the Matrix and don't have an accurate profit analysis of what that spending is getting them?

That's a little hard to swallow.

Well first of all, anything written in character is always to be challenged. The empirical evidence of one dude, while it counts for something, doesn't represent the full extent of reality. But in general, as I said, the takeaway here is the the full mechanisms of functioning are top, top, top secret. Think of it like, say, a level building Shadowrun Returns. You don't know how all the code behind it works, but you can create levels. You can see it as the creators of the foundation having built a framework (or.... dare I say... a foundation) and then distributing toolkits to organizations that build hosts on top of it. You don't need to know how the foundation works, just how to use your toolkit to build a host. There certainly ARE people that know exactly how the foundation works. And like I said, more on that later, one day.

In regards to the timeline I have no paid attention to that part or been involved in those discussion of things so cannot answer one way or another.

To you. Nobody else has brought it up. Not saying other don't share that concern, and there is certainly a tremendous fog of war over what most fans think, but we have sufficient knowledge of the fan base to say "that's not important". We're writing books for mass audience. Those books have limited word counts AND have to be interesting to *most* people. So, we focus on what *most* people are gonna care about.

But the GREAT thing about PnP RPGs is that the game dogma police is busy elsewhere, so if you and your group are super precise people that need these answers, you can make them up. You can even share your thoughts with other like-minded gamers.

There are people that read SR and go "Orks? Trolls? Elves? Fuck this game". Does that mean we cut them out of the game? Magic? I'm not saying your objections aren't thought out. But I'm not gonna break too much of a sweat over it. Some precision is going to be the casualty of making a game thousands of people need to like.

I feel this is one of the biggest problems with the present books. If you're writing on a splatbook, you should probably have a rough idea of the timeline of events that led to the present status quo before trying to take it off into left field. The info's a three second Google search for 'Shadowrun Timeline' away.



That said, Foundation has game rules that substantially confirm the fluff as written. We generally don't have a lot of immediate discussion of new books here anymore because a lot of the old players have quit buying them at least until a few reviews have come in and/or they can stop by their FLGS and page through a hardcopy, due to the continual quality control issues. I only have a copy because one of my players wanted new tricks for his Technomancer and thus bought it for me.

It is a benefit of P&P games that we can do whatever. The thing is, we're specifically playing Shadowrun as opposed to any of the dozens of other available systems in the market for a reason. God knows it isn't the consistency and editorial quality of the rules. In the vast majority, people are here for the setting. One of the only special things Shadowrun has going for it is that it is a well developed, long-running setting with a strong history and well established theme and genre. Sure, any decent GM can just wing it, but the point of bothering to pay your employers for their products is that they have theoretically competent professional staff and writers producing content that fits into the established setting, and saves us the trouble of having to extrapolate it all ourselves.

This strikes me less an issue of 'some precision', and more an issue of a writing staff who self-admittedly know their setting less well than their customer base and don't care to bother changing that.

Shrug. I said everything I was going to.

Thanks for chiming on this. Certainly will be interesting to look at when I get a chance.

So will the forthcoming TM book reveal more along these lines or are we looking at just an options book for TMs and play?

I don't know what it's the TM book, sorry.

Foundation = Otherland?

the people who design levels for shadowrun returns using the toolkit may not know the exact code of the main software, but i bet if you ask a competent and experienced software developer what sorts of things go into a game like shadowrun returns they could give you lots of specific answers about typical things that are used to make it work.

i mean, they couldn't reproduce the code. but if you told them "hey, i want something that has all the same functions as shadowrun returns", they could probably make something that while not identical is pretty close.

or, in other words, they may not know the specifics, but they're not going to stare at me blankly and say "i don't have any understanding for how that program does what it does".

Sooner or later we will run into that problem. So to make better, smaller, and more efficient microprocessors we've actually been letting computers design them for years now. People understand the concept, but the processors are beyond the ability for humans to design anymore and is just left to algorithms. Sooner or later we'll get computers to program themselves and optimize their own code, and it'll become very difficult to understand exactly what's happening.

Hell, the same thing is true with high level computer languages. I be damned if I know how machine code works, but I know Javascript. I understand how Javascript as an abstraction works, but I don't understand how it gets turned into 0's and 1's, I don't understand how my Intel processor is able to crunch those 0's and 1's and give me the variables i need. The entire concept of the Matrix is that the code is so complex they need a full sensory 3D visual metaphor to make sense of it. Like a web site. The web is a 2D representation of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Below that is we got back end servers written in .NET, Java, Ruby, NodeJS, or whatever. Below that we got the operating system; Windows or Linux. Below that we got the machine code, which almost no one understands that but machines.

With the Matrix, the only thing people see is the 3D Virtual Reality. They probably won't even write in "high level" languages as we know it. They probably have an even HIGHER level language. Hell, they probably just talk to a program with native English, and it writes everything for them. Its actually not that unfeasible for technology to be that advance in 60 years that our current paradigms in programing are completely obsolete.

So the idea that the Matrix itself works but no one really knows how is very plausible.

If I'm understanding Blackjaw correctly (yay, playing telephone with books), the worldwide UV system exists from clustering every matrix device together. That's already how data transmission works, now they have press-ganged your spare CPU cycles as well

But the stuff about the "foundation" really sounds (from our telephone game) a bit like discussing alien technology: There are these weird objects of unfathomable technological spohistication and we figured out that if we press on the button with those eldrich runes, it does what we want 99% of the time.


@Deathstrobe: What those algorithms do for processor design is basically the equivalent of finding the most efficient way to stack all your stuff into a box. The output isn't some mysterious alien device, it's still a box holding your stuff in an arrangement you could as well have arrived at, only you would have spend years packing and unpacking the box.

you or i may not understand all that stuff, but someone with the right training does. do i understand machine code? not really. i mean, i've done some coding for microprocessors (very simple stuff only), but practically speaking, no i don't. but if i studied it, no problem. even without that in-depth study, i understand some of the principles behind it.

the problem is not some random character not knowing how it works. the problem is that apparently *nobody* knows how it works. not the designers, not the techs, not the hackers, nobody. and not just "we don't know the specific code", but basically "we don't have the slightest clue about the basic principles on which this system functions, we just know it reacts in certain ways to certain stimuli".

and while that may not be a huge jump for 60 years from our tech, the problem there is that in-setting, there were only a few months of technological progression, and at the start of those months, (meta)humans were the ones doing all the coding and designing for the most part.

furthermore, there is massive paranoia in the setting about not understanding matrix phenomena. the only reason the corps are afraid of technomancers is that they don't understand what they can do. the matrix was specifically designed for security against this kind of semi-mystical crap happening. it has been designed in the aftermath of super-AIs repeatedly screwing the world over through the matrix, with the specific goal of preventing that from happening, and yet the entire thing can only plausibly (and i use that term loosely) be explained if the very basis of the matrix is essentially a super-powerful AI using human meat-puppets to do its bidding, and nobody seems to have a problem with this. or alternately, everyone is dumb enough to believe that the foundation of the matrix, upon which the entire thing is built, and thus had to exist before the matrix was built, is an amalgamation of all the devices in the world which could not have communicated effectively until *after* the matrix was built.

though to be fair, the wireless matrix does appear to be capable of time travel if the wireless bonus system is any indication, so hey, maybe it actually is a gigantic temporal paradox. the matrix was actually built and is currently maintained by people from 2170 who have perfect stealth technology and who literally send commands back through time, but can only do so wirelessly. maybe most of the matrix traffic actually is from 2170, who knows?

Already expert systems and robots are starting to have a simulated 'childhood' to learn their own optimal way of doing things. I.E. one recent poker program which is doing well (http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/), started off with ridiculous numbers of simulated hands. The program played against copies of itself, starting with no strategy at all, only with the built in rewards of winning. The program itself gradually developed winning strategies, including bluffing and calling bluffs. Likewise software for robots has been put in a simulator and encouraged to find all sorts of ways to do things, which it can then use to adapt to real world challenges (listen about it here: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/quirks-quar...pped-1.3093136) For example, when they were going to do one of the first demonstrations, cleaning staff had come in the night before and waxed and polished the floor in order to make things look good for the guests. When they started up the robot is was slipping too much to walk properly....but based on its 'childhood memories' it soon found a gait that worked on the slippery surface.

Are there people who understand these pieces of software? Yes. Do they know what that software will do in all situations? No, and nobody easily can, because although all the data is available, the only way to really understand what the software will do with all that data is to run the software. As more and more software does more and more learning, in order to become more robust and adaptable, we are going to be farther and farther from really understanding it. Heck, if this process creates something that creates huge effeciences, but seems hostile to being meddled with, who is to say it won't get implemented and copied?

yes, but in the shadowrun setting, it went from everything being fully understood and nothing being designed by machines, to the humans just standing there with no clue what happened, in a few months.

and nobody is worried about that at all in a setting where the whole damn point of the new matrix was supposed to be keeping the super-powerful AIs from screwing over humanity. again. for, like, the 10th time. the immediate response to "we're not sure how it works, it seems to have been designed by something we can't even understand" should have been to kill it with fire, then burn it to ashes, then burn the ashes, then subject the ashes to repeated EMPs, then hurl the ashes into the sun's core just in case that whole process somehow results in it developing mutant powers or something like that.

and then start from scratch with tech that they CAN understand, and which hasn't clearly been designed by the very thing they most desperately want to have excluded from the very beginning.

I agree You and I as reasonably normal folk would be in favour of the burn it with fire option, but the corps just don't think that way.

Somewhere a board of corp heads will decide they can somehow control it, even though they can't even explain or understand it, but will have some powerpoint to back up the idea that this is somehow a good thing for the bottom line and there we go down that rabbit hole again.

"They have designed new matrix protocols" is always merely a justification tacked on a redesign -- but what do you want instead? Three matrix versions concurrently, each with individual skills and ramshackle compatibility layers? Plot hooks like "extract the last person on earth who knows how to maintain this software" or "you need to move this server across town, if its ancient magnetic storage disks spin down we don't know if they'll ever start up again" (true story, we had to move an OS/2 server across campus under the same constraints, in 2010 or so) sound interesting, until it becomes a daily occurrence...

And yes, they had some time to test it before the public roll out. Which we know, because there is the story of Dodger testing it. So obviously some internal system to run the new matrix on existed before making it a worldwide cluster.


Agreed here. It's not like decisions done in the name of "security!!!!!" are always rational, but this sounds a bit occult.


Huh?


PS: Then again, this discussion got me even more anxious to finally read the book myself. From a marketing standpoint, Backgammon obviously did a great job

Actually, yes, that sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than just making the Matrix an analogue of Astral space circa SR3 and handwaving any idea that the setting needs to be internally consistent.

Heck, perfect spot to reinforce the strict class boundaries that make Cyberpunk work. Corps get the shiny, ever so locked down Matrix they'be always wanted for the consumer class of wageslaves. The wild and strange remnants of the pre Crash Matrix still chug along in places, patched together by necessity and hard work by the underclass and the console cowboys. Then there's the dark net, where the corps keep all their dirty secrets under glaciers worth of IC.

A lot more interesting opportunities for runs there too, rather than using the Foundation to create cookie cutter dungeon crawls lifted from Inception. Where every 'real' action is an analogue of programming, yet in order to make them remotely appealing at the table you are suggested to have your non-decker friends hitch along for Reasons.

I don't think anyone actually understood how SR4's Matrix worked either. I remember in one of the fluff where Fastjack attacks a Horizon Nexus and was saying how these kids didn't understand the code they were working with, but old Fastjack knew, because he had to program from command line back in the day. Which I find slightly silly, because I can't imagine typing commands is going to be very relevant to code as complex as what theoretically the Matrix is.

The mechanics even reinforce it. You need a computer program and the computer skill to make Matrix Perception test. Not a software test. In fact your knowledge of software is pretty pointless for the most part, aside from disarming data bombs and coding your own programs.

Note that you're reading one narrator, who may or may not be reliable, revealing what THEY know.

This may not be accurate, or it may well be.

The note upthread about using blocks is a good one ... scads of people use a video game engine, slap their own graphics on it, and release it into the first person wild with only minor tweaks. These people may not know exactly how the engine works, and they certainly don't know machine code, but they know "Remove this graphics pack and replace it with this other one to make it look like so."

You can also compare it to cooking. Eggs, flour, milk, water --> Cake! Do you know the chemical combination? The process by which these separate things become a new Thing, and why the batter reacts to heat the way it does? Or do you follow the instructions, pop it in the oven (Which, incidently, you can't build on your own), and ding! Break out teh frosting.

What you're seeing is that some people (Deckers, huzzah!) are trying to peal back the layers and see what's underneath. They know that this codetool does this, that codetool does that, and this hardware is better at doing stuff than teh old one, but they might not quite grok WHY. Some people are interested in that and are looking into it, and you'll probably see more talk of it later.

Of course, it should also be reminded that the Matrix utterly replaced the old Internet, and is based on code from the Crash Virus, which NOBODY has ever really understood. The Vrius might be an AI (And some think it became Alice, rather than Alice being uploaded by someone else), and some sources suggest that it's an alien code from offworld. True? Not true? We don't know, and there's lots about the original Crash Virus that, to the present Shadowrun day, nobody understands. Right now, they know that if you put THIS codenugget into your security programs, it can rewrite the neuro-pathways of hot-sim-running Deckers and injure, or even kill, them. You no more need to understand how it works than you have to understand how Lego bricks are chemically-composed, all you have to know is how to stick 'em together.

Shadowrun Matrix stuff has always been a bit handwavey in that regard. Look at the original source, like Gibson, who knew *nothing* about computers.

There is code.

Connect that code to this other code and Thing happens.

Why?

We don't know why, but we can replicate it.

Let's keep doing that and let somebody else figure out why.

Matrix!

*i* don't know why most of those things happen.

but someone does.

*i* can't build the stove.

but someone can.

and if i was completely insane and decided that i was willing to kidnap and torture people who build and/or fix stoves for a living, their answer to the question of "how does this stove work" would not be "i have no idea".

unless it is supposed to be a complete and utter lie, that character has information from people who *should* know how the matrix works. not just users of the matrix. but people who build, design, and maintain it for a living.

for them to not have the slightest idea how the whole thing works is stupid.

and if it is supposed to be a complete and utter lie, then it is a waste of words without someone else calling it out as a lie.

I think you overestimate people's knowledge.

Reminds me of when Richard Feynman was asked how magnets work.

Maybe Backgammon decidedthat an AI did build the "foundation" which would lead to the humans working on it only beeing technicians an hence having no clue on how the whole thing works.

Or a super NPC like Shadowrun has (a Leonardo-like character).


I trully do not read the same in the sentence like you do. To me, it means that the guy posting haven't found anyone yet that understand the thing. It implies that the true designers of the foundation are an exceptionnally small and secret group which makes, like backgammon hints, a good meta plot)

Either the Foundation is intended to explain the Deep Resonance, or it's quite nonsensical.

So the standard remains the SR4 matrix with ATT + Program and everything, if you hack into a corporate system it suddenly becomes the new SR5 matrix, and in places there's still ACIFS and 6M damage. Why not add CP2020 netrunning on top for good measure?

Black IC was based on the Crash Virus, not the matrix itself. And the origin of the Virus is Acquisition Technologies, with one of the principal programmers being a certain David Gavilan.

I have to agree with binarywraith here: any freelancer/ writer for a setting with a detailed history, metaplot, and timelike like Shadowrun needs to know most of the details. I find it highly irritating that a major splatbook like Data Trails can be written by someone without solid knowledge of the game's backstory.

isn't it more a Job of the Lector,Editor or Editor-in-Chief to have a solid Grip of the Shadowrun History and change everything needed ? To work through the text and talk with the Author about inconsistencies and discrepancies and to correct them ?
You can't expect a Freelancer to have an in depth knowledge ( I would wish for that, but I don't expect it)
but you should expect that from a professional Editor or Editor-in-Chief

with a corrected Dance
Medicineman

See that Word (Professional Editor/Editor -in-Chief) you are using? I do not think we have one currently.
In the end, if I am wrong on that account, then it is increasingly apparent that way too many things are slipping through his efforts, and maybe a new one should be looked into.

Yes, but are they meaning Proficient, aka Rating 4 with the descriptor of 'Professional level for most jobs.' or Professional, aka Rating 6?

Don't know about anyone else, but I am referring to "Veteran" with a Level of 7 in SR5, though I could allow Rating 6 "Professional." Given the length of time that those responsible have been doing this, I would expect nothing less. However, it seems like CGL has empowered someone far below either of those standards of quality.

Do you realize how long I've been around, pup? Don't accuse me of not knowing the timeline. My comment was in regards to the blow-by-blow of the Matrix since De La Mar. My assignment was "write 10k words on hosts". That does not require me to know how, exactly, we got to where we are, just that we are there. Now, I was involved in conversations to shape the Foundation, and I had my ideas, and I dare say a lot of the insanity originated from me, but the others tempered and reshape these ideas based on their knowledge, which did include the full timeline, because these are the guys that wrote that timeline. Chill. It's. It because you aren't aware of the full creative process that there isn't one.

Thinking any freelancer doesn't know Shadowrun is pretty ridiculous. Thinking any freelancer would blindly write shit without checking with peers that do is downright offensive.

You know what we call code when we can't identify how it functions? Untestable.

No coder in their right mind wants to deploy untestable code, because we know what happens when you do. See also Toyota's recent foray into multi-million dollar settlements because they used untestable spaghetti code in the firmware that controls some of their cars, leading to crashes and deaths.

That said, everything you ever wanted to know about how computers work is readily available with a bit of research. They aren't mysterious at all, save to the knowlessman. There are a lot of levels of detail to be worked through, and a significant understanding of maths is required, but all operating on recognized and documented principals. Why? Because computers are a collection of on/off logic gates. That's all.

Everything else is abstraction to make it easier to process for a human brain with a limited attention span and memory.

*sigh*

And yet we still get books of information that do not line up with what has come before, because the Freelancer does not take the time to read and internalize the information that he/she has readily available to them (not accusing anyone specific here, Backgammon, but it is a fact). If that were not the case, there would be far less in the way of pages long topics detailing what was left out/altered with no thought to what came before (No need to beat those dead horses again). Some of that is not on the Freelancers, but is on the Line Developer. But some of that has to be laid at the writer's feet.


Personally, I believe that most of the blame should fall on the Line Developer for not managing the line as it should be. Kind of hard for a writer to push out exceptional material when the Line Developer's vision is so muddied (or isn't even turned towards the product he is supposed to be managing). Maybe I am wrong, but that is what it seems to me.

+1

Adding to that: any freelancer should think twice before making off-hand statements about their knowledge of any given setting.

What Grinder says.

Alright, I think we're done here. Your perception is flawed but I see no reason why I'd invest the time to correct it, so feel free to consider yourself right.

Backgammon, these are your words...



So really, you cannot be incensed when someone challenges such statements. Either you pay attention to the timeline and things that are coming out or have come before, or you do not. According to your words above, You do not. Maybe they were ill-chosen words, but you are the one who chose them.

I know the word comes from the old Latin word incensaren - aka set on fire, but I can never see that without thinking covered with incense.

Somehow just more humorous.

Heh... Not sure I would want to be covered in Burning Incense (though non-burning incense would be interesting). But yes, it is humorous.

There is no history and metaplot. The matrix rules changed, no sane person wants to have five editions worth of different matrix rules (plus intermediate overhauls by Virtual Realities), therefore everything works according to the new rules.
Just like characters have gotten slower, faster, more constant or more variable in speed across editions, yet I'm not seeing anyone demanding an epic metaplot explaining why the variance of how much people get done in combat suddenly went up.

Yes, you feel free too, in that post-facts bubble you live in.

Worse art than previously in the edition. Also, qualities named after 2010ies internet memes, seriously?
Also, some shadowtalker names have periods after them and some don't, often on the same page.

A Complex Form simply to find the true purpose of a node or device? With obscure, long-forgotten bits of info on the subject?

You now need to be a submerged technomancer to use skinlink