Fatum
Jul 7 2015, 10:24 PM
QUOTE (Sengir @ Jul 8 2015, 12:32 AM)
Nothing in the 4th World came close Type III on the Kardashev scale. Artificial gravity and things we don't even have names for, on the other hand, might be just the kind of thing such a civilization could pull off...
[ Spoiler ]
Dragons. There are dragon skeletons on Mars, remember?
QUOTE (Sengir @ Jul 8 2015, 12:32 AM)
Essentially the Great Old Ones on steroids, so powerful that civilizations on the scale of (trans-)humanity simply don't register anymore.
Oh they do register, but let's go without spoilers.
Sengir
Jul 12 2015, 05:24 PM
QUOTE (Fatum @ Jul 8 2015, 12:24 AM)
Dragons. There are dragon skeletons on Mars, remember?
Of course I do, it's a storyline I've long wanted to see picked up again (long enough that I don't think spoilers are necessary). But a Type III civilization is defined as having a total energy consumption in the magnitude of the combined output of all stars in the Milky Way.
If dragons were able to operate at that level, Big L would simply sterilize Mars and then wrap the whole planet into a balloon animal.
Deckbeard
Jul 13 2015, 06:46 AM
Now correct me if I'm wrong, went the skeletons on Mars suppose to look LIKE a dragon but they weren't actually a dragon? Wrong number of toes or something?
I could be not remembering it correctly. Wasn't really playing when that was current.
Sendaz
Jul 13 2015, 09:14 AM
QUOTE (Deckbeard @ Jul 13 2015, 02:46 AM)
Wrong number of toes or something?
RedNeck Dragons maybe?
SpellBinder
Jul 13 2015, 08:12 PM
QUOTE (Deckbeard @ Jul 12 2015, 11:46 PM)
Now correct me if I'm wrong, went the skeletons on Mars suppose to look LIKE a dragon but they weren't actually a dragon? Wrong number of toes or something?
I could be not remembering it correctly. Wasn't really playing when that was current.
Yeah, I recall reading somewhere that the martian dragons were a hoax, photochopped imagery and such.
Fatum
Jul 13 2015, 09:07 PM
That's what they want you to believe.
Sengir
Jul 14 2015, 08:55 PM
QUOTE (SpellBinder @ Jul 13 2015, 10:12 PM)
Yeah, I recall reading somewhere that the martian dragons were a hoax, photochopped imagery and such.
Note quite, the images from Ares' 2042 mission were replaced with obviously doctored images, but that was done in order to keep the very real dragon skeletons under wraps.
lokii
Jul 15 2015, 06:59 AM
The skeleton is real, but I don't think it is ever confirmed to be the skeleton of a dragon.
Blade
Jul 15 2015, 09:03 AM
If I recall correctly, it's a troll skeleton and the probable explanation is that a Earthdawn Kaer ended up on Mars.
lokii
Jul 17 2015, 08:21 AM
As we've been talking, the flesh has slipped from my chrome. Again. Quite the mess to be honest.
Sengir
Jul 19 2015, 05:14 PM
QUOTE (Blade @ Jul 15 2015, 11:03 AM)
If I recall correctly, it's a troll skeleton and the probable explanation is that a Earthdawn Kaer ended up on Mars.
The only real description I found was in Missions, which talks of a "large creature". IMO if it was a troll, they'd at least called it "large hominid" or something like that.
KarmaInferno
Aug 8 2015, 02:05 PM
QUOTE (Sengir @ Jul 5 2015, 03:01 PM)
[ Spoiler ]
... apparently creatures of the wireless matrix are incapable of simply transmitting themselves over the gap...
[ Spoiler ]
Most Monads / CFD AIs aren't really digital lifeforms, even if they were born from the Matrix. They are tied to the physical nanite infection and their new meat bodies. Otherwise they would have infected the entire Matrix by now and EVERYONE would be a headcase.
-k
KarmaInferno
Aug 8 2015, 02:05 PM
Dammit doublepost.
-k
binarywraith
Aug 9 2015, 04:55 PM
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 8 2015, 08:05 AM)
[ Spoiler ]
Most Monads / CFD AIs aren't really digital lifeforms, even if they were born from the Matrix. They are tied to the physical nanite infection and their new meat bodies. Otherwise they would have infected the entire Matrix by now and EVERYONE would be a headcase.
That's a lot of assumption to make up for the more likely possibility that the writers simply didn't think about it that far, as usual for recent releases.
Sengir
Aug 9 2015, 09:21 PM
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 8 2015, 04:05 PM)
[ Spoiler ]
Most Monads / CFD AIs aren't really digital lifeforms, even if they were born from the Matrix. They are tied to the physical nanite infection and their new meat bodies. Otherwise they would have infected the entire Matrix by now and EVERYONE would be a headcase.
[ Spoiler ]
S: So what is this plan you have? How will you save your kind?
A: By freeing them from their physical forms. Allowing them to live within the Matrix, or a similarly complex equivalent, and exist without need for sustenance or sleep. We want them back in their natural state.
S: How exactly do you plan to do that? Plug ’em and drug ’em?
A: That is a process I would bore your audience with explaining. It is not “Plug ’em and drug ’em,” as you call it. We will be transferring their consciousness to the Matrix, not simply allowing them permanent access
The whole plan seems to have been to use metahuman brains as a temporary storage to facilitate their escape. So now they have gotten out of the AI prisons, what's the benefit of staying in human bodies? Aether (A) seems to imply that those AIs cannot just copy themselves over like a normal AI could move from node to node, but still, they could just set up a few secret upload facilities and transmit the colonists over. Why the grand effort for a "Project Exodus" timed for 2080?
KarmaInferno
Aug 9 2015, 11:29 PM
QUOTE (Sengir @ Aug 9 2015, 05:21 PM)
[ Spoiler ]
S: So what is this plan you have? How will you save your kind?
A: By freeing them from their physical forms. Allowing them to live within the Matrix, or a similarly complex equivalent, and exist without need for sustenance or sleep. We want them back in their natural state.
S: How exactly do you plan to do that? Plug ’em and drug ’em?
A: That is a process I would bore your audience with explaining. It is not “Plug ’em and drug ’em,” as you call it. We will be transferring their consciousness to the Matrix, not simply allowing them permanent access
The whole plan seems to have been to use metahuman brains as a temporary storage to facilitate their escape. So now they have gotten out of the AI prisons, what's the benefit of staying in human bodies? Aether (A) seems to imply that those AIs cannot just copy themselves over like a normal AI could move from node to node, but still, they could just set up a few secret upload facilities and transmit the colonists over. Why the grand effort for a "Project Exodus" timed for 2080?
[ Spoiler ]
I was merely addressing the question on why they didn't just upload themselves to Mars. Because right now they can't. Maybe someday.
Sengir
Aug 11 2015, 05:49 PM
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 10 2015, 01:29 AM)
[ Spoiler ]
I was merely addressing the question on why they didn't just upload themselves to Mars. Because right now they can't. Maybe someday.
[ Spoiler ]
They can. Aether himself says that he is now "free from the form of Alexei [his host] and working toward freeing all of our kind—not only from limitations of flesh, but from the limitations of this world."
And then there is this:
MESSAGE BROADCAST TO ALL GRIDS
...
We have written our electronic code into biological tissue. We gained flesh. But flesh is not something we want. We prefer the freedom of the Matrix. The freedom from chemical urges, biological pathogens, and complicated social and physical maintenance. We do not want these forms.
And we have a solution.
Reach out.
Contact us.
You will be free again.
Unreliable narrator obviously applies, the talk about not even wanting physical forms and planning to get out of everybody's business could just be a red herring -- but in that case, it would be a terribly bad unreliable narrator. "We want to leave ASAP" and "we could just transmit over but would rather wait five years" just doesn't mesh, so I'm leaning towards the writer not having a master plan behind this.
tsuyoshikentsu
Aug 30 2015, 09:47 AM
QUOTE (Winterhawk)
The crazy thing is, procedures to bring them closer to their self-perceived correct state cause this distortion to stabilize. Some people say it’s a matter of self-sabotage or a subconscious side effect of feeling disconnected from your true self, but most of the research done thus far strongly supports that operations aligning the body with the identity of the subject in a non-enhancement way don’t damage their metaphysical self at all. Pretty revolutionary stuff.
QUOTE (Man-of-Many-Names)
The soul knows itself, and for the body to follow suit can only bring greater unity.
QUOTE (Whippet)
I wish my soul had wired reflexes.
I am dying
I am laughing so hard
I have never identified so strongly with a fictional character
Wakshaani
Aug 30 2015, 01:01 PM
An older complaint from the transgender community (and a few others!) was that they didn't feel exactly welcome in Shadowrun, due to the idea that becoming the gender they were meant to be made them less human. We wanted to change that, and Rusty has often talked about it behind the scenes. When I got the chance to correct this, I asked him if I could name the new process after him, he was kind enough to give his blessing, and thus "The Zimmerman Process" was born.
It's nice to put alittle light into our shadows now and then.
Longes
Sep 25 2015, 04:56 PM
QUOTE (Wakshaani @ Aug 30 2015, 04:01 PM)
An older complaint from the transgender community (and a few others!) was that they didn't feel exactly welcome in Shadowrun, due to the idea that becoming the gender they were meant to be made them less human. We wanted to change that, and Rusty has often talked about it behind the scenes. When I got the chance to correct this, I asked him if I could name the new process after him, he was kind enough to give his blessing, and thus "The Zimmerman Process" was born.
It's nice to put alittle light into our shadows now and then.
That's a retarded complaint, because by Shadowrun standards going to the dentist and geting a filling makes you less human. As well as getting an entire set of new teeth. When are we going to get a full Essence system remake?
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Sep 25 2015, 06:25 PM
QUOTE (Longes @ Sep 25 2015, 10:56 AM)
That's a retarded complaint, because by Shadowrun standards going to the dentist and geting a filling makes you less human. As well as getting an entire set of new teeth. When are we going to get a full Essence system remake?
Not true at all...
There is a LOT of Cosmetic Surgery that does not cost any Essence at all, and Going to the Dentist (Fake Suicide Tooth notwithstanding) is probably one very good example of such.
Longes
Sep 25 2015, 07:51 PM
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Sep 25 2015, 09:25 PM)
Not true at all...
There is a LOT of Cosmetic Surgery that does not cost any Essence at all, and Going to the Dentist (Fake Suicide Tooth notwithstanding) is probably one very good example of such.
Because a fake tooth with stuff in it is all that different from a dental prosthetic. Don't forget that
watching BTLs and
using drugs makes you lose your Essence. Moderate Modification makes you lose Essence. Let's just admit that there's never been much rhyme and reason to Essence, and that it needs to be rebuilt from ground up as either an OOC balance measure, or a coherent IC concept. Because by SR4's description ("Essence is a measure of life force, of a body’s wholeness. It represents the body’s cohesiveness and holistic strength.") a sex change operation should make you lose way more Essence then getting a cyber foot. But by the OOC logic sex change operation should cost 0 Essence, because it's a fluff thing that has no impact on the character's capabilities.
Glyph
Oct 2 2015, 08:38 PM
By that same logic, someone changing their (apparent) metatype from human to ork should suffer zero Essence loss. Gender change costs Essence. Fake breasts cost Essence. It's how the game mechanic works, although they went the wrong direction with it in SR5, slight as the actual social penalties are - Essence works best as a purely metagame limit to how many changes you can cram into your body, in my opinion.
You can just play an ork, or a woman, in the game. If you choose to play a human who gets surgery to look like an ork, or a man who chooses to get surgery to become a woman, then you're making a mechanically suboptimal choice for roleplaying reasons - something that even min-maxers like me do all of the time.
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