Hoi Chummers!

“The percentage of the population that has implanted ware…”

Not sure if this has ever been stated or hinted at in any of the game books – I don’t ever recall seeing it mentioned in 3rd ed – either core, adventure or splat. Possibly it’s in one of the later editions – in which case I’d be grateful for any info or references.

We had general hints as to the amount of the population that was magically active – 1%, with only 1% of those being full mages – making them rare and so highly desirable to the corps.

We have an idea of world population following VITAS I + II, the Crash and other events, and the various splat books give us good breakdown of the population by several countries, and the split between different metahuman races within that population.

But I don’t recall ever seeing anything that outlined how much of the population has implants – either cyber, bio or nanite? We know that some elective surgery is incredibly quick and simple, to the point that you can nip out on your lunchbreak and get a data-jack installed. And from descriptions we can see that large numbers of secretaries, data entry positions, etc would need something like that to be competitive in their jobs.

Drivers might have VCR1s installed by their corp (and then have to pay off their debt), while soldiers might get commlinks, or eye upgrades installed – and if they’re in elite units or special forces of some kind then reaction enhancers and dermal sheaths, wires or bone lacing might be on the cards. Members of pro-sports teams might get stuff from corporate sponsorship, the kids at private schools might all be sporting cerebral boosters and mnemonic enhancers, or math SPUs, and so on.

As long as you have insurance or some kind of health care system, then the middle classes probably don’t have to wear glasses any more, and being born with some ailment just means being fitted for cyber-replacement parts as a matter of course to “fix” the issue, and for the most part that’s seen as no stranger in the 6th world than getting braces or glasses would be today.

My guess is that a large proportion of people in the “developed” parts of the world might have at least a touch of ware – even if it’s only a datajack – to help them do their job better or provide some kind of quality of life upgrade.
But as the essence cost or Nuyen cost rises, the percentage of the population having ware of that kind would fall dramatically, in an exponential curve – with those dirty shadowrunners tending towards either end of the curve quite strongly.

But – does anyone have either any info, or best guesses as to the percentage of the population that would fit into these brackets of ‘ware implantation?

1. Essence >5
2. Essence 4 -5
3. Essence 2-4
4. Essence <2

This doesn't give percentages, but since AH worked on SR for many years (decades?) I think it gives some illumination:
The largest cost in implantation often isn't the implant itself; it's the implantation surgical plan and execution. So even when Low-Lifestyle families buy a Used / Second-hand datajack, they still have to pay a bomb to get it installed.

Things like a Datajack, Chipjack or similar can according to the books be done IN YOUR LUNCH BREAK.
I'd say eye replacement is a bit more involved, but should probably not take more than a few hours max.
And be doable by a single person.

I think the numbers should be going up over time. In part because it's cheaper. I liked the quote above, but cybereyes have dropped to only 500 in 4th edition. People would also get more used to the idea over time. I mentioned getting robot eyes someday to my wife and she really dislikes the idea of me doing that to myself. I think a lot of people today feel that way, including, I suspect, many of the Shadowrun writers. But I don't think that will hold. Especially not among certain subcultures that would increasingly pop up.

I think the numbers should be going up over time. In part because it's cheaper. I liked the quote above, but cybereyes have dropped to only 500 in 4th edition. People would also get more used to the idea over time. I mentioned getting robot eyes someday to my wife and she really dislikes the idea of me doing that to myself. I think a lot of people today feel that way, including, I suspect, many of the Shadowrun writers. But I don't think that will hold. Especially not among certain subcultures that would increasingly pop up.

Cyber-Eyes are one of the first things i would buy.
Because my eyes are fucking sensitive as shit -.-

2nd would be sleep regulator bioware.

3rd would be jolt alert because i fucking hate
getting up and that should help.

Ears and Nose next probably.
i imagine it would be so nice to just be able to lay down, shut off eyes, ears and nose and just SLEEP.
My late neighbour had a high tech implanted hearing aid. He told me not to bother with trying to keep
quiet because his ears basically switched to his sound system, phone and TV when he entered his flat
and only really came on when he went outside.
Said he really did not miss his original hearing ever since he got that upgrade, because it was such an
incredible quality of life enhancement to be able to simply shut off what ever he did not want to hear.
Construction works, barking dogs, crying children . . nothing ever bothered him anymore because of
that little piece of electronics.

Teeth may be somewhere on the list as well.
Just rip out those fucking misconstructed things all at once, replace with ones that will
not get dirty at all.
not get cavities or anything else that hurts.
still let you feel and chew just as nicely as
the original ones . .

I would definitely go full-body cyborg and follow in the footsteps of Durandal. I don't think there is anything about being organic that I don't resent. Resleeving from Altered Carbon / Eclipse Phase cannot come soon enough.

But the resleeving in Altered Carbon, at least, just transfers your consciousness to a different, equally organic, shell, so what have you *really* gained? I am not familiar with Eclipse Phase - it's and RPG, I think?

Altered Carbon has a concept a lot like bioware. So the high end bodies are pretty impressive.

Of course most people are lucky to get dumped onto the body of some alcoholic smoker who committed a crime.

And in any case how much is it really "you." It's interesting how different characters react to ehat happened to a different version of themselves.

Shadowrun has somewhat firmer answers there, but it might be interesting to play with that theme a bit.

Certainly you can transfer your consciousness into a "biomorph", the range of which cover humans, bioware humans, martians, octopuses, angels, pterodactyls, manta-rays, etc. and which are fully organic. You can also transfer into a "pod" such as a crab, squid, triffid, six-legged squirrel, etc. each of which are a biological set of organs commanded by a cyberbrain you drive. You can also transfer into a "synthmorph" such as a nanite swarm, or a Terminator-3000 centaur, or even a spaceship (in the case of Courier or Nautiloid) which is a purely artificial vehicle commanded by a cyberbrain. You can live a life of luxury, get a job from your (Firewall) fixer to egocast your mind at light speed across the solar system to a trouble-spot, download into a sleeve that's waiting for you there, run the mission, possibly get half the team destroyed in the process, and the survivors egocast back to their luxury lives with their memories intact (ie, karma to spend on improvements) while the slain get restored from ego backups, wake up in their everyday bodies, and are oblivious that a run took place. Like Schwarzenegger's 6th Day.

If you find that your daily morph has damaged eyes, or a terminal disease, or inconvenient genetic defects, you just go and trade it in for a new one, hop your consciousness across to the new sleeve, and carry on living. If you either are too poor to afford a biomorph or you deliberately choose the convenience of a synthmorph, you can leave all the aches and pains of organic chemistry in the dust and just exist as a machine. Getting an arm sliced off by a monowhip is like a punctured tyre on your car: you switch off the pain signals from it, carry on with the job at hand, and get it fixed when possible. Sometimes, the baddie is the loot and you get to overwrite their ego with your own and ride their former body through the finish line. Although what use a super body on a remote habitat is might be debatable when you're unlikely to go there again.

Overall, what have you *really* gained is: choice. You are no longer bound to occupy a physiology with the allergies, disabilities, injuries, scars, and limitations that we can't escape today. You have the choice to swap that out for a clean slate, or the synthetic equivalent if that suits you better. Sure, the prejudiced in society despise "the Clanking Masses" (as synthmorphs are referred to) but nobody can be everyone's favourite and you'll always end up making enemies no matter how hard you try.
More important than swapping bodies though is psychosurgery. We've all accumulated social scars from the callous inconsideration of the selfish pursuing their goals and we remember this trauma -- that's what learning is: remembering what worked, what didn't work, working out why, and repeating or avoiding matching circumstances in the future. But often, learning is harmful and limits us from taking risks and fulfilling potential. In Eclipse Phase you can just expunge memories (even if that costs you some progression). If you realise that the ego that has survived the horrors of the latest run would be so traumatised, it wouldn't be worth surviving (or paying the psychosurgery bill) you can just sacrifice your corrupt self, confident that the innocent version backed up will be restored and live life free of the memories you've suffered. Or if you've learnt critical information, you can ego-cast back to your fixer and then get a psychosurgeon to edit out the trauma (or try to).

Resleeving is an immense benefit but the ability to backup and then choose what level of psychological warping you're willing to take with you into the future would make so many people such better people.
Indeed! We often hear about someone "just not being the same again" after some event, or people "not being themselves" in certain circumstances. Every time we wake up, are we the same person who went to sleep? We've all heard of the thought-experiment that if you replace one biological neuron with a synthetic analogue, you would still feel like you; even if you replaced a hundred or a thousand, you would still operate the same. So if you replaced all of them would you be an artificial neural network operating a meat body, and would you still be "you"? While that's an interesting philosophical position, each of us does replace all our cells every seven to ten years, so the brain the world you see the world through today is not the brain you saw the world through a decade ago, and that one isn't the brain with which you saw the Register For Dumpshock form twenty years ago. So if you're already getting a brain replacement whether you like it or not, is getting a cybernetic one in a synthmorph on the other side of the solar system functionally any different? When it all boils down to it, we're each just a collection of traumas pulling a reptilian fight-or-flight instinct in a myriad of conflicting directions until one attains escape velocity and we act. As long as you can replicate all that damage in the destination body, it's arguably the same person. The Python programming language uses "duck typing" -- if it looks like a duck, and it sounds like a duck, and it flies like a duck, then for all intents and purposes: it's a duck. If a phenomenon interacts with the world with all the same biases and blind-spots and preferences and aversions that you do, then for all intents and purposes, it's you.

Well, at one point, the Earthdawn (4th World) authors worked on Equinox (the 8th World):
Then there was Catalyst's Battlerun:
Then the Shadowrun (6th World) 4th Edition authors worked on Eclipse Phase:and I'm sure I've seen EP touted as another 8th World but I don't see a quote for that just now. Maybe it has been tactfully redacted or I am misremembering. But it's a trans(or post)humanist horror RPG with a percentile mechanic inspired by Accelerando, Altered Carbon, the Expanse, and maybe just a little bit of Shadowrun.

@Bodak:
Always nice to see another transhumanist. Here's hoping to see that future after my eventual liquid nitrogen nap.

It’s worth remembering that Shadowrun’s labor market and employee relations are very different from today’s—instead of a workforce that will change employers regularly and may even be fraudulently casualized as independent contractors to get them off the books, anyone who gets employed by an A-level corp or above (and possibly somewhat below as well) is likely to remain employed there for the rest of their career. Consequently the corps have more motivation to offer or require at least basic implants (datajacks especially) either entirely on their own dime or via low-friction financing repaid out of direct paycheck deductions. The surgery/implantation rules also probably aren’t written to account for certain extremely common cases like datajacks or low-quality natural-or-worse cyberlimbs/cybereyes (which I think are described somewhere as mostly being used by people who can’t afford vat-grown clonal replacements).

I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t have my copy of Shadowbeat handy, but Lone Star p30 says that LS has a contract clause allowing them “to install any cybermods it wants to any time a cop goes under the laser on the corp’s tab”. I don’t remember numbers for population employed by an A-level or higher, but I’d expect that sub-population’s uptake of datajacks at least to be quite high, probably not much below the percentage of non-usefully-Awakened—Install Cyberware for a 0.2 Essence Datajack is a base 4 TN test, and the negative options aren’t likely to be a big hinderance for a civilian not expecting substantial additional implants or Stress-generating injuries so one success is adequate, meaning a mobile shop/clinic staffed by two merely-adequate doctors (Biotech and Medicine 4) is plenty (4 dice, TN 3) and even one doctor might be enough (4 dice, TN 4, 6.75% failure rate). If you have a stationary medical shop/clinic or a facility/hospital and better equipment than necessary that all gives plenty of TN mods than can offset skipping a medical profile or surgical data. Finally, 0.2 Essence produces 2 Boxes Physical Damage, meaning the patient can be discharged fairly quickly, essentially an outpatient procedure.

If I’m looking at this correctly, a ballpark cost might be: 20¥x4 Medicine and 12 hours of the patient’s time (or less) for a profile, 14,400 for a surgical plan which is probably skipped (+1 TN), 40¥x4 Biotech for the surgery, and then… ok, datajacks double their Essence for calculating Wound Level, so that’s 3 boxes, meaning probably 10 days of outpatient care at 100¥/day followed by an optional additional day at 50¥. Looks like a reasonable overall cost of 80+160+1000+50+2000=3,290¥ and 11-12 days or less either off work or at reduced performance. That’s slightly more than one month of Middle Lifestyle, but for the corp to pick up at some or all of the tab you don’t need more than a modest productivity increase to keep the payback period very reasonable. Especially since some of this is probably very routine meaning they’ll have economies of scale, and used datajacks might be available for further savings.

So yeah, probably pretty common for the non-destitute.

~J

...no doctors needed, Shop (Medicine) gives 10 Dices + Hacker(Rigger w/ high Llogic will do ( + Maybe adding skilljwires).. (By RAW rules from BBB (no penalties for not having a Skill) (4ed Anniversity edition)

Coming into this late but I think that cyber would be extremely common among the professional classes.

Using 4E/5E prices, a sleep regulator is either ¥10K (4E) or ¥12K (5E). You mean that you can get 3-4 hours of your life back every day for just ¥10K? That seems like an easy layup to me.

Even cerebral boosters seem like they should be practically a given. 4E had them priced at Rating * ¥10K, so for ¥30K I can go from average to genius? Or from smart to super-genius? Absolutely every corp should want those for anyone on a management rung, plus maybe some of their specialists too. 5E wisely changed the price to ¥31,500 * Rating, but even then that's a bargain. Corps should be aggressively pushing those on employees - even/especially with loans - not only for the productivity benefits but also to further indenture the employee to the corp.

Similarly, mnemonic enhancers are either ¥7,500 (4E) or ¥9,000 (5E) per rating point. Also a bargain.

Among the masses, I imagine chipjacks and datajacks are more common than not. Cybereyes are probably as much of a fashion statement as they are about improving vision. How common they are depends on the pricing, which was very inexpensive in 4E (starting at ¥500) but much more expensive in 3E and 5E (¥5,000 and ¥4,000 respectively).

Your SINless hordes probably don't have much if anything, but I think most SINners will have something by the time they reach adulthood.

Let's say the bread-winner has a 40-hour-per-week Day Job. That brings in 5000Y per month (SRC.26). Assuming the average household of two adults and famously "2 point 4 children", you're looking at a Lifestyle coefficient of 168% (SSG.133 - mysteriously called "roommates" as if everybody all shares one room instead of the normal "flatmates" or "housemates" where they share a flat or house). A Middle lifestyle where you don't have to fret about whether you'll have food or get mugged on the way home is 8400Y per month necessitating the other adult to also have a 40-hour-per-week Day Job to cover living expenses and the added corporate daycare overheads incurred.

If instead you're willing to bust your family down to Low lifestyle, you actually get to meet them before they turn 18, you can pay your rent with 34% of your income, and depending on whether you prioritise keeping up the bribes to the local enforcers to ensure the safety of your property and occupants you might even be able to afford to dedicate 500Y to buying a second-hand datajack within a month.
500Y per day for the accommodation (SR3.128, MM.151) +360Y labour +14,400Y for the procedure planning (MM.145) if you're just getting the two negative options. That's a quarter of your annual salary alone. If you want to offset the mandatory two negative options with two positive options, you're looking at 57600Y for the procedure planning. If you want to go for alphaware for longevity, that's 115200Y for the procedure planning. That's one or two years of salary alone. If you save half your income for two to four years of keeping your family at Low lifestyle, you can get one of them augmented.

..as i remember they are dependant..(+ 10 % ) xost/person , not roommates, briinging cuist down Husband/wife also works,,

Keep in mind the opportunity cost of not keeping up with the Jones's, i.e. not having a data jack or similar required implants and thus not getting hired. A non-wageslave would need to have some implants at least to even get a proper job.
Wageslaves, or recruited youngsters, of course would get the procedures paid by their corp, as part of the incentives, which in turn binds them closer to it, since a break of contract would probably mean having to repay implant and procedure costs.

Or repossession of the implants! How do you think Megamicrocorp developed that inventory of used datajacks?

Or that. But better believe they'll bill you for having to remove it from you

Actually 5k¥+ (note the +). There are at least three factors likely to increase this number or decrease Lifestyle costs—first, the Day Job may be more than 40 hours a week and is also likely to have more defined commitments (in another classic case of Shadowrun being Shadowrun, only GM fiat prevents a player from declaring that they’re accommodating their Day Job by working five 16-hour days across the week boundary and then doing whatever they want with the next 9 days before it happens again), second, the employee may be paid partly or entirely in corpscrip which is likely to command a premium in purchasing power when not exchanged for external currency, and finally if they have access to corporate housing (which is often advantageous for the corp—it increases the willingness to accept scrip and keeps the employee on a shorter leash, plus probably decreasing ties to the area and thus increasing ease of transfer as needed) which is likely to consume less of total compensation


Note that the existence of Simsense is likely to have cratered the cost of child care, even if we accept this calculation as the proper one (as mentioned the kids are probably Dependents with unspecified costs). Hitcher jacks are all of 250¥, which is the closest I can find to a price for a non-recording ‘trode rig probably because they’re included by default with computers.


But you can scrap the procedure planning for +1 TN, which can be offset by doubling the labor cost for -1 TN from an extra doctor. Negative options are mostly a concern for people like Runners who expect Essence to be tight (either from other ‘ware or to minimize Magic Loss) or for implants to be exposed to harsh (Stress-causing) conditions, so they’re likely just accepted as a probable consequence by the precariat we’re discussing. As I note, with a brand-new ‘Jack and factoring in a ballpark of lost income that’s just over 5k¥, or one month’s Lifestyle, or slightly under a year of setting aside 500¥ a month.

If the ‘jack is for a kid and thus no time off work, the cost goes down. If you buy used, the price goes down. If you skip the outpatient care for the last day at Light Physical (incurring some risk) the price goes down. Your earning power probably goes up, unless you got financing from the corp in which case they take that extra earning power for a while and your up-front cost goes down.

Edit: also, even if you reject lowered childcare costs or earnings above 5k¥ before Lifestyle, something like a Datajack with the potential to increase earnings is likely to be bought and installed when young and hungry—a few months in substandard accommodation while single (or even better while two-income and childless) is easily within the realm of plausibility. Call it half a year and you have a pocket secretary and a small nest egg to boot.

If we accept your numbers and the household gets established before any ‘ware, it would be a heavier lift, but I don’t think it would come to that—anyone who hits that point probably has some other hesitation.

~J

It is so good to have you back, Kage. I hope SR3R takes off!I was only going with what the book I reference lays out:
It's fine if you want to call them Dependents but my calling them co-occupants is just as valid. Either way, augmenting your progeny is nontrivial.

Well, that’s what I get for not actually digging out my copy of SSG. Regardless, I think the argument that most wageslaves who get a ‘jack are likely to do so before they start a family and try to achieve the suburban dream stands, and while augmenting the kids may not be trivial, it could well become like saving for college amongst the aspiring corporate drones.

~J

“The percentage of the population that has implanted ware…”

So, after feedback, discussion and much thinking, I’ve got some decisions that I’m going to be basing my Shadowrun world on, that I’m happy to share to see if it helps anyone else. Thoughts and feedback is very welcome!

First of all, I think there’s a couple of different categories of ‘ware.
1 – Restorative. Replacing a function lost due to accident or natural causes.
2 – Enhancement. Implanted to enhance the lifestyle of the recipient in some way.
3 – Lifestyle. Implanted into an individual as part of their lifestyle choice or as an expected way of life – subtly different from #2.

Restorative
First of all, I did a bit of reading on the number of people with prosthetics or limb loss in the world today, and came across these statistics (source: https://accessprosthetics.com/15-limb-loss-...-may-surprise/)
• There are 2.1 million people living with limb loss in the USA, and that number is expected to double by 2050. (This would obviously be altered by the return of magic, the crash, VITAS I+II and the changing landscape, but gives a general indication of the advance of things like diabetes and changing lifestyle and how it affects the population in general.). With a current population of around 330 million, we’re talking a little under 1% of the population having some form of prosthetic limb.
• 185,000 people have an amputation each year. This means that 300 to 500 amputations are performed every day.
• 1,558 military personnel lost a limb as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Based on those, and the rapid development of ‘ware in general in the SR world, I can see the number of prosthetics rising sharply. First of all, for anyone who’s had an accident in a machine shop or industrial setting that might have lost a finger or thumb – where now we don’t really have workable replacements, in SR we do. So, I could see a significant rise in the number of “smaller” prosthetics as a result of workplace accidents or strange accidents at home that might cause digit loss. On top of this, the reduction in union power, labour laws, and overall health and safety regulations would lead to an overall rise in workplace accidents.
Now, of course the average worker can’t afford to replace a lower limb lost in a workplace accident – but the employer can. As long as the employee is worthwhile, my cynical view is that they offer deeply discounted / instalment plan ware. The employee gets their issue resolved – but of course they’re now effectively in debt to the corporation for the rest of their working life, struggling to pay off their medical loans and bills, trapping them into the care of their corporate sponsor.

For the middle classes, they’re less likely to experience this kind of serfdom, but more likely to encounter some situation where they’ve lost a part of their body in some sports / activities related incident – and there now exists enough medical insurance and technology to replace that lost functionality and keep their body performing as ‘it should’ at least.
The upper classes of course have not only more disposable income for upgrades, but the best and most comprehensive insurance, and are more likely to take any minor loss as an excuse to ‘upgrade’ to better, faster or stronger parts – justifying it as ‘well, we have to have surgery anyway, we might as well make things better’. I’d see this as a very alluring pull, even for those who are not enamoured with the idea of replacing their body with ware. For those non-transhumanists, or the old guard who want to stay “pure”, if they’re having to have something done *anyway* I think a lot of their arguments against it would fall by the wayside.

In terms of quality levels, what’s represented in the books and lore is often slanted towards the combat and confrontational level of gameplay (for obvious reasons), and is also slanted at the top end of usability – other than the famous “peg leg” cyberleg replacement. However, I can very much see a huge range of quality and capability existing on the market. I had an NPC in one of my adventures featuring a “first-gen” cyberleg, a replacement for a limb lost in a car accident. It whined noticeably in use, had an external battery pack and visible moving cables and gears – so advanced in terms of mobility compared to what we have now, but way behind the cutting edge for the world – but it also sort of defined who he was, stubbornly refusing to upgrade / pay more for aesthetics or minor improvements in quality of life over what he had.

But, based on that I can also see people, especially in the lower classes, being pushed into accepting ‘ware that is much more limited and primitive than that top of the line gear presented for use by runners, or being presented with 2nd hand ware as viable options. As has been mentioned by other people, a lot of the cost for ‘ware is in the surgical planning and implantation costs, and not the hardware itself – and again my cynical nature makes me think that this is where ‘they get you’ and people end up massively in debt, when they focus on the headline price of the ware itself, rather than the implantation costs…
L
ast in this section is the details of the prosthetics as a result of injuries from war. In this case, I can see a sharp jump in requirements mostly based on the existence and use of Shadowrunners. While wars and conflicts will still happen all over the world, far more common is the incident of corporate security forces running into Shadowrunners penetrating corp facilities with nefarious designs. The runners know that they’re not going to get any quarter or respite, and aren’t protected by the law, so they’re more than happy to let rip with wild and copious fire, and that leaves our corporate security forces or rent-a-cops to soak up the resulting fire.
Just like Lone-Star having clauses about implanting ware in their employees to keep them viable, I would see other providers of security services and corporations doing exactly the same – and just like the lower-class workers above, they’ll often end up as indentured servants, owing their employers so much for their medical care that they effectively can never leave the job and have to keep working to keep afloat.

It might even be that for the average Joe workers, limited implants prove to be worthwhile to the employing corp on a long term basis. The maths here is based on 3rd edition (which is what I play), but I’m sure would loosely translate to 4/5/6 in some regards… So we take an average worker – say a machine press operator. They have a skill of 3 – representing a person working at that task with a professional level of skill. Making the item might have a target number of 4, so with their 3 dice, you’re getting 1-2 successes when they do their task. Getting enhanced articulation installed would cost 40k for the wetware. The bulk of the cost comes from the planning – a base 72 hours of planning, creating a plan size of 144MP, and a cost of 14.4K for the surgical plan. However an average roll for a specialist surgeon is likely to drop that in half, and the actual surgery is not that difficult – only having a TN of 5, and causing 4 boxes of damage, leaving the patient on a moderate wound. All told you’re probably looking at around 60k to provide and install, but that raises the effective skill rating of your employee from3 to 4. Not only does that firmly shift your odds of getting 2 successes from any operations / task they perform for you compared to previously, you also massively reduce the odds of a botch from 1:216 to 1: 1296. They can potentially achieve more, screw up less – and even better they’re now in debt to your company for 60k and can’t leave without still penalties.

Enhancement
These are addons chosen by an individual to enhance their own lifestyle and experience, or to keep them viable in a workforce, paid for with their own money or arranged for by themselves.
We have plenty of examples of the “pop in for a lunchtime upgrade” kind of details, especially for smaller items like datajacks. With the near-ubiquitous presence of the matrix, having high-speed access becomes more and more desirable to the point of almost being a necessity. I’d liken this to the rise of mobile phones – while once the symbols of Yuppies and sales reps only, they’ve now reached the point where your average eight year old at school has them, and they’ve become the de facto form of communication for most – and so common that some services are now inaccessible without them (case in point a few years ago, I went to book for a massage at a spa in town, and they refused to let me book because I couldn’t give them a mobile phone number. They wouldn’t accept a land-line, and would rather lose a booking than put in some placeholder text in their booking system – which I thought was crazy, but there you go!). For anyone interacting with technology in a meaningful way, I could see a datajack becoming an unstated requirement for most employers. It might be a thing that is listed on the CV of the future – a clean, current driving licence, English and Maths at C or above, and a current gen datajack compatible with UMS 2…

For anyone with deteriorating eyesight, cyber-eyes are an obvious implant, cheap enough that when compared to getting 2-3 pairs of glasses for different uses, and replacement lenses or frames for a few years, and the difficulty in sitting on and breaking, losing or leaving on the train your cyber-eyes compared to external glasses, it’s not hard to begin to justify the costs. Again, with workplace subsidies or schemes, or using the corporate health-care system (especially if you work for a mega, where Renraku, Shiawase or Yamatetsu etc can start doing internal charge-backs from one division to another to show profits, avoid taxes and generate activity to keep the shareholders happy). As with the restorative section above, for those with better insurance or higher standards of living, the lure of extra vision modes, telescopic or microscopic or other functions becomes a major draw, and one which they “might as well” take advantage of.

In just the same way, cyber-ears would start to replace hearing aids for the elderly or those affected by any kind of genetic loss, as well as falling under the restorative section for those suffering from accidental loss. For white-collar jobs, that might involve music, audio processing, surveying or other fields with a hearing-based component though, having or not having upgraded hearing could be the difference between getting the job and missing out, and again might form part of the job requirements. Where a network admin now might need to be Cisco certified, a music producer or entertainment network technician may require cyber-enhanced hearing capable of discriminating down to 20 Hz bands in the near future to be competitive.
Many people have suggested the sleep-regulator bioware as a “must-have” piece of kit, based purely on how much more productive it can make you in a standard work day, and I would very much agree. Being able to work your 12 hour corporate day, slog home through traffic and still have 3-4 hours of “fun” or “family” time and get enough sleep to be viable the next day allows you to change your life, and for the low cost, would be an achievable, aspirational goal for many. The mnemonic enhancer, at least at the basic level is also cheap enough that it can provide a good ROI for many people if installed early in their career, where learning is still a large portion of their job.

The synth-cardium is also a cheap implant, useful in terms of general fitness, but could also be a “must-have” for anyone with a history of heart disease or failure running in the family, as well as being the go-to cheap upgrade for anyone in any kind of professional sports field. And for those sports where they have rules about augmentations? Well, just get your doctor to sign off on it being for “medical reasons” rather than enhancement, and you’ll slip through the loopholes…

Lifestyle
My third category might sound very similar to the second – but I think the cultural and social differences around it are important and make a big difference to how it would be perceived. For this section, I’m thinking of the ware that is implanted most commonly in children and young adults, often by their parents.

For current world, if your parents are wealthy and you’re in the appropriate class of society, you don’t go to the standard state schools or a comprehensive, or whatever the local government run educational facility is – you go to boarding school, private college or have specialist tutors. The costs are high, but the smaller class sizes, improved teaching standard and more numerous opportunities turn out better-educated people (not necessarily kinder, more empathic, moral or likeable people – to be sure) that have an intrinsic advantage over their more commonly educated peers, especially if they can make use of an “old boys network” or social structure to then get a further advantage.

Now transpose this into the Shadowrun world, where you can get your child implanted with a maths-coprocessor, mnemonic enhancer and cerebral booster, as well as subscribing to the Aztechnology Platinum Learning Platform ™… If you think about a child’s development, and look at the difference between stats of an average pedestrian, and one with an intelligence score that is 66% higher, with 25-50% better retention of information and superlative mathematical and problem solving skills, it’s easy to see that an advantage like this at the formative years would catapult children years ahead developmentally compared to their peers.

What high-flying corporate executive could resist getting little Anna the upgrade package to help her shine, and make sure she’s destined for the executive ranks herself? And what family could stand by to see little Bobby forced to go to the same school as the common people based on his “normal” IQ if they could have done something to fix that – if nothing else, just the condemnation of their peers at the next corporate BBQ event would have them dying of shame…
When children show an aptitude for sports or physical activities, it’s easy enough for the very wealthy to start looking at upgrades to their physical systems, starting from enhanced articulation and going through to super-thyroid glands to ensure they become captain of the football team. And of course, no child is going to get away without a data-jack installed to allow them to fully engage in their online learning platforms, or to be ready to enter the corporate work-force in a junior position, even if they are only middle class.
Conversely, when a child is spotted with some genetic abnormality or some complication caused at some point in the pregnancy leads to a level of intelligence or ability deemed unacceptable – to a parent with money and a few contacts, the lure of even unsanctioned genetic manipulation or experimental cyber-ware might be overwhelming - think Doctor Bashir from DS9.

While the implant costs for Shadowrunners might account for 200-300% of the cost of the item being implanted itself, once you start looking at the more common items and the levels of potential mass production, the costs could tumble. When your local school announces a partnership with Novatec, with installation of the Datajack 2000-N will be available this term, implanted the week before term starts and with the cost spread over 36 low-low monthly payments, what parent is going to see their child “disadvantaged” by holding them back from getting the ware. And for the implanters – unless they come across a particularly challenging individual, a simple surgical plan will probably be repeatable for 90% of their patients, allowing them to save time and money – or more cynically might be a loss leader for future implants. After all, it’s well known that only the Ares upgrades are *fully* compatible with the Ares Datajack installed as part of the scholastic package…

So who has ‘Ware?
These are the splits I have in mind, bearing all of the above as factors:

Up to 1 point of essence used: 80% - depending on where in the world you are, and what socio-economic class the subject is will change what they have. White collar workers in 1st world nations will have Datajacks, Sleep regulators, maybe some minor prosthetics, possibly enhanced vision or hearing, and perhaps a boost for a specific, industry related skill. Poorer workers in more blue collar jobs are more likely to have restorative ‘ware, of a lower quality, perhaps 2nd hand or with limited functionality. They may also have job related functionality implants but are much more likely to be beholden to a corporate for this. Corporate sharks, tv personalities and politicians slot in here, using discrete ware or items socially accepted (such as datajacks), where their warmth and personality is considered an important part of their work. In terms of runners, Faces will likely fit in here, so they can more easily slot into society and manipulate it.

Up to 2 points of essence used: 40% - as above, but now adding in the number of enhanced children, those destined to become the leaders of the next generation, soldiers equipped with bulk gear at a squad level, 1st world workers in heavy and demanding industries, and workers in the 3rd world and most deprived area who consider themselves “lucky” to have access to any kind of prosthetic beyond simple peg-legs/crutches. Poorer citizens in the 1st world who require more extensive fixes for major accidents and have had to accept older/bulkier items as the only things they could afford. Shadowrunners here are likely to include hybrid samurais or other multi-role members of a team, where a little ware is used to enhance their survivability or lethality, but that is not their primary focus.

Up to 3 points of essence used: 20% - now starting to move into ‘ware that has a noticeable impact on the users humanity, the rich kids and most of the 1st world users are filtered out, leaving the poorer sections of society, soldiers and corporate guards, security forces and professional athletes who either can use the intimidating nature of their appearance, or have professional benefits such as PR agents or associated fame for what they do to counter the effects. For the poorer sections of the world, we’re now talking about implants that are 2+ generations behind current tech, and more likely to be 2nd hand or as the results of body-snatching. Some specialist workers fall here – where the demands of their industry require extensive augmentation (riggers working with heavy mining machinery in remote sites, deep sea diver construction techs, and other manual but very specialised tasks) to perform at peak performance. In terms of runners we’re seeing the basic Samurai, Riggers, Deckers and other tech-savvy team members making use of basic gear, installing what they can afford to get them started.

Up to 4 points of essence used: 10% - now firmly in the “creepy” category, we have a smaller subset of specialist workers, elite soldiers and special forces, and people on the slipper slope to absolute slavery – those who have had to accept corporate “enhancements” to keep their productivity up, despite the further debt this places them in. Street Samurai, Riggers and several other heavily augmented runners fit in here, and make use of the intimidating nature of their inhumanity as they progress through their careers.

Up to 5 points of essence used: 5% - very definitely heavily enhanced and quite obvious about it, this is likely to be only the most critically injured 1st world workers, rare combat squads of truly elite soldiers, corporate research subjects and the scariest of runners – or those that have spent whatever they could get their hands on for any upgrade as they jammed their body full of whatever they could to try and give them and edge and hang the consequences.

Up to 5.99999 points of essence used – 0.5% - vanishingly rare test subjects, the ultra-rich who are trying anything and everything to stave of death, almost to the point of being a head in the jar, the one-man armies beloved by trid-producers, mercenaries that have reached the zenith of their careers and for that tiny percentage of people who survived the impact with the barrier at 300kph during the last Formula 1 season, or who crashed into the side of the Grand Canyon while trying to jump it on a motorbike… and for runners who just don’t care that they now make small children cry when they look at them.

Very believable. Thanks for your work.

P.S. Should you be looking for online players, I have Quick Willie who fits your paradigm perfectly.