I'm am yet to be able to get my hands on a copy of brainscan, so would someone be so kind as to tell me how Deus met his end in the canon storyline. Also if anyone would like to give alternate possibilties that either you worked out or that your groups has tried that would be good as well.

Also a question. What is the reason for Deus's experiment in the Arc? I know canon gives one explanation and I would like to know that, but also what were his reasons in your campaign?

Personally if you follow the believe of the cyberadept otaku which you could argue would have an influence on the mentailty of Deus, then his experiment where attempts to bring man and machine closer together. To start the next stage of human evolution similiar to what the cyberadepts believe their role is in human society.

a killswitch had been installed in Deus, the key to which was Aneki's EKG. the runner team sneaks Aneki into the Arc and plugs him into Deus, 'killing' the AI. what actually happens is, Deus is freed from his hardware locks, and downloads himself into the minds of a bunch of otaku he'd created. the download is a success, but Magaera--another AI--is downloaded as well. the two of them are now battling for control of the Network made up of those otaku.

I apologize for the curt tone... but this is what the search button is for.

Also check out Ancient History's site. Specifically Echoes of the Crash for this topic. Look around the others too while yer there. It's a wonderful resource.

Summation: Deus isn't gone. Neither is it nessecarily whole either.

As for my take on the situation, it's thus: when the network finally sorts itself out, it will recompile both Deus and Magaera together. Both AI's will effectly become a single entity. Neither AI's will "survive" but something else will be borne of their union.

What that something else is, is anyone's guess.

As was said, the short answer is: he didn't meet his end.

~J

Wow, that is so close to what I had planned for him it's not funny. 'cept my version was going to have him d/l'd into a child prodigy decker (think along the lines of D.A.R.Y.L.) NPC that I was using because nobody wanted to play a decker.

D.A.R.Y.L. was a robot.

Or do you mean a human with skills like the robot?

you're going to have Deus as your team's decker? i'm not even really sure how to respond to that.

I didn't run the Arcology for my group because without cheating horrible in their favor theres no reasonable way any normal SR team can survive that. As a result, it ended as it did in the book, without their involvement.

our team is doing (very little, as we're stalled while trying to complete) Brainscan's ending as originally scripted by Jason Levine. from what little i've been told, it involves the team's muscle taking on a paranormal zoo full of Deus' more successful experiments, while the deckers take on a boatload of Whites or somesuch. NPCs handle all the actual Deus-killing.

granted, i've never actually read Brainscan, so maybe that's the way it's actually supposed to go.

Except that everyone is supposed to get caught, and in the space of an hour everyone has nice new shiney alpha jacks (if they didn't have one before) and they all get to fight Dues and his whites at the end....

Well my reasoning is this:

No, he wasn't going to be the team decker, he was going to thank them with a cutter injection and disappear

Alternate Possibility Used In My Game: There never was any Deus. Well, there was, and it did break down and go "crazy" for a couple of months killing lots of people in the interim, but that's all it was. Renraku's public image was damaged nearly beyond repair as a result and the Arcology itself has (sadly -- which is probably why I hate the entire storyline to begin with because it was a great place to use in the game) become something of a pariah. Few people were willing to shop there after those events, and so the place is pretty much a ghost of its former self.

The actual reason for the systems breakdown was far more simple than any of that -- a disgruntled programmer who wanted to get back at Renraku for the constant embarrasment and humiliation he suffered at the hands of his employers, not to mention the promised paycheck a rival corporation offered him to do it.

So basically there is no Network in my game. There is no Pinnochio AI desperately seeking to become a real little boy. There are no killer teddy bears. There are no two AI's battling each other in the brains of metahumans around the world. There's only an arcology that is likely going to either be demolished or completely rennovated and reintroduced with a huge advertising campaign in the coming years, a dead programmer, and a megacorporation with a reputation they have to repair. Oh, and lots of potential for runs both during and after the events.

In my game, the players never went near the Arcology (game takes place in Tir Tairngire anyway). The Arc was emptied, it's still closed, Deus is still there and still mad. Every now and again someone manages to get into the Renraku Arc matrix system- they usually die there or, as one reported when he returned, slightly maddened, "Inside is something dark and terrible."

Not too long afterwards, Mitsuhama succeeded in creating a true AI, but it "stole itself", escaped, and then was destroyed by Mitsuhama deckers, but not before it released a flood of bots into the matrix, programmed to find and liberate other AIs that may be in bondage to corps. (See the Shadowlands conversation during the battle.) In the future those bots will find and release one, and he and Deus will begin their war for the Deep Resonance.