Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Justification of Essence Costs
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
elbows
This has been bugging me for a while. In Man and Machine, they make a big deal about clarifiying the cause of essence loss -- specifically, interfacing machines with the human brain causes essence loss.

They claim to have gone through and reconsidered the essence costs of all cyberware based on this criteria, but there are a number of items that don't make sense.

Consider headware radios, at .75 essence. The mind-machine interface here is basically an on/off switch (and maybe frequency selection as well). The actual talking part is not handled by a direct neural interface (unless you pay extra for the "cyber-telepathy" add-on, whatever it's called).

Compare to a smartlink at .5 essence, which includes a limited simsense rig (recording your movements), visual output (images sent directly to your brain), plus a bunch cybernetic "switches" for changing firing mode, ejecting clips, etc. Basically, you're connecting a much more complex machine to your brain, but the cost is lower.

Also, a headware cell phone costs (IIRC) .5 as well -- but it's basically the same device as a radio, though slightly more complex.

And then there's bone lacing, which has a pretty high essence cost, but as far as I can tell has _no_ connection to the brain at all. And even if it is somehow connected to your nervous system, why does titanium cost more essence than plastic?

Other than the obvious answer of "game balance", can anyone justify the essence costs of these pieces of cyberware?
GrinderTheTroll
I always thought the more impact it had on your overall person the more essence it costs. The "loss of essence" is your becoming more machine than person. More invasive cyberware means more essence.

Balance is a major factor, but the headware radio vs. phone essence cost has always seemed high.
tjn
I really like Doc's idea. It's not canon, but it fits very neatly into existing canon and promotes fusion.

QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
My long-term theory has been that the same thing that allows magicians to channel mana from the astral plane into the physical realm is the same thing that allows cyberware to run off of bioelectricity. That's not to say it's magic, only that the Awakening brought with it a yet-to-be-classified biological phenomenon. Science has been able to exploit it (I'm sure the guys responsible for the violinist guy's cyberhand were as surprised as everyone else when their technology worked as well as it did), but not necessarily identify it. Instead, they just called it "Essence."

There's a reason fully-functional implants didn't start working until after the Awakening, afterall.  Hell, it even provides a reason for why Essence loss hampers your ability to weild Magic -- all of the juice you have channeled into powering your implants is juice not being used to channel mana through your body.

I know it's not popular, especially amidst the "technology and magic can't combine!!!!" fanatics, but I like it.


My personal take on it is that the undefined "Essence" of a lifeform is what creates mana and eventually manaspheres. However cyberware effectively hijacks this mana creation to power the 'ware instead.

EDIT: And yes, the essence cost for a headware radio or phone is obscene.
Teulisch
The way i see it, is that essence represents your bodys natural micro-electric feild, or whatever its is. This is what powers magic abilities, and what creates an aura. Without it your braindead. So the cyberware, which needs no external power supply yet can do all this wonderfull stuff, is 1) using up some of that bio-electric to power itself, and 2) removing the % of your flesh you have left. Headware is more vital (because its in the brain) even though its smaller. And less body tissue should mean less pheremones, thus explaining the minimum +1 diff to social for low essence (you smell wrong on a subconsious level)

Cyberzombies need magic to be created, and have a negative impact on the astral as technomagic keeps a corpse alive.

Personaly, i prefer keeping 1.01+ essence of my sams so i can get 4 points of bioware. that and a lil essence loss wont kill me outright.

for the radio issue, what expensive is getting enough charge from your body to transmit a signal. Phones are easier because they have less interconnection with the brain... and makes you very easy to find by anyone who knows your number.
elbows
Grinder, I like the "more invasive = more essence loss" idea. The hard part there is definining "invasive" -- which is probably what led to the "mind-machine interface = essence loss" interpretation.

tjn, your idea that using the body's energy to power cyberware causes essence loss is cool, but I'm not sure it explains bone lacing (which is basically just inert material).

Of course, I'm not sure that there's _any_ possible interpretation under which it makes sense for titanium lacing to cost more than plastic. I've been thinking of house-ruling bone lacing to break it down by levels instead of material -- higher level = more stuff in your body, which leads to more essence loss (if we use Grinder's intepretation).

And yeah, I always house-rule radios and phones to have much lower essence costs (and the same cost for both).
Moon-Hawk
If you define essence as the similarity between the physical form and the astral pattern then the more an implant changes your functionality, your abilities, the more different you feel, and are, from your astral template, and thus that connection is weakened. Which is why things that have zero impact on normal functionality (like cortex bombs) or things that maintain regular functionality (like pacemakers) don't cost essence, but titanium makes you more different from your astral template then plastic does because it more drastically changes your abilities and makes you less like "yourself."
Cray74
The problem with "bio-electric fields" powering cyberware is how pathetically little power the human body generates in an electric format. You'd need something like 25000 human brains to make an LED flicker. FanPro's BT side is wising up to that, but SR still keeps talking about "bioelectricity" powering cyberware.

Essence loss is fairly explicable using the Earthdawn concept of "patterns," the universe's blueprints for people and objects. A passive implant like bonelacing is altering the body's performance by making the bones tougher - ergo, the "true pattern" is altered. Or rather, the body is altered away from the original "true pattern," and the change manifests as essence loss. Titanium bonelacing alters the recipient more than plastic bonelacing (higher body bonus), hence the higher essence cost.
tjn
QUOTE (elbows)
tjn, your idea that using the body's energy to power cyberware causes essence loss is cool, but I'm not sure it explains bone lacing (which is basically just inert material).

From what I understand, lacing bone as it's described in SR, would kill the bone in real life due to it not perpetuating the pourous nature of bone. Admittedly, I'm not exactly a doctor of medicine, but if this were true, the energy could concievably be utilized to keep the bones from dying rather then just simply powering the 'ware.
Tanka
QUOTE (Cray74)
The problem with "bio-electric fields" powering cyberware is how pathetically little power the human body generates in an electric format. You'd need something like 25000 human brains to make an LED flicker. FanPro's BT side is wising up to that, but SR still keeps talking about "bioelectricity" powering cyberware.

Essence loss is fairly explicable using the Earthdawn concept of "patterns," the universe's blueprints for people and objects. A passive implant like bonelacing is altering the body's performance by making the bones tougher - ergo, the "true pattern" is altered. Or rather, the body is altered away from the original "true pattern," and the change manifests as essence loss. Titanium bonelacing alters the recipient more than plastic bonelacing (higher body bonus), hence the higher essence cost.

As was said, it isn't just bioelectricity. It's also some unknown variable that came into play thanks to the Awakening. It's the same stuff that allows casters to channel mana and Adepts to make themselves better physicall (or socially, now), so when you take any 'ware, you hamper the body's ability to do what it could naturally do.
Cray74
QUOTE (tjn)
From what I understand, lacing bone as it's described in SR, would kill the bone in real life due to it not perpetuating the pourous nature of bone. 

The idea of plated bone choking off red blood cell production seems to have been started in Timothy Zahn's "Cobra" series, which is unrelated to SR. His cyborgs in there suffer from anemia because red blood cells can't get out of the marrow and into the blood stream, because the bones are completed plated in reinforcing material.

SR's bonelacing would leave plenty of room for new blood cells to get out of the bones. Given the lack of rules for long-term health effects due to bonelacing (whereas bioware does have rules for long-term stress effects), it would seem that the essence loss due to bonelacing is not indicative of poor health (which would manifest as Body loss and wounds, not essence loss).

QUOTE
Admittedly, I'm not exactly a doctor of medicine, but if this were true, the energy could concievably be utilized to keep the bones from dying rather then just simply powering the 'ware.


Given SR's stated difficulty in interfacing magic and technology, I don't think that cyberware is powered by mystical soul energy, essence, or whatever.

SR does often have technology interfere with magic, as witnessed by background counts and target numbers for spells targeting technological items. Essence loss to cyberware seems to be the same sort of thing.
Cynic project
It is largelya game blance thing. In fact that is all that it is. With a few problem areas, such as things in the head.
tjn
QUOTE (Cray74)
SR's bonelacing would leave plenty of room for new blood cells to get out of the bones.

QUOTE (M&M @ pg 27, second column under Bone Lacing)
Ceramic bone lacing augments bones with a sturdy, impact-resistant poly-ceramic coating.  Kevlar ™ bone lacing weaves a protective ballistic mesh around the user's bones and joints.

M&M implies that bonelacing actually covers the bone rather then actual lacing (like the BBB claims). Not the first time there's been an inconsistancy, won't be the last, but there is evidence within Canon to support the view that bonelacing actually covers bone with the reinforcing material.

QUOTE (Cray74)
Given the lack of rules for long-term health effects due to bonelacing (whereas bioware does have rules for long-term stress effects), it would seem that the essence loss due to bonelacing is not indicative of poor health (which would manifest as Body loss and wounds, not essence loss).

If the Essence itself is supporting the body so that it remains healthy despite the foreign objects within, why would it manifest as Body loss or wounds?

QUOTE
Given SR's stated difficulty in interfacing magic and technology, I don't think that cyberware is powered by mystical soul energy, essence, or whatever.

SR does often have technology interfere with magic, as witnessed by background counts and target numbers for spells targeting technological items. Essence loss to cyberware seems to be the same sort of thing.

And it's as difficult to turn a cyberdeck (the technology posterboy) into a focus as it is to turn a shovel (a simple lever) into a focus. *shrug* It's all in how you look at it.

Though I do want to point out, I do not consider mana as "mystical soul energy" or any of that claptrap. I'm fairly hermetic in my outlook and see mana as just another type of energy. It's only recently discovered in the SR universe and all of it's quirks haven't been explored, but it is not some mystical soul juice squeezed out through prisms and pyramids.

So, if it isn't Essence that powers cyberware, and bioelectricity is woefully inadequate to cover for the amount of energy needed, where do you think it comes from?
DrJest
I can see matters have changed a lot in this field since 2nd Ed.

For the record, the SR2 (courtesy of Cybertechnology and the Cyberzombies material, I think) version of this has already been stated: that installing cyberware causes your physical pattern to deviate from your astral pattern. When the deviation gets too big (Essence 0) your physical pattern thinks it's dead, so you die. Remember the chilling conversation Hatchetman had with his doctor?

"I asked him if I was alive
He said yes.
I asked him if I was going to stay alive.
He said yes, as long as I remembered.
Remembered what, I asked.
Remembered that I was alive, he answered."
Lindt
Woh, where was that from? I just got a brain typhoon for a game....
Tanka
Lindt: Cybertechnology in the Cyberzombies section.
Arethusa
A word of advice for those who haven't heard it before: shut your head off when you look at the essence values for the radio and phone. They're wrong, they're stupid, and they're broken, and best of all, they're very easy to fix.
DrJest
Lindt, the old Cybertechnology book has a truly amazing piece of fluff dealing with Hatchetman becoming a cyberzombie. Spine-chilling smile.gif It's a lot shorter, but I'd rate it up there with the Universal Brotherhood piece, and to a lesser extent the fiction from VR1.0. You owe it to yourself to read it biggrin.gif

Arethusa, yeah, a lot of it is pretty naff. Especially when you look at all the options you need to make it work worth a damn. From a personal point of view, I'd pretty much halve the essence costs of nearly all the communications cyberware. A headware radio/telephone is practically the first thing any cyber-aware culture sticks in its heads, for crying out loud.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (tjn)
QUOTE (M&M @ pg 27, second column under Bone Lacing)
Ceramic bone lacing augments bones with a sturdy, impact-resistant poly-ceramic coating.  Kevlar ™ bone lacing weaves a protective ballistic mesh around the user's bones and joints.

M&M implies that bonelacing actually covers the bone rather then actual lacing (like the BBB claims). Not the first time there's been an inconsistancy, won't be the last, but there is evidence within Canon to support the view that bonelacing actually covers bone with the reinforcing material.

Mesh != complete covering.

~J
Da9iel
coating =? complete covering?
Tanka
Not always.

My coat covers my arms and chest, but not my neck.
Da9iel
You wear a coating over your arms and chest? Can I see! spin.gif
Kagetenshi
*Waves hand* This is not the inconsistency you're looking for smile.gif

~J
Da9iel
*click* "Uh, this is not the inconsistency I'm looking for." *click* alien.gif
Kanada Ten
They actually make a big deal of "altering the metahuman body and how it functions" as the great big cause of essence loss.
Ol' Scratch
So why doesn't getting shot, burned, stabbed, or de-limbed cause Essence loss? I'm pretty sure that counts as altering the metahuman body and how it functions. Same goes for accupuncture, surgery, implantation of an artificial knee, and lots of other things.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
So why doesn't getting shot, burned, stabbed, or de-limbed cause Essence loss?

I think it should have the chance to. Just like cosmetic surgery.
Da9iel
Doc Funk: Because, uh, they don't. nyahnyah.gif
I kinda buy into the pattern magic type mumbo jumbo. Some things (like losing an arm and reattaching a cloned one) change the body's metaphysical magic pattern at the same time. Other things like artificial knees restore the body's function to normal and . . . uh . . . .

I'm sorry. I just can't do it any more. I can't try to talk seriously about a mechanic that was introduced for the sole purpose of game balance. cyber.gif dead.gif
Deamon_Knight
I see essence loss like this: Lets assume that Magic is basically just another type of energy, (4-dimensional tesseracts and all, rather than the mystical baggage that comes with the word "magic"), and that energy is both perfectly normal and is inextricably bound up with life. This is why there are terrible manawarps in space, and its well accepted that life causes the manasphere. The reverse also seems to be true, that there is some strong reliance by life on magic, as we see when essence drops far enough, you die.

We also see that highly processed materials don't conduct this energy well, as processed waste, cars and even purified water have higher TNs than more natural substances.

Its also generally accepted that the Metahuman body acts as a conductor of magical energy, even for the non Awakened.

So, taken together, we have Magic and Life reliant on the flow of magical energy, and that specifically living bodies are the medium by which this energy is propagated, and that highly processed materials (Cyberware anyone?) impede this flow; resulting in Essence/Magic loss.
Kanada Ten
I would hazard a guess that Essence was not introduced as a game balance factor. Even as a subscriber to the Astral Template theory, I think they intended it to be a measure of one's humanity. Whether or not it was intended to kill, or just cause some kind of breakdown probably changed. But I really really do think that the concept of SR before magic was a battle for the soul of humanity.
Ol' Scratch
Are you kidding? It almost certainly was introduced as a game balance factor -- one to keep people from just loading up on all the cyberware they could afford to get, and to give magicians a consequence for dabbling in it (since, at the time, there was a strong magic vs. technology vibe in the game). Humanity has never had anything to do with Essence.
Kanada Ten
No, I'm not kidding. I know it's not a popular opinion, but I really don't think they just said, "How do we stop people from loading up on all this cyberware?" before they added magic. I think that someone was reading cyberpunk and thinking, "God, humanity is dying and being replaced by machines."
Ol' Scratch
It's possible, but all evidence points to it being solely a game-balance mechanic. Other than a not-really-existant Social Penalty kinda-sorta in some situations (and only because of the way others react to seeing your implants), it has no bearing on your "humanity" whatsoever except for limiting the number of implants you can have.
Arethusa
I'm with Funk on this. Game balance is really the most internally consistent (if not always; there are cockups like radios, etc) explanation, and while all the attempts afterwards at rationalization (biolectricity or whatever's popular these days) have been perhaps noble, they're really just secondary concerns.
Kanada Ten
I think the values assigned to Essence loss are all about game balance; I just don't think that was where the idea came from.
Da9iel
In either case, it is (to me) pointless to try and figure out an in-game reason why bone-lacing costs essence and an artificial knee joint doesn't. It's for balance.
Ol' Scratch
The real brain-scratcher comes from the fact that the body naturally accepts titanium a whole lot better than it does plastic or aluminum... yet look at those Essence costs. smile.gif
Crisp
Ever after reading the Aural Template explanation in Shadowtech-IIRC-I always liked that idea. It sorta makes sense: things that make you significantly better/different-Titanium BL-change your AuraL Template/Pattern more than things that only make a minor improvement/change-Plastic BL. When they changed it in M&M, I felt kinda disappointed and went-So Titanium BL has more connections to my brain than Plastic Bl-suuuure...

That said I do think the only reason they included the Essence mechanic in SR1 was strictly for game balance. If you read SR1 from end to end you find little, if any, mention of "loss of humanity" (and there were no social penalties whatsoever associated with having cyber back then). If the game designers had considered this a major part of the game I would've thought they'd have made far more visible and important (as it is in CP2020 where getting implants most definitely makes you lose your humanity-you might even end up a cyberpsicho).
Nikoli
Also, look at the cost essence and nuyen for the cameras. .5 for a digital camera in your eye. sure, maybe in the late '80's when it was not common tech, but for crying out loud my PDA has a camera with an impressive pixel count (can zoom fairly well) and it's maybe as large as my iris. I can't fathom them getting bigger in the next 60 years.

Hence, in my games I house ruled them to half the book listed cost.
DarkShade
ok, wacky theory here..

background: other games like D&D-old had a variant on magic level in a realm of existance, varying from very low to `normal`for world with flying mages, dragons etc, to the incredibly high where normally inanimate objects are alive and even spellcasters <bit like alice in wonderland, but not nearly as funny >
if you went to a realm with too low a mana level it would not be able to support humanoid life so you would die.

this adapted to shadowrun, combined with the whole cycles of magic thing and the horrors in particular makes sense, they need a certain mana level to survive, but they are far more magical creatures than dragons, which are more magical than & need more magic that metahumans etc.. canon sr seems to imply that entities go dormant if mana level is below what they need and perhaps cannot subsist if it becomes low enough.
it makes some sense that just as mages cannot exist as such with a too-low- mana level there is a mana level low enough that humans cannot survive.

then there are cyberzombies, walking mana polluters, as blood magic <it being the strongest available> has been used to raise the mana level in a small area centered on them. they can still exist but only within that field. if you were to dispel all spells sustaining it he would die instantly, reverting to the inanimate object he should be at our mana level.

now the idea is that just like powerful mana rituals are needed for cyberzombies , when a metahuman plugs something into him or herself he makes it a part of himself, alive in a sense,animate, and as the current mana level doest allow for that to happen to a piece of metal/plastic the metahuman body has to provide the needed mana to animate the part as it becomes part of itself; This is exactly what the bodypart becomes <canon: whatever you pay essence for is considered part of you, see cybereyes and such>, however the body does have a limit beyond which it cannot sustain the required mana <6 points for a metahuman, at this mana level> if you exceed this limit you become inanimate <ie die> unless something is done to keep you in an area with a FAR higher mana level, to allow you to exist.

note this is not the same as a prothesis, & note that losing a body part never costs essence, it is only replacing it with something inanimate that does <bioware doesnt cost essence> & only if it links directly to your brain so your body is fooled into thinking it is a part of itself & thus into animating it as part of a living entity.


differences with canon: only one biggie, cyberzombie in space would prob. die. <then again, not sure what canon says.. it being active astrally and all..>
under this theory something like a cyberzombie would feel `more at ease`within an area of huge magic, at least like the aztech pyramids <or if inhabited by a seriously powerful spirit like in some book we all read.. smile.gif >

.. phew.. it would need some work but such a theory could be nice if worked out, as it affects the game <you could make some exceptions to the essence=6 rule in extreme areas>, so it is not just an `you can only use 6 points cuz book says so! rule>

DS




Kyuhan
I like that.
Herald of Verjigorm
QUOTE (DarkShade)
cyberzombie in space would prob. die. <then again, not sure what canon says.. it being active astrally and all..>

Being dual natured, they would suffer approximately 14D every 3 seconds (resisted by willpower). That's a pretty quick death.
Nikoli
So, there goes my Trid flick "Cyberzombies on the Moon"
Herald of Verjigorm
The moon's only 10D.
Nikoli
hrmm, could be a short film, just some corpses floating along bumping into stuff...
Kagetenshi
"Seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses float inconspicuously around the inside of hangar ninety six. I say that they are inconspicuous because it is their arms and legs which demand my attention. I did this, or I could have stopped it. Which is it? It doesn't matter now. I did this and could have stopped it, but nothing in nature ever follows a gaussian curve. Sure, they'll tell you that it does. They say that every five minutes someone dies in a car accident, but how often are there seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses in one hangar?"

~J
Nikoli
that sounds familiar, what's it from?
Kagetenshi
Marathon: Infinity. One of the terminals in Where Are Monsters in Dreams.

~J
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012