first of all, wtf does an Otaku look like anyway?

Ive never read a novel or sourcebook with this information yet.

Like an ordinary kid, only dirtier and often scrawnier.

~J

They have grey skin, they are kind of skinny, with big heads and luminous eyes. They are fond of abducting hillbillies and using ana....

Wait, no! Those are aliens.

Otaku are the kids with datajacks and no deck that can whup your butt in the matrix.

okay.
anyone know the earlest reference of them?

I feel like I remember reading in an old school novel they were a corp black ops project, like back whan Fuchi was a power

Earliest reference IIRC is Virtual Realities 2.0 and Doctor Halberstam's experiment. The first in-game public confirmation of their existence is in 2055 in the Denver sourcebook.

~J

knew I shoulda bought that Denverbox set. it was at this used book store and they didnt really know what it was, so they were selling it for like 20 canadian.
Ive really been meaning to take a gander at Denver ever since.

I'd think they probably have yellow skin and a wasted look, Possibly few teeth. Vitamin deficiencies, living on the street, and no parental supervision, with inadequate medical care, no dental, combined with poor physical attributes will do that to a kid.

I'll admit I never cared for them as a character idea for a shadowrunner. While it is true that kids are often lacking in empathy and are capable of being really, really nasty, the truth is that street culture tends towards machismo enough that nobody would take them seriously.

We hear about the problems supergenious kids have when pushed into college too early - They often self-destruct due to loneliness and stress.

These kids are never alone when a jackpoint is nearby...

~J

Once an Otaku is playable he/she is probably in the fold of a community of Otaku. My impression is that they take care of each other pretty well once they team up. They have the to spend on each other due to data steals, etc. And I can't see them letting someone turn into a malnourished diseased member of their community.

so why do they have datajacks then? who put them there?

Also keep in mind that not every Otaku can access the Matrix without a deck. The entire tribe are Otaku, not just the specially-empowered ones.

As for the datajacks, arrangements with street docs are not uncommon.

~J

so lets get this straight.
a child is born. human. with mad decking skills? and at an early age they put a deck in his head and they call them Otaku?

The Otaku who have been touched by the Deep Resonance don't need a deck, or ASIST, etc. They plug in and run the grid. Other members of the tribe who have not been touched are your basic kids with decks. Perhaps with the madskillz, but they gotta have the hardware.

so the deep resonance makes them able to plug their meat brains into the grid?

That is my take on it.

Yes, they are born human (or metahuman). Some otaku tribes form from urban tribes of abandoned youth, from the Barrios of Los Angeles to the street orphanages of Bombay. These urban tribes become focused around technology, usually with whatever scraps they can manage to gather. The Matrix gives them an escape from their misery and a skill to use to survive in the Sprawl. Among these tribes there are some that are naturally adept at using the Matrix. Perhaps it is skill they are born with; perhaps it is from being exposed to the Matrix at a young age. Perhaps it is a bit of both and more. Somewhere along the line, these children are contacted by the "Resonance", a force that all otaku agree exists, but each tribe (and sometimes each otaku) defines differently. The Resonance helps them through a process that not all of them will successfully pass, but those who do are able to interact with the Matrix in a way that is different than most of metahumanity, without the need for a deck. Something happens to them, whether a natural expression of evolution or an intentional tinkering or maybe even a magical expression. No one really knows. But they are definitely different.

Some otaku don't come from urban tribes, but come from the infirm and forgotten. The autistic, the crippled, the mentally ill. Children left in hospitals and asylums, with only the Matrix to interact with and others of their kind who they meet through it. These otaku work the same way as the others but come from a different background. But they are no less unusual.

yeah, that paints a clearer picture.
Bet there's lots of angry kids waiting to get their gift of the resonance.
Thats some scary drek. Like some Tetsuo and Akira, you know?

So why are they all street people? WHy aren't there any who are well off, or working with any of the corps?

Simple. Corps want adults, people they can rely on who they have spent years training as well as people who won't make childish decisions. By the time an otaku reaches that age, they're either dead or a normal decker.

There is no reason that upper crusts don't become, some probably do, but the tribes are described as mentioned above. Perhaps the Deep Resonence has a preference for those without silver spoons.

There are Otaku who are well off or who have worked for the corps, though they are a small minority. Alexander Tyrell Gates would be an example of a well-off otaku and Ronin would be an example of an otaku who has worked with the corporations.

The conditions that seem to lead to a person's "selection" by the Deep Resonance seem to be far more common among the destitute or infirm, however, and otaku's loyalties are always stronger to its tribe and the Resonance than it is to a corporation, which makes their corporate affiliations loose at best (Ronin is another good example here).

And then you have Hesby's pets.....

'cuz.

hypothesis: whoever created or discovered the first otaku left them on the street. there, they sought out other kids with the potential to develop otaku abilities, and formed tribes. as the tribes started out on the street, they've remained on the street.

It's also one of those things that is impossible to answer without defining the Deep Resonance, which no one can do at this point.

If the Deep Resonance is a sentient entity of some sort (AI, "spirit of the Matrix", whatever), then maybe it has its own specific reasons for seeking out those from the streets or the sick.

If the Deep Resonance is the result of some sort of psychological condition, maybe it's a condition which is far more common among those who are traumatized in some way, which isn't nearly as common among people who are well-off or working in office jobs as it would be among kids who grow up on the streets or crippled by disease or mental illness.

If the Deep Resonance is the result of some sort of natural evolution of metahumanity in the digital age, maybe the selection pressures manifest under those conditions as opposed to others. Perhaps the well-off sarariman just isn't evolutionarily fit to survive in the emerging digital world, and will someday go the same way as the dinosaurs and the neandrathals.

Any or none of the above might be true! No one knows!

Heck, maybe it has something to do with polution and UV damage to the scalp. It is fun to think about.

I can't imagine a corp kiddie having a sufficiently accessible mind to the Deep Resonance to become Otaku. They've already been brainwashed to think in an almost polar opposite manner than Otaku do.

In my game we say that the reason we don't see many upper-crust otaku is because rich kids are likely to have access to meds like Ritalin, and so any "abnormality' is corrected before it can blossem.

huh. i like that, bwo. very cyberpunkish.