Ever seen Fifth Element? There're LOTS of them. Even worse than Blade Runner, where only the cops had them, or Cyberpunk, whwere they at least were reasonably expensive.

I mean, unless SR develops antigrav technology (which I would never forgive the writers), people would have to rely to some form of jet propulsion. And even with sound damping making the car's engines whisper compared to today's Harrier, it'd still create an exhaust that is really bad to be caught in. I have a difficult time imagining a vectored-thrust vehicle being used in an unrban high-rise environment - the exhaust would crack windows, fry pedestrians, and generally generate a lot of havoc.

I just don't see air cars viable with known technology, period. Tilted-rotor "air buses", yes. Helicopter air taxis and small private helicopters, maybe. military vectored-thrust armoured vehicles, possibly. But an air car fro everyone? Hasn't worked in the past, won't work in the future.

That'd be pretty stupid. The GitS method of display link overlays for communication and data viewing, coupled with virtual spaces that are desgined weirdly and unlike the real world, and people having odd avatars that can only be accessed when giving up on real-world perception, is way more realistic.

Think about it. Chaning the world's shape is crucial to any virtual reality, otherwise, it'd be pretty useless. If people were keen on having their virtual self be like their real self, why don't we all use our real names? Why don't we use our passport photographs for avatars instead of funky images not really tied to our looks?

Also, note that in these ghastly movies, the Matrix didn't look precisely like the "real world" either.

You know...
That sentence doesen't make any sense whatsoever.

Think about flight:
"Hasn't worked in the past, won't work in the future."

Spaceflight:
"Hasn't worked in the past, won't work in the future."

Computers:
"Hasn't worked in the past, won't work in the future."

The atomic bomb:
"Hasn't worked in the past, won't work in the future."

. . .

See what I mean?

All these examples have been attempted and been at least somewhat successful. But. Do you see space colonies anywhere? Hunh? Ever read a futorological book from the 60s? We're way overdue to establish city-sized moon colonies (and melt the polar caps for fun). why hasn't that happened already?

This isn't a question of technological viability. Like with space colonies, "air cars" are technologically possible (and have been since the late 60s). It's just that they're not viable in reality, for a number of reasons, the primary being money.

Space colonies are costly and ultimately unnescessary, since there's still enough space for all people on Earth. Why deal with all the trouble of living in high orbit when you can just buy soem real estate in a suburb and build your house there?

Same with the air car. It's technologically possible, yes. It is financially not viable and creates more problems than it solves. Hence, no air car.

Can afford to, yes. America has some 300 billionaires, so it has 300 people who, in theory, could afford a private space craft. That's one hell of a market.

Oh, sure. Military installations in space, some research stations, and the ICC orbital ... that's been realised in SR, and is a possibility in real life too. Even a space hotel for freaky super rich. But NOT for a broader audience.

Two words: Gated Communities. It's not like they're not around already. Just seal them offf a bit more tightly, add monowire and sentry guns, and voila! insta-fatcat-enclave.

Oh, for sure. Just not the way people expected it to. Take air cars. Space colonies. Even manned space flight. None of that happened. The classic Cyberpunk setting has still been remarkably accurate, of course. But not entirely.

Of course, a suspense of disbelief is required, but at least for me, thats largely used up with Magic and all teh associated things already (and the incon sistencies with Magic preferring animist religions over more widespread - read monotheist - ones). I cannot cope with weird Scifi technology on top of that - that'd kill the setting for me.

But maybe that's just me.

Dont forget, that space travel (at least from the technological background) has become extremly cheap in 2060.

SYL

A person still has to pay some 4000 Nuyen, IIRC. Not really what I'd call extremely cheap. And building a big space station is one HELL of a payload, thus real estate there will have one hell of a price tag. Something for Fortune's top 10.000 maybe. But not for the average Joe (and Jane).

A skyhook would remedy that somewhat (and be technologically viable, if very vulnerable to the many dangers of the 6th world), but so far as space travel is limited to rockets and shuttles, it will never be really affordable.

Sigh....

I was born too early.

You mean Yamatetsu's orbital resort?

Unless FanPro wants to ditch the Earthdawn angle - and since they just introduced Thread Magic, I don't really see them doing so - they're there to stay. Those creatures have seen a lot of revolution and sudden changes. Unlike the average Joe, they'll propably cope just fine, though Celedyr and Lofwyr will propably be really pissed about losing most of their hoard's worth and their most beloved toys.

Well color me ignorant! Where was thread magic introduced? (I don't have DotSW, YotC, WotC, SotA '63 or '64, or MJLBB.)

But laser weapons and flying cars exist NOW.
Also, Anti-gravity technology is at least being researched.

Fun science aside, I get your point. It would be a little too much. Also, flying cars won't catch on because we already have flying cars, we call them helicopters.

As is telepathy and time travel. And neither is really applicable, is it?

I know the research into "anti-gravity". It's basically a more intricate version of a maglev, though, no "anti-gravity" technology. And the magnetic fields involved would propably fry all electronics close to an antigrav drive. Imagine such a vehicle rushing through Downtown Seattle ...

Firstly, [gravity] is not a force, it's a property of matter. Secondly antigravity fields actually exist, we just can't make them practical. Like worm holes. But one day we might. Not that I'd like to see it happen.

As if they wouldn't rebuild it. I don't care if the castles fall from the sky, but the corps spent too much on Kilimanjaro to suddenly stop building.

Space will continue to be developed because the resources on Earth are dwindling, because pollution is more expensive to clean up, because it is the natural progression. I'm not talking about space colonies or every day tourist traps.

I never said they wouldn't rebuild it. But it'd be an incredibly powerful symbolic blow to the Court's power for it to crash into the ocean.

I seriously question that.

~J

On a second note ... is al-Quaeda powerful enough to crash the ISS? It's one thing to place some goons into a van full of plastic explosives and blow up a hotel (or hijack an American inland flight before all those harsh measures and crash it into a highrise), but blowing something out of orbit is an entirely different matter.

The terrorists, or rather their AI backer Deus, could, of course, hack the station's computers and just kill everyone on board off ... but blow it out of the sky? I don't see how.

False analogy. Al Qaeda has never taken out the Internet.

Really? Well, other than hacking the guidance computers, they could hack the Ares space laser or any number of space weapon, or they could launch an ICBM at it - or hijack (prior to launch) a semiballisitc and crash it into the station, though that also requires hacking the Z-O defenses. Not easy by any means, but not really impossible either.

And don't compare modern terrorist groups to Winternight, the latter is far more patient and advanced then anything in the world. The best comparison would be groups like TerraFirst!, Green War, Crying Masks, and so on. Winternight is one of those impossibly large and powerful hidden groups that tend not to exist in RL. A better comparison might be the Illuminati.

And those apocalyptic terrorists won't either. SC/CE is supposed to end the Deus story arc. Guess who will crash the Mattrix?

Nothing is impossible for a dedicated AI, sure, but for a terrorist group? Sure, Al Quadea could also pull a Lone Eagle on the US. It's not like the US could really do a lot about it, right? the border to Canada is wide open, and there surely is an isolated missile silo somewhere, right? So why haven't they? Because they lack ressources. And because they lack the proper knowledge of, say, sattelite channels needed to even contact the Ares SDI sattelite's computers in the first place. Unless they have help from Deus, or another AI, I don't see them have a good chance at succeeding.

Sorry, don't own threats or threats 2 ... midn summing it up for me? Except for them being the Nachtmacher squared or something, I know next to nothing about Winternight.

Yeah, like in the formar Chinese states, the ex-USSR, etc. Plus, I fully expect they would need help of the AI; I was actually assuming it was a tied event.

The best bet for finding info on Winternight is to do a search, though it might actually be spelled Wintersnight or Winternight. They don't appear in Threats 2 and I don't have Threats to know if it's in there.

An assumption, but a pretty safe one. in my opinion 87% likley.

Are you talking about In Game or Real Life? In RL Al Quadea couldn't pull a Lone Eagle because all the U.S. missile silos were decommisioned years ago.

What did I say on the main forum a month ago? I don't guess, speculate, or hypothesize. I make predictions, but I can do those without any regard to fact or logic.

No, they weren't.

Most of the silos were decommissioned. There are still ~500 out there in the midwest.

You haven't read Threats, so you don't realize that unlike RL groups, Winternight does have the resources and patience to do something incredibly destructive. They also have the resources to destroy anything they want, if they want. They have resources, contacts, sleeper agents, secure communications, and the will to die. Furthermore, they were--were--supported by Alamaise for a time in Germany before Lofwyr kicked his ass in Ragnarock. They had access to a nuclear weapon. They were responsible for one of the probes being destroyed in YotC. A probe which they smuggled a nuke onboard.

They also eschew the Matrix. They hate it. They don't trust it. They don't use it. They'd rather it be destroyed. I cannot see how they could team up with an AI--the personification of the thing they hate most in the world--because it makes no logical sense.

There is a logical progression to why Winternight is the most likely suspect. But, they are a suspect. This suspicion is combined with the literal words of the catalog which state, "Apocalyptic terrorists strike around the world." There are plenty of apocalypse groups in SR. But AFAIK, Winternight is the only apocalyptic terrorist group previously mentioned in SR. There were mentioned in at least three different parts of SOTA64 as being up to something--something big. To use a RL term, intelligence agencies across the globe have picked up a lot of "chatter" and clues that they are up to something. They have the means, motive, and capabilities to pull off this task alone.

IOW, I'm not talking out of my ass. The sooner people accept that, the sooner I can stop having to repeat myself umpteen times on something I am more likely than not to be right about.

Well, Dissonance - the dark side of Deep Renascence - may want to destroy the Matrix as well, and it has the ability to crawl around in human skin (or use old otaku, if you prefer) to make contact with them. Or vice versa, as one of their test cases may have become dark otaku.

Ok. So far, this is nothing I haven't heared about Al Qaida already. Ressources? Positive. One of the richest families in the world supports them. Numerous Arab merchants support them (or are extorted by them). Until recently, Saudi Arabia and most other Gulf states supported them financially and logistically, and they were in control of a nation the size of Nebraska.
Al Qaida has a network of couriers, sleepers and agents that is incredibly hard to track down. They have very good contacts to the secret services of at least two nations - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (though there's some spring cleaning going on ever since AQ decided to take on Fahd and the house of Saud).

And I doupt anyone does doupt their will to lay down their lives if only this means they can cause enough havoc and death.

You know, they're supposed to have (at least) one briefcase bomb too. You do know that, don't you? Russia built some 20 of these bombs. At least four are missing.

It would, by the way, be a terrible waste of a nuke, something they propably cannot buy just like that again, to use it to blow up a space probe. Space probes are vulnerable. Some C-12 in the maneuvering jets and on the on-board RTG, and whammo! Probe is out of control and disappears into the void. But meh, it seems to be written down somewhere, so we can only guess they did that for dramatic effect.

I would guess Winternight does something that spins out of control. Unleash the Dissonance, or Mirage, or whatever malicious thing they have been brewing, and it just turns on everyone. Deus and Meagera team uop against it, and all vanish into darkness as the Matrix breaks down, all data stored online is lost, and pretty much the whole world economy breaks down.

Well, with the Exception of Scandinavia, thanks to WMI. Maybe they're the big winners in 2070? That'd definitly be something that hasn't been done before - the scandinavian liberal empire.

Woah, antigravity fields exist?! That's certainly news to me, and I'm a physics grad student. You might want to tell somebody about it and you could get a Nobel Prize.

Second, gravity is most definitely a force. It's a force that happens to be caused by the curvature of space caused by matter, but a force none the less.


As for the maglev stuff, magnetic fields strong enough to do it exist today (and no, they wouldn't fry electronics in the viscinity), however there are a ton of practical problems keeping anyone from actually doing it. Not the least of which is the fact that it is questionable whether a maglev train would actually be any more efficient than a regular train. Moving through a strong magnetic field isn't free, there is something equivalent to a magnetic friction that needs to be overcome.

They wanted to knock Halley's Comet off course.

With *one* nuke? Whoa. Okay, I can see their point, but that's an awesomely large and fast rock ... they'd have needed a couple more nukes for that. Ah well, apocalyptic terror groups (like Al Qaida and Winternight) tend to not attract people who really think matters through, for obvious reasons.

I wasn't talking about maglev trains, which float some centimeters above a diamagnetic metal. Those don't fry electronics, or else, my cellphone would not have worked in Shanghai's Transrapid train. A ride I can only recommend, by the way, if you're in the area.

For all I know, maglev trains have clear advantages; it's just their price tag that keeps them from being realised. Well, that and old wheel-track-technology lobbyists, as happened in Germany - the new ICE bullet train track Berlin-Hamburg cost about as much as the Maglev track would have cost, is worse to furry animals, and took years to complete. And the trains are notably slower, too, but meh, that's what a powerful lobby can do to a superior technology.

But a maglev train is not a vehicle propelling itself to helicopter height using the same effect, which should need a much stronger magnetic field (to my knowledge). Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

We don't actually have the full details, IIRC, but from the scenario in WotC the probe designer would have the pausible knowledge of what was required and so on to make it happen as required.