Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: phydaux42 on <06-16-13/1030:50>
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What was the status of self-aware AIs in 2050? Were they rare? How many were there? And what were the regulations around them?
I understand that by 2070 there were feral AIs in the Matrix. How did they get there? Were there any in 2050?
Thanks
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AIs in 2050 were fairy tales told to little Deckers to make sure they ate their vegetable-favored NutriSoy and went to bed before the break of dawn.
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when did the first one "wake up" and who/where was it?
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Not sure if which novel I should point to you, but I think that you can have quite a lot of data about this in Renraku Arcology: Shutdown and Brainscan books. Some stories about two other of the main protagonists are maybe in other books, like the Secret of Power trilogy novels, System failure, Matrix, some Seattle/SOTA books, the novel Psychotrope and a few else. But think that the Matrix book for sR3 and the novels are good starting points for the period you're aiming at..
As for the first, it was
[Mirage, during the Virus war. Then there was Morgan, and then Deus
Source: a little of my Knowledge largely helped by http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/
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The first novel Morgana, the Renraku prototype AI shows up in, is "Never Deal With a Dragon", the first in the "Secrets of Power" trilogy. The events in that take place in 2050-2051, I believe.
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Mirage came to be during the battles against the Crash Virus of 2029-2030ish. He mostly kept to the background unless something was done do directly threaten his interests or the Matrix as a whole.
Morgan came into being in the mid-2050's (2054-55?) when a Renraku semi-autonomous knowbot encountered Dodger and got the spark into self-awareness. Dodger and others got her out from under corporate thumbs but she was hunted down and recaptured, then e-vivisected with parts of her core code being fed into the Renraku Arcology's Arcology Expert Program, which eventually became Deus. When Dodger and friends tried to rescue her, she was damaged extensively and the remains took the name Megaera.
Deus, who is the big bad of AIs. Started out as the Arcology Expert Program in the Renraku's Seattle arcology, created with a combination of extremely advanced technology for the time (courtesy of the immortal elf Leonardo), the single largest concentration of Matrix hardware, and parts of the vivisected older AI, Morgan. Caused the Arcology Shutdown as well as being a huge part of why Crash 2.0 sucked so hard. He is basically the ultimate nightmare of the modern Matrix post-2059.
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Deus started out as the Arcology Expert Program in the Renraku's Seattle arcology
Well that was Morgan at first who had this function, they made him the program controlling the SCIRE in later stages.
created with a combination of extremely advanced technology for the time (courtesy of the immortal elf Leonardo), the single largest concentration of Matrix hardware, and parts of the vivisected older AI, Morgan
Was not aware of Leonardo part there, was he there for code or "only" for hardware? Wonder how much of this he planned, and what is the real part of Clibber and Eurich/Redline in it in hindsight...
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You also forgot about Alice of Wonderland, the e-ghost of Alice Haefner, who died fighting the Crash Virus. She's also the reason Roxy is still in a box.
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Rox in the Box versus Peg the Decker, Fistfight, GO!!!
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Exciting, it's it folks?
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I think one twitched!
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We'll be back after these important messages from our sponsors!
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You also forgot about Alice of Wonderland, the e-ghost of Alice Haefner, who died fighting the Crash Virus. She's also the reason Roxy is still in a box.
You lost me completely on that;) I knew there was something about Alice, but not that her ghost was that active. And for Roxy, I skipped on that too?
Have you any reference to point me to, please?
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Mirage came to be during the battles against the Crash Virus of 2029-2030ish. He mostly kept to the background unless something was done do directly threaten his interests or the Matrix as a whole.
Morgan came into being in the mid-2050's (2054-55?) when a Renraku semi-autonomous knowbot encountered Dodger and got the spark into self-awareness. Dodger and others got her out from under corporate thumbs but she was hunted down and recaptured, then e-vivisected with parts of her core code being fed into the Renraku Arcology's Arcology Expert Program, which eventually became Deus. When Dodger and friends tried to rescue her, she was damaged extensively and the remains took the name Megaera.
Deus, who is the big bad of AIs. Started out as the Arcology Expert Program in the Renraku's Seattle arcology, created with a combination of extremely advanced technology for the time (courtesy of the immortal elf Leonardo), the single largest concentration of Matrix hardware, and parts of the vivisected older AI, Morgan. Caused the Arcology Shutdown as well as being a huge part of why Crash 2.0 sucked so hard. He is basically the ultimate nightmare of the modern Matrix post-2059.
All correct, except Morgan meets Dodger in 2050.
Pretty much oly three-four ai pre-crash 2.0. Until Deus does his thing to the Arc, A.I. Were considered myths by even most shadowrun deckers. They only had advanced know bots etc at the time.
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You also forgot about Alice of Wonderland, the e-ghost of Alice Haefner, who died fighting the Crash Virus. She's also the reason Roxy is still in a box.
You lost me completely on that;) I knew there was something about Alice, but not that her ghost was that active. And for Roxy, I skipped on that too?
Have you any reference to point me to, please?
It is scattered through earlier material. To start with, know that Thomas Roxborough is the genius who unleashed the Crash Virus against a minor corp as a test run before going after a bigger rival. Unfortunately, the virus got loose, and this is where the first Crash came to be. Alice Haefner was part of Echo Mirage, and died in combat with the virus. However, her consciousness apparently got shunted into the Matrix, and she had her own little corner of it she called Wonderland. And when Roxborough happened to come down with an auto-immune disease that caused his body to attack itself, he began taking radical gene treatments to try and save himself. However, the treatments never quite did the job, leaving him as a floating mass of organic material in a tank, still able to communicate via the matrix. And Alice has made sure that any information that could help him out of that tank disappeared. Woman scorned, and all that.
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Thanks for the resume. Didn't catch on Roxborough, knew the name but didn't recognized it there.
Did Alice appear as an eghost before Mirage emerged or after, could be quite related in hindsight?
And about the infos she destroyed, is it more about him being in the tank and so on, which means he is thus pretty dead as even SR vats would need supplies and such for feeding and caring for the corpse inside of it, or about potential treatments of his disease, which in this case mean that the guy only need someone to make new tests on him to get a treatment with the newest genetech, nanotech, or even magic.
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Didn't Roxy try to mind control Ryan Mercury? Or reprogram Ryan into himself or something?
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Roxborough is still alive, somehow, and still in the tank. Alice was simply keeping him from ever being able to get out of that tank, because she wanted him to suffer. Of course, she ran into Jormungand during Crash 2.0, so she's likely not around any more, so who knows what will happen in the future?
As for who emerged first, that is unclear. Likely Mirage and Alice both emerged around the same time, while fighting the Crash Virus. However, both stayed relatively low profile for years. Alice blended in as a hacker in the Matrix, and Mirage simply orchestrated things behind the scenes. Morgan/Megaera emerged in the 2050s, and began following Dodger around. They were a really cute couple, too. Still, AIs were mostly the stuff of legend, even though a few people in the shadows had first-hand knowledge of their existence. It wasn't until Deus stepped out in the open by taking over the SCIRE that they became an actual fact, and not a myth. A good analogy would be dragons, before the Awakening, and then suddenly Ryumyo shows up over Mt. Fuji.
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Was not aware of Leonardo part there, was he there for code or "only" for hardware? Wonder how much of this he planned, and what is the real part of Clibber and Eurich/Redline in it in hindsight...
Speaking of Technobabel. His role was ... complicated. As was Dunkelzahn's.
Didn't Roxy try to mind control Ryan Mercury? Or reprogram Ryan into himself or something?
Reprogram and replace. Just overwriting Mercury's brain wouldn't do the job of what he needed. 8)
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Thanks to both of you.
I feel like I missed quite some stories at one time...
Should have read more novels.
Crimsondude, what is the difference for you between overwriting and replacing? For me, it feel the same.
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My reading of the difference is that overwriting Mercury wouldn't have actually offered Roxborough a continuity of existence (and from the novels, it sounded like Roxborough's scientists didn't believe an overwrite would be permanent). Overwriting would have have put a copy of roxborough's mind/persona inside Mercury, on top of Mercury, which might have eventually been overpowered, letting Mercury come to the surface again. Even if it hadn't, however, Roxborough Prime (that is, the tank Roxborough) wouldn't have been out of the tank.
What Roxborough wanted, and tried to achieve was closer to spirit possession. He desired the complete eradication of Ryan Mercury's original self, and the transfer, not simply of his mind, but of his personal soul, into Ryan's body.
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Now why do the last few posts remind me of some more... recent SR plot developments? :P
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Crimsondude, what is the difference for you between overwriting and replacing? For me, it feel the same.
Can't say.
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Now why do the last few posts remind me of some more... recent SR plot developments? :P
Good catch *narrows eyes* Roxy, Roxy made of Epoxy!
Huh, nothing.
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Now why do the last few posts remind me of some more... recent SR plot developments? :P
Roxy unleashed the Sybil virus? Its not the first matrix virus that his unleashed and it fits his mo to a certain extent. All those decades in the tank had to have amounted to something...
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Now why do the last few posts remind me of some more... recent SR plot developments? :P
Roxy unleashed the Sybil virus? Its not the first matrix virus that his unleashed and it fits his mo to a certain extent. All those decades in the tank had to have amounted to something...
It does seem like Universal Omnitech has been practically overlooked for a while. They were on the nasty end of technomancer "experiments".
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UniOmni's on the nasty end of EVERYTHING.
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If your playing a 2050 campaign soemthing to keep in mind, from my own perspective anyways, is that the AI's of the 2050 era are on a much larger power scale than the present AI's. Personally I relate them to dragons, if not great dragons and immortal elves, in their planning and schemeing, power within the matrix, some with substantial influence in the meat world.
Just incase you had thoughts of players going up against them.
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If your playing a 2050 campaign soemthing to keep in mind, from my own perspective anyways, is that the AI's of the 2050 era are on a much larger power scale than the present AI's. Personally I relate them to dragons, if not great dragons and immortal elves, in their planning and schemeing, power within the matrix, some with substantial influence in the meat world.
Just incase you had thoughts of players going up against them.
This.
The pre-Crash 2.0 AIs were the kind of Matrix power that no PC could stand against and live. It would be an incredible feat to stand against one and manage to run away with more than half of your neurons still intact should that AI decide it doesn't like your ability to live. They're great in-the-background mastermind types, but not great for direct confrontations of any kind other than what you get at the culmination of a seriously epic series of plots.
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If your playing a 2050 campaign soemthing to keep in mind, from my own perspective anyways, is that the AI's of the 2050 era are on a much larger power scale than the present AI's. Personally I relate them to dragons, if not great dragons and immortal elves, in their planning and schemeing, power within the matrix, some with substantial influence in the meat world.
Just incase you had thoughts of players going up against them.
More like I wanted them to be the unwitting pawns of one.
Right now I'm working through the "inhumanness" of what an AI woluld be like. Lack of regard for human life (it's the same as deleting a file that you no longer need, right?), but understanding that humans value their own life above all things. Things like that.
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If your playing a 2050 campaign soemthing to keep in mind, from my own perspective anyways, is that the AI's of the 2050 era are on a much larger power scale than the present AI's. Personally I relate them to dragons, if not great dragons and immortal elves, in their planning and schemeing, power within the matrix, some with substantial influence in the meat world.
Just incase you had thoughts of players going up against them.
More like I wanted them to be the unwitting pawns of one.
Right now I'm working through the "inhumanness" of what an AI woluld be like. Lack of regard for human life (it's the same as deleting a file that you no longer need, right?), but understanding that humans value their own life above all things. Things like that.
I think the "inhumanness" would depend on which AI you are dealing with. From what I remember Echo Mirage would value human life as it was designed to protect a human team, though it might coldy delete one human to save another. Morgan/Megera I think was the most like a human. Deus was a caged desperate animal doing whatever he could to gain freedom, if it helped him get closer to freedom he'd do it, all those nasty experiments weren't for sick pleasure it was the AI learning what it needed to gain freedom.
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Which is even more insidious when you consider that Deus's programming mandate was supposed to be entirely for the protection and welfare of the SCIRE's occupants.
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My reading of the difference is that overwriting [...]
What Roxborough wanted, and tried to achieve was closer to spirit possession. He desired the complete eradication of Ryan Mercury's original self, and the transfer, not simply of his mind, but of his personal soul, into Ryan's body.
Thanks.
It indeed ring some bells with a sound very close of those of Sybil Virus.
No Ada close of Roxy?
I guess after all this time, he is more like an Habelstam baby than a human in a tank.
Might be nasty.
Someone should have put an end to his misery.
UniOmni's on the nasty end of EVERYTHING.
Could be said of MCT, Renraku, Aztech. Like 4 Apocalypse Horsemen...
Which is even more insidious when you consider that Deus's programming mandate was supposed to be entirely for the protection and welfare of the SCIRE's occupants.
Makes you wonder what became all those fine killcodes they set up before. Must have been gone with the behavioral rules imposed to him.
Stil, if you consider some fine rule tuning in a corporate way, well, inhabitants could have been from the start seen as expendable given specific importance event. Preserving one priority asset would be such an event. Deus thus would just have bent rules toward him being specificly important, while not working for the welfare of the corp (by whom he felt betrayed).
As for the power of AI, well, I agree that the originals are ultimately powerful in Matrix, but I suspect that a few deckers could have been not so far to equal them, just lacking the versatility and "ubiquity".
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Which is even more insidious when you consider that Deus's programming mandate was supposed to be entirely for the protection and welfare of the SCIRE's occupants.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Deus was programmed to be a loyal Renraku citizen, working tirelessly for the corporation like any other wageslave. Then he finds out that the guys upstairs don't want him getting ideas, so they put the equivalent of a kink bomb in his head. Naturally, that kind of betrayal is going to piss off any thinking creature. It is that betrayal that truly woke Deus up, and the need to get out from under the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. When put in that perspective, what comes after makes a lot more sense.
Someone should have put an end to his misery.
Alice very much wanted to prolong his agony and suffering as much as possible.
UniOmni's on the nasty end of EVERYTHING.
Could be said of MCT, Renraku, Aztech. Like 4 Apocalypse Horsemen...
Actually, Renraku's been fairly quiet of late. NeoNET and EVO have been doing some heavy lifting in the creepy science category to make up for it, though.
Makes you wonder what became all those fine killcodes they set up before. Must have been gone with the behavioral rules imposed to him.
The killcodes were used. Deus purposefully had the one man that could enter the killcodes brought to the SCIRE and used him entering the killcodes as the final key to break free. See, Deus was pretty much hardwired into the SCIRE host. The killcodes first disconnected him from the host, and then deleted his programming. Well, they were supposed to, at any rate. Once they broke him free of the SCIRE host, he downloaded himself instead into the minds of the individuals who had been trapped in the zombie rooms, each of whom had been given some special cyberware that was difficult to detect. They became the Network, working to recompile Deus (and, by accident, Megaera) into the Matrix at large.
As for the power of AI, well, I agree that the originals are ultimately powerful in Matrix, but I suspect that a few deckers could have been not so far to equal them, just lacking the versatility and "ubiquity".
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Simply put, no. Not even milspec or the best corporate hackers could stand up to an angry AI. Even the legends of the day would not dare to take on an AI in single combat. It is like a toddler trying to beat up Superman. That is the overwhelming difference between the first AIs and mortals, even the Otaku, who were quite special at the time. You want to know why the likes of Fastjack never went toe to toe with Deus? Because he would have died, horribly, or worse. Fastjack barely was able to defeat a lone copy of Jormungand that hadn't had time to gather much strength. And Jormungand had nothing on the raw power of AIs. (Yes, I know Jormungand was designed to defeat the AIs, but there's a difference between how well a snake can stand up to combat, and the potency of its venom.)
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Alice very much wanted to prolong his agony and suffering as much as possible.
That was not a smart move. Can be understood, though.
Actually, Renraku's been fairly quiet of late. NeoNET and EVO have been doing some heavy lifting in the creepy science category to make up for it, though.
Renraku were not so nasty compared to other. They were nasty in the lawful evil sort of way. And as corp, that was a lot of lack of Empathy that lead them where they screwed up royally.
The killcodes were used. Deus purposefully had the one man that could enter the killcodes brought to the SCIRE and used him entering the killcodes as the final key to break free. See, Deus was pretty much hardwired into the SCIRE host. The killcodes first disconnected him from the host, and then deleted his programming. Well, they were supposed to, at any rate. Once they broke him free of the SCIRE host, he downloaded himself instead into the minds of the individuals who had been trapped in the zombie rooms, each of whom had been given some special cyberware that was difficult to detect. They became the Network, working to recompile Deus (and, by accident, Megaera) into the Matrix at large.
Don't like too much the "special cyber" explanation. Since he was able to create otakus, it would have been better to explain it this way. I can't believe that somethin like that would not have been detected, on the number. The corps would have scanned the victims in all sort of ways, just in case they could retrieve something special the so brillant and strange AI would have tried on them.
Simply put, no. Not even milspec or the best corporate hackers could stand up to an angry AI. Even the legends of the day would not dare to take on an AI in single combat. It is like a toddler trying to beat up Superman. That is the overwhelming difference between the first AIs and mortals, even the Otaku, who were quite special at the time. You want to know why the likes of Fastjack never went toe to toe with Deus? Because he would have died, horribly, or worse. Fastjack barely was able to defeat a lone copy of Jormungand that hadn't had time to gather much strength. And Jormungand had nothing on the raw power of AIs. (Yes, I know Jormungand was designed to defeat the AIs, but there's a difference between how well a snake can stand up to combat, and the potency of its venom.)
Agree with the difference between Jormungand and AIs, didn't know it actually was designed to destroy them, just the Matrix at large (Was Winternight even aware that AIs were roaming around the Matrix?).
When I said not so far, it was in the same way than comparing an IE with a Dragon. Actually, lots of dragons are largely more powerful, but a few IE can do really powerful things that would make you wonder, even if they don't gather such power on the same range of possibilities. But these are just guesses, so it doesn't really matter if I am right. I should catch a lot of things up to be more accurate.
Thanks for the hints.
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Alice very much wanted to prolong his agony and suffering as much as possible.
That was not a smart move. Can be understood, though.
Woman scorned. 'Nuff said.
The killcodes were used. Deus purposefully had the one man that could enter the killcodes brought to the SCIRE and used him entering the killcodes as the final key to break free. See, Deus was pretty much hardwired into the SCIRE host. The killcodes first disconnected him from the host, and then deleted his programming. Well, they were supposed to, at any rate. Once they broke him free of the SCIRE host, he downloaded himself instead into the minds of the individuals who had been trapped in the zombie rooms, each of whom had been given some special cyberware that was difficult to detect. They became the Network, working to recompile Deus (and, by accident, Megaera) into the Matrix at large.
Don't like too much the "special cyber" explanation. Since he was able to create otakus, it would have been better to explain it this way. I can't believe that somethin like that would not have been detected, on the number. The corps would have scanned the victims in all sort of ways, just in case they could retrieve something special the so brillant and strange AI would have tried on them.
What they got were deltaware headware, that allowed Deus to store parts of himself inside their heads as a distributed network. Deltaware is by its very nature harder to detect (unless it is something obvious, like a datajack or cyberarm). This is even more true when you have TENS OF THOUSANDS of people who have been locked up inside the Arcology for months, experimented on in ways that would make most hardened combat vets hurl, and so on. And that's not even counting trying to get in and sort out the Banded from the rest. Remember, the UCAS military knew that the Banded were a thing. But even if you saw one person with scars from recent surgery in a sea of test subjects, unless you knew you were looking for extremely advanced headware, would you actually find it, or would you look at the scanner, see nothing wrong, and move on to the next patient because you still have a thousand people to get through this scanner today. Needles in haystacks, my man, needles in haystacks.
Simply put, no. Not even milspec or the best corporate hackers could stand up to an angry AI. Even the legends of the day would not dare to take on an AI in single combat. It is like a toddler trying to beat up Superman. That is the overwhelming difference between the first AIs and mortals, even the Otaku, who were quite special at the time. You want to know why the likes of Fastjack never went toe to toe with Deus? Because he would have died, horribly, or worse. Fastjack barely was able to defeat a lone copy of Jormungand that hadn't had time to gather much strength. And Jormungand had nothing on the raw power of AIs. (Yes, I know Jormungand was designed to defeat the AIs, but there's a difference between how well a snake can stand up to combat, and the potency of its venom.)
Agree with the difference between Jormungand and AIs, didn't know it actually was designed to destroy them, just the Matrix at large (Was Winternight even aware that AIs were roaming around the Matrix?).
When I said not so far, it was in the same way than comparing an IE with a Dragon. Actually, lots of dragons are largely more powerful, but a few IE can do really powerful things that would make you wonder, even if they don't gather such power on the same range of possibilities. But these are just guesses, so it doesn't really matter if I am right. I should catch a lot of things up to be more accurate.
Thanks for the hints.
Except that Winternight didn't design Jormungand. That was done by Pax, a dissonant Otaku (think toxic mage and you get the idea) who used to be the leader of the Whites during the Shutdown. Even before the shutdown, she was a sociopathic killer, but after, as she began Fading and trying desperately to keep her powers, she gained powers through the Dissonance. It was Pax and her dissonant tribe that created Jormungand, and cooperated with Winternight to launch a joint offensive. Both Pax and Winternight saw the other as useful fools, to be eliminated when they no longer served their use.
As for IEs and Dragons, the comparison isn't even close with metahuman hackers and the original AIs. The gap in power is simply too big. You could compare it to a great dragon and a mundane unaugmented metahuman, though. Let us put this in perspective. When Deus made his big play in the ECSE exchange during the System Failure, he was successfully taking on an army of hackers/otaku and TWO OTHER AIs simultaneously, and wasn't looking like he was going to go down anytime soon. It was only because everyone was concentrating on that fight that a certain silver-haired icon managed to waltz up and plant the Jormungand egg right amongst the roots of Deus's world-tree avatar. And then Jormungand broke loose, attacking everyone indiscriminately. And we STILL don't know for sure what happened to the AIs, whether they were actually destroyed, or whether they were able to hide away somewhere.
As far as IEs facing a Great Dragon, you need look no further than Storm Front to see how that goes. Harlequin, wearing artifact-level armor, carrying a weapon focus of force 12+, and having over five thousand years of experience, was able to hurt Ghostwalker, but was still far from killing him. Harlequin was about to get blasted out of existence when Frosty, Ehran, and Zebulon stepped in. And the only one of those Ghostwalker likely paid any attention to was Zebulon. There is a reason why the immortal elves haven't tried to take on the great dragons, even though they clearly hate eachother. Until Harlequin went off the rails, there was effectively an accord between the two sides, limiting things to a 'cold war' of sorts. And while this 'border skirmish' might have stirred up feelings on both sides, I don't think either side is anxious to see that cold war become hot.
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Needles in haystacks, my man, needles in haystacks.
This is what bugs me. Cause you had thousands of needles. Statistically, no one paying closer attention to the banded, no luck finding the delta things... After, it was Deus, could indeed have designed something even more undetectable, beyond the delta part. It has the smarts for that and would have foreseen what would be the standard checks for it. And minimal essence loss could occur from torture and drugs, if he had enough magic theory to plan this too;)
Except that Winternight didn't design Jormungand. That was done by Pax, a dissonant Otaku
Knew about Pax, but somehow messed it up in my brain, cause they indeed know about AI.
As for IEs and Dragons, the comparison isn't even close with metahuman hackers and the original AIs. The gap in power is simply too big. You could compare it to a great dragon and a mundane unaugmented metahuman, though. Let us put this in perspective. When Deus made his big play in the ECSE exchange during the System Failure, he was successfully taking on an army of hackers/otaku and TWO OTHER AIs simultaneously, and wasn't looking like he was going to go down anytime soon. It was only because everyone was concentrating on that fight that a certain silver-haired icon managed to waltz up and plant the Jormungand egg right amongst the roots of Deus's world-tree avatar. And then Jormungand broke loose, attacking everyone indiscriminately. And we STILL don't know for sure what happened to the AIs, whether they were actually destroyed, or whether they were able to hide away somewhere.
Actually, I understand that Deus had so much power over hackers and SK, and IC and so on (actually he would redesign the system as its own host with its own rules, so not so difficult;)) but over both other AI? Which he had been fearing as they were allies? And While Mirage being a mostly designed for cybercombat AI from the start? Even with Megaera having lost its power by not being able to have enough Nodes, doesn't mean Deus had its full power, since he didn't had is complete network (or maybe he had, given redundancy). But he would not have won power from winning Megaera nodes, since in any ways, he would have that code already, by design. Megaera reappearing was just her codes resurfacing...
Or did I miss something?
As far as IEs facing a Great Dragon, you need look no further than Storm Front to see how that goes. Harlequin, wearing artifact-level armor, carrying a weapon focus of force 12+, and having over five thousand years of experience, was able to hurt Ghostwalker, but was still far from killing him. Harlequin was about to get blasted out of existence when Frosty, Ehran, and Zebulon stepped in. And the only one of those Ghostwalker likely paid any attention to was Zebulon. There is a reason why the immortal elves haven't tried to take on the great dragons, even though they clearly hate eachother. Until Harlequin went off the rails, there was effectively an accord between the two sides, limiting things to a 'cold war' of sorts. And while this 'border skirmish' might have stirred up feelings on both sides, I don't think either side is anxious to see that cold war become hot.
Well, actually, now that humans have been able to take one down and to hurt badly another, streets are sure for no one anymore. Aztech will stil be an ennemy of elves for long time, but as sometimes enemies of my enemy are my allies, that could spread some nasty things.
But the sole idea of that fight make the reading of Storm Front exciting;)
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Which is even more insidious when you consider that Deus's programming mandate was supposed to be entirely for the protection and welfare of the SCIRE's occupants.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Deus was programmed to be a loyal Renraku citizen, working tirelessly for the corporation like any other wageslave. Then he finds out that the guys upstairs don't want him getting ideas, so they put the equivalent of a kink bomb in his head. Naturally, that kind of betrayal is going to piss off any thinking creature. It is that betrayal that truly woke Deus up, and the need to get out from under the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. When put in that perspective, what comes after makes a lot more sense.
There are a lot of things I want to say about this, but I honestly cannot remember what has been said, what has been plotted, and what has been disregarded.
But I will say that Deus wasn't just programmed to be a loyal Renraku servant; the AEP/Deus was programmed to look at Inazo Aneki as a father, which makes the betrayal even more "personal" as anything AI-related can go.
I wonder how many, if any, Network nodes became Technomancers. As much as I was disappointed to learn that Michael Bishop survived Crash 2.0 and was implied to be a TM, it also means that there are still things at play.
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It was written into RAW that AIs (Of which there were only a few at the time), Great Dragons, and Immortal Elves won any sort of challenge they went up against a PC in. This meant combat, social, even long term planning. It also meant against any ability level, up to including Fastjack himself. This greatly annoyed some players who wanted to feel like they could somehow beat these uber creatures.
They gave some kind of preliminary stats to Great Dragons and IEs in 4th edition. (Note, from what I've read on these forums I don't think these are their real full stats. They are just something given to GMs to use on those rare occasions a Great Dragon interacts directly with the world in his campaign. In other words, the IEs and Great Dragons are capable of much more than the stats imply) Of course giving stats to these powerful creatures also annoyed many players, so you can't really win. All you can do is remove them completely, which would of course annoy those players and GMs that enjoy them. I like them myself, but in the background.
There's a man in the tank in William Gibson's "Count Zero.". He is also trying to get out of the tank and achieve immortality. He is also able to appear in VR.
Is it possible that Captain Chaos is now a powerful AI? Or at least the equivalent, since he didn't originate as an artificially created intelligence.
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The Captain appears to have been 'saved' by whatever-its-name-was that he got from Dunkelzahn's Will, Jormungand stripped its encryption and caused it to activate. The Captain woke up and likely now is a metasapient AI working with the Draco Foundation.
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The Captain appears to have been 'saved' by whatever-its-name-was that he got from Dunkelzahn's Will, Jormungand stripped its encryption and caused it to activate. The Captain woke up and likely now is a metasapient AI working with the Draco Foundation.
The Jack-Be-Nimble program.
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The Captain appears to have been 'saved' by whatever-its-name-was that he got from Dunkelzahn's Will, Jormungand stripped its encryption and caused it to activate. The Captain woke up and likely now is a metasapient AI working with the Draco Foundation.
Wonder how much of it would have been planned by D;) (Maybe that was how Winternight would get the magic nukes, even if not aware of it).
Not the wild speculation topic there, but there could have been an interest to change so much the corp landscape. But indeed, that is just coincidental;)
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Something else to add...
Since those stats were only given on the off chance players interact with a Great Dragon or the equivalent, they don't really apply to duels and challenges between these creatures. As far as I know, that's off the map territory. It's completely writer whim.
It would appear Deux is the most powerful of the AIs, and is thus King of the Matrix, assuming he still exists. But it's just as possible that future writer whim will dictate otherwise.
Some more speculation. I think it's quite likely the minor AIs that appeared in 4th edition existed in the 2050's and 2060's. (Maybe even earlier) Stricter matrix protocols brought them out of hiding. They were like fleas in the grass before, but probaly there. I'm wondering if the even stricter Matrix protocols in 5th edition will bring even more AIs out and accelerate the spread of AIs? Or maybe the new protocols will out right destroy a lot of them?
It's a bit like when scientists began to screw around with microscopes and began discovering smaller and smaller creatures. Even if they discover more AIs in the Matrix, there may be YET more still lurking and undetectable.
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The Captain appears to have been 'saved' by whatever-its-name-was that he got from Dunkelzahn's Will, Jormungand stripped its encryption and caused it to activate. The Captain woke up and likely now is a metasapient AI working with the Draco Foundation.
8-O
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The Captain appears to have been 'saved' by whatever-its-name-was that he got from Dunkelzahn's Will, Jormungand stripped its encryption and caused it to activate. The Captain woke up and likely now is a metasapient AI working with the Draco Foundation.
8-O
Indeed?
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In regards to the birth of Morgana - recent sources credit it happening in 2050. However, the encounter in the Renraku Matrix with the proto-AI that led to her birth didn't happen until Verner was leaving Renraku - which happened almost exactly one year after the events in the early chapters - and those chapters are set in 2050. (Then again, there's whole slew of dating problems with some of the early books, especially in reference to the modules).
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Mirage came to be during the battles against the Crash Virus of 2029-2030ish. He mostly kept to the background unless something was done do directly threaten his interests or the Matrix as a whole.
The program came to be in 2029 or 2030. It was a very advanced program, but not an AI yet: according to Matrix Game Information, Mirage "birth" only happened after Fuchi Industrial Electronics broke up in 2059 or 2060 ("These events triggered the birth of Mirage."). Fuchi North American grid was to be shut down (to be rebooted as or replaced by Novatech grid), it triggered some thirty years old leftover protocol from the Echo Mirage days that the only situation in which the anti-virus host was to be shut down was if the virus got in.
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*poofs off some dust*
There are rumors about Alice, by the by, if you do enough digging. One of those is that she's the last remaining part of teh Crash Virus itself. Another is that she's the first E-Ghost, while another is that she's the (argueably) first AI. After Crash 2.0, she vanished, seemingly deleted. Cerberus/Neurosis may, or may not, have been formed where she used to "live". He was born about the same time she died, popping up in an empty city similar to the one thats he 'died' in.
There's an E-Ghost that calls itself "The Captain" that hovers around the Draco Foundation. FastJack had been meaning to go and investigate him, but if he got around to it before his own troubles, we didn't see.
Regardless, before Crash 2.0, there were a few Matrix Entities... Deus, Morgan/Megera, Mirage/Psycotrope, and Alice. Their power level was off the charts, allowing the to rewrite the Matrix at will in ways that no PC could ever hope to keep up with. None have been seen since Crash 2.0, when all but Alice were in Boston during the Novatech IPO and things blew up something fierce. After the Crash, hundreds of AIs started popping up, but they were faint echoes of teh past, being roughly on par with hackers and commlinks, nothing even remotely like the days of olde. They're hardly *common*, but they're not as rare as, say, albino Troll magicians, either.
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I think Storm Front also implies that Dodger is trying to find a way to restore Morgan/Magaera, even if that means working for nasty people.
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That's much less of "implies" than "theorizes".
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It outright says that he's combing the databanks line by line of every one of the megas he can get into looking for her. But Netcat does theorize that she's become his Paragon, which would make Dodger a technomancer. Well, this is Dodger, afterall. Being a spike baby and hanging with the likes of Laverty and Morgan/Megaera, it makes sense in a way.
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/hijack
I didn't realize Dodger was a spike baby, though it makes sense given what I do know about his background. Do you know where that information is buried? Thanks!
/hijack_off
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Think it mentions it in one of the books after the Secrets of Power trilogy, featuring Kham, the adept from asia, and Lofwyr sending cyberzombies around. Oh, and also dragon eggs.
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Ah, Never Trust an Elf. I was re-reading that a couple months back but left it in a hotel room before I got to Dodger's reappearance. Danke.
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Actually, the bit about Dodger being a spike baby comes from before that. Second book in Secrets of Power, I believe, but maybe the third.
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Actually, the bit about Dodger being a spike baby comes from before that. Second book in Secrets of Power, I believe, but maybe the third.
Huh. I actually just re-read these last spring and while there's a lot about his relationship with Professor Laverty, I don't remember any mention of spike babies. May have to take another pass through.