Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: ScytheKnight on <12-22-15/2002:01>
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One thing I keep hearing about in relation to Ares is Project Excalibur, and how it's total failure resulted in a major drop in Ares' public image... Unfortunately every mention of it assumes the reader know what the hell everyone is talking about.
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It was a failed manatech gun.
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Storm Front pg 112+
Basically the production runs of Ares Wundergun turned out to be smoking piles of wendigo guano that either near fell apart when in use or destroyed itself along with bits of the person using it at the time. Detonating explosive rounds still in the clip?
Whether it was the height of corporate negligence, intentional sabotage from outside or inside is still debated and SF will fill you in on the various theories and possible parties involved.
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Basically, someone tried to do the crap people keep talking about now with 'magic bullets', preparations or anchored spells set on bullets to be fired from a battle rifle. So you load a clip of Fireball bullets, and send a short burst of three fireball spells to your target. The gun never worked as intended, often blowing up in people's faces. The idea was to make a better bug-hunting weapon for Firewatch teams. And it was an ungodly mess that they tried to salvage as a normal gun, and couldn't get it right.
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It wasn't just the ammunition exploding (though all ammunition types could explode randomly in said gun). The smartgun system was incessantly on the fritz, with such things as the weapon automatically dropping your full magazine once you get into a gunfight; any time you try to put a new magazine in, it won't lock because the smartgun system says there's a magazine in. Or when the weapon overheats so much from the ammo in a single magazine that it welds itself shut. This gun makes the ET video game look good (and ended up buried in a desert as well).
Storm Front does have almost all of the information on it; the original design was to shoot alchemical rounds of some kind (canisters, maybe?) for use against bugs; the Azzies extracted the lead designer for their anti-dragon research (specifically Blue-227, which has its own plethora of unexpected, negative effects on top of hurting dragons) and the project fell apart without their star talent. Some executive decided to salvage what they could and turn the base-line device into a normal firearm and recoup the losses, hoping the extreme PR campaign would make people buy it up. They went all-out on making this sound like the next thing since sliced bread... And it didn't go so well when it was one of the most untrustworthy pieces of technology out there.
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The smartgun system was incessantly on the fritz, with such things as the weapon automatically dropping your full magazine once you get into a gunfight; any time you try to put a new magazine in, it won't lock because the smartgun system says there's a magazine in. Or when the weapon overheats so much from the ammo in a single magazine that it welds itself shut. This gun makes the ET video game look good (and ended up buried in a desert as well).
I always wondered if this wasn't a sabotage using nanites/nanoforges. It was also a the beginning of the CFD outbreak - might be a touch to early to be related though.
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I'm definitely of the opinion that it was all due to it being manatech.
One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun is how Magic and Technology do not get along.
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One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun is how Magic and Technology do not get along.
But at least they play fairly nice around each other so long as they do not go stepping too much on each other's toes, we are not Dresden levels of Magic vs Tech, though we have been toying with a few ideas on that one.
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Ooh. *gives Sendaz a cookie for mentioning the mighty Dresden*
Yeah, they do play nice around each other (sort of, Toxic magic might not agree). Some Dresden level interference would be neat for sure, though not sure what would cause it... Certain spells (not sure that is good, given the current balance between 'ware and will)? Techno-background (that isn't Noise)? Very angry tree spirits?
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I'm definitely of the opinion that it was all due to it being manatech.
One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun is how Magic and Technology do not get along.
Don't be too sure, remember the Lucifer Lamp! It could be that they just haven't found a way to do it yet on any sort of large scale! (Something that's probably for the best anyhow)
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Remind me on the Lucifer Lamp? Book it was in, perhaps? Horrendous, unmentioned side effects?
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There's also the drone in Rigger 5 that can take pictures of the Atral using a quicksilver camera, without the need for a magician. Manatech seems to be on the rise.
If I remember correctly, the Lucifer Lamp is in SR4s Arsenal. Could be Street Grimoire as well.
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Remind me on the Lucifer Lamp? Book it was in, perhaps? Horrendous, unmentioned side effects?
Arsenal pg 66
Lucifer Lamp: In 2066, metaphysicists discovered that a modulated electrical current introduced through a fi lament laced
with orichalcum causes the filament to shed dual-natured light, illuminating both the physical and astral planes. Physical and astral
solids both block dual-natured light, causing unusual shadows on the physical and greater definition on the astral. Lucifer lamps
(available as flashlights, lanterns, vehicle headlights, and signal beacons) make excellent additions to magical security setups and
as a form of astral communication via semaphore.
The light given off by a Lucifer lamp is dim on the physical, but sufficient for characters with low-light vision to see by.
Characters in areas lit by a Lucifer lamp receive +2 Astral Visibility modifier (see p. 114, Street Magic) and a +2 Perception Test modifier to notice magic (see Noticing Magic, p. 168, SR4). Activated Lucifer lamps tend to attract wild spirits (see p. 110, Street Magic); what effect this has, if any, is left up to the gamemaster.
Lucifer lamps burn hot and have limited lifespans; more expensive bulbs last longer.
So if you had this going and an astral entity passed through it's light by you would see a shadow cast by it on the physical.
Course said light draws in oddball spirits like moths so you might end up with more than you bargain for (http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20070114).
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Ah, thanks... Yeah, that is a pretty neat bit of manatech. Extremely simple too, which makes negative effects harder to come up with (think of the worst things to go wrong with a flashlight as compared to a firearm). Drawing in spirits could be a very bad thing, or not so bad.
As far as that drone with the camera goes, I know exactly what I'd do with the images it shows...
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As far as that drone with the camera goes, I know exactly what I'd do with the images it shows...
Does it involve a date with your... Nevermind :D
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I was thinking nightmare-fuel, actually. :P
You know, ghosts and faces where there shouldn't be, bloodstains on walls, eyes, esoteric messages, etc. Basically, material to make the people who run those drones check their records and start getting weirded out. The more use, the more often it shows up.
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I was thinking nightmare-fuel, actually. :P
You know, ghosts and faces where there shouldn't be, bloodstains on walls, eyes, esoteric messages, etc. Basically, material to make the people who run those drones check their records and start getting weirded out. The more use, the more often it shows up.
Indeed, especially as you can have astral echoes going both backwards and forwards in time.
Imagine the guys running the drone seeing some warning of something to come (like they see a black skull hovering over a target up to 24 hours before they die then see on one of their own with the same skull floating overhead) and are scrambling to undo/avoid it.
While not as unsettling, the astral spam that comes through can also be quite annoying....
Root Chakra Enlargement ads,
Those ads for "Are you Lonely, Silfs (Spirits I'd Like to .. you know the rest) in your area want to meet you NOW!"
1-666 summoning numbers (calls charged at 0.006 Essence per minute-you have been warned)
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Those ads for "Are you Lonely, Silfs (Spirits I'd Like to .. you know the rest) in your area want to meet you NOW!"
And that's (one way) how you get the Spirit Bane NQ, boys and girls; summon a spirit, command it to materialize, and go do a remote "service" for the client.
Run a Lucifer Lamp in the room with them, and in short order everybody is in trouble.
The problems with Excalibur will soon seem minor in comparison.
I wonder what the equivalent of the quicksilver camera would be for capturing images of sprites and technomancers in the matrix, though...
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I'd say a regular old simsense recording unit, coupled with whatever anyone uses to log events on the matrix. FRAPS 2?
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I wonder what the equivalent of the quicksilver camera would be for capturing images of sprites and technomancers in the matrix, though...
Yep, simsense unit will take care of that. They might be using resonance so capturing how they do things might be tricky, but they still use the matrix so the results of their actions would be capturable.
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I don't think I like that idea of being able to record resonance sensing. It should be like astral assensing, in that it's a 6th sense that is impossible for mundane tech to be able to detect.
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Oh, I don't think you could, DeathStrobe. You could record the results of resonance actions, but not the usage of the resonance action itself. So someone using the Resonance to compile a sprite wouldn't show up, but the sprite appearing would show up because while it may be a Resonance based matrix entity it's still a matrix entity.
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One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun is how Magic and Technology do not get along.
But at least they play fairly nice around each other so long as they do not go stepping too much on each other's toes, we are not Dresden levels of Magic vs Tech, though we have been toying with a few ideas on that one.
That's what the Gremlins (rating 4) negative quality is for... ;D
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The Lucifer Lamp is kind of horrifying, personally.
It's oen thing to go through life, thinking, "Yeah, magic thingies are out there. Neat, but not my thing."
It's quite another to get one of those, flick it on, and see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everywhere you go is chock full of invisible Things that are doing who knows what, watching you when you sleep.
Gah.
*heebie-jeebies*
(On the plus side, astral security firms must have made a killing in ward sales!)
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The Lucifer Lamp is kind of horrifying, personally.
It's oen thing to go through life, thinking, "Yeah, magic thingies are out there. Neat, but not my thing."
It's quite another to get one of those, flick it on, and see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everywhere you go is chock full of invisible Things that are doing who knows what, watching you when you sleep.
Not only that, but when you do, they all stop and turn to look at you. Ooga-booga.
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But there is so many kind, cuddly spirits out there!
Shedim,
Insect,
Shadow,
And they think you look SOOOO cute when you're asleep!
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Which is why the Lucifer NightLight did not do so well during market research.
All the test groups just couldn't go to sleep and just proved that yes there WAS something under the bed. :P
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How do you think ares is salvaging the Excalibur Fiasco ?
I mean they do have intel and other data they might use in a new weapon for 2080 right ?
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How do you think ares is salvaging the Excalibur Fiasco ?
I mean they do have intel and other data they might use in a new weapon for 2080 right ?
I think you salvage this the same way Atari salvaged the E.T game..... you bury it in a deep hole in the New Mexico desert!
Considering that 'salvaging' on this project has already included 'release this cluster fuck of a project to the general market so it can tank our reputation as it explodes in their faces' - I don't there is any salvaging for the Excaliber - the gun that shoots magic.
And is actually a good reminder that tech and magic don't play well with each other.
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Besides that one odd drone in Rigger 5, yeah magic and tech don't work well together (not Dresden level of bad though). As for what little I know of Excalibur, nope, no hope.
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We don't even know how that drone actually works. There's a magical power box in CthulhuTech that nobody knows how it works... That said, everyone who does magic wants one. Turns out, it runs on living critters. Could be the same; maybe it is like Discworld, with some angry Assensing pixies drawing stuff in their box?
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There are some viable examples of magitech, but they are low level things, for the most part. Magesight goggles, glowands, and those gloves that help you handle contact preparations are all good examples of tech supporting magic. But as for something as complex as a magitech gun? We're a long ways off.
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I'm pretty sure those aren't really 'technology,' Mirikon.
The Magesight Goggles are basically fiber-optics that maintain 'real' line of sight, unlike digital cameras. You could do the same effect with an old-school mirrored periscope.
Glowands, if those are the things that glow in the presence of magic, are just wands that hold an Awakened bio-luminescent plant that lights up when exposed to magic.
The gloves are alchemically prepared, they don't do what they do via technology.
None of those are what I'd consider manatech.
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By the definition of technology as "the sum of the ways in which social groups provide themselves with the material objects of their civilization" (Dictionary.reference.com), a piece of obsidian sharpened to a jagged blade by chipping pieces off of it to make a crude knife is technology. Stone age technology, but technology all the same.
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The Lucifer Lamp. It was a fusion of both tech and magic to produce a dual-natured effect. It also follows that, as humans learned to manipulate and refine light projection abilities we started to make laser weapons that shoot harmful light, we'll be able to use the basis of the Lucifer Lamp tech to eventually make a laser style weapon capable of firing dual-natured lasers and harm beings that exist only on the astral. Probably a ways off from it being anything more then a note in an Ares researchers file.
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Yes, Mirikon, that is a definition of technology. It isn't the only one. I'm using this one for this situation:
"a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge"
In the situation of manatech, applying those 'technical processes' doesn't go so well. Which is why the Excalibur can literally detonate an entire magazine of ammo in your hands. Or develop so much heat the barrel or receiver warps shut from a single magazine as well. It makes no logical sense; it still happens. Your examples included a plant that reacts to magic in an environment in a stick, some fiber-optics and a set of magical gloves. None of that is manatech, the integration of magic and technology into a single thing.
Semantics aren't really helping here.
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As for teh Excalibur, the core info up above's proper ... Manatech attempt, lead was extracted at the same time that they figured out that it just flat-out didn't work... exec over the project panics, then throws good money after bad, trying to hammer it together as the planned release date was right around the corner and the rush job bungled it. Early releases hit Desert Wars and were disasterous (with money being spent to send 'runners in to gather dead guns that were discarded, as well as black teams to snuff teh ones who would have given it bad feedback, gobs of Matrix activity to hunt down any negative discussions and recraft them positive ... just a waterfall of money where it didn't belong.
Initial sales were good ... for about a weekend. And then the returns started and customer reviews lit up the Matrix. The jig was up, Ares advertising had wrapped the entire reputation of the corp around teh gun and it failed, BADLY. Like, Edsel bad. Like Homermobile bad. It was *so* bad that the failure cascaded acorss teh corp, to where people didn't trust the name anymore. I heard of people whose smartlink blew the gun up, how do I know my Ares commlink won't blow up in my hands? Can I trust a GM-made car to not drive me off a bridge? Etc etc etc.
There's thought that some of teh people behind it might have intended for failure ... that there were Headcses, or bug infiltrators, or even exec infighting involved to drive the spike into the ground... with teh stock dipping, Vogel or Knight or someone else could sweep in and pick up a controlling chunk. It could also have been a competitor corp using influence to slash Ares' throat. It could have been leftover Seraphim striking in teh name of Cross, or it could have been plain ol' hubris and flawed humanity.
Market Panic will probably say more, of course. Until then, feel free to speculate!
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Suddenly I have all of the ideas I need to run the creepiest campaign ever with Lucifer Lamps. Hehhehehehehehehe.
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You have no idea, until you get to the placenta-based manatech grenades with the blue-green goo-slash-ectoplasm and ...
*shudders*