Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: 忍 on <01-10-17/0956:20>
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Has there been any mention of what the otaku are up to as adults?
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Technomancers are the Otaku inheritors.
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Yea, the lore implies that many Otaku were killed off during the purge, coupled with a loss of the 'gift' as they aged....
And then the technomancers appeared and many known Otaku emerged as technos... So effectively the Otaku are gone and replaced by technos.
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Is that to say that there isn't an otaku that didn't become a TM around?
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Any Otaku that survived the purges and the Crash, and did not later Emerge as Technomancers would have aged out of their abilities and become 'mundane' hackers, yes.
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But there are no Otaku who still have their powers. There's three out comes; died, became a technomancer, or became mundane.
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Note the Otaku to Technomancer quality from Data Trails:
OTAKU TO TECHOMANCER
COST: 10 KARMA
You were an otaku, a child of the Matrix, bending the
Matrix to the will of your mind alone, before it was cool
to do so. Most of your kind, assuming they even survived
this long, did not emerge as technomancers. But
for you, lightning struck twice—you went from otaku to
technomancer. Having known your abilities for longer
than just about anyone else alive, dealing with these
strange powers is second nature to you. You gain +2
dice when resisting Fading from any source.
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The replies are great, however they seem to only glance at my question.
Has there been any mention of what the otaku are up to as adults?
Ancients are doing this. Horizon is doing that. Riggers are changing X. Otaku are... working 7 to 9? Did the few, unchanged survivors go to ground and mesh back into normalcy? Are there secret "therapy groups" to cope with losing touch with Resonance and no longer having a tribe? Has anyone caught wind of a post-fading otaku outside of Puck?
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Story wise, they are a dead end.
Officially the Otaku were wiped out as an organized 'movement' during the purge, and that's the last offical talking of the Otaku in the fluff. Puck and Pax are the only 2 official Otaku/technomancer tie ins.
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There were a few mentions back in 4th edition. Most of these involved Techonmancers nee Otakus who were involved in major data havens, like Jackpoint (Puck) or the Denver Nexus, TM groups that grew out of old Otaku tribes (forget the name of the tribe, check Unwired), and villains (Pax). Because 5th edition hates TMs, there haven't been any mentions at all.
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The replies are great, however they seem to only glance at my question.
Has there been any mention of what the otaku are up to as adults?
Ancients are doing this. Horizon is doing that. Riggers are changing X. Otaku are... working 7 to 9? Did the few, unchanged survivors go to ground and mesh back into normalcy? Are there secret "therapy groups" to cope with losing touch with Resonance and no longer having a tribe? Has anyone caught wind of a post-fading otaku outside of Puck?
Shinobu, I think your last question kind of answers itself. The Ancients, Horizon, even Riggers (as a generality) all exist still. They are groups that are involved in doing this and that. Even Riggers, which aren't so much a codified organization are still a recognized "job" (?) so there are updates on what the latest and greatest of them are doing.
Otaku, as a group, don't exist anymore. They aren't 'up to' anything. Even before Technomancers, Otaku "aged out" of their powers, so it doesn't seem surprising to me that there just aren't any around anymore. With the emergence of Technomancers, there aren't any new kids becoming Otaku, and at this point any who possibly survived all of the events leading up to now, I don't think any of them would still be young enough to still have Otaku powers anyway.
And past that, even if any of the former Otaku are out there doing things in the Shadows. If they are making a name for themselves, it wouldn't be as Otaku, they would be just identified as whatever it is they are doing now. There might be a handful of runners out there that have a history of formerly being Otaku, but that would be a deep backstory sort of thing.
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I've seen a few mentions of the old named Otaku here and there though 4th ed and a little in 5th (I think). Most of these are 'This chummer died this way', with only a bare handful still having an active presence in the game.
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Last year I had my players encounter a former Otaku. While on another job they came across a bizarre murder that turned out to have ties to something that happened inside the Arcology shutdown. My players all were playing "new" runners in 2076, and themselves didn't know much about the past metaplots of Shadowrun, so it was fun to have them discover bits and pieces about what had really happened inside the Arcology back then.
So they tracked down this guy who had survived the shutdown. The former-Otaku was now in his mid-30s, and was a wreck, living like a complete Hikikomori, with a messy apartment and terrible personal hygiene. Not to mention his huge paranoia that Deus or the government or *something* was still after him, conflicting with a rose-tinted nostalgia of his Otaku powers. He was obsessed by the Matrix, and scared to dive into it at the same time, using AR projectors and holograms to have the illusion he was constantly living in the virtual world, while in fact he was living in a dump.
After convincing him to talk to them (which took some time, effort and diplomacy), he eventually gave the runners a very confused and feverish account of his experiences during the Shutdown. The team came to the conclusion that seriously nasty stuff had happened in the Arcology, and it was probably not healthy (for them) to dig too deep. Or as the Ork street sam put it: "guys, why the drek are we investigating this? Nobody's paying us. I'm not putting a target on my head by learning too much about something unless somebody's paying me." ;D
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Last year I had my players encounter a former Otaku. While on another job they came across a bizarre murder that turned out to have ties to something that happened inside the Arcology shutdown. My players all were playing "new" runners in 2076, and themselves didn't know much about the past metaplots of Shadowrun, so it was fun to have them discover bits and pieces about what had really happened inside the Arcology back then.
So they tracked down this guy who had survived the shutdown. The former-Otaku was now in his mid-30s, and was a wreck, living like a complete Hikikomori, with a messy apartment and terrible personal hygiene. Not to mention his huge paranoia that Deus or the government or *something* was still after him, conflicting with a rose-tinted nostalgia of his Otaku powers. He was obsessed by the Matrix, and scared to dive into it at the same time, using AR projectors and holograms to have the illusion he was constantly living in the virtual world, while in fact he was living in a dump.
After convincing him to talk to them (which took some time, effort and diplomacy), he eventually gave the runners a very confused and feverish account of his experiences during the Shutdown. The team came to the conclusion that seriously nasty stuff had happened in the Arcology, and it was probably not healthy (for them) to dig too deep. Or as the Ork street sam put it: "guys, why the drek are we investigating this? Nobody's paying us. I'm not putting a target on my head by learning too much about something unless somebody's paying me." ;D
The only Otaku I've dealt with was the daughter of one of my characters. He made it out of the labyrinth, but his wife didn't. When the Arcology was released by Deus, they found his daughter's body. She had been turned into an otaku, lured him and his wife into the labyrinth, and had then been killed by the resistance.
Really, really fragged him up.