Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: jonathanc on <03-16-12/1144:18>
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So, I was reading this pretty awesome blog post (http://crimsondude.blogspot.com/2012/03/women-in-shadowrun.html) about women in Shadowrun, when I caught mention of Hard Exit, specifically Hard Exit being female. Now, I haven't read War! so perhaps I'm a bit late on this, but I'd always pictured Hard Exit as a guy with a crew cut, because that's how he was described in some fiction that I'd read a while ago (IIRC, it was SR4 or something....extraction run, I think s/he was trying to get the target to the roof for aerial evac).
Am I crazy/misremembering the fiction, or was that some kind of typo?
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Hard Exit is most definitely female.
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Hard Exit is most definitely female.
I'm not arguing that; I'm mostly trying to see if I can find anyone else who remembers the fiction I'm thinking of, and why Hard Exit was described as a guy (or can just tell me that I'm full of it and am remembering the story wrong). It was one of the earlier SR4 books, I'm sure....if it wasn't the core book, then probably Runner Havens? I don't have my books on me because I'm at work...
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She's all woman! And what a woman!
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She's all woman! And what a woman!
Does she have a writeup somewhere? I have Street Legends, but not the supplemental, and I skipped War, Vice, and Espionage.
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Hard Exit is female, and her creator always pictured her as such. She posted for some time prior to the fiction piece in question, where another writer basically screwed up her gender. You can see Pistons tease her about the gender-swap in later Shadowtalk (essentially the SR writer crew poking fun at one another for a slip-up).
There was some talk about including a bunch of gender-swap bioware in her Street Legends: Supplemental write up, but we basically decided it was best to just pretend the mistake didn't really happen, instead of playing it up and continuing to talk about it. So it was quietly swept under the rug, James (whose blog you're reading) wrote her whole SL:S profile kind of pretending it didn't happen (despite a little tongue-in-cheek reference to that teasing she got from Pistons). There is mention of her using disguises, but no outright "yeah, she's got dangly bits and has to shave" joke or anything. ;)
Personally, I've always dug her. If she weren't a chick, I tend to imagine she'd be the sort of character Cole Hauser would play (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0369513/ (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0369513/))...but that she did grow up in Lone Star's corporate culture, and deal with racism by having some Latino blood and growing up in Texas, and then she kicked ass all the way through the CAS military police, etc, etc...all just makes it a little more badass, that she was also dealing with sexism the whole time, too (in those heavily macho organizations).
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It's Plan 9 that changes genders every now and then.
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Thanks, Crit. I'm glad to hear it was a typo in the fiction, and not me going senile. :)
I've noticed occasional things like that in the fiction, but it makes sense considering the number of authors writing the characters. Riser, for example, seems like a bit of a softie in Anatomy of a Shadowrun (he feels bad for using a kid on his team, but admits that he needs her skills), but in Street Legends he goes to bat for Haze, saying that his behavior is par for the course and he shouldn't be criticized for it.
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Yeah, just part of what happens when so many writers are sharing so few characters, spread across so many products. It's tough to strike a balance between having a core group of characters that readers can recognize from book to book, and having so few of them that everything gets tangled up and we start to step on each others' feet.
I know I tend to over-use Thorn in my own Shadowtalk, but that's in large part because I feel safe using him (and also in part because I tend to write about things that are right up his alley).
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I wouldn't worry about it too much - Riser could be an old friend of Haze, and was letting his feelings cloud his view of the situation. Shadowtalker consistency is actually quite favorable compared to, say, your average Marvel/DC comics character (is Batman a barely-constrained lunatic, or a principled man trying to put his pain to good use? depends on the writer this month).
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I would agree that overall, most SR canon characters tend to remain 'in character' more than corporate owned-comic book characters, with a different writer every few months.
Riser wouldn't be the first person with inconsistent/incompatible views who didn't realize the discrepancy. In Anatomy, he's dealing with what HE's doing; with Street Legends, he's standing by someone who's being attacked. It might be interesting to confront him with that inconsistency...although I'd want to be either a VERY good friend or across a continent...
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Apropos of nothing, part of me really wants to see Pistons give Haze what he has coming.
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You're not the only one. There are many interesting discussions that go on sometimes among the freelancers; this is one of them.
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I kinda find Pistons to be out of line in her whole crusade against Haze. She's almost Clockwork-like in her hatred for him. Let's go over what he did; Tempo (So what?), allegedly raped someone (Okay that's bad if he actually did it. He has no recollection and might have been set up.), and he was in the area when Fatima died (He didn't kill her he was just there at the time. What shadowrunners can't be on opposing sides?)
So Haze has done drugs, plenty of others on Jackpoint have as well but he got singled out for it, maybe raped someone, and was on the opposing side of another shadowrunner who died. Seriously what's the big deal? I get that Fatima was Pistons friend, but are you telling me that she hasn't lost anyone in all the time she's been around? Yeah it sucks and it hurts but damn move on.
Edit- I'm not trying to marginalize rape it's a horrible thing and I've seen what it does to people. I was trying to point out that there is no hard evidence Haze did it. The only concrete thing he did was use Tempo which is for some reason "worse" than BTLs.
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She gives a few extra reasons in Street Legends, most of which center around the seduction/alleged mind control of a dwarf who ended up killing herself. There's definitely a tinge of "mage paranoia" in her crusade against him, but in her defense, he's kind of a douche. Granted, he was a bit more of a chastened douche in Ghost Cartels than he was in Street Legends (where he was ultra-defensive), but I have no tears for Haze. He seems emblematic of every time I've had a jerk in my group who was playing a mage.
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Yeah, I definitely picked up on the anti-mage sentiment she showed. Which is amazing for someone like her to show. How do you suppose Pistons would have done the same scenario? She would have hacked the dwarf's commlink, and used her codes to get to the objective. Dwarf still doesn't know why she's been fired, if she's lucky, or she gets a double tap to the back of the head for her betrayal.
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Eh....with hacking, most corps would figure out that the dwarf's security was breached. She might have still been fired, but possibly not; it's not like most corps expect a secretary to be running high-level firewall software on her 'link. I certainly don't think they'd body her for the crime of being hacked; it could have been anyone. The thing about the magic/seduction angle is that he made her an accomplice to the crime, and then left her holding the bag (with a little heartbreak added to the deal), which is definitely a dick move.
It may sound like mage paranoia, but if he really did use magic to influence the dwarf during the seduction, then Pistons has a point: he basically *is* a rapist, and arguably a serial rapist at that.
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Which still hardly makes him the most execrable person on Jackpoint. Sticks routinely re-kidnaps runaway sex slaves, for instance. So, okay, maybe he's not raping them himself, but...
And, of course, pretty much everyone who posts is a murderer. While there are knee-jerk reactions to regard rapists as worse, socially, remember that legally (which is to say, as the consensus of our society) murder is much worse. I think it comes down to out-of-character squick factor and/or comfort zone type of stuff. RPGers are used to committing mundane violence and dealing hit points and filling damage boxes...but when sexual violence -- even just through enhanced seduction -- is involved, we get our hackles up.
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I wouldn't say that Pistons suffers from mage paranoia in general. Its just that Haze is the living, breathing embodiment of the stereotype of a mage that will reach in, rape your brain, and then leave you with no memory of the event.
That being said, Pistons at least seems to have backed off a little lately. I haven't heard her throwing any barbs Haze's way lately, even when Haze has been posting. It could be that it is settling down into one of those things where they just don't talk to one another, for the most part, like how Bull and Frosty never speak to eachother.
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Sticks was also on the receiving end of some sanctimony in his writeup, as I recall.
By the way, what happened between Bull and Frost?
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Sticks was also on the receiving end of some sanctimony in his writeup, as I recall.
By the way, what happened between Bull and Frost?
Harlequin.
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Who do you think will side with whom? Riser and Nephrine defended Haze and Pistons irked Winterhawk with her comments probably not enought for him to choose sides most likely. Pistons is chummy with Kay St., and Netcat. Slamm-o! is pretty much a package deal with Netcat.
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Who do you think will side with whom? Riser and Nephrine defended Haze and Pistons irked Winterhawk with her comments probably not enought for him to choose sides most likely. Pistons is chummy with Kay St., and Netcat. Slamm-o! is pretty much a package deal with Netcat.
The thing is, the people who "defended" Haze were doing so out of mercenary spirit - they aren't going to stand for him when/if it hits the fan unless he coughs up some serious cash (unlikely, given what he's paying to keep his mom in the lap of luxury, plus whatever drugs he's on). Pistons is friends with (related to?) /dev/grrl, IIRC, and seems to have a RL friendship with Hard Exit, so she actually has some backup if it gets real.
A good portion of the shadowtalk arguments seem like ITG-syndrom to me, though, so I doubt it's going anywhere (Pistons said her piece; I doubt Haze has the huevos to make good on his threats).
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Haze does not come across as the most likable person in the community. With that, Pistons does seem to be taking this more personally than one might suppose (much like Picador's feud with Thorn). It seems like there should be some prior history, some part of the story neither of them are speaking about.
And with Tempo, avoiding spoilers, Haze certainly made some poor judgements with it (along with a lot of other people), but he might not be guilty of what he's accused of; not that it would be generally known or provable.
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A good portion of the shadowtalk arguments seem like ITG-syndrom to me, though, so I doubt it's going anywhere (Pistons said her piece; I doubt Haze has the huevos to make good on his threats).
Part of that comes from attempts to introduce personal conflicts and personality clashes...without just quietly having a Jackpointer vanish, leaving nothing but rumors and smug satisfaction behind (which is what SHOULD happen to someone who pisses off a Shadowrunner).
On the one hand, I agree that these are violent people and should likely resort to violence a little more often, given the levels of threats and stuff that they throw at each other. On the other hand, though, I think it's hard to kill many of them off (because we already have so few Jackpointers to post with), and it'd be even sillier if all these rabid Type A personalities hung out together on-line and got along perfectly.
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Thank you Bruce for reminding me, Picador's feud with Thorn makes no sense to me. There was a fiction piece somewhere in which she and her team kill those responsible. IIRC they framed Argus for it. So unless there's something I missed she shouldn't be holding that grudge.
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Thank you Bruce for reminding me, Picador's feud with Thorn makes no sense to me. There was a fiction piece somewhere in which she and her team kill those responsible. IIRC they framed Argus for it. So unless there's something I missed she shouldn't be holding that grudge.
She's had a grudge against MET 2000 and Argus for a long time, is the thing. Heck, even Matador was on a high horse, talking crap about MET 2k almost since the group was introduced. And the kicker is that the things she accuses Thorn of doing for Argus are...well...pretty universally true. He did turn tribal leaders left and right to start a slaughter of civilians in Nairobi, and he does otherwise manipulate and murder folks as an intelligence operative for the mercenary world's "big dogs." She and her team may have killed the individuals that were directly responsible for Matador's death, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still dislike the organization as a whole, and that she won't be pissy when one of them waltzes into Jackpoint and starts chatting it up like he's a regular.
Holding a grudge isn't a matter of logic, it's a matter of emotion.
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But with Picador, at least her reasons are understandable in context (if not entirely fair; mostly, but blaming the gun for the shooter's decision isn't).
Piston's grudge against Haze seems much the same, but it's like we're only seeing part of the story. Which is realistic, but somewhat disatisfying from a story angle.
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Maybe I'm just too I don't know, disassociated? I just find it kinda much for either Pistons or Picador (especially Picador) to be holding such grudges for so long with such intensity. They both ruin lives and kill, but find themselves "better" people than Haze and Thorn because of how they do it? Picador I find more absurd because it happened on a battlefield. People die on battlefields that's pretty much the point. Sure it sucks to lose a friend/mentor, but damn it comes with the job. Get drunk and rant and rave for awhile and get over it.
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Maybe I'm just too I don't know, disassociated? I just find it kinda much for either Pistons or Picador (especially Picador) to be holding such grudges for so long with such intensity. They both ruin lives and kill, but find themselves "better" people than Haze and Thorn because of how they do it? Picador I find more absurd because it happened on a battlefield. People die on battlefields that's pretty much the point. Sure it sucks to lose a friend/mentor, but damn it comes with the job. Get drunk and rant and rave for awhile and get over it.
Actually, from all the stuff published throughout, Picador's relationship with Matador bordered more than just friend/mentor.
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It's worth pointing out that not all Jackpointers (or Shadowrunners) are gleeful murderers. Most plan their operations to avoid casualties, and Pistons is actually a Hacker, so it's likely that most of her work never physically harms anyone. While it's possible for her to destroy someone's life with her skills, it's certainly not a given that she does so with any kind of regularity, and when she does it's probably the sort of person she can justify it for (guys like Haze and Sticks, for example).
I like to think of Pistons (and Fatima, RIP) as throwbacks to the more community-minded "Hooding" types that used to hang on Shadowland.
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Pistons is a combat hacker. She actually goes in and shoots people in the face as well. Also she destroys peoples lives regularly as part of her job. What do you think happens to the security spiders she gets past on the way to her objective? Reprimanded at minimum (bye bye promotion), loss of pay or being fired very likely. That's if she doesn't scramble their brains while they try to stop her.
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There is a moral/ethical difference between scrambling someone's brains in self-defense, and shooting someone in the face for money, or using spells to make someone fall in love with you to get info on their boss, and then erase their memories of you.
Shadowrunners aren't all the same. Pistons, Fatima, and Netcat are one kind of runner. Riser, Haze, and Kane are another. And then you have people like Clockwork.
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Shadowrunners aren't all the same. Pistons, Fatima, and Netcat are one kind of runner. Riser, Haze, and Kane are another. And then you have people like Clockwork.
And then you get folks like Slamm-0! and Plan 9! ;D
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Pistons is a combat hacker. She actually goes in and shoots people in the face as well. Also she destroys peoples lives regularly as part of her job. What do you think happens to the security spiders she gets past on the way to her objective? Reprimanded at minimum (bye bye promotion), loss of pay or being fired very likely. That's if she doesn't scramble their brains while they try to stop her.
A thief is responsible for stealing valuables; they aren't responsible for how the security guard they snuck past is dealt with. The term 'combat hacker' doesn't necessarily refer to a trigger-happy hacker; even from a mechanical perspective, there's an argument that going for gel rounds is more effective (people tend to have fewer stun boxes than physical; no bodies means less heat).
It's disingenuous to compare what we know of what Pistons does for a living to, say, what we know Sticks does for a living. Sticks may try to justify it by saying that they're both criminals, but Pistons is competing in a battle of wits against someone who is well-prepared for the game and has consented to play; Sticks makes money by kidnapping child rape victims and dragging them back to their abusers. It's not really in the same ballpark.
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And Kane sells people into slavery to the very country/corporation that imprisoned his wingman/girlfriend for far too many years.
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A thief is responsible for stealing valuables; they aren't responsible for how the security guard they snuck past is dealt with. The term 'combat hacker' doesn't necessarily refer to a trigger-happy hacker; even from a mechanical perspective, there's an argument that going for gel rounds is more effective (people tend to have fewer stun boxes than physical; no bodies means less heat).
It's disingenuous to compare what we know of what Pistons does for a living to, say, what we know Sticks does for a living. Sticks may try to justify it by saying that they're both criminals, but Pistons is competing in a battle of wits against someone who is well-prepared for the game and has consented to play; Sticks makes money by kidnapping child rape victims and dragging them back to their abusers. It's not really in the same ballpark.
The thief thinking they aren't responsible for what happens to the guard is exactly what I am talking about. Yes they are, the thief is very much responsible because they were the cause of what happens to the guard. It's a callous line of thought or lack there of. "Screw 'em they're not even real people they're sheep." A ruined life is a ruined life no matter how you go about doing it.
Are there different degrees of messed up? Yes. Have both killed? Yes. Have both used others? Yes. The methods are different that's it.
Edit- Messing up quotes something fierce today.
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Angel, there is a difference. Yes, both have killed, but there is a scale involved here. Or would you say that a police sniper shooting the kidnapper with the gun to the head of a small child is the same as the Mayan Cutter, killing orks for fun? Both are killers, afterall. But there is a difference, both morally and ethically, between shooting someone in self defense, and doing wetwork, or between getting past guards to do a datasteal and tracking down little girls to return them to the bunraku parlors. In either comparison, neither one is innocent. Both do bad things. But one is clearly worse than the other, yeah?
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A thief is responsible for stealing valuables; they aren't responsible for how the security guard they snuck past is dealt with. The term 'combat hacker' doesn't necessarily refer to a trigger-happy hacker; even from a mechanical perspective, there's an argument that going for gel rounds is more effective (people tend to have fewer stun boxes than physical; no bodies means less heat).
It's disingenuous to compare what we know of what Pistons does for a living to, say, what we know Sticks does for a living. Sticks may try to justify it by saying that they're both criminals, but Pistons is competing in a battle of wits against someone who is well-prepared for the game and has consented to play; Sticks makes money by kidnapping child rape victims and dragging them back to their abusers. It's not really in the same ballpark.
The thief thinking they aren't responsible for what happens to the guard is exactly what I am talking about. Yes they are, the thief is very much responsible because they were the cause of what happens to the guard. It's a callous line of thought or lack there of. "Screw 'em they're not even real people they're sheep." A ruined life is a ruined life no matter how you go about doing it.
Are there different degrees of messed up? Yes. Have both killed? Yes. Have both used others? Yes. The methods are different that's it.
Edit- Messing up quotes something fierce today.
Um...no. The "ruined life" is the fault of the manager who decided to fire a security guard (who's whole job is observe and report) for not going full-rambo on the armed terrorists that jacked whatever it was they were guarding. Unless the thief/hacker went so far as to set up the guard or someone else as a patsy, they aren't responsible for how their target overreacts, or who the target lashes out at. If you flip off a guy in traffic and he gets so mad that he goes home and beats his son to death, you aren't responsible for killing his son. He is.
If all killing was the same, we'd have a good portion of our armed forces on death row.
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Pistons and Haze are both criminals working outside of the law, a police sniper and a soldier during wartime are working inside the law. That's the difference between the scenarios the two of you just presented.
Pistons is condemning Haze for being "evil" because of her dislike for him. Who else does she give that much shit too? Kane? Sticks? Jimmy No? Rigger X? Puck? No, hell she's downright sympathetic to Puck.
I was pointing out how out there it was of her to paint Haze as some kind of monster while she doesn't to others.
Edit- As for the firing being the managers fault would the manager have fired the guard if the thief didn't come along? Also killing a guard or spider is okay? Because they knew what they were getting into? Who says "I'm a soldier/guard/spider I really hope someone comes along and kills me because that's what I signed up for."?
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Pistons and Haze are both criminals working outside of the law, a police sniper and a soldier during wartime are working inside the law. That's the difference between the scenarios the two of you just presented.
A policeman shoots an unarmed man in the back while he's lying on the ground; the man dies. The policeman is working inside the law. A homeless man is being beaten by some bored, rich teenagers; he defends himself and one of the teens dies. He is working outside of the law.
If legal sanction is all that is required to consider one's actions justified, then the policeman is a better person than the homeless man.
Pistons is condemning Haze for being "evil" because of her dislike for him. Who else does she give that much shit too? Kane? Sticks? Jimmy No? Rigger X? Puck? No, hell she's downright sympathetic to Puck.
I was pointing out how out there it was of her to paint Haze as some kind of monster while she doesn't to others.
IIRC, almost nobody defended Sticks.
Edit- As for the firing being the managers fault would the manager have fired the guard if the thief didn't come along? Also killing a guard or spider is okay? Because they knew what they were getting into? Who says "I'm a soldier/guard/spider I really hope someone comes along and kills me because that's what I signed up for."?
In the example I cited, would the man have beaten his son to death if you hadn't flipped him off in traffic? A person's actions are their own; you don't get to blame your decisions on other people. The question is this: was the manager *forced* to ruin the employment record of the security guard by the hacker, or did he make a choice because he was angry?
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Edit- As for the firing being the managers fault would the manager have fired the guard if the thief didn't come along? Also killing a guard or spider is okay? Because they knew what they were getting into? Who says "I'm a soldier/guard/spider I really hope someone comes along and kills me because that's what I signed up for."?
And it really was Marilyn Manson's fault that a couple kids couldn't take life in high school and shot up Columbine. And Ice T is responsible for every copkiller since his song "Copkiller" came out. Yep, that makes perfect sense.
[/sarcasm]
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Life isn't fair, buy a hat.
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I'm not good with quotes so here goes.
A policeman shoots an unarmed man in the back while he's lying on the ground; the man dies. The policeman is working inside the law. A homeless man is being beaten by some bored, rich teenagers; he defends himself and one of the teens dies. He is working outside of the law.
The homeless man is in the right because it's self defense. (Edit- He's probably going to jail anyway because rich kids daddy) The cop shooting the prone man in the back isn't, it's murder badge or no.
IIRC, almost nobody defended Sticks.
Not my point, my point is no one has been actively condemning him for years. he got called out on the spot and it was dropped. People came to Haze's defense however.
In the example I cited, would the man have beaten his son to death if you hadn't flipped him off in traffic? A person's actions are their own; you don't get to blame your decisions on other people. The question is this: was the manager *forced* to ruin the employment record of the security guard by the hacker, or did he make a choice because he was angry?
The man probably would have beaten his son to death at some point anyway. If he had such a short fuse that someone in traffic could have pushed him to that point it was pretty much a given. As for the manager he might have not wanted to fire the guard, but had to because of policy. It doesn't change the fact that the guard would still have a job if the doohickey wasn't stolen.
And it really was Marilyn Manson's fault that a couple kids couldn't take life in high school and shot up Columbine. And Ice T is responsible for every copkiller since his song "Copkiller" came out. Yep, that makes perfect sense.
[/sarcasm]
Umm... what? How does that relate to anything?
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And it really was Marilyn Manson's fault that a couple kids couldn't take life in high school and shot up Columbine. And Ice T is responsible for every copkiller since his song "Copkiller" came out. Yep, that makes perfect sense.
[/sarcasm]
Umm... what? How does that relate to anything?
Because if, as you suggest, the thief is responsible for a manager firing a security guard because he snuck past him, then that is the same 'logic' people used when trying to blame Columbine on Marilyn Manson, instead of just admitting that it was the fault of two kids who decided to shoot up their school.
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I'm not good with quotes so here goes.
A policeman shoots an unarmed man in the back while he's lying on the ground; the man dies. The policeman is working inside the law. A homeless man is being beaten by some bored, rich teenagers; he defends himself and one of the teens dies. He is working outside of the law.
The homeless man is in the right because it's self defense. (Edit- He's probably going to jail anyway because rich kids daddy) The cop shooting the prone man in the back isn't, it's murder badge or no.
What if the cop is acquitted? Either you're judging right and wrong by what the law says, or circumstances and intent count for something. If Pistons is equivalent to Haze because they both break the law, then why is the law not the last word on whether the cop is a "good man" or not?
IIRC, almost nobody defended Sticks.
Not my point, my point is no one has been actively condemning him for years. he got called out on the spot and it was dropped. People came to Haze's defense however.
So? That's not an inconsistency; Haze was only being attacked in that one article, and earlier in Ghost Cartels when he was suspected of being involved in Fatima's death.
In the example I cited, would the man have beaten his son to death if you hadn't flipped him off in traffic? A person's actions are their own; you don't get to blame your decisions on other people. The question is this: was the manager *forced* to ruin the employment record of the security guard by the hacker, or did he make a choice because he was angry?
The man probably would have beaten his son to death at some point anyway. If he had such a short fuse that someone in traffic could have pushed him to that point it was pretty much a given. As for the manager he might have not wanted to fire the guard, but had to because of policy. It doesn't change the fact that the guard would still have a job if the doohickey wasn't stolen.
Again, the same excuses you're using here could be used against you. Being fired isn't the end of the world; you said "ruined life". That suggest the manager seriously burned this guard. If he's going to overreact over one theft, he'd have overreacted and gone after the guard eventually anyway, by the same logic you're using with the man and his son. The fault lies with the person making the choice. The thief is guilty, but not of ruining the guard's life.
Anyway, this is turning circular, so I'm done here.
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Because the thief is directly responsible. If the thief wouldn't have taken the doohickey the guard wouldn't have been fired. The scenario is nothing like Columbine and Marilyn Manson as there is a direct correlation between the two not a knee jerk overreaction.
If the thief didn't steal the guard wouldn't have been fired, but the thief did steal so the guard did get fired. As I said before maybe the manager had no choice and it was a policy thing, however it doesn't change the fact the the thief was directly responsible for the guards firing.
What if the cop is acquitted? Either you're judging right and wrong by what the law says, or circumstances and intent count for something. If Pistons is equivalent to Haze because they both break the law, then why is the law not the last word on whether the cop is a "good man" or not?
Because good men don't go around shooting unarmed people who've obviously surrendered in the back.
Pistons is equivalent to Haze in the fact that they break the law, kill, and ruin lives.
While yes firing doesn't necessarily equal a ruined life for some it can for others. The guard might find another job or he might not, he may kill himself (like the girl in Haze's story) or he might not.
Say he did kill himself after being fired. What then?
Edit- Stupid quotes
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So, I was reading this pretty awesome blog post (http://crimsondude.blogspot.com/2012/03/women-in-shadowrun.html) about women in Shadowrun
Thanks for that praise. Much appreciated.
when I caught mention of Hard Exit, specifically Hard Exit being female. Now, I haven't read War! so perhaps I'm a bit late on this, but I'd always pictured Hard Exit as a guy with a crew cut, because that's how he was described in some fiction that I'd read a while ago (IIRC, it was SR4 or something....extraction run, I think s/he was trying to get the target to the roof for aerial evac).
Am I crazy/misremembering the fiction, or was that some kind of typo?
No. She was described as a man in the opening story for the "Company Towns" chapter of Corporate Enclaves.
She has an entry in Street Legends Supplemental.
However, she was always supposed to be a woman. As Critias said, we had a long discussion about how far I should go in dealing with that one description. One thing I noticed when I went back and re-read everything she ever posted (Thanks FastJack!) was that she also has a recurring theme of engaging in (voluntary) extractions. Given that the context of the story was that she was masquerading as a faceless goon for MCT Security voluntarily extracting a senior exec from what was probably the Corporate Court Terrestrial Headquarters that there were logistical considerations (I doubt a lot of MCT Security personnel are women) and safety considerations (Her false identity was going to be known to a lot of dangerous people), and having a background in low-intensity warfare and extractions where stealth and subterfuge are keenly important, it made sense that the description would be of a disguise. Now, there was a question of how far we wanted to go, especially in light of Pistons' joke in Runner's Companion. I threw out the idea that she has had the sex-change (and other major) bionetic mods. More importantly as how it applied to SLS was that I was going to leave an Essence Hole in her stats to reflect that*.
That was universally considered "Not a good idea" and the info was nixed. The language describing her disguises was made more vague, and frankly I think that if you want her to have a cyberpenis and be running around biosculpted as a man then so be it. IIRC, she's got the Essence (barely).
I also made some other changes from the original author's ideas for her. No offense intended, but ... I became enamored with how she earned the nickname (if you've read SLS, then you have to admit that is definitely a "street legend."). Bill's origin for her name was based on her appearance in the opening fiction of the "Vehicle and Drones" chapter of Arsenal where immediately after Operation Hard Entry begins it goes FUBAR. I did keep Operation Hard Entry, but it's not the reason for her nickname.
So she and Pistons met and became close while Hard Exit was in DeeCee.
As for Pistons, her behavior is what it is. I should also mention that in Conspiracy Theories FastJack admits to knowing, but it is not clear if she or anyone else (specifically Hard Exit and Kay St. Irregular) knows, that Haze has tried to have Pistons killed.
*As an aside, yes, I know she has two empty Capacity points in her cyberarm. I built her stats so that everything is equalized between the cyberarm and everything else, including giving her smartskin armor to match her cyberarm's armor so that even naked she has the same armor values across her entire body. Same with the attribute mods. I left it open so that something can be added if a new toy is introduced later, and also so that a GM can modify her as they see fit to relate to their campaign.
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Just to be clear, I never want anyone to have a cyberpenis. :P
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In Communist Russia, cyberpenis...
No, I can't do it. Let CanRay finish the joke.
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Henry "The Diplomat" Uribe has one. Can probably get more if he wanted.
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Henry "The Diplomat" Uribe has one. Can probably get more if he wanted.
I once had a player build a face with fiberoptic hair, cyberpenis and breast implants. Used them to go undercover as whatever they needed, and have some sex sequences disturbing even for my group. Ended up dating an AI that used the char's commlink for its home node
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I'd just like to go back to the OP for a sec on a different JackPointer that one of my friends claims used to be male but was changed to female in SR4.
Ma'fan.
Any truth to that or can I call bullshit on him?
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In Communist Russia, cyberpenis...
No, I can't do it. Let CanRay finish the joke.
Is on Sasha the Love Troll.
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In Communist Russia, cyberpenis...
No, I can't do it. Let CanRay finish the joke.
Is on Sasha the Love Troll.
Is that Bubba's russian cousin?
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I'd just like to go back to the OP for a sec on a different JackPointer that one of my friends claims used to be male but was changed to female in SR4.
Ma'fan.
Any truth to that or can I call bullshit on him?
I've never heard of her being a man.
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I'd just like to go back to the OP for a sec on a different JackPointer that one of my friends claims used to be male but was changed to female in SR4.
Ma'fan.
Any truth to that or can I call bullshit on him?
Any idea what it is that makes her think she used to be male? 'Cause I can't think of anything.
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I'd just like to go back to the OP for a sec on a different JackPointer that one of my friends claims used to be male but was changed to female in SR4.
Ma'fan.
Any truth to that or can I call bullshit on him?
Any idea what it is that makes her think she used to be male? 'Cause I can't think of anything.
Only thing I can think of is if he's mixing up Ma'fan and Mika.
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So what about Kia being referred to as Ms. Kia in Attitude.
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I used to get Mika and Ma'fan gender mixed up. I was actually surprised when Kia turned out to be a male, he seems so feminine in his posts.
Edit- I seem to remember a bit of fiction where Mika was riding some kind of cart down a shaft to get to a subway tunnel, where he was referred to as she.
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I can only attribute any Mika and Kia screw-ups as writers (a) not paying attention to what they're doing, (b) not doing some research on the characters, and/or (c) being thrown off by what might be feminine sounding names.
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I can only attribute any Mika and Kia screw-ups as writers (a) not paying attention to what they're doing, (b) not doing some research on the characters, and/or (c) being thrown off by what might be feminine sounding names.
Shouldn't editors catch that though?
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It really depends on how much info the editors have. If they were only going off of the Jackpoint user list there's not much to go on for the characters gender, it says in some but not in others.
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Not Kia like car. Kia like Killed In Action.
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I can only attribute any Mika and Kia screw-ups as writers (a) not paying attention to what they're doing, (b) not doing some research on the characters, and/or (c) being thrown off by what might be feminine sounding names.
Shouldn't editors catch that though?
"Should," yeah. *shrugs* They're only human, same as the writers.
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I can only attribute any Mika and Kia screw-ups as writers (a) not paying attention to what they're doing, (b) not doing some research on the characters, and/or (c) being thrown off by what might be feminine sounding names.
I hope that "Scotty doesn't know" that the writers did that...
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I can only attribute any Mika and Kia screw-ups as writers (a) not paying attention to what they're doing, (b) not doing some research on the characters, and/or (c) being thrown off by what might be feminine sounding names.
I hope that "Scotty doesn't know" that the writers did that...
+1 to you. That was a great movie.
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Well, editors should catch a lot of things. Doesn't mean they always do. Some of the shadowtalk in particular has some glaring grammar errors. Not even talking about things like proper use of "its" and "it's", or finicky stuff like that.
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I can only attribute any Mika and Kia screw-ups as writers (a) not paying attention to what they're doing, (b) not doing some research on the characters, and/or (c) being thrown off by what might be feminine sounding names.
I hope that "Scotty doesn't know" that the writers did that...
+1 to you. That was a great movie.
Thank you, I couldn't help myself on that one.
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Well, editors should catch a lot of things. Doesn't mean they always do. Some of the shadowtalk in particular has some glaring grammar errors. Not even talking about things like proper use of "its" and "it's", or finicky stuff like that.
...then again it's shadowtalk, so the error could be made the character ;)
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Well, editors should catch a lot of things. Doesn't mean they always do. Some of the shadowtalk in particular has some glaring grammar errors. Not even talking about things like proper use of "its" and "it's", or finicky stuff like that.
...then again it's shadowtalk, so the error could be made the character ;)
Something tells me that any guy making that mistake would soon becoming a woman... ;)
Anyhow, sex changes are cheap anyways. Not to mention "Newhalfs" or "Shemales" as an option.
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Well, editors should catch a lot of things. Doesn't mean they always do. Some of the shadowtalk in particular has some glaring grammar errors. Not even talking about things like proper use of "its" and "it's", or finicky stuff like that.
...then again it's shadowtalk, so the error could be made the character ;)
Indeed. Some mistakes are intentional.
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Indeed. Some mistakes are intentional.
And some are mistakes by the author. *Whistles Innocently*
Or might not be. ;D
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I think you mean some authors are mistakes.
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I think you mean some authors are mistakes.
Burn!
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Yeah, well.
Just to be clear, I didn't mean CanRay. In fact, I probably just shouldn't have said anything.
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Yeah, well.
Just to be clear, I didn't mean CanRay. In fact, I probably just shouldn't have said anything.
Hey, hey, hey, this is the Internet! We'll have none of that "sensible discussion" drek here!
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Yeah, well.
Just to be clear, I didn't mean CanRay. In fact, I probably just shouldn't have said anything.
:'(
I'm just a sensitive artist. Just look at the work I did in Burn.
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Surprised? Who says the girls can't hang with the boys, huh? It's 2060 and people still fail to see how women can do anything you guys can do!! LOL I'm just kidding guys. Don't worry, I'm not one of those types that get all offended. ;) If anything I get mad when girls act like guys are the reason they can't get anywhere in life. Women, if anything, have an advantage over men these days as long as they know how to use the pop-culture to their advantage.
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It's Plan 9 that changes genders every now and then.
Yeah, I had to play with that for the April Fool's thing. It was just too good to pass up.
I'm surprised at how few times the genderjump happens, truth be told.
Then again, there was an exec for ... Proteus I think? Or AG CHemie? A Euro-Corp, at any rate, who was an older guy with some kind of mortal disease. He goes away for a while and his 'neice' suddenly pops up, with his shares of the company. Talk from there seems to indicate that he either had his brain transplanted or simply got a MASSIVE bit of genework to reboot things. Of course, it could also indicate that she killed the old geezer for the loot.
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Surprised? Who says the girls can't hang with the boys, huh? It's 2060 and people still fail to see how women can do anything you guys can do!! LOL I'm just kidding guys. Don't worry, I'm not one of those types that get all offended. ;) If anything I get mad when girls act like guys are the reason they can't get anywhere in life. Women, if anything, have an advantage over men these days as long as they know how to use the pop-culture to their advantage.
Haha, the original confusion was due to a swapped gender pronoun in one of the stories.
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Give a lady a short hairstyle and a small chest and she could pass for a guy if she keeps quiet.
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And belches well enough.
Oh, and masters the difficult art of the crotch scratch! ;D
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Or just bind their breasts, it worked for Mary Read, not sure if Anne Bonny had too. Both were part of "Calico" Jack Rackham's pirate crew.
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A manga classic, that trick...