[Herr Brackhaus]

I'm in the process of reading Dark Resonance, and thoroughly enjoying it so far, but two things stood out to me.

Spoilers about one of the minor characters follows, read at your own risk.
While meeting Netcat and MoonShine for the first time in the flesh, Kazuma comments on the fact that MoonShine has no datajack. MoonShine says he's both a former Otaku-turned-Technomancer, but how is that possible if he has no datajack?

I was under the impression that all Otaku had to have datajacks to interface with the then-wired Matrix, and that what them set them apart from other hackers was that they didn't need a deck to ride the signal. Am I wrong or did the writer just make a simple canon mistake?

Another thing that grinds on me is a much bigger spoiler, and I'd recommend not reading unless you want a major plot point revealed. You have been warned.
Caliban is an AI that is somehow able to interact with the resonance/dissonance. How? Has this ever happened in the non-fiction canon?

[ProfGast]

Fluff/crunch in regards to the Otaku and the other Virtuakinetics is shoddy at best.   The Otaku-to-Technomancer quality for example makes no mention of requiring a datajack, which is what an Otaku would have used to interface with the Matrix during their heyday.  I believe Mission Errata covers it but I'm not 100% on that.

And for Otaku characters, if I recall correctly, even Puck's write-up in Street Legends is lacking significant mentions of much 'ware, which given that he was one of Deus' Whites seems unlikely at best.

[Magnaric]

Yeah I'm with ProfGast on this one. It's just an oversight in fluff history. As far as I remember, Otaku could access the old wired Matrix with nothing MORE than a data jack, meaning as long as they had a connection they used their brains instead of a clunky cyberdeck.

Having said that, you can always insert whatever reason you like for him not having one. He could have realized he could access the new Matrix wirelessly abd had the old data jack removed. Or he could be a fringe Otaku that was just coming into his own at the end of the old Matrix and before the first true Technomancers knew what they were and could do.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

First, otaku required a datajack and an ASIST converter to interact with the Matrix.  Second, there are such things as subdermal - functionally invisible - datajacks.

[Sendaz]

@ Wyrm in the novel it specifically mentions how the character was still waiting for their first datajack of any sort, the mom was making him wait until he turned 18,  while still having otaku abilities at that time that were already starting to fade.  The character goes on to say how they were online in a game when the crash that turned them techno occurred. So they were not using a datajack of any form storywise.

It was never mentioned, but could an otaku have been using a trode net worn on the head to make the necessary connection?

I went back through the 3rd ed stuff as well as scanning through forum posts on the subject and oddly it is not mentioned clearly if they could or couldn't do it this way? 

@ Herr B
In regards to the second question
Actually the AI still couldn't, not directly.  It got hooked on the virtual representation of the Res Realms in the game the TMs built, but it could not actually interact directly with the Resonance.  What it did do was figure how to use a gesalt 'bridge' built of TMs to try of make a connection, sort of a reverse decker where the deck is using the meat component to make the connection.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Instead of smacking the writer (which I'd prefer), I would actually describe that as in-world BS on the part of the character.  Otaku didn't have home-lives - in virtually every case, they grew up (as in age 2-3 until age 7-8) on the street, until some other otaku (or someone prompted to do so) found them and brought them to the tribe, or into what would become the tribe.  I'd call it the character claiming something that he didn't know wouldn't be true - he's just wanting to claim he had capabilities well before they emerged.  I would even state that until the WMI made it to his hometown - which unless he lived in Sweden was well after Crash 2.0 - he would have never displayed technomantic capabilities.

As for using a 'trode net, I'd call it more than unlikely.  It would be (vanishingly) possible for a trode-net-using person to gain technomantic abilities from the Second Crash, but like I said - sounds like in-character BS to me.

[Shaidar]

IIRC, the beginning of "The Terminus Experiment" had one such pre-otaku using a trodenet as training wheels at the beginning of her otaku life.