[Marcus Gideon]

Throwbacks are a thing, but the books don't really delve into the legality of driving a throwback on a busy highway during 5 o'clock traffic. It's perfectly legal to drive a John Deer tractor down the side of a rural country road, but you can't drive it down the middle of the I-5 in downtown Seattle.

And the cops can afford to pull over vehicles running silent, b/c those are the only ones blatantly advertising that they're up to no good. The whole point to a police state is that everybody gives up their privacy in order to create the illusion of security. All the other cars on the highway will be broadcasting, so the only cars that don't broadcast are a rare oddity worth investigating. And since all the other cars are using GridGuide, it's very easy for the cops to send a notice, and suddenly all the traffic around that single Silent offender clears up so the police cruiser(s) can get to them.

[Tarislar]

Driving a classic car isn't illegal & I don't see how driving a throwback would be either.

Not everyone is going to be driving a car that is less than 10 years old.

You don't have to walk around broadcasting your SIN.

You do have to have it on to walk through a security checkpoint however.

[MijRai]

We didn't say illegal, we said it'll get you stopped.  There is a difference. 

On top of that, getting a small device that broadcasts the legal information required is probably their version of license plates.  If you don't have that, they should be pulling you over, to tell you to get yours fixed or a new one installed or something.  It IS illegal to drive without plates of some kind nowadays, and I doubt that changes. 

[Soahl]

At every table I've played at, not broadcasting a Commlink or a Vehicle has been grounds for suspicion from the Police. And given that a significant amount of policing is done by relatively corrupt or aggressive organizations like Lone Star, it causes more trouble than it's worth. That's why we usually have the Decker Wrapper things for us (or, in the case of Commlinks get a cheap one to broadcast while our real one runs silent).

As to the whole License Plate thing, I find it very hard to believe that the equivalent of the License Plate is now some broadcast signal. Especially since you can still buy Morphic Plates.

With cars, I don't think Throwbacks would be too much of an issue. Sure, cops might use it as cause to harass someone, but I doubt a lack of Wireless would bring the world down on you. With Aircraft, however, I completely agree. Airspace has always been tightly regulated and in this dystopian world we all run in I'd be hard pressed to say that it's any less regulated (in fact, I'd insist it was more-so). Thus, if you're flying around without transmitting any data or filing flight plans (false or otherwise) then I'd expect you'd get a ton of attention once someone saw you. Then again, it's the seeing you part that'd be the tricky bit. Once they did, though? I'd expect instant contact, the aerial equivalent of pulling you over, and some mediocre to high profile harassment. After all, the poor and the average rarely have VTOLs to dink about in.

[belaran]

I don't think we'll get an absolute / universal response here. It's no longer a question of mechanism or rule, but more of settings. If you go for a shadowrun world flavor oriented Orwell's 1984, simply running with wireless off and/or silent mode, we'll immediatly get you in trouble. If you go for a more classic cyberpunk or post apo feeling, where nation and their army are powerless and corps sticks to their business first, you'll fly under the radar.

In my case, this all discussion is for flying in a rather deserted part (even nowdays) of Missouri, to hide after a successful, but heat bringing run. In this context, even if Missouri is split between CAS and UCAS, I would assumed that they'll be ignore because:

• no big megacorpo around
• the chopper is quite stealthy (signature masking, chameleon plating)
• they are going to a known smuggler place
• even if CAS/UCAS army got a "ping" on their screen, I don't expect them to go "all out" and investigate everything (as long as it's not a dozen of pings coming from the other country to their territory

Interesting feedback in any case...

[KarmaInferno]

If you're in a 'rather deserted part', chances are you are MORE likely to be investigated if notiiced, not less.

The local cops are probably going to be bored since they have little else to look at.

That said, it depends on what you are doing. If you are trying to look like a normal traveller, keep the wireless on. In the Shadowrun setting, it's considered unusual NOT to have it on. If you're paranoid, have a 'dummy' wireless system that's meant for public viewing, with all legal stuff, not connected to your 'real' equipment.

If you're trying not to be seen at all, yes, shut off the wireless.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Wow, some very bombastic, black and white statements in this thread. At my table, the world of Shadowrun is grey, not black and white. If I were to have a cop pull over any member of the group every time they disabled wireless on their gear and/or vehicles, I'd be doing that a lot.

All I'm saying.

[belaran]

I tend to agree with your Herr Brackhaus. I like my role playing game to be "realistic". Yes, if an echo appears on a radar, UCAS military or some local megacorp may (or may not) check it out. Like everything in real life, it's not so black and white.

Maybe the megacorp has no resources for that, maybe the UCAS military does not care until it tries to pass the frontier, or maybe the echo is just to bleak and ruled out as static ?

Yes, a wireless "off" chopper is suspicious, and yes, it may attract attention - or maybe the wireless is broken ? Or maybe the noise just prevent to check it out ? Actually, is the wireless off or running silent, or the icon just too far away ?

Anyhow, i've got more than I wanted from this thread ! Thanks all !

[Rooks]

I always figured that grid guide handles things like this, places like the barrens probably doesnt have grid guide nor have people broadcasting their sins, By contrast, if you are in an area that has grid guide you cant really have a car that doesnt have a throwback since every in 2050 they had grid guide (I mean could but it probably be considered a classic car or is a Morgan ATV that explicitly states they are throwbacks so they cant be hacked) there are items like grid guide override and spoof chips with morphing license plates that can let you bypass most of this.

[Soahl]

Aah, out in the boonies. Then yeah, I doubt anyone would care. I was under the impression you meant like in Seattle or Chicago, where being the one person in a crowd to not have their stuff broadcasting would isolate you quicker than having a Fake whatever up. The only thing I'd worry about, as a runner, is border crossing. I don't know much about the UCAS or CAS, but I could imagine they're not too friendly when it comes to dark VTOLs crossing the border. But that's easy enough to bypass.

When I said before that my tables play by needing something to be broadcasting, that typically means a SIN (Fake or otherwise). Vehicles and stuff have such low device ratings that the Noise pretty much anywhere will make them next to impossible to detect. It's the SIN broadcast from a commlink that'd be important (in cities and stuff). Again, out in the boonies I assume it'd be pretty easy to just disappear.

My main thing is about the VTOL. To me, that changes things. I always assume people will be more paranoid about aircraft just because it's safe to assume that anyone who can afford something like that and then chooses to run dark is probably up to no good. But that's a personal judgement, there.

[KarmaInferno]

Yeah, a wireless-off vtol is going to be a lot more likely to be scrutinized than a car.



-k