[martinchaen]

So, in a Play-By-Post I'm a part of the following occurred to "my character" in game, as he's reasonably inexperienced with magic (yeah, that's totally my excuse, the fact that I didn't think of this until now despite playing the game for 2 years has nothing to do with the matter!);

So, in this play by post, my character wondered: "Can one use a Simrig and a trode net to record ones experiences in the Astral?"

Let's first take a brief look at the rules for it (no, Xenon, I'm not really interested in a RAW debate, shush! ), shall we:

Simrig: This simsense recorder can record experience data (sensory and emotive) from you or whoever is wearing it. Simrig rigs are used to make most of the simsense chips sold on the market. You’ll need to have a working sim module (with the DNI interface) to make a recording.

In addition, the book has this to say about the Astral:

It is an emotionally charged photonegative of the physical world where only living things and things infused with mana are real and physical objects are mere intangible shadows.

However, it is very clear that technology and magic doesn't really mix, both from a lore perspective but also from the game mechanics. But this is one avenue I haven't really seen ANY mention of in the source material; while Astral Space is certainly a magical construct, the Simrig records as much what you "feel" emotionally as it does what you can "sense" through your eyes, nose, and fingers.

I've been thinking about this all day, and I'd really like to hear what others have to say about this from a theoretical perspective more so than a rules perspective; it's controversial enough by the rules, I'm just curious what people think MIT&T or the DIMR or the like might have come up with.

And if a Simrig doesn't do it, what other ways could someone record their journeys into the Astral, beyond noting them down with pen and paper when they return to their bodies?

My personal opinion only; the simrig can in fact record the experience, but it will at best be useless to anyone who cannot Assense, and they'd need a trode net and a hot-sim enabled link to experience the journey. I think it's a fascinating concept that deserves more exploration.

[Kincaid]

Without digging through the rules (magic is not my strong suit), I'm inclined to say yes largely because it's cool and coolness trumps micromanaging.  I would say that the actual specifics--how the aura looks precisely--would not translate, so someone else with Assensing could look not run the sim and make an Aura Reading roll, but he would be able to "ride" the emotional experience of the person who saw the aura initially.  That actually sounds like a fun plot hook--a magical twist to Strange Days.

[Sendaz]

Special effects are used in place of active magic in most simsense products for several important reasons. For one, mana spells and astral perception simply do not show up on simsense recordings at all. While physical spells do show up on a recording, they’re physically taxing to cast.
 ....
On the other hand, magical illusions are sometimes cast to fool the actors, thus creating emotive responses to the (nonexistent, according to the recording) illusion. This trick is used to record the appropriate response to visual effects that will be added later, or to get an extra emotional edge in scenes where it really counts.

I would say you probably would still get the emotional feedback from someone perceiving, but the actual 'sensing' data doesn't seem to come across at all.

That said, a good computer whiz working with the projecting person probably could whip up the sensory equivalents to go with the emotional content the projector is experiencing

as for other devices, if anything comes close I would bet the Jewel of Memory probably could as it stores information/wisdom for the Greats (think Matrix of Leadership for Scalies ) and given their magically active lifestyle it might well contain astral impressions/information though I do not have anything to back that canon-wise.

[martinchaen]

Thanks, Sendaz! That's a pretty old quote if it's from the Sprawl Survival Guide, but it's nice to know where the canon stands.

I think I might handwave some sort of plot prototype device type thing into my campaign. Like Kincaid, I think it's an intriguing potential R&D type thing.

[Sendaz]

Yeah, with advancement in arcanotech, sooner or later there is bound to be some sort of bridge, though I suspect it will burn out, magically or mentally, a lot of test subjects along the way.

[RHat]

Astral space isn't only about emotion - and a simrig can only record the "five senses" as far as sensory experience goes.  So it would record how someone FELT about what they saw, but not what they saw.  There's really no way to record the actual sensory experience, which is part of the whole magic/tech issue.

[Senko]

I thought the Astral was just a bunch of bright colours and weird things like seeing a dragon in place of a man or a plane sized bird flapping lazily over the park so it would record all that fine? It wouldn't give you the knowledge that coloured aura X = Toxic shaman bwaap bwaapp  bwaap but you would see a weird muddy, black aura and feel the fear of the mage.

[RHat]

I thought the Astral was just a bunch of bright colours and weird things like seeing a dragon in place of a man or a plane sized bird flapping lazily over the park so it would record all that fine? It wouldn't give you the knowledge that coloured aura X = Toxic shaman bwaap bwaapp  bwaap but you would see a weird muddy, black aura and feel the fear of the mage.

Hells no.  Astral Perception is a completely seperate and distinct form of perception.  It doesn't actually relate to visual perception at all, that's just part of how the user's brain typically interprets it (notably, the interpretation varies from person to person and based on their own sensory capacity - blind people interpret it in very different ways, for example).

[Senko]

I see, sttill doesn't a simrig record your experiences? If so wouldn't it record whatever your experiencing e.g. a man can be made to experience giving birth, a human can be made to experience what its like to be a bird, a blind person can be made to experience sight and a normal can be made to experience an awakened's view of the Astral world? Its just that some of what they're experiencing would be noise. However if Mage A interprets their view of the astral world as a sight based experience couldn't they record that even if they're using a completely different sense. Kind of the differrence between AR and hot sim VR. In both cases your seeing the same world but whereas the person using gloves, goggles and earbuds can only get a small part of the whole they're still able to say "Yes I see the castle." they just can't smell the castle or taste it.

[SlowDeck]

I think a simrig is limited in how many senses it can record. Astral projection probably involves senses that simsense doesn't have the capacity to record. So while it would record your experiences, some of the data would be considered erroneous and automatically discarded, which would leave you with an incomplete recording.

[Demon_Bob]

Even if a simrig was able to record an astral perception experience, it may be that to those without the ability it cannot be processed properly.
As the improper processing of any direct electrical stimulation information by the brain can cause serious side effects it would stand to reason that the input data be limited.

[martinchaen]

Wait, where is it stated that a simrig only records the 5 senses, RHat? I haven't seen any reference to what it actually does beyond record "sensory and emotive" experience data, which is wonderfully vague.

And SlowDeck, that is a fairly narrow view of what the simrig can and cannot do, not to mention a contradictory statement; in the second half you're making the assumption that the simrig discards data, while in the first half you say that it wouldn't have the capacity to record it. See the difference? I liken the first part of your statement to taking a completely normal cellphone into a pitch black room and recording a video with it; it is unlikely to show anything at all because the electronics in it are unable to pick up any visual data (except the darkness, which is a form of data itself. The second part of your statement is more like saying that the aforementioned cell phone would simply discard data it doesn't recognize, but that implies that it CAN in fact see infrared, for example.

My stance on this topic is that of the quote Sendaz provided; the simrig from Sprawl Survival Guide, which is dated April 30th, 2063, is unable to record the data from experiences such as Astral Perception. However, I am NOT of the opinion that this holds true in 2075, as magical theory and technology has had an additional 12 years to mature. In 12 years, we went from Bakelite phones that were vehicle mounted (or draggable) to portable cell phones with vast processing power in nearly every westerners pocket. I'm confident that someone, somewhere has been working on a way to capture Astral Perception data, and that a prototype exists. It may not be canon, but it sounds reasonable enough for me, and I think it's a neat idea for a new experience for the runners.

The mundane viewer may not fully comprehend what he's experiencing, and he may suffer ill effects from the experience (if using Hot-Sim) as his mind tries to accommodate a reality for which it is woefully unprepared, but I wouldn't discard the concept simply because 10 year old tech in the canon wasn't capable of it.

Again, huge thanks to Sendaz for digging up that quote. Much appreciated.

[SlowDeck]

It's not really that contradictory. There's a difference between receiving the data and being able to record it.

Simsense probably also can't record some of the other more esoteric human senses, such as magnetoception. At most, I suspect it can only record a max of 18 of the 20 senses humans have in real life (and there's actually some evidence that suggests we have more than that). When you add on magic, you're probably talking about another five to ten senses added on top of the ones already known, but which are not as wide-spread in actual usage.

Plus, it's actually possible they don't know how to encode the information for simsense. I agree with you that it makes sense they have the capacity to obtain it with a simrig, but I suspect that sensing the astral world may use a set of... not certain the term... sensory "algorithms" not previously seen in the human brain that they're actually still trying to figure out how to be able to record the data and have it play back properly. Given the range of capacity to innately see the astral world, it is entirely possible that attempted simsense recordings of it have variable effectiveness that depends entirely upon the user. It's much more likely that attempted simsense recordings of astral space simply fail. As such, it's possible that they're not yet capable of producing simsense recordings of astral space simply because they're trying to figure out how it works means they're starting at ground zero all over again.

Note I may be wrong. I would not be surprised in the least if the upcoming magic supplement mentions simsense recordings and BTLs of astral space. I just don't think they'll do it for game balance reasons, and the above is the best attempt at an internal world explanation for why it's not yet possible.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

My stance on this topic is that of the quote Sendaz provided; the simrig from Sprawl Survival Guide, which is dated April 30th, 2063, is unable to record the data from experiences such as Astral Perception. However, I am NOT of the opinion that this holds true in 2075, as magical theory and technology has had an additional 12 years to mature. In 12 years, we went from Bakelite phones that were vehicle mounted (or draggable) to portable cell phones with vast processing power in nearly every westerners pocket. I'm confident that someone, somewhere has been working on a way to capture Astral Perception data, and that a prototype exists. It may not be canon, but it sounds reasonable enough for me, and I think it's a neat idea for a new experience for the runners.

And I see this thought as being exceedingly dangerous, on all different sorts of scales - in-game, metagame, yadda yadda.  If someone in the SR world discovers a way for magic and the astral to be recorded by technology, you provide a stepping-stone for technology to access both, and then you will have, in a relatively short period of time, spells cast by a gizmo and mages cruising in the Matrix.  Even the current methodology of 'technologically' sensing the strength of a background count in an area relies on a living thing actually doing the sensing, and providing data on it via the strength of its glowing.  We can record the glowing - but not the direct sensory data.

Do it if you like in your game, but I'm fairly confident that it'll remain separate in most others - and definitely so in the canon.

[martinchaen]

I'm not sure I agree with the slightly hyperbolic "stepping-stone" argument, Wyrm. To me, going from being able to detect something is a fairly long logistical leap from being able to manipulate it. A very hyperbolic reply would be that we can theoretically detect all sorts of cosmic phenomena today, but that doesn't mean we can interact with them in any viable way, and likely won't for a long, long time, nor does it mean that we really understand their effects.

A more practical real world example to my mind is the discovery of x-rays; attributed to a period of time between 1875 and 1895, it only took scientists/medical professionals a month or so to begin using this technology for medical purposes. The scientific community is still arguing about the effects radiation exposure from routine scans has on the human body, particularly where risk of cancer development is concerned.

But absolutely, I'm making no claim that what I'm proposing is canon, merely that it is possible. And, given that the last canonical source we have on the matter is over a decade old in-game and knowing the vast resources that are poured into arcanotech research, I really don't think it's that much of a stretch to imagine that someone, somewhere has come up with a simrig-like device that allows the detection of astral phenomena through a magician's senses. As you say, the machine itself wouldn't be the sensor, the human body would be.

Thank you for your input, though, always good to hear what people think.