[Nath]

In the original version of the joke, Clippy was fighting another IA, with a penguin icon just as tall. Dunno how the fight would end though.

[Julius Q Enderby]

I just happen to be prepping Imago for my group to run. Not really technomancer related I think back in the SR2 days but just to add fuel to your fire, Starmantle:

• At the heart of the adventure is a beyond-cutting-edge cyberdeck which could, with right beyond-cutting-edge programs, allow the beyond cutting-edge decker who built it (Quicksilver/Erewan, another IE - why do they have to be IE?) to... download? ...recreate? oneself into an imago, a free-form roaming the matrix without impacting the load limits of the node it was in. The imago was not just your icon in the matrix; it was you, with all your memories etc. An autonomous sprite or agent of pure you. It gets a little fuzzy, sure.
• Quicksilver worked for Transys Neuronet.
• If the run ended a certain way, Transys Neuronet ended up with the cyberdeck.
• This was well before Crash 2.0, in SR2 days, so back in the time when existing otaku required datajacks.(The adventure does not suggest Quicksilver is an otaku but to support your theory, he definitely was building technology to better represent himself (forever - he was obsessed with life after death) on the Matrix.
• Decades later, Transys/Erika comes out of Crash 2.0 swinging with the wireless stuff.

Coincidence? Well, probably. But there's another nugget anyway. 

[Barracuda_Kali]

You know, I was thinking about the Akashic Records as a concept, and the idea of memetic lifeforms that exist in the em bands is a really cool one. The matrix could be laying over the top of some kind of noosphere that's remained undetected as a mana realm because its particular shapes are too universal for traditions to notice. Technomancers might well be mages with a memetic tradition.

[Mirikon]

If they were mages, they'd show up as something other than mundanes on the astral. But in Augmentation, I believe, they were discussing the possibility that magic and resonance were flip-sides of the same genetic trigger. Which is why you can't be emerged and awakened.

What this could mean is that it was the interaction of both the increasing mana and the saturation of the matrix that allowed otaku and technomancers to develop.

Of course, as one shadowtalker said, if the otaku were the equivalent of UGE and technomancers were like Goblinization, what would the matrix equivalent of SURGE bring?

[Barracuda_Kali]

If they were mages, they'd show up as something other than mundanes on the astral.

Right. Thus the comment about a "noosphere that's remained undetected as a mana realm because its particular shapes are too universal for traditions to notice." Magic as Shadowrun puts it is very perception-based and very tradition specific; someone who summons Earth Elemental slaves will argue to the death that it's completely different from a shaman's mountain spirit pal. It's possible that something might show up as mundane either because the mage expects it to or because the tradition doesn't allow for it to happen. Because of the way enchanting works, there should be literally no reason that you can't make an implanted blade into a weapon focus, but you can't. There should be no reason Technomancers show up as mundane, either, but they do. Besides, it's only another possibility on the pile.

[beowulf_of_wa]

while i was thinking that resonance is the opposite side of the mana coin, i've come to think that it's more along the lines of those that have become otaku/TM are people that might have become magic users in another time, but technology has provided a second avenue for their possible connection to be made to a larger force.

if they actually had stats for it, (and someone might make them up just for grits and shiggles) those stats probably would show that compared to ED and prior ages, the % of magic users in SR is lower, though SR has things undreamt of in those ages.

and i bet that in the next iteration of SR, they'll make implantable weapon foci a meta-magic/delta-cyber street rumor/possibility.
and the iteration after that will reverse the prohibition on no magic and resonance in the same body. that black IC/Horror will be a bitch to fight. can't wait.

[beowulf_of_wa]

just think of how mad you can make a Horror when you infect his mana base with BSoD???

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

just think of how mad you can make a Horror when you infect his mana base with BSoD???

>> Access: Corrupt Karma -> PC
>> ACCESS FAILURE
>> ACCESS FAILURE
>> ACCESS FAILURE
>> KARMA DUMP INITIATED
>> ALL KARMA TO BE GIVEN TO TARGET "PC"
>> KARMA DUMP COMPLETE
>> LOGGING OFF
>> Thank you for returning to the Void.  Have a Nice Day.

[hobgoblin]

Actually one can tell a mundane from a TM if one score high enough hits on the asensing. So there is a slight, but noticeable difference in their aura.

Also; while some traditionalists will argue that their spirits are different, the fluff backs the unified magic rules by way of a magic conference where proof was presented that it was all in the mind of the summoner.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Also; while some traditionalists will argue that their spirits are different, the fluff backs the unified magic rules by way of a magic conference where proof was presented that it was all in the mind of the summoner.

I would suggest that the fluff was written in order to support the rules, not the other way around.

[hobgoblin]

likely a combination, as both the WMI and the magic conference was mentioned in SR3 books long before crash 2.0 and SR4 came about. Still, i was trying to point out that there is a in-setting consensus that all spirits are the same after said conference was done.

[Barracuda_Kali]

There's also no reason that with spirits that have the ability to see and direct electricity and spells that do it, that spirits shouldn't be able to see information on electronic screens. There's no reason that something that already interacts with EM bands on a regular just can't, for some reason, interact with EM bands.

Unless someone did it on purpose.

Warning, epileptic tree alert part 1: What if the matrix is some anti-magical xanatos gambit started in Atlantis and only just now coming to fruition?

Warning, epileptic tree alert part 2: the entire human endeavor of electronic engineering is an elaborate, universal counterspelling ritual.

[beowulf_of_wa]

is that like the M25 London orbital motorway in Good Omens?

"In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape
 of the M25 forms the sigil *odegra* in the language of the Black Priesthood
 of Ancient Mu, and means 'Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds'."
                          -- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

(constantly generating a fog of low grade evil for scores of miles around.)
does that make a demon the first shadowrunner?

[CanRay]

Oh, they've been doing Shadowruns for a long, long time.  The thing is, so have Angels.

I guess the "First Shadowrun" in human memory was done by a snake.  It was a con job involving a tree and a woman. 

[Zilfer]

Oh, they've been doing Shadowruns for a long, long time.  The thing is, so have Angels.

I guess the "First Shadowrun" in human memory was done by a snake.  It was a con job involving a tree and a woman. 

And perhaps a little distraction for the man...