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spirit as guard

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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #30 on: <01-09-18/2129:20> »
By relying on complementary security measures as Reaver said, both in astral,  matrix and meatspace.
In regards to the example you gave. ...
( Spirit reporting back to exasperated security mage after break in  )
Mage: why the heck didn't you alert me,  someone broke in through this door,  you broke your contract!
Spirit: I did no such thing, noone has ENTERED this door,  look ( spirit knocks on door for effect ), it's perfectly empty noone inside this door.....oh there was someone who I thought was gonna enter the door but they opened it and went through the resulting hole in the wall or whatever you call it,  but you didn't tell to look for that so I thought it unimportant. .........

Again as Reaver said your standing with the spirit world is the best indicator of how willing any given spirit will be in regards to interpretating the order it's given to your or its own benefit.

And all it takes is this happening once, it gets written in a paper, widely distributed to hermetics, and then it can never happen again because they learn and adapt.

Reaver

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« Reply #31 on: <01-10-18/1610:46> »
I think you are over simplifing it ShadowcatX.

After all, if people did everything that was written down, we wouldn't need prisons.

People are lazy. They do things quick and dirty all day long, even when they know they shouldn't. And IF they did do things right everytime, I wouldn't make $65,000/3 months doing QA/QC on electrical and Instrumentation installs that when done incorrectly  could kill everyone within miles!
(Ever seen 100 million liters of LNG go 'boom?)
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #32 on: <01-10-18/1701:49> »
I think you are over simplifing it ShadowcatX.

After all, if people did everything that was written down, we wouldn't need prisons.

People are lazy. They do things quick and dirty all day long, even when they know they shouldn't. And IF they did do things right everytime, I wouldn't make $65,000/3 months doing QA/QC on electrical and Instrumentation installs that when done incorrectly  could kill everyone within miles!
(Ever seen 100 million liters of LNG go 'boom?)

Except again, these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because? Especially when those instructions are the exact same, day after day? Java has been around half the time spirits have been around in Shadowrun.

Seriously, magic users have summoned blood spirits, invoked great form spirits, learned how to get totems from shamans and taught every other tradition how to gain their benefits, did the great ghost dance, and more. Yet you all seem to think they are too incompetent to be able to say a single sentence without ****ing it up?

Reaver

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« Reply #33 on: <01-10-18/2110:27> »


Except again, these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because? Especially when those instructions are the exact same, day after day? Java has been around half the time spirits have been around in Shadowrun.

3 words for you:

Mass Effect Andromeda
😂
 





Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #34 on: <01-11-18/0604:22> »


Except again, these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because? Especially when those instructions are the exact same, day after day? Java has been around half the time spirits have been around in Shadowrun.

3 words for you:

Mass Effect Andromeda
😂

Means nothing to me.

Reaver

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« Reply #35 on: <01-11-18/0613:53> »


Except again, these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because? Especially when those instructions are the exact same, day after day? Java has been around half the time spirits have been around in Shadowrun.

3 words for you:

Mass Effect Andromeda
😂

Means nothing to me.

5 year development,
200 programmers
$40 million dollar budget.
made unplayable by all the glitches and bugs in the game and has effectively killed a billion dollar franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KWkao73HuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asCWrjU3pps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc-xNNAc45s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJARrs0hrZQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4IxRWbHARs



IF a studio as good as Bioware releases this pile of dogshit, kinda blows that " these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because?" argument out of the water because, well, they DID release this pile of dogshit.

Just saying.
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Kiirnodel

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« Reply #36 on: <01-11-18/0707:22> »
Cutting through some of the banter... But the basic facts boil down to the fact that spirits are independent sapient beings. They are capable of acting on their own discretion and as a result are fallible, they can make mistakes. Now, that could be misinterpreting instructions, it could be distraction, it could even be simply not noticing something.

Some of these things could be based on the summoner-spirit relationship, Reaver's example of the spirit following the letter of the instruction but not the intent is just one possibility. A summoner that is on bad terms with spirits might find them doing something like this. You could also use magic to distract a spirit that is standing guard. I believe there is an Astral illusion spell that could be used to hide from a spirit's astral sight. Or even just overloading it with a Mana Static spell.

There is only so much you can load into a single service, so it is impossible to expect to cover every possible loop-hole. And if you're using a spirit to guard just a single door, then you leave every other avenue of entry open to intrusion, free of that spirit's watchful eye.

And all of that is assuming that this door is never used by authorized users. As soon as you have the possibility of use by people that shouldn't cause an alert you open up a whole new avenue of confounding factors.

TL;DR: There's no such thing as a perfect security system.

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #37 on: <01-11-18/0923:23> »


Except again, these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because? Especially when those instructions are the exact same, day after day? Java has been around half the time spirits have been around in Shadowrun.

3 words for you:

Mass Effect Andromeda
😂

Means nothing to me.

5 year development,
200 programmers
$40 million dollar budget.
made unplayable by all the glitches and bugs in the game and has effectively killed a billion dollar franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KWkao73HuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asCWrjU3pps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc-xNNAc45s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJARrs0hrZQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4IxRWbHARs



IF a studio as good as Bioware releases this pile of dogshit, kinda blows that " these are generally above average intelligence people, in a field where they are highly paid working off the back bone of 50+ years of research and development. Look at computer programming, look how exacting the language there can be. Would you expect your average computer programmer to screw up giving instructions in java just because?" argument out of the water because, well, they DID release this pile of dogshit.

Just saying.

The fact that you don't see the difference between a person writing a single line of code, and 200 programmers trying to work together over 5 years on a massive project, tells me you have more problems than worrying about wether or not a spirit can watch a door.

P.S. I don't know what language they wrote the game in, but I guarantee you that language isn't 50+ years old.

Sphinx

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« Reply #38 on: <01-11-18/0932:31> »
Just post a sign outside the door that reads, "WARNING: Guard Spirit on Duty." With any luck, trespassers will still be arguing about the best way to get past the spirit when mundane guards show up to detain them.

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #39 on: <01-11-18/1001:53> »
Just as an anecdote:
In a currently running pbp game our group was also confronted with a compound guarded by a bunch of bound spirits.

Our solution was to follow the spirit - conjurer trail to find the mage, enact a fire drill and shoot the mage offsite to get rid of all spirits directly.
Because if in doubt shoot the mage first
talk think matrix

To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield
Revenant Kynos Isaint Rex

Reaver

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« Reply #40 on: <01-11-18/1420:13> »
You're the one who brought up coding ShadowcatX, not me.

And to your pendantic response. Java isn't 50 years old either. Nor do Java programmers get it right 100% of the time on the first try. They usually write the code, test it, then refine it. At least that was the I was taught to program - and still do program in LL this way.

My point, with Mass Effect, which I suspect you are being to obtuse to try to understand is that these people's reputations and livelyhoods are on the line with every game they release, yet they still fucked it up. Just like many programmers do when coding games, anything else (you know that thing you fo sometimes called 'patching'???? Why? Cause they fucked it the first time!!)

Coding is not the same as issuing a verbal order. You KNOW that.

Or do you?
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #41 on: <01-11-18/1531:11> »
You're the one who brought up coding ShadowcatX, not me.

Yes, I was. And I pointed out that people who programmed in it didn't have half as much experience as mages do dealing with spirits. And yet have managed to enable the entire world to communicate thanks to it.

Quote
And to your pendantic response. Java isn't 50 years old either. Nor do Java programmers get it right 100% of the time on the first try. They usually write the code, test it, then refine it. At least that was the I was taught to program - and still do program in LL this way.

My point, with Mass Effect, which I suspect you are being to obtuse to try to understand is that these people's reputations and livelyhoods are on the line with every game they release, yet they still fucked it up. Just like many programmers do when coding games, anything else (you know that thing you fo sometimes called 'patching'???? Why? Cause they fucked it the first time!!)

Coding is not the same as issuing a verbal order. You KNOW that.

Or do you?

And my point is how many lines of code was that game that they had to patch? Windows Vista, for example, had 50 million lines of code, and as terrible as that operating system was, there were not 50 million patches. Go get a respectable programmer, have them program "hello world". See how often they **** it up, especially when they do it on a day to day basis.

Kiirnodel

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« Reply #42 on: <01-11-18/2352:26> »
ShadowcatX, spirits aren't "a single line of code" they are a complex and living thing that can respond in a multitude of different manners.

Not to mention that respond to a command like "watch this door and report any intruders to me" is not at all like a simple I/O command to a print-line.

There isn't a codified way to command spirits, even with 50+ years of experience there is no way to expect a perfect response from a single command. No more than you can expect a perfect result from a human security guard told to watch a door. Or even a mechanical motion sensor told to alert when it detect motion. It is possible to minimize the chances of failure, but not 100% eliminate it.

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #43 on: <01-12-18/0728:17> »
ShadowcatX, spirits aren't "a single line of code" they are a complex and living thing that can respond in a multitude of different manners.

Not to mention that respond to a command like "watch this door and report any intruders to me" is not at all like a simple I/O command to a print-line.

There isn't a codified way to command spirits, even with 50+ years of experience there is no way to expect a perfect response from a single command. No more than you can expect a perfect result from a human security guard told to watch a door. Or even a mechanical motion sensor told to alert when it detect motion. It is possible to minimize the chances of failure, but not 100% eliminate it.

No, spirits are not a line of code, the orders are. And there absolutely would be rules and codes for how a corp mage would command them.

Furthermore a human security guard can willingly choose not to do his job, a spirit cannot make that choice.

SunRunner

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« Reply #44 on: <01-12-18/0931:18> »
And that shadow is where your wrong, a spirit CAN decide to NOT do its job. It just has to be creative in how it decides to go about not doing its job because of some unspecified magical mcguffin that says so. It just like when you decide some one is being an ass at work and your gonna make their life miserable. You dont want to be fired so some things are off the table but there are plenty of little things you can do that wont get you fired that you can do to the other person.

The whole Spirits twist commands is a VERY common trope in alot of fantasy fiction and I have literally read 100+ books that deal with how people who have commands that cant be ignored for what ever mcguffin find ways around said mcguffin. Take Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series where the Aesdai mages are MAGICLY bound to be physically incapable of speaking a lie, and yet they are know for being incredibly sneaky and duplicitous. The books are filled with hundreds of cases where they find very interesting ways to deceive people and give them false information despite literally being physically incapable of telling a Lie. To be honest its kinda funny because the more powerful the spirit in question the SMARTER they are and the better they would be at figuring out  how to get around commands they dont like or want to obey.

Your whole they learn thing is true but it also leads to 300 page command lines to put a spirit on guard duty. And that is where people will get sloppy because they are not gonna bother or are in too much of a hurry to recite their 300 page fool proof command. Or hey nothing has gone wrong for the past 2 years so you know instead of spending 10 minuets reading this corp mandated command sheet I am going to just say hey watch the door.

Also you seem to think repetition makes things perfect and in some cases your right but in alot of cases you would be wrong.

Lets play a game, type a simple sentence like "John runs down the street." 10,000 times in a row non stop, if at any time you mistype anything you die, guess where I am betting my house? You dieing. I am like reaver I do building code inspections for a living and I make my living off of people being paid high 6 figures screwing the pooch, and it happens every day all day with out fail. I love figuring out how the Mechanical engineer messed up the apartment building.