Shadowrun General > Fan fiction
Johnny Mnemonic is the best SR movie ever made
Stainless Steel Devil Rat:
--- Quote from: JudgeMonroe on ---It's kind of endearing that the Johnny Mnemonic "data courier" archetype persists into the 5th Edition (specifically via the Iconic character Gentry and generally through the availability of the Data Lock augmentation) even though the rest of the evolved setting ought to make the concept entirely moot.
--- End quote ---
How so? Securing something important inside a Host is just inviting some Decker or Technomancer to hack their way in and compromise it.
Hiding something inside a data courier might be an "easier" hack, but that's only after you A) learn which data courier the data you need is hidden inside and B) successfully grab him in such a way that the data isn't erased before you can put a data tap on his cyberware to hack it.
Ajax:
One also shouldn’t overlook Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett’s gritty noir crime novels. Sam Spade and Phillip Marlow aren’t cyberpunk at all — having been written long before the invention of both punk and computers — but they were undoubtedly influential on William Gibson and most assuredly influences on Blade Runner.
John le Carré‘s espionage novels, such as The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, Tom Clancy’s and Michael Critchon’s modern day techno-thrillers, and the original Ian Fleming novels about a certain dashing British secret agent, are also pretty good inspirational material for Shadowrun. Again, none of them are directly cyberpunk (although Jurassic Park comes kinda close to biopunk), but they all share tonal and thematic elements.
“Heist pictures” are also a great source of inspiration: Heat basically is a Shadowrun campaign set in the Fifth World. The Thomas Crown Affair, Ocean’s Eleven, Catch Me If You Can, and The Sting should be required viewing for any SR GM considering running a campaign that plans to make extensive use of the ‘Cutting Aces’ supplement.
Oh, and of course, we’d be silly not to mention the story of what happens when a retired Prime Runner gets his car stolen and his dog killed: John Wick.
JudgeMonroe:
--- Quote from: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on ---
--- Quote from: JudgeMonroe on ---It's kind of endearing that the Johnny Mnemonic "data courier" archetype persists into the 5th Edition (specifically via the Iconic character Gentry and generally through the availability of the Data Lock augmentation) even though the rest of the evolved setting ought to make the concept entirely moot.
--- End quote ---
How so? Securing something important inside a Host is just inviting some Decker or Technomancer to hack their way in and compromise it.
Hiding something inside a data courier might be an "easier" hack, but that's only after you A) learn which data courier the data you need is hidden inside and B) successfully grab him in such a way that the data isn't erased before you can put a data tap on his cyberware to hack it.
--- End quote ---
Mostly because you can't use data at rest in a courier. The data originates in a host, and its destination is a host. The courier is merely the transport, and a Global Grid that supports hosts between which no physical distance exists means exchanging that data between them must be a trivial thing. There are some edge cases involving offline hosts where things can get interesting, though. Additionally, the way Foundations and Skimming are supposed to work makes the "security" of information in the face of motivated opposition even less relevant.
RickDeckard:
--- Quote from: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on ---That's an overly ambitious claim given Bright exists.
--- End quote ---
I thought it was good, but it didn't give the SR feel the same way JM did. Did they use Cyberware in Bright? Don't recall seein it.
RickDeckard:
--- Quote from: Beerhamut on ---Read the William Gibson Sprawl series. I swear Shadowrun is the nerd-baby of that, Lord of the Rings, and Walter John Williams "Hardwired".
Sprawl=Cities, street samurai, and matrix.
Rings=Dragons, magic, metaraces.
Hardwired=Riggers, and street samurai.
Johnny Mnemonic is actually from William Gibsons' Sprawl stuff so there ya go.
--- End quote ---
Gibson , unfortunately, has always claimed he does not like the connection between his novels and universe and that of Shadowrun.
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