[Ultra Violet]

The question is: How much of the background story and reasons and protagonists do the normal people know about?

Do they know about DEUS? Is it common knowledge to know about the R:AS or what does Joe Average know? And what does Joe ACHE know about the history of his home?
Do they know about ExPacis and Winterknight?
What do they know about otaku and AI anyway before and after the Emergence?

How much do they know? And how difficult is it to get on the real deal of information about it after 2070?


Yours faithfully,
UV

[Mystic]

I would say not that much. Im sure a nice cover story was concocted because to paraphrase the Joker "people don't painc when there is a plan". I could see the corporate court doing a massive spin in conjunction with the world governments in order to contain world wide panic.

Lets face it, people will react better when they think that someone or something is in control. An indipendent AI or terrorist group, etc does NOT inspire confidence and people will start to get on edge which can lead to chaos REALLY fast. As long as there was a responce that delt with the propblem, people can accept that. Take the largest disaster imagionable, as long as there is someone to help pick up the pieces later, reasonable order can remain and people are more content than say a govt/etc not knowing WHAT to do in the aftermath of such an event.

As to how exactly such a plan can be implimented or explained, well, nothing I have read so far in SR history has explained it fully.

[Morg]

All the corporations try to limit the availability of Information therefor Joe and Jane corp would have whatever their company feeds them "The security of Information is paramount!"

Joe and Jane sinless would have street rumors, news and corp propaganda so they get to at least pick what lies they like to hear "Discredit what can't be controlled"

Joe and Jane runner would have to suppurate the wheat from the chaff as they have the largest selection of information but most of it is half truths or overstated opinions. I don't even think Fast Jack would tell everything that happened during those times "Distort fact to hide the deeper truth"

Joe and Jane AHCE would know enough to make them feel it is safe to live there "Ignorance is bliss"

so Joe and Jane Average would know that there was an indecent in the Arcology. they would know that it was caused by a computer error and the drones inside went nuts but information on DEUS would be caned. Before the emergence they would know nothing of AIs or Otoku. after emergence they are still suffering from the fear-mongering and the corps hide what they could of their black projects while the media screams cover up to deaf ears, Pulsar is the new media star filling in the void that the Big D left behind and so what ever Pulsar says is gospel to his fans and conspiracy to his enemies.Winternight just goes down as a group of terrorists a vague mention of some kind of attack and much heaping of blame as for ExPacis... nothing, the crash lets the corps rewrite anything they want the way they want as part of "data salvaging"

First Joe and Jane Average have to suspect there is a truth to find, next they have to have the need to find the truth and overcome the obstacles witch usually costs ¥ and then figure out how to sort fact from fiction...the magic 8 ball says "Outcome unfavorable"

but it dose depend on the GMs style I am a little more cyberpunky then most

[The_Gun_Nut]

As for disinformation, just look at Aztechnology.  It's one of the most (if not the most) popular megacorp to Joe and Jane Average, considered the "Nice" corp.  The shadows, and most of the corp world, know that they are absolute monsters that would gladly feed the world to body, sanity, and soul destroying Horrors to get ahead.

[Longshot23]

As for disinformation, just look at Aztechnology.  It's one of the most (if not the most) popular megacorp to Joe and Jane Average, considered the "Nice" corp.  The shadows, and most of the corp world, know that they are absolute monsters that would gladly feed the world to body, sanity, and soul destroying Horrors to get ahead.

I don't know about THAT - though maybe rip the hearts out of a substantial proportion of the population to maintain Control Mind spells on the rest (performed on/in teocallis, of course).  My impression of the Azzie bigwigs is that not all of them, not even a majority, buy into the Horrors.  But they are into POWER.

[Frostriese]

The public does know AIs were involved in the crash, that after all is big part of the anti-technomancers/2nd gen AIs craze during the Emergence. And Winternight did a bit more than "just" crash the net. The corps and governments will of course keep it neatly under wrap just how close their fault line nukes etc. came to success, but that much of the action during the Crash was the fault of an apocalyptic terrorist organisation named Winternight should also be known. In fact, it mentions in Street Magic that this is why in some parts of the world godes have a bad reputation.

The otaku and 1st gen AIs were not public knowledge before the Crash, but I'd assume that afterwards corps and governments gave out some... carefully edited informations. Certainly not enough to make Ex Pacis public knowledge I think. Much easier and useful to simply paint them all as potentially dangerous.

[Simagal]

The Otaku were as secret as a post on Shadowland can be. I was always under the impression that Shadowlands was some what public, although the reader has to sift through the truth.
 

[CanRay]

The Otaku were as secret as a post on Shadowland can be. I was always under the impression that Shadowlands was some what public, although the reader has to sift through the truth.

ShadowLand was public if you could hack your way in.  Something that John Q. Wageslave couldn't do, but folks living on the fringes of society could.  And outright in the Shadows, of course.

But it was mostly made up of deckers who posted from their own points of view, which were quite...  Skewed.  Just as bad, if not worse, than some Suits in some ways.

Anyhow, it was an illegal BBS.  Not exactly some place the 11 O'Clock News could quote as a "Reliable Source" with a straight face, no matter how trained the talking face.\

*Pours a 40 for the fallen 'Runners of Crash 2.0*  Godspeed, Captain!

[Abstruse]

Quite a few reporters were on Shadowland back in the day.  Sunshine, a current JackPointer, is a reporter.  Odds are, they use Shadowland/JackPoint to get the skinny on what's going on, then go looking for more legitimate sources they can actually quote and use (if their masters decide to run the story).

Please note these would be REAL reporters.  The kind who actually want to inform the public.  Most reporters aren't like that.  They get all their news from the 2070s equivalent of AP or Reuters and just rewords it to get a byline.  The trid news reads whatever's on the teleprompter and smiles pretty for the camera.  The words are written by someone in the PR group to make sure that the corp that owns the network gets the best attention on them and the worst on competitors.

Want a modern example?  Fox airs a lot of reality TV which goes for the sex-sells demographic.  They also air American Idol.  Fox News has a lot of conservative-slanted opinion shows.  So Fox airs shows that push the boundaries for sex and language on broadcast TV, then Fox News outrages over it, which gets more ratings for both networks.  This peaked IMO with American Idol a year or two ago when there was a conservative Christian contestant and an openly gay contestant in the finals.  Fox News air several of their pundit shows talking about how horrible it would be for America if we had a gay American Idol.  Of course, ratings for both networks went through the roof.

Now imagine a world where the networks don't even share the same name and there are dozens of levels of shell and holding companies separating the two from the public eye where they can do this dance even more overtly.  Imagine if MSNBC and Fox News were both owned by say Renraku.  They could have MSNBC blame one group (say Humanis) and Fox News blame another (probably TerraFirst!) and the two networks argue vehemently about it so that an explanation such as a rogue AI sounds like insane tin foil hat conspiracy.

[CanRay]

And then there's the pirate stations!

[Abstruse]

And then there's the pirate stations!

Pirate stations would be something similar to a podcast or YouTube channel in how seriously the average person takes it.  Sure, people in the know would trust KSAF, but if it were important, wouldn't NBS or NewsNet cover it?  There are massive real-life news stories that are broken every day, but no one pays attention because they get all their news from between one to three sources - ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, or their local newspaper (which is probably also owned by a conglomeration).  All of these except NPR live off advertising funding, which is also corporate.

Now I'm not trying to make a political argument or anything else, just pointing out that this is how our real world is set up.  The Shadowrun world is supposed to reflect that by exaggerating the evil potential.  ABC is owned by Disney, which has consumer interests.  In the Shadowrun world, do you think they're going to report that the new Mickey Mouse dolls were made in sweatshops with dangerous materials?  However, CNN (owned by Time-Warner) would be glad to report it...but not so much that it makes people want to look at how they're producing their Tweety Bird dolls. 

But when someone posts on YouTube about the sweatshops and radioactive materials and everything else, what do you think will happen?  Someone will see it and share it with their friends?  They'll send an email through -- oops, Time-Warner owns Roadrunner Cable Internet, so the site's blocked.  Maybe post it on Myspace -- wait, they're owned by NewsCorp who owns Fox who takes advertising money from Time-Warner, Disney, etc.  Oh, and the YouTube video just went down because it's owned by Google.  And say you did manage to see it somehow.  None of your friends can see it because they use Roadrunner, AT&T, or some other large corporation for internet access, so they don't believe you.  Even if you manage to show them, they'll respond with "Why isn't ABC/Fox/CNN reporting this?"

That sounds outlandish using those names...but find-replace "NewsCorp" with "Ares", "Google" with "Horizon", "Disney" with "Aztechnology", and "Time-Warner" with "Renraku" and you have a nice little Shadowrun conspiracy.

[Simagal]

Having information is not the same as knowing what it is worth.

[Malex]

Well there must be some element that was leaked to the general public, why would there be the AI/Technomancer scare that occurred during 2070 and the Emergence? Not like people in the Shadowrun Universe seem to take kindly to things that are different from plain vanilla human (Metas, SURGEd, etc.), but unless there was some previous reason to be afraid of AI/Technomancers then why would the public react the way it did in Emergence?

[CanRay]

Because Technomancers can hack your brain just by thinking hard, and make your head assplosde!

The news told me, and my chummers at the Humanis Policlub confirmed it!  What more do you want?

[Crimsondude]

All this is AFAIK.

The question is: How much of the background story and reasons and protagonists do the normal people know about?

Virtually nothing and none of it/them.

Do they know about DEUS? Is it common knowledge to know about the R:AS or what does Joe Average know? And what does Joe ACHE know about the history of his home?

No.
They know about the shutdown generally.
Either virtually nothing or they may be privy to rumors and half-truths.

Do they know about ExPacis and Winterknight?

No. Yes.

What do they know about otaku and AI anyway before and after the Emergence?

They're myths at best.

How much do they know? And how difficult is it to get on the real deal of information about it after 2070?

Most people in SR are insanely ignorant.
Pretty hard. You can't look if you don't know that there's something to look for.