[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Thank you for reminding me; I'd forgotten how far the UCAS military had gotten.

Simply put, there isn't going to be a 'flood' out the doors; the Army already controlled anything but a near-death plunge from 10+ stories up.  Which makes getting out less a 'fly be free' than it would be a 'line up to be processed.'  Remember, these are people who, for the last 509 days -- not quite a year and a half -- have been living an 'obey or die' existence.  And all the ones who are going to be critical for the AI are going to be plugged in, ideally in the midst of dozens of other non-critical plugged-in individuals.

Clearing the arcology was indeed still a floor-by-floor cleanup, and dealing with things undoubtedly did get easier -- the level of coordination simply went down.  And yes, people got sent out, penetrating 'exit security' with in some cases what must have been relative ease; the head of the Greens was outside the Arcology, for heaven's sake.  But I would put forth that since a) Deus wouldn't have had such hands-on control of his people, and b) getting the Network out into the rest of the world was the very core and reason for the entire Arcology takeover.  Screw the Greens, the Blues, the Whites -- all of them were tools, told a mixture of truth and lies in whatever proportion was required to get their whole-hearted, willing cooperation.

Everything -- everything -- was about the Network.

Making certain they a) get out safely, then b) remain safe while c) recompiling him outside the Arcology was his ultimate priority.  And after that, well -- they too were disposable.

I suppose what I consider, as a GM and as a hopeful freelancer, is what's more frightening -- that the AI just did really good cyberware and implanted that in people?  Or that the AI reprogrammed people's brains??

[Mirikon]

Frankly? I'd be much, much happier if the AI just made advanced cyber that was too good for the current detection systems. Because if the AI could reprogram someone's brain, that means someone else would be able to copy its work. And do you really want that kind of tech out in the world?

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... seriously?  Psychotropic IC and PAB units ring a bell?

They can already reprogram people's brains.  It's just a question of the level of finesse.

[Mirikon]

PAB units are big massive things, and take weeks of programming to work, IIRC. Psychotropic IC is the nastiest thing out there, but if you aren't hacking, then it isn't as big a concern for you. Neither of which are anywhere near the level of complication you'd need to turn someone's unused brainspace into memory for an AI, and attach it to the Matrix to recompile, especially if those people didn't already have datajacks.

So yes, I am much more comfortable with having the AI who had access to both beyond SOTA cyberware schematics and prototypes (this being Renraku, afterall, one of the world leaders in cyberware) and SOTA cyberware scanners being just a step or two ahead of the curve on the stealth vs. detection race. That kind of thing has been going on for ages. You can see the modern equivalent just by looking at radar and sonar systems, and the stealth technology used to defeat them. SOTA is always moving forward. Ten years old is nine years out of date, in some cases.

[Sichr]

PAB units are big massive things, and take weeks of programming to work, IIRC.
...

Like...let`s say...Renraku arcology infrastructure for the big nasty thing
509 days for a few weeks...

[Mirikon]

You really need to start reading all the way through what someone posts before typing responses. Psychotropic IC and PAB units simply affect personality and memories. We already know for certain Deus used such things, to condition the Banded. But reprogramming a person's memories is a couple hundred orders of magnitude from turning someone's head into a biological node that can store programming and interact with the matrix to recompile an AI. That's a feat beyond even technomancers. Cyberware, on the other hand, is easily capable of that, and all it takes is making it a step or two ahead of the army's cyberware scanners to have it be undetectable. Especially since that technology is only a step or two ahead of where the market (to say nothing of SOTA) was already at, with headware memory and other such things.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

And yet you're comfortable with Deus having, with only a fraction of his concentration, pressed waaaay way past the monofilament envelope's edge in everything from nanotechnology to smart form vehicular bodywork?  A mad scientist working on ideas a thousand times faster than humans, not needing to worry about 'funding' or test subjects, and with experience in turning 'ordinary human' brains, albeit ones still young and flexible, into what were for all intents and purposes otaku -- turning them into living computer interfaces??

Deus was the world's largest FAB.  With the experience he had in creating his Whites, there's no reason that, with those 509 days working at an intense pace even for him, he could not have refined the technique.  Something, I'll note, he would have taken with him.  He isn't the sort to leave detailed notes laying around; so far as I can tell, almost all the information Renraku and all the other corps have gotten from the Arcology is via reverse-engineering, with some help thrown in from Greens who just had to write stuff down.

Deus for Reprogramming, all the way.

[Mirikon]

With the exception of Deus's otaku, those were all advancements on things that were already around. Drones had been around for a while. Deus did have Renraku's research to draw on, and IIRC they were already SOTA on the drone and cyberware fronts. Deus's drones were new designs, but they weren't that far past the bleeding edge. Even reverse-engineering the otaku isn't that crazy. They still needed datajacks to plug in, so it was a bit of neurochemistry that got fiddled with. Difficult, bleeding edge, but not impossible. People today have been playing with neurochemistry for decades, afterall. And when you have a template to go off of, that makes things easier. Nowhere near the level of difficulty you see in pioneering a completely new field, which is what you'd have to do to actually partition off those unused sections of a person's brain to keep them from using the information, and then turning it into memory space that you can not only download an AI's code into, but then upload it again later on.

Could it have been done? Sure, its possible. But Occam's Razor suggests cyberware.