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Hextech- Fusion of magic and technology

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xGugulu

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« on: <07-17-19/1613:20> »
Hextech-Fusion of magic and technology

Hey there chummer.
Why is there no real Hextech weaponry or equipment yet? I mean they had more than 60 years now to try and figure out how to bring these two forces together. It would turn out pretty interesting i´d say. Not only the primary effects of Hextech usage but also the effects on the Matrix and specifically on Technos, when they interfere with such devices.
I havent played much games of SR to really be deep into the Mechanics and Lore but thats why im here so you can tell me wether it would fit or dont fit to have Hextech in Shadowrun even if it would only be available to the Big Corps.
Even then i imagine it would make a great and interesting impact and open up for many possible stories to be told. So what speaks for and what speaks against Hextech in Shadowrun. Im interested in your opinion.

Hextech: Magic infused technology for the use by mundane personell and ofc magic users. Doesnt need to be weapons.

Marcus

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« Reply #1 on: <07-17-19/1649:08> »
There was a very clear choice early on in SR to not have Technomagic. There are some fairly famous attempts at it in Canon that failed pretty epicly. That line did blur in 5e with Alchemy. But it remains to be seen if that will carry onward of if they will stick to the tradition of no technomagic.
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Wakshaani

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« Reply #2 on: <07-17-19/1707:46> »
The main thing is that magic draws from a living being, primarily Metahumanity, to power itself. Machinery lacks that arcane power so can't harness it. Shadowrun does have enchanted items, but, in this case, they draw on the wielder's innate power as well... there are no generic magic swords or magic boots or magical frying pans that can just be turned on and do stuff … they only work while a person, who already has magical power, can wield them. So, magic boots on amagician do things, magic boots on a mundane do nothing, and magic boots stuck on a robot are also not doing a thing.

There have been a few things which "cross the streams" a bit by getting clever... there's a camera which can photograph spirits, for instance, and that camera can be mounted in a drone to allow *it* to get pictures of spirits … but spirits don't show up on normal camera feeds, so if you're remotely piloting a drone, it can fly through a hundred ghosts and you'd never have the slieghtest idea.

It's all backed into the way magic works in Shadowrun.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #3 on: <07-17-19/1712:35> »
All that being said... Gray Mana tech is bleeding edge stuff in the lore right now.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #4 on: <07-17-19/1743:00> »
God I hope grey mana gets retconned out like or nanoteched out.

Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #5 on: <07-17-19/1822:29> »
The main thing is that magic draws from a living being, primarily Metahumanity, to power itself. Machinery lacks that arcane power so can't harness it. Shadowrun does have enchanted items, but, in this case, they draw on the wielder's innate power as well... there are no generic magic swords or magic boots or magical frying pans that can just be turned on and do stuff … they only work while a person, who already has magical power, can wield them. So, magic boots on amagician do things, magic boots on a mundane do nothing, and magic boots stuck on a robot are also not doing a thing.

There have been a few things which "cross the streams" a bit by getting clever... there's a camera which can photograph spirits, for instance, and that camera can be mounted in a drone to allow *it* to get pictures of spirits … but spirits don't show up on normal camera feeds, so if you're remotely piloting a drone, it can fly through a hundred ghosts and you'd never have the slieghtest idea.

It's all backed into the way magic works in Shadowrun.

I thought that there were a few artifacts that have inherent power? Just that they were 4th age magic and all owned by very powerful entities who violently reject the concept of sharing.

Wakshaani

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« Reply #6 on: <07-17-19/1828:19> »
I thought that there were a few artifacts that have inherent power? Just that they were 4th age magic and all owned by very powerful entities who violently reject the concept of sharing.

Well, 4th age stuff is a tad different. :D

Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #7 on: <07-17-19/1836:07> »
I thought that there were a few artifacts that have inherent power? Just that they were 4th age magic and all owned by very powerful entities who violently reject the concept of sharing.

Well, 4th age stuff is a tad different. :D

That is true, just making sure that such stuff does technically exist, but even the most powerful and resourceful runners in the world would never see one (unless Excalibur counts, since that was on live broadcast when Harly and Ghostwalker were punching each-other).


To the OP, the level of magic in the 6th world of Shadowrun is still relatively low compared to what it will be at it's height. In a few hundred years the fusion of magic and tech should come about, at least if certain great dragons and one immortal elf in particular are to be believed anyway. Nothing yet though outside of a few curiosities.

Marcus

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« Reply #8 on: <07-17-19/1956:09> »
I thought that there were a few artifacts that have inherent power? Just that they were 4th age magic and all owned by very powerful entities who violently reject the concept of sharing.

There have been things that  blurred the lines on both sides, auto-attuning foci, the Artifacts, Blood crystals, Cards from the deck, magic bullets. In the other direction, grey implant tech, blight, various bacteria laced building materials etc.

In general the true artifacts in SR don't have explicit rules.  They aren't the rod of seven parts, or infernal machine of lum the mad, they are bigger picture, and their effect scale is macro.
 
Keep in mind Earth Dawn isn't a thing anymore. There are some left over relic in from of some NPCs from that, but that IP is no longer in house so don't assume any sort of relationship.
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Reaver

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« Reply #9 on: <07-18-19/0031:22> »
There are other items... Artifacts, that pre-date the awakening, that have very special and unique backgrounds to them; and can be "used" by anyone.

...

But they are very rare, and usually made under the most horrible of circumstances...like the scalpel of Mengele...
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xGugulu

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« Reply #10 on: <07-18-19/0111:35> »
I don't know how to quote in here
The thing that Moonshine said with " in a couple hundred years, when a dragon or powerful elf decides to do it". That is what I asked for, why it hasn't been done already by a dragon or Elf. Maybe the tech is not ready? Maybe the most powerful magic usesers are entitled? I certainly don't know. But I thank you all for sharing your opinions with me  :)

Wakshaani

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« Reply #11 on: <07-18-19/0126:59> »
I don't know how to quote in here
The thing that Moonshine said with " in a couple hundred years, when a dragon or powerful elf decides to do it". That is what I asked for, why it hasn't been done already by a dragon or Elf. Maybe the tech is not ready? Maybe the most powerful magic usesers are entitled? I certainly don't know. But I thank you all for sharing your opinions with me  :)

Think of magic less of an on-off switch (There is magic, so this can be done) but, rather, as an ocean... way out there in the deep part, whales can dive a mile deep.

Mankind is currently in the sand, getting a few toes wet.

It's going to take a long time to swim out to where the whales dive.

Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #12 on: <07-18-19/0758:13> »
I don't know how to quote in here
The thing that Moonshine said with " in a couple hundred years, when a dragon or powerful elf decides to do it". That is what I asked for, why it hasn't been done already by a dragon or Elf. Maybe the tech is not ready? Maybe the most powerful magic usesers are entitled? I certainly don't know. But I thank you all for sharing your opinions with me  :)

To quote a post you’ll want to use the “ or quote “ button on the bottom right of the relevant Post and it’ll generate a reply field with the quote text already filled in and tagged. If you want to do it manually, you can use the html tags [ quote ] and [ /quote ], removing the spaces.

As to the topic, as Wakashaani said, magic is like a tide. It flows in and ebs out over a few thousand year cycle. The last age of magic was near or just before recorded history, nearly everything was lost to a group of creatures known generally as The Enemy (or Terrors, since they can’t call them Horrors anymore for IP reasons).

For all the flashy things magic can do, it’s still fairly low level yet as it’s been less then 100 years into this cycle. There are a few powerful artifacts from previous ages around, but runners having them is largely beyond the scope of the game. Even then, there are probably old artifacts that simply don’t have the ambient mana yet needed to activate, like a car with a low battery. This lack of ambient mana is why even the dragons and other really powerful creatures haven’t made new artifacts yet, there just simply isn’t enough mojo yet for them to channel.

One dragon did make a new artifact, but it required him to ritually sacrifice his life (and I think a chunk of his soul), ripping open a hole in real-space, just to power it up. Even then it still took a very powerful spirit to use it and had but one function. This is story though (the Dragonheart trilogy) and isn’t playable out via game mechanics.

xGugulu

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« Reply #13 on: <07-18-19/0855:09> »
I don't know how to quote in here
The thing that Moonshine said with " in a couple hundred years, when a dragon or powerful elf decides to do it". That is what I asked for, why it hasn't been done already by a dragon or Elf. Maybe the tech is not ready? Maybe the most powerful magic usesers are entitled? I certainly don't know. But I thank you all for sharing your opinions with me  :)

To quote a post you’ll want to use the “ or quote “ button on the bottom right of the relevant Post and it’ll generate a reply field with the quote text already filled in and tagged. If you want to do it manually, you can use the html tags [ quote ] and [ /quote ], removing the spaces.

As to the topic, as Wakashaani said, magic is like a tide. It flows in and ebs out over a few thousand year cycle. The last age of magic was near or just before recorded history, nearly everything was lost to a group of creatures known generally as The Enemy (or Terrors, since they can’t call them Horrors anymore for IP reasons).

For all the flashy things magic can do, it’s still fairly low level yet as it’s been less then 100 years into this cycle. There are a few powerful artifacts from previous ages around, but runners having them is largely beyond the scope of the game. Even then, there are probably old artifacts that simply don’t have the ambient mana yet needed to activate, like a car with a low battery. This lack of ambient mana is why even the dragons and other really powerful creatures haven’t made new artifacts yet, there just simply isn’t enough mojo yet for them to channel.

One dragon did make a new artifact, but it required him to ritually sacrifice his life (and I think a chunk of his soul), ripping open a hole in real-space, just to power it up. Even then it still took a very powerful spirit to use it and had but one function. This is story though (the Dragonheart trilogy) and isn’t playable out via game mechanics.

Ahh thank you

So you say it might just be possible but not yet. So maybe in some next Generation books there could be such things?

Longshot23

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« Reply #14 on: <07-18-19/0926:53> »
If someone wants to have this Hextech in their campaign, there's nothing stopping them. It's just that there isn't support for it really, either in fluff (setting/lore) or crunch (hard and fast rules).