[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Another point I find interesting:

The Detect Life spell (pg. 286-287) explicitly does not detect spirits.  Implicitly, this probably also means Homunculi and Watchers since they're not technically spirits, they do work like them in many ways.

Since the magic that "detects life" doesn't recognize spirits as living, arguably a contact trigger wouldn't either.

[Cabral]

Another point I find interesting:

The Detect Life spell (pg. 286-287) explicitly does not detect spirits.  Implicitly, this probably also means Homunculi and Watchers since they're not technically spirits, they do work like them in many ways.

Since the magic that "detects life" doesn't recognize spirits as living, arguably a contact trigger wouldn't either.

That's not very PC of Detect Life. Buttercup may press discrimination charges.

Since the exact quote is "... detects all living beings (but not not spirits)...," I think spirits are living beings that are an exception to the parameters of this spell. The use of "but" does not concretely make spirits an exception as opposed to a clarification of the definition of "living beings," but I feel that it is a stronger interpretation that they are living beings that need to be excluded. Why? Maybe to restrict the number of planes that the spell acts on; you can only act on one plane (there are probably exceptions), but if spirits are living beings, they are astral/meta planar living beings and thus may not be detected by a spell focused on the material plane.

Looking at the other detect spells, Detect Enemies does not exclude spirits. Whether they are included as living targets, is up for debate. Detect [Life Form] and Detect [Object] do not use spirit as an example, but that is inconclusive. Detect Magic explicitly detects spirits and not critters or awakened individuals, but it does not do so in the context of living versus nonliving.

Let's change the question a bit and see what you think.

Steve the magician casts detect life. 2 meters to his right, Bob the other magician is slumped over because he is astrally projecting. Bob the other magician's astral form is standing 2 meters to the left of Steve the magician. No one else is in range (assuming we are excluding, mundane insects, bacteria, and other tiny things that are living beings, but would break the spell).

So, how many living beings does Steve the magician detect? One or two? If it's one, does he detect life to the left or to the right?

[Kiirnodel]

Yeah, based on the wording, I would say the Detect Life spell is making an exception to the norm, it detects life forms except spirits. They have to call out spirits in that way because they would normally be included as a living being, the spell just doesn't detect them. There a couple of possible reasons for this, spirits are covered by detect magic or maybe the intent is that Detect Life is for detecting biological life, and since spirits aren't biological, it doesn't hit them.

Cabral: Detect Life would detect the physical body if it were cast on Material Plane, and the projection if it were cast on the Astral. Since it is a mana spell it can be cast on either, but it only affects the one it is cast on.


Marcus: I would say that philosophically AI are alive, but yeah it is really just a philosophy question because Magic won't ever detect them in that way. Because although they might be alive, they lack a physical form. Even if they are currently "occupying" a drone, they still lack a physical component to their existence. They are just puppeting the drone through the Matrix, so the drone wouldn't trigger anything life-wise.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

So, carrying the thoughts about Detect Life over to Contact triggers...

Contact: The next living being to touch the preparation
activates the spell. This trigger adds +1 Drain.

Do contact triggers use the same paradigm as the Detect Life spell, or do contact triggers use some other form of magic inherently unlike Detect Life when determining what's touching them?  It seems like a GM call, but I lean towards "they detect "life" the same way detect life works."  Which would mean spirits don't set off contact triggers, and then by extension certainly homunculi wouldn't either.

AIs being alive:  I'd agree with Kiirnodel that AIs are alive, and that the question is ultimately meaningless anyway with regards to contact triggers.  Whether they're alive or not, they have absolutely no connection to Astral space/magic. It just doesn't exist for them, aside from what magic might do to a device they run on.  Getting back into philosophical arguments about life, one of the most basic criteria a potential life form must have to be considered "living" is the ability to reproduce.  Now, A.I.s might be tricky here, but we just don't know enough about them mechanically to say.  OTOH, we do know that the only way homunculi come into being is via a magical ritual. Homunculi are a hard fail on "able to reproduce", which means under almost any philosophical argument they're not alive. 

[Marcus]

I agree the detective life thing is an issue, and something I didn’t recall. Interestingly but utterly off topic that makes it’s a great way to hunt free spirits. I would agree either the biological life view, but a place to consider is bug queens and bodied drones. Any one recall if those show up under detect life? I’ll check the source material once I get out of work.

[Cabral]

So, carrying the thoughts about Detect Life over to Contact triggers...

Contact: The next living being to touch the preparation
activates the spell. This trigger adds +1 Drain.

Do contact triggers use the same paradigm as the Detect Life spell, or do contact triggers use some other form of magic inherently unlike Detect Life when determining what's touching them?  It seems like a GM call, but I lean towards "they detect "life" the same way detect life works."  Which would mean spirits don't set off contact triggers, and then by extension certainly homunculi wouldn't either.

I would say that Detect Life has an explicit exception that contact triggers do not and spirits on the same plane as the trigger would set it off. Are triggers targetable from the astral? If so, then purely astral spirits might set them off too.

[Kiirnodel]

I would say that contact triggers for preparations don't reference the Detect Life spell, so it doesn't use the same paradigm for the trigger. There are advanced techniques for using detection spells to trigger other spells.

As far as the definition of life goes (able to reproduce), I would say that with the introduction of magic our definition needs to be reassessed or amended. Just because spirits, watchers, and homunculi can't (or just don't?) produce offspring doesn't mean that they aren't alive. A mule is a breed of equine that is sterile, it can't reproduce, but that doesn't make it non-living. Perhaps in the magical sense, because a spirit can be summoned/conjured, that fulfills the "reproduction" aspect of our definition of life.

The simplest way to look at it is to fall back on the rules. Use the definitions that the rules give us. Spirits, Homunculi, Watchers, etc. are all Critters. Critters are living things.


Cabral, preparations aren't dual-natured until they are activated, so they can't be triggered from Astral space.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Thanks for all the replies I find this interesting. Not sure what the official take would be but I’m leaning towards not alive. People were using sprites and aI in the discussion and using those as an analogy to me AI are like free spirits, sprites and like spirits and watchers/homonculus are more like a deckers agent. They are constructs with a facsimile of life and not actually alive.

[Kiirnodel]

The primary issue I have with that stance is that unlike Agents, which are just advanced programs capable of receiving somewhat complex commands, Homunculi are fully sapient, capable of independent action and thought. Sure, they have a short life-span and they follow orders, but I'm not sure any of that makes them not alive.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The primary issue I have with that stance is that unlike Agents, which are just advanced programs capable of receiving somewhat complex commands, Homunculi are fully sapient, capable of independent action and thought. Sure, they have a short life-span and they follow orders, but I'm not sure any of that makes them not alive.

I’m not sure they really are capable of independent thought. They have a personality imprint from their creator but they don’t really think they just follow orders. If a computer that can beat you at chess. It has a range of programmed capability based on its force and who the creators were. But I don’t think it’s taking any independent actions or thoughts. Like I don’t think it would bake cookies for the hell of it unless given some kind of command to go so.

[Marcus]

The primary issue I have with that stance is that unlike Agents, which are just advanced programs capable of receiving somewhat complex commands, Homunculi are fully sapient, capable of independent action and thought. Sure, they have a short life-span and they follow orders, but I'm not sure any of that makes them not alive.

I’m not sure they really are capable of independent thought. They have a personality imprint from their creator but they don’t really think they just follow orders. If a computer that can beat you at chess. It has a range of programmed capability based on its force and who the creators were. But I don’t think it’s taking any independent actions or thoughts. Like I don’t think it would bake cookies for the hell of it unless given some kind of command to go so.

They have the critter power. If you read Sapient, by definition it says they think, sure they aren't brilliant minds smart, but by definition they are as smart as people. That's what the critter power says. I referenced it directly in here already. If you want to house rule they don't have it, and make them just little magic robots, more power to you. But that means changing what their stat line says.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The primary issue I have with that stance is that unlike Agents, which are just advanced programs capable of receiving somewhat complex commands, Homunculi are fully sapient, capable of independent action and thought. Sure, they have a short life-span and they follow orders, but I'm not sure any of that makes them not alive.

I’m not sure they really are capable of independent thought. They have a personality imprint from their creator but they don’t really think they just follow orders. If a computer that can beat you at chess. It has a range of programmed capability based on its force and who the creators were. But I don’t think it’s taking any independent actions or thoughts. Like I don’t think it would bake cookies for the hell of it unless given some kind of command to go so.

They have the critter power. If you read Sapient, by definition it says they think, sure they aren't brilliant minds smart, but by definition they are as smart as people. That's what the critter power says. I referenced it directly in here already. If you want to house rule they don't have it, and make them just little magic robots, more power to you. But that means changing what their stat line says.

It's less changing what the power means and more giving credibility to what the fluff says about the limits of their sapience.

But indeed, YMMV.

[Marcus]

The primary issue I have with that stance is that unlike Agents, which are just advanced programs capable of receiving somewhat complex commands, Homunculi are fully sapient, capable of independent action and thought. Sure, they have a short life-span and they follow orders, but I'm not sure any of that makes them not alive.

I’m not sure they really are capable of independent thought. They have a personality imprint from their creator but they don’t really think they just follow orders. If a computer that can beat you at chess. It has a range of programmed capability based on its force and who the creators were. But I don’t think it’s taking any independent actions or thoughts. Like I don’t think it would bake cookies for the hell of it unless given some kind of command to go so.

They have the critter power. If you read Sapient, by definition it says they think, sure they aren't brilliant minds smart, but by definition they are as smart as people. That's what the critter power says. I referenced it directly in here already. If you want to house rule they don't have it, and make them just little magic robots, more power to you. But that means changing what their stat line says.

It's less changing what the power means and more giving credibility to what the fluff says about the limits of their sapience.

But indeed, YMMV.

Fluff comes and goes and it's often not a reliable source, Watcher spirits have been around for multiple editions and are basicly mechanically the same, baring the swap to ritual spell-casting as to how they are created. Regardless I remember them very fondly, and I would very much dislike to see a player given the wrong idea about what they are and what they can do. One of my all time favorite SR character's watcher spirits appeared as paperboys (Think the Musical Newsies.) You can do all kinds cleaver things with them.  Most people just considered them to be Astral Trip wires they can be a lot more.

[Iron Serpent Prince]

Commanding a homunculus is not like commanding a spirit. A spirit is intuitive and intelligent; a homunculus just follows orders and becomes frustrated when the task becomes impossible.

That makes it pretty clear that homunculi don't think.

Now, the real question is:  Which part gets Errata'd out when/if we get the Core book errata?
The fact that homunculi only follow orders and can't think there way out of a cardboard box?
Or the Sapience power?

Like how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, the world may never know.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Yeah the way they're described they sound like they "think" exactly like a drone's "dog brain".  But yet they have the sapience power.  So, meh.