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Deus still out there?

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Aryeonos

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« Reply #30 on: <04-15-15/0711:43> »
Mhm... Agreed.

Other thread of thought. It isnt that I need to a bullet through all my enemies, but its one of the laws of good GMing, and story telling in general. Never have an untouchable enemy, make sure your heroes (players) can fight or have a way of fighting the problem. I love a challange, I hate hopeless abysmal grimdark. Reason I hate lofwyr so much. At least with Ares I know I can make Knight cringe and his eyebrow twitch as I make his stocks drop and potentialy return his guards with their foreheads glued together if I`m clever. Lofwyr, CFD, omnipotent AI, I feel like all I can do is cower and avoid them. Id est, dont touch SK, stay off the matrix, avoid all nanites.

Plot twist, bad guys are good guys or at least relatable antiheroes, I`d pay admission and an XL popcorn for that.
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Wakshaani

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« Reply #31 on: <04-15-15/0903:32> »
Keep watching the skies.

Sengir

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« Reply #32 on: <04-15-15/1652:22> »
At least with Ares I know I can make Knight cringe and his eyebrow twitch as I make his stocks drop and potentialy return his guards with their foreheads glued together if I`m clever.
You can annoy Knight by burning a few Ares assets or meddling with an important plan, but unless the stars are phenomenally right you won't do much in the lasting scheme of things. Not much different from seed AIs, Dragons, elder gods or whatever else.

Aryeonos

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« Reply #33 on: <04-16-15/0619:50> »
Most of the AAAs aren't written in a way that makes me feel they're unvexable. SK's written like, you look at them and crap your pants, those who try meddling with them crap their pants, fail miserably and are eaten. There is no chance don't even try.
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Herr Brackhaus

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« Reply #34 on: <04-16-15/0656:48> »
Most of the AAAs aren't written in a way that makes me feel they're unvexable. SK's written like, you look at them and crap your pants, those who try meddling with them crap their pants, fail miserably and are eaten. There is no chance don't even try.
The same is true for a lot of things in the Shadowrun universe, though. As a team of shadowrunners, going up against an adult dragon is pretty suicidal, just like trying to sanitize the Chicago Containment Zone by yourself, or taking on Aztlan (and by extension Aztechnology). Some enemies are just too big to fight; that doesn't mean you can't win a battle that may or may not shift the grander scheme of things in some way, shape, or form, but any opponent that either vastly outclasses you in pure capability, size, and/or organization is never going to be a winning battle unless you cheat. And by cheat I mean playing it smart and going after their weaknesses, then hiding out in a warded, underground bunker with no matrix connectivity for a while so things can cool down :)

Aryeonos

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« Reply #35 on: <04-16-15/0908:57> »
Even then, it's painted in the "you can't beat a dragon, EVER" sense, that's what irks me. The other corps don't bug me, I'm not irritated by vast broad reaching foes, because like I said, they can be incompetent and slip up because you have a million channels of communication and human error on your side, that's what being a shadowrunner is about. Invulnerable enemies, specific, one person or one thing enemies that have no matter what you do you're screwed written into them is what bothers me, that's just lazy writing. This CFD thing I feel could either go a really cool route, or do something really dumb, don't know yet. CFD genuinely scares me as a threat, but I was getting the, you're always screwed and we're winding back the futurism clock on this whole game because of this, vibe that does not sit well with me.
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Metal Screamer

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« Reply #36 on: <04-16-15/1747:50> »
Quote
Quote
On a different track, Transys-Neuronet has successfully captured at least one Node and, though they have not been able to get much of value from the Node’s code fragment, they have shown strong interest in the technology implanted in the Nodes.
   

Transys-Neuronet is one of the corps which went on to form NeoNet, the corp behind much of the physical infratructure of the new wireless Matrix.

Funny people are wondering where Deus is gone, when GOD is watching other the matrix now...

Aryeonos

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« Reply #37 on: <04-16-15/1839:02> »
Are you implying Deus is GOD? Cause that'd be a trip, and an excuse to shoot down zurich.
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Metal Screamer

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« Reply #38 on: <04-16-15/1923:39> »
From what I understand, some of Deus nodes were obtained by top matrix corporations. After the crash, these corps created the Grid Overwatch Division to keep the new matrix under control...

Who are the GOD? humans, very skilled and all?
Where are they operating from? where do they live? do they have (human) weaknesses? They could be bribed, indirectly threatened, basically: weak.

7/7, 24/24? do you imagine how many GOD would be needed to monitor all matrix illegal actions? and then let the human behind eat, sleep, have vacations... thousands of people would be a low guess.

They are not even personas you can fight. They converge, and you're hit by huge damage, disconnected, dump shocked and your location reported... The process seems pretty automated to me. And almost omniscient.

So even without playing on GOD/Deus, it may be an option.

Aryeonos

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« Reply #39 on: <04-16-15/2327:00> »
I thought the Grid Overwatch Division was mounted up in the Zurich orbital station. Which really wouldn't make sense from a telecommunications standpoint. Unless you're in low earth orbit, which a space station wouldn't be, you're looking at a communication lag time of at least a second and a half.
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The Wyrm Ouroboros

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« Reply #40 on: <04-17-15/0151:17> »
Nice conspiracy theory.

GOD is made up of humans, yes.  The system does 95% of the work, though.
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Ursus Maior

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« Reply #41 on: <04-17-15/0517:28> »
Quote
Quote
On a different track, Transys-Neuronet has successfully captured at least one Node and, though they have not been able to get much of value from the Node’s code fragment, they have shown strong interest in the technology implanted in the Nodes.
   

Transys-Neuronet is one of the corps which went on to form NeoNet, the corp behind much of the physical infratructure of the new wireless Matrix.

Funny people are wondering where Deus is gone, when GOD is watching other the matrix now...
The Grid Overwatch Division was founded by the Corporate Court on March 21st 2061, almost two month before Deus was flushed out of the Renraku Arcology (anounced May 13th 2061). Before that, Deus was entrapped in the arcology, because he himself had severed the arcology's matrix systems from the Seattle matrix telecommunications grid.

So no, Deus is not GOD.
Liber et infractus

Sengir

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« Reply #42 on: <04-17-15/0532:48> »
Even then, it's painted in the "you can't beat a dragon, EVER" sense, that's what irks me.
There are entire campaign books dedicated to pulling a fast one on Big L (Survival of the Fittest, ) or Deus (RA:S, Brainscan, System Failure). You can seriously annoy these entities, just like every other actor, but destroying an AAA or one of the "great old" AIs is simply beyond the reach of what a few people can do without phenomenally lucky circumstances.


@Metal Screamer: GOD has been around since 3rd Edition at least, although not in their omnipresent form. In 4th they also got the Artifical Resource Management, or ARM of GOD (Ancient History was feeling pun-ny :D), which monitors AIs.
I don't think GOD are meant to be something conspiratorial, rather they are just a bit of fluff to justify bringing back the security tally from the old matrix rules. But of course in-universe, building an overwatch super-AI would certainly make sense for them -- they are the experts at controlling AIs, after all, so there's no way this could go wrong. And even if they are not building an AI themselves, GOD presumably has vast computational resources and access to a lot of core matrix infrastructure, both things an AI on the level of Deus or Mirage would love to subvert...

psycho835

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« Reply #43 on: <04-17-15/2139:45> »
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the new matrix partially designed by Dodger?

The Wyrm Ouroboros

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« Reply #44 on: <04-17-15/2342:44> »
You are wrong.  He may have been an alpha tester (as it were), but he was not a designer.  Nor, given his personality and background, would he likely be capable of it.
Pananagutan & End/Line

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"Oh, gee - it's Go-Frag-Yourself-O'Clock."
New Wyrm!! Now with Twice the Bastard!!

Laés is ... I forget. -PiXeL01
Play the game. Don't try to win it.