GURPS Shadowrun

Fred Brackin · 09-30-2010, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CousinX

Exactly: very scary, and (much like other concepts, such as "witchcraft" or "terrorism") capable of inciting people into behavior that is at least as appallingly dangerous and insidious as the thing they're railing against.

If anyone wonders, as a typical (in at least some respects) middle-aged American I would be unlikely to do my own dirty work unless a known hacker with a suspicious box was in the same room with me.

I might even give him a verbal warning although if decks are truly concealable and operated by wireless neural link I could not _safely_ do even that.

In such a case though I'd probably get away with it as self-defense, much the same as if I'd shot a mafia hit man with his hand in his pocket holding a suspicious bulge.

So cyberdecks that function as death rays don't get policed as illegal instruments used in economic crimes. They are policed as if they were terroristic weapons and all raids to apprehend a suspect hacker are carried out by a Homeland Security SWAT team who probably do my shooting on sight for me.

You also don't get on an airliner or into any secure building with any electronic device that might in any possible way be concealing a cyberdeck. You hope that the security of the time is not only better but faster and more convenient to deal with than today's too.

So, a technology capable of producing this extreme level of danger is extremely unlikely to produce a situation where the technology is universally adopted and everyone takes moderate precautions according to their personally evaluated threat level.

Instead this is a technology that very, very probably gets stomped on with hobnailed boots even if you have to issue those boots to stormtroopers.

So if I was setting up a cyberpunk setting I'd make sure that "cyber" part still left the users being considered as "punks" who potentially threaten no more than the bottom line of giant, faceless corps rather than direct and immediate threats to the life and safety of human beings within visual range of them.