GURPS Shadowrun

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If computers that can brainhack you with lethal results were as rare and hard to build as suitcase nukes (and this is impossible in today's world for anyone except a major military-industrial complex) you might have a valid parallel.

Instead you seem to be trying to set up a world where computers equal deathrays yet are as common as cellphones. This is the central disconnect. This is the thing that snaps my SoD. This doesn't make sense.

Where did I say that computer-deathrays are as common as cellphones?

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Indeed, one of the things that made SR3 kind of tight-assed was trying to patch logical holes in the setting.

Part of the patch on one of those logical holes was to admit that if you weren't jacked into the Matrix with hot ASiST with all the safety overrides turned off Black Ice couldn't kill you.

That makes sense to me ... presuming that a hacker will have to turn off the various autopilots and safety overrides to do most of his hacking, it makes all the sense in the world. Normal ("legitimate") users need never worry about Black ICE, because they're not trying to run illegal software that only runs if you disable all the fuzzy-wuzzy safety controls on your deck.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Legal sane sararimen never interacted with the Matrix at that level of intensity but they weren't in personal danger either. This made much more sense.

I also may be the wrong to try and use Transhuman Space as a an argument against. I'm listed as a playtester in all but 2 of every TS book SJGames ever published. I missed one because I had major surgery during the playtest. :)

That's cool, it would have been fun to playtest TS stuff.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So this means I know that AR is very common in the TS world but not universal, does not require neurosurgery and can't kill you. You didn't even have to participate in AR to reap whatever benefits it grants. You could have your SAI do it for you.

Hence, my statement about needing a DNI jack or a set of HUD goggles ... and in a setting where you can have a SAI do it for you, you might even dispense with the goggles.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I also know that TS is built around a "strong encryption" assumption. Very strong in 4e terms, when the rest of the computing world in TS is about TL 10, encryption would be TL15 and a half. It's the sort of place where there is very very little serious hacking and the net is improbably secure. That's one of the reason ubiquitous computing works in the setting.

Yeah, that's one thing that bothered me about TS. It's as though they deliberately hand-waved to make hacking impossible. If I were to run a TS campaign, that's one aspect I'd probably leave out... but then, I'm an old-schooler when it comes to my cyberpunk. :)

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

When I was trying to puzzle my way through SR4 I thought the SAI trick was what I would do in that setting. I'd run a disposably cheap computer as my personal node, set it to go "beep" if it got pinged by the cops and mostly ignore it the rest of the time.

AR mostly seems to be an advertising medium in either world and people living in such a world want to find some way to filter out the commercials.

Only inasmuch as the internet is mostly an advertising medium. (Well, that and porn...) In both cases, it's mostly an information medium, and so ads are certainly common, but they're just as certainly not the only use.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There was a good bit in TS about filtering software but that is only one step short of my having the SAI do the whole thing for you.

So, no. Augmented Reality and Ubiquitous Computing does not automatically lead to brain-frying computers and the universal acceptance of them. I don't think there's a logical way they could

Never said it did. I think you're trying to argue with someone else.... my assertion was that sensory-interface computers are common in settings where there's lots of sensory-interface information, e.g. AR.