SilverClawShift
2009-03-19, 08:47 PM
So first a little background info.
My groups DM has taken a little hiatus from gaming, which he does every now and then (DMing is hard work). Since I'm the second most experienced DM in the group, I'm gonna cover for him until he comes back. I'm not quite as fluid of a storyteller as he is, but I'm not a slouch, so I think my group will be okay.
Which gets me closer to my point. We're going to be playing a game of Shadowrun, but I'm mulling over what will be the main focus of the world we're playing in (not to mention the central vein in the plot), and I've hit a little bit of a roadblock.
See, one of the central elements of this world is that there is a Matrix-like virtual reality that part of the population is hooked up to. The thing is, this Matrix is something you opt in to. See, computing power in this world is far, far below the computing NEEDS, and it's immpossible to make powerful enough computer hardware to keep up with what certain corporation (or individuals) want to do.
Enter the human brain.
The human brain is capable of outperforming any computer on the market in raw potential (side note: ignore wether that is actually true in erality or not, it's true in this game). but using the human brain to its maximum potential is not a simple process. For starters, there's the simple blunt difficulty of CONNECTING a human brain to mechanical hardware. Then there's the issues of overriding memory, motor control, ect, ect... being linked up to a machine is an expensive and dangerous process, and not something most people would be willing to go through with.
Except the world kind of sucks. The global population is multiple times greater than what society can realistically support. Food shortages, job shortages, housing shortages... reality blows.
But if you donate your brain to a major corporation, you can wave goodbye to your miserable existance. They'll put you through a safe, but irreversible procedure to permanently hook you up into a virtual world populated by other brain-donors, a world that's much much better than the one you're looking at now.
They'll give you the bare minimum necesary to keep your body alive (though it will wither away to a useless husk), but you won't notice. You'll be in a world where things are better, where there's food and water and everything else you need.
Sometimes your world will just grow pitch black, and you simply won't know anything for a while, while the corporate mainframe uses youre skull to do some hardcore number crunching... but you won't really notice that either. Your life expectancy will drop by 20 years, but you won't age in the system, so you won't notice that either.
Yeah it's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what you've got now right?
Also, there are more than one of these Matrixes. Basically every major company and government has at least one mainframe full of HPU (human processing units). In fact, as the world gets worse and worse, more and more people are starting to opt for a virtual reality as an escape, and it's becoming an epidemic in some areas.
But the permanent way isn't the only route into a matrix. There are procedures you can have done, black market hardware you can have installed, ect, ect, that will let you 'hack' your way into one of these matrixes. While a hacked entry is something you can turn on and off, and might seem preferable, it is also inherently more risky.
A company or government matrix will have security systems at the very least, but even if there WERE no security systems, the nature of a matrix itself is hostile to non-permanent installations. If you're hacked into a matrix, the system itself will naturally try to work around you being there, seeing you as a 'hiccup' glitch to be repaired.
That's unavoidable, and it's part of why a Matrix rig is normally a permanent lifestyle choice in the first place.
So going into a matrix is really really stupid... but then, you want those juicy corporate secrets don't you? And your employer got you a LOT of goodies for taking this job on... so sit down, strap in, and hope your programs let you dodge the agents.
So that's the theme of the game. There's the normal Shadowrun world full of street sams, riggers, hackers, mages, trolls, ghouls, ect... but there are also HPU mainframes full of poor souls who had no better alternative in their life.
Each Mainframe can be a different world, with different rules and details as necessary. That'll let me explore different possibilities, and if our normal DM comes back and picks up where I leave off, it's an easy way to explain why his theoretical "japanese government matrix" is so much cooler than anything I came up with :-p
Also, an important note is that none of the Matrix worlds are utopias. The way they work is by forming off of the subconcious and "collective expectations" of the people hooked into it. The more people in a matrix, the more real the world seems, but the more unpredictable the results.
All a system operator can do from the outside is try to tweak it by introducing programs (like "agents") and other system variations. Most corps will try to make the world as nice as possible, but also have it pretty low on their list of priorities (depending on how shady they are, it might not BE a priority), seeing as how it's a one way street that people can't report back from.
The thing is, I'm not entirely sure if this whole idea is.... retarded. I'm not a good self-critic, I tend to just assume anything I make is "wtf" worthy, so I can't tell if this will actually be a fun idea or not.
What do you all think?
Also, if you think it's a half decent idea, anyone got any good concepts to build off of for jobs and such in the game?
One thing I've thought of is that while in a matrix, an espionage job evolves into something bigger when one of the people hooked in begs the hackers to give a message to their family in the real world.
Or viruses that change the behavior of people in the system making them more dangerous.
Or viruses evolving in the system to infect the human brain, and then leaking out into the real world through hackers coming in and out...
Any thoughts?
My groups DM has taken a little hiatus from gaming, which he does every now and then (DMing is hard work). Since I'm the second most experienced DM in the group, I'm gonna cover for him until he comes back. I'm not quite as fluid of a storyteller as he is, but I'm not a slouch, so I think my group will be okay.
Which gets me closer to my point. We're going to be playing a game of Shadowrun, but I'm mulling over what will be the main focus of the world we're playing in (not to mention the central vein in the plot), and I've hit a little bit of a roadblock.
See, one of the central elements of this world is that there is a Matrix-like virtual reality that part of the population is hooked up to. The thing is, this Matrix is something you opt in to. See, computing power in this world is far, far below the computing NEEDS, and it's immpossible to make powerful enough computer hardware to keep up with what certain corporation (or individuals) want to do.
Enter the human brain.
The human brain is capable of outperforming any computer on the market in raw potential (side note: ignore wether that is actually true in erality or not, it's true in this game). but using the human brain to its maximum potential is not a simple process. For starters, there's the simple blunt difficulty of CONNECTING a human brain to mechanical hardware. Then there's the issues of overriding memory, motor control, ect, ect... being linked up to a machine is an expensive and dangerous process, and not something most people would be willing to go through with.
Except the world kind of sucks. The global population is multiple times greater than what society can realistically support. Food shortages, job shortages, housing shortages... reality blows.
But if you donate your brain to a major corporation, you can wave goodbye to your miserable existance. They'll put you through a safe, but irreversible procedure to permanently hook you up into a virtual world populated by other brain-donors, a world that's much much better than the one you're looking at now.
They'll give you the bare minimum necesary to keep your body alive (though it will wither away to a useless husk), but you won't notice. You'll be in a world where things are better, where there's food and water and everything else you need.
Sometimes your world will just grow pitch black, and you simply won't know anything for a while, while the corporate mainframe uses youre skull to do some hardcore number crunching... but you won't really notice that either. Your life expectancy will drop by 20 years, but you won't age in the system, so you won't notice that either.
Yeah it's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what you've got now right?
Also, there are more than one of these Matrixes. Basically every major company and government has at least one mainframe full of HPU (human processing units). In fact, as the world gets worse and worse, more and more people are starting to opt for a virtual reality as an escape, and it's becoming an epidemic in some areas.
But the permanent way isn't the only route into a matrix. There are procedures you can have done, black market hardware you can have installed, ect, ect, that will let you 'hack' your way into one of these matrixes. While a hacked entry is something you can turn on and off, and might seem preferable, it is also inherently more risky.
A company or government matrix will have security systems at the very least, but even if there WERE no security systems, the nature of a matrix itself is hostile to non-permanent installations. If you're hacked into a matrix, the system itself will naturally try to work around you being there, seeing you as a 'hiccup' glitch to be repaired.
That's unavoidable, and it's part of why a Matrix rig is normally a permanent lifestyle choice in the first place.
So going into a matrix is really really stupid... but then, you want those juicy corporate secrets don't you? And your employer got you a LOT of goodies for taking this job on... so sit down, strap in, and hope your programs let you dodge the agents.
So that's the theme of the game. There's the normal Shadowrun world full of street sams, riggers, hackers, mages, trolls, ghouls, ect... but there are also HPU mainframes full of poor souls who had no better alternative in their life.
Each Mainframe can be a different world, with different rules and details as necessary. That'll let me explore different possibilities, and if our normal DM comes back and picks up where I leave off, it's an easy way to explain why his theoretical "japanese government matrix" is so much cooler than anything I came up with :-p
Also, an important note is that none of the Matrix worlds are utopias. The way they work is by forming off of the subconcious and "collective expectations" of the people hooked into it. The more people in a matrix, the more real the world seems, but the more unpredictable the results.
All a system operator can do from the outside is try to tweak it by introducing programs (like "agents") and other system variations. Most corps will try to make the world as nice as possible, but also have it pretty low on their list of priorities (depending on how shady they are, it might not BE a priority), seeing as how it's a one way street that people can't report back from.
The thing is, I'm not entirely sure if this whole idea is.... retarded. I'm not a good self-critic, I tend to just assume anything I make is "wtf" worthy, so I can't tell if this will actually be a fun idea or not.
What do you all think?
Also, if you think it's a half decent idea, anyone got any good concepts to build off of for jobs and such in the game?
One thing I've thought of is that while in a matrix, an espionage job evolves into something bigger when one of the people hooked in begs the hackers to give a message to their family in the real world.
Or viruses that change the behavior of people in the system making them more dangerous.
Or viruses evolving in the system to infect the human brain, and then leaking out into the real world through hackers coming in and out...
Any thoughts?