comStar Firewall alert - PhaseThrough

technoMancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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> I know that Netcat’s rep score took a bit of a plunge when she
revealed herself some time ago, but I don’t think there’s any better
source on technomacers aside from technomancers themselves. I
have approved two others to this Jackpoint discussion to provide
some alternate viewpoints on the matter. Please welcome undernet
guru Otaku-Zuku and Inbus, a technomancer who is working for
Technicolor Wings. Let’s hope this discussion soothes some of the
wounds generated over the past year.
> FastJack
eMerging
Posted By: Netcat
“How is it, being a technomancer?”
I have been asked this question numerous times since my
“coming out.” Even if you haven’t asked it openly, you’re probably
wondering what it is like being a walking commlink. Though I
still encounter mistrust, prejudice, and suspicion simply because
of what I am—even here on Jackpoint—I’m paying back a favor
to FastJack here by providing a personal report on my Emerging
(that’s what us technomancers call the event that introduced
us to the Resonance, sort of like how magicians refer to their
Awakening) and how I experience the real and the digital world.
Being in reSonance
The first thing you have to understand is that I never asked to
be what I am. I just am. In the years that followed the Crash 2.0, I
made peace with myself and accepted that I am different now, that
something changed me. I cannot say how it happened, though I
can say that the Crash somehow triggered it.
Here’s the story. Before ´64 I was a student on Matrix
technology and system development, though that wasn’t my real
passion. I was a passionate gamer and as interested in the code as
any Matrix freak. I did some small scale hacking and code breaking
under the same online handle I still use now—nothing spectacular,
though, and definitely not on the level of our hacker wunderkind
Slamm–0!
> Don’t flatter me. No, just kidding. Continue.
> Slamm–0!
The day of the Crash, I was killing time as I often did,
hacking through the levels of Paranormal Crisis to obtain some
ultra-scarce modifications and gear for an avatar of mine. I don’t
remember exactly what happened when the Crash hit, but like
many others, I was trapped in the Matrix. I have some very faint
memories—just a few images and sensations really, plus a fair
bit of confusion. Then I came to in an Emergency Room. My
roommate had found me slumped on the couch, still jacked in,
with static on the display screen. He pulled the plug and got me
to a hospital.
It took a few days before I was released from the hospital.
I was disoriented for most of that time, and the hospital was
overwhelmed with other people who had suffered during the
Crash—including dozens who had been trapped online, just like
me. The doctors hadn’t found any lasting neurological damage
they said, so they sent me home with a bottle of painkillers for the
non-stop migraine I still had. At this point, I had no idea that my
life had changed.
Some weeks and months passed, during which I experienced
a few … strange encounters. Sometimes there where whispers as
if unseen people were talking to me. Today I know it was the
noise and electronic prompts from devices I had unconsciously
interacted with. Sometimes I saw things that weren’t there, data
traffic shaped into images by my brain so that I could understand
them. Electronic devices started to function strangely around
me. I chalked it on my nerves and post-traumatic stress, trying
to ignore it all until the changes were so blatant that I couldn’t
turn a blind eye anymore. I was confused and frightened, looking
for help, but most of the “experts” I visited thought I was a freak,
crazy, or overstressed. I started to worry that I was going to be
locked away.
> Oh, cry me a river. You can pull our heart strings as long as you
want, but that won’t persuade me that your kind and your AI allies/
creators are not a threat to metahumanity. It doesn’t matter if you
were a hacker before—you’re a mutation now, a freak of nature. For
me, you are just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
> Clockwork
> One very important point that needs to be made here is that not
all technomancers were “created” by the Crash. Take me, for example.
I was hiking in the mountains when the Crash hit, and didn’t
even hear about until a few days afterward. Before my Emergence, I
never met an AI, never saw a ghost in the machine, never had a run
in with Black IC—heck, I never even hacked anything. Then one day
back in ’68 I was doing maintenance on a drone, running diagnostics
on its OS, when I realized my commlink had been accidentally turned
off. It confused the hell out of me at first, I couldn’t figure out how
I was accessing the drone with no ‘link. Over the next few weeks,
though, I experimented a bit and managed to replicate the situation,
and even go a bit further. The day I jumped into a drone, rigging it
direct via VR, commlink-free, I knew I was something different. I’ve
heard similar stories from other technomancers—some of them even
dating to before the Crash. So don’t assume we’re a product of the
Crash, or manipulated by AIs, or any other such nonsense. If you do,
you’re just expressing your ignorance.
> Inbus
> The Sixth World has seen many strange things, and I’m sure we’ll
see even stranger ones in the years to come.
> Icarus
With the installation of the new Matrix and the distribution
of commlinks and all kinds of wireless devices, it became worse
each week. To walk down a street and have thousands of prompts,
data projections, and transmissions raining down on me every
second was hard to bear. The more traffic there was clouding the
digital ether, the more I had trouble adjusting and dealing with
the data flow.
> I imagine it would be much like constant, unstoppable mind
reading. If telepaths existed, they would need to learn to shut out
the thoughts of any person they interact with or who even comes
close to them. I don’t envy technomancers, since there is surely a
lot more traffic and devices than people. I’m no computer wiz, but I
know there are a plethora of processes going on my commlink that
Unwired
Simon Wentworth (order #1132857) 9