comStar Firewall alert - PhaseThrough

technoMancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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The following submersion tasks are examples commonly
known to technomancers. Players and gamemasters are encouraged
to design new submersion tasks to fit their story and the
technomancer’s agenda.
evisceration
A virtual sacrifice of some kind, evisceration is a deliberate
mutilation of the technomancer’s persona that also causes debilitating
effects on his real body due to feedback in the technomancer’s
neurological structure. A technomancer may call on this submersion
task and virtually sacrifice a part of his living persona (such
as its resolution, its physical appearance, or even one of its limbs).
While this “damage” will not impair him on the virtual level, the
sacrificed or damaged part becomes neurologically impaired in
reality. An arm that was virtually cut off in the process of evisceration
becomes numb and paralyzed. Certain areas of the body may
turn numb as a result of de-rezzing a persona.
While the technomancer does not lose attribute points as a result
of the process, it should impair him in one way or another. The
exact nature of the handicap and possible negative dice pool modifier
for physical tests is left to the gamemaster, but should reflect a
negative quality worth at least 10 BP that cannot be bought off.
great Hack
A great hack task requires a character to perform a difficult onthe-fly
hack to show her skills to the hacker or technomancer online
community. Before committing the great hack, the gamemaster and
player should agree on an appropriate target and introduce it through
roleplaying. Such a task may develop into a run in its own right (for instance,
an isolated node that cannot be accessed from the outside and
must be hacked from the inside), though the run must be personally
relevant and appropriate to the character undertaking it.
As a general guideline, the Karma award for the run should
be comparable to the Karma cost of the grade the character seeks.
If the gamemaster approves the run or part thereof as a great hack,
successfully accomplishing the goal of the run means the first part
of the task is accomplished.
The second part of a great hack is to boost its fame by uploading
data acquired during the hack on a public or hacker site,
including some sort of tag or logo that refers to the character, to
“show off.” This is, however, evidence that the character committed
the crime … law enforcement is likely to take notice!
Nodes of governmental agencies, R&D nexi of corporations,
bank accounts or private nodes of public or famous figures, as well as
other highly secured nodes are common targets for great hacks.
At the gamemaster’s discretion, a character may carry out
a great hack before she is ready to submerge to another grade,
essentially “saving” the hack and using it as a task for her next
submersion. A great hack must be used for the character’s next
submersion, however, and cannot be saved beyond that grade.
reassembling
If a technomancer assists an entropic sprite in a reassembling
process (p. 158), sacrificing one of his registered sprites and
participating in the ritual recoding of the sprite can be used as a
submersion task. In order to profit from such a spiritual moment,
the character must succeed in an Intuition + Resonance (2) Test
and a Willpower + Logic (2) Test.
resonance realm Search
To undergo this task, the technomancer must access a specific
location on a resonance realm, often referred to as a resonance
room or instance. Only characters who have undergone submersion
before can locate backdoors into the resonance realm (Resonance
Realms, p. 172) hidden in the Matrix.
Before accessing the resonance realm, the technomancer
must get access via the backdoor, requiring a Resonance + Fading
attribute + submersion grade (12, 1 hour) Extended Test. There
is no penalty for briefly interrupting the preparation process, but
the process is demanding and leaves no time for any activities other
than the most ordinary tasks.
The gamemaster should tailor the search to fit the technomancer’s
stream and beliefs, not only challenging his hacking skills
but making it a drastic and tremendous experience that tests every
aspect of the technomancer’s personality.
Source code
This task requires the technomancer to program a masterpiece
of source code that represents the sum of her insight and understanding
of the patterns of the Matrix. The piece of source code must be
in a normal digital data format that can be stored in an external
storage device, but which carries the resonance signature of the technomancer,
similar to a resonance watermark created by a data sprite.
To shape this source code, the technomancer must perform a
Logic + Software (8 + desired submersion grade, 1 week) Extended
Test. By its very nature, this source code leaves a datatrail to the
author, and technomancers should carefully consider such creations.
If used online, the source code can be employed by a sprite or
technomancer as a resonance link to track its owner digitally in the
Matrix. For this reason, technomancers are typically reluctant to
distribute their source code or keep multiple copies around.
However, if all versions of a source code are somehow deleted,
the programmer will suffer a crisis of faith at such a momentous
loss and must reduce her submersion grade by 1. This is why technomancers
usually keep at least one copy in a secure data store.
tecHnoMancer networkS
With the omnipresence of the Matrix and the high frequency
of commlinks, social networking of like-minded people has become
an important factor in the global society in the ’70s. New
Matrix-mediated social environments form every day, disappear,
and rise again a week later. The participation of people in online
circles, forums, chats, or folksonomy has drastically increased with
the introduction of the wireless Matrix. Technomancers draw a
huge advantage from this connectivity, which allows technomancers
from anywhere on the globe to get in contact who probably
would never have the chance to meet in person.
With the official “coming out” of technomancers in 2070,
people have been more “free-giving” with their abilities. Despite
rejection and prejudice by other online users and precautions
taken by corporations and head-hunters, technomancers who want
to share knowledge, teach others, or seek enlightenment from
experienced technomancers are using the Matrix—their natural
environment—as a medium to communicate with each other.
Technomancer networks are virtual social platforms on
which technomancers can interact via dedicated sites, SIGs, chatboards,
and sometimes even eye-to-eye meetings. While these sites
Unwired
Simon Wentworth (order #1132857) 9