comStar Firewall alert - PhaseThrough

compartmentalized pieces of information that a knowsoft loads
into the short term memory of the user. When the knowsoft
user attempts to recall a knowledge skill they do not possess,
their brain retrieves these pieces from short term memory and
processes them, much like remembering a commlink number
one has just seen. Since the information is not processed in
long-term memory, the user does not learn the skill. When they
remove the knowsoft, the skill will fade from their short term
memory in about thirty seconds.
activeSoftS
Activesofts trigger activity not only in the metahuman
brain, but also the neuromuscular system. For this reason, activesofts
also require skillwires (p. 335, SR4), neuromuscular
controllers that activate muscle memory in conjunction with
the ASIST signals activating brain activity. Early attempts to
impart active skills to a user through just the neuromuscular
control system produced poor results because the brain
rejected the body movements it didn’t understand, causing
the skills to be imprecise. By introducing ASIST signals that
manipulated the cerebellum and cerebral motor cortex, the
brain understood the neuromuscular signals and cooperated,
leading to fine motor control and the ability to reproduce
skills accurately.
Unwired
SkiLL networking
Wireless simsense also allows for skill networking,
where one skillwired person can use the wireless network
to share a skill program with another wireless-capable
skillwired person. The neuromuscular signals that would
usually be sent to their body are instead transmitted to
the second person’s skillwires via commlink and sim
module. Both characters must be equipped with skillwires
and their personas must be subscribed to each
other. A programmed skill that is being shared may not
be used by the sharing character.
tHe cHipped workforce
Going back as far as the assembly line, technological
revolutions have caused great upheaval in the way
labor operates in the world. The appearance of skillware
has been the most profound change to the workforce
since the development of the Internet in the last century.
The Sixth World has only barely begun to explore the
benefits and hidden risks of skillware on the labor pool,
but already it has reshaped the way people work across
the globe.
the end of Unskilled Labor
By the 2070s, most manual labor has been
replaced by robotics and drones. Even though activesofts
would allow unskilled workers to become
proficient in skilled manual labor, machines have
shown to out-perform chipped metahuman workers
in terms of efficiency. However, chipped labor can
still be found in many computer-assisted, white collar
fields where a metahuman touch is still preferred.
Activesofts and knowsofts have greatly impacted the
healthcare industry, enabling naturally unskilled labor to perform
as nurses, caretakers, and pharmacists simply by slotting
chips. Insurance agents, accountants, and sales representatives
have also been similarly transformed, instantly able to learn
new business skills and master new product lines. In these
and similar fields, expensive and time-consuming training and
education programs have been completely replaced by massproduced
skillsofts.
the rise of creative Labor
The commonplace use of skillsofts to impart basic skills
to unskilled workers has had the side effect of increasing the
value of creative labor, workers who can think outside the box.
Anyone can slot a chip and possess the skills to do a job, but
a skillsoft does not teach a person to apply those skills in a
creative fashion to achieve new results. As a result, high-paying
jobs do not necessarily rest on mastering a particular skill,
but in demonstrating how you can uniquely apply that skill.
Innovation drives this new, valued workforce and has become
the currency in the global labor pool. This is hardly news to
most shadowrunners; corporate extractions have long revolved
around employees who possessed unique insights that made
them valuable to competitors.
Simon Wentworth (order #1132857) 9
193
siMsense and skillware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .