Alter's page

Alter also takes a short leave of absence from the group a few days into settling into the new routine. When she comes back to the group she has a new hexagonal forehead plate along the right side of her forehead and a series of small sub-dermal lights running to the hinge of her jaw line from her left ear. After a bit of healing and relaxing, Alter looks over the three jobs on offer and bites her lower lip in thought as she considers the options.

"I like the Corp. researcher job the most. Sounds like it will give the most money and will play to our groups strengths the best."

Sure am glad Alter isn't in Hikari mode right now, because its time for some cyberware!

I'm going to purchase an Encephalon Rating 2 and a Math SPU. Also spending 10 karma increasing Cybercombat to rating 5. This represents a pretty significant jump in cyberpower for Alter so I'm certainly keen on getting to stretch those muscles a bit more on the next mission.

Update to the character sheet will happen shortly.

Alter goes into a coughing fit when she takes her first sip of real alcohol in her life, her voice strained as she wheezes out, "That... mmpphhh tastes like fire!" Her body shuddering as her mechanical arm goes twitchy for a moment as she holds out her glass for another sip.

In the morning, Alter wakes up with a massive hangover, rubbing her temples as she pops some headache pills and downs them with water. Sitting at the small dining table Alter looks down at the small screen on her commlink, reading the morning Decker news on ShadowSea.

Alter brushes the back of her neck with her hand. Her voice skipping as she tries to start talking but catches herself. Continuing with a bit more conviction after a moment, "You know... I don't really have a place to stay right now. Actually had to burn my old hiding spot just the other day. And this was a lot of fun, sticking it to the man with all of you again... I guess I'm saying I'm willing to stick around a bit longer. See how it goes. You did good today Derek."

Alter gives Derek a smile and settles back in her spot on the couch, wanting to hear what the others say.

Alter creeps over to the other side of the car she has been ducked behind. Her breathing a little shallow as she has her hand around her firearm grip. Alter whispers over the comms, "I'll be with Bogatir. Lets bug it before we get squished inside this turf war."

Alter will wait for a moment before slipping out of cover, moving to join Bogatir once he's away from the drop off zone.

Alter nods her head as she holds her pistol quietly by her side. Finger off the trigger for the moment as she pulls up the ARO of the cameras, moving the ones that aren't a problem for her team at the moment to try and keep an eye on the other two groups.

Alter sits up from her slumped position as she transfers the camera feeds and controls to an ARO on her glasses HUD. Stretching her body as she stands up, Alter nods and takes a moment to fiddle with the ARO controlling the cameras, pointing them in such a way that she can lay out a path for us to walk that wont put us on camera. "Sure, Bogatir, lets go. I always enjoy being watched through a high powered scope." Her sarcasm doing its best to hide her nerves.

Alter nods as she hooks into her Commlink and does the familiar unconscious slump into her seat. Her avatar winks into existence in the Martrix and Alter quickly gets to work. Searching about the immediate area for any signals, hidden or otherwise.

Alter is going to take an Analyze Node test looking for the node connected to the cameras. Looking to gain access as well so will do a Hack on the Fly for Security access after that when its her turn next.

Matrix Perception: 19d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 4, 6, 6, 3, 5, 6, 1, 1, 2, 6, 2, 6, 2, 2, 4, 2, 1) = 67 7 hits

Hack on the Fly: 19d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 5, 4, 4, 2, 1, 6, 6, 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 1, 6, 2, 5, 4) = 70 8 hits

Alter's eyes flutter as she comes back to reality after shutting down her trace. Her hand flicking the switch on her area jammer to turn it back on as she says, "The signal goes to Tír Tairngire before I lose it completely. It did go through Germany but that was a red herring I think. So not dragons... elves."

Smiling a bit, Alter shrugs, "We can dump the tracker now, don't need to keep that albatross around our necks."

Alter is ready to go, we've got all the information we can get I think.

Alter gives a nod as she waits for Bogatir to get situated with his pills before turning back to Derek, "We'll take it out for a spin... Something still isn't adding up. I mean, we're good but we practically waltzed out of that drek."

Alter stands up and walks past Bogatir to give him a pat on the shoulder, "You rest, I've got this part." Giving a bit of a grin as she remembers the last time she said that.

Once Derek and Alter are back in the van and rolling for a bit, she turns off her area jammer and immediately starts tracing the signal.

Hacking: 19d6 ⇒ (6, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 5, 2, 3, 4, 2, 4, 5, 1, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5) = 59 = 5 hits.

Alter's body jerks and twitches for a moment as her consciousness slithers back into her brain from the datajack. Her eyes fluttering for a moment as her hearing stops ringing and returns just in time to hear, "An' dose trucks, dat was a stroke a genius, Alter!"

Alter gives a laugh as she rights herself up in her seat, pulling the six-point harness back into position rather than cutting into her chest. "I know! That was so cool!"

Alter looks around the small van and looks over to Michael, "Hey, you said you found something eh? A bug? We can turn on the area jammer now that we're away. We should spend some time travelling around the streets before we head home."

Alter is ready to do the drop off and get paid. She's also going to turn on her Area Jammer so the bug stops sending its signal.

Command: 6d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 3, 5, 3, 2) = 17 = 1 hit

Alter struggles with the truck's shot to hell guidance systems, at least trying to get the truck in the way of the remaining vehicles and give ours some cover. Her body in meatspace jerking listlessly around in her seat with each screeching turn we make.

Command: 9d6 ⇒ (2, 4, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 1, 1) = 22
Going to Edge that.
Command: 9d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 3, 2, 4, 1, 4, 5, 3) = 29 = 2 hits

Alter grabs hold of the virtual wheel on the driving program of the automated truck and yanks it hard, swerving the truck as best she can with her ad-hoc command to either ram into or block the path of the corp sec vehicles. Her avatar shooting out another message to the group, "This is gonna get even more messy! Speed up!"

Alter is definitely in Matrix Initiative.

Alter grins as the ARO for her Command program, a tiny version of the Sculptor constellation forming near her avatar and it begins forming a clay mold and and chiseling into it a set of commands. Meanwhile, Alter shifts off the ARO of the van speeding down the highway and over to one of the nearby automated trucks. Reaching her hand out, Alter pushes one of her hacking programs forward and presses in...

Hopefully only need User level access to command the vehicle, so here's a Hack on the Fly for that.

Hack on the Fly: 19d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 3, 5, 1, 3, 6, 6, 2, 4, 2, 6, 1, 1, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3) = 57 = 4 hits

If that works, Alter will definitely be using the truck to force the scary black vans to stop.

The thought crossed my mind. :)

Alter sends out a message to the group in all caps, "CARS ARE SHIELDED! NEED TO DAMAGE THE UNDERSIDE!"

Getting frustrated as she turns away from the corpsec cars for a moment and turns her matrix vision over to find one of the many automated shipping trucks that travel the high ways of Seattle. While her avatar pulls up a list of her programs and starts to switch a few out. Two AROs pop out of existence as she pulls up her library and searches through until she finds the one she wants. The loading bar starting up as she quickly brings the Command program up, blocks of data starting to form into a new ARO.

Dropping Analyze and going to load Command next turn.

Yea... I've been trying to figure out what I could do, thanks for the suggestion Gm.

Computer: 12d6 ⇒ (2, 5, 4, 3, 2, 5, 5, 6, 5, 5, 6, 5) = 53 = 3 hits

I'll make an RP post once we've resolved this.

Matrix Initiative, 3 Passes: 11d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 2, 1) = 39 = 3 hits + 1 = 15

Alter's persona starts to grow redder as her frustration builds. Her tendrils of code spreading wider as she keeps looking for the node for a moment longer before giving her avatar's face scrunches tightly and a giant searchlight springs into existence behind her. In meatspace, Alter's body shifts listlessly with the swaying of the van as Bogatir speeds onto the highway. Her eyes spasming back and forth under her closed eyes and her hands spasming periodically. Meanwhile, Alter turns her Matrix vision into a focused beam from the search light as she scans the light over the Beemers.

Taking a Detect Hidden Node action, since Alter is pretty sure the Beemers are behind a Hidden Node.

Detect Hidden Node (4): 19d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 6, 2, 1, 2, 4, 6, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6, 4, 4, 5, 4, 6) = 67 = 6 hits

Alter's eyes widen as she exclaims, "Chikushō!" and her hand dives into her backpack, rooting around for a moment before saying, "I haven't replaced my radio scanner... uummm... I can turn on my area jammer but that's going to shut down all our devices weaker than the jammer. Anyone got a directional jammer maybe?"

Alter pulls out her area jammer just to get it ready and then pulls up the fiber optic cable, "I'm gonna try and buy us some time to get to the Barrens." Alter dives into the Matrix and feels the rush of the data stream entering her brain as her persona materializes over the speeding vehicle. Her digital eyes narrowing as she focuses in on the cars following her group.

Matrix Perception to find the node the Cars are on?
Matrix Perception: 17d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, 2, 1, 3, 3, 6, 2, 4, 6, 5, 2) = 57 =4 hits

Alter keeps her head ducked as she rushes with her team. Her pistol held ready but leaving the main combat to the boys. Her cyber arm flips up as her glasses pick up a security guard coming up from cover.

Attack: 9d6 ⇒ (3, 2, 2, 4, 2, 6, 2, 5, 6) = 32 =3 hits
DV: 5 AP: -1

Firing a shot at the guard, Alter grins manically as she fires off her Predator before rushing to the hole in the ground.

Moving to the hole and firing a shot.

Alter grins wildly as she says over the intercom, "We got plenty for non-lethal Bogatir!" as she crouches behind cover for a moment and pulls up her Commlink. Having her system already setup to give the command at the appropriate moment, Alter activates the automated turrets and turns them towards the guards, designating a set of targets and giving the order to open fire.

Not sure exactly what the turrets would be rolling so leaving that to you DM.

For when my turn comes up, is this the room with the automated turret security?

Alter's heart skips several beats as the alarm blares out into the still quiet of the museum. Her eyes widening as Derek states the obvious and then says to run in a panicked voiced. Alter turns with Derek and runs with him while she sends a specific mental signal to her cyberarm. A section of her slightly bulky cyberarm hisses as the holster for her Predator IV slides open and clicks the magazine into place, sliding the pistol grip into her cyberarm while a HUD comes up on her glasses display. Staying near Bogatir as she pulls up her voice-comm, Alter sub-vocalizes to the ex-fil team, <We're on our way. Got the egg.>

Alter takes a deep breath as she gives a nod towards Derek, her demeanor subdued and her jacket pulled tight to ward off the cool night air. Her hand slides over her Commlink as she messages to Michael, "Ready when you are."

Alter waits for the signal from Michael before she presses the button on her Commlink, sending off her program through the new connection and into the motion sensor.

Hack on the Fly: 19d6 ⇒ (3, 4, 5, 5, 3, 1, 5, 2, 2, 1, 1, 4, 2, 6, 4, 1, 2, 6, 6) = 63 Hits = 6

Alter reaches behind her neck and rubs across her nape as she blushes slightly, "Derek... mind if I stay here? Kind of um... between places at the moment..."

"I say we go tomorrow, my access isn't gonna last forever, and its possible someone might catch on if we wait too long."

Alter takes a moment but nods in the end, "Yea... I kind of need too..."

As Alter slips back into meatspace consciousness and her body jolts up as she rights herself up from where she slumped into the couch. Her hair slightly disheveled by sitting in one position for so long and she shakes her hand through her hair to straighten it back out a bit. Her other hand reaches for her commlink as she flips it out onto the coffee table and starts showing the information in ARO sets as she says, "I found a whole lot more drek than just the secondary motion sensor. Someone's paying top nuyen for this. They got corp shock troopers on-site and automated turrets are being installed right now in the main room. Also, while the corp isn't attached to the Dragon, they are business partners and the Dragon has a stake in the artifacts. There's also something called the CHIMERA project on site as well but I need more time to figure that out, didn't get much on it."

Alter takes a deep breath after running her motor-mouth for that whole speech. "Derek, whatever you got told, this job is gonna be hard... but... I still think we can do it. I have admin access to the node so I can use the turrets for us and keep the corpsec confused for awhile. The motion sensor is cut off from the grid so it'll need to be disabled on site, I can't do anything about it remotely. But... all that's if... IF we still want to do this... the connections tangential... but this smells like dragons to me." Alter looks up at the group, waiting for comment.

Sorry DM, I got hit by the forum weirdness that has been going around. I didn't receive any notifications the last few days about new posts.

Stealth: 19d6 ⇒ (5, 4, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 3, 5, 5, 4, 6, 2, 1, 5, 2, 2) = 64 = 6 hits, gonna spend an edge and reroll the fails to make sure this goes right.

Edge Re-Roll: 13d6 ⇒ (5, 2, 1, 1, 3, 6, 4, 3, 5, 1, 4, 1, 4) = 40 = 3 hits, for 9 total.

Alter's eyes snap open as all the data filters through her view, her hand reaching down to one of the star cluster AROs that constantly shifts around her avatar and pulls it out, spreading the stars open into their full constellation of Canes Venatici. A series of hunting dogs appearing out of the ARO and sniffing away for the data packets, hunting down and collecting as much as she can about the more complex issues like the AA to AAA connection and the CHIMERA project especially. While her program does about collecting that, she updates her knowledge of the security around the Museum along with thinking about how she's gonna break this to the group. But eventually, a small ARO pops up alerting her to how long she has been in the Matrix and she knows she can't stay in forever since she still needs to sleep. Her mind slipping out of the node as she zooms back towards the warehouse and her own body.

Trading out Scan for Browse for the Data Search

Data Search: 21d6 ⇒ (3, 2, 5, 6, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 5, 3, 1, 1, 5, 4, 5, 1, 3, 3) = 70 = 7 hits

Alter allows herself a wide grin of pleasure at finally breaking into the extra secure node. Her hands waving upwards as she gestures to call up her tools for exploring databases and servers quickly. Her hands are suddenly holding an old fashioned private eye magnifying glass ans she runs it across the lines and lines of code streaming to her feeds. Looking for whatever makes this node so special.

Definitely going for the sketchy node, lets find out what they are hiding! I'll go for security access again, assuming this is another probing the target.

Hour 1: Probe the Target: Security (+3 threshold) (Logic + Hacking + Exploit):: 21d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 1, 1, 5, 5, 1, 5, 4, 4, 2, 5, 3, 6, 6, 3) = 75 = 7 hits

Commlink Hotsim
Response: 5
Signal: 5
Firewall: 6
System: 5
Programs:
Novatech Navi OS System 5 Firewall 5 Analyze 5 Exploit 5 Scan 5 Stealth 5

Probe the Target for a Security Account
Hour 1:Probe the Target: Security (+3 threshold) (Logic + Hacking + Exploit): 21d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 5, 5, 3, 4, 2, 5, 5, 4, 2, 4, 1, 3, 4, 3) = 80 = 7 hits

Hour 2:Probe the Target: Security (+3 threshold) (Logic + Hacking + Exploit): 21d6 ⇒ (4, 6, 3, 1, 2, 6, 5, 6, 4, 2, 1, 5, 1, 5, 4, 2, 4, 3, 6, 4, 6) = 80 = 8 hits

Hour 3:Probe the Target: Security (+3 threshold) (Logic + Hacking + Exploit): 21d6 ⇒ (6, 1, 3, 4, 6, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 1, 6, 1, 3, 3, 2, 3, 1, 4, 3, 2) = 68 = 5 hits

If I need more than 20 hits, please let me know :)

Alter opens her eyes to the virtual Japanese Garden illuminated in the soft light of a full moon that is her personal node. A few birds go flowing overhead as Alter looks down at her familiar persona. A field of twinkling stars sitting in a deep void that makes up her body and trails of void light forming her hair. Feeling the subtle rush she always gets from being in VR and turning on her hotsim, Alter leaps out of her garden and into the wide open sea of the Matrix. Standing in a crowd of data models and other personas along the Emerald City Network Alter makes her way off down the matrix lanes, zooming along at the speed of thought.

Arriving at her destination, Alter looks up at the replica VR Seattle Museum of Arts and pulls up a set of AROs. Her chat program connecting in the team's commlinks automatically while another ARO becomes a trid hologram of the Museum floorplans overlaid with the security nodes. The final ARO spins for a moment before the shuffle settles on her music, set to low so it doesn't distract her.

Matrix Stealth

Walking up to the VR building, Alter presses her hand forward which launches her hacking ARO, a series of comets shooting into the Museum's node looking for an entrance.

Alter shifts on the couch uncomfortably as Blue says his piece, keeping her eyes on the couch until Blue slumps back and Alter carefully rearranges the man so he's a bit more comfortable. Turning back to Derek, Alter says, "Its ok Derek... they'll all come around, no more Beetles right?"

Alter leans back on the couch as she reaches up to the back of her head where hair doesn't grow but a metal plate hides her datajack. Pulling out the spool of wire Alter looks up at Derek and says, "Tanoshiku sugoshimashou ka??" before she slides the tip of the wire into the jack port on her commlink. Her eyes rolling up as her body slumps, diving into the matrix with a flash of warped light.

Alter is ready to jump into her legwork. I figure Alter would start with trying to get access to the museum, I think Security clearance is all that'll really be needed for this job, so that's what she's going for with Probing the Target.

Alter gives a giggle towards Bronze and Bogatir as they quickly pick up their old jibs at each other. She pulls up an ARO shaped like a small notepad and starts writing down notes about the operation in her native Japanese kanji.

Job: Break into Seattle Metropolitan Museum of Art, steal ruby egg on loan from German AA in Munich.

Payout: 85,000ny

When Shepherd asks Alter a question, she looks up from her notes and gives a nod. "Send me your commcodes and I'll get you all linked up. Try not to be too loud out there you two," this part directed at Bogatir and Bronze, "But if you need me to quiet something let me know quickly. Derek, I wanna go over the schematics and security you've found out so far while the boys all head out. Government buildings aren't fun, lots of social ways to get in but if they've got a competent spider on call this week the node is gonna be tricky."

Alter settles in for quite a session with Derek, casually talking with him for awhile since they haven't seen each other in years but every time the conversation goes back to business Tsuki becomes quite serious about the job.

I'll put up another post in a little bit about what Alter is gonna do for her legwork. But the abstract is gonna be getting good schematics of the wing of the museum the heist is happening in, figuring out security measures and where they are in the building. Then, any personnel information she can dig up about the people surrounding the egg.

Alter starts to get more and more nervous as the group keeps taking looks at her. Her eyes going down to the floor several times as Derek takes a long look at her and then continues his speech, her bio-arm coming up to caress down the smooth matte-painted metallic arm that sits out of what remains of her right arm socket, the tight bundle of carbon cables that connect to a service hump installed in her shoulder start to get the old itch she used to have when she first got the arm. Alter doesn't respond right away to Derek's tearful apology though her face flushes as everyone keeps bringing up her arm. Her eyes turning a little glassy as she sees short flashes of memory...

---------------------------
A loud crash of metal on metal barely preceded by a shout of, "Bogatir! Look OUT!" A sudden sharp report of sprayed bullets flashing sideways and creating small craters in the concrete as Bogatir's rifle sweeps out of control. A splash of red blood along the concrete wall and Alter looking down at the shattered stump of dripping blood coming out of the remains of her slender arm, the shiny white of bone barely poking through before she blacks out...
----------------------------

Hope you don't mind me calling these up when I think the roleplay calls for it. This meeting is becoming very stressful for Alter, and its calling up memories she'd rather forget. Also, I'm thinking of establishing that when a new Alter does come up, 1=Tsuki, 2=Taiyo, and 3=Hikari if that's alright with you. Finally, for convenience sake I'm gonna say that all three Alters have watched Derek's trid.

DID Test: 10d6 ⇒ (3, 2, 1, 2, 4, 4, 3, 2, 6, 4) = 31 =1
Alter: 1d3 ⇒ 1
Welp! Time to start the ride.

Alter's head suddenly snaps up and blinks several times, her posture on the couch changing from trying to sink into the frame and hide to a bright smile forming on her face. Jumping up from the couch Alter looks around and gives a loud greeting of, "Heya Chummers!" as she looks around the room. "I've really been looking forward to this, seeing ya'll again. Wait... did I take a nap or something?" Her voice turned to the far warmer and playful tone its sometimes taken in the past. Though her smile quickly fades as she takes in the sense of the room and Tsuki struggles to recall how she got here. Her eyes turning over to Derek holding up a simsense chip towards her and gives a small grin as she snatches it from his grasp, quickly distracted from the issue by the chance to look over a possible new drug, "Hey Derek... still slotting huh? What's this one? Another magic rave?" Though she doesn't really expect an answer as she sits back down on the couch casually.

Hardware: 12d6 ⇒ (2, 5, 1, 2, 6, 1, 2, 6, 3, 2, 4, 3) = 37 =3

Alter listens to Derek's run down of the job with a slowly growing grin on her face. "Art theft Derek? I'm in, this sounds fun!" A surprising amount of impetuousness from the recently silent Alter.

This meeting's theme song: Same Ol
'

Sitting curled up on the threadbare couch is the same young girl the rest of the crew would remember. Not an inch taller than she was the last time the rest had seen her though maybe a little closer to being a woman than a teenager. A pink t-shirt under her leather jacket and her leather-clad legs pulled up close to her chest so her Commlink rests on her thighs, combat boots digging into the edge of the couch. Her head looking up as more people start to arrive, giving the nervous nod she used to give with each arrival as she keeps trying to reach through to Derek, her messages turning more frantic as the room becomes more full, not wanting to see another blow-up argument the first time we've all come back together.

*Damnit Derek, wake up already, we're here you chiphead."

DID Test: 10d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 5, 5, 6, 3, 4, 1, 4, 5) = 37 =4
State: Hikari

Alter pulls her leather jacket in close to her chest as she steps through the cold rundown warehouse. Her cyberarm whirring up as her Ares Predator clears her holster almost faster than her own body reacts at the sudden noises of Derek's drone dropping down from the ceiling. Her eyes wide as she pulls her arm down and reholsters her pistol. Blinking as the drone moves off without doing anything more than tugging on he leg, Alter follows the drone into the familiar general area of the warehouse. Her head shaking as she sees Derek slotted just the way she remembered him.

--------------------
Taiyo yells at the top of her legs that she is leaving and never coming back. Her eyes glaring over at Derek who was laying in his simrig, oblivious to the world or her tirade against him. Her arm still bandaged from the fresh cyberarm install...
--------------------

Alter sighs as she finds herself the first one to arrive. Moving over to the threadbare couch and flopping down, Alter pulls out her Commlink and brings up her AR gloves, the ARO GUI sliding up into her view and she quickly pulls up her chat program, connecting to Derek's rig and pulses a message out.

"Derek... you ready to wake up?"

@Alter: How much is known by the team of Alter's background? As a nice tie in, I would like to say that stabilizing Alter after the loss of her arm was the first use of Blue's new Heal spell. That run would have been the last Run for Blue with the whole team, as he left shortly thereafter. He would also feel a small bit of guilt, since he did not expose Derek's BTL problem to the others when he found it.

So, Alter also left pretty much immediately after losing her arm but stabilizing her works for me. The thing about Alter's background is that she doesn't talk about any of it except to say she ran away from her Renraku wageslave parents and burned her SIN as soon as her education and "extracurriculars" allowed her to, she's terrified of going back and suspects there's a huge bounty on her capture. So she's never said more of why she ran away than "I didn't want to be a wageslave anymore" but that's always rung hollow for those who know how to tell an evasion from the truth. However, pretty much everyone in the group would have a strange experience or two where Alter has changed her mannerisms or can't remember a conversation they had together or her going nearly catatonic for several moments in an important moment during a run. She does talk in her sleep and has woken up in cold sweats after nightmares. Anyone with medical training could have probably figured it out by now but everyone else definitely know she isn't 100% upstairs.

Also @ Alter: Would Alter have been willing to build Blue's commlink? He has always been paranoid about privacy, and he has a pretty tricked out commlink, but it could not have been put together by Blue, since he is not that skilled in computers.

Yea, she'd put together a commlink for a runner on her team. She'd feel better about the security on it.

Yea, Shadowrun can get pretty silly at times. While its a really fun setting, the rules are convoluted enough to become broken without regular and smart FAQ/Errata. Which Shadowrun hasn't had for decades. Anyway... to the matrix rules. They work for me as my real intention was to get these issues out of the way before they came up in a game. To the Agent Smith issue, with that change all of my dice pools will jump by +5, topping out my Hacking at 19, Cybercombat and Electronic Warfare at 17. A significant buff on average but also not one that requires a huge amount of redesign for Node defense. Even a +1 or +2 to to Node defense quickly errodes that advantage. Otherwise, it all looks good, now to continue discussing social stuff! :)

So, the issues of 4e and 5e Matrix rules are really more an outgrowth of the design. Since 4e was such a radical departure from 1st through 3rd edition, it had a lot of teething problems but the biggest were these four (which never got fixed despite attempts in Unwired and Shadowrun 5e).

Hackastack: If I hack things by bringing my computer into range of the target and pressing the “Go” button, why wouldn't I bring two computers? Or eight? Or twenty eight? Shadowrun is a post-industrial society, if bringing more processors to the fight is a thing that would be helpful, I can do that.

Agent Smith: If there are autonomous or semi-autonomous programs that can do stuff for me, why can't I make copies of those programs and run each copy on another computer in my Hackastack doing those things for me dozens if not hundreds of times? The whole system is based on your equipment ratings to the point where actually being a hacker essentially doesn't matter during the actual matrix actions – you just own stuff that rolls giant piles of dice against other stuff.

Dropout: If enemy hackers affect the field of battle by wirelessly hacking into our equipment through active wireless antennae, why don't we just turn the wireless antennae on all the important stuff off during missions? And if people do in fact do that, why is the hacker able to accomplish anything of note, considering that the wireless on everyone's important stuff is turned off during the mission?

Hall of Mirrors: If you have to roll dice to affect each node one by one, and each device can have its own node, can't the hacker be stymied (or at least have their entire subsystem grind to a halt) just by putting up a lot of nodes? A ten layer onion would take all night to roll the dice to penetrate, and what's actually stopping you from making it a two hundred layer onion?

Hall of Mirrors is partially cancelled out by Hackastack and Agent Smith creating a matter vs anti-matter situation assuming I ever get enough money to make the super rig but its just as easy for a megacorp to go "Lol Nope" and make a bigger Hall of Mirrors so its a vicious circle.

Dropout is the really egregious one however, because it basically shuts down any attempt to have fun as a Decker if everyone reaches the logical conclusion of just turning off their cyber-glasses when a Decker starts pumping Nightcored Sugar Plum Fairy into their eyesockets.

I do have some ideas and suggestions for how to deal with them but if you have your own ideas, its your game. :)

@Jon, the Evil DM: I do have some questions now that I think about them. So, in 4e and 5e, there are a few major problems with the Matrix rules as written so I am wondering how you want to deal with them for this game. Specifically, the issues of Hackastack, Agent Smith, Dropout, and Hall of Mirrors. If you aren't familiar with the problems I can give a good description of them but I find that experienced DMs generally have ways they prefer to deal with those issues.

Alright, I've put down some thoughts and possible reactions Alter might have to the rest of the crew, except for Michael Shepherd because that backstory hasn't been put up yet. Alter is pretty complicated when it comes to interpersonal relationships since she has different memories of each person.

"Blue" - Shaman
Hikari: Finds Blue odd and unsettling, avoids
Taiyo: Thinks he's stuck up like most Elves are
Tsuki: Likes to play tricks back on Blue

Charles Berger/"Bronze" - Street Sam
Hikari: Scared of Bronze
Taiyo: Likes to go with Bronze to the firing range to practice with her new cyberarm
Tsuki: Thinks he needs to have more fun

Dan Morgan/"Junkyard" - Mechanic & B&E
Hikari: Enjoys sitting in silence and knows she can do that around Dan.
Taiyo: Is very expressive in her hatred of Derek, probably expecting Dan to back her up.
Tsuki: Wants to get Dan out of his shell, loosen him up so he can enjoy more of life.

Ismail Ulyanovich Aslanov/"Bogatir" - Street Sam
Hikari: Reminds her of Desperado, the man who broke her out of Renraku, soft spot
Taiyo: Feels comfortable around Bogatir, protected
Tsuki: Gives Bogatir a lot of crap for his melancholic attitude, doesn't really consider his shorter lifespan or know about his condition

"Michael Shepherd" - One Punch Man Adept & B&E
Unknown, don't know anything yet.

None of these are set in stone, just some initial thoughts.

Bogatir: The backstory you wrote for Bogatir (which is great btw) made me think of Alter's rescuer Desperado. Not exactly the same of course but a security expert who's just looking for some peace and quiet. If we included Bogatir in the accident, I imagine Taiyo (the personality that surfaced when she lost her arm) would give Bogatir a lot of crap for it but it wouldn't really be anger, that's definitely reserved for Derek.

Hey Chummers, Alter is all ready to go. I'll look over everyone's backstories a bit and come up with some ideas later today.