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Message no. 1
From: "Freddy Frypp no more" <JAMES-CUENO@*********.edu>
Subject: re: Wraith Astral Quest
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 12:01:10 CST
Ummmmm.... Anybody care to explain how that worked? I've always
thought that ASIST tech interrupted most of the seven (or
more) natural senses - of which astral perception is not.

A sim record of someone on a astral quest would just be verrrrry
relaxing - like to the point of a coma - as the "subject's" body
slows down when the astral body leaves.

Sure, any damage the questor takes would show up, but certainly not
any of the meat of the quest.

jim
Message no. 2
From: mneideng@****.caltech.edu (Mark L. Neidengard)
Subject: Re: Wraith Astral Quest
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:11:30 -0800 (PST)
According to Freddy Frypp no more:
>
> Ummmmm.... Anybody care to explain how that worked? I've always
> thought that ASIST tech interrupted most of the seven (or
> more) natural senses - of which astral perception is not.

The way it works is this: a mage, with simsense recording gear, casts a spell
that lets him do a full-sensory browse through someone's memory, much like
the bit in Plus ca Change in the SRII. This means that the mage is "having" the
full sensory experience as stored in the person's memory. Then, the simsense
gear records what the mage is experiencing. I.e. it's not made at the time
of the Astral Quest, but rather is made after the fact as was the case here.

Now, the simpler recording gear just taps nerve inputs from the body, and thus
is insufficient; to do the above you need the deeper stuff that captures
limbics and all that...I imagine that the "window of observation" is more
at the interface where experience is transmitted to short-term memory for that
sort of gear.

It should also be noted that, since mages remember the details of having
Astrally Projected, there must be some chemical transcription going on in their
brain _as_ they project...meaning that a mage rigged as above should be able
to record the experience of his Astral body (not his physical one), again
assuming that we take the feed from the memory interface rather than from
the body's sensory inputs.

> Sure, any damage the questor takes would show up, but certainly not
> any of the meat of the quest.

To be sure, there will be some generation loss from "recovering" things from
memory rather than copying them as they're written, but I'm prepared to believe
that the effect can be easily graphic enough for the purpose of the transcript.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Major, VLSI. http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 3
From: "Freddy Frypp no more" <JAMES-CUENO@*********.edu>
Subject: Re: Wraith Astral Quest
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 14:36:10 CST
> The way it works is this: a mage, with simsense recording gear, casts a spell
> that lets him do a full-sensory browse through someone's memory, much like
> the bit in Plus ca Change in the SRII. This means that the mage is
"having" the
> full sensory experience as stored in the person's memory. Then, the simsense
> gear records what the mage is experiencing. I.e. it's not made at the time
> of the Astral Quest, but rather is made after the fact as was the case here.

But it's still magical driven. I can't see how the magic and tech
interacts successfully.

> It should also be noted that, since mages remember the details of having
> Astrally Projected, there must be some chemical transcription going on in their
> brain _as_ they project...meaning that a mage rigged as above should be able
> to record the experience of his Astral body (not his physical one), again
> assuming that we take the feed from the memory interface rather than from
> the body's sensory inputs.

Why assume that? ASIST doesn't go into memories. It just
short-circuits the rest of the nervous system.
Message no. 4
From: mneideng@****.caltech.edu (Mark L. Neidengard)
Subject: Re: Wraith Astral Quest
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 13:13:40 -0800 (PST)
According to Freddy Frypp no more:
>
> But it's still magical driven. I can't see how the magic and tech
> interacts successfully.

Alright. The magic lies in getting the sensory stuff from person A's memory
to person B's consciousness. However, the trip from B's stream of
consciousness to B's memory is totally mundane, meaning that making a recording
should be pretty normal. =)

> > It should also be noted that, since mages remember the details of having
> > Astrally Projected, there must be some chemical transcription going on in their
> > brain _as_ they project...meaning that a mage rigged as above should be able
> > to record the experience of his Astral body (not his physical one), again
> > assuming that we take the feed from the memory interface rather than from
> > the body's sensory inputs.
>
> Why assume that? ASIST doesn't go into memories. It just
> short-circuits the rest of the nervous system.

Well, as I said, there are differing grades of simsense recording. To make the
more detailed sort, it seems to me that a "convenient" way to do the
implementation is to plug into the memory interface. I can't think of any
other single well-defined "location" where all the information would be
available. Of course the less sophisticated stuff just taps the sensory
inputs, but the Full-X stuff is going to be more profound.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Major, VLSI. http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 5
From: "Freddy Frypp no more" <JAMES-CUENO@*********.edu>
Subject: re: Wraith Astral Quest
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 10:34:49 CST
Well then, why not just have "Person B" type the story?
Message no. 6
From: mneideng@****.caltech.edu (Mark L. Neidengard)
Subject: Re: Wraith Astral Quest
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 11:15:54 -0800 (PST)
According to Freddy Frypp no more:
>
> Well then, why not just have "Person B" type the story?

*ahem* Ok, let me try this again. So, person B is making a simsense recording
of an experience in person A's memory. That _means_ that the simsense recording
is from person A's perspective. This is why I adopted the second person for
the Quest: I am telling the viewer of the simsense what experiences are being
played back for them. Sure I could have had person B write his impressions of
his findings after the fact, just like a normal journalist, but I a) thought
this would be more evocative and b) this way other people can scrutinize the
results without fear that person B had been incomplete in his report.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Major, VLSI. http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict

Further Reading

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These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.