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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject: Of Men and Machines
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 11:43:39 -0500
>>>>>[Oh dead one, were it not for your

"God and the Pope don't mean shit if you can't find it inside. I found my
own Deity, and it was within me," you say. Again, a rather base expression
indicative of the intelligence and propriety you lost when you became part
of the Matrix. I realize I was wrong in addressing you as Mein Herr. . .you
are naught but an automaton, a digital machine, little more than a smart
toaster. The prurpose of machines is the serve Man, and I guarantee you
will perform that function for me and my orginization one day.

I do not require access to an online Websters. Unlike you, I have my
brain, which is far more formidable than any node you shall ever devise
or encounter. What is it like, o Thing, o Device, to have every aspect
of your consciousness resting at the mercy of the outside world? To have
you capacity for reason, analysis, and memory eliminated with the flick of
the proverbial switch?

"And nothing is out of my control any more," the most megalomaniac clause
I have ever seen. I do not claim complete control, Machine. It is obvious
that the transferral of your mind into the Matrix has granted you delusions
of grandeur.

Shadowrunners! I ask only that you cease and desist your activities in the
futile investigation of myself and the late William 6174. Those who already
know too much will be terminated, and those who aid them will find themselves
in non-negotiable circumstances regarding their past. Cooper has seen the light;
are the rest of you so foolish as to deny yourself life based on some absurd
loyalty to people you have never met personally?]<<<<<
-- Herr Ganz <11:44:22/9-17-54>
Message no. 2
From: The Wyrm Ouroboros <aalberdk@******.SAN.UC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Of Men and Machines
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1993 07:37:45 -0400
>>>>>[**Delayed Transmission: Written: 2:00:00/9-19-54
If I'm a smart toaster, I'd hate to see what a 'smart microwave' would
be considered to be. Ah, yes. Hmm. Well, M. Ganz, there doesn't
seem to be anything I can really say in countering you. Gosh, your
logic has simply surpassed all of my circuits.

'Course, I tend to use intuition a lot, something I'm sure you've heard
of. (Probably discarded it, too.)

Considering that I've .always. used such 'base expression', there's no
real change in either my intelligence or my propriety from what I was to
what I am. Go ask Lady Phoenix. Besides, I usually utilize idiomatic
speech patterns similar to my audience; if you care to play verbal one-
upsmanship with words, I am more than adept to the situation.

Ah, yes, and there arrives the 'I have a brain, you don't.' Quite on
time; were it to arrive any later, I'd've been surprised. Perhaps I no
longer have a fleshly brain, M. Ganz, but I have consciousness and being
-- and I have sampled brains as though they .were. nodes. William 6174
had a most complex brain; Moebius and I are still decoding the sequences
written within.

I hold no delusions of grandeur, only statements of fact. You are
attempting to acquire control over the visitors of this node by means of
information. Most information today is acquired through contact with
the world interlinked network of computers and allied systems,
colloquially referred to as 'the Matrix'. As a full-time resident of
said network, and as a specialist in acquiring, modifying, destroying,
and creating information existant within said network, logic as well as
intuition dictates that such a resident would have an extreme amount of
control over information flow.

I have been in this business for twenty-three years. I have seen more
changes come about than I care to catalogue, and I have adapted to each
and every one. I did not particularly ask for .this. change, but it was
either this or else work for the people I most despised, creatures of
evil and hate far beyond your own picayune machinations. Machiavelli
would have been considered a beginner, so intricate were their ploys;
they are no more. I have adapted again, and I will continue to adapt.

If that is not a symbol of a living creature, then no such things exist.

Go ahead and terminate me, m'lord Ganz. Put me in a non-negotiable
circumstance regarding my past and secrets. I declare myself opposed to
yourself and your organization, and will proceed to use what few means I
have at my disposal to belittle, pester, and bring to ruin any and all
designs you and your people may have.]<<<<<
-- The Dead Decker (Sent: 7:20:00/9-19-54)

>>>>>[[**ERROR: File Not Complete. Send rest of file:
------------
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE: Initiated
[**PLACEMENT LOCALE: Denver Shadownet Databanks
[**IC SPECIFICATION: IC Construct Ident 'SW2.3.3 StoneWall'
[**IC SPECIFICATION: IC Construct Ident 'NW1.9.12 NightWraith'
[**IC SPECIFICATION: Specific MPCP, Matrix Identification 'Ganz'.
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE RUNNING.....
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE RUNNING.....
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE RUNNING.....
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE RUNNING.....
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE: Complete: SW2.3.3 -- 5 active.
[**IC PLACEMENT SEQUENCE: Complete: NW1.9.12 -- 3 active.
[**SEQUENCE/MODE: DX5344cc81: Foreground
[**DX5344cc81: Running.....
------------
Time of log file creation: 2:00:14/9-19-54]<<<<<
@@******* (7:20:10/9-19-54)

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.

Thwap!