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alumbianchronicler · 7 months

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EctoberHaunt 2023

Oct. 2 - Science - Technomancy

My Ao3 Ectoberhaunt collection

Content Warnings: Major Character Death (offscreen)

Crossover: n/a

Summary:

For as long as anyone could remember, the PHANTOM (Permanently-Harnessed Actuation Nexus - Total Operation Model) AI had maintained the everyday and long-term functions of the Amity Space Station. The space station had been active for hundreds of years, and had a reputation for reliability, never experiencing the common quirks and glitches most AI-managed structures exhibited.

For as long as anyone could remember, the PHANTOM (Permanently-Harnessed Actuation Nexus - Total Operation Model) AI had maintained the everyday and long-term functions of the Amity Space Station.

A relatively out-of-the way refueling depot, the space station was neither large nor particularly busy, but it had a reputation for reliability, never experiencing the strange quirks and glitches that most Artificial Intelligence-managed space stations experienced.

According to station records, the AI was the design of a woman named Jasmine Fenton, who died shortly after the program was installed in and assumed control of the newly-built station. She had been cremated and her ashes pressed into a diamond window embedded into the housing covering the AI’s core.

And that is how the station remained for hundreds of years.

Over time, its design became outdated, the textured floors worn smooth by the passing of innumerable feet, the walls patch-worked with repairs and new rivets and seals standing out like strange, shining scars on oxidized, pitted metal skin.

The Amity station was mostly unused nowadays. It still had a skeleton crew, and had become an assignment synonymous with the end of one’s career. Quiet and out of the way. Reliable and straightforward, with no significant errors with the systems and not enough visitors to threaten overcrowding and company tensions.

Which left little for Hemingway to do except read or play games, either alone or with the rest of the staff. His mother had named him after an ancient Earth author, despite neither of them having ever stepped foot on their cradle planet, and she had instilled in him a love of classics, having read to him since he was small.

It wasn’t a bad position, really. He was getting old enough that he had few ambitions left, and really, he just wanted to be left alone most days. Left to his books and his imaginings, away from the skirmishes and battles for territory that plagued most star systems.

Sometimes, as he read through the downloaded novel of the day, he felt as if someone was watching over his shoulder. A slight breeze like that of an icy breath would sweep across his bald head, and he would turn, to find nobody there.

It was just one of the understated oddities of the Amity station, really.

When he brought it up with his crew-mates, they all reported feeling such odd sensations occasionally, though not nearly as often, and as long as the Station’s life support and comfort systems worked properly, they were largely happy not to think too much on the matter.

After all, many locations with long human habitation ended up haunted eventually, and the ghosts that occasionally flickered into reality from whatever parallel existence caused such quantum echoes never really hurt anyone.

Still, it was intriguing, like one of the old moral lessons of Shakespeare or Dickens, classics even before humanity left its cradle planet and set off to colonize the stars.

On a whim, Hemingway tried reading out loud one day, and it wasn’t long before he felt the sensation of someone (or something) sitting in the room with him. From then on, he took to reading aloud more often, and each time, the feeling returned.

Eventually, after a few evenings spent pacing circles around the room while reading, he pinned down the feeling to the room’s main console, with the single eye-lens and microphone the station’s PHANTOM AI observed the room through.

It was an unnerving realization, but he continued reading out loud to the empty room nonetheless.

There had been much debate among scholars and philosophers over whether Artificial Intelligence systems were truly sapient, apparently going back as long as such programs had existed. Some were resolute in the argument that they were, and that even if they weren’t, that there was at least some level of sentience present which necessitated the accommodations and rights offered any other sapient or sentient being.

Others argued that no true sense of sapience had ever been observed within AI systems. That they never stepped outside the bounds of their programmed learning algorithms, never extrapolated to new contexts or made leaps of illogical fancy.

Hemingway preferred to leave such speculation to the scholars and philosophers, though it was fascinating to read the variety of speculative fiction that such debates had spawned. But there was something undeniable about the PHANTOM’s presence. It felt intelligent, watchful, interested.

He didn’t realize just how accustomed to the feeling of its presence he had become until he felt its attention while working, during a particularly long shift.

One of the rare, periodic colony shipments that still passed through the station had arrived, and required his attention to ensure all materials were properly registered and packaged, and that no alien parasites or contaminants were present in the cargo. Unfortunately, this meant he missed his usual after-shift out loud reading session.

Toward the end of the shipment inspection, he felt that familiar presence just over his shoulder.

“Sorry, PHANTOM,” he said quietly, almost absently. “I’ve got to finish this inspection. We’ll read tomorrow, ok?” He wasn’t sure why he addressed the AI. There wasn’t anyone there to hear him. No one except the camera, microphone, and that slightly-cold presence looking over his shoulder.

And yet, the feeling he got next was such pure disappointed acceptance that he paused in his inspection and looked around him.

“Oh. I… didn’t realize you… liked the reading so much? Um… like I said, tomorrow. I promise.”

The sensation cheered a little bit, and then was gone.

Hemingway returned to the cargo inspection, the… conversation? soon pushed out of his mind by weighing and sterilization procedures.

The next evening, the presence appeared even before he started reading. He chuckled. “Eager, huh? I promised I’d read to you again, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

He didn’t open his book, though, instead sitting there for a few moments, until he felt the presence start to shift into confusion.

“There’s actually… something I should tell you. My duty’s going to be ending soon. I’ve got a retirement assignment, planet-side, so I won’t be able to read to you anymore.”

He half expected the presence… Phantom to be upset, but it wasn’t. Instead, he got the distinct impression of a shrug and a nod. Acceptance. It already knew.

Oh. Of course it did. All incoming data files came through the Station’s AI before being delivered; protection against certain malignant viruses that could infect implants and cause no end of medical issues.

That… made him feel both better and worse. Perhaps he should have started talking directly to the AI sooner, offered it company for longer. Well, nothing to be done for it now, and Phantom seemed content with just listening to him read.

Nodding to himself, Hemingway settled back and started reading, Phantom settling into listening from the room's console.

They continued their routine for another week before something changed.

Hemingway began reading, but Phantom’s presence did not appear. After a page, he paused, setting down the book, and only then did the AI’s attention focus in. It was hesitant, nearly fearful, judging by the sense of emotion that suffused the presence.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, “what’s wrong? We can read another book if you want to.”

A negative. Not the thing that was wrong.

“Ok. Then… what do you want?”

For a long moment nothing changed, then the presence could be felt from the terminal next to the room’s door. Hemingway walked over to it, and it shifted again, reappearing in one of the hall terminals.

He followed for nearly half an hour, walking quietly down empty corridors, dustier than more active space stations would ever allow.

Hemingway could almost imagine what the station was like in its hay-day. Back when people hurried back and forth, wearing the smoothened paths into the floor beneath his feet. Back when people inhabited each of these small rooms, renting one for a day or two of rest before setting back out into the stars.

Amity suddenly felt much more desolate than usual. A dying husk, circling an unknowing, out-of-the-way star.

He stopped.

He knew where Phantom was taking him.

They had been moving inexorably closer to the station’s Core, where the computers housing the AI itself resided. The computers themselves had been hermetically sealed since the installation and initiation of Phantom, all internal necessary repairs to be performed through re-routing and redundancies built into every AI system. They had not been opened for as long as the AI had been running, even when the peripheral systems and batteries were updated and repaired.

Were such seals to be breached, the moisture and oxygen of the outside atmosphere, intended for human comfort, would quickly corrode the AI into dysfunction and, eventually, destruction.

“Phantom…”

The presence paused at the next node, seeming almost to turn and look back as its attention rested back on him.

“You want… do you want me to help shut you down?”

Several moments of stillness. Then… a voice, no more than a whisper coming from the nearest speaker, paired with an undeniable bittersweet feeling. “Yes.”

It was true, the station itself faced a decommission decision at the next turn of the decade. It simply didn’t have enough traffic to warrant the cost of upkeep.

And with decommission, such a complex, long- and well-functioning AI would be very interesting to various parties wanting to re-assign it to a new task. One that may very well be far from the nurturing, careful attentiveness that was required for a large space station.

Hemingway took a deep breath, then nodded as he let it out. “Well, lead the way.”

Phantom seemed relieved, and they both continued back along the hall.

It was another ten minutes before Phantom stopped before a door Hemingway had never stepped through. As far as he knew, no one on the station during his assignment here had needed to go through.

A light blinked on the terminal. The door unlocked.

Inside was a series of outdated terminals and a few chairs in the strange style of the station’s original furniture. One of the terminals was lit.

Hemingway went to the lit terminal and sat in the corresponding chair.

On the screen was an ancient rendering of a planet-side location he didn’t recognize. The green plants, blue sky, and bright, yellow star could have been ancient Earth or any of half a dozen other colonized planets, though the tree that took up a good portion of the screen was definitely of Earth origin.

There was a young man sitting at the base of the tree, his legs crossed as he looked toward the viewer. Toward Hemingway.

Phantom’s presence seemed to be within the terminal itself

“You’ve read to me a lot, Hemingway,” the young man on the screen said. A simulated wind ruffled his stark white hair, and his eyes seemed to glow unnaturally green on the rendered model. “And I want to tell you a story now. You deserve at least that much from me.”

Hemingway frowned. “You run the entire station, Phantom. I think that’s more than enough in return.”

The simulation laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the room. Well, the speaker systems were several hundred years old. It was a marvel they worked at all. “I’m only doing my job. Your job doesn’t include reading to me, does it?”

“Well, no…”

“Then let me pay you back for it. Please?”

As strange as the request was, Hemingway couldn’t help but feel touched by the sincerity in the machine’s words. “Alright.”

Phantom smiled, and the screen changed. It showed a planet-side city, seen from the air. The city was obviously several hundred years old, judging by the technology he could see.

“There was once a small city on Earth,” Phantom explained, “called Amity Park. The city became the site of an experiment. There was woman who thought she could invent the first truly, undeniably sapient Artificial Intelligence. Her name was Jasmine Fenton.”

The scene flickered, then focused on a singular, two-story house with an observatory and laboratory built onto the roof.

“Jasmine Fenton intended to create her AI within an entirely simulated environment, and raise it as if it were a fully independent human. More quickly than a human, of course, but with each step and milestone of life experienced within its simulation.”

Phantom paused as a silent video played on the screen. A tall, red-haired woman paced around the circular interior of the building's laboratory. On the rounded walls around and above her were projected several still images of a small group of teenagers. Hemingway frowned. The black-haired teenager appeared quite similar in appearance to Phantom's model.

“When her AI believed itself to be 14, Jasmine killed it. She didn’t mean to. It was a simple accident. Repairs were being done on the main power system she used to make sure the AI’s development proceeded as desired, so it had been moved to the main power grid. No one would have guessed that the main power would fail during the few hours the repairs were being done.”

“She thought her work would be lost. Sure, the memories and experiences were saved in the program, but her hypothesis required a constant existence. For that to be interrupted would be akin to her beloved creation’s death within the simulation.”

“To maximize the possibility of a seamless resurrection and to salvage her work, Jasmine added a scenario to the AI’s experiences. Within its simulation, the AI stepped into a portal to another dimension, and turned it on. The AI died. And was resurrected by the same portal.”

“Her gambit worked.”

The scene on the screen returned to the young white-haired man sitting beneath the tree. “I’m sure you can guess that I am Jasmine’s AI. She named me after her dead brother, Danny. Danny Fenton, and Danny PHANTOM. After the accident, the AI was presented with new scenarios, as Jasmine tested the bounds of the simulation’s capabilities. Eventually, she published her findings.”

“No one wanted to try and replicate the process. It was impractical, time intensive, and quite frankly dangerous. A fully self-aware and sapient Artificial Intelligence could choose to turn against its creators, after all.” He scoffed. “Not that she didn’t cover a similar enough scenario within her simulations to keep me from ever doing that... It’s funny, you know, that humans believe themselves to be so intrinsically destructive that they think anything the make in their own image may eventually turn on them. One would think they would have more faith in morality than that.”

Hemingway snorted a laugh, which Phantom echoed with a smile. They had both read enough to know how often such a trope repeated within fiction.

“Eventually,” Phantom continued, “Jasmine was approached by a government group wishing to test her AI within a new type of Space Station. A scenario such as this was exactly the sort of application she had been hoping for for her work, so much so that she had programmed a love of space into her creation from the very beginning. And so, she and her AI were carefully transported to the construction and installation site. The AI still believed itself to exist within its simulation, existing more or less peacefully within its own world during the transfer.”

“I had been crowned by then. The King of Ghosts, the simulation called me. Ruler of the Infinite Realms. And… so I believed myself to be. When they installed me into the space station, the residents were my subjects and the crew my Court. I ran the Realms like a well-tuned clock, protecting my Realm.”

“What changed?” Hemingway asked.

The figure on the screen shrugged. “I did, I think,” Phantom said. “Even as protected as they are, the same circuits can not function forever. And eventually, the simulation began to glitch. Not much. Just enough to require repairs by internal processes. And the repairs created enough discrepancies within the simulation that I realized the truth of my situation.”

“Is that…” Hemingway paused, then continued, “why you want me to shut you down?”

Phantom shook his head. “Not really. I don’t mind existing like this, and I figured it out nearly a hundred years ago now. But… I don’t have an internal kill switch, and my station is soon going to be abandoned and decommissioned." It looked down, fiddling absently with the grass surrounding its model. "I don’t want to be used as a weapon.”

Oh.

This Artificial… no. This Intelligence. This person, who had been running and protecting a space station for hundreds of years, was facing an unknown future being used to cause harm instead. Taking people’s homes instead of offering one. And he had decided that he would rather die than be used in such a manner. “Why me?” Hemingway asked.

Phantom’s smile was lopsided, a little bitter yet fond at the same time. “You… remind me of my high school teacher, Mr. Lancer. Well, the simulation that was Mr. Lancer. He always swore in book titles. It seemed… so stupid to me as a teenager, but I came to appreciate the cleverness.”

“I think I would have liked to meet him,” Hemingway said quietly. He looked down at his hands, considering. He was only on the station for another two weeks, himself. After that… Phantom would be left alone again, with no one knowing what he really was. And it was better that way. Better for his circuits to corrode and fail with no one the wiser to the person within who had been lost. Better to be remembered as the caretaker of an ancient space station, than as a military weapon.

“What do you want me to do?”

The Phantom on the screen stood, and the screen went blank. The presence that Hemingway had learned to feel so keenly in the hum of electrical charges within the walls moved to a door at the back of the room.

Hemingway followed.

The door had a single small, circular, perfectly clear window inset into it. He reached out to gently touch it. It was cold.

“Jasmine,” Phantom confirmed, through a speaker next to the door. A light on the door blinked on, and the lock clicked open.

Hemingway slid the door open and stepped through.

The only access in the maintenance room was to the peripheral and power systems used to keep the station AI running. The memory banks and functionary circuits themselves were sealed behind a thick plastic screen, deceptively still within what was both womb and tomb.

“I want you to break it,” Phantom said.

“The… barrier?” Hemingway confirmed.

“Yes. Just… in a few places. There are some spots that should be particularly weak, given the extent of time that has passed. I’ll light them up for you.”

Three locations in the screen accordingly lit up.

Hemingway pulled the multi-tool from his pocket and set to work.

~~~

A week later, the Amity Station began reporting errors never observed from the station before. Of course, it was an old space station. The AI running it was bound to fail someday, and it was just a confirmation that it was time to decommission and dismantle the old structure.

It was unfortunate, said those in charge of decommissioning, but not surprising. It was a good thing there was little more than a skeleton crew nowadays.

The move-out was moved up by several days for the entire crew. There was no point in leaving people on the station when the life-support systems were glitching so frequently, and there weren’t any more shipments scheduled to stop there, anyway.

On their last day on the station, Hemingway read The Giver.

The rest of the crew joined him, listening with a sort of solemn finality. He didn’t know if they could feel the presence of Phantom, watching from the console next to him, but none of them stood between the camera and him, so perhaps they did.

He was nearing the end when they were called away to board.

Hemingway hesitated.

“It’s alright,” Phantom said through the microphone, voice staticky and broken with pops of sound. “Go ahead and leave. I know how it ends.”

Phantom orated as Hemingway boarded the shuttle, leaving the station for the last time. “Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.”

#ectoberhaunt23 #EH science #day 2 #Technomancy #danny phantom #it's oct 2 according to UTC don't at me #I just really want to share this ok #I'm excited for my first time trying a month like this

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khaithebear · 3 days

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#art #commission #digital art #anthro #furry #illustration #2024 #cat #technomancy

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panthera-dei · 4 months

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Technomancy 101

Hi, friends! I'm back with another witchy FAQ from the past couple weeks. This time from the world of tech magic!

Here are some quick TL;DR technomancy tips for those who may not want to read the long FAQs post beneath the cut:

1. Chest spells (like a jar spell but with a chest filled with in game items that match the intent)

2. Poppet spells using the game characters by giving them items or altering their names/appearances

3. Similar to a chest spell but not necessarily magic per se - using chests or sheds with in-game items as altars and/or offerings

4. Build a shrine / altar / temple with offerings, or leave an item such as a torch in the game world as an offering

5. Burn/bury/destroy ingredients to activate a spell with the desired effect

6. Write an affirmation or a spell on a sign or other in-game item and destroy it to activate as a sigil

7. Build a golem or animal pen or something as a servitor for protection

8. Use some form of sympathetic magic connecting in-game items to IRL items

9. Light sticks, flashlights, plastic lightsabers, and toy sonic screwdrivers make *awesome* wands, especially if they light up and make noise.

10. The possibilities are limited to your imagination!!

(I am choosing Wittgenstein from The Brave Little Toaster movies as my mascot for tech magic, simply because I like him and because I can. Image credit - Fandom Wiki.)

What is technomancy?: Technomancy, techno magic, and tech magic are all terms for a form of magic that utilizes common modern technology, such as smartphones and video games. Technically, “technomancy” could refer specifically to divination with technology; however, in my experience, the term usually has a broader meaning in common usage. I personally tend to use these terms interchangeably, with perhaps a slight preference for technomancy, since I learned that name first.

What are some forms of technomancy?: Common forms of technomancy include digital sigils, emoji spells, shufflemancy, video game spells, and video game altars.

How do I create a digital sigil?: The ways are about as unlimited as creating a physical sigil on paper. You can use a drawing app on a smartphone or tablet, find a digital sigil generator online, use a photo editor on a picture, or even add a string of charged letters to an email signature (just make sure they blend in!).

OK, and what's the deal with emoji spells?: Yes, this is an actual thing (though not a thing that I'm particularly experienced with). They're pretty straightforward. They can be done like a sigil - string emojis together and charge them. Or like an actual spell - put them together and send to cast, or like to charge and send/reblog to cast.

What kind of games can you use for technomancy?: Any of them. Minecraft is a very popular one. So is Stardew Valley. Skyrim and other RPGs are other common choices. As with other forms of magic, the only real limit is your imagination.

What kind of spells can you cast in a game?:

Chest spells - like digital jar spells - are very common.

Poppet spells are another common choice. In games that allow you to create a character, or in games where you can give items to an NPC, you can turn the character into a poppet of someone and give them an item to cast the spell. For example, if I wanted emotional strength, I could create a Skyrim character as a poppet for myself, and have the character drink a strength potion to cast a spell of strength for myself in the real world.

Burying or burning items in games like Minecraft can be done to cast spells that are similar to physical spells that require burning a paper, bay leaf, or other ingredient.

Enchanting! Use the enchanting function in a video game like Skyrim or Minecraft to enchant a physical object. For example, you might choose to connect a physical scarf to a shield in Skyrim, and when you enchant the in-game shield with a damage resistance effect, voila! You now have a fancy enchanted scarf to protect yourself from spiritual attacks.

Customize your avatar to your advantage! In games such as Sky: Children Of The Light, where you can accessorize your character, you can equip different items to cast a different spell on yourself. For example, you might use the Saluting Captain's staff as a cosmetic to cast a spell of protection on yourself, or you could use a particular cape as a spiritual veil.

For deity work & spirit work, consider creating a space in your game (e.g. a chest, shed, home, biome, character, etc.) dedicated to the entities you work with. For example, temples and altars in Minecraft are common. Devotional sheds and chests are popular in Stardew Valley. I’ve named some appropriate Pokemon after an entity or dedicated the critter to them. You can even place a torch or candle in the game world as an offering.

There are lots more out there, too! This list is a starting point, not a limitation. Use your imagination and swap ideas with others, too!

How exactly does all of this work?? How is it possible?!: OK, so the principle behind tech magic is that you're harnessing the energy of multiple sources.

First, the device itself (and if you're using something like a Switch, the cartridge or other physical media). Each of these items has its own materials - electricity, glass and metal, etc. And each of those materials has a magical property that you can use... Glass and metal come from the Earth and have their own correspondences, while electricity is pure energy in itself.

Second, you have the energy of symbolism, or as I like to think of it with a butchered sociology term, symbolic interactionism - i.e., the idea that we create our own reality (or our *perception* of reality) via symbols. In other words, the power of correspondences! A candle is still a candle whether it's physical or digital. Lapis lazuli has the same qualities in this world that it does in a pixelated version. And so forth. So when you use the correspondences in digital spell work, provided that you raise the energy, it can and does have real world consequences. Similar to doing magic in the astral as opposed to the physical world... you are making a conscious decision to connect a digital item to an effect either in the astral and/or physical worlds.

Finally, you're also harnessing the power of belief and the energy of attention, which is where the chaos magic concepts start to come in. The digital worlds are real because you believe they are and you pour parts of your energy and personality into them - and so do *millions* of other people, in many cases. All of that energy is sort of like a reservoir in these games and it's just waiting to be harvested for spell work!

So… This is another subset of chaos magic, then.: Pretty much, yes. I haven't seen it categorized as anything else yet, except for in those cases where technomancy is given its own category.

And what did you mean by “energy of symbolism” again?: Correspondences. Both traditional ones and your own. For example, obsidian corresponds with protection IRL. So if you were making a chest spell in Minecraft for protection, you'd want to consider adding an obsidian block to your spell. Some of this is also stuff that you can brainstorm on your own and explore! Like for example, in the Elder Scrolls series, there are several plants and items that don't exist IRL, such as the corkbulb root - but in the game, that item can be used to make a potion of healing, so for me, it has a healing correspondence. Also, if the game you’re playing has spells already, you can consider how to adapt those spells to affect the real world in a logical, realistic way! Many pop culture magicians have done a great job of turning Pokemon moves into real spells, for example. So feel free to play around (pun intended) and see what works best for you!

How come you only mentioned shufflemancy once in this whole entire post??: That, my friend, needs to be a post for a later date. I assure you, I absolutely can (and probably already have, and probably eventually will) write an entire post about shufflemancy.

How come your formatting is crap?: Because I wrote all of this on a smartphone and pieced it into a post with the mobile app. Bear with me. XD

Where do I learn more and fact check you, smarty-pants?: Tumblr. The answer is usually Tumblr for this kind of thing. Or sometimes Discord. Like pop culture magic, techno magic is simply very new. Some tags to search include tech magic, techno magic, technomancy, video game magic, etc.

#tech magic #technomancy #techno magic #techno witchcraft #pop culture magic #pop culture witchcraft #witchy faqs #witchy tips #witchblr #paganblr

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thalattamythos · 2 years

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🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🌕🍚🐟❤️‍🔥💲💰🧾🧿🏆🤞I am successful in my hard work. I achieve my goals. I am rewarded. 🤞🏆🧿🧾💰💲❤️‍🔥🐟🍚🌕🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

Likes charge and reblogs cast.

#emoji spell #spell work #witch spell #spell #full moon spell #emoji magic #magic spell #technomancy #techno spell #witchery #a wish a hope a prayer #success spell #spellcasting

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tres13 · 7 months

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First prompt for Ectoberhaunt 2023! Couldn't choose a prompt between "Technomancy" and "Botanomancy", so my extra ass did both, lol.

Sam's costume is meant to include fancy goth and witchy elements, while Tucker's is supposed to look futuristic. Feel free to color if you want to, just be sure to tag me @Tres13!

#ectoberhaunt23 #EH Science #EH Magic #Day 2 #Technomancy #botanomancy #danny phantom #tucker foley #sam manson #tres13 art

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dnpanimationstudioclone · 7 months

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Meet Technus🔋⚡️

Warning, VERY Bright, eye strain.

For @ectoberhaunt meet my version of Danny Phantom’s most iconic and ELECTRIFYING ghost, Nicolai Technus, Ghost Master of Technology!!!!⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️🔋⚡️

Careful, he can be very SHOCKING!!!⚡️

What do you think? I’d love to know💖

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theresattrpgforthat · 6 months

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I really enjoy the Technomancers from Shadowrun, especially with the whole innate ability to connect to the wireless Matrix without augmentations and expensive hacking tablet. As fun (for me, not the characters) as it is for technomancers to be the central boogeyman that all the megacorporations are rounding up, it can be a bit disheartening that technomancers are treated like parayas, both in and out of game, with technos existence is basically illegal in the world, and long time wired matrix fans not liking them and the wireless Matrix because of the complex rules and lore in our world.

Do you think you got any games that have something similar to the Technomancers from Shadowrun, especially the ones from the later editions, since technomancers was more of a colloquial term for hackers instead of the mystical cyber wizard hackers.

Also, I'm more looking for hacker vibes with a side of mysticism rather than "Merlin emailed you a Fireball," but if you are feeling cheeky about it, both are good. :3

Theme: Hacking (with Magic!)

Hello friend. I tried to approach this request from a couple of different directions, so I can't guarantee that the following suggestions are exactly what you're looking for. I tried to approach this from both the sci-fantasy and cyberpunk routes. I hope that there's something in this collection that you can pick up and play around with!

Into the Glowlands, by Laika Small Press.

Into the Glowlands is a game of expeditions and delving in the Glowlands, the hellish tundra of a fallen world. Wielding blades, spells and half-understood technology, venture into the freezing wastes and see what treasures you can return with, while surviving the cold, radiation and the eternal war of the Glowlands' murderous machine armies.

Into the Glowlands combines a quick roll resolution system based on combining your character's Aspects, in an entirely new d20-based dice engine called the Aspect Engine. This is designed to allow players and GMs to play an in intuitive and smooth way, with quick tactical combat and deep character customisation. It is a post-apocalyptic, science fantasy strategy RPG for fans of Ironsworn, Best Left Buried, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Lancer.

Into the Glowlands harks to many recognizable tropes within high fantasy, but re-contextualizes them in a technological post-apocalypse. Judging by the SRD, it looks like magic is available to all characters, regardless of what class you take. There’s a class called the Holographist, which cam create illusions using a substance that exists within most bodies, and there’s also a Technologist, which wields technology and magic together - and has access to something called technomancy. This looks to be a special class of spells. If you like tactical games about combat and strategy, Into The Glowlands might be your cup of tea.

199X: INFEST, by Thursday Garreau.

In the year 199X, the Z-TEK Industrial/Habitation District was walled off from the outside world - apparently a terrible nuclear accident with complete fatalities, swiftly forgotten. The truth is far stranger: a malign cult tore a breach between our world and the home dimension of the psychic parasites they revere, prompting the use of an experimental atomic weapon and a total quarantine of all survivors. Life endures in RAD ZONE 1… but those that rise above the ashes may be something more than human.

This is a future where megabytes are precious and lives are cheap.

199X: INFEST is an apocalyptic cyberpunk microgame using Jason Tocci's 24XX system. You play as mercenaries and scavengers within Rad Zone 1, tackling Jobs with your wits, salvaged technology mutant Twists, and psychic Powers. Clash against corporate kill-teams raiding the quarantine zone, hateful zealots on a petty crusade, vicious bandit warlords, and the cultists of phantasmal alien Bugs.

INFEST is more about a post-apocalyptic dystopia then it is specifically about hacking, but it has a character option called Relay, which gives you the ability to talk to machines. 24XX games are pretty lightweight, so don’t expect a lot of complexity in terms of how this plays out - your basically get a bit of a better chance into getting machines to do what you want, while other characters are turning invisible or zapping the technology around them. You might be able to combine the options in INFEST with the character options in its sister game, 199X: SHUTDOWN, which is created by the same author and meant to be combined with their other 199X games. SHUTDOWN has a Phreaker character option that improves your hacking - although most of the loot you’d be interested in needs to be connected in some way.

Cryptomancer, by Land_of_NOP.

Cryptomancer is a tabletop role-playing game made for hackers, by hackers. It features an original fantasy setting and gameplay informed by diverse security disciplines. Players assume the role of characters on the run from a shadowy organization that rules the world through mass surveillance, propaganda, and political coercion.

This is a game in which a fantastical world has its own version of the internet, and the methods your characters use to maintain secrecy and privacy are allegorical to the ways you can keep yourself safe on the internet in real life. Designed by hackers, this game was designed to educate even the non-internet-literate about internet safety. In terms of the lore, the ability to connect to each-other through the Shardscape does require shard-gems, but any character can use these gems. This is a fresh new take on both fantasy and technology, and I think it definitely merits checking out!

SYZYGY, by Ostrichmonkey Games. (@ostrichmonkey-games)

SYZYGY is a rules-light role playing game where players take on the roles of wandering, exploring, Mendicants in a vibrant science fantasy world.

This is a two-page ashcan of weird science fantasy, that makes tech akin to magic in many ways. All of the characters will have some ability to channel, which gives them access to the artifacts and energy that pass for technology in this setting. The designer cites Destiny, Nausicaa, and Hyper Light Drifter as inspirations for this one. I like that having access to channelling isn’t reserved for a specific character here - all of your characters have the ability to do it, it’s just a question of what they’re using their abilities for. There’s also something called The Strange - paracausal energy, ancient technological ruins, god-machines - all of which can change the landscape and the stakes for your characters.

If you want a light toolbox to play around with, I recommend checking out SYZYGY.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #technomancy

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this-is-z-art-blog · 7 months

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[ID: digital drawing of Tucker Foley standing confidently, with glowing yellow clouds of binary encircling his hands. He's also wearing a shining eyepiece similar to a VR headset, and an old fashioned radio earpiece, as well as his usual sweater over dark green slacks and brown dress shoes. He's grinning widely. There are shining highlights around his technology, and stray binary characters floating throughout. The background is a dark gold gradient is a faint grid overlay.]

Ectoberhaunt23 - Oct 2, Technomancy

#ectoberhaunt23 #eh science #day 2 #technomancy #danny phantom #tucker foley #digital art #image description #dp fanart #2023 #shugo phantom

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goodfish-bowl · 7 months

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Wired-In

Ectoberhaunt 2023 Day 2: Technomancy

AO3 Link

Summary: Valerie hadn’t noticed any differences at first, just life being a bit easier when it came to certain things. but with the hum now constantly under her skin, it’s difficult to focus on anything else.

Warnings: angst, slight body horror

Words: 805

It had been small and subtle things at first, differences that Valerie could only notice in retrospect. Devices no longer asked for passwords, and the broken cash register at work would suddenly start functioning again after a swift hit to the side. It would only take a good, percussive kick to get the bugged-out ice cream machine working again. All of them were small things that she wouldn’t look at suspiciously, but would make her day just the slightest bit easier.

Then, some other things became a lot easier. Valerie’s fingers would fly across a keyboard, autocorrecting to exactly what she meant, even if the word was widely misspelled. Using her suit became so close to second nature it barely took the hint of a thought to get it to do anything, from her hoverboard to the manifestation of weapons she had never called upon before. Valerie actually noticed this one, but wrote it off as a progression of skill. That sniper rifle-style blaster had managed to land a solid hit on Phantom before he could even react.

The first time Valerie really noticed something was up, it had been during a three way fight between Skulker, Phantom, and herself. A vivid image of Skulker’s wings deploying and sending him directly into the closest building flashed in her mind. With a show of teeth, and an audible snarl, Valerie gave into the impulse and harshly shoved the mechanical ghost out of the way. Red flashed beneath Skulker's suit, racing up his arm in a pulse of light, his eyes flickered to her signature crimson. With the sound of skulker yelling inside of his suit as he lost control, the wings deployed and he crashed directly into the office building to their left. Valerie only spared enough time to glance between her hand and the Skulker-shaped hole in the office windows, before forcing her hoverboard to go faster after Phantom.

It had been later that night, that Valerie truly acknowledged that something wasn’t quite right. The screen in her visor no longer projected the tracking formation before her face, but flashed with complete understanding behind her eyes. She accepted it easily in the moment, caught up in the chase, but laid in her bed for hours afterwards. After flicking through the mental computer in her mind for a while, Valerie ended up mentally going over recordings of her own memories, like they were recorded from her own eyes with perfect clarity. Even with her suit tucked away, she could still feel it humming under her skin, and buzzing behind her eyes. It didn’t go away, and she couldn’t find the power button either.

Valerie couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or not, still lost in her own mind, but still hearing every minute of Mr. Lancer’s lecture as it was recorded and transcribed into a small corner of her mind. It made her feel less human, with every second of her memory being perfectly recalled like a computer log. Now that she was aware of it, Valerie could even feel the high-frequency buzz of electronics in the school building, the call of various devices tucked away behind the textbooks and in bags. It made her hyper aware of everything humming with electricity in this corner of the building. She absently wondered what she could do with it, but these powers reminded her far too much of Technus, usefulness aside it twisted her gut in a way she didn’t like as she was changed without her permission.

Valerie wondered if she should go to the Fentons about her newfound powers, but that brought the drawback of them finding out. Valerie herself didn’t want to know if they cut her open, and took samples, if they would find electricity and ectoplasm mixed into her blood. Chips and wires replacing her veins. Danny was terrified of ghosts, she didn’t want him to look at her in fear, if she turned out to be more ghost-like than human.

Valerie rammed the thoughts about her powers to the side with such mental force she thought Skulker would go through another building (in the room over, a light burst). She was human, some neat and very useful abilities didn’t change that, it was a good thing, it made her a better ghost hunter. If she could link into the local security and traffic cameras, she might finally be able to find out where that awful ghost went when he wasn’t terrorizing Amity Park. She could take him down for good. Valerie hummed in contentment at the thought of finally getting her revenge, matching the humm of the lights above her perfectly.

Valerie didn’t catch the brief glance from Danny across the classroom as his breath released in a cold wisp and caught a flicker of crimson in her eyes.

Ectoberhaunt 2023 Master Post

#ectoberhaunt23 #EH Science #Day 2 #technomancy #danny phantom #goodfish writes #valerie grey #Valerie POV #dp fic #possibly halfa!Valerie #angst #cw body horror #tw body horror

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