Difference between revisions of "Lost Media, Found Footage"
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==The Meet== | ==The Meet== | ||
The runners - [[Daisy Mittens]], [[ | The runners - [[Daisy Mittens]], [[Gigabite]], and [[Oberon]] - all meet on the Matrix within the abandoned host of a used car dealership, where only [[Daisy Mittens|one of them]] is comfortable. [[Gigabite]] holds herself together long enough for an agent, or an interactive element of the sculpting, or perhaps a secret AI gentleman to appear before them. He welcomes them, asks them about their car's extended warranty, and sheers apart and flits away like the outgoing click of an old CRT. Rearranged now, in his place, the plain looking portrait of a disheveled young woman sits, stiff and smiling. | ||
She thanks the runners for coming and offers some simsense coffee in a styrofoam cup - "I know you people like that sort of thing," - but otherwise gets down to brass tacks. Anthony Elma, Horizon upper-middle-manager, divorcee, and notable collector of physical media, is selling his copy of ''AI Buster'' on chip. She goes on a tangent regarding the series' quality and lack thereof until brought back to the focus of their meeting. | She thanks the runners for coming and offers some simsense coffee in a styrofoam cup - "I know you people like that sort of thing," - but otherwise gets down to brass tacks. Anthony Elma, Horizon upper-middle-manager, divorcee, and notable collector of physical media, is selling his copy of ''AI Buster'' on chip. She goes on a tangent regarding the series' quality and lack thereof until brought back to the focus of their meeting. | ||
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The sale is supposed to happen at a physical media swap meet happening at the Seattle Convention Center in downtown that weekend. The runners have only twenty-four hours before it begins. | The sale is supposed to happen at a physical media swap meet happening at the Seattle Convention Center in downtown that weekend. The runners have only twenty-four hours before it begins. | ||
Good luck, ne? | Good luck, ne? | ||
==The Plan== | ==The Plan== | ||
Revision as of 17:20, 15 May 2024
| Lost Media, Found Footage | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||
| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Anhe | Horizon | Knight Errant | ||||||||
|
Daisy Mittens Funk Gigabite Oberon | Anthony Elma |
KE Investigative Decker KE Investigative Rigger KE Investigative Mage | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| Knight Errant Awareness | Lots of Nuyen, Exclusive Ownership of a Pre-Crash Procedural Drama | Watcher Spirit | ||||||||
Summary
Piracy isn't theft, except maybe this time.
Background
In 2064, a 5-out-of-10 police procedural drama following a newborn AI and the murder of a dozen AI researchers releases on Horizon trid streams to middling praise. Despite average performance, or perhaps because of it, AI Buster, as the series was called, would go on to have a second season greenlit and scheduled for release later that year, on midnight, November 2, 2064. This would turn out to be the least important event that happened that day.
Twenty years later, the second season is considered lost media, and single-minded media machine Anhe, unimpressed though she is with the series and its outdated ideas of artificial intelligence, is compelled to obsess over every scrap of narrative data she can gather.
As it turns out, however, the second season of AI Buster had a very limited physical release as well - one-hundred physical copies released as a special edition bundle of seasons 1 and 2 together. Though all now in the hands of private collectors and weirdos who obsess over physical media in the age of digital supremacy, not one has ever been uploaded to the Matrix, presumably to maintain its exclusivity.
And even more fortuitous, one of them, for the first time in a long time, is apparently going on sale.
The Meet
The runners - Daisy Mittens, Gigabite, and Oberon - all meet on the Matrix within the abandoned host of a used car dealership, where only one of them is comfortable. Gigabite holds herself together long enough for an agent, or an interactive element of the sculpting, or perhaps a secret AI gentleman to appear before them. He welcomes them, asks them about their car's extended warranty, and sheers apart and flits away like the outgoing click of an old CRT. Rearranged now, in his place, the plain looking portrait of a disheveled young woman sits, stiff and smiling.
She thanks the runners for coming and offers some simsense coffee in a styrofoam cup - "I know you people like that sort of thing," - but otherwise gets down to brass tacks. Anthony Elma, Horizon upper-middle-manager, divorcee, and notable collector of physical media, is selling his copy of AI Buster on chip. She goes on a tangent regarding the series' quality and lack thereof until brought back to the focus of their meeting.
Get the chip, she asks, and digitize it. Do what you want with the plastic and silicon afterward, it doesn't matter. Maybe a bonus if they get that to her actually, she thinks offhandedly - she might know someone who cares about that sort of thing.
The sale is supposed to happen at a physical media swap meet happening at the Seattle Convention Center in downtown that weekend. The runners have only twenty-four hours before it begins.
Good luck, ne?
The Plan
Gigs is happy to go offline at the first available opportunity while Daisy and Oberon travel up to Snohomish to meet her at the Ghoul Liberation Express, a comically large and kitted out Dodge General Command that she has parked in the Seattle farmland. Disguised loosely as stray farm equipment, the runners enjoy relative solitude as they heave themselves into the passenger bay. Daisy Mittens, expert rigger, idly talks shop with GIGABITE about her ride before she and Oberon's agent get to work.
A few hours at the Digital Exposition Factory yield promising results. Anthony Elma is corpo rich, divorced, and mad about it. He and his wife, Elizabeth Elma, parted on uneven and ungracious terms - he still resides in Bellevue, right in the heart of a gated community privately contracted with Eagle Security. Some quick examination shows a physical infiltration will be difficult - astral watchers, security cameras slaved to industrial hosts, and an attentive matrix presence all abound.
The team turn to social engineering as a possible avenue out - GIGABITE