[SPOILER] ending with Apex and ending Dr.Vauclair

[aguswings]

So if you side with Vauclair and let him do his thing with the weaponized Firewing, the world gone to ♥♥♥♥ due to the death of dragon, BUT if you decide to hand over the weaponized Firewing to the "benevolent" ultimate predator AI Apex, nothing significant happened to the world (the world is still standing, half of berlin is still there for the Flux State etc.)

the Apex ending doesn't make sense. I almost expect the world would be worse off with a weaponized dragon under the control of an ultimate, "now-liberated" predatory AI

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Haven't gotten that particular ending myself, but I belive the implication was that you crash the party at the eleveth hour.

So the implants and drug regiment that allows control of Firewing are already there, but she isn't infected with that 'dragon-b-gone' retro-virus yet.

[Terra]

The danger of Vauclair's plan was that he'd be able to spread a contagion that kills all the dragons. Without them, the dragon that became President of the UCAS wouldn't be able to sacrifice himself to stop the horrors from breaking through.

While giving APEX control of Firewing is CERTAINLY not a great thing, it's something that can be countered. Maybe APEX doesn't go crazy with power. Maybe the Western Great Dragons round up a posse and roll up on APEX.

[Monty]

The in-game forum articles and ending text suggest that Apex consumes the last of the great deckers, and starts using their personas to further its political agenda.

[Terra]

Originally posted by meh:

The in-game forum articles and ending text suggest that Apex consumes the last of the great deckers, and starts using their personas to further its political agenda.

If you want to extrapolate that far, then APEX itself would probably cease to exist in a decade when the Matrix is destroyed.

[aguswings]

Originally posted by Terra:

Originally posted by meh:

The in-game forum articles and ending text suggest that Apex consumes the last of the great deckers, and starts using their personas to further its political agenda.

If you want to extrapolate that far, then APEX itself would probably cease to exist in a decade when the Matrix is destroyed.

where does it say in Dragonfall, that the matrix is destroyed?

[Xureman]

Originally posted by aguswings:

where does it say in Dragonfall, that the matrix is destroyed?

Not in Dragonfall, Terra is talking about future events in the Shadowrun timeline (remember that the world is much more fleshed out than the games because of all the table-top games and source materials). Specifically, I believe Terra is referring to Crash 2.0[shadowrun.wikia.com] that destroyed the wired Matrix and led to the creation of the wireless Matrix.

[aguswings]

Originally posted by Xureman:

Originally posted by aguswings:

where does it say in Dragonfall, that the matrix is destroyed?

Not in Dragonfall, Terra is talking about future events in the Shadowrun timeline (remember that the world is much more fleshed out than the games because of all the table-top games and source materials). Specifically, I believe Terra is referring to Crash 2.0[shadowrun.wikia.com] that destroyed the wired Matrix and led to the creation of the wireless Matrix.

then as long as the Matrix lives, Apex will subsist and thrive. The AI is cunning, manipulative and quite a survivor.

[Terra]

Originally posted by aguswings:

Originally posted by Xureman:

Not in Dragonfall, Terra is talking about future events in the Shadowrun timeline (remember that the world is much more fleshed out than the games because of all the table-top games and source materials). Specifically, I believe Terra is referring to Crash 2.0[shadowrun.wikia.com] that destroyed the wired Matrix and led to the creation of the wireless Matrix.

then as long as the Matrix lives, Apex will subsist and thrive. The AI is cunning, manipulative and quite a survivor.

That could be said of any AI though, and the Second Crash already has two of them notched among its casualties.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

This is second hand from TVtropes, so grain of salt...

But the decker 'Clockwork' that APEX eats off-screen apperently shows up quite commonly as a fluff charachter in the game books, even way past the crash. Could be a hint that APEX survives.

Could simply be a different 'Clockwork,' though; we're not accatly talking one of the more original sounding streetnames.

[aguswings]

Originally posted by Lord Of Dorkness:

This is second hand from TVtropes, so grain of salt...

But the decker 'Clockwork' that APEX eats off-screen apperently shows up quite commonly as a fluff charachter in the game books, even way past the crash. Could be a hint that APEX survives.

Could simply be a different 'Clockwork,' though; we're not accatly talking one of the more original sounding streetnames.

i don't think the author of Shadowrun Universe can't think of any original name and deliberately confuse us like that.

I think Apex does survive and still run around as Clockwork.. that AI is hard to kill off

[Xureman]

Originally posted by Lord Of Dorkness:

This is second hand from TVtropes, so grain of salt...

But the decker 'Clockwork' that APEX eats off-screen apperently shows up quite commonly as a fluff charachter in the game books, even way past the crash. Could be a hint that APEX survives.

Could simply be a different 'Clockwork,' though; we're not accatly talking one of the more original sounding streetnames.

My understanding is that Clockwork is an established character in the Shadowrun Universe (i.e.: game canon, his article is here[shadowrun.wikia.com]).

Any mention of APEX that I've seen so far comes only in relation to the games developed by HBS. I personally do not consider HBS games as canon, however if Jordan Weisman says it is then it is (*sigh*, I personally thought APEX was lame).

Because of this, to me it is less about whether APEX survives - I do not consider him as "really" existing at all in the SR universe.

[steelcoresoviet]

Well if Clockwork is killed off, all the more reason for an unoriginal type to adopt the name.

Patent law is somewhat more loose on Shadowlands.

[MattStriker]

Kinda doubt that it's the same Clockwork. The canon guy from the shadowtalk sections is a fairly young hobgoblin (mideastern ork variant) in the 2070s. This takes place in the 2050s. Shadowtalk Clockwork (who is a colossal ♥♥♥♥, by the way...one of the worst ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in shadowtalk, and since that is a list that includes Kane, that's saying something :P) is probably still in school or something at this point :P.

[Graveheart]

Also brought up in another thread is that there probably more than one Clockwork Shadowrunners in the world just as there are hundreds of thousands Shadowrunners named Zero.

Apex on the other hand, is either killed off by you or will be by the matrix crash with the other AIs as has been said. Also, the world is worst off, Apex is killing Deckers, the dragons can't do anything against it really.

[Jactar]

Originally posted by aguswings:

the Apex ending doesn't make sense. I almost expect the world would be worse off with a weaponized dragon under the control of an ultimate, "now-liberated" predatory AI

For me APEX ending made a lot of sense. Basically it create balance of power between Flux State and ancient dragons that controls everything guaranteeing that flux state remains free from draconic influence and scheming as they are backed up by AI that have Monica personality and controls way to destroy all dragons.

Dragons still scheme and make others to attack flux state in that ending but they fail witch kind of proves that now flux state is able to defend its freedoms even against all the power of the dragons.

What APEX ending tells it tells that there is no freedom in this world if you don’t have powerful weapon to back it up. There is no freedom for those who cannot defend it. If you look history of world and look what happened to Indians when European settlers backed up with gunpowder weapons arrived there you get the point how much freedom Indians had when they did not had weapons to preserve their freedoms.

If you don’t use APEX against dragons then you are just like indian when European comes to north America and says everything I say is the truth and if you don’t like that you can always take bullet. You can think that you are free but all your words against European gunpoweder weapons are just words.