Toltec
▂ ▅ ▇ █ ◧⟤⟤⬛⟥⟥◨ █ ▇ ▅ ▂
I C E W A L L
"Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the
other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice."
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a new location of conflict for the WAR OF THE UNDERWORLD mini-event.
- Image Credit: Tron Behance Concept Art @ Disney.
- Canon: No.
- Permissions: Free To Use By Anybody.
- Links: N/A
- Structure Name: The ICEWALL
- Classification: Ancient Firewall and/or ACCESS CONTROL LIST on Denon's Holonet
- Location: Denon | Holonet
- Affiliation: Galactic Alliance | Denon | Darkwire | Holonet
- Accessibility: The ICEWALL is a sophisticated digital honeypot. It is aimed to attract dangerous malicious code and isolate it. It is easy to get into - impossible to escape.
- Description: The physical description of the ICEWALL is incredibly difficult to describe, as it constantly shifts and morphs it's digital appearance. To some it appears as if puzzle box, to others a labryinthian cube. In the physical world, it appears as malware, constantly replicating and infecting public systems to replicate itself and attract other malware for entrapment.
"It's almost impossible to know exactly what's inside the ICEWALL, Shadowrunner. Or even how old it is. That's kind of the point.
Nobody ever comes back.
There's been some tall tales, sure. Rumors that during the time of the Darkness, the infrastructure here on Denon was significantly weakened and the ICEWALL was 'leaking.' Nobody really knows the validity of these claims or who started them, but the rumors persist. Some 'runners claim it's like Limbo, a endless void full of the nastiest viruses the Holonet has to offer. Others claim it's more like a primordial jungle net, code so old nobody's seen it seen the times of the Rakatan and the Gree. For me, I prefer to never find out. You think you see the ICEWALL near you in the 'scape, you run. You run and you keep running and you don't look back. It was designed to capture and indefinitely imprison the baddest of the bad, and you don't want it confusin' you for food."
SECURITY
MAXIMUM.
The ICEWALL ( Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics ) is a defensive ACCESS CONTROL LIST (ACL). On the Holonet, it is without compare, though it's never seemed to have left the local intranet of Denon. Nobody knows why it only protect's Denon's Holonet, but for as long as it's existence has been recorded it has not attempted to leave the planet. It actively hunts malicious software in Denon's holonet, and attempts to isolate it. There are no known cases of software escaping it's clutches once it consumes it, and there is no known explanation for what happens to the code either digitally or physically outside of "permanent erasure."
The ICEWALL thankfully is extremely intelligent and has never been recorded attacking a humanoid or artificial intelligence entering the Holonet. It has, for it's recorded history, only attacked what was identified as software malicious to Denon's Holonet. There also seems to be no method of controlling the ICEWALL, for it's masters and authors are long thought to be dead. So whatever definitions it has for "what is good" and "what is bad" seems to be internally updated, or the ICEWALL is making these determinations on it's own.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The ICEWALL is storied to be as old as Denon itself, or at least the Holonet on Denon. Most paint it as a Gree or Rakatan invention, but nobody really knows. Even when compared to Rakatan artificial intelligence, what is known of the ICEWALL's surface code looks nothing in resemblance. Furthermore, there is no recorded history in all of Denon that covers the invention of the ICEWALL. It is readily assumed to be just a benign protector of the Intranet, an apex predator in it's own right, a hunter without equal or agenda. This shifting firewall keeps it's digital territory peaceful, and that territory in specific varies by day. The ICEWALL is perfectly capable of rewriting itself into another location, governing over different servers in the Holonet, and different locations. It's even duplicated itself before, and nobody knows if there's multiple ICEWALL's at any given time or if they're all linked like a Hivemind. There's just so little information known about this mystery, this masterless unspeaking entity, that all of Denon is happy to ignore it.
Except the Shadowrunners, of course, who are most likely to run into it and have shared the most horror stories about their encounters. No one encounter is the same - the ICEWALL appears different to every slicer and Virtual Reality delver. And though it's been said to be a horrifying sight when the ICEWALL catches malicious code in it's grasp, it's not once ever attacked a Shadowrunner. Or at least if it did, nobody knows about it. It's just ultimately a scary prospect, when considering the wide array of threats in the Underworld, that one of the most powerful entity's in existence is a simple intelligent whitelist moving about the Holonet as a force of nature, consuming what it can and keeping it's kingdom in peace.
As a runner, I could think of only one equally scary proposition -
What happens to its "food" after its eaten?
Last edited:
