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[palisairuta]

While reading the Testament Chronicle I noticed that they use the term Datapad and Terminal. I understood the differences in that the datapad was a little like a tablet in that it was a device where you consumed content with the ability to perform transactions etc. The terminal I imagined to be more like an input orientated device like a laptop. But in Testament, they use the term 'hand terminal'.
My character has made his way to a part of the station and now needs to break into a particular dock via a recycling shaft, he pulls out his ('terminal' or 'datapad'?) to connect directly to the maitenance port ....
So basically he is using a device to break into comms structures and hack his way to the docks.
I am leaning more to use a 'Terminal' than datapad?
Your thoughts?
Palis
o7

[Teinyhr]

Off the top of my head, datapad feels like an USB memory stick with its own display and file reader. Terminal feels more like something you actually interact with, yes. But as hacking isn't to my knowledge a realy fleshed out area in the lore, maybe you could invent something like a dataspike or somekind of one-use breaching device that fries circuits or whatnot.

[Samira Kernher]

Because this is sci-fi, and sci-fi shouldn't be more primitive than RL, I tend to write datapads as combination mobile phone, tablet, and laptop. They're as small as a mobile phone and can fit in your pocket, but can extend or holographically project a bigger display and keyboard to use it like a tablet or laptop. (like stuff in Mass Effect)

That's just my personal take on things, though, not something I can backup with canon.

For hacking, you could plug your datapad in, yes. Or use a dataspike. Or go full cyberpunk and connect yourself through wires connecting to your own cybernetic implants.

[Nissui]

Terminal is something I'd normally use as a catch-all for a dedicated connection to a single system, typically a remote one, but as you found that's not how the rest of Eve will necessarily read it.

So, I almost always go with datapad, which I generally treat like a smartphone, and have used in all the manners Samira described below in both roleplay and fiction.

For hacking, you could plug your datapad in, yes. Or use a dataspike. Or go full cyberpunk and connect yourself through wires connecting to your own cybernetic implants.

[Mizhara]

What Stutzer said. 'Terminal' has a meaning. To me, it's an interface allowing access to say, a Station Main Computer or the Ship Main Computer etc etc etc. If you're futzing on a terminal, you're just interfacing with some central system.

[Silas Vitalia]

maybe you could invent something like a dataspike or somekind of one-use breaching device that fries circuits or whatnot.

I like that a lot.

I think I'd use the terminology, "She used her datapad to hack the terminal that controlled the doorway" or something to that effect.

Eve is a world of quantum entangled computers operating across lightyears and rather fancy wifi but I like the idea of having a physical, specialized object to do dirty work. 

Actually I'm recalling one of Verone's chronicles during the Caldari Prime event, iirc a capusleer in the flesh was operating on the surface, and pulled out an access tentacle from their suit or something not unlike Ghost in the Shell, to breach some security.

[Bataav]

Datapads have a page on the fiction portal, in case that's of any use.

[Mizhir]

I am really wondering why our characters still have a datapad/terminal. Why not just use implants? We can control spaceships with our minds, surely it must be possible to add somethign that projects a hud to your retina, tracks your eyemovement, and can let you directly input words.

[Mizhara]

I am really wondering why our characters still have a datapad/terminal. Why not just use implants? We can control spaceships with our minds, surely it must be possible to add somethign that projects a hud to your retina, tracks your eyemovement, and can let you directly input words.

Airgaps. Miz at least is very careful about any kind of wireless access to any hardware in/on her clone. Her mind/infomorph is the only thing she can't instantly replace if fuckered, so unless she has to through the pod, she's not interfacing fuck all with hardware/wetware connected to her brain if she can help it. The exact tech specs of her datapads vary depending on system security. Simple systems like temperature/light control etc in her areas are sufficiently low security that she controls it with gestures/subvocals, while devices potentially accessing opsec information are both vastly more secure in terms of verification required, as well as being as basic as possible in I/O in order to make it easier to safeguard, etc.

... but yes, this is another field where real life has vastly surpassed sci-fi in the short timespan since the setting was first imagined. Just roll with it and update as and when possible.

[Nissui]

Pure Speculation™: I wonder if that was a wrinkle the Jove had already ironed out long before disclosing the pod specs to the Caldari. Could be that the neural harness that's implanted in a capsuleer doesn't have the architecture to handle any superfluous signals, in order to avoid all kinds of unwanted hijinks. Only the patented hardwirings fabricated to those wetware specs can interface with the pilot's nervous system, or some such.

Another potential issue may be the heat generated by processing neural signals in real-time to a binary control device with cybernetic I/O. When piloting, the pod could do the processing and all the cabling we see merely carries the signal. Putting the processor in the brain might cook it, or the metamaterials necessary to operate at a lower temp could be unstable in the medium of human tissues. Putting the processor in the handheld device means an enormous wireless through-put (based mainly on the magnitude of wired connection in the pod) that raises signal strength and security concerns.

Just spitballing.

[Jocca Quinn]

Why not just use implants?

I seem to remember a chronicle / short story (maybe a DUST one) where two capsuleers were specifically mentioned as taking part in a ground op to hack in to something (planetary defence systems?) which they did via interfacing with their implants. I would tend to think that it would be something like deckers / otaku in Shadowrun.

[Samira Kernher]

It's for normies. Yes, capsuleers might have access to neocom implants, but the vast majority of baseliners wouldn't. So most people would still need datapads and other physical devices, and even capsuleers, having grown up with them, would probably feel more comfortable with them. I tend to RP both on Sami -- she makes use of the neocom for some stuff, and is also a big VR user, but she sometimes prefers to settle down with a datapad.