INSIDE THE HOST FOUNDATION
We’ve had seven years to figure out how to work with host Foundations, and while it’s still dangerous, the danger can be managed, if you’re smart and careful. Most experienced hackers have taken at least a few host Foundation runs—or deep runs—by now, but for those who still haven’t, I’ll run down what you can expect.
To get into a host Foundation, you need to make some modifications to your gear. That is, if you have gear; technomancers are good to go as they are, and their friends too, if they can emulate the hitchhiker program. Deckers operating inside the Foundation need the widest hot-sim pipe possible, with the signal sent in a PGO wave format like REM sleep. Standard cyberdecks can’t handle that type of sensory feed. It takes a sim interface modified to these specs >link<. Next, once you have your gear in order, you need to find the host’s portal. That’s the way into its Foundation. The portal will always be sculpted as a doorway, gate, or entryway of some type. I don’t know why that is, but it’s been true for every portal I’ve ever heard about. Examining the icon will tell you what it is for sure, but you can also tell it’s the right spot by the IC guarding it, as portals will almost always be heavily defended. Opening it only takes a simple command, but first you’ll need to get admin access on the portal itself, separate from the host.
Once you move through the portal, a few things happen. First, you’re cut off from the rest of the Matrix, and it may be a while before you can find a way back out. On the upside, being cut off also means that you don’t increase your Overwatch Score while you are in the Foundation, but don’t get too excited—the Foundation has its own defenses. Second, you generate a Foundation avatar that may be totally unlike your regular Matrix icon. Avatars are a subconscious interpretation of your real-world body with equipment equal to what you remember carrying. One difference from reality is how strong, fast, and tough you are. This is a function of your deck settings (or living persona). For example, the Attack setting determines how strong your avatar is. And by the way, you can’t change your deck’s settings after you enter the Foundation, so make good choices before you go in.
The hot-sim signal inside the Foundation is dreamlike and hyper-realistic, an experience like a BTL chip or a UV host. That can be addictive and even dangerous on its own, but the most dangerous thing is usually what you take in there with you. The raw sensory feed of a host Foundation has too much data for the metahuman mind to make sense of. It has to be processed in the subconscious, shaped into an understandable form before it moves into the conscious mind.
This process creates something called the paradigm. It’s a dream state drawn from the subconscious, and it can be literally anything imaginable. Take the wildest dream or worst nightmare you’ve ever had, and it’s within the possibilities of the paradigm. It will be different each time a host Foundation is entered, either a new one or the same Foundation at another time. A paradigm is set by the first mind that enters, and anyone following, either with a hitchhiker program or on their own, will share the same paradigm. It’s like being in a shared dream or hallucination, and it stays set in place until everyone has left. An exception to this is by using an anchor, a written-on-the-fly code construct specific to each Foundation that holds the paradigm in place. More importantly, it functions as a back door, letting you come back into a host Foundation from another anchor without going through the upper host.
All host Foundations have the same structures once you get in. There are always seven sections, or nodes, arranged in the same configuration and with the same connections between them. Since you enter at a random node, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what part of the Foundation you are actually in until you move around some. Each node has its own set function for the host, regardless of what they look like in a particular paradigm. The trick is discovering what metaphor the paradigm is using for a particular function. Once you figure it out, there will always be some type of association between what a node does and what it expresses as, but that dream logic may be extremely difficult to understand.
One other clue: there will always be data trails, appearing as some construct for moving something back and forth, connecting the nodes. The dream metaphor for data trails is usually a little more obvious than the rest of the paradigm; they could be cables, hallways, pipes, trails, or conveyors. The data trails can be tricky to work with, too. Most of the time they are stable and two-way, but occasionally, they will switch to one-way, and not always the way you want to go. Temporary trails can also randomly appear between nodes that are outside of the normal pattern of the stable data-trails.
I’ll go over each node in the order they’re connected, starting with the Portal node. This is your exit point back to the host, but not necessarily where you enter the Foundation, since that’s always random. And you can’t just jack out of a Foundation; you can only exit it safely from a Portal. This is also where you will build an anchor if you want to leave one. The data trails you find here will usually lead to the Archive and the Null node. The actual Portal opening back to reality will be here, but it isn’t always as obvious as the way in, and it may take some work to find it.
Next to the Portal is the Archive. This node is where all the normally inaccessible files are stored, and that makes this node the most common target of deep runs. There will usually be four data trails leading out of the Archive: one back to the Portal, and one to each of the host operation nodes: Security, Device, and Scaffolding.
Three closely associated nodes maintain and control the upper host. The Security node has control of the host’s IC. The Device node maintains the connections to all devices in the host’s LAN or WAN. The Scaffolding node controls the host structure itself. Each of these nodes normally has four data trails. One to the Archive, two that lead to the other two host operation nodes, and one that leads to the Primary Control.
The node that controls the host Foundation itself is the Primary Control. From here, you can alter the paradigm, make it forget you (as in cancel an alert), or even destroy the host. There are four data trails leading out of the Primary Control node: three to the operation nodes (Security, Device, and Scaffolding) and one to the Null node.
Some hackers are still undecided about the true function of the Null node, but many believe it’s the power source for the host. One thing that’s known for certain is that the Null node usually contains the most dangerous expression of a given paradigm. It also contains a hidden portal leading directly to the Deep Foundation, and it can be as difficult to find as any other Foundation portal. The two data trails found here lead to the Portal and to the Primary Control.
