>That doesn't seem like a haunting in the usual sense; that sounds more
>like a small god has taken up residence inside the machine, feeds on
>the deckers' devotion to the vending machine, and turns it into
>miracle noodles.

Well, I didn't mean "haunted" in a sense that automatically implied some sort of evil--just that there's definitely something supernatural going on. Two somethings supernatural, actually, since the machine produces noodles out of nothing and just sort of... appears wherever the con is happening each year.

>An opportunity like that comes by but rarely; the god
>moved into the machine like a hermit crab, gave someone noodles
>despite the lack of supplies, and their residence became a shrine. By
>itself, not especially malevolent, but there may be conext or spoilers
>I don't have showing they actually have a malign plot.
>
>But I want to believe in Noodle God.

Yeah, it's probably something like that. There's no suggestion that it's ever done any harm, apart from a mention that one unsuspecting con worker got a bit scalded on the hand because the machine produced hot noodles when no noodles were expected. I think the con organizers are more freaked out by the fact that they can't get rid of it than they are about the noodles-from-nothing part itself. It's a world where magic is real and has been for 44 years at the time of the game (the Awakening happened in 2012 and SRHK is set in 2056), after all. Just the noodles themselves shouldn't be grounds for panic. :)

Also, I have just discovered that the Noodle Extruder appears in the expansion, Shadows of Hong Kong (which you can only play once you've completed the main campaign). One of the members of your crew is a Rat shaman named Gobbet (no, seriously--there's even a conversation branch which will reveal that that's her real name, not a street name), and there's a running joke that a) her room in your safehouse is a hideous mess at all times and b) she can and will eat absolutely anything even vaguely foodlike, up to and including oysters that have gone off. Apparently, and I haven't verified this myself because I don't have a complete-game save yet, but apparently in Shadows of Hong Kong the DeckCon Noodle Extruder has mysteriously appeared in Gobbet's room.

As one Steam commenter put it upon learning this detail, "12/10 game of all the years." :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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