120: The Plutonium

ENTRY 120: The Plutonium

Death is still with transhumanity. Some egos don’t want to move on to new bodies; others just can’t afford to. Either way you cut it, death leaves a body behind. Even in a generation where bodies are regularly recycled, there are those that ascribe to traditional notions of corporeal interment, who wish their physical remains to remain unperturbed.

So there are small graveyards and necropolises that dot Luna and Mars, well outside the projected expansion zones of habitats. One transhuman’s biohazardous waste/former evolved plains ape is another transhuman’s treasure however, and many early graves have been uncovered and dug up, sometimes by people looking for scrap and biologicals to recycle, others by academics studying the effects of transhuman decomposition in different environments, or by vandals offended by the waste of time and materials. So for those dedicated enough to die and determined not to be disturbed, they had to get creative.

Originally designated 2212 Hephaistos, an Apollo asteroid and Near-Earth Object, for the last six years the minor planet has been carved into a funerary complex-cum-toxic waste storage materials facility, carved by telepresence robots into an elaborate Neo-Grecian temple with additional Roman, Etruscan, and Byzantine elements thrown in for good measure. Even in the future, industrial processes leave a lot of chemical and radioactive waste that cannot easily be converted, repurposed, or disposed of; the genius of The Plutonium Corp was to find a market where a ten-thousand-year half-life was desirable.

Clients purchase space and are stacked in individual crypts and mausoleums, right on top of spent fuel rods and piles of radioactive multicolored sand and glass scraped out of lunar craters from early nuclear-launch craft. The whole facility is opened to vacuum, with no life support and no power, just a maze of narrow passages disappearing into the dark in the rock, with corpses arranged as artistically as their interment contracts allow. Plutonium Corp does a bit of side-business in guided telepresence tours, usually for family members, but otherwise Plutonium is pretty much a dead rock with no permanent staff.

Using The Plutonium

This is your basic dungeon in space, with a couple twists: it’s abandoned, cold, hideously radioactive, in hard vacuum, and far enough away from major habitats that rescues are likely to take weeks—if they’re launched at all, given that by broadcasting a distress call you’re basically admitting to being a graverobber or illegal scrap merchant. On the other hand, anybody concerned enough to be buried in the Plutonium is wealthy or connected; the radioactive materials themselves have some worth, even if only to build dirty bombs; and of course there’s no telling what else Plutonium Corp may be hiding in their vaults—social stigma against violating gravespace being an interesting additional level of security.

Seed

• A distress call goes out from the Plutonium. The nearest habitat feels the need to investigate, but has no authority and no burning desire to stage a rescue, but Plutonium Corp posts a bounty and together they outfit a ship to investigate, complete with all the rad-resistant vacuum suits and other gear a group would need to survive within the facility, at least for a little while. Now all they need is a group crazy enough to go see who it is and why they need help…

119: Blackballs

ENTRY 119: Blackballs

It’s all fun and games until the first accidental overdose. Police and security forces have been looking for effective non-lethal deterrents for over a century now, in a technological arms race with no end in sight. A popular pre-Fall option were blackballs—a compact missile of artificial snow laced with staining and soporific agents, which could be carried around in an insulated compressed-air pistol. Initial designs were promising: low impact velocity, with force equivalent to a thrown snowball even at point blank range; the artificial snow crystals dissolved quickly at human surface temperatures, and were laced with both a long-lasting chemical dye and short-lasting reuptake inhibitors that cause drowsiness and sexual dysfunction. Blackballs were especially popular on Luna, and employed en masse in a few instances in reply to miners’ strikes, and were even sold to civilians for personal protection.

Blackballs fell out of favor after a series of fatal accidents: a “group suppression release” of blackballs decimated a flock of neo-avians, it turned out the staining agent was toxic to them; blackballs were recalled and re-formulated, but the new mix proved fatal to a group of three neo-hominids dosed during a non-violent protest of the canceling of “Benny the Banana,” a genetically-augmented high-protein savory fruit product and affiliated cartoon program, video games, and merchandise line. Rather than pay to dispose of the blackball stock and weaponry, the parent microcorp Jonez BB Ltd. sold the goods under the counter far afield, to burgeoning habitats towards the Rim. Eventually litigation forced Jonez BB to close, but by then datapirates had liberated the weapon schematics and chemical formulations and posted them to the Mesh for anyone to find. Blackball weaponry can still be found for sale in many Rim communities.

Mechanics

Firearm	Armor Penetration (AP)	Damage Value (DV)	Average DV	Firing Modes	Ammo	Cost
Blackball Pistol	-8	Special	Special	SA, BF, FA	10	Low (Rim), Moderate (Everywhere else)

* A chemical or vacuum seal provides complete protection from blackballs.

Blackball pistols are fired using the Kinetic Weapons skill. By themselves, blackball pistols resemble heavy pistols except for a larger (6 centimeter) barrels and oversized external magazine; the blackballs themselves appear as large lozenges of compact black “snow” held within clear, insulated gelcaps. Blackballs deliver a fast-acting (1 Action Turn) dermal toxin; affected characters must make an immediate SOM x 3 Test or be rendered unconscious. Non-human biomorphs, particularly Neo-Avians and Neo-Hominids, take 1d10 damage as well. Medichines or circadian regulation implants render a character immune to blackballs, as might other appropriate toxin-filtering gear or sleep-suppressants at the gamemaster’s option.

At the gamemaster’s discretion, blackball pistols may fire similar loads featuring other dermal drugs and toxins.

Seed

• A local voyeur has been using home-made blackball loads mixed with hither (Eclipse Phase 321) instead of the usual soporific, targeting large number of biomorphs at parties and then recording the ensuing flash-orgies and for their personal enjoyment. Needless to say, the victims are not amused; anyone that can catch the voyeur in the act can expect a substantial rep boost.

118: Zen0

ENTRY 118: Zen0

“Rage against the dharma chains of cold transhumanity, do not accept the negative karma of your rep, the false avatars that speak to you through the Mesh, cartoon voices offering you loans, work, investments; reject the labels They strive to put on you: criminal, unreliable, bankrupt, immoral, amoral, bad dog…”

- Sample from “Zen Zero Blues,” Luna Productions

Zen0 is a folk figure, a karma assassin, whose dharma is rebellion, an anarcho-infoterrorist who strikes against the digital, legal, social, and financial strictures that underlie much of transhuman society. They have been instigated in the deletion of criminal records, manipulating rep systems to remove black marks, tampering with hypercorp-gathered consumer data, removing user restrictions on public makers, and counterfeiting digital currency. Wanted in multiple habitats, it is still not clear if Zen0 is an individual, a movement, a sophisticated computer virus, or a common alias used by unrelated criminals. The only marker for Zen0’s crimes are small fragments of Mahāyāna Buddhist scriptures imbedded in the code of victim systems, often cleverly hidden so that they are only discovered months or years after the damage has already been done.

Some people break the law out of necessity, others for profit; Zen0 does it because that is their dharma. They are an entity or entities of subtle destruction, undermining the networks that hold transhumanity together—and hold individual transhumans in their place. No other explanation has been forthcoming for their actions, no greater philosophy or purpose behind what they do; Zen0 does not do this for the benefit of any particular individual, nor to expose security weaknesses in the systems. At times, Zen0’s actions have been traced to major local collapses in rep systems or digital banking, but whether this was desired or accidental is unclear.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
30	10	25	10	10	10	15	-

Morph: Infomorph

Skills: Academics: Computer Science 90, Academics: Cryptography 85, Academics: Engineering 80, Art: Electronic Music 35, Deception 75, Hardware: Electronics 80, Hardware: Robotics 75, Impersonation 75, Infiltration 75, Infosec 80, Interests: Buddhism 90, Interests: Online Banking 70, Interests: Rep Systems 75, Interfacing 90, Investigation 65, Language: Native Vietnamese 90, Language: Cantonese 85, Language: Hindi 85, Language: Japanese 85, Perception 50, Profession: Security Operations 75, Programming 85, Research 75

Disadvantages: Enemy (various hypercorps, habitats, and every major rep system), Social Stigma (AGI)

Using Zen0

A shadow with a killer rep, an anomalous mystery seemingly capable of anything but most often doing nothing, Zen0 is a legend for gamemasters to hang a hat on. PCs are more likely to run across the infoterrorist’s work than they are to encounter the infomorph themselves, but if anything bizarre and inexplicable needs to happen to a character’s records, “Zen0 did it” is as good an excuse as any.

Seed

• A lead has emerged on Zen0—three references from an obscure book of Japanese koans which has not been digitally archived, but is only available in a private library of a collector living in a craft orbiting Venus. The PCs are offered a deal: if they investigate independently, then some of the more questionable records of their activities will be sealed and forgotten. However they are being hired, paid, and communicated with entirely online…are they working against Zen0, or for them?

117: Knapping

ENTRY 117: Knapping

One of the great successes of the relicteurs is the revival of traditional knapping techniques, which in recent months have seen a tremendous revival thanks to the livecast survivalist adventures of Regina Rex, Gatecrasher and her trademark blue obsidian-tipped weaponry. Material scientists eager to capitalize on the sudden interest have designed maker-fabricapable synthetic materials whose fracture and stress lines are particularly suited to knapping, and these “blank bricks” are the foundation material for all manner of hand-crafted knapped blades in habitats throughout the solar system. Of course, many knapped blades are of limited utility—it takes considerable skill and the right materials to achieve a sharp, precise edge, and knapped blades are notoriously fragile and low-tech compared to blades made from metal, plastic, ceramics, or composite materials. Social trend-spotters are of the opinion that knapping is probably nothing more than a fad which will burn itself out in the next few months, though the products and technology will persist for years.

While the activity lasts, however, there are money, favors, and rep to be had. Many social networks are besieged with requests for choice knapping materials, from the high-density briny sheet-ice that forms in the Yukata Trench on Europa to the exotic “rainbow glass” found in the Al-Bakri crater, formed from multiple successive pre-Fall nuclear launches. The so-called “micro-knapped” blades from the Belt are considered the most desirable by collectors that prefer workable weapons, having been crafted using traditional techniques as applied by the latest high technology: artificial high-density glass refined to a near-monomolecular edge using micro-manipulators and nanovision magnification, with reinforced hand-carved artificial diamond stabbing points; each blade can take up to 100 transhuman work-hours depending on size and additional artistry.

Mechanics

The applicable skill to create an object is Hardware: Knapping, which applies to all materials (glass, stone, composites, etc.) and technologies, and follows the rules for Hardware skills in Eclipse Phase, p.179. A benefit of knapping techniques is that they are largely designed for minimal tools in sparse situations, and there are currently a surplus of help manuals and skillware available on the Mesh through relicteur networks: effectively, as long as a character has a Mesh connection they can have download Hardware: Knapping 40 skillware and receive a +20 modifier for the extensive online assistance, sufficient to manufacture a weapon from a “blank brick” or sufficiently large piece of glass in 1-2 hours.

Knapped blades are sharp (-2 armor penetration), but the edges are fragile, often dulling and chipping easily in combat, and are generally considered disposable weaponry. When a knapped blade breaks is left up to the gamemaster, and should probably depend on how the PC uses it—trying to cut through hard substances is likely to render a glass knife useless, but a glass-tipped surgical scalpel used only against soft tissues can retain its edge for years. Knapped blades use the Blades skill.

Blade	Armor Penetration (AP)	Damage Value (DV)	Average DV	Cost
Knapped Blade	-2	2d10 + (SOM ÷ 10)	7 + (SOM ÷ 10)	Trivial
Microknapped Blade	-4	2d10 + 1 + (SOM ÷ 10)	8 + (SOM ÷ 10)	Moderate

More exotic knapped weapons might exist—needlers that shoot micro-knapped crystal spires hand-carved by diligent, worshipful AGIs and suchlike—but such technologies are generally little more than expensive (if occasionally deadly) toys considering monomolecular wire and other more practicable alternatives exist.

116: Scale Tree

ENTRY 116: Scale Tree

A dinosaur-skinned pineapple, leathery green-grey scales embossed with buried circuit-patterns. Banned in most habitats, ostensibly because of its addictive properties, Scale Trees are popular in the underground as the gateway to the bloodiest, raunchiest squad-level tactics and combat simulator game in the Solar system. Users are injected into an alternate reality, taking the place of one of a small group under siege in an endless city under a broken dome, fighting each other and a series of waves of alien machines. Outnumbered and outgunned, the players are forced to work together achieve their mission objectives before the petal fades or they die, forcing them to log out of the game. So far, meta-analysis of the game on a strategic level shows that several human teams have not only driven the aliens out of parts of the city, but have used their gates to invade the aliens’ world as a guerrilla force. New weapons, enemies, and locations appear regularly, which is part of what makes the game—and the drug—so addictive.

The actual reason for the banning of scale trees has less to do with the nature of the game than some of the consequences of playing it. Habitual users may not suffer physical damage from the simulated warfare, but develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorders based on their experiences, which become more severe and marked as the user becomes more and more addicted to the game. Further, the highly realistic nature of the game is in part due to the programs tapping into the users’ memories to fill in details, some of which are stored locally in the user’s wetware—memories which can bleed through into their real-world perceptions as terrifying flashbacks where they relive the gruesome combats they have endured.

Scale Tree Mechanics

Type	Application	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Nano	O	2d10 hours	-10	Mental	High

Periods spent under the influence of this petal encourage the development of skills related to squad-level tactics and military professions, such as Academics: Military Science and Profession: Military Ops, and characters receive 2 Rez points that may be spent towards improving such skills for every 50 hours under the influence. Every 10 hours of play, the character gains 1d10 mental stress.

Sweets

Achievement of mission goals, demonstration of team-work and skills, and certain bloody actions unlock certain sweets for users of scale tree petals.

• Promotion (subjective, leadership displayed): The user’s squadmates take note of their abilities and informally promote the character to the next rank; a promoted character halves the number of hours needed to gain Rez points from scale tree (25 hours for the 1^st promotion, 12.5 hours for the 2^nd, etc.). Characters who screw up can also be demoted, which doubles the number of hours needed.
• Scalphunter (objective, 30+ kills in a single session with trophies taken): The user gains the Brave trait, if they did not have it already, and 1d10 mental stress.
• No Pacifists In The Trench (objective, Combat Paralysis trait): Users with the Combat Paralysis trait that take a scale tree petal enter into a mild coma for 1d10 days. When they emerge, they no longer have the Combat Paralysis trait. Instead, they have the Modified Behavior (Bloodthirsty, boosted) trait and 1d10 mental stress.

115: Zelda Amenatsu

ENTRY 115: Zelda Amenatsu

In an age of transcendental personal apathy and self-centeredness, where each ego seems situated on their own personal transformation and entire habitats are given over to the exploration of radical morphs, upgrades, and concepts of being, there remain certain constants to the human tribe—and individuals who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that transhumanity, or at least their version of transhumanity, continues to exist in some form. The mildest of these adherents are so-called bioconservatives, who have formed communities, habitats, protests and discussion groups resolving around the need to preserve and propagate the human genome and form, to retain whatever quixotic, quintessential elements that they believe defines humanity, and without which they believe that transhumanity will not survive, not as it has, even if individual human-derived consciousness continues in some form.

Then there are the Bloody Wrenches, the Clank-Haters, the Meat Brigades, PureGenSect, and all the others. Extreme action groups, gangs, domestic terrorists in all but name, they take the bioconservative ideals and twist and exploit them, or maybe they just get their adrenaline rush by destroying synthmorphs, pods, and exotic biomorphs. When the clanking masses won’t be bullied and cowed, when they start to fight back, these groups call in aces like Zelda Amenatsu—more than an assassin for hire, but a quiet fanatic, the four horsemen rolled into one. Where she walks, death follows, a wake of broken shells and blasted minds, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ironically, Zelda is more of a robot than the synthmorphs she hunts. The original Zelda ego has been psychosurgically broken and rebuilt so many times that little of the original personality remains, leaving only a fanatic hunter at the peak of human physical development. Behavioral controls prevent her from turning on whatever puppetmasters run the bioconservative extreme action groups, while selective neural damage assures she can never identify those who issue her orders and her social skills were pruned out to avoid excess socialization that might jeopardize her missions. Zelda receives commands through certain coded phrases, blending into the biomorph humanity she thinks she fights for but never really a part of them, drifting from habitat to habitat—and when she dies on one of her missions, she knows all she has to look forward to is opening her eyes in a new morph and doing it all over again.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
15	27	15	22	13	16	13	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
7	1	26	5	52	30	7	45

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Academics: Computer Science 44, Academics: Cryptography 55, Beam Weapons (Lasers) 67, Blades (Swords) 45, Clubs (Hammers) 56, Deception (Bluffing) 67, Demolitions (Improvised Explosives) 45, Fray (Full Defense) 56, Free Fall (Microgravity) 45, Gunnery 65, Hardware: Electronics 55, Hardware: Robotics 55, Impersonation 55, Infiltration (Sneaking) 45, Infosec 66, Interests: Synthmorphs (Weak Points) 56, Interfacing 55, Kinetic Weapons (Rifles) 67, Language: Native Belarusian 85, Language: English 55, Language: French 55, Language: Russian 66, Networking: Autonomists 45, Networking: Criminals 55, Perception (VIsual) 66, Programming 5, Spray Weapons 33, Unarmed Combat 45

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack

Traits: Allies (Bioconservative Terrorist Cells), Danger Sense, Edited Memories, Exceptional Aptitude (COO), Modified Behavior (Ability to harm morphs that resemble baseline humans, Expunged), Neural Damage (Loss of face recognition, Loss of voice recognition), On the Run, Right at Home (Remade), Situational Awareness, Uncanny Valley

114: Relicteurs

ENTRY 114: Relicteurs

Skillsets age and lose relevance as civilization and technology moves on. The necessity of creating flint knives through knapping drops to near-zero once superior metal technology becomes available and widespread; foot- and head-binding to achieved desirable body alteration falls out of fashion due to changing cosmetic preference and medical or ethical concerns; in both cases the skills are no longer practiced, and within a few generations are generally lost. Most transhumans rarely give this any thought, aside perhaps from a passing sadness or triumphant glee at the passing of the old ways—but others see this as a criminal loss of knowledge.

Relicteurs are a mostly informal association of transhumans dedicated to the preservation through practice of archaeoskills, the intellectual and physical abilities no longer in widespread use but which they feel should be preserved for the day when they do have some use once again or out of a desire to keep past legacies alive. While it is impractical to practice with certain obsolete technologies and circumstances, relicteurs also maintain distributed libraries of self-crafted and peer-reviewed skillware, most of which are available for free.

Barsoomians in particular have benefited from relicteur training in ancient traditional low-tech building techniques, and security forces regularly access the thousands of catalogued styles of martial arts, many of which use exotic and archaic weapons, and hunting, trapping, and survival techniques from old Earth cultures. Scumbarges tend to be relicteur strongholds as well, with an urgent need to keep at least a few people on board capable of programming near-obsolete programming languages and servicing antiquated but vital equipment.

Among the relicteurs themselves, there is a substantial movement for reinventing or repurposing archaeoskills for contemporary use, finding immediate and practical value in the skills of yesteryear. Knitting and sewing for example have re-emerged as energy-conservative and stylish endeavors in habitats where maker-crafted clothing was becoming a strain on the system; it is less resource-intensive to make a length of thread for repair or embroidery than to re-process an entire article of clothing. Likewise, many Neo-Avians and Neo-Ceteceans have repurposed scrimshaw methods to decorate their bills and teeth.

Mechanics

Relicteur networks on the ‘Mesh maintain a freeware library of skillsofts for archaic skills, everything from Art: Scrimschaw to Medicine: Leeching; it is up to the gamemaster to decide what relicteur ‘softs are available in their game. Skillsofts follow the rules in Eclipse Phase p.309 and 332.

Using Relicteurs

The most immediate benefit of relicteurs is to provide characters with an obscure, archaic skill in a pinch and with a minimal cost or hassle. Run a search, download the freeware skillsoft, then make a test. Used creatively, this can be a lot of fun for both players and gamemasters. If a player begins to somehow abuse the relicteur network (like trying to sell the skillsofts), consider applying a rep penalty or limiting access until the PC makes amends.

Seed

• The relicteurs post bounties for certain highly-desired skills, everything from organic home-made pickles to dates with minor celebrities. The latest bounty involves lassoing, and the last grandmaster lives in an isolated bubble-farm on Mars, herding transbovines and studying the effects of their manure on Martian soil. If the PCs can convince the grandmaster to record a skillsoft and upload it, they can get some sweet prizes.

113: Hope's End

ENTRY 113: Hope’s End

Habitats fail. Life goes on. Hopewell habitat was a mid-size belter colony established on  the asteroid 5475 Hanskennedy. Reasonably self-sufficient, Hopewell had not yet established full trade and social links when comm systems went dark. No one investigated checked to see how the station was doing for nine years.

Contact finally came from an exploratory mission out of Eros, a small but fully-equipped military expedition designed to chart out the station for possible scavenge or recolonization. Fearing a possible remnant of the TITANs, the Red Zone forces exercised an extremely cautious approach, sending out robot probes to tap Hopewell’s computer system from outside.

What they found was a feral colony—most systems in good condition, maintained by automated machinery and routines, but the population reduced to savagery. Of the two hundred and sixty original colonists, perhaps thirty remain, split into three social groups. Faced with legitimate (if feral) owners rather than an abandoned station, the Planetary Consortium moved in, establishing a permanent observation post so that sociologists could study the phenomenon.

The oldest of the survivors appears to be a female in late adolescence, with only limited knowledge of how to interact with the station’s systems, and no access to its higher functions. This, along with supplementary evidence, suggests that some violent unrest led to the death of the entire adult population of Hopewell early in the life-cycle of the colony, leaving the children to fend for themselves—growing up and starting to have children of their own.

While some transhumans protest this “natural experiment,” what interests the Planetary Consortium sociologists is that despite the name, the inhabitants of Hopewell—known generally as “Hope’s End” on the Mesh—have only really been limited by what they can access through the station’s data archives. The first generation residents have self-educated themselves on maintenance, first-aid, basic chemistry, language, music, philosophy, and self-government; their only real limitations in this regard are the checks that their parents and guardians imposed on “restricted” material—including all but the most basic sex education, pornography, pharmacology, and any advanced medicinal knowledge, as well as the administrative controls for the station and certain "subversive" political ideologies and technologies. As such, while conversant on how to replace and clean an air filter, a Hope’s End feral has limited knowledge of childbirth procedures and no knowledge of recreational drugs beyond nitrous oxide, which is one of the principal forms of entertainment.

Seeds

• Jhil Nightbreaker wants to stage an intrusion that will bust open the “natural experiment” at Hope’s End, but she needs a little help—a group of go-to transhumans willing to sneak about the observation post and plant a virus that will unlock the restricted portions of the Hopewell database. Of course, all they have to do is sneak past the Red Zone security while Jhil sets up a diversion…
• After nine years of automated labor and only minimal maintenance, several of the key life-support systems of Hope’s End are near collapse. To preserve the “natural experiment,” the sociologists need a stealth team to sneak into the station through a forgotten airlock and perform critical upgrades. Fortunately, the administration area was off-limits to the children and is mostly intact, so the PC’s only difficulty will be getting in and out of their quietly. Unfortunately, one of the social groups is rabidly xenophobic and will turn their improvised weapons on any outsiders they run across along the way…

112: Conviction Therapy

ENTRY 112: Conviction Therapy

It’s a cold and unforgiving universe, and not all egos are brought into it on equal footing. The old social structures have mostly been torn down, so that transhumans exist in an age of unbridled freedom—but also unbridled lack of structure. There are few expectations, few requirements, and fewer definite directions that transhumans can take—academic degrees and training certificates are less significant than provable skills, and most training emphasizes real learning rather than earning passing marks on standardized exams. Rites of passage are nearly absent, so that extended childhood can pass into aimless adolescence to lost and purposeless adulthood far too easily—years of life lost, just getting by, unable to pick a direction.

Where there is a market, there are those who will arise to serve and profit from it. So there exist corps and individuals that exist only to give people purpose: causes to believe in; tours of military, commercial, labor, and educational service they can contract for; open source busywork for egos of every level of ability; and for those who simply need something greater than themselves to believe in, there is Conviction Therapy.

Transhuman minds are designed for contact experiences. The templates for transcendental experiences are hardcoded in the wetware of the human brain, and can be accessed and activated through various psychedelic drugs or direct manipulation using nanites; synthmorphs can achieve much the same effect with nanoalgorithms. With the proper training and programming, tailored experiences can be constructed and implemented on a given transhuman, and they have a high degree of success, even if the individual receiving the treatment is aware of the artificial nature of the process.

So aimless transhumans can speak to a deity and receive direction for their lives, or be rescued and empowered by kindly omnipotent aliens to pursue their full potential, or undergo a symbol-laden alchemical transmogrification and emerge as a more complete individual—at least in their heads. Conviction Therapy makes the subject extremely malleable and open to further manipulation, and is often combined with other psychosurgery procedures.

Mechanics

Conviction Therapy is a psychosurgery procedure (Eclipse Phase, pp.231-2), designed to make other procedures easier to implement. As such, Conviction Therapy is typically performed in conjunction with another procedure, adding its Timeframe, PM, and SV to the other procedure to determine the final modifiers for the test.

CONVICTION THERAPY

Timeframe: +1 day

PM: +10

SV: Special

Conviction Therapy provides a transformative experience with the aim of giving shape and direction to the individual’s life. It lowers the SV for other psychosurgery procedures by half (round up). For example, if Conviction Therapy was performed alongside Behavioral Control (Boost), the total Timeframe would be 8 days, the PM would be 0, and the SV would be 1d10 ÷ 4 (round up). At the gamemaster’s discretion, on a failure with Conviction Therapy the subject may develop a Minor Addiction to the drugs or nanoalgorithms used in the procedure; subsequent failures may increase this addiction by one step.

111: Smoking Oil

ENTRY 111: Smoking Oil

“We exist in a universe of invisible forces, whose nature we may not sense unaided but whose effects we can measure. Understand, this is a mechanistic universe. We arise from base elements, combined according to certain physical laws; our species, our consciousness is the result of a multi-billion year process, our every action contained within a mere shard of the probability space of infinity…yet a fraction of infinity may itself be infinite, and so is our destiny.” – Smoking Oil, Sermon on Olympus Mons

Philosophies and religions that directly contradict science tend to suffer severe feedback in contemporary transhuman societies; the Mesh has raised the signal to noise ratio regarding contemporary technology and scientific thought to the point that gross claims of supernaturalism are difficult to sustain without recourse to blanket denial and faith. A majority of new beliefs exalt science and technology, or at least a specific understanding of scientific principles, and couch their message in particular eschatology or extrapolation of existing scientific theory—and not always a mainstream or accepted theory.

Smoking Oil is a notable exemplar of one such faith, a sect known as the Clankers. Boiled down, the Clankers believe in a strong anthropic principle, though not one that most philosophers would be quite familiar with. To the most earnest Clankers, Smoking Oil reveals the Secret Mathematics that postulates multiple competing anthropic principles, supposedly waxing and waning in influence to make possible the existence of a universe compatible for certain forms of existence that are incompatible with standard human life—and that these Xenopic Principles are gaining influence, so that transhumanity must soon transition to a new form, or go extinct.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	15	15	10	19	17	15	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	30	6	60	40	8	60

Morph: Synth

Skills: Academics: Physics 60, Academics: Psychology 60, Academics: Religion 70, Deception 60, Art: Writing 70, Interests: Fringe Religion 60, Interests: Fringe Science 60, Interests: Xenolife 60, Interfacing 44, Investigation 33, Kinesics 66, Language: Native French 85, Language: English 66, Networking: Autonomists 25, Networking: Scientists 22, Perception 45, Profession: Preacher 70, Profession: Therapist 44, Programming 30, Protocol 55, Research 44

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Enhanced Senses (Electrical Sense, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Smell, Lidar, Radar, T-Ray Emitter), Mnemonic Augmentation, Multi-Tasking

Mobility System: Walker (4/20)

Traits: Allies (Clankers), Armor (6/6), Social Stigma (Clanking Masses), Uncanny Valley

Using Smoking Oil

Smoking Oil and the Clankers may be played as harmless or as dangerous as the gamemaster requires them to be. In general, Smoking Oil will act as a sympathetic character, soaking in information and encouraging people to talk or express themselves, guiding their personal meditations with carefully crafted questions, gradually leading them to the Clanker philosophy. The full details of Clanker beliefs are left up to the needs and imagination of the gamemaster, but as an individual’s understanding and involvement grows with the small movement, they are expected to take steps to evolve themselves to prepare for the “Xenopic Shift” predicted by the secret mathematics of Smoking Oil’s eschatology, which generally means resleeving from a biomorph into a synthetic morph.

110: Risk

ENTRY 110: Risk

The universe of transhumanity is too large to contemplate every angle before making a decision, but few transhumans make it to old age by being rash and impulsive. Many transhumans, especially older ones or with cyberbrains, tend to become stuck in working through their problems rigorously, contemplating and evaluating each possible action for so long that they miss out on small and immediate opportunities. The lack of decisiveness is especially devastating in the battle, when those who dare may win, while those who play it safe or stop to work out all the probabilities before acting may lose the initiative, and their lives. For those transhumans that recognize this failing in themselves, there is Risk.

Risk was first marketed by Oldtel, a pharmaceutical hypercorp out of Luna that repackages and repurposes centuries worth of medications as cognitive and health drugs. The one-shot inhalers, based off drugs to combat Alzheimer’s, stimulate risk-taking behavior. Originally marketed to military professionals, business people, and the elderly, Risk was phased out of general production after disastrous trial run pairing it with a cognitive focusing agent led to several cases of permanent brain damage. The formula for Risk was hacked and posted to the Mesh, where it continues to find an audience in a small network of users and producers, where user-focused support groups and programs help users to handle the potential outcomes of using Risk. Detractors point out that the Risk community are basically enablers for negative behaviors like extreme sports, gambling, unprotected sex, and greater experimentation with more dangerous drugs.

Mechanics

Type	Application	Onset Time	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Chem	Inh	1 minute	8 hours	-	Mental	Moderate

Risk provides mental flexibility and drive needed to take advantage of immediate opportunities, but it also reduces the character’s judgment and ability to discern and avoid risky behavior of all types. Risk provides 1 temporary point of Moxie to the user; if not used within the duration of the drug, this point expires and is lost. However, Risk users also take a -10 penalty to Will tests for the duration, which may become permanent with extended use. Other common effects of long-term use of Risk include addictions to gambling, unprotected sex, daredevil stunts, etc.

Seeds

• Experiments with a Risk nanoalgorithm by Oldtel have been fairly positive…until a synth went mad and started humping major appliances. The poor transhuman is stuck in a permanent Risk-high, impulse control dropping by the day. Oldtel asks the player characters to quietly capture the synthmorph before ze does too much damage and return hir to Oldtel for treatment.
• A minor chemist in the Belt has been experimenting with Oldtel’s folly, combining Risk with other drugs to focus the risk-taking behavior, and she’s made a bit of progress. Unfortunately, the samples she’s sent out have induced temporary obsessive compulsive disorder-type behavior with regards to their high-risk behavior of choice. Relatives and friends of the afflicted ask the player characters to track down the source and cut it off. Of course, the easiest way to do that is to infiltrate the Risk community itself.