317: Programmers Without Borders

ENTRY 317: Programmers Without Borders

"I don't care about your imaginary lines. I am here to save lives. Get the fuck out of my way."
- Doc Trollman

A need is recognized, a call goes out, and across the Solar system comes the response. Hackers from Mercury to Uranus work to isolate infected systems, forcibly closing connections if necessary to contain the infection, while closer response teams deal with the source malware and work to rehabilitate the living victims; non-active participants work on distributed programming to create the software tools that the response teams use in their fight to save lives. Brushing past official firewalls and security measures, the Programmers Without Borders go where they are needed, and do what must be done.

Transhumanity runs on software. A bad patch or update can cripple a morph. Basilisk hacks can disable and infect entire networks. Poorly programmed nanotech can consume a habitat. These are just some of the software threats that can target anyone, anywhere, at any time. Threats that ignore the ephemeral borders of politics, spreading anywhere there is a network to carry them - which, in the contemporary era, is almost everywhere. No single habitat, hypercorp, or consortium has the skill and power to respond to these threats as they arise, and especially not the ability to overcome the legal, economic, and political barriers erected between habitats and fashions.

The Programmers Without Borders are a network of fast-response hackers, nanoprogrammers, neuroprogrammers, communication specialists, etc. who work together to monitor and respond to outbreaks of digital viruses, malware, rogue AIs, aggressive nanoswarms, bad patches, and outdated or overwhelmed computer systems whose failure threatens the lives of transhumans. While they mostly get the press for their bold actions quarantining stations and the on-site response teams that risk life and sanity to deal with exsurgent digital threats, the majority of the PWB's work is done quietly and behind the scenes - releasing corrected patches, updating firewall definitions to deal with malware, promoting cybersecurity awareness and free firewall programs, and upgrading overburdened legacy systems in scumbarges to ensure that the systems controlling critical environmental systems don't collapse.

The response teams are put together on an ad hoc basis depending on skill, location, and availability; network members located near an outbreak are typically contacted and asked to change their status to "active," which unlocks a number of special resources - long lists of exploits supplied by network members, donated software and equipment, special access rights, etc. - whatever the network thinks they need to get the job done. Active members are coordinated through a controller or operator, who helps direct them to the source of the threat, access points into the infected network, shortcuts around security, and so on. The pressure is immense, but the temporary teams understand that lives are on the line, and give their best.

Sometimes, it's enough.

Using Programmers Without Borders

PWB is a transhumanitarian aid organization with a clear remit and enough grit that they don't take shit off anybody - they will blow through a Jovian Republic embargo to get to an afflicted station if they think lives will be saved, and will ignore the niceties of hypercorp suzerainity or habitat safety and security protocols if it gets the job done. They are explicitly hackers and crackers who utilize exploits to undermine and bypass firewalls and security programs and make no bones about it: they aren't tech support, they're triage squads that seek to save as many lives as they can, and if that means sealing a station off and letting the exsurgent virus burn itself out by eating the brains of everyone on board, then that is what they will do.

Player characters might be members of Programmers Without Borders, and there are worse beginnings to a campaign than have a random group of PCs brought together as a PWB response team while an omniscient operator gives them clearly-defined goals and limited assistance as needed. Unlike Firewall, PWB deals with a wider variety of threats, from rather mundane (if sneaky) stuff like stealth upgrades of hardware and software to being stuck in an orphanage habitat with a decaying orbit and a nanoswarm that's eating everything. Of course, if the PCs end up releasing a digital virus or make a habit of flashing a basilisk hack to solve problems, they might get flagged by the PWB and end up in the unenviable position of fighting the "good guys" of the setting. Likewise, many political and corporate parties take a dim view of the PWB's cavalier attitude toward legal spaces, and while few would risk the bad PR of crippling the network might hire third-parties to disuade, block, and disrupt PWB efforts - particularly if the PWB's actions to contain and/or eradicate a threat run conflict to their own interests.

Seeds

• A rogue PWB group have released a "helper worm" that infects systems and forces them to update their firewall settings - unfortunately, this infection was flagged as malicious by hypercorporate firewall programmers and a PWB response team (the PCs) has been called in to contain the "threat." The result is a confusing situation where the PCs are getting conflicted orders and information as parts of the PWB network actively work against each other, the "helper worm" virus apparently mutating to whatever response the PCs use to try and remove it. How the PCs resolve the situation is up to them, but as the transhumans with the boots on the ground in this scenario, they're more likely to twig to what's really going on first - and perhaps discover that this is all a smokescreen to keep the PWB too busy to see the real threat.

305: The Itch

ENTRY 305: The Itch

Transhumans get sick. Fact of life. It's ingrained in their bodies and minds, the all the familiar discomforts and signs of the body fighting off an infection or allergen. Sneezing, swelling, soreness, itching...these are part of the transhuman condition. They are so familiar that few transhumans think much of them, the casual aches and pains of life that pass only with time. It is only when they persist and worsen that most transhumans start to worry and seek help...by which time they may be too late.

The Itch is one of the less directly offensive versions of the Exsurgent virus, one that rarely produces monsters or psi powers, and many transhumans suffering from the Itch remains undiagnosed, the core cause of their distress hidden behind secondary infections, surgical addiction, masochistic impulse, suicide attempts, and the like. The slow awareness of the Itch as a distinct infection brings with it the possibility of other subtle Exsurgent viruses, disguised to mimic common transhuman conditions and spread undetected. The Itch is spread primarily by contact with infected bodily fluids. There are limited reports that it may spread through basilisk hacks or have a digital variant that effects synthmorphs, but these are unconfirmed by Firewall at this time.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 1 week):

Upon initial infection, the character begins to gain 1 mental stress per day, gradually manifesting as a psychosomatic itch on some specific part of their body in about six days. At this stage, the itch is minor but persistent and distracting; efforts to scratch it stop short of real self arm but my leave the afflicted area red or sensitive, though a rash never develops. The itch can be ignored with a bit of self-control and gives no penalty at this point. Medications (even placebos) can give some temporary mental relief.

Stage 2 (1 week to 4 weeks):

After one week, the character begins to gain 2 mental stress per day, and their psychosomatic itch grows worse—either doubling in size or increasing in intensity every three days—and many characters develop secondary derangements such as body dismorphia, obsessive compulsive disorders, masochistic sexual behavior, etc. Efforts to relieve the itch intensify, and users might improvise scratching tools or seek further medical treatment, though the character's belief in the medications (and thus their psychological effect) tends to lessen as the itch returns. Typical victims exhibit wounds at the point of the itch, and breaks in the skin may allow secondary infections to set in and enable the spread of the virus through bodily fluids. The itch is also distracting, applying a -5% modifier to all Skill rolls. Psychotherapy is still effective at this point, provided the exsurgent virus is somehow eradicated from the character’s system (typically by resleeving into an uninfected morph). Additional complications may arise depending on how much mental stress the character accumulates while dealing with their issues.

If the location of the itch is surgically removed or replaced, the character temporarily ignores psychological derangements and modifier are temporarily lifted, but mental stress continues to accrue. In week 5, the itch returns, and all the derangements and penalties return.

Stage 3 (5 weeks+):

Characters at this stage are consumed by the Itch, continuing to generate 1 mental stress per week just from the illness—but often generate far more mental stress from efforts to scratch their particular itch, with an increasing penchant for self-harm and surgery to remove the offending body part(s), though this no longer has any effect to relieve the character's discomfort. At this point the Itch is so distracting it applies a permanent -10% modifier to all Skill rolls; the a player character can ignore this for one scene by spending a point of Moxie. In the long term (20+ weeks) characters health will begin to fail, represented by gaining the Frail quality. Roughly (10%) of characters at this stage begin to exhibit physical transformations that correspond with the first stage of infection by another strain of exsurgent virus, as determined by the gamemaster.

245: Cancer Dreams

ENTRY 245: Cancer Dreams

“Transhumanity is the cancer.”

- Blaim, exsurgent apologist

Cancer remains a risk for biomorphs—radiation, toxic chemicals, certain diseases, and for flats age and genetic predisposition mean cancer will continue to be a threat for some time, though genehackers continue to work on improved anticancer traits. Yet even a splicer who stays away from cancer causing agents may still in time develop cancerous cells, and even deadly tumors. Medical scientists continue to research the issue point to a variety of possible influences that account for these cases, from exposure to a basilisk hack to micronutrient deficiency leading to improper cell development.

Yet the most popular theory is simply mental stress. The physiological response to prolonged psychological pressure. Because of this, contemporary cancer treatment therapies typically attempt a holistic intervention, addressing not just the specific instance of the disease but the lifestyle that may contribute to its development. Of course, for the masses in scum barges, more effort is put onto the development of treatments that allow biomorphs to live with cancer rather than take the time and expenditure of resources to try and cure it when the patient is just going to be pushed back out into the toxic environment of the scumbarge.

Mechanics

Rather than develop a derangement, a gamemaster may chose for a biomorph who accumulates sufficient mental stress to develop a mild form of cancer. Untreated, this has the potential to spread and lead to major health issues, though once detected most forms of cancer may be healed with a day or two in the healing vat. As with a derangement, any form of cancer will subject the player character to certain involuntary lifestyle changes: pain, nausea, disorientation, personality changes, migraines, lack of energy, etc.

Using Cancer Dreams

Like death, cancer is a boogeyman that can generate strong emotions at the table when it is brought up. Yet in Eclipse Phase, cancer and death have both lost something of their bite. While still dangers that PCs face, they are no longer the absolute terrors they once were, and the gamemaster can take advantage of this fact, playing cancer as everyday and nothing to be concerned about…until transhuman science runs out of tricks to deal with it…

Seeds

• A recent spike in psychosomatic cancers that resist healing in the PCs habitat has sparked a medical investigation, and the PCs are asked to find connections between the patients as they are being treated. Investigation finds that all of the patients had dreams of getting cancer and may have been exposed to a basilisk hack six to eight months ago—and as they close in on the perpetrator, the PCs begin having cancer dreams of their own…
• Malleux, a local handcraft artist, is being treated for a small brain tumor caused by a faulty nanite infection, and as part of their holistic treatment the doctors want to address their stressors as well. The PCs are hired to befriend Malleux for a couple days and shake them out of their hidebound and negative life habits. Complicating the subject is an obsessive fan and Malleux’s agent, both determined to keep Malleux ill and depressed because the more they suffer, the better their art.

217: Gash

ENTRY 217: Gash

Nanoinfection-based birth control did not exactly take off when first introduced. By the time they came around, various forms of birth control implants for both men and women had been around for decades and offered very good rates of protection and hormone balance, so the early nanite systems offered few advantages beyond the ability to be programmed remotely—and that turned into a disadvantage during the much-publicized case of a computer virus that caused six transhumans to spontaneously abort when their deactivated but still present nanite birth control systems were caused to reactivate.

Still, after the technology was mostly abandoned to commercial development, amateurs and hobbyists took up the challenge. Most of them focused on adding additional functionality, sensors, and especially security controls. A number of workable products made it past the alpha stage of development and were made available on the Mesh for personal testing…which is when the first cases of gash were reported.

Exact details on the gash nanoinfection are obscure, even today. It is known to commonly spread through unprotected (or perhaps more accurately insufficiently protected) sexual intercourse, with the nanites able to pass through latex and most other porous materials. Victims are subject to irregular hormone surges often resulting in acne, mood swings, bloating, and sensitivity or development of secondary sexual characteristics such as beards and breasts. The single most common symptom is a periodic shedding of the urinary tract wall, resulting in a bloody or pinkish discharge, which is especially likely to occur immediately after sexual contact. This is believed to have been an effort by the designer to “flush out” possible urinary tract infections, but has become widely known as “the artificial period” or even “the male period,” even though the infection affects all transhuman biomorphs regardless of gender.

Efforts to eliminate gash nanoinfections have been stymied by the rather short duration—most instances last only two weeks before they deteriorate to the point of ineffectiveness—as well as by the security countermeasures programmed into the nanites, which makes remotely deactivating or controlling them very difficult. Still, a single sexually-active transhuman infected with gash can represent a tremendous health risk to a small habitat, and Mesh sleuths are working to track down the afflicted source code and work on effective treatment methods.

Mechanics

Gash is effectively a long-lasting nanotoxin (Eclipse Phase, p.324), with the symptoms given above—these are more embarrassing and personally distressing than long-lasting or mechanically relevant. Nanodetectors can detect this nanotoxin, and nanophages provide complete immunity to infection unless the character chooses to allow it.

Using Gash

Gash is nasty, unpleasant, and often a terrible surprise, and a gamemaster can ask little more for what is effectively a science fiction STD. As with pregnancy and cancer, sexually-transmitted diseases rarely form a part of the typical gaming experience, and when they do it is usually more of a plot point than an actual health threat or the main focus of the game—and so gash has been provided to assist gamemasters that want such a plot point in their game. The most common use of gash in a game is either for one of the PCs to catch it (as their special bonus prize for sexy fun time) and have to figure out what is happening to them and how to cure it (which mainly involves a treatment to counteract the symptoms and wait for the nanoinfection to degrade to ineffectiveness), or for infections to be loose on the habitat and having to track down who or what is responsible and stop it. Other options are of course possible: a particularly nasty version of gash could actually pose a serious health risk, or a particularly lurid villain might deliberately infect certain individuals in an effort to catch their genetic material during a “discharge;” it is up to the gamemaster how anatomically detailed and gross they care to make their plotlines. As a plot point, gash can also make an interesting way to “track” a sexually-active target, by tracing them through their infected partners.

201: The Burning Plague

ENTRY 201: The Burning Plague

“Burn. All burn.”
- Last transmission, Utica Station

There is an old legend, that one of the titans of myth stole fire from the gods and gave it to transhumanity. Perhaps it is ironic, then, that it was one of the TITANs that instigated the Burning Plague. First categorized as spontaneous human combustion and subsequently ignored, medical evidence eventually came forth of a new, deadly strain of the exsurgent virus that causes the subject to rapidly develop pyrokinetic abilities—in a process that is so rapid, most subjects lose control and explodes in a ball of flame.

It starts with a fever that you can never quite shake, running a little hot constantly, all the time. After a couple weeks you get used to it, the extra energy that seems to drive you a little faster during the day, and keeps your mind so busy you can hardly sleep at night. In a month, you’re past the little headaches and periods of light-headedness, face flushed all the time, incredibly energetic. Some victims report bursts of nymphomania or compulsive touching, spreading highly infectious body fluids with each contact. At the end of the event, the flashes start. No one knows quite what triggers them—agitation, stress, light cycles, hormones, anything. But things around the victim start to burn…anything they concentrate on starts to burn…and when they realize they are the one causing it, they start to burn. Most victims self-immolate at this point, the victims of their own developing psi power.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 30 days):

Upon initial infection, the character begins to feel feverish. Other physiological effects may include mild headaches, nausea, skin rashes, early onset of periods, light sensitivity, and priapism, but most victims report a sense of energy and alertness—treat this as temporary +1 to REF and COG. Medical attention at this point usually points to a mild viral infection, though a detailed scan of the brain will reveal tumors growing and the nervous tissue altering in subtle ways. If these tumors are surgically removed or treated, the infection resets to day 1, but does not go away. Resleeving at this point will save the character’s ego.

Stage 2 (30 days to 35 days):

After a month, the tumors in the character’s head have reached full size, and they gain the Psi (Level 3) trait and the Pyrokinesis Psi-Epsilon sleight with all the usual psi drawbacks (Eclipse Phase, p.220); at this point the character is considered an NPC (though any forks of the ego prior to this point are still under the control of the player). At this point, the character’s pyrokinetic psi powers begin flaring almost uncontrollably. Every hour, make a Control Test—if the character succeeds, then they can determine how their pyrokinesis is used; if they fail, then the pyrokinetic effect is random, usually with some item nearby or that they are focusing on bursting into flames. As most victims do not have any ranks in the Control skill, few survive very long once the flares begin.

Stage 3 (36 days+):

At this stage, the mutations in the character’s brain and nervous system stabilize, and they gain control over their pyrokinetic psi abilities—at least enough to keep from frying themselves by accident. The neural damage also causes profound shifts in how the victim perceives the world and relationships with other transhumans. The original personality and memories are still present, but the NPC tends to feel alienated in their own skin, like a computer running an emulation of another operating system on top of the one built into it. Such characters also run a slightly higher body temperature, making them easy to pick out in a crowd with thermographic sensors.

194: Zero Day Flu

ENTRY 194: Zero Day Flu

Once, transhumanity set its schedule by the movement of the sun and moon, as perceived from the surface of the earth. Now, transhumans are wired to a much more personal cycle: software releases, patches, and updates. With a substantial chunk of transhumanity being augmented with cyberware or occupying a synthmorph, “update days” tend to bring with them worries about sudden incompatibilities between different manufacturers, bugs and bug fixes, unverified third-party updates, and all the other little troubles that accompany software-driven-hardware. Except now, a bug or error in the program can be crippling or disabling to many; no one wants their cyberarm to freeze, or have their oracles fill with spam at a critical moment.

However, for the most part software updates provide no greater aches and pains than the normal stressors of transhuman life, and these days are often taken in stride as comparable to acne, stiff muscles, a drippy nose and other minor ailments. Of much greater concern are security compromises—zero day exploits that skilled hackers can use to manipulate a morph’s system, bypassing their typical security. Zero day exploits are, again, part and parcel of transhuman existence. Estimates by cyber-health specialists show that as many as 80% of synthmorphs have been vulnerable to a zero day exploit at some point, though fewer than 25% have reported actually being infected with malware or suffering an attack that utilized a zero day exploit. Still, after every major release cycle there tends to be a rise in complaints about “zero day flu,” where a portion of the clanking masses feel too disabled to work, at least until they get their systems looked at and the first patches start rolling in.

Mechanics

Zero day exploits are effectively backdoors (Eclipse Phase, p.250) inadvertently created in a system; either inherent during product launch or introduced in an update. Hackers who become aware of these backdoors can use them at will on vulnerable devices, including morphs, until the exploit gets patched. Whether a zero day exploit exists or if a character can learn of it is up to the gamemaster; generally speaking most zero day exploits only remain active for hours or at most days before they are discovered and patched, though certain isolated systems cut off from the Mesh can allow them to persist for much longer.

Using Zero Day Flu

“Zero day flu” and other update-related “illnesses” are a catch-all to describe periodic problems with software updates that affect every synthmorph or morph with cyberware at some point. Generally speaking this is a flavorful effect, the cybernetic equivalent of slipping a disc in your back and being out of commission for a few days, and should probably be mostly restricted to NPCs and devices, especially those with low-rating Firewalls, but can make an effective narrative excuse for why a certain device or individual is not available for an adventure—the captain of the spaceship the PCs want to leave on is down with the ‘flu, so they have to stick around for an extra couple of days, or the elevators to Level 3 (Oxygen Processing) are disabled because of a glitch in the last patch.

175: Human Upgrade Program

ENTRY 175: Human Upgrade Program

Super soldier serums. Vita-ray enhancements. Nanochemical baths. Controlled mutative agents. Snake oil by any other name, still finding a market because the teeming hordes of transhumanity still have a sentimental attachment to their morphs. While resleeving may be practically ubiquitous, there are still plenty of people, especially among the poorer and less educated part of the transhuman spectrum, who simply want their own morph just as it is except…better. The desperate and hopeful are easy prey for the scammers peddling radioactive water and steroids, often under the most dubious available science. Efforts to stifle and educate the industry have so far failed—for every fact-checker debunking a treatment or bio-agent as crap (and often cancerous) or listing the lies and crimes of the people behind, there are thousands of automated programs drowning the Mesh personal anecdotes, promotions, secret offers, and viral campaigns.

Yet amid all the cosmic potions and miracle drugs there are real scientists working away in pursuit of the unattainable—permanent non-invasive human augmentation. That their efforts seem pointless in consideration of the personal augmentations and morphs already available is beside the point; many envision a future freed from the restraints of the current system, where custom morphs are priced out of the range of the common ego, of a transhumanity that has transcended to physical perfection and left flats and splicers far behind in favor of Humanity 2.0. Such is the logic behind the Human Upgrade Program, whose primary research facilities are on the Green Teeth, a scumbarge that operates mainly between Mercury and Venus, full of plenty of volunteer subjects.

The transhuman researchers and scientists behind the Human Upgrade Program have as their goal a retroviral agent or procedure that will transform a flat into a Remade—restructuring the subject completely while retaining their identity and some gross aspects of their physical appearance. Lost in the haze of mutative agents and chemical baths, mainstream scientists have not yet been aware that the Human Upgrade Program has begun to report some successes.

The Human Upgrade Project has found something that works; sort of. Subjects are placed in a chemically induced coma, their egos backed up to their cortical stack, and then the body is introduced to a controlled series of retroviral and nanite infections which rebuild the character from the ground up, which takes several months. It’s an inefficient program, and currently none of the thirty-six subjects have completed a full transformation from flat to Remade, with most exhibiting partial transformation or cancerous growths. Still, it is a start, and the Human Upgrade Project has vowed to continue to refine and augment the process until it is perfected.

Mechanics

The key retrovirus involved in the Human Upgrade Project is the exsurgent virus; stripped away of the pseudo-science and mummery all they have succeeded at so far is reducing the body’s resistance to the infection (-30 modifier to DUR test to see if the virus takes hold). Most of the “partial successes” from the project are actually experiencing Stage 1 or Stage 2 of the xenomorph virus (Eclipse Phase, p.368).

174: Typhoid Jane

ENTRY 174: Typhoid Jane

Latisha Mehmeton Jane was orphaned in the Fall, and her foster family killed by the TITANs on Mars, leaving her to fend for herself at the age of thirteen. She has spent the last several years as a playtester, moving from one contract to the next, one habitat to the next, slowly accumulating academic credits from online courses, making friends and enjoying noncommittal non-monogamous relationships with men and women she meets online. L. M. Jane likes to get lost in crowds, and makes a hobby of being a pickpocket and groper. Her therapist said she had issues making connections with others.

Then he turned into a monster. Just like the others.

What L. M. Jane knows of her life is a lie. She is a sleeper agent for the TITANs, designed as a vector the exsurgent virus, which is spread by close contact with her. L. M. Jane is unaware of her nature, and attributes her propensity for brief relationships, being touchy-feely with others, and keeping constantly on the move to her upbringing—the artificial memories built specifically to support and rationalize those traits. So she moves through life, leaving monsters in her wake.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
13	15	12	10	15	13	10	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
4	1	20	3	40	30	6	45

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Academics: Art (Abstract) 35, Art: Digital Media (Virtual Reality Games) 37, Art: Painting (Abstract) 21, Art: Sculpture (Abstract) 25, Art: Writing 24, Free Fall (Microgravity) 33, Infosec 26, Interests: Ethical Nonmonogamy 40, Interests: Gambling 27, Interests: VR Game Design 36, Interfacing 50, Language: Native English 82, Language: Arabic 46, Networking: Autonomists 28, Networking: Hypercorps (VR Games) 43, Palming 50, Perception (Touch) 48, Profession: Playtester 56, Programming (VR Games) 33, Unarmed Combat (Touch) 23

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Sex Switch, Skinflex

Traits: Edited Memories, Innocuous, Modified Behavior (Touching, Encouraged), Psi Chameleon

Mechanics

Typhoid Jane carries dormant versions of the xenomorph exsurgent virus (Eclipse Phase, p.367) in specialized sweat glands in her skin and orifices—she can infect a biomorph with a kiss or a grope or through her bodily fluids (tears, saliva, etc.) L. M. Jane has no control over when the virus is released; treat each contact as a chance infection (MOX x 10 Test, see Eclipse Phase, p.363)

Using Typhoid Jane

Not all enemies are malevolent. M. L. Jane just lives her life, but because of who and what she is, the xenomorph virus spreads. Her victims are sufficiently spread out that up until now she has gone unnoticed, but before long Firewall or someone else (perhaps the player characters?) will make the connections. Typhoid Jane presents the players with both a tangible threat and a moral dilemma—how do they handle this woman who is an obvious but unintentional threat to others? How will she handle it if they confront her with the news? The easy solution would be to resleeve her into an uninfectious morph, but that just begs the question of how many more Typhoid Janes are out there.

166: Firebreak Protocol

ENTRY 166: Firebreak Protocol

Firewall is dedicated to maintaining transhuman existence—at any cost. There are levels of existence that may be hellish and unthinkable to most transhumans, but are acceptable to the Firewall organization. While they will strive as long as they can to preserve transhumanity as it is, if Firewall is faced with another extinction event there are several less-than-optimal alternatives that may come into play. One of them is the Firebreak Protocol.

One of Firewall’s greatest fears is a mass outbreak of the exsurgent virus, particularly if realized through a basilisk hack through the omnipresent Mesh or the FORBIDDEN REACH scenario. Information is one of the hardest things to contain, and a substantial portion of Firewall’s research is dedicated to find ways to detect, counteract, or vaccinate the population against a basilisk hack exposure. Illicit transhuman experimentation has led to the development of the technology beyond the Firebreak Protocol: a specialized basilisk hack that infects the subject with a low-lethality (72% survival rate) variant of the Watts-MacLeod strain of the exsurgent virus that renders the subject immune to further basilisk hacks. The basilisk hack would be broadcast in a habitat in response to a suspected local outbreak, immunizing the remaining population and preventing the further spread of the exsurgent virus.

Mechanics

The Firebreak Protocol is a basilisk hack (Eclipse Phase, p.364) which infects the subject with a variant of the exsurgent virus. This hack is particularly severe, designed to be difficult to overcome—victims take a -30 penalty to COG + INT + SAV Test to see if they are susceptible. About 28% of victims suffer a series of grand mal seizures every minute until they die or receive medical attention. The rest are changed, their brains rewired in several ways to resist basilisk hacks. They gain:

• The Psi Defence (Level 2) positive trait. They do not have to pay CP for this trait.
• Two Neural Damage negative traits, often (but not always) dyslexia, color blindness, or amusia. They do not gain any CP for these traits.
• A +20 modifier when resisting further infection from the Exsurgent virus, including basilisk hacks.
• Reduce the character’s Trauma Threshold by 1.

Using the Firebreak Protocol

The Firebreak Protocol is one of Firewall’s dirty little secrets. It is not pleasant, it is far more lethal than most characters would like, it is far less effective as an immunization agent than Firewall’s limited testing has shown, and it is currently being deployed to habitats throughout the solar system, hardwired in to be triggered remotely in the event of a mass basilisk hack outbreak. It is currently being planned as the primary countermeasure if FORBIDDEN REACH ever comes to pass (see entry 103). And the player characters through their missions for Firewall may have helped it be developed, tested, and installed. The Firewall agents aware of the Firebreak Protocol are those dedicated to preserving humanity in some form—and they are willing to pay the cost.  The player characters may agree or not; some may even volunteer for testing, hoping for psi powers. Other PCs may argue against it—and, if sufficient evidence is ever brought to Firewall’s higher ups that the Firebreak Protocol is not as effective as they think, the program may be dismantled, at least until it can be refined.

161: The Gamma Cipher

ENTRY 161: The Gamma Cipher

The Forty-Seconds were a math cult out of a private habitat orbiting Titan. The outer order was a social network, a Rotarian outfit about communal activities to foster connections, cooperation, and friendship, with an emphasis on personal and group improvement, at the same time. Members were rewarded for partnering exercises, unlocking achievements that raised their status and additional benefits of being one of the Forty-Seconds. The inner order was a sex network, both fun-loving and pragmatic, a way for people to experiment, experience, and educate themselves within a group of people they trusted. Team-building exercises gave way to BDSM sessions and orgies, both of the flesh and of the mind, and there were achievements here too, though “partnering” took a different course. Advancing through the higher degrees of the inner order unlocked access to the Three Ciphers, the secret math that underwrote the whole philosophy and structure of the Forty-Seconds, the received wisdom that was supposed to unlock the ultimate in transhuman mental and physical potential—first for the individual, and then for the entire race.

Firewall’s cover was a catastrophic power core failure and faulty vacuum seal; they used an EMP to kill the power then popped the Forty-Seconds’ habitat open to hard vacuum and then sent a team in to kill anyone or anything that managed to survive. Sufficient evidence of infection was found in the inner circle members to confirm an exsurgent cell, though the particular vector of infection was not discovered. The clean-sweep team that went in after removed any evidence of Firewall’s involvement and set up flags in the Mesh to alert them if any follow-up activity occurred.

The Forty-Seconds’ “Three Ciphers” hit cryptography networks starting six weeks after the Titan habitat was deactivated. The codes involved were complex, interrelated, and clever—requiring the decryption of the first document to decrypt the second, and the second to decrypt the third. Presented as a challenge to be done without software aids, Firewall tracked 93 cases of exsurgent infection before it could spike the file from the networks and start tracking the seeders. Even today, the hunt continues and new copies of the Three Ciphers – Alpha, Beta, and Gamma – still pop up today.

Mechanics

The Three Ciphers are a trio of documents encrypted using a pre-quantum cryptography algorithm—in other words, something designed to be used by transhumans, without the need for software. A successful Infosec or Academics: Cryptography Task Action Test is required to decrypt each document (timeframe of 1 week). The encryption is layered, so theoretically each document must be decrypted in turn, though practically, quantum codebreaking can decrypt any of the documents in any order – see Eclipse Phase, p.254.

The Alpha and Beta Ciphers are indoctrination documents; the process of cracking the code encrypting the two documents serves as practical example of the “secret math” that they espouse on unlocking the potential of transhuman mind and body; a user that reads either of the documents suffers a -10 cumulative modifier to their test the next time they are exposed to a basilisk hack. The Gamma Cipher itself is a basilisk hack, a variant of the Watts-Macleod strain; victims always gain the Psi Trait at Level 2 (allowing them to learn Psi-Gamma sleights) but also always gain one or more physical changes similar to those seen in Stage 1 of the Xenomorph virus (Eclipse Phase, p.368), usually involved deformations of the cranium; changes to jaw shape/dentition; weakened or enhanced senses sight, smell, hearing, or taste; development of a vestigial sensory organ from the pineal gland; and increased or decreased sex drive. Firewall has not yet ascertained if these changes continue to develop over time, though there is some indication they might.

152: Mitochondria 2.0

ENTRY 152: Mitochondria 2.0

In the orbital habitats above Mercury and Venus, in the nursery edu-creches on Luna and the kindertainment pods of Mars, the kids aren’t alright. Oh, they’re mostly healthy enough, displaying the usual signs one would expect for biomorphs conceived, carried, born, and raised in different gravities, but even accounting for expected morphological differences, something strange is going on.

The first red flag was eight years ago on Mars, an outbreak of mitochondrial diseases in newborns. Initially the suspect was environmental factors, increased radiation or maybe a toxic leak causing random mutations, but close typing of the mDNA showed very consistent, nearly identical mitochondria—as if all the kids had come from the same mother, even though their non-mitochondrial DNA matched their expected parents. After two years of research, no causal finding could be produced, and the investigation was cold-cased.

Six years ago on Locus a few weird health spikes showed a group of eight-year-olds were found to have increased brown adipose tissue, up to 15% by body weight. The culprit was believed to be the presence of mutated mitochondria, which were identical in all of the children—again, as if they had the same mitochondrial parent, even though the children were conceived from different female donors. The reproductive health center which had performed the fertilization and egg implantation procedures was investigated, but aside from typical gene selectivity treatments, nothing unusual had occurred.

Four years ago, investigators finally got a suspect. Four adults on Aphrodite Prime started suffering liver failure, their mitochondria failing to produce the enzymes necessary to detoxify the ammonia produced from protein metabolism. One of the station personnel had been present on Mars and Locus during the past outbreaks, but managed to avoid both investigations: a nomadic lab assistant and amateur genehacker named Hamish Haal. When the Venusian security moved in, they found someone had beaten them to the punch: Haal had died under torture in his quarters. His personal dataspace was empty, wiped clean. Examination of his mitochondria found the same mDNA sequence as in the victims.

For the last four years, new reports have been sporadic, and various groups have taken it on themselves to attempt to track down and identify Haal’s victims, who could number in the hundreds or low thousands. The mechanism he used to alter or replace the mitochondria is still not fully understood; current theories lean toward a retrovirus. The reasons for Haal’s crime apparently died with him, and the identity of his killers and the state of his research remains unknown. There are many that question whether he was even working alone, or was killed as part of a conspiracy. All that is clear is that the damage is done. A new source of mDNA is out there, somewhere, quietly proliferating through transhumanity.

Seed

• Haal’s mother died on Luna, and a portion of her genetic material was kept in a genebank while the rest was destroyed. The M2.0 Victims Network approaches the PCs and asks them to “liberate” the sample, to see if the mDNA Haal used is derived from his mother or another source. If the PCs are successful, they discover that not only is the mDNA not the source, the sample they liberated has no close kinship to Haal himself—the woman everyone thought was his genetic parent was just a surrogate. This raises even more questions about Haal’s identity, but the victims’ representative thanks the PCs for their aid, as every piece of the puzzle helps.

140: Vengeance of Enki

ENTRY 140: Vengeance of Enki

Literacy isn’t what it used to be. Too many languages jumbled together, character bloating to represent every alphabet and pictogram before they were lost forever—so for every ego that wants to maintain the purity of written French or the katakana, there are ten egos building new languages of shared icons, eye-catchingly clickable and universal among all cultures—Smileyglyphics, pornicons, commanji, all the signage needed for humanity to navigate by. For most sociologists, the social pressures of transhumanity’s migration and the Mesh are enough to explain the rising levels of illiteracy. The more paranoid have their own theories.

There are blogs on the Mesh that trace the outbreak of illiteracy like a disease, using old formulas to show geometric rates of infection, periods of incubation, propose possible vectors—chief among them Smileglyphics, or at least the stranger and more arcane members of that pseudo-script. Like most interdisciplinarians, the illiteracy pathologists draw their data from a wide array of studies and statistics, citing psychologists and teachers, always working toward the conclusion, citing their terrible anecdotes—the famous author who dictates her works and has to have them read back to her; the soldier who had to write an essay to enter into the army, and slowly forgot how to write his own name; the hacker that had to learn holographic programming because they lost the sense in the programs they had written only months ago. The researcher that went looking for the disease, and finding it, couldn’t write about it—his last message recorded on an audiofile called it the Vengeance of Enki.

The disease is spreading. There is no cure. How long can humanity survive when its books and texts are closed to it?

Mechanics

The Vengeance of Enki is a passive digital version of the exsurgent virus that spreads via basilisk hacks embedded in ubiquitous Mesh icons like Smileygraphics. This works like a normal exposure to a basilisk hack (Eclipse Phase, p.365), except the victim never suffers one of the incapacitating effects given there—instead, they are infected with the Vengeance of Enki. Characters who are already illiterate or have any level of the Psi trait are immune to the Vengeance of Enki.

Stage 1 (initial infection to 24 hours):

The virus begins by altering parts of the ego responsible for language processing and symbol comprehension, mimicking natural brain farts where the user seems to forget how to spell or form a word, and many words will initially seem unfamiliar to the user. Mechanically, this is reflected by a -10 modifier to their language skills.

Stage 2 (1 day to 7 days):

As the virus progresses, the begin to experience more substantial difficulty reading and writing, and often begin to develop assistance mechanisms like text-to-speech programs or universal icons to overcome their declining literacy. Every day the user experiences a cumulative -5 modifier to their language skills when trying to read or write. When the character’s modifier effectively reduces their Native language skill by half, the character gains the Illiterate trait (Eclipse Phase, p.149) and the virus ceases to progress (the cumulative modifier no longer applies after this point, only that from the Illiterate trait).

Stage 3 (Special):

Normally the virus fulfills its function and fades after a week; in rare cases, usually involving individuals with overdeveloped language comprehension centers, the process continues with a more severe rewiring of the ego. If the character manages a week without becoming illiterate (requiring a Native language skill of 91 or greater), they gain the Illiterate and Neural Damage (Alexia) trait, but they also gain the Psi trait at Level 1, without having to spend Rez.

109: Apsych

ENTRY 109: Apsych

There have been many efforts to define transhumanity, to find some universal common ground that unites everyone on some basic, fundamental level—not in an abstract sense, but as a real material denominator. Scientist-philosophers have mapped the brain, dissected the process of memory, explored the thresholds of consciousness in every morph of every spectrum of transhumanity, looking for the link, the pattern, the signal, the combination of things that differentiates human intelligence from…something else. Some think they’ve found it, their peers generally think they’re full of shit. No one has been able to definitively isolate and prove that they this universal key to human consciousness even exists.

Except that it can be taken away.

Apsych is one of the more frightening expressions of the exsurgent virus, because the change it makes is so subtle that the mechanism is still unclear, and researchers who have had a chance to study the effects are still debating what it does, but as near as can be determined the infection leads to ego death—the catastrophic and irreversible cessation of human intelligence. Aside from a slight spike in certain neurotransmitter levels, there is no apparent physical mechanism to the change; exploratory surgery has shown that the individual biomorphs afflicted are still perfectly functional, the brain still receiving and recording sensory input—indeed, all the memories of the original ego are still intact, encoded in the grey matter or cyberbrain. But the ego that once caused that body to move and feel and think is just…gone.

The current best guess by researchers is that apsych may be an incomplete form of the exsurgent virus, originally intended to rewrite egos into sleeper agents. The alternative is a bit more stark: apsych is a killswitch, a weapon of genocide designed to dispose of transhumanity when it has finished serving its purpose. A minority opinion, generally held by exsurgent terrorists, is that apsych actually frees the ego somehow, leaving the morph behind.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 1 day):

Upon infection, the individual gains 1 mental stress per hour, manifesting as an increased tendency toward daydreaming. Minor physical symptoms—slight headache, heightened blood pressure, and stiff neck are common. During this stage the character is highly infectious to other biomorphs.

Stage 2 (1 day to 2 days):

After 24 hours, the character begins to suffer blackouts, initially only a few seconds, but with periods increasing geometrically during the day. Early symptoms appear to coincide with epilepsy, and treatment with antiepileptic drugs can extend this stage almost indefinitely, though most morphs develop a tolerance within a few months.

Stage 3 (2 days+):

At this stage, the character’s ego is gone, and their morph is just an empty shell. Forks in cortical stacks retrieved after this point are typically corrupted and irretrievable. The character is essentially dead, even if their morph is still breathing. At this stage the morph is no longer infected; the apsych virus rapidly breaks down and is no longer present in their tissues. If the morph has a cyberbrain, a new fork (even a copy of the old ego) can be downloaded into it.

061: Wormfeed

ENTRY 061: Wormfeed

A half-forgotten satellite station in orbit of Mars goes quiet and dark. Fifty-three criminal digital intelligences in a Xiphos e-prison are lost, splintered into thousands of pre-sapient feral intelligences. Freelance digital archaeologist Antekles Costanzas delves into the cortical stack of a dead Solaris courier; three days later they find what’s left of Antekles crawling across the floor. Slowly, from the edges of transhuman society, the wormfeed spreads.

One of the lesser-known expressions of the Exsurgent virus, wormfeed has been identified as both a digital virus targeting infomorphs and nanofabricators, and a biological nanovirus. Both forms of the virus attack the ego, splintering the minds of the infected. Infomorphs are forced to fork again and again, backups corrupted, each time resulting in more unstable copies of the original ego, until finally reduced to feral intelligent programs, little more than new carriers for the wormfeed. Infected nanofabricators produce self-sustaining nanobiological constructs similar to planarian worms that act as carriers for the nanobiological version of the virus. The worms have limited mobility, but are drawn to make contact with biomorphs and spread the nanobiological version of wormfeed.

Infected biomorphs experience a steadily degenerating mental state as different personalities manifest and the brain struggles to adapt to the conflicting signals. At the same time their body begins to produce purely biological versions of the wormfeed construct, typically manifesting as internal parasites that are expelled with waste matter. These transgenic worms appear free of any form of the wormfeed virus, but contain DNA from the infected host which is passed on as they reproduce. As far as anyone can determine, the transgenic worms are the lifecycle endstate of the wormfeed virus.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 24 hours):

When infection is complete the host’s ego automatically begins splintering; for digital intelligences treat this as forking except that the alpha ego becomes two new beta egos, then beta egos become delta egos, deltas become gamma, and gammas become new copies of the wormfeed digital virus. Gamemasters that want to give the character a slim chance may allow each new fork a COG + INT Test against the virus to avoid infection, giving them the opportunity to shutdown and reboot.

Biomorphs infected at this stage acquire multiple personality disorder (Eclipse Phase, p.214), with each new personality effectively an Exsurgent NPC. The mental condition of the infected biomorph steadily worsens the number of personalities multiply. NPC personalities may display psi effects, though this is rare. Backups in cortical stacks or connected with the infected host are treated as if exposed to the wormfeed digital virus.

Stage 2 (1 day to 3 days):

Biomorphs begin to express the transgenic worms from their living tissue; typically the worms isolate existing peripheral nerves and bud off, so that the host doesn’t immediately register their absence. Number of worms produced depends on the health of the target and available biological reserves; hosts on life support could produce dozens or hundreds of worms within a matter of days.

Stage 3 (3 days+):

The host body begins to cannibalize itself to produce more transgenic worm constructs; the process continues until the remaining tissues fail. Though the host can be preserved almost indefinitely with advanced medical care and intravenous feeding, at this point they are little more than a biological factory for the worms, which may begin to feed on the host’s remaining tissues.

007: The Fear

ENTRY 007: The Fear

Fear is a survival trait, an autoimmune response with pre-programmed triggers that have historically helped transhumanity to fight against the disease of death. All the worse then when fear becomes an autoimmune disease—instead of keeping transhumans alive, it can keep them from living, trapped in their habitats, their bodies, their thinking, unable to face the stars or their own limitations. The infinite transhuman potential kept caged by the same instincts that once helped us escape the Earth and the limitations of our own genetics.

The Fear is a disease, one of the most subtle exsurgent viruses, but one that only targets biomorphs and is usually spread by contact. The infection takes hold slowly and has the potential to affect large segments of the population, especially crowded habitats. The only outward sign in the infected is reticence—to resleeve, to move on, to see the stars; their minds attempt to form rationalizations for the instinctual fear that grips them, which they can barely frame or put words to. Eventually the infected feel fear all the time, threatened by everything, crippled by worry and paranoia. The personal costs of The Fear are magnified in populations: groups because insular, withdrawn, and factitious; habitats no longer look to expand or improve, and many actually become hostile to the idea.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 1 year):

Upon initial infection, the character begins to gain 1 mental stress per month, gradually manifesting as an acute phobia in about six months. At this stage, the phobia is generally very specific—fear of resleeving, fear of space travel or vacuum, even fear of open spaces. Minor habits tend to form to support their fear, like leaving their settings just as they were or putting off necessary upgrades. Characters may realize their fear and seek treatment, but unless the underlying nanobiological infection is recognized or dealt with then psychotherapy will be ineffective and the fear will continue to get worse and more crippling. Characters face a penalty to any action that would invoke their phobia equal to their current mental stress x 3.

Stage 2 (1 year to 2 years):

After one year, the character begins to gain 2 mental stress per month, and their phobia broadens—the character picks up another relevant phobia every three months. At this point, other characters can generally begin to discern something is “off” about the characters, as their daily activities and attitudes tend to be severely curtailed and they begin to be closeted. Psychotherapy is still effective at this point, provided the exsurgent virus is somehow eradicated from the character’s system (typically by resleeving into an uninfected morph). Additional complications may arise depending on how much mental stress the character accumulates while dealing with their issues; it is not uncommon for some (10%) of characters to develop a general anxiety disorder in the 24th month of infection.

Stage 3 (2 years+):

Characters at this stage are consumed by their phobias, and are typically afraid of anything and anyone new, traveling to new places, and any technology or cultural innovation beyond what they knew prior to infection. On busy habitats, such characters inevitably become shut-ins. Curing the afflicted character is still possible with intense and prolonged psychotherapy, but not in their current morph—The Fear literally becomes hard-coded into their systems, and they must be resleeved before any progress can be made.