I wouldn't go so far as to call this a Game Rule Suggestion, just something I've been considering. If anyone else finds it useful though you're welcome to it. I wanted another means of long distance communication that was portable and fast enough to be very useful for egocasting but not so quick that remote control from another habitat would be encouraged. I also wanted for this to involve a person rather than a device. Here is what I came up with ... The rarity of pandora gates meant using them was costly so not many low value morphs went through them. Of those flats and splicers that did most came out the other side as normal, but a few were reduced to gibbering heaps. Investigations were conducted to try to both figure out how to avoid this and to try to gain some better understanding of the gates themselves. Eventually it was discovered that one such individual kept describing what another was experiencing albeit an hour later. No method could be found for these two to communicate which was just another mystery until one of them was moved through a gate again and they were still apparently communicating with the same one hour lag. This held promise so the research was stepped up. The affected flats and splicers had certain genes in common which had not been included in any other biomorphs as they hadn't appeared useful enough. Biomorphs with these genes had brains which were altered by travel through a gate so it was hypothesised that ading a cyberbrain may allow sanity to be retained. Experimental pods called nodes were created to test this, with many connections to the remnants of the biological brains that were shown to be useful to for transmitting data. The egos inhabiting these pods had to meet certain conditions too and came to be known as humansibles. Not all egos could use these abilities, in fact most couldn't, and the cause of this is unknown. Some egos that weren't initially humansibles have trained themselves to become this, though weren't able to explain how. Initially it was thought that nodes could only communicate if both had been through a gate, later it was found that even if a node was new it could still work if the humansible inhabiting it had been through the gate while sleeved in another node. Further testing showed that both humansibles attempting to communicate had to have been through the same gate, and that a humansible which had been through two gates was able to communicate with another which had been through either of these. Finally it was found that travelling through the gate wasn't really needed, it was enough to merely stand for a moment in it while sleeved in a node with the gate "off", ie the gate controls set so that it isn't open to anywhere else. Once a humansible has joined a network it can communicate with any other humansible on that network provided both are sleeved in nodes. No monitoring or control is possible by the gate operator or anything else on that network. Much as the original Pandora Gate leant its name to the other pandora gates the Pandora Network is one of a group collectively known as pandora networks. The different gate operators each have their own procedures for allowing a humansible to join the network attached to the gate they control. Access to the Pandora Network is relatively open, requiring only that those wanting to connect to their network provide their own morph (short term lending is available on Pandora) and help them move some XP recordings and other data around the solar system for a short period afterwards; there is talk of the lottery changing so that each gatecrashing team will include at least one humansible. The Vulcanoid and Martian Networks like to get some credits out of the deal. The Fissure Network is available to anyone with decent Rep. Finally the Discord Network is difficult for outsiders to join. Two humansibles on the same network are able to join their local meshes together. The devices at each end of a conversation must be able to cope with the two hour round trip time. Some hypercorps only allow a small number of servers in areas they control to cope with this delay saying this is required for efficiency. Anarchists on the other hand are likely to see this as being an attempt to control the flow of information. It is common to connect the node to a radio booster via fibre optic cable rather than use mesh inserts. Some of the more authoritarian locales require a licence for anyone operating a node, and a computer between the node and radio booster to filter out certain information or users. Conducting research on a distant mesh is very time consuming, with a one hour delay for each query and another hour for the response. Some groups maintain lists of the software and data sources that are available on the local mesh so that ideally only two requests are needed, one for the index and the other for the data. The quality of these lists varies as does the cost (if any). Humansible (Ego Trait) Cost: 10 CP This character is able to operate a node on a pandora network. Node Pods An ego with the humansible trait is able to use this morph to connect to a pandora network. Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Mnemonic Augmentation, Puppet Sock, Access Jacks (though these provide access to the network rather than the cyberbrain) Aptitude Maximum: 30 Durability: 30 Wound Threshold: 6 Advantages: Can use the humansible trait Disadvantages: Social Stigma (Pod) trait CP Cost: 40 Credit Cost: Expensive Notes: The 1 hour latency is to make it a challenge to merge forks across the solar system or beyond. It also means there that even if there is a node on the other side of the gate sending status reports you can't be sure exactly what will be there when you cross. Some GMs may wish to increase this delay to say 5 hours to enhance these effects, though if the delay is too great there won't be much point in having this ability. Requiring he use of a morph which is relatively expensive yet weak at other things is to keep this ability relatively rare. Something I considered but rejected: A humansible will be able to tell the difference between a node that has ever been connected to a network and one which hasn't. In some well populated places services have sprung up with two nodes, identical except one has been attached to a network and the other hasn't, allowing people to try sleeving into both to discover if they are humansibles.