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[Evil] Plotting

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Jürgen Hubert Jürgen Hubert's picture
[Evil] Plotting
I can use some suggestions for the adventure I am currently running. If any of my players are lurking here, stay out! The basic premise is this: There has been a series of synthmorph suicide bombers in Noctis-Qinjao, which the media have dubbed the "case bomber" because the first two bombings were done with case synthmorphs. Each day at a different time, an synthmorph with some in-built explosives goes to a different area of the city where lots of people gather and explodes. Firewall has sent the PCs to investigate because there were no publicized threats or demands from anyone - just apparently random violence, and that might hint of exurgent activity. They are correct. A local named Martin Greshall, who is the owner and sole biological employee of a recycling company (as well as a secret supplier of the Fabber Underground), has been infected by a biological strain of the exurgent virus - a bit similar to the Haunting Virus, but the individual stages last a week or so each, instead of months. He has programmed an AGI (non-exurgent since he hasn't figured out a way to transfer the virus digitally, but loyal to his orders) to commit the bombings for him, and thanks to his company was easily able to get the raw materials to pull off the plan - and the Fabber Underground takes the blame for it. His plan is to first do a series of "mundane" bombings to get the police and everyone else fixated on a purely "hardtech" threat, as well as study the overall police response. Once everyone has "gotten used" to this routine, he will escalate the bombings - and the final series, which is scheduled to occur more or less simultaneously, the exploding synthmorphs will also be filled with plastic bags containing his blood, infected with the virus. He figures that this will not only allow him to infect lots of bystanders, but also quite a few members of the harried and overworked police, eventually spreading the virus through much of the police force and from there to the rest of the city, drowning it in blood... He has installed a secret fabber-equipped facility for the final round of attacks so that they can proceed even if he is taken down. When he learned that someone was hot on his trail (the PCs), he also created a second fabber facility to throw them off his trail - which worked temporarily. However, thanks to some well-done hacking by the party AGI they wised up, and two of them went to confront him in his office (on the second floor of an office building). First one of them infiltrated the office complex and hid in a room, then the other called him to the door about some flimsy excuse that he was coming from the Health Inspector's Office and that there was some sort of mutant fungus in the area (the Persuasion roll succeeded despite the thin story...). Then the first character sneaked up on the exurgent and his attendant Steel Morph (which was operated by yet another fork of his AGI). He opened fire on the Steel Morph, but didn't manage to destroy it with the surprise attack. The AGI realized that their cover was blown, and, as per prior instructions, stepped forward, "hugged" Greshall - and exploded. This heavily injured both characters, and the unfortunate guy in front of the door was also showered in Greshall's blood and body parts, which definitely counts as an exposure to the exurgent virus. Then the other character moved forward and fished around in the remains for Greshall's cortical stack, which considering her injuries and the fact that she didn't specifically mention that she was handling it with gloves also counts as exposure. Once they left the building, I asked for their remaining Durability and had them roll 1d100. The one who had stood in the entrance and received the brunt of Greshall miraculously made his roll... but the other one didn't. Oh, and she also happens to be an async with Psi level 2... Now here are my first questions: What kind of measures does Firewall have to actually detect forms of the exurgent virus? And right now, I plan to introduce another Firewall ally within the city who has some biolab facilities prepped for just such cases of possible exurgent virus infection - so what would such facilities look like, and what kind of security measures would they have? And what would their "cover story" be? There are quite a few other wrinkles and complications to this adventure (partially resulting from the mess they created at that office building, partially from earlier meddling) which I will get into later, but these are a good start.
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nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
That's a lot of writing for very little questions. The viruses are extremely diverse, but are unified by a single factor - they all must transmit and store information. So far we've seen a few different forms of viruses: Nanomachines, detected by nanomachine honeypots and such Machine-readable, including computer viruses, radio transmissions, executables, detected by classic computer forensic methods (hindered by extreme quarantine methods) Biological, including proteins, prions, viruses, bacteria and so on, detected by (probably) extremely sophisticated micro- and nano-machines dispersed to detect anomalous features, physiological scans, etc. Ego corruption, which is the hardest to detect. It's probably checked for by using sophisticated brain scans (again hindered by extreme quarantine methods), and behavior monitoring. The size of the facility will depend on its scope. At minimum they'll probably need two or four serious servers (quarantined scanner, non-quarantined scanner, security, general purpose), nanofabricator, very sophisticated air filtration system and internal scanning systems, very sophisticated nanomachine networks, ego bridge, quarantined farcaster unit, control morphs, morph containment rooms, and a biomedical lab, plus administrative space. This is just for detecting infection, not for treatment, research or containment.
Jürgen Hubert Jürgen Hubert's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
The size of the facility will depend on its scope. At minimum they'll probably need two or four serious servers (quarantined scanner, non-quarantined scanner, security, general purpose), nanofabricator, very sophisticated air filtration system and internal scanning systems, very sophisticated nanomachine networks, ego bridge, quarantined farcaster unit, control morphs, morph containment rooms, and a biomedical lab, plus administrative space. This is just for detecting infection, not for treatment, research or containment.
I'm assuming that treatment is impossible. Instead, the morph in question will be quietly euthanized and the ego restored from an earlier backup. Better safe than sorry, right?
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Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
As I see it, Firewall as an organisation knows quite a lot about the virus and can in principle do a lot. Unfortunately, the ally in the city will not have a biolab optimal for detecting and handling super-dangerous smart viruses (unless he has a very disturbing day job) - it will be a normal biolab with normal hightech resources. It will be supplemented by Firewall expertise, which goes a long way, but it is not going to be perfect. That friend might behave in a rather off-puttingly paranoid way ("Sorry, pal, but I will be teleoperating this time. I am somewhere else.") Second, this might be a new strain. Sure, a pure biological exsurgent virus is not quite as menacing as some of the other forms, but it might escape detection in new ways. And remember, the researchers will not know whether it is just biological or nanotechnological. Again, better safe than sorry. Third, and this is the evil part, did the characters sanitize the area properly afterwards? Thermite would be my choice. If not, then there is a lot of blood splatter (and *aerosol*!) for investigating neighbours and law enforcement to find. Similarly for the clothes of the characters - how do they get to the biolab? Might have a nasty realization after a while about leaving a potential trail of infection behind... Even if the characters are safe and all scans show them to be clean, play up their hypochondria! After all, they have been touched by something that for all practicaly psychological purposes is evil magic - the uncleanness response and fear of contagion is fundamental to how humans react to things. So have them experience minor creepiness, with their Muses telling them they are imagining things... Back to the main question: If I were an EP biotechnologist working in a lab, what would that lab contain? Most of biological work is of course computer work. There are massive simulations of systems biology, genetics, neuroscience, biochemistry. This suggests some decently big computer systems, likely hardwired for just that kind of functions. Beside the lounges and offices where people do most of their work there will be a real lab area. This might actually be entirely isolated from the offices - you teleoperate lab robots and lab sleeves, not just for contagion reasons but to keep the environment clean. In the lab areas (and some might be desktop sized nanolabs where ant-sized robots move tiny samples around) various forms of cells, tissues and organisms are maintained and manipulated. I expect some specialized kinds of fabricators here: chemical fabricators for making various agents, from ether to nanoencapsulated designer enzymes, DNA synthetizers, even tissue printers. Things equivalent to healing vats, but intended for analysis and experimentation. To keep things tidy, some *very* efficient cleaning nanomachines supplemented with chemical and thermal agents ("Please sterilize sample chamber 5").
Extropian
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
Jürgen Hubert wrote:
I'm assuming that treatment is impossible. Instead, the morph in question will be quietly euthanized and the ego restored from an earlier backup. Better safe than sorry, right?
At least in my game, treatment of the Exsurgent virus is not something Firewall even really considers. The biological nanobots that the virus makes use of are simply too insidious, infectious and virulent to take any risks with. Detection of the virus must be a reasonably routine task, it is standard procedure during entry into any of the Lunar cities for example, and when a strain is detected the mission at hand basically changes from “Search and Investigate” to “BURN THE UNCLEAN!”. It is much safer to simply quarantine an infected morph/ego and flood the room with purging flame, followed by a healthy bath of scrapper gel and liquid thermite, followed by filling the room with disassembler, guardian and scout nanoswarms. Firewall is not going to risk an Exsurgent outbreak in a city of 13 million. If they detect that infection has begun, and that that infection has not been dealt with (And from the sounds of it, it hasn't. They have an entire office floor, an entire office building and god knows how many other people possibly infected) they are probably going to resort to melting that building down and covering it up as whatever the Eclipse Phase version of a gas leak is.
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Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
not to mention sending in a cleansing team damage control and have a vector do some spin doctoring about Firewall involvement in the whole deal, making the PCs party taking the brunt of the blame if that stunt of them goes public. Heck, some vicious Vector might linken them to that exsurgent engineer bloke as accomplice if they were really lacking discretion and their i-rep score taking a nose dive
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root root's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
root@Plotting [hr] I can imagine a transportable biolab. Take a hive seed that spits out a biofacility like the medvats, have it set up so that it collects a small sample of the virus, and then builds a fully sealed facility around the sample like a very complicated pearl. Burn the whole thing with thermite when the research is done.
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Jürgen Hubert Jürgen Hubert's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
Time has passed, and so have several adventures. In my Grand Tour of Martian Cities, the PCs have visited Olympus City, Noctis-Qianjiao, and Elysium. Which makes the next logical step the biggest city of them all - Valles-New Shanghai. So far, I have no idea what to run yet. But since I've bought [i]Gatecrashing[/i] as soon as it came out, I want it to involve an Oligarch who also happens to be a high-ranking Firewall member - and who has the clout to get the group through the Martian Gate (as the group is Autonomist in its leanings, their interactions could be... interesting). So, what ideas can you come up with for this setup?
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Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
Off the top of my head, could be the Oligarch using his political clout and wealth to free a number of indentures (a few hundred or thousand, maybe, not too many in the grand scheme of things) in exchange for their help. That sort of thing is probably a great tool for not only getting the PCs involved (guilt trips are fun!), but for also inducing arguments later when the Oligarch asks them what indentures they want freed. Some possible adventure ideas include forks of the characters being sent, disguised as prisoners, to Nirvana, to investigate the goings-on there. Given your previous dealings with the Exsurgent Virus, might be right up your alley. There's also sending the players on a "humanitarian" mission to Brak Kodel, where they may come face to... Something, with a TITAN, and learn just what a TITAN thinks of transhumanity. Perhaps the TITAN that created Brak Kodel has finally started to "come down" from its madness high, and is trying to undo the damage it did. Or, perhaps, that's just a trick, and it is seeing how transhumanity will react. Or perhaps it's just having fun with examining transhumanity's religiosity. Alternatively, the Oligarch could be infected by the Exsurgent Virus, he is trying to bring the TITANs back to the solar system. There's no organization in the world crazy enough or skilled enough to send the right people into the big, wide universe to hunt for the TITANs and send them an invitation back to finish the job, so he's playing at being friendly to Firewall. He offers them the resources and disguises they need to get out there without raising any alarms, while they're really looking for traces of TITAN activity, but not for the reasons they think they are. When things get interesting, unusual orders and supplies start to trickle down from above...
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
Jürgen Hubert wrote:
So far, I have no idea what to run yet. But since I've bought [i]Gatecrashing[/i] as soon as it came out, I want it to involve an Oligarch who also happens to be a high-ranking Firewall member - and who has the clout to get the group through the Martian Gate (as the group is Autonomist in its leanings, their interactions could be... interesting). So, what ideas can you come up with for this setup?
Oligarchs as Firewall members also raises good questions. Firewall of course likes having wealthy supporters who can get things done, but such characters will also likely be quite bossy too - they are used to getting what they want. Oligarchs might be sufficiently high up to be above the usual law, but they may still need to keep Oversight and Ozma off their backs - there might be some very nasty complications there. Think about the mess there would be if DHS realized Bill Gates was a member of Al Qaida. Valles is also site of the Bund. This is the place where you find the Jovian embassy next to the Extropian, two blocks down from the Pope's cathedral. This is a huge concentration of major players, or at least where they got their official offices. Then there are the media glitz in Nytrondheim and the retro-Americanism of New Pittsburgh - it is a good setting for going between differently styled places of power. Hmm, what about an intrigue between the different major groups - the Consortium, the Oligarch and some competing big firms/networks in the city. Why would anybody want Firewall to go through a gate? Maybe because it would reveal some very nasty things about a competitor (and incidentally defuse an xrisk). Suppose the Oligarch is dying and wants to have a really good conscience - why not have the nasty secrets of a major player revealed as a grand "F- you!" Another thing is that the city itself might be under threat. Imagine if something was to threaten the inhabitants - this is the greatest concentration of transhumans in the solar system.
Extropian
Jürgen Hubert Jürgen Hubert's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
To clarify, the oligarch is intended to be a longer-term ally to the team who can provide Gate access for certain missions - but the PCs should be able to develop some doubts about her true agenda. After all, she [i]is[/i] an oligarch, and hidden agendas is what they are all about. I'm planning to have her sleeved in a neotenic in the form of a small girl, for the extra creepiness. I also have an idea for the scenery of a meeting. Publicly, the oligarch is known for "collecting" neo-avian uplifts, and has a giant "aviary" in one of the domes of Valles-New Shanghai. In reality, this essentially operates as a halfway house for abused and/or oppressed neo-avians, and they often go from there to more liberal habitats (usually with the argonauts, as it would be more suspicious if they turned up in Autonomist habitats). Whether this should tie in with the main adventure or just represent scenery I haven't decided yet.
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Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: [Evil] Plotting
Jürgen Hubert wrote:
To clarify, the oligarch is intended to be a longer-term ally to the team who can provide Gate access for certain missions - but the PCs should be able to develop some doubts about her true agenda. After all, she [i]is[/i] an oligarch, and hidden agendas is what they are all about.
Hmm, giving multiple gate access will require a good cover - Pathfinder and the associated organisations will be doing background checks. So she will likely set up, or already have set up (after all, a true oligarch will always be two steps ahead) a gatecrashing team with support staff the PCs can be discreetly slotted into without any outside suspicions being raised.
Quote:
I'm planning to have her sleeved in a neotenic in the form of a small girl, for the extra creepiness.
Ah, nothing beats the neotenic for creepiness. Especially when combined with enormous power, hidden motivations and a far from innocent mind - who happens to be very perceptive. "By the way my dear, your dirty mind is right now running up the wrong tree. The real reason I use this petite body is entirely practical. I leave it as an exercise for you to figure it out." She could actually have somewhat good intentions, but still come across as very sinister. Just think of how people find Peter Thiel's "drop out of university" stipend or George Soros' support for drug decriminalisation problematic (both are based on their respective world-views and make complete sense there, but to mainstream observers they look very odd). So her real goal might be to help the greater transhumanity to soar (literally), but that means undermining planet-based concentrations of power in favour of space habitats and exoplanet colonies.
Extropian