Here is a new synthmorph I am considering for my campaign:
Quicksilver™
(alias puddles, 1000s and sandpiles)
While the swarmanoid morph is intended to fly as a cloud and has great flexibility, it is still somewhat limited for manual tasks and in unexpected media – many swarmanoids find themselves very inconvenienced by water immersion. Even worse, the wireless communications between the component units are easily disrupted by EMP. The quicksilver morph is a swarm design intended to be more cohesive, yet retain a great deal of flexibility and be more resistant to EMP.
Quicksilvers are granular liquid swarms, a mass of millimetre-sized machines that link together in a dense but flexible structure. Each machine connects to their neighbours, sharing information, energy and exerting force. They can flow like an amoeba, change shape and solidify partially or completely. They can flow through millimetre-sized openings; flatten into a thin sheet and even separate into smaller droplets. While larger conglomerates can maintain cohesive consciousness smaller droplets just activate simple homing behaviour and try to rejoin the main body. Unlike swarmanoids they can actually perform physical tasks as an entire body, although their strength is still rather limited. For mobility they can flow, bundle up into a rolling ball or solidify legs and feet that allow walking.
Quicksilvers can carry the same nanomachines as swarmanoids. But they also have less ability to distribute them in the environment to act as sensors or traps (although some Quicksilver users have developed “slime trails” for spreading useful nanodevices).
One of the main uses of Quicksilver morphs during the Fall was nanowarfare in areas where EMP barrage occurred. After the Fall Xigki Nanodevices has been their prime developer, licensing them to Exotech (who markets them as the Quicksilver™ brand). Starware has a competing model, Zand™, which is used in lunar environments.
Enhancements: Access Jacks, basic Mesh inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Menmonic Augmentation, Swarm Composition, Telescopic limbs
Mobility: Flowing (4/16), Rolling (8/32), Walking (4/20)
Aptitude Maximum: 30
Durability: 30
Wound Threshold: 6
Advantages: See swarm composition (p. 311) and below, Shape adjusting
Disadvantages: See swarm composition (p. 311) and below.
CP cost: 25
Credit cost: Expensive
Modifications to advantages/disadvantages for swarm composition: Kinetic attack damage beyond 3 is reduced to 3. Fire, plasma and area effect weapons still do 1d10 damage. The exception is blast damage and impacts, where the real damage is 1d10 and the remaining damage consists of scattered droplets. Until they return the morph has its Durability reduced by this amount (no effects on WT). Scattered droplets return at a rate of 1/4 of the total amount per turn (round up). If a Quicksilver is completely scattered it is not dead, but it lacks any ability to do anything but instinctively try to reform. If this is prevented long enough the droplets will eventually run out of power and go inert.
Due to low strength, -30 to all SOM-related skills except swimming.
EMP damage is reduced since the components are physically linked rather than relying on nanoantennas. Still, the high voltages do damage them: they take half the damage a nanoswarm would otherwise take from nearby EMP.
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+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep
+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep
+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep
+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep
