So, I've been brainstorming the mechanics for a high-security facility that my PCs are going to have to infiltrate to ferret out a suspected TITAN. One of the things I'd really like to work in is a sort of "airlock" security mechanism in which the PCs enter a security door, are locked in, pass interrogation, and then are released on the other side.
The twist is that I'd like the "airlock's" real purpose to be buying time while they're forknapped—the *real* interrogation happens in an accelerated simulspace. The problem, of course, is that it should require an ego bridge. I thought about fudging something using a combination of brainprint scanners and handwaved Advanced Titan Stuff, but if there's a good way to make it a bit more plausibly crunchy, I'd love to.
Any thoughts?
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Forknapping on the fly?
Sat, 2015-11-14 12:00
#1
eaton
Forknapping on the fly?
Sat, 2015-11-14 19:21
#2
Dr. Maxwell
Rocks fall, everyone is in simuspace
There is no easy way to forknap someone on the fly unless they are an infomorph or are running on a cyberbrain. It is such a powerful hypothetical ability I doubt even the TITANs are capable of it, because if they were it raises very serious questions about how any transhumans are even alive right now or how Firewall could ever have an investigative mandate.
If you want to guarentee that the party gets forknapped, I recommend going a different angle and have the PCs revived from backup at the start of the session and merely told they failed their mission the first time, because it prevents their forknapping from actually resulting in a guarenteed TPK. Another option is to just use an exurgent asynch, who were designed for this task anyway without being so strong as to be a rocks fall situation. Kidnapping a muse is generally almost as strong as forknapping, and finally, if a PC is running a cyberbrain you can roll opposed infosec to forknap them through their implants, though hackers can and should be able to stop this with trivial effort if they are paying attention.
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Sat, 2015-11-14 22:14
#3
Trappedinwikipedia
It takes about 5 minutes to
It takes about 5 minutes to do a standard brain print, while it takes an ego bridge about 10 minutes to complete an upload. I can see a few pretexts which could close that gap, such as extra rigorous 10 minute brain print scans, followed by a isolation period while the time accelerated simspace interrogation is completed. I could also see an expedited incomplete upload, where they only get deep seated opinions and most memories and template that over an AI to provide the cognitive baseline. I could even see both methods being employed at the same time.
The downside to this is of course that an ego bridge requires nanomachines to enter the brain, while a brainprint does not. I'd expect medichines to detect the ego bridge, and nanophages would likely destroy them.
Beyond that, I can't immediately think of anything short Psi Epsilon and/or femtoswarms which could secretly copy bio-brain egos so quickly without detectible nanomachines in the body.
Another potential option would be to use ultra-advanced predictive/prescient software and the power of the panopticon to gather extremely accurate info about the predilections of people before they enter.
Finally, if the station is remote, requiring visitors to egocast into it from afar would be by far the simplest way to secretly fork incoming egos.
Sun, 2015-11-15 18:55
#4
eaton
Good news—neither of the two
Good news—neither of the two characters are sleeved into biomorphs with medichines or nanophages, and they took a chance turning on their mesh implants while prepping. They're locked into a security scanning "airlock" for almost ten minutes, and the one member of the team who'd be likely to avoid their fate with medichines etc stayed behind to watch their back.
Agreed that the forknapping equivalent of "wardriving" would be pretty dire; in this scenario, though, the chokepoint of the security scanning station buys 10-15 minutes in a sealed environment. Between that and a *little* bit of hand-waving, as well as the advanced predictive software that was mentioned, I think it'll be close enough to work.
Thanks for the help brainstorming!