cherry flavoured atrocities
Heise berichtet sehr interessant über den Stand der Forschung von insektenartigen Robotern und Cyberbugs, Insekten, denen elektronische Bauteile eingepflanzt werden, um sie steuern zu können. Höchst lesenswert!
“Twin-Butterfly von Y. Kawamura,
Fukuoka Institute of Technology.
Bild: Kawamura
Author: Lucifer
WIREHEADING – Hardware devices which link into and continually stimulate the pleasure centers of a person’s brain. Very addictive.
A typical headset consists of a trode set and a breadbox, a small gadget about the size of a flattened egg, containing a battery-pack and the neuralware which provides brain stimulation.
Wireheading is strictly illegal! All prices listed here are, therefore, black-market ones. Battery-packs come in two varieties: a rechargable one, which costs 50eb and can sustain up to 72 hours of continual use before it needs tobe plugged into a 110v socket for a 12 hour recharge, or a disposable one, which costs 20eb. Direct-connect versions, called walljacks, are available for 100eb; they plug straight into a wall socket and run off house current with about the same drain as a small CD player. Trode sets are the standard ones found in CP2020, p. 68, and cost 20eb. Continue reading “Wireheading, Spinrad-Style for Cyberpunk 2020”
In “Mona Lisa Overdrive”, William Gibson’s second novel, Kumiko has a AI travel guide that simply rocks. Here are rules to create one for your cyberpunk 2020 game. But beware – it doesn’t really fit the average tech level of the cyberpunk 2020 universe.
Author: Syberman
Taken from Datafortress 2020.
“The ghost awoke to Kumiko’s touch as they began their descent into Heathrow. The fifty-first generation of Maas-Neotek biochips conjured up an indistinct figure on the seat beside her, a boy out of some faded hunting print, legs crossed casually in tan breeches and riding boots. ‘Hullo,’ the ghost said.”
[ Mona Lisa Overdrive ]
The origins of the first artificial intelligence guide is unclear, the event was never recorded in the history books. In an unknown lab, in an unknown country, the first biosoft was developed, a device capable of storing hundreds of memory units. The technology was in its embryonic stage when the designer Janice Grubb first became interested in its applications. Since the creation of the I.G Algorithm in 2014 she had become increasingly worried about cyberspace and transcendental sentience. If her theories were correct she had not only created life, but trapped that same life in the endless bounds of cyberspace. The biosoft technology was the answer to her conundrum, how to free, that which could not be freed. It’s unclear how her Internet paymasters reacted to her idea’s on the future of cyberspace, what is clear, is that Grubb allowed herself to be extracted to the Maas Corporation. Continue reading “MAAS-NEOTEK GUIDES”
Summary:
This article discusses a steamlined list of skills for Cyberpunk 2020. It adresses the problematic list of science skills (who ever took Anthropology?), the rather pointless “Shadow/Track” and “Hide/Evade” skils and other problems. It also introduces a flexible combination of skill and stat: REF+Handgun to shoot, INT+Handgun to know about handguns, TECH+Handgun to repair it…
Author: Marc Brenowitz (brenown (at) ix.netcom.com) and Ross “Spyke” Winn (spyke-rew (at) worldnet.att.net) Used with kind permission
Based on ideas from the skills section of the article “SPYKE’S EDGE, essays and rule modifications for Cyberpunk 2020,” by Ross “Spyke” Winn and discussions with Ross Winn.
Special Ability skills should also act as a professional (expert) skill based on Intelligence.
Floating Skills (the adds from this skill can be assigned to a stat as needed)
Athletics (moved from Ref skills, and see additional notes below)
(Ross adds: MY POINT IS THAT ANY skill should be usable by ANY stat in a situation where the referee feels it is appropriate–I think this should be vague and unquantified.) Marc: True, and that opens a whole new can of worms. Continue reading “Revised Skill List For Cyberpunk 2020”
The german news magazine Der Spiegel reports that the combat robots used by the US Forces in Iraq are also being sold to US Police. The have been aquired by the Massachusetts State Police as well as by forces from Houston, San Francisco and Texas. The bots are not yet armed with machine guns, but with Tasers… outfitted with laser targeting ! They might also be used to communicate with kidnappers. Even if you can’t read german, the post offers some good pics of the bots.
Author: Mockery.
Bugs are programming “options” which reduce the difficulty of a program by incorporating features which are … shall we say, less than advantageous. You can attribute bugs to poor programming, beta test versions, cracked or corrupt copies, and so forth and so on. The source of the bug doesn’t usually matter, but the effects should at least be inconvenient, and at most deadly.
You’ll notice that many of the values given for these bugs are just the opposite of a positive option. Obviously, costs can be modified to suit. A bug which is the exact opposite of an option will cancel the option — you can’t have Slow and Speed in the same program and expect either one to work, or to give you any change in the program’s total difficulty. Continue reading “Bugs – New Programming Options for Cyberpunk 2020”
But then, actual people do it these days: http://trigram.wordpress.com/2004/11/23/cyberpunk-dissent/
von Henning Breiholz
Der Konzern Cyberdyne Inc. Testet ein neues Kodierungsverfahren für Headware, das einem Benutzer bei einer Extraktion den Zugriff auf seine Headware verwehrt. Nach einigen Rückschlägen, und dem Verschwinden des führenden Leiters, ist das Projekt nun in der Beta-Testphase. Dazu hat Cyberdyne eine Klinik in den Redmond Barrens aufgekauft, um an den dortigen Bewohnern das System unfreiwillig zu testen. Um über die Ergebnisse informiert zu sein, lassen sie die Leute alle paar Tage wieder zu ihnen in die Klinik zu Nachuntersuchungen kommen. Dort lesen sie dann den Headmem, der den Personen zusätzlich implantiert wurde wieder aus, um die Daten zu analysieren. Um die korrekten Daten zu erhalten, werfen sie über eine andere Firma des TIC Imperiums BTL´s auf den Schwarzmarkt zu sehr günstigen Preisen. Nach den ersten Projektwochen gab es allerdings einige Rückschläge, und nun braucht der Kon den ehem. Leiter und dessen Unterlagen, um es zur Serienreife zu entwickeln. Sie vermuten, das der Fehlschlag etwas mit Datensabotage zu tun hat, und der ehem. Leiter direkt oder indirekt darin verwickelt ist. Also heuern sie ein Schattenteam an, das den Leiter finden und zu ihnen bringen soll. Der Leiter hat tatsächlich einen sehr guten Decker angeheuert, der die Projektdata unbemerkt nach Anleitung verändert hat. Der Leiter hat nämlich entdeckt, das die Firma Neuronet Inc., ein Teil von Cyberdyne an einer Art von Psychotropic Black-IC entwickelt, die in die Headware eingearbeitet werden soll. Dieses gibt dem Benutzer ein gutes Gefühl, wenn er in einem TIC System arbeitet. Dies widerstrebt dem ehem. Leiter, und so hat er sich davongemacht und das Projekt sabotiert. Was er nicht wußte, Continue reading “Operation Brainbug – ein deutsches Cyberpunk 2020 Abenteuer”