Setting:Nutopia

Nutopia: a world in ruin. a world of hope.

Opening

It's 25 ACE, after the common era, after the Corps fell.

Well, they didn't fall, we toppled them. After a hundred years of toiling and striving we finally got back what we wanted. We got back our freedom, we became relevant again.

The Corps were ironclad. We were well and truly theirs. Those of us that weren't taken in the night and modded beyond recognition for some impossibly niche task were worked to death compiling data. We created and slaved and toiled for a system that existed to perpetuate itself. New skin colors and hair styles that none of us would ever see. Our minds were worn down to nothing for the pleasure of one tenth of a percent of the population.

They were well protected from all forms of attack. Their 'bots and Mercs protected them from the few unincorporated nations and from each other, but they neglected their foundations. The Global Network was truly ubiquitous. Its transmitters float in the stratosphere and permeate the crust; our Earth is a literal infosphere. The formulations of a rebellion flowed along the back channels. It allowed us to execute perfectly coordinated insurrection. One day the cogs, the gears that moved their massive industries and bureaucracies, Us, rose up. We moved outside their machinery and brought it down.

There were losses. In some places atomics were detonated in their silos as the last spiteful acts of newly impotent CEOs. 'Bots were given liquidation orders, Mercs set loose. 5 years of strife followed, and with it went 5% of the earth's livable surface. 1, 201, 372, 459 people died. We know because everyone was tracked. It was one of the first things we did away with. We've actually got kids being born now without transponder chips, and they'll never have them. The Unincorporated States still exist, and many ran to them after The Corps Fell. Some people simply couldn't handle a life without someone else determining its structure. A surprising number of us, however, stayed in the wastes.

We are creating something new amongst the wreckage of the past century. There are of course dangers, simple scarcity being the biggest threat. For this we have The Delvers, individuals of unique capability and motivation who dive into forgotten supply depots and ammo dumps, plumbing the treasures of the last age. Some protect our communities from still roving 'Bots and Mercs, and from those of us who find it easier to prey on isolated communities than contribute.

It is a new age; we are for the first time in the history of the species a globally connected collective of true individuals. We are clawing our way out the ashes of the worst atrocity this planet has ever seen like a new born phoenix, and we are creating something wonderful.

We are, for perhaps the first time, Human.

This is the world of Nutopia. At some point in the early 21st century the world’s governments were almost entirely supplanted by powerful corporations who where more than happy to step in when traditional authorities couldn’t keep up with the implications of the technological leaps and bounds that the young millennium saw. However, the age of progress grew into a nightmare.

The corporations grew ever larger and more powerful, and more and more paranoid. They themselves then fell to the inexorable march of technological progress, the world wide infosphere they had created serving as the soil in which a global rebellion took root.

The survivors of the terrible rebellion and the age of oppression that preceded it are of a new mind They value freedom in its purest forms, and know well the dangers of unchecked power.

For all the hatred we pour on them, it’s important to note that without the Corps we could never have gotten here. It was their technology that facilitated this next step in history. It was the lessons that they taught us, lessons that all saw and none can forget, that brought us out of the darkness.

Humanity has no doubt had its share of dictators and tyrants, but this is the first time that the whole world was integral in their destruction, and evidence of that war is etched across the surface of the planet. Abandoned cities and nuclear craters serve as surgery scars to remind us of what we had to do to excise the cancer of oppression and forced subservience.

Game Information

Nutopia:Rules

wip. Information being retrieved and formatted from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=xm5yzxw5udvk9rllab3kurk8&page=1#4 All works created and/or carefully stolen by our good friends Nutopia_Flufffag, Pengu1n, quicksilver (especially for putting things together on the tvtropes site), and teka . If you feel you should be on this list, let me know, i am forgetful. if you don't want your name attached to this abomination.. too bad.. mwahaha.

Player Information

Those brave souls going into the dark places and risking themselves are known as Delvers. They take risks and struggle in ways few can imagine. They all have their own reasons for going out there, whether is money, revenge or humanity.

Delver Classes

Soldiers

These guys are the workhorses of a Delver team. They specialize in combat, the kind of combat varies wildly from soldier to soldier. Snipers in light, agile stealth armor stand right next to brutal close range beasts in the heaviest of power armor totting rotary cannons in each hand. They have access to the widest array of combat modifications both cyber and bio, and access to a fair amount of nano mods as well.

A player who chooses to roll a Soldier has access to all the weapons and armors of the world, the Corps spent decades making a fortune in the various arms trades, and the Soldiers are the ones most qualified to take full advantage of the fruits of their former master's labor.

Outside of the many roles they fill on the front lines soldiers can serve a number of functions when the bullets aren't flying. Close combat claws and the inherent strength or their armors let soldiers get through barriers and overcome obstacles their fellow delvers cannot navigate, as well as allowing them to simply carry more than others. The less strength oriented delvers can bring maneuverability to the table, high speed and amazing manual dexterity second only to crackers are not uncommon, and exotic methods of mobility like flight, climbing claws or special adapted swimmers are not unheard of. Soldiers are also the most familiar with the direct mechanical actions of their gear, meaning they are often the go to individual if a railgun strip comes out of alignment or if a servo in your leg is on the fritz.

Soldiers come from a variety of backgrounds. Many were employees of the Corps low level security forces, others are immigrants from Unincorporated States' militaries. Motorpool sports a considerable community both special forces and technicians from both Corps and U States, while Babel has a large population of "Swimmers" soldiers cyber and/or biomodded for combat beneath the waves and in the deadly close quarters of battles aboard ship.

Hivers

Among the Delvers, Hivers are often the most eccentric individuals. They are drawn from the ranks of musicians, artists and dancers, sculptors and poets, architects and engineers. These are individuals who for one reason or another decided to take a radical step to accentuate their chosen craft, and those that become Delvers are perhaps more eccentric still, as performance artist come combat engineer is a transition not often seen in earlier ages.

The decision for an individual to become a Hiver is not one to be taken lightly. The implants involved and the conditioning needed to control them are invasive and at first quite painful. The most common implant sites are in areas of dense muscle, limited capacity Maker blocks are implanted in the quadriceps, triceps, deltoids and latissimus dorsi beneath the skin. Some of the surrounding tissue is the bolstered and modified to provide energy for the Makers, while the skin covering the implants is biomodded to allow the pores to dilate far beyond their usual size, letting fresh batches of nanites come through the epidermis. Near the implant sites exterior plugs are introduced, allowing tubing from an external feedstock tank to be attached, as the Makers need material to do their work. The Makers are hardwired together via sub dermal cabling, as a wireless link might allow a malicious Cracker to hijack them and dissolve the Hiver with his own Nanites. All of this is then hardwired to a cortical sheath that allows the Hiver fine control over his new “organs”.

The cost of these implants is high, without further extensive implantation the lost muscle mass is difficult to compensate for, leaving the Hiver comparatively weak, especially next to a gene-bulked Soldier. The use of the surrounding tissue to supplement power to the Makers also gives Hivers a much higher metabolism than most, and the repeated ejection of nanites can be damaging to the flesh, so when not doing anything terribly pressing they can usually be found scarfing down whatever high carb/high protein food is available. The general weakness and the need for ejection ports for swarms greatly limits a Hiver’s ability to use most of the heavy weaponry her fellow Delvers wield and keeps her out of anything other than specially modified armors.

The upshot to all this is immense, however, Hivers are the most versatile class of the three, both in and out of combat, and can accomplish amazing things with the implants that cost them so much. In combat Hivers can act defensively and offensively, outside of battle they can build shelter and supply all manner of useful items and materials. Even more radical is the way Hivers can go about doing these tasks. For example, in combat an Offensive Hiver might create vicious swarms of macro nanites in the shapes of stinging insects to harass her opponents, while another could use the makers to expel a chemical mixture that ignites with air from their fingers or build up a large electrical field and discharge it at an enemy, still another might create and fling spikes and spines of diamond or create blades and wade into close combat. What a Hiver can do and how she does it is really only limited by the players imagination and the Signal Man’s ruling (Signal Man is what we’re calling the DM/GM/ST for now, until someone comes up with something better)

As stated above Hivers come from extremely diverse backgrounds and all walks of life. Nearly all Hivers were born CE, as in the current era the machinery needed to create the implants is difficult to come by. There are of course still some young hivers born ACE, but they are few and far between.

Edit: It seems worth noting that some of the inspiration for this class was a picture of Till Lindemann wearing a jockstrap with a flamethrower attached to it... Make of that what you will.

Crack3rs

From young punks to wizened old code master, Crackers come in many varieties. Their skills range wildly and each has his own mix of abilities to bring to the table. On the combat scale they reside between Soldiers and Hivers in terms of firepower and survivability, while nowhere near as heavily protected as a Soldier can be they can still wear more armor and lug bigger guns than the physically weaker Hivers. They rest on an odd tipping point in terms of modification, some sport little more than wireless interfacing tools, while others are full hardshells comprised of hissing servos, synthetic muscle and whirring processor stacks.

The most unique ability of a Cracker is their mastery of VI and Forking. They can control more advanced Virtual Intelligences in greater quantities than other delvers. These software drones can be used to autonomously attempt many tasks while the Cracker themselves attacks a more pressing issue, or they can assist a Cracker in a particularly difficult task. For example a Cracker might allow a Fire Control VI to keep an enemy pinned down while they flit off into the infosphere to jam that same enemy's senses with scrapcode, or they could bring that same VI in line with their own attention and together pull off a highly improbable ricochet shot to bring the fight to an end.

Forking is a process deployed for when a VI just won't do. The Cracker creates a copy (of varying fidelity depending on the circumstances) of his own mind. This allows a Cracker to multitask with even greater alacrity, or to focus in even more extreme detail, but maintaining the split is stressful. The process is hardly without risk, and is never done on more than a temporary basis, but no one can do it like a well trained Cracker can. The most skilled of said group can even run multiple Forks and VIs at the same time, leveling a frightful amount of thinking power at any problem.

Amongst a delving team Crackers handle any obstacle pertaining to the infosphere. Their electronic warfare skills are unmatched, and given the right VI assistance they are no slouch in physical combat either, their parallel thought processes allowing them to accomplish great feats of acrobatics and marksmanship if they put their minds to it. They can control a wide variety of robotic minions for scouting or numerous other roles. Above all else the Crackers portable processing powerhouse represents a way to amplify the abilities of the other members of their team. A Soldier has turned target acquisition an neutralization into a science, teamed with a Cracker it becomes an art. A Hiver can create anything the mind can envision given enough time and material, with a Cracker's help these creations can be realized with great speed, and the reach of the Hiver's abilities extended.

Locations

New Johanesburg or NewJ

New Johannesburg is a mega city in the truest sense of the word. Its surface area is immense, owing to cheap land prices and rapid corporate expansion. Under the rule of the Corps New J was the world's most important port, acting as a stop over and refueling point for entire fleets of huge macro freighters 3 acres long, destined for the massive industrial zones of Asia.

New J survived the revolution almost entirely intact. The area was a commerce zone, aside from its considerable littoral combat force assembled to protect the vital shipping lanes it was barely equipped to put down a riot, much less a full scale revolt.

As a result, aside from a few notable building collapses the physical structures of the city went unmolested. The organic toll was higher than the damage suggests however, due to the efforts of a few berserk merc packs given total termination orders and a lone cracker terrorist who caused a few of the city's chemical disposal dumps to void their contents onto the streets.

The end result is a huge expanse of urban sprawl with a vastly disproportionate remaining population. In other words, a Delver's paradise.

Circa 25 ACE New J has become a home to several eccentric settlements. This is not exactly surprising, the global network provides for cultural trends homogeneous only in their wild diversity, and with a long history as a planet-wide trade hub New J is even more cosmopolitan than most.

A host of settlements eke out a more or less safe existence amongst the silent streets and empty avenues of the city, but three stand head and shoulders above the rest. They form a network that supplies technology, protection and entertainment to the settlements of New J and the surrounding area.

Spire, The Tower of Lights

Spire is a settlement built within the superstructure of the world’s tallest building. Rising over a mile in height the massive skeleton erupts from a manmade island along one of the few stretches of coast not overgrown with docks and freight cranes. It was to serve as the global headquarters of the company that owned both the docks and much of the shipping that went through them. The revolution cut its construction short, leaving only twenty of the above ground floors finished.

New J’s sizeable Hiver community has taken up residence here, and turned it into something incredible. The nature of the island is easily defensible, it is connected to the shore by a mile long causeway, and the island itself is constructed like a fortress. Nothing can approach Spire without someone noticing, and the natural vantage point of the tower allows its residents plenty of time to react to any incoming threats.

While only a few floors were finished, this has done little to deter the relentlessly imaginative Hivers and Crackers of Spire from using their space to the fullest. Suspended hundreds of feet above the ground, hanging around, between, above, below and through the building’s skeleton is a riotous nest of color known as Uptown. Homes and facilities are grown out of pillars or hung by nanotube cables and strung together by everything from disembodied escalators to bungee platforms. The most common method of conveyance through the insane mishmash of architectural styles and lights is flight, whether by VTOL aircraft or more commonly bio and cybermods that allow a person to fly under their own power.

Beneath Uptown is the aptly named Downtown. Spire’s original owners only completed twenty of the above ground floors, but the building foundations are almost half again as deep as it is tall, and these were finished long before the above ground portion of the building even saw daylight. The above ground floors house much of the settlement’s land locked population, or those without a taste for the dizzying, crazy heights of Uptown. Up and Down are connected by a thick central elevator stalk and a number of helipads. Those same elevators also descend into the lower levels, wherein the heart of Spire lies. 15 floors beneath the surface lies the Reactor, pumping life giving power through the lines of the tower and its defenses.

Around 30 floors below the surface lies the buffer deck, a precaution put in place by Spire’s new tenants, as much of the iceberg like structure remains unsecured. The two floor deep security zone is manned entirely by organic personnel born ACE, free of corporate implants. The nature of the place has lead to a thriving community of Delvers who can move through the buffer deck to plumb the depths of Spire’s foundations and the mysterious facilities found therein. They bring back all manner of technological oddities and marvels from the deeps, but the nature of what the previous owners were doing down in the lowest floors remains a mystery. Aside from the all organic security force the buffer deck also contains some incredibly potent code scrubbers and localized EMP devices put in place by the corporate owners.

So far the only things brought up through the buffer deck into the settlement proper have been biological or purely mechanical in nature. Rumors abound of extremely advanced computer systems and other such treasures destroyed or wiped clean by the automated systems in the buffer deck. Delvers that travel through into the deeps must do so without some of their most advanced equipment, as if they try to return through the deck their tech could be scrubbed or fused by the draconian security measures.

Motorpool, NewJ's Defender

If Spire is the center of culture in New J, then Motorpool is the center of its defense. Built among the bunkers, hangers, silos and garages of the city’s sole military instillation Motorpool is currently the world’s largest Mechanized community. Populated by reformed mercs, uploaded crackers, entirely cyberized soldiers and the like Motorpool has become a thriving center for all those who have eschewed human flesh in this new era. Synthetics flock in from less tolerant settlements around the planet and curious delvers looking into the most extreme forms of cybernetic modifications pop in now and again.

Mercs and others brought with them an entire new niche. Machine shops and armories sprouted to handle the maintenance and supply of their highly specialized bodies. Chem bars and Current clubs crept up as a means for entertaining the Jar heads. The Silos house pit fights and arms bazaars, pick up a Gungnir heavy anti-tank railgun and then watch a pair of legged APCs sumo wrestle. Later meet those same two APCs at a Chem bar for a round of spinal taps and some old war stories.

Motorpool is the place to go if one needs the best hired guns on the market. Motorpool is the place to be to find every type of exotic weapon or ammunition imaginable. Mercenary Packs who participated in the Free States War, 15 foot long rail cannons prized free from a deck mounting on an automated littoral combat boat, mountings and ammunition for skull guns, arm guns, leg guns and thorax guns, all are available from the arms merchants in Motorpool. That trade is somewhat self-regulating however, and Delvers new to the area might find it hard to get their hands on the more exotic equipment. Many of the merchants have grown wary of new comers after a man who turned out to be a raider showed up and bought a few high yield mag mines. Those same mines were later used in a raider ambush on a merc column coming out of Motorpool on its way to the rail yards of Oasis with several tons of ammunition in tow. Since then the “good stuff” has been difficult for strangers to get their hands on, so new Delvers often need to prove their worth in the area or come highly recommended from one of the other settlements.

The settlement is also home to a sizable dish farm. Linked to corporate satellites and some truly powerful ground based radars the dish farm allows Motorpool to keep a benevolent watchful eye on NewJ’s settlements. Raiders tend to steer clear of NewJ for this very reason, only the very good, the very crazy or the very stupid tend to stick around in an area where launching a raid is likely to earn the attention of a number of protective tanks and assault armored soldiers itching for an excuse to go live. The power of Motorpool’s scanners is linked with a diverse fleet of VTOL craft, a good number of which are on patrol at any given moment. The patrol craft are often small groups of mixed craft, attack choppers flying recon and cover for larger transport craft carrying interdiction teams of mercs and soldiers. Should the farm pick up an attack force or if a settlement calls for aid Motorpool can dispatch any number of craft to deal with the threat, firing rockets and dropping troops in defense of their self assigned charges. The patrol also act as a way for ambitious delver teams to go after targets in the more dangerous parts of Johannesburg, hiring out space on one of the transports and arranging for a drop when the patrol passes near their area of interest. One should of course be sure to make arrangements for extraction, and to be on time when the patrol comes by again. They won’t leave you out to dry if you get stranded because your team missed the rendezvous, but you will owe them a favor.

Oasis, a settlement in motion

Sprawling in the low-built scrublands in the uncertain border between megacity and the encroaching desert, Oasis is the first sight of many inlanders. This settlement crouches on and around the bones of massive transportation systems, the first connection in the webs of roads and Mag-Lines rooting New J to the continent.

Oasis, first and foremost, is a city of trade. Spreading the bounty of delvers into the faltering settlements in the desert in exchange for unfinished goods and materials to be broken down into still more wonders. The Oasis trainyards have lost some of the hustle and bustles of its hyper-automated heyday, but the vast warehouses teem with organic and mechanized alike, each one looking for a better score or a new buyer (or sucker)

Need to move millions of units of expiring ammunition recovered from a newly breached Silo? You can find a soldier or representative willing to talk. Eager to trade recovered corporate databases and, rarest of all, hard copy information for the annoyingly simple necessities that your own tiny Delver town just cant make for itself? well.. Our man from the office will be glad to look over what your had in mind.

Delvers and Hired Guns from all over the continent eventually pass through the tangled roads and lev lines at some point in their careers. Oasis is the northern tip of the triumvirate of NewJ’s major settlements, and thusly is the first most see of the massive southern megacity. Oasis’ largest feature is the Anansi Hub, the massive routing and loading station from which all roads and levs entering the city sprout or terminate.

The hustle and bustle of Oasis leads to a naturally brisk and somewhat unruly settlement. The unruliness can at times escalate to violence, but the powers that be in Oasis know that running gun battles are not good for commerce. Telling to people to check their arms at the gates is a little unrealistic for a settlement that has a burgeoning arms trade, so instead the merchants have formed the Anansi Defenders. Wishing to keep fatalities to a minimum and hoping not to damage merchandise or prospective customers Anansi men typically carry a wide variety on non-lethal armaments. Any delver worth his salt can find work with these black clad soldiers keeping the peace with a break open gas launcher in one hand and a stun prod in the other.

A massive trunk of lev lines three layers deep shoots north arrow straight from Anansi, gleaming in the African sun. These raised silver lanes are the Mainline that cuts Africa in half, terminating at Tunisia, where it becomes the Pillars of Heraclese, the truly awesome shining span crossing the whole of the Mediterranean, crossing Europe towards Brusselsphere.

Making the trip from Oasis to Brusselsphere can be an adventure all its own. The three decks of the mainline are comprised of the lower two freight lines and the upper “Sun Line” passenger route. Leaving from Oasis passengers will first be greeted by the jungles of the Congo, speeding through the canopy while guards keep a watchful eye out for some of the nastier bioforms. Once they’ve broken clear of the jungle there’s usually little to worry about save for the occasional raider blockade, but when the reach the Saharan Proving Grounds things get a little more interesting. Here the trains will typically meet up with a CAP patrol of VTOL craft from junkyard who will escort them to Tunisia and the Pillars. Should such support be unavailable then it is up to the guards and passengers to defend the train from raiders and ‘bots who have broken free of the restraints that kept the line safe in the past. Reaching the Pillars the trains begin the quiet and frankly beautiful crossing into Europe’s blasted cities. Crossing the large crater that was once the Sicilian space port and into Italy proper the line skirts the edge of Vatican lands (attacks from this quarter are very rare, but not entirely unheard of) through the huge factory plains of Germany and on into the routing stations at Brusselsphere. From here passengers and goods can find passage to England, or down through towards Spain and the coastal African/European Gibraltar Line, and from there they can find air or sea travel to North America. One can even, if they for some reason wished to expose themselves to that benighted place, take the lonely line that arcs towards the Russian Resource Zone and ultimately to Novaya Sibir.

The Russian Resource Zone

In the early 21st century the great Russian bear finally crashed to the ground. She had been hemorrhaging, some argued, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and finally the wounds had taken their toll. Systemic corruption reached a point of no return, and a nationwide agricultural famine brought on by an incredibly virulent phage that assaulted numerous food staples pushed it all over the edge. What began as rioting in the streets of numerous cities threatened to become a full scale civil war, and the world watched with great trepidation as the largest nuclear power threatened to implode. American aircraft carriers floated at high alert off the eastern shore while NATO troops lined up for decades old invasion plans that had hastily been revised and renewed invasion plans none of them had ever believed would be enacted, and China's massive army stood ready to tear across the Gobi and into the heart of the motherland. The planet's major powers stood ready to put the bear down, in the fear that its death throes might entail nuclear fire.

Then, at the eleventh hour, a savior arrived. Burgeoning biotech corporation Illium produced a cure for the phage that was ravaging the nation's fields. Dispersal of the miracle agent began immediately. Furthermore, a number of Ilium's subsidiaries began to assist the flagging nation in areas ranging from improved medical care to quiet paramilitary actions against major agitators. The world at large breathed a collective sigh of relief, many leaders simply happy that the crisis seemed to be over. Cries from a number of independent groups crying foul at the degree to which Illium and the Russian government were becoming indistinguishable from one another went largely ignored. The corporation had, after all, done much of the work for little profit, and had gone to great lengths to endear themselves to the Russian people.

What came next was slow, but ultimately unstoppable. At first it was a few well payed people in the right places, then a puppet at the highest levels, and finally outright, utter control of the government. Within a few years of their intervention Illium openly overtook administration of the Russian Federation, and the first Corporate nation was born. International attention was once again focused on the Bear, seemingly resurrected but now wearing a corporate logo across her tricolor flag. Scrutiny was immediate, but Illium seemed squeaky clean. For good reason too, the paramilitary operations carried out by a PMC subsidiary in the early days of their involvement had been less about quelling riots and more about tying up loose ends in regards to Illium's invention of not only the cure for the phage that caused the agricultural collapse, but the phage itself.

The world moved on, and corporations spread. As the world wide control of those organizations grew more and more absolute, pretenses began to fall away. What was once the Russian Federation became the Russian Resource Zone. The corporate state's southern neighbors grew increasingly nervous. China in particular had never incorporated largely due to a centuries old wariness of foreign companies, and the trickle of refugees from the RRZ told horror stories that seemed to confirm their fears. The Bear was being strip mined, her hide being methodically mined for the exotic materials that made the new world go 'round, and massive fields of gentech crops began to rival America's breadbasket in terms of global food production. Illium made little effort to hide the awful working conditions of its mines and fields, they were more concerned with their truly dirty secrets.

When The Fall came Russia exploded into violence, in some cases literally. The populace rose up in bloody conflict in a move that would be mirrored the world over. Illium fought back hard however. The Moscow Arcology was silenced in less than a day by a voracious airborne hemorrhagic fever dumped into its ventilation systems, while Volgograd turned once more into the messy street to street fighting that had worn the Nazis to a halt decades earlier. Some of the aging nuclear stockpile was detonated where it lay, sterilizing swathes of Russian countryside, other missiles fired almost at random, a few warheads slipping past the Chinese defense net and causing massive devastation. Chinese forces hardly needed so much provocation, they had been preparing for this moment for a long time. They leapt across the Mongolian border and shot north, only to be greeted by the horrors that Illium's gentech had made of the Russian military. Russia's southern border turned into a meat grinder, air thick with artillery, bullets, disease and a few tac nuke detonations. The Chinese push was halted, the PRC was more concerned with disaster efforts at home then hurling more men into a hellstorm.

The RRZ today is a desolate place. Disease and Fallout are the most pressing problems for obvious reasons, NBC gear almost becoming a necessary facet of everyday life in some areas. The southern conflict ground Illium's forces into a stump of a once mighty military, but some units remain active, alternately mad, murderous or simply trying to survive. The RRZ poses what one might call a penultimate test for adventurers the world over, portions of the landscape itself having become more inimical to life than any roving mercenary pack. If they can brave these dangers, however, the rewards may be great. Illium buried its most valued facilities deep, so great treasure may remain for those brave enough to grasp at it.

Novaya Sibir

The event that many consider to have sparked The Fall was the infamous Central Park incident. A corporate sponsored event was hijacked by a network of Crackers, and a film of a secret corporate facility broadcast across the globe. That facility was in Russia, the penultimate house of Illium's horrors known as Novaya Sibir.

Elsewhere

Babel, City of Tides

During the events the brought the last age, the Mega Corp Light-Core was confronted with a problem. A second rate shipping company, it found itself unable to compete with the giants of it's day. It set out with a project, shackling its fate to the communication and solar generating satellites in the sky above. It began to build the world's first space elevator; a tremendously tall tower, stretching to the heaven's above, able to quickly and cheaply catapult cargo into low orbit, from which it could easily corner the market on satellite technology. The project started, building proceeded smoothly, and then the end of the world came.

One of the first targets was the near-completed tower, though none alive know who fired at it. Though constructed on the Indian Subcontinent, it's towering primary spire, which soon earned the mocking nickname of Babel by the more powerful corporations in the world, could be faintly seen from much of the Eastern Hemisphere. A weapon, some say a nuclear in nature, while others claim rail guns, nanites, or perhaps even a suicide run from an aerial craft, brought the elevator down. The lower levels were destroyed instantly, but the upper levels, caught in lower gravity above and the forces rippling up the superstructure from below, drifted out into the Indian Ocean, before crashing with a tremendous tidal wave.

The tower, built for the high stresses of planetary momentum and wind shear, some how survived. Part of the substructure crashed into the bottom of the sea, while the upper portions jut above. The tower has been since been found, and has become something of a bustling sea center, it's surface extending over miles of the Indian Ocean. Known as Babel, City of Tides, it takes on travelers, traders, and sailors of all sorts from Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Southern Asia, and Australia, becoming an important sea based oasis.

Babel is powered primarily by a solar furnace; collection of solar connection rigs, still wirelessly connected to the dedicated solar satellites that it was intended to service in the first place. This, on top of expressing it's dominance on a the few nearby deep-sea oil drilling rigs in the seas around it, provided Babel with enough power to last well through the coming nights.

Babel is serviced by a vast shipping fleet, known collectively as Etemenanki . They serve as it's chief limbs, eyes, and mouth, projecting the will of Babel into much of the Indian Ocean. A collection of yachts and cruise liners to shipping frigates and once modern ships of war comprise the Etemenanki, endlessly questing the high seas for freight, personnel, and fuel. There are six main task forces of the Etemenanki, and each roam separately, under the command of an Admiral. These six, combined with the Tower Admiral of the Babel proper, form the primary administrative body of Babel, the League of Tides.

Babel's biggest problem is perhaps projection of power. Though each task force of the Etemenanki is more then able to hold it's own, with battleships, cruisers, and even a carrier or two, the physical space in the ocean is vast. Slavers, raiders, and rival warlords feature one of the primary plot hooks of Babel; piracy. Vast tracks of sea are no man's land, and the area has become a haven for those you want to hide on the run. Smaller islands, scattered from the eastern Indian chain, to man-made ones floating on debris, built into abandoned oil derricks, and carved from coral atolls, are hung onto desperately, with the survivors doing whatever dark and sometimes twisted efforts are required to stay alive. These ocean born frontier towns are armed to the teeth, and will normally trade with the ships of the Etemenanki, but when left to their own devices for too long, or prodded once too many times by raider, will sometimes up a mobilize, setting off across the open sea in a near mindless wave of killing and looting.

As dangerous and unpredictable as the frontier towns may seem, they hold the key to many of the great treasures in these waters. For just under the waves lie untold treasures, from pieces fallen from Babel in it's crash, satellites plunged into the waters as they lost power, and oil and mineral veins deep on the ocean floor to be pillaged. Many of these small flotilla's are built on existing constructions, allowing a quick, if perhaps dangerous, path to the secrets on the floor. Babel itself has established a number of these routes, with it's undersea superstructure and original cargo hauling capabilities helping in this effort. It is through this exploration of the ocean floor that one of the great mysteries of the entire Indian Ocean was found. The code name Atlantis Project.

Brusselsphere

An enormous conglomeration of geodesic domes covering about 70% of former Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands, Brusselsphere was one of the most spectacular, most bombastic corporate projects to ever come to fruition. A megacity in which the weather was controlled precisely by a regulatory system, ensuring the best climate conditions on the globe. During the Fall, eco-terrorist sabotage brought down the climate control AI, baking or freezing several domes until they were stopped. Those areas are still cooling down, and Delvers are advised to stay away from the hostile desert and jungle conditions.

Brusselsphere used to be the corporate-government capital of Europe, and together with Londons Prime, 2, 3, and 4 it formed the hub of the great financial networks that spanned the globe and projected corporate power. Most of the corp headquarters buildings still stand, looted and gutted from the Fall times, but rumours have it that there are still undelved vaults and secret bunkers under the city. The old EUSEC defense system may still be active, which could explain the periodic appearance of security drones, armed and attacking anything that moves.

The Junk Yard

Built on the ruins of a former corporate military base, in the middle of the Tunisian desert, the Junkyard is a small but famous settlement. It boasts the biggest population of nonhuman cyborgs and uploads in the world.

The entire commune is spaced out over the base facilities, with most newcomer residents inhabiting the hangars of the old airfield, and the older founders residing in the central underground motor pool. Most of the population are former corporate soldiers or Mercs, but a few Crackers in multifunctional utility and maintenance hardshells have also made the Junkyard their home.

The most famous landmark in the Junkyard is Ma Baker's, a saloon bar providing uplinked entertainment and direct brain stimulation to cyborg customers, accessible to vehicles. Ma Baker herself is a 14 ton light tank who doesn't like people asking her to show them her 30mm.

Since the base got hit with a tactical nuke during the Fall, partials or noncyborgs don't visit very often. And since almost every resident of the Junkyard is armed with heavy weapons, raider visits are also quite rare. However, the community lives in constant fear of EMP attacks; construction on a giant Faraday cage around the entire area has begun but is incomplete.

Junkyard's inhabitants have taken on responsibility for the protection of the Tunisian Coastal Rail Nexus, running patrols along the northern Main Line and providing security for the confluence of rail lines that emanate from where the Main Line hits the sea and becomes The Pillars of Heraclese.

The Neumann Vault

Take a trip through the Old Midwest, past the Cloning Farms still running, endlessly producing steadily more devolved subhumans as their genetic patterns degrade, beyond the Archives, the vast multi-kilometre data warehouses once full of the sum of human knowledge and now just meaningless ones and zeros, and beyond the Red Zone where the radiation from the Goldmarck Neumann Wars is still strong enough to kill an unshielded man in hours. Keep going, into the vast fields of GM wheat, effectively unkillable and unstoppable, that turns even the flesh-melting nanite clouds into another energy source. Keep going, through the vast craters of the Megabombs, GM wheat only broken by the scarce few ruins still stable enough to stand, and pools full of every kind of pseudolegal chems mixed by decades of leakage and sunlight into brews so utterly toxic not even the wheat can grow in it. Tread lightly past the Sentinels, unimaginably lethal 'bots designed to be able to hold off entire armies alone, still defending the ruins of their homes. There, go into the Deep Crater, and you can see it; the Neumann Vault.

It is an unassuming structure, a block of some fancy darkened supermetal, five hundred metres long and wide, and a hundred tall. Look for the door, fifty metres by fifty, every centimetre of space taken up by warnings etched into the metal. Behind that door lies the reason for the Neumann Corps' existence, the reason for their destruction, and the reason hundreds of Delvers die each year trying to open it.

A relative latecomer to the Corporations, Neumann was a small company built by a bored megarich executive around this facility, an empty space occupied only by at-the-time advanced nanonic assemblers with one task; to copy itself, and to improve itself every time. One day, the Vault would be opened, and whatever was inside would be The novelty of the offering amused many of the idle megarich, and money flowed in, soon powering it to the status of a moderate Corp. They built other divisions and started work, and soon forgot the assemblers in the vault over newer, more advanced models. They ran into money trouble, and were prepared to open the Vault to see what they had cooked up in desperation, and this so worried the Goldmarck Corp, another high-level corp mostly specializing in nanonic assemblers, that they declared a Private War, at first subtle, then more and more overt. By the end of it, just four weeks after it had begun, both corps were utterly destroyed, and the Vault soon forgotten as the Fall of the Corporations came a bare month later, befor the radiation had cooled enough to send in even hardened 'bots.

Decades later, the Vault still lies unopened, its work going on far longer than even the Neumann Corp had planned. Anything could be in there now, a mist of dead nanites self-coded into deactivation, assemblers capable of rearranging the universe on the subatomic level, a vast array of pretty and meaningless junk, built to please the eye of a nanite swarm gone Smart, or nothing, the assemblers improving themselves beyond the constraints of the universe.

All I know is what the Vault told me. Seven hundred metre crater walls mean that this vault had the Corporations so worried that, even as their world collapsed around them, they spared the time to launch no less than twenty-eight Megabombs at this place, and that the Neumann guys were so worried it could get out they built a facility that could survive that sort of punishment unharmed.

I came to unlock riches, me and the twenty others of our Delve. Only three of us survived to reach the Vault, and the other two had died by the time I found the Key. I could have opened it, but never brought myself to. I gave away my chance for new-Megarichdom at the doors of this vault, and ran back to my Enclave with everything I had destroyed, because I couldn't help but fear what could come out of those doors.

I'm giving you the key, because I'm a dead man. Even shielded, that place was so hot it cooked my DNA like like a frozen dinner, and I won't last the month. The key's gene-locked, and can't be lost, sold, or destroyed, only given away. You seem better than the sort of bastard might take the key off my body, and I'd rather whatever was in that Vault went to you instead of some fuckhead Raider.

Just remember. There are some doors in the world that, once opened, can never be shut again.

Fluffy Details

Money and Barter

With a toppled/toppling megacorp no doubt taking a big chunk of virtual currency and oversight out of the system, what are folks using to exchange goods and services in the years ACE?

paper/coin currency seems risky, since I am fairly sure that a meagerly skilled Hiver could pump out plenty of either. Without a huge overarching government/corp entity in the background, securing value seems difficult.

One option would be that most Settlements do a grudging business with notes or coinage or markers from one of the largely intact Unincorporated States. Remember that with the existence of the info-sphere things like the current exchange rates should be easy for everyone to keep track of.

The Nu-Dollar <-> BancBuc <-> Motorpool Cred exchanges would end up fairly visible though we would probably see a certain shred of profit-taking from the money changers involved, just as today. Expect to see someone expressing a preference in their pay, picking Motorpool Creds because they want to do some business out that way, or demanding a few more percentage points worth of Nu-Dollars because "damn gougers cut you more and more every year with their fees and I got 'nuff bills to pay already"

A heavier, literally, medium of exchange would be raw materials. Sure, with enough time and juice and spares, you can tickle a cloud of nanites into separating that pile of rusty scrap into ingots of component elements.. but a five-kilo block of pure, really pure copper from the mines up in highlands (they finally got them open again, its amazing.. heard something about badgers, believe it or not) would represent a reliable time and energy saving factor that would go beyond mere material worth. Could be the same thing with many products:

• Refined-Carbon rods, pure and ready to drop into the Forge of your choice. Salvage from a Corp' building site, perhaps.

• Gold. the Original shiny-thing. Some people still horde the stuff like it was going out of style, everyone else values it for its chemical/electrical properties.. and shininess. Everything from the meager ingots produced in massive automated pit mining arrays to ancient coins 'liberated' from the vaults of Corporate Officers after they, um, didn't need them anymore.

• Radioactive Materials. Sure, exotic materials have a lingering bad name from some of the.. ah.. Unfortunate events of the War, but there is still a need. The would be a large and somewhat dangerous category, ranging from the molded uranium or plutonium from weapons captured still in their cradles to tiny amounts of the vast category of transoceanic elements for exotic applications. As a whole these are one of the hardest to handle, able to burn out half the tech in your bloodstream if you look at it funny.

Energy

Just before the fall the preferred energy source of the corporations was solar power, orbital solar operations to be precise. Before the corporations exhausted just about every source of fossil fuels and radioactives on earth, Orbital solar power amounted for about 2% of the global energy production, but when the supplies began to dwindle due to massive rise of energy consumption due the introduction of makers.

The biggest problem that the orbital solar power plant had was the maintenance, an traditional array had an endurance of about 5 year before needing an expensive repair space flight, the maker technology changed that. An solar panel array with an maintenance maker had an lifespan of an century before needing to resupplied with raw materials. Just before the fall the orbital solar power amounted for 73% of the global energy production, However during the fall many arrays were either damaged, destroyed or de-orbited by including but not limited to: hit by an frenzied anti-ICBM defenses, not evading an piece of debris, evading an piece of debris too hard or even de-orbited on purpose to be used as an projectile.

After the fall the Free States were quite desperate to get the power plants back on line as most of the more traditional manufacturing infrastructure was destroyed during the fall forcing them to rely on the makers. Even by 25 ACE there are still many power plants that have no place to beam their power and therefore the Free States are constantly sending delvers to uncover access codes to the powers plants so they could be moved to either to orphaned receiving dishes or newly constructed ones.

Nanotechnology

There are two broad categories of nanites in the world of Nutopia: foglets and universal (dis)assemblers.

The foglets are lighter-than-air nanomachines that form an cloud around the hiver. The cloud allows the hiver to send his asseblers trough the foglets to anywhere within the cloud, however an average hiver can produce an cloud that is only about 10 meters in diameter, but most settlements and any functional high tech facility probably have their air full of utility fog. The foglets purpose is to act as an bridge, communication- and an powerline for assemblers going from their hive to their target. The foglets aren't terribly smart and cannot distinguish between commands from friendly or hostile source as such anyone or thing capable projecting nanomachines is capable of doing so within the utility fog.

The universal (dis)assemblers can manipulate atoms and chemical bonds around their immediate surroundings, according to the instructions from their hive. Compared to foglets the assemblers are considerably more intelligent because by micromanaging every single nanite would require an supercomputer to build even the most homogeneous and simple objects, therefore the assemblers have an limited group intelligence and an onboard database that allows them to identify materials and assemble even the most complex chemical compounds by themselves with little instructions from the hive. The assemblers also have several different kinds of sensors that when using them as an group the assemblers can give very detailed information of their surroundings.

The "universal" in The "universal (dis)assemblers" is no joke, if it can be accomplices by manipulating matter it can be done. An average hive can assemble an delicious meal from dirt, clean firearms without disassembling them, heal wounds, and turn an bandit accosting him into an puddle of protein, but this comes at a price: all action by nanites require energy and and while the assemblers can somewhat utilize ambient energy in their immediate surroundings most of the energy is provided by their hive. This is problematic for hivers even as all of their cell are modified (either genetically or nanotechnologicaly) into organic self-recharging batteries, an average hiver can only liquefy several bad guys before running dry. The number of nanites is also an problem as hivers can only carry so many nanites, so amount what they can do at any given time is limited. Both of these problems can be alleviated by portable bio-electricity batteries and special hiver armor's that store extra energy and nanites. All hivers have several special cerebral implants that allow them to control their nanites, these implants can be loaded with different kinds of expert systems that allow the hiver to give general commands to his nanites like: "liquefy", "stabilize that guy" and like, that are carried out without any further input from him.

Both types of nanites are capable of self replication but only with permission from their hive. In order to prevent mutations or corruption in the nanites, all their programming is stored in ROM (Read Only Memory) and have an tiny bit of RAM to process commands. The programming is encrypted I a way that if it is altered in any way the nanite cannot function. While this cannot prevent all mutations it assures the mutated nanited cannot self replicate, however because of this the hivers will eventually starts to run out of nanites as the last functional nanite generation cannot create new ones. To fix this the hiver must sample some "core strain" nanites found in highly controlled environment inside makers in order to replace his mutated ones.

The nanites are an exceptionally efficient in their design: every atom in their bodies pull an double-duty, this however leaves them with very little in the way of redundancy or backup systems. This means that an individual nanites are rather easy to disable, for example even an weak EMP in the vicinity of the nanites can erase their command buffer, as the nanites become inert if they aren't ordered to do something as an security measure. Ionizing radiation also does an number on the nanites, even small amount alpha particles slowly corrupts the programming of nanites and also the particles interferences with assembly of new nanites and other things the hiver or the maker is creating. Beta particles, gamma and x-rays are even worse, causing nanites to breakdown completely from far smaller amount of radiation that would pose an lethal threat to even unaugmented humans.

A Word On Firepower

The arms trade was, as ever, extremely lucrative to the corporations. Most communities have Maker Templates for simple conventional firearms (one of the biggest finds in recent memory was a template for a Romanian AK-47 and 7.62x39mm ammunition). In the delves, however, things get much more interesting. The big corporate Makers allowed for the synthesizing of room temperature super conductors in large amounts, and rail/coilgun tech became much more feasible as a man portable option. Rail arms vary in size from handguns to large bore cannon. What wasn't Rail used caseless ammunition and exotic electronic ignition methods, sometimes even guided munitions to make up for the like of straight line firepower compared to a railgun.

Towards the end of the Corps some companies began to look into more creative was of killing a man than simply putting bits of metal into him at high speed. Sonic rifles for riot dispersal, highly concentrated particle beams that could punch through armor and melt flesh, and jacketed plasma launchers were all in development just before year 0.

All that firepower is further augmented by further advances. Autosensing weapons link wirelessly nanomodded eyeballs, projecting all manner of targeting data into the operators field of view. Steadying rigs and power armor hard points allow for the usage of truly epic firepower.

Power armors vary in size from close fitting exosuits that serve to mildly augment the wearer's strength, speed and endurance to 10 foot tall Nephilim 2B Breaching Armor equipped with nanite clouds, reactive panels, ceramic plates, rolled steel sheets, shock absorbing gels and Kevlar all wrapped around big servos and internal ammunition bays.

Larger still varieties exist, but few are willing to undergo the one way bonding process needed to pilot something as massive as one of the Merc Tanks. Still, Digitized Delvers are hardly unheard of, and if they are willing to sacrifice human contact and can afford the upkeep they can elect to inhabit what amounts to a cross between a bus, a MBT and a spider.

Mercs

"Merc" is the blanket term used to refer to the most elite, most heavily modified, and often most brutal soldiers the corporations had at their command. The name is derivative of the fact that many of these corporations had Private Military Companies on the payroll for security, or even as wholly owned subsidiaries. As advances in warfare and the way it was fought continued to blossom, the sacrifices that militaries asked of their best men became ever more extreme. The extensive body modification now common after the Fall was pioneered amongst the armed forces of the world first. Extensive research into prosthetics yielded replacement limbs and even organs indistinguishable from their original counterparts, or even with improved capabilities. The most extensive modifications naturally found their way to those with need of them in an operational capacity. Special forces who could look into the infrared spectrum at will, mountain troops with enhanced endurance and EOD technicians with blast resistant endoskeletons.

Northrop Grumman were the first, however, to successfully implement the most extreme modification available in terms of cybernetic and biological modification. An Illium-Russo Conglomerate fighter ace was badly injured in a simple car accident, to the extent that not even the most advanced cybernetic augmentation could save her. Under dubious circumstances she was transported to an American medical facility. There her brain, brain stem and a few inches of healthy spine were sustained in a specially designed cask. The system allowed the pilot to control the entire airframe with her mind, changing course and lining up targets at the speed of thought while being able to pull incredible maneuvers without fear of blacking out, the only restriction on agility being the strength of the airframe.

The Cerebral Suspension Cask (or as it is or commonly known the "Brain-in-a-jar" or "Headcase") was a breakthrough of such magnitude that it, and its descendant Upload technology, warrant their own discussion. Suffice to say the military applications were incredible. Experienced troops could come back from nearly any injury, could download their memories for use in the training of other personnel, and had more command of their given chassis than any unmodified pilot. Vehicles were designed with the capability of CSC pilots in mind, leading to a great increase in the power and complexity of land and air vehicles. The process and its results were proven most publicly in a famous incident during the NATO wargames, when that same Illium Pilot, flying a never before seen variable geometry, linear aerospike propelled stealth aircraft disabled fourteen veteran (but unmodified) pilots in conventional fighters in less than five minutes in a "cannons only" dogfight.

As corporate control strengthened, the corporate mercenaries at their command made more and more use of what would become their signature modification. Pure human piloted military vehicles became alternately rarities or relics. Even non-CSC pilots used extensive uplinks to their cortical stacks to achieve the same effectiveness, and they were not preferred, their bodies took up space that might be used for armor and ammunition after all. Even the infantry began to change in major ways, bodies specialized for their given rules to such extreme degrees that they were barely recognizable as human. Armacor made famous through a television series their Paladin assault teams, 9 foot tall power armored knights fighting crime, saving hostages and shooting away to the rooftops on high powered grapple lines. The truth of the late night abductions or the messy espionage raids would only become known later. Illium went the biological route, turning the various Russian special forces into purposefully terrifying genetic hybrids. MVD trackers armed with dog noses and bat ears could hunt by a number of unlikely means, while genetically bulked hulks could tear a normal man limb from limb with ease. The Spetsnaz, ever in love with the capability for a surprise attack, even took to a number of non-standard modifications like venom injecting fangs or claws, or skin that could excrete slippery or acidic coatings.

Regardless of their shape or size, "Merc" became the term that referred to these extremely modified corporate troops. Those that remain active, still under the sway of corporate hard coding and brainwashing or simply possessed of a bloodthirsty attitude, are the most dangerous threat to physical survival that any Delver is likely to face. Conversely, those that have overcome their training and wish to assist in hauling humanity from the ashes can be an incredibly powerful ally.

Mercs After the Fall

Mercs after the fall

During the fall the central command structure of the mercs collapsed nearly instantly witch prevented them from organizing an credible resistance as when the chain of command was re-established it was already too late: the corporation had lost, they just refused to admit it. Before the collapse of the last holdout of organized corporation resistance, the surviving mercs were given an standing order to destroy any rebels encountered. Now after nearly two decades after the fall very few still follow that directive, as most of them have realized that the new world order is here to stay and there is nothing they can do about it anymore.

Soon after the fall the scattered merc units began to re-organize, and at first the last order of their now dead corporate masters were a natural thing to follow as the new settlements were poorly defended and raiding was very rewarding. But soon thing began to change the settlements began to have better fixed defences and more trained militia and there were increasing amount of mercs that hired their sevices to defend the settlements. Things took an turn for even worse for the mercs with the appearance of delvers, the delvers competed in same salvage and spare parts as the mercs. While the delvers weren't as well equip or experienced as the mercs, their greater numbers began to wear down the mercs. The last nail to the mercs coffer was the organized an common defense for settlements and first after-fall cities, based around fast VTOL transports that could rapidly deploy reinforcement to any settlements under attack.

These days an slight majority of the mercs are either hiring themselves to the settlements for maintenance or equipment or are part off delvers. In any cyborg city like The Junkyard or similar you can guarantee that in the bar there is an old, beat-up hardshell merc going on about the "good old days" to anyone who will listen. They tell stories about their pre-fall exploit under the corporations and stories about vast, invincible, unstoppable, burning and pillaging hordes of state-of-the-art killing machines. Those honest-to-flying spaghetti monster raider mercs that refuse to trade or barter are an dying breed, but while no means rare they are slowly being wiped out by delvers or simply by the lack of salvageable spare parts.

Biomerchs

When the corps ruled Mercs were, as now, the greatest fear of the common citizen. Massive vehicles and and armors that prowled the streets and leveled homes on a whim. There were, however, a more secretive kind of hired muscle employed and engineered by the corporations; Biomercs.

Designed and deployed for missions where a 126 ton thinktank just wasn't the right tool for the job, Biomercs were the Corp's hitmen and assassins. Rigged with the latest and best biomods and cybernetic parts most Biomercs would never pass as human. Animal limbs and organs along with weaponized appendages created perfect snipers and close range massacre artists. They specialized in pin point precision and high speed attacks.

Perhaps even more frightening were the covert operatives. Externally a normal human, and internally shielded so that cursory scans will turn up nothing amiss, covert biomercs were the ultimate tools of deadly infiltration.

Nowadays Biomercs are becoming less and less common. They were by their nature on the bleeding edge of genetic modification, and needed constant monitoring and medical assistance when not in the field. Most died or went insane after the fall from simple withdrawal symptoms. Those that managed to survive by finding caches of medical equipment are loathe to move far from their lairs except to fulfill their encoded desire for the hunt. The Coverts, to, are a dying breed. A good deal of them went active as soon as the Corps started to loose control and were killed in the ensuing violence. Most Communities are diligent enough to catch any trying to sneak in, and some will even allow in "reformed" coverts who have gotten over their old genetic imperatives and memetic commands.

Short Stories

• The Afganistan Expedition

Now Working on this.