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

wip. Information being retreived and formatted from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=xm5yzxw5udvk9rllab3kurk8&page=1#4

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

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

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 are also typically the least modified members of a Delver team, their given role typically only necessitating a few small implants and upgrades to allow for highspeed wireless interfacing.

This specialization leaves them the most open to external electronic attack however, as while Soldiers and Hivers need only maintain a well defended port to their handler and comrades, Crackers are constantly probing the Noosphere around them, allowing a certain vulnerability to malicious code and. As such most Crackers have a good deal of skill when it comes to signals warfare and know how to handle themselves should their wireless defenses come under attack.

Some Crackers specialize in breaking into systems and disabling various security systems and traps. Others find their niche controlling 'bots as recon and combat minions beyond the range and power of what a Hiver can produce. Still others find a balance, juggling systems, 'bots and even augmenting fellow Delver's abilities.

Locations

New Johanesburg or NewJ

   *Spire

   * The Motorpool

   * Oasis, City of Motion 

Elsewhere

   *Babel, City of Tides

   *Brusselsphere

   *The Junk Yard

   *The Neumann Vault