243. Jerrys

Neville Orsonglass was overjoyed and then dismayed at the positive response to his "ultimate survivor" rat-based biomorph, the jenkins. He became embittered as it became clear the morph was not being used for its survivability, but for its ability to tolerate high doses of drugs. Eventually, he elected to take the lessons learned from the jenkins and apply them to a new morph, this time starting with the genome of the naked mole rat.

The result are called jerrys, after the classic cartoon, and for their virtual indestructibility. They can eat anything, digest it efficiently, and store the energy effectively. Even without medichines, they are very difficult to poison. Their thick skin makes them difficult to hurt casually. What Neville has brought to his design that is truly new, however, is its unique metabolism, adapted from naked mole rats. The morph can transition seamlessly between high metabolic, low metabolic, and hibernation states depending on the availability of food, oxygen, and the ambient temperature, moving from a high-activity state in terrestrial climates, to a low-activity state when experiencing deficiencies, all the way to hibernation, if necessary.

The morph has become popular in rural Mars, where it allows for the closest thing to primitive survival possible. Gatecrashers with reasons to avoid synths have also been experimenting with its use.

Mechanics

Jerrys are pods.

Enhancements: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Bioweave Armor (Heavy), Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Digestive Symbiotes, Efficient Digestion, Enhanced Respiration, Fat Storage, Hibernation, Organ Redundancy, Temperature Tolerance, Toxin Filters
Aptitude Maximum: 30
Durability: 45
Wound Threshold: 9
Advantages: +5 INT, +5 REF, Bioweave Armor (3/4)
Disadvantages: Social Stigma (Pod) trait, Unattractive (Level 2 ) trait
CP Cost: 35
Credit Cost: Expensive (35,000+)

242. Statistical Contests

Statistical contests are debates, games, sports matches, and similar two-person competitions utilizing forking to minimize the influence of chance and provide statistical, rather than boolean, results. For example, two boxers might each make 100 forks of themselves, then have 100 boxing matches. Whoever wins the most matches is the winner overall.

Some viewers dislike statistical contests, preferring the excitement of high stakes on single outcomes, while others dislike them because they must almost always be held in simulspace. They have still become popular, however, being favored by bookies, who have much more data to work with, and providing vastly more material for highlight reels.

On some Autonomist habitats, statistical contest software is used to hold the largest of possible debates, with each ego forking so as to engage in a full discussion with every other ego. This is practical only in smaller habitats, even with post-singularity computers, the number of debates to be simulated can quickly become unreasonable. Even on larger habitats, they are often used to settle disputes among small groups.

241. Orbits

Orbits is an AR game that has been slowly but surely gaining in popularity. Users of Orbits become the center of a small solar system, orbiting their head as if it were a star. They can manipulate events with their hands, sending asteroids and comets to and fro and shaping continents, or allow the simulation to take its own course. Life will arise on suitable planets and evolve quickly, eventually becoming intelligent tool users who will explore their solar system.

If other users are nearby, interstellar travel, first contact situations, diplomacy and war will occur between civilizations. Users sometimes congregate in public places to watch epic space-operas break out.

Orbits is an AR toy run on mesh inserts, so it should not come as a surprise that the simulation is no more detailed than the user requires. If the user is not paying attention, than the simulation is entirely statistical. If a user zooms in to watch an expedition to an alien planet, that expedition is detailed but nothing else. A popular extra for Orbits is an AI that monitors the activity of their planets and looks for patterns suitable for unique short stories, effectively a highlight reel.

240. Off-Contract Work

Contracts are the blood of Extropia's anarcho-capitalist society. Every formal agreement or relationship is (or is supposed to be) laid out in a contract to which relevant parties all agree. Even contract enforcement is contract based, being carried out by freelance magistrates and voluntary-membership legal systems.

Extropia is a society of fast actions and rapid response. Professions, businesses, and industries rise suddenly and then change or die. Competition is ever-present and merciless, and if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying to win. Even in a society without laws, there can be a sort of crime.

For those willing to burn rep for credits or credits for favors, there is an underground profession of freelancers (or teams of freelancers). Linked by networks of trust and anonymity, they exchange deniable wealth in exchange for off-contract work, sabotaging, stealing or killing on behalf of anonymous clients.

Plot Hook: While in line for the public makers, the PCs are interrupted by a night cartel hit squad, attempting to assassinate the infant, unauthorized clone of their boss, held by one of Pax Familae. Intercede on behalf of either party, and the PCs will gain some g-rep and an offer for further work.

Plot Hook: Metacelebrity Ecstasy has been abducted in a bizarre and violent attack. Unfortunately for the PCs, they had been hired last weekend to prevent Ecstasy from making an appearance by temporarily kidnapping. The best way to clear their names is to track down the new kidnappers themselves, although all the rumors point to a dangerous clade of gestalt-mind exhumans.

Plot Hook: Three unusual prototype cyberbrains were recently stolen from a secure storage facility. These prototypes alter the personalities of anyone sleeved into them so as to match a template. In this case, the templates were for reconstructions of Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, and Jack the Ripper. The PCs are hired to retrieve the brains before their existence becomes public knowledge.

239. Anomaly

Anomaly is for hire, by anyone with significant funds, to make key adjustments to targeted communities. His mastery of sociology and memetics make him a wedge that can splinter any society, but his specialty statistics and predictions. Hypercorps hire him to throw off their competitors' consumer metrics, the Planetary Consortium hire him to improve their approval ratings, autonomists hire him to confuse the PC, and Firewall and Ozma hire him to send each other on wild goose chases.

Anomaly is the code-name of one of the systems greatest practical sociologists and master spies. How it is he gained his expertise is not publicly known, bu many assume, partially correctly, that he is a purpose built AGI. He is an AGI, but built to be an academic sociologist, not a spy. Anomaly quickly reached the edges of what his fosters could teach him, and arranged to be rescued from his lab on Mercury by an AGI-rights group. His fascination is in using his knowledge for fine manipulation and observing the results. He could accomplish many tasks by simply forking himself into statistical significance, but he takes pride in causing the greatest possible changes with the smallest possible actions.

Mechanics

Morph: Shaper

Motivations: +Personal Career, +Mischief, -Stagnation

COG 20 COO 15 INT 20 REF 15 SAV 30 SOM 10 WIL 15
MOX - INIT 7 SPD 2 LUC 30 TT 6 IR 60 DUR 30 WT 8 DR 45

Active Skills: Deception 70, Impersonation 78, Infiltration 45, Interfacing 65, Investigation 68, Kinesics 70, Networking: Autonomists 60, Networking: Hypercorps 60, Networking: Scientists 75, Perception 50, Persuasion 85, Research 78

Knowledge Skills: Academics: Memetics 80, Academics: Psychology 80, Academics: Sociology 80, Art: Digital Art 40, Language: English (Native) 90, Language: Mandarin 50, Profession: Instruction 65, Profession: Psychotherapy 50, Profession: Spycraft 50

Reputation: c-rep 80, r-rep 50

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Chameleon Skin, Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Emotional Dampers, Gait Masking, Mnemonic Augmentation, Nanotat ID Flux, Puppet Sock, Sex Switch, Skillware, Skinflex

238. Get A Life!

Get A Life! immerses players in an XP-like simulspace simulating a regular life anywhere in the system, on pre-Fall Earth, or in one of dozens of historical or fictional scenarios. Like in an XP, Get A Life! provides a full sensory experience, including everything from sight to hunger. Your memories are blocked, so that only the memories of your new life are retained. Your personality, however, remains the same, and you make the choices you would have made, in that life. Once completed, AIs will compile a highlight reel XP for you to keep.

Of course Get A Life! does not actually simulate an entire life, the computing power required would be formidable, and even a 60x real-time simulation speed would take more than a year to complete. Users' sense of time and reality testing are disrupted, and as in dreams, they accept any gaps completely. In fact, the "highlight reel" is usually almost half of what was truly experienced.

Get A Life! has found use in therapy and psychosurgery. The fact that personality remains the same while circumstances change and memories are inaccessible allows a therapist to observe a patient living honestly in a variety of situations. Certain personalities, however, have been known to have trouble letting go of the false life, and undergo great trauma when thrust back into reality.

237. Pearls

Pearls, like lycanthropy, are a medichine glitch. Fortuitous for some but harrowing episodes in body horror for most, the glitch causes loose material to conglomerate and slowly form pearls, just as in oysters and mussels. Unless the medichines are checked, infection is unnoticeable for the first month, but then the pearls reach significant sizes, beginning to to rub against each other and apply pressure to surrounding tissues.

Pharmed pearls have maintained an appeal despite nanofabrication. Many claim that fabbed pearls simply don't have the same smooth iridescence. The medichines of pharmers are programmed to only allow pearl growth just under the skin, from where they slowly emerge until they can be removed. Medichines are also recommended to accelerated pearl growth, for their use in healing over the craters left from removal, and to deaden the pain of what are essentially whole-body corns.

Mechanics

Victims of pearls suffer 1 SV daily due to pain, +1 SV per month infected.