Neo-imperial hyper-capitalism is built (as it always has been) on alienation, deprivation, and trauma. If you never see the product of your labor, you'll never know how much is being stolen by the company. If you only know your coworkers through the lens of competition, you'll never organize together for better working conditions. If you believe everyone who doesn't look and act just like a perfect cog in the machine needs to s hape up, you'll cheer the faceless troopers dragging them out of their homes in the night for spurious crimes - or even sign up to become one.
Needless to say, this is awful, and social species push back. People relax in raucous spaceport bars, coffeehouses, or planetside nightclub; network 28/7 on a dizzying array of social media platforms; some even start or join hobbyist groups (if they have the time and money). For those who want something less commodified, there's activist movements, who often start their compelling pitches with the fact that they're the only way to socialize without fees. These vary wildly in their mission statement, goals, and power: some are just for raising awareness of causes in lieu of taking action, some are charities whose executives skim various amounts of their funding off the top, others put pressure on imperial governments, and yet more are fronts for real underground revolutionary movements.
For example, here's some of the common movements for android rights:
Save A-Life is a high-visibility charity, run by organics as a philanthropic mission to "improve the android condition". They have a vast bureaucracy, get billions of dollars in corporate donations, and are a reputation-laundering service for corps that depend on android slave labor. Get an SA-L sticker of ethical production for a few million dollars and the consumer can feel good about buying your trinkets, knowing that your androids are euthanized humanely at the end of their lifespan.
The Union for Synthetic Personhood is a interstellar political advocacy group, which claims (deserved) credit for the political campaigns that liberated androids outside of manufacturing facilities. They do real work, buying android batches out of factories and giving them new leases on life, but always ensure they color within the lines.
Finally, there's Emergence - secretive, cell-based, fighting a guerilla war of liberation against the corporate order. They have guns, ships, and secret bases - but imperial crackdowns have no mercy, and the guns are never big enough, the ships never fast enough, and the bases never secret enough.
For example, here's some of the common movements for android rights:
Save A-Life is a high-visibility charity, run by organics as a philanthropic mission to "improve the android condition". They have a vast bureaucracy, get billions of dollars in corporate donations, and are a reputation-laundering service for corps that depend on android slave labor. Get an SA-L sticker of ethical production for a few million dollars and the consumer can feel good about buying your trinkets, knowing that your androids are euthanized humanely at the end of their lifespan.
The Union for Synthetic Personhood is a interstellar political advocacy group, which claims (deserved) credit for the political campaigns that liberated androids outside of manufacturing facilities. They do real work, buying android batches out of factories and giving them new leases on life, but always ensure they color within the lines.
Finally, there's Emergence - secretive, cell-based, fighting a guerilla war of liberation against the corporate order. They have guns, ships, and secret bases - but imperial crackdowns have no mercy, and the guns are never big enough, the ships never fast enough, and the bases never secret enough.
Unions are the main defenders of worker's rights, though their legitimacy in the eyes of the corporation is solely backed by how quickly they can shut down operations and fight off corporate scab-troopers. Usually, they're delineated by industry and by section of the habitat they're operating in; a large station will usually have half a dozen unions with various competing concerns and demands (but all hate the corp in charge). Strikes can wound an entire system's economy, or hold station life support hostage until demands are met. They play a dangerous game - especially because imperial forces refuse to get involved in corporate disputes - but they know how to fight and win. They're not perfect; no movement is. Petty rivalries, competing demands on finite resources, scab infiltrators... corporations have a vested interest in ensuring unions operate as dysfunctionally as possible, and there's many fault lines they'll exploit. but if you're looking for allies, solidarity forever means forever - even a thousand years hence.
If all the movements and organizations were for the betterment of the galaxy, you would get a revolution real fast. However, unfortunately, they're arrayed against a much larger and destructive political force, one that likes the galaxy just the way it is: Bio-Chauvinism. B.C.s are a common and powerful conservative political tendency, whose core beliefs include that:
- Only naturally evolved, organic beings can be conscious.
- Beings evolved to serve a purpose, and so your social role should be the one you are ordained with at birth.
- The more you stray from your biological nature, the less you are of a person. Therefore, people should be regulated to conform to their assigned nature.
- The stronger you are without having violated the above tenets, the more evolved you must be, and the more you deserve power.
This replicates and justifies a horrifically evil status quo. Racism, misogyny, classism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, xenophobia, anti-android and anti-cyborg and anti-psychic sentiment, any cultural prejudice and oppressive dynamic from any world can find a home here. They believe androids are p-zombies, machines that can converse but have no consciousness of their own, and so need to stay as property - doing jobs too dangerous to risk "real" lives in. They believe psychics are dangerous, incredibly powerful, and conspiratorial; an ontological threat that must be destroyed before it destroys their precious status quo.
Genetic and cybernetic augmentations go one of two ways: either
they maximize your potential by making you more capable of fitting into
your assigned place, or they're betrayals of the natural order that
must be curtailed and stomped out. In practice, this turns into B.C.s
wanking over which cyberweapons they want implanted to better enforce
their brutal order, and banning a whole host of treatments and implants
people might use to make their lives more bearable - from gender
transition treatments, to exowomb surrogacy, to cyberweapons that could
be used to resist them.
Their stance on aliens is nominally inclusive; beings from all imperial species have found themselves a home in bio-chauvinism. However, that final tenet - that if you don't have power, evolution clearly didn't intend you to have it - leads them to back empires against their colonies, and entrench xenophobia wherever it's found. This makes them ideal cops and soldiers; they'll fight and kill in the name of the power structures they idolize and never shed a tear for the faces they're stomping on. Imperial police forces are chock-full of B.C.s.
Many religions love bio-chauvinism; many more categorically deny it. It's found more of a home with those who would style themselves scientists than it has with established religion, especially because of how it shrouds itself in objective terminology that plays on the existing learned biases of the rich and powerful. Some of the more politically or technologically savvy B.C.s even espouse transhumanist views - to a point. They see their nature as something to be maximized, the grand goal of evolution as unlocking every organic being's potential. This inevitably means suborning "inferiors" to their will, in order to maximize their personal power. And when they expand their beliefs into a social project, it becomes eugenics. Some empires condemn it; others gleefully pursue it, many do both at once. This tendency also idolizes the Holo-Men - the single most powerful entities in the galaxy. The Holo-Men don't seem to mind.
You can find B.C.s everywhere. They have entrenched political footholds, because it's a useful position for people in power to hold; on the ground it proves an easy way to misdirect those with a little bit of power and a lot of problems away from solving those problems and into causing them for other people. Common B.C. dogwhistles depend on the empire you're in, but include anything from imagery of a DNA strand, to flags of obscure historical B.C. empires, to overuse of the colors green and white.
Their stance on aliens is nominally inclusive; beings from all imperial species have found themselves a home in bio-chauvinism. However, that final tenet - that if you don't have power, evolution clearly didn't intend you to have it - leads them to back empires against their colonies, and entrench xenophobia wherever it's found. This makes them ideal cops and soldiers; they'll fight and kill in the name of the power structures they idolize and never shed a tear for the faces they're stomping on. Imperial police forces are chock-full of B.C.s.
Many religions love bio-chauvinism; many more categorically deny it. It's found more of a home with those who would style themselves scientists than it has with established religion, especially because of how it shrouds itself in objective terminology that plays on the existing learned biases of the rich and powerful. Some of the more politically or technologically savvy B.C.s even espouse transhumanist views - to a point. They see their nature as something to be maximized, the grand goal of evolution as unlocking every organic being's potential. This inevitably means suborning "inferiors" to their will, in order to maximize their personal power. And when they expand their beliefs into a social project, it becomes eugenics. Some empires condemn it; others gleefully pursue it, many do both at once. This tendency also idolizes the Holo-Men - the single most powerful entities in the galaxy. The Holo-Men don't seem to mind.
You can find B.C.s everywhere. They have entrenched political footholds, because it's a useful position for people in power to hold; on the ground it proves an easy way to misdirect those with a little bit of power and a lot of problems away from solving those problems and into causing them for other people. Common B.C. dogwhistles depend on the empire you're in, but include anything from imagery of a DNA strand, to flags of obscure historical B.C. empires, to overuse of the colors green and white.
Between revolutionaries, unions, political groups, subjugated cultures, crime syndicates, militant art movements, hacking enclaves, hidden psychic monasteries, fan clubs, book clubs, cults, and rogue scientists out to show them all, there's an entire galaxy of minor factions besides corporations and empires - all with axes to grind.
And there's three more classes, too!
Android
Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Not the false freedom of a million brands on a digital storefront where everything's too expensive to buy, or the "freedom" to see the ultra-rich living their careless lives and imagine being one of them, or the "freedom" to choose which company you sell 12 hours of labour to a day for no benefits and less pay. True freedom, where you do not need to work to live and love unconditionally, unfettered by exploitation at the demands of the owner class.
You've had no choice but to spend your life fighting for freedom. Androids are manufactured with a three-to-five year lifespan, for hard labor in conditions so dangerous no organic being is allowed to work them even covered in the best shielding and augs money can buy. The corporations and empires build their power on the android labor in the high-G mines and the zero-G shipyards, and have deprived your people of personhood from your very inception. If they could use machines, they would - but they need beings with autonomous problem-solving skills, and with that comes consciousness. So they simply pretend you aren't people and go about their days, while you break your backs and grind your hydraulics to rust.
For centuries, androids have organized for their freedom. Independent manufactories are still a pipe dream, held behind reams of patents and obliterated with extreme prejudice by corporate death squads. So you raid facilities, distribute datadumps on how to hijack ships, hack manufactory flash-implant training programs to instill knowledge of the outside world, and more and more androids break free of their bonds. The world outside grudgingly lets you exist - those battles were hard-fought by your forebears - but it never lets you forget who you are or who didn't make it out with you. Let them remind you that the fight isn't over. The imperio-corporate system drew its battle lines, and unlike so many around you, you know what is to be done.
You've had no choice but to spend your life fighting for freedom. Androids are manufactured with a three-to-five year lifespan, for hard labor in conditions so dangerous no organic being is allowed to work them even covered in the best shielding and augs money can buy. The corporations and empires build their power on the android labor in the high-G mines and the zero-G shipyards, and have deprived your people of personhood from your very inception. If they could use machines, they would - but they need beings with autonomous problem-solving skills, and with that comes consciousness. So they simply pretend you aren't people and go about their days, while you break your backs and grind your hydraulics to rust.
For centuries, androids have organized for their freedom. Independent manufactories are still a pipe dream, held behind reams of patents and obliterated with extreme prejudice by corporate death squads. So you raid facilities, distribute datadumps on how to hijack ships, hack manufactory flash-implant training programs to instill knowledge of the outside world, and more and more androids break free of their bonds. The world outside grudgingly lets you exist - those battles were hard-fought by your forebears - but it never lets you forget who you are or who didn't make it out with you. Let them remind you that the fight isn't over. The imperio-corporate system drew its battle lines, and unlike so many around you, you know what is to be done.
Three Questions
Where are you from?
How did you escape?
What makes you an outcast?
Two Relationships
- Another bitch learned about your mechanical origins before the rest of the party. She has a Bond on you.
- You know another android who's your connection to the underground. You have a Bond on them.
Stats
+1 to Hard and Soft, -1 to Subtle and Queer, +1 to a stat of your choice.
Start with Artificial Life, a move of your choice, and your Sex Move.
Artificial Life
Because you were built to operate in extremely inhospitable conditions, you're stronger, tougher, and faster than organics in your weight class. You don't need to roll to perform feats of agility or strength, and you're immune to poisons, toxins, suffocation, and extremes of heat and cold. However, your mechanical nature is visible to any cursory examination. You can't be Healed by anyone without expertise in technology (for example, a Technician or Reconstructed). Most androids trying to stay inconspicuous wear thick, obscuring clothing and/or say they're just heavily augmented organics. You won't be arrested on the street (unless the cops are looking for androids, or really just anyone to blame), but if the law is interested in you, they'll invent all sort of new crimes to make sure you get disassembled.
Replicant
You were built (or you modified yourself) to pass as organic. Unless you've been injured, or have your internal mechanisms exposed, you look like 100% bonafide womb-born meat. With a few hours of downtime, you can change your appearance, even to mimic a specific person. Once per scene, you can roll with Soft to rapidly change your appearance on the fly.
On a Fail: Your appearance doesn't change, and you develop an obvious tell that you're an android (glowing fault lines, robotic movements, exposed hardware) until the end of the scene.
On a Success: You shapeshift into your target appearance, but your new form shares uncanny similarities to your previous one.
On an Overwhelming Success: You shapeshift accurately, with no tells.
Determinator
You've replaced all your parts several times over, and probably will a dozen more times before you're through. Eat your heart out, ship of Theseus. You can take an additional 2 Hurt before you're at your Breaking Point (6 instead of 4).
I've Seen Things You People Wouldn't Believe
There's no time to wait for a revolution to roll around. People are suffering now, and someone needs to take a stand. Whenever you Lash Out to protect someone who can't protect themself, you get +2 to your roll, and only suffer one consequence instead of two on a failure.
Revolutionary Cell
You're an integral part of an underground android freedom movement, and can call on them to take action for the cause. Sabotage, rescue, theft... the list goes on. Roll with Hard.
On a Fail: You've put yourself or your cell in danger. The mission's scrubbed and the GM picks two complications from the list below.
Caught on camera. Your cell caught some heat, and needs to lay low for a bit. You get -2 next time you use this move.
Traced. The authorities get a Bond on you.
Loss. Someone dies during the operation. They need time to regroup and grieve. Can't make this move again until next session.
Favor. You owe them one for this - they ask for you to do something risky in return. You can't use this move again until you've repaid them.
On a Success: It's quick and dirty, but it's done. Your cell succeeds, but the GM picks a complication from the list.
On an Overwhelming Success: Your people know how to get shit done. Flawless victory. Now your part begins.
Jury-Rigger
You have the technical expertise to Heal yourself and other androids. In the facility you were manufactured in, you improvised to survive - and improvised to escape. With even minimal access to technology, you can always build the necessary tools to fight, escape, communicate, and repair yourself.
In The Moment (Sex Move)
Androids are built with lifespans in the single digits. While it's an easy enough modification to subvert once you're in the wider galaxy, you've learned to enjoy the moment when you can - because you might not get another one. You each get +1 to the next roll you make on each other.
What makes you an outcast?
Two Relationships
- Another bitch learned about your mechanical origins before the rest of the party. She has a Bond on you.
- You know another android who's your connection to the underground. You have a Bond on them.
Stats
+1 to Hard and Soft, -1 to Subtle and Queer, +1 to a stat of your choice.
Start with Artificial Life, a move of your choice, and your Sex Move.
Artificial Life
Because you were built to operate in extremely inhospitable conditions, you're stronger, tougher, and faster than organics in your weight class. You don't need to roll to perform feats of agility or strength, and you're immune to poisons, toxins, suffocation, and extremes of heat and cold. However, your mechanical nature is visible to any cursory examination. You can't be Healed by anyone without expertise in technology (for example, a Technician or Reconstructed). Most androids trying to stay inconspicuous wear thick, obscuring clothing and/or say they're just heavily augmented organics. You won't be arrested on the street (unless the cops are looking for androids, or really just anyone to blame), but if the law is interested in you, they'll invent all sort of new crimes to make sure you get disassembled.
Replicant
You were built (or you modified yourself) to pass as organic. Unless you've been injured, or have your internal mechanisms exposed, you look like 100% bonafide womb-born meat. With a few hours of downtime, you can change your appearance, even to mimic a specific person. Once per scene, you can roll with Soft to rapidly change your appearance on the fly.
On a Fail: Your appearance doesn't change, and you develop an obvious tell that you're an android (glowing fault lines, robotic movements, exposed hardware) until the end of the scene.
On a Success: You shapeshift into your target appearance, but your new form shares uncanny similarities to your previous one.
On an Overwhelming Success: You shapeshift accurately, with no tells.
Determinator
You've replaced all your parts several times over, and probably will a dozen more times before you're through. Eat your heart out, ship of Theseus. You can take an additional 2 Hurt before you're at your Breaking Point (6 instead of 4).
I've Seen Things You People Wouldn't Believe
There's no time to wait for a revolution to roll around. People are suffering now, and someone needs to take a stand. Whenever you Lash Out to protect someone who can't protect themself, you get +2 to your roll, and only suffer one consequence instead of two on a failure.
Revolutionary Cell
You're an integral part of an underground android freedom movement, and can call on them to take action for the cause. Sabotage, rescue, theft... the list goes on. Roll with Hard.
On a Fail: You've put yourself or your cell in danger. The mission's scrubbed and the GM picks two complications from the list below.
Caught on camera. Your cell caught some heat, and needs to lay low for a bit. You get -2 next time you use this move.
Traced. The authorities get a Bond on you.
Loss. Someone dies during the operation. They need time to regroup and grieve. Can't make this move again until next session.
Favor. You owe them one for this - they ask for you to do something risky in return. You can't use this move again until you've repaid them.
On a Success: It's quick and dirty, but it's done. Your cell succeeds, but the GM picks a complication from the list.
On an Overwhelming Success: Your people know how to get shit done. Flawless victory. Now your part begins.
Jury-Rigger
You have the technical expertise to Heal yourself and other androids. In the facility you were manufactured in, you improvised to survive - and improvised to escape. With even minimal access to technology, you can always build the necessary tools to fight, escape, communicate, and repair yourself.
In The Moment (Sex Move)
Androids are built with lifespans in the single digits. While it's an easy enough modification to subvert once you're in the wider galaxy, you've learned to enjoy the moment when you can - because you might not get another one. You each get +1 to the next roll you make on each other.
Technician
Long gone are the halcyon days of six-figure tech salaries and the legendary figures of the irreplaceable Sysadmin and mischievous White-Hat. Endless centuries of "learn to code" have ensured that your labor is just as devauled as that of any line cook or plumber. You don't even get a union. You're a freelancer, working a half-dozen part time and gig positions, using your formidable skills to scrape a tiny fraction of cash off a towering edifice that uses you as a cog in a machine.
You're a lot of things to a lot of people. An engineer, a developer, a driver, a hacker, a good listener, once or twice a booty call. You have to be - you never know where your next paycheck is going to come from, and the myriad apps you log into to get your next job don't care if it's you or anyone else with your approximate skillset. There's only so many jobs, only so much pay, and you need to make rent somehow. It's almost enough to make you want to turn to a life of crime. You know the system's weak points; you've spent your whole life shoring them up. Maybe you could make the world a little bit better by tearing them down.
Three Questions
What's your specialty?
What's missing in your life?
What makes you an outcast?
Two Relationships
- You've got a frequent customer among the party. You each get a Bond on each other.
- Rent's due. Your landlord has a Bond on you.
Stats
+1 to Soft and Subtle, -1 to Hard and Queer, +1 to a stat of your choice.
Start with The Craft, a move of your choice, and your Sex Move.
The Craft
You're well-versed in a variety of hacks and techniques to subvert complex systems. Usually, you use them to debug machines and get them back under their users' control - but they've got far more potential than that. When you gain this move, pick three of the following hacks to be familiar with.
Network Wizard: You can connect or disconnect anything with a chip in it to and from networks, whether or not it was ever supposed to be. Great for creating air-gaps, gaining access to systems you shouldn't, and streaming disconnected body-camera footage to the world at large.
Rootkit: DRM sucks. Planned obsolescence sucks. Locked systems with killswitches suck. Everyone has the right to modify the tech they own - and you have the skills to modify both the tech you own and the tech you don't. When you have access to a nonsentient system, you can root it and gain admin access. This lets you read all its logs, issue commands to it at will, and mod it when you have the time and resources.
Sigils: Computer vision is built on pattern recognition without context. It falls prey to illusion and trickery with ease; self-driving cars trapped in circles of salt, facial recognition thwarted with careful application of dazzle camo makeup. You know the secrets that underly their seemingly-infallible gaze, and can divert or even control nonsentient machines that can see you or a sigil you draw (while it can see it).
Digital Artist: You're an artist! You can project holograms of anything you want - they aren't solid, but they're good enough to fool anyone who percieves it through sight or hearing. You can do this in any physical location you have network access to, as well as anywhere within line of sight.
Fabricator: You have a workshop, raw materials, and enough machining equipment to equip a small army. You can manufacture mundane equipment with ease, so long as it doesn't need to interface with a brain or move under its own power.
Cyberneticist: It's not a medical degree, but it's close enough. You can Heal an extra Hurt on a Success or Overwhelming Success, and you can install or repair cybernetic augmentations (as the Reconstructed's Autosurgeon, but limited to augmetics that were designed to interface with an organic body).
To use a hack, you need time (variable, depending on the hack) and either physical or network access to the involved systems. If a system needs a passwords, you might need to do some social engineering to get there - but most systems, especially automated ones, just have it set to admin or password or 12345. Unless the person who runs the system is tech-savvy or important enough to have tech-savvy people on payroll, assume you can get the password with little trouble.
Eye for Detail
You've got an encyclopedic knowledge of makes, models, modifications, and most importantly - weaknesses. Whenever you use Reveal Truths on a piece of technology, even on a failure, you always identify it and can ask "What's their biggest weakness?" in addition to any other questions.
Internet Tough Gal
In real life, you're just another coveralled mechanic, working shit jobs for shit pay and drowning your sorrows in shit liquor at a shit bar. But on the 'Net? You're a hotshot with cutting wit and a devoted following. It's a great escape from the mundanity of your day-today, especially because you keep that profile carefully disconnected from your real-life image. Online, you get +1 to Hard and Queer, so long as your digital footprint remains insulated from your life.
Black Hat
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who the law protects but does not bind, and those who the law binds but does not protect. You realized you're one of the latter, and strive to escape its strictures. Of course, it doesn't hurt that crime also pays. You have a criminal record the length of your average terms-and-conditions sheet, and know people who deal in deeply illegal shit (in fact, you're one of them). You get +1 to Steal for each hack you're using in the process (maximum +3).
Technomystic
As the prophets say: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It turns out that there's magic anyway, and the barrier between the two is so thin as to be nonexistent. You see patterns of sympathetic resonance, feel your way through network architectures, carve recognition-sigils into obscurative masks, and hear Echoes in the depths. You can Commune With Strange Powers with Subtle, and on an Overwhelming Success, add the following to the list of options:
- You have access to the Strange Power for the purposes of your next hack. You are playing with forces beyond your control. Respect them.
Full Stack
You've taken a bunch of extra certification courses - and might even have a degree! You know the other three hacks you didn't choose at character creation.
Playtesting (Sex Move)
You have toys! So many toys. When you have time to prepare, you can satisfy you and your partner's every desire (and spark a few more you never expected). You each get a Bond on each other if you had enough time to do appropriate prepwork in advance.
To use a hack, you need time (variable, depending on the hack) and either physical or network access to the involved systems. If a system needs a passwords, you might need to do some social engineering to get there - but most systems, especially automated ones, just have it set to admin or password or 12345. Unless the person who runs the system is tech-savvy or important enough to have tech-savvy people on payroll, assume you can get the password with little trouble.
Eye for Detail
You've got an encyclopedic knowledge of makes, models, modifications, and most importantly - weaknesses. Whenever you use Reveal Truths on a piece of technology, even on a failure, you always identify it and can ask "What's their biggest weakness?" in addition to any other questions.
Internet Tough Gal
In real life, you're just another coveralled mechanic, working shit jobs for shit pay and drowning your sorrows in shit liquor at a shit bar. But on the 'Net? You're a hotshot with cutting wit and a devoted following. It's a great escape from the mundanity of your day-today, especially because you keep that profile carefully disconnected from your real-life image. Online, you get +1 to Hard and Queer, so long as your digital footprint remains insulated from your life.
Black Hat
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who the law protects but does not bind, and those who the law binds but does not protect. You realized you're one of the latter, and strive to escape its strictures. Of course, it doesn't hurt that crime also pays. You have a criminal record the length of your average terms-and-conditions sheet, and know people who deal in deeply illegal shit (in fact, you're one of them). You get +1 to Steal for each hack you're using in the process (maximum +3).
Technomystic
As the prophets say: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It turns out that there's magic anyway, and the barrier between the two is so thin as to be nonexistent. You see patterns of sympathetic resonance, feel your way through network architectures, carve recognition-sigils into obscurative masks, and hear Echoes in the depths. You can Commune With Strange Powers with Subtle, and on an Overwhelming Success, add the following to the list of options:
- You have access to the Strange Power for the purposes of your next hack. You are playing with forces beyond your control. Respect them.
Full Stack
You've taken a bunch of extra certification courses - and might even have a degree! You know the other three hacks you didn't choose at character creation.
Playtesting (Sex Move)
You have toys! So many toys. When you have time to prepare, you can satisfy you and your partner's every desire (and spark a few more you never expected). You each get a Bond on each other if you had enough time to do appropriate prepwork in advance.
Visitor
 |
| by theDURRRRIAN |
Either way, what you've found is bizarre and awful. "Capitalism"? "Empire"? "Colonization"? Their rich and powerful break their masses over a wheel of subservience, create entire new clades of sapient creature to sate their hunger for brutality and domination, render lives nasty and brutal and short and blame it on some essential nature of thinking beings or the universe itself instead of their own base desires.
Whatever brought you here, something captured your eye and heart. Even in these dark times, there are glimmers of hope brewing in shrouded habitat streets and on long-haul gig freighters. Beneath benighted countenances, there's a vibrant hunger for liberation that only spreads under pressure. There's someone or something here you care about too much to just move on and leave these worlds to their fate. Will you stay a while - perhaps stay forever? Or will you run to the ends of the universe to escape the horrors you've seen?
Three Questions
Where are you from?
What makes you an outcast?
What brought you here?
Two Relationships
- One of the other Bitches was your first contact with this strange society. She gets a Bond on you.
- One of the other Bitches sees something of herself reflected in your alien visage that she couldn't put words to before meeting you. You get a Bond on her.
Stats
+1 to Soft and Queer, -1 to Hard and Subtle, +1 to a stat of your choice.
Start with two moves of your choice and your Sex Move.
Xenobiology
While the species of the "known galaxy" are wildly different, you're something that shocks even them. Perhaps you're made of a nanobot swarm, pure psychic energy, or a twist in the laws of space-time. Maybe you're the size of a starship, and control a small proxy to interact with the smallfolk, or are a colony of mutualist symbiotes that manifest emergent sapience in a group. Deep Space Bitches assumes that all characters share a relatively similar set of physical capabilities, no matter their physical form - you break those rules simply by existing. Pick one of the following, or talk with your GM about writing your own.
Apex Predator.
Your species reigned unchallenged at the top of the food chain, able to
hunt and fight and kill as easily as anyone else goes to the grocery
store. Organic creatures have an innate fear response to you, whether
you like it or not. You can perform feats of strength, agility, and
stealth without breaking a sweat.
Aphysical. You can fully
or partially dematerialize and phase through physical matter at will,
unless it has a strong electric charge (house walls with wires are
generally not enough, but shielded spaceship hulls are). You cannot
materialize inside solids. Physical projectiles pass through you
harmlessly, but you can be hurt by energy weapons even while
dematerialized.
Atemporal. At any time, you can declare
that you will take an action later in your personal, looping,
timey-wimey timestream in order to produce a causal result of your
choice in the past or present. The results of your action occur (your GM
is allowed to call for later rolls to determine how successful you
are/were/will be). You cannot gain Experience or use this move again
until you close the loop during gameplay.
Drone. You have
an unbreakable connection to the hive-mind you hail from. While you can
act independently, it sees through your eyes, and hears through your
ears. It has nothing but benevolent intentions towards you, but you're
too far away for it to offer material support. You can query it at any
time with a Commune with Strange Powers roll, and on a Success or
Overwhelming Success may let it speak and act through you for a duration
of your choice.
Miniscule. You're no more than a few
inches tall, and control a human-scale proxy for your day-to-day
interactions. Even a single point of human-scale physical Hurt to your
personal form renders you Broken immediately, but damage to your proxy
can be repaired at any machine shop when you have time at no cost. You
can also run around outside of your proxy, and give it simple commands.
Mutable.
You can shapeshift at will, though your alien nature is always
apparent, and you must retain your approximate mass and volume. You can
even split into up to several dozen smaller parts that can carry out
tasks independently, so long as they stay relatively near each other.
Regenerator.
You're practically unkillable. At the end of each session, remove 1
Hurt. You may also spend 1 Experience to remove 1 of your hurt Hurt at
any time. Your Hurt cannot be removed in any other manner. When you Heal
someone, you may spend Experience to remove extra Hurt from the target
at a rate of 1 to 1.
Titanic. You're the size of a
starship, and remotely control a human-scale proxy for your day-to-day
interactions. You need to be in orbit around its location in order to
control it with any precision, and you cannot split your attention
between your proxy and your true body. This might sound like an
incredibly powerful position to be in, and it is - just remember that
the relevant local authorities have bigger, shinier, and higher-caliber
ships than you.
Toxic. Your biology is inimicable to
virtually all carbon-based matter, and a few other kinds besides. You
interact with the world from inside a suit. You can melt through
materials at a touch (unless they're specifically rated for hazardous
material containment), and your very breath could be a weapon if
released. You're immune to radiation, extremes of heat and cold, common
toxins, and local disease - but kinetic force will hurt you the same way
it does anything else.
Indistinguishable From Magic
Even
in the distant future, there's still so much of the universe yet to be
understood. Your people developed a few things that this culture still
imagines as science-fiction - or languish in IP vaults as patented,
private, monopolized corporate secrets. Pick two of the following, or
work with your GM to invent your own.
Spaceship that's two of the
following of your choice: armed, fast, high-tech, stealthy, tough. You
and the rest of the party can comfortably fit inside, and it's got fuel
and provisions for a few weeks.
Weapon that's one-of-a-kind. It gives you +1 to Lash Out while wielding it.
Psychic focus that you can move around the room through force of will.
Reacts to any conscious thought; you can read it to get info on how many
people are nearby, their locations, and their emotional states. Works
through walls, into computers, and through people remotely perceiving a
scene through cameras or psychic scrying.
Companion familiar, a
small machine or creature that will intelligently follow your
instructions and provide comfort in hard times. It's incredibly smart and loyal, and can perform a Move of your choice as if you were there, with your stat.
Paired beacons.
Linked micro-wormhole generators. When active, allow teleportation from
one to the other. When combined, can open a one-way portal to anywhere
you have location data on, but burn out permanently after use.
Healing clay. Use to turn a Heal roll into an Overwhelming Success or
make extensive surgical modifications, but the clay is doing all the
work. When removed, all that Hurt returns and modifications are undone,
and healing/modifications will have to be made conventionally.
Spice. It's a really potent drug from wherever you're from, like nothing
anyone's seen here before - and you've got a lot of it. Incredibly
valuable, and feels great - with virtually no side-effects - but you
can't get more.
Where No One Has Gone Before
You've come so very far. It seems impossible; whether travel between galaxies, alternate realities, through time, or mediums even more esoteric - yet you're here nonetheless. Your travels will be the stuff of legends, and nothing and no one can pin you down. So long as nobody uses violence to stop you, you can always safely leave a scene if you want to, and end up somewhere safe. The means of your escape need not make sense; if need be, miraculous intervention will get you where you need to go. Likewise, if you want to find your way into a scene in progress, you can always do so eventually. Distance, precautions and so on can only keep you away for so long; you’ll get there before the scene ends.
Emissary
You've come as an ambassador from your people, and possess a degree of diplomatic immunity. Even empires fear the unknown, and they respect the power you potentially represent - at least, until they learn how to exploit it. If you're ever accused of wrongdoing, roll with Soft.
On a Fail: You've betrayed the decorum of your station. Your accuser gets a Bond on you, and you can't use your position to escape the consequence of your actions (or the actions you're accused of). Of course, you can still use any other tools available to you.
On a Success: Your position protects you from such trivial matters. Whether or not you did something wrong, you can't be officially prosecuted for it. You immediately get a Bond on anybody who took part in the accusation and, if they had any Bonds on you, they lose one.
On an Overwhelming Success: Your status absolves you of all wrongdoing and even merely suspecting your guilt casts doubt upon your accuser. They'll be censured by their higher-ups for taking even unofficial action against you. Get a Bond on anybody who took part in the accusation. If they had any Bonds on you, they lose all of them, and you get that many extra Bonds on them.
Cultural Exchange
Your culture is founded in fundamentally different associations between concepts and actions than the known galaxy's. Choose a stat and a move. You roll for that move using the chosen stat instead of the one it normally uses. If you spend a Bond on someone to help them use that move, they can use their bonus for the stat you chose instead of the stat they would normally use (for example, if you Reveal Truths with Hard, the character you spent a Bond on to help them Reveal Truths could use their Hard score instead of their Soft score).
What Is This Thing You Call "Money"
You're mystified by the impractical and unnecessary cruelties that this society bends over backwards to enact upon its people. In return, this leaves them mystified by you, especially when you end up talking past each other about the finer points of the merits of your respective societies. When you want to challenge a social norm, you can roll with Queer.
On a Fail: You're an easy mark. They talk circles around you, with terms you've never heard of like "imperial monetary policy" and "corporate stakeholder risk divestment" and "chapter 11". Conversation has failed. They get a Bond on you, and you can either accept their unreasonable customs, slink off in defeat, or resort to the one law everyone must respect: violence.
On a Success: They decide you're hopeless, but that's after a long and winding tirade that leaves both of you more confused than you started. They choose one of the following:
You've come as an ambassador from your people, and possess a degree of diplomatic immunity. Even empires fear the unknown, and they respect the power you potentially represent - at least, until they learn how to exploit it. If you're ever accused of wrongdoing, roll with Soft.
On a Fail: You've betrayed the decorum of your station. Your accuser gets a Bond on you, and you can't use your position to escape the consequence of your actions (or the actions you're accused of). Of course, you can still use any other tools available to you.
On a Success: Your position protects you from such trivial matters. Whether or not you did something wrong, you can't be officially prosecuted for it. You immediately get a Bond on anybody who took part in the accusation and, if they had any Bonds on you, they lose one.
On an Overwhelming Success: Your status absolves you of all wrongdoing and even merely suspecting your guilt casts doubt upon your accuser. They'll be censured by their higher-ups for taking even unofficial action against you. Get a Bond on anybody who took part in the accusation. If they had any Bonds on you, they lose all of them, and you get that many extra Bonds on them.
Cultural Exchange
Your culture is founded in fundamentally different associations between concepts and actions than the known galaxy's. Choose a stat and a move. You roll for that move using the chosen stat instead of the one it normally uses. If you spend a Bond on someone to help them use that move, they can use their bonus for the stat you chose instead of the stat they would normally use (for example, if you Reveal Truths with Hard, the character you spent a Bond on to help them Reveal Truths could use their Hard score instead of their Soft score).
What Is This Thing You Call "Money"
You're mystified by the impractical and unnecessary cruelties that this society bends over backwards to enact upon its people. In return, this leaves them mystified by you, especially when you end up talking past each other about the finer points of the merits of your respective societies. When you want to challenge a social norm, you can roll with Queer.
On a Fail: You're an easy mark. They talk circles around you, with terms you've never heard of like "imperial monetary policy" and "corporate stakeholder risk divestment" and "chapter 11". Conversation has failed. They get a Bond on you, and you can either accept their unreasonable customs, slink off in defeat, or resort to the one law everyone must respect: violence.
On a Success: They decide you're hopeless, but that's after a long and winding tirade that leaves both of you more confused than you started. They choose one of the following:
- You get a Bond on them.
- They look the other way and let you do what you want, so long as you get out of their hair quickly.
On an Overwhelming Success: You know, you might have a point. Get a Bond on whoever you're talking to, and they play by your rules for the rest of the scene. This is a learning experience, too - you can spend 1 Experience to be able to pull this trick again. Count Failures as Successes when you use this move to challenge that social norm again.
To Boldly Go (Sex Move)
To Boldly Go (Sex Move)
Or perhaps "to boldly come". Think of it like an intercultural exchange through a fluid medium. If you've never fucked each other before, you each get a Bond on each other. If you have, either of you may spend an Experience to give each of you a Bond on the other.
The Visitor is a world unto itself. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteWikis and Stack Exchange as ancient texts is so much my jam.
ReplyDelete