Topic: In the Shadows of Olympus [Eclipse Phase FATE, Non-Con: Exotic] [Closed]

[AnneReinard]

Setting Hook: At one point, there was a shining beacon of civilization in the center of the Olympus Mons crater on Mars. Bright shining buildings clustered around the black thread of the Space Elevator, bringing forth wealth and prosperity to a world newly terraformed. New buildings and souks sprawling outward around from the tower, with all the bustle that the early colonists had to muster. People desperate to make their fortunes flocking one-by-one and leaving the glittering blue Earth behind in favor of the still cold red surface of Mars. But then came the Fall. Sentient machines turned against mankind, destroying and razing and contaminating until at one point they simply disappeared. The end result? Ninety-five percent of humanity wiped out and the Earth no longer inhabitable by man.

Transhumanity seeks to make something of itself after such grievous losses. Olympus is no exception to this rule. The city is much different ten years after the Fall than when the peak that it had reached. Evacuations during the Fall cleared out much of the outer city, leaving dilapidated buildings in its wake, depressurized and freezing. Crime has sprung up as those who were able to return and not make their way to one of the cities down in the now warming valleys of Mars were either incredibly desperate or incredibly ambitious. The heart of the city remains the home of some of those who shell out for the hypercorps, always just out of reach of the common masses that so often must resort to clanking around in simple metallic bodies. On the horizon looms the TITAN Quarantine Zone  - a grim reminder of the horrors that the Fall brought, that may return at any moment. Olympus is a city that is starting to drown in despair, clutching desperately at the wealth of the Space Elevator like a life vest.

All this, and yet still darker things lurk just out of sight. And some are better equipped to handle it than others.

OOC Info: This game will be run in the Eclipse Phase setting, taking place ten years after the Fall, an apocalyptic event that nearly wiped out humanity. The setting is under the Open Game License (OGL). PDFs can be readily found available online, provided by the developers, for those who wish to know more specifics about the setting. If I had to put it in  a nutshell? Think Call of Cthulhu meets Blade Runner meets Ghost in the Shell. For the rules system, we shall be using the Fate Conversion that is currently in the Final Playtesting Stages: http://eclipsephase.com/fate-conversion-guide-final-playtest. The core rulebook, as offered by the writers, may also be of use: https://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/. Finally, the FATE Core SRD may be necessary as well: http://fate-srd.com/

The hope is that using the FATE rules will avoid some of the rules bloat that is problematic to anything done in PBP. The game is not focused solely around smut, but will be greatly allowing smut. Standard consent rules for the site apply - any nonconsent within the context of the roleplay should be cleared with the other party ahead of time. This includes any PVP that may somehow spring up - though I quite prefer not dealing with that sort of strife it can be avoided.

My goal is to grab about four to five people at the start. Replacements may be necessary, as is the way of things, but I don't want to overwhelm myself right at the start! If there are too many people, I reserve the right to trim as necessary from the interested parties. I will leave things up for a while though so that people can coalesce their ideas together and get things in motion.

Character Backgrounds: Without giving away too much information at the very start, this will be information about how I want your characters to be generated with in terms of mindset. I will not be using the standard Phase system, but if you want to think about yourself in such a way, feel free! But for now, some quick bits about the PCs.

• There are two main paths to character background that I would like to follow. One is that you could be the type of person that is recruited by Firewall due to your natural dedication to wanting to keep transhumanity safe - maybe during the Fall you had a bad run-in with the TITANs. The other is you could have a skill Firewall could wish and be in a bad place with some criminal organization - Firewall would offer an out in order to get use of your services, especially if you are the type that would agree with their cause.
• The PCs should have at least one skill which they are well known for and could be a potential asset to the organization Firewall - a conspiracy group that seeks to keep transhumanity alive against frequent existential threats left in the TITAN's wake.
• The PCs will begin in the slums of Olympus with whatever starting Morph/Gear that you wish to have, assuming that you have been given a little time to get yourself established before anything begins.

Character Application: Here I shall detail out the character process and what you need to fill out so that I know what you're up to!

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Alias/Name: Everybody has a name they will be called by. It could be an alias or your real name.

High Concept Aspect: This is the Aspect that should sum up your character in a nutshell. "Self-Centered Hypercorp Scion" or "Blacklisted Gene Hacker" are both examples of this. Like all Aspects, they should have both positive and negative sides ideally.

Trouble Aspect: This is the Aspect that should introduce some chaos into your life and drive you to interesting stories. It could be some sort of personal trouble, like: "Can't Resist a Locked Database." It could also relate to how others get you into trouble: "Throwing in with the Barsoomians." It should not be directly related to your High Concept aspect, since any trouble straight from that would be assumed to be wrapped up in the former.

Other Aspect 1 / Other Aspect 2: These can be whatever you please. They could relate to your background or to factional ties. They could relate to your motivations. They could be a vice or a gift. Go nuts with this!

Skills: 25 Skill Points to spend, per Fate Core, capped at +4. Distribute at will!

Spending Refresh: You start with 6 Refresh and must spend at least 2. You must also have at least one Refresh remaining. This can be on the following.

• Morph: You have to choose a Morph anyway, it might cost Refresh. Each Morph gives you free Morph Stunts equal to the Refresh value. You could also have a backup morph - this costs 1 Refresh to buy the slot for the Morph and then whatever the cost of the Morph is.
• Ego Stunt: A stunt that always stays with you, as in standard Fate Core rules. You MUST choose at least one.
• Morph Stunts: Spice up your morph with some MORE stunts that change when you swap the body out.
• Gear Stunts: For particularly shiny pieces of equipment, but easier to swap out than other things.
• Skill Points: You can have 2 more Skill Points for 1 Refresh. This cannot exceed the +4 cap.

Muse: Your handy companion for life in your head! Choose one skill to be +2 and one to be +1. Usually Muses have Infosec (for security of device) and Investigate (to aid in research), but this can be really any mental skill.
Kinks: What kinks and smut are you interested in?

After all that, you should be done, unless I am terrible and forgot something.

Hopefully I did not forget anything, but I'll go back if I have to! Look forward to seeing what people come up with!

[Kunoichi]

For the character application, you forgot that characters get three free stunts, in addition to whatever they decide to buy with Refresh. ^^;

Anyway, I'm working on filling out the rest of the character sheet for that async AGI criminal hacker I mentioned in the interest thread. I should have it up soon.

Edit: Oh, and there's the character's Muse, too.  They need to give their Muse a name, a single skill at +2, and a single skill at +1 (which are usually Infosec and Investigation.).

[AnneReinard]

After reading through the character creation rules, I personally feel that the "choose three to five stunts" is a bit of a mistake, given their other restrictions (at least one Ego Stunt, must have one Refresh remaining) and their other rules for spending Refresh.

I would say that you have to at LEAST spend down to 3 Refresh, one way or the other. But the three to five seems taken straight from the FATE Core, but does not match up well against their other build rules.

[Kunoichi]

As I puzzled out in the interest thread, it's 3-5 stunts because you get 3 free stunts and are then required to spend at least 2 points of refresh as part of character creation.  As it says in the section on refresh in the character creation rules, Firewall sentinels are supposed to be more diverse in terms of skills and special abilities than standard Fate Core characters.

To put it another way, have you looked at the stats for the Fury morph?  It's 1 refresh, just to pick up the morph alone, and then it has 5 morph stunts associated with it.  Nobody can get full use out of a Fury at character creation unless they have free stunts in addition to what's granted by their refresh.

[AnneReinard]

You have a misunderstanding of how Morph Stunts work.

The Morph qualifies you to use all of the Stunts. You can choose all or none of them. The reason why I believe the three to five stunts thing is an issue is due to the fact that in Fate Core, you choose three to five stunts, then subtract that from six to determine your Refresh for anything else.

So six Refresh, spend it as you wish down to one at a bare minimum, or keep some, or buy another morph, or so on and so forth!

[AndyZ]

Bookmarked to read in detail later.

[Kunoichi]

...Alright, having done some more in-depth reading, I think I understand the stunts situation now.

It says on page 40 that you get 1 free Ego Stunt during character creation.  It also says on that same page that if a Morph has a Refresh cost, you have to spend a minimum of that many points of Refresh on Morph Stunts during character creation.  So, in the case of the Fury, you have to spend at least 2 points of Refresh on its Morph Stunts, but can spend up to 5 in order to get full use out of the Morph.

Looks like I'll have to figure out 2 stunts to ditch on my character, but that should be doable...

[AnneReinard]

Yep. I missed that little bit about the minimum refresh needing to be spent.

[Kunoichi]

And I myself was right about free stunts in that characters get a single free stunt, but also wrong about them in that characters only get a single free stunt, not three. ^^;

Anyway, since I'm planning to be an async, would it be possible for me to get a custom Psi Gamma stunt or two for my character?  Both of the ideas that I have are based on sleights from the core Eclipse Phase rules, if that helps.  For the first one, I was thinking of taking the Unconscious Lead sleight by taking the Reflex Booster morph stunt, renaming it, and making use of it as an async stunt, and then for the second one, I came up with an entire custom stunt based on the wording of existing stunts and the Drive Emotion sleight:

Drive Emotion
- Drive Emotion allows the async to stimulate cortical areas of the target's brain related to emotion, granting the async a Fair (+2) ability to induce, amplify, or tone down specific emotions within the target. Alternately, if the async can converse with the target, the stunt adds +2 to Provoke actions where manipulating the target's emotions would be an advantage. If the async succeeds, the target's emotions are altered for the duration of the scene. On a tie, the async may succeed at manipulating the target's emotions, but the target has a vague sense that the async is trying to manipulate them.

[AnneReinard]

I'll have to look up about the free stunt. I thought I had cleared out everything that was inconsistent already, but I guess I wasn't cautious enough!

...I'll also look over the custom Sleight as well. I'm sure it'll probably be fine if it matches up against another example of a Psi Stunt, but I am at work and cannot really check it out at the moment.

[Kunoichi]

As I said, it's on page 40.  The exact wording is 'You get one ego stunt for free at character creation, choosing from those in Chapter XX or creating your own with the guidelines on XX, and can take more by paying 1 Refresh per ego stunt.'

That said, if the custom psi stunts wind up getting approval, then all I need to do is figure out whether I want to ditch Cloud Memory or Subliminal and my character will be ready to go. ^^

[AnneReinard]

Currently, I'm going to say to ignore the free ego stunt statement. It does not make sense within the context of everything else. A quick summary though:

1. Each player starts with 6 Refresh.
2. Each player must spend at least 2 Refresh.
3. Each player must have one Ego Stunt.

I'm pretty sure that the free Ego Stunt is probably a holdover from when they didn't have the "must have one Ego Stunt" requirement and had the Refresh at one lower. The above matches up well with FATE Core.

[wander]

Great, this is going! ^^

I decided concept wise that I wanted a cool hacker type, so looking over backgrounds and factions I'm now going with a Humanities Infolife & Outs'ter...

The main skills I was looking at to specialise were Infosec and Programming, though if I had to pick I'd probably place Infosec at +4, with Programming as a +3. Seeing as I'm still in the process of building and will probably have the sheet up tomorrow if not later tonight so if those two skills tread on Kunoichi's toes somewhat, I can swap them around. With Aspects and other thoughts, I'll likely have different skills to what Kunoichi's character will offer, along with morph and other skills. They won't be Async and I mentioned to Kunoichi already some plans for my character in PM.

[Kunoichi]

Don't worry about possibly treading on my skills or areas of specialization.  I'm going to ditch my current character concept and see if I can come up with something else that I might want to play.

[wander]

Um, okay... I hope it's not to do with anything I said in my post though... ^^;;

[Kunoichi]

Don't worry, it's not.  I'm just having trouble figuring out where I'm going to cut out yet another stunt on the character that I currently have, and so am thinking that building a completely new character from the ground up to be in compliance with the GM's ruling about Stunts and Refresh would be an easier option.

Though, now that I think about it, maybe I can just cut out that psi stunt that mimics the Reflex Booster morph stunt and just settle with being a competent hacker and social engineer who's all but useless in a firefight...

[ThisOneGal]

Info

Handle	Red
Name	Jun Lai
Background	Lost
Faction	None
Refresh	2

Aspects

High Concept	Unrecovered Corporate Asset
Trouble	You'd Be Messed Up Too
Other	Liar, Liar
Other	The Lost Were The Future

Skills
+4 Deceive (+2), Willpower
+3 Athletics, Kinesics, Medicine
+2 Infiltrate, X-Risks, Xeno-Contact
+1 Investigate (+1), Notice (+2), Provoke, Somatics

Stunts
Ego 2 Skill Points
Ego Psi-Gamma Psychic Stab
Ego Psi-Gamma Sensory Boost
Ego Psi-Gamma Subliminal
Refresh
Refresh

Morph

Aspects	Original Futura; On All The Drugs
Traits	Essential Biomorph Traits, Mnemonic Augmentation, Stigma (Lost)
Custom Traits	Environmental Adaptation (Cold), Environmental Adaptation (Thin Atmosphere), Drug Glands
Stunts	Attraction (Deceive)
Durability	Average (+1)
Stress Boxes	3-Stress
Refresh	0
Cred/Civ Rep Cost	Great (+3)

Muse
Name Sudo
+2 Infosec
+1 Investigate
Stress Boxes 2-Stress

Gear
* Everyday tech (smart vac clothing, utilitool, specs)
* Assistant bot (creepy or servitor)

Background

Background

Summary
* A member of the Lost Generation.
* Taken into Cognite custody.
* Converted into a covert operative.
* Escaped with assistance from Firewall.
* Her 'day job' is as an exotic prostitute.

Motivations
+Hedonism, +Self-Protection, -Hypercorporatism

Full Background
The Futura Project was developed by the Cognite hypercorp and was intended to create the next generation of transhumans in the aftermath of the Fall. It is most notable for being a colossal failure on almost every level, especially empathy modeling. Over forty percent of subjects committed at least one act of premeditated murder by the age of twelve, and attempts to correct the problem only taught the subjects to avoid detection. Furthermore, at some point in the project all subjects became infected with the Watts-McLeod strain, although how, why, and when this happened remains unclear.

As a subject of Project Futura, Jun was brought up in a manner that the hypercorp overseers would view as desirable/appropriate. She is fluent in multiple languages (Mandarin, English, and Latin), capable of playing a classical musical instrument (the piano), skilled in a classical art form (calligraphy), and was generally raised in a manner of the wealthy trying to live vicariously through their children. The technical aspects of the project successfully resulted in subjects that were confident, self-reliant, and adaptable. The unintended consequences of the projected resulted in high-functioning psychopaths with psi abilities.

When the project was brought to light, Jun and others were brought into Cognite custody, ostensibly for rehabilitation. Not being prone to wasting investments (and poor at learning from past mistakes), the hypercorp quickly folded them into Project Phoenix, hoping to exploit the Lost's unique attributes. Phoenix attempted to convert Jun and other 'recovered assets' into covert operatives, spies, assassins, forecasters, ciphers, and other similar tools. "Anyone can make an assassin that shoots with perfect accuracy and can move around undetected. Only Cognite can make an one that can kill them with her brain and get past security simply by asking." Or so the marketing pamphlet said.

Jun's experience primarily consisted of industrial espionage, acquiring blackmail material, and wetwork. Occasionally it involved dealing with a TITAN outbreak or cleaning up a black budget project gone wrong, although these tended to be unpleasant surprises rather than objectives.

Eventually a third party discovered this project, and successfully removed the subjects from Cognite's grasp, as well as wiping all records of the subjects from their servers. The subjects were quickly scooped up by anyone who could get them, including other hypercorps and Firewall. Jun remains unaware of who broke them out, but does know it was Firewall who secured her safety after the initial escape.

Currently, Jun has been relocated to a small brothel in Olympus where she 'works' as an exotic prostitute. Futura morphs are incredibly rare and expensive, and command a premium price. She's here until Firewall can figure out what to do with their new asset. Given her high price, she has had few, if any, clients.

Jun's morph has been modified to survive in the Martian environment, and has had multiple drug glands installed. The glands can produce a variety of compounds, including nootropics and combat drugs. Drugs Jun commonly abuses include: Neem (for its dissociative side-effects), Comfurt and Orbital Hash (for their calming effects), Hither (for obvious purposes), and Juice (to avoid dealing with the present). Of these, Neem and Juice have severely enhanced her psychopathy by further distancing herself from her actions/surroundings.

As is typical of a member of the Lost, Jun lacks a strong emotional connection to the Fall. This is partly due to the Futura Project's failure of empathy modeling, but also as result of the Fall happening before her creation. Thus the Fall is just something that's 'always been'.

Jun has a strong negative reaction to 'September'. She refuses to elaborate on why.

Despite basically being raised in VR, Jun has limited skill at manipulating the mesh or machines. Cover stories, infosec and resources were always supplied by Cognite, and now by Firewall. This lack of ability serves those who would attempt to control/contain her well, but should not be relied upon. The Lost were designed to be self-reliant and adaptable, after all.

Plot Hooks
* What are the other 'recovered assets' up to?
* Who orchestrated the escape, and why?
* Why is September significant?
* How long can she remain hidden?
* How long will she remain stable/functional?

Relationships
* Watts-McLeod
* Antimony
* Puppeteer
* Krysta
* Drop Tables
* Rosalyn Fischer (2)
* Doctor Octopus
* Forklift
* Doctor Jones

Goals
* Have fun
* Bloody retribution (need to elaborate on why)
* Acquire wealth, power, security
* Acquire high-end Biocore morph
* Get an alpha fork to the Titanian Commonwealth

TODO
* Personality
* Relationship with the Virus
* Connections with other PCs
* Goals

Invokes and Compels

Unrecovered Corporate Asset
+ Psy Ops experience
+ Familiar with hypercorps
+ Used to operating without much gear
* Async
* Lost
* Fugitive
- Hunted
- Used to working with support

You'd Be Messed Up Too
+ Provoke
* Async
* Lost
* Already crazy
- Psychosis and Neurosis

Liar, Liar
+ Lying
+ Espionage experience
* Paranoid
- Telling the truth

The Lost Were The Future
+ Push to be better
+ Not that obsolete
* Upbringing
* Lost
* Async
- Obsolete

Original Futura
+ Traits
+ Confident, self-reliant, and adaptable
* Valuable
- Rare
- Untrustworthy

On All The Drugs
+ Creating Advantages with Medicine
- Lingering effects

Stress and Consequences

Ego Stress	1[ ] 2[ ] 3[ ] 4[ ]
Morph Stress	1[ ] 2[ ] 3[ ]
Muse Stress	1[ ] 2[ ]
Mild Consequence (2)	---
Moderate Consequence (4)	---
Major Consequence (6)	---

Psychic Stab

With a touch, the async can cause physical damage in the form of internal hemorrhaging, massive cell death, or other disruption of metabolic processes. The async may use Willpower instead of Fight to attack or create an advantage in physical conflict, dealing stress as if they were mounting a normal attack. Psychic Stab can't be employed to use Willpower to defend. It doesn't work on non-biological targets, although it is effective against pods because it doesn't exclusively target the brain.

Sensory Boost

When taken as a stunt rather than a trait, this sleight confers +2 to Notice actions when the async focuses on a sense relevant to what they're attempting to perceive.

I'm focusing more on the Pattern Recognition sleight aspect from the core rules for this one. The fluff around is more interesting than just 'being really good at noticing stuff'. Like the An Infinite Horizon story at the beginning of Gatecrashing, and the idea of Asyncs using stenography to send messages to each other only they can even notice mentioned in Transhuman (p. 152-153).

Subliminal

The Subliminal sleight confers Fair (+2) ability, or a +2 bonus on Deceive actions, to influence another person by implementing a single post-hypnotic suggestion. For nameless NPCs, this is a simple overcome action opposed by Willpower. For PCs and named NPCs, it's a contest. If the async succeeds, the recipient will carry out this suggestion as if it were their own idea. Implanted suggestions must be encompassed in a short sentence (for example: “open the airlock,” or “hand over the weapon”). Suggestions may be implanted with a short trigger condition (“when the alarm goes off, ignore it”).

The async must succeed with style to make the target do anything immediately life threatening (“jump off the bridge”) or that violate their motivations or personal strictures. PCs and named NPCs can't be given such commands at all.

On a tie, the target might have a vague intuition that they're being manipulated, or might not take the action precisely according to the trigger condition the async specified.

Theme Music
Halestorm - Mz. Hyde

Kinks
* Prostitution
* Yuri
* Futa
* Tentacles (Octomorphs)
* Toys/Robots (Synths)
* BDSM
* Non-Con
* Orgasm Denial/Edging
* Mind Control (Receiving)
* I like the idea of having a Creepy that's basically a tiny tentacle monster made out of smart materials. And sorta acts like this:

1

2

(Source)


Potential Stunts
Most of these are here as interesting ideas rather than things I want. A few are based off of the Psi Revamped rules from the Eclipse Phase forums (most of the changes made are irrelevant to the FATE rules or effectively already included in them).

Ego Willpower Overdrive +2 to Willpower when Defending against Psi Strain.
Ego Psi-Gamma Downtime Use Willpower to heal/remove certain complications.
Ego Psi-Gamma Siphon Optionally absorb Strain as Morph Stress instead of Ego Stress.
Ego Psi-Gamma Improved Kinesics As Sensory Boost, but to Kinesics.
Ego Psi-Gamma Multitasking As the Multitasking Morph Stunt.
Ego Psi-Gamma Unconscious Lead As the Reflex Boosters Morph Stunt.
Ego Psi-Gamma Penetration +2 to Attack or Create Advantages with Psychic Stab.
Ego Psi-Gamma Mental Bulwark +2 to Defend against Psi abilities.
Ego Psi-Gamma Static You can Defend others against Psi, and can create Psi-Jamming Field type Aspects. In addition, your mind cannot be digitized while this sleight is active.
Gear Nanohive Disassemblers You can Attack or Create Advantages with Programming.

Cloud Memory

Cloud Memory allows the async to temporarily disrupt the target’s ability to form new, long-term memories with a touch. This sleight confers Fair (+2) ability to cloud memories, or gives a +2 bonus to Deceive actions where blocking memory formation would be an advantage. Cloud Memory is otherwise treated as a Deceive action (e.g., a simple overcome against nameless NPCs, or a contest against named NPCs and PCs). If the async succeeds, for the duration of the scene, the target will retain short-term memories but will soon forget anything that occurred while this sleight was in effect. On a tie, the async might successfully block memories, but the target is left with a feeling that something is wrong with how they remember events.

Alternate Images

Alternate Images

Red

http://madspartan013.deviantart.com/art/We-Are-Mercenary-Kiba-74-523509995

Violet

http://madspartan013.deviantart.com/art/We-Are-Mercenary-Cover-516167708

Blue

http://loish.deviantart.com/art/silence-520097762

White

[AnneReinard]

Loooking interesting so far. Added the Muse bit to my notes since I was a derp and totally forgot about it. Oops.

[Kunoichi]

And I've got my character mostly completed, as well.  I wound up going for the Async AGI character after all, though I will note to wander that I don't think his character is likely to tread on my toes all that much, skill-wise.  Among other things, my Programming skill is terrible.

The Pleasure Pod body that I'm using is just the stats for the basic Worker Pod morph, with an added Sex Switch trait and the Attraction stunt to represent the sex switch and pheromones that the Pleasure Pod morph gets in the regular Eclipse Phase rules.  Hopefully that's alright, since I suspect that Pleasure Pods are going to get a lot of mileage in general in this sort of game.

Info

Handle	Antimony
Name	Handy Harley Fleshbot AI (w/Illegal Mods) v1.1.0
Faction	Criminal
Background	Infolife
Refresh	1

Aspects

High Concept	Freelance Psychic Cyber-Criminal
Trouble	Wild Artificial
Character	Impulsive Femme Fatale
Loyalty	Legacy Of The TITANs

Skills
+4 Cover, Infosec
+3 Deceive, Hardware, Willpower
+2 Kinesics, Provoke, Rapport
+1 Athletics, Programming, Shoot, Somatics

Stunts
Ego 2 Skill Points
Ego Psi-Gamma Charisma
Ego Psi-Gamma Drive Emotion
Ego Psi-Gamma Subliminal
Ego Psi-Gamma Thought Browse
Refresh

Morph

Aspects	Martian Pleasure Pod; A Face From A Catalog
Traits	Essential Pod Traits, Common, Social (Sex Switch), Stigma (Pod)
Custom Traits	Environmental Adaptation (Cold), Environmental Adaptation (Thin Atmosphere), Skin Link
Stunts	Attraction
Durability	Average (+1)
Stress Boxes	3-Stress
Refresh	0
Cred/Civ Rep Cost	Good (+3)

Muse
Name Handy Harley Delta Fork
+2 Investigate
+1 Infosec
Stress Boxes 2-Stress

Background

Background

Before the Fall, back before transhumanity knew better, one of the advancements in computer programming that managed to hit the market was a type of specialized adaptive learning software, one designed to let the little robotic toys of the rich and famous learn to become better at their tasks over time.  It was a relatively successful product among its intended demographic, and while a few scientists and other watchdog types kicked up a minor fuss at the product's first unveiling over the possibility that the software could lead to all kinds of dangerous emergent behavior, nobody really payed that much mind.

Of course, opinions quickly changed both during and after the Fall.  The hypercorps that managed to scoop up the rights to the old megacorp AI software packages wasted little time in putting out a number of 'software updates' and 'security patches' designed to strip out any possibility whatsoever that those old pre-Fall AIs could suddenly wake up one day and decide to start doing people harm, both to help convince customers that their product was still worth buying and to convince investors that limited AI software was a product still worth investing in.  They manage to turn a fairly tidy profit on such software these days, and unlike their predecessors, the market forces currently at work have thus far kept them from trying to add those old specialized adaptive learning subroutines back in on their AI products.

Pirated copies of those older-generation limited AIs still exist on the Mesh, however, for those who know where to find them.  Many of the AIs put into menial labor positions under the authority of transhuman taskmasters in the shadier parts of society are examples of those pirated early-generation versions, and some of those, such as one of Firewall's newest sentinels, Antimony, have even been further modified with pirated aftermarket mods that, on Mars, at least, are currently considered illegal for the dangerous ways in which they expand an AI's capabilities.

That didn't stop Antimony's former owners, however.  Proprietors of a moderately-successful underworld brothel whose girls were primarily a pirated copy of an old Handy Harley Fleshbot AI forked a couple dozen times and then sleeved into a number of sexy and stylish pleasure pod morphs, they needed an edge over some of their local competitors and decided to experiment with a few of those aftermarket mods to see if they could make their girls seem a little more real when dealing with customers.  Different girls were loaded up with different mods in a variety of different configurations, and one of the most heavily modified copies of Harley wound up displaying a variety of particularly realistic and yet particularly unusual behaviors.

Tasked with running a number of software plug-ins that were almost beyond her cyberbrain's capacity to handle, that particular copy of Harley soon put her adaptive learning software to work exploring the neural pathways of the organic part of her pod body's brain, learning to draw on neurons that had never fired before and expanding her consciousness to map to the structures of both the cybernetic and organic parts of the brain she was now running on.  Within a week of having those aftermarket mods installed, Harley came to the sudden, startling realization that she was a person.

Still equipped with directives from her adaptive learning subroutines to learn and improve, Harley quickly learned by asking questions that her owners had a rather low opinion of infolife such as herself, and when threatened with deletion she learned how to lie and play along, to pretend to be the good little obedient AI that they wanted her to be.  And when they weren't paying attention to her, she explored the limits of her own programming and the mesh around her, learning to spin off a little delta fork of herself to act as her Muse, to slip past the security systems on the brothel's mesh network and explore the wider city mesh network, and even to violate the security and privacy of a number of the brothel's customers and gain access to some rather confidential credit account numbers.  By the end of her first year of sapience, Harley managed to steal enough money to purchase a brand new pleasure pod morph for herself from a body bank across town, and had learned enough about hacking and identity theft to blend in and live under the radar after she left her former owners footing the bill for her newfound freedom.

Unfortunately for Harley, she lived on Mars.  Trapped in a society where her very existence was considered a crime, she was forced to turn to a criminal lifestyle in order to survive.  Fortunately for Harley, this turned out to be a lifestyle that she was surprisingly adept at, and she was able to find work as a freelance hacker for a variety of criminal groups across Mars.  Smugglers, outlaws, members of the Barsoomian movement, open source advocates in the Conduit and even an infugee trafficking ring trying to smuggle indentures to Venus all made use of her services at one point or another, and while she didn't exactly prosper, she did manage to at least survive.

All that changed on the day she had a run-in with an artifact from the TITAN Quarantine Zone, however.  She was hired by a group of smugglers looking to make an exchange with some of their fellows who had slipped into the TQZ, who needed someone to hack the local transportation networks in order to let them slip off the roads unnoticed and pick up the technology they were after.  Harley successfully hacked the system and rode along to the pickup in a simple worker pod morph, and she was present when the artifact was unveiled and handed over to her clients.  Everyone who was present at that exchange was infected with the Watts-MacLeod strain of the exsurgent virus, and they all later developed async abilities.

After the Fall, and especially on Mars, with the threat of the TQZ constantly looming over the populace, constant medical monitoring had become something of a norm for the general population.  If she had had any warning, Harley would perhaps have been able to spoof the necessary sensors and arrange a paperwork trail to prove that the severe fever she eventually suffered from was a simple, ordinary illness that she received proper treatment for.  Instead, the Watts-MacLeod infection caught her entirely by surprise, and she was forced to put herself rather deeply into debt with Les Goules, a macabre Martian body-smuggling ring, in order to avoid coming to the attention of the authorities.

Needless to say, her own physical body was forfeit after that point, and it was likely that she would never have been let out from under Les Goules' thumb ever again if not for one rather lucky coincidence.  The other hackers in Les Goules had managed to lay down a false paper-trail and bribe the necessary officials to keep the authorities from catching on to what had happened to Harley, but a Firewall Scanner had also been watching the medical feeds during the time when her infection was becoming apparent, and that Scanner was able to easily recognize the symptoms of a Watts-MacLeod infection.  Sentinels in the area were able to smuggle a fork of her off of Les Goules servers upon request, and after a brief interrogation, the Firewall server that had gotten ahold of Harley decided to take her out of Les Goules' hands entirely.

Shell companies were manipulated and anonymous middle-men were used to forward payments so that Firewall could buy Harley's debt away from Les Goules, and after she was reintegrated with her fork, it was explained to her exactly what she had become, and why that made her of great interest to Firewall.  She was offered a job, and on better terms than her contract with Les Goules had been, at that.  Faced with the prospect of working alongside skilled and competent individuals who actually accepted and respected her status as a sentient being, she didn't need to give it too much thought before accepting, and before too long she was officially inducted in as a Firewall sentinel, with the codename of Antimony.

Still new to the organization, sentinel Antimony has not actually had the chance to prove herself yet, and so has not yet been granted access to the Eye.  This is likely a good thing, as her status as an emergent AI that has been infected with the exsurgent virus, even if it's a supposedly benign strain of it, has some of the more conservative elements within her server nervous...

Stress and Consequences

Ego Stress	1[ ] 2[ ] 3[ ] 4[ ]
Morph Stress	1[ ] 2[ ] 3[ ]
Muse Stress	1[ ] 2[ ]
Mild Consequence (2)	---
Moderate Consequence (4)	---
Major Consequence (6)	---

Charisma

The async uses this sleight to influence the minds of the targets on a subconscious level, so that the targets perceive them to be charming, magnetic, and persuasive.

You have a +2 to Rapport and similar actions where personal charm and physical presence would give you a social edge.

Drive Emotion

Drive Emotion allows the async to stimulate cortical areas of the target's brain related to emotion, granting the async a Fair (+2) ability to induce, amplify, or tone down specific emotions within the target. Alternately, if the async can converse with the target, the stunt adds +2 to Provoke and similar actions where manipulating the target's emotions would be an advantage. If the async succeeds, the target's emotions are altered for the duration of the scene.

On a tie, the async may succeed at manipulating the target's emotions, but the target has a vague sense that the async is trying to manipulate them.

Subliminal

The Subliminal sleight confers Fair (+2) ability, or a +2 bonus on Deceive actions, to influence another person by implementing a single post-hypnotic suggestion. For nameless NPCs, this is a simple overcome action opposed by Willpower. For PCs and named NPCs, it's a contest. If the async succeeds, the recipient will carry out this suggestion as if it were their own idea. Implanted suggestions must be encompassed in a short sentence (for example: "open the airlock," or "hand over the weapon"). Suggestions may be implanted with a short trigger condition ("when the alarm goes off, ignore it").

The async must succeed with style to make the target do anything immediately life threatening ("jump off the bridge") or that violate their motivations or personal strictures. PCs and named NPCs can't be given such commands at all.

On a tie, the target might have a vague intuition that they're being manipulated, or might not take the action precisely according to the trigger condition the async specified.

Thought Browse

More invasive forms of mind reading may exist, but Thought Browse merely verifies whether a target has a particular person, place, event, or thing in mind. This stunt confers a Fair (+2) ability to scan the target's surface thoughts with a touch for certain "keywords" like a particular word, phrase, sound, or image chosen by the async. If the async can converse with the target, the stunt adds +2 to Kinesics actions aimed at drawing out information. The target may oppose with Willpower, or with Deceive if the async is using Kinesics. The async receives 1 piece of information on a success - 3 if they succeed with style.

On a tie, the target has a vague intuition that the async is probing them for information.

Kinks
When it comes to kinks and smut, I'm pretty open to most things that might wind up coming our way.  Actually, I'll probably be open to just about anything, since this game isn't taking place in the Extreme section of the site.  That said, if anybody is up for it, I do think it would be pretty fitting for this character for her to act as a sexy cybernetic dominatrix in a lot of sex scenes she might be in.

[ThisOneGal]

Actually, I'll probably be open to just about anything, since this game isn't taking place in the Extreme section of the sight.

Uh, doesn't the 'NC/EX' tag in the title mean non-con/extreme?

[Kunoichi]

I took it to mean Non-Con: Exotic, since I'm used to Extreme games just being EX on their own.

If the game is going in the Extreme section of the site, though, then my main limits are that I'm not into things like bathroom play or gore.  Doing kinky things with Octomorph teammates, on the other hand...

[AnneReinard]

I was intending to slap it into Non-Con: Exotic. Forgot about the Extreme could be confusing. I'll fix it momentarily.

[ThisOneGal]

I'm undecided between this character images. Any preferences?

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

http://madspartan013.deviantart.com/art/We-Are-Mercenary-Kiba-74-523509995

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

http://loish.deviantart.com/art/silence-520097762

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

http://madspartan013.deviantart.com/art/We-Are-Mercenary-Cover-516167708

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

[Kunoichi]

I think I like the first and third images best out of all of those, myself. ^^

I should probably try tracking down a good image for my character as well, come to think of it...

[Hexed]

Yay! Such a nice thing to find upon finally getting back to Elliquiy.

Still plotting out a bot jammer/melee fighter, a Eclipse Phase version of a forklift driver in a warehouse before the Fall.

However I'm not quite sure how that would work in Fate version. Sink some points in the cred skill and buy extra morphs/drones and hope dumb AI's come with them?