Bay 12 Games Forum

>Summon the last reserves of my strength to lunge upward and wrestle with Immaterial for his firearm!

it's just a fun game, man - this isn't a life-or-death affair or a round of Mafia, and TCM's narrative is based off random rolls that minimize the consequences of metagaming

>Try the door to get behind the teller's windows. Look for an emergency kit - or a key card to the vault.

The traits as presented do discuss the nation. They would be humans with some near-future hardware, poor population growth and built-in societal problems from overuse of information tech - zero hive mind features whatsoever.

I also assumed all five traits were either supposed to be positives or a flaw thrown in for flavor.

Since you determine the initial allocation of resources, equipment and infrastructure, whether or not the subject of the SG is "OP" is your choice! Traits are more like vague suggestions to the GM for "this is what the colony could be described by", no?

Name: The Node
Government Type: Authoritarian Technocracy
Traits:
Exocortexization - many Node citizens have the very mechanisms of their thoughts strung out across arrays of memory modules, processors, sensors and remote limbs that help them function optimally in the harsh environment of Mars.

Fragmentation - Node augmentations are flawed prototypes, loaded with their own array of bizarre, tragic consequences. Overclocking a human being has associated costs. Psychological instability and violent difficulty in interpersonal relationships boil over from natural failures in the primitive transhuman mental architecture.

Purification - the Node's powerful mix of electrochemical and heat-refining installations churn out ultrapure silicon, rare-earth metals and expensive alloys for special use. As a state, it is quickly able to exploit ores to their full metallurgical potential - but currently lacks the industrial might to get large quantities of any kind of bulk material.

Austerity - Noders do not crave luxury goods or engage in conspicuous consumption to the degree of other cultures. From the outside, they appear dour and puritanical - but a closer inspection would show that they live for more abstract pleasures.

Black Operations, Black Ships, Black Death - the cold technicians, comms analysts and spies of the Node are the backbone of this disturbing, insular backwater, a state based around leadership by unelected researchers and ruthless intelligence agents whose names are restricted from the general population. Paranoia, signal-jamming, light-bending metamaterials and radar-proofed lines warp the location of their bunkers and make them somewhat difficult to root out of the terrain. Their assassins and saboteurs are without peer. The computer viruses and hijacker-ware in their databanks seethes with awful E-warfare power - just waiting to dust a hab module with burning pesticide or seize a foreign drone for the Node's incomprehensible purposes.

Background: "IF I AM FOR YOU, WHO CAN BE AGAINST YOU? MARS IS NOT FOR THE REJECTS OF YESTERDAY. MARS WILL FORGE A NEW INDIVIDUAL. FROM NOW ON KNOW WE ARE CENTRAL HUMAN NODE. THE PARTY IS OF WORKERS WHO BATTLE EACH DAY WITH HAND AND BRAIN. WE LIVE IN THE SAVAGE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE AMONG THE STARS. SWEAR TO COMMANDER, NODE AND BLOODLINE THAT YOU WILL UPHOLD THIS PREDATOR'S LIFE."

>Reload my rifle and skulk through the streets, on the hunt for the blood of other contestants. Move from building to building like an authentic partisan warrior.

Thomas emits a few rapid beeps of recognition, nods to his mixed company and shuffles toward the airlock, gesticulating toward it with one of his many spindly appendages.
"I hunger for good power," the drone rasps out. "Perhaps we can talk after some of us cut down the solar arrays and move them to better ground."

>Cry Vengeance against Hawk, and attempt to evade the napalm by making straight for the water, toward the ship! If I am bombed at sea, dive beneath the surface until I can make it away from the burning slick.

>Hand over the store to a trusted underling for now. Take a Slugger and venture slowly toward the bay.