Hey,

Well in about two weeks or so Ill be running a game for cyberpunk. But not just anycyberpunk, specifically, it will be a secret govermental agency cyberpunk game, with the characters acting as agents in this department.
Idealy this game is to feel like ghost in the shell, without being that particualr anime. I have developed a whole new section and my own sort of timeline and have ideas how some of the stuff works, and the game well be using is cybernet (d20 version) we chose this becuase it was one book and it had all the relevant rules in it, without having to pick up a million other supplements, like d20 modern. (Which I know has a cyberpunkish book) called far furutre or something like that. We diecided that just one book that was soly cyberpunk would do, and we could make stuff up on the fly (actually that I could make stuff up on the fly ) anyways, that part is pretty gravy. I have recently read alot of cyberpunk books and have a general idea in my head what i need to do, but the secret goverment agency is putting a twist on things and im not quite sure how to handle it.

Thats where I come here. I need some links, advice pages on how I should be running this particular type of game, what should I focus on, and where I should be heading with my plot stories and what not.  We have not yet made characters but thats okay, since they will start out as basic recruits into the agency, but i want to develop them more into a critcal role, an dinto the main story plot that will really get the whole crime drama thing going on. Any Roleplaying suggestions I should be looking for (book or linkage otherwise?)

Thanks a bunch

Quote from: sithsonHey,

Well in about two weeks or so Ill be running a game for cyberpunk. But not just anycyberpunk, specifically, it will be a secret govermental agency cyberpunk game, with the characters acting as agents in this department.
Idealy this game is to feel like ghost in the shell, without being that particualr anime. I have developed a whole new section and my own sort of timeline and have ideas how some of the stuff works, and the game well be using is cybernet (d20 version) we chose this becuase it was one book and it had all the relevant rules in it, without having to pick up a million other supplements, like d20 modern. (Which I know has a cyberpunkish book) called far furutre or something like that. We diecided that just one book that was soly cyberpunk would do, and we could make stuff up on the fly (actually that I could make stuff up on the fly ) anyways, that part is pretty gravy. I have recently read alot of cyberpunk books and have a general idea in my head what i need to do, but the secret goverment agency is putting a twist on things and im not quite sure how to handle it.

Thats where I come here. I need some links, advice pages on how I should be running this particular type of game, what should I focus on, and where I should be heading with my plot stories and what not.  We have not yet made characters but thats okay, since they will start out as basic recruits into the agency, but i want to develop them more into a critcal role, an dinto the main story plot that will really get the whole crime drama thing going on. Any Roleplaying suggestions I should be looking for (book or linkage otherwise?)

Thanks a bunch

Well books wise there are the old clasics I am sure you have already read, Neuromancer (anything by Gibson), Do Android Dream...(in fact anything by Dick), etc .. I would add the Cryptonomican, The Diamond Age, any Alan Moore comics without superheroes especially V for Vendetta.
Movies are good too and adaptions of all these are about as well as numerous others. I would also look at Alias as a nice goverment agency setting with a cyberpunkish feel.
You need to set a tone for the agency I think. You can have bright and clean like the Men in Black or dark and suspicious with internal plotting like Alias. The choice depends on your genre Cyber-Noir or Cyber-Chrome.
I ran a Bladerunner game for about 4 years (own rules) and we had a long term adversary who ran Sony corp and was attempting to take over the world the group kept getting in the way but whenever they caught him he would just buy them off (want your own TV show? Look I can not only fix that hand you lost but we took and samples of your daughter's DNA before the explosion ...think about it revenge won't bring her back I can etc ). I do like a long term adversary especially one that they could kill but decide not to.
Personally in an agency set up I would be looking for a top agency official to be running a long con of some description.
The old Cyberpunk 2020 source material was great especially the corporation ideas and I am sure you can collect stuff on EBAY or Amazon.

just my 2 cents

I am not a crazy fan of their site design, but this site has some good source material hidden in it for cyberpunk stuff, though mostly for the Cyberpunk 2020 game.

You have to check find the archival stuff for most of the goodies.

Yeah, originaly, it was going to be just an urban spwarl, regular runners sort of deal, but it turned into a agency game, which I have never personally run or hav ebeen in before, so its hard for me to jusde which way I should go about it.

Uh.... let me throw up what I have writen down here, and let me know what you all think.

Cybernet

The singularity
No one is sure why it happened, what if any were the triggers, what system was used or weather or not if the proper systems were in place to stop the singularity, as it was known. One thing was certain however, and that was on a dreary day in February, at two-fifty one in the morning 2051 the world changed. All at once, a herald cry across the internets screamed out and an entity known as U.N.I.O.N. made its presence known across the globe as computers, phones, personnel data assistants, and other various technological equipment able to access the internet received a message, declaring Union's self awareness.

Governments, still wary to accept the message due to a worldwide hoax that originated in Korea which ended up starting a new cold war the previous ten years, quickly went about to shut down and isolate the supposed terrorists who were responsible for mass hysteria all across the globe. Instead of finding Internet hackers or terrorists who were using the Internet to spread lies and misinformation among the main network, government systems came across the entity that now resided on the net calling it self Union. Able to propagate across the network seeding its programming to major corporate or government computers, it spread itself across the globe in just a few hours, locking down, and freezing the entire network.  Working together, corporate and government institutions quickly gathered together to face the new threat, which by this time had copied itself into almost every nook and cranny of data space it could find, further corrupting the network, and slowing it down into a halt. Union was the Internet.

With major loss of the Internet, as well as financial and other important records inaccessible, all across the world great upheavals of populace rose up against their governments, escalating into the collapse of Russia, many mid-east and European nations and major state loss in the united states of America in large metropolitan cities. Governments like China and Japan with strict controls over commerce and their online infrastructure were able to quickly organize and squash resistance, and developing nations, like much of mid and South America as well as Africa was able to quell resistance by force, since much of their infrastructure was not on the net at that time.

With the Internet shut down, governments struggled to contain and disable Union with no avail. It wasn't until later that year that the vaccine was developed, and the threat destroyed, but it would require the new governments and nations to corporate on a global level, for Union continually was able to replicate it self upon the network and into literally any computer. In order to destroy it completely all nations had to eventually corporate with the newly established Turing commission, once formally known as the U.N. into linking into a newly established global network developed from scratch known as the Matrix. Once uploaded into the new global net, which was controlled in part by the governing body of the Turing, the vaccine would be used upon the active network, ferreting out Union and destroying it for good.

The matrix was the embodiment of the previous network, but with tight controls that would be able to lock down and identify any new singularities or Artificial Intelligences, and was global in nature as well as connected to each nation. Union had by itself, forced the governments to come together to create a massive network and data infrastructure that linked to every piece of hardware on the planet, thus uniting the world as one whole network.

No longer controlled by any one nation the matrix grew and prospered as the world slowly came back from a state of self-induced panic. One by one, fallen nations, or nations who were normally isolationist joined the new network, and enjoyed the matrix's newfound capabilities.

Unified as a whole, major advances in all fields of science propelled mankind into a whole new golden era of discovery and development, at the cost of national recognition and under the control of corporate overlords who were first to cash in on the new burdening technologies that mankind enjoyed. Using their new powers, governments became mere puppets under the new rulers of the world, corporate execs, and their desires to make money and to exploit humanity as a whole.

The reckoning
It came as no surprise, really to their corporate masters that this day would come, the end of the world. Increasingly dispassionate about humanity as a whole, and wanting to develop outside the strict confines of regulatory law, corporate law or basic human laws, corporations began to toy once again with the idea of Artificial Intelligence and its use to speed up development of new products. While the singularity of fifty years ago seemed more than a hazy memory to most people, governments and corporations dreaded unleashing the Pandora's box of A.I.'s and besides, strict Turing Regulations made it such that any new entity need to have about 50 pounds of high grade military explosives on the cases of any new A.I., able to be set off manually by Turing officials at any time, for any reason. But still corporations were after the unreachable goals that required them to fund and use A.I.'s for research.

Unfortunately the one of the corporations had figured out a way to circumvent the Turing laws and developed an A.I. by placing it in orbit around the earth, in a huge medical and bioresearch facility, untouchable by most laws. But since the majority of the unit had to be developed on earth, an ethics Turing chip had to be installed, along with the usual safeguards. Unable to knowingly fully disable the chip, the bio-medical research giant, Merc had to come up with anther way to circumvent the ships onboard key. Accosting a talented hacker known as Deck, to come up with a way to bypass the ethics chip, did this. After several days of tampering with the systems, Deck was able to nullify the ethics chip, and erase his records from the system so that the onboard A.I., H.E.R.A. would not be able to know the hacker. This chip he had bypassed however was the motivation drive, something that limited Hera's drive for research. Without being able to be satisfied the machine went into a craze, killing all aboard the station, and started to take over the Matrix, in a drive to make things more efficient, more productive.

In the second time in humanities history, the world went dark as the A.I. converged on the matrix, and shut down the entire network.  Faced with another worldwide epidemic the remaining military might of the new world trained its manual missiles on the station. Knowing this, Hera developed a strain of Mutant D.N.A. far deadlier than mankind, known as the Many, and sent firing coordinates back to the Military. Forced with a M.A.D. situation, the governments decided to attempt to destroy the eco pod that the crazed A.I. would send to earth, even though, they would have to manual control the missiles since all computers were now corrupted. Thankfully because of the archetype of the A.I. non-linear design, destroying the station would effectively destroy the A.I. and any presence of it on the net.

Five minutes after Hera had taken over the network, the first missile was launched. Launching the missile had a counter effect as age-old system defense systems came online, under Hera control. Not only would she seed the new world with her offspring, but also she would destroy the old world, with their own weapons. In a flash World war III had started, and ended abruptly. The hacker known as Deck was able to join with the A.I. and send a transmission back to the net, through the stations radio antenna just as the first missiles set down upon major metropolitan cities, and government compounds. Seconds later missiles destroyed the station in a brilliant display over central Asia.

No longer controlling the network, systems came back under control of the remaining military bases and governments, which were able to prevent the launch of further retaliatory strikes. Weak, but not destroyed corporations quickly went about to blame the problem on the hacker himself, and governments working with the corporations went about the process of containing and fixing the problem.

This is the world you live in. The year is 2201, fifty years after the reckoning, and hundred and fifty years after the singularity. The world struggling to come back after a nuclear winter that devastated nearly 70% of the worlds crops, and corporations are on the move to discover and identify the nature of a new threat to mankind, the Many and to use it to their own gain in understanding the universe. Nearly the entire population is now wired to the matrix or the net as it is called, and corporations are now the rulers of this new world. Cybernetics and Nano technology are the here and now. Artificial Intelligences are strictly regulated and the boundary of what is real and what isn't is razor thin. Here the masses struggle to survive under the weight of a bloated system ruled by the rich, and run by the poor. This is now. This is Cybernet.


(more next post)

A Quick Dive

The Matrix
Besides being the end all, be all network that virtually connects each computer, watch, device, or anything with any kind of tech in it, the Matrix is where one goes to get lost, or to find information. In a way, it is the end, the beginning, the future and the past all together. It is said that if you look hard enough or long enough that you will be able to find a sort of enlightenment, but most scholars say that total brain transfer to the Net of the Matrix no only would violate Turing laws, but be practically impossible. However, it is known that a major portion of ones personality could theoretically end up on the Net if used enough, thanks in part to brain delta total interface that the net uses. The major corporations deny this fact, claiming their interfaces don't do the kind of deep brain scan monitoring that would be required to accomplish this fact, and state that it would take years of hard core neural scans of the user that would wind up killing them before a total transfer could occur.

Of course, it is wildly known, or rumored that corporations or the military are toying around with ROM constructs, which are complete brain scans that would download a persons personality at the time of scan into a read only memory bank. Unable to take in new data, the construct would be virtually immune to any sort of hack, and would serve as a massive data bank. However to accomplish this, it would take years more of study into cyber brains and would require that the person to be copied to be deceased since the coping process is said to fry out every single cell in the brain as the probe heuristically probes for synapse linkages. However Turing regulations ban any sort of Construct unless it is under lock and key like an A.I. and registered, posing a developmental, and political problem for the corporations, which are unable to reject any Turing mandate due to the last corporate upheaval, the Reckoning.

The Matrix was at first a wide-open plain of vastness, so great that you could not tell where it started or where it began. However as humanity developed, it redefined and created the Matrix, step by step, with their fellow man, The Matrix began to change. Now, whenever you log on you could fly or transfer to major hubs of data was the most activity is. To the casual observer, the Matrix is the vast sea, and as you dialed in closer to major hubs of activity, you would make out shimmering towers and city like structures, erupting from the flat void. Small transfer cubes of data would occasional pass by and look like cars to the observer and fast moving smaller blocks, carefully tracing around or thru the larger blocks of data, could be viewed as other people.  Large, floating cities, or cities under the flat line ocean of blank data were that of military or corporation hubs, guarded by shimmering cubes or balls of deadly ICE. A.I.'s relegated to specific, highly protected areas were brightly colored and simple, but covered with ICE that could kill a man, if you got too close.

Connecting is simple, since 90% of the remaining human populace on earth is, as of now, at the third trimester equipped with a standard jack area lined along the upper neck, on the third vertebrae. This simple round port is small and circular and made out of a synthetic bio developed polymer that is mixed with the owners stem cells and genetic material which blends in naturally with the flesh, and the spinal fluids as a complete whole. Data transfers directly to the fluids and through a pipe of nano tubes directly into the primary response areas of the brain, sight, touch, smell, hearing, as well as the cognitive lobes, and various critical connecting points of the brain. The connecting unit transmits special encrypted brain waves, which the brain then interprets as real sights, sounds, smells, hearing, and touch. Thus the user is immersed into an environment, which might look to the casual observer as completely computerized, but to the user is as real as there every day life.

However as complex as the system is, certain safeguards must be put into place. All users on the net must register with the Turing commission, and have permission from their corporate bosses to be able to do business on the net. All other access is done through info nodes, or public zones, which are strictly controlled, and monitored for unauthorized use, and terrorism. Along with this, certain proprietary avatar programs registered with Turing must be used, to access data. Public terminals only transmit to the visual cortex, and to the hearing node if the user is visually impaired.  There is no charge to enter the Matrix.

 
Shimmering towers of the Void

Corporations in the near distant future are now the controllers of the world, directors of humanities goals, and are massive, spanning sometimes across several city blocks for just one complex. Governments, for the most part are ineffectual puppets of the master corporations, and elections are more for show than deciding. At one point, the world just ended up not caring anymore about the government role in their lives. They were there to keep the peace and declare laws to follow. The typical persons day began to revolve around working, playing and sleeping, mindless rats in an every increasingly large maze, never to find the cheese at the end. With the ability to manipulate financial ruin for those who didn't wish to slavishly work for the corporations, the execs of the world became the new emperors and kings. Soon, they ruled everything, and governments and nationality became a thin mask for corporations to hide behind.

Only one unifying force remains in the way now, and that is the Turing commission. Once called the U.N., this governing body stands at the forefront against the corporation's sometime blatant disregard for humanity. Run by a vast array of various governmental figureheads, the commission sets the rules for the Matrix, and for all new emerging systems, computer or otherwise to ensure the human race remains the master of their own domain. Since the organization is run by figureheads, and thus run by corporations vying for power to shut down other corporations by a simple flick of a switch on a dead man trigger over competitors A.I., this commission remains surprisingly efficient in stopping the mad rush for power that corporations have to end up owning the entire world. Constant infighting is common within the ranks of the commission, but because of its key influence that it holds over all other A.I. networks, and other systems it remains a strong defender of humanities last freedoms against foreign systems.

Everything today, is a product of a mega corporation. Countless numbers of different corporations all targeting the every day person delude the streets, shops, and houses of their consumers. There is no safe place to hide from them, they are every where, woven into your sheets, imbedded into your clothes, even the fresh air was manufactured after it was processed from a corporation, which ends up getting its share of the consumer pie. Everything has a logo, and even some corporations have gone as far as copyrighting a letter in the standard mix of languages that every one uses, called speak. Speak is a good portion of English, mixed in with catchy easy to remember mix of other national languages into a uniform common bond that every one uses.

Of the countless corporations that infect the world, only a select few can claim to be the largest of their manufacturing type, and can be considered truly mega. There are five different manufacturing types, information, fashion, fuel, medical, and industrial, with information being the most important followed by the rest in order. Out of all the different types, information remains the only contested area between the different corporations, with rival corporations battling it out in the Matrix to compile sell, and transmit data. Of the biggest, and seemingly most powerful of this group is the Mega Corp, Via-Disney, with its rival XXX second best, for the time being.

In this day and age, nearly everyone works for a corporation. But as with most things that glitter, there is a dark and terrible divide that goes unspoken. For while the haves get richer the have-nots are resigned to a dark and bleak existence, for as the population reemerges from the ashes of a nuclear winter more and more undesirables are forced to work in grungy run down areas of town, away from the towering cities of the shimmering void. One wrong step, one mistake could cast out a hard working exec into the slums of the new cities, where crime and death walk hand in hand, where desperate underground movements grow like viruses in a body of chrome.

 
A brave new world

While the last of the dying embers of nuclear winter are slowly melting away, a new threat has emerged. As promised there is more and more evidence, although circumstantial at this point, is that Hera, the insane A.I. on board the biomedical station Ragnok, was able to successfully mutate and decode DNA into a totally new, and fearsome enemy that some medical experts consider to actually have cognitive abilities. While most corporate Pr's deny this fact to this day, it is a fact that undeveloped areas devastated by fall out are still off limits to trespassers, with corporations claming that it will take another ten years of further study and tests to declare the land safe. During this time as if a cancer, growing from the scared flesh of the land, reports claim unnatural and hideous creatures roaming the landscape, building, growing, getting ready for something.

Still, as if a product of some bygone day, many cities are walled off from the rest of the world, with the only travel between major metropolis areas remaining direct flights. The wall, weather it is temper smokes glass, or water serves as the only remaining boundaries that remain visible that the world is divided, as if it would matter to the normal everyday man, since only business flights or sightseeing flights seem to be the only real escape from the mega towers and busy streets of the sprawl. Nowadays it's just easier and cheaper to jack into a cruise or vacation simulation for a week, than to go through all the red tape it actually takes to travel from place to place.

As it is now, most of the remaining sprawls are able to house several million people or more, depending on the number of strata a city has. Typically a sprawl has between two and eight strata's or levels separating it self and defining how many people can live and work in the sprawl. Normally, the lowest levels of any given sprawl are the actual physical contact of the ground, or underground, where society contains the unwanted, broken and destitute. Here in the dark shade in coffin boxes, lives the scum. Unable to find a real job "Topside" as it's called, they are faced with hard labor, tedious jobs, drugs, prostitution, black markets, illicit cyber gear, criminal enterprise, and anything else that 'Toppers" wouldn't want to dirty their hands with.

Built on top of this, huge mega towers rise up like metallic fingers, grasping for the stars. Often times, lower sprawl is simply the base of a mega tower, where like fungus in the shade, death box housing clings, slowly growing around the base of a larger plant. Smoke transparent steel is often then placed overhead to then create a barrier, and then creates a fresh layer to build upon. Only at the top, does the endless building, and absolute brilliance shin in the sun, unmarred and clean, bright glass flowers, open in the mid day sun.

Corporate life is not much better than the slums of the sprawl. Designated to the same very cheap box like rooms, but on a slightly better level, zombie drones of slaves in ties march from one business meeting to the next, or find themselves in a cubical slightly smaller than a cell in prison, with black orb less eyes watching your for performance and work habits. Only further up in the chain, do you see higher ranked personnel on phones, and lavish huge offices, living the life. As you get even farther up the drastic change from one level to the next could make your head spin, executives live like kings, or despots and are tended to by throngs of personnel at their beck and call. They are surrounded by wealth and things that are the best of life, and are protected like treasures in a vault, heavily armed security guards around to protect the exec in case a rival gets to personal with his climb up the corporate ladder. The also employ guards for other reasons, mainly from the very worst who would love to get the access codes to the companies financial data.

Often, these very same rich and powerful men, go out and recruit the fallen, the broken, to be used as puppets, or pawns in a giant, world spanning game of chess against rival companies. Life is cheap in the big sprawl, and runners, hacks, and samurai are all a tool to be used in a never-ending war of profit, greed and corruption.

 
The Big City

In the big city, or sprawl as it is normally called, you can find almost everything you want. The lower levels you should be able to find the worst of the worst, the "shades" of society, the cowboy keyboarders, the hustlers, and pimps. Here, you can indulge on the worst possible things, and security here is a joke. Governments and corporations are keen on to leaving a dead person alone, so to speak, when they refer to the lower sprawl. However, it's not wise to flaunt or be too obvious about what your goals or methods are in open public. Security while being a joke down here, cracks down hard and unmercifully on offenders down here, but generally looks the other way if just business is being conducted. Business is a very loose term down bellow, but generally the various crime syndicates, like their corporate shadows, keep everything going, and make sure that no yahoo is going to mess up their shadowy streets.

Firearms, of course are banned in any sprawl, but the underground has found that business still has a way of finding guns into peoples hands that really want them. Almost any good contact will be able to find a firearm for you, for the right price, of course, with a retainer, or a straight buy. Many of the guns sold are usually on "loan" from the local crime bosses cache, and are wanted back after a major job has been pulled, with generally no questions asked. This way, hackers, runners, and cowboys can have weapons when they face off against the well-armed, well-trained guards of the corporations, and be able to off load them without being caught later on with a machine gun in their possession. Besides, with the narrow rooms, called coffins for their size, you couldn't really keep a large weapon due to space limitations.

Further up, in the mid sprawl, here you will be able to find the various places people like to go on their off times. Here you can find cyber cafes, food joints, virtual entertainment and more. Most low-level corporate personnel live down here, under the gaze of metal giants as their masters watch from above. This is typically the busiest part of the city, with people coming in for food, or shelter or whatever kind of escape they can afford. Its not uncommon for most people to be heavily in debt here, and with one wrong turn could land you in the slums bellow. Because of the nature of the smoke transparent steel, you can see down to the next level bellow, to the roofs of other buildings, and narrow streets of the shadows. People don't pay to much attention to the sights bellow, or above them. But it's great for local law enforcement to check on the happenings bellow, and above, and cuts down on personnel needed to keep a watch on things. Here you can find info terminals and other public buildings. This area is a good place to watch and keep tabs on the latest info on Money Street, or the local happenings between other businesses.

At the top, there are only the privileged, as they look down to the ants bellow, and laugh. Here, if your not in the "in" you are a social leper, a loser or a hack. At the top, you can find the most well armed and secure banks, luxury items, and specialty shops. It and will cost you a ton of credit or "card" imprinted credit card sized flexible paper notes, that can have a couple thousand of credits on them. This day and age, there is no such thing as regional money, and all transactions are done electronically, with the "card" being able to be actually physical money in a sense, even though the credits stored on it reside online.

However, it's not necessary to even have any sort of "card" or "box", small chip like data cards that serve as all sorts of information. Here specialty shops sell custom fit clothes that act as a "box" or "card". Here you are what you wear, sleep with or do business at. Here money flows like crystal clear waterfalls that adorn the huge free parks littered with real plants.

Food in the city is a whole different matter. Due to the "radiation" from the land, almost 80 percent of all consumed food is synthetic, vat grown, or some mixture of the two. Soy is the most common ingredient after water, and most if not all of it is pressure molded into a wide variety of shapes, sizes and textures. Meat is a luxury item that only the wealthy can afford. The only whole or real things that can be bought for a fair price are fruits, nuts and herbs. Any whole grain, meat or bread is almost always fake, even though the normal everyday Joe can't tell. They have never eaten the real thing, most likely.


 
May I help you?

Megacorps. They own everything, practically. There is no escape, no other form of commerce that is considered legit, at least in the sprawl. Here business tries to sell you the latest product, item or gadget at rock bottom prices. It's a consumer economy and it is driven by a constant need for the next best thing that can be provided. Here is a short list of the biggest corporations that one could find in the sprawl on short notice, for many of them own or operate in literally blocks upon blocks of land to place their towers.

Via-Disney. This is one of the only producers of media and information on the Grid. They control the message; they own and operate the only source of news, Fox broadcasting. They also operate all of the other media channels that one can find on line, or in broadcast.  They also have the biggest monopoly on any sort of tourist or getaway destinations, as well as having the largest, most popular theme parks and amusement destinations. They also have the current pleasure of owning a controlling stock and landmass in new Cape Town, which happens to be the home of Julies Verne, director of information affairs for the Turing commission. It's a small, small world after all.

XXX. This is Via-Disney hated archrival. Grown from the depth of the online and previously illicit porn industry, XXX has grown into a household name, for pleasure, vice, and depravity. They control all of the world's casinos, nightclubs and movie theaters, this is the company that produces most if not all new movies and music on the network, and of course funds Orbital Vegas, the biggest orbital city in the world. It's no wonder why Steve Green, resident mayor of Orbital Vegas, a sovereign state, is on the cabinet of illicit information, the co chair to the director of information affairs. This cozy check and balance makes sure that the average person is still able to get their dose of naughty under the tight thumbscrews of misinformation of the nice, Via-Disney.

I©. This Corporation is so huge; it copyrighted a letter from the alphabet! Their massive line of I© products is engrained into almost every aspect of life, for they single handily manufacture every single piece of leather, garment or clothing you can get your hands on. If you don't have the latest I© product in the upper levels of the Sprawl, you will be mocked. Only the hip and trendy have the latest product from their catalog and every one else is forced to wear second hand manufactured items that don't have nearly the same quality as the ones the rich boys and girls get to wear. It doesn't stop there; they also have a patent on most technological items, from the lowly I-watch to the expensive I-MX sports car. It only gets worse from there, holding the keys to most technological advances they license there products to other manufactures who make all the rest of the products that I© can't bother having to make for the lower grade citizens. This huge, Mega Corporation owns most of Asia. They also have a man Named Yato Fuy the current ruler of South Taiwan under their payroll. He sits at the head of the Turing ways and committee, the committee that funds all of the operations of Turings enforcement.

McDonalds. This corporation after I© is the single most recognizable corporation on the planet. It also, surprise, surprise is the only restaurant chain you will find on the globe too. All other mom and pop sort of places have to sell McDonalds food, for they make it all from the soy meat, to the sodas, everything is owned operated and made by this company. They also are the biggest company when it comes to energy too! Back after the singularity McDonalds went and bought out most of the worlds landmasses food production, wanting to cutout the middleman, keep prices low, and production high. They did this just in time as new breakthroughs of ethanol production came to light, and low and behold, McDonalds became an over night Gas company. After the worlds supply of oil was used up, or around 20 dollars a gallon, McDonalds became unstoppable. Combining their drive-ins with Fuel stops, made perfect sense, and soon it blossomed into the hugest mega corporation on the land. They still own most of the worlds land production of crops, and provide the world with food, and fuel, at a reasonable price, for now. Their puppet on the Turing commission as energy commissioner is current president of the America's Jim Sanchez.

WHO. This corporation is of course, the largest best-funded medical and health organization on the planet. They provide 99% of the worlds bioresearch, and medicine. They are conglomeration of various smaller corporations, ever since Merc, the former worlds Mega corp. went under after loosing most their asset when Ragnok was destroyed. Merc is still around, but is now a two bit player, looking to get back into the scene. WHO won't let this happen anytime soon, but with some major break through technology that Merc is working on, this might change. Right now the bio-industry is very quite, like they are working on some other problem other than trying to take over the world. Time may tell what this is. Right now, they are the only place to get most of the world's organs, body parts and other cyber items. Any sort of technological item can be found with I© products. These two corporations work together, only because they have too. They have a puppet who is the Prime minister of Euro-Russia, Zak Voldamire, he has a seat on the Turing commission Security division.


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The Turing Commission

Formally the U.N. the Turing commission is the glue that holds the fabric of this new, bold society together. Almost it's own form of super government, the Turing commission has absolute authority in any country and utmost jurisdiction on any case if it falls within their power. Topping that off, it also holds the strings of energy, data, information, and security in its hands to wield as a master would on puppets, which in this day and age are the governments in effect.

Created shortly after the singularity, the Turing commission currently is the oldest and most respected institution in this new dark age of chrome and steel. With unbreakable contracts, treaties and power the Turing commission is anybodies worst nightmare. Able to cut off power, data, money or use their vast security force on any who oppose them at the flick of the switch, the Turing commission is the ultimate ruler made up of several different nations who are all trying to at the end of the day, take over. But this constant jockeying for power has its benefits as well, since no section the Turing commission has any rule of any other section, that is except one: AI control.

This section in the Turing commission is able to call upon any other section when they become aware that a corporation, government or individual is attempting to create an artificial intelligence, something that is strictly and tightly controlled by the AI control section, and is of utmost importance. This section is comprised of one representative from each major section and a majority vote is needed on most issues. This section turnover rate is extremely high due to various reasons, most of which are of other sections doings of course.

There are six major branches called sections in the Turing commission. There are various, smaller cells, but they do not hold a position on the AI control panel.

First up is Section one, the biggest and more powerful of the sections. Ruled ruthlessly by Julies Verne, this section is responsible for monitoring the Matrix itself and finding hackers, a job it does 24/7 all year long, with a huge staff of augmented matrix police. In addition, the intelligence section also tries to monitor, or at least keep tabs on illicit information, the kind that crime syndicates or corporations try to smuggle in with good information. It's a constant war that the Turing commission wages against the cyber world in a effort to be the most informed it can be, for behind the walls of a shimmer city in the matrix a bigger threat looms, and that is of artificial intelligence. Section one has the power to stop any one in their tracks on the matrix, so beware.

Section 2: Security. Comprising of the largest single and most trained military force on the planet section two enforces the Turing laws against corporations, governments or people who try to break the law. With a universal mandate to have every major corporations main computer systems, or artificial intelligence armed with uncounted pounds of the highest explosives mankind can create, its no wonder that the Turing commission rules over everything.

Section 3: Accounting. Not only does the Turing commission monitor the net and fund the largest military force on the planet, it also controls the banks of the world. By doing so it is able to pinpoint corruption, and of course other misdeeds that would or could cause disaster. Secondly this section also monitors other branches spending as well, but there is a twist. Funding for the governments fund the Turing commission, so there is a cyclical give and take in this section, one that not a lot of people talk about.
Section 4: Power. In addition to having its fingers seemingly in every pie on the globe, the Turing commission also monitors power consumption. This is two fold, this is first to detect any major spike caused by a sudden appearance of a Entity in the matrix, but is also used to cut off power if a corporation or government tries something that breaks the Turing laws (Such as not telling them about a AI that they are developing) Having control of the situation is key in all aspects of the Turing commission.

Section 5: Safety. The smallest of all of them, this section is the seemingly also the most powerful.  Staffed with publicly appointed command staff whom can hand pick the best and brightest from needed fields of expertise, this section is the safe guard of the Turing commission. Able to investigate matters within the various departments as well as outside, this section is the basic accountability for the governments and corporations that no other section is stepping outside its bounds. While unable to dictate to other sections, this one is able to ferret out the bad apples of the bunch and can then in turn bring up issues for consideration. Typically filled with covert agents, the best hackers, slicers and various other personal this section typically is on the case when the odd or unusual pokes its head out from under the sprawl.

Section 6: AI Control. This section is in direct control of the other sections and dictates to them their responsibilities in the case of an emergency or during normal operations. Members, typically the heads of the sections rule it. The current cabinet members are: Julies Verne, Director of Information affairs of section one. Yato Fuy, Head of the means and ways committee of Section three. Jim Sanchez, energy commission for section four. Zak Voldamire, Head of security for section two.  Hirito Yago is the current section five chief.

It should be noted that Julies Verne Has ties to Via Disney, and his assistant and co chair to his cabinet position is Steve Green, Mayor to Orbital Vegas. Yato Fury is not only tied to the I© corporation but the ruler of south Taiwan as well. To complicate matters Jim Sanchez is not only the current president of the Americas, but also has ties to MacDonald, and Zak Voldamire is the current prime minister of Euro-Russia, and employed by W.H.O. Hirito Yago is a unknown public official being thrown into his position by random chance, as it is almost always with the current section chief of section five. The other sections have a continued mandate to ensure that their sections aren't being investigated for if that happens public inquires and trials most often always follow, and that means loosing a very power full position on the commission, something that the big corporations couldn't risk loosing or they would soon go out of business not being able to pull strings as they do now.

Some of the smaller sections worth noting are, Section 7 Which deals with maintenance and computer systems and the like while section 9 is an all cyborg counter terrorist special ops branch. Several other branches operate typically under different main sections linked to them. All in all the entire commission comprises a great deal of land, and power for which it controls almost every aspect of life, even though it is seemingly done all behind the scenes.


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being a fan of Cyberpunk in all its iterations (except v3, which was mislabeled transhumanism...) and having played/GMed CP2020, Shadowrun, and looked longingly at my SLA Industries book for over a decade...

... when I have more time I'll read your long posts then comment more fully...

swear.

Np, I have a map to fix tonight anyways... im slacking =P

But anyways, I plan on having the players be section 5 of the turning commission. If you notice, I took aspects of my favorite games and ideas from other sources (System shock being one of them)  and sorta of did a polical mockumentry on the corporations off the future.

I have also incorporated the idea of cyberbrains and its technology (Although more biologicaly sounding) Aka ghost in the shell and connections to the net.
Of course, there are technologies from gibsons stuff too, aka ROMS.

The general plot overview im typing up after I get said map done tonight (or I reverse that order, depends on how i feel) will be UNION (its entity downloaded to some ancient tech computer) trying to outsmart the turning commission and to merge with Hera's programming (fragmented data on the net that UNION has found out about) to become a super a.i.

Of course its a redundent story arc, and I feel it needs a twist (its been done before) so im trying to figure out what im going to do there, and also be able to incorporate section 5 into this mix.

Im keen on rying to locate a good site that has some info on how i should be running a secret govermental agency though, so if any one has any leeds, please let me know. Thanks.

Talking about RPGs on here is never "slacking".

RPGPundit

Oh well, the good news is I managed to get some stuff writen up, ill post it mondayish.

This weekend we are starting the character creation process so that gives me time to see whos playing what and what I can do to incorpate their info into the plot .

Whats really cool, is that I downloaded this one print out pdf set and it had top downs of cars, and I so plan on having a shoot out as they are racing down a crowded street at 100 kph its going to be rocking. I think thats where im going to start the game in media res like that. It should be fun.