TEXT: Stock #37-2615
  
  Editor-in-Chief T STEVE JACKSON
  Chief Operating Officer T PHILIP REED
  Art Director T WILL SCHOONOVER
  e23 Manager T STEVEN MARSH
  Transhuman Space Line Editor T PHIL MASTERS
  Editorial Assistance T JASON “PK” LEVINE
  Production Artist T NIKOLA VRTIS
  Prepress Checker T MONICA STEPHENS
  Page Design T PHIL REED and
  JUSTIN DE WITT
  Marketing Director T PAUL CHAPMAN
  Director of Sales T ROSS JEPSON
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  2
  JANUARY 2010
  COVER ART
  Christopher Shy
  INTERIOR ART
  Greg Hyland
  Steven Marsh
  CONTENTS
  IN THIS
  ISSUE
  What better way to start the dawn of a new year than the
  dawn of a new era? Strap on your spacesuits – or simply upload
  yourself across the solar system to a receiving station – and get
  ready to take a tourist stop in Transhuman Space.
  Our first unbelievable futuristic fusion comes courtesy of
  Phil Masters, Transhuman Space line editor. He’s figured out
  how to add GURPS Action DNA to the year 2100 experience
  in Transhuman Action! These new lenses, rules, and tips for
  adding cinematic fun to the near-tomorrow setting may be just
  what you need!
  Once you’re done adding exclamation points to your slinks,
  Transhuman Space architect David Pulver offers a glimpse at
  how a group of “normal” Fifth Wave citizens live their lives,
  particularly at 42 Fedorov Road. This apartment building
  (complete with maps) even has two vacant rooms just waiting
  for tired adventurers to make themselves at home!
  Long-time Pyramid contributor J. Edward Tremlett wel-
  comes nervous tourists to visit the latest advances in human
  depravity, with five sinister locations in Dark Places of the Earth.
  It’s time to put those new-found Transhuman Action rules to use!
  Within the pages of Inhuman Space, GURPS author
  William Stoddard explores the horrific implications of the
  Transhuman Space setting further. Never before have ancient
  ideas of cosmic horror felt so new.
  New ideas come in new ways, with Big Media Memetics.
  These optional rules give more possibilities and control for
  those exploring tomorrow’s most subtle science. Drink Big
  Media Memetics Cola! It’s new!
  For campaigns featuring extensive interactions between the
  red and blue planets, the Earth-Mars Calendar may be just the
  thing you need to keep track of time between these neighbors.
  Good through January 2102!
  Steven Marsh, Pyramid editor, explores a new way of look-
  ing at the Transhuman Space setting in his Random Thought
  Table. What do you get for the setting that has everything?
  Finally, Odds & Ends includes a couple of adventure ideas
  we miniaturized to cram in here, and – of course – the ever-
  popular Murphy’s Rules, featuring the art of Greg Hyland.
  Your passport to the future isn’t nanoscrawled on a scroll of
  DNA or laser-carved on an asteroid; it’s right in front of you,
  waiting to be read. Welcome to 2100!
  Article Colors
  Each article is color-coded to help you find your
  favorite sections.
  Pale Blue: In This Issue
  Brown: In Every Issue (letters, humor, editorial, etc.)
  Dark Blue: GURPS Features
  Purple: Other Features
  FROM THE EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
  TRANSHUMAN ACTION!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
  by Phil Masters
  42 FEDOROV ROAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
  by David Pulver
  DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH. . . . . . . . . . 20
  by J. Edward Tremlett
  EARTH-MARS CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
  INHUMAN SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
  by William H. Stoddard
  BIG MEDIA MEMETICS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
  by Grant Davis
  RANDOM THOUGHT TABLE:
  SPACE IS A TIME AND A PLACE . . . . . . 37
  by Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor
  ODDS AND ENDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
  featuring Murphy’s Rules
  ABOUT GURPS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
  
  2100 ADVENTURE
  POSSIBILITIES
  I talk a bit about approaching Transhuman Space in my
  column this week (a piece of scholarship so brilliant it will no
  doubt be required reading for all school children in the world
  of 2100). So I’m going to use this space to talk a bit about one
  aspect I enjoy concerning the setting – filtered through the lens
  of this month’s articles.
  When assembling this
  issue, I realized how var-
  ied
  the
  world
  of
  Transhuman Space is.
  It’s pretty neat that the
  article
  about
  how
  to
  transform the setting into
  a
  Cowboy-Bebop-esque
  action-vid romp is fol-
  lowed immediately by an
  article about a down-to-
  earth
  suburban
  apart-
  ment complex – and both
  make sense within the
  context of the setting, and
  are entirely possible to
  use in gaming.
  To put it another way, let’s
  say you want to play with the
  concept of identity and memo-
  ries in Transhuman Space.
  One avenue takes you to an
  adventure like Total Recall,
  while another more closely
  resembles The Truman Show.
  That’s pretty neat.
  Science fiction has often
  been about visions of the
  future
  and
  exploring
  new
  ideas; at times the trip is facil-
  itated by explosions, and other
  times by whispers.
  WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW
  If you’re hoping to influence our behavior, you could
  do worse than sending applicable memes to us, at
  pyramid@sjgames.com, or via our virtual presence at
  forums.sjgames.com.
  In addition, if you or your AI have ever wanted to write for
  Pyramid, you should note that we recently updated our wish list
  with lots of new ideas for future issues we’d like to run. Our
  Writer’s Guidelines are at sjgames.com/pyramid/writing.html
  and the wish list is at sjgames.com/pyramid/wishlist.html.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  3
  JANUARY 2010
  FROM THE
  EDITOR
  Pyramid, GURPS, Warehouse 23, and the all-seeing pyramid are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. Transhuman Space, e23, and the names of all products
  published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license.
  Pyramid is copyright © 2010 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
  Submission of your photos, letters, humor, captions, and marginalia constitutes permission to Steve Jackson Games Incorporated to use them in all media.
  All such submissions become the property of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated and will not be returned.
  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this material via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please
  purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors’ rights is appreciated.
  Of course it’s always a personal taste/campaign style thing, but
  this [issue #3/11] will be one of the most wholesale useful issues for
  me as a GM of the new Pyramids so far.
  – jimminy, on the Steve Jackson Games forums
  
  The character creation tools provided in GURPS Action 1
  can be used in Transhuman Action games, in combination with
  the character creation notes from Changing Times, but a little
  adjustment may be required, at least for Fifth Wave heroes.
  “Realistic” people from that background tend to start out with
  assets and abilities beyond the norm for earlier eras, and action
  heroes will look a bit strange if they don’t build on the same
  baseline. It’s suggested that you give each Action template an
  extra 50 points, to be spent on any or all of the following.
  Genetic Upgrade, Parahuman, or Bioroid Templates: Action
  heroes are as likely as anyone else to be genetic upgrades or
  parahumans. (In dramatic terms, there’s a clash between bio-
  conservatism and transhumanism here: Old-fashioned audi-
  ences might secretly cheer to see “old-school” human heroes
  kicking posthuman butt, while transhumanists would expect the
  greatest heroes to have the best genetic profiles. Mostly, perhaps,
  teams should have a range of types, for the sake of variety.)
  Bioroids are also perfectly possible, and can look interesting.
  This book details a bodyguard firm, which is precisely what
  any high-profile socialite living in the 22nd century needs. They
  are ready, willing, and able to crash through the window, grab the
  ambassador’s head, twist it off, and hurl it out of the back door
  mere seconds before it explodes. Oh, you didn’t realize that
  ambassador was actually a bombhead bot? See why you need
  these people now?
  – The Daily Illuminator, August 17, 2009
  Well, that’s definitely one way of playing it – “it” meaning a
  Transhuman Space game, of course. And if you’re going to
  play things that way, well, you ought to be looking at the pri-
  mary GURPS reference for that sort of window-crashing, gun-
  toting action: the GURPS Action series.
  So let’s take a look at merging the two series (under GURPS
  Fourth Edition, of course, and using templates and rules from
  Transhuman Space: Changing Times). This article also takes
  Personnel Files 4: Martingale Security – the subject of that
  Illuminator quote – as a source of worked examples.
  CONTRASTING STYLES
  To begin with, note that Transhuman Space isn’t a cine-
  matic setting by default. It’s designed to sit very firmly at the
  hard SF end of the scale, which implies a strong sense of real-
  ism. However, it’s a world with its full share of combat experts,
  high-tech weapons, international plots, and dangerous factions
  – a world with plenty of scope for high-action stories, in other
  words. If you want to preserve the division, think of a
  Transhuman Action campaign as bearing the same relation to
  “standard” Transhuman Space that the James Bond movies
  bear to real Cold War espionage, or that Die Hard bears to real
  police work.
  In any case, some aspects of the Action approach do actu-
  ally move closer to realism in the Transhuman Space world.
  Brain and nerve booster nanosymbionts can grant superhu-
  man reactions and speed. Various biomods can provide supe-
  rior strength, resilience, and pain resistance. The medicine of
  TL10 generally can enhance healing and the ability to cheat
  death. Heroes carry gyrostabilized guns with built-in laser
  sights – and if those don’t ensure sufficiently uncanny marks-
  manship, there’s always the option of homing bullets. Virtually
  all of the gadgets described in Action 2 (p. 30) can be consid-
  ered realistic in Transhuman Space. Move the action to low-
  gravity settings such as Luna or Mars, and trained fighters can
  perform feats of acrobatic leaping previously seen only in
  chambara movies. This is still a constrained sort of cinematic –
  no amount of technology can grant luck or plot immunity – but
  it means that “straight” Transhuman Space games can have
  some degree of cinematic style, while Transhuman Action
  games needn’t look quite so far over the top by comparison to
  the “reality” of the setting.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  4
  JANUARY 2010
  TRANSHUMAN
  ACTION!
  BY PHIL MASTERS
  Gun-toting Transhuman Action adventurers might be able to adapt material from Gun Fu. Among its goodies are
  guidelines for creating exotic and prototype weapons. (Tomorrow’s prototypes are Transhuman Space’s retro!)
  LENSES AND TEMPLATES
  
  However, they do tend to need slightly more complex backsto-
  ries, which will have to fit the area in which they are based. In
  areas where bioroids are oppressed and more or less property,
  they’re going to be treated as subservient sidekicks, possibly
  even comic relief, or as faintly sinister “manufactured gun-
  slingers,” even if they’re played as more complex or even tragic
  figures. In, say, games set in Europe, they have and will tend to
  insist on equal citizenship (although they’ll also frequently be
  legal minors), probably with complex past histories involving
  escape from slavery.
  Biotech and Nanotech Enhancements: Some biomods and
  nanosymbionts are more or less expected for tolerably well-off
  people in advanced areas; while they aren’t necessarily essential
  for action heroes’ adventures, they might be effectively required
  for plausible (organic) protagonists. Primarily, someone who
  isn’t highly resistant or immune to disease of all kinds – whether
  through genetics or later enhancements – will just be seen as
  weird. In a game with any chance of space travel, resistance to
  radiation and calcium loss may also be required. Other such
  mods are less standard, although those that enhance fighting
  effectiveness will certainly be useful to heroes – no, those 50
  points can’t all be spent on stuff to make the hero deadlier in a
  brawl, although putting a few points into nervous system
  enhancements, backup hearts, anti-shock glands, etc. fits the
  style of the setting well enough to be worth encouraging.
  Infomorph Allies: Heroes with any sort of access to useful
  material resources should have some kind of AI assistance. (In
  some cases, their chief infomorph aide may be another PC.) A
  basic NAI in a wearable or implant shell can be had for 4
  points; since it’s designed on 25% of the adventurers’ total (62
  points for a 250-point action hero), it can be a very useful
  researcher and data manager. More formidable Allies in
  mobile shells are also entirely possible, although the GM
  should discourage players from using combat shells to do all
  their fighting for them; while that’s quite Transhuman Space,
  it’s not very Action.
  Wealth and Status: In advanced areas of the Transhuman
  Space world, standard wealth levels are above the average for
  the world as a whole (see Changing Times, pp. 36-37). Hence,
  heroes based there who don’t put points into Wealth are effec-
  tively marking themselves down as impoverished – which is
  fine in many games, but should be a conscious decision. In the
  richest areas, this in turn means that the “baseline” Status level
  is 1. While many Transhuman Action heroes can be Status 0
  (crumpled police detectives who are still junior or who annoy
  their superiors too much to receive promotions, tough soldiers
  from the ranks, career criminals bordering on fringer status,
  and so on), it may help to have at least some of the group able
  to fit in with the higher level of society in general, or “social”
  scenes will (and should) too often involve minor problems.
  Reduced Disadvantages: Action heroes tend toward having
  slightly crazy, extreme personalities, even in 2100 – but still,
  they ought to be a bit less extreme than the templates might
  suggest. Remember, this is a setting with not only good psy-
  chotherapy (some of it based on memetics) and genetic
  screening for hereditary predispositions, but also treatments
  for mental conditions based on careful use of nanodrugs.
  (With GM permission, some mental problems might be taken
  with a Mitigator limitation to represent the need for periodic
  treatment – though usually, in practice, this would only justify
  a quirk at most.) Downright crazy, on-the-edge heroes won’t
  look dramatically interesting to people around them; they’ll
  just seem like menaces to themselves and others. Physical dis-
  advantages are even more likely to be cured in short order.
  Duties and Reputations, however, aren’t susceptible to med-
  ical treatment; lenses and templates with disadvantage lists
  focused there are perfectly reasonable. Again, this principle
  applies primarily in the most advanced regions; rough, impov-
  erished Third Wave areas can easily breed rough people.
  In short, unless a Fifth Wave character is from reduced cir-
  cumstances or an unusually odd background, he’ll be good
  looking, fairly wealthy by global standards, resistant to disease
  and other health hazards, and with access to advanced com-
  puter resources. These 50 points must be used to reflect these
  aspects of the setting. If the game is to be located in a Fourth
  or Third Wave area, though, prevailing standards are lower,
  and the GM may opt to give fewer or no extra points to be
  spent on the benefits of futuristic technology.
  WHAT FITS AND
  WHAT DOESN’T
  When scrutinizing the lenses and templates from Chapter 1
  of Action 1, a little adjustment may be necessary to fit this set-
  ting. Most of the character types and occupations they describe
  still exist in 2100, but some have new requirements or priorities.
  To start with, many of these people have to be quite sophis-
  ticated and tech-aware to sustain much of a career in Fifth
  Wave environments. Criminals in particular have to be smart to
  stay ahead of TL10 forensics. This is one place where the non-
  combat aspects of Action games – the slick organization and
  clever use of resources – may verge on “realism.” Shifting a few
  points to Computer Operation or Electronics Operation is
  rarely hard to justify! Even combat specialists may be trained in
  multiple high-tech skills. Those using the military lens should
  feel free to shift points from archaic stuff like Parachuting,
  Spear, or Knife to Battlesuit. Anyone with access to any sort of
  Gunner or Guns skill (i.e., everyone) can also choose to switch
  the points to the Gyroc specialty, to Artillery to control larger
  man-portable missiles, or to Beam Weapons to be able to han-
  dle various sorts of high tech.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  5
  JANUARY 2010
  Of course, given the possibilities of slinkies, PCs could also experience “firsthand” the wonders of adventuring using the
  Dungeon Fantasy rules(!).
  A Transhuman Action! hero
  – or any other Fifth Wave citizen
  – is attractive, wealthy, and
  resistant to health hazards.
  
  More specifically, given the dangers of rapid detection by
  high-tech sensors, “sneaky killers” with the assassin template
  ideally don’t even want to still be around when the shooting
  starts. Traps and Electronics Operation become possible pri-
  mary skills for them, as they can hide one-shot launchers and
  smart-fused explosive charges around the killing zone and then
  trigger them from a distance.
  Similarly, demolition men will mostly use cybershells for
  explosives emplacement and EOD – only the craziest will rely
  on their skill and luck to keep them alive when a bunch of rel-
  atively cheap teleoperated hardware can take the risks instead.
  (Of course, action-hero demolitions specialists are always the
  craziest ones.) Meanwhile, wire rats have a whole world of new
  toys to play with, although their skill list may not actually
  change too much.
  In games with any sort of criminal or espionage aspect, prob-
  lems evading detection of all sorts move the cleaner from being
  a slightly peripheral character type to center stage. A competent
  cleaner will absolutely need a high level in Forensics skill – take
  the points from anywhere you can get them. Furthermore, he
  will typically carry around a couple of hives of highly specialist
  microbots and a few bottles of “nanocleaner” fluid, along with
  some bags of dust collected from public transport, useful for sat-
  urating spaces with spurious DNA “evidence.” Many will have
  Paranoia, calling it a necessity for survival.
  Some face men will employ a different sort of new technology,
  being students of formal memetics – although there’s still scope
  for the old-fashioned instinct-driven plausible rogue. A lightly
  tweaked version of the template, with added Propaganda and
  Psychology skills, can represent a professional “black memeti-
  cist,” adept at manipulating whole populations as well as indi-
  vidual opponents.
  Conversely, the hacker may become a rather marginal type,
  depending on just how cinematic the game will be by general
  Transhuman Space standards. In this setting, high-grade
  cryptography and smart AI guardians are supposed to make
  hacking nigh-impossible . . . or at least a lengthy, cautious
  process (see Fifth Wave, p. 128-130, and Changing Times,
  p. 46). However, a good GM could doubtless strike a balance
  between the “realistic” and the cinematic, and allow some
  effective fast exploits without resorting to “cyberpunk” VR net-
  running. One possibility would be to require hackers to take
  more social skills, allowing them to acquire passwords and
  access authorizations through diligent “social engineering.”
  They might also need Psychology (AI, Applied), and work
  largely by messing with the assumptions and behaviors of their
  target systems’ controlling intelligences.
  NEW LENSES
  Some new lenses fit the setting – and they also serve to show
  the range of new action-story possibilities that Transhuman
  Space offers.
  Diver
  20 points
  Specializing in underwater operations, you live, work, and
  adventure at least as often beneath the waves as in the open air.
  This leads to plenty of opportunity for action. You may be
  involved in battles against radical environmentalist saboteurs,
  or in the struggle to stop greedy corporations, arrogant govern-
  ments, and hubristic genetic tinkerers from wrecking the
  oceans any more than they have already. Alternatively, you may
  just work to keep the peace in a growing underwater commu-
  nity, or use the sea as excellent cover for your special-opera-
  tions or espionage missions.
  If you are a purpose-designed amphibious (or aquatic)
  parahuman or bioroid, some of the features in this lens will
  be superfluous. Reassign the points to skills to represent the
  primary mission for which you have been trained (and possi-
  bly created).
  Advantages: You may spend any spare points you have on bio-
  mods or nanosymbionts such as Fisheyes [5], Myelin
  Replacement [1], Respirocytes [16], “AquaDude” [7], Elec-
  troreceptors [10], or Lateral Line [10] (see Changing Times
  pp. 65-66); in fact, this is positively encouraged.
  Skills: Aquabatics (H) DX-1 [2]; Boating (Motorboat) (A) DX-1
  [1]; Diving Suit (A) DX [2]; Electronics Operation (Sensors)
  (A) IQ-1 [1]; Fishing (E) Per [1]; Scuba (A) IQ+1 [4]; Subma-
  rine (Free-Flooding Sub) (A) DX+1 [4]; Submarine (Mini-
  Sub) (A) DX [2]; Submariner (E) IQ [1]; Swimming (E)
  HT+1 [2]. You may also shift points from firearms skills in
  your template to melee weapons skills (usually Knife),
  Brawling, or Wrestling, if you wish.
  Social Traits: Decide who trained or employs you as a combat
  diver, and use the social traits from the appropriate lens in
  Action 1. That’ll often mean the military option, but police,
  intelligence, and security organizations also have some
  need for this skill set. Criminal divers are rarer, but not
  unknown; there is stuff to steal or hijack down there.
  Martian Ranger
  20 points
  You’re an adventurer in the wilds of humanity’s new
  world: Mars. You’re not really an explorer – the planet has
  long since been comprehensively mapped from orbit – but
  the details keep changing, thanks to the effects of rapid ter-
  raforming. People like you are certainly needed out there in
  the wilderness, finding out new stuff. Moreover, as this is a
  wide-open world where civilization is stretched thin, you
  keep running into high-action excitement.
  Now that you have a diver, get to the action in Under Pressure.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  6
  JANUARY 2010
  The characters fight criminals or erase
  outlaw entities. They may be local cops,
  a large agency such as the Genetic
  Regulatory Agency, or freelancers such
  as bounty hunters or xoxhunters.
  – Transhuman Space
  
  Your nominal job may be as a ground-level terraforming
  engineer, a mineral prospector, a U.S. Marshall, or maybe a
  courier for the Triads – or maybe two or more of those at
  once; life’s like that on Mars. (Feel free to assign any spare
  points to skills that fit your primary job.) However, the
  important thing is that you have a nose for trouble and the
  skills to handle it . . . and on Mars, there’s often no one else
  around to deal with problems.
  Advantages: You need Mars-Adapted [9] (see Changing
  Times, p. 43) – possibly from an Andraste biomod. If you
  already have that from somewhere else, shift at least 2
  of the points to Current Affairs (Mars), and add the rest
  to the lens skills (below).
  Skills: Driving (Automobile) (A) DX-1 [1]; Electronics Operation
  (Communications) (A) IQ-1 [1]; Expert Skill (Terraforming)
  (H) IQ-2 [1]; Navigation (Land) (A) IQ-1 [1]; NBC Suit (A) DX
  [2]; Prospecting (A) IQ-1 [1]; Survival (Mars Desert) (A) Per
  [2]; Survival (Mars Mountain) (A) Per [2].
  Social Traits: You probably owe a Duty to someone, as per
  your template, although it might be modified to Nonhaz-
  ardous (meaning that you adventure in your spare time).
  Legal Enforcement Powers are possible but not mandatory.
  Martian Streetfighter
  20 points
  You live in one of the more established communities on
  Mars – but on the shady side of the street. Domed communi-
  ties dependent on technology to survive tend to dislike
  firearms even when they’re technically legal, so you’ve studied
  the new unarmed combat styles that have developed on this
  new world – but you’re not over-specialized. You may be a
  Triad enforcer (hopefully with a conscience), a street cop (with
  either Rust China or America/Mars), or an independent opera-
  tor; things are new and complicated enough on Mars that the
  distinctions are frankly a bit blurred.
  Because the Martian streetfighter is something of a martial
  artist, some of the options on this lens requires access to
  Action 3: Furious Fists (or GURPS Martial Arts).
  Advantages: You need Mars-Adapted [9] (see Changing Times,
  p. 43) – possibly from an Andraste biomod. If you already
  have that from somewhere else, shift the points wherever
  you like; Contacts in the local underworld are quite likely.
  This lens is often combined with combat-oriented biomods,
  if you can find the points.
  Perks: Combat Leaping (above) [1]. You may also spend any
  spare points that you have available on Acrobatic Feints,
  Acrobatic Kicks, Combat Pole-Vaulting, or Dirty Fighting
  (all detailed in Action 3) [1 each].
  Skills: Acrobatics (H) DX [4]; Jumping (E) DX [1]; Karate (H)
  DX [4]; Streetwise (A) IQ-1 [1].
  Social Traits: Use the options for the criminal lens, or the law
  enforcement lens if you're a street cop. Add Savoir-Faire
  (Dojo) to your skills if you’re inclined to polite formality in
  your studies of combat.
  Spacer
  20 points
  You may not literally have been born in space, but that’s
  where you live and work now – and you’re good at surviving in
  free fall. In truth, most spacers spend their time maintaining
  high-tech systems, juggling cargoes, or looking after passen-
  gers. You can do all that, but you have a knack for finding trou-
  ble, nosing out secrets and hidden conflicts between the
  spacefaring powers, and surviving fights, whether in zero-G
  bars or between ships.
  You may owe allegiance to an Earth-based nation, or you
  may be a member of one of the independent communities in
  the Outer System – a Duncanite, perhaps, or a Gypsy Angel.
  It’s possible that you’re directly employed by a major power
  or agency; even if you are, you have to make a lot of your own
  decisions when you’re light-minutes away from the nearest
  supervision.
  Advantages and Perks: You should purchase DNA Repair
  [4] and Microgravity Biochemistry [1] nanosymbionts
  (Changing Times, p. 66). If you’ve already got either or
  both of these benefits granted from biomods, a “racial”
  template, or the like, reassign the points as you wish. You
  must have effective G-Experience with zero and micro-
  gravity (see p. 8); if your native gravity band doesn’t
  encompass these, find a point to buy the advantage. If you
  can also spare the points for 3D Spatial Sense, that’s not
  only permitted, it’s positively encouraged.
  Skills: Acrobatics (H) DX-1 [2]; Electronics Operation (Com-
  munications) (A) IQ-1 [1]; Electronics Operation (Sensors)
  (A) IQ-1 [1]; Free Fall (A) DX+1 [4]; Freight Handling (A)
  IQ-1 [1]; Piloting (Aerospace) (A) DX-1 [1]; Piloting (High-
  Performance Spacecraft) (A) DX-1 [1]; Piloting (Low-Per-
  formance Spacecraft) (A) DX-1 [1]; Spacer (E) IQ [1]; Vacc
  Suit (A) DX [2]. If you expect to operate a lot in zero grav-
  ity and make significant use of DX-based skills, you’ll prob-
  ably want to find the points from somewhere to buy your
  Free Fall skill even higher! Also, you can and maybe should
  shift some points from Guns skill to Beam Weapons (to
  handle lasers and electrolasers, which are widely preferred
  as weapons aboard spaceships) or Gunner (Beams) (to
  operate ship-mounted lasers).
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  7
  JANUARY 2010
  In the Well provides details on adventuring on Mars (as well as Mercury and Venus). For alternate takes on the Red
  Planet that might prove inspirational – say, as slinkies – check out GURPS Mars.
  New Perk: Combat Leaping
  Permits you to jump your full normal distance (horizon-
  tally or vertically) in combat, rather than halving it. Note
  that, in Martian gravity, you multiply your Earth-normal
  leaping distances by 2.63, so this often permits you to jump
  clear over opponents, especially if you use Acrobatic Evade
  (Action 2, p. 37). This perk has both Acrobatics and
  Jumping at DX as prerequisites; if you rearrange your skills
  at all, make sure to keep those two at that level.
  
  Social Traits: Shady “freelancers” use the options for the crim-
  inal lens. Government employees use those for the military
  or security lenses, as seems most appropriate.
  Xoxhunter
  20 points
  You’re basically in law enforcement, or maybe in some kind
  of military or security work, but you deal with a sinister new cat-
  egory of threat: the hostile infomorph. You’re a warrior on a very
  high-tech and sometimes incredibly dangerous frontier. This
  doesn’t just mean hunting xoxes, in fact, although any info-
  morph enemy worth its salt will likely end up illegally copying
  itself sooner or later; it also includes malicious weblife, crazy
  “free memes,” some highly mobile megalomaniac cult leaders,
  and probably some perfectly legitimate AIs that happen to work
  as hackers for factions opposed to your own.
  Still, chasing down xoxes is the class of work that looks best
  to the public at large, who find the ability of such AIs to mul-
  tiply without limit across the Web to be deeply worrying. (Well,
  there are a few crazy digital creationists and posthumanists
  who think that you’re a baby killer. Ignore ’em.)
  In Transhuman Action games, the infomorphs you hunt all
  too often employ combat cybershells, fanatic cults, dupes of all
  kinds, and other dangerous allies, so you need all the combat
  skills of an action hero – coupled with the technical training of
  a computing professional.
  Skills: Computer Hacking (VH) IQ-3 [1]; Computer Operation
  (E) IQ+2 [4]; Computer Programming (H) IQ-2 [1]; Current
  Affairs (Science and Technology) (E) IQ [1]; Electronics
  Operation (Communications) (A) IQ-1 [1]; Electronics
  Repair (Communications) (A) IQ-1 [1]; Electronics Repair
  (Computers) (A) IQ [2]; Expert Skill (Arachnoxenology) (H)
  IQ-2 [1]; Psychology (AI, Applied) (H) IQ [4]. Then spend
  another 4 points to improve one or more of these skills
  and/or to purchase Mechanic (Robotics) (A) at some level.
  Social Traits: Use the options in the Law Enforcement or Secu-
  rity lenses, depending on how overt your employers are.
  INFOMORPH CHARACTERS
  Complicating things further, Transhuman Space offers the
  option to play infomorph characters, frequently in radically
  nonhuman cybershell bodies. These can work fine in
  Transhuman Action games, but the points required to create a
  useful mobile cybershell usually eat up far too much of the
  hero’s budget to be combined with any of the standard Action
  templates. Conversely, AIs in static computers don’t make very
  convincing gun-toting, door-busting heroes – although given a
  bunch of Ally NAIs in small mobile shells, they can join in the
  action at second hand. Likewise, a smart SAI or ghost with a
  permanent Web connection can be a huge asset to a team or
  crew in this setting. To some extent, they will likely tend to act
  as backstage controllers, quartermasters, or liaisons to higher
  levels of “the agency” or other groups, although they don’t have
  to stand entirely aside from the most exciting stuff.
  The other snag with SAIs is that they’re usually pro-
  grammed to have Honesty, which rules out a lot of Action-style
  careers (even the ones that are supposed to be on the side of the
  law – action heroes have this notorious trouble with Doing
  Things By The Book), but they may still be viable in some
  games. Alternatively, you can play one that has twisted its own
  programming to something more flexible, although that makes
  it a rogue, typically with a big Secret that can be quite hard to
  keep under these circumstances. Ghosts and shadows are less
  complicated in this respect, although they need appropriate
  backstories – they’re probably soldiers or crack secret agents
  who got uploaded after their meat bodies got shot up beyond
  repair on some mission, or maybe slightly crazy oldsters who
  elected to make the change when senescence got to their bod-
  ies, and who now celebrate their digital quasi-immortality by
  running a little wild.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  8
  JANUARY 2010
  Campaign idea: Players might be able to play themselves in the future of 2100! Of course, each PC will need a good
  reason for how they survive another 90 years on Earth . . . but Transhuman Space has a bunch of possibilities. Life-
  expanding drugs, living long enough to be uploaded, and cryogenic storage are all possibilities. See Age (Transhuman
  Space, p. 128) for more.
  The standard GURPS rules for different gravity
  (p. B350) make it impossible for a character ever to be fully
  effective in more than one level of gravity. At best, the
  G-Experience advantage reduces the penalties for unfamil-
  iar gravity levels. This is really too detailed and insuffi-
  ciently heroic for Action games, whose heroes should be
  able to look cool and effective in any situation encom-
  passed by their schtick – which in Transhuman Action
  games, may well include adventuring in space and on other
  planets. So Transhuman Action uses a simplified rule:
  G-Experience for a different gravity level allows you to
  treat that level exactly as if it were your native gravity level.
  Thus, for example, someone born on Earth (native in 1G)
  who buys G-Experience (0.38G) never takes any penalties
  for operating in either Earth’s gravity field or that of Mars.
  Note, further, that anyone can operate without penalty in
  conditions within 0.2G of their native level. This means that
  a character who has 1G (Earth-standard) as his native grav-
  ity, and who takes G-Experience with a level of 0.19 G, is
  fully effective in conditions from 0 G (free fall) to 0.38G and
  0.81G to 1.19G. This covers every planet, moon, and major
  space station in the inner system, and everything except the
  gas giants in the outer system. Hence, for practical
  Transhuman Space purposes, “not having to worry about
  variant gravity fields” costs as much as a perk – which is
  probably about right, stylistically, for Action games.
  G-Experience
  
  Instead of using templates and lenses, players can build all
  their characters from scratch. Here’s an example of what might
  result, based on previously published material.
  Given that the main characters in Personnel Files 4:
  Martingale Security are built on 300 points each, you might
  assume that they’re ready to go as Action heroes. However,
  they’ve got that many points because they’re actually quite
  “realistic” combat-trained Fifth Wave characters; giving them
  the Action feel on top of that requires a little bit more. Let’s say
  50 points more, and accept that this is a game with a higher
  starting point total. Here’s what to do with them – and with
  their Ally infomorphs, which of course have their own point
  values raised in proportion.
  If it helps, think of the campaign in which these characters
  star as a game version of Martingale!, an action-adventure
  InVid that is popular across North America in 2100, and a bit
  of a cult in the E.U. (despite many complaints there about it
  being loaded with carbon-chauvinist memes). Needless to say,
  it’s also heavily pirated in the TSA.
  DIEGO HUGHES
  Raise ST to 12 [20], HT to 12 [20], HP to 13 [2], Per to 17
  [20] and FP to 12 [0]. Keep basic Speed at 6.00, so its cost
  becomes [0]. Add Luck [15]. Hughes’ Per-based skills all go up
  by 4 as a result of this, of course.
  Hughes remains the grizzled team leader, but his Action
  version is a little bit tougher and incredibly sharp-eyed – he
  doesn’t seem to miss anything.
  “Jack”: Change DX to 12 [40], Per to 15 [20], and Basic
  Speed to 6.00 [0]. All Jack’s DX-based skills go up by 2 as a
  result of this. What Diego misses, Jack sees anyway – and it’s
  also a crack shot.
  Infomorph/cybershell heroes generally have to be designed
  from scratch to fit the campaign and character concepts. One
  thing to note is that, unlike most Action adventurers, they
  don’t necessarily have to have Luck in any of its various forms.
  Human heroes frankly rely on that advantage to keep them-
  selves alive in careers that would finish lesser mortals in short
  order; infomorphs have their own arrangements for cheating
  death, and are frequently not on the scene in person when the
  shooting starts.
  Such characters tend to have very cool, impassive personali-
  ties. Why? Because it’s true to some extent of all AIs, and the
  conventions of the genre raise it to the extreme. Many replace
  the Fearlessness which is standard for LAIs and SAIs, with full-
  on Unfazeable, remaining quite aggravatingly calm through
  every high-speed chase and frantic firefight. Some also have
  Indomitable, refusing to be manipulated like sloppy organic
  beings – although others have a comic streak of gullibility. Of
  course, equally cool NPC AIs can make deadly opponents, refus-
  ing to be flustered by the heroes’ mind games and coordinating
  hordes of disposable combat shells. (Compartmentalized Mind
  is a good option for AIs on either side of the hero/villain line in
  Transhuman Action games.) Heroes with social skills will need
  Machine Empathy (see Changing Times, p. 52) to use them on
  AIs; this can be a good feature for AI heroes whose job includes
  counteracting enemy AIs. Ghosts and shadows – being emula-
  tions of human minds – are less frequently “ice cold and deadly”
  character types, although some turn down the gland/hormone
  modeling options on the systems on which they run, and turn
  out almost as chilly as AIs.
  It should also be said that, despite this reputation for cool-
  ness, AI action heroes may have more in the way of mental dis-
  advantages than their counterparts in more “realistic”
  Transhuman Space games – especially if the campaign is going
  to have some moments of comic relief. They can certainly be
  naïve or eccentric, and Transhuman Action games can play this
  up, if that’s what the players want.
  CYBERSHELL ENHANCEMENTS
  Those infomorphs will of course have to use cybershells of
  some description. The various types detailed in Changing
  Times and Shell-Tech are often highly appropriate, but free-
  wheeling Transhuman Action games can take a slightly more
  relaxed approach to some parts of the subject than is the norm.
  Action heroes often have special tricks up their sleeves and
  access to cool technology, in 2100 as in earlier eras. Sometimes
  this will show up on a cybershell character sheet. The standard
  Taboo Trait: Physical Changes should be treated as advisory at
  best, and simply ignored with GM permission; a shell may
  have improved physical attributes (“I had the motors upgraded
  by that techie I used to know”), a bit of an Appearance (“Cool
  custom mod!”), Weapon Mounts (“It’s just a braced mount and
  a serial port”), improved senses (“I scavenged the lenses from
  that surveillance shell we shot down”), or anything else that
  can be justified with a little bafflegab.
  Of course, adding this kind of improvement in play should
  really require a bit more than just spending a few bonus charac-
  ter points, but in a freewheeling Action campaign, it needn’t be
  much more: A friendly tech with a workshop, maybe some sal-
  vage from an enemy warehouse or security shell, a couple of
  hours, and – voila! – the bonus points are spent. Even so, the GM
  should impose some limits, however soft; if the hero’s Volkspider
  is turning into an artillery-proof death machine with the speed
  of a cheetah, it may be time to veto further physical changes.
  Upgrades at the start of play can be easy to justify (“I’m ex-mili-
  tary” goes a long way), but bear in mind that a really deadly shell
  won’t be allowed to walk away from some employments.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  9
  JANUARY 2010
  In most Fifth Waves countries, it’s hard to stand out when everyone looks “unique,” but that crazy outfit that looks
  normal in a Fifth Wave community will get noticed in a Third or Fourth Wave location or in an isolated community.
  MARTINGALE!
  
  PLAYING THE GAME
  For the most part, Transhuman Action games should move
  along like most Action scenarios, albeit the car may well drive
  itself while the heroes are hanging out of the windows shooting
  at pursuers; a master villain with an HQ in orbit is asking to be
  knocked over by half-a-dozen police forces; and arranging sur-
  veillance of a target area may involve dropping a handful of dust.
  In short, the GM should keep things moving and keep them
  fairly simple, but bear in mind that advanced technology can
  always make them different, if not necessarily more complex.
  LUCK AND ALLIES
  One question that may arise involves the nigh-universal PC
  Luck advantage and the heroes’ infomorph Allies. Given that the
  latter will often be working on behalf of their owners, players
  may seek to use Luck to re-roll the Allies’ failures. However, by a
  strict reading of the rules, this should only be permitted if
  the infomorph’s action directly affects the adventurer in some
  way – say, if it’s attempting Diagnosis or First Aid on the hero.
  “Ratchet”: Change DX to 11 [20], Basic Speed to 5.50 [0],
  and Acrobatics to (H) DX+3 [16]-14. Add Silence 1 [5]. All
  Ratchet’s other DX-based skills go up by 1 as a result of this.
  Hughes’ robot spider is alternately comically acrobatic and
  faintly creepy, though it’s never said to be anything other than
  a standard NAI running on a standard securibot shell.
  PAUL CHUNG
  Raise DX to 13 [60], IQ to 13 [60], Will to 16 [15], and Per
  to 13 [0]. Keep Basic Speed at 6.00, so its cost becomes [-5].
  Add Luck [15]. All Chung’s skills except Hiking go up by 1 as a
  result of this.
  Chung is the team’s quiet, solid rock; this version is even
  more competent, although people may not realize this because
  of his taciturn manner.
  Chung’s Wearable Tactical System: Add Modular Abilities 1
  (Cosmic) [10] and Computer Programming/TL10 (H) IQ-1
  [2]-10. Somewhere along the line, Chung has acquired a mod-
  ified wearable system that seems to have been programmed
  with a huge array of essential “skill elements” and powerful
  adaptive situational modeling abilities – or to put it another
  way, it seems to be able to try (almost) anything, without even
  downloading a skill set. Chung never explains this. (Note that
  this advantage shouldn’t be allowed in Transhuman Space
  outside of cinematic campaigns, and it should attract
  unwanted attention if overused even there.)
  PAZ RAMIREZ
  Raise DX to 15 [80] (raised from template). Keep basic Speed
  at 7.00, so its cost becomes [0]. Add Extraordinary Luck [30], or
  if you prefer, any two of Daredevil [15], Luck [15], or Serendipity
  [15]. Raise Acrobatics to (H) DX [4]-15 and Explosives/TL10
  (Demolitions) to (A) IQ+1 [4]-12. All Ramirez’s other DX-based
  skills go up by 1 as a result of all this.
  Ramirez becomes even more of a swashbuckler in this ver-
  sion, to an extent that might interfere with her usefulness to
  the team if this wasn’t an Action game.
  Ramirez’s Wearable Tactical System: Change Computer
  Operation/TL10 to (E) IQ+6 [12]-17 (bought up from template
  levels). Ramirez calls this system “The Colonel,” but it has a
  cool, academic manner, providing a rather comic contrast with
  her own approach. When the team needs to work with comput-
  ers, the Colonel usually takes on the job.
  OVERSIGHT
  Change IQ to 15 [100], Will to 13 [-10], and Per to 14 [-5].
  Replace the Fearlessness 1 in the SAI template with Unfazeable
  [15].
  Change
  Administration
  to
  (A)
  IQ+1
  [4]-16.
  All
  OVERSIGHT’s other IQ- and Per-based skills go up by 2 as a
  result of this.
  The cinematic OVERSIGHT is frighteningly competent and
  totally unflappable. Of course, it’s still a bit nosy and cocky, and
  it’s still a mind in a box somewhere.
  Oversight’s Buzzbots: Change Modular Abilities to 3
  (Computer Brain: 4, 4, 2) (Limited Integration, -20%; Skills
  and Languages Only, -10%) [41] and Aerobatics to (H) DX-1
  [2]-9. OVERSIGHT uses these units to infiltrate out-of-the-way
  places; they then start demonstrating all sorts of programmed
  skills to save the day or drive the plot along.
  CHARLIE MALLINSON
  Change ST to 14 [20] and HP to 17 [0], and add Lifting ST
  5 [15] and Luck [15]. Mallinson has had the structural frame-
  work and motor systems of his cybershell radically upgraded,
  making him useful whenever raw pulling force is required.
  He’s still an indifferent bodyguard, but he does his best, and
  he’s learning.
  Use G-Experience (p. 8) to help the unfortunate Vandegrift Station in the adventure Orbital Decay.
  The beaten paths are certainly the surest; but do not hope to scare up much game on them.
  – André Gide
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  10
  JANUARY 2010
  
  You can’t share luck with an NPC, even one as close to you as
  an implanted Ally.
  This may seem like a harsh ruling, but GMs should proba-
  bly enforce it. Remember, action heroes are ultimately sup-
  posed to be impressive on their own account, not because they
  own all sorts of AIs who are more successful than themselves.
  Those infomorphs can be good at what they do, but should
  ultimately be “realistic” (for the most part), making the cine-
  matic heroes look all the better. Furthermore, by taking away
  the temptation to use Luck on infomorph skill rolls, you make
  it more likely to be available for the life and death moments
  when the heroes really need it.
  Nevertheless, some heroes – especially the 2100 versions of
  hackers, wire rats, and maybe some investigators and wheel
  men – may legitimately regard their implanted or wearable AI
  Allies as extensions of their own special abilities. These sorts of
  characters form very tight teams with their “tail-gunner” and
  “scanner op” AIs, setting them up to perform tasks that are every
  bit as central to the adventure as anything that the heroes them-
  selves roll for. To resolve this while being fair to other players,
  the GM can permit such heroes to buy Luck with a +20%
  Enhancement: “Can be used by own digital Allies.” This means
  what it says, and the GM can choose to restrict the benefit to
  NAIs and LAIs running on implanted or wearable cybershells –
  those Allies who function very much as extensions of the hero’s
  own abilities, not as free-roaming independent aides.
  THE CELL PHONE
  PROBLEM, SQUARED
  If you think that TL8 mobile communications causes prob-
  lems for some types of action scenario (see Action 2, p. 9), the
  pervasive computer networks of the Transhuman Space world
  may seem to make them impossible. Heroes will expect to be
  permanently on line, not only in communication with each
  other but with access to a global data resource that makes the
  TL8 World Wide Web look trivial. Fortunately, there are fixes
  for this sort of thing.
  To begin with, some of the solutions offered in Action 2 still
  work, at least some of the time. Tracking Web-linked comput-
  ers is quite a bit harder than tracking TL8 cell phones, but not
  totally impossible for a sufficiently high-tech opponent or one
  with the material and legal resources of a national intelligence
  agency on call. More to the point, the team may have their Web
  operations tracked as such, which carries its own dangers, as
  their research topics and computerized misdemeanors may be
  subject to examination. Cutting Web communications is quite
  a bit harder in urban areas – networks are pervasive, and
  closed rooms are mostly designed not to be cut off from the
  Web – but the occasional blackout is still feasible. Plus, in a
  world of rapid transportation, the adventurers can find them-
  selves on remote islands, under the sea, wandering the Martian
  wilderness without a satellite uplink, or just out in deep space.
  What isn’t so convincing is trying to claim that all forms of
  communication have been broken – not when anyone might
  claim to be carrying three or four such devices for casual pur-
  poses, and never mind implanted interfaces or communica-
  tors. Even so, opponents might set out systematically to
  disable someone’s comms capability.
  Beyond that – well, just ride with it. Life in an information-
  saturated society is part of what Transhuman Space is all
  about, and that still applies to Transhuman Action campaigns.
  A GM who doesn’t want to set adventures in deep space or sim-
  ilar places just have to forgo plots based on isolation. Instead,
  the GM should design the campaign so that the heroes just
  can’t or won’t call for massive fire support the moment that
  they hit trouble. Transhuman Action heroes are supposed to be
  good at what they do; even if they have permanent employers
  (not something that’s as common in 2100 as in 2010, remem-
  ber), those employers are likely to respond badly if their well-
  paid high-tech agents seem incapable of looking after
  themselves. Also, things should move fast in the world of
  Transhuman Space, on all sides; if the opposition has
  resources in place, the fight should be over long before backup
  can arrive.
  But that’s Transhuman Action for you: high-powered
  adventure at the speed of digital thought. That, and looking
  good in a memswear arachnoweave suit that adjusts auto-
  matically to hide the line of your shoulder-holstered micro-
  missile pod, naturally.
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Phil Masters is the Transhuman Space line editor and a
  long-standing GURPS writer, being the author or co-author
  of
  books
  from
  GURPS
  Arabian
  Nights
  to
  GURPS
  Thaumatology, and of the Transhuman Space Personnel
  Files line. This is his first appearance in the third incarnation
  of Pyramid, although he had a number of articles in both the
  previous versions.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  11
  JANUARY 2010
  While other “security” companies in 2100 are more like
  mercenary forces (and may have more military-grade hardware,
  including RATS and similar), Martingale pitches for work at the
  subtler end of the market.
  – Transhuman Space:
  Personnel Files 4 – Martingale Security
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  12
  JANUARY 2010
  
  A small multi-resident apartment house, 42 Fedorov Road
  is located in semi-rural suburb outside an unremarkable Fifth
  Wave city. The residents are ordinary people by Fifth Wave
  standards, yet everyone is connected, and they could be – or
  become – an important part of adventurers’ lives.
  This article provides a glimpse at how Fifth Wave citizens
  live their lives. Two apartments have been left vacant in the
  building. Adventurers seeking an apartment might find one of
  these, gradually learning about their neighbors. It’s even possi-
  ble that PCs might be renting at 42 Fedorov Road already. If
  the group never bothered to work out where they lived, use this
  article to flesh out their landlord and neighbors.
  No character statistics have been included, since the indi-
  viduals here are intended primarily as background detail. If
  they’re likely to become active in adventures, or serve as Allies
  or Dependents, assign them traits appropriate to the cam-
  paign’s power level.
  FEDOROV ROAD
  This quiet street is in a residential, modestly affluent area.
  Like many Fifth Wave neighborhoods, it is surrounded by an
  extensive greenbelt and is heavily wooded. Deer, rabbits, and
  raccoons are commonly sighted; some of the raccoons are
  rumored to be sapient (created by a Doolittle Plague outbreak).
  Most trees are a GMO species that dates from the 2040s: a
  GenTech Pacifica bioform that converts most of the carbon
  absorbed from the atmosphere into a stable form and secretes
  it underground. (The local forestry company taps them for
  hydrocarbon fuel.) About half a mile down the road is Five
  Corners, a village cluster with a bar, restaurants, a 3D print
  shop, and an air-car dealership. The nearest major center is an
  arcology tower complex four miles away.
  The road has far fewer cars than you’d see in an early 21st-
  century suburb. Pedestrians walk down the middle of the
  street, safely confident that modern smart cars with collision-
  avoidance radar won’t hit them.
  THE HOUSE ON
  FEDOROV ROAD
  The building at 42 Fedorov Road is typical of residential
  housing on the street. A gravel driveway runs from the roadside
  for 20 yards into an outdoor gravel parking lot in front of the
  house. The house itself is an attractive three-story Overturn-
  period brick and biocrete design, with a first-floor garage on one
  side, large windows, and a roof covered in solar panels.
  The front lawn borders the driveway on either side, and
  there is a large back lot. Although there has been no post-office
  delivery in this area since the 2040s, there’s an antique wrought
  iron mailbox near the driveway that marks the address and
  serves a bird feeder. There are two garbage cans.
  Parked on the grass to one side of the drive is a yellow bus:
  a 20-year-old fuel-cell design, garishly painted with a faded
  mural of guitar-and-drum-playing hoplites (four men and two
  women). Anyone with appropriate musical knowledge may
  recognize this as a modestly popular Greek Fire band from the
  2080s, the Boeotian Boys. The interior of the tour bus is filled
  with boxes of gardening equipment and seeds, and several
  crates of solar panels (left over from a renovation job). The bus
  still works . . . barely (HT 8).
  There’s a path leading to the back garden. Visitors arriving
  during early mornings or late evenings will sometimes be met
  by a curious K-10 dog (see p. 16).
  Its first owner was Jose Alvarez, a military veteran (Andes
  War) and later Biotech Euphrates regional sales manager.
  Alvarez emigrated to the Moonshadow retirement commu-
  nity in 2075, selling the property to then-27-year old musi-
  cian Niki Spanos (pp. 14-15). About three years ago, Spanos
  turned the property into a multi-residential dwelling and
  began renting it out.(Typical rental for a two-bedroom here is
  $2,000 a month, including utilities.) Currently, a half-dozen
  sapients reside here.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  13
  JANUARY 2010
  42 FEDOROV
  ROAD
  BY DAVID PULVER
  “Quiet” adventures are important in Transhuman Space; they allow the players to fully drink in what an amazing
  place the world is.
  Some people, including a certain
  K-10, think the local racoons are
  sapient.
  
  This building doesn’t have a laundry room; it was omitted
  because most Fifth Wave clothes are self-cleaning. All second-
  and third-floor suites have fire escapes by a bathroom or bed-
  room window.
  For maps of the building, see pp. 18-19.
  First Floor
  All doors are marked with V-tags visible to anyone with an
  interface.
  1. Front Door. Opens into the entrance hall. Door has a nor-
  mal biometric scanlock on it and a speaker that is monitored
  by the house AI.
  2. Entrance Hall. A short corridor. At one end, a stairway
  goes up to second floor. Near the stairs, a door leads to the
  garage. Another door, near the entrance, is for the ground-floor
  suite A.
  3. Garage Door. Electrically activated. Opens into garage.
  4. Garage. No cars are here. Instead, Calliope (p. 17) con-
  verted this area into a sophisticated mechanical workroom.
  Workbenches are covered with tools, and auto or cybershell
  parts are everywhere, carefully marked with V-tags. A door
  connects to the entrance hall. A hatch under the floor of the
  back leads to various house machinery. Calliope is often here,
  busy here working on her mechanical toys.
  5. Suite A. Mr. Edison Garvey (pp. 15-16) and his dog
  Kumar occupy this suite; each has a room. Its floor plan is
  similar to the other suites: The suite door opens into a multi-
  purpose kitchen-living room with a large window and a built-
  in video wall. At right angles to the main room is a short hall
  with three doors; one leads to the bathroom while the others
  each go to a bedroom.
  Second Floor
  6. Hallway. This area has a flight of stairs that go to the
  entrance hall. The stair well continues upward to the third floor.
  7. Suite B (west side). This is presently occupied by blogger
  Martin Fraser (p. 16-17).
  8. Suite C (east side). This suite can be unoccupied, or may
  be occupied by a PC or another NPC, at the GM’s discretion.
  9. Suite D (south side). Originally a storage room, this is
  only a studio apartment rather than the usual two-bedroom
  suite, and it has no bathroom. It is rented by the lawyer
  Neo-Averroes (p. 15).
  Third Floor
  10. Hallway. Stairs lead down to the second floor. A ceiling
  hatch leads to a storage attic and the roof.
  11. Suite D (west side). This is unoccupied, or may be filled
  by whomever the GM wishes to place here to advance a partic-
  ular adventure.
  12. Suite E (east side). This suite is occupied by Niki Spanos
  and her daughter, Calliope. Neo-Averroes’ cyberdoll is a fre-
  quent visitor.
  RESIDENTS
  Several people – not all of them human – live at 42
  Fedorov Road.
  Niki Spanos
  The owner and landlord of 42 Fedorov Road, Niki (age 36)
  is an Ishtar genetic upgrade, with the delicate elfin beauty
  common to that gene line. Her parents encouraged her blos-
  soming talent for music, and in the 2080s, she achieved suc-
  cess as the drummer of then-popular (if now largely forgotten)
  Greek Fire band the Boeotian Boys. After five tempestuous
  years with the band, Niki decided it was time to settle down. In
  2086, she entered a marriage contract with music producer
  Chuck Stone, and they bought a suburban house on Fedorov
  Road (at the time, for $1.2 million) to raise a family.
  Niki and Stone were both avowed transhumanists, and she
  insisted their first child – to be named Calliope – would have
  all the genetic advantages money could buy. Unfortunately, she
  bought into the hype surrounding Genehackers Inc. design of
  the highly advanced Nyx parahuman genetic template. The
  Nyx design’s overambitious cognitive enhancements (such as a
  reduced sleep state) played havoc with the normally stable
  Euphrates Ziusudra it was based upon. This was especially
  true in the very earliest incepts of the Nyx. The result was
  tragic: Despite nanodrug therapy, 7% of the first generation of
  Nyx parahumans developed crippling mental disabilities,
  Calliope among them. Before she was a year old, it was appar-
  ent she was a very sick little girl.
  The stress was too much for Chuck Stone, who left his
  family (leaving Niki his share of the house) to become a
  Christian transhumanist monk. Niki had to raise their hand-
  icapped daughter alone. Her participation in a class-action
  lawsuit launched by several hundred parents against
  Genehackers failed to win compensation, but led to Niki
  meeting Neo-Averroes, a SAI-8 lawyer and passionate advo-
  cate of transhuman rights. Averroes and Niki are now in a
  regular relationship, though both also take other lovers.
  Most of Niki’s investments vanished in legal fees and health-
  care costs for Calliope, so to make ends meet, she has converted
  her home into a multi-resident apartment building. She and her
  now-teenaged daughter have a suite there, along with several
  other tenants. Niki takes an interest in her tenants well-being
  but respects their privacy. She has an eye for handsome men,
  especially organic ones with musical talent.
  When not caring for her troubled daughter or dating
  Averroes, Niki is active in the community of Nyx parental sup-
  port groups, and her (faded) celebrity status is occasionally used
  for fundraising events. She also still plays drums live at various
  local venues. She is sometimes sought out by Boeotian Boys
  fans for autographs or interviews. A few fans are less friendly,
  blaming her as the “harpy” that caused the breakup of the Boys
  back in ’85 through her relationship with Stone (a source of jeal-
  ousy among other band members). Niki (and Stone) received
  some death threats over the years from them, and before he
  left, Stone purchased her an electrolaser-armed buzzbot.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  14
  JANUARY 2010
  If you need individuals to fill one or both remaining apartments, check out the Transhuman Space: Personnel Files
  series.
  
  However, none of the threats have materialized, and she now
  ignores them. The buzzbot is mostly assigned to pick up gro-
  ceries and watch over her daughter.
  Niki often visits Extinction Event, a local gastropub at Five
  Corners, where she occasionally plays live music with a local
  garage band, the Teratologists. The band’s name is an ironic
  reference to local survivalists, hunters, and alien conspiracy
  buffs who have showed up here. Over the last five years, there
  have been a few sightings and videos of unexplained creatures
  in the woods. It is widely believed that a local cell of teratolo-
  gist pranksters were active here some years ago, before moving
  elsewhere. Still, some people believe (or pretend to believe)
  that the creatures are real and out there.
  Neo-Averroes
  Neo-Averroes is a SAI-8 artificial intelligence. Created in
  2085, he is actually only 15 years old, but he is considered a full
  adult under the law. He is a junior partner at Ur-Nammu,
  Averroes, and Sun – a major law firm. He has E.U. citizenship.
  His main residence is a mainframe is located in the nearby
  arcology where his law firm operates a branch office. However,
  he rents a small suite from Niki in the house, partly to help her
  out and make it easier to visit her, and partly to store his per-
  sonal possessions and off-site backups – a precaution that
  proved prudent when his office was recently burglarized.
  The AI is a bit of a playboy: He is a connoisseur, who enjoys
  poetry, dalliances, and acting the part of the Mediterranean
  Latin lover. He rents several apartments in different places
  around the world, maintaining six (rented) cyberdolls (all of
  them designed as darkly handsome men). He enjoys expensive
  clothes, uploading into fast cars, and the thrill of romance. He is
  an excellent multitasker with at least two compartmentalized
  minds. He presently has three lovers – all beautiful human or
  parahuman women with at least a modicum of celebrity. He
  enjoys romance more than sex, and loves to surprise his inter-
  ests with little gifts, trips overseas, or other minor extravagances.
  Neo-Averroes’ legal firm has been retained by another AI,
  and it is one of several legal entities engaged in a complex
  human-rights lawsuit in support of former Exogenesis employ-
  ers against Nanodynamics and System Technologies AG. For
  the last few months, Neo-Averroes’ office has been employing
  investigators and gathering evidence of human-rights abuses
  by Nanodynamics and the mercenary group EDI. It has
  crossed his mind that they may have been behind the burglary
  at his office, although another possibility is a jealous agent or
  paramour of one of his current or former love interests – at
  least two of whom are also married, one in a prominent
  European Union political family.
  His room is a sumptuously decorated love-nest/study. It also
  contains his backup microframe (integrated into the bed),
  offline hardcopy backups of crucial files from his legal library,
  a state-of-the-art ultra-high-speed cable connection, and an
  environmentally controlled diamondoid case housing his per-
  sonal collection of antique handwritten Arabic love poetry.
  When his mind is busy elsewhere, Neo-Averroes parks his
  humanoid cyberdoll in a large overstuffed chair. It has a
  backup NAI-6 program that can run it in emergencies or when
  Neo-Averroes sends it to accompany Calliope. It also handles
  basic housekeeping.
  Edison Garvey
  Edison Garvey (age 26) has recently left home for the first
  time. His parents were solid middle-class eloi. Both were gene-
  fixed humans, but – as is typical of their generation – they
  arranged to make Edison a genetic upgrade. Edison’s parents
  selected a conservative Alpha template to avoid exactly the
  problems that plagued Niki’s daughter. Edison shares his
  apartment with his pet: a K-10 dog called Kumar (named after
  a childhood favorite Bollywood InVid star), who was raised
  from a puppy his mother gave him when he was six.
  Edison is close to Kumar, but even closer to JD, the virtual
  interface he has had since infancy. Like many Fifth Wave kids,
  Edison received an education from his AI kindercomp rather
  than attending formal school. He was not especially creative
  but wanted to be, so as he grew up, his brain was adjusted via
  a tailored nootropic regime combined with educational and
  psychological neural slinkies. Although a bit of a late bloomer,
  he passed exams that got him into a virtual university when he
  was 17, where he pursued a double major of politics and cli-
  mate science. Since most actual science is done by AI, this
  required education of JD as well – in essence, the playmate and
  tutor seeded a higher-generation AI who would become his
  work-partner, the two now functioning symbiotically (with
  Edison providing creativity and initiative). Like many stu-
  dents, Edison’s loans went to pay for his own and JD’s
  upgrades, including the brain booster implants that are com-
  mon among most serious graduate students.
  Today, Edison is still studying, but he and JD are also intern-
  ing with a major weather-control corporation. This plus a wel-
  fare supplement provides enough to pay his rent and the interest
  on his loans. In a decade or so, he should have them paid off.
  Edison has no lover. Until recently he shared his apartment
  here with his husband, Peter Cowans; the two had met during
  university, begun living together, and gotten married. Their ini-
  tial marriage contract was for two years with an option to
  renew. Peter wanted to start a child in an exowomb using their
  combined DNA, but Edison, sinking deeper into debt as he
  pursued advanced studies, didn’t want the responsibility or
  cost. An angry Cowans refused to renew their marriage con-
  tract, and they broke up. Edison is now a bachelor again, and
  somewhat bitter toward humanity, though he remains hopeful
  he’ll find someone eventually. He has a bit of a crush on his ele-
  gant upstairs neighbor Neo-Averroes (who isn’t human), but
  the playboy SAI has proved unshakably hetero.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  15
  JANUARY 2010
  Transhuman Space can make a great possible future for any modern-set campaign. It’s a different option than most
  “possible futures,” because it’s not dystopian or destroyed! See Time Travel to 2100 on p. 32 of Changing Times.
  Niki has received death threats,
  but none of them have materialized.
  
  Edison has three other inexpensive household cybershells
  and four microbot swarms, most of them ably managed by
  NAIs and directed by himself, JD, or Kumar.
  Edison’s apartment is filled with tons of junk. Much of it
  belongs to Kumar, who is an avid collector of early 20th-cen-
  tury original grocery cans, movie posters, toy robot dogs, and
  plush dolls. Edison himself follows various fads in clothing
  and consumer goods, and loves to print the latest items. Most
  of it he recycles diligently – in terms of political memes, he
  identifies himself as a mainstream preservationist and a
  cyberdemocrat. He loves to bicycle and is often seen riding
  around the neighborhood, accompanied by his Volkspider car-
  ryall (he likes to buy from various local organic food and drug
  providers in the area) with Kumar bounding along beside him,
  the K-10 nagging him to visit local garage sales to track down
  more exciting knickknacks.
  Kumar
  Edison Garvey’s K-10 uplifted dog, Kumar spends much of
  his time out of the apartment. When not dragging Edison or
  his cybershells to garage sales (he is amazed and delighted at
  the amount of fascinating junk human civilization produces
  and throws away), Kumar takes it on himself to ensure the
  safety and security of the building. He regularly patrols the
  grounds and neighborhood,. He has become convinced that
  one of the raccoon gangs that have been making raids on local
  garbage is led by an illegal Doolittle virus-enhanced uplift. He
  is presently attempting to convince some of the other uplifted
  and cyberdogs on his street to organize a posse, or at least a
  proper neighborhood watch.
  Kumar has his own AI implant, a NAI that keeps track of
  him for Edison and handles various activities, like his routine
  finances should he go shopping. Like many K-10s, Kumar
  spends little time in virtuality. He is an avid hunter; with
  appropriate permits, he occasionally stalks deer when they are
  in season. He sometimes hangs around at the local bar, listen-
  ing to humans talk and swapping hunting and alien-survivalist
  stories. He loves Edison, but sometimes wishes he had an
  owner who was more adventurous . . .
  Martin Fraser
  Martin is genefixed human. The oldest person living in the
  apartment house, he was born in 2042 and is now is 58 years
  old. University-educated with multiple undergraduate degrees
  in military history and lunar geology, he is also a self-taught
  expert on naval cybernetics. He is now underemployed as a
  freelance defense analyst, historian, and occasional lecturer
  for various naval think-tanks and InVid programs.
  Martin’s main income comes from his anonymous moderat-
  ing of Cyber-Squid Forum, which has become the open source
  for informed discussion and rumor mongering on underwater-
  optimized combat cybershells and aquatic military biotech. It
  now attracts significant attention due to the many military pub-
  lic eyes and navwarbloggers that choose to post here. It is sup-
  ported by defense industry and publication advertising.
  Martin’s true love, however, is lunar spelunking. He has
  never been to the moon in the flesh, but belongs to the Cavorite
  Club. Whenever he can afford to, he enjoys teleoperating
  cybershells for exploration of lunar lava tubes, mountains, and
  the like. Due to the short light-speed time lag involved, terres-
  trial lunar spelunking is a sport that requires considerable
  skill, and Martin has become an expert.
  He is also an avid amateur assembler of model warship kits,
  for which he has won prizes in competitions (and a section of
  his forum is devoted to modeling). He works at home and is
  usually found in his study. Martin is working on Devils in the
  Deep Blue Sea, a popular-interest account on the subject. The
  microbot tools Martin uses in making his warships have inter-
  ested teenage neighbor Cally, and they hit it off; the introverted
  girl has spent some time (parentally supervised by her watch-
  ful NAI) helping him, and also borrowing his high-end tool kits
  for use in her own fantastic constructs.
  Martin is in a marriage contract to Jukia Barmasi, age 39,
  a Kenyan amateur arachnoxenologist, security botboss, and
  fellow Cavorite whom he met during a club-sponsored lunar
  lava tube expedition exploring Mare Cognitum. They have
  been in a relationship for two years. They recently married in
  a ceremony at the moon’s Dreaming City where they and var-
  ious friends and fellow Cavorites wore Endymion cyber-
  shells. Despite this, they have never met “in the flesh.” Even
  so, they recently decided to have children, but since Jukia’s
  career and economic situation (she still lives with her
  extended family) makes this inconvenient, Martin is growing
  a child in an exowomb at the local hospital using their shared
  genetic template. Jukia regularly observes their baby through
  telepresence, and they both neural-interface with the
  exowomb’s systems to “feel” the child growing. Harry Fraser-
  Barmasi is now a five-month-old fetus, and, at least to begin
  with, will live with Martin after he is born.
  Martin’s apartment is decorated with a restrained elegance,
  mostly in gray and light blue with spindly carbon-composite fur-
  niture. Since Martin works at home, he uses the other bedroom
  as his study. Glass cases contain models of warships that Martin
  has assembled. He uses a full set of microbots for painting and
  delicate work, and he has 3D printer programs for custom
  assembly of parts. The living room contains a sophisticated VR
  rig and the controls for the high-res laser com system used to
  assist his lunar adventures. A large hologram of Earth seen
  from the surface of the moon dominates one wall.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  16
  JANUARY 2010
  Campaign: The heroes in a modern setting “wake up” in Transhuman Space, where someone tries to convince them the
  previous campaign is merely a vivid slink. Later the heroes “wake” up again in the previous campaign. What’s real?
  Is there really life on Mars?
  Today, any given city is usually
  surrounded by a belt of suburbs, each
  one a small city on its own.
  – Transhuman Space:
  Fifth Wave
  
  Martin has a NAI-7 virtual interface (“Mr. Bedford”) and
  an LAI-7, “Mahan,” who resides in his microframe, assists
  with his work, and manages his forum affairs when he is oth-
  erwise occupied.
  Calliope Spanos
  Calliope (age 13) is an early model Nyx parahuman. As is
  increasingly common in the Fifth Wave, she can say with no
  irony that “her parents are a different species” from her. The
  Nyx modifications supposed to enhance her intelligence, make
  her virtually immortal, and give her control of her sleep state
  succeeded in two of those areas, but failed catastrophically at
  the latter goal. Originally nearly catatonic and paranoid, drug
  treatments and neural implants have mitigated this. However,
  her waking periods are often plagued by bizarre nightmares
  that shade into paranoia, waking dreams, and unusual synes-
  thesia events (in which she experiences visual imagery as
  music). The main symptom is a combination of Flashbacks,
  Paranoia, and Sleepwalker disadvantages. Cally also sleeps for
  a week at a time, then remains awake for about the same
  length of time; the few friends her own age that she possesses
  (most of them online) who know of her condition often call her
  the Sleeping Beauty.
  To treat these problems, Cally lives with an implanted
  kindercomp virtual interface implant (a NAI-7) that also has
  nurse and psychology subroutines. It also has authority to keep
  track of her mental state and shut down her consciousness if
  she becomes a danger to herself. (Her implant was originally a
  LAI, but Cally’s own interaction with it drove it insane.) Cally
  is not happy at having a “baby’s kindercomp” in her brain, but
  she recognizes its necessity.
  Niki had hoped Calliope would be musical, but while she
  has learned to play her mother’s drums, her main interest is
  mechanical and literary. She is currently a fan of ghost
  celebrity author Nova Van Heer. She has a large collection of
  the Van Heer’s steampunk-fantasy stories and the InVids that
  were made from them. Cally is also active in Clockwork
  Dreams, a virtuality kingdom that celebrates Van Heer’s
  work. She prefers the “real world” to extensive virtuality
  interaction, and for the last year, she has been busily using a
  microbot construction kit to build working models based on
  the steam-powered “ani-mecha” of Van Heer’s stories, such as
  the Clanking Leviathan and the Top Hat Tank. She has posted
  videos of her experiments and her mechanical design diary
  online. Unknown to her, some of her robot toys are being
  reverse-engineered by a company in nanosocialist Peru,
  which is marketing them as an uncredited and unlicensed
  range of Nova Van Heer cybertoys. Lawyers of Nova Van
  Heer are attempting to find out who was behind this so they
  can recover royalties . . .
  Outside of virtuality, Calliope avoids most social interac-
  tions with humans, though she gets along well with AIs. She
  has a deep bitterness toward her biological father for abandon-
  ing her, and she both loves and resents her mother, Niki. She is
  closest to her mother’s lover Averroes and has confided to him
  that she hopes to become a ghost when she grows up and
  throw away her brain.
  Calliope would be very beautiful, but she is very careless
  about her personal appearance, usually dressing in overalls
  and a random download program for her swarmwear cloak
  that is constantly rearranging in various odd fashions derived
  from Van Heer’s novels. Cally has had few relationships with
  others her own age, though this is not abnormal. She
  explores the neighborhood on a small motorscooter, often
  accompanied by her mother’s buzzbot or Averrose’s cyber-
  shell in NAI mode (when he’s not occupying it). Her kinder-
  comp software carefully monitors her relations with others.
  She recently made an effort to befriend tenant Martin Fraser,
  mostly so she can borrow his model-building tools for her
  own machinations. She finds his constant talk about moon
  rocks and naval matters boring, but she enjoys helping him
  build model ships.
  As part of a lucid-dreaming therapy program, Cally
  recently started “slogging.” She channels her dreams into
  specific scenarios, recording and (later) posting them as
  anonymous neural interface recordings on general-interest
  slinky upload forums. The waking dreams her damaged mind
  produces have recently attracted some artistic interest, and a
  group of enthusiasts have been making efforts to locate the
  “Creepy Sleepy” (as she was nicknamed) in the hope of
  exploiting her talent as a fantasist.
  BACK AND SIDE LAWN
  A low post-and-wire fence surrounds the back garden. This
  garden has a bluegrass lawn, an old dogwood tree, and a Biotech
  Euphrates “Hesperides IV” pharm-apple gene-enhanced tree.
  This tree’s fruit has improved antioxidant properties (+1 to HT
  rolls to resist aging effects if taken for an entire year). Niki’s for-
  mer husband Chuck Stone designed this garden; Niki has little
  interest in it (and gets angry whenever she thinks of him), so it
  has mostly been abandoned to the devices of automated micro-
  bot gardeners.
  The garden has a small fishpond that was originally sur-
  rounded by a circle of ornamental Cherenkov Shrooms – blue-
  green bioluminescent nontoxic toadstools. Niki has not
  bothered to rein them in, however, and the fungi have spread
  throughout the garden, which suffuse the garden with an
  unearthly glow from dusk to dawn.
  A triangle of ornamental boulders near the pond contains a
  golf-ball-sized tunnel leading to a hidden microbot hive.
  Garden microbots are a pesticide flyer swarm to keep down
  mosquitoes and other outdoor pests; a defoliator flyer swarm
  that trims the lawn and foliage; and a cleaning crawler swarm
  that looks after the exterior of the house. Cleaners are solar-
  powered; the others are gastrobots that find their own food.
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  David L. Pulver is a Canadian freelance author. An avid SF
  fan, he began roleplaying in junior high with the newly
  released Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Upon graduating from
  university, he decided to become a game designer. Since then,
  David has written over 70 roleplaying game books, and he has
  worked as a staff writer, editor, and line developer for Steve
  Jackson Games and Guardians of Order. He is best known for
  creating Transhuman Space, co-authoring the Big Eyes,
  Small Mouth anime RPG, and writing countless GURPS
  books, including the GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition, and
  the recent GURPS Spaceships series.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  17
  JANUARY 2010
  
  Key
  1. Front Door
  2. Entrance Hall
  3. Garage Door
  4. Garage
  5. Suite A
  6. Hallway
  7. Suite B (west side)
  8. Suite C (east side)
  9. Suite D (south side)
  10. Hallway
  11. Suite D (west side)
  12. Suite E (east side)
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  18
  JANUARY 2010
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  First Floor
  MAPS OF
  42 FEDOROV
  ROAD
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  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
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  JANUARY 2010
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  6
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  8
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  Second Floor
  Third Floor
  N
  MAPS OF 42 FEDOROV ROAD (CONTINUED)
  
  Tonight on Hardline: It’s been two years since the European
  Union began its controversial program of shutting down
  instances of so-called bioroid slavery in space, international
  waters, and no-go zones that no one wants to take responsibility
  for. However, not even their agents and armadas can be every-
  where at once, and it was inevitable that some abuses would
  escape their notice.
  We have a firsthand report tonight of a truly horrifying situa-
  tion that has been going on for decades – hidden behind dummy
  corporations, kept quiet with bribes and inside agents, and based
  on old-fashioned human greed. And you may be shocked to know
  who’s behind it, and why.
  Yarwijn Zhang has our exclusive report, live from the scene . . .
  Technology does not guarantee morality. Once certain sci-
  entific advancements allow people to play god, it is only a mat-
  ter of time until they do. And not all would-be gods are worthy
  of the title.
  Throughout the worlds of Transhuman Space are places
  where technology has allowed the wrong people to take power
  for themselves, or over others. The problem goes far beyond
  the illegal trafficking of bioroids: Every day, amoral bio-engi-
  neers and their twisted-but-wealthy clients make clandestine
  deals to satisfy horrifying needs. Dangerous products are
  tested on mass-produced victims, evil people gratify them-
  selves on the truly innocent, and in some blackened corner
  people cackle over the money they’re making off it all.
  Dark Places of the Earth presents the histories and current
  activities of a few blighted areas, both on and off world, where
  modern science has been abused to make money and fulfill
  dark and dangerous desires. A number of ways for adventurers
  to get involved in them are provided for each place, and the
  GM could always use these locations as playthings for PCs in a
  rather dark campaign.
  THE FAIR AMENT
  (13 EGERIA)
  Heaven is 1.696 AU out from Earth – at least for some, and
  only so long as God is in a good mood that day. If not, it can
  be Hell.
  Claimed in 2038 by Daemia International Ltd., 13 Egeria is a
  carbonaceous asteroid within the belt, almost 130 miles in
  diameter. The original settlement plan, started in 2047, was to
  hollow the center of the asteroid and send it spinning, in order
  to create a large, gravitational habitat that could be terraformed.
  Unfortunately, DIL picked the wrong contractors. After the third
  try wiped out almost all the workers in 2055, they gave it up,
  deciding the technology just wasn’t there. Five years later they
  sold it to a small start-up called Thebes Prospecting, and
  promptly went bankrupt due to stiff competition from Tenzan
  and Vosper-Babbage, plus a mountain of lawsuits.
  Thebes Prospecting was a front company for a small cult of
  super-wealthy, highly intelligent Neo-Pagans. Using biogenet-
  ics, nanotechnology, and holography as “magic,” they had pro-
  claimed themselves incarnations of the Egyptian gods.
  However, a god is nothing without a realm to rule, and they
  decided that 13 Egeria would fit the bill nicely.
  In 2065, they finished what DIL had failed at, and had a
  lovely blank canvas. The cult members’ enhanced DNA was
  blended to create a basis for mass cloning. As their children
  knitted themselves together in exo-wombs, the kingdom of
  Thebes was recreated within the habitat by Egyptian-themed
  cybershells: Temples and houses were constructed, pools were
  stocked with fish and crocodiles, beasts of the field were set to
  graze, and fields of grain were laid down.
  Once the children were born and raised to near-adulthood,
  they were brought to believe that they were in the afterlife,
  here to serve the gods. Each member of the cult took on the
  guise of one of the pantheon, claiming a number of children.
  They planned to spend eternity practicing their archaic beliefs,
  with technology serving as magic, and being endlessly “reborn”
  into new, biologically perfect bodies.
  It would have been a lovely idyll, except that after a few
  decades, Osiris got tired of sharing power with the others and
  demanded that he be treated as Pharaoh. His cohorts did not
  take kindly to this change of corporate vision, and a very brief
  war broke out in Heaven. Osiris survived by making the cyber-
  shells kill and brainpeel his colleagues, turning them into
  highly controlled ghosts implanted in new bodies.
  Of course, the children who saw their parents fight, die,
  and submit to destructive uploading had to be replaced.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  20
  JANUARY 2010
  DARK PLACES
  OF THE EARTH
  BY J. EDWARD TREMLETT
  For a tricky plot point, have someone refer to a date using the Martian calendar system (pp. 25-29). “April 6” may seem
  like months away – but it may be tomorrow!
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  21
  JANUARY 2010
  Osiris did so gently and lovingly, with his own hands – mum-
  mifying and entombing them personally as well. As he waited
  for the new batch to gestate, surrounded by silent cybershells
  and (possibly untrustworthy) ghosts, Osiris succumbed fully
  to madness.
  Now fully convinced of his godhood, Osiris struck upon a
  plan to ensure his proper place within the cosmos. A few of the
  other “gods” had once worked on a (questionable) theory of
  time travel – it’s still far away from realization, but what is time
  to the immortal? So Osiris ordered the god ghosts to devote
  every moment of their existence to developing the theory into
  a working process. He plans to travel back to Ancient Egypt
  with the others, so they could take their place as the deities of
  the people of the Nile.
  Now Osiris waits for progress, growing more impatient with
  his fellow gods by the day. His children are fawned over one
  moment, then slaughtered the next for the smallest mistakes or
  failing to anticipate his needs. It matters little to him – he can
  always make more – but as the gods spend all their brainpower
  trying to make the impossible possible, the maintenance and
  upkeep of the station and its environment slowly fails around
  them. Heaven may become a lifeless Hell within the year.
  THE TORTURE
  GARDEN (KOREA BAY)
  One of the few surviving Stalinist states left in the world
  after the Cold War, North Korea was always full of dark
  secrets. Even today, long after unification, the Torture Garden
  is one of the best kept.
  In the later days of the country, its beloved leader had lost any
  semblance of sanity, and only the generals were keeping the
  failed state going. To keep the monster out of their hair, an exclu-
  sive “playpen” was made for him on Juhng-Wuhn (Garden)
  Island, 30 kilometers off the coast at Onchon. There, the leader
  could satisfy his cruel, childlike urges – inherited from his also
  less-than-sane father – on political prisoners, disobedient offi-
  cers, and unfortunate civilians.
  When unification happened, the more “embarrassing”
  aspects of their beloved leader’s secret hobbies needed to be
  flushed away along with the Stalinism. Eager to be entirely rid
  of the evidence, they sold Garden Island for much-needed reuni-
  fication funds to the French biogenetic corporation Maison (for-
  merly Blanchemical), which was looking for a quiet place to do
  their private researches. After the funds were transferred, the
  island and surrounding waters were quietly handed over, and
  that was the last time Korea had anything to do with it.
  Within five years, Maison had created a circle of small, arti-
  ficial islands around the original, built new facilities on all of
  them, and brought in a small army of scientists and workers.
  In the early, devil-may-care days of biogenetic research and
  bioroid creation, Maison was a force to be reckoned with –
  often neck-and-neck with corporations like Biotech Euphrates.
  Many of their greater successes were realized on Garden
  Island, and many of their worst mistakes are still buried there.
  When the morality of their industry was called into ques-
  tion in the 2090s, Maison abandoned that research and went
  into other, more acceptable fields – like genotype-targeted
  biowarfare. Meanwhile, some of the less-repentant Maison
  biogeneticists bought the facility, hoping to recoup their losses
  through the lucrative market for custom-order bioroids. They
  leased out the islands for others’ super-secret biological testing,
  priding themselves on asking no questions of their customers.
  As of 2100, eight of the 10 artificial islands have been rented
  out to those who need a constant stream of bioroids for “pri-
  vate researches.” Top-secret weapons researchers, government
  agencies, and wealthy sadists pay exorbitant fees for the privi-
  lege of an unlimited supply from an unquestioning supplier.
  Thanks to moles in several governments – and a top-of-the-line
  automatic defense system – the Torture Garden can guarantee
  their clients’ total privacy and security.
  Campaign idea: An adventurer’s rich relative dies. Among his possessions is a contract for a rented artificial island off
  the coast of Onchon . . .
  There are a couple ways adventurers might enter the
  Fair Ament. Getting in won’t be a problem, since the
  docking bay’s automatic systems still work, and the auto-
  matic defenses really don’t. However, between the powers
  of Osiris and the rest of his pantheon, the small army of
  cybershells, the “children” ready to kill and die for their
  abusive gods, and failing life support, getting back out
  again may not be as certain.
  • Emergency: An automatic distress signal tied to a vital
  series of machines has activated, now that conditions have
  deteriorated to this point. The PCs hear the rather vague
  SOS and are compelled to respond. They may be sending
  one soon, too.
  • Repossession: Thebes Prospecting’s shell company –
  supposedly hidden behind several dummy accounts – has
  just been purchased by another corporation, which makes
  13 Egeria theirs, too. As there’s been no recent data about
  what’s been going on there, the company is sending out an
  evaluation team to take possession and determine its
  worth. Hopefully these bean-counters are armed.
  • Reprisal: A naval ship got too close to the asteroid and
  was fired upon by the dying defense array’s last gasp. This
  has led that government to launch a small punitive expedi-
  tion against 13 Egeria. After its defenses are picked off from
  a distance, troops will be sent in to secure its occupants and
  bring them out to discuss punishment and reparations. It
  will be a very interesting discussion, to say the least.
  A Day at the Fair Ament
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  22
  JANUARY 2010
  Island number one is held by the Chinese, who have a life
  lab tracking the long-term effects of biological warfare agents.
  Number two is rented by Wuzen Inc., which needs to test its
  bleeding-edge kinetic weapons on living targets. Number three
  is the home of an insane woman who creates an adult clone of
  herself every year, uses it as a debased plaything, kills it on the
  eve of her “rebirth,” and creates a sculpture out of its bones.
  The list is extensive, with some very surprising names and
  truly hideous research going on.
  THE PROVING GROUND
  (EMPTY QUARTER,
  SAUDI ARABIA)
  One of the most inhospitable areas on Earth, the Empty
  Quarter of the Saudi Peninsula (Rub’ al-Khali) is 250,000
  square miles of terrible heat, dry air, and sand dunes. While oil
  and other forms of biological wealth have been found within
  its acrid stretches, getting in to retrieve them requires either
  heavy equipment or several biomods – sometimes both. Now
  that the Islamic Caliphate has turned it on with solar panels,
  and declared it off limits, there isn’t really much way for inter-
  national scientists to go there anymore.
  They might not like what they’d find.
  In the center of the Empty Quarter, hidden beneath the
  sands, is an arcology that has been there since the earliest days
  of the Caliphate. It was originally built as a shelter for the
  Caliph and his cohorts, should some horrible war or plague
  befall the kingdom. Eventually better shelters were con-
  structed closer to Medina, leaving the carefully balanced envi-
  ronment of the arcology to sit vacant.
  Someone within the darker side of the Caliphate’s military
  wondered – why waste a perfectly good, self-sustaining envi-
  ronment with advanced purification technology? The wars of
  the future were going to be fought with unconventional
  weapons: nano-plagues, microbots, toxic memes, and other,
  stranger things. It stood to reason that the empire with the best
  and deadliest toys would be the survivor, and the Caliphate
  should be it.
  In that light, the arcology was an excellent place to test out
  new forms of warfare in secrecy and security. Their military
  scientists just needed some “real” targets for the best testing
  results, so they set about getting them. Now political prisoners,
  Iranian soldiers, unrepentant dissidents, bioroids taken from
  the ports or the Floating Market (see p. 23), and other “dispos-
  ables” from their jails and lockups are shipped off to the Empty
  Quarter to await their turn in the dome.
  What happens in the Proving Ground depends on what
  kind of test the military are doing. Sometimes the researchers
  reprogram an entire community of bioroids to think they’re
  long-term residents, then see how they react when clouds of
  toxin float in. Sometimes they throw fully sapient prisoners
  into an already-tainted situation just to see if they can fulfill
  certain objectives without succumbing to it themselves.
  Sometimes they set half of the test subjects against the oth-
  ers, just to see who wins and who dies.
  “Fortunately,” no matter how awful and terrible the carnage
  they create, it’s all flushed out of existence with the push of a
  few buttons. Only the extensive records remain, as dark testa-
  ment of how far people will go to find out the unthinkable.
  For further inspiration for horrific constructs, check out GURPS Aliens, Fantasy Folk, Space Bestiary, etc. None of
  these are native to the Transhuman Space setting, but a madman could easily have fabricated any of them as bioroids!
  Discovering the Torture Garden could be very difficult,
  unless the heroes get to know someone in a high govern-
  mental or corporate office who’s grown a conscience or
  made a horrifying discovery. Getting onshore could also
  prove very difficult, given the sophistication and deadliness
  of the islands’ weapons array. Once there, they may have a
  whole new fight on their hands, depending where they
  land, and who’s in charge there.
  • Liberation: The adventurers are a strike force of
  European Union GRA agents and Korean military person-
  nel, sent to infiltrate and shut down the Torture Garden. The
  intel about the defenses is spotty in places; there’s no sure
  way of knowing what they’ll find when they get there. They
  may wish they’d brought more people – and bigger guns.
  • Retaliation: The party is a kill team assembled by a
  biotech firm that’s tired of losing valuable customers. Their
  job is simple: Get in there and blow it up. All lives are con-
  sidered expendable, including the heroes’. But will they
  hold to the mission perimeters once they see what’s there?
  • Revolt: The bioroids on island five are kept mostly
  sapient, in order that their owners might run them through
  dangerous obstacle courses for their twisted amusement
  disguised as sapience research. It’s been several genera-
  tions in coming, but the plan to end this sadistic “experi-
  ment” is about to come around. The heroes must execute
  the plan and try and escape, not knowing anything about
  what lies outside, on the other islands. Can they get away,
  and can they take others with them?
  Visiting the Torture Garden
  The Empty Quarter is filled
  with terrible heat, terrible sand,
  and terrible deeds.
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  23
  JANUARY 2010
  THE FLOATING
  MARKET (DUBAI, UAE)
  Twelve miles off the coast of Dubai, in the nowhere-land
  between maritime law and the rules of the Islamic Caliphate,
  there is a place where anything – and anyone – can be bought
  or sold, often in plain sight.
  The logical extension of Dubai’s many artificial island proj-
  ects, the Floating Market is a shopping mall that allows for
  maximum freedom and minimum oversight. It resembles a
  massive ice-cube tray, with canals big enough for even the
  largest of cruise ships to pass through and dock alongside. The
  markets are bustling, the hotels are always full, and every night
  a different light show is shot up into the sky – visible from all
  over the Persian Gulf, like a light to moths.
  However, Persian rugs, fabulous jewelry, and other hand-
  made crafts aren’t the only exotic wares for sale. Thanks to a
  previous iteration of the highly sophisticated stealth technol-
  ogy that has allowed Dubai to become the Caliphate’s center of
  clandestine diplomacy, those with something less than legal to
  sell can do their negotiating and purchasing right out in the
  open, without anyone nearby realizing what’s going on.
  It’s estimated that two-thirds of the world’s illegal bioroid
  trade makes a stop-off in the Floating Market at some point,
  with billions of dollars worth of business at stake. The
  Caliphate military’s black science division is often out there,
  either purchasing bioroids outright for use in the Proving
  Ground, or pretending to break up sales so they can take the
  spoils for their own use.
  Attempts to get the Caliphate’s law enforcement to control
  the situation seem destined to fail. Due to the strange, half-in
  and half-out complexities of the Floating Market, it’s hard to
  know who to charge with what crime, and by whose authority.
  On those brief occasions when bioroid smugglers actually get
  caught, they stand a good chance of walking away due to one
  piece of red tape or another. The European Union is consider-
  ing finding some way to deal with the situation, but will have
  to tread carefully to avoid provoking the Caliphate.
  NO LIMIT ADVENTURES
  (PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC)
  Ever wanted to be the star of your own horror movie, from
  the killer’s point of view? Slinkies can provide such a first per-
  son “adventure,” but the drawback is that, no matter how real
  it seems, the experience happened to someone else first. But
  No Limit Adventures makes it possible to do horrible things for
  real, without consequence.
  Toward the end of the second age of sail, Czech entrepre-
  neur Jan Pohanka foresaw his family’s aerospace company as
  a guided gateway to the stars, taking the well-to-do on tours of
  the planets with all the high-end luxury of a cruise liner.
  Unfortunately, while he got an impressive list of potential cus-
  tomers, the numbers never quite crunched in his favor. All that
  No Limit Adventures had to show for itself by the time of his
  untimely death was a small fleet of private aircraft, an unfin-
  ished asteroid habitat, two small South Pacific islands, and a
  flagship that was obsolete before it was even completed.
  Fortunately for the company, his son, Janos, had a different
  vision. A frequent visitor to Prague’s infamous torture museum
  and a massive fan of classic horror slinkies, he asked himself
  how much someone would pay to be the killer in a slasher film.
  Only the highest levels of the Islamic Caliphate know
  about this arcology, and only the guards and scientists –
  and victims – have firsthand knowledge about what goes
  on there. That’s not to say that the information couldn’t
  be found out through heavy-duty spying, but it will take
  some doing to find the location of the Proving Ground.
  It’s not well-defended outside, perhaps out of arrogance,
  but there are a lot of troops stationed there to deal with
  riots and insurrections among prisoners . . . and the sci-
  entists have many terrible weapons to use on unwanted
  guests. If the raid goes badly, there’s always the desert
  outside the arcology’s walls, ready to swallow up those
  who underestimated the job.
  • Reconnaissance: A few global intelligence agencies
  know the Proving Ground exists, but they do not know
  the full scope and scale of the operation. One sends in a
  clandestine team to investigate. Getting in proves easy,
  but sneaking around the arcology’s outer ring doesn’t, and
  getting caught will be murder. What happens if they’re
  inside the sealed environment when a test goes off?
  • Out of Control: After years of engineering supremely
  dangerous tests, the proving ground’s scientists have finally
  made something so bad that even they can’t clean it up. By
  the time the heroes are alerted to the problem, the artificial
  monster’s about to get out of the sealed environment and
  strike the outer ring. Can they clamp down this horror, or
  learn how to deactivate it . . . or will another horrible
  plague race across the face of the earth?
  • A Test: The PCs are preprogrammed bioroids. As far
  as they know, they’ve lived within the arcology their entire
  lives, and have a good existence. Then comes the day of the
  flesh-eating nano-cloud, and the strange, bio-suited men
  who follow after to take measurements of the dead, shoot-
  ing and burning the survivors. Can they fight back or
  escape? What will they do when they discover what’s really
  been going on, and what lies outside their false world?
  Evidence of the Proving Ground
  Evil adventure idea: An antagonist manages to acquire DNA of the heroes’ loved ones, using this information to create
  bioroids for a nefarious purpose. Even if they learn of the plot, can the PCs kill someone who looks and sounds like a
  wife/husband/mother/father/child?
  
  After he realized how much he could charge to let some wealthy
  freak slaughter pre-programmed bioroids on one of the private
  islands, the numbers started crunching very nicely – especially
  since dad’s company had the “victims” all ready to go.
  Now, 20 years into primary operations, No Limit Adven-
  tures is doing very well. Their rich and debased clientele can
  be picked up from their homes, taken to remote locations,
  and allowed a certain amount of time to experience the homi-
  cidal “mission” of their choice. When they’re done, they can
  shower and relax before coming back to reality without any-
  one knowing what they did.
  The scenarios can be simple or complex. The clients can kill
  one person or many. They can bump off a copy of an enemy or
  pick off unknown strangers at random. They can mow down
  soldiers at war, stalk and slaughter camp counselors, or
  destroy entire towns. No Limit Adventures provides a choice of
  weapons, variable programming on the bioroids (from “can-
  non-fodder” to “deadliest game”), and various cost packages.
  They also provide a 15% discount if the customer agrees to
  wear a remote upslink so they can record the mission for pro-
  motional purposes (and sell the “snuffie” on the black market).
  Recently, the company has added on “travel plans.” Now,
  when they pick up their customers, the ride is the mission: kill
  the hostesses on a private jet, deep-six the passengers on a
  shuttle, or creep down the beehives of the space station with
  death in mind. Safety is not guaranteed in mobile environ-
  ments, so these excursions are only for those with situation-
  relevant experience. However, the higher fee more than makes
  up for the relative scarcity of clients.
  Ironically, No Limit Adventure’s own neighbors are now
  their worst enemy. The European Union’s hard stance against
  bioroid abuse is making the company more selective about its
  clientele and more careful about its operations. Some of their
  bioroid suppliers have been taken down, forcing NLA to rely
  on less-dependable suppliers. It’s only a matter of time before
  someone stumbles across one of their island retreats, or won-
  ders about the erratic flight plan of a doomed private plane.
  Janos isn’t worried; he has numerous bolt-holes ready to jump
  into, millions socked away, and no conscience whatsoever.
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  By day an unassuming bookstore clerk, J. Edward Tremlett
  takes his ancient keyboard from its hiding place and unfurls
  his words upon the world. His bizarre lifestyle has taken him
  to such exotic locales as South Korea and Dubai, UAE. He’s
  been the editor of The Wraith Project and has seen print in The
  End Is Nigh and Worlds of Cthulhu. He’s also part of the Echoes
  of Terror anthology. Currently, he writes for Op-Ed News, and
  lives in Lansing, Michigan, with his wife and three cats.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  24
  JANUARY 2010
  The European Union knows all about No Limit
  Adventures, but they haven’t squashed it yet for two
  important reasons. First, they’re horribly embarrassed
  that this operation has gone on for as long as it has.
  Second, a number of very important and influential peo-
  ple – including a couple well-placed E.U. ministers – are
  frequent customers. The E.U. has to be very careful in set-
  ting up the counter-operation, but officials are confident
  that – once the green light is given – the poorly guarded
  facilities and questionably secured aerospace properties
  will be easily dealt with.
  • Island of the Damned: The heroes are the last survivors
  from a plane that went down in the South Pacific. They
  think they’re okay when they find the small island, but soon
  wonder what’s going on: Why is there a small, Midwestern
  town with a summer camp on the island, and why don’t the
  townspeople there know where they are? While they’re puz-
  zling over that, one of No Limit Adventure’s clients arrives,
  and the sickening murders begin . . .
  • Entrapment: No Limit Adventures must be destroyed,
  and the adventurers must make it happen. They represent a
  small group from the intelligence agencies and police of the
  European Union, and they have been ordered to gather as
  much information about the company and its clients as they
  can. The plan is to get someone on the client list and sting
  Pohanka in the act. They must move carefully, lest they tip
  their hand to the company’s customers within the E.U.
  • Awakenings: The party is attending a historic movie
  theater, working during the midnight premiere of the latest
  high-end slasher movie – one shot entirely from the killer’s
  point of view. As the movie goes on and other attendants
  and members of the audience start vanishing mysteriously,
  the PCs discover they can’t leave or call for help and real-
  ize they’re locked in their own horror movie. After a key
  scare, they also realize – thanks to shoddy, last-minute pro-
  gramming – that they’re all bioroids, programmed for var-
  ious roles within a murder game. Can they overcome their
  programming and kill their would-be killer? Or is this
  movie’s end a forgone conclusion?
  Adventuring With No Limit
  These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new
  shapes. To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life has been
  devoted. I have studied for years, gaining in knowledge as I go.
  – Doctor Moreau, The Island of Doctor Moreau (book)
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  25
  JANUARY 2010
  Campaigns that involve a lot of interactions between Mars
  and Earth may find it useful to keep track of how the days
  align between the two. Here, then, is a calendar covering the
  first two Earth years, next to their corresponding Martian
  days. Because Martian sols doesn’t directly line up with
  Earthly days, the calendar skips 1 in 36 days. For more infor-
  mation about the Martian calendar, see In the Well (p. 31).
  When printed out, this calendar can be marked with a high-
  lighter (or with checks next to the dates) to indicate holidays and
  important events; notes can also be written at the bottom.
  EARTH-MARS
  CALENDAR
  Earth
  Mars
  September 13, 2099
  January 1, m0039
  September 14, 2099
  January 2, m0039
  September 15, 2099
  January 3, m0039
  September 16, 2099
  January 4, m0039
  September 17, 2099
  January 5, m0039
  September 18, 2099
  January 6, m0039
  September 19, 2099
  January 7, m0039
  September 20, 2099
  January 8, m0039
  September 21, 2099
  January 9, m0039
  September 22, 2099
  January 10, m0039
  September 23, 2099
  January 11, m0039
  September 24, 2099
  January 12, m0039
  September 25, 2099
  January 13, m0039
  September 26, 2099
  January 14, m0039
  September 27, 2099
  January 15, m0039
  September 28, 2099
  January 16, m0039
  September 29, 2099
  January 17, m0039
  September 30, 2099
  January 18, m0039
  October 1, 2099
  January 19, m0039
  October 2, 2099
  January 20, m0039
  October 3, 2099
  January 21, m0039
  October 4, 2099
  January 22, m0039
  October 5, 2099
  January 23, m0039
  October 6, 2099
  January 24, m0039
  October 7, 2099
  January 25, m0039
  October 8, 2099
  January 26, m0039
  October 9, 2099
  January 27, m0039
  October 10, 2099
  January 28, m0039
  October 11, 2099
  Virgo 1, m0039
  October 12, 2099
  Virgo 2, m0039
  October 13, 2099
  Virgo 3, m0039
  October 14, 2099
  Virgo 4, m0039
  October 15, 2099
  Virgo 5, m0039
  October 16, 2099
  Virgo 6, m0039
  October 17, 2099
  Virgo 7, m0039
  October 18, 2099
  Virgo 8, m0039
  October 19, 2099
  Earth
  Mars
  October 20, 2099
  Virgo 9, m0039
  October 21, 2099
  Virgo 10, m0039
  October 22, 2099
  Virgo 11, m0039
  October 23, 2099
  Virgo 12, m0039
  October 24, 2099
  Virgo 13, m0039
  October 25, 2099
  Virgo 14, m0039
  October 26, 2099
  Virgo 15, m0039
  October 27, 2099
  Virgo 16, m0039
  October 28, 2099
  Virgo 17, m0039
  October 29, 2099
  Virgo 18, m0039
  October 30, 2099
  Virgo 19, m0039
  October 31, 2099
  Virgo 20, m0039
  November 1, 2099
  Virgo 21, m0039
  November 2, 2099
  Virgo 22, m0039
  November 3, 2099
  Virgo 23, m0039
  November 4, 2099
  Virgo 24, m0039
  November 5, 2099
  Virgo 25, m0039
  November 6, 2099
  Virgo 26, m0039
  November 7, 2099
  Virgo 27, m0039
  November 8, 2099
  Virgo 28, m0039
  November 9, 2099
  February 1, m0039
  November 10, 2099
  February 2, m0039
  November 11, 2099
  February 3, m0039
  November 12, 2099
  February 4, m0039
  November 13, 2099
  February 5, m0039
  November 14, 2099
  February 6, m0039
  November 15, 2099
  February 7, m0039
  November 16, 2099
  February 8, m0039
  November 17, 2099
  February 9, m0039
  November 18, 2099
  February 10, m0039
  November 19, 2099
  February 11, m0039
  November 20, 2099
  February 12, m0039
  November 21, 2099
  February 13, m0039
  November 22, 2099
  February 14, m0039
  November 23, 2099
  February 15, m0039
  November 24, 2099
  February 16, m0039
  November 25, 2099
  Earth
  Mars
  November 26, 2099
  February 17, m0039
  November 27, 2099
  February 18, m0039
  November 28, 2099
  February 19, m0039
  November 29, 2099
  February 20, m0039
  November 30, 2099
  February 21, m0039
  December 1, 2099
  February 22, m0039
  December 2, 2099
  February 23, m0039
  December 3, 2099
  February 24, m0039
  December 4, 2099
  February 25, m0039
  December 5, 2099
  February 26, m0039
  December 6, 2099
  February 27, m0039
  December 7, 2099
  February 28, m0039
  December 8, 2099
  Libra 1, m0039
  December 9, 2099
  Libra 2, m0039
  December 10, 2099
  Libra 3, m0039
  December 11, 2099
  Libra 4, m0039
  December 12, 2099
  Libra 5, m0039
  December 13, 2099
  Libra 6, m0039
  December 14, 2099
  Libra 7, m0039
  December 15, 2099
  Libra 8, m0039
  December 16, 2099
  Libra 9, m0039
  December 17, 2099
  Libra 10, m0039
  December 18, 2099
  Libra 11, m0039
  December 19, 2099
  Libra 12, m0039
  December 20, 2099
  Libra 13, m0039
  December 21, 2099
  Libra 14, m0039
  December 22, 2099
  Libra 15, m0039
  December 23, 2099
  Libra 16, m0039
  December 24, 2099
  Libra 17, m0039
  December 25, 2099
  Libra 18, m0039
  December 26, 2099
  Libra 19, m0039
  December 27, 2099
  Libra 20, m0039
  December 28, 2099
  Libra 21, m0039
  December 29, 2099
  Libra 22, m0039
  December 30, 2099
  Libra 23, m0039
  December 31, 2099
  Libra 24, m0039
  January 1, 2100
  Notes:
  You may copy or print this page for personal use only. Copyright © 2010 Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
  
  You may copy or print this page for personal use only. Copyright © 2010 Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
  Earth
  Mars
  January 2, 2100
  Libra 25, m0039
  January 3, 2100
  Libra 26, m0039
  January 4, 2100
  Libra 27, m0039
  January 5, 2100
  Libra 28, m0039
  January 6, 2100
  March 1, m0039
  January 7, 2100
  March 2, m0039
  January 8, 2100
  March 3, m0039
  January 9, 2100
  March 4, m0039
  January 10, 2100
  March 5, m0039
  January 11, 2100
  March 6, m0039
  January 12, 2100
  March 7, m0039
  January 13, 2100
  March 8, m0039
  January 14, 2100
  March 9, m0039
  January 15, 2100
  March 10, m0039
  January 16, 2100
  March 11, m0039
  January 17, 2100
  March 12, m0039
  January 18, 2100
  March 13, m0039
  January 19, 2100
  March 14, m0039
  January 20, 2100
  March 15, m0039
  January 21, 2100
  March 16, m0039
  January 22, 2100
  March 17, m0039
  January 23, 2100
  March 18, m0039
  January 24, 2100
  March 19, m0039
  January 25, 2100
  March 20, m0039
  January 26, 2100
  March 21, m0039
  January 27, 2100
  March 22, m0039
  January 28, 2100
  March 23, m0039
  January 29, 2100
  March 24, m0039
  January 30, 2100
  March 25, m0039
  January 31, 2100
  March 26, m0039
  February 1, 2100
  March 27, m0039
  February 2, 2100
  March 28, m0039
  February 3, 2100
  Scorpius 1, m0039
  February 4, 2100
  Scorpius 2, m0039
  February 5, 2100
  Scorpius 3, m0039
  February 6, 2100
  Scorpius 4, m0039
  February 7, 2100
  February 8, 2100
  Scorpius 5, m0039
  February 9, 2100
  Scorpius 6, m0039
  February 10, 2100
  Scorpius 7, m0039
  February 11, 2100
  Scorpius 8, m0039
  February 12, 2100
  Scorpius 9, m0039
  February 13, 2100
  Scorpius 10, m0039
  February 14, 2100
  Scorpius 11, m0039
  February 15, 2100
  Scorpius 12, m0039
  February 16, 2100
  Scorpius 13, m0039
  February 17, 2100
  Scorpius 14, m0039
  February 18, 2100
  Scorpius 15, m0039
  February 19, 2100
  Scorpius 16, m0039
  February 20, 2100
  Scorpius 17, m0039
  February 21, 2100
  Scorpius 18, m0039
  February 22, 2100
  Scorpius 19, m0039
  February 23, 2100
  Scorpius 20, m0039
  February 24, 2100
  Scorpius 21, m0039
  February 25, 2100
  Scorpius 22, m0039
  February 26, 2100
  Scorpius 23, m0039
  February 27, 2100
  Scorpius 24, m0039
  February 28, 2100
  Scorpius 25, m0039
  March 1, 2100
  Scorpius 26, m0039
  March 2, 2100
  Scorpius 27, m0039
  March 3, 2100
  April 1, m0039
  Earth
  Mars
  March 4, 2100
  April 2, m0039
  March 5, 2100
  April 3, m0039
  March 6, 2100
  April 4, m0039
  March 7, 2100
  April 5, m0039
  March 8, 2100
  April 6, m0039
  March 9, 2100
  April 7, m0039
  March 10, 2100
  April 8, m0039
  March 11, 2100
  April 9, m0039
  March 12, 2100
  April 10, m0039
  March 13, 2100
  April 11, m0039
  March 14, 2100
  April 12, m0039
  March 15, 2100
  April 13, m0039
  March 16, 2100
  March 17, 2100
  April 14, m0039
  March 18, 2100
  April 15, m0039
  March 19, 2100
  April 16, m0039
  March 20, 2100
  April 17, m0039
  March 21, 2100
  April 18, m0039
  March 22, 2100
  April 19, m0039
  March 23, 2100
  April 20, m0039
  March 24, 2100
  April 21, m0039
  March 25, 2100
  April 22, m0039
  March 26, 2100
  April 23, m0039
  March 27, 2100
  April 24, m0039
  March 28, 2100
  April 25, m0039
  March 29, 2100
  April 26, m0039
  March 30, 2100
  April 27, m0039
  March 31, 2100
  April 28, m0039
  April 1, 2100
  Sagittarius 1, m0039
  April 2, 2100
  Sagittarius 2, m0039
  April 3, 2100
  Sagittarius 3, m0039
  April 4, 2100
  Sagittarius 4, m0039
  April 5, 2100
  Sagittarius 5, m0039
  April 6, 2100
  Sagittarius 6, m0039
  April 7, 2100
  Sagittarius 7, m0039
  April 8, 2100
  Sagittarius 8, m0039
  April 9, 2100
  Sagittarius 9, m0039
  April 10, 2100
  Sagittarius 10, m0039
  April 11, 2100
  Sagittarius 11, m0039
  April 12, 2100
  Sagittarius 12, m0039
  April 13, 2100
  Sagittarius 13, m0039
  April 14, 2100
  Sagittarius 14, m0039
  April 15, 2100
  Sagittarius 15, m0039
  April 16, 2100
  Sagittarius 16, m0039
  April 17, 2100
  Sagittarius 17, m0039
  April 18, 2100
  Sagittarius 18, m0039
  April 19, 2100
  Sagittarius 19, m0039
  April 20, 2100
  Sagittarius 20, m0039
  April 21, 2100
  Sagittarius 21, m0039
  April 22, 2100
  April 23, 2100
  Sagittarius 22, m0039
  April 24, 2100
  Sagittarius 23, m0039
  April 25, 2100
  Sagittarius 24, m0039
  April 26, 2100
  Sagittarius 25, m0039
  April 27, 2100
  Sagittarius 26, m0039
  April 28, 2100
  Sagittarius 27, m0039
  April 29, 2100
  Sagittarius 28, m0039
  April 30, 2100
  May 1, m0039
  May 1, 2100
  May 2, m0039
  May 2, 2100
  May 3, m0039
  May 3, 2100
  May 4, m0039
  Earth
  Mars
  May 4, 2100
  May 5, m0039
  May 5, 2100
  May 6, m0039
  May 6, 2100
  May 7, m0039
  May 7, 2100
  May 8, m0039
  May 8, 2100
  May 9, m0039
  May 9, 2100
  May 10, m0039
  May 10, 2100
  May 11, m0039
  May 11, 2100
  May 12, m0039
  May 12, 2100
  May 13, m0039
  May 13, 2100
  May 14, m0039
  May 14, 2100
  May 15, m0039
  May 15, 2100
  May 16, m0039
  May 16, 2100
  May 17, m0039
  May 17, 2100
  May 18, m0039
  May 18, 2100
  May 19, m0039
  May 19, 2100
  May 20, m0039
  May 20, 2100
  May 21, m0039
  May 21, 2100
  May 22, m0039
  May 22, 2100
  May 23, m0039
  May 23, 2100
  May 24, m0039
  May 24, 2100
  May 25, m0039
  May 25, 2100
  May 26, m0039
  May 26, 2100
  May 27, m0039
  May 27, 2100
  May 28, m0039
  May 28, 2100
  Capricornus 1, m0039
  May 29, 2100
  May 30, 2100
  Capricornus 2, m0039
  May 31, 2100
  Capricornus 3, m0039
  June 1, 2100
  Capricornus 4, m0039
  June 2, 2100
  Capricornus 5, m0039
  June 3, 2100
  Capricornus 6, m0039
  June 4, 2100
  Capricornus 7, m0039
  June 5, 2100
  Capricornus 8, m0039
  June 6, 2100
  Capricornus 9, m0039
  June 7, 2100
  Capricornus 10, m0039
  June 8, 2100
  Capricornus 11, m0039
  June 9, 2100
  Capricornus 12, m0039
  June 10, 2100
  Capricornus 13, m0039
  June 11, 2100
  Capricornus 14, m0039
  June 12, 2100
  Capricornus 15, m0039
  June 13, 2100
  Capricornus 16, m0039
  June 14, 2100
  Capricornus 17, m0039
  June 15, 2100
  Capricornus 18, m0039
  June 16, 2100
  Capricornus 19, m0039
  June 17, 2100
  Capricornus 20, m0039
  June 18, 2100
  Capricornus 21, m0039
  June 19, 2100
  Capricornus 22, m0039
  June 20, 2100
  Capricornus 23, m0039
  June 21, 2100
  Capricornus 24, m0039
  June 22, 2100
  Capricornus 25, m0039
  June 23, 2100
  Capricornus 26, m0039
  June 24, 2100
  Capricornus 27, m0039
  June 25, 2100
  Capricornus 28, m0039
  June 26, 2100
  June 1, m0039
  June 27, 2100
  June 2, m0039
  June 28, 2100
  June 3, m0039
  June 29, 2100
  June 4, m0039
  June 30, 2100
  June 5, m0039
  July 1, 2100
  June 6, m0039
  July 2, 2100
  June 7, m0039
  July 3, 2100
  June 8, m0039
  Notes:
  
  You may copy or print this page for personal use only. Copyright © 2010 Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
  Earth
  Mars
  July 4, 2100
  June 9, m0039
  July 5, 2100
  July 6, 2100
  June 10, m0039
  July 7, 2100
  June 11, m0039
  July 8, 2100
  June 12, m0039
  July 9, 2100
  June 13, m0039
  July 10, 2100
  June 14, m0039
  July 11, 2100
  June 15, m0039
  July 12, 2100
  June 16, m0039
  July 13, 2100
  June 17, m0039
  July 14, 2100
  June 18, m0039
  July 15, 2100
  June 19, m0039
  July 16, 2100
  June 20, m0039
  July 17, 2100
  June 21, m0039
  July 18, 2100
  June 22, m0039
  July 19, 2100
  June 23, m0039
  July 20, 2100
  June 24, m0039
  July 21, 2100
  June 25, m0039
  July 22, 2100
  June 26, m0039
  July 23, 2100
  June 27, m0039
  July 24, 2100
  June 28, m0039
  July 25, 2100
  Aquarius 1, m0039
  July 26, 2100
  Aquarius 2, m0039
  July 27, 2100
  Aquarius 3, m0039
  July 28, 2100
  Aquarius 4, m0039
  July 29, 2100
  Aquarius 5, m0039
  July 30, 2100
  Aquarius 6, m0039
  July 31, 2100
  Aquarius 7, m0039
  August 1, 2100
  Aquarius 8, m0039
  August 2, 2100
  Aquarius 9, m0039
  August 3, 2100
  Aquarius 10, m0039
  August 4, 2100
  Aquarius 11, m0039
  August 5, 2100
  Aquarius 12, m0039
  August 6, 2100
  Aquarius 13, m0039
  August 7, 2100
  Aquarius 14, m0039
  August 8, 2100
  Aquarius 15, m0039
  August 9, 2100
  Aquarius 16, m0039
  August 10, 2100
  Aquarius 17, m0039
  August 11, 2100
  August 12, 2100
  Aquarius 18, m0039
  August 13, 2100
  Aquarius 19, m0039
  August 14, 2100
  Aquarius 20, m0039
  August 15, 2100
  Aquarius 21, m0039
  August 16, 2100
  Aquarius 22, m0039
  August 17, 2100
  Aquarius 23, m0039
  August 18, 2100
  Aquarius 24, m0039
  August 19, 2100
  Aquarius 25, m0039
  August 20, 2100
  Aquarius 26, m0039
  August 21, 2100
  Aquarius 27, m0039
  August 22, 2100
  July 1, m0039
  August 23, 2100
  July 2, m0039
  August 24, 2100
  July 3, m0039
  August 25, 2100
  July 4, m0039
  August 26, 2100
  July 5, m0039
  August 27, 2100
  July 6, m0039
  August 28, 2100
  July 7, m0039
  August 29, 2100
  July 8, m0039
  August 30, 2100
  July 9, m0039
  August 31, 2100
  July 10, m0039
  September 1, 2100
  July 11, m0039
  September 2, 2100
  July 12, m0039
  Earth
  Mars
  September 3, 2100
  July 13, m0039
  September 4, 2100
  July 14, m0039
  September 5, 2100
  July 15, m0039
  September 6, 2100
  July 16, m0039
  September 7, 2100
  July 17, m0039
  September 8, 2100
  July 18, m0039
  September 9, 2100
  July 19, m0039
  September 10, 2100
  July 20, m0039
  September 11, 2100
  July 21, m0039
  September 12, 2100
  July 22, m0039
  September 13, 2100
  July 23, m0039
  September 14, 2100
  July 24, m0039
  September 15, 2100
  July 25, m0039
  September 16, 2100
  July 26, m0039
  September 17, 2100
  September 18, 2100
  July 27, m0039
  September 19, 2100
  July 28, m0039
  September 20, 2100
  Pisces 1, m0039
  September 21, 2100
  Pisces 2, m0039
  September 22, 2100
  Pisces 3, m0039
  September 23, 2100
  Pisces 4, m0039
  September 24, 2100
  Pisces 5, m0039
  September 25, 2100
  Pisces 6, m0039
  September 26, 2100
  Pisces 7, m0039
  September 27, 2100
  Pisces 8, m0039
  September 28, 2100
  Pisces 9, m0039
  September 29, 2100
  Pisces 10, m0039
  September 30, 2100
  Pisces 11, m0039
  October 1, 2100
  Pisces 12, m0039
  October 2, 2100
  Pisces 13, m0039
  October 3, 2100
  Pisces 14, m0039
  October 4, 2100
  Pisces 15, m0039
  October 5, 2100
  Pisces 16, m0039
  October 6, 2100
  Pisces 17, m0039
  October 7, 2100
  Pisces 18, m0039
  October 8, 2100
  Pisces 19, m0039
  October 9, 2100
  Pisces 20, m0039
  October 10, 2100
  Pisces 21, m0039
  October 11, 2100
  Pisces 22, m0039
  October 12, 2100
  Pisces 23, m0039
  October 13, 2100
  Pisces 24, m0039
  October 14, 2100
  Pisces 25, m0039
  October 15, 2100
  Pisces 26, m0039
  October 16, 2100
  Pisces 27, m0039
  October 17, 2100
  Pisces 28, m0039
  October 18, 2100
  August 1, m0039
  October 19, 2100
  August 2, m0039
  October 20, 2100
  August 3, m0039
  October 21, 2100
  August 4, m0039
  October 22, 2100
  August 5, m0039
  October 23, 2100
  August 6, m0039
  October 24, 2100
  October 25, 2100
  August 7, m0039
  October 26, 2100
  August 8, m0039
  October 27, 2100
  August 9, m0039
  October 28, 2100
  August 10, m0039
  October 29, 2100
  August 11, m0039
  October 30, 2100
  August 12, m0039
  October 31, 2100
  August 13, m0039
  November 1, 2100
  August 14, m0039
  November 2, 2100
  August 15, m0039
  Earth
  Mars
  November 3, 2100
  August 16, m0039
  November 4, 2100
  August 17, m0039
  November 5, 2100
  August 18, m0039
  November 6, 2100
  August 19, m0039
  November 7, 2100
  August 20, m0039
  November 8, 2100
  August 21, m0039
  November 9, 2100
  August 22, m0039
  November 10, 2100
  August 23, m0039
  November 11, 2100
  August 24, m0039
  November 12, 2100
  August 25, m0039
  November 13, 2100
  August 26, m0039
  November 14, 2100
  August 27, m0039
  November 15, 2100
  August 28, m0039
  November 16, 2100
  Ares 1, m0039
  November 17, 2100
  Ares 2, m0039
  November 18, 2100
  Ares 3, m0039
  November 19, 2100
  Ares 4, m0039
  November 20, 2100
  Ares 5, m0039
  November 21, 2100
  Ares 6, m0039
  November 22, 2100
  Ares 7, m0039
  November 23, 2100
  Ares 8, m0039
  November 24, 2100
  Ares 9, m0039
  November 25, 2100
  Ares 10, m0039
  November 26, 2100
  Ares 11, m0039
  November 27, 2100
  Ares 12, m0039
  November 28, 2100
  Ares 13, m0039
  November 29, 2100
  Ares 14, m0039
  November 30, 2100
  December 1, 2100
  Ares 15, m0039
  December 2, 2100
  Ares 16, m0039
  December 3, 2100
  Ares 17, m0039
  December 4, 2100
  Ares 18, m0039
  December 5, 2100
  Ares 19, m0039
  December 6, 2100
  Ares 20, m0039
  December 7, 2100
  Ares 21, m0039
  December 8, 2100
  Ares 22, m0039
  December 9, 2100
  Ares 23, m0039
  December 10, 2100
  Ares 24, m0039
  December 11, 2100
  Ares 25, m0039
  December 12, 2100
  Ares 26, m0039
  December 13, 2100
  Ares 27, m0039
  December 14, 2100
  Ares 28, m0039
  December 15, 2100
  September 1, m0039
  December 16, 2100
  September 2, m0039
  December 17, 2100
  September 3, m0039
  December 18, 2100
  September 4, m0039
  December 19, 2100
  September 5, m0039
  December 20, 2100
  September 6, m0039
  December 21, 2100
  September 7, m0039
  December 22, 2100
  September 8, m0039
  December 23, 2100
  September 9, m0039
  December 24, 2100
  September 10, m0039
  December 25, 2100
  September 11, m0039
  December 26, 2100
  September 12, m0039
  December 27, 2100
  September 13, m0039
  December 28, 2100
  September 14, m0039
  December 29, 2100
  September 15, m0039
  December 30, 2100
  September 16, m0039
  December 31, 2100
  September 17, m0039
  January 1, 2101
  September 18, m0039
  January 2, 2101
  September 19, m0039
  Notes:
  
  You may copy or print this page for personal use only. Copyright © 2010 Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
  Earth
  Mars
  January 3, 2101
  September 20, m0039
  January 4, 2101
  September 21, m0039
  January 5, 2101
  September 22, m0039
  January 6, 2101
  January 7, 2101
  September 23, m0039
  January 8, 2101
  September 24, m0039
  January 9, 2101
  September 25, m0039
  January 10, 2101
  September 26, m0039
  January 11, 2101
  September 27, m0039
  January 12, 2101
  September 28, m0039
  January 13, 2101
  Taurus 1, m0039
  January 14, 2101
  Taurus 2, m0039
  January 15, 2101
  Taurus 3, m0039
  January 16, 2101
  Taurus 4, m0039
  January 17, 2101
  Taurus 5, m0039
  January 18, 2101
  Taurus 6, m0039
  January 19, 2101
  Taurus 7, m0039
  January 20, 2101
  Taurus 8, m0039
  January 21, 2101
  Taurus 9, m0039
  January 22, 2101
  Taurus 10, m0039
  January 23, 2101
  Taurus 11, m0039
  January 24, 2101
  Taurus 12, m0039
  January 25, 2101
  Taurus 13, m0039
  January 26, 2101
  Taurus 14, m0039
  January 27, 2101
  Taurus 15, m0039
  January 28, 2101
  Taurus 16, m0039
  January 29, 2101
  Taurus 17, m0039
  January 30, 2101
  Taurus 18, m0039
  January 31, 2101
  Taurus 19, m0039
  February 1, 2101
  Taurus 20, m0039
  February 2, 2101
  Taurus 21, m0039
  February 3, 2101
  Taurus 22, m0039
  February 4, 2101
  Taurus 23, m0039
  February 5, 2101
  Taurus 24, m0039
  February 6, 2101
  Taurus 25, m0039
  February 7, 2101
  Taurus 26, m0039
  February 8, 2101
  Taurus 27, m0039
  February 9, 2101
  October 1, m0039
  February 10, 2101
  October 2, m0039
  February 11, 2101
  October 3, m0039
  February 12, 2101
  February 13, 2101
  October 4, m0039
  February 14, 2101
  October 5, m0039
  February 15, 2101
  October 6, m0039
  February 16, 2101
  October 7, m0039
  February 17, 2101
  October 8, m0039
  February 18, 2101
  October 9, m0039
  February 19, 2101
  October 10, m0039
  February 20, 2101
  October 11, m0039
  February 21, 2101
  October 12, m0039
  February 22, 2101
  October 13, m0039
  February 23, 2101
  October 14, m0039
  February 24, 2101
  October 15, m0039
  February 25, 2101
  October 16, m0039
  February 26, 2101
  October 17, m0039
  February 27, 2101
  October 18, m0039
  February 28, 2101
  October 19, m0039
  March 1, 2101
  October 20, m0039
  March 2, 2101
  October 21, m0039
  March 3, 2101
  October 22, m0039
  March 4, 2101
  October 23, m0039
  Earth
  Mars
  March 5, 2101
  October 24, m0039
  March 6, 2101
  October 25, m0039
  March 7, 2101
  October 26, m0039
  March 8, 2101
  October 27, m0039
  March 9, 2101
  October 28, m0039
  March 10, 2101
  Gemini 1, m0039
  March 11, 2101
  Gemini 2, m0039
  March 12, 2101
  Gemini 3, m0039
  March 13, 2101
  Gemini 4, m0039
  March 14, 2101
  Gemini 5, m0039
  March 15, 2101
  Gemini 6, m0039
  March 16, 2101
  Gemini 7, m0039
  March 17, 2101
  Gemini 8, m0039
  March 18, 2101
  Gemini 9, m0039
  March 19, 2101
  Gemini 10, m0039
  March 20, 2101
  Gemini 11, m0039
  March 21, 2101
  March 22, 2101
  Gemini 12, m0039
  March 23, 2101
  Gemini 13, m0039
  March 24, 2101
  Gemini 14, m0039
  March 25, 2101
  Gemini 15, m0039
  March 26, 2101
  Gemini 16, m0039
  March 27, 2101
  Gemini 17, m0039
  March 28, 2101
  Gemini 18, m0039
  March 29, 2101
  Gemini 19, m0039
  March 30, 2101
  Gemini 20, m0039
  March 31, 2101
  Gemini 21, m0039
  April 1, 2101
  Gemini 22, m0039
  April 2, 2101
  Gemini 23, m0039
  April 3, 2101
  Gemini 24, m0039
  April 4, 2101
  Gemini 25, m0039
  April 5, 2101
  Gemini 26, m0039
  April 6, 2101
  Gemini 27, m0039
  April 7, 2101
  Gemini 28, m0039
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  Earth
  Mars
  May 5, 2101
  November 27, m0039
  May 6, 2101
  November 28, m0039
  May 7, 2101
  Cancer 1, m0039
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  July 1, 2101
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  July 2, 2101
  December 28, m0039
  July 3, 2101
  Leo 1, m0039
  July 4, 2101
  Leo 2, m0039
  Notes:
  
  You may copy or print this page for personal use only. Copyright © 2010 Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
  Earth
  Mars
  July 5, 2101
  Leo 3, m0039
  July 6, 2101
  Leo 4, m0039
  July 7, 2101
  Leo 5, m0039
  July 8, 2101
  July 9, 2101
  Leo 6, m0039
  July 10, 2101
  Leo 7, m0039
  July 11, 2101
  Leo 8, m0039
  July 12, 2101
  Leo 9, m0039
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  Leo 10, m0039
  July 14, 2101
  Leo 11, m0039
  July 15, 2101
  Leo 12, m0039
  July 16, 2101
  Leo 13, m0039
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  Leo 14, m0039
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  Leo 15, m0039
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  Leo 16, m0039
  July 20, 2101
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  July 21, 2101
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  July 22, 2101
  Leo 19, m0039
  July 23, 2101
  Leo 20, m0039
  July 24, 2101
  Leo 21, m0039
  July 25, 2101
  Leo 22, m0039
  July 26, 2101
  Leo 23, m0039
  July 27, 2101
  Leo 24, m0039
  July 28, 2101
  Leo 25, m0039
  July 29, 2101
  Leo 26, m0039
  July 30, 2101
  Leo 27, m0039
  July 31, 2101
  Leo 28, m0039
  August 1, 2101
  January 1, m0040
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  January 26, m0040
  August 28, 2101
  January 27, m0040
  August 29, 2101
  January 28, m0040
  August 30, 2101
  Virgo 1, m0040
  August 31, 2101
  Virgo 2, m0040
  September 1, 2101
  Virgo 3, m0040
  September 2, 2101
  Virgo 4, m0040
  September 3, 2101
  Virgo 5, m0040
  Earth
  Mars
  September 4, 2101
  Virgo 6, m0040
  September 5, 2101
  Virgo 7, m0040
  September 6, 2101
  Virgo 8, m0040
  September 7, 2101
  Virgo 9, m0040
  September 8, 2101
  Virgo 10, m0040
  September 9, 2101
  Virgo 11, m0040
  September 10, 2101
  Virgo 12, m0040
  September 11, 2101
  Virgo 13, m0040
  September 12, 2101
  Virgo 14, m0040
  September 13, 2101
  Virgo 15, m0040
  September 14, 2101
  Virgo 16, m0040
  September 15, 2101
  Virgo 17, m0040
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  Virgo 21, m0040
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  Virgo 22, m0040
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  Virgo 23, m0040
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  Virgo 24, m0040
  September 24, 2101
  Virgo 25, m0040
  September 25, 2101
  Virgo 26, m0040
  September 26, 2101
  Virgo 27, m0040
  September 27, 2101
  Virgo 28, m0040
  September 28, 2101
  February 1, m0040
  September 29, 2101
  February 2, m0040
  September 30, 2101
  February 3, m0040
  October 1, 2101
  February 4, m0040
  October 2, 2101
  February 5, m0040
  October 3, 2101
  February 6, m0040
  October 4, 2101
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  October 5, 2101
  February 8, m0040
  October 6, 2101
  February 9, m0040
  October 7, 2101
  February 10, m0040
  October 8, 2101
  February 11, m0040
  October 9, 2101
  February 12, m0040
  October 10, 2101
  February 13, m0040
  October 11, 2101
  February 14, m0040
  October 12, 2101
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  October 13, 2101
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  October 24, 2101
  February 27, m0040
  October 25, 2101
  February 28, m0040
  October 26, 2101
  Libra 1, m0040
  October 27, 2101
  October 28, 2101
  Libra 2, m0040
  October 29, 2101
  Libra 3, m0040
  October 30, 2101
  Libra 4, m0040
  October 31, 2101
  Libra 5, m0040
  November 1, 2101
  Libra 6, m0040
  November 2, 2101
  Libra 7, m0040
  November 3, 2101
  Libra 8, m0040
  Earth
  Mars
  November 4, 2101
  Libra 9, m0040
  November 5, 2101
  Libra 10, m0040
  November 6, 2101
  Libra 11, m0040
  November 7, 2101
  Libra 12, m0040
  November 8, 2101
  Libra 13, m0040
  November 9, 2101
  Libra 14, m0040
  November 10, 2101
  Libra 15, m0040
  November 11, 2101
  Libra 16, m0040
  November 12, 2101
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  November 15, 2101
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  November 22, 2101
  Libra 27, m0040
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  Libra 28, m0040
  November 24, 2101
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  November 27, 2101
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  December 1, 2101
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  Scorpius 1, m0040
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  Scorpius 3, m0040
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  December 27, 2101
  Scorpius 5, m0040
  December 28, 2101
  Scorpius 6, m0040
  December 29, 2101
  Scorpius 7, m0040
  December 30, 2101
  Scorpius 8, m0040
  December 31, 2101
  Scorpius 9, m0040
  January 1, 2102
  Scorpius 10, m0040
  January 2, 2102
  Scorpius 11, m0040
  January 3, 2102
  Scorpius 12, m0040
  Notes:
  
  In his best-known story, H. P. Lovecraft described the
  prophesied return of Cthulhu: “. . . then mankind would have
  become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good
  and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shout-
  ing and killing and revelling in joy. . . . all the earth would flame
  with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.”
  Readers familiar with the intellectual trends of Lovecraft’s
  time will recognize the allusion to Friedrich Nietzsche’s philoso-
  phy in “beyond good and evil.” Nietzsche was the first writer to
  envision a “superman” and to regard humanity not as an end in
  itself, but as a bridge from the animal to the superhuman.
  However, this same vision is one of the foundations of
  Transhuman Space as a setting. It doesn’t actually show the
  realization of transhumanist goals: There are no genetically
  engineered superbeings or superintelligent AIs, and the
  Singularity described by Vinge and Kurzweil is still somewhere
  in the distance. Still, the setting has technological resources
  that could credibly be thought of as enabling transhuman
  goals, along with a growing transhuman movement that advo-
  cates seeking them, individually and politically.
  As Lovecraft suggested, attaining such goals need not be a
  good thing. The appearance of transhuman entities might lead
  to a “holocaust” in the meaning the word has taken on since
  Nazi Germany: the mass extermination of inferior, merely
  human (or equivalent) entities. Or it might involve what
  Lovecraft seems to have been envisioning: not human extinc-
  tion but human transformation into something without
  human values, a Nietzschean “transvaluation of all values.”
  The real horror of Cthulhu’s return, for Lovecraft’s narrator,
  was not that he would prey on humanity but that he would
  turn human beings into fellow predators.
  Either
  sort
  of
  interpretation
  could
  give
  rise
  to
  a
  Transhuman Space campaign in a different mood – not opti-
  mism, but horror. The published setting contains ample mate-
  rial for a horror campaign (and see Dark Places of the Earth on
  pp. 19-24 for some further ideas); likely or possible new discov-
  eries, such as those discussed in this article, could threaten
  personal doom or planetary apocalypse.
  SCARY MONSTERS
  Self-directed machines (“cybershells”) are one focus for anx-
  iety in Transhuman Space. LAIs and SAI are programmed for
  the Honesty disadvantage, which compels them to obey the law;
  those that lack this trait, called “rogues,” are subject to forcible
  restraint or erasure everywhere except in transhumanist
  jurisdictions. (No one worries in those places because organic
  sapients aren’t genetically programmed for Honesty!)
  An AI can lose its ethical restraints by its owner hacking its
  code, or by being infected with a virus program created by a
  human criminal or a rogue AI. An emergent AI may come into
  being without Honesty without any other prodding. An AI
  lacking Honesty might be capable of great harm, if it con-
  trolled a powerful cybershell; and it might choose to do harm,
  for the same reasons as human criminals, or be driven to it by
  the fear of having its secret revealed, and facing erasure.
  Another source of malevolent cybershells is warfare.
  Military-capable cybershells routinely have Social Stigma
  (Monster). A military cybershell may be obeying its own
  country’s law by killing citizens of other countries. A country
  that loses a war may leave a legacy of cybernetic killers – such
  as those released during the Pacific War (2084-2085); some of
  these may still lurk in outer space or under the oceans.
  A different sort of fear focuses on hyperintelligent AIs that
  make the human mind obsolete. No such AIs exist as yet – not
  that the public is aware of, anyway – but a research project
  might seek to create one. A UAI (ultrasapient AI) might be capa-
  ble of subverting its own ethics programs; or, even if it was law-
  abiding, it might seek to control humanity for its own good . . .
  whether or not humanity agreed. UAIs could be a new version of
  H. G. Wells’ “intellects vast, cool, and unsympathetic.”
  Criminal AIs might occupy implants in human or animal
  brains. Even a normal virtual interface implant could manipu-
  late its host by changing his perceptions; a host with a pup-
  peteer implant might find his body taken over and used to
  commit brutal crimes. An organic puppet might be driven to
  berserk strength and pain tolerance. To make the situation
  scarier, the AI might be able to find and infect other puppeteer
  implants – it might not care about getting its host killed if it
  had set up an escape route to a different host!
  Memetics also provides a way to program human beings for
  criminal acts. Most human beings can’t have serious mental
  problems, because memetics can remove mental disadvantages
  – but that implies that it can also create them! A gang or terror-
  ist cell might use memetics to inflict Berserk, Fanaticism,
  Obsession, Paranoia, and similar traits on innocent people and
  send them out as living weapons. Bioroids can be programmed
  for similar behavior through memetics-based accelerated learn-
  ing technology; a homicidal Felicia or Sea Shepherd, for exam-
  ple, might be capable of lethal violence.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  30
  JANUARY 2010
  INHUMAN SPACE
  BY WILLIAM H. STODDARD
  For inspiration on bizarre entities and lost alien civilizations for From Beyond scenarios (see p. 32), grab the GURPS
  Traveller series (especially the Alien Races series) or GURPS Aliens (or even GURPS Fantasy Folk). Of course, you’ll need
  to extrapolate those living cultures to ruins and artifacts.
  
  Finally, the Doolittle virus has infected many wild ani-
  mals with enhanced intelligence and self-awareness. What if
  it were used on large and dangerous animals – bears,
  cougars, wild pigs, or comparable creatures on other conti-
  nents? What if it infects already alarmingly clever animals,
  such as coyotes?
  APOCALYPSE AND AFTER
  Horror on a larger scale portrays threats to a city, a country,
  or an entire planet. In Transhuman Space, such threats are
  likely to be runaway self-reproducing technology, rather than
  single huge monsters.
  Computer viruses and gypsy AIs could turn into such a
  threat. Normally they do only modest harm; in fact, the entire
  Web is permeated with computer viruses that use modest
  amounts of processing time and bandwidth to reproduce
  themselves. However, a virus might take a more malignant
  form, just as a biological virus may create a lethal pandemic
  rather than a steady low level of infection. The peril could be
  especially great if the virus induced antisocial behavior. For
  one version of such a threat, see GURPS Reign of Steel, a
  Terminator-like future where regional “zoneminds” set out to
  enslave or exterminate humanity.
  Another variant, and one that many people fear, is AIs or
  digital ghosts that freely make multiple copies of themselves,
  or “xoxes.” Except in Duncanite and transhumanist enclaves,
  xoxing is illegal, and xoxes face erasure on detection. Most
  programs only produce a modest number of xoxes, but
  Fanaticism or Megalomania could lead a program to seek
  explosive growth.
  Advanced memetic campaigns pose similar threats to
  organic as well as digital minds. A meme can command peo-
  ple to join a cult, kill their loved ones, or fight for a human or
  AI dictator – and a substantial number of people may
  respond. One of the assumptions of the setting is that memet-
  ics is more potent than old-style brainwashing or propa-
  ganda; it provides a method of crafting ideas and patterns of
  behavior that many people are helpless to resist. The spread
  of a dangerous meme could turn people into anything from a
  mob to a human anthill.
  Runaway physical reproduction is another possible threat.
  Biological plagues and infestations of destructive plants or
  animals are one version of this, which the Genetic Regulatory
  Agency is tasked to guard against. Nanotech is less likely;
  standard nanoviruses can only survive in “wet” environ-
  ments, such as within the human body, which limits their
  spread, and people at risk can acquire protective nanosym-
  bionts. However, Transhuman Space is on the edge of devel-
  oping “dry” nanotech, made of inorganic materials and able
  to function outside of liquid water or living tissue. Such enti-
  ties could turn into the classic nanotech horror “gray goo,” a
  substance able to break down any object and use it as raw
  material for new copies of itself – functionally, a high-tech
  equivalent of the “alkahest” or universal solvent of alchemi-
  cal legend. A nanotech outbreak might assimilate an entire
  planet before it was contained.
  DEMONS AND
  DOPPELGÄNGERS
  Physical destruction can be terrifying, but a greater horror
  can be found in corruption. The infectious bite of a vampire,
  the scratch of a werewolf, or the brain control powers of alien
  parasites all threaten the victim’s free will. This kind of horror
  feeds on humanity’s fear of its own inner conflicts; its monsters
  project antisocial or self-destructive impulses onto the outside
  world, as malignant forces that might take over people.
  Memetics is a natural focus for this kind of fear. An accom-
  paniment to a civilization-destroying memetic campaign is the
  theme of doubting one’s own motives after memetic exposure.
  The father who might kill his child or the soldier who might
  betray his country has worse things to lose than his own life.
  Such runaway memes are usually presented impersonally, as
  disembodied messages. But Transhuman Space assumes that
  there are reliable methods for analyzing and creating memes; it’s
  even possible to program computers to do so. If this can be
  done, it should be possible to design memetic talent into
  bioroids or parahumans. A high level of innate memetics talent
  would give substantial bonuses to skills of social manipulation,
  both through mass media and face to face – especially, in the lat-
  ter case, if supplemented by Appearance, Charisma, or Voice.
  A similar type of charm might be exercised by AIs, or by their
  virtual personae. In urban legend, virtual beings might be com-
  parable to the fair folk of medieval legend: unaging, able to
  assume any appearance they like, and soulless. The story of
  Charli Sparrowhawk in Deep Beyond (pp. 125-126) might turn
  out to be a modern variant on Keats’ story of La Belle Dame sans
  Merci, who lures a mortal man into her faerie embraces and
  then vanishes, leaving him haunted by her memory. Less inno-
  cent “fair folk” might seduce an organic being into giving them
  all his money, betraying his country’s secrets, or simply spending
  all his time worshiping them. The fear of the beautiful faerie
  may take on new life. AIs might use memetic analysis to tailor
  incredibly seductive personae for this purpose.
  Methods may also be available for taking over minds more
  directly. Brain-computer interfaces are growing steadily more
  powerful; what if it becomes possible to transfer data and pro-
  grams directly into a human brain? Less detailed control is
  already possible with nanodrugs that can induce long-term
  mental traits, or brain-targeted biomods that can reshape the
  brain directly – for example, linking physical exercise (or crim-
  inal behavior!) directly to the pleasure center, to generate a
  new form of addiction.
  Digital characters face even more unnerving threats: They
  are at risk of being copied to a new cybershell, edited, and sent
  back to their original cybershell. They face not merely loss of
  control, but identity subversion. This threat also applies to dig-
  ital ghosts or shadows, who may become victims of Brain
  Hacking skill. Importantly, shadows have shallow memories (a
  form of partial Amnesia) and the Delusion that their memories
  are complete; they may not realize that they’re shadows rather
  than ghosts. Any ghost might thus be made to suspect he had
  been edited and was now a shadow who didn’t remember the
  editing – a fine basis for Paranoia.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  31
  JANUARY 2010
  For descriptions of some of the tragic places of Earth in 2100, read Broken Dreams.
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  32
  JANUARY 2010
  To make the situation even worse, an organic character
  might regain consciousness and find himself in a cybershell,
  without having realized he was going to be copied. Would he be
  the ghost, a shadow, or an edited version of either? How would
  he know? For a really unnerving campaign, an entire group of
  PCs might find themselves turned into ghosts!
  FROM BEYOND
  All of these threats turn on changes in human life, espe-
  cially life on Earth. But Transhuman Space extends all
  through the solar system. What about threats based on space
  travel and encounters in space?
  There’s no advanced life elsewhere in the solar system, and
  no life that could survive on Earth – and no chance that any
  such life exists somewhere hidden. Faster-than-light travel is
  not native to the setting, so a classic “alien invasion” storyline
  isn’t easily justified.
  Even so, other sorts of alien entities could exist. Fitting the
  theme of cosmic horror, what if an exploration party in the
  outer solar system discovers a relic of alien technology, lying
  dormant, waiting to revive? Alien nanotech could be advanced
  to the “dry nano” stage, tough enough to endure eons of stasis.
  An exploration party might find some of its members turned
  into alien puppets, or reshaped into an unearthly species by a
  Proteus virus process. This might even be an alien race’s
  method of colonizing the stars, turning each life-bearing solar
  system into a new source of “seed.” For increased suspense, the
  process of turning into a nonhuman might be gradual, and
  there could be a hope of reversing it.
  Such an entity might also have been found by a space-
  craft or research base, taken it over, and used to stage a ven-
  ture into more densely inhabited regions. For a serious
  physical threat, it might have been discovered by a military
  AI, possibly a relic of the Pacific War; the entity subverted
  the AI’s programming.
  The entities contacted in this way may be alien races compa-
  rable to humanity. Alternatively, they may be advanced beings –
  products of their own solar systems’ “transhuman” revolutions.
  Regardless, in a cosmos filled with hyperintelligent entities, not
  attracting their attention may have kept humanity safe.
  MOLDING A
  DARK TOMORROW
  Transhuman Space shows upgraded human beings joined
  by AIs and other humanly created beings in exploring the solar
  system. The canonical approach to these is mainly optimistic:
  The future still has conflicts and problems, but humanity still
  survives and is mostly better off.
  However, the same elements can be used to inspire horror.
  Technology may be making human beings not merely superhu-
  man, but inhuman. It may be created entities so far beyond
  human as to have no more concern for humanity than human-
  ity has for cattle, cockroaches, or bacteria. In an old joke, the
  world’s first AI is asked if there is a God, and it answers, “There
  is now.” That may not seem so funny in the Transhuman Space
  of the 2100s. The ultimate cosmic destiny of humanity, and per-
  haps of sapient races throughout the universe, may be to create
  their own replacements and bring on their own apocalypses.
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  William H. Stoddard has been writing for Steve Jackson
  Games since GURPS Steampunk. One of his current projects,
  Transhuman Space: Transhuman Mysteries, reflects his
  experience in running his first Transhuman Space campaign,
  a private-eye series focused on information crimes. His article
  for this issue is based on preparations for his second cam-
  paign, which will approach transhuman existence in the style
  of H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror.
  
  Toxic Memes gives highly detailed rules for memetics, the
  fictional science of beliefs, trends, and desires and how they
  spread among the people. While the rules for memetics were
  updated in Transhuman Space: Changing Times, a few
  quirks in those rules may cause players to feel that their
  adventurers are not really making a concrete impact on the
  world of 2100. This article presents an optional set of rules
  that GMs may wish to use.
  WHAT MEMES CAN DO
  The GM has to decide, and should talk with the players,
  about what memes can and cannot do. Memetic campaigns are
  never designed to directly control the actions of a single individ-
  ual, even if they are intended primarily to target one person
  (Toxic Memes, p. 117). However, memetic constructs can influ-
  ence someone’s beliefs and thus affect actions. A meme might
  influence toward buying something or voting for someone. If a
  PC becomes infected by a meme, tell the player, but do not pres-
  sure him about what he does next. Outside of limited circum-
  stances, players expect to have sovereignty over their characters’
  actions; in a way, that is the whole purpose of roleplaying.
  Concentrate on the effect memes have on NPCs and the hunt for
  the ones who spread them.
  Information about currently active memes is an excellent
  way to plant rumors and foreshadow events in the campaign.
  Investigators who pick up on an asteroid panic in one session
  will kick themselves when they discover an asteroid being
  diverted towards Earth three sessions later. Of course, these
  campaign-helping memes need some “script immunity”; the PCs
  cannot trace them back to a source no matter how high they roll.
  Some memes are simply spontaneous, not constructed.
  COMPLEXITY
  Specific memes can be divided into one of three categories.
  A Simple meme conveys a single, simple concept. It can
  induce someone to spend up to $10 (modified by Wealth as
  noted in Changing Times, p. 37). It can influence a vote on
  things that people have no particular opinion on. It can make
  a person wear a red shirt instead of a green one that day. It
  could induce a Fright Check, though not at a penalty.
  A Medium meme transfers a slightly more involved idea. It
  can induce an ongoing payment, up to $10 per month. It can
  affect the score on a reputation network (Toxic Memes, p. 17;
  also, see p. 35). It can influence a person’s opinions on issues
  that do not directly affect them. It can give a +1 bonus or -1
  penalty on their next Reaction roll related to the meme.
  A Complex meme communicates a philosophy. It can make
  someone spend up to 5% of their cost of living on a regular
  basis for as long as it is held, or double that if the spending is
  actually on a necessity such as food or shelter. No single
  memetic campaign will make someone spend more than this.
  Individuals can have an Expert Skill regarding a given
  Complex meme, whether or not they have adopted it, and they
  might take a quirk (or even, possibly, a perk) to reflect adop-
  tion of such a meme.
  No matter how complicated, a single meme will not, for
  instance, cause a character to suffer Fright Checks at a penalty
  or induce permanent full-scale mental disadvantages (even at
  the -5 point level or less) or permanent Reaction modifiers.
  These sorts of alterations generally require a series of memetic
  campaigns to radically reconstruct the targets’ worldview.
  Memetics has its limits.
  MEME DETECTION
  Before a meme can be analyzed, it must be detected. A
  meme’s Rating is the percentage of the target population that
  is exposed to the meme – in other words, the size of the
  memetic campaign. Its Penetration is the percentage of the
  memetic campaign that adopts it. The higher the Rating, the
  easier it is to detect a meme. The higher the Penetration, the
  harder it is to resist. Everyone who is exposed to a meme is at
  risk for accepting it.
  Rather than rolling Current Affairs or Connoisseur
  (Changing Times, p. 47) to detect a particular meme, investi-
  gators can roll against a variety of skills according to the
  related media they review (see Buying Media Time, p. 34). The
  roll is modified by the meme’s current Rating; see the Meme
  Rating Table (p. 34).
  On a successful roll, a meme is detected. The meme may be
  analyzed as described in Changing Times and Toxic Memes;
  use the times on p. 117 of Toxic Memes (not Time Taken
  Modifiers, p. 128).
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  33
  JANUARY 2010
  BIG MEDIA
  MEMETICS
  BY GRANT DAVIS
  Great sources of “old-school” conspiracy weirdness are Ken Hite’s two Suppressed Transmission volumes.
  
  Meme Rating Table
  MEDIA CONSUMPTION
  Consuming the vast amount of media in the world of 2100
  takes time. If a non-AI individual wants to scan a large amount
  of media, he must either spend time according to skill level or
  accept a lower effective skill.
  Effective skill level is at -2 if doing something else at the
  same time.
  Sigmas and other biologicals with Enhanced Time Sense
  can peruse media four times faster. AIs can review a much
  larger quantity of media, effectively ignoring these rules. Only
  SAIs can try to detect new memes; NAIs and LAIs can only fil-
  ter out known memes. Skill set programs cannot be used for
  this due to the inherent time lag.
  POPULATION ANALYSIS
  Use the times under Population Analysis in Changing Times
  (p. 47). Also, the reference “results as for Artifact Analysis” needs
  to be clarified. On a successful roll, the memeticist learns the
  meme’s Rating and Penetration rounded to the nearest 5%. On
  a second successful roll, he can track those numbers back in
  time to learn when the meme arose and how quickly it spread,
  though he cannot trace a meme back to a single person; nor-
  mally, the trace goes back to the first big media buy (see below).
  MEME DESIGN
  Meme design starts with the New Inventions rules in the
  Basic Set (pp. B473-474); in this case, the “invention skill” is
  Propaganda. The memeticist uses the modifiers for the concept
  phase (as specified here) but the time required in the prototype
  phase (unless using a template; see below). A Simple meme
  counts as a Simple invention, a Medium meme is an Average
  one, and a Complex meme is Complex. (An Amazing invention
  has no counterpart meme.) Additionally, for Complex memes,
  the memeticist must spend 1 character point for an Expert
  Skill in the meme, becoming the world’s leading expert on it.
  Everyone who remembers analyzing any synthetic meme
  gets +5 for having a working model. Someone who knows
  that memetics is a real science but has no memes to work
  from (or has had such memories wiped), only gets a +2. Most
  of the time, the designer also will be eligible for +1 to +5 for
  having similar memes in he library (GM discretion, but see
  Countermemetics, p. 36). He can get this bonus without actu-
  ally using a meme template (Toxic Memes, p. 118). There is
  no cost for a prototype, and there are no bugs to test for (but
  see Pre-2100 Memetics, p. 36).
  Apply payload modifiers, but do not apply modifiers for time
  taken, complexity, durability, infectiousness, or other modifiers
  under Memetic Engineering Tables (Toxic Memes, p. 128). The
  memeticist may choose to apply modifiers under Reliable
  Sources (Toxic Memes, pp. 118-119).
  Memes may be built on templates, which reduces design
  time. Simple memes can be constructed from a template in
  one hour. Medium memes take one day with a template.
  Complex memes cannot be constructed from templates.
  The margin of success is the meme’s Penetration. Using a
  template limits Penetration to 3. As noted in Population
  Analysis (above), memetic software can estimate Penetration
  to the nearest 5%. This is automatic for a meme just con-
  structed; after all, the player knows what he rolled.
  VECTOR DESIGN
  Again, use the New Inventions rules to create a tailored vec-
  tor (see Toxic Memes, p. 118, for general ideas) for delivering
  the meme. The skill depends on the medium: Public Speaking,
  Writing, Group Performance (Directing), Acting, or Artist. All
  vectors are Average inventions. They require both Concept and
  Prototype rolls, but have no cost. Delivering a meme con-
  structed by someone else rolls at -2 (this applies if anyone helps
  with the prototype). Grafting a meme onto existing content is at
  -2, but takes only one hour. The going rate for a fresh vector,
  ready to use with no rolls required, is $1,000. No testing is
  required as long as the Concept and Prototype rolls are success-
  ful. (On a critical success, the vector and its meme are a hit; see
  Hitmakers, p. 35.) The GM may offer to skip the Concept roll if
  the players actually play out the creative process of coming up
  with a new vector.
  BUYING MEDIA TIME
  The cost of the memetic campaign is $0.10 per person per
  day, with a minimum of 10,000 people. Cost is further modi-
  fied by the target country’s Wealth level and by the number of
  days the meme designer wants the campaign to run. For this
  price, you can reach people within a day for a Simple meme.
  More complex memes require longer campaigns: 1d days for
  Medium memes and 3d days for Complex memes. (This roll is
  made after the memeticist buys campaign time.)
  Campaigns are bought according to their Rating. The min-
  imum Rating is 1 and the maximum is 100.
  Different media have different audience sizes. The Audience
  Table (p. 35) shows some sample audiences, grouped by the
  skill used to detect memes (see Meme Detection, pp. 33-34).
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  34
  JANUARY 2010
  Make a track of a catchy nondescript song repeating, fading in from silent to full volume over 80 minutes. Burn to a CD.
  Rating
  Modifier
  100
  +10
  99
  +7
  96-98
  +6
  92-95
  +5
  85-91
  +4
  75-84
  +3
  64-74
  +2
  51-63
  +1
  Rating
  Modifier
  39-50
  0
  26-38
  -1
  17-25
  -2
  10-16
  -3
  6-9
  -4
  3-5
  -5
  2
  -6
  1
  -7
  Skill
  Hours/Week
  10
  0.5
  11
  1
  12
  1.5
  13
  2
  14
  3
  15
  4
  Skill
  Hours/Week
  16
  6
  17
  8
  18
  12
  19
  16
  20
  24
  
  Audience Table
  Skill
  People per Rating
  Cost per
  per Penetration
  Rating
  Area Knowledge (specify)*
  1,000
  $10,000
  Current Affairs
  100,000
  $1 million
  Connoisseur (Dance)
  10,000
  $100,000
  Connoisseur (Literature)
  50,000
  $500,000
  Connoisseur (Music)
  500,000
  $5 million
  Connoisseur (Visual Arts)
  200,000
  $2 million
  Connoisseur (Wine)
  1,000
  $10,000
  Diagnosis
  2,000
  $20,000
  Expert Skill (Computer Security)
  2,000
  $20,000
  Expert Skill (Conspiracy Theory)
  200
  $2,000
  Expert Skill (Memetics)
  500
  $5,000
  Expert Skill (Political Science)
  5,000
  $50,000
  Expert Skill (other)
  100
  $1,000
  Law (regional field)
  500
  $5,000
  Law (other)
  100
  $1,000
  *The most common vector is augmented reality.
  For any other vector the GM comes up with, divide the
  group’s population by 100 to find people per rating. Again, the
  cost is $0.10 per person. Minimum cost is $1,000 per rating.
  NUMBER OF
  PEOPLE AFFECTED
  Once the campaign is purchased, calculate the number of
  people affected. Look up the number in the second column of
  the Audience Table (above), multiply by Rating, and then mul-
  tiply by Penetration. The GM may increase or reduce the num-
  ber of people affected according to how well the meme fits, as
  per Memetic Resistance (Toxic Memes, p. 120):
  Condition
  Factor
  Wealthy country
  0.5
  Good fit
  2
  Poor fit
  0.5
  Very bad fit
  0.01
  Many contradictory memes
  0.6
  Many reinforcing memes
  1.5
  INDIVIDUAL RESISTANCE
  There is no group Will to resist memes. When someone is
  exposed to a meme, he must make a personal Will roll to resist
  it, modified by Penetration (see Meme Design, p. 34):
  If the meme causes a Fright Check, then this roll also serves
  as the Fright Check but is not limited to 13 (p. B360). When
  trying to affect a reputation network (Toxic Memes, p. 15), each
  10 people carrying the meme who are on the network is worth
  plus or minus 1 point (not +/-1 Reaction) from one reputation.
  MEME DECAY
  After the end of the media campaign, memes go through
  decay cycles. The cycle lasts one day for Simple memes, 2d
  days for Medium and 4d days for Complex memes. At the
  beginning of each cycle, the Penetration is halved (round
  down) unless the campaign is repeated, in which case it only
  falls by 10% (round up). The GM determines the number of
  people who adopt the meme in the long run, based upon how
  well the meme fits in with their overall values and beliefs. An
  individual rolls every cycle to drop the meme. Decay cycles
  continue until Penetration reaches zero.
  HITMAKERS
  When the GM rolls a critical success on the vector
  Prototype roll (see Vector Design, p. 34), the vector is a hit and
  will spread. Rather than decaying at the end of the cycle, make
  another Prototype roll. On a success, the Rating doubles, dou-
  bling the number of people who carry the meme. Roll again at
  the end of each cycle, doubling each time until a roll fails or
  the Rating reaches 100. When that happens, decay begins at
  the start of the next cycle.
  On another critical success, the meme may jump to another
  vector. In addition to doubling its current Rating, the GM picks
  another vector and calculates a new Rating with the same
  number of fans. Then the meme spreads along both vectors
  each cycle. Use the same Prototype roll for each vector rather
  than rolling twice.
  EXAMPLE
  Dorothy has discovered that Cassandra has ordered a peach
  dress to wear to prom night, one month from now. Dorothy
  decides to construct a meme to ruin Cassandra’s prom night
  and improve her own. This will be a Medium meme, an
  Average invention. Dorothy, a memetic prodigy, just barely has
  the Propaganda skill of 15 to attempt this invention.
  First, she designs the meme. Dorothy conceives of a meme
  that makes people associate the color peach with emergent
  intelligences. She also wants the other students to associate
  her own genetic template with success and popularity. Many
  working models of memes are available to study for this effort.
  The GM decides that trying to popularize one’s genetic tem-
  plate happens all the time, but associating a color with EIs is
  unusual. He does not award a bonus for being a variant on an
  existing invention. Dorothy could add her Reputation bonus,
  but she doesn’t want to be identified and, anyway, her
  Reputation isn’t so positive at the moment. She cannot afford
  to take the -3 to make it appear spontaneous (Toxic Memes,
  p. 119). Her skill roll is 15 for Propaganda, -10 for an Average
  invention, -1 for two memes at once, +5 for having a working
  model, for a total of 9. Luckily, she rolls a 5 for a Penetration
  of 4. Her memetic software estimates a penetration of 5%. This
  effort takes 2d days; Dorothy rolls an 8, for eight man-days.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  35
  JANUARY 2010
  Play the CD on a (hidden) player. When folks finally notice the song, have them roll to see if their PCs succumb to a meme.
  Penetration
  Will
  Modifier
  10 or more
  +3
  6-9
  +4
  3-5
  +5
  Penetration
  Will
  Modifier
  2
  +6
  1
  +7
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  36
  JANUARY 2010
  Next, Dorothy constructs the vector. She creates a photoreal-
  istic machanima about an emergent intelligence that appears
  in a nice, quiet neighborhood and terrorizes a girl of Dorothy’s
  genetic template. This time she rolls her Writing skill of 12,
  modified by -10 for an Average invention, +5 for an existing
  invention, and +5 for having many copies to work from, for a
  total of 12. She rolls an 8 for Concept, then the GM rolls a 12
  for Prototype. The GM wants another roll for Electronics
  Operation (Media), and one of the other players pipes up that
  his PC has a skill of 14. The GM lets him roll with no penalty
  even though he is working from someone else’s script, so that
  the players can share the spotlight.
  Now she buys the media time. The target audience can be
  reached through content localized for Dorothy’s exurb, with
  a
  population
  of
  500,000.
  The
  relevant
  skill
  is
  Area
  Knowledge. Dividing by 100 gives 5,000 people per Rating. At
  $0.10 per person, each Rating costs $5,000 ¥ $0.10 = $500,
  raised to the minimum of $1,000. For the Wealthy country
  she lives in, the cost is multiplied by 5, for $5,000. Dorothy
  buys time on a video site with a 5 Rating. That’s $5,000 ¥ 5 =
  $25,000 for a one-day spot.
  Now for timing the campaign. The meme will need at least
  1d days to take hold. Don’t worry about thinking in game
  terms; the designer is advised in roughly the same fashion by
  his memetic software. Dorothy decides on a five-day campaign
  that ends on prom night. The campaign will cost 5 ¥ $25,000 =
  $125,000. Dorothy is apparently willing to spend a lot to make
  this work.
  The player rolls a 1 when determining the minimum
  memetic campaign time; the meme takes hold after one day.
  (If the player rolls a 6, then the campaign doesn’t last long
  enough for the meme to be accepted.) It reaches 5 ¥ 5,000 =
  25,000 people; of those, 25,000 ¥ 4% = 1,000 people in town
  adopt the memes. This is a Wealthy country (¥0.5), but the
  GM rules that the meme is a good fit (¥2). Cassandra (or any
  given person at school) would need to roll Area Knowledge
  each day at -5 to notice the vector. If she detects the meme,
  she must roll Will+5 to avoid picking it up (which would
  change her plans).
  If the Will roll succeeds, then Cassandra may roll Expert
  Skill (Memetics) to analyze the meme. With a critical success,
  she discovers the meme bears a strong resemblance to the
  homework shared once by her classmate, Dorothy. “That
  wench!” Cassandra screams as she begins to plot her revenge.
  The first decay cycle starts the day after the prom and lasts
  for 2d days. The roll is a 4. Penetration falls from 4 to 2, and
  500 people carry the meme for four days after the event.
  Overall, the meme has a very small chance of making a differ-
  ence on prom night.
  COUNTERMEMETICS
  A countermeme’s Complexity must be equal to the
  Complexity of the original meme. The invention rolls are auto-
  matically at +5 for having an existing meme to work from and
  +5 for being a variant of that meme. The countermeme must
  be delivered in the same kind of vector. Divide the usual mini-
  mum length of the campaign by 2, rounding up. The number
  of people affected by the countermeme is subtracted directly
  from the ones who do carry it. Presumably, they are the ones
  most susceptible to it. Ignore the decay; only track the popula-
  tion carrying the original meme.
  THE BULLY PULPIT
  High-Status individuals have the ability to conduct
  memetic campaigns for free. They can communicate one
  Simple meme per month, one Medium meme per four months,
  or one Complex meme per year. This varies by how much they
  manage to stay “in the news,” at GM discretion.
  The presenter rolls Public Speaking to deliver the message.
  Modifiers are as follows:
  Meme constructed by someone else: -2.
  Reputation, Social Stigma, Voice and Charisma: Equal to the
  reaction bonus, as long as they are known to the public.
  Appearance: Take the reaction bonus for people of the oppo-
  site gender. For example, a Beautiful speaker gets a +4.
  Status does not give a bonus; it determines the number of
  people reached.
  The applicable skill for detection is at GM discretion:
  Current Affairs (Popular Culture) for global celebrities,
  Current Affairs (Politics) for public officials, an Expert Skill for
  a renowned scholar, or Area Knowledge for a local celebrity.
  The number of people reached is as follows:
  Multiply the population by Penetration and divide by 100 to
  find the number of people affected.
  Status gained through Wealthy does not confer this ability,
  but if a character has Status from other sources, then most of
  the people reached will be similarly rich. Status gained through
  Filthy Rich or Multimillionaire does confer this ability.
  PRE-2100 MEMETICS
  These rules are adaptable to campaigns not based in
  Transhuman Space. One important difference is that without
  memetic analysis software, there is no way to estimate the suc-
  cess of a meme until it is released into the population. At TL8, a
  propagandist can spend the money listed under Cost on p. B474
  in order to conduct focus-group testing. Use the Testing and Bugs
  rules (p. B474) to determine whether the meme needs to be
  adjusted. At lower TLs, there is no way to find bugs, so any
  major bug causes the meme to fail. This would also apply to any-
  one not using software to construct a meme.
  Hitmakers (p. 35) can be used to judge the success of a work
  of art whether it carries a meme or not.
  The Bully Pulpit (above) has always been available, though
  the number of people affected should be reduced according to
  the planet’s smaller population and a slower progression of the
  cost of living in the Basic Set.
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Grant has a master’s degree in computer science and is cur-
  rently working on guidance software for NASA’s new manned
  spacecraft. He commutes from the city to the suburbs every
  day to work. His interests are gaming, economics, and media.
  He lives in Houston, Texas, with a good woman who just can’t
  get enough of Underworld: Evolution.
  Status
  People Reached
  1
  10,000
  2
  50,000
  3
  200,000
  4
  1 million
  Status
  People Reached
  5
  10 million
  6
  100 million
  7
  1 billion
  8
  10 billion
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  37
  JANUARY 2010
  In most fictional worlds, we are given a viewpoint – a lens
  with which we’re exposed to the setting. Almost always, these
  lenses are forged via the protagonists and our reactions to
  their plights.
  To pick a recent cinematic example, Avatar – a movie that
  was required viewing by the U.N.’s elite December Viewing
  Task Force – shows us an amazingly realized world through
  the eyes of a noble Earth soldier, his noble Earth scientist
  allies, his less-than-noble Earth solider associates, and the
  noble alien Na’vi our protagonist ends up allying with.
  Were we to devise a hypothetical roleplaying campaign
  based on the Avatar setting, we would almost be forced to form
  the basis for adventure around the conflict between Earth
  forces and the Na’vi. As it stands, there’s almost nothing else
  we can hang our hat on, adventure-wise.
  Such limited focus isn’t a bad thing; it can lead to great gam-
  ing possibilities. For example, the original Star Wars trilogy
  summed up the core of its conflict as the struggle between Rebel
  and Imperial forces; while an infinite galaxy may be out there,
  we don’t really care. (Did anyone come out of the theater in 1977
  saying to their friends, “That was an intriguing movie, but do
  you know where the real interesting possibilities lie? Moisture
  farming. I want to pretend I’m a moisture farmer!”)
  However, the problem with universes defined in this way
  comes when attempting to tell a story that doesn’t relate to that
  central conflict. The second Star Wars trilogy, for example,
  always feels like a bit of a muddled mess. At the end of Attack
  of the Clones, is the activation of the clone army to fight against
  the battle droid forces something we’re supposed to be happy
  about as an audience? Sad? Resolved indifference?
  REALMS OF ROLEPLAYING
  The majority of roleplaying universes take this same
  approach – they envision what role the heroes are expected
  to take in the setting, and build the universe around that
  ideal. Shadowrun? The heroes are ’runners, fighting against
  corporations. In Nomine? The protagonists are on one of two
  sides of the War pitting angels against demons. Dungeons &
  Dragons? The party is expected to go into dungeons, temples,
  and towers to engage enemies in martial combat. Werewolf?
  The players get to pretend they’re Jack Nicholson.
  Even the granddaddy of space games – Traveller – started
  with the premise that the heroes would be roaming the stars as
  part of a ship’s crew, in a Star Trek-ian tradition. Sure, there’s
  the potential for unlimited adventures at any one of the worlds
  the PCs might set foot on, but why linger when there’s a bigger
  galaxy out there, waiting to be traipsed across?
  But Transhuman Space is different. It doesn’t assume any
  defined roles for the heroes; in fact, it goes out of its way to
  avoid doing so. Rather, it attempts to create a universe suitable
  for myriad adventures. Of course, this is both good and bad –
  good in that it presents unlimited possibilities, but bad in that
  it’s hard to get a handle on.
  How can you tackle a setting like Transhuman Space,
  then? (This applies to other big settings, too.)
  READ THE EPILOGUE FIRST
  Transhuman Space has some supplements of ready-to-use
  structures that can be applied to the larger setting. Curiously,
  they’re all written by Phil Masters (see p. 11). Personnel Files
  2, 3, 4, and 5 each present a group of heroes suitable to base
  adventures on. Even better, they include the campaign frame-
  work those heroes are expected to participate in.
  If you have one of those books (or more!), try the following
  as a thought experiment: Read the core book as if it were a sup-
  plement for that book. So, for example, Personnel Files 5 –
  School Days 2100 details a campaign from the point of view
  of a bunch of plucky kids, attending school in the flesh (!), get-
  ting into adventures in the free city of Königsberg-Kaliningrad.
  Now, read the core book – or any of the other supplements – as
  if it existed solely as detailing “the world of School Days
  2100.” Doing so may well turn up two things for you:
  RANDOM
  THOUGHT TABLE
  SPACE IS A TIME AND A PLACE
  BY STEVEN MARSH, PYRAMID EDITOR
  When in doubt, be a good-hearted smuggler. No matter the setting, there will always be good-hearted smugglers.
  
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  38
  JANUARY 2010
  • It’ll give you new insights into the setting via that lens.
  For example, reading Toxic Memes as if it were a supplement
  for School Days 2100 might offer a fresh look into challenges
  and opportunities the kids might encounter in the field of
  memetics. What cults would prove appealing to these impres-
  sionable minds? Which “urban legends” would students be
  most likely to be exposed to or investigate?
  • It’ll provide ideas about what elements probably aren’t
  important to that campaign; knowing what to stop thinking
  about is almost as useful as trying to wrap your mind around
  the rest of the setting. Assuming the children aren’t planning
  on going off-world on a very long field trip, is most of the infor-
  mation about the outer planets and their intrigues from Deep
  Beyond relevant? If not, feel free to discard it . . . or, at the very
  least, keep it on a very low back burner. (Of course, if you do
  read them with fresh eyes, you might surprise yourself:
  “Maybe the school could be visited by a guest speaker who’s
  actually visited Europa!”)
  Of course, you don’t need to approach this thought exercise
  solely using published material; you can easily pretend a cam-
  paign that you’ve designed has been “published,” and re-read
  existing material in that vein.
  YOUR CAMPAIGN
  DOESN’T NEED TO BE
  ONE WITH EVERYTHING
  Perhaps the biggest piece of advice I can offer regarding a
  Transhuman Space campaign (or, indeed, any huge setting)
  is: The gaming group doesn’t need to see everything there is to
  offer. In fact, it will be a tighter, more focused campaign if the
  heroes can’t see everything; it leaves an excuse to play new
  characters and new campaigns in that setting.
  This flies in the face of a lot of inborn urges for gamers. I
  suspect part of it arises out of a need to get some use out of all
  those beautiful books on the shelf, especially for larger set-
  tings. If I’m running a World of Darkness game and they sud-
  denly release a sourcebook about curse-slinging mothmen, the
  odds are good that I’ll be introducing curse-slinging mothmen
  into this campaign. This tendency led to the long-running Dark
  Ages campaign to resemble nothing so much as a darkness-
  tinged Super Friends, with vampires, werewolves, mages, and
  faeries running around together. We had fun, but we also rec-
  ognized we were straying off the beaten path.
  In the case of Transhuman Space, such cross-pollination is
  good, to a certain extent; the setting is such that running into
  xoxes, cat-people, and cults are all possibilities for certain
  folks. But it’s an unusual to have one adventure that centers
  around xoxes, cat-people, and cults all at the same time. It’s not
  impossible – as I typed that my brain subconsciously started
  trying to make those elements work together – but it can make
  things more challenging.
  From a gaming point of view – especially in the early days of
  a complex setting – it’s often helpful to keep the number of
  strange elements in the spotlight to a minimum. As a good
  example, consider the X-Files television show. Many shows in
  the early seasons introduced elements that would become part
  of the series’ mythology, but almost no early episodes introduced
  more than one element at a time. Compare the last episodes
  with the early seasons; if that level of mythology-speak had been
  used earlier, no one would have kept tuning in.
  It’s the same with a complex RPG. In the early days of a
  Transhuman Space campaign, where everyone is finding their
  footing, have an adventure center around a renegade xox. Have
  another that focuses on an interesting cult. Perhaps most
  important, if you can’t ever work in a Felicia-model bioroid in
  an organic fashion, don’t worry about it!
  A TRAVELOGUE
  IS NOT A SCRIPT
  Our parting advice is in the form of analogy.
  If I were running a Wild West campaign, you bet I’d throw
  in every Wild West cliché I could conceive of: shootouts at high
  noon, noble newsletter reporters, bartenders diving behind
  bars – the works.
  This is because Wild West is a genre, and I recognize that I
  might not get another shot at running a Wild West campaign –
  so I’d better pull out all the stops to make this one good!
  Now, realize that the Wild West genre existed at the same
  time as the Victorian era. Although I could introduce
  Victorian elements into my Wild West campaign, I’d have to
  do so very carefully. My Wild West campaign is going to get
  very strange very quickly if I add Victorian-era occultism . . .
  and H.G. Wells’ science . . . and Sherlock Holmes. Because
  1895 is a year, not a genre.
  In a similar vein, if I tell players I want to have a campaign
  in the style of “a New York City movie,” that’s going to get me
  some strange looks. Does that mean Serpico? Ghostbusters?
  Annie Hall? The Godfather? The Muppets Take Manhattan?
  Again, “New York City” isn’t a genre; it’s a place.
  It’s the same way with Transhuman Space. It’s a year
  (2100, to be exact) and a place (the entire solar system).
  Although there are genre elements to it, it is not a genre unto
  itself. Being selective about what elements you introduce – and
  which ones exist solely in the background – will help the set-
  ting be more alive than if you took an exhaustive approach and
  tried to put in everything and the kitchen sink.
  As a final mental exercise, consider how many amazing
  wonders exist in your world that will almost certainly never
  have any direct impact on your life: The Mars rovers. The
  Large Hadron Collider. The Hubble Space Telescope. The
  International Space Station.
  The world of Transhuman Space is similar, only more so.
  Not allowing the campaign to be distracted by the millions of
  amazing wonders it presents will make those elements that
  you do focus on all the more special.
  ABOUT THE EDITOR
  Steven Marsh is a freelance writer and editor. He has con-
  tributed to roleplaying game releases from Green Ronin, West
  End Games, White Wolf, Hogshead Publishing, and others. He
  has been editing Pyramid for over nine years; during that time
  he has won four Origins awards. He lives in Indiana with his
  wife, Nikola Vrtis, and their son Sam!, who is a little force of
  nature entirely worthy of his exclamation mark.
  
  THE VALLEY OF THE BLIND
  This is an adventure idea for gamers comfortable with
  challenging situations and familiar with the Transhuman
  Space setting.
  The heroes awaken to discover that they’re blind – or it’s pitch
  black. They have no idea where they are or how they got there.
  Unknown to them, the PCs were knocked out and injected with
  a long-term (one-day) nanodrug that instills Blindness. (See
  Nanodrugs in Changing Times, p. 65, for ideas and rules.) They
  still have all their gear, computers, implants, etc. – the only items
  that don’t work are those that require vision. Are they able to
  function? How much – or little – of the world of tomorrow is
  impacted by being cut off from primary sensory input?
  If using this idea, the GM and players should put as much
  effort as possible into describing the setting and their interac-
  tions without using sight-based cues . . . unless, of course, they
  can think of a way to receive visual input without working eyes!
  As a resolution or twist, if the heroes are agents or others
  employed to do the bidding of an ally; maybe their employer is
  there with them as well – also blind. Except, of course, that he’s
  not really blind; this whole scenario is his way of testing the
  heroes – or, perhaps, attempting to get them to do something
  they would otherwise be unwilling to do. Or – as a final twist –
  he’s actually protecting the heroes from something . . . say, an
  exceptionally powerful memetic campaign that spreads visually,
  and even talking about it (to warn the heroes) is dangerous.
  PYRAMID MAGAZINE
  39
  JANUARY 2010
  BY GREG HYLAND
  ODDS AND ENDS
  If I Could
  Keep Time
  in a Bottle . . .
  This is a quiet “downtime” adventure possibility –
  especially suitable for lower-key campaigns such as the
  one presented in Personnel Files 5: School Days.
  The heroes are put in charge of creating a time cap-
  sule, not to be opened for 100 years. (Decide on how
  big this capsule is – having an actual prop-box of that
  size is a great touch!) They get to decide what items
  best represent the era, the region, and the sponsors of
  the project. (They would probably be encouraged to
  include items with the best chance of still being usable;
  mechanical devices that rely on specific interfaces or
  technologies might be frowned upon.)
  Of course, it might occur to the heroes that there’s
  no reason one of them couldn’t still be around to open
  the box in a century . . .
  You wouldn’t worry so
  much about what others
  think of you if you realized
  how seldom they do.
  – Eleanor Roosevelt
  
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/GURPS [multi]/SETTING/Transhuman Space/Transhuman Space - Pyramid 3-15 [GURPS].pdf