Artilects 2.0 netbook

[Sho-sa Kurita]

Hey all, everyone remembers qerlin's Artificial Lifeforms right? Well, I contacted him and got an updated version so I could do a nice netbook layout. Version 2.0 is called Artilects (ARTIficial intelLECTs). With his permission, I've made both editorial and authorial changes (What can I say? No two gamers do the same thing the same way.) and now you can download either or both his or mine from my website.

Harmful Diversoins - Star Trek RPG page

Hope y'all like it, and I definitely welcome feedback. Where did either of us go wrong (or right). Got any additions?

[Tobian]

Very nice work there, I like what you've done with the layout and artwork on your version - Very nice.

A couple of suggestions / ammendments.

Holographic life forms are obviously immune to any kind of weaponry.. well they are NEARLY immune, they still have their emmitters to worry about!

Portable emmitter:... In the Case of the EMH From Voyager's emmitter, it was extremelly small, so it would have a bonus to be hit possibly +4 or more. However how I would designate the hitpoints would be.. It would have a normal 6 banks of hit points - 5 banks for the hologram and 1 for the emmitter . If a phaser or other electromagnetic weapon was fired at the holocharacter then their hologram would be disrupted.. lose enough 'wounds' and the integrity of the containment field and the hologram would fail.. requiring a repair to be made to the emmitter, which otherwise wasn't harmed (similar to the healing skill to reflect how much damage had been done).. If the emmitter was targeted (defence + size modifier) then the 'wounds' would be taken off this.. However, especially in the case of the 29th century technology emmitter, built from futuristic alloys, wouldn't result in destruction, but instead taking the hologram offline. However in the case of extreme damage (Phaser setting 12 or above) then yes it would be melted! Depending on how much dammage it sustained could determine if the hologramme's matrix was lost.. I'd need to work out a method for doing that.

Portable Emmitter Upgrade: In the case of the EMH he emmitter was limited to being an external unit, however it could be possible to have an internal unit which would also make it extremelly hard to hit (+10 TN) as it could move about randomly inside the body. (this could be negated by a phaser on wide setting or in the case of a area effect). This could be an upgrade to the above 'portable emmitter' edge.

Bonus Flaw: Injury simulation: In the case of the Hologrammes which were created by the Hirogen, they were designed to not only suffer wounds as a species of their type would, but they would also react exactly as they should to those wounds, such as suffering pain (injury penalties) and will likewise suffer from fatigue and even diseases and illnesses. The Damage they take however is entirelly simulated, and they can be brught back from 'death', though they are in a helpless state while they are so. Damage sustained in this way can be repaied by anyone who can access their matrix (computer use TN: 10) or will actually respond to medical treatment, real or simulated on a holodeck, as it would in real life.

Note: This can be temporarily applied to a holograme within a simulation, or may happen as a result of a failure in the holodeck safety protocols, in the event a sentient hologramme being on the holodeck (and not wearing a mobile emmitter at the time) during the time of the failure.

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by Tobian
Portable emmitter:... In the Case of the EMH From Voyager's emmitter, it was extremelly small, so it would have a bonus to be it possibly +4 or more.

Definiteoly more. Considering the modifier for a called shot to the head is +12...

[Tobian]

Hehe Sounds cool.. I will probably trump for that, I was thinking more of the size modifier, but yes, in all seriousness it would be a VERY hard target number.. though of course in the show you can so much as knock it with your elbow and he goes offline I suspect that the martial combat modifier should be lower than an equivalent ranged combat modifier, because i would rule it's easier to hit someone physically than using an energy weapon.. Ranged weapons with auto targeting facilities would have that figured in to their respective bonuses to counter that anyway.

Of course it would be, to my mind, quite difficult to come by any more 29th century technology emmitters, when during the whole show (past future's end) they failed to replicate it!

[Sho-sa Kurita]

Tobian, you hit on two of the very things I was pondering already!

As for the portable emitter, I definitely want to find a good balance between basically eliminating the Limited Mobility handicap and the risk involved in doing so. You could say it should be handled through the story, but when it comes to that kind of balace, you can only leave so much in the hands of the players and narrator

Aside from the partially artificial (read: Borg-like), can anyone think of other forms of artificial life that can't be simulated by qerlin's work?

[Tobian]

Possibly a small bolt on for this would be the Exocomps..

They have a small size, but the high inteligence. They use antigravity drive systems (No penalty when operating in 0 G) and they have a replicator multitool.

Replicator multitool(edge): Added to to the Exocomp this is a tiny replicator which allows the exocomp (or other robot) to simulate any needed tool. This can be drawn from it's database of suitable and similar tools (Relevant knowledge TN: 10) or simulated based on an assesment of the situation (Relevant knowledge TN: 15 - 20). These tools however have a limited durability and cannot simulate super heavy alloys or high energy functionality. The exocomps still has to analyse the situation to determine the neccessary tool as an engineer would (though benifiting from it's programmed huge databases of knowledge!)

Other bonus edges I can come up with..

Built in Tricorder(edge): The artificial life form has embedded sensor technology equivalent to it's place of origin (+5 for standard 24th century Federation etc). This aids it in exactly the same manner as a Tricorder, increasing it's effective range of vision and giving it geological, life form and energy readings over a large range. This tricorder is adverselly affected by the same anomalies as a normal tricorder would, so some forms of magnesite ore and thorion radiation may render it inefective.

Electromagnetic vulnerability(flaw): While the cultures who build artificial inteligences often make them with an huge ammount of sophistication, sometimes they can be highly vulnerable to electromagnetic (or other) radiation, either because they lack the sufficient shielding against it or they have vulnerable points, such as auditory and optical sensors. under certain conditions (described in the flaw at chosing) the artificial life form either becomes inoperative or loses external senses (becoming blind and deaf). Examples of this could be: High magnetic flux; Verteron radiation; Photonic radiation; electroplasma discharges (such as a phaser) etc.

There's also nanite based life forms, which i'm gonna have a think up on also.

[IceGiant]

Nice stuff you two. Qerlin needs a knoogie though, he still forgot Mudd planet androids, even after I posted my npc one a while ago.

[Sho-sa Kurita]

Exocomps. Hmmm. Those little buggers present me with a sticky wicket.

View 1: I think their presentation as creatures was OK. We don't really know how differently individual exocomps would develop, so creature status might be fine.

View 2: They might also be represented as a second species of sentient computer, without Limited Mobility. Of course, you have to add the multi-tool and Small size, partial self-healing capability, and sensors.

View 3: They (and other Trek 'robots' like Nomad) present a case for the development of mecha rules (which might encompass the starship and vehicle rules). Mecha wouldn't normally be intelligent, but could either gain sentience or have a sentient computer installed.

Nanites. Well that's tricky. The more there are, the more powerful they become. There are a few examples of 'distributed' lifeforms - the Denevan neural parasites, the microbrains in the sand on Valera III, and of course Wesley's nanites. The Denevans were rightly treated as creatures. The others I feel should probably be handled more as story elements (like the Q). It's not like you could actually play a microbrain in any meaningful way.

I guess it would be possible to establish relations with a group, then maybe you could set up a habitat with a nutrient feed for them (maybe even make it mobile - hey, more mecha!). My view is that things are getting too messy/complicated at that point!

But I'd still be interested in seeing something

[Sho-sa Kurita]

Oh! Here's an idea. The presence of nanites could be the actual intelligence of a starship. They also give it self-repair capability. Now that I could like. They would be a crew-member, and be required to follow orders, but what about when they don't?

[Tobian]

Personally while they might list exocomps as 'creatures' it was noted in that episode they had almost as sophisticated a brain as Data. Technically speaking there would be nothing stopping an Exocomp from fitting it's self with a holographic matrix or building it's self an android body.. in which case it would exchange it's edges and flaws ballance.. I guess that's a Gm call really, rather than a rule mechanic.

While I wouldn't allow it myself (unless they used a convincing argument) it is possible to play a microbrain. They are quite inteligent and can manipulate energy systsems and the ships computer to a highly articulated degree. Regardless it would be useful to have some quick and ready rules should you want to pit your players against one. Couple a mincrobrain to a replicator and you have a whole mess of fun!

They did a nice description of nanites in the Stargate worlds book which could work quite nicelly within the startrek.. basically the nanites have a distributed inteligence.. the more of them there are the more inteligent they are.. Basically you would have a base number for the base unit (0 for the neural parasites, but maybe 4 for wesleys nanites) - and then have a munltiplier value (which is rather arbitrary because it's a GM call) such as or every thousand you add you add a +1 to their inteligence.. up to a maximum value. Also in the worlds book they dealt with the problems of having a distributed inteligence over a certain amount.. being that the lag of billions of nanites all trying to communicate with each other, even if it was highly regulated and node centric, would result in a great deal of schitzophrenia, because one node might not immediatelly know what the other part is doing! So effectivelly you would have an inteligence cap, and once that was surpassed it would start suffering from lag from one set of nodes to another.. complex!

Nomad type devices or even Vger to a certain extent would all be covered under artilect rules. In the case of Nomad he would basically have a very similar writeup as the daystrom model.. he can interface directly with computers, but on the down side it would have a flaw that it basically has no arms and legs, so it can't act physically, except to move (and maybe shoot, if it had a phaser built in) because it has antigravity like the exocomps.

With regards to both mecha, Nomad, and Vger, they also have basically starship like qualities, much as Gomtu does, so you could effectivelly build them using starships, and combine the artilect rules with them. Wether you chose to define them as a 'creature' or an 'artilect' or a regular PC class is really entirelly arbitrary, and depends on if you want players to play them or not Gomtu Vger and Nomad are 'creatures' in the sense they can't ever be PC classes really, but they are still artilects non the less V'ger has FAR more knowledge and inteligence than any humanoid, and far more capacity, but it would easilly be described as having the same emotional imaturity as Data (same flaw).. really it's just a HUGE version of Illea