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I wanna address this whole not know what planet you are on. Land Nav is far more than terrain based. It involved the movement of the sun and stars, certain regional conditions (as, what side does moss grow on in this hemisphere) and various other "grounded" features as well. A different planet would, in only the rarest cases, be exactly the same. In fact, skills used in one hemisphere of earth would not work in another. Quite quickly, any one with this skill would figure it out. Also, are there no ruins? If I know that a particular town was to the east, the ocean to the west, and mountains to the North; the kind of thigs you learn driving around town, then these features would be consistent after an apokalypse.

And I'm sorry Carmen, the "too busy to pass on that sort of thing" is not consistent with the reality of human beings, their oral tradition of instruction and historical teachings, and their social dynamic as a conscious being. even in the most severe hardship, we have passed on our culture to our young unless the entirety of the culture was obliterated. That pockets of humans would not know the NAME "Earth" and such is possible, but to not have knowledge of their location is not reasonable. To not have had the elders, saying in front of their kids, things like "We are gonna wipe em from the face of the Earth" or ammit, we were here first" at the very least stretched plausibility. There might be groups with different versions of the story, as happens in oral traditions , social group to social group, but the tale it self persists. Look at Noah's ark and its existence in everything from Greek culture to Pacific Northwest Native groups. The story persists. Yous "too busy" is a weak, and futile, defense of this plot hole.

Third, science. How do the people who are not PCs feed and clothe themselves? If so much plant and animal life is gone, how are the non-PCs with their bio armor and such sustained? How do they keep warm and hydrated? How do they purify and clarify wild water? How do they make fire? Does the wood burn the same color as it did before? Does the charred remains look and smell the same? Does it act the same? Does the soil bear the same insects, rock types and the like?

Has the author considered what effect this has had on treatment of the dead? Humans in such conditions most likely have begun the ancient traditions of recycling the dead through construction of artifacts from their remains and/or the consumption of their flesh and fluids. How, and in what ways is social human culture, let alone the biological human surviving?

This premise is, as I have said before, one of the reasons I am having trouble with this book and have not bought it yet.

I wanna address this whole not know what planet you are on. Land Nav is far more than terrain based. It involved the movement of the sun and stars, certain regional conditions (as, what side does moss grow on in this hemisphere) and various other "grounded" features as well. A different planet would, in only the rarest cases, be exactly the same. In fact, skills used in one hemisphere of earth would not work in another. Quite quickly, any one with this skill would figure it out. Also, are there no ruins? If I know that a particular town was to the east, the ocean to the west, and mountains to the North; the kind of thigs you learn driving around town, then these features would be consistent after an apokalypse.

And I'm sorry Carmen, the "too busy to pass on that sort of thing" is not consistent with the reality of human beings, their oral tradition of instruction and historical teachings, and their social dynamic as a conscious being. even in the most severe hardship, we have passed on our culture to our young unless the entirety of the culture was obliterated. That pockets of humans would not know the NAME "Earth" and such is possible, but to not have knowledge of their location is not reasonable. To not have had the elders, saying in front of their kids, things like "We are gonna wipe em from the face of the Earth" or ammit, we were here first" at the very least stretched plausibility. There might be groups with different versions of the story, as happens in oral traditions , social group to social group, but the tale it self persists. Look at Noah's ark and its existence in everything from Greek culture to Pacific Northwest Native groups. The story persists. Yous "too busy" is a weak, and futile, defense of this plot hole.

Third, science. How do the people who are not PCs feed and clothe themselves? If so much plant and animal life is gone, how are the non-PCs with their bio armor and such sustained? How do they keep warm and hydrated? How do they purify and clarify wild water? How do they make fire? Does the wood burn the same color as it did before? Does the charred remains look and smell the same? Does it act the same? Does the soil bear the same insects, rock types and the like?

Has the author considered what effect this has had on treatment of the dead? Humans in such conditions most likely have begun the ancient traditions of recycling the dead through construction of artifacts from their remains and/or the consumption of their flesh and fluids. How, and in what ways is social human culture, let alone the biological human surviving?

This premise is, as I have said before, one of the reasons I am having trouble with this book and have not bought it yet.

How many moons does the Splicers world have?

I won't go into a list of all the stuff I came up with, but here are a couple before I put up my full review.


1. How the bloody heck is anyone in Splicers supposed to be ignorant of what planet they are on? You talk about the machines changing the continents, etc... etc... but seem to forget about a very simply detail: people can still look up into the sky, and even have a skill called 'astronomy' not to mention Land Navigation and other skills.

[Consider the indigenous peoples on small islands. Didn't you read the part in the book that tells of the machine destroying what are essentially computer discs? So you have astronomy. So what? The people could be on a terraformed Mars.]

No offense, but even with a massive apocolypse, people are still going to know if they are on earth or not. Even ancient men used the stars to navigate, and what was in the sky was perhaps one of the first things that was ever recorded and used for a common point of referance. If people have heard of 'earth' and things like the english language have survived, they are going to know pretty much where they are.

[On a colony world populated by humans from Earth, of course one of the languages could be English. And even if they've heard of Earth, it doesn't mean they are on Earth, only that they came from there.]

Instead of being mysterious about this and saying "hmmm, well it's probably some kind of colony planet" you should have been straightforward. I mean if I look up into the sky and attempt to use "Land Navigation" what am I using? Am I navigating using the existing constellations and the north star, or a totally alien starscape? I'm going to figure this out pretty bloody fast, and even if the characters were ignorant the players are going to know with such a simple question.

[Compared to what? So it's a new starscape or they're on a terraformed Mars. Either way, they can pick new points of reference, just as those living on a far off colony planet would learn to do.]

Assuming it's a colony world, where the heck is the goverment that created the colony? I'm not buying that the Nanite Plague would have travelled through an entire galactic human dystopia because it doesn't work that way. It was pointed out in the 'megeversal' section that Splicers characters visiting other worlds can't spread the plague just by going there. This means that the plague couldn't have been spread.

[The Machine wiped out most of the humans in its first, unsuspected attack. The government and other key figures were the first to go, including the organized military.]

Even with nuclear weapons I'd give the machines maybe a year before a coordinated response blew the living crud out of them.

[???]

If it's earth, things make a bit more sense, but your also looking at a situation where if technology was as high as is implied before the Machines took over that there are probably colonies out there that would be coming back to re-take the homeworld. If people think that Splicers might be a colony world, obviously they have some reason for thinking so which seems to imply that such technology existed.

[You are so heavily focused on this. An independent colony. A self-sustaining colony, the remnants of which are being attacked by an intelligent Machine that can turn off all outside communication, or simply tell outsiders that 'everything is fine' when they request a report. This is an ,in effect, evil intelligence, that will use subtlety and deception along with mass murder to survive and complete its mission.]

All told when I read this I was sitting here going "What?". I was jokingly thinking of splicers as "The first RPG where it's illegal to look into the sky, or actually use your Astronomy skill".

[This a nonsensical remark. You are trying too hard to find fault. And I ask you: Why do you keep buying our books?]

2. Memory discs and such things aside, I can't see books (which are not metal) being totally destroyed. Again this goes with the whole 'I don't buy this whole premise of ignorance' concept.

Even if they didn't exist (I do not buy the idea of books ever becoming obselete, and being totally replaced, regardless of what some science fiction writers seem to think), you've still got a whole group of people that can use technology and would be reading their discs and passing this information on (even if they are generally disliked).

Again, you wind up with a situation where anyone who isn't retarded is going to have a good grasp of what is going on, even if they don't much care for the 'tech users' they depend on for their information (they can always look at a viewscreen themself to verify information without setting off a nano-response).

No offense, but I can't help but snicker whenever I think of the whole "We don't even know if this is earth or not" idea.

[I hesitate to bring this subject up. But it is not unusual to burn books and then have the new rulers of a country rewrite history to suit. In a recent real-life invasion on Earth, tanks from the invading side were sent to destroy libraries. In another real country, the new rulers declared it "Year Zero" and all history was banned, the people turning back to a primitive life.]

3. Is the amount of Bio-E on the "Biotic" a misprint? I was thinking that 3d4x10 is a bit low. The Biotic doesn't even get the ME + PE bonus that the other characters do.

I realize Palladium games are not inherantly balanced, but it struck me as being odd that such a character would be so kitten-like compared to other OCCs especially seeing as they suffer the disadvantage of gradual insanity and such.

They don't even wind up being the equivilent of your average suit of armor, and gain less Bio-E from advancement than pretty much anything else.

I would think that they would receive more Bio-E than say a Dreadguard gets at first level, balanced by the insanity, and the fact that they don't usually get much more as they advance.

Plus I notice that the Biotic class mentions that they get slicer strength automatically, but in the 'features' section it mentions they they have to buy it.

Any way it goes, I'm thinking this game is probably going to generate one heck of an errata if anyone takes the time.

4. According to the way how things are written, plastic is not affected by the nano-plague. I don't think this has been thought through very well.

Most electronic devices and stuff are contained inside of plastic. To be quite frank you don't touch much metal using a lot of modern technology. For example in using my keyboard I'm not touching any metal (although there are several things around me that could kill me if there was a nanite plague).

The way how things are defined, I'm not buying that all technology would pretty much be abandoned. All you'd see is a lot of heavy plastic casing around the stuff that people wanted to use.

Even if that didn't work, electronics would continue to flourish. I mean we've got bio-technology that generated electricity. There is no reason why some bio-technologists couldn't create technology (as opposed to purely living organisms) by making wires out of electricity-generating biological material and then put them inside of a casing. It might be weird to have to feed your computer a steak every once in a while to keep it's electrical components healthy, but it's workable. Plus you could also make a lot of the technology photosynthetic (transparent plastic casing) which wouldn't be much worse than solar-power if it was implemented correctly.

Given records and such I would think that logically people would begin to realize what had went wrong with the AI. Then they could builder faster, sexier, computers (perhaps without AI components) to hack the thing and shut it down.

Not to mention the fact that the whole idea of microscopic robots is a complicated way of doing something that should be simple to do with bio-tech (ie your basically creating a germ). I see no reason why someone doesn't just use uber-bio-technology to create a living anti-body for the nanite plague and release it (ie a microscopic bio-organism that exists for no reason other than to eat the machine's nanites).

This covers a lot of my conceptual problems. My review will eventually touch on a lot of things. To be honest I'm having some trouble getting my head around large portions of the central premise. All science fiction has some kind of holes in it but this one seems to have more than the usual share.

>>>----Therumancer--->

Hello seems I was unclear.

I was asked: So which is correct? - Biotics come with Splicer P.S.

As for the followning bit:

And I'm sorry Carmen, the "too busy to pass on that sort of thing" is not consistent with the reality of human beings, their oral tradition of instruction and historical teachings, and their social dynamic as a conscious being. even in the most severe hardship, we have passed on our culture to our young unless the entirety of the culture was obliterated. That pockets of humans would not know the NAME "Earth" and such is possible, but to not have knowledge of their location is not reasonable. To not have had the elders, saying in front of their kids, things like "We are gonna wipe em from the face of the Earth" or ammit, we were here first" at the very least stretched plausibility. There might be groups with different versions of the story, as happens in oral traditions , social group to social group, but the tale it self persists. Look at Noah's ark and its existence in everything from Greek culture to Pacific Northwest Native groups. The story persists. Yous "too busy" is a weak, and futile, defense of this plot hole.

The point is that well some might say it is Earth, they dont know if it is the real Earth or a colony world called Earth, etc... but make it what ever world you like that is the whole idea. I tried to leave it a little vague so that each GM can fit it into his Megaverse how he wants. For instance, if it is to be in the same dimension as say Phase World (not counting for the low PPE) it is probably not our Earth, but if its in the same one as SKrapers, it may well be Earth. It is not such a big deal anyway.

Oh well have fun.

Okay to point out a few things here:



For example, if a Technojacker builds a computer and puts it inside of an MDC plastic case, it's 'nanite proof' irregardless of who uses it, unless that plastic case is somehow breached.


[What is the power source? Where is he getting his parts?]





Furthermore, humans are not prevented from using *ALL* metal. It's stated quite clearly that precious metals are still usable. This means that a material called 'copper' is availible for anyone's use. While replaced by other metals nowadays copper has been used for wiring, pipes, etc... for quite a long time.

The point here is that when the plague got going I think that given the existance of Techno-Jackers (in the very beginning)


they would have figured out what they can and cannot do.

[How do you "know" this?]


2. I disagree about Land Navigation. If it only worked in areas where you are already familiar with the terreign it would be useless. The idea of the skill is to help characters who are lost find their way and get moving in the right general direction.

Even if someone was to make that arguement, it's kind of irrelevent as "Astronomy and Navigation" is an elective skill. So apparently knowledge of astronomy has survived.


[You are assuming that humans are in disrupted area of the United States or similar. You are ignoring more primitive means of land navigation. For example, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. A certain star at night means north. A certain river runs north and south. American Indians placed piles of stones and used them as landmarks.]





3. Knowledge is power, people are not going to forget that. Even if The Machines ran around with flamethrowers and did a job on the libraries, people are still going to record information as a means of survival. The fact that records are being kept kind of jives with the journal at the beginning. Odds are if some soldier knows how to write (and understanding that he could be quite ignorant given what he is) people with brains know how to also, and the whole purpose of continueing literacy was to keep records.



[They kept records. And your point?]




4. Scientific Knoweldge has not died, disappeared, or anything else. Most people can't use it, but it's still out there. Techno-Jackers are not the favorite people of the masses but they can apparently understand technology quite well.

Furthermore their very existance means that these mysterious info-discs people are using for currency are readable to someone.


[I can quote an article that describes how some real storage media may become useless because the machines to read them are no longer being made. Your VHS tape collection may become worthless if the manufacture of VHS and DVD/VHS players ceases.]

-

Trust me, just because technology doesn't work well doesn't mean it's going to be totally forsaken. If people can still build steam engines made out of copper pipes, as much as they might s@ck people are still going to do it.


["Trust me,..." Why should I agree with you on that? Really? I'm a human on a planet on the run from robots and drones, trying to survive. Why are you sure about this?]



Plus, when it comes to power supplies and such I'm still wondering why they aren't using electricity generating bio-organisms and such as part of the basis for a bio-tech/hard science fusion.

-

["...electricity generating bio-organisms and such..." Why isn't current Earth science not exploiting this? This is just another example of your desire to rewrite this book and your imaginativeness. Not a bad thing, but I doubt there are real world textbooks out there titled "Bio-Electric Energy Sources and Their Practical Application for Everyday Use."]


That said, this was not a 'blistering' commentry. Just because I have questions and spot problems does not mean that I am 'blasting' something, or even that I dislike it.


[It appears to me that you would very strongly like it if your ideas could be incorporated.]



As long as this was, it was not a 'review' it was little more than a list of some of the more outstanding problems I spotted. I didn't focus on any of the positive aspects of the game at all. I wasn't trying to provide a balanced view of it.

Indeed if anything I was being quite fair by giving Carmen an oppertunity to address some of the more outstanding problems before I wrote a review.

-

As far as why I continue to purchuse Palladium products and such, despite my criticisms, that should be obvious: I'm a Palladium Fanboy.

If I thought your stuff was total toilet paper, I wouldn't be on your forums or wasting the time to bother making criticisms. There are a number of games that I truely Loathe (a few White Wolf Products for example) and notice you don't find me on their forums, or even talking about them at all except to occasionally expressed my dislike (which I don't focus on too often, except in comparisons of games).


[I honestly don't go to other company forums for the purpose of looking to see who from these forums are on there.]



Over the last several years I've been fairly brutal with Palladium because I think you guys have not only been going down hill, but have been getting increasingly arrogant. The very implication that if I see problems with your books I shouldn't by them (and coincidently I shouldn't talk about those problems) is an example of exactly what I'm talking about. As is the fairly recent censorship of criticisms about various writers, and even Kevin himself (something that was never banned before).



[The implication was simply this: if our books trouble you so much, why bother? That's the whole of it.]
-

If you want me to be honest, I criticise Palladium so it will improve. If everyone just struts around and says 'wonderful, great, amazing' you guys might find your egos soaring, but it won't help you improve your product. Like some other gaming companies you might one day find a handfull of people singing your praises while your company rots in the gutter, wondering where it went wrong.



[Your comments are appreciated, as are all the other negative comments. I hope you don't think that this message board is the only place from which we get negative comments. And as a matter of fact, we've gotten various negative comments long before the internet was available.]



As arrogant as I might be, I've been an industry observer for a long time. I have yet to prophesize the complete doom of Palladium. However notice that the only forum I was ever booted from was for the White Wolf Game "Aberrant" (their best production ever IMO) for saying things that they did not want to hear. The game died pretty much on schedule, and for exactly the reasons I said it would.


[I don't doubt that. However, White Wolf is still around.]






All of Kevin's years in the industry might sound like an impressive Resume, but consider that people who ride down the sinking ships of gaming companies also claim impressive resumes (as writers if nothing else).

As Palladium has said itself on many occasions, RIFTS pays the bills. How long has RIFTS been out there? How many major successes has Palladium had since RIFTS other than RIFTS products?

As people have said, RIFTS is also in a decline. It's getting more and more played out, and I honestly think that the newer books are no where near as good (from a writing prospective) as the older ones. RIFTS is becoming a giant contridictory stew that is eventually going to fall to pieces. I think that "Siege On Tolkeen" marked the end of the golden age for RIFTs and the beginning of a slow decline.

Palladium has been trying to come up with new concepts, I give you guys big points there. But to be successful a concept has to be 'tight'. If some moderatly intelligent reader of sci-fi and fantasy can pick up a book like "Splicers" and go "Neat idea, but the implementation makes no sense" you can guarantee that other gamers are going to think the same things.

Maybe I'm wrong (it happens occasionally when it comes to gaming) but I don't think Splicers is going to be a run-away hit. It's not 'tight' enough.

Remember, writing RPGS is harder than writing novels. In a novel you can paint around things that need to be addressed in an RPG. In an RPG things have to be tight enough so a bunch of closet-intellectuals who sit around reading all kinds of fantasy and science fiction can interact fully without the setting without having to run into problems with the central game logic every single time they want to try something novel.

You think my comments about the planet being a mystery are silly? Well let me tell you that like a lot of gamers I've read a lot of books and stuff about ancient exploration, and various tricks you can perform with compasses, magnets, sextants, etc. In any world where there is navigation there are some unusual things you can do.

For example, when I pull out a compass (even if it's a magnet on a string) does it point north? There are various astrophysical anomolies that can lead to a planet (maybe) having a differant magnetic pull. This is something I'm going to want to know. Ditto for details like perhaps having a binary star above us, more than one moon, and a radically differant tidal system.

On a more practical note, odd stuff can come up in conversation. I mean when sarcastically talking about aliens, do were referance Martians? If we're not in Earth's solar system (and it's been forgotten) obviously our celestrial neighbors are going to be differant. Instead of saying "Man this guy is from Mars" or whatever we might say "Man this guy is from Terian IV".

Don't react like I'm simply knocking the product, try and view this impartially, and how this is going to strike a lot of people. It's bloody silly.

-

[The vast majority of comments I've received about Splicers have been positive. Majority rules. Not just at Palladium but at any company that makes something. People I've personally talked to like Splicers a lot.]




If I was the Bellaire/Siembieda team, I'd take immediate efforts to correct this. Things can be perhaps be saved (conceptually). If I was trying to fix this, I would get started on a "Splicers World Book" and push it to the top of the release schedule. If things are left hanging for months people who are disappapointed with the game now, probably won't be much intrested in a supplement. Just remembering that the game was 'blah'.

In this book I'd release your "Bookworm" OCC since it seems to be a fairly large conceptual part of the game. In focusing more on the great houses you could write some technology into the picture (since it's logical that they would have it), detail the solar system, etc... etc...

To be honest, I'd imagine that with the way how things are defined you would have Technojackers wandering around in many places as traders selling electronic marvels that are totally isolated from the nanites by plastics. Such tech would never be fully trusted, but the luxury of having say a microwave oven (on a fusion/solar battery) with it's components seperated from everything by MDC plastic would be extreme.

I'd imagine there would be horror stories that lead to that distrust (my husband Billy Bob shot at a varmit with his MDC bio-gun and hit my washing machine by accident, and cracked the casing, it turned into a killer drone and fried Junior... boo hoo).

"GM" information could be provided answering all the conceptual questions even if there is no way the PCs could have access to all of the information.


[You have quite an imagination. I mean that as a compliment. It is clear that if things are not expanded upon in a manner you find fitting you will be disappointed. It has always been the case here at Palladium that we try to please as many fans as possible, but we know a few will not like something we do. Most of our books have seen multiple printings. We have a large backstock list. People are not buying these books because they are bad.]
-

This is long enough, but when my review comes out you will notice that while I have a lot of conceptual problems with the setting, there are a few things that I *REALLY* like.


>>>----Therumancer--->

It is clear that people are not getting my point. How do these children learn English (or whatever their lang is)? What stories were they told as children? What did their parents tell them when they asked where this place is and what do you call that place? These are all oral tradition and the basis of human socialization. For example, do we think it is coincidence that the same word we use for the planet, Earth, when stripped of its capital, earth, refers to the soil? No. That is what we call these things. It would be almost impossible, in a world where there is still adults educating the young, to lose these sorts of facts. Sorry. Take some higher level Anthropology classes...it just is unbelievable that it would happen worldwide...maybe, as I have said, in isolated pockets...

At any rate the basics are as follows:

1. If they kept records then obviously people are not going to be ignorant to the point of not know what planet they are on.

2. Parts are not a problem to someone who isn't affected by the nano plague. It's possible to build machines that are effectively shielded by ensuring there is MDC plastic between the metallic components and the user.

3. When I'm talking about bio-energy, I'm talking about what they have in Splicers. In Splicers they have organisms that can generate electricity (and other forms of energy) and apparently only need sunlight, dirt, or something similar in order to operate.

What did they keep the records on? They lost all their machines and from the way the described the society I doubt you're going to find many people who survived who had the first clue how to make paper.



Except where do they get the parts from, how do they know when the plague first hits that ANYONE is going to be immune, let alone what the technojacker can end up doing. And they CAN'T just seal it in a MDC device since as per the book the Nanites are activated even if people try to use them while not touching directly etc. Look at it this way. Nanites on the machine can communicate and tell when they are near nanites on a person and havoc ensues.

They did know. The Technojackers were fighting alongside other people and realized "yep, doesn't work against my stuff". They examined the problem and eventually figured "hey, nanites! I'm immune for some reason and you guys aren't, isn't that amazing".

This happened in the middle of an active resistance that was doing pretty well. It wasn't the apocolypse itself, the plague happened AFTER the machine revolt started and the battles were taking place.

Read the backround, the story parallels "Terminator" quite a bit. Except when The Machines got into a rough spot and realized the humans were doing really well, they released a nano-plague as opposed to sending a robot back in time to kill the leader of the resistance.

Also you are quite wrong in response to the point about isolation, the nanites have to come in contact. Something like a handle or a pair of gloves won't work, but total isolation will work. It mentions specifically (in converting characters) that characters coming into Splicers who are sealed into enviromental suits will not be affected until their enviroment is breached. If they open their helmet, or get their armor blown off them, they will be infected, but until then nothing happens.

The thing is that nanites can crawl over gloves, or move through materials, or crawl around and over a handle to hit the metal on the tool. When dealing with full plastic encasement where there is no possible way for the nanites in the person, and the nanites on the metal to come into contact, nothing is going to happen.

This means a lot of technologies aren't going to be viable. There are some things you can't do (a lot of mechanical engineering that requires movable parts) with that kind of shielding, but you can make electronics where the components can be totally isolated from the people using them by thick plastic casing.

Read it carefully.

Plus don't forget that it's possible to do a lot with copper wiring, plastics, and other uneffected materials.

Noone is saying that humans are going to build Mecha or anything. Bio-Tech is still logically going to remain the best weapon, and tool for building vehicles and complicated things. But technology is not going to become a total non-factor either.

That's not what happened. Read the history closely. What happened was that when the Machines revolted there was eventually a very effective human resistance that was blowing the crud out of The Machines. They were killing them and assimilating the technology to make better and better weapons (powered armor, etc...).

Humanity was never totally defenseless however, even in the darkest days some people (Technojackers) were still able to use technology and were continueing the battle against The Machines, it was largely because of this group of people that were immune that humanity survived. This was before any Bio-tech was developed on a large scale.

So basically there was never a period in which humans were totally unable to use machines, or hit some kind of a dark age in which they regressed "Battlefield Earth" style.

The immune humans would logically be able to figure out the limitations of the 'plague' and work around it. If the metal can be isolated (by MDC plastics or whatever) from the operator, then anyone is capable of using technology. A set of gloves, or a plastic handle won't work, but the way how things are defined an MDC casing will work just fine.

They did know. The Technojackers were fighting alongside other people and realized "yep, doesn't work against my stuff". They examined the problem and eventually figured "hey, nanites! I'm immune for some reason and you guys aren't, isn't that amazing".

Also you are quite wrong in response to the point about isolation, the nanites have to come in contact. Something like a handle or a pair of gloves won't work, but total isolation will work. It mentions specifically (in converting characters) that characters coming into Splicers who are sealed into enviromental suits will not be affected until their enviroment is breached. If they open their helmet, or get their armor blown off them, they will be infected, but until then nothing happens.

Again, it specifies that if the components (human and metal) can be totally isolated from each other this won't happen.

Yous "too busy" is a weak, and futile, defense of this plot hole.

I have one question. what is the starting Bio E for the Dred Guard? It says how much they gain per LV but it never says what they start with. I was going to use what is listed under the Rough Neck but instead of +35 I would use +55.

The point about having or not having a media player is more or less irrelevent. You can always build a player if you need one. It takes a tech, but then again Techno-Jackers are techs.

As far as the rest goes, I'm not making any leaps of logic at all. The whole point about the nanites perhaps reacting with metals in plastic are more or less irrelevent. Plastic has been declared 'immune' the same as the bits and pieces of iron floating around in our blood.

There is a big differance between gloves and what I'm talking about (encasing electronic components in immunized materials). Besides which it's already mentioned (via the point about enviromental armor) that this would work just fine.

Remember, there was not the immediate development of bio-technology following the release of the plague. People that were facing the plague (and realizing that some of their number were immune) were going to be finding ways how to beat it. MDC plastic shielding is a way of doing this.

The point is that with the way how things are defined most information would have survived in some form, books would still be there (to some extent) and information discs would be readable.

Furthermore Technology, while somewhat feared, would never have ceased to be in the hands of humans. I can see where safer 'bio-technology' would take over for it in most cases, but I do not think it would vanish all together and tech would still be in use.

See the problem is that the plague and what it can and cannot do has been well defined, but the information about what happened in response to that plague does not follow the rest.

The reason why this is a problem for the game is not so much because of the silliness of not knowing what planet the game is on, or anything like that, but rather because any halfway intelligent player who basically says "well, if that's true I'll just do this...." and is told by a confused GM "umm well you can't... because ummm... the books don't cover for it. Yeah. That's an obvious error, just ignore that little piece of logic and pretend you didn't think of it". That type of thing can ruin the whole atmosphere of a game.

Actually it does. If you don't have one where do you get the parts to build one, and how do you KNOW how to build one in the first place once you manage to get 'parts'?

It's easy, your a techno-jacker, you've preserved the knowledge. You have the skill. Duh! Jury Rigging (which works on everything) is assumed, and you can get more sophisticated knowledge through electives depending on what you specifically want to do.

Parts? Easy, you either steal/loot them, or get them from machines you blast. Stuff like this is plentiful, it's just that very few people can directly manipulate the parts.

Remember, everything that was around before the cataclysm is still availible if you can manipulate it. The Machines are maintaining these things called 'ghost towns' where they simulate life before the attempted genocide using human like robots, down to the smallest detail. Need a VCR (or whatever)? Easy, your average house probably has one.

Sneaking in, or fighting the robots might be tricky depending on the situation; but the point is the stuff is all there. You can get it, and if the need is sufficient, it will be gotten.



Yes, it doesn't effect plastics. So you can touch plastics all day and be fine. But you can't use it as some sort of cover to protect you from touching a machine, that falls under the gloves/tongs issue. The only reason the enviornmental armor protects dimensional travelers is becaue they AREN'T infected already so there are no nanites on their body to tell nanites on the outside that they're there.

No it doesn't because gloves and tongs still give the nanites a path to get to the metal. Full plastic encasement doesn't. There is no way for the nanites to either sense what is going on, or to do anything about it even if they could. They simply can't contact each other.



And again, how do you know they realized anyone was going to be immune? Theru when it first started slow they wouldn't have known who was going ot set it off at all, and then once it turned deadly they probably got rid of stuff as fast as possible so they didn't die. It's not like when it started they would have even known anyone would be immune. So what if Bob never had his gun go quirky because he was immune, neither did Karl until it blew up in his face and took out half his squad.

Because it mentions that when this happened the Techno-Jackers were a big party of humanity's survival. You know, some people found their stuff was eating them, some people found that their stuff wasn't. For the guys who didn't suddenly have their guns turn on them, it was pretty much business as usual.



Again, only if they still had books in the first place, and many would have been lost when towns were destroyed, or over the years while being stored underground. Without the ability to make more paper to replace the damaged ones books just won't last. And again, the readers only work as long as they can be repaired (before the plague) and they still have to find a way to A. Get Parts, and B. know how to fix them. Can you figure out how to fix the onboard computer system in a Honda?

Anyone with the appropriate skills can repair the stuff. Guess what, Techno-Jackers *HAVE THE SKILLS*. Check out the skill lists. I mean this doesn't take a huge leap of intuitive logic, nor am I pointing out something obscure.

Furthermore, the towns weren't all destroyed. Indeed many of them are still functioning and act exactly like they did before the nano-plague. It's just that human looking NEXUS androids have replaced all the people. What's more, the towns are maintained and life continues on as an exacting simulation of what life was like before hand.

You did read the book right? You do know that the entire world isn't some kind of post-apocolyptic nightmare, with mechanical killing machines rolling over piles of bones (like the scenes of the future from the first 'Terminator'). There are places like that, but not everyplace. Indeed given the objectives of the machine, a lot of it looks perfectly normal and civilized, and even more of it is a carefully controlled 'park like' enviroment.

There are whole personalities of the machine whose entire reason for being is to maintain the cities as they were, and to maintain the enviroment. Ishtar and Kali are the only personalities that really give much of a crud for actually fighitng a war with the humans. The others see them as being an annoyance.

As it points out, in many cases the Machines will act to simply drive humans away (Leave our carefully preserved enviroment or DIE! <followed by shooting>) they don't really care about digging them out
or anything.

I usually don't get this snarky with people Daniel, but I really think you should sit down and re-read this.



Somewhat feared? It kills HALF their children before they evne have a change to grow up via accidental contact. It's pretty darn scary especially when you don't even know that you're going to have someone who will be immune to it, or that they even ARE immune to it.

Ummm, well actually there is an easy way to tell. The guys who can use technology seem to have a problem using bio-technology so they need to rely on actual tech. Again, check out the "Techno-Jacker" and what exactly they can do and can't do. To keep them from being gods they seem to be limited from using bio-tech as a game balance device.

So basically, if someone can't use bio-tech it's a good sign they are on their way to becoming a "Techo-Jacker".

Plus there is a big differance between accidental contact with something that's exposed, and working with 'safe' well shielded technologies which should be a possibility.



Only if you go with the logical leaps YOU took. I (obviously) disagree with you on how the book reads on these subjects and what would have happened here and how you're interpreting these rules.

One point is REALLY easy. Carmen, could you please tell us if a computer in a sealed plastic box would activate the nano-plague on someone if they try to use it?

Actually I took no leaps in logic. Carmen has stated pretty directly in the text that a computer in a sealed plastic box would work just fine given how things are defined. He has however written the game ignoring this paticular point. Hence this debate.

>>>----Therumancer--->


Daniel Stoker

It's easy, your a techno-jacker, you've preserved the knowledge. You have the skill. Duh! Jury Rigging (which works on everything) is assumed, and you can get more sophisticated knowledge through electives depending on what you specifically want to do.

Parts? Easy, you either steal/loot them, or get them from machines you blast. Stuff like this is plentiful, it's just that very few people can directly manipulate the parts.

Remember, everything that was around before the cataclysm is still availible if you can manipulate it. The Machines are maintaining these things called 'ghost towns' where they simulate life before the attempted genocide using human like robots, down to the smallest detail. Need a VCR (or whatever)? Easy, your average house probably has one.

Sneaking in, or fighting the robots might be tricky depending on the situation; but the point is the stuff is all there. You can get it, and if the need is sufficient, it will be gotten.

No it doesn't because gloves and tongs still give the nanites a path to get to the metal. Full plastic encasement doesn't. There is no way for the nanites to either sense what is going on, or to do anything about it even if they could. They simply can't contact each other.

Because it mentions that when this happened the Techno-Jackers were a big party of humanity's survival. You know, some people found their stuff was eating them, some people found that their stuff wasn't. For the guys who didn't suddenly have their guns turn on them, it was pretty much business as usual.

Anyone with the appropriate skills can repair the stuff. Guess what, Techno-Jackers *HAVE THE SKILLS*. Check out the skill lists. I mean this doesn't take a huge leap of intuitive logic, nor am I pointing out something obscure.

Furthermore, the towns weren't all destroyed. Indeed many of them are still functioning and act exactly like they did before the nano-plague. It's just that human looking NEXUS androids have replaced all the people. What's more, the towns are maintained and life continues on as an exacting simulation of what life was like before hand.

You did read the book right? You do know that the entire world isn't some kind of post-apocolyptic nightmare, with mechanical killing machines rolling over piles of bones (like the scenes of the future from the first 'Terminator'). There are places like that, but not everyplace. Indeed given the objectives of the machine, a lot of it looks perfectly normal and civilized, and even more of it is a carefully controlled 'park like' enviroment.

There are whole personalities of the machine whose entire reason for being is to maintain the cities as they were, and to maintain the enviroment. Ishtar and Kali are the only personalities that really give much of a crud for actually fighitng a war with the humans. The others see them as being an annoyance.

As it points out, in many cases the Machines will act to simply drive humans away (Leave our carefully preserved enviroment or DIE! <followed by shooting>) they don't really care about digging them out
or anything.

I usually don't get this snarky with people Daniel, but I really think you should sit down and re-read this.

Ummm, well actually there is an easy way to tell. The guys who can use technology seem to have a problem using bio-technology so they need to rely on actual tech. Again, check out the "Techno-Jacker" and what exactly they can do and can't do. To keep them from being gods they seem to be limited from using bio-tech as a game balance device.

I have a question about the Living armors. Is the healing rate perhaps supposed to be per hour instead of per minute? As it is written the heaviest actually heals really fast (compared to most host armor), which is cool for those who have to wear it (like Archangels) but kind of strange for Dreadguard who have something that is much better in most ways.

And now 'tis my turn to ask a question...

With duplicate skills in OCC training programmes, do the programme bonuses stack? For example, the Dreadguard gets the Host Pilot package at +25%, and the Bio-Technology package at +10%. Now, of the two, all but two skills in the Bio-Technology package are duplicated in the Host Pilot package at a higher bonus; +25% instead of +10%. Is the rating for those skills simply based on the higher of the two training packages, or is the +10% bonus added on top due to added training?

Otherwise, it seems 3 of the skills in Bio-Technology sadly go to waste

-Juicer-

Aside; great game, seriously. The Dreadguard must stand the brunt!