Ways to augment a person with technology
Cyberware is cool, and the street finds it's own uses for things. I think that a cyberpunk world should have a few things to make street cyber make sense.
Massive increase in cheap lifesaving trauma medicine and concurrently low-skill surgery. Not only do wounds that would kill a person need to be cheaply and easily survivable, but Installing cyberware has to be possible for untrained and semi-trained cyberdocs.
Cheap cyberware has to be available for the street to repurpose. Perhaps the medical breakthroughs of above were part of WWIV [The Secession Wars], and there's warehouses of out-of-date cyberware that's military tough and modular for modification. This also gives the world a reservoir of enhanced vets for characters and NPCs. Perhaps not-quite-autonomous humanoid or android bots came onto the market and street docs modify and attach recycled robot limbs for people who can't afford "real" cyberware. This gives the world a robot workforce (see iRobot) to impoverish and compete with human workers. There's other answers possible too.
If runners/solos etc are gonna blend in enough that going out for groceries doesn't attract a SWAT team cyberware has to be relatively normal. Stories are usually ready to go to tell how the enhanced are feared, looked up to and discriminated against. But how are cybernetics accommodated? Or how does the lack of accommodations affect daily life? For legit cyberware, there can be "buy it in credit!" And the accompanying "repo men". There can be simple prosthetic brain augmentation that can be illegally but easily modified for criminal purposes. Health insurance that covers cyberware or doesn't it? Especially if there's alternatives like cloned parts and genetic treatments. What about the people who can't or won't replace an eye or limb? How does the world treat them?
[NOTES] Perhaps health insurance just covers life-saving implants. So people with massive traumatic injuries get mass-market internals, but no legs or arms? [/NOTES]
During WWIV, cheap , easy medical nanotech made "autodocs," a simple, single-use can of nanites and drugs designed to keep a mortally wounded soldier alive for medevac. As troops generally had good torso armor and decent helmets, most major wounds were amputations and shredded limbs and blood loss. Not to mention traumatic brain injury. So the autodoc gets stuffed in a wound and the nanites and drugs stop the bleeding, stabilize shock and organ function and keep the soldier alive for up to 24 hours. Smaller doses of "knitters" seal wounds against blood loss when applied topically.
Once evacuated to medical facilities, further, more specialized nanites, life support machines and surgeons whose training is limited mostly to removing organs and installing cyber organs finish stabilizing the patient, and get them safe to move to actual hospital facilities, where antibiotics, drugs, more specialized nanites and when necessary other surgeons clean up the work and install the limbs or sockets for modular limbs.
Once the troop is healed (faster then before due to drugs and nanites), they're fitted and acclimated with mil-spec limbs (that are about human strength and dex to limit how much other stuff has to accommodate cyber troops) and rolled back out to the front to fight again.
This war has to go on for at least 5-10 years to build up stockpiles and standards for there to be surplus after the war. Not to mention veterans and other infrastructure. A side effect of standardized cyberware production lines is that humanoid robots become economically viable. With the war dragging on and depleting the workforce, humanoid robots are adopted and introduced to construction and manufacturing and other critical industries. This works incredibly well.
After the war veterans are the single largest group of cybernetic people and there's a mixed bag of reception. Jobs come easy to those with actual enhancements and slowly to the most heavily reconstructed. They start gravitating to crime, with their inherent threat of violence and resistance to harm useful attributes. This sets a standard and begins the enhancement of cyber limbs for strength, dexterity and armor or features.
At the same time autodocs and the drugs and nanites come to the civilian market, making more injuries survivable, and thus increasing civilian demand for cyberware beyond the already disabled.
Augmented workers can keep up better with bots, and unaugmented workers often have accidents trying to keep up with bots and become augmented workers. So construction and other dangerous trades become nearly wholly staffed by cyborgs and robots. Various power armor and small robot vehicles are developed for management and other unaugmented people as safety equipment. The ability to build bigger, higher, faster inspires megastructures to be built. This is necessary due to the destruction of the war. This mainly focuses on cyber limbs and internal organs.
Cyber brain augmentation is going to be much more voluntary. Starting with cybernetic brain-machine interfaces for drones and vehicles. An attack helicopter that is the attack helicopter is going to be more effective then a pilot and their vehicle. The drone program starts promising and falls short because of electronic warfare. In a signals environment that is equal parts jamming and compromise attacks, having vehicles with the pilots onboard makes them more effective and more survivable. Of course these vehicles can and do get shot with heavy weapons. Pilots are rigged with auto docs and their brain implants are already replacing their sensorium, many of them make it back to base with holes in their hull and human body, leading to more cybernetic enhancements.
But after the war, EW isn't as much a concern and those pilots can work with civilian drones, or function as a system, like a building or even a swarm of semi-autonomous bots on difficult jobs.
From vehicle control comes what we know as decking. A vehicle interface is modified to have a virtual vehicle (shaped like a person) and the network environment abstracted to a pseudo-3d space.
Using Cyber to add, increase and modify Skills.
JITT stands for "Just In Time Training" and Quickly burns the skill into your brain This Flaw started out as a procedure. Not truly a Power, more like a way to burn skills into your head. It requires a machine the size of a dentist chair and can raise skills to 10. JITT costs 2500 x rating, and takes 1 hour per dot. JITTed skills cannot be raised by any other means then JITTing the skill again.
The downside is that for every dot of JITT skills you run the risk of JITT attacks where you go into a state of shock due to the damage to your brain. Each dot of JITTed Skill is a 5% chance of shock when in a stressful situation. If a character wants to remove the JITT negative modifiers, there is a cybersurgery to repair the damage for 10,000 per skill. The downside is that it erases the skill entirely, and costs double experience to relearn. Every erasure lowers the maximum that the skill can attain by one dot. So if you've JITTed and erased the skill twice you cannot JITT it higher then 8 or learn it higher then 3.
Skillsofts are skills recorded on chips. By placing one in your headware Skill Player you can perform that skill at the chip's rating. They use the same technology as the JITT machine but miniaturized with a lower chance of side effects. Skillsofts cost 5,000 x Rating and max out at a Rating 5.
The Skillsoft device has one major flaw, every time you slot a chip you run the risk of JITTing the skill. JITT instantly burns the skill into your brain. Every time you use a skillsoft roll percentile dice if the roll is less than skillsoft rating x 5% then you've JITTed the skill and are subject to all the rules and negative modifiers thereof.
Flashbake is a way to experience information instantly. The info only lasts for a couple days and cannot help you learn skills but has been used for entertainment (flashing a story into your mind) or learning (info you want to memorize for a short time, like maps). There are no known negative side-effects to Flashbaking.
One of the earliest “Killer Apps” for headjacks was Virtual Drugs. Removing the consensual part of the cyberspace experience [...] Virtual Drugs are distributed on Skillchips or headjack compatible modules. They are ROMs that Wipe after a certain amount of reads. (Prices reflect the number of reads available.) V Drugs load into the local memory buffer of the interface as an executable. People can share the same ‘trip’ because the V-Drugs can access their network connection. Each individual using the same chip counts a a “use”.
Unlike most network activity, V-Drugs stimulate hormone and neurotransmitter production, granting highs that can persist even after the user leaves the virtual world. They can also simulate smell, taste and tactile sensations by direct brain manipulations.
A primary risk with Virtual Drugs is that a user can’t be sure if the environment is a relatively safe Domain or an overlay on reality. Since the user keeps their memories and skills it’s impossible to tell if they are interacting with constructs or people.
Many V-drugs (Like Thrill Kill) incorporate low level skillsofts and knowsofts. Overlaying history, character and skills for the duration of the trip. V-Drugs cannot JITT skills.
Luckily V-Drug availability is based on the rating. Blue are the easiest to obtain, Red, the hardest to find [Tribe note: Stash Riders, those that seek different and ever greater drug trips, not limited to V-Drugs.] [Reference Vurt by Jeff Noon]
Domains, overlays and Virtual Drugs offer numerous chances to game within the game. This is often difficult to manage and should be avoided. Recusing is useful to illustrate the difficulty between reality and virtual fantasy. [edit] Also to create consequences for 1.5 and V-Drug users. Use with caution, and keep copious notes. Note that any rewards from V-drug adventures are strictly imaginary (except for possibly removing Artifacts or gaining experience)
New on the streets is [VBox? Virtual Drug Machine name] A box that allows people without headjacks to use V-Drugs. Obstinately a computer and network interface for the disabled the [Vbox] is an OTS/Wiki computer (Cheap, Small size) with a singularly unique interface. A single-use “feather” is placed on the tongue creating a mental connection. “feathers” are sold in sterile bubblepacks and lose their color after use. Feathers cannot be reused. The Input slot accepts V-Drug cartridges and the systems has various wireless network interfaces. Multiple users can share trips by plugging in simultaneously (most [VBoxes] support from 4 to 8 users). Each use still counts against the cartridges total. [VBox] trips are limited to domains, rather then overlays, but all other V-Drug side effects and dangers apply.
Typically euphoric and mildly hallucinogenic, these V-Drugs often apply a cartoonish domain or overlay. Blue overlays/domains typically don’t have a plot or a goal, just a good time. Blues are the easiest to jerk out of, leaving the user relaxed and unworried. Blue V-drugs are the cheapest and easiest to obtain.
A stronger trip then the Blues, Green Domains/overlays usually have a purpose, plan or goal. Green V-drugs can vary from from a passive experience like a film to heavily interactive. Also Euphoric, Greens usually make the user feel empowered, entitled and generally the most important person in the world. Green is the traditional color of Porn V-drugs and mass market RPGs/fantasy settings. It takes a bit of mental effort (will roll) to leave a Green before it’s completed.
A color that implies warning, Yellows ramp up the neurotransmitters to dangerous levels.Getting hurt or killed in a Yellow can cause actual physical damage. not often euphoric, Yellows mine the minds that are connected for plot points and scenery. often one will be confronted with fears and bad memories directly. In groups Yellows often reveal secrets of all participants.Yellows are notoriously difficult to escape from before they have been solved or run their course. Willpower difficulty 8, or a willpower point to exit. Damage accrued in a Yellow translates to real damage in a 1:4 ratio.
Pushing the limits of endurance & taste Orange V-Drugs almost always cater to people’s baser instincts.Killing sprees and nightmare-scapes dominate here with escape dangerous and difficult. A user must spend 2 willpower points and take a box of lethal damage. Orange V-Drug damage does half-damage to the users physical body.
The inescapable V-Drugs, Reds often combine the stereotypes of the green-orange spectrum. to create monsters from the subconscious for the user to fight thru in hellspawned landscapes. Since Reds cannot be jerked out of, one never knows if it is truly finished, or just waiting to come back. The Haunted are even more troubled because the experience never ends for them.
[Item Note] The most infamous Red was “Thrill Kill”, written for paramilitary and terrorist groups. Placing a horrendous overlay and designating targets with monstrous avatars. The User got a heavy dose of endorphins and adrenaline with every shot and kill, promoting indiscriminate killings.
Damage in a Red V-Drug is the same as damage in the real world (1:1)
A danger of using V-drugs are Artifacts. Pieces of the V-Drug experience that stay with you even after the trip is over. Artifacts, similar to JITT, are permanent modifications to the brain. Even if the headware is removed, the user will continue to experience the Artifacts, forever. VD Machine users also suffer Artifacts. Artifacts infect the part of the brain that interfaces with headware and Induction hardware, thus Artifacts force themselves into Domains and Overlays that the sufferers traverse.
Those who have Artifacts are called “the Haunted”. [...] The haunted are often banned from overlays and domains as soon as they are detected, as they bring their artifacts with them to every layer.
Each Virtual Drug use, the user rolls the drugs rating, difficulty 10. Failures are irrelevant, but a Botch indicates that an Artifact has been created. Artifacts should be designed by GMs using the Supporting Cast/Construct rules (or designed as an overlay for locations). Each botch adds a level to Artifacts. Artifacts are cumulative. It is up to the GM if the botch strengthens an existing artifact or creates a new one.
[needs how to create and describe Artifacts and their gameplay implications. Review Shadows from Wraith:tO and the possibility of Artifacts creating a negative dice pool.]
Happens occasionally, no more then once per session.
Once per scene
Whenever a specific skill is used, the user calls it up or other trigger
The Artifact exists more often then not.
A Constant companion
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