14
\$\begingroup\$

So, one of the main "aesthetic points" of the Technocratic Union is their wide use of minions that they create through superscience, ranging from the relatively expendable Men in Black clones to the cyborg HIT Marks - it's one of the big ways that they seem to bolster their numbers to maintain their level of control on the world.

But, after the Avatar Storm, there's a big problem - the Avatar Storm either killed or transformed into Umbrood almost all of the Masters and Archmasters in the setting, including those belonging to the Technocracy, and according to M20's How Do You Do That, creating clones requires Life 5 and Mind 5 (plus Spirit 5, if you want them to have souls).

While any clone-making 5-dot Wonders that they had on Earth at the time would continue functioning, they wouldn't be able to repair any that got damaged, or replace any that got destroyed. This leads me to the question: how do you make minions without 5 dots in any Spheres?

Making bodies for them is fairly simple; Matter 4 can make robots if you don't want to just use Sleeper tech, Life 3 can make invertebrates, so you can go nuts making plant people/octopus people/bug people/Alex Mercer expies/etc, and you might be able to use Matter 3/Life 3 to make people with simple metal support structures instead of bones (Matter 4/Life 3 should be able to make more functional cyborgs with more complex mechanisms).

How would you make minds for them, though? Creating minds requires Mind 5, so are the only ways to use Matter 4 to replace their brains with computers and use Digital Web entities or Sleeper computer science to provide minds for them, or Dimensional Science 3 to cause EDE possessions or "spiritual awakenings"? If you used Mind 3/Correspondence 3 to take an existing human mind and turn it into a hive mind controlling multiple bodies, would the death or incapacitation of their original body leave the clones mindless, or would the hive mind persist until all the bodies were incapacitated?

Are there any options for them that I've missed or overlooked? It looks like the official sourcebooks overlooked this issue entirely and just had the Technocrats just continue as though nothing had happened.

\$\endgroup\$
5
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ What makes you believe that the Avatar Storm, the fallout from the Week of Nightmares, or the resulting Sixth Maelstrom destroyed masters/archmasters? I don't see anything that supports that in my Apocalypse book. \$\endgroup\$
    – JRodge01
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 18:23
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @JRodge01 My understanding is that most of the Masters and basically all of the Archmasters were living in Horizon Realms or Deep Universe, and when the Avatar Storm struck, these realms were almost all destroyed - and any survivors of the destroyed realms became Umbrood (in the case of the Technocratic Union, they became Threat Null). \$\endgroup\$
    – nick012000
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 23:43
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Some yes, but definitely not all. That aside, there is no reason that a lower level mage couldn't perform some maintenance or repair on a wondrous machine of a higher level. There are a lot of questions peppered into your post. If you clarify exactly what you want answered, I'll gladly address it. \$\endgroup\$
    – JRodge01
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 14:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JRodge01 "As a general rule, a damaged Wonder can be fixed by someone who has the Arete, Spheres, and Abilities necessary to create that Wonder in the first place." M20 Book of Secrets, in the section on Wonders. As for the main thrust of my Question, "Are there any options for them that I've missed or overlooked?" \$\endgroup\$
    – nick012000
    Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 15:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ For PCs wanting to do it, it sounds like a great long-term goal/quest to find or learn how to repair a wonder that does it! For an NPC, their inability to repair the wonder could be an interesting vulnerability if the PCs ever figure it out. Also my understanding was "Arch-mage" typically referred to folks with 6+ in a sphere, not the basic 5 you see in normal sheets. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dylan
    Commented May 30, 2020 at 7:48

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2
\$\begingroup\$

Mind 4 could implant sleeping instructions or personality shifts in an already existing subject. It's using and changing the mind already in a person. Don't forget, the World of Darkness has many "disposable" people available. Sleeper agents that were already existing, that only activate with a circumstance or phrase. Super science can cover various methods of conditioning. In short, the best way to approach this is the modifications one can do on a another with Level 4 Spheres, understanding that creating most things from scratch are not yet possible, so utilize the resources at hand.

\$\endgroup\$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .