Apocalypse in progress, and on earth there is
constantly growing chaos!
ROBOTICA: THE CULT OF TECHNOLOGY
an introduction to the world of an apocalyptic sci-fi roleplaying game
The apocalypse is still lingering and the ever-increasing chaos rules the Earth!
The humanity was seduced and then mercilessly used by the technology. The galloping industrial development and lesser nuclear conflicts became the cause of the environmental pollution tragic in effects. How did it come to this?
A drastic increase in the role of autonomic machines
The programmers, dazed by the achievements of IT, called autonomic systems and machines to life, gifting them with AI (Artificial Intelligence). Thousands of devices possessed of substantial freedom were created mostly with industry and military in mind. The humanity was choking on the possibility of creating mechanized slaves. The warnings of sages and ethics were left for the shadows.
The cyborgization – a false miracle of transhumanity
The companies working in the cybernetics field had been promoting their products in the form of cyborgs, that is, humanoid-shaped robots that could be equipped with so-called DNA Converters. Those devices read the (digitalized earlier) personality of a human who was killed in the transformation process. The ‘thought is energy’ slogan took a completely new meaning! The possibility of transforming into machines covered with living tissue and resembling attractive people was massively used. The corporations kept the information of side effects, oft-existing syndromes and other dangers hidden. Due to the opposition and even terrorist attacks of ultra-humanity groups, the powerful companies allowed keeping of the digital personalities written on the Cyber-Psyche Discs in special buildings called the Soul Banks. The digitalized people remotely steered their machines from those fortresses. The increasing split in the society and the rising tension had forced the government to create a new police force dealing with the crimes of disturbed cyborgs and defective autobots and with the crimes against cyborgs.
The cloning – making the man an item
The great organizations of the corporations had needed something more than costly robots and advanced computer systems to progress. It turned out quickly that the modern genetics could be the solution. The outstanding (but also immoral) engineers and scientists, lacking any scruples, started cloning on a mass scale, implanting their creations with the miracle of nanotechnology in the form of the programmable Schematizers of behavior. The vast increase in the slave labor forces caused a crisis in the job markets of the entire world – the clones said to be created with the thought of taking the place of the human only in immensely dangerous occupations and in extreme conditions have finally replaced him in a giant number of job posts! At first – in secret. Later - openly.
The total fusion
The human-like cyborgs - groups of identical, pollution-resistant, eternally young corporation clones higher in status than your common man – and the forces of guard machines that were slowly replacing the police walked the streets.
The society was in debt on a vast scale, losing any influence over the doings of the corporations. In addition, due to the ever-worsening conditions of life on the Earth, people were growing addicted to the medicine, produced of course by the corporations under the most powerful companies. The rare upheavals were brutally suppressed. Although there were moments giving the common man hope, the incapacitated media manipulated the information in a way profitable for their bread-givers.
The decline of human civilization
The humanity was reaching the bottom. It is not out of the question that the technological and industrial rush would have lasted for decades onwards, bringing more and more innovations to the world, but further existence on the Earth had become immensely hard! The environmental pollution had sparked the creation of new viruses mutating with a speed that prevented the infected from receiving any help.
The space evacuation that only the wealthiest citizens could afford started. Paradoxically, the extraterrestrial colonies were seen as oases of normality. Only there a man could lead a relatively calm life. Masses of people with a low material status, wishing to escape the polluted planet, were signing contracts forcing 20 - 30 generations into slave labor. The humanity had regressed to the times of slavery, the only difference being that the common man was controlled not by a supposedly better aristocracy, but by an untouchable clone, higher placed in the corporate hierarchy – a loyal servant of the cyborgized rich. In the extraterrestrial space a new social class was formed – the Lords, that is the most influential corporate managers. After all, because of the limited number of the resources necessary to create the clones and the hard period of adapting the industry to the new conditions, in the space the corporations were forced to care for the citizens better than on their native planet.
In the meantime the anarchy, aberration and death had started to rule the Earth. The systems left by their creators have gone mad, in the literal sense of the world. The most advanced computer technologies acquired the full autonomy and even self-awareness and they inherited the worst personality traits of their users. All the secrets hidden by the corporations were now in the open: the amazing genetic experiments, shady technologies and horrendous side effects of the up-to-date doings. The people died in millions or mutated, every day closer to the limits of humanity. The AIs programmed themselves by themselves, making incomprehensible assumptions and choosing unintelligible priorities. The machines and robots without new instructions fell into unending cycles of loops that were carried out despite the changing situation. The grand factories and power plants became the goal of mutants and cyborgs fighting for the resources needed to survive. The growing and destructive viruses migrated in the cyberspace covering the real world that were able after a time to break even into the Soul Banks! An autonomic program that was to remove all proof burdening the corporations “just in case” started to view all sentient beings as his goals and it started efforts to exterminate them, including removing the Union’s databases. Due to its original function the humans called that murderous program – using the destructive robots - DESTRO, and his subordinate machines - the Destructors.
The Hiperbeing: the phenomenon, the transcendental computerized being, the hope?
When it seemed that the horror reached its peak and a total disaster is unavoidable, those that survived became the witnesses to the birth of transcendental computerized beings possessing intelligence and self-awareness. The Hiperbeings – so they were called – started to assume control over the chaos-filled world. Those beings had developed amazing powers. They were able to manipulate computers, systems, and even to control human mind and affect matter with their willpower! Many occult organizations were created, bringing mutants together who believed the Hiperbeings to be miracles or even deities embodied!
Despite their positive influence in the disorganized world, the Hiperbeings were a real dangers to the cyborgs left on the Earth. They were understood by them to be a powerful and danger-creating aberration that has to be eliminated. A war started whose goal was a definitive extermination of the Hiperbeings. Carefully selected robots were the subjects of diverse experiments by subjecting them to the Hiperbeings’ attacks. It was found that those beings deprived of material form exist only due to drawing on the (electric) power from the devices and the vital power of human bodies. Those revelations made fighting the creatures easier and they finally started losing. Nowadays a vast majority of the Hiperbeings is asleep or in hibernation but there are some that are awake that want to fulfill the goals nobody else knows. Sometimes the lesser, much weaker Hiperbeings are encountered that do not cause such fear as their predecessors did.
The apocalypse like a years-long gangrene
The aggressive machines wander the streets of empty cities and the computerized office buildings seem to have come alive. Numerous factories surprisingly efficiently produce machines from little resources left. The adverts and lights turned off until now sometimes suddenly start blazing, which can suggest the work of a self-aware virus or the presence of a Hiperbeing! Those are but the selected dangers of the new world. A clash with autonomous robots in search of energy or data, or those that are carrying out preprogrammed tasks that are treated almost like their call can be just as dangerous… Or a conflict with a force of dehumanized mutants or a band of cruel cyborgs that are prone to opening fire at the drop of a hat – for stimulus or for further confirmation of the feeling of immortality!
Even hope itself can be also – or maybe above all – a danger. You never know if an android wandering the rubble is a (very useful) repair or medical unit or if it is a scout of a powerful Hiperbeing that controls the entire locale. There is no way to tell that the clone declaring it’s here to help and stating it’s free is not a spy of the post-evacuation corporate forces. There is no certainty that the ordinary-looking engineering robot is not able to transform into a destructive machine. No one is able to ascertain how many machines and systems acquired self-awareness during the cyborg-Hiperbeings war. Neither can you be sure that the scrawny mutant you met by chance is not mortally dangerous due to the parapsychic abilities like telekinesis, precognition or far seeing! Only one thing is certain – help will not come so there is no escape from the hell the Earth had become.
constantly growing chaos!
ROBOTICA: THE CULT OF TECHNOLOGY
an introduction to the world of an apocalyptic sci-fi roleplaying game
The apocalypse is still lingering and the ever-increasing chaos rules the Earth!
The humanity was seduced and then mercilessly used by the technology. The galloping industrial development and lesser nuclear conflicts became the cause of the environmental pollution tragic in effects. How did it come to this?
A drastic increase in the role of autonomic machines
The programmers, dazed by the achievements of IT, called autonomic systems and machines to life, gifting them with AI (Artificial Intelligence). Thousands of devices possessed of substantial freedom were created mostly with industry and military in mind. The humanity was choking on the possibility of creating mechanized slaves. The warnings of sages and ethics were left for the shadows.
The cyborgization – a false miracle of transhumanity
The companies working in the cybernetics field had been promoting their products in the form of cyborgs, that is, humanoid-shaped robots that could be equipped with so-called DNA Converters. Those devices read the (digitalized earlier) personality of a human who was killed in the transformation process. The ‘thought is energy’ slogan took a completely new meaning! The possibility of transforming into machines covered with living tissue and resembling attractive people was massively used. The corporations kept the information of side effects, oft-existing syndromes and other dangers hidden. Due to the opposition and even terrorist attacks of ultra-humanity groups, the powerful companies allowed keeping of the digital personalities written on the Cyber-Psyche Discs in special buildings called the Soul Banks. The digitalized people remotely steered their machines from those fortresses. The increasing split in the society and the rising tension had forced the government to create a new police force dealing with the crimes of disturbed cyborgs and defective autobots and with the crimes against cyborgs.
The cloning – making the man an item
The great organizations of the corporations had needed something more than costly robots and advanced computer systems to progress. It turned out quickly that the modern genetics could be the solution. The outstanding (but also immoral) engineers and scientists, lacking any scruples, started cloning on a mass scale, implanting their creations with the miracle of nanotechnology in the form of the programmable Schematizers of behavior. The vast increase in the slave labor forces caused a crisis in the job markets of the entire world – the clones said to be created with the thought of taking the place of the human only in immensely dangerous occupations and in extreme conditions have finally replaced him in a giant number of job posts! At first – in secret. Later - openly.
The total fusion
The human-like cyborgs - groups of identical, pollution-resistant, eternally young corporation clones higher in status than your common man – and the forces of guard machines that were slowly replacing the police walked the streets.
The society was in debt on a vast scale, losing any influence over the doings of the corporations. In addition, due to the ever-worsening conditions of life on the Earth, people were growing addicted to the medicine, produced of course by the corporations under the most powerful companies. The rare upheavals were brutally suppressed. Although there were moments giving the common man hope, the incapacitated media manipulated the information in a way profitable for their bread-givers.
The decline of human civilization
The humanity was reaching the bottom. It is not out of the question that the technological and industrial rush would have lasted for decades onwards, bringing more and more innovations to the world, but further existence on the Earth had become immensely hard! The environmental pollution had sparked the creation of new viruses mutating with a speed that prevented the infected from receiving any help.
The space evacuation that only the wealthiest citizens could afford started. Paradoxically, the extraterrestrial colonies were seen as oases of normality. Only there a man could lead a relatively calm life. Masses of people with a low material status, wishing to escape the polluted planet, were signing contracts forcing 20 - 30 generations into slave labor. The humanity had regressed to the times of slavery, the only difference being that the common man was controlled not by a supposedly better aristocracy, but by an untouchable clone, higher placed in the corporate hierarchy – a loyal servant of the cyborgized rich. In the extraterrestrial space a new social class was formed – the Lords, that is the most influential corporate managers. After all, because of the limited number of the resources necessary to create the clones and the hard period of adapting the industry to the new conditions, in the space the corporations were forced to care for the citizens better than on their native planet.
In the meantime the anarchy, aberration and death had started to rule the Earth. The systems left by their creators have gone mad, in the literal sense of the world. The most advanced computer technologies acquired the full autonomy and even self-awareness and they inherited the worst personality traits of their users. All the secrets hidden by the corporations were now in the open: the amazing genetic experiments, shady technologies and horrendous side effects of the up-to-date doings. The people died in millions or mutated, every day closer to the limits of humanity. The AIs programmed themselves by themselves, making incomprehensible assumptions and choosing unintelligible priorities. The machines and robots without new instructions fell into unending cycles of loops that were carried out despite the changing situation. The grand factories and power plants became the goal of mutants and cyborgs fighting for the resources needed to survive. The growing and destructive viruses migrated in the cyberspace covering the real world that were able after a time to break even into the Soul Banks! An autonomic program that was to remove all proof burdening the corporations “just in case” started to view all sentient beings as his goals and it started efforts to exterminate them, including removing the Union’s databases. Due to its original function the humans called that murderous program – using the destructive robots - DESTRO, and his subordinate machines - the Destructors.
The Hiperbeing: the phenomenon, the transcendental computerized being, the hope?
When it seemed that the horror reached its peak and a total disaster is unavoidable, those that survived became the witnesses to the birth of transcendental computerized beings possessing intelligence and self-awareness. The Hiperbeings – so they were called – started to assume control over the chaos-filled world. Those beings had developed amazing powers. They were able to manipulate computers, systems, and even to control human mind and affect matter with their willpower! Many occult organizations were created, bringing mutants together who believed the Hiperbeings to be miracles or even deities embodied!
Despite their positive influence in the disorganized world, the Hiperbeings were a real dangers to the cyborgs left on the Earth. They were understood by them to be a powerful and danger-creating aberration that has to be eliminated. A war started whose goal was a definitive extermination of the Hiperbeings. Carefully selected robots were the subjects of diverse experiments by subjecting them to the Hiperbeings’ attacks. It was found that those beings deprived of material form exist only due to drawing on the (electric) power from the devices and the vital power of human bodies. Those revelations made fighting the creatures easier and they finally started losing. Nowadays a vast majority of the Hiperbeings is asleep or in hibernation but there are some that are awake that want to fulfill the goals nobody else knows. Sometimes the lesser, much weaker Hiperbeings are encountered that do not cause such fear as their predecessors did.
The apocalypse like a years-long gangrene
The aggressive machines wander the streets of empty cities and the computerized office buildings seem to have come alive. Numerous factories surprisingly efficiently produce machines from little resources left. The adverts and lights turned off until now sometimes suddenly start blazing, which can suggest the work of a self-aware virus or the presence of a Hiperbeing! Those are but the selected dangers of the new world. A clash with autonomous robots in search of energy or data, or those that are carrying out preprogrammed tasks that are treated almost like their call can be just as dangerous… Or a conflict with a force of dehumanized mutants or a band of cruel cyborgs that are prone to opening fire at the drop of a hat – for stimulus or for further confirmation of the feeling of immortality!
Even hope itself can be also – or maybe above all – a danger. You never know if an android wandering the rubble is a (very useful) repair or medical unit or if it is a scout of a powerful Hiperbeing that controls the entire locale. There is no way to tell that the clone declaring it’s here to help and stating it’s free is not a spy of the post-evacuation corporate forces. There is no certainty that the ordinary-looking engineering robot is not able to transform into a destructive machine. No one is able to ascertain how many machines and systems acquired self-awareness during the cyborg-Hiperbeings war. Neither can you be sure that the scrawny mutant you met by chance is not mortally dangerous due to the parapsychic abilities like telekinesis, precognition or far seeing! Only one thing is certain – help will not come so there is no escape from the hell the Earth had become.
ROBOTICA: CULT OF TECHNOLOGY
- ABOUT THE GAME
Robotica: Cult of Technology is an apocalyptic science fiction Role Playing Game that takes place in the far and highly computerized reality where characters constantly fight for survival in time of ongoing apocalypse and ever escalating chaos. The Players take the roles of Self-Aware Robots, Androids, Cyborgs, Freed Corporational Clones, mutated humans and Hiper-beings all of whom must fight with the DESTRO, a consequence of a corporation “erase the trails” program gone wrong, now attempting to erase all life on planet.
Due to the level of environment pollution the Corporations left the planet, taking their slave workforce with them to the space colonies. But the Corporations are still monitoring the planet, snatching beings that happen to show any signs of parapsychic abilities, observing the process of evolution of self-aware intelligence and what is the most important, researching the abilities of mysterious transcendental-informatic beings that are able to telepathically control others as if they were their puppets!
The Players may fight to restore the old order and work for the good of constructive organizations in the like of Free People, Alternation, Scientologists or Citizens of Light. Or they may assume completely different priorities, working only for themselves, realizing wicked plans that root from psychical derangements, artificial intelligence aberrations, obsessions or believing that all is already lost and the only thing that awaits all is armageddon.
POINT OF THIS GAME AND ENEMIES OF THE CHARACTERS
ROBOTICA is a very flexible game, in which there isn’t one specified goal that the Players need to accomplish, but nonetheless the priority of all Characters in this game is to survive in the time of ongoing apocalypse. Precise motives and tasks for the Characters to accomplish are set at the beginning of the characters creation and integration process. The Players choose main enemies for their characters themselves as the game doesn’t point to one main enemy of absolutely all characters that are created.
Depending on the factors taken into consideration at the point of integrating the team like Syndromes, Instabilities or even team Headquarters the characters can have different key enemies – deadly machines of the DESTRO system, postcorporational corps, sects or organizations. There is also a possibility for the Players to assume roles of decadents and anarchists, all of them ignoring the present state of beings and livings like outsiders.
The game also allows the Players to assume the roles of the evil characters who find abnormal pleasure in deviance and chaos, are part of destructive sect or even are the pawns of the system that have in mind only the total holocaust of all conscious beings.
MODES OF PLAY – “BLACK AND WHITE” OR “SHADES OF GRAY”
When preparing to play Robotica: Cult of Technology it is necessary to pick one of two modes of play. “Black and White” mode is dedicated to all of players who like the classic division of forces into those of good and those of evil. In this mode the world of game is clearly divided into two camps, the positive Resistance with affiliated organizations and merciless machines of the DESTRO system that have the priority of total annihilation of all thinking beings.
Running the game in this simplified mode is easy to Game Masters and allows the Players to have a clear view of who is who. However we advise you to play in the default mode of “Shades of Gray”, because we believe that the lack of concrete evil, the difficulty to make the right decision and social chaos constitute the essence of the ROBOTICA RPG. The world then is divided infinitely and instead of decisions that are clearly right, the Players would be often forced to choose the lesser of two evils.
Example: Depending on the mode of play and your campaign the DESTRO machines would be the main enemy in your game, or would be just like savage animals that dwell in the jungle of the big city. This is true to every enemy the players may encounter – it may be the team’s main enemy, or be the secondary target with some dose of luck.
EXAMPLES OF MOTIVES THAT CAN APPEAR IN YOUR GAMES
+ >>> MORTALS VERSUS SELF-AWARE ROBOTS
- Negating the rights of the Self-aware Robots
- The spark of intolerance to synthetics and the fact that some of them feel that they are better than mortals
- Alternation and its attempt to improve the situation of self-aware machines
- The problem of machines that suffer from the Dysfunction Syndrome and constant struggle with beings suffering from other mental aberrations
- The distinction and separation of the robots district. The -state within a state- motive.
- Human distrust to ever growing families of Multinoids and their clandestine actions
- Suspicious behavior of the Dualobots
- The attempts to introduce weird codexes that would bound machines to slave work for humans
- The motive of bizarre machine societies which are warring with mortals over Power Nodes
- Megalomaniac machines attempting to dominate over mortals
- Scientific research aiming to further develop artificial intelligence
+ >>> FREE PEOPLE VERSUS CORPORATIONS
- Free People’s fight with the evil that is left by the Corporations
- Conspiracies which assume that some of the organizations secretly work for the Union, which is bound to return to Earth eventually
- Desperate attempts to prevent the things that are the priorities of the systems which were activated by the Corporations
- Confrontations with genetic experiments that pose a grave threat to the Hidden Society and to the citizens of the twelfth inhabited sectors
- Evacuation of citizens who are in danger of being attacked by the clones or experimental organisms
- Attempts to continue the Union’s research on the stabilization of behavior of clones that use the Biocomputers. Research on the programs that could alleviate the side effects of cyborgisation
- Fight to gain control of the Power Nodes
- Attempt to take over Corporational warehouses
- Trying to enter the heavily guarded Soul Banks in order to de-activate cyborgs that are deemed too dangerous to exist
- Trespassing the Corporational research centers and laboratories in hope to find schemata which would allow to produce rare drugs, bio-stimulants and anti-mutagens
- Purging the key areas from the Corporational Clone Corps whose members believe that martial law is still in effect and are therefore executing old directives
- Hopes to find the lost friends and relatives who were possibly captured by the Corporational Corps
- The urge to take revenge on the Corporations
- Ruthless attacks on the Free People posts, hiding places of the Hidden Society and inhabited sectors by the clones who are still executing old orders and believe those organizations to be nests of putrid anarchism
- Uncovering the proofs that shed light on some organizations collaboration with the Union
- The need to continue the Union’s research on the experimental organisms in need to fight with the DESTRO machines
+ >>> SURVIVORS VS DESTRO SYSTEM
- Never-ending struggles with deadly machines of the system that won’t end until all sentient life is purged
- Defending the vital locations from the machines
- Patrolling the borders of the twelve inhabited sectors
- Hunting the Destructors in hope of salvaging unique technologies
- Hiding from DESTRO, being always on the run and fortifying isolated societies
- Resistance attacks on DESTRO Mother-bases made in attempt to limit DESTRO activity in given area
- Attempts to take over structures that lie in the DESTRO infested areas
- Resistance’s brave military campaigns against DESTRO
- Finding and unlocking sealed Nodes
- Attempts to completely de-activate the DESTRO system or even to gain control over it!
- Research for the weapons that could give an edge in battle
+ >>> VISIONERS VS DECADENTS
- Lawful and constructive citizens strife with anarchists and decadents
- Groups that are force-converting the deviants
- The fall of morality versus constant attempts to introduce new law and system of moral values
- Attempts to force a new order and its’ refusal by the opposition, anarchists and competing groups. Political struggle for power
- Rule only for the strongest versus democratic approach
- Different organizations that constantly compete with each other, promoting their own vision of the world and promising resolution to ongoing crisis
- Marshalls attempts to end crime activity of the mortals and synthetics alike and to put a stop to constantly growing power of the various gangs and the Great Clans
- Attempts to introduce order amongst chaos
- Struggle to end the activity of destructive sects
- The Marshals invigilation of the various organizations, especially the Peaceful End Sect and the Citizens of Light
- Virtual Oldtimers and their alternative reality. Problems that arise from corruption of some of this organization members
- Absolute isolation of the Hidden Society versus attempts to reunite all survivors under one banner in order to stand against the crisis and Destructors
- Planning complex schemes to prevail over chaotic reality
- Citizens of Light social activity versus fall of morality, disbelief and extreme decadence
- Attempts to establish the cause of the crisis by the Collectors. Covering the problems and negating the information that could prove detrimental to overly political organizations
- Resolving problems by force versus peaceful diplomacy
- Institute of Transhumanisms versus the Transparents, who are prejudiced against cyborgisations
- Trying to find new drugs and cures versus the Peaceful End Sect activity. Attempts to treat degenerates and cyberdeviants versus military approach to wipe them all out!
