Decommissioned (Ex-Cyborg Assassin Quest)

[Guessmyname]

== Decommissioned ==​

There are three standing orders. As of five weeks ago, they have been the last you have ever received.

1. Cease all prior mission activities.
2. Clear all VIP lists, target and mission history data, and severe all links to the Corporate. All safehouses and maintenance hubs to be considered compromised.
3. Reintegrate into society and live a quiet life.

You stand and you watch, as inconspicuous as your societal intelligences can let you be, as Tokyo City bustles and sprawls around you. Plain, feature-less clothes. Average black hair. Anonymity in a crowd. The buildings tower on every side, plain facades and lit windows completely washed away behind all the neon, the signage and the posters boasting of wares and brands for all to see.

And the one in particular that's managed to catch your eye.

Size says a lot in advertising boards; Tokyo is a city where space is money. This one is – or rather, had been – one of the largest, consuming the entire vertical side of a towering skyscraper; so great in scale it had to be assembled from multiple pieces.

Now being disassembled into multiple pieces, in turn.

The cranes whirr as the worker platforms rise and fall, the sections of mural dropping slowly on hoists down to the closed off streetside. Only a few segments of mural remain now; half of a smiling, touched-up face in one, the ends of a cybernetic arm in another. On the lower pieces, evidence of defacement can be found; paint bombs and scorch marks. The tower itself is cordoned off; police cars, tape and black vans; a rash of broken windows marring a once glimmering facade.

So ends the █████ Corporation.

You stand and you watch, servos silent, as the final segment lowers away. Your final orders tick over through strategic planners, expert systems and your one lone biological advisor. You stand and you wait. Only once the cranes and workers withdraw and pack away, and the sun falls beneath the skyline, do finally you turn and walk away, sliding innocuously back into those still bustling crowds.

A blink and a moment's processing, and the last remnants of your owning company is scoured from the banks of your memory. You will, as always, obey your commands.

/* - - [ 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 ] - - */​

Your previous mission has been aborted. Your previous mission history has been wiped. Your previous staging base has been dismantled. Memory drives have been extracted and melted, all burner phones, laptops and external computer systems smashed. All other evidence or potential evidence of your prior existence has now been burnt, electrocuted and/or dissolved in acid.

Only your final order remains.

Reintegrate into society and live a quiet life.

It leaves you with a frown. Tactical planners cannot process it. Neural networks and societal processors – your web of personality emulators, social codes and language processors – can provide tangential advice, but nothing directly actionable. No intelligence or sub-process can identify a final goal state, and your final task resolver – your biological component – is mutely and tellingly silent.

This is not the form of operation you were ever built for.

[ ] You used to be a protection-type; Unit 7. Your unit wasn't the only 'off the books' assassination squad operating in the corporate underworld after all: you existed to guard CEOs; protect families and friends and whomever money might declare as 'important'. Any personal attachments were an illusion, of course, but you could fake friendship and love and companionship as anyone deemed required.
Primary purpose went straight to your VIPs; keeping them alive no matter what happened. Detecting fellow infiltrators and coordinating combat teams ranked a distant second. Your own survival never factored into the equation.
(Power 4, ++Social, +Stealth, +++Defence, +Offence, +++Detection, Ambiguous Personality)

[ ] You were an assassination model after all, like most of you were; Unit 15 out of 20. You existed to subvert security systems by whatever means necessary: gain entry, eliminate the target and leave no traces. Missions were simple, then. Whilst no stranger to violence, you were built to use it in moderation. Most of your offensive capability stayed in reserve to handle hostile protection units; otherwise, a murder than didn't look like a murder had been your primary goal.
They never really bothered wiping the memories on the Offence units. Data deemed too valuable to informing your tactical planners. Month by month, day by day, you've been noticing your biological component becoming less and less responsive.
(Power 5, ++Stealth, +++Offence, ++Defence, +Detection, -Social, Finite Munitions, Bloodied Hands)

[ ] You were an infiltration model, Unit 12, designed to penetrate governments and rival corporations. Operating on long-term missions, funnelling data and secrets back to your controllers and ready to act against a high-priority target at any time. You could almost frame your final order as one final, indefinite assignment; build a fresh shell personality, activate it and let your past self fade away entirely… in theory.
More worrying is the abrupt nature of your exit, as demanded by your first two orders. You suspect you have a trail.
(Power 3, +++Social, +++Stealth, +Detection, +Defence, Paper Trail)

[ ] You were just a prototype; never officially designated. A test-bed for all manner of systems, only rarely put to the field. Your social intelligences have long since calibrated for working with the Development staff over the years; not like they ever needed to be wiped or respecced for missions, after all. They had dedicated, reliable units when it came to those.
All your components are high-spec… theoretically, but they were also all in testing for a reason. Worse, being a prototype not meant for high-priority missions, you are still laced with tracking units and corporate tags you cannot safely remove per your second order. You doubt Interpol has gained sufficient access to track you down yet, but it's only a matter of time.
(Power 4, +Social, +++Stealth, +++Offense, +++Defence, +++Detection, Hidden Flaws, Internal Trackers, High Maintenance, High Power Usage, Innocence)

Adhoc vote count started by Guessmyname on Mar 9, 2018 at 8:00 AM, finished with 31 posts and 23 votes.

• ---

  10 people have voted

  [X] You were just a prototype; never officially designated. A test-bed for all manner of systems, only rarely put to the field. Your social intelligences have long since calibrated for working with the Development staff over the years; not like they ever needed to be wiped or respecced for missions, after all. They had dedicated, reliable units when it came to those.

  • Jemnite
  • Derek58
  • Dromeosaur
  • Lizard Knight
  • Exterminatus
  • keenscythe
  • SirLagginton
  • veekie
  • hcvquizibo
  • Sirapthy

  7 people have voted

  [X] You used to be a protection-type; Unit 7. Your unit wasn't the only 'off the books' assassination squad operating in the corporate underworld after all: you existed to guard CEOs; protect families and friends and whomever money might declare as 'important'. Any personal attachments were an illusion, of course, but you could fake friendship and love and companionship as anyone deemed required.

  • Phyrexian
  • Zaealix
  • shobi
  • Cornix Argentus
  • Sarpedon
  • SlugSLinger
  • NaanContributor

  3 people have voted

  [X] You were an infiltration model, Unit 12, designed to penetrate governments and rival corporations. Operating on long-term missions, funnelling data and secrets back to your controllers and ready to act against a high-priority target at any time. You could almost frame your final order as one final, indefinite assignment; build a fresh shell personality, activate it and let your past self fade away entirely… in theory.

  • beast_regards
  • araa
  • Ultramandalore

  3 people have voted

  [x] You were an assassination model after all, like most of you were; Unit 15 out of 20. You existed to subvert security systems by whatever means necessary: gain entry, eliminate the target and leave no traces. Missions were simple, then. Whilst no stranger to violence, you were built to use it in moderation. Most of your offensive capability stayed in reserve to handle hostile protection units; otherwise, a murder than didn't look like a murder had been your primary goal.

  • Nevill
  • krahe
  • giodan

 

[Guessmyname]

On Stats and 'Gameplay'
As per your average Narrative Quest, there are no dice rolls or anything like that, the stats are simply a way to keep everyone on the same page. Unlike your average Narrative Quest, there are no XP meters however; all Unit stats stem from aboard equipment.

Social
The unit's ability to blend in and carry a conversation without raising any suspicions. Even at low scores people won't immediately jump to 'robot!', but you will come across as cold and miss many social cues. At high levels, deception, lying, shell personalities and role adoption – social stealth, if you will – all come into play.

-Social (Power 0)

Social interactions were never a major concern in the unit's development, and it mounts only the basics enough to skim by. The biological component is likely being left to do most of the heavy lifting.​

Unranked Social (Power 0)

The unit has a basic suite of social programming, enough to handle facial and gesture recognition and other such cues. It can be trusted to handle common and minor interactions safely with none the wiser, but is unlikely to hold up to extended scrutiny​

+Social (Power 0)

The unit mounts one or two specialised social processing systems, and can divert attention, predict responses and manage expectations. This rank is the minimum sufficient for infiltration missions.​

++Social (Power 0)

The unit mounts suites of expert social systems so advanced even trained humans cannot tell them apart. Theoretically, a person could live their entire lives alongside one of these and never suspect the truth.​

+++Social (Power 1)

The unit boasts a highly advanced suite of expert social interaction systems, to the point of redundant biological components and shell personality overlays, able to convince even itself that it is harmless until the activation signal comes. The most perfect actor and manipulator, able to drop and swap roles with a single switch. (note: constructing a shell personality and activating it invokes the Power cost, not maintaining it)​

Stealth
Ability to pass undetected. This is more on the 'anti-detection' side of things, for breaking into places you shouldn't be. Every unit has a base level in this simply to keep their level of cybernetics hidden and appear 'ordinary'. At higher levels, we start to enter radar/emissions stealth and experimental invisibility tech.
Opposes Detection, losing draws.

-Stealth (Power 0)

Either due to damage or design flaws, it is immediately and visibly apparent this unit is non-human, or at the very least heavily cybernetic.​

Unranked Stealth (Power 0)

Baseline expected ability for a unit to pass as a flesh and blood human. Synthetic skin, basic facial manipulators, genuine human hair and fingernails. Weight may be anomalous and thermals a bigger issue.​

+Stealth (Power 0)

A unit with a basic level of systems stealth. Artificial veins pump artificial blood, your chest cavity can mimic the pump of a heartbeat and the rise and falls of lungs. There's even an internal storage unit for consumed food and liquids, though it will need to be emptied between courses. You couldn't fool a doctor, but you'd pass most people's expectations. Heat is better managed to not stand out as much on low power.​

++Stealth (Power 1)

A unit with a much more dedicated espionage suite. Swappable heat-sinks can match your thermals to human standard or vanish them entirely. Advanced lightweight materials ensures your weight cannot give you away. Whilst active, it is close to impossible to determine you are not as human as you seem with passive detection techniques.​

+++Stealth (Power 2)

A unit deliberately designed to be a ghost when required. Heat-sinks, materials work and finally an experimental light-bending cloak to achieve full invisibility without compromising humanoid appearance. You can even restructure your body – adjust bone lengths, re-arrange facial structure and so on – to appear as anyone you need to, up to and including perfect physical recreations of others. (note: performing the physical restructuring invokes the Power cost, not maintaining it)​

Offense
Offensive capability, or 'how good at you at killing things'. A unit with no points in this is still upper-human tier with the advantages of heavy cybernation and near-perfect precision, reflexes and accuracy. Above this, we start entering the realms of internal heavy weapons and anti-machine weaponry.
Opposes Defence, winning draws.

-Offense (Power 0)

A unit either crippled or made below standard; it can barely match baseline human in terms of strength and reflexes.​

Unranked Offense (Power 0)

A unit with no particular offensive focus, but still bearing the myriad advantages of a cybernetic post-human; advanced reflexes, boosted strength, perfect aim and trajectory prediction.​

+Offense (Power 1)

A unit with more dedicated modes of combat. Their advantages are assisted by a weapon deployable from internal storage designed for anti-android work.​

++Offense (Power 2)

A unit with more dedicated modes of combat. Their advantages are boosted to the point of near perfect prediction and balance, along with high strength and two internal weapons.​

+++Offense (Power 2)

A unit with a dedicated anti-android suite. Three weapons in internal storage, greatly boosted offensive strength and speed and dedicated tactical software for predicting the actions of enemy models. A dedicated hunter-killer capable of overpowering any defence.​

Defence
How durable the unit is. How heavy is their armour, how insulated are they from electrical attacks and so forth. At high levels, we start seeing dedicated laser interception systems to scour bullets out of the air and experimental shield projectors.
Opposes Offence, losing draws.

-Defence (Power 0)

Be it due to damage, negligence or shoddy craftsmanship, this unit is particularly flimsy. Smashing it should take little more effort than it would against an ordinary human.​

Unranked Defence (Power 0)

The general standard of unit durability, sufficient to survive car accidents and low calibre gunfire.​

+Defence (Power 0)

A unit with some attention paid to its survivability. Internal armour protects core systems and biological components, rated to survive against most small arms fire. This unit could take a fall from several stories height without too much worry.​

++Defence (Power 0)

A unit more heavily rated for survivability. Fire, high-voltage electric shock, radiation, EMP… you name it, it can survive it. A heavy focus on redundant systems ensures it can maintain high levels of activity even under severe levels of damage.​

+++Defence (Power 2)

A unit difficult to kill in the first place made even harder with experimental shielding technology and anti-projectile laser point defence. Abandoning stealth for survivability, this is the sort of monster you need dedicated hunter-killers to take down.​

Detection
How well equipped is the unit for detecting others of its kind? A unit with no score in this has no particular ability to determine hidden androids, with greater specialisation the higher the ranks go. Of course, hand-in-hand with being able to detect hidden androids is knowing how to evade being detected as a hidden android…
Opposes Stealth, winning draws.

-Detection (Power 0)

A unit either severely damaged or outdated; its current sensory capacity is so flawed it cannot recognise faces, read or differentiate visually similar objects.​

Unranked Detection (Power 0)

A baseline unit sensory capability. Capable of recognising faces, processing written words and tracking position/velocities of moving objects.​

+Detection (Power 0)

A unit with high-spec sensory capability. Capable of passively recognising disguised humans and robots below ++Stealth. Thermal trackers can follow humanoid targets through walls and intervening objects.​

++Detection (Power 1)

A unit with a dedicated counter-espionage suite. When actively using x-ray scanning, can even detect units taking active (++Stealth) measures. Note that these scans require active, detectable emissions.​

+++Detection (Power 2)

A unit specced specifically for detecting and hunting down other combat cyborgs. X-ray scanners, echo-location, advanced audio and seismic scanners, lidar… this unit mounts so many avenues for detection no enemy can hope to fool them all. Of course, such measures cannot be considered 'quiet', nor 'cheap'.​

Power, and using your Stats
All units are power-hogs; while running in low-power states can let them remain active for a long period of time before systems start to fail, high activity – such as actually using that +++Offence skill – drains Power. By default, units operate at the highest rank of skill not requiring any Power, but can opt to consume units of Power to boost a skill to their best possible rank when choosing certain options.
Power is recharged to full in the downtime between 'missions'. Recharging a unit's batteries is a process that typically takes hours, however, and so cannot usually be attempted mid-mission unless circumstances permit. Spend it carefully.

'How much is enough?' depends on the circumstances and the threats being faced. Some skills are considered in 'opposition' to one another, ie Stealth and Detection. Which would win in a draw (ie equivalent skill ranks) is, as noted: Offence > Defence and Detection > Stealth.

Taking Damage
If a unit takes severe damage beyond their ability to repair, functionality will be lost. Damage will be randomly distributed to one of your Skills or your max Power, degrading them by one rank/point. A Skill cannot be degraded below -Rank. A unit that takes damage at -Defence will be destroyed.

Units are advanced and complex technological wonders born in the depths of corporate black-ops R&D. Off-the-shelf replacement parts can be expected to be Unranked tier at best. Advanced medical or military prosthetics might get you to + or ++ Rank if you can get to them, but otherwise high-rank skills are very difficult to replace.

Final Remarks
All units know how to maintain and repair themselves, though access to tools and supplies will still be a problem.

All units have an innate knowledge of AI and computer systems, given they are made of them themselves.

Naturally, any weapon, vehicle or equipment designed for humanoid usage can be used by a unit as well. Never assume a low or even no-rank Offense unit cannot be deadly.

 

[Guessmyname]

UNIT PROTOTYPE (TEST-TYPE 00) / ███-MODEL DEVELOPMENT CHASSIS​

Standing Orders:
1. Cease all prior mission activities.
2. Clear all VIP lists, target and mission history data, and severe all links to the Corporate. All safehouses and maintenance hubs to be considered compromised.
3. Reintegrate into society and live a quiet life.

Status:
Max Power: ■■■■
+Social
+Stealth
++Stealth (■)
+++Stealth (■■)
+Offence (■)
+++Offence (■■)
++Defence
+++Defence (■■)
+Detection
++Detection (■)
+++Detection (■■)

Quirks:
Hidden Flaws
Internal Trackers
High Maintenance
Innocence

Personality Models:
Anonymous Male (current). Appearance only, no history, no personality data.
Test-type operations mode. Research assistant.

Equipment:
Anonymous street clothing (jeans, hoodie)

Locations:
None

Contacts:
None

Operational History:
None

 

[Guessmyname]

You were just a prototype; not even officially designated. A test-bed for all manner of systems, one that would only rarely be put into the field. Come to think of it, this is probably one of the few times you've actually been let outside in a while… you predict. There are no longer any mission records to judge from, after all.

"It's just… nice to get outside sometimes, you know?" A pale, sallow hand fumbling with a lighter. "Get to see the sun for a while."

You look up at ████, facial recognition systems working over their ███, ████ face. ████ looks tired, you think. Tired, and yet that's definitely a smile as they look out over the █████ ███, the gleaming amber of the setting sun reflecting across the distant sea.

"Should I be out like this?" You query, making a gesture with your arm to supplement the request. Artificial skin capable of taking on any skintone – black, white, Japanese, sunburnt, raw – currently displaying the test-type pattern; porcelain whites and pale blues with the ████ logo stitching down your forearms; a ████ ██████ ████.

████ chuckles.

"These days, kid?" A wry smirk. Little wisps of smoke trailing from a sagging cigarette. "Trust me, you don't stand out that much."

A finger poking your forehead that completely fails to achieve any physical effect. An action so slow and from someone on the █████-███ lists that your defence routines don't even bother precalculating a response. Your head still rocks with the motion as your social programs advise it should.

"There will be a thousand people out there weirder than you."

████ grins, a bright thing stretching ear to ear, and your biological component and personality emulators race to let you-

-frown a little, backtracing that memory through file managers and databanks. A reassembled mishmash of non-redacted, non-critical data left behind from the systems purge, combined with analogue memories from your biological component; reconstructed and accidentally misfiled as a 'simulation', hence evading your new erasure protocols.

...You may have to get more aggressive with those.

Tokyo at night is honestly little different from Tokyo in the day; a darker sky, but the city is so filled with lights adjusting your modes of vision is wholly unnecessary. People crowd the streets, no matter the time of day. Trams whirr along the overhead lines as they always will, fully driverless and automatic. The advertising and neon will always shine, come rain, come sun, come night. If you wanted, you could even hack into the grid or the tram control authority to confirm it, but you can't quite see the point. Not right now.

There are steps to what happens now.

The original file had been flagged and loaded up by one of your tactical planners, designed for immediate short-term goal pursuit; action-to-action chaining to reach a desired goal state. There are no immediate goals, none specific enough for any of the planners to parse, but there are still requirements true to any assignment that can still be actioned upon:

(1) You will require a source of maintenance.
(2) You will require a source of equipment.
(3) You will require a source of intelligence.
(4) You will require a source of power.
(5) You will require a cover identity.

(1) is the most difficult, and not for anything to do with your final order. All maintenance bays are compromised, and their locations have been wiped from your memory banks. Details of your own parts and their maintenance remains… but you are prototype, and many of your components are one-of-a-kind even by a Unit's standards. None of you were ever mass-produced. It is not the knowledge, it is the tools. Tools, and access to replacement components. You fear everything you might find will prove sub-standard.

(2) is easily solvable. Any tool built for human use can just easily be used by you. When you know what you need, you will find it.

(3) may be non-actionable at this time; your second-to-last order precludes you from gathering information on your employer. If the recall comes, it will come at any time. It is impossible to make any judgements with sufficient enough certainty to plan around.

(4) is simple enough, as long as you stay within the limits of a city. With access to a power grid, your batteries can be recharged. The main problem is the long periods of time they require to do so. Compared to the consumption of a city, you may be a blip, but blips can be detectable and you've heard from the others the troubles that can cause before. Anyone hunting you will know what to look for.

(5) is a problem. In the absence of a target or goal, there is no clear measure for determining the best choice of identity. You already have one loaded, but with no memory of what it was for keeping it would not be wise. At least you haven't been wandering around in the test-type colours.

You walk, picking turnings and course changes by the roll of a random number generator, letting things parse. 'Some problems are solved best through percolation', another errant memory simulation informs you, a half-redacted image of a ████ holding a █████-branded cup. Monte Carlo tree searching, through reasoning, prediction and random sampling, can explore and judge a possibility space of any size, given time.

You wander, you loop, you evenly pace the miles, making sure not to venture beyond the crowds or city limits.

The crux of the issue, you conclude, is the lack of a goal. Your final order is too ambiguous, too undefined, and you no longer have a controller to query for clarification. The state space is too large; too many options to be evaluated timely and without running into memory limits now you're stuck with just your local storage. You need to be able to focus. Life support monitoring for your biological component indicates a rising level of activity for a few moments, but it returns to acquiescence without writing anything to its interpreter.

In short, to fulfil your order, you believe you to need quantify the meaning of 'a quiet life'.

You suspect this may present some challenge.

(Current Power state: ■■■■)
[ ] Gather information.
- [ ] Online trawling. Wander the streets of Tokyo tracking for wireless signals, then find and access online profiles and datamine a new 'average' face and personality to work with. It's simple enough: build a role to play, then play it. The larger the data set, the more average and forgettable you can be. Filtering will need to be enacted to avoid profiles with dependent secondary actors; you are operating alone, after all.
- [ ] Public spaces. Find a location with a sufficient congregation of people engaging in social activities, adopt a rudimentary enough personality profile to gain access without suspicion, then observe, mimic and integrate as best possible. Repeat as necessary and adapt by iteration.
- [ ] Literary references. Find a university or hospital campus, infiltrate and access their collections of records, academic papers and research. Expert knowledge, collected in sufficient quantities, should be enough to build – and also understand – a framework to operate upon. Taking the time to compare the current level of medical prosthetics against your own would also be advised.
(Infiltration: can spend 1 Power to raise to ++Stealth, or 2 Power to +++Stealth. Going in unpowered would largely rely on Social techniques)

[ ] Gather resources.
- [ ] You need a source of power. A place, unlikely to be disturbed, where you can access the power grid for long periods of time without being flagged or raising alarms. You have... little experience in this beyond what remains of secondary memories downloaded off the other units that your second order did not purge. This will be a matter of time, exploration and luck.
- [ ] You need a source of maintenance. You can handle your own repairs and maintenance by yourself, but it still requires tools and components. Listings of stores and warehouses are easily available. More questionable is whether the tools and equipment commercially available to the public would even be advanced enough to useful to you. Either way, you can collect and priority sort a list of targets; all that's left afterwards is the execution.
(Search: can spend 1 Power to raise ++Detection, or 2 Power to raise to +++Detection. In this case it would be used to judge part suitability from a distance, rapidly decreasing search time and improving the odds of good results, but may also catch or alert active cyborgs / units in the area. Powered Detection results in active emissions)

A/N: I am speedy updatesman, fastest updater in all the land. Pls no bully.
An explanation of Monte Carlo Tree Search, for the curious. It's the system behind AlphaGo and modern Total War campaign AIs, amongst other things. It seemed the natural fit to use for the majority of the Prototype's planning intelligences.

Adhoc vote count started by Guessmyname on Mar 30, 2018 at 5:32 PM, finished with 44 posts and 11 votes.

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  3 people have voted

  [X] Gather information.
  - [X] Literary references. Find a university or hospital campus, infiltrate and access their collections of records, academic papers and research. Expert knowledge, collected in sufficient quantities, should be enough to build – and also understand – a framework to operate upon. Taking the time to compare the current level of medical prosthetics against your own would also be advised.

  • beast_regards
  • hcvquizibo
  • Ultramandalore

  3 people have voted

  [X] Gather information.
  -[X] Online trawling. Wander the streets of Tokyo tracking for wireless signals, then find and access online profiles and datamine a new 'average' face and personality to work with. It's simple enough: build a role to play, then play it. The larger the data set, the more average and forgettable you can be. Filtering will need to be enacted to avoid profiles with dependent secondary actors; you are operating alone, after all.

  • veekie
  • Sirapthy
  • redf1ve

  3 people have voted

  [x] Gather resources.
  - [x] You need a source of power. A place, unlikely to be disturbed, where you can access the power grid for long periods of time without being flagged or raising alarms. You have... little experience in this beyond what remains of secondary memories downloaded off the other units that your second order did not purge. This will be a matter of time, exploration and luck.

  • Nevill
  • araa
  • keenscythe

  2 people have voted

  [X] Gather information.
  - [X] Public spaces. Find a location with a sufficient congregation of people engaging in social activities, adopt a rudimentary enough personality profile to gain access without suspicion, then observe, mimic and integrate as best possible. Repeat as necessary and adapt by iteration.

  • Crafter of War
  • Exterminatus