Wireless Control of Spirits, Via Satellite Matrix Uplink Options

[JanessaVR]

I’ve recently come up with a rather unique idea for drones without any sort of drive systems. They’re designed to be carried about by Air spirits…which can be controlled wirelessly via a satellite matrix uplink. Impossible according to rules, you say? You can’t control a spirit wirelessly like a drone? Ah, but you *can* - well, indirectly at least.

Some background on how this came about:

I’ve been increasingly less fond of the idea of actual shadowrunning as time passes, but I do very much like the Sixth World. Accordingly, we’ve shifted over to an alternative Sixth World campaign style where we *gasp!* actually have legal SINs and legal jobs. Sounds boring? Not really – we’re monster hunters. Who ya gonna call when the shedim are knocking on your door or you’ve sighted some ghouls in your neighborhood? Us! Based in the PCC, we’re Pueblo Paranormal Defense and we offer a full suite of services from baneful entity eradication to wards and security consulting, with worldwide service (travel expenses will be billed). Our 100% Awakened or Emerged staff are ready to serve your security needs 24/7.

The problem came about as I was looking to provide “overwatch” ability for the company’s AI (who handles all matrix work and acts a coordinator to all teams in the field as well as functioning as the office accountant). Ideally, I was looking for some drones with multi-sensor suites to be controlled via satellite uplink. The idea was for the team to go to the trouble site (if hunting actual monsters, as opposed to more mundane security consulting) and send up a small fleet of drones to spread up and out over the area, giving our AI a grand view of the entire theater of operations, and thus able to direct team members on the ground as needed as well as get as many sensor readings as were available to mundane sensors about the problem(s) in question.

Well, I poured over the vehicles & mods in Arsenal for a few weeks, on and off, tinkering with and eventually rejecting many ideas, before I finally hit on an unconventional solution – “drones” that were really just weather-proofed, aerodynamic sensor suites, designed to be carried aloft by Air spirits who would use Concealment, Guard, and Magical Guard on them. Good idea, but that would mean constant ground-based control by their summoners to move them about…hmmm…or would it?

The idea I came up with was for a saucer-shaped craft – nice clean design and good aerodynamics all around if you’re not worried about a drive system. In the center is a clear Plexiglas globe that sticks out of the top and bottom and contains a pointer needle capable of pointing in any direction. To one side of the globe is a recessed slider bar with a sliding tab and a red line marker to mark where it is on the slider – all the way to the left or right or anywhere in-between. Upon summoning/binding the spirit is given the following instructions: “Keep up your Concealment, Guard, and Magical Guard abilities on this item at all times; when your service is nearly up, set it gently on the ground in the nearest safe location you can find. When you see the arrow in the middle move, you should move the item in that direction. When you see the slider tab move, that tells you to either speed up as it moves to the right, or slow down as it moves to the left; complete left is full stop, complete right is top speed. Go.”

And there you have it – decker-controlled spirits. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

We had our custom “Saucer Sensors” mass-produced and then issued a dozen to each team in the field. An invisible sensor fleet over any area a team is operating in.