Unusual item to sell, FS: Technomancer "commlink" Options

[yoippari]

My players were presented with the dead body of a technomancer. Not having a commlink to steal and sell they decided to take the closest thing, his brain. They put the head on ice and we had to quit there but now I'm trying to figure out IF they can even sell it. An organ legger might want the head for the eyes but the prize is a technomancer brain. I'm not even sure I want to encourage lobbing off heads to sell them. This was in a high rise suite in bellevue which I wish I read it's runners haven entry before the session but even then we didn't seem to have enough time before we had to wind down and besides, it's a group of new to sr4 players, anything more would have taken way too long. The troll wanting to shoot a knee cap every few minutes worried a couple of the players considering that this area is highly patrolled.

One player has a street doc contact, another has a connection 5 yakuza boss who has contacts of his own. Should getting rid of the thing be a hopefully very fast run of its own or just being sent somewhere to drop it off and get paid?

[Cheops]

I'd spin it into a whole 'nother run in and of itself. A fairly fresh technomancer brain would be a hot comodity for any corp that is working with the right now (MCT springs to mind). And it would give the Troll plenty of opportunity to blow off kneecaps.

[hyzmarca]

I must ask, does the head come with a certificate of authenticity or some other means to prove that it is a technomancer? Because, really, without some means of verification for all the buyer knows they could have just chopped off any random guy's head.

[yoippari]

No certificate but there might be some testing that would have to happen before money changed hands. There were a number of sprite attacks around town that will probably stop which will lend some credibility to the claim.

So would the run be a self imposed 'get this to someone at a corp who would know its worth' or what. Making it into a run sounds good but I have no idea what the run would consist of.

[Method]

I'm going to go with hyzmarca on this one- there is no way they could prove the head used to belong to a technomancer. Besides, its value for research is limited, since even if you could use cyborg technology to reanimate the head it instantly looses its Resonance.

[Muspellsheimr]

If they could somehow "reboot" the brain into active mode, it could be quite valuable. Otherwise, toss it to the ghouls.

[hyzmarca]

The study of a technomancer brain, living or not, could give useful information. Unfortunately, buying a technomancer head off the street is sort of like buying dragon toenails off of eBay.

[Chrysalis]

Lofwyr checks his eBay account. LadiesMan217 has no bids on his personal collection of toe-nail clippings. Meanwhile a troll tries to sell a technomancer's brain to a bassist for when he has finished emptying the first one.

[hyzmarca]

The big issue is reputation. If one has a strong reputation for selling only real high-quality body parts then it should be sellable. Without such a proven reputation, a pragmatic buyer won't take the risk for willingness to take such risks opens one up to fraud from all comers. If a seller's very first product is rare, exotic, and expensive it certainly raises red flags.

[Aaron]

Didn't Emergence mention something about technomancer physiology that included other parts of the body than the brain?

[Method]

Yes, denser-than-normal cell structure in certain "nexi" (which BTW makes no sense- the author probably meant "plexi" and confused that with "nuclei" but whatever) especially the autonomic ganglia around the heart.

[edit]The same section (page 30) says they used fMRI and PET to study the TM's abilities, both of which would be useless in a dead brain, which is why I don't think this would be all that useful for research.[/edit]

[Method]

If they could somehow "reboot" the brain into active mode, it could be quite valuable. Otherwise, toss it to the ghouls.

Removing the brain from its original body and implanting it into a CCU completely and permanently disrupts the individual’s magical or technomantic abilities.

[Muspellsheimr]

I never said try to use it in a cyborg. As the brain is already dead, that probably wouldn't work anyways. What I was talking about was trying to jump-start the neural activity, which I doubt would be successful in any meaningful way anyway.

[Method]

Sorry- I didn't mean to imply you did.

But as far as I know the CCU is the only technology referred to in the canon for "restarting" brains and it is mutually exclusive with magic and technomancy.

[JeffSz]

Lofwyr checks his eBay account. LadiesMan217 has no bids on his personal collection of toe-nail clippings. Meanwhile a troll tries to sell a technomancer's brain to a bassist for when he has finished emptying the first one.

rofflemao

[Cheops]

Alright then for all you skeptics I guess the first question I should ask of the OP is what month of 2070 is it in your game?

If it is early in 2070 then I think that a megacorp would be willing to pay for one. Just because it is dead doesn't mean it can't give you some clues about how TMs work. You can still look at structure and what not.

As for how the run works, they approach their contact to sell it. A few hours later a team shows up to kill the PCs and take the brain. When they call their contact to say "WTF!" they find that he has mysteriously skipped town and that his street doc contact is dead. An anonymous bidder contacts them and arranges a meet to inspect the brain. When the go they find the warehouse all decked out like a medical lab where the Johnson confirms that it is in fact a TM brain. That's when the medical lab "comes to life" by skewering Johnson with a medical drill just as he holds up the brain and pronounces its origin. The runners have to fight their way out of the lab.

Assuming that they still have the brain and an inquisitive mind they do some legwork and find that the two attacks are unrelated. The first attack was sponsored by MCT and the second was conducted by a mysterious and bleeding edge hacker. MCT just wants the brain for comparison purposes but the hacker turns out to be a TM and he is offended by their action. If they make a deal with MCT he will continue to haunt them but they will get some money (not a huge amount since it isn't a live TM). If they make a deal with the hacker they don't get any money but can potentially work him into a valuable contact (considering what's about to happen in the world). Of course they can always just kill the MCT Johnson or the Hacker or try and sell it to a third party.

I'd say after a day of activity the brain becomes fairly useless so they'd have to move fast. Oh and I'd give them their contact back and an equally good replacement FoF for the one that died.

[ornot]

Nervous tissue deteriorates particularly quickly, so I doubt they'd even have 24 hours before it was worthless. It does depend on how much is known about TMs in your game, and whether they can convince anyone the brain is actually that of a TM.

[Method]

Fuzzy RPG science aside, I would rule the head has some value just so you can run the sweet adventure Cheops posted! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[yoippari]

That whole run sounds good. I even have a TM villain that would work. The original TM had a butler who escaped when he saw them kill his master. Perfect revenge motive. makes sense that one tm would make friends with another.

[Jackstand]

And then they can announce that the butler did it!

[Leofski]

So long as the butler isn't using:

A. Monowhips
B.Mono Silver Salver
C. His Shoe

It could work out alright, it has however been established by 2070 that butler is a separate metatype. They have they concealment power, dietary requirement (Witty Conversation) and Severe Allergy (Scruffiness). Unfortunatly, since this requires a magic rating you can't be a technomancer as well as a butler.