The Bad Craziness Campaign, also called TranshumanPunk Options

[TheWanderingJewe...]

Currently using CP V3 (yes yes, I know), with a flavor being a perverse
combination of Transmetropolitan, Transhuman Space (gotta love memetic warfare),
and Bubblegum Crisis.

The players are a cadre of a Roller Medtech, A Edger Fixer, A Collective
(homegrown Altcult) Biotech (rather infamous for designing custom pleasure
morphs), and a C-Metal combat cybertech.

players have been playing the low level Diplomatic game (read: hustlers) between
they various Altcults (trying to keep things low key and by in large
succeeding), and bumping into other enclaves which may or may not be freindly.

Currently sitting guard over several Japanese nationals from the Reformed Empire
of Japan (I pointedly ignored the EMP nuking of Japan in V3) looking to stir up
biz. And each of thier AltCults are interested in trade with this lot. problem
is.....a lot of people aren't too pleased with the Japanese being back...

The Campaign started off the players meeting during a firefight near the True
America Enclave (a Enclave that rolled back it's laws, looks and memetics to
1980's America). The Fixer picked up a job offer of ten grand for a retreival
job.

Problem was the job involved a roll across the country outside of "The City"
(UnFed U.S. slang for The Night City Metropolitan Access) and into Dixie, a
recalcitrant Sector of the Incorporated States of America (after the Flooding
from the Particle sats leveling both the poles, FedGov was too sapped to cope
with a Effective Take over of governmental functions. The Neo Corps pretty much
run the show, but use FedGov to handle the scut work or things that don't makea
profit) to extract a package from the I.S.A. Historical Archive Repository moved
to South Carolina.

A six session oddessy of moving across Roller & C-Metal territory ensued where
the players had to deal with Revanchist types from Mexico, including a outbreak
of weaponized Flu virus launched by a asshole called 'Hitler Hernandez' into
Albequerque (which drifted back down and ran Rampant in Northern Mexico, killing
a sizable portion of the population). Which lead to the Republic of Texas moving
into Northern Mexico & New Mexico and now stretches to Baja, under a chaotic
form of control by the Texas Armed Forces (with all the associated headaches
that go with that).

And this is when things got even weirder for the players as they moved across
Sequoiyah (Oklahoma) as that biological mess known as Kudzu had seriously
overgrown a majority of the south, and the locals had learned to make many
things out of Kudzu (candy, Soda, weaves, Biomass Fuels. The Kudzu Soda has been
a running gag in the game). In spite of this, they've learned that Southerners
are pretty laid back sorts on the western side of the Gulf of Lousianna, which
they were more than a bit suprised to learn about. Going east, they had to deal
with go-gangers that prey on interstate traffic and other misfits.

Once they got to Nashville, they began to run into more obvious police
enforcement and (after a decent data check) subliminals being fed into the local
transmission web, but that also someone was running hack on the subliminals to
give people a clue that something was not on the up and up. It was at this point
they noted the rather Strained relationship between local polcie and ISA DCS
(Department of Corporate Security) which they learned to exploit much later.

Once they got into Greenville SC, they headed for the repository, near local
community college. The place had been put into the old nuclear fallout shelter,
and the security, which competent, wasn't as rigid or professional as they were
expecting (ISA budgets aren't what they used to be). An insider for True America
got them past security and into the repository and lead them to a pair of
suitcases, which one of the players noted were Halon containment cases, and they
needed to bugger off with.

At the same time (luckily for the players) the CyberRevolution, was making a
staged raid on the repository for it's weapons supply and to make off witha few
artifacts for propoganda purposes. To makea long story short, confusion reigned,
the players cut a deal with the Revs, and got the hell out of the place, making
thier way back using back roads and a Riptide transport from Florida to Texas,
and burned rubber getting back to Night City.

The got paid by the Enclave, who told them that what they had stolen in the
primary case they had gone for (second was a opporunity nic) was the Original
U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Articles of Confederation. Half of which
had no idea what that ment exactly, but it was explained that the True Amis were
worried that if the ISA was developing nanotech document reconstruction and
might eventually rebuild the historical document to say whatever they wanted. So
they were very happy with the players.

The Second longer case, turned out to be Old Glory.....whcih even the True Amis
were a bit shocked at. So, they've got an enclave that has given the "dog tags"
and a fair line of credit, plus the ability to hide out in case they really get
someone pissed at them.

So far the players have not abused this (they know better).

and that was pretty much the start of it all

[TheWanderingJewe...]

With that amount of weirdness under the belt, the players teched up and used
they various Giri to do the various upgrades (fixer reinvesting most of his cash
into favors, bribes, and a new motorbike).

The group decided to follow up on plot thread I had left hanging from the
previous adventure. Outside of Phoenix, they had happened along a old roadblock
with Nomad raiders that were setting up to ambush them at the time, but had run
into a snag with some CyberRevolutionarys (as in grown up Carbon-Kids) playing
Gulch the Nomad. Figuring the Revs were the lesser of two evils, the teamed up
with them to scrag the nomads. The Revs were a pretty sorry lot at the time, and
scavved off the Nomads, stating they were heading for Night City to disappear
into the cities crawlspaces. With them was a rather rough looking Solo with a
obvious case of the cyber-jitters who seemed to be able to listen in on what
they characters were radio squirting.

After asking, He introduced himself as Azazael, the last of the Orbital Angels
(the runner boogymen of the Corporate Age, top drawer kick-murder operatives)
and a replicant clone near the end of his run. and wanting someplace quiet to go
offline. As a result of being saved and frankly having no loyalty left to the
corporation that created him (Genom Enterprises), he divuldged the local of 4
Caches of Genom tech that he was aware of, showing the occasional nosebleed as
anerysms(sp?) began to seize him.

The Roller medtech shined here with her first aid and medical tech rolls, but
the Replicant was going into shut down. she managed to keep him alive long
enough to get him to a Roller Enclave and get him stuck in a cryotank while the
rollers used various nanomedicine to correct the damage he'd done to himself.

So while he was being worked on, they decided to investigate oneof the caches,
after haggling over the locations with the Rollers as repayment for fixing the
Replicant agent. The location of the closest one was north of Night City up near
Feather Falls. Not having been there before, the players loaded up on campign
gear and such and headed out. The mountain areas had overgrown with more
tropical plants (a combined effect of the heightened Water content in the
atmosphere and somewhat more 'sane' Beastboys and Terra Firsters genetic
enginnering), and very odd noises came out of the forest as they drove in
further. they came across a ghost town near nightfall with the Sign stating
"Beware the Velociraptors" stapled to a old house.

The C-metal had been put on watch and in the middle of the night noted a
mountain lion with a collar casually going by the players encampment. when he
was about to shoot, a voice came from the collar "Don't even fuckin' think it,
asshole. Smelled you two miles away" the C-metal blinked as the mountain lion
went on it's way, mentioning in passing "Mind the Stegasaurus".

It was at this point the players heard crunching in the distance (after an
awareness test). The fixer, best in stealth of the bunch went up to take a look.
A large wail of pain from nearby made him think twice as he saw what was left
ofa bear stagger to a tree and expire messily. after that...the munching sound
went back to what it was previously.

The player wisely went back to camp and didn't do much other than keep an eye
out during the night.

in the morning, they tracked the corrdinates (gotta love survival roll) to a
cave area near the falls. Now, being properly paranoid little snots, the players
moved in cautiously. Sadly it was the Roller driver they had with them that
triggered the Advanced High Speed Solofiliment Spooler, which by the magic of
electrical inductance, fires out a 3 meter length of Molywire that twists and
turn and coil upon itself...which will dice a soft armor target faster than it
takes the GM to turn the pencil eraser side down. in short...diced pulp ina few
seconds with no idea where it came from.

Which terrified the punks properly. a few awareness/notice checks later. they
spotted the spool extruder....and the Disassaembler Nanotech Cluster openings.
the one of the little bright sparks remmebered they had been given the access
codes for the place by Azazael and tried that. After much sweating and worry
that there was no response to the code upload, the went in deeper. the
eventually found the security door and opened it and went through the airlock
before being let into the place.

Stark chromealloy walls, floor and ceilings made them even more uptight as no
identifying markings could be found to indicate what they were in, or where to
go. Oneof the more observant players picked up on the comment I made that there
was NO loose particulates in the place....at all. eventually they found what
appeared to be a older holoterminal (at the end of the 4th corporate war, it was
cutting edge stuff), and used the codes again to access it.

The local smart frame responsed as if they were the proper user, and inventoried
what it had in storage (various nano and monofiliment weapon templates, while
not particularly sophisiticated, were elegant and vicious). they also found out
about the 100 Personality Templates stored in 'cold storage' using modified
Soulkiller Protocols under 'Project Seraphim', namely the stored personality
templates of the Orbital Angels. and Cloning gear to bring them back online....


There was actually a bit of discussion between the Collective Geneticist, The
C-Metal Tech, and the Edger if there was a way to make some scratch off this
find. The Nanotechnology defenses, while utterly vicious were of limited
application outside of Enclave Defense, but the modified SK protocols
(henceforth dubbed as SKIV), the personality templates, and relatively quick
growth genetic engineering tools were of exceptional interest. They also found
indications buried in the data which stated five of the Angels were still
active, namely Metatron (Voice of God/Interface with Corporate officers),
Azreael (Angel of Death/ Top-End Solo), Uriel (Solo & Wetwork Specialist),
Michael (Cadre Leader/Solo) and Lilith (Interface Op).
Along with a cryptic Simple Text Message buried within the Data: "I'm still in
here, You Bastards---Lucifer, The Star of Morning, Esq." With the most recent
updates to the frame within the last month, including templates for several
exceptionally sophisticated forms of powered armor dubbed Hardsuits, as well as
an address within Tokyo.

Now as any one knows, The Net crashed hard in the Collapse, so the players were
utterly mystified as to how the thing could have been updated as the place
appeared to be a sealed bolthole. After a bit of investigation, which mostly
involved asking the smart-frame if it had radio or sat receivers (yes) and how
it was updated. They found out there was a combination of a physical agent
coming about once a month to the site (they had not noticed tracks in) plus
occasional transmissions into the old sat link (which doubled as a micro squirt
radio receiver).

Lacking any experts in communications, the decided to go back to Night City with
as much as the tech they could cart, made some fairly profitable deals with each
of their enclaves, they decided to go looking for some deckers with knowledge of
the older net (a bit harder to find than one would initially think). After
traveling to the Blind Science enclave in what remained of Silicon Valley, a few
of the older techs recognized it as being related to some of the prototype
Ishara-Grubb V3 protocols that were being developed as CW4 rolled on as well as
the addressing which seemed to come from Japan. They also found out Lucifer was
a legendary Decker in the Pac-Rim who'd had a mad-on against the Zaibatsu of
Japan

Suffice it to say, this was a thunderbolt, as no one had even heard Japan being
still online, or rather had paid attention to it being that way (Vindex and all
that). So to find out if such a thing was possible, they asked around their
contacts and went back to the True America Enclave, as they seemed to have their
hooks into many factions money and intel. After showing the evidence, their
contact sighed a bit stating, "Well, this was eventual." And told them that,
yes, Japan still existed in a contiguous fashion, but truly was not aware of the
condition of the USA. True America had been making a killing by bringing imports
through the Riptide Confederations transport system of going around the Pac-Rim
to Night City, and having exclusive trade rights for certain items meant the
True Amis unconcerned if the secret got out.

The players at this point made a polite request to see which items were already
under the Ami's hooks, had a confab to discuss what they'd try brining back for
they factions once they got there, then asked for a contact to talk to among the
Rips.
The True America contact actually stated that they would need to go to the Stray
Dog Enclave on the outer edge of the dock areas in the San-Fran Hub as he
produced a few old U.S. passports for them. After a bit of paperwork when
dealing with with they respective factions (Mostly explaining that Japan was
back), They headed out after a few encounters with Water-based boosters, they
managed to make it to the Coordinates...and found out the enclave was a Water
Based Parkology that they needed to show they passports to get in. Once inside
they had to take a boat to an artifical island that was in the cleanest sky blue
water that any of them had ever seen at a balmy 87 degrees with about 95%
humidity.

The Enclave looked to be a retro enclave at about 1945-1953 Japan after the War,
with locally fac'd cars and buildings....and No Net or CellNet they could
detect. To say they stuck out like a sore thumb is being generous, with them
drawing stares from the locals. The Sheer culture shock nearly lead to some
altercations, but the fixer was able so smooth things over after watching the
local street action and figuring out, in spite of appearances, they was a active
black market in the area dealing in rice ration cards. Figuring out this would
be a decent time to spread the wealth, he hooked up with a local fixer and asked
for directions to where they would need to go to head for Japan while being
generous with the NCD's. The local fixer wasa bit perplexed, but wasn't going to
turn away easy cred, so pointed him at the local Police station, which handled
passporrt stamping and booking on ships leaving port. One of the players said,
"Heh, Casablanca." As they got to the station and noted the general laziness of
the local police, having tea and smokes. The passports were stamped and they
were booked on the Hon Maru for Japan, a former IEC cargo submarine.

The submarine had been an old Typhoon class that had been bought off the Old
Soviet Union By IEC and refurbished for cargo transport before the Collapse.
After that, the Rips had seized it and refitted it slightly to make travel a bit
more tolerable for the haul across the ocean. The crew tended to stay out of the
players way as they were paying customers, but left a holojector with several
data solids for them to review as they traveled. The solids contained 3DV's of a
History of Japan as well as Post Collapse History in a News Reel format which
the C-Metal pegged as the "Why We Fight" style of propaganda, raising more than
one eyebrow among the players. The fact the solids and passports stated "Empire
of Japan" on the official labels gave pause for thought.

At about on day out from landfall, they had a microsub doc with them, and two
government agents from the Bureau of Cyber-Technology Regulation came to visit
them, subjecting the players to some very pointed questions about they chrome
they were carrying and how it worked. While the specifics were glossed over, the
BCR agents seemed to be more interested in the humanity costs of the chrome as
opposed to weapon systems, The players had wisely chose not to bring any, except
close quarter weapons, which didn't really seem to interest the BCR overly much.
After showing Edger armoring technology, which the BCR classified as a passive
system (therefore ignorable), they were given clearance to have the ship surface
to head into Japan.

The players were allowed up on deck and had several double takes as they saw
Tokyo. Instead of ash and cinders, The City was completely different from the
older skyline. Gone were the imposing mega Archologies and Soulless black
edifices which emphasized the corporate reign of the Japanacorps, but was
replaced with a clean, aesthetically pleasing , more people friendly looking
sprawl....which seemed to stretch out over the water much further that it should
have, but light seemed to get under the floating cities that were nearby hubs to
Tokyo itself.

When asked, the ships crew made several mentions of "The Reformatting" and
"Fusion-tech" provided by The Collective after North Korea EMPed the country to
hell and back. After a few questions, the players pegged The Collective as a
Japanese AltCult that had wormed it's way into the Japanese governmental
bureaucracy after the Collapse, and had considerable, if relatively benevolent,
control over the island nation. The inate cynics in the group adopted a wait and
see attitude as the ship docked near a massive archology which the locals called
'The Cathedral' (named as such for it's Gothic-inspired architecture, which
serves as a Government Annex and Housing Block for the Collective's members. At
this point their agents stated getting hit with lots of messages, adverts, and
other calls to use the local Net (TsunamiNet, Catch the Wave).

What was noticed was that the players Agent's identified the local Net protocols
as Ishara-Grubb Version 3 protocols, as the players fiddled with the local media
to figure out just how far spread the local com-nets were, services available
and so forth. Sadly, only the fixer had come chipped for Nihon, and had to help
the others find out where certain things were. Eventually they came across a
reference for an "Guide" program to help them find their way around. It rendered
itself on their agents as a Japanese Courtier Woman from the Heian period and
politely answered any questions they had about the local area, as well as direct
them to the Cathedral as the area for Diplomatic Embassies. Catching on quickly,
they asked how many other nations had embassies. The reply of none was
unsettling to the players, but they headed for Cathedral, now realizing they
were effectively Ambassadors ( and considering all forms of high diplomatic
abuse).

The Fixer in the group was thinking that actually getting a feel for the
Governmental Annex and learning the local laws ( to see what they could get away
with). The Cathedral was a Acro-Block on the scale of some of the more massive
blocks from back in Night City and was a technological mixture of Gothic and
Japanese industrial sensibility, while it was rather subtle a few of the more
hardened types noted the rather large amount of security drones and casual, but
alert types in various forms of clothing, which they deduced was advanced armor
jack.

After wandering for a bit and soaking in the ambiance, which was disconcerting
as the interior of the block was a perverse mixture of office block, living
quarters, and open air market and parks, they were approached by a motorized
noodlestand run by a Korean ex-pat cyborg who opened up the sides and asked if
they needed anything. Twigging to the fact that this was an informal opening to
negotiations and deals, The Fixer ordered some udon for and was a bit surprised
to find out it was the real thing, not soya rubbish, The players learned a bit
of history behind what happened after the Crash.

The Japanese 'particle shield' held up a bit better than expected, but for about
5 hours the country went dark, then Tokyo and other cites began to change, in
what would later be called 'The Great Reformatting.' No one was exactly sure how
it started ut it was though that some form of nanotechnological network had been
secreted into Tokyo before the war and the EMP was the trigger. The great
imposing towers of corporate dominance dissolved, with many corporate officers
still within them and rendered into building materials. A common dark joke by
the locals about mega-corp officers from that era is "Oh, they're some where
around in the city, somewhere." When all was said and done, the city had
completely rebuilt itself, and the back of Arasaka, along with the other
Japanacorps was broken, with this rise of the various Yakuza, The Japanese
Government, And The Collective to fill the vacuum. Needless to say the players
figured out the implications of this fairly quickly and realized the place was a
minefield if not trod upon carefully.

The noodle vendor stated a Mr. Sebastian was waiting to see them on the 237th
floor and he has sent the vendor to say 'hello' and when it suited them, to
avail themselves upon him, as well as several rooms had been set aside for them
on the 236th floor so they could rest. Considering they had not seen any Anglos
or other non-Asians in the area, rather conspicuously so, they thought it was a
good idea to take up the offer (after checking for bugs). They also discovered
the rooms were rather spartan in design but one could ask the local smart frame
to bring up a holo-feed to change the background in the room into something a
bit more to they liking. They also weren't keen on being noticed so quickly.

more to come....compiling notes