Note to everyone here:

Do NOT use any version of Microsoft Works. I lost about an hour's worth of work because it randomly crashed on me. This is why I'm posting a half-finished version instead of a full one. I'll finish it up tomorrow sometime after class, and post the rest.

I thought this was two thousand goddamned seven goddamnit. We're supposed to be PAST the age of random crashing and paranoid saving (even though I do save. Not as often as I ought to be, apparently.) *Grumble* I can't wait for word processors with paranoid autosaves.

As far as heat goes, I was going to write it up much like the Grand Theft Auto star system, only with five, not six levels. Basically, Heat acts as a literal reduction in the Rating of your fake ID - when it falls to zero or lower, both your Heat rating AND your Fake ID's rating work as bonuses when they try to track you down. This is why having a Rating 6 is important, and damn the cost - they'll figure out you're not who you say you were in short order, but because it's such a thorough job, they won't be able to connect it to another name. This means it's time to get a change of face, and possibly gene therapy to throw off any Ritual Links.





Identity and Heat system:

We’ve been doing it for years. It’s time to put numbers to the art of having secret identities and many of them.

Let’s start with, what is an Identity? At the very basic level, it’s what you use to refer to yourself, whether your original name or not. It can be as simple as the name your parents gave you when you were born or a nickname derived from your childhood, or a complicated web of lies to hide that said true identity.


Well, we’re Shadowrunners, so Identity is important to us. So is the Heat that our activities draw; the trick is to make sure the Heat comes down in a way that won’t scorch you.

So, for our purposes, what is an Identity? It’s any way you use to refer to yourself. At the most primitive level, it’s as easy as making up a fake name on the spot, but these break down almost instantaneously anywhere in the Wireless World.

So you’ll need to go a step up. Identity is a SINcard, with it’s imbedded RFID chip that says who you are. These are not at all hard to fake, but there is a difference between a fake and a good fake. A GOOD fake is a lot harder, but let’s start with the basics.

Any Commlink is capable of reading the information on an RFID card. So if you tell Joe Average that you’re Joe Blow, he’ll probably believe you. If his PAN is displaying a name above your head that says “Joe Blow”, that’ll probably be good enough for him. When Joe Star asks, however, his PAN scans your PAN for your information - in this case, it’ll tell him “Joe Blow”. That’s good enough for him, but wait! In a few seconds’ time, his Commlink will automatically bounce this information back to his big ‘o Lone Star Database o’ Doom. In an amount of time varying between an instant and a minute, it’ll come back with a result. This result will either be “Joe Blow”, which is what you want, or “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”, or whatever name they have that can be attached to your alias of Joe Blow, or else “Unregistered Person”.

You do not want one of the second two outcomes. Both are bad - the second is worse if he figures out you’re a SINless person - that means he can beat you senseless, bend you over and rape you with his shockstick, and nobody can or will say a thing about it.

How do you avoid a result of “JJJS” or “Unregistered Person”? That, my friend, is the secret to a good Fake Identity.


Conveniently enough, fake IDs are as simple as proliferating a fake profile, this you can pay good Nuyen for. But even the best fake ID falls apart in a hurry if someone turns the Heat up if you don’t take the time to reinforce it.


Heat is what happens when people have good (or ill) reasons to not take Joe Blow at face value. Most identity checks are cursory - if a cop looks at you long enough, his PAN automatically scans you, sends you to the DB, and returns a result. When you go into a store, or meet someone on the bus, the scan is even less cursory - as long as you don’t identify yourself as “John Doe” when your PAN says “Joe Blow”, you’re golden.

But to reinforce a fake ID, we need equipment, and this will cost Nuyen. The very basic thing you need is a Commlink that you have loaded with your Alias. Some prefer very elaborate Commlinks that can switch identities, jukebox style (Go ahead - Wiki the word “jukebox”, it’s okay), while others prefer to buy a cheap, relatively disposable Commlink, and load them individually.

Each method has it’s own ups and downs. They will be discussed as follows:

Jukebox:
Convenience. You don’t have to carry as many Commlinks as you may use Identities.
Power: If you only have one Commlink, you can load it with Agents, IC (possibly Black), Sprites if you are (or know) a Technomancer, and so forth. Then if someone tries to snoop in your Commlink, you will not only know, but repel them, and possibly even fry their system, depending on how you’re set up. Plus, if you’re into hacking, you’ve got your bad boy right here.

Disposables:
Security. If they break into your Commlink, all they’ll find is what you wanted them to find, and a shitload of advertising spam.
Disposability: Need to “Die”, or otherwise have someone else become you? You can geek someone resembling you and drop the Commlink on them. Take their Commlink, and you can masquerade as them long enough to get away and change faces. (As a bonus, if you’re a hacker, you may be able to get something from it, though this is of course dangerous.)

No matter which route you choose, you’re going to need to make your fake Identity believable. Every supermarket, Stuffer Shack, even the hot dog vendors (it’s really dog, believe it or not!) checks your identity when you perform a financial transaction with them. It’s ridiculous how many Shadowrunners who should’ve known better got caught because the bought a soycaff at a Stuffer Shack with a vigorous checking system and their fake ID had a bad day.

That’s why you pay people to make your fake IDs. The more expensive, the more comprehensive, it’s that simple. There are things you can do to bolster the security of these fake IDs, but the bad news is that all of those things require it to pass a check in the first place.

At the low end of the scale, we have the Rating 1 fake ID. We don’t recommend using these, for any reason, because they stand out like a sore thumb. Even a scanner at a Stuffer Shack can crack this slotted bastard in a hurry. Only use these in an emergency, or for something like going out and not buying anything.
All that a Rating 1 fake ID consists of is your fake name in some database somewhere, that’s it. No identity attached to it, no data, no-thing. Anyone who can scan it will get a flag unless their system is being a retarded child.

Next up is a Rating 2 fake ID. These are inferior, and will get caught around half the time if you use them for a financial transaction above buying a hot dog from a street cart. And even that’s iffy. It’s little more than the Rating 1, consisting of your name sprinkled in a number of obscure databases.

Rating 3s are middle of the road. They have your name in various minor business databases, has a plausible date of birth, usually has a listed address of residence in some weird city. Most often this address is a bus terminal or train station, but it will pass most basic consumer financial transactions and cursory glances by the Star on most occasions. If you want to start seeding your own fake ID (more on this later), this is a good start.

Rating 4 Fake IDs are better. (Getting the hint yet, omae? Higher rating = better. Life tips for you there, chummer.) Now your fake name is in a number of databases, with some planted information on things like where you like to shop, your tastes in music, etcetera. Your name will pass most inspections; the downside is that you can wind up getting targeted advertisements for bizarre fetish paraphernalia. (Those bastards who program the fake IDs have twisted senses of humor)

Rating 5 Fake IDs, now, they’re wizzer. Your name and profile has been inserted into the files of a big corporation, possibly an AA subsidiary of an AAA, you have a lifetime record from birth till now. These are absolutely great for passing routine inspections, but the downside is that you have to start memorizing details about “you”, the not-real you. For example, if you say your best friend when you grew up was a lad named Tycho when you were growing up in Tucson, and your fake ID says that you were a tutored child in New York City, well…

Rating 6 Fake ID. This is as good as it gets. Hardcore, a full spectrum of information about you. Your name has been inserted into one or more Megacorporation’s databases, one or more national governmental databases, and probably has a financial history with Zurich Orbital. They’ve dotted every i and crossed every t. Only an automated search so thorough that it’s really more like an ass-plundering than an automated scan will detect even the slightest hint of anomaly: Even then, they’re more likely to ask you questions than start probing your anus with their nightstick. (This is where memorization pays off! If you have to, program a skillsoft to automatically give the correct replies about your fake life.) It’s the priciest thing this side of a Westwind Eurocar with a stinger missile in the trunk, but it’s worth it if you need to get through a real scan, like say, a background credit scan for taking a loan out.

(Background scans are simple opposed rolls between the quality of your fake ID and the quality of the scanner - and the databases it’s hooked up to. Most scanners will be Rating 1 - just enough to verify that yes, the name exists. Net hits are what count - subtract the Scanner’s from the ID. If the number is positive, the ID has positive net hits, and passes the test. If negative, it fails, and alarms are raised. If the net hits are 0, a tie has been reached - fortune, however, favors the bold. A tie means that the scanner was not able to disprove the ID, and for automated scans (A cop looking at you, running your cred through a Stuffer Shack to get soycaff) that is enough. Scans called for by a person’s direct actions, however (A cop telling his PAN to run a background check, as opposed to the automated scanner) will notify the person of the discrepancy; you will be questioned.))

Not, that is, that we recommend taking out big loans on fake IDs. They’ll figure it out sooner or later, and when they turn the heat up, even a really, really good fake ID will crumble. Which is where we get to the next thing you need to worry about; Heat.

Heat is generally a Bad Thing, because it means that people are paying attention to you - more specifically, to your fake ID. You’re Manually Operating and run a red-light - you get Heat. This means that they’re probably going to automatically ticket you.

However, if your fake ID is bad enough, they will realize you don’t have any listed account to ticket. This sends up red flags, and an officer of the law (or a duly rigged drone thereof) will be dispatched to intercept you.

You assault someone in public - you get heat, and they probably issue a warrant for your arrest. This is Very Bad.

So, let’s examine Heat levels. Heat acts negatively on your fake ID - in a very literal sense. Whenever you gain heat, your ID drops an effective level, and you are treated as if subjected to an active identity check. Should your ID rating fall to 0 or below, this suddenly becomes a Very Bad Thing. Not only are they aware that you’re not who you say you are, but they start to examine who you really are. Now your Heat - and even your own fake ID - work against you, because they’re both profiles of you - profiles that, real or fake, can be used to figure out things like where you doss at night, what you look like, where your normal haunts are.

The good news about having a Rating 6 fake ID is that Heat only goes up five levels. They will never discover you automatically if your fake ID is top of the line - however, you’re still in a world of hurt. If you have any Heat and try to use your ID, it will flash up on the person’s scanner. Even if they don’t want to mess with you (for example, buying a hot dog from a vendor), the Star (or whomever else is after you) gets automatically notified.

((Insert a lot of really cool stuff that Microshit Works crashed on me. The worst part? I was literally moving my cursor up to the save button as it crashed.))

...pretty good so far. I've already upgraded Violet and KK4.3 (a necessity after the last mission she was on) to SIN rating 6. Violet also has a couple of rating 4s under other aliases.

Also do not forget about having a good spoof utility or hacker buddy to cover your tracks. That can keep a SIN useful for quite a while (unless the character hoses it themselves). VIolet Spoofs her trail as SOP. KK4.3 has a loyalty 6 hacker contact.

Open Office

You can open your existing work in it. It may warn you that you will lose some formatting, but I've found that you generally won't. Bullets and the like might display somewhat differently if it chooses a different font reference for them.

I like this, it's something runners don't spend enough time on. Okay, any time on....

I'll politely disagree with a few of your assumptions on how fake ID's work, even in a paranoid world like Shadowrun. Places like stuffer shack and even banks don't care (or might not care...) about your actual ID when you do standard transactions, only if you have the money to pay/deposit. Further, using a fake ID regularly enough will actually upgrade it's 'rating' to a certain extent, because now it is backed by real data trails. Now, you'll never reach a top rating if the background information isn't there, but if you've been using a decently rated ID for seven or eight years, most probes will see plenty of valid use over that time and see that the ID is 'real' and leave the rest alone.

Maybe use two ratings, like contacts do. One 'fixed' representing how solid a job was done setting it up (like competence) that never changes and one resprenting how well it stands up to daily use that changes based on how much abuse/use it's gotten.

So, if your solid, been using it for two years, fake ID suddenly gets dinged for a major felony warrent, it's utiltity would take a major hit but it's 'reality' wouldn't, in fact, due to the warrent and the heavy use, the reality might even go up...

Just a thought.

I hope that your millions of words that were lost connect heat into Notoriety or Public Awareness, no? If not, then I'd be interested to see how the Heat system relates to those two values.

More to the point, what rating does the good old fake ID of underage alcohol fame have? A witness protection client or defector's cover ID?

Also, I agree with Spike. If you use a Fake ID long enough, often enough, it should build up its own validity.

As far as Heat and Fake Identity, they don't tie into Public Awareness and Notoriety.

Public Awareness and Notoriety are measures of your Shadows rep, and how public you get. It has no bearing on your fake aliases - except, perhaps, to turn the heat up if they get connected.

Ditching your "Real" identity is a much longer, and complicated process, than ditching a fake SIN and trying to get the 'Star off your ass. That's the whole purpose of Heat and fake IDs - fake IDs exist solely to cover your real identity.


And yes, I will go into fake IDs that have been around long enough to become psuedo-real.

The good news about having a Rating 6 fake ID is that Heat only goes up five levels. They will never discover you automatically if your fake ID is top of the line - however, you’re still in a world of hurt. If you have any Heat and try to use your ID, it will flash up on the person’s scanner. Even if they don’t want to mess with you (for example, buying a hot dog from a vendor), the Star (or whomever else is after you) gets automatically notified.

So, Heat is a bad thing. But how do you get it? That depends on who’s twisting the thermostat. (Go ahead, Wiki that, too.)


There’s basically two sources of real Heat - Law Enforcement and the Megacorporations. Sure, you can get heat from the mob, but it’s not the same thing, and the repercussions are generally less severe. Sure, they’ll kill you for much more minor infractions than the Law or the Megas will, but they won’t kill you just for being SINless - that’s a plus. And they have much less in the way of support than, say, Ares Macrotechnology or Lone Star or the UCAS Federal Government.



Heat has five levels, depending on the severity of the crime (and whether or not they can link it to any fake ID or not) you committed. However, Corps and Cops have very different things that torque them off, and very different responses.

Please note that these rules are not the entirety of either responses or offenses, rather they are meant as general guidelines. You CAN be certain that doing any of the acts EXPLICITLY mentioned here will bring down the results listed (unless your ID fails; see above for how that happens, and below for what happens when it does).

Heat 1:
Judiciary Example: Littering, traffic violations, manually operating under the influence, simple assault not leading to permanent injury or death, mugging, burglary.
Result: Your account will be automatically fined, and if the Heat came down for a physical assault charge, you may be ordered to appear in court. Failure to appear in court will result in a raising of the heat level and a warrant being issued for your arrest; generally, if you appear in court and have enough social skills to be a good little citizen and have a plausible excuse (He said something about me… Something very, very offensive, and I know it was wrong to hit him, but I just lost it, your honor,) they’ll just fine you and kick you free.

In this day and age, we don’t have time to incarcerate every schmuck who just loses it and punches someone out on the streets, got it omae?

Megacorporate Example: Vandalism of company property, speaking anti-company sentiments within company property, theft of office supplies
Result: The company in question will kick you off their property, probably after fining your accounts. Better to pay up - failure to do so will raise the heat, and probably get you a beating.

Level 1 heat goes away when you pay your fine or your bribe.

Heat 2:
Judiciary Example: Assault with a deadly weapon not leading to death, simple assault leading to permanent injury, murdering a “Person of low interest” (IE: street bums), grand theft, carjacking.
Result: A warrant will be issued for your arrest, but they won’t follow up beyond the cursory having a uniform check your houses to see if they can grab you and get lucky. Generally they won’t pursue you, but if they happen to see you as a random guy on the street, they’ll give chase.

Megacorporate Example: Damage or destruction of company property, theft of sensitive company property (mainly meaning expensive stuff), assault on a company employee.
Result: If they catch you, they’ll rough you up hard, confiscate anything you may have on you. Usually they’ll then inform Lone Star of your activities and kick you off company property, and they don’t care if it’s in the middle of downtown Seattle or the middle of the wilderness. If you escape before they can do this, they’ll circulate your face in the security bulletins, and if your face shows up again, they’ll try to grab you.



Heat 3:
Judiciary Example: Murder, armed robbery, assault on an officer of the law, resisting arrest.
Result: Lone Star ain't playin' no games no more. Now they're out and after you with a vengeance, especially if you assaulted one of their own. While the upper management may be all about the monies, the average Joe Lone Star on the street is very much a police officer. In any event, now is when they launch a real investigation, not a fake one and make it look good. Your haunts will be visited by officers, your dosses tossed, and your associates of record questioned. This is a very good time to lay low and make like you've dropped off the face of the earth; or else ditch the ID.

Megacorporate Example: Theft of proprietary technologies, properties or PayData, murder of company employees.
Result: Don't get caught. The Megacorps take a dim view of this kind of stuff. Ironically, you'd get off lighter if they do know it was “just a Shadowrun” - that's just biz. But if they think a real person did it, well. That's another ball game. Expect your ID to be scrutinized heavily, and your dosses to be tossed. Depending on how bad they want the gizmo back, or how bad they want you, they may or may not hire Shadowrunners to hunt you down. At this stage, it's better to just ditch the fake ID and let them sniff down a cold trail. If they catch you, the results vary between corp to corp – Ares will just throw you in a company-run prison with the rest of the felons they gracious incarcerate on behalf of those municipalities and governmental agencies which contracts them to provide prison services, Mitsuhama will chop your hands off, Saeder-Krupp will toss you in some mine or quarry for some backbreaking labor for a number of years, and Aztechnology, well, they'll just have you sacrificed on some blood altar.


Heat 4:
Judiciary Example: Serial murder, murder of an officer of the law, murder of a public official
Result: You, omae, are in deep kimchee. The majority of fake IDs won't stand up to this level of scrutiny. In the event it does, you are both in for it, and better off. For one thing, you'd better take that face off and never plan to put it back on again. Lone Star will launch a manhunt in the face of mounting pressure – public pressure if your ID engaged in serial killing, internal pressure if you murdered an officer of the law, and political pressure if you murdered a public official. This is the point where they stop playing around with their CSI department and actually do some forensics. Officers on the street who see you have orders to shoot on sight – they are not interested in bringing you in. Worth noting is that this is the point when they start to use magic on nonmagical crimes. The Feds may or may not be involved.

Megacorporate Example: Murdering an executive, broadwaving proprietary information to the whole of the damn world.
Result: The corps pull out all the stops here, and go after you with a vengeance. You've not only cost them money now, you've made a mockery of the company, and people are talking. Biz is just Biz, if it was a hit and they know it was a Shadowrun, but broadwaving their company information is a death sentence. The corps will use their own investigation teams, and Company Men or deniable assets will show up at your dosses. Sorcery will be employed to track you if possible – this can very quickly come back to your real you if you're not careful.


Heat 5:
Judiciary Example: Acts of Terrorism, murdering political officials.
Result: You bet your ass the Feds are involved, and all stops have been pulled out. At this point, if your fake ID is still serving it's purpose to throw them off your real trail and hasn't failed completely, thank your lucky stars individually and by name, move to another country, change your face and your genetics, because they will be using Ritual Sorcery on you. Anyone whom they can find connected to you will be dragged in, tortured and subjected to Psychotropic IC, so you may want to just geek anyone you're not willing to take into hiding with you.

Megacorporate Example: Murdering a board member, broadwaving incontrovertible proof of heinous and unforgivable acts against metahumanity.
Result: If your fake ID generates this much corporate heat, haul your hoop out of Dodge and don't look back. Change your face, your genetics, change your fragging Metatype if you can swing it. They will not be holding back, and at this point it's not just biz, because you've shaken the very foundation of the company. You have dealt them a grievous blow from which they may or may not survive, and now it's personal. HTR teams will show up at your dosses, and anyone they can connect to you will be collected and tortured or subjected to Psychotropic IC to get them to talk.


So, you've earned yourself Heat, what do you do? It depends on how bad the Heat and how bad you want to keep your fake ID.

If the Heat is minor – IE, only Heat 1, chances are a small fine or a bribe will make it go away. In fact, racking up traffic violations and paying fines on them is a good way to reinforce a fake ID. (More on this later). If the heat is big, however, you're probably going to want to just ditch the ID and run for it.

Or, you can wait for the Heat to go away on it's own. Low heat will die off quickly, high Heat will probably not die off until you've expired from a natural death if you're anything but an Elf.

Here's the quick list:

Heat 1:
Bribe/Fine: 250 – 2000
Expiration Time: 2-4 months

Heat 2:
Bribe: 2,500 – 5,000
Expiration Time: 6-12 months

Heat 3:
Bribe: 10,000-25,000
Expiration Time: 2-4 years

Heat 4:
Bribe: Not Possible
Expiration Time: 10-20 years

Heat 5:
Bribe: No way in hell
Expiration Time: 50-100 years

As you can see, using bribery to get the heat off works wonderfully for low amounts of heat, but it's not even possible for the higher levels. Don't get burnt!


Okay, so you're in danger of getting burnt. You've done something ridiculously stupid and they've somehow traced it back to a fake ID instead of the real you. What do you do?

Well, you get rid of that ID and everything associated with it as quickly as possible, and hope it doesn't crack. But how does an ID crack, and what happens if it does?

To re-iterate, an ID cracks when you generate Heat on an ID equaling or exceeding the rating of the fake. This is why Rating 6 IDs are so very worth it – even if you blow up the Empire State Building or the Renraku ARC, they can't crack the ID, though they will quickly figure out it's a forgery.

So, what are the ramifications of being on the wrong side of an investigation? Well, here goes.

Being caught in a forgery is bad to disastrous, depending on where you got caught. If, for example, you tried to use a Rating 2 fake ID at a Stuffer Shack and somehow the odds fragged you, the ID would be flagged as fake, and the accounts you tried to use to pay for that soycaf would probably be frozen. Such low-level stuff happens everyday, and nothing will come of it.

If, on the other hand, it's Lone Star or a similar governmental body who flags you as fake, a warrant will be issued for the arrest of “Person X, alias Joe Blow”, or worse; they have an actual name to attach to your face.

Stupid Shadowrunners get caught by this every month or so. Don't let it happen to you. Low-level fakes are disposables and meant to be ditched in a big hurry. They're a smokescreen, pure and simple.

But what about the opposite – what if I get Heat, and the ID cracks?

Well, son, you are well and truly fragged now. Now the rating of the fake ID itself acts as a bonus equal to it's rating for the person(s) trying to track you. Because you used the fake, and it intersects at points with who you really are, whatever those points are, it will make it easier for them to correlate. If the ID holds, but the heat makes it discoverable as a fake, they won't know who you really are – but they will know who you're not, and any information that they have about the fake will be used against you. Ditch the fake as soon as you possibly can.


So, now you know what happens if the heat turns up. But how do you reinforce a fake ID? Simple: You live in it. You go around town in that fake ID, generating an authentic data profile. A fake ID goes up in rating by 1 whenever you spend as many months living in it as it's current rating; then the rating resets. For example, if you manage to nurse a Rating 1 fake ID and not get caught (yeah, right) for a month, it becomes a Rating 2, go another 2 months and it's a 3, and so forth and so on. It is possible to nurse a Rating 1 up to a Rating 6 or higher, but it's not easy. The deception will probably be caught before then.

On the other hand, it's possible to live for years, using a single cover ID and being very careful about what you do while wearing that name. Eventually there's a point where no amount of scrutiny can tell your fake from a real person.


You can also bolster a fake ID in certain, specific ways. Even now, in 2070, there's still people whose entire lives were lost in the Crash 2.0 who're turning up and trying to piece their lives back together. You can register at one of those agencies, but this is a bad idea, because they take biometric data and tissue samples – samples that can be used to track you through ritual sorcery. On the other hand, registering with the Lost Persons Database will give your ID perfect cover for having no data previous to any given year. Usually, this is what you do when you're retiring, though.


Establishing credit transactions on your new fake ID is another way to go. Buying or leasing an apartment, taking out a loan and paying it in full – these things will bolster a fake ID's rating by 1. The downside is that these take both time and and if your ID generates heat, they'll come looking using the information you generated in doing so. Beware of this kind of thing.




So there it is, Heat and Identity in a nutshell. Now go have fun, and play nice kiddies.

Excellent work. I'm definately going to use this - SINs are one of those areas that FanPro could have expanded on in the BBB. Mind if I put this on my website? (Of course I'll give you credit)

These truly are excellent. I'll need to digest these a little but thank you for your work herein.