I was trolling Gizmodo this morning and came across a great little article about DARPA rigging a bunch of electronics to a beetle and flying it around the room like an r/c airplane. Bio-drones here we come!

http://i.gizmodo.com/5141750/scientists-de...-cyborg-beetles

Creepy; I think this bugger (pun intended) have the potential of being ideal vectors for sensors, they would bring the nickname of hidden sensors (bugs) to a whole new level.

Drone mosquitoes infected with VITAS IV? A mercenary's nightmare, a living, invisible mine field.

It's safer using poison, or maybe using the bug as a mana hazard.

Who ever did this would be on the drek list of EVERYONE! Nowhere in the world would be safe for them.

How about as target designators? "Waiter, there's a fly in my -" boom!

A mana hazard is a creature or object that can potentialy be subject to targeting by ritual sorcery; so yes the beattle could be considered a target designator, just guide it near the intended target and blast it with a stun/mana/power-ball. But the applications are much greater than that, just think a powerball bettle into a mainframe (THAT is a computer-bug), or a Mob Mind into a commercial center, or an influence spell (you DO want some NERPS); in Cyberpirates there is reported an attack on an undersea arcology using manahazards: it was done by smuggling into the arcology animals that were mana hazards and targetting at them a spell that sucked the air out the arcology.

Wasn't that in Target:Wastelands? (They used to call them ritual links, but I guess mana hazard works.)

I wonder if mosquitoes could be used to spread vaccines.

anything that could be used to spread a virus, assuming the vaccine is in a viral form.

I'm working on biodrone sharks for an aquatic based arcology in my game....

- J.

Winternight would have.

- J.

... Oh that's what happens posting late at night. Yes you are right that incident is reported in Target: Wastland; I didn't want to shuffle trought the books and Cyberpirates came to my mind due to the sea theme.
By the way I've used the term manahazard because in Arsenal there are a class of items called "Manahazard Containment Device" (p.66, under the Manatech chapter); I think that "ritual link" is used to refere to that link that must be mantained betwen the magician(s) that performes ritual sorcery and the target, be it an astral spotter, a material link or a simpatetic link (there is another reason: ritual link is for targetting the intended target directly, you cast directly on the target, a manahazard is to target it indirectly, you cast on the manahazard to catch the target into the effect).

Winternight ARE on everyone's drecklist; sadly their subdole way of converting people means that they are still able to aquire new member (well, it dependes how much informations the corporate court has been able to extract from the bitch's head and how hard they have been able to strike the organization).

Aren't they now exinct? My reading of System Failure suggests they are all but wiped out. Except for perhaps one or two nacent cells (ie. GM discretion).

- J.

weren't there rumors about Horizon headbutting with them?
In my opinion they are better to be extint; lets leave the past threats past and lets face something new, as recurring threats there are the Azzies & Co., the Human Nation (with the fall of Saito, the reformes carried out by the Emperor in Japan, the indipendence of the Philippines, the advent of Horizon and the transhumanism they have taken a serious hit but they aren't going to give up anytime soon), the Vatican that doesn't move yet and nobody knows what it has up to its sleaves, the dragons with their bikering and the dissonants that with the wireless matrix are stronger than ever; a bounch os psychopaths that want to cause the apocalipse by destroying the matrix is something that doesn't fit in the context.