All spoilers aside, I have to admit, the movie Surrogates got me thinking.

Just so happens my friends are planning a SR4 game next week and I already wanted to do a physically absent Rigger/Hacker.

I read in one of the recent threads, "tips and tricks" I believe, that it was a good idea to have a throw away 1/1 contact as a fall guy. It got me thinking, why couldn't a rigger/hacker with a proficiency in cybertech and medicine be able to take a homeless/druggie off the street and implant cybertech/biotech that would allow them to control them like any other rig?

I originally was going with the idea of purchasing headware, comlink, low-life style, cranial bomb, etc. to have the person act in their place for physical meetings. But after watching the movie (also, always a ghost in the shell fan), I have to ask the professionals.

My SR4-fu is weak, do the rules allow more complete control over a person than blackmail or bribery can provide? I will of course discuss with the GM, but if there is something that would be a strong starting point, it would make for a much stronger case.

Thanks chums!
Red

Trying to hijack a homeless dude into an unwilling biodrone seems like a lot of work to be riding an unaugmented human into battle. Have you considered going with an anthroform drone? Arsenal lists four on Page 120, including two under 3k and two that are...very powerful. The Mitsuhama models are either designed as creepy kid-sized assassin droids or as a passable metahuman for bodyguard or assistant work.

If you get one of these, you could wear standard gear and make it your official point-of-presence in the physical world, riding it into meetings and leaving your meatsuit on the couch with a cold beer.

Do the anthroform drones actually look like people or are they pretty easy to identify? You are correct that riding a human into battle would be a bad idea, alot of prior setup and funds needed.

The character I envisioning is so obsessed with operational security/paranoia that he never meets the team of runners. This is the basic setup:

He lives in low-lifestyle location A. He connects remotely to low-lifestyle B where his "decoy" lives. Originally he would supply "decoy" with drugs, food, and a place to live and decoy would be in his own separate VR all the time. Location B is set up with video and audio and of course explosives. He would then connect from location B to his rigs, and with the team.

If the anthroform drones are capable of passing for human, that would be much, much simpler.

edit: But it still leaves problems.

If the team is going in completely cold, nothing wireless. He would only be able to support outside with drones, distractions, etc. But maybe he only takes assignments where he could work from his "safe-house" (location B).

These are your full-on Kusanagis. They have a Body of 6, which means you can make significant mods to them, but still give them standard metahuman gear. They run 150,000 though. Conversely, you could start with a cheap Renraku Manservent (2,500 ) and add in the gear to make it look like a person. Hell, my Rigger never goes out in public without his sensor-loaded motorcycle helmet on - if you dress it right, you wouldn't need to bother making it passable.

As for going into dead zones, that could be a problem. You could add in a Satellite Uplink, that should let you use it anywhere not explicitly blocked and they're cheap to boot. If you upgrade it with Fuzzy Logic and a good pilot rating, your DM may allow you to play it directly if you occasionally 'droid' it up a little with quirky behavior. If you explain to your GM what the standard playbook is and don't deviate from it, you could justify it being an expert system...but yeah, dead zones are bad news.

One possible solution most people overlook is the Truth. Tell your team that you're not into getting shot, your drones can do anything you can do, and if they want to go somewhere without a signal they're going to either need to bring retrans units or trust your drones on autopilot. Since a dedicated Rigger is kind of a liability in a firefight, what with the going all limp and stuff, leaving your 'shoes' in a safe place might just be a load off your team's mind.

The anthroform drones are going to be your best bet but deadzones are going to be a near impassable barrier to you. Places where the signal is poor due to lack of repeaters can be overcome by a satellite link but any place that's specifically impeded will be another problem entirely. Plus there will be the problem of anyone doing some active scaning may be able to figure out what's going on. The concept is valid but the dead zone issue will be one you'll never overcome. Plus if you work with a group of runners regularly you have two choices. Let them know what's up, or risk them discovering and the mistrust that brings. Eventually though it will come up so your always better off lancing the boil first.

All good points. However, there is the question of the other runners loyalty and trustworthyness. My friends have a history of stabbing each other in the back during morally questionable games. It's all in good fun, but at the same time, it can't hurt to have a tertiary back-up plan. It makes sense from the standpoint of the character as well as the setting to not have to rely completely on your team. As a rigger there is little left over after character creation to make them able to hold their own in a physical fight.

All characters play to their strengths. I don't see why a rigger, who wants to survive and possibly profit, would put himself in a position he would be unable to get out of if thrown to the dogs.

I think a good combination of intelligent planning and explosives could keep a rigger safe. I think the 1/1 (or 1/3) fall-guy contact who actually goes to the physical meets would make it that much more convincing.

It brings up the questions of playability, but other than the first meeting, most of the contact would be through drones and hacking.

So, if you can adapt animals into biodrones, why can't you do this with humans?

Makes perfect sense to me. Apart from biodrone cyber, all you'd need would be something to override the person's active consciousness.

All the benefits of the Possession spirit power, with none of that messy magic stuff to worry about!

The main argument from a rational standpoint would the level of complexity of the human brain (higher level cognizance, reasoning, self-awareness, etc.)

Now, I don't know what the rules say....

I'm not saying you'd have to leave the person intact. What I'm thinking would probably be the equivalent of a lobotomy. The rigger-mod device in their brain gives you control of the person when you're jumped in, but when you're not there, they are basically vegetables.

But if that's the case, you'd definitely have to take your human bio-drone out for some exercise on a regular basis, since veggies' muscles tend to atrophy.

Or what about cyberzombies? Tweak or hack the cyberzombie's IMS unit so that you have full control over it, and then subscribe to their cybereyes so you can see what they are doing. Then, you remotely invoke the IMS with whatever pre-recorded fake memory or stimulus you want, and if done right you could prod them into behaving how you want. "This fragger killed your girlfriend!" the fake memory says. Fit of rage! BAM! Dead Johnson (or whomever). Or a fake memory of: "You really have this craving for a Nukit! burger right now, since you loved them as a kid," and the local Nukit! is where the target just happens to be located. Granted, the cyberzombie will probably make some type of memory/Willpower test to decide whether the memory is forged or not, but with their fractured and tenuous hold on the past, this shouldn't be a Success Test they pass very often.

Messy and indirect, but probably a bit more realistic in game terms.

Be aware that a lot of GMs may not really be willing to let you pull off such a coup with any real degree of cost efficiency. As per Arsenal, the Manservant was redesigned to be as non-threatening as possible, which included designing them with limited mobility and a specific posture. While I'm certain a skilled rigger could make a decent booby trap out of one, the fact of the matter is that these guys come out of the box moving more like C-3PO than your average man on the street, so any real subtlety is likely beyond them. Raiding a Manservant for parts in this case may not really be as productive as using it to fetch you tools and beer while you work on something else better suited to the job.

Building your own Otomo from spare synthetic cyberlimbs is probably the only viable budget solution.

Indeed - I was misled by the Arsenal glitch about the Evo Orderly being humanoid when I started my budget suggestion. It looks like the Humanoid drones go from 2.5k to 150k without a lot of official middle ground, and as has been pointed out the Renraku Manservant is intentionally worthless.

Ground mode mechanicals can be made into anthroforms by purchasing the Walker Mode (Body*500y) and 2 Full Arm mods (8k total). This eats six slots, and Heavy Drones are Body 4. You'd need to start with a motorcycle, removing the wheels and front forks (since you won't be steering) and the seat (since you won't be riding it) which should give you a frame and power plant not too much larger then a human torso. The Thundercloud Contrail costs 5k and comes stock with 4 extra mod slots, which could be very useful with the basic 6 going to limbs. 4 slots is, incidently, enough to mount a LMG to your guy - although Sattellite Uplink and Fuzzy Logic are both recommended, and your GM might insist you spend a point on Rigger Adaptation and Remove Manual Controls. Mimic Modification is 2 slots, if you can fit it in, although I'm still advocating the helmet and longcoat option.

I add that up to 21,700y with the Sat/Fuzz/Rigg/RMC package. It's not a terrible middle ground, and it's legal. More importantly, it's leverage.

Take this to the GM, and explain that you feel there is a market for medium-power anthroform drones that the sourcebooks just haven't addressed yet, and that you're willing to pay 10x the cost of the Renraku Manservant for a humanoid drone with decent stats. If the GM doesn't want to let you spend 25k on a custom drone, tell him you're spending 22k on a walking motorcycle instead, and see if he doesn't see your side of things.

Provided that the rigger had the necessary know how to handle such a job, I'd probably okay with a runner building a mid-range drone that could be mistaken as humanoid in some limited instances. For example, a motorcycle decoy drone that could be mistaking as having a human rider on it (at least if whoever's looking fails a perception check, which isn't at all unreasonable in smoggy 'plex at highway speeds) hits me as pretty doable, and I don't see why such a drone couldn't also stand up and shoot back if it had to. It still wouldn't be able to pass as a human the same way an Otomo could, but there's really nothing wrong with that. It'd be an amusing way for a wealthy go gang like the Ancients to intimidate and confuse lesser gangs in turf skirmishes, at least. Besides, even if someone picks up on the fact that one of the guys they're chasing is a drone, you still have some extra firepower on your side, which never hurts.

Nobody runs for profit alone - more cred to be had with that kind of hardware in just about any safer profession. A hunger for risk, a love of the thrill, even an edge of death wish are almost required runner gear. But maybe that's just me.


Even if you play some cryro-emotional who will never grow attached or feel guilt over his dupe, ultimately, it's just another person who can betray you, intentionally or not, when what you really want for when that corporate death squad arrives is a dead clone kept warm and lifelike by a nanite hive. Convince the team they don't want a rigger at the meet in the meat; they want him remote rigging the escape vehicle and hacking the bar security - though in a game where people sellout the team with some regularity, there's something to keeping the remote runners in reach.

Ok two things, from my standpoint as a rigger or hacker in a stand up "who can backstab each other worse" fight your always going to loose you can try and put precautions into play but if someone gets close to you, your in trouble. If that is your concern you should be playing a street sam with a massive bomb implanted in you to go off should you ever flatline. Secondly if your GM is any good they are going to throw some kind of impedance zone at you, hell their actually fairly common and an annoyance for hackers that do things in the meat let alone people that want to do it via a surrogate drone. Your best bet would be to have a drone that's as close to a double of you as possible so you can as seamlessly swap yourself out before heading into danger but looks enough like you that when you know impedance is going to be a problem or your afraid of backlash if someone finds out your not there in the flesh you can be there in person.

And all that is a big if your GM allows it.

Just a point hear, what good is a remote controll rigger in a deadzone anyway? Thats why I miss the old idea of riggers as being wired into their vechials and useing a drone every now and then.
mini-rant over.
Sounds like makeing him a technomancer might be a good idea? A custum sprite for the drone perhaps?