My initial response to this post almost contained a Lady Gaga reference. And then I realized it was a Lady Gaga reference.

Hermit, you do realize that when most people hear the term "brainhack", they aren't thinking about the Shadowrun Hacking skill?

It's a made up term anyhow. Your definition of the word isn't the only possible one.



-k

"Mungo, hack his brain." "Cantz, no haz Commlink in himz." "No, Mungo... Have you forgotten your monoblade?" "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... MUNGO HACK!!!"

i really wouldn't bother trying to have this discussion with him. it didn't work before. i can't fathom why it would suddenly start working now.

Mh, flamebait.

Very, very retarded. I'd rather write it off to 'Jack having brain cancer from too many years of slotting questionably shielded plugs into his datajack than have even more absurdly annoying possession crap.

What would that make, four major antagonists in the habit of possessing bodies?

CanRay, please get in touch with CGL to get Mungo canonized. He's both the hero we need, and the one we deserve.

It still cracks me up that they canonized Drop bears.

One day, there will be warform Drop Bears Red Samurai! With FA Panther Assault Cannons!

Seconded.

Might have something to do with that a dumpshocker wrote it

Oh I'm not complaining. I just think it's funny. I was in Running Wild Last night looking up Techno-critters, and happened across the Drop bear write up. Cracked up a bit.

You know that I didn't do that, right? That they were there before, and I just got to use them for that section? Believe me, I'd take credit for it if I could, but I can't.

Then who did?

Drop bears first appeared in Target: Awakened Lands, IIRC. I can't recall who wrote that particular chunk of the Australia writeup, though. I can poke around and find out if it's really important.

Using the Optional Rule for More Powerful Swarms:

Base Cost for a Drop Bear (Using Super secret formulae) 37,500
Warform Abilities: Attribute Enhancement (Agility), Skill Enhancement (Shadowing)
Random Side Effect of Breeding - Gestalt Consciousness

Warform Cost: 97,500 each

12 Warform Dropbears in a Rating 3 Mischief -- Gain optional power Sapience

Advanced Training with Willpower of 5, means a x35 cost multiplier

Net Cost: 40,950,000 for a crack team of Red Samurai Dropbears, gear not included.

Proof that I sometimes have far too much time on my hands...

Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold the phone.

What's this about "optional power Sapience"?

*dives for his books*

~Umi

Okay, so points against my notion - 1) it's an optional rule and 2) the additional powers are determined by the GM. But! The ruling specifically allows Sapience, so my notion is at least possible.

But there is one more crucial consideration - how Essence is handled with Swarms. (Yes, I'm breaking the Special Infected rules again. Fun, isn't it?)

So let's say you have a swarm of bees at Rating 6, with the Sapience power, which makes them a valid target of Essence Drain. You drain up to 3 points of Essence (but no more, as the Rating of the Swarm will drop with the Essence, and you only get one power per 3 points of Rating). Since bees go from eggs to full adults in less than a month, with proper management the swarm ought to replenish itself in time for your next monthly feeding.

Voila. Renewable Essence that you can keep in a small greenhouse. Keep two hives for redundancy, or just to stay ahead of the feeding curve.

~Umi

Beware the sapient Africanized bees.

There was a movie about this once ...

That sounds like a magnificent plan that could never in a thousand years go wrong!

... and the HMHVV that makes you a vampire mutates, leaps across the species gap, and you end up with a swarm of Africanised vampire bees. They go around, pulling essence out of anything they like (people included), and .... what, make Honey out of it?

;D

Oh, this took an interesting turn....

Why not combine the ideas? The bees and the vampire enter a symbiosis - the vampire grants them all the vampire's powers by way of infection (even Renfield powers would make them terrifying), and they collect essence that feeds the vampire.

Here's a character image.

Never has a better argument for the mass deployment of fuel-air explosives been made.

But is it feasible? And will you cruelly be taking an axe and/or wooden stake to it for 5E now that I've pointed it out?

~Umi

Well, they're Sapient, yes, but it's making the emotional connection to them to drain the Essence that I'm curious about. Insects, even sentient/sapient swarms of them, are so freakin' foreign in terms of mindset ... I'm not sure how that would work.

I don't intend to snatch it away cruelly, if that's what you're asking. I'm just trying to figure out how it would fraggin' work....

With sugar water?

Doesn't Animal Control magic do exactly that?

Yeah, but once they're Sapient, most Animal Control magic doesn't work. Or maybe I'm misremembering; I'm fighting a deadline, a balky washing machine, and babysitting the kids while I should be writing. I technically need to turn the network connection off, but this is kind of interesting, if not at all germane to what I'm working on at the moment.

Vampires can be Insect Shamans.

Possibly even, BEE shamans.

Any proper Vampire Insect Shaman would follow Mosquito.

... or Flea. Or Tick. Or Bedbug.

Unless, of course, they were an Insect Shaman first, then became a Vampire. Then they could be anything at all.

Uhm guys... Bees are extinct in the sixth world

Not Dante's Bees.

All we need to do is find some that got trapped in tree sap, and then get a cloning program started.

Wait, what? How did bees go extinct? And how the fuzz does plant life continue, then?

Well, technically other insects can polinate flowers now that I stop and think about it. Wasps, flies, et cetera.

But it doesn't HAVE to be bees (although then you get tasty, tasty honey!). You could have any kind of Swarm you like. Pick something social that reproduces quickly. Ants, termites, beetles, whatever.

~Umi

All ~20,000 species of bees went extinct?

Yeah, no they're not. They even exist in Awakened forms. Siberian Bees are bastards that get to throw lightning around when they swarm.

I ruined several of my PCs' year by having their J hire them to move a hive of those things a couple miles.

There's reference in one of the books that 'Honeybees' died out. I'm not sure if they STAID dead. (( We see the threat know, you gotta think alot of places stockpiled the DNA)).

I forget where I've read it but it was an off hand comment from a poster in one of the books. Running Wild or Paranormal animals of NA or something. ((Might be in the Clutch of Dragon book where they're talking about Azlan's food production getting taken out and them being in deep crap.))

I do apoligise for not having a page, but there IS reference some where to SOMETHING about bees dieing off. I can say I remember reading it too. Just not the details or where.

Page 8 Running Wild

"The losses are not limited to obscure insects or rare species of frog. We have lost over 100 bird species that we know of. The once thriving polar bear has been reduced to a zoo attraction along with hundreds of other animals both known and unknown. Honey bees are no different. The as-yet unexplained ‘Colony Collapse Syndrome’ accelerated in 2012 and again in 2061. Albert Einstein once posited, “If we were ever to see the extinction of the honey bee, humankind would follow four years thereafter.” That has not happened, but the food web collapse resulting from the continued destruction of so many species has created conditions for even more loss of life."

Colony Collapse Syndrome causes a severe drop of numbers, but only among highly domesticated (European) bees. There're a number of realted species that could take over, though their honey yield is significantly lower and they're a lot harder to handle.

But most creatures with the essence drain power also need to digest something symbolic for the essence drain to work.

So the vampire would not be able to drain the essence from his swam of bees, since they do not have any metahuman blood, just like the ghoul would not be able to drain essence, without eating metahuman flesh.

Ummmmm. No. Essence Drain, and Feeding Restrictions are completely unrelated. *shrug*

Im not going back to check but I think the original suggestion mentions Africanized honey bees that are listed as extinct in Running wild... Those glacial arcs are only for seeds no?

Africanized honey bees (also affectionately known as 'killer bees') have, largely unsuccessfully, been hunted to extinction ever since they were released into the wild without proper testing in the 1970s. Nobody would shed a tear if those critters died out.

European (or Western) honey bees going extinct would be a lot harder, as this would blow up nearly all agriculture as it is now. fortunately, there are five other species of honey bee to fall back on, even if they are comparatively low-yield. But since their main job is pollinating everything, that's a small price to pay.

The glacial arcs are only for seeds though, yes. Because seeds can be stored near indefinitely (some seeds found in a whooly mammoth's fur bloomed when properly treated, and they were over 10.000 years old). Animals are not so durable.

It says honey bee (africanized, dwarf, giant) whether that's including or excluding other honey bees is hard to tell, the fluff text suggest as much.

Emphasis mine.

Probably, though there are other honey bee species as well, and SR tech is sufficiently advanced to gengineer some honeybee like creature from other bees. All honey bees extinct makes flat out no sense though, since pollination in agriculture evidently still happens, and there are awakened honey bees around.

Royal Jelly ...!!

Also: only Wendigo are specifically required to symbolically consume a part of their victim, in order to drain essence, as I recall.