TECHNOLOGY

[neocephamods]

TECHNOLOGY

• C.O.R.D
• CYBERWARE
• DRONES
• VIRTUAL REALITY
• VEHICLES

C.O.R.D

A CORD (Communications via Organic Relay Device) is not a singular implant, but a mesh fused with the character's nervous system. It runs WOVEN (Wide-area Organismic Virtual Environ Network), sometimes called the Weave, a shared virtual environment for communications, transactions, and monitoring.

The devices functions are as follows:

• transmission of messages, which can be "video" (shared sight, you must look in a mirror to show yourself) and "audio" (spoken out loud), or "text" (a virtual augmentation effect like a holographic keyboard only the user can see, and text that can be received visually);
• interfaces with other city-wide networks, announcements, advertisements, some corp-specific functionality;
  
• transmits and stores tracking information;
  
• stores permissions data for where an asset is able to go, transmitted via retinal and/or fingerprint scan;
  
• stores Economic Tier information, transmitted via retinal and/or fingerprint scan;
• can be exploited through restricted Neocephalos devices to subdue an asset as needed by dampening their abilities and inducing debilitating vertigo.

The CORD is linked to the implant port that all assets will find at the back of their neck, left-of-centre to their spine. This also serves as an access point for VR connectivity, and is the only accessible and external component. Attempting to remove the CORD, whether through its external port or other means, is lethal.

CYBERWARE

'Cyberware' is a catch-all term for cybernetic modifications grafted into or onto the human body. This can range from nanotech processors boosting reflexes through to full mechanical limbs, from flashy chrome to microscopic bone, flesh, and muscle mesh. There is not a single stretch of the anatomy that cannot be improved upon or loaded with new functionality, and Neocephalos is rife with clinics ready to slice and probe.

It is also full of manufacturers jockeying for position. While players are as free to make up brands and suppliers as they are allowed to make up cyberware specifics, some key cyberware corporations include:

• Chakshu Bionics, the premier provider of eye implants, offering near-limitless enhancements and abilities throughout their models, including thermal vision, night vision, enhanced HUD capability and more, as well as a range of aesthetic choices
  
• Wilco Wetware specialises in biological enhancement rather than robotics, the one-stop-shop for skin, muscle, and bone improvements, whether through wholesale grafts of lab-grown variations, or via microscopic artificial fibres laced through existing biology to give you greater durability and strength
  
• NuYu Consultants are a fashion cyberware company, offering lower-tier implants that give all the glitz and glam of the totally borged out without requiring the heavy hardware, like glowing eyes without the X-ray vision, nail implants that change colour, or their range of synth-skin overlays for digital tattoos (often in rivalry with DermaLove, a post-op skin replacement service)
  
• Kong-Faalsen Robotics manufactures artificial limbs, offering a range from the hyper realistic that achieves human-baseline mobility, to mechanically superior mobility options, through to what they term hyper-limbs with specialised implants for additional functionality, although their design philosophy doesn't stray too far from human design
  
• DEATH WARRIOR MURDER FUCK INCORPORATED!!!!, yes, like that, specialises in the utterly ridiculous yet strangely still (mostly) functional, providing you your katana arms, your super jumping legs with knife feet, your titty guns, your prehensile robot scorpion tail, your laser eyes—but word to the wise, cyberware that pushes the bounds of human intention may have such side effects as implant rejection and potential psychosis, consult your doctor (or a loved one) before these treatments.

While relatively small cyberware enhancements will set you back a few hours in a day, give or take a night for physiological and psychological adaptation, major enhancements require around 48 hours. This includes the surgery itself, recuperation, and several hour-long sessions in what is colloquially called "sugar baths", so named for the milky, oddly-sweet nanite-filled regenerative liquid that the patient is submerged in to speed physical recovery.

DRONES

Drones are a vital part of the Neocephalos infrastructure, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Assets in particular will find themselves confronted with surveillance drones, humming and hovering nearby, ready to capture the banal and the exciting, to be algorithmically compiled into content for wider consumption.

Drone models tend to be unique and varied, so it's difficult to assign machine to source or platform, but you can identify their function this way. The larger and more mechanical are adept at taking in larger scenes for visual feeds, while insect-like swarm drones can either be sent individually to pick up close audio in an unobtrusive manner, or move en masse to record visual data for more interactive, three-dimensional video constructions.

Besides media drones, there are also cleaning machines, delivery drones, and self-automated vehicles. If there are weaponised drones of any kind in Neocephalos, they are not common enough for an asset to have encountered one.

Drones are typically AI-controlled, especially those that accomplish everyday services, but can also be piloted remotely by people.

VIRTUAL REALITY

Virtual reality is one of the primary sources of entertainment in Neocephalos, offering the kinds of landscapes and vistas that the city cannot provide to its citizens, and narrative, emotional, and psychological experiences that are otherwise hard to come by. Although its premise promises infinite possibility, there are still some technological constraints, with different platforms attempting to advance past its competitors in its offerings.

In order to access any virtual reality platform, you must jack-in via the CORD port installed at the base of your neck, and it is recommended to recline into a comfortable position. All Tier 1 and over accommodations have this set up, as do some Tier N, normally as a panel next to the bed with a retractable cord that can be pulled out, lengthened, and inserted into the CORD port. Some facilities also have more luxurious options, such as sensory deprivation tanks and other bells and whistles, but the access point is the same.

From there, you can access nearly all virtual reality platforms, such as Apex Legacies Raw. This platform is geared towards the providing the kind of hyper-violence that is not always practical to perform in meatspace, gory extremes for voracious appetites, as well as set-ups that would be logistically challenging. For assets of Apex Legacies (and friends they can choose to bring along), their useage of this platform will mainly be performing these kinds of battles—think gladiatorial arenas, anti-gravity cage fights, mech suit brawls, and on the visceral side, it is more feasible to remove someone's spine when they're not going to die in real life. For the average consumer, they are able to enter spectator mode for both live and recorded fights, and at Tier 2, can play out these fights themselves by entering the point of view of either competitor, enjoying all of the pain and adrenaline and none of the cost.

Cosmic Dreams is a multimedia platform that boosts the profiles of its assets through a multitude of ways, and one of them is its virtual reality platform. A CDM asset (as well as those they invite to join them) are able to use this platform to generate scenarios based off of memory and interact with digital reconstructions of anyone they know well. The more intimate the relationship, the higher the fidelity. The reconstructions are not under their control, normally conforming to the memory they are being associated with and extrapolating into more improvised scenes. Average consumers of the CDM virtual platform are able to do this as well, but can also access the previous sessions of assets, either playing out memories as their digital reconstructions or as the asset themself. As a word of warning, assets will learn pretty quickly that these memories can be used for sexual gratification too so long as the digital constructions are over 18, but maybe not quickly enough.

Children of Blindstar's virtual offering is a little more exclusive, in that it can only be physically accessed from the Blindstar Pyramid. While most virtual reality experiences are logistically limited to single rooms, single scenes, single stadiums, single stretches of time, Blindstar's Exodus is a sprawling multi-user environment the likes of which is otherwise not available in Neocephalos. At its center is the Chambers of Light, a place of worship of infinitely changeable zen-like brutalist architecture and far horizons, and beyond that are sprawling environments of all kinds that one can travel, using portals to cover distance and load into new maps. This is a Tier 3 only service, but assets of Blindstar have free access, as does anyone they invite to join them. Additionally, assets of Blindstar and their friends are able to go into build mode and create landscapes (if empty of people) that resemble their own worlds.

Generally speaking, virtual reality offers a variety of entertainments, resembling gaming, movies, and interactivity beyond the bounds of ordinary experience, and it only asks for a piece of you in return.

VEHICLES

A dense city Neocephalos might be, but every megabuilding is a node in a winding system of highways and backstreets, and these are populated with a colourful riot of cars, trucks, and motorbikes. A good 90% of the city outside its buildings' walls are not pedestrian friendly, all its main attractions cloistered within, and so its roads and skies are the territory of roaring engines and flashing metal.

Vehicles tend to be a status symbol in Neocephalos, considered a luxury acquisition rather than a necessity when all megabuildings are designed to be self-sufficient. Any kind of industrial vehicle (transporting goods, for instance) tends to be automated and operates on their own underground tunnel system, and so free and easy transport between megabuildings is considered as much an activity of leisure as it is practical. Street races are a common pastime, originally considered a grassroots non-corp form of entertainment, but not for long when car manufacturers and other entertainment corps, including Apex Legacies, started catering to this extreme hobby.

Aerial vehicles are governed by invisible 'skyways', a series of virtually augmented flight paths that all vehicles are able to respond to, visible through windshields and preloaded into autopiloting programmes. Look up, and you will see flying cars travelling in neat orderly grids, but also some rebels going on a joyride in any which way.

While players are free to get creative with vehicle designs and manufacturers, some established corps include:

• Baudelaire is a luxury car manufacturer, Tier 3 only vehicles both ground and air, and offers bespoke customisation options, unique AI pilot options, and a diverse array of aesthetics within their style parameters of flat, sleek, and fast
  
• Sky Demon X specialises in a range of aero bikes (aesthetic: jet black and neon), specifically designed for high speed racing, with the kind of reflex response time necessary that the wrong finger twitch or second thought might send you spinning into the wall of a megabuilding and exploding
  
• Babushka Motors provides Tier 1 and 2 range ground cars and motorcycles, the closest one can get to truly practical options, and tend to be bulky sedans with a vintage land yacht aesthetic and minimalist motorcycles with exposed engines and tall handles
  
• VVV is an upcoming manufacturer of race-specific cars, with some proto models available for the friends of product manager, Vic Von Vektor, and tend to look as overdesigned and overtuned as can be expected for flashy race cars willing to tear up their enemies on the road

All vehicles are electric, and have incredible battery capacities. Dedicated motorists tend to double as electricians, sourcing ways to reroute power to make their vehicles even faster for less endurance.

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