Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Brain-hacking vs. Soul

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:44 am

I was thinking about this the other day, while I was playing a bit of Arkham City (where brain-hacking is sort of plot-important, albeit in the background and in chemical form).

And given there really are various forms of parasite and bacteria which make creatures with a fully developed-brain (say, a rat and Toxiplasma) drastically change behavior, there's no reason that a human (or non-human sentient creature's brain) couldn't be affected on the same principles.

That's awesome in cyberpunk. It's theoretically plausible, and having a bloody wireless broadband adapter in your brain could only make it easier to hack you.

The hitch comes from the 'fantasy' end. Just about all fantasy--certainly most systems of magic in fantasy--goes with Descartes' dualism in some form or another, with the body is a crude piece of meat, while the spirit/self/soul of a person is some ethereal glowy light or something.

So I was wondering how a, for want of a better word, soul is affected by brain-hacking and affects it in turn. The usual answer is 'it isn't affected by it, but it can fight back to some degree' and I'm wondering how much that should hold true. Most magic systems end up dealing with spirits (whether the ones in people or not), and I honestly can't find much wrong with going that way.

So in a pure science setting (and even probably in the real world), someone who gets hacked with enough skill wouldn't be able to tell and wouldn't be able to fight back and becomes enthralled until another external factor happens to change it. In cyberpunk fantasy the, again for want of a better word, soul is what lets someone have a chance at resisting and beating it. Or breaking out of the control after a while or in some situations.

Anyone agree/disagree? Does anyone see a gap there? Is this how the CFH rolls?

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:06 am

Maxus wrote:So I was wondering how a, for want of a better word, soul is affected by brain-hacking and affects it in turn. The usual answer is 'it isn't affected by it, but it can fight back to some degree' and I'm wondering how much that should hold true. Most magic systems end up dealing with spirits (whether the ones in people or not), and I honestly can't find much wrong with going that way.

So in a pure science setting (and even probably in the real world), someone who gets hacked with enough skill wouldn't be able to tell and wouldn't be able to fight back and becomes enthralled until another external factor happens to change it. In cyberpunk fantasy the, again for want of a better word, soul is what lets someone have a chance at resisting and beating it. Or breaking out of the control after a while or in some situations.

Anyone agree/disagree? Does anyone see a gap there? Is this how the CFH rolls?

I think that take on it would work pretty well, particularly given the possible existence of mind-altering magic that would attack the soul/mind rather than the brain; having a single "Grand Unified Theory of Screwing With People's Minds" would be good for consistency. How's this for an explanation:

The soul interacts with the brain dualistically, changes in brain chemistry giving rise to changes in personality and vice versa in a sort of feedback loop, and the two work together to make you you. In the absence of electronic or magical mind-fuckery, there's no external influences that would let EEGs note abnormal brain activity relative to your behavior (or let magic detect disturbances in your soul's aura), so it's not surprising that before magic came back dualism was scoffed at as unscientific and mystical. With the aid of various experts in the mystical arts, scientists have empirically determined that the more sapient a creature is, the more of a "soul" it seems to have (bug < dog < dolphin < human, for instance), though whether this is a cause or effect of sapience, or even entirely coincidental, is still unknown.

One of the known side effects of this still-relatively-unstudied spiritual/physical interaction is that it essentially provides redundancy, so if anyone brain-hacks you, your soul probably notices that there's no one on the other end of the metaphysical tug-of-war between soul and brain and attempts to rectify things--or, to use a computer analogy, it can perform a diff, note that the checksums are off, and try to restore from backup. Likewise, if someone tries to mind-control you magically, the disconnect between your brain's actual functioning and the effect of the magic on your mind/soul gets in the way of the mind-control just like trying to run cutting-edge applications software on older, custom-built hardware and has a chance to just force the magic to shut down and let your real self "reboot" and reemerge.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:10 am

Alternatively, there is no soul and magic that effects the mind effects the brain directly in an entirely explicable physical sort of way. Any magician explaining his magic in terms of souls is doing that because they're religious, not because there are actually souls involved at any point.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:11 am

This is actually one facet of a bigger issue: how do tech and magic interact with each other? This is mostly a mechanical question, since it dictates where cyber and magic fall on our elemental polytope. It's almost not a fluff question at all because we can make stuff up to fit arbitrary mecahnics. I don't think we came to an official conclusion, but we've established at least a few facts:

FrankTrollman wrote:So the basic setup could be something like "punk defenses protect against punk attacks, but are weak to hacking attacks; hacking defenses protect against hacking attacks, but are weak to magic attacks; and magic defenses defend against magic attacks but are weak to punk attacks." But it can't be "magic is the only thing that can stand against magic, so if you aren't a magician you should invest in mouthwash and kneepads." Th point is that whether you are bringing the fantasy, the cyber, or the punk, you should run rampant over opponents who don't have relevant defenses.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:29 am

I think that actually I want to do something around the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. The idea is that your brain reacts to intrusion in that way, and the actual disease of schizophrenia is when your brain does that without having a threat to fight off - similar to how alergies are when your immune system acts up without an actual infection to combat.

-Username17

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:46 pm

Can a Ghost/summoned thing be brainhacked?
The hardcore mage getting more otherwordly is still in?

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:54 pm

I'm in favor of purely material human consciousness.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:39 pm

But... ghost robots!

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:51 pm

My gut feeling would be that Ghosts and Demons would not be susceptible to Basilisk Hacks, and they wouldn't be subject to Exploits either. That would be because they are a "separate substance", and just as those tricks don't work on a tree or a rock, they wouldn't work on outsiders. That is problematic from a balance standpoint, because flat immunities are always problematic.

My first thought on dealing with that issue is to make the RPS a bit harsher. A drone is Exploitable but is immune to Basilisk Hacking. A human is Basilisk Hackable, but immune to Exploits. Both can be fooled by Images. An outsider is immune to Basilisks and Exploits, so my kneejerk response would be to make them highly susceptible to images.

That seems explainable by the fact that in the demon worlds holograms simply don't exist. So it would not be weird for them to respond the way the first people shown movies did - where a picture of an oncoming train was displayed and people ran the fuck out of the room. Without a frame of reference to put holograms in context, they could be easily spoofed by "illusions" that did not magically detect as such.

-Username17

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:22 am

That would be interesting. Especially for demons that run into it enough to figure out that it looks real, can even sound real, but it's not -really real-.

Which leads to elaborate fake-outs and possibly one character hooking himself up like Peter Riviera in Neuromancer, to make convincing holograms on the fly

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:18 am

So, in order to see through holograms, you need to make yourself vulnerable to exploits or basilisks?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 4:29 am

Suggestion: Demon basilisk hacking is possible, but no-one has done the basic research yet. That means that you can only get crude effects (fall down, black out, berserking), not Deus Deception.

Humans have some degree of self awarness. It's hard to say whether animals do, because most of them can't chat with us, and I don't know of any specific research on that aspect of awareness (nor am I in a position to know; it really might be super-common, but I just don't know about it). That means that we can e.g. recognize that we are drunk and compensate for it. We may not be able to get fine motor control back, but we can say "fuck it. Now is a bad time to sign a contract, no matter how good it seems".
A while back I advocated distinguishing between fine manipulation (a la deus deception) and gross manipulation (induced blackouts). Drawing that distinction means basilisk hacking can be similar to drunk or high: the gross effects always work (as well as they ever do), so you can always knock someone the fuck out. Fine effects are much harder to pull off in combat, and also need a subtler lead in to be effective (car salesman takes you drinking = sale. Car salesman pins you down and forces vodka into you = no sale).

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 4:31 am

RadiantPhoenix wrote:So, in order to see through holograms, you need to make yourself vulnerable to exploits or basilisks?

I am strongly in favor of this. It makes naked brains a valid choice, but not usually an optimal choice. It also provides a much more convincing avenue for hackers than direct brain interface.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 4:45 am

Brain type VS type of hacking


Brain	Hologram	"normal"	Basilisk
Animal	0	+	-
Machine	+	-	0
Spirit	-	0	+

+: Resists
0: Neutral
-: Vulnerable

EDIT: Attempted to clarify

EDIT2: I think that having a certain type of brain should give you a bonus to use the type of hacking you resist, and a penalty to use the type you are vulnerable to.

EDIT3: Examples of each type of hacking used on the appropriate type of brain:

Examples


Brain	Illusion	"normal"	Basilisk
Animal	A bridge where there is none	"Your boss told me to tell you to..."	"Boo!"
Machine	A bullet flying at the robot	"sudo..."	"The next statement I make will be false. The statement I just made was true."
Spirit	Sunlight in front of a Vampire	"Rumpelstiltskin"	"In the name of the LORD, get out of his body!"

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 5:57 am

I would honestly do it the other way around:


Brain	Hologram	Exploit	Basilisk
Animal	-	0	+
Machine	+	-	0
Spirit	0	+	-

It's too thematic for hackers to make an Elder Sign-based Basilisk hack to keep out Star Spawn and too plausable for humans to be fooled by photo-realistic holograms to do it the other way around.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:06 am

Can we split "Animal" into "Human" and "Actual Animal"? A bear or a dog will not respond to a hologram the same as a Human would, but I also don't think they'd quite do it the same as a Drone or Demon would either.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:07 am

This is a very cool idea thematically, but one question before I support it mechanically - how does this change the cyber/punk/fantasy elemental triangle?

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:09 pm

EDIT: TP

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:09 pm

EDIT: TP

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:09 pm

@Vebyast: Basilisk hacking is generally better against 'punk' foes, "normal" hacking against 'cyber' foes, and illusions against 'fantasy' foes. Every PC hacker should know some of each. There could be intermediate states, some of which are not so obvious:

If you stick a coprocessor in your brain, you become more machine, and your vulnerabilities change a bit to match
If you are currently using magic potions to enhance your brain, it becomes a bit closer to a spirit brain
If you are religious, your brain moves a little way towards having a spirit brain
If you get formal military training, your brain becomes a bit more machine-like as you get used to following orders
If you are on drugs, your brain becomes more animal-like

@Lokathor: "Animal" was because it sounded more polite than "meat".

@Grek: I started with 'demons are weak against illusions, but machines resist them', and I added that I wanted machine brains to be vulnerable to "normal" hacking, and everything fell into place from there. I see your point, though. How about this:


Brain	Illusion	"normal"	Basilisk
Punk	-	+	0
Cyber	0	-	+
Fantasy	+	0	-

Punk brains don't have passwords or whatnot, so they aren't vulnerable to conventional hacking, but they can be easily fooled and have their own inner demons to contend with.

Cyber brains have specialized resources available to detect illusions and holograms, and certainly don't have many deep seated emotional issues, but they do have passwords that can grant control of them.

Fantasy brains typically have magical senses that are almost impossible to fool, but they have truenames, even partial knowledge of which can allow you to command them to do certain things or weaken their magic; they also have lots and lots of quirks a basilisk hacker can exploit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 4:39 pm

I think that basically the outsiders are equivalent to alien life forms, so the pseudo-science of basilisk hacking has no excuse for affecting them. Not simply "has a more difficult time affecting them" but actually cannot target them at all. Similarly, if you have a trick that gets you access to computer devices, it has no effect at all on a guard dog. It has no computer parts, and cannot be affected by that stuff.

What that basically means is that Hackers need a separate list of attacks for each type of enemy. An attack that works on Dogs does absolutely nothing on a keypad locking mechanism and an attack that works on keypads doesn't affect guard dogs in the slightest. What that doesn't do is suggest any particular RPS format. It just means that because their attacks aren't based on shooting bolts of actual fire at things that they need to have a separate attack for each type of target.

So a Basilisk that targeted demihumans wouldn't affect a dog or a cthulhu monster, but you could go get basilisk hacks that worked on guard dogs. There probably isn't anyone who has basilisk hacks that would work on shoggoths, but in principle there isn't any reason they couldn't be made (save for a lack of shoggoth mind-machine interface research).

Where it gets a little odd is that the different target types are actually in different hacking categories and run off of different skills. So you could very plausibly be someone who was only able to hack computers and drones and could not do anything to impede a guard dog or even a naked human with a gun. What it also does is create a hard incentive for secure installations to have like Guard Bears and Guard Hyenas and shit, because while they can be fooled by holograms to one degree or another, being an obscure animal type is good protection against direct hack attacks. It also means that as a demihuman you can diversify yourself into having computers in and around your head, and doing so will open up additional attack types - but since anyone with Basilisks is probably going to have Demihuman targeting systems, I don't know that it makes any difference (unless the Exploits are more powerful than Basilisks, in which case having a head computer would make you scissors to a hacker's rock).

So basically you have Images, which are the closest thing you have to an omni-attack, in that it can fool a human, a guard leopard, a remote operated drone, a self operated drone, and an outsider. But it still can't fool a locked door or a bank account. Even Flashes (Images that produce effects - think Rainbow Pattern or Flashburst) can be used on different kinds of creatures even if they don't work at 100%. You have Basilisks, which are mediated to DD work and thus have to be specially concocted to mindrape different kinds of creatures/sensors and would have no effect at all on stuff like plants or sensorless machines. And while they could affect any creature, in practicality you will not have any effect on any sufficiently alien creatures.

Meanwhile, Passive Hacking can draw information from the minds and data banks of things around the hacker. But you need to have a key. With a Quantum Computer or a stolen system from the network you can crack a key for a device. For any living creature, you need a key for that creature - so probably you have one for demihumans (because that is hella useful) but you don't have one for war rhinos. So for passive hacking, you're kind of up a creek with weird guard animals or outsiders. It also means that people who have head computers with EUE can keep your ass out - even as they open themselves up to Exploits.

So as a human, you can be Basilisked and you can be Trepanated or you can be Basilisked and Exploited, depending on whether you went for cyberbrainage or not. That sounds like it could be vaguely fair.

-Username17

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:28 pm

Honestly, I can see two layers of Basilisking. One is the subtle method where you need to know a creature's mind and brain structure/chemistry intimately--or at least have downloaded the app for it--to alter their perceptions/behavior for the decided effects.

The OTHER method is a brute-force method that works across most mammals and produces seizures or falling down or temporary blindness or seeing sound as color and hearing smell for several seconds and leaves them with no doubt that something just happened.

If you attempt the subtle hacking without the requisite knowledge and tools, you stand a decent chance of tripping a spaz session in the target. Which, while it temporarily removes that target while their brain reboots, isn't the desired effect because you were trying for subtle.

This still means a build uses hyenas as guard animals--and they're tagged with a vital signs monitor/transmitter so if the pack moves to attack, an alert goes off. If you hack several hyenas to get them on the ground, alarms go off anyway. If you tranq the hyena pack, alarms go off then, too. If the guard animals are neutralized by -any- brute-force manner, the security knows something's up.

So a hacker who does any sort of brainhacking has at least one option against most humans and guard animals--it's just that it's a very unsubtle one and not much for the stealthy approach.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 7:08 pm

Right. Midnight brain fart, ignore me.

Would mind-control magic use the same system with slightly different names? Illusion magic > fantasy creatures, "charm person" > punk, color spray > cyber? Frank directly compares cyber "flashes" to color spray and similar, so it's not too far out that they'd actually be the same thing produced differently. On the one hand, it'd mean we only have to balance one thing. On the other hand, that would make cyber and magic mind-controllers the same, which is boring.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:40 pm

Illusion Magic as a category gets to do things that Basilisks and Images do. Trepanation can be mimicked with Astral magic to an extent. Puppetry is similar in overall effect to Conjuration. Exploits, Phreaking, and EW do not have magical equivalents.

Illusion Magic has different strengths than its hacking equivalents. Illusion creates things based on your imagination, which means that it is very good at making things invisible and good at insinuating ideas and opinions. But it is also based on your imagination, which means that it is bad at photorealism and insinuating facts. Illusion can make a man disappear, Images can make a man appear somewhere else. Illusion can make you hate someone, Basilisks can make you think that someone was born in February.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:20 pm

Actually, is there any strong argument for mechanically distinguishing between organic and inorganic devices? If you used some technobabble about modern firewalls and anti-viruses using "neural net heuristics" and humans concerned with cyberwarfare adding backup discs and firmware implants to their heads, you could handwave it and say that hacking a dog and hacking a drone are similar enough to be represented by the same character power.

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Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Brain-hacking vs. Soul

Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Brain-hacking vs. Soul

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