Technology and the Supernatural

[Cybermancer]

When it comes to Palladium games, usually when someone talks about robots, cybernetics and powerarmor, people automatically think about Rifts or Heroes Unlimited. If we're talking about a contemporary setting than of course they must be talking about Heroes Unlimited.

Ten years ago I would have been one of those people. Heck, even five years ago. But the world is quickly changing and the pace of technology is not slowing down for our perceptions of how things should be. Just a little research on the internet will show things like military and medical powered exosuits in development and in use. DARPA is developing a humaniod robot that can walk, run and climb. There are DIY robotic kits available online in a number of different body shapes and configurations. EOD experts use robots to keep their people out of harms way. Over battlefields drones fly relaying real time intelligence to their superiors. Other drones carry weapon payloads and operate alongside human soldiers. In laboratories, amputees are making bionic hands move using neural implants and recieving touch stimuli in return. Bionic eyes are being worked on that will help the blind see while in other labs artifical organs grown on scaffolds using stem cells will soon be redefining how we practice medicine.

All of this stuff exists, today, in the real world. Right now. Some of it already available commercially, if expensive. If you want to run a truly contemporary game, then you have to take these things into account. This includes games involving the supernatural and elements of horror. If you are fine with only basing your campaigns in the past, then you can stop reading here.

I will also add the caveat that while I am a fan of the supernatural in a contemporary setting, I'm not a horror fan. There's no sense getting into why since that's not the purpose of this post or this thread. However it is relevant because my comments and views to not exclusively reflect the horror aspect of Beyond the Supernatural. It will include that but it will be biased from a more neutral view of the supernatural existing and interacting in the modern world.

Some GM's and would be GM's will read this and automatically start thinking about ways to nerf the available (and soon to be availble) technology. They are thinking this because they think that they need to in order to make their horror games work. This makes me sad. If you have to nerf reality to make your horror work, than your horror isn't working. Why? Suspension of disbelief is why. An audience may be willing to buy into the idea that ghosts and vampires exist but when you start messing with how real world things work, their mind will begin to balk. If they start to lose that suspension of disbeleif over real world things, then they might no longer buy into your supernatural elements as well. Besides, it's just not required.

So how can you use cutting edge technology in your Beyond the Supernatural game?

1. False sense of security. Someone wearing a powered exosuit might feel superpowerful. How is it going to help them at all against something that is insubstantial? Imagine the horror when it's the dude in the exosuit that gets possessed! Now imagine an entire special ops team that is possessed and it's up to the civilian heroes to stop them somehow. Preferably without murder and being on the hook for destroying government property.

This holds true against physical foes as well. How well is an exosuit going to fair against a vampire if they don't have silver weapons? Not very. Even with silver weapons, the suit only provides a limited benefit to the wearer. That vampire is still a supernatural horror that has psionics and may also have magic on its side. If it's smart, it will hit the suit, back off and heal, then hit the suit again. The vampire will continue to heal while the suit takes damage and is slowly worn down. The player may have started out cocky but when they're down to their last few SDC on the suit and the vampire is back for round sixty, as fresh as he was in round one, then the player is going to sweat. Especially if their character paid for the suit out of their own pocket.

2. Technology = Horror. Ever see the first Terminator? How about the recent reimagining of either Battlestar Galactica or Robocop? The first Terminator movie is the first movie that ever really scared me. Because while most horror relies on things that don't exist, the monster in the Terminator could someday exist (and probably will)! That to me is far more horrifiying than any sparkling vampire. Battlestar Galactica has many of the similar qualities. The last survivors fighting to survive against a vastly superior robotic force and to make it worse, some of them look like us! Finally, the latest rendition of Robocop. In one of the first scenes we see robot drones inspecting people who have to corralled out into the streets. If this doesn't scare you, then you haven't thought it through to the horrible conclusions I have.

I almost forgot the Alien series of movies. Those aliens were relentless regardless of the technology used by the heroes. Sure the heroes take some of them down but like was said, "Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Such a callous attitude towards nuclear weapons should always be scary.

None of these franchises have supernatural elements to them (Well Battlestar a little bit, but that's not what makes it scary). They are all scary however. That's not even touching on the theme of losing ones individuality to technology as represented brilliantly by Star Trek's Borg antagonists.

3. Your tinfoil hats won't save you! Big brother here today and is watching you! Technology should accelerate the fears of every conspiracy theorist going. Let the sheeple be herded, we're not going to allow ourselves to be depopulated! As crazy as this might sound, there are people out there who believe it. They have websites.

What if they're right?

4. Genetics are the new nukes. We can engineer life how we want it. We can make it better, stronger, tougher... more obediant...

Is that a werewolf the farmer saw or some experiment gone horribly awry? And why are they experimenting with these things anyway?

Along with genetics comes the study of disease. Many zombie stories start with a virus.

Genetics and virus engineering can be horrifying on their own. Combined with a supernatural element, they can reach new heights. Why limit it to zombie plagues? Perhaps some mad mage-scientist has found a new way to spread lycanthropy.

5. Aliens. They're here. They're real. And no matter how advanced your technology is, theirs is more so. Check out the upcoming Edge of Tomorrow movie for some ideas. They've taken a day after tomorrow setting and thrown in a new twist on Clairvoyance.

This post is getting a tad long so I'll add more later.

[Cybermancer]

Alright so I've addressed technology as horror a bit. Let's talk a bit about combining the two.

Palladium already has taken the iniative in this area and it's in BtS 1 and 2. They're called psi-mechanics. They were reworked in Rifts and called Technowizards. But really magic and technology have been combined for thousands of years.

Excaliber?

A sword is a type of technology. It becomes even better when it's a magic sword. It becomes scarier when it's a cursed magic sword.

There's no reason not to have modern weapons that are enchanted. If you look at the rules that exist for enchanting magic weapons in Palladium Fantasy, you'll find that many of them can be effortlessly applied to modern firearms (something I prefer over technowizardry--anyone can use a magic gun enchanted to do +1D6 damage). This goes for the rules for curses as well. I've seen some Anime where you could argue they used Holy Firearms or Holy Ammo. Likewise the rules in Palladium Fantasy for enchanting ancient armor could work for modern armor as well.

Check out the amulet spell as well. Imagine a set of nightvision optics that have been enchanted to also allow the user to see the invisible. Dogtags could be a talisman holding 50 PPE or a spell ready to use. These options don't require much alteration to the wording or intent of the spells. The wards spell and certain other spells from other Palladium books can also be used to combine with technology with little effort. Diabolist wards can also work with technology or as a supplement to technology. And keep an open mind about methods used to enchant ancient weapons from different settings. There's no reason accept writer fiat or limited imagination that an enchantment should work on old technology but not modern technology. So scour your Rifts library, you'll find lots of neat ideas you can import. Just be careful about introducing elements that might derail your campaign in some way.

I'm going to go back to the psi-mechanic and the ghost hunter for a moment. I suggest that GM's be open to creative ideas that players may have for psi-mechanic inventions. Powers that aren't currently available might make sense if built into a cutting edge piece of technology. Also be open to the idea of building psi-mechanic devices into robot drones and exo-suits. You'll find that all forms of technology have their limitations.

There are other ways that science and technology can interact with magic and the supernatural. These are also found in other Palladium books. In Rifts Japan and in Between the Shadows, there are devices that can be used to detect different supernatural elements. This is consistant with movies in the genre such as Ghostbusters as well as modern attempts at ghost hunting. Some inventions might also interfere with or protect against supernatural influence. It seems only fair since there are spells such as Energy Disruption that interfere with technology.

Speaking of spells and technology, there's nothing stopping a mage from copying his magic books to digital format and then encrypting them. I also see no reason why scrolls can't be made in digital format. Digital copying won't work because the copies won't have any PPE infused into them. They'll just be corrupted data. When the digital scroll is used, it self-deletes, in the same way that a scroll goes blank when it is used.

There are many ways to combine the supernatural and emerging technologies. I'll get into some more a little later as again, this post is getting a little long.

[Cybermancer]

Now I'll present a bunch of adventure ideas in the form of 'What if?' scenerios.

Ever seen one of those annoying facebook chain letters (they existed as chain letters long before the internet was even a dream)? What if one of them is true? If you pass it along you'll have some good fortune, but if you fail to do so, some calamity will strike. Who started it and why are they magically trolling the internet?

What if a new humanoid robot is possessed by an entity (such as a teutonic entity)?

What if Gremlins started making their own powered exosuits?

Nevermind Big Brother. What if there's an alien intelligence that instead of creating avatars can watch what's going on anywhere in the world through any audio/visual device whether it's plugged in or not, on or not or even works or not? How many of you just covered up the web cameras of your computers?

What if a government is selling technology to some infernal power?

What if a vampire wears a bullet proof vest that is held on with velcro straps?

What if some agency has found a way to open portals to other worlds?

What if the government is in a secret war against supernatural forces and it is this war that is driving the progress of technology?

What if aliens are providing the government with this advanced technology? Why?

What if the advanced technology is coming from some source in the future? Why?

What if artificial organs are made from the cells of some supernatural creature and than transplanted into a human?

What if a character loses a limb during the course of an adventure?

What if a bionic limb becomes possessed?

What if a neural implant allows someone to experience the supernatural (when they couldn't before)?

What if a psychic loses a limb but the bionic replacement will interfere with their psionic powers due to the neural interface?

What if that new super computer hacks every computer on the internet and becomes self aware? What if Malware makes it unstable?

What if robots from the future arrive to hunt the PC's?

What if robots from the future arrive to protect the PC's?

What if an agency is making genetically engineered super soldiers to fight the supernatural? What if that agency only wants to clear out the competition? What if that agency is also teaching them magic or giving them psychic powers?

What if enemies of the PC's have cloned them? Many, many times?

What if the PC's are actually clones?

What if the PC's discover they're all just simulations being run on a very advanced super computer? What if they find a way to get to the 'real' world? What if that world is also a simulation?

What if there's a new meme, and everyone who sees it is changed in some way?

What if the internet becomes self aware? As an alien intelligence?

What if the old gods resent the independence from them that technology has provided us?

What if an experiment at the CERN collider is going to cause magic to return to the world suddenly and forcibly?

What if the government is using memes on the internet to control the population?

What if your cellphone is possessed? What if it doesn't get along with whatever is possessing your tablet or your laptop?

What if every robot in the world was suddenly possessed by a single evil supernatural intelligence?

What if your new google car decides to take you someplace not on the map?

What if King Arthur comes back with his knights and they're all cyborgs?

What if Merlin was a scientist from today?

What if Ancient Aliens was right? About anything?

What if Atlantis were to just suddenly reappear in the Atlantic? How would modern nations respond after they got over having their coasts flooded?

[Wōdwulf Seaxaning]

Interesting concept. I've been kicking around ideas for a cyber-Horror setting much like a cyberpunk hybrid of BtS or WoD.

[Antimony]

Dracula, by Bram Stoker, was actually written while incorporating "cutting edge" technology. The gramophone was first patented in 1887; the widespread use of the term "hypnosis" wasn't in use until the 1880s, either.

And the protagonists consistently use technology and modernisms for their benefit. For example, while the character Dracula still used old-fashioned letters, carriages, and ships, Van Helsing and his crew kept each other abreast of events via telegrams, moved about by train, took copious notes and shared them with each other through carbon copies written by typewriter, or quickly jotted down on paper via shorthand to be written out later. Even one of the main characters, Mina Harker, was a working woman: a new "fad" that hadn't yet caught on in the staid, Victorian England (and when I say "working," I mean working: as a secretary).

You might laugh at some of the above, but technology's boom didn't hit hard until after; and Mr. Stoker had a keen interest in many things modern.

Several years back, Ron Caliburn (of Lazlo Society fame) was asked why he didn't attach a camera to the end of his gun; at the time, he said it interfered with his aim. This still might not work for him, but maybe Darcy will start bugging him to wear a headset with camera. That lovable hobo that is the favorite snack of nighttime crawlies? Just might have a new phablet with HD camera options. And might just whip it out and start clicking away, and sending pics to friends and family, when attacked.

Cybermancer mentioned transplantation. . . I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for two of 'em, with a stint of dialysis in between. Maybe, someday, I won't have a meal of meds to go with them. And with laptops, new phones, and mega speed, suddenly, those people that might not be able to physically go out in the field still have access to the their field buddies in real-time, and a potential hoard of information, besides.

This post is starting to give me bit of deja vu--I think I've written about this before. If so, sorry.

P.S. Dracula was published in 1897.

[thorr-kan]

Good point, Antimony: technology marches on.

[Antimony]

Good point, Antimony: technology marches on.

Thanks, though the credit should go to Cybermancer. (A search will show his thread, I think.)

Although I was pointing out, but forgot to mention it, that technology can be used by the good guys too, and not simply for terror.

But yes, technology does march on. And thank goodness for that.

[tmikesecrist3]

I do have some thoughts about enchanting and or blessing weapons or ammo. not a bad Idea actually... and was dealt with in the form of "the colt" in the supernatural tv show. I dont think every modern fire arm could be enchanted. The plastic might be a problem, as is the alumenam and ceramics could be hard or imposable to enchant. Well you can likely enchant any sword, or knife, why would you bother with a cheap stainless steal flea market special. in short I think it is more likely that it would be easier and make more since to go to the trouble enchant higher quality items