Tools of the trade

[Aramanthus]

Secure Black Money Transfer Box

This is a box equipped with at least four ports for electronic currency transfer system. This box is usually used by criminal organizations for paying off illegal deals. The box is about the size of a large strong box. It is opened electronically by the owner when a payment is too be made. Sometimes the payment ports are carrying the payment for payee. The thing is that box has an almost mono edged. This is so that if someone reaches for a payment chip the owner can either set it off or have the box react to illicit and then it snaps shut with enough force to easily sever limbs. The cost of the boxes vary depending the number of ports in them. They start off at 100,000 credits and escalate quickly to around 5 million.

[taalismn]

Secure Black Money Transfer Box

This is a box equipped with at least four ports for electronic currency transfer system. This box is usually used by criminal organizations for paying off illegal deals. The box is about the size of a large strong box. It is opened electronically by the owner when a payment is too be made. Sometimes the payment ports are carrying the payment for payee. The thing is that box has an almost mono edged. This is so that if someone reaches for a payment chip the owner can either set it off or have the box react to illicit and then it snaps shut with enough force to easily sever limbs. The cost of the boxes vary depending the number of ports in them. They start off at 100,000 credits and escalate quickly to around 5 million.

I'd think that merely POSSESSING one is a good tip off to the authorities that you're up to SOMETHING.

[Thinyser]

Secure Black Money Transfer Box

This is a box equipped with at least four ports for electronic currency transfer system. This box is usually used by criminal organizations for paying off illegal deals. The box is about the size of a large strong box. It is opened electronically by the owner when a payment is too be made. Sometimes the payment ports are carrying the payment for payee. The thing is that box has an almost mono edged. This is so that if someone reaches for a payment chip the owner can either set it off or have the box react to illicit and then it snaps shut with enough force to easily sever limbs. The cost of the boxes vary depending the number of ports in them. They start off at 100,000 credits and escalate quickly to around 5 million.

I'd think that merely POSSESSING one is a good tip off to the authorities that you're up to SOMETHING.

Nope, totally legit!
These are not the limb-chopping cash-boxes you are looking for. <-- closest thing I could find to a mind trick ish emoticon

[glitterboy2098]

legit business would use them too. though maybe their security would be a little less lethal. any business where you'd need to move a lot of funds between worlds on a schedule separate from the regular banking transmissions would use them. or where the possibility of a banking transmission not being secure enough exists.

[taalismn]

Cold Straps
“Not feeling so hot now, are we, Inferno?”

Cold Straps are long strips of translucent flexible material that glow an icy blue, and appear to be endothermic, drawing heat from their immediate vicinity, but not ever heating up in turn, in defiance of the laws of physics. It is believed this material originates from another universe, possibly brought by the crystalline Jy!ng.
Cold Straps are frequently used as packing material for goods that must remain refridgerated or as the linings for thermal protection suits, but they are also often used as restraints, especially on beings with particularly high body temperatures or who are associated with Elemental Fire.
Effects: A single yard-long strap can lower the temperature in its immediate vicinity by as much as 30 degrees, 40 degrees if it is wrapped around something. Multiple straps can lower the temperature even more.
Cost: 500 credits per yard-long strip


Tachyon Shield Generator
Supra-Tech shielding generator that produces a field that blocks tachyons. Tachyon weaponry do NO damage to the field or the area it protects, nor can tachyon-based communications systems operate through the field. On the minus side, tachyon detection gear will show the field up as a void in the tachyon background noise. Given the sparsity of tachyon-based weapons and other systems, however, the shield generators are rare and hard to come by. They are also quite energy hungry; the energy needed to shield a structure the size of an average 100 sq ft apartment would require a dedicated vehicle-grade fusion powerplant.
Cost: 12 million credits for the generator.

[Thinyser]

Those cool strips are themselves a pretty darn cool idea.

EDIT: Did you get the idea from those cooling towels advertised on TV all the time? "Wet, Wring, and SNAP!" to cool HAHA

[taalismn]

Those cool strips are themselves a pretty darn cool idea.

EDIT: Did you get the idea from those cooling towels advertised on TV all the time? "Wet, Wring, and SNAP!" to cool HAHA

Nope, didn't see that.
Got the idea for the tachyon generator from reading the manga version of "All You Need is Kill...", though.

[Aramanthus]

Hmmm I suppose I should try and find a copy of that manga.

[taalismn]

Slo-Sleep

It was a risk, she knew, but it was the only way she could think of to make the crossing through the Ever-Storms without foundering on the high seas in a native craft or discovery by the vigilant guards aboard the ‘NewProvi’ ships. She would let them take her there into their secret enclave themselves, through their wonderous shipping system!
She lifted the mask she had purloined from the Providencian medical supplies, remembering what she had learned from the helpful outlander healers, expressing her interest as an Iliayan priestess in their exotic healing methods. Without the mask’s sedative properties, she’d be agonizingly cramped inside the crate she had chosen to secret herself inside for the crossing. The mask’s contents should have enough to keep her under and comfortable long enough for the ‘package’ to reach her intended destination, provided the shipping label she’d made out (also after asking a helpful clerk in the service of the Providencians) was correct. Otherwise, she’d have to cut her way out and likely find herself having to answer some awkward questions.
Her decision made, she snugged the mask on her face, held her breath as she pulled shut the container openning from the inside, felt it seal, then inhaled deeply as she settled back in darkness and let unconsciousness take her-

Slo-Sleep is an aerosol sedative that induces a reduced state of metabolism, akin to a state of hibernation. It is often used as a precursor stage in many cold-sleep stasis systems, but it is also used as a medical application and survival measure to lower a patient’s metabolic needs, or to extend life support consumables (such as oxygen) in an emergency. It is increasingly frequently supplied as emergency gear aboard deep space lifeboats. It requires too great a concentration to be used effectively as a weapon, but some law agencies use it to facilitate prisoner transfers, and some military units use it in troop transports, or during ‘sleeper’ ops to reduce material needs during particular types of deployments. It has also begun to appear on the black market and is being abused, especially by people-smugglers and illegal immigrants.
Slo-sleep is breathed as an aerosol, typically through a mask or air supply system. Under the effects of slo-sleep, a person’s body temperature can safely drop to 40 degrees F(4 degrees C), heartbeat drops to 1 beat every 15 seconds, and one breath every six minutes. Full induction into slo-sleep takes 1d8 melees plus one melee round per degree of temperature drop, while waking up takes 2d6 melee rounds.
Slo-Sleep is not recommended for long duration (15 days or more) hibernation, as dehydration starts setting in, and the person may start developing pressure sores and skin rash(unless properly cushioned and kept clean). For long duration needs, a proper biostasis system or hibernation gene-mod is recommended.
A standard two-cylinder lifeboat mask has enough slo-sleep to last 12 days.
The standard slo-sleep mixture is compatible with most hemoglobin-using mammals, but different formulations may be needed for others to prevent poisoning and toxic shock.
Cost: 350 credits per 6-day gas cylinder.

TorpAir
“’Romance between the stars’ my @$$! Only if you got a net worth in the millions do you get anything like that experience. Every interstellar deployment I’ve been on, they doped the transportees to save on room, air, and cleaning puke on the sling trips. Between bunking down in a shelf-cell on departure and waking up at the destination, about all I remember of the trip is gray fuzziness and the feeling my head was stuffed with lint.”

Torpair is a milder form of Slo-Sleep and induces a much shallower state of torpor, during which the breather’s body temperature drops by 10%, heartbeat slows to 10 beats per minute, and breathing slows to HALF. Torpair breathers take 2d6 melees to go into torpor-state, but recover far faster, in 1d4 melee rounds, upon the gas supply being interrupted or otherwise provoked/aggressively stimulated. Torpair is used when the more profound hibernation state of slo-sleep is not needed or desired. Torpair is used in many survival kits and by some stellar transport companies(and, in the abuse of this substance, slavers) to facilitate ‘sleeper’ runs between star systems.
Cost: 150 credits per 4-day gas cylinder.

[taalismn]

Yeah, it's a necro, but I'm doing it with new material....

Gravity Stages(aka ‘gravity plates’)

“I LOVE setting up grav-plates just inside doorways; sucker comes through, and suddenly one gee of unexpected horizontal gravity pulls them smack into the wall! HILARIOUS!”

“I wish you to know I greatly appreciate the technological wizardry that allows me to appear suspended by my arms high on this wall when, in fact, I am comfortably laying on my back. I had not expected such consideration.”
<“Aw shucks, ma’am, you may be our prisoner and all, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer. You just gotta LOOK like it...we got a reputation as mean and nasty bastards to maintain, you understand. Say, you want something to drink while you’re waiting for the Inquisitor? I can ask the sergeant-at-arms to bring you something from the messhall.”>

Gravity stages are small platforms, adapted from the CG gravity systems in starships and advanced-generation spacestations) that create a very localized gravitic field that can be oriented radically to the larger local gravity field. Anything on the stage will essentially have its own gravity to orient by. Thus, somebody standing on a gravity plate will be able to eat, drink, and act as though they were oriented normally, even though they be perpendicular or even completely inverted to the local orientation of gravity.
The limitations of gravity stages are limited area of effect; generally a gravity plate will have a reach of roughly 5-6 ft above its surface. This range can be extended up to x5 its normal rated pull-range or g capacity, but the power requirements needed to extend and maintain the field doubles, triples, or even quadruples. Similarly, most platforms have a g-pull of x0.3-x3 standard terrestrial gravity without causing power drain problems; jiggering them to attain heavier pull ups energy expenditure and may cause the gravity stage to break down more frequently.
Gravity stages are also limited by the load-bearing capacity of the surface they are attached to; a gravity stage is NOT a true anti-gravity system, so a 200 kilogram person attempting to play on a ‘stage set on a wall better be sure the wall has the ability to hold that much weight on the attachment surface, otherwise the combined weight may pull the wall down.
Another limitation is power requirements. Starship and spacestation grav-plates are generally part of a larger synergistic system attached to a larger central power source; the elements efficiently support each other, reducing the power load per unit. Individual gravity stages on the other hand tend to become less efficient power-wise the larger they get. A simple 1-ft gravity stage with a 1 ft ‘vertical’ range can run off a standard e-clip for a full 24 hours, but a 6-ft stage will only last 4 hours. Deliberately lowering the vertical ‘pull’ also reduces the power draw; the same six-ft stage with only a 3 ft grav-reach will be able to operate for 8 hours.
Cost: A standard gravity plate/stage 6 ft wide with a 6 ft vertical range, and weighing 35 lbs will cost 12,000 credits in the Three Galaxies.

[RockJock]

It is only a decade or so old thread:). I'm glad to see it pop back up. There is really some great stuff in here.

[taalismn]

It is only a decade or so old thread:). I'm glad to see it pop back up. There is really some great stuff in here.

We'll see about coming up with more then...


HoloCombatoid
"Well, looks like that virtual flooper kicked your ass...literally."
The HoloCombatoid is a portable interactive holodisplay that can project a moving 3D image of a being, and is programmed to emulate a variety of hand to hand combat styles. The HoloCombatoid is used to teach both hand to hand combat and the weak points of various alien beings; special motion sensors register hits on vital points, and also alerts the user to hits the holographic opponent has scored on them. The projector can send the virtual opponent out in a 10 ft radius from the projector. The projection CANNOT be mistaken for a real being(glowing and translucent).. In general, only the most common species and hand to hand styles are covered(up to 6th level)
Cost: 62,000 credits for the basic system (comes with 12 preprogrammed alien species and 25 HTH styles). Additional species and styles can be added at a cost of 50,000 credits per addition. Rare aliens and higher-ranked or more exclusive combat styles are harder to get comprehensive information on, so custom data programs can cost much more.

[taalismn]

Yep...I'm yet again necro'ing this thread with new content so we have the miscellaneous stuff in one convenient box...


(note: the Bhozyari are a creation of 89er; he just lets me borrow some sand from his sandbox)

Cultural Notes: (Fashion)SleekDust

“It’s a step up from spray-on skinfilm and skin -tape. It’s the new daring. The only things less there are body-paint, holo-dresses and nano-mist.”
---Drala Pakharn, Senior Fashion Reporter, Alderensys Chic Circuit Weekly Review

“Make no mistake, Sleekdust is for those who don’t mind showing EVERYTHING. The skintight material, even when it’s barely covering something, shows so much detail through it that one may as well be completely nude. The critics will say it’s another body-shaming tool and others like myself will cringe when this fad gets to the point that badly-out of shape middle management types start wearing the stuff just to look cool.”

"This stuff came in very handy when we were deploying to Valtris; the human population there's acquired Kellestian-like scales as a reaction to their atmosphere. Being able to quickly put on anything that made us look like the natives made passing for local and getting our uplift program off the ground and accepted a lot easier ."
---Anonymous Office of Positive Outcomes agent

Sleekdust is a compound of psylite dust-infused nanoparticles that can be sprayed on the skin. Once attached to the wearer’s skin and within their bio-electric field, sleekdust can be, with some biofeedback synchronization, be manipulated with a little practice and concentration, to form patterns, strips, scales, and geometric patterns on the skin, looking like tape or mesh ornamentation. Sleekdust is also polychromatic, and its coloration can be adjusted to be primary colors or reflective metallic hues.

Sleekdust offers little in the way of environmental protection and arguably less in the way of modesty protection, though some varieties can store up heat and reradiate it later, providing the wearer extra comfort.

Other varieties being experimented on combine the psylite particles and nanomachines with flakes of stabilized ectoplasm to carry magic charges, Though not substantial enough to carry full-blown spells, the composite material does seem to be able to carry some magic properties( Chromatic Protection, +1 to save versus magic, or +1-2 save vs skin-absorption gases and blistering agents for examples). Research is still ongoing(especially in the USA’s Offices of Positive Outcomes, who are quietly notorious for their gimmicked agent clothing).

Sleekdust can be manipulated via though thought, and it seems to work best with psychics. Regular non-psychics can manipulate the nano-material by concentrating for 1d4x10+10 minutes, -their M.E. Having a Wardrobe and Grooming skill allows the wearer to create fashionable designs; a failed roll means the design is sloppy and may look like damaged nylons or runny mascara. Having a Meditation skill HALVES the time needed to format the material.
Psychics can change the sleekdust in 4d6 melees, - their M.E. in seconds.
Sleekdust is generally skin-thin, but with practice, wearers can form nodes like studs or small spikes. Though not very hard, these can add +1 to damage from punches and kicks.

Sleekdust can be ordered to detach and can be collected(a special static brush picks it up) for reuse(recharges in special battery-powered jars), but generally a single application of sleekdust is good for only 1d6 days of wear before disintegrating. A single application-coat for an average-sized human being costs 90 credits.

Sleekdust was thought to be the creation of the Altess House of Ladis fashion coterie studios, but it has since been revealed that sleekdust was actually created by the Bhozyari of Bajime. The Altess, in their investment in the United Systems Alliance, have been discovering and promoting unique Rim culture; the House of Ladis has been working with Bhozyarin partners to promote the material and fashion, selling not just the sleekdust and accessories, but preprogrammed designs. Sleekdust is enjoying something of a craze in Altess circles and the rowdier upscale USAn communities(where it’s assumed they’re imitating the Altess).