Bringing Chaos Earth to Rifts.

[darthauthor]

So I ran and adventure.

A Golden Age city I invented got Rifted into Rifts Earth PA 105

I told the adventurers they heard rumors about a Pre-Rifts city that appeared out of nowhere.
A merchant made them an offer to bring back anything of value he could turn around and sell. 10,000 credits plus a truck to hual cargo.

Skip ahead, the adventures find the city has the people in it from the time they came from. To them 3 or 4 days have passed. There are no roads to drive out of town. The internet only works inside the city. Place is nuclear powered.

Questions:

Where are the juicers? The city instantly appeared out of 2098

Where are the crazies?

Where are the military grade headhunter cyborgs?

Is NEMA all over the place? In other words, would a civilain city, like Los Angeles have a military base with giant robot fighting machines?

Do people have psionics?

Are they as powerful before the Blue Zones/Ley Lines or does every psychic in town become boosted when they arrive in the year PA 105?

[darthauthor]

Well,

I try to answer my own questions.

Where are the juicers? The city instantly appeared out of 2098

Juicers, even in the year 2098 are rare. They exist as a military experiment. A special forces squard. Best guess, maybe a platoon size exists (30 is a kind of bottom number sample group). At most I don't believe more than a company would exist.
IF the tech got out (hacking, spies, a leak, etc) the criminal undergorund would try out a handful.
Might be more in foreign countries. Still, my belief is that they are RARE. There is no good reason for a large number to exist in a city like san diego or L.A. So they don't. If I wanted to do some GM hand-waveium I could say one was on leave in the city visiting family or such.

Where are the crazies?

See Juicers above. Although, they might have a few M.O.M. that actual treate insanity without the super-powers.

Where are the military grade headhunter cyborgs?

I believe the city would have bionics/cybernetics for people with organ replacements and for lost fingers and limbs. So no crutches or wheel-chairs. Military headhunters would not exist in the city unless they are like the Juicers.

Is NEMA all over the place? In other words, would a civilain city, like Los Angeles have a military base with giant robot fighting machines?

No. I don't believe they would.

Feels like the city life is REALLY SDC.

Do people have psionics?

Yes. That is the short answer. The longer answer is the science that studies psionics is in its infancy. The Chaos Earth charts show the people are more likely to have psionics but that does not mean that they are necessarily more likely to have mastered them or use them in a fighting manor. Most of the operate by autopilot and reflex. Sixth Sense doesn't go off unless you are in danger. Speed reading and total recall are gimmes. Big stuff like Astral projection they need practice and a teach for or they could hurt themselves.

Are they as powerful before the Blue Zones/Ley Lines or does every psychic in town become boosted when they arrive in the year PA 105?

I believe that because Rifts Earth has the Ley Lines that psychics from 2098 have the same power levels (SDC or MD) as psychics in Rifts Earth.

[dataweaver]

We actually have an example to work off of: Rifts Japan. The “future-tech” parts of that book are explained by the fact that three cities got rifted through time from the coming of the Rifts to the recent past.

[oni no won]

Where are the juicers? The city instantly appeared out of 2098

Juicers, even in the year 2098 are rare. They exist as a military experiment. A special forces squard. Best guess, maybe a platoon size exists (30 is a kind of bottom number sample group). At most I don't believe more than a company would exist.
IF the tech got out (hacking, spies, a leak, etc) the criminal undergorund would try out a handful.
Might be more in foreign countries. Still, my belief is that they are RARE. There is no good reason for a large number to exist in a city like san diego or L.A. So they don't. If I wanted to do some GM hand-waveium I could say one was on leave in the city visiting family or such.

Where are the crazies?

See Juicers above. Although, they might have a few M.O.M. that actual treate insanity without the super-powers.

The crazies and juicers were a failed experiment in pre-cataclysmic Earth but their presence would depend on the country.

Where are the military grade headhunter cyborgs?

I believe the city would have bionics/cybernetics for people with organ replacements and for lost fingers and limbs. So no crutches or wheel-chairs. Military headhunters would not exist in the city unless they are like the Juicers.

I believe cyborgs were fairly common so even a military grade cyborg would be present but really depends on the presence of a military base/facility.

Is NEMA all over the place? In other words, would a civilain city, like Los Angeles have a military base with giant robot fighting machines?

No. I don't believe they would.

Again depends. Los Angeles is such an important city such that it may indeed have a NEMA presence.

Feels like the city life is REALLY SDC.

Do people have psionics?

Yes. That is the short answer. The longer answer is the science that studies psionics is in its infancy. The Chaos Earth charts show the people are more likely to have psionics but that does not mean that they are necessarily more likely to have mastered them or use them in a fighting manor. Most of the operate by autopilot and reflex. Sixth Sense doesn't go off unless you are in danger. Speed reading and total recall are gimmes. Big stuff like Astral projection they need practice and a teach for or they could hurt themselves.

Of course people of that era had psionics. There were companies that catered towards this sect of the population, mostly with the military.

Are they as powerful before the Blue Zones/Ley Lines or does every psychic in town become boosted when they arrive in the year PA 105?

I believe that because Rifts Earth has the Ley Lines that psychics from 2098 have the same power levels (SDC or MD) as psychics in Rifts Earth.

I disagree. The psychics of RIFTS Earth is vastly more powerful than the psychics of pre-cataclysmic Earth. While ley lines were present at that time, the "flow" was but a dribble compared to the ones on RIFTS Earth.

[dataweaver]

The point is that those pre-Cataclysm psychics are being transplanted to Rifts Earth. See Conversion Book 1 for some guidelines as to what happens when someone who came from a low-PPE environment ends up on Rifts Earth.

[darthauthor]

Some Responces:

The Concept I put together of the High Tech City of Nemus was that it is a CIVILIAN city and not a FORTRESS or military industrial complex made to build war machines.

SO...

The humans are SDC

There is NO argument that Crazies, Headhunter / Cyborgs, and Juicers existed in 2098.

IF they happened to be in the civilian city than it is more of a coincidence.

I have consistently been evasive about the total population of the city but I thought of it as somewhere between 100,000 to 250,000.

I also thought of Cyborg / Juicer types are RARE. Like 1% of 1% of 1% rare. So, maybe 1 or 2 in the city.
OR if it is supposed to be 1 in 10,000 that would still put it at only 10 to 25.
They would be looked at like superheros.

Part of the idea is that hero / adventurering player characters can roll into the city and be look at by the people in it as impressive.
People would ask them for help.
IF the city were wall to wall bionic cyborgs and superpower Juicers the players would be unremarkable.

Part of the setting is intended to possible to "Borrow" from the Cyber-punk theme of HIGH TECH Low Life.
People morales become subverted by their fears, stress, and threats.
Many turn to VR escapes from reality.
Others turn turn to chrome and cybernetics.

My point of view is that MD damage capable would destroy a civilian city and normal (for Earth 2098) S.D.C. people.
The city would be a pit in a month or two.
I prefer it when people can have a good old fashion slug-fist fight and not get murdered or destroy the building.

Part of it is that I just could not rationalize why the city would be Mega Damage or the people Mega Damage.

NOW I maybe be really WRONG about the psychics.
I was hoping Palladium books would come out with more books about Pyschics in the Chaos Earth setting.

They really feel like they put out a book maybe once every 5 years.

Return to topic...

Also part of the S.D.C. theme leaves one of the story options of making the city a sort of "After the Bomb" setting.

Now according to the Cannon, psychics exist in 2098.

I will have to look up the conversion book 1 for the upgrades that psychics are supposed to experience.
Based on what I remember reading from the Chaos Earth Books:
They don't list O.C.C. or R.C.C. psychic character classes.

For whatever reason they either don't exist in 2098 or are super RARE.
They do have psychics but the common ones have the basic powers of a few from the categories of Healing, Physical, and Sensitive (ALL S.D.C. level psionic powers).

My line of thought on the matter is IF there is a great increase in their power it is in The Rifter source material of Psychic Classes that came after the worlds end.

I do NOTE that, from the Beyond the Supernatural Books there are other types of psychics but I started my fictional world from the PRE-Cataclysm world of Chaos Earth 2098.
Looking exclusively at those books.

I did NOT take into account Psi-Mechanics and such who would double or triple their ISP and add some additional powers.

I don't really have an objection to this.

Part of the reasoning I made this city the way that it is was that players could go to it and build and brake things without there being a MAJOR military or security force (like the CS) who would shut them down. It is a place where players can teach, learn and even lead.

A place where the players get to be the HEROES of the city.
Because, the city needs heroes.
Why?
Because, the city is still figuring out the threats and problems of Rifts Earth.
There inexperience means that they can't handle it at first.
They can learn but if the player character heroes are around they can do; then they can teach them.

AND if the player is a Crazy, Cyborg, or Juicer then they look like SUPERMAN to the people around them.
Because, in the beginning city of Nemus, there are so few of them.
And Mega Damage level threats were virtually non-Existant in 2098 before the nukes were launched.

Crime rates were LOW and S.D.C.

People had no NEED for MD armor or Energy Rifles that did Mega Damage.

Rocket launchers and explosives exist today, but why would you are I have them?
How would we get them?
And even if we did have them, somehow, how many others would also?
1 in 10,000?

It is NOT that it could NOT happen; it's that if it did it would still be SUPER RARE.

The GOOD news is that is what makes SUPER HEROES.

BUT in a world where SUPER POWERS are common, well:
the 2004 movie The Incredibles,
"Everyone can be super! And when everyone's SUPER... no one will be".
~Syndrome