J-o-T as a Personality Wafer

[Grav_Moped]

Brought over from a discussion of things to change in Classic:

That last post was a bit tongue in cheek - but if wafer tech and makers are not in an updated version of CT then it would lack compatibility with the OTU

Reminded me of something I considered implementing: the Chack/Chiill (they're gendered) Scout Crisis Wafers. Like the ones in AotI, but for Scouts. If in a crisis situation that you don't have the skills or insight to escape, load up Chack or Chiill's identity wafer. Chack and Chiill were formerly extremely experienced and skilled Scouts, and their knowledge has saved quite a few Scouts' missions and lives.

Resorting to the Crisis Wafer is an admission of failure, and Scouts are extremely reluctant to invoke it.

---------------------------
I wake up in a vacc suit inside an inflated rescue ball. Inflated? Vacuum outside. Not a good sign, but the suit telltales show that it's holding pressure. I don't feel like I've been injured. That's good.

There's gravity and normal lighting so there's power still. That's good too.

I wonder for a moment how this host is trying to get me killed this time, and start the search for other crew or a message.
....

 

[BlackBat242]

So what is a personality wafer, and how does it in any way fit into CT?

 

[Grav_Moped]

So what is a personality wafer, and how does it in any way fit into CT?

It's an item (the core one) from Agent of the Imperium (and is described in T5). (Data) wafers use a brain interface to (in the basic version) provide skills. Slot it in and you've got Pilot-3, for example. Personality wafers (and I may be using the wrong term, as I'm working from memory) don't just add skills, but replace the host's identity with the one from the wafer. Those only work for limited periods (days, but T5 and the novel have different durations), and cannot be re-used in the same host. At the end of the duration, the host's identity returns, with no memory of the intervening time or actions.

This is a more thorough effect than the Personality Overlay Device from Expedition to Zhodane, which merely re-maps the subject's own memories to alternate versions of remembered events (your college years on Regina are now remembered as college years at the University of Rhylanor, for example).

Personality wafers (at least in AOTI) can only be recorded destructively -- the recording process kills the individual providing the template. They can be copied and backed up from an active instance in a host, and they can (by quite painfully hot-swapping wafers in an active host) merge memories of different instances of the personality.

Skill wafer recording is not destructive.

And since it's basically an RPG mechanic, there are drawbacks that nerf them a bit.

 

[mike wightman]

A wafer is a recording of the personality and memories of an individual.

Wafer Jack. A Wafer Jack is a cyber implant allowing
use of skill or personality wafers and providing direct access
to computer systems.

 

[BlackBat242]

Ah... so something from a much later edition than CT.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Ah... so something from a much later edition than CT.

Yes, very much so.

CT was "better living through chemistry," bionics hadn't really penetrated the SF genre that far, and cyberpunk hadn't happened yet.

 

[infojunky]

Yes, very much so.

CT was "better living through chemistry," bionics hadn't really penetrated the SF genre that far, and cyberpunk hadn't happened yet.

Kinda, the Computer brain interface showed up in jTas.

 

[aramis]

So what is a personality wafer, and how does it in any way fit into CT?

Its effects are very similar to the A6 personality overlay. It might even be a better explanation of that machine...

 

[Grav_Moped]

Its effects are very similar to the A6 personality overlay. It might even be a better explanation of that machine...

If you want to backport personality wafers into CT, on CT terms, yes.

The effects are not very similar, though. Personality overlays essentially re-contextualize the host's own memories and experiences to produce a different personality and apparent history for the same individual, to an extent that can withstand at least casual telepathic scrutiny. (However, they do implicitly provide additional foreign language fluency, since it's never raised as an issue despite the fact that it would inevitably become one in the course of the scenario). Personality wafers temporarily suppress the host's identity entirely, and the imposed wafer personality is completely independent of the host identity's memories and skills (and cannot access them).

 

[mike wightman]

The A6 machine doesn't require a wafer jack, but that is covered in T5 where it states that:

A Wafer Headset is an adequate substitute. Wafer Jack
Headset-13. KCr10 (reduces effective skill level minus 2).

A higher TL benefit is that the recording is no longer destructive:

The Scanner. Brainscan technology is commonplace
and part of modern medical diagnostic practice. Any ship (or
other) Autodoc has the ability to perform a brainscan (it takes
about an hour).

In addition, the short adventure Memory Alpha involves memory manipulation, which ties in with wafer tech:

Your group of travellers have spent years searching for the Rift Passage, "a path of refueling points which crosses the Great Rift". This discovery could be worth a fortune, but your ship has been having issues with its power plant. While looking for work to help pay for the repairs, the group encounters a well-dressed patron who offers them a high paying mission. The only catch is he insists on a memory wipe on completion.

 

[BlackBat242]

Kinda, the Computer brain interface showed up in jTas.

Yes... a TL-14 item.

I'd put personality overlays and the like as TL-16, at the lowest.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Yes... a TL-14 item.

I'd put personality overlays and the like as TL-16, at the lowest.

In a Classic-only TU, absolutely. The one in Expedition was clearly presented as experimental cutting-edge tech.

In later editions/campaigns incorporating cyberpunk and transhumanist themes, they could be available at lower TLs.

 

[mike wightman]

Read the novel, wafer tech is common within the OTU.

Look at the character generation in the latest version of T5 - lots of opportunity to be fitted with a wafer jack.

 

[infojunky]

The real question is would you add it to your CT game?

My games are pretty punk as it is. But I/We always added neato stuff from books and video along the way.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The real question is would you add it to your CT game?

My games are pretty punk as it is. But I/We always added neato stuff from books and video along the way.

Me, and specifically the PbP I'm running? I might in a different one, but not the current PbP.

It'd make for good fiction though, I think. Especially if the male and female Crisis Wafer personality template individuals knew each other in life.

 

[aramis]

The real question is would you add it to your CT game?

My games are pretty punk as it is. But I/We always added neato stuff from books and video along the way.

It's been in my CT games since day 1... when I was a player, the GM made waferjacks standard for excess Int or Edu MOBs.
The first one added to the education limit.

 

[kilemall]

I would think rather then an overlay, it would be simpler to ask the captured personality what to do, in conversation format.

 

[whulorigan]

I would think rather then an overlay, it would be simpler to ask the captured personality what to do, in conversation format.

Perhaps both types exist, for different purposes.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I would think rather then an overlay, it would be simpler to ask the captured personality what to do, in conversation format.

As I understand it, there isn't a "cohabitation" version of the wafers -- it's a total replacement, or nothing. That is, the wafer contains the personality as an executable copy that's write-once (overlay onto the host) and read-once (save state before expiration), rather than having integral hardware to run the identity within the chip -- it's using the host brain as the hardware to run it, by temporarily suppressing the host identity.

(That shared version might make a nice feature for a higher-tech variant, if it becomes technologically possible -- and that'd also make good fiction though not necessarily RPG material.)

 

[mike wightman]

Not quite. There are skill wafers and entertainment wafers that do not 'overwrite' your personality. The short story Names by MWM is a better guide to how these function.

Basically with the skill wafer in place you 'know' how to use skills and knowledges you do not natively have. Remove the wafer and you no longer know the skill in detail but have full memory of having done the task at hand, your native personality is never touched upon.

A full on personality/memory wafer initially requires a destructive copying of the original, but it appears that at higher TLs personality/memory scans can be performed routinely - the very rich can use them as an insurance policy of sorts.