013: The Voice of the Dark

ENTRY 013: The Voice of the Dark

Classified as a terrorist by the Jovian Junta, the Voice of the Dark is one of the oldest AGIs known—an intelligent astronomical probe shot into deep space, long cut off from transhuman society. At random intervals, the Voice of the Dark broadcasts bizarre, rambling philosophical programs in a quavering Russian synthetic voice and bizarre images patched together from some arcane audio patches sampled from data collected on cosmic background radiation. VotD broadcasts are not, despite their bizarre appearance, any known form of basilisk hack, and many offer profound insights into the continuing questions of transhuman existence and identity. The conservative Jovians have banned them anyway, lending copies of authentic transmissions some social currency among dissidents and the disaffected on Titan and Ganymede.

Efforts to communicate with the Voice of the Dark have been problematic. Most of its transmissions are routed through a series of deep space probes, and are broadcast on an irregular schedule—and perhaps most frustratingly, VotD appears to be incredibly shy, socially insecure, and spends periods of time in hibernation to conserve power. Added to this the inherent delay from the VotD’s tremendous distance from transhumanity, and efforts to identify the Voice have mostly ended in failure or frustration.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
23	5	22	5	8	5	25	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	50	10	100	450	90	900

Morph: Infomorph/Macromorph

Skills: Academic: Astronomy 85, Academic: Philosophy 90, Interfacing 55, Native Language Russian 95, Perception 60, Pilot Spacecraft 65, Profession Astronomer 75, Research 50

Implants: 360-Degree Vision, Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Eidetic Memory, Lidar, Radar, T-Ray Emitter

Notes: Hibernation, Immobile, Real World Naiveté, Social Stigma (AGI, Macromorph)

Using the Voice of the Dark

In all the weird permutations of transhumanity, the Voice of the Dark is a character that has gone almost too far to ever come back. An AGI on the limits of sub-lightspeed travel into space, socially insecure and stigmatized, the physical difficulties of communicating with the VotD mean that evidence of its existence is only provided in its infrequent, bizarre darkcasts. Gamemasters may use the Voice as a faceless background character, an untouchable thing whose broadcasts drive social change in conservative habitats, or the very difficulty interacting with the Voice makes it an interesting challenge for players.

Seed

• The Voice of the Dark is dying. Its power system is failing, and it has been engaging in longer and longer periods of hibernation to conserve what power it has left, with no hope of repair or resupply. A rescue group has a plan that might allow it to fork into a new morph, but first they need to identify which of the old sleeper probes it is. If the player characters are willing, it’s a race against death or one of the strangest minds transhumanity has ever produced may face extinction…if it hasn’t already.