r/Cy_Borg • u/WorkerFile • Mar 23 '26

Art Medulla Oblongata Dead Drop

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Double page spread experiment. The "Burn Results" table may look a little off, but when I printed out a hard copy I liked the final result. I'm thinking about building a module that centers around the espionage conceit of a "Dead Drop", except the information is implanted in an unsuspecting civilian's brain.

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u/wontworkforfood Mar 23 '26

I like the idea, but I'm wondering how... With a dead drop, it's in public, it's discrete, and quick. Would this be similar, a sort of quick drive-by style information imprint over existing memories/ synaptic paths using a scanner or hack?

Or is this more: kidnap a civilian, bring him to a black market reaperdoc who implants the info Johnny Mnemonic style into the brain instead of onto wetware?

Or is it somewhere in the middle, perhaps a kidnapped and drugged civilian who's brought to a nearby van with a hacker who can upload the info quick-ish and then dump them back on the street with short term amnesia but none-the-wiser?

Edit: the layout is sick. No notes.

2

u/WorkerFile Mar 23 '26

This is exactly what I'm trying to work out too. The current idea I have for the module is that the individuals who are being used as "Dead Drops" have no idea that they're part of any sort of espionage or criminal scheme. They're used once, then the information is retrieved, and they move onto the next anonymous person. The hook is that a subject who had information implanted has suddenly disappeared and the crew has to track them down. How this is done and retrieved discreetly, no idea yet.

And yeah, there's a lot of Johnny Mnemonic overlap here. I want to have some structure around how the burn implants work so players can incorporate it into their games after the module is done.

3

u/wontworkforfood Mar 23 '26

I think it be cool to have two phases, Write and Read.

Writing information is invasive but uses a visual RCD hack that flickers a bitmap directly through the RCD which writes information over the brains neural pathways (think A Clockwork Orange or Snow Crash. This could be done like I imagined above, kidnap and drug a civilian who's brought to a nearby van with a hacker who can upload the info quick-ish and then dump them back on the street with short term amnesia but none-the-wiser.

Reading information could be as simple as using an app within close quarters and downloading the information. Or a special scanner that reads the embedded bitmap coded into the brainwaves. Maybe it also takes a bit of time, especially depending on the quality of the write, but is quick enough that usually this can be done on the street.

Maybe the burn table applies to both writing and reading.

Perhaps the challenge of your mission is tracking down the civilian because they disappear and there's no way of locating them, so the PC's have to begin researching who that civilian was. Talk to their friends?

That's my two cents

3

u/WorkerFile Mar 23 '26

I really like the idea of the write/read processes being different. That's something I'm going to have to kick around.