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    10 views13 pages

    Newsletter No. 1

    Uploaded by

    Bryan Laferriere
    kkkk

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 13
    payaraq . Jor IOURTE, oN d MON V s 7 e2 =3 s ge 8 s 404 i Ee SE ieee \® él i Ui ne iI TTT: < VOLUME 01, NO. 02 THE PARANOIA NEWSLETTER SUMMERCYCLE 1992/¢3-00 OFFICIAL rer ---->=| WARNING! WARNING! Cotte THIS SECTION IS MANDATORY Alpha Base? What's that? Ultraviolet Clearance umn FOR ALL CITIZENS! READ AND Citizen, Citizen; see you are not ENJOY! ‘up onall your Paranoia propaganda Secret Messages Welcome to At Your Service, Cit please purchase The Paranoia Form. zen... the new Paranoia Quarterly Sourcebook immediately for proper Newsletter! This Newsletter is de- information dissemination Alpha Bytes .. voted to you, the Paranoia oleplayer. Now read it eat Future issues will containawealthof Since we know that you only ae information for the Paranoia, Second skimmed what we told you to read Edition game published by West End _friend.citizen, its time fora pop quiz cae Tee Games. What is your favorite Bouncy Bub- . Wait a minutecycle, citizens, bly Beverage variety? Ed Bolme, Stephen Crane, Bill wasn’t that the opening paragraph in Classic, New And Improved, Bet- ‘Smith, Ed Stark Issue 0 of At your Service, Citizen ..., ter Than Ever, Guaranteed Not To as printed in The Paranoia Source: Kill You, or $0 Good You'll Get Ad book?! dicted And Drink Nothing Else And Yes, it was, (rend ctizen;congratu-_Deride All Other Beverages lationsonyour powers ofobservation. Wait a minute. Where was that in The Computer is proud of you ‘The Paranoia Sourcebook? But | thought The Computer was Obviously youhaven’t memorized Dead! What’s going on? allofthe Sourcebook, which isclearly Ah, Friend Citizen, you are in et- a treasonous action. Please repor ror. The Digitized Dictator of Alph the nearest food vat, citizen, Complex is not dead ... nor was it I've memorized the whole book. ever dead. It was merely Honest. Look here... on page 34 it (On vacation? says, “Treason has become ingrained There you have it. The Computer, _asatermusedonlyby The Hexidecimal : Our Bestest Buddy, was on a short — Opressor; only decadent fascist tech- vacation. It chose to spend a few _nocracies woulddare prosecute some. RR3 Box 2345 weekcycles in a Jackobot's body. ‘one guilty of treason.” Honesdale, PA 18431 Why? Where did you read that citizen? 12501 What's your security clearance, __In the Sourcebook ... you know, the thing that wll get me executed if Publisher: Daniel Scott Pater 1 don't have it memorized. Asvociate PublisheSales Manager: Richard Mawran Well, never mind. Suffice it to say However, what you have read is Editors: Geeg Farahtey, Bl Sith 6 Stark that The Mechanized Monarch has treasonous information, so obviously a er csieeee returned from Its well-deserved holi- you made it up instead of actually ‘Administrative Assistant: eff Dennis day, and It is ready to fight off the reading it. Next clone please. Umino on ein ‘Commie hoardes of Alpha Base, the *Sight inte Mopet ‘Anarchist High Programmers of Al- Just kidding; this newsletter is fully reser Janet Riche pha City, and, most of all, the traitor- compatible with “Classic” Paranoia annie wsiveciee ‘ous Secret Society Council of Alpha as well a5 "ReBoot” and “Crash ‘Rigi Reseed Base! Course” Paranoia. Uy I 7) Tse ul Pe fee CI ea 4 fe And we are very disappointed in i NGWARNINGWARNINGWARNIN you The Ultimate Treason THIS SECTION IS SECURITY ‘Why didn’t you sendin those nasty InAlpha Complex, rumoS are trea- CLEARANCE ULTRAVIOLET...NO, ¥€aP0ns you've constructed? Why son. in Alpha Base, however, rumors MORE THAN ULTRAVIOLET — —faven’t you sent in interesting (but arethe primary source o information READINGITISTOTALLY TREASON. Measonous)newmutantpowers?New for most clones. Now, the marketing Oust! non-player character traitors? New mindoofthe Zany Eddy formerly Free adventure hooks that would place Enterprise) SecretSociety have ound NGWARNINGWARNINGWARNIN everyone else’s Troubleshooters in @ way to make money using rumors, sresseesseeeeseesencencensensensente, terrible peril and distess? innuendo, and out-and-out lies! This section is devoted to those Well, we're waiting, Citizens. Ws called Advertsing who lurk the alleyways, causeways, What? And, because you lazy clonesdidn’t and food vats of Alpha Complex, _ Whatdoyoumean “Thisistheirst get olf your compnodes and send us ‘Alpha Base, and the Badlands of Alc issue; we haven'thad a chance yet"? abunchoftreasonousmaterial, we've ha. Thescum,therefuse,therejects That's noexcuse! The Computer is decided to show you some of the of Alpha Zany Eddies’ best) advertising The Traitors. What? “The Computer doesn’t It should be noted, however, that (You know who you are.) know this page exists? This is tea- advertising, at east in the Zany Eddie The treasonous information that sonous material"? form, was deemed too low and de- follows is not reader submission Ahem. Of course, We knew that. meaningaprocessforeven TheCom- material. It was not gleaned from _ Wel, then, the Council of Secret puter Itself. Even the Council of Se- thousands of letters and postcards Societies is going to ret Societies finds “ads” distasteful and response forms (like the one on Huh? Them too? They don’t know Only the Zany Eddies are vulgar the back of this issue). was not what's going on here either? enough to perpetuate the process at lovingly and carefully ranscribed for Well, great. Now what do we do? _its highest volume. . your enjoyment ‘Come up with the pages your selves!”? ‘Oh, alright; jus this once. ALPHA COMMENTS “Alpha Comments” is devoted to Go ahead, first caller number concerned consumer mail and feed. — BUZZZZZ"1 Dowegetthe” 15 minutes orblood back. Here's your chance (o alk to Apparentlythecallerhasbeenover- will run in the streets" guarantee? the developers and editors of Para- awed by the opportunity to talk to. CLICK! noia products. Ask questions about World Famous High Programmer. *Sigh* the rules, make suggestions forfuture Next caller... ‘Anyway, you get the idea. Be sure products, and conductspuriouslogic We'd like to get a large ... hey to use security-coded ink and paper arguments about why exactly The guys, what do you want on that ... or letters will be promptly fed to the Computer is your Friend and your pepperoni, sausageandextracheese. _ShredBots downstairs ... See you in only friend. We'll print ‘em and re- Excuse me friend citizen, butthisis three monthcycles. spond to ‘em. 2 valuable waste of the Computer's resources ... not to mention a wrong. oo AMIN rea fw? Vol. 01, No. 01, Summercyele 1992} ‘4 VW A) Na uh WSL ty PSR CN ceed Thing UH Neeley Ready to stop watchin, MINDLESS DRIVEL? Ready to see Some drivel that PRO VOKES THOU GHT? WATCH Randy the Wonder Lizard on AtYour Service, Citizen ., Bot Guys & Good Guys Bots, like clones, have many indi- Viduals who influence their daycycle- to-daycycle livesas characters. Brief- ing Officers, stockroom clerks, and evenmad scientists area part of every sentient being’s life, although the mad scientists perform a lot more surgery on bots than they do on clones. However, bots do not have to deal with the Creativity of Alpha cooks, nor must they endure the careful and always accurate minis- trations of dental hygienists This is not to say that bots have it easier, oh, goodness no. Obscene Clone Callers Therearemany clonesthat bots do not like to meet, but whom, given the virile type Cf gamemaster that you un- doubtedly are, they will meet with unnerving frequency. Most of these people see bots as little more than machines or tools. They are, of course, but they're also sen- tient. Which, Isupposemay not make any differenceto, say, afalling chunk of residential dome, which will land wherever itdarn well pelases, butthe fact of sentience sure seems impor- tant to the bot. Although The Com. puter only knows why sentience is such a big deal to a litle pipsqueak who has nothing better to do all day than shine citizens’ boots The Bot Patrol The Computer realizes that Alpha is filled with clones and bots which are currently out of control and have Tonesain iy pods mos FOOD. “At Your Service, Citizen ...” exhibited no desire to be brought back under same. And, although It constantly seeks to expand Its influ- ence, the Computer also knows that cannot take over the rest of Alpha all at once. Yet i WARNING! Sse ele) Ree as CLEARANCE ULTRAVIOLET! GAMEMASTERS, rela a That's where the Bot Patrol comes in. Controlling the brains of clones has always been more of an art than ascience, and deprogrammingclones with chemical bombardment or invasive therapy has always had un. desired side effects requiring the in- tervention of breathing apparati and kidney machines. Bots, on the other ‘manipulator, have brains that can be scrubbed squeaky clean (with hydro: chloric acid if necessary) and repro- grammed from scratch. Since bots don't have to worry about a plethora of petty details during normal func tion (things like telling the hears musclestocontractfromtimetotime), their reprogramming is much easier and all the more fruitful. Thus, The Computer sends the Bot Patrol out into the Badlands (WARNING! WARNING! ADVENTURE HOOK ‘APPROACHING AT WARP SPEED!) to hunt down and capture bots, and bring them back in to be repro- grammed into happy, loyal, andobedientservants of The Computer. Additional bounties are paid (ALERT! ALERT! HIGH-POWER CHARACTER MOTIVA- TION ON COLLISION COURSE!) for reclaiming bot deserters or bots who are suspected Council infil- trator Jerry-V-RIG-3 Troubleshooter/Bot Burglar S7 E14. A12D15 M9 C11 MAIS: Armor: 13P3L5(with Macho) Psychescan 12 Spurious Logic 13 Projectile Weapons 14 Bot Op & Maint (most types) 18 Surveillance 10 Stealth 12 Jerry-V likes tooperate alone, pick- ing off solitary bots who are unaware of his presence. He operates like a sniper and is very patient, He carries a semiautomatic slugthrower ‘equipped with Gauss (ECM) and AP rounds — and a lot of each. He also. packs a few grenades which he can’t use very well. And since he's a Troubleshooter, he generally carries a few “experimental” devices. Bot in a Box Thereis another potential fate await ing the bot which finds itself spirited or wonearoR a “ ‘Vol. 01, No, 01 / Summercycle 1992 CAAA, «S “At Your Service, Citizen ..” away; the complete dismemberment Visited upon botkind atthe Chop Shops. Many mechanics, both robotic and clonish, run garages for bots: One of the items they most need to do so is parts, and what better place to find ‘working parts than on a bot? These marauders will grab a bot, drag it into a dark area, and remove whatever peripherals they find at tractive. They do not care what the bot feels, or thinks, or even what urgent mission it’s on. The severed part will have its serial number filed away, a new one stamped in, and will be on sale in two or three daycycles. Occasionally Chop Shops can gather enough spare parts to make and program another bot to go fetch more parts. The geometric growth of such an operation is left as an excercise for the devilish student The primaty use of Chop Shops is to rid the game of a troublesome peripheral that one of the bots has managed to acquire. Ifthe choppers. rid the bot of an arm or a head while they're at it, so much the better. The Botleggers These ate merchants dealingin the new slave trade of Alpha: repro- ‘grammed bots. Empowered individu- als all over Alpha want their own personal servants, but, for whatever reasons, cannot obtain them legally in Alpha Complex, obtaining one’s personal bot is rare, and even if one is obtained, itis always programmed by others whose loyalty is question- able at best. In Alpha Base, which is at least in theory an emancipated society, paranoia runs deep enough from society infighting that many powerful clones (andeven some bots) keep carefully programmed guardbots. And even in Alpha City, where everything and everyone is supposed to be equal, the High Pro- ‘grammers miss having personal ser- vants, and many have collected bots from the rest of Alpha for their own secret use. ‘TheBotleggers are madeupofformer Free Enterprise black marketers, ex- Humanists who want to keep the bots down, andeventheoccasionalarifact intelligence who gets a choice of pe ripherals for each captive. Bots are especially useful to the Botleggers, because they can perform a total data dump overwriting the captive's soft ware in far less time than it would take fora clone to reprogram the victim to submit willingly. Botlengers are a great way to mess up a Team's daycycle. They can snatch a bot away, reprogram it al- most immediately to resist being sto- lenby, say, anoisome Troubleshooter Team}, and have it in a powerful person's inner sanctum before you can say “emengency shutdown.” Of course, this is also a great plot device to get players away froma false lead fora small mission and into the deep er, big time. Alternatively, the characters could be formed into a team of “Revenu- ers” and assigned to hunt down them thar botleggers. The designer would be tempted to describe the members of the Botleggers as being something like small robed desert creatures in a fa- ‘mous space opera movie, but the director of said movie gets offended whenever wemakeanoise like we're going to parody his creations. Hehas ‘more money than we do, and better lawyers with much bigger guns, so we'll just quietly shut our collective traps and let you make your own parodies. Best Bot Buddies On the other manipulator, many clones have championed the bots’ cause. Whether this is out of sincere desire to see all sentient beings be equal, or due to the realization that the bots form the biggest pool of gullible resources in Alpha, no one really knows. Thus, formed both with clone cooperation and without, here are some of the nicer folks the bots may meet. Somedaycycle. The Underground Transtube This is a collection of bots and egalitarian clones, formed of mem- bers ofa variety of Council societies, dedicated o(AIIEEI NOT ANOTHER ADVENTUREHOOK) liberating sen- tient beings from Alpha Complex, on the theory that after everyone who ‘wants to leave has left, there'll be no ‘one sentient remaining to serve The Computer. While the Underground Transtube will move clones to safety, their primary focus is bots, who must contend with restrictive program- ming. Clones seem to have an easier Lime escaping on their own. ‘The Underground Transtube canalso be used to move bots and clones into Alpha Complex for a mission. Computer-endorsed news. shows in Alpha Complex state that the Un-

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