Android Hunter: 1992

[Major Matt Mason]

Following along the thrust of "Making Something from the tools that CT gives you . . . ," I'm interested in replicating the PKD novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which is really quite different from Scott's movie Blade Runner. To reduce confusion, I'm reverting the book's year of setting to its original date of 1992.

The novel, while science fiction, has a strong feel of being a Western (i.e., Deckard is a bounty hunter in a Wild West setting), yet beneath that, at its core I sense that it is really a chivalric knight's tale, a murky struggle of good and evil around and within one man. So the standard tools of CT are good for the hardware, but some sort of Pendragon-ish magic might be cobbled together for the psychological/spiritual side.

In knight terms, the knight visits a castle and meets an elfmaid who is passing herself off as human. The knight uses his magic and determines she is elf. She counters with magic to make him doubt.

Maybe this espionage-like feinting and counter-feinting could be modeled as a spirit combat between two or more beings, that in turn might be similar to combat in CT. Let's suppose that there are three new characteristics:

ID: the selfish animal drives of the individual.
Empathy: the feeling for others with whom the individual can identify.
Spiritual: a feeling for the divine.

The "weapons" used are more like magical spells and/or the cyberpunk programs used in cyberspace combat. Some of these spells might target a specific new characteristic (hereafter "NC").

Various activities might heal a damaged NC or even temporarily enhance one. These activities might be specific to an NC or more general (i.e., random).

In the novel, Deckard visits Pet Row to look at animals for some kind of boost. He probably uses snuff. He checks his animal price guide, he drinks alcohol. He definitely uses the Empathy Box a few times. Any or all might have some gaming effect on NCs.

At one point Deckard gets the notion that if he makes whoopie with Rachel the android girl he will be better able to kill her identical sister Pris. (Yes, he is already married, but he shrugs this off on technicalities worthy of Slick Willy.)

In game terms, maybe his whoopie would mean a restoration of lost ID points, in addition to the mystery tag "Android Whoopie."

After the whoopie, Rachel openly laughs and tells him that she has won against him, because she has used "Android Whoopie" many times and each time the hunter has lost his ability to kill androids.

Which one is right? Can't tell until the moment of truth. That is, it remains a mystery until the first combat round with an android.

Case in point: when Deckard and Resch (another andy hunter) corner Nexus-6 Luba Luft, she starts laying into Resch, taunting him. Resch flips out and kills her. It is a disturbing scene in the book. Probing deeper, Luba undoubtedly knows that Resch has been "neutralized" by Rachel, and probably she hopes to use him against Deckard. Moment of truth comes, and Resch kills her.

One of the biggest problems is the Test which determines if a subject is human or android. The movie follows the book in showing it as a dry run (on Rachel at the factory) but not really showing it in action.

Presumably the hunter, upon determining that the subject is an android, has to maintain a poker face and pull off a fast-draw shooting or something. Or say "Congratulations, you passed," and then shoot it before it gets out the door. Somewhat problematic, and there are no examples in the text. Obviously there are a number of different approaches, which might play out like different "spells" or something.

For the android to take the test, it has to believe it can fool the test, otherwise it will not dare. The Nexus-6 androids can pass the old tests, but they don't know about the new V-K test. Of the eight escaped andys, two take the V-K test and are killed before a third one (Max) openly attacks the hunter. When Max tells the rest of his group (i.e., gang), they all know not to take the test. So android and test are in a sort of arms race.

That's enough for now.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Great ideas!
I too, like some COTI members, am a fan of both the Phillip K. Dick book and the Ridley Scott interpretation. There's been some (disturbing) talk about a remake, but let's hope that blows away like a bank of speculative fog. There were indeed things in the novel that were not ported over into the film, and, as I haven't reread in in nigh 20 years, it's hard to remember everything.

* I've been tinkering with the game-mechanics for the Voigt-Kampff (sp?) test for years. (Does CT have any canon "skill checks" pertaining to Bluff?)

* EMP(athy) as a possible new character stat. Andies who can feign this may get a bonus DM to "bluff throws."

* What role those "empathy boxes" should play I have yet to determine.

* STA(tus), as another possible new character stat, being the social status from owning a) a real animal, or the much less prestigious status of b) having a replicant animal. Perhaps this could be folded into the traditional SOC stat.

 

[Major Matt Mason]

fabricated identity, stolen identity, and pod people

Thanks for the posting, ShapeShifter.

Back to the Test outcome. Seems to me that if the andy succeeds in faking the test, it probably has to move on to another identity and/or location. It cannot act human and brazen it out.

Which brings us around to the nature of the android's camouflage: a fabricated identity (one type of forgery), a stolen identity (another type of forgery), or pod person (where the android has taken the place of a human that it resembles). This is another very gray area of the novel, but Luba Luft must be a "pod person" (my term harking back to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, of course!) and Max probably is one, too. That is to say, both have histories on Earth: Luba has recorded music over a period of years, while Max has worked at Bay Area Scavenger.

Here's another point: camouflaging as a normal or as a Special. Luba is a normal, in fact, she is a high profile normal (opera signer from Germany). Max is a Special, an "anthead" who looks like Santa Claus. Camo as a Special might give certain freedoms but other restrictions. Luba tries to use her "foreign" status as a ruse to avoid or thwart the Test. An andy masking as a Special might try a "Forrest Gump" ruse in a similar way.

The people of the world are regularly tested by random police check points. This is to identify Specials, genetic and/or mental defectives who are forbidden to emigrate to Mars. Normals can turn into Specials. These police sweeps are common enough to be an accepted part of life. (The intrusive law level of CT.) They also seem to be the first layer of information leading to android hunter alert--something seems fishy to the "specials tester," so he forwards it. Likewise there must be a line for citizens to report suspicious strangers or odd behaviors of old friends (i.e., pod people).

* STA(tus), as another possible new character stat, being the social status from owning a) a real animal, or the much less prestigious status of b) having a replicant animal. Perhaps this could be folded into the traditional SOC stat.

I agree, but I'm trying to make it more psychologically/spritually real than just a "keeping up with the Joneses." Maybe a bit of the social stuff from GDW's En Garde! would help. And to keep with the text, they are electric animals.

So Deckard, who lost his sheep, is thinking of getting an electric one. An electric pet might therefore give some kind of boost to NCs, but not nearly as much as a live pet, which in turn would be less than a real high-end live pet. And it isn't the possession of the pet itself, but the interaction with the pet, that gives the possible boost (sometimes boost, sometimes not).

Deckard takes his bounty money for killing androids and buys a goat, which gives him and his wife Iran a big boost right there, and the promise of additional boosts periodically for years to come.

 

[Major Matt Mason]

If pets were cars, and a mental combat example

I had a hunch that pets in DADOES are analogous to cars in the 1960s. "Animal Row" is like "Automobile Row," after all, and I thought of the status level for Beetles, Mustangs, and Jaguars.

Pet Prices in DADOES
mouse: $25
ostrich: $30,000
rabbit family:
goat: down payment $3,000

Part of Deckard's crisis is that he had a sheep, a farm animal, but it died and he replaced it with a fake. His neighbor has a horse, iirc.

The animal salesman says that a goat is a step up from the family of rabbits Deckard had been considering. But for Deckard a goat is probably more a return to the sheep level, rather than a step up.

So it seems like our pet animals (cats, dogs, etc.) are rather low end, maybe DADOES "working class," and DADOES middle class animals are farm animals. Zoo animals like the ostrich being upper class?

Cars in the 1960s
Average price for a new car (1960) $2,600 and (1969) $3,270.
Beetle $1,769
Mustang $2,368
Ford, Chevy, Plymouth, Pontiac, Chrysler $3,000
Cadillac Coupe Deville $5,500

So the range isn't that great. Not like the range for DADOES pets.

Mental Combat Examples

Another game mechanic that seems applicable is that of SANity in Call of Cthulhu, where it gets worn down and eventually the character picks up some unpleasant character traits (forms of insanity).

Anyway, here is a sketch of the first mental combat. Deckard goes to Seattle to test a few Nexus-6 andys in order to calibrate his VK test.

He arrives at the place and is assaulted by Opulent Wealth, a menagerie of exotic and extinct animals. In knightly terms, this is the danger of meeting on prepared ground -- you run into fixed defenses and such. Home court advantage.

He uses the Test and shows Rachel is an android.

They try the "very unusual childhood" excuse, and it works. Deckard thinks the VK Test failed, catastrophically, to the point that it cannot detect a Nexus-6.

They try the "hunters have killed humans because of faulty test" guilt trip.

Then they attempt Bribery (offering him the owl, an extinct animal) to enlist/corrupt him.

Deckard gives in, but then he asks to be allowed to give a last one-question test. They go along. Deckard proves Rachel is an android, and the VK test is validated.

They use the "implanted memory" excuse, which is later revealed to be a brazen lie.

END OF COMBAT

The next case, with Luba Luft.

Luba scores a hit on Deckard with "you must be an android" meme, followed up with "implanted memory" meme. Then another hit with "you go first" on Test, but then she falls back to "unusual origin: foreigner" excuse.

Ultimately she calls the police and turns it into a much deeper "reality shifting" experience!

(And that's exactly what I'm talking about, how to game "shifting reality" along the lines of a PKD novel.)