My Nomad Hacker

If you're not aware, Penemue, Endalyon and I are playing an Infinity RPG. We decided to not wait for the official Corvus Belli RPG system but instead went with Savage Worlds because it is fast, quick and easy. Plus the rule book is $10 and the fluff is everything we already know about the Infinity setting.  We're going with a rotating GM-ship to give different flavours and actually have those poor suckers who were always the GM get a chance to play.  The general theme is sort of like Firefly: ship goes somewhere, some of the crew go off on an adventure, when they come back they take off for the next episode.

Penemue has spoken about his Morat character before and I figured I should go over my character: a Bakunin Hacker. The original idea actually came from The Wolf of Wall Street where the protagonist was out of his mind on drugs.  With that, I had the initial concept of the character: someone who took drugs to modify their abilities.  That sort of trope has been seen again-and-again, with Batman's Bane to the first episode of Cowboy Bebop. With DiCaprio's gut-busting hilarious act, I had my character's last name: Quaalude.

Next was figuring out the first name.  I live in Ottawa and French people usually use two initials as their name. JF for Jean-Francois, PH for Paul-Henri, AL for Anne-Laurie, etc. I've also spent a lot of time with recent immigrants from Africa who frequently spoke French, English and Swahili. Swahili being the official tongue of the Nomads I knew I wanted a French inspired name.  Mary-Jane immediately clicked into my mind due to the slang of Marijuana. I had my name and it would turn out I'd be playing a woman.

With drugs being a belief system, a way of life, I immediately knew I couldn't go with Tunguska as my character's mothership. I briefly dabbled with the idea of Corregidor due to the work ethic and my understanding of that culture through the excellent Leviathan Wakes series as a "Belter". It just didn't quite fit, however; Bakunin made the most sense for my character.  Her pride in Nomads also meant that I wouldn't be going with the overly sexy Nomad look but a more practical space suit.  The Bakunin Prowler depicted above is more of the idea, though having my character hit this level of competence eventually would be cool.

I decided to go with a Chain Colt for a sidearm because if my character was inebriated, I wanted to make sure she still had a weapon that could hit its mark.  Also, I figured with Chain Colts being low powered, it would be perfect for corridor fighting. You hit everybody inside the space ship's path but not do damage.  If I was going to go with a a crappy weapon due to inebriation then I knew I wasn't going to be a fighter. So, that left Engineer, Doctor and Hacker. With Nomads being famous for their Hacking, I decided to go with that.  My next step in making my character my own is to not have a single piece of Hackable software on my character.

That's right, I'm a Hacker without a Hacking device.

When the World Sees with Robotic Eyes, The Programmer Rules All

I decided to go to the farthest extreme at that point.  My character has a very high Programming Skill, which means that once she's in the system she can do whatever she wants, but I wouldn't be very good at breaching due to my character's shunning of technology.  As everybody is using comm-links, the other Hacker has the standard Hacking kit and other technologies taken for granted, my character strangely abstains.  Why? Because she understands the technological vulnerability is always at the human level.  Do you know for certain that your IFF correctly identified or is that an Impersonator? Was that email you received from your friend genuine or who knows how many points of failure could warp its message? Is your ship's gas tank full or are we going to drift and die because you trusted a computer readout?

This sort of deep, existential thought would definitely wipe you out.  I guess it would be perfect for MJ Quaalude to take an upper to combat these dark thoughts.