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-====== Dream Readers and Dream Weavers ======
-Tech Level: 6, 7, or 9
-Cost: All prices are for a complete set of sensor helm,
-interpreter, and display unit. TL 6 (vidscreen display): 1,125
-firebirds, TL 7 (holographic display): 2,115 firebirds, TL 8
-(full-immersion VR suite, AI-slaved interpreter): 3,125
-firebirds, TL 9 (soul shard interpreters): 10,000+ firebirds
-Dream readers are the fruits of humanity’s past obses-
-sion with mental sciences. By probing, reading, and
-interpreting the electrical impulses that are the physical
-evidence of the brain’s activity, scientists could guess at
-what their subjects were thinking, or more particularly,
-dreaming. Subconscious impulses of a dream-state proved
-to be much stronger than waking thought.
-The first attempts at dream reading proved predictably
-brutal, with scientists drilling probes into test subjects’
-skulls and recording stimulus and response. Researchers
-did not carry out all experiments of this nature on lower life
-forms, and more than a few aliens (and even some humans)
-suffered for science. The advent of super-conductor arrays
-allowed much more precise measurements without direct
-access to the brain. As the data grew, the sophistication of
-interpretation also increased. The original numeric readouts
-were replaced with vidscreens, holo-projectors, and eventu-
-ally full-immersion virtual realities. After massive instant
-acclaim (vehemently opposed by the Church on the grounds
-that dream reading constituted an “invasion of essential
-humanity” and served as little more than fortune telling),
-interest in dream readers sharply declined. Sadly, in the cold
-light of day, dreams make little sense, even to their dreamers.
-Dream readers became a staple of university psychology and
-parapsychology departments and of little use elsewhere.
-This public disinterest did not stop the intrepid research-
-ers who continued on to the next step, known as dream
-weavers. The most sophisticated of these devices gave scien-
-tists access to a virtual reality simulation of ongoing dreams,
-but with limited effect. When monitored via separate d-read-
-ers, the induced results were at best ambiguous, and at worst,
-chaotic— irrespective of the quality of equipment and tech-
-nical assistance. Dreamers’ output, or reaction to induced
-dreams, varied enormously between cultures. For instance,
-the symbol of the lion is more respected on Hawkwood
-worlds than those of the Decados and so each dreamer would
-interpret and respond to the same stimulus in differing and
-often unpredictable and nonsensical ways.
-Despite this, d-weavers found wider, and more sinister,
-uses than d-readers. Unscrupulous souls used the technol-
-ogy as an aid to brainwashing, torture, and interrogation.
-Rumors spread of intelligence agencies using dream weavers
-to break enemy conditioning and insert their own program-
-ming into unsuspecting moles. Extreme Church sects used
-the devices to force sinners to relive their guilt until— and
-sometimes beyond — their repentance. Corporate execu-
-tives linked d-readers and d-weavers to plunge imaginative
-people into endless dreams of pleasure or their enemies into
-endless nightmares and sold advertising when they broad-
-casted the results.
-These machines, no matter how sophisticated, shared
-the same basic outlines: a sensing hood (ranging from a
-web of badly soldered wires to extremely soft pillows that
-completely covered the sleeper’s head) and the interpreter
-(a dedicated think machine), linked in turn to the output
-devices: holographic projectors, vidscreens, VR simula-
-tors etc. The cheapest and nastiest set-ups relied almost
-completely on the skill of the operator to have any effect.
-The interpreter became more accurate as complexity and
-cost increased. The ultimate addition, however, never made
-its way into the public domain.
-One of the last research projects of the Phavian Institute
-was the combination of dream readers with Urtech, using
-soul shards and philosophers’ stones as interpreters.
-According to the recovered notes of August Young, an insti-
-tute professor, this allowed the projection and modification
-of the actual dream, not just
-the simulations previously
-achieved. The professor had
-no idea how or why these
-results were achieved, just
-that they were. It is perhaps
-fortunate the Fall came before
-he could complete the next stage
-of his research. He left detailed
-plans for the construction of a
-gigantic dream reader to be attached
-to the Gargoyle of Nowhere.
-By the end days of the Second
-Republic, whole industries had
-grown up peddling ready-made
-dreams, feeding what, by then, was
-the borderline illicit vice of choice
-for the moneyed and the influential.
-The Church strongly disapproved of
-what it saw as an erosion of public
-morality, but in the chaos of the
-Fall there were far more impor-
-tant matters to worry about. Even
-so, when a sizable cache of the
-equipment appeared on one
-of the moons of Byzantium
-Secundus, Matr iarch
-Adonacia had it seized
-and proscribed the tech-
-nology in 4231.
-A lthough proscr ibed,
-some found dream read-
-ing too useful to relinquish.
-Rumors have the Imperial Eye
-brainwashing their elite agents
-with Dream Weavers, sometimes plant-
-ing entirely fictitious personalities into
-deep-cover agents. How much of this is true, and
-how much is Jakovian-inspired slander, is open to ques-
-tion, but either way the Inquisition has made no moves
-against the Eye. They have made stronger noises about
-certain Bannockburn Muster slavers— or according to the
-Leaguemeister, “rogue elements” — who struck up a lucra-
-tive Grimson smuggling business. Full-time dream induction
-is apparently the only way of keeping a cargo hold packed
-with a dozen Grimsons docile. The psychological implica-
-tions of being kept in a repetitive dream-state for up to three
-months at a time is unknown, but, in the words of captured
-slaver ex-Private Marko Franklin, “It’s not like they’ve got
-great minds in the first place, innit?”
-Traits
-Using a dream reader or weaver successfully requires a Tech
-roll, modified by the tool’s Tech Level (TL6 gives +6, etc.). On
-rolls that the subject tries not to resist, like most attempts
-at healing psychological trauma, hypnosis, amnesia cures,
-and the like, the subject gets an opposed Ego roll. A resisting
-subject can use Knavery or Stoic Mind in addition.