Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- rpgs:fading_suns:dream_reader_and_dream_weaver [2022/07/28 09:52] – admin
+++ rpgs:fading_suns:dream_reader_and_dream_weaver [2025/10/05 02:10] (current) – removed admin
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== 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 obsession 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.