Tuesday 28 February 2012

Resurrection Men Storyboard


So you're a capsuleer, and you want to make some implants. You need to get some smarts for these implants, as per Resurrection Men.

At some point, the Capsuleer has found information about the smart guy whose knowledge and instincts would be useful (more about that later). The Capsuleer intends to augment themselves (or someone else, via the market) with specific skills. In our example we'll use hacking, because that's what the original story is about.


In scene 1, we have the Capsuleer arranging a contract with the Dust Bunnies. Ideally, this would be in an establishment, where (a representative of) the Dust Bunnies can meet the Capsuleer in person to speak about these unspeakable crimes they are about to commit. A value is agreed, the target is given. The Dust Bunnies get assigned a location on a planet, at which point Smart Guy is actually spawned.

In scene 2, the Dust Bunnies arrive at the location only to find that someone else is also hunting their quarry. The Dust Bunnies have a brief firefight, Smart Guy is captured. Note that this happens in some kind of environment, which might even be broad daylight on a hisec planet in the middle of a residential area. The Dust Bunnies will need to have appropriate equipment: in hisec, for example, heavy armour and assault weapons might be banned. Perhaps no Dust Bunnies are allowed in hisec (*sad face*).

In scene 3, the Dust Bunnies guard the extraction process while the other team keeps trying to claim Smart Guy for themselves, steal the extraction mechanism with the extracted subroutines, or destroy both in a final dog-in-the-manger act. Our protagonists are victorious however.

The environment of the extraction "scene" will need to have places that an extraction team can operate in relative safety.

In scene 4, the Dust Bunnies deliver the extracted subroutines, and the agreed ISK/Aurum changes hands.

Note that extracted subroutines are contraband in hisec (they are evidence of a murder, after all). The equipment is not, however, since there's no saying where it's going to actually be used (this is space politics, it makes no sense, and some Amarrian researcher claims that there are therapeutic uses for the equipment).

This leads to more questions of course: will Capsuleers and Dust  Bunnies ever be able to physically coexist? Even if the Capsuleer was required to transfer to a ground-pounding clone to interact with Dust Bunnies via the player's own Dust account, it would be nice to have the two sets of immortals interacting.

How do the Dust Bunnies get the equipment planet side? Will it be waiting for them in some secret location? Do they just carry it with them like weaponry? Maybe the extraction rig is quite large and requires a specialist vehicle (say, a white Ford Transit van).

How is the extracted subroutine transferred from Dust Bunnies to Capsuleers? I would seriously love to have a situation where this becomes yet another type of contraband to be traded in establishments, like boosters.

A simple solution is to have one capsuleer representing the Dust Bunnies, in the same way that rock bands have "managers". That capsuleer might pilot the dropship or transport of some kind, and exchange of physical items occurs through the cargo hold or corporate hangars of the transport. But this is implementation detail that CCP has will no doubt be discussing at FanFest.

This leads into my thoughts on industry.

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