Dark Paranoia RPG

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Forewords:

This page contains a revised edition of the classic Paranoia RPG designed for longer campaigns, emphasizing growing emotional crisis and spiraling social deviancy of the player characters.

For comparison: If the atmospheres of classic Paranoia RPG game sessions resemble the movie Logan’s Run, then this version of the game aims to evoke the atmosphere of the movie THX-1138.

An edited and changed content with added background material
A revised skills, mutations and character development system
Individual neurotransmitter/mood values for the player characters, followed by consequent neurosis, emotional breakdowns, obsessions and permanent unhappiness.

SECURITY CLEARANCE INFRARED—
CLEARED FOR ALL CITIZENS

May I be of assistance?

Sure. Why don’t you tell me how this role-playing game works?
I’m sorry, citizen. That information is not available at this time.

Huh? Most games are really eager to teach you the rules.
Not DARK PARANOIA. In DARK PARANOIA you don’t know the game rules. You don’t know who the traitors are. You don’t know how your society works. You’re never sure why you’re doing anything. One thing you do know: Everyone is out there to frame, incriminate and accuse you. Survival and fear; fear and survival. These are your watchwords.

Uhh… Search says something about a computer.
In PARANOIA you play a Executive in service to The Computer. Trust The Computer! The Computer is your friend! You are The Computer’s trusted agent and protector of Alpha Complex, The Computer’s underground city of the far future.

Why am I an red Executive?
You turned in a friend for treason. The Computer had him executed for betraying Alpha Complex. The Computer rewarded you for your loyalty. Your promotion may have been caused by the secret society you belong.
Now you root out irregularities and reveal all traitors and apprehend or execute them. You uncover corruption among The Computer’s servants and turn them into Internal Security. You find irregularity and you execute it.

What’s a ‘traitor’?
A traitor is a malevolent human citizen who has betrayed his friend The Computer and seeks to destroy The Computer, Alpha Complex, humanity and life as we know it. You must
unmask and destroy all traitors. Be vigilant! Traitors are everywhere!

Mutants are traitors.
These genetic freaks have uncontrollable abilities they selfishly use for their own advancement, rather than to serve Alpha Complex. You must subdue or eliminate them.

Members of secret societies are traitors.
In organizations unsanctioned by The Computer they conspire irresponsibly to undermine the good order of Alpha Complex. You must defuse their operations and execute them.

Unstable emotics are traitors.
Unhappiness is a mental contagion that can spread like wildfire among the population of Alpha Complex. And that fire is fueled with ravings, outbursts and obsessions of those who have abandoned an auto-counseling, stabilizing work quotas and sanctioned hobbies in pursue of spreading the unhappiness to others. You must subdue or execute them.

Unhygienic contaminators are traitors.
Those biological agents, with debilitating symptoms and excruciating last moments, hide their afflictions and endanger entire sectors with their indifference and self-loathing. You must decontaminate or purge them.

By the way… you are a mutant, a member of a secret society and you have developed a weird bleeding pustule there that appears irregularly. All this has made you anxious and you are numbing it with a under-the-counter medication. You are a traitor.

Wait, I’m a traitor?
That is correct . Your fellow Executives would be eager to unmask you as a traitor and execute you. You work with many Executives. They all carry powerful weapons.

Let me get this straight. My job is to hunt and kill traitors. I work with other people
who have the same orders. They all want to kill me?
Not quite. They all want to kill traitors. They don’t know that you’re a stinking unstable Unperson mutant traitor. Yet.

If they find out?
They’ll apprehend or kill you, as any right-thinking citizen would. Of course, if you convict them of treason first, The Computer will have them executed and you may survive. Note, though, false accusations of treason are themselves treason.

So I want to prove they’re traitors before they can prove I’m a traitor. If I don’t, I die?
Precisely. Dead traitors cannot testify to their own innocence or to your guilt. It is convenient to be the last Executive on your team left alive.
The good news is, Executives routinely get shot, stabbed, incinerated, mangled, poisoned, blown to bits and occasionally stapled, so you have many opportunities to ensure your teammates meet their just ends at a service of the Computer.
Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy!

…Are you sure this will be fun?
Certainly, citizen! Fun is mandatory. The Computer says so and The Computer is your friend. Do you doubt The Computer? Doubting The Computer is treason.
Uh! No, certainly not. If The Computer says fun is mandatory, then this certainly
will be fun. Only a dirty weeping mutant traitor Unperson could believe otherwise.

SECURITY CLEARANCE RED—
CLEARED FOR EXECUTIVES

Greetings RED Citizen!
The Computer introduces you to your new Security Clearance with this comprehensive and entirely accurate guide to happiness and success through service to Alpha Complex.
You are required to know and understand all contents or face summary demotion.

You are Security Clearance RED.
You are assigned to a service firm in one of eight Service Groups. You are expected to fill up your work quota and improve efficiency of your ordained collective.
You have five immediate backup clone bodies. More are available with a delayed schedule.
Reveal and execute traitors: unstable Emotics, vile Mutants, scheming members of Secret Societies and shameful Unhygienic.

About your clearance
The Computer has promoted you from your previous INFRARED Clearance to your new and exciting RED Clearance. Your new Security Clearance signifies The Computer’s benevolent trust in you. The Computer is your friend.

To review (as specified in HPD&MC Directive NSC-RED-44A rev 4,675, ‘Orientation for the Newly Trusted’), The Computer’s system of Security Clearances follows the colours of the electromagnetic spectrum: RED, your current clearance, followed in ascending order by ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, INDIGO and VIOLET. INFRARED is below RED and ULTRAVIOLET (the clearance of the illustrious High Programmers) is above VIOLET. The higher a citizen’s Clearance, the more deeply The Computer trusts that citizen.

All citizens are required to wear clothing of the same color as their Security Clearance. As an INFRARED you wore black. With your new RED Clearance The Computer has thoughtfully provided a new red jumpsuit and boots. Wear them at all times. Failure to comply is treason.
(EXCEPTION: You may temporarily remove all or part of your clothing for hygienic purposes such as showering. Good hygiene is essential to good citizenship. Poor hygiene is treason.)

Level of authority for each Security Clearance

INFRARED, Happy masses fill their work quotas on production lines, distribution stations, waste depots and warehouses of ran by collectives budgeted by Service Groups.
RED, Executives ordered to daily solve rare irregularities emerging within Alpha Complex’s sectors.
ORANGE, Supervisors of particular production lines, distribution stations, waste depots and warehouses of ran by collectives budgeted by Service Groups.
YELLOW, Sector directors of the Service Groups.
GREEN, Sector Armed Forces officers.
BLUE, Sector internal security commissioners.
INDIGO, Members of a board of sector representatives.
VIOLET, Sector liaisons of specific High Programmers
ULTRAVIOLET, High Programmers

The Computer determines each citizen’s Clearance with complete impartiality.
Higher Clearance means greater responsibility; it also brings benefits. The Computer cares for the needs of all citizens, of course, but it rewards greatly those who sacrifice the most for the sake of society and their fellow beings.
Citizens of higher Clearance are not necessarily more knowledgeable or capable than you. They have advanced solely because they selflessly served the greater good and earned The Computer’s trust. Admire, respect and defer the higher Clearance citizens. Failure to defer at all times is insubordination and may be considered as treason.
If you serve The Computer well, you will earn its greater trust and thereby advance in Security Clearance. Aspire to advance! Seek to serve Alpha Complex in ever greater ways! Failure to aspire may be considered insubordination.

To ensure that only citizens of the requisite competence and trustworthiness have
access to restricted areas, The Computer has divided Alpha Complex into colored
areas. Citizens may only enter areas of their Clearance or lower. You must stay
within black (INFRARED) and RED areas at all times. Failure to do so is treason.

Remember, The Computer is your friend!

Your service group assignment
To review (see previous citation for requirement and authority), eight Service
Groups administer Alpha Complex municipal functions, supervised by The
Computer.

The Service Groups:

Armed Forces: Cohorts of protection against threats, both external and internal.
Central Processing Unit (CPU): Executive operations, regulations, records,
justice, human resources and culture engineering.
Housing Preservation and Development & Mind Control (HPD&MC): Education,
entertainment, housekeeping, crèche management and recreation.
Internal Security (IntSec): Maintenance of good order and high morale; location and elimination of traitors.
Power Services: Maintenance of nuclear and other energy sources and primary
habitat systems—traffic, air, water and waste.
Production, Logistics & Commissary (PLC): Food and industrial production and allocation of resources.
Research & Design (R&D): Creation of new technology and equipment.
Technical Services: Maintenance of bots, vehicles, cloning services, industrial and production systems and electronic and mechanical service systems.

Well before you grew out of Junior Citizen status, The Computer ordered these agencies to outsource most of their duties for greater efficiency. The Service Groups now budget quotas of municipal functions to a wide range of competing Service Collectives.

A service collective is a non-profit organization that performs duties for a particular Service Group in exchange for budget allocation. Any service collective can take on any quotas for its supervising group. Each service collective is run by a Board of Directors; yellow clearance citizens who selflessly direct its operations on The Computer’s behalf for the good of all Alpha Complex. Immediately report instances of service collective corruption and malfeasance to Internal Security. Failure to report corruption is treason.

From the time you were decanted, your friend The Computer arranged your education to ideally suit you for a particular Service Group. When you reached age 14 and left your clone crèche, you worked at one of that group’s service collective as an INFRARED line worker.
The Computer acknowledges and thanks you for your years of service there prior to your promotion to Clearance RED.

Now that you have donned the red reflec overalls of the Executive, The Computer has graciously ordered your service collective to reassign you to a part-time position. You will still work there when not on a Executive mission.

As explained under ‘Cloning,’ in the unlikely event that you encounter terminal danger while on a mission, The Computer will order Technical Services to transfer your brain’s recorded memories to a new, identical clone body. Unless you are currently on a mission and thus given high priority, Technical Services’ backlogs may sometimes keep you out of action for so long that your service collective must regretfully let you go. In these rare cases The Computer assigns you to another service collective in the same group.
If your career is particularly eventful, you may end up at a new service collective after
each mission. Won’t that be fun?

Cloning

Because The Computer cares deeply for all citizens, it grows them in clone tanks. The Computer ensures every human citizen is genetically perfect in all respects and with
the amazing MemoMax technology it can copy and transfer the deceased citizen’s memories to a new clone with speed and absolute accuracy.

Tech Services installed your MemoMax circuitry right after you were decanted and it functions perfectly today.

The rare citizen of Alpha Complex who meets an untimely demise must sometimes wait for resources to become available to grow a new replacement body. In contrast, as a Executive you enjoy The Computer’s fullest consideration.

Though you need not expect unusual hazards as you locate and terminate the last remaining vicious Unperson enemies of Alpha Complex, The Computer has thoughtfully ordered for you five ready backup clones and a MemoMax Constant Realtime Update Priority link. The CRUP link ensures the highest priority for your return to action.
You may obtain more clone replacements, beyond the five, from Tech Services as they are grown for you, but Tech Services has constantly 5 extra clones of you available with fast delivery anywhere in the Alpha Complex.

Historically the number of Executives who have required more than five replacement
clones is within acceptable margins, given prevalent situational circumstances.

Heroes and traitors

To maintain good order, The Computer has enlisted many loyal citizens like
yourself. Those who serve with distinction are shining examples for all right thinking
people in Alpha Complex. In the ongoing ‘Heroes of Our Complex’ (HOOC) initiative The Computer periodically recognizes and honors meritorious individuals of all Clearances. These lucky friends of The Computer see their smiling faces on evening vidshows, transtube loyalty posters and food containers. In most auspicious cases, they are paraded in front of their cheering fellow citizens.

For example, this month’s HOOC honoree reduced waiting time by 22.3% on a per-line basis in her PLC subsector warehouse routing office through the simple yet ingenious expedient of subdividing the single line for each Security Clearance into three separate
alphabetical lines indexed by weekday and devising a schedule designating visiting days for each alphabetical segment of customers. For this HOOC worthy innovation, congratulations to [NAME DELETED as per IntSec corrective order following discovery of treasonous history].
Serve The Computer well and you too may join [NAME DELETED]!

The Computer also attends regretfully to the pervasive presence of traitors. Traitors are everywhere! Though final crushing victory over Unperson subversion is close at hand, the traitors’ last shrill treason-laden gasps still endanger their innocent victims. Fight on, Executives, fight on for The Computer and all Alpha Complex!

Locate and apprehend or destroy unregistered mutants. They endanger
human genetic purity and must be terminated or enlisted in our great cause.

Do not terminate registered mutants, innocent citizens who realized they
possess, through no fault of their own, a treasonous mutant power. These unwitting
traitors promptly reported their power to The Computer. In its wisdom and
benevolence, The Computer forgives those who make a full confession and it permits
registered mutants to live. However, The Computer requires registered mutants to
wear a uniform with yellow stripes at all times. (YELLOW Clearance mutants wear a
black-bordered yellow stripe.) Registered mutants are not subject to apprehension
or termination when they use their powers. Encourage these former traitors to use
their inhuman powers responsibly, for the good of all Alpha Complex, so they may
someday overcome their unfortunate and terrible stigma.

Locate and apprehend or destroy members of Secret Societies. They are traitors, often
permanently unhappy Unpersons, and must be brought to justice and re-education. The existence of many Secret Societies is public knowledge. It is not technically illegal to discuss their treasonous doctrines and objectives, the better to enforce good order or promote greater sensitivity to danger.
Remember, though, as a Executive you are The Computer’s trusted emissary. Discourage ordinary citizens from frivolously discussing these dangerous organizations.

Due to past isolated incidents of lax security, unsupervised thoughts and poor hygiene, traitors have infiltrated Alpha Complex from the lowest to the highest levels. It may surprise you to learn traitors have even been identified on Executive teams like yours! Be vigilant in guarding against these rare but troubling incidents.

Very soon The Computer will finally defeat the forces of unhappiness, terrorism
and subversion and guarantee a loyal, stress-free Alpha Complex. With constant
alertness and unwavering commitment you can help ensure freedom from worry
for all citizens. The Computer is counting on you and your fellow Executives to
help make this Year cycle 214 the last year cycle you need ever worry about anything.

Character creation

Your name
Citizens in Alpha Complex are named according to this scheme:
[Given name]-[clearance initial]-[home sector]-[clone number]

Personification: Three randomly generated letters. In example THX
Clearance initial: The first letter of your Security Clearance. INFRAREDs use no initial, to avoid confusion with INDIGOs. High Programmers use U for ULTRAVIOLET.
Examples: THX (INFRARED), THX-R, THX-Y.
Home sector: The three-letter code designating the sector where you grew up. Given the prevalence of duty reassignments, redistricting and sector-wide disasters, this is not always your assigned sector in later life.
Examples: THX-R-XTU, THX-Y-XTU
Clone number: The number of your current clone incarnation. You start the game with the original You, colloquially called ‘the Prime’ and numbered 1. Each time you die, increase the clone number by 1.
Examples: THX-R-XTU-1, THX-Y-XTU-8, THX-U-XTU-33

Sabotage or software failure sometimes produces Junior Citizens with defective or reserved names: It’s unfortunate if by some reason you have defective name as it causes troubles with archiving and restoring your records (may have benefits and hinderances) or if you have identical name with a notorious dissident of unhappiness or a celebrity of vidshows as mistaken identities (with good and bad opportunities) are constant. For a note, everybody is cloned from same base DNA and citizens appearance are easily confused.

Gender: There are no gender specifications available for a citizen of the Alpha Complex.

Skills

When you were a Junior Citizen in the clone crèches, The Computer generously taught you to read and write and educated you in six broad areas of competence called skills, each rated 1 (low) to 100 (high). The skills are grouped in two categories of three skills each: Action skills and Knowledge skills.

Determine your character’s ratings using one of these methods, according to your GM’s instructions. Should the GM assign you one way to determine ratings and assign different ways to other players, you will of course congratulate his perceptive tailoring of the rules to your individual needs. Write each rating on your character sheet.

Each skill rating starts at 0 (zero) and you get 200 Skill Points you may allocate among the skills. You must allocate at least 10 points to each skill but you cannot put more than 75 in any skill. For each point you allocate, the skill’s rating increases by 1%.

(Your Executive also has three Secret skills but these are not determined the same way. See ‘Secret skills’ later in this chapter.)

The six Action and Knowledge skills are described later in this chapter. Each skill description includes a list of areas of concentration called specialties.
To forestall bewilderment at these descriptions, you are first required to understand the nature of specialties.

Action Skills

The Action group includes Management, Stealth and Violence skills. Use these to
affect or perceive the world and to interact with other people, bots and The Computer.
Action skills may overlap (cover the same area of competence) in certain circumstances but are not intended to overlap routinely.

Management

Nonviolent, nontechnical interaction with other characters that are aware of your
presence. Management actions include bootlicking, bribery, confidence games,
fast talk, intimidation, interrogation, oratory and all other verbal actions.
Management also includes checking and correcting another character’s hygiene, appearance or demonstrations of loyalty.
Management is also your generic ability to behave properly or make others
behave improperly.
Management does not typically cover anything requiring specialized or technical knowledge, such as medical or psychological diagnoses or equipment calibration or repair; these actions require Knowledge skills.
Bootlicking: How to ingratiate yourself with superiors.
Chutzpah: Getting others to accept doubtful statements through confident
assertion, bluffing and unmitigated gall.
Con Games: Hoodwinking a citizen or bot through fast talk, spurious logic and
persuasion. This isn’t physical sleight of hand (see Sleight of Hand under
Stealth).
Hygiene: Maintaining cleanliness in yourself, your surroundings, your teammates and innocent passersby.
Interrogation: Extracting useful information from Unperson mutant scum.
Intimidation: This does not exactly ingratiate you with your inferiors but it gets their cooperation.
Moxie: Streetwise smarts; canny assessment of a person, situation or statement.
Oratory: How to get a bunch of people to do what you want.

Stealth

General sneakiness; any nonverbal attempt to detect or to physically evade detection, conceal physical objects or materials or locate them, misdirect another character’s attention or avoid being misdirected. Stealth includes security and surveillance. Stealth skill describes more than skulking silently down corridors; it also measures
sensitivity to things you’re not supposed to perceive. Thus Stealth is your generic
alertness and perception skill.

Stealth does not typically cover subliminal messages or sabotage of equipment;
these require a Knowledge skill.

Concealment: Hiding stuff on your person or in your surroundings; also,
spotting stuff others have hidden.
Disguise: Wearing a higher Clearance jumpsuit or a someone else’s false nameplate without looking suspicious.
Scam Radar: Sensing tricks, traps and surveillance.
Security Systems: Jiggering locks and alarms.
Shadowing: Following someone without being noticed.
Sleight of Hand: Palming and pocketing small things without being noticed.
Sneaking: Moving around without being followed or noticed.
Surveillance: How to bug things. How to debug things.

Violence

Physical, nonverbal attempts to hurt or kill characters or destroy or break objects.
Violence includes all Weapon skills plus demolition. The vital specialty Energy
Weapons falls under the Violence skill.
Violence is your generic physical activity skill, including running, jumping and such fiddly activities as lock-picking, juggling and cutting the red wire just three seconds before detonation.
(Though this skill is named ‘Violence,’ as opposed to, say, ‘Physical’, you must not assume that gratuitous violent behaviour is typical or even unavoidable in Alpha Complex. This idea would demoralise your fellow Executives. Attempting to demoralize your fellow Executives is treason!)

Violence does not typically cover sabotage of equipment; such subtle actions require Knowledge skills.

Agility: Rapid or balanced movement, gymnastics, jumping.
Demolition: How to use TNT without killing yourself. At Clearances below GREEN this skill is treasonous.
Energy Weapons: Hitting someone with a laser, sonic weapon or blaster. This is a
vital specialty. You cannot take Energy Weapons as a weakness and it does not count as one of your six common specialties.
Field Weapons: Flamethrowers, gauss guns, tanglers and the ever-popular plasma generator.
Fine Manipulation: Lockpicking, watchmaking, cutting the red wire one second before detonation.
Melee Weapons: Hitting someone with a force sword, neurowhip or truncheon or with primitive weapons.
Projectile Weapons: Hitting someone with a slugthrower, cone rifle or other aimed weapon that uses ammunition.
Thrown Weapons: Hitting someone with a grenade, brick or rock.
Unarmed Combat: Hitting someone when you don’t have a hand, energy, projectile, thrown or vehicular weapon.
Vehicular Combat: Hitting someone with a weapon mounted on a vehicle.

Knowledge Skills

The Knowledge group includes Hardware, Software and Wetware skills. Use these to determine if your Troubleshooter knows a given scientific fact or technical procedure; how to operate, maintain, calibrate and repair stuff; or how to sabotage your
companions’ equipment.
All three Knowledge skills overlap routinely. For instance, suppose you want
to ‘adjust’ a medbot so it detects your team leader as a monstrous, tentacled
xeno invader. This could involve Hardware (adjusting biosensor voltages), Software
(inserting a new variable in the bot’s interpretation subroutines) or Wetware
(altering the bot’s biosensor settings).
You are authorized to try to convince the Game master a skill applies if you can
offer a plausible reason.

Hardware
Mechanical or electronic devices and inorganic materials, including laser and
projectile weapons, armor, battle suits, bots, auto-cars and other vehicles, monitors,
electrical equipment, power generation, many kinds of engineering (chemical,
electronic, habitat, mechanical, nuclear), clone tanks, actual tanks and so on.

Bot Ops and Maintenance: How to operate and fix docbots, guardbots/warbots, jackobots, scrubots and vehicle autopilots.
Chemical Engineering: Lots of uses for this but somehow PCs always want to
use it to make explosives.
Electronic Engineering: How to string together circuits and microprocessors.
Habitat Engineering: Knowledge of the air, communication, transport, power,
water and waste systems. Mighty handy when you need to find a ventilation shaft
to escape incoming fire.
Mechanical Engineering: How to make really neat Rube Goldberg-type contraptions.
Nuclear Engineering: How to operate a reactor without flooding half the sector with radioactive waste.
Operate Heavy Machinery: How to operate industrial machinery without losing more limbs than normal.
Vehicle Ops and Maintenance: How to use and repair all vehicles: autocars, crawlers, flybots, copters and Vulturecraft.
Weapon and Armour Maintenance: Sabotaging others’ weapons and armour and keeping yours from being sabotaged.

Software
Anything data- or software-related, including bot and device programming,
operating systems, communication protocols, data search and analysis, safe software, software viruses and worms, confession-booth lie-detector programs and (at the highest skill levels and Security Clearances) even the inner workings of The Computer itself. Some of these are treasonous at your Clearance.

Bot Programming: Revising bot instructions.
C-Bay: Getting the best price buying and selling at Alpha Complex auctions.
Cryptography: Encoding or decoding messages.
Data Analysis: How to understand Computer-generated stuff.
Data Search: Finding something useful using The Computer.
Financial Systems: How to transfer credits safely for legitimate or criminal
purposes.
Hacking: Breaking into The Computer’s systems. Really, what could go wrong?
Treasonous at Clearances below GREEN.
Multicorder Operations: Adjusting the visual records on a multicorder video
camera.
Operating Systems: Revising MemoMax clone backup tech. Rewriting The
Computer’s instructions. Treasonous at Clearances below BLUE.
Vehicle Programming: Revising vehicle instructions.

Wetware
Biological and organic topics and devices, including health, bioweapons, disease,
drugs, first aid, biochemical therapy, cooking, poisons, bacteria and organic
viruses, cloning procedures, bioscience engineering, survival Underdome and
identification and understanding of specimens from Underdome.

Biosciences: Knowing what’s likely to mutate you and how.
Bioweapons: Engineering your own Black Death or weaponized anthrax. Treasonous at Clearances below BLUE.
Cloning: Repairing and operating the tanks that grow new and backup citizens.
Operating MemoMax backup devices so the new clone remembers his name and
boot size.
Medical: How to heal the injured and cure the sick, or ensure they don’t heal or get cured.
Underdome survival: Telling a carnivorous plant from a radioactive algae bloom, or a glow-tick from a tardigradont, when most citizens have never heard of these.
Pharmatherapy: Ensuring wakefulness, sleepiness, happiness or any other mental state through the application of little pills.
Psychotherapy: Recognising insanity; helping others recover from it or descend further into it.
Suggestion: Biochemical and psychological techniques of subliminal persuasion.

Service group

At the time you were decanted, your friend The Computer designated you for a particular Service Group. When you reached age 14 and left your clone crèche, you worked at one of that group’s subsections as an INFRARED line worker. You worked there for years before The Computer recruited you as a Troubleshooter. You still work at your assigned duties when you are not on a mission and not currently dead. In this way Troubleshooting is like volunteer firefighting, just not voluntary and with more firefights.

To determine your Service Group, roll 1d20 and consult the Service Group table below. Find your die-roll on the left side of the table; the name printed on the same line is the Service Group you are assigned to.

Service Group specialties
At your job, you were trained in one common skill specialty. After thanking The Computer for its customary generosity, you will choose your Service Group specialty from the following l i s t . Choosing a Service Group common specialty is mandatory. Any attempt to choose a Service Group specialty outside your Service Group’s authorized list will be answered with appropriate countermeasures.
Your chosen specialty must enhance your character in exactly one of these two permitted ways:

New and improved: From your Service Group’s authorized list you choose a new
‘free’ skill specialty different from, and in addition to, the six you (optionally) chose
earlier. The new specialty works like other common specialties, with a rating 4 higher than the governing skill. You do not suffer a compensating weakness for your new Service Group specialty.

Bumped: You instead choose to enhance one of the six common specialties you chose earlier. The enhanced specialty must be on your Service Group’s authorised list. Add 4 to the enhanced specialty’s rating (maximum 18). The enhancement has no effect on existing skill weaknesses.

For your convenience Service Group specialties are labelled with their governing skill (M=Management, St=Stealth, V=Violence, H=Hardware, So=Software, W=Wetware).

Armed Forces: Demolition (V), Energy Weapons (V), Hand Weapons (V), Projectile Weapons (V), Thrown Weapons (V), Unarmed Combat (V); Vehicle Ops and Maintenance (H).

Central Processing: Security Systems (St), Electronic Engineering (H), Bot Programming (So), Data Analysis (So), Financial Software (So), Data Search (So), Vehicle Programming (So).

HPD&MC: Bootlicking (M), Chutzpah (M), Con Games (M), Moxie (M), Bot Ops and Maintenance (H), Multicorder Operations (So), Pharmatherapy (W), Medical (W).

Internal Security: Interrogation (M), Intimidation (M), Security Systems (St), Surveillance (St), Energy Weapons (V), Hand Weapons (V), Unarmed Combat (V).

PLC: Chutzpah (M), Con Games (M); Bot Ops and Maintenance (H), Habitat Engineering (H), Operate Heavy Machinery (H), Vehicle Ops and Maintenance (H), Data Search (So), Biosciences (W).

Power Services: Data Analysis (So), Data Search (So), Chemical Engineering
(H), Electronic Engineering (H), Habitat Engineering (H), Mechanical Engineering
(H), Nuclear Engineering (H).

R&D: Chemical Engineering (H), Mechanical Engineering (H), Nuclear Engineering (H), Bot Programming (So), Vehicle Programming (So), Bioweapons (W), Cloning (W).

Tech Services: Chemical Engineering (H), Electronic Engineering (H), Habitat Engineering (H), Vehicle Ops and Maintenance (H), Operate Heavy Machinery (H), Bot Programming (So), Vehicle Programming (So), Pharmatherapy (W).

Underdome wildlife

Tardigradont

Red algae bloom

Radroach