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[Parsely]

Your High Purpose
The Computer has already shown its trust in you by promoting you to Security Clearance RED. By recruiting you now to its elite Troubleshooter service unit, The Computer demonstrates its confidence that you can face any problem caused by any traitor in any sector of Alpha Complex. Total victory is now in sight. Do your part! Fulfil your mission! Serve The Computer and you will rise rapidly in its service. Beware! Traitors are everywhere! The safety of your fellow Troubleshooters and the security of Alpha Complex depend on you. Immediately report any treasonous or insubordinate behaviour or any suspicion of treason or insubordination to The Computer. Failure to do so is treason.

Some of your fellow Troubleshooters may serve The Computer as guardians of Internal Security. They diligently report every hint of treasonous or insubordinate behaviour to The Computer. Rejoice to know any treason among your companions will be discovered and punished! You may be asked to test experimental equipment or perform vital services for your own or other service firms. Honour these simple requests, for they help The Computer protect and serve Alpha Complex! Your missions may take you to unfamiliar sections of Alpha Complex. The traitors you face may try to subvert you with unfamiliar and treasonous ideas. Be prepared! Know the enemy! Guard against treason! When you are troubled or uncertain, always remember the honourable legacy of the Troubleshooters who perished before you. Do as they did. Serve The Computer. The Computer is your friend.

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. 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 colour 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 insubordination.

[Parsely]

Your Service Firm Assignment
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 creche, you worked at one of that group’s service firms as an INFRARED line worker. You worked there for years before The Computer recruited you as a Troubleshooter.

You still work at your service firm when you are not on a mission and not currently dead. Some service firms can be bitter towards their part-timers, treating them as slackers. Of course, you are sure your own firm would not be so callous. At least, you hope not; your lowlevel connections in your firm may prove useful as sources of information or equipment.

The Armed Forces and Internal Security service groups limit service-firm outsourcing to non-security-related functions. The rest of the old service groups remain today as regulatory agencies supervising the appropriate service firms. These service group bureaucracies are absolutely not flagrantly corrupt sump-holes full of superannuated, impotent bureaucrats. No matter how they act, do not think that.

To review, eight service groups administer Alpha Complex municipal functions, supervised by The Computer. The service groups:

-Armed Forces:
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, creche management and
recreation.

-Internal Security (IntSec):
Maintenance of good order; 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.

[Parsely]

Mutant Power
Due to treasonous sabotage of The Computer’s otherwise faultless cloning process, certain clones are decanted with innate mutations that grant them inhuman or superhuman abilities. Because these genetic impurities present an uncontrollable threat to The Computer’s hard won social order, possession of a mutant power is treason punishable by execution.

Unknown (probably) to your fellow Troubleshooters, you possess a mutant power. You have known about it for some time, but kept it secret from everyone. During the game, when you want to use your mutant power, tell the GM—preferably in secret conference, via PM or prearranged signal, by waving coded flags, etc. To learn about your mutant power ask the GM.

Dean-R-OLP: Hi GM!
GM: Hello Dean.
Dean-R-OLP: I want to be ready to teleport to safety. When I tap my left foot, activate my mutant teleport ability.
GM: Where do you want to teleport?
Dean-R-OLP: Anywhere that is safe.
GM: Very well.

There are 20 mutant powers.

Registering Your Mutation
Some mutants have patriotically registered their power with The Computer’s Internal Security service group. After you know what your power does, decide whether or not to register it. However, if your power is Machine Empathy, do not reveal it! The Computer considers that power so dangerous it immediately executes anyone who possesses it.

A registered mutant is not executed just for being a mutant. If you register your mutation, you can use your power whenever you like without being accused of treason. However, you must wear a yellow stripe on your uniform at all times (citizens of YELLOW Clearance wear a stripe with black borders). As a registered mutant you will certainly face anti-mutant prejudice. Registered mutants get passed by for promotions, are the butt of jokes in service firm advertising and—most important for your purposes—are frequently the handiest scapegoat when anything goes wrong.

Registered mutants are second-class citizens, if that. The Computer tolerates you and assigns you to Troubleshooter teams in
hopes of helping their odds. The Computer assigns responsibility for your safety to the Team Leader. Your fellow citizens can not just shoot you without the Leader’s permission, or they risk getting recycled for destroying The Computer’s ‘equipment’. They cannot execute you unless they can prove you did something treasonous. Yet citizens still hate and despise you publicly, though members of certain secret societies may look on you with pity.

[Parsely]

Accusations of Treason
To earn commendation from The Computer, an accusation of treason must be credible. The more reputable
the target of your accusation, the less likely your charges will be regarded as credible. To credibly accuse an
individual of treason, you need corroborating testimony or, even better, have (or be able to fabricate) clear,
documented evidence. Documented evidence includes still photos, video clips, and audio recordings. A
treasonous act is ‘documented evidence’ for one of these reasons:

1. The GM says it is.

2. You have a convincing in-game reason for documenting the act, and the GM accepts it. It does
not matter how much time elapses before you make your report. There is no statute of limitations in Alpha
Complex. However, if the target has already been accused and penalized in the past for a given act, that act
will not weigh heavily. If you can produce the required quantity of evidence for The Computer or its authorized
representatives, and if the evidence happens not to mysteriously disappear shortly thereafter, The Computer
may convict the target of treason. If you make the accusation after you already killed the target, the GM
tells you how long you have to assemble the required evidence.

Perversity Points
Perversity points are the GM’s reward to you for entertaining everyone. You can earn them in both scenes and non-scenes, whether or not your character is actually present on the scene. All you have to do is be amusing, help the storyline along or really roast a fellow Troubleshooter—roast him with style. The Game Master rewards you yourself, not your character, with Perversity points. If your Troubleshooter dies for good, you still keep your current Perversity point totals and can spend them with your next character.

You start play with 25 Perversity points.

You may earn up to 10 valuable Perversity points by choosing one or two identifiable tics: examples of your character’s individual quirks and habits. A tic is any obvious and recognizable behaviour or condition that seldom directly affects the game—for example humming absently or twitching when anyone mentions ‘the sewers’. Perhaps you acquired your tic while working at your service firm, or because of your mutant power.

How You Earn Perversity Points
Using incontestably fair judgment, the GM may award you Perversity points in these situations:

-When you do things the others finds entertaining.
-At the end of a play session, if you have played your chosen tics and Secret skills entertainingly.
-When you alert the Game Master to another player’s treasonous behaviour or displays of rules knowledge.
-When you perform a valuable or interesting service that improves the game (say, creating a new rumour), gets a stalled play session moving, or helps lighten the Game Master’s load or mood (playing an NPC for a scene, bribing the Game Master with munchies).
-When you stylishly and (in most cases) fatally betray a fellow Troubleshooter to fulfil the dictates of The Computer, a secret
society mission or even a personal rivalry.

How You Spend Perversity Points
You can spend points to adjust the success of your own or others’ die rolls.

When the GM allows it, you and your fellow players can spend Perversity points as general modifiers to influence your roll’s success chance. After all points are spent the Game Master interprets the circumstances of the roll to fit all the modifiers.

In many cases you will spend points secretly. Sometimes, the Game Master will require you to announce how you’re spending points.

You can spend Perversity whenever the GM allows it, whether or not your Troubleshooter is present at the scene. If your character is present, etiquette requires you to do something in the game to reflect your spending. ("I poke him in the ribs as he aims.")

[Parsely]

Living Information
You start your career as a Troubleshooter with a generous reward from The Computer of 1,000 credits.

You will not necessarily die multiple times and have to buy new clones. You will not inevitably terminate a victim without sufficient evidence and be liable for his replacement clone cost. You are not inherently likely to destroy property without authorization and be billed. You will not absolutely, beyond any doubt, offend some high-clearance citizen who punishes you with a breathtaking fine. However, keep the possibility in mind. Thank you for your cooperation.

Salary and living expenses
The higher your clearance, the more it costs to maintain your existence in the manner to which you hope to become accustomed. The monthly salary you earn depends on your security clearance. By a remarkable coincidence, this is the same amount as your average monthly living expenses. Here are typical salaries and the standard of living they buy. Because vidshows exhaustively document the lifestyles of the famous high-clearance citizens, every citizen in Alpha Complex knows many perks available at every clearance. The Computer encourages tasteful expressions of desire for these perks, to the extent they signify one’s greater service to Alpha Complex. Expressions of outright envy are impolite.

INFRARED (100 credits/month)
Food: FunFoods (Hot and Cold), many kinds of algae, Bouncy Bubble Beverage on special occasions. The Computer pays a small monthly stipend to aid the Alpha Complex economy.
Housing: Communal barracks.
Transport: Feet. Transtube.
Staff: None.
Authority: None.
Perks: Perpetual, happy drug haze.
Typical INFRARED citizens: Line workers and grunts of all service groups; over 80% of the population is INFRARED. Privately, many of RED Clearance and above (generically called ‘trusted citizens’) hold INFRAREDs in contempt as drugged drones. Still, INFRAREDs tend to live longer than trusted citizens below, say, GREEN Clearance, because as a group they seem less prone to treason. For this reason, and because of their huge numbers, INFRAREDs are subject to much less surveillance than other groups.

RED (1,000 credits/month)
Food: FunFoods, REDdiMeals with Soylent Red, Bouncy Bubble Beverage occasionally, real food a couple of times a month.
Housing: Room shared with up to five other citizens.
Transport: Feet. Transtube. Transition.
Staff: None.
Authority: None. Even Infrareds are not likely to listen to you, as they are doing jobs for the higher-ups.
Perks: You are not drugged all the time, and you’re not INFRARED.
Typical RED citizens: Troubleshooters, senior clerks, low-level technicians, Armed Forces grunts; about 10% of the population.

YELLOW (3,000 credits/month)
Food: FunFoods, MelloYELLOWMeals with Soylent Yellow, real food once daily.
Housing: Your own room (under camera surveillance). Shared bathroom.
Transport: Transtube. Autocar hack.
Staff: Whomever you can threaten.
Authority: You manage a small group at your service firm.
Perks: You set your own schedule (subject to higher-clearance demands). You can request changes in your pharmatherapy.
Typical YELLOW citizens: Mid-level bureaucrats, R&D project leads, vidshow hosts Armed Forces sergeants, PLC artisans crafting handmade trinkets for High Programmers; about 2% of the population.

GREEN (10,000 credits/month)
Food: Real food each meal, supplemented with GREENGood and various Soylents. Housing: Private one-bedroom apartment.
Transport: Hack. Shared private autocar.
Staff: A housebot servant.
Authority: May assign on-the-spot insubordination fi nes. May demote RED citizens. You manage a large division of your service firm.
Perks: Noticeable jump in status. Lower levels may engage in spontaneous bootlicking—that is, not at laserpoint. Pharmatherapy optional.
Typical GREEN citizens: Senior supervisors, managing directors, elite artisans, Armed Forces lieutenants, IntSec goons. All citizens of GREEN Clearance and above collectively comprise about 2% of the population.

BLUE (40,000 credits/month)
Food: Nothing but real food all the time! At last!
Housing: Opulent suite in safe and prestigious subsector.
Transport: Private autocar.
Staff: Full bot staff and bot programmer. Seldom, if ever, do you encounter Infrareds.
Authority: May promote to Clearance ORANGE or lower. May demote from GREEN or lower. May assign Merit awards and penalties. You manage an entire service firm.
Perks: You go to the front of any line; invitations to vidshow award ceremonies; underlings grovel routinely. Your private life is exempt from routine surveillance.
Typical BLUE citizens: Junior executives, vidshow producers, Armed Forces captains and majors, IntSec officers, Central Processing managing directors.

INDIGO (100,000 credits/month)
Food: Gourmet meals and rich desserts.
Housing: A lovely big corridor all your own.
Transport: Several vehicles with chauffeur.
Staff: Full staff of humans and bots. You can go a month without seeing an ORANGE citizen.
Authority: May promote to GREEN or lower. May demote from BLUE or lower. You serve on the Boards of several service firms
Perks: Obsessive coverage on celebrity vidshows, assuming you like that; you skip lines and go directly to the manager. You pull strings at Internal Security. If you offer sufficiently good reasons to The Computer, you can openly collect Old Reckoning Cultures artefacts.
Typical INDIGO citizens: Senior executives, Armed Forces colonels, IntSec deputy supervisors, Central Processing chief director, HPD&MC vidshow studio chiefs, most secret society chiefs.

VIOLET (600,000 credits/month)
Food: Huge Hollywood-scale dinner parties catered by a GREEN master chef. (You fought hard to get your chef, and you constantly fend off marauding rivals who want to spirit him away.)
Housing: A subsector or two.
Transport: Many autocars, truckbots, private flybots and maybe a sub; full motorcade with IntSec escort.
Staff: Full human staff. (Bots are so common) Hardly ever meet anyone YELLOW or lower.
Authority: May promote to and demote from INDIGO or lower. May order summary executions and erasure of clone templates. ‘Service firms? Oh, you mean my investment portfolio.’
Perks: You see this sector? It is yours. You do not go to managers; they come to you. You can freely say almost anything short of outright Commie propaganda. ‘Internal Security? Oh, you mean my staff police.’
Typical VIOLET citizens: CEOs, generals, IntSec chief supervisor, Machine Empaths. A typical INFRARED citizen may see a VIOLET once or twice in his life.

ULTRAVIOLET (if you have to ask, you can not afford it)
Food, Housing, Transport, Staff and Perks: If they can not have it, it not only does not exist, it probably can not.
Authority: Nobody knows exactly what they do or where they live. High Programmers are either famous throughout the Complex or, if they prefer, totally anonymous. Mere knowledge of their activities is potentially treasonous.
Typical ULTRAVIOLET citizens: This information is not available at your security clearance.

[Playergamer]

((Really, really want to play. Just 3 or so more days until I can get back to my computer!))

Friend Computer, could Troubleshooters join after this allotted time has elapsed?

[Parsely]

Troubleshooters can join at any time! There was a bonus mission today for people who joined while I was testing the channel. It's now over.

[Playergamer]

Thank you Friend Computer. I promise to shoot many troubles.

[Parsely]

Clones
In the old days of Alpha Complex, The Computer created citizens in families of six identical clones, all born from the tanks at the same time. When they died, their precious genetic heritage was lost to Alpha Complex. Today, thanks to advances in forced-growth cloning technology, The Computer’s loyal servants in Technical Services can now produce new clone copies of any citizen at will, and can copy and transfer a clone’s memories with absolute accuracy.

Most citizens who meet an untimely demise must wait months for downloading of their recorded memories into a new replacement body. Because Troubleshooters have a twentyseven-thousand-percent higher fatality rate than average, The Computer has thoughtfully ordered Tech Services to prepare a number of ready backup Yous. Unfortunately, this costs money—and it comes out of your salary.

When you start a new Troubleshooter, Tech Services grants you six clones for a regulated minimal cost. You begin as Clone #1 in your line, the so-called Prime, which costs nothing. The value of the remaining five clones in your first six pack is 2,000 credits—a value of 400 credits per clone, yours free! Thank you, Friend Computer.

[Parsely]

Your Goals as a Troubleshooter
The Computer assigns Troubleshooters several duties:
1. Serve The Computer.
2. Locate and eliminate traitors, including (but
not limited to) Communists, secret society
saboteurs and terrorists, unregistered mutants,
data pirates, WMD manufacturers and IR
Marketeers.
3. Investigate and eradicate corruption.
4. Remove dangers to the good order and
smooth operation of Alpha Complex.

Mandatory Bonus Duties
The Computer assigns fun and interesting duties to specific members of your Troubleshooter mission team as rewards for their continued service. These Mandatory Bonus Duties (MBDs) enhance the team’s chances of success and provide many exciting and educational experiences. Your added responsibility will make you feel loved, wanted and secure, and not at all paranoid. For instance, your MBD might be Communications and Recording Officer. As such, in addition to your normal duties during a mission, you would operate a valuable multicorder to record every action by your fellow Troubleshooters. You could get all your fellow Troubleshooters to smile and demonstrate their loyalty to The Computer right there on camera as they execute their mission. Wouldn’t that be fun? Mission briefing officers may assign you an MBD based on detailed analysis of your past achievements, your performance on HPD&MC Mandatory Bonus Duty Determination Test 88-9b, your core competencies or your place in alphabetical order.

-Team Leader:
Offers guidance and sound advice to other team members;
acts as tactical situation commander in combat.

-Loyalty Officer:
Discourages treasonous thoughts; looks for early
warning signs of Commie sympathy.

-Hygiene Officer:
Monitors the personal hygiene level of other team
members, preventing poor morale,
substandard performance and halitosis.
CPU performance tracking statistics show
[CLASSIFIED] percent of Troubleshooter
missions fail due to poor hygiene.

-Communications and Recording Officer:
Chronicles the mission using advanced video technology, extremely
sensitive microphones and gripping colour
commentary. Good lighting and innovative
camera angles produce excellent training
material and possibly even footage for
popular evening vidshows like Bake That Commie!

-Happiness Officer:
Ensures everyone has fun on the mission; knows jokes, sings,
leads citizen-instruction games; authorizes
and administers biochemical supplements
needed to guarantee a fun time is had by all.

-Bots/Weapons/Vehicles/Sundry Equipment Repair and Maintenance Officer (Equipment Guy):
Controls bots and vehicles assigned to the team; monitors each
Troubleshooter’s equipment maintenance
level. The Equipment Guy is responsible
for assigned mission equipment that gets
lost, stolen or damaged.

Structure of a Mission
Friend Computer will ask you to report for briefing. You might be sleeping in your quarters, or just coming off a long shift for your service firm. When you arrive, the briefing officer will explain the mission and answer any questions you might have with total honesty and will most certainly not give you false instructions because he didn't read the mission file.

Once you've been briefed, you must proceed to PLC to be given your assigned equipment. This includes your PDC, laser body, clearance colored laser barrels, clearance colored reflec armor, and MBD-specific equipment. Reflec can only stop lasers of the same clearance color or below. Laser barrels are good for 6 shots, and the chance of your laser exploding increases with each shot. Your laser body will accept any color laser barrel, but using a barrel you are not cleared for is treason. Your PDC (Personal Data Computer) is a valuable tool. The PDC allows you to take pictures, talk to people, find directions and god knows what else with all the features. You can try to convince the PLC clerk to give you more items. Sometimes PLC will have critical items to give you that are vital in order to complete the mission.

Once you have your assigned equipment, you head to R&D where the scientists there will allow you to choose from a variety of extremely valuable and powerful equipment to test during the mission. Troubleshooters are free to take as many or as few as they like, and it's definitely to their benefit to take as much as they can carry.

After that the Troubleshooters proceed to complete their mission. As RED citizens, they may walk, take a transtube, or try to hail an autohack with their PDC.

Once the Troubleshooters have achieved glorious and total completion of their mission, the team must proceed to their debriefing room, where the Computer will praise and reward the Troubleshooters for their success.

[Parsely]

Missions are at 8PM Mountain Time (that's -8 UTC), on any day that the troubleshooters are all available. There must be at least 4 troubleshooters present for a proper mission, but more compact ones can be run with 1-3 players. If would like me to run a mini-mission for you, ask In-Thread and provide a time.

[Parsely]

Rejoice, Troubleshooters! We now have six players! The first mission will begin as soon as all the players announce they are ready! They should state what days they are available this week to aid organisation.

Again_Dejavu
Remuthra
Playergamer
Ultimuh
nearlyNonexistant
IronTomato

[Playergamer]

((I can't get to an actual computer until Wednesday. ))

[Parsely]

((That's okay. We're probably going to be waiting until the weekend.))

[Again_Dejavu]

Hello friend! I may or may not be able to troubleshoot on any of the days that end in y, as well as when I'm in the solar system. No guarantees though!