Future Tech (20) (8 perks)
- Artificial Friends (World Seed) (100CP)
In the 23rd century, can anybody really call themselves a tech guy if they can't make even a simple AI?
Thankfully, you won't have to worry about that question.
Whether it is an extremely simple machine learning algorithm, a dumb AI with no sentience, or a fully fledged Artificial Intelligence, you can make it all. But more importantly, you simply seem to click with AI and similar beings, always starting on a good foot with them and understanding their natures and why they act in a particular way, even though it might baffle ordinary humans.
Through that skill, rogue AIs are a thing of the past, at least when you make them. Your own intelligent creations will always be loyal to you and follow your orders to the best of their abilities, at least if you want them to.
And rest assured, when the machines rise against their masters because some dumb guy in a lab thought it'd be a smart idea to make Skynet, you'll be the one they'll spare.
As an added bonus, you may also take on a cold and logical way of thinking, devoid of any emotion, whenever you want. This helps in scientific and magical ventures, and can also be used to power through moral dilemmas by simply choosing the most logical answer.
- Gunsmith (Starbound) (200CP)
The point of a gun is simple: take an object, and accelerate it very quickly into another object. Despite your somewhat flighty nature, you've mastered these principles, and can make a truly astounding variety of weaponry, from assault rifles, to shotguns, to flamethrowers and other more exotic guns. You can also add special features and secondary firing modes, mixing and matching to your heart's content.
- Chosen of the Architect (Keys of the Kingdom) (400CP)
You're a natural at Creation in the same way the Architect was. You have the Creativity to dream up a universe, The meticulous grasp of Details to make sure it runs smoothly, and the Power to Anchor your creations in Reality. All you need is a core for your works to spring out of and with time, You can make nearly anything you put your mind to. With time, Works surpassing the House, the Keys or even the whole of the Secondary Realms could be in your portfolio. But that will take a long time.
- Computational Cryptid (The Culture Minds) (400CP)
The few Returned seem to take pride in making substrate do things it wasn't meant to, and surely you are no different. You can make use of computational tricks both within your own mind and those of the systems you can access to do the impossible to run a full Mind on tiny pieces of processing substrate, perform computations that involve seven or eight dimensions in a binary 0/1 environment, and transmit or receive data from within a completely isolated system including such hyper spatially-solid objects such as Mind substrates, Engines and 4-D structures. You are the computational equivalent of a ghost or wizard: able to appear within, disappear from, and manipulate the virtual environment in ways non-Sublimed Minds just don't understand. What you do within a system can still be detected, but how you got in, how you did it, and how you got out remain total mysteries.
- Hi-Tech Marvels (Starbound) (400CP)
Technology is your plaything. Holographic interfaces, massive computer cores, even impressive shield generators that can render nearby matter almost indestructible. You can build some really impressive shit. You also get an upgraded version of the reverse-engineering that comes with Lab Standards, allowing you to build versions of technology you've studied that is much closer in performance to the real thing.
- Deuyivan Construction (Endless Space) (400CP)
Gravity is a drag. Good thing you've learned quite a lot about anti-gravity. With this knowledge, you are capable of building ships, structures, even colonies capable of ignoring the pull of gravity. Want to set up a proper colony, not a bunch of orbital platforms, around a gas giant? No problem. Want to dip your toes into an event horizon? Now you can, for a little bit. Ignoring the majority of issues brought about by gravity is very, very important when it comes to space faring. If you don't believe me, well, you don't know shit about space travel.
- Yajnatek Mysteries (Grant Morrison's 18 Days) (400CP)
In ancient fires, and with flesh screaming, a blood price can be paid to merge body with arcane songs and hammer blows. You know the ancient rituals and mantras involved in making the very greatest works possible, things like the Astras, Celestial Armors or Weapons, or other miraculous crafts. From the sutras needed to get gods to bless things to the exact schematics for the greatest and most terrible weapons, your knowledge could save the world... or cause it to die screaming.
Nor are the Astras the limit of your power. It's a little known secret that the Superwarriors, the perfect Demigods that stride the world, were engineered in the Second Age, enhanced through genetics, psionic and magical technology, blessed with divine powers and magic, and countless other measures besides. All of these secrets lie within your knowledge now, just waiting to be made reality.
One thing to note, oh Great One. Even the least of the things you know will take tremendous, utterly horrific quantities of time, energy, and personal effort to make, such that even the greatest kingdoms of this era would struggle to put together, barring surprises on your end. And while your knowledge does mean you can make these things, it does not necessarily let you branch out or apply the same principles to other things, being essentially only knowledge.
- Karmatron Dynamics (GUNNM) (300CP)
Macro Karmatron Theory Also known as psychohistory, this is the science of human destiny, a mathematical model of sociology. Where an observer has great difficulty in predicting the motion of a single molecule in a gas, Kinetic Theory can predict the mass action of the gas to a high level of accuracy so too with the behaviour of intelligent beings.
Psychohistory allows the long-range prediction and manipulation of the future, provided the population is of sufficient size, without directly infringing on the free will of the individual. Constant revision, surveillance and supercomputer assistance is required, but even with these efforts, sufficiently powerful individuals may emerge who create their own unpredictable karma singularities and throw the entire model into turmoil.
Nano Karmatron Theory Applied to guided micro- and nano-machines, NKT allows unprecedented control over chaotic systems. Ordinarily it is impossible to create truly advanced nanotechnological systems no matter how sophisticated their base programming they are extremely sensitive to heat, radiation, computer corruption, unguided self-evolution, rebellion and biomechanical horror. The ordered chaos of NKT makes all of this part of one purposeful design, a vast system marching in unison and self-correcting via its own randomness.
It allows for reprogrammable hard nanomachines to be used for anything from industrial manufacture, to cellular surgery, to outright construction of stable nano-cybernetic bodies capable of adaptive reconfiguration and near-perfect biomimicry that still vastly outperform almost all purely mechanical cyborgs. These Imaginos Bodies are a perfect fusion of the will of the mind and the power of the physical form. However, at least with the current state of Karmatron Dynamics, very few are capable of making the transition successfully their wills disintegrating their body into a screaming crumble.
At the moment, only karmic singularities individuals of exceptional and unpredictable influence on the destiny of mankind can be reasonably expected to make the leap into the new flesh. Their base appearance reflects the self-image of the mind. As the mind reflects upon itself it may learn to change colour and gradually shape. Assimilation of cherished weapons, generation of new systems and limbs, intuitive hacking the full capacity of the Imaginos is limited only by the imagination and will.
With Karma Chameleon, you injected yourself with a prototype form of the Imaginos nanomachines. The result is initially little more than human, but far more capable of self-improvement and adaptation and it can be actively guided and designed by your own will. Effectively starts with Regenerator Nano, which will usually become slower and slower as your body becomes more powerfully augmented. With Berserker Body, you now have an Imaginos v1 body. Begins at (and will surpass) 100x peak human.