Aeos, Unethical Psychosurgeon(s)

[TheFred]

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Aeos
Psychosurgeon || Experimentalist || Collectivist

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Christophe Young

Ego Overview Name: Aeos (they/them) Background: Freelancer Faction: Criminal Psi Sub-Strain: Architect Strengths: Psychosurgery, Interrogation, Psi Primary Skills: Kinesics, Know [Psychology], Medicine [Psychosurgery] Traits: Psi, Mental Disorder: Paramnesia, Mental Disorder: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Enhanced Behaviour: Assertiveness, Neural Damage: Mood Swings Motivations: +Knowledge/Science, +Singularity Seeker, -Bioconservatism/Ethics

 

Aeos walked into the club. It was a dark place, electric-blue lights failing to fully illuminate it. People sat around, some drinking, others inhaling vapours, but more were there for the XP. This was a favourite haunt of those looking to sample someone else's reality, to forget about their own for a while. Aeos had no interest in that - but then, they had plenty of memories, of plenty of different realities.

The man at the door was big... really big, his tattooed arms like tree-trunks. He glowered at them, his face stern.

"Turn around, lady," he said, gruffly. "Staff only."

"We're here to see Hargus," they said calmly. "It wouldn't do to keep him waiting."

The man kept his gaze upon them, but he moved aside to let them through. Behind the door, sterile lights illuminated a stark, unfriendly corridor. Aeos made their way further into the building, to a large storage room at the back. Inside, Hargus was lounging with a few of his henchmen. A scrawny, scared-looking fellow was sat in a metal chair nearby, one of the goons with a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Here we are!" Hargus exclaimed jovially, upon seeing them enter. All eyes swung to look at them. "Took yer time, didn't you? Well, no matter; Darius and I were just having a little chat. See, poor Darius here thought I was going to cut his fingers off for stealing from me - didn't you Darius?"

"I--I--I, uh, I d-d-d--"

"Oh, hush. See, I'm told it's easier if we don't inflict too much trauma until after the procedure. Isn't that right, doc?"

Aeos looked at the unfortunate man.

"The usual, we presume?" They asked. They waved a hand at one of the henchmen. "We will need our tools."

Hargus nodded. "Not just how, and what he did with it, but who helped him."

Aeos nodded. They stepped closer to the man, looking him over. This would be tedious, but hardly difficult. Easy money, really. "Well then," they said, smiling. "Let us begin."

 

Origins

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Alanna Mendez was the junior freelancer who wanted to get ahead. Dr Jeremiah Sion was the man to help her.

Alanna did menial administrative work for a huge hypercorp, a meaningless cog in an overwhelmingly large and cumbersome machine. Largely ignored and passed over for most opportunities, Alanna wanted to get ahead - but didn't know how. She was too shy, too timid, and repeatedly found herself outmanoeuvred by colleagues who always seemed to land the good jobs and get the promotions.

If she could have afforded to go to somewhere fancier and more expensive she would, but her limited budget and a desire for discretion led to her winding up in Sion's psychotherapy practice. If she'd known that the good doctor had been expelled from his research project for unethical practices or, worse, continued to experiment on the forks of his patients, she would have gone somewhere else. Strangely, though, these two very different characters hit it off, with Alanna expressing a keen amateur interest in Dr Sion's research, research that he gradually began to reveal more about.

Emboldened by a successful course of treatment to improve her assertiveness and remove her fears and doubts, Alanna agreed to undergo an experimental form of skill imprinting that Sion had been working on. Perhaps he should have worked on it a bit more. The procedure was not so much an improvement on traditional imprinting as a form of experimental merge, an attempt to splice his own psychosurgery knowledge (Alanna's request, so she could better understand the theory) into his patient's mind. Unsurprisingly, the side-effects were catastrophic. It's hard to say exactly what Sion did to Alanna's mind whilst blundering around in there, but he left it severely damaged. In a sense he was successful; Alanna gained a great deal of Sion's own knowledge and memories. Unfortunately, she also became more than a little unhinged; paranoid and delusional, suffering from wild mood swings, she found it impossible to continue to function in her normal life.

Perhaps it's not surprising that when Alanna confronted Sion about what he'd done, the two argued, and the argument rapidly turned ugly. The now-violent Alanna attacked Sion and, after dazing him, had a sudden idea. Sion had obviously botched the procedure, but she now had his knowledge - she could repeat it, properly, and this would fix things. She had a fork of herself merge Sion's primary ego into her own once more - effectively killing him - then continued to self-operate to fix all the damaged bits and smooth out the rough edges.

By the time she was done, Alanna wasn't really Alanna any more. In fact, she'd done so much editing and merged so many forks back into her own ego that she wasn't really sure she was even one person any more; she had a plethora of wildly-differing and highly confusing memories, of being different people, in different bodies, with different names. She decided to pick a new name - Aeos - to reflect her new identity, and decided that she should, in fact, stop thinking of herself even as a singular "she" but as a plurality; a "they". The neural damage was also, despite what she told herself - what Aeos told themselves - quite significant... but that didn't matter. Perhaps, in fact, it was simply the next step on the journey of transhumanism; a deviation from what was considered "normal", perhaps, but hardly anything to worry about. They were pioneers, and perhaps soon the rest of transhumanity would be following suit.

Unfortunately, Alanna couldn't go back to work like this, nor could Sion continue his practice. Aeos would need a new way to support themselves - especially if they intended to continue their research! The only solution was to get in touch with some of Sion's less scrupulous contacts, the kinds who occasionally asked him to do not-so-ethical things to egos in exchange for untraceable payments. So it was that the office worker and the psychosurgeon vanished, and Aeos began a new life as a criminal interrogator.

 

Description

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Aeos are an unusual ego, who consider themselves not an individual but a collective. A psychosurgeon (or psychosurgeons?) who have performed a number of experimental operations on themselves, they have implanted the skills and memories of many egos - something which comes with both its benefits and, unsurprisingly, its drawbacks. Aeos believe that this makes them far better than individual transhumans, with a breadth of knowledge and experience that dwarfs any one person's; the side-effects of repeated experimental psychosurgery, however, have left their scars, and as much as Aeos claim to be on the road to enlightenment, it's quite possible that they are simply deluded -- and very mentally damaged.

It's not quite clear whether Aeos actually think like multiple different people, or whether they're just one mentally-messed up ego who suffers from personality bleed and believes they hear the voices of others. They certainly claim to, choosing to refer to themselves in the plural (their use of "they/them" pronouns being, confusingly, a form of this rather than anything to do with gender; they actually consider themselves to have both male and female components, but due to Alanna's dominance tend to prefer female morphs) rather than use terms like "I" or "me". Their ultimate quest, even if they're not quite there yet, is to achieve a superior mental state... perhaps even transcending humanity entirely. In practice, however, they work as a psychosurgeon and interrogator for the cartels whilst fiddling with their own mind (or minds?) in their spare time.

Aeos are assertive, confident, and completely lacking in scruples - and are more than willing, however ill-advised it may be, to experiment upon themselves until they perfect their techniques. They even infected themselves with a mysterious mental virus they found in one particular subject ego - possibly a groundbreaking scientific discovery in and of itself! - which seems to have had mind-altering effects. They are now experimenting with the results of this viral mental editing to understand its potential, and whether it can be exploited further.

Knowing that transhumanity is probably not ready for their revolutionary ideas, Aeos, whilst they don't bother to hide their nature, do try to hold back on the "singularity seeker" angle. With the Egocrashers, however, they've found an employer also lacking in scruples who is willing to tolerate both their weirdness and their unhealthy ambitions so long as they get results.

Edited October 22, 2023 by TheFred (see edit history)

[TheFred]

Character Sheet

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Aptitudes
COG 20, INT 15, REF 15, SAV 20, SOM 10, WIL 15

Languages
English
Polish

Rep
c-rep (Planetary Consortium): 25
g-rep (Criminals): 45
r-rep (Researchers): 35

Traits
Psi (The Architect; Level 2) [4 CP]
Mental Disorder: Paramnesia
Mental Disorder: Narcissistic Personality Disorder [-2 CP]
Enhanced Behaviour (Assertiveness; Level 2) [-2 CP]
Neural Damage: Mood Swings [-2 CP]

Skills
Deceive: 70+10 (SAV 20 + 50)
Fray: 70 (REF 15 * 2 + 40)
Guns
Kinesics: 80+10 (SAV 20 + 60)
Know [Academics: Biology]: 65 (COG 20 + 45)
Know [Academics: Neuroscience]: 65 (COG 20 + 45)
Know [Academics: Psychology]: 80 (COG 20 + 60)
Know [Interest: Xenobiology]: 40 (COG 20 + 20)
Know [Profession: Psychotherapy]: 80 (COG 20 + 60)
Know [Profession: Interrogation]: 40 (COG 20 + 20)
Medicine [Psychosurgery] (Personality Editing): 80 (COG 20 + 60)
Perceive: 70 (INT 15 * 2 + 40)
Persuade (Negotiate): 70+10 (SAV 20 + 50)
Provoke (Interrogate): 70+10 (SAV 20 + 50)
Psi (Control): 60 (WIL 15 + 45)
Research (Scientific Papers): 40 (INT 15 + 25)
Total: 420/400, Know: 250/250

Psi
Psi-Chi:
Grok (free)
Charisma
Qualia
Social Cunning
Superior Kinesics

Psi-Gamma:
Basilisk Stare
Deep Scan
Influence
 

CP breakdown

Aptitudes: 5
Traits: -2 (4 CP positive, -6 CP negative)
Skills: 5
Specialisations: 5
Psi: 7

[TheFred]

Spare

[Morkskittar]

Your sheet has been updated here. If you want to add anything about your currently generic muse, feel free to.

Last chance to decide if you'd prefer ROVER or TOPHAT. ;)

 

[TheFred]

Thanks!

I always kinda forget muses and then don't really know what to do with them. 😕

We agreed TOPHAT in the end, didn't we?

Edited November 5, 2023 by TheFred (see edit history)

[TheFred]

What I'm thinking for gear:

Sylph morph (includes Clean Metabolism, Enhanced Pheromones) for 4 MP.

Probably Endocrine Control (3), Mind Amp (3), maybe Striking Looks (2 - or is that bad for infiltration? 😃), Stress Control (2)

Bioweave Armour (1), Second Skin (1), Armour Clothing (1), or a vacsuit if we're supposed to have vacsuits?

Anonymiser (1), VPN (1), Private Server (1), Ego Bridge (2) ...

That gives me ~4 spare, probably need some kind of weapon though, I kinda want to take like a Smart Hawk for kicks, but maybe a Cleaner Swarm or something, some sort of spy gear? Or just bioware: Multitasking, Neuromodulation, and of course Medichines always feel like a good go-to.

[Morkskittar]

Depends on what kind of infiltration. Someone on the other team has striking looks as well. Makes you a good decoy while everyone else gets up to shady business. ;)

I wouldn't hesitate to just go for kicks. That's why some of the options are there. :P

[Morkskittar]

I've gone ahead and added a Psychosurgery App as well for you, leaving you with 3 left. :)

[TheFred]

Oh, right, apparently I need one of those.

Is that just a 1-GP thing? I've found apps but it doesn't seem to say anything about psychosurgery.

Edited November 12, 2023 by TheFred (see edit history)

[TheFred]

Also, check my sums:

Sylphs get 1 Insight, 3 Moxie, 1 Vigour, 1 Flex

My sleights give me +1 Moxie, +1 Insight

Endocrine Control gives +2 Moxie (you had this down as +1, was that just a typo?), Mind Amp is +2 Insight

That should mean 4 Insight, 6 Moxie, 1 Vigour, 1 Flex?

You've got a +1 Vigour on there but I'm not sure where that comes from - is that meant to be Insight, or have I forgotten something? (The original version of this sheet I made ages ago for a different game, so it's entirely possible!)

[Morkskittar]

Yep, just a 1-GP app. It looks like a possible omission with the first to second edition transition that the psychosurgery app didn't make it. It's in the morph guide though. :)

And I am not sure what happened with my math there. You are absolutely correct. You have 2 Flex due to the extra ego flex, but it should be fixed now. Thanks for your math skills. XD

[TheFred]

Right, yeah, ego flex. OK that makes sense, then. That's a lot of pool points actually... I'm still not quite sure how good pools are, not least since I tend to horde such things, but I guess I'll have to try and use them more and find out!

[Morkskittar]

They're quite good, if you remember to use them. That's the tricky part. :P