This is a best-of collection of articles and artwork from OVO, a zine founded and edited by friend of the blog Trevor Blake, “a public record of [his] interests and inquiries.” It’s interesting, it’s weird, and I don’t entirely know what to make of it. I guess it’s because I’m too young to appreciate it – I was barely out of diapers when Trevor was printing up the early editions of OVO on his pal’s company’s copiers in the eighties. To someone of the Internet Era, where narcissistic self-expression is just a couple of mouse clicks away, the effort and dedication involved in compiling an entire magazine, from writing and gathering the material to binding the physical copies and mailing them out, is difficult to relate to.

Still, this is a great little collection of oddities, ranging from poetry to short stories to investigative journalism on offbeat subjects. They include “Holding Games for Ransom,” about how one tabletop game creator found a way to keep online piracy from cutting into his profits; “A Pit Stop Along the Inward Journey,” a stream-of-consciousness tale beginning with white guilt and ending with madness; and “23 Sperm Stories 23,” the longest article in the book, on just about every aspect of sperm, from its discovery, its function, and its future. Of particular interest to us in the manosphere are “Warbucks Intra-Family Communique” and “Becoming More Free” by Ernest Mann. The former is a satirical article on the emptiness and mindlessness of American consumerism; the latter is on how Mann unplugged himself from the Matrix of American culture:

I am wasting less of my time (LIFE) watching, listening to and reading THOUGHT LEADERS, ie, TV, movies, radio, music, newspapers, magazines and novels. These are like spectator sports. They cause me to live life vicariously, ie, second-hand, not real, only in fantasy. These mind conditioners are subtly designed to create not only fear and anger emotions but also create feelings of guilt and inadequacy. These feeling stifle growth and keep one securely in one’s rut. And of course the more visible purpose of the media is to create the desire to acquire (BUY! BUY! BUY!) and keep up with the Joneses. ‘Buying’ uses up my savings. I spent 22 years of my TIME (life) working as a Wage Slave. I helped perpetuate the status quo, ie a world of 98.6% Slaves and less than 1% Elite (Billionaires). I don’t wish to do that any more.

But the real prize is Trevor’s own writings, comprising the second half of the book. They include book reviews (including an exhaustive review of one of my favorites, L.A. Rollins’ Myth of Natural Rights), interviews with such diverse individuals as a bulimia sufferer and an expert on out-of-body experiences/bilocation, and my favorite, “Trajectory Through Anarchism,” in which Trevor tracks the evolution of his political beliefs:

1996: Feeling free of anarchism and a little burned by what I now see was my own hooded thinking, I call up the imp of the perverse to see what other forbidden ideas might be out there. Ayn Rand is suggested, and I read her works. Having already shed one hood I’m less inclined to put another one on, and I do not become an Objectivist. But moving through Objectivism brings libertarian thinking to my attention. It’s something about the sovereignty of the individual… but I’ve walked down that path already and don’t sign on as a libertarian either.

Like The eXile, OVO 20 comes in a 8 1/2 by 11 inch size, to fit artwork and cartoons on the pages – I was particularly amused by “Attack of the Giant Killer Sperm.” One minor issue I have with the design is that all paragraphs in OVO 20 are punctuated with bullet points. I suppose they’re there to make the book look distinctive, but I found them mildly distracting, fooling my eyes into thinking I was reading a series of lists instead of articles.

Still, if you want to take an excursion into the bizarre and come back a little more enlightened, OV0 20 is a fun and informative read. If you’re still not convinced, Trevor maintains a free online archive of all OVO articles here. He also has some words of wisdom for aspiring writers and publishers:

…First and most important, get busy. Your time is already diminished by work and mortality, and neither of those situations is going to improve. Keep a printed copy of what you make and write down the date of when you made it. Large bodies of work and the pleasure they bring are made a few small pieces at a time. Learn about the history of what interests you. Novelty is rare and not always of value for being novel. Your friends are not being documented right now and you are the one who can do a good job with that. Read with regularity outside your area of interests. Nothing will point out your own ignorance and error better than attentiveness to those who disagree with you, nothing makes what you know make sense like learning something unrelated to what you know. Take as many chances as you are willing to take the lumps for.

But most of all, get busy.

Those who long to live in 1911 choose that year – really any year from 1890 to 1914 would be equally ok – just because it’s safely in the middle of that long lingering last “decade” of the long 19th Century – which was also the first heroic decade of true modern radicalism – e.g. – the Wandervogel, Stirnerite anarchism, the IWW and Jim Larkin, Ascona, Sex Radicals & Nudists – etc.  And still far removed from the future of total war & totalitarianism to come – a time of utopian revolutionary hope.

Also of course it’s the Age of Decadence – final year of the Manchu Dynasty – opium ten cents a bottle at any country store – the Paris of J. K. Huysmans.  Gaslight.  Also: the last gasp of true agrarianism in the USA – age of Populism, the Grange, Farmers Alliance – the last rural decade.

But there’s another reason we choose 1911 (or thereabouts) for our little Golden Age. It has to do with technology. In 1911 almost all the actual conveniences of modern tech already existed: the car, the telephone, the electric bulb, the phonograph… Now we Luddites do not approve of cars or any of these inventions, which all subtract from the quanta of Imagination available to individuals & to the Social. But we have to admit – they’re convenient. In their primitive forms they’re almost likable. The only real convenience invented since then – the electric refrigerator – can be replaced by an Amish-built propane refrigerator – OR – we could re-invent the ice-box. We hope someday to learn to sing again, but till then we can accept a few hand-cranked shellac records (but no radio or TV). Computers are NOT in any way part of a revived 1911 however. It’s time to wake up & smell the rot of technopathology.

The telephone easily corrodes social presence & reduces selves to disembodies “voices of the Unseen,” as the Arabs called the invention. But again the primitive version, with its “party lines” & snoopy local Operators, had a social aspect now completely leached out of the medium. If we must be thus haunted let it be via one of these elegant sinister objects – a real murder weapon.

Full play of Imagination becomes possible only without modern technology, because tech has become the heartless operation of Capital, which hates all forms of sharing. Let’s work for a secular Anabaptism, bold enough finally to refuse everything back to the steam engine – at least. Whereupon we may resume human life.

OVO 20 JUVEN(a/i)LIA

112 pages, 8.5 x 11, $10.00

The best of OVO 1987 – 2011. Walter Alter, Dmitry Babenko, Hakim Bey, Trevor Blake, Johnny Brainwash, Chris C. Cilla, Cunnichant Night Owl, Mike Diana, Yael Ruth Dragwyla, James Ellis, Karen Elliot, Feral Faun, Klint Finley, Richard Ford, Chris Gross, Mike Gunderloy, Ginger Hutton, Ian MacEwan, Ernest Mann, Melissa, Thom Metzger, Jennifer Murrian, PM, Gerry Reith, James V. Scianna, Stuart Swezey, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, V. Vale.

[Free] [Purchase]

Review by Ferdinand Bardamu: “To someone of the Internet Era, where narcissistic self-expression is just a couple of mouse clicks away, the effort and dedication involved in compiling an entire magazine, from writing and gathering the material to binding the physical copies and mailing them out, is difficult to relate to. Still, this is a great little collection of oddities, ranging from poetry to short stories to investigative journalism on offbeat subjects.”

Trevor Blake: Introduction
Mike Diana: Read OVO
Hakim Bey: Salon Apocalypse
Hakim Bey: Evil Eye
Hakim Bey: Intellectual S/M is the Fascism of the Eighties
Hakim Bey: Ringing Denunciation of Surrealism
Johnny Brainwash: Holding Games for Ransom
Gerry Reith: Letter from the Graveyard Shift
Cunnichant Night Owl: Lunalogue
Thom Metzger: The Hypmogoogoopizin’ Man
Thom Metzger: Wad Rules
Richard Ford: Bellowing Forth and Brandishing
James Ellis: Mayhem
Mike Gunderloy: The Meta-Network
James V. Scianna: A Pit Stop Along the Inward Journey
Chris Cilla: Sperm Trek
Anonymous: 23 Sperm Stories 23
Mike Diana: Attack of the Giant Killer Sperm
Feral Faun: Thoughts on Experimentation
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: Lidznap
Chris Gross: Three Letters
James Ellis: Control
Klint Finley: The New Currency War
PM: Liberating Wednesday
Ernest Mann: Warbucks Intra-Family Communique
Ernest Mann: Becoming More Free
Karen Elliot: Operation Negation
Walter Alter: Little Wally’s Reader (Lights = Camera = Action / Densest? / The List of Recalibrations)
Chris Cilla: Apple / Pineapple
Review: My Struggle by Mark Mothersbaugh
Review: The Skin Horse by Nabil Shaban
Review: The Myth of Natural Rights by L. A. Rollins
Interview: Melissa
Interview: Stuart Swezey
Interview: Ginger Hutton
Interview: Yael Ruth Dragwyla
Interview: Jennifer Murrian
Interview: V. Vale
Trevor Blake: Tape Fragmentation
Trevor Blake: Magnetic Poetry
Trevor Blake: Saturn Return
Trevor Blake: New Superstition from a Dream
Trevor Blake: Mutants First
Trevor Blake: Science is Anti-Authoritarian
Trevor Blake: Tipping Points
Trevor Blake: Cursed Object
Trevor Blake: Trajectory Through Anarchism
James Ellis: Suffering
Trevor Blake: The Bonus Army
Trevor Blake: Multiple Name Identities
Trevor Blake: Co-Remoting with the Thunderous
Trevor Blake: Ecclesiastes 9:10
About the Contributors

… or assemble your own anthology from what I think of as the best few dozen articles or from all 19,000+ articles.

Trevor Blake: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day 2011.  May 2011.  Ink drawing.  Public domain.

See also:
Trevor Blake: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day 2010.
Trevor Blake: The New Comics Code Authority.

My microcarcassonne is made with magnets, sewing pins, paper and a candy box.  Scale is one half inch per background square.

Only a handful of other games can compete with D&D for profitability. Many are lucky if they can even make it onto the shelves. Major book retailers like Borders prefer to deal only with established and well-supported games. Local gaming stores, meanwhile, are usually shoestring operations with limited shelf space and a bewildering array of options. Again, an established line is usually a safer bet.

Selling directly to fans seemed to become easier with the internet – anyone who could find your game online could order it, regardless of whether their local gaming store stocked it or not. But the costs of printing a large enough run were still prohibitive. Some publishers tried selling digital copies, starting with various e-book formats but quickly settling for the basic .pdf.

Unfortunately, anything sold as a .pdf is quickly shared, and stops selling as free copies become available. Sharing music isn’t catastrophic for independent artists, because they can make their money on live performances. Game publishers have no such option, however – the book or manual itself is their primary source of income. They don’t sell concert tickets or t-shirts. And independent game writers, without the resources of a bigger company to back them up, can’t subsidize their game books with collectible cards or miniatures.

If they can’t get paid to create games, they can’t keep doing it. At least they can’t give it the time and attention that it deserves. One game writer, however, is trying a new model, one that’s off to a promising start.

In 2004, Greg Stolze and Daniel Solis created a fun little game called Meatbot Massacre. It’s a tactical dice game where players design bioengineered war robots and fight them in an arena. It’s well-written and tightly designed, and introduces an innovative dice-rolling system. It’s a game that feeds the enthusiasms of a select group of gamers, a niche within a niche, but it’s not a game that will generate enough profit to be worth printing. Not on a traditional retail model, at least.

But Stolze re-imagined his audience. Instead of a group of individual customers, he saw them as a collective. He wanted to harness the support of the gaming community to sell the game to the community. They didn’t all have to buy as individuals – they just had to offer enough collectively. So he decided to hold the game for ransom.

In December of 2004, he announced that the game had been written, and would be released into the public domain when he received $600 for it. It was a small start – the game itself was only ten pages, and Stolze set the price by determining all the expenses and then paying himself four cents a word, the low end for game writing. Solis set up a ransom website with a PayPal button, and they set a deadline of September 2005. If the ransom wasn’t collected by then, the game wouldn’t be released, and whatever money had been raised would be turned over to a homeless shelter.

Ransoming a game was a novel idea, and no one knew how it would work. After a strong start, donations slowed to a trickle, but they kept coming in. The $600 goal was achieved in five months, half the time allotted, and the game was released as a free download in April 2005.

With this success under their belts, Stolze and Solis went on to produce …In Spaaace!, a comic role-playing game of space shenanigans. Like Meatbot Massacre, it was an innovative system, based this time on bidding with tokens instead of rolling any dice. And like Meatbot Massacre, while it would find a hearty welcome in a certain narrow audience, it would never be profitable for retail.

They set the ransom in July 2005, this time at $750 for a fifteen page game, still paying Stolze less than five cents a word. Instead of ten months, however, they set the deadline at six weeks, and it only took four to collect.

There was another big difference in this ransom, apart from the shorter time period. Instead of running their own site and collecting PayPal donations, Stolze and Solis moved their operation to a new site, www.fundable.org. Describing itself, Fundable says it “lets groups of people pool funds to make purchases or raise money.” It collects pledges, not actual payments, towards whatever goal the group leader sets. When the goal is met, the money is collected, Fundable collects 7%, and the remainder is sent to the group leader by PayPal (or by check, for a $10 fee.). If the goal isn’t met, the pledges are released and no money changes hands.

Greg Stolze went on to release two more games on Fundable. Soon after the success of …In Spaaace!, he teamed up with four other writers and designers to produce Executive Decision, in which characters are Oval Office advisors who compete for the President’s ear while pursuing their own agendas. It was offered in September 2005 as a fundraiser for the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina. In one month, it met its goal of $1000, which was devoted to relief efforts.

Then in February 2006, Stolze and fellow game developer Dennis Detwiller offered Nemesis for a $1000 ransom. In this case, there was a 25-day deadline that was met in just 11 days. Nemesis was the largest yet, at 56 pages, and it was also an important release for other reasons.

Stolze and Detwiller had worked together before, notably on 2002′s Godlike, a superhero role-playing game set in World War II. For this game, Stolze developed the dice mechanic that would become the One-Roll Engine (ORE), a generic game system that could accommodate any setting. Stolze and Detwiller would release Wild Talents, the sequel to Godlike, at the end of 2006, but in the meantime Godlike was all there was.

Nemesis was the ORE, stripped of superpowers, spliced to a system for madness from Stolze’s earlier work on the Unknown Armies game, and placed in a horror setting reminiscent of the Cthulhu mythos. It was the first ORE release since Godlike, and by working with characters who were ordinary mortals, it made the system accessible to a much broader range of settings than a superhero game could be. It served as a default system document for the ORE, and continues to fill an important function within the system.

But Nemesis only set the stage for Stolze’s next project. Reign was to be his long-awaited fantasy adaptation of the ORE, with a new set of rules for characters to build organizations and play on a much larger scale. It was to be a full-size core rulebook, over 350 pages, far larger than anything that had been published by ransom. Stolze didn’t want to stretch the ransom model to the breaking point, but he couldn’t afford to print the books himself either. He chose instead to use Lulu.com for print-on-demand (POD).

Reign came out on Lulu in May 2007. It came in four editions: hard or soft cover, and with a choice of cover art by Daniel Solis or Dennis Detwiller. The softcover editions ran into trouble with some misprints, which took several months to clear up. Also, POD can’t offer the price breaks of mass production, so the books were spendy: $36.89 for the soft covers and $49.30 for the hard, with more tacked on for postage. This compares to $29.95 for hardcovers of the core D&D books, and $39.95 for the hardcover of Godlike from the small press Arc Dream Publishing.

Despite the problems and the cost, Reign has sold well for POD. In October of 2007, Stolze reported on his website that he’d sold 675 copies. Not a lot compared to D&D, but a decent showing for an independent game. He reported that he’d currently made over $12,000 from Lulu, selling the four editions of Reign and one small book of short stories. None of that money included what he made from the supplements.

Traditionally, role-playing games offer one or more hefty rulebooks, followed by a number of supplements. Managed well, new supplements can continue to bring in money once the core books have leveled off. But from the player’s perspective, the constant flow of supplements sometimes feels like being milked for every available penny.

At the end of the Reign rulebook, Stolze makes a promise: “You’re holding in your hands the last Reign product to be released solely as a print book with a fixed price. Everything else is going to come out via the Ransom Model.”

From June to October 2007, Stolze offered for supplements for a ransom of $1000 each. Each one had a deadline of 25 days. The first three made their goals; the last one came up $20 short but was released anyway. More are said to be in the works.

Stolze seems to have dedicated himself to building a new model of making and selling games, one with the potential to reach players directly, saving the game’s creator the overhead of printing and distribution and bypassing the fight for retail shelf-space. He’s made a good start, but important questions remain.

Stolze and his collaborators were already well-known in the gaming community. Stolze had worked for White Wolf Publishing, the main competitor to Wizards of the Coast, as well as the smaller Atlas Games, where he had worked on the seminal Unknown Armies. The ransom model depends largely on his well-established reputation, which also helps to overcome the high price of print-on-demand. But will his model work for a writer without his reputation? What happens to a designer without a built-in audience? How will a system based on reputation allow for new blood to enter the field?

It also remains to be seen if this model will work for Stolze in the long run. Will ransom continue to work when the novelty wears off, and will it allow him to establish a regular source of income? Other than coming up $20 short on one Reign supplement, he hasn’t failed to achieve a ransom yet. What will happen when he does? The system looks good when it succeeds, but is it robust enough to handle failure?

Finally, what else can the ransom model support? Fundable’s primary market seems to be non-profit fundraising and group purchases. It also boasts of supporting books, music and film. How far can this approach be taken, and can it be optimized for particular types of products? Game design has such a narrow audience that it may have to ride the coattails of more popular fields, such as independent musicians.

Stolze’s efforts may succeed and grow, or they may become another internet casualty. But in the meantime, they’ve already put good innovative games in the hands of players, and broadened the range of what can be done with gaming. Long-range success is by no means assured, but Greg Stolze is doing his best to find a new way for his industry to work.

RESOURCES:
www.gregstolze.com
www.gregstolze.com/downloads.html
www.fundable.org
www.lulu.com
stores.lulu.com/gregstolze

Johnny Brainwash only talks about gaming and riding his bike. johnnybrainwash@hotmail.com

from OVO 18 MONEY (April 2008)

Trevor Blake & OGRE collection (partial). Portland, Oregon USA. 30 July 2010.

Bellowing forth “Whats this all about” and brandishing Doc’s own invention, Habeus Corpus bombed unknown dangers. They actually believed started off with the attack on several sheet-metal drums, just almost destroyed the Hidalgo Trading Company and affected Ham’s silk underwear. Sex and violence fans knew this was due to the lust for power, and assumed that the return of wide ties was better than this.

Bellowing forth “Good afternoon” and brandishing Doc’s own invention, Habeus Corpus almost went to work on Montana. The present farce started off with the discovery of Doc’s melodic trilling, just barely saved Doc’s institute for criminals and affected Ham’s silk underwear. Under-amalgamataed fans knew this was due to severe constipation, and true blue that another Doc Savage movie could be arranged.

Bellowing forth “What the hell up there” and brandishing gas bombs, Doc’s cousin Pat almost sprayed death at the criminal’s lair. The somehow familiar plot started off with a CBS documentary of Doc’s melodic trilling and affected the American way of life. Was almost as good as fans knew this was due to severe constipation, and didn’t know that loads of boredom was to be preferred.

Bellowing forth “So’s your mama” and brandishing gas bombs, Doc’s cousin Pat almost bombed unknown dangers. The drug-induced madness started of with Doc disguised as the crook’s gunfire, just caused tenor at the Inner Sanctum and affected law in civilized nations. Was almost as good fans knew this was due to Pat’s good looks, and figured out that television viewing never happened.

Bellowing forth “This Bud’s for you” and brandishing keen wits, the electrical wizard almost sprayed death at the criminal’s lair. The totally rad part started off with the grisly death of Monk’s bad breath, just barely rust-proofed the Inner Sanctum and affected pulp literature. Doc Savage fans knew this was due to Pat’s good looks, and didn’t know that the return of wide ties was better than this.

Bellowing forth “I’ll be superamalgamated” and brandishing U. S. phantom jets, The Avenger (on loan from another novel) almost bombarded unknown dangers. The scientific wonders started off with the theft of the homely chemist in a dark alley, just barely undressed a tremendous burst of static and affected Doc’s prehensile toes. Was almost as good fans knew this was due to severe constipation and feared that another sequel was better than this.

Bellowing forth “So’s your mama” and brandishing nearly superhuman strength., three disgusting crooks almost searched in vain for tropical jungles. The worst book of them all started off with Pat’s encounter with Long Tom, just barely miniaturized a rock concert and affected Johnny’s vocabulary. Doc Savage fans knew this was due to punk rockers, and realized that another Doc Savage movie couldn’t be helped.

Bellowing forth “So’s your mama” and brandishing keen wits, the electrical wizard almost invaded modem massage parlors. The actually believed started off with the attack on stiff red hair, just barely make the world safe from the Island of Death and affected pulp literature. Was almost as good fans knew this was due to Johnny’s lips, and realized that a sex change for Doc stank.

Bellowing forth “So’s your mama” and brandishing tricky devices, the dapper lawyer almost rampages through upstate New York. The worst book of them all started out with Pat’s encounter with Doc’s left foot, just barely hocked thrift stores and affected Monk’s virginity. Pulp lit fans knew this was due to Doc’s hemorrhoids, and hoped to god that television viewing was bound to happen.

Bellowing forth “Look out you ape” and brandishing five weapons, the man of bronze almost came out of Ham’s swank apartment. The drug-induced madness started out with Doc disguised as Doc‘s melodic trilling, just barely saved thrift stores and affected Ham’s silk underwear. Empire State Building fans knew this was due to the lust for power, and true blue that loads of boredom ate it and died.

Bellowing forth ‘You heard me” and brandishing U. S. phantom jets, The Avenger (on loan from another novel) almost went to work on Montana. The scientific wonder started off with the theft of Kenneth Robeson, just barely brought Doc’s focus on sunken realms and affected Doc’s prehensile toes. Pulp lit fans knew this was due to a commie plot, and should be warned that life on Mars a slow death of stupidity.

Bellowing forth “Hi fella” and brandishing gas bombs, Doc’s cousin Pat almost sprayed death at the criminals lair. The present farce started off with the discovery of Rennie’s big fists, just barely wiped out a tremendous burst of static and affected pulp literature. Doc Savage fans knew this was due to a low fiber diet, and feared that life on Mars ate it and died.

(from OVO 12 SCIENCE November 1991)

Trevor Blake: Heavy Tank and Mark V OGRE. Work in progress.  CGI model and animation made with Google Sketchup.

OGRE is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy (http://www.sjgames.com/general/online_policy.html).

Among these papers were notes for a science fiction role playing game setting I wrote at the age of 24 in 1990. The setting was partially what I thought the next twenty years would be like and partially a dramatic invention to move the narrative forward. Here are some of those notes from twenty years ago.

A person who is a very proficient technician. This person is hired by some of the top corporations to solve software problems. They could be hired on to any of these corps at a high fee, but instead they are contacted via a net equivalent of a mail drop, do their work from afar, and post their fee which is then deposited in a special account. Sometimes the problem software is left at the drop then picked up later, sometimes access is given to the problem spot for the technician to get to. This person operates in this way to be able to work with the systems they find challenging without running the risk of being “owned” by the corp. If they worked in the open they would be committed to a limited environment and almost certainly not allowed to retire.

There are many ways this person could be brought into a game. The characters could see them slipping through the net in places other have found impossible to pass (yet this person appears to be a low-power individual… their net image isn’t particularly well armed.). They could get curious & follow them around. The characters could be hired to discover who this person is by a corp who wants to “hire” them. The characters could see (accidentally) the passage open to this person and run down it themselves. It would never be the case that this person would contact the characters.

Once the characters meet this person (which should be extremely difficult, even as an accident – remember, they’ve been evading the corps for a while now) they will be faced with the choice of keeping their identity secret and preserving their freedom (with the possibility the person will reward them) or of selling this information to one (or more) corps for a substantial amount. The second choice could result in acquisition of a powerful enemy but also the support of the corp (for a while at least).

A variation on this idea might be that there are two of these people, in different places, who may have never even met. This would allow for each variation on this idea to be carried out, or the same one carried out twice. If there are two they could cover each other too. If there are two they need not appear as two… if the characters are looking for one person and they discover the handle they are looking for is more than one person that would be a big shock.

An Autoduel subsection? Good chance for pure mayhem & violence. Could be optional, a thing observed but not participated in.

Telephone Operator, Shadow in Vain, Replicas.

Eventually the US Government is going to have enough pressure from the corps (and troubles of its won) to regulate ownership of all but the most simple of computers and much software as well. Computers able to link with other computers (ie: most) must be registered by manufacturer, serial number, owner, place and date of purchase. This applies to Complexity 2 computers. Each Complexity level of a computer requires a special permit to own. The higher the Complexity, the more rigorous the requirements for ownership and expense of the permit. Cyberdecks have been completely outlawed for the general public. However, several industrious Cyberdeck corps have gotten around these laws by incorporating Cyberdeck technology into items with functions other than netrunning. One is the Home Flight Simulator, which is indeed a flight simulator but also can be used for the Net. The Net Environment is expressed in flight related terms, be it WWI triple wings or intergalactic space ships. Another kind of Cyberdeck is built into a special automobile. It is a car, and a good one, but it has driving simulations that are net-accessible. The third type of cheat-Cyberdeck is the Home Studio, a musical environment. The last is the Model Home, a home management deck that controls temp, lights, etc. This also lets you speculate about adding new “rooms,” etc. This last kind is also called the Smart Toaster. In descending order of cost and power, the sneaky Cyberdecks are Flight Simulator, Car, Music and Smart Toaster. The Flight Simulator might actually be in an air/space ship of some sort, but would more likely be in the relaxation lounge of a big corp or wealthy netrunner. None of these Cyberdecks can interact well (which creates some problems with the rules) if at all. Speaking of interfacing, I see it pretty obvious not all computers will interface. Many will, but plenty of low Complexity but indispensable ones will not without a special adapter.

What will be the mode of self-expression for people who choose not to be “naturals,” who never go outside or exercise or eat anything but pills, who know they live in a totally climate controlled environment? [...] Perhaps changes to digestion and certain neurodrives (hunger-related, like a kill joy?). This will be very appropriate to people in space or under sea, but some city dwellers may chose this too.

New York City has been nuked to rubble by terrorists. NYC would be a force to really shape this game, but I’m taking the easy way out by saying its just not here any more. Which in turn allows for the story development before (who & why nuked) and after (where are the NYers to go? Both as a people and as a cultural icon?). Combustion engines will almost certainly be gone. Battery powered cars & buses will be the new main mode of transport. This will certainly effect the politics of the OPEC nations. They will have been over run long ago by superpowers. Gas engines will be outlawed in cities once battery cars are common. Only in the country will you find them in use as farm tools. Old car collectors will develop cultures similar to motorcycle clubs, a legitimate hobby with social stigma.

Cloning [will not be prevalent] except as a means to produce certain foods. Big vats of self-replicating protein soy-glorp will feed many people. [...] Super artificial hearts.

Corps are going to outright own more towns. Some will be like miner towns (essentially a fiefdom) while others will be like Oak Ridge [Tennessee]. The US Government will still exist but will include libertarians & even socialist & communist members at high levels. Electronic at-home voting is tried one year – a netrunner elects a total nobody as president as a joke. The whole election has to be re-done, creating a 4 month period with essentially no government. During this time there are big shake-ups in structure. The corps come out strong, the military & police grant themselves new powers, some attempts at secession are made (perhaps one or two tiny ones succeed). This even plus the NYC nuking are two big factors culturally that shape the US. The NYC nuking results in martial law for a while, which erupts into something of a civil war.

Terrorism hits the US in a big way?

All sorts of marriages are recognized. A future Pope makes some stupid remark and the Catholic Church splits again. A US Papacy is established. Holy wars? Roman Catholics vs. New Catholics.

New drugs that give shared (if simple) experiences developed. Example: hallucination of telepathy (real or not). Age limit on alcohol removed. Lots of horrible new drugs. Tracing the potential telepathy drug from scientist to corp to government to black market could be a story line. If it is a telepathy drug this could provide a happy ending or at least a radical change the characters could be involved in.

AIDS kills half or less world population before vaccine developed. This is optional, and doesn’t even cure people. It just makes it non-fatal.

The Rifkin Act wrapped up genetic research in so much red tape it came to a halt. The Rifkin Act requires most genetic research to be made a public affair: the total ramifications of all experiments must be reviewed by politicians, citizen groups, medical groups, ecologists, etc. This slows down research. A theory must be worked out in full on paper, reviewed, and if it is approved and changed it must be re-reviewed. Certain diseases are cured, some birth defects vanish (from the West), soy vats feed much of the world. But no clones or organ banks.

All this BS about leaving an electronic trail – it’s just moving technology backwards while putting in in tomorrow’s clothes. The present is paper shuffling, a step ahead of wagon ruts in the ground. This electronic trail stuff puts the wagon ruts in the computer that replaces paper shuffling.

I could base my net on my personal postal network, at least in part. At least locate them in cities that correspond to my own access points (Rensselaer, Dallas, San Francisco, etc.).

Pirate telephone networks. Not just worms in existing systems, whole pirate systems. To launch or liberate a satellite might be might be all that is needed. Implications of powerful / rick hacker here – I want to avoid that.

The different types of Cyberdecks are definitely not compatible. Above even the Flight Simulator is the type of Cyberdeck the military has. It uses actual head plugs. The other monitor subvocalizatoin, eye movements, as well as outright control with hands and body. The government Cyberdecks could control robot explorers in sea and space, or a robot fighter. Netrunning capabilities won’t be a main focus, I’d say.

There will be large contaminated areas from nuclear accidents in countries other than superpowers. Maybe the Middle East or South America. Safe soft energy will be common. Solar collectors in space that beam down microwaves to power batteries are an important part of the power system. Credit cards & checks will be the common currency. Government money will exist but will be useful only to the underground economy due to its anonymity. Debit cards will have been attempted & shown to be too easy to monkey with.