The two items below are devices that can be made in a wholly mundane
fashion, but interact with the War on a non-mundane level. This is
something of a difficult business -- the trick is to find an observable
quantity which can be traced to a datum of interest about celestials.
Calabite Detector
This device basically consists of a shielded radiation source and a
decay counter with a sensor inside the shielding, communicating with a
computer on the outside. It works on the principle that things arond a
Calabite decay faster.[*] The counter registers the decay rate of the
radiation source, and alerts the user, by whatever means are desired, when
the decay rate increases significantly. As no natural force will cause
this, Calabim are the likely explanation; thus the device has a fairly low
false positive rate.
Its main problem is false negatives: there is quite a bit of noise
in the usual decay process, so a small source will both be statistically
"noisy", making it difficult to detect an increase, and increase less,
there being less material to be affected by the Calabite. So only in the
case of a 5 or 6 Cel. Force Calabite will there be any noticeable response.
The larger the source, of course, the better the device's perception.
"Larger," in this case, refers to more decays per second, not necessarily
physical size -- though size can help.
These devices can be found about Lightning Tethers, usually
well-hidden and connected to an alarm. Being incredibly simple, they can
also be found in Vapulan Tethers (where they don't want Calabim at all).
Other "civilized" Tethers can also have them; Jean declassified the plans
as soon as the simplest electrical counting devices came on the scene.
The sensitivity of a Calabite detector usually ranges from 1 to 6.
This is the number of yards away the detector can sense a Calabite with 1
Celestial Force; it can detect a 2-Forcer another yard away, and so forth.
Thus, a detector with a sensitivity of 6 will register a 1-Celestial-Force
Calabite at 6 yards, and a 6-Forcer at 11 yards. Stronger detectors are
possible, but begin to be prohibitive in cost; weaker detectors are
possible, activating only when a 1-Force (or more!) Calabite actually
touches the device, but Jean will not produce these regularly, only as
special requests. Homemade Vapulan versions occasionally are this weak.
Naturally, decaying radioactive material must be replaced. Unless
the players hardcore physicists that are really interested in decay rates
and their relationship to entropic increase*, figure that a detector will
lose one level of sensitivity each week unless the innards are refreshed
with radioactive material costing $10 x (original sensitivity), whereupon
the optimum sensitivity is regained. No roll needed -- this isn't enough
radioactivity to even bother humans unless exposed over a really long
time. Access to the material and proper disposal procedures are up to the
players, though if they got the detector through proper channels there
presumably will be personnel to willing to handle this kind of thing at the
nearest Lightning outpost.
The dectector's primary use in a game is as warning equipment,
attached in a stable post as part of Tether or outpost equipment. It is
portable however, if a bit heavy and bulky due to the shielding (the more
sensitivity, the worse these problems), and can be made and used by players
searching for Calabim or trying to avoid them.
Role Analyzer
This device is in fact a suite of programs, one for just about any
operating system in use today. All branches of the War find it useful; it
is heavily applied by War (to militaries), Judgment (to governments), and
Trade (to companies). There is even a version available that will attempt
to run on recent versions of VapulOS, though this is frequently a coin toss.
The user configures the program to take in personnel databases,
pointing out which fields should overlap; for example, "Name" on the W-2
records should match various parts of "First Name," "Last Name," and
"Middle Initial" on the HMO records, with certain tolerances. The program
will try to parse files on organization policy as well, to see if it can
understand rules. This is low-certainty, though, and thus low-priority.
It can also scan other archives, such as newspaper stories, trying to match
names and keywords, though this is tougher. It has two other features --
it can connect to the Internet and search (using its own browser) for
common keywords, and it can connect very privately to Jeanite and Trader
databases to look for known aliases and front organizations. (These
requests will require a password, and any other security features you have
set up, and will be logged.)
After being configured, the program begins correlating information
through the databases. Where there are blatant or possible mismatches, it
will raise a flag. Where there are signs of demonic activity, it will
raise a flag. Different flags have different point values. Examples of
flags are:
(1) Witness at crime scene
(1) Instructor, sword techniques
(1) Frequent maintenance calls, breakdowns
(2) Contradictory previous employment history
(2) Arrest record -- public disturbance, assault
(2) Member, True Connectedness Society (known front organization, Media)
(3) Admission papers below acceptance threshold -- special permission gained
(4) No admissions papers, yet registered for classes
Reasons for these flags: active demons are often near a crime
scene, or arrested on mundane charges; celestials with a traditional bent
may take roles as weapons instructors; a Calabite will, even if not trying
to be destructive, have frequent maintenance problems; employment histories
are often sources of Role flaws. The next-to-last flag may indicate a
Balseraph who talked his way in; the last flag, a big four-point finding,
indicates poor Role management.
The flags are updated constantly as researchers pore over revealed
Roles to determine where they might have been spotted; they try to spot
patterns of demonic activity and their results, to identify Band and Word
activities. All of Heaven does this, of course; these guys simply do it
full-time and try to condense it into an algorithm.
Using the Role Analyzer isn't celestially easy. To initially
configure the Analyzer, the user must make a Computer Operation roll at a
penalty of the level of Role they are looking for. (Take no penalty, and
sometimes you'll get lucky with a really poor Role). If the GM knows that
certain Roles are there to be found, the level of the Role is a further
penalty. On a pass, the program will come up with any noticeable flags and
propose the correct Role as a possible solution (maybe among two or three
possibilities). For example, somebody who came up with the second, third,
and fifth flags above would probably ping as a Calabite. However, he could
also be a human with bad luck and a tendency to hit things when he got mad
-- so investigation is still recommended. False positives are still
possible under the best of conditions. On a failure, the program will only
come up with one or two flags, and bury the Role among all the other data
it stores(still findable on a search -- easy Comp Op roll -- if the players
are testing that particular subject); it will also throw up some more false
positives. On a critical failure or critical success, eliminate any true
positives or false positives, respectively. On Interventions, go nuts.
Have the first letters of the flags spell out "Lilith" or something.
Using the Analyzer in a game will require a bit of preparation,
especially if the GM wishes to bring in several possibilities. I actually
am using it as a whole adventure, providing 7 suspects above a threshold
level of flag points (out of a population of about 25,000 at UPenn, where
the Analyzer studied student records and employee files), and letting the
PCs investigate the possibilities. This required several hours of work
beforehand and I had a hard document available. On the other hand, if the
PCs are looking at a specific Role, you can simply make the rolls and tell
them what they found, if anything.
* For the hardcore physicists: radioactive decay rates are proportional to
the derivative of the number of available states with respect to the energy
of the nucleus, which is related to entropy. After poking through a couple
of textbooks, I still wasn't 100% sure that this didn't mean a Calabite
would suppress radiation instead. So I took the literarily logical
route. Second, if you want to calculate prices and half-lives for nuclear
material, figure every half-life will reduce sensitivity by 1; the more
Becquerels, the better, and if you want to boost sensitivity past 6, have a
ball. A detector/6 will be no worse than medical barium or technetium,
though, just for playability's sake. [Return]
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