Building Trauma Team using GURPS ULTRATECH

[hal]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

TTI can't contract their security out to Arasaka. TTI has medical scans of the executives of many major corporations, and the whole neutrality thing means that they have to make sure that information is closely held and not shared with other corporations.

And TTI might actually be gentle with netrunners who crack TTI's security. Turning a black hat into a security expert is a time honored technique. It's the netrunners who pretend to be TTI in order to get access on other mega-corps that TTI can't abide. TTI needs the guarantee that when a DMA executive gets injured on Smartz property, the biomonitor's signal goes out - and any TTI messages go in. That doesn't work if Smartz believes TTI messages need to be quarantined as potential netrunner exploits.

I agree - looks like TTI will have to handle their security, in house. I'm also thinking that TTI's ability to come in, pick up a wounded person - might also look like an "extraction against their wishes" scenario of a given individual who is on the payroll of another corp.

Much as I'd hate to have to go down this particular road, TTI would have to guard its logo, colors, etc - against anyone who would attempt to use it for anything but TTI business. What might be called "Trade dress" would be defended vigourously. Since the Cyberpunk world that I run is an odd mixture of "trimming back over the top stuff" and "ramping up stuff that isn't legal today" - the issue inlvolving corporations and the general freedom they have in protecting their "rights" becomes central to everything.

I had multiple paragraphs written about my reasons for why I've tried to tone down many of the things in CYBERPUNK game worlds, yet increase the powers of corporations - is based on my observations of history and of socio-political aspects of history that continue even into modern times. Sadly, much of my commentary touches on political themes that hew too close to the boundaries of "thou shalt not discuss politics" that I have to shy away from it. I am no Hari Seldon of FOUNDATION, but I can see a fair number of interesting trends that I wonder what the solutions will be.

What is Trade? At the most basic level, it is the ability to take something you can fashion from your own time and effort, and exchange it for something someone else can create/fashion/supply. Money simplifies the trade process because everyone agrees it is valuable. Then we left the stage where money was precious metals, and went to the non-backed currency we utilize today.

If - for any reason, a worker can't trade their own time and efforts to gain access to someone else's output, said individual has to make do without. Food is a basic necessity, which is purchased by...

Money?

Which in turn, is purchased by or awarded by...?

Someone in exchange for what they can provide.

The Great Depression reached a stage in which one in four had no job. Compare or contrast this with the number of people in the US who are currently receiving welfare funds - rated at 19% today. Not all too much of a difference between 1 in 4 being unemployed, and 1 in 5 receiving a government stipend in the form of Welfare checks. Imagine raising the welfare numbers to 1 in 3 - and this doesn't include those who are on social security who have paid a portion of their income into Social Security all of their working lives.

In 1950, the Fertility rate exceeded the replacement rates of 2.1 children per woman to where today, the fertility rate is at a jaw dropping 1.6 children per woman (this is the ENTIRE reproductive lifetime of a woman on average). In 1955, it was FIVE children per.

So - Cyberpunk 2020's body lottery concept, while "entertaining" has implications for Society as a whole. If the replacement rate has dropped to below what it takes to maintain zero population growth, then without excessive death rates, the population will shrink significantly.

Population growth/decline = Births + Immigration - Deaths - emigration.

If the fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman means that you can replace the father, you can replace the mother, and the .1 child accounts for those who are born barren, die before reaching reproductive age, etc - then what happens when you have a total of 32 deaths per day in a single city? The Deaths will very quickly outstrip the births is what happens. When violence grows so severe that people flee the environment for apparent safety, that increases the emigration rate.

So - now you see why I try NOT to hew too closely to CYBERPUNK 2020's version of the future. It is non-sustainable. It would be akin to watching the daily rolls for death tolls from battles. If night city's death toll is fluctuates around 32 deaths nightly (some nights higher, some nights lower), that's a loss of life per annum of close to 12,000 people. 15,000 is a battalion equivalent. Now multiply that by how ever many cities you want, and the US is losing roughly 1 battalion equivalent per major city with these levels of deaths. **Shrug**

In the end, I try to keep things as reasonable as I can, weed out things like "Bozos" and keep the narrative down to "For those areas in the combat zones, where the city government has largely ignored, local gangs will spring up as protection services to keep chaos down - these gangs may be called militia in scope and be reasonably law abiding, or they may shake down the locals for support in some fashion, or they may become criminal intent gangs who act as parasites. Either way - people who hate chaos will organize against it. If the criminals don't have money to buy bullets, what will they use to enforce or terrorize people? Melee weapons right? If the general population can't afford knives and such, they'll improvise weapons. But that is symptomatic of a lower tech level of lifestyle...

**Shrug**

So, yes, I welcome some of those who participate in this who DO want to hew to the line that R Talsorian created. This is GURPS. You should be able to simulate CP2020 style gaming and have a CP2020 background - but using GURPS game mechanics. But likewise, a toned down CP2020 is equally plausible and perhaps even desirable for those who like their CP to be more gritty but less over the top. Trying to detail TTI in realistic terms is fun for me (and hopefully fun for you). Why?

1) Want to run a TTI style game akin to EMERGENCY (TV series from the past)? This is the way to detail it. How it works, what it costs, how much income/profit is made, etc

2) how its adminsitrative policies may be fashioned to respond to the environment (Which includes net running by the way).

3) what the needs of the community may be. For example? What if TTI has other duties such as inspecting creche cryotubes (as alluded to in the NIGHT CITY sourcebook). What if TTI can lower its tax oblications if it provides what would be in lawyer firms - pro-bono services? A TT that touches down in a combat zone, provides the public service of local health care - has a security team to protect the doctors and the medical supplies and gear.

It becomes an exercise of "a day in the life of a TT member" kind of thing.

:)

Now, CP2020 never had GURPS ULTRATECH (Classic) or ULTRATECH 2 (Classic) nor ULTRATECH for 4e nor BIOTECH (classic or 4e). How does that change things. That is what this thread is for.

[hal]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Night City is much smaller than Greater Los Angeles, the sourcebook map was for a small city. If anything its a California City that didn't completely fail (and is in Moro Bay, not the middle of a sodium borate flat in the middle of nowhere). It was founded in the ougties IIRC.

While Night City is supposed to be smaller than the Greater Los Angeles, its 8 million Population is comparable with the Greater Los Angeles. I would suspect that just as Los Angeles has its suburbs as part of it, Areas like Pacifica, Rancho Coronado, Heywood, South Night City, Little Europe (what in CP2020 is called Little Italy etc), University district - are all part of the Greater Night City area.

I don't think that one small region of detailed by the Night City Sourcebook actually houses 8 million people. That doesn't fit with California's climate etc. Although, in all honesty? Night City's existence is totally inconsistent with actual California geography. Why? Much of the area that is detailed in Night City actually occupies areas that are not heavily urbanized. It even includes (if I recall correctly) Carmel-by-the-Sea. Clint Eastwood's old mayoral seat.

In any event, using LA as a sort of gudeline for an 8 million population city looks about right - at least in my eyes. For all of this to spring up in less than 30 years is the problem where I have to hit the "I believe" button a little too hard, but hey, it is Night City, who am I to flame it right? ;)

[hal]

Originally Posted by Aldric

Didn't they have a body count lottery in Night City at some point? And that was just for the combat zone. But the number of teams might work, considering the city is much smaller than LA.

Initially, I used to think that TT units would loiter in the air and swoop down when called upon. Until I worked out the actual max airspeed for the AV-4 and travel times required, I didn't realize that it would be possible to have the AV-4 on the ground with a scramble team at the ready to leap into action the moment a call came in - be airborne within 1 minute at altitude, and fly to the destination within say, 2 to 3 minutes. Air Traffic control in Night City would have to send out an alert to all active air travel the moment an alert is announced, so that the TT can have right of passage to their destination in the shortest time.

As for the lottery, I could not find it with a quick search via my PDFs for either of CP2020 or NIGHT CITY, but I think you're right, the body count values were supposed to be there from the start of the game. Hell, I'd have to get my CP2013 to see if maybe it is listed in there (speaking of which, the city map for CP2013 seems to be much more expanded for the Night City area than is covered in either of CP2020 or Night City supplement).

[whswhs]

Looking at this politically, in a cyberpunk setting, one possible way to make this be legal is to have a substantial group of the hyperrich want Trauma Team's services to be available to them. That can establish a convention of accepting Trauma Team's actions. Of course this will depend on TT being perceived as scrupulously neutral and mission-focused.

[hal]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Looking at this politically, in a cyberpunk setting, one possible way to make this be legal is to have a substantial group of the hyperrich want Trauma Team's services to be available to them. That can establish a convention of accepting Trauma Team's actions. Of course this will depend on TT being perceived as scrupulously neutral and mission-focused.

CYBERPUNK 2020's setting is filled with over the top justifications for many things (nothing wrong with that being a GENRE convention!). But the fun part is, if most of the Executives from corporations get this as a perk in pay (ie corporations pay for it), we're no longer just making this a hyper-rich thing, but also a Filthy Rich thing or even simply comfortable income kind of thing - as far as GURPS is concerned.

As it stands? CP2020 lists a TTI contract as costing 500 EuroBucks. As best as I can tell - 1,000 EB is about "Struggling income" for much of the various character types in CP2020. That would make it analogous to about 1800 in GURPS for struggling wealth at TL 9, and make half a month's income worth about $900 in GURPS terms.

If roughly 33 percent of 8 million people are on government assistance, that leaves me with 67% who might have working jobs where they have discretionary income. Of those 67%, if say, another 40 percent are making an income that falls into the ranges of struggling income, then that leaves us with about 37% left to detail. If roughly 2% of the population are in Filthy rich paying jobs, that leaves the remaining 35% making incomes that are less than Filthy Rich (or better).

How much of those numbers will buy actual TT contracts? Probably not too many. What can 900 discretionary income per month, buy? Nicer digs to live in? Better food? Better entertainment such as Brain dance (a TL 10 item in GURPS alas!).

The nice thing is, all of this speculation and pondering, keeps my mind off less happy thoughts. :)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by hal

CYBERPUNK 2020's setting is filled with over the top justifications for many things (nothing wrong with that being a GENRE convention!). But the fun part is, if most of the Executives from corporations get this as a perk in pay (ie corporations pay for it), we're no longer just making this a hyper-rich thing, but also a Filthy Rich thing or even simply comfortable income kind of thing - as far as GURPS is concerned.

Sure. But while "the hyperrich want this" may not account for the full extent of the market, it could account for why the laws permit the market to exist in the first place.

[Varyon]

Let me preface this by noting my only real familiarity with the setting is from the Cyberpunk 2077 video game.

Originally Posted by hal

So - Cyberpunk 2020's body lottery concept, while "entertaining" has implications for Society as a whole. If the replacement rate has dropped to below what it takes to maintain zero population growth, then without excessive death rates, the population will shrink significantly.

Night City seems to be an exception, and I suspect is the murder capital of the United States. It is implied that its population is maintained by constant immigration of people who arrive with basically nothing in hopes of having a big break in Night City. Once in, it's indicated to be difficult to leave - my guess is that the cost of living is too high to save up much money, you need a decent reserve of cash to be able to go anywhere else and sustain yourself long enough to find work (work outside of Night City is implied to be hard to come by, at least outside of a Nomad clan... and most of those seem to make a good deal of their money in relation to NC), and the types of people who go to NC tend not to be big on saving up money anyway (it has an extremely-active nightlife) - even Corpos seem to live paycheck-to-paycheck (if you start Cyberpunk 2077 as a Corpo, when you're fired you have nothing, except for the eddies you were given by your boss to hire some hitmen).

That said, if you want to reduce the crime rate of NC to something less extreme, as well as reign in some of the other silliness inherent to the setting, that's certainly an option. I'd caution against going too far, however - Trauma Team's existence is hard to justify as anything more than a niche business without a massive crime rate, in no small part because crime disproportionately impacts the poorest members of society - the higher you go, the less likely you are to need the services of something like TTI, and yet only the upper crust can afford them, particularly at the Platinum level of membership, which I assume is what you're looking at here with the ~5 minute response time. Lesser levels of membership are going to be available perhaps all the way down to middle class (as a job perk), but those aren't going to get the dedicated "strike teams" you're looking at - I assume many of those won't give service in the worst parts of town, and may be more akin to typical paramedics than elite pararescue (and note the latter can probably command a pretty large wage; the Air Force's Pararescue special forces program is called "Superman school" and has the highest failure rate of any special forces program for a reason - these are rarified individuals who can pull this kind of stuff off, even if an elite TTI team isn't quite on the same level).

Originally Posted by hal

Better entertainment such as Brain dance (a TL 10 item in GURPS alas!).

Cyberpunk clearly has a different tech progression than GURPS suggests, much like Fallout did. I wouldn't restrict things to what GURPS deems TL 9 - if you feel the setting is overall TL 9, just treat any TL 10+ tech that is common in the setting - like BD's - as TL 9. Maybe add in some quirks if you'd like.