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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Mister Incognito)
Subject: Manchurian Candidates
Date: Wed Jun 20 06:35:01 2001
Coupla quick questions about brainwashing in the 2060's.

In Brainscan IIRC, the Johnson is brainwashed by Deus to carry out orders
without remembering them or realising about the lost time. There was also
another published adventure about a Renraku suit programming people and
remote controlling them, the name escapes me.

So with all the different advances in the 2060's- new drugs, PABS that let
you reprogramme the brain/memories, magic like Control Thoughts or Mindprobe
or Illusions or others, using direct matrix feed to the brain, using
physcotropics like the ICE etc.- you could do a fairly good job of either
reprogramming people or programming them to do certain acts? Would it be
possible to go the full whack and put a second dormant personality
personality into someone to be triggered latter ala Babylon 5? How, if you
could, would you be able to detect this type of thing and undo it? The best
I could come up with was a Mindprobe and a lot of time with a shrink.

I'm in an evil mood and feel like screwing with the PC's so their new NPC
team member is going to come with a few hidden extras. ;)
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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (M.S. "Herc" Bobroff)
Subject: Manchurian Candidates
Date: Wed Jun 20 11:05:04 2001
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mister Incognito" <misterincognito@*******.com>


> So with all the different advances in the 2060's- new drugs, PABS that let
> you reprogramme the brain/memories, magic like Control Thoughts or
Mindprobe
> or Illusions or others, using direct matrix feed to the brain, using
> physcotropics like the ICE etc.- you could do a fairly good job of either
> reprogramming people or programming them to do certain acts? Would it be
> possible to go the full whack and put a second dormant personality
> personality into someone to be triggered latter ala Babylon 5? How, if you
> could, would you be able to detect this type of thing and undo it? The
best
> I could come up with was a Mindprobe and a lot of time with a shrink.

Programming another personality into someone.

Okay, there are two methods (and another that is just as much fun too) to
doing this. The first part is the easy one ... the NPC has been affected by
Judas PCP IC. To all outward appearances the NPC will do everything normal,
subconsiously though it's another question entirely. At any opportunity,
given time frames, the NPC will send information to the person/corporate
entity that they need to, and they will do this subconsciously.

The benefits to using Judas IC is that the person is not even aware that
they are doing this and there is no second persona for a mage to become
aware of should they perform an in-depth assensing of the NPC.

The con of Judas IC is that there is some sort of trail leading from the
character to the person on the other end of the information. A way to get
around this is to have the person on the receiving end of the information to
also be a contact or a friend of the NPC.

-=-=-=-

The second method. This involves brainwashing, using PAB and perhaps even
magic, to implant a second persona within the NPC. This is perhaps the most
cost-INEFFECTIVE- (I'm not yelling, just capitalizing for emphasis) of the
methods.

Pros of a secondary persona: A totally different person is possible.

Cons of a secondary persona: It is possible for the two persona to come
into conflict and either both will emerged, resulting in a scarred
multiple-personality individual or one of the two personas will become
dominant. There is a catch to this, if the personas do begin fighting each
other it is possible for either a new or more than one new persona to come
into the person, making them a person with true MPD (Multiple Personality
Disorder).

-=-=-=-

The third method. This does not involve a secondary persona in the
individual.

During cyberimplantation, the cyberware has additional code built into it
that makes notes of the character's actions and stores them in a file.
Every time the NPC has to update their software drivers or gets update work
on their ware, or logs onto the net, the ware sends an email (as part of the
action of the initial logging into the matrix, not when the NPC is making an
Access test, but in the time that the jack is first inserted into the matrix
connection and the connection is fully established on the NPCs end) to
whomever detailing the character's activities.

The file is, of course, compressed, and perhaps even limited in size to
allow for quick burst transmissions and to prevent the character from being
suspicious.

-=-=-=-

Enjoy,
-Mike

P.S. It would be more crueler to do this to a PC rather than the NPC.
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Kesh)
Subject: Manchurian Candidates
Date: Wed Jun 20 19:55:02 2001
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001 10:39:11 +0000, Mister Incognito wrote:

>Coupla quick questions about brainwashing in the 2060's.

[snippage]

>Would it be
>possible to go the full whack and put a second dormant personality
>personality into someone to be triggered latter ala Babylon 5? How, if you
>could, would you be able to detect this type of thing and undo it? The best
>I could come up with was a Mindprobe and a lot of time with a shrink.

One of the more obvious ways is through DirectX Simsense chips. It's
already well documented that personality modifications can occur through
overuse of BTLs... imagine BTL chips that are programmed *specifically*
for brainwashing purposes. Plug in a poor sod, run the chip in a loop,
and if they don't go insane you have just given them the full sensory
experience of whatever torture and brainwashing you want without getting
your hands dirty.

The caveat is that someone has to *record* the original simsense... so
you still need at least one victim to experience all the tortures and
necessary conditioning treatments while recording their sensations. Also,
BTLs can overload the subject, causing permanant damage or insanity
before the conditioning is complete. The worst aspect, though, is that
this is like making someone watch a videorecording over and over again,
which means they can begin to predict the pattern and prepare for what's
coming next. While you can increase the intensity of the BTL over time to
compensate, the actual sensations will never change patterns, so you
can't adjust the brainwashing for optimal efficiency. It's definately a
brute-force method.

An even less efficient (though possibly more effective) method would be a
unique Control Thoughts spell cast for the specific purpose of
brainwashing. By enhancing the commands with Illusion spells, the subject
can be forced to act against their will in any situations the mage can
concoct, eventually leading to total reprogramming. However, this would
be extremely draining for a single mage, and a logistical nightmare for
multiple ones (too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak). This also can
have a side effect of insanity in the subject if not done properly, as
well as possible astral 'staining' from the extreme amounts of magic
being used on them.

The best method would probably be a combination of the above two, plus
traditional drugs and psychological conditioning. An entire brainwashing
situation could be constructed in a small Matrix LAN. The subject would
be wired in, and experience nothing but the pre-programmed environnment
and situations that arise. Combined with BTL-level input, Control
Thoughts to remove the subject's feelings of free-will, drugs to erode
the subject's rational thought and self-control, and time-honored
brainwashing techniques, a new personality could be constructed very
thoroughly. Old memories could possibly resurface, but given regular
'treatments', that can be corrected.

Alternately,

Further Reading

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These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!