Hana Electrics

Some companies have a difficult time adapting to new markets, and in the aftermath of the Talinz war, Hana Electrics was one. A primary military contractor during the war, Japan’s neutrality turned the country into an island bastion against a ravaged world. Hana used the safe haven as an excuse to sell arms to both sides.

In the wake of the Baku Treaty, the company collapsed in on itself. Their massive expansion required governments that were willing to pay billions out in defence contracts, and with demand severed overnight, it was unsustainable. Hana was never part of the conclave that founded the Talinz fighting league, and whilst they stabilised around a small collection of factories in and around Sendai and Yamagata, they looked set to forever be minor players, a footnote in history.

Frequent poor business decisions plagued the company for the following years. It seemed as if misfortune followed the board of directors, for every time they committed to a project, diversified into a new market or embarked on new research, the market would fall though, the project would break down, and research labs would suffer some catastrophe or another. It made those in charge of the company quite rightly rather paranoid.

When Wakahisa Hikari took over the company from her father, she made it very clear what she thought was wrong. They had tried to follow market trends, and only caught on when the bubbles burst. To succeed, they would need to forge new ground. To start, they would begin to manufacture domestic servants. Talinz with the sole purpose of serving a home. Completely loyal and perfectly designed to cook, clean, remember important family dates and take children to school. Hana would become a family company. A name you could trust. The genius was really in the price, though. Cheap enough to be considered affordable by the middle class, expensive enough that a family would want to show it off to their neighbours. Butlers and maids for a new generation, the perfect status symbol.

At the same time, to pad sales, they would sell unassembled Talinz frames. Japan especially was nurturing a growing Talinz fandom. Distribute frames to schools at cheap prices to teach children electrical engineering, and advertise the robustness and reliability of Hana products at the same time. Distribute parts to the electrical shops in Akihabara and elsewhere for adult fanatics that wanted to take apart and rebuild their own units from scratch, rather than merely fit more modular parts to their frames. Considering the money saved in labour due to the lack of assembly, profits skyrocketed.

It wasn’t long, too, before publishers and producers began to approach Hana Electrics. A recent trend had begun to emerge amongst the general public. Individuals were writing personality files for Talinz with the aim of making them behave like fictional characters they were particularly invested in. For publishers and producers, this usage of their copyrighted material was, they viewed, a lost attempt to monetise. Hana leapt on the offer and began to accept contracts to license and manufacture frames with parts specifically designed for the appearance and behaviour of popular figures from television and literature. Research budgets were diverted towards making frames that looked as realistic as possible. Skin-like polymers were patented by the company that blurred the line between robot and human.

This gave them another idea. Approaching diplomats and dignitaries at first, and never openly, Han Electrics gave them an option. When such important political figures were so frequently at risk, why not build an imposter that they could pilot remotely? The Kagemusha series was born.

By the time Wakahisa Hikari retired two years ago, passing the company to her daughter Wakahisa Jun, she had turned two factories in the north of Japan into one of the most profitable institutions on the planet.

Wakahisa Jun, the current CEO of Hana Electrics is notable for one thing only, currently. Her legion of 102 Kagemusha. It has been suggested, perhaps, that nobody has truly seen her face at all, and there are certainly no documented pictures of her past a family holiday at the age of 8 that could ever be confirmed as Jun. If Jun does exist, however, the only legacy that she is likely to pass on is one of consolidating her mother’s power. Few people know what Wakahisa Jun can do, or, indeed, if she is even still a person…

In the stat blocks below, I have given one for Jun, and one for Jun’s Kagemusha. If you want that in your game, Jun prime is a Talinz frame herself, or maybe she never shows her face for another reason, that is awesome. Tell me more about it!

        

Wakahisa Jun, CEO of Hana Electrics
High Concept: Stone-faced, distant delegator
Aspect: I must step out of my mother’s shadow
Skills: Great (+4) Insightful, Good (+3) Intimidation, Fair (+2) Willpower, Average (+1) Popular culture
Stunts: Best for the job: Whenever you make an Insightful check to ascertain somebody’s capabilities, you gain a +2 to the roll, and automatically learn one of their most proficient skills.

Wakahisa Jun, Talinz replicant (The / designates the differences between model specifics. They tend to be equipped for purpose)
High concept: Flawless Kagemusha
Aspects: No sense of self
Skills: Great (+4) Willpower, Good(+3) Notice/Fight, Fair(+2) Notice/Fight, Average (+1) Endurance
Stunts: Only the mistress matters: Attempts to coerce the Jun replicant series to act in a way that would be injurious to Wakahisa Jun’s reputation or existence are unthinkable to them. If such coercion is attempted, even if the replicant’s own existence is threatened, they gain a +2 bonus to any Willpower rolls.

Aswegen and Modise

Talinz frames for the discerning customer

Some companies were founded in the opening days of the Talinz funding, some were founded as war wracked the world. Some were founded substantially after, when gaps in the market started to appear. Aswegen and Modise were one of those companies. In a recovering market, two enterprising university engineers saw a gap. Both Aswegen and Modise were students at Johannesburg University when they realised something that would make them rather fantastically rich.

Much of their peer group was implausibly wealthy, and young. They didn’t want to associate with the established brands, which either had black marks against their names for their war involvement, or worse still were ‘unhip’. What these rich kids needed was a brand that stood for them. Something new, vibrant, luxurious, and exuberantly expensive. Aswegen was an electrical engineer, and Modise a computer scientist. They had the means, now all they needed was the money.

The first Aswegen and Modise stand was a website hosted on the campus intranet. Modise had managed to convince some of his lecturers to rent out some space on the server, and they advertised themselves as customisers, rather than creators. They knew enough about how the Talinz frames worked from lectures to modify parts, if not make them themselves. The drive to feel unique among young people was large, and the two entrepreneurs took advantage of it. Word of mouth, stands at university events and a small on-campus advertising campaign helped launch the pair’s idea as a business venture, rather than a spare time project. Once they had graduated, a few of their more advantaged customers helped spread the word.

The customisers eventually managed to get a small factory. Their production numbers weren’t the best, but that was part of the point. Each of their frames came ‘hand-made, crafted, designed’ and with a nigh-extortionate price tag. But quiet product placement as domicile servants and accessories to a few key stars, and a few surprisingly placed paparazzi shots of their models with the stars helped catapult profits.

In the modern day, Aswegen and Modise are struggling with trying to retain their ‘street cred’ whilst breaking into the mainstream market. The pair still design models themselves to distribute to key personalities, and they have recently found that producing lower quality frames that look similar to their more expensive designer frames works well as a business model. Far from everyone wanting to be unique, Aswegen and Modise have learnt that everyone really wants to be just like their idols. Their involvement in Talinz fighting is brief and aloof. The media personalities the pair prefer to target appear are filmstars, musicians, and the like, to keep with their ‘alternative’ image. But every now and then an individual will arise using an A and M frame, and the company will bombard them with requests and investment. It can be really quite rewarding to be one of their five or so poster pilots in the world…

Character Profiles

Below I have included the character profiles for Answegen and Modise. All the NPCs have a high concept and another aspect, a set of skills, and one stunt, but feel free to expand them beyond that skeleton if you want, and indeed, tell me how you made those profiles bigger in your games, I’m intrigued.

Jann Aswegen, Co-founder of Aswegen and Modise
High Concept: Haute Couture Electrical Engineer
Aspect: Enterprising risk-taker
Skills: Great (+4) Robotics Engineer, Good (+3) Education, Fair (+2) Commerce, Average (+1) Tae-kwon-do
Stunts: I am the 11^th principle of good design: When Jann talks about the work that he puts in to each and every Talinz model they make, people are drawn in by his knowledge of how to make a design that people will buy. He has an education specialisation(+2) in Fashion and Design.

Emmanuel Modise, Co-founder of Aswegen and Modise
High Concept: Bohemian Computer Expert
Aspect: Social Media Afficionado
Skills: Great (+4) Computer programmer, Good (+3) Empathy, Fair (+2) Popular culture, Average (+1)  Charming
Stunts: Always do the research: Whenever Emmanuel has done research on an individual beforehand (Which will normally consist of pretty effectively trawling through both human and online sources for all information on them around), he gains a +2 bonus to overcome any social obstacles with regards to them.

Talinz Interfacing systems

The Talinz interface is one of the cruxes of design for the modular robotic frame. Originally intended to serve as a platform to allow rescue workers to interact with individuals in vulnerable or delicate situations in which the frame itself might prove insufficient, the interface developed for use in warfare, then sport. The interface allows a kind of ‘cybernetic symbiosis’ between human and Talinz.

For such an important device, the interface seems rather unassuming. A small chip in the Talinz frame and a crown-like headpiece together make the entire system.  The crown itself non-invasively reads neural signals from the pilot’s brain and wirelessly transmits these to the Talinz. The interface chip then over-rides the normal Talinz OS, replacing it with a direct piloting mechanism which allows full human control of the frame. This over-ride can occur without the permission of a Talinz frame.

During interface, the Talinz OS is relegated to an advisory mechanism. Generally, a pilot, when interfaced, will experience an ‘inspirational’ thought pattern. In reality, the Talinz unit is directly transmitting calculated information to the human brain. In this sense, the Talinz OS becomes a calculator and neural processor, acting as additional cranial hemispheres for the pilot. The transmitted data can be anything processed by the sensor packages of the Talinz unit. This can range from advanced ballistics profiles, threat ratings or criminal records of observed individuals, radiation profiles of the environment, or any other information available to an artificial intelligence with access to the internet and a high processing capability. Likewise, damage to, or the lack of, sensor systems in a Talinz unit can deprive the pilot of the relevant sense. In early testing phases, damage to sensory systems in a Talinz unit had a chance to cause permanent damage to the pilot by shattering the neural link between the real sensory organ and the brain, depriving them of the sense after the interface had been closed. This problem has since been fixed.

Different pilots have different reactions to the interface system. Some describe the experience as similar to wearing a metal suit of armour, with all of the additional weights and balances that this implies, whilst others talk about the existence of a ‘second skin’. Others become more detached from the interface, and claim it feels similar to piloting a car or plane. These differing experiences have led directly to the field of robotic psychology, with some researchers suggesting a correlation between the experience of the interface system and the relationship between pilot and Talinz. Whether this is a purely psychosomatic effect or not is a matter of debate, and the relationship between pilot and frame appears to have no notable effect on performance or ability to succeed when interviewing top Talinz pilots.

Three leagues ago, during the quarter finals of the African Cup, a major cash prize tournament, one of the ace pilots, a 24 year old woman by the name of Sonia Bah, disappeared. In the middle of a match. Despite over 30,000 people watching her in the arena. Sonia was well known for having a close friendship with her Talinz unit, a medium-weight purpose-built sport unit provided by Aswegen and Modise, who would frequently accompany her to press conferences and publicity events. Sonia and her unit, Abenaa, had been together since the pilot was plucked from obscurity by the company at the age of 17, and the media leapt on this opportunity to promote a fighter with such a unique ‘gimmick’, rather than the constant changing of units that characterised many of the other pilots in the African Cup at the time.

The Quarter final itself, against another African pilot, Youssef Shenouda, was an intense fight that pushed both to their limits. Youssef was using a much faster unit, but was struggling to make an attack against Abenaa that connected strongly enough to throw the pair off their game. Cameras recording the event were cut by electromagnetic interference about 15 minutes into the second round. After the event, spectators reported a blinding flash in the arena, after which Sonia was nowhere to be found. Abenaa continued fighting as if nothing had happened and won the round, and the match, before the officials managed to make any formal decision. Abenaa, without a pilot, was formally disqualified. Youssef went on to win the tournament. Sonia’s body was never found.

Abenaa has been incapable of interfacing with another pilot since. New interface chips have been installed in the frame, but any pilot trying to connect with the unit finds themselves ‘blocked out’ by some unexplainable force…

Talinz programming

How does a Talinz learn?

The operating system of the Talinz unit is TALONOS. This is specific to the Talinz, and incorporates a basic set of principles to facilitate useful and easy interaction with the unit. Central to this is the protection of important files within the system core, making it remarkably difficult for a casual user to accidently delete or modify the experiences or personality of their unit. The system core is made of two types of files: personality files, and experience files. Most units come pre-set with both of these, suitable to their job type. Whilst in industrial models, personality files are often neglected, as many companies prefer efficient, loyal, if somewhat bland and uncreative units within their workforce, in personal models picking the personality of your new Talinz ‘partner’ is often considered quite a difficult task. Some social media sites now offer the ability to allow the Talinz unit to analyse all of your interaction with the site for a set period, and formulate a ‘perfect match’ based on the kind of relationship you specify you desire with the unit. Others might use a similar technique, or external documents, to model themselves on people that you know, or historical and fictional figures. Basic units often have a series of personality ‘options’, selectable from a drop down list, that form a simple interacting surface which is then built upon post-activation.

From first activation, a Talinz immediately begins storing perceived data on the surrounding world in huge log files, known as ‘experience files’, partitioned by input device and collated and compared based on time stamp value. This information can then be used for either imitation or emulation, and the unit frequently finds ways to perform observed behaviour in a more efficient manner. Multiple experience files can be opened and concatenated or synthesised to perform complex tasks and learn from past experience, rather than merely viewing time as a series of isolated events. Key to the intelligence of the TALONOS are facilities that allow the unit to associate experience files with new personality files, causing adaptation to the local environment and development of a true ‘character’ over a period of time.

In addition to this, libraries of previously gathered and isolated ‘experience files’ are in existence. These files can be used to teach a basic set of skills and principles to a unit before deployment. Domicile servants, for example, are often loaded with a series of files containing information on local social etiquette and housework duties, whereas combat robots might be preloaded with reflexive memory files allowing them to perform a specific style of martial art. Some of these files are commonly purchasable, whilst others might be more expensive, and some are free. Creating these libraries can be difficult, as it involves separating the sensory log input data from the associated personality files, which if not done correctly, could partially ‘infect’ the new user with the original unit’s personality. This kind of poorly separated data is known as ‘kookware’, owing to the personality quirks it can cause a unit to develop. If a Talinz has downloaded ‘kookware’, it is considered common practise to reset the experience files, along with all associated personality files, to a system restore point before the kookware was obtained.

Three years ago, a series of heists were performed by Talinz units who had downloaded the same, particularly malicious, kookware. The units appeared to show none of the normal personality quirks associated with this kind of broken software, until a system over-ride placed another personality in control. The infected frames broadcast their location to each other, gathered in small lots, and executed a series of robberies on banks in the local area using weaponry cached at a location held within the experience files of the program. After the money was stashed at a different disclosed location, the kookware instructed the units to return to their normal lives, at which point it released control, deleted itself and rebooted all the units to the restore point two days prior to the download. The hacker was never caught, the money never found, and the frames claim they possess no knowledge of the events. If they do, it was buried hard enough that police analysts couldn't find it.

Licensing and legal stuff

What about your licensing and legal stuff?

Well, thats a very good question. The Talinz Project, like its parent Fate, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license below!


The Talinz Project by James Fleming is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
In addition, this work is based on Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition (found at http://www.faterpg.com/), products of Evil Hat Productions, LLC, developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

It is a pretty great game, and if you haven't looked into it much yet, you really should. It is also worth looking around a lot of the hacks, settings and alterations that exist to the ruleset, as some really change the playing experience. I know a few people who have had poor times with their first exposure to Fate through a very derived version of it, that have loved Core, and vice versa.

Third, it is really worth noting that neither myself nor the Talinz Project is endorsed by Evil Hat or Fate in any way.

Kulgarv Heavy Industries

Kulgarv Heavy Industries, based in Gotland, is the primary manufacturer of robotics for agricultural purposes. The corporation was originally a joint economic venture between the Swedish and German governments, with the goal of fertilising and maintaining a chain of artificial islands in the Baltic Sea with minimal human workforce. They quickly expanded into more general agrarian commerce.

The first president, Otto Fassbinder, was previously a German Talinz engineer instrumental in the design of the first generation sports models. Somewhat disillusioned by the cynical motivations of his managers, whom he accused of ‘taking the easy way out’ by trying to placate the populace with sport rather than good work, he laid out the plans for Kulgarv. It was simple: Affordable, robust Talinz units to feed the people of a world in recovery. The German government leapt on it, and the Swedes were only too happy to help provide the land for construction and testing, in exchange for profit and credit. As one of the first post-treaty companies, Kulgarv expanded rapidly, snapping up government grants and subsidies wherever it could to try and ensure that the Talinz name was not sullied by its military technology.

Ironically, considering its foundations, Kulgarv became one of the most popular brands for the early post-treaty amateur fighting leagues. The affordable chassis and easily weaponisable nature of many agricultural tools made them easy to repair and replace, perfect for an enthusiastic fan with little to spend on a new hobby.

In the present day, the company is run by the great grandson of Otto, Paul. A middle aged revolutionary, Paul radically changed the company after his father’s death. His first act as president was to move against the board of directors and commission the first sports-class Kulgarv frame. His second was to begin very publically donating to Talinz equal rights groups. The media exploded with debate overnight. Was Kulgarv changing its ‘no fun’ public face? What was all this support about? Who was Paul seen with last night? Who were the board of directors grimacing at?

Following up on the media capital, Kulgarv Heavy Industries gifted their first frame, Sanshin, to a young Korean pilot, Park Min-Jun. Only a boy at the time, he had excelled in high school and university championships with club owned machines, and was rapidly making a name for himself as ‘The boy that cared about his Talinz’. Kulgarv became ‘The Company that Cares’ almost overnight. The controversy fuelled business. Some remain suspicious of Fassbinder’s motives, whilst others simply disagree with his public opinions. Rumblings have been heard from Kulgarv head offices that he has been trying to introduce some sort of adoption assessment to ensure his frames go to a good home… How much is rumour has yet to be ascertained…

Character Profiles

Below I have included the character profiles for Otto, Paul, Sanshin and Min-Jun. With Paul in particular, I have also included an extra cynical version, for those who fancied making him a bit grimmer or manipulative. All the NPCs have a high concept and another aspect, a set of skills, and one stunt, but feel free to expand them beyond that skeleton if you want, and indeed, tell me how you made those profiles bigger in your games, I’m intrigued.

Otto Fassbinder, founder of Kulgarv Heavy Industries
High Concept: Devoted Humanitarian Engineer
Aspect: Haunted by the War
Skills: Great (+4) Robotics Engineer, Good (+3) Commerce, Fair (+2) Medicine, Average (+1) Demolitions
Stunts: Overflowing enthusiasm: When Otto Fassbinder attempts to convince someone of the importance of his work, his outpouring of knowledge can be baffling and somewhat blinding to another individual. He may use his skill as a Robotics Engineer instead of a relevant social skill.

Paul Fassbinder, president of Kulgarv Heavy Industries (Extra cynical version after the slash)
High Concept: Concerned Businessman/ Masterful Market Reader
Aspect: Renowned Philanthropist/ Eyes and ears everywhere  
Skills: Great (+4) Commerce, Good (+3) Charm, Fair (+2) Wealthy, Average (+1) Empathy
Stunts: Play to the camera: Paul has been blessed with an unparalleled ability to twist the modern media around his finger. +2 to charm during a situation in which the media’s eyes are on him.

Park Min-Jun, Pilot prodigy
High Concept: Socially-minded Robot Pilot
Aspect: Sanshin’s best friend  
Skills: Great (+4) Public Speaker, Good (+3) Athlete, Fair (+2) Education, Average (+1) Politics
Stunts: Expert on Talinz: Park Min-Jun knows all there is to know about the history of the Talinz units, and the in-depth working of their AI systems. He gains a +2 bonus to any Education rolls made about Talinz.

Sanshin, Park Min Jun’s partner
High Concept: The first Kulgarv Sports frame
Aspect: Bulk is Brawn
Skills: Great (+4) Robust construction, Good (+3) Firearms, Fair (+2) Fighting, Average (+1) Athletics
Stunts: High Quality Alloy: Sanshin is the newest, heftiest breed of Talinz yet, his armour built to shrug off all but the heaviest weaponry like it was nothing. Sanshin can use Robust Construction to defend against firearms, but always takes 1 shift of stress on a tie (As per Take the Blow, in the FATE SRD)