History:
Wishing to compete in the augmented assistance market filled with Weyland-Yutani synthetics and Seegson Working Joes, the Venture Corporation recently introduced the MAI device. Marketed as fulfilling a desire for human empowerment with the slogan "Machine-Augmented, Man-Ascended" in its ads, the MAI device appears as a prominent metal headband worn across the top of a person's head. When worn, it grants the user a cybernetic augmentation on par with many traditional synthetics by essentially "overclocking" the body and mind, though without additional surgical procedures, can leave the user with serious side effects. Since these drawbacks are fairly well known, the Venture Corporation tends to market the device alongside a group of its employed workforce -- called MAIDs -- who have undergone the surgical procedures and selected for said services. Less known is that a MAID and long-term MAI-users often becomes dependant on their device, though whether this is purely psychological or physiological is poorly understood at this time.
Machine Augmented Individual (MAI) device
- Cost: Unavailable to non-governmental or non-corporate bodies
- Weight: 1/2
- Special: See Mechanics below.
Someone in the employment of Venture Corporation who has undergone the surgical procedures necessary to offset certain MAI device use drawbacks. The procedures themselves are protected by law for Venture Corporation use only.
- Cost of service or procedure: Unavailable to non-governmental or non-corporate bodies
- Special: See Mechanics below.
MAIDs and users of a MAI follows all the rules of synthetics in the core rulebook with the following changes:
- Any critical injuries suffered while using MAI are determined by the standard critical injury table and not the one for synthetics.
- The MAI device must be "programmed" with its attribute augmentations prior to its first use and anytime the augmentations are changed. Programming the device takes 1 Turn and a successful Comtech roll.
- A human mind must always be "behind the wheel" of a MAI device; it cannot be operated by a synthetic or other machine.
- To connect/disconnect from a MAI synthetic takes a slow action, and it takes 1 Turn for its users to receive the device's benefits. If a human mind is forcibly disconnected, the human suffers 1 point of Health, regardless of if they are a MAID or not.
- When disconnecting from a MAI device, the human gains 3 Stress plus 1 Stress per Shift while controlling a MAI device. In addition, a user must make a Panic roll after disconnecting. The drawbacks of disconnecting listed here do not apply for a MAID or for a user who has otherwise gone through the necessary cybernetic surgical procedures.
- When a MAI user encounters any situation where a human would normally suffer stress, the human user suffers the stress, but that stress is NOT applies to rolls made while using the MAI device. Any stress a human has while using the MAI device cannot be reduced until the MAI device is disconnected.