Runners and Shells[edit]
WHAT IS A RUNNER:
RUNNERS are freelance mercenaries inhabiting biocybernetic humanoid SHELLS. RUNNERS offer their services as scavengers to a wide variety of corporate, governmental, and private FACTIONS willing to finance their operations in hazardous, often hostile environments.
RUNNER SHELLS
WHAT IS A SHELL:
SHELLS are engineered bodies combining advancements in bio-science, cybernetics, neural transference, and consciousness capture, along with customizable hardware and software innovations that allow for synthetic living beyond the limitations of a born boy.
SHELL VARIETY:
SHELLS come in a variety of types complete with unique ABILITIES. Each SHELL TYPE offers a specialized survival/combat focus, allowing RUNNERS to choose how they operate within a run. Additionally, assorted cosmetic STYLES provide a distinctive visual presence designed to highlight combat aesthetics. Finally, most SHELLS utilized by RUNNERS are programmed to support a base-level personality matrix with vocalization patterns [vox patts] built in.
BENEFITS OF A PERSONALITY MATRIX:
A SHELL's personality matrix runs as a operational layer of "programmed humanity" functioning in tandem with the living mind inside a SHELL's neural housing, supporting the RUNNER's mental stability. Though the science remains unproven, it is understood among RUNNERS that a personality matrix helps combat mental fatigue and memory loss in those pushing SHELL usage beyond its designed limits.
RUNNERS AND SHELLS:
All RUNNERS utilize SHELLS as temporary bodies to house their living mind via neural transfer. SHELLS provide a synthetically natural humanoid experience, allowing the RUNNER to feel "at home" in any temporary body they choose.
Enhanced biosystems, durability, and advanced eject mechanics allow each SHELL to endure considerable harm while allowing most sub-critical damage to be fixed through the administration of aftermarket RUNNER with a emergency "escape hatch" for their consciousness when/if the SHELL they are utilizing experiences catastrophic system failure (a common risk considering the contested nature of most RUNNER operations.
As sophisticated mechainical systems merging biologic, cybernetic, and synthetic materials, SHELLS are essentially "living" mechanisms once a RUNNER's mind has been transferred into its neural housing. To be clear, it is the RUNNER consciousness that is living, but the SHELL, once inhabited, does become that RUNNER's physical body until time of total destruction/operational failure or whenever the RUNNER chooses to transfer their mind into a different SHELL.
SHELL AUGMENTATION:
All SHELLS are capable of being augmented to craft unique operational functionality, providing a variety of SHELL options for a RUNNER to select and tune to fit the needs of a given run.
System UPGRADES can be unlocked via .exe updates purchased from FACTIONS. These help a RUNNER regulate many aspects of their SHELL's onboard system-heat regulation, durability, movement, etc.
Individual IMPLANTS and CORES can be earned or looted to further customize a SHELL's functionality to fit the needs of a crew or run.
REMARK:
Remember, RUNNER, you are not your SHELL-your SHELL is you. Become who/what you want to become to achieve the goals or style of run that best fits your needs or pushes the boundaries of your expectations.