psi/magic expelling nanobots from characters

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Axelmania
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psi/magic expelling nanobots from characters

Unread post by Axelmania »

So that people don't become passive carriers (any metal they touch becomes a murderous robot) I was wondering what might be capable of purging people of this stuff if they visited other dimensions

Also wondering how quickly you would need to do this to prevent spreads in other dimensions of the plague since it seems to spread very rapidly to uninfected things...

Pg 167 "a few minutes after appearing on the Splicers world, they are likely to be murdered by their own power armor"
Pg 168 (Skelebots etc) "turned into a minion of the Machine within ID4 minutes."

That might just be due to nanobot particles drifting through the air and saturating the entire atmosphere or something along those lines?

Makes me wonder if there might be ways to insulate it, like say for example if you Rift into Splicers with a forcefield already around your power armor so you're transporting in your own barrier.
Curbludgeon
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Comment: They/Them

Re: psi/magic expelling nanobots from characters

Unread post by Curbludgeon »

I'd say the Invocation Ley Line Restoration and the Biomancy spell Reconstruction should be able to purge the nanobot plague from a subject. Lesser spells arguably could do so, as well as the superpower Dismantle Machines. This all presumes any cleansing is done in a hermetic environment.
Shark_Force
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Re: psi/magic expelling nanobots from characters

Unread post by Shark_Force »

well, first off, the splicers book makes it clear that they won't infect anything else.

secondly, there's no NEXUS for nanobot-infested stuff to become a minion of, so that's pretty much a non-concern.

thirdly, realistically speaking you only need to cast the spell "wait a few weeks for the nanobots to get killed or filtered out by your immune system" at most. your body is an expert in nanowarfare. it has been conducting nanowarfare since before the day you were born, and is being pitted against untold trillions of self-replicating nanites of nearly endless varieties that are tirelessly evolving and changing to try to get past its defences. furthermore, the fact that the nanoplague only spreads in places where the machine is pumping the atmosphere full of them suggests that the nanoplague isn't self-replicating. certainly, nothing about it suggests that it could sustainably pull off the kinds of high-energy shenanigans that it does without constantly being resupplied with a new source of energy.

now, having said all of that... I'm pretty sure the person writing up the rules for the nanoplague did not have an in-depth understanding of the science behind all this. in all likelihood, the most important rule was the rule of cool. so, go with whatever you want. personally, I would have anything that helps against diseases or poisons speed up the process dramatically, and every time the nanoplague activates it would burn out a significant portion of the nanites in the person's body permanently (they'd still need to be flushed out, but as they would be inert that wouldn't really matter).

but then, I also don't care in the slightest if someone from the splicers world can use tech on rifts earth. so far as I'm concerned, they either already have vastly superior technology anyways and rifts technology would be a downgrade, or they don't and they're probably going to need to be able to use rifts technology in order for the game to be enjoyable for them. a few weeks of game time working around the difficulties might be fun and interesting. having everything they come in contact with require potentially multiple rolls and sidetrack whatever it was that was going on indefinitely is probably not. your mileage may vary on this, but my odometer says "it takes a few weeks of game time at most before the nanoplague is gone forever, or until it becomes annoying instead of fun, whichever comes first".
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