Helping Hand

This commercial has started running on all channels across Mort.

<<Handsome fellow, somewhat portly with thinning hair, a warm, caring and fatherly face. He's walking down a street and then he looks toward the camera.>>

"One major problem in Mort is the number of War World vets who come home, go crazy and become War Criminals.

Their combat experience alone makes these individuals a resource that has been misused and under-appreciated...until now."

"I'm Dr. Faethor Fornescu, Chief of Operations here at Helping Hand Institute."
<<Fornescu walks to the front of a large building with a black front. It has no windows, several cameras. Two large guards stand in front of the building.>>
"Helping Hand is a rehabilitation/reconditioning center designed for War World vets. These men and women are usually released back into the general population with very little consideration to what their lives was like until then."

<<Specially edited War World footage is shown while Fornescu still narrates.>>
"Life on a War World is a very harrowing and frightening experience for any being. Those who survive tend to have developed certain behaviors and habits, while conducive to survival on the blasted landscapes of a battlefield, are more than dangerous to the general population at large."

<<Camera flashes back to Fornescu as he waves at the two guards, and walks into the facility. The receptionist, wearing a short, low cut white nurses outfit, bounces up when Fornescu walks in. He smiles back at the receptionist and then turns back to the camera.>>

"Helping Hand offers a series of therapies and training courses that help the Combat soldier adapt to a life within the civilian population, while maintaining his well-honed combat abilities."

<<Fornescu walks into a room. Several men lie in reclining booths. They all have headsets over their faces, with gloves and other things, which are all attached to a machine. Other men sit at tables, while they speak to doctors who take notes at every word.>>

"Our theraputic treatments help the veteran focus his warrior's instinct and reactions, allowing him to filter out the constant stimulus that exists within a population center."
<<A pie graph appears on the bottom right quadrant of the screen. It shows a small red slice with 23.5% in it. The remainder of the pie is blue with 76.5% in it. The red shows violent episodes from vets who enrolled in Helping Hand. The blue shows violent episodes from people who didn't enroll.>>
"Studies show that vets who undergo Helping Hand treatement, are far less prone to be responsible for accidental reflex-related homicides or assaults than those vets who enter the streets of Mort cold off of the battlefield."

<<Fornescu walks into another room. Behind him in a series of glass partitions, are classrooms. Men and women sit and take notes during lectures. Another section shows workshops with people working on equipment, cleaning weapons and practicing martial arts.>>

"The specially tailored training programs that are available to vets at Helping Hand are accredited by SLA Industries Ministry of Education and we bring in instructors from all of the prestigeous schools in Mort to help train our vets and give them a chance to become a useful part of society on Mort. Vets in our programs will become SCL rated Operatives once they complete the courses offered."

<<He then walks through a door and enters an office, where he sits down behind a desk.>>

"Right now, we are offering a special Amnesty program to all Ex-War Criminals. If you come into Helping Hand and turn yourself in, we will see that your sentence is significantly reduced and afterwards, training and therapy here at Helping Hand will count toward time served."
"If you know one or are one, realize that Helping Hand is here for those who place their bodies on the line, protecting SLA Industries' interests on other worlds. All we want to do is offer...a "Helping Hand."
<<At that point, Fornescu offers an open hand with palm upward, towards the camera. His picture fades out and the logo and a phone number appear on the screen.>>

The upside...

Helping Hand actually works. The vets who graduate from the program come out focused, trained and tend to make out rather well as Ops. Their military specialization if transferrable is redirected toward operative-level response. Though they tend to do better than operatives fresh out of the academy schools, they have a problem with retraining as nothing ingraines a habit or ability like real-time, life or death experience.
As for adjustment to the civilian world, well they help with that as well. Like most vet centers, they offer outpatient support and aid to vets as well as other resources for vets trying to make it on the outside. Besides re-education, they also help with drug rehabilitation and other battleshock-related trauma.

The downside...

The reason that they have such a high percentage of success is simple. Little do the vets know that if anyone fails below a set mark, they are rated unrehabilitatable and terminated.
The amnesty program is simply a ploy to get more of the Ex-War Criminals off of the street. The ones that can actually be salvaged will be retrained and turned into loyal ops. As for the rest...well, they will be neutralized.
This condition was the only thing that Military Affairs and Civil and Cloak divisions wouldn't budge on when Fornescu came up with this idea. Ex-War Criminals have been a nightmare for Civil Division, a hassle for Cloak Division and an embarrasment for Military Affairs. Simon Tate of Civil Division, Kale Hardwick of Cloak Division, and Col. Leon Alfred of Military Affairs signed off on this deal, seeing the potential for their careers that this program could give them.

One of the largest problems that vets have is coming off of the massive amount of combat drugs that they take. Due to the level of aggression on these places and the incredibly high mortality rate, drugs with farther reaching concenquences toward addiction and physical breakdown are available and use is encouraged.
While the hard combat troopers have no problem as UV and Bass are readily available on Mort, snipers, infiltrators and other combat specialists have a harder time of it.

The most common drug taken by these specialist combat classes is Meta-Dithorazine. The drug does two things. First, it stabilizes musclar agitation, while maintaining adrenalin levels in the body. The second thing is that it offers the combatant a detached viewpoint of their own body, allowing a far calmer, more focused degree of control than normally.
The nickname for the drug is "Zombo" due to the total lack of facial expression and emotion that comes over the users. They are still alert and very much aware and able to respond quickly to anything that happens. It's just that they aren't fazed by it.
The addiction stems from the fact that over time, it takes progressively larger doses to maintain the calm and tremors begin to rack the user's body when they are not dosed. The damage done is to the soldier's neurological network as it breaks down the synaptic transmitters/receivers. Besides the shakes, coming down off of zombo includes an intense amount of depression and lethargy. As such a crash is usually fatal in a place where seconds mean the difference between life and death, people tend to stay dosed. Death comes when a certain body part suddenly can no longer get the autonomic signal it needs to maintain functioning or regulate its function and it quits or goes haywire. The first time this happens, there is a good chance that the person can be saved. But with continued use, soon one organ becomes three then six, and the downward spiral begins.
Use of Zombo anywhere other than a War World is expressely forbidden and possession is punishable by termination.
Helping Hand gives zombo addicts a similar drug known as Somnambultol or "SleepWalker" which helps control the tremors and and helps them maintain the calm. Sleepwalker use works on the same principle as methadone therapy. It being a drug of lesser potency than zombo, allows the user to slowly come down off of his addiction on zombo. Once he's clear of zombo, he is then taken gradually off of sleepwalker.
So far, that sounds rather peachy, right? Now here's the bad news. There's another drug that they also take called Centeraxin or "Center" for short. This drug was originally designed to help parnoia focused dementia patients deal with their delusions. The drug did well in intial testing, but when given to human subjects, did one thing that nobody expected. The drug was designed to increase the confidence of the patient, allowing him the strength to dismiss his fears and eliminate his paranoia. Well, it sort of worked. What it actually did was increased the agression of the patient and focused it toward the subject of his paranoia, giving him the motivation to attack the perceived threat. When the focus was a person, it usually ended in...less than...fortunate results....

Fornescu saw this and after some retailoring, he saw it useful in helping to control the usually dangerous result of battlefield reflexes (Someone tapping you on the shoulder and before you can think about who it is, they are trying to hold in their intestines from the gaping stomach wound you inflicted on them with that kitchen knife that you picked up from the table.) and after "urging" from his other three partners, rushed it into use at the center.

The only problem? It's having a unforseen side effect when it mixes with the combination of zombo and sleepwalker. What happens is that once a shock response is triggered, the person goes into a fugue state where he begins to react to the stimuli and then is forced into the next logical step (in the subject's context) from the intial reaction. In the cases noticed, once they start killing, they can't stop and they maintain an objective reaction to what they are doing.

Fornescu started this venture after his brother, Ion was gunned down by a group of operatives when he took everyone in a burger joint hostage.
In his fury and anxiety to get his treatment established, he rushed here, cut a few corners there and now, for every two totally rehabilitated vets (Sniper/Scout, KMS, and Pilot)he turns out, one is a time bomb due to the treatments and the reaction to the drug therapy.
Fornescu has started to suspect this and is slightly worried. As a result, he is stepping up the termination ratio a bit, hoping to catch some of the effected ones.
If this were ever to bust open, Fornescu has data files, clearing him of any wrong doing and implicating the other three as being negligent in ignoring his recommendations on how to proceed.
What Fornescu doesn't know is that Col. Alfred has three men on staff, prepared to destroy the entire center and terminate all key staff in case of a bust. In addition, Kale Hardwick has a few suprises in store if something jumps off, and his name is brought up...including videoslugs of Fornescu performing illegal expermentation in another location. As for Simon Tate? He's clueless (Not!) and in this case, blameless (Yeah, right.) as, unknown by all, he's been turned by Dark Night. So far, he's been given no orders to act as of yet, but to just observe what is going on.

In game notes:

If you decide to use this in your WoP, here's the propers for using it.

First, the player has to pick a combat specialty, unless they are a combat medic. If they want a non-combat specialty, they aren't eligible for the program. Hell, they should consider themselves lucky and get on with their lives. If they choose medic, then it won't make a difference. They don't have the aggresive habits and tendencies needed to trigger the fugue state. With most medics in combat, their first reaction is to get down or dive for cover.

Once they pick a speciality, you determine what their operative package would be.
Line troopers and engineers would go to either Death or Strike Squad.
Heavy weapons people go to Death Squad.
Recon troopers and snipers transfer straight over to the Scout package.
Infiltration/Special forces usually go to either Death Squad or KMS packages, depending on their specialty (Heavy weapons usage or in-close fighting.).
Armored Vehicle Operators/Pilots transfer over to their civilian equivalents.
All Human/Biogenetic War World vets have Karma implants (Shock Tendon, etc...).
They get an extra 25 bonus points to distribute directly to skills/ebb abilities. This represents their time on the War World.
The GM decides whether you get to keep your weapons or not.

Final thing...the GM rolls percentage dice. If his number comes up under 34%, guess what...naah, you don't wanna know....

GM's don't tell 'em what you rolled, but everytime that the player is shocked or suprised, add their Dia and Cool together. Roll 2D10 and subract their Con. If it's under the sum of their Dia+Cool, then they are okay and the shock doesn't trigger the fugue state. If the roll goes over, though...you take over their character and proceed as if the shock was a threat and respond. The character has a +4 to his initiative and Dex. The character will respond, without consideration for anyone or anything around him.
While some players may think this is good, wait until they begin destroying property and maiming innocent civilians.
They can't tell anybody that this is happening, for if they do, they will be taken back to Helping Hand and probably terminated. After the third notice for destruction of SLA Industries property, they will begin to see the real problem with this syndrome.

Meta-DiThorazine (Zombo)
Benefits: (+10 Cool, +3 Dex) effects last one hour.
Visual markers: Subject has an unemotionaless expression and speaks in a monotone while affected.
After effects: (-6 Cool, -5 Phys, -6 Dex, -2 Str) for three hours.
Visible effects:tremors, extreme lethargy and lessened strength.
Addiction Diff: 25, -8 to test

Somnambultol (Sleepwalker)
Benefits: (+5 Cool, +1 Dex, +1 Phys) effects last 2 hours.
Visual markers: Subject is extremely calm and relaxed.
After Effects: (-1 Phys, -1 Dex)
Visible after effects: no visible after effects. Addiction Diff: 15

Centeraxin 2 (Center)
Benefits: (+4 Cool, +1 Str)
Visual markers: Subject appears slightly angry, agitated.
After Effects: (-3 Cool, -2 Phys)
Visible Effects: Subject appears fearful, skittish, easily startled.
Addiction Diff: 15

The potential for BPNs and other story-related stuff here is amazing. Feel free to use it all and consider this my official return to a more active state on the list.

My "related" Repple Depple Depot piece

I've been away far, far too long....

"HEED THE WORD OF THE BROTHER!"
Comments to Beryl Turner
Freelancer for hire and Chairman of the El Lefé Cartel.
Fiction, technical writing, and Game-Related writing my speciality. I also swing a mean sword and I'm a damn good shot, to boot.
www.enteract.com/~milenko/cartel.html
www.chicagogamecon.org

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