By James Maliszewski and John Snead
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The technology in Asia of the early 22nd century is far higher than in Asia of the early 21st. Sexism is considerably less, vast arcologies dot the landscapes of most Asian nations, and much of Asia is now far more prosperous than either Europe or the FSA. Other features, such as language, diet, religion and many of the small features of daily life, remain the same. In China, millions of people practice tai chi every morning before work, and in Greater Siam, many adolescents still don orange robes and enter Buddhist monasteries for a few months. Also, Asia remains quite densely populated — people are crowded together in cities in ways that most Westerners would simply not be able to accept. Even members of the upper middle class have far less space to live in than most working class Westerners, and the locals find this lack of space perfectly normal.
Before running any scenarios in Asia, develop a sense of what modern Asia is actually like. Short of actually visiting, the best way of doing this is though visual media. Japan and China both produce many movies each year, a growing fraction of which are (sooner or later) exported and subtitled in English. Watching a Japanese crime film or Chinese family drama will introduce you to details of daily life far different from what most Westerners are used to. Watch as many films as you can, especially adventure dramas (assuming you are planning on running a series with an adventure drama feel). Look for the suggestions in the bibliography, and then experiment on your own. Understanding what a street scene in downtown Tokyo looks like should give you a definite handle on running an Asian chronicle.
One important difference from the present day is that most Asia nations are now quite wealthy, prosperous and technologically advanced. Mainland Asia is no longer part of the "third world." Instead, China is in a similar position to the United States at the end of the 20th century. China's economic and cultural influences are felt throughout the globe. China's consumer technologies are widely acknowledged to be among the best in the world and the Chinese people are more prosperous that the inhabitants of almost any other nation. While the level of governmental power and control bothers some outsiders, citizens of every nation look to the Chinese economy to help predict the economic fortunes of their own country. In short, China is the premier superpower of the 22nd century.
Even outside of China, contemporary Asian influence is profound. Everyone knows that Nihonjin hardtech is the best. Similarly, Funanese and Kampuchean music, holovids and other entertainments are popular all over the world. When someone in Brazil, Switzerland or Luna plays a new movie or musical performance on their home holovid system, there is an excellent chance that they will play something made in Asia. School children the world over learn Chinese, and almost no one considers Asia to be exotic, mysterious or backward. When visiting Asia, outsiders typically expect to find all the grandeur, wealth, and dreams that many early 21st century Europeans now associate with the Unites States. However, for all of these changes, many important features of Asian culture remain the same.
The directness and casual insults common in Australia, Brazil, or the FSA are considered horribly rude in most Asian nations. While it is still perfectly acceptable to disagree with someone or to tell them that they are wrong, approved methods differ. Instead of directly telling someone they are wrong, most polite Asians describe successful ways they have seen the same task accomplished, or suggest how they would solve the same problem. Since almost all Asian cities are extremely dense and living space is at a premium, most people have far more casual contact with their neighbors than most early 21st century Westerners are comfortable with. In the majority of Asian cities, people can hear or even see much of what their neighbors are doing. However, commenting on these observations, especially to the person you have accidentally observed is considered to be extremely rude.
China is a meritocracy where ordinary citizens have little direct influence over the government. While Nippon and most of the nations in Southeast Asia are democracies, they have had this form of government for less than two centuries. Even in Asian democracies, all people are not assumed to have equal power, equal knowledge or equal status. Most Asian people acknowledge that the rich and the powerful have more influence that other people over their society and recognize that they will be treated with more respect and deference than the less fortunate. Several Asian languages like Siamese and Nihonjin have different ways of speaking depending on the relative status of the people who are talking. People are supposed to show some minimum of respect and deference to someone who is older, or who has a higher level of professional standing or political power. While the lower status person need not actually feel inferior, they must show at least a modicum of respect, least they be thought rude and uncultured.
Series set in Asia need to take into account that fact that in Asia avoiding the authorities can be quite difficult. Both the players and the Storyteller should generally assume that even in rural areas, law enforcement and other emergency personnel are rarely more than a few hours away. With the exception of the wild zones of the Nippon arcology, in urban areas emergency personnel normally respond within a very few minutes.
However, the characters are rarely rootless wanderers. Some groups may consist of emergency personnel able to handle various difficult and dangerous situations. For such characters, calling for help could result in a serious loss of status. Alternately, the characters may be high status officials who can order law enforcement and emergency personnel to stay out of specified areas. Finally, in nations like Greater Siam, while the police may show up in ten minutes, an appropriate bribe can send them away without incident, as long as the characters do not appear to be involved with anything too doubtful.
Even in seemingly orderly environments there are many opportunities for excitement, heroism and challenge. Many Asian nations have traditions of organized crime that reach back centuries or even millennia. In both dimly lit basements and gleaming suites high in the most modern arcologies, skilled and ruthless criminals plan crimes ranging from petty theft and blackmail to contract killing. Some of the largest Asian criminal syndicates are now worldwide or even solar-system-wide in scope and a few have political ambitions or ties with extremist political parties. Fighting organized crime, political terrorism and secret aberrant cults are all exciting activities that can occur on the streets and corridors of any Asian metropolis. Asia is also an extremely diverse region. If you wish to run a chronicle where the characters operate independently, far from civilization Asia offers isolated regions such as the mountain jungles of Shan State, the wastes of Eastern Siberia, and even the unmonitored wild zones of the vast Nihonjin arcology.
Whenever you create characters from a foreign culture, you walk a fine line between creating a typical character and a stereotypical one. However, once the stereotypes have been eliminated a number of useful generalizations still remain.
One of the most significant differences between Asian and Euro-American culture is that in Asia people are rarely considered separately from their families, colleagues and social ties. In the West, especially in the United States, many fictional heroes are isolated loners with mysterious pasts and few ties to others. This same image can be found in Asian fiction and media, especially in the image of the ronin, the masterless samurai warrior. However, such figures are tragic heroes. The fact that they are alone in the world, and that their master, family or clan is either dead or has exiled them is a terrible fate that they are struggling bravely against. Even the various criminal sub-cultures are extremely hierarchical, organized and group focused. The Japanese Yakuza has semi-formal schools where social outcastes are trained to be loyal and effective members, while many Chinese Triads create a pseudo-family structure with low-ranking members being commanded by their "uncles" and "older brothers."
When creating Asian characters, consider where the character's loyalties lie and who they share social and political ties with. Allies, Contacts, Followers and especially Backing are all extremely common Backgrounds for Asian characters. A character could be an outcaste or a loner who lacks all of these traits, but in this case you should have an explanation how it happened.
Conflicts between personal happiness and duty feature prominently in many of the great works of Asian fiction. Traditionally, an honorable and decent individual sacrifices her own happiness for the needs or wishes of the group. Storytellers who wish to get into the feel of heroic Asian fiction can present situations where the character must choose between helping a loved one and following the orders of superiors, or between completing an important personal project and preserving the organization she works for. Storytellers should stress that in most Asian cultures, the character will be expected to always choose loyalty to her organization over all personal desires. Regardless of what the character decides, the consequences of such decisions can change the course of her life.
What's That Problem?
See Trinity, pp. 307-309, for a description of the common psychological problems like Ant Farm referred to in this book.
The Ministry is a large agency of a traditionalist government steeped in Asian culture, as well as home to humanity's telepaths. That makes it quite different from other the psi orders Ð and presents the Storyteller several unique opportunities, which differentiate Ministry stories from those involving other psi orders. This section highlights some of them, providing systems for integrating these elements into an ongoing Trinity series.
In China, there's a right way and a wrong way to do almost everything. The key to prospering under its government is to know the difference between the two. In most cases, it's as simple as knowing the proper ministry to visit and the correct virtual form to use when making a request. In other instances, it takes a bit savvier, since navigating the labyrinthine complexities of China's vast bureaucracy can test the patience of even the most virtuous of persons.
Simple bureaucratic dealings require no more than one success on an Intelligence + Bureaucracy roll, while more complicated ones require more. The Storyteller is the final arbiter on the number of successes needed, but the following guidelines should suffice for most series:
•: Simple, ordinary request (obtaining a marriage license, obtaining a birth certificate, etc.)
••: Complicated, ordinary request (obtaining import license for foreign goods, travel visa, etc.)
•••: Simple but difficult request (obtaining import license for dangerous foreign goods, permission to have more than one child, etc.)
••••: Complicated and difficult request (gaining Chinese citizenship, exemption from mandatory national service, etc.)
•••••: Extraordinary request (obtaining import license for a live Aberrant, permission to create a new foreign enclave on Chinese soil, etc.)
The number of successes needed is also a broad indicator of how long it takes to complete a particular bureaucratic maneuver, with each success representing approximately a month. Thus, a complicated and difficult request takes at least four months to process, after which it may still be turned down. That's important for the Storyteller to remember. If a character wants to obtain a travel visa, for instance, it will take at least two months of game time before he finds out if he has gained one or not. Even if the player knows he has failed (by achieving no successes, for example), his character does not, which means he can't act on that knowledge until the appropriate amount of game time has passed. Such is the world of ponderous bureaucracy.
Characters who succeed better than necessary may expedite their requests. For every success beyond what was required, they may deduct two weeks' time, to a minimum of two weeks. Thus, a request for a birth certificate that achieves more than one success is processed in only two weeks, while an exemption from national service that succeeds by the same amount takes three and a half months. Storytellers are free to lengthen or shorten the period of time a given bureaucratic procedure takes according to their own sense of things and the needs of the series.
This section contains a lot of different mechanical systems to adjudicate the niceties of Chinese society and culture in the 22nd century. The intention here is to give the Storyteller game system guidelines on how to simulate these elements without having to go into great detail. After all, Trinity is a game about heroic psions defending humanity from all manner of threats, not paper pushing and bureaucratic wrangling. There's no need for more detail unless your players want it. In that case, feel free to replace dice pools with roleplaying or extend the dice rolling sequences to include multiple layers of complication. You know your players better than we do, so feel free to throw out anything described here if it gets in the way of enjoying the game.
At the same time, don't be afraid to use these systems. We've included them not to make the Storyteller's job more difficult, but to add flavor and depth to stories set in Asia. Just as the FSA differs from Brazil, and the ®on Trinity from the United Nations, so too do the nations of Asia (particularly China) differ from those in other parts of the world. Games set in Asia or in the corridors of the Ministry should feel different than those set elsewhere. Not every Storyteller is up to Ð or even interested in Ð the challenge of recreating 22nd century China in full immersive detail and that's OK. These systems are "short cuts" that add texture without difficulty. We encourage you to use them to capture at least a little bit of the unique culture and society of the Ministry's home continent.
If regular bureaucratic channels fail, one might consider the Chinese tradition of guanxi, or "connections," in which a character must offer gifts to government officials in order to get things done faster or more inexpensively. While this sometimes means outright bribery (which Beijing condemns), that's not the traditional understanding of connections. Rather, it's a recognition that nothing is gained without first venturing something of one's own. One must give in order to receive Ð even from one's own government.
To use connections in her favor, a character must have access to Resources (her own or others) and roll Charisma + Etiquette. Each success lowers the Resource cost of the item the character is seeking from the government. Connections can also be used to lower the time required to obtain an item or service or even the number of successes needed in a standard Bureaucracy roll. It's important for the character to describe what she is giving to her connection in exchange for his services. It must not be overly lavish or ostentatious, lest she be accused of bribery, which is the result of any botch while making a connections roll.
Of course, sometimes bribery is exactly what's necessary, either because connections are insufficient or the government official is intransigent. Bribery is illegal and harshly punished by China Ð especially when instigated by members of its own government, like the Ministry. Succeeding at bribery requires the character to possess both Resources and make a Charisma + Savvy roll. She must achieve more successes than her target, who resists using his Willpower. The number of successes achieved determines how far the official would be willing to violate the law for the character. For example, one success might mean the official would allow a proscribed bioapp through customs, while five successes might mean he'd give the character access to top-secret documents about Chinese plans to war against the Aberrants of Khantze Lu Ge.
The Ministry is a human organization. Even if there were not powerful cultural forces at work upon its members, there would be factions and intramural rivalries. An attempt to do anything that goes against received wisdom or the directives of one's superiors (whose authority is near-absolute) requires the skillful combination of humility and assertiveness. Like most Chinese government agencies, the Ministry's hierarchy wants its members to be assertive in pursuit of their goals while still respecting the ancient forms of decorum.
Any attempt to go against the expressed Ð or even unexpressed Ð wishes of one's superiors requires a successful Charisma + Etiquette roll with the number of successes determined by the oddity of the request. For example, getting around your superior's denial of travel to a noetics conference in Korea probably requires only one success, while sharing top secret information with FSA military officials would take at least five! Of course, a character may seek the support of other Ministry members in her quest. Doing so requires a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge roll, which represents her ability to trick others into lobbying on your behalf. Each success on the second roll grants one success toward the Charisma + Etiquette rolls mentioned previously.
Failing in one's duties Ð to family, country and government Ð brings great shame in China. Maintaining appearances in the face of such mistakes is the key to a successful career within the bureaucracy. Of course, doing so requires the character have a plausible means to explain away past missteps. This requires a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge roll, with each success representing the degree to which the character is able to divorce herself (and those involved Ð it's equally important to protect others' reputations) from the failed endeavors. In 22nd century China, characters are expected to find ways to explain their past errors; it's an established part of the political culture. While this won't protect them from rivals determined to ruin their reputations, it's usually enough for most colleagues and superiors.
22nd century China prides itself on being a true meritocracy, one in which the cream always rises to the top. At the same time, China has a vested interest in ensuring that only the right cream succeeds in gaining access to the corridors of power. The Ministry is no different, especially under Proxy Bue Li's "conscience and responsibility" regime. Any time a character seeks advancement within the Ministry's hierarchy, she is subjected to another round of examinations to determine her fitness.
That means that whenever a character wishes to gain a dot in Status, she can only do so after having achieved a number of successes in an Intelligence + Academics roll. The number of successes needed is equal to the level she currently possesses. If she wishes to raise her Status from two to three dots, for example, she needs a total of two successes. If the character does not succeed, her player may not allocate experience points to increase Status until a period of time (usually several months) has passed, although the Storyteller is free to change this to reflect the circumstances of his own series.
By the same token, it's sometimes necessary to destroy one's enemies by damaging their reputation. This process can be time-consuming and take months to reach fruition. That's because the bureaucratic culture frowns on outright accusations, preferring to hide behind offhand remarks and subtle insinuations. To succeed at such a whispering campaign requires a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge roll. Each success increases the degree to which a rival's reputation is damaged in the eyes of the government. Thus, one success is a minor blemish on his record, while five likely destroys his career forever.
Even the most creative Storytellers sometimes need help coming up with plots for their next story. Here are a few ideas that can serve as the basis for Asian and Ministry-centered stories:
• The characters' efforts at advancement within the Ministry are continually blocked, despite their excellent scores on the Civil Service Examinations and their records of service to China. Is something sinister afoot? Do they have hidden rivals within the Ministry, or are there simply "no positions available at this time" as their superiors claim?
• An outbreak of exotic diseases in Shanghai leads the characters to the conclusion that someone is smuggling something into China from Nippon Ð and the diseases along with them. The characters must uncover the source of the smuggling, both to put a stop to it and its unintended side effects.
• Filipino nationalists have seized Ministry assets in Quezon City and decry Proxy Bue Li as a traitor to her homeland. Unless China withdraws its military personnel from the Philippines within a week, they will destroy a Psi Institute and its personnel.
• Bue Li's rivals within the government begin a witch hunt within the Ministry, charging it with "corrupting China's youth" by elevating Europeans, Catholics and other undesirables to positions of authority within the Ministry. The characters are caught up within this internal power play and must choose sides before they fall victim to it.
• The characters stumble upon evidence that Ministry personnel are aiding Korean criminal gangs. Further investigation reveals they do so to provoke a Chinese response they hope will bring additional aid to their country. Do the characters report what they've discovered, or do they sympathize with the aims of these men and women?
Mary Chun was a prospector who traveled the jungles of Greater Siam searching for valuable mineral deposits. Three years ago, her small plane went down in a severe thunderstorm. Just before her plane hit the ground, her powers erupted. She grew thick scaly armor, and developed the ability to manipulate gravity to a small degree. She slowed the plane with her powers and her newly resistant body allowed her to survive the crash. When she pulled herself from the wreckage and checked herself over, she realized that she had become an aberrant. Over time, she felt less connection to humanity and began to explore the full potential of her powers. Eventually, she cleared a long overgrown ancient temple, rebuilt it, and used her powers to intimidate groups of isolated peasants into worshipping her as a god.
Four months ago she felt a strange disturbance and within a few weeks her powers were far stronger and she had become completely inhuman in appearance. Today, the lower half of her body consists of a wide cone a meter and a half tall. It's topped by two arms, each of which ends in a forest of branching tentacles, and a long flexible stalk supporting a head with four large lidless eyes and a host of sensors capable of interpreting everything from cosmic rays to gravitational waves. She appears sessile but can actually move moderately well using the muscular pad on the bottom of her cone. She can also now use her powers to fly. She is now an inhumanly brilliant creature capable of lifting up to five tons with her powers. She has fully adapted to her new form, and considers it far superior to her fragile and limited human body.
In the middle of 2122, another aberrant who appeared fully human but possessed powers even greater than her own contacted her. He claims to be searching for an ancient and mysterious city located in a series of deep caves. She has agreed to help him with this search — he claims that finding it will result in substantial benefits for both of them.
Yung Fa was an elderly farmer who owned a large amount of exceedingly rich land in eastern Yunnan province. He also had a son who saw him as merely an obstacle to obtaining Yung Fa's land and its wealth. His son was married to two similarly minded people and conspired with his husband and wife to kill Yung Fa. Since the son's wife was a doctor, she arranged for Yung Fa to take an allegedly accidental overdose of heart medicine.
The last thing Yung Fa heard as he lay dying was his son talking with his two spouses about how glad they were they the plan worked and that he was now dead. In that instant Yung Fa's helpless rage unlocked the latent aberrant powers within him. His body dissolved into a cloud of sentient smoke — in his new form he killed his traitorous son and the two accomplices. One after another, he filled their lungs with fine gray smoke, choking the life out of them. Once they were dead, Yung Fa fully expected to ascend to heaven now that he was avenged. Realizing that he was still on earth, he decided that he must still be here because he needed to avenge similar crimes.
Able to become fully invisible and to spread his awareness over an area as large as a quarter of a city block, Yung Fa found he was in a perfect position to spy on other's secret crimes. He also discovered that his newly enhanced senses allowed him to literally smell hatred and fear, so he can easily track his potential victims. Over the past several years, Yung Fa has drifted through several towns and cities, looking for unfilial children, murderous spouses and similar offenders. Not content with preventing or avenging crimes, he has taken to killing people who are merely seriously resentful of a family member. So far, he has killed more than three dozen people, all of whom appear to have died from a sudden and mysterious lung problem.
Last month, Ministry agents discovered a faint taint signature on his most recent victim and upon checking the bodies of several other victims discovered the same taint. Although he is not yet aware of it, as Yung Fa hunts his next victim, a number of Ministry field agents are secretly tracking him down. Knowing that their target is invisible or intangible, they are relying upon their telepathy to find him and hope to use their powers to incapacitate or destroy him.
Born in Burma's Shan State, Ming Chamanan originally worked as a laborer harvesting illegally genetically engineered drugs for one of the local criminal gangs. Not content with a life of poverty and hard labor, she dreamed of being a great martial artist like the heroic men and women she saw on the holovids that were occasionally played on her village's aging computer. Although she had no formal instruction, she carefully imitated the moves she saw.
A few months ago, a rival gang came in to steal her village's crops. After they killed several farmers, she rushed into battle against them. Suddenly she felt filled with confidence and power — armed only with a staff, she single-handedly defeated all five of the well-armed raiders.
Once the battle was over, her fellow villagers feared her almost as much as they feared the attackers. She left and after demonstrating her martial prowess, she got work as one of the guards for the powerful Samphan-Tzu Triad. Within three months, she moved from the lowest rank of guard to chief of security.
Her innate resistance to telepathic influence has proven invaluable and she recently detected and successfully repelled a Ministry infiltration team. The leaders of the Samphan-Tzu Triad have become interested in her high degree of physical prowess, and the psychic resistance she displays. The Samphan-Tzu Triad regularly engages in illegal genetic human engineering and similar research and has begun to study her DNA. They have uncovered several unusual features that do not match any previous records. While her employer's greatly value her work, they are also quite interesting in understanding and if possible replicating her new abilities.
Nature: Bravo
Allegiance: Samphan-Tzu Triad
Strength 4 (Might 2)
Dexterity 5 (Athletics 3 Drive 1, Firearms 5 Melee 3, Martial Arts 5, Stealth 2)
Stamina 4 (Endurance 1 Resistance 2)
Perception 3 (Awareness 2, Investigation 2)
Intelligence 3 (Engineering 1, Intrusion 2, Linguistics 2 (Chinese, Burmese, Thai), Medicine 1 (first aid), Survival 2)
Wits 4
Appearance 3 (Intimidation 2, Style 1)
Manipulation 2 (Command 3, Interrogation 1)
Charisma 3 (Savvy 2)
Although her she is neither a psion nor an Aberrant and she lacks all Taint, Ming Chamanan does possess a few unusual abilities.
High Speed: All Initiative rolls of 1-3 are treated as 4s
Mental Resistance: All attempts to use telepathy or any other psionic or mundane means to influence or read her mind are at +2 difficulty.
Weapons Prodigy: Reduce the difficulty of all attacks she makes using weapons by -1 (minimum of 0)
Merits: Daredevil, High Pain Tolerance, Psi Sink
Willpower: 6
Psi: 1
Backgrounds: Cipher 4, Contacts 2, Followers 3, Influence 1, Resources 3, Status 3
Gear: Orgotek Scorpion Autocarbine, Voss 33K laser pistol, fighting gloves, stylish reinforced clothing, ear radio.
• The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester. This is one of the crucial books to read for inspiration on handling Telepathy. Bester shows a society in which powerful telepaths play an important role, and develops an intriguing murder mystery.
• The Whole Man, John Brunner. Telepaths working for the UN treat the insane and prevent conflicts; this setting is chock full of inspiration for either a Ministry-based game in China or a game about telepaths working for Aeon.
• Chasing the Dragon, Christopher R. Cox. Journalist Cox traveled to Burma's Shan State to talk with a major drug lord. The information on Thailand and Burma greatly influenced Chapter 3 of this book.
• Speed Tribes, Karl Taro Greenland. One of the classic studies of an outcast society, this book portrays the fringes of Japanese life in fascinating, often tragicomic detail. Everyone from the Yakuza to right-wing nationalists to computer geeks is in here.
• Lost Japan, Alex Kerr. Lost Japan. From high finance in Tokyo boardrooms to Kyoto Geishas, this book gives a quirky and detailed picture of Japan.
• China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F. McHugh. Brilliantly written SF set in a world where China is the dominant power in the world. McHugh has lived in China and knows the culture extremely well.
• The Missing Man, Katherine McLean. A novel set in a free but carefully controlled state where telepaths help maintain order. A definite inspiration for this work.
• Emerald Eyes, Daniel Keyes Moran. Exciting and suspenseful near future fiction with genetically engineered telepaths.
• Tracing It Home, Lynn Pan. A personal journey into life in China on the eve of the revolution. This work provides a wealth of detail about life in pre-communist modern China. Her Sons of the Yellow Emperor is an equally excellent history of overseas Chinese and their communities.
• Appleseed. This anime is an excellent tale of benevolent despotism in a vast arcology.
• God of Gamblers. A wonderful action comedy with many fun touches about Hong Kong.
• Fallen Angels. A gripping drama of the life and romance of a contract killer in modern Hong Kong, and a style of cinematography that suggests the ever-present eye of the Ministry.
• King of Masks. A charming film of an aging performer and his adopted child in pre-revolution China. Excellent, and worth seeing for the visuals alone.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena. This is a truly awesome anime series that reveals a great deal of Japanese social dynamics, and the bounciest poppiest songs about neo-Platonic philosophy you're ever likely to encounter.
• Sanctuary. The film version of a popular anime about two childhood friends, one of whom joins the Yakuza, the other of whom goes into politics. See this for an example of very long-term planning successfully carried out.
• A Taxing Woman. A female bureaucrat goes up against the Yakuza. An excellent Japanese film.
• The Iron Chef. If you want to try to understand Japanese culture and etiquette, watch this show. Everything from the commentary to the choice of winners reveals fascinating tidbits about Japan.
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