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In an important respect, this account is not the world of PARANOIA. The world of PARANOIA forbids fixed truth. The truth is not out there. History is fl uid and everything is a lie.

As Gamemaster you may fi nd it useful to hint at dark histories and deeper motives. If you keep your Troubleshooters alive long enough, they may uncover evidence that helps them understand the situation – or so they think. Over time, when they feel they have found solid ground, you can open a conceptual trapdoor to drop them into deeper confusion.

For example, is The Computer really insane? It is possible to explain its current actions as entirely sane.

Logically analysing human behaviour, full of inefficiencies like fraud, waste, hoarding and abuse of power, The Computer might have decided these traits are not undesirable but in fact the quintessence of humanity. Perhaps, to help make humans more like themselves, to nurture their innate human qualities, The Computer set up a culture capitalising on all these traits, a hierarchy of ineffi ciency and counter production.

TROUBLESHOOTERS

Short-sighted humans would never see this as benefi cial, so (in this hypothetical view) The Computer motivates them with a desperate struggle against omnipresent treason. It manages the leadership of all Secret Societies to focus member actions. It fosters a culture of treason, scapegoats and stool pigeons to locate potentially useful servants, track and defl ect unacceptable organisation of force and constantly redirect the attention of the masses away from those with real power and infl uence. The Computer sees through the spurious statements of Troubleshooters, through their every attempt to hide the truth. However, it plays dumb to keep them active in their role as agents of chaos – that is, of pure human nature.

It is even possible to drop down yet another level, justifying this clear-headed and sane Computer as a sabotage effort by enemy agents from another Alpha Complex. They covertly installed these effective Computer routines in order to corrupt the PCs’ Alpha Complex into a bureaucratic nightmare.

Then it can turn out these outside agents are themselves being manipulated by a conspiracy of ULTRAVIOLETs within the PCs’ Alpha Complex, probably the Illuminati. These High Programmers

have actually been providing the data- installation routines to the enemy agents. The routines have covertly installed countless worms and dead man-switch subroutines in the enemy Complex. These High Programmer conspirators will soon conquer the enemy before the outside agents even realise they have been subverted.

Yet these crafty High Programmers do not understand that their own motives to conquer the enemy complex were actually induced in them post- hypnotically by subversive agents from intelligent bot colonies on Mars or Jupiter or somewhere. And then who’s controlling the bots? Aliens?

Always another trapdoor....

‘Welcome to Alpha Complex (six death minimum).’

77

IF THERE IS HOPE, IT LIES IN THE PROLES. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

22. LIFE

IN

THE CITY

22. Life in the City

All PARANOIA characters are born and raised as citizens of Alpha Complex, a gigantic, self-contained underground (and underwater) urban complex. The Computer watches over the citizens of Alpha Complex and provides for their every need. Player Characters in Alpha Complex are therefore happy – so happy they can barely stand it.

D e c a nt i n g a n d J u n i o r

Citizenship

Technical Services technicians working in the clone tanks bring all citizens into the world. Under The Computer’s careful scrutiny, workers apply centuries- old precepts of genetic engineering, established in The Computer’s venerable and nigh-legendary Core Programming, to produce ever more suitable citizens. They supplement ancient stocks of genetic material with cell samples taken from selected citizens with desirable traits.

Teacherbots, or sometimes human supervisors, raise and educate all newly decanted Junior Citizens in communal crèches. Bots and supervisors rotate duties frequently to discourage the children from forming emotional attachments. Through frequent lessons The Computer channels the youngsters’ nascent emotional impulses into absolute loyalty to Alpha Complex. However, these kids are still, in important respects, kids. Even a loyal kid can get into more mischief than Dennis the Menace. Junior Citizens (all citizens up to age 14) are technically confi ned to special crèche areas, mini-complexes unto themselves. For health reasons The Computer keeps their pharmatherapy quite light, so the children do get restless. Sometimes they hoodwink the teacherbot, hack the security cams, hotwire the blast doors and get loose in the grownup complex. The little cretins poke around everywhere, spy on everyone, mess around in everything and no one can do anything about it.

Why? Because Junior Citizens enjoy special status. Though technically Clearance INFRARED, they are The Computer’s offi cial charges, the future of

[T]he Building had familiarised me, to some degree at least, with its methods

– confusing at times but not without certain salient features. There were

departments, sections, archives, offi ces, receptionists, regulations, ranks, phones, all cemented by an absolute obedience into one monolithic, hierarchic structure. It was rigid, well-regulated, ever vigilant, like the white corridors with their symmetrical rows of doors, like the offi ces with their scrupulously kept fi les; the communication systems were its entrails, the steel safes its hearts and its veins and arteries were the pneumatic mail tubes that maintained a constant fl ow of secrecy. Nothing was overlooked; even the plumbing played a vital part. But underneath that surface of clockwork precision lay a hive of intrigue, skullduggery and deception. What exactly was that wild confusion? A game? Or perhaps a camoufl age to prevent the uninitiated from seeing some deeper plan, some higher order...

— S t a n i s l a w L e m ( t r. M i c h a e l K a n d e l a n d C h r i s t i n e R o s e ) , Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Chapter 8 [1971]

Alpha Complex. The Computer strongly disapproves of harming or slandering any Junior Citizen, so up to age 14 the little scoundrels are basically termination- proof. Not even a High Programmer would dare accuse them of treason, even if they happened to, say, bury his Old Reckoning record collection under gooey piles of Toothpasty Supplement #5.

At age 14 the kid becomes a regular

INFRARED citizen. The Computer assigns

him randomly to a short-handed Service Group (usually) for which he was trained. The new citizen leaves the crèche and is now fair game.

The daily routine of an INFRARED citizen looks something like this:

Rise with hundreds of others in the barracks. Pop a couple of Wakey-Wakey pills. Wash and eat a leisurely breakfast. Go to work at a Service Group. Have a leisurely lunch with co-workers. Work some more. Down a handful of Mellodaze caplets. Return to the barracks. Have a leisurely dinner. Attend a club meeting such as Botspotters, Volunteer Map Verifiers or the local subsector chapter of Keep Alpha Complex Totally Hygienic. Gather with friends in the communal view lounges to view Teela O’Malley adventures and game and reality vidshows. Chat. Relax. Turn in with hundreds of others. Drink a warm cup of SleepyTyme relaxant. Sleep soundly. Utopia.