PARANOIA

The news in this Daily Telegraph (UK) story, "Invisible tanks could be on the battlefield within five years," isn't just about invisible tanks with perfect camouflage and transparent armor. No! Reading all the way to the end, we learn the invisible tanks with perfect camouflage and transparent armor will be watching us and identifying suspicious behavior:

Also being developed is a technology known as "biometric integration," which uses advanced algorithms to analyse crowds and to search for potential threats from suicide bombers by analyzing suspicious behavior in groups or individuals.

Electronic scanners would search for suspicious behavior, inappropriate clothing or individuals on wanted lists who can be identified through facial or iris recognition. The information would then be displayed on screen within vehicle or handheld vehicles carried by dismounted troops.

Hisham Awad, the head of the Future Protected Vehicle project, said: "The trick here is to use machines to do what they are best at (and humans are not) -- ploughing very quickly through dull, repetitive data [...] Then you can quickly bring human intelligence to bear where it excels - making life-or-death decisions based on 'real time' information on suspicious activity flagged up by the machines."

Life-or-death decisions, when seconds count, based on the invisible cybertank's opinion of your wardrobe. Don't you feel safer already?

There's a new PARANOIA article in this month's Signs & Portents magazine, covering the rather topical issue of passenger scanners at airports and intrusive searches. Oh, and rubber gloves.

(The Onion article referenced in the mission is here, by the way.)

Darren MacLennan's glowing review of Paul Baldowski's PARANOIA supplement The Underplex (Style: 5, Substance: 5):

The entire book is packed, is the best way to put it. Instead of hammering a point to death over and over again -- stop snickering, I do not do that in my reviews -- the book gives you just enough to let your imagination do the rest of the work, then sprints to the next idea. An Old Reckoning military base, for instance, gives you just enough of an idea to flesh it out in your mind, then seamlessly introduces a plot complication that'll keep Troubleshooters dealing with chlorine-spewing scrubots. Almost every section has an adventure seed to go along with it, or a mission and counter-mission for secret society members. [...]

I should also mention Jim Holloway's artwork, which is just sterling; his style is one of the reasons why it's so easy to grasp PARANOIA's concepts. [...] Even better is his reluctance to draw people as anything but people; you can imagine seeing the people he draws on the street, as opposed to the smooth-faced fashion models you see in every piece of game art ever. That's not to say that he doesn't dip into caricature, but it's the good kind of caricature, where you can see a character's entire personality in a single facial expression.

The impressive and timely finish of Year 214 of The Computer has prompted nostalgic recollection across Alpha Complex. Who can forget the many landmark victories of loyal citizens against the retreating Communist threat? Who can fail to shed a tear for the noble spirit of sacrifice and camraderie engendered in loyal citizens by the ever-growing Communist threat? Let us recall and celebrate the signal achievement of [NAME DELETED by order of Internal Security], whose actions against the [DELETED] menace have proven to be [DELETED]! In that spirit of remembrance, of happy optimism and courageous vigilance, The Computer's loyal servants in Technical Services have reported Communist sabotage of certain timekeeping devices that require reset, and therefore Year 214 will be repeated. Give thanks for this exciting opportunity!

In February Mongoose Publishing produced Gareth Hanrahan's High Programmers -- the last of their three 25th Anniversary PARANOIA rulebooks. Using a unique and highly original system unrelated to the other PARANOIA rulebooks, High Programmers revealed how to play the highest of the high, the psychopathiest of the psychos, the ULTRAVIOLETs who rule Alpha Complex.

Soon afterward, Mongoose also published Gareth's collection of High Programmers missions, None of This is My Fault (which, almost in passing, revived and updated Sam Shirley's 1988 West End Games adventure The Iceman Returneth), as well as a new mission collection for Troubleshooters, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Termination Booth.

These fine books proved to be Gareth's grand finale as a Mongoose staff designer. He has embarked on a successful freelance career, with many supplements in the pipeline for Pelgrane Press, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, and others. Cubicle 7 has just published The Laundry RPG; Gareth was a principal designer. And he's still writing freelance for Mongoose. The upcoming issue 88 of Mongoose's free in-house magazine, Signs & Portents, includes Gareth's newest PARANOIA mission, "Security Theatre."

2010 brought some obstacles. When Google's Blogger service treasonously shut down this blog and many others (they say it was for technical reasons), we commenced a rocky transition to Blogspot that is still causing problems. (The last nine months of archive links are, um, broken.) After a four-year delay, I finally managed to produce the WMD bonus material .PDF and posted it as a free download on the leading fan site, Paranoia-Live.net. As though jinxed, Paranoia-Live went down in early May. But the site surged back a couple of weeks later and is still, knock electrons, poking along pleasantly enough. In fact, the future is brightening for JParanoia, the free client/server application for playing PARANOIA online. In November High Programmer NoryB unexpectedly announced he intends to release the JParanoia program as open source.

It's been a tough year and a nightmare decade. The commercial roleplaying market is increasingly challenging, and the delta of the increase will rise in the years ahead. But so long as paranoia remains strong in the world, PARANOIA will remain strong. Stay strong with it, and all will be well.

Labels: yearinreview