Mutant Detectors

[Weldun]

I was looking over the stat-sheet for the IHA's current model of Minuteman robot, when I noticed that it didn't have a Mutant Detector, I seem to recall the old Genocide models having them. I also cannot recall anyone else in the CU as having one. I find this odd, as the published material give mutants a 10 point distinctive feature just for being a mutant.

 

So, what I'm wondering is if anyone here already has a few ideas on a Mutant Detector build?

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Ah, I just found one on page 115 of Gadgets and Gear. Okay, let's still keep the floor open. Who would have these, why, and how would they be implemented? What does the fact that the IHA's most expensive and powerfull weapon with which to oppose mutants doesn't have this system. Does this mean that they're extremely rare, even by the standards of a group that can build and deploy combat-robots?

[MilkmanDan]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Well, if you're using the "all mutants have a common 'X' gene even though they all have radically different powers", then it's a ranged genetic scanner. Do they have the "X" gene.

 

Who has it? Per genre, any government employee that's part of a secret conspiracy to eliminate mutants. Has anyone else ever had one?

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Well, in the default CU, every mutant has been designed with the 10 point disadvantage, Distinctive Feature: Mutant (Unconcealable, Major Reaction, Only Detectable Through Uncommon Senses).

 

This would indicate that the default for mutants is that, despite widely varying abilities, they all possess the same enabler sequence. A specific sequence that enables their abilities in the first place. Now the Mutant Detector I found is built as Detect Mutant (Radio Group [Range, Sense]), Discriminatory; OAF (-1), Affected As Sight Group As Well As Radio Group (-1/2). 10 active points, real cost 4. This indicates that not only do beings with this activated gene give off a unique, electromagnetic signature, but that it also has unique characteristics from subject to subject (read: Discriminatory).

 

My main quandry, however, is if this technology exists, why doesn't the IHA install it into their Minuteman series, especially when the background for the device indicates that popular opinion believes the device to be an IHA invention. Does the fact that the Minuteman lacks this capability mean that the device was in fact developed by someone else? If so, who?

 

Ideas, Thoughts, Seeds?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't install it in the Minuteman 'bots might be that they don't want anybody else getting ahold of it, should they manage to bring one down without completely demolishing it. Perhaps it could be traced back to them more easily than the more commonplace robotics and weaponry.

[Grimble]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

In my game, IHA has them. They get funding from a secret govt group who funnels money to them through several dummy companies and charity orgs. My version of Minuteman robots have them built in.

 

Who has them? IHA, PRIMUS, UNTIL, First World Govt. Security Agents (Not standard Equip, but they have access if needed), Certain Master Villains, One Master Villain (The Fixer) will sell one to anyone with enough cash.

 

I haven't decided who first developed it, but I'm leaning towards IHA researchers.

 

 

 

Grimble

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Well, I have thought that Telios would be another who might have had a hand in it's development. Although, he would be less interested in the ability to track mutants as opposed to the ability to create them, in a controlable fashion

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

I was thinking that this model isn't a seeker so much as a destroyer, meaning that they're deployed once the target is already known as a mutant.

[OddHat]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Out of Game Reason: The person writing the character sheet didn't think of it. Just add it and you're done.

 

In Game Reasons: Mutant detectors pick up people who haven't manifested yet, and people who have manifested but aren't actively using their powers. Without human judgment, the first IHA Sentinels equipped with mutant detectors showed a tendency to go after school kids, cancer patients, cops, firemen, nuns, and other latent mutants in preference to targets in flashy costumes with combat training. No one in the IHA cried over the deaths of a few future muties, but it was both terrible publicity and tactically unsound. Until the AI can be improved, it's better to pair a well trained human with a mutant detector along with a robot. The human agent spots and marks the high threat mutant, the robot goes after him. If the human does spot a few latents, the latents can always be investigated and quietly shot later.

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Out of Game Reason: The person writing the character sheet didn't think of it. Just add it and you're done.

 

In Game Reasons: Mutant detectors pick up people who haven't manifested yet, and people who have manifested but aren't actively using their powers. Without human judgment, the first IHA Sentinels equipped with mutant detectors showed a tendency to go after school kids, cancer patients, cops, firemen, nuns, and other latent mutants in preference to targets in flashy costumes with combat training. No one in the IHA cried over the deaths of a few future muties, but it was both terrible publicity and tactically unsound. Until the AI can be improved, it's better to pair a well trained human with a mutant detector along with a robot. The human agent spots and marks the high threat mutant, the robot goes after him. If the human does spot a few latents, the latents can always be investigated and quietly shot later.

Now there's a point. I've never seen a write-up for a latent mutant, but it's probable that the sensor would still detect them. Thus, you're right. We're not dealing with genocide here, we're dealing with the IHA, which is a political group. While they would reject any claims that they are responsible for Minutemen, the amount of public sympathy for an 8yr old mutant corpse on the 6 o'clock news would be counter to their plans.

[OddHat]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Now there's a point. I've never seen a write-up for a latent mutant' date=' but it's probable that the sensor [b']would[/b] still detect them. Thus, you're right. We're not dealing with genocide here, we're dealing with the IHA, which is a political group. While they would reject any claims that they are responsible for Minutemen, the amount of public sympathy for an 8yr old mutant corpse on the 6 o'clock news would be counter to their plans.

 

Even worse, an attack on latent mutants could easily result in non-mutants being hurt as well. Even if the IHA saw baseline human casualties as collateral damage, there's no good way to spin a schoolyard full of dead kids slaughtered by a Minuteman. Proving that one of them would have been a mutant one day is tough, and won't help much. So, the human operator of the detector tags the mutie kid for later pick up, and doesn't call in the Minuteman until some freak in a costume is available as a target.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

On a side note, in a past campaign (4th edition, involving Genocide), the mutant-hunters' ranged mutant detectors weren't discriminatory, and mutants in my game didn't give off a common electromagnetic signature. Along the way, the heroes learned that the detectors looked for a certain deviation from a "normal" electromagnetic signature -- that of the White King. Any deviation more than, say, 15% was deemed a potential mutant.

 

Then I ran an adventure with a prototype Minuteman robot that had erroneously been programmed with the decimal off, so deviation more than 0.15% (i.e. most everybody) was deemed a mutant. This super-bot had also been programmed to attack a pro-mutant senator about to be sworn in as vice president, that Genocide insisited was a mutant. (Unbeknownst to the heroes, the senator really was a mutant, head of a mutant-supremacy group, and had a special device that spoofed the mutant detectors by jamming them with the White King's EM signature taken from a captured mutant detector.)

 

So PRIMUS and the heroes battled the super-bot enroute to DC, losing several times, before a scientific type figured out how to shut down the powerful force fields protecting it. It showed up in DC, grabbed the senator... and then proclaimed, "Genetic deviation below 0.0001 -- target is not a mutant... error... not a valid target..." At this point, the heroes and PRIMUS finally finished it off. It took them a while to realize and question why the senator was almost a perfect genetic match for the White King, though.

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Hmm, I've noticed that write-ups from earlier in 5E list the disad as Distinctive Feature: Mutant, Shows Up On Mutant Detectors (Unconcealable, Major Reaction, Only Detectable Through Uncommon Senses).

 

So in the default CU, in which I prefer to base my campaigns with only the tweaks required to allow for the local setting and the PCs, mutants do give of a unique electormagnetic signature. Grrr, what I wouldn't give for a little more detail on genoc... err, the IHA.

[novi]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Well, Oddhat beat me to the best explanation: incompetance over malice any day.

 

As to how mutant detectors work, they make life difficult for a minority of characters in a setting.

 

In my game world, mutants give off unusual electromagnetic radiation which a proper sensor can detect. In particular, they radiate Terahertz Radiation, aka T-rays. As the link states, it is distinctive, short ranged, and harmless to peope and machines around you. And with no common applications, undetectable unless you're actully looking for them. It also means that you don't have to worry about the really high-tech technology of the mutant detector getting out - its just a very specialized radio detector. For a little more fun, some non-mutant (but still powered) people give off T-rays and are detected as mutants.

 

As to the physics of emiting T-rays, it makes just as much sense as a single gene sequence permitting people to have any superpowers the writer sees fit.

[wylodmayer]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Mutant detectors have always bothered me. Maybe it was the fact that one enterprising player built a weapon that essentially fired very small automatons with enormous amounts of Flight, an Explosive Killing Attack, just enough INT, and Detect: Mutants.

 

Sure, it only worked on mutant enemies, but man, did that every give me a bad time when there were mutant enemies.

 

However, in one game I ran, I did use an explanation similar but not identical to novi's. Mutants didn't give off a particular kind of radiation... but, you know, they tended to be... odd. For instance, a mutant who had electrical powers often had an unusually strong bio electric field, and occasionally disrupted nearby magnetics. Not in a way that would be noticed, but the kind of thing that a trained scientist with the right tools might catch. Similarly, bricks often gave unusual density readings when scanned with radio waves or what have you.

 

The bottom line is that my anti-mutant group could figure out if certain people were mutants, but they would have to target certain individuals and then, you know, do surveillance. They also started a huge blood drive type charity, and further infiltrated local clinics and all sorts of other places, where they started performing tests on blood samples. So, really, they had pretty good ways of finding mutants, but they weren't "walk around with a scanner" type ways. It was much more conspiracy-oriented.

[pinecone]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Well' date=' in the default CU, every mutant has been designed with the 10 point disadvantage, [i']Distinctive Feature: Mutant (Unconcealable, Major Reaction, Only Detectable Through Uncommon Senses).[/i]

 

This would indicate that the default for mutants is that, despite widely varying abilities, they all possess the same enabler sequence. A specific sequence that enables their abilities in the first place. Now the Mutant Detector I found is built as Detect Mutant (Radio Group [Range, Sense]), Discriminatory; OAF (-1), Affected As Sight Group As Well As Radio Group (-1/2). 10 active points, real cost 4. This indicates that not only do beings with this activated gene give off a unique, electromagnetic signature, but that it also has unique characteristics from subject to subject (read: Discriminatory).

 

My main quandry, however, is if this technology exists, why doesn't the IHA install it into their Minuteman series, especially when the background for the device indicates that popular opinion believes the device to be an IHA invention. Does the fact that the Minuteman lacks this capability mean that the device was in fact developed by someone else? If so, who?

 

Ideas, Thoughts, Seeds?

 

Well ...Mutant detectors are an established part of my game universe. The legal definition of a "mutant" is someone who sets a detector off.

 

But, nobody really knows what exactly it "detects" it uses neural net technology. So clearly nonmutants (like say a lab accident) might legally be mutants and "real" mutants (easily determined by DNA testing) might not detect as mutants.

 

IHA figures giant robot AI is iffy as is, so why risk confusing it with bad readings?

[jkwleisemann]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Awww, c'mon, why go for incompetence over malice?

 

Here's a possible seed for you - Minutemen *do* have Mutant Detectors... in the blueprints. However, there's a hardcore faction in the IHA (which happens to be in charge of procuring the materials) that disapproves... the Detectors sometimes miss "obvious" mutants.

 

After all - everybody knows that those gene-freaks who've managed to get themselves protected by the weak, namby-pamby forces in the government should show up on the Detectors too, but they don't.

 

So they've put in dummy units, and are working on getting their people into programming so they can hard-code the list of "proper" targets for the Minutemen to go after in addition to those showing up on the Detectors. Until then, they tend to go after whoever you point them at strong enough.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

I generally loath mutant detectors, along with mutant suppressors and all the other panoply of mutant paranoia angst stories.

 

If I were use them, I'd ditch the 'mutant' element entirely, and figure that a 'mutant detector' is actually a scanner that detects energy anomalies that are often associated with metahuman physical and energy powers.

 

Advantages, from my perspective: it eliminate the artificial distinction between mutants and nonmutants, and provides some basis beyond having magic genetic scanners.

 

Consequences: any metahuman type might set it off, theoretically; OTOH, pure mentalists and lower end physical enhancees might avoid it entirely, even if they were born with their powers.

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

I generally loath mutant detectors, along with mutant suppressors and all the other panoply of mutant paranoia angst stories.

 

If I were use them, I'd ditch the 'mutant' element entirely, and figure that a 'mutant detector' is actually a scanner that detects energy anomalies that are often associated with metahuman physical and energy powers.

 

Advantages, from my perspective: it eliminate the artificial distinction between mutants and nonmutants, and provides some basis beyond having magic genetic scanners.

 

Consequences: any metahuman type might set it off, theoretically; OTOH, pure mentalists and lower end physical enhancees might avoid it entirely, even if they were born with their powers.

Yeah, I'm more for the Aberrant Biological Energy Detector also, so, that's what a mutant detector is probably going to be in my game. Unfortunately, it will also read anyone with a primary ability score over 20 as "aberrant" on an 7- with a +1 per +1 over 20. So, they do pick up false positives from highly trained individuals. So, it's mainly for isolating targets out of the population pool so that they can be investigated.

 

At least, this is what I'm leaning towards, due to the input from this thread. Thanks all. If you have more ideas, keep them comming. And, yes, I've been going through my material for that other game recently, so the device name is ripped off from there.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Of interest and note:

 

Millennium City p130

the IHA's mutant detectors are described as "covert" - one could take that to mean only a few specially trained and cleared people have access to them and they are not wide spread amongst the organization.

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Damn. Yet another book we don't have.

[Weldun]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Yeah, I'm more for the Aberrant Biological Energy Detector also, so, that's what a mutant detector is probably going to be in my game. Unfortunately, it will also read anyone with a primary ability score over 20 as "aberrant" on an 7- with a +1 per +1 over 20. So, they do pick up false positives from highly trained individuals. So, it's mainly for isolating targets out of the population pool so that they can be investigated.

 

At least, this is what I'm leaning towards, due to the input from this thread. Thanks all. If you have more ideas, keep them comming. And, yes, I've been going through my material for that other game recently, so the device name is ripped off from there.

Damnit! I can't take this route, because if I do, the distinctive feature stops being distinctive.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

So, what I'm wondering is if anyone here already has a few ideas on a Mutant Detector build?

 

UNTIL Defenders of Freedom, p 95, U-USU "Universal Sensor Unit"

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

Damn. Yet another book we don't have.

 

You should own all the books. For every book you don't own - Darren kicks a puppy.

[Clonus]

Re: Mutant Detectors

 

The question with mutant detectors is always "what are they detecting?". What Marvel ended up with was a distinctive brain wave pattern that only people with a certain genetic complex generate, said genetic complex also being one that ensures that you get superpowers, with the precise powers you get apparently being the product of other genes. Alternative you can imagine a kind of n-ray ala Star Trek tricorders that bounces back with lots of information about the genetic makeup of whatever it hit.

 

By and large though, the whole "mutant" concept works better if you abandon the radiation accident as a separate power source category. That doesn't mean you'd be stuck with mutants and only mutants of course, you'd still have magical transformations, super soldier serums, surgical enhancement, martial artists in touch with their ki, aliens, genetically engineered symbionts or whatever. But anyone who "gains" powers from random exposure to life-threatening phenomena probably already had them in the first place just waiting for the right circumstances to manifest phenotypically. Of course such "latents" might still be harder to detect.