All of you are scientists in Alpha Complex. You've had a long career serving The Computer in the Research and Design service group, creating new equipment and researching cool stuff man was not meant to know. Now you each run your own research lab. You are all of lofty INDIGO Security Clearance, meaning The Computer trusts you deeply. You are about to betray that trust to avenge a terrible injustice visited upon you by one of your fellow scientists. You each start with 25 valuable Perversity points. You will spend some of these precious Perversity Points in two pre-game auctions. In both of these auctions, remember this important point: Every point you bid, whether you win or lose, is spent. THe points you bid are gone for good! In the first auction you bid points for your Brilliance: he maximum resources you can exert in your quest for justice. The one who spends most in the Brilliance auction is the most gifted scientist. THe rest of you are ranked second-most-gifted to least gifted, based on the points you bid. More-brilliant scientists can prodcure vital equipment more easily than can less-brilliant scientists. Plus, you are allowed to sneer at and patronize those of lesser brilliance. Immediately after the Brilliance auction, you will then bid for the right to set your discovery's Importance: the maximum glory you can achieve in your quest. The player who bids the most in the IMportance auction has the chance to achieve the most glorious triumph over his rivals. THe rest of you can expect successively less recognition, again ranked according to the points you bid. After both of these auction sare done, the game will begin. If you still have Perversity points left, you can spend them during play to help your chances to succeed, or to hinter your rivals, just as in standard Paranoia. You can still earn more Perversity as usual by being entertaining. R&D scientist motivations ========================= ------------------------- They called you mad! They called you a hopeless lunatic! For too long you have suffered in silence, but your silent suffering will soon be silent no longer! You will suffer loudly! - Or, that is, you'll stop suffering, and everyone who opposed you, EVERYONE - the thieves and betrayers, the skulking cold-smiling mediocrities with their measured words and their ill-smelling talk of 'proper conduct' and their faintly antiseptic saliva- everyone will suffer loudly instead, as you have suffered all too long, except in silence! Anyway. Where were we? Oh yes - they called you mad. They were right. ------------------------ Discovery = Immortality! - Graffito found on the wreckage of Experiment 3847B R&D is filled with crackpots, traitors looking for the easy life and lifetime bureaucrats, but its most dangerous denizens are its dedicated scientists. THey realize a simple truth: In Alpha Complex, scientific breakthroughs are a citizen's best shot at immortality. In a world where the official history changes every three minutes or so, names of units of measure must remain consistent to ensure survival. Otherwise reactors go critical, people get run over and ULTRAVIOLETs get 500x the lethal amount of radiation during dental visits. The names of units and phenomena have survived since Old Reckoning times: joules, roentgens, watts. That, citizen, is immortality! What are scientists willing to do to leave this legacy? Blackmail, bribe, sabotage, kill, and drive themselves (and everyone around them) to the end of their clone line. The treasonous cycles of a dedicated scientist's life fall into two categories: Pre-Breakthrough and Post-Breakthrough. Pre-Breakthrough ---------------- An INDIGO scientist is in charge of a high-tech lab investigating the fringes of scientific knowledge. Dozens of other INDIGO scientists are doing the same thing. Because the honor goes to the first person who discovers it, rivalries are even more intense than on a Troubleshooting team. Any scientist who wants the newest particle discovered in HIS lab must deal with the following: * Overdrive: PLC laborers have nothing on these guys. Lab assistants grind 20-hour days, building and testing prototypes. Outside complaints about worker abuse stop when they meet the head of the lab: a frazzled, jittery man with bags under his eyes who's been up for four days, scribbling equations all over the walls and survivating solely on BBB. After all, he who finishes first wins, and they aren't going to let a little thing like mortality get in the way. This explains why R&D equipment is pushed onto the field for testing so fast. Some researchers eschew self-preservation entirely, manning prototypes or injecting themselves with experimental drugs when deadlines and paranoia loom. * Theft: Why spend precious hours gathering experimental data when you can use some other sucker's instead? Scientists must watch out for envious rivals and bitter lab assistants eager for their piece of fame. * Sabotage: An old standby. Sabotage is often a retaliation for theft, inasmuch as only the original designers know the workings well enough to deeply but undetectably screw them up. * Assassination: Some scientists, wary of rivals or underlings stealing ideas, keep everything in their head. MemoMax transfers don't do well transmitting usch detailed knowledge, and a well-placed laser could set research back monthns. Some rivals go for the gusto and try to drive their competitors to early erasure. Post-Breakthrough ----------------- Once a scientist has discovered a breakthrough, it's on to the hard part: getting it accepted by The Computer and high-clearance authorities. Review: ALmost every service group gets its mitts on experimental equipment before it goes public. Tech Services and Power Services review it for compatibility, PLC reviews its production, HPD&MC reviews its advertising potential, IntSec review it for abuse by traitors... Rivalries or bureaucracy can bring the product's acceptance to a screeching halt. Abstract particle theory doens't do much better; such papers are reviewed by fellow R&D scientists, who not only disagree with the findings but hate the discoverer himself. No wonder so many scientists prefer to work on experimental equipment instead. Either way, absent lots of bribes and secret society pull, product review and acceptance can easily take five to ten years. Some theories aren't accepted until long after their creators die of old age. Credit: Reaching INDIGO Clearance doesn't protect a scientist from attack from above. His VIOLET supervisor can steal the credit for his discovery, even if the thief couldn't tell a proton from a photon. Careful and patient scientists wait until they have TWO discoveries and bribe their superior, offering him one discovery in exchange for letting them keep the other. Others blackmail their manager, either by gathering incriminating evidence or threatening to give the discovery to a more generous manager. The unluckiest and most impolitic scientists of all get screwed royally, their lifetime accomplishments stolen, their new unit of measurement unjustly named for a rival or a VIOLET executive. These unlucky ones may go mad with bitterness, and vow revenge on their superiors, R&D, and possibly the entire Complex. In R&D talk, they've 'gone critical'. That's you.