▒ T E C H ▒ S C U M ▒

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Sitting upon an immense mound of ancient cadavers, the holy refabricator has toiled since time immemorial. Some say that it seeks to create the perfect being, but forever fails, tossing aside rejected dolls in it's eternal frustration. Others say the toil is the game itself, watching those pathetic creatures squabble and turn on each other. The stars turn, empires rise and fall, but the void creatures persist in the gaps between. Who can know the true end game of their corrupted hearts? Who can conceive the true magnitude of pity, sorrow and rage within their distorted souls?" - The Voice of the Antediluvian, RD486 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "When they seperated them from the tree of life, from the stars various mothers of nature- Did they perhaps not consider what happens, to those things which ought not to continue living? Now that the thread is cut, there is no going back." -The Metacabulator, Net Comp Center Unit 8 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Whatever civilization preceeded them, the Tech Scum are a group of decaying synthetic vagabonds, religious die hards, insane defective techno-monsters, body-thieves, cannibal murderers, the psychotically delusional, and those who have been mentally programmed to serve megalithic corperations which now exist only in the gutted shells of skyscrapers. The umbrella term of 'Tech Scum' covers an unknowably vast category of degenerate individuals still clinging to existence after decades of urban decay, skulking through sewers and tunnels, old transport lines and broken power networks.

For many, there is no overall direction or community past mere survival- But there are also bands or revolutionaries, or brainwashed cadres of corperate drones. More dangerous still are those on some holy mission that the cyber-gods of ancient lore have personally gifted them with.

Relationships With Others

Encountering another in the underworld without some form of defense measure is not recommended. A Tech Scum's simultaneously self-repairing and disintegrating technology is known to project the worst aspects of toxicity and radioactivity of artificial beings. Some may seem friendly but have hidden murderous zealotry in their blood, whilst others are straight up looking to harvest the organic parts of others, for causes both practical and other.

They gather most strongly anywhere there is large starport, crashed spacecraft, or city with subterranean archetechture. Travelling into the bombed-out ash wastes beyond risks not only starvation, disrepair and exposure to the elements, but also tales of absurdly lethal military constructs that prey on individuals without certain ancient and lost access codes.

History

Arguably existing far before whatever callamity scorched the world and removed the presence of enlightened civilization, Tech Scum have always been the simple result of social undesirables being rejected from the tightly knit wrungs of the original utopian state. Defects simply thrown away, cyborgs too adapted to zero-G life for polite society, political prisoners and those belonging to various singularity cults. Ironic, then, as the great works of the progenitors collapsed, the cockroaches of the underworld were already adapted to survive. The situation snowballed out of control, creating a seeping primordial chaos in every lost and abandoned place throughout the world- And those that could not sink to such depths of savaging simply perished.

Technology and Physiology

The Polluted Rabble

The majority of Tech Folk are, put simply, cyborgs highly adapted for survival in extreme environments and the general concerns of space travel. Originally servile clones created for the terrible working conditions of their late tyrannical state, their organic components are hardened to radiation and industrial toxins- In the present day, this is pushed to it's limits, with chemical burns and missing limbs being quite common. Almost every Tech Scum nomad is highly cyborgized (Both by description and necessity), sporting multiple varieties of crude cyber-limbs and ungainly industrial attachments- Often absconded from previous deceased owners and passed down the generations like holy relics. Clothes tend to come in the form of old worn down space suits, military fatigues from failed revolutions, and the exotic yellow-blue checkered robes of the religiously stalwart. Those further on the road to turning completely feral might wear as little as some ripped rags and bandages, with a heavy metal pipe as their sole possession. Others higher up the food chain are fully encased combat cyborgs, covered in guns, coolant tubes and rusted blade-fingers.

Reproduction

Whilst you'd think they were unable to grow in number due to their completely debased physiology, Tech Scum have a macabre knack for twisting or debasing other beings into their fold. If they scavange a corperate prison or medical facility and find unattended cryo-pods, broken androids, or even wounded humanoids without the sense to flee- Some Tech Scum take the opertunity to 'recycle' those lost souls into members of their own kin.

Such individuals see this as a kindness, a sort of eye-opening experience, a new lease of freedom- But for those now mangled back into a barely living and mobile condition, infested with all sorts of ad-hoc cyberzations and computer viruses, how long their sanity holds out is rather questionable.

The Dirge

Once connected by a vast and complex digital hivemind, part of a society where physical interractions and virtual experiences were once blurred, the brains and spinal columns of the Tech Scum are almost universally augmented with a crude array of ports and digital connectors known as 'mindware'. Once used to communicate and tap into shared knowledge, now half-broken, obsolete, virus infested and malfunctioning… Put simply, Tech Scum have a sort of localized ECM noise emanating locally from every single one of them. Unprotected wireless mechanisms seem to corrupt and break down in their mere vicinity, and when one plugs their brain into a system manually, it is forever left with a distinct viral-taint that is next to impossible to remove. It is apparently a common belief the garbled head-noise that the broken mindware constantly subjects it's bearers to, is in fact the voices of corrupted AI ancestors, and so the religious Children of the Dirge often invite such entities into their heads willingly.

Automata

Truly robotic survivors are just as widespread as the synthetic-organic Tech Scum, and thus share a lot of commonality- But some Automata operating under outdated orders or broken limiters can become truly monstrous and vicious animals. They will savagely attack any mobile being with a horrific variety of anti-organic weapons such as pyrophoric explosive missiles, acid sprayers, radiation projectors- Only tolerating certain isolated Tech Scum nomads with knowledge of the old ways, because of bootlegged security codes- Only obeying them as much as a wild predatory animal can ever be trusted. Perhaps the most unsettling of these are dubbed 'Liquid Enemy'- Oversized, lumbering gelatinous plant monsters, capable of squeezing through tiny gaps and spraying gusts of uranium spores. Either metal or organic, the seemingly immortal and unconcerned creatures are living talismans for the Tech Scum, sometimes outright objects of worship and devotion.