| Scanners And Squealers. Scanners are pretty damn annoying, because when it comes down to it, most samurai have questionable cyberware in them (or metal) and these scanners can be hard to beat. You can always get a decker, but you cant have a decker with you all the time and most samurai need to deal with these devices at least once or twice (if not every day) in their normal, ‘off-duty’ lives. Cyberware is luckily, mostly non-metallic, but arms and spurs generally have some sort of ferrite in them, and set of MADs (note, MADs detect the presence of things like iron, and if the metal is non metallic (non-ferrous), MADs usually don’t pick them up). There’s not really any effective hand-held way around MADs except to not carry a metallic gun (or bullets). A number of manufacturers produce polymer-framed weapons or total non-metallic firearms, along with Hi-C (non-metallic) bullets. |
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| Cyberscanners are a little different. Since a lot of the cyberware used in modern times is non-metallic (or at least non-ferrous), standard metal detectors are a little unreliable for detecting these implants. Instead, Cyberscanners use a variety of techniques but the major one is by using ultrasound. This means that if you don’t have a decker, but you have an ultrasound emitter, you can confuse the cyberscanners just like you could an ultrasound detector, by filling their detectors with white noise and effectively not allowing the software to recognize any familiar signatures. Theoretically, you could use a WNG too, but this doesn’t mask the full range of ultrasound, plus any security guards nearby can hear you turning it on and off. Ultrasound emitters are a must have for cybernetically enhanced individuals who don’t want to advertise the fact, especially those individuals who are intrusionists, as you’ll read below. Squealers and other such security devices are often used. If you’ve gained legal entry to a building with some “authorized personnel only” rooms, you’ll probably be given a visitor pass. These passes often have squealers inbuilt, small transceivers that communicate with the building’s security system. When you enter a certain area, it knows, and it starts making lots of noise. Pretty annoying. Since the squealers and other such devices use radio waves, small hand held jammers are effective against these little beasties. The downside is jammers also jam a lot of other things, like cell phones, which people like to use in office buildings. And if there’s a half-awake rigger around, he’ll spot the jamming and be able to pinpoint it given a minute or two. On the upside, jammers do a lot more than screw with cellular phones and squealers. Sometimes in high security installations, the guards are supplied with radio badges. These radio badges transmit an encrypted signal which tells the security system where the badge is. Much like the squealer, but slightly different in that it usually is coupled with software that allows the guard to walk through a secure area without setting off the alarms or forcing the system to shut down while they’re in the area. It’s also a reverse-smartlink type device for automated turrets. This means that jammers can really screw with internal automated turrets and security systems if this setup is used in the building. The downside is it’s somewhat unpredictable. A confused system doesn’t necessarily mean a dormant system, and using a jammer has been known to set the alerts off, and worse, the automated turrets to just start shooting at everything, including the jammer source. Of course, if you’re equipped with good enough gear, you can decrypt the radio badge signal, and then mimic it. This takes a little while and what’s worse, they generally change keys from day to day, making a pre-prepared badge a little useless. Of course, this problem can be gotten around if you’ve just gone and stolen yourself a badge. |
| Motion Detectors Motion detectors are cheap and easy, they cover large areas and are effective against magical spells such as improved invisibility (also ruthenium), since they use pressure waves rather than light rays to view the room. These devices used to use ultraviolet, but the abundance of ultraviolet sources for cheap, and the use of anti-light ray magic makes ultrasound the major method of motion detecting. The good thing about this is the ultrasound emitter you used to get through the cyberscanners can be used here to spoof the detectors. |
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| You can also try and walk through these rooms really slowly, but I’d advise against it unless you’ve got a lot of patience and a lot of time. A combination of both restricted speed and ultrasound emitters is the safest bet here. Silence is also another way around these devices (and the cyberscanners too) as long as an astral presence and lasting signature doesn’t pose a problem. |