[FOCI]
Expanded Worlds
Your mind was uploaded into a mechanical (or biomechanical) droid no larger than a grapefruit; you're a probe droid. You can hover about and sense the world with electronic senses, or interface directly with networked systems. You are more fragile than your companions and less adept at purely physical tasks, but your ability to scan and analyze reality is second to none, and as you grow more practiced in your mechanical shell, you learn to take over other systems, eventually creating brief duplicate instances of your consciousness that you can use to infect enemy machines and networked systems.
Your mechanical body is probably a hovering sphere the size of a human fist, leaking digital light from external circuits and scan ports.
Paradoxes and spinners are most effective as probe droids, since many of their mental abilities (and attacks) do not suffer the deficit that physical tasks do when attempted by a tiny robotic form.
If an uploaded character acquires a new cypher, the cypher is digitized and uploaded as an engram into the probe body as an action. The droid can also drop an unused cypher, at which point it coalesces into existence from a swirl of fractal light.
Yourself (and an attached umbilical, if in Ruk) and an account with 80 bits.
The difficulty of the next action you attempt is decreased by one step.
Your tiny droid body darts behind your foe's ally, and the foe attacks its ally instead of you.
Your mind exists within a miniature quantum digital chip embedded in a tiny hovering mechanical drone about 5 inches (13 cm) in diameter. You retain your Speed Pool, Intellect Pool, and special abilities (work with your GM if an ability provided by your descriptor or type requires additional adaptation). Your Might Pool is reduced by 5 points. As a probe, you have a limited ability to affect the physical world, but you do have manipulators and can activate cyphers. You move by levitating to a maximum height of 6 feet (2 m) over the ground (unless in a weightless environment, in which case you can move freely). The difficulty of all physical tasks (other than fine manipulation) is increased by two steps. Most mental tasks, including qualifying attacks granted by your type, are not penalized. Because of your size, foes often ignore you, and you're hard to hit: the difficulty of stealth tasks and defense tasks is decreased by one step. Finally, when you descend three steps on the damage track and would normally be dead, there's a chance you can be repaired by someone with the right tools who succeeds on a difficulty 7 Intellect task in robotics.
By directly plugging an optical filament into another mechanical device, you can identify it and communicate with it.
This communication doesn't grant you any special abilities (see Controlling Interface).
You can project bright light in a cone that extends a short distance.
You can analyze objects and areas within immediate range to learn a surprising amount of information from tiny scraps of evidence. To do so, you must spend one minute scanning an object or area. Once you finish scanning, you can discover up to three pertinent pieces of information about the object or area, possibly clearing up a lesser mystery and pointing the way to solving a greater one. The GM will decide what you learn and what the level of difficulty is to learn it. (For comparison, pulling a partly degraded piece of stored data from a derelict robot is a difficulty 3 task for you.)
One minute to scan.
You interface with another machine and control it as if it was your body for one hour. The target must be level 2 or lower. To interface with a resisting machine, you must succeed on a physical attack. Once you have established control, you sense what the machine senses. You can allow it to act freely or override its control on a case-by.case basis. Instead of applying Effort to decrease the difficulty, you can apply Effort to increase the maximum level of the target. Thus, to control a level 5 machine (three levels above the normal limit), you must apply three levels of Effort. When the effect ends, the machine has no record of having been controlled or anything it did while under your command (unless you wish it to record such things).
Action to initiate.
You gain 6 new points to add to your Intellect Pool.
When you have access to an interlinked communication web, you can inject your consciousness into it. Once you do, you can spend one minute to identify and attempt to communicate with any or all machines that are also connected directly or wirelessly within 1 light minute (0.1 astronomical units) of your location. You can ask one basic question about the machines or anything happening near them and receive a simple answer. For example, while in an area with many machines, you could ask "Where is the missing spacecraft called Hyperdrive?" and if the craft is within 1 light minute of you, one or more machines will probably provide the answer. While you communicate with the system, your drone body is inactive, and you are unaware of what is happening to it or in its vicinity.
One minute to initiate.
When you have access to an interlinked communication web or a willing machine, you can inject another instance of your consciousness into it that lasts up to one hour. The additional instance of you has your abilities but performs all tasks as a level 5 creature. The instance lasts until its health is depleted, an hour elapses, you use this ability again, or the host system is destroyed.
Action to initiate.
GM Intrusions: A detonation hurls your droid body a long distance (in addition to any other effects). Anti-intrusion digital protection attacks you as you attempt to interface with something. An enemy’s successful attack grabs your droid body.