Burst Toffee

Intro

Let us assume we are fucked.

The world is ravaged by climate change, by wars over resources, by bad government, by greed. New technology only seems to make it worse. Robots are taking all the jobs. Every enhancement comes at a cost. New technology makes warfare all the more devastating. The rich people are moving to orbit. The world below is broken. Its skies pitiless blue by day, neo-stained at night. Only a few continue to oppose this twisted system. You are some of those few a group of power armoured mercenaries known as Ark Light

Setting: The Tallest City

Medan, Indonesia, is the gateway between Earth and the growing megastructure in space. Operated by a consortium of international money, the Medan elevator is the only one of its kind not controlled by a specific national government. Medan is a teaming city of over thirty million, laid out in a series of multi-leveled arcologies, the skyscrappers of the old city rising to meet the cradle districts high above. Medan nominally under Indonesian law, but in practice is operated largely at the convenience of the various cartels and oligarchs who have interests there.

City Districts

The Shades

Around the city centre and the old town, and in the shadows of the massive archeology towers, the Shades are the the general name for the majority of the city. They are richer than slums, and have permanent structures, but are poor compared to even the riches of the inner city. These districts are home to most of the poor of the city, non-live in servants and service workers, and more well off refugees and immigrants seeking passage up the elevator. Several of the shades are also popular night spots for people slumming from richer districts.

Belawan

To the north of the city proper, the old port of Belawan, now completely absorbed into Medan proper, is the closest the city has to a middle class business, catering to skilled workers from the port, visiting ship crew and the city's professional classes such as doctors and lawyers. It has sunlight, and consequently far lower suicide rates than the Shades.

The Old City

The richest place on the ground, the Old Town is supplied with light by large mirror arrays and skylights cut in the arcology. Massive old twenty first century skyscrapers, preserved colonial era buildings rub shoulders with newly built high rises holding everything from tech startups to lingery stores. While nowhere near as rich as the cradle district, the Old City is home to most of the ground based elite, though they are disregarded by the richer inhabitants of the cradles.

The Cradle District

The old city is nothing compared to the wealthy districts up on the archeologies themselves, where the new orbital nobility and earth's wealthiest oligarchs rub shoulders, existing in neo-classical splendor above the clouds. Vast corporate HQs and wealthy suburbs float high above the smug and noise of the rest of the city.

Traffic up to these corporate enclaves is tightly regulated.

The Slums

At the edge of the city are massive slum districts filled with poor refugees, the destitute, the hopeless. The slums provide a source of cheap labor for the city, and labor discipline, as any worker who asks too much knows they can quickly be replaced by one of the vast number of desperate people in the slums. The slums are partly controlled by gangs, though major roads are patrolled by special units of the Indonesian national police Mobile Brigade (Brimob).

Crime and Law Enforcement

Numerous organized crime groups, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese are present within Medan. This has lead city authorities to implement a heavily armed paramilitary police force, so called E-Police (Enhanced-Police) to augment the Medan police and laws allowing the introduction of private military and police contractors to protect businesses and VIPs. There is also rumours of widespread police corruption, and of negotiated agreements between various criminal groups and the city to allow them to operate in the Shades or slum districts in return for maintaining order.

There is considerable tension between the city police, and the various Indonesian National police units operating in the area, and clashes over jurisdiction

Public Transport

The city is well served by motorized rickshaws, buses, light rail and subway, which are some of the few public infrastructure projects that actually work well.

System

Uses MJ's Aberrant 2.0 system.

Characters

Characters are generated using the One percenter stat lineup for baselines, and have 15 nova points worth of additional stuff, representing your built in enhancements.

To represent the data privacy given as part of being a power armour vigilante, everyone gets 3 points of cipher for free.
In order to avoid appearance tax, everyone gets two dots of free appearance. (IE you start at appearance 3)

Each character template also gets some additional benefits.

For thematic reasons, each character needs to be connected with the others. For each of these you complete, gain 1 BP towards character generation
Pick 1 character who you're friends with
Pick 1 other character who you have a conflict is, and define it
Pick 1 other character you've gone through hard times together with
Pick 1 connection you have in the city. Someone who's relying on you
Pick 1 problem you have in the city. Someone who you feel you've let down

The Leader

You are the leader of the team, You get free

Resources 5 (you own a successful business)

Bioenhancement 6 (You're secretly a transhuman)

Contacts 4 (various people you know as the team

Sanctum 5 (the team's HQ)

You should probably take

Engineering skills

Mega Intelligence

A secretive agenda of your own.

The Pop Star

You are a talented singer who got recruited after some tragic incident.

You get for free

Performance 5

Contacts 4 (Local people who've seen your shows)

Fame 2 (You're locally famous)

3 points of additional stamina (you're tough)

You should probably take

High socials

The Every Woman

You're an every day woman who got recruited into this due to your talent for martial arts, which you always wanted to use professionally but never got a chance

Martial Arts 5

7 points of melee and brawl

You should probably take

Anything really. You're pretty normal

The Mercenary

You're an ex soldier who was recruited by the leader after she had a bad experience in corporate service

3 dots of fire arms

3 dots of stealth

3 dots of knowledge, military

3 dots of athletics

You should take

Military skills!

If there's a ton of interest, I may add additional archetypes, or split existing ones (For instance, two people can be in a band)

The suits

Your primary equipment is your battle suit, built by the team leader

The suits have 12 lethal and 12 bashing soak, and give full mobility.
They give +2 dexterity +2 strength and +2 stamina to their users

In addition, it has 30 nova points worth of powers which can be bought for the individual suit in the usual way.
Please don't push soak over 25.