[Torg] Hacking Heaven's Gates (The GodNet and The Grid: 6 of 7)

[Jasyn Jones]

The GodNet

The GodNet is a bizarre meld of transformed Earth computers, misunderstood second-hand visions of Tharkold’s Grid, and Malraux’s medieval religious beliefs. It links the many Divine Realms of Magna Verita (including some not contemplated in Malraux’s theology) to each other and to Earthly terminals.

Earth’s Tech 22 Internet still exists, and the transformed computers still operate on that network (allowing mundane electronic messages to be passed to and from computers outside the realm). The Cyberpapacy has the Tech axiom to modernize the network, replacing it with a state-of-the-art Tech 26 network, but the technologies to do so would have to be developed, and Malraux’s researchers have focused their energies elsewhere. Instead of using the Internet to communicate, Malraux’s cyberpriests access Heaven.

In accordance with Malraux’s vision, any computer transformed to the reality of the Cyberpapacy can access Heaven. Users place a metal circlet on their head (circlets known as halos) and the computer links their soul with New Jerusalem. There, they can interact with other users, the transformed angels, and the net entities. They can pass data back and forth (represented by physical objects) and can even raid the data cathedrals of Malraux. Those with the correct knowledge can even hack the city.

Unlike the virtual worlds of Tharkold's Grid, New Jerusalem is a physical place. It is a city with walls and streets, buildings, courtyards, and parks. Security appears as doors, walls, and guards, guards whose weapons can wound and even kill. 

As a physical realm, New Jerusalem follows physical laws. People can no more walk through a data cathedral's walls, than they could walk through the walls of a McDonald's on Earth. Though this may be an obstacle, it is also a benefit. Users bring with them the skills and knowledge they've garnered in the world of the flesh: they can scale walls, pick locks, and sneak past guards. All of their mundane tricks and tools are potentially available.

Some users, however, can do more. As seen in the Pope's Vision, the reality of the Net is plastic for those who know how to hack it. Those with the correct skill (net manipulation) can do the impossible. They can will locks to open, leap over walls, make doors vanish, and disrupt other users or net entities. The more skilled they are, the more they can do. In the Net, they can be as gods, using their incredible abilities to fight and thwart the False Pope. Of course, they can serve him, too.

The Papacy

The GodNet is the primary communication network for the False Papacy. Messages are carried by couriers along the streets of New Jerusalem. Data exists as scrolls and codices and is kept in libraries and vaults. Cardinals gather there to confer; though their bodies be all over the realm, they can meet in the Net, in person.

Rebels meet here too, in back allies and cellars, to coordinate the resistance. They seek to intercept Malraux's couriers, raid his data stores, disrupt his empire.

Though they are capable of Tech 26 devices, Malraux and his minions haven't fully grasped the nature of computer networks and telecommunication systems. To Earthers and Kadandrans, their system seems hopelessly inept and backwards. In this belief, they are mistaken.

The GodNet isn't a network in the usual sense. It mirrors the Grid, not the Internet (or Kadandra's bio-net). It is a city, with streets and walls, and the Papists know how to police a city. They're used to couriering messages across vast distances, used to setting guards on buildings, used to working within the restrictions of a physical place. Their approach is perfect for the GodNet: there is literally no other way to use the network. Earthers who overlook this will come to regret it.

Jasyn Jones
jasynj (at) gmail (dot) com

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Check out my Torg webpage, Storm Knights:
darleyconsulting.com/games/stormknights/