Seattle GridGuide Host

Description

GridGuide is a city's traffic control system, managed by a central host that sends routing data to vehicle autopilots and can track or control them in the event of an emergency. Contrary to the snazzy name, GridGuide is not a corporation, but a service provided by a corporate contractor; Seattle's GridGuide service is provided by Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. Because devices slaved to this host are ubiquitous in the Seattle Metroplex and easily accessed by hand, it's not hard to hack in. As a result, GridGuide hosts typically operate under Equipment Management Transfer Protocol (EMTP), more commonly known as an "industry host." See the next section for more details.

Scaffolding

Mitsuhama Computer Technologies: The Future is Mitsuhama.

The GridGuide host icon looks like a wheel with the Mitsuhama diamond at its center. When approached, it plays a jingle and displays the GridGuide logo as the wheel spins.

Customer Service

catp://www.gridguide.ec/

Type	Rating	Attack	Sleaze	Data Processing	Firewall	IC Tray
Destination	7	6	6	10	12	Patrol, Bloodhound, Tar Baby, Track, Killer, Blaster, Shocker

Inside, users will find themselves in a sleek, polished corporate reception area. Virtual customer service representatives are always ready to help Seattle's vehicle owners register their cars with GridGuide. There is also a live traffic report feed that can be accessed from here, with the option to download the GridGuide traffic app for updates on the go. Because this is a destination node, one mark is granted freely to anyone who approaches. Silent-running is disabled inside.

IC Behavior

Patrol and Bloodhound will be running at all times, with others kept in reserve. In emergency response mode, the host will spawn the highest priority IC in its IC Tray (see table). As a destination host, it will spawn each IC type per attacking persona at the start of each combat turn, though IC will not interact with any persona other than the one to which they are assigned.

IC will not attack unless a hacker succeeds in an Attack action or fails a Sleaze action. If a hacker does not fight the IC or attempt any further illegal activity, the host will not enter alert, and the IC will stand down. Continued attacks will cause the host to enter emergency response mode; for each attack after the first a host suffers in a combat turn, its Firewall increases by 1 for 2 combat turns. If a hacker's attacks persist longer than 1 combat turn or the host gains 2 marks on them, a spider will be alerted.

Personas with only 1 mark are not subject to Patrol IC scanning.

Devices

This host does not have any slaved devices.

Spiders

There are no spiders on active patrol in this host, but if a spider is alerted, one will appear within a combat turn or two. The first spiders called in will be new acquisitions, deckers brought into the corporation via one of the numerous subsidiaries MCT has purchased in recent years, and so they will lack the experience and firepower of a Zero-Zone veteran. However, if you continue to cause trouble for long enough, a more veteran decker may be called in from corporate security duty for a bit, and they will immediately escalate to lethal force, having no sympathy for you.

Traffic Control

emtp://internal.gridguide.ec

Type	Rating	Attack	Sleaze	Data Processing	Firewall	IC Tray
Industry	7	9	8	7	10	Patrol, Bloodhound, Blaster, Tar Baby, Track, Marker, Sparky

There is an employees-only area that can be accessed through a door marked "TRAFFIC CONTROL." Users who enter are transported into a vast, digital facsimile of Seattle represented as a series of neon-colored wireframe vehicles, traffic devices, roads, and buildings against a black background. Personas are free to fly above the city at blistering speeds, zipping from location to location in an instant. Solid surfaces can be touched to pull up a registry, allowing searches for gridlinked vehicle icons by Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), license plate number, or other identifying features. Traffic data is collected, processed, and disseminated in this host as well.

IC Behavior

Patrol and Bloodhound will be running at all times. If the host is alerted, it will deploy the highest IC in the load order (see IC Tray, leftmost is highest priority); this occurs at the ends of combat turns after the alert goes off due to the processing lag caused by disabling direct connections. IC follow normal behavior patterns.

Devices

All devices slaved to this host are protected by the host's attributes due to the industry host protocols. Slaved devices include traffic lights, cameras, data-collecting vehicles and drones, and any other devices used to monitor and/or regulate the flow of traffic.

The vast majority of vehicles on the road are not slaved to GridGuide, but they are usually triple-marked by it so that GridGuide can issue commands to autopilots when necessary. All vehicles with a gridlink will be accessible through this host as a result of their being connected to the host via induction cables in the road, even if their wireless function is disabled; the only vehicles that will not be accessible through this host are vehicles that have their electronics completely turned off, vehicles that lack a gridlink, and vehicles not on the road. Note that because these vehicles are not slaved to GridGuide, they are not protected by the host's attributes. However, direct connections are not permitted in an industry host, so vehicles may still be protected by a network master.

Vehicles with a Gridlink Override are not marked by this host, and they will be difficult to find through the host's lookup due to the override regularly changing their identifiers. Game masters should set the Matrix Search threshold accordingly.

Spiders

Regulations require at least one decker to be patrolling this host at all times, a duty that's usually pushed off on the aforementioned MCT subsidiary deckers due to the host being constantly attacked by script kiddies who are immediately stopped by its defenses before chickening out. If a real threat shows up, the spider(s) will call for backup from a more experienced Mitsuhama corp decker, who is more than willing to melt a few brains to protect the flow of traffic and company assets.

Physical Integration

This host has prolific physical integration. Numerous devices all across Seattle are slaved to it - more than can be reasonably guarded. As a result, getting a direct connection is quite easy. Once inside, however, all devices are protected by the host's attributes, so it's not like some two-bit decker who climbs an electrical pole can cause a city-wide blackout. Furthermore, the devices in the Gaeatronics HQ are in a nested host, so getting a backdoor into that will require hacking a device at its physical location rather than any device in the city. Anyone who does will be rewarded, though, as the HQ's host is a standard data host.

Foundation

This host's foundation is of tremendous importance, as the Slave node allows any user to apply marks that persist despite reboots, and again, this host protects all public power infrastructure in Seattle and the Gaeatronics Seattle HQ. As a result, the foundation is checked weekly for anchors during routine maintenance. Lives are on the line, not to mention the power grid contract for the city-state, so expect opponents to guard the foundation vigorously.