Opening Doors and Minds (More tools of the Conspiracy)
by Alexander Shearer
Contains: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Coloring, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate, Caffeine, Polyvinyl Chloride, Sodium Citrate, Gum Arabic, Calcium Disodium EDTA.
People pay only passing attention to the ingredients in what they eat. They're even less likely to notice what's in the average soft drink. Thus, only a truly dedicated cola aficionado (or perhaps a bored food chemist) notice when an extra "ingredient" is listed on the side of a garish aluminum can. The ingredient (apparently a chemical additive, but nonsensical to anyone who understands food chemistry) is really a code - a description of what's really in the can. Few know how to read it.
These faux soda cans actually contain the concentrated form of a powerful psychoactive agent, one of a variety of such agents tailored to alter human mood. Cloaked in the guise of harmless junk beverages, the chemicals can be transported in coolers, suitcases and backpacks. If the need arises, they can even be hidden in shipments of normal soda (easily identified by the additional "ingredient," if need be). Each can's contents are potent enough to affect the water supply for a small city, and can be engineered to instill almost any imaginable emotion or mood.
The real fun begins when someone drinks the stuff straight. The chemicals are meant to have a huge dilution factor; at their target concentration they impart a general mood or feeling. Straight from the can, they're instantly mind-altering. The poor soul who mistakes the Mood Controller for his favorite sugar high is hit with a whopper of a headache, followed within a few minutes by an instant change in outlook. The psychoactive chemicals diffuse through the skin, rather than requiring a slower absorption during actual digestion. The specific effect depends on what Mood Controller was in the can.
Some of the more likely agents are described below:
Commerce Enhancer
Should a community become too thrifty, or if the Christmas season is not properly started by the beginning of October, someone may dump some Commerce Enhancer into the water. It doesn't act to make people want more stuff -- that might lead to crime, which is best caused separately. Instead, Commerce Enhancer leaves a nagging need to divest oneself of money. When they're being dosed with it, people just spend more. Taken undiluted, it gives the hapless drinker Compulsive Spending (p. CI88), usually at the most severe level (-15 points). It may cause a lesser level of this disadvantage if some moderate dilution occurs before drinking.
Routine Reinforcement Compound
Some times it becomes necessary to carry out weird practices in nearly full view. Under such trying circumstances, the appropriate dose of RRC helps smooth things over until everything is under control. As its name suggests, RRC enhances the feeling of life as a routine, where nothing extraordinary occurs. A well-dosed populace will tend to miss things, especially if noticing them requires an exceptional effort. Every neighbor is a "nice, quiet kind of guy" even if he's dumping large objects into man-sized trenches in his front yard every night. A straight shot of pure RRC creates a sort of suburban zombie. Everything is normal, no matter what. This is a 10 or 15 point Delusion, depending upon how dangerous this assumption is in the campaign.
Caffeine Antitoxin
Exactly as mundane as it sounds, this is a simple chemical neutralizer of caffeine. Since it operates to catalyze the breakdown of caffeine, even small amounts in the morning coffee will completely decaffeinate it in minutes (usually while it's brewing). Deprived of their morning fix, people become irritable, fatigued, and quick to anger. Coffee consumption spikes as people attempt to find better or stronger mixes. If anyone is unfortunate enough to consume pure Caffeine Antitoxin, life may be taking a turn for the worse. The antitoxin has a long half-life in the human body. The poor sod could be decaffeinated for years.
Other Options
There are two ways to devise new Mood Control mixtures. The first, basing it off a listed mental disadvantage, is especially handy when the main game effect of the fluid is to occur after a hapless character drinks it. If the Mood Control is a larger-scale plot device, the GM should simply decide what the overall effect is. If anyone manages to swallow the stuff later on, apply a disadvantage that best fits an intensified version of the general effect. This may sometimes require multiple disadvantages, depending on how obscure the Secret Masters were feeling that day.
Adventure Seeds
The Mood Controller is an obvious tool of conspiracy, whether it's a local conspiracy or a "big-C" Conspiracy in an GURPS Illuminati game. The characters may discover an unused case of the stuff hidden in their workplace. Though they probably will think nothing of an unaccounted-for batch of sodas, they are soon awash in conspiracy theorists and Men in Black, all fighting to get the stuff, either to use it or study it. A battle over soda ownership is one pleasantly surreal introduction to an Illuminated game.Another option that works well for seasoned conspiracy hunters and newbies alike is to discover the chemicals when it's already too late. An environmental researcher could suddenly discover a new, uncharacterized compound in their gas chromatography analyses of the local watershed. When their clinician friend finds the same compound in blood samples, it's time to wonder. Add in one paranoid conspiracy buff and the game is ready to go.
Of course, Mood Controllers are great even for jaded conspiracy gamers. Weird ingredients are old hat, and any really talented paranoid knows to look out for doctored food. What happens, however, when the nice company man comes out to explain that it's a typo on the can, and they'd love to replace it with twice as many normal cans, if it's really that much of a concern? What if they're right?
Past Columns Article publication date: January 1, 1999
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