The Zone

The single biggest currency in the Zone is information. It is the very lifeblood of what everyone there is trying to achieve. The acquisition and sale of data is how freelancers get rich, why the gangs exist and what all the scientists are roughing it in the Zone for. In game, data comes in three types.

Information on paper is very rare but some freelancers keep notes in small notebooks as to what they have learned and where they have been. The notebooks of legendary guides and explorers are highly prized and can command huge prices. Virtually no scientific data of any kind is on paper. Players are free to make copies of written information in whatever way they can.

Most scientific data will be on memory stick. Each memory stick will be marked with a code for the use of the referee team. There will be a laptop available for communal use so you can read the data you acquire. Rather than vast reams of technical jargon the memory stick will have a DATA??.TXT file (the ?? will be the referee reference number) which will have a brief written description of what the player can determine from the data. The txt file will also tell you which skills will yield more information and will either put that in a seperate file or direct you to a referee. Memory sticks can be copied and passed around freely.

If an area or object has something interesting that can be learned about it by taking readings, it will have a QR code like the above. Scanning the code with a suitable reader will bring text up on your phone. This may be a description of what you learn or it may be a codeword. If it is a codeword then you pass on the readings to others by telling them the codeword. Most data you are sent out to collect will be codewords, written descriptions will usually be reserved for problems that need solving there and then.