Hacking Mind, Chip, and Soul

“Hacking” is a term most commonly applied to computers and refers to illicit access of a system. Computer hackers have been around for well over a century, but only within the last thirty or forty years have we begun to see a rise in mind hackers, or “soul jackers” as they have come to be known. Soul jackers are psionicists who specialize in a new breed of mind control that not only allows domination over another person’s will, but complete access to all of their memories, their body movements, and their free thoughts. Not only is soul jacking a frightful concept, it is highly illegal and treated as a felony worth a minimum of 25 years in a maximum security psi-prison… if you get caught.

Soul jackers are hard to catch because the very nature of their crime is based on them having the ability to completely manipulate the minds of others and many soul jackers are also precogniscient and therefore hard to catch in the act.

Hacking computers, on the other hand, has become far more commonplace despite its likewise illegal nature. Psi-jackers have an easy time breaching computer security when they can literally talk to a system and command it to do what they want. In many ways, they would be like soul jackers for machines, if machines had a free will of their own to begin with.

Naturally, some megacorps HAVE developed cutting-edge technology to try to prevent hackers and soul jackers alike from entering the minds and programs of people and gadgets. Through the use of antipsi-based products, they have developed computer security and personal mental defense systems that can keep hackers and soul jackers out, but the cost of such equipment is high and available to only the wealthy elite and prosperous corporations. See Antipsi Tech in Equipment for more information.

How Hacking Works

There are four different types of hacking in Psi-punk. While each one represents a different target, the overall method remains the same: breach the target’s defenses, find the information you want, and (if desired) assume control of the target.

Nearly anything these days can be hacked, from computers to ATMs to cats and people. Each target requires a different skill, or set of skills, but the check always remains the same. Compare your check result, or your degree of success, to the target difficulty. If you meet or succeed the target difficulty, your attempt is successful. The higher your degree of success, the better your outcome.

The following pages detail various methods of hacking computers and people.

• Cracking (hacking computers without psionics)
• Psi-jacking (hacking computers with psionics)
• Social Engineering (hacking people without psionics)
• Soul Jacking (hacking people with psionics)