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*Barcodes have been subbed with Microchips*

Micro-Chips and Ethical Issues in Game

Introduction:


In the game Microchips will be implanted in civilians living inside NWC territory. They will indicate things such as Name, Age, Gender, Blood Type, Height, Travel and Visa Rights, Criminal Background, etc… and will be specific to each individual. This will be a means of information gathering and control that the NWC will exercise over its citizens.

Say, if someone gets arrested or breaks the law, the arresting officer can use some sort of device to scan their microchip and put that incident on their file.

*This also touches on a separate topic: The separation of and distinguishing between military and police forces controlled by the U.S. Gov (and by proxy, the NWC) that I will talk in another post.

How they Work:

     Just like conventional microchips that are in use today, the NWC will have a specific chip for each individual citizen. In the same way that store barcodes contain information stored in a database, these personalized chips will be linked to the profiles of every citizen and will be accessible by INTERPOL (I am refraining from saying FBI, I am assuming that, perhaps, the FBI became assimilated into INTERPOL after the NWC took over), Local Police, the Military, and other Gov. Agencies. The government will keep tabs and monitor the activities of its citizens in this way. They [the chips] will be implanted in the bodies of NWC citizens (I am thinking on the left forearm, reminiscent from Nazi Concentration Camps… cold we please keep that aspect! ...If not, I think behind the leftear would suffice.)

     Since these will only be given to people under NWC control and the means of maintaining these databases will be under NWC Gov control, they will be much like a SSN card in that they will be hard to forge, distinguish between those who are not under NWC control, be universal in accessing data about people, etc…

*Perhaps the NWC will have a separate microchip that gives information about an individual in a different format as to indicate those people in the “outlander” areas who are still under their control. (If you look at the map, the NWC still control a lot of territory outside the main cities however their “home turf” will be IN these cities. The outer areas will be disputed territories or other types of areas where most of the fighting happens.)

Details:

     If the player is born in a NWC city, they will start off already having a chip in their body; like, if the player breaks a law or gets into some trouble within that city and, thus, gets arrested. Depending on the offence the arresting officer may just scan the characters’ chip and let the player go. If it is more serious, the player may “re-spawn” on the outside of a jail with some money absent from their bank account (I am ripping that from GTA, but that can be changed to make it more interesting).
*This brings about another aspect that needs to be worked on, saving in-game and re-spawn points and what the options for those will be and when/where they will happen.

     However, this leads me to another question, what if the screen set up of the player was different depending on which faction city they start off in? …Not a different one for each city, just if the player started in a NWC or Rebel city, it would be different (Keep in mind the 10 potential starting cities, 2 in each of the 5 Regions, one for each side in each region). The reason I bring this up is mostly money. If the player starts off NWC, like was mentioned in Black Market deals topic, there could need to be a means of transferring money, say if the player is employed by the NWC in the military, and the character could have a bank account. There would then need to be a way for the player to keep track of the funds in the account. I was thinking of either a box in on the screen that would show the players’ balance but there can be ATM style machines that they can go to as well, and thus, no box.

Bar-coding Continued:     

     If the player starts off in a Rebel city then, of course, they wouldn’t have been issued a chip. And thus, if they went into a NWC city this would create a problem if they got “checked” by a police officer or other Gov. Official. This would force the player to be either covert in their movements to avoid potential checking or there could also be people the player could go to, who have inside connections, who could implant the player with a bogus chip that would still be valid. This also brings up what would happen to the player if this did happen (If they got checked without a chip?) ...They could be “deported” for being an illegal person and transported in the nearest “outlander” city or be fined and then deported. They could lose health (from some sort of physical beating by the officer) and then be deported, or a variation on all of the above and be dependent upon the situation…?

     Likewise, if a player is coming from a NWC city and wanted to go rebel, the chip could instantly be a negative sign for the Rebels and the player would either have to have an escort, say, if the player met up with a Rebel agent inside the NWC city and wanted to be brought over to the other side, or do some things to earn the trust of the Rebels, say, if they managed to get out of the city and met up with a Rebel group that way, they may have to do some things first to “prove” themselves.

     This also could be interesting if the player, say if they started off in a Rebel city, thus having no chip, and ran into NWC forces in an “outlander” area, while still neutral and not brandishing anyone’s colors just yet; what if they were “checked”? Being in the outlander area I guess conditions would be harsher as neither the NWC nor the Rebel soldiers may care much about the civilians living in these areas; so, the player could get “checked” and then beaten (unless they defended themselves) for not having that specific chip.

     I was also thinking of something similar to microchips for the Rebels as well. They wouldn’t have to be chips exactly, but this would, similarly, be a way of keeping track of everyone and be an effort in preventing NWC infiltration in the Rebel Encampments. This could also be a means of access to peoples personal information, money and such, so if the player got “robbed” in an outlander city or elsewhere, their money couldn’t be taken from them.

     Another reason why I would like to see a Rebel equivalent to microchips is to raise the question in the players’ mind of “Well, what IS the difference between the NWC and Rebels?” I don’t want the two sides to be perfectly parallel to each other but I would like there to be aspects about both sides that make the player wonder who exactly is good and who is bad…