Heresy

**Heresy** is a illness caused by an overload of lilac energy to the body.

Most herest starts small. Someone wants to be come stronger, to change the position that they work in, to become a better painter/sculptor, to just endure a hard winter, etc. But it doesn't grow big with small worship, itgrows faster and larger the more extreme the actions. So the dark gods try to force you to get more extreme.

That person that just wanted to get stronger to impress that girl, now feels the urge to get in to martial arts, then fight in fighting tournaments, then underground death matches, etc.

The sculptor that just wanted to better, is better, but the haven't made a perfect piece yet, so they keep trying, and their art is lauded as beautiful, but it is still not perfect, they start staying up late and loosing sleep, they start taking drugs, and their work is even more beautiful, but still it is not enough....

That low level factory worker just wanted a change, to be better in life, to be the supervisor. And after plotting to get that corrupt supervisor arrested for heresy, they realize that they could become a force of change, and become a plant manager, then an owner, then a governor, then their own emperor, not realizing that all their plans and plots are tangling them up, that the information that all the people he replaced had, could have prevented the genestealer uprising....

That farmer on the agriworld just wanted to endure the harsh winter, and he did, but then he broke his leg, so he prayed to endure the pain to finish his job. Then his family fell sick and he prayed that they would not die, and they didn't. Then he prayed that he would not have to feel them suffer, but now he is numb, and his fields are growing lush ferns and mushrooms, and his neighbors crops are now failing, but he has plenty to eat, so he shares....

## Background

Those afflicted with Heresy are known as heretics, those who have existing mutant DNA, enhanced by cybernetics and lilac energy, and as a result have lost their sense of identity as a person, either to themselves or others. They come to view regular people and other living things as weak and inferior. With their enhanced physical abilities and complete disregard for life, cyberpsychos are extremely dangerous to anyone that crosses their path. Heresy can affect anyone modified with cybernetics or 2Ps eventually, but the less empathetic or psychologically unstable a person is, the more susceptible they are to it.

There is no real cure, though treatment is available. The effects are cumulative. A single cyber hand is unlikely to cause cyberpsychosis, but replacement of all four limbs and both eyes as well as a couple of manipulation 2Ps will probably start down the slippery slope to madness.

Heresy symptoms are gradual, ranging from decay of self-preservation, distancing or disregard from friends and family, and poor or impulsive outbursts or acts. They start to identify more with machines and mutants than people, and stop doing things that used to give them pleasure (eating, sleeping, socializing, sex, etc). Eventually human interactions become irritating, and then irritation morphs into contempt, and finally violence. Not all heretics are physically violent. Some have fragmented personalities, some are kleptomaniacs, others are compulsive liars. But violence towards living things, especially people, is most common.

Heresy has become a major problem in the Body Modification-saturated world of the Ark. It is actually quite common in many boostergangs, though fairly rare in polite society. Police departments have heavily armed and armored units, called psycho squads, who specialize in subduing or killing heretics.

Incidentally the government (and corporations) are not going to wait for you to go over the edge. It is quite common for governments or corporations (who are often the de-facto government) to track people who are known to install lots of cyberware. This is another reason ripperdocs exist; not everyone wants to be on a government watch list for heresy.

By 2277, the occurrence of heresyhad markedly decreased due to medical and implant advancements, but people still succumbed to it every day. Practically none survived any encounter with police, which usually applied overwhelming firepower to put down the threat regardless of the circumstances, a tactic which resulted in collateral civilian deaths. An expensive drug called baloperidol was a common treatment for individuals believed to be on the verge of heresy, but its effectiveness was questionable. Standard practice for corporations who learned one of their own was becoming heresy was to have them isolate themselves away from the public and wait for a corporate medical team to sedate them and transport them to a therapeutic retreat, but unknown to the victims, these medical teams were actually hit squads.