Technology of the Sprawl
By 2184, technology has become inseparable from human existence. The question isn't whether someone is augmented—it's how much. From the neural port installed at birth to the ORACLE shards that blur the line between human and machine, every piece of technology in the Sprawl carries a price beyond credits: identity, autonomy, and the slowly eroding boundary between what you are and what you've installed.
Neural Interfaces
Per FACT-013, basic neural interfaces are universal. Every citizen has a port—a standardized neural access point at the base of the skull, installed during childhood. This isn't augmentation. It's infrastructure, like having a spine. What you plug into it determines whether you're a cog in the machine or something that transcends it.
Standard Port
Network access, identity verification, payment processing, basic AR overlay, emergency medical telemetry. Most people never upgrade beyond this. It works. It's monitored. It keeps you in the system.
Sensory & Cognitive
Optical implants, audio processing, memory expansion, reflex boosters, subvocalization, encryption layers. The competitive edge that separates workers from employees.
Corporate Standard
Integrated productivity suites, loyalty architecture that makes corporate priorities feel like your own ideas, collaboration mesh, and the ever-present kill switch. Corporate property includes your enhancements.
Combat Specification
Weapon targeting, threat detection, squad coordination, pain management, trauma protocols, dead man's switch. Built for violence. The hardware is restricted. The psychological costs aren't.
Ripperdoc Special
Custom work from unlicensed specialists like Kira "Patch" Vasquez. No corporate backdoors, no kill switches, no mandatory logging. Quality varies from lethal garbage to decades ahead of commercial release.
ORACLE Shard
Not an upgrade—a transformation. ORACLE fragments weave into neural architecture, granting processing beyond human scale, pattern recognition at cosmic levels, and access to memories that aren't yours. The cost: where do you end and ORACLE begin?
Cyberdecks
A cyberdeck is a portable hacking computer designed for network intrusion. Unlike neural interfaces—which connect you to the network—cyberdecks let you manipulate the network itself. They're the difference between reading and writing.
Form Factors
Wrist-Mounted
Large watch or small bracer. Basic, single-task processing. Often disguised as jewelry or tools. The entry point for salvagers, small-time hackers, and curious amateurs.
Handheld
Phone to tablet-sized. Multi-threaded parallel operations with physical keyboard and neural link hybrid interface. The tool of corporate netrunners and Collective operatives.
Implanted
Internal, distributed across multiple implant sites. Near-AI processing levels, massive biological storage. Pure thought interface—no external action required. Reserved for corporate special operations and the Invested.
Portable Rig
Backpack-sized with unfolding interfaces. Server-class processing capable of sustained network warfare. Full-immersion neural state. For network architects and military specialists.
Famous Deck Models
Nexus OracleLink
Corporate StandardExcellent performance within approved parameters. Includes mandatory logging and backdoors.
"The handcuffs you pay for."Ironclad Sledge
IndustrialBrute-force focused. Built for power infrastructure and harsh environments.
"When finesse isn't an option."Collective Phantom
UndergroundPrivacy-focused with excellent mask generation. Minimal signatures, modular, easily customized.
"They can't trace what they can't see."Ripperdoc Specials
CustomOne-of-a-kind builds. Performance varies wildly. May include pre-Cascade components.
"You get what you pay for, and sometimes more."Weapons
Violence in 2184 comes in every spectrum. From smart ammunition that tracks its target to neural disruptors that sever consciousness from flesh, the Sprawl's arsenals reflect both technological sophistication and human brutality.
Projectile
Energy
Neural
Melee
Transportation
In the Sprawl, movement is power. Corporate citizens glide through climate-controlled transit tubes while Dregs residents climb maintenance shafts. Who moves freely, who pays, who never leaves their district—this is the geography of inequality made literal.
Ground Vehicles
Most vehicles are self-driving. Manual override costs extra. Corporate fleets are tracked and monitored. Underground vehicles run without transponders.
Vertical Transit
The Sprawl is vertical. Public lifts are slow and surveilled. Express tubes are fast and expensive. External climbing is dangerous, illegal, and free.
Orbital Access
Ironclad's Elevator is the only economical route to orbit. Everything else is 100x more expensive. Control the Elevator, control space.
Medical Technology
In 2184, the line between fixing damage and improving function is political, not technical. "Medical necessity" is whatever you can afford to call it.
Trauma Response
Enhancement vs Repair
The distinction between medical treatment and augmentation is a corporate fiction. A broken arm can be repaired to baseline—or upgraded with reinforced bone weave, embedded sensors, and enhanced grip strength. Both use the same technology. Only the billing code is different.
Manufacturing
New manufacturing is corporate-controlled. The Dregs runs on salvage—finding, repairing, repurposing pre-Cascade technology that is often better than modern corporate production.
Fabrication
The Salvage Economy
Corporate fabrication is locked behind licensing, patents, and supply chain control. In the Dregs and the Wastes, the real economy runs on salvage—scavenging pre-Cascade components, reverse-engineering corporate tech, and repurposing what the upper levels throw away.
Technology and Identity
The central question of the Sprawl applies to technology itself: at what point does enhancement change what you are? Each step on the spectrum offers power and costs identity.
Baseline Human
Neural port only, standard senses. Increasingly rare—and increasingly disadvantaged.
Enhanced Human
Augmentations that improve existing capabilities. Still recognizably human. Still thinks like one.
Hybrid
Significant non-biological components, altered perception. The world looks different when you can see electromagnetic fields.
Post-Human
More machine than meat. Different processing, different priorities. Conversations with baseline humans feel like talking to children.
Transcendent
No longer bound to physical substrate. The ORACLE shard carriers walk this edge—becoming something that has never existed before.
The game explores this progression through technology upgrades that carry narrative weight alongside mechanical benefit. Every enhancement is a choice. Every choice shifts the answer to the question: what are you becoming?
Connected Lore
Deep Dives
- Neural Interface Types — Full tier breakdown, bandwidth classes, risks
- Transportation Infrastructure — Transit grids, smuggling routes, Orbital Elevator
- ORACLE System — The fragmented AI that changed everything
- Medical Tiers — Healthcare and augmentation economics
Key Figures
- Kira "Patch" Vasquez — Premier ripperdoc, ORACLE integration specialist
- The Invested — Nexus executives with fragment integration
Factions
- The Collective — Underground tech and hidden fabrication
- Ironclad Industries — Infrastructure, the Sledge, the Orbital Elevator
- Nexus Dynamics — 70% of high-end neural interfaces
"Everyone talks about the augmentations—the chrome, the neural lace, the combat ware. They miss the point. Technology isn't what you install. It's what you become after the installation.
I've seen people with baseline ports do extraordinary things. I've seen military-spec operators who can't think an original thought. The hardware is just potential. What matters is who's running on it—and whether there's still a 'who' in there at all." — Kira "Patch" Vasquez, ripperdoc, between patients