=Nanofabrication= 
[[toc]]
Access to technology that can make unlimited gear can be a daunting challenge to a gamemaster, unless approached properly. First and foremost, players and gamemasters should recognize that both parties are trying to cooperate to tell their part in the story. Roleplaying is a collaborative effort, not a competitive one. It is frequently not about compromise, and “winning the game” means everyone at the table has enjoyed themselves.
==How to Give Them the World, Without Giving Them Everything== 
Nanofabrication is a great resource for characters in Eclipse Phase because they can make almost anything they need. It can also be a headache if the players push it to extremes. While the almost-postscarcity nature of nanofab makes the hoarding and accounting of gear less of an issue for players, there are times when a gamemaster will want to restrict what characters can get their hands on in order to present more of a challenge.
The important thing about restricting the availability of contentious equipment is to still keep the story believable and enjoyable. There are a variety of methods to achieve this: limiting access to feedstock and fabbers, blueprint control, time, or the ability to carry incredible amounts of gear.
===Limited Access=== 
The easiest way to control nanofab is to make nanofabrication machines inaccessible. Certain conservative polities may only allow residents or licensed users to operate fabbers—or may ban them entirely. If the characters bring their own, they may be required to subject their fabbers to a customs inspection to get them inside a hab, which may include locking the fabber down so it cannot make restricted items until it leaves the hab. There is also the possibility that the threat of an unleashed TITAN virus in a local mesh could trigger an emergency nanofabber shutdown order in order to prevent the machines from being subverted.
The other option is to limit access to feedstock materials; the machine simply runs out of the feedstock required to make the requested goods. This largely depends on what the characters intend to fabricate. Any object that requires rare materials may run into an availability problem; see Acquiring Rare Materials (next column). Access to hazardous material can also be a challenge. It is very inconvenient to keep stocks of radioactive material around. To make things even more difficult, radioactive substances throw off particles with enough energy to inﬂuence nanobots, which will affect precision nanofabrication. Either errors will crop up, or error correction will take signiﬁcant time. Also, while it is possible to shield the equipment so that the use of hazardous materials does not have a deleterious effects on the users, the fabricated components are likely to have detectable signatures that may trigger habitat security systems.
===Blueprint Control=== 
Blueprint access can be controlled several ways. First, the nanofabber may not be allowed to produce the requested product. In this case, the fabricator’s built-in restrictions must be hacked, using the usual hacking rules. The characters also may not have access to the speciﬁc blueprint they need. Where would you go to get the blueprint for a state-of-the-art nuclear device? Though the availability of open source blueprints helps to overcome this obstacle, gamemasters can use this as a tool to limit availability. Searching for blueprints for restricted technologies is also likely to draw the attention of local authorities, who are sure to be monitoring local mesh trafﬁc, or even groups like Firewall or Ozma.
If the gamemaster is concerned about giving out blueprints because said gear might then proliferate throughout the campaign, consider giving the characters a one-shot-use blueprint, allowing them to have their cool gizmo—once.
If characters wish to program their own blueprints from scratch, keep in mind that they will often need more than just [[Programming]] skill. To properly design something, the character should also have the necessary [[Academics|Academic]] and/or [[Professional]] skills to provide a complete understanding of how the gear works, what components are necessary, and a variety of other design factors.
===Time=== 
Time can be used to great effect during an operation. There simply may not be enough time to make a wish come true. Most nanofabrication takes between 1 and 5 hours, but gamemasters can use a variety of excuses to extend this. The particular fabber may an older, slower model, the blueprint may need special licensing approval but the licensor’s servers are down to an Anon DDOS attack, or the particular design in question happens to be extra complex. The element of limited time can even enhance the game if players start pushing their luck, waiting for the fabber to go “Ding!”
===Gear Loads=== 
Though Eclipse Phase avoids encumbrance rules, gamemasters should use common sense. If the characters are going gear-crazy, it is not unreasonable to ask: can they carry everything? By itself, the smallest desktop cornucopia machine is the size of an ofﬁce copier, and incredibly heavy. A strong morph can carry it, but probably not do anything else significant.
==Acquiring Rare Materials== 
Gamemasters may wish to apply the following modiﬁers to attempts to acquire rare raw materials. In some cases, acquiring the necessary raw materials can be the adventure itself.
===Antimatter=== 
**Rarity:** Everywhere
**Used In:** Antimatter drives and warheads, medical/scientiﬁc sensors
Private individuals must use a Level 5 Networking favor to even get a hearing on acquiring antimatter. From there, gaining access is a roleplaying challenge requiring that the character present a compelling case to whatever authority or administrator controls it.
===Fissionables=== 
**Rarity:** Everywhere, but rarest beyond the Belt
**Used In:** Fission reactors and drives, nuclear warheads
Fissionables can be as difﬁcult to acquire as antimatter, but the favor required to get a hearing may vary from Level 3 to Level 5, depending on the size of the polity from which ﬁssionables are requested. Well-connected Guanxi networkers (using multiple Level 4 or 5 favors with –10 to –30 modiﬁers on [[Networking]] Tests) may ﬁnd a seller, but black market trade in ﬁssionables also risks drawing attention from organizations like Firewall and Oversight.
===Rare Heavy Metals=== 
**Rarity:** Outer System
**Used In:** Ammunition, Rocket Nozzles, Fuel Cells
This includes heavy metals such as platinum, tungsten, and depleted uranium. Treat a Networking favor to acquire such materials as 1–2 levels higher than normal, and possibly also apply a –10 to –30 on the Networking Test depending on the quantity required. Acquiring heavy metals in industrial quantities usually requires making a case in the political arena.
===Uncommon Radioisotopes=== 
**Rarity:** Everywhere
**Used In:** Some sensor gear
Acquiring radium and thorium and the like requires a Networking test at –10 to –20, depending on the amount.
===Water=== 
**Rarity:** Mercury, Venus, some asteroids
**Used In:** Swimming pools, replacing ship/habitat water supplies
A few liters of water are as cheap as anywhere else, particularly if they’re going right back into hab recycling systems, but large quantities (greater than 1,000 liters) are very difﬁcult to acquire. Treat a Networking favor to acquire such materials as 1–2 levels higher than normal, and possibly also apply a –10 to –30 on the Networking Test depending on the quantity required.
=Making It Up= 
**Source:** //A Sentinel’s Guide to Nanofab//
Firewall wants you for your mind. It’s not your buff physique (we can get you a new one), it’s not your high speed blockade runner (it won’t outrun an egocast), it’s not your muse-enhanced sniper riﬂe (you can’t take it with you). No, Firewall is looking for the keen mind, unique experiences and skills of a sentinel. Everything else can be obtained, by me or people like me.
In the good ol’ days, I’d be a black marketeer, a smuggler, or even a pedestrian shop keeper. You’d browse my wares, put your money on the table, and walk out with your merchandise. You’d come to me because you could get a good price on new gear or a discount for used gear. You wanted me because I could get your gear, but you wanted me to be a bit on the dull side so you could take advantage of me.
Things are different now. You want gear? At some point it’s gotta be built. Why not go straight to the source? Why not get a master craftsman to build you a better one? Better yet, get half a dozen to add their best contributions, and have a bleeding edge state-of-the-art piece of equipment that has never been seen or anticipated by transhumanity or TITAN.
I’m a fab-hacker. I can do that for you. I can get you access to the fab, ﬁnd the blueprint, and jack the security so you can have your toy. Got a favorite piece of gear with a ﬂaw? Let me know, if I can’t ﬁx it, I’ll get a guy to work on that for you.
==The Basics== 
In the void, it’s hard to accomplish anything for any period of time without a nanofabber. Things break, replacements are needed. I can’t think of a hab that doesn’t have one, even the infugee cold-storage havens. When the air scrubber goes down, you can’t call the depot down the way for delivery. The depot is millions of miles off, and they need their own recycling equipment.
Nanofab is a miracle technology that’s ubiquitous. Every member of transhumanity relies on the fruits of nanofabrication on a daily basis, and it is unlikely we would have survived the Fall without the ability to manufacture directly from raw materials. Modern material science relies on thousands of different substances, but at their core, they’re all carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, iron, titanium, and other elements common on all the dead rocks ﬂoating in space. So what is it? If everyone has it and can make anything from it, why doesn’t everyone have one? Why are we still paying for stuff? Why doesn’t everyone have an anti-matter bomb? Because … it’s not that simple. We’re all still part of an economy. You still have to give stuff to get stuff.
To many folks, that means forking over cred to get stuff. More and more that traditional model isn’t working anymore. The autonomist habs don’t use inner system credit because it is tied to a corrupt governing system or something. Some of those hardliners won’t even touch cred because they believe it ultimately weakens their way of life. Out there you use your rep. You gain rep by being useful, investing yourself in to the community, providing a service, doing something of value outside of yourself. The system seems to hearken back to the barter-and-trade system, but the ubiquitous nature of the mesh removes many of the negative aspects of bartering. This translates to an entirely new commerce model, the reputation economy.
The basic requirements for nanofabrication are pretty simple: a fabrication device, a blueprint, raw stock material, and power. The raw stock material simply needs to be the same material, in the same amounts (plus a little extra for the nanobots), as the ﬁnal product. Power comes from a consistent power source. For anything but the smallest cornucopia machine or fabber, this needs to be an industrial power source.
==Fabricators== 
Of course, you need something to actually construct your project. Nanofabricators are almost everywhere, but most carry some kind of user veriﬁcation. On a hab without permission? Good luck gaining access to their fabricator infrastructure.
The largest nanofabricators are actually fabrication complexes. Consisting of multiple fabrication systems of different sizes in close proximity, these complexes produce large goods (small spacecraft, components for larger craft, habitat sections, etc.). When not in use, the smaller accessory fabricators produce other needed goods. These goods can then be delivered through the complex feedstock transport system. If you’re lucky enough to have a residence with any sort of space, you probably have nanofabber of some sort in your home. Most habitats also have publicly available nanofabrication terminals. In larger, busier habs, these terminals are not where the actual nanofabrication takes place—the wait lines get too long. You enter your order online, the goods are produced in a fabrication facility and delivered to the terminal you specify, and you are pinged when it’s ready to pick up. Many habs have a further enhanced delivery infrastructure that delivers the ﬁnished good directly to you.
===Different Breeds=== 
The ubiquitous nature of nanofabrication means there is a tremendous variety in the different implementations. The four most commonly encountered, personally owned nanofabrication systems consist of hives, fabbers, desktop cornucopias, and makers. Within these types, there is endless variety and specialization, without even getting in to the software and blueprints contained within the system.
**Hives** represent the cutting edge of nanotechnology. The smallest hives are the size of a ﬂat’s thumb, used to produce a speciﬁc nanoswarm. Currently this is about as small as we can get and hope to produce reliable nanotechnology. Generalized hives exist, capable of producing all kinds of nanomachines, but are larger—just big enough that you can’t carry it in one hand.
**Makers** are a catch-all term for a unit that makes food. Makers are small and portable, so you’re likely to have one at home, even if your home is a capsule. Many makers are simply “goo extruders,” offering a variety of textures and ﬂavors of edible products. The Quik-Noodle machine is a great example. Send it your request and in just minutes you’ve got a hot cup of noodle soup, chicken and noodles, that weird pizza thing, or a cold soda.
At their simplest and cheapest, these aren’t even really nanofabricators. The Quik-Noodle is just mixing protein/nutrient goo with ﬂavoring and texturizers then subjecting it to a speciﬁc pressure environment while heating it. It may do this process several times to make the different components of your meal, taking maybe 5 minutes. Is the food great? It’s decent. There’s variety to it. It’s pretty nutritious. Is it produced using nanotechnology? Kinda. The cheap makers do rely on nanotechnology for disassembly and, more importantly, for sanitation. These machines stock food stuffs indeﬁnitely and inexpensively. The sanitation nano assiduously guards against food-borne illnesses and other contaminants. This allows for the indeﬁnite storage of what really amounts to bacterial growth media with a high level of security for a minimal commitment of power and physical resources.
Habs that offer a basic subsistence level frequently employ these types of machines to provide basic nutrition, albeit with many fewer customization options. Of course, the better quality makers actually fabricate your food—some people even claim they can taste the difference.
**Fabbers** are small, specialized nanofabricators designed to produce items within a specialized role. Medical fabbers can produce a wide variety of medical supplies including many medications. Tool fabbers exist to manufacture hand tools and related supplies (screws, nuts, etc.). One company speciﬁcally produces their tool fabber to look like a large yellow tool box. Occasionally these fabricators will have blueprints for equipment larger than their assembly volume, in which case the fabber will turn out parts that need to be assembled by hand. These devices are typically restricted to only work with blueprints speciﬁed by the manufacturer, but they can be hacked so you can upload any other blueprints you like. Due to the limited nature of their production capabilities, these units tend to have smaller feedstock stores with less variety, but they do have miniaturized disposal units.
**Cornucopia machines** are general-purpose nanofabbers. These are desktop sized and larger—too big to carry around, but they’ll ﬁt in a vehicle. These will make almost anything, barring legal/DRM restrictions and the right feedstock.
==The Blueprint== 
Blueprints are a big bottleneck when it comes to fabrication. Almost anyone can create a blueprint for a hammer. How about for a jackhammer? A micro-g rock breaker? An industrial fusion-bottle torch? Naw, it’s much easier to buy the blueprint from someone. If you buy from a well-established corp, you get a piece of equipment that has been tested, improved, and optimized. You get the software package for it that enables the gear to perform the job you want. It may even come with a free download code for the device AI. You receive a data pack for your muse with instructions and access to tech support, should you need it. The whole system works in synergy to deliver a product that is the best at what it does. If something does go wrong, the corp is there to help you out or give you a discount on an upgrade.
Sometimes, you just can’t get the blueprint. You just thawed from an infugee cold storage bank into a clanking synth, with nothing to your name. No rep, just the skills in your head. Perhaps you’ve got rep, but not the right kind. Or you just burned your old identity and you need to re-establish yourself. Any number of reasons might keep you from getting that set of plans.
===DIY Programming=== 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you clearing your throat already. You’ve been a Jovian miner for a lifetime. You’ve seen all the tools, all the techniques, and you’ve ﬁxed everything when your mesh has gone down. In short, you can tell the fabber exactly what to make and how to make it, right?
How well do you know programming? Step one is actually programming the blueprint. You know exactly what you want; you just have to make sure the fabber knows how to make it. I hear ya, no problem, you’ve been working with computers all of your life, and you’ve got a buddy who is willing to take care of the harder parts of the programming. Again, no problem.
You want to save some resources, but you still need a kick-ass drilling tool. You’ve taken apart dozens, and cobbled parts together to make functional Franken-drills to meet your quota under pressure. You know how these things should work. Don’t you? Do you have the engineering, metallurgy, physics, and nanotech assembly background—in addition to the professional skills you’re already drawing on—to build the thing? Have you truly examined everything in depth to build this thing better and cheaper than an off-the-shelf commercial product? Are you going to enlist the help of more friends? All of whom have nothing better to do?
Perhaps you will. You’ve been doing this for quite some time; you know people and they remember you. You’ve got a team to assemble your blueprint, suggest their expert tweaks and put out a nice product. Essentially, you’re starting an open-source project. That’s fantastic if you’ve got the time, materials, and rep to pull it off.
===Hacking Blueprints=== 
Maybe you’ll just steal the blueprint. Nanofabbers, by deﬁnition, have access to blueprints. Corporate databases have mountains of blueprints. Habitat governments maintain blueprints for their use. They’re everywhere and they’re just data, right? Data can be stolen and hacked for your own personal use.
Again, you have some pesky hurdles. First (and frequently easiest) is locating the blueprint. Next you need to take possession. These two problems can be solved through some good code-jamming and data theft. However, the nanoprogrammer that you know, the guy that was going to write the blueprint in the ﬁrst place? He’s probably not going to be able to help you. Mesh B&E isn’t the same skill set as industrial nanofab programming. One guy enjoys a nice steady job keeping the production lines running. The other guy, at best, occupies a grey industry where his professional skills can get him nabbed and subjected to some hard core prison time, psychosurgery, or worse.
The good news is that your data thief can help you in other ways. It’s not a simple matter of just ﬁnding a blueprint and plugging it into a nanofabber. More than 99% of all industrial nanofabbers and cornucopia machines have built-in, distributed protocols for what can and can’t be built. [[Omnicor]] has built an incredibly capable line of popular fabrication options, with consistently low prices. They’re able to do this through end-user blueprint limitations. Put simply, inexpensive Omnicor nanofabbers require the client to use blueprints from the extensive Omnicor library of blueprints.
Not all corporate manufactured nanofabbers have this restriction. Even Omnicor sells nanofabrication units without this inhibition. However, most fabrication hosts, whether it is a habitat, faction/government, industry, etc, will also place limitations on the output of a nanofabrication system. This additional level of control is separate from the machine-level protocols and typically requires a separate effort at hacking it.
All nanofabricators are smart enough to compare the blueprints they are provided against a series of pre-programmed blueprints and/or design veriﬁcation systems. If you think a fabber is a simple appliance of industrial-sized-object printer, think again. Nanofabricators have processing power ranging from an advanced (but dedicated) expert system to a fullﬂedged AI.
Before they even start building, they’re examining the blueprint, ﬁguring out how to build it, and in some cases optimizing the build process (see below). During this period, the device AI checks the assembly and sub-assemblies against the above-listed limitations. With the smarter systems, you just don’t know ahead of time if your illicit blueprint will pass this examination. Rumor has it that some of the smarter systems will build in a subtle tracker or kill-switch into the build. Dumber ones may just notify the authorities. They may come pounding down your door or sit back and watch your every move.
This kind of kink in the plan can be found as it occurs by a good fab programmer or hacker. They can also be missed by someone not up to speed. By observing the data stream, a good hacker can monitor for major alterations to the blueprint or external security warnings. All fabbers have mesh links, and if it has a mesh link, it can be hacked. The network security within the nanofabrication hardware itself ranges from moderate to militant AI. Some of these systems can be easily accessed, but you better behave yourself once you’re inside.
==Feedstock== 
You ﬁnally have your blueprint and a fabricator that is willing to build it for you. We now come to the issue of raw materials. In most habitats, common feedstock is readily available. Most, if not all, of the habitat’s waste is scavenged for usable feedstock. When you throw your trash and discarded goods in the recycle, disassembler swarms reduce the components for re-use. In some habs, recycling will actually get a small credit bump, and in outer system habitats, recycling is a good way to keep your rep level by contributing your fair share back in to the system.
Gatecrashers and colonists face the extremes of these circumstances. Equipped with what they can carry and best guesses for what they will be facing, these egos are completely cut off from transhumanity for some period. Modern equipment relies on material from across the periodic table. So far, in every locale surveyed, carbon has been readily available. Occasionally a desirable planet is found with whole swathes of the periodic table missing or rare. Colonists and explorers in these situations need to ﬁnd new sources of these raw materials, cobble something else together, or do without.
Sometimes you need something manufactured from scratch, with no feedstock. Again, most products use the same basic elemental or molecular building blocks. Sometimes you need something a little exotic. Thorium is a dangerous radioactive metal, but has numerous uses in industry (thermal insulators and exotic lenses). Halogen gases are very toxic to most biologies, but are found everywhere (pharmaceuticals, polymers). Most of the periodic table is utilized in modern equipment, though some of it is used in incredibly small amounts. It is common for elements to be chemically bonded to other elements and molecules for easier storage. It is much easier to store common table salt (sodium bonded to chlorine) than to attempt to store the constituents separately, as both are highly reactive.
For example, you need a high resolution multispectral imager. You procure the blueprint and send the job off to the fabber. Seconds later, the request bounces back. The hab is replacing all of the external imaging spimes on the coreward side of the facility this week. There’s no thorium available for at least a week, and your blueprint doesn’t provide for an alternative. You put in a request for an alternate build, since you need the imager. The nanofab AI doesn’t have a viable substitute, though. The best it can offer is a substitute gallium alloy intermediary, but the unit will suffer a 65% decrease in sensitivity. Do you even know what that means? I don’t, but it doesn’t sound like the start of a successful operation.
What I can do, however, is hack the fab. You don’t need much thorium, and you’re going to use it in an allowed fashion. You just need to get the facility managers to … part with it. Ultimately this is an accounting issue. It’s just a matter of moving some numbers from one virtual column to another. You can go after the nanofab, the administrative computers, or even try a wetware social hack. That is, you can try smooth talking the administrator, directly.
What if you need to make a warhead, and nothing but uranium will do? First off, you have an answer regarding why rimward societies don’t just blow each other up. Heavy metals are rare, and ﬁssionables are even rarer. The occasional shoot-out over claims in the Belt is invariably over materials like uranium. Even the most communally-minded anarchist polities keep a tight rein on the ﬂow of rare elements.
Creative bookkeeping or hacking feedstock systems won’t work here; explicit authorization from multiple admins is needed. In anarchist habs, this might mean making a public case for access to the rare resource, with the decision riding on a majority or even a unanimous vote. In technosocialist polities, the rarest materials are usually under the control of state agencies that are unlikely to part with such resources unless put under political pressure. Bribery is usually ineffective in such situations, as green-lighting use of such resources usually requires approval from several different people.
==How Smart is the Fab?== 
Even the simplest nanofabricator is a tremendously complicated network of computers. The actual build computer is responsible for directing billions to quadrillions (or more) nanobots, each with a different set of instructions. This requires a massively parallel system that would be inconceivable a couple of decades ago. This is coupled to a blueprint analyzer and some sort of interface system. Any logistics management, security, or AI systems are completely separate, but common, additions to the nanofabricator. Almost any build optimizer will require some sort of AI programming.
Almost all of transhumanity is incredibly nervous about giving an ungoverned AI unrestricted access to a nanofabricator. Nanofab device AIs universally have some sort of inhibition system, kill-switch, lobotomy hardware, or something to keep it from becoming too smart or out of control. This is coupled with functional sequestering, hardware separation, and even cooperative AI inhibition/antagonism within the system.
This means that the system is only as smart as the designers are willing to let it get. Transhumanity has gone out of its way to keep innovation and improvisation out of artiﬁcial intelligence. While cutting-edge systems may have some of these traits, their integration into the actual assembly process is largely unheard of. The smartest fabricators can come up with new ideas, but they can’t decide to build them on their own.
==Wet-Fab== 
In many ways, using biological systems for synthesis is faster and easier than dry fabrication. Forced-growth technology isn’t capable of producing long-term viable organisms of any complexity. However, it does allow for the incredibly fast creation of simple food stuffs, many pharmaceuticals, or other biological products. Many habitats offer basic food stuffs at little to no cost to the individual. However, this isn’t a perfect system. Transhumanity craves variety and this is particularly true when it comes to dietary preferences. While technoprogressives are quick to point out that nanofabrication has placed a chicken in every pot, the clanking masses are quick to shout out: “Chicken? Again?”
Individuals are quick to pay for dietary options, and restaurants still exist, offering a culinary experience that just can’t be achieved from a vending machine. While it is still a luxury with a price attached, frequently it is a price that is willing to be paid by someone. This is particularly true when it comes to exotic food. Wet-fab programmers exist that spend the majority of their employment replicating old Earth ingredients. Not many wild boar were rescued during the Fall. Couple that with the tens of thousands of edible species, and you see a career potential. Now increase it even more by offering various cuts, preparations, and any other variations, and you can see why this can be a big business. Whether the synthesized creations have any correlation to the real thing is anyone’s guess.
Wet-fab tends to be broken down into two different types of fabrication. The ﬁrst is the typical fabrication expectation: you put resources in and build your product. The second is a little more complex. You put resources in, grow something, which then in turn produces your product, similar to a biological gland. When you have enough of your product, you dispose of the artiﬁcial gland or put it into storage. Many medications are developed this way, but some incredibly useful products are also developed through this method.
The current state of the art allows for forced growth of simple organisms and products. This is why the parts for pods can be grown in under a year. Complex organisms (macrocellular organisms relying on tissue-level organization) don’t scale as well. A variety of issues related to forced growth can easily result in the death of the organism. The best we can do for growing new, whole bodies is just under two years. Perfecting this technology would free millions of infugees from virtual-spaces or cold storage, but is proving to be a difﬁcult hurdle. Some of the darker chatter on the mesh indicates that the hypercorps may not want massive numbers of infugees gaining access to bodies as it will reduce the ready pool of potential indentures.
Healing vats are a specialized form of wet-fabrication that deserve mention. Able to regrow an entire biomorph from as little as the head, they’d seem to be a solution to the problem of infugees, until one considers the massive scale of the infugee problem. Healing vats are more expensive and far costlier to operate than industrial-scale morph tanks. They’re only capable of repairing, not completely regrowing, anything above the spinal cord. Given all of this, along with their central importance in medical care and a constant shortage of new units, healing vats have never been a practical option for making new morphs.
==The Ugly Side== 
As more and more manufacturing is performed using nanofabrication and wireless technology, we’re seeing the rise of “black boxes”—sealed equipment that simply seems to work. No access panels, no visible means of disassembly. The equipment is almost impossible to repair through conventional means, as an engineer cannot gain access to the internals. Almost anything manufactured in this manner will provide some kind of repair guide or data for nanorepair systems, if asked nicely over the mesh. Higher-end equipment will come with self-repair nano embedded within the system.
The state of transhuman technology has now achieved a state where much of modern technology is incomprehensible to the clanking masses. Further, the scientiﬁc basis for the equipment cannot be gleaned by simply taking the items apart and examining them. Frequently, the act of forcing open the case is enough to disrupt the technological process within the case.
Transhuman nanofabrication is a miraculous technology, but it isn’t perfect. Currently the technology is heavily reliant on controlled environments and regimented programming. Almost all of the nanofabrication process takes place within the physical conﬁnes of the nanofabrication device. While open-air nanofabrication is possible, it frequently produces products with flaws ranging from subtle to catastrophic. The larger the end product, the more time it takes, the more likely it will acquire some sort of ﬂaw.
Open-air nanofabrication is perfect for simple tools. A subtle ﬂaw in a hammer or knife isn’t a big deal; a major ﬂaw in one of them will be noticed immediately. The same can’t be said of a computer or a vehicle. This is why nanoswarms are very speciﬁc in their function and are resistant to modiﬁcation. Repair spray is very effective at ﬁxing damage to something that is in its database, but you aren’t going to be able to program it to make you a meal. The difﬁculty in programming it to make something from scratch is incredible; you would be better served putting those resources into getting a hold of a nanofabricator instead.
==How To Get What You Want== 
The more things change, the more they stay the same. There are new economies, new methods of manufacture, new ways for authority to keep society in check, and new ways for the downtrodden to get the goods that they need from authority. All the changes made way for new exploits, new ways to game the system.
Oh yeah, the old ways still work too.
One of the easiest ways to get contraband is to get someone else to get it for you. Failing that, impersonate the person who can get it. In some ways, this is easier now. So much happens through the mesh, proxy presences, reputation economies, and virtual currency. All of this can be faked.
Gear can be stolen. Dangerous goods are frequently tagged and tracked. The tags can be removed, jammed, or burned. Authorization can be faked, bought, or even obtained legitimately. Checkpoints can be hacked, avoided, or strolled through brazenly. Break any part of this chain, and you have your toys.
The caveat is that you can’t take it with you. Despite the fantastic technology to build anything you wish, it just gets in the way. Firewall wants you for your mind. Your material possessions are a hindrance—you can’t take them with you on an egocast. Even if you’re physically traveling, the odds are that you just won’t be able to get your fantastically dangerous device past customs. You can try to get creative, of course. If you can’t get it through the front door, get it through the back door. See if you can get someone else to get your widget through.
If you’re putting that much effort in, you’re missing the bigger picture. You don’t need to waste time sneaking your gear in everywhere you go. Just get there and build what you need. Every hab out there has a fabricator of some sort, even if it’s run by the nice local triad. Beg, borrow or steal time on one. Bring your own blueprints, hack the fabricator that’s already there, and never worry about lugging your junk with you through the front door.
Remember to keep it small. It’s easy to burn out the risk of an exsurgent infection with a nuke, but the societal repercussions will be massive and the loss of life will potentially outstrip the infection itself. New Mumbai was an utter ﬁasco, and a desperation move bred from a lack of early solutions. If the exsurgent threat had been detected quick enough, a moderate incendiary charge killing a handful of people could have been used instead of two fusion bombs and hundreds of thousands dead. It’s also easier to check and see if you got your target with the smaller device. We still don’t know what’s happening in the depths of the New Mumbai Containment Zone.
Finally, remember that you can use a fabricator to make a fabricator. In some circumstances it may be difﬁcult to keep access to a large fabricator. Make a smaller one that is yours to keep. Many habitats have rules against this, but rules were made to be broken (or hacked).
==Opulence in a Society of Poverty== 
Even in locations that still function with a traditional credit economy, it’s not what you have, but who you are. A person’s rep and their social standing are intimately intertwined. More and more of the population is less impressed by displays of wealth and possession and more swayed by how society views the individual. As the rep economy becomes more established in the outer system, transhuman society is picking up some of the concepts as a whole. Individuals, neighborhoods, even whole habs are beginning to shun material opulence despite being fully ensconced within the traditional credit economy.
In an era where a measurable portion of the population is being freed from cold storage or a stark infugee holding virtual-space, ostentatious displays of wealth only show resources that could be put to better use. To many, stepping out of an exotic automobile for a night on the town represents a massive commitment in resources that could literally be put towards saving lives. The cubic—the volume of space to store the automobile—is equivalent to two to four (or more!) families’ living space in some habs. Never mind the car itself.
Frequently the issue of cubic itself is the challenging resource. Transhumanity has access to an inﬁnite amount of cubic (the great dark void), but actually enclosing it and making it livable takes time and resources. In many locations, they’re working as fast as they can, but new infugees are being discovered every week. There is still a backlog of millions, and we simply don’t have cubic for everyone to have a physical body.
==How I Learned to Stop Hoarding and Love My Fabber== 
When you really get down to it, you don’t need all of that stuff. You just need a fabber, or really, access to a fabber. Have gear hanging around that you don’t need? That’s called “junk.” Dangerous tech is hard to smuggle around, it makes the authorities ask too many inconvenient questions, and you can’t carry it with you when you egocast. Plus, you know what cool gear is called after it is used in the commission of a crime? Evidence. Use your gear and dispose of it.
Know the system and what you can dispose of safely without drawing attention to yourself. Better yet, give the gear to someone else. Some of the most restrictive habs have a thriving underworld with expertise in getting illicit goods back into the recyclers without triggering an alert. Sure, any credit or rep for disposal goes to them, but so does any investigative heat.
No, there’s no reason to keep all this crap around. You know what you can carry with you when you egocast? Blueprints. Skills. Expertise. That’s where the real operator lives. Not in the physical implements, but in the program running on the metal or the meat.

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