Dead-Heads
Dead-Heads are the "signature mutants" of the Colorado Wasteland: Compare the Tunnelers of the Divide, the Ghost People of the Sierra Madre, or the Lobotomites of Big MT. Like the Lobotomites of Big MT, however, it is perhaps not entirely correct to call the Dead-Heads 'mutants': rather, they are the victims of pre-War Super Science, whose detrimental effects continue to be repeated to this day.
Origins
Most Dead-Heads come from Siena Supermax. The first of these were literally so - as a means of control over their slave-prisoners, the guards of Siena Supermax would use the brain-draining capabilities of the Zenith supercomputer that controlled the facility. Indeed, Siena Supermax had been constructed by Acme and the Government (with only limited knowledge for the ever squeamish Greenway) with four experimental purposes in mind beyond its public claims of being the prison of the future: one, to use death row inmates and the Zenith Supercomputer. Two, to give Acme and the government an attempt to advance the field of computer science - rather than ripping out the brains of dogs and humans and using them as central processors, they wanted to build off of some of the innovative discoveries by RobCo and Poseidon and discover how the human mind itself worked. Third, (and closely linked to the second), as a semi-phrenological endeavor to understand the mind of the criminal, the psychopath, and the communist.
Fourthly (and EXTREMELY closely linked to the third), as a part of the US government's ongoing research into brainwashing, its brain-draining would use some of the CODE research being developed in the Boulder Dome. After having their mind pumped and their brain permanently scarred from the large needle shoved through their temple, the inmates subjected to brain-drain were left dazed, but largely pleasant and compliant. Pre-War, this made them the perfect inmates to be subjected to the Blue Flu. Post-War, it made them the perfect servants for the ruling guards.
This is not to say that the brain-drain was a full proof lobotomy: in addition to the obvious effects (loss of self and loss of memories), inmates would suffer from some stranger effects. Seizures, accompanied by the babbling of inhuman sounds and alphanumeric sequences, would occur from time to time. Inmates seemed to possess knowledge (especially about computers) that they should have no way of knowing. And at least on one occasion, one brain-drained inmate ran amok, killing all in his path with the single minded purpose of gaining access to Zenith before being shot dead.
When the socialists took control of Siena Supermax, they found the brain-drain to be quite delightful. Like the guillotine of the French revolutionaries, the leaders of Siena hailed the brain-drain as a humane form of execution - those that did wrong by the body politic could have their asocial tendencies wiped out, and have their bodies repurposed to serve the people and act as the model of the New Sienan Man. It also helped that the intellectuals and thugs that made up Siena's ruling cabal had no idea how to keep Zenith running without supplying it with constant brain-drains.
However, as Zenith's performance began to break down, so too did the well being of those whose brains it drained. What had once been rare occurrences became the norm: victims lost nearly all grasp on the human language, instead descending into a bizarre mixture of ticks, clicks, and RobCo termlink that was decipherable only to those who had been brain-drained. Further, they became even more single mindedly obsessed with computers, becoming almost totally incapable of functioning in the real world. Worst of all, the number of violent incidents by them increased.
Unable to stop conducting brain-drains lest the prison's automated systems begin to collapse, the Sienans devised a simple solution: simply dump the victims outside of the walls of the prison once they were done pumping them, leting them fend for themselves. The Sienans figured that they would starve to death in a matter of weeks, unable to fend for themselves in the harsh wasteland. How far they were from the truth.
Behavior & Characteristics
Dead-Heads spend most of their time below ground in their cyber-hives. Generally, they can only stand to be above ground during the night on account of their extremely pale skin and sensitive eyes. Most of this time is spent scavenging any technology they can get their hands on, in addition to Mentats. Occasionally, they will kidnap humans (often but not always children) to be converted into new Dead-Heads.
One of the most prominent features of Dead-Heads are their goggles. The RobCo Virtuoso was their attempt to beat Virtual Strategic Solutions to the civilian virtual reality market. Connected to wiring by a wrist-mounted PIP-Boy, the device boasted realistic wire-frame graphics, full sound integration, and even intra-cranial magnetics to stimulate the brain and make the user feel as if they really are in delightful worlds of fancy. The product was slated for a limited release in Colorado where it was manufactured before nation wide release.
Unfortunately, the Virtuoso was a massive failure. Users reported nausea, blurred vision, memory loss, and hallucinations both during and after their use of the Virtuoso. Even those that didn't have such poor side effects complained about the limited games and capabilities of the Virtuoso. After a particularly unfortunate incident where a young boy walked straight off a cliff while using his Virtuoso. The product was scrapped, only a few remaining in circulation while the rest sat unused in warehouses. Meanwhile, VSS released the Hypno-Rama virtual reality
cabinet in the Colorado market, to greater (albeit still limited) success. The "VR Wars" would be nullified, as so many things were, by the Great War.
One of the first things the Dead-Heads did when they were released from Siena, without hesitation, was beeline for the nearest Virtuoso warehouse they could find and, alongside their PIP-Boys, put them on. Afterwards, they dispersed across the Rocky Mountain Wasteland and set about the work of digging their hives and scavenging every scrap of technology they could get their hands on. It seems that the Dead-Heads require the mediation of the Virtuoso in order to handle and be competent in the real world. Whatever they're looking at is incomprehensible to the normal viewer, however, a mess of green and red vectors accompanied by occasional white flashes that leave the user dazed.
The only clothing that the Dead-Heads wear are circuit boards and scattered consumer electronics. All of this is hooked up to their PIP-Boy and their Virtuoso, and aids not only in enhancing their virtual reality but running constant inscrutable calculations. The layers of circuit boards and seemingly random household electronics and appliances act as a makeshift armor.
In addition to the loose electronics, Dead-Heads will often make use of body augmentation. The most common of these is a set of retractable rabbit ears, drilled directly into the skull, likely for communicating with each other and whatever alien intelligence(s) govern them. They will also often wire their computers directly into their central nervous systems, both to heighten their perception and reaction times in addition to hooking their brain directly up to whatever strange calculations are being made.
The eyes of the Dead-Head are beady. The skin is pallid, nearly transluscent. The genitalia have atrophied to almost nothing, making conventional reproduction impossible. Physically they tend to be quite weak, many using makeshift or scavenged power-armor parts to augment their limb strength.
The Dead-Heads seem to communicate with themselves in a strange computer language that Boulderite scientists have dubbed "Xenotation." Consisting of ticks and clicks that bear a strong resemblance to the non-ordinal non-cardinal numeracies that dominate their computers, along with a smattering of RobCo termlink. The language is completely and totally untranslateable, it would take a purpose built Super-Computer to decode it. Even if you did, it's not clear how much good you'd get out of it - through their rabbit ears, they seem to be capable of communing with one another silently.
Beyond their hives, Dead-Heads can be found almost only in the wee hours of the night scavenging technology and kidnapping children, occasionally squatting in sufficiently dark ruined buildings if their ranging takes them too far from a hive. There are two main variants one is likely to encounter in the wild: Slave Minds and Master Minds. Slave Minds are the more feeble, usually poorly equipped with power tools (especially nail guns), power fists, and occasionally arc welders. They have few if any augments. Master Minds are the real threat - a thick layer of technology, heavily augmented, and often equipped with ad-hoc power armor. In terms of weaponry, they will use the arc welders, thermic lances, and modified energy weapons. However, all of the Slave Minds are linked directly to their respective Master Mind (assuming one is present), operating as external memory drives and processors in addition to human (?) shields. As you kill the Slave Minds the Master Mind is softened up, but still poses a formidable threat.
Dead-Heads possess a super human (?) acument for electronics, being able to hack or reprogram equipment without a thought. For devices with voice recognition software, and especially consumer grade robots, Dead-Heads are capable of reprogramming them simply by speaking in xenotation, making robots a common sight among Dead-Head scavenging parties - and a dicey prospect for would-be Wasteand adventurers to take along with them. Also extremely common are Cyber-Dogs, captured and reprogrammed from the Denver ruins.
Cyber-Hives
Dead-Heads spend most of their time inside of their Cyber Hives. Cyber hives are usually found in caves, in basements, or in radio stations or make-shift bunkers dug below radio towers. From the ground, one of the key signs of a Dead-Head is wires leading into the ground, strange towers made up of scavenged electronics, and inscrutable signs carved into the earth.
The interior of cyber hives are encrusted with machinery wherever it can be fit, and often stretch much deeper into the earth then previously thought. Aside from the flashing lights of the electronics, the caverns are totally dark. Even when a cyber hive is cleared out, it is impossible to determine what these computers are doing - they seem to be operating on an entirely unknown language, that itself is based on a largely inscrutable numeric system. Even when scraps of decipherable RobCo term-link can be found amid the chaos, their translations come out as nonsensical, if vaguely forboding.
The Dead-Heads spend most of their time within the hive plugged into computers - specifically, they like to utilize cobbled together VSS Hypno-Rama pods. What they do when in these pods remains a mystery: according to brain scans conducted by the Boulderites on captured Dead-Heads, they appear to be totally brain-dead while hooked up to their pods, hence the name. We can only assume that they are wandering through cyber space in a strange state that can only be allowed by undeath.
When not plugged into their pods, Dead-Heads conduct perfunctory repairs and reprogramming of the vast arrays that make up their hives. Each hive has a dedicated space for food processing. The diet of the Dead-Head is rather unappetizing to normal humans, consisting of Salient Green (how they worked out Big MT's secret recipe remains unknown), Bio-Med gel (invented in Boulder and plentiful in the Rocky Mountain Wasteland), and a whole heck of a lot of crushed up mentats. If a human can get past the taste (imagine the smell!), it is a perfectly nutritious food source and is in fact quite beneficial for the mind - though prolonged use can lead to exhibiting certain symptoms not dissimilar from the Dead-Heads. Nevertheless, despite its poor protein content (accounting for their weak physique), it seems to contribute to the extremely long lifespan enjoyed by Dead-Heads.
All hives also have a set up to create new dead heads, consisting of a needle, make-shifting brain scanner and magnetics, all hooked up to the vast computing power of the Hive and, presumably, the Dead-Head hive mind writ large.
At the center of Dead-Head hives are the so called Mother Minds. Fed on a modified form of the normal Dead-Head sustenance, and augmented to a godly amount, one could scarcely imagine they're human when looking upon them, all metal and flashing screens and tubes of biogel. They seem to act as the mother board and governing intelligence behind each individual hive. They also possess a wicked electrical discharge, making them a real challenge for anyone trying to take out a hive with minimal casualties.
Dead-Head Technicals
When the Boulderites emerged, they found the Dead-Heads to be a fascinating nuisance. They were a constant hazard to Boulderite tech scavenging efforts, and on several occasions have assaulted or attempted to hack the Boulder Dome itself.
Often coming into conflict with them, it was inevitable that a few would be taken back alive. Realizing their dangerous capacity, the Boulderites made sure to keep them totally isolated from any machine that could possible operate the Boulder Dome. After years of study, the Boulderites discovered that while xenotation was indecipherable, both it and the white flashes bore some of the tell tale signs of the CODE brainwashing technique developed in the Boulder Dome pre-War.
After a lot of trial and error, the Boulderites found a way to successfully re-program the Dead-Heads. About half the time, it results in the violent death of the Dead-Head due to brain hemorraging. However, when it does work, the results are fantastic - tic xenotation is wiped from their mind, and they speak a patois consisting of RobCo termlink and English. Generally, they closely resemble the earliest iterations of the Dead-Heads, being only too happy to help their masters.
Still possessing their superhuman technical skill, "Deprogrammed" Dead-Heads became essential as tecnicals. Though they could not explain how they did it, they were able to repair or alter just about any technical system. Reasoning that they were not human, the Boulderites were willing to sell or lease the less talented of the Dead-Head technicals - for the right price.
Adventure Hooks
-The Grateful Dead-Head: At some point, the player is presented with the opportunity to either buy, steal, or free a Dead-Head technical. An immensely useful companion that unlocks a lot of main story plot points and gives access to otherwise unaccessible computer interactions, this Dead-Head's quest consists of figuring out who he originally was. The ultimate reward (in addition to lots of fascinating information) is access to the only useable suit of Dead-Head power armor in the game, all other suits being tied to xenotation and thus unuseable by a normal human.
-Radio Free Wasteland: Dead-Heads occupy many of the Rocky Mountain Wasteland's radio towers. Clear them out to help different factions, or to gain access to new radio stations. Alternatively, you could listen to the Dead-Head radio station - an original, eerie synthwave soundtrack, permeated by a robotic voice saying cryptic things as well as hidden messages.
-Dead-Head Gruel: If you can figure out how to make this stuff, you could become the smartest guy in the Wasteland, and a long-lived one at that - just don't be surprised when it makes you socially retarded.
-Siena Origins: Why did the Sienan Deadheads change? Only the records of Zenith holds the answer.
-Slave Race: Some local commanders of the Legion wants to understand the principle behind the Dead-Heads, as they could make the perfect slaves if you could just get them more interested in carrying heavy packs and less interested in high level neural networking.
-Mistaken Identity: That PIP-Boy on your wrist is going to make an awful lot of Wastelanders mighty uncomfortable around you, but will also open up new opportunities. And say, didn't that white flash at the beginning of the game look a bit like CODE?
-Pest Control: Dead-Heads are a perpetual nuisance, and settlers pay those who wipe out their hives handsomely. But keep in mind that though Dead-Heads are almost universally hostile, you do possess a faction reputation with them that may come in handy down the line.
-Deprogramming: Can Dead-Heads be saved in a more humane way?
-Robot City: Dead-Heads are integral to the main plot, linked deeply to whatever Robot City is planning.
