Introduction
Welcome to
Rifts® World Book Ten: The Juicer Upris
ingTM.
When presented with the challenge of writing a book
about this major event in the history of Rifts Earth, I decided to
concentrate on four major elements which I think are what you,
kind readers, will be most interested in.
First of all, the Juicers. Always one of the most popular
O.C.C.s in the Rifts® Megaverse® , Juicers can be tragic heroes,
daredevils, or evil villains. This book tries to expand on the role
playing possibilities of this character, offer new Juicer variants
and skill packages, and answer some of the questions about the
lives, origins and ultimate ends of these super-human warriors.
There are technological Juicers, mystical Juicers, even some Ne
cromantic mixtures of technology and dark magic; use them as
friends or foes as you will.
But the book is not just about Juicers. Several city-states and
kingdoms of North America are described in varying detail. As
the first in the new batch of
Rifts®
books concentrating on
North America,
World Book Ten
will start exploring the conti
nent in greater detail, followed by other information-rich books
like Rifts® World Book
11."
The Coalition War Campaign™
(often referred to in this book as the CS War Machine),
Psyscape™, Lone Star™, and the New West™
Additionally, more technology and equipment was included
in this book. Although this is not a "hardware book" like
Triax™
and
Rifts® Mercenaries,
you will find a few, new ex
otic weapons and vehicles, most of them uniquely suited to the
Juicer psychology and needs, but which can be of use to other
adventurers as well.
Finally, the
Juicer Uprising
itself. Rather than an adventure,
I have outlined some of the salient events and points of a major
revolt aimed at the Coalition city of Newtown, and then de
scribed a number of possible scenarios and sub-plots for Game
Masters to develop. This means any GM can easily blend the
Uprising into his campaign, and develop this danger-fraught
situation as he sees fit. Mercenaries or heroes, opportunists or
saviors, any character may play a role in the Uprising, even to
the point of changing the "history" of the world.
So strap on your armor and make sure your E-Clips are
charged before you join the Uprising in World Book Ten, and
enjoy !
-C.J. Carella
7
Prelude to Destruction
We who are about to die, salute you.
You fear us, as well you should. We have nothing to lose. We
are the walking dead, and we won't mind at all if we send others
on their way ahead of us. We kill and we die; it's all the same to
us. Mess with us at your peril.
Your lords and masters made a terrible mistake. It's all right
to fear us, vilify us, to call us psychopaths and pathetic thrill
seekers. It's even okay to try to kill us - it's going to happen
sooner or later, right?
But you should never have given us hope. Even worse, you
shouldn't have taken that hope away.
You Coalition dogs tried to fool us with promises of long life
and power. You thought we would become your cannon fodder,
and kill and die in your name. Now we know your promises were
lies. Big mistake, "Squishies. "
This day, all the Juicers o n the continent declare war o n the
Coalition States and all their allies. We hold the Prosek family,
General Underhill and Lybock personally responsible for this
betrayal. We are coming for you, Prosek. Think about it and
tremble.
-Julian the First
Mega-Juicer, Commander of the Juicer Army for Liberation
Proclamation transmitted
on all Radio Frequencies:
"Hey, Killers!
" Y' all know the Coalition Dead-Heads been lyin' to us about
the Prometheus Treatment. They ain't gonna give it to us. They's
afraid of the likes of us. But the treatment exists! They were
gonna hold out on us, help a few to show they weren't kiddin',
and then send us to get killed at Tolkeen!
"But they screwed up. We've found where they been conduct
ing the research to make their immortal Juicer army. Yeah, you
heard me right. 'Immortal.' We can have all our powers, be the
toughest bastards on the block, and we get to live a hundred, two
hundred, three hundred years! We'll be the rulers of the world!
"The Prometheus Treatment is in Newtown! The Dead-Heads
kept their labs hidden away from their big cities. Bad idea,
'cause now they's too far away to send enough help before we
take the town and the secret of immortality for us. It's our
chance to get back our lives.
"Let's get 'em!"
Graffiti Found on
a bunker outside Newtown:
"I don't care who's right - Let's go kill something. "
The Juicer
Revisited
Juicers are a strange an d unique group. Some are people who
have sacrificed their lives for the sake of power, others are un
witting or unwilling victims, and many are desperate or driven
people who do not care about the consequences of their actions.
Avengers, psychos and misfits, they are feared by many people
on Rifts Earth, often with good reason. After all, a person who
does not care about whether or not he or she lives or dies has lit
tle regard for the lives of other people. The other side of the coin
is the dedicated warrior, who has literally already sacrificed his
life for some cause, be it revenge, the protection of the weak, or
some obscure obsession.
In these pages, the history, lives and myths of the Juicer are
explored.
Pre-Rifts Origins of
the Juicer Procedure
The first Juicers were developed in Pre-Rifts Germany, dur
ing the tense period that preceded the Great Cataclysm. The
search for the perfect super-soldier became a new type of "arms
race" as dozens of researchers worked feverishly on one of the
many avenues of research that might lead to a superior warrior.
While companies like
Mindwerks
(see Rifts® Sourcebook Two:
Mindwerks™ for details) developed the M.O.M. (Crazy) conver
sion, and genetic research organizations like the
Tex-Am Com
plex
and the
Achilles Project
(see Rifts® World Books Six
&
Nine: South America I and II ) worked on creating mutant ani
mals with human intelligence, corporations like
Uberchem In
corporated
worked on the Juicer process. Uberchem was one of
the pioneers in drug enhancements, and its patents and tech
niques were applied (and copied) in dozens of places worldwide.
At first, Juicers were only used by ruthless Third World dicta
tors and other madmen who cared nothing for the lives of their
soldiers. As the augmented soldiers started making an important
contribution in the battlefield, however, more and more nations
started keeping small forces made up of Juicer "volunteers";
often in secret to avoid public scrutiny.
Mindwerks' research created an uproar regarding human aug
mentation utilizing brain implants (see Rifts Sourcebook Two :
Mindwerks). Leaks reporting the 1 00% mortality rate of the
Juicer Process on all volunteers in under eight years created a
public furor regarding the inhumanity of augmentation experi
ments on human beings, volunteers or no. Outrage swept Ger
many and raised serious questions in other parts of the world,
particularly in the United States and Japan. Mindwerks was the
last company to knuckle under to the pressure. Uberchem, al
ready on shaky financial grounds, collapsed almost immediately,
"orphaning" dozens of advanced Juicer research projects. How
ever, this was not the end of the projects. The U.S. government
and some American corporations covertly purchased many of
the patents and hired a number of former Uberchem employees.
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