An Infinity GMing question: How do you handle NPCs’ comlogs and geists?
Part one:
In, as far as I recall, in ALL of the pre-made Infinity scenarios no NPC ever has a geist or uses one for their actions. But considering the ubiquity of Geists, this is actually not plausible. Everyone should use their geists, because - with maybe the exception of Ariadnans and some Ateks - everyone has one.
A geist can perform an Assist action without the need of the GM to spend Heat. That is like an additional d20 for every NPC in their main fields of competence - or if the GM put some thoughts into upgrading their geists even in fields where the NPC lacks competence of their own.
How do you handle this?
Part two:
If you capture an NPC, you could use Psywar techniques to get valid information out of them. But as every NPC will have a comlog, which will contain even more personal data than today’s smartphones, even a killed NPC’s comlog might be very useful to gain more information out of such NPCs.
A surprise attack by some unnamed mercenaries will then become much less “unnamed”, because via comlog hacking and data analysis the PCs will be able to extract a movement profile, the last weeks, months, years of personal communication, the social contacts this NPC had. Essentially, every NPC who is not strict Combined Army or Atek or Ariadnan will be a carrier of lots of evidence.
This is, at least in my now several years of constant GMing of published Infinity adventures, not considered by the scenario authors at all. (Some authors, as in the notorious Mitosis Code scenario, are not even aware of the tech level of the Infinity setting and present a 1970s technology point of view - which is very weird and makes the scenario nearly unusable without major changes.)
How do you handle data analysis of NPCs’ comlogs?
Do you allow hacking and analyzing of NPC’s geists, too? Even geists for dead NPCs?