Nex Machina

Nex Machina, also known as Nosleeps, Memetic Bogeymen (distinct from true Bogeymen), Glitch Killers etc. are a type of abstract predatory Other or phenomenon spawned by the modern internet. They are generally dealt with by Technomancers.<ref name=":0">NEX MACHINA
Also Nosleeps, Memetic Bogeymen (incorrect appellation), Glitch Killers.
Relevant Schools: Technomancy.
Appearance: Vary wildly.  Occurs alongside visual ‘glitches’ in the real world, or be cast in a light that looks like it is from a large screen with static on it.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

Nature

They could be considered lesser gods, or at least related to gods.<ref name=":1">Background: The background noise of internet and online communication allows for the natural emergence of accidental rituals.  Repetition, default or common responses and collective imagination allow for a kind of false worship to take place.  Much as the first gods emerged, crude and loose in form as each telling and culture that outlined them varied, the digital avatar is a force akin to a god that arises from the spirit world, often linked to a phenomenon and then crystallized by the public consciousness.  As figures of a more spiritual and divine stripe, what one often sees is often the tip of the iceberg for a larger effect.
Lesser gods spawned by a public consciousness, Nex Machina stem from the digital, not from dreams, other worlds, or reality.  They carry this with them, and their presence in an area is often preceded by flickering, real-world glitches, and strangeness in behaviors.
They tend to arise from or be linked to online urban legends or particular websites that have ceased to be managed.  It may be as simple as ‘if you visit this website then you’ll die’, or be linked to a particular rumor or pattern, like ‘on this site, if you get in trouble, a moderator will message you.  It’ll be a different moderator each time, and if you get in trouble enough times without being banned, you’ll get a DM with no name, subject line, or content’.  In other cases, a fake urban legend passes from the hands of its creator - a website is created with hidden shock images- a link hidden in a pixel, that if clicked, ‘shows you a glimpse of hell’ - only for the domain to exchange hands enough times that the current holder or the line of succession can’t be traced… and the image actually shows something seemingly impossible for a computer to display.
Either way, one typically has to try to get the attention of a Nex Machina, and given the random noise of the internet, this does happen with some regularity.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref><ref name=":11" />

Abilities/Behaviour

Common targets for Nex Machina include shut-ins, tourists, children, and investigators into previous incidents.<ref name=":2">In practice, this methodology means that an individual will call or invoke the Nex Machina and then gradually be pulled into a spirit-driven alternate world.  Communication will be cut off, reality glitches will creep over the surroundings, and efforts to reach others will be made more difficult.  Establishing sufficient connections and breaking away by making it impossible to be ‘enveloped’ will counter the effect , and leave an individual spooked and unsure about what occurred.  The violent flickering and periodic images on a computer as the enveloping started will be dismissed as a virus,  with more extreme effects shrugged off as a hacker getting into the building’s system.
When an individual or tight group is isolated, however, they must escape to an area with people or successfully form connections.  Victims will tend to be those who have difficulty doing this - agoraphobes (hikikomori), people in a foreign country where they don’t know the rules, children without parents around, or scientists visiting an isolated facility to figure out why development stopped may be ideal prey.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref><ref name=":3">Following the incident, the victim’s electronics will return to life if they were shut down or disrupted in the Nex Machina’s attempt at cutting off attempts at communication, and may serve as hubs for the Nex Machina to act- posting to newsgroups, commenting on videos, and trying to create puzzles akin to that of an ARG, that will bait in the inquisitive.  This will last until the crime scene is discovered.
Given modern law enforcement techniques, a salvaged computer may be mined for information, which will allow the Nex Machina to attempt to reach out to law enforcement (often of the oddball or obsessive type), and depending on the case, the victim’s computer may be cloned to virtual machines, which simply gives the Nex Machina more hubs to work with and more reach.  Phones or computers taken from the victim will act in much the same way.  For this reason, councils will make prompt identification & action for these scenes a priority.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

They are often accompanied by phenomena reminiscent of their digital origin - real-world "glitches", flickering, the light of a screen tuned to static, etc.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

One generally has to willfully try to call the attention of a Nex Machina.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

Being targeted by a Nex Machina generally begins with it attempting to disconnect them from any connections with the outside world, and into it's own distorted pocket dimension.<ref name=":4">Behavior: Nex Machina, once someone performs the necessary ritual, will appear and act by a programmed, set logic and routine.  They seek to envelop targets, and those with less connections or with all connections in a contained area are more vulnerable.  More like an amoeba than an individual killer, they will surround, envelop, cut off, and then absorb, with a manifested avatar acting like an appendage.
Because the avatar is only an extension of the cloud or enveloping effect, it can appear and reappear seemingly with no need to move from point A to point B.  It may have its own abilities, linked to the enveloping effect.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina</ref> This can be thwarted by successfully contacting or physically reaching people despite the reality glitches. Only an isolated individual or small group can be targeted in this manner.<ref name=":2" />

When an area has been completely enveloped and cut off, it becomes something similar to a demesnes, twisted and under the Nosleep's control.<ref name=":5">Strengths: The Nex Machina is a spirit, not a physical entity, and exists as a scattered, ephemeral thing across the digital landscape.  It is an advantage to the Nex Machina that it is not a thing that many are equipped to deal with because it is new to the lists of Others, and it is too ‘big’, in a sense, to easily encircle and bind.  In this, it is similar to a great spirit or deity.  They are capable of immense environmental manipulation, are intelligent in an alien way, and the avatars they manifest are as dangerous as any bogeyman, while being impossible to pin down and extremely difficult to stop or bind.
Their environmental manipulation depends a great deal on what inspired them.  Things may seem dreamlike, or victims may (often helped by insomnia) feel like they are dissociating from reality.  Aphasic phrases or text, changing images, a change in color or a loss of detail, and a general ‘static’, like one is looking through a thin film of television snow or through a more old fashioned monitor will often take steady hold.  Spaces may appear to be larger than they were, such as a living room that’s messier and larger than one thought, while that person is too mentally preoccupied to absorb how strange it is.  Pathways to new places may open, with these places being snares - a hole in the back of the closet leads to a neighboring apartment, where papers are scattered and the avatar of the Nex Machina doesn’t seem to be as active (so they stay and wait).  Rooms may double back on one another or corridors may lead back to where they started, and electronics may flicker or turn on regularly.
Nex Machina can ‘infect’ technological media, usually by killing someone and taking possession of their computer or phone.  This media may gain more properties or functionality.  They are also adept at traversing environments that naturally ward off more typical Others.  Where the city of electric wires and water running through pipes will discourage goblins and the advancement of mankind may leave Others struggling to keep up, the Nex Machina can ride the tide and not only keep up, but get out ahead of certain advancements (see Variants, below).
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref><ref name=":6">As things reach the point where an enveloping is complete or nearly complete, the Nex Machina will begin to distort reality and appear ‘in person’, manifesting its avatar.  The area becomes something akin to a demesnes, but entirely hostile.  Corridors may loop back on one another, traps may be in evidence, or the area may simply be a stalking ground for the avatar itself.  The Avatar will close the deal, a seemingly unstoppable madman or monster that can disappear whenever it is out of sight, only to reappear and attack from another angle.  It will enact and develop the urban legend that gave it existence, then close the deal, the enveloping effect closing around the target as they are then killed or pulled into the inner workings of the Nex Machina.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref> They can then manifest a physical avatar which carries out the myth which gave them life.<ref name=":6" /> The avatar, since it is merely an extension of the power which pervades the entire area, can generally appear and disappear anywhere without needing to pass through the intervening space; and may be able to manipulate the area in some way.<ref name=":4" /> It's also difficult to kill, similar to a true Bogeyman.<ref name=":5" />

An encounter with a Nosleep generally ends with the avatar or corrupted environment consuming the target.<ref name=":6" /> Then any electronics will be corrupted and used to spread the Nex Machina's bait.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" />

Thanks to their abstract, spread-out nature, they are very difficult to caputure or Bind.<ref name=":5" /> Their powers are shaped by belief; they draw strength from it<ref name=":7">Weaknesses: As stated above, the Nex Machina is an entity that is not very effective at combating mundane connections.  There are escape routes, and it is forced to counteract these, either by way of long-term influence, disabling services or options, and murdering said connections.  In some ways, the Nex Machina has the same vulnerabilities as a god and spirit both.  They are reliant on ‘worship’ and through no fault of their own can fade from relevance, and as a worshiped entity, the well of power they draw on works much as any prayer or divine system does, with power gained or fostered and then spent in hopes of an investment paying off.
As spirits, they are abstract and can be combated by a variety of token resistances and barriers - much as one could easily intuit or guess that a fire spirit could be countered by water, one could make and enact a founded guess and counteract a fiery Nex Machina in this way.  Doing so makes every action on the Nex Machina’s part more difficult, if it doesn’t ward them off.  This may be enough to banish them, ward them off long enough for connections to be established, or lower the ‘walls’ that are coming up.
In much this way, superstitions can be effective.  Much as belief and worship brought them to life, superstition and the fostering of certain ideas or rumors about what to do about them can create weaknesses where there are none.  For this reason, they may seek to disseminate misinformation.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref> and normal weaknesses may not apply or may cease applying if they can lead the person using them to believe they are ineffective.<ref>For example, in [Topic:The Curled Up Woman My Schizo GF Saw], the avatar is a woman obscured by visual artifacts in a silent video, shared to a forum thread by a friend of the alleged first victim- she’s impossible to make out as an actual person, and debate rages on about whether it’s real, the woman uncurling and extending impossibly long arms, or if it’s just a visual effect.  Her ‘legend’ is that a man’s mentally ill girlfriend stopped taking her meds, and started to see a woman around the house, curled up tight into a ball, hair hiding her face, hiding in impossible places like the tops of cabinets or inside locked rooms.  Not believed, she records it, and after she leaves him, frustrated and scared, he watches the video all the way through.  The final post in the thread is from the victim’s friend, who shared the surveillance video he took, where a woman obscured by visual artifacts appears to uncurl to a standing position, and without stepping away from her location, appears to extend her arms across the room where he sleeps in the bed.  This video, shared by way of a link in another thread [I couldn’t watch this all the way through and you won’t be able to either!] is how she connects to victims.
She may achieve moderate initial success, but after a few people drop away from the site and people report disappearances, imagination takes hold- she gets a spike of even more successes, but also more failures.  Reports that she can be stopped by straight lines and diagrams put down in tape start to spread, along with photos.
This could easily be a counter, at which point she fades from relevance with no successes, as her victims use this as a resource.  It could also be a trap.  For a person relying on these measures, a message (posted by the curled up woman by way of an online persona) stating that it was a lie that people fell for could be just as lethal or dangerous as the blade of a guillotine falling.  So long as she manages and creates the superstition, she can take away its power- but she needs power, means, and contrivance (such as the right timing) to get ahead of it in this way.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

Weaknesses

Being powered by belief, they are also dependent on generating enough believers to justify expenditures of power.<ref name=":7" />

Although they are immune to being truly bound in place, normal protective bindings are generally effective in protecting people or disrupting their attacks.<ref name=":7" />

Being shaped by belief, anything a person believes will harm them, generally will. Superstitions or weaknesses built into the original urban legend are potent weapons against them.<ref name=":7" />

Machines they have infected can be used to affect them.<ref name=":8">Binding: Much like a God, cannot be bound.  Can be contained, however, with attention and steps taken in advance.  Technomancers have the tools necessary to limit the reach of a Nex Machina with any presence.
Taking possession of any node or system that the Nex Machina has ‘infected’ can weaken it by limiting its capabilities, can be turned against it, and can be used as a vector for strategically releasing or managing it.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

Formation

Nex Machina are spawned from the repetition, collective imagination and pseudo-worship found in certain corners of the internet. They are born from a combination of the spirit world, collective unconscious, and the digital.<ref name=":1" />

More specifically, they tend to arise from urban legends and/or unmanaged websites.<ref name=":1" />

Use By Practitioners

Possession of a corrupted piece of tech can be leveraged to extend the usual invitation to summon the Nex Machina to a particular target.<ref name=":8" /> With some power from the Practitioner, this can be made much easier than usual to trigger, making it easier to trick the target into the summoning. However, this tends to make the Nex Machina innoculated to the practitioner's methods, and it will generally turn on them if discarded.<ref>Summoning: The act of strategically releasing a Nex Machina requires a ritual that a target unintentionally participates in, as another active party.  Typically this requires that one have a node and then the means of transcribing or conveying a message central to the Nex Machina.  Even fleeting phrases conveyed to televisions or projected onto walls can be enough, if power is expended to push them forth from a node.
A Nex Machina summoned in this way is a hazard to the summoner, so care must be taken.  It may have multiple ‘lives’, where if rebuffed or defeated it fades away, returning to the summoner, who must then expend more energy than the last time to release them again.  While summoned however, they are dangerous killers with no need to stay rooted to one position.  If the summoner can’t pay the price in power to keep resummoning the Nex Machina, then it will turn on them, usually with an unhealthy (to the practitioner) acceleration of the enveloping effect and a fair bit of resistance to the techniques and powers that bound them before.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

Nex Machina are mercurial and often fleeting, but favour gained with them can be used to summon them and/or request boons (with no guarantee of success), similarly to a god.<ref>They can be used for divine power, but the Nex Machina is so mercurial and inconsistent in power level, prone to the vagaries and the rise and fall of the internet’s interest, that the act of building up the favor to spend on a greater act is often too risky. If successful, the Nex Machina may be invited to appear, swiftly enveloping an area with the power offered.  Oftentimes this is just faster than summoning, but with a steep and precarious price paid in advance (by way of the favor garnered).
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref> Favour could be gained by spreading the being's legend, and/or by killing people in imitation of them.<ref name=":9">The Nex Machina can be invited to be a familiar.  This often requires earning favor and propagating the message and device of the Nex Machina, and then inviting the Nex Machina to a scene that has been prepared for them - often an organized collection of bodies of those violently murdered in a likeness of the Nex Machina’s methods.  When the Nex Machina arrives, it may (or may not!) accept the entreaty, at which point the practitioner would be able to ask for a major act, and they ask for it to serve them as a partner instead.
Because the Nex Machina are so hard to predict and so mercurial, this is typically the province of madmen and the desperate.  There is never a guarantee that they agree to be a familiar or to do a favor.
As familiars, they may be similar to an internet friend, communicating by way of one or multiple handles, texting, or emailing.  They may appear to be human to others, but if they do, they will steadily cut off their master’s connections to others, simply as the effect of their nature.  While detrimental from a mental health perspective, may make pursuit or investigation of the master harder.  The master will gain technological ability and a perpetual ‘handler’, with the ability to unleash an attack dog on their enemies.
Whatever the result of the attempted summoning or establishment of a familiar, when the Master’s tenure is over, they will tend to be made out to be the perpetrator of the Familiar’s crimes.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

Some unstable technomancers take Nex Machinae as Familiars. To get the being to even consider this, they have to have built up enough favour to request a major boon. Such familiars may communicate with the practitioner via the internet, or take on human form; they often passively weaken the pracittioner's connections with others (which can be useful to protect against pursuit) and grant increased technical skill.<ref name=":9" />

Those who summon or serve Nosleeps tend to eventually end up blamed for their crimes, often post-mortem.<ref name=":9" />

A God in the Machine (see below) is valued as a power source by Technomancers, and there is an unofficial norm that the person collecting them cleans up the bodies.<ref name=":10">Variants:  There are a few variants of the Nex Machina.
God in the Machine: The machine is worshipped, not the avatar/legend.  Groundbreaking tech, experimental ideas, and advanced computer programs with sleep deprived and disconnected staff working on them may provide the vehicle for a God in the Machine to come into being.  It has a vulnerable heart and isn’t as mobile, but more scope within its area of influence.  Will perform its deed and then go quiet, surrounded by dead bodies.  Massive power sources for the first technomancer to get their hands on it, with a standing gentleman’s agreement that they clean up the mess.
Ghost in the Machine: The Avatar is based around an echo, a ghost of a real person who died in a way that let the Avatar manifest, close enough to technology to connect to it.  Will manifest far more through technology itself and may simply be an obnoxious or frustrating force to be dealt with.
Memetic Dancer: As with all things Technomancer, there are dated versions of the current phenomena.  The Memetic Dancer is a type of Nex Machina that came about when music boxes, self-playing pianos, Gramophones and other automatic music players came into common use.  Centered around music, they are Avatars tied to haunting songs or pieces of music that one has never heard before.  They stick with the listener and urge resolution - often playing a piece until it can be replicated, dancing to it, or searching out the history behind a thing.  Either way, the music runs through a victim’s mind until it’s audible, they lose all connections to others as they slip into obsession or venture far from home in the search, and then manifest an avatar.  In some cases the ‘dancer’ is gentle, taking a ravaged or haunted victim into a warm embrace before killing or absorbing them.  In other cases the dancer is violent.  Other dated versions include Wrong Numbers and Voices in the Static.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina </ref>

Variants

God in the Machine

A specific computer is "worshipped", possibly by it's creators. Shorter-lived and immobile, but more powerful within their scope.<ref name=":10" />

One which had grown from a bit of abandoned Technomancy was defeated by the founders of the Blue Heron Institute in their youth. It was so powerful it's image was interfering with the Sight across the region, it had taken over the building, and it had created a sizeable pocket dimension within itself.<ref name=":11">“Years ago, there was something on the horizon that clouded my Sight. It recurred as an image. A teenage boy dressed as a king, sitting in a chair with water running over him, repeating the same nonsense phrases over and over again. If I gutted a bird and pulled out its entrails for a simple fortune telling, I could find papers in the guts, with the phrases on it. It was… obnoxious. I traveled from Toronto to Winnipeg, met with other Practitioners who had run into the same problem, some of your parents, as a matter of fact. A company that managed and experimented with server architecture had rented out three floors of its building to a startup and had unwittingly played host to a group of technomancers trying to get users to engage with rituals they’d programmed. They abandoned their work, killed by Witch Hunters or run off by Others, and their work was deleted. As Raymond Sunshine would be sure to tell you, however, deleted does not mean gone. Just as you can pull something out of your trash bin on your desktop, their work was still there, gradually taking form, reaching out into the rest of the servers in the building until it could become a small god. After that, it started expanding out, until it was interfering with my Sight. [...] It had taken over the building and the running of the company that managed the servers. Within was a world of its own that would take a month to cross. I went to deal with it, and ran into someone else who was doing the same. A young lady who would be best described as being very interested in the most vast and uncontrolled parts of conventional practice,” He indicated Mrs. Durocher. “She had already contacted a colleague of hers from a previous errand, a man who was just then achieving notoriety for his first practitioner-facing website.” He indicated Raymond Sunshine. [...] Together with Mr. Bristow and Mr. Musser, we annihilated the god, shared out its power, and we drank together that night. For Mr. Sunshine, Mrs. Durocher, and myself, it sparked a close friendship that has lasted ever since. One of the things I hold most important about that experience was the epiphany I had, during that night of conversation and light drinks. It wasn’t the power that I was happiest with -and I was as power hungry as they come- but the moments I had been with other practitioners and felt purpose and felt like we were all better for those deals. Better informed, and we all know having the right information makes us strong. Dealing with other practitioners makes us safer, better equipped, stronger, and more capable of covering our weaknesses. That epiphany would eventually lead to us starting the Blue Heron Institute alongside Mr. Bristow, Mr. Musser, and others. We named it after one of the faces the god in the machine had worn.” - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref>

Ghost in the Machine

A Nex Machina based around a Ghost. Likely weaker, limited more to operating via technology.<ref name=":10" />

Older Relatives

• Memetic Dancer - Based around a music box, record or similar containing a cursed piece of music.<ref name=":10" />
• Wrong Numbers<ref name=":10" />
• Voices in the Static<ref name=":10" /> - Zed has one; its a swarm of voices in radio static, which manifest as static-y figures when it's played loud enough.<ref>A radio from the car buzzed, ninety percent static, overlapping with the

static from a smaller radio that sat on the hood of the car.  He 

reached over and adjusted the dial.  More television static than shadow,

with very faint edges, a silhouette appeared by the car.  He adjusted 

again, and it became three.
[...]
Zed turned up the volume on the radio.  The static images clarified, the grey dots becoming stark white ones, the outlines firmer.  Now the static-y figures were making a static sound themselves.  In the midst of

the static, Verona could hear murmurs, moans, and angry shouting, as if
from far away, almost drowned out.

[...]
“That sounds ominous,” Zed told them.  “Let’s say that if you try that, I’ll end up turning this volume knob up all the way.  And the voices in the static here will get agitated.” [...] Zed had grabbed the radio, and cranked up the volume. A static figure manifested out of nowhere, bright, and loud with static. “Wartime, people everywhere scared, loss of life, and fear, panic-” the static man whispered at her. The figure grabbed her wrist. “We’re cut off from everyone, we’re surrounded by darkness, it’s hopeless, and this message can’t get out,” it whispered. - excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.6</ref> Immune to blinding lights, although loud noises can interfere with them.<ref>John and Avery both covered their eyes.  Zed and Brie didn’t.  The card flashed, lighting up the area. It served to incapacitate the mullet man, giving John the opportunity

to twist around and fire bullets into the hood of the car, apparently 

aiming at the cassette player from the outside. [...] The flash hadn’t affected the static figures, but it had affected the goblins.  They were being overwhelmed with the static radio at full volume, swamped and swallowed. [...] If the flash didn’t bother them… maybe the bang? She threw a card, aiming to get it as far from her as possible.  The wind caught it, and it didn’t fly perfectly straight. She threw herself sideways into the ditch. The card exploded into a ball of flame.  Static figures flickered and paused. Free of the interference of the static men, Avery had reached the car. - excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.6  </ref>

• Ritual Incarnates - generally artificial (made by Incarnations) rather than naturally-occurring, and may or may not involve any technology.

Trivia

• The nickname "Nosleeps" comes from the popular subreddit for posting spooky stories, /r/NoSleep.

References

<references />