Full-Activity Simulation Mill
The FASM is a machine-learning program that uses a virtual simulation of all senses (Full-Activity) to run scenarios and compile data from multiple subjects.
This scenarios and mills are regulated as mental stress within a FASM can affect the person involved.
A Mental Warpath
The Full-Activity Simulation mill was designed to fulfill a need to learn more about rapidly evolving military tactics in a 'safe' environment. These simulations happened in a compressed timeframe, seconds in reality could be hours or even days within FASM.
Developed by the Syndicate to test Counter tactics, it spread fast across the Banners as a way to try and develop new tactics.
While in military use, soldiers were placed in to participate in 'war games.' After losing several soldiers to insanity from the rapid simulations, the syndicate sold off the technology to the Federation who used it as both a cheap training method as as an economic solution.
Pay for Play
The Federation, with its smaller standing military and capitalistic society, saw a way forward. They offered the FASM as a way to get supplimentary income. Plug into a FASM for an hour, and get paid for the trouble.
Many citizens took the deal, as within the Federation, money is powerful resource. However some planets saw the danger of mental instability and banned the sale of FASM devices.
After pushback began to grow, the Federation raised the payrate for every hour logged in these machines to counter the hesitation. In the modern landscape, FASMs are seen as devices for the desperate or the unfortunate. It is a last resort for income, and one that can scar you for life.
Appearance
Gun raised, I slammed through the door of the drug den's basement. The smell hit me first, a rancidity of flesh and refuse.
The smell didn't prepare me for the scene. Dozens of those damndable tables, black and blocky. It reminded me of those old sacrifical slabs that old Verin used.
On each of them, an unfortunate soul. A twisted, emaciated, half-dead shell. My partner was on the cleanest slab, the fresh catch.
I pulled her out first, letting the rest of the squad clean up and triage the other unfortunate souls.
The moment I severed the coupler from her temples, she bellowed a blood-curdling scream, a sound I still can't believe she could make. Her eyes held a rage that could have only been bred by murder.
It took years of therapy to bring her back— years and more Rukta then I could make in a year.
Stepping into the pod for a FASM is to me more scary than actual combat. Sure you can't die, but you are being put through the worse the machine can generate.
Years are actually hours, and so when you come out, you just feel completely broken.
But it does pay well...
FASM Farms
One money-making method for the less scrupulous of Federation citizens is to set up FASM Farms. These facilities cater to the even more impoverished of citizens by removing the original FASM set up cost.
The FASM Farm owner takes a variable cut for every person who enters the FASM Farm.
One loophole many devious minds have found is that FASM Units have no regulation or checks on who enter a unit. So placing someone into a FASM Farm is a convienent way to make someone disappear and get paid for it.
Regulation
FASM Mills are banned for civilian use in every Banner except the Federation.
Even in situations where they are used, they are often accompanied by stand-by mental therapists.
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