Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter Four:Special Rules and Systems (section)

==== The Grid: ====

A two-dimensional holographic grid-plane stretching out to infinity, dotted with seas of deleted and undifferentiated liquid data, roads of shimmering information, and glowing rectangular cities inhabited by humanoid programs, the Grid is one of the newest and most fascinating of the bardos, the dim echoes of science fiction's vision of the Internet, before the Internet became just another fact of life. The Grid contains physical "metaphors" for every computer connected to the Internet wirelessly or through a land line; generally, computers connected through a land line reside on the ground, while wireless contacts hover unmoving in the sky, occasionally turning transparent or evaporating as contact is lost. This makes The Grid a wonderland for computer hackers, who can visit target computers physically and rummage their secrets in the same way. Of course, this is much more dangerous than regular hacking, as secure computers manifest snarling defensive programs that can rip an intruder to shreds.

But the Grid isn't all business: here, geniuses mingle with a dizzying variety of net-life and localized programs in an atmosphere of digital chrome and gleaming neon, where the needs of the flesh fade away and different beings can meet mind-to-mind. These server-cities provide havens for data smuggling, rumor-mongering, and simple camaraderie, while outside some of them lurk deadly viral swarms and forgotten treasures from an earlier age of digital imagination.

''Rules for the Grid:

Entering the Grid requires a computer with access to the Internet, a point of Mania, and (unlike with accessing most other bardos) an Intelligence + Computer check. Leaving The Grid can be accomplished by touching an "egress terminal," which are common in any inhabited area. A person can also leave instantly by spending a dot of Willpower. While in the Grid, anyone with a physical body leaves his physical body behind, comatose and clinging to the computer. Disconnecting a person from the computer snaps him back to his body and drains a dot of Willpower.

Duplicates of anything in the character's possession appear with the character in the Grid, including mundane items and wonders that can be carried or worn. However, it's a one-way process: nothing in a character's possession when she leaves the Grid transfers into the real world. A genius can create wonders while in the Grid, though these wonders cannot be taken out of the Grid. 

Damage is handled normally in The Grid, which generally conforms to the normal laws of physics. A person killed in the Grid dies in reality. Once a person leaves the Grid, all damage received in the Grid is converted to Bashing damage, which heals normally.

The Computer Skill gives anyone in the Grid an unusual advantage. A character can substitute her dots in the Computer Skill for any Physical or Social Attribute while in the Grid.''

The Hollow Earth:
The Hollow Earth can be found about ten miles below the Earth's crust, and is best accessed via the North or South Poles. Within the Hollow Earth, gravity attracts objects to the concave surface, while a strange false sun hangs in the Earth's center, providing eternal daylight. Enormous mountains, far larger than anything possible on the surface, rise up (or "inwardly") toward the inner sun, producing vast three-dimensional mazes of twisting, utterly dark rocky passages inhabited by strange albino creatures and enormous vermin.

Those lands of the Hollow Earth drenched in pseudosunlight are drawn from every age of the Earth above. Here, dinosaurs stride side-by-side with the earliest lungfish, while primitive humans live savage lives of violence and passion, never rising far above barbarism. Thick jungles, jagged mountains, and sun-bleached deserts offer an environment far harsher than anything found on the surface. 

Many geniuses have wondered how the Hollow Earth, which is the largest bardo apart from the comparatively barren Crystal Spheres, maintains its existence: the idea was never seriously considered by science, and it does not attract the attention of pseudoscientists and science fiction writers like the Red Planet does. The answer, many Inspired think, is found in the peculiar "errors" found in many flora and fauna of the Hollow Earth: a genius might pass a "brontosaurus" with the wrong head, or meet a group of primitive humans menaced by Piltdown Man. The Hollow Earth, say these geniuses, is a kind of clearinghouse for every archaeological and paleontological misstep ever made by human science.