Your Mission
The Computer has generated the following mission for your team. It has been carefully designed to ensure the maximum safety and satisfaction for your team.
Paranoia is the Irrational Fear Someone is Out To Get You
(Fear) Dominant type of fear to install in the PCs: Alpha Complex is doomed, and not in a good way.(Irrational) General kind of weirdness or irregularity that prompts The Computer to assign a mission to the Troubleshooters: The economy has grown even stranger than usual.
(Someone) Person, people, organization or agency responsible for the situation: The Computer-or, if it makes more sense, a buzzing, high on Wakey-Wakey ULTRAVIOLET without a care in the Complex manipulating The Computer's local CompNode. (The identity of the Someone need not be obvious at the mission's outset, and in fact things may play out more appropriately if the Someone is not discovered until late in the proceedings.)
(Out To Get You) General apparent threat posed by the situation, or the consequences if the situation is left unresolved: A new mind-control technique will alter the PCs' or a large population's behavior for the worse. The Computer uses the PCs as guinea pigs again. The threat is real.
Mission Alert: Stamped onto side of Telepathic Subconscious Message Emitter (currently stuck on violent setting). Message is intact and correct.
Briefing: Briefing is in Psion meeting room (has meeting in progress). Briefing occurs in a pitch black room, where the only source of light is from the corridor outside the briefing room filtering in under the door. 4 officers present.
This Mission: The beverage delivery system in VIOLET (Tension 17) crowded decaying and pestilential wreck of an abandoned sector: recreational resort (if below Clearance GREEN, roll again) has become plugged. Unplug it.
Outfitting: C-Bay or other online auction site: Price: bidding war-+30% over list!. Delivery: agreed drop point nearby (BLUE (Tension 13) crowded grooming and hygiene station), immediate. A rival auction site has insidiously faked the site the PCs intended to use; the transaction goes through the rival site; the delivery is accompanied by a hard-sell pitchman ORANGE HPD&MC Assistant Undersecretary (information source, stumbling, awkward, prone to breakage) who drafts the PCs as promoters for the rival site and won't give them their equipment until they commit.
Debriefing: Room is sheet steel with a single chair in the center and a large sign: PLEASE SIT DOWN with arrow pointing to the chair. The debriefing officer spends the session pacing around the chair, and (if necessary) discourages PCs from sitting in it. Chair is harmless.
Find weird phrasing, clearly erroneous output, or other signs of filthy commie mutant traitor sabotage? Copy the offending passages and email them to the High Programmer for investigation.