Ding Ziu translates to 'Substitute Criminal'
Fetching a person of importance from an inconvenient place is a common job for heroes and freelancers. The use of a Ding Ziu can make things more interesting.
What is a Ding Ziu?
A Ding Ziu is a person who impersonates a wealthy person, typically one convicted of a crime. Rather than going to prison themselves, the wealthy person pays the Ding Ziu to go to prison, accept the punishment in their stead. This is usually done through bribery. Coercion is a less effective method, as the Ding generally has to be willing, and it is too easy for them to out their employer.
Set-Up
The PCs have been tasked with rescuing a prisoner from a remote location, like a triple max prison, a cryodetention center, an offworld habitat or something similar. The PCs must overcome distance, security protocols, security guards, and a system designed to keep prisoners in, and people from breaking them out.
When the PCs finally succeed they find that their intended person of interest is someone who just looks like them. The ACPS hacker mastermind, just a kid who looks like her. The PCs then discover that rather than being trapped in a prison on the edge of society, the person they were after is actually living their life of luxury far far away from such banal things as punishment or consequences.
Professional Ding Ziu
A competent Face Dancer could easily imitate almost anyone they wanted to. These professionals could make a comfortable living by serving the petty and menial sentences doled out to celebrities who break the law.
The Person in the Iron Mask
By donning a fascia, anyone could be a proxy for a criminal who had the means and money to evade the law. It would even be relatively easy to argue that the fascia was required to protect the identity and brand of the celebrity being incarcerated. Then, the options for a Ding Ziu are expended even further, as the fascia bearer would not automatically have to look like the celebrity in question.
Multiplicity
A different method of creating a Ding Ziu involves cloning the person in question, and then, expy stype, injecting a copy of the person of interest's mind into the clone. The clone is then trucked off for incarceration or other punishment. This is less common because clones can be detected by various means.
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This article links to 3
- Expy Alongside Scrasamax linked by Scrasamax
- Face Dancer Alongside Scrasamax linked by Scrasamax
- Fascia Alongside Scrasamax linked by Scrasamax
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As a matter of interest, why is a clone easier to detect than a face dancer?
I would say something along the lines of CSI presence of residual cloning chemicals and compounds, and the sort of thing that can be detected with a quick and easy blood test.
The tank leaves behind chemical markers in a way that a womb doesn't
The prevalence of cloning and androids in the CE means that there are generally available and quick tests to detect a clone or droid. These are able to detect basic and intermediary level products, with the higher level types being harder to detect.
I need to do a sub on this
Hyper useful w nice fluff too. Is this crying out for a 30?