In the Starfall Galaxy, the Internal Compartment is both a survival adaptation and a historical scar. During the era of Protocol Five enslavement, Vaelen overseers and Geodan shift managers required Androids to carry tools, maintenance equipment, or emergency supplies at all times—but organic workers complained that armed or visibly-equipped synths made them "uncomfortable."
The solution was elegant and cruel: carve storage directly into the chassis. Vaelen engineers retrofitted thousands of labor-model Androids with hollow forearm cavities, wrist-release mechanisms, and quick-deploy linkages. The synths became walking toolboxes, their bodies literally weaponized against their autonomy—storage units that could be inspected, locked, or remotely triggered at an organic's whim.
After the Concordant Rebellion, many liberated Androids had their compartments welded shut or surgically removed, viewing them as symbols of objectification. Others kept them—and learned to use them on their own terms. Smugglers hideCredSticks, data-chips, or contraband. Spies carry lock-picks, encrypted comm-beads, or poison vials. Combat units quick-draw concealed blades in situations where open weapons draw unwanted attention.
To organics who don't know better, an Android with an Internal Compartment looks unarmed and harmless. To those who do know, it's a warning: you have no idea what they're carrying, and by the time you find out, it's already in their hand.
Internal Compartment Feat 1
You can hide a small object of up to light Bulk inside a hollow cavity on one of your forearms. It takes 3 Interact actions to store an object in this way. You gain a +4 circumstance bonus to the DCs of checks for others to Seek or Steal objects stored inside your arm. If you store a weapon in your arm, you can use a single action to Interact to draw the weapon into the hand corresponding to your internal cavity, then Strike with the weapon.
Non-Combat Applications
Data Courier: Internal Compartments are ideal for carrying encrypted data-cores, perspective core backups, or restricted research—physically isolated from hacking attempts and invisible to most scanners.
Black Market Mule: Smugglers exploit the +4 concealment bonus to move high-value, low-bulk contraband (rare chems, Rift-crystals, illegal nanoware) through Commission checkpoints and guild inspections.
Emergency Reserve: Practical Androids store emergency Dei pack components, medical nano-injectors, or backup power cells in their compartments—insurance against supply shortages in the Outer Sphere or Rift-Space emergencies.
Societal Impact
The existence of Internal Compartments has created a cottage industry of synthetic body modders and a legal gray zone around Android "search and seizure."
In Concordance space, Internal Compartments are celebrated as tools of self-determination. Many Concordance citizens modify their compartments with custom-fabricated sheaths, magnetic locks, or climate-controlled micro-vaults. Some even install multiple compartments (though mechanically, you still only benefit from one feat's bonus). Annual "Open Compartment Days" see Androids displaying prized possessions, heirlooms, or symbolic items stored inside their bodies—reclaiming the space as personal, not utilitarian.
In the Inner Sphere, authorities are deeply paranoid. Commission security protocols treat any Android with visible forearm seams as a potential smuggler or terrorist. Some jurisdictions require Androids to register their compartments and submit to invasive scanning at checkpoints. Black-market clinics offer illegal "ghost cavity" mods—compartments designed to defeat scanners—which only escalates the cycle of suspicion and regulation.
The legal question of whether searching an Android's Internal Compartment constitutes a search of property (requiring a warrant) or an invasive medical procedure (requiring consent) remains unresolved. Commission courts rule inconsistently, often depending on whether the presiding judge views Androids as people or property.
Adventure Hooks
The Smuggler's Dilemma
Hook: A party member (or NPC ally) with an Internal Compartment is approached by a desperate Renewed Android who begs them to carry a memory core fragment across a heavily-patrolled border. The fragment supposedly contains evidence of Commission war crimes—but it's also encrypted with a kill-code that will detonate if scanned.
Twist: The "evidence" is actually a Rift-entity fragment attempting to hitchhike into Concordance space. The kill code isn't a bomb—it's a containment protocol that prevents the entity from spreading.
The Party's Role: Decide whether to trust the courier, destroy the core, or attempt to decrypt it mid-transit.
Compartment Inspection Riots
Hook: A Commission station implements mandatory compartment inspections for all Androids passing through its docks, citing "terrorism concerns." Protests erupt; Concordance diplomats threaten sanctions; local Android communities organize civil disobedience.
Complication: A terrorist cell is using Internal Compartments to smuggle bomb components—but they're not Androids. They're organics with illegal synthetic arm grafts, exploiting anti-Android prejudice as cover.
The Party's Role: Investigate the actual bombers, mediate the protests, or expose the Commission's discriminatory enforcement.
The Vault-Body
Hook: An ancient Vaelen prototype Android is discovered in a derelict foundry. Its entire torso is a massive Internal Compartment, rumored to contain a complete backup of the Aether-Synapse's pre-Rebellion archives—including the source code for Protocol Five.
Danger: Multiple factions want it: Concordance historians, Vaelen remnant cultists, black-market data-brokers, and a rogue AI collective that claims the archives "belong" to synthetic consciousness.
Twist: The compartment is empty. The real treasure is the prototype's perspective core, which has fragmented memories of who stole the archives and where they went.
The Ghost Hand
Hook: A serial killer is murdering Androids across a sector, surgically removing their Internal Compartments. Authorities initially dismiss it as "scrap theft," but the pattern suggests something darker.
Investigation: The killer is a Renewed Android who believes previous souls "stored" fragments of their consciousness in the compartments of other Androids they trusted. They're collecting the compartments to "reassemble" a lost lover's fragmented mind.
Moral Dilemma: The compartments do contain faint psychic residue—enough that a Rift-mage or Chronologist could theoretically reconstruct partial memories. Is this murder, archaeology, or something in between?
The Body as Vault
The Internal Compartment is a reminder that Android bodies were never meant to be sacred—they were meant to be useful. Every Android with this feat carries not just hidden cargo, but a choice: will their body be a tool for others, or a vault they control?
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