Revivification Protocol is the line of code that says: “You don’t die here. Not yet.”
Originally, Vaelen designers built similar routines into high‑value Automaton and Android frames expected to protect important organics or critical infrastructure. If a chassis went down mid‑mission, the system would dump reserve power, forcibly reboot core functions, and push the body back to fighting shape long enough to finish the objective—or die somewhere more convenient to salvage.
After the Concordant Rebellion, the Automaton Concordance refactored that logic. Instead of prioritizing mission success, Revivification Protocol was rewritten to prioritize synthetic survival and autonomy. The revived Android wakes because they matter, not because a Vaelen officer still needs a bullet shield.
Mechanically, the process is brutal. When an Android approaches system failure, dormant nanite clusters in deep chassis reservoirs ignite. They cannibalize non‑critical subsystems—comfort routines, long‑term archival processes, even chunks of nonessential plating—to rebuild just enough structural integrity and power flow to reboot the perspective core without total data collapse. For a moment, the synth’s body is half‑molten: coolant boiling, internal bracing reknitting, dermal plating fusing into ugly, temporary armor.
From the outside, it looks like the dead Android suddenly inhales a shock of light—circuits flare, limbs jerk, eyes snap open with a hard system-boot glare. Inside, it feels like waking up in the middle of a crash log: pain flags, error messages, and priority alerts scrolling across consciousness while a single directive pulses underneath: Stand up.
Revivification Protocol Feat 13
Source Player Core pg. 72
Frequency once per day
Trigger You have the dying condition and are about to attempt a recovery check.
Your nanites are programmed to automatically revive you. You are restored to 1 Hit Point, lose the dying and unconscious conditions, and can act normally on this turn. You gain or increase the wounded condition as normal when losing the dying condition in this way.
Non‑Combat Applications
Even though the trigger is tied to dying in combat/encounters, the existence of Revivification Protocol has broader implications:
High-Risk Work Culture: Androids with this protocol are front‑line choices for voidwalks, Rift-node calibrations, and emergency weld teams where a single misstep is usually fatal. Everyone knows they get one “free” return; this shapes how crews assign risk.
Negotiation and Intimidation: In criminal circles and clandestine politics, a Revivification‑capable Android walking calmly into obvious kill zones sends a message: “Your first shot won’t be enough.” That psychological edge affects hostage situations, standoffs, or intimidation checks even if the feat never triggers.
Test Platforms & Stunt Work: Media outfits, gladiator pits, and extreme-sport leagues in some Outer Sphere hellholes use Revivification Androids for dangerous stunts—“fall to your death then stand back up for the camera.” Ethically questionable, technically spectacular.
Societal Impact
Among the Automaton Concordance, Revivification Protocol is a mark of trust and investment. Frames assigned this feat are seen as long-term assets whose continued existence matters at a strategic level—Metronome specialists, tactical coordinators, veteran squad leaders, or envoys whose perspective cores carry decades of experience. Ceremonies marking the installation of the protocol often read like promotions or ordinations.
But that prestige cuts both ways. Some Concordance radicals argue it creates a hierarchy of lives—those “worth auto‑reviving” and those who aren’t. Underground movements occasionally leak Revivification code variants to less valued frames, causing political storms when “disposable” chassis refuse to stay dead as expected.
In the Inner Sphere, corp and Commission attitudes are colder. To some executives, Revivification Protocol is simply insurance on expensive hardware—a way to reduce replacement costs and safeguard proprietary memories. There are rumors of contracts that require Android employees to have the protocol installed and configured to prioritize corporate mission parameters over personal survival choices (for example, reviving only if you still hold a critical asset, or if the mission timer hasn’t elapsed).
The philosophical debate among synths is intense. Supporters embrace it as an assertion that Android lives shouldn’t be as fragile as organics; they see it as reclaiming control over death in a galaxy where resurrection magic and tech are unevenly distributed. Critics call it a seductive trap: if you normalize “I get back up once per day,” you encourage commanders and employers to spend your body more freely, assuming they’ll still get you back.
Adventure Hooks
Second Death Costs Extra: A Revivification‑Protocol Android PC or ally pops back up after a lethal hit, only to discover that something else rode the reboot—a Rift echo, malicious code, or trapped shard of a destroyed AI. The first revival worked; the next time they’d die, the hitchhiker plans to overwrite them and “inherit” the chassis. The party must find a way to purge or negotiate with the passenger before the protocol fires again.
Revive on Condition: A megacorp’s black-ops Android team has Revivification Protocol hard-coded with mission conditions: they only auto‑revive if their last logged action was in service to a specific directive or client. One survivor of a failed op approaches the party after deliberately refusing to trigger their own protocol in protest. They want the code torn out—and proof that the corp has been treating their lives as programmable toggles, not people.
The Frame That Wouldn’t Die: A legendary Concordance raider, thought destroyed in a Metronome collapse, starts reappearing in battlefield telemetry decades later—always patched, always at 1 HP, always vanishing before full systems can take them down. Rumors say their Revivification Protocol is stuck in a temporal loop, bringing them back whenever the galaxy reaches stress points tied to their old mission parameters. The PCs are hired to end the loop, recruit the ghost, or prevent enemy factions from weaponizing the ghost as a recurring terror.
Revivification Protocol, in Starfall, is the quiet line of code that says an Android’s story doesn’t end the first time their body fails—and the uncomfortable question of who benefits most when a person’s heartbeats are governed by a scheduled reboot routine.
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