How Do Techno-Ghosts Hurt People?

[Vrock_Summoner]

How might a ghost with the ability to possess technology best go about causing harm to humans? Ideally, these things will be repeatable and not render the technology useless, but they don't necessarily have to - it's better not to burn the house down if you can kill the people inside without it, but hey, sometimes you gotta go all in for that special kill.

This can be at whatever scale you can come up with ideas for. Whether you've got a way to kill one guy in a room using basic pieces of modern life, multiple people inside a house using typical household appliances, a way to kill people in a city using greater infrastructure, or a way to purge life across a countryside without nuking it (since that typically does bad things to your tech as well), I want to hear it all.

For the sake of keeping the discussion moving, let's take all the big "you are actively depending on this thing to survive" technologies out of the picture. Obviously if you're relying on a pacemaker the ghost can screw up your heart, if you're on a plane the ghost can make it crash, and if you're writing an essay due in an hour the ghost can shut down your computer, but I'd like to focus on the ways the ghosts can turn technology towards killing you proactively, rather than just tweaking stuff where you'd already be dead if it failed.

[icefractal]

Self-driving cars? Eventually people learn to stay inside and/or shoot all of those from a distance, but you could pick off a number before that happened.

In the initial stage, before people realize there are techno-ghosts, then infiltrating hospital equipment could be pretty devastating. Change patient info so that highly contagious people are released as healthy, make autoclaves appear to work but not really sterilize things, and try to kill off lots of doctors/nurses through elevator mishaps and such so that there won't be enough left to deal with the situation.

Bio-weapons in general would be good for this purpose; they kill humans and leave the machines undamaged. I'd imagine any that exist are pretty well secured, but if techno-ghosts can successfully fake orders to relocate them, then that's another option.

Delivering poison into the water supply is another option, but a difficult one if the techo-ghosts don't have the ability to manufacture robots. Maybe you could use delivery drones to get the poison there, then ram the reservoir with a self-driving truck to make a hole? That kind of damage would be spotted pretty quickly though. It might be more practical to just fake having poisoned it so that people don't trust the pipes and have to venture outside for bottled water ... where they'll be run down by the aforementioned cars.

And of course, while not very gameable, crashing the economy would be highly effective.

[RazorChain]

On massive scale


Shut down the power and chaos ensues.
Wipe out all electronic data and chaos ensues.


Smaller scale

Explode phones
take control of/sabotage cars
change traffic lights
change electronic data (you are now extremely dangerous criminal, change prescription from the doctor, falsefy information on the internet)
overload power to electric appliances and electrocute people or put things on fire

[Anonymouswizard]

There is very little a ghost can do with technology that directly kills people, at least without radically changing how the technology works. You're roughly limited to using UACVs, self-driving cars, and factory equipment. I'm assuming the ghost can't generate power out of nowhere, so the device has to be plugged-in.

That said, there is a lot that can be done to indirectly kill people or cripple people/societies. If you can possess a power station and cause a massive power surge you can basically destroy all electronics connected to the system, unless they have particularly competent protection (which requires it to isolate the device ASAP), because surges are a problem even when everything's working as planned. Just from a shutting down electronics perspective a surge is generally better than cutting the power (unless you need to extract data) because when the power comes back most devices don't work as expected (although we are now good at protecting against 'everyday' surges, because they are more common than we initially thought), and with a high enough surge electricity might be able to bypass the resistance of mediums such as air and shock people.

However, if it can manipulate data, not only can it release people with infectious diseases into society, but also redirect all deliveries so a city receives no food, shut down a country's banking system, wipe bank accounts (or just straight-up delete them, although beware paper trails), or just drop a nuclear bomb on the target. In general when dealing with data you can wreak havoc, computers are so common in our society that technopathy is actually a scarier superpower than mind reading.

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm going to approach this from the perspective that the ghost can only operate devices to the extent they are designed. Let's look at electronic appliances I use in everyday life:

1) My car.

The start engine, the radio and the headlights are all electronic. The ghost could be a nuisance to me by making my car refuse to start, or it could try to make me crash by suddenly turning off the lights when dark, or by startling me by turning on the radio at max volume while I'm driving.

2) A stove.

The ghost could turn an electric stove on max heat while it is unsupervised, potentially causing a fire if there is something on or around the stove. (The stove itself cannot catch fire, because modern stoves are failsafe and shut down if they reach a too high temperature.)

3) A smartphone.

It could deprive me of my money by repeatedly calling service numbers, ruin my social relations by prank-calling / texting my friends, visit all sorts of shady websites and then paste my browser history on the net, implicating me for various crimes, it could delete important social media or e-mail accounts or again use them for criminal activity. Heck, it could frame me as the perpetrator of all other mean stuff I do!

4) A Nintendo 3DS.

It could delete all my save files.

5) A factory crane.

It could make the crane crash into things while implicating me, causing me to lose my job. (While simultaneously killing or injuring someone else.) It could do this time and again, because of course no technical defect will ever be found, and who would blame a ghost?

[inuyasha]

In addition to the above examples, there's a really great episode of The Twilight Zone called "A Thing About Machines" that deals with techno-ghosts. It's some pretty spooky stuff, and it's not really over the top.

The Twilight Zone is my favorite example for any form of horror.

[Winter_Wolf]

Going off the car example above, anything with ABS breaks or cruise control and a ghost could ruin your day. Whiplash from hard acceleration and hard stopping, slowly creeping up the speed while on a stretch where you'd not be paying much attention to your speed and then refusing to deactivate and disabled brakes when you're screaming along at 100 and hit a random school zone.

If you've got people with "smart appliances" or "smart locks" there's no end to the irritations. Ghost senses a would be intruder and unlocks the door for him, then any natural consequences of that; or a would-be murderer getting let in, although that would require a really unlucky break being haunted and actively sought out by a killer.

I have an old water heater but it's still got a digital interface. A ghost could crank up the hot water to "boiling" and possibly inflict severe burns on an unsuspecting victim.

Assuming ghost can manipulate on/off switches and dials: Random microwave activity. An electric stove cranked up with or without anything on burners. Lights cut out halfway down a flight of stairs. General "poltergeist" activity interrupting sleep. Possessed roomba gets underfoot and trips you. Paper shredder trap for the careless. If the electrical isn't grounded, a powerful surge can explode a lightbulb. Sump pump shuts off, basement fills with enough water to cover feet, then electric shock via water. Garage door tries to guillotine people passing under.

...I've been zapped by water+electricity, and had a lightbulb explosion without the benefit of techno-ghosts.

[Mastikator]

Go to a nuclear power plant.
Cause it to melt down.
Go to the next one.
And the next.
All nuclear power plants melt down the same day.

Then go to nuclear bombs, detonate them in place.
The fallout and mayhem ends human civilization and most life on the planet.

Or you could just mess with people's personal electronics to kill them individually, probably more manageable in a game. You should however think of a reason why it can't do the nuclear thingy.

[Anonymouswizard]

Go to a nuclear power plant.
Cause it to melt down.
Go to the next one.
And the next.
All nuclear power plants melt down the same day.

Just to jump in here, a properly maintained modern nuclear power plant is relatively safe. This is probably mainly going to cause minor radiation leaks and a small number of other problems until someone stops the nuclear reaction or slots in new safety measures. There will, of course, be a handful of problematic disasters, but a competent team will likely stop the plant before you can force it to get to the meltdown stage. A nuclear reactor is not a nuclear bomb, no matter how much people would like to think it is.

Off-topic: we should be funnelling more money into researching new fission reactors anyway, we could be solving the problems that have persisted through generations of nuclear reactors.

Then go to nuclear bombs, detonate them in place.
The fallout and mayhem ends human civilization and most life on the planet.

Why bother detonating them in place? If you can get to the things and blow them up you can launch the things, just pick targets within the country. More destruction with the same ruining of the environment.

Or you could just mess with people's personal electronics to kill them individually, probably more manageable in a game. You should however think of a reason why it can't do the nuclear thingy.

This is significantly less plausible if just operating devices as intended. I mean, if the techno-ghost can cause an overload it's significantly easier, but with only 'can manipulate technology' it becomes a lot harder.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Or you could just mess with people's personal electronics to kill them individually, probably more manageable in a game.

And indeed, a lot of what I'm asking for in this thread is how they use the individual electronics for that.

You should however think of a reason why it can't do the nuclear thingy.

Self-preservation, actually. Ghosts can only exist in any meaningful fashion through technology, and the nuclear option renders most technology unworkable (whether through direct melty, or through the intense electromagnetic waves that ruin all forms of circuitry). The ghosts, while invariable at least somewhat insane, still want to be able to manipulate what's left when most of the living people are dealt with. (Arguably because they're insane, even.)

Which also brings up a distinction I should've probably made at the beginning of the thread, though thankfully I've gotten useful answers for both cases. The setting is, at this point, post-apocalyptic, after ghosts have more or less caused the collapse of civilization and killed most of the people outside the one self-sufficient (and so far untainted) city the player characters are from. So I need to know both how the large number of ghosts brought down everyone to begin with (which there've been a lot of good answers for), and how they lash out against people who come to poke around in the abandoned ruins now (which you've all still given some ideas for).

As for capabilities with possession, they can push things to or past their mechanical limits and control things that are able to move with complete precision, but they have no real means to prevent the objects from failing due to the strain. They can access the power supply and therefore overcharge a given thing if it normally can't receive enough power flow for a given plan, but again, just shorting it out probably won't accomplish anything.

I'm wondering if I should go more XANA about this, but that sort of ruins the cyber-haunting aesthetic...

[CharonsHelper]

1. Elevators (surprised no one has said that one yet)

2. Mess with street lights to cause car crashes

3. Mess with airport electronics to cause plane crashes

4. Mess with signals to cause train crashes (sense a theme?)

5. Disrupt police communications so that criminals can go relatively unstopped

6. Send information to terrorist groups to allow them to be far more successful (I could see this working well in a game - the crazies keep having insider info etc. Looking for a mole - only to discover the tech ghost.)

[Segev]

Possess water filtration/treatment plant equipment, and just open all the ducts. Don't sterilize anything. Make sure all equipment in the facility tests water as "safe."

Possess a nuclear missile sub and make it launch.

Possess machines with top secret information, and release the most damaging to the world. ("Top Secret" is defined by its ability to cause grievous harm to the owner if it is released.)

Messing with stop lights has obvious human-killing applications.

Change the status of patients undergoing surgeries in the records so the wrong surgery is performed.

Change the records in a pharmacy so the wrong medicines are handed out to the wrong people. Change the orders and labels on medical supplies delivered to said pharmacies so the pharmacists, doing their jobs trusting the labels, make deadly concoctions (or placebos for those who need life-saving medicines).

Alter tests so healthy patients appear to have aggressive cancers in need of massive chemo.

Release APBs for innocent people, labeling them as armed and dangerous.

I forget the slang term for it, but related to the last one, issue calls or reports to local police and SWAT that get them to break down the doors of innocent people's houses with guns ready to blaze.

Download illegal content onto people's computers and report it. (The phrase "4chan party van" comes to mind.)

For that matter, pose as somebody by hacking their accounts via their computer and have them taunt Anonymous in as public a manner as possible.

While hacking somebody's identity, cancel all their autopayments. If you want to be thorough, hunt down the systems of those agencies which were being paid and make sure to change mailing addresses and phone numbers, but NOT residence addresses, so that repo men can be sent but the target will never know payments have stopped (unless they're EXTREMELY diligent in monitoring their accounts for autopays).

Alter the sensors on all refrigeration units in a small town's grocery stores so that they are sensing their internal temperatures as about 5 degrees warmer. Do the same for freezer units but calibrate so they're reporting the "right" temp while keeping it at 33 degrees F.

Do the above, but to somebody's refrigerator. (Maybe leave the freezer alone, and just rely on making their food spoil in the fridge part; ice melting is a give-away.)

Use somebody's computer to clumsily hack into a secured government data center and download sensitive info. Upload that info to a foreign embassy from this computer. Don't bother with any attempt to hide where you did it from.

Send a family's contact information, address, and the schedule of their children to known predators.

Change the passwords and all identifying information (addresses, security answers, etc.) in the target's online accounts (bank, credit card, utilities, insurance, etc.).

Enter target's name in the Sex Offender database.

Send or reroute legitimate romantic texts from the target to a phone belonging to a violent person or a violent person's lover. Or target the lover this way.

Disable CO detectors in a house and then turn on the car in the attached garage.

Turn on the gas oven or furnace without turning on the flame.

Cancel their credit cards, debit cards, phone service, and put them on a terrorist watch list while they're out of the country.

Post death notices for loved ones of depressed targets.

[Vrock_Summoner]

1. Elevators (surprised no one has said that one yet)

2. Mess with street lights to cause car crashes

3. Mess with airport electronics to cause plane crashes

4. Mess with signals to cause train crashes (sense a theme?)

While these are all things the ghosts can do, I believe the reason nobody else mentioned them was because I asked to avoid "if something as simple as turning a thing off happens, you die anyway" options. Thank you for the post, though! Especially the terrorist bit - the best way to prevent the living from teaming up to fight back is to play them against one another, after all.

[Mastikator]

Just to jump in here, a properly maintained modern nuclear power plant is relatively safe. This is probably mainly going to cause minor radiation leaks and a small number of other problems until someone stops the nuclear reaction or slots in new safety measures. There will, of course, be a handful of problematic disasters, but a competent team will likely stop the plant before you can force it to get to the meltdown stage. A nuclear reactor is not a nuclear bomb, no matter how much people would like to think it is.

A melt down is caused when the cooling of the plutonium fails, the plutonium overheats and literally melts through the concrete down into the soil. There's no exponential chain reaction. Modern nuclear reactors are excessively safe from natural disasters and human attacks but I think they all have no experience with dealing with techno-ghosts, even if only 10% of the power plants fail to prevent the techno-ghost that's still 45 melt downs in a single week, which would still be one of the biggest catastrophes in human history.
I barely know what a "techno-ghost" even is so it's to be expected that we'll radically disagree on what they can do. Some concrete info from @Vrock_Summoner would help.

[Cealocanth]

Well, first of all, it's really easy to hurt someone financially or socially if you control technology. Manipulating mass media, the stock market, globalized trade, satelites, the internet in general. Mass chaos kills a lot of people.

But if you're thinking of more of a house ghost targeting one person in particular, then there's a couple of other things. Clothes irons, electric fireplaces, most electrical outlets, curling irons, toasters, ovens, vaccum cleaners, washing machines, and surprisingly refrigerators can all be shorted out to start a fire. Kill the house's surge protector and chances of someone in the house being struck by lightning grows exponentially. Lithium ion batteries can overheat and explode. Cars left on overnight can fill a house with CO2 and suffocate people. Pretty much every lightbulb in a house can be made to explode with too much electricity. Killing radon, smoke, and carbon monoxide detectors increase the chance of death a lot in a house. Old fashioned TVs that use cathode ray tubes rather than LEDs actually emit radiation that's generally blocked by thin lead sheeting on the screen. If the screen is broken, perhaps by driving a toy car or something into it, then it's theoretically possible to irradiate an area. Not exactly a fast method of killing, though. Microwaves would do about the same thing, actually.

But the easiest way that a techno-ghost could kill someone?
1. Manipulate the stock market or bank accounts to steal a large sum of money onto a digital persona.
2. Use the deep web to hire a hitman.
3. Results.

[Âmesang]

This thread reminds me that I still have a working rotary phone.

I kind of like the idea of non-lethal attacks—the ghost just messing around, like spamming or unleashing its "trolls."

#SpoonyHatesEverything

[Vrock_Summoner]

This thread reminds me that I still have a working rotary phone.

I kind of like the idea of non-lethal attacks—the ghost just messing around, like spamming or unleashing its "trolls."

#SpoonyHatesEverything

Some suggestions a close friend of mine gave me when I asked about how they might hurt people:

1) I drain your phone battery!
2) I vibrate your electronics to knock Legos onto the floor!
3) I change your WiFi password!
4) I set all your clocks to different amounts off so you're never on time!

Truly, only the acts of a vile, omnicidal being.

I barely know what a "techno-ghost" even is so it's to be expected that we'll radically disagree on what they can do. Some concrete info from @Vrock_Summoner would help.

It's times like these I wish going @Vrock_Summoner would actually send me a notification... Quick, convert the entire forums to Discord!

Hm, now how best to describe all the important stuff about ghosts...

When I first created them, I had in my mind something similar to what we see in the movie "Unfriended" - minus the stupid jumpscare at the end, anyway. Almost like it could be a very erratic hacker, but then you find yourself with your head in a blender. They've evolved a bit since then, but I've always had that general tone as a background goal while fleshing them out.

A ghost is created from the soul of a person who died during a moment of extreme emotion and unfulfilled desire, and while in contact or extremely close proximity with a device with a data network connection - most commonly a home device with an Internet router, but others are possible. The soul clings to the device and, desperate to avoid disappearing so it can achieve its goal, draws as much data as it can from the network into a sort of program body. From there, it can "hop" from device to device as long as it can find a connection to link the objects. This can easily give a ghost access to an entire city's worth of electronic devices through the power grid, and the ghost can also hop from across geographic locations through non-physical connections such as, say, the Internet.

Ghosts start out singlemindedly pursuing whatever drive allowed them to stick around, and then when they either resolve that or are forced to realize it is completely impossible, they go off the deep end and brutalize everyone around in a vain effort to satisfy a destructive urge that's hardwired into their existence and no longer has a clear outlet.

While it has access to a given device, the ghost can manipulate it to whatever mechanical limits it has. If, for example, a fan is only intended to go at certain speed settings, but has the mechanical capacity to go much faster, the ghost can push it to go as fast as it wants, but generally has no way to prevent it from breaking apart if the device simply can't handle the strain. (They can also accurately control the direction of a Roomba, and are therefore gods.) Data is by far the easiest thing to manipulate, and a ghost can be greater than any regular hacker, but once the initial digital attacks are done and people shy away from relying on digital data storage, there's not much left that can be done to hurt people with it. Thus they mostly try to manipulate physical devices for their purposes.

I'm considering expanding the ghosts' capabilities so they can provide the player characters with more direct threats - maybe go the Code Lyoko route and let them possess people and objects in normally impossible ways, like directing a toxic gas cloud to chase people and manipulating power cords like tentacles or whatever - but before I resort to that, I'm hoping I can fill the ticket through technology as-is.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Any vehicle with drive-by-wire could potentially be lethal - set the fuel injection system to full acceleration, and then prevent signals being sent to the brakes. The driver could potentially do things like pull the car out of gear and coast to a stop, or turn the ignition off (but the ghost may be able to intercept that and keep the engine running), but they'd need to have the time and presence of mind to do it and be able to control the car to a safe stop afterwards.

In the home, there's the possibility of short circuits, disabling the heating in the winter/air-con in the summer, using speakers to send a high energy sound wave that could act like the concussion from an explosion (causing fatal internal injuries), or for something much longer term, using tv/radio and other entertainment to drive them to suicide.

[Stealth Marmot]

They could cause your system to freeze as you face the last boss in Dark Souls 3 and are about to win.

The ensuing death of 8-10 people will be indirectly their fault.

[GloatingSwine]

Got a gas appliance?

It's filling the house with carbon monoxide now.

[Segev]

Constantly set off all the fire, carbon monoxide, and any security alarms in the house. Until the owner disables all of them. Trigger one of the emergencies they're meant to warn against.

[LooseCannoneer]

A techno-ghost could take down businesses by creating fake digital crime rings. Say, in a routine check, it is discovered that Big Corp's upper echelons are involved in a massive criminal scandal. It isn't deniable, the proof's there, on the computers. The scandal is all anyone can talk about. Once the dust clears, the entire leadership of Big Corp is in jail and nobody is willing to touch their products. Scared, other companies start checking to see if they have a similar issue. The next ring is found in an unrelated company. And the next.

This tactic could also be used to fabricate terrorist cells, but why take down around 20 people if you can hit the economy?