For posterity... the old baud introduction

As with all games, they evolve over time. ]baud has really taken a decidedly 1980's era slant and instead of trying to fit it into an artificial future narrative, it has made sense to lean fully into it. Here is the old introduction for posterity. It was nice knowing you but it was time to move to a more clear description of the game and the era that it is a tribute to!

Introduction

In the late 2020’s corporations lost trust in the internet. It no longer represented a safe place to operate. After searching, it was decided to resurrect dial-up modem operations - they could be highly restricted and compression was to the point where complex programs could be shrunk into a single byte size location (called nano-programs). These systems only needed a small memory space to operate and a small number of exposed ports and allowed only limited power terminals to connect - the Apple //.

Soon enough, these systems were under surveillance and then under attack. Although the surface area for attack was reduced to a few well-protected modem ports, the attacks came anyway. ICE and heavy copy protection was deployed to stop the Runners, usually rival operators from other corporations, from penetrating security to loot and disrupt the Core.

You are an employee, an operator, a runner. Your mission is to help the corporation achieve its objectives both on-site and off. It won’t be easy - it will require coordination with other operators, smarts to source what is necessary, intelligence and fast reaction speed to crack various puzzles and defeat the rival corporations, while protecting your home system from being flanked by competing corporations.