DISCLAIMER: I was slightly drunk and very tired when we played this, and it was fucking ages ago, so I very probably have got bits wrong. I know its *roughly* correct, but I'm not bothered about getting it 100% accurate. If there is anything glaringly wrong/missing do say so though, and I'll correct it.
Continuity
Meet the team:
Berk - Mercurial Scavenger
An octopus that has had its intelligence raised to a similar level to humans. Hes about the same size as a person and can talk, but other that that...yeah, its an octopus.Skilled in finding things, his main motivation is exploration. He is on the station for its opportunities to do just that out here on the edge of the solar system.
FJ - Brinker Genehacker
The teams scientist, sleeved in a Menton (big headed human) and specialising in medicine. His motivations are all about morph design and research, so is probably out here for its opportunities to do interesting things without people looking over his shoulder the whole time. Probably provides the station with medical expertise in exchange for use of its facilities.
Grimmie - Argonaut Xenoarchaeologist
An explorer and researcher specialising in alien relics. He is on the station probably as a jumping off point to poke around at the fringes of the system for signs of aliens, pandora gates or similar oddities. Secretly has psychic powers!
Shoes - Scavenger
The scavvy is the only non organic morph on the station, preferring the versatility and durability of his flexbot morph. Similar motivations to Berk, except where the mercurial dreams of one day reclaiming earth, the Scavenger would see that as a horrible way to put him out of work. Normally operating on or around Earth, the scavvy may be out on the rim in an attempt to do something a little quieter while he recovers from his last "buisness trip".
Pete - Scum Enforcer
Probably on the station as its nod towards security, the Scum Enforcer is all about fighting. In a Fury morph, she (yes, in this Pete is a lady) is skilled in all sorts of weapons and combat techniques. She is all about adventure, and there are few places better for that than away from the inner system. Also a little bit of a pisshead.
Pnut - Titanian Explorer
Another explorer, the Titanian is more interested in finding live aliens than Grimmie, but other than that is very similar. He is more physical than the other academics, and therefore more useful in a fight.
The players are the crew of the Kepler, an Argonaut owned research station in the Kuiper Belt, out on the rim of the solar system. Together with the stations AGI, Hans, they have been on the station approximately six months, carrying out their research and exploration. The Kepler itself is what is known as a cluster habitat: a collection of pods connected together. The last thing they remember before the game starts is checking in for their backup.
The crew wake to distant klaxons. They are in ego bridge pods: the machines used to upload and download a persons mind. Naked, and covered in suspension fluid, they realise that they have been resleeved into their backup morphs. Every deeps space station like this would carry spare morphs in case of accidents, although why all of them would need to be resleeved at once is a mystery. They can't access the local mesh either, as it is being jammed, so they cant ask Hans what is going on. Their muses tell them that two weeks have passed since their backups.
Thinking back, they remember the reason the backups were taken. Two weeks ago they picked up a ship on their scans and telescope; the Istari. The Istari is a long range comet miner, these ships do loops through places like the kuiper belt and use drones to either dismantle comets into chunks they are capable of loading into their cargo bay or push the comets into the path of one of the inner system mining facilities so they can deal with it. They remember getting no response from trying to communicate with the ship long range, and they could see there appeared to be damage to its fusion drives.
As they start getting themselves together in the med bay, the Dr. Bot (a fairly basic medical drone) plays them back a message:
The team recognise the voice as that of Hans, the AGI. There's clearly something up with him though, he doesn't normally talk so...badly. The team attempt to get some more out of the Dr. Bot, but all they can get are gibberish pre-recorded messages, it seems there is nothing more useful to be got. Using the med bays fabber to get some medical supplies and clothes, they go to explore the rest of the station, when an eagle eyed Lady-Pete spots that the pressure warning lights on the door are active. Its a yellow light, meaning there is at least some atmosphere out there (it would be red otherwise) but there is no way to know how bad things are. It could still be plenty dangerous.Hans wrote:Welcome online. AI server HQK01 … HQK– … K–… K01 has suffered combat damage and requires <static> immediate repair. Please report to the <static> Operations Module to render immediate repairs. Disable all wireless freq– … freq– … frequencies and <static>. Repeat, do not use radio frequencies under any circumstances. Treat all wireless-enabled devices as compromised.
The door in the other direction leads back to the labs pod, and is showing normal atmosphere, so the organic elements of the team retreat back there after giving it a cautious search for any nasty surprises. Theres nothing horrible, although they do find some liquid thermite which could come in handy later (at this point pnut cried in horror that thermite couldn't be a liquid. Its not *actually* thermite, its just something that burns like thermite does, but can be applied as a paste. Future science! Shut up pnut!). Pocketing the thermite and sealing the bulkhead door between the labs and the med bay, they leave the intrepid Shoes in his robo-body to open the door to the rest of the station and check the weather. He don't need no stinking air!
The door swooshes open and other than a gentle breeze it all seems safe. The rest of the team join Shoes in the corridor, and none of the fall over dead immediately. Hooray! Something is clearly very wrong though: The station is eerily quiet, cold, and the air seems terribly thin. After a brief stop in one of the storerooms (involving a rather peculiar fight with one of the stations drones) to pick up some space suits and weapons, they go exploring the rest of the station. As the team move around the the corridor they notice that there is a gentle but noticeable breeze heading towards one of the loading bays. A couple of the more sciency types head towards the operations module to see if they can get in contact with Hans and get some of the systems (most importantly the heating and lighting) back up whilst the rest of the team head the same way all their atmosphere is going. The second team open the door to the module with the airlock in it without paying sufficient attention to the little blinky lights. This one is red. For a couple of alarming seconds the mild breeze shoots up to a howling gale as all the stations air has an urgent need to go out for a walk. Only some fancy footwork (or in the case of Berk, tentacle work) save them all from taking a terminal stroll into space. Examining the airlock itself shows that a metal strut has been welded into it to jam it open. The liquid thermite is skilfully applied, freeing the metal bar without damaging the airlock, and the door is sealed. The good news is that they are no longer shooting their precious air into space. The bad news is that most of their precious air has already shot into space.
While all this is going on, the Team Science have managed to gain access to the operations area, and made contact with Hans. sort of. The conversation went a bit like this:
"Hi Hans, what's going on?"
"Who are you?"
"We are the crew, Hans. Remember?"
"Oh! I woke you up because you had gone! Who are you?"
"The crew, Hans"
"How do I know I can trust you? You might be bad!"
"We are your friends Hans. Friends."
"Oh, ok. Hello friends!"
"Can you turn the atmosphere back on Hans?"
"Sorry no. I'm cleaning."
"What?"
"Well, everything is covered in dust, and the dust might be dangerous, so i've opened the doors and i'm letting all the air out. That will take the dust with it, and you will be safe! I'm doing it for you!"
Hans is not feeling well.
Through some careful interrogation, the team eventually get from Hans what has been happening since they got backed up. The team had taken the stations shuttle to intercept the Istari, leaving Hans to monitor the situation remotely. They had got almost to the ship, with nothing particular happening, when Hans lost contact with them. Several hours passed, and he was beginning to get worried, when the team sent a message back to Hans saying everything was fine and they were on their way back. At the end of the message was a burst of data, containing what Hans believes was some sort of virus. He managed to contain the spread of the virus by disconnecting some of his modules (effectively lobotomising himself) and shutting down the various parts of the station that had already been infected. He managed to shut off the wireless mesh before it could spread through that, and had kept it offline, so the virus was trapped in any systems not connected physically. He also jettisoned the stations communications array, so the virus could not be transmitted off the station. He has no idea what has happened to the Istari, the shuttle or the crews original selves, as he has heard nothing since. He eventually managed to get a clear, virus free connection to the med bay and initiated the resleeving process before he retreated back to the safety of the ops centre computers. The traumatic events plus the self imposed lobotomy has left him paranoid as *balls*.
Grimmie decides to check out the transmissions as carefully as possible. He critically fails to do so, and deletes them instead. Whoops!
One of the crew glances out of the stations windows, and notices something. The Istari, heading slowly towards them. Presumably the buggered fusion engines mean they are limping along at a fraction of their normal speed, but that still only leaves them a couple of hours before they get to the docking bay. Leaning out of one of the airlocks, they use their suits laser communicators to hail the Istari, using text only. They get a cheery response from...THEMSELVES. oooooh.
Grimmie has a bit of a talk to himself and decides that old-him is lying his bum off about something. The old them are insistent that everything is fine, seem a little perturbed that their backups have been resleeved, but are confident that everything will be sorted when they get there. Its cool, new me! Chill!
Lies lies lies.
Deciding that their best option is to fortify their position, the crew task the fabbers to spit out reams of nanowire, which they string across vital areas like the airlock and the door to the giant central greenhouse. They then do their best to fuse the doors shut, and hide in the ops centre, all weapons trained down the corridor.
With a shuddering crunch, the Istaris docking arm latches on to the airlock door. Scuttering noises can be heard, but nothing seems to be trying to get through the airlock. They (whatever they are) are on the outside of the station! Shit!
With a crash, and another gust of escaping oxygen, the window of the greenhouse shatters and Grimmie drops in. Only its not Grimmie. I'll quote directly from the script for this, as I don't think I could do a better job:
So thats nice.The previous crew has been fully transformed by the virus. Their bodies are emaciated, twisted and broken, held together by patches of chrysacid structures, wrapped in tatters of dried skin and vacsuit. Two-meter-long twisted, black legs sprout irregularly from breaks in the skin. Palps and pincers grow from their mouths and eye sockets. Their faces are distended and nearly unrecognizable, but their identity is immediately clear from the names and patches on their suits or the entoptic displays of their mesh IDs.
Everyone who seems this has a little panic, some of them reacting better than others (at least one, I think it was Berk, having a brief case of stress induced Echolalia). A fight ensues.
TO BE CONTINUED! :O
