[Eclipse Phase PbP] Session 1: Tranquil Sea, Burning Earth [IC]

Snowbeat

Ten years ago this place was hell.

With the Earth burning overhead its scattered survivors fought one of the last battles of the war against their own creations. The battle was not one of lines drawn and formations ordered, but one of desperation and hopelessness. Viruses coursed through the colonies like bad blood, venting entire habitats to the vacuum, sending mining drones spiralling out of the sky into domes, turning Luna's own orbital defenses against it.

I watched them struggle, heard their screams. The final moments of the human race, beamed directly into my head.

Then, just like they had arrived, the TITANs left. Without warning. Without provocation. They disappeared into the ether and left mankind shattered and bleeding, cut down to a fraction of itself.

I watched them rebuild, take back the burnt places they had left before. Prove themselves worthy of the life they thought they had won. Expanding, ever expanding, outwards, inwards...

Unaware of what awaited them.

Unaware of me.

The shuttle out to the dig site was cramped and uncomfortable. The corporate pilot wasn't taking any risks and flying the safest, slowest route, avoiding pockets of high traffic and heavy sat surveillance. The shuttle, if viewed from outside, had an elegant, insectile appearance, a short, curved body surrounded by arched legs and tiny impeller rocket nozzles. Inside, however, it's cramped and uncomfortable, the passenger area behind the two-person cockpit jammed with equipment and luggage.

Gen Fulmis leaned back in the copilot's crash couch and turned his helmet to look at the pilot. The vac suit obscured the pilot's identity entirely; even their morph's sex was impossible to tell. He realizes that he had forgotten to get the pilot's name, but it didn't seem that important now. He leaned back and looked out the cockpit window, beyond the hovering elements of the HUD. The lunar desert stretched out to the stark line of the horizon, where it met the pure black of transorbital space and the dark marble that looked out across it like a baleful eye. Gen looked at it and decided to check over the specs for the latest rover he was designing. It was a little early in the day for remembering.



Augustus Cumberbatch felt more at ease in the shuttle than he had after being woken from deep sleep in Nectar. He had spent his entire life aboard habitats of various sizes; he had never seen anything like the urban vastness of Nectar. The towering colony-columns, the giant domes housing forests and fields, the immense warren of tunnels stretching deep into Luna's crust. Just thinking of it gave him an agoraphobic twitch in his tentacles.

In the back, crammed in alongside the supplies, Gerrad Lancaster sat in his general-issue vac suit and looked at the neo-octopus across from him. The octomorph body was completely encased in a custom-made vac suit, the body a beautifully designed hunk of carbon fibres and titanium plating. Its head protruded from the top and Gerrad could see its eyestalks flickering back and forth under the tinted plexi of its ovoid facemask. Besides the hum of the shuttle's impeller engines and the occasional metallic buzz as one of its guidance rockets fired, the cabin was completely silent.

Something in the cockpit began to insistently beep.

Outside, on the lip of an ashen crater, something sparked and flew.

Welcome to Session 1.

@Cayrus as Dr. Augustus Cumberbatch
@Lord_Asmodeus as Sec
@Ringo as Gen Fulmis
@Zendracon as Gerrad Lancaster

Typically, I'll put flavor text italicized and bolded. It is essentially information non grata, stuff that is for your OOC minds only.

Text that is only italicized should be used for the voices of your Muses. I encourage you to talk to them.

Anything OOC in the IC thread should be spoilered. This should mostly consist of dice rolls. If you have a question, post it in the OOC thread or PM it to me.

Dice rolls will be done using Invisible Castle or Orokos. I will be performing passive rolls for your characters when the narrative calls for it.

Information is key and, as such, will be safeguarded. If your character has not received, heard, or read something during gameplay, they do not know it. Please be vigilant of metagaming.

I would like each of you to make a Perception check and maybe say a few words to your new coworkers. Cooperation is important, after all.

Ringo

Perception Check: 1d100 17

Gen arched an eyebrow at the beeping, but decided his expertise probably wasn't needed on the case. As far as Gen was concerned there was no pilot in the galaxy who liked having their elbow nudged while they worked. Instead, Gen turned a bit in his seat and spoke to the two passengers. "The two of you doing alright back there?"

Lord_Asmodeus

Perception (going for under 15): 1d100 62

Cayrus

Perception vs 30: 1d100 11

Critical success!

Augustus looked up from his entoptics at the man who had addressed him. His muse, the Duke of Wellington, had been updating him on the latest news from the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance. He'd been out on Titan for close to five years and had fallen behind on latest Inner System gossip.

"I'm jolly good, young man. It's good to be back in an enclosed space like this, at least for a little while. I was afraid those Somatek bastards were going to abandon me in Nectar."

As Gus stretched his tentacles, he heard the sounds coming from the cockpit. "I say, good sir, what is that bloody beeping?"

Zandracon

Perception < 65: 1d100 33
Uh, critical? I think?

Gerrad yawns, and gives a vague mumbling noise resembling something like an acknowledgement to Gen's query. Tarn, got anything interesting on the mesh? Maybe something new about our corporate friend?

Cayrus

Augustus' went quiet for a moment as the beeping sound triggers his eidetic memory. After a moment, he shook his head and began removing his seat restraints.

"Gentlemen and/or ladies, I do not wish to alarm anyone, but I have reason to believe that a bomb or some other device of destructive or nefarious purpose has been placed in the service compartment of this very shuttle!"

Ringo

Gen looks alarmed, but it clearly takes him a second or two to figure out a response to such a statement. He turns to the pilot, "Where are we? Can you put us down on the surface?"

Snowbeat

The pilot shook their head and turned back to their control panel. Gen clawed his way out of the crash couch and looked at the panel.

And he realized what he was looking at.

25 seconds to impact.

Zandracon

"Well, I uh... don't suppose any of you are up for a nice walk across Luna to the dig site?"

Lord_Asmodeus

Sec's voice boomed out into the shuttle from an unknown source, the deep resonant bass contradicting Gerrad's nervous words. "This craft is being targeted by a Gorgon XNF-6 plastic-cased antimatter ground-to-orbit shoulder-launched missile with a payload of 1 gram of Anti-matter. It appears to be tracking our movement. Unless the pilots can find some way to avoid being hit by this missile, it is most likely this ship and everything within it will be atomized. Hopefully everyone backed up before coming on this trip."

Cayrus

"Thank you disembodied voice from the ether, but I'm trying to tell you the bloody pilot put some device into the service compartment!"

As he finished releasing his many tentacle restraints, Augustus lunged toward the service compartment.

Snowbeat

The pilot began fumbling with his own restraints and jammed one hand into a document compartment next to his seat. It came out with a small automatic pistol whose tiny barrel swung quickly to face Gen. Time seemed to slow as Gen watched the finger on the trigger slowly depress...

@Ringo, give me a roll against half of your Fray (to reflect the cramped conditions).

Ringo

Fray check at 27: 1d100 31

Gen moves quickly enough, only to realize there's nowhere to move to.

Snowbeat

The shard pistol screams in the tight space and Gerrad watches as Gen is knocked back into the copilot couch by the force of the shot. The pilot begins to climb out around the control console, sweeping the pistol around to aim into the passenger compartment.

The beeping intensifies.

@Ringo, the shard pistol did nothing against your standard vacsuit. You are unharmed.

Lord_Asmodeus

As the pilot sweeps the passenger compartment with his pistol, Sec pushes the barrel of his sniper rifle out through the smart materials of his morph, and fires a plastic bullet at the pilot's head.

Kinetic Weapons (60 or below): 1d100 42

Snowbeat

The saboteur raises the pistol to aim at Gerrad's facemask. The lunar sunlight silhouettes him against the cockpit and over one shoulder you can see a bright light, like a star, arcing in a graceful curve towards the shuttle.

Then something makes an earsplitting roar and the pilot's facemask snaps backwards, a thin spray of blood arcing across the roof. The remains of the plastic bullet and some bits of brain and bone spray harmlessly across the cockpit plexi. He collapses between the command couches.

The missile spirals, almost lazily, towards you.

15 seconds.

Ringo

Gen watches the blood spray across the cockpit, wonders what the fuck is going on, then internally shrugs and gets down to what he does best. Sitting upright and turning towards the controls, Gen tries to get that missile off their tail.

Pilot: Spacecraft at 65: 1d100 17

Though should I get a +20 for having Profession: Spacecraft Systems at 45 as a complimentary skill? (not that it looks like I needed it)

Cayrus

Augustus lunged toward the compartment, ignoring the bullets, blood, and brains flying about the cabin. "Don't mind me, chaps! Just saving the day here!"

He ripped the panel off of the top and found the device he'd remembered seeing earlier. He racked his brain to figure out what it was and how to disable it.

Hardware: Electronics vs 65: 1d100 14

Success.

Snowbeat

Gen wrenched the joystick to one side and triggered all of the port-side maneuvering rockets in an attempt to fly through the missile's path. He could hear the shuttle's superstructure groan. The missile adjusted it flight path, and continued straight for the ship.

Cumberbatch looked at the device in his tentacles. It seemed to be some sort of rudimentary tracker, cobbled together out of a satnet mapping module, a disposable lithium battery, and a military-grade friend-foe beacon, glued together with glossy epoxy. As he thought very quickly about the circumstances he found himself in, he remembered back to when he watched the pilot input the code to close the rear cargo door on a touchpad next to it. 6... 3... 0... what was the last one?...2! As far as he could figure, that was the only way to dispose of the wretched device.

Cayrus

Augustus' mind raced as he though of options. Very crude. Easier to conceal than an incendiary device. Best estimate to interface and reprogram: 34.7 seconds under ideal conditions. Circumstances very much NOT idea. Disposal of device number one priority.

"It's a tracking device! Make way, make way!" Augustus shouted as he made his way toward the rear cargo door.

"Make way good sir, I have to open the door and expel this vile contraption!" He moved as fast as his tentacles could carry him, past Gerrad and to the the touchpad.

Cayrus

"If anyone else has any ideas, please state them before I open the door! I've calculated there is a 6.7% chance of a massive decompression and ensuing structural collapse!"

Zandracon

Watching the neo-octopus make towards the door, Gerrad braces himself in anticipation of the blast. "Think a decompressive blast could shift our trajectory enough to avoid the missile when you throw that thing out? ...I might be able to futz with its guts, but we probably don't have the time for that."

Snowbeat

Gen pushed the shuttle's impellers to maximum thrust and pointed the nose straight down at the lunar soil, a kilometer below. The HUD displayed a three-dimensional model of the ship and the path of the missile as it arced down as well to follow it. Gen watched as the time to impact counter slowed. He heard the octopus shout something from behind about massive decompression and realized exactly what they needed to do.

Ringo

"Everybody hang on!" Gen cries, as he throws the shuttle into an extreme dive. "About to blow the rear door!"

Jesus Christ. Pilot + Systems: Spacecraft at 85: 1d100 80

As they near the lunar surface, Gen struggles mightily to pull out of the dive. His left hand activates the controls for the rear door release.

"This is gonna be messy...."

Lord_Asmodeus

COO (30 or below): 1d100 54 Oops...

As the neo-octopus moved to open the doors, Security Drone R91 extruded his limbs from his form, moving from his position as seemingly one more piece of equipment to pluck the box from the Neo-Octopus' tentacles, and throw it as hard as it could away from the ship.

Cayrus

Augustus held the device high in one tentacle, and began punching in the code with two others. 6...3...0....2. Right as he hit the last number, he felt the device being torn from his grasp.

Snowbeat

Gen's finger brushed the controls as he pulled hard on the controls to cancel out the shuttle's terminal velocity. The lunar horizon bobbed and weaved through the cockpit plexishield and he could hear the superstructure scream as the retrorockets fired. Then the nose of the shuttle dropped hard and a hard popping sound rung through the ship. Gen thought he could see the forward maneuvering rocket pods tumble away from the ship, sparking...

then the shuttle leapt forward and up again, the massive depressurization sending the shuttle's internal atmosphere jetting from the opening door. Cumberbatch turned and saw, briefly, the amorphous plasticine form extend two pseudopodic manipulators and pull the tracking device from his tentacles before the full force of the escaping atmosphere hit him and sent him tumbling towards the open door.

@Cayrus and @Lord_Asmodeus, you both need to make SOM rolls to stay in the ship. L_A, do you want to use a moxie to reroll?

Lord_Asmodeus

As the shuttles doors opened, Sec's other two arms flashed out to grab hold of the ship, magnetically locking down as much as possible, using the pure pneumatic force of his manipulator claws for the rest, as he held on against the rush of air trying to pull him out.

SOM (30 or below) to stay in the shuttle: 1d100 18

Snowbeat

Sec locked himself to the frame of the door and couched his other two arms against his casing, then extended him rapidly and released the device, catapulting it into the void. It arced out and began to fall to the ground below slowly.

The shuttle was still losing altitude, but as Gen looked up from the controls, he saw that the missile's path had altered slightly and was now angled down and away. He would have whooped triumphantly, but another portside rocket screeched and detached itself from the shuttle and the craft juked to the left, unbalanced. The decompression seemed to have kicked the shuttle into a more gentle dive, at the very least.

Cayrus

SOM roll vs 15: 1d100 86

As the door opened and the shuttle lurched Augustus was flung toward the door. He flailed his tentacles wildly trying to gain purchase, but to no avail. He was about to launched into space over the Lunar wilderness.

"Save me dear boy!" he shouted at the robotic mass who had appeared out of nowhere.

Lord_Asmodeus

With 2 of his 4 limbs now free, Sec reaches out as quick as his reflex boosted limbs will allow to try and grab the Octomorph and pull it back inside the shuttle.

REF (40 or less): 1d100 43 I'll spend a moxie to switch that around to 34, which should be successful I hope!

Ringo

"Did we lose him? Did we lose him?!"

Gen desperately tries to adjust for the shuttle falling apart around them.

Pilot + Systems: Spacecraft at 85: 1d100 79

That's hardly better

Snowbeat

The amorphous blob of plastic had extended two more long claws and grabbed Cumberbatch's vac suit before he had a chance to go tumbling from the shuttle, then hauled him back in. "Oh dear!" Cumberbatch was burbling panickedly through the speaker on his suit, not realizing the lack of atmosphere muffled him completely. "Thank you, s-sir..." He laid eyes on his saviour and recognized it for what it was: a reaper killbot, a large-caliber rifle barrel still partially extruded through its shell. "Good Lord!" Across the cabin Gerrad, still strapped in, was frozen with shock, staring at the robot which had launched itself from the pile of luggage without warning.

Gen watched the altimeter stabilize as the missile streaked past and the impact timer vanished from the HUD. Then something that had crouched at the back of his mind for the last few seconds finally clicked into place. He spun in his seat. "What did you say about the-"

Then everything went white.

Gen: 75 crash damage, instant death

Sec: 77 crash damage, instant death

Cumberbatch: 68 crash damage, instant death

Gerrad: 56 crash damage, 7 wounds
Failed unconsciousness roll

---

"Bring it in! Come on! What the fuck happened here?"

"Antimatter bomb! We've got three casualties here, three DOA, one unconscious and dropping!"

"Jesus... well don't fucking stand there! Get him to ER!"

"I don't think..."

"Goddamn."

"Yeah."

"Just... fuck. We have some tryphine in Medical, right? Just pass this sleeve on and get all four to stack excision."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah, just like that. We don't have time to stand around and argue, we're risking continuity loss."

"All right then, you heard her..."

---

The sound wakes you. For a second it's harsh, alien; not the soft murmer of unconsciousness. For a second you can't remember what music sounds like. Then the light hits your sensitive, underused new eyes and you jolt from the table, thrashing in the remembered heat of wild force and fire and an unimaginable moment of pain before the darkness took you. Then gentle hands press your flailing limbs back to the revival table and a voice soothes you.

"Please do not struggle. You are still you."

You feel the blood pounding in your temples as you gradually come back to sane consciousness. Your Muse boots up with an almost audible and entirely comforting ring. You were dead, it tells you, but we're alive again. The music is unfamiliar and very old but your Muse gently prods you into Mesh connection again and you recognize it. The once-familiar cacophony of data fills your mind and then gradually begins to fade into the background once again.

"You are fine; you are still you. Mr. Granner has seen to it. Please try your new bodies as we perform necessary scans."

@Ringo, @Lord_Asmodeus and @Zandracon all roll for SOM x3 for integration and alienation.

Cayrus

If I am being resleeved in an Octomorph, then Right at Home means I don't need to do Alienation or Intergration tests.

If not then, (I included Morphing Disorder-Level 1) SOMx3-10 vs 35 (Alienation): 1d100 16 and SOMx3-10 vs 35 (Integration): 1d100 4

Snowbeat

Yep, you're fine.

Still require rolls for Gen and Gerrad, though.

Snowbeat

@Zandracon, aisle 4 for cleanup. @Zandracon, aisle 4.

Ringo

SOM x3 for Integration at 45: 1d100 4

INT x3 for Alienation at 45: 1d100 4

Gen blinks his eyes. "What... the hell... happened?"

Zandracon

SOMx3 vs 30 (Integration): 1d100 77
INTx3 vs 60 (Alienation): 1d100 37

oh noooooo
failed pretty horribly on that integration roll

Cayrus

As Augutus slowly regains consciousness and mobility, he slowly moves his tentacles around.

Very good, very good, still eight limbs. Let's see if the mind still works... He declared it working correctly, if a bit slowly, after taking 67 second to solve the majority of Hilbert's 24 unresolved mathematical problems.

Confident know that he was functional again, Augustus addressed his muse. Wellington, dear boy, access the mesh and tell me where we are currently residing. Also, be a good chap and tell me how long I was shuffled off my mortal coil.

Snowbeat

Your cortical stack was excised approximately three hours ago, sir, after your previous body was retrieved from the crash site. Wellington pauses. My apologies, sir, but I cannot give you our exact coordinates. However, my personal calculations based on mesh transmission delay and our original estimated destination places us near the eastern edge of the Mare Tranquillitatis.

Across the room, Gerrad groans and slowly sits up, one hand covering his eyes. "Christ, but I feel like I was run over by a truck."

Gen stays on his back. "What... the hell... happened?"

"You were killed, my boy. But now you're back. Welcome!"

Three sets of eyes swivel to face the voice. At the entrance to the medical bay stands a man showing the first signs of healthy age, with tan skin and an honest smile. He wears only a light linen shirt and trousers and for the first time you all realize that despite being unclothed, the air in the room is warm enough to cause a light sweat to spring up on your skin (except, obviously, for the non-mammal). He strides towards the revival beds. "I was so worried after I heard about the explosion, Gen. You know I dislike discontinuity."

Gerrad craned his neck around while shielding his eyes against the harsh light. There seemed to be something behind the old man... he jumped back and nearly fell off the bed. Behind the old man (who his muse belatedly informed him was, in fact, Ixlis Granner) a dark green-grey lozenge of plastic-like material hovered, humming quietly. Gerrad pointed a finger at it. "What in the hell is that thing?"

@Zandracon, you suffer -10 for all physical actions for the next day. Everyone else made perfect transitions and suffer no ill effects.

Ringo

Gen sits up and squirms a little, getting a feel for his apparently new body. "Killed?" he asks. Then he answers himself as he looks around the room. "The pilot. Did somebody get the stack off the pilot?"

Vox, pull up everything you can on the crash.