Eclipse Phase (Inactive)

Game Master inxpitter

You're always looking to roll under your score, I believe.

Yes for d100 based systems it is under. Which is why a 000 is an automatic success and a 99 is an automatic fail.

Pivo: The modifier would apply to the number to beat ( [-] makes things harder, [+] make things easier). So you would have to roll a 50 or under to have beaten the score.

Jonas is able to grab onto the lockers to resist the light pull of the venting atmosphere. Crazy Eddie moves to the dormitory as well, and begins to get sucked away from the open airlock!

Crazy Eddie, Roll of Free-fall check

But as he's getting pulled closer to being vented, something strikes him as odd about Aleksander's words. Something about the dissonant tones....something about...

A cold shock of fear goes through your head.

Aleksander, you are hit by another series of dissonant tones.

Aleksander, please roll a COG + INT +SAV test. And I've recently discovered you can't use moxie to autosucceed, but I'll let the first time slide as it was my fault.

Good to know.

COG+INT+SAV:(50): 1d100 ⇒ 68

Jonas pulls open one of the lockers, grabbing whatever vacsuits are inside before slamming shut the door again.

Crazy Eddie slaps the wire out of Aleksander's port. Exsurgent Virus attack. Damn, You might already be infected.

What do I need to roll for more info, and possible treatments?

30 minutes have passed

Crazy Eddie, you reading my posts? Because you're not responding to stuff I'm writing. Also, you're nowhere near Aleksander as your currently drifting closer and closer to being vented. Please reference a couple posts above.

Also, the mesh is something he has to disconnect from since he accessed it through unconventional means, though the fact that he is currently connected to the fabber which has the capacity to manufacture the biological strain of the virus is concerning. Not that any of you know that...

Aleksander falls prey to some sort of malady, suffering 1d20 ⇒ 10 mental stress. Also, he becomes incredibly disoriented, and severely confused. He is incapable of making decisions, understanding communication, understanding what is going on around him, or acting in any sort of determined way for the duration. This condition lasts for two minutes.

Jonas, you find a spare vacsuit in your locker.

"Aleks, you ready yet?" Catarina is visibly annoyed by now. "It's taking you too long, maldito sea!"

Snide question aside, Yes I am reading your posts. In the previous 25 min I thought I had retrieved my gear and put on an environmental suit. My ability to have a knowledge check on Aleks comment on the tones, made me assume I was near enough to hear. But honestly I have no clue where anyone is at the moment in relation to the map.

the rule of thumb I use for pbp games is that if you didn't write it, it didn't happen. Based on your postings you went to retrieve equipment and I asked you to make a free fall check. That part seemed to be disregarded so I wasn't sure if you only checked the spoiler for yourself. I assumed that the check would translate that you hadn't completed your intended action and needed to roll to continue safely. Also, it seemed odd that you were in the dormitory area one moment and back at the medical bay in the next. If you could write out such movements to give me a better sense of your characters movement that would be helpful..

Though, now that I look over things it seemed I misread you and thought you were heading he machine shop. My bad. You can disregard the free fall check and Knock the port of Aleksander (though he's still connected to the witeless mesh). Though, I have to ask would your character leave an environment suit before boarding a possibly hazardous space station? On mobile so can't reference you sheet well.

as I understand it, Catarina aleksander and pivot are still at the med bay. Jonas is at the machine shop, and you are at the dormitory.

Also, I did not intend to come off as snide, and apologize if that's the impression you got. I have had games where players don't read anything posted by other players or even myself, whether due to constraints of mobile or just not caring.

No Problem. I, as a player, was unable to post during the flurry of posts yesterday, so I just posted what I would do during that time. As far as an environment suit, I assumed (not playing the game before) that some common sense items might be at our disposal...like environmental suits a plenty on a space station. Again that was my assumption, The company that runs the space station might be really really cheap and has no such frills. Last I thought Aleks had jacked in using hardware, due to the mesh being down. Currently, I can assume I have my gear, but no space suit right?

Jonas pulls on his vacsuit. Once it's on, he looks for a spare suit for Pivo and any tools around since the Uplifted octopus is the only one with the hardware know-how to fix the door.
Freefall 45, if necessary: 1d100 ⇒ 37

thanks for bearing with me not knowing the game. i really enjoy this setting, there is a good scifi danger vibe.

Pivo will look for a way to close that door with a lever or button.

So, Eddie is in the medbay? All right.

"Exsurgents? Damn it!" Catarina grabs Aleksander and keeps him pinned down (as much as it can be done in this gravity) until he answers her. "Hey, Aleks, you hear me? Do you understand me?"

As far as I can tell, Eddie (at 30 Min) is in the dorm, all geared up (except for Environmental Suit) and is returning to Med Bay.

Well, I guess my post if fine then.

32 minutes have passed

Crazy Eddie, I'll give you the following info since you beat a prior test to recognize the symptoms of the virus.

A basilisk hack uses technology millennium beyond transhumanity, only possible and used by the rampant TITAN AI that took over Earth and remains transhumanity's biggest threat. The hack essentially uses sensory overload to cause biological effects, almost quite literally hacking the biological body through sensory input.f

Fortunately, the digital virus is not equivalent to the biological nanovirus, meaning that if you can isolate Aleksander, he should recover just fine.

the more immediate concern is that if the digital virus exists in the station's systems, it going to do everything it can to take control of systems it can use to spread itself, and worse, start manufacturing the biological nanovirus. And while most of the systems critical systems are down, it might not be a bad idea to see what's offline and what's still connected.

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Aleksander is staring off, his adrenal systems in high gear as he tries to process the flurry of confusing imaging that renders any sort of communication to him, completely non-undersstandable. But it seems that recognition does come back to his eyes, right before a overpowering vertigo takes him by surprise and nausea fills his being, sending him dry heaving a stomach that has nothing in it.

Exsurgent Virus is nasty, nasty stuff. Taking a few liberties here to move the game along, and also I think you'd want to stop being hit by the hack as soon as possible. I'm using one of your moxie points on your behalf.

Aleksander's muse has enough control of its programming fuctions to use it's infosec skill to forcefully shut off the connection to the mesh. After one minute, Aleksander will cease dry heaving uncontrollably and will no longer be helpless.

As you start to get your bearings Aleksander, you can hear you muse give you one final message.

D-D-D-Daaaaata corrup- Integ teg teg teg rity comppppppromissed. Goodby...

Aleksander feels the unmistakable loneliness of having your muse, a lifelong companion you've possessed since you were a child, going offline before it can be completely taken over by the digital virus. It isn't dead, and a backup copy probably exists somewhere, but for now you are unmistakably alone in your head...and that is not a good feeling.

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Pivo, you look over to the machine shop, and see that a large piece of metal has actually been welded to the open airlock, preventing it from being mechanically closed. Your most suitable options would be to either to close the internal airlock to the machine shop, or go in there and use Hardware:Industrial Test with a penalty, but that would take at least an hour.

The monkey-like body of the bouncer morph curls into a ball, balanced on the butt. With his head down, surrounded by his arms, Aleks takes a couple minutes to compose himself after the loss.

Eddie forces himself to maintain small movements in the mirco-g environment. Although his slow movement did frustrate him. Basilisk hack...It's a basilisk hack. He cries as he enters the med bay. Stop trying to connect. Manual input only. His words are rapid fire like a used space ship salesman.

Where are the others, they need to be told.

While Pivo sizes up the door problem, Jonas looks through the machine shop for spare vacsuits for the rest of the group and any weapons or tools that may be around in the machine shop.

Scrounging 60, if needed: 1d100 ⇒ 48

Pivo will close the internal airlock to the machine shop (unless there are serious, PC-killing side effects he would know of there), figuring that an entire hour is time they don't have.

assuming they share a common language "I need equipment to take care of that chunk of metal."

freefall 45: 1d100 ⇒ 23 The octomorph has little difficulty moving about, zero-G being his natural environment.

Aleksander continues to be curled on the floor (or floating, whatever).

"At the machine shop," Catarina nods in the direction where Jonas went. "You tell the others, I'll stay here."

"Aleksander, we have to go to the ops center," she urges the man to start moving. "We don't have time to waste."

Pull the Resource Blocks on the fabber. The doc bot has a fabber that needs the same done. Eddie says launching himself towards the machine shop

Slowly and mournfully Aleks rights himself, disengages the fabber, and moves toward the ops center door. All the while quetly and continuously mumbling "..gone.."

37 minutes have passed

Jonas, you find in some equipment lockers in the machine shop a veritable bounty of items.
Items found: two sets of wrist-mounted tools, six standard vacsuits, two hard suits, four medium kinetic pistols, two microwave agonizers, two flex cutters, and three applications of scrapper’s gel.

Pivo closes the airlock to the machine shop after Jonas exits with the equipment to prevent the loss of more atmosphere. But Crazy Eddie soons comes rushing close, probably hitting the side of the wall in his haste to get to the machine shop.

Catarina and Aleksander approach the Ops center door, finding it closed and locked. You will either have to hack through the locked door, or cut through the door (Armor 15, Durability 100, Wound Threshold 25).

It can't get any worse right? :)

Aleksander looks the door up and down and then somberly sets up to hack it. "This might need a brute force approach if i can't manage," Aleksander adds with little intonation.

Infosec 45: 1d100 ⇒ 97

"Yep."

Can we spread it open? Like when an elevator is stuck?

Before he exits, Jonas passes Pivo one of the vacsuits (or hardsuits), a pistol and a set of wrist-mounted tools to help him close the exterior airlock. He takes a pistol for himself.

Hauling the rest of the gear from the machine shop, he stops short when Eddie comes running in.

"Eddie, what's... well, what else is the matter? Someone went and welded the airlock open in there to vent our atmosphere. Pivo's going to try and close it."

He gestures to the mound of vacsuits, weapons and tools. "You need any of this stuff?"

Pivo gladly accepts the vacsuit, pistol and tools and heads off to work.

"This'll take an hour or so."

hardware industrial 45: 1d100 ⇒ 38

It's a basilisk hack. The AI Virus will do all it can to infect us, Barring that, kill us. We should all get into Vac suits. Eddie says in rapid fire.

This tech isn't something you can bruteforce open with strength. Its the ops center, so in the event of a hostile takeover, this room should be defensible for at least a short time.

Pivo, as you move to start working on the door, attempting to remove the blockage, you see something....

Its the Istari...the ship that you all supposedly went to investigate. And its slowly moving towards the Kepler station you're currently on.

The machine room's cornucopia machines are desktop sized, which means you can move them if needed.

It's a basilisk hack. The AI Virus will do all it can to infect us, Barring that, kill us. We should all get into Vac suits. Eddie says in rapid fire.

Jonas curses in Swedish.

Jonas brings the remaining weapons, tools and vacsuits to the Ops Center and holds out the metallic oval hardsuit to Aleks.

"Put this on! Cat, I found these in the machine shop, help yourself."

"That's good news," she puts on one of the suits and grabs a pistol and a cutter. "Now we just have to figure out how to get inside. Aleks tried to hack it and failed. Can you guys try?"

I'll take a vacsuit, a pistol and a flex cutter.

Jonas gives the airlock a doubtful look.
"I'm not sure I can. We have this scrapper gel... maybe we can try melting a hole in it."

"I could use a cutter over here as well. More importantly, the Istari appears to be on a collision course with this station."

"I'll try one more time just in case."

Infosec 45: 1d100 ⇒ 27

Sorry for the short updates. One of the things I love about Eclipse Phase is the atmosphere, so I'll try and up the effort in that department. Also, don't be afraid to look at your skills and resources you have on hand and do whatever you think you can. If you have a question about the surroundings or current environment, feel free to ask.

Aleksander's first attempt at opening the door took about 5 minutes before he hit a hard wall.

42 minutes have passed

Pivo's careful examination at the trajectory of the Istari, estimates that it will still be under two hours before the Istari arrives at the Kepler, and by the trajectory, it doesn't seem to be trying to collide. Possibly to board, but you aren't for certain.

So what were your independent jobs/research topics while on the Kepler? You've all been on the Kepler for a few months, living together and doing your individual things. It will help flesh out the module a bit, and feel free to use the different modules on the map to base your research on (Greenhouse, Medical Bay, Robotics Lab, etc)

The air is cold, and the closing of the airlock as Pivo rejoins the group by the Ops Center door stops the slight venting that resumes as the exposed section is open to the rest of the ship momentarily. Aleksander failed his first attempt, but jumps back in doing his best to override the door lockdown commands.

Its odd what a couple weeks can change. None of you have seen any of the servitor bots that moved from module to module, helping each of you with your research. And the vacant presence of Hans is still unnerving. Then there is all this sabotage, the welded-open machine shop space-airlock, the downed mesh and the many critical systems being taken offline.

There's a small hiss as Aleksander succeeds on his second try, even with the enhanced security.

The Ops Center was kept small and compact like most of the station, but there's enough room for you all in there. most of hte computers that run the systems and mesh are down, evident from the lack of light or processing. But there is one console still blinking with activity, Han's primary console near the center of the room. Beside it, a servitor bot on standby, unmoving, as if waiting for commands.

47 minutes have passed

With Jonas' Botany knowledge, he's been overseeing the greenhouse for the hab, but his main passion is Gatecrashing and First Contact protocols. He took the position on the Kepler to build Rep in order to get into long-term gate ops since the Titanian Commonwealth's lottery system hasn't worked out in his favor. In the highly unlikely event of contact with another intelligent race or a new Factor ship (and with his Protocol skill), he's taken on communications duties on the Kepler and can serve as a pilot when/if needed. He also keeps the surveying logs updated for future resource harvesting.

"Sabotage... A basilisk hack... and now the ship we left to investigate is coming here.", Jonas shakes his head. He looks around the Ops Center to see if anyone has been here lately.

Investigation 35: 1d100 ⇒ 39

Engineering, Materials Science and Physics are all high skills for him, so I imagine he is quite the busy scientist in those fields.

"One great news after another," chips in Catarina sarcastically. "What next? We find out that the station is gonna blow up in 10 minutes?"

"Anyone alive on the Istari?"

Muscles, duh! Also armorer, since I have some Hardware: Armorer.

"Not sure if there's any way to know with our mesh contaminated."

Jonas approaches Hans' terminal to read what it says.
Mesh inserts are off, if I can change the display to text only I'll do that too. We should also follow Crazy Eddie's plan and pull the feed stock from the cornucopia machine in the machine shop.

"Now that you mention it, we should try to keep them from connecting and falling prey."

Crazy Eddie opened up a skin shop on Whiskey several years ago. It was a front for black market morph shop that was very lucrative. Eddie actually is self funding his own research into...well, it's a secret. Needless to say, his profit drew the attention the Boulanger Family. They felt Eddie owed them a tax on his prosperity. Part of his reconciliation was being shanghaied for this current crew. He is currently chief medical officer, and biological research scientist for this space station.

Assume the mesh is contaminated until proven otherwise. Let's use manual and voice interface until we gain some control. With the ship coming to dock, I say anyone not getting control of the computer, get armed. Maybe figure out a way to ambush whoever docks

Aleksander, now a seeming monkey version of Eeyore, walks over to the terminal to see what can be done with Hans. "Hey Hans.....what's up dude?"

"We have to bring everything we can here or in the medbay," she turns to Jonas and Eddie. "We should split. Labs and medbay, rec center and crew quarters, cargo bay and machine shop. Take everything you think is useful, gather here and we'll think of a plan."

Keep in mind, if you die or get infected it isn't game over. Biomorphs can be "revived" later as long as you collect their cortical stack, and if that fails, their backup before they even left on this mission will be brought online.

Also, you can physcially jack in to most systems and machines on the station. Just have your friends nearby to disconnect you in case the virus is in there. If it doesn't attack you, it's probably safe and you can use the equipment without fear as Doc Bot is jamming the local Mesh still.

The console blinks as usual as Aleksander

Jonas approaches the terminal and, after logging a few quick commands, reads the text to find that Hans is indeed in the system but the local mesh has been isolated from the rest of the station and deactivated as well. It seems safe to login an access and "visit" Hans.

If you are splitting up, who's going where?

Aleksander will attempt to log in at the terminal (jacking in if needed) using his previous log-in info or hack (Infosec 45: 1d100 ⇒ 32)
After hopefully getting in, he will then ask Hans to fill him in with everything Hans knows about the situation.

i think i am still trying to cut off the bit that was welded to stop the door from closing...