Everyone Plays! Right now!

Game Master Atlas2112

(Well I start classes for my master's next week so I guess it's now or never. =)

Hi there!

What's going on here?
The rules are simple:
1) You can post with any alias. No need to make a new alias because any one will work! Because,
2) Everyone has d6 in their stats. And their attributes. Your Strength is d6. Your Agility is d6. Your Shooting is d6, your lock-picking is d6, your Persuasion is d6.
For any check to do a thing, roll a d6. A 4 or higher means you succeeded! This scales because,
3) I'll require multiple successes to advance the plot.

Indeed, the only two caveats would be:
A) The same alias can't take more than one action in the same round.
1. But the Player can! Want to do another thing? Post with a different alias. ^_^
B) An alias can't post after its been killed. Oh yeah, there are ways to die.

I'll open up the Gameplay thread for dotting, but we'll be playing in Recruitment to get as many people as possible.
I post on Mondays Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. If we don't have enough success to advance the plot the morning of those days (CST) something bad happens, so feel free to shoot for overkill. ^_^

This is all about giving back. Even if I never got anything from you. =-)

Space is big.
That is a vast understatement.

Your ship, the Sweet Doomed Angel, is redundant.
That is also a vast understatement.
The Angel, at it's height a heavy-class star-freighter, has gone through so many revisions, refits, and retrofits that it's now more control systems than cargo space. Piloting is done my mutual consent, gunnery is handled by committee, and repairs are more an art than science.

However, none of that matters just now.
All of you wake up with a splitting headache on the deck of the Angel. A quick check of the chrono tells you several hours have past, and the ship is drifting passively through the black.

The last thing you remember is leaving Space Station Gemini after spending the last of your credits on some badly-needed repairs after a successful mission simply referred to as The Tartarus Incident.

What do you do?

I get out of bed and go eat breakfast, loading my gun on the way.

Of note, you woke up on the floor, belaying any purposefulness of your choice of sleeping position.

As you make your way to your soy-extractor and nutrient-flavor-applicator, you notice that you're not as hungry as you should be after a full night's sleep, so you've probably not been out for that long.

Indeed, it's 1505, ship's time.

Your gun and ammunition are all there, so at least you've not been tampered with, that you can initially tell.

Lisa awoke and pulled herself to her knees. "Where am I," she thought. "Oh yeah, the ass end of space." Looking around, her next question was "What the hell did I drink last night?"

The young medical prodigy stood up and looked around to see if any of her fellow crewmen needed medical help. If not, she made her way to the small alcove that passed for the Angel's medbay.

Not that I *want* to get bogged down in details, but...
Since we're on a spaceship, I assume we're at a higher tech level than modern?
Can we use the Sci-Fi Compendium to outfit ourselves?
Any price limit?
Can we have an Arcane Background? How many Powers?
How many Edges?
Be any race?
And literally only *one* action per round? Not even attack with the other hand?
"Inquiring minds want to know..."

Zakary checks the ship's logs to see if there is any record of the past several hours that he doesn't remember.

Find information in Shop's logs: 1d6 ⇒ 5

Riven slowly reactivated as blue arcane rune circuits played across his mithril plate chassis. His memory files seem corrupted but his self repair systems are functional and may recover them with time. He looks around before seeing the others. He looked like a magic and tech hybrid robot with a series of scars across his silvery metal chassis and an ancient looking longsword attached to his hip. "System check...functional. Crewmates, I seem to have malfunctioned and am in need of information on what has occured since the Gemini station. I am concerned something has occured and suggest we head to the bridge to gather more information."

Z takes the pilot's chair and says Where are we off to next? Any ideas? She checks the commnet to see if there are any salvage or delivery opportunities posted that don't look too shady.

Check the Commnet: 1d6 ⇒ 3

Assuming talking is free, not an extra action.

Zakary succeeds on navigating the labyrinthine file system to check the ship's logs. Apparently the last few hours have been rather...uneventful. There was as much activity as you would expect on a ship full of unconscious people. Life support is mostly automated so that kept up, but the engines need constant love and support that they can do it if they want to, so without active control they allowed the ship to drift.

Zanbabe has trouble with the Commnet. Apparently something is messing with extra-ship communication. That might be caused by outside interference, but it would take some digging to test that theory.
Yes, talking is not an action. I just mean if you roll a die.

First Lt. Margit Dastl emerges from her slumber chamber. Slinging her pistol into position in her holster and walks towards the bridge.

Faith, a wiry strong woman with black hair and dark eyes sits up, rubs her eyes, and mumbles, "Gods and Galaxies! Anyone get the reg-code of the ore freighter that hit me?"

She stands, adjusts her weaponry, checks the battery levels in her tool kit, and strolls over to the nearest comm bank. "So, who's in the area? Anybody we know?" She begins to do scans to see what is nearby the ship: planets, space craft, debris fields, tachyon radiation trails?

Scanner Operations: 1d6 ⇒ 5

Lt. Dastl, usually assigned to 2rd shift, entered her chamber as soon as the ship was ready to leave the Space Station, so she avoided most of the indignities of the other crew.
Upon leaving the chamber, she notices that she overslept. Curiously the chamber itself slightly malfunctioned--the sleep-cycle ended normally, but the adreno-drugs were not administered. So too, though she'd normally waken a few hours ago, she slept through that as well.

Nothing dire, but things are certainly amiss.

And the slowly-awakening bodies strewn across the deck. That's not usual either.

Faith successfully scans the area, breaking through some sluggishness with the systems with a keen knowledge of shortcuts, back-doors, and the organized chaos of the Angel's usual systems.

There's no odd traffic in the area. Space Station Gemini is still within scanning range, even comm range. A few other (probably legit) freighters make their unhurried way in the distance, and a handful of Space Police Patrol make their perfunctory rounds at the edge of scan range.

You now _of_ a few ships on the screen, but nothing that you're picking up can be considered something to have crossed your path.

The Sapphire light internal systems came online and Psionic-tech Data ran over her higher mind sensurum. She was being waken early. Which was not outside program parameters. Her body was coalescing into the martial.

As a Psionic-tech Simulacrum her form was almost translucent. Somewhere is space had been the real woman who has been the imprint for The Sapphire light. Used to craft her as a interface to the ships PSI-drive. means to traverse deep space and not fall into a gravity well or fly to close to expanding energy fields.

Coming it to being on the flight deck she walked and stood behind Zanbabe at the helm.

"Pilot Zanbabe, main drive has... anomalies"

As the embodiment of the ships AI it was her task to report problems. she has no real body per-say, she was infarct made up of exotic PSi matter crafted into force fields allowing her have the look and feel of a solid body. She was crafted to be pleasing to the eye as young woman in a long light dress. How ever her color was a shifting shade of blue. She had a link to the ships systems and a means to interacted with them when needed. She was both part of the ship and also a member of the crew.

I just want you to know, we're all counting on you

"bark bark!"

Rowdy has never been fond of the sapphire light. He finds her lack of smell unsettling.

What kind of anomalies, Sapphire? Help me out here!

Someone find out what is wrong with the comms. I can't get anything to come up on the commnet.

She slams the console with her palm, since that usually helps.

Slamming the console: 1d6 ⇒ 6

Zakary sighs and decides to go check the engines. Have to do everything myself around here he grumbles.

Check the Engines: 1d6 ⇒ 3

Rowdy trots happily behind Zakary on the way to the engines and is only distracted a few times.

as you move away from the starting point, do new players come in like a npc on the ship?

Having overheard her comment about feeling like she was hit by a truck, Lisa scans Faith (and probably herself) to see if there is a medical cause for the headaches.

1d6 ⇒ 5

*teehee* Space dog. Nice! =)

@CucumberTree: Yes. One of the beauties of the scenario is that, since everyone starts out unconscious, a new player can simply start with a post "I groggily wake up" and can then continue with the action,
having simply come to a bit later than persons who went earlier.
It's a simple mechanic that you don't see often, which is why I wanted to keep this in Recruitment and see how well it went. ^_^

For some reason Waglinde comes off sounding like an elderly gentleman. She's probably also very proud of you.

The Sapphire light has been mentioned in over a hundred technical manuals and her base code is the foundation of some of the largest ships in the Imperial Fleet. Most common constructs would've been driven insane be the amount of jury-rigging and hap-dashery and tom-foolery that the Angel calls her OS, but that TSL (as she's referred to in l33t shorthand) has been able to stay operating and effective all this time is a strength of her construction.

Some have suggested that she herself may have originated from Riven the Warforged's same assembly line, but that may be lost to history.

Oddly enough slamming the console _does_ help, and some of the static resolves itself into something approaching readable data. Unfortunately the comm system itself is so cumbersome that you'll need someone to re-calibrate the tachyons at a station on the other side of the bridge...and the Angel has a rather large bridge.

Skill test: Communication. Success status: 1 of 2. (I won't always say how many successes are needed. But sometimes I will. =)

Zackary gets lost in the convoluted hamster-maze of tunnels and tubs and feeds and exhausts in the engine section. Things _seem_ normal, but he'd probably need some help to either confirm or deny that.

Rowdy, go get help! says Zakary, snickering.

Then he slaps the intercom button. Help needed in the Engine Room. Preferably by someone who knows something about engines. Margit. You know something about engines, don't you?

While he's waiting for help, he gets the bright idea to tinker with the wave harmonics. That could be throwing everything off.

Wave harmonics: 1d6 ⇒ 6

Faith, can you help me with the comms? says Z. I still can't get anything through this blasted static. The tachyons might need to be recalibrated... for the third time this week. Man.I hope we get a space salvage job soon. We could really use some replacement parts.

Or a whole new ship she thinks, but would never say, being superstitious about the ship being angry with her for it.

When she hears Zak over the intercom, she realizes that the Check Engine light has been on the whole time, and decides to turn the main engine off and then back on again to see if that will help. She flips the switch... off, waits 30 seconds, then on.

Have you tried rebooting?: 1d6 ⇒ 6

"borf!" Rowdy assures Zakary. He takes off back the way they came, exited that he has a job to do!

After briefly getting lost, Rowdy picks up the scent of burnt mithril belonging to Riven who is also on the bridge.

Tracking: 1d6 ⇒ 5

"I do not know Zanbabe, I will go and find out"

She says and then the AI is gone.
coming into being in the Engine Room.

"Greetings Zakary, I will see to find the problem"

In front of her come into beings panels with masses of data streaming down on the Think The Matrix green text.

1d6 ⇒ 2 ENg Diagnostics

"I am sorry it will take a crew member to access the plasma coils and as reline and re-calibrate the photonics."

She pints at a access panel and a rack of tools.

Sold is she may look she could not in fact intrastate with real matter with out her portable drone field-effecter. Which as this moment was locked in the EVA pod.

Once that was done pointing she disappeared again, coming into being this time on the outside skin of the ship. She was standing looking at the ships censer pod. Again more text came into being as she rand diagnostics.

Sampet hears the intercom crackle with Zakary's voice. He groggily sits upright, the pain of his head intensifying when he cracks open his eyes and lets in some light. "Well cor, we right tied one on, din't we?", he mutters to himself.

The ship doesn't seem to be actively falling apart and it sounds like some of the other crew members are working on figuring things out.

"Ain't doin no one no good with this hummer of a headache..."

Sampet sets off for the med bay and canteen for some painkillers and the greasiest food he can cook for himself.

Scavenge For Restorative Supplies: 1d6 ⇒ 5

Sampet does indeed find some industrial-strength painkillers, as well as half a rack of pre-made RealMEAT!* All in all a fine breakfast.

(*RealMEAT! contains no actual animal substance and is 100% soy byproduct.)

Sapphire Light's programming shows some wear as the Angel is even more unstable than normal, and her limitations become apparent.

Rowdy does indeed find Riven. Good boy. How exactly that may go only time can tell.

Almost simultaneously Lisa Lisa's medcorder comes back with a reading as the comm comes back online....

Let's wake them up then, shall we?

The main veiwscreen bursts into life as the face of Lord Borak the Despoiler, someone you thought part of your past, stares down at you and delivers some insight into your current predicament:

"My friends! Finally, after all these years! I haven’t forgotten our previous encounter… How did you escape the law? Well, that doesn’t matter now, what matters is that YOU escaped while I spent FIVE YEARS rotting in a hellish prison planet! But now it’s payback time!

When you docked on Space Station Gemini my minions hid a gas capsule in your ship’s air system.
The capsule released a nanotech virus that will kill you all in a few hours in the most… painful… way imaginable. I possess the only vaccine. But how will you get it? I’ll enjoy watching you die trying to recover it… and if you decide to die alone, in space, I’ll enjoy knowing you died begging for the pain to go away!"

The screen returns to the blackness of space.

Player Status: Viral Level 1. ...Oh, uh, I'm sure that doesn't mean anything. Pay it no mind. =)

Looks down at her scanner to confirm what Lord Dorkon the Annoyer has said about the nanite poisoning...

"He means business, unfortunately."

Sampet wanders back to the deck with a bowl of something approximating bacon, which he munches thoughtfully. "That puffed shirt Despoiler ponce certainly holds a grudge, don't he?" he says through a mouthful of bacon. He idly tosses a piece on the floor for Rowdy.

"So wossit to be? Smash 'n grab? Infiltration? Frame the motherlover and send 'im to the lock-up agin?" He takes a swig from his canteen. "Though we might want to move fast, he seemed awful sure we were gonna die painfully right quick."

Sapphire stopped and waited is the message played. A nanotech virus would explain the failing systems on the ship. Over the comes she sends a ship wide message. But finds most of the comes failing.

"DANGER DANGER, nano-tech virus poisoning detected, As per imperial regulations the ship is now in Quarantine."

Some ships lights go from white to red. She winked out of being, coming into being on the flight deck.

"I am sorry no outside help will be forth coming. And the nanotech virus is affecting the ships systems. I am seeking to isolate them now."

Ships diagnostics 1d6 ⇒ 2

"sorry to many of my sub systems have been compromised for effective isolation."

She sent a message to her EVA drone back up, to monitor, on fail to take over. She did not feel fear about death, she did not feel anything in fact. She was an AI, a good one yes but till her empathy was a simulation and nothing more. Fear to her was a line of code. She waits for the next crew command.

Laying face down in a puddle of drool, Security Officer 4-44 coughs then slowly makes his way to a standing position. Rubbing his head he is thankful to still be alive. How he came to be in such a position, for now eludes him. Straightening his red shirt and checking that his ship's com badge is facing the right way Fours, a name his fellow crew mates coined for him, took a moment to consider what just happened.

The sound of Lord Borak's voice over the loudspeakers stops Fours in his tracks. Sapphire's broken announcement doesn't fill him with a lot of confidence either. Turning pale his inside voice screams, I knew it! I just knew it! I should never have signed up for this! Should have stayed on Gemini...

Fours rubs his face and looks up and down the hall to get his bearings. Deciding he'd better report in he taps the brass badge and waits for the standard series of beeps to chime before speaking. No sooner did his hand tap the insignia on his chest than Fours realizes he's been standing outside the bridge the whole time.

Com badge operation: 1d6 ⇒ 4

Taking a little liberty with Borak's message and Sapphire's announcement.

Sampet listens to TSL's announcement as well. "Ah shit, right, systems. On it, Sapphire darling!" He heads to a monitor and begins trying to set some safeguards in place to limit systems damage.

Systems Manual Override and Virus Isolation: 1d6 ⇒ 3

As various previously healthy systems on the ship switch to an ominous flashing red on the monitor, Sampet takes his hands off the keys. "Virus got in, definitely wasn't anything I did personally!"

I love approximate bacon

Looking up from his snack, Rowdy notices that everyone on the bridge is upset about something. Concerned, he walks over to Zanbabe in the pilots chair and rests his head on her lap to see if that helps.

Adorable Consolation: 1d6 ⇒ 4

<pets Rowdy>

Faith, can you help me with the comms? says Z. I still can't get anything through this blasted static. The tachyons might need to be recalibrated... for the third time this week. Man.I hope we get a space salvage job soon. We could really use some replacement parts.

Faith activates her implant communicator and replies, "Roger on the comms. Give me a few turns. This bridge should be called Golden Gate. Takes forever to get anywhere since the xzoomers went on strike. Should never have let AIs form a union, want my opinion."

Faiths talks as she walks and then click off her head comm and fishes a slender stick-like device from a pocket designed for a different tool. She taps a code on the colored rings along one end and connects her head comm into the sub-ether walkie talkie. She then says, "Panarchic Department of Protocols Special Agent Faith Sierra report filing."

She then waits for the device to put her through to a dedicated AI at Gemini.

Sub-ether Walkie Talkie: 1d6 ⇒ 2

Static tickles her ears, but no confirmation of a secure connection. Faith sighs and slips the device back in her pocket. She'd try to boost her signal once she got to the comm controls.

She had joined the crew of this ship as a cover for an investigation into a couple of suspicious deaths on the Angel. Not a glamorous case, but she had been working her way up the PDP hierarchy; if she cracked this assignment, it could lead to her getting promoted to more interesting assignments, such as the Tarkian League's Mercenary Task Force, which was always up to something of the no-good persuasion.

Then she hears the announcement of Lord Borak. She stops face in the palm of her hand, composing her thoughts. Said thoughts are composed of such words as 4^$#@, $h3&#^, and +*&tt3@frack.

She now had a purpose, so she begins to move like it, sprinting the rest of the way to the communications bay at the far end of the bridge.

Riven follows Rowdy scratching him behind the ears with his three fingered hands. He looks at the others and moves to the science console and begins trying to trace the transmission of Borak.

1d6 ⇒ 5

"Sapphire please remote into my console and feed the transmission tracing to the ship's navigation. When we are in range we can aatempt an assault to obtain the vaccine required. Good boy Rowdy."

[Tail wagging intensifies]

SO 4-44's badge manages to operate as intended, at least. Some good news for a change, even as the ship's AI finds herself not immune to the effects of the viral nanotechnology.

Sampet manages to not make anything worse. Which is a win, for him.

Rowdy does indeed look adorable on an almost galactic scale. When in doubt, go with what you know.
Rowdy is awarded 1 "Benefit", or "Bennie" for short, even though that is only one letter less. But meh, you take what you can get. He can spend it to re-roll 1 die at one point. It's up to him to remember that he has it. Good thing dogs never forget. That is dogs, right?

Faith's double-secret mission continues to be secret. But she uncontrollably coughs twice on her comm unit. That probably didn't help much.

Dragon Moves over to the Comms, trying to get them working 1d6 ⇒ 1
Unannoyed he simply clones, sending another to fix the Comms.

Sampet gets off of the computer before he actually ruins something. "Riven's got the right idea - I'm going to get us equipped for a scrap."

Sampet is going to check the armory for some heavy weapons and/or explosives for 'heated negotiations.'

Finding a bigger boom: 1d6 ⇒ 2

He's calling himself "Lord Borak the Despoiler" now? And pretending *we're* the bad guys? Z says for the benefit of the crewmembers on the bridge that weren't here 5 years ago.

Okay, so we were kind of, a little bit, the bad guys, and Borak got a raw deal... but "the despoiler?" Come on. ... I knew I should never have gotten involved with that guy.

She looks around the bridge and is relieved when she sees no one wearing a red shirt. She flicks on the red alert button (which was of course the alert to change your shirt if you are wearing red).

Then she flicked on the direct comms to the medbay:
Lisa, we're probably going to need an emergency vaccine for a nanotech virus pretty soon here... unless someone volunteers to go over in a shuttle and kick his butt. Which, as you know, is questionable on this ship.

Riven does indeed manage to trace the origin of the message and, perhaps surprisingly, it originates on Space Station Gemini. His plan is just crazy enough to work!

The engines purr contentedly under Zanbabe's cool hand, ready to take you back to the Space Station.

You probably want to tell them you're coming so the guns don't fire at you. But good luck with these comms.

Player Status: Viral Level 1: Fever, coughing, aching, stuffing head.
Obvious objective: Communication/Diplomacy. Currently 0/3.

Ancient Dragon Master tries to utilize one of the many, many multi-buttoned communication stations, but the bad news is he accidentally presses the wrong button.

The good news is a servo-bot serves him a cup of tea.

The bad news is the tea is awful.

The good news it seems to have booze in it.

The bad news is the booze is fermented mare's milk. Eye of the beholder for that one, I guess.

Dragons clone presses another button to try to get the coms working 1d6 ⇒ 3

Dragons second clone presses another button to try to get the coms working 1d6 ⇒ 3

Dragons third clone presses another button to try to get the coms working 1d6 ⇒ 3