Robert gave Zadie a surprised look. That was more insight than he had expected, more than he had managed himself. In his own mind, the techomancer updated his estimate of the woman's worth as an ally. "Interesting..." he murmured, taking another look at things from the perspective handed to him, idly irritated that his helmet prevented him from stroking hus beard in thought. The woman might well be right. "I wonder if its still working as intended, whatever that intention was... after all, something sheared off pieces of this whole place like a monomolecular thread cutting through a piece of plastic. I wouldn't be surprised if more than empty corridors were lobbed off when whatever happened to this place happened."
After a while, she said, "I think it's time to move on. Zadie, can you get through this door?"
Zadie looked at the access panel. "Maybe," she shrugged. "I'd back up if I were the rest of you. The way that robot was throwing around electricity, if this thing is live and doesn't want to be tampered with, it could arc."
Yeah, it's good on Chrome. t first you couldn't tell which was a link or regular text but they fixed that.
What about PMs? Is there a way to know like we had before?
Recapping...
What about PMs? Is there a way to know like we had before?
Not yet. It's on their list of known issues to fix, but I don't think it's super-high priority while people are having trouble accessing the store and their downloads. You just have to check manually periodically.
Wow, that video is amazing!
"Aw, f**$ing 'stone, man!" Zadie crab-crawled halfway across the room when the panel opened to reveal the corpse. It took a few moments for her heart rate and breathing to slow down after that unpleasant surprise.
"A ship?" Zadie asked quickly. "Where is this Sunrise Maiden? Did the Acreon find the Driftrock after she did and take it away?"
Yes, and watch the video because she drops clues on its abilities...
Zadie checked for a date stamp on the recording.
"A ship?" Zadie asked quickly. "Where is this Sunrise Maiden? Did the Acreon find the Driftrock after she did and take it away?"
"There's still plenty of the Rock to search, might be it's docked somewhere we haven't yet seen," Robert murmured, poking at the forcefield emitter of late Miss Nash's suit with a sensor from his engineering kit, curious to see what exactly she had done to it.
"You mentioned these machines might have existed to guard a prisoner," he said, glancing at Zadie. "Perhaps this tech-draining thing that walks through solid objects was that prisoner? Or a research subject. Anyway, I don't think we should expect it to treat us any better than it did her."
Action 1:
“This tech is way more advanced than anything in the Pact Worlds. But look -- it's a monitoring station. Whatever worked in here was monitoring ... something. Something bigger and probably even more advanced. This is just a guard shack to keep an eye on something somewhere else...
Kamiya was both shocked and excited, "More advanced than the Pact Worlds? I always thought there were unknowns but it never occurred to me that the unknowns would be more advanced. Think of what we could learn from them."
Unlocking the door to reveal another body saddened Kamiya. "It seems like everywhere we turn on this rock, there's death. Makes me wonder if it's worth it."
She took a closer look at the body and gasped at the numerous wounds.
Action 2:
A knot of dread formed in the pit of Kamiya's stomach. "How could it possibly keep her from leaving?" The thought of being trapped with a hostile attacker made the lashunta want to leave immediately. "Maybe we should go before we can't."
She remembered the robot they'd encountered and what Zadie had said about this maybe being a guard shack. "Or...Is there any way we can repair that robot? If we get it running properly without glitching, maybe whatever is no longer imprisoned can be recaptured. Then we can search the rest of this rock without worrying about dying."
OOC info:
The recording is about 75 years old.
The captain Moriko Nash is human and could be from anywhere on the Pact Worlds.
It seems that this creature that can phase through walls cannot phase through force fields so the captain kept it at bay until her battery ran out. The current battery is empty.
More questions?
Game on!
Her suit has a force field upgrade to it (brown).
See here
Zadie attached her extra battery to the force field and handed it to Oriana. "Here. Sounds like you're going to need this."
Yes, it goes in an upgrade slot. Different kinds of armor have different numbers of slots available.
"Seventy-five Station orbits," Zadie remarked. "The Sunrise Maiden is an antique!"
The robot was unknown tech (same as the 'driftrock').
Oriana's summary is spot on.
Oriana's summary is spot on.
I knew it - it IS hopeless!
Turning to the others, she said, "Does this seem hopeless to anybody else?"
Zadie shrugged. "There's five of us; there was only one of her." She examined her laser pistol and Moriko's arc pistol, with one battery between them. "Doesn't seem like this did her much good, but it might be handy if find any more akatas."
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Kamiya was in agreement with Oriana's summary. It sounds hopeless because you need to work on your delivery. And I think she also mentioned that this thing, whatever it is, drained her when it attacked."
The lashunta tried to cheer the room up. "The good news is that if we can find the Sunrise Maiden then it's ours. We have the taped Will and Testament so according to the Captain, the ship is ours."
The lashunta tried to cheer the room up. "The good news is that if we can find the Sunrise Maiden then it's ours. We have the taped Will and Testament so according to the Captain, the ship is ours."
"Assuming we can get to the ship alive - she obviously couldn't," Robert grunted. "But we might as well make the attempt - there's nothing else in here for us, is there? Perhaps the thing that haunted her hasn't got the memo yet that there are new victims around - certainly we haven't heard those screeches you could hardly miss on the recording's background."
John was silent for a long moment after seeing the recording. "Can I check..." he suggested "That seal we found - the one useful against undead - can we cobble together a weapon tough enough to take it? I also think someone should definitely get fitted with the force field, as long as their armour will take it. My thought is Orianna, given she seems to be the one everything likes to hit." He turned to Robert "Can you get the Shields on the Acreon modified to do the same thing? If we can trap it outside - or inside - then we might have a fighting chance. We haven't seen it yet - maybe it managed to leave when the Acreon docked. It must've tolerated those Akatas for some reason. It could also have been the one who stole our ship - in which case we need to warn the station." John looked glum for a moment "We should also follow her last advice. Everyone makes out a last will, says their goodbyes, and saves a charge for themselves."
Can you get the Shields on the Acreon modified to do the same thing? If we can trap it outside - or inside - then we might have a fighting chance.
Can you get the Shields on the Acreon modified to do the same thing? If we can trap it outside - or inside - then we might have a fighting chance.
A force field shield should trap the critter, either inside or outside, so I think the Acreon's shield would work.
I intend to recap everything later today.
Questions?
Game on!
He turned to Robert "Can you get the Shields on the Acreon modified to do the same thing? If we can trap it outside - or inside - then we might have a fighting chance. We haven't seen it yet - maybe it managed to leave when the Acreon docked. It must've tolerated those Akatas for some reason. It could also have been the one who stole our ship - in which case we need to warn the station."
"A shield itself should do it - I can't see anything too much out of spec," Robert said, gesturing towards the shield module they had detached from the late Captain's suit. "Trapping it inside Acreon does sound like an interesting idea... assuming we could lead the creature there without it killing us, and that you don't mind someone staying inside with it - I guess we could use a timer to turn the shields on, but it might get dicey with the timing. Best if we could just find that ship and get out, leaving the critter to haunt this Rock."
"Alright. Do you think it docked with the rock, or still drifting where the rock was towed from?" John asked. "Does she have a transponder function on her PDA?"
Once it was clear that the mysterious, muderous entity wasn't lurking in the new chamber Robert found himself gravitating towards the visible machienery. And this time, the layout of one wall panel was like that of a command interface, not a mere informational display.
"You had the best insight about this tech back there," Robert said aloud after a moment of silent musing, glancing at Zadie. "What do you make of this thing here?"
The technology reveals that this room has control functions rather than simple status monitoring.
The PCs learn that the equipment in this room is designed to operate minor subsystems of some larger structure or device, though the control room is no longer connected to that structure.
I need a culture check DC 30 (yes, I know this is hard but it's intentionally hard to force you guys to gain other resources) and I can reveal further info.
"You had the best insight about this tech back there," Robert said aloud after a moment of silent musing, glancing at Zadie. "What do you make of this thing here?"
Zadie took a look over the control panel.
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While Zadie busied herself with one console Robert began fiddling with another, every now and then casting a wary look at the room at large, just in case the rumoured ghost made a surprise appearance. It didn’t take long for the technomancer to get frustrated – there was so much potential for discoveries here, so much to learn, but he could not take his time because of the threat of a murderous entity.
The fact that he didn’t actually understand the language didn’t help… he could figure out the meaning of some symbols and displays – or thought he could – but that was little more than droplets in a sea, even though Zadie’s earlier insights had given him some context to base his own theories around. And since there was a chance something connected to these systems might actually be vital, it was time to take some risks he wouldn’t normally consider so lightly.
A few moments of searching located what he believed might be a network interface socket below one console. Grunting, Robert sat down next to the console, taking out his toolkit and an adapter cable. He connected one end of the cable to his suit’s interface socket that in turn was connected to the datajack implanted in back of his neck, then began taking apart the other end, revealing clusters of optical fibres he began attaching to the wiring he teased out from the console’s interior.
”I don’t know if this works, but we don’t have time to camp here for a few days,” he said on the suit channel as he worked. ”Just in case this fries by brain, you don’t get to have any of my stuff – bury it all with me,” he quipped, trying to hide his nervousness, recalling John’s earlier suggestion about last wills. His eyes stayed glued on the engineering sensor’s display where icons were rapidly changing from amber to yellow and green, indicating a flow of data in the fibres. Once he was as satisfied as he could that there were no major physical obstacles to a connection he dropped his tools, leaned back against the console and closed his eyes.
’Begin,’ he thought, commanding his own network implants to start letting data through.
’Processing… connection initiated,’ an agent program in charge of the implant’s functions whispered in his mind and his mind was flooded with blinding light – an illusion forged by his mind as it struggled to express the sudden surge of raw data in terms it could instinctively understand.
Robert banged the back of his head against the console as his body convulsed but was oblivious to the pain, as managing the datastream required his undivided attention. He hadn’t expected anything nearly so robust – whatever system had intended to interface with the console had to have a ridiculous capability to process data. For seconds that stretched into hours in the accelerated virtual environment, Robert built walls and filters, only to see them immediately overcome by the mindless stampede of nonsensical data. Eventually he got on top of the game, however, and got enough of a breathing room to limit the bandwidth of the link.
With only a trickle of information compared to the initial burst now getting through, Robert could begin to try to make some sense out of it.
’All right… analyse and categorize. Look for patterns in the chaos, something we can get a hold of,’ Robert thought as he brought data management programs online, frowning in his own mind at the multitude of displays floating in his virtual vision. ’Cross-refer with data about every programming language stored in my memory.’
’Processing… Alert. Detecting changes in the datastream. Analyzing…’
Robert focused his attention to one particular display of data, watching with deep fascination as indeed the incoming data packages were evolving. As if the alien system was trying to adapt itself to the new device it detected trying to interface with it. Lowering itself to the attached device’s level, more like it, Robert thought with an unusual touch of humility as he witnessed the directed evolution of a new communications protocol, one that his implants could manage. Sure, Robert could write up a new protocol himself if he really wanted. If he had a few days to spend. But this was happening in mere heartbeats, even though in the conceptual reality the time stretched and expanded, allowing him to properly appreciate the marvel.
’Alert. Outside datastream stabilizing. Detecting what would appear to be the initial message of an unknown type of handshaking negotiation. Analysis accuracy currently at 83%. Unencrypted trinary code. Message repeats.’
’Set up a secondary firewall boundary at the processor implant outer layer. Extrapolate expected responses from incoming data and fire away,’ Robert commanded, although he felt any software defences he could throw up would last only so long as the alien system decided it didn’t want to try to breach it. But there were always risks to every transaction, and every moment this connection lasted, there was the potential for him to learn something.
Processing... iteration 437 accepted by outside system. Connection established.’
New windows of data opened in Robert’s virtual vision like blooming flowers and it was all the technomancer could do to gape at the wealth of information. The language of the data was still as much of a mystery to him as before, but there was enough numerical information for him to start making some sense of it. Furthermore, the alien system was still adapting, changing the way it organized and displayed data in an effort to better mesh with Robert’s analytical programs’ return outputs.
”I’m interfacing,” Robert murmured aloud, distractedly as he could hardly draw his full attention away from the datastream, loath to slow him down to base reality’s processing speed so he could communicate with his temporary comrades. ”I think I may be in love… never seen a system like this, certainly never connected directly to one... these control systems... they are disconnected from the subsystems they were meant to manage. For a long time now. Forcibly disconnected. Those subsystems... they were considered minor parts of the whole. Minor! All this, to manage some secondary functions. The main control system must have been almost sentient in its own right. But it has gone silent. Perhaps physically cut off when the Rock was cut off and thrust into the Drift.”
”I still haven’t got a clue about the language itself... imagine what kinds of records even a secondary control system of this calibre would have if we could just understand it… I’m copying what I can to my memory nodes, but since I don’t know what’s worth keeping and what’s useless…”
John stayed on alert, but took the time to marvel at Robert's datajack. 'Perhaps I should get one. It might make communication easier.'
Where the changes really shine through is in how the game is played. Gone are the confusing action types like move, standard, swift, and immediate, instead replaced with a simple system of three actions and one reaction each round. All of the varied systems and formulas for determining your character's bonuses and statistics, like saving throws, attack bonuses, and skills, have been unified in a single, easy-to-use proficiency system based on your choices and your character's level. You no longer need to collect a specific set of magic items to be a balanced character, relying on specific magical statistic bonuses. Instead, you get all of the bonuses you need from your regular armor and weapons, allowing the rest of your items to be truly wondrous.
It sounds a lot (exactly?) like D&D 5e. They need to get rid of multiple buffs running at the same time and we're good to go.
Who knows? I may not have to switch over to 5e after all.
We'll see...
Kamiya looked around the blinking panels and knew that it was way beyond her but she was intrigued to learn. "If you can describe what kind of things you think you're seeing, maybe I can help put things into context but everything seems more formulaic than behavioral so I may not be much help."
"If you can describe what kind of things you think you're seeing, maybe I can help put things into context but everything seems more formulaic than behavioral so I may not be much help."
"...hmmm? Did you say someth...?" Robert replied distractedly. It was hard to focus on something as bland as speech when his consciousness was basking in the light of whole constellations of data. Even the irritation over that he could not make any sense of most of it was fading. There were pure mathematical formulae among the masses of data, and those he could appreciate, even though the alien builders of the system had not used a base 10 system, making conversion a challenge on its own. Still, he could already appreciate the elegance of some of those formulae, and even if it would turn out there were merely for managing the station's environmental system's waste heat production or overcoming some similarly dreary everyday problem, they were a marvel an academician majoring in mathematics could appreciate.
His body management programs were clamoring for his attention, proclaiming their concern of his state of consciousness shifting into a meditative state due to information overload but he ignored their warnings - he was on top of this, he could quit any time he wanted. He just didn't want to. Not yet.
A few moments later his attention floated back to the barely-registered question from Kamiya. He cocked his head to a side in thought, then asked for one of the room's displays to show the others some of the snippets of data he felt he had understood. The screen lit up with more alien symbols, but superimposed by short notes written in Common. Robert's own notes.
"... there..." he murmured, barely up to the effort of explaining. "System diagnostics errors... whole logs full of failed attempts at reintegration. Those subsystems are physically disconnected, perhaps left behind from wherever this station came from, all those years ago... then these... from the context, a list of tasks this control room can no longer perform, due to the disconnection... but what those tasks are, and what happens because they can no longer be performed..."
The check was a Dc 30 but I will give you something more on the turn recap.
I'm taking you to the last door unless I hear otherwise.
Questions?
Game on!
"Haven't been performed for more than 75 years," Zadie reminded Robert. "Whatever was going to happen happened a long time ago. Hope they had built-in redundancies. Can you imagine how they must have freaked out when all this vanished?"
"Haven't been performed for more than 75 years," Zadie reminded Robert. "Whatever was going to happen happened a long time ago. Hope they had built-in redundancies. Can you imagine how they must have freaked out when all this vanished?"
"Happened...Or still keeps happening... somewhere else... with control systems lost to the Drift for so long..." Robert replied dreamily, trying to focus his attention back to the present and making some headway. It would be good to spend a few decades trying to unravel the mystery within his reach, but memories of their current situation began intruding. Particularly the late Captain's warnings, the chances of her killer still being on the loose. To remain here would be... less than optimal. He'd just have to save what data he could and hope he'd selected something good, once he figured out the language. Which he would. Eventually.
I'll have to recap this tomorrow.
Here's some extra info for Robert, Kamiya, and Zadie in the meantime.