All right!
Make ready to head to the cantina :P
Do we have any idea what weapons, if any, are allowed off ship into the station?
Per the information sent, nothing beyond knuckle dusters, and even those are frowned upon.
Sorry for my lack of posting in the last few days. I've been really under the weather lately.
@all, I agree with Vathan. The busted part bit is probably going to be better served after accepting their offers.
Also... yes, this is clearly just their old station. Their new one is still being detailed, but rest assured, it is much nicer.
@mdt, What about wrenches? Can the engineers bring nice, sturdy wrenches?
Tools are allowed.
Now, some discretion is advised. I don't want my crew to look like some biker gang, brandishing pipes and whatnot :P
Do we want to leave a character behind to stay in command of the ship?
Ideally, we should probably apply the 'not everyone important in one place' policy, which would mean like one or two of the officers leaving at once tops. However, that is a bit boring, so I guess we'll go out together : )
I suggest keeping the PCs together. It helps the GM synchronize spotlight and activities.
cheers
Do we have a cover story to answer these immigration questions?
Well, we have what we determined earlier : )
We are from planet 'X' (we told them this at our first encounter, I just couldn't think of a name so I put in X. Hopefully, every member of the crew remember the name of this planet, even if we as players haven't come up with a name yet!^^) and we decided to go with our real names earlier, both for us and the ship!
That was what we decided : )
(so each to their own on 6, 7 & 8. The others shouldn't be too challenging I hope ^^)
Just poking my head in to cheer you guys on. This is still a great game. I am really glad it's still going.
Nice to see you too!
.
...
..........
*Lunges forward* "Pressganging attack!"
:P
Hello folks....just want to let you know that I am going to have to be dropping out. I am spending most of my free time with RL issues.
This was a fun game.
If you run it at GenCon I will try to play!
I'm sad to hear that you are leaving - and doubly so given the reason!
I hope your parents get better and that things find a way to work out.
Good luck - and I hope you don't need it : )
*Salutes*
Yep, good luck! Hope things work out!
Nice to see you again Ziirkaa! If you ever want to get back in, let me know.
So... back to 3. LOL
I'm sorry to hear you go Hig, but I hope things work out for you!
And it is good to see you Uncle Aggie!
Hi everyone sorry you have not seen any posts from me, illness meant I could not sorry.
Once the sites working Ill try and get her Ladyship up with an image.
Must be quite the stint, considering when we saw you last :P
I hope you are feeling better now! Being sick/ill sucks. Especially being bed-ridden or worse.
Hopefully it didn't leave any lasting damage : )
And hi btw ^^
Hi Annara, when you left without warning, we weren't sure what happened, so Annara is back on the home planet with Ziirkaa. If you or Ziirkaa want to join in, it'll have to wait until they get back, or you can make up a new character who's 'in fleet'.
@Annara - While you were gone, we found three things of major interest. In order of discovery:
A gas planet that harboured life! (Space sharks!) Quite interesting from a scientific point of view, but not much more.
A habitable but empty world. It was a bit chilly, but it had an atmosphere and such (can't recall the nr of G, but I think it was a bit too high for the Mylthani).
A inhabited world with humans. Whom speak silly. We are currently there. Once we gathered a basic bit of intel, we will sneak back home and leave a rapport.
And probably pick up our diplomat again :P
Hi guys yes, it was a but fast, I was filling bad and well, had some time in bed, got a new job now with a lot let stress and getting better.
I'm going to say Annara head off to the space sharks to set up the contact team.
Yes Ziirkaa comeback then we can play some home world stuff setting things up.
I'm think after the shock of not one but two new races and their would be a call and need for a group to oversee 1st contact.
Annara would use her contacts and political power base to push for this to be set-up by her, the Confederacy Contact group,
Broken down into
"Contact" Diplomatic Corps
Made up of 4 sub groups, scientist, Navy/army/spooks and PSI-Cops/spooks and Diplomats, that have been trained in 1st contact protocols
Contact - scientific
Contact - Security/PSI
Contact - Diplomatic/PSI
Setting it up and then overseeing the 1st contact with space sharks etc.
Then back to home-world.
The idea is that with every ship that jumps from home systems there is a Contact operative on board.
GM if the good doctor is a NPC, I am more than happy to play her as being hand picked by Annara fro the trip.
Actually, it's already been established that she was picked by PsiCorp as your replacement due to her unusual (for a psi) stability. :) She was at pains to not insult you when she revealed herself to the Captain.
I would suggest not taking over the doctor, as she's been established as an NPC. I would suggest either one of the other crew, or someone from the Resplendant Commerce who get's transferred in as part of a crew rotation.
cool ok ill have a think, I may stand off until the team gets back and just do some plant stuff but if I get a good idea for a PC all post it.
I sincerely wish I could rejoin but there is no way I can commit.
My work life has spun completely out of control, and I don't really see any chance of it getting better, until and unless I find a new job. As bad as I thought it was when I had to give up all my play by post in November, it got even worse in January.
I will still be following along, it's a great show, even if I can't play. I wouldn't be able to be a reliable contributor.
@Ziirka - If you ever feel that you have time again, feel free to bounce back in : )
@Money - If they still think we are mere spies after this, they ought to be impressed that we dug up those antiques rather then simply being provided with a more local currency :P
So, what are people thinking of doing at this station?
Ceres is mostly content to chill around a week or two, enjoying the local scenery and stocking up on books and encyclopaedias.
Then pull off the 'our thing broke, can we borrow a replacement?' and see what happens
Then probably say farwell and report back home (making sure we are not tracked)
Thoughts : )?
If we stay a week, we should allow the crew shore leave. If we allow the crew shore leave, we increase the probability of an uncontrollable incident: bar fight, slip up in immigration, etc. Bottomline, the longer we continue contact, the higher the probability that we will be exposed.
Therefore, I would suggest that we review what we need to review. Meaning, gather information of known universe and current politics, and escape.
my two creds
cheers
Yeah, every interaction gives us a chance to slip up. And staying without allowing the crew to leave might be a bit cruel ... :P
yes yes grab the info and some tech and head home, hehe
I can agree with that. Though I wonder if it might be a good idea to give them some warning that we are leaving. On the one hand, it would give them time to prepare a trap for us, if they were so inclined. On the other hand, they might decide to give us some official, diplomatic gift/gesture to return with... and for us to analyze.
I smell space battle!
Lets hope we don't get shot ...
Also, once we get the first things sorted, we should take a long hard talk with our AI ...
(Hmm ... the fleet could also be some sort of toll fleet or something? Or perhaps their overlords coming to check in on the new developments ...)
If they brought weapons platforms and Battle ships this is a take over, Forts in space could mean bad look. What you need to ask is
1: Do the ships AI signal them? If so HOW? you have not been there that long so how did it get a call out of the system with out a probe? Hacked an out going ship or probe, even if it did the time line is wrong.
2: If not then what was it doing, A chat with it would help and could get you info on whats going on.
3: A Fleet this size is worrying, they could be LINKED to this system and be on there way to ours, thats bad news. But again, how long have you been in system. This THIS system call in the Big guns? and your ships wanted to know just how.
The Up shot of this is
1: This feet is here BECAUSE of you
OR
2: Your just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Not that I am there to say this but you get the idea.
We have only been in system for a rather short while (and I don't think we noted any other ships jumping system), so option 2 feels more likely (option 1 is a bit terrifying though!).
I blame it to the PC reality warp :P
(On the other hand, without it, a game would be much less interesting ^^)
Something things just need to travel at the speed of plot. : )
[url=https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1DNCwbVALhByPddfBIwkGfpp2YypvOYtAoPx_LCsuOms/edit?usp=sharing]Solar System Map[/ooc]
There are other planets in the system, but I only put the important ones (for now) on it.
The blue planet is where the majority of the traffic in the system is, and a huge radio source, so probably the habitable planet.
The purple is the gas giant you are around.
The black star things are stations.
The green dot is the jump point you came in on.
The pink dot is a location previously found to have asteroids, that have since had some of them begin to move. There were 6 asteroids there, and 2 have begun moving toward the green dot (red lines). There were 10 asteroids in orbit around the blue planet, 4 have begun to move toward the green dot (red lines).
There were 14 asteroids around the brown dot, which is where a bunch of ships warped in.
Before we head off, Ceres would like to try and simply ask the A.I. what it did.
She attempted to address it earlier, but that might have been missed :)
@mdt - is the AI ignoring us for now, or does it respond to questions ?
Yes. Agree. Talk to the AI before touching its wires.
It responds to everything except questions about it hacking into the local system. All it responds to with that is :
"Lost Colony Protocols have been followed."
haha the ship just grassed up our the whole thing to its original owners.
Its been every where and knows everything, so much for hiding and not being found, haha
Guys we'er joining the Empire whether we like it or not.
I have a feeling our hosts won't let us leave so easily.
If they suspect that we are spies already, I doubt they would want us loose ...
We might need to think of some convincing arguments or dastardly plans ...
(I have one basic: "Hello! We got plenty of guns and are currently inside your station. We have full faith in our armoured hull. You ...?")
Just a note, we're likely going to be doing another time skip here shortly, so be thinking about how you want to handle that. There's a couple of options.
1) 2 year time jump : Everyone gains a level, ages 2 years, stuff happens.
2) 4 year time jump : Everyone gains two levels, ages 4 years, stuff happens.
3) 8 year time jump : Everyone gains three levels, ages 8 years, lots of stuff happens.
For 1 you'd just continue playing your current characters (although you can switch out whenever you want). For 2, some of you are going to be hitting the aging wall, losing stats from age. For 3, you'd all create new characters.
The way 3 would work is, you'd still level up your characters, and you'd still use them, but they'd no longer be out on the front lines, they'd have moved on to being in charge of things. Which means your older characters would be making decisions, and your younger characters would then be going out and doing things based on your decisions.
In the 8 year jump, Mylthani open up as playable characters.
Wow. Cool.
Ceres will bump into middle-age no matter which one of the time skips we use (not that it hurts *that* much - her physical stats isn't her strongest forte : ) ), so from that PoV I don't really have an opinion.
However!
8 years is a long time, and it would be sorta fun to actually get to play out Telthani's rise to power (or maybe just relevance :P) - which logically might require a bit of time.
As long as I get to play/tinker a bit with Ceres still I would be up for the long jump. I think I would even prefer it! However, if someone still wants to focus on their character, I would never want them to abandon him/her!
Summary: 8th years would be cool - if everyone is up for it.
Otherwise, I vote 4 years : )
Finally got to examine MDT's map of the system. Now, I'm even more confused about our situation.
1. A fleet arrived at the other end of the system.
2. Asteroid stations are moving from two locations toward the warp point where we arrived.
The asteroid stations are abandoning their locations and more importantly the defense of the habitable planet, which suggests that they are more concerned with the warp point where we arrived than with their home.
Or are they more intent to cut off our escape? If we're really the threat, we're hosed. Only MDT's post about time-jumping has me hopeful.
@MDT, did Vathan get any further with the AI by asking nicely to describe the triggers for the Lost Colony Protocols?
cheers
It's a timing thing. The asteroids that are moving toward the warp point have been underway for about a day, but the probes only noticed them recently, and there wasn't anything in that to trigger their transmission. However, the sudden appearance of that many ships triggered the 'invasion' subroutine, and they dumped all their data to the McTavish
Time 0 : McTavish Arrives
Day 2.83 : McTavish takes on inspection party.
Day 3.15 : Asteroids begin moving toward the new warp point
Day 4.23 : McTavish docks with station.
Day 4.43 : Multiple ships warp into system simultaneously.
Day 4.52 : Crew returns to McTavish
Also note that there are more asteroids at those two locations that didn't move. Only a few of the asteroids at those two locations moved off station toward the new warp point.
Nope, the whole Lost Colony Protocol thing seems to be locked down tight and burned deeply into the ship's computer core, the only way to stop it would be to completely expunge all the computer systems and replace them. But a lot of the hardware on the ship is tied into the core, at such a level, that doing so would likely render the ship unusable. Someone spent a lot of time making sure the LCP's couldn't be overridden or bypassed, including a lot of secrecy around what sets them off.
If we go with the assumption that our hosts are 'low tech' like us, we might be able to slip past the asteroid forts.
I mean, we don't have any jump-jammers do we? Then they probably don't either :P (correct me if I'm wrong and Ceres would know! Else we'll find out the hard way ... ^^)
Unguided weaponry is basically useless over longer ranges, since we can switch course multiple times in the time it would take the 'projectile/beam/whatever' to reach us. (Unless they lay down some really impressive barrage and blanket a significant amount of space!)
And we would simply have to shoot their guided munitions out of the sky (space?) and endure a brief shower of short-ranged ones : )
On that topic - how big is a jump point? Is it like a small house (effectively, we must go to a very specific and predictable spot!) or is it much larger? (They might not even know exactly where it is, depending on their sensor tech!)
I will admit, that at first I was off put at the idea of putting Holt on the back burner, as I'm rather attached to her. Especially since I already hit middle age, so that isn't an issue for me.
But as I thought about it, the idea of giving her a commanding/tactical/skill based role, especially if it is in one of those science style vessels, while letting another character take the combat roles, has grown on me.
So in that sense, I'll be ok with any of the transitions.
- - - - -
Can we make any guesses as to the new collectives tech level based on their energy signatures/patterns?
How does our ship compare to what we have seen so far, at least in the sense of combat ability?
@Combat - I guess we are in quite the good shape - being a fully operational 'modern' ship. And the ship seemed fairly confident with its odds against the Telthani navy ...
@Station - With a bit of luck, they get the hint and spill their beans. Sweet sweet plot exposition : )