Jinx sounds like loads of fun, and in an age where every penny-ante station has a nanoreplicator it might even be easier for a smuggler to operate, running data and designs under the noses of corporate security.
Hey guys,
Catching up and reading what you've put down. The standard creation is 1000cp or by the transhuman package system, which ever you prefer.
Just a few updates, sorry my attention has been split, there is a Deathwatch game I'm in where the GM is stepping down (again), and no one but me has stood up to volunteer. There was one potential GM from another, but his situation changed and it may be a while. I've been dealing with that potential as there are a lot of guys i have been playing with since I joined this website last year and I can't let that game die. Not fair to you all as I've had my attention split and I really only have time for one, but I'm trying to make do, as this game is modelled from my IRL, I'm hoping it won't be so difficult.
Also, as I've never GM'd PBP or played EP I'm honestly a little afraid to begin until I'm fully prepared (NOt sure of the criteria for that) b/c you guys know so much and have so much experience, I don't want to embarrass myself.
What more can I say about "Chase" that I haven't said. He's all into smuggling and information brokering, not so much into cash, as he's never paid you like that, its always been bartering or occasionally some money when he's doing something for others. He's a collector of sorts, of real life things and information, brilliant and patient. He would be the contact that you mostly deal with, maybe a few people he works with, but no one that stands out.
Depending on your backgrounds, there will be some past events that might be public or private. How much you know and what you've seen about him depends on how devoted to the cause you are. If you believe in a world without ownership and hypercorps owning and ruling everything, then you're on the right team.
You know he's always wanted to visit Earth, that's no secret. He's interested discovering lost civilizations and relics, gatecrashing ops are of particular interest, as he seems to have people everywhere and information about things that few others have.
As you all flush out some history I'll get with you on some specifics, but you can make it up and I'll include it as part of Chases' history. If you guys did soemthing cool together or he sent you on a mission that changed everything, etc, feel free to incorporate that and tell me so I can include it in my history for him and hopefully make it relevant in the game.
I know this is a bit late, but lets try and shoot for starting one week from this coming Monday. That's starts us on the 22nd. That gives us one more week to finish up sheets and get our history together. Please feel free to make some choices and decisions amongst yourselves, I'll write it in and make it count.
Essentially this becomes important, or at least how I see it. There is little of monetary or technical items that you can have now, its more about the goals and personality of your PC that I want to explore and exploit.
One last thing on badluck...is that the one where I use MOxie points against you...I'd rather now have to deal with that, my IRL game Octopus took that, among other things making it even more difficult to deal with, and I wasn't really looking forward to trying and doing that. I just don't have enough experience and I'd like to learn this world a little better so I can balance my actions and not over or under react/provide. I'm gonna have a learning curve, so while I don't mind the more personal things, try having things that will add to my job, such as trying to figure out how to screw you and not everyone else all too often.
Oh, and if any of you are interested in running this game instead of me, I'm totally up for it, I'd love to play or GM within this universe, it just seems like so much fun. Seems to be a good amount of interest. If no takers, then, I made a commitment to you all and I'm not going to back down. It may not be multiple daily posts in the beginning, depending on if its my writing or I'm scanning one of a dozen books for rules. I've got a 2 year old daughter and wife that don't get enough attention, I usually find myself writing in the odd hours after they are asleep and/or at work when I got some downtime.
Hmmm, I'd give it a try but I've just started running my first game ever and I know I'm not ready to try two (sorry!). Happy to back someone else up with the rules if they have a concept they want to give a try though.
I've done a piece on Viv's history before, but I'll do another one in the next day or two on her dealings with Chase.
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I would be up for trying to GM, but I might need some help or corrections now and then on the rules side. I had some ideas for a campaign involving Firewall agents along the lines of "Lack" (the short story at the start of the core book) or maybe a gate crashing campaign. So if there is interest there and if Viv will help with the rules side, then I'd be happy to try.
I'm happy to help on the rules side; the EP rules can be a little confronting, but they're tremendously intuitive and once you get into the proper mindset they seem to come naturally (or they do for me).
If we're Firewall or Gatecrashing, should we look at remaking our characters?
I've re-read Lack, and while I'm sorry Snowman's commitments have mounted up I'm excited that this game is still going forward. Can you give us a blurb on what sort of story you'd like to run, and who you'd like us to be? Maybe some of our characters will still suit?
I am willing to help out, but I am already running a game irl and doubt I could devote to a second one online... if only because last time I tried it I kept getting the games mixed up XD. Besides, I always end up GMing EP games >.>
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Ok then, assuming it is ok with Snowman (and hopefully he still wants to play as a PC if not GMing), then I can work more on flushing out my ideas.
The short and sweet of the story is that you are all sentinels for Firewall. With varying degrees of success, you have all worked on missions with each other before, so the characters should know each other (although if someone wants to play the new guy to the squad, that is fine too). Your router has called you up for a mission, and you are expected to egocast and then be resleeved into a morph. Once everyone is there in person, you will be given the mission specs.
Expect it to be story/interaction heavy, but it is a good idea to have character who can handle himself or herself in a sticky situation. In addition to your build and primary morph, I would appreciate you building a second suboptimal morph for this first mission (think of it like a company car assigned to you by Firewall, and not one your character is accustomed to using).
Just to clarify, Sentinels come from all backgrounds and ideologies. They have normal lives outside of duty (and the two lives are typically kept secret from one another). Sentinels all have codenames and backup insurance provided by Firewall.
EDIT: please also create and give a personality to your Muse as well.
Can do! Any objection if I use Life Path again? I enjoy making characters that way, and I enjoy the randomosity.
I may or may not decide to go with the same concept this time, but I will still use Vivien Leigh as my alias, if not my codename.
Alright, let's do this!
Vivien Leigh II: The Re-Viv-ing (every sequel needs a dodgy name).
Step 1: Aptitude Template
This is one I like to choose, just as the start of my character; for my vision of Viv, I choose Extrovert narrowly over Thrill Seeker. That means I have 10 in SOM, 20 in SAV and 15 in every other Aptitude.
Step 2: Choose/Roll Native Tongue
-> Skandinaviska
Interesting, sounds like I'm from Scandinavia if I'm Earthborn. It means I'll have 70+INT in the language, probably 85 at this point.
Step 3: Youth Path
-> Wholesome Youth.
So I roll once on Table 3.1 and take the result as a 3 PP package
-> Earthborn! Ok, that means...
-> Celebrity Child
Starting Morph is a Sylph, Next Path is 6.5: Elite and for now I take 3 PP in Hyperelite: Media Personality.
Possible Motivations: +Artistic Expression, +Fame, +Personal Career
+1 Moxie
Art: (Choose One) 40, Disguise: 25, Interest: (Choose One)
30, Interfacing 30, Networking: (Media) 50, Persuasion 30,
Profession: (Choose One) 20, Protocol 30
+30,000 credits
Interesting, I can definitely work with that and it means some of Viv mk1's concept might even fit better. Importantly I also have a Moxie point now, which might let me reroll a disastrous dice roll during chargen; no mean thing since Earth is going to go bye-bye. Who are my Skandinaviska celebrity parents? Will find that out later I guess.
Step 4: Background Event
-> Gain +1 Moxie and roll on the Story Table.
-> I am persecuted for my nature or beliefs.
Huh. That will be an interesting part of my story, but at least I came through it ok and with a bit more luck. As in most of these cases, I find it easier to tell my story retroactively once I know all the dots I need to join.
Step 5: Starting Age
Looks like I'm 27 at start of play. Sersi, what's the date AF you'd like to start this roleplay? Could be very interesting, but for now I believe I skip the next stage and plunge right into.
Step 6: Adult Pre-Fall Path - skipped (youth)
Step 7: Pre-Fall Life Event - skipped (youth)
Step 8: The Fall Uh oh...
-> During the Fall Vivien is exposed to the Watts-MacLeod exsurgent virus, opening her awareness to aspects of the world of which others are blind. I am to take the Savant Async package as my Focus package in Step 9.
Wait, what?!? Well that's a major plot twist. Not actually a disaster, but I've never played an Async. This could be interesting, so I'll hold off on Moxieing since the Fall Event Table is just full of bad news I've dodged for now. Plus it will be extra entertaining rolling with an extra derangement when we take on the Company morph.
Step 9: Adult Post-Fall Paths So I survived the Fall in my birth morph a spoiled media darling but now touched by quasi-benign exsurgence. This can only end well. Ha. Hehe. Ahahahahahahahahaha...
-> Equally Balanced, so I take 3 PP in each of Focus and Faction packages.
Focus is pre-determined from Step 8, so I take the 3 PP package of Savant Async.
Possible motivations: +Introspection, +Neurodiversity, +Personal Development, +Self Control
+1 Moxie
+50 Rep (Your Choice)
Academics: (Choose One) 40, Art: (Choose One) 30,
Hardware: (Choose One) 15, Interest: (Choose One)
30, Investigation 50, Networking: (Choose One) 30,
Perception 40
Traits: Psi (Level 1), Mental Disorder (Choose One)
+5 Sleights (Your Choice)
Outstanding. And also likely to be highly entertaining.
Faction is a little more complicated, but by my understanding I'm checking to see if I'm still attached to the Elite or taking a new path.
-> Okay, looks like the near-destruction of transhuman civilization as we know it changed my path. Not a big shock, but I liked it so I'm going to use a Moxie here. -1 Moxie
-> Looks like it sticks this time! I remain elite, but what kind of elite?
-> Brinker, so I'm a strangely antisocial Extrovert.
3 PP package here means:
Possible motivations: +Bioconservatism, +Exhumanism, +Privacy, +Religion, +Solitude, +Self Reliance
+50 Rep (Your Choice)
Free Fall 30, Gunnery 20, Hardware: Industrial 40, Interest: (Choose One) 40, Networking: (Choose One) 25,
Pilot: (Spacecraft) 50, Profession: (Choose One) 50, Scrounging 40
Actually, you know? I could see why she'd want to find some solitude now and again when the pressure of so many minds around her gets too much. This feels very appropriate.
Step 10: Final Packages
-> Roll another Focus Package on 9.1
-> Roll on 6.1
-> Roll on 6.6
-> I get 1 PP of Dealer
Possible motivations: +Hard Work, +Hypercapitalism, +Personal Career
Kinesics 30, Profession:
(Choose One) 30,
Persuasion 40
I'm a Dealer, which makes a lot of sense with being an extroverted loner. Some very handy skills there too!
That's 10 PP, so we move on to...
Step 11: Roll Post-Fall Life Event
-> I am hired by a wealthy private party for some exclusive exoplanet missions. Roll on the Gatecrashing Event table!
-> My mission is sabotaged by an unknown party, and I come out of it with a new morph. Good story fodder!
-> Infomorphs/Eidolons seems like it would be... bad for an Async, but I can roll with it. I may Moxie, if it's too bad.
-> Digimorph. The budget model of infomorphs. Dammit I miss my birthmorph! I'm going to reroll the Morph type roll. -1 Moxie.
-> Not again! -1 Moxie. Reroll, but I'm out of Moxie Points now.
-> Biomorph, thank the maker (Skinaesthesia in this case).
-> Lunar Flier (from Sunward). Ghuh that's a beautiful morph, even if it's not hugely helpful statswise. So glad I had enough Moxie to escape my near-inevitable fate (glaring meaningfully at the anonymous bastards that sold us out).
We're Firewallers, so I'm going to roll to find out how I hooked up with them.
-> Recruited by someone I know because of my skill sets, +10 to a skill of my choice.
Wow that's... not that traumatic really. For a change. I like it!
Step 13: Gear
I'm not shopping right now, but I'll see how many credits I have to go with later.
-> 22 000 + 30 000 credits = 52 000 cr.
Step 14: Combine Everything
Mostly done later, but I'll identify my starting faction as:
Brinker (Firewall)
Everyone needs a day job.
Step 15: Final Stats and Details - Will do after I've shopped
Step 16: Story Event
So Vivien, what have you been doing recently?
Let's find out!
-> Circumstances force me to move from one end of the solar system to the other.
Oooh. Sounds like I've moved from insystem out to Titan. Definitely Titan.
Can you see why I love Life Path character generation?
Sersi, how much money is Firewall likely to dedicate to our not-so-good 'company morphs'? Don't mind building it, but I'd rather not pay for it out of my personal funds if I'm not seeing it till I ego-cast out there.
Maybe roll a d6 and on odds it can't be the same morph as our personal one, and on a roll of 1 we have to take our chances with a roll on the morph table?
It's kind of sad, but also a relief. I think it'll be good for me to try this as a PC first, maybe after this and my IRL game progresses, we might eventually play my campaign. I'll have to sort through what kind of PC I want, give me a few days. I assume everyone will play similar PCs they have listed, now that we are Firewall, that might change a few things.
As for the second morph, someone asked earlier, what kind of Price or CP cap is there on it? Should we buy the morph and equip it?
I also think that if you're running the other game and Sersi is running this one, it gives us all a better chance of being able to give our roleplays the time and attention we'd like to. I'd still like to play your game one day though!
Edited my profile.
If we're going to be in secondary bodies from the start, I'll wait to do my shopping around my main morph until we're on the verge of getting back, so I get more of a feel for what sorts of things my character needs.
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The second morph is paid for by the organization, so it won't come out of your credits or CP budget.
Let's say each morph was bought from a 35,000 credit budget. So you can pick the morph, gear, implants, etc. as long as it is under that cap. You can raise the cap either by chipping in your own money, or by having defects in the morph (maybe it is a particularly well-used body). So negative traits give you 1k per CP, and positive traits cost 1k per CP.
For example, I pick a ghost (40k), but it has a low pain tolerance (20CP, so +20k) and is limber (10CP, so -10k). Now I have 5,000 credits left to spend on augmentation and implants and what ever gear I will need.
Does that seem fair enough? I am sorta making up the plan for the second morph as I go. I want them to be useable enough that you survive, but clearly chosen by a group that wants to keep an operation under budget.
That sounds very workable, it's why I kept my skills very distinct as to what was Ego vs Morph.
Any hints as to what sort of thing they've been bought for, or just that it's similar to Lack?
Just whatever general thing the buyer might have been planning for :)
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Assume this first mission will be a bit more rough and physical. This won't be true for the overall campaign, but without giving away too much, these secondary morphs should be able to take a hit and survive in an unfavourable environment (such as space, so vacsuits are highly recommended).
And just as a general thing for any character, I am always a fan of interesting choices that are not exactly optimal mechanics-wise, but lead to better story telling. And I think that is particularly applicable to a universe like EP, but that is merely a suggestion on my part. If you are the type of gamer who needs his/her characters to be super optimal, I don't want to hinder your choices :)
Some clarifying info that your characters would know, all from the core book:
"'There cannot be another Fall' — this is the mantra that drives Firewall.
Firewall is a secret, cross-faction organization dedicated to safeguarding transhumanity from existential risks: aliens, weapons of mass destruction, hypercorp experimentation, seed AIs, and so on. If anything threatens transhumanity as a whole, Firewall is dedicated to stopping that danger at any cost.
"The strength of Firewall rests in its members, known as sentinels. Found in all factions and across all locales, sentinels are often diametrically opposed when it comes to social, economic, and political ideologies, to the point they might come to blows over their fervent beliefs. Yet when the survival of transhumanity is at stake, such extreme differences are set aside for the greater good."
"Firewall is a clandestine organization with an unknown number of members, coordinated by an inner circle of dedicated veterans known as proxies. Though its existence is known to many of the powerful and influential factions and individuals throughout the solar system, its existence is denied and its activities are kept carefully shrouded."
"Sentinels are the soldiers of Firewall, the reserve troops called to instant active status whenever danger is perceived. Regardless of their location or current affairs, sentinels are expected to move instantly when called into play. It is their own responsibility to cover their absences from their 'normal life' during each mission.
There is no applying to join Firewall. Instead, Firewall selects an individual for induction based upon that person’s skills, knowledge, occupation, security clearance, location, status, and a host of other criteria. While such selections usually originate from a proxy, sentinels can exercise authority to bring new initiates into the conspiracy as a mission demands — and they often do. Any sentinel recruiting a new supporter, however, becomes responsible for the new inductee and their actions. If lines are crossed, both will bear the brunt of the consequences.
"The vetting process for joining Firewall is necessarily brutal, as sentinels face harsh opponents and must make hard choices in the field. If an individual agrees to accept the invitation, there is no turning back. Each inductee is submitted to a battery of trials and tests. While these vary, they may include deep background searches, fork interrogation, psychosurgery trials, and tests of loyalty. Psychosurgery is performed not to program obedience, but to analyze the recruit’s responses to various situations — an extreme-parameters test to see when a prospective sentinel will break. Many potential members are carefully analyzed by a Promethean with expertise in character judgment and personality profiling. Those who don’t pass such tests are either killed in a manner that they must resort to an earlier backup or have their memories altered so that they have no recollection of the conspiracy.
"Firewall walks a fine line. The concept of dogmatic 'unquestioned loyalty' is both counterproductive and anathema to everything for which Firewall stands. Its sentinels need to have the capacity for
thinking outside of the box from mission to mission. At the same time, their ultimate goals are too important to risk—the survival of transhumanity depends on it — so extreme measures must sometimes be taken to ensure the organization remains intact and secure.
"New sentinels are given a code name and fake identification. Outside of the proxies, the real-world identity of a given sentinel is a closely guarded secret. Sentinels are even discouraged from sharing such information with members of their own teams, though this line is often crossed. Additionally, each sentinel is required to upload a backup to Firewall’s secure servers and to update this backup regularly. This backup serves a dual purpose, enabling all sentinels to be retrieved should they die, but also putting a copy of the sentinel in Firewall’s hands should they ever need to interrogate them.
"Sentinels are all connected via the Eye [This is your i-rep score], Firewall’s peer-to-peer social network. Though each operates behind their assumed identity, they remain in contact, sharing information and resources as needed."
I'll get a secondary morph ready tomorrow, expect it to be pretty much a synth with laser and armor... not much else to say really.
I can do that. Can't do much about my skills (or lack therof), but I'll try to make sure I can at least get around in space and survive taking a hit... if she does.
I'm a major fan of interesting flaws in roleplay, so I'll balance that with my general screwiness (and I have a step-by-step cheat sheet for resleeving open in another tab, just waiting for the ego-cast!). I hadn't realized how tight a budget 35 000 credits actually was, until I started flicking through the lists - and Viv has plenty of her own issues to deal with too.
So without further ado, let's go shopping!
- 35 000 credits
- Neotenic morph, female (-20K = 15K remaining)
- Trait: Weak Immune System lvl 1 (M) (+10 CP = 25K)
- Trait: Innocuous (M) (-10 CP = 15K)
- Wings (-1K = 14K)
- Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack (Free)
- Direction Sense, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Vision, Eidetic Memory (-1K=13K)
- Bioweave (Lt), Chameleon Skin, Claws, Emotional Dampers (-1K=12K)
- Enhanced Pheromones, Enhanced Respiration, Grip Pads, Dead Switch (-1K=11K)
- Vacuum Sealing (-5K = 6K)
- Oxygen Reserve, Nanotats, Smart Skin, Smart Vac Clothing, Heavy Pistol, 2x Skinpouch, 1x regular ammunition 2x hollow-point ammunition, 1x armor piercing ammunition, (-2.5K = 3.5K)
- Skillsoft: Kinetic Weapons (-5K = -1.5K)
I could go and find more penalties, but I think at this point I'll eat the extra cost and have a morph that Viv won't be entirely upset to get into from time to time in the future.
Total cost= 36 500 cr out of 35 000 cr, reducing Starting Credits by 1 500.
Awww, really? I can certainly spend the extra cash but it seemed entirely appropriate for a cash-strapped agency trying to do everything on the cheap ^^
I'll spend the extra 5K on Muscle Augmentation if we have it.
Sorry if I'm giving mixed messages, happy to go either way.
My initial surprise was just that I hadn't realized how many credits we save with not having to buy a starting morph (at least in Life Path).
Nudge me in PM if you want to address any rules questions you might have; can't wait to get this show on the road and find out just how messed up Viv is coming out of the egocast re-sleeving. ^^
40k credits to start
Synth morph: 5k
Heavy combat armor: 5k
Thrust vector system: 1k
Lidar: 250
helmet: 50
smart skin: 250
Medichines: 250
Concealed weapon's mount: 1k
w/ Laser pulsar: 1k
Structural enhancement: 1k
Morph armor: 23/24
Morph Durability: 50
Wound threshold: 10
Remaining credits: 25,200
uhhh... mm... I almost just want two of these... though what is likely better is:
Emergency farcaster: 20k
Remaning: 5,200
Since we're Sentinels, that probably means that if we know each other at all it's through our code names and our work in Firewall. I'm pulling together a new biography for Vivien (what can I say, I like to write!) but I wanted to ask:
Would any of you like to have met before now?
And if we've known each other long enough, would I know anything about the ego behind the Sentinel?
Odile is a little secretive about what information she lets out, but it's not impossible that she'd have talked a little about herself to those she has enough in common with.
considering she shamelessly stole it from me... it's like a human centipede of shameless stealing... or something.
I was going to say that! ^^
I wonder how you'd draw something like that...
I was going to say that! ^^
I wonder how you'd draw something like that...
just wait for someone else to draw it than shamelessly steal the drawing
You say that like it's a bad thing! :3
What's wrong with a little tribute now and again?
Swansong
Right. Shit. Well, where to begin? I was born sixteen years before the Fall in a thriving transhuman community full of glitz and glamour, right on the cusp of the limitless future that was coming with all those shiny new advances. Or at least, we thought it was. What could possibly go wrong? Pappa was one of the leading producers at Trollywood, while Clari had met him as a young would-be star. Oh sure, you hear all kinds of sordid stories about that kind of thing, but in their case I know they loved each other. That's not just the starry-eyed innocence of a naïve daughter either, they were one of the biggest power couples in the Swedish film industry which at that point was the only European film industry worth writing home about. Write to home about? Such a strange expression. Anyway, my innocence was never going to last all that long among the glitterati - and it didn't – but despite all kinds of temptation neither of my parents ever strayed and outside of obligatory business commitments were much happier having an evening at home with the family. At least if their spoilt daughter wasn't hounding them to take her to another celebrity party to meet her latest crush, you know?
I was going to be an actress, the latest star in the Trollywood constellation. I had some natural grace, all the right connections and my birthmorph was a Sylph so I figured I had it made, just counting the days until my sixteenth birthday when I'd have the chance to take on a screen role in my own right instead of just being the producer's daughter swanning around the set and getting in the way with all my questions. I can see now that I was more than slightly full of myself, but I was constantly bragging about who I'd met at school, so I suppose it's not that surprising that I fell in with the queen bees. They were the only ones with a puffed up enough sense of self importance that I fit right in; the rest of them hated me, not that I cared.
We weren't any more prescient about what was going on when the Fall started than the next person. There were glitches and data-ghosts in the archives, but that always happened. There were robots acting strange, and breaking up stores, but that wasn't unknown either. Even when the first deaths began we were concerned and I was made to promise never to be alone with a robot in case it ran amok, but it was just another one of those things. Sooner or later the scientists would figure out what all the defective models had in common, and someone would be charged and bankrolled for cutting corners with substandard... whatever it would be. What do you look for that you see and think “Oh, the world must be ending?” How were any of us to know? The upscaled wasps whose sting liquefied the flesh it touched caught our attention, and for my parents it was the last straw but one. When Tivoli skyhook collapsed and flattened twelve blocks of downtown Copenhagen they sent me offworld in one of those crowded refugee craft the Scum use now. I wasn't going far, just up to Luna until they could finish selling off their Earth-based assets. We were going out system to ride out the disturbances until it was safe to come back – but that never happened. The TITANs came out of their holes and a wave of death swept over the world. The last sighting I've been able to find of my parents is a sketchy securcam image of the two of them fleeing from an upload swarm. Did it catch them? Did they make it, are they maybe wondering what happened to me? I'm not sure they'd even recognise me now.
I waited on Luna where they said until the Fall reached us there, but even with wary eyes on everyone and everything that came our way, something still slipped through the cracks. Sure there's New Mumbai and the crater that still smoulders, but not every exsurgent tendril came with charging masses of cannibals or upload swarms. People started to die in the surface hab I was in, just collapsing to the floor with blood streaming from their nose and ears and... I ran. Maybe that was my chance to wait and see my parents again, but most of the people who in there died and their egos were corrupted enough that the authorities refused to re-sleeve them and kept them in deep storage. I heard years later that some of their families hired an advocate who won a class action against the LLA to have them reinstatiated, but before they could be resleeved a virus mysteriously wiped that part of simulspace. Sound familiar? I'm pretty sure that was early Firewall at work, but at the time I had other problems on my mind.
I started having bad dreams. Bad? I started having horrible dreams. No big shock you'd say, I'd hardly be the only one after the hell the Fall had unleashed. My psychotherapist said I had post traumatic stress disorder after I talked to her about the bloody deaths of my friends in the lunar habitat, and counselled that with time and peace they would go away and leave me be. By the fourth month when they only seemed to be getting worse, I could tell she was starting to think I was just making it up for attention – or worse, that there was something badly wrong with me. How did I know that? I didn't know, just that I did and that she was thinking about drawing her superiors' attention to me. I felt an unconscious sense of fear at the idea, like there was a little voice cautioning me and so I began to smile and tell her how much happier I was feeling. My reports of peaceful dreams bore little relation to reality, and by the time I was formally released I was having hallucinations during the day as well. When my therapist and I shook hands for the last time, she noticed my eyes seemed a bit fixed and asked if I'd slept well. Though I was watching her eyes boil and leach from their sockets, I managed to force a smile to allay her suspicions.
I spent years on Luna, hobnobbing with the elite in my classy Sylph birthmorph, each of us doing our best to act all jaded and searching for some way to pass the endless decades of our ageless existence. Hoverboarding, flying in wingsuits, partying, all the favorite pastimes of the bored and independently wealthy. I even started selling my own X-casts, moving from the useless glitterati to more media celebrity circles as I began attracting a following. I wasn't suicidal – really, I wasn't! - but I found I just couldn't stay in the comfortable swaddling of Luna society. I needed to get away from time to time and get a sense of what the changes in me meant to who I was. But one can't just walk alone on Luna, especially on the surface. It gets boring or lonely even when it's not extremely hazardous to your health; so I flew instead, breaking up the monotony of my thoughts and escaping from new powers I didn't want, need or understand. As my mind flirted with insanity, my body swooped low to the ground, following the crater surfaces up to the rim before coasting down the other side between the jagged crags. You see, it turned out that I hadn't escaped the touch of exsurgence as much as I thought I had. While others screamed, bled and died, whatever was in that hab had slipped its slimy fingers into my mind and left some of itself behind. Whatever it did, it tore a hole in the curtain that veiled my mind and there was only so much time I could spend in Nectar before it became blinding and I needed solitude. But when I was flying – not the staid easy flapping down the flight lanes, but real flying – all that went away and I was in the moment, awash with the exhilaration of the wind and the ground and the world rushing by me.
And it turns out that X-casts like that are something people pay for. Who knew?
When I was in Nectar, I was one of the happy partying glitterati, and when I was out in the wilderness I was a hermit brinker. Moving between the two worlds like that, I ended up developing both sides of my life fairly independent of one another, though I'd do a little dealing on the side as I moved from one world to another. I was careful in my X-cast edits (thanks Pappa) and even with the thought-and-emotion feed open, surprisingly few folk made the connection between Vivien Leigh's X-casts and Vee the Brinker. More importantly, none of them ever picked up on any hints that I was an Async, as my kind are apparently called. I made a good living between my two worlds, a stable one learning what I could and even making friends on one side or the other. I guess I was some kind of addict, partying and socializing in the heart of Nectar until I couldn't take it any more, living for my breaks out in the Lunar wilds. I can't even remember why I thought signing up for a Pathfinder team was a good idea. Maybe the temptation of a new world, new skies? Maybe a huge wad of credits if we found something good? Yes, the inner system still works on credits more often than not. Maybe I just wanted to jazz up my feed a little.
I met up with my team, we did some basic training while we were waiting for our slot and then the eight of us went exsolar. It was a strange exoplanet with ochre skies and oversaturated colours everywhere we looked, but some of the plant life showed great financial potential for our anonymous private contractor. The thing is, someone else got wind of it. I don't know how they got there – did they bribe someone at Mars to dial the same address, or did they come through from somewhere else? One way or another, another team of Gatecrashers ambushed us on our sixth day out, killing half our morphs before we knew what was happening. I'd like to tell you the rest of us bravely fought back and killed them one by one, but in the end only two of us made it out with a handful of cortical stacks in their pockets – and neither one was me. That exoplanet went to someone else and we only got a fraction of the pay we'd been offered. Worse, our client decided it was our fault that his huge investment hadn't paid out, and vowed he would take it out of our hides one way or the other. Since I didn't really fancy resleeving in a pleasure pod in one of his brothels for the next twenty years I decided it was time to ego-cast out-system and with my particular upbringing there was only one place to go. Titan.
Ahhh Titan. You can speak any language you like across the solar system and anyone with mesh access can get a translation, but there's something wonderful about speaking with your own voice and knowing that other people are hearing what you're actually saying. That time I said I was coming in blind, and the guys heard me say I was wrapped in a curtain? Your translation is only as good as your software. Still better, I had some money set aside and was able to resleeve into a Titan-adapted Lunar Flier, courtesy of some of my local subscribers. There's an orbital habitat about two hundred thousand kilometres from Commonwealth Hub that is unlike any other I've seen or heard of; closer to an O'Neill tube than the more usual nest of linked bubbles. It's a cylinder a kilometre long and two hundred metres wide, each end capped by a large clear dome. Around the walls of the cylinder are a whole series of small dwellings, 'eyries' with nothing but smooth wall between them. Given the 0.2g gravity and the earth-normal atmosphere, it is a habitat made for the winged and with little accommodation for the 'groundlings' who might sometimes come to visit. The habitat is called “Heaven”, and while it is an autonomist habitat it is controlled by the Archangels, the so-called Seven who manage all the habitat's functions and keep it going. Around the time I arrived there, one of the Seven had decided he wanted to resign his role and head in-system to swim the skies of Venus and visit the Corona for a few years, so he suggested I buy out his share and take his seat.
I've picked up one or two skills over the years, and I proved my abilities in station and flying shuttle runs in the SLOTV to and from Commonwealth Hub long before my welcome as a quasi-celebrity might have worn out. Now I'm Archangel Vivien the Silent, and I have guestright for twenty four visitors at any one time. I've helped out autonomist friends before by letting them hide out in Heaven until the heat dies down. I can stretch my wings in Heaven's central core any day, and when the noise of minds around me get too strong I can go down to Titan and explore the high country with my own wings. I see more people out there than I did on Luna – just occasionally, off on the horizon – but I still find the same peace and solitude when I'm flying fast and low through a wind-scraped canyon. And again, the Blackwing X-cast subscribers can't get enough of it!
Firewall first got in touch with me three months after I arrived at Heaven. They were non-specific as to how they'd heard of me, but it seemed someone had heard about our little interlude on X3ƺ-Gamma and were impressed not so much by the fact that I'd died, as how I'd died. I won't lie, I wasn't all that interested at first even when they said there was a mission that needed someone with my specific set of skills. When they said they knew what I was, and would do what they could to protect me from the authorities as long as I was a friend of theirs, well... let's just say the bastards had me in a barrel and they knew it. I never spoke to the others in my team about how I'd been recruited. I suppose I didn't want to know if they'd been signed up the same way. Or worse, if they were fully aware and had been the ones doing the recruiting. Because it's not that bad working for Firewall. Sure I don't sleep any easier at night, and some of the things we see aren't doing much for my mental stability, but it's good to stand up and do something instead of hiding away whole parts of my life. Even if that means hiding behind a codename when I'm on missions, it's good to be me again – whichever me I am on that particular day.
End file.
[Want me to back that up to the mesh, or store internally Vivien?]
Neither. Delete.
[Done and done.]
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So assuming everyone is still ok with Snowman's original timeline we will start around Sunday-Monday (stateside that is, so please adjust accordingly for your time zone).
And to answer your question Ahran, I would probably say an emergency farcaster will be more prudent. Unless by wanting two copies of the morph, you meant that you were planning on running both simultaneously with a fork of yourself because that could be wildly interesting.
As ever, feel free to hit me up if I can help translate something from Eclipse Phase into English ;)
Sersi, are you planning on starting with us resleeving like in Lack or would you like to skip over the likely initial penalties and just have us wake up in our new morphs?
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It's finals week for my students, so I'm swamped with papers and grading. So if anyone is holding us up it is me :)
And, Viv, I'm happy either way. I was thinking rolling the penalties might be fun. But if it would be more of a frustration than a good opportunity for role play, we can skip it and assume you are already sleeved and synced.
I think it would be fun, unless we wind up going straight into rolls that we need to pass or die (lol). I'm enjoying writing Viv, so I might do the resleeving rolls now and when we start I can write her from waking up. While we made our secondary morphs, I assume that story-wise they're just the ones our handler prepared for us and we don't know what to expect?
Well that could have gone better. No applicable modifiers, but native SOM * 3 still didn't work out for Viv. Severe Failure means she takes a -10 modifier to all physical actions for 5 days; Vivien finds her new body takes some adjusting to, despite its similarities to the old one.
Alienation Test
The new morph may take some adjusting to living inside, but at least I'm fairly happy with the way it looks. Appropriate given what I havei n mind for it. :3
Continuity Test
I succeed, and with a MoS of 5 it's good that I'm doing this ego-cast with continuity. I may have trouble integrating, but at least it's not stressful! I think it's the size difference.
Async
Oh yes, right. Since I've had my little brush with exsurgence's friendlier cousin, I have a harder time resleeving and for 1 day I will suffer the effects of a single derangement. Minor is recommended, so I'll roll a d4 to choose between some that look tempting on the list.
Logorrhea? Oh good, for the next day it looks like I cannot shut up. This can only end well!
I love the EP rules.
I hadn't considered running both... but nah, giving a fork its own body and leaving it there for long periods is asking for trouble. In any case I should roll my integration tests:
Well, that was easy.
Not going to roll for Continuity? I understand we have a base stress of 0, or is that not a thing with synthmorphs?
At least you're pretty sure to wake up happy, I have some fun roleplay hooks lined up for every time that penalty makes me miss something. ^^
you only roll for continuity when you wake up from a backup. From my understanding A: we are simply transferring consciousness from our 'at home' bodies to our 'work' bodies, which means no continuity test and B: I have an emergency farcaster on my 'work' body meaning if we are resleaving after a failed mission I still have all my memories because once my last synth became inoperable I go splat and instantly send my current Ego to a resleaving facility.
Only time that wouldn't work is if we are on the other side of a pandora gate, in another solar system, because neutrinos are great... but they only travel at the speed of light.
Also I'm not a stinking Async so no disorders for me :P
Ah neat, thanks for explaining that. I was looking at the resleeving rules and couldn't find the circumstances for resleeving from a live egocast, and decided the closest approximation was to resleeve with continuity (meaning a base stress of 0, but the option for it to be bad if I miss my Will roll).
EDIT: Also, this.
Sersi, where are we ego-casting to?
I assume for most of us it's over 10 000km.
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Alright.
*whew*
I think I've got all the "math numbers" to equal all the other numbers, and I've written a backstory that at least can be said to be written in english.
I've got many of the rules at least what could be called as "read" but as far as "comprehension" goes, that may be a bit in the coming of things.
Some words need more numbers and some numbers need more words, but overall it's something that I'll be able to play with.
Tally ho! =)
On the ball and keeping an eye out here for when we start.
Sersi, have you decided if you want to take over ownership of this thread or simply create a new Discussion/Gameplay thread and put a link in here?
so... -artifical cough- did everyone move to a new thread without my knowledge? or is new gm still putting things together? only reason I ask was because I thought we were starting on monday....
Oh we're still here.
I didn't want to crowd Sersi any, but I thought the same thing.
also, there are so many other places cooler than icicles that serve as housing for people. Like the sundivers who live on the corona of the sun. Or the balloon cities of Venus that float by virtue of breathable air being less dense than the Venusian atmosphere. Or how about the people who live under water on Europa, in the hundred mile thick ocean that exists under it's icy crust. Then there's always the drifters who live in the Oort cloud, almost half way to the next nearest star, and rarely see any other transhuman being.
Makes Vivien's version of brinkership seem almost cosmopolitan.
I do hope we get to visit some of those environments.
When I eventually feel able to run an EP game, I want to take the team gatecrashing at some point. All about the exotic alien landscapes!
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