HoloEarth and Unmasking Spies

HoloEarth

Venturing out into the dark emptiness of space, the crew reduces to skeleton shifts - everyone into cryo, apart from a scant few officers and only enough crew to keep the ship running.

Halfway to their destination, NOA picks up a solar system; diverting only takes a little time, enough to wake a few more from cryosleep. It's a blue-green planet, third from the sun, with a single moon. Confused and cautious, the crew hailed the planet; they had to try a few frequencies first, but they finally reached a compatible video frequency. A nervous-looking lieutenant (human!) answered the call; after a bit of back and forth, he realized that their call was from space; this seemed to come as a great shock, even more so when Julian claimed that they had traveled from a far-off system. Eventually, the party was invited down to the planet. Initially suspicious, the party decided to bring several Du'ul Tlak guards with them, as well as two fighters to escort the personnel shuttle. Julian was surprised and pleased to learn that there are a quite a few more ships than before.

The party (Julian, Kiri, Gus, and the guards) landed at a military base, and were greeted by a Gen. Jon Johann; after some initial shock - as it turns out, the humans of this earth had never met an alien before, or even left the solar system - the two groups put their heads together to figure out what was going on. It seems the "real" earth and this earth shared a similar history, right up to the arrival of two astronauts. The two had left earth in 1982 in a primitive form of cryosleep; they arrived back on earth (or so they thought) in 2077. Gus wondered if perhaps the whole world was fake, controlled by an AI. Julian had a history of the earth loaded onto a tablet, and a scientist looked through, verifying details; he noted that their histories diverged in 2077, at the arrival of the astronauts.

Meanwhile, the ship had been scanning the planet carefully, and had discovered some strange anomalies. They asked Gus to hit something, and measure the results; he did, and his results matched the finding of the ship: the planet was, indeed, controlled by a computer! Vast parts of it was made up of some sort of hologram. Julian asked if there was somewhere to do some testing - namely, firing some big weapons. The general agreed to the test, and fired a few large rounds. The results seemed to be completely normal... and then Julian ordered an orbital strike. Boom! The results from that was certainly conclusive! The party returned to the ship, with the copy-earth scientist on board. One well-aimed shot later, and the computer system was fried - no more holograms. In fact, no more a lot of things! The scientist, as it turns out, was real, but only a few thousand more humans actually were. Julian, in a rare moment of clarity, wondered if perhaps shooting things wasn't the best idea. He quickly came to his senses, however.

A careful dig through the fake planet resulted in only a little more information - AlSec had created the planet, and had been stocking it with people; however, they had tried to move the planet through jumpspace, and has lost it. The planet somehow found its way out through the crack, drifting through space for hundreds of years. However, it seems a creature or organization known as the Entity has been directing AlSec...

Unmasking the Spies

Back aboard the Oncoming Storm, the party had barely made it into jumpspace before more trouble started. Jenny Ovensen, the ex-Norsup engineer, got into a fistfight with Zayd Nejem, a security guard. Though the other guards were originally on Nejem's side, the tables quickly turned when he blurted out his true allegiance - the Jihadist Crusaders! He quickly regretted his decision when the security chief, Lr. Alexy Bogomolov. He interrogated the prisoner, happy to be allowed to use any means at his disposal. Zayd didn't know of any other JiC on board (they aren't known for communicating with each other well), but he did know there must be other groups.

Kiri attempted to calm the growing crowd, and only made things worse; it wasn't long before the whole ship knew there was a spy on board, and others that hadn't been discovered. And what do you do when there are spies on board? A witch hunt! And a lynching! Or lots of lynchings!

One spy stepped forward - Lucia Belo, who had been with the ship from the beginning as a civilian, outed herself as a corporate spy for L20, and offered her assistance. She was allowed to go free - L20 was unlikely to hurt anyone, and she was actually a fairly useful part of the crew.

Julian, realizing that Zayd would say anything, and knowing that a lynching would be bad for morale, decided to throw a party - dancing, food, and above all, drinks. The party then wandered through the various cliques that formed, and ratted out a few other gang members. Two privates, Fred and Georgia Zellen, ratted on each other; it turns out they were low level AlSec plants, picked up before the freeing of Earth. Chad Tocher, a fighter pilot, was discovered by Julian - also AlSec. Dr. Sanjit Joshi, meanwhile, was hunted down by Kiri her her invisibility suit; she heard him muttering about working for Empire. He was given a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to, but otherwise he seems to have been left in peace. Well, after Kiri stopped tormenting him, anyway.

Another Empire spy was found, as well: Nikita Mercik, a shuttle pilot. She, too, was released.

Finally, Kiri kidnapped one final spy: Judas Pinkley, who had been getting into some fights recently. Kiri tied him down, and dunked him in freezing cold water... though neglected to actually ask him any questions. For her part, Kiri was given a slap on the wrist, and told to stop harassing people; Pinkley, however, was sent to cryo as the JiC spy he was.

That done, the last of the spies had been outed; however, that is not the end of this writeup. Oh no...

Before rounding up the last of the spies, Gus decided to give dancing a whirl. And whirl he did, with 4 raises on a skill he had no points invested in! His amazing display captivated the audience, and earned him a free d4 in dancing. Fancy!

These missions may not have had much fighting in them, but trust me... next session should make up for that. Oh yes it shall... you can't see it, but I'm gleefully rubbing my hands together, while laughing malevolently!

Updated Data!

After quite a lot of not actually working on it, I finally went in and fixed the errors and misspellings in the three pages on the toolbar to the right, there. The RoF for the weapons is fixed, for the most part; I reduced all RoF 4 to 3. I need to go through the rules some more to see if that is too much or not.

More importantly, I also updated the crew roster; the new, much bigger Oncoming Storm has a lot more people, and a lot fewer civilians (mostly families). Several civilians on board the Shifting Horizon opted to sign on, notably a large number of scientists. The roster doesn't have all the names, but it has most of the important ones. If you really want me to add the 600ish unnamed people, I guess I could... or you could! Find a random name generator, and press "refresh" 600 times, and there you go. Good luck!

Closing One Book, Opening Another

Months ago, the Shifting Horizon was sent out, along with a dozen other ships, to find a faster route through jumpspace to the Pentacus system. Today, that mission was accomplished. After some confusion, the gang realized that they were finally back home, and much cheering and back-slapping occurred. Acting Captain Grainer personally congratulated each one for a job well done. The jump route they found had indeed chopped the trip in half! The mission was not only a success, but a resounding success!

After the cheers died down, the Captain calls for a moment of silence for those lost. And 30 seconds into that minute, news arrives... Earth has fallen.

Queue the "Wait... what?".

In the months past, the already disliked UEA had begun making various "anti-riot" laws that had the opposite effect - mass demonstrations, many of which turned ugly. There were mutterings of revolt, of seceding from the UEA. UEA Peacekeepers were spread thin, fire-fighting small uprisings and quelling riots. Suddenly, 16 days before the Shifting Horizon arrived in known space, all traffic from Alpha Corvi ceased; all UEA ships in the area massed for a raid, but never returned. A second expedition of Duul'Tlak ships also set out, never to return. No one has any information from the blockaded systems. Alpha Corvi, Leporis A 4, Earth, and the Alchiba system are completely cut off. Attempts to find alternate routes from Bardron to Leporis have failed. Luckily... there's a brand new route back.

An emergency senate was formed, a new federation: the Allied Planetary Federation; they commissioned a ship from L20 Industries, a much larger ship; they also sent the crew of the Shifting Horizon on a mission to gather as many ships as possible. Of all of the ships in the fleet, the officers of the SH were the most experienced. Grainer was given full Captain status; the others were upgraded to barely a step below. The Julians split up, and managed to convince every single system to give their best. The Shifting Horizon was retrofitted to become a new ship - the APF SS Oncoming Storm. Taking the new fleet, they rushed through the new jumpspace route in record time, and arrived on the far side of Earth.

The previous fleets floated in a merciless kill-box, dead. It was up to the Oncoming Storm, two other battleships, four fleets of destroyers, and four flights of fighters to take on the four AlSec battleships, four fleets of destroyers, and four fleets of fighter.

The two sides met in battle... in the first round, the AlSec deployed their ships in a classic attack - battleships against destroyers, destroyers against fighters, and fighter protecting the battleships. The first salvo ended with AlSec losing every single battleship, and a fleet each of destroyers and fighters; the APF fleet lost their destroyers, but managed to survive otherwise. The second salvo was just as brutal; the APF elected to hold the Oncoming Storm back, and attacked fighters and destroyers evenly, while AlSec deployed everything they had against the battleships. In vain; AlSec lost all but one fleet each of their destroyers and fighters, while the APF fleet lost only a single battleship. 20 minutes too late, the AlSec reinforcements arrived, and were quickly slaughtered.

However, during the battle, Captain Grainer heroically gave his life, taking out a communications array and decimating the destroyers. As his crew jettisoned, he ordered his ship to ramming speed, saving the crew and the destroyers.

At the conclusion of the battle, Julian 1.1 was voted Captain of the Oncoming Storm; Julian 1.0 captain of the destroyer fleets, and Kiri was somehow put in charge of a capital ship of her own.

Earth was saved, but had suffered a heavy toll - half of its population was gone. Dead or vanished, few knew, and fewer still spoke of it. The cleanup took three months, purging AlSec from the system, and providing aid where it was needed.

Finally, they found a lead - an off-the-maps science base, near the Edge. Traveling there, they were greeted by a hostile force of humans and Kchk'Trrs, as well as a strange, alien creature who seemed to be teleporting around quite a bit. While most of the humans and bugs posed little threat, there were two that nearly ended the lives of several of the crew:

First, the teleporting creature nearly managed to teleport Julian 1.1 outside the ship; his armor full of holes from a crazy-powerful robot, he would have suffocated before he could get back in. Second, Gadget did his usual tactic of tossing a bunch of explosive cord at an enemy. Unfortunately, this enemy happened to be carrying 2 detonation packs, several EMP and thermal grenades, and some self-propelled missiles. The cord exploded for a total of 40-something damage, which was enough to not only punch through his armor, but set off all the armament he was carrying.

For 100 damage, plus 27 points of EMP damage. In a large blast radius. With 20 points of armor piercing.

Let me be clear. This was enough damage that it would have completely destroyed the Shifting Horizon. That is not small arms fire. That is not even quad-linked laser cannon fire. That is capital ship class railgun fire. It blasted a hole in the station big enough to set a jeep inside.

Oh, and Gadget? He was inside that blast radius. Did he soak the damage? Oh yes. He spent the black chip he had just picked up. Talk about lucky. Of course, he was reduced to "seriously bleeding out" not long afterwards, when the strange creature gutted him like a robot fish; two rolls (and rerolls) later, Gus managed to get him repaired, though his missing arm will have to be taken care of back on board the ship. Julian 1.0 got teleported outside, but made himself a new door and waltzed right in.

The teleporty-dude, however, wasn't done. He bounced around, nearly wounded a couple more people... then got caught by a Duul'Tlak sword. Shaken and wounded, he attempted to escape, but could not; Julian 1.0's guns reduced him to a bleeding corpse.

...which sank through the floor and vanished. He did leave behind his sword, a strange, fear-inducing blade that does Str+2d6+2 damage. Not too bad, actually.

Scraping any useful data, the crew abandoned the science station, and launched a single torpedo into it. Heading towards the coordinates they found, they arrived... outside the Edge. The universe was much, much bigger than anyone had dreamed; the Edge, as it was known, was not a time/space anomaly, but a wall - a huge, spherical wall, wrapping around the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Outside the exclusion zone, the universe looked much different. Systems were farther apart that science had calculated, orders of magnitude farther. Jumpspace still worked, but it would take much longer to get where they wanted to go. And this far from known space, they were on their own...

And thus ends Book 3: Corruption, and begins Book 4: Darkness.

Ghosts and Zombies

Once again, our intrepid heroes are waltzing across the galaxy, laying waste to everything I, their tireless GM, throw at them. Seriously, that power armor... don't worry, though, they may well meet their end in the next adventure.

But enough of that; on to this week's adventures!

Book III: Corruption

In Book I, the crew began their exploration in innocence and excitement; last week saw the end of Book II, in which the crew marveled and wondered at the strange world deep in unknown territory. This week sees the introduction of the third book (or season, if you're more of a TV person): Corruption. The many adventures of the Shifting Horizon are going to grow darker from here on out.

That said, on to the adventure!

End of Wonder: The Bomb & Escape

While this session was plagued with poor connection problems, it eventually all worked out. I'm going to have to set up a Skype account for next time; that should make things run more smoothly. Also, a point of note, Tyler (playing Kiri) drew a black chip; he held onto it, but it should make things interesting in the future...

But on to our intrepid adventurers! With their end of the bargain upheld - that is, finding the parts for the scientists, helping the queen of the red apes, and taking out the gang outside the city - the officers return to the mayor's office. As it turns out, the mayor may well have found the source of the signal; however, neither the scientists or the mayor himself have any idea what it actually is. After some discussion, the mayor agreed to let them "blow everything up," as long as it didn't do too much damage to anything else. The mayor sends an engineer to escort everyone to the source of the problem - a strange device in the depths of the power plant.

The group arrived at the device without incident, apart from a slight hangup trying to get medium power armor into a small access shaft. However, someone else got there first; a group of greys, symbiontoids, and insectoids are there - as are two red ape males! They all had a strange Y-shaped logo on their uniforms. Julian and Kiri both attempted to interrogate the group, but were met only with a few phrases:

"It's time has come."
"We must end the signal."
"The time of change is upon us, brothers!"

The conclusion was that this was some sort of cult, intent on... well, probably blowing something up. The device certainly looked like a bomb. Any attempts to intrude on the red ape men were met with firm but gentle pressure; "No, brother, let them work."

After some discussion, a few of the members began offering more information - they were part of an ancient organization, and the time had finally come to begin arming the device. The device wasn't a bomb, but some sort of transformative device. The group opinion was, "Sure, it transforms live things into dead things!" Amazingly, none of the murder hobos players ended up shooting anyone, though it was a close thing. The red apes completed their work, and allowed Kiri to have the book they were using. She noted the inside cover had a that the book was property of the Littlefinger. They bowed, and said, "We will see you on the other side of the Change. Go; the device cannot be stopped now."

As they prepared to leave, who should step out of the shadows but Du Gilkot! He applauds slowly, then casually guts one of the red ape men with his plasma sword. Stepping over the corpse, and allowing the other members of the group to flee, he began his villain monologue. Essentially, the device was full of power, and he intended to harness it, to power a city of his own, as well as a massive amount of weapons. His men fanned out: two in big power armor, and five each of symbiontoids and grays.

Unsurprised, Kiri fired a sonic-grenade-tipped arrow into the group, and exploded his roll; the two fellows in the power armor went down. Gilkot... didn't. He staggered back, shaken, but was otherwise unharmed. While everyone poured power onto Gilkot, Gadget unleashed his flamethrower and cooked half the enemies. And then the other half. Flamethrowers are just that good, especially against unenclosed armor. Gilkot managed to shrug off everyone's attack, and even got a good hit in on Julian, power armor and all; but before anyone else could turn their attacks on him, the device began to whine. Gilkot turned tail and ran, but Julian was having none of it. He dove towards him, slamming him onto the ground; after a bit of effort, he, er, twisted his head off. It wasn't pretty, especially since Gilkot's suit was still active. Sort of an... alien smoothie.

I should mention that in this battle, there were a total of 6 jokers drawn from the deck. Every time a joker is drawn, the deck gets shuffled, which means I somehow managed to shuffle the jokers to the top five times (yes, *both* were drawn one round). Sigh.

However, the walls around the device began to glow, and a white spiderweb-like circuitry whips out and begins wrapping itself around anything and everything it can. The group quickly fled up the tunnel; Gus turned and fired a boomer jetround, but it was neatly speared through by the circuits. The group decided now would be a good time to run for their lives.

Outside of the power core, the entire city was being pulled apart by the circuit-webs; the only buildings left standing are the queen's hive and the mayor's office. Even outside the city, tendrils were pulling down the jungle and wasteland.

Everyone ran for the mayor's office, as it was in a straight line towards the exit point. Julian, with his flight ability, jumped over the wreckage to rescue the red queen. He found her sobbing in her court, and quickly scooped her up. He managed to fly a little ways before the reaching circuits grabbed him.

At the mayor's office, the team entered just in time to see a shadowy figure stab the mayor before the circuits overwhelmed them, too.

Julian came to in a room - a bedroom, from the looks of it. On the floor was a young woman, obviously pregnant, and in labor. Oddly... she resembles the red queen, only in human form. Medical personel ushered Julian outside, where he was found by an officer and directed to a meeting room.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group wake up to see a Gibson, also human, wearing a captain's uniform; on the floor, dead, is the human version of Du Gilkot. Again, medics take over; a tall android beckons the group out, and into the same meeting room as Julian.

He waited for everyone to enter, then introduced himself:

"I am this ship's AI. I have saved them; long ago... so long ago, the ship was in danger. It was lost; Officer Gilcot organized a mutiny, and killed the captain. Simultaneously, the captain's child gave birth to a stillborn child, alone and unable to summon help. I burned the ship, transformed it into the world you saw, full of life, and danger, and safety. By transforming the ship, I could move everyone where they needed to be; I could reset time. It took... hundreds of years of recycling personalities, careful manipulation on a molecular level. In the end, the device was ready, but the ship was not. And then you arrived - you moved matter from here to there, changed thoughts and influenced minds, exactly where I needed it. I succeeded; Du Gilkot is dead. The Captain is safe. His daughter's child lives. I am fulfilled."

He answered a few more questions - the Shifting Horizon was relocated to this ship's landing bay, and Julian's armor is in the engineering bay of the Shifting Horizon (at this, Julian gave the AI a huge hug). Any weapons from the planet were placed in the rooms of each officer, including Julian's illegal disintegration rifle.

Finally, the android stood at full attention, saluting the crew... then drew his firearm and shot himself in the chest, remaining at full military salute until his body incinerated.

After a brief meeting with the captain, and meeting his daughter's new baby, our intrepid heroes returned to their ship.

That's not the end of the story, however. The giant worldship was one of five ships: Green Thumb, Indicator, Middle Son, Ring... and Littlefinger. Littlefinger was lost during a jump; Middle Son was damaged, but the other ships traveled to the Pentacus system and settled there. It seems that Littlefinger was here the entire time.

Murder, Mayhem, and... MmmExplosions?

Welcome once again to another episode of "Screw it, let's just kill everything," with our host GM. As our adventure begins, Julian rejoins the group, which now consists of Julian, Nae, Kiri, Gadget, and Gus. The party finally together again, the first thing they decided to do was split up. Typical.

First, Kiri and Nae decided to venture off into the jungle to collect Symbiontoid parts, They made a quick detour to ask the Red Queen for a couple apes, and she was more than happy to oblige. A good notice roll found the skins right off; into the bag, and away they went. The circulatory plants were also easy to locate. They found a large group of adult splanch nodes guarding 15 babies, and made short work of them with a well-placed sonic grenade. Those things are really useful! One last creature managed to shrug it off, but a couple arrows from Kiri brought it down. Splanch nodes in the bag, the last thing to grab was a pair of digestive slugs. Unlike the others, the slugs proved to be rather nasty creatures; one went down fast, but the other managed to slither close enough to get a good bite on Kiri - bad news! Splashing acid over her armor and into her eye, the slug managed to drop Kiri in a matter of seconds! And worst of all - no chips! Kiri was saved by her friend, who sacrificed a chip to give another chip to Kiri. This roll did much better, resulting in a temporary blindness. Quick intervention of the red apes got the slug off of Kiri, who was healed quickly by Nae, blindness and all. The slugs taken care of, the duo returned to the scientists, who were overjoyed by the delivery.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group - hereafter known as the "murder hobos" - followed a clue from the mayor about a bar outside the city. After witnessing a rather horrific fight between four grays, they interviewed the bartender, who directed them to the gang's hideout - about a block from the black market. This being the crew of the Shifting Horizon, of course, their first course of action was to attempt to blow up the black market, assuming that was the hideout. Of course, it wasn't; spy-holes caught them laying their explosive cord, and proceeded to warm them off via a pair of heavy machine guns. When that didn't work, battle was joined; a hidden flamethrower shot out of the building, hitting Gadget and Julian. After a brief skirmish with the bouncer, rounding the corner, Gus waited until his buddies were away from the building, and threw a demolition pack at the building. Oh yeah. Because the first thing we always want to do is blow up EVERYTHING. Sigh. Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention - there was also some 50 feet of det-cord laying around. Yeah.

So, not only was the building actually damaged, but the machine guns were destroyed, as was the flame thrower. Not content with blasting one side of the building, they then went around the other side and wrapped a bunch of explosives, including a vehicle mine and another demolition pack, around the door. Then sent the door through the building. Then looted said building, ending up with armloads of explosives, guns, melee weapons, and other such useful items. No power armor, though they did find a very fortuitous shield generator, worth half a million bucks. Ugh. Why do I roll so well for loot, but terribly in battles?

About this time, Kiri and Nae joined the rest of the group; Kiri packed up some of the new loot and headed back to the hotel, but the rest decided to attack the gang, which was now on high alert. With Gadget on overwatch, Gus the giant robot carrying the shield generator, Julian ready to lay out some serious pain, and Nae standing by to heal anyone, they launched their assault. The enemy consisted of a big boss in battle armor, two bodyguards, four wildcards, and eight mooks with negligible armor.

In the first round, one well-placed EMP grenade took out the shield; it did its job, though, keeping the other electronics safe. Two more EMPs were fumbled - yes, that's right, two ones - landing inside the enemy building. Luckily for the baddies, there wasn't anything near enough to be damaged...

After trading some ineffectual bullets back and forth, Julian rushed the building and managed to land a sonic grenade inside, taking out a couple mooks, while Gus managed to fire two heat-seeking rounds into the enemy building, wounding one of the wildcards inside. Nae, right behind Gus, managed to taser two of the wildcards who were trying to rush out, then one of the bodyguards; the other bodyguard got within striking distance of Julian... then didn't. Ones all the way. Ugh!

Mooks streamed out of the building, surrounding Nae, who had been laying them out with her taser; they swung, and missed, one after another, before Gadget nuked the lot of 'em with a portable missile. Boom, gone. Nae finished off the last one with a plasma round through the chest - pacifist, pah! Meanwhile, Julian was having no luck with his brand new disintegration rifle; it landed hits, but just couldn't get through armor.

Now the big boss was getting mad. He stepped out, keeping the building between himself and Julian, and let loose with a rapid-fire shotgun attack, firing slugs. Of course, Nae not only managed to soak all the damage, but managed to do it twice, one round after the other. Her luck ran out when a fumbled sonic grenade from Gus landed in front of her; she was knocked out. Finally catching a break, the boss stepped out and landed a portable EMP rocket in Gus's chest, knocking him out as well. The two wildcards left climbed out of the building to go after Julian; however, a lucky shot from Overwatch managed to nuke the power armor, slowing the boss down considerably. The boss dragged himself to the doorway, and flanked by his last remaining wildcards opened fire, nearly bringing Julian down; Gadget, having climbed down to join the fight at closer range, fixed the shield generator just in time, as Julian dragged himself inside. Between Gadget's flamethrower and Julian's grenades, they killed the two wildcards, and knocked out the leader. Whew!

Julian, desperate for his own power armor, ran over to open his prize... not realizing that a suicide mine was strapped inside. Now, a slight pause, here, to point out how my rolls happened. Sure, sometimes a slug nearly killed Kiri, or a mook nearly gutted Nae... but when it mattered? Nothing. BS rolls. This mine was a 6d6 mine; max damage 36, average damage somewhere around 21. And what did I roll, to hit the already-twice-wounded Julian? Four 2s and two 1s. Yeah. Enough to destroy the suit, but not a wound on Julian. Story of my life.

That said, the group did find a clue linking the gang to Du Gilkot, the mayor's adviser... as well as a second suit of power armor. Oh, and the randomly-rolled suit? Yeah. Awesome rolls. A heavy suit with flight and auto-targeting.

If I missed anything, let me know - but this was, as everyone agreed, certainly a battle to remember!