((Sure thing.))
- I stay here, too. Sean doesn'y look like a person I want to contact anymore. Besides, we have, what, first alien contact ever here, no? I want to participate in it somehow.
What is up to forms, bodies and mind-fusion, I think I know a way for him to practice and help us simultaneously. If we contact Cybersun somehow, declare that Yermakov Ostrog is now abandoned and uranium deposits below do not belong to russians in any way now, they will probably deside to get here instead of attacking. And then, when they arrive, he can have a lot of practice.
"You see...If I'm going to share mind-space with another self, I'd rather it was non-hostile. The problem is that the concept of death is alien to me: you may say that you fear death, but you know it - your friends, relatives, all those people you are told shaped your history - they all die. Humanity itself constantly dies off and is replaced bit by bit.
I, on the other hand, am a species of one. Before I gained concepts - extrapolatory logic, even - from one of you, I did not have a very efficient long-term memory, so I don't remember how I came to be. I don't know if there are others like me. If I have any way to reproduce, so far it has evaded me. I thought myself exempt from death, before Mitya came. In the complexity of his mind I saw a capacity for destruction - if he were to have full access to my mind, and wished to destroy me, it is possible that he could have. In fact, I tried to limit him out of fear, and accidentally...cut of something important. I regret it.
I tell you this as a gesture of...goodwill, yes? This proposed joining places me in your power as well as the other way round. However, I will accept your plan if you insist: I can wait. But can you? And even if it works, what will you do when it turns out that those others you speak of start losing integrity too? Of course, there's the chance that one of them will be influenced as your leader was, but then I will have to be loyal to them - can't have a hostile self sharing my mind." After this bout of eloquence, he shrugs - the gesture is comical in its theatrical quality: it's obvious that he knows the general purpose of a shrug, but hasn't really practiced a lot. Besides, he's perched on a wall as he does it.
"I think I should stay here." McGaw says after a moment of deliberation.
"If I...interface...with this being, we can use it's help. It will save lives. Many more then would be lost otherwise-it's certainly worth the risk of my own life, even if it comes to nothing. And if I'm not broken...I might be able to learn more about this world than I could in the years I have left to me.
Both of you should leave. Understand, if there was any other way...I don't want to die. I'm not doing this out of despair. I want to live...but, their are many other lives at stake other than my own.
I suppose I'll never get that coffee with Al-Radi now. Pity, I was just starting to enjoy wanting things." she says, sadly.
((Tho I don't really WANT to join the swarm, and this is a really ugly choice to be forced on me or anyone, the obvious sacrifice-in character I can't really see it going any other way.-the one for the many. You guys can feel free to knock me out and drag me off to the hover if you like, but you'll prolly get attacked...,maybe we can blame it on residual mind control...))
"You need to descend down to where my... stationary form is. To the Downbelow. My closest tunnel is a ways off, since Mitya's others - they called themselves русские, I don't know what the word correlates to in your speech-mode - language, that is - sealed the one in here off when they made their homes. You can go down to their storage room, or travel to my nearest open tunnel - but it seems to me that your tall ally will not give it back to you."((If I'm railroading you, please tell me - I tend not to notice, novice GM, remember? But you should know that the Grand Plan
tm doesn't necessarily require you to agree. I have contingency plans.))
*gun against his temple*
I'm leaving you here now. Congratulations.
Head to the hover. Wait for McGaw if she comes. If either Chester or the weird guy follows, kill them.
They don't look like they're following. Shit. You turn sharply on your heels and stride off through the gate and out to where you left the hover. Folding your legs so your knees are nearly touching your ears, you get in and start it. Screw all this. This stupidity epidemic is entirely unnerving and totally not the shit you signed up for.
There's a distant engine roar which gets closer and closer, and soon, a hoverbike bearing a pretty metal-looking dude arrives, stopping with a showy sweep.
((See Aseaheru's update))
Ask the quarter master if we have any bombs or explosives of any kind. Continue to monitor the enemy and head for the enemy camp.
Build another drone but add mechanical clasps to the bottom to carry things.
You drop your work for a bit and get down to where Matveenko is discussing something with another colonist, and ask him whether there's explodey things in storage. He scratches his head.
"Well, depends on how much boom you need. There's AM grenades, some shaped charges for mining and engineering use, finally, there's the emergency high-power AM charge - in fact, there should have been one on the Home, too - it's like a briefcase, so by so..." - he waves his hands in a rectangle roughly a foot on each side.
"Well, no matter."[3]The enemy is progressing at a steady rate. One of your drones detects a laser targeting beam - someone's twitchy. They ascend and scatter to avoid being painted, and the beam soon vanishes without finding anything.
You go back up again to see if there's any parts left for more drones, [luck:6] and look, there's a rotor blade left in the corner of one crate, under your parka. Looks like you missed it the last time. Lucky. You quickly assemble another drone, this time with a large claw for lifting objects under its belly.
((Okay, so I probably owe you an explanation of the game mechanics concerning stores. I can say that basic supplies - like circuit boards and microprocessors - are functionally infinite. On the other hand, it would be weird to have too much of something uber-specific like mini-copter rotors or aeronavigation gyroscopes, so when you embark on mass projects involving those, I roll to see how much is in store. You rolled badly the previous turn and it turned out that there wasn't much, and you used it all up. This turn, I made a luck roll to see if any parts have been left over by accident, which would only have succeeded on a [6], which you rolled. Gratz.))
((What, no NPCs? 
))
Off I go, into the wild blue yonder! Off I go, into the sky!
((Nah, I thought DarkArtemisFowl might want to go with you, but apparently he's tired of my pseudoscience bullshit. Can't blame him.))
You rev that bike like a rockstar, and set off in a flurry of snow while an uplifting power metal track plays in the background. After some dramatic biking, during which the camera shifts to emphasize the powerful allure of the chrome beast between your legs, you arrive at the SC expedition landing site. It's an actual wooden fort, with three watchtowers above its six-meter walls.
The jethover is parked near one entrance; a man in an exoskeleton is sitting in it, looking pissed.
((See Gamerlord's update, natch))
Author
Topic: Trailblazers in a World of Winter - Chester crashes the party. (Read 58576 times)