Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[_DivideByZero_]

Port Newton, Northern Ridge, Askarian | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Askarian Shores
Snow (Low visibility. Actions toward distant objects incur a small penalty based on distance)
Freezing Wind (-1 to all actions when exposed)

Punch the fisherman in the face. Hard. Try to repair my taser, and try to determine what other options do I have to get up.

[5] The fisherman seems exhausted already and is lying still on the floor, so punching him is easy! Then, you reach for your taser.

Given the amount of water vapor in Askarian's atmosphere, you suspect that your hackjob was improperly sealed and something bad happened because of it. You dearly hope the energy cell hasn't fried the interior.

[3] You look inside, and surely enough there is water condensed over most of the electronics, which suggests that it didn't shoot because of a short.

Luckily for you, nothing seems to be burned except the fuse on the transformer input. The taser's designers were kind enough to include a spare fuse attached to the receiver on the inside of the weapon, so once it dries out you can replace it.

[2] Orion's cable-web is blocking the passage to cargo bay and net machinery, according to the signs on the ship. He ran toward the rear of the ship. Toward the front should be the bridge, along with crew cabins for extended voyage and lounging areas. With lots of snacks, hopefully.

...

Habitat Ship Gamma, Askarian Orbit | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Urban Station
City Manners (-1 Diplomacy during first impressions)

Try and mock up some gas grenades - mustard gas, nerve agent, whatever can be made.

The printer should be able to make some casings. Feedstock is in abundance, and the machines can print in most metals and polymers, although it has a separate module for printing out integrated circuits. With your knowledge of military hardware, modeling the schematics is pretty straightforward. You start the printing, although the task might take several minutes to complete.

The chemistry, on the other hand... there's a reason why they don't just have tanks of deadly substances sitting around in the lab. Safety and all that. You could try and synthesize the chemicals, though.

Hilbert Station, George Orbit | 235d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Lawful Station
Quiet (+1 Intellect, -1 Stealth)

[5] Hilbert Station has pretty up-to-date content on Starpedia, so you are able to perform sophisticated research on your future enemies.

((Lower number = more difficult target))

[2] A greybearded 120-year old cyborg, Garfield is a time-tested warrior, backed by the full force of the remaining Loyalist forces. He spends most of his time in camp with his armies, and reportedly has some sort of arm-cannon as well as subdermal armor plating, making him a fierce combatant alongside his soldiers.
[1] Catelyn is a journalist living on the eastern hemisphere of Francia, deep within Bourbon Colony. Having received numerous... threats over the internet, her residence is currently under total lockdown by a detatchment of the revolutionary militia. Killing her will demoralize the rebels, but it will also get you branded as a murderer and enemy of the state. The loyalists will most likely pardon you, but if the rebels get their hands on you...
[6/1] Etcher is currently located in the Burgundian Academy of Arts, working with local researchers on a recent advance in nano-circuit etching technologies.
[3] William lives in the palace. It's as heavily guarded as you can imagine, but the local guard is fairly light. If there is an assault on the location, the FR Lightning will provide shock troop support while a nearby training facility will provide fast response.
[1] Niki is a... plant-human hybrid, or so you are told, with no stomach. She lives inside a specialized habitat maintained at a temperature of 50°C and flooded with CO2 and infra-red light in order to facilitate photosynthesis. Her career is mostly writing novels and social commentaries, although she has only gained a cult following recently. Her contributions aren't really military, as much as she has convinced a number of Colonies still on the fence to side with the Loyalists.
[1] Locke lives in a high-security lab deep within the planetoid. His work focuses on biological research and engineering, so it makes sense why he lives in an isolated environment, in case of disease outbreaks or whatever else happens.

[Gamerlord]

Evaluate the ease of production and effectiveness of the following:
Incapacitating - Knockout, paralysis, hallucinogenic.
Lethal.

[Happy Demon]

How the f*** does someone get 120 years old? I've never heard of anyone that old back on Bob... then again it's kinda violent, I think the long lifespan thing is a pure-human thing.
I really need to kill some of those pure-humans someday, I mean sure they got better technology and are more peaceful, but they have no spirit, they're so "professional" about everything.
I miss home, it was fun when I cut open that one guy's chest with a knife and ripped out his heart only to notice he had another... fun times, though he did kick my ass before dying of blood loss.
Anyway, back to planning.

I'll make Dick Etcher my first target, same as before, but I wont need a car to get to him.
Niki is off the list, she seems nice enough, and she's not one of those pure-humans, I should get in touch with her after the war's won.
Wait... mad scientist of biological engineering, half-human/-plant hybrid journalist... nah, probably just a coincidence.
I should find a way to get to Catelyn though, I could use the media buzz from killing the Dick Etcher to make her guards nervous, make them do mistakes.
Maybe I should side with the Loyalists, they got a half-human on their side, unlike the rebels who are pure-humans.

Find a ship going to somewhere near where Dick Etcher is.
Search for pictures of Niki when possible, she sounds like a nice gal.

((I will never stop calling him Dick Etcher, I will continue until he dies.))

[SaberToothTiger]

Try to go after Orion, avoiding all the cables that look like they are live and able to shock me.

[_DivideByZero_]

((My apologies to the delays, my week is somewhat overloaded. After this current week I should be free to roll more.))

Port Newton, Northern Ridge, Askarian | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Askarian Shores
Snow (Low visibility. Actions toward distant objects incur a small penalty based on distance)
Freezing Wind (-1 to all actions when exposed)

Try to go after Orion, avoiding all the cables that look like they are live and able to shock me.

[5] You carefully navigate across the web of cables, avoiding any exposed leads. That Orion is a tricky bastard, having torn off the contacts and frayed the inner fibers of each cable to make it more dangerous.

At first, it seems Orion has disappeared. Then, you spot a gloved hand hanging out of an open doorway. Moving closer, you look inside the doorway and find a closet with an open door, and Orion seated right in the center of it holding an oxygen tank and a gas mask along with a screwdriver and some hyperglue.

...

Habitat Ship Gamma, Askarian Orbit | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Urban Station
City Manners (-1 Diplomacy during first impressions)

Evaluate the ease of production and effectiveness of the following:
Incapacitating - Knockout, paralysis, hallucinogenic.
Lethal.

Incapacitating grenades will require some organic chemistry. You ask around for some help, and find a chemist who explains that he can synthesize some for you, but it will take a while to get a sizeable quantity, several hours, in fact.
You can probably just use some of the painkillers in a medical kit instead, you have experience with building improvised grenades out of those. You'll have to go through about 15 kits per grenade, however, and some might object to that.
Most drugs can be made into a grenade as well. There are no controlled substances on Guildships--enforcement is just too difficult for a non-police entity so there are certainly markets for them, both shady and legal.

Lethal grenades are much easier to build. Just mix around carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen to get Hydrogen Cyanide! Most simple chemicals will take just a few minutes.

You look out the room's skylight, and see a convoy of large, green, rounded vessels docking with Division C, the 'petal' of the ship across from yours.

Hilbert Station, George Orbit | 235d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Lawful Station
Quiet (+1 Intellect, -1 Stealth)

[6/5] You look up pictures of Niki on the internet. Oh God. CANNOT UNSEE.

[6/2] You find a party of loyalist-aligned freelancers in a local bar, talking about their plans to raid the Burgundian Academy in open disregard of bar policy. They are looking for like-minded individuals willing to join them, and are willing to pay good money, though a bit conspicuous.

A group of refugees from Champagne are also looking for a ship to board that's heading to Burgundy, which turns out to be one of the most secure rebel strongholds so far. It seems people don't want to cooperate with them, however. One trader mentions that "the Tories will be all over him!" if he's caught.

[SaberToothTiger]

Look for a live cable, garb it, and shove it against Orion's throat.

[Gamerlord]

Have the chemist make the incapacitating grenades while I head off to check out that convoy of ships.

[Happy Demon]

The f*** am I looking at? Maybe it's rebel propaganda... f***ing rebels.
These mercenaries could be fun to hook up with, and they've certainly got the spirit.
Worst case scenario is them betraying me, forcing me to kill them... dead pure-humans, I kinda hope they betray me now, more pure-humans to kill.

Join the mercenaries.

[_DivideByZero_]

((Again, I apologize for the inactivity this week. Now that finals are done with, it's time to get down to business.))

Port Newton, Northern Ridge, Askarian | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Askarian Shores
Snow (Low visibility. Actions toward distant objects incur a small penalty based on distance)
Freezing Wind (-1 to all actions when exposed)

You head back along the hall to grab a cable, taking advantage of the fact that Orion is sitting while you are up and ready. You back into the room where the giant motors are, taking note of several details mentally.

-The hall has several slits running across the width of the hall, primarily spanning across the branches of an intersection. Each slit consists of an interface between the rubber floor and a ridged, metallic surface about 10cm wide.
-The ceiling is open and contains all sorts of piping and wiring. The none of the wires are as big as the ones in the motor room, the pipes could be pulled off and used as a weapon, perhaps.
-There are black boxes attached to the wall every few meters. Each bears an inscription: "SensePlus Oxygen Sensor, do not cover."

Grabbing a cable and hurrying back into the hall, you confront Orion directly as he exits the closet. He is unsuited and unarmed.

Initiative:
[5] Orion
[3] Hal

(6) vs [6] Orion preemtively causes you to stick the cable's frayed ends against your torso. You aren't able to resist... but fortunately the floor is rubber, and no current flows through the cable.

[3] vs (1) You're much smarter. Having escaped several close encounters with electrical deathtraps, you know what kills and doesn't kill. You tackle Orion, shoving him against the metal wall. However, as you lunged, you lost your grip on the cable, which was pulled out of your hand right as you were about to make contact. It wasn't long enough.

You and Orion both lie in a heap one foot away from the cable's end.

...

Habitat Ship Gamma, Askarian Orbit | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Urban Station
City Manners (-1 Diplomacy during first impressions)

Have the chemist make the incapacitating grenades while I head off to check out that convoy of ships.

Alas, the convoy is on the other side of the the ship. Not across, but directly overhead.

[1/1] The chemist runs into a bit of a hitch. The catalyzer's components have oxidized, and so the machine requires a new set of catalyst pieces. You, being the kind and generous person that you are, offer to go get some from Storage.

Inside, you discover a basket of parts labelled "SYNTHESIZER CATALYSTS" alongside other boxes such as "STATE RESONATOR," "ENTANGLED DOTS," "TELESCOPES," and "SCIENCE BOX."

...

Hilbert Station, George Orbit | 235d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Lawful Station
Quiet (+1 Intellect, -1 Stealth)

The f*** am I looking at? Maybe it's rebel propaganda... f***ing rebels.
These mercenaries could be fun to hook up with, and they've certainly got the spirit.
Worst case scenario is them betraying me, forcing me to kill them... dead pure-humans, I kinda hope they betray me now, more pure-humans to kill.

Join the mercenaries.

[1/6] "Hah! You hear that?" says a stout, blonde-haired member of the freelancer party.
The others are not so quick to judge, but they too share the same sentiment after a short while.
"I think this would count as manslaughter, in fact," says another.

[1/3] Worse yet, a security guard walks up to the group and tells the freelancers that their plan will have to be reported, as per station rules. One of the freelancers, a dark-haired woman with an eyepatch on one eye and a red-tinted augmented lens on the other, draws a bulky energy pistol and twirls it around on her finger. The guard steps back.

"I'm going to ask you to leave. We won't report you if you don't stay here and keep discussing it."

[SaberToothTiger]

Smash my tazer into pieces and take out the cables from it, lengthen the big cable with the smaller ones and exlectrocute Orion.

[Gamerlord]

Grab the box we need, but check the Science Box as well.

[Happy Demon]

Getting arrested before getting to the action wouldn't be good, they need to go so I can follow.

"Don't let yourself get outed this early, or else all the important stuff and people will be long gone by the time you get there.
So maybe talk somewhere else?"

If the mercenaries decide to go somewhere else, follow them.

[_DivideByZero_]

Port Newton, Northern Ridge, Askarian | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Askarian Shores
Snow (Low visibility. Actions toward distant objects incur a small penalty based on distance)
Freezing Wind (-1 to all actions when exposed)

[3] Crafting an elaborate finisher while grappling with your opponent is a busy deal. Moreso while your opponent constantly interferes with you. You manage to pull a cable out of the taser.

Initiative:
[4] Hal
[1] Orion

Bonuses:
Orion: -1 (Grappled)

[1] vs (2-1) You loosely connect a thin wire from the taser to the end of the high voltage cable, and just barely manage to contact Orion's arm as he tries to swat you away.

The wire makes contact and current flows through. Orion noticeably twitches. However...

[2] The wire explodes, smearing your visor with ash. Orion drops to the floor still, and you observe the damage. His left hand is bleeding and has a large scab of cauterized skin. His right hand is burned heavily where it made contact with the wall.

...

Habitat Ship Gamma, Askarian Orbit | 233d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Urban Station
City Manners (-1 Diplomacy during first impressions)

You find:

• A badly written note, in some Amorian dialect you haven't bothered to learn.
• Another note, this time in New English, but also covered in decayed grey matter which smears the text beyond recognition.
• A third note, finally with something you can understand. It reads: "Awaiting data from Hamley. I've enclosed the equipment I borrowed. Also, Rekna's State Resonator is in another box."
  

The rest of the box contains various pieces of equipment used to detect and record the positions of particles.

Spoiler: Amor (click to show/hide)

A small, submartian world orbiting van Maanen's Star. The planet is a cold, barren world, but it was captured by the star, recently in astronomical terms. The true origins of the life here is a mystery, and archaeological efforts to discover their origin are set back by the fact that the worldgate to the van Maanen system is unstable and periodically needs to be rebuilt to compensate for the proper motion of the star.

van Maanen's star is a white dwarf near Sol that harbors a devastated planetary system, the product of both the end stage of its evolution and the capture of Amor into its system. Amor was not originally part of the system, but was rather a rogue planet ejected from some other star. van Maanen's gas giants have long been blown away by the star in its death throes, leaving behind a thin asteroid belt and a small terran-mass planet. Interactions with Amor as it entered the system ejected most of the asteroid belt, stabilizing Amor's orbit close to the white dwarf.

The terran mass planet, Amigo, was the core of an ice dwarf that lost its thick atmosphere to solar wind as van Mannen's star died. It remained gravitationally bound, although most of its mass evaporated away to form a thick ammonia atmosphere. Today it is a small .38 terran mass ball of ice with heavy winds and a toxic, corrosive atmosphere. Its moon is more useful, having been a valuable source of raw materials for the fledgling Amorian civilization during its entry into the space age.

Amor was discovered by Luis Maarka, a Martian scientist, in 2554 using the Pachacuti Solar Lensing Array and measuring the oscillations of the star. It has been dated to be 9.2 billion years old, although it has spent 6.3 billion years in the interstellar medium.
Amor is a rocky world of .08 terran masses, differentiated into a frozen ice crust saturated with tholin and a rocky interior with a crust, mantle, and differentiated core. It has a very strong magnetic field, which protects its civilization from the harsh radiation from its host star.
Amor was captured no later than 53 million ears ago, which appears to have been enough time for a cavern ecosystem to arise in its depths, though the specifics are uncertain. The immense tidal forces resulting from its close proximity to the white dwarf has tidally locked it, but its interior has been resurrected by tidal heating. Its cavern layer spans deeply, and geologists suspect that the caverns were formed not by flowing water, but rather a combination of impacts, fractures, and loose material settling in the world's low gravity. Nevertheless, the presence of water in the caverns allows organisms to thrive off energy from an exotic thermocouple effect displayed by vast, worm-like "trees" which span several cavern layers.

Spoiler: Amorians (click to show/hide)

Amorians resemble Terran fungi, but as a sapient, motile race they have significant differences in biology. They reproduce vegetatively, with individuals slowly growing new matter which eventually sprouts a new nervous center. Most Amorian individuals are actually a collection of independent minds, which share thoughts but hold different awareness and opinions.

Amorian civilization is largely pacifistic, as they shun the destruction of their nervous centers. Indeed, they deeply value all sapient life, so much as to cherish even the smallest budding nerve cluster. Since Amorians do not control their development, and separating Amorians is not feasible until several decades of growth, any given Amorian is highly likely to be "pregnant," so to speak, with budding nerve clusters. As such, war literally kills innocent babies.

Lacking astronomy, sustainable agriculture, and a decent position on the food chain, Amorians spent several million years in technological stasis as gathering tribes, wandering through the caverns in search of food and shelter from predators. As time went on, the cavern mosses thickened and a deep layer of mud started forming on the cavern floors, which allowed formerly endangered species of plants to thrive in the new environment. Amorian civilizations soon started popping up near underground lakes, eventually forming vast empires taming and controlling the resources of their planet. Having several layers and a fairly homogeneous space to settle, Amorians became more prolific than humans, settling ten times the space on a world with less surface area than the old American continent.

Their technological development, however, progressed mostly in materials science, chemistry, and mechanics. Being blind, they lacked an intuitive understanding of radiation, and living in a claustrophobic space with no sky or horizon led most to believe the world was an infinite flat dungeon of sorts, and it was centuries after they built the first steam turbine that they finally discovered universal gravitation. They built analog computers, but a lack of feasible and safe mining techniques made cheap, portable computers nothing more than fantasy. When they discovered the surface, then (a side-effect of the aforementioned law of universal gravitation, which rules out a possibility of a dense, infinite universe), they had to send and test their equipment with real, breathing individuals. Needless to say, many of them died, and most Amorian individuals never even heard of space. Regardless, a few civilizations kept trying to learn more about the universe around them, seeing the vast, cold vacuum above them as the final frontier, full of mysteries that will never be known if the technological stagnation were to continue.

Lacking eyes, they never made much progress, failing often and catastrophically. They had no radar, their echolocation would not work, and they had no way to figure out which way the planet was after lifting off, so unsurprisingly they stopped after a certain point and revised their theories. They eventually discovered quantum mechanics, which led to optics, and eventually they were able to create clunky audio-based radar systems and navigation. They never discovered the other planet in their system, nor their own host star, until humans showed up and made first contact.

...

Hilbert Station, George Orbit | 235d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Lawful Station
Quiet (+1 Intellect, -1 Stealth)

Getting arrested before getting to the action wouldn't be good, they need to go so I can follow.

"Don't let yourself get outed this early, or else all the important stuff and people will be long gone by the time you get there.
So maybe talk somewhere else?"

If the mercenaries decide to go somewhere else, follow them.

The woman with the gun halts the weapon's rotation and holds it up without pointing it at anybody.
"Our plans are nobody's business. You try to stop us, you're next."
The stout one speaks defensively.
"Now now, no reason to threaten the peacekeepers of this fine establishment. Let's be on our way."

[5] They head back to the elevator to reach the docking station. You follow them, staying just out of sight. The only elevator is in a vacuum-sealed tube, which it magnetically levitates across to reach the docking bay in a couple of minutes.
[2] The freelancers are the only ones present, and they begin to climb the stairs to the elevator itself, which is located in a cylindrical chamber with the entrance halfway up, an emergency clinic and maintainence airlock (into the tube) located at ground level just below the entrance.

[Gamerlord]

((Sentient fungi? Hell no.))
Put it all back and take the box back to the chemist.

[SaberToothTiger]

Wipe my visor. Get a heavy object. Bash said object against Orion's skull, and drag his body to the drop, and throw him down.