Roll 46
POI's:You can make up POI's. In fact, please do. That would take some work off me.
This list is unfinished.
In 2028, war between the Ross and the Centarui happened like usual. Both empires initially attempted to attack each other's homeworlds instead of major colonies. The Centauri government, to make things horrible for the Ross, built massive walls overlooking the Ross' major landing zone, and affixed howitzers and flak cannons atop its supports.
Seeing the wall's construction, the Ross at first ignored it, executing sieges against the city as per standard procedure.
As the wall expanded sideways, however, the Ross had to travel further and further--while taking fire--in order to move around it.
Eventually, seeing as the Centauri would eventually expand the wall to circle the entire city, the Ross gave up.
They retreated, and began attacking colonies, returning to a more traditional form of warfare.
Today, the bulwark is largely unused, but due to the massive costs involved in removing the thing, the Centauri government has simply let it stand. More recently, junkers have been attempting to cut parts of the wall off to sell as high-quality steel, as well as collecting the rusting howitzers and cannons still in place.
----Gear District----A
launch loop that links Empire City to an orbital network of space elevators, other launch loops, hypersonic trams, cargo drop platforms, and stations. It is
always bustling with cargo, passengers, and even ships being lowered and raised into orbit.
The structure itself has lasted nearly 850 years, having been set up by Centauri engineers 50 years after the
Centauri first landed in the ocean. One of the deflector stations, in fact, is centered around the floating remains of the colony ship.
The launch loop costs 10 credits per ride, with an additional credit for every metric ton of cargo shipped.
(Until I post a writeup on planet Centauri, I'll say here that the
Centauri carried with it a miniature city, complete with state-of-the-art recycling systems, even for the 2090's, when it was started and finished. Upon landing, the ship's engine and hull was dismantled for materials and electronics while the reactor was used to power the first settlement, built on top of the buoyant colony ship.
Centauri Prime was discovered to have little if any ocean currents due to a conveniently large moon that orbited about 1.2 times every Earth-day, eclipsing the sun every night, keeping the planet's surface shielded from the star. Centauri Prime has a very, very long day of 320 days, and a year of 340 days.
Every 14-15 years or so, the planet's lit side becomes its dark side, freezing everything and forcing wildlife to migrate. Centauri cities are usually fitted with artificial heating to protect themselves, or simply built on top of large geothermal vents, like Empire City).
Empire Launch Station has a deflector setup underneath the city plaza. The ring is not very well protected, because it is firstly unknown to most citizens, and secondly there are two main entrances, both of which are locked down unless maintenance is required.
----Steam District----Technically not part of the city, but nonetheless important, the massive lava pit near the city radiates heat which protects the general area from freezing over during a 'dark decade.'
The Empire City Emergency Lava Pit Sealing system consists of a massive tungsten door, powered by massive servos. When activated, it can seal the lava pit in case of volcanic activity. Attempts have actually been made to sabotage the system in the Ross-Centauri war of 2928, but those attempts have since been repaired after a short period of civil panic over the possibility of an eruption.
The lava pit has been stable since its discovery. Owing to the planet's lack of rotation, scientists have guessed that because the planet lacks strong magma currents, no eruptions should occur in the near future.
Surrounded by a high wall, the pit is a common tourist attraction during the 'light decades.' However, during 'dark decades,' the top of the pit cools over.
The pit's industrial use is obviously power. The massive amount of heat in the lava allows factories to pump it from the pit's surface and use it for local power generation. A lava distribution system exists and is run by the Centauri Civil Works Institute, both pumping and distributing lava to nearby factories in order to reduce power costs.
----Spark District----Located in "The Drop Crater"--a crater formed through centuries of cargo drops--Alpha Drop Zone features a nearby recovery and repackaging station designed to retrieve cargo dropped from orbit. The cargo drop process is quite simple, really. You drop cargo off at an orbital drop station, paying 3 credits per disposable shock-absorbing crate, and it is subsequently dropped from orbit. This system has been around for ages, quite literally, and still works today as a simple method of transporting cargo via gravity.
'Poor' in today's terms doesn't quite mean what it did in the modern era. Food is so cheap now that rarely will people lack the money to buy food. Simply due to the massive demand for food, agriculture organizations can provide basic food for free, even.
Luxury food, of course, remains out of reach from the poor. So do many forms of electronics.
However, the residents of Spark District are not useless, unemployed beggars. They often work in scrap fields, ship repair shops, gun stores and ranges, and in some cases, they operate with the black market.
The reactor is essentially what powers the city. It is a huge, massive, colossal, gigantic cylindrical structure measuring two kilometers in height and roughly four hundred in width. At its base is a joint-uranium mine and nuclear lab. While miners toil away mining pitchblende, geothermal power is used to smelt the ore and extract the uranium, then turn it into plutonium by feeding into the reactor's first breeding stage, which is used to power the next stage.
The next stage is a massive fission core. While fusion remains far more efficient than fission, the city's near boundless uranium deposits make it far cheaper to simply use fission for power rather than fusion. The reactor was completed two decades ago and has proven to be a far, far superior source of power than the previously used geothermal vents, which have now been utilized solely for magma powered factories.
The Light's Stead is a large tavern located in the Spark District just outside of the slums, because of this it is frequented by Black Market Dealers, Arms Runners, and Mercenaries of all kinds. Because of this the place has a rule where all weapons are scanned before entrance, and anything fore more then personal defense is not allowed on the grounds.
Any form of government security stays far away from this establishment due to the numerous number of lawbreakers who would attack them on sight. This place is also one for meetings between the Dealers, and their customers as well as a place to make contacts in the Black Market, and Arms Runners.
The Arms Runners are a special criminal organization that works for anyone who wishes to get things where the opposition's resistance is to great for others to get through. They are trained highly in stealth, assassination, and information gathering making them the perfect decision if you want someone to escort your supplies to their destination. Though, because of their unique neutral status in the Criminal Underworld they are extremely cautious, and will never support anyone in the destruction of any small crime group no matter what the reward is.
Events:[1]
Caplus fired a bolt of lightning from his gun toward the Gorves. The bolt arced straight around both Gorves, instead hitting a copper tube extrudign from the ground and curving 45 degrees toward the reactor, progressign toward its center.
The bolt heated up the copper, melting a significant portion, resulting in a jet of heated copper being propelled outward, toward Caplus.
[4] Caplus swiftly dodged the jet, but was then knocked down by the blast of pressurized coolant. His shield deflected most of it... but all around him, the coolant seemed to boil on contact with the steel ground. He decided not to turn his shield off as the either hot or cold air that was likely now surrounding him would, probably, kill him.
[1] Wait a minute, the shield doesn't affect gasses... ahh!
Caplus is freezing(Caplus could not make out the gorves' images through the jets of coolant now spraying all over the place from the copper pipe--ruptured in many places.
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[2]
Milia continued to fire bolts repeatedly at the still targets, from 50m away. She figured that this range was far too simplistic to get any real experience. She needed some kind of combat perhaps, in order to continue her practice.
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[6]
Varron scrambled into the shelves, tilting his head sideways and skimming relentlessly over the titles of the books in the psychology section. He came across
Therapy: How it's done and pulled it off the shelf, continuing to look for other books. Not finding anything else--that is, readily enough, Varron settled for the book and opened it, only shoving it back into the shelf, displeased with its contents. He proceeded to message Kayle for help...
What would be a good time for us to meet up and try that magic-bleeding-effect thingo I mentioned earlier?
How about soon. Judging by the tone of your voice you seem to be in a hurry, and we're busy. But anyway we're at the MiliTech building. Wait in the lobby there if you want.
Varron lunged down the stairs and otu the door. On his way to the MiliTech building, crossing the plaza, he came across a strange patch of tiny blue dots. While the other information gained from his clairvoyance confused him and overwhelmed him, this patch of goo intriqued him. He noticed there was actually a trail of the stuff, stretching, in one direction, over one of the pathways leading to the plaza. In the other direction, it led across the plaza, over the road, through the fountains...
Varron stopped at the sight of larger globs covering the fountain. It reminded him of a certain kind of fungus, specifically bleeding tooth. While this blue goo looked nothing like the fungus, the way the goo was splattered across the surfaces of the fountain banks and the ground.
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Herros returned to the University's planetside building, and entered his room with his equipment. He phoned the station officials to ask if they could cargodrop his workshop tools and projects down here...
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Zakroff [6] fused the autocannon to the turret and ran off to the shadows as it fell over sideways due to the starship weapon's immense weight.
In the shadows, he watched the enemy party engage the tank's brakes in order to do either maintainence or a simple inspection.
As one of them struggled with a valve, it suddenly spun around, releasing a jet of freezing coolant into the leg of an adjacent goon.
"Gah! Shut that thing off and heeeelp!" he screamed as he fell over on his now-heavily-frostbitten leg.
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Amatin squinted in the dark, [3+1] making out some shelves stacked with boxes in the room. The room itself was smallish, about the size of a large home's living room. [3] There were lights wired to a small box near the single entrance into the room, but thee was no switch on the box. There were probably some breakers inside, perhaps, but the lid was screwed on.
Kayle rotated her forearm and held down a small button. With a click, the PDA cover frame lifted up and she removed the device, turning it on and opening the video of Jaffar, then using it like a flashlight.
The lgiht dimmed momentarily, and she heard a quiet jingle--new message, it was from Varron...
(see above)
[4] Kayle was absolutely sure there were no people in the room.
Jaffar, after a quick exchange with Kayle, he turned his attention to his audio-tracker module. He expanded the view to also display specific sounds, admiring the orange window's subtle gliding animations. His suit noted a strange ticking noise coming from one of the boxes... Moving further in, he narrowed it down to the specific box.
Meanwhile, Kayle and Amatin decided to read the labels on everything, Kayle with her flashlight, Amatin with his keener vision.
PLASMA PDW, AWAITING AUTHORIZATION
PLASMA HUNTING RIFLE, AWAITING AUTHORIZATION
EXPERIMENTAL PLASMA LAUNCHER, AWAITING AUTHORIZATION
PLASMA BOLTER, AWAITING AUTHORIZATION
TOP-SECRET, DO NOT OPEN (Jaffar is looking at this one)
MULTI-RIFLE, AWAITING AMMUNITION SHIPMENT
LASER PDW, AWAITING AUTHORIZATION
TWIN LASER RIFLE, AWAITING SAFETY TESTS
SHATTERER CANNON, AWAITING COLLATERAL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT