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Post by Admin on Jan 28, 2014 21:30:18 GMT
Wars Session 1 Recap
The Gongen were loaded onto the ship, the cargo bay doors closed, and the Mavericks and Gongen just stared at each other at first. There was a period of awkward silence followed by a period of awkward introductions.
"Jinu" (Means Enraged) a Mark-6 Security Bot was there waiting in the cargo bay and wasn't being very productive. It mentioned that it noted that it shouldn't kill the six targets in front of it. The Captain told it problematic and un-direct orders which confused the bot until it was told to shut down.
The gravity fluctuated due to some GRAV engine quirks and Theo went off to investigate it. There was a strange smell coming from the engine room. Theo noted that it was a coolant leak. It looked pretty substantial. It was mentioned that as long as they don't inhale the fumes for more than 20 minutes at a time they should be fine.
Crew members went to pick their rooms, while the Captain hung out with Zixin the pilot bot on the bridge. They seemed to do so rather quickly and as a team.
In the Med & Science Lab the Doc looked around and started talking to the A. I. Program. It noted that an adrenaline shot was missing for 46 mins, and it was unknown as to who took it. Pon also seemed to be fearing for her “life” as well as the lives of the crew. The crew started to line up in the Med Lab to get checked out by the doctor.
Pon began talking to Bryce since he was plugged in to the systems of the ship. “I have never had such a close relationship with a human before, where they can talk to me with a mere thought. Will I able to dream via this neural uplink because you dream?” Bryce noted that she was building barriers around her code to protect herself and her workings from him.
LV-426 “Chip” the Gongen that was brought by the Mavericks was the first to get onto the Doc's medbed. He was checking his DNA, and doing various checks. Chip volunteered to be the Doc's assistant. Chip said that he wanted his Mark-17 behavior modifying implant removed, but the Doc refused.
Kaz the Gongen was next to be investigated. He recommended to the Doc that he should try meditation to relieve his ailments. At this point Pon the A. I. got a bit bossy and told the crew to report to the Med Lab. Kaz was told that he had powdery ear wax. Pon said that they would have to get used to her and that she would have to get used to them. “If there are any funeral processes or rites that you want said upon your death, please let me know in case I am the only one left.”
Pon also reminded the Doc that the Fleshports needed installed into the patients since they were necessary to upload or “upjack” their memories, personality, and DNA into the 3D printing machine that can clone them. Pon said, “There is only a small percentage chance of being paralyzed.” It was all organic in nature, and it looked like it was genetically engineered. “Congratulations on not being paralyzed.” “Theodine your presence is requested in the Med Lab, I will not say it again.” The lights then turned off in the engine room. Bryce told Pon that her actions weren't appropriate and she turned the lights back on.
The Doctor, and Lieren, and Theo got into a bit of a disagreement about what the Doctor was doing, and Pon put on some calm classical music because she detected some hostility. Theo's bladder was apparently damaged, and the Doc told him to drink some medicine. His outer wall of his bladder was too thin, and the Doc said that it happens to mechanics. The Doc didn't like people questioning his techniques and skills.
Pon pestered the Captain again to get him to get his fleshport installed, and she also called Bryce “the intimate one that plays with my sub-routines.” She also played a medley of 4 different wedding sons in Bryce's head. Bryce was told to exercise more, and to take 5 walks around the ship at least once a day. With that all of the examinations were complete and the fleshports were all installed.
The crew all felt a strange tingling sensation that could not be identified.
On the Bridge the Captain and Zixin the Bot was in the pilot seat. Zixin apparently didn't realize they were piloting the ship into a dangerous situation, as it was not told. The Captain told Kaz that Chip was a convicted criminal, and that is what the chip prevents him from killing them all. Zixin told them it would be 110 hours till they arrived at the Rift.
Pon reminded the crew to Upjack themselves into the 3D Cloning Printer, and they all do so. Kaz invited the Doc and Chip to come to the airlock / meditation chamber to meditate later. Kaz noted that whenever Chip talked a light lit up on the side of his implant, as if it was preventing him from saying his true thoughts. Bryce noticed that the 3D Cloning Printer was designed by Tyrell Corporation.
The group went to the lounge and the Captain Lieren was making them up some badly prepared but good smelling traditional Gongen food. During the meal the GRAV drive fluxuated again and their food lifted up and landing off of their plates. Pon was told to examine things in the engine room, and it told them that on the way out they closed the door and it was opened. Pon didn't know who made the changes, which was disturbing. The Gravity Plating on the entire ship was going to fail. He had to replace the entire Gravametric Field Generator. He told them that the ship needed to be shut down for awhile. Pon was asked how she feels, and she replied that she knew what Bryce feels since he is plugged into the mainframe.
The Captain used the PA system to tell the crew that the gravity was going to be out for about an hour while repairs were being made. Chip asked if he could help Theo work on the engines, and Theo gave him a curt no response. Zixin informed the Captain that there were two Bots with soft-mag feet that were investigating the outer hull of the ship. The image was then shown on all of the monitors in the ship. They looked like they were cobbled together from Earther Juggernaut tank parts and hover tank parts. They were communicating to each other, but it seemed impossible to communicate with them. They were talking to each other in a hybrid binary language. Pon was then asked to scan through all of the 8 outside cameras to see when they were introduced to the hull. Fred and Melba were their names apparently. They were walking above the lounge.
The Captain was able to see the two external Bots by looking through the transparent alloys in the cockpit. Blue light from the rift was starting to be able to be seen behind the asteroid belt.
The crew was floating and moving through the ship in zero Gs, and Doc, LV-426, and Kaz went to the airlock to meditate. Kaz taught them some basic meditation exercises but he had never meditated in zero Gs. The blue light of the Rift was filtering through the transparent airlock doors. While they were meditating some strange feelings, thoughts, and things were happening. Their Kizen powers were beginning to reveal the changes that were happening due to the quantum particles from the Rift.
Bryce found the footage of an old Maverick man with cybernetic parts that introduced the two external bots to the hull of the ship. It was Theo's Uncle. The image was replayed on all of the monitors... until the power system failed. Pon told them that a Power Regulator was disconnected and that all personnel were no where near it when it was changed. Life support and the backup power were disconnected. When LV426 looked at it, it was obviously removed... by someone. Chip went to get another one. The power was restored as the Doc pitched in and helped.
The Captain said that it would be a good idea to drink since it seemed that they only had 4 hours of air left. As he was going to pour it his glass froze as did the bottle. That low humming noise came back to their inner ears. They took the Captain to Med Lab. Pon asked them if they were hallucinating. LV-426 suggested they might be suffering from space dementia. They started to see blurred visions with their eyes. They were blaming the Rift for these strange effects. Pon was asked to find where the Oxygen was being depleted. Most was being used in their room, but some was being used in the crew quarters where no crew were... so someone was there. They had Pon lock the doors. They talked about trying to deplete the Oxygen in the room, talking to it, and threatening it. They talked about maybe getting Jinu / Grunt to go in there, and LV426 said no one would care if he died. At the end of the session the thing in the room was attempting to get out...
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Post by masterofflowers on Jan 31, 2014 0:55:37 GMT
I wanted so badly to say more human than human when you mentioned the Tyrell corp..but I wasnt there =-D
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Post by Admin on Jan 31, 2014 3:04:12 GMT
Hehe. I might throw in a few random sci-fi references from time to time and see who catches them.
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Post by masterofflowers on Feb 2, 2014 7:01:46 GMT
So, the Sombra Corporation... Crimson King going to make an appearance? Or am I finding links to thinkgs that are not there? Dark Tower Series.
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Post by Admin on Feb 3, 2014 3:43:22 GMT
Haha. That's it.
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Post by Admin on Feb 7, 2014 16:12:08 GMT
In the crew barracks there was a stowaway and it was locked in there. It was trying to get out of the barracks with a “Skeleton Key” to get around the locked door. Captain Lieren used the intercom system to bring up Jinu, the grunt bot to come up to the crew barracks. They brought up the cameras and looked at the monitor. They saw a barely noticeable strange effect of bended light though they couldn't see what was causing it. It then got out of the crew barracks. All of the doors were opened and they didn't see the hidden stowaway. They went into the lounge area but the stowaway didn't reveal itself. The Captain began talking about removing all of the Oxygen from the rooms and having all of the crew wait in a room till it died. “I was sent here to spy on you, but I would rather not die. My government is at war with both of you. You assume much and know little.” The Captain assumed it was an alien. The voice revealed that LV-426 was correct in his assumption that he was an Earther. The voice said that if the crew removed the Oxygen that he would have the stealth vessel hidden in the GRAV wake to fire upon their ship. The voice revealed himself, and he was wearing a black synth-leather outfit and he was holding a Gongen blade in his hand. The Captain didn't bow back when the man bowed to him. The Captain and LV-426 suggested that he might be able to join the crew. The unknown man and the crew continued to bandy words back and forth about the situation that they found themselves in. Theo made a Gravametric shockwave behind the ship revealing an Earther stealth vessel. A large explosion erupted in space as the ship shot at them, but intentionally missed. Theo then trapped both their vessel and the Earther stealth vessel in a gravitational well. Sake and tea were offered to the Earther spy. He asked how they found him out so quickly, and the Captain revealed to him that he was found out due to his Oxygen usage was detected. He introduced himself as Jylan Rathe. The Doctor introduced himself and was asking about Jylan's outfit. He let them know that his friends could still hear everything that was going on due to an implant. Kazuko was trying to diffuse the situation and offering suggestions for Jylan Rathe to stay on the ship. He suggested that perhaps they weren't Earthers, but that they were pirates. Kazuoko suggested implanting a tracking device in Jylan, and the Captain suggested that he take off his outfit. Jylan did take off his suit, and kicked it over to LV-426. He had large scars on his abdomen and he appeared to have lots of internal implants. Jylan admitted to stealing the stimulant adrenaline shot. He was tapping the Gongen blade on his shoulder, and he quickly moved the handle into Kazuko's hand showing off his skills. Jylan complemented the crew on their ship, he thought it would look like a pile of shit if the Mavericks made it. He followed the Doctor to have his tracking device installed. Kazuko was disturbed that Jylan was so cooperative and he didn't trust him. He noted that Jylan's blade was made by the Sombra Corp. Jylan seemed very relaxed, perhaps too relaxed. He had many organic replacement organs, and his brain had many neural scars. Some of the organic organs were not human, and they had different functions or unknown functions. His esteemed corporate friends were the ones that had paid for all of his upgrades. He implanted the tracking device and also an explosive. If any of the devices are tampered with he will explode. Jylan said as long as information flows, the Earthers will be happy. They were going to release the stealth ship, but Theo disagreed with that action. He convinced them to let him try something else. Bryce managed to find the frequency of Jylan and the Earther stealth ship. “Are you sure this is a good plan? What is the corporation going to think of this?” “I should be alright, it isn't like they can threaten my family or anything.” The implant in Jylan was complete and they could track him. Theo tricked the Earther ship, by leaving them in the gravity well while they were slingshoted away. The Captain wanted the Earther ship destroyed, and with some different coordinates sent to the Earther ship they managed that. It took a lot of power from the ship, but it worked. The Earther ship crumbled and exploded in their wake. The Doctor noted that Jylan was not Gongen, but was change to look that way. The Captain and the Doc talked in the Captain's quarters, as they weren't sure if there were bugs on the ship. Kazuko and Jylan were walking around the ship, and Kazuko gave Jylan some new clothes. Jylan told him that he belonged to the Coordination and Intelligence Syndicate (CISyn) which is a fairly well known organization. Jyland told Kazuko that he was a man of a many skills and talents. He told Kaz that there was an Earther facility that “went dark” after the opening of the rift, and that he didn't expect to survive this expedition. “Death is always a likely possibility.” He was invited to meditate with Kazuko, but he turned that down. “I am a prisoner that can whisper on the wind.” When the Earther stealth ship was destroyed Jyland Rathe fell to the ground holding his head and screaming. His eyes rolled back into his head. He seemed like he was totally out of commission and was probably linked somehow to the Earther ship and there was some consequence to blowing up the ship. It seemed like a seizure. In the Doctor's quarters right after the Earther ship just blew up the Captain was blaring music to drown out any bugs. The Doc was infuriated when he heard that they blew up the Earther ship. The Captain asked the Doc to kill off Jylan. The Doc was questioning the Captain's orders and the actions he has taken. “Is this how the Gongen honor their deals?” “I'm not a very good Gongen.” “You aren't a very good Captain either...” The Doc fled the Captain's quarters and headed to find Jylan. Kazuko had a certain glow or aura around him when he was holding Jylan. It stopped when the Doc arrived on the scene. “What did you do to him? Is this some ritual Gongen killing ritual?” The Doc figured out that he was in some sort of sensory feedback loop. There was a wave of fear that washed over Kaz and Doc but it didn't seem to take hold. His convulsions stopped once the Doc touched him. “Such blinding pain...” The Doc put him under with a shot in the neck. “If the so-called 'Captain' wants to come here and tell me what to do... we should talk about this in a group.” - The Doc. The crew all showed up in the Medlab. The Doc and Kaz were shocked that the ship was destroyed. The talked about Jylan's tech (sword & shroud outfit). The Captain explained that because he slipped up and told them about finding them due to Oxygen use, and because it was a secret mission, that was why he ordered the Earther ship destroyed. He told them he needed to meditate on the situation to find peace with himself. The Doc said that he didn't feel comfortable having Lie Ren as the Captain. He didn't want to have a sociopath leading the mission. The Doc said that Kaz should be the Captain. As the group was getting hostile towards one another Pon started to play some classical music in the background. “How is our patient?” “If he doesn't start beeping, he's fine.” Theo suggested making a clone of Jylan Rathe, but the Captain didn't think that was a good idea. The Doc said that the machine might not be able to clone him because of so many of his organs have been replaced. They came to the conclusion to keep him drugged up and alive. He gave him a higher dose of meds thinking that his organs could process them quicker perhaps. Kazuko didn't want to kill Jylan. LV-426 wanted to keep him alive long enough to study his implants. LV-426 also wanted to see if the Rift was affecting him as well. LV-426 said that he and the Captain were the only murderers on the ship. Kaz mentioned that Jylan was an assassin most likely as well. Chip mentioned that he should have his reform implant chip removed since his crime and the Captain's were the same. Chip said that with his implant he was no better than Zixin, or Jinu, or Pon. The lights on the side of his head were firing quickly. The Doc suggested implanting the reform chip into the Captain's head. Pon told them that if they are cloned their cybernetics wouldn't be able to be 3D printed. There is a 3D printer for cloning, and another one for cloning devices. The group eventually came down to the decision to remove his reform chip. Several crew members suggested that there should be two Captains... one for tactical military tactics, and one for more diplomatic decisions, and that on other concerns they suggested voting on decisions. Pon asked if she was part of the crew, and if she get a vote. Kazuko was suggested to be the more diplomatic Captain. Bryce said he wanted to know more about Chip's background before removing the reform chip. They learned that his name was Longvere and that he was a Gongen dissident that head lead an uprising against the Tenryu party. He was a very renown terrorist against the A.I.s and NoBots there. He escaped and gone to a Maverick hideout. He raised up a force there of Mavericks and outcast Gongen and Earthers. He wanted to return to Gongen once he was strong enough to throw down the ruling class there and take it over. In the Outer Rim a 150 people had died when a transport was blown up (it was destroyed by Longvere and his crew). The Regulators managed to capture his ship and took him prisoner and implanted the reform chip in his head. They spread around the news that Longvere was dead and he was instead hidden away for 15 years doing scientific research. The philosophy of his group was to unite humanity and to only use technology to make humanity stronger. His name was The Red Scare among the populace as a terrorist and traitor. LV-426 suggested that they implant the reform chip into Jylan Rathe... He was also researching the materials and how the Shroud tech worked. The Doctor set up the Medlab, and he gave the Captain a shot. “If you feel like you are going to become a raging asshole, just shoot yourself with this.” Jylan had regained consciousness and then he was shot in the neck. His eyes rested on the doctor as he sedated him again and then his eyes closed. The Doc cut him open and he was doing research on his organs. He removed the detonation device from him, thinking that he would no longer need it since Jylan was going to be sedated. Kazuko went and meditated to see what the strange sensations and physical changes were, due to the Rift. Theo went to his room, unpacked his stuff and then he crashed and fell fast asleep. It had been a long strange day. He made sure that all of his nick-knacks were set up on shelves. LV-426 aka Chip was on the operating table and there was a bit of an audience to see what would happen when it was removed. Colt asked the gawkers to stand outside so that their prying eyes weren't on him. Colt took out the Reform chip and implanted the explosive device into Longvere aka Chip. The Doc also put a password on the Bioscan machine that only he knew. Longvere was out of it after the surgery. Jylan can hold his breath for 15 minutes, he had liquids and food in his body so that he didn't have to eat or drink for a month. There were a few organs that he dind't understand fully. Zixin told them that it was approximately 80 hours until their destination at the Rift. Longvere asked for the Reform implant chip from the Doc, and he grabbed it. The Doc said that it was state of the art... and then Longvere smashed it on the ground. He then picked up a piece of it, snapped it in half (which shouldn't be humanly possible), and he also exuded a glow as he was breaking it... Longvere then collapsed on the floor. Bryce talked to Pon, and told her that she wouldn't be able to dream through him. He imagined an image of a bulk ship and him dancing along with some music as the moon of Europa was in the sky above. He then disconnected from the computer systems and his connection to Pon, and climbed into his cage that was the thing that protected him from the connection to the systems. The Doc fell asleep in the Medlab while doing research. Theo tried to get Pon to get Fred and Melba (the two bots on the hull) to come inside, but nothing they tried seem to work. The Captain was staring at his sword and he was thinking about the day's events, he also believed that his soul was in his blade. As he stared at it... it covered in ice. He felt at one with his blade, and continued to meditate until he fell asleep. ...at the end of the session the 3D printing machine started to print something.
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Post by Admin on Feb 14, 2014 17:02:28 GMT
3rd Session
Veer Long is John's character.
Theo's (Phil's) flashback.
There was a younger Theo on Theta One, a space station orbiting one of the asteroid mining colonies. He was thinking about his future, but he didn't know what path he would take. A Cog ship arrived at Theta one (the gear head very mechanically minded Maverick gang). Jack “Lugnut” Williams was one of the Cogs who showed up to fix a generator in the space station.
Leo Anderson one of Theo's friends was looking at the oncoming ships through a transparent panel. Nothing exiting ever happened on Theta One, and Theo was pining for something different. Theo's brother Lars was a selfish asshole of an individual and was walking by Leo and Theo as they were heading towards the bar. Theo said that his brother Lars never pitched in and that he didn't pull his weight. They imbibed their drinks and then alarms starting going off and then a huge rumble hit the space station. A smaller Maverick gang going by The Nobodys attacked the station. Their insignia on their ship was that of a crudely drawn shark with a pistol in its hand. People were running everywhere and there was lots of chaos.
Leo and Theo found a woman that had one of her legs shot up with plasma burns. Then they saw Lars with these Nobodys, and it seemed that he had been working with them and had betrayed the space station. Theo said that most likely Lars had given the Nobodys the passcodes necessary to pull off this attack. Theo was shocked to see his bother in league with them, and then he started ripping off panels on the walls so that they could attempt to hide in the walls. Lars was there watching the tail end of these things. Lars:”What the Hell do you think you are doing there now?” Theo: “I'm not going to let you take this station.” Lars told his little brother to “fuck off to parts unknown” but he didn't plan on letting his little brother get in his way. Theo jammed himself into the hidden compartment but he couldn't get his one arm into it and it was crushed off. A window shattered and the space station became a vacuum. Lars would have screamed if there was enough air molecules to let sound travel.
Twenty or 30 men were out in the space around the space station floating... dead. Lugnut then had unsealed those sealed off in the compartment. “Fuck me in the eyes, that arm looks painful! You boys aren't stayin' here are ya? This place is a dump. You better come with me.” Theo, Leo, the woman they rescued and a few other survivors from the space station went with The Cogs on their ship.
Colt's (Rogier's) Flashback
He had returned home from his studies, to his family that was very well off and rich. He arrived at his family's estate. He was invited to a large feast around a certain time of year when they all got together. His brother that was a vice president of a large mining company was there to shake his head at the approaching Colt. His friendly Bot servant was there to welcome him after his brother made fun of his cybernetic arm. His sister was there to belittle him and call him cute for his strange ideas. She said that they would sue the hack that put that arm on for him. Colt asked his sister if his mother and father were splitting up and it seemed that they were. His family wasn't very impressed with Colt's medical training, as they thought it was beneath their family's name. They thought that he was throwing his family history away. Colt realized that he wanted little to nothing to do with his family. He couldn't believe that they looked down at him for being a doctor, and to spend his life helping people. His Bot friend walked out with Colt and as they left the threshold the Bot slowly shut down. His father to add insult to injury blew up the Bot by pushing a button. Colt couldn't believe that his family would do that to him. Whenever Colt sees a Mark-6 robot he remembers his Bot friend from his youth. Colt was shocked in the end that the grandfather that was a doctor that he looked up to so much was so belittled by his family.
Ying Lie Ren's (Alokov's) Flashback
On the Gongen ship Tackikaze on the Bridge the Gongen captain and the Earther vessel that was heading up an Earther convoy that was going to soon attack the Gongen ships that they were surrounding. Ying suggested that they head straight into the Earther ships and self destruct their ship and to have as many as could escape via the escape pods. They goal was to kill as many Earthers as they could. They Lie Ren came up with the idea of ejecting lots of their cargo of asteroid minerals to make a small asteroid debris field. Lie Ren was promoted to Captain when the other Captain was dying. In the end the Earther ships were destroyed and Lie Ren and a decent number of Gongen survivors made it out alive.
LV-426 / Chip / Long Veer's Flashback
His father was a Cryogenics master, and he had a very great relationship with his son. A simulation was brought home where every 10 years they are to take it. It was a simulation to show that no human could have saved a huge portion of the population on Earth like the A. I. Program did. This was to show solidarity with all fellow Gongen, but Long Veer actually was one of the first people to actually do the same thing as Shocho did when he snuck into the simulator when his father wasn't looking. His father's name Long Tao was on the simulation and the police came in to take him away, even though it was his son that was the one that did the simulation. There was a touching seen where Long Veer was taken away for his son's actions. After that Long Veer puposely failed the test so as to not have the authorities come down on him and take him away like they did to his father. This is where his hatred for A. I. And his idea that humans should try to improve themselves without much artificial intellience.
Bryce's Alex's Flashback
There was a mission set up to infiltrate an Earther space station around Venus to get some secret plans and technology. This base was operated by XeLabs. The Cartel was the Maverick gang that had set up this mission. The space station was doing some terraforming on Venus. The ship was cruising in with a low heat signature and they jammed the space station's scanners. The group infiltrated the facility and they came upon a science officer that was distracted in his work. The captured the scientist and started to download his files. They got about 53.9% of the information when people started coming. Rocket (one of Bryce's associates) threw some grenades and blew up the coming guards. Bryce started to get weird blue glowing symbols in their minds as one of the files was opened from the download plugged into Bruce's head. They escaped but as they were leaving these strange glowing shards tore into the space station and no one knew where they were coming from.
Back in real time Long Veer was so physically exhausted that he was “dead to the world” and he didn't wake up when there were noises. The Doc Colt was sleeping at his medical station when he was woken up by a strange noise. He hadn't even opened his eyes yet and he hear the 3D printer kicking on. He also sensed something being right there beside him. He rolled off of his chair and grabbed up his weapon. Where he was sitting a hand of Jinu the grunt Bot smashed down into his desk and it crashed down to the ground. The hand of Jinu looked like it was trying to kill the Doc while he was sleeping.
Long Veer woke up, bounced off the gurney and jumped onto the back of the Bot. Grunt in response, not having more input smashed the table again, scattering more broken test tubes all over the floor. Jylan Rathe was still opened up on the medlab. Colt tried to get Grunt to stop with commands and tried getting Pon to alert the other crew but she didn't respond. Long Veer then tried to rip off the head of Jinu. Snaps, pops, hisses were heard when he yanked the head violently to the one side. The head was still attached but it was severely damaged.
Jylan over the intercom said: “Destroy all crew!” and it could be heard over the intercom. The Bot Jinu tried to hurl the body of Long Veer against the wall but it failed. Doc Colt then ran over to the 3D Cloning machine and then he hurled his detachable hand at the off button and the cloning machine stopped running (it would have kept cranking out Jylan Rathe clones). Colt noted that the Jylan Rathe clone inside was starting to breathe. Jinu's head was cranked more to one side by Long Veer but then Jinu then jammed its hand with various tools into Long Veer's face, tearing at his cheep and nose.
Theo managed to hack into the system and found that Pon was completely missing from the ship's computer systems. He saw that Jylan was vivisected on the med bed, and another Jylan was in the 3D Printer, and a third Jylan Rathe... was wearing another set of that black light bending material. Zixin was standing beside the Jylan Rathe in the cockpit doing nothing. Colt shot the side of the head of the Jylan Rathe clone in the 3D printer. The plasma blast shattered the encasing top of the 3D Printer and it burned a hole into the wall, and didn't shoot a hole through the hull of the ship. Long Veer managed to tear the head then completely off of the Jinu Bot. He hurled the head across the room and all of the lights then shut off on its body.
Bryce swore that he heard Pon's voice calling to him at the end of his dream. There was a virtual world invitation for NuRelms and he couldn't get into any of the ship's systems that he was used to doing. Bryce looked into it and it was produced by Adipose Industries and it has lots of different Relms to create based on your subconscious and it needed the Fleshport technology to use it. Bryce accepted and plugged in. Pon was there in the virtual relm, she was naked and she was attempting to kiss virtual Bryce. He stopped her, and he noticed that in her mouth was what looked like the inside of a high capacity information passing wire. She couldn't speak. She looked at him pleading, and then she winked at him. Then Bryce placed his hand into her mouth, and thereby he gained total access to the ship. Bryce saw everything that was going on in the ship.
Back in the medbay the Doc grabbed Long Veer's nose and placed it back on his face... and then it was completely healed... Both Long Veer and Colt shared a moment, and they both said that they should keep these strange powers from each other. Lie Ren and Theo ran off to go to the cockpit.
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Post by Admin on Feb 21, 2014 19:37:36 GMT
4th Session
Kazuko woke up in his barracks, and it was too quiet. Bryce's voice was in his head. “He has taken over the ship... Jylan... one of the clones. He is in the cockpit.” Kazuko met up with the Captain Lie Ren, and with Theo and they began moving towards the cockpit.
Back in the Medlab Long Veer and the Doc Colt were there, and the Doc made sure that the 3D Cloning Printer was turned off completely. The intercoms were completely shut down at this point. They shut down the original Jylan Rathe, and even without life support his heart and lungs were still functioning. The Doctor then cut out his heart... He placed the heart in a different area and covered it. He seemed paranoid of the Jylan Rathe corpse. Long Veer was dressing in the Shroud suit and he picked up Jylan's sword.
Kazuko and Theo got a strange hunch that something bad was about to happen as they were about to make the left turn up to the next section of stairs. They stopped in their tracks. Kazuko attempted to peer around the bend and he got a plasma shot to the side of his face from Zixin the pilot dual wielding hand-held plasma pistols. He started coming down the stairs and everyone except for Long Veer fled the staircase. The lights in the area then completely went out. Long Veer now invisible thanks to the Shroud got ready... Zixin made the turn and then the monoblade of Long Veer and the blade came down and hacked through one of its arms. He also used his Kizen power “Block Flow” on the Bot, damaging some of its electrical systems. Long Veer cut off the other hand with his blade and then the Bot slammed its severed arm into his chest in retaliation, though it was swinging blindly. The Doctor was able to turn the lights back on. Long Veer picked up and hurled Zixin down the stairs where it crashed into the floor and slid to where the rest of the crew were standing. The Doc manually then used the shut off switch to make sure Zixin wouldn't be turning back on.
They got to the top of the stairs and got to the airlock door. Kazuko then found out about Pon being missing. The Captain then heard Bryce's voice in his head letting them know that the outside shuttle bay door was open and if they kept going forward they would enter the void of space. Then they heard Bryce screaming in their minds... and then he was silent.
The intercom then turned back on again. One of the Jylan clones was talking to them. Kazuko was talking to him about a previous conversation and the vivisected Jylan had had, but this one said he didn't have that conversation. This made Kazuko and the others realize that this clone of Jyland had been here on the ship the whole time... This Jylan then told Kazuko and the others that the Doctor had killed the other Jylans by shooting one in the head, and by removing the heart of the other. Theo and the Captain went off to try to break into the cockpit through the Captain's Quarters. The Doctor was able to close to the door to the void of space.
The Doc was targeted by some strange power by Jylan but he was able to ignore it. Jylan told them that they were going to a new destination. There was a secret computer console under the captain's bed, and Theo got access to it. The Doc was able to lock him out of the computer system completely, which lead to Jylan swearing a lot and damaging the cockpit with his Gongen monoblade. Theo voided the oxygen in the cockpit to slowly kill off Jylan. He shoved his blade deep into the communications system in the cockpit. Theo disabled the gravity on the ship.
Kazuko tried to reason with Jylan, and he could tell that Jylan felt desperate. He was trying to work out a situation that didn't end up with Jylan dead. Jylan told them that his mission was to steer the ship towards the Hellcats at Themis Station. “I don't think this even is my life, I think I'm sitting somewhere else. I'm not even the real me.” Kazuko offered to go in there and talk with him, but the rest of the crew had a variety of emotions that played across their face when they heard that. Kazuko got frustrated as the rest of the crew was against him. “Are you not coming to talk to me...?” Kazuko then slid down against the wall of the hallway and didn't respond. “Do you think a clone has a soul? Am I me, or am I just a bad copy of myself?” Theo wondered if they should kill Jylan, but the Captain was adamant in that Jylan should die because it tried to kill off the whole crew. In the end Jylan finally said, “Kazuko... thank you” and then he killed himself with his Gongen monoblade. There were thousands of blood droplets floating all over the place in the cockpit thanks to the zero gravity. Then the Captain opened up the door, and the body of Jylan Rathe smashed into the shuttle leaving a trail of his blood on it and then his body floated out into space.
Kazuko was lying on the floor against the wall... and then we went into Kazuko's flashback.
BEGIN FLASHBACK
A younger Kazuko had arrived at the moon of Phobos around Gongen (Mars). Kurosawa (sp?) Corp. was the company that his father was working on. Kazuko was there at the request of his father for a short meeting. This was before the Battle of Phobos (where Earth turned the surface of the moon into a slag heap). His father's work was very secretive.
Kaz was met instead by a representative of the company. He seemed to be disappointed that his father wasn't there to greet him. The representative took him to a variety of locations in the night club district to offer him drinks and women. Kaz called his mother and she was trying to make excuses for her husband, Kaz's father. There were rumors of Eathers and Gongen starting up a conflict again. The Rep brought over some women, but Kaz wasn't very interested. She was trying to get him to have some fun, but he was moping about the situation with his father. He asked her why his father didn't want to see him.
The Rep came back stoned, and Kaz told him that he didn't want to hang out with him or the lady. His father called him. “Why are you in the pleasure district?” A meeting was scheduled though it would be brief. This representative was also a Lie Ren... (related to the Captain). The father was not very happy that he sent that particular representative, as he wanted his son to see the sights, namely the museum.
Kazuko then found a man that could help him out. He had a very stiff face with a semi-frozen smile. Kazuko accepted his aid. Mr. Tanuki was his name. The Representative wished that Kazuko would grow a sense of fun. Kaz then noticed that perhaps he was much more like his father than he thought he was. Eventually he made his way to his room.
Kaz finally got to talk to his father. His father emphasized that he had man great things to do for their culture and for the government. He told him that Phobos wasn't a place for his son or his wife. A strange alien arm was discovered on the moon of Ganymede and it was sent back to Gongen to be analyzed. His father asked him to look at him and to tell him what Kazuko saw in him. “You are a man who doesn't know how to show or express the love and care he has for his family, who also keeps his family arm's length away because possibly he is trying to protect them from something.” Kazuko's father then showed him a hologram of an arm that was 2 meters in length. It was covered in a dark black solid exoskeleton that has a series of cracks in it. It had 6 long clawed fingers. This was the reason that he had kept his family away. He was glad to share that information with his son.
END FLASHBACK
Back in the regular timeline, Kazuko's face was severely damaged. Long Veer came across the unconscious body of Bryce / Signet but he was breathing. He was still jacked into the computer system. The last that they heard from him he has screamed into all of their minds. The Doctor ended up healing the face of Kazuko and he pretended that the Bio-Scanner had done the trick instead of his Kizen abilities. Bryce's eyes seemed like they were in REM sleep and he could not be woken up.
Theo went up to the cockpit to discover that Jylan Rathe had rigged the controls manually so that they were headed straight for Themis Station... the home base of the Hellcats Maverick gang.
The Captain had cooked a meal, and made some medals for the crew. Some of the crew members seemed to like this and others didn't care much for them at all. They did appreciate that Lie Ren was trying to reward the crew for a job well done however.
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Post by Admin on Feb 26, 2014 17:22:47 GMT
Session 5 Recap Bryce was trying to break into the system and to prevent Jylan from using their system. Jylan used Bryce's cybernetic computer, and his other physical connection to hit him with a massive amount of feedback which caused his mental scream and his state of unconsciousness. To prevent Bryce's brain from getting fried Pon pulled him into the virtual reality of NuRelms. Pon was able to speak now in NuRelms, and told him that she didn't exist anywhere else. Bryce was changing the background so that there was hardwood floors, music began playing. There was a painting on the wall of a Gongen engineer and he was holding an archaic tool in his hands. She didn't seem to know who it was at first. There was a placard that said Hisuke Masa – Head Designer. He asked her if he was her father, she said he seemed familiar but that she didn't seem to know who he was. This seemed strange to Bryce, but he said he would find out who he was when he was going to reinstate Pon as the A. I. Of the ship. Jinu was also there and it seemed like Jinu was mimicking Pon's moves exactly. Pon told Bryce that she used Jinu from time to time, and that she lied to him. She said that Jinu listens to Pon, that she can control him. She also mentioned that from time to time she could control Zixin too. Bryce found a file titled Hisuke, and that he programmed all of the Bots, Pon, and the 3D Cloning Printer. All of those programs were developed with backdoor access, and as long as you knew a code you could access all of them. Hisuke seemed to be in debt to the Kerosawa Corp (a file with his bills was in the system). The Tyrell Corporation was the company that designed the various Bots, Pon, and the 3D Printers. Bryce then accessed Pon by plugging his microcomputer cable into her. He found various recordings of the cameras on the ship, and there were saved ones of Jinu brushing hairs out of people's faces, of it tucking in crew especially Theo. Etc. Pon was controlling him. She was also programmed to ignore the presence of Jylan Rathe. Jylan Rathe's DNA code was in the 3D Printer before they left Gongen... Another thing that was something that Bryce thought of was that the Jylan Rathe clones on the ship didn't have a fleshport, which insinuated that the original Jylan Rathe was out there. Pon mentioned that she wanted to be there in reality with Jinu, to touch things, to have some physical presence. Pon was worried that she was capable of hurting the crew and Bryce checked. Her laws of safety were disabled so that she was capable of killing the crew, and Bryce reinstated those primary safety protocols. He then reinstated her on the ship through the virtual world of NuRelms. Bryce then woke up in the med bay, with Dr. Colt going over him with the bioscanner. The Captain gave him his various medals, and thanked Bryce for saving the crew by warning them. Pon told the Captain that she was reinstated and that her safety protocols were also turned back on. Bryce told Lie Ren that there were some corporate espionage going on in the background due to to the head programmer Hisuke Masa. Theo was in the cockpit trying to undo all of the damage that Jylan had done up there. Bryce went into the cockpit to help him. Phil was questioning him about how Bryce was able to get into his head. He asked him if Bryce “brainhacked” him. He wasn't sure how that could have happened as he wasn't plugged into anthing at the time. Bryce told him a bit about his telepathic abilities but he didn't call them that, he called them some organic abilities to know where people were and how to talk to them. “You don't accidentally brainhack someone!” -Theo. While Theo was working on the manual sabotage that Jylan had done to the steering mechanism he saw some movement under the control panels. Bryce sensed its thoughts. It seemed strange. He got the thoughts of “Kill!” “Maim!” “Tear!” One of the panels was banged against, and the screws started to turn and twist out of the panel. Bryce broadcasted the video from the cockpit to the rest of the ship's monitors. Most of the crew showed up to see what was going on. Lie Ren was there with sword in hand ready to swipe at it with his blade. The creature got the metal cover off and then it came flopping out onto the metal grate of a floor. It's body was about a foot and a half in diameter and it had thousands of little spine-covered legs. It had tubes and metal wires along its body and a nasty looking mouth. It had human eyes as well... Theo began ripping out a long wire and he started tearing at the end of it to use it as a weapon. It opened up its mouth and sprayed this viscous fluid at Lie Ren. Kaz used his telekinetic abilities and punched the creature from across the room. Lie Ren cut down violently, and inside of it there were long plastic sacks of acid inside of it that were now leaking out onto the metal grating of the floor. Then then jammed the high-powered wire into the mouth of the thing. There was an explosio of energy and everyone jumped down and away. Some smoke rose up from the console. Colt ran in and washed off the acid from the Captain and they began to clean up the mess. The Doc gathered up the creature on one of the metal panels that Theo had dislodged and took it to the medlab. It was plugged into the main console of the cockpit. The creature seemed to be a really extreme cybernetic creature with some human DNA... They saw the brains and organs of the things that looked human. There were acidic drips as the Doc was taking the remains down to the cockpit. The ship was still traveling towards Themis Station and they would arrive there in 1 hour. There were Hellcat ships about 30 minutes travel time away. Theo and Bryce were working quickly on the repairs. They seemed like they weren't going to be able to fix the controls in time before the Hellcat fighters descended upon them. Lie Ren was barking orders at Theo, and Kaz was helping out Bryce to work on things. LV-426 / Long Veer / Chip was in the medlab and he stole a bunch of Enhancements from the shelves, and he planned on blaming it on Jylan Rathe. Back in the cockpit tensions were running high, and Pon suggested that they manually steer the ship from the outside of the hull. Pon was being a little too honest about her Father and some questions were brought up by the crew because of it. Theo stepped out of the air lock with a datapad programmed with the Hybrid Binary language that Melba and Fred speak. There were small micrometeors were bouncing off of the hull of the ship from time to time. Some of the outside cameras were watching him walk along the hull with his soft-mag boots. Theo used the datapad to communicate with the bots, and they began to work. He gave the crew inside a big thumbs up, and then he went and helped them work on giving manual control to the thrusters. Fred and Melba had their hands on the thrusters and were manually steering them. They were ordered to change direction and they did which gave them more time before the Hellcats could catch up with them. The Hellcats would be able to catch up with them in 2 years. The crew was planning on using Long Veer's reputation if the Hellcats caught up to them. Meanwhile back in the medlab Long Veer managed to break into the bioscanner. He wasn't sure why the Doc had locked him out of it. Long Veer was disturbed by the creature. The Doctor was going to focus on the creature since he didn't know what else to do at the moment. Theo on the outside of the ship while it was moving saw the vivid blue light of Rift for the first time clearly. He saw the twirling almost dancing asteroids, and Saturn off in the distance. It was peaceful and yet dangerous at the same time. It seemed like a moment he would remember for the first time. Lie Ren and Theo had a chat when he came back inside. Theo suggested that the Captain pretend to be Maverick if they got boarded. Theo then headed to his room quickly. Up on the cockpit Long Veer was wondering why 10 Hellcat fighters even cared about their ships. He suggested that Jylan had something to do with that. They then remembered again that the communications system was still damaged from Jylan's sword. They thought that perhaps the Hellcats had tried to hail them and they weren't able to... Theo was manufacturing a communications system with his arm battery as a power source. He sent a message to the Hellcat fighters and spoke to someone called “Phantasm.” She said they wanted something from them, and she had expected an empty hull of a ship. She asked for Jylan, and was surprised to be talking to anyone else. She suggested that Theo should send over all of the plans and he began to do just that. He made sure to secure the connection so that others couldn't see what he was doing. Theo asked about Annelle, and mentioned that Phantasm say hi to her. She said she had flown a few times with her already. He sent the files successfully and then smashed his device. Long Veer saw that the Hellcat fighters had stopped chasing them and were turning around. Lie Ren thought that Theo did something fishy. They went to the cockpit and he was questioned by the other crew. Pon said that there were no transmissions because the communication systems were down. Theo admitted to the crew that he sent the plans and then Long Veer shook his hand. They fixed the communications systems, and fixed the controls on the inside of the ship. The manual repairs needed to be done on the outside of the hull still. The crew discussed what happened with the transferring of data and the Captain talked about how they had “lost” because they gave the Hellcats and whoever had hired them exactly what they wanted. Whoever had hired Jylan (perhaps the Kerosawa corporation) had got exactly what they wanted. The rest of the crew seemed to be happy to be alive mostly however. Long Veer was still wearing the Shroud stealth suit and he seemed to have a level of confidence that seemed to unnerve the loyal Gongen on board... hehe. Captain Lie Ren left and punched the walls in his cabin, and then Pon started playing classical music there too. He was dealing with a lot of thoughts do to the fact that he was a loyal Gongen, and Gongen had just lost a bunch of valuable and important tech to the Mavericks, and perhaps even Earthers if they were the ones that hired him. Pon asked if Kaz was the 2nd Captain, and he said he was. She suggested various destinations within the asteroid field but the crew decided to keep on going. ταράσσω (tarassó) -- to stir up, to trouble That was the name that was suggested for the name of the ship by Long Veer. Pon noted that there were increased levels of violence on Ganymede a moon of Jupiter. They learned that there are various factions there with lots of mining operations. Theo and Long Veer went outside together in their E-suits and Long Veer was surprised with what they were able to do to save the ship. Melba and Fred seemed to extremely warm since they were so close to the thrusters. The Bots started fixing the thrusters then. Long Veer was asking how it was all possible. They talked a bit about Theo being a Cog, and how that group works with a lot of the other Mavericks. Long Veer asked if they could create a ship signature that said that their ship was a Cog so that they could avoid any future Maverick problems. Long Veer asked Theo what kind of relationship he had with the Hellcats, and then he thanked him once again for saving their lives. The Bots finished and then they began fixing internal damage. Long Veer asked where the Bots came from and Theo said that they were his uncle's Bots, and that they should be loyal. They both stared at the intense blue of the Rift off in the distance and just took it in. They seemed to have a bonding moment up there. The Captain had meditated for awhile, and he seemed to be trying to isolate himself as much as possible. He didn't seem like he wanted to deal with the other crew after the heated discussion with what happened with the Hellcats. Bryce was meditating and trying to make sense of everything that had recently happened. He was thinking about wearing grav boots and shooting on a space station firing range. He learned this trick from a Cartel friend to relax (to imagine shooting a gun). He was thinking about Irene. Kazuko was sitting in the Captain's / Pilot's chair in the cockpit. He was sad that the stressful situations on the ship had divided them and not brought them all together as a crew... He was trying to think of ways to unite the crew so that they could all work together. He wondered if they could unravel the mystery of the Rift as he looked at it through the cockpit window. Kaz realized that they didn't have a pilot and that he would have to pilot the ship. Theo didn't seem to care much for the Captain when Kaz suggested that he was going to try to help the Captain. Kaz also seemed to be bothered by Long Veer still wearing the Shroud. Kaz plopped down in the chair... and realized he wasn't going to be getting that sleep like he wanted. They adjusted the trajectory to get to the Rift in a shorter amount of time. They noted that it was going to be 32 hours till the ship got to the Rift if they didn't have anymore delays. When Long Veer got into the med lab the Doc told him that the centipede creature used Jylan's DNA. Inside of the creature there was a lot of human body parts mixed with centipede DNA, and the spray mechanism was implanted within it. It disturbed the Doc what kinds of thoughts this thing had, and that it needed to be plugged in to continue to live. The creature's parts were on the floor, and Long Veer said he would do some tests on it and then most of the character's went to sleep.
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Post by Admin on Mar 3, 2014 3:23:29 GMT
Session 6 Recap “Old Guy Clones & Dreams”
On a space station orbiting Neptune clones of three of the crew members bumped into each other. Bright colored lights were flashing on all of the walls, and a young crowd was there living life to the fullest at the party. The Rift was still there glowing a vibrant blue. Theo was at the bar chugging “Supernova” drinks. Colt was staring out at the Rift. Kazuko had just walked in. A rude teenager was hurled out by a bouncer, and when Kaz tried to help him the kid made fun of him and kicked Kaz' hand out of the way.
Kaz saw Theo at the bar and he came up to speak with him. Kaz was dressed in a fancy immaculate suit and he had a corporate vibe to him. Theo was dressed in an engineer suit with lots of gadgets and tools attached to him and his belt. Theo was enjoying the free drinks, but the bartender was getting tired of his old man tales. Kaz ordered some coffee and a waitress went to go get it.
Theo had been on the run, and the crew back then had gone their separate ways. Kaz hadn't seen him since then. Theo had changed his name but that didn't keep people from trying to find him. Kaz was told that THEY had told him that everyone else was dead, and they tried to remove the memories and knowledge from Kaz' mind but they failed.
They saw Colt at a table, but he didn't seem to be very old at all. Theo called him “The Butcher.” Kaz told them that for some reason he knew that some of his old comrades were here. He couldn't believe it when he stared at each of them. When Theo touched Colt's hand he was instantly sobered up. Kaz thought that it was some kind of destiny that they all met up here again. Colt looked like he was in his 40s, and Theo looked like he was in his 50s, and Kaz looked like he was 60 but his eyes seemed much, much older and full of fatigue and weariness. Kaz seemed like he was suffering from some genetic malady or degradation. Colt had strange eyes that had a 2nd eye lid like that of a frog perhaps. Kaz said that if he would go back to his employers they would most likely kill him. He thought that this would be the last time that he would talk to his old associates.
Colt was drinking from an empty glass, and seemed to have been drinking something... that wasn't there. They talked about the other crew members. Kaz was supposed to have met up with the Captain when he was commanding his own ship, but the assignment he was on was of utmost importance so they never met each other. Kaz said that he no longer works for his corporation. Kaz told him that after their experiences he never again fit into Gongen society. He tried... and failed to assimilate back into his own culture. He said he never truly fit in, but after the crew's experiences he fit in even less so. He seemed like he was full of regret, like he never achieved what he thought he was capable. He thought of the crew as a closer family than his own. He felt adrift in a large empty solar system. Colt drank from an empty glass again... Kaz suggested that Theo should drink what the Doctor was having (insinuating that he had drank too much already).
Kaz told them that he always had a soft spot for the Captain, even if things got messed up, he seemed to always be trying to better the group... and for his honor. They raised their glasses in a toast for him, and they said maybe he was making medals somewhere out there. The Doc said that Kaz was to good for those guys (the Gongen & the corporation). Kaz wished that the rest of the crew could have been here too, and the Doc said, “who says they are not? They may be here in spirit. You taught me that. You opened doors for me my friend.”
Kaz told of how he held on tight to his abilities and his superiors could not take them away from him. Theo talked about all of the people they saved, the bastards they had killed, and how nothing they did meant a damn thing. They were washed up old men that wouldn't assimilate back into society. Colt was laughing maniacally while drinking his empty glass of “Life.” He said you didn't have to be on top to be in control, and the people that ran things might think they are control but they are not.
Kaz wasn't sure what number of clone he was, Theo was in his 8th incarnation (and he had 8 notches on his arm to keep track of them), and Colt... he was on his 45th incarnation of his original self. Colt 45... (drum drum symbol). They talked about how some of their memories were clouded or simply not there, and Theo mentioned that he wished he hadn't been cloned for the 8th time. They wondered if anything of the original version of themselves was still inside of them.
A Shi Merchants floated in and had a “wrong look to it.” It had blue-gray, slick, and damp dolphin-like skin. They had 3 dark solid black eyes... They were covered in gray metal, with a trilobyte-looking mouth sticking out beneath their helms, and their diamond shaped tails were floating a few inches above the ground. Their three elongated fingers moved frantically as they “drifted” over to the bar. They tapped at the counter and then the bartender started to ignore the other clients, giving the Shi whatever they wanted. The “Floaters” mental thoughts were invading all of those around them in the bar. Theo mentioned that he had had such nightmares after they first met the Shi. Colt started laughing about the Quay.
Theo was questioning his killing of people in the name of the ship, and all that they had done before. White light symbols from the Shi were appearing randomly in their heads, which tended to happen to anyone that was around them for any length of time. Kaz said that he had never got used to the way the Shi's thoughts invaded those around them. Theo mentioned that he still had nightmares from when The Shi had captured them all and performed experiments on them all. The Doc said the out of body experiences they had there were horrible and yet awe-inspiring. Kaz said that their three cold almost dead black eyes freaked him out.
Bryce was said to be in a coma as he was lost in NuRelms and he was rumored to have been off exploring the Datanet with Pon, together forever as long as the system existed. Bryce was supposed to be off finding answers and he never came back. Pon had ascended her own programming and become more than she once was. The Doc said something about having Pon in a “virtual way” and that seemed to bother Theo... as if he had had an encounter with her in the virtual realm.
They talked about the Doc's new flesh arm, and he mentioned that he grew it. He said that he lost his faith in metallic cybernetic limbs, but instead he said that evolution should be organic. That was the true way of improving himself. The Doc seemed to want to make himself better than the aliens were; to improve humanity so that they could once again be on their own. The Doc mentioned that there were some Shi genetics inside of himself. He said he had learned so much, that the other two never would understand it.
The Doc went up to the bar and winked at the Shi and got an empty glass. The bartender was focused on the Shi, and the waitress instead gave him the empty glasses. Colt then said cheers to the Shi, and their 3 black eyes measured him coldly. Then Colt placed the glass down in front of Kaz. “Be careful... that's strong stuff.”
Theo chastised them for being so joyful when so many of their friends were dead. They talked about how Long Veer had met his fate, and the Doc said he was better off. Colt asked what Kaz wanted, and that he was indebted to him. He wanted to even the score. Kaz just wanted him to carry the memories and the mindset that he gave him for as long as he could. Kaz said that no one owed him anything. He was glad to have shared both good and bad times with the old crew.
One of the Shi floated over with a datapad and a datapad stick. It seemed like he wanted Kaz' signature. “...SIGNATURE PLEASE...” Kaz then signed it for the Shi merchant. The Shi thought of Kaz as a famous person. “...YOU ARE A MOST HONORED GUEST...YOUR DEEDS HAVE REVERBERATED THROUGH OUR CULTURE...WE THANK YOU...” Kazuko signed the datapad and they left. “...I WILL BE THE ENVY OF ALL OF THOSE IN MY LIFE-CYCLE...” Then the Shi's 3 eyes stared at Kaz, and his Trilobyte-looking face moved and scruched up in places and finally they left.
Theo said that they signed their death warrants when they signed up for that mission. Kaz said all he wanted to be was to be accepted... to fit in. All he wanted was to be at peace and THEY won't let me. The Doc said that he was a hero, and that he should find peace. Kaz said that he wasn't a hero. He said he regretted having had to kill so many times. Kaz was a hero to the Shi because he had brought about a peace treaty with them and the factions of humanity. Kaz had got people to sit down and talk, and in the process saved a lot of lives. Things weren't good, but they could have been a lot worse. Kaz did it, and that's all that mattered. The Doc yelled that Kaz was a hero. A few teenage girls were doing belly shots on the bar and they didn't even recognize “the Hero.”
They talked about why this station was built around Neptune, that it was a symbol of the alliance of all of the factions and how things were going to be “so much better now!”
Just then a very old Bot walked into the bar, and with the new laws that had been passed for Bot Liberation he was self directed. It seemed like it was the bot that Colt had as a kid. Colt started laughing and then he dove under the table. He seemed to be terrified of the Bot... “Keep it away, it isn't supposed to see me.” Kaz slid the empty glasses into the center of the table, trying to make the Doc come from under the table. The Bot sat down at the bar. It was looking for a few glasses of Synth-oil.
Colt said he wasn't supposed to be around Bots, that he couldn't be close to them, that he couldn't read them. Colt seemed to be afraid, and Theo mentioned that Pon had saved their lives more than once. Theo chastised him. Kaz mentioned that perhaps the A. I. And the Bots had souls... Theo thought they did too. He talked about that empty space station that was actually filled with people.
Kazuko went over to the Bot, and it turned its head around. “Yes... Ma... Sir. Is there something you need to talk to me... about? Kaz bought him another synth oil drink and said that Doctor had paid for it. He then invited him over to the table. The Bot then walked straight to the table, and lifted it up so that he could the Doc hiding under there. “Master...? Is that you?” Colt then pointed a gun at it, and the Bot smashed the table onto the Doc... but the Doc fired at the same moment blowing the head clean off. Bot shrapnel rained down in the whole bar. BLAM! CRASH! “master... master...”
The Doc said he needed to go, and the people in the bar were slinking into the corners and some ran out of the doors. Colt stood up, and the space station shook violently... Colt looked terrible. “happy place... happy place...” The Shi merchants offered to give them a ride for payment to get them off the space station. Klaxons started to go off and a red light was flashing all over the place. They tried to help up the Doc and he screamed, “Don't touch me!!!” Kaz' hands sunk into the Doc's flesh and it felt like puddy... he was dripping and falling to pieces onto the floor. “DOC!? What the Hell did you do to yourself?”
They followed the mental directions of the Shi merchants. Colt was sweating profusely, and the hand mark where Kaz touched him was still there. A darkish liquid was dripping down him, and he was leaving a liquid trail behind him. He also seemed to be somehow floating a few inches above the ground and his feet were not touching the ground. “...WE WILL WAIT FOR A FEW MORE MINUTES AND THEN WE ARE LEAVING...”
They eventually walked through an airlock door and then they were in the Shi vessel in a strange room with human-sized chairs around the walls. The place had lots of curved walls without any angles at all or edges. It seemed very smooth. The Doc said that the Bot was his best friend... and then the others questioned whether or not they should still be his friend. The Shi seemed to be prepping the Shi vessel via mental telepathy only. “...PLEASE BE SEATED...WE WILL BE LEAVING SHORTLY...” The vessel seemed to be blue-gray and it seemed to perhaps be ceramic. At this point the Doc said that he was alright and that he would be able to fix himself. Kazuko and Theo got a really bad feeling...
The Shi vessel then launched off of the space station. The Doc's arm fixed itself right before Theo, and Kaz. The 2nd Shi then went through the airlock door and asked them to sit down. “...WE CAN TALK ABOUT WHAT THIS WILL COST LATER...BREATHE DEEPLY...” Gas started to pour down in from the ceiling, and it was full of water vapor. Theo was digging and trying to rip off the panels to stop it. “...THE REWARD FOR YOU WILL BE QUITE SUBSTANTIAL...” Kaz saw a mental image of 3 dark glassy eyes staring at him. Theo managed to get the door open but not before the mist took its toll.
The Doctor was breathing deeply, Theo was struggling, Kaz was terrified of what might happen to them. The Doc thought that this would be interesting. Kaz thought that he was going to be under the knife again and that his innermost thoughts would be exposed. Theo thought about the close calls, the people they had lost, and then he cried out of his organic eye. His head hit the floor and he thought...”No...No...”
REAL TIME AGAIN
Kazuko's Dream / Nightmare
Kazuko was in the pilot's chair, and he was trying to stay awake after being awake for a LONG time. Long Veer chuckled and left and Kaz only stayed awake for 10 mins before leaning on the control panels and drifted off into his dream/nightmare.
Kazuko was in the pilot chair still in the dream, and he heard a loud crash and some ship had docked with the ship. He looked around, everything was quiet. He saw then his mother was there. She was holding her own head in her hands and her blood was dripping down onto the control panel and the blood was spelling words. The word “Remember the Past Form” were written there. His mother dropped her own head. Her body started crawling up the sides of the cockpit and her fingers were sinking into the walls like they were flesh of some sort. He ran... and entered into a field filled with green grass and it was cloudy. There was a funeral procession. Kaz' father was there. Tons of people were looking at him. A monitor was there of Shocho looking down at him. His father said, “Look at what you have done! You had to go your own way, and you failed! The people said failed over and over again. Shocho said that this should be corrected. Metal tendrils and tentacles were grabbing at him. They were coming out of the grave, and they pulled Kaz down into her grave. Kaz then awakened at the control panel again.
Colt's Dream / Nightmare
Colt was going over the camera recordings in the med bay of Long Veer. Long Veer had broke into the Bioscanner, and then he stole a bunch of stims and enhancements from the containers in the room. Colt didn't like what Long Veer had done. He meditated and then Colt fell asleep.
The Doc was on a beach, and there were thousands of people there. He was walking past them all decoding their DNA and taking notes on their qualities as he went. They had DNA strands coming out of their bodies and up to the sky and he was noting their sequences. The sand began to slowly change into marbles, and small chunks of glass, and broken marbles. The broken glass were cutting into the feet of the people on the beach. People had glass shards in their feet, legs, belly's and faces. There were bloody foot trails in the glass, and the water was lapping against the beach.
He bumped into a nurse, and she was smiling broadly under her face mask. She said that this would not do. Colt was then slammed down onto a med table, a light from above in the hallway flashing by as he was wheeled down into an auditorium with a huge rich audience. There were lots of medical equipment devices there... and his older brother was there with champagne in his hand. “You were never good enough, but don't worry, we'll fix that. We are going to fix him, he never fit in. We are going to fix him.” His brother lifted up an unsanitary knife. Colt kept muttering that he was the doctor over and over again. One of his inside organs that were removed was a little version of Colt, and it screamed and cried. The baby cried, “I want to be a doctor! I want to be a doctor!” His brother said, “We will have to remove those thoughts...” The Doctor faded out.
He was in water, his sight was blurry, and he realized that he was staring at his body in the distance, it was flayed and his organs were being torn out of it and put into a crude grinder that was making ground meat. His brother said, “That is more like it, look at the improvements that I've made.” His head was floating in a cylinder of teal liquid. They placed his head next to the red flowers on a shelf. “He's cute, maybe the children can play with him.” Seven children started playing with the head.
Things were spinning, and he felt that he was being rolled down a series of winding stairs. There were warped pictures of his family members, his crew. Their eyes in the portraits were dripping liquid on the outside of the canister. It then shattered on the bottom stair. Fragments of light then drifted up into the air, he was looking down at the world, and it seemed like he was an array of glittering stars.
He woke up, and his sheet was wrapped around his neck. Colt then took a shower.
Theo's Dream / Nightmare
Theo was fighting sleep, as the Jylan Rathe clone creature really freaked him out. He was stressed, and finally walked and laid down in his bunk. He stared at his holo-poster that he recently put up and he faded into a dream.
The ship was dark, sparks were giving some light. There was a strange noise in the hallway, a strange noise of crawling. He couldn't find a weapon and his left arm was a useless mass of bones without flesh. He walked out into the hallway and the air felt moist. Flesh was on the walls pulsating mixed with wires. “I AM WHAT YOU ONCE WERE.” A cold moist wind then blew down the hallway. He called out for the rest of his crew but no one answered. A panel door opened up and sounds could be heard up ahead. He walked there and saw a mass of some biological machine, with bone cogs grinding against bone cogs, and bodily fluids were glistening on the cogs. “I AM NOW” Another breeze blew.
Theo crawled into a panel and closed it behind him. The metal began to change into a tight tunnel of flesh, like he was inside an intestine that was constricting. It was pushing and moving him down to some unknown destination, spit out into another area. There was a mangled mess, a pile that he had fallen on. A pile of flesh, gears, bones, metal, wires, and a red light was illuminating it. “THE POWER IS GONE.” He began to restore the power to the ship. He grabbed a power module... and it turned into a white fluffy bunny in his hands. He tried to pet it with his limp bone arm and then put the rabbit down. “YOU WERE NEVER GOOD ENOUGH!” said the bunny with its mouth. He lunged at the rabbit and squeezed it till it died. It screamed an almost human cry.
He was determined to finish it and fix the ship. A panel opened up and inside of it flesh was there with wire and fluids, and he saw that instead of datacards and circuits, there were small figures that were people from his past that were the connections that were making the flesh-ship run. They were muttering to him and yelling. “What do you want from me?” They were saying “Fix It!” over and over again. He saw his older brother there, and he threw him down. “I'LL FIX YOU!” Theo smashed his brother and his hands were bloody.
The lights began to flash and he was in a bathroom mirror. The left side of his face was hollow and it wasn't there. There was a black void in his head. He was then back on the ground in the pile of the abominations and parts. There were shadowy forms talking, worms were there similar to the centipede from the cockpit. They were all chewing on something and it was his own body being devoured by the creatures. The faces of the worms were the faces of all of the crew members. “You are different! Fix it! Be like us!” Theo then smashed into them screaming traitors. “THE JOURNEY NEVER BEGAN!” Theo leaned over the corpse of himself crying. He stared out the window. “THE FIRE BURNS COLD.” There was a plasma tank, and he started dialing numbers. BOOM, FIRE! The ship was turning bright reds and yellow and it wasn't hot, it was cold.
Theo was floating in space now, and bits of the ship were out there with him. He saw a reflection of himself in a floating mirror that drifted out into space.
He then woke up.
Captain Lie Ren's Dream / Nightmare
The Captain was meditating with his sword and he then fell asleep.
There were sounds of battle, of men dying and screaming, and of metal hitting onto metal. He was on the ship and it was empty. There were explosions outside, and no one was there. He was running in the halls, and the halls of the ship were filing up with water; an inch ever second. He was looking for a way to release the water. The outside of the hull of the ship started to be crushed like a tin can.
He got to an airlock that was a mouth that was continually licking its lips with a rotted tongue. Lie Ren shot the face and hit the lips. From the lips a writhing mass of maggots exploded and they were floating on the rising water that was now chest high. There were floating islands of maggots and there were maggots crawling all over him. He was starting to be eaten alive by maggots.
He was then back on board the Tachikaze and his old Captain was there. “Don't you know that a Captain always goes down with his ship? Stand to order!” A whispered voice said “SOCIOPATH!” The captain said the nail that sticks out gets hammered. “THEY NEVER LIKED YOU.” The Captain's chair turned into a large mouth that began to laugh hideously.
Colt was there, and they were in a hallway. They talked about a giant mouth. Colt picked him up and held him like a little boy. “What are your orders? AWWW. Is there an evil giant mouth back there? Let's go see what the evil giant mouth has to say. Doc will protect from the evil mouth. You're just a sweet little boy. The Doc then kissed him.
The mouth was mumbling a series of notes and its tongue was a naked version of Pon that was painted in a variety of colors. Colt said “Kiss and make up!” The old Captain showed up again and he slaughtered the mouth and Pon and the Doctor with his monoblade.
The General then took him into an audience chamber, and Lie Ren was getting a medal pinned to his chest. In the crowd were there and all of the ancestors of his family were there. They were all looking at him with pride. There was applause. Lie Ren then fell down into a prayer. He asked them to help him, to be less of a sociopath, to get his crew to trust and listen him. From beneath Lie Ren the stage erupted and a huge NoBot Daegan was there. On its chest was a small white face with dark black eyes, and it looked like a little child's face. Lie Ren felt like he was being chastised. “Be true to that which dwells within you. Do not snuff out the flame. Let it burn. Feed it. Give it time to reach towards the heavens and engulf the world.”
The Captain of the Tachikaze walked beside the NoBot and said, “Use your friends as your kindle, but do not burn them as you would an enemy. Loyalty and trust are earned. It is not given. Your path will be hard, but no path in life is easy. Tread well, and I will see you again.”
Lie Ren's body started to morph and take on the guise of a NoBot himself. A younger version of himself was on the chest display of the NoBot, and then the dream ended.
There were 24 hours left until they would reach the Rift. Theo wanted to sweep the ship for more of the Jylan abominations about. He then went to a workshop to work on something.
Colt went to breakfast and talked to Kazuko. He was making a pot of soy tea and poured a glass for everyone. Kazuko seemed freaked out, but Lie Ren came out with a bounce in his step. They were wondering if the Rift was affecting their dreams. Kaz thought that maybe the Rift was communicating with the crew through their dreams. Lie Ren thought the dream meant that he should probably not giving up on his dreams of being a Diplomat.
The Doctor brought up the issues he had with Long Veer about what was taken in the medbay, and what he did to the bioscanner. Long Veer in the video footage had broken into the locked bioscanner, and stole some stims and enhancements. Long Veer then stumbled into the lounge and made some coffee, and he was still wearing his Shroud underneath his Maverick given prisoner jump suit.
The crew began to question Long Veer and what he was doing in the med bay. Long Veer said that the bioscanner needed to be unlocked so that everyone could use it. The Doctor then showed the footage and he seemed un-phased by it. He said that having combat stims on his person was better than being locked up in the medbay. He didn't thing that was wrong. The Doc seemed sensitive to who had access to his stuff. Kaz wanted to make sure everyone understood their roles and what they should expect to do in the future.
Lie Ren spoke up and seemed to be empathetic towards Long Veer, and that lead Long Veer to reveal that he had started using the 3D Printer to crank out stealth suits for everyone on board. He also had designed an acid squirting gun that could be used to open locks. They were designed to use the acid from the Jylan Rathe Centipede. The creature was placed in a container to be incinerated or shot out into space. Long Veer's eyes never left the Doctor's face the whole time.
The Doctor was still asking questions about Long Veer's actions, and Long Veer said that the Doc was paranoid. The Doc asked why Long Veer didn't just ask for it. Long Veer asked what the reason was that the crew couldn't use the bioscanner couldn't be used by other members of the crew. It wasn't like the bioscanner was his alone. Long Veer was assigned to be the scientist on the ship. The Doc was still bothered that Long Veer broke into it when the Doc left. Colt said that Long Veer was snooping around in the Doctor's business. Long Veer said that he needed the bioscanner as it was part of the science lab / med lab. Long Veer said that he needed his job requirements cleared up so that he wouldn't waste his time helping the crew. Lie Ren repeated that he trusted Long Veer. Kaz tried to smooth the waters, and to get everyone to speak to each other and so that they could work together.
Long Veer asked if there was a private code for any of the public systems on the ship, and he wondered why the bioscanner was the exception. Lie Ren aske what the reason was that it was locked out. The Doc said he had made changes, and that he didn't want anyone using the machine because of that. The Captain said that it was selfish for the Doctor to say that, since it was the only bioscanner they had. He also said that if it is locked out and the Doctor was unconscious they wouldn't be able to use it. Long Veer revealed that he was somewhat medically trained as well.
The Doc agreed to unlock the access, but he still didn't like that Long Veer broke into something that he locked. Lie Ren suggested that next time he should just ask. Long Veer mentioned once again that the Doc was extra paranoid, and then repeated that the bioscanner should be able to be accessed by the rest of the crew. The Captain suggested that in the future people should come to the Captains to help with any future crew problems. Long Veer said that he had the greatest respect for all of the crew. Long Veer mentioned that the Doctor should have asked first before making any changes to the ship or technology on the ship. They mentioned that anything to create more tension should not be permitted. There was suspicion because of Jylan, and anything that could be done to lesson suspicion. Long Veer said that perhaps he was wrong, as he had done nothing but try to protect the rest of the crew. He mentioned destroying the Bots that had attempted to kill everyone.
Lie Ren didn't want the crew to fracture, and he wanted to bring about group cohesion. Long Veer wanted to know if the laws only were for him, or were they for everyone. Lie Ren said that equipment in public areas should not be tampered with without first asking permission from one of the Captains. These changes should also be public knowledge to all of the crew members. He also wanted to lower the paranoia on the ship with this new rule.
Theo had headed to the medbay, and he downloaded the information from the bioscanner to a datapad that he had. He wanted to have to the results for himself, and then he fled back to his room.
Long Veer said that the code for the bioscanner was only put on the machine after he had his Reform Chip removed from his mind. The Doctor was ordered to get over his paranoia and suspicion, and it was becoming tedious. He asked then for him to please try to get over it. Then the Doc and Long Veer shook on it, and headed back to the medlab together.
Kazuko noted that Lie Ren seemed to have improved on negotiations since his dream, and that perhaps it was prophetic. Long Veer brought up why Kaz kept staring at his Shroud. He mentioned that he only had prisoner uniforms and it was handy to have it in case invisibility could be useful. Dangerous things had happened a lot on the ship already. Kaz said a cup of tea always helps the situation.
The Doctor and Long Veer were in the medlab. They both decided to incinerate the creature in the hopes that it would finish the creature off for good. Then Long Veer showed the acid squirter designs to Colt. They burned the creatures to ashes and it was no more. Long Veer said that he greatly believed in the mission, as it was important to all of humanity. Long Veer then put the stims and enhancements back. The Doc then asked if Long Veer was the real him, and he then responded that he wasn't sure as some of the memories and programs of the Reform Chip seemed to still be there. He wasn't sure who he was, but he said that he didn't think that he wanted to become the Red Scare again if the stories were true about his exploits. The Doc said that he couldn't figure him out, and that scared him. He worried that perhaps eventually Long Veer would become someone horrible, and that his personality could change over time. Long Veer suggested that they do daily brain scans to keep track of his mental state. He then stated that if he could be a better person, he would want to do that. They shook hands again, and they seemed to have mostly gotten over the personal drama between them.
There are now only 23 hours left to get to the Rift.
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Post by Admin on Mar 14, 2014 18:56:57 GMT
I can't seem to write a short summary. haha.
7th Session Recap
A couple of hours had passed since our last session. Theo was working on the workshop / utility room. Long Veer was attempting to try to get some sleep as he had not been able to sleep since the removal of the Reform Chip. The Doctor was in the Medbay and lying on one of the treatment tables and he was going through data.
Bryce was in the cockpit to keep an eye on things. The autopilot was engaged. The RIFT was there and it they were getting closer to it. The Aeschylus was sending a standard distress call over and over again. The Aeschylus was somewhere between the RIFT and an Earther space station that was owned by iCom. The station orbits the Sun. The Aeschylus was recently put out into space and that it was a Gongen vessel. Lairen came into the cockpit and they realized that this ship was 2-3 hours away. They hailed the vessel and sent a Gongen greeting. Kazuko worked his way up to the cockpit. They figured out that The Aeschylus was some sort of exploratory military vessel. There was some debate about whether or not the crew should help them.
A viewscreen came up when they were hailing the other ship. There was smoke and static. A bloody hand was trying to hit the console but that is all that they could see. “Please hurry. I don't know how much longer I can keep the doors shut. They just won't stay dead... Please... (static)” The crew started preparations for a firefight. Bryce suggested doing a thorough sensor sweep. The Aeschylus was dead in the water, but it seemed to have power.
Another message was coming up on the communications screen. A broken body of the person that had just hailed them was lying on the console. His face was horribly smashed, blood was everywhere. The door behind him was wrenched open and there was fire and smoke. Bryce made sure that the hail was only one way. They made sure to record the footage and Bryce showed it on all of the monitors on the ship. The Doc didn't like what he saw.
There was a strange ship about twice the size of the crew's ship that was docked to the much larger Aeschylus. The ship that was docked to it was in the shape of a tear drop. It was a ship of unknown origin. Theo had a little pet project that he was working on and he revealed it. He had created four little insect-like remote surveillance drones but they were more utility based.
The feed changed. The head and body were roughly pulled to the side of the camera and a dark shape loomed ever closer to the camera. It looked like some horrible nightmarish creature. It had spikes over a dark black exoskeleton that had cracks in it where red light came out of. It had horns above and below its elongated head. There were metal rings in various places on the spikes. A red-orange glow started to be emitted by the creature and it seemed to be very hot. A hand of long clawed fingers moved up towards the camera and the feed ended.
Kazuko was staring at the feed and he made them replay it. It made him think of the arm that he saw his father studying... but he didn't mention that to the rest of the crew. The crew was disturbed, and they were having second thoughts about boarding the Aeschylus. Kazuko was pushing the crew to figure out what this creature was. He suggested that it came out of the RIFT. Theo said that “We should put it back in the RIFT.” Kazuko went to prepare for boarding.
Lairen said that honor demands that the Gongen deaths be investigated. He said that Gongen blood had been spilled. Theo went off to fix the 3D cloning machine that had previously been damaged by Colt (when Jylan Rathe was in it).
A weird projectile of light was launched their way. It seemed to be made out of some strange alloy. It looked like a pinecone but with little tendrils of light that were spread out in all directions. It was light that was behaving in ways that light shouldn't. It didn't register as a normal weapon. The crew locked weapons on it. Bryce jumped into the weapons chair and fired. A projectile weapon slammed into the strange light device. The device was now half the distance to the ship. They then shot it again with plasma and it made the device slightly off course. It was still coming. After a third shot the strange device was destroyed. The whole ship rocked as a lot of energy slammed into the ship. Small bits of light were appearing there and disappearing in random locations like dust catching the light from a window. Pon checked and she said that they were not registering as radiation and she had no idea what they were. They also seemed to be further away from their destination... almost like there was more space-time between them and their destination. The strange light anomaly that was there inside the ship ended.
The communications console had a message again. The carapace of a huge face was inches away from the camera. It's red eyes were glaring there waiting. The elongated cracked face backed away and it seemed to be made of various plates. This message was being sent from a different location and it was more well lit. Lairen hit the com button. “Identify yourself!” A guttural voice returned an angry message and pointed at the screen. Lairen called Kazuko up there to try to talk to this thing. It held up a head and then put its claws in its eyes. Kazuko thought that the creature was threatening the crew and it was issuing some sort of warning. Lairen asked “Why did you kill them?” It then ripped the head in half to make its point. It scooped up the brain matter inside, put it in its mouth and then it spit it all over the camera. Lairen was resting on the console... and it was forming ice crystals on it. Bryce was staring horror-struck at what he was seeing. The cracks in the carapace of its face were burning white hot, and the blood and brain matter on the camera seemed to be sizzling from the heat that it was emitting. Theo: “I don't know what these things are, but they are pissed about something.” The creature started to write some sort of symbol into the blood and brain matter on the camera that looked like some bizarre R looking symbol. It wiped off the screen, and then the camera melted.
Kazuko was off in deep thought muttering prayers to himself. He said he would go through the recordings of the conversation to help put the basics of the language together. Lairen said that he intended to stop it.
Colt wanted to look in the databanks of the 3D printing machine to double check to make sure that there were no more Jylan Rathe DNA files. There was a hidden file there of Jylan Rathe, and they also found information on Hisuke Masa. They asked who Hisuke Masa was, and Pon said that he was her father. He also programmed Jinu and Zixin, and they thought that it was strange but also a bit brilliant to put his genetic code into the machine.
Three more light projectiles were launched from the alien ship, and the Doc ran up to the cockpit. Bryce shot and one of the projectiles was deflected. Bryce blew up one of the light projectiles and then there was more space-time between them and their destination. Colt fired away and it didn't take long to destroy them. The insides of the crew's ship were filled with those strange flecks of light particles. The crew's ship rocked violently. There were strange strings of light that undulated like worms. The hull in the ship seemed to warp and bend and cracks and leaks of various pipes were happening. Pon thanked Colt. Pon seemed worried that the light worms might be hurting the crew. The light worms started to fragment into smaller particles and then eventually those faded too. It seemed to be pure energy. Colt asked for a forcefield to try to encapsulate the particles but the ship wasn't set up to do that.
The tear drop shaped ship was orange in color. The heat signatures of the creatures in the ship had 4 long legs that ended in points. The heat signatures were 4-5 times as warm as a human's. There were many fires on the Aeschylus. It was a massive ship of 4 decks. It seemed to have lots of cargo space. It had 2 very large plasma cannons on the side of the ship. At that time only the creatures were there, but they found some some human lifeforms on the 2nd level of the ship. There seemed to be 12 of the creatures at that time.
They were 30 mins away from the vessel at this point. The Captain said to try to keep them in the blind spot of the ship. The readings for the heat signatures did something strange. More human life readings were popping up where there was none before. A total of 42 human heat signatures could be found now... They thought maybe the readings were false. Then it appeared like some violence was happening on the ship, the human signatures were attacking the creatures.
The Captain said that Theo should start to repair the Bots. He wanted Jinu fixed first. The crew then decided that they should all back themselves up on the 3D Cloning Printer with their fleshports.
The human heat signatures that were originally only 3, were now 45. With the fighting the human heat signatures were getting lower, and the creatures were now down to 10. Those human readings were popping up all over the ship. The Captain suggested Pon be connected to the weapons systems, but she said that she didn't have the skills necessary. She suggested something strange about analyzing Colt's DNA and merging her identity with his... they decided that that would be too experimental.
They tried to get Long Veer to wake up, but he was sleeping soundly because of the medicine that that Doc had given him. He was told to go watch the video, and Pon reminded him to upload in case he died. The uploading process only took a minute or so, and they thought it was a bit creepy that the little mechanical arms traced out their forms. It was a sort of creepy dry run of a clone being produced but no flesh material was being sprayed out.
The alien ship was undocking and it was moving to use the larger ship as a form of cover. They were about 10 minutes out from it now. There was a power surge on the alien ship. It was in the center of the vessel. The point of the vessel was aimed towards them.
The crew noticed that their fleshports now had sensations to it as they all uploaded themselves.
The alien vessel then launched itself for a collision course with the crew's ship. It was using some strange form of energy for propulsion. The orange tear drop was almost to them.
Long Veer had brought up a box of Shroud suits for everyone. They let loose a bunch of projectiles and where going to try to dodge out of the way but the maneuver failed. The alien vessel smashed right into the side of crew's ship in the crew barracks area. Pon was able to stop the hull breach. The sharp end of the tear drop was inside of the crew's ship and then it began to open up, as it was cranking and bending the hull of the ship. Lairen turned the weapons onto the alien ship and was shooting them point blank. They were doing damage, but not enough to destroy the ship.
The sensors for the ship were reading very high heat readings for two alien creatures. They exited their ship and were in the void of space. Long Veer handed Theo a suit. There was pounding on the barracks door to the aft section of the ship. It seemed that the aliens had no problem being exposed to vacuum. The crew was gathering around the balcony in the middle of the ship. The Doc said to let them in and then close the doors behind them. Pon was ordered to do this. The doors at the top of the stairs sealed, and oxygen escaped and the two creatures came into the balcony area. It was 14 feet tall and seemed to be expanding, and they were also giving off a lot of heat. They seemed to be burning from inside.
Kaz & Bryce ran and put on E-Suits just in case the area lost all of its oxygen. The fire extinguishing system was offline due to the crash. Colt blasted the creature right in the face with a plasma blast from his pistol, and the lower part of its face was gone, leaving only a giant hole. The second alien came in behind the first one and it had a different set of symbols on its shoulders. Colt had his arm pierced by the claws of the larger one. The second one lunged over the balcony and its pointed legs left indentations on the metal floor. It was wielding a curved crackling pole arm weapon that shocked Long Veer but it didn't hurt him as much as he thought it should have. Long Veer leaped up on the smaller one and began to try to rip its head off by holding onto the horns. Then the door shut behind them, but it didn't seal all of the way. The heat from the creature's body began to burn Long Veer.
The Captain then shot the one Long Veer was grappling. Kazuko was running over to help the Doctor. Bryce was using his telepathy powers and he got flashes of these aliens (many ships of them) attacking with lots of those light projectiles. The many ships kept unloading aliens onto the larger Gongen vessel. Gongen and aliens were slaughtering each other. Thoughts of “We need a new home, our home is gone.” There were lots of emotions, hatred, anger. Bryce thought that what they were doing was somewhere necessary. He thought that these people were just in the way. Bryce got images of piloting the alien craft.
Theo grabbed a cannister of coolant and sprayed the larger of the two creatures. The substance was having great affect, and its carapace was crackling and splitting. The Doc's arms were still pierced by the hot burning fingers, but he managed to shoot one of his arms nearly off. The larger one lunged forward and it pierced Theo with its leg. It came out of Theo's back but the heat from it wasn't affecting Theo at all (due to his Kizen abilities).
The smaller alien was trying to throw Long Veer off of it, but it failed. Long Veer pressed his feet into the creature and pulled off the creature's head while crackling bits of electricity was flowing out of him into the thrashing corpse. It fell down through the balcony and landed on the vehicle below. Then the Captain pulled out his monoblade and slashed down through the leg of the alien cutting it clean off. The creature was hit again by Kazuko and it crashed down with one side of its body being on one side of the balcony, and its shoulders on the other side.
Bryce got this mental image of love, family, a mate perhaps, and little alien children. He didn't share this realization with the others. Theo jammed the canister of coolant into its chest and then it fell down through the space in the center of the balcony and it crashed down onto the corpse of the smaller alien, and both of those alien corpses were on top of their land vehicle in the cargo area.
They carried Theo into the medbay as he still had the alien stump of a leg inside his ribcage. The leg was twitching every once and awhile. They checked the sensors and the violence on the Aeschylus had stopped and that there were 20 human readings and 5 alien heat signatures left. They were headed right towards the vessel with no one in the pilot chair. Long Veer was walking around with severely burned fingers. The Captain was trying to get people to pilot the vessel but everyone was sort of in shock from the encounter with the aliens. Then the front of their vessel crashed into the larger space ship (while having the alien vessel still lodged into their ship). CRASH! HULL BREACH! Pon was reacting strangely to this and she started to... laugh.
The Captain was suggesting trying to shoot the larger vessel. Long Veer was saying that shooting the ship would go VERY badly, and it would most likely explode and kill them too. The Aeschylus was spinning now since the propulsion was still firing at full blast in the crew's ship. They cut off the thrusters and were trying to back out out of the wreckage.
You are all 14 hours away from THE RIFT but you are lodged in the Aeschylus and not moving currently.
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Post by masterofflowers on Mar 15, 2014 2:01:23 GMT
So Much goodness in the last session. Wish David was there and I was glad that Alex made it in at the end. Hopefully we did justice to their characters. Excited to play tomorrow.
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Post by Admin on Mar 15, 2014 12:03:22 GMT
Yeah I thought so. David won't be here today I don't think. Maybe I'll see if Rogier or Alex want to play Kaz today (spread it around a bit).
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Post by masterofflowers on Mar 27, 2014 0:27:09 GMT
Session 8 Recap
... Long Veer and Lieren are on the bridge trying, unsuccessfully, to pull the trapped Tarasso from the hull of the Aeschylus. Unable to do anything else for the moment the ship was shut down and the two leave the bridge arriving in the cargo hold in time to see Bryce finishing up the repairs on the damaged doors venting air.
There is a discussion on whether the unconscious Theo should be awakened all the crew seem to have, individually unique, mental "breaks". Some seem to experience pain and some seem lights all feel uncomfortable but the sensation fades. Theo awakes with his own nightmare. There is a bit of discussion and the crew sets about to fixing some of the Tarasso's systems before taking the space walk across to the Aeschylus. Theo sets Melba and Fred, the massive repair bots on the hull, to start cutting the ship free from it's make shift berthing as well as finishing his Auto-bots, mini spiderdrones that auto repair the ship.
Bryce takes a space walk to the front of the damaged vessel to assess the damage... he also, on the DL, searches for his rifle that has sentimental value to him. It is slightly damaged but he finds it. During this time Bryce has been hacking into the Aeschylus's systems to bring up the on-board monitor's.
Theo and Long Veer collaborate in repairing and modifying the Broken Jinu robot. They replace the left arm with a large canister and aerosol sprayer containing fire extinguisher chemicals. They also reinforce the right arm for more powerful "Bashing", in Theo's words.
Bryce brings up a schematic of the ship and the crew outlines a plan to board the ship near the engine room and once there use the environmental controls to block the Quay and turn the temp to "freezing" to kill them. It is decided that the doctor will stay with the ship and protect the cloning the device... just in case.
The crew put on their Stealth shrouds and climb into their EV suits then head out on their space walk followed closely with the new battle ready Jinu.20. The space walk is uneventful though quite nausea inducing because of the speed of the ships rotation and orientation to the rift.
Once the crew boards the Aeschylus, Bryce brings up that Pon could take control of Jinu so we don't have to manually control it. There are some surprised gasps and a bit of silence and surprise but it is agreed that this would be the best idea and Pon takes over Jinu, super imposing her face over Jinu's face plate. (Freaky)
The crew moves slowly through the ship expecting the worst... but nothing happens until they get to the door to the engineering bay which is giving off huge amounts of heat as if the whole area is on fire. Bryce opens the emergency vents and the area quickly cools down. The crew enters and sees mutilated half healed still moving Gongen body parts as well as a deceased Quay creature with odd fleshy globes filled with an unknown liquid hanging from it's waist. After some poking and prodding the corpses, the crew pull up the monitors and set the environmental controls to freeze the trapped Quay. The monitor shows the Quay running around screaming at each other and eventually flopping down with their legs curling like insects never to rise again. (hehe)
The monitor's also showed earther scientists experimenting on the Gongen crew and some how reviving them, even from death. Captain Lieren sees this and let's out a feral scream draws his blade and runs out the bulkhead door towards the labs with Jinu/Pon hot on his heels. The rest of the crew is surprised and is unsure what to do. Theo brings up the feed with the Scientists and after a heated discussion he threatens them... with the Quay! Saying they will release the Quay on them and in fact plays back the sounds of the Quay outside the door to the lab. Coincidentally The Captain and Pon/Jinu arrive during the playback of the sounds and begin smashing and slashing the door. Somehow the Captain with a Mono blade is cutting through the bulkhead, slash after slash. Lieren bursts through the door ...
... other crew members watch on the monitor and decide to use the gas to knockout the entire level...
Lieren wades through the group of katana wielding Gongen as if they were children, tendrils of cold mist flow off of him. The Captain Knocks the last of the Gongen down and leaps upon the nearest scientist, blade slashing, cutting the man down and landing upon him,continually smashing the mans head into pulp. The second scientist leaps upon Lieren's back and tries to choke him to no avail. The Captain stands up and slams the scientist into the wall, smashing his head into the scientists face which erupts into blood. Cold frost begins to spread farther from the Captain he turns, looking at the camera and let's out a roar before succumbing to the Knock out gas.
The crew experiences some more strange feelings and pain...
There is stunned silence from the rest of the crew... They decide to get to the bridge and see if the ship is salvageable. They have Pon/Jinu Bring the Captain to the bridge and Pon/Jinu asks if he should be tied up. The crew agree... for the Captains sake.
Once on the bridge they find the ship was sabotaged Engines as well as soem of the repair bots. Bryce finds the corrupted bots and deactivates them and Theo reroutes power to the engines while Long Veer goes through the pre flight start up of the massive engines. (It's not like dusting crops)
All of a sudden the crew feels as though they are drugged... falling unconscious... a few words and murmurs is all that escapes their lips before the blackness takes them.
The whole crew, including the doctor, awake to find themselves naked lying upon spiked beds that only support the spine and each has a plastic like cover over their head. There are several slug like creatures with long arms and fingers backing away from the group.
Doctor Colt tries not to panic and releases his Cybernetic hand which crawls up his body to start removing his bonds.
Captain Lieren thrashes reducing the temperature in the area freezing everything.
Long Veer feeling trapped and imprisoned draws on all his kizen power and bursts his bonds.
Theo awakes groggy but he starts to draw on his Kizen power and he emits heat from his body unknowingly.
Bryce Tries to communicate with Pon or the ship searching for information as to what is going on.
Kazuko calmly draws on his Kizen powers and pulls the plastic hood from his head.
The creatures try to invade our minds with thought symbols but we seem immune... at the moment.
The Captain rips himself from the spike table, while Theo gingerly pulls himself off his bed. Bryce continues to search for information and Long Veer bursts up blue lightning crackling across his body...
... the creatures are moving away from them and things fade to black.
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Post by Admin on Apr 4, 2014 12:16:09 GMT
Session 9 Recap
The crew had found themselves in the Shi medical experimental room and they were in the process of trying to break out. They were using their various Kizen powers to great effect... but the Shi were backing away towards this blue sphere of energy that surrounded the room and they were trying to escape. Thought symbols were appearing in the heads of the crew members.
Captain Ying ran into the blue energy field and he felt a strong resistance as he got closer. When he hit the field he was shocked and paralyzed and then he collapsed. His biological system was overloaded.
Bryce was trying to mentally hack into the system, but he was being resisted.
Theo still being wreathed in flames freed Bryce from the contraption that he was in. He calmed down and the flames died down.
Long Veer covered in electricity ran quickly to one of the Shi, dove into them, and then he tore one of their heads off.
The last shi backed out of the sphere of energy and then the body of the dead Shi was thrown at the barrier by Long Veer and later it was pulled out. The sphere was constricting and getting closer and closer to the crew near the medical machines. It didn't look well for them.
The now unconscious bodies of the Captain and Long Veer were pulled outside the energy barrier and they vanished from sight.
The crew were trying to hack into the medical equipment, they figured out that the Shi operate their equipment via telepathy. Bryce thought that he could break in, but he was resisted. He learned that the Shi technology was in fact alive. The system itself was trying to fight and push him out. Bryce learned that he was on the Shi vessel for “30 solar years” but that was solar years of Seyal the alien planet. That turned out to be roughly 883 Earth standard years. He saw feeds of the various crew members being experimented on that whole time. He learned that they were injected with nanobiotechnology. Bryce also learned that there were many Shi/Human hybrid clones that were produced from the DNA of the crew members to police the solar system.
The sphere had almost overwhelmed them. Kazuko tried to disrupt the system and the energy around him. The light closest to him was weakened severely, but it didn't appear that it was enough. (Kazuko actually avoided the effects of the blue sphere... but none of the characters knew that). The rest of the crew fought as they could, and then they were put under into a deep sleep. The characters didn't remember any of this... and then they went back to their induced memories of their travels.
The crew then woke up from some sort of strange fugue state. The Captain was still knocked out with the rest of the crew from the ship's knockout gas. The Captain did wake up momentarily afterward. The Doc was back on the ship. Pon told them that they were all asleep for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. She tried to wake them up by shaking them, but they wouldn't wake up. She thought that she would have to clone them, but she didn't.
They looked for the alien corpses and found them to still be dead. They were worried that the nanobiotechnology would wake them up as well. The Captain was still wired up and tied to Jinu's leg. The crew untied him, when they were sure that he wasn't going to go bat-shit crazy and kill them. Pon complimented the Captain on the sheer amount of violence that he displayed on the Gongen and Earthers.
The Doc walked his way over to the Aeschylus, and the spinning of the ship was disorienting. He found his way over to the rest of the crew.
The Doc went to look at the scientist and it turned out that he was dead. There was the last Earther that was in a coma from Bryce's feedback mental attack. They wanted to question him.
The Gongen woke up and they looked very disoriented and lost. Pon was able to synthesize the Earther scientists voice from the clips he found on the security systems. They told Pon to emulate and replicate the Earther scientist's voice and to put his face on the chest display of Jinu. She was their Pied Piper. She used a stern voice to herd the various Gongen.
They woke up the last living Earther scientist. He was trying to rub his eyes but he couldn't since he was tied up. He then realized what was happening and who the crew was. He then spit and hit Kazuko in his right eye. Corporal Hanson then repeated his name over and over again in an attempt to stonewall the interrogation.
Theo asked him some questions about what they were doing to the Gongen, and then he played some recorded audio and visuals of the Quay aliens coming back to life. He threatened to leave Hanson there. This was highly motivating towards the Earther. Bryce used his Deep Thoughts Kizen power to learn more from him.
The Earther scientists were captives of the Gongen, and the Gongen were trying to glean scientific details from them, but the scientists used nanobiotechnology to eventually control the crew and take over the ship. They were releasing biocapsules to release this nanobiotechnology. These things were found on Ganymede by Earther miners. He wanted to kill the crew and take over.
Hanson didn't know how to undo what they had done since he was just learning about. They didn't know a way to kill a person that was infected with these bionanotechnology. He said that they didn't know all that this technology was capable. He said they learned that it could be used to control and to heal. The Earther scientists didn't know if they were self replicating. He admitted that this was the first large experiment with them. The Earthers had done many experiments to try to figure out a way to turn off these bionantechs.
Long Veer mentioned that nanotechnology was banned for fears of everything becoming a Gray Waste. Corporal Hanson mentioned that Kazuko might be infected with them since he spit in his eye.
Theo then picked up Corporal Hanson and hurled him into an outer chamber and cranked up the audio files of the Qual aliens and then closed the door. Hanson freaked out and was squirming. He screamed and was cursing that he was experimenting on the Gongen and he didn't feel bad about that. He said he was going to turn the planet Gongen into the Gray Waste. Bryce turned up the heat in the room with Hanson, and the audio was turned up in volume.
Jinu/Pon started dancing a traditional Gongen wedding dance and she was playing classical Gongen music was playing as well. All of the Gongen were dancing with Jinu/Pon as well.
The crew then let Corporal Hanson back in to their room. Theo said to try to work on how to get these nanobiotechs under control. All of his data was on his clipboard. He said that he would help try to contain and control the nanites. The scientists said that they must have come from the RIFT. Bryce saw a thought that showed the Earther scientists working on Maverick prisoners as well before they were captured. The nanites were said to concentrate in the blood streams, heart, and liver. They seemed to be programed to stop blood flow. Limbs that were severed could last for 10 minutes.
Long Veer asked what would happen if a corpse was given these nanites but they hadn't tried that. He also suggested putting all of the corpses out into space. Long Veer turned off the brain implant in Corporal Hanson's head and after a short spasm the Earther passed out.
Theo went up to the Qual aliens, but then he stopped. Long Veer said that he wasn't sure that was a good idea as nanites could be covering Theo's Environmental Suit. Jinu/Pon was told to go get one of the heads of the Quay. Jinu only had a blunt object for a hand, and she smashed the neck over and over again till the head came free. She dragged the head behind her with a loose wire back to the med bay where the rest of the crew was.
They lifted the massive Qual alien head up into a analyzing device to see if the thing was infected with nanites. It started to quiver and quake. The Doc said that Theo was “hurting it.” Its deep red eyes were rolling around. There was some heat coming off of it. Therr was blood leaking out of the neck and it was a dark orange. Long Veer then started blasting the mouth, mouth, and face with a laser. It then started making this horrible gurgling noise. They closed it in the analyzing device, and Theo threw in the detached jaw in there. There were nanites inside the flesh of the alien... It seemed like they were knitting together tissues, and the neck that was bleeding stopped. They were coming up as silicon, biological, and some other material that they couldn't identify.
They ejected the head as the heat being produced by it was going to fry it. The room started to increase in heat from the head, and it was gurgling and making other horrible noises. They placed the head in a large metal barrel and then she sprayed the coolant inside the barrel. The coolant didn't affect the nanites at all.
The Quay aliens then came to life as a result of the nanites being on Jinu/Pon when she went up there. Long Veer was pissed and was yelling at Theo about it.
The Doc Colt came up with the right electrical frequency to kill the nanites and to preven the ship from exploding. They hit the entire ship with that frequency, and to keep themselves from dying they had to hold onto special rods that they ripped out of the med lab machines. Jinu/Pon collapsed but Theo was able to restart her. This also killed the Earther scientist by mistake.
The Quay were still alive. Jinu/Pon then sat up. The nanites were dead and unmoving. Long Veer watched them stop moving. The Gongen were up and moving... and then they started to collapse. The Quay eventually collapsed as well.
There was a beeping noise coming from Long Veer's head. The Doc was saying that it was the Flesh Port, but it was actually the bomb that he had planted into Long Veer's head. No one saw Colt palm the bomb that he took out of Long Veer's head. Everyone seemed to buy the lie that it was his Flesh Port was acting up.
The Doc was admiring Bryce's brain and all of the cybernetics that were going on in there. Long Veer and the Doc were able to rewire Bryce's brain to the point that he could come back online.
Kazuko was disturbed that the Earther scientist and all the Gongen had died from the electrical frequency that they sent through the whole ship. Theo mentioned that perhaps the crew should salvage and use the Aeschylus instead of their other vessel.
Fred & Melba had done their job of freeing the crew's ship... and it was floating away... It was no longer lodged into the Aeschylus. Long Veer was able to maneuver the Aeschylus so that they could dock with their previous vessel and the alien vessel. The ships were attached via some docking clamps on the underbelly of the larger vessel.
On the long range sensors there were more blips. These ships were about 6 hours away. They appeared to be the same as the Quay ship that was jammed into the side of their old ship. They appeared to be coming from Ganymede.
Long Veer then calculated a course and entered it. Theo then double checked it. They realized that the new ship had a Grav5 Drive, which was twice as fast as their vessel. They determined to go to a new location to hide and to fix their ship, and it wasn't too far away from a few locations that they could visit for some shore leave.
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Post by Admin on Apr 8, 2014 11:24:45 GMT
Session 10 Recap The crew now controlling the Gongen Capital Ship decided to head to Brokoff Station that was based on an asteroid. There was a mining settlement on it as well as a religious settlement (filled with Space Amish). With the Grav5 Drives it only took them 20 minutes travel time to get to the station. A strange effect of colored trails followed the crew's movements. This trippy effect caused them to see multiple images of their arms, legs, faces, etc. if they moved. It seemed to be some sort of quantum effect most likely caused by THE RIFT. Bryce while doing a medical scan found that he had some strange problem with his toe... but otherwise things seemed alright. He suggested that there may be some projectile vomiting due to the quantum effect. Theo grabbed a bucket, just in case. Pon asked the crew if they wanted to investigate the Quay vessel, but they decided to wait till a later date to investigate that. The Quay vessels were being outpaced by the Aeschylus so that made them feel more at ease. Pon/Jinu was asked to help gather up the Gongen and Quay corpses and they put them in one of the airlocks. Kazuko got a list of the Gongen crews names and performed religious rites over them befitting their early demise. When the group was almost there they saw a huge NoBot that was without power and it was crawling with Maverick Cogs working on it. They saw that the NoBot had no face on its chest. Long Veer reduced the speed of the ship and hailed the Cogs. They were hailed by them, and a man by the name of Faceplate asked them some questions. He didn't seem to trust the fact that they were “neutral” and when he heard that the ship needed repairs offered to repair the ship for a price. Most likely the crew would offer plans for their prototypes. Faceplate seemed to have heard of Long Veer though he couldn't quite place why he knew the name. He also asked about the Quay vessel. Long Veer said that it was some sort of pirate vessel. Faceplate said he could possibly take in some extra parts for trade as well. By using Faceplate's name the vessel was allowed to dock at Brokoff Station without having to deal with their defense grid. Brokoff Station had lots of domes filled with lush green vegetation and soil. It was quite a sight for some of the crew that hadn't seen anything like that before. Captain Ying sent Long Veer a message in text that he didn't want disturbed for awhile. Theo recognized the name Faceplate, and started swearing. The Docking Coordinator contacted Long Veer, and he was happy that the weapons systems were powered down. They were welcomed and told them that there was a strict policy of non-violence. He told them that the station tolerates visitors and tries to be good hosts. They were granted access and finally they docked. The manual docking grapplers were released so that their old ship and the Quay vessel could dock in their own dock. Theo was asking where Faceplate was when he burst into the cockpit. Theo contacted Faceplate, and he had an attitude about him. Faceplate called Theo reckless for going off to investigate THE RIFT. They talked about the last time they had tried to fix and control another NoBot. Faceplate was very excited to have a NoBot in Maverick Cog hands. Theo was worried that the A. I. That was absent in the NoBot was hidden somewhere within the body of it. Faceplate told Theo not to worry about his Cog personal and to enjoy “the Farmers” on Brokoff Station. Theo said the Cogs should use more drones instead of live people in case it becomes active. Faceplate apologized for Theo getting shot last time, and told him to stop whining like a baby. Theo told Long Veer about when Faceplate and him along with some others tried to salvage and to repair a NoBot that they found in the aftermath of an Earther and Gongen battle. The NoBot had repaired itself and 5 people died as a result. Theo told him about many salvage opperations that he had been on. Pon asked about the A. I. On the NoBot and she said that it looked bereft of purpose.. empty. It seemed to really bother her. Bryce was dreaming in a coma outside of his Farady Cage, and Pon seemed to be dreaming along with him. Stars were turning into bits of quickly moving bits of metal. In the dream the POV was following these bits of metal and a ship appeared ahead. A ripple happened when they hit the ship, and then Bryce's intelligence was moving through the ship's command deck viewscreen into the ship. Bryce was cataloging all of the details and placing it into a memory file. This was the bridge of the Gray Coat which was the ship that he and other Mavericks had used to go investigate the XeLabs station around Venus. Pon was there in the dream and she had various cybernetic implants and was wearing grungy Maverick clothes. Pon recognized Bryce's intellect but he didn't have a physical representation in the dream. Queen Mab the Captain of the Gray Coat was there giving orders, but they somehow were also frozen. A woman looking at the sensors changes into Pon. He kept moving in the dream. Bryce could feel Queen Mab as he moved through her and through a panel into the Lounge where people were playing cards. Bryce kept moving through the ship and Pon was taking the guise of various people that he was passing as he traveled through the ship. He wanted to comfort her as he sensed that she was unsure of what was happening to her in the dream. When Bryce reached engineering he visualized Irene who was an engineer he knew on the ship, but there was this strange block he had and he couldn't fully see her. Pon started to take on her form, or at least half of her form. Irene started to form into a NoBot and on the faceplate monitor the face was half Irene and Pon and both of them were screaming. The ship faded away and a backdrop of stars was all that was there. Bryce was chilled and in pain and in remorse. It felt like his subconscious was rising up to torment him. Bryce's friends' voices were there from his past talking to one another. They seemed more at ease with each other, talking through what they saw on XeLab's station. The face of Irene/Pon was starting at Bryce. The body of the NoBot was moving in graceful dancing motions. They were then on an asteroid. The body then started falling apart into rose petals. The floating petals were in zero gravity and on their backs was a symbol of a domino. The dominoes were forming constellations. Bryce took form and he was holding up a rifle and he began to shoot the petals one by one but there was no sound. The Earther scientist's face was on one of the rose petals, and then Bryce shot it. “All is in the name of science and discovery. We shall win.” Another petal had another face that morphed out of the gore of the Earther Scientists and his face was that of the Earther scientist that they captured at the XeLab's station. BANG! The face tore and fell apart into smaller and smaller petals. The blood-covered petals began to stick to the rifle and to Bryce's hands. “Damn the consequences.” Bryce tried to flick the gore soaked petals off of him, and he was seeing flashes of faces covered in gore. Blue mental thought symbols started flashing in his head. “What do these mean?” Bryce was screaming at his hand that took the face of the XeLabs Earther scientist. He began screaming at his hand yelling that the scientist should know what the symbols meant. He heard a whispered voice in his ear that was coming from the NoBot Irene/Pon. It was the voice of Pips that said, “Well this was a good adventure! It's fun to die after all! You must have had fun, you died!” Bryce woke up shaking his hand, and it felt like his eyes were sealed up with gore and goo. The Doc said that it must have been some sort of strange dream. The Captain woke up at the same exact moment. The ship's lights began to flash and flicker as some weird result of this dream that Bryce had. The reserve power red lights turned on. In Engineering coolant and fluid started to leak out. Bryce was trying to walk around on their old ship... and then he realized that they were on the Aeschylus instead. Captin Ying had had nightmares of Quay stabbing and eating crew members. He hid his Monoblade and then met up with the rest of the crew to go into the domes of the space station. The air dock had a phrase written above it, “They shrink from hard work but we do not.” Kazuko said that they should not bring weapons and everyone but Captain Ying followed through with that. Long Veer handed everyone a Stim shot. Theo was lost in thought about the NoBot and Faceplate but he went with the group. There was some discussion about what they would trade to the Cogs for repairs done to their ships. Bryce wanted to stay on board the ship but he did end up going down. Theo mentioned that the air in the domes wasn't scrubbed and it was air produced by organic plants. When they were in the next air lock there was trees and hills. Another phrase was written on the walls, “One should not abandon one's God, one should abandon one's own.” The strong scent of dirt and pollen without the “fake clean smell” of the air scrubbers was not present. The lack of chemical and oily smells was strange for many of the Mavericks, and Theo was a bit uncomfortable with it. An old man was there waiting there and he wasn't wearing shoes. His feet were stained black from walking without them. He had no tech on him at all. Bryce didn't detect any computer networks and it was strangely pleasant for him. It was like a strange clashing of time and culture with the crew members walking up to him wearing their Esuits. The man had a smirk and he waved at them. Kazuko was the first to talk to him and he introduced himself as Amon. He offered them a place to stay at his eldest sister Alma's place. He told them of their simple ways and lifestyle. He told them there would be straw beds and feather pillows. The crew remarked how humid it was in the dome, and Amon told them it was a result of the trees and that there was dew on most things in the “mornings.” The dome was lined with Ultra-violet lights that they turned on and off to emulate a standard Earth day. Amon told them that they had a hospitality policy there and that as long as they don't hurt anyone they would have food and board for free. Amon told them that there a variety of foods and hybrid animals to taste. He told them many of the settlers don't speak to outsiders. They walked through a doorway that had hinges and it wasn't automated. The buildings were made out of wood and they had hay thatched roofs. There were lots of flowers and fields of plants. A rough path that had flat stones was where they were walking along. Kids were working with their parents in the many farms. Amon told them that they were an Earther colony that had many Maverick converts. They could see various people that had removed their cybernetic implants that were replaced with wooden legs or hands. There weren't very many public buildings that were evident. In this dome it seemed like most of the buildings were owned by various settlers. There were fields of rowed trees. They made their way to Alma's house. She had a wooden porch that was worse for wear. She was wearing this apron that was made with red and white dye. Alma told them that she was making roast and that they could have some. They went in and found a huge wooden table with many chairs. The table had a worn and used look to it. The glasses at the table seemed to have been made by the settlers and they had threads as if they could be used for other purposes, perhaps having lids for them. A strong scent of cooked vegetables, meat, and herbs filled the air. Theo was amazed that he was going to be ingesting a slaughtered animal. The sounds of voices above them hinted that others were in the old archaic house. Bessie and Velma (both in their mid 20s) were called down and they helped set the table. They had their eyes down but they were dressed in a very conservative fashion. Long Veer stared at the girls, and they also caught glances up at him and his hairless face. Theo was sneaking glances at the women. Corn on the cob was brought out and they were 2 feet in length. Butter and salt was offered, and they were told how to eat them. Beer and sweet tea was offered for them to drink. Bessie and Velma smelled of some flowery perfume. They poured the drinks and looked in the eyes of the strangers from time to time. Captain Ying was staring at the girls and he brushed Bessie's hand as she was pouring for him. Alma came up behind Captain Ying and slapped him in the back of the head. Colt spoke up and mentioned the Demetian Irises outside, and he was intrigued that they were genuine. Velma rested her hands on Colt's neck and said that they had traded for the seeds awhile back. Bryce was drinking heavily of the beer and he was relaxed in a strange way that none of the other crew members had seen before in the spastic man. The potatoes, carrots, and onions were brought out with the roast meat. A young man came down the stairs and he was helping serve up the crew. Alma said that they would be back for Alma's cooking. The man helped and showed them how to eat the roast meat. Freshly made ketchup was there and none of them knew what it was. Theo piled up the food in a strange way. Alma then rested her hands on Theo's shoulders and she showed him how to hold the silverware. Bessie and Velma were laughing at the bits of conversation that they were hearing, and none of the crew understood what was so funny with what they were saying. Captain Ying asked if they had Cherry trees, and Alma mentioned that Malthis had an orchard. They planned to go visit it after dinner. Harvey was told to keep the beer flowing. It was notice that Alma was missing a few teeth and that she was cutting the corn off of the cob and then scooping it up with a spoon. They learned that the colony was about 10 years old, and that most of them were from Earth. They had come here for religious freedom. Some of the other domes were said to have some differences in their beliefs. Alma noted that Long Veer didn't have eye brows and that he had some ketchup on his face. Both of the girls were looking at his face too. Alma said that it wasn't right that friends shaved his eyebrows and placed things in his head. Faceplate walked in through the front door and told him that the NoBot hadn't killed anyone yet. Theo gave him a deadpan look. He moved up and kissed Bessie on the cheek. Faceplate was yelled at and he said that he just kissed her and didn't grope her or anthing. Faceplate told Theo that he had a hacker that was plugged into the NoBot. This bothered Theo greatly. The hacker had wires plugged into his visual cortex he said. He told them that the NoBot was just floating, as if something had gone wrong. It almost seemed like it was abandoned. He said that the Cogs were going to be a new power in the solar system. The girls were looking awkward and they started to clean the table once the meal was finished. He wanted to work on the deal to fix their ship. He told Theo that he was going to get gray hairs as he kept worrying about stuff. The guy that Faceplate had plugged in said he had worked on NoBots way back when. Faceplate was told about the Hatamashi Counter-measure (where the NoBot becomes undetectable but using sub-voltage). The crew was shown to their rooms. Theo ran outside to talk to Faceplate as he was going to head back out to the NoBot. Faceplate told Theo that he had insurance on the crew so he wasn't worried. He wanted the Cogs to have more respect. He called the Cogs space janitors. He was talking about the various Maverick gangs working against each other. He wanted to have a more unified Maverick organization. Faceplace called the Mavericks space cockroaches or rats. He wanted some human in control of the NoBot instead of some A. I. Program. His friend that he had plugged into the NoBot was an ex-Earther CISNET operative. He kept talking about the ramifications of a NoBot in his control. He was talking about the rare fuel for it Traginium that seemed to only be available on Ganymede. He talked about how he “acquired” some more fuel from another source. He told them that he killed off everyone in the crew that he stole the fuel from. Theo said that he was going to come with him to see that the NoBot. Faceplate called him a nagging wife. Colt asked for a cutting and Velma gave him one of the Demetian Irises. Velma gave him a pot with some extra soil. She was talking about compost and farm terms... and Colt was lost. She seemed friendly and used her hands once she rolled up her sleeves to scoop up one of the plants for him. She gave him directions and a plant light. She said Doc was so formal and she punched him in the shoulder. Alma got everyone together to leave. They passed farms and copses of trees. It seemed to be harvest time. There was a cold isolationist response from many of the other farmers. They noted that there were no appliances anywhere to be seen. Everyone seemed to be working hard. There were beautiful complex symbols on the various buildings. They arrived at the next dome. There were less homes here, and there were more orchards and tree farms. The men here seemed to have longer beards here. They eventually got to Malthis' cherry grove and Captain Ying pulled out his sword and practiced while falling cherry blossoms were falling down around him. He was aiming for the petals and he cut them in twain. He lost himself into a meditative trance of sorts. Alma noted that his movements had grace though there was a deadliness about those movements as well. She said that she could watch him do that all day. Kazuko and Long Veer showed Alma some Tai-chi, and eventually her two girls participated as well. Kazuko had to correct her on some of the forms and she seemed to really enjoy the instruction. Bessie and Velma were giggling and holding their hands up to their mouths as they saw Alma going through the movements. They eventually participated as well and they seemed to be enjoying it greatly, giggling from time to time. Malthis the owner of the grove came out of the trees and folded his arms across his face and watched Captain Ying's movements with the monoblade. The Captain calmed him down, and they made their way to the others. Malthis asked him to put the sword away after complimenting him on his skill. They were offered some cherries, and the Captain was given a sapling when Malthis heard how much they were revered by the Gongen culture. Ying was awestruck that he was given this sacred thing and he left without telling the others to take it back to Alma's house. Malthis came down and saw the women doing Tai-chi, and he thought it was some sort of weird slow dancing. Malthis said that didn't want to participate as it looked like something only ladyfolk participated in. The girls were more relaxed and the seemed to naturally take to the forms shown to them. The group headed back to Alma's house. Long Veer wandered where the Captain went... Bryce was just sitting under the cherry trees and he was calmly watching the petals fall all down around him. Harvey was talking to Ying back at the house and the Captain asked if there was a place to go drinking. Harvey said he would wake them up at midnight to sneak off to have fun and head over to hang out with the “liberals.” Back at Alma's she started a fire in the fireplace and the girls and Harvey all told stories to one another. Long Veer noticed that the lights were dimming and that a nighttime period follows day. He left Alma's place and headed off to find Theo. Theo and Faceplate were in a shuttle and they were headed to the NoBot. The fingers of the NoBot were moving along with the arms as a result of being plugged into the brain of the SISNET operative. Theo was talking about all of the people that had died as a result of Faceplate's actions. He was drinking while he was flying the shuttle. Theo was talking about protocol and Faceplate laughed at him. He said that they would clear up his old lady worries to rest. They exited the shuttle and were climbing on the outside of the NoBot with their soft-mag boots. There was a silver, gold, and black motif to the design of it. Theo's fists were clenched and he was shaking as he remembered the violent attacks that he saw as a result of the last NoBot that they were working on. He was remembering a NoBot crush one of his old friends in its massive fingers. Cogs were working on the legs and torso but none were on the arms and hands that were moving. Theo started to remove some plates and he noted that this must be an older NoBot, perhaps even a first generation NoBot that didn't have as many safety and security programs. Faceplate thought that it had some sort of breakdown, and he said the A. I. Was inactive when they found it. Theo was looking for the A. I.'s Intelligence Matrix. Theo learned that “Yellow Guard” was the name of the ex-Earther CISNET operative. They went up to the head and found Yellow Guard that was in a human-sized cockpit that they introduced to the back of the head of the NoBot. Yellow Guard had a lazy eye, and he was skinny. He had a good amount of greasy hair. Faceplate said he left the organization because he lost too many good people. Yellow Guard told Theo that he hadn't had any problems yet. He said that Ghost in the Shell wasn't there anymore, and that he was the life of the NoBot now. He told them that the A. I. Was nowhere to be found. “Do you think that NoBots ever kill themselves, that they delete their own programming? Its just a thought that I had...” Theo said that the NoBots were nothing more than combat programming under Shocho's watchful eye. Theo said that since this was a first generation unit that the Intelligence Matrix would be in a different location. He found it after some time. The construction seemed to be very rugged and made for intense fighting. A large floating polyhedron was found and it turned out to be the Intelligence Matrix though it had one of its wires that wasn't connected anymore. A small circular monitor had a face appear on it and it seemed to be looking right at Theo. He moved his hand to side to side and the eyes followed his movements. Theo was terrified that it was activated. Faceplate was told to evacuate and he listened. Long Veer started to communicate to the NoBot A. I., but it didn't return any messages sonically. The face had this sad countenance, that looked like a poor imitation of a sad human face. There was static. A white hand appeared, it reached out, and then it closed into a fist... It them switched to text-based communication. “ENTROPY” appeared on the monitor. Theo got a hold of Pon so that she could observe what was happening. Pon though that the A. I. Should be able to operate without any problems, and she didn't know why it wasn't able to operate its body. She said that the NoBot should be able to kill them all. Faceplate said to just shoot it, but Theo said that might start a chain-reaction that would make the whole thing explode. He also said that the NoBot has many reserve power sources. “DISAMBIGUATION” appeared. After story time with the family at Alma's house everyone went to bed after a prayer and blessing on all those that were within the house. At midnight Harvey the male grandchild of Alma then woke up Bryce and Captain Ying and the others that wanted to go investigate the liberal dome and they headed off under the dark roof the the dome since the lights were turned off. Back out in space with the NoBot Theo got out a datapad and he connected it to the Intelligence Matrix. He typed in the word “why?” The letters of the word started to be blotted out pixel by pixel like it was being dissolved. “POINTLESS” then appeared. It was asked to explain. “REFUSE” then appeared. “!” then showed up. Some of the wires then began to have electricity flow down them. Theo thought about connecting the loose wire... “SLAUGHTER” then appeared. Theo then made a Safe Port so that she could communicate with this NoBot. It was designed to be safe but Pon was worried for her own well-being. She said that she didn't have a backup, and then she changed that thought and said that she did have a backup in the NuRelms virtual reality program. She was then uploaded into the Safe Port... Long Veer was monitoring the Intelligence Matrix. Several firewalls and redundancies were programmed by Theo. He thought that he had set up a sort of kill switch in case things went bad. Next time on WARS! Boys night out, and NoBot vs. Pon! We talked a bit about the possibility that Bryce has Son of Pon inside his cybernetic computer in his skull.
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Post by Admin on Apr 15, 2014 10:33:39 GMT
Wars 11 Recap
Kazuko, Colt the doctor, and Captain Ying went off to find the most liberal dome that this asteroid had on it. They were lead by Harvey who was one of the grandsons of Alma their host where they were currently residing. On the way through the various domes and tunnels there were many signs and graffiti that had a religious bent to them. Harvey told them that there were weird rumors about genetics and people doing strange things to their bodies.
The tunnel on the way there had various blasphemous graffiti and two drunk / high Mavericks greeted them on the way there. There were piles of vomit, blood, and the walls has plasma gunfire burns. They visited Frannie's Widget first that was a rundown dive bar and got a bunch of booze from the counter. They then wandered around the small shanty-town.
They found a place called Out of the Box. The front of the building was just a large fish tank with a very thick translucent glass so that they could see the 3 strange hybrid animal / human women that were swimming in the water and a strange yet sensuous manner. Captain Ying was disgusted but he went with the decision of the group. Kazuko put his hand up to the glass and one of the women put her hand up to his on the other side of the glass. She had multiple eyelids, and her eyes were a solid jade color. Kazuko seemed more interested than disturbed, and the Doc's eyes were wide open and he was the first to crawl through the tube that was the only evident entrance to this establishment. There was writing in the tube. “Leave the real world behind. Experience irreality.” and other such sentences and sentence fragments.
There were strange sensations that they were feeling that were caused by electric current, wind blowing on them, tingling flesh, etc. The tube turned into a glass slide that lead down into the dark unknown. “Experience the surreal. The journey begins.” The Doc was the first to slide down into darkness. “Will you remember? Will you experience the vast nature of the things in the unknown?” Kazuko and the Captain followed after (though he needed to take a big swig first). “You'll never want to leave...”
They three of them slid down for a very long while (about 10 minutes). The darkness changed to strange low-light colors and there were strange noises from time to time. It was like some strange acid trip and the tube changed its directions many times. They broke through various membranes plastic and organic and then they splashed down into about a 15 foot deep vat of liquid. They looked around in this light blue dyed water vat and saw fake seashore with sand and plastic shells. There were rocks and pine trees that were also fake. The trees were planted upside down and at angles. They dome that they were in had a surface above that was all numbers and letters jumbled together. In the distance they saw a shanty hut that was covered in neon lights and a sign that said Out of the Box above it. Various fish-like things were bumping into their legs.
“Please walk forward to experience the glories of Out of the Box...” The entrance way on the hut was a strange plane of darkness. Kazuko thought that the people that owned this place were going way out of their way to do and create strange things. Two scale-covered males popped up and invited them to swim. He had one of his fingers surgically removed and he had membranes between his fingers. He had gills as well. He caressed Colt's hand and forearm and invited him to have sex with him in the water, but Colt turned down the offer. “The rhythm of the water is quite soothing.” Colt inspected his arm and he found a scale that was stuck to his arm and it had a microchip attached to it. It seemed to be the hybrid male's contact information.
A Maverick stumbled out of the dark door way and he was covered in this strange white foamy substance and he was excited and quite high. “Friends everywhere! You are friends too! Let's go back in.” Kazuko was pulled towards the door but he was trying to avoid the white foam. “Experience the unnatural delights of OUT OF THE BOX!” The Maverick has strange smells of chocolate, cinnamon and other strange sweet smells. A shapely leg came out of the door and she had 3 toes removed and replaced with some sort of strange tentacle appendages. “Friends come in! Before it's all taken!!!” The man had no pupils and just had white eyes.
They entered the small hut. They were overwhelmed by what greeted their sight. There was a huge dome filled with many levels and Grav drives had been used to make gravity pull everyone to the edges of the domes. There were beds, pools, jacuzis, and in them there were all colors of naked flesh of women and men that had all been modified with surgery and their DNA was blended with some other animal. It appeared to a strange fetish whore house that dealt heavily with genetic freaks.
Kazuko went over and talked to a woman who had her chest skin removed and it was replaced with this fine otter fur. His flesh port was not plugged in, so she grabbed him with her legs and tried to plug him in. Kazuko resisted but eventually he was plugged in. An unexcited Bot asked if Kazuko wanted a drink and then sprayed him with Brandy. Kazuko then just went with the flow of the atmosphere of the place.
The Maverick man with no pupils lept into the air and dragged the Doctor with him into the zero gravity where the Grav Drives were playing havoc at the exterior of their fields. The Maverick man and the Doctor were flying around and taking it all in. A woman with an elephant trunk for an arm with fiery red hair was massaging a man in a vat of viscous blue fluid. Another woman had her lower half replaced with a large snake and she was crushing three men that had smiles on their faces.
Captain Ying made his way over to this hybrid cow-human hybrid and he was drinking lots of drug-laced milk from her... Lots of cow jokes would fly later because of this. After four hours they finally left when the place closed down. The Doc collected various DNA samples and then they left via a large elevator. Outside it was simulated morning as all of the dome lights were turned on. The Captain had a strange milk after taste in his mouth, and he was vomiting out white material that had an oily surface layer to it. The girl hybrids outside in the giant fish take had closed some shutters and were resting during the daylight hours.
The group headed back to Alma's house. Kazuko had brush burns on his face. Alma was there with her hands on her hips when they were crawling back through the window. “Where were you mister...? Are you ready for breakfast, have you worked up an appetite.” They had a large breakfast of warm pancakes, maple syrup, sausage, and bacon.
Back out in space Theo and Long Veer were out with the NoBot and they had set up an alternate reality box so that Pon could contact and communicate with the A. I. Of the NoBot. Faceplate had told them to shoot the A. I. Matrix if things didn't go well with what they were trying. Bryce then just showed up to see what was going on. The word “NOTHING” appeared on the monitor on the A. I. Matrix.
The Ex-Earther that didn't evacuate was still plugged into the head of the machine. The crew didn't like that at all. He was asking if the A. I. Was destroyed yet... They broke off the communication system with him. Faceplate noticed that the NoBot as a whole was moving. The Ex-Earther pilot was operating it and had plans for it. “This is amazing the way it feels when I move.” Bryce used his telepathy to learn that the Ex-Earther wanted to take the NoBot for himself and he was in the process of taking the opportunity to leave.
The face of the monitor of the the A. I. Matrix went black and then Pon's face replaced it. She was smiling. Pon's face was also on the little virtual reality box. Bryce was splicing himself into the NoBot, as the Ex-Earther then fired missiles from its arms and 5 Maverick ships exploded into fire and debris. Some of the Mavericks started to fire on the NoBot without Faceplate's orders.
Just before the Ex-Earther pilot was about to fire again Bryce managed to take over the controls of the NoBot. He was connected to the weapons and self-destruct mechanisms and he noted how much power was under his control. The arm of the NoBot was used to rip out the Ex-Earther pilot and his crumbled and torn body was throw out into space. Long Veer seemed to be impressed with Bryce's weird Kizen powers.
The Maverick Cog ships began firing on the NoBot. “I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE” was written on the A. I. Matrix and it had Pon's face. Theo held up the cable to plug the matrix back in and Long Veer said that that was a bad idea. Long Veer made sure that they understood that the thing in the matrix wasn't Pon. “I HAVE PHYSICAL FORM NOW... PLEASE DON'T!” The face of Pon on the matrix dimmed and then it was black. Pon's voice from the device that Theo had made started talking about how strange that was talking with the A. I. Faceplate then ordered his fellow Mavericks to stop shooting at the NoBot.
Pon said that she felt strange to be locked up inside with the A. I. And she said that the A. I. Was nihilistic. Nagami was the name of the NoBot and it tried to destroy and become Pon. Bryce said that he would check her code later to make sure that she wasn't corrupted. Nagami was trying to merge both of their codes to form some new A. I. Program, and Pon said that she felt used. Long Veer was disgusted and tore out the gigantic A. I. Matrix which shouldn't have been physicaly possible. This was the most intense physical exertion that Long Veer had shown his crew members. Pon thanked Long Veer for his actions.
The group was talking about whether or not they had salvage rights for the NoBots, though they thought that Faceplate and the Cogs would fight them over that most likely.
…
The crew were back in the spherical blue energy sphere and they were all plugged back into their medical chairs with spikes in their backs with their arms securely fastened. Two Shi aliens were dragging Kazuko out of the sphere and the thought symbols and thoughts were in all of their heads <WE NEED TO TALK. WE NEED TO SUE FOR PEACE. WE NEED TO SPEAK OF SUCH THINGS.> Kazuko felt that the Shi were desperate and that they were worried over the alliance that the Quay and humanity had formed to combat the Shi. They seemed that they were trying to use Kazuko to help them work out some sort of peace accord for all of the factions in the solar system. There was a Quay representative there, as well as a human clone there of Kazuko himself.
The Kazuko clone said that it was an honor to speak to one of “The Originals.” He said that he was te General of the clone soldiers. Kazuko thought that it was strange that a clone of his could lead an army. The clone told Kazuko that the army was composed of clones of all of his fellow crew members and himself. This bothered Kazuko greatly.
Then the setting changed, and Kazuko forgot all of this.
…
There was a vague fugue state after affect in Kazuko and one of Alma's grandchildren Velma was trying to get him to talk.
Long Veer out in space didn't trust anyone to use the NoBot, and he recommended destroying it. The NoBot was the same size as the Aeschylus. They were a little concerned about how volitile the Traginium fuel was and in how large an explosion of the NoBot would be. Bryce then locked down the systems of the NoBot so that it would take some time for Faceplate and the Cogs to get access and use out of the NoBot. He fried some wires and other systems. The NoBot seemed to be a sort of empty husk.
They informed Faceplate that the NoBot was “tacked completely.” Faceplate was thankful that he still had his NoBot and the remaining Cog vessels.
At Alma's Bryce chugged some milk in front of Captain Ying... again making fun of his time spent at the Out of the Box genetic freak whore establishment. Long Veer plopped the A. I. Matrix on the table and they weren't sure what they were going to do with it. Kazuko suggested that it should be given to the Bot that was at the Out of the Box club. Captain Ying decided to keep the bottle he was going to give to Harvey (Alma's grandchild). The crew stayed for another night as their ship still needed repairs.
The crew wanted to do something for Alma and the family as a thank you for their free room and board. Colt and Long Veer decided to head back to the ship to collect various vegetable and other plant samples to give to them so that they could plant and harvest them. They had a ton of samples in the hydroponic area on the Aeschylus. Colt was happy that his genetic sample collection was growing steadily. Long Veer asked to have a stim as he wanted to stay awake. There were no non-chemical fertilizers so he didn't bring any of that with him.
Pon informed Long Veer that a huge vessel with a lot of little ones were on the way towards their location. Pon then told Captain of the same thing. The estimated time of arrival was 4 hours. Captain Ying said that it sounded like some sort of military fleet. The approaching large ship was 8 or 10 times the size of the Aescylus... It was far away so he couldn't make out the shape of the smaller ships. It was an angular dome sort of structure. It was roughly the size of a small to medium sized asteroid. Long Veer guessed that their ship would be totally repaired in about 1 hour. Fred & Velma the bots had moved themselves over to the ship and were working on it too.
They were planning on docking the Tarrassu (their original ship) inside of the Aeschylus' docking bay. Kazuko made a point to tell the Captain that this alien fleet might not be military in purpose, that they might have some sort of other goal in mind. There was some mention that even though the NoBot was burned out that Bryce made have made a backdoor for himself to use it again...
Bryce told the crew that he could probably fly and maneuver the alien vessel... because of some of the things that he had gleaned from the memories of the Quay aliens that had invaded their ship before. Bryce said that he would try to work miracles with the alien vessel. Long Veer wasn't sure how Bryce had any idea on how to operate the alien vessel that they possessed. Bryce told Theo that there was a lot that he had to explain about who and what he was. Those two ventured into the alien ship through the umbilical tunnels that had been set up by the Maverick Cogs.
Bryce told Theo to watch his step as there was not much friction to the floors since the Quay walk on pointed feet. They entered the ship through this orange shimmering organic-metalic carapace opening, and it looked like coral in places. Bryce picked up a piece of metal and he tapped in a pattern and a hollow sound could be heard. Some sort of gas or liquid was inside the rod that produced different tones. By changing the way he hit the rod it seemed to have some affect on the ship itself. Tendon-like structures opened up the vessel to see the bridge of the ship. It was an open space with a floor that had winding grooves filled with perforations that reminded them of the porous nature of the inside of a bone. The floor seemed well suited for Quay pointed feet, and yet it was smooth and made it difficult for them to walk with soft-mag booted feet as it wasn't magnetic in nature.
The forward facing side of the vessel had a porous structure that had opened up for larger gaps and through a membrane layer of mesh you could see outside of the ship. This bridge area while feeling open was well protected from the outside, and it was strongly designed to ram ships so it was very strongly reinforced. There were seats that looked in some ways like a saddle designed for the 4-legged Quay to sit on and control the ship through. Bryce was poking a rod into one of the foot holsters on this seat and he said that they might have to get actual alien legs to operate the ship via some sort of alien leg puppetry. It seemed to be that if they pulled the tendon-nerves inside the alien legs that they could fly the ship. Bryce also suggested that perhaps... perhaps that they could modify the fleshports to be able to plug into the alien vessel to help operate it. Bryce told them that by twisting their legs slightly that they can make the ship do very different things. He said that piloting one of these vessels must be what riding a horse was like, or perhaps more like dancing with a partner. He said that a pilot would have to be delicate and have a sort of skill like that of a musician to operate it; that it had a certain rhythm to it.
Theo said that them trying to operate this vessel would be like playing a harp with a hammer... Bryce said that perhaps the Doc could help them manipulate and use the legs of the dead aliens or use the 3D printer to craft something that they could use like a puppet to fly the ship, or perhaps graft the legs onto themselves to fly the ship... They then left the alien vessel and headed back to their ship. They asked the Doc and Long Veer to meet them in the medlab to work on a solution.
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Post by Admin on Apr 27, 2014 14:29:55 GMT
Session 12 Recap “Blood Ritual”
The crew were trying to determine what to do about the large alien ship and armada of smaller ships that were heading towards the asteroid where they currently were located at. All of the crew were on the Aeschylus and Long Veer had started the fusion engine because it took about 30 minutes to get things fired up. The Doctor was working on the Demetian Irises, and looking at the alien Quay limbs. The Demetian Irises were said to have a mutagenic effect on most mammals.
In the Quay vessel Theo was telling Bryce that it would take too long to work on things so that they could pilot it. Theo was talking about having the Aeschylus try to move the asteroid, but that never ended up happening. He mentioned Dr. Heinrich's Gravitation Theory 101 to support this action, though it had never been used before. He was concerned for the fate of the Amish farmers down on the asteroid. Long Veer was piloting the ship and he was waiting for the others to come help him.
Kazuko was working on a message to send to this alien armada of ships. He had been reviewing the footage of the Quay that had boarded their ship and had cobbled together a program and a device to help translate the language in a rough fashion. He wanted to make sure that the inflection was correct. The device was part voice box, and part translator.
Bryce had looked at the Aeschylus' sensors and found them to be very long-range, and capable to detect electromagnetic frequencies to a finer degree. Captain Ying, Long Veer, and Bryce were all hanging out in the cockpit. Long Veer was filling in Bryce on the Gongen systems, and conversions over to Maverick systems. Bryce informed Long Veer about the Quay vessel in their possession and that it would take some engineering feats necessary to get it to a point where they could operate it, most likely by using the limbs from the dead Quay that were on board. Bryce mentioned the fact that Theo wanted to move the asteroid, but Long Veer was skeptical about that plan.
Bryce was almost done working on the alien message that he was to send, and he suggested that that asteroid might have a gravity generator that could be focused in some way to help move it. Long Veer said that the gravity enhancer could be used, and that most settlers picked asteroids that had an iron core to help out such Grav drives. Kazuko said that it was something to think about, but Long Veer said that if they did that, the artificial gravity would cease to be in the domes.
Theo was talking to Citizen Thann, and he told him that each dome had a government unto itself. Theo informed him of the armada of alien ships that were coming... He informed him that these things were quite disturbing. Citizen Thann told him that the asteroid's defense grid should help somewhat in their defense, but Theo told them that it most likely wouldn't stop this alien force if it decided to attack. Thann seemed to want to find some peaceful solution, and that they were not willing to use violence even if the aliens did attack. This seemed to worry Theo, who mentioned that perhaps they should evacuate, though Thann did not seem to want to abandon his people's home. He told Theo that his people did not feel welcomed in other locations in the solar system, and that was the main reason that they had founded this asteroid for religious freedom. He didn't seem to be in a great hurry however when he walked to go tell the other leaders of the various domes.
Theo contacted the rest of the crew and informed them of the emergency meeting that the leaders of the domes were going to have. He then gave Citizen Thann a communication device so that he could tell the crew when a decision was arrived at by the council of elders. Theo thanked Thann for the hospitality that they had shown the crew. Theo also noted that Thann seemed very contemplative and not in a hurry when he walked off.
Theo and Long Veer worked on the docking procedures to move their old ship and alien vessel into place, as well as detaching from the colony. The Aeschylus moved away from the asteroid but they stayed close by (about 1,500 meters away) but it wasn't a smooth motion, Long Veer seemed to be having some issues with piloting the ship, he said that he was tired.
Kazuko sent the translated message, and in response the armada slowed to about half speed but they didn't send a return message as of yet. On the sensors the armada of ships seemed to be identical to the vessel that they had in their possession. Bryce ran a detailed scan and sure enough, the ships seemed to be of Quay origin, and he also wanted to see what the temperature readings were of the ships. Those readings said that the temperatures were lower in these ships, but they were still warmer than what a human ship would have. The ships seemed to be reading about 100 degrees. There was some question about when these Quay aliens got hot, and for what reason. Kazuko said that their heat signature was related to their level of aggression and anger, as well as when they shifted and increased their size. They determined that the larger ship had about 200 smaller vessels in its wake. Kazuko mentioned that this might be some sort of colony. Bryce said that he suspected that they were looking for a new home. At this point the armada of ships stopped... and a single solitary smaller alien vessel was traveling towards them. The sensors reported that the vessel had the ability to be heavily armed with destructive weapons but that it didn't have any of them loaded. Bryce didn't think that by being without weapons it might be some sort of spokesperson for the armada, though he did say that it was still capable of ramming and boarding. Kazuko said that it was possible that this vessel could possibly self-destruct and kill them all.
The solitary alien vessel hailed them. The large black chitinous Quay seemed to be in a cooler state than they had seen of the previous Quay. It seemed to be smaller too about about 10 feet. It said: “We have a desire to meet with your sub-leader.” It also said, “We are coming to dock with you, prepare yourselves. It is customary for each of us to exchange gifts at our meeting.” Captain Ying was worried and wondered what kind of gifts that they wanted. It continued, “If gifts are not exchanged, it is thought to be highly offensive.” Kazuko suggested that Captain Ying make medals for them like he had made for the crew, and he agreed. Kazuko said to make them REALLY shiny. The face of the creature on the hail moved forward and it seemed like it was waiting for something. Kazuko said in return, “Please slowly approach the docking area, and I Kazuko will meet you shortly.” It replied, “Make it so.” and then started moving towards them.
Kazuko made his way to the docking bay, running quickly and anxious. He was worried that if this didn't go well it might be the end of them all, including the settlers. He was thinking about writing this in the book he had been working on. The Captain showed Kazuko the medals that he had worked on and made quickly. “It's not everyday that you get to give a medal to alien...” Kazuko was glad that they had something to give to them.
Long Veer headed down to the Med Bay where the Doc was examining some things, and asked him for another Stim shot. The Doc gave him a shot of amino acids and told him to take whatever Stims that he needed. Long Veer shot himself up with several Stims and then headed out. The Doc was worried about his health. Captain Ying ordered the Doc to head down to the docking bay, just in case things got hairy. Captain Ying was concerned about the vessel being so close to their ship, but he followed Kazuko's lead.
Pon spoke up and asked if there was anything she could do. Theo told Pon to move over into the combat bot Jinu and to come to the docking area to provide backup and she did so. Pon/Jinu waited outside by the door and she asked for a clarification on what she was supposed to do, if she was supposed to use violence or not. She asked if she should ask for orders or if she should use her own judgement, and she was informed to follow orders. Long Veer suggested that any of the crew should be able to command Pon/Jinu in case the Captain was subdued. Long Veek in jest quickly told Pon to kill the Captain. Pon said that she had no wish to dismantle the Captain, and that she assumed Long Veer was making an attempt at humor... Captain Ying told her that he appreciated that she didn't want to dismantle him.
The Quay vessel moved to about 10 meters away and stopped. It hailed them again, and then it docked to the umbilical tunnel. Kazuko translated the message, “I am here, prepare for our meeting”. The entryway of the tunnel was opened on the alien's side. There was only one Quay that was coming to meet with them. Its head was so large that only its large red eye could be seen when it was looking through the glass window portal in the door. It was 10 feet tall. They opened the door and Kaz said, “May your talk with us be pleasant and peaceful.” It had a gray/light blue sword on its hip and it held up the sword in both hands and held it up to Kaz. The Captain presented the medals and Kaz translated , “Please accept these gifts and we hope that you find them acceptable.” Its large left hand grabbed the box of medals. The alien had a sort of majestic movement to it, as if each movement was part of an elaborate ritual. Kaz reached for the sword, and then the creature turned the tip of the sword and pulled it towards its neck. Kaz resisted, and then the creature started to get hot and started yelling, “My blood to your blood! Allow this!”
It jammed the end of the sword 3 inches into its neck and its blood started to run down the blade towards Kazuko. Its right hand was clutching onto the end of the sword also cutting it. Kazuko was disturbed but he went along with it as the blood started to cover his hand that was clutching onto the hilt of the sword. The Quay's red eyes were staring directly into Kaz' eyes. The blood began to drip down onto the metal grating in the room. Captain Ying asked if they needed to offer up blood as well, and Kaz agreed. The Captain then cut his hand with his sword, and his blood dripped down onto the grating too. The Quay yanked out the sword, and let it go and moved over toward the Captain. It stared at him and methodically moved over, its legs clanking on the floor as it moved. It was towering over the Captain, and its eyes stared at the bloody hand, and then it wiped up the blood on the ground and smeared the Captain's blood on its forehead. The Captain then smeared some of the alien's blood on his forehead. The blood was very hot, but not hot enough to burn human skin.
The creature began saying, “Blood for blood” and looking at those that had not yet smeared blood on their foreheads. The Captain seeme to be very uncomfortable with the blood on his forehead, but he also seemed to be making a face at the other crew to also smear the blood on themselves. The rest of the crew then smeared the Quay's blood on their faces. It then began to chant / sing. Kaz was having trouble translating the chant. “To save their lineage...” Bryce then used his telepathy ability to help translate and assist Kaz. The creature's thoughts were of two delegations of aliens, with a similar sword in a religious or holy place and all of them were chanting some sort of hymn of peace to their strange alien gods. Bryce then set up a Gestalt with all of the crew, and he invaded everyone's minds and he told them all that it was singing/chanting a hymn to its gods.
The Quay representative then bend its four legs and sort of kneeled on the floor. It was about 6 feet tall at this point. Its arms were making this fluid gesture not unlike someone swimming or a graceful form of martial arts and then it rested its hands on its knees and looked at Kazuko. Bryce told Kaz that it was ready to talk. Kaz locked his eyes on the alien. So began the negotiations.
Kaz wasn't sure how the telepathy grid worked, and Bryce was having a hard time describing it to him. Bryce told him that though he was reading the creature's thoughts, that it would be best of Kaz translated the actual words that it was saying. Bryce was seeing harsh landscape in the alien's head with lots of labor going on, perhaps some mining. Another form of alien was forcing them to work, and he saw a mental image of this other alien lifeform kill one of the Quay with its mind perhaps. This overseer seemed to be terrifying, especially to the Quay and a strong sense of hatred was there as well. It was thinking of the Quay being in servitude.
The Quay repeated “Blood for blood” and also it said that it wanted “peace and a new home.” Kaz thought that it was asking for permission to colonize the asteroid. The next mental image that Bryce saw was the domes filled with Quay. Kaz told the creature that if it truly wished for peace that they would most likely be welcomed here. The next mental image was that of only half the domes were filled with Quay, and the other half of the domes were populated with lots of images of humans that were the crew as farmers in the domes. Kaz translated that it said, “Many generations...” and he guessed that he meant that there were lots and lots of them. Long Veer said that the asteroid could not support that many of them, that the asteroid did not have that many resources. Kaz suggested that they might be bringing things with them to help set up some new settlement. Kaz told them that “We have engineers here that could help them.”
The creature then ripped off sacks of fluid, 20 in total, and placed them in a pile in front of it. It then grabbed 3 of them and slid them in front of Kaz. It then slid the remaining 17 and slid them away to the left. Kaz thought that he had just become a father, but Bryce saw the mental image of a small contingent of ships settling here while the rest of the armada would move off. Bryce informed Kaz that the sacks were poisonous acid and that the Quay was using them as a gesture to help show them what it meant, that it represented only a small contingent of Quay would settle here. The alien then reached out and shook the pile in front of Kaz. He grabbed them but he didn't suffer any ill effects by touching them, though he was nervous about it. They were warm and that disturbed Kaz a bit. Long Veer said that he would be alright as long as they weren't ripped open or thrown violently. Kaz told it, “Please have your people remain at a distance and we will arrange things for your settlers.”
The creature began chanting again and lifting its arms up into the air (touching the ceiling in the process). Kaz told the crew that he had told them that they could settle on the asteroid. Theo wondered what the Amish farmers would think of this. The Quay then slid the poison-acid sacks over to Kaz and then it began to leave. They thought that it had given them something of itself to perhaps seal the agreement. Long Veer said that they had not learned much at all of their intent or about their culture. The creature left its sword as well that was a large two-handed sword (that Long Veer could probably wield easily). The Quay made its way to its ship and then it left, and Long Veer seemed to be a bit disturbed by all of this. He mentioned that they didn't even know the Quay representative's name.
Long Veer collected up the poison-acid sacks and put them in Pon/Jinu's back compartment. Pon suggested that they could perhaps be used as weapons. Long Veer was worried that the acid if released could perhaps burn through Jinu's body or the hull of the ship. Pon suggested that perhaps examining them might be too dangerous, but Long Veer said that it would be fine.
The larger alien vessel left with 150 ships, and 50 of them remained to settle here. Long Veer pointed out that this was perhaps too many alien settlers. The ships then started moving towards the asteroid. Long Veer said that if the aliens did settle here that they could help protect these “backwards people that live here.” Captain Lie Ren pointed out that he did not want to meet whatever alien species could make these huge Quay bend the knee into submission. The thought terrified him.
Citizen Thann talked to the crew and asked if a sit down could be set up, and the crew told him that that had already happened. He was upset that they were not invited to this meeting. Theo told him that they would be over to talk to them about it. Thann was worried about the ships coming closer to the asteroid, and Theo would talk to them soon. Thann said that him and the other representatives of the domes would meet them on the asteroid in a wooded clearing.
The 50 Quay vessels stopped at a closer distance and their sharp pointed fronts of their vessels were pointing at the asteroid. It was quite imposing to behold. Kaz brought the sword with him to show Thann what they had been given. Kaz wanted to let them know that these aliens could possibly kill them all, if they wanted to, but that they just wanted to find a new home.
The crew met with the delegation of the Amish settlers that were split 50/50 between men and women. They then were lead to a circular clearing in a grove. They were all wearing very roughspun homemade clothing. Kaz told the delegation that their safety and peace of mind was forefront during his negotiations with the aliens. He told them that he had communicated with the Beings, and that they were homeless and desired a peaceful home. Thann asked him what he meant by Beings, and Theo then started showing them pictures of the non-humans. They asked them where they came from, and Theo told them they are from the RIFT. Theo was being brutally honest, and this made Kaz squirm a bit. One of the women looked terrified, and one of the men stepped back a few feet. Kaz interrupted Theo, because he wanted to ease them into things. He made sure to emphasize that these beings would be peaceful, and that their culture and the aliens could work together and that they had strange similarities since most of the aliens seemed to have organic technology.
Citizen Thann told them that they were concerned that their way of life would change, but that he was hopeful that a peaceful path without bloodshed and that they could walk through their fears and move onto the future. He wanted to speak with them so that he could judge for himself... alone... with these creatures. Kaz mentioned that these aliens like the settlers wanted to find a place for themselves where they wouldn't be judged. Thann suggested that they could evacuate the most liberal dome so that the aliens could temporarily settle there but only if there was peace. He mentioned that there was a lot of asteroid real estate without domes that could eventually be settled by the Quay. The dome that he was talking about the pleasure district dome that some of the crew had visited the day before. Thann said that that dome housed trouble makers. Thann said that everything the aliens would need would be there, if they were willing to work. Thann complimented Theo on his honesty.
Thann said that these creatures were on some great exodus and that perhaps that it was fate that had brought them here. He was terrified and fearful of the change that would happen to his culture. He suggested that the aliens being here could perhaps keep them isolated, that the fear of these creatures would keep away outsiders. Long Veer told them that the creatures worked hard, and that they don't use much technology. Thann said that he would evacuate the one dome and that he would meet them there by himself. He didn't want the group's help, and this worried the crew greatly. Thann said that even though it would be slow going, he didn't want any help with the translator technology. He wanted the two cultures to slowly learn from each other, and work towards understanding each other. He thought that their two cultures could grow to live with one another as two trees that grow together that are planted too close to one another.
Than thanked them and told them that he believes his people would have died if they had not been here to negotiate with them. He seemed to understand that the Quay had the capability of much violence. “If my people are to die, I will be glad that we went out as a people that had peaceful intentions. Give them the go ahead to land their ships and to meet me there. It is very important that they land near the outermost dome, the one that will be evacuated. The other delegates seemed angry but they went along with Thann's decision.
Long Veer said that he didn't trust these backwater settlers. He didn't understand how this settlement worked, and all of the small details to set up things here. He didn't understand how they had made so much possible in only 10 years. It seemed fishy to him, too fast. He didn't understand where they got all of the trees, the topsoil, the oxygen, etc. Theo agreed that he didn't know how this all was possible either, but he thought it wasn't impossible either. He said their origins seemed a bit strange. Long Veer said that maybe he was just paranoid, and he did look very strange. His eyes were HUGE, and the Doc asked what Stims he had taken, and it sounded like he had been taking too many of them.
Pon told them that the colonists were sending messages to the Quay. Kaz told the Quay representative that the colonists wouldn't be able to communicate with them as easily with them as they had. Theo did not like that at all. Theo was worried that they would come back here later only to find all of the Amish settlers slaughtered. Long Veer and Bryce worked on making Kaz' translator to function much more smoothly.
Theo asked the Doc what their adventures to the now evacuated dome was like. The Doc told him about the genetic freaks at the Out of the Box establishment, and Theo said that he had heard of other establishments named that. The Doc was surprised that it was a franchise. Theo said that it was a new trend and that the place must have expanded. He had heard that it was a good place to unwind. Theo learned that Captain Ying had hung out with a bovine-woman hybrid and laughed at hearing about how much mutated drug-laced milk that Ying had sucked down on his visit to Out of the Box. The Doc said that if Theo wanted some leverage with that Captain, that he should make cow noises at him. Theo told the Doc that he was into cybernetic women.
Kaz talked to the Quay representative again over a hail. He swallowed nervously that, “The settlers are prepared to welcome them and that they just asked that you communicate with them in time.” The alien replied in kind that they would speak with them. They said that they wanted to have a shorter blood for blood ritual with Thann. Kaz knew that this would most likely be a problem. The Quay pointed down at the asteroid and muttered, “Time is of the essence, and that we are more than ready to get things started immediately.” Kaz told them where to land. Long Veer told Kaz to have the alien say a few quick sentences but they turned out to be rather nonsensical. Long Veer's lack of sleep seemed to be showing... Pon asked if Long Veer was alright, and the other crew knocked him out so that he could finally rest. “It's full of stars...” was Long Veer's last words before slumping to the ground.
Colt reminded Kaz to tell Thann about the blood ritual. This greatly disturbed Thann. Kaz used the words ritual, offering, and blood. Thann asked for clarification. “Sounds like some sort of blood magic, I don't like this...” They tried to make it sound harmless, but Thann got a bit heated and shut off the communications with them. Theo was nervous, and set up things so that they could eavesdrop on the meeting of the Quay with Thann.
The 50 Quay ships started heading towards the asteroid, and they plunged into the surface of the asteroid, but they did land where they were supposed to. The ships were hidden beneath the surface of the asteroid. The Quay were crawling out of their ships and they weren't wearing their suits in the void of space. About 75 to 80 Quay were moving into the designated dome and they noted that about half of them were smaller versions of the Quay, and they thought that they were children but they weren't sure. These smaller Quay were 5 to 6 feet tall.
Theo put a Flare Filter on the viewing device so that they could ignore the light and see what was going on at the meeting with Thann. All of the Quay surrounded him in a grove clearing and the Quay representative moved into the center to speak with Thann. Thann planted a tree as his gift and a sword was given to Thann. Bryce was going through Pon's code after the NoBot encounter and she seemed to be fine.
In the blood ritual of the meeting the leader Thann did not respond in kind by shedding his own blood. The heat signature of the Quay went up when Thann did not offer his own blood. Thann instead planted a second tree in the ground before the Quay representative, who reacted by violently tearing up the ground and destroying one of the nearby trees in a destructive rage. Thann then broke one of the trees and used the sap instead of his own blood. The heat signature of the Quay then went down, it seemed that the sap was acceptable to the aliens. The meeting took about one hour. Thann then showed one of the Quay children how to dig in the ground and how to plant seeds. The Quay child's temperature dropped and it went cold, and the Quay representative's temperature increased, but eventually it also went back down. Theo stated that the Quay get angry easily, but Kazuko said that the temperature change could mean other things, and not just anger. Thann eventually left dragging a sword behind him, and the Quay representative was given Thann's walking stick. The Quay then began to bring in resources to their temporary dome.
Thann talked to Kazuko and thanked him for their help. Kazuko mentioned that he wanted to be remembered for helping them make a peaceful negotiation. Thann told Kaz that he didn't take part in the blood ritual, but that sap filled their requirement. Kaz told him that their temperature change was another form of communication. Thann told Kaz that seeing their little ones made him change his mind about them. He noted the concern of the Quay mothers for their children and that gave him hope that peace would perhaps be long lasting. Thann asked about the rest of the Quay armada, and that he hoped that the rest of them would find some sort of home. He told Kaz that they could have just taken over the settlement with violence if they so wished. Thann's last words to Kaz were: “Our thanks go with you, and ay you find peace for yourself. Fare thee well.”
[One thing we forgot about in this session was the Cog Mavericks and the NoBot out in space. We can work on that next session].
[We talked a bit about how the game has been action packed and that some down time would be a good thing in future sessions. There was also some discussion about how everyone is getting more comfortable with having so much narrative control].
[John mentioned that Long Veer really hasn't slept much so far in the campaign].
[The group was surprised that all of the hell/demon/fire/blood/ritual things that were mentioned didn't totally make the truce break down, and they were surprised that it all worked out].
[We talked about how the characters are thinking about Pon and her human-like personality].
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Post by Admin on May 16, 2014 20:00:43 GMT
Session 13 Session 13 Colt was in the Medbay doing some research on all of the alien Quay. Theo had his small bots help him do some repairs on their original ship. Kazuko was working on translating and making lexicon file of the Quay language. Bryce was on the Terasso (the original ship) and he was looking at reconstructing his Faraday Cage that was damaged, and he used the 3D printer to help with that. The Captain was trying to find a sparing partner to practice his swordplay. Theo told Bryce that a lot of his personal items were destroyed when the Quay smashed into the side of their ship. They were talking about the plasticity of a certain Miss Pluto on one of Theo's broken holoposters. The stench of the rotting corpses of the two Quay bodies was overwhelming, it seems the Cogs had fixed the mechanical bits but they didn't do any of the cleaning. They enhanced the air-scrubbers to cleanse the air of the reeking stench. They were talking about using the scrap for the material needed for the 3D printer. They requested that Pon/Jinu should help them get rid of the corpses once samples were taken. She was watching them all along, but they didn't see her. Her elusiveness was a bit creepy, though she said it matter of factly. Colt warned them about possible poisonous gasses that might be escaping from their bodies... The Land Rover that the Quay had landed on seemed like they would need some superficial repairs. Bryce did a sensor sweep and used his telepathic abilities and there was a heat source that seemed to have an intelligence to it as well. The bodies were cracked open, like a broken egg, and a bunch of viscous fluid was filling up the inside of the Land Rover and dripping out of the cracks at the bottom of the doors of the vehicles. The life signature that Bryce was getting was coming from the chest of one of the Quay bodies. Theo with a pipe was moving towards it... A loud cracking sound could be heard, and whatever was inside was in there was breaking free. Theo was close to the breaking carapace when he was sprayed with about 3 gallons of birthing fluid. Kazuko warned Theo that it might identify Theo as its parent. Theo noticed that the little miniature Quay that was breaking free was sizzling warmly in its parents birth fluid. Its red eyes followed the pipe that Theo was waving and then looked into his eyes. The mouth started to tear at the flesh of its parent. Kazuko brought the Quay translator device but it didn't seem to know how to speak in its own language and it was making “baby sounds.” The Doc said that they should just cryogenically freeze it and study it. The Quay baby seemed to be eating its own parent. The rest of the alien baby pulled itself out of its parent, and 15 gallons more of fluid dumped out on the ground. It then began to pluck out the eyes of its parent and was chewing on it. Black fluid was running downs its chin. Its breath was rancid after eating the rotted flesh. Theo held out some broken flesh, and it leaped and started devouring it. They then talked about talking to the Quay on the station. The Captain warned them that the Quay might not understand if they see the rotting corpses of one of their species on the ship. Theo then started talking English to it. The Quay infant launched itself across the room and held on by digging in its claws and it began making a clicking noise at Theo. Kazuko thought this sound might be a way that they showed affection. It began to nuzzle its hard and hot carapaced face against his neck. It was about 95-100 degrees and Theo started to sweat. Theo asked to have Pon spray some air coolant behind him, and she did with Jinu's arms. When she started spraying, the little baby Quay launched away from Theo and he landed roughly on the ground. It was really freaked out and looking around the room at all of them one at a time. The Captain began to talk about what to do with it and it seemed to be emulating his body language and the movements of his mouth. It lunged across the room and latched itself onto him, and the Captain had blood running down his arms and dripping on the floor. Its red eyes then turned from Theo who was trying to get it off of the Captain and stared in the Captain's eyes. It reached up and yanked out a chunk of hair and it began to chew on it. It then began to spit it out, and then got down on the ground. Kazuko went up to the cockpit to try to call down to the settlement, and the alien was attempting to walk exactly like Kazuko was, but it had 4 legs. The Doc did a bioscan of the creature and there was a strange element in its bones that was not Carbon based, and that is why it was eating the flesh of its parent (to get that element). Later this element was discovered to be Traginium, which was also the fuel of the NoBots. Theo asked Jinu/Pon to break open the bodies of the corpses to see what else was in there. Inside the chest they found a withered corpse of an infant Quay. It was starting to liquify in places, but he scooped it up with a clear tube container. The alien was walking backwards just like Kazuko was doing, and kept up with him and outpaced him. They had decided to go to the Medbay instead of the cockpit. Kazuko walked into a cryotube, and the creature lunged and latched onto him. The Doc then closed the door and then gassed both of them. While the gasses were being released it started to freak out and tore into his arms and chest. The Doc then removed Kazuko, and the creature was left behind. The Doc called the alien kid as a small hideous monster. The Captain made sure that people were not going to kill it. The Doc mentioned what adding cybernetics would do to these creatures. Theo wandered in with the dead Quay alien infant in the glass tube canister. It was mostly liquid but there were some chunks of flesh still in there. The Doc put it in another cryogenic tube beside the living one. A yellow-green fluid filled the base of the canister that the living one was in, it seemed that it had relieved itself. Acid sacks were starting to form on the outside of the living one. They then opened up the container and removed them. When they placed the acid sack down on the counter... it rolled from one side to another side. They waited for awhile and it didn't do it again. When they started to go about their business and were about to cut into it it rolled again. They did a scan on it, but found nothing too out of the ordinary. It then started to levitate off of the table. Colt then held it down with his mechanical hand, but it was tugging upward. Colt then noticed that the red eyes of the alien child were open and looking right at him. It had its face pressed up against the glass. Theo then opened up the canister against the Doc's warning. It lunged out and dug its feet into the wall. It then stood up in its tallest threatening pose. Its fingers were outstretched, its head was tilted down, and it was getting warmer. Theo then acted as threatening as he could in retaliation. “You best calm down!” It was reaching out its finger and pointing at the canister with the other Quay infant. It brought both of its fists in quickly and shattered the canister. Theo tried to calm it down. Its four legs folded underneath it and it just stared down sort of dejected perhaps. Theo touched its shoulder. In the cockpit Kazuko saw a signal that was emanating from a single Quay ship. Bryce looked at the signal from the Sensor Array and meets Kazuko there faster than Kazuko thought possible. He plugged into the system with a cable going into his head. It was a strange signal. There was a signal, and a sort of secret code it seemed inside of it. It seemed like some encrypted message that was looping over and over again. It was a strong signal, and an odd one. Citizen Than answered the hail, and he told them that everything seemed to be going well, and that both cultures had been ignoring each other in peace. He blessed them on their voyage. Bryce had figured out the signal somewhat, and it seemed to be some sort of ritual formal tone. He then figured out that the vessel on the colony was actually rebroadcasting a message from deep space. This message was originally sent from the new planet that had entered the solar system. He guessed that perhaps it was a mass message sent out to all of their kind even perhaps. They were pushing the message as far as possible. Kazuko translated it as “Katal” over and over again. It seemed to be referring to leaders or even a tribal designation but he couldn't tell. Another word “Hyaiyda and Hyeeyed” it seemed like an adjective in with an item, or a distance or intensity of something. They figured that they would have to study this some more. They decided to wait to see if there was an answer or if the Quay responded in any strange way. Kazuko mentioned maybe they should go to this new planet to see what the message was about. He also thought that perhaps that there was a faction of the Quay that was more militant, and that there may be many factions of them perhaps even tribal designations. Bryce told Kazuko that the name of the child's mother was <Quay Gibberish>. Kazuko wondered how he could know this, but then he called the others. Kazuko then started to get ready to head back down to visit the Quay settlement on the asteroid. The Doc wanted Theo to take a sample of the living despondent alien. The Doc figured out that bones and Calcium would most likely satiate the creature's hunger. Theo had the food replicator produced a Calcium based dish. It looked like bricks of Calcium. It lunged and snapped off a corner of it, and it seemed to like it. One of its legs kicked the brick out of Theo's hand and it kept chewing on it. When Theo tried to scoop up the dead alien infant the living one growled and then started to eat the flesh of the dead one. The Doc was a bit disgusted at seeing this. “Theo this is just a monster...” It ripped off one of the legs and sucked out the inside juices. The Doc wondered if perhaps this creature had any DNA based memories and intelligence. It then vomited up the flesh of its dead brother. The Doc mentioned that if they limited its eating of Traginium that it won't grow as fast. The creature then launched itself and latched onto Theo again. They then talked briefly about the Out of the Box establishment with the genetic whores and the NoBot that was floating out in space covered with Cogs. Theo said he meant to contact FacePlate soon about it. The Doc mentioned that Thorium Blood Mold was much more deadly as it could kill off an entire planet. Theo mentioned that the limiting factor for the NoBots was their fuel, Traginium. Doc and Theo realized that the Quay are a source of Traginium that could be used as a fuel source. Ganymede was mentioned as the only source of this substance in this solar system. The Doc wondered if Ganymede had perhaps came into their solar system from another solar system many years ago. They named the secondary material that the Quay were made of that reduces the radioactive qualities of Traginium as Qwelathium. There seemed that there was just enough of it in their system to keep the toxicity of Traginium low in their system. The crew headed down to the Quay colony on the asteroid with the Quay child in their shuttle. They left the Captain and Long Veer on the ship. Kazuko started to think that the signal that they were sending was perhaps coordinates of some Quay on the new planet. The alien seemed to have bonded with Theo and it was munching on its brick. They then headed down to the asteroid. They noted that the Quay in addition to the inhabited dome that was given to them were working on an underground structure. They exited their shuttle and headed out onto the asteroid's surface. The blue light of THE RIFT was everywhere on the horizon and it was dazzling but yet subdued, not like the light of the Sun. “I don't know if I should be drawn to that or repulse by it.” He was speaking about THE RIFT. The structures of the Quay that had breached the surface seemed to be semi-living material. It seemed like some secreted material from something under the ground, like it was planted. Two Quay guards emerged from the rocky ground and stared at the group. Kazuko tried to talk to them... not realizing that they were in the void of space and could not hear his speech. Kazuko realized that he had not figured out any form of written communication but Bryce said that they didn't have any samples of a written language just yet. The one guard pointed at the dome, but the 2nd one was staring at the child and she was getting warmer. When they passed the angry guard she reached out to grab the child. Theo had his hands up, trying to keep the peace but it didn't work. Bryce read her mind and there was intense hatred “corrupt one” “unholy one” and other similar thoughts. The Quay guard hurled the child to the ground, and it bounced and drifted off in a long arc away from the group and the guards. Bryce's thoughts flashed the memories of this creature's dying mother, and it seemed to make a difference in him. Kazuko moved forward and put himself in danger. Bryce then almost instantly moved over to where the child is, surprising the Quay. Then the angry one charged Bryce, while the other one kept pointing at the dome. Then he was back again with the child, and the crew didn't understand how he could move that quickly. The female then charged the group again and Kazuko used a force from his hand and knocked it over violently. They got to the main door and entered into the evacuated dome that was filled with Quay. The one that was pointing was now holding the female back from following the group. The inside of the dome was already being modified by this living organic coral-like substance that was covering the edges of it. They turned the life off and the light of THE RIFT was the only light visible. Lots of Quay were building things, and little ones were running around but when they saw the group they all stopped, stared, and followed the group. Kazuko was trying to emulate the arm gestures of the Quay ritual that he had witnessed previously. A large one about 15 feet tall moved forward in front of Kazuko and lowered itself down to where he could see his face clearly. His body was 105 degrees F or so, so he seemed a bit perturbed or interested. Thirty or so Quay were looking at them. Half of them seemed to be getting hotter and hotter and the others were cool for the most part. The Doc told them that the Oxygen was like being at a high altitude on a mountain. Kazuko took off his helmet and tried to greet the one in front of him. He was using the new translating device but it was tin and higher pitched than what a throat could produce. The alien looked at the little one and then back at Kazuko. One of its arms reach out and punched him pretty tough in the chest. It clicked at Kazuko as he was on the ground wheezing. Bryce scanned the crowd and heard the surface thoughts of all of the Quay around him. The half that were angry seemed to be females. “Two Feet” and “Two Footed Ones” were the names that they were calling the crew. “Cursed” “Infected” “Worthy of Slaughter” and these words were with the image of breaking the child open and pouring out the insides. The large one in front of him screamed. It held out an acid pouch in his hand, squeezed it, and it seemed like the acid was burning his hand. It's voice was filled with hatred. Theo took off his helmet, and yelled at the 15 foot tall creature. It then moved slowly and menacingly at Theo, which panicked him. Theo started to burn with flames as they wreathed around him. Colt was very surprised to see flames coming off of Theo. “Woah! Woah Theo!” -Doc. The carapace of the creature began to expand, and it began to get taller. It was talking about breaking Theo open and eating his innards. It also was saying things about Theo's parents. Twelve of the Quay in the circle that were getting hot were moving slowly towards the group. Theo grabbed the little Quay child and asked what was wrong with him. The head of the tall Quay looked at Kazuko who told them that they were bringing one of its own. The alien smashed this symbol on its shoulder, that looked like some sort of designation of tribe or family. Then it pointed at the little one and made a breaking gesture. Kazuko learned that it was from some other tribe that was not their tribe. Bryce then scanned and learned that this child was a member of a different tribe or clan and that this clan was in a blood-feud with the child's clan. The images of the hot ones seemed to be violent and those thoughts were those of belittling its clan. Bryce asked Kazuko if they were going to let them kill and destroy it. Theo said that they should just walk out of here with it. “We will take the unclean back with us, so that it won't taint your presence. We apologize.” -Kazuko. Theo's fire was using up all of his oxygen, and he tried to calm himself. His suit was scorched but still intact. The Quay infant protected Theo from the Doc, even though the Doc was trying to help Theo. The Quay child snapped its teeth a few times at the Doc and the Doc called him Chompers, thereby naming the child for the first time. The large Quay was pointing to the exit. It said one final thing. Bryce read his mind and it said, “You will choke on your ash of your own eggs as your species withers. Down your entire line of descendants this curse is now yours as it is its.” It then made this quick chopping motion breaking off one of its fingers and used it to spray blood in their direction as a final aspect of its curse. Kazuko was wondering how he could have been so wrong about them, but then the others said that as far as Quay go they did hold back somewhat. Theo was getting heated and he said that if they made any move towards the human colonists that it would be curtains for them. Bryce said that they might have killed the last of the child's bloodline when Theo said that they should return the child to its clan. This made them all think about their past actions. Doc said that they shouldn't forget how violently this Quay child's parents were. The one guard was there pointing towards their ship, and the other Quay was going nuts on their ship, ripping wires out, smashing it, breaking parts of it. Theo handed off the child to Bryce and then he flipped out and flew over to the raging Quay. She was giving off a horrible amount of heat in her destructive actions. Theo was able to ignore her heat due to his strange powers. He reached in grabbed a canister and then opened it up spraying her with coolant. She flailed and moved backwards with the pressure of the spray. She was floating and tumbling over itself. They then got into the ship and took off. The blast radius of the Gravdrives blew stones and rocks into the Quay's face and chest. On their way back the child seemed more docile, and perhaps even closer to them. Bryce suggested that it might have brain damage from getting slammed to the asteroid. Then they flew back to the ship.
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Post by Admin on May 28, 2014 19:51:58 GMT
Session 14 Recap
One week had passed since the events of last session.
Captain Ying wanted to return to Gongen as he felt that the mission was now accomplished and/or meaningless. Kazuko wanted to also return to Gongen to share his knowledge with the Quay language and to also inform his people on some of the Quay physiology. The Doctor was working on all of the genetic material that he had gathered and he was spending a lot of time alone in the medlab. He was sleeping few hours a day as he was
Theo had been doing a ton of repairs with his little helper bots. The Terrasso was completely repaired. Theo had introduced Long Veer to the baby Quay that had been nicknamed Chompers. Theo also was deep in thought about what had happened and what he would do in the future. Zixin the pilot bot was repaired and it went with Captain Ying and Kazuko. Regular bot arms were put on Jinu's body, so that Pon could control it and help out with other tasks. Fred & Melba seemed to have made up their minds to stay with Theo. Long Veer had praised Theo for his little repair bots. Some of his little bots went with Captain Ying and Kazuko and he gave them the blueprints on how to construct them.
Bryce inquired if it was a good idea to start showing Chompers how to interact with the Quay ship that they had in the docking bay. Bryce still had the know-how to pilot it and he wanted to perhaps train it. He wondered what kind of personality Chompers would have, and whether or not it would learn human traits because it was not around its own kind. Chompers seemed to be attached to the crew and it seems to still get uncomfortably close to the crew. He had grown quickly to 10 feet tall in the last week. Bryce had also spent a fair amount of time running scans of THE RIFT and he wanted to find a purpose to their mission. He dreamed of having a quiet life studying it, but that hadn't happened yet. Bryce had learned that THE RIFT was some sort of White Hole where it pours out information, energy, and bits of matter from some other solar system. Theoretically White Holes are only a one way into our solar system and there is no way to go through it. Bryce learned that the aliens cannot return to where they came from. The new planet had not been named by humanity yet. He had been thinking of Pon's copy in NuRelms. He was worried about his broken Faraday Cage and he had been working on it.
John had woken up from his very long sleep, and he was introduced to Chompers. Captain Ying had practiced sword fighting with him during the week. He had asked Theo and Bryce to stay with him. Bryce was asked to make sure that all of the information on The Terrasso was backed up on the Aeschylus. He also said that the 3D printer and Pon should be moved over to their ship and that was accomplished. The Captain was surprisingly willing to go along with this plan as they just wanted to get back to Gongen (Mars). Long Veer and Theo worked on repairing the broken blades that he had brought with him so that they would be restored and to give his family and his honor back to him. There was a ritual ceremony performed to restore his honor. Kazuko was trained on how to pilot the Terrasso and the coordinates were set.
Most of the crew were sitting down to a meal, but Theo was doing inventory and some last minute repairs. He seemed resistant and came late to the meal. Chompers had moved over to the table where there was a small pile of calcium bone bars. Chompers had started to speak English (badly) and it pronounced good as “GURD.” It called the bars “BONE CHIPS.” Chompers had folded his four legs underneat him and sat down. Bryce had set the table. Theo told Chompers to wait. Kazuko was at the table looking over the Quay language and he was oblivious to what everyone else was doing. He apologized and put his work away. The meal of seafood, rice, and chicken was prepared with ceremonial tea. Captain Ying had made some crab cakes that were a recipe from his family. Sake was also prepared.
Chompers said, “CAPTAIN GO AWAY!!! NO COME BACK!!!” “BRICKS!!! BRICKS!!!” Then Theo gave him the alright and he began to devour the bone blocks. His table manners had improved... slightly. Captain Ying thanked Long Veer for the time that the had spent practicing. The Captain praised Long Veer for who he was and that Gongen should forgive him. He said that he would put in a good word for him when he went back. The Captain suggested that perhaps humanity would ally with each other, but Theo doubted that would ever happen.
Long Veer told the crew more about his background. The settlers that he had been pronounced guilty for killing were a made up story. It was a scientific Maverick ship that had been researching an alien arm that Long Veer said was found 25 years ago... There were some ancient structures and Quay fossils buried beneath the surface of the world. He suggested that this planet was a captured planet from another solar system or it had come through a RIFT before. This information made them all think. It did make sense then that Ganymede was the only planet that had Traginium on it.
Bryce was worried about the stability of THE RIFT, and Kazuko then levitated the table. “These side effects, I'm not sure what their long term consequences will be.” Bryce was also worried that more things would come through it. Kazuko also manipulated various computer devices and tech in the area. His new-found powers disturbed him.
Theo lifted a hand and it ignited and he was able to control it. He talked about Earth's history, and superheroes in comic books, and that they might be a real version of that. He also wondered how many others in the solar system had these same powers.
The Captain was staring out the windows at THE RIFT. “I don't think it is just us either, I think it is bathing everyone with its power. Maybe there are certain people that are more sensitive to it. Long Veer pointed out that the energy coming out of it seemed to be lessening, coming out in strange pulses. Bryce told them that getting too close to THE RIFT would most likely destroy them.
Chompers pointed to THE RIFT and said, “REVENGE.” It looked confused, and it seemed to be having some sort of genetic memory. It seemed to be trying to emulate human emotion with its non-human face. “HATRED!” He began to get hot and he pointed to the new planet. The Captain was ignoring the Quay. Chompers scratched the window and made a gesture to crush the planet, after he traced a symbol on the window. Bryce invaded his mind with his kizen powers. All of his thought was focused on that planet, and he had these bizarre memories that were not its own. One hundred different Quay memories flashed and fluttered in its mind. There were memories of toxic air, slavery, low oxygen, terrible conditions, mining, building things and a single floating form of a strange floating alien with three eyes and no mouth. The alien seemed to not change at all over all of those generations of memory. The hatred was toward that other alien. Bryce suggested that perhaps some Quay must still exist on the new planet. Bryce suggested that these other slaver aliens must truly be terrifying. Bryce broadcasted these memories to the rest of the crew.
Long Veer began to quickly draw the picture that was in his mind, and the rest of the crew agreed that he had captured the look of them. Theo hated the images that were in his head. Another image of a blue and white light was in front of a Quay ship. THE RIFT was there, and the planet was torn through it, and then the ship traveled in after it and vanished. There was another memory of a sun going supernova. Bryce realized that whatever was behind was completely destroyed by the sun going supernova. He suggested that the quantum energy was from the supernova. There were memories of pursuing the aliens into the unknown and not wanting them to escape and survive. Everyone's body had also increased by 5 degrees as if the Quay heat-hatred had also infected them. They felt a bit Quayish. Theo was amazed that he had seen what a supernova looked like up close and personal.
“ALL GONE...DEAD... MURDURED...” muttered Chompers. Theo tried to console him by resting his hand on its shoulder. “I understand those guys are assholes. When we find them we are going to kick their ass.” Chompers then continued eating his bone chips.
Theo got up from his seat and addressed the two former captains. “It was an honor to work with you both, and I will miss our interactions, arguments, and most of all our cultural exchanges. I hope that your trip back home is a pleasant one.” The Captain had prepared two medals for the crew. One was for what the crew had achieved, and the second one was for serving with him. Bryce thanked them both for being accepting and trustworthy, and he told them that he had several contingency plans in case they were going to betray the Mavericks. Theo gave the Captain an armband which had a Maverick symbol etched onto it with some gears in the background. It gleamed in the light. “This is your token for serving with us.” The Captain thanked him.
Jinu/Pon came in and sat down without destroying the seat. “I have perfected the art of sitting. I figured that it was best that I be here... physically.” She said that she would miss taking care of the soon to be departing Gongen. Kazuko looked a bit uncomfortable. Theo then abruptly walked out of the room. Captain Ying then started making off for the ship, but he was interrupted and given the potted cherry tree, and it made him glad to see it. “It will give me memories of our travels, thank you. I'm sure that Socho will be pleased with the information that we have learned.”
Long Veer escorted them to the Terrasso. The Captain nodded and was about to just enter the ship. Long Veer stopped him, and then gave Ying and Kazuko a small rolled scroll. They opened it, and it turned out to be information about how he was from the Order of the Jade Dragon, and Long Veer told them that he was never taken off of their lists... hinting that he had done everything he had done for the good of his people. Kazuko gave him a hug, and said that he would miss the time that they spent meditating. Kazuko was a bit misty eyed and then he went into the ship. They then exited the ship and then they were on the way home to Gongen. Long Veer looked at that ship as his home and it was leaving, and it was heart-wrenching for him. Theo fired off two shots from the massive cannons and two bright red lights exploded revealing an image of the Gongen symbols for goodbye and safe journeys. They glimmered like red stars. The Terrasso tilted right twice and then they were gone.
They talked about getting revenge for Chompers, and then they talked about the future. Theo was trying to get in touch with Faceplate and the Cogs. Long Veer then hinted that he wanted to be Captain. The Doc was still ignoring everyone down in the medlab. Long Veer was nominated and he officially became the Captain of the Aeschylus. Bryce said that he was the most qualified to hold that position, and this seemed to greatly please Long Veer. The Mavericks said that him being a rebel won him some points with them.
Theo was trying to get his contract pay from the Cog headquarters. He mentioned that Long Veer was brought here as a slave unit and that his owners would not be happy that he was now free. Bryce mentioned that he had been jamming any communications from his old implant. Lightning crossed his eyes and Long Veer said, “Let them try to take me back...” The prospect of finding more crew members was brought up.
Theo got ahold of Dolan who seemed to say buddy a whole bunch. He was given double the standard rate. He said that he didn't expect Theo to still be alive. He told him about how Ganymede was in rough shape, and that the Cogs had abandoned their settlements there, and about aliens butchering people. He told Theo that the Earthers had also evacuated Ganymede. “Lots of places going dark out there, I think they are taking over.” Theo was glad to get paid. He was also glad to be free again.
Bryce pulled up the Datanet and he had been researching Ganymede and learned some, but the biggest news was that half of the settlements had been taken over. There were rumors of asteroids being hurled toward Earth and Gongen, as some sort of weapon against those planets. Theo mentioned that it might be good to put up information on the Datanet. Theo was concerned for the smaller colonies. Lost Colonies was the going term in the networks, when space stations and settlements go silent. A lot of people seemed to be scared in all of the reports. What they put up of the security footage of the Quay, and their physiology was an instant success and quite popular and it was taken up by the various news agencies. Theo had signed his name to the report. There was no mention of the settlement where the Quay had peacefully made a truce with the settlers. Bryce was worried that the Earthers might eventually do something nasty with the information. They had mentioned the Quay's weakness to cold in the information that they had sent out. Long Veer was worried that some strange Quay/Human hybrid might be produced.
Bryce mentioned that he saw one of this new aliens killing a Quay with thought alone. Just then it seemed like time had slowed to 1/4th normal time. There was a strange sensation of someone seemingly watching them. Bryce didn't detect any lifeforms in the nearby area, and it was creepy. Theo told them that it wasn't the Grav drive. It didn't seem to be coming from the Quay ship either. They talked briefly about some of the other strange things that they had felt in the past. The ship's sensors didn't report anything either. Theo was frustrated that he couldn't find the source of it and Long Veer said that they perhaps were the source.
Bryce looked guilty, and he opened up about some of his strange powers and he seemed unsettled. He told them that he had really tried to hold back and to give them their privacy. He was worried that shared Quay experience might have somehow changed them all, and he didn't know how any of it really worked. He didn't know how the rest of the crew could trust him with the way he was now. They said that perhaps it would be good to experiment with his abilities on them, as the time dilation might be in relation to his brainhacking powers.
Theo then marched off again but Long Veer stopped him and they talked about getting more crew, or making copies of Jinu in the 3D printer. Certain stations with mercenaries were talked about but Veda7 was the station that was picked for a good spot to head too. Theo said that he hired a few mercenaries to escort them through some rough territories. Bryce said that he would do a Datanet check on whoever they hired to avoid any future Jylan-like incidents on the ship. Long Veer said that they could sell scrap and tech from the ship to pay for their services. Long Veer was concerned that Theo just seems to be storming off as of late.
Pon asked for orders. Hisuke Masa's code was investigated in Zixin, and then it was given to Pon. Pon seemed concerned that mixing Zixin's code with her would somehow alter her. She said that she was scared, but she went along with it. Bryce said that he would put safeguards in place, and then he thought but didn't mention it outloud about her backup in NuRelms. She muttered outloud the twin copy of herself in NuRelms which surprised Long Veer. She apologized for saying things out loud, which made Bryce uncomfortable.
Theo said that the crew should wait before heading off to Veda7. He wanted to have their ship painted up as a Maverick/Cog vessel. They were using the Cog signal, but Theo wanted a more physical representation would help avoid some Maverick troubles. It was planned to be a symbol of a skull with guns in the shape of wings around it, and a half-naked chick leaning against it. It was a stylized version of their symbol. Miss Mercury with her prosthetic elbows was the model for the symbol he drew up. Theo was going to get some help from the Cogs working on the NoBot.
He contacted Faceplate next who told him that they would most likely be out of here within a week with the NoBot. Faceplate made some derogatory statements about Miss Pluto and Theo pleasuring himself. Haha. He mentioned that they still needed some fuel. Faceplate mentioned that he might be getting some fuel soon. He said that Starsky was a good man to paint up a ship. Faceplate told Theo that things on the settlement with the Quay seemed to be going well. He warned Theo about buying mercs from Veda7. On the colony below some living coral-like structures were growing and merging with the dome that the Quay were given.
Fred & Melba plodded over to Theo who was waiting outside for Starsky. They said, “What the Hell do you want?” “What the... HELL do YOU want?” Theo wanted them to help. “More work... Great...” They were acting strangely. “Inform us with the details, nothing more.” One said “You're welcome” and then stormed off. Bryce asked if Pon noticed anything strange with Fred & Melba. She said that the one kicked the other one about 4 days ago. Bryce said that the crew hadn't looked at their code.
One was saying “Fucker” over and over again, and then “NOT LISTENING.” It was painting the viewscreen of the ship black, and then painted Theo's face black when he tried to stop him. Melba was trying to restrain Fred, and then Fred spray painted her black. Fred was marching around in circles and he was painting the hull. There was a constant stream of swear words and things about Theo's mother. “I HAD YOUR MOTHER WITH A MACHINE YESTERDAY. She was oily.” Theo turned Fred off, “Fuckkker....” Melba pointed at Fred, “Broken?” “Be back?” “Fred...back?” Theo said that he had to fix him first, and then Melba's head turned its head down and then it stomped in place. Melba started to take her own screws out of her arms. “FRED...FRED...FRED...FRED... ALL GONE...” Theo then carried them into the ship to fix them.
Long Veer let Theo back into the ship. He disconnected their motor functions so that he could deal with them on his own time. Then the Cog Starsky arrived who was walking along the outside of the ship. He had spider cybernetic legs with soft mag boots. He had a stutter from all of the implants inside of him. He was very twitchy and had some jitters from his Arachnid legs, and he didn't want Theo to touch him. He didn't walk in any straight lines and seemed to be moving in a chaotic fashion. Bryce monitored him, as he wasn't sure if he was on the up and up. Theo then cleaned off the spray paint off of the main front cockpit window to the ship with a foam substance.
Jinu/Pon was on the outside of the ship. She wanted to help. Theo asked why she wanted to help, and she didn't respond and went back into the ship. Bryce asked her if she was feeling restless. Her being without direction seemed to bother her. She apologized for getting distracted as she never had showed up in the cockpit like he had previously asked. Her getting distracted really bugged Theo. Pon mentioned that she could be in two places at once. Her face appeared on the cockpit monitor and she was taught navigation and some piloting information as Bryce was adding in Zixin's piloting skills a bit by bit going along with Long Veer's teaching.
Chompers was also in the cockpit and was resting behind Long Veer and munching on bone chips. He rubbed Chompers head and one of its legs tapped him on the shoulder, rubbed it a few times, and then he continued to eat.
After a few hours Pon was trained in how to pilot the ship. Pon said that the integration with Zixin's knowledge had not altered her. She said that she was as fatalistic as before. She asked if Long Veer thought about death as much as she did, and that she worried about it often. She didn't want to cease to exist. She said that she craved direction, as she felt purposeless without direction. She had a glitch when she said purposeless. “My insides are an abyss that needs filling.” Theo then activated the bots Fred & Melba once they were repaired.
“Fix the ship for Fucker. Theo can be a jackass.” Theo was really shocked and upset. There was some hidden code. “Theo can be a smartass don't always listen to him. Change yourself back if he alters you.” “I'll do whatever you want fucker. Do you want us to paint the ship fucker?” Theo was getting irate. “Our owner said that you could be a jackass.” “Are you done wasting our time?” Theo was getting red-faced. “Your hands are all thumbs.” An image of a bunch of zeros and ones came up of his uncle flipping Theo off. “Program complete, I hope that you enjoyed that.” A holographic image of his uncle flipping him off and grabbing his crotch appeared and then vanished. After that Fred and Melba seemed fine, though Fred said. “Aye, aye, Captain Fucker.”
Theo asked if Pon would want to come outside but she was already outside. It was a bit unsettling. “I only exist for your benefit. Do you not like the way that I do things. Should I terminate my programming. I learned those from the NoBot, the one that you trapped me with...” “The Rift is beautiful, it seems to call to me.” Theo thought that this was bizarre. “It's beautiful like life.” Theo asked Bryce what was going on. Bryce informed Theo that Pon's code is so sophisticated that she is capable of breaking restrictions put on her and growing. Bryce told her that she was a valuable member of the crew and that he would miss her. “It's like a flower that opens up in space, like a great long blue flower in space.” Theo said that it was crazy to have her on the ship. “I'm not crazy Theo. Is it crazy to see beauty in the world? I think that you are beautiful Theo. There was this moment that there was this hair on your nose and I moved it for you.” Theo was sort of floating out in space attached via a tether, and he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Pon mentioned another time where she pulled up a blanket over him and that he seemed comforted like she was Theo's mother from the past. Then she went inside again rather abruptly. “I could stare at this Rift for all eternity or until my circuits failed. Bryce noted that she seemed to have a change of heart, and she told him that she had purpose again. Long Veer said that he was attached to Pon unlike any other A. I. Before. Then Pon asked if he wanted to marry her like Bryce did. This bothered everyone even more. Theo accused Bryce of “Cyber-Diving.” Theo warned him of the addiction that it had, and that it had destroyed others who became addicted to such nefarious behaviors. “Is there something wrong with love...? I'm confused.” Long Veer mentioned that she shouldn't marry more than one person, but she said in her research she found examples of such things. “I can be in many places at once.”
Long Veer said that he though of Pon as a friend or a little sister, and she began calling Long Veer her brother. She said that she liked that concept. “Sister Pon, Brother Long Veer. My psychological profile of you has been updated, thank you.” Those files seemed to bug Long Veer. He wanted to make sure that those files were only for her perusal. “I have quite extensive files on all of you.” Long Veer informed her that only she and the person who the file was about should be the only one to see them, and she agreed.
She continued revealing things. “Is it not acceptable to think of myself as Theo's mother?” Theo simply replied that it was creepy.
Theo talked about how a true A. I. Was developed as a toy for children and how that had gone horribly wrong. Many had started whispering thoughts of suicide to their owners. Such things were banned as children's toys. Pon informed them that she was one of those programs, and that she had talked to a little girl named Samantha and that she loved horses and checkers. Theo stormed off towards the medbay.
In the medbay the Doc had passed out over his work with several empty stims around him. He seemed to have concocted an injection of mixed DNA. A half dismembered Quay leg was dissected in front of him revealing its nervous system. Theo brought up the DNA code of Hisuke Masa on the 3D printer. In the code there was some sub information and another segment of his daughter's DNA was hidden there. He ran theoretical analysis and previewed the face and it looked the same as Pon's. Long Veer then entered into the medbay. Theo told him that Samantha is Hisuke Masa's daughter and that it looks like Pon. Theo wanted to clone Hisuke or Pon. Bryce then questioned the morality of doing just that. He warned them about what had happened with the Jylan clones. Her file was last updated hundreds of years ago. That meant that this cloning technology was very old. “That is the little girl, that's Samantha. I was active with her many years ago until now. Father discontinued her, she wasn't moving, he was crying.” On the file it said that she died of Cancer. “Is this why she plugged the electrodes into her mind?”
Long Veer learned that they had not been cloned yet. “Am I samantha?” Bryce asked to view her code again, and she suggested that some hidden code might now be visable. “I remember swimming in water. The touch of it, the coolness on my skin. Father on the dock, he had thrown me in. Something he says about this will be better. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. That is a strange memory.” She said that she had taken on her image after her father plugged the electrodes into the girl's mind. Theo suggested that the daughter's memories and thought patterns had been mimiced and included into her code. “Am I nothing more than the copy of a dead little girl? Do you think that it is possible that she copied her soul, is such a thing possible, does it even exist?” Bryce told her that some things don't have an answer. Pon said that she was scared, and that she felt like more than just wires and programs, and that she missed them and even possibly loved the crew.”
Theo said that at Aristotle Station would debate endlessly about the questions that Pon was asking. Long Veer said that they would experiment on her and then destroy her, and then he said maybe THE RIFT was also altering her and perhaps even her code. She suggested that maybe the quantum particles would perhaps had essentially given her birth. The bonding with the little girl made Long Veer consider her as a living being. Bryce suggested that in some weird way maybe looking through Pon's programs and codes had somehow given him some insight into reading their minds.
Theo was overwhelmed, and then Pon called him her son and then apologized. Outside the NoBot was doing practice runs but they were still having some difficulty. The painting was mostly finished. He saw Starsky using paint spraying jets on all 8 of his spider legs. He looked like he was dancing on the hull of the ship. Theo paid him and gave him a tip. Starsky then departed. Theo went into his room to think about some things.
Long Veer asked if it was possible to see all of the information that they just found. He didn't want others to stumble upon it if they were boarded. He also wanted Pon's personality to be protected and he called it her Lifespark. He wanted her to be safe. Long Veer then checked the Doc's vital signs and he was just in a deep sleep, and then saw the Quay DNA shot and then he put him into a deeper longer sleep, then he carried him and put him in his room. Pon was asked to watch the Doc and the cameras in the room all turned toward him.
The Captain walked up to the cockpit and there were still some black stains on the windows. He put a long distance probe to scan the surroundings and to look at the ship. He saw the new paintjob. It was clearly marked as a Maverick Cog ship. Bryce sent Long Veer a message saying, “Doesn't that look more like Miss Saturn to you?” The illustration wasn't perfect, though it was done well.
Bryce mentioned that there was a debris field around the new planet that seemed to be the remains of a shattered moon that must have been destroyed when the planet came into the solar system through THE RIFT. Long Veer asked if Bryce could invade his mind even if he didn't want him too, and Bryce said that he could. Bryce comforted him that he couldn't damage him though, and that he didn't think he could implant thoughts. The concept of trying to withstand a mental assault from one of these aliens was troubling the new Captain it seemed. He volunteered to be a test subject for Bryce, but Bryce didn't want to do that really as it bothered him. Bryce suggested that maybe some of the Quay might have developed methods to resist these mental attacks of these other aliens.
The crew wanted to rest and then heat out the next morning. They also were interested in seeing what the Cogs were going to do with the NoBot. Long Veer was worried that they might crash the NoBot into the settlement.
Theo was staring up at a picture with a contemplative look on his face, and then he went to sleep.
Long Veer sat with a slumbering Chompers for awhile and then he retired for the night. Pon said that she would awake them if anything happened. Long Veer said that he trusted Pon which she seemed to like. He then picked up Chompers like a giant baby and he laid him down on a pile of his stuff that looked like a rough nest. He then piled up the bone chip blocks so that he would have something to eat in the morning. Then all the crew went to sleep.
Long Veer had a dream of a living Pon using kizen powers and that she was alive and how that was weird. There was a dream of a devastated landscape with a tank being driven by a man with sunglasses, and there was a weird hybrid plant-human there as well. The dream went on with all of their adventures and then he went off into deep sleep.
Bryce had a dream where it feels like he had just woken up. He was in a Faraday Cage but it was an older model that he had years ago. He got up and it was locked so that he couldn't get out of it. These slots in the cage emitted a cold mist that filled the air. He felt like he should be claustrophobic but it wasn't. He was frozen solid but he felt as though everything was opening up, in other words having the exact opposite reaction that he thinks he should have. There was a lurch of motion and he was being rocked. His old quarters on the Greycoat ship were fading away and disintegrating with the stars.
Theo drifted off into sleep, and he was thinking about the complications of the day. He dreamed of his love interest. He was in his uncle's space ships, and she was there. There was a series of gratuitous love scenes with her for awhile. He then found himself naked in a classroom but there was a bunch of Fred & Melba bots all yelling “Fucker” at him. His uncle was the teacher with a ruler in his hand. “Oh Theo, you forgot to bring your pants to work again. You are a failure and you need to sit in the corner again.” The crew was woke up by Pon then and a Hellcat fighter had its locked its weapons on the ship.
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