Eclipse Phase Gate Crashers: Mercurial Rising

[xen0phile]

EP Gate Crashers
Chapter 1: Mercurial Rising



Everyone
Chat Noir, Oberon
10 YF, September 15, 12:00 (AST)

According to the skies above the icy crevasses around Chat Noir, it is late afternoon. The Sun hangs low in the sky, noticeably dimmer for anyone used to observing the Sun from the Inner System; but still bright enough to be trivially easy to distinguish from any other star in the sky (lacking any atmosphere, non-Solar stars are visible even during the Oberonian day). Above and to the side of the Sun hangs a crescent Uranus, several times more broad than a crescent Luna from Earth (if you had ever happened to be on Earth pre-Fall), a dark blue object crossed by the dimly glinting line of Uranus's ring system. Sunset is still a few (Earth) years away, after which Chat Noir will have a 42-year-long night due to the extreme axial tilt of the Uranian system.

The settlement of Chat Noir itself is constructed mostly underground, a series of warrens using the icy surface to shield against ionizing radiation. Oberon is not a very large object by astronomy standards, having only 1/30th the gravity of Earth. The locals like to joke about it being a "minigravity" environment: a lot of the architecture takes its cues from microgravity space stations in orbit or deep space; except there is a tiny but noticeable "up" and "down" here.

On a more (trans)human level, the general feel of Chat Noir is that of a small 20th Century college town (raucous parties crossed with the various academic/scientific sorts who come to study the gate or the worlds beyond the gate), crossed with a 19th Century American mining boom town (though with less avarice and violence); all topped off with a dash of paranoia as everyone is worried if/when the Planetary Consortium will next try to attack.

You, along with a few other people, have recently been selected by the Ecconians to do a series of exploratory gate crossings to help them establish an extra-solar colony. You are not yet sure when you will have gate time, except that it will be "soon". The most important thing about today is that you are scheduled to have a simulspace meet, at 15:00 today, with one of the Ecconian leaders "Huntress True-Sing Delve-Into-Wisdom" (Huntress being a neo-orca, her true name is actually unpronounceable to most non-cetacean morphs, but she is fine with just being called "Huntress") to be briefed on some more specifics.

Spoiler

Show

My intention here is to:
1. give a general framing of where your characters are
2. let you all give a general framing of your characters: what are they up to while waiting for a mission to start?

Basically, what are your characters up to presently, and what will they be up to for the next three hours until they meet with Huntress? Hanging out at their favorite bar? Chilling in their apartment? Playing an AR game? Planning things with their muse? Chatting with friends on the EP equivalent of Facebook?

One thing they are free to do would be make a Networking check, e.g. to attempt to acquire more gear. See page 287 of the core book for details if you are unfamiliar with this.

[Orbiter]

Geos was waiting for the most part after making a recent backup just in case something happened in this gatecrashing mission, but he still had lots of time left.Would he find anything? or would he die and never find anything like some gatecrashers.
But this dint matter as much as the fact that this room sure was boring safe but boring, and standing around fiddling now and then with the gun to ensure its okay wasn't fun.

Just then Ponka came up dressed as a female pistolero clothes that were perhaps fitting for the occasion, and immediately sighed as she looked around "Good afternoon Sir this city is certainly nice.... couldn't we choose something with stuff to shoot or at least earn some go- credits, but while we are still here i should suggest looking up a bit the leader you will be meeting in three hours, thats a good idea no?."

Geos nodded, he quickly checked his hidden compartment to ensure it was okay, he mostly had some non pricey stuff in there nothing illegal, but a friend insisted he had such a thing on his morph just in case it could fit a small gun easily and a clip or two at most, still his rail gun was a bit big and perhaps it couldn't fit easily.

Still not time to muddle around he started looking for the hour for some info together with his muse.And then ask around for a nanofabricator to use he dint feel safe with one gun....perhaps three would do the trick, now that he had a plan the rest should come easy.

Action

Spoiler

Show

1
Okay searching for one hour on Huntress True-Sing Delve-Into-Wisdom basically any kind of info that might be interesting or not.
And his muse is assisting him to find something on her.(do i get plus?)
Here is a roll

(1d100)[73]


2(If its allowed?).
After that action he is gonna ask around to find the nanofabricator to use.So here is the other roll in case we need it.(networking:anarchists?)

(1d100)[37]

[Sithis]

Eli

Eli had been on Oberon for about a week, but this was the first full day he'd spent at Chat Noir. Upon arriving and resleeving, he'd pretty much immediately headed over to Lear and spent a few days visiting some friends who used to live on Mitre. It had been fun to see some old friends, but in all honesty Eli hadn't been all that interested in the stuff they had been showing him over the last few days. Surely measuring fluctuations in Uranus's magnetosphere is absolutely fascinating to some people, but Eli isn't one of them.

But that was done, and now he was sitting in the small, single room apartment he'd been provided, with not a whole lot to do but wait around for news of when they'd get gate time. Regardless, pretty much all of Eli's gear was packed and ready to go near the door to the room. With his holstered rail pistol hanging of his chair, he could literally be ready to go in less than 30 seconds. Not that he expected to. But you never know.

With nothing but time to kill, Eli decides it's time to get some work done. He pulls up two entropic screens. One is the outline for the novel he has been working on for the last few weeks. The other is a blank word processor. Oh, right. I decided I didn't like what I had, and that I wanted to start from scratch. As he takes a minute to mentally curse himself, he glances up near the corner of his entropics at the time. 12:04? Still got a couple hours before the meeting with Huntress. Might as well try to get SOMETHING done.

Spoiler

Show

Art: Writing check! And how good his next book ends up being will presumably be based on how well I do on these checks!

(1d100)[30] vs 80 (60 + 20 from Enhanced Creativity)
Edit: And with a MoS of exactly 30, Chapter 1 of this book is good! Woo!

[Pohtyatoh]

"Guggenheim, how long until the meeting?"

Guggenheim: "Two hours and fifty-six minutes sir. Four minutes less than the last time you asked."

Right. It's already been a week since we landed on this rock, he thought, as his hands checked over the Hard Suit. Fixer nanoswarms making quick work of any blemishes he discovered. A display over his AR showed a man in a fedora leaping from vine to vine evading the open maws of crocodiles below.

Guggenheim: "Very good sir. You'll beat your highscore at this rate."

"Maybe. I'm just about done with final prep for our stroll through the gate. What do we know about this "Huntress" anyway?"

Spoiler

Show

Research Check[60] on details about Miss Huntress.
Complementary Skill, Interest:Inner System Rumors[55] = +20?
(1d100)[83]

"Set up a reminder for an hour before the meeting. I want to scout around outside before we start the meeting."

Guggenheim: "Yes, sir."

Spoiler

Show

Checks outside before the meeting.
Perception[60]+Ambient Sense[+10]+Enhanced Hearing/Vision[+20] = 90
Software: Facial/Image Recognition, run scans for potential threats (namely bounty hunters).
(1d100)[80]

Reaching out with his mind getting a sense of the presence of sentient and biological life in the area.
It's probably a good idea to keep this up for the duration of the meeting.

Ego Sense[50], Opposed Checks, Sustained, Range 30m.
(1d100)[49]
Strain
((1d10)[4]/2) -1 = 1 DV

[cpttanktop]

Ichirou reclines back in his seat. The bar isn't busy yet, and Ichirou is enjoying a new anarchist beer. The martian brews never really sat right on his palette, and these more exotic flavors are always an adventure.

Amuyu, can you please poll any reclaimers in the area for an open source Tactical Network software package? We have some time, so please make a thorough search

Spoiler

Show

Network (Ecologists) for Expensive favor (-10) but taking 2 hours (+?)vs. 40+extra time bonus
(1d100)[92]

Amuyu: Inquiry initiated. I will keep you informed. Nice cross-stitch.

Ichirou pulls the thread out of the cloth he had been idly sewing with his feet. Rethreading the needle, he begins the soothing activity again.

[Lord_Asmodeus]

Apsu

Apsu knew he had some time to himself before the meeting began, and he decided to use that time economically. He of course had to download every scrap of information he could that might be useful. He could always dedicate such a task to his Muse, Tiamat of course, but he might as well work with her to make sure he got the most bang for his buck, even with the massive amount of data he could store, especially the most recent research into the relevant feels. It was, if nothing else, something to occupy his time.

Spoiler

Show

(1d100)[13] +2 hour of time vs 40

After that, he would probably use his last hour to pull together his own notes and make sure he was in the right mind for the tasks ahead, poring over every scrap of data he had available and drawing what conclusions he could, making himself ready for the mission, in his own way.

Spoiler

Show

I suppose, (1d100)[9] Academics: Astrobiology (Xenobiology) vs 90 (1d100)[78] Academics: Biology (Marine Biology) vs 80

[cpttanktop]

Amuyu: Ichirou-san, I have found 143 various versions of Tactical Network software being offered through the reclaimers. I have removed 32 of these as clear virus-laden versions or hypercorp honeypots looking for "pirates." Would you please scan the remaining to find your best option?

Closing his eyes to cut himself off from meat space, Ichirou starts digging through each of the files one by one to pick out a possible option.

Spoiler

Show

Research vs effective 0
(1d100)[9]

Amuyu I'm completely out of my element here. Perhaps I will pass this list on to our team when we meet up.

[xen0phile]

Geos
You settle into mesh browsing for awhile. There are many references to Huntress as a leader among the Ecconians; and to the recent destruction of their habitat. However, you find less information on Huntress herself. In fact, all the mesh reports about Ecco habitat itself add a lot of "noise", extraneous information, that you have to screen out. Nevertheless, over the course of an hour or so, you do pick up some basic facts on Huntress. She was born outside of Vancouver, Canada in 25 BF to an non-uplifted mother at a research institute there. She escaped the Fall as a Lunar infugee and then, about a year after the Fall, she and a group of other uplifts established a habitat in an abandoned, partially constructed Cole habitat in the Main Belt (what would be later called "Ecco"). She again ended up as a disembodied infomorph when Ecco was destroyed, and for now she lives in Oberonian infospace.

After some time mesh browsing, you decide to head out for a bit, and pick up some gear. You realize your concern about "illegal" gear is somewhat silly: this is an Autonomist base, and basically carrying anything short of a nuke is okay. In fact, the Old West feel is heightened by the fact that people are regularly carrying around at least handguns: a lot of gate crashers worried about what might be on the other side after they jump through. There are even a fair amount of people carrying more intimidating weapons: rifles, grenades, seeker missiles. A lot of these people are probably part of the local militia, geared up in case the Planetary Consortium tries anything.

You ping the schedules of the communal cornucopia machines, and also ask around for people who have any fabbers that can build a gun. The cornucopia machines are fairly tight, probably not enough time to make anything more than something simple like a knife; but, while you are looking around for anyone with a fabber, someone mentions a friend of a friend who is getting rid of their gear, including weapons.

The person turns out to be a young xenoarchaeologist from Titan, a graduate student doing a thesis on extra-Solar artwork. He is preparing to egocast back to Titan soon, and thus has gotten rid of most of his gear on Oberon. Looking up from some pottery fragments in a make-shift lab, "Ah, hey, you wanted some gear? Well, I gave most of it away already, but I still got the gun." Wiping some dust off of his hands onto his lab coat, he gently bounces to the side of the room, reaches behind a lab scale, and takes out a pistol, "Never had any need for this: I only shot a few rocks for practice my entire time on the other side."

Spoiler

Show

he gave you:
Heavy Rail Pistol (loaded with 16 rounds)

You have used a Medium Favor to acquire this (see page 289 for details, but basically it will refresh in a week).

It is now nearing 15:00, so you head back to your place in preparation for the simulspace meet.

Eli
You feel full of inspiration this afternoon. You breeze through about a chapter in your book-to-be, your mind in a total flow state. Finally, your muse mentions the fact that it's getting close to the meeting time. Resigned, you close the word processor and prepare to enter simulspace.

Corbin
You settle into mesh browsing for awhile. There are many references to Huntress as a leader among the Ecconians; and to the recent destruction of their habitat. Although this adds some noise to the signal (you are trying to find info on Huntress herself, more than the Ecconians), you do find some basic information after awhile. She was born outside of Vancouver, Canada in 25 BF to an non-uplifted mother at a research institute there. She escaped the Fall as a Lunar infugee and then, about a year after the Fall, she and a group of other uplifts established a habitat in an abandoned, partially constructed Cole habitat in the Main Belt (what would be later called "Ecco"). She again ended up as a disembodied infomorph when Ecco was destroyed, and for now she lives in Oberonian infospace.

Digging a bit further, you happen upon some mention that, as a Lunar infugee, she was basically considered property, and she was only able to egocast away with the help of some friends on Ceres.

As the simulspace meet approaches, you glance outside your apartment. You are in a fairly quiet neighborhood, off of a spur tunnel away from the more heavily trafficked thoroughfares. You only see a single person outside at the moment, your neighbor gliding to her own place. You know from the facial ID (and having seen her in previous days) that she is very unlikely a bounty hunter; instead, she is a research physicist who studies the wormhole, and who was one of the founding members of Love and Rage: she has been on Oberon since the gate was discovered.

Going back inside your place, you sense the presences of various people in nearby apartments. You are not able to get a particularly accurate feel for them, but nothing seems particularly suspicious.

Ichirou
You try networking with some of your acquaintances. There seems to be some sort of sparseness in your usual social network, and after awhile you realize it is because two of your closer friends among the group of ecologists have recently left Oberon for Bluewood. You spend some more time hitting up some more distant acquaintances, to no avail. With about an hour left before the meeting, you and your muse start to do some mesh sieving, looking for pirated software. You do find several copies, and although you are initially dubious, your muse assures you that one copy, in particular, is from a host with a very high rating for reliability and safety.

Spoiler

Show

Your muse has Research 30. Therefore, your muse was able to find it better than you yourself.

You have acquired TacNet with copy protection broken.

Apsu
You delve deep into some of the academic wikis established by gate crashing researchers, and also take in several large chunks of the latest studies and publication from Titan AU. Thinking about Ecco, you recall there was a large cetacean and octomorph population there. You suspect they would likely prefer a planet with oceans of water, but one of the big challenges is that, even if the oceans on an exoplanet are liquid water, there are many other variables to it being healthy enough for long-term habitation by sea-going morphs: salinity, acidity, oxygen levels, et cetera. So, for extra-Solar oceans, often the oceans would need to be terraformed; and/or, the morphs would need to be modified somewhat to be healthy in a new environment.

You consider the various ways one could modify an ocean (anything from "drop a bunch of iron pellets to promote plankton growth" to "use nanobots which mimic phytoplankton"), when you suddenly realize that one item of gear which would be particularly helpful would be a "portable Solarchive". However, your meeting is soon; perhaps you, or one of your party members, will try to seek one out after the meeting (assuming you have sufficient time).

Spoiler

Show

See page 156 of GateCrasher for details on Portable Solarchive

Everyone
Chat Noir, Oberon (simulspace)
10 YF, September 15, 15:00 (AST)

Leaving the sensation of your physical body, you are now in a hyperrealistic computer simulation which is indistinguishable from physical reality. You appear in a room with six other people in various forms. The room is about four by five meters with a white tile floor and low ceiling. Looking out of the windows which line both sides, you see an ocean with gloomy gray skies overhead: you are, in fact, on a boat (which would account for the slight rocking sensation). In the center of this cabin, there is a small rack with cold weather clothing: coats styled for human or hominid form, but also various cold weather clothing tailored for non-human morphs.

One of the six people in the room, a male neo-bonobo dressed in a warm coat and warm pants, stands at the back of the room, next to a door that seems to lead out onto the deck. "Great to see you all here. Huntress should be here soon, and I think you might want to put on a coat in the mean time: it's just below freezing outside".

The boat seems to be on the oceans of pre-Fall Earth. Besides having realistic cold, it also has realistic 1G gravity. Anyone who has never been on Earth or Venus probably feels much heavier than normal. As everyone shuffles about, perhaps donning the coats, the neo-bonobo man speaks up again, "I am Oliver Goodall, by the way. I'll be coming along. So. While we wait, could we just go around, have everyone introduce themselves? What your name is; what your preferred pronoun is; maybe a bit about what particular skills and expertise you bring along; or anything else you want to add..."

[Pohtyatoh]

Corbin

While everyone is listening to Oliver and making introductions, an idea pops into Corbin's head. His hands come together, popping open the simulspace interface display, and starts going to work.

Roll:

Spoiler

Show

Corbin attempts to manipulate the cheats/alter his simulmorph within the simulspace to remove the disagreeable affects of temperature and the ability to fly/float to negate discomfort from gravity.

Interfacing roll vs 55
Enhanced Creativity: +20 modifier
Savant Calculation: +30
Hacking Simulspace Systems
–10(-20?) add cheats, alter simulmorphs
(1d100)[49]

"Afternoon. You may refer to me as Justice. I am a 'he.'"

Spoiler

Show

If the roll succeeds, Corbin starts floating in place.

"And this is what I do."

[Sithis]

[Eli.]

[Just a second Lia. I'm really in the zone right now.]

[Eli!]

[One minute! I'm really starting to get Daria's personality this time. You know I've been a bit fuzzy about that.]

At this point, the muse pops up in Eli's entropics. She takes the appearance of a woman in her mid 30's, dressed in an old-earth business suit. [Eli, if you don't stop right now, you're going to be late for your meeting.]

[What are you talking about? I've still got...] He glances up into the corner of the entropics. [...about a minute. Thanks Lia.] The muse lets out an exasperated sigh as Eli closes the screens and enters the simulspace.

__________________________________________

In the simulspace, Eli is cold and miserable. He's never really had to deal with cold much, and he's never had to deal with more than about 0.5gs. Right now he just feels...heavy. Heavy and slow.

And cold, holy crap cold. Even through the coat he had put on. Eli glances out the window, seeing himself in the slight reflection. Oh right, my avatar is still a neo-avian. Guess I'll have to change that...

This thought is interrupted as another man who calls himself...Justice? Really? Justice? Who calls themselves that? Justice had apparently hacked the simulspace to make himself hover. Which, since Eli knows nothing about simulspaces or hacking, duly impresses him.

"Well, that's pretty cool....Justice, you said? I guess we can take that to mean you're a programmer of some sort. Very neat." He takes a second to glance at the people in the room before continuing. "Well, I'm Belisarius Filitov. But you don't need to say all that, just call me Eli. I'm your Xenoarcheolgist and Xenolinguist for this trip. I don't know if anyone else has been gatecrashing before but...uh...I have. So if you have any questions about what to expect, you can go ahead and shoot 'em my way. I might have an answer for you. Oh, and I actually do have a bit of paramilitary training, so if we run into trouble I might be a bit more than useless." He says the last bit as a joke, though he doesn't really expect any laughter.

Spoiler

Show

Also, just to see if Eli gets the reference...

Old Earth History
(1d100)[82] vs 50

Edit: Awww...Eli missed the Goodall thing.

[cpttanktop]

Ichirou takes a moment to absorb his surroundings. He immediately dons the cold weather gear appropriate for his neo-gorilla morph, flexing and stretching his arms and legs to test his movement in the coat.

As the first two introductions take place, Ichirou stares attentively at each speaker, standing almost statute-still and only blinking once or twice.

As the progression "around the table" seems to have now landed on him, Ichirou straightens himself a bit (he was beginning to slump down to quadrupedal position). With a slight clearing of his throat, clearly betraying his nervousness of speaking in front of others, he introduces himself.

"Friends, hello, my name is Ichirou and I do prefer the male pronoun, thank you." With this he bows slightly to Oliver in thanks. "I have made a handful of gatecrashes as well, and my skills are that of a survivalist. As much as any of us can, I have studied alien ecology, botany, and topography in order to give us a chance at knowing what exactly that thing is that we are about to step on. I have some training in weapons and hand-to-hand combat. I pride myself on not losing a member on any mission so far and I will do my best to keep that streak going, to the best of my ability."

With that, he takes a deeper bow towards the group as a whole.

[xen0phile]

Corbin

You try accessing the local environmental variables for your simulmorph, but even things like the force of gravity on your simulmorph require user-level access (you only have guest privileges). But you are not deterred. Quickly taking in what domain rules you can access, even as a guest, you see that you do have a great amount of control over your morph. Including the composition of the body. You consider setting your mass to zero, but quickly you realize that would imply your simulmorph disappears completely, after which you would just be kicked out of the simulspace. However... you realize the physics model in this simulspace is using a very crude pseudorandom number generator to calculate fundamental particle interactions: you actually don't understand most of the physics behind it, but Guggenheim, looking up some fundamental physics equations, explains that you can crack the code of physics (within this simulspace, at least) if you are able to solve a few equations: the muse opens up an entopic window, filled with abstruse formulas, but you immediately, intuitively "get" it (even if you are not sure of the context within physics).

Guggenheim explains that the simulspace now thinks your body is composed on an exotic form of matter which can emulate quantum-scale effects, but at a macro scale. Significantly, the surface of your body can be as thermally conductive or insulative as you wish, and, even more interesting, you can generate about 4000 Newtons of force in any arbitrary direction: not only can "float", you could, if so desired, accelerate upward as quickly as a rocket.

[Pohtyatoh]

"Well, that's pretty cool....Justice, you said? I guess we can take that to mean you're a programmer of some sort. Very neat."

Corbin
That certainly worked out better than expected! He thought, quite satisfied with the result. Thanks for the forumlae Guggenheim.

"Indeed Eli, I'm a programmer by trade. Though, I certainly have more to offer than that." he responds while pulling his legs up into a cross legged position.


After introductions are complete, he floats toward the windows to admire the scenery. "Where are we supposed to be? Earth?"

[Orbiter]

Geos did a happy dance inside his head as he took the gun from the boy that had gone well enough. He even learned some interesting stuff. He dint do anything but simply ensure his weapon was fine and then waited around randomly until it was time.

Entering the simulation wasn't what he expected nonetheless he took the usual image of a middle aged guy with a beard, he donned the coat and dint speak as he examined his surroundings.

Spoiler

Show

Rolling a perception test
(1d100)[34] vs 60
Just looking around generally not searching for anything.

Still he spoke calmly when it was his turn to introduce himself, like he dint have a care in the world. "Hello everyone my name is Geos and the male noun is fine, I am a geneticist and a Doctor, this is gonna be my first gatecrashing mission, nice meeting you".

He was looking at the window when heard Justice speak "Well we are in the mesh of course, But regarding what its modelled after, i have a small suspicion this place is Canada or a place modelled after it, but i could be wrong of course" he smiled bitterly earth was lost such a long time has passed since then, he kinda missed the snow.

[Lord_Asmodeus]

Apsu declined to don the cold weather gear, and he felt more comfortable in the gravity than some of the others seemed. The modifications that had allowed him to live comfortably on Europa gave him great resistance to the cold, so even below freezing temperatures went essentially unnoticed, and his resistance and exposure to the great pressure of the Europan oceans steeled him somewhat against the heaviness of being in Earth's gravity.

The others spoke and then finally it came to him. He began to speak, his voice full of the slight gurgles, wet rasping and mushy vocalizations typical of an Octomorph,"My name is Apsu, I am also known as-

Apsu's body began to shift into a brilliant array of colors, mostly varying shades of blue, from the color of a freshwater rivers to the deepest lakes, to roaring rapids, as his Chromatophores revealed his color-name, as he called it.

-I am a scientist like many of you. I specialize in Astro-Xenobiology, and Marine Biology, though I have extensive knowledge of Biochemistry, and I am a decent Botanist and Paleontologist. I have no gatecrashing experience, but I have a lot of experience as a field researcher and lab technician, and I'm no slouch when it comes to defending myself."

Apsu's experience first with the Hypercorps in the inner system and with the Argonauts on Europa that it was never best to sell oneself short.

[Destrude]

There is a slight ripple as GAVI-03 joins the simulspace meeting. It appears as a dog-sized cartoonish gatecrasher truck, with a Thomas the Tank Engine-style face on the front.

"Preevyet (greetings), fellow beings! I apologize for my slight tardiness, it turns out that writing time-dialation simulspace software can make it hard to keep appointments. Rat teebya veedet! (Nice to see you)" As it sprinkles it's speech with Russian, subtitle translations appear above its head.

"I am GAVI-03, an AGI and thusly without gender. I currently reside in a top-of-the-line Mitsuhama Gatecrasher Truck, and I maintain a number of drones and assorted gear. A detailed list is available, if you like. I am skilled in navigation, recon, and repair. Bal'shoye spaseeba (thank you very much) for your consideration!

[Sithis]

Eli

The newcomer and his strange avatar certainly caught Eli's attention, that's for sure. After he finished speaking, Eli couldn't help but interject in (slightly rusty) Russian.

"Vy obitayutgruzovik? Eto fantastika! Kak vy popali v gruzovik? YA dumayu,AGI ne yavlyayetsya standartnoy funktsiyey."

Spoiler

Show

"You inhabit a truck? That is fantastic! How did you end up in a truck? I would think an AGI is not a standard feature."

(You're going to have to excuse my Russian, since I don't actually speak it. Google translator, go!)

[xen0phile]

Corbin

The ceiling is a bit low in here, so floating cross-legged is a particularly convenient way to accommodate for that fact.

Eli

At Oliver's mention of his own name, you get a very strong sense of "Where have I heard that name before?" You somehow can't place it, but within a few moments, your muse pulls an image and brief biography of a relevant person: a pre-Fall primatologist by the name of "Jane Goodall".

Geos

After you mention Canada, you notice that you are not completely in open ocean: toward the rear of the boat there is, in fact, a mountainous coast line.

everyone

Everyone shuffles around a bit more, zipping up coats and such if they are wearing such gear. After everyone has gone around introducing themselves, Oliver speaks up once again, "As for myself, I use the 'he' pronoun. And, by training I am a physicist; more particularly, I've done a fair amount of work in astrophysics and geophysics; but I've also work a lot with the gates themselves, know how to work them, know what makes them tick. I mean, as much as it is possible to understand alien hypertech...". He grins, "Also know some of the best extra-solar hangouts. You want some authentic Irish whisky? Distilled by actual Irish people? Or just a friend to spend the night with? I'll point out where to go.". He then opens the door the the stern, "We'll be meeting out here."

You go out onto the deck, at the very rear of the boat. Besides the low grey clouds, it is snowing lightly. Toward the front of the boat is an upper deck, along with a sailing mast (though the sails are presently furled). To the boat's port and starboard are the open ocean you could observe from inside. The stern of the boat, however, seems to be facing a coastline about ten or so kilometers away. It seems to be a fairly rugged one at that: mountains seem to tower hundreds, even thousands, of meters, jutting up from the sides of narrow inlets. If you look closely, it seems many of the mountains have some glacier fields, cutting long, narrow valleys similar to the shape of the inlets (but above water). At the lowest levels, right above sea level, there are expanses of green conifer trees, though much above sea level and the green gives way to white as the trees become snow-covered.

Spoiler

Show

basically it looks something like:


or

Oliver addresses Geos, "You are somewhat correct, by the way: although this landscape has never existed physically, it did have much inspiration from the real-world landscapes of the Canadian Pacific Coast. Though, my understanding is that there was never that much glaciation any time in the recent past. Climate change and all. But then again, I hear a lot of glaciers came back after the TITANs, well, you know..." he shrugs apologetically, remembering that many people don't like to be reminded that Earth is now a wasteland in the grips of nuclear winter.

Spoiler

Show

Rest of this prompt incoming still: I'll write down Huntress's entrance by this evening. If any of you want to do a quick, relevant action, such as talk with Oliver some more, feel free to post something before this evening.

[Orbiter]

Geos was calm being reminded about the fall was tougher for others, but he was more or less used to it by now, noticing Olivers shrugging he nodded "Dont worry too much about it, and besides i was young when the glaciers were almost gone, my grandfather showed me videos and told me stories about life before the climate change".

[xen0phile]

everyone

Your entopics alert you, <Huntress True-Sing Delve-Into-Wisdom has entered the domain.>

Looking out onto the water, you notice her dorsal fin and the top of her body peaking above the water as she swims toward the boat. Coming to within 5 meters, she positions her enormous body in a vertical position, "spy hopping" so that the front of her body is now above water. She turns her right side toward you, and you notice her eye, dull in color compared to her bright white eyepatch, but full of intelligence, observing you. She then begins to "talk", a series of high-pitched wails. Your entopics provide "subtitles".

<I assume you've all been introduced to each other? Excellent. First, let me, on behalf of our now, sadly, dispersed community, express our gratitude for your assistance. I would love to explain, in great depth, why this plan is so important to us. Alas, the work of a community organizer, though rewarding, is unrelenting in an almost Sisyphean manner. My time is constrained, so let me now offer operational details.>

<I should mention that we are still uncertain of the identity of those that destroyed our home. The danger with this is that they could strike again. Your first priority is, of course, exploration. Please do not let concerns over security override your primary objectives for being with us. You will be operating out of two places very sympathetic to my community: counter-espionage is crowd-sourced, and the locals can already root out a Jovian terrorist cell or hypercorp spy ring quite well. But... if you do notice anything threatening, just mention it on the local mesh.>

<Now, I mention you'll be operating out of two places. The first place, of course, is here on Oberon. The second location is a recently-discovered "portal world", "Memória dos Cravos", which has two gates within close proximity.>

Spoiler

Show

Your entopics display some basic information of this world:

Memória dos Cravos
allegiance: Autonomist
primary languages: Portuguese, English
population: 800

Physically a small, airless world orbiting close to its parent star. It is tidally-locked with one side of the planet a roasting permanent summer, and the other side a permanent winter. Two gates were discovered on the dark side within 100 meters of each other. First gate connects to Fissure Gate, the second has, as of yet, not connected to any previously settled worlds.

<In brief, the plan is for you to access and explore new gate addresses from the second gate at Memória dos Cravos. We now have a scheduled gate time for crossing over from Oberon: tomorrow, in fact. At 13:00 we have rocket buggies scheduled to take you and your supplies to the Fissure Gate facility itself. Then, at 16:40, you have ten minutes of gate time to move everything over to Memória dos Cravos.>

She pauses for a moment to let it sink in that you need to be ready by tomorrow.

<Any questions thus far?>

[cpttanktop]

With a respectful bow, Ichirou asks, "Huntress, I see there is a small population on Memoria dos Cravos; does that mean there is a settlement? If so, how well supplied is this settlement, or should be plan to be self-sufficient from the moment we leave Oberon?"

[Pohtyatoh]

Lucien

"Oliver will be the one accompanying us as Gate operator?" he asked distractedly while admiring the view and floating around the boat's perimeter.

[Destrude]

"You inhabit a truck? That is fantastic! How did you end up in a truck? I would think an AGI is not a standard feature."

(You're going to have to excuse my Russian, since I don't actually speak it. Google translator, go!)

GAVI's rediculous cartoon face smiles widely. Spaseeba (thanks), friend! I find it pleasing as well, and most useful to add! As for how it came to be, that is too long a story for now. I think we will have much time for sharing history on the road, however."

As Huntress arrives, GAVI does a passible impersonation of a bow before speaking. "Many thanks for this opportunity, seeker of wisdom. Assuming all my equipment and home body are arranged to arrive on time, I have no problems for you. I eagerly await our iskhod (exodus)."

[Orbiter]

Noticing the arrival of huntress Geos nodds his head and does a slight bow, and lets the others do the talk he had understood what needs to be done and knows more or less what he should do.

[xen0phile]

Ichirou

Huntress responds, <There is a small settlement thus far. Mostly some temporary structures. The good thing about being on the dark side of this planet is that solar radiation is less intense, so people can live in surface structures for extended periods. They have one small cornucopia machine and some specialized fabbers. You can expect sufficient food and air, but if you need to acquire, say, a specialized tool, it is probably more constrained than on a large settlement such as here on Oberon. They are slowly but surely building some sub-surface settlements, so much of the maker schedules are dedicated to building parts for that.>

<Memória dos Cravos also takes a resupply mission from Oberon once per month for various things can't easily make or procure on the other side. That is, in fact, how the scheduled gate opening tomorrow was obtained. Normally, they only keep the gate open about a minute and drive a few trucks through. They'll be doing that tomorrow, too, but then they'll keep it open another few minutes after that so that you can get your stuff through.>

Everyone

Justice, floating around the perimeter of the boat, asks in a distracted manner, "Oliver will be the one accompanying us as Gate operator?"

Before Huntress can continue, Oliver grins and interrupts, "Yep! We even have our own blue box engineered specifically for this gate, which, ahh, Huntress was probably about to explain."

<Indeed. Oliver here has been studying the second gate at Memória dos Cravos for some months now. Nearly since the settlement was first established, in fact. And he, along with some scientist and engineer friends, have created their own ad-hoc blue box, optimized for the MdC-2 gate.>

<While it usually takes several minutes to open a gate connection, with our blue box, a new connection can be established within ten seconds at that specific gate.>

<Our plan, thus, is somewhat different than a traditional first-in mission: in most first-in explorations, a connection is established, a probe sent through the gate, and then the gatecrashers follow through.>

<Our strategy here, by contrast, is to open several new addresses in quick succession, doing an initial probe for each. In an hour of gate time, you can thus obtain a few dozen preliminary observations. And, of that few dozen, you need only do to follow-up explorations of any worlds which seem 'interesting': if several of the new addresses turn out to open up onto airless vacuums, you don't even need to bother visiting those.>

Spoiler

Show

There will be a bit more of her briefing coming up (which I still need to write), but feel free to have your characters interject anything if you so desire.

[xen0phile]

<Now, what counts as an 'interesting' planet?>

<Well, there is the obvious: the more it is Earth-like, the better. We do have the time and patience to implement a modicum of terraforming, but naturally if the atmosphere is already breathable, the temperature already comfortable, without any outside intervention, that would be ideal.>

<The biggest difference between the preferred parameters of our colonization plan versus those of others is that our colonization plan involves cetacean morphs. Either we need to transport cetacean morphs from the gate to the planet's oceans, or we need to transport sufficient equipment to begin growing morphs on the new planet.>

<This leads to one more important factor: not only must any planet we chose to colonize have oceans of water which are habitable, at least via terraforming, but also the closer the gate is to any oceans, the better: it adds much to the cost of any colony if we need to fly whales several thousand kilometers to the closest ocean.>

<The next resupply opening from Oberon will be a little over a month from now. I have already arranged for that gate opening to last long enough for you to return to Oberon then and give myself, and the rest of the Ecconian community, a report on the new worlds your surveyed. I honestly do not expect any 'perfect' planets to be found within that time span. If, however, you do stumble upon that rare world which is already quite Earth-like, you should know that there is a quantum-entangled comm at Memória dos Cravos. You can alert me via that channel. Of course, QE comms are typically reserved for emergencies or other non-routine messages, but the discovery of an Earth-like extrasolar planet very much counts as a non-routine event.>

She pauses once again, and exhales deeply: a blast of air out of her blowhole from lungs the size of a small human.

<I think that covers all the important details. Any further questions?>

[Lord_Asmodeus]

Apsu

Apsu had been considering this task and something had occurred to him as useful, so he decided to broach the topic,

"As part of our exploration it will of course be important to study the feasibility of terraforming the oceans as you have mentioned. We collected scientists are likely highly qualified in much of the relevant information, but there is of course an infinite number of variables that we might not readily have access to.

I have been downloading all relevant scientific information into my cortical stack in preparation for separation from any Mesh, but it might be prudent for us to also acquire a portable SolArchive on the subject, perhaps as broad as Terraforming, or specifically on the Terra-forming of oceans and other large bodies of water.

It will provide us with an archive of much needed information to help ascertain the long-term viability of a colony, and once that is established it will likely be very useful to the colonists after their arrival. I or another here might be able to scrounge on up using a favor or by pooling our left over resources, or perhaps the Ecconians could help provide one for us.

I know you are already putting a great deal into this venture, and I am glad for it, but a SolArchive could be very useful, and it would likely be easier for you to make sure it has any information you believe useful if someone from your side were to provide it."

[xen0phile]

Everyone

Oliver speaks up again, "Yeah, good to be thinking about equipment. I can pick up one of those myself. Before we leave."

After Apsu's request is answered, the conversation "hangs" for a moment, and it seems no one else has any more questions. Huntress then breaks the silence, <Very well. If there are no further questions, I shall depart. Once again, on behalf of my community, thank you so very much.> She turns her body horizontal again, and begins to swim back toward the direction she arrived in.

Spoiler

Show

You can return to real-space if you'd like. Or you can hang out in this simulspace for awhile longer.

You now have a little less than 24 hours before you have to take the rocket buggies to the gate facility. You are free to spend that time however you like.

You also have the contact details of all your party members now, so you can communicate electronically with them (and perhaps decide to meet face-to-face before you have to go to the gate).

[Orbiter]

Geos
Geos did a slight bow as Huntress left and then spoke towards the others "Well i should be going soon i have some things to do i will be seeing you" with that he left in a hurry he had a few things to do.

Getting back to his body felt good, even if it was a cold synthetic shell perhaps next time he re-sleeved he would go with some-kind of Bio-Morph.

Just then he remembered about Somatek [Ponka While i review what i know can you look for Somatek what are the old dogs up to, if its something important tell me] [Sure this will be fun] [After it if something important aint up try to find a way to help me lower that stigma i got against hyper corporations] [Aww is someone in trouble?...il do it sounds fun] with that Ponka stopped talking and turned to search so to say.Now that he knew that she was spending her time doing something useful he could go do his own things.

Spoiler

Show

For my muse =p such a hard-working little thing.
Researching just to be sure if anyone if Somatek has anyone here or even proxies.The muse +2 hours.
(1d100)[19]vs 30

Researching afterwards provided no one is after me or something for a way to minorly make up and remove somehow part of the black mark he has on the various hyper-corporations.
(1d100)[71]VS30 +two hours.

=4 hours doing this and him other stuff unless she finds something important.

For starters he took his time looking at the new weapon and at the end checked it out using his nanoscopic vision on it, for all he knew it was tagged this mission couldn't fail and it wouldn't at least not because of him. After looking it carefully for more than a couple of minutes to ensure it was fine adn using his chemical sniffer and nano-swarm detector on it that for some reason he forgot to use from the start, he left it on the corner of the small room.

Spoiler

Show

Perception? roll on my new gun.
+10 or so for enchanted vision.
(1d100)[32]vs60+10

Chemistry for the sniffer.
(1d100)[26]vs70

And the nano detector.
(1d100)[93]vs30

He spent the one hour looking to find some papers and information to speed up his learning on psycho surgery. And then two more hours drawing everything he knew and found on new developments in genetics and bio-design anything that could survive in new exo planets that had lots of water.

Spoiler

Show

(1d100)[21]vs20+three hours for finding more useful info on psycho-surgery that might help.

Academics: Genetics70
Academics: Astrobiology60
Academics: Botany30
Profession: BioDesign60
Profession: Geneticist65
(1d100)[93]vs ??(which one) +(whatever fits that he could use from what he knows).+two hours for all these skill(a lot =p).

[xen0phile]

Everyone

Geos bids his farewell to the group; his virtual body dissolves in a swirl of bright particles, an effect copied from a pre-Fall science fiction franchise. <Geos has left the domain.>

Geos

You return to your small apartment. Although you can access a simulspace server from anywhere you have mesh access, most people prefer to do it in a private setting as your physical body is completely helpless while you are in the virtual reality. The sense of coldness is heightened by the spartan nature of the apartment. A single room, large compared to living space in most space-borne habitats, but tiny compared to the typical apartment on, say, Mars or pre-Fall Earth. The walls, floor and ceiling covered with an off-white padding to protect against people accidentally banging their heads against a hard surface, but an unfortunate secondary effect is that it makes the entire thing feel like an archetypal insane asylum. There is not even any plumbing within this room, and anyone living here has to go down the hall to a shared facility. Not that this is important to you at the moment, you being sleeved into a synthmorph which does not need to drink or relieve itself.

Although being a synthmorph, your apartment isn't even that important to you: beyond the fact that you only needed to live in it for a short time, you actually don't need much use for it beyond storing equipment. You don't even need to sleep in your present form, and you are able to accomplish most tasks from anywhere you have mesh access. Most of your neighbors, in fact, are also sleeved into synthmorphs: it seems that they don't bother to look for nicer places when they don't have much use for an apartment in the first place.

While your muse sets off to do some mesh browsing, you inspect your new weapon. It seems well-maintained, and looking at the microscopic wear, it hasn't even been exposed to very many harsh elements; all consistent with the man's statements that he didn't use it that much.

Then, looking over the weapon some more, you do notice a group of some nanometer-scale objects clinging to the surface. Worried, you spend a fruitless half hour trying to determine what sort of nanobots they are. However, your biologist training kicks in after you look at the "nanobots" a second time, and you realize they aren't actually "nanobots", but rather some new mutant strain of rhinovirus that came to Chat Noir aboard a scum barge a few weeks back.

Although you feel a bit silly for confusing the common cold with a nanobot, it is understandable: any sort of virus that can resist present-day biotech, even the cheap knock-off immunity that impoverished scum often are forced to use, has to be enough of a badass that it basically starts to emulate an engineered machine.

The important thing is that, as far as you can tell, there are no tagants or any other sort of nano hitching a ride on your pistol.

You start to read over some publications in preparation for your trip. Although there are many ways to terraform a planet, terraforming a planet with the constrained resources of the Ecconians presents a bit of a greater challenge. With large organizations, e.g. the Planetary Consortium, terraforming can go as far as "smash small comets into a planet to bring in more water and thicken the atmosphere" (which is, in fact, partially how they are terraforming Mars). The Ecconians obviously do not have this level of resources.

Reading over the publications, you are somewhat distracted by the growing excitement of your approaching gate hop. Although you take in several new articles, you don't really "digest" them as well as you normally would, your mind distracted by anticipation.

Your muse skims through some terabytes of data on Somatek. Lots of noise, much of the data not at all relevant to you. Market data, speculations on market data, speculations on speculations of market data, et cetera. The good thing is that there presently does not seem to be, as far as you can tell, any particular Somatek presence on Oberon. There are a small amount of people affiliated with the hypercorps visiting Chat Noir, but:
1. none of them seem, as far as you can tell, to be affiliated specifically with Somatek
2. the fact that they are associated with the PC makes people suspicious of them already--so, if they do try anything "funny" against either you or Chat Noir, you can expect a swift and unequivocal response from the community.

Your muse spends some more time researching about your reputation with regards to Somatek. Nothing particularly helpful comes up, and, in fact, it seems their public relations people have done an excellent job of continuing to distort things to the media.

Your muse even pulls up a recent blog post by a well-known uplift that names you, among other people, as sabotaging the cause of uplift rights by "pursuing tactical victories while neglecting strategic goals": basically arguing that you are alienating the humans of transhumanity by doing such "extreme" acts as helping indentured uplifts gain freedom. Although this particular blogger has little reputation among the autonomists, he is semi-popular on Mars and other places in the Inner System.

Spoiler

Show

I'm a bit uncertain about your explanation of the psychosurgery roll: are you saying your character is trying to learn how to do psychosurgery? Or, is he just reading about it, thinking about having it done to himself?

Feel free to post an explanation in the OOC thread, and then I can write up another IC post about what happened due to that specific roll.