Eclipse Phase: Terminal Velocity

[deject]

As I recall, we had just run past some security guards to the off-world access thing where some other people were and were about to leave?

[Joose]

Yep, pretty much. If you prefer I can carry it on normally, it wont take long*.

*no, I dont mean relatively

[Dog Pants]

We were following a rich bloke and his dolly bird into the space elevator and I was trying to convince him not to take an empty carriage.

[Joose]

Right! Well, if people want to carry on, a quick recap:

The world has gone completely to shit, and you are attempting to run away. You have made it to the space elevator in Kilimanjaro and managed to sneak in the back whilst some military types stopped the crowd getting in the front. On your way up to the elevator itself you have met an older guy who identified himself as Kristof Zbrny and his heavily pregnant wife. He agreed to get you on the next lift up in return for you helping him to get his wife on board, as she is struggling a bit. He seems keen to go, Edgar said about waiting for more people and then I made you do a perception check. Barry is completely oblivious, but Edgar got a success. So!

Edgar, it seems to you like Zbrnys wife is noticably more pregnant than she was when you first saw them.

They will likely die, and that will be sad, but if we wait around for them we will have a thousand people trying to fit in a vessel designed for twenty. Do you think they will step aside and let us leave when we reach capacity? Or will they horse themselves aboard, take us over capacity and prevent us from leaving? If it is a choice between them dying or all of us dying, I will gladly sacrifice them.

As he talking the door closes behind you, and you hear docking clamps disengaging and motors firing up.

[Dog Pants]

Through lack of choice and a compelling argument, Edgar stays quiet.

Erm, when you say she's noticeably more pregnant, do you mean she's further gone than we though, or that she's getting more pregnant really fast. Because the latter is pretty worrying.

[Joose]

The latter. It could be a trick of the light or something, but its like she has gone from 6-7 months pregnant to "shes gonna blow!" pregnant.

[Dog Pants]

Oh shit. Swarm of nanobabies. I'll stand and flip the safety off.

No offence, sir, but I seen a lot o' weird stuff today, and something about you guys just ain't addin' up.

Might as well horse their hand by alerting everyone. I can live with the embarrassment if I'm wrong.

[Joose]

He goes wide eyed and moves slightly to make sure he is between you and his wife.

What on earth are you talking about?

[Dog Pants]

Don't worry, sir, I ain't about to go postal. I just don' know who to trust right now outside o' me, this here railgun, and the guys behind me who earlier today blew the hell outta all kinda weird robot monsters. If you're okay to add to that list, then we're in for a nice, quiet ride.

[Joose]

I assure you, my wife and I are of no threat. We are unarmed, and all I want is to get her to safety.

Dont forget you can do a kinesics check to see if you think he is telling the truth.

[deject]

Does Barry notice this as well?

[Joose]

Barry has failed to notice the apparently swelling wife. He has noticed Edgar waving a gun around, if thats what you mean

You can roll kinesics for that too if you want Deej, as its just judging the intentions of Zbrny, its not directly related to the wife.

[deject]

Kinesics (40): 2, 3: 23 Success!

Barry grasps the grip of his Laser Pulser upon seeing Edgar with his weapon.

[Joose]

Eagle eyed!

Seems like Zbrny is telling the truth to you.

His wife makes a sudden gasp, and a "hrrrng" noise. To your inexpert eyes it kinda looks like she is going into labour.

As all this is going on, the pod you are in has rolled out of the docking area and attached itself to the line. It has started to climb, but its still moving pretty slowly (these things dont accelerate super fast) so it hasnt yet cleared the walled enclosure that surrounds the tether area. Theres some light jingly music being piped in over some speakers.

[Dog Pants]

Seems like any kinesics roll is going to be academic pretty soon. For what it's worth, I believed him anyway. I don't suppose the doors of this thing will open while we're still in atmosphere? Without rendering it useless, that is. I don't fancy being stuck in an elevator with whatever comes out of her belly.

[Joose]

If you have any relevant techie knowledge skills you can roll to get some more definative answers, but even a regular person would know that once the pod has left the station those doors wont open till you dock at the other end. There are no controls on them other than an emergency release lever on one side that has a big warning label telling you not to use it unless instructed to. It looks similar to a door on a real world airplane, just a bit bigger.

[Dog Pants]

You can shut emergency exits in aircraft after you've hoofed the nanobot-spewing android out of it though, right? Because I don't fancy the alternative of being turned into soup. Maybe it's not nanobots, maybe it's that alien out of Spaceballs that pops out and sings cabaret. Anyway, I have Hardware: Electronics, which is about the closest thing I can see on my character sheet to an appropriate technical skill. That or Pilot: Aircraft/Exotic.

Roll if it's any use:

Electronics (30): Roll(1d100)+0:
5,+0
Total:5

Okay then.

[Joose]

Christ, ok, with a roll like that I should really give you something.

The doors are not kind of like airplane doors, they are *exactly* like airplane doors. In other words, they actually open inwards slightly before sliding to one side. This means that once you get a bit of height the air pressure difference between inside and outside makes the door physically impossible to open. It actually doesn't have to be that big a difference in pressure either, so although you could probably open the door now, you wont be able to in just a couple of minutes.

More to the point, you know from your electronics knowledge that these things have safety systems in place: if the emergency handle is popped the pod will automatically head for the nearest dock, going up if you are over half way or down if you are under half way. Your total journey time is going to be around 12 hours*. You do the math.


*yes, for the eagle eyed and science minded, this is clearly bullshit. To get to geostationary orbit in 12 hours the pod would need to be averaging speeds of around 2000mph, which would put the passengers at rather uncomfortable G horses. In reality speeds of the climbers for space elevators are estimated to be at most a couple of hundred mph, but that would give a travel time of around 5 days. I need it to not be taking 5 days, because otherwise you would need the pod to have bedrooms, dining facilities and suchlike. This is what we like to call "creative licence".

[Dog Pants]

Looks like we're just going to have to wait and see then. Actually, I'm not sure opening fire with automatic weapons in here is a great idea either, unless we want to arrive with no air. Lets hope this rifle's well built, because it's going to get used for a game of whack-a-mole.

[Joose]

The wife screams, and there is a tearing noise. Zbrny, with a shocked expression on his face, shoots upwards and gets pinned to the ceiling by an apparently invisible horse. Now she is clearly in view you can see that the unfortunate womans torso is now grossly distended and her top has partially split down the middle exposing her belly. You can see something moving in there. Its like a plastic bag stuffed full to the point of bursting with eels. She now doesn't seem entirely conscious, and although something is keeping her upright it certainly isn't her legs. Her feet are barely touching the floor. If sort of looks like she is suspended, but you don't see anything that could be doing that.

I think now would be an excellent point to go into our (probably last) bullet time. Initiatives please!