Eclipse Phase: Glory

[Joose]

For various reasons its now the fourth time I've had to write this god damn thing out. Hopefully nothing will go wrong and eat my post this time.

Can we get anything out of the Keysrah? Cameras, journals, damage reports?

Absolutely. The ships AI is super basic, really not much more than an interface so you can access the ships systems using natural language, but as you have the access codes it gives you everything it has. Theres no journals as such (personal logs tend to be stored on the person, via mesh inserts or the like, along with their Muse) but there are internal and external video feeds and system logs.

The video feeds are the easiest to scrub through, so I'll cover those first. The external feeds don't show you a lot. Theres the journey from Casa Arturo to here, then it carefully plops itself onto the rock it is anchored in. After a short pause you see Yu's ghost morph in space gear float out and around the rock, followed by a weirdly thin flexbot. After a much longer pause a large, monstrous morph comes around the rock with cutting tools and forcibly pops the ships airlock. Theres a brief burst of air and bits as the atmosphere vents and it disappears inside. Another short pause and the thing comes out again and floats off around the rock.

The internal feed fills you in on the missing moments. First it shows Yu and a cheap looking synthmorph (not the flexbot) sat about on the trip there. Theres not a whole bunch of room in the ship, most of its internal space is taken up by fuel tanks and giant engine housings. Eventually Yu gets out of her chair, unpacks the flexbot from its storage crate and goes through the airlock with it. The synthmorph sits around for a bit, apparently just staring into space. All of a sudden he starts moving, like he is trying to get the ship ready to leave in a panic. Before he can complete the process (which he is obviously flubbing quite badly, probably because he is trying to rush it) the atmos in the ship shoots out the suddenly open airlock and a big biomorph comes in taking a small railgun from its belt. It wastes no time, shooting the synth square in the back of the head, then once in the chest about two thirds the way up. It then leaves. Theres nothing on either feed after that except for tools and little bits of synthmorph floating around the cabin.

Theres buttloads of info in the system logs. Immediately obvious is that despite the busted airlock the ship is still in pretty good condition, and could fly just fine as long as it doesn't have any passengers that need to breathe. Although the ship AI is basic its easily enough to autopilot its way back home by itself too. If you want any more info than that someone is going to have to do a research roll on it (but don't forget you can take time and get bonuses by having anyone else with the research skill help out) to felcher the useful stuff out from the rest.

Can we piggy-back its mesh to relay to the hab? Also, DCOM might not do infosec, but Ignacio does.

Nope. I mean, you can in theory, but the ship cant reach the habs mesh either. Either the hab doesn't have a mesh (or its broken/turned off) or they have its range dialled right down. Its not uncommon for hab mesh to barely reach outside the hull if they want to keep security tight.

Usagi has infosec of 55 I think. I just got a roll on my phone of 52, but it might be good to have the others help out as well as taking her time in case it's tight.

I'll let you keep that roll for if/when you do get in range if you want.

[fabyak]

Can I take a look at the asteroid to if there's anything special about or maybe get a clue why they would be there?

Profession: Asteroid Prospecting (65): 45+0


Looking for useful stuff with the help of my muse (25 + 10 + taking time): 31

Ayo ndeleng apa kita duwe kene

[fabyak]

I get the feeling I'm going to get screwed once I need fighty rolls...

[Joose]

Can I take a look at the asteroid to if there's anything special about or maybe get a clue why they would be there?

Profession: Asteroid Prospecting (65): 45+0

Ooh, good skill use! Unfortunately, its just a big lump of space ice. Nothing particularly interesting about its composition other than the fact its surface is covered in a matt black dusting of spacecrap which means the Kesyrah blends in with it excellently. It was probably just selected for its proximity to the hab, the fact its a good colour match and the fact its big enough to anchor to without any observant locals wondering why a random space rock just doubled in size. If you had a hab nearby you might be interested in grabbing it, you think it could be refined down to a decent haul of water and some useful trace elements for a fabber. Not enough to get excited about though.

Looking for useful stuff with the help of my muse (25 + 10 + taking time): 31

You spend a couple minutes perusing the system logs and find some interesting bits. The Kesyrahs systems were being used by the synthmorph that stayed in the shuttle to stay in constant mesh contact with Yu whilst she went over to the hab. From the looks of the data there was a permanent vid feed coming back, and a fair amount of text and audio comms in both directions. There was a sudden spike in data coming back to the ship, which the synth cut off. The timing of this matches with when the synth started to panic and try and run. The feeds were all real time with the ship just being used as a relay so none of it was stored. That being said, you do manage to pull a couple of still images out.

I'll link them rather than embed them. They are a little NSFW.

http://i58.tinypic.com/esvvrr.jpg
http://i61.tinypic.com/1zqvpg1.jpg

[Dog Pants]

Eesh. This isn't looking promising. What the fuck is that morph? I hope that dismembered corpse isn't Yu. In fact, I hope nothing in those pictures is Yu.

Okay, I think I've got an idea for the next stage of this suicide mission. Divide and conquer. Unlabelled gets near the Song to hack it. I think they might have a hacker of their own, but they'll have to find him to pull their monster kill trick. Usagi floats over to the Keysrah and sets it to go home, the bugs out and hides sharpish. The Keysrah spooling up should attract their attention and hopefully draw out a few bad guys. Cue myself lurking near the airlock ready to put some speed-holes in whoever comes out with my big fucking railgun. Anyone left inside gets spaced when Unlabelled voids the ship, and while they're dealing with that I go in and help them along their way with some more violence.

Anyone think of a better solution to get ourselves killed, or improve on that plan?

[Joose]

I'm guessing no-one has a better plan then? You going with that?

[fabyak]

Fuck it, sounds like a plan!

If you're waiting for me to sprout a pair of tits you got a long fucking wait. We going or what?

[Joose]

[fabyak]

I must say I'm enjoying playing a self absorbed bastard!

[Dog Pants]

If this goes wrong you may be sporting mammaries sooner than you think, should you be resleeved that way.

DCOM gestures towards the airlock.

Shall we?

I've just had a thought. We need a way of getting about in space. Joose, please tell me there are emergency vac suits with little motors

[Joose]

I've just had a thought. We need a way of getting about in space. Joose, please tell me there are emergency vac suits with little motors

Oh, I didn't think to check that. Technically, no, your standard vac suits don't include thrusters for manoeuvring in space. The big ones (which look more like modern day space suits) do, but the ones you are wearing are more like skin tight jumpsuits, and don't include any kind of thrusters. Of course, DCOM isn't even wearing a suit, being a synthmorph.

I meant to give you that ability though, so lets just say Shoggy included 3 thruster packs (p345 of the main rules) and forgot to mention them. They are like a backpack with cold gas jets on them, good enough to push you around in zero g.

[fabyak]

Damn, I thought my sudden use of English would have provoked a bigger reaction than that!

[Dog Pants]

It would have prompted an incredulous look of DCOM if he was capable of facial expressions.

[Joose]

OK, so you have a plan but at the moment you are still standing (floating I guess) around in the shuttle in your suits pointing at the door. What, specifically, are you doing? Commit!

[fabyak]

Unlabelled sighs as if showing disdain for an omnipotent overseer and heads out to the airlock, only stopping to throw DCOM one his attempted aneurysm inducing glares

[Dog Pants]

DCOM returns a blank expression, makes his gauss rifle ready, then follows.

[Joose]

OK, you are now outside your Shuttle, between the Shuttle and the Kesyrah. The large asteroid that the Kesyrah is anchored to sits between you and the Flower, obscuring it from your view (and you from it).

So if im understanding it correctly, your plan of attack is this:

1) Unlabelled and DCOM go around the asteroid to get closer to the Flower
2) Unlabelled hacks in to the Flowers mesh
3) Usagi sets the Kesyrah to bug out
4) DCOM plugs anyone who comes out to look
5) Unlabelled triggers the airlocks and spaces anyone still inside
6) DCOM goes in to shoot anyone who survives that
7) ...
Profit!

If that is correct, Unlabelled and DCOM: give me an Infiltration roll if you have the skill. If you don't, I'll let you do a COOx2 roll instead (that means taking your Coordinatation stat, doubling it and rolling under that number like normal). No modifiers, just a straight roll. Just so you understand whats going on: I will then do a perception roll for people looking at you as an opposed roll. Basically, this can go a number of ways:

1) You fail the roll but so do they: You are a flailing, unstealthy muppet but they are looking the wrong way and dont see you
2) You fail and they pass: You flail about and they see you
3) You pass and they fail: the swoop through like a shadow, they dont see shit
4) You both pass: whoever passes with the highest actual rolled number wins

This is of course assume that there is even anyone there. I could just be making you roll to give you the willies

[Dog Pants]

Infiltration 45:
4, 2: 42 Success!

Erk! That was close. I hope you're just giving us the willies. DCOM doesn't have a willy. I'm assuming Unlabelled's 'roid morph has a small one

[fabyak]

Infiltration: 51

Roll: 1, 6

Like a stealthy tiny willied ninja

[Joose]

Actually, this is probably a good place to ask you guys about a possible house rule.

In the original rule book, opposed tests run as I just described, so if both people in the test succeed (ie, roll under their target number) then the winner is determined by the highest roll. This means these opposed rolls work a bit like Blackjack: you want to roll as close to your target as possible without going over. This works fine, but its a bit odd thanks to it being different to all the other rolls where you just want to roll as low as possible.

Theres a house rule suggested on the forums (and it might actually have been rolled in to one of the rules reprints, im not sure) that changes this so that the winner when both people in an opposed test pass (roll under their target) then the person with the biggest margin of success wins (ie, how much under their target number did they succeed by). Statistically this should work out as basically the same, using both versions should give the same odds of success for any given roll.

So, in summary:

old way - roll close to your target number

Good: Easy to calculate at a glance
Bad: works differently to all other rolls

new way - roll low

Good: more consistent with the rest of the rolls
Bad: mildly more mathsy

Personally, I'm happy with either way. Do you guys have any preference?