Session Log 21

Earth Tier

• The sentinels conducted enough recon to realize two things. First, Blackrock was too dangerous to clear out on their own. Second, by reviewing the recent system logs, Kru determined that the Oz-4 ego had uploaded a mass of data from the networked artificials and transmitted it to a receiver at the US submarine base in Bangor, Washington, North America.

• Rather than wasting 1.5 days waiting for the Swarm to reach them the team used the farcaster aboard the Disco Inferno to return to Three Sheets to the Wind. Once there they logged into the Eye through the Fruity-Oaty interactive ad-game and attempted to contact Proxy Luna. Instead, Stan the Man answered their light-speed delayed message and told them to farcast to an unregistered receiver somewhere in Earth orbit. They backed up or forked as per personal preferences, said their goodbyes and broadcast themselves towards the homeworld.

Put Out to Pasture

You rez into a simulspace, but one run on the most powerful server you have ever experienced practically indistinguishable from meat-space. You quickly realize you are all integrated into the same space station, wearing it like a morph. Below you hangs the dead earth - brown continents, black seas, contaminated skies. Inside there are cybersystems and infolife, all intently focused on countless tasks. State of the art surveillance systems spanning the EM spectrum scan the planet’s surface and track every near space object. A large manufactory is fabbing small satellites and orbitals which are launched into orbit as you watch. Still other more enigmatic systems work diligently within the station’s environs, executing unknown and mysterious tasks.

A voice speaks and you realize it is your muse - apparently co-opted by what must be a uniquely potent program. “Welcome to Pasture. I am The Shepherd. I am pleased you have volunteered to save transhumanity…”

• In addition to the countless parsed aspects of The Shepherd the party members realized there were three other autonomous entities in the server - Proxy Luna, Stan the Man and Proxy Evo. Shepherd explained that not all recursive AIs are threats to transhumanity and that in fact a cadre known as the Promethean’s survived the rise of the TITANs and works to guide and preserve transhumanity. Shepherd claimed that it is Firewall - that it is the originator and director of the conspiracy. This information seemed to provide an actual sense of relief to most of the team members - as if they were reassured by the fact that there was intent opposing the darkness.

• The Shepherd congratulated the team on its success in fighting the machinations of the Song Cai Flower entity and offered them one more mission. The Shepherd believes that the entity has targeted the Bangor Sub base because the base is suspected of being the location where the first TITAN was activated. The Shepherd believes that if the pattern of its behavior is an indication the Flower ego is going to attempt to use what it has learned about TITAN control systems and gate technology to build a gate to the local past and use it to try to prevent the activation of the first TITAN.

The Shepherd said that there is “insufficient data” to predict what effect such an attempt would have on the present day - time travel being a hypothetical science at best. Therefore Firewall’s assessment is that it is too dangerous to allow the entity to even attempt the activation of such a gate. The Shepherd therefore asked the team to go to Earth and simply prevent the potential destruction of all existence...

• The Shepherd told the team that it would be farcasted to a Contingency Depot - one of many  cashes of morphs and equipment secreted across the Earth by the organizational precursors of Firewall against future need. There they would gear up and secure transport then travel to the Bangor Base. The target depot was in the Seattle, Washington Lockheed Martin proving ground.  

Deja Vu

Some philosophies hold that existence is a series of cycles we are destined to relive until we reach enlightenment. You wonder if this might in fact be true as you wake with a powerful sense of having done exactly this only weeks ago. You are wearing one of a number of synthmorphs hanging on a rack in an otherwise empty bay. The lighting is dim - several overhead fixtures are dark and one flickers with power fluctuations. The gravity is high and strangely natural. There are moisture stains on the ferrocrete walls and a slimy puddle in one corner. A single black-and-yellow-striped, roll-up, metal door occupies one wall and is labeled “LM Contingency Depot - Equipment Storage.”

• The party instantiated and quickly searched the facility for gear. It was clear that others had been here before them - empty racks, open cases, spilled ammo, half assembled weapons - but there was still plenty of useful and dangerous toys to go around.

• In a meta-concession to the approaching climax of the campaign the party members were allowed to sleeve into the plausible synthmorph of his choice and raid the facility for a primary and secondary weapon, any one rare or specialized piece of gear and any standard supplies they wanted.

Terry - Reaper morph

Kru - Synthtaur

Rentlov - Fighting kite

John 117 - Takko

Nikolas - Guardian

Piv - Diatya, combat mod

• Scrounging around Kru discovered a subterranean munitions well and a single tactical antimatter device still in the inventory. He nonchalantly strapped it to his sythtaur’s back like a saddle bag.

• A vehicle bay provided slim pickings except for a well-used Cascadia Class crasher truck prototype which the party quickly commandeered. Heavily armored and equipped with a turret-mounted multi-barreled railgun the vehicle promised to be formidable transport. Like most of the gear in the facility the truck had been tagged with a crude red symbol implying that it had been “wireless disabled.”

Wishful Thinking

Less than 8 weeks ago you woke up from a 10 year sleep and learned that the Earth had been destroyed and abandoned. You didn’t see it happen. You didn’t live through it like everyone else. You’ve seen the pictures, the vids, and you’ve now seen the brown and black ball from orbit. You’ve seen all that but you still don’t believe it’s true - that the Earth is dead and most of humanity with it.

If it’s not true, what is? What does your character believe - or hope - he will see when the big metal door rolls up and he drives out onto the surface of the Earth?

• Each team member shared his thoughts on what lay beyond the door and they were universally dark and disheartening. In the end, they were all obviated by the anticlimactic fact of the spiral ramp that apparently lead up to the surface.

• The top of the ramp let out through a breached metal door and the wrecks of several corroded vehicles blocking the ramp access. The walled proving ground beyond was barren - devoid of any sign of life or even organic material - and covered in a gray, flake-like substance that seemed more ash than dust. The sky was a flat white that lent a subdued brightness to the terrain and the sun was just a slightly brighter glow in an otherwise featureless pale void.  

Downtown

The half-submerged streets of the Seattle waterfront are clogged with stagnant water, stinking muck, the corroding hulks of old vehicles and the rubble of collapsing buildings. The going is slow and frequent dead ends force you to retrace your course and try other roads. Though you are uncertain, you think you catch movement here and there among the ruins and rubble. Furtive animals that have survived the ecological collapse? Abandoned humans drawn by the sound of your truck? Or TITAN artifacts, warmachines or exurgent artificials still hunting transhuman prey?

A wrong turn, and other rubble-blocked alley. The truck splashes to a halt and begins to back up. The weighted nets and gunfire seem to come from nowhere and everywhere as the feral raiders spring their ambush...

• The fight was short and chaotic. John 117 was almost destroyed, the turret gun was dismounted and the truck half-buried in rubble. If not for Nikolas driving skills, Rentlov’s air support and Terry’s lethal destruction the mission would have been over before it had really begun. Ultimately, the team killed or chased off their ambushers who retreated to some sort of encampment hidden in the stadium complex to the south.