Collateral

The following article is currently under construction. Please be patient, updates will come over time.

## Vital statistics

### Page count

122

**Collateral** was a RP thread hosted by **Pancakei**, and the last full thread to be hosted with season scheduling. It was the finale of Season 5. The thread centered around the exploration and destruction of the lost Arcadian Parchea Complex.

## **Setup**

An interplanetary business Mogul known as **Jackie Bermha** has set up shop on the long abandoned planet **Dredgen Vix**, a small world full of lush rain forests and odd radioactive patterns.

Months after setting up, Bermha discovered an odd set of ruins covering part of the planet's surface, underneath the tree canopies. He offered a nice deal sponsored by H1 for explorers to risk their safety to venture into the ruins.

## **Synopsis**

### **The Entry**

After an hour-long process of registration and a business encounter with Olivia, the group of volunteers head out on a long hike through the rain-forest to the exploration site. After being warned that the early bird crew still hasn't established contact, the group was set free to explore the large crumbling temple, covered in dense plant life.

A large group managed to break open the *piston locked* temple doors, while individuals and smaller groups took side entrances. The entrance lead to the main hall and rooms, with beautifully intricate statues and architecture. Among these rooms were barracks, locker rooms, and a grand library. Some items, notably the defense Sentinel's disguised as statues, were very well preserved. Coating the walls were an alien language etched both into stone and painted metal signs, closely resembling ancient Arcadian script. Eventually, Olivia joined the group, occupied with her own mentality.

### **The Generator**

However, exploration soon uncovered more underground layers to the temple, cold and industrial, contrasting the plant-coated upper layers. Along with these metal catacombs, the group found a recently reactivated Daikael, the last member of the early bird crew. Here the group managed to activate the geothermal generator that once powered the odd facility from within its own room, also activating the staggeringly bright beacon that marked the facility as a welcoming port for an alien race. Shortly after, Eclipse accidentally triggered the defenses of the facility trying to hack his way into the consoles.

After destroying the activated defense sentinels disguised as ornate statues, the group found a large cargo elevator heading even deeper into the ground. With the rest of the temple either explored or collapsed, they sent groups down to investigate, with resistant help from Olivia.

### **The Facility**

Deep underneath the above-ground temple, the group found an absolutely wrecked weapons development facility, its power recently restored via the generators in the temple. The maze of corridors was drenched in odd radiation, most likely from a form of particle accelerator that used to be operated there. Among the wrecked frosty corridors, explorers found abandoned consoles, tech, and the remains of a damaged skeleton, most likely from Avecris workers. Additionally, the source of the massive beacon was found in a round chasm, a series of catwalks raised around the massive beam generator. After ransacking more automated defenses, the power to the above-ground facility was cut as the top generator was halted.

### **The Raid**

The exploration was brought to a halt when a group of special operations soldiers stormed the above-ground facility. Called by Olivia, ATES began setting up in the upper floors, beginning to weed out the intruders from the lost facility. After several firefights, several characters made it out in time, or were captured by ATES forces. Arbitrated foolishly destabilized a rift engine, causing her and an anonymous Dermoit to be transported unwillingly to another dimension.

**Squick**, one of the main assailants against ATES forces, was incapacitated and arrested by the military after a brief chase from one of the corporals, referred to as **Vandela**.

Soon after the raid, police and peace groups landed on the planet with additional resources, only to find out that the temple had been firebombed and collapsed by an unknown force, most of its technology missing.

## **Lore**

```
Work in Progress, this will soon contain all the hidden and overlooked lore behind the events and locations of the thread. These aren't massive spoiler alert as most of this information would never be stated otherwise due to player actions.

```

## **Trivia**

* The first concept of Collateral, the ancient beam generator, was first concepted on SketchToy, almost six months before the thread.
	+ Originally, the idea was supposed to be a small (15m diameter) location that could be found by sideplot exploration. This idea was later integrated into an improvised plan for a thread about a month before it was hosted.
	+ Despite this, Collateral was mostly improvised, with many concepts and ideas being drawn up shortly before the threads due date, and based around player choices while the thread was running.
* Collateral was the first active appearance of ATES in RP, as well as previous Arcadian history.
	+ And it may not be the last.~
* Corporal Vandela is a cameo of a character Pancakei made for a separate project, with her full name being Nina Vandela.