Session 10

Session 10 Notes (Audio Recording available here)

4:32: Recap

Tuesday, January 9

Aquila asks Janick about the plan. Janick says that Tombari needs time and we should just keep going. Aquila agrees, and suggests following Lorelai’s lead to Marisa. Janick mentions needing funds, and saying he doesn’t want to get funds in the vicinity of the indigo fleet and wanting to move to a different system. Aquila suggests looking for a cargo transport. Lorelai suggests not transporting people, and Aquila compliments Lorelai’s likability. Aquila rolls Connect to try to find a cargo transport job, and finds a job that requires background checks and things that we go through.

We get food going to the sister planet of Marisa (which shares a very tight orbit: they orbit each other), Varvaresos. No one wants to go to Varvaresos (unlike Marisa), a TL3 (21st century) world with strip mining and working class people. The food supplies are for humanitarian aid. Aquila sells our ship as fast, reliable, and with lots of cargo space. The party doesn’t object, and the party negotiates a loading time for the next day (after two days have passed, on Thursday). A hoverboard stacked 6-feet-high with metal crates shows up with a dude (there are two of these palettes total), maybe 10-15 tons of cargo total. They offer 3000 credits, half up front. The party splits the up-front money and agrees to put the other 1500 to be received later into the party fund. Rowan sends a message to Asclepius about the happenings on the 10th, deciding not to fast-track (200 per hex to expedite): it will arrive in 12 days.

Tom had mentioned a docked CCRN ship. Janick talks to Jedidiah about investigating, after which he decides to talk to Rowan about spying on the computer. Rowan cannot remotely access the ship computer from his data slab, although a line shunt might do the trick on a docking bay computer or ship computer. Line shunts are hard to find: you can only buy them from certain vendors, since they are illegal to use. You cannot do a hacking attempt for anything more complex than searching a database, and thus it is illegal. Janick doesn’t want to make the CCRN suspicious that they are being watched, and opts against the solution. There is no CCRN base on Osa Station, and the CCRN doesn’t come around to Osa very often. Rowan seeks a black market connection to get line shunts.

Rowan goes to a normal access terminal and hacks into it to find ships registered as CCRN. The ship in the dock is “the box of chocolates”. The captain’s name is very simple: Lydia Floros (something like “Jane Doe”), and the reason for arrival is listed as “refueling”, but they kicked another ship out of their berth (which is unusual). Rowan wants to dig further, but Janick shoots him down on not wanting to arouse suspicion. The ship is a frigate-class ship, just like the Indeed it Does.

5:30

The crew takes off. Janick asks about the external cameras, but we would have to get closer to the Aegis fleet to do so (which can be done, but might be noticed if someone is really paying attention). Janick asks the crew, which is slightly tentative. Most of the indigo fleet could outrun our ship from both a system drive and a spike drive perspective. Janick decides instead to download information on the indigo fleet before jumping into drill space. Janick gets a ping from Tombari saying that they picked up the Box of Chocolates leaving its berth just as the ship was leaving the station. Janick asks them to check to see if the Box of Chocolates has left its berth. Rowan scans the sensors and determines that the Box of Chocolates is moving in our direction.

The party starts discussing options, and decides to jump to Aethra. Rowan contacts the Box of Chocolates to tell them they’re on a collision course. The Box of Chocolates doesn’t respond. Janick decides to trim the route and accelerate the calculations for drill space, making the connections. The Box of Chocolates gets within 2km of the ship and opens torpedo tubes, appearing to send radiation to the ship (giving Rowan warnings, as if he was too close to a star). The ship is taking pictures of the Box of Chocolates and logging information before jumping into drill space a minute later.

<BREAK: Calob went AFK>

5:55

Aquila tries to break into the cargo without any indication that he was opening the cargo. Aquila uses his omn-tool to tinker with the wiring on the boxes, which would be obvious if anyone re-removed the panel for the boxes. The first crate appears to have rice or grain in it, but Aquila digs in and finds something solid that’s not the bottom of the crate. Aquila starts dumping the rice into another crate, finds a combat rifle, and calls Jedidiah, who leaves the command deck. Jedidiah describe it as a TL3 combat rifle worth about 400 credits: TL3 weapons are still in use on TL3 worlds and even on TL4 worlds by those that prefer them, and can be advantageous over laser weaponry on worlds with smog or other thick atmosphere.

There’s a lot of unrest between Marisa and Varvaresos: Marisa is the picturesque planet, being terraformed for human habitation while also having left some exotic rainforest. A lot of noble families live on Marisa with great influence and resources, and get most of their power from mines on Varvaresos which is considered a badlands world. A badlands world is like Mad Max, with storms and sand blowing everywhere with a lot of rich minerals. The planets are tidally-locked: you can see one planet from the other, and there have been many coups and revolutions attempted on Varvaresos that have failed. The tech level on Varvaresos is capped at TL3 to prevent insurrections, with the Marisa enforcement having power armor and plasma weapons.

Aquila and Jedidiah talk about the options, and decide to dual-wield weapons up to the crew. The crew starts talking about not ever getting a normal mission. It’s easier to smuggle TL3 weapons than TL4 weapons because they bypass complicated weapons scans. The party tends towards the idea of just completing the delivery as normal. Aquila goes to put the rifles back and make the cargo look untampered-with. Jedidiah sets up a space ball net, and the party plays space ball together (Lorelai wins). Lorelai and Aquila finish the laser knife, which is nasty and has additional applications such as stabbing vac suits. Aquila tries out the knife and suggests additional modifications for the weapon.

The indigo fleet is one of the more agile fleets in the arsenal, with only a couple of cruisers. It’s captained by Admiral Damien Turner, and does most of the public appearances and showcases. The indigo fleet also advanced the frontier and fought with pirates while colonizing frontier worlds a decade ago. The cruisers have TL3-level spike drives, and the frigates are designed to be able to lampray onto the cruisers to enter drill space with them. A student article from the Katlan flight academy says the indigo fleet came to see the graduation of the seniors, and so that Admiral Turner could give the graduation speech. Aegis corporation was a natural fit for the Galactic Hegemony, as one of the first groups to rediscover spike drive technology after the Scream with all of their shipbuilding infrastructure on their home world. They were one of the groups to start reconnecting space after the Scream, which is when they really established their foothold, and the Chhayan shipyards did the same thing (coming from the south). When they met, a group of psychics mediated between Aegis and Chhaya (the Anomorum Institute) and the trio formed the basic Galactic Hegemony. Corvus joined and, seeing that Aegis and Chhaya were still nursing their fleets, decided to pivot from shipments to military as well. The disagreements between Corvus, Aegis, and Chhaya led to the collapse of the Galactic Hegemony. There was a cold war between the three factions that really led to the collapse, with a few major skirmishes that sent shockwaves throughout the sector, affecting trade and communication and opening the way for pirates.