AEON EFFECT (Mass Effect / Trinity Crossover)

[DragonCobolt]

Name

Tigershark "Ti" Shepard

Order

Project Minerva (formerly 5th Legion)

Spoiler: Base Attributes

ATTRIBUTES

​	Physical Attribute​	#​	Mental Attribute​	#​	Social Attribute​	#​
Power​	Might​	*****​	Intelligence​	**​	Presence​	*****​
Finesse​	Dexterity​	*​	Cunning​	**​	Manipulation​	*​
Resistance​	Stamina​	***​	Resolve​	**​	Composure​	****​

Psi​	3​	PP​	10/10​	Initiative​	2​	Momentum​	Varies​	Defense​	1+5d​	XP: 6​
Range​	Short/Medium​	Size​	1 or 2​	Duration​	Minutes/Hours​	Attune​	Medium Range​	Soft/Hard Armor​	3​	2​

SKILLS

Skills [Specialty]​	Rating​	Tricks​	Skills [Specialty]​	Rating​	Tricks​
Aim​	***​	Gun Tool (can spend 1 momentum to add Aim to related skill checks by using a gun to help out.)​	Athletics​	​	​
Close Combat​	***​	Deadly Strike (when using mixed actions in melee combat, use the higher pool rather than the smaller.)​	Command​	​	​
Culture​	​	​	Empathy​	***​	Cold Read (spend 1 momentum to learn a detail about someone you just met)​
Enigmas​	​	​	Humanities​	​	​
Integrity​	​	​	Larceny​	​	​
Medicine​	​	​	Persuasion​	***​	Devilishly Good Looking (spend 1 momentum to shift an NPC's attitude up by 1 towards you)​
Pilot​	***​	VARG Pilot (When in combat, piloting checks do not count as against your maximum number of actions.)​	Science​	​	​
Survival​	​	​	Technology​	​	​

PATHS

�

PATHS​	SKILLS​	CONTACT​	ACCESS​
Oceanic (*)​	Culture, Empathy, Survival, Technology​	Mom/Dad​	Scientists​
EDGES​	Amphibious or Aquatic Conversion (**/**), Artistic Talent (*-***), Big Hearted (*), Hardy (*-***), Increased Tolerance (*-***)), Library (*-***)​	CONTACT​	ACCESS​
VARG Pilot (*)​	Aim, Close Combat, Pilot, Technology​	Cpt. Anderson​
EDGES​	Ambidextrous (*), Cool Under Fire (**), Demolitions Training (*-***), Direction Sense (*), Hair Trigger Reflexes (*), Ms. Fix It (**), Patron (*-***), Tough Cookie (**)​	CONTACT​	ACCESS​
Section Minerva (*)​	Empathy, Integrity, Larceny, Persuasion​	Director Udina​	Minerva Agents​
EDGES​	Alternate Identity (*-**), Covert (*-***), Iron Will (*-***), Self-Reliance (*-*****), Striking (**)​
EDGES​	EFFECT​	DOTS​
Aquatic Conversation​	Converted eyes can see in low light without penalty, can speak underwater with high frequency emissions, can endure -20 C without discomfort, can breathe water as well as air, gains 1 level of Soft Armor, moves at Speed Scale 2 while in the water, has sonar out to "far" range. DRAWBACKS: Requires x3 water per day to survive, suffers +2 complication with social checks with people who are disturbed by hot, muscular shark girls (racists, bigots, and general dickheads who you don't wanna be friends with anyway.) ​	**​
Ms. Fix It​	Can add a second skill to repair and reverse engineering rolls as Enhancement, if it is related to the device in question (I.E, using Pilot to augment a Tech check to repair a VARG.)​	**​
Striking​	She's hot! ...very hot. +2e to all social checks.​	**​
Favored Mode​	She gains +2e to all Transmog rolls, enhancing her ability to transform her body into anything she wills. This can be added as successes to rolls, or can be used to increase her Psi stat for the purposes of range, radius, and duration.​	**​
Enhanced Tolerance​	She is exceptionally good at attuning to psi-active biological technology. She adds +2 to her Tolerance limit.

Health level​	Status​	Health level​	Status​	Health level​	Status​
Hard Armor​	​	Bruised​	​	Maimed​	​
Hard Armor​	​	Injured​	​	Taken Out​	​

Spoiler: Biokinetic Powers

(+1 Cost, +1 Diff per dot above your Mode Dots)

MODES​	BIOKINESIS​
Basic Powers	Biosense (Cost: 0 | Duration: [Duration] | Effect: Can detect all living creatures within short range. Can screen out microbes, mammals, humans, and other things you don't want to sense per success.​
Adaption (-) [*]	Resist [*] (Cost: 0 | Duration: Instant | Effect: Reduce damage from toxins, irritants, and diseases by [Mode] dots. Can spend successes to add +1 to reduction per success. Also, cleans sense automatically! Acclimatize [**] (Cost: 0 | Duration: [Mode Dots] x [Duration] | Effect: Suffer no penalties from high or low gravity that isn't Extreme, ignore all environmental damage with the hourly tag. Reduce damage from other environments by 1 per success spent and, if reduced to 0, downgrade them from continuous to minutes, for example. Metabolic Control [***] (Cost: 1 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Change the rate of one part of your biology. Healing time can be sped up by [Mode Dots]+Successes. For things like intiative, reaction times, and so on, it is increased or decreased by [Mode Dots]/2, +/- 1 per 1 success spent. Can spend 2s to impact a second quality as well. Adapt [****] (Cost: 2 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Upgrades Acclimatize so it works against continuous automatically by just spending the cost for Adapt! Survive [*****] (Cost: 3 | Duration: [Mode] Scenes | Effect: Success increases both inflict damage and reduce indirect damage by [Mode] dots. Furthermore, can roll Psi+Adaption to regenerate injuries.​
Psychomorphing (**)[*]	Adjust [*] (Cost: 0 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Can move physical dots around equal to [Mode Dots] + Successes. So, 1s can move 3 points from Might to Dexterity! Enhance [**] (Cost: 1 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] or 1 week or 1 month | Effect: May add +1 to physical attributes per success, up to a max of 5. Can purchase physical edges temporarily. If she commits 1 Psi Point for a week she can go without water. For a month, she can go without food. She can increase her running or swimming speed scale by +1 to a maximum of 3. Compartmentalize [***] (Cost: 1 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Don't leave fingerprints, shed hair, or leave any tracks behind. Increase the diff to track by [Mode.] Can format with a bioapp by combining it with your body, reducing its Tolerance Requirement by 1 (can store up to Psi Dots apps.)) Overcome [****] (Cost: 2 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Gain an Enhancement to all dice rolls that can be improved by mercurial shapeshifting (joints can bend anywhere, pheromones can be released, and so on) equal to [Mode.] Perfection [*****] (Cost: 3 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Works like Enhance, but your physical stats have the new max of 7 and you can enhance physical and mental stats as well!​
Transmogrify (**)[*]	Plasticity [*] (Cost: 0 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Can stretch limbs out a number of meters equal to [Mode] dots. Can slip through gaps no wider than [10-Mode] centimeters by squeeshing. Can form glider wings. Gross Manipulation [**] (Cost: 0 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Modifies her body to produce a specific effect. For 1s, gain enhancement equal to [mode]/2 for any non-combat action (E.G, making climbing claws to climbing!) For 2s, grow extra limbs to use as you will! Can grow extra sensory organs for 1s (eyes on fingers, for example.) If growing weapons, gain a number of points equal to [Mode]+Successes that can be spent on the following fun things! Melee weapons with Brutal (1), Deadly (1), Entangle (2), Grapple (1), Piercing (1), Pushing (1), Quality (2 or 3), Reach (1), Shield (2), Weighted (1.) For armor, it's Complete (3), Composite (2), Defensive (2), Hard (1), or Soft (1, 2) Transformation [***] (Cost: 1 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Transfooooorm! Cosmetic changes are 1s, 1s = 10% change in height or weight, Physical Sex is 2s, Copying someone is 1s if you have a psionic connection to them. Impersonating someone without is 4s. Chimera [****] (Cost: 2 | Duration: [Mode] x [Duration] | Effect: Can gain +1 enhancement per success to any sense by adding new, sexy senses (bat ears!?), can add +1 to running or swimming speed scale per success, can add +1 to flying scale for 2 successes (to a maximum of speed scale 4.) Can remove aquatic conversion for duration. Can create ranged weapons, similarly to above. Can make these changes permanent with XP. Imbue Instinct [*****] (Cost: 3 | Duration: [Mode] x Hours | Effect: Gain a bonus for a number of mixed actions equal to her Psi, adding +1e to all of those actions per 2 successes on the roll. Only those actions gain these enhancements. Can separate out one wound box worth of flesh (cannot use her armor for this) and send it out to do her crimes for her! Furthermore, can use any previous Transmog power to modify her size up to Size 2 (big old bear) or down to Size 0 (cat size).​

Spoiler: Equipment and VARG

Tolerance: 8/8

N7 Combat Armor
Tags: Active Camo [2] (+2e to all stealth checks), Complete (3) [Protects against all forms of damage], Hard Armor [3] (+2 hard armor), Powered [0] (so long as it remains powered, +2e to all might checks), Soft Armor [2] (+2 to soft armor)

M5 Predator Kinetic Pistol
Tags: Brutal [1] (-1s required for critical hits), Concealable [2] (+2e to conceal it), Destructive [2] (Ignores 2 armor and blows through walls with ease), Quality [3] (Adds +2e to use), Ranged [Melee to Close Range] [1] (Can be fired in melee to close range without penalty)

Steinhardt MI-CC: A military issue minicomp, with communication and computing technology. Basically, a space phone from space.

Interface Augmentation Device (IAD), Biokinesis: Adds +1 to all Biokinetic Modes for the purposes of duration and effect but NOT for dice. Adds +1 to Psi for all factors save Psi Points for rolling Biokinesis. Tolerance Requirement: 3

M35 Mako Class V(acuum) A(ssault) and R(econnaissance) G(ear)
GENERAL
Sensor Range: Long (+2e to all perception checks) with LANS (can detect Quantum Flux and Biotic Powers)
Life Support: 1 Year | Tolerance Requirement: 5
Strength Enhancement: Count as Scale 2 for strength (+2e per scale above the target). Suffer +1 complication for dealing with anything smaller.
Armor: 2 Soft, 2 Hard | Health: -1/-1/-2/-2/-4

HARDPOINTS
Shoulder Mounted M-290 Revenant Coilgun
Scale: 2 | Total Enhancement: +6e
Tags: Automatic [2] (Can add +2e by emptying the magazine), Destructive [2] (ignores 2 armor and blows through walls with ease), Hardpoint [2] (+1e and uses a hardpoint), Major [0] (counts as size 1), Ranged [Close to Medium] (can be used at these range without penalty), VARG-Scale [+1e, count as one scale higher)

Wrist Mounted M-451 Firestorm Laser Cannon
Scale: 2 | Total Enhancement: +5e
Tags: Beam [1] (can strike every target within close range of the target), Destructive [2] (see above), Hardpoint [2] (see above), Ranged [Close to Medium] (see above), VARG-Scale (see above)

Back Mounted ML-77 Smart Missile Launcher
Scale: 2 | Total Enhancement: +5e
Tags: Hardpoint [2] (see above), Incendiary [2] (on a critical hit, sets the target on fire instead of doing extra damage), Massive Explosive (ranged) [3] (Kabooms everyone in a medium radius), Ranged [Short-Long] (See above), VARG-Scale (see above)

COMPONENTS
Weapons [4]: Has a major weapon in a hardpoint, and two minor weapons in the other hardpoints.
Biomorphic Array [3]: Provides +4 to transmog rolls, and +2 dots to the Transmog mode for the purposes of powers, allows for the powers to be used on the Mako.
Tools [1]: A set of manipulators for field repairs
SPECIAL MOVES
System Damage: Spend 1s from a defensive roll to replace an injury to one of your hardpoints
Advantageous Assault: Spend 1s while attacking to blow apart scenery into Light Cover or Complicated Terrain. 2s will make heavy cover or difficult terrain.

Spoiler: Relationships

Jenny: 1 Romance
Kaiden: 1 Friendship
Ashley: 1 Friendship

 

[Doccer]

time on target smart-programmed long ranged thermobaric warhead

Click to shrink...

What even is that?

 

[DragonCobolt]

What even is that?

Click to shrink...

It's a big boom!

 

[Doccer]

It's a big boom!

Click to shrink...

Yes yes obviously. But what kind of boom? How big? Radioactive to kill off aberration cells? Will the device survive or be destroyed? Is loud enough to draw attention Frome other Gets and Aberrants to our location? Is that device what we are here for?
To find out why they are here we need to get a look at that device. I'm not willing to take the easy option if the risk to the mission is too great.
While I'm at it what can the drones do? Can we send one in to connect to the device and see what is going on? Is one of them a stealth unit? How good are it's weapons?

 

[Parzival95]

[X] Aberrants don't work with lesser beings without a reason. Lets wait and see why this one is teaming up with a Geth - gather intelligence before we start shooting.

 

[prometheus110]

Yes yes obviously. But what kind of boom? How big? Radioactive to kill off aberration cells? Will the device survive or be destroyed? Is loud enough to draw attention Frome other Gets and Aberrants to our location? Is that device what we are here for?

Click to shrink...

I recommend googling it, mate. None of those words are made up, they all have definitions you can find on wikipedia (though I think Dragon used time-on-target wrong unless multiple missiles are being launched). Also, the fact that its available as an option implies that the character thinks it'll work.

Edit:
Also, and I hope this doesn't come across as rude as I'm not always great at wording this stuff right, but it seems a smidgen off to bombard the GM with a bunch of questions to try and min-max a game or when the answer can be determined relatively simply. It's a thermobaric warhead, it'd be hard not to get people's attention with it.

 

[Doccer]

I recommend googling it, mate. None of those words are made up, they all have definitions you can find on wikipedia (though I think Dragon used time-on-target wrong unless multiple missiles are being launched). Also, the fact that its available as an option implies that the character thinks it'll work.

Edit:
Also, and I hope this doesn't come across as rude as I'm not always great at wording this stuff right, but it seems a smidgen off to bombard the GM with a bunch of questions to try and min-max a game or when the answer can be determined relatively simply. It's a thermobaric warhead, it'd be hard not to get people's attention with it.

Click to shrink...

I did. All I got was a bunch of Chinese related articles with a Russian, a Tomahawk one, and a few Bush articles. Nothing for the missile itself or anything related to the Aeon game.

Yeah, thing is? I'm really not.
I for one, lack a great deal of background knowledge on the original Aeon game and my ignorance only grows more revealed with every chapter released.
All I am trying to do is understand the weapon as well as the character we are playing does. So there aren't any screw ups because I and we choose something we didn't understand.

 

[Lord Sia]

[X] Aberrants don't work with lesser beings without a reason. Lets wait and see why this one is teaming up with a Geth - gather intelligence before we start shooting.

Information is the Alpha and the Omega of warfare.

 

[SweetJackal]

I did. All I got was a bunch of Chinese related articles with a Russian, a Tomahawk one, and a few Bush articles. Nothing for the missile itself or anything related to the Aeon game.

Yeah, thing is? I'm really not.
I for one, lack a great deal of background knowledge on the original Aeon game and my ignorance only grows more revealed with every chapter released.
All I am trying to do is understand the weapon as well as the character we are playing does. So there aren't any screw ups because I and we choose something we didn't understand.

Click to shrink...

I'll give you some help here but it is a bit of a read. I don't know the Trinity system in and out but I have played Aberrant, a game in the same universe that takes place before Trinity. Spoilered so people can easily skip but a Psion in Trinity would be aware of at least this about the history even though this is going to touch on the themes of the system as well.

Spoiler

So, Aberrant is a roleplaying game set around the idea that early 90s gets super heroes by cosmic radiation interacting with a special mutation in the human brain that gets called the Node. These superheroes are called Novas and are awoken in a process called Erupting in which extreme stress placed on a person with a strong enough node (car crash for example) causes an activation of the Node and taps into the Quantum Energy of the universe- in short giving them literally limitless power for one instant in time before their personality and psyche slam down and reform themselves and those powers into the far more limited shape and scope. So the father of 4 that got in the car crash and erupted in that moment has the power to shape reality in that moment- protecting his family from injury- once the eruption has subsided he will have a much more strictly defined powerset (For example, he might become a strong telekinetic type hero, or a superman type, based on his personality and how the traumatic situation was best prevented from his viewpoint.)

The focus of the system isn't to be another silver age comic book game but rather explore the implications of what happens when average people get randomly given superpowers in the modern society of the USA. So you had the government backed Project Utopia which trained Novas in responsible use of powers to react in a crisis, and you had those going vigilante justice as well as the villians, but the setting goes beyond that into how society deals with these superhuman clashes that leave massive massive collateral damage as well as how that entire dynamic takes shape when you've got Novas acting as mercenaries selling themselves to the highest bidder, when they are getting contracted by corporations and agencies, or when they are starting their own. It goes pretty deep and the first edition book is certainly worth a read if just for the setting alone, there is a lot going on both in the spotlight and behind the scenes.

But these powers have a darker side. For Novas there is the Taint- which is that just as they have used Quantum to reform themselves, further tapping into that power changes them. The more the power grows the less human they become over time and a Nova can grow stronger at a faster rate in a manner that dramatically increases that Taint. A quantum recoil effect in essence. This leads to physical flaws or deformities, as well as mental conditions that further push Novas away from having any empathic connection to humanity and slowly into madness. The culmination of all of this is the Aberrant Wars, in which to save humanity from the destructive reign of insane Novas humanity turns against them and fights, forcing the Novas-Now-Aberrants to flee Earth after an incredibly destructive global war. Everything Nova is classified as Aberrant and a threat to humanity, as Quantum Created technology left over from the Aberrant Wars degrades and backlashes without the intervention of their quantum masters but humanity had harnessed their sharpest minds and the mundane breakthroughs of even quantum enhanced intelligences are still held true, which allowed the discovery of the process for creating Psions after the Aberrants had left and the world had put the pieces back together.

If I got anything wrong I am sure someone will point out the corrections needed, but the other half of this thread is coming from the Mass Effect series and how the QM is meshing the Aeon Era of the Trinity Universe with the Post First Contact War of Mass Effect so even knowing the above means having to read into the setting laid out by the QM. If you've got more questions then you can ask me and I'll see what I can clear up for you.

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Feb 17, 2022 at 3:02 PM, finished with 13 posts and 7 votes.

• ---

  4 people have voted

  [X] Aberrants don't work with lesser beings without a reason. Lets wait and see why this one is teaming up with a Geth - gather intelligence before we start shooting.

  • Ave Anathema
  • F0lkL0re
  • Parzival95
  • Lord Sia

  2 people have voted

  [X] Kaiden, whammy her with a telepathic compulsion to not warp away, we'll open fire and take them down, textbook style with the VARG on standby if she has nastier powers than just brains and warping

  • 10ebbor10
  • SweetJackal

  1 people have voted

  [X] You know what we need right now? A time on target smart-programmed long ranged thermobaric warhead tipped missile. You know what my VARG has? A time on target smart-programmed long ranged thermobaric warhead tipped missile!

  • Hatter

Time for some sneaksauce...

The sauce you use while sneaking.

Also, @SweetJackal got it basically right! Novas began erupting in approximately 2009, the Aberrant War was about 2060-2080, and they left the world (and, it seems, ran directly into the Turians.) It's currently 2183!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Wait, you thought, quietly. Aberrants don't work with...lesser beings. This is weird, lets get some more intel first.

Got it, XO, Kaiden thought back to you as you adjusted your tactical scope, zooming in once more. The spider-woman Aberrant was still typing something into the device...it looked like she was operating a holographic interface. She touched a button, then adjusted a dial, then put her finger to her ear, muttering into it.

"No, Saren, number 1 is up..." she paused. "Okay." She paused. "Okay..."

Damn, they have some kind of non-EM communication network set up, I'm getting nothing on any of the bands, Kaiden said, as if the Aberrants were being personally insulting to him, specifically. Which was funny, considering how...you had a non-EM communication network set up right now.

The spider girl's mandibles spread, clicked. "Got it," she said, then turned to the Geth. She opened her mouth and let out a little trilling, chirruping, warbling noise, and the Geth nodded. They started to head back inside, six of them flanking the spider girl as she pulled out an old fashioned looking handheld terminal and tapping at it - so, the Aberrants weren't able to get their hands on modern omni-tools. Small mercies. You frowned as the four remaining Geth moved out to flank the object...which began to extrude something.

It was a narrow spoon of metal, with a glowing orb of blue-white light cupped in the center of it. The light began to pulse gently, slowly threading out a tiny band of white light that reached upwards into the sky like a flower...and you felt a faint sense of unease. It reminded you of patrolling the outskirts of the Wycoff Zone, back on Earth, in the massive strip of land between Eastern and Western blocs of the Federated States of America. What had once been the heartland of the old United States, reduced to eerie wastelands of brown dirt and odd crystal growths, populated with mutant scavengers and the odd outlaw band...the taint of an Aberrant detonating in the atmosphere almost a hundred years before. Calvert Wycoff had been some cult-maniac before he'd blown, and he had done his best to make his apocalyptic dreams come true...and you felt that same echo out here now.

Which meant one thing.

We've got active quantum tech, you thought. Unknown danger level.

Excellent, and we let them turn it on, Nihilus said.

Yeah, they're working with some other nova, Saren...

Nhihlus snapped his head to look directly at yours. You didn't need adaptive camo to go down for you to see, immediately, that he was shocked. ...it must be a coincidence, he said. Saren's a Specter. One of the finest.

You frown. Okay...we need this gadget ready to be shut down immediately. We have four guys, four of us... you focused, felt the noetic field that subsumed and described all of your bodies. It was easy enough to jolt up the nerves, to make the muscles faster, to make your reactions better. Nihilus shifted and shivered, then settled himself. You lowered your pistol, sighing down on one of the Geth - the targeting reticule making it clear no one was doubling up. On three...

Three.

You fired.

There was a continual debate between the Legion and the UNMC. The UNMC preferred the kinetic weapons made possible by mass effect fields. They cited the lack of ammo and atmosphere concerns, the various types of ammo that a mini-fabber could impart to them, and other facets. But the Legion, who had been using laser weaponry since the early 22nd century, cited that laser weapons weren't blocked by kinetic barriers, the primary defense of the majority of the galaxy.

You?

You just liked how the Predator felt in your hands. The thin atmosphere of Bullseye turned the ear-shattering roar of the slug being sent downrange into a tinny, distant whomp. The kinetic barrier of the Geth you had targeted flared and shattered as the capacitators overloaded. The second slug burst through the Geth's chest, spraying white fluid behind him as he stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground with the slow boneless movement of people who were sincerely dead in low gravity - a curious side effect of the gravity web not recognizing them as being alive enough to trigger the gravity increase under them. At the same time, Kaiden was using his sidearm, while Nihilus and Rolston used their rifles to hose down the other three. Barriers flashed, white fluid sprayed, and the Geth started to drop, all so fast that you weren't sure if anyone would have even noticed.

You still knew you had to go fast. Come on! You stood and started to lope forward, letting the gravity-web glue you to the spaceport. You came to the quantum tech and eyed it, nervously. Trying to shut them down was usually almost as dangerous as leaving them running. There are an unknown number of hostiles in the rest of the base, and more of these things being set up... you said, pointing at the device, turning to face the others. What are the chances that an Aberrant has put a mind whammy on this Saren guy?

...low... Nihilius thought back, his adaptive camo struggling to keep up with the heat venting from the side of his rifle, glowing brilliantly as he turned it to the side to angle it away from his own armor. Specters have various pieces of technology that are designed to trigger if we get mind controlled via any of the methods currently known from your Aberrants.

You nodded. Grim, but...you could see why they'd do it, considering they had been going up against Aberrants for a century without any psionic powers. Humanity had been having a hard time with seven Psi Orders, and we hadn't even been fighting the majority of the Aberrants, as it turned out.

XO!

Rolston's voice draws your attention and you see what she's seen.

Another glow has sprouted, further into the colony - similar to the one that threaded into the sky from the first device. The two thin beams reached towards one another, connecting together with a tiny spark - and the two separate lines were now one line.

Who wants to bet if they get all those set up, we have a very bad day? You thought, frowning. From the map you had of the colony, the second emitter was located near one of the common areas. If they wanted to triangulate through the whole colony, the last would be near the digsite.

Hmmm...
---
What to do, what to do...
[ ] We can't risk destroying these things - we have to stop the third from being depoyed. Everyone double times through the colony to the digsite.
[ ] We can't risk not destroying these things. Rolston, rig that to blow, we head for the second one and blow that one too.
[ ] Write In

Spoiler: Rolls!

CHECK: Ti spends 1 Psi to activate Enhance! With Kaiden's buff form his telepathy, Enhance will now effect not only her, but a number of other people equal to Kaiden's Psi stat! His Psi is 3, so for 1 Psi Point, you give Enhance to everyone on the team. Teamwork!
ROLL: 3s rolled, no Enhancement, vs D1C0 | EFFECT: +3 to everyone's Dex, to the max of 5!

CHECK: Open up with the guns! Since you're trying for precision, this is Dex+Aim, buffed by +3 dex!
ROLL: 6s! +2e for your gun for 8s! | EFFECT: A Geth trooper has Defense of 3, reduced to 1 by your destructive quality. You spend 1 success to drop the diff to 0, aleaving you with 7s to roll over into effects. They take 1 health level for free, then you spend 3 successes to crit and get a second health level, leaving you with 4s to roll over into a SECOND attack, spending 1s to beat their diff, then...1 health level for free takes em down! Bang bang!

CHECK: Nihilus, Kaiden and Rolston do the same!
ROLLS: Nihilus gets 3s, then uses "empty the clip" to add +2 to the enhancement, for a total of +4e for 7s! Kaiden gets an obscene 9s, +2e for 11s! Rolston got 3s, with +2e and +2e for emptying the magazine for 7s! So, Nihilus and Rolston are using assault rifles that lack destructive, but they do have piercing! So, the Geth's defense is 2, meaning it costs 2s to hit, getting 1 health level of damage, 3 for a crit, then 2 for another hit and that's 3 damage for both Rolston and Nihilus using their rifles. Kaiden got 11s. THe dude's dead.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Hey, Dragon," i hear you cry. "Why use the critical effect? It costs 3 successes to add +1 damage to a hit? You can just roll successes over into another hit, and just do that infinitely, since each hit equals another damage, right?" Well, there's a big restriction: You can only do a number of actions equal to your Cunning! So, while Nihilus can do 5 actions, you can only do 2!

 

[Lord Sia]

[X] We can't risk not destroying these things. Rolston, rig that to blow, we head for the second one and blow that one too.

Violence solves all problems. Sure, you usually end up with new problems - but at least the initial problem was solved!

 

[SweetJackal]

[X] Keeping this mission as covert as possible gives the highest chance of success for stopping whatever they have planned. Rig this device for detonation, remote detonator for primary with secondaries tied to motion sensors to detonate the device should anything approach it and risk discovering the sabotage. Make for the dig site to prevent the third device from being deployed, with the fallback of detonating this device should that fail. Added benefit of keeping us as far away from any sympathetic explosions as possible.

If we kept the Sneak going until now, might as well keep the Sneak still rolling.

 

[Twei]

The spider girl's mandibles spread, clicked. "Got it," she said, then turned to the Geth. She opened her mouth and let out a little trilling, chirruping, warbling noise, and the Geth nodded. They started to head back inside, six of them flanking the spider girl as she pulled out an old fashioned looking handheld terminal and tapping at it - so, the Aberrants weren't able to get their hands on modern omni-tools. Small mercies. You frowned as the four remaining Geth moved out to flank the object...which began to extrude something.

Click to shrink...

So, like, this is the spider girl and six geth leaving, and the ones Shep and friends just took out were the four remaining, right? Just to be clear because part of me is like 'oh no she's clearly in stealth mode waiting to ambush us'

 

[DragonCobolt]

So, like, this is the spider girl and six geth leaving, and the ones Shep and friends just took out were the four remaining, right? Just to be clear because part of me is like 'oh no she's clearly in stealth mode waiting to ambush us'

Click to shrink...

Yeah, though the spider is a warper, she can ambush you any time she wants!

…warp in Aberrant is such bonkers nonsense, I'm pretty sure she can get from here to the Citadel if she wants too.

 

[F0lkL0re]

[X] Keeping this mission as covert as possible gives the highest chance of success for stopping whatever they have planned. Rig this device for detonation, remote detonator for primary with secondaries tied to motion sensors to detonate the device should anything approach it and risk discovering the sabotage. Make for the dig site to prevent the third device from being deployed, with the fallback of detonating this device should that fail. Added benefit of keeping us as far away from any sympathetic explosions as possible.

 

[Doccer]

I like this plan. My only issue is that we should focus on blowing up the not activated one. I'm ok with this one getting blown if an enemy trues messing with it or we are too late for the third though.

[X] Keeping this mission as covert as possible gives the highest chance of success for stopping whatever they have planned. Rig this device for detonation, remote detonator for primary with secondaries tied to motion sensors to detonate the device should anything approach it and risk discovering the sabotage. Make for the dig site to prevent the third device from being deployed, with the fallback of detonating this device should that fail. Added benefit of keeping us as far away from any sympathetic explosions as possible.

 

[SweetJackal]

I like this plan. My only issue is that we should focus on blowing up the not activated one. I'm ok with this one getting blown if an enemy trues messing with it or we are too late for the third though.

Click to shrink...

I understand the desire to hit the 2nd device first, it is a strong draw for me as well but they have an Aberrant able to teleport by portals. If we arrive to the 2nd device and are hampered while the 3rd device gets turned on and are forced to detonate the 1st device, we would be at risk of a sympathetic detonation by feedback hitting the 2nd device. Likewise, whatever the end purpose that these devices serve is no doubt related to the digsite and the moment these devices fail it will cost us whatever surprise we have left- announcing our position while they still have the Warper while we are not in place to interfere sets us as playing catchup and provides them a chance to plunder what they want and bugger out.

Setting one device to destruction should hamper them about as harshly as getting two of them disabled, and so long as we aren't discovered then the Warper cannot undermine us or the original mission. Whatever at the digsite that has the Aberrants interested is critical, but I agree that we should destroy the 2nd device on the way out if possible.

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Feb 19, 2022 at 6:37 PM, finished with 7 posts and 4 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] Keeping this mission as covert as possible gives the highest chance of success for stopping whatever they have planned. Rig this device for detonation, remote detonator for primary with secondaries tied to motion sensors to detonate the device should anything approach it and risk discovering the sabotage. Make for the dig site to prevent the third device from being deployed, with the fallback of detonating this device should that fail. Added benefit of keeping us as far away from any sympathetic explosions as possible.

  • SweetJackal
  • F0lkL0re
  • Doccer

  1 people have voted

  [X] We can't risk not destroying these things. Rolston, rig that to blow, we head for the second one and blow that one too.

  • Lord Sia

Sneaking???

In MY Mass Effect???

It's more likely than you'd think...

 

[DragonCobolt]

You frown, thinking.

Okay, Rolston, rig this up with detcable and set it to remote detonation and proximity. If the breeze hits that thing too hard, I want it going sky high.

Got it, XO!

The private knelt down, spooling out some detonation cable from her omnitool, feeding stock into the brace of her elbow by the brick while holding her arm out and sweeping it back and forth. The det-cord played out, hit the side of the machine, and then the machine...

Chirruped.

"Oh shi-" Rolston started.

You scramble forward, reaching out.

The device flared purple-white. The grav-web that is holding you to the deck feels as if it cuts out and you are sent slamming backwards against the wall, your shields fuzzing and crackling. Your teeth clack together and you hit the deck with a thump, groaning as you sprawl on your belly. Kaiden is across from you, on his hands and knees, shaking his head. Nihilus is on his back, groaning, sitting up. Rolston, though...

You see the dent of the impact, right above the entrance to the dome. You see the smear. You see the rising dust from her body, impacted almost thirty meters away, flung off by the rebound.

"Rolston!" Kaiden cries out over the coms, his telepathic focus jarred. You scramble to your feet, head ringing.

"She's gone, Alenko," you say, forcing the gut wrenching sensation down. Every time. Every fucking time. You shook yourself - and then saw the shapes beyond the door. Geth heads, Geth voices, the pounding of Geth footsteps. They had definitely heard that. You snatched your pistol up, shouting. "Get the link back up!"

Kaiden scrambles up, throws himself against the doorframe, and thrusts his pistol through the empty space. You see the blue-white flash of the mass effect field and the Geth beyond stumbling, falling backwards, blood spurting into the air. But by then, one of the Geth has tossed something. Smoke explodes before the doorway, covering their approach - and then white flares of light emerge from it as Geth come charging, their rifles blazing. You duck low, but they're focusing on Nihilus. You've never seen a neutral - hell, you've never seen a psion - move like him. He doesn't dodge or try and get to cover. Instead, he scrambles left, right, turns, and the bullets skim past his shields, skittering along the kinetic barriers as he pushes their capacity to take damage to the limit by turning hits into glances and glances into misses, purely through erratic movement. One of the Geth actually almost shoots his own buddy in the back - which gives Nihilus exactly enough time.

He darts forward, his omnitool already glowing. It spits out a knife so fresh and new its glowing and he slams it into the neck of the Geth that had stopped firing. The others step back, their guns cooling, and Nihilus casually jerks the blade free from the actuator he'd punctured, then threw the blade into the lens of the second Geth. The blade plunged directly into their glowing oculus, shattering it. Before the third Geth could react, Nihilus rushed past him, kicked off the floor, grabbed onto its upper torso, and twisted around and used his body to drop it to the floor with enough force to snap whatever passed for the macine's spine. He landed on his side, in a perfect spot of cover, and he already had a grenade in his hand.

He threw it through the smoke as you rushed forward, adrenaline burning through your veins.

You felt your body.

Felt your muscles.

You burst through the smoke as the explosion knocked two Geth flat, and you saw there were only two more, on one of the curved bridges that provided pedestrian walkways between two of the interior buildings. They had sniper rifles. Bad shots, bad angles, for a pistol.

You weren't using a pistol.

You thrust your arm out and your muscles stretched, your hand expanded, and a curved pendulum blade of bone and glittering flesh slammed into the bridge at chest level for the two geth. Both of them flipped end over end as you retracted your hand back, forming it back into a wicked, bladed claw as you saw the Geth snipers hit the ground almost twenty meters beneath them. With the biodome down and most of the safety systems offline, nothing slowed their fall and they looked like they wouldn't be getting back up again.

"XO!"

You flung yourself forward as the two Geth that had been hit by the grenade popped up. Their assault rifle rounds chewed into the doorframe that Kaiden hid behind, whistling over your head, while Nihilus stepped out, shotgun at the ready. He bounded forward one, two steps, and then the shotgun roared three times. He lowered it as you pushed yourself back to your feet, hearing the faint chime of your shields recharging. You winced, faintly, as Kaiden opened the heat vents on his pistol.

You felt the mindlink click back on.

How is everyone? you ask. Your suits biofeedback medical alert told you that Kaiden and you were fine. Fine, bullshit, you had a nasty fucking bruise that was going to hurt like fuck until the doc got her hands on it. But you'd live. You didn't have Nihilus' medical data.

Rolston was a lot of red lines.

Bruises, some cracked armor plates. Nothing permanent, Nihilus said.

I'm fine, Kaiden says. ...Rolston, she... He trailed off.

You knew you had to push on. You glanced back and saw at least one good thing had come from this - the Aberrant had built the defensive system to keep tampering away from the thing. SHe hadn't planned on the sensitivity of the det-charges. The quantum tech was a smoldering pile of rubble, and whatever the Aberrants were going to try and do with the colony was done. It wasn't going to work. But you had to get to the dig site.

But you had to say something.

---
What do you say?
[ ] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)
[ ] "Soldiers die. That's our jobs. Lets finish this and get home." (renegade)

Spoiler: Rolls!

CHECK: Don't fuck with Aberrant tech. Everyone in close range makes a Stamina+Resistance roll vs 5 environmental damage with deadly, everyone in short range is facing 3 with deadly
ROLL: Rolston is rolling her desperation pool of 3. She gets nothing and takes 6L (deadly always causes +1 damage, no matter what) to the face and dies. Nihilus rolls his desperation pool of 5 and gets 6s thanks to his enhancement, taking 1L, bringing him down to 5 health. Kaiden rolls 2s, bumped to 4s, taking 1L and bringing him down to 4 health. You roll 1s and take 3L. You have 2 levels of hard armor - your shields - which absorb most of it, but you still take the Bruised Health damage!

Time for a running gunfight!

CHECK: Initiative!
ROLLS: 1s for the six Geth, botch for you, botch for the two Geth snipers, fail for Nihilus and 1s for Kaiden. So, it goes Kaiden, Geth, Nihilus, You, Geth Snipers!

ROUND ONE
Kaiden runs to the light cover at the door and opens fire at one of the Geth approaching. He gets 5s vs their 1 defense, which allows him to get a hit+crit, then a hit. He takes one down.
Two others chuck smoke grenades to great a floating field of concealment for their advancing buddies.
Three Geth advance and emerge from the smoke, guns blazing (they're using empty the clip for +2 successes)! 4s, botch, and 4s! THey focus fire on Nihilus, who has a defense of 6, reduced to 4 by their guns. They do 1 and 1 damage to him, bringing him to 2 health.
Nihilus rolls a mind boggling 11s with his melee attack! His omni-blade has destructive, so he drops the Geth's defense to 1, and he can attack as many times as he wants cause he's ...a specter. So, he spends 9s to do 9 damage, spread among all three geth and takes them all out, leaving him with 2s to roll into throwing a grenade, which lands right behind the other two Geth. Both fail, and take 1L damage from the blast.
You're gonna take two actions: morph to have a stretchy blade arm, and slash with stretchy blade arm. Your close combat trick lets you use the higher of the two pools, which is 8d for might+close combat. You spend 0 psi cause it's free as hell, then roll 5s, bumped to 7s by your mode expertise. 1s to activate plasticity, 1 to activate gross manipulation, which nets you a free 4 points to buy Piercing, Pushing and Weighted, leaving you 5s to spend on hitting the buggers. The sniper's have a defense of 3, dropped to 2 by piercing, meaning it takes 2 and 2 to hit them, doing 1L and 1L damage for free. Pushing and Weighted reduce the cost for the Shove effect by 1, but...the cost is already X, so...I guess you get 3 free shoves. Since you have 1s left, that's 4 shoves and 3 shoves, meaning that Geth Sniper 1 goes flying 20 meters and Geth Sniper 2 goes a mere 15 meters! That's 6 and 5L damage from enviromental effects with deadly, so...yeah, they're dead!

ROUND THREE
Kaiden opens up on the last two geth and gets a botch! He's open for their return fire! They get 6s and 4s versus his defense of 4, which is dropped to 3, meaning that they get 1+crit and 1 hits against him! Fortunately, he's in heavy cover, which provides 4 health levels of ablative armor, which they chew through most of. Nihilus opens up on them and gets 10s, so, yeah, they're dead

 

[SweetJackal]

[X] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)

Fuck, I chose poorly. Next time, nuke it from orbit.

 

[ThatGazzer]

[X] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)

 

[Parzival95]

[X] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)

 

[w34v3r]

[x] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)

 

[Kaerdin]

[X] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)

 

[Vanestus]

[X] "We'll come back for her. But lets make sure she didn't die for nothing." (paragon)