Dakota "Kodi" Smith Kodi is fascinated with space travel, other cultures, and stories her mama told her about the war. She sees fighting as an unfortunate burden she is taking on to spare others. More of a cat person. Drives
Investigate Everything, Pursue Truth Relentlessly, Be Merciful, Avoid Social Awkwardness Relationships
Friend -
Crush -
Rival - Selena Green
Montana "Monty" Smith Monty has always wanted to be an explorer, to tell his mom stories about far-away places. Though not inclined to violence, he never backs down. Loves dogs. Drives
Make New Friends, Be Forward and Direct, Try New Things, Be A Show Off Relationships
Friend -
Crush -
Rival -
Traits
Void-Born: You never take complications from 0g or space suits, but take -2d6 to feats of strength and double complications from high gravity.
Shifting Gears: You can spend 1 Determination to switch profiles. Costs +1 Determination each time per episode.
Well-Connected: You can spend 1 Determination to create an old friend, comrade, instructor, etc on any appropriate ship, facility, station, etc you might visit. They are always willing to help if you help in turn. Certifications
Wild Animal 5+, Physical Instrument 5+, Social Being 5+, Cosmonaut 4+
English 3+, Russian 5+, OSL 4+ Artillery Officer 4+, Drone Pilot 3+, Missile Plotter 4+, Space Marshal 4+ Diplomat +4, Leader +4, Bureaucrat +4, Social Scientist +4 Modern Small Arms 4+, Damage Control 4+
Hobbies: Animal Handling,
Star Patrol VesselYeager-1
Statline will be linked above when ready.
Features
Corvette Dock, Transmaterializer
Weapons
x1 Sandblaster, x2 250MW Laser, x2 Probe Bay
[X] Push forward slowly and securely, making sure to police the fallen marines.
-[X] Make sure Diego at least gets the wound covered and his suit re-sealed.
we should at least tie up the marines that are here so they don't try anything funny
We're in bad shape; if I understand the mechanics right, we have two success-eating Complications and a -1 to rolls, meaning we'd need to roll several 5-6s in order to achieve any success ... and Diego is in worse shape than us.
[X] Try to get into the Zinovian radio net and get them to surrender.
Okay, this is a Empathy/Negotiation roll, which is gonna be tough, but I think with a lone survivor left you have a good negotiating position and Advantage. Roll 4d6, needing 4s.
"It's just the one? They have to know they're outnumbered and alone," you said. "I'd rather call for their surrender than rush around the corner."
Selina looked at you like you'd grown an extra head, but then she peaked over the edge of the moonchute door and winced.
"Might be worth a try. Let me get signals to patch us in." She poked at her watch and whispered into it, and a few minutes later there was a crackle of static in your helmet. She gave you a thumbs up.
"Zinovian marine. You're outnumbered, alone, and we're rapidly moving away from the battle area. This fight is over. If you throw down your weapons and come out, we can spare any more bloodshed and get your comrades medical attention," you intoned. Selina nodded encouragingly. "Come on. Don't be a fool."
"Don't… Don't listen," another voice added, a woman's voice clearly hissed through pain. "They're lying."
"We are marines, forged in war. We die standing up, boots locked to the floor," came a response, muttered, lacking confidence. A boy's voice, reciting a calming patter. "We topple the thrones of gods and kings, we'll seize the stars and all within."
"Come on, kid, don't be stupid. You can save yourself and your friends," Selina insisted, glancing to Diego and wincing.
"You can do it, come on kid…" another voice added, not Selina. Somebody else.
"We are made a shield and sword, we stand between man and the void, born to serve, born to die, born to serve, born to die-"
You glanced out over the edge of the moonchute, and it took your brain a moment to register what you were seeing, upside down. The marine had come around the corner, stepping clumsily in his heavy armour, massive panels on articulated arms around him like an angel's wings. In his hand wasa glowing transparent screen, text scrolling across.
"I… I'll blow the reactor on the shuttle. I'll do it, I swear. Put down your guns, this ship is ours. Put down your guns!"
More than half of what this kid's running on is just blind panicking adrenaline, and most of the rest is Zinovian war flicks they watched back home and slogans they heard at bootcamp. Help them get out of this corner they've trapped themselves in and I'll give it a solid five seconds before they collapse into a puddle of relief and post-terror exhaustion.
Actual choice? [X] Challenge the kid to a Zinovian Poetry Slam. We win, and the marines surrender. He wins, and we surrender
A bullet wound can heal in 4-6 weeks. Psychologically destroying him with verse will take 4-6 months to recover from.
"Do it," you said, releasing your own pistol and leaving it to drift near your head. Selina kept an iron grip on her carbine, so you jumped channels with a tap on your wrist. "There's not much he can do on his own, we've already won. Let's get the ship back in one piece, okay?"
"Fuck," she snarled under her breath, but she safed her weapon and let it drift out into the hall. "We're unarmed!"
"Where's the third one?" the Marine asked, gesturing.
"He's wounded, we need to get him and your marines medical attention," you responded.
"His gun, throw it out," the marine ordered. You snatched it from where it was floating next to you and tossed it out beside the others. You couldn't see behind the fixed frame of the heavy, wedge-like helmet, but you could tell from the marine's body shifting that he was looking from side to side, scanning his wounded comrades.
"We have a medical bay, just up the chute. Don't blow the reactor," you repeated.
You presumed the Zinovian shuttle probably had a compact modular fission reactor in the back. Those things were usually fail-safe, but that didn't mean the reactor couldn't be deliberately made supercritical on purpose; that might even be a feature on a boarding shuttle. You weren't exactly sure what that would do to Mendel-5, but it wouldn't be good.
The armoured figure just stared, stock-still, for several seconds, then stepped forward. The boxy gun, put aside so the marine could hold the tablet in his bulky gloves, rattled off the doorframe and twisted at the end of its tether, and you winced as the barrel twisted toward you several times.
"Get a medic down here," he said. "Wait, no, depressurized. Shit, I…"
He paused.
"I'm going to bring my wounded in so we can repressurize this room. Restore gravity to this deck and call a corpsman. Now," he ordered, then stomped back into the next room to grab his friend. Selina moved over to the gravity controls and everything sank to the floor, and you called Owen and explained the situation, and how you thought you still had the upper hand. A few minutes later the airlock over your heads opened and Owen drifted down, suited up and with a medical kit at his side. The Marine had moved his comrades into the near room, laying them out on the floor, and closed the door behind; you could hear the servos in his suit as he moved about, the clatter as his gun bounced against the floor.
One by one, under the watchful eye of the Marine, Owen went about checking the wounded. None of the marines were dead, even the one you'd shot in the face; your pistol had driven superheated fragments of steel into her skull, but the subdermal plating had ensured that she was simply scorched, blinded in one eye, and left with considerable brain damage. Others were bleeding into their suit, burnt, in shock, suffering barotrauma from punctures, but all could be saved. It wasn't surprising, in armour like this, with medical technology like you had, but most of them would be intensive care for weeks.
You used the time to check on Diego, but fortunately his wounds were not that bad. Painful, sure, but not life-threatening. Selina ended up helping the Zinovian marine pull the armour off his comrades as Owen worked, doing his best to seal wounds with his multispecies medical kit and making sure to sedate each one just in case, and there was a strange, awkward silence over the whole affair. Time crawled.
Mendel-5 flew on. Desperate to see his comrades treated, the marine had simply forgotten to make any more demands. Once he'd taken the armour off everyone, he stood stock-still at the edge of the room, gripping the tablet controls in his bulky gloves, looking like a strange, deformed statue.
"Are they going to be okay," he asked finally, the first words he'd spoken in what felt like an hour. Owen looked up from the marine he was working on, his face unreadable behind his helmet.
"If we can get them to a hospital. A real hospital, not a med-bay. There's not much more I can do here."
"There's a station over the border. Order us there," he said.
"How far?" Owen asked. "Come on, these are critical cases."
Silence, for a long time.
"Twenty-four light years," he replied. His voice broke halfway through, and with a whirr of servos the suit slumped. "We can't go back to the ship."
You let out a relieved sigh, then coughed. Oh, you were overdue for rad treatments, weren't you? The coughing continued, and you felt something wet against the inside of your helmet.
"What's wrong with you?" the marine asked.
"Radiation poisoning. I'll be fine," you said. Just developing some interesting new cancers over here. "I'm going to need treatment too. So is most of the crew. There's a border station nearby with a hospital, X-Ray. We can make it."
A longer pause, then the marine leaned against the wall. His armour made a heavy thonk as he did, the servo-arms holding the spaced armour plates squealing in protest.
"Good," was all he said. "Good. Go there. As fast as possible. Don't stop."
"Of course," you said. You already were.
The marine slid slowly down the wall, then put the tablet down and pulled a clasp on his chest. The wedge-like helmet pulled away, revealing his head, with a pair of heavy goggles, headphones, and a breathing mask. He pulled each one off in turn, leaving, as you suspected, a very young looking man with tufts of white, fur-like hair framing his face and the outline of subdermal plating on his forehead. He had a tattoo of a stylized arrowhead on his cheek, and a small silver eyebrow piercing. He looked exhausted.
He picked the tablet back up and glared at you.
"Gets warm in the suit," he said simply. "I'll do it."
"I believe you."
He nodded, slowly, and, cautiously, you sat down next to him. He was a prisoner, and you figured he knew it, but he needed a sense of control still. Considering he was still wearing power armour and you weren't sure how to fix that yet, that was okay.
"My people will be taken care of, right?" he asked.
"Yeah," you assured him. "We'll work out terms when we get to the station. It'll be okay."
You popped the seal on your own helmet, discarding it onto the floor. You were so tired, and the hateful pull of 1g felt like it did the first time you experienced it, like every part of you had been replaced with lead weights dragging you into the floor.
Over the next hour, you talked, quietly. The strange part about universal translators was how it eroded the gulf between species, between people, in a way so totalizing that it was almost disturbing to think about. You understood the intent behind every deliberate action, every pause, behind body language and facial expressions that you'd probably have missed on a human. Even in his guarded, reserved state, speaking in clipped sentences, he said so much. He sounded vaguely dazed by the entire affair.
He didn't know anything about the mission, they told them nothing. The ship was Ministry of Labour, but he and the other Marines were technically Ministry of Loyalty. Well, he was quick to insist he was a marine. All he knew was the ship was damaged and helpless, and the honour of the corps demanded they launch an attack rather than sit around and wait. From the sounds of things, it was unauthorized; they were attacking with riot rounds, because the crew kept their lethal munitions locked up. He sounded proud about that, that six marines were such a threat to a whole battleship that they didn't let them have access to the real kit.
He never let go of the tablet, but you could read it over his shoulder. He wasn't bluffing, he had the reactor controls opened and, while even the universal translator couldn't make you understand the workings of a reactor, you could understand a big warning popup blinking over the entire thing.
"How much longer?" he asked.
"Two hours," you said. He just stared ahead, over the prone form of wounded marines, Owen working quietly on them.
"Good."
You don't remember falling asleep, but considering your condition, it wasn't surprising. When you woke up, it was in your quarters. There was an IV in your arm, a computer blinking beside your bed, and a cold feeling through your entire body.
Outside the window, the stars were still.
---
You will be debriefed soon, after extensive treatment of course, and then you can expect some serious R&R. So let's talk about how s/he'll do that!
Part 1, Desires. Desires are impulses that, when they are fulfilled, give you Determination. Choose any number of the following that don't grant Dakota Determination. Mark them [Crossed Out]
When you leave a mark or calling card on a place you visit.
When you take an unnecessary risk for the thrill.
When you retreat from a dangerous situation instead of confronting it.
When you learn something new about alien philosophy, religion, or mythology.
When you show off your fancy technology, powers, or skills to onlookers.
When you make a friend.
When you make an attempt to convince another of your way of thinking.
When you get romantically entangled with somebody.
When you make sure an enemy gets what's coming to them.
When you tell a lie.
When you help somebody out of a bad spot.
When you have a new mind-altering experience.
Then, choose an equal number which are Passions. Passions give more Determination and are things you really care about.
Part 2, Elective
You still have an Elective left, let's make it a hobby. This is a fun skill you have on the side. As Electives are not defined in the system, you can choose whatever you want, so…
[ ] Write in!
Part 3: Remaining Traits
As a Spacer, Dakota has the following Traits:
Starborn: You have Expert in EVA & Hardsuit Training and are Skilled at Jury Rigging, but you take -2d6 from any task requiring physical strength, and the effects of g-forces are doubled.
Fearless: You ignore Terrified penalties, but you can never select 'avoid danger to self' as a partial result when only you are on the line.
Choose up to 3 more. Every trait has an upside and a downside!
Unique Outlook: You've always been a loner, and have trouble making friends or reaching outside their skill-set.
Tough Customer: You try to power through pain, for good or ill.
Serious: You are very goal-oriented, and have trouble taking personal time.
Powerhouse: You take diet and exercise very seriously and are deceptively strong… for a spacer.
Prodigy: If you're good at it, you're great at it. If not… you tend to lose interest quickly.
Imposing: People know to get out of your way, which can make making friends hard.
Shifting Gears: 'Kody' is not the same person as 'Kodi'. Your alter has a different statline, passions, and ethics, though you share all certs.
Entrepreneur: You were a top-scorer in the play markets before joining Star Patrol, and know your way around money.
Well-Connected: You have a lot of friends in the service.
Old Flames: You have a lot of, uh, friends in the service.
If you think of anything you want represented you don't see here, feel free to poke me and we'll work something else. Playtest quest!!!
