THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

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THE SWARM SHEET
  • Informational
    • The Brood of Blades
    ​
    Cerebrate Prime: Samantha Clarke
    LEVEL: 5
    XP: 205/210
    TRAITS
    Strategic Genius: Once per structured encounter, Sam can create a piece of the environment that is in her favor as a sticky spark. Roll a d3 for its value.
    Empathetic: upon meeting an NPC, learn their motivation!
    Legendary Commander: Gain 4 Command sparks at the beginning of each mission/combat. Command sparks may be spent to give NPCs orders, which they may either obey or refuse to obey (doing nothing instead.) Command sparks may not be regained via skills or powers.
    Hunted: Something wants her - but for what? +1 Danger to all scenes​
    SKILLS
    CLOSE COMBAT (2): Brawling, Edged Weapons
    PERSONAL (2): Awareness, Resilience
    SOCIAL (4): Charm, Empathy, Leadership, Taunt​
    MASTERY
    ACU Pilot (2): Nanofabrication [Mass], ObSat Operations [Range]
    The Hilt (4): Biomorphic Spawning (People), Regeneration (Durability), Physical Perfection (Speed), Telepathic Dominion (Range)​

    POWERS
    The Living Swarm
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Gain 1 Living Swarm spark, +1 per vent reduction.​
    The Living Swarm: While this swarm exists, move in three dimensions and through anything smaller than a keyhole, reforming at will. You may expend these sparks to cause 3 Hit Sparks in a Area 2 radius.​
    Area Upgrade: +1 to Area Characteristic​

    Biomorphic Reinforcement
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create 1 Biomorphic Reinforcement spark, +1 per vent reduction, which can be given out to anyone within Range 2, or to yourself
    Biomorphic Reinforcement: +1 to Damage or Mass characteristic for the purpose of raw physical strength/feats.

    Back to Back
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Choose 1 ally (+1 per vent reduction), within Range 1. Each can take one action using one of your skills, any of them that you wish. Once they have done so, you may make a free attack with your melee weapon, getting +1 to your skill per ally that acted.​

    Adaptation
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create a number of sparks equal to the enemy's difficulty, narratively based on turning their abilities against them. Works on enemies of Diff 2>, +2 per vent reduction.​

    Just as Planned…
    Vent: 6-0
    Effect: Vent 6 heat and create 1 Planning Spark for her or an ally, +1 Spark per vent reduction.​
    Planning: The person holding this Spark can expend this to get +1 to a skill check as a free action. Using this Stack counts as you are helping for the purpose of relationships.​

    GEAR
    Zeratul's Psi-Blades
    Adds: +0 (Edged Weapons) | Characteristics: Damage [Speed] (4)[1]​
    Shadowstep (3): Can expend as a free action to move without crossing intervening space.
    Guarded Space (3): Can expend to use Damage as a secondary characteristic for Durability, reducing incoming Damage characteristics.​

    GALACTIC WAR
    Victory Points: 5    ​
    RESOURCES​
    TERRAN DOMINION [Background] (1)​
    The men and material of the Dominion - limited, but they're mustering as we speak. ​
    ALLIANCE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES [Mastery] (1)​
    While you have access to several ACUs of every faction, they lack economic and technological support to be fully effective. ​
    ZERG HIVE [Mastery] (1)​
    The scant few Zerg you control that are free of Amon's influence. Mostly Zerglings. ​
    AEON FLEET [Background] (1)​
    While half a dozen CZARs seem impressive, they're not actually well made for ship to ship combat. ​
    ALLIED COHESION [Motivation] (1)​
    The alliance is fragile and weak.​

    FRONTS​
    Trade Sector-34-51 [Pirate Activity]
    Pirates Raiding 6 (Supply Lines in Disarray 1)
    COMMAND: Jim Raynor | ARMY: Raynor's Raiders
    RESULTS: Pending

    Braxis [Zerg Invasion]
    Borealis Siege 6 (Zerg Rampage1)
    COMMAND: General Samantha Clarke | ARMY: Brood Clarke
    RESULTS: Pending

    Typhan II [Active Xel'Naga ACU]
    Typhan II Occupied 6 (Xel'Naga ACU Spotted 1)
    COMMAND: Lt. Colonel Mathew Horner | ARMY: UEF Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending

    Deep Space Sector 981 [Hive Fleet Identified]
    Zerg Hive Fleet Spotted 6 (Kerrigan? 1)
    COMMAND: Citizen-Commander Dostya | ARMY: CN Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending
    ​
    ENEMY ASSETS (Currently Known)
    ​
    THE GOLDEN ARMADA
    ACTIVITY: Unknown | Threat Level: 6​
     
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  • Informational
    • [X] Have Matt contact the Marauders.
    -[X] Keep quiet about Clarke being planetside.

    I wanna hear Matt do diplomacy. And I don't dislike the option of using them as a distraction so that we can pull a covert in-and-out in a humongous mecha.
     
    So, is there any chance of changing toxic yuri to yuri by emancipating Kerrigan in the long-run? It has to be done anyway, given she's kind of a puppet at the moment.
     
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Nov 9, 2023 at 12:42 AM, finished with 19 posts and 13 votes.
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    you kick mattie? you kick mattie???? dungeon for clarke, dungeon for 1000 years
     
    ACT ONE, MISSION FOUR: Ghosts of the Confederacy (0.2)
  • Threadmarks
    • You frowned. "Matt, I have an idea," you said.

    "...yes, General?" he asks, and you can tell he's already thinking what you're thinking.

    "If they don't know I'm on planet...you can contact them while I do scouting," you said. "And see what they've seen - maybe offer to trade for any information."

    He sighed. "Of course, General."

    Your grin was merciless.

    As your ACU started to work on maneuvering towards the nearest outcropping of mineral resources to lay down an extractor - basic practices worth doing - you listened with half an ear as Matt's voice crackled over the general frequency. "Terran Mercenaries, this is the United Earth Federation Major-"

    "Oh darling!" A female voice came up. You tapped a few buttons and brought up the twin picture-in-pictures of Matt - looking rather dashing for a man in his UEF blue - and...Han. Han, the leader of this mercenary group, looked for all the galaxy exactly like it: Her hair was dyed pink and swept over her head, while a pair of goggles were pushed up against her bangs, revealing that one of her eyes was a cheap prosthetic that came in matte black, with a red iris in the center. She was dressed in the connective skinsuit that would hook into power armor, clinging to her shoulders and chest, and bedecked in banodliers, holsters, and other weapons. You were pretty sure her desk pickup camera was, without even trying, demonstrating that she had six different ways to kill someone on her person...

    ...and if that prosthetic wasn't cheap, but instead, had put the money into alternative features...

    Hurm.

    "Ahem," Matt said. "My name is Major Mathew Horner."

    "A major!" Her good eye glinted as she grinned. "To what do I owe this delight, Mattie?"

    "Major Horner, please," Matt said. "Identify yourselves and your purpose on this planet."

    She chuckled. "Why, I'm General Mira Han, leader of Mira's Marauders. We're operating as security services for the Kel-Morian Combine, Mattie. But since you're from Earth, that must not mean much to you." She fluttered her eyelashes, leaning forward into the pickup. "My techs say you're in orbit. Not looking into muscling into our...contract?"

    "The UEF isn't particularly interested in the raw material you can acquire in any other planet with significantly less risk of lava damage," Matt said, flatly. "We're interested in a Confederate facility that was located on this planet. Are your mercenaries aware of it?"

    "Eech. That place?" she made a face. "My scout team says it's haunted."

    "Haunted?" Matt asks.

    "Well, yes. With ghosts," she said, then started to laugh like a maniac.

    ***
    ​
    The point to point teleporter you had access too made it three short trips from plateau to plateau to reach the area that Mira Han had given Matt. The Major had needed to stay on the line with her for quite some time to finally cajole the information out of her - and through the entire time, she had been quite relentless when it came to flirting with him on every ground you could have imagined, and several you couldn't. It had been the funniest thing you'd heard all month.

    "General, permission to rod that battlecruiser," he said, somewhat desperately.

    "She might take that as a proposal," Matt sounded miserable. "But she doesn't seem to be aware you're on planet."

    "Now we'll see what the Confederates left behind," Tosh said, sounding pleased. "Send in a drone?"

    "That is the safe option," you said, then tapped several buttons on your ACU's control. The Confederate station had been built in the most tectonically stable part of Redstone you had seen so far - a broad mesa with several mountain ranges that prevented any of the lava flows from encroaching. The building itself was a pair of pyramidal shaped outcroppings of heavy black metal, with no windows, and only a few entrances. There was only a faint glimmer of power running through it from backup generators. Your drone drifted down and came to the front doors, then started to cruise through the building. It skimmed images through your ACU as you leaned back in the seat.

    The footage was desolate and quiet. You felt a faint sense that something was going to pop out at you at any second as the lonely flashlight of the drone panned through the long, narrow steel corridors. It cruised past rooms full of dust and abandoned machinery - a few that looked like they had once been school rooms, with desks for students...

    Small students.

    Your lips pursed.

    The drone continued cruising by. It went past a few cafeterias and support rooms - the kind of things you'd use to keep people fed and happy. The feed hissed with some static, but it cleared up.

    The drone went past the rooms with the restraint harnesses. Then it found the first room that made you swear softly. "Ah hell."

    The room was a gymnasium. But it hadn't served as one at the last second. There were two dozen corpses piled up at the left wall, lined up. The steel behind them was dented and pitted and stained. The drone's hover engine sent up tiny puffing dust eddies around its frame - the camera taking in the desiccated bodies. Skin had turned to paper, tightened across leering skull like faces. The camera flashed up identifications it picked up.

    "Dr. Benning, Dr. Hartly..." Matt read off the data. "They're Confederate science staffs."

    "They took the research staff - most of it from the looks of it - lined them up against the gymnasium wall...and shot them," you said.

    "It looks like it," Matt said.

    "The question is...who," Tosh said. "Confederates when they pulled out?"

    "The Dominion when they took over?" Matt suggested.

    "If it was the Dominion, they'd have taken the information," you said, then frowned and tapped several switches on the controls. The drone continued skimming forward. It came to the computer core - and then the drone fizzled. The camera snowed over with static. You frowned and slapped against the control with your palm. The screen only grew more staticed.

    "We're getting some kind of interreference - a nonlocalized quantum event is shorting out the remote," Dr. Hanson said, sounding curious.

    "They have a Q-Jammer in there?" you asked. "Must be running on fumes."

    "Well, the drone got all the way to the C&C without triggering a single security system - and we were pinging everything. Stukov, the secondary scans, how did..." Matt paused.

    "No detected operational turrets, weapon systems, or anything else," Stukov said.

    You nodded, slightly. "So, we just need someone to go in and grab the data?"

    ---
    HEAT: 0/6

    [ ] Head in and find the data core
    [ ] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)
    [ ] Write In
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)
     
    Ah, that was great. Mira is the best. I am very glad to have made that write-in.

    Would've been funny if making Matt do that had cleared up our shaken status.

    Anyway, we got Zerg in the vicinity, and while we have to go in, getting some backup is in order.

    [] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)

    I don't know what the price'll be but having some more forces is the smart move, and the locals' gear is pretty well suited for fighting the inevitable ambush alongside our commander.
     
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    [X] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)
     
    [X] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)
     
    [X] Build some turrets outside the base before going in

    The facility is apparently clear, so I'm mainly worried about Zerg following us inside.
     
    DragonCobolt said:
    "Eech. That place?" she made a face. "My scout team says it's haunted."

    "Haunted?" Matt asks.

    "Well, yes. With ghosts," she said, then started to laugh like a maniac.
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    DragonCobolt said:
    "They took the research staff - most of it from the looks of it - lined them up against the gymnasium wall...and shot them," you said.
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    Click to shrink...

    Seems to me like the kids managed to get the upper hand and take over. Silver lining is that means the kids haven't been tortured for a while. The trouble is they're liable to shoot at Clarke and crew on sight.

    DragonCobolt said:
    The feed hissed with some static, but it cleared up.
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    DragonCobolt said:
    The camera snowed over with static. You frowned and slapped against the control with your palm. The screen only grew more staticed.

    "We're getting some kind of interreference - a nonlocalized quantum event is shorting out the remote," Dr. Hanson said, sounding curious.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Oh yeah, the kids are still around and by the sounds of things one of them are technopathic. Talk about a bad match up for a drone centric force.

    [X] Bring in a team from the E1     – If Han wasn't being cheeky about the facility being haunted, then chances are the children that had been "taught" there are still around, and considering the state the Confederate scientists were found in they're liable to shoot anyone resembling an authority figure on sight. Call in a team from the E1 loaded down with less-than-lethals to escort you into the facility. Seeing as how they acted earlier, you have your doubts that any of Mira's Marauders would be able or willing to refrain from shooting back at victimized children if they were to come under fire.
     
    Spart117MC said:
    [X] Bring in a team from the E1 – If Han wasn't being cheeky about the facility being haunted, then chances are the children that had been "taught" there are still around, and considering the state the Confederate scientists were found in they're liable to shoot anyone resembling an authority figure on sight. Call in a team from the E1 loaded down with less-than-lethals to escort you into the facility. Seeing as how they acted earlier, you have your doubts that any of Mira's Marauders would be able or willing to refrain from shooting back at victimized children if they were to come under fire.
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    This is somewhat sound reasoning, but if they're not liking confederate troops, then our all serious UEF forces are likely to also be an issue.

    Mira's insane troops are at least somewhat different and recognizable as not being more confeds I'd imagine.

    But with this reasoning, I'd actually recommend we go in alone. I thought that it was Duran springing a trap, but if it's just psionic kids screwing with our stuff, then going solo will seem less worrisome to them.
     
    I reasoned anyone going in was going to get shot either way, since it's not like Starcraft mercs have much of a better reputation either, so I figured if a fight was going to break it might as well with be people trained to do more than kill and be motivated to refrain from inflicting death even at the cost of their own life.

    Asmodemus said:
    But with this reasoning, I'd actually recommend we go in alone. I thought that it was Duran springing a trap, but if it's just psionic kids screwing with our stuff, then going solo will seem less worrisome to them.
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    I suppose Clarke can't get into a shootout if she's captured and being a prisoner would give her a better opportunity to talk things out with the kids. A character heavy encounter would be interesting too after the series of fights we've had. Okay, that sounds like a good idea to me!

    [X] Bring in a team from the E1
    [X] Head in and find the data core
     
    [X] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)
     
    [X] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)

    If you can't pay mercs to be expendable meat shields for you what is the point of them?
     
    [x] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)

    Getting some "friendly" military forces in the sector is a good idea
     
    DragonCobolt said:
    "She might take that as a proposal," Matt sounded miserable.
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    Is this meant to be someone else speaking?

    [X] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)

    We'd not just be buying an escort, potentially one with local knowledge, on this mission -- we'd be buying the start of word of mouth that the UEF has money to spend and is willing to do polite and honest business with locals, and potentially opening up more direct contacts through this group. That seems like it could be valuable later.

    (The hypothesis that the kids took over the place and are still there is interesting, but... among other things, I'm not sure how likely it is to actually occur to us in character? And I still think the mercenaries could be if anything more useful for propaganda and networking purposes than their direct utility here.

    I'm also somewhat skeptical if that is indeed what's going on, because, well, what would they be eating, for one thing? And where would they be living, given how much the place seemed powered down and abandoned? Sure, maybe the drone was extensively fooled, but if that's the case, who knows what's really in there. It being the kids seems potentially plausible if some currently unknown things lined up the right way, but not enough for me to change my vote over it.)
     
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