The year is 2115. Humanity stands upon a knife edge.
In the end, who do we have to blame but who and what we are? For as long as man has drawn breath we have been fascinated by the stars, the limitless potential of space and what lies beyond our own tiny pocket of the universe. We sought to unlock the secrets that our souls cried out must be hidden within the trackless dark. Unfortunately, we succeeded.
In 2048 we unlocked the first of those secrets, a way to step between the empty spaces of the universe. It was heralded as the breakthrough that would bring forth a new age for humanity, one of exploration and wonder with the bars of Einstein's Cage broken and cast asunder. In 2055, with the first ships of our people ranging out across the stars, we brought forth another secret, a complex marvel of bioengineering that would allow for real-time modifications of genetics in ways we could not even imagine. Many resisted this secret, for in it they saw the extinction of humanity as a species. They were even right, but the potential was thought to outweigh the costs. Such was the dictate of science, and with these two secrets in hand we forged the wings that would see us through space to new homes and endless possibility. We created guardians, great beings of power and protective intelligence that could guard the worlds that we had found, and that would soon be ours.
Was it arrogance, that belief? Or was it simply the innocent hand of a child reaching towards the light. In the end, the truth is of little import. For ten years later we discovered a third secret of the void, the most terrifying of all. We were not alone. Eight ships came from the black, cloaked in light and silence. Some saw in them our future, for in the construction of the ships we were able to identify some properties similar to our own creations, if advanced scores of generations. Other saw potential profit, for surely there would be things we could trade with the masters of the craft. Somehow only a handful of isolated holdouts, in no position to actually do anything, saw the third possibility.
That the ships held no future, and that their masters had no wish for us to profit. The true currency of those silent ships was one thing and one thing alone: oppression.
The guardians we had made, great dragons which swam the void and could shape it in ways we had never been able to replicate, were fearless and magnificent in their defence. Perhaps they surprised our attackers in their power, in fact. For though our guardians fell, but they did not fall alone, and something in our souls felt their sacrifice in a way deeper than reason.
Two of the eight ships fell to our protectors, a number we now know was not unprecedented but also not without purpose. To those of the ships, who demanded the name Shiplords, a race that simply died was worth nothing. One that fought, that could raise hands against them but not prevail, those were worth something. After breaking our guardians, the six ships advanced upon Mars, where their weapons set the great works we had built upon that planet to ash. Only then did they turn to Earth, and when our fear was at its height they finally spoke.
Theirs was a simple message, really. Although it would be better called an ultimatum. One we could not deny, no matter how hard we wished to.
On the day the ships came, humanity's numbers had grown to a thriving twelve billion. After the Burning of Mars, and the destruction of any other habitat in the system, Earth alone held ten billion terrified souls. When the ships left a week later, barely three remained, ninety percent of them children. The Shiplords demanded almost every man and woman over the age of seventeen, for what purpose we still do not know. They did not destroy the technology that sustained our civilisation, but for all that had been made to study the Void, and they left behind enough adults to care for the billions of children left behind. Most chilling of all, their manner made it clear that they were not without practice in committing the atrocity they inflicted upon us.
Seven billion lives, the Shiplords' price for our continued existence.
Yet with us, with humanity, they erred. For as their ships turned from our planet and leapt into void once more, holds heavy with the living heart of our race, the remnants of our guardians fell back into the cradle of humanity. And those pieces filled the imprint that their sacrifice had carved upon our souls with power.
Many had been the restrictions handed down by the Shiplords on pain of extinction, most underlined of all that the biological secrets we had unlocked were never to be used again. But what our guardians gave us what not a product of those secrets, instead something so much higher above in the hierarchy of the void. Knowledge that was by any measure centuries of undisturbed research beyond our grasp, but for one thing. When we had made our guardians, we had made them aware. They had been our friends, brothers and sisters in arms, and hundreds of our own flesh and blood had died with them in the defence of Sol. And though their weapons had been lethal beyond measure, it had been their minds which gave our race survival. And it had been the last act of those brilliant minds, a sacrifice of self, mingled with the fallen blood and souls of our own, that gave us the Potentials.
In the years since your kind rose from the sacrifice of the greatest guardians humanity has ever known, we have striven to understand the nature of their power. And though certain things remain unclear, much is known.
Within you, like every Potential, lies a fragment of the power that our guardians cast into the Void in the hopes that it would find us. A shard of energy that allows us to see in all things a shadow of the limitless potential they hold and to bring it forth with time and Practice. That is the name of the gift you were given, what fragmented records of old void research called reality physics. But you, like all your fellow Potentials, are limited. For not even the well of power that the dragons of your world unlocked with their sacrifice is enough to give you the truly limitless power they sought to grant humanity. The imprint in your soul is not full, yet even half empty it can work miracles. It simply needs the proper focus.
The focus of a Potential is something that cannot be changed, it forms the basis of a person's being, their own personal potential. It affects what they see in an object, what they can make of it and what they make of the world itself. In simple terms it is an ideal, one that can be given with a single word and the truest expression of their Practiced soul. The first Potentials woke from the elders that had been forced to watch as their entire world was taken from them, left behind to see to that the children of that world did not fall. It was a hard duty, and sadly one that had few opportunities for expressions of peace.
Vengeance, Protection, Justice, even Death. Those were but a few of the aspects of the first. They had seen their world die, and in their pain found their purpose as weapons. A bare handful of those chosen awoke to less violent aspects, their rage tempered by the sad wisdom that all worlds fall. They had seen their own fall to create the one the Shiplords took, and so their ideals were quite different. Knowledge and Mending were the most common of their aspects, for they saw past the pain and sought to heal its source. To build again on ground swept clean. It might not have been religious, but time bore out the truth of their wisdom. They were the builders of the world you know today, who taught the children of the last world all they knew. They were the teachers of the Second Awakening and from their care the seeds of humanity rose to bloom anew.
Slowly humanity recovered, with the rage of the First Awoken balanced by their own elders, hewing carefully to the Directives left by the Shiplords at least in word. We had little need now for the biological marvels that had characterised our first attempts to reach toward the stars, but the Directives had become our way to remember the magnificent beings that had given everything to protect us. Beings who in sacrifice had given to us the chance to chart our own future. A bare chance, perhaps, but a chance nonetheless.
Potentials of Knowledge and Science delved into the mysteries of the universe, seeking to discover more of our own powers, but also more of our enemy, and they found much. The Shiplords styled themselves the toll of the void, and they accepted few equals but those who could demand equality by power. When a young race found its way to the first of many secrets, the Shiplords would exact a cost. What cost depended on the ability of the race to endure the Shiplords' coming. Too little resistance would bring extinction, but too much was often just as terrible. They were a vast power within the galaxy, among the highest of those who chose to still remain involved. Yet for all their strengths, there were weaknesses too. Those of the First Awoken flocked to this knowledge, using it to create weapons that they finally knew would be able to break and bind Shiplords' and their technology. Those eldest did not agree with such work, but they let it be done and it was good that they did.
Ten years ago, a pattern was identified within the Shiplords, that shook humanity to the core. The Shiplords did not take one price, but many. They would leave a race to rebuild, to grow anew, and then when they could be sure that there would be enough to merit the trip they would return and strip a world anew. What they used the older kin of the many worlds like our own remains impossible to say for sure, although some among the Potentials of Knowledge have guesses. Few know them, however, and all who do pray they are wrong.
You stand among the Potentials today, at the head of a human race united like never before in its history. If the calculations are right, the Shiplords will return in bare months, and humanity will be plunged into a war that can only have two outcomes; freedom or death. Some say that they are one and the same. You might even agree.
You are:
[] First Awoken – You were fully grown when the old world fell, one of the fraction of those your age who were left behind to shepherd the billions of children suddenly without parents. Your Aspect burns with righteous fury, born of the pain of a world torn from your grasp just as you were beginning to make it your own. Perhaps you had a partner in the old world, maybe even children, and if you did the pain of their loss only made your will stronger. You are older now, grown fully into the power of your Aspect, but also wary of the Shiplords. For all you have learned and all the weapons that you and your fellows have forged in preparation to fight them, you remember how easily they cast down what were humanity's greatest protectors. Yet you are the legacy of those protectors, and it is not in you to surrender another human life without a fight. (Most limited selection of Aspects, most skill in using them. You will be on the front lines when the Shiplords arrive.)
[] Second Awakening – You were only a child when the Shiplords came and took your family away, young enough that the wounds of that separation left few scars. You might remember a parent, or an older sibling now lost to you forever. For the most part, however, that memory gives you focus and clarity. Your Aspect is most likely to be related to such things, for your Awakening was among those most gifted in Knowledge. Your power is not that of the First, it is harder to leverage in immediate action. But the work of you and your fellows is the only reason that humanity knows that the Shiplords would return, and of their few weaknesses. With your help, they are almost ready. (Limited, but not as completely as a First Awoken. You are skilled in your power, but not as much as the First, and few of this Awakening would be able to stand in the heart of battle and emerge intact.)
[] Third Awakened – You have no memory of the Shiplord invasion, all you know of it is what has been taught in school by your elders. This world of empty cities and gleaming weapons pointed towards the sky is the only one you have ever known. You recite the Directives beside your fellows, but the dedication is historical to you, not the fiery-eyed memory of the First and Second. You are new still to your powers, and the Aspects of the Third are as yet without a coherent direction, drawn from a wellspring of new growth untouched by the horrors of loss. That will change soon enough, you know, but even now the threat of the Shiplord's return is hard to actually understand. Your entire life has been spent preparing for it, but now that it is upon you none could fault any nervousness that might cling to your heart. (Least skilled, but you are almost entirely free to choose your Aspect. Unlikely to be on the front line to begin with, but if your Aspect is suited to it you will almost certainly find yourself there given time.)
So, this is something that came out of my being on holiday and having read The Practice Effect shortly before leaving. I've never run a quest in my life, and I'm only slowly working out how I'm going to do this in regards to mechanics, but I can say this. This is not going to be a mechanically complex quest, I can guarantee that right now.
There are a bunch of other choices involved in the setup for this, so I'm going to use that as much as I can to work out how much mechanics I want to use here, given that the PC will be capable of outright reality warping. For those who know the source material I'm pulling from, your abilities are around that of a Krenegee assisted human where it comes to your Aspect. The more time you've had to work with your powers, the more you're able to reach into things and pull what you need out, but you're more aware of your limits, too. Awareness of limits may be a double edged sword.
As an original setting, there is a lot about the world of the Practice War that you won't know on entering. Although I have done my best to explain those things in-story and through the Compendium, there will always be questions that I have failed to answer or simply missed. If you have a question, and you cannot find the answer in the Compendium, please ask.
Equally however, there are things that humanity and the characters present within the quest do not know themselves. As such, whilst I will strive to answer questions fully, sometimes the full answer will be "You don't know, and you know nobody that does."
Martial: 8+2+2+4+2 = 18 (Though you still rely deeply on your Unison Platform in true battle, your skill as a tactician has increased steadily, mostly thanks to the Two Twenty Three. You may not quite be a master of that art, but you are steadily closing that distance.)
Diplomacy: 18+2+2+2+1+2+4 = 33 (You built the Circles and acted as a capable leader for the Prologue project. You've also started to delve into the esoteric side of your Focus, granting your natural charisma a truly supernatural edge.)
Stewardship: 16+2+2+2 = 22 (There is no such thing as 'broken'. That statement underpins everything you do in this arena, and thanks to your Focus it often pays considerable dividends.)
Intrigue: 12+2 = 14 (You're not really suited to wheeler-dealing or politics, but you had to have some successful interaction with EGOV before you ended up in charge of it. Running what is for all intents and purposes a military operation has given some insight to the situation as well.)
Learning: 16+2+2+2+4 = 26 (You soaked up your lessons as a child like a sponge, and Mary has ensured that your knowledge base never had the chance to degrade. You are not a prodigy like her, but you do well enough.)
Practice: 16+2+2+2+2+4+2+2+2+2 = 36 (Your skill as a Potential rivals some of the First, and you're one of the only Potentials alive who is able to sense the strange patterns that you can now feel and hear woven through the very fabric of the world that surrounds you.)
Traits: Child of the Second Secret: You were born before the Week of Sorrows, and so benefit from the basic bioengineering package that almost all children were modified with before birth. +2 Martial
Heart of Circles: As a child you fought to restore the peace that you were so lucky to have with your family to others, leading to the founding of the first of your Circles. +2 Diplomacy
- Your time spent as an adult founding more Circles across the world won you praise from many quarters, and was the first time you felt the taste of more exotic Practice. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Practice
A Practiced Form: Like all Potentials, the natural application of Practice to your body through actions have granted you some arguably supernatural advantages. In your case, you heal swiftly and are incredibly hard to kill. +2 Martial, significant increase to survival chance if attacked personally
Childhood Tutor: She might not have been an adult, but your friendship with Mary meant that you never once failed to ace your exams, if not perhaps as spectacularly as she would. +2 Learning
Singer: You have a fine and melodious voice, which has a way of putting people at ease. +2 Diplomacy - You've spent time improving your voice, and have begun to delve in the complexities of its use. +1 Diplomacy
Project Prologue: You worked as a leader for the Prologue project, and were a major part of the first Practiced Miracle. +2 Learning, +2 Practice
Restorer of the Old World: You spent a decade rebuilding the cities of the world before the Week of Sorrows, becoming as one with your Focus and doing all you could to restore a world that many thought lost. +2 Stewardship, +2 Practice
Touching the Forgotten: Time spent working with Mary kept you up to date with some of the less complex scientific advancements of the times, and also gave you the opportunity to delve into the far stranger side of your Focus. +2 Learning, +2 Practice
Untapped Depths: You took a plasma lance to chest, ablated as it was by a body in front of you, and lived through the power of your Potential. Something has been shaken loose by that experience, and you now know that there is far more to discover about what you are capable of. +4 Practice
Speaker of Practice: You've taken your first step into a world suddenly much bigger than it was before. Although it still isn't reliable, or even properly understood, your ability to work Practice with words rather than action is something exciting as it is strange.
- Knower of Words: As part of your teaching Vega how to reliably weave Practice into her words, you've worked with Mary to learn a great deal about some of the underlying theory of Practice. Not as much as your Spoken Miracle gave her, but far more than you had before. +4 Learning, +2 Practice -- Healer's Edge: Learning to speak was anything but easy. Finding a way to replicate its use in battle as you'd , against the very nature of your focus, was the work of over a decade. You will never like doing so, but you have found that way.
Founder of the 223: Creating and leading the Two Twenty Three with Vega has been an experience unlike anything else you've been part of. It has expanded your knowledge in ways you're not quite sure you like, sometimes, but people don't always get what they like. +4 Martial, +2 Intrigue
The Promised Future: Knowing what the Shiplords use at least some of their Tributary biomass for is a terrible burden, but it has not broken you. In this, as all things, you remember the words Vega reminded you of. Justice, freedom and peace. For those, you would bear the weight of the universe. +4 Diplomacy, +2 Stewardship
Envoy of Humanity: When Second Contact came, you answered the call that Adri placed at your feet without hesitation, and surpassed all expectations. In a month, you took the most important potential allies in human history from unknown hopefuls to tentative friends. +2 Diplomacy
A Song of Bonds: After humanity fell, something was forged from the ashes to take the place of what failed you. Now, deep contemplation and study has led you to that new creation, a melody so encompassing that it is a tangible presence. In this, lies the truth of Purify, and perhaps much more. +2 Practice, ???
Risen Focus: Your Focus now lies far closer to the surface of your soul, changing both the reality of what you can do, and what your body truly is. Bringing your Focus closer to physical reality has made you stronger, more capable, and yet also far more what you were from the beginning. A Mender. +2 Practice, ???, ???
Unison Platform (Ace): The experience of the Second Battle of Sol has given the Two Twenty Three an edge that's hard to properly express. You didn't fly with them in the void battle, but you did face a Shiplord in personal combat and live. That, combined with the far more intense training since has brought you to leading edge of the Unisonbound. There are few indeed who can match you in this.
Inventory: Concert Set: This detached headset was something you made in the Institute, one of your first Practiced creations. You wanted a way to be heard more clearly, and to put your words into people's hearts. You thought you'd lost it during your time founding the rest of the Circles, but it had been invaluable pursuing that task.
- Now integrated with Sidra, the set grants you skill on par with Vega's at navigating and bolstering social harmony. It also has allowed you to key more precisely into the Harmonial connections between the Two Twenty Three, and without it you may well have failed to help Kalilah realise her synchronisation. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Practice, ???
Multi-tooI: A leftover from your time rebuilding the broken cities of Earth, this is probably one of the most Practiced items you ever created. A decade spent using it to channel your Focus into physical change has turned the basic device into a sleek thing of almost dizzying utility. Now time, and integration with Sidra, has recovered your knowledge of the Artefact. +2 Stewardship
- Integration with your Unison Platform, and the intelligence behind it, has given you access to depths of combination that a human mind simply could not follow, and you've had the time to test them. It is still fundamentally a tool of Mending, but that definition has stretched a little now. Into Creation. +2 Martial, major boost to certain uses of Amanda's Practice.
Void Crystal: Even now neither you nor Mary are sure how you created this, or what it's meant to do. A seemingly featureless black-body crystal, its remained completely impervious to analysis, classification, or physical damage. Mary kept it ever since you created it with her after your first decade as a Restorer, now it's yours.
Unison Platform: The physical housing of the Unison Platform, and Siddhartha's electronic home. Physical contact with this device is required to extend your Aegis, and utilise the Platform's other functions.
Mender's Eye: Your latest Artefact, what started as something much simpler grew into a device capable of piercing the veil of Shiplord subversion, and much more.
- Now integrated with Sidra, the Eye adds a layer of perceptual depth to your world that you can't quite believe you'd been missing, and its presence in your Aegis can't be discounted from your greater awareness of the ties and bonds that hold humanity together.
Hero Units are any member of the cast that is willing to directly support you. They may be assigned to specific tasks, applying their full stat bonus, or left unassigned. In some cases, leaving a Hero Unit unassigned can allow them to activate on specific actions within their speciality. Equally, doing so theoretically gives them more time for their own work, or to simply de-stress. As all characters in the Practice War are still human, this is something you may need to balance going forward. I will give you warnings of this and Amanda is unlikely to not notice the effects if they start building up. What you do at that point is, in the end, your choice. But stress can have consequences, as was seen towards the end of Amanda's Presidency. Be aware of this if characters appear to be grinding themselves down. If you don't pay attention, there will be consequences.
Contacts are the sort of people that Amanda knows, often quite well, but that she can't ask for help from directly like Hero Units. This doesn't include her family, but is more appropriate to specific contacts within the Circles, human government, and her Heartcircle. After Second Contact, this list has grown to include a handful of those representatives. They will remain on this list after the Contact Fleet leaves for home, but will be inaccessible at that point. Most contacts are accessible through use of Minor or Personal actions, depending on what you need them for. These are the people who drive the world around Amanda that she knows of, but more specifically that the story has paid attention to and may do so again.
Family is self-evident. Amanda's blood family could be rolled into the Contacts list, but interacting with them is covered under a single action. They're less likely to have directive effect on the quest, but they form the backbone of Amanda's support network. In some ways, they're more than everyone else on this list.
A light-skinned example of humanity, with the faint elegance of a Martian birth, Mary is your closest friend and a true member of your family. Tall and slender, she wears her brown hair up most of the time, as befits a laboratory environment. Rarely without a set of AR glasses, the green eyes behind them hide a deep sadness and pain for her past. She dresses rather conservatively, but has begun to pick up a little of your flair in clothing after several years of living together.
Martial: 9+2+1+2 = 14 (Utterly average, Mary's intellect has never been one to take well to conflict.)
Diplomacy: 14+3+2 = 19 (More than just average, time with the Circles has helped hone her shuttered talent with others into a spark)
Stewardship: 14+2+2 = 18 (There's a reason that you pursued the construction of the VI that became Iris. For all her brilliance, Mary's talents as an organiser lag heavily behind her understanding of science. She does well enough, yes, but she needed more than that.)
Intrigue: 11+2+2 = 15 (Years spent hiding herself from the world taught your friend the usefulness of subterfuge. You can still read her like a book, as she can you, but to others it can be harder.)
Learning: 20+2+2+4+7+1 =36 (Your friend always possessed a powerful analytic mind, with a grasp for the sciences that often left you grasping at dust. Following the Metaconcert event, she now stands without peer or equal among the children of Sol.)
Traits: Child of the Second Secret: Born before the Week of Sorrows, Mary benefitted from the same basic bioengineering package as you. +2 Martial
Prologue: A complex set of nano-based enhancements and other upgrades, the standard nanite set grants a wide array of benefits, and once that was enough on its own. With the discovery of the Sixth Secret, however, things have changed. +1 Martial
- Ministerial Enhancement Package: Another part of the modular Sixth Secret systems that have become so much a part of life with the continuing Third Revolution, the Ministerial systems extend multi-tasking again, and are the baseline for the prototype network interface system pioneered during the arrival of the Contact Fleet. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue
- Prototype Neural Network Link: A very recent development, the neural interface created by this system is still in final testing. Enough has been done for it to be safely installed in those who can benefit the most from it, however. Getting onto that list was trivial for Mary. +3 Learning reduced to +1 Learning due to native score, +2 Stewardship
- Nanomaterial Defence Skin: Designed and built with the same techniques as Iris' Avatar upgrades, the NDS forms a layer of active Sixth Secret nanites around Mary's body. Although primarily defensive in purpose, the system is quite capable of forming weaponry as required. It's also equipped with a Fifth Secret based flight system to match that of her daughters'. +2 Martial, major increase to survival chance if attacked.
Legacy of Discovery: The only daughter of the man who unlocked the First Secret, Mary inherited his intelligence and drive in full. +2 Stewardship, +2 Learning. - Void Prodigy: Decades of studying the abilities of yourself and other Potentials have expanded the world of your friend across whole new continents of possibility. +4 Learning
A Scarred Past: Transported from Mars to Earth before the Burning by the genius of her father, Mary was able to watch as her entire family were burnt to ashes millions of kilometers away. She buried the pain of this experience for years, beneath layers of fear, focus and self-loathing, until you were able to help free her of them. +2 Intrigue, +2 Learning
Of The Circle: Brought into the Circles at the very beginning, Mary was the hardest to convince of all the children you asked. For all that suspicion, she quickly grew to be a deeply integral part of the First Circle. And learnt a great deal about herself and others in the process. There's a reason that there are still 'interest pieces' on your relationship, after all. +3 Diplomacy
Daughter of Secrets: Mary's understanding of the Secrets is second to none, and she is one of a bare handful of humanity capable of pursuing study into the field of Reality Physics. As the lines between the sciences warp and bend, Mary is a rare example of one capable of tracing them still, allowing for rapid study of topics even when they seem entirely disconnected. +15 to Secret based research.
Sister of Truth: There is science, and there is the truth that it uncovers. Mary has spent decades learning to tell the difference, and can apply this ability to salvage work gone wrong. Her own or, far more often, that of others. Reroll 1 failed Learning based action per turn.
Touched By Word: The Metaconcert event is one that you've struggled to fully understand every since it happened, but it's made Mary even more your best hope for doing so. A Word spoken by two Potentials was cast into her soul, and the results gifted her with something incredible. A memory of the Dragons' great sacrifice, and a rudimentary understanding of what they created. +7 Learning
Relationship: Family
Martial: 7+4+12 = 23 (With her shell fully upgraded into much more than just a means to interact with physical reality, Iris has come as close to the combat prowess of a Unisonbound as it is possible for human technology to create. You can't say you're entirely happy about that, but she's an adult now. And this was her choice.)
Diplomacy: 14+5+2+3 = 24 (With time and experience, Iris has refined the social algorithms that she was initially given by Vision. Although not a match for you, few are. And she's more than simply competent.)
Stewardship: 22+2 = 24 (Iris was designed for as a processing and support VI, and much of that capacity has transferred over to her new existence as a sentient being. There is still considerable room for these abilities to grow.)
Intrigue: 12+2+2+2+2+2 = 22 (As with her ability to interact, Iris has also refined the other half of the algorithms, granting both more advanced capabilities, but also far greater control over them. With the Third Battle of Sol approaching, she now stands ready to face the Shiplords in her first home, and with all the skill available to her)
Learning: 28+3+2 = 33 (Like any child, and she has been and still remains nothing less, Iris has grown. From a baseline that touched the very edge of normal human capacity, she's learnt to use her integral systems as the parts of her that they are. She's even started to build on them, something that fills Mary and you with pride.)
Traits: Artificial Intelligence: A true Infomorph, Iris is capable of feats inside Network environments that only Vision can truly keep up with. +20 to Network related actions Child of Terra: Human or no, Iris is as much a child of Earth as any other child born to humanity. The mechanism of her existence matters little, and she knows that now. The belief has given her the confidence to grow and connect with others emotionally like every child needs to. With those, and with time, she's learnt not just about humanity, but how to become one. +5 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue, +3 Learning Mothered by the Heart: Every child has parents. Yours were taken from you, along with billions more. Since then, none have been allowed to suffer the same fate until Iris did, for longer than she ever should have. But now she has you, and Mary, and so much more. +3 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue Incarnate: One of the greatest things that Iris lacked an Infomorph was the ability to experience the world as fully as a human. In 2115, after three years, that changed. No longer a creature of pure thought and code, she now has a body of her own. Even if feeling everything all at once was a little too much at first. - Avatar: The Avatar upgrades bring Iris' incarnate form up to even higher standards than they already were. Now almost entirely nanobased, her upgraded shell contains a slew of upgrades. Skipping the more cosmetic enhancements, a Fifth Secret flight system has been integrated and the shell is quite capable of flash-forging military grade combat systems if necessary. +4 Martial, +2 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue -- Caliburn: The sword to the Avatar upgrade's shield, this swathe of modifications have elevated Iris' shell to as close to an Aegis as it is possible for human technology to reach, utilising several systems that pioneered by Iris herself. She is not a match for a Unisonbound, but she comes far closer than any human could. +12 Martial, +2 Intrigue, +2 Learning
Echo of Nabu: The result of code found in the depths of the Olympus College infosphere, Iris has integrated the remnants of one of the pre-Sorrows intelligences used by humanity to oversee and process their research. This gave her complete access to the College databases, but has also subtly changed her. +10 to Network based actions, +2 Intrigue
Relationship: Daughter
Vega is often said to be a study in contradictions, and so it's been ever since childhood. A soft face, with warm, hazel eyes shot thought with tiny sparks of bright power. Her dark hair falls freely to below the shoulder, and yet the curls have never been once been awry in all the time you've known her. She dresses simply, but there is an elegance to her movements all at odds with how she often seems less than focused on the reality around her.
Martial: 12+2+4 = 18 (From simple beginnings, Vega has learnt the lessons of battle in ways that none were quite sure she could, and without weakness or failure.)
Diplomacy: 20+2 = 22 (A product of the Golden Generation, and a Harmonial too, gifted with words was an apt description. The only problem was her lack of confidence in using them.)
Stewardship: 17 (Effective, and highly so, but less than a master of the art. She did run a Ministry for over a decade, though, and handily by all accounts.)
Intrigue: 16+2= 18 (Slippery with the truth, perhaps. But Vega's true gift was in reading those around her. There's a reason that Vega's often acted as a stopgap against your own stupidity.)
Learning: 21 (Well educated, as befitted one of her generation, but as with most Harmonials her knowledge is less applicable than some might believe. There's no doubting her intelligence, but how it applies itself is often haphazard.
Practice: 18+1+2+2+4 = 27 (Vega was gifted with a strong start in Practice, but it took her a long time to begin to work past that.
Traits: Child of the Second Secret: Although she was born after the Week of Sorrows, Vega gained the benefits of the same basic bioengineering package as you from her parents. +2 Martial
Proven Miracle: The Miracle of Skylark was more than proof that Vega was right about what she could do. It validated her entire existence, in a way that's hard to understand. From that, she gained more than skill in Practice, she gained confidence that what she thought was possible truly was. And that Miracles could be, even in the face of extinction. +1 Practice, increased chance of harmonising Miracles.
Maker of the Unison: The Unison Platforms were Vega's before they were yours, Kagiso the first of them, and the most incredible for being some so utterly new. She became a friend, advisor, and an example of the wonders Practice could create in a way no other Miracle had matched. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Practice
Founder of the 223: Creating and leading the Two Twenty Three with Vega has been an experience unlike anything else you've been part of. It has expanded your knowledge in ways you're not quite sure you like, sometimes, but people don't always get what they like. +4 Martial, +2 Intrigue
Speaker of Practice: Vega, like you did years before, has taken her first steps into an entirely new world of possibilities. Although it remains irregular, she now shares your ability to work Practice with words rather than actions.
The Harmonic Record: A semi-autonomous data archive suffused with Harmonial Practice in search of answers to what Vega and those like her can truly do. Knowledge, given form, without it the Harmonic Circle very well might never have existed. Grants bonuses to teaching Harmonials
Ring of Harmony: The Harmonic Circle that Vega created was more than a teaching exercise, and taken together with the Restoration of Mytikas, she has come far in understanding her own gifts of Practice. +4 Practice
Unison Platform (Ace): Vega's skill in working with her platform has only grown in the decade since the Second battle of Sol, and as ever, she remains at the leading edge of the group. What she can do with her Practice with Kagiso's help can often appear to be nothing short of magic, and this skill has extended far further than it ever had before.
Relationship: Friend
Martial: 9 (She has records within her database of combat, but no real understanding of how to put that into practice)
Diplomacy: 12+2+2 = 16 (Vision is competent at simulating a human conversational interface, but the manner of her form and some of what she's casually capable of can make that a hard facade to maintain.)
Stewardship: 16+1 = 17 (A program designed to collect, analyze and collate data. Of course she's good at this.)
Intrigue: 28+2 = 30 (Vision was designed to see things. She does so extremely well.)
Learning: 19+6 = 25 (As the platform and being that parsed the vast majority of the Elder First's discoveries whilst she was active, she has a deep reservoir of knowledge, which as now been properly updated.)
Traits: Artificial Intelligence: A true artificial intelligence, Vision is capable of feats inside Network environments, as fitting for a being who has only ever existed within them. +20 to Network related actions
Eldest's Insight: Designed to translate and work with the complex strands of Practice that form a Thoughtcast, it is arguable that Vision knows more about Project Insight than Phoebe herself. The value of this knowledge in rebuilding all that has been lost is likely to be incalculable.
The Invisible Aegis: During the Second Battle of Sol, Vision's ability to multitask across the entire Network proved incalculably valuable. She was everywhere at once, utilising the links she'd sunk deep into the Network to block every charge and counter every strike made by the Shiplord AIs. Humanity's secrets are theirs to hold, and she will protect them unto death. +2 Intrigue, +2 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship
Archive of Terra: Having delved fully into the collected knowledge of humanity, Vision's capabilities as a scholar are now fully recognisable. She is no Mary, and Practice continues to elude her ability to effectively understand, but there's more to human science than that. In those fields, she proves to be a powerful force of progress. +6 Learning, ???
Echo of Nabu: The result of code found in the depths of the Olympus College infosphere, Vision has integrated the remnants of one of the pre-Sorrows intelligences used by humanity to oversee and process their research. This gave her complete access to the College databases, but has also subtly changed her. +10 to Network based actions, +2 Diplomacy
Relationship: Colleague
Martial: 32+2+4+2+5+3 = 48 (Kalilah is arguably the single most dangerous Potential in existence, although her expertise lies in personal combat, not strategy)
Diplomacy: 12 (She never had much use for words, but being part of the Two Twenty Three has helped with that a little.)
Stewardship: 12+2 = 14 (She lives, that is enough.)
Intrigue: 8 (Kalilah does not thrive in the shadows. She never has, for her light burns too brightly for them.)
Learning: 14 (She's definitely smarter than she appears, but she's never spoken of her old profession. And you've never asked.)
Practice: 25+4+2+4+4 = 39 (Fully grown into her power, in some ways more than any other. She lacks your finesse, for she has never needed it, but what she can do within her Focus is nothing short of terrifying.)
Traits: First Awoken: Among the first Potentials to Awaken, she has had fifty years to practice and refine her craft and prepare for the war to come. +2 Martial, +4 Practice
The Lance: The most powerful weapon on mass to energy basis in the star system. Bar none. Integration into Asi has only made it stronger. +4 Martial, +2 Practice
The Long War: For Kalilah, and many like her, the war with the Shiplord never ended. Where others built weapons and crafted designs and stratagems to defeat them, she sought to create in herself a weapon without peer. She knows Practice in some ways better than even you, and far more of war. +2 Martial, +4 Practice
Destroyer: She has tested herself against the works of the Shiplords, and they have fallen before her. In space and in person, none of her enemies have survived. If she has her way, none ever will. +5 Martial, increased damage
Unison Platform (Ace): Kalilah and Asi as a unit were always uniquely well suited to each other, more so than almost any other synchronisation on record, despite the complications that arose in the process. You doubt she will ever be a true match to Vega or you in the ability to extend the reach of her Focus. But where that Focus is concerned, she is utterly without peer.
Sword of Practice: By her hands, shall worlds be broken. By her will, shall vengeance be wrought upon those who took her world from her. By her power, she shall see it done. +3 Martial, +4 Practice
Relationship: Heartcircle
Martial: 14+2 = 16 (A childhood spent fighting for her life after everything she knew was snatched away by the Sorrows shaped a mind of cold precision to a sharpness so fine that it would often cut itself. Not a novice, but she has no desire to master war. It would cost her too much)
Diplomacy: 12-4+4+2 = 14 (Since she the Sorrows, Phoebe barely interacted with her classmates, and there was no Circle in her Institute to draw her out. In time she learnt to overcome the barriers she placed around herself, but it was always the work of necessity. Until Nightfalls, at least.)
Stewardship: 14-2+2+2 = 16 (Generally capable, her place as a leader for Insight was responsible for honing her skills as an administrator.)
Intrigue: 18+2 = 20 (Making it appear that everything was fine even when it wasn't was something Phoebe had always been good at. After the Sorrows, it became her only defence from a world gone mad. Few have ever pierced the cloak she wraps around her sorrow, but for those sensitive enough, it's easy to see.)
Learning: 17+4+2 =23 (Gifted with a mind a match to your own, Phoebe has followed a very focused path in her studies since Awakening as a Potential. She isn't your equal in general knowledge, but where it comes to Insight, she has few peers.)
Practice: 19+4+2+2 = 27 (The strength of a mind drawn in around itself lent well to Phoebe's Focus when she Awakened, and she's grown stronger in its use ever since, rising with Vega's help from the pain of Nightfalls even more so.)
Traits: Child of the Second Secret: Born before the Week of Sorrows, Phoebe benefitted from the same basic bioengineering package as you. +2 Martial
A Mind of Ice and Steel: Phoebe lost everything in the Sorrows. Family, wealth, home, all burned out beneath her feet leaving her with nothing and no one. In response, her mind turned in on itself, searching deeper and deeper for clarity that could free her from the pain. +4 Learning, +4 Practice - Lost to the World: She spent much of her early life after the Sorrows knowing better the cool hands of synthetic tutors, the most common staff in the Institutes. It sharpened her mind, but it also lost her much of her humanity. +2 Intrigue, +2 Learning, +2 Practice, -4 Diplomacy, -2 Stewardship - Found by Miracle: Not all of it, though. She'll never be one well suited to friends, but as the world flowered, she was found by one of the true miracles that flowed into the world between the Elder's passing and the Third's waking. Reaching out to find a path, she found one among many others. +4 Diplomacy
Seeker of Insight: That path was Insight, even though she'd never imagined being so much a part of it. For all that she will try to hide it, without Phoebe, Project Insight would never have existed. And from leading it, she learnt much. +4 Stewardship
The Reforged: And never more than in the aftermath of the event that almost shattered her world a second. The consequences of Nightfalls were catastrophic for Insight, and Phoebe herself. Yet she endured and, with Vega's help, rebuilt not just herself but the project that had become alike to a second family. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Practice
Martial: 11+1 = 12 (Mandatory self-defence training and constant practice as part of being a Minister after Kingslayer has given her competence, but she's no soldier.)
Diplomacy: 17+2+4 =23 (She always had the sparks of charisma, and time made them stronger. Your taking a hand in things has fanned them into a steady flame, that handily won a systemwide election.)
Stewardship: 17+3+2+2+2+4 =30 (Although her greatest passion remains design and creation, Adriana's skills as an administrator have grown by leaps in the years since she took the position of leading the Home Office. A true mistress of the art.)
Intrigue: 11+2 = 13 (Shading the truth has never been easy for Adriana, a product of a generation of children that had never known the pain of the Sorrows.)
Learning: 16+3+2 = 21 (Similar in some ways to Phoebe, Adriana's knowledge base is deeply focused around her passions. Always smart, new technology has given her entirely new ways to use her mind.)
Traits: Prologue: A complex set of nano-based enhancements and other upgrades, the standard nanite set grants a wide array of benefits, and once that was enough on its own. With the discovery of the Sixth Secret, however, things have changed. +1 Martial
- Ministerial Enhancement Package: Another part of the modular Sixth Secret systems that have become so much a part of life with the continuing Third Revolution, the Ministerial systems extend multi-tasking again, and are the baseline for the prototype network interface system pioneered during the arrival of the Contact Fleet. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue
- Prototype Neural Network Link: A very recent development, the neural interface created by this system is still in its testing phases. Enough has been done for it to be safely installed for Ministers, however, and so Lina has gained the ability to access the world around her in a very new and different way. +3 Learning, +2 Stewardship Natural Architect: Gifted at birth with an intuitive gift for how pieces could come together to form a much larger whole, much of Adri's initial rise to prominence was the result of effective use of what this made her capable of. +3 Stewardship - The Diligent Student: Talent will take you to good. Practice will take you to master. Words to live by, even if some of the meaning has changed since the first Potentials woke to their Foci. Adri didn't rely on the natural brilliance of her mind, she worked hard to improve it. +2 Stewardship, +2 Learning
Virtual Assistant: VI technology wasn't new when Adriana became interested in it, but what she went on to do with it would herald the coming of a new world. She catalysed a quantum leap in virtual intelligence systems, that with the Sixth Secret, have opened the door to the final revolution of humanity's existence. +2 Stewardship
Worldbuilder: Adriana's Ministership saw the creation of the first megastructures humanity has ever built, building upon old designs in creating the necessary infrastructure to entirely new ones to serve a grander purpose. Mercury is now sufficiently converted for construction projects and others just as vast now lie ahead. She won't be found wanting. +4 Stewardship, significant bonus to construction projects
Future's Promise: Some critics would say that you gave Adri many of the tools that she used to become President, connections and words in the right ears. Some critics are incapable of giving Adriana the credit she deserves. You might have served to connect her to the Circles, but it was her heart that won them. +4 Diplomacy, significant bonus to Third Revolution actions
Petite, and almost elfin in the delicacy of her features, Lina earned her title in the hardest school of all, combat against the Shiplord Tribute Fleets. Tens of thousands she sacrificed on the altar of survival, and she emerged from that action greatly changed, but no less committed to the course ahead. Under her eyes of steely blue, the FSN has been forged into a sword and shield in one, that will stand between humanity and the coming darkness in the war to come. She wears her pale-blonde hair short, easier to control, so she says. Rarely out of uniform, on those uncommon occasions where it is unsuitable, she chooses clothing of a military cut or the colours of the Fleet.
Martial: 19+1+4+2+4 = 30 (A consummate strategist and tactician, Lina has proven herself against Shiplords and grown all the greater for it. The first human to defeat a Shiplord fleet in battle, she's dedicated herself to preparing for the next one. And the one after that.)
Diplomacy: 12+2+3 = 17 (Leading a soon to be interstellar navy isn't just about knowing when to call which orders. Lina's nurtured the spark of defiant charisma that she was born with into something that can make men and women hold their posts against even the worst horrors.)
Stewardship: 15+2+2 = 19 (A leader needs presence and personality, but an understanding of logistics is just as important for the campaigns Lina and her staff can see in humanity's future. She might not be a wizard in the field, but she's learning. And quickly.)
Intrigue: 17+2+2 = 21 (The Second Battle of Sol relied entirely on a vast trap for the Tribute Fleet, and knowing how to set those is more than just a matter of tactics. Lina was always an unconventional strategist, and her ability to inject complex deception into her plans is perhaps the best example of that talent.)
Learning: 15+3 = 18 (Lina's knowledge base is of a very focused sort, and was never a true speciality. She understands how the technology of her warships functions, how it can be leveraged, but doesn't need a great deal more than that to do her job.)
Traits: Child of the Second Secret: Born before the Week of Sorrows, Lina benefitted from the same basic bioengineering package as you. +2 Martial Prologue: A complex set of nano-based enhancements and other upgrades, the standard nanite set grants a wide array of benefits, and once that was enough on its own. With the discovery of the Sixth Secret, however, things have changed. +1 Martial - Military Enhancement Package: Similar in many ways to Nilean Sanctity modules, the direct enhancement package applied to every member of humanity's military is extremely potent. Perceptual dilation, enhanced multitasking capabilities, and far more, the MEP was a key part of Lina's success in defeating the Shiplords at the Second Battle of Sol. +4 Martial, +2 Intrigue
- Ministerial Enhancement Package: Another part of the modular Sixth Secret systems that have become so much a part of life with the continuing Third Revolution, the Ministerial systems extend multi-tasking again, and are the baseline for the prototype network interface system pioneered during the arrival of the Contact Fleet. +2 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue
- Prototype Neural Network Link: A very recent development, the neural interface created by this system is still in its testing phases. Enough has been done for it to be safely installed for Ministers, however, and so Lina has gained the ability to access the world around her in a very new and different way. +3 Learning, +2 Stewardship
Void Mistress: Winning the Second Battle of Sol required more than martial skill, it required the ability to sacrifice, and deceive, and to do so in a format that humanity had never learned to fight in. Lina didn't just succeed in this task, she excelled, and in her example is seen hope that humanity may one day take back the stars from Shiplord tyranny. +2 Martial, +2 Intrigue, significant bonus to space combat rolls
Master and Commander: In the years following the Second Battle of Sol, Lina dedicated herself to the task of forging the sword she'd wielded against the Shiplords anew. Six years later, she's succeeded. The process taught her a great deal, about the Secrets, how they could be used in war, and how to bring military might together with words against a terrifying enemy. That skill she credits, in at least some small part, to you. +4 Martial, +3 Diplomacy
Relationship: Colleague
Kazuki was a contemporary of Amanda Hawk, and in a different world, the two might have forged a career together. As she put it herself once; if she'd had a hand in piecing the world's heart back together, he'd been one of the few who taught it to sing again. A fiercely passionate musician, his music found fertile ground in the golden years of Miracles before the discovery of the Pattern. When that was found, he shelved his focus on those things to take up the position of Secretary of State. Many among the World Congress questioned the judgement of placing a celebrity in that role, but there was more to the appointment than that. Amanda had spoken truly in naming Kazuki part of the world's music. With his help, she was able to bring it together, uniting humanity behind her in a way never before seen in human history. Even then, some doubted the effectiveness of simple moral unity, until the details of Purify were made public.
Stepping down at the end of the Hawk Presidency, Kazuki took a year off before returning to the music that he loved. The world had changed since his last performances, but the philosophies that underlay his music had only grown stronger. He made his return alongside several more recently popular acts, and here his experience in the State Department showed. Since then, he's started to coordinate performances on a system-wide level, helping up-and-coming groups access larger audiences, even performing alongside them sometimes as a supporting act. His passion is still music, but now he knows the full fragility of humanity, spelled out by the UPI report. He doesn't know if the circumstances that led to Purify can be replicated. But that's no reason not to try.
Marcus was one of the first set of Third Awakened to find their Foci, and part of a very limited number of that Awakening that learnt to turn their Focus inwards. With one of Gateways, Marcus became a living key to systems set in front of him. He concentrated on the Network during his training, constructing a Practiced Artefact that allowed him to enter it and fully apply his nature there. Although Minister for Security during the run-up to the Second Battle of Sol, he pioneered several major advancements in Practice theory around his frankly exemplary work securing Sol from Shiplord intrusion. More than any other member of the Hawk government, Marcus placed himself in direct, mortal danger more times than he's ever been willing to admit. He brought down the Shiplord subnet, and years later broke into the networks of a Tribute Fleet with Vision's help. Without what they found there, the Second Battle of Sol could have gone very differently. It was brilliant work, all of it, but it solidified in his mind that Ministerial position wasn't for him.
He remained with the Ministry of Security when Adriana Thera took the Presidency, but not as Minister, a situation that suited him far better. His skills as a leader and administrator had come far since his early years, but with what his Focus could do, he couldn't see himself ever being outside the line of fire in major conflict points. That wasn't a good position for a Minister, at least not for his Ministry. Today, he works with Vision and a team of specialists to prepare Sol for the next attack. He won't be satisfied until the Network's protections will stop him. Neither he nor Vision know if that's even possible, but they're not the type to give up.
Part of the last wave of Third Awakened, Mir finished his training as a Potential during the Hawk Presidency. Awakened to a Focus of Peace, his limits in a time of war were painfully clear from the very beginning. Trained as a Maker, he helped supply the FSN with the parts it needed to complete First Fleet on schedule. After the Second Battle of Sol, he made the jump to the Rebirth Institute, the psychological support organisation that rose from the Circles in the wake of that conflict. His Focus was far better suited there, but he still found it difficult to apply. He was competent, yes, but as time wore on he recognised that he wasn't content. This drove the choice that would bring him into a much more visible part of the world.
In early 2120 he underwent synchronisation trials for the two hundred and twenty second Unison Platform and succeeded in linking to the Platform. The synchronisation itself was largely unremarkable, but the results certainly weren't. All Unisonbound experience a 'widening' oftheir Focus after synchronisation, but Mir's was greater than any recorded. His Focus had been the Peace of a young man and that had limited him more than anyone around him had been able to understand. On completing synchronisation with Sakina, the breadth of that Focus exploded far beyond the limits of his training. The Peace that was always so much a part of his self, poured into something so much more, that he's still grappling with two years later.
Although quick to smile and deeply content in his new role, Mir remains unsure about his placement in the Heartcircle he was chosen to. Some of this is his past; the effect that the leaders of that group had on his life is hard to understate. The rest is more complicated.
Part of the Second Awakening, Elil is no great example of an Insight Focused, like Phoebe or Veda. Yet he remains a deeply valued member of your Heartcircle, with a way of looking at the world that allows him to separate himself from the passions of the other Foci present. Where Mending and Harmony could clash with Destruction, Elil soothes the passage between you, finding ways to bring those Foci together. He has been a steadfast ally, and in the last battle was the architect of discovering the truth of the final weapon deployed against you by the Shiplords. A valued comrade in battle, and a friend.
Almost forty years your junior, that Lea possesses a Focus of Mending is quite remarkable given the manner of the Third's choices. It is not Mending in the same manner as yourself, however. Lea exemplifies the ideal that all things break, and to be truly restored, they must. She stood at the heart of the action that unleashed Purify upon the Shiplords in the Second Battle of Sol, and though she has recovered from the trauma of that experience, the battle changed her. In battle, she acts as the primary Mender for your Heartcircle, with your own focus being upon Speaking and more advanced Practice manipulation. Since her inclusion into your Heartcircle, Lea has been a steady point in your life pushing you to exist less in the abstract. That has been worth far more than most would think, but those who know you understand.
The first friendly alien that humanity ever saw. Kendl is the Emissary of the Nilean Community among the Contact Fleet and the overall leader of the fleet's diplomats. Hundreds of years old, Kendl has seen races rise and fall against the Shiplord tests, and known that there was nothing her species could do about it. Officially a diplomat, her reactions in key situations speak to a level of personal skill and combat proficiency that no diplomat would ever have. For as long as she doesn't use those skills, the Diplomatic Corps will not allow anyone to push, but what she can do has been burning a hole in the Ministry of Security's team of Concordia ever since Second Contact. That event saw her changed by a Spoken Word, something she was only able to come to grips with with the help of the woman who inflicted it. Tasked as humanity's envoy to the Contact Fleet, Amanda did more to help along the process of reaching a proper negotiating table than any could. She counts Kendl as a friend, and this feeling is thought to be reciprocated with a high degree of certainty. Exactly where friendship with a member of another species might lead, no one's quite sure.
Observer Lorelli is perhaps the most difficult of the entire Contact Fleet's diplomats, and not just due to the human looks that have now been confirmed to be the result of nanoscuplt. A moderating influence on the Fleet's internal diplomatic politics, she suggested the social affairs that opened a window into the strange new peoples who'd come to humanity's doorstep. Not that it didn't do the reverse, either. Lorelli was a favourite of the press, and proved very capable of handling them. Her connection with Amanda Hawk stems from a similar source as that with Emissary Merizan, but what Envoy Hawk did for the Marionette Observer was vastly more important on a geopolitical level. After agreeing to take part in a process known as the Reverie, Amanda successfully connected to the racial memory complex of the Marionettes, the first alien in the history of their species to do so. The final implications of this connection are unlikely to be known until Lorelli can return home, but the memory she shared was important enough that the two have kept in intermittent contact ever since Amanda left Concordia in the final months of 2121.
Name: Harold Hawk Age: 73, Juno's twin. Description: Broad-shouldered, with light and slightly thin hair, worn short. Well-built and quite tall. Wears a pair of AR glasses, that allows for casual interface with more advanced parts of the Network than the virtual panels that have become the most common interface point. Personality: Calm and methodical, Harry was the strongest rock of the Hawk family after their parents were taken during the Week of Sorrows. An avid supporter of the 3rd Revolution, for a variety of reasons. History: He and Juno took on the roles of their lost parents in many ways, and they were the ones that taught Amanda to let go of the pain of that loss. They remained a major part of their sibling's lives, if in slightly different ways to those they'd expected. He was part of the First Heart, and remains a respected member of the Circles. His speciality is software design and development, and he's a second stage tester for 3rd Revolution technology for the Home Office. Family: Married with two children.
Name: Juno Age: 73, Harold's twin. Description: The tallest member of the family, with a few inches on Harry, Juno is a pale girl with dark hair and freckles that bring out her green eyes. She's rarely seen without an interface device for the VI companion that she's had since before the Week of Sorrows. Personality: Quiet even as a child, Juno was changed in some ways by the Week of Sorrows that only became obvious in later life. A perfectionist almost to a fault, she's not sure how she feels about the 3rd Revolution as Harry describes it, but is content to see how things change. As long as it doesn't cost too much for too little return. History: Juno was responsible for the Hawks' ability to survive on their own after the Week of Sorrows, a result of a natural talent for administration and her control of the family's VI. A rare possession in the pre-Sorrows world, Auntie Vi was the family's primary means of accessing care in the months that followed. Before Amanda ventured out into their Institute in her tentative quest to create her first Circle, the Hawk name was already known due to her older sister's work in helping others with their caretaker VIs. She pursued an education in economic theory, and holds a mid-level position in the Home Office's Department for Economic Development. Family: Triad partnership. No children of her own.
Name: Alden Age: 70 Description: Almost a carbon copy of his older brother, Alden has a slimmer build that makes him seem even taller and the same eyes as his most famous sister. Personality: Very affected by the twins as a child, few get to see the warmth that lurks beneath the regimented exterior he presents to the world. That exterior won him promotion within the FSN, but also held him back from some decisions he still wishes he'd taken before the Second Battle of Sol. History: Served as the XO on a Tower-class during the Second Battle of Sol. Suspects that Amanda may have pulled a string or two to ensure he was on one of those ships before the battle. Slated for command of one of the next-generation capital ships, his service against the Tribute Fleet won him a promotion to a task force commander. Family: Married after one of his partners was killed during the Second Battle of Sol. Four children.
Name: Georgie Age: 67 Description: Very short, and with a middling build, but her personality more than makes up for it. Personality: Incessantly active, and always ready with laughter and a smile. She hates her name, but is grudgingly accepting of the nickname given to her by Amelie. She can't deny that it fits. History: Georgie was the first of the Hawk family to smile after the Week of Sorrows, and has a way of searching for silver linings in all but the worst things. She trained as an engineer at the Institute, and was involved in the development of several out-system Orbitals. Lived on the Icarus Orbital until shortly after the Second Battle of Sol, is now involved in FSN reconstruction projects. Well-loved by the Circles that she's been part of in her time. Arguably the most travelled of the family. Family: Three children, one long-'suffering' husband. The occasional addition.
Name: Jordan Age: 64 Description: Auburn hair, grey/blue eyes. Slim with some light muscle. Personality: Precise but extremely mischievous, Jordan is without a doubt the most capable of intrigue and sneakiness within your family. His capability to see into the truth of things and then bend them creatively to beneficial purposes left him bouncing between various roles for History: Currently involved in the Diplomatic Corps in a support role. Well suited to it from learning from Juno growing up. It's a different type of administration, but he's no less gifted for it. In truth, however, he functions as part of the Ministry of Security apparatus built into the Diplomatic Corps to secure its members and watch for infiltration or subversion attempts. Family: Unmarried, no children.
Name: Amelie Age: 61 Description: Blessed with suntouched skin, Amelie has dirty blonde hair and warm, blue eyes that are almost a perfect match for her much more famous sister's. Slimly built and of middling height, she used to joke that if she put on high heels and dyed her hair she could act as a body double for Mandy. Personality: Perpetually cheerful, Amelie has followed in 'Mandy's footsteps in many ways, not least in her desire to help others be happy. She might not be a Potential, but she makes up for that 'lack' with a fiercely human tenacity. History: Probably the most deeply affected by Amanda's Awakening as a Potential and what followed, Amelie pursued a mixed education in conservation and psychology. She loves nature, and can often be found out in its depths, trying to find one of the rare species that pre-Sorrows records talk about for herself. The Home Office has her on record as a Conservation Specialist and pays her way on these expeditions. A current member of the First Heart, she's deeply involved with the Rebirth Institute and is a full-time counsellor in the organisation. Family: Seven children between three partner. Quaternary partnership of four pairs.
The mechanics of this quest are split across three related sections: Major Actions, Minor Actions and Personal Actions. All follow the same rules for rolling: d100 + Personal + Modifiers. There are some differences in play in how they function and what they can do, however.
Research Actions allow you to pursue development across fields of your choice with a speed and accuracy rivalling that of relevant Ministries. This research can run the gamut from the study of Secrets, to general material/biological/etc. science, to Practice techniques, to the archaeological work that is going through the Elder Vault. In certain areas, your ability to move through research is actually faster than the Ministries, due to the collective intelligence of Arcadia's scientists.
Major Actions cover broad sweeps of society or knowledge, and involve Amanda acting personally on the macro scale. Investigating the Elder's Vault or direct support for the Third Revolution would be valid uses of a Major Action. These actions have the capacity to alter human society on the same level as government action. Major Actions branch into a selection of choices in a sub-turn, similar to how Altered Humanity's action system works. The direction of these options are listed below the Major Action. [CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE}
Minor Actions are, as the name implies, smaller than Major, but the difference is primarily in focus. These actions would be the ones you'd use for reconnecting with and guiding particular parts of the Circles, training with the Unisonbound, and more focused research; a section instead of the entire sphere. If combined with governmental priorities, these can create 10 + 5 = 20 results like Hero Actions in the old system.
Personal Actions remain what they were. Extremely focused actions that will primarily affect you more than anything else. Spending time with Mary, making time for your siblings, personal focus on Words or on trying to sense the links between things. These can have some effect on the world around you, but it'll be much less powerful then even Minor actions.
Notes
Synergy can exist between all action types, and governmental priorities.
Write-ins are entirely acceptable for all Action types, but the Write-in option will not be listed for Major Actions. If you have a suggestion, tag me, and I'll work up a set of associated choices.
A Note On Write-In Votes
Due to the often extremely open choices presented in character focused sections in the quest, two-stage voting will often be used in events where one option has not swept the board. In this event, a temporary threadmark will be created after the voting has mostly solidified, and a second vote will be called (often a Ranked one of some variant) to produce the winner.
Given how vote tallies inflate the word count of a post, this should appear through your alerts if you're subscribed to the thread. This will never be used for Turn votes, and will only be used for character focused ones when there is no clear winner.
You were only a child when the Shiplords darkened the skies of Earth, and in some ways that was a mercy. You do not bear the scars of the First Awoken, who were forced to watch as their world was torn down before their very eyes. But in other ways the price you paid that dreadful week was far greater. The family of your blood, stripped from you by the casual demand of an enemy who was infinitely your species' better in the ways of the void. To be left with only the friends of your age and a handful of mentors soon worn ragged in their attempts to care for you in the midst of their own grief. Perhaps you did not understand the depth of Shiplords' atrocity then, but you do now.
In time you grew older, into a world that was stripped of so much that you had before taken for granted. Many of you were more often tended to by your fellows or the calm whisper of synthetic systems then any true adult. They tried so very hard to be with you, to be with all of you, but it was an impossible task. Three hundred million to tend to nine times their number, what more could you expect. It is not that you judge their actions, they were right to do what they did for there were far larger things at stake than the minor emotional traumas of children left without true parents. In the fifty years since the Shipborn came they saw to the continuation of human civilisation, the wiser Potentials among them shepherding you into a future that they hoped would be without further pain. But perhaps you were luckier, and saw more clearly than most.
Pick two:
[] Child of the Lost World – You were blessed in your luck, for one of your parents was spared in the Shiplords' purge. Of all the children of Earth, you were among the tiny handful who enjoyed the relatively normalcy of steady parenting. It was not the easiest of upbringings for many directed the pain of their loss into anger against you, but even then you had your family to focus upon. [Cannot be taken with A Lonesome Soul]
- [] Child of a First Awoken – Your parent was one of those who awoke to the gifts of a Potential when you were but small, and although their seemingly constant need to Practice dominated your life it also gave you something of an edge in knowledge when you awoke a member of the Second Awakening.
[] Sibling Born – Young as you were, and part of a large family, you were not cast entirely adrift in the world when it fell. Although your parents may have been taken from you, you and your siblings had long since learned to care for each other and that skill proved vital and well-taught as you grew to adulthood. [Cannot be taken with A Lonesome Soul]
[] A Lonesome Soul – You were an only child, or one whose entire family was of adult age when the Shiplords descended, and you paid for that. Your parents, siblings, all ripped away from you without mercy. You learned to bear the pain in time, but it did not leave you unscathed. [Cannot be taken with Child of the Lost World or Sibling Born]
[] Distant Ties – Although your closest family was taken from you, the Shiplords did not get all. A distant relative of some type was spared, or some cousins remained under adult age and eventually they found you. Not the family you had lost, but a family nonetheless.
[] Mentored – Not as lucky as the few left with parents, but in you one of the few remaining adults saw some spark of note. You have never quite been sure what; the memory of a lost companion, the brightness of your mind, or perhaps the pain of your loss. Whatever it was, they took you under their wing and gave you all the care and teaching that their limited time could give.
[] The World's Orphan – You were without luck, cousins or mentor. When the Shiplords came everything was pared away and you retreated into yourself. You spent much of your years as a child knowing the touch of synthetic carer better than any human life, and when you emerged you were possessed of an iron focus more suited to those limited intelligences.
[] Heart and Hearth – Something in you rejected the pain that the Shiplords' had visited upon you and all those your age, and so you bent all of your talent to unmaking that sorrow. You came to be the heart of a group of children who cared for each other, a Circle of friendship and mutual care that has endured even to today. You would not call yourself a leader, and you flinch from the word hero, but the world sees as it chooses.
- [] Mentor to a Third – Even as you grew into full adulthood, you did not lose contact with the younger of the Circle, and when one awoke to Potential you saw it as nothing less than your duty to guide them in the ways of their new power.
Whatever the circumstances of your birth, you remember how the eldest of the First Awoken looked at you, with eyes that hid a fragile and almost desperate hope. In you they saw the seeds of a new world, one that they could plant the roots of but might never see bloom in full. They taught you all they could, and passed to you that fragile seed of civilisation that they had nurtured. With your Awakening as a Potential, you found yourself seeing far more of them as well, for they were the teachers of the Second.
The Second Awakening was an Awakening of knowledge and clarity, the product of a generation taught that their duty and place was to be the root of a reborn humanity. In Awakening, you and your fellow Potentials came to Focuses that saw into the truth of things, that led to great depths of knowledge untapped by mankind, and that would continue the work of mending and rebirth that the elders of the First had set in motion. When it came to yourself, you were little different.
Pick your Focus:
[] Insight
[] Knowledge
[] Mending
[] Write-in (I reserve the right to veto if it's outside of theme)
Getting somewhere on mechanics slowly but surely. This is short, I know, but there are a bunch of decisions that need to be made in char-gen here, so I'm focusing on getting the meat of that out. Longer updates should be the trend once we're into the story proper (I hope)
The following options still remain from the SBOS interlude choices:
Promised Victory - A human perspective to the Second Battle of Sol, will extend into the wider reaction of humanity.
There is a great deal about humanity that has not been properly discussed in the narrative of the story at present, so if you would like me to explore something, don't hesitate to ask. In most cases, I'll be happy to put something together for you!
Or you choose an Alien perspective, giving cultural snippets or insight into how the polities you've seen in the Alien Reactions interlude went about putting their contact mission together. A perspective like this would expand your knowledge of the polity, probably their opinions of their fellows, and also give a viewport into how they worked around the Shiplords (and the degree to which they are are aware of Shiplord oversight). Polity options at present are as follows:
Sarthee: One of the only 'warrior' species that survived the tests of the Shiplords, and the oldest of the Group of Six. Extensive military power, but their star appears to be waning now with the growth of a sizeable Uninvolved movement.
Schorvan: Least expanded of the Group of Six, appears cautious.
Marionettes: Displayed historical knowledge on the matter of Tribute Fleet defeats, beyond that of other races. Seem to have some ability to 'cheat' where biological reactions are concerned. Reference to genetic knowledge.
Interludes from the perspective of Uninvolved are denied. Other possibilities do exist, however. As with human-centric suggestions, don't hesitate to ask.
You were lucky compared to many when the Shiplords inflicted the Week of Sorrows upon humanity. Gifted with a large family, you and your siblings were well acquainted to caring for each other. And when your parents were ripped away, you were able to share the grief and pain, letting the venom that could have turned to hatred or iron simply drain away. It is not that you emerged from the cataclysm that was the Week of Sorrows unharmed, but your wounds did not scar. They healed and faded with time, and in the family you had been left behind you were able to find a semblance of peace.
It wasn't enough for just you and your sibs to be freed of pain, however. With the clarity that even limited peace can bring, and a firm belief that for all that your past had been of pain it would not define your future, you chose to try and share that gift. Many of the children of the generation of the Second had siblings left behind. Few indeed found it in themselves to share as you did. Children are, after all, selfish.
You were not most children. But it was a little more complicated than that.
In the pain of your fellows you saw something, some fragment of beauty and utterly human majesty that went far beyond the mere material. Something almost more sensed then seen, in truth, for even as an adult you stumbled to explain such a thing. To children, when you were one yourself? And not just children, but children cast adrift by their lack of a firm foundation and with little to hold to. In hindsight it is a miracle that infant mortality rates didn't explode upwards for a generation, if only from the influence of suicide. For many of your generation that miracle were the sleeved virtual intelligences that served as your primary caretakers in the Institutes that were built quickly before the Week of Sorrow came to an end. For those who shared the Institute with you and your sibling family, the miracle ended up being quite different. And far more human.
It was hard and often frightening to break through the shells of pain that choked the joy from many of those within, but for you it was worth it. To see eyes full of pain blink away the haze of sorrow that clouded them. To see laughter and hear joy, outside of the rooms that you shared with your family. To see many single people become something more, and know you had played a part in the healing that led to it. There was no greater privilege, and no greater reward. That is not, however, to say that you were good at it to begin with.
***
"I said go away!" The door slammed shut in your face, and your shoulders slumped. You were starting to realise that maybe the social instincts that your siblings had taught you were maybe a little ill-suited to the task that you had set yourself. Take the current example, an Orphan Entire in their early teens that you'd seen a few times watching the little meetings you'd started to hold with those willing to talk. It wasn't much, but it was also far more than the nothing they'd had before. That was what you told yourself, at least. You had been so certain that they'd been interested too, why else would they have been watching? Although in fairness, it might not have been wise to lead with that statement. The blazing anger that had resulted from that had made you feel like you'd been on them, instead of the other way around. That just wasn't fair!
Both fortunately and unfortunately, you were stubborn. You tapped the intercom switch.
"Look, I just-" The light on the comm flicked red, cutting the link. You sighed, then tried again – had you mentioned that you were stubborn?
"I only-"
"It isn't as i-"
"I'm sorry." The light remained a steady green this time and you took a hopeful breath.
"Sorry for what?" The reply was short, guarded. Everything you were not equipped to deal with effectively. But you'd come this far, and not trying would be giving up.
"I…" you stumbled on the words at first, "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm very sorry that I did, I just wanted to help."
"Is that what you call your little power games? Help?"
"That isn't what it's about." You were on more familiar ground here, you'd met this worry before and in a very similar way. "Not at all!"
"Oh really?" Their tone was almost caustic.
"Yes." You took a steadying breath, then spoke carefully. "Look, we all had families once, before the Week of Sorrow-" you were cut off again, by tightly leashed anger.
"And you just want to add us all to your own, don't you!" Only years later would you recognise the fear that drove the anger beneath that statement.
"No…no!" You shook your head, even though you knew they couldn't see you on the other side of the door. "That isn't it at all. I don't want siblings, I want to try and build a family. I remember being told once, that you can't change your blood, but that friends are the family you choose." You stood in the silence for a moment. "The Shipords made us alone, but there's no reason that we have to stay that way."
To this day you're not sure where those words came from, only that they ended up being the right ones. There was a very long pause, but the comm light remained green, so you waited. A minute went by, then another, and you possessed yourself of what little patience you had at that age. Then, finally, the door slid open and a slender figure extended a hand.
"What's your name?"
Name:
[Write-in]
Are you:
[] Male
[] Female
"It's nice to meet you." You said, taking their hand. "So…would you like to come to the next meeting?"
"I would like to see it. I will tell you afterwards if I will be a part of it."
***
In the end the group grew despite your occasional mishaps, steadily increasing in size as what you wanted to create penetrated through seemingly endless layers of blindness. Pain and grief are hard veils to cast aside, but the hope of peace, of healing are as powerful as they are terrifying. And the friendship you offered in the foundations of what would become the Circle provided a beacon of human goodness that all were free to join in. Many did not join so much as they became a part of what you had made, and without them it never would have grown to such a size. Those who did join, however, became a part of its heart. For many, the Circle was a place of friendship, somewhere that offered human interactions in a world so deprived of it. But for those at its heart, it was the chosen family.
Perhaps it should have been expected then that such good work would attract the attention of the adults who minded the Institution as best they could. At first they were confused, for the pattern you had made was not a common one, for it was entirely without the power games that some had chosen to play in other Institutes. It was simply a safe home and harbour for any searching for it. You rejected any commendations, however, for to you it was only what was right. Humanity had been wounded, but it had not been lost. Part of humanity was its spirit. And the body healed poorly without a healthy mind and soul behind it.
Little wonder then that when you rose as part of the Second Awakening, you found your Focus in the work of Mending. Instead of building things anew, you sought to repair that which had been broken, and make much of it impossible to break. It separated you a little from those at the heart of the Circle who were not like you, but it did not break your connection with them. You sometimes wonder if anything ever could.
Your greatest gift was that of a rebuilder, and that power led to the offer of studying under those of the First Awoken whose Focuses lay in wisdom and renewal themselves. It would take you away from the Circle, but the First Awoken's understanding of Potentials was beyond compare. In the end, you decided to:
[] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[] Apprentice to the First – The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
You have wondered if you made the right choice on a few occasions, but what you gained always feels to have been worth what you might have lost. With your path set as a Potential, your years as a child passed quickly, but you did have some time for things beyond Practice. You even had the chance to pick up an interest or two:
[] Music – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways (Write-in an instrument if you have one in mind, or I'll pick one myself).
[] Sports – whilst the advanced training regimes of the Institutes did not allow for any to neglect their bodies, for you there was something clean and clear about the simple pleasures of competing with your peers in the purely physical. This only became more so after you awoke as part of the Second Awakening.
[] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[] Visual arts – there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
[] Write-in (something appropriate to a teenager)
Next up will be working out your adult life, settling a few bits from your childhood, and then we should be heading into the story proper.
A mechanics update: I'm probably going to run this on a d100 base, with percentage chances of success assigned to possible actions. Not sure how I'm going to split them up, exactly, but I'm getting there.
"Amanda. Friends call me Mandy." You smiled a little, but restrained yourself from anything more, reaching out to shake.
"Mary." The reply was a little less terse than before, and you chose to take that as a victory of some kind. It wasn't as if it was untrue. She was a slender girl, with dark brown hair that was soft just to look at, although few could manage that for long without flinching from her gaze. Those green eyes of hers had seen far too much in her early years.
Although it took time, Mary grew eventually to be one of your closest friends within the Circle; after managing to extract herself from the many-layered shell that had long contained her. Some of those layers were of pain, and those you and the fledging Circle could empathise with and share, but the rest? The rest were older and in some ways even stronger, for they lay with her name. Mary Alessandra D'reve; only daughter of the leading scientist for the project that unlocked the First Secret. She'd been with her family on Mars at the start of the Week of Sorrows, and had only survived due to the sacrificial genius of her father. That loss had hardened her, but it had been a brittle thing in truth. Made all the worse by the minor celebrity accorded to her by a great many of the adults, and the few who despite all attempts could not change their belief that the same father who had saved her had been responsible for the Week of Sorrows itself. It is not that they were exactly wrong, but it is a hard thing to be subjected to the sins of lost family when you are all of twelve.
Behind the pain and guilt, however, was one of the few ways to reach through it. A deeply powerful analytic mind that even buried beneath trauma was able to see the world in a way you've never been able to match. Mary had all the genius of her father, maybe more, and it was in that shared passion for science that you were able to slowly help her put to rest the shadows that choked her heart. She, more than anyone else in the Institute, was the one responsible for the joy that you still feel in the pursuit of discovery through science. It reminds you of what it was able to do, even if the material was entirely unrelated to matters of the mind. And in truth, Mary was the reason you knew so much of how the world worked when the Second Awakening came to pass. Today, she is one of the few scientists capable of keeping up with Potentials.
A long way to come, and though she jokes sometimes about the part the Circle played in it, you know her well enough to see below the laughter. Although she's never said so, and you'd never dare to yourself, the truth is that the Circle saved her. Just as much as she saved it, if what she told you when you were fifteen had been an accurate prediction. Try as you might, you couldn't quite bring yourself to discount the predictions of a theoretical prodigy in reality physics.
***
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
Fifteen. Four years after you had begun trying to create the Circle, with it growing now towards full bloom, and six months after you became a Potential. That was the year that the offer from the First Awoken came, the leaders of the entire world extending a hand to aid in your teaching. You almost accepted it, too. The chance to study under those who had honed similar or matched Focuses to your own for decades, it had been beyond your wildest expectations. What you might have been able to do now, or understand, sometimes you curse for the opportunities lost to you. By the time you had time to focus on that offer again, almost all of the elder First had died. But there had been the Circle to leave behind, and Mary's prediction to take into account; given bare hours before you had to make your choice.
She'd called you that morning, and when you'd met her you had been shocked by the state of her. Tablets and hardcopy scattered around her rooms, full of scribbling and what you were able to guess was a sociological analysis of some type. You didn't have time to look any closer before she dragged you over to one of the slightly less cluttered tables and sank down in front of it. Being currently connected by handholding, you sat down beside her.
"Mary, what's wrong?" You asked, gesturing at the absolute state that your friend and her room were currently in. "I've not seen you get this focused on something for over a year," you ran back through your memory of the last few days, trying to remember when last you'd talked with her. "Have you been locked up in here for the whole week?"
"I locked myself in, but yes, pretty much." Mary replied, quietly focused on the tablet in front of her. Looking down, you saw a progress bar and an elapsed time of over three days on the current calculation on the screen, with another timer ticking steadily down towards zero. You tried again.
"Mary." You looked over at your friend, doing your best to be as serious as possible. "What is this about?" For a moment you thought she hadn't heard you, then she looked up from the screen.
"You really don't know, do you." She said softly, shaking her head. "Amanda, the choice you have right now, it doesn't just effect you. It affects me, your friends, and everyone else we try to help." You opened your mouth, but she waved you to silence. "These last few days I've been trying to put together simulations on what would happen if you left. I think you recognised the basic social analysis, but what's running on this is a lot more complicated." She nodded at the tablet.
"Even though it's still in progress, I'm almost certain I know the results. What you started can survive without you here, but it will not prosper. There's no one to take the place that you have in its centre." She held up a finger and swiped it across the space between you to underline her point. "Mandy, there isn't. Trust me." You swallowed.
"Why didn't you come to me about this earlier?" You said at last, your thoughts whirling. "Did you not think it would have changed my mind?" You would be angry with yourself later for how hurt those words were.
"Of course I thought it would!" Mary snapped at you. "Stupid girl." She sighed. "I wanted to be sure before I said anything. If I was wrong, and you gave up the opportunity because of what I said to you…" Your anger flared out as abruptly as it had risen as Mary explained.
"I…" you reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mary. And you're right, it is a great opportunity, but at the same time." You gestured at a picture on the girl's desk, of the of you and your close friends who lay at the centre of the circle of friends that you'd made. "Do you think I'd risk giving that up?" You asked gently. "The offer from the Elder First is one that is incredibly generous, but I never was one for accolades, you know that. And I think you of all people can testify to my stubbornness." Mary managed a laugh at that, but it was a high thing, grounded in heavy tension and an unsure mind.
"Are you sure? It's a chance of a lifetime…"
"I'm sure." You nodded at the picture again, and your voice was very soft. "The Elder First could give me power in my Practice, and great understanding too. But if you and the others, my chosen family, would not prosper as a result of that? That's not who I am, Mary." You squeezed her shoulder again. "If it was, what I'd made would be just what you'd accused me of it being the first time we met." You took a breath, searching for more words and were cut off as Mary hugged you.
"I'm glad." She said when she drew back. "Do you think the Elders will understand?"
"I don't really care." You chuckled at the expression of your friend. "They gave this as an offer, at least a little because of what I'd done at this Institute. Some of them had to know I might refuse for the very same reason." Reaching down, you turned off the tablet on the table, then sprang to your feet. "Now, you need some food."
That afternoon you thanked for First dearly for their offer, but told them you had no choice but to reject it. The bonds you had made with those at the Institute were more important to you. A few seemed a little snubbed by the behaviour of one so much their junior, but most seemed to understand. The current head said that they would arrange for what long distance work they could manage, and then you were free to go.
***
That act set the tone of your teenage years, a firm focus on that which was most precious to you. You were separated from your friends often in class, few of them waking as Potentials so many of your classes were very different, but you were still in the same place. That was enough. They might jokingly complain about the differences in homework; where theirs was mostly papers and writing, yours was far more practical, but it was good to be with them. It sometimes helped, too. Practice at its deepest level was a method of making more of the hard work that went into an item or piece of technology. You had to have the basics of a thing down before you could do anything with it. Here is where you were so lucky to have made friends with Mary. Although you didn't understand the complexities of it, you'd ventured deep enough into the avenues of physics and chemistry related to what you were doing with her that you could understand that basics. And that was far more than many of the others in your classes as Potentials had.
That more advanced understanding was what led to you working out for yourself that you could actually fix Practiced items that others had made. It was a surprise to you at the time, but after actually working on some you started to realise why. A Practiced item was willed to be what it was, a far closer to perfect example of what it had started out as, but that was the problem as well. When one of those magnificent creations broke the exemplary qualities were also damaged and it was easier for most Potentials to simply discard the work at that point and build it again. But for you, with the focus of Mending? It was simple, if not exactly easy at first, to take broken pieces and fuse them back into what they had been before. The science behind it was insane, the equations that Mary showed you on the subject made your brain want to break, but you didn't need them. Just time and Practice.
There was more to it than that, however. Before the Week of Sorrows, humanity had worked out how to modify much about themselves, including their own lifespan. Such gifts, however, had been forbidden under the Directives. With the slow beginnings of a new generation, however, there was suddenly a need for new ways to grant similar things to the new children of humanity that would come to be born in the future. And in your late teens into early adulthood, this is where your focus would lie. A good thing then that you were also well versed in biology, if your teachers hadn't ensured it, Mary had been insistent that all of her friends would have a well-rounded knowledge of the sciences. You're pretty sure she got some of the stubbornness in that pursuit from you.
But there was time for some, more artistic pursuits around your classes. Whilst the visual arts drew your interest at first, this soon transitioned towards music when you found that you had sadly little talent for painting, although you did do your best to refine your sketching until it was at least presentable. It was in music that you found a gift that rivalled in your mind the incredible power of your ability to Practice. You'd not actually practiced it until you were thirteen, but it had been the steady ear and fine voice you displayed around your friends on occasion that had led to one of them dragging you off to the music tutor for the Institute one day.
He'd sat you down for a full day and given you instruments to play, until about half way through you told him that you liked to sing. He'd chuckled, then shrugged, handed you a songbook and asked you to pick one. Four hours later you'd left the room with a sore throat and a spark of light dancing in your eyes.
Even if my spirit is broken in to two.
I swear on all that's left that I will never cry.
If there's hope still in my heart, when belief's the hardest part.
That's why my song must still continue on.
After that day, you made a point of at least four hours a week dedicated to practicing. The first few weeks you thought your voice would actually break, but the muscles in your throat grew stronger with time. And you found an outlet for the creativity that you'd long, albeit unknowingly, suppressed. It wasn't that you'd meant to, but the creation of the Circle had required a price of time and also passion. Passion that had no outlet once it became stable, until you found music.
Singing became your escape from the rest of the world, but over time it expanded to be more than that as well. From it you learned to see the beauty that lay in words and music when arrayed together, and that idea wormed its way into many other things. The carefree joy you felt when singing was similar in some ways to the feelings that surged through your soul when you were one with your Focus. That was often a hard place to find for those new to being a Potential, but your singing gave you something similar to reach for. You've wondered in later life if it might be possible to work your Practice into the words that you sing, but you've never gone beyond idle thought.
***
But finally, your time in the Institute came to an end and you graduated into the world, a Potential of Mending. Your first task was set for you, working with the others who shared similar Focuses to find a way to replicate the biotechnology that had done so much to improve your own quality of life without breaking the Directives. After that however, you had many years to pursue your own goals before the discoveries that shook the world so terribly nine years ago.
Pick up to three:
[] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[] The Gentlest Balm – singing wasn't just a hobby for you, it was something that was a deeply personal part of who you are, and you were rather good at it. Although you were never able to focus entirely on it, you had something of a career as a singer and discovered a true gift as a songwriter.
[] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[] A Focused Soul – although you did reject the offer from the Elder First to study under them, after graduating you found time to read as much as you could of their writings on Practice and spent many years honing your craft as a Potential.
[] Unbreakable Shield – the Focus of Mending was able to do more than repair. It could also make things stronger, even able to repair itself. Aware of how much humanity had lost, you chose to make those things that had been created to defend them stronger. If you could, you would make them unbreakable.
[] Mysteries of the Void – you helped those Potentials of Knowledge and other, similar things in their search for answers about humanity's enemy. Although Mending was of little help in finding the answers themselves, your Focus let you repair equipment when it broke with the need for it to be completely remade.
[] Personal Practice – although generally Practice could only be worked on objects, Potentials were able to extend some parts of their Focus into their own body. In general, this gave the same gifts, but some chose to go further in their attempts to make their own bodies instruments of Practice. You were one such Potential.
[] Write-in
A bit more about you.
Eyes:
[] Blue
[] Green
[] Brown
[] Write-in (within reason)
Hair:
[] Black
[] Brown
[] Red
[] Blonde
[] Write-in (within reason)
This took a bit longer than I'd expected. Sorry about that. There should at most be one more set of votes after this for building Amanda, then we'll be into the thick of things.
Graduation brought many opportunities for a Potential, but it brought responsibility too, especially for those of Restoration aspects. With the first new children beginning to be born, it was seen as entirely wrong that they not benefit from the same gifts your generation had enjoyed. Whilst much of what had been given by the Second Secret would breed true, some would not. And it wasn't as if you and those like you disagreed with the sentiment. The result was Project Prologue, the combined work of almost two score Potentials building upon a comparatively ancient piece of nanotechnology. Research into the field had been all but abandoned after the discovery of the Second Secret, but the Directives made use of that impossible. So we searched for another way, and in a discarded beginning we found the solution.
Project Prologue took the few practical examples that had been built before the Second Secret had made mechanical enhancement entirely obsolete and made them something more. From a rudimentary system only just capable of interfacing with the human biological system without triggering rejection, you and the other Restorer Focused created a marvel. Historians have come to refer to it as the first Practiced Miracle. It was and remains a shining proof of what Potentials are capable of when they work together.
First you had to rebuild the labs that had created your examples, and the truer miracle of your combined powers restored not just the equipment but all the data that had been corrupted or lost over more than a decade of neglect. Then came the hard work of deciphering and coming to understand what the scientist had been trying to do, and how to modify it to suit your needs. With Practice as your aid, it took only a bare few months, most of them spent learning the basics needed to understand what you had to do. Here, as would become a running theme in your life, your friendship with Mary proved invaluable. Her influence at the Institute meant you were one of the few who could give the information context.
It was hard at first, focusing all of your powers into something that none of you could actually build on your own. Until the last few months of the project, you could not even touch what you were changing. You had all been trained well, however. The First couldn't have passed on all they knew, and you had rejected the offer of teaching that might have given you their understanding, but there was enough between you. Except for one thing. For months you laboured, imbuing your shared creation with everything you could think of, but it wouldn't mesh properly. None of you could understand it, you were all working together towards a grander vision, but it wasn't enough. Every example you created together broke within seconds of activation, and the ones created solo weren't capable of what you needed them to be.
It was at the height of this spell of failures that one of the other project heads requested a Potential of Insight. You couldn't understand it yourself, but he insisted that there was something that everyone was missing. He couldn't find it, but that was why he asked for an Insight Focus. You argued about it, stubborn again that between you all you could find a way. Perhaps in the end you would have, but that day you were wrong.
Veda was a slight woman of Indian descent, and she saw in mere moments what had taken Peter weeks to puzzle out. More than that however, she was able to tell you what was behind it. You had all been building something, but no matter how hard you tried you were also each building a different something. Little wonder that it broke whenever you tried to turn it on. After a day spent kicking yourself, and a rather embarrassed apology to Peter about the arguments you'd had, Veda explained what you needed to do. At the time you'd almost had preferred she hadn't.
The entire group of Restorer Focused needed to go into a Practice Trance together. It was the only way for you to reach past your humanity and achieve the level of harmony required.
A Practice Trance is the truest expression of a Potential's power, a state in which they are able to transcend any limit in the pursuit of their Focus. In fairness, the idea mainly annoyed you because it was so incredibly obvious and you'd missed it. It didn't remove the problem of how to get everyone into the same trance, however. Fortunately, that was something an Insight Focused could do a lot to help with. You thought it would take months, Peter was a bit more optimistic at weeks.
It took Veda all of three days.
When you woke twelve hours later, the first generation of Prologue was complete. None of you were quite sure what you did in that time; large scale Practice Trances have been found to have this effect on the memory of Potentials. All that mattered was that it worked. In barely a year you and your fellows created something that was the equal of a secret that took humanity decades to unlock after they became aware of its existence. This is why Prologue is named the first of the Practiced Miracles.
***
Prologue was the first of the Practiced Miracles, but it was not the last. The First Awoken were on the whole ill-suited to shared trances, but the Second woke to very different Focuses, far more suited to groupwork. This was one discovery that you were quite willing to accept a part in, because it was truly earned. Sadly, your gains were not without some loss.
The project had been founded primarily to find a way to bridge the gap between the now forbidden Second Secret bioengineering and the new generation of humanity, but there'd been another reason at play too. The Elder First were, to a one, a product of pre-Secret society. No bioengineering, which meant normal human lifespans. As you were coming of age, they were entering their twilight years. Prologue had been hoped to be a bridge for them as well, one that would allow them to live on so humanity could benefit from their wisdom. In this Prologue failed, but it wasn't anyone's fault.
It lay in the nature of the Potentials, something that you learnt a great deal about in the coming years with Mary as you strove to understand what you were and could do. You continue even today to benefit from the Second Secret's gifts, but no procedure you ever went through gave you some of the abilities you gained as a Potential. Tests showed markedly superior resilience, sufficient to survive exposure to deep space, as well as a lack of a need to breathe and various comparatively minor perks. The reasons only started to make sense after several years of work with Mary, which you dived into with a will shortly after Prologue was released.
At the core of every Potential's power was their soul and the imprint upon it; this much was known by the First. What Mary's work with you allowed her to do was confirm that this state was more than just related to one's Focus. The body of a Potential was a thing of Practice, a frame of biology made more than itself by the soul within. Prologue could not enhance or repair the bodies of the Elder First even as they withered away, because as far as the universe was concerned there was nothing that needed changed. They were as they should be, and there was no way for the system to work around that reality.
Those who were left did all in their power to pass on what they had learned in the time they had left, but so much of it was personal learning that couldn't be passed on. Not properly. There were those who dedicated their lives to trying to understand the secrets that had been left behind in those writings, but you weren't one of them. You grieved for your failure, but looked to the future through the pain. The loss of the Elder First was something that you couldn't Mend, and that hurt. And yet you knew enough of them to know that they would not want those of the new world to despair for the loss of the old. From this grew a realisation, a realisation that became a promise and purpose.
The old world had broken with the Shiplord's coming, shattered under the dreadful weight of pain of the Week of Sorrows. But much of it remained, if broken, and your Focus was Mending. You saw in the world of your parents some things that should not be forgotten, and so set out to make them new. This was where your Focus differed from those of Healing and many others of the Restorer Focused. Most saw the world the same way the Elder First had, winter breaking into spring with your generation's coming of age. You saw the autumn behind the winter, and that the seeds left behind by the old world were still of that world.
Ten years you dedicated to this task, a decade of searching for broken things and piecing them back together. Only a few understood why you did it; products of a schooling that had painted the world before the Shiplords as something that had been lost. You refused to accept that, and even though a decade could not restore everything you did a great deal. Entire cities shine thanks to you, painstakingly restored to their former glory. The Shiplords had not burned Earth, but the neglect of years wore on even modern construction.
You did not spend all this time alone, and you kept contact with your friends and Circle open, but you returned changed. Ten years devoted to your Focus, the expression of your Practiced soul; it would change anyone. The way you see the world, what you see in it with you Focus. And the power in your soul, that burns just a little brighter now than it did before.
So changed, you returned to your Circle and the friends who had waited so patiently for you to come back. They had changed too, taking their own paths through life. It was good to see them all, but Mary most of all. Your closest friend and advisor, she had grown into one of the most respected minds in the world. She was the only person in your Circle who you felt actually understood what you said, about how your own understanding of Practice had changed. She added it to the list of topics to investigate that had grown ever longer since you had been away. It was not that there was a lack of Potentials willing to help her with her work, but she had to know them and they had to know enough to be a help instead of a hindrance.
Another two years passed working with her again, churning through the delicately complex topics that her mind could conceptualise but only Potentials could take and make real. More was learnt, and many more questions made than answered, but your attention was drawn away by something new. Your time with Mary had allowed you to reconnect with the world that you had spent so much time away from them, and in it you had identified a problem that none seemed to notice.
Even now, twenty years after the Week of Sorrows, there were far more children than adults in the world. The Institutes served their purpose as centres of learning, but only a handful were more than that. The Circle you had built had endured with the place it had been founded, but so few others had. Now an entire new generation of children were starting to come of age. Even if many had parents there was more to life, your past proved that.
So you acted to give to those children what you had found in your own childhood. It was not an easy task, but you had not forgotten the lessons you had learnt when building the first of the Circles. And this time you had your Focus as well. Your recent work with Mary had led to the realisation that a Potential could Practice things even on metaphysical levels, even if they couldn't sense it.
It took time to find the children who were able to build the Circles you wanted to foster, and more still for them to bring success, but you were willing to give that. Here and there you sensed your Focus at work, power shining into the works you were building. Mary exulted in these moments, and towards the end of that work she began laying down the basis of an entirely new set of theories on how Potentials could use their powers. It was at this point that the concepts she was working with started to lose you in terms of pure theory. Before you could at least keep up, but here was where you found the limits of your knowledge.
But the Circles worked. They grew slowly with the power of your Practice behind them, but the bonds that made them were even stronger than the ones you remembered at the beginning of your own. With your influence and the help of your Circle, the Institutes of the world became more than places of learning. Places of hope and peace, where students could find friends that would last lifetimes. For a time, many years, you became swept up in your Practiced works, the Mending that you had wrought upon the world and how it had helped it heal.
This was the golden age of the Second, into which the Third woke. A time of learning, peace, hope and miracles. Prologue was just the beginning. The Trance that had created it was studied as best one could, and then built upon. Humanity returned to the sky and branched out across Sol, the knowledge unlocked by others of the Second giving the First the understanding they needed to defend your race. You grew older and wiser in your workings, dividing time as best you could between Circles, the endless work of mending, and Mary. A few times you were convinced to sing again, little things for a world that you no longer could deny having changed.
And the Third woke, a new generation of Potentials with Focuses as widely varied as the First's had been restricted. A generation who had grown to life among empty cities and weapons, but also hope. One day you would go searching for the Shiplords. When you were ready, and had mastered your gifts. Unfortunately, it never occurred to you that they might come to you first.
Then the Potentials of Insight discovered the Pattern, and the time of peaceful miracles ended.
Your place within the world had shifted many times over your life, but with the knowledge that the Shiplords were returning, you had to choose a purpose for the times to come. Your abilities had prepared you as a Mender beyond compare, and you had some awareness of the stranger sides of your powers that had helped bind the world together. Abilities that could be used in many ways, and as one of the most respected Potentials of the Second Awakening you were able to choose how those gifts would be put to use.
You would be:
[] A Soldier – When the Shiplords came, you would fight together with the First Awoken. You had lived a life of peace, but now was the time to cast it away to defend what you had made. And in that, your power as a rebuilder might turn the tide. (Focus on combat Practice and weapons work. Definite involvement in combat but you'll have been trained for it better than any other choice. Limited time available for other pursuits.)
[] A Maker – You could not build weapons, or fashion shields, but your Focus was well suited to making much more of the tools that others did create. When the First and those of the Second suited to it went to war, they would carry with them your will, and it would protect them. (More industrial, primary focus on imbuing the creations of other Potentials so that they are far harder to break and can restore on their own. Also will explore in more detail what you can Practice.)
[] A Voice – Mary had talked to you many times about the more conceptual sides of a Potential's abilities, and though you still couldn't understand the science behind it you were able to accept that they did exist. You even had some access to them, as your work with the Circles had shown. You would delve deeper into this part of your gift, and use it to make the world stronger. (This would be the 'bard' option. Building Circles showed you that Practice could be used on more than just matter, and this will explore that side of your Focus's abilities.)
[] A Leader – You were one of the most respected, and almost certainly the most well-known of all Potentials when the world changed again. Although you were not the oldest, or most skilled in Practice, there were few Potentials who knew the complexities of the heart and mind as you did. The world needed someone to look to, someone they would follow. You would be that someone. (Choosing this option will turn this into a CK2-type quest, and will start it at the ten years from invasion mark, just after the Pattern was found.)
If you chose an option other than A Leader, do you want to start:
[] A year from the invasion (more abstraction, less customisation, less time to get into the action of invasion)
[] Just after the Pattern was discovered (Far more customisation choices available, but considerably more time to get to the invasion)
Final choices time before we go into the quest proper. This will also decide the exact mechanics in play at game start, although I can't promise they won't change over time. This is where you get to tell me what you really want this quest to be about, so take some time to consider before voting.
