The sun blinds you as you take your first step out of the aging transport's loading bay, dust...
WildSpace - A Riot! Quest
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User Total Space Jawa 1 Shadows 20
Turn 1: Good grief, it's dusty here
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Most of the crew are still unpacking and making their way off the ship when a few enterprising souls take the initiative to do some prep work for the colony. Meir Lochan, taking a look around, declared that "there is exploring to be done!" and called for volunteers to assist him. He managed to round up two others, Victor Velt and a young woman who went by the name of Scepta, both carrying the old-fashioned slug-throwing rifles the colony had been able to afford.
Taking the colony's only wheeled rover, the three of them tore out of the landing zone, wheels kicking up rooster tails of dust and dirt behind them.
(DC: 50. Roll: 31+6+5+5=52. Success.)
After several hours, they come back with some... interesting things to report.
As the initial orbital survey reported, the colony's landing site lies in the northern hemisphere of the planet, atop a broad, flat-topped hill several miles across, with sheer cliffs and mountain foothills to the north, rolling hills to the west and east, and plains to the south. Meir produces several samples of different plants (and a couple of different animals) that might just be edible by humans. The hills and foothills around you are reasonably heavily forested, and the plains to your south are devoid of any trees taller than human-height - which goes a long way to explaining the dusting of topsoil that's being kicked up by everything and everyone.
They also report seeing several large, predatory animals, six-limbed monstrosities the size of an adolescent rhinoceros capable of climbing the tall trees in the foothills. Velt and Scepta managed to scare the one that attacked the rover off - barely - with a few lucky shots to its furry hide, though not before it raked the rover's right rear paneling with its claws. After getting all too good of a look at the vicious, ten-centimeter-long claws at the end of the creature's dextrous, long-fingered paws, Scepta coined the name "Razorclaw" as a name for it. It seemed to stick.
[Colony Control Computer initializing... Initializing... Active.]
[Codex control released to Colony Admin.]
[New Codex Entry: Razorclaw.]
[OOC: The Codex is the sum of your colonists' knowledge of Icarus, and is now a part of the first post.]
While they were away, others, like Nevill, Steve, Amanda Amala, and Claire, got to work getting the colony set up. Nevill said that getting the colony's vital, nigh-irreplaceable equipment was the important thing - people clean up and dry off. Tools rust. Steve, Amanda and Claire disagreed.
So they built both.
[X] Set up a building:
- Basic Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment) (5 minerals)
(DC: 40. Roll: 77+6=83. Success.)
[X] Set up a building:
-[X] Basic Shelter (protects Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (5 minerals)
DC: 40. Roll: 25+6+6+5=42. Success.)
Nevill was a one-man construction crew, pulling pre-fab wall material from the ship's cargo hold and cutting the huge, rectangular sheets to size. Repurposing one of the colony's few robotic packmules, he turned it - temporarily - into a mobile ceramacrete fuser, pouring the ceramacrete into the spot where the garage's foundation was meant to be. While the ceramacrete was cooling and hardening to its nigh-indestructible final state, Nevill seated the wall sections, and waited several hours for the foundation to finish cooling, cutting pieces of pre-fab for rafters and the roof all the while.
By the time the exploring crew got back, several days after the landing, the colony's Garage was ready to receive the rover and repair its damages - which, thankfully, weren't bad, all things considered.
Steve, Claire and Amanda had considerably more difficulty than Nevill, despite having three times the hands, eyes and minds to work with. Their efforts to build the colony's first shelter kept grinding to a halt, usually because they had to get out of Nevill's way as he went on his manic crusade to build a shelter for the colony's tools. They managed to draw their own sheets of pre-fab from the ship's dwindling supply, and, once Nevill was done with the ceramacrete fuser, finally got to pour the foundation for and set up the shelter.
It wasn't the prettiest thing, by a long shot. As a matter of fact, it was downright ugly.
But it could sleep twenty, once some of the ship's crew's racks had been pulled out of their berthing. With a little more effort, the Shelter could be expanded to sleep thirty. It had showers and toilets - now all they needed was a source of fresh water and somewhere to put the waste...
(Meir Lochan gains 2xp! Meir Lochan: Espionage 2 2/13)
(Victor Velt gains 2xp! Victor Velt: Combat 2 2/13)
(Scepta gains 2xp! Scepta: Combat 1 2/7)
(Nevill gains 2xp! Nevill: Operations 1 2/7)
(Steve gains 2xp! Steve: Operations 2 2/13)
(Claire gains 2xp! Claire: Operations 2 2/13)
(Amanda Amala gains 2xp! Amanda Amala: Operations 1 2/7)
[X] Survey the area (R&D)
(DC 50. Roll: 40+6. Painful Success.)
While everyone else was building or exploring, one man took it upon himself to conduct a mineral survey of the colony's surrounding area. Ludwig Cristoffen borrowed one of the packmules, loaded it down with survey gear and himself with a rifle, and began taking soundings of the area. He near-instantly found several deposits of various minerals in the surrounding hills - bauxite to the east, iron to the north, trace amounts of everything else - and also managed to find an overgrown sinkhole that he fell into. Thanks to the growth of the local fauna, he didn't outright die, but the broken leg he found himself with at the bottom of that hole - to say nothing of the curious, dog-sized spider-analogues that resided there - might have made him wish he had.
The rest of the colonists barely managed to get him out alive, drawn by frantic radio calls and the sounds of semi-automatic gunfire.
(Ludwig Cristoffen gains 1xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 3 1/13)
(Ludwig Cristoffen is Injured for two turns and is restricted from performing actions requiring physical labor.)
[New Codex entry: Colony Mineral Deposits]
[New Codex entry: Crawler]
All in all, it was an eventful first week for the colony, now named De Novo Incipere, which apparently meant "Begin Anew", in Latin.
(I'll leave colony name voting up for a couple more turns and change it if desired. Only one person put up a name.)
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Basic Shelter (protects Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (5 minerals)
- Basic Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop) (5 minerals)
- Basic Machine Shop (allows production of equipment) (4 minerals)
- Basic Farm (produces +5 food) (2 minerals)
- Basic Hydroponic Farm (produces +10 food) (6 minerals)
- Basic Lab (enhances research; adds +5 to any roll) (5 minerals)
- Basic Mining Operation (produces +5 minerals/turn) (10 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (???, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Research technologies
- Turnkey Research (unlocks advanced structures, rest of tech tree)
[] Write-in
Taking the colony's only wheeled rover, the three of them tore out of the landing zone, wheels kicking up rooster tails of dust and dirt behind them.
(DC: 50. Roll: 31+6+5+5=52. Success.)
After several hours, they come back with some... interesting things to report.
As the initial orbital survey reported, the colony's landing site lies in the northern hemisphere of the planet, atop a broad, flat-topped hill several miles across, with sheer cliffs and mountain foothills to the north, rolling hills to the west and east, and plains to the south. Meir produces several samples of different plants (and a couple of different animals) that might just be edible by humans. The hills and foothills around you are reasonably heavily forested, and the plains to your south are devoid of any trees taller than human-height - which goes a long way to explaining the dusting of topsoil that's being kicked up by everything and everyone.
They also report seeing several large, predatory animals, six-limbed monstrosities the size of an adolescent rhinoceros capable of climbing the tall trees in the foothills. Velt and Scepta managed to scare the one that attacked the rover off - barely - with a few lucky shots to its furry hide, though not before it raked the rover's right rear paneling with its claws. After getting all too good of a look at the vicious, ten-centimeter-long claws at the end of the creature's dextrous, long-fingered paws, Scepta coined the name "Razorclaw" as a name for it. It seemed to stick.
[Colony Control Computer initializing... Initializing... Active.]
[Codex control released to Colony Admin.]
[New Codex Entry: Razorclaw.]
[OOC: The Codex is the sum of your colonists' knowledge of Icarus, and is now a part of the first post.]
While they were away, others, like Nevill, Steve, Amanda Amala, and Claire, got to work getting the colony set up. Nevill said that getting the colony's vital, nigh-irreplaceable equipment was the important thing - people clean up and dry off. Tools rust. Steve, Amanda and Claire disagreed.
So they built both.
[X] Set up a building:
- Basic Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment) (5 minerals)
(DC: 40. Roll: 77+6=83. Success.)
[X] Set up a building:
-[X] Basic Shelter (protects Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (5 minerals)
DC: 40. Roll: 25+6+6+5=42. Success.)
Nevill was a one-man construction crew, pulling pre-fab wall material from the ship's cargo hold and cutting the huge, rectangular sheets to size. Repurposing one of the colony's few robotic packmules, he turned it - temporarily - into a mobile ceramacrete fuser, pouring the ceramacrete into the spot where the garage's foundation was meant to be. While the ceramacrete was cooling and hardening to its nigh-indestructible final state, Nevill seated the wall sections, and waited several hours for the foundation to finish cooling, cutting pieces of pre-fab for rafters and the roof all the while.
By the time the exploring crew got back, several days after the landing, the colony's Garage was ready to receive the rover and repair its damages - which, thankfully, weren't bad, all things considered.
Steve, Claire and Amanda had considerably more difficulty than Nevill, despite having three times the hands, eyes and minds to work with. Their efforts to build the colony's first shelter kept grinding to a halt, usually because they had to get out of Nevill's way as he went on his manic crusade to build a shelter for the colony's tools. They managed to draw their own sheets of pre-fab from the ship's dwindling supply, and, once Nevill was done with the ceramacrete fuser, finally got to pour the foundation for and set up the shelter.
It wasn't the prettiest thing, by a long shot. As a matter of fact, it was downright ugly.
But it could sleep twenty, once some of the ship's crew's racks had been pulled out of their berthing. With a little more effort, the Shelter could be expanded to sleep thirty. It had showers and toilets - now all they needed was a source of fresh water and somewhere to put the waste...
(Meir Lochan gains 2xp! Meir Lochan: Espionage 2 2/13)
(Victor Velt gains 2xp! Victor Velt: Combat 2 2/13)
(Scepta gains 2xp! Scepta: Combat 1 2/7)
(Nevill gains 2xp! Nevill: Operations 1 2/7)
(Steve gains 2xp! Steve: Operations 2 2/13)
(Claire gains 2xp! Claire: Operations 2 2/13)
(Amanda Amala gains 2xp! Amanda Amala: Operations 1 2/7)
[X] Survey the area (R&D)
(DC 50. Roll: 40+6. Painful Success.)
While everyone else was building or exploring, one man took it upon himself to conduct a mineral survey of the colony's surrounding area. Ludwig Cristoffen borrowed one of the packmules, loaded it down with survey gear and himself with a rifle, and began taking soundings of the area. He near-instantly found several deposits of various minerals in the surrounding hills - bauxite to the east, iron to the north, trace amounts of everything else - and also managed to find an overgrown sinkhole that he fell into. Thanks to the growth of the local fauna, he didn't outright die, but the broken leg he found himself with at the bottom of that hole - to say nothing of the curious, dog-sized spider-analogues that resided there - might have made him wish he had.
The rest of the colonists barely managed to get him out alive, drawn by frantic radio calls and the sounds of semi-automatic gunfire.
(Ludwig Cristoffen gains 1xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 3 1/13)
(Ludwig Cristoffen is Injured for two turns and is restricted from performing actions requiring physical labor.)
[New Codex entry: Colony Mineral Deposits]
[New Codex entry: Crawler]
All in all, it was an eventful first week for the colony, now named De Novo Incipere, which apparently meant "Begin Anew", in Latin.
(I'll leave colony name voting up for a couple more turns and change it if desired. Only one person put up a name.)
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Basic Shelter (protects Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (5 minerals)
- Basic Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop) (5 minerals)
- Basic Machine Shop (allows production of equipment) (4 minerals)
- Basic Farm (produces +5 food) (2 minerals)
- Basic Hydroponic Farm (produces +10 food) (6 minerals)
- Basic Lab (enhances research; adds +5 to any roll) (5 minerals)
- Basic Mining Operation (produces +5 minerals/turn) (10 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (???, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Research technologies
- Turnkey Research (unlocks advanced structures, rest of tech tree)
[] Write-in
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How levels affect rolls
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Each skill level adds a different amount.
Your basic ZB NPC adds +3 to a roll; a Character with a Level 1 skill adds +5.
Level 1 adds +5 to the roll.
Level 2 adds +8.
Level 3 adds +11.
Level 4 adds +15.
Level 5 adds +20.
XP is gained through performing actions related to a skillset.
Which reminds me, I should probably add the XP gains from these actions, hmm?
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Week 2: There be treasure in them hills
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
With all the building that had gone on the previous week, the denizens of First Impact noticed that their stores of pre-fab materials were beginning to run low. The cargo hold carried an AMU, or Autonomous Mining Unit, a few decades old and well past its prime but still perfectly usable. Steve crunched the numbers for the rest of them: if they used up the last of their pre-fab and electronics, they could just - barely - set up a mining operation with the AMU, capable of processing the material it harvested and using a series of 3D printers to craft what the colony would need in the coming (hopefully) years.
(DC 50. Roll: 89+5+6+5+6+3+3=117. Success.)
Construction of the new mining operation went off smoothly and without a hiccup. The foundation went down, the walls went up, the AMU went out, and the printers and smelters went in. With six of the eleven unfrozen settlers working on it, it could hardly have gone any other way. Taking Ludwig's survey data and feeding it into the AMU, Roselia DuClare watched with some small amount of pride as the old 'bot went trundling away under its own power, bound for the suspected location of an iron deposit.
Basic Mining Operation complete! First Impact now produces +5 minerals/turn.
Ludwig, injured but not brain-dead, did his best to help the colony while the others were busy setting up the mining operation. Opening up the transport's data terminal, he tried to unlock the Turnkey Tech package the colony group had bought (at great expense) from one of the corporations that basically ran the Core Worlds' colonization programs.
Key word: Tried.
It must have been the painkillers he was on, clouding his mind and dulling his ability, but for the life of him he simply could not seem to get the encrypted file to open, even with the passcode in front of him. Testing showed that the file was not corrupt, but neither did it want to open.
Oh well.
(DC 30. Roll 4+6=10. Minor Failure.)
Turnkey Research not completed.
Jack, Scepta, Victor and Meir spent their time loading up the rover for another excursion. They decided to leave the Razorclaws to their own devices for a week rather than tangle with the rhino-sized felinoids, and thus decided to head south. Trekking down over the plains, they kept a sharp eye out for anything interesting or dangerous. Sometime on Wednesday they had stopped to eat. Meir, having finished his rations, began looking around their surroundings when he discovered what looked like a tunnel door dug into the side of the hill they were perched atop. It was well camouflaged - if he hadn't been looking at exactly the right angle, he might never have noticed it.
"Well, that's interesting." Meir said aloud.
"What's that?" Scepta asked, coming over to stand by him.
Meir pointed. "What does that look like to you?"
"... a door. That is interesting." she said, shifting her rifle across her frame to be more accessible.
"Shall we have a look?"
[] Go inside
[] Mark the spot for later exploration
(DC 50. Roll 15+6+6+5+5= 37. Minor failure, but I felt like giving you an event.)
(DC 50. Roll: 89+5+6+5+6+3+3=117. Success.)
Construction of the new mining operation went off smoothly and without a hiccup. The foundation went down, the walls went up, the AMU went out, and the printers and smelters went in. With six of the eleven unfrozen settlers working on it, it could hardly have gone any other way. Taking Ludwig's survey data and feeding it into the AMU, Roselia DuClare watched with some small amount of pride as the old 'bot went trundling away under its own power, bound for the suspected location of an iron deposit.
Basic Mining Operation complete! First Impact now produces +5 minerals/turn.
Ludwig, injured but not brain-dead, did his best to help the colony while the others were busy setting up the mining operation. Opening up the transport's data terminal, he tried to unlock the Turnkey Tech package the colony group had bought (at great expense) from one of the corporations that basically ran the Core Worlds' colonization programs.
Key word: Tried.
It must have been the painkillers he was on, clouding his mind and dulling his ability, but for the life of him he simply could not seem to get the encrypted file to open, even with the passcode in front of him. Testing showed that the file was not corrupt, but neither did it want to open.
Oh well.
(DC 30. Roll 4+6=10. Minor Failure.)
Turnkey Research not completed.
Jack, Scepta, Victor and Meir spent their time loading up the rover for another excursion. They decided to leave the Razorclaws to their own devices for a week rather than tangle with the rhino-sized felinoids, and thus decided to head south. Trekking down over the plains, they kept a sharp eye out for anything interesting or dangerous. Sometime on Wednesday they had stopped to eat. Meir, having finished his rations, began looking around their surroundings when he discovered what looked like a tunnel door dug into the side of the hill they were perched atop. It was well camouflaged - if he hadn't been looking at exactly the right angle, he might never have noticed it.
"Well, that's interesting." Meir said aloud.
"What's that?" Scepta asked, coming over to stand by him.
Meir pointed. "What does that look like to you?"
"... a door. That is interesting." she said, shifting her rifle across her frame to be more accessible.
"Shall we have a look?"
[] Go inside
[] Mark the spot for later exploration
(DC 50. Roll 15+6+6+5+5= 37. Minor failure, but I felt like giving you an event.)
Week 2: Finisher!
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"You know, becoming a Tunnel Rat on an alien world I know nothing about sounds like just about as much fun as getting AIDS, so I think we should leave it for now." Scepta said. "Probably full of tentacle monsters, for all I know. I'd rather have something a little more substantial than this popgun for dealing with that."
Meir thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "That sounds like a prudent course of action." he said, marking the location down in his wristcomp's INS system.
The rest of the week was mostly uneventful, save for coming across the first seemingly non-predatory example of Icarus' native wildlife while driving back to First Impact. The hexapedal creature looked somewhat like a cross between a horse and a giraffe, its hide a confusion of stripes and dappled, mottled green and brown, and towered a full three stories above the plains, along with several smaller specimens of its kind. Thick, powerful legs propelled them at quite a clip, and they appeared to be fleeing something.
The explorers didn't bother waiting around to find out what that thing was.
[New Codex Entry: Plainsrunner]
Meir Lochan gains 1XP! Espionage 2 (3/13)
Victor Velt gains 1xp! Victor Velt: Combat 2 3/13)
Nevill gains 4xp! Nevill: Operations 1 (6/7)
Scepta gains 1xp! Scepta: Combat 1 (3/7)
Claire gains 4xp! Claire: Operations 2 (6/13)
Amanda Amala gains 4xp! Amanda Amala: Operations 1 (6/7)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 1xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 2 (2/13)
Steve gains 4xp! Steve: Operations 2 (6/13)
Jack Reyes gains 1XP! Combat 2 (1/13)
Evern gains 4xp! Level up! Evern: Operations 1!
Roselia DuClare gains 4xp! Level up! Roselia DuClare: Combat 1, Operations 1!, R&D 1
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Basic Shelter (protects Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (5 minerals)
- Basic Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop) (5 minerals)
- Basic Machine Shop (allows production of equipment) (4 minerals)
- Basic Farm (produces +5 food) (2 minerals)
- Basic Hydroponic Farm (produces +10 food) (6 minerals)
- Basic Lab (enhances research; adds +10 to any roll) (5 minerals)
- Basic Mining Operation (produces +5 minerals/turn) (10 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (???, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Research technologies
- Turnkey Research (unlocks advanced structures, rest of tech tree)
[] Write-in
Meir thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "That sounds like a prudent course of action." he said, marking the location down in his wristcomp's INS system.
The rest of the week was mostly uneventful, save for coming across the first seemingly non-predatory example of Icarus' native wildlife while driving back to First Impact. The hexapedal creature looked somewhat like a cross between a horse and a giraffe, its hide a confusion of stripes and dappled, mottled green and brown, and towered a full three stories above the plains, along with several smaller specimens of its kind. Thick, powerful legs propelled them at quite a clip, and they appeared to be fleeing something.
The explorers didn't bother waiting around to find out what that thing was.
[New Codex Entry: Plainsrunner]
Meir Lochan gains 1XP! Espionage 2 (3/13)
Victor Velt gains 1xp! Victor Velt: Combat 2 3/13)
Nevill gains 4xp! Nevill: Operations 1 (6/7)
Scepta gains 1xp! Scepta: Combat 1 (3/7)
Claire gains 4xp! Claire: Operations 2 (6/13)
Amanda Amala gains 4xp! Amanda Amala: Operations 1 (6/7)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 1xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 2 (2/13)
Steve gains 4xp! Steve: Operations 2 (6/13)
Jack Reyes gains 1XP! Combat 2 (1/13)
Evern gains 4xp! Level up! Evern: Operations 1!
Roselia DuClare gains 4xp! Level up! Roselia DuClare: Combat 1, Operations 1!, R&D 1
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Basic Shelter (protects Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (5 minerals)
- Basic Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop) (5 minerals)
- Basic Machine Shop (allows production of equipment) (4 minerals)
- Basic Farm (produces +5 food) (2 minerals)
- Basic Hydroponic Farm (produces +10 food) (6 minerals)
- Basic Lab (enhances research; adds +10 to any roll) (5 minerals)
- Basic Mining Operation (produces +5 minerals/turn) (10 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (???, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Research technologies
- Turnkey Research (unlocks advanced structures, rest of tech tree)
[] Write-in
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Omake Time: Space Jawa
Begin Personal Science Journal for colonist Dr. Ulysses Lord Mizzet, citizen of Icarus colony "First Impact".
Consider this entry to be mostly a guide to this PSJ as anything - I write it as a new arrival, or rather a new awak-ee, to my new home on this Wildspace space colony. I come here as a matter of science - my work, my true ambitions, have often pushed up against a line that makes worry for those who are content to live life as it is, rather than what it could be. Here, on this world where mankind has hardly begun to set foot, I believe that the idea of collateral damage should be far less of a concern. After all, there's far less to be concerned about being on the wrong end of bad science.
The fact is, collateral damage is a natural element of science, the advancement of mankind, and solving the puzzle of the universe. Consider the Nuclear Bomb, after all - a highly destructive device, even as its creators took care to test it away from normal civilization. And yet, can one imagine where we would be today without such an advancement of science?
I write this journal for two main purposes - First as a proven element of research. To write down events and discoveries as they happen is a no brainer when it comes to advancing the cause of mankind. These notes can be referred to to help recollect what has come before in the name of advancing further, and to minimize the chance of loosing data.
Second, as an equally important measure, it provide insurance in a worst-case scenario. Should this colony fail, this journal should help provide future arrivals some measure of insight to what brought about our failure. Or should I myself fall victim to such a tragic end, in either case it will hopefully help those who find it to piece together what went wrong and avoid a similarly tragic fate, and solve whatever the problem may be should that be possibly and/or necessary. Note that I do not hope that this second measure becomes necessary, I merely take it as a means of precaution - "Fortune Favors The Prepared".
It appears that it has been...roughly two weeks since the colony arrived? Have started this journal with 'Entry W2-1' for reference, indicating first entry of Colony Week 2. Further entries should follow this model. Should continue after taking basic assessment of the colonies current situation.
Need to come up with a shorter reference name for future entries, initial title works for introduction to entire journal but is far too wordy for regular use.
Consider this entry to be mostly a guide to this PSJ as anything - I write it as a new arrival, or rather a new awak-ee, to my new home on this Wildspace space colony. I come here as a matter of science - my work, my true ambitions, have often pushed up against a line that makes worry for those who are content to live life as it is, rather than what it could be. Here, on this world where mankind has hardly begun to set foot, I believe that the idea of collateral damage should be far less of a concern. After all, there's far less to be concerned about being on the wrong end of bad science.
The fact is, collateral damage is a natural element of science, the advancement of mankind, and solving the puzzle of the universe. Consider the Nuclear Bomb, after all - a highly destructive device, even as its creators took care to test it away from normal civilization. And yet, can one imagine where we would be today without such an advancement of science?
I write this journal for two main purposes - First as a proven element of research. To write down events and discoveries as they happen is a no brainer when it comes to advancing the cause of mankind. These notes can be referred to to help recollect what has come before in the name of advancing further, and to minimize the chance of loosing data.
Second, as an equally important measure, it provide insurance in a worst-case scenario. Should this colony fail, this journal should help provide future arrivals some measure of insight to what brought about our failure. Or should I myself fall victim to such a tragic end, in either case it will hopefully help those who find it to piece together what went wrong and avoid a similarly tragic fate, and solve whatever the problem may be should that be possibly and/or necessary. Note that I do not hope that this second measure becomes necessary, I merely take it as a means of precaution - "Fortune Favors The Prepared".
I believe the popular vernacular knows of the idea as an "Apocalyptic Log"; and while the idea may seem silly to some, I believe it has genuine merit.
Amusingly, a part of me relishes the concept of writing a log to be found by future explorers trying to find out what happened to a doomed colony and being strangely immortalized in such a fashion, I certainly hold no hope of it actually happening.
It appears that it has been...roughly two weeks since the colony arrived? Have started this journal with 'Entry W2-1' for reference, indicating first entry of Colony Week 2. Further entries should follow this model. Should continue after taking basic assessment of the colonies current situation.
Still not satisfied with the name. Must consider further.
It has, in fact, been roughly two weeks since the ship first arrived, it seems that my full involvement was not delayed too terribly long.
Initial colony status is decidedly good. The colony that has since been dubbed "First Impact" is well on its way to becoming a fully established site of human civilization.
"First Impact" is not the first name chosen, it was apparently originally called "De Novo Incipere" after one colonist merely declared it to be so. That soon changed after others actually chimed in.
At present, there are 15 primary colonists, including myself. They run the gauntlet of backgrounds and personalities, some of which leave me with concerns regarding their personalities and histories, notably the number that are of a sketchy, seemingly ill-defined history involving combat and/or black ops in some fashion. More disturbing are the number that appear to have a rather unhealthy fixation with 'killin' Xenos'. Alas, beggars can not be choosers. Of them, I appear to be the only dedicated scientist, though there's no shortage of engineers and technical specialists, they appear to only be outnumbered by the available muscle.
Odd note, offhand I think that managers and various business-related individuals appear to make up the third primary category of colonists.
Currently, primary structures consist of a basic 'barracks'
Technically it's called a 'Shelter', which is technically an accurate term, admittedly.
I've started spending more time in the garage than the barracks, they're far more suitable for scientific work than the shelter till we get a real lab, part of me is inclined to try to just move in there and see if anyone notices or cares.
There has been some measure of scientific discovery conducted thus far, identifying a handful of native wildlife. Most of it will likely be problematic to expansion and further exploration, but I suppose that is to be expected.
I've attached a copy of data on these lifeforms from the colony codex as a secondary means of backup in case of emergency.
With myself caught up to speed and ready to fully contribute, my efforts next week will likely be dedicated to helping unlock the 'Turnkey' data package that will be necessary for genuine research to begin. While food is also an important priority, I have word that there are plenty of individuals dedicated to that effort already. Alongside, of course, additional exploration - admittedly, I find myself lured by joining them, I'll have to find an opportunity in a future exploration trip.
Though preferable after we are better prepared to handle the dangers of the wild. While science may not be well advanced by the meek, neither is it properly seen to by the foolish.
I have nothing better at this juncture, I suppose I'll stick with this till I do. May want to consider running ideas by other colonists.
While not as outrageous as it might have been in days before space travel was a regularity and aliens were known to exist, the significance of the find should not be understated at this point in time. Word is that those who discovered it refrained from barging right in, future explorers plan a better-prepared trip to find out why there's a door on this planet that we didn't build ourselves.
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Week 3 - Lost and Found
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The first day of the colony's third week dawns bright and cheery as yet another colonist is brought up out of cryosleep. The colony has been steadily growing, building up into something worthwhile. But something was amiss - the colony's food supplies were rapidly dwindling. First Impact would be out of food within a few very short weeks if something wasn't done, and fast. Then came the Idea. Afterwards, no one was quite sure who suggested it - or if it even mattered; it was just a matter of common sense.
The transport that had brought the colonists to Icarus was broken down, certainly, but only its engines were malfunctioning. The craft itself still worked, and provided power to the settlement.
It also had a small hydroponics bay onboard, as well as seeds.
Taking the get from the hydroponics bay, the colonists figured out that they could stretch their food supply until the crops the seeds would allow them to plant matured. So, they began to hoe and plant and water, tilling up several acres of soil nearby and plowing it under. It would take several weeks for even the fast-growing strains of wheat and corn and other vegetables they had brought with them to come to maturity - a rate made possible only through extensive genetic engineering, at that - but by stripping the hydroponics bay clean, they could make it happen.
And they did.
[New Codex Entry: Colony Asset: Basic Farm]
The farm-builders weren't the only ones busy that week. The colony's small brain trust - in the form of the ever-unlucky Ludwig, as well as Roselia DuClare and newcomer Lord Mizzet - finally managed to break the encryption on the Turnkey data package.
And it was worth it.
The colony's server storage filled with data and diagrams, with designs and concepts high and low. Everything - from weapons to farming tools - that the colony could want was in that package. It was all very basic by core-world standards - but by frontier standards, it was a step above what they had right now.
Best of all were the advanced mining and farming techniques and devices outlined in the documents. They would be immediately useful, as opposed to long-off gains... though the improved laboratory design promised things to the three scientists that simply couldn't be recreated virtually.
[New Codex Entry: Colony Asset: Turnkey]
It was that time again. Meir, Scepta and Jack (sans Victor, who volunteered to stand guard duty at the colony) went out into the wild on the rover once more, armed with rifles, binoculars and cameras, ready to see all that could be seen. They drove over the endless plains to the south, tearing across the terrain at high speed, stopping at the occasional pond to fill their fuel tanks with water for the electrolysis machine to turn into usable hydrogen. They came across a pack of small, wolflike predators, jaws filled with rows of sharklike teeth, taking down a bear-sized herbivore with a tail that dragged on the ground as it ran. They passed over a great river, nearly as wide as the Mississippi on Earth. They saw great things, wonderful things...
And then they stumbled across the first wreckage.
It was a two-meter-square panel of battle steel, six centimeters thick and harder than almost anything else man had ever made. It was typically used as starship hull plating and armor, which lead the three intrepid explorers to wonder where the rest of the ship it had come from was.
It didn't take them long to find out.
Finding and following a trail of scorch marks, they eventually came upon the wreck of the great ship itself. It was a transport like the one that had brought the Impacters to Icarus, but if looks were any indication, writ far larger. Its hull was holed and cored as if by weapons fire, and several bent and mangled pieces of alloy marked the placement of the transport's own defensive armament.
Carefully picking through the wreckage, they discovered caches of materials and weapons that hadn't been harmed in the crash landing - a testament to the transport's design team. Prefab, machinery, rifles - even a cannon, for Jeb's sake! - all of it was there. The food had all been destroyed or rendered unusable, but some of the seeds were still viable.
They also discovered that they were not alone on Icarus.
As they were about to leave, some of their bounty in hand and word of its location on their computers for the rest of the colony to see, Jack's eyes caught a pair of twin hazel orbs peering at him from over top of a piece of the hull, maybe twenty feet above the ground. When their eyes met, the hazel ones widened and vanished as quickly as they'd appeared.
[New Codex Entry: Colony Crash Site]
[New Codex Entry: Colony Asset: Cannon]
[New Codex Entry: Scepta's Wolf]
[New Codex Entry: Trundle]
[30 Minerals get!]
[-50% cost on Improved Machine Shop]
Meir Lochan gains 4xp! Espionage 2 (7/13)
Nevill gains 2xp! Level up! Nevill: Operations 2! (1/13)
Scepta gains 4xp! Level up! Scepta: Combat 2!
Claire gains 2xp! Claire: Operations 2 (8/13)
Amanda Amala gains 2xp! Level up! Amanda Amala: Operations 2! (1/13)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 2xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 2 (4/13)
Steve gains 2xp! Steve: Operations 2 (8/13)
Jack Reyes gains 4xp! Combat 2 (5/13)
Roselia DuClare gains 2xp! Roselia DuClare: Combat 1, Operations 1, R&D 1 (2/7)
Lord Mizzet gains 2xp! Ulysses Lord Mizzet: R&D 2 (2/13)
Levant Von Diederitz gains 2xp! Levant Von Diederitz: Operations 1 (2/4)
Michael Erickson gains 2xp! Michael Erickson: Operations 1 (2/4)
Benny gains 4xp! Benny: Combat 1 (4/7)
Bob Smith gains 2xp! Bob Smith: Operations 1 (2/7)
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Improved Shelter (protects 40 Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (12 minerals)
- Improved Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop, can build Tracked Vehicles) (10 minerals)
- Improved Machine Shop (allows production of higher-level equipment) (4 minerals (2 after discount))
- Improved Farm (produces +8 food) (4 minerals)
- Improved Hydroponic Farm (produces +18 food) (10 minerals)
- Improved Lab (enhances research; adds +20 to any roll) (15 minerals)
- Improved Mining Operation (produces +10 minerals/turn) (15 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (???, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Salvage the Colony Wreck (???)
[] Research technologies
- Flight Adaptation (unlocks Air production capabilities for the Machine Shop and Garage, adds Airfield)
- Munitions Adaptation (unlocks Heavy Weapons production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Sensing (unlocks Tier I radar)
- Robotics (unlocks Robotic production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Nuclear Power (unlocks nuclear power generation for vehicles and settlements)
[] Write-in
The transport that had brought the colonists to Icarus was broken down, certainly, but only its engines were malfunctioning. The craft itself still worked, and provided power to the settlement.
It also had a small hydroponics bay onboard, as well as seeds.
Taking the get from the hydroponics bay, the colonists figured out that they could stretch their food supply until the crops the seeds would allow them to plant matured. So, they began to hoe and plant and water, tilling up several acres of soil nearby and plowing it under. It would take several weeks for even the fast-growing strains of wheat and corn and other vegetables they had brought with them to come to maturity - a rate made possible only through extensive genetic engineering, at that - but by stripping the hydroponics bay clean, they could make it happen.
And they did.
[New Codex Entry: Colony Asset: Basic Farm]
The farm-builders weren't the only ones busy that week. The colony's small brain trust - in the form of the ever-unlucky Ludwig, as well as Roselia DuClare and newcomer Lord Mizzet - finally managed to break the encryption on the Turnkey data package.
And it was worth it.
The colony's server storage filled with data and diagrams, with designs and concepts high and low. Everything - from weapons to farming tools - that the colony could want was in that package. It was all very basic by core-world standards - but by frontier standards, it was a step above what they had right now.
Best of all were the advanced mining and farming techniques and devices outlined in the documents. They would be immediately useful, as opposed to long-off gains... though the improved laboratory design promised things to the three scientists that simply couldn't be recreated virtually.
[New Codex Entry: Colony Asset: Turnkey]
It was that time again. Meir, Scepta and Jack (sans Victor, who volunteered to stand guard duty at the colony) went out into the wild on the rover once more, armed with rifles, binoculars and cameras, ready to see all that could be seen. They drove over the endless plains to the south, tearing across the terrain at high speed, stopping at the occasional pond to fill their fuel tanks with water for the electrolysis machine to turn into usable hydrogen. They came across a pack of small, wolflike predators, jaws filled with rows of sharklike teeth, taking down a bear-sized herbivore with a tail that dragged on the ground as it ran. They passed over a great river, nearly as wide as the Mississippi on Earth. They saw great things, wonderful things...
And then they stumbled across the first wreckage.
It was a two-meter-square panel of battle steel, six centimeters thick and harder than almost anything else man had ever made. It was typically used as starship hull plating and armor, which lead the three intrepid explorers to wonder where the rest of the ship it had come from was.
It didn't take them long to find out.
Finding and following a trail of scorch marks, they eventually came upon the wreck of the great ship itself. It was a transport like the one that had brought the Impacters to Icarus, but if looks were any indication, writ far larger. Its hull was holed and cored as if by weapons fire, and several bent and mangled pieces of alloy marked the placement of the transport's own defensive armament.
Carefully picking through the wreckage, they discovered caches of materials and weapons that hadn't been harmed in the crash landing - a testament to the transport's design team. Prefab, machinery, rifles - even a cannon, for Jeb's sake! - all of it was there. The food had all been destroyed or rendered unusable, but some of the seeds were still viable.
They also discovered that they were not alone on Icarus.
As they were about to leave, some of their bounty in hand and word of its location on their computers for the rest of the colony to see, Jack's eyes caught a pair of twin hazel orbs peering at him from over top of a piece of the hull, maybe twenty feet above the ground. When their eyes met, the hazel ones widened and vanished as quickly as they'd appeared.
[New Codex Entry: Colony Crash Site]
[New Codex Entry: Colony Asset: Cannon]
[New Codex Entry: Scepta's Wolf]
[New Codex Entry: Trundle]
[30 Minerals get!]
[-50% cost on Improved Machine Shop]
Meir Lochan gains 4xp! Espionage 2 (7/13)
Nevill gains 2xp! Level up! Nevill: Operations 2! (1/13)
Scepta gains 4xp! Level up! Scepta: Combat 2!
Claire gains 2xp! Claire: Operations 2 (8/13)
Amanda Amala gains 2xp! Level up! Amanda Amala: Operations 2! (1/13)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 2xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 2 (4/13)
Steve gains 2xp! Steve: Operations 2 (8/13)
Jack Reyes gains 4xp! Combat 2 (5/13)
Roselia DuClare gains 2xp! Roselia DuClare: Combat 1, Operations 1, R&D 1 (2/7)
Lord Mizzet gains 2xp! Ulysses Lord Mizzet: R&D 2 (2/13)
Levant Von Diederitz gains 2xp! Levant Von Diederitz: Operations 1 (2/4)
Michael Erickson gains 2xp! Michael Erickson: Operations 1 (2/4)
Benny gains 4xp! Benny: Combat 1 (4/7)
Bob Smith gains 2xp! Bob Smith: Operations 1 (2/7)
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Improved Shelter (protects 40 Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (12 minerals)
- Improved Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop, can build Tracked Vehicles) (10 minerals)
- Improved Machine Shop (allows production of higher-level equipment) (4 minerals (2 after discount))
- Improved Farm (produces +8 food) (4 minerals)
- Improved Hydroponic Farm (produces +18 food) (10 minerals)
- Improved Lab (enhances research; adds +20 to any roll) (15 minerals)
- Improved Mining Operation (produces +10 minerals/turn) (15 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (???, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Salvage the Colony Wreck (???)
[] Research technologies
- Flight Adaptation (unlocks Air production capabilities for the Machine Shop and Garage, adds Airfield)
- Munitions Adaptation (unlocks Heavy Weapons production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Sensing (unlocks Tier I radar)
- Robotics (unlocks Robotic production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Nuclear Power (unlocks nuclear power generation for vehicles and settlements)
[] Write-in
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Week Four: Missing the Door and More
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The fourth week of First Impact's existence started out with the same energy the first three did, and then some. Despite the beginnings of divisions within the colony on the subjects of what needed to get done soonest, there was a clear and present need in the colony: a stable supply of materials for construction. While the one mining operation they had already set up was useful, there was no way it would be able to keep up with the colony's growing appetite. With that in mind, the Construction Team went on a bit of a rampage, and built not one, but two improved mining operations over the course of the week, throwing together the buildings themselves and managing to create a pair of the improved mining drones to actually do the backbreaking labor required to unearth materials from Icarus' depths. The drones were soon trundling out of their bays, drilling and hauling ore back to the smelters on a regular schedule.
(DC: 75. Roll: 70+Modifiers=Somewhere north of 100. Success. +4xp to all involved.)
Several people split off from the main building group to go out to the ship, cutters and welders in hand, ready to start hauling back materials. They stripped the engines from it (which were largely intact), cut apart the hull, and unearthed more prefab than the first group of explorers had been able to. It was a shame they couldn't have found a hidden cache of food to supplement their current stocks, but such was the nature of the crash. It looked like the food storage areas had been in the lower part of the ship - which is what had crashed first, and was naturally in no fit state to keep food good, safe and unspoiled.
What was more interesting was the lack of bodies. There were one or two found, but each and every one of the cryostasis tubes in the ship were empty, with no signs of the ship's former occupants. Even with the previous sighting of someone aboard the ship, there was no sign of life or activity in the wreck when the salvagers arrived, and by the time they left for the last time that week, there was nowhere left to hide inside the craft - and relatively little left of the craft itself. As the last group of salvagers left, however, they noticed rover tracks leading southeast...
Added: Transport Engines x2 (can be used to repair First Impact's Colony Ship)
Added: 40x Minerals
Added: 20x Credits
[New Codex Entry: Survivor Trail]
(DC: 50. Roll: 97+Modifiers=Somewhere north of 100. EPIC SUCCESS. +4xp to all involved.)
There was some mention of exploring a cave, but no exploration records showed a cave. There was a door somewhere, but no cave.
With that said, the colony's exploration team set out to the west... and have not yet returned!
[All Explore-option voters have their votes locked for the next week. A second roll will be made during the next turn to determine what they find!]
Ludwig, now healed from his injuries at the hands of the spiders (mostly his fall, though), threw himself into the study of Robotics with a renewed fervor. Building on the basic knowledge provided by the Turnkey package, he used the colony's CAD programs to virtually test a number of robotic principles, and even found time to throw together a couple of designs that looked like they could be useful. One of them was an autonomous drone sentry unit that could fly over the colony and give the colony forewarning of anything coming near, that could even be fitted with a small payload, if the colony so desired. The second was a bipedal worker robot that, while less capable than a human in many respects, was strong and well balanced and capable of accepting complex commands. All the colony needed was somewhere to make them...
[New Codex Entry: Firebird Recon Drone - Adds 15km warning radius, alerting colonists to incoming ground-based or low-flying threats.]
[New Codex Entry: Gorilla Workbot - Operations worker robot. Cannot be used for anything other than construction or hauling. Gives +3 to any construction roll one is added to, cumulative per robot.]
Meir Lochan gains 1xp! Meir Lochan: Espionage 2 (8/13)
Victor Velt gains 1xp! Victor Velt: Combat 2 (4/13)
Nevill gains 4xp! Nevill: Operations 2 (5/13)
Scepta gains 4xp! Level up! Scepta: Combat 2 (0/13), Operations 1!
Claire gains 4xp! Claire: Operations 2 (12/13)
Amanda Amala gains 4xp! Amanda Amala: Operations 2 (5/13)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 2xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 2 (6/13)
Steve gains 4xp! Steve: Operations 2 (12/13)
Jack Reyes gains 4xp! Level up! Jack Reyes: Combat 2 (5/13), Operations 1!
Roselia DuClare gains 4xp! Roselia DuClare: Combat 1, Operation 1 (4/7), R&D 1 (2/7)
Dr. Mizzet gains 4xp! Level up! Ulysses Lord Mizzet: Operations 1!, R&D 2 (2/13)
Levant Von Diederitz gains 4xp! Level up! Levant Von Diederitz: Operations 2! (2/7)
Michael Erickson gains 4xp! Level up! Michael Erickson: Operations 1! (2/7), R&D 1
Benny gains 1xp! Benny: Combat 1 (5/7)
Bob Smith gains 4xp! Bob Smith: Operations 1 (6/7)
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Improved Shelter (protects 40 Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (12 minerals)
- Improved Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop, can build Tracked Vehicles) (10 minerals)
- Improved Machine Shop (allows production of higher-level equipment) (4 minerals (2 after discount))
- Improved Farm (produces +8 food) (4 minerals)
- Improved Hydroponic Farm (produces +18 food) (10 minerals)
- Improved Lab (enhances research; adds +20 to any roll) (15 minerals)
- Improved Mining Operation (produces +10 minerals/turn) (15 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (2 Transport Engines, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Search the Survivor Trail
[] Research technologies
- Flight Adaptation (unlocks Air production capabilities for the Machine Shop and Garage, adds Airfield)
- Munitions Adaptation (unlocks Heavy Weapons production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Sensing (unlocks Tier I radar)
- Electromagnetic Manipulation (unlocks rail- and gauss weapons. Required for Fusion power)
- Advanced Robotics (unlocks Tier 2 robots & drones)
- Nuclear Power (unlocks nuclear power generation for vehicles and settlements)
[] Write-in
As a note, I do accept write-ins for tech or designing new weapons or whatnot.
(DC: 75. Roll: 70+Modifiers=Somewhere north of 100. Success. +4xp to all involved.)
Several people split off from the main building group to go out to the ship, cutters and welders in hand, ready to start hauling back materials. They stripped the engines from it (which were largely intact), cut apart the hull, and unearthed more prefab than the first group of explorers had been able to. It was a shame they couldn't have found a hidden cache of food to supplement their current stocks, but such was the nature of the crash. It looked like the food storage areas had been in the lower part of the ship - which is what had crashed first, and was naturally in no fit state to keep food good, safe and unspoiled.
What was more interesting was the lack of bodies. There were one or two found, but each and every one of the cryostasis tubes in the ship were empty, with no signs of the ship's former occupants. Even with the previous sighting of someone aboard the ship, there was no sign of life or activity in the wreck when the salvagers arrived, and by the time they left for the last time that week, there was nowhere left to hide inside the craft - and relatively little left of the craft itself. As the last group of salvagers left, however, they noticed rover tracks leading southeast...
Added: Transport Engines x2 (can be used to repair First Impact's Colony Ship)
Added: 40x Minerals
Added: 20x Credits
[New Codex Entry: Survivor Trail]
(DC: 50. Roll: 97+Modifiers=Somewhere north of 100. EPIC SUCCESS. +4xp to all involved.)
There was some mention of exploring a cave, but no exploration records showed a cave. There was a door somewhere, but no cave.
With that said, the colony's exploration team set out to the west... and have not yet returned!
[All Explore-option voters have their votes locked for the next week. A second roll will be made during the next turn to determine what they find!]
Ludwig, now healed from his injuries at the hands of the spiders (mostly his fall, though), threw himself into the study of Robotics with a renewed fervor. Building on the basic knowledge provided by the Turnkey package, he used the colony's CAD programs to virtually test a number of robotic principles, and even found time to throw together a couple of designs that looked like they could be useful. One of them was an autonomous drone sentry unit that could fly over the colony and give the colony forewarning of anything coming near, that could even be fitted with a small payload, if the colony so desired. The second was a bipedal worker robot that, while less capable than a human in many respects, was strong and well balanced and capable of accepting complex commands. All the colony needed was somewhere to make them...
[New Codex Entry: Firebird Recon Drone - Adds 15km warning radius, alerting colonists to incoming ground-based or low-flying threats.]
[New Codex Entry: Gorilla Workbot - Operations worker robot. Cannot be used for anything other than construction or hauling. Gives +3 to any construction roll one is added to, cumulative per robot.]
Meir Lochan gains 1xp! Meir Lochan: Espionage 2 (8/13)
Victor Velt gains 1xp! Victor Velt: Combat 2 (4/13)
Nevill gains 4xp! Nevill: Operations 2 (5/13)
Scepta gains 4xp! Level up! Scepta: Combat 2 (0/13), Operations 1!
Claire gains 4xp! Claire: Operations 2 (12/13)
Amanda Amala gains 4xp! Amanda Amala: Operations 2 (5/13)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 2xp! Ludwig Cristoffen: R&D 2 (6/13)
Steve gains 4xp! Steve: Operations 2 (12/13)
Jack Reyes gains 4xp! Level up! Jack Reyes: Combat 2 (5/13), Operations 1!
Roselia DuClare gains 4xp! Roselia DuClare: Combat 1, Operation 1 (4/7), R&D 1 (2/7)
Dr. Mizzet gains 4xp! Level up! Ulysses Lord Mizzet: Operations 1!, R&D 2 (2/13)
Levant Von Diederitz gains 4xp! Level up! Levant Von Diederitz: Operations 2! (2/7)
Michael Erickson gains 4xp! Level up! Michael Erickson: Operations 1! (2/7), R&D 1
Benny gains 1xp! Benny: Combat 1 (5/7)
Bob Smith gains 4xp! Bob Smith: Operations 1 (6/7)
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Improved Shelter (protects 40 Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (12 minerals)
- Improved Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop, can build Tracked Vehicles) (10 minerals)
- Improved Machine Shop (allows production of higher-level equipment) (4 minerals (2 after discount))
- Improved Farm (produces +8 food) (4 minerals)
- Improved Hydroponic Farm (produces +18 food) (10 minerals)
- Improved Lab (enhances research; adds +20 to any roll) (15 minerals)
- Improved Mining Operation (produces +10 minerals/turn) (15 minerals)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (2 Transport Engines, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Search the Survivor Trail
[] Research technologies
- Flight Adaptation (unlocks Air production capabilities for the Machine Shop and Garage, adds Airfield)
- Munitions Adaptation (unlocks Heavy Weapons production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Sensing (unlocks Tier I radar)
- Electromagnetic Manipulation (unlocks rail- and gauss weapons. Required for Fusion power)
- Advanced Robotics (unlocks Tier 2 robots & drones)
- Nuclear Power (unlocks nuclear power generation for vehicles and settlements)
[] Write-in
As a note, I do accept write-ins for tech or designing new weapons or whatnot.
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Week 5, Take One: Dear God
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It seems something about the new colony caused its inhabitants' energy build and build with each passing week, their zeal and determination giving them the strength and smarts of ten when they put their mind to something. The first farm they'd built had slowed the timer counting down to starvation, but hadn't reversed it. Then Nevill, while training in how to use the survey equipment, chanced upon an underwater aquifer...
The hydroponic farm took rapid shape afterward; the new-made, tinted greenhouse windows were barely cooled when they were slatted into the three-story building that was the hydro-farm. Tended by a trio of robots that rode on rails built into the farm's ceiling, the farm was fully enclosed and automated, requiring little more input than the initial seed dropoff and produce pickup, as the colony transport's AI managed the mundane tasks effortlessly from afar.
The discovery of the aquifer also solved the other major problem that had been about to rear its ugly head - lack of fresh water, namely. The transport's tanks, while self-sustaining so long as the colony's people did their business aboard ship, could only support so many people. With access to water now secured, First Impact was in a position to grow.
Build Team: EPIC SUCCESS (+4xp) (here, have a water source)
[New Codex Entry: Improved Hydroponic Farm]
[New Codex Entry: Nevill Aquifer]
But that wasn't all.
The colony's research team, this week consisting of Dr. Mizzet and Ludwig Cristoffen, made impressive inroads into not one, but two separate avenues of research.
Dr. Mizzet, and Bob Smith assisting, with a suite of e-books on electromagnetic fields opened before themm, managed to design, build and test a small, low-powered microwave radar. Its range wasn't fantastic - but it worked. It had nothing on the massive subspace arrays carried by the latest Core World battleships, or even on the phased array radars on a New Eden Juggernaut's war hull, but it was better than nothing, as well. With a range of perhaps thirty miles, it could see into the middle atmosphere with reliability, and, given proper ducting, could manage perhaps forty to fifty miles at full power.
Ludwig, manic energy and drive once again possessing him, delved into the murky realm of nuclear physics... and did in one week what it had taken an old Earth nation, back before the dawn of the Interstellar Age, nearly four years to accomplish - he created a self-sustaining test reactor pile. Siphoning off trace uranium from the mining operations and sending it through a small, self-designed cyclotron hundreds of times, he managed to make enough enriched uranium to test his designs for a reactor.
It worked. It didn't produce much, but it didn't need to. The full-sized reactor would be able, once it was built... and the reactor design came not a moment too soon: The transport's aging fusor could only support so much of the growing colony's power load. With the assistance of future power sources, it could be gently pushed out of the loop entirely.
@Space Jawa, @hcvquizibo : SUCCESS (+2xp) (radar is rather simpler than a lot of folks realize)
@Zaratustra : EPIC SUCCESS (+4 xp, bonus blueprints) (nuclear power is quite otherwise)
[New Codex Entry: Nuclear Reactor, Tier I]
[New Codex Entry: Microwave Radar Array]
[New Codex Entry: Resources: Power (required for advanced structures to function; colony transport cannot be disconnected and flown away until power sources are constructed, else colony structures will shut down]
[New Codex Entry: Space-based Nuclear Reactor (allows the construction of advanced nuclear reactors for use in space)]
[New Codex Entry: Advanced Nuclear Power (allows the construction of advanced nuclear reactors on the ground; unlocks access to Fusion)]
[New Codex Entry: Vehicle: Warlord (Tracked vehicle, nuclear powered. Armed with cannon or rail weaponry.)]
But all was not sunshine and roses...
The exploration team returned with the rover, having found nothing in their venture westward but hill, hills and more hills. They managed to lose (read, drop and run over) two of their precious rifles along the way. They began to feel as if they were being watched as they moved further west, but none of them could spot an observer, try though they might. Thoroughly spooked, they managed to make their way back home. They return just in time to head out once more at the head of an enlarged team, carrying all of the colony's remaining weaponry save the cannon, headed for the hulk of the crashed colony ship.
They reach and pass it without incident, following the tracks for fifty-two kilometers.
At kilometer fifty-three, they find the colony that might have been.
Smoke still rises over the ruins of the colony-that-was, little more than a few dozen hastily assembled prefab shelters and barricades. Bodies litter the ruins, some little more than charred skeletons, others intact with anguished rictuses of pain locked onto their rotting faces. The smell of death, sweet, charred and cloying - clung to everything, even the earth. Scorch marks and bullet holes riddle everything, from the barricades to the shelters to the people. To one side as the team slowly pushes into the center of the ruin, the half-shredded body of a woman lays across two small, unrecognizable shapes - which, belatedly, the team realizes must have been her children.
It's in the center of town, though, that the fighting was fiercest, for here was where the colony made its final stand against whatever it was that killed it. Rovers were rolled onto their sides, gun mounts pointed to the sky, blast marks visible on their sides and undercarriages. The barricades grew thicker, and the defenders as well. Men and women in second-to-last generation combat armor are fetched up against the walls and barricades around them, some mostly intact, others reduced to tattered armor over scorched bones. A few of them - mostly women, though men, too, were scattered here and there - looked as though they'd lived through the last stand, only to be used as... entertainment, by whoever, or whatever, had, in the end, killed them, too.
In the very middle is a small, heavily fortified building, the doors seemingly blocked by rubble. In front of it are two people - a man and a woman - in Cerberus battle armor.
Their armor is pitted, scorched and blasted, and the man is missing a leg, fetched up against door of the bunker he died defending. Both of their weapons - heavy Gatling guns, warped into uselessness, their barrels drooping precipitously, evidence of the fury of their final moments - were run completely dry, expended brass all that is left in their drums, their feed assemblies, or the guns themselves. Between the bulk of the two suits of armor and the rubble over the door, the bunker is effectively blocked off.
Several members of the exploration team lose their last meal, and even battle-hardened veterans like Victor and Scepta are uneasy.
One of the striking features of the ruin is one thing in particular - the total lack of the bodies of the enemy, despite all appearances pointing to there needing to be many, and the total lack of any weapons beyond those stuck in the two grim, power armored defenders' hands and on the rovers' beds.
It's not until the group, unable to find anything of value, goes to leave, that they hear it.
Rubble tumbles off the blocked doorway to the bunker, revealing a small opening, and scrabbling can be heard from within.
Explorers: +1xp
[Event]
Plan:
[] Maxim #6. If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it. (Open fire on the opening)
[] Maxim #15. Only you can prevent friendly fire. (Don't Open Fire)
[] Write-in.
The hydroponic farm took rapid shape afterward; the new-made, tinted greenhouse windows were barely cooled when they were slatted into the three-story building that was the hydro-farm. Tended by a trio of robots that rode on rails built into the farm's ceiling, the farm was fully enclosed and automated, requiring little more input than the initial seed dropoff and produce pickup, as the colony transport's AI managed the mundane tasks effortlessly from afar.
The discovery of the aquifer also solved the other major problem that had been about to rear its ugly head - lack of fresh water, namely. The transport's tanks, while self-sustaining so long as the colony's people did their business aboard ship, could only support so many people. With access to water now secured, First Impact was in a position to grow.
Build Team: EPIC SUCCESS (+4xp) (here, have a water source)
[New Codex Entry: Improved Hydroponic Farm]
[New Codex Entry: Nevill Aquifer]
But that wasn't all.
The colony's research team, this week consisting of Dr. Mizzet and Ludwig Cristoffen, made impressive inroads into not one, but two separate avenues of research.
Dr. Mizzet, and Bob Smith assisting, with a suite of e-books on electromagnetic fields opened before themm, managed to design, build and test a small, low-powered microwave radar. Its range wasn't fantastic - but it worked. It had nothing on the massive subspace arrays carried by the latest Core World battleships, or even on the phased array radars on a New Eden Juggernaut's war hull, but it was better than nothing, as well. With a range of perhaps thirty miles, it could see into the middle atmosphere with reliability, and, given proper ducting, could manage perhaps forty to fifty miles at full power.
Ludwig, manic energy and drive once again possessing him, delved into the murky realm of nuclear physics... and did in one week what it had taken an old Earth nation, back before the dawn of the Interstellar Age, nearly four years to accomplish - he created a self-sustaining test reactor pile. Siphoning off trace uranium from the mining operations and sending it through a small, self-designed cyclotron hundreds of times, he managed to make enough enriched uranium to test his designs for a reactor.
It worked. It didn't produce much, but it didn't need to. The full-sized reactor would be able, once it was built... and the reactor design came not a moment too soon: The transport's aging fusor could only support so much of the growing colony's power load. With the assistance of future power sources, it could be gently pushed out of the loop entirely.
@Space Jawa, @hcvquizibo : SUCCESS (+2xp) (radar is rather simpler than a lot of folks realize)
@Zaratustra : EPIC SUCCESS (+4 xp, bonus blueprints) (nuclear power is quite otherwise)
[New Codex Entry: Nuclear Reactor, Tier I]
[New Codex Entry: Microwave Radar Array]
[New Codex Entry: Resources: Power (required for advanced structures to function; colony transport cannot be disconnected and flown away until power sources are constructed, else colony structures will shut down]
[New Codex Entry: Space-based Nuclear Reactor (allows the construction of advanced nuclear reactors for use in space)]
[New Codex Entry: Advanced Nuclear Power (allows the construction of advanced nuclear reactors on the ground; unlocks access to Fusion)]
[New Codex Entry: Vehicle: Warlord (Tracked vehicle, nuclear powered. Armed with cannon or rail weaponry.)]
But all was not sunshine and roses...
The exploration team returned with the rover, having found nothing in their venture westward but hill, hills and more hills. They managed to lose (read, drop and run over) two of their precious rifles along the way. They began to feel as if they were being watched as they moved further west, but none of them could spot an observer, try though they might. Thoroughly spooked, they managed to make their way back home. They return just in time to head out once more at the head of an enlarged team, carrying all of the colony's remaining weaponry save the cannon, headed for the hulk of the crashed colony ship.
They reach and pass it without incident, following the tracks for fifty-two kilometers.
At kilometer fifty-three, they find the colony that might have been.
Smoke still rises over the ruins of the colony-that-was, little more than a few dozen hastily assembled prefab shelters and barricades. Bodies litter the ruins, some little more than charred skeletons, others intact with anguished rictuses of pain locked onto their rotting faces. The smell of death, sweet, charred and cloying - clung to everything, even the earth. Scorch marks and bullet holes riddle everything, from the barricades to the shelters to the people. To one side as the team slowly pushes into the center of the ruin, the half-shredded body of a woman lays across two small, unrecognizable shapes - which, belatedly, the team realizes must have been her children.
It's in the center of town, though, that the fighting was fiercest, for here was where the colony made its final stand against whatever it was that killed it. Rovers were rolled onto their sides, gun mounts pointed to the sky, blast marks visible on their sides and undercarriages. The barricades grew thicker, and the defenders as well. Men and women in second-to-last generation combat armor are fetched up against the walls and barricades around them, some mostly intact, others reduced to tattered armor over scorched bones. A few of them - mostly women, though men, too, were scattered here and there - looked as though they'd lived through the last stand, only to be used as... entertainment, by whoever, or whatever, had, in the end, killed them, too.
In the very middle is a small, heavily fortified building, the doors seemingly blocked by rubble. In front of it are two people - a man and a woman - in Cerberus battle armor.
Their armor is pitted, scorched and blasted, and the man is missing a leg, fetched up against door of the bunker he died defending. Both of their weapons - heavy Gatling guns, warped into uselessness, their barrels drooping precipitously, evidence of the fury of their final moments - were run completely dry, expended brass all that is left in their drums, their feed assemblies, or the guns themselves. Between the bulk of the two suits of armor and the rubble over the door, the bunker is effectively blocked off.
Several members of the exploration team lose their last meal, and even battle-hardened veterans like Victor and Scepta are uneasy.
One of the striking features of the ruin is one thing in particular - the total lack of the bodies of the enemy, despite all appearances pointing to there needing to be many, and the total lack of any weapons beyond those stuck in the two grim, power armored defenders' hands and on the rovers' beds.
It's not until the group, unable to find anything of value, goes to leave, that they hear it.
Rubble tumbles off the blocked doorway to the bunker, revealing a small opening, and scrabbling can be heard from within.
Explorers: +1xp
[Event]
Plan:
[] Maxim #6. If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it. (Open fire on the opening)
[] Maxim #15. Only you can prevent friendly fire. (Don't Open Fire)
[] Write-in.
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Week Five, Part Two: Chatty
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Scepta dropped back a bit, and the rest of the team spread out. "You guys wanna know what really sucks about this battlefield? Ya can't tell who won. Those are the worst kind, cause ya never know whether all of they took the enemy out with them or if their weapons and defenses didn't even matter." she spat, a little angrily, leveling her rifle at the entrance.
Jack snorted, his own rifle coming up as he fell back behind a barricade. "Considerin' that these poor bastards are all dead, an' that the attackers apparently had the time afterward for a spot o' torture an' rape-" he said, gesturing at the evidence, "-I think it's pretty clear who won." He sighed, heavily. "Goddamn, an' here I was thinkin' colony life'd be calmer." A chorus of muttered assent comes up from the rest of the group.
Jack waved them all quiet. He spoke up, loudly, directing his voice with parade-ground bred skill. "You in there! Come out where we can see you!"
Rubble stopped falling from the pile in front of the door, and a thin, high voice responded, "Go away! You already killed everyone else, why can't you leave us alone?" it cried, voice wobbling at the end.
"Shit." Meir muttered under his breath.
[]Write-in
Jack snorted, his own rifle coming up as he fell back behind a barricade. "Considerin' that these poor bastards are all dead, an' that the attackers apparently had the time afterward for a spot o' torture an' rape-" he said, gesturing at the evidence, "-I think it's pretty clear who won." He sighed, heavily. "Goddamn, an' here I was thinkin' colony life'd be calmer." A chorus of muttered assent comes up from the rest of the group.
Jack waved them all quiet. He spoke up, loudly, directing his voice with parade-ground bred skill. "You in there! Come out where we can see you!"
Rubble stopped falling from the pile in front of the door, and a thin, high voice responded, "Go away! You already killed everyone else, why can't you leave us alone?" it cried, voice wobbling at the end.
"Shit." Meir muttered under his breath.
[]Write-in
Week Five, Part Three: Cry For Help
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"We didn't do anythin' here. All we did was find your people's crash site just a fortnight ago, then we came lookin' to see if y'needed help. I reckon y'know that; it was you I saw watchin' us, right? Come on out; I swear we won't hurt ya. Just wanna know what happened." Jack said, speaking slowly and clearly. He even lowered his rifle, and motioned for Scepta and the rest of the group to do likewise. Silence greeted his words, and stretched.
After a minute or two, Scepta looked to Jack, getting his attention with a tiny wave. "I'm thinkin' you didn't convince them... whoever they are. At least they're not xenos." she said with an expressive twitch of her eyebrows. Jack nodded, looking faintly disappointed.
The sound of falling rubble started to bounce around the charnel house that was the colony's center, and Jack looked back up to its source. A hole at the top of the pile was widening, small hands pulling and pushing prefab and ceramacrete chunks out of the way. Bright hazel eyes blinked in the sudden influx of daylight, while the hands continued widening the hole. Finally, a small figure in a tattered jumpsuit tumbles down the front of the mound of debris, and another follows. More rubble falls, and a larger figure forces its way through, making pained grunts. All told, before long there are ten survivors standing before you, blinking in the sunlight and uneasy at the sight of your team's weapons, however peacefully stowed and lowered they were. Four children, a couple of teenagers, and four adults. All of them look worn and half-starved.
The hazel eyed one - a girl, no more than twelve - pulls at the sleeve of an older woman, who might have been her mother, as they shared the same general facial structure, though the girl's hair was brown where her mother's was black. The older woman leans in, listening to her whisper something in her ear, before straightening. Her own twin hazel orbs fix Jack and Scepta with a calculating gaze, and she cocks her head to the side. "You don't look much like pirates." she says at last, her voice a fuzzy contralto. "Though that doesn't mean much."
Jack and Scepta look faintly surprised, though truthfully the thought had occurred to both of them after the girl's first words to them. "No, we're not." Jack says with a frown, and hooks a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of First Impact. "We're from a new colony just up the way, got here about a T-month ago. When'd all this-" he said, gesturing around him, "happen?"
The woman pursed her lips in an expression of anger and pain. "About two weeks ago. We were coming into the system when those animals-" she said, eyes lowered to the ground, fists clenched at her sides, "decided to hit us. We managed to run, and we made planetfall, but the damage t' the colony ship forced it to be a crash landing. The impact took out the lower cryo bay - about half of the colony died, right off the bat. Most of our equipment was intact, though, so we found the best place we could. It... it wasn't good enough. They came about a week later, and killed everyone. Killed my David, killed my James, r-"she said, shuddering,"raped my Elizabeth and then killed her, once the fighting was done..." she said. She gestured to the dead man in the armored suit. "My brother Evan, he was a Royal Marine when he was younger... he fought like a lion," she said, with pride - and sadness. "I could see it from that camera there." she said, pointing to a small black dome above the bunker door, above the rubble. "Ran his gun dead and started beating those vermin to death with it to keep them away from the door. Katlin," she said, waving at the woman, who looks like an anti-tank gun took offense to her midsection, the only thing holding her upright being the armor's frame,"I... I might not have liked her much, but she fought good. For her boy." she said, arm wrapping around one of the children, a tallish boy with dark hair and dark eyes that have seen entirely too much.
The Impactor group is silent, sadness on some of their faces, anger on others, and both war on Jack's features. "'m terrible sorry, ma'am. None o' that's right, not a damn bit of it. Shouldn't'a happened." In each of the Impactors' minds though, a thought exists - that could have been us.
She shrugs, a helpless gesture. "Nothing for it." she said, closing her eyes a moment. She looks back up. "I'm sorry t' ask, but we're running low on food... and I want my kids - " the ones I have left " - t' have a roof over their heads. We've got... we've got nothing here. Nothing but corpses and dust. Could we... could we tag along with you?" she asks, a hint of a note of pleading in her tone, though her straight-backed, proud posture shows little of it.
(Affects the whole colony, so everyone can vote.)
[] Bring them with you
[] Don't
Meir Lochan gains 2xp. Espionage 2 (10/13)
Victor Velt gains 2xp. Combat 2 (6/13)
Nevill gains 4xp. Operations 2 (9/13)
Scepta gains 2xp. Combat 2 (2/13), Operations 1
Claire gains 4xp. Level up! Operations 3! (3/21)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 4xp R&D 2 (10/13)
Steve gains 4xp. Level up! Operations 3! (3/21)
Jack Reyes gains 2xp. Combat 2 (7/13), Operations 1
Roselia DuClare gains 4xp. Combat 1, Operations 2 (1/13), R&D 1
Dr. Mizzet gains 2xp. Operations 1, R&D 2 (4/13)
Michael Erickson gains 4xp. Operations 1 (6/7), R&D 1
Benny gains 2xp. Level up! Combat 2!
Bob Smith gains 2xp. Operations 1, R&D 0 (2/4)
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Improved Shelter (protects 40 Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (12 minerals) (requires 3 power)
- Improved Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop, can build Tracked Vehicles) (10 minerals) (requires 2 power)
- Improved Machine Shop (allows production of higher-level equipment) (4 minerals (2 after discount)) (requires 3 power)
- Improved Farm (produces +8 food) (4 minerals)
- Improved Hydroponic Farm (produces +18 food) (10 minerals) (requires 2 power)
- Improved Lab (enhances research; adds +20 to any roll) (15 minerals) (requires 2 power)
- Improved Mining Operation (produces +10 minerals/turn) (15 minerals)
- Nuclear Power Plant I (produces +10 power) (15 minerals)
- Basic Radar (provides 30-50km of early warning against aerial targets) (10 minerals) (requires 5 power)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (2 Transport Engines, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Research technologies
- Flight Adaptation (unlocks Air production capabilities for the Machine Shop and Garage, adds Airfield)
- Munitions Adaptation (unlocks Heavy Weapons production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Long-Range Sensing (unlocks Tier II radar)
- Electromagnetic Manipulation (unlocks rail- and gauss weapons. Required for Fusion power)
- Advanced Robotics (unlocks Tier 2 robots & drones)
- Advanced Nuclear Power (unlocks advanced nuclear power generation for vehicles and settlements)
- Space-Borne Nuclear Power (unlocks nuclear power generation for spacecraft)
- Fortification I (unlocks basic fortifications and defenses)
- Write-in Tech
[] Write-in
After a minute or two, Scepta looked to Jack, getting his attention with a tiny wave. "I'm thinkin' you didn't convince them... whoever they are. At least they're not xenos." she said with an expressive twitch of her eyebrows. Jack nodded, looking faintly disappointed.
The sound of falling rubble started to bounce around the charnel house that was the colony's center, and Jack looked back up to its source. A hole at the top of the pile was widening, small hands pulling and pushing prefab and ceramacrete chunks out of the way. Bright hazel eyes blinked in the sudden influx of daylight, while the hands continued widening the hole. Finally, a small figure in a tattered jumpsuit tumbles down the front of the mound of debris, and another follows. More rubble falls, and a larger figure forces its way through, making pained grunts. All told, before long there are ten survivors standing before you, blinking in the sunlight and uneasy at the sight of your team's weapons, however peacefully stowed and lowered they were. Four children, a couple of teenagers, and four adults. All of them look worn and half-starved.
The hazel eyed one - a girl, no more than twelve - pulls at the sleeve of an older woman, who might have been her mother, as they shared the same general facial structure, though the girl's hair was brown where her mother's was black. The older woman leans in, listening to her whisper something in her ear, before straightening. Her own twin hazel orbs fix Jack and Scepta with a calculating gaze, and she cocks her head to the side. "You don't look much like pirates." she says at last, her voice a fuzzy contralto. "Though that doesn't mean much."
Jack and Scepta look faintly surprised, though truthfully the thought had occurred to both of them after the girl's first words to them. "No, we're not." Jack says with a frown, and hooks a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of First Impact. "We're from a new colony just up the way, got here about a T-month ago. When'd all this-" he said, gesturing around him, "happen?"
The woman pursed her lips in an expression of anger and pain. "About two weeks ago. We were coming into the system when those animals-" she said, eyes lowered to the ground, fists clenched at her sides, "decided to hit us. We managed to run, and we made planetfall, but the damage t' the colony ship forced it to be a crash landing. The impact took out the lower cryo bay - about half of the colony died, right off the bat. Most of our equipment was intact, though, so we found the best place we could. It... it wasn't good enough. They came about a week later, and killed everyone. Killed my David, killed my James, r-"she said, shuddering,"raped my Elizabeth and then killed her, once the fighting was done..." she said. She gestured to the dead man in the armored suit. "My brother Evan, he was a Royal Marine when he was younger... he fought like a lion," she said, with pride - and sadness. "I could see it from that camera there." she said, pointing to a small black dome above the bunker door, above the rubble. "Ran his gun dead and started beating those vermin to death with it to keep them away from the door. Katlin," she said, waving at the woman, who looks like an anti-tank gun took offense to her midsection, the only thing holding her upright being the armor's frame,"I... I might not have liked her much, but she fought good. For her boy." she said, arm wrapping around one of the children, a tallish boy with dark hair and dark eyes that have seen entirely too much.
The Impactor group is silent, sadness on some of their faces, anger on others, and both war on Jack's features. "'m terrible sorry, ma'am. None o' that's right, not a damn bit of it. Shouldn't'a happened." In each of the Impactors' minds though, a thought exists - that could have been us.
She shrugs, a helpless gesture. "Nothing for it." she said, closing her eyes a moment. She looks back up. "I'm sorry t' ask, but we're running low on food... and I want my kids - " the ones I have left " - t' have a roof over their heads. We've got... we've got nothing here. Nothing but corpses and dust. Could we... could we tag along with you?" she asks, a hint of a note of pleading in her tone, though her straight-backed, proud posture shows little of it.
(Affects the whole colony, so everyone can vote.)
[] Bring them with you
[] Don't
Meir Lochan gains 2xp. Espionage 2 (10/13)
Victor Velt gains 2xp. Combat 2 (6/13)
Nevill gains 4xp. Operations 2 (9/13)
Scepta gains 2xp. Combat 2 (2/13), Operations 1
Claire gains 4xp. Level up! Operations 3! (3/21)
Ludwig Cristoffen gains 4xp R&D 2 (10/13)
Steve gains 4xp. Level up! Operations 3! (3/21)
Jack Reyes gains 2xp. Combat 2 (7/13), Operations 1
Roselia DuClare gains 4xp. Combat 1, Operations 2 (1/13), R&D 1
Dr. Mizzet gains 2xp. Operations 1, R&D 2 (4/13)
Michael Erickson gains 4xp. Operations 1 (6/7), R&D 1
Benny gains 2xp. Level up! Combat 2!
Bob Smith gains 2xp. Operations 1, R&D 0 (2/4)
Voting!
[] Survey the area (R&D)
[] Set up a building:
- Improved Shelter (protects 40 Settlers and Characters from low-level Disasters) (12 minerals) (requires 3 power)
- Improved Garage (provides repair capabilities for your equipment, production of vehicles with Machine Shop, can build Tracked Vehicles) (10 minerals) (requires 2 power)
- Improved Machine Shop (allows production of higher-level equipment) (4 minerals (2 after discount)) (requires 3 power)
- Improved Farm (produces +8 food) (4 minerals)
- Improved Hydroponic Farm (produces +18 food) (10 minerals) (requires 2 power)
- Improved Lab (enhances research; adds +20 to any roll) (15 minerals) (requires 2 power)
- Improved Mining Operation (produces +10 minerals/turn) (15 minerals)
- Nuclear Power Plant I (produces +10 power) (15 minerals)
- Basic Radar (provides 30-50km of early warning against aerial targets) (10 minerals) (requires 5 power)
[] Try to repair the transport's engines (2 Transport Engines, 5 minerals)
[] Upgrade a building
- Which one? (Cost variable)
[] Explore (Combat+Espionage)
[] Research technologies
- Flight Adaptation (unlocks Air production capabilities for the Machine Shop and Garage, adds Airfield)
- Munitions Adaptation (unlocks Heavy Weapons production capabilities for Machine Shop)
- Long-Range Sensing (unlocks Tier II radar)
- Electromagnetic Manipulation (unlocks rail- and gauss weapons. Required for Fusion power)
- Advanced Robotics (unlocks Tier 2 robots & drones)
- Advanced Nuclear Power (unlocks advanced nuclear power generation for vehicles and settlements)
- Space-Borne Nuclear Power (unlocks nuclear power generation for spacecraft)
- Fortification I (unlocks basic fortifications and defenses)
- Write-in Tech
[] Write-in
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