Ari
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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Everything posted by Ari
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Just to temind folks, it's open, so if you want drop in at any time, no need to wait for the right moment unless you want to, and then let me know so I can help provide it.
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The alien across from Tristan noted down the answers rapidly, nodding slowly, though his broad face was unchanged. "Thank you for being forthright. It is important to know about the respondant, otherwise the answers are meaningless. Uncommon desire to serve the public good...encouraging." "Dotrae is, indeed, a manymind. Singular pronouns are preferred on most planets, so we open with those." The mountainous bureaucrat leaned forward, one naked eyebrow raised slightly "A very astute observation. From what we read on the Lighthouse, few in your civilization are so trained to observe." Scrolling through the files of the holocor with flicks of his sausage-like fingers, creating a blur of patterns across the pallid face of Dol-Druth as he skimmed the Pre-Inspection Guidelines and Methods, the alien continued in his harsh voice "'Hive' is inaccurate. We share a mind, but are each independent. Your exceptionals have recently met the Communion, a vast, thankfully now dead, single artificial entity with many parts but one purpose. We are many parts, many purposes, but a collective of minds and senses. When Dol-Druth looks at you, all Dotrae does too. He speaks our thoughts, representative and focus to the loneminds of the universe, but is also Dol-Druth the planet inspector." Having found what he was looking for, the inspector swiped a semi-translucent map of the known galaxy onto the display, blue lines linking the Republic's stars. "Similarly, our Republic is many species and systems, united for the goal of cooperation for mutual benefit. Only a short time ago it was a cruel, selfish empire ruled by the humans of the Magna-Lor system. The Lor are still a majority, but allow other members equal voice in the Senate, election to the Praetors, self-governance and self-determination so long as it does not interfere with the aims of other members." "For example," here the man's eyes hooded, his slender antennae curled forward as if crouching "we have read of the intolerably numerous attacks on this planet, including by the Myconid, the Grue Unity and even a stealth incursion by Khanate operatives. Given that violent first contact, how do you think you-your people feel about..."aliens"?" His hands did not make the quotes, but the antennae did.
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Reopening his holocor, the pale alien tapped a few semi-imaginary buttons in the light-based interface, bringing up a block of text in an alien language. Scanning it briefly, Dol-Druth cleared his throat, looked at Tristan and began at once. "Your culture defines itself based on differences, is that correct? "You" are you because you are not something else, someone else. With that in mind, how would you describe yourself? What makes you you? What is your definition of normal, and do you fit it? Finally," the inspector glanced at the text and frowned for a fleeti moment before turning his black, gimlet eyes back to Tristan "Under what circumstances would you want to be other than you are?"
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GM As Velocity's superhuman search went on, it quickly became apparent that Tesla's assumptions were incorrect: there was not one such ring, there were at least five hundred in the search radius of that continent alone. They weren't all the same age, either, with some wide and deep enough to swallow two Pegasus spaceplanes placed end to end horizontally or vertically, some just 'opening' and barely big enough to stand in. At the bottom of the largest, the dirt gave way to a silvery, metallic lump that seemed to be part of something much larger. However, while plant life shrank from them, animal life had no such reaction. Several times Megan dashed by circles that had become nests or watering holes for the local fauna, moving so fast that the strange black wingless dragons and pastel-coloured swarms of floating cotton-balls never saw her. By and large, while they were certainly unusual they didn't appear dangerous or even unusual for Halluel's style of normal. When Velocity returned and told what she'd found Tesla and the scientists from ASTRO Labs were soon buzzing with speculation on what exactly they'd stumbled upon. Only Chase seemed anxious. At the camp site, the surveillance feed was quickly got up and running, and that night they settled in to watch what was making the rings, and how. Long after night had fallen, the luminescence still a mystery in the absence of a local sun, the noise of life in the forest around them abruptly stopped. The ground trembled and almost imperceptibly began to shift, over the course of hours retracting and sinking smoothly under the Pegasus, so softly and gently that those aboard never felt a thing. Tristan, as he watched, saw something the techies he'd stayed up with hadn't: a glint of silver that had momentarily poked through the dirt, and then vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
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Notice result does gain some knowage, which will have to wait until the GM post, sorry Blarghy. Earth and Life Sciences reveals that, somehow, the ground minerals and more stationary life forms of Halluel are being regressed. The larger bioforms are most obviously returning to "younger" states in their life-cycle, and the more complex molecules in the soil are rejecting entropy and collapsing into their more centralized forms. It's like watching frames of nature going in reverse.
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Since you ask, Blarghy, then sure! Each of those is relevant, besides Investigation(which can be swapped with Notice for reviewing the surveillance feed). Thevshi, with those kinds of numbers behind her Velocity finds a great deal. Will elaborate in GM post.
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GM "Oh, the geology gear we brought is just fine for that. I was planning to take a quiet few days here just taking and analyzing soil and water and atmosphere samples. Halluel is great for relaxing, almost wish we hadn't found this." Tesla smiled slightly "Almost. I'll help get the surveillance equipment up and running as soon as the monitoring station is operational. Velocity," she turned soberly to the Leaguer speedster, tapping at the communicator on her morphic uniform's wrist "I want to be sure this is the only place where this has happened. Would you scout around in a radius of about 350 miles? The Bee has pretty good imaging arrays, but you're much faster and the ship's lenses aren't as trustworthy as human eyes." Meanwhile, Chase was showing Wayward and the camera crew how to lure the flying ribbon-things to land on your wrist, his arms quickly becoming festooned with twining, living streamers as he gravely outlined the proper steps. Afterwards, he approached the celebrity heroine. "Excuse me, Mz. Cain," he said, an almost puzzled look on his face "but I understand you are psychically competent, so I wanted a second opinion: can you sense anything? Perhaps some kind of animal? I am picking up...something, like thoughts but much slower, vaguer. I have imagined things like that in the past, and do not wish to alarm anybody without cause."
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GM Mere moments later, soon enough that a faint haze from the matter-transition still lingered in the air for Jerry to find, Red Moon darted Moonwards from within the very same ingeniously-arranged megalithic artifact. For reasons unexplored, many such groupings and carvings of primitive stone resonated with technology unimaginably more advanced. Something about Preserver and ancient human arts had grown in parallel, and the result while inexplicable was quite beautiful. Starting from the inner arches, but moving steadily outwards, a silver-blue light began to play among the stones. It illuminated the nigh-obliterated remains of letters and crude runes, sweeping in currents and waves of light, suddenly collapsing together in the centre of the ring and forming a lance aimed at the low-riding ghostly Moon. Jerry felt an abrupt and powerful urge to follow, though why or how wasn't obvious, the destination was clear enough.
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Dol-Druth squinted dubiously at the human. He'd gotten halfway through the strained water and could feel it doing something irreparable inside him, the sun's angle meant its fiery gaze bounced off every reflective surface around(which was most of the surfaces in this part of Midtown), and after hours of dealing with questions that were at average shockingly inane, he was at much less than optimal sociability levels. Nonetheless, this was why he was here, it was a valid misinterpretation of this and likely other Republic programmes, and at least it was more of a conversation-starter than almost anything else he had been asked so far. Schooling his face and mind into polite crisp professionalism, the Speaker said "Not yet. It is rather the first step on that journey." Rising slightly by way of pushing himself up with the table, the prodigious Dotra went on "I am Dol-Druth, Speaking for Dotrae and inspector of civilized worlds prior to and after their entry into the Lor Republic, a cosmopolitan interstellar authority on whose borders this stellar system currently rests. I wish to learn about this world and its people from its people, and educate them so they may make informed decisions about their future place in the cosmos." He beckoned to the chair opposite his with a massive, fleshy hand "Would you care to join me, and talk for a while?"
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More is of the merriment. Come several, and in single.
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It is begun here.
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Starbase #00026, corner of 40th and Allen, Midtown, Freedom City, 2nd of April, Saturday, 2016, 50 revolutions since last long-range inspection by the Lor Republic Folding down his holocor screen, Dol-Druth glanced around at the world that would be his home for the foreseeable future. It was warmer here than when he'd arrived on the exceptionals' Lighthouse. The northern hemisphere was tilting back towards SL-43, blazing gold in the faintly nauseating blue-hued sky. A slender sliver of silver was visible through the squat canyons of Midtown's buildings, a daily reminder to the planet inspector that he could be somewhere civilized right now, and not need to leave the system to do it. With a grumbling noise at the back of his throat, the bureaucrat leaned back in the chair of metal mesh, feeling it waver slightly under his hundred-odd kilograms, glancing at his fellow patrons, most of whom either gawked openly or surreptitiously. It was the same with the steady stream of humans going up and down the street, either on foot, on bi-wheeled contraptions of remarkable ingenuity, or in groundcars that roared and rumbled like something out of the Khanate arenas. He'd endured plenty of stares, but for the most part this settlement seemed fairly used to people with unusual appearances, so the stares were pretty much it. It was cutting into his data-gathering, especially since those that did pause mostly just took pictures, giggled, or asked him incredibly stupid questions like- "Are you an alien?" A very large, wholly bald white-skinned man in a shifting suit of iridescent beige swiveled around, levelling a pair of slender antennae and a pair of large, black eyes set in a humourless face at the human pupa who'd spoken, a female with a cloud of kinked black hair, clothed in vivid colours that made the inspector's gut clench. For a second, but only one, Dol-Druth considered saying "No." But he wasn't here to lie to children, he was here to find out what these children were thinking and were going to become. With a forbidding scowl he replied "Yes. I am Planet Inspector Dol-Druth, Speaking for Dotrae, the Lor of the Manymind and the Lost Planet. I wish to learn about your world and-" The girl was already dashing to her very embarrassed-looking dam "MOM, MOM, I JUST MET AN ALIEN!" she all but screamed, which got her a stern lecture that carried on to around the block and out of the Civic Rotundan's sight. Dol-Druth glared at the cup of vegetable-strained water and the clump of sweetened grains in front of him. The Grue Pseudo had told him that coffee shops were common places for humans to congregate and meet new people. Had this all been an elaborate joke at his expense? "I wouldn't expect much more of a shifter, even if he is severed from the Meta-Mind" the insectile Lor muttered, taking a ginger sip of his coffee. It hadn't gotten any better after it cooled down. Settling back into his chair, he checked the holographic sign. It at least was working as intended, saying in bright letters of soft light INTERVIEWEES WANTED FOR INTERTERRESTRIAL CIVIC PROGRAMME Perfectly clear. Joke or not, this place was at least where people were. All he had to do was wait. Something he was going to have to get used to sooner or later. Again. 'Bird Galactic, I hate my job'
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Planet inspector and spokesbeing for the Dotrae, Dol-Druth of the battered Lor Republic, has arrived on Earth. His first duty is to examine the changes of human society since the 1950's, which requires him to interview representative citizens of Earth. To that end he's parked himself at a table outside a Starbase, people-watching and inviting anyne who doesn't look like they're in a hurry to sit with him and answer a few questions over the course of conversation and hot caffeine. Basically one of the more chatty issues of Astro City. Who: Anybody who lives or would have reason to be in Midtown Freedom City. PL no object. No group size preference or goal. When: Early April, 2016. Mid-afternoon. Where: Freedom City, Midtown. What: Social only, no combat or skill use whatsoever. Why: Arguing for humanity's merit and learning about the wider universe from the comfort of a coffee place.
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March 1st, 2016, 2.03 AM (AST) The Warrens, West wall of Farside Crater, the dark side of the Moon, Sol System At all times the caves felt empty. The walls were covered in ornate and sophisticated technology, the floors often interrupted by sweeping, elegant examples of Farsider engineering, normally the squared tunnels blazed with light, but the silence of the vacuum and the blackness of deactivation made it all feel like a very elaborate stage, not a place that anyone could live in. As she materialized on the teleportation dais, clutching her precious cargo, Atraxia looked at the motionless, austere world around her with a swell of pride. As the last of the blue-gold shimmers of recoherence faded, the dead Farsider straightened up, free of the oppressive grip of Olderth gravity, and flew, pausing only briefly to verify her identity to the monitoring system. At once, the rest of the power cells kicked in, and the world changed. As Atraxia sped like a dark arrow through the now brilliantly-lit tunnels, she relaxed at last, grip loosening on the container still closely held against her black and red terrasuit. Inside, something pale writhed against magno-gravitic bonds, something which could make a corpse's eyes glitter with curiosity and delight. It had been years since it had fallen to Olderth's surface and somehow, despite all odds and the high price the governments of the planet would place on it, she was the first to recover it. One piece, all hers. Coming at last to the doors of her laboratory, the Farsider reached out a spindly arm, sinking it into an adjacent aperture. She felt mechanisms inside remove the sleeve of her 'suit, and then nothing. With a tone that she had spent days perfecting, wasted on the acrid void, the door spiraled open, revealing a dizzying wonderland of intricate tools, specimens in myriad rainbows of solutions and nutrient baths, plodding simulations, readouts describing in exhaustive detail every action of every molecule of their given subject. It was a pleasure to step inside, to let the door cycle shut, blocking out the messy world and step into one of harmony and direction. Taking the cylinder of silver gold to a spare section of her exotic containment module, Atraxia slid the thing into place, tested the field inside with a flick of her dead wrist and a flicker of her blank blue eyes to a crystalline guage, and taking a breath of useless air injected the Gorgon shard into its new home. At once the inchoate mass of consuming, imprisoning nanites tried to break free, twisting and distorting as it tried to get a grip on something solid enough to entomb and ossify, but repulsed by a shifting stream of energy waves it could do little but fall into a pattern of outgrowth, collapse and regrowth. Staring in a moment's gleeful awe at the mass of miniscule robots that would have rapidly reduced her and her home to a petrified state, the vampire quickly recovered herself and settled in to examine her find. Hunching over a translucent display, she absently thumbed a button that unfolded a nearby section of wall, offering a fresh canister of cloned blood. Swapping it with the empty one in her 'suit, the vampire felt her cares and stress wash away under the soothing quasi-sensation of revitalization, the new blood spreading through her withered veins and pumping into her wrinkled skull. For all that, she was as motionless as a statue, as a part of the high-tech furniture, as the silent walls and tunnels of the deathly-still Warrens. In moments, it was just her and the data, the rest of the universe and its inhabitants a distant fifth concern. As were the facts that matter-transit signals could be tracked, and that maybe, just maybe, somebody else might want what she'd found.
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GM Tesla, her morphic uniform changed to resemble a suit of coveralls, was helping get the deceptively slender sensor array comfortably settled into the ground when the three returned. A quartet of the technicians were working on the body, while the rest were assembling the power supply and detection equipment. Standing up and brushing dirt off her hands, the second-eldest Atom frowned at Tristan's question. "Let's see...we had just escaped Rhisombus and Rebulus of the Nucleotitans, in their overthrow the air-car's power system got damaged, so we couldn't brake our descent properly. We skidded to a stop about there." She pointed over at a small groove near the Pegasus's undercarriage. A short, but significant distance from the center of the first terrace. "We needed every bit and piece of the thing if we didn't want to be stranded, so while we could only make superficial and, frankly, jury-rigged repairs, we collected every scrap of the vehicle we could find." Crossing her arms and looking between Velocity and Dr. Delacroix, Tesla asked anxiously "You don't think we might have introduced something? I checked before we left and found nothing, but radioactivity, some toxic reaction to the metal, or something else might have happened since then, is that your worry?"
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GM "Oh, of course Mr. M...Amir" Monday quickly turned and introduced his compatriots, most of whom managed smiles that didn't look nearly as edgy as the rest of them. When it came to the younger man with the briefcase, he eagerly shook Amir's hand as Monday intoned "...and this is our most recent addition to the family, Dr. Lavernius Fielder, who is also the creator of the prototype energy convertor we mentioned in the brief. Doctor?" Lavernius' eyes shone as he began "It is without a doubt one of the finds of this century. A way to harness the expansion and decay of matter and energy, recycling the death of our universe into-!" Monday coughed "Er, yes, doctor, perhaps the presentation might be more informative, and less prosey?" Lavernius paused, a little bashed, but quickly began setting up for the demonstration, including a narrow red metal belt that he carefully donned before proceeding. Standing before the blank screen of the conference room, the shades tilted to obscure the outside and the lights dimmed, the physicist began crisply, addressing their host exclusively. "Redshift, Amir, is the principle that as energy slows it expands, to be very broad and a little inaccurate. The diffusion of heat, the expansion of materiels in changing temperatures, is the most obvious example." He clicked the remote, and projected behind him stood a massive armored giant, in some sort of high-tech cradle in some Redshift-branded facility. "I have found a way to make that principle of very real and practical benefit. That suit of armor" he tapped the belt around his waist "is contained in this. Shall I demonstrate?"
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Everyone gets a HP for RPing and interaction. Please make note of that for very shortly.
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GM "Yeah, now's not a good time for that. But I'm going to have that talk, Mr. Angel." Edging over to Matthias, Faye looked at her recently-wounded, recently-murderous husband with a strange mix of fear and pity. After a moment she reached out nervously to him "'Sides, I can't just leave Matty lying here." Wrestling the young man into a firefighter's hoist, Faye headed for the stairs, pausing at their foot as something struck her. Over her shoulder she said "Hey, you said "entities can influence", but, if you were interfering for me, then what got into Matty's head? Was it the Devil?" A vaguely humanoid form of pure darkness began to slide noiselessly through the air, dropping into place behind Faye as she turned to look ironically at Ray. "Are you seriously implying that all this happened because "the Devil made me do it"? Chorus, in her most common second form, silently signalled Ray to draw the mortal's attention to her. Presumably she had some pithy sound-bite ready to impress on the new wife the importance of communication in relationships, since otherwise demons from Hell might use undiscussed weaknesses or faults to eventually make your significant other try to kill you. Probably not, but such self-awareness would have been a welcome novelty.
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The soil making up the shallow terraces is still rich with the substances life in the Infraverse has developed a liking for, and each level is much more recent than the last. The uppermost ring wouldn't have been here yesterday. The groundbound life are, despite the retreat and amputated parts, quite healthy. This doesn't look like something very unusual for this planet, despite how strange it is for the Earthlings. It's an orderly rearrangement, but to where and from precisely what is unclear, though the past landing of the Atoms(which was more of a crash-landing) might have had longer-term consequences than expected.
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Tristan figures out pretty quickly that the plants(at least they seem like plants, though they lack terrestrial root systems and their 'leaves' have a lot in common with the animal tissue the FCI studied) are pulling back from the clearing, evidenced by abandoned pieces of the larger lifeforms littering the more 'recent' rings of the depression. Why remains unclear. If you want, roll Earth or Physical Sciences, Wisdom or Medicine.
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GM In addition to the super-guests and Wayward's crew, Chase Atom and ten of the A.S.T.R.O. crew came along. Chase had left Cosmo on the Bee, though from the way he told it to Tesla, it was obvious he didn't think that would last long. The crew brought along one of the sensor arrays that the Lab and Atoms hoped would give them some insight into the nature of the lifeglow. The flight down to planetside was uneventful although Velocity, used to the relatively openness of a Pegasus on a League mission, felt the change in around twenty people and 300 pounds of sensory equipment all occupying the same plane. Streaking across the lush, tropical and verdant wilderness, Chase and Tesla reminisced fondly at the sight of familiar spots, pointing out unusual rock formations, wandering herds with forests growing from their backs and a fast-flying serpentine dragon. Tesla had already set Velocity's destination, and the whole party disembarked in a large circular clearing. Helping to carry the equipment out with a glowing bed of golden nucleonic energy, Tesla glanced with a smile at the towering, flowing trees that spiraled above them in graceful arcs. The air was crisp and clear, without even the need for the small rebreathers occupying several crates in the Bee's hold. Even in the middle of the jungle a faint breeze could be felt, cool and refreshing. The sky was blue in defiance of the red dusk of the Infraverse, pillared with majestic, gentle clouds, with aerial creatures flitting or gliding serenely across it and through the treetops. In the background as the unobtrusive, reassuring chorus of animal life, calls and sweet singing and trampled undergrowth. Shading her eyes to scan the concentric circles making up the depression the Pegasus had settled in, she paused and glanced with a questioning look at Chase. "Didn't this used to be smaller? Remember last time, we couldn't fit even the Atomobile in here." Starting at the question, the slender young man looked around at the rippling clearing, narrowing his dark eyes in thought. Nodding at last, he said "Yes, it was smaller." The telepath shrugged "Should not be a problem, I will keep a watch for anything else changed." After another look around, Tesla nodded and hoisted the equipment higher "Alright, let's get to work, people. I'll help with the sensors, anyone wants to go exploring, feel free, just grab a buddy. We've never met anything dangerous here but don't take any unnecessary risks, okay?" Overhead, a cluster of glittering streamers flitted by, swooping and curling in iridescent brilliance, a faint tone like vibrating piano strings following in their wake.
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IN REPLY TO: Blarghy: Yes, that is a failure resulting in a Fatigued condition. Yes, you can bring along "mundane" medical equipment, in general it's assumed that everyone who can use them is bringing a kit along. Alien terrain and all that. EternalPhoenix: Among other things, Knowledge(Physical Sciences) tells Terrifica that there is no reason for an Earth-like planet to exist in the Infraverse. Especially given the conspicuous lack of nearby suns. Life Sciences tells her that, with the all-permeating lifeglow, whatever flora and fauna exist on Halluel must be both more plentiful and much more self-sufficient than they are on Earth.
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GM Startled out of her misery, Faye gaped at the man with glowing tattoos for a moment before his question registered. "H-he just...I don't know, he...everything just started going wrong, Matt started drinking real heavy, getting suspicious of everything I did, but..." Shaking her head the disheveled woman lapsed into silence, staring at the bizarre tableau in front of her. Under his hand Ray could feel the man's narrow yet deadly wound start to close. The blood flow had already fallen to a slow drip, even if he'd be unable to walk for weeks the man was no longer in danger of dying. At last, meeting the angel's eyes, with an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before, Faye asked "Did God send you? Why didn't you come before this happened? Why didn't He stop this? Why wait 'till after I st...after I hurt him?"
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No, go ahead. I've edited the GM post on page 2 so I retroactively don't drop that plot ball, so it is fine.
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Pardon the noise, I was banging my head against that wall. Mind like a bloody sieve, thanks for reminding me Blarghy.
