Starlight:Bring Corruption to All That You Touch

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May 15, 2015 – Episode 3: Bring Corruption to All That You Touch

Game Outline

Inform Finn of his obligation
1. Lt Ammo Andersen pulls him aside at some point a few days after you first come on the ship. “Hey, man, uh, so… see, every bit of electronic communication that comes on to the ship needs to be cleared by my department first… well, we’ve been kind of busy, and have been trying to get through a bunch of stuff that came through before we left and you’ve got one message… and… well, I just wanted to let you know so you weren’t caught off guard by a message coming it from someone back home… so.. uh.. yeah.”
2. He’ll send it to him in a few moments.
3. Any questions.
Emergency Procedures -> Emergency Collision door
1. Early morning, 7 December 2314
2. Mail from Anne Swafford?
3. One of the PCs is at their door, ready to head out on a morning exercise. Probably Jerias.
4. The commander jogs by, exchanging a quick good morning, and rounds a corner.
5. You’re stretching at the entry to your berth when suddenly the lights flicker to red. A warning tone sounds and you a mechanical voice intones over the PA system “warning. Brace for impact” You hear a loud metallic scraping from the fore of the ship and your heart skips a beat. Seconds later, the light flicks back to its regular warm glow.
  1. What do you do?
    1. If they try to go back into the room, the door doesn’t open. It takes a few presses of the button
6. You can hear rapid footsteps coming down the hall. Ensign Crocetti is running down a hallway shouting “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHI-” he stops when he sees you “have you seen the commander or the captain? OH SHIT”
In the meeting room – 0700
1. Lt Barnabas stands at the front of the meeting room before the screen.
  1. “Well, gentlemen, as you’re all aware of, at approximately oh-four-thirty this morning, Ensign Crocetti claimed the main nav computer alerted him to an impending collision.” A video comes to life on the main screen showing a schematic of the ship. It zooms in on the protruding sortie tubes at the fore of the vessel. “As you can see from the display, the launch tubes and accompanying magnetic a would be the most vulnerable in the event of a collision. As such, the ship is equipped with a pain of heavy collision doors designed to take the brunt of an impact.” The schematic shows a pair of doors coming out from above the launch system and clamping shut.
  2. “Ensign Crocetti deployed those doors this morning. The doors are held tight in place by a pair of extremely powerful springs. In regular fleet operations, this wouldn’t normally be an issue. As a matter of fact, many supply and support vessels are equipped to assist carriers in opening their doors. Unfortunately, we’re not currently operating within regular fleet conditions at the moment.
  3. The video screen switches to show a live feed from the exterior of the ship. The Tyson floats close to the front of the ship, and a human figure in an exo-suit is attaching a tether to a metal tab protruding from the door mechanism. “as you can see Senior Chief Zakari is on EVA now attempting to open one of the doors.”
  4. “Alright, I’m headed back to the vehicle now. We’ll see if this works in a few moments” “roger, Tyson.” You see the human figure float back to the entry way of the Tyson. “Inside… repressurizing… complete… I really wish I could get this helmet off… I think something’s wrong with the temp regulator in the suit…” you hear some clunking sounds. “Okay... I’m at the controls. Ready to go.” The engines of Tyson fire up and it begins to pull away from the Starlight. The tow line goes taut. “Throttle at 20%... increating…. 30…. 40…”
  5. Without warning, the back end of the Tyson bursts open, and debris flies out in all directions. The Tyson lurches away and the engines cut off.
  6. “Tyson respond. Zakri, are you there?”
  7. “Dammit,” he can be heard to say over the comm. “This is going to take me forever to fix.”
2. Barnabas turns back to the PCs and the screen goes blank.
  1. Well then! On the plan “B”.
  2. Another schematic of the ship appears on the screen, this time an internal view.
  3. Right, so… we’ve got another plan for getting the door open, and it will require one of you to perform some… interesting maneuvers.
  4. The view zooms down to the flight deck. First, we’ll start here, where one of you will sortie into an Alexander. My suggestion would be go with a high-strength load out, but I’ll leave the details up to you.
  5. Then, you will take the Alexander out this door
    1. The view switches to a hallway.
  6. Out to this hallway. You’ll take this down to the commissary, here
    1. The view heads down the hall and to the ship store.
  7. Which is attached to the cafeteria. Through the cafeteria, you can make it into the kitchen. The kitchen
    1. The view follows
  8. has direct access to the supply hallway on this deck. This hallway will be a bit easier to navigate. You can then take the hallway to this cargo elevator. From there, you can take the elevator to the docking bay at the aft of the ship. From there, out the docking bay, and to the front of the ship where you’ll attempt to open the door.
  9. The rest of you will assist the pilot in getting through the hall there’s… some stuff that needs to be moved out of the way, and we’ve got some gear here
    1. He points to a pile of demolition gear, some sledgehammers and blow torches
  10. To help you… clear the way for the Alexander.
  11. Time is of the essence. We could be attacked by those machines at any time… so, who wants to volunteer?
  12. Any questions?
Getting through the ship. – SETBACK DICE CAN BE CANCELLED BY GIVING BOOSTS. FAILURE AT ANY PILOTING CHECK WILL RESULT IN SYSTEM STRAIN = (2 * DIFFICULITY DICE) + (3 * CHALLENGE DICE).
1. Let the PC decide a build.
2. While assembling the MS, the computer takes a few attempts inputting the commands to respond
3. This next session will require you to successfully assist the pilot in navigating through the ship. There is a set difficulty for each part that you can help the pilot by giving him boost dice, but you will earn more XP the quicker you’re able to complete each section.
4. Section one – out the door – difficulty hard, 2 setback to begin with (3 xp, -1 per round)
  1. The door out of the flight deck needs to be widened. PC’s can use the torches and sledgehammers to clear the way. Can roll skills to help clear the way. Difficulty average (should have a reasoning for what they’re doing).
  2. Failure on the piloting skill to get through causes 5 system strain
5. Down the hall – difficulty hard 2 setback – the PCs can figure out about the access panels here, which will reduce the difficulty to average. (2 XP – 1 Per round),
  1. Extra 2 xp for discovering the panels.
  2. They can attempt to widen further
  3. It’s during this point as the PC slides down the hall…
    1. A side door opens and the captain shuffles out, pushing a mop and wheeled mop bucket. He whistles to himself as he begins mopping the hallway.
    2. Let’s see what the PCs do
    3. If they ask him to move, he examines them for a moment, harrumphs to himself, and disappears into another room, leaving the mop and bucket behind.
6. Into the commissary – difficulty average, 3 setback (2 xp)
  1. PCs can help move gear within the room to make it easier for the pilot
7. Through the cafeteria – difficulty average, 1 setback (2 xp)
  1. More things needs to be moved, tables and chairs, etc.
  2. The captain sits at a central table, eating a bowl of oatmeal. He is in the way.
8. The kitchen – difficulty hard, 1 setback (3 xp)
  1. PC’s need to move heavy prep tables, etc.
9. Once in the cargo hallway, it’s “easy” to make the movement down the hall. The difficult part is over.
10. At some point someone will open the cargo elevator door. It immediately begins to close. Hopefully someone will interdict. If not, and they summon it again, the door slides open then immediately starts to close
  1. The captain is inside, pressing the “close door” button. When a PC looks inside he looks up at them started and switches to the “open door” button.
  2. On the elevator: *looking at the PC in the pilot seat * “so… nice weather today, eh?” “*sighs*” he’s impatient. When the floor is reached, he says“oh, yes, your floor I guess. Have a good one.” And the doors don’t open. “the hell” he begins pressing the “open door” button. “Open, you abominable contraption!”
    1. A PC can attempt to hack the door, easy computers check.
    2. As soon as the MS clears the door slides closed.
11. Getting outside is easy. The PC can actually stand up and move to the opened cargo door. Zakari is in the landing bay, looking at the wreckage of the back end of the Tyson. He can help heal some system strain if he’s asked.
12. Opening the impact door is hard piloting check with an upgrade and 2 setbacks. There are ways the PCs could help at this point, but I’ll see if they can figure it out. (3 xp)
Corruption – back on the ship, the PCs notice all sorts of odd failures. Lights flickering, etc. Back inside the ship, the MS is not being disassembled. They’re told to dismount from the MS regularly, and the deck crew will figure out what’s wrong later.
1. Barnabas suggests the PCs head to the cafeteria to see if they need some help cleaning up. He needs to report to the commander and will join them shortly.
2. They can see the slices and divots dragging the MS through the halls caused.
3. The cafeteria is still a mess, and the lights flicker several times while they’re cleaning up.
  1. If none of the PCs say anything, an NPC will have an oven fire. A cake he was baking has burst into flames. Hopefully PCs will assist.
  2. “Why the hell is everything acting so strange. I can’t get that burner to shut off” he points to a burner with a boiling pot of water on it
4. Professor Sikarna – “Perhaps it has something to do with the nanomachines”
  1. He will only tell them his name if asked directly.
    1. “I’m professor Mahesh Sikarna, Chair of the Computer Sciences department at MIT.
    2. What he’s doing there – I helped create Mikaboshi in partnership with Sorenson Heavy Industries. I was just doing some final adjustments to the system.
  2. A dark skinned man in his mid sixties, about 6 foot tall, stands at the doorway to the (room they’re in) wearing a glowing set of what appear to be night vision or maybe range-finder goggles. He’s dressed in a buttoned up white lab coat and black slacks.
  3. “Goodness! You appears to be pilots. Perhaps one of you four could help me.” He raises the goggles off his head. “I’m wondering if you could point me to the captain. I noticed we had left port and was wondering when our next stop would be so I could get back to MIT.”
  4. Nanomachines
    1. Yes, from that sample I found in the science lab. I figured someone left it there so I could take a look at it. Quite fascinating. It appears to be filled mostly with a nano-fluid, and only a rudimentary structure beyond propulsion, the exo-shell the weapon.
    2. The weapon is rather amazing. One of the major issues with weaponized lasers is maintaining proper focusing lens alignment. The focusing lenses are held in place by the thousands of nano-machines. I imagine they could align the lens constantly to the most powerful setting
    3. Oh, right, the nanomachines. He hands the goggles to someone.
    4. Looking through the goggles causes several sections of the ship floor to emit a pale blue glow.
    5. “that glow are the nanomachines spreading out from that thing. I guess they weren’t all contained or destroyed. I’ve been attempting to clean them up using this” he holds up what look like a heavily modified flashlight, and points it towards the ground. Pressing the button, the goggle wearer can see a beam of some sort emitted from the end of the object, and the blue glow subsides, …but… well, I’m afraid it’s quite widespread.
    6. Say, could you help me? I have a few spares I made. I could really use the help. Several lights begin flickering and flashing.
    7. “Since you’re pilots, you might want to take some extra precaution against them. I’d hate to see what would happen to your nanomachines if you were infested by these things. Perhaps your flight suits and breathers would be a good idea.
5. “With all these strange thing going on, I think we should get down to the computer core on level 7”
  1. Elevator won’t respond. The doctor easily hacks the controls to summon it and get down to level 7
  2. Communications are down and all doors seem to be locked
  3. the lights on the level are all off and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around
  4. entire level is glowing a bright blue and the floor and walls are pitted.
    1. It looks like the nanomachines are consuming the ship to replicate. We need to clean this up and get to the computer down the hall.
  5. At one point along the hallway, there is a pile of heavy wires across the floor. It’s glowing bright blue
    1. “this is very odd….. we need to be careful”
    2. Have to climb over this. Average athletics check
  6. At the end of the hall is a closed door with a small sign “Computer Access” next to it.
  7. Sikarna approaches the door. “I’ll get us in” as he attempts to hack the door control, the door slids open. He gets dragged in by something and the door slides closed
  8. PC’s have to hack the door. Hard computers check
  9. Door slides open to a completely darkened room, save for a red light glowing at the other end
    1. the glowing from the room makes the glasses effectively useless
    2. average perceptions check, they can see figures clamped up to the walls wrapped in thick wires and tubing
  10. when they enter the room, the watcher attacks
  11. after the combat, they are able to get the people down. There are 5 people who are trapped here (one of which is the missing deck crewman)
  12. Sikarna: we need to get control of mikaboshi back and make sure it’s still intact.
  13. He heads through a door into small room with a pair of windows. Beyond the window is a room glowing red, the walls aligned with a myriad of flashing lights and displays.
  14. He begins to put on a static suit, and has the PC’s clear him of nanomachines
  15. Tentacles begin writhing in the last room
  16. “I don’t like that. You need to give me enough time to restart the computer.” He enters the room
6. Second combat against just tentacles
7. Ask them how they want to get it out of the ship?
8. That should be all.

Missing Details

To fill in some of the missing details from above, the combat that occurs after the room is entered is against the captured Watcher Type 1 captured in the previous episode. It has hacked into the ship's computer and is attempting to take control. It was intermittently cutting Mikaboshi off from the rest of the systems, which resulted in the phantom collision alert, the door issues, the lighting issues, etc. Additionally, nanomachines from inside the watcher were replicating and consuming parts of the ship, which is why the level 7 deck was pitted and damaged. The combat itself was against the watcher, which had control over several thick cables and was using them to attack. The single red light in the room was the "eye" of the Type one - the light that emanates from the tip of the laser at the front of the vessel.

Notable Occurances

This was the introduction of Engineer's Mate Harvey Goldstein

Game Files

Musical Inspiration
Song:	Take A Bow
Artist:	Muse
Album:	Black Holes and Revelations
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