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Curiosity

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Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Curiosity
I was just wondering if anyone is doing like myself and making a campaign arc for a permanent Earth landfall. Epic campaign style.
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture
Re: Curiosity
It would seem that nobody has plans of that kind for their campaign. Could you write something more about your own plans – I think there’s a nice tradition for helping GM by throwing ideas at them (often more ideas than one person can handle). Just give us some incentive for imagination. Why are your players going to Earth? What will they find there? Are they Reclaimers? Singularity Seekers? Bunch of surfers looking for the wickedest waves ever?


bRA1N-b0X bRA1N-b0X's picture
Re: Curiosity
I've had ideas simmering on the backburner for some Earth-action. Either as some "lightning raids" (quick drop and retrieval, etc.) and perhaps a more extended mission. Of course, the entirety of an excursion to Earth would be part of another continuing plot, not an entire campaign's theme, but it may begin with small introduction types of missions and then at some point involve something particular and culminate a climactic portion to a campaign's present arc. It would be fun to re-imagine certain places on Earth as we know it now, in real life, and turn it into a dangerous, surreal place post-Fall in the Eclipse Phase setting. It's a secret vanity I have developing, but I'm catching up on the setting as a whole...so I want to see what, if any, products come out during this time before I set anything in stone. From what I understand as the original post for this thread is saying, this project described would be part of some sort of overall Earth reclamation effort? I would say that could be a great campaign. It would be hard to jump into as a starting point. I would probably do something like that as part of a building plot toward that end. More of a part of a campaign "trilogy" or something.
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Curiosity
Alright, this is actually a rather long story, so here goes. My first mission was called "Hulahoop Dreams", it was about a Firewall agent, Alvo Halal, being infected and subsequently possessed by a Titan vapor, called Violet Seer. Firewall had taken a small nano-factory that was at that point, on a run-away orbit, being beamed neutrino signals from Earth at intermittent times. Long story short, Alvo infiltrated the base with another Firewall team, downloaded the Titan vapor into her cyberbrain and went absolutely crazy from Exsurgent exposure. The Erasure squad on the nano-factory was wiped out and their payload (a fission accelerator) was lost. In this Broken Arrow situation the gang of PC's were called to investigate. They went from Luna to Mars, on their trip they were ambushed by Exsurgent aligned Exhumans. One of the PC's Taikoen, was able to hack and isolate the cyberbrain in the Exhuman morph and basically capture the morph and its inhabitants, turning it all over to Firewall. On Mars they shake down a few contacts and find that Alvo is back on Luna with the nuclear device, planning God knows what with it. They race back to Luna only to find that their access to the EQZ is severely restricted. They hack a few security nodes and drop a few LLA Enforcers barely covering their tracks. In the tunnels on their way to the EQZ they run into a few Exsurgents, just barely taking them out. They also come in contact with an Exsurgent nano-swarm (that can nightmaringly swim in the vacuum environment.) Another player, called Seebo Groks a hack to manipulate the nano-swarm. Successfully, I might add, and subconsciously adds her experience with the Exsurgent swarm to her personal network AND repairs the almost destroyed synthmorph that Taikoen was piloting. They find Alvo Halal and the remainder of the Hunter Killer squad originally sent to find Alvo Halal. One of the cortical stacks was intact and they recovered an Ultimate Merc who also informs the PC's that the nuclear device has been planted in Shackle. They barely have time to kill Alvo and a few Exsurgents, and call in a major favor to infiltrate Shackle, which has since been locked down due to one of the PC's sending a warning message to the LLA. Here’s where things get tricky. They took the same skiff that brought them to the surface, which had yet to unload the Exhuman morph, a Predator variant. The AGI player, Taikoen, re-inhabits the morph and they set out to secure the nuclear bomb and thus save Shackle. This is much easier said than done. The entire settlement is under heavy lockdown and several dissident factions from street gangs to crazed mobs to Jovian Special Operations cells have clashed with local LLA and Consortium security forces. The whole place is an amalgam of isolated firefights broken by areas of mad chaos. And it is all on camera. However, they do manage to secure the nuclear bomb (with a one shot roll I might add that had everyone sweating) AND secure both the Exhuman morph and a piece of Exsurgent bio-technology (a breathing mask that keeps a body pressurized in a vacuum.) However, not to be caught Taikoen hacks into local security feeds and alters all of their digital presence with a mask of Jovian infiltrators. This sparks a major brushfire in the current cold-war going on between the Republic and the Consortium. So at the end of the day when the Earth set over Luna the Player’s saved the day and caused a major conflict to brew. They also caught the attention of a Promethean, Casaelis. This Promethean has a plan, to bring humanity back to its’ cradle and leave a clean system to repopulate. This is the permanent landfall I am talking about. Fast-forward 30 months and you have my game at its current point. The Republic has begun seizing smaller habitats and has cordoned off the Titanian Commonwealth. All Brinker communication has gone dark (there is no Autonomist Alliance in my game), and Extropia is caught between a rock and a hard place. The entire Consortium is under a state of de facto martial law and the players started it all. In this time the Tharsis League and the Society for Earth Reclamation have been legitimized as actual power blocs and joined the Planetary Consortium, while the Venusian Consulate (Morningstar Constellation sounded lame), has announced its independence from such. Firewall has tasked the players this time with finding those responsible for starting the conflict and ending them, and hopefully the conflict. Casaelis has its plan to bring the players into Jovian space, to a recently exhumed Pandora Gate, found on Europa that the Republic has been using for the past year, to infiltrate an Earth gate.
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture
Re: Curiosity
Well, wow, that sure is a… brainful of information. So I guess you are going for a more heroic approach, with lots of battles and explosions. Your humanity is quite unified, rather bio-conservative – and you TITANs doesn’t sound as dangerous and terrifying as they are portrayed in cannon EP, if you can just hack a nano-swarm and take it for yourself. Plus your players have a Promethean on their side – and one willing to help them achieve their goal (or: one willing to use them to achieve its own goal). You probably want to go for a style similar to computer games – I’d say Crysis 2 and Mass Effect – where players are actually able to do something by themselves (other than get killed). Maybe your TITANs have some kind of vulnerability that can be used to defeat them or there’s some kind of weapon they could use? (ETI virus? New exsurgent strain?) Or do you plan something like global war, with orbital bombings and shock troops droped into quarantine zones? Just remember: no triple coloured explosions at the end - or your players _will_ lynch you:) PS: One more thing. "Hulahoop Dreams" ? Great title. How did you came up with it?


Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Curiosity
One way of explaining things is that what remains on Earth is not the TITANs, but just their degenerating tools and pets. The real superintelligences are away, and the systems left behind are deteriorating due to the effects of the exsurgent virus. However, that of course opens the possibility of an eventual return of a TITAN. Or that some of the degenerate systems realize their state and try to get the colonists to unknowingly build them a seed for a new TITAN...
Extropian