Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

Dead Phase

11 posts / 0 new
Last post
SashaKemper SashaKemper's picture
Dead Phase
So I'm taking a break from a light-hearted campaign to run a story arc involving an Autonomist salvaging ship that splintered from the scum swarm Stars Our Destination. The salvaging ship itself will contain the PCs and about 40-50 other personnel. Obviously, they'll be in the unmapped spaces between Mars and Jupiter (whether or not they exist in EPs fluff), and they will stumble across the literal motherlode, the corpse of a massive warship from before the fall. Obviously, I'm using EP as the platform for a Dead Space-esque game, as it fits perfectly with the system and backstory. The reason I'm posting here is to trawl for ideas of instances or mini-stories, as there were likely hundreds of personnel on board the hulk from before the fall. The over-arcing story is that the civilians that were being evacuated from Earth during the fall succumbed to a sleeper TITAN Exurgent infection, killing or crippling (or changing) the crew and setting the ship adrift as its crew tried to scuttle it before the on-board AI/AGI systems could complete the trip to Mars, setting it to drift past Mar's orbit and drift in said spaces between Mars and Jupiter. Essentially, what additions can I add besides the general suspense and horror? I'm only asking because I usually make things up as I go along, creating entire story arcs in minutes of thought. These ad-hoc ideas are usually passable, but something pre-meditated would seem more effective, just as in murder or terrorism.
Schizophrenics make for interesting storytellers.
Aeoris Aeoris's picture
Ola,
Ola, 1. Give a member of the party a motivation to be there... - Someone they loved was aboard and they are out to retrieve their cortical stack. - An old enemy was on the ship and the characters thirst for vengence is so great, they would risk life and limb to locate their stack and take a sledge hammer to it. - Golden Briefcase: Object x of value could be on the ship (anything from an advanced prototype titan defending firewall created by an old Earth nation state to an heirloom of importance to the players patron to something a hypercorp desires (secret recipie for Jiffy Pop's, a killer meme, etc...) - Autonomous character was a ranking member of the crew before it went down and was transmitted to safety via quantum farcaster and is out to return. - Autonomous characters are intersted in assimilating the ship into their own (or some portion of it). - Ship was a symbol of authority an anarchist character wants destroyed. - Helpful or insane AI is always a good angle to help or hinder the players. Have to run, but that is a start. Play up the suspense/horror angle as best as possible, set contageon factor to high and keep the evil as evident/yet invisible as possible "blood stains everywhere by no bodies...or plenty of bodies...but no stacks... Pax, Aeoris
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Some surviving crew members
Some surviving crew members managed to barricade themselves in a remote section, surviving for years before finally dying. They have left strange and worrying traces... and might not be entirely gone. Smart objects can record things. They can also replay them when it would be maximally creepy. "Daddy? Is that you? I am scared..." Repair robots heroically trying to repair even when their programming is failing and they run out of resources. So they do the best they can with what they got. Which might include dead crew, each other or dormant exsurgent horrors. Evidence of a forgotten superweapon. Something that "could turn the tide of the war, could we bring it back to Earth" as one note says. Think of the Weapons in the hold of Nostalgia for Infinity in Reynold's inhibitor trilogy. Maybe it is just a rumor, something to keep crew hopes up. Maybe it is real. Maybe it is what caused the horror - the weapon is an exsurgent war machine on its own. Cortical stacks. Horribly abused. Graffiti is always nice. The broken windows theory of spacecraft. It is just that it is humans doing it, so in a sense it is reassuring. Until you find graffiti that is clearly not human.
Extropian
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
The Nightingale, by Alastair
The Nightingale, by Alastair Reynolds. Find it!
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
nezumi.hebereke wrote:The
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
The Nightingale, by Alastair Reynolds. Find it!
Oh, yes...
Extropian
jhfurnish jhfurnish's picture
Arenamontanus wrote:Graffiti
Arenamontanus wrote:
Graffiti is always nice. The broken windows theory of spacecraft. It is just that it is humans doing it, so in a sense it is reassuring. Until you find graffiti that is clearly not human.
This is done to exquisite effect in '28 Days Later'... as in, 'The end is fucking nigh!' I'm just waiting for an excuse to scrawl that someplace! Muahahahaha!
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Ship's AI got infected,
Ship's AI got infected, became sentient, and has been luring in and trapping salvage teams ever since the Fall.
J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
jackgraham wrote:Ship's AI
jackgraham wrote:
Ship's AI got infected, became sentient, and has been luring in and trapping salvage teams ever since the Fall.
Perhaps by playing opera?
Extropian
GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture
Tonight i set the stage! //
Tonight i set the stage! // Tonight we set the stage! My greatest play! // My greatest face! All plans are laid, at the opera tonight.
RustedPantheress RustedPantheress's picture
GreyBrother wrote:Tonight i
GreyBrother wrote:
Tonight i set the stage! // Tonight we set the stage! My greatest play! // My greatest face! All plans are laid, at the opera tonight.
YES. Although it is "All plans are laid //Pavi gets laid, At the opera tonight"
Somebody is using bad science! Snark, facts, snark. Your body is corrupted: Cool, do more science to it. Your mind is warped: That's nice, want a cookie? What do we say to the God of Death? Not today!
GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture
Sure, but it doesn't work as
Sure, but it doesn't work as good in EP when Pavi gets la... waitaminute it does!