Awww man! So many forum people I must have missed while I was rocking the booth and social circles!

Mind sharing for those of us who couldn't make it? What's this Jovian versus Barsoomian business? What happened in Continuity?

nezumi hit all the high points, I think. It was a hell of a game. :) I'm at work right now, so I can't type any long posts, but if anyone's interested in some more spoilery specifics of how the game went down, I'll be happy to provide them later this afternoon.

Obviously there will be spoilers for [i]Continuity[/i] here, so if you plan on playing the scenario, you might not want to read ahead ... unless you want to be like me and help your GM to make things "interesting" for the rest of your players. Anyway... [u]The Cast[/u] [b]Jovian Spy[/b] (me!) - Station software technician. Secretly a Jovian Spy (duh) sent to observe the [i]Kepler[/i] and determine its danger to the Republic ... and eliminate it, if necessary. I came up with the name "Marco Telluri" on the spot. Unsurprisingly, it's the only name I remember. [b]Flexbot Traceur[/b] (played by my friend) - Station hardware technician, happier in a synth body than he could ever be in a fleshy one. Spent most of his time fucking with Hans, the station AI, while everyone else went crazy. Secretly a Jovian sleeper agent co-opted by the Spy. [b]Argonaut Xenoarcheologist[/b](?) - I [i]think[/i] this was the character the guy played. He spent most of his time either obsessively pursuing his next cup of coffee, or recuperating in medbay after having his throat (justifiably!) slit. [b]Lost Ego Hunter[/b] - Station security officer; paranoid (rightfully-so), but unfortunately excelled at being shot more than anything else. [b]Martian Ranger[/b] - Also part of the security team; less paranoid than her partner, but also less-likely to end up being riddled full of bullets. [b]Scum Barge Chemist[/b] - Predictably spent most of her time doing drugs, being naked, and/or seducing her fellow crewmates. (Un)Affectionately called "Pigtits" by the Jovian. Of everyone, turned out to have the single most important talent: the ability to [i]not die[/i]. [b]Brinker Genehacker[/b] - Due to his absentminded refusal to turn on his comm channel, the scientist spent most of the scenario locked away in his lab trying to identify what the station's fabbers were constantly spewing out—spoilers, it turned out to be the Exsurgent virus. [b]Oversight Auditor[/b] - Commander of the [i]Kepler[/i] station; excelled at delegating orders, dodging responsibility, shifting blame and not knowing what was going on. Was convinced everyone was plotting against him all along by the end. [u]Background[/u] So as nezumi mentioned, I've played (and run!) [i]Continuity[/i] before. So had my friend, for the record, but he has the memory of a goldfish—seriously, he didn't realize he'd played [i]Continuity[/i] until we finished the scenario. Anyway, rather than spoil the scenario for my fellow PCs with my metagame knowledge, I was more content to sit back and let everyone else take the lead, and prod them when necessary if they got too complacent or seemed to be lost. That fortunately didn't happen, so once I realized that I decided to help nezumi out with making things more [i]interesting[/i] for the party without being too metagamey. The basic idea I had was that Marco had sent a suicide fork of himself to the [i]Kepler[/i] on orders to keep an eye on the place, and once he recognized the sight of a potential Exsurgent infection he would be moved to eliminate the station, lest anyone infected make their way towards the Republic. I actually planned on being a solo agent, but as the scenario took the fast track to Crazytown, my friend decided he wanted in on whatever suicidal craziness I was planning. [u]What was supposed to happen?[/u] [url=http://eclipsephase.com/releases/continuity]See for yourself.[/url] :) [u]What the hell [i]actually[/i] happened??[/u] So the team woke up in the resleeving bay of the Kepler, clueless as to what had happened during two weeks' worth of missing time. Everyone dicked around in the medbay for a bit in their skivvies (much to the joy of the neo-pig and the chagrin of everyone else), except for the Flexbot, who was offline. I immediately booted up my ro-bro while everyone else pondered why the fabber in the room was producing a fine gray mist instead of clothes. I made a COGx3 roll, and after letting everyone get into character for a bit, I announced that the station was probably venting atmosphere and took the initiative to head to the barracks to get our gear before we dealt with the problem. Everyone followed suit, save the genehacker and scum chemist (who remained in the lab/medbay, one to do experiments and the other to do ... the other person) and my flexbro (who went to the server room to see what was up with Hans). While able to secure most of our gear (and my weapons, thanks to nezumi!), the security officers were [i]strangely[/i] hesitant to allow me access to the weapons locker, so I contented myself with my heavy pistol and secreted stash of grenades. I did make a point of retrieving the Flexbot's gear and delivering it to him as he was ripping open the console to hack open the doors to the command room and server room (a moment that would turn out to be very pivotal later). Once everyone was geared, the Oversight guy starting delegating tasks: the other scientist and I were tasked with seeing to the leaking atmosphere and sealing it, while security locked things down and the Flexbot worked on Hans. The Argonaut kept refusing to work until he got some coffee, so I decided to motivate him by throwing his lucky mug into the infinite vastness of the dark of space. A few failed Freefall and Climb checks later, and the two of us were desperately clinging to an industrial repairbot to avoid being sucked out an exterior door into space. The Oversight guy (who was nearby) order the two security specialists (who weren't) to come help us. I attempted to climb over the scientist to get a better grip on the grate the robot was using to hold the door open, but the Argonaut chose that moment to avenge his [i]fucking coffee mug[/i] and kicked me into space. I had a breather mask on, but I'd pretty much given myself up for dead at that point ... how wrong I was. While the security team (who incidentally turned out to be even worse at Freefall than me and the scientist!) struggled to save the Argonaut (who eventually lost consciousness), the Flexbot managed to get some one-on-one time with Hans. Broken as he was, Hans eventually managed to pass along that the station had been compromised due to an infection, and that [i]we[/i] were the source. Of course, Flexy chose not to share that information with Oversight guy but with me. nezumi, in his infinite kindness, allowed me to empty my gun's mag to propel myself back towards the [i]Kepler[/i]. With the doors finally closed, I was able to drag myself inside, okay aside from the bleeding eyes. I made my way to the medbay just in time to catch Pigtits juicing up the unconscious Argonaut with every drug she could manage. She tried to put the moves on me, but her doses of Hither thankfully proved to be no match for the purity of Jovian bioconservatism! I talked her out of the room, but she unfortunately made a point of waking up the unconscious Argonaut. Not one to be dissuaded from a bad idea, I cheerfully greeted him before deciding that a knife was a fair trade for a mug, and promptly inserted my wasp knife into his aorta. It wasn't enough to outright kill him, of course, but it made me feel better, and in the end, that's all that [i]really[/i] mattered, isn't it? And that's when things got complicated. I made my way out while my victim (still in a drug-fueled haze), messaged everyone that I'd stabbed him. Security and the Auditor swooped down on me while I was still in the labs, trying to prevent me from going anywhere. I calmly explained that they were probably mistaken, what with their listening to a drugged-up guy that was still recovering from prolonged exposure to vacuum. The Lost tried to Deep Scan me, but I avoided letting him touch me, so he just made his way to medbay to check out my story. Meanwhile, the Oversight honcho was pretty insistent on not letting me go anywhere, despite my protestations that time was an issue, and being the only person with the technical knowhow to fix Hans, they really needed me in the server room. Alas, no dice. The Auditor was adamant in his refusal to let me by until they could confirm my actions. I responded by showing him the pin I'd just pulled from one of my grenades. That's about when things got real. :3 I'll pause on that cliffhanger for now whilst I do some other things. Plus that way this post won't be [i]too[/i] titanic. Laters~!

I can't speak for others, of course, but I've always found that the Jovian Spy excels mostly to having a very diverse skillset with no real weaknesses. All of his skills are between the 40-60 range, and he starts off with some pretty useful equipment for all the kinds of things you'd expect a spy to. Besides which, having Neurachem and MRDR for SPD boosts helps ensure you can start fights on your terms and run away from any you can't win—though I suppose a capricious GM could always rule that juicing himself up like that might be enough for that Heart Disease defect of his to actually become an issue for once, heh. Anyways, finishing up... So the poor Oversight Auditor's eyes nearly popped out when he saw the grenade, but I didn't throw it. Instead I just held it, with the spoon down to keep it from exploding. The Lost drew on me from behind, but being that we were in close quarters he hesitated to try and shoot me and risk my letting go of it. His partner, the Martian Ranger, did not have the same compunctions, but she also wasn't as good of a shot. She missed me, and the Auditor tried to grapple me, but I managed to get out of the way, juice myself with MRDR and make for the comm room. The Genehacker saw all this and chose to just lock himself in the lab, which was both hilarious and sensible, and as the Scum Chemist saw me coming she just ducked to the side (after I told her I didn't have a problem with her—a lie perhaps, but I had enough on my plate to deal with). The Flexbot, in the meantime, had gained access to the server room and managed to take Hans offline, inadvertently assisting by temporarily cutting power, blinding everyone without enhanced vision or a means to see in the dark. I ducked into the comm room, tossing my grenade behind me before I shut and locked the door. The blast did minimal damage since I wasn't aiming at anyone, but it was enough to buy me time, which is all I wanted. After securing the comm room door, I joined the Flexbot in the server room, setting up my last grenade in comms with a proximity trigger (teehee). Once I was with him, nezumi asked the Flexbot what he was doing. He looked at me, and I said, simply: "Yellow-23." He then told nezumi that he wasn't doing anything at all. (dun dun dunnn) I grinned and made my way to the reactor door, pulling out my liquid thermite to melt the lock. Meanwhile, outside the security teams were trying to get access to the comm room. Hilariously, since the Flexbot had removed the door's console panel when trying to hardwire it open, he'd (again!) inadvertently made it more difficult for anyone else to get in—doubly-so since the station's two technicians were the ones locked inside! The neo-pig managed to drag herself from her drug-fueled haze long enough to work the door open, and was rewarded for her efforts with a grenade explosion nearly point-blank. She didn't die, amazingly, and limped her way back to medical. I sent her a message en route telling her to let the Genehacker (who still hadn't turned on his radio!) know that he should [i]probably[/i] do a nano-examination of that stuff the fabbers had still been producing all this time. Not-coincidentally, that was around the time that nezumi called for some mystery stat rolls ... rolls that everyone except the Oversight Auditor passed. I'd thrown on my invisibility cloak at this time, and was perched by the burning thermite waiting for access to the reactor. The security team managed to get the door to the server room open, but between my cloak and the Flexbot turning on his camo skin, they were understandably confused at the seemingly-empty room. The Ranger made an impressive perception roll that was just enough for her to notice the stealthed flexbot hanging from the top of the room, but she was (unfortunately!) more concerned with where I was. At that point, nezumi asked the Flexbot what he was doing, to which he very calmly and evenly asked, "So I have a shredder ... can I hit both of them from where I'm hanging?" The two security goons just kind of stared as the Flexbot rolled a crit success on his shredder attack, leaving the Ego Hunter with all of 3 DUR left (not that the Ranger was much better!). The Ranger attempted to fend him off while the Lost withdrew, but hitting a nearly-invisible target proved to be more difficult than anticipated. As she fell back as well, it was around that time that they both noticed the tentacle sprouting out of the Oversight Auditor's chest. The tentacle killed the Lost with a surprise attack as the Auditor helplessly tried to wrestle it down. In a panic, he wanted to try and farcast himself off the station, though when he ordered the Flexbot to assist, the synth replied with "Command not recognized, [i]bitch[/i]!". During all these antics, I finally made my way to the reactor room and started fiddling about. At this point there was a mad rush to the medbay. Mr. Tentacle was amusing itself pounding the Martian Ranger and Xenoarchaeologist (who'd finally gotten enough sense of himself to wander around trying to figure out what was happening, and was rewarded for his efforts with a tentacle to his face). The Auditor, in-between trying to hold his tentacle still and cursing everyone for not following orders, fled back to medbay. In medbay, the Chemist had passed my message along, and after some sciencey rolls the Genehacker realized the nature of the Exsurgent infection. Naturally, when the Auditor ran in with a tentacle protruding from his midsection, demanding to be farcast off the station, the two of them responded by subduing him with stun weapons and small arms. While the neo-pig pondered the mysteries of tentacular trysts, the Genehacker made an interesting discovery: apparently the neo-pig had literally done so many drugs that the interactions between them had formed some sort of coating around her cells that prevented the virus from infecting her—this was nezumi's way of explaining her amazing MOXx10 roll after she'd literally stuck her head in one of the fabbers, inhaling the gray mist in a failed attempt to get high off of it). The Genehacker passed that information along to the Chemist, who attempted to try and reproduce the forumla when not staring longingly at the still-flailing tentacle. As for the poor Auditor, the last thing he managed to do before losing consciousness was to fire off a message back to HQ that Marco was to blame for everything. As for me? I rigged the reactor to go critical, then assumed the lotus position and cleared my mind as I waited for the end. Before I went out, I used my QE comm to send a transmission back to the Republic: "Objective secured. Mission complete." [u]Epilogue[/u] [b]Me[/b]: Marco was rewarded for the actions of his suicide fork with a promotion in the Jovian military ranks. [b]Flexy the Flexbot[/b]: Despite being a scumborn transhuman freak, Flexy remains a close personal asset of Marco's, enjoying life as a robot while awaiting his codeword: "Yellow-23." [b]The Auditor[/b]: His reinstance was informed that his message was successfully retrieved. He was not blamed for the loss of the station, and was rewarded for his actions with a menial deskjob in some remote part of the system. [b]The Security Goons and Scientists[/b]: All were resleeved as part of their standard backup insurance packages and resumed whatever passes for normal lives. The Xenoarchaologist continues to pine for his eternally-lost lucky mug. Everyone else continues to be annoyed by this. [b]Baconella, a.k.a. "Pigtits"[/b]: The true hero of the scenario. After consuming every drug possible and somehow rendering herself mysteriously-immune to the Exsurgent virus, she managed to hack the Auditor's radio farcaster and use it to farcast herself off the station just before it went up, carrying with her the Genehacker's research notes. After celebrating her unlikely survival with a night of debauchery the likes of which are only spoken of in furtive whispers in the darkest parts of the universe, she was quickly scooped up by Firewall on account of her ability to survive in the face of untold horrors from the darkest night, as well as her bizarre immunity to Exsurgent infection. After attempting to seduce everything in her immediate line-of-sight and being promised "all the drugs you can imagine, and many more you can't", she agreed. [u]Lessons Learned[/u] -If someone says you shouldn't mess with them before their morning cup of coffee, you probably shouldn't. Unless you want to be thrown out an airlock. -There's no argument that a grenade can't settle. -Beware the quiet ones. Especially when the quiet one is the robot that's been off on his own the whole scenario who happens to have a shredder built in to his arm. -Winners don't do drugs. [i]Survivors[/i] do [i]all[/i] the drugs.

Lilith, that was wonderful. Please write more things. Also, I love nezumi's call on how the genehacker survived sticking her face in the fabber.

@ORCACommander: I know, right? I've been wanting to invest in a Zoom Handy Recorder so I could document my various GenCon exploits and throw them up on my podcast for the interwebz to enjoy, but I was unemployed for about 5 months due to layoffs (thankfully I'm working again, whew) and so wasn't able to get the scratch I needed this time around. Maybe next year... @Surly: You flatter me, but thank you all the same. I do enjoy writing. And I agree on nezumi's call. Honestly, when Pigtits' player actually mimed putting his hands around the opening of the fabber and sucking in breath, I had to restrain myself from exploding with laughter, given that I knew exactly what he was inhaling. Somehow he managed to roll under a 30 when it really counted, and all our GM could do was smile and shake his head in disbelief. Shine on, Pigtits, wherever you are. @Karmarainbow: Hey, I did what [i]I[/i] came to do. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! |3

I don't recall if the player rolled a critical success or what, but it was something that warranted my doing a double take. I'm glad you had fun though. Never had Continuity run quite like that. I don't think the other players know quite what hit them. Best part is though, they can still do Continuity next year so I have a second chance at wiping them all out!

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

ALL THE DRUGS - a Scum hallmark. That reminds me, my players are throwing a shin-dig where ALL THE DRUGS are being passed out... Including experimental drugs. Hrm...

If you do not come up with some Petals I will be highly disappointed.

Thanks for the details write up! Everything unfolded for maximum hilarity. I hope I can at least observe next year!

Here's hoping I don't have to murder the entire party again should we run into each other, Cherno.