Basic Premise: In the midst of an unexpected bout of bad solar weather, the players' pod of Surya detects a faint automated distress call over the chaos of the solar wind. It's source; a shuttle out of Hooverman-Geischecker carrying sundiver tourists has sustained damage, and has lost control - it's only a matter of time before their course ends in fiery disaster. The pod must brave the dangers of Sol's fury to get to the shuttle before it's too late. Twist 1: The "Shuttle" is really an armored transport en-route to Aten, which has become infected by an Exsurgent Digital virus. The Pod must work out a way to get the uninfected crew off the ship, whilst engaging in awesome dogfights against the ship's killsats. Twist 2: The infection's source is the ship's cargo: an Exsurgent-Infected Surya, codenamed "Cthuga". Already grown and twisted to gigantic proportion*, this creature has managed to negate some of the safeguards keeping it under control. At the climax of the scenario, it will overcome them entirely, and break it's way out of the ship. Depending on how you want to go from here, either have an epic battle, or have it flee towards the photosphere, where it will incubate... and grow. Campaign Time! *Go nuts with this guy. Heavy armour, inbuilt particle/plasma weaponry, psi-epsilon sleights like Pyrokinesis and so on. Regarding equipment, I would say that most would need to be aquired at Ukko Jylinä, so no getting new stuff after the scenario's started. Weapon wise, I'd say that seekers and kinetics are going to be the weapons of choice, as most particle weapons are going to be of limited effectiveness - the environment is more dangerous than they are - and spray weapons are going to be screwed over by the ranges involved. On the other hand, EMP weapons may be interesting if you rule they disrupt the magnetic shielding on morphs/vehicles.

If you need more ideas for events or plot seeds, just say... the idea's gotten stuck pretty deep in ye olde Thinkmeats. Seriously. I'm getting headaches.

A Surya team inserted into the star of the Babylon system, sent to make first contact with the unknown ship hiding in the corona. There's more info in Gatecrashing about it, but little is known besides the fact that it has fired upon Transhuman probes.

Basic Premise: Dublin Xian is one of firewalls most wanted. Combining an innate knack for nanotechnology with a complete lack of scruples, she has been linked with over a dozen Exhuman clades, where she sold her expertise to create horrific nanoplagues and other weapons. After a particular clade turned on her during an Oversight raid, she went to ground, and hasn't been seen since. However, firewall stumbled upon a cache she had set up, which has provided a key to her location - she has sought refuge with a pod of Surya. The PCs must sleeve into Surya, travel to the Pod, and detain or eliminate Dublin Xian. Twist 1: When the PCs arrive at the pod, they encounter a problem: the Pod knows full well who Dublin is, but as she expressed remorse for her actions, and presented a desire to seek a new start, she has been granted asylum. The pod will not reveal which of their member Dublin is, and will actively attempt to conceal her identity. The PCs must determine which Surya is their target without harming or alienating the entire pod (which would be a PR and opsec disaster), either by carefully cross-examining the members' stories, or by comparing their activity to the group's knowledge of Surya psychology and societal mores. Twist 2: The PCs investigations bear no fruit, or rather they bear too many. There are discrepancies in all the stories, and all of the members in the pod act in ways that don't gel with Surya society. This is with good reason - all of the surya are Dublin Xian. She arrived in a single morph, but has since infected the entire group. She has achieved this through a hybrid Swarminoid/Protean Nanotoxin: Individual Swarminoid Microbots infect the host, where they grow more microbots and connect to the host's neurology, acting as a Monitor- and Optogenetics Module. She has since been psychologically manipulating the pod, artificially increasing their loyalty to her and slowly subsuming their personalities. Ultimately, she would have become their “god”, a voice in their head privy to their thoughts and actions, to be obeyed without question and with fanatic devotion. Luckily, she the PCs arrive far in advance of that point. The PCs must now engage in a battle of Body and Mind. Whilst their bodies engage in awesome dogfights*, they must wage an InfoSec war against the Swarminoid-Dublin infecting the Pod, who will be attacking the PCs systems whilst trying to infect their cyberware, all whilst using Social skills and Memetic/Psychosurgical warfare to try and purge the Pod's minds of her grasp. Other thoughts: If you go for the scenario I suggested in the earlier post, or some other environmental-central idea, I suggest using survival scenario mechanics. At the beginning of the scenario, make the PCs a member of a group with X “redshirts”, and make it clear that time, whilst not “vital”, is definitely an issue. The group must then balance these two resources. When intermediary events occur, give 2 (or more) solutions. One is riskier but quick, the other takes more time but is safe. Skill rolls then determine exactly how much of each resource is lost. The exact circumstances when they arrive will then be determined by their decisions on the way. If they sacrificed their pod on the way to get there fast, then there are more survivors, the ship's bots aren't as thouroghly infected (therefore not as good at combat), and Cthuga is further from escaping, but they have a lot to do and not many helpers. At the other extreme, if they took the safe route the whole time then they arrive en-mass, but there are only a couple of survivors, the Killsats are fully active, and Cthuga may already be in the process of breaking out. Viewed as a whole, it's really a zero-sum equation – the climax should be roughly the same difficulty whichever way they chose to go, but it makes the players invested in the outcome, and enables a sense of agency, which may be otherwise lacking in a one-shot. Including redshirts has another bonus: The morph guide says that one of the reasons that Surya pod up is that they combine magnetic fields to make cooling more efficient. If you then include a background threat – say making the group perform periodic rolls to resist the turbulent plasma of the solar weather, then you can grant a bonus/penalty depending on how many redshirts they've kept/risked, and so make the Surya experience more distinct. It's also worth mentioning here that “losing redshirts” needn't mean that they actually die, but simply take damage they won't be able to heal. Quick event ideas: 1) The group must make a long journey, through weather and regions they would avoid in any other circumstance. Every 10 real-time minutes, the group must roll [INT+REF]. Failure means they take 2d10 damage, resisted by Energy armour as normal. On a Critical or Severe failure, the damage ignores armour. Apply a bonus/penalty to this roll depending on how many Pod members are present, as detailed above. 2) Sol has thrown up mountainous clouds of plasma between the group and their goal. Either they send out scouts in order to find a relatively safe route through, or they must simply attempt to power their way through. 3) The Magnetic fields ahead are twisted and misshapen, far in excess of what the Surya is capable of handling. However, the energy they contain presents an opportunity. If they play it safe, the pod will cluster together to reenforce their collective field. This will provide a zone of relative stability, and they will be able to cross, albeit slowly. Otherwise, they can choose to take advantage of the field. They throw themselves into the maelstrom – if they can reconfigure their personal fields quickly and accurately enough, then they will be flung forward with a burst of acceleration otherwise impossible to achieve. 4) Part of the pod wants to turn back. Things are getting much too dangerous, and it is becoming questionable whether any will survive to reach the target, let alone enough to make a difference. Take time to reassure and/or convince the reluctant members, or forge on without them. 5) A burst of plasma comes out of nowehere, injuring one or more of the pod, and throwing them off course. Either time is taken to retrieve and stabilise them, or the pod forges on – the hurt members will have to save themselves. 6) Oh god Space-Sharks! Who would make these?! Why make these?!?! Fucking anarchists!!! *Yes, once again awesome dogfights. I include them, because the Surya's magnetic propulsion is one of the few places in the setting where Reactionless/Space Opera style combat is appropriate, and the opportunity shouldn't be missed.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

6) [i]Oh god Space-Sharks! Who would make these?! [b]Why[/b] make these?!?! [b]Fucking anarchists!!![/b][/i]

Oh man, that's hilarious. Though I can't see anarchists intentionally releasing dangerous, carnivorous neogenetic life-forms in someone else's habitat. That's kind of a big no-no. OTOH, I could totally see some corp doing that and trying to frame the anarchists to push the Solarians into the corporate camp.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

Two anarchist scientists stand in a coronal habitat laboratory. In front of them, a vast windowed enclosure. On the other side of the enclosure, a gaping hole reveals the coronal panorama. Scientist One: "...Maybe we shouldn't have given them eye-lasers." Scientist Two: "[i]Ya think?[/i]"

Frickin' Sun Sharks with Frickin' Laser Beams in their heads! [b]That[/b], I can see.

I'n my games I've decided that the science behind living on/in the sun is a bit too advanced for what I think EP technology should be. So I made the Surya into a massive misdirection. It is a simulspace server that caters to tourist scientists that want to bathe in the Sun. Everything is a lie to cover up the massive amount of money and resources that are being funnelled into some unknown project. It will unravel when either a legitimate scientist (as opposed to a tourist scientist) gets in based on a tourism visitation request or when someone with PSI is sleeved into a body where PSI should be working but isn't.