I've done some more thinking about this idea over the weekend and I've developed it into a loose plot. This is supposed to be a 'one-shot' intro to EP. I want this entire scenario to be resolved in 3-5 hours of play and I will provide pregen PCs. Sort of a teaser adventure. If the locals that I game with like it, I can start up a proper campaign, it they would rather play D&D (likely), then we can move on to the next GM. Cast of Characters Dan Prime – The original 'Dan', now an informorph living inside a supercomputer that he uses to synchronize all his forked copies. Dan Alpha – A fork of Dan Prime that could not abide the mass murder of the station's inhabitants Dan Beta – A fork of Dan Prime dispatched to hunt down Dan Alpha Sidhe – The PCs Firewall proxy Sequence of events 1)Dan Prime moves from taking advantage of forks to abusing forks 2)Dan Prime begins constructing worker pod morphs for his forks 3)Dan Prime figures out a synchronization method for his forks 4)People begin leaving Danada Station because of creepy multiple Dans 5)Dan Prime reverts to an infomorph to speed up synchronization. Dan Prime needs even more forks and worker pods to make up for the rapidly declining population of Danada Station 6)Dan Prime begins recursively upgrading the server running his infomorph 7)Dan Prime realizes a problem with the people leaving Danada Station. His forks round up and execute all the remaining station inhabitants. Their cortical stacks are saved for synchronization and integration into Dan Prime. Danada Station goes 'dark.' 8)Dan Alpha freaks out over the murder of the station inhabitants and escapes to Mars via egocast and resleeves into a splicer morph 9)Dan Prime dispatches Dan Beta to capture Dan Alpha. 10)Sidhe learns that something screwy is happening on Danada Station and that a contact with more information will be at The house of the Golden Rose. Adventure Begins 1.Dan Alpha decides he needs to unwind a little and hits a pleasure pod house known as The House of the Golden Rose 2.Dan Beta hacks the pleasure pods and makes them attack Dan Alpha, PCs intervene/investigate and discover a trail leading back to Dan Beta 2.1.Forensic examination of the hacked pod's cyberbrains provides position clues 2.2.Surveillance data can be collected once position has been established to locate Dan Beta. Dan Beta is using a souped worker pod morph. He is carrying Dan Alpha's cortical stack. 3.PCs confront Dan Beta 3.1.During the ensuing running gun fight, Dan Beta's morph is destroyed. Both Cortical stacks are recovered 4.PCs interrogate the Dan's in simulspace 4.1.They learn about Dan Prime's informorph and the synchronization server 4.2.They learn about the mass murder of the habitat's population 4.3.The location of Danada Station 5.The PCs setup for an attack on Danada Station 5.1.The PCs are backed up and resleeve into Fury morphs. 5.2.They get a mission briefing and combat equipment 5.3.Sidhe privately provides the team leader with an Antimatter bomb and tells him, “If the time comes, you know what you have to do” 6.Danada Station Assault 6.1.PCs are inserted via [METHOD] 6.2.Another running gun fight against Dan forks in worker pods and security robots as PCs attempt to reach Dan Prime's server Some notes: I'll probably change the name of the habitat from Danada later. Its part of the in-joke that Dan comes from, but its not really an appropriate name. In my mind Danada is a cole bubble that nominally support around 200 people and sits somewhere close enough to mars to a military assault practical, but far enough away for shenanigans to go unnoticed. Maybe in the asteroid belt or at one of the martian trojans... There are about 50-60 'Dans' living in the habitat now and the mass murder was about a hundred people. Dan Beta is intentionally a sloppy covert operative. This is partially to speed up the story, but it is also because Dan has no covert ops experience and is out of his element. He is a neuroscientist and cognitive researcher. He is smart, but fundamentally an amateur. In game time I imagine that the whole sequence of events takes 48-72 hours, not counting travel time. Finally I'm a bit stumped on the method of inserting agents into a hostile habit. I was originally thinking that the PC's ship would use some kind of EMP and then slip them in while the systems were down, but pretty much everything is fiber optic, so that's not going to work. Perhaps stealth pods and a decoy ship. The idea being that the Habitats defenses blow the decoy ship and the PCs, in stealth pods, float in with the decoy's wreckage. I'm open to ideas...

Shuttle isn't a bad route either actually... I wonder what my PCs will suggest. I've started thinking about the pregenerated characters and typed up the following notes last night. They aren't really designed with the adventure in mind, they are just ideas that I had. I need to make sure I cover the bases though. I figure an EP party needs a fighter, a techie and a hacker at a minimum. The info-terrorist is the groups hacker, the octopus is the techie and the combat monster is the fighter. Everybody else just rounds out the group. Barsoomian info-Terrorist Background: Martian Faction: Barsoomian Name; Marissa You were born and raised on Mars and some day you will see Mars live free. You're sympathetic to both Anarchist or Titanian social democracy models, but like most Barsoomains, you haven't given a ton of though to what happens when the hated hypercorps are evicted from Martian space. You are a bit more fanatic then most of your fellows in the Martian independence movement. This has convinced you that information space and the mesh is where freedom will be won. Once an overwhelming number of egos have signed up for the cause, winning independence will be easy. Part blogger, part journalist, part pundit and part radical. Gatecrasher A/Gatecrasher B Background: Drifter Faction: Argonaut Alistair Prime & Alistair Beta Alistair Faren was a titanian explorer who was presumed lost on a gatecrashing expedition. After being gone for 6 months, Alistair's backup insurance policy was activated and his pre-expedition backup was restored. 6 months later the original Alistair returned. Now there are two Alistairs. They only kind of get along. Each of the Alistairs would be played by a different player, so this one counts double. It should be fun. Hypercorp Security Specialist Background: Hyperelite Faction: Extropian Not a lot to add at this point, I thinking of a guy that is somewhat capable in combat, but more of a leader and system designer. The kind of guy you would hire to run security in your habitat as apposed to the combat monster below. Combat Monster Background: Re-Instantiated Faction: Socialite I think of somebody similar to the the scum enforcer character from the book, except this one had made it to the big time and become something of a celebrity. I figure she keeps a lifelog of all her battles available on the mesh and records simsense (or whatever they call it in EP) and resells them for rep. She probably even has an agent to help with the bookings Squid Technician/Engineer in hot pants Background: Uplift Faction: Titanian Ever since my wife found the squid sex scene when I was reading Manifold Time by Steven Baxter, there has been a running joke about squid porn. Since EP has Uplifted Japanese Octopus with hot pants, I have to use it. I may adapt this template to be the groups engineer/techie if necessary. Mr Roboto (Earth Refugee) Background: Scumborn Faction: Mercurial Somebody should be an actual robot. I don't have a lot of ideas here yet, but I thinking a case with upgrades. I like the idea of the clanking masses.