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synodiporia_ooc2017-06-02 02:12 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2017-06-02 02:12 pm
Entry tags:
Shopping Trip - Walkabout Info
An outer space walkabout
June 9th–July 19th
It had been a long voyage, full of strange and unexpected events (especially in the first half of their escape), but the refugees from Junkworld Gehenna finally reached their destination, a class-M moon belonging to the gas giant known only by its alpha-numerical designation: S16P3J4W11V18, so chosen because a few of the former Junkworlders had ties with a smuggling group that had their secret base there. With help from the smugglers, the former Junkworlders were able to make themselves a new home on the forest-covered moon.
With the influx of refugees, there was finally enough of a labor force for smugglers and Junkworlders alike to start taking advantage of the moon’s natural resources. Now, more than a year since the refugees made it planetside, the Junkworlders’ ship, The Empress of Moths, has been sent with a hold full of trade goods to Portabellow Station: a hollowed-out planetoid whose interior is one extremely large marketplace. Here refugees and smugglers alike can sell their goods, buy supplies, and trade goods and services, while the Empress herself undergoes a rather thorough refurbishing at the ship docks.
Of course, what refugees and smugglers alike don’t realize is that there are still bounties on many of them--and some of those bounties are for fairly high sums.
WORLD INFO
It is the Market that’s Portabellow Station’s claim to fame--mostly because the entire station is one big marketplace. Literally anything can be bought at Portabellow Station for the right price. Accommodations for travelers and market-goers range from lavish suites for the most wealthy to coffin-like wall capsules for those on a tight budget. Although the more upfront trades are located in the main areas of the marketplace, the more shady kind of business is conducted here as well, just off the main thoroughfares. It’s not illegal here. Most things are legal here.
Not property damage or shoplifting, however. Those the station guards take seriously.
SPECIES INFO
Gorgons - Gorgons have brightly tinted skin, prehensile tentacles for hair which have sensitive eyespots & other sensorium, & the ability to slowly calcify what they touch or breathe on. An individualistic people who prefer to dwell underground, Gorgons are very practical, often cranky and withdrawn & with poor long-range vision & light sensitivity meaning they prefer to stay inside or underground. Gorgons are accomplished biochemists, architects, and engineers, making organic ceramics and mineral compounds. Gorgons have only been in space for a few of their (two century) generations, but are enthusiastic terraformers, although each world tends to be home to its own religious, cultural, and political movements, completely independent of (and often hostile to) their homeworld of Khthon. Colonies include Sublune & Hypocaia.
Hecatites - Long-lived elective humanoids who can grow crystalline structures from within their bodies. Hectatites have a great deal of scientific advancement, but they tend not to use tools except what they grow, instead focusing on the disciplined acquisition of knowledge & yogi-like control of themselves . Hecatites tire easily and are vulnerable to loud noises and bludgeoning, but have much keener intellects than other species. Hecatites have traveled across space for generations, but generally not settled outside their home system’s urban world except for isolated industrial and scientific colonies. Highly organized with a central government of their most educated and accomplished elder scientists, there are a great many crimes that would lead to a deviant Hecatite being banished, from political dissidence to gross negligence to espionage, theft from the government, impersonation of a higher class, or scientific malfeasance. Violence among the Hecatites is very rare except when used by the government, but violent offenders would also be cast out.
Diabolins - Horned, grey and black-skinned psionic species who do not sleep or dream, but process their mental energies in an unstable mood and perception cycle while awake. Considered volatile, untrustworthy, and dangerous. The oldest and most scattered civilization, the Diabolin once ruled an interstellar empire with many colonies, and were the first species to visit Earth, Faerie, & Khthon in their respective dark ages, starting legends of demons and goblins. A few Diabolin still keep genetically altered Elven slaves. But the golden age of the Diabolin is passed, and they now suffer from many congenital psychic diseases and instabilities. With their homeworld long lost and forgotten, Diabolin live on many colony worlds or on massive ships, and have little organized central authority. Much of their ancient technology is now beyond their power to use. As a volatile people for whom one generation’s murderers and terrorists might be the next generation’s revolutionaries and war heroes, they tend to put criminals in cryofreeze somewhere out of the way, so they can retrieve them later if they want.
Synthetics - Artificial intelligences taking on humanoid form to experience the world, most synthetics achieve consciousness by the melding of two or more intelligent programs uploaded onto a utilitarian platform that bears at least a passing resemblance to a sentient species. Common among humans and Hecatites, less respected and with shorter lifespans among the Diabolin, and entirely illegal (but not unheard of) by the Gorgons, synthetics are universally second-class citizens, as they can download their consciousness into other bodies and are often considered a disposable labor caste. Only among humans is there a recognized, organized robotic rights movement. Still, on the fringe of space, little of that matters. Some synthetics have platforms which are indistinguishable on initial examination from their species of choice, except by the psionic senses of the Diabolin.
Other Species - Players are more than welcome to devise their own alien species, and nonhuman Travelers who wish to appear as themselves may encounter curiosity, but no real surprise or suspicion - it’s a big universe, and out on the fringe of it you encounter all sorts of other beings. The above species are simply the most common in this part of space, the ones whose territories overlap in this region of space.
INFILTRATOR ROLES
The former Junkworlders can be divided into a few clear categories. Smugglers, Pirates, Convicts, Refugees, Political Prisoners, Scavengers, Shipwreck Survivors - not everyone on the planet was a convict, but nobody came there on purpose meaning to stay. Smugglers and pirates came to scavenge parts, sneaking down in their Outriders - and many were stranded, as their motherships bugged out at the first signs of the Tachyon Storm. Convicts were often dangerous criminals of some sort, but Refugees and Political Prisoners might have been banished there merely for offending someone powerful. Scavengers were born there - while they come from families of convicts and exiles, they can be anyone, seek any career path, but there’s not much opportunity or education available on-world. As for Shipwreck Survivors: rarely, for whatever reason, someone might have wound up on planet accidentally - if a transport navigated poorly and got shot down, a stowaway didn’t realize a ship was being mothballed, or an escape pod didn’t have range for somewhere more civilized to land on.
Human Junkworlders were most likely to be scavengers, pirates or shipwreck survivors; Gorgons sometimes sent prisoners of war or rebels to Gehenna as punishment; Hecatites could have been banished from their homeworld for a number of reasons detailed under the species subheading; Diabolins could be political prisoners or genuine criminals, as well as possibly having emerged from centuries of cryofreeze before the escape from Gehenna; and Synthetics may have wound up there for any number of reasons.
Allied Smugglers: Members of a small, but passionate group of smugglers and their families who made the forested moon their base. They’re taking the opportunity to do business in a different ship than usual in hopes that it will lead to less trouble than normal.
Portabellow Stationers: Shopkeepers, restaurateurs, hoteliers, and all the people who maintain the station. These are the people who make their living in the station year round. As the station is quite cosmopolitan, these can be of any race and occasionally include cyborgs and synthetics. The oldest families are Gorgon.
Station Security: Portabellow Station doesn’t have much in the way of government, but it does have a cadre of security guards (paid for by a fund that all the shop-owners contribute to) that are there to make sure no shoplifting or property damage ensues. (Stopping other crimes is also good, of course, but those are the important two.) Station Security has a database of all current wanted posters from the four major spacefaring civilizations--and even some of the minor ones too.
Cyborgs: Many people who interface with high technology have cybernetic implants in their bodies or brains, giving them additional knowledge or abilities. Cybernetics are not merely prosthetics, but built-in tools adding new hardware to the human condition. Cybernetics are common in all species, but there is still some stigma to becoming implanted with machines that change what you're capable of or how you think.
The Conditioned: The Conditioned are people who have embraced a discipline of hypnosis, meditation, and heightened physical sensitivity to unlock the true potential of their bodies and minds. Conditioned have amazing reflexes and reaction times, can suppress pain and use their full physical strength, even if it damages their bodies, control automatic responses, and observe even the smallest changes in their physical environment. Some are even capable of implanting hypnotic suggestions in others, usually only of their own species.
SKILLS
Gorgon Form: the ability to assume the form of a Gorgon. Racial Traits: prehensile tentacle hair, brightly colored skin, darkvision, vibration and electromagnetic field sensing, calcifying touch/breath; light sensitivity, poor long-range vision, antisocial tendencies. [U]
Hecatite Form: the ability to assume the form of a Hecatite. Racial Traits: mineral composition, easily overwhelmed by sound, metabolic control, crystal growing, bludgeoning vulnerability, high intellect, low stamina. [U]
Diabolin Form: the ability to assume the form of a Diabolin. Racial Traits: do not sleep or dream, enhanced strength and fortitude, radiation and poison resistance, horns, tough grey or black skin, close-range psionics, volatile mental state. [U]
Synthetic Form: The ability to assume the form of a synthetic being, with the physical and cognitive capacities and vulnerabilities that implies. As a general rule, synthetics possess enhanced strength and durability, rapid thinking, and the ability to physically interface with some computer systems, hardware permitting. However, they also do not heal naturally, may appear or behave obviously artificial, and tend to be deferential towards organic life-forms. Specifics will vary, and that’s fine. [U]
Jury-Rigging: the ability to make improvised repairs with improvisatory parts. This sort of creative engineering is unreliable, but can be performed quickly and without proper equipment in a wide variety of situations. Examples include patching together frayed wiring with bubblegum, or replacing a burned-out fuse with a paperclip. [T]
Kit-Bashing: the ability to create new devices out of improvised and unlikely parts. While jury-rigging will only repair existing systems, kit-bashing would allow, for example, the creation of a plasma pistol from a length of pipe, a portable battery recharger, a glass marble, and a lightswitch. While it would have short range, poor aim, and burn out after a few shots, it would work. Requires Jury-Rigging. [T]
Somatic Conditioning: the ability to duplicate the physical abilities of the Conditioned. This includes superb balance and reflexes, the ability to use one’s muscles to their fullest extent, conscious control of breathing, and even the ability to suppress or encourage the release of adrenaline within the body. [T]
Sensory Conditioning: the ability to duplicate the sensory abilities of the Conditioned. This includes shutting off pain, sight, or hearing when they’re inconvenient, or detecting the approach of someone unseen by changes in air pressure; the ability to detect all but the most superb liars through body language, tone, and eye contact, and the kinesthetic knowledge of whether or not one is physically capable of jumping a gap, or exactly how much force is needed to kick down a door without injury. [T]
Conditioned Hypnosis: the ability to use eye contact, tone of voice, conscious manipulation of pheromones, and careful word choice to implant simple suggestions in others. Nonsensical or obviously harmful suggestions will not work, and thoroughly changing an opinion is unlikely, but it’s enough to hold or deflect attention, soothe or increase suspicion, startle and intimidate someone for a moment, or convince them to let a secret slip. Because it relies on knowledge of physical and psychological characteristics, it may not work on other species, non-neurotypical individuals, or those in an altered state of consciousness, unless the user has sufficient familiarity with the group or individual to know what cues to use instead. [T]
Stellar Education: space-age learning. Basic generalist knowledge about other planets and their species and politics, or about a specific specialty area, such as cybernetic or alien medicine, the history of other cultures, or any imaginable sort of space-aged collegiate-level education. This skill may be taken multiple times for multiple specialties, or for doctorate-level knowledge in a specialty. [T]
Stellar Weaponry: the ability to keep and use one or two pieces of advanced personal-scale weaponry. Specific examples of weapons are given under the technology toplevel, but details may be adapted by players. [S]
Stellar Technology: the ability to keep and use one or two pieces of advanced personal-scale technology from this jaunt. Specific examples of technology are given under the technology toplevel, but details may be adapted by players. [S]
As with previous Phase Three Jaunts, players can choose to Investigate while in the form of a space-faring alien species if they wish--although that form doesn’t come with knowledge of how to be a member of that species. (Unless, of course, the Investigator has Infiltrator Knowledge.)
THE CALENDAR, SUCH AS IT IS
TECHNOLOGY
Cybernetics: Cybernetic implants come in two basic forms: prosthetics and enhancements. Prosthetics replace or improve regular body parts - a stronger prosthetic hand, or one with a built-in tool; a prosthetic eye that can see using infrared light or millimeter wave radar; a prosthetic liver or kidney providing poison immunity - these are all basic and accepted. Enhancement cybernetics, on the other hand, make cognitive changes, giving the brain new hardware and software, like the mathematical ability to calculate hyperspace jumps in one’s head, or to use the ship’s sensors as if they were human senses, or to implant knowledge. These cybernetics tend to alter behavior and personality in subtle ways, and so cyborgs of all types are viewed by the unenhanced with a degree of superstition, curiosity, and suspicion.
Gravity Manipulation: For high-speed spaceflight, it’s necessary to make it cheap and easy to get to orbit, to make down a consistent direction, and to buffer the effects of rapid acceleration. Every species with interstellar flight capabilities can do this with devices that manipulate gravitons, the way hyperlight drives manipulate tachyons (the two discoveries are easily linked, so any species who has one is likely to have the other). While gravity manipulation is cheap, it’s also easy to disrupt, so most ships have backup systems rather than trying fancy, advanced tricks like variable-direction or variable-strength gravity fields. However, in the heat of combat, when energy to systems and directions of acceleration change rapidly, there are often light fluctuations, or basic gravity may be turned off to focus power on acceleration compensation (it’s more important to keep you from being flattened and blacking out than it is to keep your feet on the deck). Exceptions do exist or can be created, and there are extremely short range gravity weapons - a gravity “lance” can intensify gravity, pulling things in like a tractor beam; change the direction of gravity, showing objects away like a deflector shield, or crush or pull apart matter with intense conflicting gravity fields in a small area. However, such systems are high-energy, unreliable, and unlikely to extend further than a hundred meters from their projector, and so rarely see use in space combat.
Hyperlight Drive: Hyperlight drives, for the most part, rely on tachyons, a particle which travels backwards in time and faster than light, and gets slower the more energy it possesses. This means, hypothetically, that superfast, teleportation-like travel would be possible - but it would short out any gravity manipulation system ever built to accelerate and decelerate that fast, and any crew would be reduced to a fine 2-dimensional paste in a pancake that used to be a ship (which would also destroy the systems that allow manipulating gravitons and tachyons, anyway). So in practice, hyperlight drives are limited to low acceleration rates far away from the interference of gravity - a ship uses sublight drives for approximately a week’s travel distance to or from a planet before engaging the drive, and then travels between 10-100 times the speed of light, depending on the vessel. This means that even the shortest voyages between star systems take weeks or months - like sea voyages in the age of sail.
Practically speaking, ships in hyperspace are completely undetectable, but also completely blind, because all sensory equipment except tachyon detectors relies on slower-than-light particle interactions. However, the arrival point of an incoming ship can hypothetically be detected for a short distance and time beforehand, if someone has a tachyon sensor on-hand (which is unlikely, given their size, and just how many you’d need to surround a star system in all directions).
Weapons Systems: There are a great many different weapons systems available, varying from one species to another, or even one ship to another. The two most common ranged weapons systems are railguns, which shoot super-dense bullets made of heavy metals (like depleted uranium) at high supersonic speeds through magnetic acceleration, and plasma weapons, which shoot superheated ionized matter, also at very high speeds. Lasers, microwave, and X-ray weapons are sometimes used, but function unreliably near gravity manipulation systems - although they’re also much faster and therefore far more likely to hit. ‘Tesla’ weapons send short-range electrical discharges, electrocuting people and scrambling mechanical systems, including synthetics and cybernetics.
Most handheld firearms are some variation of plasma or Tesla weapon, as those are least expensive, most lightweight, and work in a wide variety of situations. Reflective, laser-repellent mirror armor is only infrequently used, but its mere existence means that lasers are used less - especially inside a ship, where a high-energy weapon traveling at the speed of light can melt a hole through your hull real quick.
Melee weapons are often made of super-hard or super-dense materials, or have blades with molecule-wide edges. Personal-scale gravity weapons are a horrifying possibility, disrupting local ship’s gravity and striking with devastating force through armor and personal defenses - but power limitations keep the hand-held versions from reaching more than a few inches, so gravity generators are built into swords, maces, hammer, or axes. Electrified melee weapons are also widespread, as are weapons that discharge small bursts of plasma on contact, appearing to be momentarily wreathed in flame.
Cybernetic and synthetic warriors often use weapons baseline species cannot - short-range gravity guns that alter gravity fields for a brief period of timing, accelerating people backwards or forwards, up or down - so-called ‘telekinetic guns’ that require enhancements to use, as calibrating the correct amount and direction of force at a range of even a few meters takes dizzyingly complex mathematics.
Finally, Conditioned often use dual-state whipstaffs. A whipstaff consists of two small spherical weights at either end of long strand of dual-state memory fiber that can be either stiff or flexible, and changes between those two states when gripped in certain subtle ways. A whipstaff can be a quarterstaff, a whip, a flail, a pair of nunchucks, a bolo, a pair of handcuffs, a length of rope, a blackjack, a crowbar, a garrotte, or a club - and can change between these things at high speed.
Psionics: Most humanoid brains require REM rest cycles to function, and process this as dreaming. Diabolins do this while awake, with the end result that they're in a near-constant state of low-level hallucination. Diabolins in a group will check with one another to maintain a general consensus on what's real and what's unreal, but Diabolins alone are often forced to make a best guess.
One manifestation of this is a complete blurring of conscious and subconscious, intellect and instinct, which manifests itself as short-range bio-electrical empathy; the ability to pick up on tiny environmental cues or create them in ways that alter the mood of themselves or others. This ability is not reliable, although it's easier to match emotional states (you're calm and I want to be calm, you're angry and I want to be angry; I'm happy and I want you to be happy, I'm sad and so should you be) than to create disparate ones (you're angry and I want to be calm; I'm angry and I want you to be afraid). Diabolins trying to create unmatched states may randomize both their own emotions and those of people nearby.
Diabolin ESP in this way also manifests as hallucinatory hints or instincts about who around them is dangerous or untrustworthy, about patterns such as codes, ciphers, or engineering diagrams, about trends such as progressive glitches indicating deeper mechanical or medical malfunctions, in ways that seem clairvoyant or precognitive to others... but which are also wrong about 50% of the time.
Other species who are surgically and genetically altered are hypothetically capable of psionics, but the high-complexity cybernetic of synthetic systems which would hardwire knowledge of how to use them are beyond the technology of anyone except Hecatites, who generally disapprove of such deviant abilities in any case, and even for Hecatites, such systems would be prohibitively expensive. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible - just that psionics of other species would be clumsier with their powers and less stable.
Conditioning: Originally an ideological movement focusing on the potential of un-augmented bodies and minds, Conditioning is a discipline like a martial art, but more intensive, carrying with it an almost necessary spiritual component, as a certain serenity and emotional discipline is necessary to master Conditioning. It has spread between species over time, and is not an organized political movement in any way, simply a personal choice and way of life. The Conditioned abilities (detailed in depth under Skills & Infiltrator roles) take a lifetime commitment and a deep understanding of one’s consciousness, so it is rare for a Conditioned to have cybernetic implants, and Synthetics are either already capable of using mind and body to the full potential of their hardware, or unable to grasp the nuances of the social disciplines that permit hypnotic suggestion. Likewise, Diabolin Conditioned are rare and somewhat bizarre - and cannot simultaneously use psionic and Conditioned abilities, as one relies of mental instability or emotional volatility and the other relies on strict mental control. In human Conditioned, the study of Zen Buddhism, Shaolin Kung Fu, yoga, or similar disciplines that bridge mental, physical, and spiritual aspects is common.
RESOURCES
Tool Generator
Space Ship Pest!
Gauss Phantoms -
- an invasive pest species
- Translucent
- Many-limbed
- Venomous - neurotoxin
- live on energy
- Skin holds an electrical charge
- Hatch from fish-like eggs
-- A nest of Gauss Phantoms can hold nearly 800 eggs
-- cannibalistic when they first hatch, so most nests wind up with about 30 adults
- Grow like karp to fit the size of whatever habitat they live in
- makes them especially problematic on spaceships
-- They slither-crawl through the wiring and wrap themselves around conduits, sometimes chewing on them to get more energy out.
-- spread quickly and can infest a spaceliner in a month, which can drastically reduce energy efficiency and therefore speed.
--WARNING--
Gauss Phantoms' bodies decay quickly upon death. Within two hours, the energy contained in their bodies at the time of death will be released in a massive electrical discharge similar to an electrical bomb or, with those under 10 centimeters long, an Electromagnetic Pulse capable of knocking out the communication and guidance systems of most space craft under 50 meters in length. The larger the Gauss Phantom, the larger the blast.
--SPECIES SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS--
Those with bioelectrical fields (i.e. Humans, Gorgons, Diabolin, Vodyanoi, Elves, etc.) are not usually in danger unless they are bitten or within range when the death discharge happens.
Synthetics are in serious danger of being dangerously drained, short circuited, or suffering an overload.
Hecatites are generally considered to be the best to defuse a nest or infestation.
QUESTIONS
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Alternatively, if they can't fly freely they'd want to find a place to dock. So, does the station have available
parking spotsdocking stations around?no subject
A small outrider could make it further in, at least into the larger, main corridors, but the problem then would be finding a place to park. (And security would totally try to impound the illegally parked outrider.)
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How about flying around further in? Would that be Not Allowed?
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Also, it would depend where they flew. It's not illegal to fly the outrider around, but the people whose property is directly below where they are flying and how loud they're being. Some people will be okay with having a smol outrider flying around by the tunnel ceiling, some people might try to call security.
Basically, we are here to facilitate any shenans you may wish to get into and also to find ways to avoid the trouble if that's easier.
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Anyhow, Matic used to be a city management synth, so he'll basically be wanting to get a good idea of how the place is run and managed. Basically, utilities, traffic management, any kind of organisation regulation, etc, as well as anything else that might just happen to be in there. In particular, they're interested in the station's attitudes towards synths, but he's also just wanting to get a good feel for the place.
So - is it possible for Matic to get into these systems, and if so what might he find?
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The station's attitude toward synths is different from the official attitude. Officially, synth money is just as good as any other money but from a practical standpoint people will probably follow the opinions of their own species.
(... I forget, have you read the Vorkosigan books? Basically, the station is a little like Komarr, a bit more like Jackson's Whole--only not so much a wretched hive of scum and villany (yet)--and the high value of wood I took straight from Beta Colony.)
P.S. The databases would probably mention how much the various businesses charge for parking/airspace tolls in the vicinity of their buildings.
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