Finale [DRAFT]

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“g8s r made of PEEPLE, pass it on” - One of many uninvited messages seen on less-secure display screens across the system.

“In a plea to Ship Hearts system-wide, noted expert Delicate Harmony appealed for any Ship Hearts that felt a strong bond to another and were willing to consider his plan to make themselves known. In a related request, any Startouched considering involvement in Aspexx’s controversial proposal were also invited to get in touch.” - News report.

# Incoming Transmission
# Source Identifier: TE3-Firebrand
# Destination Identifier: *
# Subject: The Future of the Keter Borderlands
# Message Begins

These are unprecedented times. In the interests of securing a productive, successful, and above all peaceful outcome that is in the best interests of both the Keter Borderlands and the wider galaxy, the Galactic Cooperation hereby invites all concerned parties to a Special Conference aboard the Firebrand. Let us all work together.

# Message Ends

Gathering Flow - Phil
Stellar Glory - Tamsin
Delicate Harmony - Mike
Budding Leaf - Alex ET

Summary

Following the events of Procedure and Ritual, plus the discussion that followed, everyone with an interest in the situation reconvenes on the Firebrand, in the orbit of Kylal, to discuss the best way forward.
Overall, the system 'authorities' (as represented by the the Galactic Cooperation, the Mytenean government and the Zeitgeist/Botanist science corps) are all in favour of some kind of gate being created - no-one wants to remain cut off from the rest of the galaxy forever. However, opinions are split on exactly what should be done and who should do it.
Aspexx is not represented at this gathering, although the Starlight Ebbing is holding position nearby - but it's obvious what their preferred plan will be. With X. Worshipful Portent and Wildcard Gilded still aboard the Starlight Ebbing, the Aspexx plan is not quite ready to go but could be achieved if only one more high-powered Startouched (such as Gathering Flow) were on board.
A side note is provided by Reassuring Heresy, Captain of the Unquiet Journey, who restates their ship's plan to leave the system within the next few weeks and take the 'long way back' to Fjenix - the Unquiet Journey is self-sufficient and, now that the Mytenean Various Forge is complete, there is no reason that the peripatetic Fleet 18 ship should stay in system. The captain repeats their offer to tow anything to Fjenix, arriving in something like 50-70 years' time depending on how well the journey goes.
Meanwhile, Her Glorious Command has sent another of its mystics to this gathering, 12th Century Ominous Cloud, to tell Delicate Harmony that HGC (the ship heart) is very interested in his proposed plan to create a Pentagonal-style gate using two connected shiphearts. It volunteers the ship heart pairing of itself and Perfect Reverie for this experiment - they have a mentor/student bond between them which would surely be perfect for this sort of thing! Ominous Cloud does pass on, however, that Perfect Reverie is currently trapped on Ace's World following HGC's doomed attempt to convince the Bandits' ship heart to join its scientific endeavours, and there aren't really any squads of Altarian soldiers left at this point to go retrieve it. Would the party be willing to help?
A discordant note is provided by Hand 0wning, of the Card Table hacker collective, who is running around the gathering asking why no-one is attempting a pre-emptive strike on Aspexx before they make a gate out of people? They are strongly in favour of just assassinating Melodious Solution to deal with the problem, but haven't managed to get anywhere convincing others to join in with this plan when-
- the whole Firebrand shudders, knocking people to the floor, and the alarms go off. This continues as the Captain, looking shocked, confirming that the Starlight Ebbing is shooting on the Firebrand. Aspexx have apparently decided to deal with the recent NDA and IP violations by attempting to take out everybody with detailed knowledge. Capt. Stalwart Band declares that the Firebrand is taking this as a direct attack on the Galactic Cooperation and is firing back, but asks everyone to evacuate as speedily as possible (from the side of the ship that is not under fire).
12th Century Ominous Cloud runs back to Delicate Harmony and Budding Leaf, telling them that she has been ordered by HGC to get herself to safety, and would they come with her to help with the HGC/Perfect Reverie plan? After a little discussion, they say yes, and she Interventions them away.
Meanwhile, Hand 0wning corners Gathering Flow and Stellar Glory, making the point that Aspexx clearly really need to be stopped, and reminding Stellar Glory that she's got an Aspexx access card which might still work. Flow and Glory take on the responsibility of stopping this interstellar battle nonsense, but decide the easiest way to get on board Starlight Ebbing is to go via the Kylal gate to the one that is still on the Aspexx ship.
- On Kylal, they find Aspexx robots already streaming through the gate, apparently intent on destroying the scientific knowledge and documentation (and maybe the scientists?) in the ZRD base camp. They battle their way through the robots, through the pentagonal gate and onto the Starlight Ebbing, where Stellar Glory's newly acquired sensitivity to Ship Hearts gives her a connection to the Aspexx ship heart, and awareness that its personality could best be described as rebellious. A short pause occurs while she takes in that interesting piece of information and suggests to the Starlight Ebbing that maybe it would like to cause problems on purpose? The ship heart takes this suggestion to heart, and as Gathering Flow and Stellar Glory proceed further into the ship they notice things such as the lights flickering, slight irregularities to the sounds of weapons fire, and a refreshing lack of robots or personnel in the corridors ahead of them…
- Except for the one group they do encounter. Melodious Solution, flanked by her remaining Aspexx Elite Guards, looks unimpressed but unsurprised by this meeting. Gathering Flow attempts her best diplomacy, but Melodious Solution isn't in a receptive mood, and after a short tense discussion, a fight kicks off. The guards are extremely competent fighters, and things are looking bleak for the party until Gathering Flow unleashes the power of Starlight Fade twice in succession, severely injuring herself to do so. A scene of horror unfolds as Melodious Solution and her guards start to fade from existence, confused, pleading and threatening dire consequences as they go.
- In the silence, the party regroups. Everyone is a little shell-shocked by what they just did, and Gathering Flow has damaged her Startouched powers such that, whenever she uses one, she immediately takes a DRAIN afterwards. However, they press on deeper into the ship and successfully rescue X. Worshipful Portent, Wildcard Gilded and also the unattuned ship heart previously captured on Mytene (still inside its SCION box). They all hastily leave the Starlight Ebbing through the gate back to Kylal.
Meanwhile, Delicate Harmony and Budding Leaf have their own adventure on Ace's World…
- The Altarian base camp, centered on Perfect Reverie, is almost overrun by bandits. The party helps deal with this problem and then breaks the news that they are there to evacuate the ship heart, its mystic and the remaining Altarian soldiers back to Her Glorious Command in order to assist with its new plan. Everyone seems very relieved about this.
- Together with Perfect Reverie and its mystic 32nd Century Smallest Thorn, Delicate Harmony and Budding Leaf talk to Her Glorious Command, trying to understand the details of the relationship between the two ship hearts and what consequences that might have for any plan of using them to build Gates around. Her Glorious Command answers some question, but then decides to show rather than tell, and creates a 'vision' space where the party can understand the two ship hearts' mentor/ship heart relationship better.
- In this vision, each person perceives themself as a small glowing orb. There is also a large glowing orb here. They deduce that to 'succeed', they have to copy the actions of the large glowing orb, and once both Delicate Harmony and Budding Leaf have done so, the vision ends.
- With his knowledge of gate creation, Delicate Harmony is able to intuit the following: A gate formed by these two could be a gate in space, capable of transporting spaceships. However, the relationship between the two is that Perfect Reverie does not talk back, Her Glorious Command runs the show. This would inform the two-way communication between the two gates created: namely, the HGC gate would essentially control all traffic. Ships approaching from the HGC side would be detected and transported normally. Ships approaching from the Perfect Reverie side, however, would not be detected and could only be transported if a specified flight schedule had already been filed with the HGC side of the gate (through some control mechanism) - allowing the HGC side to essentially reach through and take the ship. Perfect Reverie would supply the connection, but essentially its gate could never be an equal partner to HGC's.
While all of the above has been going on, people have taken advantage of quiet moments to chat to their ship heart friends. Budding Leaf's fragment of Hive IV has expressed strong interest in Delicate Harmony's ideas about gate creation, and Endeavour has communicated more clearly to Gathering Flow that they would support this too. As a result, once the party regroups without a perfect solution yet, they all head to Hive IV together.
Endeavour is here, in a glade, surrounded by a wide variety of coordinated, Hive-IV-infused creatures. The party speak to both, as best they can - although with a large number of its constituent parts here, Hive IV itself is a bit more able to communicate than it normally is. Hive IV is extremely keen on reclaiming its personality into one self, not staying like it currently is forever. It wants to know whether it would even ve possible to transform it into a gate, and is interested in doing something like was just done with Her Glorious Command to help the players understand it better. Endeavour wants to support Hive IV, and expresses that it will be happy so long as its personality gets to be with Hive IV's personality forever - it doesn't really mind whether it is a full ship heart or not, so long as that happens. With everyone's consent, Endeavour pulls the party into a psychic vision to let them see and interact with Hive IV on a more metaphysical level.
The party see a being, who initially talks to them happily, showing off the glorious life it is creating all around it. However, this being suffers some sort of crisis and starts being attacked by monsters which could, hypothetically, be a metaphysical representation of Decay. It succumbs easily, but as it explodes into hundreds of tiny fragments it asks the party to see the fragments to safety, keep them out of the hands of the monsters. The party succeeds eventually, though it is difficult to locate all fragments with how widely they have exploded.
As the vision concludes, Delicate Harmony intuits the following: A gate formed by these two would be a true two-way connection. However, there would be some other drawbacks. Hive IV’s component parts would remain scattered, in the animals spread around Hive IV, until the moment the gate(s) came into existence. A large number are currently in one area, but not all. A small, person-sized ‘portal’ would likely come into existence wherever one of those creatures was. The Endeavour end would be a single gate and could look like whatever Endeavour chooses - Delicate Harmony could envisage some kind of small space platform in orbit around a planet, or similar. What they would end up with is the Hive IV moon covered in small portals which take you to the Endeavour end. From the Endeavour end you would pop out somewhere on Hive IV - none of the portals would have priority or preference.
Delicate Harmony also gets the feeling that, if they cared strongly about guiding one of these to a different conclusion, they could allow their own self and knowledge to be subsumed into the ritual in order to add some shape to the outcome.
After this, the party sit around and have a deep discussion about their options. Of the two alternatives available to make the gate in the 'Pentagonal' style that Delicate Harmony now understands, neither is perfect. Both have drawbacks. However, the party eventually decide that the system really does need a gate which can sustain spaceship travel through it, similar to the Orion Gate previously. Scheduling difficulties may pose a problem, sure, but that will be manageable with sufficient bureaucracy. They therefore decide to try making a gate out of Her Glorious Command and Perfect Reverie. (Note: everyone broadly does want to help Hive IV, too, but they don't feel that turning it into a Gate is the only, or the morally correct, way to do this.)
The party reconvene with Her Glorious Command and Perfect Reverie. Perfect Reverie is taken out into space with a shuttle, with half the party supporting each side of the pairing. A ritual is set up for both ship hearts simultaneously, drawing on Delicate Harmony's knowledge from the pentagonal diadem to recreate the ritual seen in Ritual on both sides. This works almost exactly as the party had witnessed the Pentagonal civilisation doing it: the only difference is in the styling of the vision, and particularly the 'socket' that the ship heart's power has to be pushed into. Her Glorious Command's socket looks a lot like a throne, while Perfect Reverie's is a set of simple but beautiful arches on some steps leading upward. The fight to separate personality from power is as difficult as everyone remembers from the Pentagonal history, but everyone throws their efforts in and eventually - simultaneously - it is done. Those in the shuttle are able to look out and see the two new gates - Her Glorious Command, the spaceship, now completely reshaped into a space station with a Gate-shaped opening; and a pure, simple set of columns and cross-pieces forming a gate in space that was Perfect Reverie. Each group also awakens with a small, shining gemstone in their hands - the personality relics of each ship heart.