shared:mission:picking_up_the_pieces

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shared:mission:picking_up_the_pieces [2022/03/15 22:56]
james Oops I wrote far too much. Consequences to follow later in the week... 		shared:mission:picking_up_the_pieces [2022/03/18 22:44] (current)
james
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   * And then the 'Overworld' forest bleeds in, including some skeleton guards. Though Wingding does not return, Impact does. Once again seeking retribution for the fate of his brother, and possessing some level of meta-knowledge about the simulation, Impact tricks Budding Leaf into receiving a curse before laying into the party. Before either Impact can wipe them out or the party can figure out how to land a hit on him, the entire holodeck disengages.   * And then the 'Overworld' forest bleeds in, including some skeleton guards. Though Wingding does not return, Impact does. Once again seeking retribution for the fate of his brother, and possessing some level of meta-knowledge about the simulation, Impact tricks Budding Leaf into receiving a curse before laying into the party. Before either Impact can wipe them out or the party can figure out how to land a hit on him, the entire holodeck disengages.
   * Coming to, the party finds themselves in heavily damaged remains of Zero's holodeck (which Gathering Flow confirms is indeed the real world), surrounded by several Aspexx soldiers and representatives of ACE, who between them appear to be responsible for the damage. Zero is unconscious but alive. Aspexx appears to want to get control of their massive information leak, while ACE simply seeks to retrieve the item delivered by the bandits, who they had tracked in order to locate Zero's hideout. A tense negotiation ensues, with the party, Aspexx, and ACE all having competing demands. Negotiations end when one of the Aspexx soldiers threatens to execute Zero unless the party cooperate; the ACE representatives turn on Aspexx and the Aspexx soldiers are defeated.   * Coming to, the party finds themselves in heavily damaged remains of Zero's holodeck (which Gathering Flow confirms is indeed the real world), surrounded by several Aspexx soldiers and representatives of ACE, who between them appear to be responsible for the damage. Zero is unconscious but alive. Aspexx appears to want to get control of their massive information leak, while ACE simply seeks to retrieve the item delivered by the bandits, who they had tracked in order to locate Zero's hideout. A tense negotiation ensues, with the party, Aspexx, and ACE all having competing demands. Negotiations end when one of the Aspexx soldiers threatens to execute Zero unless the party cooperate; the ACE representatives turn on Aspexx and the Aspexx soldiers are defeated.
 +  * Tiny Ember attempts to salvage as much data as possible from the remains of Zero's equipment, and is able to recover about 80% of the raw data and extrapolated simulation. She also makes an effort to extra the simulation data for Charismatic Wheelhouse, and is mostly successful - there's some minor corruption, but nothing fatal.
 +  * Contemplating their feelings after the multiple rewinds in the strange room, the party realise that the very concept of Ship Hearts has started to feel wrong to them... almost repulsive. This is of particular concern to Gathering Flow, who stages an Intervention to attempt to counteract the curse. Proselytising the values of Endeavour is complicated, given the circumstances, but Flow focuses her mind and works through it, nurturing the connection back into being and purging the errant perception from herself entirely. With her own understanding of Ship Hearts restored, extending this purification to the rest of the party is also possible.
  
 ===== Aftermath ===== ===== Aftermath =====
  
-  *+  * Budding Leaf and Gathering Flow convince Zero Hiding to release all the data she has obtained onto the dark web. Once Zero has had some time to recover from her beating at the hands of Aspexx, take in the damage to her hideout and equipment, and calm down a bit, persuading her to do this is actually straightforward since it aligns with her own goals. Unfortunately she'll only be able to upload the 80% of the data that Tiny Ember was able to recover, but that's still a sizeable amount, and augmented with a summary of the party's findings will still be very useful to others. The ACE representatives still present seem quite happy with this course of action, which strikes Zero as odd until she later realises that the data disk brought by the bandits is missing. 
 +  * All party members report back in full to their respective organisations (GF: Endeavour; TE: Firebrand; BL: Curious Direction) about what they discovered from the simulation. Tiny Ember additionally briefs on Zero Hiding's operation, and that while her some of the data appears to have been illegally acquired, the hacker herself does not pose a threat. 
 +  * Budding Leaf spreads rumours about the existence of the dark web data amongst the researchers on the Endeavour. This gets many of them curious to go looking for it, download it, and share it around the ship. There is a half-hearted attempt by Curious Direction to put a stop to this lest Zeitgeist draw the attention of Aspexx's lawyers, though the undertone is more along the lines of 'please learn some subtlety and stop discussing this so loudly in the cafeteria, you never know who might be listening'. 
 +  * Navigating carefully around the security protocols, and in particular any firewalls or anti-malware systems that might try to intervene and risk corrupting the data, Tiny Ember uploads the simulation data for Charismatic Wheelhouse onto the //Firebrand//'s holodeck. Since this simulation is just of a single person and nothing more, she then sets about creating a virtual world for Wheelhouse to live in, in the hope that this will prevent their simulated personality from deteriorating. Combining file footage and holiday snaps from her homeworld with coding skill and some artistic licence, Tiny Ember is able to build a solid recreation of a particular mountain spa retreat on Vyix IX, complete with functional hot springs, massage parlour, and more. The surrounding scenery is just as breath-taking in virtual reality as Ember remembers it being, and helpfully disguises the outer limits of the simulated world. 
 +  * With all of this assembled and suitably disguised from prying eyes, Tiny Ember introduces the simulated Charismatic Wheelhouse to the spa. Entering the holodeck, she explains that there was an accident on the Orion Gate Station, but Wheelhouse survived and has been sent to this spa to recover. Wheelhouse appears to accept this story, although has many questions about what exactly happened, certain blank spots in her memory, and how long it's expected it will take them to recover. 
 +  * In the nights that follow, Budding Leaf's dreams are plagued by a recurring figure. Watching. Waiting. Impact is always there, hands in pockets, calmly biding his time. "You killed my brother," he says. Attempting to engage with him directly is a fast way to wake up, aching and sweaty. 
 +  * Determined to figure out what's going on, Budding Leaf moves their bed into a lab space and hooks themselves up to monitoring equipment to analyse their sleep. Scouring available literature and comparing it to the results gathered, they come upon the idea of a 'mnemonic virus' - a concept that gets thoroughly lodged into a person's subconscious in a way that they can't escape. Several papers have been written on how such things can be created - holodecks being one vector for implanting them, though not the only way - but precious little exists on how to remove a mnemonic virus once one has been received. Besides the academic literature, Budding Leaf also finds the //Overworld// Fan Wiki. The page for the character Impact, under the Trivia section, mentions that the game's creator included the mnemonic virus to engage under circumstances that sound similar to those Budding Leaf encountered. While there are several paragraphs explaining the deep symbology of this, there is no mention of any cure. The comments section has a variety of suggestions, none of which appear especially sound. 
 +  * Zero Hiding dismantles the remains of her hideout in Mucker's Grind and relocates to an undisclosed location. 
 +  * In the Boardroom on the //Starlight Ebbing//, the most elite lawyers in the Keter Borderlands contemplate their options.
  
 ===== Consequences ===== ===== Consequences =====
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 ==== The World ==== ==== The World ====
  
-  * Consequences+  * The data disk provided to Zero Hiding by the bandits is now in the possession of the ACE organisation. 
 +  * In a bid to prevent the spread of 'harmful misinformation', the Aspexx Corporation makes an arrangement with the Galactic Cooperation to [[damage_control|allow third party investigators to examine the ruins of the Orion Gate]]. 
 + 
 +=== 0r10n_g8_megaleak.gdf.tar.exe.zip === 
 + 
 +  * A large cache of data begins circulating on the Keter dark web, containing: 
 +    * a wide variety of data claimed to be stolen from Aspexx servers; there is too much data here to entirely analyse manually in a reasonable length of time, but it can be searched for specific terms if you know what you're looking for 
 +    * a somewhat glitchy holodeck simulation claimed to be extrapolated from the above data; if run, it crashes frequently due to corruption, but could potentially be stabilised with effort and skill 
 +    * a readme file that claims to summarise the key findings from the content of the above 
 +  * The Aspexx Corporation has publicly denounced this data cache as 'harmful misinformation', and will look poorly on anyone who possesses a copy of it. 
 +    * Any Aspexx employee accessing this data without express permission from Executive Management (which, outside of their lawyers and particular executive personnel, will not be granted) is liable to find their employment swiftly terminated. 
 +  * Any player character who is prepared to go looking for this on the dark web can find it, read the readme, and make use of the data. 
 +    * Accessing the dark web requires no special skills, so your character is capable of doing this unless you think there's a good reason why they cannot. Whether your character would actually do so is entirely up to you! 
 +    * There is no mechanical penalty simply for accessing this information. However, injudicious use of this information during uptime/downtime may incur consequences. 
 +    * Interrogating or otherwise doing anything meaningful with this data will require a Downtime action. 
 +    * If your character reads the readme, they will learn the following: 
 +      * The Orion Gate Station was staffed by a number of Technical, Security, and Support staff. 
 +        * The technical staff were n00bs with a much higher opinion of their cybersecurity skillz than warranted, lol. 
 +        * The security staff took the martial side of their job very seriously. Less so the paperwork side. 
 +        * Despite the presence of a Ship Heart, either no Mystics were present amongst the staff, or what Mystics were present didn't have much function. 
 +      * The Orion Gate Ship Heart either sat between the two gates, or was present at both gates simultaneously, or maybe something else entirely. 
 +      * Interaction with the Orion Gate Ship Heart was either forbidden, or restricted, or heavily frowned upon. 
 +      * The station's 'Auxiliary Power Station', despite its name, appears to have powered the entire station, possibly excepting the gate itself. 
 +      * Faults with the station's wiring may have led to problems in the security section. 
 +      * There were rumours amongst staff of creatures crawling in the station's vents. 
 +      * An unidentified individual or individuals wearing black cloaks were briefly spotted in security footage on board the station. 
 +      * The medium passenger vessel //H4 Breaker// belonging to 'Keter Holiday Tours' was impounded by station security at some point in the days before the Incident. The ship was travelling from the Fjenix System to Siruta in the Keter System. It was impounded due to carrying a person of interest to the Altarian authorities. 
 +      * The transport shuttle //Pulsar Drift// was docked at the station 12 hours prior to the Incident. It had travelled from the //Starlight Ebbing// to the Orion Gate via Luckworth on Ace's World, with one passenger and no other cargo. 
 +      * Much of the above information was extrapolated from incomplete data (especially as pertained to the Ship Heart), and should be considered with this in mind.
  
 ==== All Characters ==== ==== All Characters ====
  
-  * Consequences+  * The curse relating to Ship Hearts feeling repulsive is cured. 
 +    * (unless anyone wishes to reject Gathering Flow's Intervention, in which case they can chose to remain cursed!) 
 +  * +4 Clout with the Card Table hacker collective (of which Zero Hiding is a member) **or** +1 Clout with any faction unaffiliated with Aspexx Corporation 
 +  * +1 Clout with the ACE organisation 
 +  * -2 Clout with the Aspexx Corporation 
 +  * Nemesis: the instance of Impact existing in Zero Hiding's save file for //Overworld//
  
 ==== Budding Leaf ==== ==== Budding Leaf ====
  
-  * Consequences+  * Curse: Mnemonic Virus. 
 +    * Impact, a skeleton character from the video game //Overworld//, haunts your subconscious. This primarily manifests as them appearing in your dreams. They usually remain in the background, not menacing you directly, but become violent if engaged with, which usually wakes you up. 
 +    * If you enter a holodeck encounter, Impact may manifest and interfere - inform the GM of this. Full stats can be obtained from the Refs if necessary, but notably Impact calls MISS to all attacks regardless of source. 
 +  * You possess an understanding of the principles of how mnemonic viruses are created, but not of how they are removed. You don't see any reason why removal shouldn't be possible, but this appears to be a novel area of research.
  
 ==== Tiny Ember ==== ==== Tiny Ember ====
  
-  * Consequences+  * Vyix IX spa resort simulation, hidden within the Firebrand's holodeck. 
 +  * Mark II Charismatic Wheelhouse simulation. Runs within the spa resort simulation. 
 +    * Current status: minor corruption, otherwise seemingly recovering? 
 +    * If you believe that knowledge of your possession of this has become widely known, please inform the Refs.
  
 ==== Gathering Flow ==== ==== Gathering Flow ====
  
-  * Consequences+  * No additional consequences.
  
 {{tag>mission budding_leaf tiny_ember gathering_flow}} {{tag>mission budding_leaf tiny_ember gathering_flow}}
  • shared/mission/picking_up_the_pieces.1647384967.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2022/03/15 22:56
  • by james