Under New Management

Incoming Transmission

Source Identifier: Forever Depth, Mytenea #Mytene
Destination Identifier: #TE3-Firebrand#Starlight Ebbing#Muse IX#Unquiet Journey#
Subject: Delicate Investigation
Message Begins

The Mytenean Societal Corps welcomes applications from those currently unaffiliated in the contretemps between Her Glorious Command and ACE to investigate concerning rumours regarding the behaviour of a Mytenean citizen currently on Ace’s World. Please contact Forever Depth, Mytenea for further information.

Message Ends

• Manifold Ghosts - Phil
• Iron Cold - Robin

• The party are hired by Forever Depth on behalf of the Mytenean Societal Corps to track down an errant employee, Micro Management, who seems to have set up a 'Battle Arcade' on Ace's World instead of doing his job. Through their connections with MSC, Manifold Ghosts knows that what he had been sent to do was related to attempting to end the war between HGC and Ace's World.
• On Ace's World, the players find their way through the edges of the war zone to Whistlestop Town, where it seems like every townsperson is running some kind of betting shop. The players bet on a battle between a robot and a Vitruvian Splatterbeast (which is actually a Goosehog painted purple). Manifold Ghosts handily tinkers with the robot's controller and takes direct control of the robot, defeating the 'splatterbeast.'
• This gets them enough goodwill to be directed to 'Micro Management's Battle Arcade', where they find a holodeck at the centre of the entertainment. Battles are being simulated within the holodeck, and bets laid on them. The party undertake one trial fight against Armourdillos to prove their worth, with Iron Cold declaiming loudly to the whole audience or patrons that their honour would win the day - which it did! So that's good. The party then volunteered to continue to be the 'players' in three more battles which had been submitted by Battle Arcade regulars.
• These fights were, in order:
  • A simulation of sneaking aboard a spaceship which looks a lot like Her Glorious Command - submitted by Precious Diamond
  • An assault on a facility on Ace's World which appeared to contain some kind of laser superweapon intended to destroy ships - submitted by Frozen Century
  • A fight against some odd-looking creatures in a jungle who were able to single out enemies and coordinate attacks on them - submitted by a nameless person in a deeply hooded cloak, referred to as the 'Man in Black' by other patrons
• After surviving the fights (just), the party try to interrogate all those who submitted the three above fights on what exactly they are trying to do. The party identify that Precious Diamond and Frozen Century are probably some kind of agents for ACE and for HGC, though which way round they are is initially a little confusing. The hooded figure refuses to talk to the party and wanders off.
• The party then corner Micro Management and argue strongly for him to get back to doing his job, which is supposed to be stopping this war rather than just simulating more of it in holodecks. Micro Management explains that he saw an opportunity to work with the hacker collective Card Table to get use of a holodeck, and took it. Given how many battle scenarios have been submitted by Precious Diamond and Frozen Century between them, his data banks now contain a lot of data on how both sides think the war's going, which could be useful - however, at this point the discussion is interrupted by the fact that the last battle simulation somewhat over-taxed the holodeck and everything in the back room is attempting to melt down. The party are sent in to deal with this and prevent damage to the data storage, since the hapless hacker in there has failed to deal with the problem through coding and is stuck for any better ideas.
• Having successfully cooled things down and pulled the plug on the holodeck, the party return to Micro Management and are deep in discussion of how his data could be leveraged to help stop the war. Micro Management notes that some of the data shows what Ace's World residents are beginning to notice - the war effort means Aces High is no longer managing to keep on top of the bandit threat as well as she once did. With perfect timing, a group of bandits crash through the arcade wall and start attempting to steal the holodeck. The party deal with this (and a few other bandits outside) before heading home.

• Manifold Ghosts makes sure that all the retrieved data and their thoughts on the matter are turned over to Forever Depth. She looks through their summary of the situation and comments that Micro Management was possibly onto something with his thoughts about ACE struggling to deal with the bandits currently. However, she also looks thoughtful while reviewing the HGC-related data and mutters something about maybe getting both sides to back off…
• Iron Cold returns to Fableland, and has a pleasant visit with family and friends, enjoying his new 'no longer exiled' status. No-one appears to be attempting to build any military facilities on top of Fableland currently.
• Manifold Ghosts attempts to find out more about both the mysterious person in black and the jungle creatures they encountered in their simulation. They pretty quickly identify the jungle creatures as similar to those encountered on Hive IV by explorer parties there, even down to their apparent ability to identify targets and coordinate attacks. It is much harder to find any leads on the person in black, although a whisper of a rumour in a bar in Dry Ace makes Ghosts think that maybe someone else behaving similarly was also hanging around with a party of explorers on Ace's World a while ago…

• Shortly after the mission, news reports across the Keter system carry two shocking leaks of information:
  • ACE is ploughing all its resources into the war, leaving it unable to manage bandit activity on Ace's World. A variety of harmless grandparents and chubby-cheeked children have suffered from bandit attacks. Everyone on Ace's World is angry about this.
  • Her Glorious Command, meanwhile, has been covering up the scale of its infantry losses. A lot of middle-ranking privates, sergeants and even captains in its military have been lost to the ground war on Ace's World, and the soliders left on HGC are barely capable of guarding it effectively. Every Altarian in system is horrified by this.
• As a result, both sides suddenly have a lot of PR to do with their own people, and hostilities are paused while they take the time to deal with this and also possibly fire some of the people in charge of their war effort so far.
• Both these reports are true: bandit attacks are more frequent and more daring on Ace's World, while Her Glorious Command is struggling to train and promote soldiers fast enough to fill the gaps in its command structure.
• The war is not over, but there is a bit of an unofficial ceasefire while this fallout is dealt with. Neither side has benefited from it.

• +3 Clout with the Mytenean Societal Corps

• +1 Clout with Fableland

• A remote control for robots:
  • Freely call 'SCAN: ROBOTS'
  • Once per encounter, you may call 'EFFECT: [effect of your choice]' against a creature that has called Ping to your Scan Robots call. This only lasts for 10 seconds, as with any other Effect call, and must be something that a robot could reasonably be instructed to do. (Brief the monsters that if the robot is unable to do the effect as called, they should take Effect: Confused instead.)