Coeus Rising (Eclipse Phase) IC

[hairy-joe]

The Thunk and dull fuzz of the decompression software kicks in, and the eternity of blackness in the single isntant of time pummels your senses. Slowly awareness fades in and you begin picking up details of the room you're in. the low glow of strip lighting around the edges of the roof, the mechanical arm that wouldn't look out of place in a factory as it dangles from the ceiling, the flickering glare of a holographic projector as it updates a cluster of readouts.

This isn't where you should be. There's no one here to greet you. The morphs you find yourselves in, they're obviously fairly expensive, but they're not what you were expecting to wake up in!

As you look around you see five plinths raised out of the floor, lumps on top of them being prodded and poked every so often by the arm as it dangles and sways. Suddenly a harsh, distorted voice barks out "KRRKSST . . . RE-SLEEVING COMPLETE, PLEASE PROCEED TO RECOVERY." The announcement is followed by a burst of raw machine code translated into audio. A hiss announces that the door in the wall opposite the holographic display opens a few centimetres before stopping.

[Sithis]

Andrea Ambelina

With a groan, Andrea sits up, eyes still closed. She spends moment stretching, trying to get a feel for the new morph.

[Feels like I more or less got the Fury I asked for. Or close enough, at any rate. What's the time, Turing? Hopefully techs here didn't have to long a queue.]

And then she opens her eyes and looks around.

"Well, ****. This doesn't look like Thoroughgood."

[Kaworu]

All sensors of Bernando's new robotic shell were active. He has risen up and run a quick scan of his new morph.

- What the?! Why I am case, why?! I remember correctly having bought a savant! And this is no Mars, I'm sure of this! Technicians, come here now and explain it to me! - he demanded.

[kind_of_a_ROBOT]

The voices in the room stir Marco from a deep slumber, his eyes pop open and he glances about the room without sitting up. His head is pounding. A quick stretch confirms that he is indeed still in a Bouncer, but...he lifts his hands to gaze at them curiously, not his.

"It most certainly ain't mars, bro," he responds to the flat robotic voice of the case beside him as he sits up with a groan. He grins, sardonically.

<Ada, what's the number? Where the hell am I?>

<July 6, 10AF. Unknown, Marco, attempting to access local Mesh networks now. Don't worry...>

<Gee, thanks...>

Turning to throw his legs over the edge of the slab, he clears his throat, spitting on the floor. "And it ain't Thoroughgood, either...anyone know where we are?"

[LazyNinja]

<It would appear your sabbatical has been extended, Lamarck. This is not Titan Autonomous University. Nor are you sleeved into a standard issue Hazer.>

<Scanning. It's a Crasher. A good one, too. No mesh data on your location. There's a smattering of decent survival gear and a single pistol. Well-built, but not much stopping power. First priority should be bigger guns. Lamarck? Madame, wake him up, please.>

<I have already begun, Marquis.>

Lamarck's rust-colored eyelids flickered open. His pupils cycled quickly through the EM spectrum. Nothing out of the ordinary, Faye. Well, except for them. Lamarck glanced at the other bodies in the room. Combat capable. I'm not much match for them. Best be friendly, at least until I get my bearings.

<At least take cover behind the table.>

<The Marquis is ever paranoid. Scanning their reputation networks now. Please try not to embarrass us.>

I'll try, Mo.

Lamarck groaned as he sat up, using his muscles for the first time. "It's not Titan, either. And I take it none of you are 'you,' right?"

Lamarck made air quotes with his fingers as he spoke. He stayed seated, grinning, though he had no idea what his smile looked like.

[Sithis]

Andrea Ambelina

Andrea hops up off the slab. "Depends on who you mean by you." She then walks over to the door and begins looking it over.

[Turing, check for active meshes, but don't connect. Probably better to be safe until we know where we are.]
[Of course, Andrea.]


"Hmmm....door looks like it's jammed or something..."

"I'm not too keen to get on the mesh at the moment, but if someone already is, I don't suppose you could find out where we are?"

She doesn't wait for an answer before dropping prone on the floor and trying to look through the crack under the door.


I would assume trying to see through the crack would be a perception check. With enhanced vision, I have 70, so...

Perception: [roll0] vs 70



If you're checking Andrea's rep, you'll see she's got quite a bit of @-rep (65) and a bit of g-rep (35) as well.

[hairy-joe]

<There is an extremely limited local mesh Marco, but there is next to nothing useable on here, except perhaps that we are on a ship of some sort. There is no connection to an external mesh.>

[There is a local mesh, the handshake is identifying it as a closed local network for a ship called 'The Swiftly Rising']

Through the door you find yourself looking down a corridor made of exactly the same materials as the room you are currently in. it looks about 30 meters long and there are 4 doors leading off it and a larger, fifth door in the wall at the far end of the corridor. A dark stain on the floor that could be anything from blood to coffee to oil straks towards one of the doors and is cut off by the closed door.

As you all get up and start moving around, and Bernando's shout still echoes around the room no one comes to greet you or convey you all to the recovery area. The robotic arm retracts into its alcove in the ceiling and the holographic displays wink out one by one, leaving the room dimmer without their light.

[LazyNinja]

"Not in the morph you were expecting," Lamarck responded. He looked down at a ruddy hand and flexed all five digits a few times. "Though I can't say I hate this one."

Faye, try to connect to any local networks and figure where I am. And be careful.

<Always.>

Lafayette the security AI connects to the local mesh. Infosec 40, Profession: Security System 80 to check if it's safe. If he deems that it is, Lamarck and Simone the muse also connect.
Lamarck stood, stretched, and began examining the room as well.

Perception [roll0] under 95 (enhanced senses)

What are the walls made of? Lamarack uses his T-ray emitter, so he (and anyone else with enhanced senses) can see through non-metal material up to Armor+DUR 50.

[kind_of_a_ROBOT]

"Yeah, I was in a bouncer...but...not this one.," Marco responds. He throws himself off the old table.

Bringing up his AR interface, he launches his Sniffer protocols, and begins to search the single available Mesh network for any traffic or security.

"Let me ask y'all something else...what was the last thing you remember? I was just casting back to..." He suddenly thinks better of revealing too much about himself, "well...were you all...travelling?"

Infosec [roll0] vs 75

[Kaworu]

- Yes, I was egocasting to Mars. I am originally from Titan, you know, althought I identify more as an Argonaut than a Titanian. Anyway, this is not a centre for biological studies I was aiming for, I am certain of it. I am also quite angry - Bernando looked down at his "new" body - This is really humiliating, being resleeved in a case. Everybody else here has a new, shiny morph, only I got a piece of crap. Why, oh why? - he asked pretty dramatically, more to himself than to anyone else.

[Sithis]

Andrea Ambelina

Andrea slowly climbs up to her feet.

[Oh yah, this morph has definitely seen some use. Aches and pains damn near everywhere.]

Andrea ignores the case for a moment, and instead responds to the bouncer. "Well, I was supposed to be heading to Thoroughgood for a job. Looks like that's probably blown now. Well, assuming that we weren't all forked while we were farcasting or something."

She glances back at the door. "Don't suppose anyone knows how to fix this? Or, baring that, be willing to help me force it open? Oh, and my muse just mentioned that the local mesh belongs to some ship called "The Swiftly Rising", that mean anything to anybody?"

[LazyNinja]

I believe the door is open and we have access to a hallway with five more doors, one of which is leaking blood.

"I was actually headed to Titan myself," Lamarck chimed in. Not sure why you got a Case." He jerked his head toward Bernando. "But I've been in a fair number of Crashers before."

After his investigation of the initial room was complete, Lamarck pointed toward the hallway. "Shall we explore? I don't see any other way out of here. Especially if it's a ship, as you say."

Perception in the hallway: [roll0] vs 95 for hearing, seeing, or smelling anything.

Does anyone have biology or chemical analysis to identify the red fluid?

[Kaworu]

- Yeah, let's open the door. We have no better thing to do. By the way, my name is Bernando Santos - spoke the case.


My character has Biology! He can identify the liquid :D

[hairy-joe]

your sniffer returns with data about the traffic between the local network and some entities that identify themselves as muses named Turing and Faye. there is also some intense military grade security walling off some key areas of the mesh and some scraps of code that don't quite fit with the rest of the architecture. Make a programming check to try and figure out more.

When Andrea mentions that the ship is called The Swiftly Rising you recall that there was a buzz about that name a while ago amongst other individuals with an interest in TITANS. It was originally a Starware ship that launched from the Korolev Shipyards before being hijacked by a splinter group of the Argonaut faction to search for traces of the TITANS around the Kuiper belt.

the door is open maybe 20 cm out of the whole 80 cm of its width, only Andrea has explicitly looked through the door

you hear the hum of the local powerplant and atmospheric systems, you see the reddy-black pool and smears on the floor, leading through a doorway, you smell burning plastic, ozone, oil, and an iron tang to the air make another perception check to try and place some of the smells if you want to.

Your T-ray emitter return tells you that the walls are coated with a layer of anti-shrapnel polymer, then there's a layer of more structural plastics covering a mess of cables and supports. beyond the supports the hallway looks clear.

As you begin to force the door open it glides with next to no resistance and you find yourselves confronted with a corridor made of exactly the same materials as the room you are currently in. it looks about 30 meters long, there are 4 doors leading off it and a larger, fifth door in the wall at the far end of the corridor. A dark stain on the floor that could be anything from blood to coffee to oil streaks towards one of the doorways and is cut off by the closed door.

When you step out into the hallway there is another bust of static and machine code from the PA system.

[Kaworu]

- Hm, interesting... - said Bernando, coming closer to the stain and looking at it - I wonder what this may be...


Perception Test to unnderstand what he is looking at?

[hairy-joe]

a perception test will tell you what properties the stain has but not what it is. you may be able to deduce what it is from its properties, but it would take an Investigation or Academics: Chemical Analysis roll to figure out what it is without too much margin for error

[Kaworu]

Okay, then I am using my Academics: Chemistry (60, 70 if this is of biological nature) - will this be okay?

[hairy-joe]

You kneel down to examine the fluid more closely, the edges of the pool are still wet and smear easily, coating your fingers with a thick, sticky residue. The substance is Oil, very low quality, synthetic oil, lots of impurities left over from the syntheses.

[Kaworu]

- Okay guys, it's not blood! - shouted the happy case - Just dirty oil.

[LazyNinja]

Lamarck stepped up to the puddle and smiled. “Well, hopefully that bodes well.” He glanced at each of the doors in the hallway. “Normally I'd say we choose systematically, but let's see what behind this one,” he said, pointing to the leaking door.

He waited for a moment to see if anyone would object, drew his pistol, and opened the door.

[hairy-joe]

behind the door there is a fairly standard layout for a bridge. banks of monitors surrounding work-stations and the commanders chair set in the middle and able to swivel around. the smear of oil trails its way towards the captains chair and ends in a pool under a very mangled looking case morph.

The case is missing an arm and has large amounts obvious damage to the lower abdomen. the back of the neck is shattered, and the ruins of a clear glass-like substance litters the hole in the shell. it's remaining arm is reaching out towards the commanders chair.

The work-station monitors are either dark or shattered, and the chairs that would normally stand behind them are strewn about the floor, however there is no sign of any blood or other fluids around the room, except for the trail from the destroyed case morph. a small winking light pulses amber and green next to the only physical button in the room that you can see at first glance.

[Kaworu]

- Oh my godness... - Bernondo raised his hands to place where normally his mouth would be. The scene was really graphic. If he would be in a biomorph, he could certainly puke.

Santos moved closer to the case's remains and looked at it. He was about to check if cortical stack of the robot is still there.

- What do you think? Who would have done something so terrible?

[hairy-joe]

make a Hardware: Cybernetics or Hardware: Synthetic Morphs check to see if you can identify the cortical stack

[Kaworu]

I have none... :P

[hairy-joe]

default to its controlling aptitude then

[LazyNinja]

Lamarck peered into the bridge with a quizzical look on his face. "Well, that doesn't bode well." Careful not to disturb the scene, he searched for anything unusual or useful with the practiced caution and dispassionate eye of a scientist.

Perception [roll0] vs 95
Investigation [roll1] vs 65
Scrounging [roll2] vs 45

[hairy-joe]

you quickly pick out that most of the workstations are linked to and most probably controlled by the mesh, everything that's smashed looks like it was done with a fist, or a fist sized object, and that the Case appears to be in excellent condition if you discount the damage done to it, it looks practically new and about as close to state of the art as Cases can get.

[LazyNinja]

"Fancy build, 'til someone wrecked it," Lamarck said, looking down at the body. "Looks like this system is meshed. I'll take a peek, but someone with more experience than me should try, too."

Faye, try to connect to the system and see if you can boot it up.

<Finally, some action.>

Security AI attempts to connect to the workstations. Infosec 40, Profession: Security System 80.

[hairy-joe]

Lafayette pings out of the forefront of your awareness and disappears into your periphery. after a few moments it reappears and seems visibly shaken. <Well, that's just downright unpleasant. There seems to be two different forms of security on the mesh here, neither of them are interfacing and both are attempting to overwhelm each other. They are both terrifyingly complex, almost AGI levels of complex, but neither of them seem to be any AGI architecture that i can recognise.>

[LazyNinja]

Lamarck shared the information with the others. "Someone with a bit more skill might want to take a look. This isn't my area of expertise."

He left the bridge room and returned to the hallway, then approached the first door on the left. "But this is," he said, as he placed his ear to it.

Perception [roll0] vs 95

[Kaworu]

- Hm... i might get to the bottom of this - said Santos. He was not a "pure" biologist but bioinformatician instead, which means he was good with computers. The challenge was ideal for him.


What should I roll? Infosec, Interfacing? Something else?