Session 1 : Opening the Box Report
General Summary
Affiliations/Allegiances: Jack: has allegiance to the Imperium without the favor, which he burned when he made his mistake TJ: has minor allegiance with Konova Metova Consolidated, went to school there or something Relationships/Connections: Harold: treated terribly by Bartleby, treated well by Nugget and Sunshine Jillian: Nugget and Chip relate to each other as a series of if/then processes, they have a flow diagram for their relationship but it doesn’t work most of the time and that confuses Nugget, they understand each other, like soulmates without benefits Jack: Bartleby gets on with Hopper because he’s a big strong guy who does what he’s told Lieren: Sunshine has an allegiance to Hopper because he got her off her colony, she followed him to this job, she has a bit of interest in Hopper but doesn’t communicate it in a functional manner AI: named Jonni, female to Chip, other characters hear it as they expect to TJ and Jack: Chip and Bartleby were childhood friends, Chip told him the mistake was a bad idea and Bartleby did it anyway, the mistake was that Bartleby subcontracted out a mission that was for Imperial agents, which led to the destruction of Imperial property and the death of Imperial officers so he had to flee, their relationship is uneasy now Session 1: Opening the Box (theme music plays) We find our intrepid crew aboard the John Wayne Gault, currently headed back to Station Charlie. Their current salvage job turned out to be pretty weak, they got a little cargo out of the deal, not much more than will keep them in fuel for the next job. Not much profit and the cargo hold is not filled with fun and exciting things. As ships enter the junkyard through the gate, the gate control tags them as it can with an ID to keep track of all of the scrap and salvage, and scrappers get a license for a particular piece of salvage. There are cases where ships are not tagged, inventoried, or are lost. They come across an untagged shipped that could be a potential salvage. It shows no signs of pattern and is relatively modern. It’s sitting in an asteroid belt that will require fairly skilled piloting. Chip, “what’s everyone’s thoughts here” Bartleby, taps screen, “do you think it’s a trap?” The JWG is armed with a point defense turret that can hit asteroids, debris, and fighters, but wouldn’t damage a starship, so couldn’t fight the large ship. There’s some pirate activity, increasing as scrappers get further from the gate and Station Able. Bartleby, “let’s put it to a vote” Everyone’s in favor except Sunshine, who’s ambivalent, and Chip says he’ll go with the majority. He pilots the ship masterfully into the asteroid belt close to the ship, pulling off moves that are only cool to him because he makes it look so easy. Jonni gives him a thumbs up emoji in his eye where only he sees it. Bartleby wants to board immediately and tells people to suit up, but Chip and Nugget want to explore the outside of the ship first. The cargo shuttle, Syzygy, can do that without the JWG getting too close. Upon exploring the exterior of the ship the crew sees a small ship magnetically grappled to the underside and recognize it as a competitor, the Upper Hand. Nugget doesn’t like those smug bastards. Bartleby asks if anyone’s on board the Upper Hand and asks Hopper to do a scan. Hopper figures whichever ship has the lower population is the ship they can salvage. The scan shows the engines of the Upper Hand are still warm, they docked fairly recently, but there are no other life signs. The large ship shows sporadic readings but nothing definitive as life. Chip, “it’s the code of the salvagers that we shouldn’t do anything to undermine them if they found this first, not that I like Fitzy, but…” Bartleby, “of course, of course, the code of the salvagers, but the thing with codes is that they often depend on… if they don’t know if we did something or not or who did it… I’m just sayin… just bringing things up… theoretically, hypothetically…” Chip, “I would know… I would know.” Bartleby, “and that’s why we like you.” Chip, “do ya?” Bartleby, sardonically, “sure.” Nugget, “Nugget should shoot the Upper Hand and then we could salvage it.” Bartleby, “what I’m hearing from Chip is that he’s not comfortable with this course of action. Is that correct, Chip?” Chip, “absolutely, even though I don’t like Fitzy.” Bartleby, “but, hear me out, what if they’re in some kind of trouble on there? Then by the scrappers code we check it out…” Chip, “that’s something I am worried about.” Bartleby, “and make sure there’s not something bad happening and help ourselves to things along the way, like little things, you know, just, just get some things in the hold.” Chip, “you’re absolutely right, we should try radio contact.” Sunshine, “yeah, we should be seeing their life signs and we’re not, something’s wrong.” Bartleby, (to Hopper) “alright, do the computer thing that you do.” {Stephen: do I need to make a roll for a space phone call? GM: if you’re just doing a normal hail, no} There’s no response. Bartleby, “so, uh, what’s our next move, team?” Chip, “that’s pretty concerning, we should probably check on them” Bartleby, “I agree, let’s continue suiting up” Bartleby decides to put on his armor and takes a clumsy tag happily. Harold helps him don it. Bartleby, “Oof… ah… that’s a little tight around the… OK…” Harold, “Mmm… you should lose a little weight there, sir.” Bartleby, “Why, thank you Harold, I haven’t heard that before.” Nugget, “it is because Bartleby eats too many tatertots.” {Jack: spacertots, they’re so delicious} Harold takes a very clean white handkerchief from his pocket and wipes a little schmutz off Bartleby’s helmet. Bartleby, “thank you, Harold” Harold, “Mmm… good day sir, may your endeavors be profitable.” Bartleby, “yes, yes…” and clanks away from Harold Chip and Harold stay on the ship. Chip points out the shuttle has no weaponry and Nugget tells him she believes the shuttle is safe. {GM: narrator - Nugget may have been wrong, Jillian: Nugget is frequently wrong!, Jack says his character looks like a fat space marine} Bartleby says they should dock with the Upper Hand but Nugget says if they do so, the Upper Hand may not let them in, and Sunshine says docking there may be the reason there’s no life signs on their ship, so Bartleby says, “I’m betraying my ignorance of how docking works, let’s circle around and dock somewhere else. Just get us on board.” Nugget pilots the shuttle. Chip, “be careful with my shuttle, Nugget… be very careful with my shuttle” Nugget, “Nugget will not harm Chip’s shuttle… Nugget will be very gentle with Chip’s shuttle and not scrape it on hull like she did the last time” Chip, “it’s a Husqvarna Coltrast Overon class solar cycle cargo shuttle modified with a hibbs berlinger SPC…” Bartleby, talking over Chip, “Ok, thanks Chip…” Chip, “3300 ultra... ion condenser…” Bartleby, “Chip, Chip, Ok… remember, that goes on for...” Chip, “it’s a shuttle, Ok?” Bartleby, “too many syllables.” Nugget, “Nugget is aware that the transglacier polymodified warp drive is calibrated to a certain...” Bartleby, “this thing has a warp drive?! Hot damn!” Nugget, “No, it is just a transsubstantial navigational drive relying on the magnetics of the orbital velocity of the…” Bartleby, “Nugget, pilot the ship.” Nugget, “Nugget will drive the ship.” Nugget lands where the airlock can make kissy kissy with the other ship, at an obvious entry point, making contact and the umbilical makes a soft seal, the tiny amount of pressure equalizes, and you’re able to make it to the door of the other ship. Bartleby goes first, turning on his suit headlamp and clanking his way up to the unpowered door. {GM: doing anything crazy with the armor will require a roll because Jack didn’t take a skill of knowing how to use it} Nugget, “Nugget can force the door or rig up emergency power packs.” Bartleby, “which would take longer, let’s try forcing the door first.” Nugget takes out her giant, fuck off sized wrench and fiddles with the door mechanism to get it to unlock. Successfully rolling patch up, she unscrews the panel and fiddles with the wiring, and there are some sparks and a tiny fire she puts out, but then there is a soft deregulation of pressure as the seal on the door unseals. Bartleby, “good work, Nugget.” Nugget, “this is why Nugget is paid the big bucks” The door slides open and they’re looking into a very dark hallway, typical of starships, metal grating on the floor and all around, there’s no power so the lights are out, and the only thing that’s illuminated is whatever Bartleby shines his light on. Bartleby sticks his head in the door to look around, rolls face adversity +mettle and succeeds with a price, so a dead body floats into him and he screams into his helmet without the microphone and falls into the ship in a tangle of limbs with the body. Bartleby is trying to punch and kick it away from him. Hopper does a thermal scan and discovers that it’s dead and due to the coldness of space it’s pretty stiff and cold. Hopper figures the organs could be valuable and calls that a success, starting a pile of potential salvage. Bartleby is drifting into the body of the ship, bouncing off walls, because he’s forgotten to turn on his magnetic boots. {Stephen asks what stat to use and GM says whichever based on what you’re doing, and Stephen asks if he’s interfacing with the corpse, which gets laughs and ‘that’s gross!’ from other players} Hopper looks at the body and succeeds on an assessment roll so he sees that the corpse is wearing black fatigues and has two rather large bullet holes in him, in places where vital organs would probably be. Hopper reports that there’s been a murder and rifles through the corpse’s pockets. He’s not wearing an insignia, he has a combat webbing harness on, doesn’t currently have a weapon, isn’t Fitzy, and isn’t wearing the non-uniform of the Upper Hand. He appears to be military. Nugget goes after Bartleby before he floats further into the ship, closing a hand around his ankle and flicking on the magnetic boots, sticking him to the wall. Upon rolling face adversity + physique she succeeds with a hard choice, which leaves Nugget upside down and having to take a turn to get back down to the deck. Bartleby is coming to his senses and Nugget is on the floor behind him. Hopper’s watching for computer ports and interfaces. Meanwhile Chip is live-action playing Asteroids with the point defense turret, which Jonni puts up for him whenever he’s bored, complete with theme music. Hopper easily finds an access port, but there’s a lack of power. His rig suit has a computer kit that will help him interface with computers in the local area that he can power with it. Rolling access + interface, he gains access to the computer system in the local area so he accesses local security in search of how recently the event happened and if there are current threats. He sees that the ship’s power was shut off recently, there are no threats in the immediate area, there are logs that people who weren’t crew moved through the area and there was some form of altercation or breach near the medical bay. The time frame isn’t specific because the power has been off. Bartleby, “do we want to check out the medical bay?” Hopper, “we sure do.” Nugget, “medical bay will have many supplies that we need.” Bartleby, “if it hasn’t already been raided.” Sunshine, “you’ll never know if you don’t look.” Bartleby leads the way farther into the ship, finding two more similar corpses before coming to another interior sealed door. Scrapper code says you don’t kill people you find on the ships you salvage. Bartleby wonders if there’s law enforcement to take these things back to or if they just enact their space justice and then take all of their stuff. The Imperium’s full might doesn’t stretch out this far so there’s a scrappers code, but there isn’t a war ship that enforces being a good person. Nugget believes in frontier justice and Bartleby believes in frontier justice when the cargo hold is nearly empty. Back on the ship, Chip rolls face adversity + mettle to keep the ship in place in the asteroid belt, succeeding. Hopper posits that they could put together a data package for wide distribution in the system showing the Upper Hand was responsible for this, if they were, and damage their reputation so no one wants to work with them anymore. Like a one star space eBay review. Bartleby says, “we could totally do that, or addendum, if they kind of were and we’re not sure, just sayin’.” Nugget, “this jumps to conclusions and may be morally and ethically deficient, Nugget is in with this plan.” Bartleby, “I knew there was a reason I like you…” {TJ says, “Just don’t tell Chip about this plan” and Jack says the conversation is happening on the internal comm} Sunshine is uneasy with this plan. {Jillian asked why Sunshine is uneasy and Lieren said it’s because her dad is a diplomat so she was raised with a pretty strong sense of fairness, even if she thinks they’re mostly full of crap. Jack asked if Sunshine is constantly observing everyone and Lieren said, “Oh yes”. GM asked for an example of something Sunshine may have observed during the current travels of the crew. Jack says, “Uh oh.” Jillian says, “Nugget talks to her creations, it’s creepy, she’s very awkward. When Nugget talks to something in a loving way it just comes off as creepy”. Lieren says, “like when Hopper wanted to interface with the corpse?” and laughs. Jack says she’s probably observed that Bartleby occasionally locks himself in the space commode and weeps when everyone else is asleep. Lieren says, “Sunshine totally observed exactly what happened with the suit business and the screaming, even if she didn’t hear it.”} The crew reached a locked interior door that looks like it’s been sealed for a while. Making another access roll using Hopper’s infiltration kit, he fails terribly and jams the door. Hopper, “this must be an ultra secure medbay, something super valuable must be in here because I can’t get it open, I think it’s extra sealed now.” Bartleby, “is that why the sparks came out?” Hopper, “oh yeah, yeah they nearly got me, I’m really lucky to be this skilled.” Bartleby, “damn! Yeah, those bastards! Good work, I understand the level of expertise you bring to this job.” Nugget tries to fix the door with the space WD40. Bartleby, “nah, Hopper said we can’t get through but if you want to give it a shot, Nugget, I won’t hold it against you.” Nugget hums a little song, grabs the lubricant and begins slathering it on the bottom of the door. It gets a little awkward because she lays it on their like insulation, then grabs a crowbar and very inelegantly jams the crowbar in and wrenches it open. Bartleby, ,”good work!” The door opens revealing yet another extremely dark hallway. Bartleby shines his light in there. Rolling to face adversity, he sees an auto turret set up in the middle of the floor that seems to be active and moving toward Bartleby. Succeeding but having to make a hard choice, Bartleby jumps further into the corridor to one side after releasing his mag boots. The turret cycles toward him and there’s clicking, but the turret doesn’t actually fire at him. Nugget looks at Bartleby floating near the ceiling and then looks at the turret, wondering if it’s out of ammunition. Rolling for assessment, she fails, so she takes a piece of debris (a piece of the door, perhaps?) and throws it at the turret to see if it fires. The turret tracks it, clicks, but doesn’t shoot. Bartleby walks on the ceiling over the turret and kicks down behind it, flicking the off switch, at which point it cycles down. Bartleby, “the coast is clear everyone, you’re welcome” Nugget, “Bartleby has done an excellent job!” {intermission, with mood music playing} {Upon returning, the GM checks in with all of the players, then asks if Sunshine has rolled for anything. Lieren says no, asks not to have to do that because she sucks at it, and Jack says unfortunately that’s part of the game. She says she made a character who follows and watches to avoid rolling and Jack says, “but you must roll to watch effectively.” Lieren, “aww, that’s just mean.” Hopper wants to salvage the turret, or possibly reload it and leave it armed in case the crew has to Leave Quickly. GM points out there’s no ammunition but says it can be salvaged.} The medical bay is just behind the turret. There are some dark terminals and several large pod-shaped areas big enough to fit humans, operating tables, racks of medicine, that kind of thing. Nugget is excited about the medicine racks and Bartleby suggests the crew start carefully searching. There are no bodies on the operating tables and after a roll to gather critical information, Sunshine receives a data point of the discovery that two of the pods are occupied by people in some kind of stasis. Pods carry their own minimal battery so they don’t need ship power, but the crew can’t tell the vitals of or see the occupants. Hopper rolls to interface with the pods and succeeds. When he starts to access the pod it powers up and then another part of the ship comes up to power and the lights flick on. Chip is currently interfaced with the ship and rolls an assessment, succeeding and Jonni tells Chip she’s receiving some sort of signal from the other ship. He received a +1 data point if he tries to decipher the message so he does so, and the signal is identified that it’s a communique that’s computer to computer, not from a person or recorded message, and puts up a green yucky face emoji in Chip’s eye. Chip relays the information to the crew that there’s communication and Jonni thinks it’s bad. As the lights come up the cryo pods become visible. One contains a woman dressed like a scientist and the third contains an injured soldier, but not dressed in a black uniform. Chip, “My guess is something along the lines of this should be quarantined, guys, so keep your suits on and maybe start an egress.” Hopper wants to take the pods but Nugget would have to patch them up in order to take them. Bartleby, “Hold on, hold on, hold on, it sounds like there’s some kind of infection, do we want to bring it onto our ship?” Sunshine agrees. Chip doesn’t want the pods on the Syzygy. Sunshine suggests grabbing the stuff that’s valuable on the way out and get out of there. Bartleby, “the people might be valuable.” Nugget, “people are valuable, sometimes for organs.” Bartleby, “and sometimes for information…” Hopper, “or hostages…” Nugget, “yes, that too.” Bartleby, “let’s not use words like hostages, OK?” Sunshine, “what if they can infect with whatever the ship is trying to say?” Bartleby, “well, we’re in suits” Sunshine, “sure, but I thought you guys were talking about taking them onto the ship?” Bartleby, “I am not, I’m going to vote no on that.” Sunshine, “oh, ok, good.” Nugget, “Nugget likes people.” Bartleby, “yeah well, let’s keep these people on this ship.” Sunshine doesn’t like infections. Bartleby, “Nugget, why don’t we figure out why the power came back on?” Nugget looks for a computer terminal anywhere in the medical bay that’s now operational and rolls for access. Succeeding, she tries to ascertain where engineering is located. It’s two decks below. Is there anyone currently in engineering? No, no life signs on the rest of the ship. Bartleby asks if there are cameras, which Nugget pulls up, looking for movement, people, if anyone is floating or if there’s an explosion going on. There’s no explosion and no living people, there are a few more black suited corpses floating and she catches a glimpse down by engineering of a corpse that is probably Fitzy from the Upper Hand, it’s wearing his stylized trench coat. Nugget asks if Hopper recognizes Fitzy and he does. Bartleby, “so that makes their ship salvage even if it’s contaminated.” Hopper, “so we’re now at three ships.” Nugget, “this has been a good day.” Bartleby, “well, it’s a good day if we can get everything we need off, Nugget, are there any cameras that should be active that aren’t?” Nugget, “All active cameras have been engaged.” Bartleby, “Can you see inside engineering?” Nugget, “Yes, there’s no one alive there.” Sunshine, “seems to me that the turret must have killed the people that are dead, otherwise, who’s walking around with the gun that doesn’t have any life signs?” Searching through the cameras, Nugget finds a second turret. Bartleby, “who took their weapons?” Hopper, “that’s a good question, but I was going to say that if the engines are good on these ships we can just pilot them out to a dock and strip them there, everything.” Bartleby, “if this ship is contaminated do we really want to bring it back to a dock? Just thinking about the long term survival of humanity in the cold darkness of space” Sunshine, “how do we go about finding out?” {Stephen asks if anyone brought a med kit and Jillian says that Nugget has a research kit. He says it’s a medical bay and there’s probably medical equipment to test for stuff, right?} Sunshine, “we need to figure out if there’s a way to see if this ship is contaminated.” Bartleby, “good thinking” Nugget, “Nugget will take some samples” Rolling to take samples and learn more, Nugget fails and the GM reveals there’s no obvious pathogen there unless one has a severe allergy to fast-moving lead. There are no pathogens, there’s nothing to keep them from re-pressurizing and accessing the ship, the cryopods aren’t removable from the ship. The ship is bigger than the JWG but it can tow it. There’s also the Upper Hand, whose captain is dead, although none of the other crew members have been seen. Sunshine, “can Chip learn more about what that message means?” Bartleby, “yeah, that might be important, Chip?” Chip tries and rolls to reason with Jonni and let her know how important it is that he know actual information and not just an emoji. He fails and Jonni says the message was just typical ship-to-ship and everything’s fine. Bartleby, “alright, so everything’s fine” Sunshine, “doesn’t seem like we have any evidence that anything’s actually wrong” Bartleby, “apart from the dead people… ok team, let’s head to the Upper Hand.” Hopper, “alright, let’s go there” The crew makes their way to the Upper Hand through a montage of opening doors and portals, the ship is similar to the JWG, a salvage ship, there’s no crew there, it looks like Fitzy piloted, he didn’t chart a course, then docked here. Hopper rolls networking and succeeds, then slaves the Upper Hand to the JWG to be piloted out of there. Chip has control of both ships. Nugget, “we have three ships, Nugget can have three times the Nugget cave” Bartleby, “yeah, we may not want to keep all of these ships” Nugget pilots the shuttle back to the JWG. Chip rolls to pilot the ships out of the asteroid field and faces a hard choice between damage to the JWG and damage to the Tempest. He chooses the Tempest and an asteroid crashes into the Tempest, considering that the Upper Hand should go back to the family of Fitzy, even though Chip hates him. {GM wants to name the untagged ship and some names are tossed out, such as the Brasco, the Mechanical Scorpion, and the Nugget Cave, the GM suggests Typhoon, then settles on the Tempest. Debate takes place about where to take the ships, discuss whether the crew’s alignment is chaotic profitable, whether it would be frowned upon to show up at Station Charlie with a competitor’s ship, who needs to be avoided, the rest of Fitzy’s crew?, Fitzy worked out of Charlie along with our crew, will ship be returned to people who have a share in it, why does the crew know nothing about what happened, Chip is tempted by the idea of salvaging things off the ship so he votes to go to the Raft.} End of session From the GM: For next time, if you think of something you’d like included for your character in an upcoming session send it by Discord or email and I’ll incorporate what he can. If you have any fronts, factions, or anything you want to see in the game suggest it and it will be added as best I can. I’ll try to integrate more skill moves next session. TJ says that’s on players to keep track of their abilities. Next time cramped quarters stuff will be used. What are you guys interested in? Stephen, “I’m interested in finding out the secrets of what happened on the ship, maybe like an Ultron-type character? That’d be pretty cool.” Jillian, “Absolutely, the mystery on what happened to the people in the pods, that’ll be fun to know.” Jack, “I was getting like the Expanse from that.” TJ, “the cramped quarters thing, does it like cause drama?” GM, “it develops relationships between the characters” TJ, “I can avoid that with navigation but it’s way more fun if we avoid the factions and keep the drama” Jillian, “drama, drama, drama…” Lieren, “TJ, you dove in the deep end of the pool, sweet pea” GM, “if you’re headed to the raft, if you have an idea for something that’s part of the Raft let me know and I’ll upt it in World Anvil” Lieren, “I’ll do the session report and put a link in Discord” GM, “for the experience, I think we only have the one but I’ll make sure” (theme music plays)
Rewards Granted
Chip's reward is triggered so all players get one XP at the end of the session.
Notes
The crew acquired the Upper Hand and the Tempest, towing them toward the Raft as salvage with at least four dead bodies on board and two people in cryopods.
