StratCo/Magitech politics (Monday)
StratCo claims that the "abduction" of Bernstein was a publicity stunt, in preparation for their announcement of the new breakthrough he’s made. StratCo actually acts very annoyed that Magitech got so much publicity over it when they were not even supposed to be involved. Bernstein happily confirms their story, saying that in actuality he has been in seclusion polishing his research results, while being protected from corporate spies and saboteurs.
Magitech/StratCo wants to ruin the reputation of the journalist (Deblin Gaddelsmocks) because her son, a gnome named Reginald Pipwhistle who works for StratCo, has ceased his research, and they want to strong-arm him into taking it back up. They tell him that they will destroy the lives of all those close to him if he does not comply.
Rather than abducting Deblin, they take steps to get her fired instead, and destroy her credibility. To further ruin her, they set up a situation where she appears to have planted evidence to further her "Magitech abducts scientist" theory. The idea is to convey a desperate journalist, so deluded and certain of the "truth" that she will stop at nothing to achieve it (rather than a portrait of her maliciously attempting to ruin Magitech for some unknown reason). These actions make StratCo seem overwhelmingly powerful, so that Nald is utterly intimidated into continuing his work.
From Nald’s point of view, the scenario has been completely orchestrated by StratCo alone from the man’s point of view. His research involves necrophagia. StratCo wanted to scare him back into line after he expressed concerns about the ethical implications of it. However, what he’s creating is crucial to the upcoming plan to suck away all of Earth’s mystic energy.
See, StratCo/Magitech/Nyx wants to stop the Caretaker from merging Luna with Cain. They believe the Caretaker has gone insane. So they funded a secret Mercabah project on Mercury to develop technology for sucking away mystic energy, with the eventual intention to suck away Earth’s mystic energy and thus disable the Caretaker. Only one problem – there was no way to dispose of the energy once it had been "sucked up." However, Pipwhistle had unwittingly stumbled upon the solution whilst studying the properties of a strange, white fluid found preserved in amber during an archeological dig.
Unbeknownst to StratCo, this fluid is actually a sample of the Fearful virus. Thus, it consumes mystic energy, and when it does so, it multiplies rapidly. Pipwhistle is working on ways to control its growth so that it can be fed a continuous stream of mystic energy. Nald is extremely smart, meaning that if he is replaced, the research will take years longer to complete. He began to pick up on the higher-ups’ line of questioning, and became suspicious that they were planning to use his work as a weapon against mystically infused colonies.
Nald reluctantly finishes his work, but will eventually spill the beans to someone, probably the PCs.
Another attribute of a "Damocles Experiment Omega" ship that has the mystic draining ability is that the FTL ("miller2") device could also be used to somehow shield the ships from the brunt of the Caretaker’s wrath toward them. But when the fleet is finally constructed and mass-produced, then deployed against Earth, rather than the success they were hoping for, the Caretaker will still utterly annihilate the ships. (A related idea that Paul had: if each ship had a soul for some reason, particularly if these souls are important to the ships’ functioning, the Caretaker could instead grab the fleet of souls and add them to its machine.) (Yet another idea: Luna could assist in protecting the ships as they suck away Earth’s mystic layer – but would Luna do this?)
There are two shipyards – one near Mars and one near Canis. The plans for the FTL drive were completed and distributed to the shipyards before Mercury’s destruction. McLean doesn’t know the full details of the FTL project – he wasn’t involved, but he learned of its existence through the soul connection during his time amorphous on Mercury (the soul connection allowed McLean to glean broad conceptual information on many topics, but was not easily able to communicate details such as specific override codes). Unfortunately, all those who knew DEE’s override codes were dead. Thus, McLean tried to garner DEE’s interest by pretending to try and fail to take him over.
The shipyards will begin deploying the mystic drain technology on the fleet once Pipwhistle completes his work. The first ship of this sort, "Damocles Experiment Omega," will appear in a couple of sessions, followed by the entire fleet a few sessions later.
Mercury and the gray goo (Wednesday)
Wednesday isn’t sure what they want to do regarding the gray goo mission.
Malcolm does not like it. If he outright refuses to go on the mission, God sends him a vision of him being thrown in the brig along with the others, and held there indefinitely. He senses that this would result in a failure to learn the truth of the situation in a reasonable timeframe. If Malcolm is present at the Mercury site, he receives a vision of millions of souls, trapped within the terrible substance, unable to move on to the next life. "PUT THEM TO REST," he is instructed, "FREE THEM FROM THEIR SUFFERING." Hopefully, Malcolm can conclude that throwing the goo into the sun will be an acceptable solution, whereas the Caretaker wanted him to extract them some other way. The in-game mechanic bestowed upon Malcolm is one ‘‘wish’’. (If he does not use it in a reasonable amount of time, the power fades.) Malcolm’s holy aura during this time becomes blinding.
Ridge is honor-bound to obey orders, and has thus far had a great military career in U.N. Forces. Trenton has also recently signed up. If either of them refuse the mission, they would have to resign or be court martialed.
Peters is inclined to agree with Malcolm that the mission is a bad idea, but will go with Noun no matter what he decides. Noun is uncertain (have to see how Malcolm communicating with him unfolds). Fey is likely to be against the plan as well.
There are four possibilities we foresee:
- They end up going anyway, to actually recover some goo. If this happens, Wells (once a janitor, now a religious leader of sorts among the Mercury souls due to his accident inheritance of the Mercury Occultem Lapidem shard) stows away in the recovered goo (along with several dozen other souls), and causes the scooped material to form into the shape of a large face (his face – not just metal either). He stowed away to get away from the unwanted responsibility of being their leader, but a bunch of them followed him anyway. They talk to him – roleplaying Wells’s perspective is very easy, so whatever they tell him is pretty much ok. If they continue on to the space station and drop him off there, the U.N. Forces will eventually be able to convince him to assist them.
- They concoct a plan to throw Mercury’s remains into the sun, to destroy the gray goo and prevent it from being egregiously misused. This option would provide a potent boost to the Oversoul there, would merge the O.L. Mercury shard with the Oversoul, and would be reflected in the Saturday group with a huge increase in Zee’s power and/or coherance. Also possible is that they initially harvest some goo, and once they speak to Wells that they convince him to move the planet towards the sun.
- They refuse, and are thrown in the brig until the situation is resolved. Many days pass, until the rogue planet returns. Communication with the planet fails, and the goo is deployed. Unfortunately, the ships cannot get close enough to launch the goo (Glaurung defends against it).
- They stealthily refuse, and quickly escape (maybe through displacement?), and visit the royals, to find out more information about the gray goo, and how it can be stopped.
Also possible is that everyone takes one of the refusal courses except for Ridge, who goes alone. (Variations with other combinations of PCs are also possible, but unlikely.) In that case, we quickly go through the Ridge one-on-one with Mercury similar to above.