Category Archives: Civilian

Gravity

“Matter warps space and space tells matter how to move.”

“In what direction does light reside?”

“E=MC²”

“Gravitational waves may make permanent changes to space.”

Gravity, in some ways some of our oldest technology is based on it. Dropping a stone on another. The pendulum. A counterweight. The waterwheel.

We gave up on gravity and started a romance with the electromagnetic. The lightbulb. The motor. The transistor.

Then came the strong nuclear. The bomb. The reactor.

We forgot about gravity until The Artifact, and then we learned that mass warps space but the electromagnetic and the nuclear are aspects of space. Their fields are like up and down and gravity effects them.

Gravitational waves change the shape of space. Even small waves can reinforce each other into larger standing waves, those waves spread out and tell matter how to move. Matter is energy, energy becomes matter.

The smallest of black holes, microscopic, orbiting each other, and crashing together to build a gravitational wave to its crescendo. Understanding how to do that was the real trick. Loc taught us that.

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The Tomb

Voice recognition – Starting

Sound Database – Starting

Austin Avery 79% – We found it Hank, the Rantaa’ tomb! This is insane! The whole thing fills the hex. There are walls set up in geometric patterns. Huge walls fifty meters tall, covered in Kelrath writing. There’s a huge structure over a kilometer tall at the center of the hex. We can’t figure out what you’d use such a huge building for in a tomb. Erik is translating some of the wall’s text and Jason is trying to use the E-Suit to open one of circular plugs in the wall. The writing seems to say that thats where the Rantaa’ are entombed. The Kelrath would be furious if they saw us here.

Sound – Fuel Detonation 120 db 65%

Austin Avery 82% –  (shout) What happened? What happened?

Erik Magnusson 64% – The plug was trapped. Jason. Jason do you read me? Jason, come in.

Unknown Voice – I’m okay. Uh, the suit’s shields took most of it but I still felt that. I’m just checking the damage.

Erik Magnusson 68% – Typical, the Kelrath always have defenses. The plug was probably a fake tomb or it belonged to a minor official. It’s doubtful they’d detonate a grave of anyone important. That means that only a fraction of the plugs might have anything in them.

Austin Avery 78% –  That’s not good. It also means we’ll probably run into more Kerdi after that noise.

Unknown Voice – The damage doesn’t look ba. . . (sound quality below threshold)

Austin Avery 78% –  Dicky, start scanning the radio for more Kerdi. They’ll probably come from above. Whatever, I don’t want to hang out here, let’s move into the center and see what else we can find. We have to find out what’s with that center structure. Keep alert and let’s move.

Recording – Paused

Shutdown command given

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Scout

Scout

It’s been two days but we still haven’t found the real entrance to the safehouse. Jahre has searched every nook and crevice in a kilometer of where the map says the entrance should be. He’s saved us a lot of effort by tagging each tunnel that he’s already looked in. He says the his sonar imager would sometimes show entrances that have been covered over but so far it hasn’t given us any real leads. We’ll have to return for ground penetrating radar.

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Foraging

Sponge

Today Ahach took us to his foraging and hunting ground. He says he’s hunted here his whole life. This is a thermosynthetic biosphere, everything is fed off the heat from a plasma main. This main may be set to rupture at some point since the temperatures are much hotter than normal. The mains can be thought of like volcanos, they’ve been here since the planet being built, by some accounts five thousand years. One can be ready to blow at any time but that could be in any time frame from a minute to a century. The chance of it going while we’re visiting is slim but not zero.

The biodiversity here is staggering, unlike any flora or fauna we’ve seen. The majority of it is what Ahach calls “Fera”. They’re something like tall sea sponges on dry ground. They start sparsely and about ankle high where it’s cooler, and as the temperature rises, they get taller and taller until they were well over our heads.

Ahach says that when he was younger the sponge used to grow all the way up the plasma main but as the containment has broken down, the temperatures have gotten too high for the sponge and they died off.

There are zah and nicoe here by the hundreds. There’s some other flying creatures that I’ve never seen before. We heard some ekchok a few hundred meters away but Ahach said they wouldn’t bother us since there was so much food available to them. There were seeter and gunthar tracks but not as many as I would have expected.

Something big was moving around in the sponge but it stayed out of sight. I would have loved to have gone and seen what it was but Ahach said to leave it alone.

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Ace

Dear Seth,

It’s been two months since we’ve set up Hope, the new colony after our last camp was pushed out by the Chezbah. The last few months have been difficult and they’re only going to get harder.

Two weeks ago, a small group of Chezbah came to the colony and demanded that we become part of a town twelve hundred kilometers from here and take up the Chezbah way of life. The colony garrison refused and the Chezbah left, but not for good. They saw how big the garrison was and now knew what we had to defend ourselves.

Two days ago, came back and destroyed most of the garrison. Just as they were ready to surrender, a Scimrahn E-suit attacked the Chezbah from behind. It was amazing, it gave the garrison the chance to mount a defense.

The Scimrahn’s name is Neah Cornar, she is some kind of ace pilot because she took out half a dozen Chezbah E-Suits and sent them running.

Unfortunately this means that we’ll have to move again. Neah says they’ll be back with reinforcements. She’s promised to help us find a good place to settle for our next camp. Unfortunately this means we won’t see anything that we’ve planted here.

I’ll write again when we find a new camp.

Love,

Ana

Scimrahn E-Suit

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Crazy Scimrahn

I’m not complaining about the job, it seems like this one will pay well, it’s this Scimrahn you hooked us up with. Dude calls himself “Ub” and he’s great at a party but he just does not turn off.

He flipped out and smashed the coffee maker because it was making a noise that “sounds wrong” to him.

Kevin was taking a shower and the guy pulled him out of the tent and put a knife to his neck. The guy blinks and says “You not Chezbah?” and drops him on the ground. Kevin still won’t go within ten meters of him.

Not only that but I had a small bottle of whiskey that I brought from earth, it’s basically worth five hundred thousand yen after being teleported. I was saving it for something special but Ub found it and downed it all.

I’m just asking, can we screen these guys somehow?

Ub the berserk

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Missing

I-CA Scout WebPatrol Report: Chun Gwok

The missing girl disappeared sixteen hours ago. Her parents report that she had the habit of venturing out into the forest around the colony with some of the local Scimrahn children.

I’ve tracked her path through the woods. At first her path was straight, she knew where she was going but now it has become curving and looping. She may be lost or ill.

Something big has picked up her trail before I did, something predatory. I don’t recognize the track.

I’m sending up a drone to see ahead and cover ground quickly. There may not be much time left for her.

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The Anatomy of A Warp

To: Dr. Jacob Grenwich, Director of ASO Science Studies

From: Dr. Evan Larrs, Science Anomalies Supervisor

This message is classified TOP SECRET

Site 13-A has delivered some incredible insights. The localized effects that we have come to describe as “Warps” are what would at first seem to be violations of the properties of common matter but when examined, they peel back layers of reality so that we might peer deeper into the bedrock of the universe.

Interpretations of our findings are still ongoing but our best hypothesis at the moment is that the anomalies in spacetime and even the apparent breach of the conservation of energy that are being generated by changes to the matter in ways we previously didn’t conceive.

Many theories in physics leave open the possibility that there are more dimensions than we classically perceive. In the case of super string theory, these extra dimensions are required to make equations work. The warps seem to prove the existence of these extra dimensions.

For clarification we are not referring to multiverses here, although our research does not exclude the possibility of their existence. In our holographic universe we perceive two dimensions as our four (x, y, z, and time), while other dimensions would at first seem out of reach of our experience. In the warps, we are able to experience the effects of matter moving and in many cases not moving in these dimensions.

Einstein established the speed of light in a vacuum as the universal speed limit. It is our opinion now that matter and light are moving in these extra dimensions at the speed of light or C as we will refer to it.

Because of this, we have discovered that all particles exist in and are moving through some of these extra dimensions at C.

This movement has certain effects. In one such dimension which we will label U for upsilon, matter moves in one direction at the speed of light. Dark energy appears to be moving in the opposite direction. Light appears to not move in U at all. When this movement is combined with a movement in time, it produces the effect of gravity while mass is created by the Higgs particles.

You might think of it this way, if matter is traveling right to left, dark energy is traveling left to right along U. Light appears to have little or no velocity by itself and so appears massless when it is in fact without it’s own gravity. Upsilon however is not analogous to gravity. Gravity is an emergent phenomenon that stems from matter moving slower through time and movement along U.

In the same way, many mysterious effects also appear as combinations of motion in these unperceived dimensions such as inertia. So far it appears that a movement along U and a movement along what we have called Tau or T produce the effect of inertia.

Just as light can be slowed down or even stopped by interfering with it’s motion, matter can apparently be effected in the same way along the dimensions such as U and T, either slowing it down, stopping it or possibly even reversing it’s direction.

From our calculations, this may explain one of the great mysteries of the big bang. Why is there not an equivalent amount of antimatter to matter in the universe? It would appear to be because much of the antimatter was launched in the opposite direction in time. The two would never meet chronologically and therefore never interact and annihilate each other.

If there are indeed 6 extra dimensions as calculated in superstring theory, this would give rise to forty six thousand six hundred and fifty six (46,656) different movement combinations that could give rise to different forces. As movement through time seems to also effect these other motions, there may instead be two hundred and seventy nine thousand nine hundred and thirty six (279,936) emergent properties that this movement could account for. We have only identified a small number of these and have only been able to test for five.

Whatever The Artifact is or was, it’s creators knew what these effects are and how to manipulate them. This is a subject of unprecedented importance that will require all the resources we can put behind it.

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Lost

We’re lost. The Eric’s laptop got smashed in a cave in and that had our mainframe map in it. Please stop giving him so much explosives, he uses way too much. I only have this I-CA communicator and I can barely figure out the functions, the manual is all in Chinese and I don’t know what language the other ones are, maybe Arabic. That means that even if you send us another map I won’t know how to use it or even if it can be used on this thing.

There’s supposed to be a Scimrahn tribe camped out for the next week somewhere around here but we’ve been searching for days. Eric’s truck is running out of fuel and my S-15 is starting to get a nasty wobble in the chassis. I told you I didn’t want anymore company refurbished equipment. At least get a Scimrahn repairman to show those guy’s how to fix these things.

I need the network jockeys to look around and see if the Scimrahn are sending any messages out. I know they don’t usually, but we’re not near any Chezbah, they might feel safe. It’s the only way I can think of to find them. I don’t think we can make it out of here unless we find them.

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The Loyal One

This adventure can be for any group of player characters but is not well suited for a beginning characters.

Introduction

The PCs are on a recon patrol of a remote area in Kelrath territory. They are helping establish the location of a base in the region by finding out where the Kelrath travel. They need to travel quietly and not alert any Kelrath patrols to their whereabouts in the process. The characters are equipped to be out on this area for several weeks.

The Favor

As the PCs are doing their recon, they find ample sign of Kelrath presence. Some roads are well used and occasionally it will seem that they have just missed actually encountering Kelrath traveling through the area. The need is for an area that the Kelrath do not use so the characters need to move on to fresh territory. After a day’s travel, with no let up on the signs of Kelrath presence the PCs need to find a place to camp. Somewhere undercover would be good. If there is a Scimrahn in the group they might be helpful in recommending a good place to sleep.

The players should decide ultimately where to stay the night but if they’re not coming up with ideas offer the following.

Staying out in the open would be dangerous, somewhere hidden would be preferable.

Tunnels in the floor could be used but they only leave two options for escape if discovered.

Camping out on a conveyor can be done but may cut off escape options. It’s better than a tunnel.

Camping in the buildings of a residential hex is possible but sometimes the buildings are crumbling.

Hiding inside the Hosent of industry hexes is an option but may have the same problem as the res hex buildings.

The character’s should have someone stand guard while the others rest. If there is a vehicle, leaving it’s sensors on to passively monitor may be a good idea. Have each player roll for their characters to see if they stay awake. They can use either their Con or Psy to pass this roll and the Iron Will skill if they have it.

If any fall asleep then a message arrives while they are sleeping. If no one falls asleep it can arrive on the last watch. It is a written message and it is sent by someone in the area close to the PCs. In very broken english it says “You are found but useful to me. Do what I say and you leave here safe. Stay here two days. Do not leave or I hunt you.”

The players will have to decide what they will do with this information. If a Communications Officer examines the transmission, a successful radio skill roll will reveal that the signal was sent by a Kelrath radio. If a quarter or eighth column is rolled, the Comm Officer will recognize that the signal was sent by a low power system that was very close to where the PCs are. Possibly only 200 meters away.

If the players do not decide to stay, go to The Hunt.

If the players decide to stay, in ten hours a single Kelrath Gijorn will walk directly towards the location the players are in but at 10 meters away, will put a piece of paper on the ground and walk away. If the PCs try to call out to him as he approaches, the Gijorn will put the paper on the ground and immediately walk away. He will not speak to the PCs (he cannot speak english at all). The note will say the following. “My loyal one is coming. You take him home and go in peace. He is not safe here. He come one more day.” Again figuring out what to do with this information is up to the players. If they do not listen go to the hunt.

The Hunt

The messages are being sent by a high ranking Gijorn. He is the equivalent of a general. At the moment there are ten Rall 4s in the region, several groups of 20 Geetin and the general in his Enhanced Variant Rall 3 (see The Fringe sourcebook for stats). If the players do not follow the instructions the whole force will be mobilized to track them down. One Rall 4 is within 30 Km. Others are farther away. Even if the characters can outrun the Ralls, there are more in any given direction that can intercept them. How many is up to the GM.

The Ralls have orders to detain the PCs not to harm them, much. The harder the PCs push the harder the Gijorn in the Ralls will push back. They don’t need all of the PCs, just one with a vehicle would be preferred.

The Act

Once the two days have passed, either because of the PCs volunteering to wait or because they are detained by the Ralls and Geetin, they will eventually see the Enhanced Rall 3 and a wheeled vehicle approaching. As it does, the Rall 3 will power up it’s shields. Through the loudspeaker, the pilot of the Rall 3 will say in english “You want my loyal one? You can not have him! I will defeat you!”

If there is an E-suit or tank in the group the Rall 3 will go up to it and start to punch at it (punches pass through shields). If there is no E-Suit or tank the pilot will exit the Rall with full Gjorn Armor on and declare “I do not need machine to beat you! I beat you with hands only!” and start boxing the largest PC.

This is an act. It is done with the Scimrahn so that observers will see some kind of a fight. The Gijorn will really fight but will not use any weapons unless punching is clearly ineffective. The more the PCs act like they are being hurt the more the Gijorn will let up. If the players try to use weapons, the Gijorn will do his best to disarm them but if that is not possible he will use the Rall 3s Plasma guns (which he can command remotely if needed), a knife or a Plasma Sphere depending on the situation. He will try to make it clear to the PCs that he is only there to fight with one of the PCs and the rest must watch. He may fire the Rall 3s weapons in between him and the other PCs if needed.

A turn or two into this staged fight, either by laser communication or by whispering it, the Rall 3 pilot will tell his opponent, “You steal him now, tell your friends.” He may say this several times. He means for other PCs in the party to break into the wheeled vehicle and take the occupant hostage. If the PCs aren’t getting the idea he will try again and again to indicate this is what they are supposed to do but only with limited english. If the PCs say anything about this over radio or out loud so that others can hear, the Rall 3 Pilot will proclaim that they will be defeated.

If at any time the PCs beat the Rall 3 Pilot, the remaining Rall 4s in the region (which have been closing in on the PCs) will attack.

Rall 3 Pilot

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
CON 60 30 15 8
STR 50 25 13 7
AGI 70 45 23 12
REF 60 30 15 8
DEX 60 30 15 8
BTY 30 15 8 4
CHA 70 45 23 12
INT 50 25 13 7
IQ 60 30 15 8
PSY 60 30 15 8
HP 20

Once the PCs break into the wheeled vehicle (use the stats for an ASO transport) they will find an elderly Geetin in Geetin Armor. He will go with the PCs but will tell them “Make it look good” in Kelrath. Once the PCs have the Geetin, the Rall 3 Pilot will shout “No I will stop you!” but not make any other adjustments to his strategy he may even ease up. If the PCs use the Geetin as a hostage he will stop and declare that he and his men will leave if the PCs promise to not hurt the Geetin, refering to him as “My loyal one” in english.

The idea is for the PCs to escape with the Geetin. The Rall 4s will not attack as long as they have the Geetin and he is safe.

Conclusion

The Geetin has been an advisor to the Gijorn for many years. Recently he had to protect his master from an embarrassment which meant the death sentence for the Geetin. Because of his loyalty the Gijorn sent him out on one last task before his execution. The last task was where the PC’s intercepted and took him. The Geetin explains that they must leave and get away from the area or the General will not be able to protect them any longer.

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