What do Crossers Cross, exactly?

During the trip to LDMLT01, everyone has a rare opportunity to gain some insights about these aliens- very different, and yet widely regarded as one of the most similar in terms of biology and psychology.

Their name is unique.  The names of alien species fall into three categories: there are names the aliens themselves use, generally adapted to the Human alphabets, such as the Oumo, or the direction or region in space associated with them, like the Mimosans and Velorans.

A third category is a word chosen by Humans that is key description of the aliens, like the Riders.  One might think that "Crosser" is a name of this type, but then, if it was merely the obvious description of their nomadic lifestyle, wouldn't something like "Traveler" or "Nomad" have made more sense?  But Crosser is a special case, a fourth category, a word chosen by the Crossers themselves, and it has implications well beyond merely being space nomads, "crossing" space.

According to Marlo, Crossers chose this word because it is close in concept to their own word for themselves, which is impossible for human vocal cords to accurately produce.   They have always been nomadic, since before they were sentient, but Crosser means more.  Crossers "Cross" through stages of life, not only changing gender, but apparently going through extreme changes in physiology as they mature.  And more: they see themselves as bridges, connectors, and intermediaries.  They see life as a journey, and themselves as changing with the journey.  A Crosser would agree with the saying of the ancient Human Heraclitus, "you can never step in the same river twice, because it is not the same river and you are not the same person."  It is all this together that is summed up in their name, which they approximate as Crosser.  They chose a noun based in verb- it is the active and changing role of Crossing that gives their lives meaning, not the static role of being the thing that crosses.  Life is change, and they embrace it.


*** **** **** **** **** ****

Lilana's interest in them is brief, and the crew, new and old, is fully aware of it long before they get there:  Lilana is in search of information about "Ghost Ships", ships that travel between systems of the Hundred Worlds, but with no clear purpose.  That led her to an "information broker", where she learned of a depot of hundreds of lost and unaccounted for hibernation pods, clearly connected to Ghost Ships as no ordinary ship doing overt work could have brought them there.  A Crosser she was given the name of can provide more exact information.

And now, on top of that, Jackson's research:  some of the pods he was able to identify from the pictures, and the last records of them have them being delivered to a fast freighter, the Baltican, a ship that apparently is still in operation, has made port calls, but has no recorded freight or passenger traffic in six years.  A Ghost Ship.

When they return to the ship Charles drone has multiplied and now he has 3 drones zooming about and people learn as the ships hull mechanic he has plenty of free time as he is making 'mini documentaries'  about everyone on their job experimenting with mood settings and other tasks from his online cinematography course. Most of the recording time he spends with the two that are not assigned much in terms of crew tasks even dubbing the bits with Marlo as "Crosser talk." covering items as what are corssers and of coarse how is it for a crosser to travel in human space. The main goal of these though is to learn what is expected of the crew once they arrive at the crosser ship. what are absolute do's and dont's and what they really have to visit. A perceptive person might notice he is not only showing gennuine interest but also is trying his best not to give the near disinterest by their employer to much of a charge.
He also gravitates to Florence of coarse and appears in the doorway to her cabin the 3 drones hovering behind him.

"Hey miss Pearce. Think you want to subject yourself to me and my buddies here? Tell a little about how it is to have a Crosser friend and to travel with him? Mostly to just practive shooting interviews but also cause it sounds like an interestng tale to tell."

Florence grimaced slightly. “Please, call me Florence. Miss Pearce sounds... Uh.” She shook her head.

She took a few seconds then to ponder the question. “I'm not sure I can tell you much, I've only met Marlo in Deseret a couple of weeks ago.” She frowned. “More like three now I suppose. Anyway.” She shrugged, “Besides the obvious, physical, aspect, Human-Crosser relationships aren't that different from purely human ones. They're quite close to us, on the surface anyway.” She tapped a finger on her lips for a couple of seconds, pensive.

“I suppose you could say it's pretty straightforward: what you could imagine in a human friend, you could find in a Crosser friend. Talking about food, drinks, travels...” She frowned. “Girl talks or shopping might be a bit of a challenge though...” She smiled, amused. “It's another thing entirely with other non-humans, it can be really challenging.” Which, apparently, Florence found stimulating more than bothersome. After a second, she grinned. “Though believe it or not, but shopping and girl talks can be a thing with the Momos.”
This message was last edited by the player at 11:05, Sat 27 June 2020.

Pulling stints in the pilot's chair, Abe focuses his off-watch hours on what their Captain has unearthed thus far. He's meticulous and methodical when he can be, used to those long periods of "hurry up and wait" and he's keen to understand the mystery now it's in front of him. Like Viper, he spends some time speaking to Marlo and seeking to understand the Crosser - but beneath the guide of familiarising their guest with the ship's protocols and sharing the occasional cheeseburger. Despite his natural wariness, he finds himself like their scaled passenger, and his steers the conversation to the nature of Crosser vessels and the fresh vistas they see - sharing his own experiences as a stellar scout after his service

Abe has been around a bit, but in a military way.  The mysteries of "Ghost Ships" were not left to the Marines, who specialized more in warfare with the Carinans and the occasional insurrection or other security issues in the less fortunate Governates.  Lilana seems to have unearthed lots of information, but thus far has no coherent story to tell.  The story makes all the difference to her- it will take things from an odd assortment of facts to something people will pay for the privilege of adding to their entertainment networks.

The entertainment networks, the crew learns, are her clients.  Every planet has them, the more populous worlds can have hundreds.  Each competes for viewers, and each, therefore, wants the most fascinating, engaging, astonishing programming it find.

As Lilana has followed this trail, the potential payoff has grown.  She would get paid for what she can produce now.. but if she can show what's going on, and where, and maybe who's behind it... that's a thing the biggest networks will want.

**** **** ****

Talking to Marlo, they learn- or actually, they confirm, as this is widely known- that there is one thing that is taboo for Crossers to talk about.  Settling down.  Of course they had planets, but do they have any now, or are they all travelers, for their entire lives?  They avoid this topic.  If it's even hinted at, Marlo steers away hastily.

The home ship is something Marlo is happy to talk about- which is good, as you are headed there.

The Crossers have good starship technology, especially when it comes to building things big.  Join a hundred of humanity's largest ships together, and it would be as big as a Crosser Home Ship.  Crosser ships have entire ecosystems inside.  They look scaly- this is not, according to Marlo, anything connected to the fact that Crosser themselves are scaly.  This is because it allows them to conveniently remove and replace hull sections, or even to change a ship's shape to accommodate some new addition.

When at last they drop out of warp, they have had five days to learn about Crossers... and Florence is, word by word, learning their language.

(Crosser language, as they already pieced together from Marlo's explanation of their philosophy, is very much action and change oriented.  They very rarely use expressions that can translate simply as "There is a <thing>."  If it's not doing something, why talk about it?  A Crosser wouldn't think to say "There is an apple.".  It might say "See (I) an apple.  " or even "Ripens and awaits consumption, an apple."  But a simple statement of existence, for them, isn't useful. It would be like a Human saying "An apple is." Florence has gotten a few lessons in things like this.)

LDMLT01 is a small, stable red star.  Dim compared to Sol, it's habitable zone is very narrow and close to the star.  There's one planet in it, Kozaana, but Kozaana isn't human habitable.  Nonetheless, it has life- very dark green plant life covers areas of the surface.  The Home Ship, according to Marlo, is named "Becoming More Prosperous" although in Human terms it is probably easier to call it "Prosperity".

It has a swarm of ships around it.  Crosser scout ships, defense ships, transports... Human ships of different kinds, mostly small traders, and a few Navy ships standing watch over them.  There's one large Human ship, one of the very rare agricultural ships.  Some people bought some very large old Navy ships being decommissioned, and figured that the best way to ship fresh agricultural goods to remote frontier worlds and settlements was to grow it along the way.  They are basically flying farms.

It's quite crowded space, here.  Relatively.  Not like the craziness in the Earth orbital area, but for frontier pilots, pretty dense.

While he found the Crosser to be fascinating he didn't have any questions that weren't already asked by the others. Along with maintaining the engineers he was still helping Minka learn to be a pilot. Before his previous career went down the tubes he was thinking of teaching engineering after retiring. While his abrupt end of his career forced him to make changes in those plans he thought he might take up teaching at a later time, hopefully after making some sort of fortune for himself and his daughter first.

Along with teaching Minka he was studying information on instruction methodology he had on his computer to better teach Minka and others in the future.

A trip well spend learning both real information and his new 'hobby' of cinematography Charles made his way to the bridge to get a good view of the crosser ship when they arrive. The first one in the flesh was impressive. As they approach to dock he looks at Lilana.

"So the plan boss? We going to meet the contact immediatly our want to tourist that thing for a bit first? Maybe Marlo could give us a nice tour that might make some interesting mini docu that brings in some cash for us to?"

He turns to Marlo

"If you are up for something like that. Als what does your species think of human media?"

Lilana has no answer to the question… yet.   Her solution to “How do I contact a Crosser?” was “Find someone who knows about them. So she punts it over to Marlo and Florence, who were the ones to answer that call.

“I was a given a name and a place.  This is the place, the name is Andy Explorer Third-Risk.”


“Explorers are like me,” Marlo says.  “Some of them work for the directors of the Home Ship, like your Commonwealth Navy.  But others work for companies.  This one did not give you a company, and did not mention an official title?”

“This is all I have.”

“Then this one is seeking private arrangements, and must be found with our computer.  Computer systems are not compatible, yours and ours.  You will have to go aboard.  Work with our computer.  It would be acceptable, if I am there."


When they get a moment, Marlo finally gets around to addressing Charles' question: "Some is very, very interesting, and some is very dull, and much lies in between.  That is normal, yes?  But as a rule, Crossers dislike things that you call introspective.  Slow.  We are not like that.  Humans can spend a great deal of time analyzing their own thoughts.  It is one thing to do that with real people, but why waste the time studying mere characters?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:47, Fri 24 July 2020.

"Not compatible you say" remarks Jackson. "But are they similar enough so that humans can use them to get information?" 

"What counts as 'very very interesting' to your folk, Marlo?", asked Abe, intrigued. He was becoming familiar with Liliana's world - where the battles were fought, the tactics and strategies the biggest networks used, and knowing what might appeal cross-species seemed a natural question to ask. Perhaps a new market, perhaps simply an insight into their folk

Whilst they coasted inward, he began catalogueing the starships insystem. Who was here might prove interesting in and of itself

"Interesting things are strange and new things," Marlo says.  "We are like you.  Our ancestors traveled, and they hunted.  To beings like us, knowing more is better.  Always and advantage to know, to plan.  There is a Human saying.  Knowledge is power.  Knowledge is interesting."

They approach the Crosser Home Ship, following the instructions they are given.

Structures of arms and rings projects from both ends of it, and one side, the human ships dock.  In between, the Crosser Home Ship is a mass of immense iron hull plates arranged like scales.  The Crossers use basic steel, and lots of it, as hull material, demolishing entire asteroids in the process.

It's huge.  It makes even the largest human ships, like the agricultural ship, look tiny.

The Nellie Bly will be docking on a docking arm near it.

Normally very large vessels do not dock- they throw off the center of balance for stations, which can be very annoying.  No one has ever seen something as big as the agricultural ship Caledonia docked before.  But it’s dwarfed by the Home Ship.  The Nellie Bly will be a neighbor, more or less, as it is directed to approach the same docking ring, sharing it also with small traders, the Weifarer, the Rose Banner, the Beginner’s Luck, the Arsan, and the San Luis Potosi.

"When we go onto the Home Ship, it will be hot," Marlo warns.  "Our atmosphere has more oxygen than yours.  It will not kill you, but you must be careful.  Do not exert yourself and do not breath to deeply.  Our gravity is lower than your gravity, be careful of that, too."

"Well good thing i always wear a void suit then. Just making sure my supplies are alright then. Dont want to end up needing it when i end up needing to run for my life after unsettling the father of a fair maiden."

He says laughing but still makes sure to have a proper check of his void suit. For the rest he mostly is curious about boarding the place and his 3 camera drones hover about him as nervous about the new experience as he is.

“Should we take a gift for the Home Ship, Marlo?”, enquired Abe, “Perhaps a story?”

"A story?" Marlo asks.  "Do you mean one of the ones you have created?"

"He's new..." Lilana begins, wondering if they are now talking about giving away one of their documentary pieces as a gift.  "But... he might have a good point there.  It's what we do here.  I don't trade in material goods."

"May I look over your documentaries and see?  You have short introductions for each one, I recall."

"Trailers," Minka says helpfully.

"Trailers," Marlo repeats... or rather, his translator repeats, after he has programmed the word in.  "That is such a strange word.  It means Thing Coming Behind but it is meant to be seen before the actual story."

"An old Earth word," Minka says.  "Once, these... stories... were recorded on strips of optical film.  The trailer was at the end of the strip that held the main part."

Marlo turns to Florence, and gives that little shake she has learned to interpret as a laugh.  "The thing that is hardest to see with languages is this, how a word may come to mean the opposite of the thing it meant.  We have them too.  Be careful of them, they have been known to fool translator programs.  I will look through the... trailers... and give my opinion."

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The Crossers are experienced with handling the docking of (to them) alien ships.  They have been doing this for a long time.  Most human ships have standardized docks, for convenience, and ships are designed to snugly attach to them.  The Crossers have large, flexible structures that are made to conform to the hull of a large ship, or completely engulf a smaller one in a bulb of elastic material.  The Nellie Bly is a small ship, and very soon it is within one such bulb along the docking ring, near to its neighbors.

Much as Marlo warned, the ship's sensors report that the atmosphere outside is breathable but hot and dense and oxygen rich.  Physical exertion could be very dangerous for a frail person, and most Humans would feel uncomfortable very quickly.  An environmental or vac suit of any kind, of course, would keep a human comfortable... more or less.  It's either the discomfort of the suit, or the discomfort of the air, whichever you choose.

As the final checks are made, Marlo has reached a couple of suggestions.

"I propose that you offer this as trade for the information you seek, or something like it," the Crosser says, indicating the recently done and not even final-edit version of their brief tour at Deseret.  "It is a look at a small subculture of Humans that we do not know about.  You are quite diverse!  Also, the animals are interesting."

Marlo finds an older documentary as well, one Lilana did a while ago about boating on the ocean planet Poseidon.  That one, Marlo wants in return for further guidance and assistance, if it is considered necessary.

 while he suspected the chances were unlikely he decided to ask Charles anyway " what are the chances that any of the tapes we have in our collection would be of cultural interest the crossers?"

As the ships zero G welder void suits where no real issue for Charles and he made sure to ber clad in one when they left. His combat armor might be aq little over the top but the regular suit should suffice without offending anyone. He turns to Jackson.

"Well sounds like these people like documentaries. They might be among them i got no clue. But its all entertainment media so i wouldn't expect to much except maybe some life documentaries."

Emerging from his own quarters in one of the starship's standard-issue voidsuits, Abe carried his handcomp and had his pistol strapped to one hip as usual. He touched it briefly once he had found the Crosser with his gaze, "Will your folk object to such armaments? I would not wish to offend, but its been a while since I wasn't carrying"

His smile was friendly and open as he continued, "I have few stories of my own I might offer, except perhaps a few of far-off stars and the war between them. But I would be interested in hearing some from your folk..."

Above one shoulder, a single drone - kin to those that floated around Charles - hung silently, watching
This message was last edited by the player at 10:54, Sat 18 July 2020.

They are carrying a trove of purchased media programming.  In fact, they got it at bargain prices because it hadn't been "optimized", that is, the contents hadn't been edited, tweaked, and if necessary censored to match one particular Human market.

But of course, that does not matter with the Crossers.  Nothing is optimized for them.

Marlo expresses immediate interest in reviewing this.  "This may prove very good for both of us," the Crosser says.  "This is a resource that can be valuable here, and you might have beaten competitors here.  Will you allow me to look through the descriptions and trailers, and see what would be the most valuable?"

"But you would be the buyer?" Lilana asks.  "How you can you guide us while negotiating as a buyer at the same time?  We have what we call a conflict of interest."

"Oh not at all," Marlo says.  "I cannot buy.  I am only an explorer and that is not permissible for an explorer.  I can only direct you to others who might.  If an explorer used information gained for personal advantage instead of merely reporting back to leaders or sponsors, that would be damaging to the trust.  May I look at your collection, then?  I would suggest that you study the products we have available here in exchange.  We often sell our services as construction engineers, but I do not believe you wish to have an asteroid settlement created.  But we sell many other things we make, some of which are quite superior to Human products.  We also sell the products of other civilizations that we meet in our journeys."

Jackson noted all the drones floating about. He snickered then said in mock sadness "Look like everyone has a pet except me."

When Marlo mentioned the potential value of media he said to Charles "This sounds promising. Let's hope we have a lot of interesting stuff for the Crossers to purchase."

"Aww all alone. Now i feel sad."

He says jokingly and one of his drones hovers over to Jackson and zooms around his head. Then when Marlo shows interest he nods.

"Sounds like a great idea. Once we turned it into credits we can see what you got for sale that might be interesting on our route but thats an unknown till we meet the one who invited us here."
This message was last edited by the player at 09:04, Mon 20 July 2020.

"What are the bounds of an explorer's role, Marlo", asked Abe with a smile at the antics of the drones, "What are the limits of what might be explored and where understanding sought?"

"Explorers are one of the... in your ways, it would be something like a cross between a government service, a union, a professional organization, and a social society.  We work for different leaders.  I work for those who organize the business deals with Humans.  This one you seek does not.  We are sent out to seek answers, to gather information.  In my case, to gather information on the needs and resources of the Humans.  What do you want?  What do you have that we want?  What problems should we avoid?  All this is needed very much by our leaders.

"You have Scouts, but it is not the same.  All Explorers seek information through investigation, but my branch seeks economic information.  Economics across civilization is full of mystery.  You have a cheeseburger.  You have a glove.  Which is worth more, and why?  Sometimes, the thing worth more to one civilization is worth less to another, and whenever you find that, that is opportunity to trade successfully.  You see, if an Explorer found such an opportunity, and exploited it for personal gain, could anyone ever trust that Explorer again?  Would you choose to employ that Explorer?

"We are a civilization of small, isolated populations.  You have billions.  You can become lost and hide among yourselves.  We cannot.  Home ships cross paths rarely.  When they do, Crossers move between them.  Of course we do, change is our creed!  But until then, what we do, what we have done, this is known to all on the Home Ship.  We guard our reputations!  You see now, I explore economics.  It is not the only thing Explorers explore, but it is my thing.  If I arranged with you to provide information about the worth of goods, but then exploited that knowledge, I have committed a wrong to you, and to my own reputation, and to the reputation of all the Explorers of my Home ship by extension!  It is a serious thing.  Relations are different when your species is few.  Those who are many, like you, like the Lipaps, see things differently."

"Now, let me forage through your programs, and I will give you my report."

Lilana asks, "But we also need you to help us find my contact."

"This is true," Marlo admits.  "But I cannot do both at once.  You can certainly explore the docking ring area, it is acceptable, that is why Human ships are welcome to dock.  My presence would give you an advantage, though."

"What about after we done our work you and i have a little chat while reviewing the materials? I worked the markets some so who knows maybe we can do an equal exchange for information?"

He offers to Marlo.

ooc: i am going with the assumption a Broker 3 is a significant market skill

Broker 3 is very much a significant skill.  With Broker 3 you use all sorts of business buzz words and actually know what you are talking about!

Marlo agrees, being in no hurry.  After all, this is home!  There is a lot to do, which reminds the alien.

"I must upload my reports.  I can do this here.  I have a home on the Home Ship, of course. It will be good to see it again.  But you would find it hot and uncomfortable.  Do we wish to go to the Home Ship now, and seek my colleague whom you are looking for?"

Nodding throughout Marlo's explanation, Abe offered up his own parallels, "I was once a member of a smaller community that held to similar beliefs -" and he glanced aside at Viper and Jackson in explanation "- the Colonial Marines -" before he returned his full attention to the Crosser "- so I feel your words, my friend. Reputation, honour, these are more valuable than commodities, for me and those who served under me"

He shrugged, smiled a little sadly as he recalled his time and why he had left, "But we change, and it is a community I am no longer part of, instead a 'veteran' which carries a weight of its own"

With an effort he brightened, "I would like to see the Home Ship, though it may be that one of us remains aboard to keep the Nellie Bly trim and ready to respond"

Charles eyes their boss who in essence was determining the pace but the tour of the home ship did sound interesting. Marlo was a font of information and when he said he had a home here that sounded like a great opportunity.

"If you would not mind i would love to see your home. Take a little footage there so we can edit you telling us crosser stuff into your own home. Makes the footage much more authentic and i am really curious not only about the homeship but also how a typical crosser home might look."

Depending on what Illana wants meeting the one that invited them over first or exploring first he was ready to go.

Gravity is expensive, even for Crossers.  The bulk of the Home Ship fakes it with rotation.  The docking ring has an inner ring that rotates with the station, and an outer ring that does not, allowing ships to dock.  The docks do not have gravity, but this does not bother Crossers.  For all that the look a little ponderous and clunky in Earth normal gravity, in zero gravity they are unexpectedly agile.  The tail, which ordinarily looks somewhat useless when a Crosser is walking around, regains its ancient purpose without gravity.  Using it as a counterweight, Crossers are able to control their movements more easily that Humans can.  They all manuever around with skill only seen in Humans born and raised in space.

Of course that may be partially due to Crossers being born and raised in space.

Once in the inner ring area, gravity is back, at least, the centripetal force imitation of it.

On Human stations, this area is typically occupied with administrative and commercial functions, aimed at the people coming and going from the ships.  Here, there are some, but the Crossers have realized that they cannot make things permanent on a station that spends its time traveling between civilizations.  Even now, they are working on adapting the area to a more "Human friendly" style, complete with shops, or places they plan to put shops, based on what they remember from previous visits, and early reports from returning Explorers.

The air here is as Marlo warned:  hot and humid, but also carrying more oxygen than Earth atmosphere.

Marlo repeats the advice from earlier:  do not breath quickly or deeply.  In the Inner Ring area, they see quite a few humans who look flushed, even queasy, from the alien environment.

(In a way, Humans benefit from a bit of evolutionary luck here.  They do not pant, like many mammals do.  They sweat.  That's good.  Panting could lead to medical issues.)

There is even a Human food outlet already here, thanks to the arrival of the agricultural ship.  The menu is limited.  Mostly, fruit and fruit based beverages.  Smoothies.

There is also something Marlo failed to mention.  Perhaps the Crosser didn't feel it was important.  There are members of two other alien species here.  That's a rare event.  Aliens tend to be so culturally and biologically different that sharing societies has proved impossible, and even long term visits are uncomfortable.  But the Droyne and Lipaps must have been here a while, there was no sign of their ships.

Marlo says they are curious, and are examining the Humans.

One area of technology in which Crossers and Humans seem similar: billboards.  Large display screens are advertising a variety of Crosser products and services, proudly discussing the advantages, giving the contact information for Humans who want to inquire further.

Making sure the drones take the scene in Charles considers closing his void suits face mask but for now decides against it as it might not be as socially acceptable with the work they plan to do. He is as curious about the two other aliens as they are about humans and takes a moment to seize them up and will exchange a friendly nod of greeting if eyes would connect. As he gravitates towards the drinks stand he turns to Ilana.

"So what first boss? Find the contact or spend a day getting to know the place?"

The more the Nellie Bly approached the Home Ship, the more Florence was excited to be able to finally get inside an alien ship. Oh, she had seen a lot of vids about them, from pretty much every ship humans knew about, but there was no comparison to actually be the one inside.

On the topic of Crossers trade, she had quite a bit to say, which she did in great details, maybe because it allowed her to think about something else... And make herself seem useful. “I've done some research about Crossers trade when coming here became a possibility. Note of course that it's in general and Marlo's home ship probably has some fields where they're more proficient than others. Anyway, basically...”



About to get in the ship, Florence breathed deeply in order to calm herself a bit: she wasn't overly worried about her ability to overcome the heat or the higher oxygen content of the air, but she certainly didn't want to pass out because she had been hyperventilating.

Inside, she looked around curiously, at pretty everything going on around her, but it seemed pretty obvious that she was mostly interested in the people themselves, particularly the other aliens, curious to know what they were doing here, especially without a ship of their own. But maybe the Crossers were in fact building them one?

In fact, she approached a Droyne, and greeted it, in its language... Or as close as a human could produce anyway, hoping that ot wouldn't mind talking to her.

"It might be best if we split up," Lilana says.  "Too big a group and we'd look like tourists."

"You all look like tourists," Marlo says. "But Florence looks like she is now interested in Droyne.  I believed she would wish to accompany me here, at least for a while.  It appears my belief was in error.  I should have reminded myself of the habits of Humans of her age.  Priorities can change with great speed."

"For us, to find your contact Andy, we must go a little further.  The communications access here will not let you in to the private communication network of the inhabitants of the Home Ship, only the channels for commerce and similar functions.  It is for our security, so that we do not recieve volleys of communications from curious Humans when they dock.  The protocols between species regarding when to initiate communications and when not to are still weak, and your species is known to violate its own customs regarding this often."

"Then we have to go into the Home Ship?"  Lilana asks.

"Yes.  It would be easier if I take you.  You will encounter fewer difficulties and there is less of a chance of a cultural error."

"Well then, it will be Marlo, myself, Charles... does anyone else want to come with us deeper in?  Elsewise, you can explore this area.  We can do that anyway when I get back, I hope."

************************************

Florence, meanwhile, had found a Droyne.  She tries a greeting in their buzzing, squeaking language.  Unlike Crosser, most of the sounds could actually be imitated by Humans.**  Most Humans do not do this, and employ artificial translation when they communicate.  But it certainly gains their attention!  Florence had learned, growing up, that it was poor way to communicate unless one was truly expert, but a great way to socialize.

The Droyne certainly wouldn't mind talking to a young Human who had actually taken the time to learn to speak their language. They are immediately curious about her- Florence seems unusual for a Human not only for this, but for being young, and yet here on a Crosser Docking Ring.



**One of the "strange powers" observed in Humans, according to the Oumo scientists, was the broad range of vocal sounds a Human could make.  So diverse that a Human baby spent part of its developmental time learning what sounds not to make.  This seemed a peculiar waste of ability, but it did mean that with the right training, Humans could not only manage to imitate Droynes well enough to communicate, but also Lipaps (if they got the tongue-clapping right), Velorans, and Chukats.  Crossers, only marginally.

"Okay Boss I hang around here and see I can find anything interesting" Jackson said to Lilana

As Charles leaves with Lilana and Marlo he will say "I will follow up on the information you and Florence got and see if I get us a good deal. While I am at it I will see if I can also scourge some useful information." Jackson was about to thank Florence for her information help when he realized she wasn't there. "I hope she is okay, wherever she is" he mumbled to himself"

He then set about to find economic opportunities for himself and the others as well as keep an ear and eye out for any useful information. Along with dealing directly with the merchants he would make full use of the communication network. He will also use his knowledge of computers to help find things that his broker skills alone may not find. He will avoid breaking into the private system. He never liked it when merchants tried to hack into the starport computer system when he was in security. He also didn't want to cause Mario any grief from his actions.

If he can figure out the Crossers' effort to make the commercial section more human(and others) friendly he would be willing to share his knowledge from almost 16 years working in the security,technical and commerce side of the port authority. If they are interested in the advice he would be willing to share with fellow professionals and gaining more contacts is never a bad thing.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:23, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

Crosser society is built around the Home Ship.  Like a nationality or a tribe, everyone here belongs to it, on a level deeper than mere employment.  Like a Human corporation, though, Crossers can freely switch ships- at least, when two Home Ships are near, which happens every few years.  This makes the ship a social element with no true counterpart among Humans.  Crosser psychology allows them to quickly break and reform deep bonds.  For them, it's a normal part of life.

Within the ship, there are groupings that are something like guilds- groups of Crossers that perform a similar task for the ship as a whole.  Marlo's group includes the Explorers that travel through Human space and report back, as well as Crossers with administrative and supporting functions to help achieve this.  Andy's group includes Explorers that patrol the space in vast bubble around the Home Ship, and report on astronomical phenomena, along with threats and opportunities.

It does not take Marlo long to track Andy down and set up a meeting.

"Itikar Ring," Marlo says to the Humans around.  "Itikar.. a leader, a historic figure, the area named in Itikar's honor.  Itikar is as close as we will get in Human speech, it will have to do.  Generally Humans do not travel there, you will be unusual, but with me there should be no problems."

"I should tell you something," Marlo continues.  "Andy felt that this discovery was not of Andy's own group's interest.  It was not information that Navigation would act upon, it was neither threat nor opportunity nor of scientific interest.  But it is apparently a very strange quirk of Human culture, and therefore it is within my area of interest.  A very strange quirk.  Listen, my friends, I said I would help you find Andy and I have done so.  Now, I must make a new deal.  I will help even after that, as best as I can, because this is a very, very strange thing and should be investigated.  I understand that you wish to market this information to Humans.  But leave Crosser interests to me.  Crosser must be the judge of what is important to Crossers, and though this seems to be a Human thing, what shakes Humans can make the whole galaxy tremble, as the Oumo say."


******************* ************** *************

Back at the docking ring...


Jackson begins searching, and finds that there are buyers for the Human entertainment cards. Multiple buyers.

One is a Human trader who will take them off your hands.

Two are Crosser groups.  One is looking for curiosities that can be resold at a later date, far away, to other civilizations.   The other will present them locally for Crosser amusement and general interest.

Jackson has made a fine Broker skill... but... the best offer is from the Crosser "local entertainment" group, and the Crossers lack Human cash.  That's what they are here for, to sell things to raise money.  They can offer in trade something called "Kygep" which seems to be the nearest thing the Crossers have to chocolate.

And as they already known, Crossers and Humans can digest the same things.  Jackson does some quick research- yes, Kygep has been sold in Human space from time to time.  Humans and Crossers have similar biochemistry, and both have an instinctive taste for "high energy" molecules- fats and sugars.  Just as Crossers enjoy a good cheeseburger, it seems that Humans do like many Crosser foods, and Kygep, on the rare occasions when it has been available, sells well.

Jackson can't "cash out" at this point, but from his quick research it looks like he can triple the value of the cargo, or maybe more, trading the entertainment cards for packages of this Crosser  dessert.

He is given a small stick of it as a sample.  It has a sweet, tangy, fruity, nutty, and fatty feel to it.  Like mango peanut butter with a definite alien flavor.

Noticing Marlo and Liliana leaving, Florence hesitated for a second. She really wanted to follow, but she figured she'd have time for that at some point. Plus, right now, they would be dealing with Andy's reasons for being here, so it wasn't like she'd really get what she wanted. So instead, she focused on the Droyne in front of her. “Oh I'm, uh, training, with a crew here.” She looked at the hatch through which Liliana and Marlo have gone through then shook her head.

“Are you here to trade yourself?” She cocked her head to the side, considering, “I haven't seen your...” She frowned, whispered "ship" in her own language to get it translated by her communicator, having obviously forgotten how to say that word in Droyne. “Your ship here. Are you buying an habitat maybe?”
This message was last edited by the player at 20:32, Wed 19 Aug 2020.

Crossing the outer ring with an expected gracefulness, Abe trailed the other members of the crew and their passage-guests to where the foetid humidity mixed with the smells wafting from the food outlets and the neon-glow of the billbooards swam in the heat haze. He said little, a slight frown marring his forehead as one of the passengers wandered off though he was intrigued by the trade information Florence had shared beforehand. His eyes followed here for a few moments, before returning to the captain and the crossed they called Marko.

When the reached the threshold to meet Andy, he was clearly torn regards who needed protection, eventually following Lilana deeper into the bowels of the Home Ship and Itikar Ring: there was much to learn of these Crosser's ways

The Droyne speak with Florence.  As is normal for Droyne, they are a part of a social bond that includes at least one member of each of their castes- with only part of the group here, they feel they are "missing something", and for any serious discussion, they would want to regroup.  But this is fine for a simple social meeting.  (For the Droyne, Caste is more than just an arbitrary assignment, there are biological and psychological differences, and a partial group is not "psychologically whole").

They are traders, and explorers, but for the moment, they have no ship.  They were dropped off and expect to be picked up again.  They come from Terpsichore, so they have considerable experience with Humans- the Droyne have a settlement on this Human occupied planet.

They were also here to ask questions of the Crossers, they say.  There have been rumors of trade with the Ecosentience.  This baffles them, it has baffled everyone.  How does anyone conduct business with a life form a thousand kilometers across?  The Droyne leaders on Terpsichore sent them to ask of the Crossers, figuring that as experienced and far ranging traders, the Crossers might know.

********************************

Abe, Lilana, and Charles are the only Humans in Itikar Ring.  They attract a lot of curiosity.  It is very clear that the presence of Marlo makes everything better.  "They are with me." answers a lot of questions.

Marlo even encounters a few familiar Crossers.  They all seem to accept Marlo's simple assurances easily.  Perhaps they understand that an Explorer whose business it is to investigate Human culture and opportunities might have reason to bring a few Humans back.  There's hostility between the species, fortunately.  Despite looking savage, the Crossers actually seem to like Humans, and enjoy the fact that biologically and psychologically, the two species are closer than most other alien civilizations.

Eventually the meet up with Andy, and they begin talking about information, and Lilana brings out the pictures of abandoned hibernation pods.

Andy nods.  "Yes, those are my pictures.  You want to know where I found them."

"Yes, we do," Lilana says.

"You are investigator?"

Another thing they have learned about Crossers... Crosser society does not make the civilian/authority distinction that Human civilization does.  It makes sense, they are all ship crew in a way, every cook and poet among them.  So Lilana simply agrees, yes, she is an investigator.

"On your frontier.  A system of no habitation.  I can give you much further information.  But we must settle on price."

Charles was in awe of the whole thing. He had walked wordlessly after the others taking it all in and focussing on his drones to make as much footage as possible in the hope to get a mini docu up about visiting the heart of a home ship. How successful he was going to be? That was another question as he had been gawking like a tourist. He manages to get himself together on time they reach Andy and he manages to at least look professional again. Though maybe a little hot and flustered but thats to be expected with the enviornment right and has nothing to do with the fact he is aware he is acting like a bloody tourist.

As the meeting with Andy starts he greets the man politely and leaves the negociations to Lillana while he watches over the talk and keeps an eye on the drones he has left outside to keep the talk private. As private as they where with his smart glasses recording everything.

Florence was disappointed that the Droyne weren't there to buy an habitat from the Crosser: she had already imagined getting to visit an asteroid being worked on by Crosser workers to make it viable to Droyne, and maybe offering that opportunity to Lilana too: surely that would be a nice footage to have.

Her disappointment lasted for all of two seconds though, as the news about the Ecosentience did more than draw her attention. Oh, she was perfectly aware that she had other things to do, inquiries of her own to make, but she figured she could do those at a later time. Or maybe she could use one to do the other.

So Florence asked questions about the Ecosentience and who was rumored to trade with the Ecosentience, as well as about their own experience as traders and explorers, the places they've gone to, the stuff they've seen etc.

At some point, she mentioned, “I came here with a Crosser. Maybe I can see if he would be willing to help with your request? I...don't think he'd be the one with the answers you're looking for, but it'd probably be much easier for him to know who has them.” While Marlo was an Explorer, he was focused on Humans, so... Tilting her head to the side, she asked, “Why don't you leave me a way to contact you and maybe some information about what you're looking for and I'll see what I can do?”

Florence's education on the "Ecosentience" goes a little further than most people, but the life form is a puzzle.  It is an intelligent ecosystem- a being that can span a continent.  Some speculate that its homeworld is covered in one giant interconnected living organism.  Several "daughters" have been established by the homeworld, and one, occupying a continent on the planet Kayon, is in Human space.  The Ecosentience is able to create independent entities, apparently it can tailor their forms and characteristics.  The people of Kayon have encountered these in increasing numbers, and the Ecosentience seems to be beginning to copy Earth "designs" in its creatures.

Communication is slow and awkward- the thing does not even have a language, because it has never had anything to talk to.  How do you talk to a creature thousands of kilometers across that exists as a network linking all the life around you?  Scientists have been using very large "picture boards" but progress is slow.  They add a few words or concepts to the vocabulary every year.

And how do you trade?  What would an entire ecosystem want?  How do you even ask?  How do you negotiate?  What would it give in return?  The civilizations that engage in regular commerce, like Humans, Droyne, and Crossers, have been trying to figure this one out for years.

The Droyne give contact information to Florence, and are a little surprised to hear she is here "with" a Crosser.  They hadn't known Crossers to bring back Humans.

Humans have weird old stories about being taken away by aliens, and no one wants to upset the Humans too much.


********************************

Realizing that this thing is getting steadily deeper, Lilana takes a moment to confer with her staff.

"The bigger an event this is, the more it would be the Right Thing to bring it all to the attention of the Commonwealth Navy.  The problem with that is that everything we've put into it so far is wasted, instead of a hot story that networks are bidding for, we get a Thank You Citizen from the Navy, which is worth exactly zero when it comes to refueling the Nellie Bly.  Meeting Andy's price is an investment on my part, making the run out to see those pods is an investment in time on all of our parts.  And we have to hurry, every hour there's a chance that someone else stumbles across this and word gets out before we get there.  Right now, there might be some questionable ethics in not telling the authorities.  Does anyone have an issue with that?  Once we get our story, we can clear our consciences and do the right thing."

Charles looks at the boos as she consults them and replies dryly.

"Boss i am quite sure we first have to make sure we have all the proof we need  to be certain its what we think it is so when we interview the Navy about why they are not doing something about this bad thing we unearthed dont we? And we got to make sure we interview some of em about the topic on the night of the release."

Florence pondered the question about the Ecosentience - and more precisely its desire for trade - for a few seconds, tapping her lips with her fingers. “Maybe the ecosentience is curious, and decided to use trade to learn about things that are out of its reach?” The girl tilted her head to the side, “That'd be fascinating.” While trade wasn't exactly the apex of a civilization it definitely wasn't nothing, quite the contrary. To say nothing of what it'd meant of the Ecosentience's ability to reason: for it to realize how it could benefit from trade... She was really curious to see how the Ecosentience would evolve.

After a minute, she frowned “And a bit worrisome: if the Ecosentience learns things out of order...” War, hate, evil... Greed... At the moment, none of those things were known to the Ecosentience: like nature itself, it existed above all of those considerations. But if it learned about them in the wrong circumstances... Maybe she should see about warning a few people about that in case it wasn't already known...

At the Droyne's surprise that she was with a Crosser, and the old stories, Florence chuckled, “You're probably right, but he hasn't taken me away, I asked to accompany him, which is totally different. A lot of humans are scared by what they don't know - it's an evolutionary trait for a reason - but some of us love discovering and experiencing new things.” She smiled happily. “Anyway, I'll talk to Marlo - my Crosser friend - and I'll let you know.”

Florence waved with a smile, then looked around for a second. Lilana and Marlo were still further in the ship, and she supposed it'd be troublesome to join them at that point. So instead after a brief hesitation, she went to greet the nearest Lipaps, once again in their own language though a bit slower this time as she paid particular attention to get the tongue-clappings right.

"You know my history, enough of it leastwise. You know I served, then sought the black on my own terms", offered Abe. His features were stern, though his eyes held a history of sorrow. He exhaled slowly, considering the strangeness of the Crosser HomeShip. Runnels of sweat ran down his face in its humid atmosphere, though they troubled him not, "Pay the price, unravel this mystery. We might tread a cautious line between citizenship and ensuring our bills are paid"

"It is good to be scared by what you do not know,"  one of the Droyne says.

"For then you know you must be able to defeat it, and the path to victory is knowledge," says another.

The third adds, "but on the other hand, an excess of curiosity is blamed for the small predator's death.  So balance all things.  I too have wondered about what the Ecosentience might think.  Or want.  How can we know?  We, too, have experts who study this.  Other species claim to be smarter than we, regarding these things.  But they have not given us good information."


Florence heads over to the Lipaps, who, she learns, are "mercenary technicians", of a sort.  The Crossers took them on because they had their own personnel shortage, caused by demographic shifts over the years.  The Lipaps get along fine in the Crosser standard environmental conditions.  They've been doing this for a while, now, and they are growing bored.  Perhaps in Human space they will find something new.

******************

Lilana makes her deal.

"If this doesn't pan out now, I can't keep the ship going.  Although... if we just stayed here a while we could... no.  From here on in every hour we waste is time in which this Pod Stash could just vanish.  Marlo, I know you probably want to reconnect with home, you've been away for so long..."

"I need a few hours," the Crosser says.

"We need to refuel anyway.  And fill the ship with supplies.  There's an AG ship docked, let's hit it up for fresh food while we can.  Three hours okay, Marlo?  Then we have to go."

Florence listened fascinated to the Droynes' parting words, pondering about the difference in view points they exhibited which she suspected stemmed from that caste system of theirs.

The girl spent a bit of time to talk with the Lipaps, asking questions about the kind of works they've done for the Crossers and what they were looking for in the future. As she did, she couldn't help but wonder about the kind of changes the Crosser homeship had gone through. Was it something their leadership had pushed for, the consequence of something they acquired, or simply some random effect that would likely correct itself at some point? She'd have to ask Marlo...

Before she left the Lipaps, Florence exchanged contact information, adding that she might have an idea about a job opportunity but that it would likely take some time. Then, she sent messages. The first one to Marlo:

Hey Marlo,
Sorry I didn't follow, I was curious to talk with some of the other visitors, and I have a question: do you know who on your homeship would be interested in the Ecosentience, particularly, as weird as it sounds, in regards to trade?
Oh and what are the places you'd suggest I visit while I'm here?
Florence

The second one she sent to Lilana:
Lilana,
I'm not sure that's a subject interesting enough for you, but there is a group of Lipaps who spent some time working as engineers for the Crossers on the ship. It could be a good way to make a piece on the two at once, no?
Other than that, I've heard some news about the Ecosentience if that's something you're interested in?
Florence

With Lilana having made the deal and a time for departure set Charles contacts Jackson to see how he is doing on the sales and if he needs any assistance now there is a hard departure time line and if he needs help he will move over and if not he will try to get some more footage op points of interest that will work for a small mini docu about their visit here.

In reply to The Boss (msg # 32):



Jackson will ask for a couple samples to share with his crew members. He also ask about storage requirements to make sure they could successfully transport their potential cargo.  When he meet the others returning from their meet he will them about the offers he received.

"The Kygep seem to promise the best return for our investment. If anyone has any spare credits we could ask if they want sell additional kygep to us."

He will ask Lilana "Do you happen to have any of your old documentaries that you could spare to invest in the cargo to supplement your budget?"

Speaking to entire group he will ask "How soon we can get a return to that investment depends on where we going."

Impressed at the swiftness with which Lilana closes her deal, Abe returns in her wake to rejoin the rest of the crew overseeing the refuelling and restocking if necessary, together with ensuring their courses are plotted and the other minutiae of undocking. Since most of it is routine, he ensures the rest of the crew know he is available to assist

Charles shrugs and points at the newest drones.

"Broke here. But Marlo said the discs might net us some nice profit here so if we can sell those we can buy more? So lets see how many we can sell. We got em for 30 a piece so 35+ should make the swap interesting unless the food has an expiry date."

Jackson has tons of "Kygep" being moved into the holds of the Nellie Bly- the rather limited holds, as the ship is not a cargo ship, and manages to obtain two sample boxes.

The idea of "modular" rules in space shipping, and not only Humans but most aliens use it as well.  It simply makes too much sense.  Packages of a product are grouped in pallets, and pallets loaded onto containers, because that's the easiest way to ship.  But on the Nellie Bly, there is no longer any room for whole containers.  Two much "stuff" has accumulated.

Jackson has the Crosser service robots stack pallets in the hold.  Each pallet has boxes, each box has bars of "Kygep" in vacuum sealed foil pouches.  They will keep for a long time, as long as the hold stays within norms of temperature for Crosser food preservation, which is unsurprisingly similar to the norms for preservation of Human food.

Of course it's not all pure Kygep.  The Crossers point out to him:  "The gray pouches have Kygep.  The yellow pouches have Kygep with Theeara Root.  The green pouches have Kygep with Yalm.  The red pouches have Kygep with mint."

They seem unaware that mint originated as an Earth plant!

Jackson now has a cargo of space candy to manage.

When he asks Lilana about adding in any media programs she has on hand, she smiles.

"That's what Minka does.  When we arrive in a port.. .or this place... she contacts the local media brokers and sees what they might want to buy.  Maybe she's had some success.  It's been a short stay here, but time is critical now.  I'd rather get a quick start out than spend a day or two negotiating with buyers."

*******************************

Florence gets a message back from Marlo.  "Things have advanced at great speed, and there is no time for visiting.  That is unfortunate.  I must make some arrangements privately, and then Lilana insists that we all depart.  I know why she considers this to be very important, and I agree.  Please obtain all things that you would need for a long and fast voyage, and meet back at the ship as soon as possible. Lilana has put us on a tight schedule."

And she gets a message from Lilana, who seems to be very busy at the moment:

"With the information I have, we're heading to the region of space near Kayon.  We're not going that far out, but it's in the direction, and Kayon is where the Ecosentience Colony is.  So we can review it on the way."

When she rejoined everyone, Florence looked a bit dejected: she had hoped to spend quite a bit of time on the Home Ship, a few days at least, but instead they'd barely spend a couple of hours there which she felt was really a waste. Worse, she had to admit that she didn't really understand what the hurry was. Which didn't mean she didn't find it interesting: mysteries always were and she was curious to understand what was going on with a few ideas of her own to explain everything ranging from simple fraud to alien abductions. No, what she didn't understand was why Lilana felt the need to go now. Still... There wasn't anything she could do about it, except hope they'd come back, for Marlo if nothing else.

Yeah, it's really unfortunate indeed...
I don't really need anything more to travel, so I guess I'm ready, I'll just look at the shops for a bit.
If you are able to get it and it's not too much of a problem considering what you already have to do, could you give me the contact information of an Explorer was assigned to, or who recently dealt with, the Ecosentience?

Back at the ship, Florence asked the guys, “Does one of you know a bit about electronics? I'm looking for... well, a kind of microphone and speaker, covering a wide range of frequencies both in and out though it doesn't need to be particularly sensitive. It should be able to receive and send signals on a wide range of radio frequencies at least initially, and ideally something I could wear as a necklace or better yet a brooch?” She paused, pensive, “Though I guess we can start with a prototype before trying to go for a finished product.” It would at the very least help her find out which control frequency worked best. “Anyway, you think you could make something like that?”

When Flornce returns to the starship it is Abe who is waiting for her at the airlock. Welcomng her with a nod, he brings her back into the vessel to meet with the others. He's there preparing for departure when she asks for an electronics specialist. He studies her for a moment, this passenger who is friend to Crossers and knows how to speak to other xenos. Studies her and then offers, almost nonchalantly, "Perhaps I can help, Miss Pearce"

They make preparations for their departure, and a long journey.

They visit the agricultural ship Caledonia and stock up on fresh food.  For the crew of the Caledonia, this is a great event.  They aren't doing a huge amount of business with the Crossers, but plenty with the ships that come here to visit.  Including Lilana.  Through Minka, of course, they load up with weeks worth of fresh food.

It's a huge old ship, the Caledonia, an ex-carrier.  The crew is proud of it, and mentions that it is the last of its class still in use.

Everyone knows, eat the bananas first*.

Marlo is one of the last to reunite with the ship before departure.  He has some possibly interesting news.  During his brief time home, he learned that another of his colleagues, scouting out the Human worlds towards the frontier, has been working on a deal for a Human client in that direction, for whom the Crossers would build a space habitat.  This is something they are extraordinarily good at, Crossers built many of the large space habitats in Human space.  Having lived as space nomads as long as they have, they know a thing or two.  Marlo is happy that other Crossers would be headed in that direction, in fact, the entire Home Ship might be, soon, if the deal is signed and the project is big enough to require the resources and equipment of the home ship.

*****  ***** ***** *****

During a trip this long, (which will not be role played in detail!) the characters finally have some substantial development time.

During this time, everyone has the time to pick up 2 0 level skills, or advance 1 skill from 0 to 1 or 1 to 2.  At the same time, you can ask of the GM 3 questions to represent research, studying the things you have already, computer libraries, Lilana's pictures, etc.

Not General Questions!  Do not ask "Look at everything and see if I see something interesting".  By now there are probably things you are wondering- and there are bonuses if you have an appropriate skill.

***** *****

*The economics of bananas is dictated by the ripening process, which, even in the current age of space travel, doesn't allow more than six weeks from tree to eating- bio-engineered bananas offering more time were invented long ago but everyone agrees they taste awful.  As a result, around those star systems where bananas are grown (very few) there is a distinct "banana zone"; past that, no one ever gets fresh bananas.

 got some initial questions. hope they they all don't count toward my three questions
1. Trying remember but I assume we have someone with sensor skill?
2. Will we be going anyplace to that we can buy or sell cargo?
3. Will we be going to places that the commonwealth scouts have never or recently visited and would recording new data on these places be useful/profitable?

Charles main job is Mechanic so i think most logical is that he gets a lot more experience doing this job and of coarse the pay raise that comes with a higher skill level. So Mechanic 1 to 2.

And then the thing he has been wasting most of his free time with including time of the crew and the online courses. So the new skill Cinematography sounds in order.

Charles is wondering plenty of things but these come out on top:

1: Great story aside Lilana is poking her nose in a story that scares of crew and is a well kept secret for generations. What is her real reason to cover the ghost ships.

2: There are pods missing here and there and sometimes even whole ships? Is there a pattern in this not when looking short term but long term.

3: And the people that go missing with their pods. Is there a pattern in skills or life views of people? Are people picked at random or can we find something in the bulk data that reaveals a plan or something?

During the downtime, Abe will pick up Liason-0 and Navigation-0, representing his 'second-seat' as pilot and trying to smooth off some of his military edges. His second option would be to uplift Comms from 0 to 1, if you have a steer

(Jackson, re: sensors, Abe has Comms-0)

His questions would be:

1. Is he able to enhance Lilana's images to pull out any icons, motifs, metadata or similar information?

2. Is there a pattern in ports and routes the ghost ships take? Or those they avoid?

3. What information can he unearth about the ghost ships themselves? Is their a pattern in their type or crew?

“That would be great,” Florence thanks Abe, “But please call me Florence. Miss Pearce is…” She grimaced, obviously not comfortable.

Florence is obviously curious about the Caledonia, and would be perfectly happy to spend quite a bit of time in there. Through the whole purchase of food and loading, she can be seen talking with a few people, asking questions ranging from how it works to who buys what and so on.

While not disdaining the bananas, she doesn't seem to make a big case out of it: she's happy to eat some, but she doesn't seem to consider them as rare. Maybe because she comes from one of those few planets able to produce them?

The girl takes note of Marlo's news about the possibility of the Home Ship going somewhere else to build a space habitat, something she'd definitely like to see. The engineering feat is nothing to sneeze at of course, but she's at least as interested in the logistics aspect of such a massive project. Though not something to look at in the immediate of course.

As they left, she wrote a few messages, not knowing if she'd be able to send them through one of the systems they were going to visit on the way to their destination. And of course, one of those messages goes to the Droynes she met in the Home Ship.

Over the next few days, she explains a bit more to Abe - although she said most of it already, answers any question the ex-Marine could have and makes herself available for any test of course.

So basically, what Florence wants in fine is a sort of brooch combining microphone / speaker, that would be remotely controlled. It needs to be able to perceive / produce sounds in a wide range of frequencies (basically covering every known alien vocalizations).
She has zero issue with starting with a bigger prototype especially considering that she doesn't know exactly what kind of signal will be used between the device and whatever she intends to use to control it (and she's being a bit mysterious about that part, we'd need to talk about it IC if Abe wants to ask).

During the journey to their new destination, Florence also works on a few things :
1 - Regarding the lost pods. Florence assumes that there should be two kind of purchases: low number ones for stuff like research facilities, private interests who, for one reason or another, want to acquire a pod. Then there are high number ones for colony ships. Florence guesses that the pods that interest Lilana have been purchased in "medium size batches". Taking as a base the purchase previously found by Jackson, Florence looks for other purchases that fall in the same category and any pattern that would go with it. She then tries to sort through it to remove what she can (for example known deliveries). She hopes it'll give Lilana other ship names.
16:51, Today: Florence Pearce rolled 8,10 using 2d6+2,2d6+1.  Admin, Computer.

2 - What's been happening in the Commonwealth in the past three months?

Took me a while to even think about those, sorry for the delay!

Naturally it's going to take some time to answer all the questions, however...

Things that can be answered by a quick and routine check of known references (25th century Google) are free, not one of your 3 questions.

So, about interstellar marketing in the region of space you are headed to:


You will be headed past Calderada, capital of the Calderada sector and a gateway to the Trailing Frontier.  Calderada is an Earthlike world with a geologically recent (5-10 million years ago) major asteroid impact.  The world’s ecosystem is still recovering, and the planet has very high vulcanism and tectonic activity.  Sulfur dioxide and other pollutants make the air not toxic but unhealthful over much of the planet.  Colonization has been limited to areas where the air is cleanest.  This means a very small area of the planet is prime colonization real estate, but on the other hand, planets are very big.  "Very Small Area" can mean something the size of Mexico.

This region of Calderada happens to be very favorable for crops as well as humans.  So it is a major food growing region for the frontier, and an important source of coffee, the magical bean that makes humans function.  It has become an important world for food processing and distribution.  Big companies in this line of work have offices here.  This makes it one of the few areas where you could quickly sell your Crosser food in bulk.  Elsewhere, you would have to find smaller retailers and distributors.

*****

Lilana herself has a sensor skill.  Useful for a documentary maker.


*******

The last leg of the trip is off the Main Line, to one of the many "ignored" systems.  Beyond the region around Sol, there are so many stars and planets that people haven't bothered with most.  If it has a strategic location, or an important resource, or a habitable planet, sure, otherwise there are a zillion gas giants, more asteroids, and all kinds of things beyond measure.  This is one of those ignorable systems.  Unless it has something interesting, just another dead gray dust covered world, or just another big cloudy gas giant, is boring.

*****

And we go through questions, one by one...

Abe researches ghost ships.  There is an entire interest group/cult that asks these same questions, and they have asked them for a long time.  Sure enough, some ships are known to have general routes or areas of travel.  Still no proven purposes, just speculations.  One ship jumps out at him, because it conflicts with something they learned recently.  And because it's usual hangouts seem rather close to your destination.

The Agricultural Ship Caledonia, according to its crew, was the last remaining ship of its class.   But that's not exactly true.  Its sister ship Patagonia is operating... well.. past Caldera.  As a ghost ship, meaning it's not engaging in known trade.  Just coming and going doing it's own thing, and nobody really knows what it is up to.

Naturally, for "sinister purposes", an Agricultural Ship is a bizarre choice.  It's old and slow, converted from a long obsolete attack carrier.  Now it carries pods with agricultural habitats.  It's huge, slow and obvious, and most of its systems are very old.

Of course there is speculation about what it does:  smuggling and intelligence gathering are pretty much out.  The leading consensus is that this ship is a kind of traveling resort for the super-rich of the frontier, who want to experience an Earthlike environment, so instead of making the long trip back to Earth, they have some Earth brought to them.

There's still debate, of course.

Yes, there are pods gone missing... and now found.

Ships, not really.  "Ghost Ships" aren't vanished ships, they are just ships that do not work to a known purpose.

99% of the time, a ship arrives in a system, lands or docks, and who they are and what they are doing is very obvious.  At the very least, port authorities demand information when they arrive.  No one wants dangerous or illegal materials to pass through a port, and when the port officer asks what you are carrying, ignoring that is not going be helpful.

But ghost ships... when they do land or dock, it tends to be in places where no one asks questions.  When they don't have that option, sometimes they will send out shuttle craft.  The crews shrug off questions about purpose, destination, cargo, etc.

Of course there are plenty of possible reasons, and people have speculated for years, gathering information to "prove" one theory or another.  Reclusive rich people, smugglers, espionage... all of the above.  It's all been discussed and argued for a long time.

An Agricultural Ship would be a terrible choice for any of those missions.  It's big, slow, obsolete, and obvious.

*************************

Florence tracks down some Commonwealth News.

Politically, the system is destabilizing.  But not in the way many might think it would.  It is not the colonies thinking they should break away from the core worlds.  Far from it.  It is the core, especially the people of Earth, thinking the colonies are sucking up too much effort, to the detriment of poorer regions.

There has also been a worrying return to old fashioned Nationalism, especially in Asia.  People have been demonstrating for "national sovereignty rights", and it's been very serious in places.

Alien mediators do not want to see the Commonwealth crumble- they feel that unification is the only thing keeping humanity from "going rogue".  But many Commonwealth Governors feel they have to do something to defuse the tensions, and it looks like individual governates will have increased local autonomy soon.

"Time flies when you having fun." Jackson remarked out loud "I think Caldera seems the best place to sell the Crosser candy."

He will then say to Charles "Unless I am mistaking it's looks we are going into terra incognito, or least something damn close to that. that means little in the way trade opportunities."

But he realized that trade wasn't the primary mission. "Hope we find what we are looking for, or at least survive it. Who knows we might find other interesting along the way. After all the journey is just as important as the destination."

He also realized that all the interesting things were already found by the scouts the first time around. By the sense of adventure he still had from his days in the scouts hoped there might be a exception. If they did he hoped that they could survive that as well.

Discussing the business opportunities with Jackson he nods.

"Maybe have the boss make a stop at Caldera then and do a wholesale. Also leaves us room is we find stuff we should take on site. Might also be the last chance to party before we meet an untimely death."

Charles himself feels at a loss. All the research and there was no pattern to be found at all. It just made no sense to him and it bugged him more then it should. But at least all the finding nothing has led to his whole camera skill really improving. He is especially proud on the short music video he made about him doing a hull weld on the float and if anyone would sneak into his personal files they would find a music video of all the other crew members too in a classic earth tv show intro.

Florence gathers some information about purchases of hibernation pods.

She is right about their being two general types of purchases, small numbers for special purposes, or for swapping out when pods have mechanical problems, and large numbers when entire ships are being outfitted.

She finds things are a little more complex, though.  On the one hand, easy to track, as these pods all get inspected and certified by the Commonwealth.  But complex, because when pods have problems, or flunk inspections, they are removed, sent back to the manufacturers, and rebuilt.  It turns out there's not much market for pods that aren't flowing through "official" channels- people who are entrusting a device to keep them alive for months aren't normally willing to accept suspicious second hand pods.

Or maybe some do?  She runs across an account of when something like this happened once before:  a smuggler was caught using a dozen "diverted" pods to move people with criminal records to frontier worlds where new "identities" could be provided, generally for a steep price or work contract.  But as with any secret, the bigger it gets the harder it is to keep, and this fell apart when one "transfer" returned to a life of crime, was captured, and talked.  And this was a small operation, involving less than ten pods.  This missing group.. hundreds!

But one element of the story is the same.  The pods that she can identify from pictures, and the purchase previously identified, and pods used by the smugglers, are all "second market" pods, purchased from ships being overhauled or decommissioned.  She can find many few more purchases like that.  Most are for traceable government entities or corporations, but some... not traceable.

*********************

The ship arrives at Calderada.  A number of worlds claim the title of "Gateway to the Frontier" and Calderada is one of them.  What they really mean is:  after this, the colonies get smaller and smaller and fewer and fewer.  But it's not a sudden drop off.  Every world from Lyonesse (The Gateway to the Colonies!) out follows this pattern.

Calderada is a world that will probably never be a major inhabited world, though.  Too much of the planet is problematic.  The air over most of the world is tainted, and volcanic activity is high.  The local day is only 16 hours, so people's internal rhythms always seem out of sync with the planet.

The biggest city and major commercial space port is Porto Plano- the population is largely Spanish speaking and descended from Latin American settlers.  Aviano has a space port as well, but is more aligned with supporting the substantial Commonwealth Navy base here, and not nearly so important to the local economy.

As the days passed, Florence spent her time between fievrously sending out what requests she could about information whenever they were in one system or another, or pouring through all the records and data those had given her.

The situation about the Commonwealth wasn't a good one of course, but at least things were not spiraling out of control just yet. It seemed at the moment that the biggest issues came from people who wanted to be relevant again, something she didn't consider with much sympathy, but others could decide to join, or inflame the situation very fast. Though of course, she couldn't do anything about it.

So instead, in the dark between the stars, she studied what her own small investigations in Liliana's matter had given her. She still wasn't feeling like it was something that really mattered but she had to admit to being curious about the whole thing.

At some point, she organised everything in a neat package and presented it to Liliana and anyone who cared to listen, which in the end she sumed up with “So all that to say that I don't have much as far as your Ghost Ships are concerned.” Not much meaning nothing in the present case of course, but it was such a bad word... “However, I think that if we don't find much at our current destination, we could take things from the other side: not by looking for the ships themselves, but for those who supply them with the pods. Therearent that many places the pods could disappear from, and it's probably near one of the repair or re-certifications centers. As for what the whole thing is about...”

She paused briefly. “Well, regarding that, I have a sort of theory: what if the people in the pods are criminals who tried to disappear? No one would miss them, dealing with Ghost Ships would likely reassure them... As for why the Ghost Ships would drop the pods where they do... Well, at least that way you don't have to fear one of your clients reappearing and putting everything in jeopardy. Plus, it's a nice advertisement for prospects: you can say that someone you helped disappear has never been found again.”

She seemed a bit less sure of herself when she concluded, “The only thing I'm not too sure about - well, rather even less than the rest - is why did they not just jettison the pods in the nearest star? The only explanation I could come up with was that this way, should you need one of them for one reason or another, you could still find them easily enough, but...” She shrugged.

Florence does a lot of busy research on her own.


Lilana is planning on only a short layover at Calderada.  If the crew wants to use the time to engage in side trading, they had best act quickly.

Not too short.  Not like she's planning to turn around in minutes.  She knows, as most people with spacer experience know, that too much time on a small ship is not physically or mentally healthy.  Everyone needs a breather.  With that in mind, Lilana opts for a physical landing on the planet surface, not just a turnaround at the orbital space port.

In the centuries since contact, most Human languages have become extinct.  There are hundreds of African languages which are now gone, except for recordings.  English is the number one survivor, with Chinese a distant number two.  Other languages with strong geographic and cultural roots survived as well, and one of them is Spanish.  Like Russian, Japanese, and Korean, it is one of the "minor languages" with enough popularity and prestige to warrant entire planets where it has been established as the main conversational language.

Fortunately, automatic translators have had plenty of time to perfect English - Spanish translation.  Most people do not need to speak the local language to get along here- although use of a translator does immediately identify a person as an off worlder.

Calderada is a major base for the Commonwealth Navy.  Approaching the planet, the Nellie Bly passes a small armada in orbit.  Military shuttles scurry back and forth.  But there's no sense of danger here.  Calderada is considered far enough back from the front to be safe, in fact there hasn't been an alert in years.  The ships are here in between patrols, or rotated back from forward positions for rest and repair.  About forty of them are here, a large number.

Charles gets together with Jackson to see if they can set up a trade pre arrival. That way they might be able to offload their goods in bulk at a decent price without the time pressure urging them to hasty bad sales. Now he had the basics for cinematography under control he wasn't that extremely adamant in filming everything any more. Sure one of his 3 drones was always somewhere zooming about but not as intrusive as when e was learning the ropes. Now it seems he is 'training' the drones to be as unintrusive as possible.

Florence wasn't really interested in trading in itself. Or more precisely, she found trade interesting, but she wasn't planning on trading anything for the time being.

She had been a bit disappointed by the lack of reactions to her presentation of what she had found, but she supposed that it was just because she didn't really have anything concrete. Well, all she could do was continue and try to find if not smoking gun at least the hints of one, which was why she sent a slew of requests as soon as the ship came into contact with the nearest of system's comm buoys: while what became of the pods that disappeared after being repurposed was untraceable, it didn't mean that she couldn't find anything. In fact, she concentrated on trying to find any kind of commonality between them from just before they disappeared. A name on contracts, an intermediary, a workshop specializing in refitting the pods, things like that.

When they reached the ground, Florence eagerly disembarked, really wanting to stretch her long legs. Surprisingly maybe to the other members of the crew, while she had shown at least a passing knowledge of three alien languages so far, she didn't know a word of Spanish and had to rely on her com' like pretty much everyone else.

Still, that didn't prevent her from walking around, though not too far from the ship that she wouldn't be able to go back to it quickly if need be. She had invited Marlo to come with her, and while she going from stall to store or street cart, she asked a lot of questions about pretty much everything, starting from culinary specialties to the military presence in the system or the local news.

Charles and Jackson do a quick search of potential buyers for the cargo they have.  They've had time to prepare for this, and they've learned how it works:  there are food distribution companies that buy exotic food products wholesale, then package and reship to retailers.  Calderada happens to be a popular planet for that activity, because of the range of "cash crops" grown here.  This is the furthest out planet with a coffee crop, for example.

Your Crosser snacks would be offered the same way:  notices are sent out to the food trading companies, and they send representatives to physically examine samples and make offers.  An auction system is used, with a guaranteed reserve bid system- this means that if the product meets its specification, merely showing up to examine commits to buyer to make a minimum bid.  It's a tool to keep out the hordes of merely curious, but must be used carefully- knowing where to set the bid is a broker's art.  After that there is not much to do- if the right bidders are attracted they will make their offers and you sell to the highest.

A broker skill can be used to manage the auction process which can enhance returns, or you can plunge in without skills if necessary.  One character gets to make the broker roll.

OCC: which will would be the best attribute for this broker roll?

ooc: And can the other give a bonus? I got Broker 3 +1 if it goes with social.

I would allow a social bonus.  It would reflect that having better human connections DOES help, even in a society where the dealing is automated over computer networks.

LOL. That would give Jackson a Broker 2 plus two roll. We effectively would have the same roll. Boss. If Jackson and Charles work together could we get a plus 1 on a 2d6 +4 roll?

You can't get two social bonuses, higher one takes precedence.

I am not asking for two rolls. We would be rolling the same 2d6 + 4. I was asking for an additional plus 1  for one roll to simulate use working together, at your discretion of course. Charles can go ahead and make the roll.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:07, Tue 03 Nov 2020.

You could get the same effect by using Charles to do the Broker stuff and adding Jackson's bonus, so you can have a +3 (Broker) +2 (Social bonus) roll!

Only the higher of the social bonuses can be used.  In effect, Charles would be doing the technical end while Jackson scours lists for people he might have a connection with.

In reply to The Boss (msg # 72):

That works for me. Charles can make the roll unless he wants me to.

Didn't know we could mix n match abilities like that.

09:48, Today: Charles 'Viper' Delorean rolled 12 using 2d6+5.  Double team Broker.

Whilst Florence pounds the streets and Charles and Jackson handle the intricacies of trading Crosser candy, Abe remained aboard and scanned the local comms boards. With such a Navy presence he was sure there would be establishments catering to those who had served and those who had survived, erstwhile shrines to the those who had not.

On the boards, he made a few discrete enquiries of his own, looking to see what the scuttlebutt was and whether those he knew from the service were here and had any time for an ex-Colonel. He would be damned if there was something brewing and he let his crew wander into the middle of it, but if there wasn't then the Navy represented a source perhaps untapped by his Captain

Abe and Florence make a few rounds of the town.  Florence has Marlo along with her.  Though the alien clearly appreciates the opportunity, this certainly draws lots of attention!  They attract questions, and looks, wherever they go.


Abe learns that the Navy is doing a "logistical reevaluation", which means that they fear a massive budget reduction, which will cause a shift in operations, possibly decommissioning ships and bases.  This may be a result of the Commonwealth switching to a system of allowing more local authority to individual governates.

But wait... there's more, as they say.  Officially the Navy is politically neutral, and is just awaiting orders.  Unofficially, there is a quiet scramble going on.  Many of the governates that are more dependent on the Navy (that is, most of them out here on the frontier) do not want to see reductions.  Sure, right now, the big rich central regions pay for it, but if it comes down to it... there are quiet discussions going on about frontier planets acquiring some ships that get "retired" and supporting their own fleets.

That would be, under the current system, very much frowned upon. There are fears of rival powers having arms races... confrontations even... like humanity in the "old days" before the Commonwealth was created.  That's why all this talk is under the table.  For now.



*************************************

Charles and Jackson finally clear out their cargo and cash in.

They pay taxes and fees and a gift or two- the inevitable cost of using a Social bonus- and HoneyBee Foods Interstellar takes possession of a lot of Crosser candy.  They immediately set about on the next, critical task- approving the designs for retail packaging!

Of course, when all the credits are settled it means a lot more for Jackson, who staked a lot more from the beginning.  Money makes money, so they say.

Charles has managed to escalate his  5,000 credit investment to 23,375 credits.  He can live well for a year, if he chooses!

Jackson's 40,000 credit investment is now at 187,000 credits.

Naturally they are tempted to look at the market here... maybe they can stay at the table for another round or two?

The time is short, but they do a quick check on what they might pick up relatively cheap:

Mixed pallets of bottled alcoholic spirits, mostly Rum and Tequila. 660 Bottles per pallet, 2640 credits per pallet.

Chocolate Syrup.  packed in paper containers, stacked and shrink wrapped on pallets.  2000 Credits per pallet.

"Troposec" brand sunscreen with Tropical Natural Essences!.  5000 Credits per pallet.
 (Sunscreen is actually a high demand product on many planets with stars with higher UV output.)

Salvaged spacecraft components.  6000 credits per ton.

ooc: I am missing Sanjuros 18k. I was hoping to turn that into a general party pool. Or is that money gone with the player?

Ethically it should go with the character.

Charles grins when the credits are transferred and the ease with which his small inlay has exploded into so much more with so little effort. Eyeing the possible goods on offer he eyes Jackson.

"Personally id say get a few pallets worth of sunscreen. Its all about finding the right pallet on our path to shove it off on. The booze is interesting for a party."

ooc: I have no moral obligations to keep the money (or at least profit) of someone who left us in the night ;-)
This message was last edited by the player at 08:57, Fri 13 Nov 2020.

"Not a bad Haul" said Jackson. "Before we invest in another cargo we need to find if there are settlements along our route out there who could buy it."

They call up some economic data about the settled systems ahead of them.

The universe never felt the obligation to evenly distribute habitable worlds.  In some regions they are common, in others rare.  Running towards the frontier from Calderada along the Main Line are a stretch of systems with no habitable planets.

Gamboge is a toxic yellow-brown world with seas that could function as kitchen cleanser, It is the junkyard of space, one of them, at least.  Gamboge is home to a thriving Reclamation and Recycling industry.  So many advanced devices contain rare and valuable metals and meta-materials, but breaking these things down and recovering these materials is an environmentally brutal process.  Here, no one complains.  About 150,000 people live in the surface habitats here, collectively called Gamboge City.

Thoas is home to Thoas Human Endeavor, an agency with the sometimes confusing abbreviation “THE”.  This is a group determined to run mining, basic industry, and agricultural operations with a “by and for the workers” approach.  Thoas’s enclosed farms, factories and mines have no outside owners.  Workers have shares, and labor boards dictate wages, benefits and conditions.   The system is not socialist; individual enterprises are owned by their workers and are competitive, but they must operate under the local rules.  Thoas has not been *very* prosperous, but they manage a stable, middle to lower middle class and surprising low stress life.     The colony of 135,000 people is on a terrestrial world with a methane-ammonia atmosphere, far from habitable to Humans, but supporting a strange native (but not highly advanced) ecosystem, with black-charcoal gray vegetation.

Minos has an outpost on a moon orbiting a gas giant.  There are 24,000 people there, in a habitat that serves as the headquarters for an engineering conglomerate.  Some large corporations like having their own private worlds, even if they don't offer the best quality of life.  Better for doing things "their way".

Juwuku is another corporate colony.  It is the largest space habitat on the frontier, and is the property of Cyrene corporation, which treats this as a small “company nation” even though it legally operates as its own governate.  The founders of Cyrene believed that they had to move their company as far as they could to the frontier, and they have prospered for it.  Cyrene is a diverse high tech manufacturing conglomerate, producing many of the consumer goods in use not only on the frontier, but as far as the “New Core” region.  The yachts of the owners are often parked here, and they are the most luxurious private spacecraft in the sector.  They may be remote, but they are quite rich.

Terpsichore is the last inhabited system on your flight plan, and the only other habitable planet.  It is the lowest gravity known human habitable planet.  In addition to the human colony here, there is a Droyne colony.  There are about 8 million people.

A few more questions just clarify a few thing;

1. How many pallets are we allowed to store as Cargo?

2. Can you buy specific types of salvaged components such as for life support of gravitics?

3 Are there any habitable world have a problem with high UV and could benefit from sunscreen?

4. Is there a coffee liquor within our price range?

5. speaking of coffee. Any Coffee beans/brands grown here that are very popular in the commonwealth?

6.Is there any products here that would be popular with Droyne?

Leaning back into his pilot's seat, Abe considered the rumours carefully. He had known them before, this scramble for adjustments, but this had the feel of something more fundamental. It potentially made their own endeavour that bit more complicated

To that end, he sought out the others, where they were hunkered down studying trade routes or some such. Once more he regretted not having the seed money to invest, though his own was still tied up somewhere

Waiting for the right opportunity, he spoke, "So, there are some complications in this part of space...?"

If prompted, he explained the situation with the navy, and his theories regarding what it might mean for travel - and safety

When she came back to the ship, with a stick of some kind of meat she was slowly eating - it was that spicy - Florence held a small paper bag and shared its content of candies with everyone on board.

“I heard mostly the same thing.” The girl commented after Abe shared his views on the local situation. “I doubt anything will happen anytime soon but it is worrisome. I'm not sure the cause of the troubles would come from a steep decrease of the budget though.” She paused, considering the question. “On the other hand it isn't all that unlikely I suppose.” She grimaced, grumbling, “What a mess… Stupid Terrans.”

The ship has room for 40 pallets.  The standard cargo container is forty pallets, generally two wide, two high, ten deep.  Standard cargo containers are the basis for freight across the Hundred Worlds.  Even when a ship generally takes on partial loads or individual pallets (such as the Nellie Bly) the hold is designed to take on containers.

Jackson's other questions...

If you want to sort through the reclaimed hardware at Gamboge, you can be as specific as you want- you can look through mile after mile of things laid out in desert and pluck you whatever you wish.  Gamboge is ideal for this.  The atmosphere lacks oxygen, so nothing rusts or corrodes.  But it is thick enough to block UV and cosmic rays which would destroy things left out in vacuum.  Old ships or irreparable ships are brought there and taken apart, and their component parts recycled or resold.  Locating the best things requires good skills, and it helps to have an interest in starship history as well, to be able to know specifics of older ships.

There are lots of high UV or just very sunny inhabited planets, the real question is where they are relative to your current planned route.  Calderada is one of them, but obviously there's no point in selling here what you buy here. All of the non life supporting planets are out... no one buys sun block if they live in a habitat.  But  Argoa lies a little off your route, and it is a yes- the small colony has to put up with an eccentric orbit.  When it is summer, it is very summer.  Apollo is another market but a detour off the route.  Further out, Terpsichore is a good market as well.  It's atmosphere is breathable but thinner than Earth's, and offers less natural sun protection.

Calderada has a popular coffee liqueur, oddly named "Caliente Irish".  No one seems to know why.  As far as price range... are we talking retail (bottles 10 credits) or pallets (3200 credits).

The coffee here is considered "good but generic".  It fills the need, but it is not a luxury crop like certain Earth coffees.  No one really knows what Droyne would think of it.  That hasn't been tried.  There is a known Droyne market for many Human food products, as they are "bio compatible" but not as much as Crossers are.  They tend to be hesitant about very chemically complex things like coffee and chocolate.  They do like simple sugars.


***********************

Florence finds some time to ask Momo about the Ecosentience.  The Ecosentience has been a mystery to many species, but a few seem to have worked out communications.  Not the Crossers- all their interactions have been through intermediaries.  It's hard for them to adapt to a completely different kind of consciousness, and according to Momo, even harder in the other direction.

"One of them is a single eco system, interconnected with a single mind, but a mind that to us is vast and slow and has none of the concerns that we do as individual creatures.  It is as if some of your cells suddenly began talking to you, what would a cell even say that would matter to you?  And yet, sometimes it is curious. Honestly, you Humans have gone much further than we have, because Humans will try any crazy thing just to try it.  You have not gone as far as the Mimosans, but I have heard that on Kayon there is quite an ongoing effort!"

After hearing Abe's news he will comment "In the short term I hope we can complete our current mission before the navy starts reducing their forces. In the Long term it probably means that things may get dangerous on the frontier.  We might see the age of piracy return.Settlements becoming unsustainable which may make neighboring systems fight over limited resources." he while exhale then continue "Are idiots in the core worlds think that the Carinians might not notice?"  he will sigh and his head "Madness."

In discussing potential cargoes with Charles. "Picking a few pallets of sunscreen. We should be able to get great sales on Terpsichore if nowhere else."

OCC: Ships components were listed on the possible deal on Calderada. was this an error or could we somehow get a better deal than we would on Gamboge? Also could life support and Gravitic ship component be converted for use in space habitats?
This message was last edited by the player at 06:57, Tue 24 Nov 2020.

Abe took one of Florence's proferred candies and chewed it slowly and she and Jackson confirmed his fears for the medium-term, "Let's hope we're not left on the thin end of the wedge, at the end of the line"

Both Calderada and Gamboge deal in salvaged materials from starships, but the emphasis is different.

Calderada is home to a Naval base and has a lot of commercial shipping.  Salvaged components here tend to be those pulled off ships undergoing refit.  Gamboge, on the other hand, is a graveyard.  Ships are completelty disassembled, and components are eventually reduced down to their basic raw materials, using very environmentally unfriendly techniques that would not be acceptable on habitable worlds.  Acid baths, for example.

What this means from a trader perspective is that the used parts one can acquire in both places might overlap, but not always.  On Calderada, ships are overhauled in a very planned schedule.  People know well in advance when a certain ship is going to be in having a “ten year refit”.  This means the most valuable key items will already be spoken for.  They are much harder to get.  No one is going to have missile guidance systems just waiting for a buyer.  Calderada Salvage available to the unconnected general trader will tend to be older but still usable systems- the life support system pulled from a twenty year old passenger ship can be refitted and used in a different ship, with some work.

Gamboge, on the other hand, accumulates two things:  first, pure raw materials.  This includes some things many people might just overlook as garbage.  Structural beams are hardly worth the price of shipping, they lie in great stacks on the planet.  Used carpetting?  But on the other hand, some of it is valuable- ships contain a lot of precious metals, for example.  Gamboge is also more likely to have very important key items, if one takes the time and effort to look.  As it is the end of the line for ships and not just a rehab site, everything is here.  And since the planet is not highly populated, these items aren't all just snatched up on the spot.  So it accumulates in piles, miles and miles of piles.

Much of it is very obsolete, after all, its from ships being demolished.  But many things are still usable or repairable after decades of service.  That's why the ships are sent to Gamboge instead of just being tossed out into a remote orbit.



They see some of the local news shows, naturally, these are a great way to learn about what's going on.  Not only the programming, but the ads say something.

They see on the local media what amounts to a promotional ad from another planet:  Apollo is not far though it is off the “Main Line” and has had stunted development as a result.  It has about half the population of Calderada depite being a more habitable planet.  The main point of the promotional is that Apollo is a great place to be.  It's also clear that like Calderada, Apollo has a Spanish speaking population.  It doesn't come out and say “we want you to relocate here” but perhaps it doesn't have to.

Lilana is not planning on a long stay here, though.  There isn't much time to go investigating various things.

Attempting to put his worries behind him, Abe forced a smile and let the conversation return to trade, scanning the screens that Jackson and Charles had pulled up. After some thought, he offered a suggestion, "Depending on how much time the Captain permits, salvage off Gamboge might prove very lucrative. Would you entertain a skills-for-seed trade, my skills to find the gems amidst the dross, backing a stake in the profits? All of what I earned on the frontier is ... illiquid right now"

He let the smile broaden, "Besides if we can scavenge some computer cores there might be sufficient data to pull together some software assets and those are much easier on the cargo tonnage"

Given his skills and background, I'm hoping Abe has a reasonable prospect of 'finding gold'

Jackson considered Abe's proposal. "Definite possibilities in the salvage, depending how much time we have on Gamboge. If we can get some good profit I would be open for commission for your efforts. The reason I was looking specifically into Life support of gravitic parts that can adapted by orbital or planet side installations because they may want to stock up on spares for vital systems" He gave a thoughtful and concerned smile "Especially if less navy may soon mean less visits from merchant ships."

He brighten up a bit when Abe mention computer cores. "Not a bad idea, not only may we find useful software we may accidentally find data that may interest our boss." He will look at Charles and ask "Or is that expecting too much of the universe on our behalf?" 

Charles shrugs at the mention of cores.

"I think first we need to check with the boss. It all depends on our route and the time we got. She seems to be allowing our trading as long as it doesn't take too long. Though the cores might be a good idea. If they are high tier enough they will never go at a loss. Let me check with the boss how much detour room we got for our side business."

With that said and the computer going over the goods on offer and the demand marker on their route he goes see Lilana to get an idea how much time and route they can invest into this side trade or if it all needs to be done on their 'quests' main route.

"Consider it practise for when we stumble over the next Cryo-Yard or Ghoster", suggested Abe lightly to Charles, before returning his attention to Jackson's earlier remarks, which he had been pondering, "Gravitics and Life Support make sense, too. All depends on what we find, of course... I was thinking how we're not set up for volume runs"

Florence cocked an eyebrow. “I'd have to agree with Charles here, I think you're being way too optimistic about your chances to find anything of value easily. If it were that easy, wouldn't everyone be trying to do the same thing? More importantly... I doubt Lilana wants to spend any amount of time on anything that isn't her mission...”

“That being said, if you're interested in that sort of things... I've heard about something called the Erratic Junkyard. Granted, it's the other way around - back towards Merlin - but it seems to be really hush hush, and despite the possible rumours of budget cuts, ships have been sent there recently. That'd probably be something Lilana would be interested in investigating.”

"It was never going to be easy", acknowledged Abe, with a smile, "But it's as much of a hope as other salvage options"

"Tell me about the Erratic Junkyard"

Jackson gives Florence a bemused smile "I do not disagree with you. While Charles and myself managed to pull off some good deals, we cannot be assured of finding good opportunities at all our stops. We are under Lilana'a timetable. If we can't find deals in the allotted time then we move on to the next stop. Fortunately our boss is paying enough so have we have the luxury to pick and chose our opportunities when they become available."

OCC: Just curious, I believe that we been working for at least two months so far. Have we gotten paid yet?

The Crew of the Nellie Bly has been working for two months, now.  Yes, they can get paid.  Florence is a bit newer.

A stop on Gamboge is not out of the question, in fact, it's directly along the route.  That's why Gamboge is what it is, in fact.  There are many, many planets that would make excellent "boneyards*" for spaceships.  All they need was a non-oxidizing, non-reactive atmosphere and "gentle" conditions. There are plenty of them.  But this one was located right on the Main Line.   It also is on the frontier, in an area that was once "the front line" between Humanity and the Carinians.  This left Gamboge with facilities originally built for the military, that could become the core of the industrial colony.

So in short, Lilana agrees, yes, we can stop.

It's also helpful that it is not a big place.  Most Humans prefer habitable planets.  Why live on a planet at all, if you have to stay indoors or wear a vac suit?  So despite Gamboge being along the Main Line, it has a population of only 150,000 and most of them live in Gamboge City near the bone yards.  All but a tiny portion of the planet is lifeless wasteland.  So there's not much to see, and Lilana figures you will not spend much time there.  (Although engineers could spend years, if you let them.)

*On 20th century Earth, a boneyard was a place where discarded aircraft were stored.  The phrase now refers to installations like the one on Gamboge.

Later, after they've spoken to Lilana about Gamboge and boneyards and the like, a recollection comes to Abe and he mentions it over mess with the others present, "You know that Junkyard you mentioned, Florence? There's a chance folks were talking about a Carinian starship... We called them Junkyards, leastways that was the codename for them in the UCMC. Gatherers of information, we believed, spies and scouts, looking for human-tech, debris and such. Could be there's one behaving different from what's been seen before. Erratic, that is."

"Don't know if its something we want to trouble ourselves with, we're not set up for that kind of salvage and sneakery"

Lilana certainly doesn't want to get involved with a Carinan ship, no matter how interesting it may be!

In fact, from her point of view, it's something to stay away from.

"We have a mystery to work on, normally I wouldn't turn down a second, but it's Carinian, so it's armed... and in the wrong direction."

And she thinks of something.

"Besides... Gamboge is sounding better and better.  I'm thinking... these hibernation pods... they've gone through a lot of trouble to get all those hibernation pods back channel.  But hibernation pods means there's got to be other systems to go along with them, right?  You can't just pile them onto a freighter?  What else might they need?  Gamboge deals with a lot of used parts that can just disappear.  Maybe they had to pick up other things.  Something to think about on the way."

The ship makes ready for its next departure.

Jackson talks to Charles and anyone else interested. "Did you want to pick a few pallets of sunscreen before head out? I prefer to save most of my credits in case we get a lucky opportunity at Gamboge."

Charles nods.

"Aye sounds like a good plan. I do not see any real opportunity here with our route just two for pocket money?"

He agrees with the other trader in light of the bosses decision to head to that planet to look for more information.

In the time remaining them in Calderada, Abe spends some time chatting - where he can - to naval engineers; he has some decent skills in ship systems, but Lilana's remark sparks a thought ad he wats to try out some hypotheses concerning what it might take to run those hibernation pods, lots of them

They quickly purchase two pallets of sunscreen in disposable biodegradable application tubes, packed in cases.  Even with a galaxy full of dead planets manufacturers make things biodegradable when they can.  This is partly old Earth habit, and partly because almost every environment in which one might use sunscreen is one which is filled with life and therefore vulnerable to an accumulation of garbage.

Barring, of course, the unlikely event of some unforeseen problem that can only be resolved with a massive supply of sunscreen, they have a small but useful cargo to sell at a future stop on a habitable, sunny planet.

(Does anyone want to be the spacer in the bar finishing the story with "fortunately we had two pallets of sunscreen aboard, so we...?)

Abe has some time to talk  to old contacts before they leave, but not much.  Certainly no visiting time.

And then they are off, the little ship rising off the spaceport at Altiplano, heading out past the orbiting squadron of warships.

The stretch of Main Line past Calderada was a war zone, once.  From here to Zinderneuf, last (officially) inhabited planet, many battles were fought.  Scavengers make a living recovering remnants from battles, with the Navy, eager to gather any technical intelligence they can about their alien enemies,  paying for their discoveries. Many of the settlements occupy what were once fortified bases (a few still are).  The Commonwealth Navy, with much assistance from the Crossers, burrowed deep enough into asteroids so that miles of material bulk created a shield that would protect against even nuclear blasts.  Numerous decoys were built as well, and a few of the more elaborate decoys are now used as habitats as well.

Gamboge City started out as a military repair site.  It's non reactive atmosphere isn't life supporting but offers some great advantages over toxic atmospheres, or none at all.  The only hazard is the lack of oxygen, which can be provided.  That means that a ship can be landed, and a simple tent thrown over it.  When the air inside is oxygenated, the ship can be worked on without the technicians needing vac suits.  Since the pressure is close to Earth normal, even a leak in the tent isn't dangerous, as long as the oxygen level is being monitored.

Most of the colony is on the surface, now.  There are still spaces deep underground built back in the more dangerous era, but it's just not worth the effort of building so deep anymore.

When the Nellie Bly arrives, it is cleared to land, second in the order behind an old retired assault lander making its last landing.

Bringing the Nellie Bly into a holding pattern behind the assault lander, Abe fought to keep nostalgia at bay; the bruising lines of the vessel held too many memories of lost friends, gun smoke and blood. He painted a false smile on his face, fingers flicking through the limited challenge-responses the system threw at him

Abe does some research, specifically, on the "support equipment" associated with hibernation pods.

Note that it is impossible to determine "Do they have this specific thing?" on Gamboge.  Nobody wants to do all the work to inventory the things they have.  That would defeat the purpose!   Everyone has looks, and if they are skilled and/or lucky, they find things.

But Abe finds general listings of equipment associated with hibernation pods.  Not an inventory, just the type of things that could possibly turn up... somewhere out there, lying in old ships or maybe just heaps in the endless yellow desert.

********************************************

Nutrients and electrolytes:  hibernation pod users are not in "suspended animation", simply in a cold sleep that greatly reduces metabolic rate.  They consume food, although very slowly.  Being moderately overweight is recommended for hibernators, and a person with a reasonable amount of extra weight might go a whole month hibernating and come out at "normal" weight.  (this has been done by those looking for an "easy" way to lose weight.
 it is not recommended.)  But for longer trips, and to be sure that the body is getting the right nutrition, intravenous feed is recommended and ships with hibernation pods will stock packets of nutrient/electrolyte liquids.  Since these are considered "consumables" and not parts, it would be rare to find them on Gamboge.  Consumables are generally removed from a ship being decommissioned and moved to the next ship.  However, sometimes there are lockers overlooked or forgotten.  If one is lucky anything can be found on Gamboge.

Repair parts... no.  Hibernation pods are expensive, complex items, and are so tightly controlled that an out of service pod must be returned to a manufacturer for rebuild.  Crews are not authorized to do their own repairs.  But... would they?

Since this is not "officially" done, information is not available.  Identifying parts that could be used to repair a hibernation pod requires a Medical AND a Mechanical skill role.

Pod handling equipment:  When ships have a lot of them, moving them around is best done with devices made for the job.  Since this is often custom made for a ship's layout, handling devices are often left in a decommissioned ship.  They can be re-used, if someone is willing to put in the work to do it.  They could also be repurposed for other types of material handling.

Localized power and utility systems.  The pods are designed to sustain life even if the ship they are installed in loses power.  They have their own air filtration and purification equipment, temperature regulation, etc.  While the pods themselves are not maintained by crew, these items sometimes are.  They can be repurposed by engineers.


"Simulated Test Elements"  - Synthetic bodies, actually, designed to have a wide range of features an actual human might have, without actually being human.  It's not a robot, it just lies there, but it has a heartbeat, exhales, sweats, has human skin temperature, etc.  The purpose of this is to test a hibernation pod's various sensors, and certify that the system is working, without actually putting humans at risk.  Thus, the STE can simulate all sorts of issues, like a fever or cardiac arrhythmia, and technicians can see if the hibernation pod detects them  and takes appropriate action.  Since hibernation pods don't need to be tested that often, there aren't many of these, and only ships with large numbers of permanently pods would ever need more than one.  Most ships simply have their pods inspected during routine maintenance.

Charles wanders the ship aimlessly. Sure they would hit the market in a bit but though brokering was a thing he wasn't feeling it right now and he was going to let JAckson deal with it here. It seemed Abe was onto something and he looks over his shoulder.

"So what you got? Onto something?"

Lilana has been partly watching what Abe was up to, calling up page after page of technical details related to hibernation pods.

"That makes two of us," she says.  "What is it?  You know, down on Gamboge it's not so easy.  They don't know what they have out there in the desert, they don't waste their time inspecting every ship.  They just get dumped out there in the desert.  Whatever we look for we have to find with our own eyes.  So what is it?"

Jackson muses of a second than says to Lilana "You of all people know that information is power. This is especially true those with little else to sell. While there no official inventory system down there I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a few veteran scavengers may have developed their inventory system from years of scourging. I also wouldn't be surprised if they keep that information in their head. I would recommend seeing if such proto-information brokers may be out there."

As he start getting his gear together. "While I am planning to make my own inquires I am willing to  put that on hold if you need extra help with your inquires."

Leaning back from his console, Abe glanced up at the rest of the crew whilst he marshalled his thoughts. He stretched, his shoulder crunching from an old wound, "We've been worrying about where the pods came from, the people, the ships that might have transported them..."

He gestured to the screen, "But whoever is co-ordinating this, they need parts, consumables... they might have a glut of unused components they need rid of. So I've been researching what specifically that might mean. I think I've found some threads we can tug at"

"Pod handlers, synths, nutrients", he offered, "We find a feast or famine of either and we pull on that. Likewise, perhaps, parts and power systems... but I'm less sure on those"

Every starport has a "look".  At Gamboge, it's clear from the start that it was not built for sight seers.  No architectural elegance here.  Just modules, linked by tubes to more modules.
 The layout shows no sign of a master plan, just a "where can we fit the next module?" style of growth.

It's not one of the most popular tourist destinations.

But it is a big galaxy and there are many kinds of tourists, including some who think looking at mile after mile of derelict starship sleeping in the desert is something worth seeing.  So, the Gamboge Tourism Office was established, and now after decades of work, tourism is small but thriving on Gamboge.

There's a large "sleazy looking spacer bar" in the main module of the starport, but it looks a little too authentic.  As if the designers spent months researching exactly what a sleazy looking spacer bar looked like in the imaginations of non-spacers, and built it.  The patrons inside do not look sleazy.

Well, most of them.

One may wonder, with no inventory and literally millions of possible items that might be worth recovering, everything from seat cushions to rare elements, in all possible conditions, how do they earn money here?  Much like a pick-your-own apple orchard, it's very simple.  There are broad categories of things- structural components, ductwork, windows, etc.  Things are priced by weight.

They also sell demolition permits.  This allows salvagers to literally tear apart a vessel and leave the remains scattered.  It's the only way to remove large structural elements and things like landing gear, because a sign warns people "Do Not Compromise Structural Integrity Unless You Have Received Your Demolitions Permit."

Tourists are talking about it.  One says: "That's why we couldn't go in that ship, they said some scroungers had compromised it without approval, and now it's unsafe".

Apparently cheating is not unknown- some scavengers find something, decide they just must take it, and figure cutting a few pieces to get to it isn't going to bring the ship crashing down.

While there is no inventory of parts, they do have an inventory of ships that is more or less accurate.  It's just a list of what was placed out in the desert, when and where.  It says nothing about what's left of it.

"Depending on how far and how much we're looking for, we might want to rent some wheels or a flatbed", observed Abe carefully, scanning the patrons of the bar. His eyes flicked to the inventory of abandoned craft, seeking out where they might find the opportunities they were after. His wandering and time in service ought to recognise the bulk of what might have been left here

"It would help if we had more eyes, to look in more places faster," Lilana says. "There are a lot of ships out there."

She is correct.  There are, according to the computer, over 4000 scrapped ships, not counting the small craft, in various conditions.  Ships of all types.  Missile cruisers and bulk refrigerated cargo ships and private yachts and.. all types.  Some are approaching two centuries old.  Not that the Gamboge depot has been around that long, but after it opened, older ships that had been stored in orbits were brought here and dumped, because having them all at one common location instead of spread across the Main Line was convenient.

Even if you picked out a ship type, there would be multiple copies to look through.

In reply to The Boss (msg # 111):

"Very well, count me in. Should we hire locals to help with the search?"

"Let's focus on the bigger starships, and then those who might have more need for hibernation pods or more complicated software systems", suggested Abe, "We can hire some folks for a first pass, assess the state of the wrecks, and have our own teams make a second pass to search for synths, pod handlers, electronics and cores"

Charles nods in agreement to the whole spread out and go look for things.

"If each one uf us gets a local scout with transport maybe we can get a decent milage out of it? We can also keep an eye open for some interesting opportunities to bring and sell elsewhere.

And I'll bring the drones and see if we can get some good material to get a docu going? A lil short on scrapping maybe is interesting boss?"

In reply to Abe Nelson (msg # 113):

"That will work " says Jackson "And let's make sure they have enough technical  as well as area knowledge to be of actual use,"

“Works for me”, noted Abe, knowing the two of them could take care of themselves, “regular check ins and no risk taking”

"That's a good idea, Charles," Lilana says, "I will line up some local transport."

Lilana contacts local businesses that might offer surface transport services.

There are several, of course, and they make their living doing exactly this, as many people coming to the planet don't have their own surface transport vehicles.

She rents three small vehicles.  There are much bigger available- salvagers often need large trucks with cranes and flatbed storage to haul off the material they find.  But for now, unless there is objection, small will do.

The vehicles on Gamboge are light duty electric off road machines, each with big wide tires to avoid getting mired or kicking up too much dust- there are no roads in the desert "yards".  They have pressurized cabins, and airlocks, though the environment is not as hostile as on many other non-habitable worlds.  Here, a leak in a hull or a suit is not instantly lethal. It will not cause a sudden loss of pressure, nor will it bring in toxic gasses.  It will just result in a slow depletion of oxygen.  Vehicle or suit life support systems will sense this, and for a while, they will automatically compensate- the faster oxygen loss could just as easily come from people exerting themselves.  Eventually, the systems will realize something is abnormal and there will be alarms.

With its inert atmosphere, Gamboge is not nearly as dangerous as other planets.

"Charles, Abe, any idea of how we can narrow our search?" Lilana asks.  "Specific ship types? And maybe we can set the drones out scouting for what we want?  I guess long range passenger and colonization ships, right?"

Charles nods at the suggestion of ships.

"Aye i think so. Or anything that is known to have oversized power generation. If those pods are powered they want things that do their job with the least foot print i assume.

Lets see if they have companion programs for the drones that help there so they can scan an ever greater area as we move around."

ooc: Drones got Engineer and computer expert maybe there is another expert program that makes them more usefull for the current intended task?

Abe nodded, “Long range vessels, passenger or exploration, and colonisation or useful to colonisation efforts”

Charles's drones are actually well suited to the task as it is.  They are electric so they can work in a non-oxygenated atmosphere.  Spreading out and looking at things is exactly what they are supposed to do.  It doesn't take him long to locate something that might be suitable- the ships are not hiding, after all.

Larger ships are not so easily brought to the planet surface.  Still, they are wanted here, because it is easier to keep them for salvage.  The vacuum of space might seem safe, but the background radiation, cosmic rays, and temperature differences slowly take a toll on almost everything.  They are better preserved in atmospheres.

But what to do with ships that just aren't built to land on a planet surface?  Only the smaller ones do that.  The largest ships, like whales on a beach, could not even support their own weight.

For example, the one they have found.  The Ultima Traiectum was a long range colonization ship, taken out of service about fifty years ago and built almost two hundred years ago.  It once brought colonists to the Main Line worlds by the thousand.  But like most large ships of its era, it is built with a Wheel and Spindle design- a wide, thin wheel surrounds a long central axis.  It would collapse on a planet.

So they collapsed it.  There it is, the great wheel, cut into pieces, laid end to end in a row in the desert.

The characters have at least a basic mechanic skill, so they can tell immediately:  it's old, it's cut up, it's sitting on a planet where it was never meant to be... it could be unsafe.

Abe considered the ship that Charles' drone had located, muttering the name upon his breath to see how it tasted, "Ultima Traiectum. Traiectum, Ultima Traiectum"

He spoke softly to the others within the rover, "She'll be tricky. Recommend we send Charles' drones or mine inside. See whether it's worth us chancing our luck"

That sounded like some battleship or roman legion did it not? Charles thinks when he finds the ships name. When the group ends up convening upon its location he agrees with Abe.

"Aye first scout it out with the drones as far as we can but as they cant open doors i think its still needed to get in there if we want to do a solid search. Good thing im suited up already. I'll be taking my tools and be following if structural integrety is okay enough."

Abe nodded, “We go in pairs; I’m happy to accompany you or to keep an eye on things from here”

Charles nods and makes his suit enviro proof by putting on his helmet and links its cam feed and the ones of the drones to Jacksons system so he can see what they see and gets ready to.

Lilana realizes something as the drones hover around the old colony ship...

"We're not looking for what's there, really.  We're looking for what's missing.  And signs that it was recently removed."

And of course, if everything was in pristine order and the drones could just fly on in and through, it would be easy.

Everyone knows, it's never easy.  The good news is, they are certain that this is a type of ship that would have carried hibernation pods, lots of them.  The bad news...

First, there are doors securing the areas they want to see.  There's no power to the ship at all, and they would have to be opened the old fashioned way- pulling on handles.

Second, the ship is, as those with any mechanic skill are aware of, not the type that was ever designed to sit on a planet's surface.  Every element in the ship's structure is taking much more of a load than it was ever designed to.

Third... even though they cannot see the interior of the sections they want to get in to, there are signs that this ship was previously scavenged in the bad way- people or robots acting recklessly, cutting into things and leaving possibly dangerous situations behind.

As Charles cycles outside with Abe he looks at the wreck and then shrugs as he starts his approach.

"Lets try to avoid the really dangerous parts. Though i think looking at the spots where the salvagers did their work might get us the quick n easy place to enter close to where we might need to be. Anyone has an idea where the pods should be?"

As he approaches the structure he fires up the engineering program and tries to map out the structural unsafe areas they really should try and avoid.

ooc: My own mechanic 2 and the computer engineering expert should do the trick here right?

Absently, Abe nodded to the Captain's observation, "Either works. If there are pods missing, there may be a way forward; if there's not, there are salvageables to help us understand their needs, or lay out some tradeable bait..."

His eyes roved the structure, gravity having been lent a careless hand by whoever had been here before them, and then further out at the ship's carcasses nearby

His nod to Viper was firmer, "Let's see if we can lay up some supporting beams if we need to?"

Lending Charles a hand in diagnosis with his own JOAT skills

"I have deconstructed a few ships in my time. Let's see what I can do to help with this." Jackson will try to use experience at the shipyards to help

It's a good thing the characters actually have a good stock of engineer/mechanical skills between them!

As they learned earlier, there are some salvagers who cheat: tear things out, cut, chop, and don't fix their mess and don't report what they've done.

That's illegal.  But... that's been done here.

Jackson is able to engineer a safe salvage plan. (He rolled, and a 12 is a great outcome.)  Or at least, a safe entry way.  It's still uncertain whether you actually want to salvage anything.  Working to his directions, you have safe movement into the old ship's hibernation pod areas, without the floor collapsing.

Still, it creaks a lot.  In space, no one can hear a floor creak, but this planet has an atmosphere, just a very inert one.  It still transmits sound, so it's noisy as things strain under weight.  Whenever there is a stiff breeze outside, there is a groan from the hull.

It's old, but well preserved.  The atmosphere prevents rust and decay.  No water, no oxygen.  There is some fine dust scattered around.

It doesn't look like what you might have been expecting.  It's a long wide gallery, with the spaces for hibernation pods arranged in clusters.  The decor is the unexpected part- it's not a medical or industrial look.  It's like the ship designers went out of their way to make people feel like they were in a pleasant country Bed and Breakfast, and hibernation would be a little nap.  Wood trim and paintings on the walls... still there.  A lot of decor still there.  The hibernation pods, no.  But they left the decoration.

"Rats" Jackson was somewhat disappointed, then again even with a large ship expecting success on the first attempt was a bit over optimistic on his part.

He looked around at decor that surrounded each pod cluster. The Vultures seemed to have gotten  all the valuable stuff, or did they? "Lilana, what are the chances any of the 250 years old artwork may be valuable today?"

In contrast, Abe was somewhat excited and a smile slipped through as he sought to find some kind of working system outlet or surveillance storage. It was unlikely, and they had little with them capable of the necessary forensics, but the fact that these pods had been so thoroughly scavenged was a sign that perhaps their quarry had been there, and with that perhaps there was the potential for a trail.

Whilst he sought some kind of record in the wreck's systems, he asked of their local crew as well: did they know who might have been here, at this wreck

Looking through the place Charles was impressed at the effort made to make this place look so nice for something that was little more then a glorified refrigerator. Charles calls up the images from the pods on the planet and tries to see if there are any markings on them that he can recognize here to determin at least some of the pods came from this place.

The Hibernation Pods are long gone.  And so is *some* of the supporting hardware.  Examination by the mechanically minded characters reveals that the pods went first, in an orderly, efficient fashion- probably pulled out as the ship was being decommissioned.  Support equipment, much later, in a much sloppier fashion.

The artwork on the walls… is kind of tricky to estimate in value because “Art Dealer” is a very rare skill for characters.    You cannot tell the difference between an original masterpiece and a cheap imitation.  Lilana thinks its likely that the works are imitations, considering that the people who they were meant for would have seen them only briefly, before and after hibernation.  Still, they are well done, and as “consumer home décor” they could have some value.  She has a theory as to why they are still here:  people generally have an idea in mind when they are looking for something.  If one is really after wall art, then the logical choice would be to look in high end passenger ships.  Who figures they’d put it in colonist ships?  How weird is that?

Meanwhile, Abe tracks down some information about the ship to whom the crew that last scoured this place belonged to, via the staff and logs of the Gamboge Boneyard.

Back with the Crossers, the party encountered the agricultural ship Caledonia, which, according to its crew, was the last remaining ship of its class.   But the gang later learned, while looking up Ghost Ships, that's not exactly true.  Its sister ship Patagonia is operating in the frontier space past Calderada, which is where you are now.  As a ghost ship, it's not engaging in known trade.  Just coming and going doing it's own thing, and nobody really knows what it is up to.

But the Patagonia was here. Two years ago.

"We have a ship name, now," Lilana remarks.

Florence had quickly admited that she had no interest in looking for a carinian starship, erratic or not  and had instead tried to look into their next destination and what she could do to make herself useful. Which was...well, not much, especially not on the way. While Lilana's opinion that the hibernation pods hadn't been the only thing likely taken, there was no way she'd be able to find before they reached the planet, so she was left with nothing much to do. Or at least, nothing regarding Lilana's current goal.

Instead, maybe pushed by their current investigation, she spent the trip trying to learn more about ship systems and how to pilot one. She didn't know much of anything of the former - besides a bit of skills with computers - but she showed that she had the basics of navigation and piloting and was more than willing to learn more about that: having multiple pilots or navigators certainly couldn't hurt, and she figured that those skills could always be useful.

On the planet itself, unable to directly help with the scavengers - she figured that considering her age and appearance none of the grizzled locals would take her seriously - instead, taking once again advantage of the excuse of sampling the local specialities, she went for a roundabout way of talking a bit with lots of people, mostly to get a feel of the place and the way it worked: who mattered, who to avoid, who to look for if you had this or that problem, etc..

She hesitated for a good while about joining the trip outside of the starport, but in the end decided to follow to the Ultima Traiectum, though she stayed well in the back: she didn't think she had much to offer to the team - the lessons she had taken recently being far from being enough for it - but since there was no way to know in advance, she figured she might as well come. Plus, another set of hands and eyes might come in handy and at the very least, she could always learn a few things.

She didn't seem all that impressed by the hibernation bay though, but she did comment with a “Eh, almost feels like home...” Which might explain why she didn't seem impressed. Regarding the value of it all, she added, “The fact that it's in wood could, by itself, be worth quite a bit, especially if it comes from Earth: it's not something that gets shipped often, it's too heavy for that.” Well, among other reasons. “But it is heavy, and most of those interested in buying things like that can do so directly. I'm not sure finding buyers would be easy or quick.”

“And we know it still operated in the region.” Florence added when they learned about the ship's name. “But there's no way it's operating alone: a ship that size would be far too easy to track from port to port and it wouldn't be much of a Ghost Ship. When we get back in the starport we should try to see if there were other ships with it. It won't be a guarantee, but it's one sample. If we manage to get enough, we might pinpoint some of its contacts. And maybe we could try to see if anyone remembers what it was doing here. It probably left quite the impression on the locals, they know their ships after all.” or at least one could hope considering the place...

Florence does some research, looking into Gamboge's government.

With about 150,000 people, Gamboge is a minor Governate.  If it were a region on a larger inhabited planet, it wouldn't even rate as a Governate on its own- too small a population.  But the Commonwealth recognizes that management of an entire planet (technically, a star system, though there aren't any other settlements in the system) is a special responsibility, and 150,000 is too many for it to be classed as an outpost to be administered from a nearby world.  Thus, Gamboge has a Governate- though it is considered one of the sleepiest, dullest assignments one could ask for.  Almost a punishment.  Yes, it is a whole planet.. but its mostly yellow dust.  Compared to a mediocre Earth assignment like Morocco, it's nothing to brag about.


A check of the frames of the paintings shows that Florence is right about the wood:  it is genuine and it is almost certainly from Earth.  They are old: no off world sources in use, back then, at least none shipping wood all the way back to Earth for use in frames.

They leave the cold colony ship with all the artwork they can carry; paintings long forgotten because no one remembered they'd been put on a hibernation ship, just to make colonists feel more relaxed.

"I'm getting the feeling that as get closer to the location our Crosser friends gave us, we're going to be crossing paths with the Patagonia sooner or later," Lilana says.  "Why would you keep a gigantic agricultural ship a secret like that?"

Florence considered the question for a moment, before answering. “Maybe they're selling black colonies. Who gets to colonize what, where, is restricted for a lot of reasons.” She grimaced slightly, “Among other things because, besides the whole political considerations, seeing Humanity's rate of expansion makes our alien friends nervous. There are still illegal colonies popping up here or there, but they tend to be small affairs, and in most cases doomed to fail. A big reason for that being lack of resources which make it pretty much impossible to weather the first problems. A ship like the Patagonia could probably by itself drastically improve the chance of one such colony succeeding. If you have the funds and the will to carve yourself an Empire in the stars, that's exactly the kind of ships you'd want with you. Or at least, it'd be a start, you'd also need a lot of other things.”

After a few seconds, she shrugged, “Though there's probably a better answer.” That one was a bit nuts after all. “Plus, you'd definitely want to have hibernation pods, among other things, but I still don't understand why you'd drop lots of them on the surface of a random planet. They could have stored those they couldn't fix there instead of simply jettisoning them to the nearest star if they thought they might be able to use some of them as spare parts but…” She grimaced, obviously not convinced by her own explanation.

“I'd say 'follow the money' if we could, but since we don't even have that, I'm not sure we'll get any closer to an answer until we reach that planet with the pods.” At least then they'd know if there were people inside. Or if the pods had been gutted, used for spare parts or whatever. “Though it would probably help if we could find out what the Patagonia was looking for - or bought - besides the pods when they were here two years ago.”

It seemed, in hindsight, a logical explanation... a secret, under-the-table off-the-books colony effort.

They certainly existed, and they've been growing in number since the Commonwealth's authority began to wobble.  Their proponents call themselves "Freelanders" and they feel they have the right to settle on any unsettled world.  Or sometimes, in uninhabited portions of settled worlds.

There were a couple of small problems with the whole movement.

First, it was hard to integrate an unauthorized colony into the complex (and heavily subsidized) interstellar economy.  Space operations can be expensive.  Back in the early 21st century it took the combined efforts of many nations to keep one modest space station going.  Now, operating starships is fairly cheap, but only because the Commonwealth supplies so much of support and infrastructure and the costs are unseen.  Who's going to run the starport on a remote, independent colony?  And what would it export?  Freelander colonies tend to be shabby, primitive things, the only thing they can really offer is a rustic frontier sense of total independence that appeals to some people.

Second, and more important by far... the other civilizations, the powerful Oumo especially, hate the idea.  Oumo philosophy is built on the idea of careful, enlightened management.  Such uncontrolled chaos is detestable to them.  Worse, it raises the possibility of conflict, either accidental or deliberate, between spacegoing civilizations.  There is only one of those, and it has been horribly costly.  This is the sort of thing more familiar to academic circles and the Governate administrators, but it's not a secret.  The Oumo despise the Freelanders, and have pressured the Commonwealth to crack down.  The only reasons the Oumo do not take matters into their own hands are that the problem is small, and using force against Humans might cause the very interspecies conflict they want to avoid.

"I'm really, really, really hoping it's not Freelanders," Lilana says.  "With Ghost Ships, you don't really know if it's a problem.  With Freelanders trouble has not only been invited in already, it's got it's name on a plaque on the door.  I'm sorry... was that a bad metaphor."

"But we have something to look for now, a ship, the Patagonia,"  Lilana's assistant Minka says.  "And they've done something bizarre and we're going to make a documentary about it and get rich.  That's still the plan, right?"

"So all we have to do now is find one starship that is much too big to hide... and.. or... the pod depot in the pictures we got from the Crosser explorer.  Strong hunch they are both in the same direction.  Anyone need anything else out of Gamboge?"

Sadly, with all the mechanical talent the crew has, Gamboge could be a dream world.  They have the necessary skills to hunt down the parts they need to make almost anything.

Something just occurred to me boss" he said to Lilana "Given the worsening of political situation we may want do some weapon and other system upgrades to the Nelly Bly. There may even be some of her sister ships with parts we can do the upgrades with."

Charles chuckles at his own mental image of turning the nelly into a small deathstar.

"Question is do we have the time and resources to do that. I think we got the skill to find and upgrade her but my guess is we need to sell our story first before we can upgrade it. "

“Actually...” Florence paused, clearly thinking for a few seconds. She looked at Lilana “Jackson might have a point.” Which she clearly was a bit uncomfortable with - and it had nothing with Jackson himself. “If that's what we're looking at, someone able to hire - or make use of - a ship like the Patagonia almost certainly has some kind of defences in place. The last thing they'd want is for someone to talk to the Commonwealth about what's happening in their necks of the woods. It might just be to capture and not kill - though I'm not sure it'd be all that better considering - but I believe it would make sense. I'm not sure we'd need weapons so much as countermeasures against said weapons, but it wouldn't hurt...”

“Plus,” she shrugged, “While I may not be able to help finding what we'd need, I'm pretty sure I could help get the permits we'd need. If we find ships of the same model as the Nellie Blye, it could be done quickly right? Though I have no idea if it would be financially possible.” After all, while she could help with the authorization's side of things - or so she assumed anyway - she had no idea how much weapons or countermeasures even cost.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:14, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

Jackson nodded in agreement to both Charles' and Florence's points "While serious weapon upgrades may beyond our budget I wonder if electronic upgrades could be done. If we want to do some serious surveillance I wonder if there any sensor or Electronic Warfare equipment  better than our current capabilities available to be salvaged." 

“Well, there's not much to be done about time.” It was entirely up to Lilana to decide if she wanted to take the time for all of that after all,  “But as far as the budget is concerned…” She waved around as she asked, “I seriously doubt there are many documentaries about Gamboge. In fact, if we do it right, it could bring credits and allow us to go faster than we would otherwise: it could be nice advertisement for some people after all.”

She seemed pensive for a moment, then added, “Plus, I'm not an expert, but… this place is pretty much unique, something few have heard about: wouldn't a documentary about it sell very well in lots of places?” She looked at Lilana at that.

Lilana considers the possibilities.

She has something she never had before already:  a crew with some real talent.  Upgrading sensors, weapons...

Weapons were probably not going to be here for the taking.  If someone left a laser cannon on a decommissioned spaceship, someone has made a career ending mistake.

Parts for weapons, on the other hand...

On the third hand, the ship doesn't have much room.  Maybe, one day, a bigger ship?

And on the fourth hand, sensors.  The current crew seems to know a lot about that.  Charles with his drones, for example.  Good sensors could get you out of a situation where you might otherwise need good weapons.

Sensors are often left behind, because everything electronic loses value as it ages.  Stories say that once upon a time, on Earth in the pre-contact early space flight era, a computer a decade old was considered ancient, and value-less.

"Whatever you can find in 24 hours," she decides.  "After that, we have to be on our way, and track down the Patagonia and a lot of missing pods... which, I should remind you, aren't on the Patagonia in the pictures we have.  They are waiting on a planet surface.  A depot, maybe."

Now he was given orders and a deadline to do it heF set his mind in motion to make it happen. First thing was to throw a couple ideas out and see if one had a way to make it work.

"First off looking for scout ships would be a good start." He will nod to Abe,the other former scout in the group. He will then look to Charles."A possible wild card may be found if there is a police impound lot here. When I was working in the security section for the authority I found that smugglers tried to have to best sensors they could afford to spot us before they spotted them."

Charles nods and as they had a guide agrees with Jacksons assessment and asks the person where there is a site with a more dense spot with their desired ship types Hell he might even heard of a potential weapon but that might cost em too much. He already starts setting up his drones to look for the right type as they start moving about.

Florence nodded to acknowledge Lilana's instructions, even though it left her with a bit of a problem: what exactly could she do in those twenty-four hours. She wasn't going to be of much help looking for ships or spare parts, and it was too short of a time to record anything interesting. Especially considering that Lilana hadn't seemed interested in it in the first place.

Instead, she decided she'd try to look for information about the last time the Patagonia was in the system: what it had been interested in and maybe if it had had an escort of some sort.

It takes time and work, but Florence has an angle no one has worked before:  ships that overlapped the schedule of the Patagonia often enough to make coincidence a stretch. This time, she finds things.


Meanwhile, the others use the time they have for scrounging.  They look for scout ships.

Very fortunately, there are more than they would have guessed!  And it hindsight, it's obvious.  Freighters can be used long after more modern freighters race past them.  They just move bulk freight cheaply, if slowly.  Passenger ships get converted to freighters, and do the same.  Scout ships, though... with so little "money maker" tonnage... who wants an old, slow scout?  And worse, scout ships must operate far from help.  No one wants to be on a scout ship full of old gear.

Eight surviving ships of the Scotia class, old scout ships, too slow, too unreliable to be of any use, are parked in a neat row.

Once upon a time they had weapons for self defense.  They are unarmed, but the mounts are still there.

"This is a good place to start" says Jackson "Hey Abe, ever serve on one of these babies? Let find us some sensors" Jackson will work with the other to help find and obtain the best sensor system among the mothballed ships.






17:11, Today: Jackson Taylor rolled 9 using 2d6+1.  scrounging for electronics.
(Would past service in the scout service aid his roll further?)

For a time, Florence studied her findings, pondering what it all might mean. At some point, while the men were looking for ways to improve the ship, she went to find Lilana. “So, remember when I mentioned finding other ships that might be involved with the Patagonia? Turns out, I'm pretty sure I've found one: the Baccarat.”

She handed out her findings and let the older woman quickly go over them. “As you can see here,” she pointed out the links between the courier ship and the agricultural groups, “genetic engineering for crops and livestock. That would make perfect sense for Freelanders.” She grimaced slightly, “Or at least Freelanders with one hell of an infrastructure. And much better financing than usual.”

“Wherever we go, we'll have to step lightly…” she commented idly, while she sent the other members of the crew a quick summary of her findings to keep them up to date.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:26, Mon 22 Feb 2021.

Jackson calls in his past knowledge gained from Scout service to aid his search.. which is ideal when focusing on past Scout ships.  So, by default, the Scotia ships are where he looks.  It will pretty much his only choice, given the time constraint.

He already knows the weapons are gone.  Old ships might be parked here for parts, but no one leaves live weaponry lying around.  Ship lasers, even old ones, are very dangerous!

He remembers reading about the Scotias in history books.  They went out of service even before he went in.

Looking for sensors, he finds several items of interest.

High frequency terrain mapping radar.   Used for detailed analysis of a planet's surface and capable of picking up details a few meters across during a flyby, but obsolete.

Laser warning receivers.  Very simple devices designed to alert a ship when a laser, even a low powered one, makes contact.  Even the old ones like this are designed to be connected to automated defenses.

Passive thermal sensors, which detect heat sources, even distant, buried, etc.  These are large systems. They would take up the Nellie Bly's available cargo space.  Newer systems are smaller.  That's part of why these ships are retired.

Extendable "foot" sensors, used on landing gear to make a final, physical check that the surface about to be landed on was actually safe to set down on, and not reactive, sticky, soft, or anything else dangerous.  A must on scout craft ever since Apollo 11.

Looking at the ships Charles gets his suit aand toolbox ready again to go outside.

"So rip out what we can and apply them on the float? Hell i'm not even sure how many of them we might be able to fit and which are redundant."

He will check his tools for the task on hand. "I think most of the sensors we can fit, expect perhaps the passive thermal sensors. If our boss want those sensors I suppose we could find a way to make them fit."

He will look over the mothballed relics "While the sensors were good for their time, most of it were usually made by lowest bidding contractor. Depending on how they were designed we might be able to tweak their capabilities by integrating newer parts. It probably still not be state of the art but any improvement we can make could spell the difference between success and disaster."

Listening to the suggestions from his crewmates, Abe is thoughtful about the options they've laid out: perhaps they might "soup-up" the Nellie-Bly from the remnants of her sister ships. He nods, once, when Jackson poses the question surrounding the Scotia-class ships - if not their class, then ones very familiar.

"Rip out what we find and fit them in the black", he echoed, inclining his head towards Charles for the suggestion, "Take what we can, even the thermals. We can always sell them on if we find no use"

Charles nods and unless some local authoroty comes to stop them from 'borrowing' the stuff or the boss says no he starts to work on ripping everything out and sort it later when they have the time for that assigning a drone to everyone wich helps them to make sure they strip all the components by sending checklists to their terminal and mechanical diagrams to help them if its needed.

Taking scrap from the old ships here isn't illegal at all.  It's the purpose of Gamboge.

It has to be paid for, though.  That's also the purpose of Gamboge.  They don't run this place out of the goodness of their hearts.

There is no price list.  They aren't even sure what they have out there in the desert.  Besides, it makes no sense to try and fix prices on a gigantic list of components, many of which are one of a kind (the artwork in the old colony ship might be an example... not a lot of that around here) and/or very obsolete.

So instead, Gamboge merely charges by tonnage, and rough type.  Hull and structural components are the cheapest, electronic and engine equipment are on the expensive end (gravitics are the most expensive!)

But even so you get a bill for 6,000 for the sensor equipment removed.


**** **** **** ****

For Lilana, the real change here was the addition of a second ship to the list of "what's involved" in the strange and growing circle.  The Baccarat isn't even a "ghost ship", it's a commonly seen corporate express transport.  Something they will be able to find when they can start accessing normal logs.  Lilana notes something else of importance:  Whomever it is still has no idea.

**************************

When everything is settled, the Nellie Bly departs Gamboge.  They set course- further out to the ends of the frontier.

Leaving Gamboge, Florence was reasonably pleased: for once, she had been useful to Lilana. In fact, she should maybe say for the first time, since it had all been Marlo previously. Not wanting to simply leave it at that though, she started to study their route. “We should be able to learn more about the Baccarat in Terpsichore or Kanyon. Juwuku comes first, but I'm not sure they'll have what we're looking for.” On the other hand, maybe it would help her refine her research parameters, which would allow her to be more efficient in either of the other two systems.

On the way, Florence worked on her laptop for the most part, and not just to read or write reports, she was trying to learn how to use it more efficiently...and maybe access things that didn't want to be accessed.  Other than that, she dutifuly continued her piloting lessons: she wasn't planning on replacing anyone, but she considered that knowing how to fly a ship, while aboard said ship, was pretty smart.

At some point though, she went to talk to Lilana while she was in the mess [So if anyone has an opinion, wants to participate or whatever, don't hesitate], to ask her for a bit of help: she obviously had her own goal for coming here, which she succintly explained, “I have an assignment for my school, where I'm supposed to find ideas about how to deal with the current unrest in the Commonwealth. Or at least, I'm supposed to find ideas others have.” She grimaced slightly, “If no one in power has been able to find the miracle solution I don't see how I'm going to find it myself but...” She shrugged, “My opinion wasn't asked for. Anyway... I haven't been able to get anywhere with it,” She waved her hands in front of her chest, “Not because I don't have time or anything! It's just...” She grimaced, obviously not particularly pleased, “I'm not really taken seriously when I'm asking those questions. Do you think you could do it, present it as a reportage or something? Maybe reach out to some of your contacts, if they want to send ideas over?” She seemed to hesitate, “I don't have a lot of money, but I can pay for the good ideas? A bit?”

After a while, pensive, she asked, “Or... Maybe I could, I don't know, set up a sort of anonymous forum or something? To offer anyone the opportunity to share good ideas?” She didn't sound all that convinced it was a good idea, “It'd take forever to go through all the stupid ideas, trolls and whatnot though, right?”  She mumbled to herself for a second, “Unless we somehow restrict it to some people who are likely to have some ideas of what they're talking about?” She wasn't really interested in Joe, the drunkard who redesigned the world every afternoon after two drinks after all...

They have time to consider, during the voyage out towards the frontier.

For a long time now, as they have travelled in the "Antispinward" direction, settlement and civilization has become thinner and thinner.  Even the most habitable planets this far out have populations that, on Earth, would be one city.

They pass one Naval base at Alamut- it's worth a check, but the information here is very spotty- clearly, if one is trying to keep something quiet, one does not make a habit of stopping at military bases.

It's at Juwuku where they have their next "event".

 Juwuku is the largest space habitat on the frontier, and is the property of Cyrene corporation, which treats this as a small “company nation” even though it legally operates as its own governate.  The founders of Cyrene believed that they had to move their company as far as they could to the frontier, and they have prospered for it.  Cyrene is a diverse high tech manufacturing conglomerate, producing many of the consumer goods in use not only on the frontier, but as far as the “New Core” region.  The yachts of the owners are often parked here, and they are the most luxurious private spacecraft in the sector.

Juwuku is both a private corporate space habitat, and a Governate, as the Commonwealth decided long ago that ownership of a place does not deprive the inhabitants therein of their  rights as Commonwealth citizens.  They fall under Commonwealth law, (weak as it is out here) and the Governor here has political authority.

It's one of the smallest Governates in existence, which, as Florence knows, has a work load so light that assignment here is sometimes treated as an insult.  Small, remote, in a place owned and operated by a corporation, all the Governor has to do here is check to see that things are being within the Commonwealth's laws.

And here, they quickly learn... The Baccarat is a frequent visitor. It's not here now, but it's here often.

Charles convenes with the other technicians to make a plan on how to integrate and upgrade the ships systems and as their zero-g mechanic would be doing most of the things on the outside. And like always those wee little drones are there to record it and it seems Charles was becoming quite adept in not only having the drones be nonintrusive but also getting nice angles and interesting shots. He is just having a coffee break and has his suit recharging oxygen and is still smelling of sweat his head is red from the hard work outside when Florence pitches her problem. Initially he ignores it muling over some issues he ran in but after a bit he chips in.

"Whats your pitch to people that they are unwilling to cooperate?"

“Well,” Florence scrunged her nose, “It's not so much that they are unwilling to cooperate than they don't really give it any thought. Or at least, that they don't think someone like me deserves a well thought of and argumented answer.” With a hand she indicated herself, and it was indeed very possible that she was pretty easy to dismiss considering that she could easily pretend to be a high-school girl - and not even a senior, maybe a sophomore - even though her papers said otherwise. “Or at least that I'm not really interested in an answer and only trying to play grown-up.”

She grumbled under her breath for a second, “So for the most part I get jokes, or if there are two people around they quickly go off on a tangent and quickly forget about me.” And it wasn't like she could push it too much after all, could she? “Few people in or around a spaceport have much patience for someone they only see as a kid.” Especially when said kid wasn't buying anything of note...

Charles nods.

"Well port side people usually do not have the time. you should hit a bar in the civil areas and talk to people there. Make it about wanting to make a documentary and reward them for their time. A few credits go a long way. I might be able to give you a hand pretending you are my intern if you think its your age."

Florence looked doubtful. “I'm not sure a bar would be uld be the right place.” Not really because of the type of people she was likely to meet there, but simply because of her age, once again.

“I will try the documentary thing though.” She briefly grimaced, not quite sure she liked the idea of paying for it, but... Cocking an eyebrow, she asked, “Where would I be able to find one of those drones like you have? You know, that follows you autonomously? If I could pretend the drone is recording, it'd probably improve my credibility.”

Charles shrugs he clearly doesn't agree but isn't invested enough to push the issue he was clearly just giving his idea on the issue.

"Well you can buy em. But they do not come cheap. I can just slave one to you if you like too next time you want to give your thing a try. Or i can give you the specs and order details but again its not necessary unless having me along doesn't suit you."

During the voyage to Juwuku Lilana has time to talk about Florence's current "project".

Piecing together bits and  hints acquired over the course of the journey, Lilana is very surprised to learn that Florence is a Commonwealth Governor "trainee" and worries how this might impact everything they are doing.  So she has a question.

"Does everything we do here get officially reported, then?  Not that you're a spy... but we're in the midst of uncovering things that the Governors might react to.


About the issue of unrest, she is less concerned.  "I guess it's all inevitable in a way.  As long as the war was a constant threat, and people were afraid, they never questioned anything the Commonwealth did.  Now it's further, most people alive have never had to run for a survival shelter, they see things differently.  I think there will be some accommodations, somehow, the Commonwealth will go on."

And she agrees with the issue of Florence not being taken seriously enough due to age.

"No one took me seriously either.  Of course at your age I was in school full time, I didn't get out until I was 25!  It does take time.  You will get there... if you are a Governor, of course you will... unless they send you to run Juwuku!"

There are at two very different approaches they can take, after reaching this place.

They can do some research here, and wait for the Baccarat to make one of its frequent appearances.  Or they can continue on to "pod cache" location they got from the Crossers.  And then, possibly, double back.

Lilana calls a quick meeting to go over the options.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:37, Wed 17 Mar 2021.

Florence opened and closed her mouth, then grimaced and grumbled, obviously not quite pleased to have been found out. Not that anyone could have expected her to pretend as long as she had considering that deception wasn't really one of her strong skills, but still… Regarding Lilana's question, she shook her head. “No, I haven't said a word of anything to anyone. Well, except for the Eco-sentience stuff, I talked about it with a friend. Who isn't even human, she's a Momo so nothing to the Commonwealth. Anyway,” She shrugged, “I'm not here to spy on anyone, and I'm not going to prevent you from doing anything. While what we discover could be of some interest to the Governors, it's… Well, you can consider things like that: Governors, for the most part, are not interested in any specific crime. It's not their jobs to fight any one crime. What interests them are the statistics about those crimes, which would help design policies to lower crime in general, communicate about it, etc.”

“So in the specific case of what you're looking for, I'm not going to prevent you to release your work. Not that I could even if I'd want to anyway. And I won't even ask you to present things one way or another.” She paused, tapping her lips for a second or two. “Not only I don't have the authority to do so, but more importantly that's not how Governors operate. If we do find something important however, I will probably have to send the details to the relevant authorities to make sure they know about what's coming. In fact, I'd likely ask you to coordinate in such a way that they'll be able to act before the other guys can disappear once you've blown the whistle. But what you release and how…” She shrugged, “Ultimately that's up to you. Though, hmm… I might have opinions on it…”

She didn't look as optimistic about the Commonwealth going on just like that. Or maybe more precisely, she didn't think it would be as easy as that. “Maybe, but… I'm among those who have to come up with the 'accommodations' you speak of.” Assuming her opinion would be heard, to say nothing of being taken into account considering that she was after all only a student - one on an unscheduled trip at that - but that was a problem for later. “And the issue isn't only an internal one, our alien friends are…worried…” Which could be - or at least could become - the biggest problem of them all.

“25, uh?” Florence looked away, her cheeks reddening. “Yes, I uh, suppose you're right.” Glancing at Charles she added, “It's not that I don't want anyone coming along or helping, I just don't want to take anyone's valuable time if it's for something they don't really care about.” After all, they didn't spend all that long on the ground and she was pretty sure the crew had better things to do than listen to her asking a few questions here or there.

“As for doing some research here or going straight for the pod cache, I'd be of an opinion of doing our research here first. While it might not tell us all that much about what we're going to find at the 'pod cache', it's unlikely to draw attention to us. On the other hand, if that pod cache is monitored one way or the other - or if we're unlucky and stumble on someone already there - we'd be on the clock.”

“And…” Her gaze became distant for a moment, “I might be able to get us some information about the Baccarat here.” Possibly a bit more, but she wasn't going to promise anything until she knew more herself.

Charles had been working mostly on getting all the new stuff set up and being the ships zero-g mechanic meant he was spending a lot of time on the hull and after that was too wasted for much more so not only had he little interest in looking at who the boss took on she most likely knew better how to run a background check anyhow. He also cared less in the most general sense of things. He eyes the governess to be for a second to estimate how dangerous she would be in the new light and was clearly dismissed as an immediate threat. He wondered if either Florence or Lilana knew he would put her highness out of the airlock in a moments notice if she posed a serious threat to them. If anything there was only a short moment his eyes went cold and hard before he seemed to dismiss it all and gives her a soft smile stepping entirely over the big reveal.

"Though i agree with the lady i would suggest going for the pods first using the same argument. If they know we are onto them thats one of the easiest things to disappear. It might be a red herring but seeing how the info traveled to us i'd rather not waste it."

Then he turns to Florence and one of his drones hovers over to hang above her right shoulder.

"Its called building social credit. I suffer some minor inconvenience for you and in return one day i might need your specific set of skills and can bring up me helping you. The drone will be following you around to learn how you move and talk to people so it can record at the right angle. So try to do your thing with the crew on their downtime to have it learn some."

The fact the drone was already there and Charles tone might make it clear that the fact the boss thought she might be a spy meant the drone might be more then a friendly gesture.

Florence begins assembling reports from the computer network here.  She doesn't have all the time she wants, as since the Baccarat is not present, Lilana opts to go straight for the pods, as Charles suggested.


But they do have to stop to refuel.  Juwuku is a stopover for many vessels.  Out here, the options are fewer.  Ships are fewer, but so are the places they can go to refuel.

Once that is done, they set out again- this time for a barely visited system off the Main Line.  There are so many star systems that no one bothers with the vast majority of them.  If there is no good reason to go there, no one does.

JWKK19 is one of those.  It's probably swept by military patrols every now and then, but star systems are big places- unless something is floating in space emitting energy, it's hard to find unless, like Lilana now, you know exactly where to look.

Marlo the Crosser, who has been fairly quiet for a long time, notes something while looking at the star charts.

"I have seen this place.  I do not remember why, it was not on my assignment.  It had something of interest to another Crosser.  A contract, I think."

The system consists of a typical orange "K" type star, some icy chunks in the outer system, and a "temperate Neptune".  It's a deceptive looking world- pale blue with white swirls it can look like a habitable ocean world.  But it's much too large, and the atmosphere is much too thick.  The pressure at the surface would be unbearable- if it had a true surface.

It has a few moons, though, and the Nellie Bly heads that way.

As they arrive in their presumed right system Charles joins the cockpit crew.

"Well now is the time of all that work on the systems paid off. Lets see what the scanners tell us. I am firstly interested if there are any surprise defences waiting for us."

As they left Juwuku, Florence grumbled a bit, as she obviously would have preferred staying a bit longer to get more information. Still, it wasn't like she hadn't learned anything. “As far as I can tell, the Baccarat is pretty much always close, or at least in the Frontier except for a trip once or twice a year to the New Core area.” Which didn't say much of anything by itself. “However, I know that while the company that owns the Baccarat has offices here, its HQ is at Kanyon. Which is a bit surprising for two reasons: first, it's even farther from the frontier than Juwuku, which doesn't make much sense. Usually, you want your HQ to be as close as possible to where the action is. Second, there is only one thing I can think of that Kanyon has, which is the presence of a colony of the Antarean Ecosentience. You know, the one I mentioned back in LDMLT01, where I learned that it had started 'trading'.” And she was visibly quite excited that they'd likely head there soon. “At least that'll give us a good excuse to be there!”

In JWKK19, she seemed a bit… Well, not disinterested, but there was little she felt she could do for the time being.  She was however curious about Marlo's remark. “A contract?” She tilted her head to the side, “Not a large one involving an asteroid I guess,” after all, those jobs involves an entire Crosser Ship, “What kind of contract could it have been?”

With newly acquired infrared sensor equipment, they run infrared scans.

There is something down there.  Camouflaged, so as not be seen easily, but not with the sophisticated heat dissipation devices the military might use to hide things from infrared detection.  After all, out here, it would be bizarre fortune to just happen to steer the scanners in the right direction.

Unless one already knew where that direction was.  Which they do.

It's not a big something, and it is dispersed over a few hundred meters area of the planet surface.

After a while they can make it out:  a well camouflaged landing pad, and nearby... tents.

The tents look a lot like the structures that hid the pods in the pictures.



*******

"I am guessing," Marlo says, "but I believe it is a rational guess that the contract involved engineering.  It is something we have a reputation for in Human space.  I think you are right that it is not an asteroid habitat, which would require our entire ship.  But perhaps a smaller habitat.  Especially in this part of space.  What else would we be wanted for?"

"But it's possible that your ... that the other Crosser ... might have been contracted to set up ... a planetary habitat, an outpost, for example", suggested Abe as he studied the scan results coming in

"We should check it out, boss", he continued, a tautness across his shoulders clear, for he had not been at the prior site

“I don't know for what exactly,” Obviously, Florence thought, “But as for the why… I would bet it was at least to avoid having to answer questions about what they were asking for. And very likely, because what they asked was illegal. Or at least would have been illegal in the Commonwealth.” The young woman paused deep in thoughts, before rubbing her neck and admit a tad uncomfortable. “I, uh… must admit to being a bit fuzzy at the moment on the legal ramifications if it were indeed the case…” Probably nothing good, but she'd need to check the specifics.

“At any rate,” She shrugged, “It wouldn't be a bad thing if we learned what that project was exactly.” Though of course, it wouldn't be possible until Marlo had had the opportunity to communicate with his ship.

Regarding the forest of tents, Florence asked, “Can we get an infrared scan of the place? And maybe energy sources?” After all, if everything was cold and dead down there, there wasn't likely to be any immediate danger. But otherwise, they'd have to be even more cautious.

16:08, Today: Florence Pearce rolled 6 using 2d6+1.  Advocate.
I supposed that was a bust.

"Aye time to touch down and get investigating. I'll be suiting up and ready for trouble. Jackson can you tell me what the scans tell us? The lady is right they might give us a heads up warning on trouble waiting for us."

Charles says as he gets ready to suit up and prepare the battle routine on his weapons and armor.

"If we're landing, I should suit up too", offered Abe, still with pre-conflict tautness trained into him. He remained at his station until the word was given, however, continuing to operate scans on the moon and the outpost on it

In reply to Charles 'Viper' Delorean (msg # 172):

"Actually I believe our boss and Abe are better on sensors than I am."


Jackson's old Scout instincts were also starting to kick in. "I like to know what sort of approach are we on the site. Are going to try to sneak in?"

Lilana's normally quiet assistant Minka speaks up.

"The problem with sneaking is that if you get caught you have to explain why you were being sneaky."

"And at that point things are already going wrong," Lilana says.  "Are we sure there are no ships already down there?"

A double check of the sensors reveals only what they detected the first time:  a concealed landing pad, tents, pods.

"You know..." Lilana begins.  "We don't have to be sneaky here at all.  THEY are the ones being sneaky.  You don't hide enough hibernation pods to equip a colony ship on a lifeless planet unless you really don't want people to know what it's for.  But we didn't come all this way to get intimidated now that its right in front of us.  We should set down, and finally take a look.  And I think... we're going to have to catch up with one of those ships.  But once we have some good info, we'll be holding something we can talk about when we do.  Put us down someplace safe but in walking distance."

"Aye, captain", affirmed Abe, as he begun to calculate the neccessary entry

As the ship goes down Charles asks for detailed scans that reveal potential habitants or automated defences. Just so they do not end up dead faster then desired.

Charles watches the sensor readings carefully, looking for something more.

As the ship is setting down on the cleared landing area, throwing up some dust but not nearly as much as it would if the pad had been long abandoned, he finds something.

The pad is near to the pod storage area.  Not too near... apparently someone worried about a landing mishap destroying the pod collection.  But closer in, there are is another camouflaged structure.

This is an old style colonization module buried in a simple slit trench, with camouflage covering stretched over it like a tent, similar to the covering over the pods.  The camouflage is Not a simple vegetation mat, because there is no vegetation, these are tents of high tech fabric colored to look exactly like the surrounding terrain, and fool anything short of a close, detailed scan.

Closer in, and looking carefully, he can see the module.  It is typical of its type- designed to be a space transport module, but then landed permanently at a new colony site to be used as a habitat until permanent buildings are ready. There are colonies across the Hundred Worlds that have "historic districts" that are basically rows of these modules.  There must be tens of thousands of them scattered around human space.  They are still made, more advanced of course.  Hundreds are made every year.  This one looks to be decades old.

It's powered up.

Charles calls the others. to share his findings.

"Look at that. I don't expect to much of a force there but i think its safe to assume they know we are coming and might not want us there. Want to send a short band broadcast out to invite us over or just wanna barge in? Either way i expect they might be unfriendly."

"Let's see if we can wrangle an invite", offered Abe, scratching at a scar on his face, "We might presume hostility, but even a conversation will hold a few teasers as to who - or what - our hosts might be after"

Charled nods and turns to Florence.

"Wan't to do the honors governess? Your silken tongue might open roads blocked to us."

Until called upon, Florence had mostly stayed out of the way: she didn't know much of anything about scans, and not having ever used a void suit, she certainly wasn't going to volunteer for a trip on the ground. Not that it wouldn't be interesting...sometime. But possibly - maybe even probably - hostile territory was certainly not the place to experiment.

When Charles suggested she talk, she looked surprised, “Well, I'm not a Governor. Yet anyway, I'm just a student. Plus, Governors are administrators. Granted that comes with a few other areas of expertise, but we're not exactly diplomats...” And a bit doubtful, “Plus, powered up doesn't mean inhabited...”

“But...” She shrugged, “Sure I guess. Though... Maybe you want to be ready to go in while I talk to them? Maybe look for a backdoor or something? If there's someone 'friendly' it won't cost much, but if there are hostiles it might distract them enough that you'd be able to easily do your thing, no?”

"If we're here uninvited and we don't ask, it looks bad," Lilana says.  "I'm still working on what to tell them when they ask why we're here.  Telling them 'we tracked you down across half the frontier' is not going to win us any friends. The Crosser we bought the information from said nothing about this place being occupied."

"We do not act dishonestly," Marlo says.  If there is any hurt in the Crosser's voice, it is difficult to tell. While the Crossers are similar to Humans in many ways, and even have similar emotions, the physical cues for those emotions evolved hundreds of light years away.  From the Human point of view, it's easier to read the feelings of a duck.


"It is quite possible the facility had no one here when it was seen," Marlo says.  "Or perhaps it is not inhabited at the present."

"All the systems are powered up," Lilana reminds Marlo.

"But that only indicates that it may be inhabited.  Not that it is."

"It would be a terrible waste of power."

"These Humans have a demonstrated history of odd behaviors."

“No one said you did, Marlo.” Florence appeased the Crosser. “It could just as well have remained unnoticed as anything else. After all, we were looking for something.”

“And I do agree that power on doesn't mean inhabited.” Which she had just said before after all, “It could just be that it's easier or cheaper to maintain the tent with a bit of power. Or if they didn't want the air would freeze and it might damage whatever is inside. Yet another possibility is that it's on a timer and the tent is expecting visitors. Or that it detected us, assumes we're friendly and got ready for us, even without anyone inside. All in all,” She shrugged, “There's just one way to know.”

“I'm not sure trying to talk to them would achieve much of anything, after all like you said,” the girl looked at Lilana, “There isn't a whole lot we can say that would convince them we're friends. We could try to bluff and say that we want in on their colony, but…” She shrugged, “They might not believe us, even if that's truly what this is all about.” Which was just a conjecture on her part after all.

“So… Should I try to talk to them now? Wait for some of you,” she glanced at Abe, “Are ready to get in the tent no matter what is said, or we just go in and see what happens?”

"'Speculation is the mother of all screw-ups'", quoted Abe, the memory of a smile playing across his features. He let Florence and Lilana mollify their Crosser guide, since they had the words for it. Regardless, he shrugged when they had finished, "It was true in the USMC, but it isn't necessarily out of place here, either. Hail them, but with some of the crew ready to approach regardless. If there's someone there, they know we're here or they aren't a threat"

"Ready to move on the Cpatain's word, or if harm comes our way before", he affirmed to Florence's final question

Charles just nods and gets his weapon ready and his suit sealed up.

"Also sending the drones out to take a look real quick."

With that he cycles out and takes a position out of potential harms way and sends the drones out to do what they really are supposed to be doing instead of making documentaries and scout the place out.

"I also remember them saying in the scouts 'Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing. So let's get ready and hope for the best" Jackson says as he rechecks the seals on his armored vac suit and considered his weapon options

The drones go out...

The report back is very, very peculiar.

Going in much closer, they can pick up more detailed readings.  On the other hand, even when they ought to be easily detectable by even basic radar warning systems in the habitat, there is absolutely no response.  No one tries to signal them, and no one tries to shoot at them.

The habitat is warm, which is consistent with living creatures being inside it.  It's a little cooler than Humans would ordinarily set things, though.  It's not shirt sleeve comfort inside.  Not arctic, either.  Sweater weather.

There is only one reaction, but its not directed at the ship or the drone.  An antenna outside moves.


With the drones close in, Charles is able to get a drone close enough to look in the windows.

One thing humanity has learned in its exploration into space- aliens do not like humans with rubber head pieces.  The Crossers, Droyne, and a few others are bipedal like humans, but that's as close as they get.  So the shapes Charles can see through the tinted windows are certainly human, but they don't seem to be doing much.  Standing around, looking out at the drones in curiosity.  That's it.

Charles sends the images of the inhabitants to the ship and looks at Abe.

"Think its time to go and pay a visit. Can someone figure out what the are sending or receiving as the people inside seem way to passive for uninvited guests to their secret base."

Waiting for Abe to join him Charles get ready to approach in person to go inside.

“Uh…” Florence frowned, “That was a tight beam emission, laser probably. If you're not right in the path of it, you can't intercept anything.” She grimaced slightly, “Which means there's no way we can know what has already been sent. Only thing we could do is intercept what they will send - either to block it or to receive it ourselves if we put the right kind of antenna on the way. But we should look where that antenna is pointed at: there will be something. Ship, station, relay… Something.”

Florence studied the feeds from the drones, “I wonder if…” She frowned, puzzled. And a bit worried.

The ship is landed nearby.. the pad is convenient to both the habitat and the sheltered pods.

"I think it's only decent we pay a visit to the locals first."

Strangely, they haven't been answering.

Among spacers, there's a code.  Okay, it's more of a code.  It's written into manuals.  If you are attempting to contact someone, and they are obviously in range to receive, and there is nothing wrong with your transmitter, assume there is a problem.

Spacers always help spacers with problems.

This isn't necessarily what documentary makers do.  Ideally, they would want to record the spacers helping the other spacers with the problems.  Maybe interview them afterwards.

One does not Become The Story.

"Maybe we could send just one drone to inspect the pods while we make a visit... I'd say, you guys with the vac suit experience should be first in."

Charles nods and one drone breaks off to the location of the pods as he approaches the habitat weapon at the ready and avoiding to get in any line of fire seemingly he has some combat experience. He sends one of his drones up to get an aerial view of their breach. Making his way to the door he takes a breach position and waits for Abe to do the same expecting the vetran to know the drill.

"You want to do the honors?"

Florence watched, curious and a bit worried: she had a bit of a theory, but… Well, not only she had been wrong a lot, so that didn't give her confidence but that one was even more far fetched than her previous ones.

No, this time, she decided she was going to keep her mouth shut and simply wait to know more. Hopefully, that wasn't going to take too long…

Still on the Nellie Bly, Lilana observes the progress as the cross over to the habitat.  Several times, she tries to make contact with the habitat, but there is no response, even when she says “We know you’re in there, we saw you in the window!”

"Someone less... well... less armed should go with Charles and Abe," Lilana's assistant Minka says.  "You know, like that they might scare them."

"We have no idea what they might be walking into," Lilana says.  "They know how to handle themselves. We make entertaining reports."

"I would do it," Minka says.

"All yours if you can catch up to them."

*** *** ***

Not until Charles and Abe actually reach the airlock entrance to the habitat is there a response to their attempts to make contact- and then only on the short range frequencies used to communicate externally.

The voice is very calm, like the kind you get from an automated system, but with an odd, childlike tone.

“Standby, depressurizing now, we will let you in.”

The airlock seems to take a long time to open.  Like maybe they were hoping you’d get bored and leave, instead of wait.  They certainly seem to be in no hurry.  Or maybe the pump has a problem.

From there it is very much routine; a small chamber with alcoves for pressure suits, the hiss of the air pumps, the pressure door leading into the habitat beyond.

And then the same calm childlike voice.

“Please remove environmental suits in the next compartment.  Because of biological security measures, decontamination is necessary.”

Charles eyes Abe and shakes his head before he answers.

"Negative. You can decontaminate the suits we will not take them off and maintain our own environment inside."

The response takes a few moments, and when it comes, the only emotion the voice carries is bewilderment.

It is not a child's voice, but there is a remarkably childlike quality about it.


"But you're supposed to.  It's what is done, every time.  It's a rule."

Charles summons up the ELUA of one of his drones onto his screen and quickly flashes it at the camera so it can not be really read and just presents a wall of text.

"You are right but we are here for a special reason. Its exemption x13b401. If we leave our suits we might actually contaminate you so we have to keep wearing it. Its okay we got permission to come in."

Charles says full of confidence hoping these people where as naive and backwards as they sounded.If not he could always just bust open the airlock.

“I…” Florence stopped there for a long moment, obviously struggling. Finally, and a bit reluctantly, she said “The temperature, the lack of response, the calm in what should have be a stressful situation, the childlike voice, care for biological contamination… The location of the Baccarat's company's HQ… I think they're eco-sentience…” She looked - and sounded - really disturbed. “I really, really hope that I'm wrong,” once again… “But if that's the case… This,” She pointed at the screen, “Could be so much worse than anything we've thought it might be… Humans exploiting humans? No one but us cares. Humans exploiting aliens, when some of our allies are already worried about how aggressively we seem to be expanding our sphere of influence?” She shook her head. “If they've been tricked or abused in any way, this could blow up to catastrophic proportions.”

Opening the mic, she said, “Charles, can you ask for your interlocutor's name and origin please? And… It's okay to tell him about you a bit, but try to not share too much information and whatever you do… Please don't lie anymore. Not even by misdirection, omissions or whatever.” After another brief hesitation, she seemed to take a decision as she mumbled “I need to be there.” Louder to allow her voice to be picked up by the mic, she said “I'm coming.”

Not waiting for Lilana's green light, Florence jogged to the back of the ship to quickly slip into a vacsuit and join Abe and Charles.

Within the outer airlock, Abe nodded once at Florence's message, having very much let Charles take the lead until now. He smiled inside his suit, letting the camera note his apparent ease, "Who's rule, friend? I'm Abe, by the way. Who is it I'm speaking too? What brought you and your companions here, it seems a little far from the main spacelanes?"

Abe and Charles seem to create confusion on the other end.  If nothing else it buys time for Florence to catch up.

From the other side of the door they hear "Please wait, I don't understand this.  I must get help."

There  is a delay, but eventually, another voice takes over.  It is a man and he sounds older and more assured.  There's a slight Earth-Asian accent.

"I am Dr. Toh.  I can let you in with your suits on, and we can decontaminate the exterior of your suits, but its important that we protect our work here, and this station is secured against off world microbes.  You'll have to stay suited and that may be uncomfortable, but if that's okay with you we can process you through decon."

Charles nods at the Camera a bit confused by Florences do not lie 'order' one he wasn't fully on planning to follow. But as the whole deal takes long enough for her to catch up with them he might not need to.

"Good day docter Toh i am Charles. That sounds like a reasonable demand from your side and one we can comply with. Florence here really loves to know all about your work and as Abe and I deem it safe enough lets do that. We been used to being suited up."

He gestures at their new spokes person and keeps an eye on all 34 drone feeds. One zooming to the field of pods one monitoring the structure they where in from a nice angle to make sure there where no surprises and the other now hovering over his shoulder ready to follow Florence and again he was wishing he had more drones.

ooc: I expect i will be mia for the rest of the week. Might check in to read but not more.

At Charles' side, Abe nodded, "We're happy to stay suited. It was a standard practise in the Corps"

Whilst he waited, he let his eyes wander on the airlock, trying to eke every clue from its make, model, assembly and positioning. With Charles flying his drones, he had left his own back aboard the Nellie Bly

He risked a short text-based based on their private channel once Florence joined them in the airlock, ++ Something changed? ++

Once it is understood that the characters will stay suited, they are decontaminateed.

This is a procedure commonly done when visiting Earth, which by Governate decision must be shielded from alien life to prevent a potential catastrophe to Earth's ecosystems.  It is also done in places with questionable microbial life- there are several known worlds where the local microbes are known to be hazardous to people.  It's not everywhere, and activists and scientists have on occasion fretted that it should be, or else the different "bio-regimes" of the Hundred Worlds will be hopelessly mixed together and cross contaminated.
 According to most scientists, that ship has sailed, the process is ongoing and irreversible, and stopping it could not be done unless Humans were forbidden from every living planet beyond Earth.

It consists of a spray of sterilizing cleaners- mostly bleach and alcohol, regardless of where you are, chemistry is chemistry and those two are highly reactive yet not so toxic that they will easily kill humans- and a quick flash of intense ultraviolet light.  Vac suits are designed to cope with far worse, so the characters are in no danger at all.

Once past that they are admitted to the habitat.

The people inside are dressed in the simple clothes favored by habitat dwellers- light, utilitarian, designed to cope with an unchanging indoor environment.  Dr. Toh is a middle aged man, Asian from the look of it, and his suit is the typical conservative casual one expects of academics.  The others... one of whom is likely the one who spoke to you earlier... they are all wearing very simple outfits, with no logos, embellishments, or ornamentation at all.  Except.. they are all wearing thin white gloves. Every one of them but Dr. Toh.

And that's not all that strikes you as odd.  There are about a dozen of them here in the "main gallery" that serves as the habitat's entrance foyer, equipment storage, and airlock control center.  They are all of similar build- small and slim.  None of them look older than their early 20's, and a few look like teen agers.  There skin color, though.. definitely "off".  There is no shading, no variation whatsoever.  Just a pale "peach" color everywhere.  Not a mark, freckle, or anything else. Even their thin lips are the same shade.  Their hair is pure white.  All of it.  They look on with curiosity.

"Welcome to our home," Toh says.  "We have never had visitors before who are not our sponsors.  I do not think this can be an accident, I suppose their best efforts to conceal the trail have not been good enough.  That possibility was anticipated, though mostly by me.  I am Dr. Francis Toh."

“I'd bet,” commented Florence a touch sarcastically about the lack of visitors. To Abe, she replied, “If I'm right - and note that I'm not sure at all - those around Toh are Ecosentience. Which means they're aliens, subjects to some illegal research. Which, at best, would be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.” Alright, maybe not that bad, but...

To Toh, on an open channel, she asked, “And did whatever contingency you came up with imply explaining what you're doing with them, here, and what your 'sponsors' expect exactly?” After a brief pause, she added, “Because at the moment, it really doesn't look good.”

"Good?" the man asks.  "This does not look good?  You don't even know what you are looking at.  Would you mind identifying yourselves?  Are you from the Governates?  I am not a lawyer, and I am not a businessman, so I am not prepared to discuss things in either of those spheres.  I can only answer you in purely operational and scientific terms.  I am their caretaker.  You would hardly want to throw them into human society unready."

He gestures to the beings around him, who smile and nod.

Charles looks between the unhealthy smooth looking humans and their caretaker and then Florence and takes a wild shot.

"I dare to ask? What are they?"

It might also be clear from his stance he was ready to leap into combat action as soon as provoked. His lone drone taking a position to keep an eye on the experiments.

Exhaling slowly, Abe leant on his experience in the Corps; he knew his adrenal response ached to kick in, the confrontational and accusative stance taken by his crewmates ratcheting it up.

Instead, he forced a smile, offered his gloved hand, 'Dr Toh, a please; I'm Abe Nelson, ex-USSC and presently the pilot on the Nellie Bly"

They shake hands... just a little awkward with the gloves on.

"Ex marines?" Toh asks.  "So you are not now... hmm... Perxi, would you look up the Nellie Bly with the computer?  It would be good to know more about our guests."

He returns his attention to the party quickly.

"Why have you come here? There is nothing here to be stolen, and I don't think you are agents of the Governates.  They make things clear.  That... and they would bring a lawyer, because they would have a hard time stating exactly the law we have broken.  As you may have noticed, I am the only human being here... excepting yourselves, of course.  Just a man taking care of some research. There must ten thousand small research stations scattered around."

"Ex-marine, singular", clarified Abe with a polite smile, talking slow and easy, "Pilot for the Nellie Bly now, though I have some responsibilities in keeping them safe, too"

Letting his gaze gesture to the base-pack they called home, he raised his hands lazily to emphasise his next weeks, "We're curious folk, both me and the crew. We follow itches, loose threads on a ship suit..."

His words trailed off, an opportunity for another to take up the thread in a less combatative manner, he hoped

Toh sighs.

"Even one ex-Marine has me outmatched.  There isn't much I can do, and my... projects... here, they cannot engage in violence, not even to protect themselves.  It was a necessary condition.  So, I am curious, are you here to buy, sell or steal?  I must warn you, I cannot do much, but this project has some special backers."

One of the beings, in the voice you heard on the radio in the airlock before, asks, "Who are they, doctor?"

"I do not know yet," Toh says.  "People who have discovered us."

"We knew discovery would happen.  It would be good if they like us," the being says.

Charles was getting a little itchy with the whole situation. Was this some alien experiment? was Florence right in her observations? Charles sends his drone around the room and looks at the being speaking as Abe deals with the scientist and lets his computer scan for connection signals if needed getting information might be a neccecary thing before they left.

"Why should we like or not like you my friend? I think the first question that needs to be asked is what are you and how morally wrong is your existence if they have to hide you this far away and surround you with this much secrecy."

Wincing at Viper's blunt words, Abe continues to smile at Dr Toh, "Let us perhaps start with introductions, eh Charles? Florence, Charles, our host Dr Toh. Doctor, my companions Florence and Charles, also off the Nellie Bly..." and he pauses for a moment that they might add anything about themselves

Gesturing at the rest of the module's inhabitants, he asks softly, "Do you charges have names? Perhaps we might meet some of them?"

Florence listened quietly for a while, frowning, but she smiled at the non-human's wish, “If I'm guessing right, I would love to talk to you and I don't doubt I would like you.”

She turned back to the doctor, “I am much less sure I'm going to like what is happening here however, to say nothing of why but hopefully I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Before that though, let me answer some of your questions. It wouldn't be friendly of me to expect you answer mine if we don't answer yours, right?”

Before the doctor could answer, she continued, “You already know our names as well as our ship's. We're part of a documentary team who followed tracks left by your 'sponsors' which led us here. Though while we knew there was something here, I can certainly tell you that we were not expecting this.” She paused, then looked at the alien, her head tilted to the side, “A documentary team is... Hmm, we look for interesting things, learn from them, what they are, where they come from, how it works and so on, then make a movie of it to explain to others who can't look into that subject themselves.” She didn't want to exclude him from the discussion after all.

“You're talking about governate lawyers, laws broken and whatnot. Technically, that might be true. Here anyway. This is not an illegal colony so regulations surrounding those don't apply, and since it's not a colony, it's not part of the Commonwealth so not subject to its laws. On that, you'd be right.” She frowned then, “However, there are a lot of things that while not illegal are not right and should not be done, for a variety of reasons. Ethics for one. Diplomacy for two. Things that happen to matter to Governors just as much as the laws themselves. Details of which, I'll point, are more often out of the hands of the Governors themselves in a lot of cases.”

“Anyway,” the young woman shook her head, “What's your research subject here exactly? They're part of the Ecosentience, right?”

"They have names," Dr. Toh says.  "Otherwise it would be hard to keep track of them. And they are individuals, with individual differences.  Pia makes excellent tea.. I suspect using senses that are not yet present on any automated system.  Joey watches old movies.  I don't fully understand why."

With the mention of the Ecosentience is the first actual smile from Dr Toh... and all of the other beings seem suddenly very interested.

"Do you know about the Ecosentience?" he asks.  "I mean, apart from what they are teaching at the standard schools these days?  It is my life's work.  It is without a doubt the most alien of the life forms we know.  Not biologically so, it is still carbon based.  But psychologically.  Single entities thousands of kilometers across.  Communication has been nearly impossible, and understanding them... I have put decades into that.  It is like.. if bacteria were intelligent, how would they communicate with you?  How would they even realize that the blasts of air you expel through your mouth are forms of communication?  The scale differences between our lives, and the lives of the Ecosentience... how could that ever be overcome? And then, one day, something came to me. I mean that literally. Do you have time?"

"Do you mind if we do a quick security sweep of the place and determine if its safe enough for us to loose the suits. Then i can take on my role as normal cameraman and we can do this properly and well documented. I also think our boss might want to be present when you are going to do any big reveals. This story seesm to be her lifes work."

Listening to the explanation, Abe's shoulders loosen a touch, revealing tension he thought he had had under control. Everyone has stepped back from the brink, for now, and whilst Charles remains wary it is a sensible kind of wariness. He nods, approvingly, smiles as he catches himself treating his crewmate like one of his battalion. Those days are behind him

His eyes rove the module interior, "We have time, I think, Dr Toh. But our boss is the documentarist and it would be a better tale told with her present... if we can be confident of her safety"

“I know a bit more on the subject than many I'd wager.” Which wasn't saying much of course.

“I'd be delighted to be able to enjoy Pia's tea.” She said with a smile to answer the doctor's question about time, though she was much less sure than the other two that Lilana would want to come.

They do not mind Charles' "security sweep" although perhaps they see no real option. Dr. Toh sends along a couple of his.. whatever they are... to accompany him.  It seems odd, with Charles in full suit ambling along with the two beings in nothing more than light utility clothes, very simple clothing not meant for anything more than light use in comfortable environments.

The whole laboratory is about the size of six train cars- a small freighter could move the whole thing, assuming it could be easily extricated from its current position.  From what Charles can see, it's exactly that- modular, so the pieces could easily be separated, and the whole thing hauled off.  The modules are linked alongside a central corridor, itself a modular component.  It looks like something typical of the many, many habitats scattered across known space, built from a menu of common parts in a factory in a core system, dragged out here and set up.

Oddly, there doesn't seem to be much devoted to science, at least, the sort of thing Charles expects Science to look like, not being an expert on whatever is being studied here.  There is one section that looks like a medical facility.  Maybe more serious than the typical sick bay of a small ship, but less than even a minor hospital.

Much of the place looks like a school, especially one for younger children.  There are classrooms, lounges, activity and recreation areas.

Charles's companions are curious about him, and ask questions, like "What are you looking for?" and "Do you like this?" and "Does this make you happy?".  They seem uninterested in the equipment he is using, but very interested in his emotional state.


Toh, meanwhile, invites Liliana to the habitat, deciding that Abe is right- if she is in charge, she ought to be here.

He has his charges start on the tea, which, apparently, is prepared the "planetary way" and not as one might expect on a distant outpost: no powder, but real tea leaves to be infused into hot water.  He seems to consider this to be important.  He takes some time to oversee the beings as they set to work, and he is very proud when they do it correctly.

"You must know that communications with it has been a near impossible task," he says to Florence as they wait on Liliana and tea.  You may also know that in the vicinity of some of the Kayon settlements there have been strange sightings of creatures, including humanoids, that vanished when searchers tried to find them in the forest.  I came to the conclusion, the Ecosentience was trying to learn about us.  Approaching us on our scale, as we might use a tiny probe to investigate microbes. These were semi independent organisms- like our white blood cells, capable of independent action, but made for reconnaissance, not defense.  They could gather experiences on our scale, with senses that mimicked ours, but their independent lives were very short.  We've been evolving as independent organisms for billions of years, the Ecosentience was new to this and did not know how to keep them stable.  They collapsed into dying biomass quickly, and were reabsorbed.  In reabsorbing them, the Ecosentience would try to acquire some of their stored sensory memories.  But it had so little to go on.  Years, and it could not get it right.  So we started to help."

Charles does a thorough sweep of the place and as he does he answers the questions of these strange humans.

"Things that might be dangerous to me and my people. Hidden weapons or crew members with malicious intent. If there are things here that will not rhyme with your story and if your environment is safe for us seeing you have a security airlock. Are there for example particles in the air that explain why you are so docile under our visit."

For good measure he shows them the readings of his enviro scanner and what he is looking for slowly coming to terms that this might be that alien thing Florence was talking about but he clearly isn't entirely convinced. Probably because that concept is too far fetched for him. Human shaped aliens was just a no go.

"Do i like this? What do you mean? Searching this place to make sure my companions are safe? Or invading your private domain and ignoring that you have not yet done anything to deserve my actions?"

He chuckles dryly well aware of the irony as he goes through the medical facility just to see if there was anything out of the ordinary that might support the fact that these people where aliens. When they ask if this makes him happy he genuinely laughs.

"Not really but it pays the bills. I'd rather park my ass on a paradise world for a permanent vacation but i'm too poor for that."

He is still laughing when he finishes his round and rejoins the others.

"This place seems safe enough. I'd say you can loose the suit and enjoy their hospitality."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:24, Mon 21 June 2021.

"You don't trust me, but it is safe," Dr Toh agrees. "Safer here than anywhere else, the reason for your decontamination before coming in is the need to keep the interior of the habitat biologically secure until we are sure that our beings have sufficient resistance to pathogens."

By now everyone has noticed that the "beings" present always watch anyone speaking attentively, but they rarely show any sign of emotion.  Sometimes they'll smile if the speaker says something nice.  Anything technical results in only blank faces.

"I should tell you something important, because you might be drawing false conclusions," Dr. Toh says.  "Our standards of humanity are out of place here.  These are not humans, and they are not sentient as we understand sentience.  All these beings have short life spans.  Their bodies are not made to repair and sustain themselves like our.  They have senses like we do... their senses were copied from ours, deliberately, so they could experience our world... but their lives are short.  When they break down, the Ecosentience will absorb them, and try to access and understand the sensations and memories these beings have acquired.  They are meant to experience and die, though for the Ecosentience it is not death at all.  They are... I suppose we can say temporary avatars of it, living probes.  Not creatures with their own lives."

It is at this moment when Lilana gets through the decontamination procedures and comes aboard.  She introduces herself to Dr. Toh, and at first, to the various Ecosentience beings scattered around.  They smile.

"I've been listening in," she says.  "And now I'm trying to figure out what to do with the biggest story I've ever encountered."

Charles who had the feeling of having won a lot more then they bargained for with the revelation that they are now indeed having contact with the Ecosentience recalls all his drones to him to be able to get the most footage where it counts and takes on his role as cameraman for the group documenting the place and interviews.

Lilana is a professional.  She waits for the camera drones are in place, and maneuvers to make sure there is a clear shot of Dr Toh while she is speaking to him.

"One thing seems odd," Lilana says.  "I mean, it all seems odd, but something I don't understand.  If these creatures are a way for the Ecosentience to... to learn about us?  Communicate?  Why keep it a secret?  What's to gain from hiding?"


Dr. Toh sighs.  It's clear this question troubles him.


"It's not an official project," he says.

"There a lots of unofficial research projects," Lilana replies.  "They don't hide.  Not usually."

"I don't know," Toh says.  "Intellectual property rights?  Patents on the spin off technology?  The commercial and legal sides of this are not my domain, really.  I am just here overseeing their development, they do not tell me where they are going."

Charles taken on his roles as camera man now was just there to watch and record. He still kept an eye open for potential trouble but mostly he was doing his 'new' job now.

“You started to help.” Florence sighed, then shook her head, but didn't add anything for a while. After Lilana's questions though, she frowned.

“You might have a noble goal, but that doesn't mean those who finance this do. In fact, you can be pretty sure they do so because they see some gains in it. Maybe something as innocuous as wanting to be in the lead when the Ecosentience starts to trade, and even then...” She grimaced slightly, “I'm not sure 'innocuous' is the word for it.”

“But you cannot play the card of 'I'm just a scientist, I just do research'. No, ethically, you are as responsible as your patrons to whatever happens maybe even more so because you made the whole thing possible. You may not have looked too deep into it when they offered you that chance to do all this, which I presume you dreamed about for quite some time.”

“But that doesn't absolve you of whatever happens next. Hopefully, it'll be something good. But...” She waved around, “If that were the case...” She waved around, not so much at the tent but to indicate the moon, “Can you honestly tell me you are not worried about whatever they have planned? That as you go to sleep you never pause to consider that maybe everything is not right?”

“Don't take me wrong, I'd love to learn more about the Ecosentience. I have a... Well... Let's say 'alien studies' are a...sort of hobby of mine. For example, consider the impact a language can have, I would suggest not using English as the language to talk with them...or it...but droyne for whom the concept of individuality is much less predominant. It might allow you to better convey some ideas.”

She sighed, “I'm just concerned this is not done right. I mean what do you think our other alien allies will think of us? If it's not presented just the right way, it'd be a disaster. And that's if everything is respectful, ethical and so on.”

“And that too would be on you. Hell, you can be sure that if it does in fact go to hell, your patrons will throw you to the wolves in a hurry. At best. Who knows what else they'd do and the consequences that can have. Thankfully...” Florence paused, “Hopefully, it's not too late to make things right.”

“We can help. In good PR,” she waved at Lilana “if nothing else, and maybe some more...hmm...official...Recognition.” Maybe. Possibly. Though she couldn't promise anything... “But you need to be honest with us, stop hiding behind your 'I'm just a researcher' and face reality.”