The Legacy of the Ancients

Setting: Deep space near Mauthus II

• Scene 1: A Mission
  • The Mauthus II civilian government asks the team to investigate an Ancient hulk, drifting in deep space.
• Scene 2: A Vessel
  • The team investigates the hulk, pausing only to alarm a team of adventurous archaeologists.
  • After all this time, there is still power in the hulk: there is gravity, and atmosphere, and … something sinister.
  • As the team is investigating what might be the bridge, a robot vessel appears.

• Scene 1: Tense negotiations
  • The robots offer an ultimatum to the academics - leave the ship before it is destroyed.
  • xiao_ling and jon_hector offer their assistance; eric_carson offers his.
  • Carson's friend Garth provides some background.
• Scene 2: Desperate explorations
  • The team goes treasure hunting.
  • Xiao Ling is a “source of bad data”.
  • Carson is reminded of past events.
  • After discussing priorities, Hector connects kaine's brain to the ship.
• Scene 3: The Ancients' Future
  • Kaine welcomes the robot invaders to the ship.
  • Richter and Hector stage a heist - stealing the Ancient's “egg” from under the Horror's nose.
  • Garth prepares to sacrifice himself; Ling has a better idea.
  • With the last of its energy, the ship forces the robots to destroy the Horror - and itself.
  • The team is left holding the baby.

• Scene 1: Not so tense negotiations
  • Xiao, Kaine, Dirk and Eric discuss possible futures for the egg with regards to the Cult of the Rebirth of the Ancients (who are Fab) and the Space Academics lead by Doctor Curruthers.
  • The idea of burying it on a forgotten planet is discarded on the chance the egg may influence evolution on that planet.
  • The final plan involves giving the egg to Garth and his religion, while making a decoy to leave in space and full the academics.
• Scene 2: Not so desperate explorations
  • Jon builds a decoy that is painted black and left in space. Of the nine successes in its characteristics (although not decided at the time), they are distributed: first stat (can't remember): 4, Speed to build: 3, Time to fool folk: 2
  • The Lady Jane stops in deep space, does some EVA, drops off the egg, then carries on to drop off the academics at Atrius
  • Eric decides to join Garth's religion, and in fact decides the entire crew does.
  • Before the egg or Garth can be dropped off, a distress signal is heard
• Scene 3: Not so pirate rescue
  • A number of “I can't believe it's not military” pirate fighters attack and board a passenger ship near an asteroid belt.
  • With Science! the Lady Jane does a passing impression of a fleet of Robot Race ships complete with commander, frightening off most of the “pirates” although a boarding party remains on the passenger ship.
  • Xiao, Kaine and Dirk EVA to the ship - Xiao is injured by the antipersonel turret of the docked “pirate” ship as it leaves.
  • During the battle to reclaim the bridge, the “pirate” commander is captured through a daring leap from Dirk, while Xiao goes down in a hail of plot driven fire.

• Scene 1: Sneaking through space
  • traveling via commercial jumpgates the ship gets stuck in a long line at the last one.
• Scene 2: Queue Jumping
  • a hijacked passenger ship attempts to crash into the jumpgate
  • with precision shooting and hacked communications the ship is stopped and boarded by o2stk rather than jump police.
  • cyberwoman from OP8 leaves decompressed bridge and heads to jumpgate through EVA travel.
• Scene 3: Confrontation in the Jump Gate
  • possessed cyberwoman had chip containing pupae of Horror which jumped to a local jumpgate crewmember when she was stopped.

• The egg is delivered to Garth's cult.
• Carson spends some time alone.
• The party is asked to leave, for the sake of the harmony of the universe.

• Jon Hector: Now, the signal to have me remove the device from your brain, is to bleed through your nose.
• Jon Hector: A scientist, a doctor and a thief EVA into a passenger ship…
• Jon Hector: She is what we call in the Section a “class C”
  Dirk Richter: I think she's a class B (for Batshit Insane)

• Jon Hector was able to link someone's brain (Kaine) to an unknown ancient alien ship FOR SCIENCE! Thus saving the day in a speedier fashion than the usual thwarting of the pushing back of the boundaries of things we were not meant to fiddle with, that occurs.
  • Lacking the time and material to produce Archeologist Drop Pods in order to dispense academics from high orbit, Jon was nevertheless capable of producing an entire Robot Race attack fleet from thin air (or space, to be precise) thanks to holograms and scanner jiggery pokery.