To Boldly Go

Setting: Delison IV

• Wishing to find out how to get or make anti-Horror guns as used by Inon in the last episode, the crew set out for the temple of The Cult of the Ancients
• Visiting the temple of the Ancient cult, Hector examines the egg while Tyler examines his own naval
• Further information could possibly be found from Garth the Robot Race cult member, who is located on a archeological digsite on a sparsely populated world previously visited by Carson - Delison IV
• Going to that planet, the locals recognise the Lady Jane and mistake Tyler for Carson, wishing to venerate him in a week long celebration for his saving the colony in a previous adventure.
• Tyler successfully implies that he had complete facial reconstruction and is Carson under cover. The week long celebrations are curtailed to a dinner.

• Go to a town, the centre of which is a pub called Colliburg
• The ruins around the place are an Ancient settlement
• The streets are named after famous intergalactic universities
• The group are greeted by the academics saved in episode 2
• Meeting with Garth, he is disturbed to realise Inon has an Anti-Horror Gun, and does think that the organisation O2STK is a good organisation
• The ground shakes
• Something is found underground that's active. The academics are overjoyed.
• Everyone rushes towards the source. It's glowing and there are energy readings
• Eight interfaces with it and it posses her
• Hector helps stabilise Eight's brain
• An academic team from Altair are in the ruins. Garth shows a video of them there, and a member of the Robot Race coalescing out of the wall before the feed goes dead.
• Eight stops the ruin from purging the team as organic pests
• Eight forms a Borg collective with the other academics
• Eight forms a Borg collective with everyone
• Hector is plugged in
• Eight takes control of the gestalt and stops all the academics from pestering the system with requests
• Hector asks for a big weapon and is given a long crystal
• The ruin summons an Ancient Archive
• Garth was also acting as a servitor, and wanted to stay one
• A Robot Race invasion force is on its way and the military governor is worried.

• SB: Please don't hack the other PC's brain
• SB: The Robot Race is very big on Free Will
  MH: We can fix that

• The bounty hunter “Blackie” on board the ship (The Savage Chicken) the brothers Karl and Jack Haggard own and sent by O2STK to protect Eight and the planet she's on
• On the way they hear about the Robot Race invasion, the Archive Planet of the Robots on the way. The invasion fleet has a vanguard of Robot diplomats as they're keen on not creating too big a political incident
• Arriving at the town, past the makeshift blockade of whatever ships happened to be near the planet at the time (badly organised) they notice many bewildered academics with Ancient Tech implants doing not much and many new Robot Race type robots
• They find their way to the centre of the commotion, where Eight is with Dirk
• Blackie, Jack and Karl are unable to convince Eight to abandon the colony as the Robot Race would follow her and/or destroy the colony
• While talking to Eight, Lucky notices that Dirk has a tremendous amount of bounties on his head (and Eight too, but Blackie doesn't do escaped slaves)
• Unfortunately Dirk recognised Blackie as a bounty hunter, grabs Eight and runs
• Hector notices how panicked everyone is and uses the link to send out calming thoughts
• Eight and Dirk are cornered on top of a roof after being chased by Lucky and the brothers. Dirk asks Hector for help and Hector uses the link to summon the Lady Jane
• Lucky shows Dirk his orders and Dirk realises they've been recruited by O2STK. Hijinks stop ensuing. Everyone goes down to the pub
• Hector wants to use the machine to build things. Eight points out that it uses up resources. Making robots used up resources. Hector proposes recycling the built robots to give the machine back resources. And possibly the invading forces too could be recycled…
• Hector proposes that he rewrite the invading forces memories to tell them “mission accomplished”
• Eight realises that the Archive is far more valuable than the facility/machine and proposes we sneak in, use it to erase the memory of the archive from the Robot Race and send them on their way
• Dirk privately gives Hector a large data storage device and asks him to get as much valuable data as he can while there, just in case the Archive itself cannot be stolen
• Hector realises that mounting the crystal weapon given to him by the facility, with a Robot to fire it, it would be a ship destroying anti-Horror weapon
• Approaching the Robot fleet, thanks to Jack's flying and Hector's disguising the sensor readouts, the scouts are bypassed.
• Getting to the Archive Planet, it queries the identity of the ship. Hector fools the Archive into believing the ship is part of the Archive accidentally broken off somehow. The Archive is then very keen to have the ship dock.
• Entering the Archive, the group see maintenance types of Robot and various brains in jars. Apparently Robot brains are kept here to add their knowledge to the Archive if their body and personality is too damaged.
• One of the technicians queries the group as they approach. Eight uses her Ancient tech crown to confuse the technician which alerts the Archive as a whole that The Evil One (the hated Eight) is in this most sacred place. Alarms start. Eight is electronically attacked, robots start coming out of the walls
• Blackie uses his leadership to direct the defence. Jack uses his sword in defence of the group. Dirk sneaks off to the nexus where the viruses can be placed in the hopes of a tele-presence by Hector later (as he and Hector still have links). Hector hacks Eights brain to help her fight the Archive.
• The first wave of robots falls to pieces - all the clerical staff critically fail while Jack critically succeeds.
• Dirk vanishes
• The brains join together forming a large robot that shots a beam at Blackie
• Dirk's plugging in of the secret datastore is detected and walls slam down

• Dirk has +9 for burglary for putting viruses in the computer
• Hector has +9 for use on the viruses that were pre-programmed

• Jack and Karl Haggard are commissioned to transport a cargo of livestock to Yuil II, a small mining planet out on the rim.
• Well, I say livestock. Actually, a breeding colony of cats.
• They are also contracted to take Mr Smith - Kaine travelling incognito, following rumours of psychic technology.
• The Savage Chicken is hailed by a mysterious space station, in orbit around the planet.
• Life signs are strange and confusing - one mind in three locations?
• The planetary authorities deny all knowledge of the space station.
• Retired miner Fredd takes delivery of the cats - and tells of strange rumours of a haunted station.
• Jack investigates the station, and finds that all is not as it should be. There are long-buried stories of secret experiments by the Planetary Mining Concern - and recent rumours of a mysterious ship visiting the station.
• The Savage Chicken receives a commission: ferry the militia to the space station to investigate.
• The mysterious ship returns - and the station begs for help.
• Karl takes the lead, and heads for the bridge.
• An agent of the Horrors is trying to take control of the station - and its long-slumbering AI. This is Lakshmi, a human whose brain has been destructively uploaded onto the ship's computer.
• The agent is dealt with, and Karl rescues Lakshmi.
• The station is to be decommissioned - without its secret brain.

• The Black Agent distracts the robots, by charging at them.
• Jack and Karl head towards Richter.
• Richter has [the_score_of_his_career] and leaps off the [secure_tower_facility] to escape the [planetary_authorities].
• Karl finds the archive memory core - but no Richter.
• At the advice of his [trusted_mentor], Richter attempts to break off communication with the party. Karl finds Richter encased in crystal within the archive core.
• Blackie faces a robot snake.
• Trusted Mentor (also known as Robot/ert) asks Richter and Karl for their motives, and gets conflicting data.
• Jack proves to be a source of bad data, at least by metaphors.
• [trusted_mentor] asks Richter what his intentions are.
• Trusted Mentor is convinced to delete [planet] from the Archive, to prevent a war.
• Blackie, Lakshmi and Hector's cannon offer some further persuasion.
• The robot fleet orbits the [error_no_data] for a week, then leaves. The Ancient facility is shut down completely, to save the planet.

• The academic robots don't want the non-sentient to go away as they make them uncomfortable
• Rhea the farseer finds a Horror in civilised space
• There are about 40 braindead crystal robots
• Message is sent to O2STK to pick up the extra robots, taking 6-10 onboard to use as backup crew/tele-prescences
• Blackie comes from a world desolated by war, his home city was nuked
• The Lady Jane is not sentient
• Some of the academics want some of the waldos left behind to study
• Hector starts making bodyscans of the crew of the Lady Jane in order to make robot replicas
• The planet that the Horrors are purportedly impinging has a good line in biotech research
• The jumpgate to the planet Brannigan's Drift has been closed for plague, about 28 hours.
• The Lady Jane jumps in anyway
• Thirteen's ship is in the system and emitting a distress call
• Her ship's crew is infected with the Zombie Apocalypse virus
• Blackie has an armoured vacsuit and thinks he should go over first to pacify the area while the more sciencey types come in behind
• Some of the other infected ships in the system start taking notice of the Lady Jane
• Blackie and Richter synchronise spacewalk over to the Lucky for Some ship followed by Hector
• The airlock cycles, there is a zombie on the other side. Richter asks Thirteen to turn off the gravity and the zombie floats
• The zombies are scanned by Hector who determines it's some kind of nanotech in the brain stem that's overriding their higher functions and releasing hormones throughout the body.
• Blackie and Dirk head deeper in the ship
• The passengers are male clones
• The plague takes some time to show symptoms as the nanotech accretes on the brain stem
• Just in case the vacsuits aren't as impervious as he likes, Hector scans Dirk and Blackie's brains
• Something does a massive psychic assault on Tyler. He tries to trace their source and thinks there may be some kind of directing intelligence behind it. However he is able to determine where the Horror probably is - a research station with a hundred crew.
• Hector scans the non-zombie crew of the Lucky for Some. Three of the crew,including Thirteen and Connie are half infected.
• Hector works out a way to slow the progress of the plague.
• Best choices are brain surgery or the cryosleep chambers
• The pilot goes zombie and hits Dirk into the airlock

• GM: When a system has a plague, commercial traffic is shut down, they assume free travellers would stay away
• MA: Except for us
• PC: And Plague System Tours, of course

• RM: Let's go take out zombies
• PC: That's the new franchise
• RM: I'll have a zombie with cheese and some fries

• The Savage Chicken arrives
• Blackie tries to restrain the zombie pilot
• Tyler uses the Shank Retrieval Claw to grab the involuntarily spacewalking Dirk
• The Anti Horror Gun would cause brain damage in zombies, so best not to hit them
• Jack and Kurt try to scan the Research Station in an attempt to find exactly where the Horror is, so it alone can be targeted.
• The Savage Chicken fires
• Numan from the station contacts Jack and asks them to stop firing at the station
• The Lady Jane receives a signal from the planet - bad news - one of the neighbouring systems is massing a war fleet to contain the contagion. They should arrive within 24 hours
• Blackie uses his stunner on the pilot
• Numan tells the SC crew that the zombies are helping them against the Horror
• Hector tries surgery on the pilot first
• Jack reports status to Tyler. Apparently Numan has been threatening Jack with repercussions
• The nanotech is a combination of local human tech and ancient tech - designed to go to the brain and perform healing tasks from there. Hector hacks their scanning programming so they can't distinguish the brain from other kinds of organic matter and has them move to a lump of raw steak held at the back of the neck
• The research station invented the zombie nanotech and is a cloning station. The clones were clones of the scientists
• Apparently Thirteen also stole some cargo pods from the station when liberating the clones
• Hector cures Thirteen - her brain is quite interesting and Hector makes a few scans
• Jack and Kurt argue with their ship
• Hector's suit was damaged in the scuffle and may be infected
• Rather than helping Connie, Hector goes with Blackie to check out the stolen cargo pods on the Lucky for Some
• Tyler makes a deal with Numan for stopping Jack from attacking the station, death of Thirteen, return of clones and cargo pods
• Tyler gets Jack to stop firing and takes some of the money from Numan
• Tyler redocks with Lucky for Some
• Tyler uses the claw to retrieve the cargo pods
• The Horror is trying to control minds but may be blocked by nanobots
• Hector changes into a fresher suit before investigating the pods
• Tyler tries to mentally combat the Horror - and doesn't do so well for quite a while. The Horror overconfident, is then overwhelmed and Tyler determines its location. He has a massive headache
• Jack and Kurt shoot the Horror on an asteroid
• Hector finds lots of lovely nanotech and brain surgery machines in the cargo pods
• Hector knocks out Connie, injects her with reprogrammed nanobots which clear up up her zombie infection. Connie wakes up and is not pleased - she wanted brain surgery not to be injected with even more nanobots.
• Hector warns that Connie that any violent act against him may cause an aneurism
• Tyler flies to the station and with Numan's instruction directs the crew where to enter to get to the life support in order to circulate the anti-nanobots
• The station is boarded, zombies are stunned and/or foamed and antinanobots are put into the life support.
• The folk on the station are folk from Omicon Persei 8
• Numan is rescued, Hector fakes a scan of him, that he's infected in order to inject him with a “cure” - actually a anaesthetic so he can be locked up
• The station is cured, and after a few hours, the liquids and solids collected from the ex-zombies are harvested for more anti-nanobots
• Tyler contacts the Space Patrol about Numan and hands him over outside of the system. Dropping him off at a space station that the Space Patrol is also going to dock at. Numan offers Tyler a job. Numan transfers funds and walks out onto the station straight into the arms of the Space Patrol
• The Space Patrol had a bounty out on this guy and also pays Tyler

• Cryopod aspect - anything is better than using the cryopods
• Brains operated on two
• Research station cargopods provide brain/nanotech lab resources

• Tyler: We need to look around the research station and see what they should not be allowed. They shouldn't be able to create zombies
• Hector: Yeah, that should be handled by professionals