My name is Walter Montgomery MacGibson, and this is my story. I was born and raised in an experimental biosphere on earth. The project was started in 2052 and construction was finished in 2064. The aim was to make self contained ecosystems to open up habitation to previously thought uninhabitable locations as an alternative to the then inefficient interplanetary colonization as a means of combating overpopulation.
Although there were several nations involved with the project, the vast majority was contributed by the USA. The Genesis Complex, the place of my birth, was located deep in the Mariana Trench. With a population of 150,000, at a depth of over 10 kilometers, the complex was a technological and engineering marvel that knew no rival.
Eventually contact was lost with the surface. The last transmission received was a news clip in 2105. The USA had dissolved. With out communication with the station it was eventually forgotten....
Ha ha, I had you goin' didn't I? Did you actually think I was from Earth? I don't think anyone has made it off of that radioactive rock in decades! Here's my real story. Not nearly as exciting, but you can't have everything.
Saying I'm from earth isn't TOO far off. I'm actually from Luna. Due to the low gravity I didn't grow as tall and my muscles didn't develop nearly as well as they could have. However I was gifted with a keen mind, and I made use of it. I graduated from high school at the age of 12 and got a full ride scholarship at API on Europa. I spent the next several years learning all I could. By my 22nd birthday I had four masters degrees; a Masters in Chemistry, a Masters in Computer Engineering, a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, and a Masters in Business. With my education in hand I decided to head back to Luna to make a name for myself and started MacGibson Electronics, Inc.
My first venture failed horribly. As it turns out people have this notion in their head that a Scott couldn't know much about technology. With this newfound wisdom I decided to start a new company, Armitage Robotics and Cybernetics, or ARC. To avoid the stigma of my heritage I take it to Nippon. Who in their right mind would question a Japanese technology company?
Apparently nobody. Business boomed. With a focus on miniaturization many advances were made with regards to both a civil and military technology. Ironically, one of my crowning inventions utilized many obsolete technology. Mr. Sandman.
Mr. Sandman is a prototype military droid that makes use of an older/cheaper/hardier robot frame, take your pick. By combining this old technology and applying recent advances to it I was able to make a monster. Able to unleash out an extraordinary amount of ordinance in a short period of time makes Mr. Sandman a terror on the battlefield. Unfortunately the design was too expensive for it to be a "practical soldier replacement" and was never bought into. Could they be so stupid!? This would not replace soldiers, but replace entire squadrons! I decided to take the prototype model and enhance it further, add in parts that made it even more "impractical" and make it my own, personal bodyguard.
It's been 10 years since I founded ARC and I've found myself getting... bored. So I decided to retire (while maintaining 51% ownership of ARC, of course) and go have some fun! Luckily it didn't take me long to find the Rubato, and now that I've joined the crew I couldn't be happier... other than the fact that I've had to completely repair Mr. Sandman TWICE now. I think I'll have to leave him on the ship from now on. I think I'll bring along cheaper robots from now on.
I'm not much of a journal keeper, but if anything important comes up I'll make a report of it.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Rubato Tales 6: Enter Sandman, exit Sandman...
Rubato Tales STELLARDATE 111808: Enter Sandman, Exit Sandman...
After our clean up of the mess on Nippon(Note to self-never ever take another bribe for any reason!) Maggie took us back to Mars to deliver some cargo and then to Ceres again to meet up with our next shipment, which was going to be there several days after we arrived.
Hoowoo, vacation time!
For reasons I am not quite certain of to this day we all decided to go to the Deathdome to watch some Exteme Battle Matches. Three of my lady friends from our last trip joined me, Angeliqie, Shawnee and Desore and we were having quite the fun time watching various modern day Spartacus's eviscerate each other when Wally's spybots on the ship informed him it was under attack. And so were we!
Several thugs in the more than rowdy crowd decided to attack us at that point in time and after some fisticuffs and weapons fire they fled through the crowd just as Maggie collapsed to the ground. We quickly headed back to the ship to check up on her and it.
Now at this point I should mention that I had the suspicion since my chat with Maggie on Nippon that there was some sort of connection between her and this ship, I even suspected she was an avatar of it, perhaps some for of AI, which turned out to be fairly close to the truth, but I am getting ahead of myself here. The Doc determined that she was definitely suffering from some sort of loss of mental power and Zechs and Wally detailed that a certain not-particlular-important looking bit of computer gear was all that was missing. Oh that and his robot Mr. Sandman had killed two of the intruders down in the hold.
Doc salivated at the chance to autopsy something else and Maria and I went to see if we could track down those responsible. We naturally suspected Haddington Industries but could find no direct lead to them. Instead we both discovered that a security company named Magnus was apparently responsible for the theft, I from checking out surveillance tapes and Maria I am not quite sure how, Magnus, who was apparently a high end security contractor had an office in the bad part of Ceres near the core named 14C. Meanwhile Doc had determined that the intruders were half cybernetic half biological killing machines! They had no skin but were various organs grafted into their combat suits and were definitely more advanced that even most experimental modern tech would allow, the only things that matched them seemed to be some known Evolvist designs. Weird, Evolvists are not known for attacking people.
Meanwhile Maggie had managed to come around and decided it was time to fill us in on some information.
Apparently her father and Everard Schmidt had worked together on doing some projects for Sol B, the Evolvist Colony far out in the Sol System. They had some sort of falling out and the upshot of it was that her body was killed while she was still and child and her mind was uploaded into the Rubato's computer system. She later learned how to manufacture her body and had become accustomed to having the human avatar and computer link. This did explain her tendency to dislike leaving the Rubato for any length of time and also why she was acting so odd, as a large part of her onboard systems and memory were what was stolen.
Naturally we all felt that we had to get this back ASAP and at all costs.
So we loaded up on the firearms and made our way to Magnus, intent on recovering Maggies brainbox no matter what.
I thought I was well armed for such an excursion as Maggie had fabricated energy weapons and combat armor for us but boy was I in for a shock.
Maria insisted on trying to talk to Magnus first and went in to chat with the robotic secretary.
She returned a few minutes later mumbling things that would cause most dockworkers to bow their heads in shame at hearing spoken. Apparently she never got beyond the front desk.
We then decided to try another approach.
While my remotes could not penetrate the Magnus compound they did find the back door into it and what we concluded must be the emergency escape exit as it lead to the surface and had a few well secured vacuum doors sealed shut as its only entrance.
After some fiddling I managed to get my nanobots inside it to open one of the pressure doors and we carefully made our way up to Magnus's base.
Once we got to the base they asked if I could similarly open the back door there, but alas I had used up nearly all my nanobots on the first door. So we used explosives.
The fight that ensued was a massive affair, all I remember doing was taking a few pot shots and then running across the room and trying to find Magnus or Maggie's parts while VERY large amounts of heavy fire permeated the room.
I remember Tyson bashing things, Maria unloosing barrages of laser fire, and Wally's robot, Mr. Sandman, firing off several barrages of missiles that seemed to blow up an awful lot of things, such as other robots, robotic secretaries, doors, walls and several cyber-warriors. It was both impressive and terrifying. Good thing we were in the bad part of Ceres!
Doc had stayed behind at the ship to oversee Maggie's health but other than that the rest of the team seems far better equipped, armed and skilled at combat than I, eh, each to their own.
I did manage to find Maggie's parts but the rest of the computers and information had apparently been wiped. Magnus succeeding in escaping after blowing up Mr Sandman, although judging by my friends comments apparently Mr. Sandman did quite a bit of damage before going boom!
We quickly hustled back to the ship and restored Maggie's bits, Doc and Wally used some schematics that got brought up and while I helped them mostly I just ended up handing off tools and clearing clutter. Nevertheless Maggie was restored to 100% functionality and while Magnus and whomever had hired him remained a mystery at least we had learned quite a bit more about our boss, her history and that of the ship as well. Good enough for one day!
Postscript: This adventure did serve to remind me of some facts about my childhood, Mom and Da told me that I had been found in an unusual escape pod and showed me records of it. When I return to New Wellington I will have to look those up. Why might you ask, well the parts and pieces of Evolvist technology we encountered in this last episode on Ceres seemed to bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the technology shown in those pictures. Very curious. Will have to check it out.
After our clean up of the mess on Nippon(Note to self-never ever take another bribe for any reason!) Maggie took us back to Mars to deliver some cargo and then to Ceres again to meet up with our next shipment, which was going to be there several days after we arrived.
Hoowoo, vacation time!
For reasons I am not quite certain of to this day we all decided to go to the Deathdome to watch some Exteme Battle Matches. Three of my lady friends from our last trip joined me, Angeliqie, Shawnee and Desore and we were having quite the fun time watching various modern day Spartacus's eviscerate each other when Wally's spybots on the ship informed him it was under attack. And so were we!
Several thugs in the more than rowdy crowd decided to attack us at that point in time and after some fisticuffs and weapons fire they fled through the crowd just as Maggie collapsed to the ground. We quickly headed back to the ship to check up on her and it.
Now at this point I should mention that I had the suspicion since my chat with Maggie on Nippon that there was some sort of connection between her and this ship, I even suspected she was an avatar of it, perhaps some for of AI, which turned out to be fairly close to the truth, but I am getting ahead of myself here. The Doc determined that she was definitely suffering from some sort of loss of mental power and Zechs and Wally detailed that a certain not-particlular-important looking bit of computer gear was all that was missing. Oh that and his robot Mr. Sandman had killed two of the intruders down in the hold.
Doc salivated at the chance to autopsy something else and Maria and I went to see if we could track down those responsible. We naturally suspected Haddington Industries but could find no direct lead to them. Instead we both discovered that a security company named Magnus was apparently responsible for the theft, I from checking out surveillance tapes and Maria I am not quite sure how, Magnus, who was apparently a high end security contractor had an office in the bad part of Ceres near the core named 14C. Meanwhile Doc had determined that the intruders were half cybernetic half biological killing machines! They had no skin but were various organs grafted into their combat suits and were definitely more advanced that even most experimental modern tech would allow, the only things that matched them seemed to be some known Evolvist designs. Weird, Evolvists are not known for attacking people.
Meanwhile Maggie had managed to come around and decided it was time to fill us in on some information.
Apparently her father and Everard Schmidt had worked together on doing some projects for Sol B, the Evolvist Colony far out in the Sol System. They had some sort of falling out and the upshot of it was that her body was killed while she was still and child and her mind was uploaded into the Rubato's computer system. She later learned how to manufacture her body and had become accustomed to having the human avatar and computer link. This did explain her tendency to dislike leaving the Rubato for any length of time and also why she was acting so odd, as a large part of her onboard systems and memory were what was stolen.
Naturally we all felt that we had to get this back ASAP and at all costs.
So we loaded up on the firearms and made our way to Magnus, intent on recovering Maggies brainbox no matter what.
I thought I was well armed for such an excursion as Maggie had fabricated energy weapons and combat armor for us but boy was I in for a shock.
Maria insisted on trying to talk to Magnus first and went in to chat with the robotic secretary.
She returned a few minutes later mumbling things that would cause most dockworkers to bow their heads in shame at hearing spoken. Apparently she never got beyond the front desk.
We then decided to try another approach.
While my remotes could not penetrate the Magnus compound they did find the back door into it and what we concluded must be the emergency escape exit as it lead to the surface and had a few well secured vacuum doors sealed shut as its only entrance.
After some fiddling I managed to get my nanobots inside it to open one of the pressure doors and we carefully made our way up to Magnus's base.
Once we got to the base they asked if I could similarly open the back door there, but alas I had used up nearly all my nanobots on the first door. So we used explosives.
The fight that ensued was a massive affair, all I remember doing was taking a few pot shots and then running across the room and trying to find Magnus or Maggie's parts while VERY large amounts of heavy fire permeated the room.
I remember Tyson bashing things, Maria unloosing barrages of laser fire, and Wally's robot, Mr. Sandman, firing off several barrages of missiles that seemed to blow up an awful lot of things, such as other robots, robotic secretaries, doors, walls and several cyber-warriors. It was both impressive and terrifying. Good thing we were in the bad part of Ceres!
Doc had stayed behind at the ship to oversee Maggie's health but other than that the rest of the team seems far better equipped, armed and skilled at combat than I, eh, each to their own.
I did manage to find Maggie's parts but the rest of the computers and information had apparently been wiped. Magnus succeeding in escaping after blowing up Mr Sandman, although judging by my friends comments apparently Mr. Sandman did quite a bit of damage before going boom!
We quickly hustled back to the ship and restored Maggie's bits, Doc and Wally used some schematics that got brought up and while I helped them mostly I just ended up handing off tools and clearing clutter. Nevertheless Maggie was restored to 100% functionality and while Magnus and whomever had hired him remained a mystery at least we had learned quite a bit more about our boss, her history and that of the ship as well. Good enough for one day!
Postscript: This adventure did serve to remind me of some facts about my childhood, Mom and Da told me that I had been found in an unusual escape pod and showed me records of it. When I return to New Wellington I will have to look those up. Why might you ask, well the parts and pieces of Evolvist technology we encountered in this last episode on Ceres seemed to bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the technology shown in those pictures. Very curious. Will have to check it out.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Anaraugs' Diary: Entry Three
I had an interesting adventure last week. Turns out that the only person that I can really trust is an honest criminal, and unfortunately for me the number of those kind of people on the ship seems to be diminishing. I can't even trust myself anymore. And although I like to think that me and my companions are completely legitimate, the truth is that we have on more then one occasion been involved in not 100% legally congruent activities. Oh well, at least I'm not working for some high profile corporation like tajih t Tajihiro... Mr T. Goddamn it writing this stuff is hard. I'm supposed to the smart one, why do I have to put up with this crap? And why couldn't they have been Chinese? I can at least speak Chinese. A full report has been enclosed in the sealed envelope opposite. What I could not procure a hard copy of has been filled in with what I believe to be a reasonable extrapolation of the events. Also, just for the record, you've got to be one stone cold bastard to kill your own father, whether your successful or not.
Episode 5: Corporate Espionage on Nippon.
So the Rubato makes her way to Nippon after the brief and amusing stop over at the sludge ball of plasma leeches and Popsicle people. It is wonderful to get back to civilization; clean baths, hot showers, good food, antibiotics, directed marketing spam barely filtered by your cybernetic firewall....
It seemed to be a milk run. Set down deliver some data and furniture then catch a show or whatever the crew does to relax in civilization. But nothing is ever that easy. AS it turns out, the data delivery was subverted. Jacques and Aerick misrouted the delivery based on a bribe offer from root@sapporo.net.
Aerick returned to the Rubato and told Captain Platt of what had happened. Jacques.... jumped ship. The group was forced to go inform Nashuro Tadjusumi of Tadjusumi Industries what had happened. Mr.Tadjusumi saw fit to not prosecute the group, rather hire them as an action team to track down who was undermining his corporation.
This lead to significant amounts of investigation and misdirection. On further research the group found out that the payment and initial contact was routed through – thanks to the expert hacking team lead by Ninjasatui Hostings There were two interesting results of all of this - the account that had been responsible for the payments and the misdirection was owned by onreJames Tadjusumi, and an employing of Haddington Industries blew up the secure server farm of Manjasuro Consultings.
Of course, one of the interesting asides of all of this was that Aerick was investigated for fraud as random bytes of credits were being added and subtracted from his bank account forcing his holding company to freeze his assets for a time.
In the end, the party confronted James Tadjusumiin a local tea shop. There was significant opportunity for mayhem, but in the end they decided to back off in exchange for the release of Aericks assets. Having escaped by a hair's width from violence, the group reported their findings to Nashuro Tadjusumi – who promised to have a conversation with his son.
A few days later, Tadjusumi Industries announced a new self-repairing carbon-fiber which sent its stock soaring. One would assume that Nashuro and James came to some sort of agreement.
It seemed to be a milk run. Set down deliver some data and furniture then catch a show or whatever the crew does to relax in civilization. But nothing is ever that easy. AS it turns out, the data delivery was subverted. Jacques and Aerick misrouted the delivery based on a bribe offer from root@sapporo.net.
Aerick returned to the Rubato and told Captain Platt of what had happened. Jacques.... jumped ship. The group was forced to go inform Nashuro Tadjusumi of Tadjusumi Industries what had happened. Mr.Tadjusumi saw fit to not prosecute the group, rather hire them as an action team to track down who was undermining his corporation.
This lead to significant amounts of investigation and misdirection. On further research the group found out that the payment and initial contact was routed through – thanks to the expert hacking team lead by Ninjasatui Hostings There were two interesting results of all of this - the account that had been responsible for the payments and the misdirection was owned by onreJames Tadjusumi, and an employing of Haddington Industries blew up the secure server farm of Manjasuro Consultings.
Of course, one of the interesting asides of all of this was that Aerick was investigated for fraud as random bytes of credits were being added and subtracted from his bank account forcing his holding company to freeze his assets for a time.
In the end, the party confronted James Tadjusumiin a local tea shop. There was significant opportunity for mayhem, but in the end they decided to back off in exchange for the release of Aericks assets. Having escaped by a hair's width from violence, the group reported their findings to Nashuro Tadjusumi – who promised to have a conversation with his son.
A few days later, Tadjusumi Industries announced a new self-repairing carbon-fiber which sent its stock soaring. One would assume that Nashuro and James came to some sort of agreement.
Friday, November 14, 2008
New Luxury Toroid With Open Slots in Earth System!
Feeling uprooted? Disconnected from our ancestral home? Or perhaps you are an Academic researching the Exodus? Or perhaps you just want to be closer to the Earth System Fab Arrays at oen of the Earth System Lagrange points run from The Nation Of Luna?
Whatever your reason, Hilton Toroid Industries is pleased to announce the opening of Toroid 15 at the Lunar L5 point. Live in luxury only minutes from the main L4 and L5 fab regions, and in general proximity to Mars and Venus – all the while with the amazing view of Earth always available.
Many sites still available! Order today!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Rubato Tales 4: Tyson's Worm
Rubato Tales STELLARDATE 110408: Tyson's Worms
After leaving Grunweld we skipped to Mars and dropped off some cargo. Next we were on our way to make a deliver of information to Nippon and we skipped into the LAC9532 system. Maggie had acquired some information that an extralegal, or wildcat, mining operation existed on one of the slushballs that orbited the red dwarf star.
We found the facility easily enough and made our explorations. Maggie checked out the containers and Jacques went to investigate the processing plant while Doc and I hacked the living habitats airlock. Nothing particularly interesting was found outside so we all entered, except for Zechs who flew around outside in his mech. Inside my remote discovered a throughly empty base except for a locked room in the back. We made our way there and discovered a disturbing scene. Apparently 10 of the miners had somehow gotten involved with some sort of Heaven's Gate space alien/comet death cult writing and the Doc smiled as yet more autopsies were about to occur.
We left him to investigate the bodies and Zechs went to find out where the tractor the miners used had gotten to, which should also be were the other missing miners were. His trek took him to a crevasse and a cave where he found the other 15 locals all whom were simply standing at the end of the cavern itself. They were also, and sadly, quite dead.
Jacques, Maria and I busied ourselves with looting while Tyson went to track down some of the rarer electronics. The Doc revealed that the found holes in the bottom of the feet and suits of the dead and Zechs confirmed the same at his location among the 15 locals he discovered. This made us all examine our feet and it was then that Tyson yelped!
Gunfire erupted from the computer room and Tyson was screaming about being attacked by parts of the electronics!
It seems that somehow whatever it was that got out of the people had grown and developed a taste for metals! This quickly made me think that some sort of silicon lifeform might be involved and our later investigations would bear this out. In the immediate future however we had a gunfight with blue colored plasma spewing space eels! It seems the 10 people inside each had one of these little terrors burrowing around inside them, which, at least, explained the loonie death cult they had invented.
As we tried to make our way to the airlock plasma shots erupted from nearly every airvent, electrical conduit and doorway. Their was a LOT of weapons fire next, sadly my talents in such regards are poor and while able to shield myself and Jacques for a bit it was mostly due to the rest of the crews marksmanship talents that we survived. At the end the critters were all slain, one by being slapped around by Tyson no less!
The Doc took this one and ran off to his makeshift lab to attempt to revive it, apparently, while I collected sample of the odd lifeform. It must be worth something to someone I figured. Doc was also able to confirm that the lifeform was native to the deuterium rich slush and was indeed a silicon based lifeform. Would make a great genetic source for plasma weapons I guessed. The larvae were endemic in the slush and this explained the behavior of the last 15 colonists who were controlled by the space eels and taken to a migration route.
More gunfire erupted from the lab and the Doc reported he had succeeded in reviving it and then Javques blew it apart before it killed them both. One wonders about Doc sometimes. He did decided to name it “Tyson's Worm” after its discoverer, at least the first one to live.
Now knowing what to look out for we gathered what was valuable and making sure to not drink anything from the planet we took off and headed for Nippon where we were able to make a routine Information Mail delivery without further ado. Jacques wanted to help out with the transfer and we split the security code between the two of us I sure hope he entered his half properly but hey he's a fellow crewman, we have to trust each other!
After leaving Grunweld we skipped to Mars and dropped off some cargo. Next we were on our way to make a deliver of information to Nippon and we skipped into the LAC9532 system. Maggie had acquired some information that an extralegal, or wildcat, mining operation existed on one of the slushballs that orbited the red dwarf star.
We found the facility easily enough and made our explorations. Maggie checked out the containers and Jacques went to investigate the processing plant while Doc and I hacked the living habitats airlock. Nothing particularly interesting was found outside so we all entered, except for Zechs who flew around outside in his mech. Inside my remote discovered a throughly empty base except for a locked room in the back. We made our way there and discovered a disturbing scene. Apparently 10 of the miners had somehow gotten involved with some sort of Heaven's Gate space alien/comet death cult writing and the Doc smiled as yet more autopsies were about to occur.
We left him to investigate the bodies and Zechs went to find out where the tractor the miners used had gotten to, which should also be were the other missing miners were. His trek took him to a crevasse and a cave where he found the other 15 locals all whom were simply standing at the end of the cavern itself. They were also, and sadly, quite dead.
Jacques, Maria and I busied ourselves with looting while Tyson went to track down some of the rarer electronics. The Doc revealed that the found holes in the bottom of the feet and suits of the dead and Zechs confirmed the same at his location among the 15 locals he discovered. This made us all examine our feet and it was then that Tyson yelped!
Gunfire erupted from the computer room and Tyson was screaming about being attacked by parts of the electronics!
It seems that somehow whatever it was that got out of the people had grown and developed a taste for metals! This quickly made me think that some sort of silicon lifeform might be involved and our later investigations would bear this out. In the immediate future however we had a gunfight with blue colored plasma spewing space eels! It seems the 10 people inside each had one of these little terrors burrowing around inside them, which, at least, explained the loonie death cult they had invented.
As we tried to make our way to the airlock plasma shots erupted from nearly every airvent, electrical conduit and doorway. Their was a LOT of weapons fire next, sadly my talents in such regards are poor and while able to shield myself and Jacques for a bit it was mostly due to the rest of the crews marksmanship talents that we survived. At the end the critters were all slain, one by being slapped around by Tyson no less!
The Doc took this one and ran off to his makeshift lab to attempt to revive it, apparently, while I collected sample of the odd lifeform. It must be worth something to someone I figured. Doc was also able to confirm that the lifeform was native to the deuterium rich slush and was indeed a silicon based lifeform. Would make a great genetic source for plasma weapons I guessed. The larvae were endemic in the slush and this explained the behavior of the last 15 colonists who were controlled by the space eels and taken to a migration route.
More gunfire erupted from the lab and the Doc reported he had succeeded in reviving it and then Javques blew it apart before it killed them both. One wonders about Doc sometimes. He did decided to name it “Tyson's Worm” after its discoverer, at least the first one to live.
Now knowing what to look out for we gathered what was valuable and making sure to not drink anything from the planet we took off and headed for Nippon where we were able to make a routine Information Mail delivery without further ado. Jacques wanted to help out with the transfer and we split the security code between the two of us I sure hope he entered his half properly but hey he's a fellow crewman, we have to trust each other!
Rubato Tales 3: Grunweld-Doc gets boned!
Rubato Tales STELLARDATE 110408: Doc gets boned!
Once again I begin this tale with a deletion. All files related to our recent discoveries on Grunweld and what we discovered during our investigation there regarding the cybertake named Dr. Travis Clark. But I am getting ahead of myself.
When we first arrived on Grunweld Maggie informed us that she would be seeing to some negotiations upcountry privately and we were to take on two tasks. The first, arranging for some contracts for rare hardwoods and furniture made from them, which were fairly common on Grunweld, and hunt for the criminal cybertake named Dr. Travis Clark who was hiding out on the planet.
After numerous, and hilarious, attempts to get the local clothing put on properly we made our way to Customs. While the locals may want to keep things low tech on the rest of the planet the scanning stations were rather up to date and they made sure to keep the number of weapons and technology we were permitted to carry onto the rest of the planet fitted in with their laws. While Jacques chaffed about this, Maria, Jackson, Doc, and I had no problems. In hindsight the high technology station should have been our first clue about what was going on here but so it goes.
The train ride to the city took an hour and was quite enjoyable. Scenes of idyllic life and apparently contented and happy villagers passed us by. Quaint carriages, well laid out fields and plentiful woods and trees dotted the landscape. It was very relaxing and scenic. We were all quite lured into stupidity and underestimating the locals as a result of this trip, cunning these Grunweldians.
Once at the city of Grunweld we decided to enjoy the local fare, the food was delicious and the local brew quite potent and delicious. Much tastier than the processed FoodTM stuff we typically eat to much these days.
Appropriately lubricated and feed we asked some questions and found out that Mansfield and Associated were an excellent source for hardwood furniture. We made our way over to their factory and were all quite impressed with their work, I used my business skills and we negotiated an equitable contract for hardwood and furniture. We contacted Maggie and she was pleased by our negociations as well but was having more difficulties on here end. We decided to take the night off and enjoy the local scene by drinking, eating and singing with locals. What a night!
The next day we took on the task of finding the nefarious Dr Clark!
Little did we know what this would result in.
Especially Doc.
Poor guy.
He got better.
We decided to split up into pairs for safety.
Maggie went to look up local police and criminal information while Doc and Jacques and Jackson apparently went out to examine local steam technology and do more drinking, again, and the Doc and I went off to the University.
At the University the Doc was throughly disgusted by what he saw. He offered to write a paper on the procedures that they were apparently quite proud of. He saw enough there that it intrigued the rest of us and we decided to check it out the next dayThe Doc arranged for us to watch a local surgery and talked with the head of the Medical Staff who looked familiar but much older that Dr. Clark, which made me suspicious. I was stymied by some of the local technology and I could not see how it could work but detected no nanomanipulation. We contacted Maggie again that night and she was still “in the midst of negotiations” and did not need any help. Good enough for us.
It was that night that the Doc decided to go back to the University Library by himself. When we work up he had not returned.
That got us all curious and we made our way to the Library while Jacques went back to the ship to get some bigger firepower.
At the Library it took us some time to find out where the Doc had been and using my enhanced sense of smell I was able to track him to a stairwell and then downstairs.
This lead us to a door in the basement marked NO ENTRANCE at the bottom of the emergency exit stairwell. Unable to hack or open the door I tried to us nanomanipulation to get it open, this caused a great deal of alarms to go off. That was a surprise, how could a steamtech society even detect such attempts. Curious I manifested a Remote on the other side of the door and looked around, a hallway with a a half dozen doors on either side lead to some pipes at the other end of the room that traced back to a security room. I was able to see that all the fire alarms were going off and that at least was a good thing. I sent to eye downstairs to check out the rooms and found what looked like a morgue. The rooms had 20 plus sliding beds that I was able to get a look inside before time ran out on the Remote.
What I saw was a huge surprise.
The beds were not a morgue but instead were very up-to-date, very high technological,very advanced nanomanipulation based organ farms.
These were patently illegal by local laws.
The facility was patently large enough that many, many local people had to be in on it.
Some of those would have to be the Dean, local police and government officials.
When Maria asked what I found I simply replied “We are in so much trouble!”
We made our way back to the rooms to collect our stuff and found that Jacques had returned and found the Doc sleeping in his bed. He had NOT been there before.
We collected him and rapidly returned to the safety of the ship.
Once there we discussed what to do next. Jacque was all in favor of loading up on the weapons and head in shooting. Maria wanted to bring the criminal to justice and Doc wanted to know what had happened to him. He apparently found some sort of implant in his head and was quite understandable upset by it. Right as he returned I stated that while we could go in with guns blazing and assuming the local police would be on our side but might want to have a backup plan like we give what we had found and then delete our information and Dr. Clark takes the chip our of Doc's head and call it even, Thats when Doc said, in a tone of voice not quite his own “Agreed, but you have to give me copies of, and then delete the data on the Ogres from the ship as well”
“Hello Dr. Clark” I said and the rest of the crew looked confused so I explained that the Doc was a puppet for Dr. Clark now due to the chip. Doc was even less pleased by this but really what choice did we have. Apparently Dr. Clark did not want to get too much attention brought to his little, and obviously profitable, enterprise. We made the exchange later that day via electronics and Doc confirmed that the chip had been burned out. Maggie returned that day and with her up to date we left Grunweld behind.
Once again I begin this tale with a deletion. All files related to our recent discoveries on Grunweld and what we discovered during our investigation there regarding the cybertake named Dr. Travis Clark. But I am getting ahead of myself.
When we first arrived on Grunweld Maggie informed us that she would be seeing to some negotiations upcountry privately and we were to take on two tasks. The first, arranging for some contracts for rare hardwoods and furniture made from them, which were fairly common on Grunweld, and hunt for the criminal cybertake named Dr. Travis Clark who was hiding out on the planet.
After numerous, and hilarious, attempts to get the local clothing put on properly we made our way to Customs. While the locals may want to keep things low tech on the rest of the planet the scanning stations were rather up to date and they made sure to keep the number of weapons and technology we were permitted to carry onto the rest of the planet fitted in with their laws. While Jacques chaffed about this, Maria, Jackson, Doc, and I had no problems. In hindsight the high technology station should have been our first clue about what was going on here but so it goes.
The train ride to the city took an hour and was quite enjoyable. Scenes of idyllic life and apparently contented and happy villagers passed us by. Quaint carriages, well laid out fields and plentiful woods and trees dotted the landscape. It was very relaxing and scenic. We were all quite lured into stupidity and underestimating the locals as a result of this trip, cunning these Grunweldians.
Once at the city of Grunweld we decided to enjoy the local fare, the food was delicious and the local brew quite potent and delicious. Much tastier than the processed FoodTM stuff we typically eat to much these days.
Appropriately lubricated and feed we asked some questions and found out that Mansfield and Associated were an excellent source for hardwood furniture. We made our way over to their factory and were all quite impressed with their work, I used my business skills and we negotiated an equitable contract for hardwood and furniture. We contacted Maggie and she was pleased by our negociations as well but was having more difficulties on here end. We decided to take the night off and enjoy the local scene by drinking, eating and singing with locals. What a night!
The next day we took on the task of finding the nefarious Dr Clark!
Little did we know what this would result in.
Especially Doc.
Poor guy.
He got better.
We decided to split up into pairs for safety.
Maggie went to look up local police and criminal information while Doc and Jacques and Jackson apparently went out to examine local steam technology and do more drinking, again, and the Doc and I went off to the University.
At the University the Doc was throughly disgusted by what he saw. He offered to write a paper on the procedures that they were apparently quite proud of. He saw enough there that it intrigued the rest of us and we decided to check it out the next dayThe Doc arranged for us to watch a local surgery and talked with the head of the Medical Staff who looked familiar but much older that Dr. Clark, which made me suspicious. I was stymied by some of the local technology and I could not see how it could work but detected no nanomanipulation. We contacted Maggie again that night and she was still “in the midst of negotiations” and did not need any help. Good enough for us.
It was that night that the Doc decided to go back to the University Library by himself. When we work up he had not returned.
That got us all curious and we made our way to the Library while Jacques went back to the ship to get some bigger firepower.
At the Library it took us some time to find out where the Doc had been and using my enhanced sense of smell I was able to track him to a stairwell and then downstairs.
This lead us to a door in the basement marked NO ENTRANCE at the bottom of the emergency exit stairwell. Unable to hack or open the door I tried to us nanomanipulation to get it open, this caused a great deal of alarms to go off. That was a surprise, how could a steamtech society even detect such attempts. Curious I manifested a Remote on the other side of the door and looked around, a hallway with a a half dozen doors on either side lead to some pipes at the other end of the room that traced back to a security room. I was able to see that all the fire alarms were going off and that at least was a good thing. I sent to eye downstairs to check out the rooms and found what looked like a morgue. The rooms had 20 plus sliding beds that I was able to get a look inside before time ran out on the Remote.
What I saw was a huge surprise.
The beds were not a morgue but instead were very up-to-date, very high technological,very advanced nanomanipulation based organ farms.
These were patently illegal by local laws.
The facility was patently large enough that many, many local people had to be in on it.
Some of those would have to be the Dean, local police and government officials.
When Maria asked what I found I simply replied “We are in so much trouble!”
We made our way back to the rooms to collect our stuff and found that Jacques had returned and found the Doc sleeping in his bed. He had NOT been there before.
We collected him and rapidly returned to the safety of the ship.
Once there we discussed what to do next. Jacque was all in favor of loading up on the weapons and head in shooting. Maria wanted to bring the criminal to justice and Doc wanted to know what had happened to him. He apparently found some sort of implant in his head and was quite understandable upset by it. Right as he returned I stated that while we could go in with guns blazing and assuming the local police would be on our side but might want to have a backup plan like we give what we had found and then delete our information and Dr. Clark takes the chip our of Doc's head and call it even, Thats when Doc said, in a tone of voice not quite his own “Agreed, but you have to give me copies of, and then delete the data on the Ogres from the ship as well”
“Hello Dr. Clark” I said and the rest of the crew looked confused so I explained that the Doc was a puppet for Dr. Clark now due to the chip. Doc was even less pleased by this but really what choice did we have. Apparently Dr. Clark did not want to get too much attention brought to his little, and obviously profitable, enterprise. We made the exchange later that day via electronics and Doc confirmed that the chip had been burned out. Maggie returned that day and with her up to date we left Grunweld behind.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Anaraugs' Diary: Entry Two
We have decided to stop at a small "slush ball" out in the boondocks of space. We don't know what is waiting for us down there, but hopfully it is a lot of money and not some horrid space zombie ogre magi thing. I replaced all of my pin ups with pictures of peeled sliced vegitables today. No one has noticed yet. I have got eight of them, all lined up on one wall. I stuck them up with pins and I don't know why I did it. And then I had some toast with jam. I don't even like jam. I turned the lights off while I ate it too. I hope my ship mates don't find this. If they do then they will probabaly ask me some question about it and I wouldn't be able to answer them. If we do encounter some kind of horror show today, then I will take detailed notes and seal them to the opposite page with wax as usual.
P.S. It turned out to be people eating computer cable lazer snakes. The details are enclosed along with the address of a site were you can view a video of the operation.
P.S. It turned out to be people eating computer cable lazer snakes. The details are enclosed along with the address of a site were you can view a video of the operation.
Anaraugs' Diary: Entry One
I have decided, in light of recent events, to keep a diary, and not just any old diary, but an actual honest to god paper diary, in a book, with pages. I shall try to explain. Several days ago... or was it several weeks ago? I had my memories and computer files erased. I am still not sure how much or how many times, but I find myself with gaps and insufficiencies both long and short. What I do remember of the events leading up to the incident and what the rest of the crew has been able to fill in for me has been included in a wax-sealed envolope. I feel silly writing this; sitting on my bed and scribbling words onto a page like a school girl, but it is the only way that I could think of to be absolutly sure that if something should befall me again, I will have a hard record that is difficult to erase. My name is Dr. Anaraug Evas Ortem, I have been operating under the assumed name of Dr. Andy Erick Osmond and this is my diary.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
VRNet search, Keyword “Tony Clark”;
Dr. Anthony “Tony” Clark, MD, PhD.
Born: June 26, 2255, Terra Nova, Mars.
Graduated Solarian Technical Institute, 2273
Graduated Solarian Medical Institute 2275
Enlisted in the CU Marine Corps, 2278
Assigned to Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 2280
• Coresearcher: Project Name Unavailable, 2280
• Coresearcher: Project Name Unavailable, 2281
• Director: Project Name Unavailable, 2282
Granted Honorable Discharge, 2285
Founded Advanced Wellness Concepts, LLC, 2285
Last known news item 2287
Associated records:
Internal Security forces raided and subsequently shut down the R&D offices of Advanced Wellness Concepts, LLC in 2289. A warrant for Dr. Clark for ‘questioning’ has been issued by Colonial Internal Security is currently outstanding. Several ‘bounties’ currently exist for the arrest of Dr. Clark as the result of not appearing at several Civil lawsuits resulting from the actions of Advanced Wellness Concepts, LLC.
More details to follow…
Born: June 26, 2255, Terra Nova, Mars.
Graduated Solarian Technical Institute, 2273
Graduated Solarian Medical Institute 2275
Enlisted in the CU Marine Corps, 2278
Assigned to Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 2280
• Coresearcher: Project Name Unavailable, 2280
• Coresearcher: Project Name Unavailable, 2281
• Director: Project Name Unavailable, 2282
Granted Honorable Discharge, 2285
Founded Advanced Wellness Concepts, LLC, 2285
Last known news item 2287
Associated records:
Internal Security forces raided and subsequently shut down the R&D offices of Advanced Wellness Concepts, LLC in 2289. A warrant for Dr. Clark for ‘questioning’ has been issued by Colonial Internal Security is currently outstanding. Several ‘bounties’ currently exist for the arrest of Dr. Clark as the result of not appearing at several Civil lawsuits resulting from the actions of Advanced Wellness Concepts, LLC.
More details to follow…
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