Yep, we are still here (we = BlackHat, pragma, and yourself). I did put an IC post not to long ago out there. Just quickly summed up what happened while you guys were split up. Here is is again:

The team split up, each looking for some piece of information that might give a clue as to what is happening on Renewal. From listening on conversations at the Burst Bubble that there is mixed opinions as to what happened. On one side, people are saying the boys and the workers probably got trapped or lost in a cavern. Others are saying its the TITAN's all over again and they are thinking of packing and taking the next ship out of here.

Jonah had a good meeting with Suzette. It seems some of the workers are on edge and not to keen on the idea of heading back in the tunnels. Because of Jonah's willingness to help, and his background, she hires you on the spot, and provides you access to the terreforming tunnels. If Jonah asks about the missing boys, she is not sure how they made it in the tunnels without someone seeing them and getting into the restricted tunnels. "Damn kids always going where they aren't supposed to, and doing things they are told not to!"

Dr. E has a good chat with Dr. Banks, sometimes finding themselves off the matters at hand and talking about their work. Dr. E finds out that the initial clearing out of Renewal only dealt with TITAN machines and there was no mention of exsurgent threats.

It sounds like the outcome is that we (well, Jonah) have "permission" to go dig around in the caverns. We've also learned that when the caves were marked "clear" those doing the clearing only encountered (leftover?) TITAN machines, and ran into none of the truely horrific exsurgent threats that they could of.

Our only next move seems to be exploring the cave area. That seem right, guys?

I largely agree with that other than the fact that it's likely to involve getting eaten.

But yes, I think digging around in caves is the winning plan.

Well, if we get through this without being eaten, mutated, nano-violated, or meet some other horrible futuristic fate that requires resleeving our backups, the situation probably didn't warrant Firewall intervention in the first place.

Oh, what kind of GM do you think I am. I would never do such a thing to my PC's. Besides, you got Three with you.

I hope this will renew some interest. Like you guys have said, the legwork is usually the killer to PbP games. I hope we are over that hump.

Are you saying that you don't have to do anything too horrible to us, because we can count on Three to accidentally space us?

Yeah, I'll post some IC tonight, to help move things along, but if someone beats me to it, let's plan over comms to meet up, explain what we learned, and prepare to enter the caves looking for clues.

Probably. We at least have a direction to go, even if we could probably spend more time/effort making sure it is the right one.

Also, we can treat this next scene as a roll-call. If we've lost another PC (crizh), which is likely, we may want to make it official in game (Rebel had someplace better to be?) so that we're clear that its just the three of us still working this case, and we might consider reopening recruitment if we wanted to refill those two spots with some new blood. Otherwise, it can probably wait until the current mission is over (for better or worse).

Well, someone's gotta do it.

Shame about crizh, I was looking forward to trying out the 'bio-reaper'.

Being that we haven't heard from crizh in quite awhile, and I think his last post said something about Dumpshock. So, I'm going to assume we will be done to three players, which is fine with me, as long as you guys are ok with it. I'll play nice.

I'll get a post out today or next week about Rebel's departure.

I vote three accidentally kills her. Quick, roll some dice till you glitch!

Are you in need of a new player?

HA! I'll see what I can come up with BlackHat.

Grinder, I'll leave it up to the group to decide. BlackHat, Pragma, and Xahn, would you like to have another player?

Call me clingy, but I want our old players. We could always use some cannon fodder disposable assets new blood, though. You will, of course, have to pass the audition.

I think adding a new player would be a good idea. If nothing else, some new blood might liven up the posting rate.

People tend to do a lot of posting when their shiny new character is first introduced, and that would give us something to react to while we're wandering through caves or something.

That said, if we need to wait to go into the caves for a new PC to get created and arrive IC, then maybe something else could happen IC to keep us in town a little longer, rather than having us just not post or push the story forward until he's ready. Maybe something in the resturant.

Otherwise, we could go in without him, and Firewall could egocast him right to our comms or something, and he could ghost-ride with someone until we get out of here and hook him up with a proper morph.

Or maybe he's already on Renewal, but not a Firewall agent, yet, and we end up recruiting him for the mission (since he knows the area and the people, etc) and later recommend him for candidacy as a Firewall agent.

What sort of char do we need? How are we for combat or hacking? Those seem to be some of the most important areas for a team of sentinels. I may have the highest body count so far, but I don't wanna know what happens when my I get my cyberbrain hacked. Some more firepower would certainly be welcome.

The two characters lost were combat orientated (Sixgun's PC) and Crizh's character had very high programming and Psychsurgery skills. Not saying what the group could use, just pointing out what was lost.

Grinder, do you have a character written up? It isn't neccessary, but does he have any combat skills or Psychsurgery? Feel free to post what you have here. Sounds like you are in.

I plan on you being egocasted from Phelan’s Recourse (p. 105) to Renewal. Whatever morph you pick, and customizations, we will assume Renewal had it on hand when you egocasted. I think that will probably be the quickest way to get you to the group.

Yeah, no big deal if you had a character in mind that *didn't* cover those skills. Dr. E can pick up the Programming slack, if need be, but he is shit for combat and psychosurgery, and AFAIK, neither Three or Jonah is a psychosurgeon (although they may have some passable combat skills).

Pragma, can you put a little IC post when you have time, just to confirm you are heading the the restaurant to meet up with Dr. E and Three?

Jonah's a hacker, though, right?

Regrettably, no. I wanted him to be able to hack but ran out of points. He's just a very competent builder of things

IC will be up in a bit -- been swamped. Though I kind of love this game because it will forgive me for being busy every once in a while.

Glad to hear that. I, just as much as the next guy, knows what it's like to balance life with fun. This week things really quieted down for me, which was a really nice change of pace. I hope it keeps up for a awhile longer.

Ok, cool.I'll write one up today and post everything. Will be a combat-orientated one.

In space, right?

As for posting regularity, I'm between jobs right now, so I've got loads of spare time, but no internet access of my own. Thus, you'll either get several posts a day or none for days from me.

Yeah, I wanted Dr. E to be good with computers too, but ran out of points (and the defaulting rules are unforgiving). As it stands, he's a pretty good programmer, but if we need to hack into something, his odds of success are probably within 10% of anyone elses.

Feel free to still have Three space her somehow, but I mentioned her being missing IC in case you want to have her somehow among the latest transhumans to disappear. If you want to have her arrive at the diner as an NPC, feel free, we could just say she disabled the option to allow people to track her physical location through the mesh, and one of her not-so-helpful-or-professional personalities was in charge. Otherwise, it might be a good way to make the disappearances hit home (and a little more ominous), since she should have been able to call us for help if she had noticed anything bad coming along. Her disappearance might help give us another direction to go investigate, as well, since we might be able to retrace her steps on Renewal up until the point that she went offline (we know we sent her to talk to the families of the missing people, starting with the children, and to maybe talk to the backups in simulation - so if some people report that they never saw her, we might get a clue as to where she disappeared).

Sorry for the delay, have been busy as hell. Will post my character stats tonight hopefully.

BlackHat, your post is right on. I am taking a different route from having Three space her. You are right, you sent her to talk to the families, but she never reported back and has gone off the mesh.

Grinder, no problem on the delay. Sounds like things are picking up, so might be a good time to get your character introduced. If you have a concept and general personality of the character, we can just run with that for now and you can work out the numbers (stats) this week.

That's the hardest part, currently. I have many ideas floating around, but can't decide which one to chose.

Awww, you're no fun.

Don't worry. You can still space the new guy.

Let's see how long he lasts...

Hey!

Ok, first details:

Name: Ahmed al-Ahab, usually called Ahab.
Background: Lunar Colonist
Faction: Brinker (taking the "I hate people and what to be left alone"-route)
Morph: Olympian (with additional bio- and nanoware)

You want the character to be a combat-orientated one, so he'll be a mercenary for hire, ok?

Liking what I see. Being that the weekend is coming up, I'll probably won't get a post out introducing Ahab until next week. So that will give you a little time to gets stats figured out.

Ahab huh? He won't randomly wig out in search for a white whale in the sun's corona will he?

Who knows?

If you're heading sunward, I can give you a head start...

Not being pushy, just checking to see if you had a chance to work out any stats for Ahab. I will get a post out this week dealing with the group notifying Dr. C. of the the missing group members and the sending of backup (Ahab).

Gotta get it finished soon. We can move on with the game anyway - he's the combat guy, what should suffice as his reason for becoming part of the team.

Total confusion on my side.




Was this message directed at Ahab?

That was my understanding.

Sorry, guess I could have explained it a bit more in to OOC thread. Dr. Cornelius is your Firewall router on Phelan’s Recourse (which is were you are at the moment, see page 105). The group received a message from him at the beginning calling them in to service, but now you are receiving an urgent message since the group is in need of help. Right now the group is on Renewal, which Dr. C will fill you in on once you meet with him.

If you're wondering how Three heard they'd be receiving backup, he put his ear to the fourth wall and overheard Jimson talking about it.

Something just occured to me. We've got Ahab... and we've got Jonah...... If we don't end up going against some sort of Exsurgent whale, I will be unhappy.

That is some funny stuff. Guess I got my work cut our for me.

Don't think I can't space you either. SPACINGS FOR EVERYONE

A bad guy in a Surya? Not so far-fetched in EP. Sunward has the rules.

A surya outside of the sun? Maybe there's a version with a gas-jet system and no coronal adaptation. A Space Whale.

Or we just need a reason to go to the sun (or to the whale).

Moved us to morph storage and resleeving facility. Took some descriptive liberties, let me know if you'd like me to edit them.

Thanks for the explanation Will post a reply tomorrow morning (it's in the middle of the night here) and hopefully get around to post skills and other stats too.