It all started when I began running a new group through Food Fight. One of the store displays that exploded in spectacular fashion was a stack of SoyaFizz--a brand of pop I invented on the fly--because even if Coke has survived into the sixth world, it's just not gritty enough. After the adventure, one of the PCs, an ultra-paranoid, conspiracy-theorizing decker called "Watcher," spent some of his down time cruisng his favorite conspiracy theory nodes. What should come up in some of the posts, but faint rumors and fleeting references to something strange going on at some soda pop factory. Over the course of several more runs, the details slowly evolved on the BBS he was following. The soda was SoyaFizz brand, and the something was sinister...

It was not until the culmination of the campaign that the truth came out. Long story short, the shaman in the group, who thought she was a magic user, was actually being manipulated by an extraterrestrial free spirit who had been trapped on earth. It read her thoughts and produced appropriate magical effects when she wanted to use a spell. All the time she thought it was her totem-- pony. Like horse, only prettier. Anyhow, the team delivered the pony entity to a UFO that had landed in Olympic National Park outside of Seattle, sneaking into the heart of a magical forest fire--the Earth's manasphere having an "allergic reaction" of sorts to the extraterrestrial magical beings. In exchange for helping the pony being to the UFO, the aliens granted wishes to the team members. Two decided to join the aliens, effectively retiring. They lived out the rest of their lives as a breeding pair in an alien zoo. A poor choice. The shaman just wanted to know why she had been led to believe she had magical powers--and an answer was given. And Watcher, well, he asked to learn the Truth-- the truth about everything. The aliens agreed. So what remained of the group returned to Seattle. Ever a decker, Watcher checked his email upon his return. In it was an enormous data file, detailing the apparent truth about every conspiracy he had ever heard of--including the fact that SoyaFizz is made of people, PEOPLE!. The data file did have one conspiracy theory missing, though. In all the hundreds of MP, not a single word was ever mentioned about extraterrestrials.

Watcher was so stunned that he did the only thing he could do-- he cracked open a cold one. Grape SoyaFizz. Sometimes you can know, but you just don't care.