203: The Green & The Black

ENTRY 203: The Green & The Black

Sunshine is a power-generating habitat out Mercury-way, a vast array of solar panels cranking out electricity, which is converted or stored in a variety of high-energy density storage units destined for the Vulcanoids and other Mercury habitats. The work is neither as cleanly efficient or pleasant as one would hope; involving a considerable amount of heavy chemical, industrial, and radiological processes, depending on type and amount of batteries involved. A communistic endeavor, with shared principles of clean energy and nudism Sunshine has a mixed population of morphs, the Green and the Black.

The Green are biomorphs of every stripe with a skin augmentation based on a plant’s leaf system, allowing them to perform photosynthesis. While the majority of them really do have green skin, a minority use a more efficient augmentation derived from the Black Pearl Pepper and are actually black-skinned. The Black are synthmorphs whose outer layer is covered by thin layer of photovoltaic cells that charge their own batteries when exposed to light. Both augmentations share attributes of directly providing energy that the morph requires and producing a pleasurable sensation when exposed to bright light. Central Planning regulates work schedules so that every part of the population spends four hours out of every ten basking in sunlight on one of the three sundecks.

However, after nearly eight years of operation, cracks have started to appear in the system. The majority of the Greens in the station receive administrative labor assignments, while the majority of the Blacks are assigned the more dangerous industrial job slots, and overall statistics show that the administrative group receives nearly five hours of sunbathing out of every ten. This, along with a rising disparity in the number of Greens versus Blacks, concerns about falling oxygen vs. carbon dioxide levels, and other glitches have set the stage for serious debates about the long-term plausibility of the Sunshine system.

Seeds

• A black-skinned Green has fallen in love with a Black member; but their family-groups are opposed to the relationship because they’re upset it will limit procreative choices and further exacerbate the imbalance between the two sides. The Green and the Black lovers have sent out an order for a surrogate pod to gestate new Green morphs and hopefully alleviate the approbation of their family-groups—all they need is the PCs to deliver it. Unfortunately, that means heading out during a period of heavy sunspot activity, and possibly dealing with a deadly micrometeorite shower! Will the PCs risk it to save two star-crossed lovers?
• A Green worker with an industrial skillbase has suffered severe, crippling injuries as a result of insufficient safety procedures for biomorphs on Sunshine station. Now undergoing surgery to accept various cyberlimbs to save their life and restore their functionality, the Green has had a vision to bridge the gap between Green and Black—but to do it, they need to apply the Black’s solar-power skin augmentation. This procedure is normally restricted, so they need the PCs to find a way…if they succeed, the Green/Black worker could be a strong ideological influence on the Sunshine communist habitat.