351: Comet For Sale

ENTRY 351: Comet For Sale

For sale: Encke's Comet. Gently used. Inquire within.
- Mesh Ad

Comet habitats have never really taken hold of the transhuman imagination. While the nucleus of comets are equivalent to sizable asteroids several kilometers in diameter, and comets often contain hydrocarbon compounds and water ice which are relatively easy to mine, the often erratic and sizable orbits are a turn-off, and the delta v necessary to lock trajectory and close with a comet through its thin atmosphere (coma) can make embarking or disembarking more complicated than an orbital habitat in some respects.

One of the few serious efforts at comet habitation was Encke's Comet - with a nucleus of 4.8 kilometers and an orbital period around the sun of 3.3 years, it seemed an ideal candidate as a sort of roving trading or scientific post. A development corporation was established, landed on the comet, and drilled down beneath the crust to carve out a series of chambers, roughly half of which were furnished and functional by the time the credits ran out. Worse, the construction period took so long that the comet was headed away from the sun by that time, and the majority of the crew abandoned Encke's Comet save for an AGI caretaker called Yngvi as it headed out to its aphelion of 4.11 AU and back.

The return of Encke's Comet in AF 7 sparked a renewal of interest, but legal troubles where encountered when the AGI caretaker claimed squatters rights; few of the original parties chose to contest it, and after a brief bout of fund-raising development on the comet renewed. This time, Yngvi focused on the installation of antimatter drive engines, intended to function as directional thrusters to help steer the comet to make flyby passes of certain habitats and thus increase its commercial utility, but found itself unable to procure antimatter due to the interference of the Jovian Republic (which already viewed the comet as a potential interloper and threat). Yngvi and Encke's Comet moved away from the sun once again.

Having now just returned in AF 10, Yngvi is tired of playing caretaker and is looking to sell the comet and settle down, possibly getting a little apartment on Titan. Beginning asking price is 250k credits, though Yngvi is willing to act as the banker in the transaction as long as it gets a down payment of 20% in cash.

Using Comet for Sale

Encke's Comet makes a good setting for a one-shot adventure, a fitting lair for a brinker or setting villain, or a quirky fixer-upper for enterprising player characters that don't mind being stuck on a fast-moving ball of dirty ice for a three-year tour of the Outer Rim. Being relatively large, isolated, and moving, comet habitats combine aspects of long deep space voyages and being stranded on an alien planet - although in this case, at least for a third of the trip the comet should be reachable by various transhuman habitats with fast ships, so in that respect it can allow player characters to visit many settlements they might not ordinarily get to in the course of their adventures.

Seeds

• Lionel Beauchamp believes that the Tunguska Event was caused by a fragment of Encke's Comet breaking off and exploding above Earth - and wants to prove this to show that comets are weaponizable. Lionel and his fellow space pirates have boarded and taken control of Encke's Comet, and Firewall believes they plan to make a test strike on Luna. The PCs are the only ones in a position to stop them, since they are near to where Encke's Comet will pass.
• Sauvegarder Comète Encke (SCE) is a grassroots mesh-based organization that wants to cease further development on Encke's Comet. They've raised 20,000 credits, but Yngvi is unwilling to sell the comet to them or place it under trust. The PCs are asked to negotiate a settlement, possibly with an eye towards turning Encke's Comet into a Universal Park - but they will have to work against a third party, a Jovian miner named Maria Manuel Escopetarra that wants to buy the comet just to strip it of its hydrocarbons.

225: Bruixera

ENTRY 225: Bruixera

“Rumor and legend.”

- Otoxa, Firewall Agent

There is a whisper, in the dark corners of the Mesh where secrets are the only wealth and gossip is the common currency of spies, criminals, and patriots. A hidden habitat for exsurgents, populated by innocent morphs infected by the TITANs’ viruses and fleeing capture and liquidation. A haven for transhumans on their way to becoming monsters, a combination of terrorist training camp and exhuman enclave.

Unfortunately for Firewall and the rest of the powers that be in the system, Bruixera remains no more than a ghost, an exsurgent Agartha or Shangri-La, a name screamed by once-human throats and smeared in infectious feces on the walls of their hide-outs. Most who are aware of the stories of Bruixera consider it just an idea—a new Sodom, a dark Avalon that desperate, scared people undergoing terrible, painful transformations latch onto. The Kingfishers, a group of anti-exsurgent counterintelligence agents at Firewall have even used rumors of Bruixera to entrap suspected exsurgents and collaborators. Very, very few consider that Bruixera is anything but a fairy tale.

Those few know that Bruixera is real. The information is compartmentalized and kept from the majority of Firewall, kept within the Witchhunters clique that studies long-term trends and patterns of infection. Disparate data suggests that Bruixera is a comment memetic element embedded in multiple forms of the digital exsurgent virus, which manifests as a migratory compulsion whenever an individual in an exsurgent network achieves a certain number of connections. The affected exsurgents drop out of their networks, and through circuitous routes start traveling…to where exactly Witchhunters have not yet been able to determine, though the three most likely possibilities include the Zone on Mars, a hidden habitat on Uranus, and—most dangerous or unlikely of all—a secret bunker located on the ruined Earth near the south pole.

Using Bruixera

Bruixera is a myth, and as such it is free for gamemasters to have fun with. It might be a literal hive where transhumans live like insects or mole rats, bare caricatures of their old forms, breeding and swarming; or a chaotic souk where mad, mutated capitalists trade the knowledge of the TITANs for weapons, sex, and further initiations; or simply a run-down habitat barely fit for human habitation where transhumans fleeing Firewall because of their illness have come to live or die in whatever peace they can manage. Almost certainly it has an exsurgent population of anywhere from a couple hundred to ten thousand, most of which is likely infected with multiple strains of the exsurgent virus, and almost certainly a character cannot find the habitat unless they are infected. It is unlikely for PCs to ever visit Bruixera, but as a mythical location it makes a nice background element to seed along in a campaign, or finding Bruixera might be the goal of an especially difficult one—even if it turns out Bruixera doesn’t exist, getting to the point where they make that discovery would be quite a journey in itself.

And, for the ambitious gamemaster, it might be the centerpiece of a particularly difficult and rewarding campaign: having the PCs (infected deliberately or accidentally with a strain of the exsurgent virus) infiltrate an exsurgent cell, rise through the ranks through successful acts of terrorism, and then find the way to Bruixera...a great prize for anyone that captures it, though most Firewall cliques would be happy to nuke it until it glows then break out the antimatter to do a proper job of it. Of course, that means days or weeks of degeneration likely ending in the PC’s death, but if they’re going to die anyway…what a way to go.

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.

197: The Last Caliphate

ENTRY 197: The Last Caliphate

Thawra is a mid-sized habitat cored out of one of the Vulcanoids; founded by Islamic refugees of the Fall and boasting one of the largest Neo-Islamic communities in the solar system, it has been nicknamed “The Last Caliphate” by the media of the Planetary Consortium. It is a habitat marked by intricate fractal mosaics but no depictions of the human form, very little augmentation but extensive development of genetically engineered biomorphs, and a strongly insular community that is amazingly tolerant of outsiders. The habitat itself is made up of nested domes (in case one is breached), all of which are decorated or stylized with various architectural frills taken from Earth-based Islamic cultures…minarets, cupolas, American Islamic murals, mocárabe and muqarnas, among many more. Architecture is one of Thawra’s major exports, with the Caliphate holding a treasury of over a thousand years of designs and decoration techniques from Islamic cultures, which are being adapted to new nanofabrication and macrofabrication methods.

Led by the Calipha Amatullah, the Thawra community is a constitutional elected monarchy based both on the political and religious traditions of early and postmodern autonomous communities. Key to the community concept is absolute and knowing participation: no one is born into the Last Caliphate. Applicants must submit to testing of their knowledge and compatibility with Thawra’s laws and philosophy, including the acceptance of Allah, the forbidding of usury, and the fair treatment of other peoples; and the ulama often consult the subject’s rep score and challenge or question various incidents. Those who apply for and are accepted are made full members of the community, and are expected to contribute a part of their work and resources towards the maintenance and expansion of Thawra—which means not only a duty to clean air filters and replace micrometeorite ablation tiles, but regular participation in and attendance at social events, particularly the famous group debates mediated during the evenings before prayer, and voting. The Caliph or Calipha and other positions (heads of Maintenance, Legal, Education, etc.) are elected by the Islamic citizens by a democratic process known as shura, with new elections and re-elections staggered so a new election occurs every cycle (28 days), with the average term of office lasting 13 cycles. In addition to overall executive power, the Calipha is the spiritual leader of the community, the guiding philosopher for its goals and development with undisputed authority, bound only by constitutional and religious laws...until their term concludes, when they may be voted out.

Using the Last Caliphate

A combination of old and new, the Last Caliphate is a playground for players and gamemasters to explore both what Islam was, is, and could be—for better, worse, or indifferent. The Caliphate structure described here is not the traditional Islamic political-religious structure, nor are its principles and actions entirely in keeping with any modern Islamic teachings; this is a fictional community, where weird pressures have forced refugees of different Earth Islamic cultures together. The result has been compromise, amalgamation, resynthesis…and revolution. Undoubtedly, there are many that will disclaim Thawra for the changes it has made to various traditional Islamic beliefs and culture; and others that will claim its changes haven’t gone far enough. However the gamemaster decides to play it, keep in mind that the Last Caliphate is neither an Islamic paradise or a repressive, conservative regime, but somewhere in the middle…people trying to live their life right by the principles they hold and the traditions they are familiar with.

Seeds

• Thawra architects have unveiled the Mosque Engine, a scale model of a nanoconstruction system which could potentially convert entire planets into habitats—just add air, water, fusion reactor, and transhumans. Their test site is a nearby Vulcanoid massing just 100 tons; powered by an antimatter cell the Mosque Engine should direct its nanite host to mine and rebuild the entire asteroid into a rotating disk-like structure. However, someone has interrupted the test and stolen the Engine; the Calipha of the Last Caliphate quietly hires the PCs to recover or destroy the engine before it can be perverted into a weapon.
• With the destruction of Earth apparently imminent, it is rumored some of the faithful stole the Black Stone from the Kaaba in Mecca, and launched it into space. Neo-Islamic scholar Suraa believes she has located the apocryphal ship…and wishes the PCs to help her retrieve it and bring it back to Thawra intact, where they have the resources to open it properly without damaging the contents…if the Black Stone is even there. This places them in the line of fire to several other groups, who would either claim the artifact or see it destroyed.

162: The Secret Forest

ENTRY 162: The Secret Forest

Skirting the southern edge of the TITAN Quarantine Zone is a thirteen-kilometer-long arboreal habitat—the officials who drew the map designating the Zone actually argued about whether to place it inside or out, but settled for placing the southern border at the habitat’s northern wall. Ownership and origin of the habitat remains a matter of dispute; records are either lost or contradictory, and officially the habitat remains locked until the matter of ownership has been resolved, though that doesn’t stop tourists, explorers, and scroungers and from wandering in at their own risk.

The vast majority of the Secret Forest habitat is a recreation of a bamboo forest, with buried marscrete barriers preventing uncontrolled spread of rhizomes and aerogel walls marking the passage between the four climatic zones, which begin temperate at the eastern entrance and grow more tropical as a visitor moves west, the bamboo species and soil types changing to suit. The quick-growing perennial grasses brush the 12-meter ceiling in many places, and aside from various fungi and invertebrates that break down any fallen bamboo there is no direct evidence of animal life in the habitat. Access to the core habitat systems has not yet been made, but the habitat appears self-sufficient and entirely automated.

However, anecdotal evidence from visitors suggests that the Secret Forest is not as uninhabitated as it first appears. Stories vary in details, but generally fall into two categories: the living trees and the predator.

The Living Trees are a number of bamboo plants spread throughout the habitat which have been augmented with transhuman-style implants, including something similar to a cortical implant or cyberbrain. Some accounts record attempts at contacting these egos, which range from incommunicative to accounts of a monastic sect attempting to escape human desires by resleeving into the tree-like forms, or of a TITAN prison where the subject is forced to grow and die, grow and die, over and over… Efforts to locate the “living trees” on planned expeditions have so far met with failure.

The Predator is supposed to be a large mammal—perhaps an uplifted panda—which lives in the Secret Forest. Multiple expeditions have failed to find any trace of the predator, though they have found the remains of certain “victims” that appear to have died violently in the bamboo forest, perhaps after having become lost. “Survivor” accounts of the predator attacks suggest the animal can become invisible, or nearly so, and the heat signature is indistinguishable from the surrounding environment. The predator is most often blamed for the failure of any concerted operation to harvest the material of the Secret Forest, though since all such operations are illegal according to all Martian habitats and the Planetary Consortium, such reports are few and unsubstantiated.

Seed

• A research team is planning a week-long expedition into the Secret Forest, using drones equipped with radar, sonar, and lidar to map the whole structure. Conscious of the habitat’s reputation, they are planning a minimal-impact trip—take only scans, leave only footprints. However, given the rumors of the predator they invite the PCs to come along with them to provide protection and insight. Legends of invisible deadly panda bears aside, the more immediate problem when they arrive is the crew of illegal bamboo-harvesting botanists already there…and who cannot afford any witnesses.

155: Antiares

ENTRY 155: Antiares

In the L3 position on the opposite side of the sun from Mars lies Antiares, a Processor Lotus built on a captured asteroid. A joint venture by Martian hypercorps, the habitat is ostensibly a “thinking retreat,” a reward vacation-spot exclusively designed for infomorphs where they can let their guards down, talk openly about their jobs and interests, collaborate directly with the competition on projects that interest them, as well as network and socialize. By rule of the joint management committee set up by the principles, non-disclosure agreements are null and void within the protected infospace of Antiares, and the free collaboration and open atmosphere has led to some surprising advances and joint ventures between rival corporations.

This degree of open-sharing is made possible by tightly-controlled communications between Antiares and the wider ‘Mesh, strict security clearing for any residents, and mandatory memory edits for any infomorph that leaves the habitat for any reason to protect trade secret data—which, depending on what the individual is working on and who they are working on it with can mean that many contractor morphs return from Antiares with no memories of the past month except the virtual sex and a nice fat account full of credits. Complex legal agreements between the hypercorps govern the split in proceeds from joint technological development and construction of joint ventures on Antiares, with all participants taking responsibility that their “guests” are thoroughly screened; failure to comply or introducing a corporate spy into the Antiares community is grounds for major repercussions.

Residents for their part generally take a few days or weeks to open up to the idea that they don’t need to protect corporate secrets, and are usually matched up with social coordinators that try to find them new projects that meet their skillsets and interests while they adjust to the atmosphere of sharing. A “blue collar” subset of contractor infomorphs handle details like station maintenance, local mining and fabrication, virtual sex work, gamemastering, and security exist alongside the corporate scientists and executives in Antiares proper, though because they interact with the behind-the-scenes running of the station itself and have different levels of security access they also operate under tighter security protocols.

Seeds

• A key part of the protection for Antiares is its limited accessibility; the nearest habitats are in the Martian Trojans, where automated, unmanned resupply ships come every couple of months. However, a small section of the Antiares habitat does contain a functional atmosphere for emergencies. The PCs are hired to test Antiares’ security by infiltrating that part of the station, uploading and downloading two harmless pieces of code.
• Fa Jing has recently discovered its latest “guest” sent to Antiares may in fact be an industrial spy. Recalling the guest would cause too much attention, so Fa Jing seeks to hire the PCs as contractors with a mission to go to Antiares as infomorphs, and if their suspicions are confirmed then to “escort” the guest away from Antiares without the rest of the habitat finding out.

127: The Concentric Trees

ENTRY 127: The Concentric Trees

In the sarcophagus hab of Prototype, the boughs of the concentric trees twist and curl in vast wooden rings and spirals around the light tube spindling along its mile-long axis. One of the earliest Reagan cylinders, Prototype was a captured asteroid put into artificial orbit around Jupiter, and hollowed out as field test for macroengineering technologies that would go into building habitats like Almathea. Prototype only spins fast enough to simulate up to 0.2g in centripetal force and receives too much radiation to be considered suitable for long-term human habitation, but has continued to fulfill its purpose as a testing ground for new habitat technologies.

As an independent research project financed by the hypercorps, Prototype was one of the habitats near Jupiter to fall outside the reach of the Jovian Republic; officially the Jovians lay claim to it, but allow the apolitical research commune free reign and limited trade for water ice and hydrocarbons in exchange for their research data. The heavily-shielded research station itself is located at one pole of the spinning asteroid, with the other pole occupied by the fusion plant and water/air recirculation systems. In the tube itself, the researchers have created a self-contained, low-g rainforest ecosystem, studying the long-term effects on plant life, and accepting commissions from hypercorps and habitats to test the effect of introducing new species into their ecosystem. The core of the ecosystem are the concentric trees, mutated and genetweaked descendents of Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, and Western Red Cedar, bent and twisted into their distinct curls and coils around the central light tube, their boughs and trunks heavy with shaggy free-floating clouds of moss and epiphytes. Various ant species are the major wildlife, and Prototype scientists have demonstrated bizarre adaptations to the gentle spin and low gravity conditions.

Unfortunately, the Prototype Research Commune has something of an amoral research philosophy; in the past they have acted as a dumping ground for failed uplifts, who are let loose in the low-grav jungle to survive as best they can, their every actions monitored until they die, usually of malnutrition complicated by health problems from extended time in low gravity. However, the purpose of the Prototype Research Commune is for valid study, and efforts have been made to extend the suitability of the habitat for the subject, such as the introduction of various species of edible tubers. Non-Uplifted Rights activists counter that the PRC’s modifications simply extend the projected lifespan of their subjects so that they can collect more data.

Using the Concentric Trees

Prototype’s environs is as close as one is likely to get to a proper “wild” jungle on a sarcophagus hab, and as exotic a location as one could want to set an adventure; the hard part is finding a reason to go there. The easy main reason to travel to Prototype is to deliver (or more rarely receive) shipments of raw materials, visiting scholars, and new plant and animal specimens to test out; the secondary reason has to do with Prototype’s relationship with the Jovian Republic, acting as a possible backchannel for smuggling goods, data, or people in and out of the Republic without going through official channels. The PRC and the Jovians are both aware of this trade, but as the participants are mainly scientists seeking to promulgate their research, both turn a blind eye—a position that might change if anyone were to upset the status quo.

113: Hope's End

ENTRY 113: Hope’s End

Habitats fail. Life goes on. Hopewell habitat was a mid-size belter colony established on  the asteroid 5475 Hanskennedy. Reasonably self-sufficient, Hopewell had not yet established full trade and social links when comm systems went dark. No one investigated checked to see how the station was doing for nine years.

Contact finally came from an exploratory mission out of Eros, a small but fully-equipped military expedition designed to chart out the station for possible scavenge or recolonization. Fearing a possible remnant of the TITANs, the Red Zone forces exercised an extremely cautious approach, sending out robot probes to tap Hopewell’s computer system from outside.

What they found was a feral colony—most systems in good condition, maintained by automated machinery and routines, but the population reduced to savagery. Of the two hundred and sixty original colonists, perhaps thirty remain, split into three social groups. Faced with legitimate (if feral) owners rather than an abandoned station, the Planetary Consortium moved in, establishing a permanent observation post so that sociologists could study the phenomenon.

The oldest of the survivors appears to be a female in late adolescence, with only limited knowledge of how to interact with the station’s systems, and no access to its higher functions. This, along with supplementary evidence, suggests that some violent unrest led to the death of the entire adult population of Hopewell early in the life-cycle of the colony, leaving the children to fend for themselves—growing up and starting to have children of their own.

While some transhumans protest this “natural experiment,” what interests the Planetary Consortium sociologists is that despite the name, the inhabitants of Hopewell—known generally as “Hope’s End” on the Mesh—have only really been limited by what they can access through the station’s data archives. The first generation residents have self-educated themselves on maintenance, first-aid, basic chemistry, language, music, philosophy, and self-government; their only real limitations in this regard are the checks that their parents and guardians imposed on “restricted” material—including all but the most basic sex education, pornography, pharmacology, and any advanced medicinal knowledge, as well as the administrative controls for the station and certain "subversive" political ideologies and technologies. As such, while conversant on how to replace and clean an air filter, a Hope’s End feral has limited knowledge of childbirth procedures and no knowledge of recreational drugs beyond nitrous oxide, which is one of the principal forms of entertainment.

Seeds

• Jhil Nightbreaker wants to stage an intrusion that will bust open the “natural experiment” at Hope’s End, but she needs a little help—a group of go-to transhumans willing to sneak about the observation post and plant a virus that will unlock the restricted portions of the Hopewell database. Of course, all they have to do is sneak past the Red Zone security while Jhil sets up a diversion…
• After nine years of automated labor and only minimal maintenance, several of the key life-support systems of Hope’s End are near collapse. To preserve the “natural experiment,” the sociologists need a stealth team to sneak into the station through a forgotten airlock and perform critical upgrades. Fortunately, the administration area was off-limits to the children and is mostly intact, so the PC’s only difficulty will be getting in and out of their quietly. Unfortunately, one of the social groups is rabidly xenophobic and will turn their improvised weapons on any outsiders they run across along the way…

082: The Breach

ENTRY 082: The Breach

Spinning lazily through the inner Oort Cloud is a dead habitat, a formerly self-sufficient ice-mining outpost that processed water, methane, and weird hydrocarbon compounds from the abundant planetismals. Alive, Far Horizon Station was a sizable brinker outpost capable of supporting up to two hundred morphs. Dead, the habitat is a blazing radioactive cenotaph. No one knows exactly what caused the death of Far Horizon, but visuals suggest that up to a quarter of the station was destroyed in a single catastrophic event centered on the reactor core, larger than would be expected from any standard breach. Composite data from probes and the last remaining transmissions from Far Horizon suggest excessive amounts of ionized radiation, contaminating over 90% of the station materials.

Many Exhumans have a strange fascination with Far Horizon, though the distance (nearly 2,000 AU from Sol) prevents most from going there directly. Conspiracy theories on the nature of its destruction, the uncharacteristic size of the explosion and the resulting radioactive contamination, and its true purpose abound. The most popular of these fringe theories comes from exhuman astrophysicist Gul Von Vander, who claims that he has recorded signals from Far Horizon have many characteristics in line with cosmic microwave background radiation—if the universe were a few billion years younger. Von Vander’s conclusion, naturally, is that this microwave source is a breach into a parallel universe.

Visiting The Breach

Given the distance, visiting the broken shell of Far Horizon Station is possible but difficult. Station-to-station transport would require the PCs to be egocast to waiting synthmorphs either at the station itself or a nearby vehicle from a mission sent years ago. Light-speed communication means that each leg of the farcast itself take at least three to four months just in transit; though the PCs wouldn’t be aware of the time difference until they get back. Given the distance, limitations, and expense, actually visiting the Breach might be better as a one-off adventure, something that the PC’s fork can go off and do while the primary ego does other things, and then eight months later the fork will return and reintegrate with the PC’s ego. The high radiation levels in the dead station itself will generally restrict the PCs to radiation-resistant (and disposable) synthmorphs that can operate in vacuum.

Seeds

• Gul Von Vander is raising money for a full research expedition to Far Horizon Station, but isn’t above “salting the well” to encourage investors. Von Vander offers to hire the player characters to plant false evidence that support Von Vander’s theory in a variety of digital archives; concurrently, potential investor Jun Minaka offers to hire the PCs to do investigative research into Far Horizon. If the PCs play their cards right, they can work both angles and get paid from both while figuring out the real secret behind The Breach…secrets someone might be willing to kill to keep secret.
• An auction house in Extropia is offering the archives of Far Horizon Station, recovered at great cost by a stalwart crew of mercenaries and data archaeologists. Bidding is expected to hit the at least half a million credits, with any number of interested parties willing to hire some local talent to tip things their way, if the PCs are interested.

057: After Eden

ENTRY 057: After Eden

Transhumanity learns from its mistakes. It helps that so many of them are in the same place.

After Eden is a small, specialized habitat in the Martian north pole with political and economic ties to the Jovian Republic and certain hypercorps. The majority (70%) of the four-thousand strong population consists of flats with gross genetic defects—conditions grown obscure after decades of genetic screening and engineering have winnowed many of the most egregious and curious genetic diseases that transhumanity have to offer, the result of mutation, genetic damage, and improper development. To the bulk of transhumanity, these are failures, dead-ends, monsters, and objects of pity, but to the researchers and caretakers of After Eden, they are a smorgasbord of strange genetics in the wild, which they sample, study... and encourage to proliferate.

A.E. is nominally an anarchist habitat with a rotating schedule of work which is accomplished on a volunteer basis by the residents, sometimes out of boredom and otherwise in exchange for privileged access to certain local scarcities like sugar, alcohol, and Jovian sportsfeeds. Caretakers and researchers also participate in habitat maintenance, which they have to balance with their medical duties, seeing to the personal needs of the residents and working toward specific research goals. The two populations, residents and caretakers, are thoroughly intermixed.

While open to visitors, mostly traders from other Martian habitats and visiting researchers, and billing itself as a medical community to care for genetically defective transhumans, After Eden is essentially a research penal colony. The test subjects are subject to behavior modification to prevent them leaving, and in some cases to remove sexual mores and encourage breeding between subjects that might be disinclined to otherwise cohabit—such as close relations. This feature remains controversial, as the researchers have enough biological material culled from the research subjects to create hundreds of viable embryos and examine the resultant genetic code, but such a sterile laboratory process does not replicate the developmental issues that may shape a fetus, and so the process continues.

Using After Eden

A.E. is the transhuman equivalent of the quiet little village with the dark secret it wears on its sleeve. While some visitors might consider it a freakshow, the habitat shows no less variety of forms than most transhuman habitats, with the exception that instead of possessing those forms by choice, they are a natural product of their genetic code and development. The real monsters are of course the researchers who twist the residents’ minds to keep them there, and to cull from their genes the next enhancements to the transhuman genome. This, again, may not be obvious—many of the residents require considerable aid for their basic existence, which is provided by their caretakers without fail. Ideally, the gamemaster should insinuate the nature of After Eden gradually, so that the PCs fully understand the nature of the moral dilemma—to “free” the residents would also mean cutting them off from the vital care provided by the caretakers and researchers.

008: Sacrophage

ENTRY 008: Sacrophage

Situated in the north polar region of Enceladus, Sacrophage is a semi-autonomous outgrowth of the Profunda habitat, used as an apolitical anarchist non-denominational pseudo-monastic retreat. There is no strict rule or hierarchy for the fraters (male), sorors (female), and zorers (neuter or intersex) participants of Sacrophage, but most members of the community seek escape from the information deluge of transhuman life, individual-focused philosophical inquiry, and general peace and quiet; disruptive individuals tend to be isolated or ignored until they leave. Members of and visitors to the Sacrophage community are allowed to work in three areas to participate in the community: the gardens, the radiotelescope, and maintenance. Each is supplemented by “miracles”—special projects undertaken by one or more of the monks to add to and enhance the small community. At any given time between 50-80 monks may be in residence at Sacrophage; visitors can swell the population to over 100, but this taxes the environmental system.

The Sacrophage Gardens are a smaller extension of Profunda’s biochemical enterprises, a series of eight small interlinked domes of oxygen-producing and carbon-dioxide scrubbing growing green things that supplement the community’s foodstuffs. Morphs can experience the quiet contemplation of planting, weeding, sowing, and nurturing their charges. Some monks prefer to carve out a slice of the gardens for their own projects, breeding specific flowers or fruiting plants, grafting, etc., while others enjoy the community of joint labor in the larger farming operations. The most popular miracle of the Sacrophage Gardens is the master philosopher-gardener Ao, an AGI sleeved in a macrobiomorph with the outward appearance of a great tree, with each leaf appearing as if it was made of human skin. Ao is the center of a wireless network in one of the Garden domes, connected to over a thousand sensors that allow it to track the overall health of the entire garden.

The Sacrophage Radiotelescope is the ear to the heavens, built into one of the older craters on Enceladus. Mostly inhabited by infomorph residents, the Sacrophage Radiotelescope mesh is for the most part deliberately austere, with each monk carving out their own sites to pursue their own interests. Residents and visitors are allowed to man the radiotelescope and watch the skies, to analyze and archive the recordings, to maintain and improve the code, and to repair and maintain the equipment itself, if qualified. The Radiotelescope output and archives are not remotely accessible to the rest of transhumanity, hence it receives the largest number of visitors. In part to stem the crowd of sky-gazers, a group of monks is working on a “miracle” project to provide a station-to-station system for backing up the archive in Profunda, allowing access to the records without disturbing the Sacrophage community.

Maintenance at Sacrophage is the header under which all the vital tasks of the community are accomplished: cleaning, repairing, monitoring environmental levels, sealing cracks or leaks between domes, etc. The physical and digital drudgework is as much a discipline to renew the mind and body as a necessity of life in the habitat, and many of the oldest and most trusted residents spend considerable amounts of their time sweeping, cleaning sewage ducts, and checking carbon dioxide and nitrogen levels.

001: Void Station

ENTRY 001: Void Station

Most habitats follow the layout of the solar system, transhumanity strung out like a string of lights along the plane of the ecliptic. From a distance they look huddled close to the rocks and gas giants, or shuttling back and forth between them. Yet approaching the north ecliptic pole, far from the sun, orbits the spindle of Void Station, rotating inside a ring of zero-gravity laboratories. An independent research outpost, eyes out to the deep black, beaming back what it sees to the rest of the solar system. With its transhuman population in the high double-digits, split into three research clades, Void Station is barely a blip on the radar for the hypercorps or larger habitats.

Void Station crowdfunds its research, accepting resources from across the solar system to pursue goal-oriented projects, the clades competing and cooperating for access to equipment and materials. All labs are property of the Station itself, as administered by the infomorph Iubit; the clades rent labs, station facilities, and research drones from the Station out of their budgets. Other than that government is minimal; by unanimous acclaim the clades have eschewed pursuing political trappings, so that Void Station claims no official status, avoiding efforts by criminal and dissident groups to use it as an asylum or tax shelter. As a whole the station has a high reputation and is generally trusted with the credits and resources it receives from its crowdfunding.

While amenities are spare on-station, transhumans travel to Void Station to partake of research facilities without eyes on them or just to get a radio telescope pointed out at the big black. The clades are open to any scholar willing to share their research and play well with others, and sometimes attract hypercorp scientists on sabbatical, particularly from Extropia. Deep space probes are sometimes launched from there, out to beyond the bounds of the solar system.

SEEDS

• A probe is coming back from deep space—but it isn’t one that Void Station ever sent out. Now hypercorps, mercenaries, and Firewall operatives are converging on the small habitat as they prepare to capture the probe and unlock its secrets. The surge of inhabitants would overwhelm the Station’s systems and deplete its resources—players may be hired by Iubit as extra security, or by one of the interested parties to ensure they get first crack at it. Firewall may fear the probe carries an Exsurgent threat, and want the players there just in case.
• A scum barge graveyard has built up near Void Station—a small community of trashpickers and datathieves that live off whatever space scrap they can salvage and data they can skim from the local mesh. Iubit finds them difficult to dispense with because they’ve begun to offer biomorph hookers and home-crafted narcotics, but recently they’ve begun to attract the wrong kind of elements—nation starters with fill-in-the-blank constitutions, rogue accountants and banks looking for non-reveal tax shelters, that kind of thing. The scum barges need to go—are the players up to the task?