On Thursday night at Vault Games Clayfield store we continued our Apocalypse World 'West Marches' style campaign called Gun Bay 12.
Our returning characters were:
• Truth (Hocus) - a cult leader who worships the ship as divine 'Mother' and prays to the technology aboard, often causing more damage than good (so far as to pull shielding off major power conduits to bathe in the 'glow' from mother's energy… oh my). He uses a faulty airlock as a test of faith, offering sacrifices to 'mother' to see what she does with them.
• Razzer (Savvyhead) - a former cultist of Truth, but who is now a real 'tech wiz' having abandoned the mysticism for a more scientific approach to the technology aboard the ship. At odds mostly with Truth's mysticism and cult but has an uneasy relationship with him. Performs maintenance on Trigger while maintaining her secrets and facilitating her delusion that she is a ‘real girl’.
• Serene / Trigger (Battlebabe) - a murderous psychopath young female human replicant robot (think skinjob Cylon) who doesn't realise or accept that she is a droid. Truth has seen her soul and thinks she is a manifestation of 'mother ship'. She was constructed by a woman she called 'mother' and works as a part time job as a pit-fighter at Hueys bar.
• "Chop Shop" Huey (Maestro 'd) - a heavily scarred dwarf with a dap suit who runs the "Chop Shop" in Laundrytown (the 'entertainment district') which is the pit-fighting bar where Trigger sometimes fights for money. Has taken to looking after the young potentially psychic orphan named “Tik” who the group has somehow adopted.
Our scene opened with the hiss of escaping stasis pod gas as Trigger, Huey, and Tik were revived inside the ‘Raider’ compound – a virtual utopia with hover vehicles, food, water, and people walking around the enormous vault without weapons! Strange green things seemed to be scattered about the place – some of them in pots filled with an odd grey-brown crumbly substance.
This unnatural situation of this well-lit, seemingly peaceful society was brought back to sharp focus when a handful of the nearby raiders pointedly patted their holstered sidearms. They directed Trigger, Huey, and Tik to a medical facility where they were treating Truth and the one-eyed raider medic Mish who had both been reduced to near death (see last session). They followed along towards the med centre where in his sick bed Truth came to and realised his legs weren’t working! He listened in as in the bed next to him Mish talked to some unseen people – badly misrepresenting some elements of their traversing of the ship, the death of a dozen of her raider colleagues, and the encounters with the cannibals.
The group were soon reunited as they found Razz in the same hospital, having been captured by the raiders and brought here. The curtains were pulled back and they saw two well dressed people standing by Mish taking notes on some digital tablet devices. On seeing Tik, the well-dressed people insisted that she be brought with them for ‘some tests’ which caused Huey to get his back up as he had come to feel responsible for the girl. Trigger got a read on the people, realising that they didn’t intend any outright harm to the blue-eyed youngster and so Huey agreed to go with them as a protective measure. As they were splitting up, Huey told Trigger (knowing now thanks to their psychic link that Trigger would feel any emotion felt by Tik) that if she felt betrayed by someone she loves, that there was trouble and that she was needed. A raider by the name of Ward advised the remaining three – Truth, Razz, and Trigger – that they needed to follow him as they were “going to meet Mother”, something which greatly energised Truth who was quickly moved to a wheelchair before the group were disarmed and their gear stowed in a locker.
Tik and Huey were taken to a private medical room – with many sets of the artificial blue eyeballs on glass shelves to one side, and an ominous reclining chair in the centre bedecked with straps and restraints. Rather than use the restraints, the medical techs began (carefully) taking blood samples and performing other normal procedures while asking questions to see if Tik had any psychic ability.
Outside Truth, Razz, and Trigger were led to three enormous office-building sized structures at one end of the cavernous room the raiders had built their town inside of. On approaching they realised that these were not the houses of the “Mother” computer, but rather these three buildings WERE the computers – there were three mothers!!! They were led up a series of gantries (Truth in a wheelchair took an elevator) to a door near the top of the central computer tower, and their guards asked Truth and Razz to enter to be ‘decontaminated’ before seeing mother. Trigger was asked to follow Ward to a different place as there was something that he felt she absolutely must see. Despite their reservations Trigger followed Ward down and out to the rear of the computer structures, while Truth and Razz disrobed and were decontaminated before entering the sterile environment within the great central computer of the spaceship, where they cautiously proceeded down a couple of pristine white corridors to meet Truth’s ‘God’.
Trigger was brought through a series of bulkhead blast doors behind the giant computers to one final door – where Ward announced that he’d leave her here and that she had to go through the final one alone, which she soon did. The confused cyborg (who thinks she is completely human) had a hard time comprehending how and why someone would go to all the effort of making dozens of copies of her and arranging them here on small pedestals along this room. What could this mean and what were these mannequins standing here? she thought, as she began to prod and poke at them – knocking one over which collapsed to the floor sending its head spinning across the room to reveal its cyborg insides to her. What was this nonsense?
Inside the massive computer structure, Razz and Truth turned a corner and came out onto a gantry into a huge three story high room, in the centre of which was an enormous hologram of none other than their cyborg ally Trigger. Staggered and a little shell-shocked, they stammered for a minute thinking of what they could ask or should ask now that they were face to face with the manifestation of Truth’s ‘God’ who looked a LOT like their long time crazy robot companion…
Trigger for her part was growing agitated with this obviously crazy prank, and decided to wreck up these mechanical imposters – quickly tearing many of them to shreds before she came across one in a motherly dress that she felt some affinity for – perhaps it was reminiscent of her own memories with ‘Mother’ before she was all alone again in the vast empty ship? Not thinking too deeply about it, she switched the robot mother version of herself on. The ‘other Serene’ came to life and quickly queried Trigger why she was active, puzzled that there were two of them active at one time. It was quickly established by this motherly android that the newcomer ‘Trigger’ was an old model lost to mother a long time ago. Rejecting this, Trigger was certain that she was a real human – suggesting that if she was really an android then this other model of her could tear her head off like she herself had done earlier in this very room. So of course, the motherly android tore Triggers head clean off – the last thing Trigger noticed was the strange vision that she had wires and stuff coming out of her neck instead of true blood vessels like she’d expected… no matter, everything was fading to black anyway…
Huey and Tik were nearly done with the jabs and pokes of the medical technicians when they began to get rough with Tik, provoking her with questions about her ‘psychic powers’ which she rejected saying that she had none. They were relentless though, and soon enough one of the technicians grabbed her roughly by the arm and all hell broke loose – every light in the room exploded at once, plunging them into darkness, while strange choking sounds came from the direction of one of the medical technicians. Alarms started wailing and heavy booted footsteps could be heard from outside in the corridor. Soon the room door opened, providing some faint illumination – Huey saw the young girl holding one orderly up in mid-air with her psychic power, while the other quickly fled. Huey talked her into putting the person down and then checked that they were still alive. Two armed raiders quickly filled the doorframe with their bulk – and behind them, barely visible over their shoulders was a young woman with pale blue eyes – much like those of Tik and the cybernetic ones now scattered all over this operating room floor. “She’s too old to be trained or contained” the young woman said matter-of-factly “she’ll need to be terminated before she gets out of hand” and waved her hand at Tik who instantly passed out from the psychic power.
Inside the central ‘Mother’ computer tower, Razz and Truth quickly found out many critical pieces of information – firstly, there were three ‘Mother’ computers which all had to reach a majority decision by vote for anything to happen on the ship. Secondly, large parts of the ship were damaged and beyond mothers reach – including Gun Bay 12 and Laundrytown. Thirdly, yes there was another ship out there in the black void of space and they needed the cannons in Gun Bay 12 operational – even then the Mothers had calculated an 87.3% chance of eradication. Lastly, mother had just signed the execution writ for Truth – who, having bathed in the glow of the power conduits one too many times, was now destined to degenerate into cannibalism and could not be let live. He seemed nonplussed by this, accepting it as the will of Mother – as he had always done with every decision mother had made for him his whole life – now was not a time to question his faith. Razz, despite some grievances with Truth over the years, was not willing to let him die so simply, and began playing with the consoles in the room in an attempt to understand how he could change mothers decisions. He quickly concluded that two mothers could never work, as they might reach a stalemate, so if he was to eradicate one of the ‘Mother’ computers, he’d need to eradicate two of them to prevent crippling indecision. As they talked further, Truth began to question many things about his life as a holy man, as this version of ‘Mother’ he was talking too cared not one iota for his faith or his congregation… she was not acting like the deity he had expected…
Trigger was brought back online by the android dressed in motherly clothes, but everything was different and wrong. Her gun-arm had been removed and replaced with a ‘stock standard’ model, and several of her scarred, burned, and damaged body parts (that Razz usually repaired, but not lately) had been replaced with unblemished componentry. The small service droids had cleaned up all the mess of ‘other Serene’ body parts from her destructive tantrum earlier, but she did notice her gun-arm laying on a workshop bench nearby.
Faced with two armed guards and a blue-eyed psychic woman, Huey quickly surrendered. He offered to pick up the unconscious Tik and bring her to the raiders, which they welcomed. Thinking fast, Huey stooped to pick up the girl, but lit one of his trademark cigars, jamming the burning stogie into Tik’s leg – causing her to wake with a start of pain and… betrayal… as she looked into the eyes of the person who was causing her such pain - Huey. Again she lashed out with her Psychic powers, eliminating the two guards and smashing Huey into the roof, before fleeing past the blue eyed woman, leaving Huey alone there in the lab to face off against the enemy psychic, who drew a dagger and advanced on him.
The feeling of utter betrayal rocked Serene – this was her cue. She picked up her gun arm with her pristine new arm, and fled the nightmare room carrying it in her new arm. Back through the corridors and blast doors she ran, making good time towards her allies.
Up in the hologram room with computer ‘Mother’, Razz had given up trying to hack his way in (taking some damage as he offended mother and she electrocuted him a little as a warning of her security measures) he realised this was futile anyway – that bringing down this one ‘Mother’ would cause untold chaos aboard the ship – so he decided to change tact. He now focused on saving Truth by convincing mother that he should live, but was not helped by the fact that Truth was appealing to the emotions of the computer by asking what would happen to his ‘flock’ of ‘believers’ if he were to die – would Trigger take them over? The callous, unfeeling computer said no, the ‘flock’ was irrelevant and she cared not if they died, and their religion was bogus to begin with – worshipping her was silly – and lastly, Trigger was one of her own creations, one of her ‘Children’ and would return to the fold and become her agent once more.
Huey tried to fend off the psychic woman, but was gashed and cut very badly in his defence of himself, the blue eyed woman stood over him with dagger bared about to end his life as he scrabbled around on the floor feeling in the flickering darkness for anything that he could use to fight back – a shard of glass or something, anything… round? Two round things? Huey may have been mad – Huey may have been inspired. Huey was certainly desperate. He tore out his own eyeballs and replaced them with the pale blue cybernetic implants, instantly passing out from the sheer pain at the same time as the blue-eyed woman turned her dagger viciously in his guts and walked off without so much as a look back over her shoulder at him.
Huey came too a short while later, the implants having worked their wires automatically into his brain making bridges and connections where ordinarily there would or should be none – his mind now working on a level that provided him with psychic powers. (In game terms, Huey had died. Apocalypse World allows a dead character to ‘come back’ but they must switch Playbooks, so Huey came back as a ‘Brainer’, a psychic who meddles with people’s minds… yippee). He was still at death’s door, but not quite dead for now. He picked himself up and staggered through the hospital following the obvious and clear trail of destruction left behind by his young psychic ward. Encountering some raiders, but having no fight left in him, Huey made a bargain with them that he’d return the girl – but for surety they connected a tracking bracelet to him that he’d be unable to remove. He emerged to the great cavernous area and heard gunfire coming from the direction of the three ‘Mother’ computer towers – and headed that way.
Inside the computer, Razz finally stumbled onto a good case to be made – he needed Truth to command his followers and clean up the damage they’d done to the power conduits (and Truth is also the only one who can open the blast doors at Gun Bay 12), and he’d need Trigger as a synthetic being to do the dirty work as she’d remain unaffected by the radiation. If Mother allowed this, then they would use the great cannon in Gun Bay 12 to defend her from the other rival ship as she intended. Mother agreed to this deal and the two exited through the hallways and back out through the decontamination room – but heard gunfire when they got near to the door.
Razz looked out and saw his friend Serene there with an automatic weapon firing down from the gantry into the cavern below – at Tik!
Huey (with his cybernetic new eyes) saw Serene with an automatic rifle firing at a terrified Tik from up high on the computer gantry. Many of the raiders were drawing weapons – not sure what was going on but ready to protect their town and their sacred computers.
Trigger also saw a ‘Serene’ firing down from on high but was too far away to do anything about it except run towards it waving her gun-arm with her replacement ‘normal’ arm holding it.
Razz took a breath, drew his trusty screwdriver, and leapt at the cyborg who was his friend – aiming to disable her by jamming the tool into an area he knew was sensitive. He did so, and was so successful that the cyborg fell over the edge and smashed into a dozen pieces on the deck plating below. Right next to the real Trigger who was standing there now in astonishment at yet another ‘copy’ of her being right there in front of her. She picked up the robot’s automatic rifle and waved it at the oncoming crowd of raiders who were gearing up for a fight.
Truth used all his remaining strength to get up from his wheelchair and stand for a moment at the gantry – where he provided such a sermon about how they were going to help the raiders and that they had an agreement with ‘Mother’ that the raiders stopped in their tracks. Huey helped with this by demonstrating to one of their blue-eyed psychics that he was immune to their ‘magic’ and thus proved that they were in league with Mother’s holy plans. The raiders and the entire town listened intently to Truth’s plans and quickly agreed to help instead of fight. The group were provided with a small 4-wheeler buggy, as well as guns, ammo, and food. They loaded the smashed up corpse of the robot-Serene into the back tray, and someone used some bolt cutters to remove the tracking bracelet from Huey. The crowd was starting to turn again so they had to hurry, and they escaped this ‘paradise’ back into the decrepit and decaying corridors of the interior of the ship that they were far more familiar with – although well out of any known area and definitely in a cannibal danger zone…
They travelled for some time not knowing which direction they were going or what was around them in the darkness of the ship, avoiding the cannibals for now. They figured if the computers represented the ‘centre’ of the ship, driving in a straight line away would lead them to the edge of the ship, and hopefully back to Gun Bay 12. Eventually they reached a large blast door but instead of ‘Gun Bay 12’ it was painted with a sign that said ‘Hangar Bay 3’ and scrawled below that in handwritten paint were the words ‘All welcome, safety here’. Fearing a trap, the group refused to go through when a nearby mall door opened and a surprised young man in technician overalls dragged a corpse out into the corridor… Seeing a near dead Huey in the tray of their small vehicle, along with the robot-Serene corpse, the young man decided they might be able to move one more body, and begged their help with his corpse too.
As they drove to the corpse dumping area, the man introduced himself as ‘Smash’ and said he was a technician – and that he hadn’t killed this person but that he had drawn ‘short straw’ to dispose of them. In Hangar Bay 3, he said, they followed a strict rule of law and always did what was in the greatest good – this person was a thief and had stolen common property and as such was executed. They dumped the corpse in an area where the cannibals would find it but far enough away from Hangar Bay 3 so as not to draw them near and then went back.
They entered through a series of blast doors which Smash had to key in codes for each one, before finally entering the main hangar and seeing a sight that amazed even the hardest souls among them – the twinkling stars outside of the hangar bay. After a moment of pause to take in such a glorious sight, they examined the remainder of the enormous hangar and saw several curious ‘space ships’ landed on designated marked areas, interspersed with the normal shanty-town expected of any society here on the ship.
‘I’d best take you to meet the Commandeur’ said Smash.
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