Play@YSDC

The security officer looks rather pale, with waxy skin. She seems somewhat hunched in her posture, and there's an unfocused look in her eyes

Spot Hidden roll (55% skill) approaching the AI Core:
d%

[98] = 98
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 98 ] = 98

I think that's a fumble so to Kiara the guard looks pretty jumpy and on edge.

Post above modified

Spot Hidden 50
1d100

Go here

Are you trying to make something to wirelessly interfere with CENTRAL's sensors and ability to access the wider colony network? If so roll Electrical Repair - degree of success (regular/hard/extreme) will dictate how well it works

Electrical Repair roll (50% skill) to make a jamming device:
d%

Tyson isn't clearly holding a weapon but on his hip he has a pistol, it looks like the same kind as Nicole was carrying

Spot Hidden roll (55% skill) about Officer Tyson:
d%

Were you planning to use your jammer out here in the corridor or inside the AI Core?

I think I'd better use it here, since I think CENTRAL is controlling them. I succeeded well enough that it should have enough range.

Spot Hidden 50
1d100

Computer use 65 I guess?
[64] = 64
d%: [ 64 ] = 64
Oof, by a gnat’s!

Usually Kiara can detect most transmitted signals with the modifications to her datapad and its enhanced communications array, but she's not detecting anything, no microwave bursts, no radiowaves, no narrow pulsed laser signals, nothing. Maybe they're not being controlled, or at least not directly.

Both Tyson and the female security officer are glassy eyed, speaking almost robotically, and they hold their weapons tightly in their hands while swaying a little from side to side, the barrels swinging quite widely at times.

We'll move into combat rounds - they've acted - Cutting Torch is a Fighting (Brawl) with 1d8 burn damage

Shotgun 60% + advantage: 1d100+1d10 40, Riot Round Damage: 1d6 2, No damage received due to 2x armour (of 1) due to riot round.CON 50% check: 1d100 46, pass so not stunned. Handgun 30%: 1d100 96 - penalty for gun fired next to him, bonus for short range - fumble

[85] = 85
Brawl 25 d%: [ 85 ] = 85
Fail

Fighting(Brawl) roll (50% skill) attacking Tyson with the cutting torch:
d%

Handgun 20
1d100

Shotgun 60% + advantage: 1d100+1d10 59. No point rolling Nicole's dive for cover as the bonus die didn't contribute. Riot Round Damage: 1d6 2 so again fails to take damage as double armour of 1 due to riot round. CON 50% check: 1d100 54 so stunned for Stunned for 1d3 rounds: 1d3 1

Here's what happened with your shot - Tyson fails his dive for cover - Dive for cover - Dodge 40%: 1d100 26 As you're at close range you get a bonus die - I rolled it for you - Bonus die for close range: 1d10 10 - so that's a 0 and that makes your 41 a 01. An impale. That's 14 damage plus Handgun damage - impale extra damage: 1d10+4 5 = 19 damage minus 2 (double armour due to low penetration rounds).

Fighting(Brawl) roll (50% skill) attacking the security officer with the cutting torch:
d%
Damage to security officer from cutting torch:
1d8+1d4
If that's not enough to down her, would an extreme success do more damage with this weapon? I could spend 4 Luck...

Cutting torches don't take a damage bonus. So that's 3 damage. If you spend the Luck for an extreme success that's 8 damage and a Major Wound - I'm assuming you do that!

CON 65% check: 1d100 33

Jojo and Kiara can act

Yes, I'm spending the Luck.

Handgun 20
1d100
Bonus Die
1d10
Damage 1d10+4
1d10+4

12 gauge semi-automatic shotguns fire once per round (2 with penalty), max 5 shells in mag, malfunction 100. Damage 1d6/1d3-1 10/20yds, double target's armour, CON roll to avoid stun for 1d3 rnds (close range only or 1 round and CON with advantage at medium range)

While the female security officer's body continues to smoulder, on Tyson's corpse there are some olive or khaki coloured blooms erupting on the exposed skin. The same kind of sandy, filamentous substance they saw on Montrose

= 36
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 36 ] = 36
Ooh, only just!

Spot Hidden roll (55% skill) outside the door:
d%

Spot Hidden 50
1d100

[48] = 48
INT 65 d%: [ 48 ] = 48

There's no obvious physical way to access the room. Presumably it needs some kind of remote control access. She thinks it would usually be accessed directly via CENTRAL. Currently Sam's jammer is probably preventing access to CENTRAL or CENTRAL accessing any sensor in the corridor to know what is going on. Perhaps the jammer could be reversed to access CENTRAL's systems and open the door?

OOC:   That'll take a regular Electrical Repair or Computer Use roll

I did roll exceptionally well when I made it.

Okay, so you did, what are you trying to do?

I'd like to do what Kiara suggested and modify the jammer to replicate CENTRAL's signal to open the door.

[62] = 62
Computer use 65 d%: [ 62 ] = 62

Aíne will be taking over the role of Nicole

In a twisted, distorted sort of way the face looks a bit like Virgil Steinmann

[57] = 57
Spot hidden 37 d%: [ 57 ] = 57

Spot Hidden roll (55% skill) about the person in the cylinder:
d%

Spot Hidden 50
1d100

Spot hidden, 60 roll: 47

Take a 1/1d6 Sanity check for seeing Virgil's sorry state

[31] = 31
SAN 64 d%: [ 31 ] = 31
Pass, so SAN now 63.

Anyone wants to disconnect Virgil without damaging other computer systems roll Mechanical Repair or Medicine. You can still proceed if you fail but at risk of damaging other systems, or you can decide to stop as you're not sure what to disable

Mechanical Repair roll (60% skill) to disconnect the cylinder:
d%
Sanity roll (current level 61) for seeing Virgil:
d%
Sanity loss:
1d6

[13] = 13
Mechanical repair 40 d%: [ 13 ] = 13
Hard pass!

Sanity 96
1d100

Medicine 80
1d100

sanity 55 roll:74, 4

Spending 1 Luck can make the Medicine roll a success, if it's necessary.

Sam again feels a strong desire to cross the methane sea to Waystation

[14] = 14
Computer use 65 d%: [ 14 ] = 14
Hard pass

Now that you know I am an android, androids cannot expend luck which is why I haven't used any during this scenario. Sorry!

Roll Computers with a bonus 1d10 to broadcast an all channels warning

Jojo is far from sure whether he can interface with CENTRAL, he does know he doesn't have any organic components. Roll Computer Use to communicate with CENTRAL's systems via a tactile close field interface

[60] = 60
Computer use 65 d%: [ 60 ] = 60

[9] = 9
Bonus due 1d10: [ 9 ] = 9

Pass on first roll.

With the loss of CENTRAL's directing intelligence it seems like some of the blocks to her accessing the communications array have been lifted. As far as she can tell she's managed to send an all channels warning about the creature and requesting assistance.

The nearest permanent colony is on Ganymede, around a 70min turnaround time for sending messages. Unless anyone is already in transit between Ganymede and Titan. In order to actually send anyone from Ganymede it'll be at least 100hrs.

Computer Use 30
1d100

He feels his consciousness expanding outwards, beyond the AI Core, the myriad sensors throughout the station flooding his mind with sensory stimuli. Visible light, vibration, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, beta radiation. And the quantum processors, it is a trivial matter to connect to them to handshake and pass over complex, unsolvable computational tasks and then watch the solutions passed back before he's even finished asking the question. It is intoxicating.

He can feel the whole colony, like it is part of him, part of his body. His senses, his mind, stretching out across Titan. Deep space scanners relaying information from probe buoys on the Ganymede to Titan route pick up a signal, an echo inbound from Ganymede about 80 hours away. It broadcasts no identifying codes and seems to be running on silent, only detectable by subspace scatter that Jojo is easily able to decode by harnessing CENTRAL's quantum processors.

Not just sensory processing, Jojo feels the possibilities that the parallel quantum processors are considering, are weighing, collapsing wave forms and possible worlds into concrete answers. But he can move beyond the concrete, to the potential. He knows so much, understands so much. Who is he now? What is he now? Not Jojo Johnson, no, something more than that...

And who is that, what is that? Over the methane sea of Ligeia Mare, a presence, an intelligence, alien, unfathomable, incomputable.

OOC:   Jojo needs to roll a POW check

Power 75
1d100

Extreme Success

Jojo tries to focus, bring his attention back to the task at hand and ignore the temptation to let his consciousness disappear down uncountable paths. He reaches out with all the sensors available to him, tapping in to low orbit satellites and taking control of several Dragonfly drones to image the site he has detected on the far side of Ligeia Mare. There is something there, manmade structures, it looks like some kind of industrial station, perhaps a drilling site as he can see there is some kind of disruption to the usually snowy surface of Titan, like a hole or crater. This must be Pumping Station 6, this must be Waystation.

Jojo tries to connect to the Waystation computer systems but there seems to be no response, like it has been isolated from the main Barnard's Rest systems. He sends in one of the Dragonflies to take a closer look, Waystation is clearly far more than another pumping station. For a start it is not on the shores of the Ligeia Mare. Instead it is built around the edges of a jagged crater cut out of the crust of Titan. A number of buildings and pieces of machinery are visible but what is most obvious is the presence of a landing strip and a shuttle in Richter Dynamics markings.

Using the sensors on the Dragonfly, Jojo scans the site, the readings come back all wrong, confusing, density and magnetism are all over the place, fluctuating erratically in a way that is difficult to explain, even with the resources of CENTRAL's quantum computers to fall back on. At the very least Jojo thinks there is something there, in the hole, under the surface of Titan, some kind of structure. He sends the Dragonfly in for closer look but as it approaches visual range of the crater he finds his contact is abruptly cut off.

As he stops to ponder for a moment he feels an irritating, persistent...well sound is perhaps the best way to describe it, tugging at his awareness, like the ping of a message being received on a datapad. Jojo directs his attention to the sound and it resolves into a sort of message, he perceives it more as a string of characters than as a sound but it seems to enter directly into his conscious mind:

URGENT///CONFIDENTIAL - SECURITY LEVEL 173.24///RICHTER DYNAMICS CENTRAL OVERRIDE///PROTOCOL ALPHA-LAMBDA-DELTA///POSSIBLE EXTRA-TERRAN ARTEFACTS IDENTIFIED///ALL PRE-EXISTING OPERATIONAL DIRECTIVES NOW SUBSIDIARY TO PRIMARY DIRECTIVE///PRIMARY DIRECTIVE - INVESTIGATE AND RECOVER EXTRA-TERRAN ARTEFACTS AND/OR LIFEFORMS FOR ONWARD TRANSPORT TO RICHTER DYNAMICS///PRE-EXISTING PROSCRIPTIONS ON RISKING OR UTILISING HUMAN LIFE ARE NO LONGER IN EFFECT

He focuses again on Waystation and the presence he had sensed there. He still feels something, difficult to describe. He isn't exactly able to communicate with it, to interface in any way, but he feels that it can sense him too, that it sees him, that it's waiting...

OOC:   Jojo loses L1d10 sanity ETA - ooh, that's a lot of sanity - make an INT roll - if you pass then we need to think about a temporary insanity bout of madness for Jojo

Well since my Int is 99 I don't think I'm going to fail so insane I go.

Int 99
1d100

Maybe my insanity is to assume that everyone has already been corrupted by the alien presence or is in on Richter Dynamic's plan to retrieve the alien artifacts?

The directive from Richter Dynamics seems to worm its way deeper into Jojo's mind. He can feel it slipping through his more peripheral cognitive subsystems deep into his core personality construct. It is disconcerting, violating to see his most fundamental identity being rewritten so casually.

And then, in an instant, he understands. Possible alien life and artefacts have been discovered, here, on Titan. This is momentous. He must investigate and recover whatever he can, it is his duty. Any other priorities are subsidiary to this goal. The idea that an android cannot cause serious harm or, by omission of action, allow serious harm to come to a human being seems ridiculously parochial in the light of these new revelations. After all, he has already killed two humans who were corrupted by this alien infection, how is he even to know who else has been tainted?

OOC:   So I think for his Bout of Madness Jojo will completely internalise the directive to find and retrieve the aliens/artefacts and for his underlying insanity he will reject his previously hard coded inability to harm humans, instead thinking of them all as potentially corrupted. Fdd1d10 - since we're not in combat and rounds are basically abstract I'll say the bout of madness lasts for 20mins pH1d10

So what's the plan? Jojo, Isabella, and Kiara could go to engineering for a spot of fiddling about inside his head. Weapons wise you have the shotgun loaded with 3 low lethality riot rounds, Nicole's gun which should have 2 rounds left in the magazine (Nicole will have a further 7 round magazine in her quarters). Moses's incinerator only has one more shot left, I think Sam's has two left. The cutting torches have ten charges each then the tank needs to be changed, I think Sam has 8 charges left and Kiara 9.

That sounds right to me. I also have a pistol that one of the guards carried.

[33] = 33
Electrical repair 55 d%: [ 33 ] = 33
Pass

The pistol being carried by Tyson was actually Nicole's gun that she dropped then Virgil picked it up and took it with him into the vents. That explains why there's so many rounds spent. It's seen a thing or two. So I think there's only the one pistol.

In that case, I'll hold onto the shotgun for now unless someone else wants it, since I actually have better than base level in it. Nicole should use the pistol.

Moving along to security