The Copenhagen Interpretation

After leaving the system of Kaupung and its creepy heads, the Deepnight Revelation heads to the star system of Keppa. The plan is to investigate the strange tentacled beasts that have come up out of the deep ocean, and the disease that has wiped out most of the world’s crops.

The strange rock, which seemed to have an emphatic link to people was quiet all through the jump. Whatever had happened to it around Kaupung seemed to have permanently damaged it. Shortly after coming out of Jump though, it is noticed that the rock is missing from the science lab.

Tracing back on the CCTV feeds, the culprit turns out to be the girl Talliena, who took it from its box and back to her room. Zanobia goes to see her, to see what is up. Talliena is cradling it in her lap, stroking it gently. “It’s mine now. You didn’t look after it.” she tells Zanobia.

The conversation is a bit odd, and Zanobia possibly wonders whether she is talking to Talliena, or something else. Talliena states that everybody is going to die, and that they are going to the End Of All Things. This is the phrase the Droyne used to refer to where the Entity is at.

We have a short meta conversation about where things are going, and I comment that the the plot is quantum – it’s not there until it’s observed if you follow the Copenhagen Interpretation of RPGs.

Getting back to how she got into the lab, it turns out someone had disabled the door lock because they got fed up having to repeatably get up and let people in after they left their pass on their desk. It seems security and safety aboard the ship have been getting lax of late. It’s also pointed out that the average clothing size being requested from stores is going up – especially amongst the mission scientists. Security reviews and health and exercise regimes need to be applied across the ship.

The ship itself arrives at Keppa V. There is no gas giant in this system, so they will have to refuel from the planet’s oceans. Meanwhile, a scout ship will be sent down with an away team to investigate what has been going on. They are greeted by the mayor of the starport town, who asks if they have brought food and supplies. They have some available – which they distribute.

The town is low tech and run down, sitting on marshy ground on the coast. There are some high tech items present (even a small air car), but this world is mostly TL 6.

Once the world has been considered ‘safe’, the Deepnight sends another scout – the Far Reacher – to the Phema system. This will allow them to survey multiple worlds in parallel.

The town has a single scientist, Fray Lim, who has been investigating the world’s ecology for the last 25 years. She has samples of the native life and the strange ‘Krakens’ which have come up out of the deep. The krakens match the Biologicals that the Deepnight crew have encountered before, and Fray even has a braincase from a large one that came up onto the shore and died.

As far as she can tell, there was a virus in the native life deep in the oceans, that infected the Krakens. She thinks some of the specimens are oven a 100 years old, so guesses that they have been here for at least that long. Something also happened to force the Krakens up out of the depths, where they started exhausting the Terran fish stocks nearer the surface.

The virus jumped to Terran life forms, where it started causing problems for the crops and some of the animal life. Then it jumped back to the Krakens, and became even more deadly. This is what has started killing the Krakens.

Whilst science stuff is going on, Khadashi heads into town to track down some banjo players. He has decided that the ship needs more music. Other crew member’s aren’t quite so certain.

A deep scan by the Deepnight detects a huge life form just off the coast, so the away team fly over to investigate. They send down their Version 3 Sneaky Sneaky Explory Bot, remote operated by Ekita (one of their Erline). She is highly skilled at this task, and sneaks up on a gigantic 10 limbed octopus like creature that is lurking beneath the surface. A sample is taken from one of the many open sores on the creature, and brought back up to the scout ship.

Further bot explorations pick up some samples from the ocean floor from the ‘Wrigglers’ that live down there and are full of the original virus, which seems to co-exist happily with the native life.

The virus has signs of having been created by the Droyne, and seems to be engineered to affect the Biologicals. It also has some anti-Entity properties as well.

They spend a few days performing this research, which gives the Deepnight time to refuel and prepare for the next jump. Some of the science team would like to spend longer here, but the Mission Commander would like to move on. They still have a way to go before they reach the End Of All Things.