The Luminous Church
After leaving Naquoc Uneke, the crew of the Deepnight Revelation start working on investigating the samples they got from the forest creature. I decided to change things up a little bit from what is in the campaign, simply because I felt it was more interesting. I wrote up the information as an article abstract which was written by some of the science team. I did try to use an AI to write me an abstract, but it refused to write anything involving biological weapons. Such a kill joy.
Authors: Dr Jase Namaper, Dr Zurfar Sezinsi, Vania Ervine, Iigem Duzimin
Abstract: An analysis of the probably intelligent design of the biological organisms of Brittia/2017
The initial study of the samples taken from the forests of Brittia/2017, designated as being from species Brittia/2017/1, has enabled us to reach certain preliminary conclusions about the origin and nature of the species. Initial evidence strongly suggest that Brittia/2017/1 did not evolve, but that it was very probably the product of intelligent design. There is evidence of post design evolution, but the fundamental structure of the biological did not naturally evolve.
It has a high degree of complexity, with a large capacity for information exchange through its nervous system. The design of the underlaying biology seems to be unique, unlike anything previously discovered. However, there are some tell tale signatures within what may be the equivalent of T-cells. These include part matches to the proteins found in the Entity.
There is a long discussion about what this means, and whether they were built by the Droyne or whether the Droyne were fighting them. Maybe these biologicals were another one of the Ancients. Possibly there were technology based and biology based Ancients fighting each other. Anyway, the players came up with various ideas, but no solid conclusions.
Given that it has been a long time since the previous XP stop, I also decided it was time for another one. Everyone got 4 XP, which allows them to crease a couple of skills.
The Deepnight Revelation comes out of jump in the system of Doredre, outside the 100 diameter limit of the outermost ice giant. Almost immediately, they detect several active objects, which begin scanning the Deepnight. Shortly thereafter, they receive a weapon’s lock, and then detect a missile launch. Eleven inbound missiles at very long range.
The ship goes to red alert, and begins electronic counter-measures whilst the Captain orders their own weapon systems to come online and to begin targeting anything in the vicinity. The missiles seem to be using a reaction drive, but are nuclear tipped.
The first electronics jamming check by the Deepnight is a really good roll – ten of the missiles are disabled. The particle barbettes are used to destroy the missile launcher – probably a mine defence system. By the second round, all missiles have been rendered useless. One of the other targets seems to be a small ship, about 200t. It did have a weapon’s lock on the Deepnight, but quickly drops it as the small ship’s crew begin to realise just how big the newcomer is.
The ship is crewed by humans, belters from the outer system as it turns out. They speak Old Earth like some of the humans in the local sector, and seem to have cybernetic implants. The Deepnight is told that the defensive mine field has been disabled and that they are welcome to come to the ice giant to meet with the local leader – Sister Yenoya of the Luminous Church, aboard her ship the Lucifer’s Eye.
There seems to be a small shipyard here, just large enough to construct a single 2,000t ship which is still only partly constructed. The technology level seems to be about 8, and they don’t have gravity control.
Coming aboard the small vessel, it turns out that Sister Yenoya also has cybernetics, as do the rest of her crew. They are very impressed with the size and capability of the Deepnight, but seem put out by the lack of cybernetics of the greeting party. They explain that they are at war with the Queendom in the inner system, since the home world has been trying to stamp out their religion, and cut them off from valuable supplies.
My plan for this system was an opportunity for the Deepnight to get involved in the local politics if the players wanted to. However, I didn’t want to make an obvious good/bad set up.
The main world was settled several hundred years ago, and now has a population of over six billion after a very aggressive breeding campaign. The indigenous species, a type of six limbed lizard centaur, initially lived peacefully with them before trying to wipe out the humans. The lizards were defeated, and those that are left are now effectively a slave class.
There are about 250,000 humans living in the belt, and recently they started a religion – the Luminous Church – which preaches that flesh is transient and weak. The true way is to use cybernetics to enhance the body, until full uploading becomes possible. The Queendom didn’t like that and tried to stamp out the religion. There may have been some quite aggressive attempts at conversion as well which may have caused the initial clamp down.
The Queendom has quite heavy use of anagathics, and a lot of the people still on the homeworld prefer a more biological approach to prolonging life. The Queendom has wiped out several Luminous colonies, and the belters have started dropping rocks on the homeworld.
Some of this the players find out from speaking to Sister Yenoya, some from Alfred reading her mind, and some from monitoring comms in the system and hacking into computer networks.
The end result is that the players decide they could possibly aid one side or the other, either through direct military action, or by giving them technology, but they don’t want to. They’re not quite sure which side to favour, and any help they give could have unintended consequences down the line.
Not wanting to encourage aggressive action, the crew of the Deepnight agree to look into helping the belters. The ship refuels, and heads in-system for a potential meeting with the religion’s founder. However, once it is outside the 100 diameter limit of the gas giant, the ship jumps, leaving the locals to dealing with their problems on their own.
1 Response