- Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
- Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
- NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion
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| Rose-coloured sky |
by Andrew.
Recap
The intrepid party, working for the powerful X-Boat Corporation and nominally for Hoff, Belle, Penny and Itzy Ende's mum Contessa, had been shot many parsecs across Known Space by a misjump, and were hurriedly making their way back home to Winston.
On the way, they arrived in the recently-settled Imperium system 728-907, and while on the ground had been contracted by the Cauthon Institute to explore some tunnels under the Institute's base (in the town of Seven). The Cauthon Institute had sent men down here a year ago, who never returned. So they wanted some other volunteers to find them. There were also stories of a Zhodani squad ("platoon" or "company" or "battalion" depending on who you asked) going missing down here too many decades pre Cauthon.
In the tunnels, the party encountered an Ancients' portal. Dr Gilbert of the Institute was most insistent that this be explored. So here we are.
The portal was supposedly one-way only, and volunteer Anton had gone through. He did not return in the specified time, so they all decided to join him (as loyal parties are wont to do).
Wilhelm Scream
It was daylight. The entire party was on a hilly plain under a rose-coloured sky; bright, and from the brightness on the horizon, it looked like the sun had just set. The gravity was normal, but the horizon looked closer. The air was very dry and they could smell ozone. Behind them was the portal, a clear hole into the cave - it wasn't a mirror on this side. In front of them was a lake, the size of four soccer fields, of red liquid, like the same stuff in the cave's "tidal" pool, with white lumps floating in it.
But that wasn't what drew their attention, because in front of them, fifty paces away, standing on the left shore of the lake, was a huge spider, twenty storeys tall, with 12 or 14 legs, with multiple eyes on prehensile stalks.
It was a terrifying Cthulhuesque sight. A nightmare. An abomination of nature. Sickening.
The giant spider's eyes weren't focused on the party, instead they were focused on the thing that it was devouring. This creature was one of the illithid creatures that the party remembered from the derelict freighter Gnost Roma orbitting Formalin (where Liz died). The wretched thing was held by four "mandibles" which looked like human arms with claw-hands, as a porcelain beak mouth nibbled away at it. It thrashed about, half-eaten, but still alive, and it screamed hysterically. It had no voice-box, so they were voiceless rasps and croaks. Pieces of its intestines, cartilage and some bone, with lots of blood, were falling into the red lake.
Off in the distance, several kilometres away, was a nightmarish city, that looked like jagged sections of thick metal welded together, to form spikey structures, buildings and towers. And in the air, around this city, was a thick swarm of what looked like gnats at this distance. Close-up, they'd be the size of vultures or dogs.
Terrified, the whole group turned around and tried to hurry back through the portal. The level of the red lake was such that it lapped at the bottom of the portal circle, and obviously into the cave. The portal was on a vertical rock face, and it looked like there had been a recent rock-fall which had exposed it. Maybe it was once buried.
Anton was crouched down there gibbering "I couldn't get through. I couldn't get through."
Sure enough, the transparent portal had some kind of a field across it, and felt like rubber to finger-touch - the more you pushed, the more it pushed back. Metallic, wooden and plastic items, when pushed against the field, scraped, like metal on concrete.
Liquid from the red lake obviously dribbled through. And pieces of the cartilage and bone could go through too. The group posited that organic matter will go through - after all, the mercenary's arm managed - but maybe it had to be dead.
Anton now decided to risk dipping his hand in the red liquid. It felt warm and slimy. But even covered in the liquid, the portal field still blocked him.
Emerse's radiation monitor was going mad and peaking at 40 µSv/hour. And his RF monitor was getting lots of random static on all frequencies, most seemed to be coming from the sky. But there was a strong 500KHz AM signal from nearby. He tuned in on this.
It was old fashioned Imperium morse code. A repeating signal. .... . .-. . .. .- --
No Galactopedia link here. But it was lucky he had a local cached copy.
Astrophysics for the dedicated
[Call all this "foreshadowing". The party's characters do not know this ... yet.]
The planet Rose orbits a 12km diameter neutron star (“sun”) on a 81 day orbit (72Mkm). (c.f. Mercury 46-70M km & 88 days). The sun's mass is 2.2 Sols, and the surface temperature is at 1M K (c.f. Sol 5800K).
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| 15kW xenon arc lamp |
Rose is tidally locked to the sun, so there are no light and dark times; Rose's "day" is the same as the year. Rose is on a 10 deg axial tilt which is maintained by a Cassini state 2 resonance (precession is in the same resonance as orbit time), so the sun does a little analemma dance from -10 to +10 degrees over the year. There is no concept of seasons apart from this sun wobble.
Rose is half the size of Earth, but has 0.9g gravity at the surface, and has a convenient Nitrogen-Oxygen mix like Earth.
It's a young planet, so its dynamo core (iron) is very active and incredibly strong. This means the resultant magnetic field protects the atmosphere by diverting the sun's streams of charged particles (c.f. Van Allen belt for Earth).
Nevertheless, the neutron star still bathes Rose in periodic streams of synchrotron radiation (which are not subject to magnetic fields). This interacts with the ionosphere and produces violent EMP blasts which enwrap the entire planet. They appear visually as super auroras of all colours, and cause a cacophony of sounds in the air.
- Instantaneous Click/Buzz: A sharp, high-pitched sound as the electromagnetic pulse hits.
- Immediate Hiss/Chirp: The eerie, high-frequency VLF chorus begins as the EMP interacts with the magnetic field and ionosphere.
- Delayed Rumble: A few seconds to a minute later, the ground-shaking, continuous roar of planetary thunder arrives and drowns out everything else.
- Reverse: As the EMP fades, the thunder would slowly die down, the high-frequency chirping would fade, and finally, all would fall silent until the next occurrence.
EMP blasts are random - every few hours one strikes (1 on a D6 per hour).
Like the Carrington event on Earth in 1859, any metal at ground-level gets massive voltage spikes from the EMP blasts. Any electronics is fried unless it is well-hardened (good faraday cages) or underwater/ground.
The weather is more driven by the EMP blasts rather than solar radiation.
Life here has evolved from the regular EMP blasts. The flora uses "electrosynthesis" rather than photosynthesis. The electrosynthesis turns 2xH2O into O2 (rather than light) and uses the stripped H+ ions to turn ADP into ATP. So, after each EMP blast, plants are filled with ATP synthase which then quickly converts atmospheric CO2 into glucose (normal Calvin cycle) and fixes carbon.
This means electrosynthesis works in the dark, and thus life is found on the perpetually dark side of Rose as well.
