You can accuse our game group of many things but one thing we can’t be accused of is that our plans are boring. Or sane. Or both.
Anyway, this session has been a perfect example of that.
As always let me put my usual disclaimer here before we continue:
English is not my native language. Although I can write and read it without issues, hearing and speaking is a different matter. I’d say I am at best 90% skilled at those. Also I have a terrible memory.
What this means is that there may be mistakes here. In case my group corrects anything I will make a note about it here later and in the next post.
Before our session began, we got a briefing on our Discord channel summarizing the information we had about both Alpha Protocol and the Hades Initiative as well as what each branch commander recommended based on those informations.
Even with all that information I believe we were all thinking the same thing because in an unanimous decision we chose to investigate the Hades Initiative. As far as we were concerned they were the biggest threat to us. Alpha Protocol was dangerous too, sure, but they were more in a… how to put it…. a chaotic, loud way threat. While the Hades Initiative could be a lot more subtle, making them far more dangerous.
For this mission we would be flying into a space station owned by the Hades Initiative. Since we wanted to keep our use of a geth ship a secret for as long as possible, we were given a shuttle to fly there, the UT-47 Kodiak.
This put some restrictions on the number of crew we could take with us. So we decided to take Lieutenant Ramirez and our krogan cook, Chanka Vox. Both know how to handle themselves in a fight so if things went badly they would probably be the best help we could have.
The shuttle also doesn’t have any weapons so we’ll need to be extra careful to not pick a fight in space. That or hijack a ship with weapons on the way back.
Since the Plankton will remain in HQ during this mission we requested for a brig to be installed. Kronk also requested for a chemistry laboratory to be added to the ship.
Our goal for this mission was to find out if they can be allies or if they will be enemies. Our best contact for this, according to Jack Knight, would be the Warden of the station. If the opportunity presents we should also try to get as much information about their technology as possible, specially how they can move their space stations without stumbling into Reapers.
Of course, Jack was also part of this mission. In fact he would be the one taking us there.
Labor also decided that a disguise for him was necessary, after all the Hades Initiative probably wouldn’t be too happy with a geth on their base. So he requested Commander Yulaya to borrow a LOKI Mech body for this mission.
Commander Yulaya told him they didn’t have one available but perhaps he could find an used one on the scavenger market.
Labor then went off to the market to look for it. Over there he met Bygone, explained the situation and his fellow geth offered to take him to someone who probably had a used LOKI Mech for sale.
They soon got to a shop owned by a Salarian named… Sleazy. 1
Sleazy took them to a back room of his shop which contained a bunch of broken robots, including a beaten up LOKI Mech on the corner. Somehow during their exchange Sleazy thought Labor wanted the robot for sex, which Labor didn’t deny. Probably just to try to expedite things and to not raise questions about why he wanted it.
Labor then convinced Sleazy to run some diagnostics on the robot, allowing him to find its internals to still be in a relatively good condition. After some bargaining the LOKI Mech was bought with Sleazy even throwing in a lingerie as a bonus.
With some help from Bygone, they fixed the robot and transferred Labor consciousness into it.
Next our party met with Jack who was very happy to be joining with us. He did ask us for a favor though, there was this girl on the station that he wanted to impress so he wanted us to pretend to be his crew.
Some people in the party didn’t like this idea much so we decided to not go with it. Just to not let Jack completely down, Labor gave him the lingerie so the smuggler could gift it to the girl.
At this point we were also given a tracking device in case Jack decided to escape.
With all the preparations taken care off, we traveled to the space station. Fortunately the trip was uneventful. Finding the station though took a few minutes but eventually Jack located it in the orbit of a planet.
The station obviously looked like it had some additions made to it, including a big module with some thrusters attached to it. Those thrusters looked like it were originally part of a human warship.
To get into it however was surprisingly easy. There were just some bureaucracy that Jack had to take care of but otherwise we didn’t have any problem.
Near the area we docked there was a little bazaar with several shops setup. Jack explained that was the area where he used to hang out the most. Further inside the station things were more serious and where people went to deal with their officials.
We asked if he had any idea about how many people in the station were indoctrinated or heard any rumor about it. Jack replied that he didn’t know anything about it as he tried to not deal too much with them. All he knew about is that the Warden was the top dog of the place.
He also gave us a description of the Warden: a middle age human, white and male. Probably some other details too that I just didn’t write down for some reason. Actually, even this little I am not entirely sure I got right so there might be a correction on the next post…
But back to the story! Jack guided us through the areas he knew of, while Kronk recorded with his VI anything that he could. During our walk we noticed that the security of the station consisted only of humans, asari, salarian and a few robots. Among the civilians there were a greater range of species, with the inclusion of volus and hanar.
However there was no turian, krogans or geth to be seen anywhere. Furthermore very few civilians were obviously armed making our party stand out like a sore thumb.
When they got to a private area Lorik asked why there were no turians or krogans around the station. Jack explained that since the Hades Initiative came from Cerberus they didn’t like aliens much. But after the invasion they needed the manpower so they warmed up to the salarians and asari.
There were a few krogans allowed but mostly as mercenaries. As for turians, well, it looked like the Hades Initiative were still pretty bitter about the First Contact War.
The areas we saw were what you would expect, regular markets, black markets, a junkyard that sold salvage and a medical area.
In that last area, Jack directed our attention to a biotic clinic saying that was the largest one he saw that was still operational.
Jack also said that if had any biotic needs we could get it there. However if we went into the clinic they would immediately know who we were. According to the smuggler they recorded the faces of anyone who enter the building then used that data to identify people. So if we tried to lie about our names they would find out.
He also heard stories about people who went to the clinic then eventually disappeared.
This was enough to pick Sidona’s interest as she just marched straight into the clinic then started asking the receptionist, an asari woman, about their services. The lady tried to get some personal information but Sidona either wouldn’t answer the questions or would change the subject.
The receptionist got so frustrated that she called in a doctor nearby, a young human male, to deal with the situation. They went through the same thing again but this time Sidona was able to extract a bit of interesting information:
Their services were pretty much what you would expect from a biotic clinic. But the vast majority of their clientele were humans since asari don’t see the need for it and salarian’s biotics rarely have any bugs on theirs. They did get an odd krogan once.
They also never worked on a turian before. In fact if Sidona went there wanting to become a biotic then she would need an authorization.
Biotics could also join as part of their security forces but it was unlikely Sidona would make the cut. The reason for that is that people usually didn’t hire turians as security in the station. In fact, Sidona was the first one to show interest in that.
Without any more information to be gained, Sidona left the clinic. As she did so, Sidona heard the medic whispering to the receptionist to inform security of this incident.
When the group got together again they decided to go back to the ship to plan their next step.
They started to bounce some ideas around until they finally came up with the following plan:
They would go to a bar, start a fight then get arrested. Since Labor is disguised as a LOKI Mech, security would most likely treat him as property and store him in some warehouse, leaving him basically free to walk around. Kronk would not participate in the fight, instead he would use his sneaking abilities to follow the prisoners and break them out.
Then either Labor or Kronk or both would try to hack into the terminal computers to get as much information as they could as well as to find the location of the Warden. Then once everybody was together again they would extract the Warden, get the hell out of the station and deliver the man to the Resistance.
It was decided that Lylid and Linus would stay behind on the ship, together with the other NPCs, to serve as cavalry in case something goes wrong. Which considering how crazy and stupid this plan is, something most likely will go wrong!
But at least nobody can accuse this plan of being boring or predictable!
Before the plan started properly, Kronk bought some paints then repainted Labor to look like a local maintenance robot.
Once that was done, they went to a bar in a seedy part of the station. Kronk stayed outside while Lorik, Sidona and Labor went in.
It didn’t take them long to hear some people badmouthing turians. It was a group of four people: two humans, an asari and a quarian. They sat on the table next to them and as soon as they did there were being exchanged between the two groups.
Soon after they started to fight each other. In the middle of the chaos, a krogan came out of the bathroom, got excited by the fight and joined in.
Two minutes later the security forces entered the bar and arrested everyone involved. Kronk then went invisible and jumped on top of one of their cars. Somehow he was able to do it so silently that the group feared something might have happened to him.
As predicted though they took Labor to a warehouse where they put him in a locked area. He pretended to be deactivated then waited until the guards were gone. To make things even better the guard for the warehouse didn’t care much about his job and just put some earphones to listen to some music.
It was pretty easy for Labor to break out as there were some pile of trash nearby that he was able to use to open the cell door. As he went through the warehouse, he found a room where other robots were being recharged and a computer. Labor hacked into the computer, copied all the security codes he could and the blueprints for the local area. Then he ordered one of the recharging robots to go back to the locked area and shut down.
Once that was all done, Labor went through the maintenance tunnels to go to the police station.
Outside the police station, it took about an hour for Kronk’s invisibility power to recharge. Once it did he waited until a random person came out of the building then snuck in.
Inside, Kronk found a cubicle to not only hide but that also had a computer that he could hack into. Again we got a stroke of luck as there was an old sticky note there with the username and password for the computer.
Kronk then spent the next 20 minutes downloading all the names of the people in the police station plus some maps.
As for Lorik and Sidona they were processed by the security forces then put into a jail cell together with the krogan that joined their bar fight.
They started to chat and found out the krogan’s name was Blelch Vox. Apparently it is a very small galaxy because was not only he part of the same clan as our cook, Chanka Vox, but they knew each other from before the invasion.
Lorik mentioned meeting Chanka before then tried to convince Blelch to join them once they got out. His proposal was that if they joined forces they could maybe find the old krogan again.
Blelch didn’t seem too interested but asked that if they saw Chanka again to give him a good punch then tell him that Blelch said hello.
At this point four guards came in, pointed to Sidona then ordered her to go with them. They took her through a corridor that led outside then made her enter into a car. The vehicle took off… and we’ll only know to where on the next session!
Seems like we’ll need that help from the cavalry sooner than we expected! XD
Also, I will be very surprised if we ever get sent for an intelligence gathering mission again after this. On the other hand the Resistance is strapped for people so I guess they can’t be too picky on who they choose for missions. XD
I am also guessing that any possible alliance with the Hades Initiative has been pretty much shot down by our actions in this session alone. XD
Notable Quotes
This is turning into war crimes simulator.
Sidona, OOC
As far as I am concerned most of us are not humans therefore it is not cannibalism.
Labor, OOC?
If it comes into a showdown against Gary the pupper I will kill everybody else in retaliation!
Lorik, OOC
I reach for my gun.
Labor immediately upon meeting Sleazy
- Yes, it is the same Sleazy as the one from the Knights of Errant campaign. Actually the first Sleazy we met, or at least I met, was from a previous Star Wars campaign. They all have the same personality, same New York (?) accent and a son called Junior. He also lives up to his name.