It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks, between medical and dental appointments, child issues, and other stressors, I’ve not been able to post as often as I would like. So here’s an AAR for the Battlestar Galactica RPG.

We’ve had two “episodes” so far in the new “season”, which started with the addition of a new member to the gaming group. (His blog.)

The players are, respectively, the commander of Aegis from the rest of the gaming reports (now reassigned after the “screw up” during his mission to do reconnaissance in Cylon space to the soon-to-be decommissioned Galactica) who is on a three week leave before his next command — he has effectively been beached by his political opponents in the Fleet; and a Colonial Security Service (think FBI) special agent that is on the Fox Mulderish side, seeing conspiracies everywhere (and sometimes correctly so) and who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident that had him recollecting an alien abduction that was most likely just his imagination integrating the medical attention he was getting at the time (now he’s starting to think it was Cylon experimentation he suffered…)

They have been looking into Cylon influence in the Colonies. Previously, the commnader discovered that Colonial citizens have been taken and altered by the Cylons. They apparently are brainwashing, or through cybernetic implants controlling the actions of people in the 12 worlds. One of these was a high powered lobbyist working for his wife, who runs one of the premier, pro-military-industrial complex lobbying firms in the Colonies. The discovery has temporarily damaged the influence of the Pindarus Group (the firm), and given them some insight into the Cylon operations: the Cylons appear to be using lobbyists, educations foundations, politically-powerful non-profit NGOs — the highly influential, but mostly unseen kingmakers of the Colonies — to tweak military policy, create social unrest, and plant agents through the Colonies.

The two episodes (about 3 play sessions, so far) revolve around the investigation of another high-powered lawyer/lobbyist for the Lucan Group, an educational non-profit that is connected to the Democrat-Republican Party (pro-Colonial government, but seeking a more federalist system with the individual colonies having more autonomy and sovereignty) and based on Virgon. Count Lucan is a rich and powerful former member of the Virgonian government who has gone recluse after an orbital glider accident. He is also the man behind the Prometheus Foundation (think the Tides Center for level of influence). The lobbyist was spied moving people onto Caprica around the customs at Caprica City Spaceport, and this got the CSS onto him. The special agent (Chaplin) gets roped ito a most secret operation called RIPTIDE, which he is shocked is investigating Cylon infiltration. He also realizes that Commander Pindarus (the other character) is crossing the Cylon’s path on several occasions…he doesn’t believe in coincidence, so could it be the Cylons are targeting him? He pulls Pindarus into the investigation, getting him seconded to CSS for the next few weeks (something the commander is happy to be involved in.)

After a high-power gala at the local Carnoss Club, Chaplin “looks the lobbyist in the eye” and realizes how dangerous the man is. (He has the Intuition asset, making him preternaturally good t sussing out things.) He also notices the man making cell phone calls while worriedly watching the characters at the party. Shortly after they leave, Chaplin notices a tail on the commander’s car. It turns out to be a planned “accident”, where the Pindarus car is tee-boned with a delivery truck. Paranoia is a watchword for the two characters and they avoid the second part of the bad guy’s plan: using an ambulance to abduct the commander and his politically connected wife.

Through a few slip-ups due to it being 2 in the morning and people not thinking straight after the accident, the ambulance crew gets away. Later, they figure out one of the drivers was one of the people smuggled into Caprica by their suspect. They attempt to arrest the guy but wind up in a firefight. The driver, shrieking for help and apparently not in contro of his actions, hurls himself through his seventh-story window to his death.

There was a lot of investigation work of cell phone records, traffic cameras, etc. but they figure out the operation was run by Tauronese organized crime elements (the Ha’la’tha) and that the “boss” of the group is in hiding. They get her location, and once they have her, they may have enough evidence to bring in the lobbyist, who is powerful enough they are worried venal politicians and other power brokers might shut their operation down before they can get any traction.

We ended with two plotlines ongoing last night: the raid on the Ha’la’tha hideout in a former steel mill in the rundown former industrial sector of Caprica City (damn those Canceronians and their favorable corporate tax rates!), and their hopes to arrest the lobbyist. It’s pretty obvious that sooner or later they’ll be headed to Virgon to confront the  mysterious Count Lucan, and a hint of the timeline they’ve got left was dropped — Galactica is due to be turned into a museum and decommissioned in six months.

 

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