The Black Campbell

It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks, between teaching, handling financial issues, and wrangling a wee girl, as well as trying to recruit new players to the group. This week was another washout on getting people together (this is becoming a habit…I may need a new hobby), but the week before saw another Battlestar Galactica adventure.

The new player chose to play a Fox Mulder-esque Colonial Security Service agent (essentially, the Colonies’ FBI) who sees conspiracies everywhere. He’s a paranoid, but effective cop who is perpetually being shifted to crap jobs because of his tendency to slide off target. He has an uncanny intuitive mind and phenomenal pattern recognition…seeing connections that are sometimes not there (correlative, not causative.)

We started the episode with this new character on a stakeout, doing surveillance on a lobbyist for the Prometheus Foundation — a massive, multi-colony non-profit that is tied to policy analysis, education foundations, etc. Think the Tides Center, and you’re in the ballpark. They don’t know why, but Chaplin (the character) has learned that their information is going to an Operation Riptide. Riptide, however, isn’t on the books, so far as he can see…

They report on the lobbyist, who meets with an independent freighter captain based out of Aquaria (in our campaign, the most popular flag of convenience for shipping due to lax records keeping and regulation), where he arranges for a  transport of a dozen or so people that the freighter apparently smuggled onto Caprica without them going through immigration control (a formality in our campaign — there’s supposed to be open travel between Colonies, but it rarely works that way.) Why the secrecy? They appear to be from all walks of life and get deposited by minibus at various points in Caprica City. Chaplin, curiosity piqued, does some research on their target, but before he can finish, they are called to report the next day to CSS HQ.

He has been transfered to Riptide because of his pattern recognition skills and his ability to ferret out real (and imagined) conspiracies. He finds out about the Cylon agents active in the Colonies, and that Riptide is the codeword for the counterespionage mission to find and isolate these people. He finds out about the cybernetic enhancements to these people they believe alllows the Cylons to monitor their actions, and that some may not even know they are spies for the enemy, and worst — that some of these “people” may actually be Cylons! They have been infiltrating all levels of Colonial society, and he notes that they seem to have some kind of connection to the politically powerful Pindarus family…but are they targets or conspirators…or both?

Meanwhile, Commander Alexander Pindarus, who has been “beached” in his terms, by being transfered from his command of Aegis and the missions across the Armistice Line he managed to lobby for to Galactica (which he later learns is scheduled to be turned into a museum…with a skeleton crew to operate her), returns to Caprica. He is intercepted by Chaplin, who wants to question him and try to get a feel for it he’s a bad guy or victim. Pindarus’ wife, a big lobbyist in her own right, doesn’t trust this policeman — they’ve already had a raid by the CSS that has left the Pindarus Group under investigation and their funds locked up. However, after a conversation about the situation, Chaplin wants to roll him into the investigation for the three weeks he’s got before Pindarus must take command of Galactica.

They were lining up a “chance” meeting with the lobbyist he had been investigating, who they think is a major node in the Cylon spy network, at a big political do that night…

Screaming child brought the game to an early end, but we’re hoping to pick it up again next week.

One of our players is moving to Texas, another has gotten a job that might impair his attendance…yes, we’re heading into a possible dry spell on gaming here in Albuquerque.

So we decided to pull a long session on Labor Day and finish out the “season” of our Battlestar Galactica campaign. We completed the last adventure we were playing and launched straight into (and finished!) the finale. The first hour saw the crew do a lot of scientific research and speculation on the findings at the archeological dig site under their deep-range observation post near the Armistice Line. The site appears to have been an ancient tylium mine, and they found human skeletons mixed with very tall human skeletons…and two intact corpses in spacesuits.

One corpse was send back to Picon for the intelligence corps to analyse, while the ship’s doctor and the dig’s archeologist did an autopsy on the other. They had only a few hours to do their work before exposure to the atmosphere caused decomposition of the corpse. What they found: DNA had 46 chromosomes but at least another 5000-10000 gene sequences over humans. It’s a different species, but one that most likely could breed with humans. The next move is to extract mitochondrial DNA and see if it matches that of the 12 “base” mitochondrial DNA sequences that make up the Twelve Tribes.

The height, very dense bones, and tightly packed musculature suggest a very strong and resilient creature. they also found what they think were dogtags in pockets of the suits — disks with the odd writing they’d found on signage and computer-like devices, but with a symbol of Athena on the reverse. Isotope dating put the corpse at about 3000 years old — so younger than the old city found on Sagittaron, but older than the founding of the Colonies.

Their speculation: these giants are Lords of Kobol. The discovery has both emboldened some religious types, and caused serious anome in the crew.

After a bit of episode clean-up, we moved onto the next mission — the recon of the Cadmus system, 3.2 light years on the other side of the Armistice Line. They have a clever plan to use a stealth viper (we’re calling them the Mk VI Cobra) to do a flyby of Cylon positions on a few moons of a gas giant in the system. Two other ships that are part of Operation UNDERTOW are Valkyrie (under CDR William Adama), and Mentor. As expected, things do not go as planned. For Valkyrie, it’s a version of the Bulldog episode from third season (I think it’s third…) Mentor pulls off her mission with no issues.

The players, on the other hand, have serious problems. The CAG is flying the mission and both he and the guy checkin his course goof their rolls. He nearly hit a moon of the nearby planet he’s using to slingshot assist his approach to the planet. He has a 10 hour ride in the cockpit to the gas giant and falls asleep and last minute realizes he’s drifted off course and has to risk a correction. He does his flyby and two ballistic drones capture images and ELINT of a new kind of basestar (the one from Razor the hybrid was on) and another on the surface of a moon acting as some kind of base of operations, as well as a massive tylium and metals mining operation. The Cylons are busy…

Mr. Murphy is along for the ride, however, and while the raiders doing CAP over the posts don’t pick up his electronic signature or see him on DRADIS, they get eyes on him in front of the gas giant. He runs for it, pulls off a spectacular escape using the planet’s atmosphere, and flees, sending out a krypter to a nearby observation raptor. Good thing those new, strange looking fighters can’t jump, huh?

He runs straight into the radiers that were chasing him; they’ve jumped ahead of his course. The character’s Cobra gets shot to hell and he has to punch out. A heavy raider — they’ve not seen one before — comes for a pickup and he sees a new centurion inside. That’s when Aegis arrives to save his ass. The ship’s fighter squadron does a number on the Cylons, which are being jammed heavily by the ship to prevent their communicating with their basestar. One of the raiders jumps out.

The CAG is rescued and as another raptor is recovering the black box from his plane, the basestar arrives. A short and vicious battle ensues, but they escape.

The adventure ended with the heavy politics that has been central in the campaign. They find out that the mission was approved but no one expected it to be a success. A main point of the rules of engagement was a zero footprint mission — no contact with the Cylons. Both Adama and Pindarus (a PC and the task force commander) had some kind of contact. Adama wasted his pilot before Valkyrie was discovered. Aegis actually fought Cylons. It could start a war!

The admirals are ready to hang him out to dry, but an impassioned plea for the fleet to start getting ready, that the Cylons are mobilizing, manages to get him “promoted” to a bigger ship. It’s actually a penance tour to slow down his fast rise in the ranks…he’s been giving the soon to be decommissioned Galactica. The Cylon threat is used to coaxed the Quorum of 12 back into session — President Adar will classify the Sagittaron dig that has caused much political and religious strife, and the Sagittarons return to the quorum to allow for the defense budget to pass.

As you can see, I’m using the idea of the “all of this has happened before…” motif of the new show to do a new iteration of the story. Hints that were dropped suggest that last campaign (which was set during the RDM show as a second fleet game) happened in the past. Why have Adama as the commander of Galactica? This time, someone else is playing that role… It puts the characters in place to be instrumental in this next iteration of the Wheel of Time.

Last night’s Battlestar Galactica RPG game was fantastic. It was one of those nights where all the plyaers were on it, all the characters got to not only do story-specific tasks but were able to have role playing/character development moments that were fun for all. As a GM, I was heartened by the fact that a half-assed plan and a vague idea of where the overall campaign is going combined with some inspired mental tap-dancing to create a spooky and intellectually engaging plot.

Having completed their murder mystery, it’s time for Aegis and her task force to set up for the Armistice Line to set up a forward operating base for their forays over the line into Cylon space. We opened with the master chief leading a bunch of the wrenches down to fix a problem with the magcats in the launch bay. There were comic moments where they are completely thwarted by a single, stubborn bolt holding the access panel closed. The new player/character got to experience the mundanities of service life — 0500 PT, communal showers in the general heads, breakfast on the fly as new NCO she gets the crap supervisor jobs. The CAG has to get the plan of action for their jump to the Polyxena system right.

The commander get s a gift from the chief engineer and master chief — a scanning electron microsope the engineer managed to appropriate from her last assignment at Scorpia Yards. Now they can identify Cylon tissue by the silica fiber optics and molecular machines’ signatures. Additionally, the master chief stole the material for a state-of-the-art holotank for their war room. Think Surface, but in 3-D. Of course, everyone’s first thought…we can get the 3D Pyramid games on this!

They jump to Polyxena, site of their first mission, wher they had been very cursory on their search before bugging out. the observation post is still abandoned, and the ancient tylium mine facility that had been discovered by the miners on the moon, and which the post had been conducting archeological research on, is still accessible.

While damage control teams get the observation post back online, a DC team under the ship’s CAG, Dr. Gio Mellor — an archeologist from the Sagitaron dig (search the site for the appropriate AAR), and the intelligence NCO head into the dig site. They get further than the crew did last time and discover several things in the dark, minute ammonium atmosphere of the old mine:

1) The doors to the mine were blown open by a shaped charge. 2) There is evidence of a fight. Shell casings from two different kinds of rifle — small caliber (.27 cal they later learn) and a mid-caliber (.335 cal.)…nothing they know of in use today. The dispersion of the shells suggest small caliber was used by the facility defenders. 3) Computers with keyboards in an unknown script. Some paper notes that have survive the ages, as well, with the same script. 4) All of the furniture, clothing, etc. is slightly larger than one would expect for humans, but is still recognizably human. 5) Coins with the symbol of Zeus on them… ( ♃ ) 5) They find musical instruments, personal items, and other humanizing trinkets in the labyrinthine living area. 6) The mine was extensive and equipment easily on par with current technology.

Lastly, they find a last stand with a line of armed remains protecting a group of unarmed remains. Most are skeletal, now, but a few were in space suits and are mostly intact. They look human.

The night ended with no answers, and they were shipping the bodies up to the ship for autopsy and analysis.