To Boldly Go: the Expedition to the Artifact

Originally published May 26, 2014

Another installment from my Fate game To Boldly Go.

In the recorded history of the Federation, there have been no encounters with any signs of intelligent alien life. Alien life, yes. In the seas and surfaces of distant worlds, humanity has found strange bacteria, viruses, even primitive animals and plants. But nothing to even approach the intelligence of a canine or even reptilian mind.

Except on the world of the Artifact.

Rumored to hold the ruins of an alien civilization billions of years old, an expedition has recently been mounted to find and explore this system.

Expedition Members

Those who have chosen to go on this adventure are a diverse and eager group from a half-dozen different colonies. Their enthusiasm will be tested by travelling far beyond explored space, weeks away from any source of rescue and exposed to unknown life forms and defense mechanisms.

Here are a sample of the roster:

• Tom Warner: a citizen of New Earth, he hopes to catalogue the life of this strange new world. This blond-haired man seems to get along with just about everyone.
• Jixie Hite: also comes from New Earth where his family worked for the Hite Corporation for the past three generations. Jixie broke with tradition and ran off to play explorer.
• Srivani Smith: a tall friendly woman of Indian heritage, Srivani hails from the enclave of Persimmon. Something of a radical, she detests the ruthless corporations of the Federation.
• Marija: a Kimo parahuman, genetically engineered to have hands instead of feet, Marija is ill-suited for the exploration of the dry dusty world of the Artifact. Her reasons for being involved remain a mystery.
• Alex Aol: always doing things by the book, this Space Gypsy has been on 6 expeditions with the team leader Saori Lu. She tends to be reserved in the company of strangers.

Four main languages are spoken in the expedition though almost no one knows all of them. New Speak, the language of New Earth is most common, followed by the Space Gypsy creole. Kimo, a variant of the Gypsy tongue, and Persimmon, a variant of Hindi, make up the other languages. Understanding any given language is an Average Difficulty (2) Language task.

• High Concept: Enthusiastic Explorers
• Skills: Culture +1, Academics +1, Science +1

Mercury Lu

The beautiful Mercury Lu was the leader of a small colony of Space Gypsies and one of the first "outsiders" encountered by the Federation Space Vessel Columbia on its first foray beyond Federation space. This encounter went poorly after a brief romantic relationship with the Executive Officer Steve Walmart went sour, due to his documenting her copyright violations. It remains unclear if she was trying to hit or just to scare him with her laser shots. In any case the First Contact Team didn't stick around to find out.

The Federation remains generally unaware of Mercury Lu's business, which is brokering deals for hard to acquire (i.e. illegal) items. She has contracted with companies and individuals throughout the Ceti Alpha sector, including Samsung and the Primate Liberation Army. The last deal she helped broker failed disastrously with the goods being destroyed along with the buyer and seller.

With her activities potentially under investigation, she decided to lay low and slinked back to her estranged wife, Saori Lu, joining her on the expedition. She met Saori on a research expedition investigating reports of fossils in a series of comets. The two hit it off and became close. Perhaps marrying was a bit hasty but Mercury was never one to hesitate. This comes to strain their relationship after a series of infidelities.

• High Concept: Gypsy Angel Free Trader
• Trouble: Ruled by Emotions
• Other Aspects: Beautiful but Bitter Infosocialist
• Skills: EVA +5, Rapport +4, Combat Training +3, Will +2, Computer +1
• Stunts: Neural Interface: can using Computer wirelessly, +2 to hacking systems; zero G Acrobatics: use EVA instead of Athletics when moving freely in micro gravity environments
• Stress: 2 Physical/3 Mental [Mild Consequence]

Culture: Space Gypsies

Wanderers across the empty regions of space, Space Gypsies subsist by mining asteroids and comets. They are one of the few cultures in the Federation that have maintained a separate identity, perhaps helped by their general remoteness and their adaptions to zero G environments.

They refer to themselves as Gypsy Angels or Tennin. Throughout known space, they have a reputation as pirates and thieves. In the Federation this is compounded by a general distaste for their use of cybernetics and non-therapeutic genetic engineering.

Space Gypsies universally belong to the genetic variant known as Tennin (a reference to Buddhist angels). Tall and willowy, they possess genes that ensure they do not suffer degenerative bone damage from a lifetime in deep space. With improved genetic repair mechanisms to deal with ambient cosmic radiation and prehensile toes for better gripping, they are well adapted to the zero G environments of space.

Technologically, the Tennin culture is comparative with the Federation but with a much smaller resource base. They make heavy use of neural interfaces to allow them to relay messages silently even in a vacuum and favor the use of laser weapons.

Their language is a mixture of Mandarin and English. They speak either sufficiently well to communicate with most inhabitants of the Federation but few members of the Federation can understand them with such ease.

Saori Lu

Saori Lu's full history remains unknown. Much older than her wife Mercury Lu, she has a reputation as a skilled scientist and academic, chiefly focused on contacting intelligent life in the galaxy. For the past half century she has scouted numerous worlds with signs of life, hoping to find evidence that these worlds at some point held an intelligent species.

Seemingly ageless, Saori's grandparents chose to give their children the Gilgamesh genetic template, optimized for increased intelligence and longevity. With centuries of life ahead of her, she can afford to be patient. Painstakingly she has cataloged thousands of alien species on dozen of expeditions. Most have been bacteria and primitive multicellular organisms. But finally on Persimmon, she was able to get funding for a trip out to the rumored world of the Artifact.

Mentioned in reports by wandering Space Gypsies for over a century, this rare earth-like world possesses the clearest evidence that we are not alone. Now she hopes to learn the history and knowledge of an intelligent race that vanished over 3 billion years ago.

Saori keeps her personal life out of her work as much as possible. Her wife, Mercury, however has decided to crash the expedition. This has not helped their rocky marriage. Between Saori's workaholic tendencies and foolish hope to recapture a long-lost youth, it's a miracle that Mercury hasn't left already. Saori knows about Mercury's infidelities with Steve Walmart as well as Mercury's criminal activities. She can't fault her for the later since she herself has made use of her criminal connections.

• High Concept: Humanity’s First Xeno-Archaeologist
• Trouble: My Way or Else
• Aspects: One Woman Expedition, Older Than She Looks, Stolen Experimental Defense Nantes
• Skills: Investigate +5, Academics +4, Science +4, Culture +3, Will +3, Physique +3, EVA +2, Linguistics +2, Notice +2, Rapport +2, Athletics +1, Empathy +1, Engineering +1, Medicine +1, Pilot +1
• Stunts: Attention to Detail: use Investigate instead of Empathy to defend against Deceive attempts, Indomitable: + 2 to defend against Provoke attacks specifically related to intimidation and fear, Superior Genes: increase the bonus from invoking “Older Than She Looks” to +4
• Stress: 4 Physical/4 Mental [Mild, Moderate, and Serious Consequence]