Infinity meets ROBOTECH

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Fnordianslip

Wait, can't the conveyers arrive at a different point from where they started at? I thought you could specify coordinates in space as well as world. Or am I thinking of the time travel portion of that book?

I don't think they can. And if they could, I doubt they would think to change their target without knowing the island was gone.
But, regardless, I doubt a conveyor could go from Pluto to Earth. After all, there is a Pyramid Article talking about how Homeline does space stuff. I don't have my books here (at work) so I can't check.

Edit: the article does mention the point-to-point nature of parachronics, so they're pretty much stuck where they are.

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Kale

Let Breetai get ahold of one of the conveyers? Minaturized Zentradi try to figure out how to make it work, and the PCs have to infiltrate a battle cruiser to recover or destroy it. Alternately, the Zentradi get ahold of one conveyer, maybe the PC's one, and the Infinitiy and Centrum characters have to use the Centrum conveyer to follow them and recover it. Centrum may try to betray them to get BOTH conveyers.

Somehow, I think Breetai would be more likely to ship the thing back to the Robotech Masters to figure out, unless he already had a good idea of what it could do, or a prisoner. The Zentradi are not encouraged to explore new technology, other than to destroy it.

OTOH, what happens if he does ship it back to the Triol, but the Invid intercept it? The Regis is smart enough to reverse engineer it...

+++|<=== Lord Carnifex ---

[sabreknight]

Originally Posted by Lord Carnifex

OTOH, what happens if he does ship it back to the Triol, but the Invid intercept it? The Regis is smart enough to reverse engineer it...

...and make it to Homline. That would really twist things. Makes you wonder though, Does Homeline have Protoculture floating around somewhere in the universe? and if so, the Invid will make a beeline for it as soon as they can...

[quarkstomper]

So, here's how todays game went:

I let some of the PC's try out to become Veritech fighters. Amber and Street had military backgrounds. Neither one of them had the Pilot skill written on their sheets, but since I wanted some fighter action in the game and since they both had a background that made piloting possible, I decided to let them have it. Hopper, the one-eyed pacifist with motion sickness was different. I asked him if he reeeeeealy wanted to do this and he said yes, so I let him try out on a simulator. Incredibly enough, he made the default roll, even modified for his lack of depth perception. So I let him train to be a fighter pilot. What the hey, a lot of anime characters have hair covering one eye anyway.

Betamax, the mechanoid, got a job on the bridge crew, to keep an eye on the Centrum agent. (And to hang out with the cute Bridge Bunnies; just because he's inorganic doesn't mean he can't appreciate their aesthetic virtues). Moonshine, the magic girl joined up with her new friend Ash, working with children at one of the refugee shelters.

While the pilots were undergoing their training period, I let Betamax figure out that the SDF-1 could be reconfigured to utilize the Honkin' Big Plasma Cannon. He also realized that the transformation would wreak havoc with the refugee community, so Gloval put him in charge of zoning: figuring out which parts of the ships interior would be affected by the transformation and marking them as danger zones.

Amber, Hopper and Street are on a training mission flying amongst the debris field that still surrounds the SDF-1. Hopper spots their conveyer, which got scooped up with the rest of Macross City when the SDF-1 originally did its space-fold maneuver. But as Hopper is bringing it back to the ship, they spot the Zentradi fleet coming in out of space-fold.

Captain Gloval orders the rest of the Veritechs out to fight and give the command to reconfigure the SDF-1 into fighting mode.

At their shelter, Moonshine and Ash hear the warning alarms. Unfortunately, one of the kids under their care has wandered off into one of the danger zones. Ash runs to grab him just as part of the floor opens up. Ash follows them and the three of them wind up in an unexplored section of the ship. Moonshine senses a strange power nearby, something sort of like magic but not quite. The girls investigate and discover the hidden Protoculture Matrix.

Meanwhile, Amber is having too much fun shooting at enemy battlepods. One of them lures her into an ambush and she finds herself captured by the Zentradi. She is interrogated by the Zentradi science officer Excedor, who is startled to discover that she is a female... and that she is pregnant. (This is a bit embarassing. I forgot that Amber was pregnant when I had Glovel agree to let her be a pilot. Oh well, at least she has both eyes). This majorly freaks out the Zentradi, who segregate the sexes and reproduce through artificial means.

The Centrum agent and a couple minions find Moonshine and Ash and attempt to kill them to keep the secret of the matrix to themselves. Stupid move for the bad guys, but I was looking to move the plot; in retrospect I should have come up with something better. This is an anime universe, so naturally the cute teenage girls kick the Centrum agents' collective butt.

So. The way things stand, the team has recovered their conveyer, (although if it will still be where they left it once the battle is over I have not determined). The humans have discovered the Protoculture Matrix, but are unsure what to do with it. Amber is still in the hands of the Zentradi. Moonshine and Ash's players want to know if exposure to the Protoculture Matrix has given them any cool mutant powers.

Whee!

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by quarkstomper

Moonshine and Ash's players want to know if exposure to the Protoculture Matrix has given them any cool mutant powers.

Whee!

This is where you look at them, smile wickedly and say, "well, now, wouldn't you like to know. MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Other than that, it sounds like your party is doing a good job of getting themselves deeper in trouble. At least now they have reason to try to capture a Zentradi cruiser.

[GoodGame]

Originally Posted by quarkstomper

The team arrives on Macross Island on the day the SDF-1 is to be launched, which puts them at ground zero when the Zentradi attack. And when the SDF-1 activates it's space-fold engines, zapping it and most of Macross Island to the orbit of Pluto, the team gets dragged along for the ride.


Any thoughts?

Wow, I used to be a big Macross fan, and now I'm drawing a blank. Probably they should fire the planner of the mission first, since if I recall, some of the city is flotsam and jetsam in space now. The conveyor could be adrift.

Possibly the PC's have some fighter pilot skills? Or maybe they could bluff to be intelligence agents, convice the SDF-1 crew to help find the conveyors and get them running. Possibly use the conveyor SDF-1 to pay a visit / ambush to a Zentradi fleet in transit, or a Zentradi staging point for the invasion of Earth/Mars. Or just hijack some protoculture somewhere.

The last one makes the must sense---a behind enemy lines attack to infiltrate protoculture stores--should **** the Zentradi off well.

[GoodGame]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I don't think they can. And if they could, I doubt they would think to change their target without knowing the island was gone.
But, regardless, I doubt a conveyor could go from Pluto to Earth. After all, there is a Pyramid Article talking about how Homeline does space stuff. I don't have my books here (at work) so I can't check.

Edit: the article does mention the point-to-point nature of parachronics, so they're pretty much stuck where they are.

Perhaps they can simply find a time-line with way too much space traffic, or a Pluto base?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by GoodGame

Perhaps they can simply find a time-line with way too much space traffic, or a Pluto base?

Talk about a one in infinity chance! No, they'd be better off finding their conveyor (which they did) and trying to get it back to Earth (which, under normal circumstances will take two years).
Heck, I'd give my idea about capturing a Zentradi ship better odds than finding a world that fits that bill.

[Fabricati]

... And.. more importantly, wouldn't it, as a normal conveyor, require a projector for all that bouncing?

[tmedwards]

Originally Posted by Fabricati

... And.. more importantly, wouldn't it, as a normal conveyor, require a projector for all that bouncing?

You only need a projector to enable your conveyor to change quanta. As long as you're travelling to timelines on the same quantum level all you need is a functional conveyor.