The Mandatory Borniko Syndicate Job

Hello, beautiful peeps! I know, it's been a beat, and posting an update on a Sunday is a bit random. I had decided that I wanted to just be on vacation last week, hence the skipped post on the 5th. My priority was spending the time with Hubby instead of squirrelling away to write this update. Hope you guys didn't miss me too terribly.

As for this week? Well, Hubby's manager had her baby this past Wednesday, which means hubby's schedule this week - and straight through the manager's maternity leave - is a bit wonky to help cover her leave. I again took the opportunity to just spend Tuesday morning with Hubby before he did a long closing shift. This blog got neglected in the process, but, ya know... priorities. Then it was just a matter of not having any consistent free time since. I mean, I've been chipping away at this update all week, but I haven't had a solid couple of hours to just sit and write. Which is why there's been such a long delay.

There might be an ongoing shift of when I post these updates as I try to figure out my own new routine to coincide with Hubby's. I'll have to get back to you on what that new updating schedule might look like. Possibly late in the day Tuesdays, perhaps Sundays since that's my shortest work day, perhaps some other day that I'm not busy with much else. Who knows? Hubby has been getting back into Magic: The Gathering, so maybe Friday nights while he's playing at the local game shop? Maybe Saturday mornings after I've had an evening to work alone on the post?

Like I said, I'll keep you updated once I've figured it out.

Along those lines, since I wanted to spend as much time with Hubby as we possibly could while on our joint vacation (and again this past Tuesday morning), I also didn't sequester myself to try to get any further work done on my writing projects. So no writing updates this go. Not that you guys are surprised about that by now, I'm sure.

We do have more Scum and Villainy to talk about, though. For instance, I finally remembered to ask Quarthix to spell out Demarcus' last name for me, and I also remembered to ask everyone for character ages. Which means I now have an almost-completed official roster for the Stardancer:

• Captain: Demarcus Recocu
• Alias: "Captain"
• Playbook: Muscle
• Species: Human
• Age: 25
• Background: Former on-call doctor for the Borniko Syndicate
• Pilot of the Slambulance
• Racing Name: "Doc"
• First Mate/Helmsman: Quinton Shrike
• Alias: "Lord"
• Playbook: Speaker
• Species: Human
• Age: 22
• Background: Member of minor noble house; family owns the Raven's Nest nightclub
• Pilot of the Dark Soliloquy
• Racing Name: "Poet"
• Crewmate (? - The players haven't figured out an official role for her yet...): tI'kæl 
• Alias: "Space Princess" (? - she hasn't confirmed this is her criminal alias yet)
• Playbook: Mystic
• Species: Memish
• Age: Age of maturity for Memish; equivalent to human age of 20
  (probably physically 200-some years old, since Memish can live to be about 1000 much like humans can live to be about 100?)
• Background: Princess and high priestess of Mem; pretending to be on a pilgrimage
• Pilot of Da Wey
• Racing Name: "Sanic"

During our last session, we also discovered Demarcus' life's goal. So I can fill this list out for you as well:

• Quinton's Life Goal: Become a famous RIP racer (at least, have "Poet" become the GOAT of the sport).
• TI'kæl's Life Goal: To observe and experience as much of the galaxy as she can manage, all while spreading the glory of The Way.
• Demarcus' Life Goal: To become an infamous criminal, but also untouchable by authorities.

The characters are all coming together as the players are slowly getting to know more about them; get more of a feel for them. Still don't really know what Quinton or Demarcus look like, other than "They fancy." So we still have that hurdle, but the age thing does help a touch with picturing them.

For anyone who is into the anime/manga One Piece, we've joked that Demarcus is "Zorro, dressed as Sanji, and trying to become Doflamingo." For those who don't know the series, Quarthix also described Demarcus simply as, “I look like a thug that dresses really nice.” So... there's that.

Now, we may only be up to the 3rd gaming session here in my recaps, but, due to scheduling conflicts and players fighting migraines and the like, we haven't had a session since Aug 30 anyway. Which means session 4 has yet to actually happen (we're hoping to finally play again tomorrow...). That also means we're not too far behind here in my blog recaps compared to where the group is in the actual game. So, without further ado, let's get into Session 3 of SaV:

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin

When last we saw the crew, poor minor noble Mevakor Nagan was arrested for drug possession, possible drug trafficking/dealing, and suspicion of Vos crystal smuggling. All things the Stardancer crew actually does/did, but they were happy to let poor Mev take the fall. (Is it weird that Mev was only used in 2 sessions, but since they were over the course of 2 months, it feels like we've been with him forever? And so it's weird to not have him with the crew for Session 3?)

Thankfully, the 51st Legion didn't catch the crew smuggling the wanted former-Hegemony-weapons-specialist Ishi. Mainly because Ishi was disguised to be Demarcus' "nephew" Timmy, and "Timmy" was isolated in an interrogation room, waiting for his "uncle's" interrogation to conclude. The crew then tidied the Stardancer back up (after the 51st Legion's ransacking of the ship) as they headed off to the Jumpgate to travel from the Holt star system to the Rin star system. Their main tasks in Rin: (1) find a way to broadcast an announcement the Echo Wave Riders (EWR) gave to the Borniko Syndicate, and (2) get Ishi safely to the Maelstrom Pirates and their hideout The Cove.

The EWR, and therefore the Bornikos, gave the Stardancer crew only two weeks to figure out how to hack either the Hegemony News Network or the galaxy-wide communications device the ansible in order to broadcast their announcement. If the crew didn't hit their deadline, the EWR and Borniko would go from allies to enemies, and the Borniko Syndicate would be out for blood against the crew for screwing up the relationship between the factions in the first place.

To recap further: The Echo Wave Riders were good allies with the Borniko Syndicate. They also build a large portion of their faction's identity off of the desire and ability to be the first to try the newest travel technology. The Echo Wave Riders had been hearing about a new land transport coming out, and were lined up to be the first to try them. However, through his channels at the Starsmiths Guild, Quinton negotiated for the Stardancer crew to get the land transports under the guise of testing them out for the Guild. Therefore, Quinton ended up sniping these transports from the EWR. We still haven't figured out if this was intentional sniping. Either way, this royally pissed off the EWR (for in-game mechanics, this gaves the crew a -2 rep with the Echo Wave Riders). Unfortunately, none of the Stardancer crew knew that the EWR were allies of the Borniko, who are their main criminal ally.

Figuring out that the crew that sniped the transports from them were affiliated with the Syndicate, the EWR started breathing down their ally's necks and threatening to end the partnership. In an attempt to placate the EWR, the Borniko offered to broadcast their race announcement that they were struggling to promote. That's when the EWR gave the Syndicate a hard deadline to get it broadcast. Then the Borniko turned around and ordered the Stardancer crew to get the announcement out by that deadline in order to smooth over the issues they caused, "Or else." The crew is just lucky that the EWR never figured out that the RIP racing team that has been harassing their drivers were also the Stardancer crew.

So anyway, the crew has this hard deadline for this job, and they were less than a fortnight away from hitting it. Alternatively, Ishi seemed contented to be on the Stardancer (as long as his escorts/smugglers stopped doing stupid things that might get him found out), so it was easy to decide to work on the broadcast job first. To make things easier, both the HNN and ansible HQs are housed on Quinton's "homeworld" of Warren.

Their first problem, however, came when they simply tried to travel from one star system to the next. The Holt-Rin Jumpgate is notoriously unstable. Well, it's MOSTLY stable, but it also is known to glitch. After talking to Hubby on how to handle this issue that's canon to the game lore, we came up with a chart for me to roll on to see if traveling through the Gate is successful. Sad to say for the Stardancer crew, but the gate wasn't stable that day.

The canon lore of the game comments about "naturally occurring" hyperspace lanes that shorten in-system travel between planets. These lanes are created by paths of Way energy flowing in the blackness of space. I think of these hyperspace lanes kind of like how ocean currents were shown in the movie Finding Nemo.

Much like how Finding Nemo shows the main ocean currents, I figured hyperspace lanes are set up like highways that you can merge onto at any point, travel quickly on, and then exit out of. Also, like a water current in the ocean, the in-system hyperspace lanes are sections of space where The Way quickly travels. Therefore, similar to animals using currents to move faster between points in the ocean(s), ships (and anything else traveling through the vacuum of space) can use these Way paths (the hyperspace lanes) to move faster between points of space. This is how interplanetary travel only takes about a day (or two, or three, depending on where each planet is in their orbit).

The Jumpgates, on the other hand, I viewed as a bit more complicated since they create artifical paths. While traveling through a hyperspace lane may be similar to a boat finding a current, or a car hitting the nitrous-oxide boost, going through an inter-star-system Jumpgate is more like being catapulted into near-lightspeed travel. Basically, this means you HAVE to use the Jumpgates to get into these artifical hyperspace lanes. First of all, the amount of Way force in these "lanes" between gates makes an almost tube-like "tunnel" for the ships to travel through. So it's near-impossible to even muscle into these lanes. Secondly, with ships traveling through the gates at near-lightspeed, and no way to clearly see the ships from outside the lane, even if a ship could muscle their way onto the Jumpgate path, there's no telling how much space they truly have. There's a high probability that they may inadvertently re-enact the Holdo Maneuver from Star Wars: The Last Jedi (yes, I know it's a controversial bit of the movie, but just go with me here).

Probably best to avoid getting rammed by a ship going near-lightspeed....

Anyway, I said something about the Holt-Rin Jumpgate not being stable and glitching? Well, we also figured the Jumpgates would work similar to how Astral Gates work in Cowboy Bebop.

Namely, that the Gates can be opened and closed. As of right now, I don't have the Jumpgates charging tolls, but I have been thinking about adding that to the on-going story. The Hegemony could start charging tolls, at least on the three Gates in the Rin system: the Rin-Holt Gate, the Rin-Iota Gate, and the Rin-Ecliptis Gate (which leads to the Core, where the Hegemon lives). Eventually, this could also bleed to the Iota-Brekk Gate and the currently unopened Holt-Hantu Gate. So, that's a simple (and possibly temporary) difference between the SaV Jumpgates and the Cowboy Bebop Astral Gates: no tolls. The other difference is that turning off the Gate doesn't permalock a ship into hyperdrive like it does in Cowboy Bebop (basically trapping the ship and its passengers in a separate hyperspeed dimension). Instead, the way I imagined the Jumpgates working in Scum and Villainy is a bit more complicated (less complicated???).

I saw turning on a Gate as a way of completing an electrical circuit, literally turning the pathway on. Once the gates are turned on, there's this "current" that flows between them, and that "creates" this Jumpgate tunnel, similar to how hyperspace lanes look between Astral Gates in Cowboy Bebop. While The Way makes these natural paths between planets within a star system, these Gates artificially manipulate The Way to create paths between star systems. That being said, though, I do imagine that there ARE natural Way hyperspace lanes even between star systems, they're just few and far between.

Point being, if a Gate is turned off while ships are passing through them, the Gate's manipulation of The Way vanishes, and the ships instantly drop out of near-lightspeed. They're also kind of "tossed" or "dropped" out of the tunnel created between the Gates, which is lucky, because it also clears the way for the next ship once the Gates are turned back on. I kind of pictured it as if an astronaut is drifting from one door to another, but before they can reach the other door, the artificial gravity is turned on, and the astronaut instead drops to the floor.

I also pictured one Gate in each star system for both directions of traffic. So, to avoid those Holdo Maneuver collisions, the Gates function like a one-lane bridge. Each Gate will either glow green for clear passage, or red for "occupied", or won't glow at all if they're turned off. Ships generally approach Gates from the side, to make sure there's clear passage for any ship that might be exiting. Hegemonic workers then direct traffic, waving ships in and radioing between the Gates via ansible. They tend to alternate between their Gate being the entrance and then the exit.

For instance, the Holt-Rin/Rin-Holt Gate could be used to send a ship from the Holt star system to Rin, and then a ship from the Rin star system to Holt, and then back to a ship from Holt to Rin, etc. If there are no ships waiting, the worker could radio to the other star system, so that the other worker knows they can keep flagging ships into the gate without first waiting for a ship to exit it. If a worker is given the go-ahead to not wait for an exiting ship before sending the next one in through their gate, they tend to push ships through every ten minutes or so (enough time for the previous ship to exit and get out of the way of the one following them. Also enough time for the other worker to radio that they finally have someone waiting).

Given how long a one-way Jump can be, and that a ship has to wait for both the ship in front of them to make the trip, and a ship from the other side to also make the trip, most crews hope to stumble upon one of these "One-Way Chutes".

Generated by Bitmoji
Cropped by LycoRogue

Whew! That was a LOT, just so I could explain one little blip in the adventures of the Stardancer Crew. Oh well. Welcome to me and world building.

So, as I'm sure you've all guessed by now, the Stardancer's trip through the Holt Gate towards the Rin star system didn't go according to plan. They were expecting the trip to last about 30min (Which, given they're going at NEAR lightspeed, is absurdly too short. I mean, it takes sunlight about 45 minutes to reach Jupiter. But just go with it...). Instead, the Holt-Rin Jump lasted only 15min. Then the Stardancer was abruptly thrown out of near-lightspeed. Everything on their newly tidied up ship lurched forward with momentum, and was also thrown against the ceiling as the ship literally dropped out of the Jumpgate tunnel.

I had previously decided that the trip from Holt to Rin, using normal hyperspeed and hopping between the naturally occurring hyperspace lanes, typically takes 14 to 20 days to travel (again, ridiculously too short, but ignore that). Based on how far into the Jump they got before getting rudely thrown out of it, they were still about 7 or 8 days from the Rin star system. Longer, if they couldn't find the hyperspace lanes. The Maelstrom Pirates, along with independent pirate ships, also patrolled the space between Rin and Holt, specifically looking for ships kicked out of the Jumps. This wasn't a situation the Stardancer crew wanted to be in, especially with the tight deadline they had. (Although, depending on how they rolled to get out of it, I did have a contingency that it would be a Maelstrom Pirate ship that would find them, and they could at least get the Ishi hand-off out of the way.)

The crew debated drifting back to where the Jumpgate tunnel should be, and ride the current once the Gate is fixed. However, there were a few complications there: (1) if they weren't accurate as to where the lane was, and the forcefield-like "walls" of the tunnel ended up cutting through part of their ship, the Stardancer would easily be torn apart. (2) Since they'd be jumping into the lane mid-way, the Gates may not recognize that the tunnel is occupied, and another ship could be flagged to go through. If that ship was sent from the Rin side, we're back to that Holdo Maneuver scenario. (3) If they weren't fast enough at getting back into the lane, they could collide with that "wall" around the tunnel, or again fall into that first scenario of the "wall" cutting through their ship.

They quickly caved and decided to just travel with normal hyperspace, and hope they can make the journey safely. Good thing for them that Hubby was playing with loaded dice or something, because nearly every time he rolled he got a 6: critical success. Narratively, Quinton, being from the Rin system, knew where most of the naturally occurring hyperspace lanes were, and hit each of them near-perfectly.

The Stardancer hit the outer orbit of the Rin system with six days to spare before reaching their deadline to broadcast the Echo Wave Riders' message.

During the trip to Rin, since he wasn't the one driving, Demarcus tried to use the time to bond with Ishi a bit more. Now that he knew the impish Deilku was the main weapons designer, maker, and seller for the Hegemony, Demarcus wanted Ishi to join the crew. While the bonding worked so far as Ishi tolerates Demarcus the most out of the crew, and he minded less that he has had a much longer stay with his smugglers than anticipated, there was still no way Ishi was going to join the crew. He did offer the crew a discount on his weapons, however. So there's that.

Now in the Rin system, the crew spent another 2 days travelling across the system to Warren. So, the reason I had 'homeplanet' in quotes before is because Warren is actually a moon. The planet it orbits, Aleph, isn't inhabitable, but it does have a lot of valuable minerals that the Hegemony mines to the point of nearly hollowing out the planet. Because of this profitable mining venture, the moon of Warren became a major hub within the Rin system. As the rulebook describes it:

Warren is one of the moons of Aleph and the home to an ecumenopolis—a city spanning the entire surface of the moon. It’s the capitol for the system, and the system Governor Ritam al’Malklaith makes his residence here. On Warren, you can find anything you need—for a price. Its high-rises are full of legitimate business dealings, and its streets far less so.

Warren is a wretched hive of villainy, yet also the Hegemonic seat of power in the system.

(Pg 301 in SaV Rulebook)

I see it kind of like Night City in Cyberpunk 2077.

Anyway, with only four days left to try to figure out how to broadcast the EWR announcement, the crew decided their best plan of attack would be with Vorex: "The most successful information broker to ever live. She can access any terminal in the sector—though no one can explain how." (rulebook pg 336) It was fairly well known around Warren that Vorex managed to hijack one of the HNN satellites orbiting the ecumenopolis. Relying on his charisma, Quinton suggested going to the hijacked satellite and try to get Vorex to broadcast the announcement for them. If that didn't work, Quinton could try hacking into the satellite himself to broadcast the announcement. If THAT didn't work, the crew could just threaten to blow up the satellite, and hope Vorex valued her stolen property enough to cave instead of allowing the satellite to be destroyed. Both tI'kæl and Demarcus were shocked with this sudden bit of aggression from Quinton, but Demarcus was 100% behind it.

Cloaking the ship, Quinton maneuvered the Stardancer far enough away from the 51st Legion ship patrolling around the commandeered HNN satellite to remain unseen. Undetected (at least, at the time), the Stardancer docked by the satellite, which also served as a mini space station. There was an access hatch along the side, and the interior of the satellite was JUUUUUUUUUST barely large enough for all three crewmates to fit inside without elbowing each other too much.

Unsure how to actually get Vorex's attention, Quinton hacked into the individual satellite's system. He wasn't able to access the full Hegemony News Network, but he could at least play around with that specific satellite a little bit. Quinton started messing around some more to try to get to the HNN feed, but was interrupted by Vorex's assistant AI. I described the AI as a computer screen that descended via thick cable from the ceiling. It had the basic "neon-green simple pixel face on a black screen" used in a lot of sci-fi AIs. Failing to create Vorex's assistant AI before the session, I relied on the rulebook entry (pg 336):

TURF: An automated HNN satellite orbiting Warren (HQ).
NPCS: Vorex (wizard-class hacker, stressed, careful, self-modified). A-0M (maintenance Urbot, cheerful, non-verbal). Tock (security Urbot, protective, staticky, well armed).

Okay, so maybe I took some liberties there. If this satellite was supposed to be Vorex's HQ, shouldn't it be a large enough space station/satellite for her to live there? But, then it should be fairly easy for the Legion to either kill her by blowing up the satellite, or bust in to arrest her and take back control. Didn't seem to make sense that she'd actually STAY at the satellite. Hense just the small access area, no Vorex the hacker, and no Tock the security Urbot. This left me with the cheerful maintenance Urbot A-0M. I decided this was clearly the AI the crew just encountered. Did not notice the "non-verbal" part, though, so I gave A-0M a chipper little voice as he greeted the three invaders of the satellite. (I also misread the zero in the NPC's name as a capital O. So his name is now pronounced "Ay-Ohm". LOOOOTS of liberties taken with the Vorex entry....)

The confused A-0M greeted Quinton - since he was the one accessing the terminal - and complemented "Vorex" on her great disguise (the AI couldn't fathom anyone but his boss managing to use the satellite). Quinton ran with the misconception and asked A-0M to broadcast the Echo Wave Riders' message. A-0M agreed, once "Vorex" gave the security verification code. Quinton started guessing what the code is. He wasn't even close, but that did send a security alert to Vorex.

A-0M's green-pixeled face disappeared, and instead a grainy and purposefully poorly-lit video call from Vorex herself filled the screen. She, much like Quinton, had a voice modulator active as she demanded to know who the three people in her satellite were, and what they wanted. Quinton quickly explained the situation and assured Vorex that they didn't want to be there any more than she wanted them there. She threatened to boot them out of the system, but Quinton managed to smooth-talk her to the point where she was willing to at least see the video they were supposed to broadcast.

A heavy sigh and a deep groan later, Vorex commented about how frivolous the announcement was, and how it wasn't worth her utilizing her satellite to hack into the HNN broadcast. Quinton and Demarcus both agreed, but also argued back that she was spending more time arguing with them than it would take to just air the video. That wasn't really the point, but when Quinton jumped to threatening Vorex and her satellite, she relented (Hubby had again rolled a 6, otherwise I would have had her majorly push back).

She confirmed with A-0M that he had been recording the three intruders the whole time. She then heaved another sigh before airing the asinine video from the Echo Wave Riders. The crew now contented, they agreed to leave. Vorex yelled after them that she better not catch them messing with any of her work ever again.

Back on the ship, the crew turned on the broadcast to see what the EWR even wanted to announce (Vorex saw it before any of them even bothered to watch it). It was a cheesy video - filled with fireworks, air horns, and a gang of the EWR with their favorite land transports - announcing a system-wide race through Brekk as a way to determine who truly is the greatest pilot within the Procyon Sector. The EWR warned that the buy-in for the race won't be cheap, and only those the EWR deemed "worthy" would even get an invitation to the race. However, the payout and the clout of winning the race will be well worth it. The video then concluded by letting pilots know they had a month to prove their worth. If they managed it, the Echo Wave Riders would extend an invite to the Brekk system race. The video closed out with the crowd of EWR in the video barking out their faction's mantra like they were soldiers responding to their drill sergeant: "speed and skill are the only truths."

Accurately pegging the Echo Wave Riders as "a gang of douches", and confirming that Vorex held up her end of broadcasting the video for them, the crew dislodged the Stardancer from the satellite and descended to Warren. (Quinton was in a particularly bad mood that day, and so he still wanted to blow up the satellite, but the other two managed to talk him down from it.)

The Stardancer was still cloaked, but the patrolling 51st Legion ship did zip back to the satellite upon seeing the broken-into broadcast, and they caught the Stardancer leaving the satellite. Thankfully, the Legionnaires got there too late to get a good enough look at the ship. Also, the Stardancer doesn't have any exterior add-ons that the Legion could use to really distinguish them anyway. The best description the 51st Legion has is "Scarab-class Freighter with factory-paint job (basically a base coat)."

Docked on Warren, the crew scrambled to find out how much the 51st Legion knew. Seeing the pathetic BOLO for them, they decided now was the best time to get a paint job. Won't throw the Legion off completely since they'll still be on the lookout for a Scarab, and they'll know that the one they saw could have gotten a paint job. However, now the Legion would have to file the Stardancer with all of the other Scarabs in the sector since they couldn't be singled out as having "factory paint" still on their Scarab-class freighter. Also, now the crew had more plausible deniability.

Aaaaaaand since the players haven't been able to see my mock-up of the Stardancer with its new paint job, and I want them to be the first ones to see it, I'm going to stop here. This blog is already late, and it's already long, thanks to me trying to describe how the hyperspace lanes and Jumpgate paths work.

I'll save the casual roleplaying the group did, as well as their RIP race for next recap.

I will state though, that I did warn the players out-of-character that Vorex has already created in-depth dossiers on both tI'kæl and Demarcus. Due to Quinton being careful with his disguises and voice mods, and always making sure that everyone uses the codenames, Vorex is still working on his dossier. She is fairly certain that the Stardancer crew is the RIP Racing team Chaos Theory, and therefore "Lord" and "Poet" could possibly be the same person, but she doesn't have enough proof to be certain. Quinton's basically Vorex's Yard Board for right now.

Image from Paddington 2 (2017)

Excuse the pun, but this is going to be a fun thread to pull on for future storylines.

Until next time...

Scum and Villainy rule book cover designed by art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha,
Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Cheesy Batman-series-joke edits by LycoRogue)