Concepto y tipos

In the North Sea, an oil drilling platform has apparently become the base of operations for a terrorist group. The characters arrive to find it empty, but shortly thereafter, they discover that the problem is much larger than they’d feared.

Infrastructure

West Nautical 36 (p. 127) is an oil drilling platform in the North Sea. Up until recently, it was showing promising signs of being a moderately productive drilling site. Then an intense storm hit the area and everything went to hell.

Most of the crew got off in time, but one engineer, Arnold Diefenbach, stayed aboard to try and stabilize the platform.

When the rest of the crew and rescue personnel arrived once the weather had calmed, they found the platform with minor damage but in perfect working order. Diefenbach was nowhere to be found and was assumed to have been swept overboard.

In the weeks that followed, the platform began producing oil at an incredible rate. The company devoted more resources to the rig, expanding its production capability and

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Stopping the drill requires killing Diefenbach and then getting the computer systems working again, or cutting the cables that provide power to the drills.

If the drill continues unabated, it eventually opens a cavern below the sea floor. Therein lies an exposed section of the God-Machine that hasn’t been in operation for millennia.

It requires the oil above it to work, meaning that if the drill reaches this cavern, the God-Machine pulls the oil from the deposit and then comes to life, absorbing the drill and the cables and assimilating the rig itself. If the characters are still on the rig when that happens, they are pulled beneath the waves and probably lost for good.

Linchpins

The still-living parts to Arnold Diefenbach (see Chapter Three) are the Linchpins for the West Nautical 36 Infrastruc-ture. Killing him will, as mentioned, end the God-Machine’s ability to influence the rig — but it won’t stop the drill. Doing that requires either cutting the cable (Durability 8, Structure 11) or making the computers work (see below).

Methods

Computer: Normally this wouldn’t be difficult, but the computer systems on the rig have merged with Diefenbach’s brain.

Even after he dies, they don’t act like normal computer systems anymore. Roll Manipulation + Computer (extended action, each roll is 30 minutes, 10 successes required) to get the systems to respond properly and stop the drill. If Diefenbach is still alive when this happens, he opposes the roll with Resolve + Computer.

Medicine: Examination of the bodies of the rig workers (and a roll of Wits + Medicine) reveals that they were strangled by cables. The cables apparently just dropped down, wrapped around their necks, and yanked them upwards, choking them.

Athletics: Diefenbach controls everything on the rig, including a great deal of machinery that is heavy enough to knock people into the ocean. If that happens, the player rolls Stamina + Athletics once per turn with a –2 modifier for the character to tread water until someone can rescue him.

Stealth: Diefenbach can only “see” through the security cameras on the rig — which, unfortunately, are plentiful. Roll Dexterity + Stealth to avoid them.

Empathy: The people in charge of Operation: Bell Jar have been in communication with someone on the rig, some-one they assume to be a terrorist. Examining the transcripts, though (and a successful Wits + Empathy roll) reveals that the patterns of speech and the “demands” the supposed ter-rorist is making don’t betray a zealous or nationalist agenda.

Streetwise: Characters with ties to mercenary or espio-nage groups might put out feelers to see if anyone knows anything about terrorist action against the rig. This requires a Manipulation + Streetwise roll and lead time of at least a day. If the roll fails, the character hears of a terrorist group that takes credit for the killings. If the roll succeeds, not only does no one have any information about the incident, but the character hears a rumor about a clandestine military

operation bell jar

ship that disappeared in that region of the North Sea a few months ago (just after the storm).

Merit: Defensive Combat (p 176): The rig doesn’t have much in the way of enemies to fight, but this Merit will help the characters in avoiding attacks from machinery and cables.

Merit: Psychokinesis (p 173): A recently trained mem-ber of some secret military psychic contingent might be an interesting character for this Tale, especially if she can’t quite control her power yet.

Escalation

What happens if the God-Machine pulls the rig down and assimilates it? The characters might not survive this, of course (or they might pull off a daring, last-minute escape and watch the whole thing vanish into the deeps), but after the fact, the whole area could suffer seaquakes and tsunamis as the God-Machine changes things. This could lead into such high-stakes Tales as The Invisible Citadel (p. 92; maybe the characters find the footlocker on the ship), The Scarlet Plague (p. 97; the God-Machine needed the additional power to begin this final solution) or What Is It Good For (p. 105; the characters might easily be transferred from this mission to that one).

Proposition 279

Luck, happenstance, or profession has landed you in a political hotbed. Things have always been tough here, but no one saw the massive political push for Proposition 279 com-ing. The law will not just make it illegal to be homosexual, it will make it a capital offense.

Infrastructure

Pick a location with a strict and borderline corrupt government, or one with a religious fundamentalist regime (or make one up). Up until now, it’s as fair as such a regime can be, with oppression happening, but neither common nor horrific. Women vote, but are limited in their civil liberties.

Homosexuality is forbidden, but not criminal. Society is passive in its intolerance.

That is, until religious leaders and politicians alike started calling for a sudden and impossibly cruel law to be passed faster than the public could even consider it. The push came out of nowhere and was nearly all encompassing. Police started rounding up suspected homosexuals and raiding night clubs, even the most underground ones, in anticipation of the passing of the law. The military is preparing for mass executions and huge mass graves are being prepared along roadsides. Human rights organizations are up in arms and sending in diplomats, negotiators, and relief workers in hopes of avoiding the slaughter. The UN has stepped in, threatening sanctions but the normally passive regime has suddenly been whipped up into a frenzy over the idea.

Does it have something to do with the President’s new adviser, a pale, gloomy sort with a nose a little too small for

his face, and eyes dark and deep set? The President’s wife left the country shortly after the adviser was named and since then rumors have been flying. The small nation has become a powder keg, and whether that will result in civil war to resist the sudden change in policy, or the deaths of a tenth of the population, the characters have to quickly find a peaceful solution to the problem.

The Truth: The God-Machine needs death. More specifi-cally, it needs mass murder. It doesn’t actually care who dies or why, as long as it happens quickly and at the hands of other human beings. Genocide is ugly whoever is targeted — yesterday a minority ethnic group, today homosexuals, tomorrow people with brown eyes — what matters is a need to see everything burn. The nation’s new governmental structure is Logistical Infrastructure, overseen by the angel, Mr. Nose (p. 138).

Interchangeable Parts

Characters in this chronicle need to care about the people of the nation suffering such tragic upheaval or it will be difficult to keep them involved in the goings on.

Photo and investigative journalists are logical choices for character types. So are aid workers, and perhaps militant freedom fighters coming to aid in a potential rebellion. Even low level politicians from more (nominally) civilized nations, moved by the stories, may come to parley peace while making a name for themselves back home. And of course, you’ll find no shortage of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune waiting around to see if war breaks out. Just make sure the mercenary type characters have deeper motivations than money.

The other possibility for characters, of course, is that they might be native to the affected nation, perhaps even people that might fall under the proposed law (whether they actually are homosexual or are simply perceived to be).

Blueprints

The God-Machine wants nothing less than the wholesale slaughter of as many human beings, killed by other human beings, as it can possibly reap in as short a time as possible.

The God-Machine needs deaths. It needs massive amounts of sacrifice and more that happen at the same time, the better.

It might need this death to gear up for some truly powerful, world-shaping initiative (the scary thing there is, does that kind of thing happen after every such massacre? and if it does, what changed?), or perhaps as a test run to test its systems of control. For the players, the reason should be as unknowable as the evil. It is because it is.

It just so happens that this despot in this part of the world came up with a way to accomplish his mandate and he’s well on his way to murdering tens of thousands of people at once. What compounds matters is that other leaders all over the world, dream-ing of blood and glory, might follow in the wake of success here with their own versions of Proposition 279. A growing tide of dead “undesirables” will sate the God-Machine’s need for massive sacrifice — or perhaps, with so much death, the God-Machine might become “overclocked” and the world might burn?

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If the characters don’t want to find out, they’re going to have to stop it here, in this little nation. Proposition 279 needs to fail, and it needs to fail spectacularly. Whether that means killing the President, bringing in help from other nations or the UN, or organizing the people of the country to stand up and overthrow the government, the characters have thousands of lives in their hands.

Linchpins

The papers call him “Mr. Nose” — at least the papers that don’t belong to the State. He’s the paper-white man standing just behind and to the left of the President during speeches and in photo ops. In fact, he seems to be in pictures where he wasn’t present in person, and now showing up in images recorded before anyone had account of him at the President’s side.

Mr. Nose is an angel, but one of fairly limited mobility and power (more details in Chapter Three, p. 138). Killing or disposing of him would be a good start, but it’s not go-ing to eliminate the problem entirely (the President is still planning on going through with Proposition 279, with or without Nose). Of course, without Mr. Nose, the President might be susceptible to new advisers, if the characters have the position and tenacity to take this route.

Methods

Medicine: The President’s council is largely for show, but they’ve agreed to a meeting. You have two minutes to explain why homosexuality isn’t a disease, a “lifestyle” or an abomination, and it had better sound as scientific as possible.

Roll Manipulation + Medicine to give them a good balance of fact, reality and medical jargon.

Politics: Being militant will costs lives. Waiting on diplomacy might, too. You want to undercut the President’s power base by using his own propaganda machine against him. Roll Intelligence + Politics to plan out your political assassination of the President.

Athletics: The military is raiding the house, and you aren’t supposed to be here. You need to brace yourself in the rafters until they go away, but if you slip you’ll fall right through the ceiling. Roll Stamina + Athletics to hold that pose.

Stealth: It has come this far. Night sits heavily over the President’s compound. You have no choice; you must sneak across. Roll Dexterity + Stealth because the President must die.

Streetwise: The Catch-22 is, in order to protect people who haven’t yet been brought in by the military police, you have to find them. Finding them might put them in more danger, but it’s a risk you may have to take. Roll Manipula-tion + Streetwise to ask around and find middlemen who can point you in the right direction safely.

Subterfuge: Why break into the prison when you can walk in? Roll Manipulation + Subterfuge to convince the prison authorities that not only are you UN officials, but that as UN officials you have the right to see their prisoners.

Merit: Status (Diplomatic) (p. 170): It’s about access. If you want to get in where the movers and shakers are in this

political arena, you need access, and few people have as much access as a well-placed diplomat. Just don’t push too far and find yourself at the epicenter of an international incident.

Merit: Eidetic Memory (p. 162): Keeping a list of names is risky, because if you’re caught, they’ll find it. Better to just memorize the names of the people in the area. It’s not like the military can read minds, right?

Escalation

Putting down the President or stopping his plan from going on might be enough to encourage the God-Machine to other goals, but then again it might not. The “big reveal” of this story should be that all the buildup, the politics, and the hate is a smoke screen. When humans kill each other en masse, it is worse than pointless; it’s in service to the God-Machine.

From the Crusades to Darfur, humanity destroys itself using any excuse it can come up with while the God-Machine reaps the benefits. Straight, gay, Roman or Turkish, everyone is equal in the eyes of the God-Machine, and equally worthy of sacrifice. That kind of revelation might be the springboard into a cosmic Tale like What Is It Good For (p. 105) or This Is Hell (p. 103). Of course, after this harrowing experience, they might prefer to go home (wherever home is) and deal with something on smaller scale. The 300 Block (p. 69) deals with murder as well, but for (on the surface) different reasons.

The Scarlet