hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2902.txt

Episode: 2902
Title: HPR2902: Stardrifter RPG Playtest Part 04
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2902/hpr2902.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:01:32

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This is HPR Episode 2992 entitled Star Drifter RPG Playtest Part 04, and is part of the series, tabletop gaming, it is the 60th anniversary show of Lost in Drunks, and is about 55 minutes long, and carries an explicit flag.
The summer is Lost in Drunks, and friends playtest are new, original RPG system.
Today's show is licensed under a CC hero license.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Hello, this is Lost in Drunks, also known as David Collins Rivera, and this is part 4 of the Star Drifter role-playing game Playtest.
This week we had Clat 2, Taj, Brynn, and Brian.
Last time we covered the combat rules of the game, hit points and stamina, which basically is a reflection of how much damage your character can take before they die, and we talked about equipment.
We had a very limited list of armor, gear, and weapons.
Basically, I only created what we needed for this particular playtest, with the idea that future versions would just add more stuff as we needed it.
We talked about money, and the money in this game is a unit called the Q.
I have one Q, two Q, three Q. Q is always singular, it's never plural.
Everybody had a character that they'd already rolled up, so there was no need to roll one up as a demo right then and there.
We did go through that entire process, reading through the rules.
It was established once we started playing that the characters are a company, that is to say they're an actual incorporated body called the Dodgers,
but a company, in this case, is also a euphemism for basically a mercenary group, a group of people who, well, maybe they do actual mercenary work with guns and fighting and such,
but basically you can incorporate yourself as a company and specialize in anything.
In their case, they're not sure exactly, they consider themselves troubleshooters, kind of still finding their specialty.
Now the characters were on their way somewhere, they were in cold passage, meaning basically suspended animation, aboard a large passenger ship,
and suddenly they get woken up, they find they are not where they intended to go, they're in fact on a small space station called a high dock.
The space station is in Dreyer system, and the high dock is called Jump Out.
They were woken up because something went wrong with their job.
They were supposed to be going to a really big contract, a mercenary contract, in another star system, but there was a message waiting when the ship arrived here,
and the message was basically, yeah, sorry we had a company shake up and all our current jobs have been canceled, all the projects are canceled.
You guys are on your own, so they were on their way somewhere and find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, effectively, with no job, no prospects, and very little money.
So when we pick this episode up, the characters are sitting in a restaurant, trying to figure out what they're going to do.
They're up on the high dock, jump out, and they're just sitting there having something to eat, having something to drink,
and feeling a little bit sorry for themselves.
So here you are, you guys are drinking, you're eating, you're not going hungry, but you're at loose ends.
Now, I assume that there's some type of network that I could hook a comm to to see what the,
yes, just local traffic, local, if there's any type of, I don't know, classified, something like that.
Yeah, yeah, there are tons of them.
I mean, and they range from stuff that's right here on this high dock to stuff that's on the main space station, which is only a couple hours away by shuttle.
And stuff that ranges throughout the entire star system.
There are, I won't even say pages, it's like a phone book worth of advertising, you know, for jobs and things like that.
I mean, it depends on what you're looking for, how far you're willing to travel.
I mean, tons and tons and tons of it.
Just as a general rule, there are public networks almost everywhere you go.
If there isn't one, I'll tell you then, but there are public networks almost everywhere you go in the civilized space.
And public networks basically allow you to make phone call like local communication calls video or audio calls, either to each other or other people, if you know their number.
There are more or less like boards on there that you can get information like this with the job offerings.
There's news, there's always news.
Sometimes if you're like on a planet, there'll be weather otherwise, so they really even bring it up here.
You know, unless there's some sort of planet that you can go to, whether never comes into it.
But occasionally, solar weather might matter, it depends on the star system.
You can do shopping, you can, oh, there's tons and tons of stuff.
Basically, ask me if you can do it and I'll let you know.
OK, so they're obviously is probably a board that we tend to get our jobs from.
I'd like to look at that and see what's no.
Not necessarily, or if there is, it's never going to be the same kind of thing from place to place.
A lot of times, these things are either recommended by people you know, social engineering, or you actually have an agent.
And this agent procures jobs for you.
You can send a message to your agent.
Yes, that sounds like an excellent idea.
OK, your agent is not in this star system.
That's going to cost you how much is going to cost?
Are you inquired?
Yes.
OK, that is going to cost you.
It's going to cost you 48 queue to send a message back to the star system where you were.
But that includes a reply.
I wonder if any one of us with social engineering would know someone more local.
Like I think me and Brian at least have social engineering.
Tossed you up social?
I was going to say, since I'm like a stationer, and that's where I spent most of my time, I have social engineering and I have bureaucracy.
Maybe try to find out if I know like, oh, this is kind of how stations work and we need to find this guy.
I don't know who this guy is, but we need to find the guy that does this job.
Yeah, because I I'm not forking out 48 queue.
48.
It's expensive.
Interstellar messages can be expensive.
So yeah, you absolutely tell me what you want to want to try to do.
First off, probably I would think you'd want to go through regular channels to start with a try to that would be bureaucracy.
Give me a bureaucracy role.
I get an 11 and my bureaucracy is 11.
You got it, you got it.
It's not there are no penalties on this.
This is all public information.
There is an organization or I should say an agency that's probably a better way to put it on station maltees, not not this high doc, but on station maltees that does work with people like you does work with companies.
You can contact them and try to try to see if they will take you on as a client just because you have an agent doesn't mean you can't have a second one.
And you can see the way that works.
They usually work on commission, meaning if you get a job through them, they'll take a piece of it, but you don't usually have to pay up front.
So that's the thing you can do.
That's the takes time and probably an interview to let you know how how difficult is it going to be to travel to that other station and or how how easy is it to send a message since it's in system.
Oh, it's easy.
It's free.
You can send them a message.
You won't necessarily get a reply right away, but you can try you want to try it.
Yeah, let's do that.
OK.
The connection picks up and it's very clearly an AI secretary.
This is a video message I'm assuming unless you want and it doesn't really matter either way, but it's clearly an AI.
Most regulations, if you're talking to an AI, it has to be obvious that they're not a human being.
This one has sort of a cartoony look and the voice is a little bit echoey.
And so it's clearly not a human being, but it otherwise has a human personality.
Hello, how may I help you?
Yeah, we kind of got stranded in the system and we're trying to figure out I got a company with me just we'd like to do some odd jobs trying to figure out if we can get an agent to represent us kind of in this system kind of get us on our feet.
Well, we're not as far as I know we are not taking on new clients at this time, new representation, but I can put you to speak to one of our representatives who would know for sure.
As my information is not exactly current, if you would like to hold on, I can put you through that would be fantastic.
Okay, so you wait and you wait and you wait and finally, you know, there's like a, you know, please stand by type of image in your face.
And then finally, a guy comes on and he's kind of a fat sweaty guy who needs a shave. Yeah, what can I do for you?
Yeah, we're basically trying to get some representation out here in the system.
We kind of got dumped off by our previous employer, we're trying to see if there's anything we can do to make a little cash while we're in town.
That's rough, right? That's really rough. What do you do? What do you guys, you guys, especially, what do you do?
We got a hodgepodge. We're pretty good at getting out of situations and doing some technical work and, you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
I mean, just depends on kind of what you're looking for. I mean, I'd like to know what kind of skills we can bring to what you need.
I'm not going to be talking about what we need. Don't talk to me about what we need. We need what we need. You tell me what you can bring to me.
That's the way this works. I tell you what I need. You might figure out who it is that needs it from me and you go to them directly.
So that's not how that works. See, you see how that works?
No, that's a fair thing. I mean, you got to protect yourself. I understand that.
And I don't know you. You understand? I don't know you.
Also fair. Also fair.
Yeah, we got some work. We got some work, but I'll, I'll, I've got to talk to people in person and I got you got to talk to my boss.
I can set up an appointment for next week.
You sure you don't have anything in sooner? I mean, we'd like to get to work right away if you got something.
Yeah, I'm sure you do, but you're not getting any jobs until we talk to you.
And I got position next week. Now, if you want to roll social engineering, maybe you can, could you all them into it?
Yeah, I think I'll do that. Oh, I just missed. Yeah, okay. Look, man, I'll tell you what, I'll make, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll do this for you.
Was it? It's, it's a four day now, four day. That's a Wednesday to you and me.
Um, okay, um, call me back on, uh, six day, six day this time, six day, and we'll get you in, maybe get you a job right then and there.
All right, thanks, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, all right. Cut the call. No ceremony.
Well, that's something though.
Just got to stall for a couple of days. Don't really want to do that.
Nor do I. We could get the lay of the land though. Yeah. Yeah.
That's not a bad idea. You know, maybe try to make our way over to the space station early.
I don't know how more expensive it is. Can we find out how expensive it is?
Stay on the station versus here. It's a tough thing to tell.
But if you're checking, you know, because that's kind of a nebulous sort of thing about various costs, but you get the sense that
probably you're going to be spending a little bit more for accommodations.
You're going to be spending a little bit more for food, you know, so five,
Q per day roughly is what you'd need to spend here, but over there, it might be seven to eight,
maybe nine, depending on what you do. I think it's probably worth it.
I imagine there's going to be more stuff over on the station than there is here in terms of opportunity.
Is that would that, would I think that that would be accurate loss from Bronx?
Well, there's more people there. So it seems like a reasonable assumption.
And if it's more expensive, if overall the cost of living over there is more expensive,
probably there's more opportunity. I mean, that's what I would assume.
Let's do that. Yeah, I vote. Yeah, let's go. Okay.
There are regular shuttles on the hour to station maltees.
And I assume this is what you guys are doing. Yes, for me. Yeah. Yes. Okay.
Got here one. It only costs one Q to ticket there.
It's not a round trip, but it's a one Q ticket. Okay. Very cheap.
It's like the bus ride basically. And it takes two hours to get there.
Very uneventful, nothing special. And they don't offer you any in flight treats or anything like that.
It's just sitting there and you're stuck with a lot of working class people.
You also see a lot of business types who are clearly from out of the star system.
They're here strictly to do business. You see rich people or people at dress well.
Let's put it that way. People at dress well rubbing shoulders with just regular working class folk.
I want to pick out one well to do person at random. Okay.
And I want to, um, I just want to keep an eye on them.
And when we disembark, I want to follow them. Oh, okay.
You see, it's a woman middle years.
She looks, she's dressing well. She's got a business suit on.
And this is not a cheap business suit.
She has someone with her appears to be an assistant of some sort.
And she seems extremely comfortable in her chair.
That is to say she doesn't seem to be revolted by the fact that she's sitting next to some, you know,
oily looking rock miner or something like that. This seems pretty normal to her.
Cool. Yeah, I'll just, I mean, I want to see where she, where, where the, I want to see where rich people go on the station.
I want to find out where they hang out. Okay.
Anybody else doing anything? There's not a lot to do here, but this is an opportunity.
Maybe find out more about this station.
Okay. Yeah, the network applies here to you, you know, station Maltese is an older station.
It's probably close to 110 years old.
It's of an older design, but it's supposed to be in really good shape, safety wise.
It has about two and a half million people who live on it.
But that number changes rapidly, depending on the type of industry that's hot.
They've had some recession in the past. They're not in one right now.
It's actually economically.
They're doing really good around here right now.
But in the past, they've had some downturns in the economy and it's like that.
Just as a, a general point of interest,
Breyer system, which is where you are, the star system is in the heart of Ainspace.
You're in the heart of the Alliance here.
You're not near any of the borders or anything.
It does have well to do people.
It's got a lot of working class people. It's also got some poverty.
Checking the news and kind of, you know, making a guess here and there.
It looks like there might be some crime on the station, maybe a little bit more.
So then the high dock, but that may be because people live there,
as opposed to the high dock where they come and go really rapidly.
Tough to say, tough to say.
It's a, it is a big place.
A lot of fortunes are being made right now.
Anything in particular you want to know or fortunes in.
Fortunes in heavy industry, metals and they don't do fine manufacturing or a lot of it here.
There is actually a great deal of mom and pop manufacturing here.
You have what skills do you have?
I'm sorry. What skills do you have computer computers?
Yeah, give me a computer role, please.
No modifier eight and eight in that that's successful.
Yes. Okay.
You get the impression this is one odd thing.
This does stand out.
This is probably the, the one main thing that stands out here.
You don't see an awful lot of large corporations present here.
There's a few here and there, especially like food, food chains and things like that.
But when it comes to major industry, much of it is locally owned or if it's a consortium,
it's a local one, not part of like major corporations or super corporations.
There isn't an awful lot of that here and that is unusual.
Okay.
Does that speak to criminal?
Could it could almost certainly, almost certainly it's an opportunity for criminal behavior.
That seems to jive with the guy we were talking to because he didn't want us to know anything about the people who
that he does like he's getting jobs for.
So it seems like there's some secrets he going on.
Yeah.
Basically, there's a lot of money changing hands here.
There's a lot of fortunes being made, a lot of people coming and going,
but you don't see the big corporations here.
You're not seeing that.
But we probably want to sell ourselves as discreet professionals.
That would probably be the best way to get in on people's good graces.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It seems like a laundry to me, but that's just in the back of my head.
There's a money laundering.
That's a business, right?
Yeah.
It could be.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's a business.
Some people make money at that.
That's a business money shake in hand, but not really a lot of product.
Yeah.
To give you a bit of perspective, depending on where you are in the galaxy,
drugs may or may not be a problem simply because many of them are legalized and controlled,
but legalized other parts of the galaxy.
It's very, very different here.
You don't, you haven't specifically told me what you're looking into drug wise and contraband and things like that.
So you don't really know this place very well.
Remember, you weren't going to stop here.
So you didn't do any advanced research about this place.
But in other places, you've been to in this region of the alliance.
Drugs aren't usually a big criminal enterprise simply because they are generally legalized and controlled.
So if there's nothing else, rest of the trip happens without incident and you arrive on station,
maltees, you have to go through the same sort of situation when it comes to the customs cops
and the ident stuff to get on.
They are definitely paying more attention than the guys at the high dock did,
but the operation or the procedure is essentially the same.
And since nobody told me that they're trying to smuggle anything through,
you will get through without any problem.
But they are one thing is obvious.
You don't even have to roll for it's obvious that they're paying more attention here than they did there.
I'm going to need to go on.
Sorry, we tried to stay, but enjoy.
No problem.
Thank you so much for helping me out.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I have a good evening.
You too.
Okay.
So you guys have arrived at station maltees.
It's an urban feel to this place.
Definitely it feels like a like a mill town almost has that feeling.
You know, so you have some really wealthy people here.
We also have a lot of working class people and they're coming and going.
They're all over the place.
There are guides that you can, you know, like automated guides that you can call up
either through your comm systems.
If you have one or there's, there's all sorts of information displays here and there.
You can, in other words, getting lost here isn't that easy to do.
You always pretty much have a road map of the entire station.
So basically the station tell me where you want to go and go from there.
But we didn't do first.
We want to find a place to live to rent or actually, yeah, I wanted to, I want to follow my
mark all that's right to see where she's going.
Cause I just want to get a feel for like where the wealthy segment of the station is.
Are you guys staying together while he does this?
No, cause we stick out.
I stick out like a sore thumb.
Okay, that's good to know.
Okay, so your mark does not know you're following her.
Obviously, and she doesn't seem to be paying attention to much of anything except her
own comm system.
She's on the, from the moment the shuttle arrives, this woman is making calls as she walks.
She does have an assistant.
It's a young man and he's carrying luggage.
You didn't see her with luggage, but he disappeared when you guys got on the station
and then showed up again with some luggage, obviously from some sort of luggage
compartment on the shuttle that had a, you know, that he collected.
He's carrying a great deal of luggage and following this woman.
And they hail a cab, not one of the cheap tiktok cabs.
Those are a little automated cabs.
This is also automated, but it's a larger one.
And she's getting in the cab.
What are you doing?
Can I get a tiktok cab and follow or what?
Yes, yes, you can.
Yeah, I think I'll do that.
Can you please give me a percent dye roll?
You want to roll low?
Okay.
Let's see if I can do that.
13%.
You did it.
You did it.
There is a tiktok just waiting there.
And basically you can, you can't just say follow that cab, but you can say go straight,
turn left, turn right, whatever.
Okay.
Okay.
And it will do exactly what you say because people often use these things just to tour around.
So and you follow this cab quite easily, emerges into traffic.
I think it's again, she's not trying to shake you.
She doesn't know you're there.
She doesn't seem to care.
And the cab moves off from the main drag where you are off to a side road and then off
to another side road into an area where it's clearly some pretty expensive apartments.
These are not motels.
These are residences.
And she eventually pulls up to one gets out with her servant, gets all the luggage from the cab,
and then goes into one of these buildings.
This is a fairly ritty neighborhood.
You even see not at this building, but down the road a little bit.
You see one that actually has a human door man there or an act.
Well, it looks like a human from a distance.
Anyway, there's a door man there and that's very unusual.
OK, I, um, yeah, that's good.
I'll go back to join my friends.
And so and I want to just kind of make note of where of where this, where this area is in the station.
This whole ride would have cost you a queue, OK,
probably a percentage of a queue, but I'm not going to get into that.
So yeah, it's fine.
You go back to where you were, but I'm assuming you other guys, you weren't,
were you waiting for him the whole time or did you go somewhere else?
Does everybody have a way to contact each other?
Do you all have some sort of communication device?
I would imagine that we would, yeah, I have a call.
Yeah, well, you got to buy it if you want one.
They're in the, they're in the equipment list.
Oh, OK, yeah, comms are really expensive.
Yeah, comms are expensive, but they do more than just communicate.
Right.
There are, there are headsets headsets are 100 queue and a head.
It's just basically it's, it's like a cell phone without all the bells and whistles.
Whereas a, a comm is essentially a computer that you're carrying with you at all
times that you can hack.
You can do all the stuff that eject does.
So, OK, well, I do not have a comms.
So there you go.
And so there you go.
OK, if you have the money, you can stop and buy something.
Nope.
Nope.
OK, so I don't know because you guys didn't say where you were meeting.
You didn't say what you were doing.
What were you guys doing while he was chasing this lady?
Apparently waiting for him.
Yeah, I was looking for a decent place to stay.
OK, on the net on the net.
Thank you.
OK, you will find by decent.
What do you mean by decent?
Talk to me about decent.
Well, you said it was five Q a day or five Q a day back on jump out, but here it's more
expensive and depending on what it is you want, it can be upwards of eight Q a day.
If you go to the cheap route, I assume you were doing the cheap route the last time.
Yeah, not the would we share room or this is something for the group to share room.
I think to keep since we're out of work right now to keep us.
Yeah, I think we'd have to share it.
We'd want to share.
OK, if you're sharing a room, that's a different story entirely.
This much, OK, collectively, it's going to cost you about 18 Q or room, but that includes food and a couple other things.
You know, some of them, you know, like a continental type breakfast, but they serve it all the time.
So that is collectively what it's going to cost you guys.
So, OK, it's still more expensive than it would have been, but it's not as bad as it could.
But it's just above a flop house.
This is not good, good accommodations.
And the food is not great, but it'll keep you from dying.
So you find that on the net.
It doesn't mean you've spent that money yet.
I mean, I'm fine with that.
I'm a drifter.
I can, I can exist anywhere.
Yeah, you have urban survival.
You don't even need that.
So you do know that many places have vagrancy laws.
OK, that's a thing that you do know whether this place does or not.
You haven't looked yet, but you know that you've run into that in the past.
Some places don't and they don't care.
Some places do.
I'd say especially if we're going to try to convince somebody to hire us,
we should probably, like, keep it as clean as we can.
Yeah, let's get off the street and, you know, at least pay a little bit.
Maybe it'll pay off in a long run.
OK, so you're going to head over to this place?
Yeah, I think so.
OK, you do.
You get there with that incident.
It's not too far.
You can walk it.
Takes about half hour or so, but you can walk it.
Walk in the neighborhood.
It's a very busy place.
It is second shift, which would be, oh, afternoon-ish time.
But people are coming and going, coming and going.
You do see a lot of ground vehicles going by.
And by, obviously, it's not ground, it's the station.
But you see roller vehicles going by carrying,
they look like freight or goods, box cart type of things.
Not delivery types that would go to a business,
but these are carrying things that might be like, who knows?
You know, it'd be like a, I guess, like a tractor trailer type
of thing.
Many of these are automated, not all of them are,
but many of them are.
And traffic is fairly heavy on the main drag, heavy.
And a lot of this sort of stuff is moving back and forth.
They seem to be going from one section of the station
to another, possibly.
There is some industry here that you, you know,
as you say, there's a lot of mom and pop stuff.
Maybe some of these are going to a moderately sized factories
or some kind of manufacturing.
Some of it might be just retail goods.
You don't know unless you're following something.
But there is a lot of traffic.
And there does appear to be a lot of commerce.
You know, I wonder if it would be worth, hold on.
Let me get the name right.
Oh, Brynn, just, yeah.
Brynn, I wonder if it would be worth putting an ad out
for our company, you know?
Like, actually, instead of seeking, like, let's broadcast
on one of those boards.
Sure.
Does such a thing exist?
And if so, yes, but let's do it.
Oh, yeah, you can do it.
It does cost money to put up an ad.
But, you know, how much?
Well, like a queue.
Just a queue.
It's not expensive, but it's just a queue.
Sounds good.
I mean, that way, if that way we're out there, you know,
who knows?
Sounds like a plan.
If somebody's doing that, then go ahead.
And I'm assuming I'm not going to, you know,
have you dictated?
I'm assuming you're putting up something that says
that you're capable of doing any kind of odd job
that isn't, well, I don't actually tell me what you're doing.
What is it you're putting up?
I would like to know, actually.
I feel like we would concentrate on our ability
to repair systems of all kinds, you know, like system
repairs, because that's, I think, generally, where we could,
we could say our skills that lies.
So, like some sort of maintenance units, some sort of,
yeah, yeah, maintenance, exactly, yeah.
Freelance maintenance crew.
Or maybe even those, like, troubleshooters.
There you go.
I like that even better troubleshooters.
All right.
That's less double talk.
That sounds pretty good.
OK.
All right, you put that up, you put that up.
And we will see what we see over the course of the evening.
So you've gotten to this place, and it's, as I say,
it's not quite a flea bag, but it's like a day's in, you know,
in some roadside sort of, you know, like not quite in a town.
That sort of quality.
Yeah, you could stay here.
It's not great, but you're doing fine.
You're doing OK.
And I assume you're going to take the continental breakfast
or evening breakfast or whatever it is, the free food
that they offer you.
Oh, yeah.
OK.
All righty.
So you've gotten here.
And in fact, I'll load up my pockets.
So that's what I was going to say.
Yeah, you could totally do that.
Totally do that.
Yeah, absolutely.
And they give you the hairy eyeball, but nobody says anything.
How many space bagels can I fit in my coat?
One for each finger, one for each finger.
So yeah, that is not a problem at all.
That's not a problem at all.
And what that will do is allow you to eat tomorrow
if you're frugal with it and without paying any money for that.
So that's pretty good.
You were there.
It is evening.
You have eaten.
You have gotten some provisions.
You can sleep.
You're probably tired.
But maybe not.
You've been sleeping first, light years and light years.
All of this happened on the same day.
The bad news about being dumped here
and getting all the way over here is all
happened on the same day.
By now, it is third shift, which is evening time, essentially.
And you can choose to do whatever you want to do.
You guys want to stretch out?
You want to?
What do you want to do?
I'm going to crash.
I'm tired.
Yeah, I say hit the rack and get it fresh in the morning
and see if we get any replies to our thing.
And if not, maybe scout around.
OK.
Would we know if there is a better time
to look for work?
I mean, like would first shift be the time
where everyone's out and about?
Or is it just all goes full on all the time around here?
It pretty much goes full on all the time.
You essentially have a rush hour in and around shift
changes all around the clock, right?
So you'll have a rush hour.
And shifts are in Star Drifter, parlance.
Shifts are about eight hours a piece.
So you have a shift, like a rush hour
ish where everything is busy and frenetic in the morning,
in the afternoon, and in the evening.
And over and over, over all day long, all night long,
all week long, et cetera, et cetera.
OK, so what I want to do while these guys are sleeping
is go out onto the street or whatever or into an alley
and disassemble a random piece of machinery
that I find, like city municipal something.
I want to disassemble it.
How about one of those automated guide things,
that, you know, a catalog thing that
tells you about this one of those?
OK, yeah, go for it.
Go for it.
Give me a computer's role.
OK, computers.
I have one in that seven.
So I beat it by four.
You can tell that there is some sort of security software
on here that, at least as far as you can tell,
that if you open this machine, it will let somebody know
that it's been tampered with.
That's a software end of things.
OK, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and do that.
OK, you also have a general repair, I believe?
I do.
You do?
OK, give me that to tear it apart.
OK.
8, so I beat it by 8, 9, 10, 3, beat it by 3.
OK, there was a minus 2 on that, but you're able to do it.
And you see that there are connections there
that if you just yank the back of this thing off,
it would have sent that message.
Right now, it doesn't know it's being tampered with.
So if you're careful from this point on,
you should be able to do what you want to do
without it sending any kind of alert.
I will be careful.
That's a good thought.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Cool, so can I am I able to get information out
of this thing now or what do you want to know?
Kind of, I want to see who's controlling the information
in this city, like where all this data comes from
if I could figure that out.
OK, much of this gets routed into some sort of central database
that looks like it's part of the local government,
perhaps some sort of commerce system,
like a Chamber of Commerce, perhaps, or something like that.
It does not seem like it's going to say traffic
or the police or something like that.
You think this is probably these displays
have probably been set up all over the city or I say city,
but all over the station,
probably to encourage people to go shopping
or to use services, that sort of thing.
OK, are there parts from this thing that I can salvage for myself?
Yeah, probably.
If you take, it depends on what are you looking for?
What do you want?
Because if you did, if you essentially,
if you make it non-functional, it will send a signal.
So what is it you want to take from it?
Now, if it sends a signal, do I believe
that there would be surveillance so that they would know
who did this or how do I feel about that?
Do you need to roll an intelligence roll, please?
OK, 20.
You don't see anything?
Cool.
Yeah, I don't really know what I want to salvage.
There's a backup battery in case there was a power loss.
It is on main power.
It's it's like that.
Yeah, you can grab that battery.
Yeah, you can take that battery.
Take that girl battery.
Yeah, it's a weird type you haven't seen before,
but you know, with a with a proper die roll,
you could probably make this thing work.
And it does look rechargeable and all that.
So yeah, you could take a it's a power cell, some sort.
Yeah, I'll take that and then go back up the room and go to sleep.
OK, you've got that.
And go to sleep.
All right, the evening or third shift
will pass without incident.
And it is the morning.
And you can get your more bagels and coffee done.
Sounds like a plan.
Yeah, man, I could go for that right now, right now.
OK, let me see.
I got to roll something.
Hold up.
I rolled my thing.
What are you guys doing?
Probably should check our board listing or whatever.
Yeah, check the yet.
Yeah.
OK, of that of you do have quite a few messages, actually.
There are a total of that.
I didn't think I'd need that.
There are nine messages there of that nine.
Eight are spam.
How many are Nigerian princesses?
Yeah, exactly.
Of that nine, I just rolled this.
There are eight that are clearly spam, clearly garbage.
And there's one that's there's only a number, no name.
And it says, could you please pass me your qualifications?
That's it.
That's the only message you've gotten.
Passing the qualifications then.
What are your qualifications?
Do you have this written down somewhere?
Well, essentially, you guys haven't chosen a specialty.
You haven't, you know, you can say we're troubleshooters.
It's pretty vague, right?
OK, well, we'll pitch ourselves as, as yeah, analysts,
system analysts who can look at your infrastructure
and find vulnerabilities and or weaknesses
that you don't even know exist.
And be sure, and we can repair them for you.
And then we'll put down past jobs
that we've had myself who would have been in engineering
and I guess computer type things.
Bran, I think, would be probably computers, right, Bran?
Yep.
And piloting.
Yeah.
Taj, what kind of experience does Taj have?
I mean, I know you're a stationer
and that you are good at talking.
Probably.
Say, yeah, like probably more like pen testing type deals,
like physical pen testing, like trying to do places
and talk my way through things.
We have it covered.
We've got all of the basis covered.
We've got your meat space.
We've got your hardware space and your software space.
OK, OK, that's, that sounds pretty good.
It does.
It's actually, that is actually a specialty.
So collectively speaking, that is especially all its own.
So yeah, you put that stuff down.
One thing you guys have never had a job together before.
That big job that got canceled, that was your first big gig.
OK.
OK.
But you all have had experiences yourself.
So you're talking about, you know, in general,
all the collective experience you've gotten, you know,
and together we've got, you know, 5,000 years.
100, 20 years.
Yeah, exactly.
So that you put that all down and you send it off.
No reply immediately.
So what are you doing?
Can we trace where that message came from at all?
I mean, we're with a computer's role.
Can we like, or is it really obvious?
Like does it say like?
Does someone have a comm unit, the actual comm unit?
Brin.
Brin?
Yes.
Thank you.
I do too.
OK.
Brin has an opportunity to do that if he wants
to try to crack the system.
We all know what's involved with that sort of thing.
But yes, it can be done right here.
You won't be able to do that from that display thing out
in the road that you got it.
But you can do it with an actual computer.
He's got.
So would I know how likely it would be?
Well, let me ask you this.
Do you want to do that?
Let's play.
I mean, Clat 2 does.
But do you want to do that?
You're the one that has the.
I think that it might throw out a red flag if I fail it.
And it could dry up all of our resources
as someone that is too nosy for their own good.
But I can't.
I was thinking that we would have already
kind of been told about what happened last night
while we were asleep.
And maybe the gears start turning in my head
that, hey, what if we kind of broke into these
and found a vulnerability and tried
to sell it to people on the station?
Ooh, I like this idea.
OK.
You can do that if you want.
Is that your agree?
That's what you're doing.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll go with the flow.
Well, the entire network, the public network, anyway.
There are many, many networks that are closed,
but their public network is all open to you.
What do you want to do?
OK, so since I want to be smart about this,
I would probably try to reroute through a few systems,
mask my IP address.
Space tour?
Yeah.
There you go.
And well, we're using modern terminology
for a future sort of experience.
But let's assume that a similar sort of approach
is required to some extent.
We have no other basis of comparison.
So let's go with that.
This will require a die roll, and there
is a minus 3, 2.
First off, you don't know the system at all,
so you have that problem going on.
OK.
Who's rolling for this?
Brenner, Tosh.
Oh, I am.
So I had a quick question on the skills.
Yes.
You have the skill name.
Then under there is the attribute,
search grade, and final score.
Yes.
So you start with your base attribute, whatever it is,
for that skill.
OK.
The attribute listed, OK.
Then you add your search grade to that.
And of course, as your level goes up,
that will be more and more.
If you have a search grade right now,
you add that right now.
OK.
So that's intelligence plus 1.
All right.
It's a 12.
OK.
You will have 12.
No, no, no.
No, I'm saying that was my intelligence plus 1, and I-
plus 1.
And with a minus 3, I did not make it.
You did not make it.
OK.
What did you roll?
Actually, what did you roll?
I rolled 17.
17 minus 3 is a 14.
Yes.
You didn't miss it by much.
So you didn't send up as far as you know.
I mean, you don't know.
But as far as you can tell, you didn't
trip any kind of alarms or anything like that.
You just can't get in.
OK.
Tosh, you want to try?
I can't, but mine is not nearly as high as yours.
So I mean, I can try.
Yeah, for sure.
Give it a go.
We do in computers.
That's what it was.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because my theory is that there are securities
a bit lax because I broke into a public system
and didn't send anything out.
So you said it's minus 3.
Minus 3.
Minus 3 would put me in an 11, and I rolled a 7.
You have failed.
And you think that you may have set something off.
You don't know.
In other words, it's possible if they
look or if they are actively looking,
they'll see that there was an intrusion attempt.
Whether or not that's common here, you don't know.
But I mean, if you had some sort of security or secure
system in the real world now, you'd
be having attempts all the time.
So whether or not this is going to send off any red flag,
you guys probably not.
Probably not, but you don't really know for sure.
But if someone looks, they'll probably
see that someone attempted to get in.
All right.
So I guess I guess that business opportunity has passed us
by the opportunity, maybe not the business model.
Yes.
But you did send off your resume as it were.
And perhaps you'll hear back.
They obviously, since they asked what your qualifications were
or what you could do, they were clearly
looking for something specific.
Whether or not you can fill their need, you don't know.
So by this time, after all that messing around,
and I assume you two guys were working simultaneously
through your own system, it's probably
getting close to what would be new-nish for us.
I need to roll another thing here.
Absolutely.
OK.
Whoever put up, you guys put the ad on the board.
Whatever number, whoever's com unit,
or it would be Brin or Taj.
You get a call.
It's an AI.
Hello.
I would like to talk to someone about possibly hiring
the Dodgers for a job.
Would that be possible?
You're speaking to me?
Thank you.
Very kind.
I represent a company called Eman and Associates
Combined Services.
Would you be available for a meeting?
I would.
We have a remote call.
This would be a remote call meeting
with one of the partners of the company.
In about an hour, would you be available for this call?
I would.
Excellent.
That is quite agreeable.
Thank you so much.
Please expect a call in one hour's time.
Have a good day.
You too.
It's a good thing.
I need me one of them, AI's, I think.
You probably could get an AI to do all your phone calls
and answering and stuff like that.
AI's coming a wide range of intelligences
in the Star Drifter universe.
This is one of the, I don't even say mid-end.
This is on the lower end.
They can route calls and they can give you mindless chit chat,
but you can't have a real conversation with them.
Or maybe something more like a how
do you have those voice disguisers on your phone?
Just something that would put up a different image
and different voice print.
Oh, yeah.
We can assume that you could like with a com unit.
If you say that's the thing you want to do,
we can assume you're doing it.
Okay.
That's just fine.
Yeah, that's just fine.
Because you can do that with a regular computer right now.
There's no reason why you couldn't do something
like that with one of those then.
And if you haven't established that up until now,
with a few minutes time on an open network,
like a public network like this,
you could find free software that would be able
to handle that just fine.
Okay.
I'll do that for a future.
Okay.
So what that will do, do you want a realistic version
of a human?
Because that's possible.
And it's not, you know, it's not,
it doesn't cost extra or whatever,
but some people specifically don't want that.
They want to have a clearly non-realistic version
of a person there.
What do you guys think?
I mean, how do we want to portray what we're doing?
That I think that's ultimately what it's going to come down to you.
I'm thinking more along we've used it
when we're doing something that's a little shady.
Yeah, probably, probably realistic is the way I'm leaning.
So realistic it is.
Okay.
It's not you, but it looks like a person
and it will change your voice.
They do have voice changes that will change it to that
of an AI sounding voice so that it takes out all the ums and urs
and all the pauses and all the normal speaking affectations
that we have and make it sound like it was a robot doing it all for you.
But this one just changes the tone of your voice.
So it sounds like a human voice, but not yours.
That works.
Okay, that's fine.
And it can be, you can, you can change that on the fly if you want.
You, you know, it's one of these things.
You download a package and it's got tons of avatars and tons of voices.
You can just choose them any way you want.
So, um, so if, in other words, if you piss somebody off with that face,
you're not stuck with it.
So, so anything else, because that actually would have happened long ago.
You just hung up the phone.
So the call is doing anything.
You have an hour.
I'll try to, I'll try to make myself look respectable.
Okay.
Yeah, probably no bad idea for get the same.
Can I get cleaned up?
Take a shower and stuff.
Okay.
Yeah.
It sounds like a good idea to me.
Okay.
You do that in an hour passes.
Okay.
An hour to the moment, the phone rings again, or the, uh, the, the, the calm call comes through.
It's the AI again.
Hello.
Are we ready?
We can make a conference call at this time.
We're ready.
Okay.
Now, with a conference call, you can put anybody on the line that's got some sort of communication
device.
That Clat 2 that leaves you out, I assume, but Taj, you can get in on this just as easily.
Yeah.
I'll go ahead and join in.
Okay.
At least drop of nothing else.
Okay.
Depending on the type of calm that you have chosen, and nobody told me what they've, what
they're using, depending on the type you're using, you may be able to open this up to
other people so that it's got a speaker and they can hear it.
It might have a holographic display that can pop up the way EJUX risk comp does.
Or if you chose to go with something that was completely innocuous, that no one else
could see, it might be just retinels and implants and some kind of sub-dirtable communication
thing.
So that nobody knows you have a calm, but no one else can share in it either.
So that's an important point right now.
What sorts of comms do you have?
Mine would be all internal, so I wouldn't be able to share.
Okay.
But you can network.
That is a thing you can do.
Right.
Yeah.
So I will say that I've got a risk comp.
You've got a risk comp.
It's easier.
No problem at all.
A risk comp works just fine without retinels and bone implants.
That's kind of an auxiliary thing, but you can have that as well if you wish.
You could just like EJUX or you can just have, because the pop up, you can do everything
with it.
I mean, you can do with the pop a hollow thing.
You can do everything with it.
So it's up to you, whichever you want to have, whatever you, again, it doesn't matter
what form it takes until you've chosen.
And then we have gameplay stuff where it does matter.
But from a die roll standpoint, it all works the same way.
I mean, I think I would at least get the other thing.
So it would be a little slicker if I was trying to play it off that I didn't have it.
Okay.
So maybe like glasses, you know, like that you could take on and off.
And they would have, you know, audio things because the arms are right there by the ears.
You'll have speakers that you can hear just fine a little tinny.
Like they sound fine through the arms and the display is on the glasses.
No one outside looking at you with those glasses can tell you're looking at anything.
But you can see just fine, but the risk comp also has a pop up hollow display that other
people can look at.
It's got a little speaker.
They got to lean in to hear it, but it's there at work.
Okay.
Can we link to a screen or anything or are we in that, we're in that bad of a die?
Oh, let's see.
That's a good question.
I don't know.
You know what?
There's a bare space on the wall that's got like the fading, like, you know, if you took
a picture off and there's like that space, it looks like there was probably a display
there once, but it's not there now.
Okay.
No space for you guys.
Yeah.
You don't have that.
But you've got a pop up hollow display and an external speaker on his risk comp, but
that's all you've got that can share with everybody.
Okay.
So we can link and I'll link you in.
Okay.
No problem.
That doesn't take a die roll or anything like that.
That's easy.
That's how they're designed to work.
So there it is.
And there it is.
Okay.
You see the AI is just this hovering head and then it goes away and a guy comes on.
He's a guy of about middle years, could be in his 30s, maybe, yeah, maybe push in
40.
He's got what looks to be dark brown skin, receding hairline and you get the sense right
off the bat that he's nervous or seems to be nervous.
Hello, who am I speaking to, please?
Taj, I'm going to let you take the lead.
You guys have the social engineering and all that good stuff.
All right.
Yeah.
My name is Dad.
I'm one of the, one of the directors of the Dodgers and just made contact with your AI.
I wanted to see what kind of, what, what's your head in mind?
Good.
Okay.
My name is Hiram Scandon, the second assistant VP of liquidations for Eman and associates.
Is there anyone else on this, they're, they're two of you.
Is there anyone else in this room?
Yeah.
We've got, I've got who am I speaking to in other words, I, this is a sensitive operation.
I just want to know what is going to be hearing this.
Right.
We have two other people in the room there.
They're also directors for our company, so they're definitely of the, uh, most reliability.
Oh, fine.
That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's very good.
Okay.
Um, I'm calling from our home office right now.
I'm on station Maltese.
Where are you guys?
Uh, we, we do have people on that station if we need to do something, uh, immediate, uh,
right now.
We do have some operatives on that.
Very good.
One of our subsidiary companies does passenger services on jump out.
I don't know if you, if you need that, but, um, I've been having them monitor incoming
travelers to see if a registered independent company arrived, um, the Dodgers were flagged
and forwarded to me.
Uh, even an associate has, uh, well, a bit of a pest control problem and I'd, I'd like
to hire you to take care of it for us.
So, um, I'm sensing a little bit from, from, to go on, the pest, pest control may be a
little bit of a euphemism.
Is that correct?
Um, let's just say that, um, there's, uh, there's a, there's a situation that needs some
handling and, um, I was just wondering if that's the sort of work you guys do.
I'm going to kind of glance over at my compatriots and see kind of what's going on on their
faces.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm up for it.
Pass control sounds good.
Yep.
Oh, that's, that, that's excellent.
Um, um, um, I will need you to sign some, uh, NDAs, uh, just, uh, to hear the details
of this.
It is, it is a confidential action and, uh, um, I'd be willing, uh, to pay for passage
for you folks or your, or your, or your operatives or your representatives or whatever to come
in for a meeting, but we, we will need a, uh, a bit of a face-to-face, um, tell you
what, um, if you are willing to meet me, uh, for lunch, I'll pay for lunch and we can
have a meeting over lunch and we can talk about this thing at the fun sign and we'll get
the details going.
So that's, I'm good to you guys.
Sounds good to me.
How, how, how's it going?
It's good.
Far away or are we from that lunch?
Well, he hasn't told you where he had.
He hasn't agreed.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
We, we could, we could definitely make a business meeting.
We, uh, we can be in system and meet you by lunchtime.
Oh, that's excellent.
That's excellent.
Um, okay, um, well, I will send you the information, um, see you in, um, about an hour
and a half.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
Wait, do we get his name?
Do we get his name?
Yes, you did.
His, uh, he said his name was Hiram Schenden.
Oh, that's right.
Yes.
Okay.
Thanks.
He's second assistant VP of liquidations for Eman and associates.
Next time the characters do find a job, but what kind is it?
And are they going to live to get paid?
I'll see you then.
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