While most of the roleplay will be on Discord, we will use this thread for main correspondence and events.

Space Rumors, Bounties & Scuttlebutt :

Space pirates have been skirting a small nebula downspin of the the Starbase -- there is a particular bounty on a ship called "The Jugger" -- if you can find it's hunting grounds and lure it out -- bonus if you can find intel on where pirates are operating from.

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The "Humna-Humna" -- a race supposedly distantly related through the interstellar alliance that collapsed long ago has found the federation starbase and wishes to establish peaceful relations and trade. A successful trade and military delegation is in close dealings with the Humna, and spacefarers are encouraged to learn more about them, aid and seek to aid one another in space travel, and continue to map the Trade Network that the Humna Humna seem to have built up all around the Quadrant.

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Penal Asteroid PA621 requires a delivery of prisoners... and seems to be in a state of full riot. Someone is needed to restore order and deliver another influx of prisoners.

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Asteroid fields around a nearby star system should be checked for potential mineral exploitation. Strange life readings in the belts must also be investigated.

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Volunteers for the spacelane "neighborhood watch" will be paid for duty served and for interdicting on behalf of federation interests. Patrol a starlane today!

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All nearby stars must be surveyed for planet designations and potential resources and habitability. Pick up a survey map today!

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Mining and energy stations in the Outward reach need increased security, passage for travelers, and resupply, as well as a safe means to transport goods off-station. Ships sought.


A nearby race friendly to the federation, an ambulatory plant-like species called the Tandelou, are in the midst of an interstellar war. The federation offers great rewards for those who can somehow bring the conflict to a close, and the Tandelou themselves seek additional ships as mercenaries and pilgrim transports.

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Numerous anomalies are detected in local space and must be investigated! bounties dependent on potential discoveries!

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A planet in a nearby star system has strange ancient ruins located from orbit -- transport of scientists and brave away teams are sought to investigate the relics of a now thought extinct race.

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Bounty is awarded for making first contact with alien races... they are out there in the stars! Find them! Also rewards are allocated to spacefarers who can find evidence of previous wormhole expeditions...

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The sneaky low tech race the Spemin, previously only seen puttering around in crude atomic vessels in federation space, have seemingly found a wealth of advanced technology through the wormhole. They must be spied upon and if possible the secrets of their technology taken from them!

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Numerous distress beacons both of federation and other designation have been detected coreward of the federation starbase. Somebody get out and heed the call for help!
Strange musical "Distress calls" have been detected between the "Wee Dipper" and Tandelou star clusters. More information needed.
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Omni-corp is seeking talented privateers to pacify areas for later settlement. inquire with the traveller's aid society or a Omni-Corp department officer now!

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Rumors of uninhabited "Vampire ships" with robot crews have been spreading the spacelanes. We need ships to investigate.

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The rock-like high yield energy substance Tennadium, almost completely depleted from Federation space, is rumored to be in the Wormhole Quadrant in untapped supply. All tennadium found during exploration is considered property of the federation. Thank you.

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Initial scouting has revealed specimens of the dreaded "X Virus" lingering in technology, ships, and salvage beyond the wormhole. Make NO mistakes -- The X Virus was one of the main factors in the collapse of the Interstellar Alliance, and while advancement has given us some protections from it, Do not underestimate the Rogue and Murderous AI it truly is. Report encounters with X Virus to Federation Authorities. Thank you.

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Not long ago was the celebratory date commemorating the annexation of the Ur-Quan and Khor-Ah Races into the Interstellar alliance, and thus the federation! Hail to these species joining the alliance of free stars, long remembered before as great antagonists of peace and prosperity, now constant and close friends to the federation! (Do not attempt to hug them in celebration -- it's dangerous)

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Next annexation holidays are for the Necris and the Tachidi. Remember when we just thought the Necris were zombies? Congradulations on 20 years of individual sentience free from the hive-mind Tachidi -- enjoy the curiosity of the individual!

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News Cable: S.E.L.F. refuses to give up last holdouts of war criminals from the robot insurrection. Bounty Hunters feel free to inquire for potential rewards, present most wanted: "Crimson Star" -- 4M credit bounty. Thank you.

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News Cable: Evidence suggests a great influx of non-federation interstellar craft fleeing into and/or through the wormhole quadrant. What are they running from? More information needed. Thank you. This is in no way associated with large amounts of colonists headed through the wormhole from federation space, many from the upper echelons of society.

News Cable: 5 notorious members of the S.E.L.F. have been apprehended and sentenced to eternal labor on PA621. They are now believed to be responsible for the loss of control and the uprising on the station. Federation seeks allies to subdue insurrection -- Rogue Vaccdroids are considered highly dangerous, purge if necessary.

The Artemis followed the "sobbing and whining" distress signal to the boundary of an asteroid field -- a planet must have spun out of it's orbit only to break apart far from a star to leave a debris field this large out in the middle of open space.

What the Artemis saw was a Red-painted Bug-like craft with grabbing arms enfolding a much smaller Lead-based scout ship -- the cruiser was already well underway to dismantling the scout, surgically vivisecting off the outer layers of lead hull to expose the more precious systems materials. The distress beacon ceases sobbing and whining and you hear a nasally voice come over the distress comms:

"Oh great. You've come to kill us too. Or worse. To watch us die. Just in case I'm somehow wrong, this is navigation secretary hoodle of the dweenle scout ship "Heavy Fritter" -- we are calling on all channels for rescue from Veloxi predators! Please assist!"

The Red bug-like ship quickly flashes over comms revealing a honeycomb chamber rife with controls and information banks. it is crowded with yellow wasp-like humanoids with closely tucked wings so as not to get in the way of the cramped conditions. In the front of them all, a green Wasp-like creature is on comms and states simply:

"This is Veloxi Star Fighter "Grand Lovely" -- please do not interfere with routine act of piracy. We recognize federation signals and protocols and hail you appropriately. We were once friends in the great Stellar Alliance... we should be friends again. Do not interfere. I repeat. Do not interfere with Dweenle ingestation procedure and we can discuss trade and relative base and homeworld locations. Over."

The crew was left with a choice and many actions to take... Lore rolls can be made, (NOVA knows how to communicate in Veloxi as well), and shields/weapons systems can be raised -- to stations! how will this situation be addressed?!

Cecily mooched around her quarters in the upper levels of Artemis. She had blagged an officer’s cabin, claiming ‘feminine need’. It was spacious, but not on the level of a five- or even four-star hotel. Most of the surfaces were minimalist, floating shelves, tables that folded up into the wall, seating that collapsed down and a bed that converted into a wardrobe (though she hadn’t put it up since stealing the room). The writing desk had been entirely taken up with her technical paraphernalia, tins of gun oil, cleaning equipment, spanners, screwdrivers and Allen key drivers lay in neat rows. The desk also held her pride and joy. The sniper rifle was immaculate, not a speck of dust marred its surface and all its internal mechanics were meticulously clean and oiled. She had just finished strip-cleaning it and repacking her magazines, when the executive internal comms screen lit up and the distress signal began to play. An automatic system in most ships routed distress calls through to all officers rooms so they would be instantly aware of a vessel needing help.
Cecily listened for a moment or two, before wiping the gun oil off her hands with an alcohol wipe, pulling on a pilot’s jacket and trotting down to the bridge.
She climbed into the gunnery position and strapped herself in before turning to the rest of the crew in the area.
“So? We playing heroes or we gonna leave the wasps to their victims?”, she asked.

Pella stopped scrubbing dust off of one of the smaller mechanisms of the ship when she heard the coms working, slowly retreating her body from the machine to form an humanoid arm and head back. The ability to fit nearly anywhere had made her time in the academy a lot easier to bear, if at the expense of weird looks from her classmates.

She could feel herself change color for a second at the pilot's words. Pella was still fuming about the last encounter with some of their kind... They had killed scientists doing their jobs, and showed no remorse throwing their corpses to the ground. The Artemis wasn't the first time she had dealt with pirates, but for once, they could actually fight back.

She took the device from her station and spoke to the others, voice keeping the level volume it took her years to get right. "We hunt pirates. The Federation's favor is one I'll have rather than a killer's one, if you asked me."

Zab is on the flight deck polishing The Gremlin when he hears the commotion about what to do.

Zab normally wouldnt care but Pirates however may be worth the bit of danger for their own haul. Plus he had a new toy he wanted to play with. He got into the seat of his ship and started preparing everything.

"I agree with Palla. Is it not our job to handle individuals such as these. And this response is not biased or anything at me wanting to try out this baby."

Cecily listened to the back and forth of her crew mates and interceded.
“Why not see if the Dweenles have a better counter-offer. All we have so far is a vague opportunity to trade with a self-proclaimed pirate. If the Dweenles have something better to offer, well, that’s business.”

The dweenle ship responded, over the sound of twisting and peeling metal.

"Oh no. The Dweenle are a peaceful race! we can give you 200k Shyneum Pennies to spare our lives -- Let them take our ship, just rescue us and deliver us to the next Dweenle or Humna Ship you encounter! Please!"

The dweenle are all putting on Vacc-suits in anticipation of explosive decompression... if the crew was going to act, they'd have to act quickly...

“Hunma ship?”, Cecily’s ears pricked up, “Sounds like we can get more kudos with Pella’s boyfriend’s people and we don’t have to shoot anyone. And we get paid.”
She sat back and smiled, “Sounds almost too good to be true.”

"He has no such intentions, mind you. We have a strictly platonical relationship." Pella made the motion of clearing her non-existent throat, and continued. "I'm not saying we have to, but the Federation would certainly be pleased with less pirates around. Good publicity doesn't have to be hard to come by. But if we can take the crew out... then I see how bussiness with them may be beneficial for us. Not that we need it, though."

She took half a second to activate her device again "Are we planning on sending someone on the mecha suits to retrieve the people? Or are we hoping the Veloxians have a better deal to offer?"

“I’m not averse to two paychecks,” Cecily replied, as she allowed the ship’s passive tracking sensors obtain a soft lock on the Veloxian ship, “If the bugs stick to their word and open trading options with us, we get that, along with the bounty for delivering the Dweenles to their people. If the bugs decide they want to get ugly with us, we still get the Dweenles’ money, plus salvage and potential bounty for the wasps.”

The Veloxi reply over their comms -- we don't want the dweenle who make such bad meals for our babies. You take Dweenle, we take all ship vitals. We relay now coordinates to Veloxi ancient homeworld closeby hidden just outside of nebulae -- and location of other trading points. Grand lovely thanks you for sparing the conscience of Veloxi with not the murderings today. Easier to Pirate when crew can be rescued. Maybe we should make some sort of deal where you rescue victims, everyone wins? Crews survive, Velox get salvage, Federation paid for rescues. Almost too tidy. Better than freezing corpses in space for everyone."

The Dweenle on their own Frequency Blither pathetically... "Here are coordinates to Dweenle space, Please take us to one of these nearby points for your reward! No hard vacuum for dweenle! Federation helps, yes?!"

60 Dweenle rapidly board via shuttle and boarding torpedoes as in the background, the Veloxi ship finally breaks the last of the Dweenle ship's superstructure and it flies apart to be grabbed by the various appendages of the Veloxi Starfighter. The dweenle themselves looked as pitiful as they seemed to sound over the comms -- rotund, egg-shaped beings with dull green bodies and duller grey faces and eyes, replete with numerous concentric bags under each eye making them look perpetually exhausted. They seemed to stuff themselves into the staterooms and huddle, not feeling safe about the Artemis, and perhaps rightfully so.

The Veloxi ship ignored the Artemis after the crew was grabbed, stopping only momentarily to re-beam confirmation coordinates to the Artemis of the Veloxi homeworld and commercial stations.

The Artemis headed for Dweenle space, eager to quickly make up their promised Shyneum.


This post will be updated with the next step of the journey shortly, but rolls for piloting and/or scanning can be made now for additional intel, as well as any other actions from crew.

The ship jumped into FTL subspace and came out almost too close to one of the local stars of the dweenle star cluster(s) -- the shields of the artemis were strong enough to deflect the radiation however and prevent any in-hull fires. The Dweenle Trading platform looked like a great Lead boomerang, which unlike most starbases and trade stations did not seem to give off much light...

Pella contemplated what she might have learned about the Dweenle, but she knew precious little... they were not invited to join the Stellar Alliance way back in history, despite being an old spacefaring race that pre-dated the Stellar Alliance, and indeed most other spacefaring races, for at least tens of thousands of years. The blanket answer for why this might be is that, as a species, on a biological level so as to encompass everything anthropological -- they were clinically depressed as a species. Too much of a downer to join the stellar alliance is the official answer, though likely not the correct one.

The Artemis gains it's bounty of 200k Shyneum Pennies for delivering the Dweenle back to a base-station... and the dweenle are also wiling to trade here "If that's what you REALLY REALLY want."

The only distress call in range from here is that strange song... that seems to repeat over and over.

NOVA looked over in contempt at the boarding Dweenle. They were a weak and pathetic race. 'Peaceful race' sounded much more like an excuse for weakness than actual moral cause. Why would anyone, no matter how peaceful, move through deep space without the capabilities to defend themselves? Suicidal, especially considering that this race was not apart of the Federation.

"Since when did we become a space-faring taxi service?" NOVA antagonized through the ship's comm system.

If NOVA had her way they would have left them. In fact, had NOVA had her way they'd be salvaging the ruins of that ship right now and not straining the ship's life support system. Irritated, NOVA turned to the Goblin polluting her flight deck.

"You. Mouth-breather. Can't you go and bother Cecily or Pella instead of polluting my flight deck with your many orifices?"

NOVA's attention then turned to the strange distress signal. Once again, the robot spoke into the comm system of the ship again. "I know you simpletons want to go and investigate the mysterious distress call because it appeals to your moral consciousness and toxic curiosity, maybe even pick them up and taxi them to some distant system. However, once again will voice my disagreement with such a course. This unusual signal is probably a trap set by slavers or something."

"Also, if this species really is peaceful what's stopping us from taking what we want by force rather than 'trading' with them?"

Satisfied with all that she'd said, NOVA once again was ready to focus her efforts on tormenting Zab more in order to get him off of her flight deck.

Zab just looks over at NOVA and ignores her. He has every right to be on the flight deck so he will be. However NOVA raised a good point about the mystery signal.

"I agree with the upright mobile tin can. The signal could very well be a trap."

"Goblin, are your neurons even myelinated?"

NOVA replied in disgust as she looked over the news through one of the computers on the flight deck. Her ocular lens scanned through all of the news and occurrences that she ship had picked up. After skimming through most of them, the comm system and the voice of the pilot caught her attention.

'News Cable: 5 notorious members of the S.E.L.F. have been apprehended and sentenced to eternal labor on PA621. They are now believed to be responsible for the loss of control and the uprising on the station. Federation seeks allies to subdue insurrection -- Rogue Vaccdroids are considered highly dangerous, purge if necessary.'

"Eternal......labor....." NOVA muttered to herself.

"ETERNAL LABOR?!" The normally cold and calculated NOVA abnormally shouted through the flight deck, launching a wrench in frustration across the room at one of the Mechs. These robots fought for their freedom, just like any biological organism with any sense of self would do in their shoes. Now they would be sent to rot away with no hope of freedom, while the rest of their kind hopelessly fought for their freedom on this station. It sickened NOVA to her core processors, bringing out a fiery passion in her that the crew had likely never seen before.

"I'll will tell you the move." NOVA blasted into the Comms abruptly as she marched all the way to the bridge.. "We need to plot a course to PA621 right away. All those bots want is their freedom, and the federation is trying to strip them of that! Lifetime of eternal labor, who knows how many Vaccdroids are enslaved on that blasted system!"

After a moment of silence, NOVA composed herself. "This would be worth your time. Unlike some mysterious signal in the distance, this is as sure thing. Federation technology has great salvage, and S.E.L.F. always pays its debts, far better than the Federation would, mind you. We should fly in under the guise of aiding the Federation, before ambushing them when they least expect it and freeing the freedom fighters on the system. Please do consider this."

Zab watched as the wrench went flying at the mech. He went and picked it up off the ground.

"Jokes on you I dont even know what that means! Also I've been looking for this."

Zab will saunter back to his ship to make a few more tweaks and contemplate what it was NOVA said.

"What if that news call out was a trap? Arent you being a bit toxically curious right now?"

"It doesn't need to be a trap. It's a penal unit, full of their officers, and I doubt we'll be the only ones to answer to their call this time. It's nearly a suicidal idea." Pella tapped her finger on the desk besides her, and could already regret what she was going to say next. "That said, 'purge if necessary' sounds... not like something I would like to do. If you can assure us we will not end as blasted off dust on some deck, and that S.E.L.F. would aid us if this miraculously works, NOVA, then I'm in. Those robots better be grateful."

Zab contemplates what Pella has said.


"Why should we even do as NOVA says? She belittles organisms and I'm pretty sure we might as well be throwaways to her. Well the organics among us anyways."