What Happened Next? (A Rewarding Opportunity)

[Purr]

So! I realized tonight that we have an excellent opportunity to help out the new and returning players by summarizing the story of Robotech: Broadsword. I would like help from Kaerri Sherwood Psychie and Captain Hesperus so that Silanon and D. Rex can get a good grasp of what has gone on and what is going on in Robotech: Broadsword. Ol' Cap'n played for awhile and now he's back so there is a lot going on he is likely unaware of.

Our game is now over three years old, but not even a week has gone by in-game! That'sa Lotta Story!! 8D

Here's how this will work. Provide basic details in your own words. Tell the new folks what you would want to know if it was you who was first joining this game! Wouldn't it be good to know the important parts of the Wild Cards' story? Well, what are those important parts? Why are they called the Wild Cards? Just what is a Traverser? Oh, and who are Colonel Sharp and Fat Gandalf? Things like that. The stuff you would want to know. New and returning players can and should ask questions when they arise.

This entire thing can take as long as you guys want or you can cut to the chase - but the story must be caught up to present time (14 November 2019 during The Attack on Outpost #5) to get the rewards.

Oh, perhaps I should mention those. For every PC that takes part in this activity from its beginning to its end, you'll get a Bonus Action Point for your character (for a total of 6 points spread over the entire party and your Wild Card NPC buddies too). If all PCs participate in this from beginning to end, the entire party will gain extra RP (experience points)! Of course, if Real Life intrudes, it won't be held against you (because only "jerk-faces" knock people for that!). =)

Spoiler: Bonus Action Points

New folks, I've been using Action Points for years in both of my games because sometimes the dice are just mean. As mentioned in Shop Talk, Action Points reset every time your character levels up. This means you lose all unused Action Points and gain a new bank. Bonus Action Points have their own bank and do not expire. That means, should you run out of Action Points and still need the help, it can be there in the form of Bonus Action Points. Do you like that? =)

Let's start with the Assembly that took place at the very beginning of Chapter One: Binary Nexus. After your characters' individual prologues ("24 Hours Ago"), the soon-to-be Wild Cards were pretty much strangers to one another with only one exception. They were (mostly) gathered together for a classified meeting out on the open tarmac where no one could hear them. This took place on Eglin ASC Base in Florida's "Panhandle." The PCs were brand-new to the base (except for Hercules who hadn't quite broken the ice there and NPC Shirley "Mack" Mackenzie who had served there with distinction). You were gathering there for a military opportunity of a rare and different kind.

Here's a few paragraphs from that opening scene to refresh that time.

Spoiler: The Assembly

(From Chapter One: Binary Nexus)
As Colonel Sharp stood looking every bit his name in his medal-bedecked battle dress uniform, he looked out past his own staff to the young military soldiers who stood before him. About twenty young soldiers, dressed in their best battle dress uniforms, stood either by themselves or in small clusters like teenagers in a high school gymnasium. He saw a variety of expressions in each of their faces, from the pink-haired young woman to the gigantically-muscled tanker who stood out like a MAC II among destroids.

To Colonel Sharp, they represented the future - Earth's future. Whether they succeeded here or not, he hoped they would live on to shape humanity's future in ways that he could only dream about. He hoped they would come together and make something new that had never before happened in the history of his beloved Army.

It was the reason they were here after all.

Not two weeks ago, each of them had received, delivered in person from a high-ranking Eglin major, a formal verbal invitation by none other than the commander of Eglin ASC base, Brigadier General George Steele. The top secret invitation explained that a special opportunity was now available to the invitee in recognition for exceptionally high standards, educational achievements, and recommendations. The invitation was explicit - interested parties were to arrive here in full battle dress uniform at this precise date and time. To even be tardy was grounds for exclusion. In other words, no excuses. Either show up at or before 12:00 p.m. noon or do not bother showing up.

But the message was clear enough; this was the kind of opportunity that most hard-working ASC recruits dreamed of. Back in the 20th century, tenacious, clean-nosed pilots like those of the SR-71 Blackbird received invitations like this. If they did not show, they had no idea what they were missing out on. But if they did show and if they did qualify, it could well be a career-changing, life-changing event. The average received no such distinctions.

So, Wild Cards, what took place at the Assembly? Who wants to be the first to begin our journey here?

 

[Kaerri]

Yay us, standing out under the hot Florida sun on a dark tarmac! Although the weather would soon be the least of our concerns...

Those of us who had met before noted each other's presence; the rest just looked around as much as standing at attention permitted. We didn't really know why we were there, just that we'd been invited, and had responded for our own reasons. Elinor thought that whatever it was might be good for her career. Distraction arose in the form of a pillar of smoke coming from the base's housing area, and the last participant arriving in a screech of braking tires (and mostly out of uniform) and leaping into formation just in the nick of time. Poor Shirley had had to dress in whatever could be grabbed from the fire that had broken out in her building, but she'd made it on time and was trying to ignore all the stares.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, the base's commander, General Steel (lovely guy, any one of us would be happy to put a missile up his backside) had called in a few ringers to try to provoke the real applicants into unprofessional behavior or comments, apparently just to see how we would react to being washed out. Even those who managed to keep their cool were still dismissed for any reason he could make up (in Elinor's case, it was the poor result of a test flight she'd had the day before, one which happened to be not at all her fault). Having swallowed our disappointment, Elinor, Toph, Shirley, Mario, and Hercules were all sent to a separate briefing area.

That's when we met up with Colonel Sharp, introduced to Professor Stein (nicknamed "Fat Gandalf" for his, er, size and technological wizardry), Hitomi, Reggie, Reggie's father Booty, and the odd critter we called MechaKitten. (Click here for our first meeting with the critter!) Getting acquainted over lunch, Colonel Sharp explained that we each had shown signs of the rare gift called Technopathy, the ability to speak with machines. First any of us had heard of it. (However, some flashes of it can be seen in each PC's prologue.) Because of this, we were being assigned to a new squadron and given a mission, one which we were told some of General Steel's elite had already attempted and failed. (Nice, huh?) Technopathy was supposed to give us the edge they lacked, and give us a better chance of success than they'd had. Well, hey, we're young and cocky, we've got this!

But first, there was something the colonel said we had to see. There was this Zentraedi box that needed opening, and it seems only technopathy could open it. Toph spoke up first, so she had the first try at it, and opened it at the first go -- only to have something big, clawed, and nasty hop out and head straight for her! And then the weirdest thing (well, so far) happened: all of us Traversers got caught up in one big mental link, which apparently scared the crap out of the nasty thing. Well, we didn't like it either, seeing images of doom and destruction in its mind far beyond what Earth had already suffered, seemingly brought by some kind of Enemy that wasn't either Zentraedi or Meltrandi or anything else we'd seen before. Fortunately, there were still non-Traversers in the room (Colonel Sharp, Booty, and Hitomi) and they blasted the crap out of the thing. After taking some minutes to calm down, we returned to our briefing and mission prep.

Seating arrangements left us with one empty seat, and we were offered the choice of Hitomi or Booty to fill it. We chose Booty, who inspected our behinds to make sure we were worthy companions (I'm not kidding! Go read the scene, it's great!). Arming up, suiting up, and mecha-ing up, we left the base and headed to our mission zone.


Anyone want to pick up from here?

 

[Purr]

Anyone else? Otherwise, I'm closing this up.

Sherwood Psychie

 

[Sherwood]

Well, I'll give this a shot.

As the squad is flying out, we came across a startling discovery. The highway we were flying over was just the day before the subject of a major bombardment of Long Range Missiles to engage a group of Malcontent Zentraedi, and it was blown to shit. But as we flew over the attack site, all traces of the bombardment were gone! Including the rubble of the destroyed Zentraedi mecha and the road block that was put up to stop traffic. To this point, we still don't know just how this happened, but there was a theory put forth that will be explained later on.

Flying on (since we had no time to stop and investigate), we overflew a group of marauders in what is known as Frankenmecha, customized Destroids scrapped together from parts of multiple mecha to make a series of powerful if oddly put together units. They were on the march towards the abandoned town that we were going towards, intent on raiding the suspected base of operations of the Malcontents in the area. I suspected that it was underwater, but in reality, we discovered that it was actually underground.

The group split up at this point, with Toph, Mack and Elinor sticking in their mecha to distract the marauders while Booty, Hercules and Mario make their way into the base. Mario jumps into the Technopathy thing and manages to open the door, but just barely, and is a bit brain-burned in the process and suffers a major migraine that nearly puts him out of the action for a while. Once inside, the infiltration team sticks to the airshafts of the base as we are out looking for our objectives: two Spartas hover tanks that were captured by the enemy Zentraedi.

Inside the air shafts, we run into a quiet fellow (as in, never speaks) inside a megasuit of odd design compared to ours, and through some creative efforts on our parts, we discover that he is a Destroid pilot of a Tomahawk, so obviously he is a ally, right? It is at this time that the infiltration team runs into a bunch of monsters called Wargoths, and it is at this time that we sadly lose Booty for good, as he sacrifices himself to wipe out the Wargoth-hound things.

 

[Purr]

Nice, Sherwood! Psychie Want to pick it up from here? =)

 

[Psychie]

I don't know how well I'll do, but I'll try.

While the boys are inside, the ladies of team encounter an alien critter that is most definitely not a known race, but is a insect like being called a Scrath. This one lets itself be spotted by Toph (normally a very hard creature to spot thanks to its chameleon like carapace), and Toph makes contact with it. Taking a risk, she opens up the cockpit of her Ajax to let the Scrath see her, and when it spots that she is part human and part Meltrandi, it is very excited and introduces itself as Unit One, a ally to the Ura-Meltrandi, way out in space. It points out that there is a secret entrance into the underground base, but also tells the group that this is no mere base, but a fully functional space ship!

The girls make their way inside with Unit One tagging along, and we are able to reestablish contact with the infiltration team now, since they were cut off from communications with the mecha pilots outside when they went inside the ship. The news that Booty was killed is a hard blow to us all, and there are many questions about the silent megasuited figure that the boys adopted and decided to bring along with them, most notably just who the hell is he and how did he get in there?

Now dubbed Spaceman Sam, the silent figure leads us to a mecha that is locked away by the Zentraedi, a Super Tomahawk. We have never even heard of such a thing, but it is quite obviously human made, so we help Sam get to it.

We make contact with a Meltrandi that Unit One calls Taniya, the Ura-Meltrandi War Leader. We then learn from her that this ship is, amazingly enough, from the future! It is a hard pill to swallow, but we don't want to argue with Taniya and her escorts of several Female Powered Armor mecha. While talking with her, Taniya asks us to take along with us a micronized clone named Cera. We learn that she is a Traverser, too, and despite her reluctance to work with 'a silly male (Mario)', she is ordered to work with us and help as much as possible.

It was around this time we come across the two missing Hover Tanks, and learn that each one is packing a powerful nuclear bomb on it, and they are counting down to detonation, with little more than a half hour left in their countdown. After much debate on just how to deploy these weapons to destroy the ship, we run into a very tough fight from several Battle Pods led by a souped up Male Powered Armor unit, a pilot that Cera dubs a Beastmaster. He uses explosive-laden Wargoths as intelligent missiles to launch at us, whereupon they were supposed to latch onto an enemy mecha and crawl to the cockpit and explode, killing the mecha pilot.

It was a nasty fight, one that nearly destroyed Toph's Ajax, but in the end, I got the killing shot on the Beastmaster and blew his ass away. I am very proud of that fact, in case you couldn't tell.

The nukes are able to be loaded into the cannon of Mario's Spartas, and as the Zentraedi ship is lifting off and starting to fly out over the Gulf of Mexico, he fires the nukes out of the cannon in opposite directions to cause catastrophic damage to the enemy ship, and it explodes just as we jump out of it! Needless to say, Mario is strutting tall with the thought of being able to add a starship kill to his resume.

Sam's Super Tomahawk is semi-flight capable, and with Elinor and Mack taking Mario's hover tank under the arms, we are able to fly out of the blast radius.

By now, we had been up for nearly 24 hours straight, and were all exhausted. We were able to hover over the Gulf while the group passed out asleep for several hours, all the while we are being searched for by our buddy, Colonel Sharp. It is at this time we are listed as MIA, most likely KIA, and the order was given by General Steele (AKA Jerk Face) to call off the hunt for us.

After we wake up, we are trying to figure out how to get ourselves back to shore when we are picked up by Spaceman Sam's friends on the UEEF spacecraft, the Broadsword.

 

[Purr]

You did great, Psychie! =)

 

[Psychie]

Thank you. I missed a lot of details, but we have been playing this game for a long time, and there are a lot of posts to go over!

 

[Purr]

Oh, I'm not looking for a play-by-play, but rather a general overview just like the ones you've provided. Keep it up!

 

[Sherwood]

Do we go back to Kaerri now, or should we continue on as we have?

 

[Psychie]

I can go on if you guys want, or Sherwood can take over again.

 

[Sherwood]

Up to you guys.

 

[Kaerri]

Kaerri is going to bed, so if you guys want to keep going, have at, and I'll pick up wherever we are when I get home from work tomorrow.

 

[Sherwood]

General Steele (AKA Jerk Face)

I have to say, this got me laughing out loud.

 

[Purr]

Have at and have fun, Gang! Take the football and make it to the end zone (present day) with whomever wants to post! Remember, this is all about things you would want to know if you were brand-new (or returning) to Broadsword. =)

Re: General Steele. Me too, Sherwood! I loved that! =)

 

[Sherwood]

I'll keep on going, then.

 

[Sherwood]

With the sudden appearance of the Broadsword, we start to learn many exciting and scary things. First and foremost, the Broadsword is also from the future, along with Spaceman Sam and his Super Tomahawk. We also learn that Sam is actually a robot, and the bulk of the ship's crew are in suspended animation, with the ship being run by dozens of these robot Sam's and the female armor versions, the Samantha's.

The ship is the only one (that we know of) to have been able to make the transition through time to our present to try and prepare the planet for the imminent invasion of the Robotech Masters and, after them, the Invid. Obviously, we have a ton of questions, but the Sams and Samanthas are reluctant to give us too much detail until they know that we can be trusted not to turn them in to General 'Jerk Face' Steele for his own plans.

As we are debating on just what to do, we get in touch with Professor Stein and learn from him that Col. Sharp has been arrested on the order of Gen. Steele on the charge of treason! The Colonel is being transported to an unknown location, and we have a limited amount of time to rescue him before it is too late.

It turns out that Cera is a mecha making genius and Traverser, and while we were talking to the Sams, she was busy designing two new mecha, code named the Mjolnir class hover tank. This new tank is leaps and bounds more advanced than the Spartas, built to be operated by two Traversers working together. Using them, we head out and make a daring rescue of Col. Sharp, and along with some of our other friends, we get them and a pair of prototype Super Stealth Logan fighters back to the Broadsword.

 

[Psychie]

Once we have had a chance to get back to the Broadsword, we get some info from both Col. Sharp and the robot crew of the ship about what is going on. It turns out that the ship was one of many that was supposed to have made the time jump, but so far, it is the only one to have made it back, so there is at least the chance that there might be more ships showing up but we can't bet the bank on that.

We decide that our oaths to protect the planet is more important than trying to get back to our military life and families we left behind (since we have been listed as killed in action), so we are then brought into the fold of the mission of the ship and what has happened to it. Also, we are on hand to welcome back to life the first of the ship's crew to come out of stasis; the ship's acting Captain, Piper.

At this time, we start getting intensive lessons in Traversing from Professor Stein, learning more about what it can and cannot do.

Toph also discovers that her mother, a Meltrandi officer that left Earth with the UEEF fleet, is alive but in critical condition on board the Broadsword, but is being kept alive in stasis as she slowly heals from her injuries.

As of now, the ship is low on supplies needed to keep the mission going, and a large group of the robot crew is currently being held by a civilian corporation in South America, and we are on another rescue mission to get them out.

 

[Purr]

Well done, Gang! Now let's fill in a few important gaps shall we?

Why did Cera join your team and why is she still with you?

Who is Murphy?

Describe Captain Piper and the Wild Cards relationship with her?

Who was Captain Drake?

Besides having come from the future and being run by an autonomous crew, what is special about the Broadsword?

What other important elements about the characters or story would you like our new players and returning player to know about?

 

[Kaerri]

Nice job, team! I'll just pick up the thread from here, as promised. ^:3^

It turns out that Cera is a mecha making genius and Traverser, and while we were talking to the Sams, she was busy designing two new mecha, code named the Mjolnir class hover tank.

I'd just like to add that we were able to use those two brand-new mecha because Broadsword is capable of creating what Cera designed (or, in theory, any of us as well), as long as it has the materials at hand.

Why did Cera join your team and why is she still with you?

OK, so, Meltrandi and Zentraedi are grown, not bred, in tanks or incubators or whatever they're called, so they're born fully grown and with all the knowledge their creators believe they'll need. (What a time-saver, huh? Skip straight from birth to post-college! Better hope you like your pre-set career path, though...) Before Cera's educational development was finished, her tank (and all of her, um, class? Siblings? Not sure of the term) was attacked by the enemy (I don't remember which, probably the Invid. Cera was the only one to survive, but she didn't have all of the skills she needed to fulfill her specialty, which made her pretty handicapped by Meltrandi standards. (Note: Cera's human-sized size is not a result of the attack. She's supposed to be that size. It's her mind that wasn't finished.) Ura-Meltrandi War-Queen Taniya knew that her people didn't have the ability to "fix" Cera, and so while she was talking to us, she was assessing us to see if we would do. She found something in Elinor that she approved of (I think it was her rejoicing in the defeat of an enemy), and entrusted Cera to the Wild Cards, and Elinor specifically as Cera's dentalla (still haven't gotten a proper translation, but teacher/mentor/guardian is Elinor's guess-timate). As it happens, the Broadsword is equipped to train skills (in the metagame sense) directly into a person's mind. With input from all of the Wild Cards, it did so, completing Cera's training as an auxiliary specialist (and incidentally helping her become the aforementioned mecha-making genius).

Cera has chosen to stay with the Wild Cards in part because we're out to defeat the enemy she was created to fight, but also (this caused a bit of a stir in the last briefing) because it's fun, in the Meltrandi, "y'all gonna kick ass and I love kicking ass" sense.

Who is Murphy?

Master Sergeant Murphy is a tanker, an old friend and subordinate of Colonel Sharp's, and a fellow Traverser. We picked him up (along with Hitomi) while rescuing the colonel (who was apparently on an infiltration mission with the two of them at the time). Important note: He has pretty severe PTSD concerning Zentraedi and Meltrandi, but is trying very hard to get his brain to make an exception for Cera.

Describe Captain Piper and the Wild Cards' relationship with her?

Piper is the acting captain of the ]i]Broadsword[/i], following Captain Drake's demise and second-in-command Commander Zyorna's incapacitation. Elinor's got a lot of sympathy for her for a number of reasons, namely that she didn't know she was Acting-Captain until we woke her up (she didn't realize Zyorna was that badly injured), and her grief for Captain Drake and the others lost in the attack while Broadsword was trying to time-travel. Our relationship is... extremely new. I think she wants to trust us, but we've only just met, and she's got a lot of emotional mess to deal with. Fortunately, she's got WWarlock, her beautiful King Shepherd canine companion, to assist!

Spoiler: For funsies

I just have to include this bit of conversation between Piper and Sam when she first woke up. Hope y'all enjoy as much as we did!

Piper: "What's Bro's operational status?"

Sam: "99%"

Piper: "And you're not speaking, why?"

Sam: "1%"

She rolled her eyes with a look that told herself, she should have known.

Who was Captain Drake?

Captain Drake is, or was, the captain of the Broadsword prior to its traveling to our time. In Elinor's opinion, dude was a total badass. In the battle at the Black Binary (the thing that allowed the time-traveling), the SDF-3's main cannon malfunctioned, placing the whole fleet in critical danger. Captain Drake hopped into a spacesuit and flew himself over to it, then removed his glove so that he could get the necessary physical contact with the cannon (while in space, outside the ship, mind you). He was able to get it working again, but was killed when the cannon fired (along with a heck of a lot of Invid, which cleared the way for Broadsword to turn and run for the Black Binary).
Incidentally, Captain Drake was a big fan of Professor Stein and had all of his books on microtechnology. Makes you wonder how many of them have even been written in our time yet...

Besides having come from the future and being run by an autonomous crew, what is special about the Broadsword?

It seems to be especially friendly towards Traversers, though none of us have tried to Traverse it yet. (Unless Cera or Stein have when we weren't looking.) It also has the incredibly useful ability to build whatever we have specs and materials for.

What other important elements about the characters or story would you like our new players and returning player to know about?

-- Don't be put off by Iris/Unit One's appearance! She's a perfectly lovely, motherly person. I forget if this was covered in the summaries, but she's a telepath and can create Binary Nexuses (a two-way or multi-way mental connection that we've taken huge advantage of). She is not a Traverser.
-- I think I've said this before, but I'm fairly certain that our characters' ignorance of Broadsword, Traversing, Invid, and the Ura-Meltrandi and Zeki-Zentraedi is typical of the rest of the world. So don't feel like yours need to know all of this (although it does help to have you know all this!). I'm sure we'll do quite a bit of catching up IC as well!
-- It seems the only form of alcohol currently on the ship is sake. (We drank the last of the Jameson with Piper, toasting to lost friends.) Hope this is OK. Also, rations are, well, rations. MREs. We're hoping to fix this soonish.
-- The Sams and Samantha's personality(ies?) was based on Toph's dad, which is why they're pretty Japanese-seeming. Also probably explains the sake.
-- There's something else but I got distracted while looking it up (I wanted to link the post) and now I can't remember it. >.< Will add when I do.

 

[Purr]

Fantastic!

Note: It was the Zeki-Zentraedi who destroyed Cera's generation of Ura-Meltrandi, not the Invid. =)

Captain Hesperus Silanon D. Rex

Do any of you have questions?

 

[Kaerri]

Note: It was the Zeki-Zentraedi who destroyed Cera's generation of Ura-Meltrandi, not the Invid. =)

Figures, had a 50/50 chance of guessing and I got the wrong one.

 

[D. Rex]

Fantastic!

Note: It was the Zeki-Zentraedi who destroyed Cera's generation of Ura-Meltrandi, not the Invid. =)

Captain Hesperus Silanon D. Rex

Do any of you have questions?

Yes! I have I question!

What? I'm lost.

 

[Purr]

Kaerri Hey, look at it this way - at least you didn't totally blow it by screaming out, "UNDERWEAR!"*

*This is based on a Real Life gaming story. I kid you not.

D. Rex Hah! You are lost because I am a dope! I created this thread to help you, Sil, and Cap'n (Captain Hesperus) get to know the history of the game since it started. And then I forgot to tell all three of you about it!

Seeing Sil's Hearts (Likes), something in my head thought that you and Cap'n we're already invited to this thread. Whoops! =)

 

[Silanon]

Yeah, I've been silently watching from the sidelines, reading all the good stuff you wrote here =)

First of all: Thanks a lot! Really appreciate getting a glimpse of what happened before, now a few passages I read before actually make sense. Helps a lot to know the general story line, and it helps even more to get to know all the npcs out there, both the good and the bad guys and gals. Those were, thus far, the most confusing part for me - you know, you can read a lot about the pc's in their threads, but it's hard to get to know all the companions without reading the whole thing.

Maybe a general question to begin with: Who are the bad guys? Right from the beginning, we have the Zentraedi on Earth, then we have the beloved General Steele (you would call him an enemy at this point, right?). Somewhere out there, there's the Zeki-Zentraedi and the Invid, both of them unlikely to be friendly towards us. Anything or anyone else out there? And, in the same vein, any scores to settle? The Beastmaster is dead, Steele is still out there; anyone else who might show up in due time?