Lets Play - Falcon 4: Lost in Time

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Do as she says. I suspect Yelov will try to shoot and then get fried by some sort of advanced alien technology for not complying.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Obey.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by Thaluikhain »

367
You put your blaster back into its holster, but Yelov's pistol snout blazes and a crack of plasma bursts towards you. You duck instinctively, knowing that it will be too late, but there is no sickening jolt, no pain. Looking up you see Yelov's half-face a picture of surprise inside his environment suit and the woman's shield is glowing iridescent white. Perhaps the woman is protecting you. Yelov rips the helmet of his environment suit off and takes off a psionic damper circlet. Will you:
Use your blaster on him now that he is defenceless?
Control him using your Power of Will?
Wait to see what the strange woman will do?
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Wait.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Power of Will - we haven't seen proof that she has defences against psionics, and if she doesn't Yelov's going to control her and kill us that way.
Last edited by Omegonthesane on Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by SGamerz »

I say wait and see.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

'The Saviour will come with me.' She points at Yelov and says, 'Your machine will be destroyed.' Her land fish turns and moves away at a fast pace and two more float from nowhere towards Yelov's machine. You turn to follow, but Yelov shouts, 'Stop Falcon!' and attacks your mind with his powerful will. You are locked in a titanic struggle, but Yelov's face mask is hit by one of the floating squid-like beings and another wraps itself around his neck. He concentrates for as long as he can, but one of the jelly-like animals flows into his suit through the exhaust ducts and he chokes. You decide to follow the woman and hope that the land fish will destroy his Time Machine.

As Jahkela and the land fish float serenely over the land, you bounce uncomfortably in their wake. The lower gravity means that you bound at every stride, but it is difficult to find a rhythm and you jerk along like a demented toy. The uncomfortable pursuit lasts for half an hour, by which time you are almost exhausted, but at least you do not sweat inside your suit. In the distance you can see a huge monolith, like an enormous second millennium church spire which has been set down in the midst of the empty sands. As you get closer you see that it appears to be a single crystal reaching eighty metres towards the spore- filled sky, and an archway has been hollowed in its side. Jahkela motions you imperiously to step past her through the archway.

75
The crystal is a hollow labyrinth of opaque walled passages but you walk straight ahead, following a narrow white line on the floor, down the straight corridor which leads from the archway to a small stone throne before a great crystal wall that stretches upwards to a narrowing point at the top of the monolith. In front of the wall is what looks like an incubator with a huge, white brain floating in pink fluid within it. You hear Jahkela's voice: 'Be seated', and you sit on the throne, facing the brain. The brain has nerves running from it through the wall, but before you can look closely a strange helmet is lowered onto your head, from an alcove in the wall, by a metal grab. Thoughts of the Frankenstein monster run through your head. Will you:
Throw yourself from the throne at the last moment?
Take off your own helmet and put on the new one?
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Try on a new hat.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by SGamerz »

Blindly follow the NPC's instruction.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Knowing Yelov, he'll survive that.

Anyhow, continue to listen to the woman.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

46
It is pleasantly cool inside the crystal monolith, but your shoulders hunch tensely as you put on the strange bowl-shaped helmet which is connected to the incubator by slender fleshy fibres. It is part of a Thought Transference machine and you are being plugged into the floating white brain. Things become clearer to you as you scan its memory. It is an organic computer, called Ormon, and it is worshipped by the people of this planet, Sandsea. Jahkela means The Priestess' and she is the only one allowed into the crystal monolith to hear the commands of the Lord Ormon. Jahkela's people once possessed an advanced technology, but when 'Evil' came and the technology was used to almost wipe each other out, they shunned machines. Only the priestess is allowed to use the nerve sword, the polished shield and the silver sceptre, which are all powerful artifacts. Ormon tells the priestess how to keep her people alive whenever a natural disaster occurs on Sandsea, but now the living computer has malfunctioned; it believes Jahkela and her people are no longer worth preserving. In Sandsea's distant past, before the Final War, a being, a gleaming gold land fish, came from the stars to tell Ormon that one day a Saviour, you Falcon, would arrive and save the people of this world. You can tell by the emblem which he bore that this being was Special Agent Chameleon of the SAT of TIME. Your heart leaps as you realise that Chameleon must have come from your own future to prepare the way for you here, and that this means you will find your way back to Earth in 3034 AD. But then you remember that the timelines can change at any time, things that have already happened may make success impossible. At any rate you still have to tread carefully. Will you:

Forget about the inhabitants of Sandsea and tell Ormon that it can have new 'better' people to care for if it orders Jahkela to return you safely to Falcon's Wing?
Tell it that as their god it is responsible for the way that the people of Sandsea are and it is up to Ormon to make them 'better'?
Plead on behalf of the people of Sandsea that they will die horribly without Ormon's help?
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

The first option is a promise we can't keep (and one that Ormon may not even be interested in), and the third one is an appeal to emotion (which an apathetic computer probably won't listen to). So go with the second and tell Ormon that it's time to be responsible, fulfill the duties it was programmed to do, and make its people better.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Agreed.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by Thaluikhain »

[Score an H]
Ormon asks you to explain and you point out that since the people of Sandsea live in the way that he tells them to, he can mould them into whatever type of people he wishes. You can feel happiness course through the brain and you know that Ormon will care for the people of Sandsea again. The grab lifts the helmet from your head and you realise the interview is over. You retrace your steps along the crystal corridor and out into the bright sunlight. Jahkela is on her knees in the sand. 'Jahkela thanks you, Saviour, the people of Sandsea thank you.' You reply that it was your pleasure and wish her and her people well. There is no sign of Yelov so you set out for Falcon's Wing. Jahkela's land fish looms towards you and you look round in alarm, but Jahkela motions you to mount it and helps you up onto its soft back. The floating sensation is hypnotic and you reach Falcon's Wing in only a few minutes. Jahkela has stayed with Ormon. There is no sign of Yelov's Time Machine, he must have left Sandsea already because you can see marks in the sand where it once stood. The land fish floats away as you are drawn up into Falcon's Wing. As you rest inside Falcon's Wing once more you notice that the outside camera is obscured by one of the floating squid-like beings that swim through the air of Sandsea. Indeed, a great shoal of them are approaching, CAIN warns. You search the timelines, the Winds of Time are blowing a maelstrom. The only timehole that is open is one in Earth's remote past. At least if you are stranded there someone may come to find you. Falcon's Wing lurches violently as if one of the land fish had collided with it. If the number of polybdenum rods which you have now used stands at eight, turn to 161. If it is at seven, turn to 168. If it is less than seven, turn to 179.

With the -4 for picking up more, definitely less than 7.

Since you have enough fuel to make at least two more jumps, you type in the co-ordinates of the timehole in Earth's past. Everything goes grey as you wink out into null-space and you spend the hour of waiting in the Autodoc, relaxing with the aid of some narcotics. Note that you have used another polybdenum rod. After an hour the ship rematerialises and the camera, free of squid-like beings now, scans the new landscape.

Falcon's Wing rests on a wide green plain which stretches from the Atlantic ocean to a single high mountain in the north. Suddenly there is a loud bang inside Falcon's Wing, below the cabin floor. Taking up one of the floor plates confirms your worst fears, the Variac Drive has exploded, perhaps due to the unnatural strain of jumping from one universe to another. It is quite impossible to repair as you can tell at a glance. CAIN flashes up a damage report confirming this and a mood of black despair grips you. The digi-clock reads 9649 BC. You are marooned for the rest of your life in Earth's stone-age.

You stay inside Falcon's Wing, which is disguised as a group of palm trees hoping to stay alive long enough for someone from the Special Agent Section of TIME to come and pick you up, but when, on the third day, your Psychic Awareness tells you that the timehole into which you jumped on this plain has closed up you are forced to abandon that hope too. At least Yelov cannot follow you. Wearily you set out to explore your surroundings, as much to pass the time as anything else.

CAIN has observed some people in the distance and it prepares a disguise consisting of little more than body ornaments and adds the precaution that you should spray your hair raven black. This done, you leave your Time Ship to be embraced by the sweet and humid airs of a tropical spring. You walk north towards the single great mountain and, after a time, you come across a settlement. To your surprise the people, a trifle shorter and slimmer than you, but very beautiful with their raven black hair worn long, live in houses made of white stone. They are farmers and you notice that although the fields are tilled by hand they have tools that you would not have expected to find until Earth's late iron age. Walking on, you realise that you have stumbled across a highly successful ancient civilisation. The towns have temples built like pyramids, a cross between those of the Egyptians and of the Aztecs. Walking on towards the mountain you come to a wide, deep canal which connects it to the sea. A miracle of engineering in such times. Hundred-oared biremes, some with beautiful pavilions on their decks, form a busy traffic and at last you come to a walled city of beautiful white buildings and grey stone towers.

Doing your best not to feel uncomfortable without clothes, you walk on, ignoring everyone and come to a market. One stall in particular interests you. There are many iron weapons for barter here, and some others which bear a curiously dull pink- tinged sheen. Passing on, you come to another circular canal, the first of three wide waterways which ring the mountain. Beyond them is a magnificent golden palace. You spend five days amongst the people of this land, which they call Utvuntas, speaking to no one, but overhearing what you can, your translator hidden in the girdle at your waist. You daren't risk taking part in the lives of these noble people for what would be breaking the First law of TIME and might change history. After five days however, you notice a strange ache in your joints and when you catch sight of yourself in a mirror of polished bronze you are horrified to see lines of age on your previously unlined face. Accelerated ageing has set in, due to your being so far from your own time. If this continues, you will be dead within a year. You decide to return to Falcon's Wing to use your Autodoc.

You rest in the Autodoc and the diagnosis screen flashes a message at you:

THE MEDAWAR SYNDROME
onset of rapid ageing

Life Expectancy 300 days

At least you will die in a land of beauty and plenty. CAIN chimes, 'Not giving up are we, Falcon? I thought that's where you humans had the advantage over we electronic brains - you never give up even against hopeless odds.'

There must be something I can do,' you say. For some reason the pink-tinged metal weapons with their curious dull sheen enter your mind and you tell CAIN that you believe the civilisation is more advanced that it should be for 9649 BC. CAIN agrees and puts forward the theory that you have found the lost civilisation of Atlantis. 'But why are they so advanced?' you cry.

CAIN is silent. A few hours later CAIN chimes, 'There is a starship in the ionosphere Falcon.' Your heart surges with wild hope.

After a time CAIN shows you the ship landing near the city on the scanner. It is disc-shaped and spins continuously. It can only mean one thing, the Danikoi. The Danikoi are the most advanced species in the galaxy at this time. Fifty millennia before your own time, the Danikoi were already a decadent, decaying civilisation. They had invented everything they ever wanted, had no need of laws, and were no longer anything more than pleasure-seeking Lords of the stars. It is known that their 'flying saucers', usually piloted by bored Danikoi seeking excitement, visited many worlds including that of. Earth, at all stages of Earth's history. You guess that they are responsible for the advanced state of civilisation here on Atlantis. In particular the pink-tinged metal might mean a stasis-field generator. A machine which puts a timefield around an object so that it cannot be altered in any way until the timefield wears off. The decadent Danikoi have forgotten the secret of this wonder technology by 3034 AD. You decide to set out for the city once more.

155
As you walk towards the city there is an eclipse of the sun. The Danikoi will have known that it was coming and timed their arrival for maximum effect. The eclipse has passed by the time you reach the canal that surrounds the golden palace and you crowd onto the roof of a gaily coloured pavilion on one of the biremes that bob before the palace gates. There must be nigh on four hundred thousand people gathered to watch the arrival of the Danikoi. There are three of them, walking abreast, spindly tall humanoids with sparkling eyes of gold, without iris or pupil. They are naked, two male and one female and have no body hair. They carry no weapons, though one of the males carries a golden box. All around you people kneel and you gather that the people of Atlantis revere them as 'Spirits of the Sky'. The Danikoi address the people in their own tongue, they are asking for three Atlanteans to return to the stars with them and offer, in return, the 'pink jewel' which makes things which touch it last forever. Could this be a stasis-field generator you wonder? The Danikoi are preparing to leave, probably wary of over-exposure to the ultra-violet rays of Sol, Earth's sun. Will you:
Step forward and hail them in their own tongue, using the translator?
Let them leave and try to get a look at whatever lies in the golden box?

There is a picture here
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Open the loot box.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by SGamerz »

Open the box.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

281
You manage to find out that the golden box has been carried into the premises of the golden palace. The Danikoi had cautioned the people of Atlantis to use whatever is inside once only, on each anniversary of the eclipse. In the meantime it is guarded by two spear-carrying soldiers at all times. You wait until night and there is great celebrating throughout the city and a banquet in the palace, a perfect night for you to infiltrate and open the box. You reach the room outside which the guards stand without being detected and you Thinkstrike them both senseless. Inside the bare room the golden box stands on a high stone slab. You open it to find a red gem that encases what must be the stasis-field generator in its own timefield. There is a small control panel which is not inside the timefield, consisting of a simple switch and digital date recorder. You guess that the operator simply sets the date to when he wants the timefield to last until, touches whatever is to be enclosed in the timefield against the gem and flips the switch. Will you:

Set the date to Earth 3034 AD using the Danikoi calendar, touch the gem and flip the switch?
Return to Falcon's Wing to consult withCAIN?
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Get it back to Cain, if we just end up in stasis now we're going to fuck it up somehow.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by SGamerz »

Consult with CAIN.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

248
Back in Falcon's Wing, the enormity of the difficulties facing you strikes home. CAIN points out that Atlantis will be submerged in an awful cataclysm long before 1000 BC, so touching the gem in the palace would mean that you would wake up at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean and die. But if you steal the gem you will change history. The Atlanteans may not maintain the advantage in weaponry that will allow them to influence people so far apart as the Egyptians and the Aztecs. At length CAIN suggests a plan. Wait a few days, steal the stasis field gem and carry it to wherever the prevailing current will take you away from Atlantis, then build a raft to which you can tie yourself firmly. Fire your blaster to attract attention, bury it, then lean on to the land and touch the stasis field generator. You will drift away from Atlantis, safe in your timefield, if you are lucky, to the shore of Europe or Africa. The strange indestructible statue, which is you, will be discovered and one day find its way into a museum, where, forty millennia later, the field will wear off and you will step free. Someone attracted by the lightning from your blaster will find the stasis field generator and take it back to the palace. There will be a slight change in history but its effects will be wiped out when Atlantis is submerged, if you are lucky. Similarly, even if they blunder into Falcon's Wing, they will not be able to get in through its pressure hull. They will think the Danikoi left it and all knowledge of it will perish with the Atlantean people.

As a plan it is fraught with problems, but you decide to try it. You manage to steal the generator and taking only the blaster and your Atlantean body ornaments you reach the raft. If you feel you have forgotten something, turn to 240. If you feel that you are fully prepared and must not risk having anything else found on you when you are discovered as a statue, turn to 232.
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Post by Mr Shine »

Take a hint, Altheus.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

They wouldn't give the option to check we haven't forgotten anything unless we had indeed forgotten something.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by Thaluikhain »

240
You take a recording of CAIN's memory banks and place it in a capsule under your tongue. It occurs to you to leave a message in the form of a rolled up piece of paper, like a scroll, which can be set to come out of its own timefield in 3030 AD and addressed to Skirrow at the TIME executive, not Yelov. There are various messages you could leave. These are the ones you consider:

A. No message at all. Turn to 184
B. A message that you are Falcon and have come from Atlantis and will be coming out of your timefield in 3034 AD. Turn to 208
C. A message that you are Falcon and have come from Atlantis
and will be coming out of your timefield in 3034 AD, but with instructions that you should not be told of the message in 3030. Turn to 202
D. A message that you are Falcon and have come from Atlantis
and will be coming out of your timefield in 3034 AD and that they should make your odyssey through the Winds of Time easier by planting a legend that you will come as a saviour to one of the peoples you will visit. Turn to 197
E. A message that you are Falcon and have come from Atlantis and will be coming out of your timefield in 3034 AD and that they should make your odyssey through the Winds of Time easier by planting a legend that you will come as a saviour to one of peoples you will visit and give instructions that you should not be told of the message in 3030. Turn to 190.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Only message E appears to cover all bases. Continuity is fucked if we are raised knowing we have this great destiny, and we quite literally know someone told them to plant a legend to save us further down the line from earlier in this forum page.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath, Justin Bieber, shitmuffin
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Post by SGamerz »

Yeah. E.

I assume if we didn't go through that savior storyline then C would be the right choice. All the other options seem guaranteed to leave things in chaos.
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