Lets Play - Falcon 4: Lost in Time

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

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SGamerz
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Post by SGamerz »

Thrinkstrike
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As you crane your neck, watching the huge insect, it pushes away from the lip, falling back first towards you, then righting itself with a loud whir of wings as it flies towards you. Using your power of Thinkstrike you hurl a blast of mental energy at the burnished carapace which you hope houses its brain. You sense that your Thinkstrike is successful for its legs droop slightly, but its instinct to eat overrides its conscious mind and it slams into you, its silver scimitar-like mouthparts cutting your environment suit open. You are knocked from your precarious hold on the ridge of cork and fall towards Falcon's Wing. You bounce on top of it, the jarring impact does not damage the armoured hull, but you lose 2 Endurance points as you are badly bruised and battered. You slide down and off the curved side of the Time Machine into the milky liquid below and your leg is pricked by a thorn or spine. Your environment suit is torn and the milky liquid bathes your left thigh. You heave yourself off the spike and the plasnet seal of your suit closes the hole at once, but a terrible itching distracts your thoughts. The irritant contained in the liquid is affecting your nervous system. Remove
1 from ALL your modifiers until you can find an antidote. The giant insect flies towards you and you make it to the Access Disc just in time. The silver blades of its mouth scythe at you as you disappear into Falcon's Wing. Surveying the insect through the camera you see that it is joined by another and then a third, even larger, insect with a spiked, coppery-black carapace and larger mandibles. You decide to engage the Variac Drive at random to leave this planet as soon as possible.

300
Selecting your next destination will be difficult because you have no idea where in time and space you are. If you can trust CAIN's circuits, then you are still in the future - the digital readout shows 3747 AD. As you use your Psychic Awareness to scan time and space for the timehole on Earth in 3034, you find it impossible to guess the correct location with any degree of certainty. The choices appear to be between four timeholes. The first is where a hunch tells you Earth should be and it is a heavily populated world. The second is a large, high-gravity world which seems to be without life, but is probably at least close to Earth. The third is a world which could just possibly be Earth in the Dark Ages or the days of a lost civilisation. The last may not be Earth but you detect, psychically, highly intelligent life forms there. You type in your chosen coordinates and instruct CAIN to engage the Variac Drive. You may use the Autodoc now, if you need to. In the stillness of the void, CAIN gives you some further information. It seems that a fault may be developing in the Variac Drive itself, something which it is quite beyond you to rectify. CAIN reminds you that you have now used three of the eight polybdenum rods which Falcon's Wing carries. Each time you use the Variac Drive to shift you to another timehole, another rod will be used up. If you have not reached Earth in 3034 AD within your next five jumps you probably never will. You can only hope that your choice has taken you close to home. If you chose the heavily populated world, turn to 18. If you chose the large, high-gravity world, turn to 34. If you chose the world which could just possibly be Earth in the Dark Ages, turn to 55. If you chose the world with highly intelligent life forms, turn to 86
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Woo, blind choice time!

Heavily populated world because hunches are always a good idea. Also because by all rights Cain should have enough info to work out where we are if there be people and we don't be in the far future.
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 Darth Rabbitt »

Highly intelligent life forms might be able to tell us more, or at least have technology we can use to get back. I'd go with those.
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Post by SGamerz »

Visit the Dark Ages!
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Still tied at one vote for each place that isn't the high gravity one.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Changing vote to highly intelligent beings to break a tie.
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 »

86
You relax in the Autodoc while Falcon's Wing hangs in null- space, your body is given a general checkover and certain important minerals are injected into your bloodstream. You emerge fit and well - you may restore up to 11 points of lost Endurance. To your dismay the machine fails to rematerialise after you have left the Autodoc and CAIN warns you that the Variac Drive is malfunctioning. There is nothing you can do but wait. Some hours later, Falcon's Wing comes back into phase and everything looks real again. You switch on the camera screen and survey your new surroundings. You are on a flat expanse of ice, permafrost by the look of it. The camera shows a featureless ice-plain stretching to every horizon. There is nothing to tell you where you are or when so you consult CAIN. There is a short silence before it chimes, 'You may have observed, Falcon, that the distance to the horizon varies, even though the land is flat. We are on a planet that is not round, but shaped like an oval. The temperature is forty-seven degrees below zero here, but rises as you approach the equator, quite dramatically,'

'But where am I?'

The planet Sundew. At least we are in Earth's galaxy, Falcon, but I am growing anxious about your ability to pilot this time machine.'
"Enough!' you say in annoyance. 'Is there intelligent life here?'

There is a species of intelligent plant life, the Sundew. Nothing is known about them.' You sigh and consider what you must do next. Will you:

Jump to another timehole straight away?
Explore the planet in your flyer?
Explore the planet on foot if you prefer, if you can't use your flyer for any
reason?

(Only restore 11 points of endurance, normally it's 12, but that's still rather more than Falcon lost. Doesn't say anything about the -1s to rolls, which, as written, would be cumulative)
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Post by Omegonthesane »

If the autodoc can't fix strange alien poisons or else drug us up to the eyeballs to negate the effect then what is it even good for.

Walk on the planet's surface, since IIRC the flyer chamber is still out of commission from that lightning strike.
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 »

Explore on foot.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Walk on and hope that we can somehow find and communicate with some Sundews.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

You put on your environment suit and begin walking in the direction of the planet's equator. After a hundred miles you become alarmed at the rate at which your oxygen supply is dwindling and there is still no sign of a change in the flat, monotonous landscape. You realise that to continue would only result in death and you are forced to return to Falcon's Wing. Without your flyer you cannot explore this strange ovaloid world.

Note down that you have used another polybdenum rod, as you are about to jump again. As you scan the Winds of Time, using your Psychic Awareness, you sense that something is not quite right, as if your own mind is befuddled.

414
'Going to have another try, are we?' chimes CAIN. You are on the planet Sundew, but CAIN cannot yet tell you, from observation of the heavens what year it is, and the digital readout registers 0000. Due to the disorientation caused by travelling into the future you find it difficult to locate the correct hole in the flux of time. There would seem now to be four possibilities, some of which you may already have tried, but you cannot be sure. Will you set co-ordinates for:

A high-gravity world which may be close to Earth?
A world which may be where Earth should be it is certainly heavily populated?
A planet which could possibly be the Earth in the Dark Ages?
A planet which is largely sea and has intelligent life?
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

"A planet that is largely sea and has intelligent life" sounds a hell of a lot like Earth to me. And it's a new option. Go there.
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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 »

100
As Falcon's Wing rematerialises you feel the ship settling downwards as the hydraulic legs sink into soft ground. Switching on the scanner reveals not Earth, but a world with a glorious rose-pink sky and green seas. You have sunk a little into the wet sand of a beach. A huge, thirty foot long green monster basks in the gentle surf at the edge of a coral reef nearby. It looks like a giant soft-backed terrapin, or a turtle without its shell. You start in alarm but CAIN chimes, 'Well done, Falcon, you've done it again. The time is nearly right - it's 3031 AD, but this is Bequal, not Earth. Oh well, it's only another rod of polybdenum wasted.' CAIN's attempts to sound like a sarcastic Earther are not helping your peace of mind.

'What's that creature?' you snap. 'Is it dangerous?'

That is a Bequali, Falcon, a highly intelligent and peace-loving amphibian. The Bequali have invented space technology during the last five hundred years and will apply for membership of the Federation in two years' time.'

'Did we grant it?'

'It is still under consideration in 3034 AD.' You are not in danger on this idyllic world of small islands, sandy inlets and colourful reefs, but there is no point in staying unless you need a welding tool to mend the launch doors of the flyer (if you still have the flyer, that is). Will you:

Ask the Bequali for a welding tool?
Decide that you may as well attempt another jump?
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

There's no harm in asking.
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Post by SGamerz »

^Agreed
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Post by Thaluikhain »

327
CAIN has already disguised Falcon's Wing as a low chalk cliff and you put on your environment suit and set out to talk to the Bequali. You have a problem. Your actions may change the decision of the Bequali to ask to join the Space Federation headed by Earth. They know of the TIME executive, but you will be an important ambassador for all of the races in the Federation. The great amphibian catches sight of you walking slowly down the beach and it swims to meet you, its huge bulk curiously graceful. Will you:
Greet it as a lone space traveller in need of help?
Tell it that you are a Special Agent of TIME and suggest that if it helps you, membership of the Space Federation may be bestowed on the Bequali?
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Well if the Bequali are going to apply for Federation membership in two years' time then we're not really fucking up the space-time continuum by making an offer to them now. Indeed, if we're acting as an ambassador, we probably want to mention our Federation status.
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Pretend we're a lone space traveller. We've no way of reliably getting the feds to play along with us being the ambassador here.
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 Darth Rabbitt »

Changing my vote to break the tie.
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Post by SGamerz »

Ninja honesty! (technically, we really are a lone space traveller in need of help, so it's not really pretending)
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Post by Thaluikhain »

341 [Score an H]
The Bequali greets you and its words, heard through your Universal Translator, are warm and friendly. It invites you to climb onto its back so that it can take you to meet its friends at the building dock. You decline, saying that you need to rest, but thank it for its offer of hospitality. When it asks what help you need you explain that you want a welding tool, the words grating mechanically through the translator speaker, and the Bequali is gone beneath the waves in a flash. You wait on the sand for an hour. Then it returns, surging out of the sea like some claw-footed Kraken. To your relief it drops a welding gun at your feet and explains how to use it. You thank it and say you will return the gun to this spot when you have finished. The Bequali takes the hint that you want to work alone and disappears beneath the waves once more. It is the work of but an hour to repair the launch doors, with CAIN's guidance, and that done, you leave the welding gun on the beach and return to Falcon's Wing to try to jump to Earth 3034 AD once more.

As you prepare to jump CAIN says, There are not many chances left, Falcon.' You concentrate hard and this time when you scan the timelines everything seems clearer than before, perhaps because you are so close in time to 3034 AD. You engage the Variac Drive. Note that you have used another polybdenum rod as you wait for Falcon's Wing to rematerialise.

After an hour Falcon's Wing rematerialises inside the Eiger Vault. The digital clock reads 3034, the day after you left for 4000 AD. You cheer and CAIN chimes, 'Congratulations, Falcon, you can still pilot the Time Machine after all.' You are about to step out onto the Access Disc when, to your horror, the ship winks back out into null-space. Minute after minute passes and CAIN reports a Variac Drive malfunction. A chill steals over you at the prospect of spending an eternity in the void with only CAIN to talk to. After a quarter of an hour's panic, however, Falcon's Wing rematerialises and your scanners confirm that you are safe within the Eiger Vault. You decide to call Jobanque, the Lord of TIME, on the holophone. As you expected he is in his palatial new office, awaiting news. He grins widely at the sight of you and says, 'Back already, Falcon? You must be tired, go back to your quarters, we can debrief you tomorrow.' And with that he breaks holophone contact. You yawn, relaxing, and then leave Falcon's Wing for your quarters. The guards salute you on the way out and order a hovrail car, but there is no warmth in their greeting, although they must have known the nature of your mission. As you get into the car, you are surprised to find its inside covered in luminous green graffiti which glows eerily in the tunnels: 'Death to the Enforcers', 'Join the one in ten' and 'Where are the thousands in the Tau Ceti mines? Ask the question in a loud voice, join the one in ten to rid the Federation of our tyrant oppressors!' You have only before seen graffiti in museums. Someone must have been missed in the last psychic scan. Normally psychos are given new thought patterns before they can get so dangerous, unless a lowlifer somehow got into the car... At last you pull up near the luxury SocWork pyramid where your glossy new apartment awaits you on the 109th floor.

As you enter the lift bay of the SocWork pyramid you almost bump into special agent Bloodhound. He has three fingers missing from his left hand. As he spins you round you say, 'Bloodhound, what's happened to your hand?' He gives you a stare that almost freezes your blood and your Psychic Awareness tells you that he holds nothing but hate for you in his heart. He turns and hurries from the building leaving you to take the lift to your rooms. The door slides open at your touch and you step into the bright white lounge, coming face to face with yourself!

49
The person springing up from the flexiform couch is your exact trouble, it is as if you were looking at a holophone image of yourself, but the shock in your double's eyes gives way to a look of understanding and malice. Will you:

Ask who this person is?
Use your Psychic Awareness to probe the other Falcon's mind?
Use your Power of Will to take control?
Thinkstrike your double?

(Only seen grafitti in museums? None back in time? Also, graffiti artists are dangerous psychos needing to have mind control stuff done to them?)
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Power of Will mirror match, since he's already hostile and it'll give us largely the same info as Psychic Awareness if we win.
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 Darth Rabbitt »

Agreed.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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