S084_Fly_Me_To_The_Moon Recap: November 26, 2018 Monday Headlines: US
Space Force To Launch First Vessel Millionaire Hedge
Fund Arrested For Finance Crimes Missing ESU Student Found Alive and Well Famous Student
Protests Wearing Clothes Smugglers Caught At Blight Wall Lords of Justice
Turn Zorgatha November 27, 2018 Tuesday Headlines: Cerberus Destroyed! ESU Students Demand
Rights for Nudists November 28, 2018 Wednesday Headlines: Latveria Destroyed, Doom Presumed Dead! Battlefield ESU Campus Naked Heiress V. CWA Black Paladin Escaped, At Large Resume November 28, 2018 Wednesday [From Sidebar] Network tells the
group about how Prometheus Medical is trying to recruit his parents. Paladin
wants more information about the offer and his parents. Network
tells the group his dad is a construction specialist who works on developing
new tools and methods for constructing buildings, mostly high rises. His mom works on developing medical devices
and procedures to help people heal. He proudly says that his parents both have
their names attached to patents in their respective areas. His parents are certainly worthy of the jobs they
were offered. The team is uncertain if Prometheus is trying to
manipulate them or if it is just a matter of coincidence. After looking over the newspapers for the last few
days Paladin agrees that taking a look at the moon is a good idea but after
that he thinks going to California and trying to end the Blight might be their
next priority. Paladin is concerned about going into space as they
don’t have space suits and the support equipment but then he remembers that the
ship that Count Ubudgin gave them had a fully stocked ships locker with space
suits, provisions, and other sundries. White the team ponders what to do and how to
proceed Paladin gets a call from Hal (the servomech robot). It transmitted on
cell phone frequencies in order to reach him. Hal reports that the GA1-Fast
Courier intercepted a distress call on hyper-space channels that Earth likely
can not perceive. This gist of the call is that Captain Richaal of
the Star Galleon is on the moon and his crew has been captured. He needs
rescue. Hal then informs Paladin that Richaal is a wanted space pirate within
the Thalok Empire. This launched a brief flashback as to how the team
got their ship. [See end of record for the thumbnail of the story.] Hal states the signal was very weak and was
unlikely to have made is past 1 light year in distance. Hal also says that it
is unlikely that anyone on Earth would have received the hyperspace signal. The source of the transmission is 4800 meters
beneath the surface of the moon. They resume making preparations. Paladin contacts
Doctor McQuark to see if he can provide them a internet node in orbit (or maybe
the moon itself). Revenant goes to army surplus stores to get 180 days of MREs
for 6 people. Revenant also gets 2180 water purification pellets. Network practices doing long range teleports. He
travels back and forth to Tokyo to make sure he can do this safely. Paladin orders Hal to bring the GA1 Fast Courier
back to the upstate hangar where it is normally stored. Doctor McQuark tells Paladin that there are a
number of satellites in order that handle internet traffic so that is already
taken care of. As for the moon the radio equipment and moon rovers are still on
the moon and their radios could be adapted to be internet carrier systems. Looking at the resources they have available they
notice the fast courier has a launch. The cargo space in the launch will
accommodate Kei and Yuri’s antigravity air raft. The group loads up in the teams 4-wheel drive and
drive up to the hangar and get in the ship. It does a quick fly by to pick up
the air raft. They will have one of the servomech robots operate it. Paladin takes a moment to notice that they have a
crew of 4 servomech robots but only two have names. He quickly names the other
two Huey and Louie. The next stop is the OPSEK space station. The new members of Brooklyn Brigade get a nickel
tour of the GA1 Fast Courier and the newly repaired Space Station. OPSEK now
has artificial gravity like the courier ship does. They use the OPSEK sensors to take a good look at
the moon. They find three blast points where the energy bolts erupt from the
lunar surface. Paladin notes that amateur astrologers must have noted the blast
points by now. Mainstream media is being silent about it but the dark-web is a
buzz about it. Another interesting thing they noted with the
sensors that Hal, Huey, Dewy and Louie upgraded is a buried trench that runs
along the equator of the moon. The trench is nearly 4KM deep and is likely a
series of gigantic hangar bays that were used in uncounted ages ago. The team examines what resources they have
available. The even discuss the lunar rovers. Solar powered but only with the
speed of 12 MPH compared to Kei and Yuri’s anti-gravity air raft having a top
speed of 472 MPH. There are many radios on the moon, likewise solar powered,
that can send transmissions to the Earth. The space suits on the GA1 Fast Courier are skin
tight, impossible thin, semi-transparent tights. When partnered with add on
powered backpacks the ‘skein suit’ vacc suits can provide life support for a
full day (20 hours Galactic Standard). Because of Big Tuna’s size the servomechs use 2
(maybe three) skein suits to make one big enough for him. Revenant will wear the skein suit under his costume
and rely on his costumes own air supply. They decide to take the launch to the moon from
OPSEK, the little ship can get there in about 2 hours. They set down near the
Sea of Tranquility. They opted to take the Air Raft to the dark side of the
moon. They see nothing of note along the way. After
getting to the Dark Side the group finds structures jutting from the rocky
surface. They stop to examine one of the towers. They see through the windows
what looks like an observation deck or maybe a cafeteria. There is what appears
to be an elevator along one wall. The room is dark and seems to be completely devoid
of power. The chairs, tables, and other furnishings are
exactly what you would expect to find for human occupants both in size and
configuration. They briefly considered breaking through the window
and taking the elevator down. They decide to travel on instead. Some time later they find a trench that is 20 KM
long and 4 KM deep that has lights at the bottom. The surface has been blasted
to create a chasm down to the hull of the interior. The chasm is along the
equator of the moon revealing enormous bay doors that can accommodate
spacecraft easily the size of aircraft carriers. As they reach the bottom of the chasm Paladin feels
someone trying to mentally contact him. He allows the second attempt to
succeed. Princess Synthre of the Thalok Empire, and
girlfriend of Captain Richaal, tells him that they will open one of the bay
doors to allow the air raft to come inside. She tells him to be careful of the
‘gravity shear’. Louie flies the air raft through the door and the
pull of gravity shifts 90 degrees. Louie (one of the servomechs) compensates
and land the craft safely near one of the man-sized doors at the rear of the
hangar. After the bay doors close a smaller set of doors, human
sized, open. Three people come enter; Captain Richaal, Princess Synthre, and
their adopted son Tarchose. Richaal has orange skin and yellow eyes, Synthre
has yellow skin and green eyes, Tarchose is 10 feet tall and reptilian. Captain Richaal explains that he and his crew
arrived some time ago, October actually, where they have been laying low
(hiding) from the Thalok Empire, Galactic Police, and the Troubleshooters of
the 3WA. That’s when they discovered this ancient, deserted
battle station! They decided to explore it and see if anything could be
salvaged. Richaal and Synthre, reluctantly with Tarchose in tow went exploring
while their engineer, science officer, doctor, and 16 robot crewmen started
work on restoring what systems they could. While unsupervised the repair crew (Chaikayan – the
engineer, Phinress – science officer, and Dr. Zeinert – the doctor) managed to
restore a subroutine that started to revive the hundreds of prisoners in the
brig level. These prisoners were all members of the Elder Worm. Captain Richaal asked; ‘You do know the Elder Worm
don’t you?’ Paladin said that of course they did but for sake
of argument tell us about them so we can make sure we are talking about the
same beings. Richaal sighs and makes some disparaging remarks
about ‘primitives’ and then goes into yet another long winded tale. The Elder
Worm were a legendary galactic boogeyman. Uncounted eons ago the Worm
controlled most of the galaxy. Eventually the people of the galaxy banded
together and attacked the Worm home world. The armada that attacked Worm-World was led by a
legendary battle station that could reduce a world to rubble and asteroids. The battle station that was built by the combined
resources of hundreds of races across the Worm Empire vanished after Worm-World
was destroyed Without the threat of the Worm to unite them the
former allies turned on each other, each blaming the rest for the disappearance
of the battle station. A war spread across the galaxy as each race tried
to fill the void left by the defeat of the Elder Worm. With the fear that the
battle station would emerge and obliterate rivals for control of the galaxy no
quarter was given to anyone seen as an enemy. The war lasted for years, entire generations were
born and ended while the war raged. By the end of the war none of the surviving
civilizations could even put a ship into orbit let alone reach other stars. The galaxy fell into a dark age would take millions
of years to come out of. Some scholars claim that dark age continues to this
very day. The battle station and the Elder Worm became the
stuff of legend. Richaal said he believes ‘the moon’ is that very
battle station. When his team accidentally woke up the prisoners
the Elder Worm, who are all psionically powered, took over the repair crew. The
repair crew then reprogrammed the pirate robot crew to also serve the Elder
Worm. It is a lucky thing that the Elder Worm doesn’t
understand ‘our’ kind of technology. All their weapons, ships, and so on, are
biological. Prime, the leader of the Elder Worm, has used
several of the other released prisoners as source material to start growing
weapons, tools, and ships, to take over the Earth. They want the Earth to be
the new Worm-World and the planet smashing battle station to be their ultimate
weapon! The only thing that has prevented Prime from using
Richaal’s crew as bio-matter source material is that it needs the crew’s
mastery of technology to get the battle station functional once again. Richaal started telling the Brooklyn Brigade what
he learned from the battle station’s computer logs concerning why it vanished
after the assault on Worm-World in the first place but Paladin had already
heard enough. Paladin wanted to know what was the closest,
easiest way to take control of the station. Richaal tried to convince the heroes that the best
course of action would be first to free his ship, The Star Galleon, and rescue
his crew. They could put the crew on his ship for safe keeping then he,
Synthre, and Tarchoss could help them take control of the station. Paladin says no. He does not trust Richaal to not
just fly away with his crew after freeing them. Richaal then suggests that if the Elder Worm could
be put back into suspended animation Richaal and his crew would just take the
battle station off their hands and fly away with it. Paladin says no. The loss of the moon would cause
catastrophic devastation across the entirety of the planet. Not to mention that
Richaal is a pirate and he would certainly abuse the power of the station. Richaal then suggested taking control of the
engineering level (floor 1 of the 1000 floors of the station), and set the zero
point module to overload and blast the station to space dust. Paladin again said no, catastrophic destruction to
the planet Earth, remember? They hatch a plan to create a malfunction that the
Worm will need to dispatch the pirate crew to fix (since the Worm do not
understand our technology). The have Network enter the Cyberspace generated by
the moon’s ancient computer systems so that he can find virtual hyperdrive
systems. He manages to get the node address for the hyperdrive from the
system’s switch node, the Virtual Table of Contents or VTOC. Traveling to the
hyperdrive node he discovers that the system is already offline making it hard
to force a false malfunction alert. Returning to the VTOC he gets the node address for
the main gun control node. Traveling to the main gun fire control node he finds
it extremely heavily protected with multiple encrypted passwords and many
Intrusion Countermeasure (IC) programs. Network decides that it would be easier if he set
up a false account with the permissions he needed rather than use the three
hacking methods to get passed the system guardians. The three hacking methods
are lie, sneak, or defeat the guardian systems. While Network is trying to engineer a malfunction
alert to draw the pirate crew to a point where they can be defeated/captured
the rest of the team, plus the free Galactic Marauders hear a sizable explosion
down the hall back towards the ring of hangar bays. Moving to see what is going
on they see a man in powered armor wearing a green hooded cloak surrounded by
dead Worms and a couple decimated bipedal creatures with natural exoskeletons
laying around him. Doctor Doom has arrived on the moon! --- [How the team got a spaceship and how Paladin met
Captain Richaal and his Galactic Marauders: Last May
(real date December of 2018, wow, that was a while ago) a space ship landed in
the parking lot of the Warehouse that Crimson Knight provided as a team
headquarters. A group of teenage aliens left the ship and went
into the city looking for adventure. The team gained access to the ship while
they were gone and find one pink skinned girl locked in a room. She grabbed a
wrist worn universal translator so she could speak with the intruders. Her
brother Taveer and his friends came to explore Earth now that the Guardians of
the Universe were missing and there was no one to enforce the Red-Zone
condition around this star system. Finding a primitive world and toying with the
natives is called Buzzing a World. It is like the alien version of cow-tipping.
Paladin, who at this time was getting occasional
notes from his future self, had a message telling him he needed to go to the
planet of Reqqatt and get a dimensional tuner, it would be important, NO VITAL,
in the future. The team made a deal with Xela to go to Reqqatt. Her
father’s space yacht had the speed of a Blockade Runner so the trip there would
only take a day (galactic standard days are about 20 Earth hours long). The star system of Reqqatt is patrolled by four
system defense boats that keep visitors out of the system. The Shamrock (Xela’s
dad yacht) is fast enough that the team are able to get passed them and reach
the planet. On Reqqatt the team (which at this time is Crimson
Knight, Shifter, Paladin, Boomgirl, Takeda, and Ghost-Cat) learn it is a world
of women only. The planet is a large super computer that can manipulate reality
on a frighteningly large scale. The High Priestess (Belenus) gives Paladin the
tuner he needs freely. It is a small triangular crystal that for all the world
it looks just like a rainbow colored four-sided die (a D4). As they leave the system and begin heading back to
Earth Xela receives a subspace message from back home. A group of space
pirates, the Galactic Marauders, intercepted the space liner where Xela’s
parents were vacationing. The pirates are demanding 20 million imperial
credits for their safe return. The team agrees to go and help rescue her parents.
The distance is too far to go with even the Shamrock’s hyper-space drive. The
planet Jupiter is a stargate that can teleport ships across the universe in an
instant as long as there is another stargate to receive them. The throne world of the Thalok empire has a
stargate too. The Empire makes serious bank by controlling the stargate and
charging for it’s use. When they exit the stargate they are approached by
a compact warship, the Lovely Angel, and a couple members of the Worlds Wide
Welfare Association; Kei and Yuri. Kei and Yuri are Troubleshooters who keep
the peace within the Empire. Xela explains why the Shamrock gated in from the
Red Zoned planet Earth. After paying the fine the team and the Troubleshooters
sit down and have a chat. During this chat the team learns that The Galactic
Marauders kidnapped the Emperor’s daughter, Synthre. The Emperor paid the
ransom but the pirates never returned the Princess. Kei and Yuri tell Xela that they will go to Earth
and get her brother and his friends. They let the team and Xela go with best
wishes to arrange for the release of her parents. Xela does not have access to her family’s money so
can not get the 20 million in ransom. Shifter assumes the likeness of her
brother Taveer who does. Xela gives him the data he needs to convince the
bankers to give him the funds. The team then files out to rendezvous with the
Galactic Marauders and pay the ransom. Through a convoluted chain of events the
team learns the following: 1, The Galactic Marauders were hired by the Emperor
to kill Count Ubudgin. 2. The Marauders were going to be paid for the
murder with a letter of Marque granting them permission to legally prey on any
non-imperial ship within the Empire. 3. Princess Synthre, like many of the Imperial
family, is a telepath. She joined the Marauders willingly and is in love with
Captain Richaal. 4. Captain Richall had no intention of killing the
Count. Having a letter of marque would make his chosen profession boring. He
always intended to release the count but getting paid in the process is a good
thing. 5. The planet Ubudgin is the source of the key
ingredient for the Empire’s most powerful weapon, the Nova Bomb. Drop one into
a stable star and almost instantly a chain reaction happens causing the star to
explode. The Emperor wanted to get Count Kackor Ubudgin out of the way so he
could take direct imperial control of the family holdings. After getting Kackor (dad) and Fleeboi (mom) off
the Star Galleon (and paying Captain Richaal his 20 million credits) the team
went with the family to the planet Ubudgin for a celebration. Xela wanted to
give her friends from Earth a ride home but her dad forbade it. He gave the
team an older GA1 Fast Courier and 4 mechdroids to operate it instead. Count Ubudgin paid the fee so the team could take
the Stargate home. The team being natives of Earth are not barred by the Red
Zone restrictions imposed by the Guardians of the Universe.