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[Aria Jenneth]

Hey, all!

So-- Velarra, Luna, and I have an idea we need help brainstorming and lore-scheming for.

... Or, more particularly, Luna needs help and Velarra and I (HEY, ME! If you're reading this, STOP!) should stay the hell away to avoid spoilers.


Our scenario:

Aria and Velarra's alt, Varcutii Renalard, have an idea to go exploring down the crawl spaces and ventilation shafts of SFRIM's home station, the Nahyeen Zoar & Sons factory, where SFRIM maintains an office, medical, and housing complex called Gottin's Lamp. The goal of this plan is to check the SFRIM facility, and the station generally, for hidden security weak points and dangers, either so that they can be compensated for or, in case of trouble, made use of. Since SFRIM's more or less continuously operating in opposition to various enemies of the Empire (Luna herself was subject to a recent assassination attempt), the idea that someone might attempt infiltration isn't especially far-fetched. What's more, the information becomes more valuable the fewer people who know we have it, so we won't be going and requesting permission to conduct a survey from station security.

Hence, two trusted eggers with updated softclones approach Luna (IC) and volunteer to play tunnel rat. This idea, of course, has nothing to do with both Var and Aria having a mischievous/adventuresome streak an AU wide, and, in Aria's case, an itch to see the bits of the Empire she hasn't normally been allowed to on account of MIO minders and the like.

Unless the two become trapped in some way they can always withdraw and come back to continue their explorations another time, and Eve stations are frickin' huge, so this is apt to be a series of adventures and explorations.


Kit will tentatively include, but not be limited to:

* Spider silk rappelling cord, what we would probably consider an unreasonable amount of it, plus reels, casting devices, and molecular-adhesion grapples (because magnetism is so retro)
* Bolt cutters, crowbar, electronic and manual lockpicks, similar burglary/forced entry tools
* Suitable sturdy clothing (assume that if it is not black, Aria simply will not wear it, for reasons she doesn't fully understand and can't explain), including boots, utility belts, masks, and goggles
* Packs including chemical lights, flashlights, medical kits, rations for three to five days, but not tents/sleeping bags/similar camping kit
* Really solid scanners and analytical expert systems
* Aria has one of the scariest weaponized hacking kits known to humanity, and a hacking-specialized Anathema in her hangar serving as a backup processor and virus database if she can maintain a data link to it (she'll be using her specialized hacking clone). This is her go-to resource for handling security systems, etc.
* Light weaponry, because GRIMDARK. Aria, as always, has her dagger (which is also part of her hacking kit for reasons over-complicated to explain), and the two will probably have something beyond that, but the two aren't looking to get into trouble with station security for anything past trespassing, so the illegal low-tech firearms are staying at home
* Anything obvious I've forgotten
* Other ideas as we come up with them


What we need (or what Luna needs): what the hell are we gonna find down/up/over/around/through there?

Ideas we've had include:

How the Other Half Lives - that is, the unluckier half. Mizhara Del'thul doesn't think (perhaps correctly) that Aria has seen slavery's real face. Correcting this, if possible, is one of Aria's real goals for this series of explorations. If Var and Aria happen, for example, into an industrial section of the station, with enslaved workers-- what will they find?

Kingdom of the Mole Men - just because it's not a "house" or "approved living space" or "up to code" or "remotely safe" doesn't mean it's uninhabited.  The station's depths may play host to any number of types of the dispossessed, from smugglers and gangs of street thieves to Sani cults.

We Don't Go to Ravenholm - the Empire has stood as an interstellar power for thousands of years, and Nahyeen is only a few jumps from Amarr. It is likely that this station has some serious history to it. There may be parts that have been abandoned, even sealed off, for any number of reasons. But why? And what history is there to uncover? Causes could range from structural instability to chemical spills to contagion to  some official effort to evict undesirables. Hey, does that bulkhead look bent to you?

Mission: Hard - don'cha just hate it when you're deep in a spot you're not supposed to be and all of a sudden a bajillion old security systems all wake up at once?

Wrong Side of Town - just because you're out of the tunnel doesn't mean everything's fine. There may be parts of the station where a nifty bit of kit could fetch a high price on the black market, and the extreme illegality of low-tech firearms (and the threat they pose to station systems) doesn't mean a hell of a lot when your main concern is where your next square meal is coming from. (And just because such a place could get crazy-dangerous for a capsuleer wouldn't stop Aria from wanting to see it....)

Oops! Found what we were looking for - just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you. Might be someone really is trying to infiltrate, bug, tap, or otherwise initiate skullduggery around SFRIM corporate HQ.

Hello, Officer! - particularly after something goes badly wrong, station authorities may get a whiff that someone (beyond the ordinary) is scurrying around in their walls. This is an obvious security risk in and of itself. How will the authorities react?


Thoughts?

[Karmilla Strife]

Have fun being put to work in Botros' slave pit. A few decades of polishing scorch crystals will teach you to snoop around my factory!

[Quin Mansa]

Mission: Hard - don'cha just hate it when you're deep in a spot you're not supposed to be and all of a sudden a bajillion old security systems all wake up at once?

Expanding upon this, there might be some interesting pieces of obsolete tech down there, a la betamax in Cowboy Bebop: Session 18. Not rare or important enough to be considered relics, but perhaps curios that might pique the interests of bored collectors...

...Or maybe instead there may be something akin to the Holotape of Mazarbul, a grim warning from prior urbex gone awry.

In any case, this sounds fun and I hope you guys enjoy.

[Lunarisse Aspenstar]

Well my mind is churning with ideas already.  One technical/lore point i want to bounce off people.
When undocking from stations (well Amarr ones, i don't tend to dock in others) there's a clear "mist" where the ships go in and out which I always assumed implied an atmosphere of sorts.

In Captain's Quarters when on the cat walk looking at your ship, one seems to be on a balcony and no window seems implied.  With the improved graphics one also sees ground vehicles and the like.

this is a long way of saying. I think there's a breatheable atmosphere inside even the hangars or open spaces. (Yes I know trit explodes in atmosphere but ships aren't pure trit but an alloy of various metals as seen by the manufacturing process).

It also makes sense to have an outer station shell that is solidly secure but without having to worry about a myriad of leaks internally which would be much higher maintenance and risk.

Consequently no breathing apparatus needed, as a default,for urban spelunking.  that's not to say that there could be areas with poor air quality, thin air, etc. for a variety of reasons.

Agree? Disagree? Why? It'll affect how I GM this.

[Lunarisse Aspenstar]

Mulling over Layout,  given the size of the station, I see it as a 3 dimensional city with districts:

Hangar/shipyards with close by capsuleer sections (Captain Quarters and the like), research centers, industrial centers (light and heavy), government/bureacratic centers and detention facilities, commercial/trade district with chapels, stores, etc. probably close to the residential districts for baseliners, slave districts, sanitary utilities.  Older, less used sections could be the "bad side of town" so to speak, perhaps contaminated (radiation, etc.) or with thinner air/less life support.

Humans still have a psychological needs even if there is no "up and down" in space and i think a perception of higher and lower would influence the relative "class" of a section of the station with less desirable persons and uses, lower down.

thoughts?

[Ashley]

hehe, good luck and don't get stabbed by this guys ;P

[Garion Avarr]

Well my mind is churning with ideas already.  One technical/lore point i want to bounce off people.
When undocking from stations (well Amarr ones, i don't tend to dock in others) there's a clear "mist" where the ships go in and out which I always assumed implied an atmosphere of sorts.

In Captain's Quarters when on the cat walk looking at your ship, one seems to be on a balcony and no window seems implied.  With the improved graphics one also sees ground vehicles and the like.

this is a long way of saying. I think there's a breatheable atmosphere inside even the hangars or open spaces. (Yes I know trit explodes in atmosphere but ships aren't pure trit but an alloy of various metals as seen by the manufacturing process).

It also makes sense to have an outer station shell that is solidly secure but without having to worry about a myriad of leaks internally which would be much higher maintenance and risk.

Consequently no breathing apparatus needed, as a default,for urban spelunking.  that's not to say that there could be areas with poor air quality, thin air, etc. for a variety of reasons.

Agree? Disagree? Why? It'll affect how I GM this.

Agree, at least generally.

There may be some areas on the station somewhat readily accessible that have no atmosphere.  However, for almost any area, if it doesn't have atmosphere it is either sealed behind something you'd need specialized cutting tools and time to get past (and where you're suddenly murdering a bunch of people if you break the seal), or else used at least reasonably normally and probably not the areas you'd likely be checking out.  Though there could always be stuff!

There may be external ducts that are vacuum exposed outside of the main shell of the station, though (or, more likely, I should say: under an outer shell that is not vacuum tight, but outside the armor and vac shell of the station).  There wouldn't really be much productive reason to go through these much, though.

But given the dangers of hull breach to vacuum, pretty sure failure points would be limited as much as possible.

CCP may have established PF that suggests different, though, in which case I think that's silly, but wouldn't be the first time.



. . . I so want to actually contribute more on lore and ideas side, but should not because I really need to be writing something else for the next week.  Though of course this is probably also something either of my characters would find interesting. . . .

[Louella Dougans]

On a space station, there will be the bulkheads between compartments, both large and small, to contain atmosphere in an emergency.
On an Amarr space station, emergencies include rioting slaves, and the design of certain areas of the station will reflect that.

To go from Compartment A to Compartment B, on an Amarr station, in a sector where slaves are supposed to be, then, the airlock between compartments, is going to have both mechanical and electronic security on it, to make sure that only authorised slave working parties can traverse it. There might be a card slot, and a slave's key card is only going to open one or two locks, relevant to their assigned duties.

You would not, for example, be able to jam or otherwise keep both doors of the airlock open, to allow people to stream through unimpeded. It's possible that the airlock itself might only allow one or two people to cycle through at a time. Deliberately so that rioting slaves cannot move quickly between compartments.

I'm thinking a heavy steel slab, with apertures in it, that slides back and forth, in such a way that door B closes before door A opens, preventing both being open at the same time.

[Garion Avarr]

While I have not read it personally, pretty sure the novel 'The Burning Life' gives lots of info about stations.

[Garion Avarr]

Oh, also, this short story takes place on an Amarr station and could be an interesting source: https://community.eveonline.com/backstory/short-stories/the-artifice-maker/

There's several chrons that take place on stations, also. -- Jita 4-4 is the most obvious (if specific), perhaps, I'm sure there are others.

[Reinheart Novan]

Just going to leave this here. As I recall, bar a follow up that one of the bodies was an egger, there was nothing more https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/world-news/maintenance-crews-sniff-out-odors-source/

One scenario that goes through my  mind is the risk of a dodgey rubbish collection contractor dumping rubbish into one of the station skin voids rather than pay for it to be removed properly. That has the potential for a dangerous build up of methane as it rots not to mention a big deep pile of extreme grossness.

The other aspect I've wondered about with the older stations is the issue of micro meteorites. I've assumed there would be a protective outer skin to take that impact with the inner hull as the pressure skin if you like. So the potential for some of those impacts and old armour/skins.

Certainly sounds like a fun storyline!

[Louella Dougans]

Another thing, that I once saw in another sci-fi setting.

In some compartments, particularly those next to the external hull, and others that are adjacent to vacuum spaces, there will sometimes be devices used to locate small leaks in the plating.

Balloons, filled with buoyant gas, will be placed around the open spaces, and if there is a leak, then the micro air currents will cause the balloons to gather around the site of the leak.

It adds to the psych effect, when you're creeping around unlit spaces, and something bumps into you !

[Vieve]

If rioting slaves are a routine problem in Amarr stations (or depending on the location, Matari or Angel/Raider/Sansha/Guri/Insert Local Threat Here Raids), I'm thinking part of the architectural charm of those stations would be the ease of shutting off atmosphere recirculation in strategic areas and pumping in gas -- debilitating, lethal or docile/happy making, take your pick.

I'm sure the maintenance on the system is top-notch.

I'm certain the security on the system is likewise.  There's probably no chance in the seven hells that a station gang's gotten control of it in a section of the station, and if they have, I'm thinking that probably they're just really obvious door campers -- oh, look, cloud of very visible gas, let's avoid it!   Yeaaaah, probably wouldn't be a problem at all.  Not sure why I'm even mentioning it.

 

[Lunarisse Aspenstar]

Besides ad-hoc gming, can someone suggest a good basic pen and paper system transferrable to this sort of RP to the extent I'd want to provide some more structure?

[Ché Biko]

GURPS?