Introduction

As commented on at the end, another session of unseen curve balls! As I've commented previously you're all far more adept at working out what's going on than the characters in the series, since the writers write them as a bunch of clueless individuals. What I would say though is don't try to over think things, if it appears that there's no obvious way out, then it's most probably hidden from your current perspective, just play along, realistically, with the flow. If I suggest something then that's generally the direction that you should proceed in.

Before I get to the Plot hole or at least one of them, a lot of the things revealed in the session have a considerable bearing on the remainder of Season Two and thus the story arc as its going to progress.

So thinking about things after the session there is actually a major plot hole in the story. How does the Razza get the Blink drive in the first place in the Alternate Universe?

Five steals the key card in the first place, which she stashes in the secret compartment in her toolbox. After she stows away and gets caught by Boone trying to get medical supplies to help her boyfriend, and he spaces her, nobody knows about the existance of the key card, save 1 person Aleisha Reynard, only she would no have no clue as to where it went - she had no clue that Five stowed away on the Razza until she pops up in prision on Hyperion-8.

Assuming that Boone and Ryo searched the ship after spacing Five they might have found  her dying/dead boyfriend and disposed of him the same way. There is then the question as to whether they would have ignored the toolbox or not just thinking it was part of the junk in the room or tossed it as well, but either way they still wouldn't know about the key card. Without knowing about the key card there is no reason to make the connection to Aleisha Reynard, and without Five there is no way to ascertain who it came from.

As the Razza Crew in this Universe discovered Six was a GA agent before he could enact his plan to turn the Razza over to the GA, they don't get arrested, there is no way Reynard can make any connection to the fact they might have had the key card.

Without the key card there is no functional Blink Drive thus how did the Razza get the Blink Drive when they knew nothing of it's existance?

So, pondering on this some more, there is one possible scenario. It is a little convoluted and does demonstrate exactly how evil your old selves were/are. When Five is initially caught she does try to bargin, saying she has something extremely valuable, more valuable then you could possibly imagine (yes she was bluffing to a degree at this point as she didn't know what the key was or what it did, only that somebody had killed all her friends in an attempt to get it back.) So we have to assume that either Boone and or Six believe her, at least to a degree, and take her to where she's stashed it. Having got the key, they then space her and her dying/dead boyfriend at this point. There is actually a discussion and Ryo has the casting vote in the Game universe and votes to keep her onboard but this could have gone completely the other way in the Alternate Universe.

Once the Android is shown the key card and can analyse it, then she works out what the key card's functions is, a dimensional gate key in effect. The crew may then work out that Five came aboard at their last stop and work out that, somehow, the key card potentially belongs to or has some connection to Reynard. The last piece in this puzzle I'll leave you to work out.

What could possibly go wrong?

We commence with the Razza docked at the Regulus-12 space station, primarily to drop off Talbor, but also to refill the ships main water tank. The refill of the water tank extends the stay by a few hours before the Razza departs again minus Devon and Nyx. Devon wants to get off the ship for a while for some R&R whilst Nyx says she needs to go with to keep an eye on him as he's having a 'crisis' currently and if she doesn't he may not come back. You can pick them both up once your test is complete.

After a degree of discussion and ignoring some GM hints, the decision is made to jump to the far side of the M Class star, a jump of about 1.5 AU. From here they will make a test 40ly jump to test the blink drive.

With everybody strapped into seats on the bridge Lisa initiates the Blink. A high pitch sonic scream greets the characters, similar to the sonic disabler on Hyperion-8 and they all clutch their heads, Lisa is powerless to stop the jump as electircal circuits begin to overload and explode and alarms begin blaring. Suddenly the sonic shrieking stops leaving just the sound of blaring alarms in the dark weightless environment. Pretty much every system on the ship is down, life support, anti-grav, navigation. sensors, comms, shields, weapons, sub-light engines, FTL engines, and the reactor is in emergency mode. Lisa says she is detecting micro-fractures and breaches throughout the entire ship. Lisa initially divert power to restore reactor functionality whilst the auto-repair system kicks in to repair the hull and ship structure.  Lisa, Portia, and Emily work to try and bring systems online. [GM Note: Varrick can actually operate the Razza's Weapons Systems, as can Boone, but Varrick is at less of a penalty when doing so than Boone is.] Emily wants to make a scan of the cosmic micro-wave background radiation to help ascertain where they are, but needs the sensors back online first. With sensors and Nav restored Lisa says that they did actually jump, when asked how far, she says approximately 1.7km. Emily completes her scans and is perturbed by the result, the cosmic background radiation value is not what she was expecting. They are probably not in the same universe any longer. When she informs Lisa of the result, Lisa theorises that rather than jumping within their own universe they somehow punched a hole in space-time and moved to an alternate universe, which is something postulated by Astro-physic theorists.

Being behind the star means they have no means of ascertaining what may be happening at the station or even if it's still there. After a couple of hours work most of the ships systems are back online except the FTL drive. They begin to maneuver around the star to bring them within sensor and comms range of the Regulus-12 station.

It takes them about 5 hours before they are within sensor/comms range. What greets them is not what they are expecting. The station appears to be emitting a repeating distress signal.

It also appears the station has been attacked as it is surrounded by a debis field. As they study the images Varrick notices some pulsting and sporadic flashes of light in the distance. As they change the focus it appears that there is a battle in progress [GM note. and none of you as players recognised the image of your own ship, even if as characters you would have.]

As they watch the Razza just vanishes [GM Note: not the 'visible' fade assocaited with an FTL jump, it simply vanishes in an instant.] The FTL pxoximity transit alarm then sounds followed by the distinctive impact sound as the Razza comes under fire from a Mikei destroyer that has just appeared behind them. With the FTL engines still offline they can't jump. From diagnostics it appears that the Blink drive is preventing the FTL engines from coming back online. It will need to be manually disconnected. The cruisers now turn and start to head in the Razza's direction. The destroyer fires a second time taking the shields down to close to their failure point.

Faced with impending destruction and at Boone's and the GM's direction, Portia hails the Mikei ships ""This is the Razza, we're standing down please respond."
    "This is the Razza please respond."
    "We are not you enemy we are allies of your commander Traufett"
    "We're on a rescue mission to aid the station"
After a short delay
Traufett "This is commander Traufett. What the hell are you trying to pull?"
Portia "Why are you attacking us, we're on a rescue mission to aid the station"
Traufett "Pull the other one. You attacked it in the first place. As to why we're firing on you, because you fired on us first. You've decimated a dozen of our outposts and destroyed several of our ships, and now you claim you don't know what's going on. The fact that you're even talking to me suggests there's something wrong with your blink drive, otherwise you'd be long gone by now."
Portia "You can veryify my statements from our logs we've not attacked anybody."
Traufett "Either you surrender and let us board or we blast you to bits and then pick through your scattered remnants."
Portia "As I said we're on a rescue mission to aid the station. We've not attacked anybody."
Traufett "Your delay tactics won't work. The second we pick up readings of a jump attempt we will annihilate you."
         "Again. Awating your decision. Razza..."
Portia ""I promise you no resistance as long as you can guarentee the safety of my crew."
Traufett "Turn over the drive and you have a deal."
Portia "Done, Razza out."

By this point Emiliy has reached engineering and pulled out the Blink Drive. [GM Note: It appears I missed the full description of the Blink Drive from the previous log. The 3U high rack unit is arranged to take 3 rows of 1U cards inserted perpendicular to the rack - the back plane is one the side face not the rear. The outer 6 cards, 12 in each row, appear to be normal 'circuit boards', whilst the middle 5 are much thicker module cards. The central module in the middle row is a carrier module which takes the keycard that Emily stole.] As she examines it there are considerable signs of charing and burning throughout the drive. When she pulls out the carrier module and looks at the keycard it has completely lost all its lustre and odd reflective properties and has two significant burnt cracks across its face. Basically the drive is completely fried.

With none too subtle hints the Razza goes into lockdown and everyone except Portia, Boone, and Lisa hide, Emiliy in her favourite place, in the ventilation ducts. [GM Note. It has been commented upon about the apparent lack of security features onboard, but nobody has commented on the fact that several rooms aren't even 'fitted out' and there are a couple that are missing their 'interior linings'.  There is also the hint I've dropped in the past that the Razza was stolen, although its exact origins are unclear - completely non-existant in the Sci-Fi series. The two may be connected...]

Trauffett, accompanied by two armed and armoured guards comes aboard, and makes her way to the conference room to discuss things with Portia and Boone.

Portia attempts to convinve Traufett that they're not the Razza from this universe, but from an alternate one, but Trauffett isn't buying any of Portia's explanations. All she wants is the Blink Drive.
Lisa brings the dead and defunct drive in and places it on the table.
Trauffett appears less than impressed.

[GM note: I rearranged things at this point because you didn't do any of the things they did in the series, sort of like make it clear to Trauffett she wasn't leaving with the drive until they were somewhere safe.]

One of Trauffett's guards interupts her at this point, passing her his head set.
Traufett "This is commander Traufett. Sorry but I'm in the middle of something."
         "Yes Okay."
         "What?"
         "How is that possible?"
         "And you're sure?"
         "Yes. Thankyou."
         Hands headset back to the guard.
         "We've just received reports along with visual conformation, that the Razza has just launched an attack against a Traugott Research Facility over 300Ly from here."
Traufett retakes her seat..
Traufett "Earlier I believe you mentioned something about us being allies."

Trauffett will after a short discussion, potentially offering help should they need it, then leave with the Drive. Whilst she has the drive and is aware that at least some parts of it can be re-engineered what she is really after, other than a functional drive, is the crew of the other Razza.

As commented on by Emily before the discussion with Trauffett takes place, what you now need is a working Blink Drive and you know where there is one. It's on the Razza from this universe. What you currently lacked at this point is any means of getting it, along with almost zero knowledge of what the state of play in this universe is (other than that Mekei are at war with the Razza and it's crew).

Once the Mikei ships depart the Razza, now FTL capable once more with the removal of the dead Blink Drive makes the jump to the Regulus-12 station. It is a complete wreck. The main reactor, life support, and CPU core have all been destroyed along with a number of the docks and warehouses. Debris surrounds the station although with care it may be possible to navigate through it, at least in the Marauder. Scans show no life signs on board the station. All bar 2 docking bays are empty, and these two hold the wrecks of 2 small freighters. It appears all other vessel managed to get away. There are a couple of auxillary reactors operational, and there appears to be a small section of the station that is still air tight. They decide to investigate. The section still has a functioning airlock, but is primarily just a section of corridors, with a couple of rooms still intact. There is nothing of value in this section.

Whilst the main CPU core has been destroyed the auxillary data hub is still active, along with the Comms array, and a number of other service connection hubs. People begin to research the current state of affairs.

The first item of note is a GNN newscast relating to the current MegaCorp war, which appears to have been triggered by the destruction of EOS-7.
"As the Galactic war enters its second month the death toll continues to rise. And whilst no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing of the diplomatic summit at EOS-7 which sparked current hostilities, unconfirmed reports from within the League of Autonomous Worlds are said to point the finger squarely at Ferrous Corportation or agents operating on their behalf. Ferrous corp has steadfastly denied the charges.
Video statement by Commander Nieman (Ferrous Corp) 'The allegations are ridiculous. Ferrous Corp lost people in that attack as well. We believe the evidence will show its the work of anti-corporate rebels.'
Regardless of whether or not they were behind the attack, there is no denying that Ferrous Corp has come out ahead in the conflict to date."

A second GNN report is apparently based on information leaked by a Mekei source
"Sources within the Mikei Combine accuse Ferrous Corp of hiring outlaw mercenaries to aid in their war effort, most notably the fugitive ship Razza. Believed to be among the crew are Marcus Boone and Portia Lin both wanted on Galactic Warrents for Terrosim and Mass Murder. Recently Lin has been tied to an attack on the Headquarters of Dwarfstar Technologies which claimed the lives of over 200 company personel including that of CEO Alexander Rook."

With a little prompting from the GM Varrick also checks to see whether he can log into the GA database. He finds that his logins work. Locating his personel file he finds it states "LT Karl Varrick (Special Ops) - Deceased". There is a video file contained within his personel records marked "Digital Evidence of Death". He plays the file.
"This is Lt Karl Varrick on board the Razza. I've already uploaded the virus that will sabotage the engines. Once we drop out the ship will start broadcasting a subspace signal which will facilitate tracking. The Razza security mechanism is an Android, verbal shutdown command 3T5G06. You need to get to her fast, because if she perceives a viable threat she's programmed to wipe the ships data stores. If all goes according to plan I'll be .. " sound of cabin door opening in the background, Six Standing "What the hell.." 2 shots into the chest at point blank range. Varrick collapses. Portia Lin steps into view then shoots Varrick 4 more times.

[GM note: The speculation in the session was that this was when Six took down the Razza after the destruction of Iriden-3. However I don't believe this to be the case. I believe the date of the recording is 2672.157 or there abouts. With no Emiliy on board, there is no memory wipe thus the planned removal of Griffen Jones aka Karl Varrick GA operative would occur when they planned it, which is when they came out of stasis just before getting to the Mining Colony.]

Elsewhere Ryo has also been searching the database, primarily in relation to the state of affairs between Ashieda and Pyr. The first thing he discovers is that in this Universe he is Emporer of Zairon, followed by a news report relating to the state of the war and the current major reversal of fortune for Pyr.

The information he gains, gives him an idea. If he were to contact the other Razza in the guise of himself, as in Emperor of Zairon, then they are likely to accept such a call. With the right incentive then it is possible that they would agree to meet him, and with the right slant somewhere of his choosing, such as the Regulus Station. [GM Note: yes I'm aware this is another 'writers' convenience as it just a huge plot hole, but its not one I have any other way around hence why I'm running with it as it is. Of course if you had an Asheida shuttle things would be much easier, although you do know where one might be, at least in your universe....] The problem is how to make it look like any call is coming from the 'real' Emperor of Zairon. Mikei did offer to help if they could, if there was a possible workable plan to gain the Blink drive and capture the other Razza.

When Varrick informs the rest of them of the override code for the Android there is a flurry of activity in relation to changing all the access codes, including Lisa's override codes. Given you've changed the vault code at least twice since the Wexlar/White Hole Bomb job there is almost no chance of the other crew knowing your vault code, plus they don't have an Emily. The converse is not necessarily true.. it depends on whether they changed it after they disposed of Griffen Jones.

[GM notes. So lots of things here.... Lisa is completely unaware that any such overrides exist, thus she can't change them.. They wouldn't be shutdown overrides if she could. The second is that any possible mechanism to change such codes could only be enacted if she were offline, ie either she shuts her self down and goes offline completely until one of you wakes her using the console in Enginnering where her charge station is, or she goes offline in her cradle as she would during a charge cycle. If she is in her cradle then she is indirectly still connected to the ship, even if she is offline, so her progam matrix can be accessed and the codes potentially changed.

With Lisa offline in her cradle, if Emily goes looking then after a few hours she will be able to locate the relavent area of code in Lisa's program kernal. It's burried deep and hidden, and appears to be a fundamental part of the kernal. What she finds is that there are 7 data blocks relating to/used by this code. With a couple more hours work she is able to ascertain that 2 of the data blocks are decryption keys, 2 are check sums, and 3 are override codes, one of which is the code Varrick revealed. One of the decryption keys decrypts the 2 checksums, whilst the other decrypts the override codes. One of the checksums is the checksum for the decrypted override codes, whilst the other is the checksum for the encrypted codes plus the key plus the checksum.  What encryption key was used to encrypt the override codes she has no idea, but if the data blocks don't validate then Lisa's kernal shutsdown and doesn't startup. It appears this is a fundamental element of her design.

Without knowing the encryption keys the only way to change the code is a 'Factory Reset' which would wipe Lisa's memory and her personality matrix completely (In effect killing her).

There is one other thing. Lisa or anyone else capable of neurally linking to the ship doesn't need 'access codes' as such. When neurally linked they are the ship. Now only one 'Ships Android' can be neurally linked at a time, thus Lisa or her counterpart in this universe could control either Razza if either of them were off line. They can of course only link to one ship at a time and they have to be aboard or docked to the ship to do it.]

Having formulated his ideas, Ryo informs Portia and the rest of the crew. They contact Trauffett, who is somewhat dubious as to the voracity of the plan but does at least agree to help. They have the capability to produce a set of props and relay a subspace connection such that it appears to come from the real Emporer.

Alt-Portia accepts the call from Ryo. She appears distracted (she's sitting astride A-Boone on the bridge).
A-Portia "Ryo, its been a while."
Ryo "It good to see you Portia."
A-Boone "What do you want?"
Ryo "You less so. I've been presented with an opportunity that may be of interest to you."
A-Boone "Do tell!"
Ryo "I will when we meet to discuss."
A-Portia "Now is good!"
Ryo "I can't risk anyone intercepting our subspace communications."
A-Boone "Then forget about it, we're busy. We've stuff to steal, people to kill."
Ryo "The Razza can get anywhere in an instant, you can make time, and trust me for this, you're going to want to."
A-Boone to A-Portia "No."
A-Portia "Okay."
A-Boone "No"
A-Porita "We're coming to Zairon."
R-Ryo "No. Zairon is no longer safe. There are spies everywhere. I'll send you the coordinates is a seperate data burst."
Transmission ends.

House Keeping - Dates and Fuel

	Event	Date	FTL Jump Distance	Fuel	Fuel Remaining	Water Remaining
	Arrive Regulus-12	2673.044.12	N/A	N/A	1,094,320	**  8,153(26,000)  **
	Jump to far side of star	2673.044.17	Intrasystem	2000l	1,092,320	52,000(26,000)
	Inititiate Blink Jump	2673.044.18	N/A	2000l	1,090,320	52000(26,000)
	Jump to Alt Regulus-12	2673.045.04	Intrasystem	2000l	1,088,320	52,000(26,000)

Incidental Expenses (Bribes/Inducements/Payoffs) : cr5,700
Water: 43,847 * 0.76 = cr33,324

Docking Fees: cr9,610

Cash at hand:  cr2,607,341

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