Retro Role Cast
"Serious roleplaying games played by deeply unserious people."
We are a tabletop roleplaying actual play podcast featuring games that remind us of our gaming roots! We play in person with real math rocks! We love gritty, high action dark settings with nuance, but aren't too far away from our bitter, cynical, yet still lovable selves at all times!
Currently: Going way back to many of our players' 1e roots by playing the new third edition of OSRIC (pdf available free on DrivethruRPG, fantastic hard copies available through Mythmere Games) with a home cooked mini (?) campaign in the World known as Greyhawk in the classic era. follow along as the PCs navigate the dangerous environments and tricky politics of the Duchy of Tenh/Theocracy of the Pale border region!
In season one we played Low Fantasy Gaming by Pickpocket Press, Its sequel game Tales of Argosa is released, available, and comes highly recommended by all of us, stop by Pickpocket Games on the web for more info!
Season two saw a transition to a modified Version of Old School Essentials (Advanced) by Gavin Norman, one of many retro offshoots of the world's most popular role playing game. We borrow rules and content from many sources, but with Old School Essentials we used (in no particular order), Old School Feats by Eric Diaz, Into The Wyrd and Wild by Charles Furgeson-Avery, Into the Wild by Todd Leback, The Axian Library by Guiseppe Rotondo, and the Monster Overhaul by Skerples, amongst other sources.
With the close of Season 2 and the addition of two new Retro Role Casters we have moved to a more episodic format for Season 3. We are referring to seasons 1 and 2 as our Zero Level Funnel of Podcasting.
Season three and into the first part of Season four the four OG hosts took turns GM-ing one shots, Three Shadowdark adventures because we love Kelsey's fantastic Old meets New game, Mothership to satisfy our love of the Alien Movies and a Halloween special using the Call of Cthulhu rules.
Logo Art: Olivia G, Background Art: Bob Greyvenstein. Some artwork © Grim Press, used with permission. All rights reserved.
Retro Role Cast
Mothership!!! Bug Hunting with RRC Ep 6
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Finally Getting the APC in gear, the crew ventures out into the alien planet's wilderness. They soon find that they are not the only humans remaining on SAMSA 6...
#mothershipRPG #Mothership1E #OSR #ttrpg #actualplay #rpg #oldschoolrpg #scifi #scifihorror
This episode features Mothership, the fantastic Space Horror RPG from the good folks at Tuesday Night Games! Visit them at: https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/pages/mothership-rpg
Visit Lazarus Games' eBay store for retro gaming goodness! https://www.ebay.com/str/lazarusgames
Episode art features a background image by Robert Clark
On this episode of Retro Rollcast, you hear through your short range comms some music. But is it amazing grace on the harmonica?
SPEAKER_01If it is, I'm shooting the short-range comms. It's not. It's more like stop and then anybody.
SPEAKER_03And do you hear that they have a boom box strapped onto the front of this thing? And it's this is coming through the comms as they play this loudly for maybe protection from screaming.
SPEAKER_04So I'll put the APC back into gear and keep on track.
SPEAKER_03Our characters have left Greta Base. The bickering continues in the back of the APC on what we should be doing about the case of medical supplies or something found in the freezer in the last episode.
SPEAKER_05It's in there, man. You can just play your Bob Dylan harmonica music.
SPEAKER_03Who? You uh McTavish is sitting in the front seat, bickering through the hatch into the back of the APC at McDuff. Frank is back there, the Android, cleaning off the screens inside the APC that have a bit of residue from the previous occupant of the APC, as Stillwater drives the APC slowly out of the garage door and up the muddy track towards the terraforming station. Kaplan's watching the base force. Right. Kaplan was the second lieutenant who was found dead inside the command center from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The APC chugs along. So what kind of speed are you putting on this thing, still water?
SPEAKER_05Florida.
SPEAKER_03Bowling balls. Fast enough that if you drive over one, it goes crunch.
SPEAKER_05We have an idea how fast that crab creature went. Just go one mile an hour faster than that.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Sure. All right. We're in six-wheel low. Right. So then you go approximately 25 maxed out in six-wheel low. You feel like you could drive over anything, but you're not sure if that's quite the speed to outrun any of these long-limbed alien monstrosities. Is that still fast enough for you?
SPEAKER_04I want to keep make sure we keep going, not just get stuck.
SPEAKER_03Right. Anytime you hit a little puddle, you can go right through it with 25 miles an hour of six-wheel powered momentum. Or is that the same thing?
SPEAKER_05McDuff can McDuff can run along beside her if he doesn't want to be in here with the stuff.
SPEAKER_03Is anybody like you spent all that time fixing the sensors? Is anybody going to be operating them?
SPEAKER_04What can we operate? Is it from the back or the front?
SPEAKER_03That would be operated in the back. That would be like one of the command options in the back. That would be McDuff. I think you'd be perfect for McDuff? No, I think the Android. Yeah, I can use computers to Okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay. I ain't got no skills with sensors.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you don't you don't need to roll anything. There's no there's no no, I was gonna say there's no worries if you fail because what you see essentially it almost gives you like uh biological detection. If you had any kind of threat detection that does stuff like that. And as you you drive along, now you're about a few kilometers in, there's only it's only about like we'll use kilometers, so it's about five kilometers to to the terraforming station from Greta Base. At about the three kilometer mark, Frank starts picking up some biologicals on his on the sensors that are in between you and the base, not necessarily in the road, but in the area. And as the APC gets closer, they start moving in your general direction. We got incoming for it.
SPEAKER_04I will take it out of six-wheel low and put it into six-wheel high. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So you take it out of six-wheel low and make sure the hatch up top is closed tomorrow. So you reach up and like make give it a little extra turn, make sure that's tight. Somebody's checking the back. We're all locked and loaded with our spray bottles. If only you'd have thought of a way to get a fire hose on top of this thing. Right, a water cannon. Yeah. I mean, because you guys could overthink anything, so I'm like, why didn't they think of a water tank and a spray bottle on top of the I'm sure we did. Wow. Anyway.
SPEAKER_04But we couldn't find the correct stuff.
SPEAKER_03It's not practical.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_05Without a large hose.
SPEAKER_03Well, you had a lot more acid. Six fuel containers over there, too. Did you leave the generator running, by the way? Yes. Okay. So you you drive along. Frank's telling you he's giving you numbers. He's like 300 yards, 200 yards.
SPEAKER_05Make a impact in 20 seconds. 90.
SPEAKER_03I should have a list of all the skills available to you guys. This is where we die. All right. Give me oh, I will use piloting for this, even though it's driving. Give me a give me a piloting check to attempt to outrun uh to the to a point the these monstrosities. Well, do we have visual on them yet? No, because they're still like the you have a maybe a 20-foot-wide cleared section with the that the APC kind of drives through. So your your sensors are showing them off into the jungle of purple and reddish and greenish plant life and heading in your direction. And you are about less than a kilometer from the base at this point.
SPEAKER_04All right. So what would I roll it against?
SPEAKER_03So roll your roll your piloting and your speed. Speed. That's what I want to know with the base. Yeah. Will you combine your speed with your piloting to see if you can? Yeah. This is where we end up in a ditch.
SPEAKER_04Perhaps.
SPEAKER_03With that roll? Just under. Oh, all right. And it's not doubles, though? No. Which would be a critical success.
SPEAKER_04It's a 56. Okay. So I've got a fifty. No, 47. I'm sorry. I would make it over.
SPEAKER_03And as he remaths, we failed. It just means you didn't beat the carcinids to the intercept point, essentially what that means. So they get theirs.
SPEAKER_05We always make it to the intercept point. It's just a little sooner than anticipated.
SPEAKER_03They made it there sooner than anticipated. So you're driving to this point, right? And Frank's like, they're only a hundred meters out. 50. They're gonna get us. And uh so you make sure you take your stress, which makes your current stress seven. Seven. You guys are barely stressed out, no matter all this stuff, the crazy stuff. Nobody's even over ten, right? Stress check. Not yet. What do you got for stress on still water? Seven. Stress on Humphrey? Nine. Humphrey's not here. McDuff. That bum. McDuff. Nine. Frank? Four. Seven. McTavish seven. So you guys are still pretty well off. And you get to that point, and the monstrosities, there are three of them. They leap on top of the APC and start hammering at it with their chitinous claws. Is it Kitan? I think it's Kitan. We've had this discussion in a previous episode of Retro Roll Crass. Kitan comes up an awful lot in our games, doesn't it? Yes, Kitan. Well, Kitan is very perceived as monstrous. Yes, sure. To us, the vertebrates, Kitan is evil. So you have uh some Kitinous monstrosities. And tasty one dust on top of the bottom. Well, no, it's not the Kitan that's tasty.
SPEAKER_01And we have no defense on the APC at all. Except speed. Except speed.
SPEAKER_03So let me let so they leap. Let's make sure they all make it anywhere onto the thing. They all manage to make the leap onto the moving APC.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03And start hammering at it with their claws. And you hear that you hear them bang. Slam bang bang. Are there any windows? There's a window in the front, but they don't make make it to a window. What about bullet firing ports? Firing ports, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Probably not the top.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't remember seeing anything like that on the AP. Now, but you'd have to. No, they're probably sealed. Yeah, everything's sealed. In fact, that's what the environmental systems is meant to. It's all enclosed. You've got your own enclosed environmental system. So they're banging on top of it, and you get on your sensors, Frank, something like some kind of machine moving towards you at high speed from down the road in front of you, with three biological entities on the room.
SPEAKER_01We have another incoming. They're human though. You get humanoid in some sort of vehicle.
SPEAKER_03So the other APC. This is a much smaller vehicle, like uh almost like a UTV, okay. Where it's a four-wheeled, much faster than an APC kind of vehicle. Gotcha. And you see them stop about 300 yards ahead of you, but off the road, are you driving right at them?
SPEAKER_04I will try not, I'm not gonna try and run them over. Right, right. So I will take a tack that puts me near them, but not straight into them.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So you see them get up and they like come to a stop, and two people jump out and set up on the ground what you see in the front seat to be as automatic weapons. And then they open fire right onto the APC. Not literally, of course, though some bullets do hit it. You're getting peppered with shells in the front as they attempt to remove the crawly guy. Remove the crawley guys from your machine. And you uh you hear lots and lots of machine gun fire as three machine guns open up. I'm ducking down under the window.
SPEAKER_04Should I hit the question is should I drive by or hit the brakes?
SPEAKER_05Well, it'll be easier to hit the bad guys if you slow down and stop. All right. Or you could stop when they can well.
SPEAKER_03All right, so they opened Frank. They opened this fucker at 300 yards.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03So you're gonna keep going.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I get about 100 yards away from about 100 feet or so.
SPEAKER_03What's McDuff doing? Nothing really. Okay. He's just because you're in the back. Sitting in a jump seat holding on. Frank? You have any there's an access port to the roof, yes. If he goes to open it, I'm shooting him up. If he goes to open the port, I'm shooting him. An awful trigger happens. I don't really want to shoot somebody.
SPEAKER_05I've got to shoot somebody. Well, somebody that can hurt. Okay, just somebody who's trying to sabotage us. No, we're trying to sabotage. He does have the most stress.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, there's three aliens and machine gun rounds coming into the top of the vehicle. Let's open the top hatch.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Anyway, what is your intent with all this, Frank? Before you get shot, I'd like to know what you were thinking.
SPEAKER_01Well, what I'm thinking is when we stop and we go to engage these things, we are in a place of security right now. We could pop that hatch and probably assist with our water bottles. Okay. But I'm not gonna do that while we're while we're moving and we're getting shot at. Okay. Okay. And I'm just looking at the hatch.
SPEAKER_05And you got your squeeze ball together. Right. What is Victavish doing? Daddy's squeeze balls.
SPEAKER_03I am ducking under the window level and down in my seat. Okay. You uh you get the distinct impression that there's slightly less claws on the roof. Frank, you see on your sensors that one of them is behind the APC, like it got knocked off by the shots. Is it moving? Yeah, but it looks like it was you can see a little bit of blood or black Ickor or something. So like one of them got wounded. Okay. All right. All right. That's all I'm doing. Waiting. And then when you get within about a hundred yards of these guys, like they're still firing, but they start packing up. Because they don't have like their machine is not enclosed. Stick and move. Okay, yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_04Got it.
SPEAKER_03And then you uh do you have any kind of comms or anything else? You get the like I have short-range comms. Yeah. Everybody's got short-range comms. You hear through your short-range comms some music. I should have had it queued up on my phone, I guess, since you guys have been playing other music on your phones there. Here we'll but is it amazing grace on the harmonica?
SPEAKER_01If it is, I'm shooting the short-range comms. Well, it's not.
SPEAKER_03It's more like stop in the new guru. And you hear you see that they have a boom box strapped onto the front of this thing, and it's this is coming through the comms as they play this loudly for well, maybe protection from screaming as you guys have discussed earlier.
SPEAKER_04Right, so I'll put the APC back into gear and keep on trucking.
SPEAKER_03Right, you I'm assuming you didn't really stop.
SPEAKER_04No, I was slowing down, but no. So they got they packed up.
SPEAKER_03I'm going to keep running. Right. When you got within 100 yards, they didn't want anything to do with it. And they did shoot another one off the roof. There's still one up there. And the base is half a click ahead.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03So you see that they speed off in front of you and manage to put a little distance and set up one more time for one last round of shots.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_03And see if they can get this thing off the roof. As they the machine guns open fire on top of the APC again. But the last round, there's still one kind of stuck up there. Alright. Well, we're not getting it.
SPEAKER_04If you try to dislodge them, maybe this is an APC, it is not designed to go drifting.
SPEAKER_03No, but you would be shocked the amount of brakes that are on military vehicles. I believe. I've been in a five-ton truck when they slam the brakes on. You're like, I can't believe this thing could stop so fast.
SPEAKER_05Do something or present the thing to the machine guns better.
SPEAKER_04Do we know what position this critter's still on?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because it's hammering away on the roof, trying to break through. Alright. See. See if it manages to do that. No. So I will slam on the brakes and crank it hard to the left. Okay, so two directional changes. Yes. Alright, I'm gonna need a drive check on this one. Hopefully we don't roll. I mean a 40. A 40, yeah. You manage to pull that off, and the carcinid monstrosity across the top flies off of it. It doesn't seem to be hurt, but you manage to send it rolling into the forest and continue onward without the thing on your roof. And you cover the last few hundred yards or meters under the cover of their machine guns as they're set up, as you see the terraforming station loom out of the jungle. You can see the large, like a ramp leading up to this like large, almost like a tower-looking thing, like you might think of as a cooling tower, and there's a large dam as you rest up to this paved area. Is there a garage?
SPEAKER_04And let me ask, are the critters pursuing, Frank?
SPEAKER_01I will look at the comms. Let's or look at the sensors at C.
SPEAKER_03They're pursuing, but once they get on, you get onto that paved area, they leave you alone. Mostly I think they don't want to run into the into the teeth of a few machine guns. Alright, cool.
SPEAKER_04Means I can slow down. I don't have to go.
SPEAKER_03Right, you can go, yeah, full speed up. So there's a like I said, there's a paved area, and you see that ATV that was in front of you, you see the riders of the APC, the ATV kind of wheel it into this large garage-looking thing. Now the door is not all the way closed at this point, and you could fly in. There's a sandbag like bunker out front, but it is and it is occupied by a few of these Marines with machine guns. Okay. And then when you guys go in, they I'm assuming that's what you're doing.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'm trying to figure out if it'd be better for can I turn around to back in, or do I have to drive in?
SPEAKER_03You could do either. Alright, I'm going to back in. Okay. So you turn it around, beep, beep. And you see the guys leave the sandbag bunker and jump into the area and they close the door behind you.
SPEAKER_05Alright. Are they armed? The Marines? Well, are they are they pointing their arms at us? They look ready to. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they look like there's a little bit of the anticipation of pointing the guns at people. That's fair.
SPEAKER_04Alright.
SPEAKER_03So what else is in this in the drive in the in the in this in the garage?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, is the other APC in here?
SPEAKER_03You don't see another APC, no.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03It's possible that the then you see multiple of those little ATVs. Okay. So you see two more of those, one of which looks to be half dismantled, and two that well, one that was outside and another one that was running. And you see three people get off the APC, obviously, or not the APC, the ATV, obvious Marines, one of which is a woman with bald, a bald head, tattoos on her arms, looks like a no-nonsense attitude. And the other two look like they're the knight in charge. She looks in charge, and there's like a PFC and another, you see the rank of corporal with her.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_03And they're outside, and they they just casually cover the APC. All right, well. Only three. Well, no, there are those were the three that were outside that kind of came in at the same time you did, yeah. So you guys got a good look at them. And your sensors, real quick, managed to pick up a total of I think ten people in here. Well, that's helpful.
SPEAKER_04Now we know where everybody else is. Alright. So I will power down the APC.
SPEAKER_03Alright, the turbine engine spools a stop.
SPEAKER_05Alright. I'm gonna open my hatch up. The roof hatch?
SPEAKER_03Well, no, oh, the door hatch over next to you. Okay. And I'm gonna come out, hands up. Alright, yes, somebody's got you covered. They're casually covering you. They're not pointed it directly at you. What about Frank? I'm gonna Oh, Kaplan's back at the place.
SPEAKER_05Do you guys have a restroom we can use?
SPEAKER_01Point you to the room. I'll be like, I want to walk out.
SPEAKER_03We're here to rescue you. You uh you see the Marine Sergeant who was out there with on the ATV walk towards the front of the vehicle? Frank, about what you did are you leaving or are you just shouting out? I'm getting out of the vehicle. Because you're in the back, so you're gonna lower the hatch. Okay. You see a separate set of a couple marines covering you back there. McDuff, what are you doing? How are you getting out of here? I'll walk out the back. You're just walking out the back like about time you guys were alive. Right, yeah. Alright, and what's still water doing? I'll hop out. Alright, you hop out. Alright, so each of you are covered by somebody, and they're like, go ahead and line up by the door there. You see, that's the sergeant. I'm Vasquez. Who are you guys?
SPEAKER_05I'm putting I'm grabbing my scanner and I show it to them. Yeah. And I'm pointing it at them.
SPEAKER_03Hold out your arms. Everybody hold out your arms. Okay. And then somebody covers her and she walks over and looks at me. I mean, we're wearing suits, but oh well, show me your damn skin, you fool. So looking for the little cuts.
SPEAKER_05Show you my looking for the little cuts. Show you mine, you show me yours.
SPEAKER_03Maybe later, big boy. Show me your arms. Oh my god. Pull it out. Alright. And you show that you don't have any cuts. Right. It was her body pillow, wasn't it? Next ten episodes. Right. It's funny you said that because I'm like, that's gonna live forever. Thank you. Right. Tuesday night games. Right. Thank you, Tuesday Night Games for the body pillow. It will provide no end of enjoyment to the retro role cast crew.
SPEAKER_05At least entertainment for us. We apologize to our listeners next week. Which is not to say that we're gonna purchase any.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. There's four coming already. Speaking of self. Frank the Android doesn't need one. No. Oh he needs one.
SPEAKER_04So does everybody show face and arms and take off the top part of my get naked shoulder. He's in naked.
SPEAKER_05So what's up with the cuts?
SPEAKER_03It's the first sign of infection. Okay. So are we talking like meth head type cuts? We saw them. We saw them on all the bodies. Right, but how do they get there? I couldn't figure that part out. The scream? You don't know about the scream. We know about the scream.
SPEAKER_05We're here from the company, and as you might imagine, they didn't tell us a whole lot before they dropped us down here. So Yeah, typical. But I couldn't figure out how the cuts got there.
SPEAKER_04I guess the cuts were coming out, not in.
SPEAKER_03You uh you see this uh this woman. She's got a dirty old lab coat on. And the sergeant is I'm Vasquez.
SPEAKER_05So Vasquez is the sergeant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the bald-headed woman.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Who said who looked at your arms. We're looking for Dr. Edom and uh Hinton, the droid. Oh, we know where Hinton is and he's not here. Correct.
SPEAKER_03What? You that's uh Dr. Adim. We'll say that. That's Dr. Adim. That's Dr. Adim. This is the droid we're looking for. No, this is the doctor. And Adem is a maybe an early 40s woman with relatively like her hair isn't long in the back, but it's longish on top. Kind of a narrow face with a pair of glasses on, a no-nonsense look to her. What was your question? What was your names? What are your names?
SPEAKER_05Oh, I I have no end of questions. Let's let's say you just start talking about what's going on here.
SPEAKER_03Something happened. There's a That's an understatement. Olsen, and you see a little hitch in her voice. Something happened to Olsen and it was his birthday, and I turned into one of those creatures. We don't know how. Well, we didn't know how at the time. Killed a few people. In fact that some other people somehow they do it with a scream, as I'm sure you guys have heard because you heard talked about the scream.
SPEAKER_04Right. That's McTavish. Yeah. That's Frank. Uh-huh. That was McDuff. Uh-huh. I'm still water. The other two guys are Bags and Knight.
SPEAKER_05And Humphreys. Private Humphreys.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's great that the company sent somebody.
SPEAKER_05What? But it depends on your perspective, I think.
SPEAKER_03Well, maybe not your perspective. We're very glad to see somebody from the company. We've got four days before extraction. Four days? You see. Unless you got long-range comms working. You see what you would think of as a Navy corpsman. Come up. He's a black dude with a thin mustache and a larger nose, and he's he has this look about him like four days. We ain't gonna be four more days. We've got to get out of here now. When did all this start? Well, it started weeks ago, but man, we're running low on supplies. We gotta get moving. This is bull. You guys are here now. We gotta go now. How many are you? How many are here? Well, there's ten of us here, and Vasquez chips in, yeah, ten, but we got five, four down below. We're not leaving. And you said something about hinton?
SPEAKER_05Well, a few of you can go get some muduffle bags full of MREs out of the back of our of our APC. That might help, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, I guess. And she you see her kind of jerk her head at two of the other Marines who go and do that. Why you got uh why you got a synth here? Company issue.
SPEAKER_05We're not sure ourselves, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_03So you mean to be frank with us? To be frank with you, I'm standing around oblivious. So is anybody doing anything other than talking since you said you were being oblivious? Do you want to look around the this area?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm probably just a quick glance, I'm not gonna go walking around. Obviously, these guys are a little touchy. Right, right.
SPEAKER_05So is my bioscanner pick up anything on any of them?
SPEAKER_03No, you've been waving it around surreptitiously to kind of you haven't picked up on any of the things that you've seen on any of the corpses. And they look like they probably take great care in watching each other.
SPEAKER_05And they're weirded out by Frank.
SPEAKER_03I mean, we're weirded out by Frank as well, but I mean look, everybody's been around synthetics. It's just you just hate when they show up. So tell me about Hinton. Hinton went down into the reactor with a couple of my crew. This is Vasquez talking. And we haven't been heard from since. Where's the reactor? He the reactor here? Yeah, the reactor here. Well, they're not here anymore.
SPEAKER_01This tracker says Hinton is up in the mountains.
SPEAKER_03What? No, Hinton went how could he be in the mountains? He went down there. I show the tracker. So what do you know about a hive? This was Kaplan's. He's my friend. Where's Kaplan? Well, we know. We haven't seen him. He's here in spirit.
SPEAKER_05And that's it. He kept his company last night. It's a long story. Kaplan's dead by his own hand.
SPEAKER_03At least that's better than the alternative, I suppose.
SPEAKER_05He destroyed the com array at the at Greta Base. Oh, that's good. That's smart.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay. I'm going to need some of these vast holes in my knowledge filled up. Alright. Well, so what do you need to know? Why was it smart to kill the com array? I can guess, but I want to hear it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because it's making the sound that turns you into a damn alien thing. Or has one of them jump out of your corpse. What about sound in person? Does that do it? Yeah. Yeah, what do you think?
SPEAKER_05How long? How long does it happen?
SPEAKER_03Varies. Hours to days? Usually days. Dead men won't.
SPEAKER_05Has it happened to synths too, or just us? We have a really small sample size.
SPEAKER_04So where is the screeching originating from?
SPEAKER_03Well, we're not sure, but it could be the comm tower over there. Okay, so why haven't you shut the com tower down? Because there's monstrosities out all over the place, and who are you gonna call? Ghostbusters.
SPEAKER_04We have a ship in orbit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, now. There wasn't a ship in orbit until just now. We can't communicate with that ship. But we can't call down our ride early because we can't use long-range comms. Well, you see, so Brookman is like, look, we get if you guys can go, we'll go over there. Uh we'll go there now. I'm willing to go over there and do whatever it takes to get those comms back online. I don't know how it is that it's doing that, but that's the way you can call the ship from right there. Then let's go. So when did the comms start picking up the screech? Well, a while ago. A couple weeks, really. It's been going on the whole time. Anytime you try to long-range com to get out to anybody, that's all you get. And anytime anybody's tried to go anywhere or do anything outside of this base, they pretty much never come back.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's not pleasant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, so how far is it from here to the COM tower?
SPEAKER_03You see that big old dam out there that's about to be flooded?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Just on the other side of that.
SPEAKER_04Okay, and the only way to get to that is outside.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but look, it's got ATVs. Do you have a weapon system to mount to our hard point on the APC?
SPEAKER_03That would help. Yeah. Yeah, you see a pile of weapons in the corner, like they have them all stacked up. Ones that are functional and not melted. Nice. Right, non non-melted ones. So that's Brookman's like, yeah, he's talking about going over to the tower, and Adim's like, I gotta get my research. That's way more important than anything else. You mean that research? No, that's not no, that's just part of it. You got my stuff from that's great. I'll take that. Well, hold on, hold on. Oh, what? That's my research.
SPEAKER_05No, I'm not done at the moment. I mean it's really the company's. Oh, you're not done? What's the uh what was in the medical case in the freezer? Who was the man in the freezer?
SPEAKER_03The man in the freezer, I believe that was now you gotta make me go look back. I never told you his name because it was on there. It was on his uniforms. What was Jones doing in the freezer? Nobody has any name in this as mundane as Jones. My name is Frank. Yes, Frank. Yeah, but you made that up. Right. But it qualifies. He's trying to be. That was resnik. Lance Corporal Resnick.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Why was Resnick in the chiller? You're gonna have to get used to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't understand the. I mean, I don't know why Resnick was in the chiller.
SPEAKER_05He had a medical case with this liquid in it. What's the liquid?
SPEAKER_03You see her.
SPEAKER_05I open up the carton and I pull it out. It's got biological, not of earthly origin. Who said it's not earthly? That's you did, actually. No, I don't think that was ever discussed with this. Well, you said it was matching the other readings that I've been taking off of the alien. He did, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I'm sorry. Did you make your role?
SPEAKER_05You didn't have me make one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you totally failed your role.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03All right. Not that I can pretend I don't remember what I said, but you failed your role. So you didn't really know what it was.
SPEAKER_05I would still be 100% convinced.
SPEAKER_03Right. And that's it's uh anti-cancer meds that I whipped up as an experiment. Did it work? I haven't finished my experiment. I'm gonna go with no. Look, as far as I know, the way this works is the scream thing starts some kind of genetic mutation? Yeah, that's a good cancerous evolution.
SPEAKER_05I'm board certified in pathology. You can use the real terminology with me. Right. So you two freaking nerd out for a couple minutes. Right. And figure out.
SPEAKER_03Well, I maybe I could have if I wasn't interrupted. Oh, shots fired now. Across the bow. Well, there you have it. So uh she goes on to explain that it essentially turns like it triggers a cancerous reaction in your body that eventually turns into this thing. Like it's a cancer growing in your body. This from the screen. Okay. That's all. And it's triggered by that. And the anti-cancerous medicine was an attempt to see if there's a way to slow the process, but there's not none of that has a cure. No, it was an attempt.
SPEAKER_05So it was totally totally legitimate for us to have brought it along. Oh, yeah, it was probably for the best. Would you say it was a really good idea to have a one of our better ideas that we've ever had?
SPEAKER_03I mean, you could say that if you want to, if it makes you both look over.
SPEAKER_04You mean the jug of stuff you misidentified as alien DNA?
SPEAKER_01I thought it was a good idea.
SPEAKER_03I thought it was a great idea to bring it along.
SPEAKER_01I always say again. I was always on the standpoint that it was an attempt at a cure.
SPEAKER_05So I'm just I just turned back on it. So it was a good idea, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was yeah, yeah, it's probably for the best, even though I have not developed any of those concepts fully. I have not had the time or the space. So it's a pointless idea. The lab here is spoiled. What you're saying, it was waiting for your uh your test to finish out? I should have shot him. No, we're not all gonna die. Well, I mean, I don't I hope not. So let me ask you this uh does the scream affect people that hear it through a radio or a speaker? She kind of looks at you with this deadpan like look. It was literally coming through to radio. He's always like this.
SPEAKER_00I just want to hear you say it.
SPEAKER_03So nobody's been exposed. You hear it through the radio, you have been potentially exposed. How long have you been here? Does exposure always equal does exposure always equal infection? I guess not. I mean, there's a chance that you're not infected on every exposure, but you can be exposed many times.
SPEAKER_01Well, you've all heard it, right? How many times have you heard the noise?
SPEAKER_03You just see she just holds her arms out as proof that she's not infected. Yeah, but how many times have you heard the scream? Well, in the last few weeks, none. Okay. Because we don't turn on the comms.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Doctor, for clarifying that.
SPEAKER_03We've all heard it at least once in the last 24 hours. Through various means. Mine was from inside the sealed suits. You see a few Marines get a little more nervous and start pointing their like not pointing, but you know. Some of us were in sealed suits, some of us weren't. Did your do your suits have speakers? Mine did. Just shrugs at you like, well, maybe.
SPEAKER_04So it's a frequency issue. Something like that.
SPEAKER_03Eventually, if you're exposed to something long enough, if it's possible for you to get it, you will.
SPEAKER_04That's what I'm saying, though. But it's a frequency, it's the frequency that's causing the mutation. It's not the exposure to the liquid or airborne.
SPEAKER_03It's definitely an audible exposure, if that's what you're implying. Yes. Because you keep using the word frequency, which also implies radio. So it's was he talking about the frequency of the screen, the radio?
SPEAKER_04Or the audio frequency modulation audio frequency.
SPEAKER_03Right. So yeah, that. Well, I guess you all could have been exposed. You see, you get out of bioscheme.
SPEAKER_05Well, haven't you?
SPEAKER_03Maybe weeks ago. But as I showed my arms just a minute ago.
SPEAKER_05Oh, we believe you. I'm getting the impression you don't. We're all either dead men or we're not.
SPEAKER_01We're just trying to determine how soon we're going to be dead.
SPEAKER_03You see Brookman jump. Like, look, are we gonna go fix the radio? What are we gonna do here? Like, we got ships on station right now. Like, now's our chance. Now's our chance to go away. And Vasquez is like, I'm not leaving my people behind. They're down in the reactor trying to shut it down. What's the chance they can do?
SPEAKER_05Well, I gotta be honest with you. If the company thinks they're that we're infected, they're not gonna let us off of this rock, that.
SPEAKER_04Company isn't gonna let us glass the planet, do I? Well, they can glass it and then start over.
SPEAKER_01Well, what's what are they doing there? This is terraforming, so this is literally nothing burger. They could just toss this, scrap this idea and go somewhere else. Why deal with the hassle of this ridiculous alien infection?
SPEAKER_03Why were we sent?
SPEAKER_05So looking at this too. To figure out what was going on.
SPEAKER_03Let's say good ten kilometers. Do we need Hinton?
SPEAKER_05And there's Dr. Adim, I was looking at your notes. And Dr. Adim wants him back. Appears that a lot of what you learned from Hinton.
SPEAKER_03Well, we work together. See, she seems a little defensive.
SPEAKER_05Should we check out the Did he know more about this than maybe more than he let on those tunnel? Oh, yeah, I do. Exactly. Yeah. And they're in the reactor. I don't know that he knows more than he lets on. That's my concern. Is it there? I'm sure that they are. I'm pretty sure he just lets it all on. Right.
SPEAKER_03And that's why Hinton is not here. You never know when they're gonna snap. You see, Valdez is listening to your conversation. I might have said Vasquez the first time. Yeah, you said Vasquez. It's Valdez, not Vasquez. Vasquez is from the Aliens movie. She sure is, yes. It's Valdez. Whichever. Her sister clone, apparently. Whatever. And uh Hinton went down into the reactor. How could he be where you guys are saying? When did he go to the reactor? Like a like not even five days ago. Okay, well, he could be anywhere in five days. Hive. Yeah, but how did he get there from here without coming back through? Did you hear any of the uh victims of this talk about a hive? Some of the victims we know were murdered by clawed crib before critters. Having the crab crawl out of them.
SPEAKER_05There was a couple of live members of your installation when we arrived back at credit base.
SPEAKER_03Well, look, anybody that may have been infected was pretty much just abandoned.
SPEAKER_05But the young man who unfortunately lines the walls of our APC right now, he was talking about going back to the hive while holding a live grenade in his hand.
SPEAKER_03That sounds horrific.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Not as bad as what happened next. Whoops. We didn't hear anything about any hive talk. So the assumption is there's a home base for these critters. There's a hive. And if Hinton went down into the reactor and is now five miles away or whatever, I'm guessing there's a tunnel from somewhere in the reactor to the hive.
SPEAKER_04That is the concern.
SPEAKER_05I mean, the fact that he's at the hive is a is an assumption, but I think a or at least the tracker that was on him is at the hive.
SPEAKER_03You hear Valdez just curse son of a bitch. What? Not you.
SPEAKER_05Which is why I asked about Hinton. I mean your notes indicate that he knew more of than you did on the subject.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Was he able to get any research from the company that you didn't have access to?
SPEAKER_03Well, if he shared if he didn't share it with me, which wouldn't be very unlike any synthetic I ever met. Oh no, I get it. Do we have any radiation suits? Your hazard suits will work as radiation suits. That's what I thought. For any amount of radiation, as long as they're intact and not ripped. So we could go into a it's got an hour's worth of which for which I will set a torch timer. He's been waiting for time. I told John about it last night at our DD game. I was like, all right, tomorrow, if you if we ever really suit up in your hazmat suits, putting on a torch timer. Thanks, Shadow Dark. That's not really fair though, because it's real time, not game time. Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't seem to have a problem with it when it was only a torch going out. Why have a problem when it's your suit running out of power? No, it's your oxygen. Right. No, no, no, but it's your oxygen you're gonna complain about. Everybody thinks it's a great idea when it's a torch.
SPEAKER_05But we have two possible next moves. Hinton. We either go after Hinton or we go after the Calm Tower and try to call it down. I'm just split party. I'm as worried about the company that we work for as I am about the aliens at this point.
SPEAKER_04I'm more worried about the aliens right now. So Hive go to the mountain or go after the Calm Tower? Let's see. Radioactive. That's the full of aliens or COM Tower. I'm thinking COM Tower probably be the way.
SPEAKER_05I like COM Tower. I think the COM Tower is also full of aliens. Well, that's possible.
SPEAKER_01But we know the other two places are. No, we don't. Well, we don't know where Hinton is. We know he is at this location. We don't know that's the hive. Well, more than that's an assumption.
SPEAKER_05We know where it is, but we don't know what the location is.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03That's true.
SPEAKER_05Or what it's like. I think if we assume that it's a hive full of alien beings, then that's the correct assumption to make because we're prepared for the worst.
SPEAKER_04Sure.
SPEAKER_03Is that the worst, though? A hive full of alien beings? A hive full of aliens in a radioactive environment. There you go. See, Frank made it worse. Good job, Frank. Yep. Everybody rolled up our fear sick. Except Frank. You failed miserably. Nobody doubled, though. Nobody doubled. All right. Frank laid it out quite well for you. I had a smile on my face. Actually, make a check anyway, Frank. If I scared myself. Thank you. Steve were like, yeah, you know what? You're got it. Yeah. Of course, Frank doesn't get scared when he makes the situation as described. Make it more creepy. Right. By McTavish's worst case scenario, he's like, I can make that worse.
SPEAKER_05Well, I don't know. It might be possible that having an alien explode out of you is a better end than regular radiation poisoning.
SPEAKER_04That's debatable. That's yeah. More importantly, what does everybody else do that that earned this?
SPEAKER_03Well, you notice that the groups seem to congregate around the three characters I've introduced so far. Right. So you have HM3 Brookman, the black medic, then you have Sergeant Valdez, who has two followers, and then you have Dr. Adim, who has like there's so they're split into groups. So Brookman has himself, Corporal Ivanovic, PFC Tanaka, and Dr. Kawagucchi. And then Dr. Adim has Sergeant Yang and Sobel, who is an engineer. Sobel? Yes. And then Sergeant Valdez has PFC Pedro and Corporal Novikov. And they're so each of those has their like so Brookman's like, well, I want to leave. And every like his people are like, yeah, we want to leave. And Dr. Radim says, I want to get my my my studies and my samples. But we can leave, but I'm not leaving without it. And Valdez is like, yeah, we can leave, but I'm not leaving without the people I sent into the reactor. Those are my marines. We don't leave any marines behind.
SPEAKER_04We knock out repair the get the communications back up and running, and we leave. Now, medic. I'm still not doing well.
SPEAKER_03What's wrong with you? He got shredded by a bug. Did you take a wound or you just took some health? I didn't take a wound, but I'm damn close. Didn't you uh didn't somebody no, you didn't you weren't hit with a stim pack. That was not that was Eric. Alright.
SPEAKER_05So uh yeah, you mean we didn't heal the guy that wasn't here last time.
SPEAKER_03Right. So uh yeah, that's true. Yeah. So uh knight just walks up and he like hands you like don't you already have aw stimpack, just so you know. I do, which didn't take any time. I haven't done it yet. Okay, so take your mouth, you'll be fine. Ready?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So roll a d10. Seven. You get seven health. Now make sure to mark that you have. Have taken a stim pack at 8 a.m. That way, if you take another one, you have to roll. Now you have an advantage on all your checks for d10 minutes. Okay. Or is it D10 rounds? I guess D10 rounds. Not that we're in combat, but if you were in combat, you can essentially juice yourself with the stuff, but now you have to roll under the number you've taken. Right? So now that you've taken two, if you take another one within a 24-hour period, you have to roll a d10 and get over the number of stim packs you've taken in 24 hours. So okay so you gotta get better than a two. Two.
SPEAKER_04As of right now.
SPEAKER_03As of right now. You could then you can keep pushing your luck, keep hitting the button, keep stimming up. I'm good. All right. So each of the bags and nights each have have four stim packs left because that was their loadout bracelet stim packs. Okay. I feel better. That's good. Dr. Adim, did you know about the acid? We were studying weaknesses and potential weaknesses. Uh we noticed that it seemed to work on them, but we weren't able to come up with any kind of viable solution to getting that. Spin that shit like a friggin' like a gunslinger. 1849. Oh boy. She's like, I said viable solution.
SPEAKER_01Slightly back in a holster. I should just throw a belt loop because you don't have an effective holster.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I suppose if you could get one to stand still long enough to spray this stuff on them, it might have uh uh an impact.
SPEAKER_05I mean, we thought it was a great idea. I mean, I think we were using ourselves as bait in our plan, but right.
SPEAKER_04This was a contingency plan. This wasn't plan A. Right.
SPEAKER_01But to be fair, there is no plan B there's more acid here.
SPEAKER_05No, that was all we were able to synthesize. Do you have a fuel tank full of acid and a fire hose?
SPEAKER_01Do you have a super soaker? A children's toy from the 2000s.
SPEAKER_03No, but we have a fuel re a refueling station? A portable pump. Kinda like, yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I mean it's the problem is we empty all of our Windex bottles into this thing, and that's enough for a second.
SPEAKER_03Right. You spray like th one round of spray. It'd really work though, if it hit anything.
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, we could take the APC back and go get the VA.
SPEAKER_03There's only less than a gallon left in it. Between the five people, it was essentially a quart each. There was only two gallons total.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. So we're not really gonna get that much out of it no matter what.
SPEAKER_03No, no, right.
SPEAKER_05This plant doesn't have like acid rain or anything, does it?
SPEAKER_03The planet? Yeah. No, it's definitely not acid rainy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it would probably be detrimental to a creature that considers it its home planet if it's number one weakness happened randomly every day. Well, sure, but probably wouldn't have evolved that way.
SPEAKER_04No, that's mother nature for you. Alright, so what are we doing?
SPEAKER_01We're going to get hinton.
SPEAKER_05Eventually. I like how he said that definitively. Like we weren't gonna argue about it for another half hour. Well eventually. He's going to get hint in. To be honest with you, we just have to make a decision.
SPEAKER_01We have to get hinton. Eventually.
SPEAKER_05Every decision is right and every decision is wrong. We just have to make one.
SPEAKER_04So we're going to go get the communication tower back up and running and get stupid screeching.
SPEAKER_01Get Hinton back. We've check marked all of our mission goals.
SPEAKER_03Checkmarking all of our requirements doesn't do jack shit unless we have a ride off this rock.
SPEAKER_01That's where I'm going with it. We can get the right. Then we need to go get Hinton.
SPEAKER_05If you were the company, would you get us off of this rock at this point?
SPEAKER_01Nope.
SPEAKER_03If they knew what we knew, nope. Well, the only way that would happen is if somebody gives us up. They don't know what we know because we can't talk to them. Correct. Right. But if we would. This is Pandora's mission objectives at this point. You see Brookman kind of leaning in, like, but if we could talk to them, look, I don't see any reason why they need to know about what? You think that Frank would tell him? Absolutely. Before Hinton.
SPEAKER_05Before we got on the ship or after or Hinton. What good does it do you to get on the ship? By the time you get off the ship, everybody's dead.
SPEAKER_03How so? Because none of us are infected.
SPEAKER_05You're going to take this particular problem with us unless we figure out a way of neutralizing it within ourselves.
SPEAKER_03Well, are you infected? We don't know. You see him have quiet open eyes there.
SPEAKER_05I'm on the assumption that we're all infected.
SPEAKER_03I'm not infected. As far as you I haven't been exposed to the scream in weeks. We don't turn the comms on.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but you were exposed to the scream.
SPEAKER_03A while ago. A long while.
SPEAKER_01And you've already told us that you don't know how long the gestation period is.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's a few days. No more than four or five days. I've never seen anybody hold out much longer. And how many people have you observed die from this? Too many?
SPEAKER_05Dr. Adim knows about synthesizes. You should too, Doctor.
SPEAKER_03I'm not a doctor. He's a corpsman. I'm a medic.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know any corpsmen that didn't think of themselves as doctors. Yeah, were any of them doctors? No, but they all thought of them that they were.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because a bunch of Marines called him Doc, including Brookman. The Marines call him Doc. But there is also a doctor with them. Right, but not a medical doctor. No. I don't think so.
SPEAKER_05But anyway, my thought is that the one person who knows more than both me and Dr. Adim is Hinton. Correct. And if we don't solve that problem, it doesn't do us any good at all. Doesn't do us any bit good at all to get off of this rock.
SPEAKER_01Person? Listen, according to the Synthetic Rights Act of the United States. If corporations are briefing five, we are considered humans by all intents and purposes.
SPEAKER_05Right. I don't believe any of you ingested the point that I was trying to make.
SPEAKER_04We need Hinton. We need Hinton. We don't need Hinton. That's racist.
SPEAKER_05He knows more than anybody else about this. And I know you think that harmonicas and turning wrenches solves all problems, but trust me, knowledge solves the problems.
SPEAKER_04Well, how do we get here then if it wasn't for harmonicas and wrenches? Harmonica and wrenches. And a little bit of knowledge. So far, every problem we've encountered has been solved with harmonicas and wrenches. Or bullets. Or vibration. So what exactly do we need to know other than That's how we get paid.
SPEAKER_05How we get the fuck off this rock. There could be one of these things inside you right now, my Mr. You're right. There could.
SPEAKER_01Or there couldn't. Okay. We don't know. You want to take that coin flip, or do you want the guy with the data on how to possibly solve it?
SPEAKER_05How's he gonna know? And even if he doesn't know, we'll take his damn chip out.
SPEAKER_01You're an engineer. And figure it out. You consult with experts on projects and tasks, correct? Yeah. There you go. Show me an expert on this creature. That guy there isn't one. Okay. Probably the gentleman that this doctor said knows the most, has the most intuition about, got most of her data from.
SPEAKER_03Hey. Not most. Okay. Excuse me.
SPEAKER_01You work together with this fellow.
SPEAKER_03So he at least shares similar information with you, and possibly a little more because so if I meet somebody that has a brochure on something, they know more about that thing than I do. That doesn't make them a fucking expert.
SPEAKER_01No, but the one that was knee deep and elbows in it, conducting experiments. There was Hinton and I. There was Hinton and her.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so she's an expert.
SPEAKER_01Well, but she wants Hinton back as well for she doesn't know.
SPEAKER_03So why does why are we assuming Hinton does?
SPEAKER_04Do we want to find out?
SPEAKER_03I need to get if I have I can get to my samples in the lab, I'll know, I'll have everything on record that we had up to the point of the case. And that lab being Greta Base? No. It's here. Through the elevator. She points off to the why can't you get to those samples? Well, just not going down there alone. Down where? To the lab. The lower levels. The lower levels are they occupied? They've been occupied. And why did Hinton go to the reactor? They wanted to hit the bypass because of the flooding. But there's a good chance that the reactor could shut down automatically if we don't get the bypasses from the upriver pumping stations running. If we do that, then when we sent people down, Valdez, some Marines were sent down with Hinton. Was he successful? We don't think so, no. The flooding has continued to rise. And we have not heard from any of them since, but now you're saying that Hinton is somewhere completely different. This tracker, this tracker is here.
SPEAKER_01This tracker is here.
SPEAKER_04They need to get the pumps going to keep the river from flooding. Good. There's something for you two to do.
SPEAKER_01You can leave the smart things for the smart people.
SPEAKER_03Oh. Well, there is one smart person here. Don't keep us in suspense. I'm standing right here.
SPEAKER_04So shall we go check the reactor then? Because apparently we need to get the reactor online or we all get drowned.
SPEAKER_03You have to keep it online.
SPEAKER_04We have to keep the reactor online or we all drown, and trying to get the communications up is going to be moot. Why do we drown if we don't keep the reactor online?
SPEAKER_03Because we flood. We might not flood, but you won't have any power, and there would be no way to necessarily resist.
SPEAKER_05And even if we get the comms right back up, it'll power down as soon as the reactor goes up.
SPEAKER_04So that makes the reactor very important to the any process we're trying to deal with. Great.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, we're back to And that could lead to hinton. So I will I will say let's check the reactor.
SPEAKER_05Why don't we talk this shit shit to death? Maybe the aliens will all come out of us and kill every one of us before we make a fucking decision.
SPEAKER_01I agree.
SPEAKER_05I've been saying we need to go to the comedy the whole time.
SPEAKER_04But we may need to go. We may need to go. So we need to go there first before the reactor shuts down. Or we keep the reactor, we go down to the reactor and keep the reactor online.
SPEAKER_03If they couldn't get there, why do you think we can? Because we have brilliant engineers with us.
SPEAKER_04I think he's making fun of us.
SPEAKER_03It's really hard to tell, isn't it? Do you guys have vibro shuts here? No, nobody felt the need to bring one of those things. Well, apparently they work very well.
SPEAKER_05They chew right through those little bastards.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. Who's gonna get close enough to use it?
SPEAKER_05That guy.
SPEAKER_03And you live through it.
SPEAKER_05Cut his fucking legs right off. And I trust me, I'm gonna go look for one to send him at very soon.
SPEAKER_04Click suit up. We're going down. I never took my suit off. Well, okay, put your helmet on. We're going down. No, you're going to the com.
SPEAKER_03Could always split the party.
SPEAKER_04No problem. You go to the comedy. Why don't you take the medic? You're the only one that wants to go there, so go ahead. Well, actually, that might make sense. Take the medic and his party, go to the comrade, get that working. I'll go down to the reactor and keep it online so that way you can actually get something going.
SPEAKER_03I don't know how good that makes uh makes for a podcast splitting the party, since half of you will be quiet or more. Or making off-color comments. That's Sean. That's technically what will happen. McDuff goes out to try to fix the comma ray. Everyone else chimes in all the time.
SPEAKER_05But if we if we don't have a decision inhibitor with us, we don't have a go much faster.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I get it. I know, but you mean by decision inhibitor? Mr. Devil's Advocate walking.
SPEAKER_04I still don't understand how we get gained from hinton. I don't get it. I'm not worried about Hinton. I'm worried about mission objective.
SPEAKER_03So just to interject here, one of the things that the game loves to point out is that you might have all of these objectives where you're like, I want to do this thing, that thing, and the other thing. But sometimes your choices are limited into, well, what can I do to survive, right? So you could solve the you could like, all right, I could find Hinton. But if I find Hinton, how do I call the goddamn spaceship? Am I stuck on this planet? If I call the spaceship to get me off of this planet, how do I find Hinton, right? And the game literally points out sometimes you won't be able to do all of those things. So what eventually you have to come to the crux of the matter and what find out what is most important to your characters is it you might be able to complete the mission and then not get off the planet, but not get right? You could do all the things that they tasked you to do and not make it off the planet, right? Right, which is what they seem to choose. Right. Or you could do the decision to make it off the planet, go back to your company and say, Well, we tried, but we wanted to live more than we wanted to complete the mission, and then the company's like they send you to asteroid belt alpha zeta out there on the outer reaches to spend the rest of your long contract, and you never get to see like another real planet again.
SPEAKER_05Until a crab erupts out of your head because you didn't get it taken care of than walking into an alien hive.
SPEAKER_03I'm just pointing out that the game build tries to build these kind of decisions into you. Love it. Right, because you could like you could literally argue about this until the river floods. I know you guys. You're like, oh yeah, three days later we're still arguing about it. Nobody's done anything, right? Meanwhile, the river's overflowed, the reactor's shut down, whatever Hinton might be or might or may not be doing happens or doesn't happen, all of these things, and meanwhile, you guys would still be sitting here arguing about it. What the hell are you gonna do? Because I'll make the decisions for you.
SPEAKER_04I still think keeping the reactor online is gonna be essential to keeping the comms up, to getting the comms up and running. I think we need to keep that reactor online, otherwise we could end up being without power, which making doesn't do us any good.
SPEAKER_05Well, why do we think that these comms are gonna be better than mine?
SPEAKER_04Well, no, but the idea is that we get whatever's creating the interference shut down via the comms. That's all of a sudden regenerating them.
SPEAKER_03So what we're just overpower it. So we have a nuclear reactor, you can boost the signal and overpower whatever interference.
SPEAKER_04But it needs to stay online in order for us to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_05We just gotta get a shortcut. I don't think we need like some concert gear. We need to wear a slayer at Magnetic.
SPEAKER_04So we need we need the Marshall stacks fully plugged in. Yes, gotcha.
SPEAKER_03We should go to the com array. There seems to be a distinct lack of giant speakers in the garage. Well, that kind of sucks. Well, that sucks. I'm just saying. Do we have any giant speakers? There's a not in the garage. In the corner of the garage, there's one of those like megaphone announcements.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, block box. Okay.
SPEAKER_01After calculating all the probabilities and success chances of each of our choices, I've determined that going with the McDuff is the least painful option. Just agree with him and let's do what he wants to do, and it'll be less painful than if we have to deal with aliens and or bugs or nuclear reactors.
SPEAKER_05That only takes us to the next decision tree.
SPEAKER_01That's just true. We are just putting off our pain.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I am generally of the opinion that making a decision is more important than which decision you make. We could have already been to the Comore that was a entire freaking point.
SPEAKER_04Fine. Shall we take the APC? Shall we load up the APC and Lutley? All right. All right.
SPEAKER_05So this is freaking idiocracy. Yeah, it will freaking work.
SPEAKER_03I agree that this is our who wants to go with us to Brookman Brookman and is it comes over with Ivanovic. Alright. Y'all got a machine gun for that top hatch? Oh I don't think you can take that APC across the dam. I'm not sure if it's wide enough. It might be. We can definitely get the UTV. No, that ATV would sink like a stone. Okay. So there is a way to like drive across. You got a slight view of it from before. But you haven't like opened the door or scouted out or anything else the dam to take a look at it and see how you may or may not get across. So we gotta take the smaller vehicles. It's yeah, it was never really designed to drive an APC across it. Well, that's dumb. I mean we have two small vehicles. Why would we need to drive an APC across the top of a dam?
SPEAKER_04Anything that would carry heavy equipment across to help construction.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, you talked sober about that. I'm just a I'm just a medic. And I want to leave. That's why I'm with you guys right now, because I want to leave. Fine. They're not gonna let us leave. So how many of it's a what how many vehicles? Well, that's all we have is two. You got two of these, they're called Valkyrie ATVs, ironically enough. That's the uh the Valkyrie song. And how many can they hold? They can hold three each. One, two, three, four, five, six. There's two of them and four of you. Alright, fine. Do they each have a machine gun mounted on the front? Okay, all right. Passenger seat.
SPEAKER_04I'm driving one of them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's a passenger seat and then essentially like a spot for a gunner, we'll call it. Gotcha. On the standing up kind of deal in the back. How wet are we going to get? Doesn't matter. It's wet. So just uh as a little aside here, inside the hangar, you did as I mentioned, there's an elevator. There's the there's three ATVs, one of which was broken. There's a little some gasoline and a small generator that's uh semi-portable, we'll call it, and some fuel for the generator.
SPEAKER_04All right, do we have extra stuff is all do we have an extra radio boom box type thing to generate more noise? Or you just have one?
SPEAKER_03Oh, and I didn't realize before, but the top of the dam is wide enough for your AT or your APC. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Everybody pile into that, let's go. It's closed, it's armored, it's loud. It's loud, it has its own sensors. And it's ours. I don't care. And it's now got a machine gun on the hard point. Right. And it now has a machine gun on the hard point. We load up the APC. We're going to take the APC across. Okay. Because that just makes a hell of a lot more sense.
SPEAKER_05All right. Uh whichever knight and bags is good at um heavy weaponry.
SPEAKER_03And we'll load the speakers up to You see uh Ivanovic is like, I'll take the weapons. Alright. And let's get that in. Knight and Bags are like, are you sure you want us going along? I mean, we will, I guess.
SPEAKER_04Where else would you be? I shrugged.
SPEAKER_03Come with us. You just want to wait.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean I'd like to leave and all. But we're trying to do. Are you sure?
SPEAKER_05We're gonna get over there, we're gonna make that call, and nobody's gonna come down.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Okay. Alright. So honestly, I fully anticipate not being able to make the call anyway, but that's what I would do trying to survive. Okay. Alright. So you load up into the APC. Do we have any kind of extra gear? Like you dropped off your food and water here, I'm assuming. Yep. You mounted one of the machine guns on the roof, and there's got our sport bottles. Grabbing the generator cables and the fuel canister.
SPEAKER_01I'm asking the Marines, does anyone have a smart rifle? Is there a smart rifle in the armory here?
SPEAKER_03Stand by. Let's go over there and take a look, Frank. That's Ivanovic walks out. And the radio. I'm pretty sure you got strap on the side of the vault. As you guys go to 40 to 10. Alright, so she walks you, Ivanovic walks you over to the supply, and uh you see there's a couple of general purpose machine guns, two it it lists here as explosive devices. Not sure exactly what that means. There are twelve pulse rifles, thirty-two fragrenades, a flamethrower, and various other fortification things like sandbags, razor wires, and things like that. We'll call the explosive devices, we will call those claymore. Front towards enemy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, we found I was looking for a sniper rifle, but none none of that. No, there's pulse rifles. Pulse rifles. What's that? 3d 10? I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_04I think we should probably all take a pulse rifle. Trade in our submachine guns? Yes, it's a good idea.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Now the ranges are different on those. I believe they have a long range, extreme range, which means whenever anything is at close range, 30 feet or less, you have disadvantage on your shot. I thought that was the smart rifle had that. Wait, isn't that oh that's really I'm reading the smart rifle. Sorry. Pulse rifle is different. Yeah, the pulse rifle is the general infantry weapon. Yep. Yeah, it's the basic gun. And it has long range, but no disadvantage at close or adjacent. I think we had some extra ammo on that we got out of the locker. That's a 3D 10, right? Yep, 3D 10. And also there's 48 mags, so uh 10 sh five shots each mag. So let's see. Yeah, sure. How many mags? Take three. They give he gives you three. They load up. I'll take a couple of frag grenades as well. Alright, there's 32, so we'll take two each. Somebody begs is like, I'm good. I got these in the barracks from the from Greta base. Alright. Now we are a little better equipped. You guys look loaded for war. I grabbed the blowtorch. That's a good idea. Blowtorch?
SPEAKER_04Flamethrower.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. Flamethrower. Flamethrower, blowtorch.
SPEAKER_04The flamethrower is in the back of the APC.
SPEAKER_03Oh, great. That's not optimal. Well, where do we put it?
SPEAKER_01Let's put it on top of the APC. That's a lot better.
SPEAKER_03Can we have another 20-minute argument about what we store in the APC where? Would it be better in the cab? It might as well be. Why don't you put it in your lap? Just hold it. The tanks go in your back anyway, right? Not my back. Well, just in general. Yeah. They do flamethrowers. Like a backpack. Okay. In theory. So you let up the APC like you're going off to the front. A highly volatile backpack. You see Ivanovic is uh talking to one of the other Marines who's hanging out. And you see the when we go out, close the door behind us. We'll be back in hopefully half an hour. I'm rigging a bandolier of acid flasks. Okay. And holstering my spray box. That's a good idea.
SPEAKER_04As long as you don't get squished.
SPEAKER_03Or a rock thrown at you. Taking the fuckers with me. So to give a bit of a description of the dam, it's uh on the about 10 feet wide across the top, or 10 meters, I'm sorry, across the top, to the dam side where it goes down about 60 meters. On the right, the water is very close to the top of the dam. It is not night, but it is dark out because of the thickness of the clouds and the storm. And you see there's also above the entire thing, there's like a maintenance walkway across the top as well that goes across from the top of the I gotta climb up the reactor cooling tower here a bit, and then it goes all the way across the top of the dam. It's actually out over the spillway where you can like look down your 60 meters, and then that leads right to the side of the tower across the way, and then you have the road that goes off at the same angle as the dam. The entire thing is constructed out of concrete and steel. These things like the water? I'm asking the doctor. I don't know. I mean, they don't seem to be impacted by the water out of the sky one way or another. No, but they do they do they hide out in the water? Uh, we haven't noticed. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05So we should probably turn the sensors on. I'm gonna get the bioscanner along the I'm gonna scan into the water. Blast the radio.
SPEAKER_03Your bio little bioscanner doesn't have the power to go right to go through the water very far. Full sensor array. Right. You do when you you do manage to see, I think, in the middle of the dam, you do see one of the creatures wandering around on top of the middle of the dam. Up on top, well, in the main where you would drive. A sentry. Lovely. So you load up.
SPEAKER_04Nope.
SPEAKER_03You have one of the marines opens the large garage door, and you head out to go across the dam in an attempt to fix or shut down the comma ray in the hopes to call your ship and maybe shut down this noisy shriek. Yes. And find out what happens next on the next episode of Retro Rollcast.
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