Here's the thing. I've been running a mecha campaign lately, and if I'm timing this post right, its coming to a climax about now. It was however a “season 2”. What started as a series of loosely connected one-shots became its own universe and baggage. And then I got two new people playing. So, I wrote some stuff, and now you get to read it. Isn't that fun?
New Player Introduction
OK, so imagine your generic, giant robot, space future. Its a distant binary star system called Romulus and Remus, where due to some quirk of subspace, lost spacecraft would be drawn. It was originally colonised by shipwrecked crews. Eventually, more permanent settlements were established, and the planets terraformed, but weirdness would still periodically come out of hyperspace portals to cause trouble. This prompted the foundation of the “Peacemaker” group, whom basically operated a bit like a rapid reaction force meets SCP, whom favoured black uniforms and black paint-jobs. The Peacemakers grew in power from a team of specialists into an army unto itself. For some reason this was not considered sinister. Perhaps it was the systems sizeable Neko population distracting people. I mean, people love cats, but uplifted, 3 foot tall, intelligent cats with thumbs? People probably went deaf from all the squeeing. And were then badly mauled because your average Neko hates being patronised. Where was I? Oh yes, the party. So, the party were a team of test pilots under Professor Diana Lovelace, known as the “New Texas Test Team”, after where they tested, and later the “Danger Magnets”, because reasons. They were involved with testing of new mecha prototypes, and promptly found themselves in a stock gundam plot. Then they found themselves encountering some strange eldritch monster, only to be conscripted into the Peacemakers by a dude they happened to rescue. He was First Lieutenant Austin “Thunderclash” D'Arcy, charismatic, handsome, and multi-talented. The actual star of the show. What a guy. Some adventures followed, suggesting that the Peacemakers weren't all they appeared, and the Test Team seemed to have a fan/stalker in the form of a stealth battleship which could inexplicably turn invisible. Then plot happened.
The party was hired by one Madame Webb, whom is a long story, to track down an alien spacecraft that might enable her to rejoin her race of spider-aliens. As the party are protagonists as well as being roleplayers, they didn't get very far, but they did stumble on evidence that the Peacemakers were faking alien invasions as a means to secure funding. Lt Thunderclash appeared to silence the party, whom, disbelieving their situation, found themselves utterly outclassed. Then Lovelace remembered that their mecha could combine into one even bigger robot, having neglected to mention this previously. They'd all been drinking, it was a night, OK? Thunderclash quickly became an expanding cloud of debris, along with the rest of his team, and the players were now wanted criminals, but this was OK, because that battleship that been following them turned out be friendly. He was called Ironsides, and wanted them to join his roaring rampage of revenge against the Peacemakers. Which was nice.
Then, more stuff happened, as the players attempted to clear their names as well as violently murder any space-fascists they ran into. They also helped out some miners and went to a convention, as you do. Various plot things happened, with mounting evidence that the players were part of a time paradox, via some mysterious artefacts known as Paradox Crystals. Things got real when the players found out about the other Peacemaker side project, which involved harvesting brains for use as mecha components, the reveal of which triggered a civil war. The brain harvesting and Paradox Crystals were incidentally what allowed Ironsides to exist, the poor guy is a brain in a jar, controlling an entire battleship by himself. The players returned to the Texas Colony, rallying allies as they went, in an attempt to rescue the stolen brains, only for recurring antagonist Brave Halibut to escape with them, leaving behind new prototype mecha to fight, the Gemini. The tragedy was people used to make these mecha no-longer really existed. Their brain hemispheres had been separated in order to operate a pair of machines, networked as one. Things then escalated, as Militia forces and the party attack the Peacemaker HQ. It turned out Ironsides had a robot mode, and he made an entrance for the party. In the following battle, the full nature of the time paradox was revealed, as the party decided to destroy the Paradox Crystals they found, and disappeared in an explosion of timey-whimey bullshit...
Ok, you got all that? Good. It probably doesn't matter now as the party has found themselves in a strange new world.
Mecha Hack Season 2: A Prose Preview.
The planet Losonia, in the year 20,004 of the old calender. It is a bright summer day, with the occasional picturesque white cloud. Mega-fauna flock around the numerous circular lakes. Farmers work the fields with giant machines, occasionally opening fire on a passing giga-duck. Cities bustle, formed from the ruins of earlier times. Vast hills, on closer inspection, turn out to be the ivy covered remains of spacecraft and artefacts from the early days. No spacecraft fly from Losonia any more. None have visited for generations. The locals stopped caring a while back, history has degraded into myth, and the city-states feud over the few bits of salvage-tech that remain. And also, there is a big problem people are trying to ignore. But, hey, at least the weather is nice.
Underground, there is no weather of course, but there is an atmosphere. The kind where duplicitous men consider their next fraud, while marks wait nervously. Father Maxwell and his assistant Dougal walk though the ancient catacombs, built during the earliest days of settlement. Dougal asks nervously “Will this work, Father?”, obviously struggling with something. Maxwell shrugged, “If we are worthy, God will help us. Have they all paid up?”. Dougal nodded. The faithful were a mix of people, some human, some nekos, some stupid, some in mourning, but all desperate. Dougal was dimly aware that he had joined a cult, one of many that had sprung up in last in few years, persisting well into the new millennium. He world hadn't ended, but the strange Moonites had attacked, and then attacked at the next full moon, and then nothing, only to strike at the full moon 3 months later. Nobody could stop them, nobody knew what they actually were, just that they came with the Moon, to slaughter and steal. Dougal was not quite as eloquent as that of course, but that was what he understood.
These catacombs were considered a National Heritage site, but Maxwell had put in the paperwork for today's event, closing it to the public. As they walked, they passed museum displays of various things, providing context for the big draw: The Murals. Painted at least 20 millennia previously via techniques lost, these displayed events from the first settlements and beyond. As you walked further, the further back you went. The pair hurried past encountered Apocalypse Wars 7, 6, 5, 4 was closed for restoration, 3, 2, and eventually 1. Then finally, the originals depicting events from the first settlement. Maxwell only glanced at the first one, but Dougal was more easily distracted. It portrayed a complicated battle, featuring the Warrior King Thunderclash, and his loyal ally The Liberator, in battle against the hated Peacetakers. A thought struck him, “Father, if we can summon Heroes from Legend, why not Thunderclash? He was surely the greatest of them?”. Maxwell stopped, thought for a moment, and remembered how the Loremaster answered that one. “Thunderclash died honourably to save us all, he has earned his rest. The Liberator was lost, cursed, trapped beyond time. We can help them, and then they will be honour-bound to help us.”. Dougal nodded, and hurried to catch up.
The Church of the Liberator Ascendant began to assemble in front of a mural with the descriptive title “The Liberator frees the Miners”. It was a full body shot of a vast robot aggressively wielding a drill, while lesser machines and human figures prostrated themselves around it. While Dougal greeted The Faithful and handed out the programmes, Maxwell wondered to himself how accurate the image actually was. Surely, they had scaled the mural to the size of this cavern, The Liberator could not possibly have been that big. But his was not to question, it was to “believe”. This had been a profitable scam so far. He began the service. It was fairly rote at this point, he'd done dozens of these, and it always went the same. Doctrine, doctrine, how The Faithful would be spared, a quick hymn, more doctrine, the chant, the failure of the chant as people were unworthy, the collection plate, and then, same time next Tuesday. After about 2 hours, they got to said chant: “Liberator Tumblemass, Tumblemass Liberator.”. Maxwell was very careful not to show on his face what he thought of the chant, but the Loremaster had been very definite about using it. Ten solid minutes of those four words, slowly increasing in tempo and gusto. There's a joke about modern music in there somewhere. As the chant progressed, people started missing the beat, prompting the Father to gesticulate, trying to get them back into rhythm. Then there were gasps, a cry of profanity, and a crunch from directly behind him. Maxwell, paused, and looked, as the chant stopped completely. The mural was shattering. Big slabs of it falling away, one smaller bit catching Dougal on the nose, whom didn't step away in time. A mechanical hum filled the room, and Maxwell blurted out the only thing he could think to say: “The Liberator Comes! It has come to save us all!”.
What he actually thought was, "Holy shit, it actually worked!".
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