'Playing Out In The Rocks' Cepheus Engine Rpg Session Report Seven - A Deep Hole In The Ground & Deeper Circumstances

 Its been all wine & roses with the Allard Technologies corporation until they tried to lay claim on another corporation's property. The PC's came face to face with the another corporation's marines cum security forces and it wasn't pretty. 

And this week we totally pulled the rug out from under the player's PC's on Mercury as the Allard Technologies put in a claim for the alien star gate. Well, the player's PC's were captured by the Martouk Experimentation & Research corporate forces. This session picks up where the last on left off.  The Martouk Experimentation & Research corporate forces buttoned the PC's up for Earth side. And then stuck into a hole in the ground.  The hole in this case is a private underground prison/Fortress, the inmates are computer controlled with CCTV, dream readers and devices that can cause pain or death. Yup that's right we're now using the 1992 sci fi prison film Fortress. Fortress (1992)  Christopher Lambert, Loryn Locklin, Kurtwood Smith is a film tt's been on our radar for years. Its been used in rpgs at our table for everything from Cyberpunk to Superhero campaigns. The Fortress facility was sold to Martouk after the events  of the film or Martouk was behind the Mental corporation the details are unimportant as the time. 

The Martouk Experimentation & Research corporation is interested in cornering the market on psionic abilities coupled with cybernetics. Since the forces of These Stars Are Ours have appeared this has thrown Martouk into high gear. The stargate on Mercury represents full on access to other planes or dimensions. Something Martouk is willing to murder for. Martouk does not want the PC's dead per say but compliant instead. They know about Michael Brown's Cold War: Containment events & they'd like to prevent a rehash of those events. 

The PC's are being studied while the corporate world courts & the space authority decides the fate of the  'The Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky'. The space craft sits in dry dock while the PC's are dissected in their hole out in the middle of the Mexican desert. Apollo the A.I.  has slipped a synthetic into their midst named Michael who  was created using Cepheus Engine rpg book Synethics from Zozer games. 

The data that they retrieved from their ship is still with them as their hacker's mind  wasn't searched  yet. The Russians provided them with some very dangerous intel. To really mess with the  players we went back to 'The Dragon' issue#35 which has an article for original Traveller by James  Hopkins titled Black Holes. 

There's indications that the sinister Malmori Empire has been messing with an alien stable black hole power generator that the corporations want to get their hands on. The Russians know something about it but it the Reticulin's seem to have own it at one point. There's lots of intrigue going on here. And Dr. Hans Reinhardt's name came up during game play over the weekend. One of the inmates having been the mad genius's research assistant in general population in the prison. 

Next week the player's PC's start circulating into general population. They are unaware of  the cyborgs guarding their hole in the ground of a holding facility. The specter of Dr. Hans Reinhardt continues to haunt the campaign.