SWN Session Report: Sci-Fi Makeover Edition

I ended up last night's session 350 xp points shy of ascending to a Level Four Specialist.  My griping was rewarded by Ark saying, "Okay, you do the writeup for the session, and I'll top you off."

So here we go.  The following description is based on notes taken in session by Adelaide, and relayed after the fact.

Waking up yet again from their frozen slumber, the Redshirt Brigade bravely puked their guts out, while they received their new orders - to go to a planet and take over a ship.  Through some sort of consensus that did not involve the majority of interested parties, their newly acquired ship was named, "Molten Rain".  Because the crew had also acquired an AI on their last mission, another AI was sent by homebase because they didn't trust the newly acquired AI.

Yeah, I didn't quite get that one either, but I wasn't there for it, so I'm sure there was more to it.  Whatever - New PC!  WOOHOO!

As they finished puking, they pulled up to the planet, just in time to see the ship cruising around the surface, with a gorgeous woman in tow, water skiing along behind.

The ship looked like this:

The woman looked like this:

Owlicious scanned the girl, and determined that not only was she human, she had a chip in her head, much like the chips recently acquired by the group. There was much hacking, as they first tried to hack the woman, then the ship.  They managed to piss off the AI controlling the ship, which hacked the Molten Rain (is it stuck in your head yet?).  As it turns out, though, this was a good thing, since the asshole AI from the last session had stowed away on the ship, hoping to twirl its moustache, stroke its cat and take over the world.

After an epic hacking war, the rogue AI was shoved into a thumbdrive, jettisoned, and then blown up for good measure.

Having shown their prowess, the party was invited to the ship for dinner.  There was much anxiety and fussing over what everyone would wear, never having been invited to a dinner party before.  The outfits that were finally settled upon were as follows:

Owlicious: 

Kal Kek: 

Desmond: 

Dr. Ramesh Ramapudi:

Gustav Adler: 

Five:

AI Jericho:

Yes, it was a very fancy dinner party.  The party was greeted by Yvonne, the woman shown above who had  been water skiing.  It turned out that she was the Pepper Potts to the owner of the ship's Tony Stark.  Being a knockout was just a bonus.

They were lead to a dining area where she sat down and began to sing, "Fly Me to the Moon".  Professor Ramapudi, realizing that he knew that song, sat down next to her and began to sing along, before segueing into a rousing rendition of Tunak Tunak Tun.

In a stunning coincidence, it turned out that Yvonne was very familiar with the song, and summoned holographic images of herself and Professor Ramapudi, and the dining area became the set of a Bollywood movie for a moment, as dozens of Ramapudis and Yvonnes danced and sang together (but never kissed!).

Needless to say, Professor Ramapudi was smitten.

Dinner was served as the host, Charles Shuttleworth (of the Asgard Shuttleworths, naturally) entered.  As it turned out, he was a really nice guy, not even seeming to mind as Professor Ramapudi played footsie under the table with his Gal Friday.  Conversation was made, and both AIs decided they liked him more than they liked the government they were (supposedly) working for, and decided to submit resumes with his HR department.  "Doc" Davies woke up at that point and shuffled in, joining the party.  

After a delightful evening, Yvonne showed everyone to their rooms, then showed Professor Ramapudi to her room.  Nudge nudge, wink wink, knowwhatimean, knowwhatimean?  A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh squire?

"Doc" Davies and Owlicious got tanked on margaritas, the AIs wandered the hallways of the ship looking for the HR Department, and everyone else had a restful night's sleep.  Unfortunately, they were awoken by Lt. Five, who had a message from their commander, wanting to know their status.  Lies were told, promises made, and commanders were gotten off of collective backs.  

That unpleasantness taken care of, the decision was made that, rather than assault this really nice guy and steal his ship, they would try and negotiate with him, to see if he would sell them a ship or two.  Or perhaps a neutron bomb or something.  The group found Mr. Shuttleworth and went on a tour of the ship, which was full of super high tech goodies, which he passed out like candy at Halloween.  Over lunch, the conversation was lively - he disclosed the secret to making psychics - good breeding stock, and conception in hyperspace.  The party stored that piece of knowledge, then prodded him for more information.  He had a fondness for miniaturized sharks and whales that he grew himself, much like he had grown the ship upon what they sailed.  Naturally the party's collective ears perked up.  Finally, the topic of trade is broached.  As it turns out, Shuttleworth's tech was far beyond anything the party could offer to trade with him, with one, small, exception.

He wanted people.

Specifically, he wanted more psychics.  

Thinking back to the vast numbers of Redshirts on ice back at homebase, and the lack of regard for humanity that such an arrangement implied, they told Shuttleworth that it was very likely that their masters would have no problem trading a few thousand psychics for a level ship battleship.

Thus reintroducing the slave trade to the future.  Yay!

As it turns out though, while temporarily enslaving soldiers in ice before sending them out on random, arbitrary reasons is well within the Aquila Union's comfort zone, letting other parties do it with their people is out of bounds.  The commander was iffy on the whole deal, but promised to run it up the flag pole to see who would salute.

Meanwhile, Professor Ramapudi bid farewell to the beautiful Yvonne, as the Redshirts went back into storage........