Description
Today, the peddlers of Galactic Destinations have deigned to visit our most hallowed halls of Heinlein Stronghold. We of the Scientific Schismatics community, however, felt that they could no more do justice to our home amongst the stars than put together a properly constructed and syntactically correct sentence! We have, therefore, requisitioned production of this episode so that you, the humble listeners on the airwaves of the Mesh, may better understand the glorious work that is accomplished herein!
A legendary man of ancient scientific origin known as Robert Heinlein, namesake of our humble abode amongst the stars, is attributed as saying:
“Audacity, always audacity – soundest principle of strategy.”
Here on Heinlein Stronghold, we hold this to be one of the highest truths. It is for this reason that the order of Scientist Schismatics was first born. The Scientist Schismatic is someone who feels that, currently, scientific endeavor is held back by the rules and red tape of so-called organized society. We have therefore eschewed the trappings of governments like the Consortium or Gaule Protectorate in favor of the unsanctioned lifestyle available under Freebooter rule (and I use the term in its loosest possible sense) here on Heinlein Stronghold.
Freebooter ideology affords us certain freedoms and flexibilities that are simply non-existent under more official authorities. Here, we are able to research and experiment to our hearts’ content, in almost any scientific direction we could conceive of (that falls below an accepted threshold danger, accidental death and dismemberment, and so forth). And here within the Apples of Discord, this lawless philosophy is prevalent and enforced throughout!
The particular station of Heinlein Stronghold further aids in serving our agenda of research and development in that it was already a haven of science and technology Before! The station that orbits the planetoid known as Greta Thunberg that, in turn, performs a circumbinary orbit around the twin stars of Sirius A and B. Once, the station served to house vast research teams of the Consortium government that studied and performed research focused on the binary system.
After the system was liberated, Heinlein Stronghold became a beacon for freethinking scholars and scientists eager to utilize the powerful analytical and research technologies already housed on the station. A community slowly came together and soon the order of Scientist Schismatics was formed, vowing to pursue science unfettered by bothersome protocols and laws that hold back our former colleagues still laboring under governmental bodies.
The scientific community here does, perhaps, inherit some influence from the Freebooter ideology that permeates the greater population of the system. Often research is subject to competitive data attacks or good-natured altercations of a physical, and on rare occasion, deadly nature; but this only serves to add an adrenaline-fueled level of inspiration to a given project!
Finally, allow me to note that it is via a collaboration between the group of ‘hackers’ operating out of the The House of Congo and ourselves that the system is able to maintain its happy (and somewhat smug) autonomy. Original travelers arriving on Heinlein Stronghold post Catastrophe noted that a number of probes originally meant for manipulation of small and superficial changes in the surface energies of the Binary stars could be altered to increase this output exponentially.
This, in theory, would result in a potential disruption of the binary orbit of the twin stars and result in catastrophic levels of destruction. Thus, the threat of mutually assured destruction serves to keep any governmental and military forces belligerently at bay!
Finally, to quote our station’s namesake once more and in closing:
“If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it.”
Chronicle Text
The Scientist Schismatics who run this station are a group of researchers and inventors who have embraced the concept of unsanctioned science. Here, with the blessing of the freebooter way of life, they can research and tinker with anything their hearts or minds desire, free from the confining yoke of regulation. The entire facility is a bedlam of whacky machinery and colorful devices. Of course, when the scientific mind is untethered by law and legislation, it can occasionally lead to rivalry; dangerous, explosive, and ingeniously deadly rivalry. Welcome and watch your step on Heinlein Stronghold, the patron station of progress, no matter the cost.
Arrival Text
The Scientist Schismatics extend their welcome to you onto Heinlein Stronghold, the Galaxy’s sanctorum of lawless innovation!
Statistics
System: Sirius A
Affiliation: Freebooter
Level: 13
Legal: 3 (Low)
Orwellian: 6 (Medium)
Areas
Bank (Golden Apple Banking)
One of the only banking organisations to be allowed to establish a foothold in the Sirrius System, Golden Apple make their flexibility and customer’s privacy a point of pride. The building is a gaudily colored affair in gold and bronze, with Golden Apple logos shimmering holographic-ally off a number of surfaces. Gold plated robots walk among customers offering advice, pointing them in the right direction, or simply keeping everything sparklingly shiny!
While the establishment’s clientele are a hodgepodge of characters ranging from the immaculately dressed privateer to the shabbiest of smugglers, everyone seems to conduct themselves with a note of polite professionalism. When it comes to matters of currency, after all, everyone is thankful to have access to an organization that safeguards their hard, or possibly ill, gotten gains and doesn’t ask questions as to their origin.
NPCs
Brig
The Brig on Heinlein Station seems to be separated into two distinct levels, each with its own category and function. The lower level, being on the same floor as the administration (as far as there is any) offices, seems to be reserved mainly for overly inebriated inventors or scientists who may have become overly passionate about a project between each other. In short, it is a ‘sleep it off’ area. The cells here are comfortable enough with basic necessities and never seem to hold any long term occupants.
The second level of the brig on the floor above is a far darker and less visited place. Here is the place that seems to be reserved for ‘political prisoners.’ This translates to overly curious Consortium or Gaul Protectorate personnel who may have wandered onto the station and been deemed to be suspicious, have value, or a combination of both!
Most other crimes that may usually find miscreants incarcerated on other stations tend to be dealt with on the spot in Freebooter style and thus require no brig-space.
NPCs
Employment (Employment Center)
The Employment Center on Heinlein Stronghold is a strange looking building, squat and semi-spherical and pock-marked with large numbers of tubes and jury-rigged entrances for job delivery devices of the station’s Scientist Schistamtic’s own designs.
Pneumatic tubes, tiny drone tunnels, and all sorts of wires, and holo-data light cables wind around the room delivering their lucrative payloads to freelancers. The jobs, like their delivery methods, often range from the mundane to dangerous lunacy born of delirious brainstorm.
NPCs
Career Advisory (Follow the Dream Advice Zone)
The Career Advisory is a room within a building that seems pockmarked with entrances and tubes for delivery devices of all shapes and sizes. With the high level of ingenuity present on the station, various prospective employers have devised their own types of delivery systems in order to facilitate their needs.
The Career Advisory is, perhaps, the most unaffected room within the building as most in-station jobs are given via the other two rooms. Here, professionals of various levels and areas of expertise manage their careers and browse localized opportunities.
NPCs
Side Jobs
The confluence of the crazy network of pneumatic tubes and other 'ingenious' job request delivery devices is a small area in the back of the employment center. Here, the room is lit by a strange, almost fey, atmosphere as illumination filters through the various devices and colored tubes.
The Scientist Schismatics will often find inspiration at any time of the day or night, and will often request the same job in increasingly urgent frequency. The curator of incoming side jobs is quite harangued looking indeed.
| Name | Description | Credits | Statistic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Between a Grok and a Hard Place | Help a Scientist Grok. | 160 | 1x Strength, 1x Stamina, 1x Intelligence |
| H.E.D.s will roll | Perform maintenance on 1Abee's H.E.D. | 160 | 3x Social |
NPCS
Discreet Work
There is little Discreet about the Discreet Work section of the Career Advisory on Heinlein Stronghold. The only discretionary aspect of such prospects on this station is the competitive nature of different denizens projects towards their colleagues. To this end, a number of strange and perhaps overly extravagant devices of a privacy, espionage, and counter espionage nature can be seen around the area. The scientists of the station may not be spymasters of any degree, but they make up for this with a certain flair for both drama and creativity!
One holo-terminal, for example, seems to be the focus of a painfully ‘inconspicuous’ drone that hovers close by painted in various shades of brown and green camouflage, even though the building itself is a stark grey. Some half a meter above this drone hovers a second, its tiny sensor array pointed directly at the first. This drone is painted in a more cunning, shadowy theme though a small holo-plaque declares it to be the property of one ‘Professor Panthus Neutrino.”
NPCs
Government Center (Science Fair)
A building that seems to have once been the government center of the station stands alone in a plaza. Sweeping vistas from the adjoining viewing plates that make up the walls to either side of this district offer unparalleled views of Greta Thunberg and the binary stars beyond. The interior of the building has been stripped of all pomp and frills (evident gathering dust in a corner for hundreds of cycles) and converted into what appears to be an ongoing science fair of sorts.
Various Scientist Schismatics hold court over some invention or another in different corners of the room. Bubbling beakers or glimmering light beams lend an almost fey atmosphere to the whole affair as intellectual voices vie to be heard over each other as they showcase their work.
NPCs
Info Hub
Holo screens illuminate the area as news sources flow like a river of data from one terminal to the next. Occasionally, some government drone will adjust a particular metric or record another before buzzing about their duties.
Syndicate Services
Holo screens illuminate the area as news sources flow like a river of data from one terminal to the next. Occasionally, some government drone will adjust a particular metric or record another before buzzing about their duties.
VIP Lounge
Soft music and soothing lights drift through the atmosphere in the lounge. Robotic waiters clad in shiny (but not too shiny) chrome wheel between Citizens, dispensing smooth looking beverages.
Gym (Maximillian's Biometric Maximizer Gymnazyum)
A host of intricate machinery clicks and clacks throughout the ‘Gymnazyum’. Maximilian, apparently a fan of steam power, has retrofitted many of the exercise machines here with steam-powered additions and enhancements. This results in a low layer of fog throughout the gym, floating like a pale, velvety blanket across the ground.
Maximilian, himself a stocky, barrel chested Colonist genotype, struts about the area, proudly regaling anyone who will listen with the details of his steamy inventions.
You must have minimum combined physical stats of ??? to avoid injury at this gym.
NPCs
Inn (The Able Artificer Inn)
The common area of the Able Artificer connects to the barroom, the lounge, and the hotel area. Pneumatic tubes run along the ceiling as well as larger, translucent pathways for various types of messenger drone and robotic courier.
Various patrons interact with the robotic concierge, collecting messages and organizing conferences with fellow scientists while the walls and other surfaces whir and tick with strange looking gadgets and machinery that have been fitted over the cycles by passing schismatics in their good-natured efforts to improve the locale.
NPCs
Bar (The Able Artificer Barroom)
The atmosphere in the Able Artificer Barroom reminds one of a series of elaborate Rube Goldberg machines. A number of jury-rigged devices attached to drones and bots allow patrons to order and receive their beverages in increasingly more complex and, often, entertaining manners.
Several nozzles protruding from the wall behind the bar dispense various (and often incorrect) ingredients towards waiting receptacles that, more often than not, sport a number of fixed breaks and cracks. Overhead, a small railway suspended from the ceiling transports drones around the bar and launches them above the correct (sometimes) patron for them to float down and deposit an order.
Patrons seem to enjoy the uppity inventions enough that they only rarely lash out with violence towards some technological delivery device.
NPCs
Hotel Rooms (The Able Artificer Hotel Rooms)
The theme of the cycle in the Able Artificer establishment seems to very much be that of a constantly self-perpetuating Rube Goldberg device. The Hotel Rooms are no exception! Each room seems to differ from the next, almost as if patrons themselves improved upon existing designs during their stay. Some rooms include drones that have been jury-rigged to provide such amenities like running a bath or shaving a patron with minute plasma blasters while others are festooned with hologramatic jungles or similar locales.
Lounge (The Able Artificer Lounge)
The Lounge Area of the Able Artificer is bathed in the natural Green and purple hues reflecting off the planetoid, Greta Thunberg, far below the station. What appears to be a large window on the back wall is actually a cunningly disguised holo-projector, broadcasting a live view of the planet at all times.
An attractive gynoid happily plays music with an upbeat tempo on a strange, electro-magnetic device. She moves her fingers through the air, manipulating fields to elicit an eerily pleasant sound. Patrons are automatically served orders that they place directly via CORETECHS by small, softly buzzing drones
NPCs
Market (The Procurement Pavilion)
A large, holographic pavilion squats over the entire commercial district and bathes the area in a wash of strange, fey light. The garish greens and purples that are prevalent filter down through the tents and chrome awnings of the various vendor stalls that festoon the 'Pavilion'.
A number of shops seem to be selling personal inventions that various scientists are attempting to ply so that they can continue funding some experiment or another. Other stalls are aimed at the scientists themselves, with items like protective gear, lab equipment, and various chemicals scavenged from 'The Playground' being predominant.
Various ad-hoc devices, both visual, auditory, and in one disastrous attempt, olfactory in nature, attempt to draw buyers to each stall. One particular vendor loudly proclaims that at her prices, she may as well be cutting out her own tonsils.
NPCs
Vendors
Here you can find many things sold by different vendors.
Public Market (Pavilion Public Market)
One wing of the hologramatic pavilion, glistening with scintillating mint greens and brick orange, presumably to color code the area's specialty role, is reserved for direct trading. Here, ship captains and freelancers directly ply goods they procured on their travels.
The hazy, unreal colors light up lazily drifting motes of dust like microcosmic supernovas that meander through the crowd of sellers and potential buyers. The tributary of humanity that flows through the area is slow and easy while above, or below depending on your perspective, the gigantic viewing panels that flank the residential panel that houses the pavilion offer sweeping views of the Black outside.
Storage
You can find here enough space to store the things you do not want to carry.
Port
The port is often abuzz with activity as travelers enter and exit the airlocks connecting to the large, neighboring landing pad that can be seen through a wall nearby. The entire wall is actually a hologramatic display that acts as a window for the two sections. Scuffles occasionally break out between captains who may have dinged each other's ship or who took a more favorable parking space.
Should one look up, the port area offers an unparalleled view of Greta Thunberg, the planetoid the station orbits, as well as the two Sirius stars in the distance, via the neighboring wall of the cylinder that makes up this section of the station. The interior walls of the station cylinders alternate between habitat and viewport stretching for kilometres in each direction.
Arrivals
A bustling river of humanity with endlessly branching tributaries flows from the shuttles arriving here, through the processing gates, to crash onto the banks of eagerly awaiting locals receiving visitors from near or far flung parts of the galaxy. A number of travelers post the usual glazed looks of those recently harangued by any type of transportation system created and run by the human species. They drift with a mixture of existential confusion and relief through to the station beyond. Always, they are scrutinized by security or some type of subspecies therein.
Shipping Bay
The shipping bay on Heinlein Stronghold appears to be an endless maze of warehouses inhabited by hundreds of drones of all shapes and sizes. Drones the size of a small shuttle pick up and ferry packages around to customers while far off, in the distant shadows of the Bay, one can spot robots that resemble houses ambling about and apparently organizing distribution.
The area is shrouded in perpetual darkness as most clients may feel unsettled by the intimidating machinery that moves around the complex.
Docks
An ingenious looking system combining mechanical pulleys and giant drones dominates the view of the Docks on Heinlein Stronghold. Entire ships are lifted, moved, and stacked in a very efficient looking situation that almost triples the area’s capacity for parking vessels. The fact that this is all happening on a gigantic scale, moving cruisers and private fliers alike, only serves to add to the accidental grandeur of the scene.
The entire area is permeated with the tinny aroma of discharged plasma while an eerie silence, due to the lack of human workers, adds an element of the surreal. What few people move about the area are often just ship captains who are not entirely trusting of the mechanized system handling their vessels. Invariably though, they tend to watch a moment before offering a begrudging nod and moving off.
NPCs
Local Shuttles (Inter-Discordian Shuttle System)
Large groups of freebooters, scientist or otherwise, stand around the shuttle embarkation-disembarkation areas haphazardly, laughing and talking whilst awaiting their rides around the system. Queues and similar protocols are absent from the general proceedings, with groups of travelers simply drifting into waiting shuttles with a randomized, Brownian motion of humanity.
The Planetoid of Greta Thunberg can be seen drifting lazily below the station though the large, neighboring view-port that makes up a behemoth-sized section of the station's cylinder. In the far distance, one of the Dog Stars can also be seen glimmering against the black sky.
NPCs
Ruins (The Playground)
The Playground, as the ruins on Heinlein Stronghold are collectively referred to, consists of a small metropolis spanning several levels with buildings occasionally having fallen through (and thus granting unofficial access) to the floor below. The entire area is a strange soundscape of random explosions, energy discharges, and other, even odder sounds as any number of the station’s inventors conduct various secret but not very secret experiments in the area.
A certain measure of privacy is ensured by floating drones that range from hologramatic projections to hide an impromptu lab from view to buzzing fliers enabled with a number of security measures to dissuade the overly curious. Muffled explosions also punctuate the occasional and often terminal meeting between drones of different owners.
The Ruins serves up danger in all sorts of flavors. Scavengers pick through The Wrecks, fighting savagely for overlooked prizes among the debris. Syndicates, under license from station authorities, renew buildings and facilities within the Syndicate Districts. And The Wilds are nothing short of a warzone, where the toughest Syndicate militia battle hardened criminals in an endless struggle for spoils and turf.
NPCs
The Wrecks
The Wrecks are an unequivocal no-man's land. Not even the Syndicates have begun to comb through the detritus of pre-cat civilization. It's dangerous here, but not altogether unworthy of exploring. Due to the instability of the Wrecks, and the tendency for unsavory types to skulk around among them, they often prove quite profitable to sift through.
On any given day the Wrecks pivot between desolate emptiness and sparse population by desperate people avoiding prying eyes, bandits, and merchants looking for some cheap and interesting wares. It can be worth your time to pull on a pair of gloves and dig through the debris in the wrecks in search of something useful, just keep your wits about you during your excavation. You never know who's watching in the wrecks.
The Wilds (The Offshoots)
The Wilds are a desperate warren of blind alleys and deadly corners. With unreliable lifeline systems, the area has become the domain of those to whom danger is mother’s milk. Feral tribes, solitary scavengers, and well-armed Syndicates roam these blood-soaked walkways, unhinged in equal parts by primal terror and the promise of bounties lurking in the rubble.
Syndicates use these bullet-riddled spaces for insecure storage, and many a bandit has been cut down attempting a bold raid on someone else’s well-guarded cache. Once a benign web of service tunnels; every inch of The Wilds now serves treachery and murder. Deep in the festering darkness, heartless animals track their prey guided by primordial instinct. Only fools come here without first securing a serious weapon and a clone back-up.
Security (C.O.P.S)
The Center of Privatized Security is Heinlein Stronghold's only concession to the concept of law enforcement. The term 'law' in this case is being bent to the utmost possible usage of it's definition. Rather, whoever has a qualm with another, will come and hire bodyguards in order to enforce their claim. And the accused may likely do the same. This often results in pitched battles of flexible justice in The Playground often accompanied by each party's contributions in the way of jury-rigged implements of death and destruction.
The Center itself is a rundown building where the various bodyguard groups and private militias spend their downtime together, before being hired to battle each other.
University (C.O.A.L H.I.L.L)
A drab, gray archway festooned with holographically flowering vines marks the entrance to a small collection of buildings gathered together like a knot of squatting toads. Suspended above the arch words of light paint the words Center Of Accelerated Learning - Heinlein Institute of Learned Learners. The university itself belies the ingenuity of its denizens, with floating platforms connecting the upper floors of many buildings, strange, holographic projections addressing students by name and directing them to the appropriate hall for their nano-injections of knowledge, and even buzzing drones projecting lecturers right onto the quad.
The area is otherwise nondescript save for a rectangular, - blue and white box, seemingly of ancient Terran design, squatting unobtrusively behind a low wall. Writing on the door proclaims it to be something apparently called a 'Police Public Call Box.'
Classes available:
- Business
- Combat
- Engineering
- Leadership
- Manufacturing
- Medicine
- Psychology
- Spaceship Operations
Astronautics
Department of Astronautics
Iatrics
The Department of Iatrics
Industry
The Department of Industry
Regulation
Department of Regulations
Notes
- The 'Police Public Call Box' at the University is a reference to The Doctor's TARDIS from the science-fiction television series Doctor Who
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