MISSION: PERDITION'S REST

[futurologists]

MISSION: PERDITION'S REST All characters, established or new, will receive a form of this dossier to their devices. Thus, consider all information hereon as ICly available to all characters. Please direct questions here, and follow this link to view locations. The Bounty Board for Perdition's Rest has extra side-missions for your character to take until the end of the mission, which is currently slated for mid-December. PERDITION'S REST BRIEFING This mission will have recruits on an unnamed planet that ALASTAIR had flagged roughly a thousand years ago, named Q-65 by its current inhabitants. ALASTAIR's file on the previous mission here is incomplete, so retrieving clues to help fill in the blanks is an optional mission objective. The current inhabitants of Q-65 chiefly live in the colony Perdition's Rest, where they mine argecite, a crystal important to their spacefaring culture. The planet was flagged by the TIMELINE.exe as having the potential for full temporal disruption; the primary mission objective is to investigate a fundamentalist group known by locals as the Deemers, who proselytize that digging deeper into the planet's core will bring the whole of them to salvation. A secondary mission objective is to deal with the mining efforts by themselves, as continuing mining will destroy the planet. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE FUNDAMENTALISTS. Temporal destruction will result if the Deemers' goal of deeper mining is achieved. Prevent this by whatever means necessary. SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: STOP MINING EFFORTS. While destruction of the planet will not adversely affect the Timeline, if mining continues, the planet cannot sustain itself and its other natural resources will go to waste. OPTIONAL OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVE ALASTAIR RECORDS. Centuries-old records are somewhere in the vicinity of Perdition's Rest from ALASTAIR's previous mission. Find them. PERDITION'S REST OVERVIEW Perdition's Rest is the primary settlement on Q-65, a boom town colony whose main purpose is to mine for argecite, a crystal that is found in rich veins throughout the planet. Q-65 is a chaparral planet, mountainous terrain mixed with scrubland and the occasional pine forest. It can be very dry and hot in the summer, upwards of 33ºC (92ºF) in midday, but luckily, you'll be here during the winter season. Expect rainfall to break up the otherwise arid conditions, with temperatures averaging around 24ºC (75ºF) during the day and much cooler at night. On arrival, all recruits will receive a modest sum of local currency to spend on clothing, housing, transportation, etc. If more money is desired, recruits may consider taking on tasks for locals. The locals are called the Qorral, a spacefaring species that survives by sending colonists out to argecite-rich planets, mining them hollow, and then moving on to other planets to do the same. The Qorral have brightly-colored eyes and sepia-toned skin, but otherwise appear to be very close to humans biologically; they require argecite in their diet for nutritional purposes, their home world's supply having run out centuries ago. Their society appears to be egalitarian, and are quite accustomed to dealing with non-Qorral people, so recruits should not expect any discrimination. As a spacefaring people, the Qorral are very technologically advanced, though frontier life necessitates they use fossil fuels; they appear to have little use for animal husbandry, all their working animals replaced by mechanical versions. Prior to the Qorral's arrival on Q-65, ALASTAIR has no records of intelligent life here. Perdition's Rest has existed as a colony for roughly 30 years, with a few prior years spent at another colony, located at the ruins known by locals as Boneyard Junction. Earthquakes brought on by mining efforts caused this original colony to half-collapse, leading the colonists to move to a location further away from the mines. After 30 years spent mining for argecite, the deposits are nearly depleted and the colonists are working to scrape the last remains from the planet before moving on, resorting to frequent use of fracking, which results in earthquakes. It's only a matter of time, ALASTAIR analysts say, before the entire planet meets the fate of Boneyard Junction and collapses into itself. Within the past year, some Qorral have left Perdition's Rest to live out in a separate camp up in the nearby mountains. These separatists are religious fundamentalists that call themselves the Redeemers, and that the Perdition's Rest population refers to pejoratively as the Deemers. This group proselytizes that the continual galaxy-wide search for argecite can end if they only dig deeper and further into the planet -- a so-called path to salvation. The Deemers' numbers have been steadily growing over the past several months, new members leaving Perdition's Rest to never return. The Deemers are not aggressive, so the sheriff has no cause to raid their camp -- but that doesn't mean there are no bodily threats around Perdition's Rest. Some colonists who have grown unsatisfied with their lot have become bandits out in the desert, robbing any of their former friends and family who stumble too close to their camps. In addition to this, the local fauna includes giant spiders and lizards, snakes, scorpions, and canines. But these threats all pale in comparison to the sandworms that have recently been driven to the surface by the more aggressive mining tactics. As you work toward your mission objectives, be careful -- this planet is wild.

Comments

[winces]

crawls in here because i'm dumb... and this literally only occurred to me just now...

but would olivia's max-level alastair-given healing abilities have any chance of saving the deemers' (bodies) post-taraxa?

[futurologists]

Taking into account that field extraction has only a 20% survival rate, Olivia in turn has only a 30% chance of healing these poor people, with the caveat that it would take a tremendous amount of concentration and energy to heal the neurological damage!

The downside: they remember nothing of who they were. They'll still have basic skills, like feeding themselves, speaking, etc, but their personality as it was before is sadly gone due to Taraxa influence. They'll have to develop themselves from the ground up again--but it's certainly a more hopeful outcome than the alternative.

[winces]

ROLLS UP SLEEVES TIME TO WORK IG

thank you, mods!!