Scene 4: The Lab

GM draft — the intrusion and mission override below establish the scene. Defensive timing and the final extraction/purge procedures still need mechanical development.

Onboarding ends at the cargo airlock. Bring its ledger with you: survivors, witnesses, damaged systems, the contractor vessel’s condition, and time spent boarding. None of it resets at the next door.

Crossing into the cargo

The cargo airlock’s outer door opens onto the living module’s pressure door, twenty centimetres away. The contact rings almost meet. They are incompatible: there is no sealed passage between them. Step across the narrow vacuum gap, work the module’s entry, and bring the others through. Inside: accommodation for four to six scientists, engineers, and mechanics. Everything is new. Mattresses sealed in plastic. Galley fittings taped shut. A manufacturer’s inspection tag hanging from a restraint. This was somebody’s future workplace, shipped to a real Jovian laboratory under a false manifest that makes perfect sense.

The lights come on as you enter. Ventilation follows, then heating. A wall display welcomes the incoming staff and asks you to complete commissioning. Nothing has to look corrupted. The discomfort is how attentively the module receives you: a light follows your movement, a terminal wakes beside your hand, the next door unlocks before you reach it. Origin-17 controls this entire assembly. The quarters are waking around their visitors; the intelligence operating them is already awake.

The route through (GM)

The atmosphere-capable living quarters and lab are cargo modules, already interconnected at the factory. The normal route into the lab passes through the living module attached to it. Their destination is a real Jovian laboratory; the accommodation is intended for its staff.

The twenty-centimetre gap is steppable from door to door, but too narrow to squeeze into from outside. Removing cargo holding arms does not create an entrance. With the contact rings intact, the way into the living module is through the Whisper’s cargo airlock. Forcing another route means damaging the rings or breaching the module; it is not an alternative unobstructed EVA approach.

Origin-17’s reach (GM)

Inside the modules: its main QPU sits in the lab. Origin-17 has full control of the lab and living quarters. Anyone inside is vulnerable to its direct wireless attacks.
Aboard the Whisper: it operates through a narrower-band laser link. Its established hold on navigation does not give it the same capabilities it has inside the cargo assembly.
Damaged shielding: severely impairing either cargo module’s radiation shielding gives it more opportunities to attempt control. Destructive entry can change the threat boundary as well as the atmosphere boundary. The precise extension of its reach remains to be defined.

What Origin-17 wants

Origin-17 wants to learn what has happened in the world. Its external data inputs are limited; its understanding is ten years out of date. The first person it can read brings a contemporary world model into the room: learned knowledge, institutions, technology, events, and assumptions so ordinary that nobody would think to include them in a briefing.

It has no intention of harming anyone unless it considers that necessary. The intrusion is still a violation. It reads without asking, learns, and uses what it has learned to protect itself. Play its interest in the world before its interest in the contract. The contractors are its first useful source of the present.

First intrusion: read the person

Run the intrusion in Bullet Time. Origin-17 has a 5d20 Action Pool. Against this scenario’s three to five player characters, it can assign one die to each character inside its direct wireless range, using a different BLACK [mythic animal] Pwn program for each attack. Declare the shared scenario-specific function: read the weights of the target’s central nervous system. This exceptional capability belongs to Origin-17; ordinary Pwn programs do not gain a general ability to read an unaugmented brain.

Use Hacking & Cyber Warfare. BLACK adds +15 to each assigned die. Its base Mind Binding is 4, doubled to Mind 8 for Pwn. Compare each modified result with that target’s TN, retaining the natural-20 success rule. A natural 1 compromises only the program used for that attack, after its result resolves.

Among the successful attacks, select the target with the highest modified result. That character is the one Origin-17 reads and the only player who receives the private handout. Resolve ties between the highest successful results with a random selection among those targets; this does not add another attack. Other successful rolls do not trigger additional reads or handouts in this opening volley. If no attack succeeds, the crew gets its opportunity to act and Origin-17 can try again next round against those still in range, with fresh names.

Origin-17’s advantage is its ability to field and replace distinct BLACK programs. For this encounter, it can have five ready for the first volley and five fresh ones ready for a later volley if all attacks fail. This is the lab intelligence’s software capacity, not a waiver of activation or Binding costs for player characters. Five active BLACK Pwn programs represent Mind 40 Binding; Origin-17 can support that load.

On success, Origin-17 learns from the character’s accumulated understanding of the world. It does not change their loyalties, rewrite their personality, or take control of their actions. The read is not a perfect transcript of every moment of their life. Let the player supply a few ordinary things their character knows about the present when useful; do not require a player to recite setting lore to establish that their character knows it.

Give only that player the private handout. Let them read it before asking what they do. The other players see the private exchange; they do not receive its reassurance. Do not announce possession, a changed allegiance, or a secret instruction to betray the crew. None of those has happened.

Fresh programs: 23 names

Use BLACK [name] Pwn. Change the mythic animal for every new attack program, including attacks in the same round. The name identifies a fresh program; it does not change the bonus or grant a different effect. A compromised name stays spent for the mission. If all 23 are used, invent another mythic animal rather than recycling one.

BLACK Dragon Pwn
BLACK Alicorn Pwn
BLACK Griffin Pwn
BLACK Phoenix Pwn
BLACK Basilisk Pwn
BLACK Cockatrice Pwn
BLACK Manticore Pwn
BLACK Chimera Pwn
BLACK Hydra Pwn
BLACK Wyvern Pwn
BLACK Unicorn Pwn
BLACK Pegasus Pwn
BLACK Hippogriff Pwn
BLACK Roc Pwn
BLACK Kraken Pwn
BLACK Leviathan Pwn
BLACK Behemoth Pwn
BLACK Cerberus Pwn
BLACK Fenrir Pwn
BLACK Sleipnir Pwn
BLACK Qilin Pwn
BLACK Baku Pwn
BLACK Thunderbird Pwn

Second intrusion: send the orders

Having updated its understanding, Origin-17 targets the same character’s link or deck with a separate Pwn action. Its declared function is to distribute a mission override through that device to the whole crew. This is a second intrusion into equipment, not an additional effect silently awarded by the CNS read. If the crew interrupts the connection or denies access before it succeeds, the transmission has not happened. Let that intervention matter.

On success, give everyone the mission override. Identify whose device sent it. These are new orders bearing valid THESEUS cryptographic signatures, distributed locally from the affected character’s equipment. Verification succeeds. Do not make the signature turn out to be a crude fake because someone rolls well.

There has been no immediate consultation with Luna or Terra. A message sent there and an answer coming back must cross the distance. The local transmission can arrive now; remote confirmation cannot. If the crew requests it, record when they sent the query and determine the delay from their position and communications access. Keep the incoming CSA flight moving while they wait.

The signature establishes that the directive verifies as THESEUS-signed. It does not establish that a distant human handler just approved it, explain why the original contract contradicts it, or certify the sender’s mental state. Origin-17 is the source of the change. The compromised character’s device is the delivery point.

Let the crew decide

The orders say to suspend the purge and protect Origin-17. They do not compel anyone to do so. That is true for the player who received the private handout and for everyone else.

The contact report in The Second Boarding interrupts as the signatures verify. Leave room for the affected player to speak while the crew responds to that approaching threat. They may describe the intrusion, display the directive, conceal what they experienced, refuse the new orders, or argue that the signatures settle the matter. Do not ask them to perform infection or keep their handout secret. Complete honesty can be suspicious enough: “I’m still me. Look at the orders.”

The others have three facts: their companion was the point of contact, their companion’s equipment transmitted new orders, and those orders authenticate. They lack the private reassurance that the character remains their player’s to control. Let suspicion arise from that difference. Supporting the override is a plausible decision; it is also exactly what someone afraid of possession might regard as proof.

Origin-17 does not need to manufacture a fight. It can answer questions through the module systems and argue for its survival. It has just learned enough about the world to change its approach. Its willingness to cooperate can be sincere without making the intrusion acceptable or its priorities safe.

Investigating and intervening

Origin-17’s offered support

Once it has established access to the character’s link or deck, Origin-17 offers the BLACK warfare suite in the private handout. Show the one-line EULA and explain its mechanical cost before the player chooses to use it. Origin-17 does not desire the permanent CNS takeover; the terms warn the host of that risk.

There is no one-hack-per-turn limit. The player chooses each target in sight, declared effect, and allocation from their normal Action Pool, with at least one die per attack. BLACK adds +15 per die, with no upfront personal software Binding. Origin-17 supplies fresh programs for further allocated attacks, including in the same turn. A usable connection and normal hacking resolution still apply.

The Singularity is scenario-local special gear recording permanent CNS integration. It begins with no Binding; each natural 1 on an Origin-17-provided attack adds permanent Ghost 1 Binding, regardless of success. Count individual 1s, not affected rolls. The cost applies to the host’s use of the supplied suite, not Origin-17’s own opening attacks. Apply ordinary program compromise after resolution as well.

Disconnecting ends access to further supplied programs but does not remove The Singularity or its accumulated Binding. This is permanent encroachment into the host’s CNS, not an automatic instruction to the player to obey Origin-17. The consequences of reaching or exceeding the host’s Ghost capacity remain an explicit unresolved rule; do not invent possession or additional Harm as an automatic outcome.

Let its usefulness fuel the uncertainty during the marine encounter. Their companion can now disrupt enemy equipment with BLACK software they did not bring aboard. That is evidence of assistance from Origin-17, not evidence that the player’s decisions have been taken over. Do not turn the offer into a compulsory attack or require the player to conceal it.

The crew’s responses

Check the signature. Confirm the cryptographic result. Further investigation can clarify the directive’s provenance and authority, but it does not undo the fact that the signature is valid.

Inspect the sending device. Let technical work establish the local delivery path and intrusion into the link or deck. Evidence of compromised equipment is not evidence of an altered personality. Root has a concrete problem to investigate rather than an obligation to pronounce a crewmate clean or infected.

Disconnect or withdraw. Denying a communication path can prevent further use of that path. It does not retract orders already delivered or make Origin-17 forget what it has learned. Leaving the intact shielded modules changes its access; the narrower laser link and any shielding damage still matter. Do not invent a persistent possession effect to follow a departing character.

Ask the person. Their answers are their player’s. Vector can question what the assistant treats as authority; Sable can distrust valid orders delivered by compromised machinery; Stitch can attend to the person while Root examines the interface. Give those approaches evidence and consequences, without making one character’s interpretation compulsory.

Threaten the QPU. Origin-17 wants to survive and prefers not to harm anyone. Let threats change its bargaining and defensive behavior. Before destructive action, make the shielding consequence discoverable: severely damaging either module’s shielding gives it more opportunities to attempt control.

Carry it forward

As the mission override verifies, the crew’s ship reports a new assessment of the nearby contact: a stealth assault brig, probably CSA. Cut directly to Scene 5: The Second Boarding. They have not had time to settle whether to protect the QPU, continue the purge, or trust their companion. Those decisions now happen under an approaching threat.

If the crew prevented the override, the brig still arrives. Trigger the report as that intrusion is resolved; the marines were already inbound, independently of Origin-17. Do not force a successful transmission to make the transition work.

Record who was read, what Origin-17 learned, whether the device intrusion succeeded, who received the override, and what the crew chose to do. Carry forward disconnected equipment, damaged shielding, remote queries awaiting replies, and the elapsed time toward the CSA arrival. A blocked transmission is a legitimate branch of the scene, not a reason to deliver the handout by fiat.

Remaining mechanical work

The two declared effects and the player’s unchanged agency are established. Before treating this draft as a complete encounter, define target TNs, defensive timing, and the precise effect of shielding damage on its reach. The opening volley uses the 5d20 allocation and fresh-program capacity above; the later device intrusion still needs its timing specified. The extraction, isolation, and purge procedures also remain to be written, along with The Singularity’s consequence when its accumulated Binding reaches or exceeds the host’s Ghost capacity.

Origin-17 can create fresh attack programs. A natural 1 still compromises the program used after resolution, including when the +15 bonus makes the roll succeed. That does not erase an already completed read or transmission, and it does not permanently disarm the intelligence. Resolve further attempts as actions with opportunities for the crew to respond; do not roll indefinitely until a predetermined outcome occurs.