  
WELCOME TO THE TEST DRIVE and thank you for your interest! Though the game hasn't started yet, we've put together a mini-mission with a few different goals for your characters to pursue. In the interest of flexibility and allowing players to experiment with the game mechanics, we invite you to pick your own broodmates, experiment with abilities and specializations, talk to each other and maybe make up some pre-established cr, and generally play around however you like. This test drive will not be game canon, so take this chance to go nuts!
For the full experience, we strongly encourage players to write up a short blurb about what their fellow characters might know about them either through shared time on the Station or through the Nest mental link. Handy links can be found at the bottom of this entry if you have any questions or want to place a reserve.
HELINOS TOZ
...is the smallest galactic empire located in the second disk of the Silver Halo Galaxy. For thousands of years, the neighboring CONFEDERATE OF BAL and INIVIAL COR(P) have eaten away at Helinos Toz's territory and now have reduced the once-great empire to a single moon ruled by the Last Empress. Though she is a child who owns little in the way of property on the galactic stage, the Last Empress still holds a precious seat in the shrinking Galactic House of Chairs. From this seat she and her allies have managed to keep a stranglehold on the throats of Bal and Inivial’s expansion efforts into the fourth and fifth disks of the Halo. She has accomplished this task by viciously excising loopholes in galactic regulation. Paradoxical though it may sound, the outer rings view the Last Empress as one of the few remaining heroes for the common man against the absorption of either the Bal or Inivial, a symbol of the dangers the two great empires present and a name and a heritage that even today commands respect. While Bal and Inivial may have radically different galactic goals and famously spend their time hounding one another in the house of chairs, they can agree on one thing: the Last Empress and her tiny moon kingdom are a thorn in their side. In an effort to pluck it, Bal and Inivial have joined forces to do away with the Empress and her moon forever.
While a direct attack on the ground empire moon would be an undeniable act of war, and would result in heavy sanctions which would only serve to set their goals back further, there are ways to destabilize the moon without actually putting boots on the ground. Inivial has decided to sacrifice one of their own assets to achieve this: the planet which the moon orbits. Helinos Prime is a cold, dead rock, without it's own atmosphere, as well as the site of a significant Inivial mining operation. It's this very operation that Invivial intends to utilize. By mining directly to the planet’s core, they will harvest a massive amount of heavy elements, cutting heavily into the planet's mass and degrading it's orbit in space-- making it a risk to surrounding inhabited worlds. Galactic regulation demands such a threat be absolutely absolved- by total destruction. Further, it states that these dangers must be dealt with in no more than eight hours, regardless of any other sanctions or treaties. The act itself is quite sterile: a beam weapon located in the first ring which is capable of destroying most planets in a single shot as long as alignment is correct. And once the planet goes, so too does the empire moon.
But even getting rid of the empire’s last land holdings wouldn’t do away with the Empress herself, which is why the Confederate of Bal’s massive armada has opted to choose today for a sprawling training exercise in their space above the empire moon. As is their right under the Secrets and Sanctions treaty, they have refused the operation of any other space traffic in that sector until their exercise has been completed. The paperwork is filed, notarized, and finalized. Under the guise of the Bal and Inivial’s mutual animosity, the two super powers mean to trap the Last Empress with the very rules and regulations she’s spent her young life manipulating to keep them both muzzled.
In summary: the Last Empress and what remains of her small royal envoy are stuck quite literally between a dissolving rock and the hard place of the Confederate of Bal’s guns with no diplomatic wiggle room. Should the empire of Helinos Toz fall, the majority of the house of chairs will turn in favor of expansion and it won’t be long before the Halo’s outer rings become the stage for a vicious war between Bal and Inivial. Those citizens of the outer rings will find their lives drastically changed as those two powers dash to make opportune land (and space) grabs. If the Last Empress can be saved, she might be able to successfully reveal this act of aggression for what it is, and use it as a way to rally the rest of the house of chairs, around her and the interests of the outer rings she stands for, against Bal and Inivial.
YOUR MISSION is to help the Last Empress escape the empire moon before it can be vaporized by Inivial, and to slide her and as many of her retinue as possible through the lines of Bal’s armada undetected.
PROMPTS
ONE • DEBRIEF: NOT AS SEXY AS IT SOUNDS
You've been given your mission file (see above) and outfitted with the appropriate gear to see it through. Today that means thermal suits designed to withstand face melting temperatures and a small cadre of ships that seem awfully familiar... if you're not mistaken they're the same ships currently in formation above Helinos Toz. You can ask Prince where he got them or Cathaway for some flying advice, but you probably won't get answers that makes any sense. Hopefully some of you know how to fly. Hug your friends, say your prayers, and wave Station 72 goodbye because it's time to...
TWO • HITTING ROCK BOTTOM
...sabotage a giant plasma drill! Down on Helinos Prime, Inivial's massive mining operation is a veritable labyrinth of tunnels and substations. Luckily you've been provided with schematics (if you feel like using them), and with some trial and error you should be able to navigate your way to key points in the mining operation. It won't be possible to completely stop the machine from coring the planet, but you just need to buy a little time. Suggested targets are the drill's targeting interface, its coolant systems, and its auxiliary stabilizer vents. How do you do that? Time to use your imagination. On the plus side, no one's around to stop you. Inivial already evacuated their on-site personnel which, come to think of it, might be a bad sign.
THREE • HURRY UP AND WAIT
With Inivial's drill momentarily on pause, it's time to rescue an Empress. Does she even know you're coming for her? Well, she'll find out eventually. There's room for six extra people on the ships provided, meaning you have exactly enough room to smuggle her and her closest advisers off of the empire moon. You've got six hours before you can (and really SHOULD) leave. Right now it looks like there's time to kill. Get to know the locals, the moon's bustling trade port, or its local population of cute dragonbirds. You have a collapsing planet below you and a veritable wasps nest of ships above you. Enjoy it while it lasts-- or bypass it all and wait for your window of opportunity with the Empress and her envoy.
FOUR • INTO THE WILD BLACK YONDER
The stealth ships can travel invisibly while in atmosphere, but there's no tricking the sensors of the Bal's ships. Luckily you fit right in-- almost. Pretending to be Bal ships might make the most sense, but what if someone notices you're out of drill formation? Even worse, what if someone detects you leaving the empire moon? No Bal ship is supposed to be down there. You could always try finding another ship to take into space, something with a little bit of stealth or maybe a harmless trading vessel. Then again, no one's supposed to be coming off the moon and into this space at all. Think fast, talk faster, or hope your pilot is really good.
FIVE • WILDCARD
Honestly? This is your show. Go surfing on some subterranean lava flows while stalling Inivial's mining efforts, try to take all the Empress's gold leaf dining room chairs with you when you evacuate the empire moon, or maybe you're done with this whole mission alltogether and want to try hijacking a ship from the Bal's armada and flying it out into space until this whole thing blows over. There's a whole galaxy out there; what else could be waiting for you?
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onemind) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
emptynesters2016-02-03 09:43 pm
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A stormtrooper's life. I can manage fighting the good fight.
a million years later SORRY
I know that you can. But I'm glad that you're choosing to. [ Because that's the important part, that's what makes it different; he's choosing this life and this cause, and for as much as she isn't happy for the war to be waging, she's glad that her friend has the ability to walk away and serve another or abandon the cause entirely. ]
MY TURN TO BE SORRY
[He should be able to do better than that, scrounge up some more meaningful reply to that. Rey proud of him. It shouldn't have such a staggering effect, but after seeing the exact opposite look in her eyes, the disappointment, when he'd tried to flee to the outer rim he couldn't help it. He'd gotten approval from plenty of superior officers over his years of 'service' in the Order. This was the first kind he smiled back over.]
Glad you're here, though.
NO DON'T EVEN we're even ok clearly that is a good thing
Pushing through the blink of surprise, the realization settles a smile over Rey's lips, and she steps forward, pulling him into a stubborn hug. The first since he'd awoken, and long overdue. It's too easy to recall what he looked like, lifeless in the snow, to recall how it had felt to believe she'd never see him again, lose the two people who'd changed her life and become her family in the same instant to the same monster.
She doesn't want to charge into battle without him knowing how much he means to her because the risk of seeing it again is too great. ]
This will be nothing. [ She says it against his shoulder, eyes searching for something to quell the creeping doubt she feels now that they can fix on the wall and not on him. ] In no time, we'll be back here telling stories. So come back with good ones. [ He'll come back. She knows he will because he's the only one who has. ]
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[There's no doubt. After Sith lords and the Order, the two things Finn feared instinctively, down to his soul because he knew how powerful they were, this was nothing. These new threats were nothing, some unknown political annoyance. If Rey was going, he'd have her back. Then they'd make it out together.
Easy.]
Not like they've got the Force.
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But we'll need to be careful all the same: it says a great deal that they've managed to do this without tapping into it at all. Have you looked inside of the ships we'll be using? They look like the same Bal ships. Top of the line, if I had to guess. [ Which is unnerving in its own right, unrelated to their task in this mission. Somehow, they'd acquired the ships without securing the princess. ]
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[He rubbed a spot on his arm, where Cathaway had grabbed him, slipped the information into his mind, and frowned. No need to burden Rey with all that yet, not when she's got so much of her own issues to sort out between the Force and the Nest.]
Between you and Poe, we'll make it there and back.
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[ Despite the healthy skepticism she voices, there's a starstruck quality to Rey's eyes—a Resistance fighter, the best pilot, and she gets to see him work. Rey's not a poor pilot herself, but she's not been doing it her whole life for the Resistance the way Poe has. It seems a rare opportunity. ]
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Bet you anything he doesn't disappoint.