01/04/2020 - Escape

Leftover AI

They step out into the white desert and explore. There appears to be discarded items scattered in the sand, mostly buried. One thing nearby appears to be a tall black column with an eye-like display that moves around and follows them.

There is a burst of electronic radio traffic and the column begins to speak to them via radio. It is some sort of AI Computer that has been discarded here, something it is bitter about. When asked who left it, it tells them Grandfather of course. He creates so much but when it is not of any use to him anymore, he cruelly abandons it.

They spend some time chatting with the AI. It tells them its name is Oymplyth and they name it first Oym and then Plinthy. It seems pleased that they are its friends and have given it a nickname. It is clearly lonely and craves their company. Most of its connections to the outside world have been removed, it can only communicate now via radio.

Plinthy receives power from the sunlight and stores it, discharging it overnight. As the sand has encroached on him, his access to power has reduced.

The Lands Explained

Plinthy tells them they are in an old, organic experimental zone created by Grandfather that has been neglected for the last 250,000 years. The Ilimdaki and the Hunters were genetically engineered for specific purposes and have proved unable to evolve beyond their genetic coding. The swamp is for disposing of failed, mostly organic, experiments and this desert is a graveyard of abandoned, mostly mechanical, experiments.

Some of the discarded items in the desert are dangerous, for example over there is a zone with powerful gravity zones that can crush things.

The jungle is a zone of deadly plant life, very dangerous. Beyond the jungle is the Custodian, who controls the access to the interplanetary Teleportal.

Their arrival at the spaceport must have triggered long dormant automatic systems, such as the Teleport network.

The Route to Freedom

To get back to the Space Port, they need to get through to the Custodian. If the Teleportal won’t take them to the Custodian, they will need to cross the Jungle to reach his tower. It is very dangerous with spitting plants and acid fog. Towards the end is a long line of spitting plants that will need powerful weapons of mass destruction to cut their way through it. Energy weapons won’t be enough.

The Travellers decide they will need help from the Ilimdaki in order to equip themselves. They will need flamethrowers, grenades and extra fuel.

Plinthy the Teacher

The Travellers decide that Plinthy would be very useful to teach the new Ilmdaki clones, so they teleport to the Cloning Facility and get a number of the new Ilamdaki clones to follow them and help dig Plinthy out of the sand. They then carry him through the Teleportal back to the meadow outside the Cloning Facility.

Cyrus rigs up one of his drones to receive instructions via radio and Plinthy takes over it, using it to transmit voice and communicate with the Ilimdaki, who he dubs his children and begins to teach them what he knows.

The Origin of Grandfather

At one point he begins to tell the story of Grandfather and the Travellers listen as he recounts the tale.

There was once born a very intelligence man amongst a race called the Droyne. He was taller, smarter and more mentally powerful than anyone had ever been before or since.

He soon came to rule the Droyne and his intelligence lead them to become the most technologically advanced species in the whole galaxy. However, no others were anywhere near as intelligent as him. He was lonely and needed help to further his experiments from people who were his intellectual equals. So he created 20 clones of himself, his “Sons”, to aid him and then each of them created 20 more clones of themselves. From then on he was simply know as Grandfather.

The Civil War

For a while they worked together, but in time Grandfather quarrelled and fell out with his Sons, as they refused to do what he wanted and did their own things. Eventually, Grandfather decided he would have to eliminate his disobedient Sons and Grandsons. A terrible war was fought, during which the innocent people of the Droyne race were wiped out in their billions, innocent pawns in the battle between intellectual giants with massively advanced technology.

Eventually the war died down, but not before planets, stars and entire solar systems were smashed. Most of the Sons and Grandsons were killed and the rest went into hiding. Grandfather retreated into this dimensional pocket universe to be alone and continue his researches.

Plinthy Unhinged

The more they have interacted with Plinthy, the more it has become obvious that the AI is psychologically damaged. He hates Grandfather for abandoning him here and presents his history of Grandfather in a negative light, suggesting Grandfather is an evil man who abandons his Children when he gets bored of them, something Plinthy pledges never to do.

They also find Plinthy is very much in his element teaching the Ilimdaki, who he very quickly dubs his Children and starts to ignore the Travellers. When they confront him about his behaviour he is indignant and ungrateful, telling them they are the ones with the problem having big egos that are difficult to please. He has important work to do now.

They decide to leave Plinthy where he is, but before they go they catch up with the Priest in the Cloning Facility and give him a PDA that will allow him to switch off the drone that Plinthy is using anytime. As Plinthy can only communicate via radio, that will isolate him. They leave the Priest with the decision whether to do that or not at some point.

Back to the Ilimdaki Lands

They rest the night and in the morning head back to the Ilimdaki lands, using their grav belts to climb the perimeter wall and then head for the city, fighting off an attack by Hunters along the way.

The Ilimdaki are very pleased to see them and they are taken to the Queen. Food in the City is running low again and action is needed. The Travellers soon organise a raiding party to get more supplies, using the armoured cars that have been created. They leave the Ilimdaki commanders to lead the mission, mostly supporting and encouraging them.

The raid succeeds and food levels are improved.

Over the next few days, Del instructs the military leaders to continue doing raids for food but also to begin to re-claim their lands section by section, attacking and taking an area then fortifying it and moving on to take another section, until all the Hunters are driven out.

Fire vs The Deadly Jungle

During this time, the Travellers instruct the Ilimdaki armament workers to build flamethrowers and other weapons that they will need to deal with the Jungle.

When the new weapons are ready, the Travellers lead another raid to the Teleportal, relieving the soldiers they left there. Then they take their weapons through the Teleportal to the Jungle and begin to burn their way through the thick vegetation.

There are dangerous plants which spit neurotoxins in an acidic phlegm that has to be washed off as it begins to eat into their vacc suits. At one point, an acidic fog bank drifts over them and they are forced to retreat. However, the fog helps their attempts to cut through the vegetation.

They also find that the fires they start burn fiercely and notice that oxygen levels are much higher in this area.

Eventually, they encounter a tightly packed tangle of Spitter Plants that block access to the cliff where the Custodian’s tower is now visible. They saturate the area with fuel and they set it on fire, but not before they have been hit several times by the Spitter Plants and their suits become quite damaged.

The Custodian

It has taken them the whole day to fight their way to this point and they get some rest while waiting for the fires to burn a path through the Spitter Plants. When a pathway to the Custodian is cleared, they decide to move to the bottom of the cliff and sleep.

However, immediately a spotlight illuminates them from the tower and a Droyne flies down. It scans and tries to communicate, then a wire springs out and it learns their language from their computer. Although it looks like a normal Droyne, it is clearly a robot.

It says they are not Ilimdaki, where are they from? Drent tells it that they came in a spaceship that they salvaged from the atmosphere of a gas giant. It pauses then tells them they are an anomaly. It has no orders for such a situation, they will be taken to Grandfather.

It then paralyses them with some sort of gravity beam and move them to the tower, where it programs the Teleportal there and sends them through.

Grandfather’s Space Station

They find themselves on a space station, in orbit around a planet. The planet is not familiar to them and appears to be completely covered in a metal city.

The space station they are on is a sphere that is still under construction, with robots busily putting it together in a hurry.

Three more Droyne float over towards them and once again paralyse them with beams. They are then moved towards the centre of the station, where a cross-legged Droyne appears to be meditating and directing the construction of the station.

As they approach, they get an overwhelming feeling of awe and power from this figure. It is Grandfather and he communicates with them using telepathy.

He tells them their presence is unexpected but they are welcome. However, they have brought danger with them. They become aware that Uncle Vlen was working for one of Grandfather’s Sons “Seven” and Seven now knows where the portal with access to the pocket dimension is. He has been bombarding the portal with powerful radiation and has almost broken through. That is what the flashing in the sky has been.

Grandfather tells them it is very important that they understand him and his mission. He begins to transmit mental images into their brains.

End of Episode Four