I thought I'd start writing up a few play reports from the more pivotal sessions of my long running Icar campaign. We've been playing most weeks since January 2005 and the team has changed little since then.

The Setting
The setting we're playing is a new one where the characters are outside of the boundary of the safe human occupied space (called Imperium Space) into space occupied by brave (or stupid) humans and a lethal race of robots (simply called The Droids). It's wild, deadly and is called Droid Space. They're working for a company called The Benedict Corporation who make money by performing tasks in this dangerous Droid Space. To start with, they were tasked with finding expensive artifacts and people. The team gets offered a number of jobs by a client team, which they choose by what sounds fun or what matches their abilities and then they go off into Droid Space to complete it. Sometimes the artifacts are just lying around, sometimes, they need to be stolen out of museums or from planets who can't defend themselves.

Within Droid space is a large number of human colonies, trying to stay small and thus out of sight of the Droid fleets and (more recently) a fleet of Pirates screwing resources out of these little, often defenseless systems.

The scenario was designed to start the characters as "mid-level", so they got skills from two areas of specialty. They call themselves "FOTAST" (Finding Old Tat and Shooting Things).

The Characters
Andy Maddock (the Leader) - trained in spotting antiques and as an investigator. He's loyal to the company and is the moderate voice of the team. Human without augmentation.
Atar - Ex Fleet Trooper. Trained in Hacking and Recon. Fiercely loyal to anything inside Imperium space and utterly despises people who choose to live outside it. Gun-happy cannon fodder with a short attention span. Psychic.
Jim Ax - trained in hurting things and robotics / artificial intelligence. He's jovial and foolhardy, likes to get stuck into a fight. Normally quite moderate, with the occasional lapse. Human with some augmentation.
Jack Yashmack - An Akarakian (warrior monk) who believes in the future of the human race being all important. Trained as a Medic / Hacker. Has had a series of bad bionics experiences that has left him mentally unstable. His player has been slowly detaching him from reality - turning him into a fruit loop.
Jake McVitie - trained as a vechicle/weapon technician. Another Jovial / Foolhardy type but with a dose of cowardice. Augmented with bionics.

The Story so far
The Pirate fleet has been deemed to be a threat to the Benedict Corporation business by causing too much trouble for their operatives in Droid Space, so the team has been dispatched with "A Plan" to destroy it. The "Plan" they were offered was to first cut the food supply, then destroy one of the command craft and finally steer the fleet as a whole to a planet it can't possibly survive. It was a VERY tall order. They were given a load of equipment that would make them useful to the pirates, a way into the fleet and they joined a team, given a leader "Black Eye". They played the part of Pirates for a while, doing as Black Eye asked. Then they were given an opportunity to help escort one of the freighters that collect food, so they jumped at the chance to cut the food supply chain. While on this mission, something went wrong (partly down to the players) and they ended up on a pirate freighter where the Captain was looking to defect. Their leader, Black Eye was not impressed.

15th May 2007
Black Eye called for a conflab and the team agreed. It was going well until Black Eye hinted that he was suspicious of them. Jack retorted by pushing Black Eye's face back in his brain, terminally injuring him. The team decided that they needed to still break the chain of food supply for the pirate fleet, so Atar decided to make his way to the bridge to explain how they needed to be taken to the source of the food. He used his gun rather a lot to get there.

A whole space craft hostage
Something like a hostage situation ensued. The captain thought it was suicide for the ship crew to take them to the source of the food - or anywhere that might recognise them as a pirate craft. While Andy tried to barter, the rest of the team investigated an odd 'Droid Like Craft' in the front bay while some attacked engineering, trying to stop the techies from disabling the ship. They managed it, threatening and killing as they went.

The Droid-Like Craft
Jim, the team AI expert tried to communicate with the 'Droid Like Craft' (DLC) in the forward bay. It was all silent until he tried a Droid encoding. He talked to the AI for a bit and found out that it had really no idea what it was or where it had come from. It could 'see' some of its systems but didn't know what they did.

I described a number of systems and Jim informed the craft to turn them on one by to see what they did. The descriptions were abstract with "a bent rubber sheet and pin" being the centre of things. The team decided that this craft was their route out of there and that the drive was some sort of space folding/wormholing. None of them had any skills that might confirm or deny this. They made a deal with the ex-pirate Captain that if they were allowed to take the DLC, they would let the ex-pirate ship go free. He agreed and soon they were floating in the inky black of space, filing into the DLC living compartment. The DLC AI didn't want to let them onboard because it warned them of the dangers of travelling on it. However, the team soon convinced the AI that it would leave them to die if it did not.

Soon, the team got the systems running and pushed the pin through the rubber sheet.

The team died.
So, what to do at a time like this? You've just killed the whole player team and only 3/5 of them are there. You've only got an hour and a half before the end of the session. Do you start a new campaign or pretend that it worked ok. We collectively decided that the Campaign had a lot of life left in it and the mass character death was ignored. The ship they were travelling on was utterly disabled.

You're going the wrong way
They'd ended up deeper into Droid Space near a orbital post (space station) that the DLC had referred to as "home". This was a crappy place to be but that was a fair forfeit for dying. They gained entry to the base but it flatly refused to let them any further than the airlock without the say so of a company official. The base had long been deserted but the simple base AI clung to the fact that there might be company official returning soon.

Confusing Artificially Intelligent Machines
The team decided to do an old trick of creating a 'medical emergency' such that an AI has to help or watch a human die (by the three laws, it simply can't do this). Normally, the 'medical emergency' is caused by shooting one of the team members but instead Atar used his fledgeling Psychic powers to cause Andy Maddock, the leader, to vomit blood. Needless to say, the base soon let them into the medical facility.

Session thoughts and conclusions
Not the greatest session I've ever run, certainly. I was hoping all the hints regarding the lethality of the craft would have got through to the players but when faced with a shiney piece of technology that appears to do something that should be impossible (folding space is no possible in Icar) they ignored their own bad feelings. It must be said that if the other 2/5 of the players had been there then they might not have gone through with it.

22nd May 2007
The team began in the Medical Unit and was soon greated by an humanoid robot (called Automatons or Autos in Icar) called Desmond that had been waiting on the base for humans to return. It was very pleased to see them, having not had a good conversation in 500 years. With Andy coming round from his neurological 'mishap', they ventured through the rest of the base, Desmond explained the past history and so on. This was largely ignored by the players. Desmond explained that there was an old space craft that they could have to leave - if they wanted to.

Player on player on player on...
They headed down to the old craft. Jack decided that he was going to hack the base AI for reasons unknown. Atar didn't want him to. A fight broke out that ended with Andy throwing an (extremely rare) Energy Disruption grenade at Jack, which switched him off. Permenantly. The limp Jack fell to the ground and then there was a mad rush to try and link up an external power plant to Jack's systems to keep him alive. Atar put the boot in. Unfortunately, the only person qualified as a medic was Jack. with some luck and effort, they kept him alive - but only just. They needed someone qualified to stabilise them.

We need a medic to fix up... the medic
As a team, they fixed up the old craft that Desmond had mentioned and then were stuck with a choice. They were 60 hours from human occupied space, 3 hours from a (rather suspect) orbital called the Last Stand or 13 hours from a well known Imperial Outpost. The choice was close but dodgy medical cover, near-ish but good medical facilities or a run for human occupied space. They went for the Imperium outpost and when they got there, they found the remains of the Imperial post - the Droids had been there and destroyed it. They briefly thought about looking for survivors but decided that if there were any Droids left (bound to be) they weren't equipped to handle them. They headed for the last stand.

At the Last Stand, they found a medic who stabilised Jack, before heading back to Human Occupied Space. They were glad to be back on the Augustus, the enormous space craft that the Benedict Corporation uses as a staging post. They handed Jack off to the medics.

Jack's player decided that it was time to retire Jack as he was too troublesome in the team.

They didn't manage to complete the Pirate Fleet mission and the Corporation gave the attitude that it was 'worth a go'.

Session thoughts and conclusions
Jack's player had been ramping up Jack's madness for a long time, so it was not surprising that he finally went ga ga. I must admit that I was waiting for a blaze-of-glory death but that just wasn't to be. If you try and engineer such situations (with the assistance of the player who wants a character change), the other players won't like it.

It was also a pity that the special grenade that Andy was given was used against another player. It was really intended as a time-buyer if they ever encountered Droids.

Jack will be replaced by a new character, probably a space craft expert. This will leave the team lacking a qualified medic. It's a good job that Jim has the Psychotheatric (randomly rolled feats) of "very fast learner". That allows him to pick up and improve skills much quicker. For a while they'll be left without a medic - which should be interesting.

Downtime
This is the name given to the time between sessions where players get to do a bit of play over the email. Somethings have to wait until the session begins but any equipment, bionics or plan making is often done during downtime. In this downtime, the new character will be created and the team will be recovering from what has been something of a harrowing experience!

29th May 2007
Preliminaries
A tough game last night, only had three players and I dumped them into a moralistic dilemma. I would have preferred there to be more players for these sorts of discussions because I feel that having fewer players with tough decisions puts more strain on them. I handed out the characters for the players that weren't there and this compounded the problem. You had players having to give the point of view of their own characters and the character of another player.

New character
We also got a new character tonight, Hugo[b/]. Hugo's expertise is in Space Craft and a few other technical things. A wide-eyed, naive and thoroughly likeable chap. Young and very naive. As replacement to Jack, he's more "team glue" than "disruptive force" and that's a good thing.

Returning NPC
Grace was an NPC at the start of the game and has been blown up a few times. The last time was critical and the rest of the team managed to deliver her back into the safety of the Corporation medical facility. From there she's been Augmented (something she hates) and is now part machine. She rejoined the team tonight.

The Jobs
When on the Corporate home craft, the Augustus, the team pick up jobs from the Client team part of the Company. They have four Client contacts, three they've had for a while and a new one.

Natalie
A job involving finding a blackmailler and retrieving the items he's using to blackmail.

Cane
Obtain evidence of mining of a rare gas on a planet. Get a sample. Investigate any existing mining operation.

Robbie (had two jobs)
1. Deliver a crate to someone who needs it. Urgent!
2. Forcibly extract an Akarakian (warrior monk) from his Mission and return him home.

Andy
The new contact, had a precision job to steal a glass Eagle from a museum on a prestigious planet.

Decisions, Decisions
After much deliberation, they decided to take three of the jobs. Perform the delivery first (Robbie's first job). Then investigate the mining operation and finally sorting out the blackmailler. Although Andy's job had a cash bonus attached to it, the team felt that a sneaky-sneaky sort of mission was not for them. From my point of view, I'd agree but it's nice to give them the choice for something a bit different.

It starts!
They piled onto their craft, the Blistering Blue Barnacle, with glee. They'd not been on it for a while, having been working undercover. They got unlucky at equipment issue, who were tight on ammunition. It makes a big difference to be zipping around a dangerous bit of space on something that was designed for it, rather than some old lump that can barely hold itself together. They headed straight for the delivery drop off point, doing a bit of training en route.

They dropped out of Light Jump early (not a good sign), something was blocking their path that led all the way up to high orbit of the planet. Communications was down and this is a sign that Droids are about (Droid take over communications prior to their attack). The 9th planet of the system had detonated, causing a trail of debris, which is what had taken them out of Light Jump. There was a brief conflab to decide whether to end the mission or continue. They decide to continue. Tentatively.

Take care when Droids are about
Upon arrival in High Orbit around the planet, they started their scans. The main city was on fire, there was some sort of fight going on at one of the small farm-villages (called Crofts) and there were a large number of vehicles leaving the city. There can't have been a large number of Droids (in the thousands) as they couldn't see them on sensors. They decided to approach the stream of people leaving the city. They got close, where communication was possible.

Refugees
The council leader for the planet spoke to Andy, the Captain and begged for them to be taken on as refugees. At this point, the gravity of this solution was not obvious. The team were concerned about the additional time required for picking up the thousands of people into their cargo bay and then dropping them off somewhere. The leader did know of the Akarakian they were trying to deliver to but not his location. Once everyone was loaded, the council leader pleaded for Andy, the Captain, to leave the system and drop them off somewhere safe before making the delivery. By making the delivery, Andy was putting thousands of people into jeopardy, rather than just the crew. It was a tough choice and with Droids incoming (that they could easily outrun in the ship) they decided to make the delivery anyway. A tough call.

The Delivery
The team sped off in the Barnacle to the croft where the fight was happening. It seemed the right place to look for an Akarakian Missionary (warrior monk). As they arrived, they noticed that the Droids had reprogrammed the automated harvesters and they were attacking the Croft. A small clutch of people were holding up a good fight. They soon spotted the Akarakian and the delivery was made. The crate had an Exo-Armour suit, which made the Akarakian a formidable target. The leader of the band of resistance tried to convince Andy, the Captain, that he couldn't evacuate everyone and so should stay and fight to save the colony. Another moral dilemma.

Escape
The team visited another large Croft to see if there were any surivors but it had already been evacuated. They made a route to Tempered Haven, a cluster of colonies that run by the principle of 1 million populace limit - small enough to avoid the attention of the Droids - and a shared security force. They chose a small colony, who might want to expand with the refugees.

Negotation
The colony didn't want to take the refugees as it would unbalance the economy. They wanted something in return for taking them. It would be cash, resources or the Barnacle. Andy did a good job of convincing them of the humanitarian aspect but the colony stayed firm. They tried another Tempered Haven colony, a larger one that could absorb the new populace but they too wanted something in return for releasing the team from this burden. Andy tried arguing for the skills of the colonists but that didn't wash. The rest of the team weren't all that helpful. They were either eternally optimistic (Hugo) or brutally inhumane (Jake/Atar).

The team left Tempered Haven and tried a more indpendent colony. They found another small colony nearby. Initially the colony Director would not allow them to land unless they paid a huge amount. The Director needed to talk with his council and an hour later he return to accept the refugees without argument. This made the team suspicious.

Self determination
While the Director was talking to his council, the team chatted with the leader of the refugees, who simply refused to go down onto the colony, saying it was not suitable. They needed something more akin to their needs. It had not occurred to Andy that the refugees had a right to choose their new home and the team generally believed that they were lucky to be alive at all. Of course, the refugees simply argued that if the team were to dump them on a planet at random, they'd die anyway.

The last plan
The team could spend days finding a colony to put the people onto and the refugees only had enough food for 4 days. With travel and negotiation and the time it takes to get them out of the cargo hold, this left very little time. A real dilemma. The team decided to find a Tempered Haven system nearby that they hadn't visited and sneakily dump the refugees on there. The team left, hoping that the refugees would split up and head for the cities (which they did). They made route for the Mining world...

Thoughts and Conclusions
It was a tough session. Neither player nor character wanted to find a solution that meant 25,000 people would be enslaved, put to death or left to rot on a world that couldn't support them. The initial act of kindness opened up a galaxy of problems later on. I doubt they'd do much differently in the future, bar expecting more resistance from the destination system. If I could play it again, I would have given Andy, the decision-making leader, to one of the other players so that the two moderate voices could be played by two different people.

In this case, you had the moderate voices of two characters being played by one person and the other two players taking the voices of the naive and the ridiculously harsh. This pretty much lumped all of the moderate thinking on one player while the other two came up with the bizarre or trivially unworkable suggestions. I could also have made better use of Grace as an NPC (another moderate voice).

I could have not included the refugee situation at all but if I bend the evening's scenario too much, depending on the players, then I will get to the point where the team will rarely meet morally difficult situations. Needless to say, there will be big time Roleplaying Points for Andy's player because roleplaying between a rock and a hard place is not easy!

19th June 2007
Had a great session last night. Had all five players and we were all on form. We hadn't been around the table in 3 weeks and were all raring to go. I think the team were generally in the mood for a fight but I wasn't going to force one on them. Conflict with adversity, perhaps but not a gunfight.

The game started with the characters en route to Vola, a world that had the possibility of mining a precious mineral. They needed to:

• Get proof of the presence of this mineral by brining back a sample.
• Get information on any existing mining operations.
• As a bonus, destroy any mining operation.

A distress
As the Blistering Blue Barnacle (their ship) approached Vola, the team picked up a distress call only two Light Jump Units out. Distress calls mean either pirates or Droids - either would be unwelcome. They dropped out of Faster-Than-Light-Speed one hour (under normal Grav propulsion) from the craft to give it a good scan. Whatever had happened, happened a long time ago. The wreck had been torn in half that Jim confirmed was 90% chance of being a Droid weapon. Crates floated in the wreck. Clearly not pirates. They chatted about going to pick up the cargo but they decided that Droids might just be sneaky enough to leave a couple in the wreck to attack salvagers. They couldn't sense any life so they continued onto Vola.

The system from Hell
In Icar, many systems can't be approached because the space they inhabit is just too unstable. The system that Vola sat in was one of these marked-as-Unstable systems. They arrived to a scene of violent solar winds, two stars and Vola orbiting through an asteroid field. They approached gingerly, power flickering all the way up to Vola. Everything had to be flown on manual as the Barnacle's AI was not convinced it could navigate safely here.

The planet from Hell
Vola had more than 20 thousand meteorites en route to the surface through the most inhospitable atmosphere. The g-force at surface was 100 times that of earth, the air pressure was enormous and the 600 degree atmosphere severely toxic. Add to that the ship's systems being on the blink, it didn't make the most hospitable recipe. However, the team decided to go for it. Sensors couldn't penetrate very far into the cloud, so Jake flew manually down the planet, avoiding the larger of the meteorites.

Arrival
The team had been given a set of co-ordinates and they could see why, pretty much flying blind. The facility was a pock-marked sphere which had been battered, scorched and burnt for years. They tried hailing but any communication beyond close quarters was not going to be possible. They soon docked and got tooled up in their powered armour and full kit out with weapons. They barely knew they situation at the moment and were still running with plan A, so they do like to be prepared.

They're nice people
Morris, the manager of the mining facility (called The Ball), welcomed them and offered them a drink in the canteen. He (and a couple of others) were very friendly. Morris assumed that the team were the next supply delivery. Morris took the news that their freighter had been attacked by Droids well. Andy, team leader, bluffed that they'd been sent to make sure the shipment had got through. It was a good bluff because at some point, Morris would have asked how they managed to find The Ball. After all, it would be impossible to find it at random. Morris had been informed that one of their Pods was overdue on a return time. A Pod in this case was a little Grav vehicle used for flying around above the magma covered surface.

Assistance at hand
Morris asked the team, who had warmed to the workers of the facility, if they would use the Barnacle to go looking for the pod, offering to have Janet, a medic with them. They agreed and made tracks along the line of prospecting robots that were precariously stationed on solidified lava flows. At the fifth robot, the team spotting the pod with an enormous dent in the side of it. The lava shelf was a large flat rock floating on magma. Jake didn't want to hover the Barnacle near the pod, thinking the turbines on the Barnacle might tip the flow. Instead, he hoverred further away and let down Jim, Atar and Janet onto the far side of the lava shelf and they trecked across to the pod.

Meteorite Snooker
They rescued Becky from the pod. Her environment suit was still intact, so it was safe to get her across the lava shelf to the waiting Barnacle. A meteorite the size of a house shot out the bottom layer of cloud and was heading straight for the lava shelf the team were standing on. The three on the lava shelf were going to be hard pushed to get back onto the Barnacle in time. Jake, in an act of some lunacy, decided to sidle the Barnacle up to the meteorite and give the thing a shove. It worked a bit but would need another shove for it to clear the shelf. It just made it and Barnacle swooped over the top of shelf, with metres to spare. The team returned to The Ball, rescued Becky being safe.

Another favour
Morris asked the team if they could deliver the samples (which included a sample of the stuff they'd gone to find) and also a pregnant colleague and her partner back to Imperium space. Andy agreed. They left The Ball with two passengers but decided not to head back straight to Imperium space. They had a blackmailler to sort out.

The blackmailler
After leaving Vola, they headed off to find the blackmailler. Their only lead was on an orbital near to the light jump side (on the lawless Droid space side). They docked on and started investigating - beginning with the Undernet and then trying to see if there were any obvious routes on and off. They also took a look at the base, trying to get a feel for it. That's where were ended.

Thoughts and Conclusions
It was interesting to see that the team hadn't become entirely cold and heartless. Their original plan of disabling the mining facility changed entirely with the charm offensive of the people on the base. There is still a disconcerting feeling hanging in the air that those people that they respected while visiting will eventually be brought to a sticky end due to the team handing the specimen back to the Corporation. Of course, it's not their fault but they will be directly contributing to it.

It was a great session, one of those chucklesome ones where everyone was on form. They were expecting violence and chose not to take it. Next time, I feel there might be rather a lot of violence.

26th June 2007
We left the team in a bar on the Himao Orbital, waiting for an information broker to get back with some detail on Ollie Sandringham, a man who had been blackmailling a corporation on the other side of the net. They had to get hold of the Gaia programs (called Entities) that he was holding.

Drink! Drink! Drink!
The team decided to let their hair down and get a bit wasted. Jake got the most drunk and headed to the bar. He was refused by the Automaton barman so kicked in his cyberware bioflush system and vomitted everywhere. He narrowly avoided a fight. Hugo, the new boy decided to join a drinking competition, which he won through Jim shooting the likely-to-win opposition with a knock-out microdart. That'll teach 'em. Hugo, drunk as a skunk, made it back to the team. It was at this point that a smoke grenade went off in a shop across the street. Atar had placed one in the tubular postal system.

Information
The Info Bro actually came back with some useful information, detailling that the local star craft spotters had recorded a very high tech craft that had come on monthly visits. Although no one got off it, someone matching the description of Ollie got on and off. If the monthly pattern was right, the ship would be back soon. On two of the vists, the ship delivered cargo to the Manx Storage Company on base. This gave the team a lead.

Off to Manx
Upon arrival, the team were greeted by the sales force of several storage areas. They got in to see Mr Manx, the owner of Manx and questioned in a roundabout way to try and get into the storage area. They left, having gained no information. I used Grace, the NPC, to give the team a nudge and went back in, with guns drawn and questionned him more violently. Ollie had stored some things temporarily. He'd always paid from a public money system in the rich housing district. The team left.

Face to Face
The team, dressed in their civilian clothes and with some weaponry headed up to the habitation place where Ollie had dropped off the payment. Atar hacked the local system noisily but managed to find out that Ollie lived in one of the apartments and had two cyborg body guards. The team decided to head back to the ship, get tooled up to the very hilt and come back with attitude. As they walked back to their transport that would take them to the ship, they saw Ollie walking across the car park with his two body guards. They had the opportunity to start a fight but felt naked without their powered armour. They decided to try and look inconspicuous and just walk on by. Unfortunately, the body guards clocked the high tech weapons the team carried and ushered Ollie back to the apartment. Andy dropped a surveillance camera to watch Ollie's apartment and car. It was an hour back to the Barnacle.

He runs!
The team watch helplessly 20 minutes later as Ollie left his apartment with some bags and suitcases. They watched on the camera as he got into his car and drove off. Andy's camera couldn't keep up. Ollie pretty much disappeared.

Suited and booted
The team returned to the ship and got into their powered armour. They had no idea where Ollie might have gone. They found out that the ship that Ollie kept going to see docked on in the same place each time and they posted a reward for any information on his location on the local net. They went to the docking bay where they thought the high tech ship might come to. Someone reported that his car had been seen in part of the shopping district. 40 minutes later, they arrived. He'd gone. Amongst the shops where a space craft trader, armoury and outdoor shop. While still in their Powered Armour and armed to the teeth, they walked into the armoury. Seeing the team, the shopkeeper panicked and hit the panic button. Security doors came down and the local security were called. The team (more accurately Atar) decided to fight rather than diplomacy and ended up running out, having taken some damage, under the cover of smoke. They next best place to go was back to the docking bay.

The Rozzers
The police approached their ship, the Blistering Blue Barnacle, which in turn got in contact with the team. The police were going to impound the Barnacle and get the team to stand trial for all the problems they'd caused. This would be bad. The Barnacle would have flown around to pick the team up but was no happy with undocking with humans on board (Seth and Suzanna, picked up from Vola) without either of them in control.

The big decision
For the Barnacle to come and get the team, Seth or Suzanna needed to be in control of the craft. Seth agreed he'd take control from Andy and Jim noted that there was no way to stop the Barnacle from leaving the system entirely if ordered. So, Andy decided to hand over control to Seth, who promptly undocked from the base (stopping the police from impounding the Barnacle) and then headed out from the base and Light Jumped away. They'd essentially given away the ship.

Thoughts and Conclusions
This was not an easy session. Some mistakes were made but they were exacerbated by the time constraints. Going into an armoury in powered armour and loads of weapons all over you isn't really a good idea. Then they should have complied with the security. The team have a tendancy to walk around heavily armed. It's their style but does make them very conspicuous when all together. There was a bit of downtime between Andy and Seth, where Seth had pleaded Andy to supply The Ball and Andy had politely declined but did say he would do his best. He put trust in Seth at this point, which was an ok call. Hindsight is a powerful thing. Andy was also unlucky that the Barnacle is still a young AI and finds some things difficult to understand. In the future, the Barnacle is likely to be a bit more savvy.

So, next session is going to be a corker. They have to get Ollie. Avoid or kill the entire police force on the Himao Orbital, get off the Orbital and then get the Barnacle back. At least they know where it will be going...

3rd July 2007

THis was always going to be one of those sessions that was going to be tough to complete. The players had lost their craft, were in deep trouble with the local police force and still had to find Ollie Sandringham and get the data off him.

Planning
Generally, my players tend to be red-hot when it comes to finding solutions to tricky problems. When in a nasty corner, they do tend to excel. They started planning and the plans were pretty good. They soon worked out that they could overwhelm the police force if need be but they were all against the idea of lots of innocent people getting waxed if they could avoid it. They weren't here to cause trouble, to be fair, they were here to get something from Ollie and get out. They finally decided to bargain with the chief of police. They'd offer their services and not killing loads of people in return for free reign and any information regarding Ollie.

The counter bargain
The police chief was receptive to their offer. It was his duty to keep the peace and as they had killed two of his officers (in the car chase), his officers were baying for blood. He offered that the team could hand themselves in, without any armour or weapons for show and then they'd mysteriously go free to get on with finding Ollie. The team didn't like the idea but they'd never been incarcerated before so they thought it might be possible to get out even if detained, this was a hick orbital post in the middle of nowhere.

Into the lion's den
The team agreed that handing themselves in to be released later was a good idea, so they stripped of any obvious equipment and handed themselves in. Some of the team had bionics that allowed them some extra leverage when locked in a cell. Once in the cell, they waited for the police chief to hold up his end of the bargain. They waited beyond the time they were supposed to be released by and it soon became aparent that they weren't going to get out.

Escape attempts
All the players gave getting out a try but generally found that the cells had too many hit points to deal with. Hugo tried making a bargain but failed. Atar tried to use his dodgy psionics to get a guard to let them out but that didn't work. However, he did manage to get a guard to turn off a communication damper field. This allowed the team to contact the FEMTS and talk to Desmond, their Auto. They asked Desmond to send a message back to the Benedict Corporation via two sources. Desmond did as they asked and they waited. Jim Ax managed to get one of the guards into his cell and dosed him up to the eyeballs with a hidden finger dart gun. He didn't manage to break out, though.

All doors opened
The doors to the cells opened and the constraining fields switched off. The team could hear alarms sounding across the base. They met another inmate, a psychopath who lunged at Jim and tried to bite off his eyebrow. They deal with him in short order and ran out of the police station. The orbital post was calling for an evacuation. It was not a drill. The team returned to their combat FEMTS, passing by signs of many fights en route. The Droids had been here. This made the atmosphere strained as the team weren't equipped by far to meet a Droid. They made it back to the Combat FEMTS and off the base before it started re-entry into the atmosphere. It appeared that both humans and Droids had left the stricken orbiting colony.

Checking out the planet
The planet was on fire, Jim recognised this as a Droid anti-planetary weapon. They scanned a bit for life but found none. It was at this point that their ship, the Blistering Blue Barnacle arrived. It was being flown by another Benedict Corporation team called Razer (that the team had met before). It turned out that Seth had gone straight to Kleio, a system close enough to the Augustus for the Barnacle to send a message. While Seth was purchasing supplies, the Razer team turned up and persuaded him to return control of the Barnacle to the corporation. They then went to fetch the team and returned them safely to the Benedict Corporation's Augustus. It was the end of the session.

Conclusions/thoughts
As characters get more stuff, they often forget what stuff they have. If Desmond, the android robot, was just a footnote on someone's character sheet, they may have forgotten he was there to help. In Icar, most objects of note have a physical sheet associated with it so it's difficult to forget about items.

Some might read the above and think that I let the team off scott free by having the Droids turn up and the cells open. It seems like a Get Out Of Jail Free card. However, when I wrote this mission, I had written in a % change of the Droids turning up at any given point. It was weighted such that towards then end of 3 or 4 days, the Droids would (mostly likely) attack the base. It just so happened that the team were in the cells at the time. They might have been trying to extricate the documents from Ollie. Sometimes having an event driven system is rather useful.

As for the Barnacle, Seth was not the sharpest tool in the box and did not know that the Barnacle was part of a larger organisation. He wasn't to know that going to Kleio would alert friends of the team to the Barnacle's predicament. It is tempting for NPCs to use imformation the GM has to take the optimum action but I think it's much more interesting to let the NPCs react as they would normally.

10 July 2007
The team started back on the Augustus. This is normally the time that they get paid, have some R&R, restock ammo, check out any little businesses they have set up, visit the Benedict Corporation supply unit to try and get more equipment for the next mission and finally choose the next mission from the Client team contacts.

Report to Dispatch
The team was rudely awoken in their various states of relaxation. I got each player to decide where they might be sleeping, either with hookers, acquaitances, girlfriend or just randomly in a tree. The usual spread of geeky/illicit activities were described. The Benedict Corporation called them all ugently and instructed them to return to dispatch (near where the Barnacle and other team ships are kept). All the teams at the Barnacle had assembled there. The head of Dispatch (who rarely speaks to the crews) informed them that the Droids had invaded Kleio and they were being sent to give some backup to the Star Fleet forces. All the teams were suitably shocked. They were to leave immediately for Kleio. This caused some consternation because the team had not had time to supply or try and squeeze more resources from the supply office.

To Kleio
The team were to carry team Belligerance, a team whose ship had been destroyed. The team were glad about this, Belligerence were a no-nonsense group of fully augmented lunatics who were very good in a fight. And they liked a good fight. When the Barnacle arrived at Kleio, the scene was a terrifying one. Three Droid cruisers were in orbit. A Star Fleet Escort Cruiser was on fire and looking in a bad way. Their arrival triggered interest from the Droid fighters and a swarm of more than a hundred turned to meet them. The other two Benedict craft were on their way to the surface, one of them badly damaged already.

Choices choices
The team could either jump out of the system or go down to the planet surface. Going down to the planet will probably lose them the ship so they opted for the safest option and jumped out of the system. They had not expected that Droid presence. They did some calculations and worked out that there would have been 3000 or more Droids. Overwhelming to say the least.

Belligerence
Axegrind, the unsubtle leader of the Belligerence made it know that he was not happy about the Barnacle putting distance between them and the planet. He called them cowards and made the more gun-ho team members feel outright rotten. The team decided to move away from Kleio before passing back across the net. As they travelled, they heard a distress call from a Star Enforcer ship on human side of the Light jump net. I looked like the Droids had got through and the Star Enforcers were having trouble. After some discussion, the team ignored it. Axegrind didn't like that either.

Droid tactics
Jim, the Droid expert, informed the team that the Droid would probably move on once the major threats were destroyed. It might be worth going back to Kleio to see. They had shown that having two engines (a Point-To-Point light jump and a curve surf one) allowed them to get in and get out without having to wait an hour, which would be the case if they only had one.

Back to Kleio
As they got close to Kleio, the Barnacle said that it was going to have trouble getting too close to the planet because of some sort of energy wave. The team decided to press on regardless and when they came out of the jump, they were glad to see that the three Droid had left, leaving some fighters in orbit and sadly there was no sign of the fleet ship. The energy wave's epicentre was not far from the planet and the team surmised that this was the Fleet ship. All in all, the siutation still looked nasty but a lot less suicidal than before. They called all of Belligerence onto the bridge for a chat and decided to go down to planet surface.

The Surface
Signs of a typical Droid invasion were everywhere. Household and farming robots were running amock, small farms were on fire and the main city of Kleio looked like a war was being raged in it. They "hid" the Barnacle (a 1km long space ship shaped like a willy) in a valley in the mountains. As long as it was immobile, it would not attract too much attention from the Droids. Hugo (the new boy) suggested flying the Barnacle around and using the guns on that but everyone thought that wasn't wise as the Barnacle was likely to be the only servicable human craft on planet.

Recon!
The team initially went on a little recon towards the main city. If the other Benedict Corporation teams were going to be anywhere, they were going to be there. They used their fast-but-flimsy modified 'Rovers' to take a quick look and peered down over the space craft graveyard that had long surrounded the city. A fight was going on in the rag-tag suburb of the city where the shanty-town constructed from the stripped hulks of long-dead space craft spread out over the plain. The team didn't want to risk damaging the Rovers, so they headed back to the Barnacle and told Belligerance of their findings. Soon, both teams were kitted and leaving the Barnacle for the city.

Fight!
They flying powered armour zipped over and above the space craft graveyard-come-shanty town and went straight to the nearest fight in the city. A group of locals were putting up a fight against an already much-damaged Droid, which the team helped to dispatch. The Droid ended as a pair of smoking feet but most of the human team had taken casualties. One still-bleeding casualty's only chance was Jim Ax, whose medical training was scant at best. He tried to use a bandaid to solve the internal bleeding and eventually lost the patient. Good job it wasn't a team member. That's where we left it.

Thoughts and Conclusions
It was another tough night for the team. There were some extremely nasty decisions that needed to be made. There was a temptation for the player playing Andy Maddock (the leader) to make the decisions but we all agreed that big decisions should be in agreement. Generally, I think the decisions were all safe ones. As a GM, I don't really judge things by good and bad. If they had attacked initially, they would have lost a ship but whether they'd have been in a better position to help, can only be the subject of conjecture.

The next few sessions are likely to be one big fight after another. The team is low on ammo, so this is going to be a resource restriction. They can only keep their fingers crossed that the ship is still in one piece when they return.

17th July 2007
This scenario was never going to be easy. The players had chosen to go up against a well equipped Droid force with only limited ammo. They'd hurried over to the city and got engaged with a Mk3 that they destroyed with some help.

At the start of this session, I tried to nudge the team into creating an objective for themselves. I thought it would be important for them to try and achieve something other than 'kill all the Droids'. That would not have been a reasonable objective because it was a war in which they were ultimately outnumbered and outgunned. I could envisage them doggedly going from Droid battle to Droid battle until they ran out of armour and hit points. It would be insurmountable and roleplaying against a situation that simply can't be beaten is just not fun.

The Objective
The best objective the team could have possibly come up with was to save the other Benedict Corporation teams and then get the hell off the planet. I liked this objective because it had a nice clear aim and everyone agreed it was the best course of action. This is where the plan sort of faded and the team headed off to the next nearest fight. Also at this time, the team decided that it was best to ask the Star Fleet to protect their space craft, the Barnacle. They transmitted over the radio the co-ordinates of the Barnacle hoping that the Fleet fighters would protect it.

Bodies
The team walked through a building that had recently been the site of a bloodbath. Most of them threw up at the sight of the gore. They moved onto the next building and used sensors to detect a Droid on the floor below and one in the opposing building. Some human resistance fighters in a van were having at soomething the team couldn't see in an adjacent building. They moved carefully through the building, warey that the Droid below them might be able to sense them. As they reached their position, the Droid jumped out of the building and landed on the floating van, which sped off. The team engaged another Droid in the opposite building but were unable to get a clear shot.

Whizzing
I described to the team that they could hear a whizzing sound and that it was getting louder. Most of the team ran/ducked for cover. It was one of those random dice rolls that picked the team out as a target that turn. The explosion was huge and Andy, Atar and Jim all had their armour screwed but it. Jim went flying and Andy and Atar fell downwards. Andy, Jim and Atar eventually got out of their powered armour suits and just about all the team had lost their good weapons.

Fernando
They gathered together and started to break into a transportation floor, the floor was filled with poisoned gas (something the Droids do when they take over a building) so only Jake, Grace and Hugo (who was still whizzing around outside) could enter. The others clung to the outside of the building. As Jake got inside, Fernando (an NPC they had previously met) burst into the building wrestling a Droid. Jake helped dispatch the Droid and the team got chatting to Fernando. The team were poorly equipped and Fernando told them that there was load of kit on the other side of the city.

Jury Rig
Jake soon jury rigged the turbines from a grav bike onto the back of a limo large enough to carry the team and off they shot to the other side of the city. It was a hair raising journey, flying through the centre of firefights and avoiding Droid fighters until the ended up in an area of the city Fernando had mentioned. As they set down in the burning wreckage of an atrium floor, they made contact with the leader of another Benedict Corporation team and that's where the session ended.

Thoughts and Conclusions
It's difficult to know where to draw the line between protecting the players from bad random events and just letting it all happen. In this case, the team were hit by a Droid bomb, which suddenly made the whole scenario much worse. They did bring it on themselves by making a series of choices to approach the planet, the city and a fight between Droids near the edge of the city where the fighters could get to them. A lot of decisions, each making the situation more dangerous. At this point, the situation is desperate but not impossible. They need to make equipment a priority and not engage any Droids. It might also be an idea to return to their ship.

24th July 2007
We join the team as they arrive in an area of the city where Fernando, a previous trusted contact had declared was a good place to find equipment discarded by others. Right at the end of the session, the team made contact with Team Razor, notably the best team of the Benedict Corporation. I asked the team how they felt about the campaign continuing because the situation they were in was desperate. I told them that they could well survive but it would require a lot of wiley thinking and given the way they normally work, the fun option is normally taken. I noted that if it looked like the team was going to snuff it, I'd ramp up the situation to make it a bit more epic as an ending. The problem with quite open-ended campaigns is that the ending doesn't have to be a crescendo, there is no big villain to destroy, there is no final target. After 2 years of play, I didn't want that to happen. Everyone agreed that it was an ok thing to do.

Good news
The first bit of good news was that communications was returning. The detonation of the Star Fleet Escort Cruiser had sent ripples around the system, disrupting communications. They could talk more easily with Razor, who's craft had crash landed. They decided to meet up. Fernando could hear a friend of his, so decided to meet up with him, the team chose not to go. Team Razor were a few floors above them, so Hugo decided to take a lift while the others got into a car. The lift, being under the control of the Droids shot at the ground level at top speed. Hugo managed to get out in the nick of time, using impact features on his suit to save himself. The rest of the team carefully moved up to the upper floors and as they did so, spotted a Fleet Trooper lying prone. After some prodding of the trooper, they realised that the suit was live but the trooper inside wasn't. They debated stripping the weapons off but left in for caution.

Razor
They soon all met up with Razor and found that the normally up-beat kick-arse team were having something of a bad day. The crash had demoralised them and they'd been battling Droids since. Razor were well equipped with weapons but were running low on ammo. They rested and discussed tactics. Razor were pleased to hear that the Barnacle was still useable and they thought that was the best way off. While they waited, some Fleet Troopers arrived and warned the team to evacuate. They handed off some ammunition but only had Pulse Laser ammo. The Troopers jetted off and the team decided that they needed transport.

Voices over the ether
All the while, the communications chanel was getting better and better. The team sent out a communication to see if they could get in touch with Team Belligerence, who had joined them on planet. They didn't get in touch with Belligerence but Norman and Mort, who'd travelled down with Team Rook did respond. There were still at the crash site of Rook's ship. This gave a good target to meet the team at. The area they were standing in was a well-to-do part of the city, so they went on a vehicle hunt and found some very expensive sports cars. They'd pick up the others and head for the Barnacle. The city started to shake, a sure sign of large City-killer Droids attacking the outside.

Leaving
Jake soon hacked in and the team decided to head towards the edge of the city. As they left, the Star Fleet put out an evacuation order and some co-ordinates to the south of the city. The team discussed that this could be good or bad for them so to keep going with the plan. As the exited the system, they saw that the Star Fleet were heading towards a ship that looked very much like the Barnacle, actually, it was the Barnacle. Andy, Captain and team leader, called up the Fleet on the Barnacle to try and gain access. They apologised and said it had been requisitioned for military use and they were not able to carry civilians. By asking the Fleet to protect their ship the week before, they had essentially handed the Fleet personnel on planet a way off.

Bye Bye Team Belligerence
As they left the corner of the city, they could see a few massive Droids hacking away at the city. They heard a call from Team Belligerence for assistance. The team had a brief conflab with Team Razor, who peeled off to joined the fight. The team continued on to meet Rook. As Razor got close to the fight, the big Droid fired off a load of missiles and that was the end of Razor. The didn't hear from Razor or Belligerence again.

Team Rook
Rook have always been seen as the not very good team at the Benedict Corporation. They were the butt of everyone's jokes. Their ship sat half buried at the end of huge gouge in the ground. Norman and Mort (the Benedict Training Team) had a barrage of insults about Team Rook and their inability to re-enter atmosphere. They'd lost most of the ship. The team started planning how they might get off planet. There were some bits salvagable from Rook's ship - such as the AI and Nav computer. There was a local Geothermal energy port that would have energy cells large enough to allow them to leave the system. However, there were a few other bits they needed and those could only be found in another ship.

Apocalypse impending
The edge of the city was known for having a large number of craft that the Droids had destroyed the generators of. The team decided that this was the best way to get their parts. As the GM, I could feel the pull of the impending apocalypse at this point. The players knew that going to the city would be risky and that this could be the end. They decided to go with it anyway.

Full frontal grand theft astro
Rather than sneak up to the city, the team decided to fly in at full speed in the Grav cars. In retrospect, I think they'd all agree that this was not the best idea. Jake, the team pilot had the fastest car and screeched at full tilt in through a narrow hole in the side of a massive space craft and came to a stop. The others decided to slow down first. This meant that they were in weapons range for that little bit longer. The Droids fired a volley of missiles which destroyed the vehicles carrying the other players. They all made it to cover reasonably quickly. Andy made good use of his stealth to join Jake in the big craft that he'd gone into. Hugo also managed to run into the same big craft, although there was a Droid missile following him.

The team heard Fernando announce that he needed help at the Geothermal processor under the centre of the city. They ignored him anxiously.

Jim and Atar were less lucky, the car had taken a lot of hits and they managed to dive clear of it just before a Droid missile blew it to pieces. Atar had gone into a psychic trance and was pulling blue veins in an abstract world. He didn't know what any of it did but he was busy doing something. Jim saw Atar lying immobile, not dead, though. A Droid was incoming so Jim hid Atar under a metal floor panel and ran and hid.

Meanwhile Jake had landed the car and had climbed into an Orbihaul (a surface to orbit shuttle) that was buried under some big crates. He had manouvred it out and began to scoop crates when he began attracting fire from a humanoid Droid in the doorway of the cargo bay. Meanwhile, Hugo was sprinting through the coridoors of this huge ship with the missile in hot pursuit and gaining. Thanks to communications, Hugo knew about the Droid firing on the Orbihaul and ran straight at it. Andy, who was also approaching, stood clear as Hugo ran past, missile still jetting after him and dived onto the Droid. Droid and Hugo combined fell into the huge cargo bay and the missile impacted. Hugo's PA was finished but the Droid was still twitching.

By this time, Grace (NPC) was standing at the front door of the Orbihaul and was trying to get a clear shot on the Droid that Hugo was now wrapped around. With energy cutter in hand, Andy jumped down to join the Hugo-Droid melee.

Meanwhile, in the ship Jim and Atar was in, a big but damaged Droid limped in. Atar was safe under a floor panel. As the Droid limped closer, Jim waited, extended Cyber claws and entered close combat. After some to-and-fro-ing Jim got onto the Droid's back and started to hack away at a damaged weak spot. The Droid thrashed and tried using its energy skin defense but Jim's cyberware saved him from that. Jim won out in the end, flciking the main AI computer across the floor. Atar was still in a trance, watching as another set of veins were turning green. All those in the team that had energy sensors left (either in Cyberware or

The final throws
The Droid Hugo and Andy was fighting was badly damaged from the missile and Hugo set a load of grenades on a timer on top of the Droids. They ran at first and then blown through the air. The Droid was dead. So were Andy and Hugo. Jake had a change of mind about flying out in the Orbihaul and went back to the sports car (can't remember why, probably the increasing energy levels that Jake could see). Jake and Grace picked up Jim and Atar (who was coming round, somewhat confused) and headed for the outside at full speed. Unfortunately, the Droids were waiting for them and made short work of the car. They crashed to the ground and Grace was shot up by the waiting Droids. Jim looked round to see an enormous energy signal coming from the centre of the city and shooting up into the air, a wall of energy was approaching. The ground began to quake and Jim picked up Atar and Jim and took off into the air. The ground erupted in a volcanic burst, Jim and Atar died immediately, Jake waited for the outer layers of his armour to strip away.

End of Campaign
After 77 sessions and 2 and a half years, it was not the ending I was expecting but then I don't really expect an ending as such. Of the entire plotline I originally wrote, we'd got through about 60% of it. There were a load of things we didn't cover but I can hold a lot of them back for the next Icar campaign I ran.

Last sessions are the most difficult things to judge. You can't just butcher the characters wholesale, you have to give them something of a chance. I prefer to do this in a cinematic fashion, where NPCs and bystanders get butchered as a warning. The team then know the dangers and can react accordingly. Returning to the city was an interesting choice and it was that which led to the eventual demise. The idea of putting a craft back together was a good one but I don't think the city was the best place to look. Although the team dead, each one went down fighting and the atmosphere at the table was an upbeat one. We overan by an hour and I annoyed the wife when I got home!

I really enjoyed playing the campaign and the players all created fantastic characters. I think I would have sped up the team getting the Barnacle so they had a little more freedom and I would tone down the use of the Pirates. I've got a half written setting document now to go along with the other half-written Icar documents!

The group is playing Corporation at the moment as a filler before the next Icar campaign, I'll probably write that up too...